ERYXIAS By a Platonic Imitator (see Appendix II) Translated by Benjamin Jowett APPENDIX II.
The two dialogues which are translated in the second appendix are not mentioned by Aristotle, or by any early authority, and have no claim to be ascribed to Plato.
They are examples of Platonic dialogues to be assigned probably to the second or third generation after Plato, when his writings were well known at Athens and Alexandria.
They exhibit considerable originality, and are remarkable for containing several thoughts of the sort which we suppose to be modern rather than ancient, and which therefore have a peculiar interest for us.
The Second Alcibiades shows that the difficulties about prayer which have perplexed Christian theologians were not unknown among the followers of Plato.
The Eryxias was doubted by the ancients themselves: yet it may claim the distinction of being, among all Greek or Roman writings, the one which anticipates in the most striking manner the modern science of political economy and gives an abstract form to some of its principal doctrines.
For the translation of these two dialogues I am indebted to my friend and secretary, Mr. Knight.
That the Dialogue which goes by the name of the Second Alcibiades is a genuine writing of Plato will not be maintained by any modern critic, and was hardly believed by the ancients themselves.
The dialectic is poor and weak.
There is no power over language, or beauty of style; and there is a certain abruptness and agroikia in the conversation, which is very un-Platonic.
The best passage is probably that about the poets:--the remark that the poet, who is of a reserved disposition, is uncommonly difficult to understand, and the ridiculous interpretation of Homer, are entirely in the spirit of Plato (compare Protag; Ion; Apol.).
The characters are ill-drawn.
Socrates assumes the 'superior person' and preaches too much, while Alcibiades is stupid and heavy-in-hand.
There are traces of Stoic influence in the general tone and phraseology of the Dialogue (compare opos melesei tis...kaka: oti pas aphron mainetai): and the writer seems to have been acquainted with the 'Laws' of Plato (compare Laws).
An incident from the Symposium is rather clumsily introduced, and two somewhat hackneyed quotations (Symp., Gorg.)
recur.
The reference to the death of Archelaus as having occurred 'quite lately' is only a fiction, probably suggested by the Gorgias, where the story of Archelaus is told, and a similar phrase occurs;--ta gar echthes kai proen gegonota tauta, k.t.l.
There are several passages which are either corrupt or extremely ill-expressed.
But there is a modern interest in the subject of the dialogue; and it is a good example of a short spurious work, which may be attributed to the second or third century before Christ.
INTRODUCTION.
Much cannot be said in praise of the style or conception of the Eryxias.
It is frequently obscure; like the exercise of a student, it is full of small imitations of Plato:--Phaeax returning from an expedition to Sicily (compare Socrates in the Charmides from the army at Potidaea), the figure of the game at draughts, borrowed from the Republic, etc.
It has also in many passages the ring of sophistry.
On the other hand, the rather unhandsome treatment which is exhibited towards Prodicus is quite unlike the urbanity of Plato.
Yet there are some points in the argument which are deserving of attention.
(1) That wealth depends upon the need of it or demand for it, is the first anticipation in an abstract form of one of the great principles of modern political economy, and the nearest approach to it to be found in an ancient writer.
(2) The resolution of wealth into its simplest implements going on to infinity is a subtle and refined thought.
(3) That wealth is relative to circumstances is a sound conception.
(4) That the arts and sciences which receive payment are likewise to be comprehended under the notion of wealth, also touches a question of modern political economy.
(5) The distinction of post hoc and propter hoc, often lost sight of in modern as well as in ancient times.
These metaphysical conceptions and distinctions show considerable power of thought in the writer, whatever we may think of his merits as an imitator of Plato.
ERYXIAS PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Eryxias, Erasistratus, Critias.
SCENE: The portico of a temple of Zeus.
It happened by chance that Eryxias the Steirian was walking with me in the Portico of Zeus the Deliverer, when there came up to us Critias and Erasistratus, the latter the son of Phaeax, who was the nephew of Erasistratus.
Now Erasistratus had just arrived from Sicily and that part of the world.
As they approached, he said, Hail, Socrates!
SOCRATES: The same to you, I said; have you any good news from Sicily to tell us?
ERASISTRATUS: Most excellent.
But, if you please, let us first sit down; for I am tired with my yesterday's journey from Megara.
SOCRATES: Gladly, if that is your desire.
ERASISTRATUS: What would you wish to hear first?
he said.
What the Sicilians are doing, or how they are disposed towards our city?
To my mind, they are very like wasps: so long as you only cause them a little annoyance they are quite unmanageable; you must destroy their nests if you wish to get the better of them.
And in a similar way, the Syracusans, unless we set to work in earnest, and go against them with a great expedition, will never submit to our rule.
The petty injuries which we at present inflict merely irritate them enough to make them utterly intractable.
And now they have sent ambassadors to Athens, and intend, I suspect, to play us some trick.--While we were talking, the Syracusan envoys chanced to go by, and Erasistratus, pointing to one of them, said to me, That, Socrates, is the richest man in all Italy and Sicily.
For who has larger estates or more land at his disposal to cultivate if he please?
And they are of a quality, too, finer than any other land in Hellas.
Moreover, he has all the things which go to make up wealth, slaves and horses innumerable, gold and silver without end.
I saw that he was inclined to expatiate on the riches of the man; so I asked him, Well, Erasistratus, and what sort of character does he bear in Sicily?
ERASISTRATUS: He is esteemed to be, and really is, the wickedest of all the Sicilians and Italians, and even more wicked than he is rich; indeed, if you were to ask any Sicilian whom he thought to be the worst and the richest of mankind, you would never hear any one else named.
I reflected that we were speaking, not of trivial matters, but about wealth and virtue, which are deemed to be of the greatest moment, and I asked Erasistratus whom he considered the wealthier,--he who was the possessor of a talent of silver or he who had a field worth two talents?
ERASISTRATUS: The owner of the field.
SOCRATES: And on the same principle he who had robes and bedding and such things which are of greater value to him than to a stranger would be richer than the stranger?
ERASISTRATUS: True.
SOCRATES: And if any one gave you a choice, which of these would you prefer?
ERASISTRATUS: That which was most valuable.
SOCRATES: In which way do you think you would be the richer?
ERASISTRATUS: By choosing as I said.
SOCRATES: And he appears to you to be the richest who has goods of the greatest value?
ERASISTRATUS: He does.
SOCRATES: And are not the healthy richer than the sick, since health is a possession more valuable than riches to the sick?
Surely there is no one who would not prefer to be poor and well, rather than to have all the King of Persia's wealth and to be ill. And this proves that men set health above wealth, else they would never choose the one in preference to the other.
ERASISTRATUS: True.
SOCRATES: And if anything appeared to be more valuable than health, he would be the richest who possessed it?
ERASISTRATUS: He would.
SOCRATES: Suppose that some one came to us at this moment and were to ask, Well, Socrates and Eryxias and Erasistratus, can you tell me what is of the greatest value to men?
Is it not that of which the possession will best enable a man to advise how his own and his friend's affairs should be administered?--What will be our reply?
ERASISTRATUS: I should say, Socrates, that happiness was the most precious of human possessions.
SOCRATES: Not a bad answer.
But do we not deem those men who are most prosperous to be the happiest?
ERASISTRATUS: That is my opinion.
SOCRATES: And are they not most prosperous who commit the fewest errors in respect either of themselves or of other men?
ERASISTRATUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And they who know what is evil and what is good; what should be done and what should be left undone;--these behave the most wisely and make the fewest mistakes?
Erasistratus agreed to this.
SOCRATES: Then the wisest and those who do best and the most fortunate and the richest would appear to be all one and the same, if wisdom is really the most valuable of our possessions?
Yes, said Eryxias, interposing, but what use would it be if a man had the wisdom of Nestor and wanted the necessaries of life, food and drink and clothes and the like?
Where would be the advantage of wisdom then?
Or how could he be the richest of men who might even have to go begging, because he had not wherewithal to live?
I thought that what Eryxias was saying had some weight, and I replied, Would the wise man really suffer in this way, if he were so ill-provided; whereas if he had the house of Polytion, and the house were full of gold and silver, he would lack nothing?
ERYXIAS: Yes; for then he might dispose of his property and obtain in exchange what he needed, or he might sell it for money with which he could supply his wants and in a moment procure abundance of everything.
SOCRATES: True, if he could find some one who preferred such a house to the wisdom of Nestor.
But if there are persons who set great store by wisdom like Nestor's and the advantages accruing from it, to sell these, if he were so disposed, would be easier still.
Or is a house a most useful and necessary possession, and does it make a great difference in the comfort of life to have a mansion like Polytion's instead of living in a shabby little cottage, whereas wisdom is of small use and it is of no importance whether a man is wise or ignorant about the highest matters?
Or is wisdom despised of men and can find no buyers, although cypress wood and marble of Pentelicus are eagerly bought by numerous purchasers?
Surely the prudent pilot or the skilful physician, or the artist of any kind who is proficient in his art, is more worth than the things which are especially reckoned among riches; and he who can advise well and prudently for himself and others is able also to sell the product of his art, if he so desire.
Eryxias looked askance, as if he had received some unfair treatment, and said, I believe, Socrates, that if you were forced to speak the truth, you would declare that you were richer than Callias the son of Hipponicus.
And yet, although you claimed to be wiser about things of real importance, you would not any the more be richer than he.
I dare say, Eryxias, I said, that you may regard these arguments of ours as a kind of game; you think that they have no relation to facts, but are like the pieces in the game of draughts which the player can move in such a way that his opponents are unable to make any countermove.
(Compare Republic.)
And perhaps, too, as regards riches you are of opinion that while facts remain the same, there are arguments, no matter whether true or false, which enable the user of them to prove that the wisest and the richest are one and the same, although he is in the wrong and his opponents are in the right.
There would be nothing strange in this; it would be as if two persons were to dispute about letters, one declaring that the word Socrates began with an S, the other that it began with an A, and the latter could gain the victory over the former.
Eryxias glanced at the audience, laughing and blushing at once, as if he had had nothing to do with what had just been said, and replied,--No, indeed, Socrates, I never supposed that our arguments should be of a kind which would never convince any one of those here present or be of advantage to them.
For what man of sense could ever be persuaded that the wisest and the richest are the same?
The truth is that we are discussing the subject of riches, and my notion is that we should argue respecting the honest and dishonest means of acquiring them, and, generally, whether they are a good thing or a bad.
Very good, I said, and I am obliged to you for the hint: in future we will be more careful.
But why do not you yourself, as you introduced the argument, and do not think that the former discussion touched the point at issue, tell us whether you consider riches to be a good or an evil?
I am of opinion, he said, that they are a good.
He was about to add something more, when Critias interrupted him:--Do you really suppose so, Eryxias?
Certainly, replied Eryxias; I should be mad if I did not: and I do not fancy that you would find any one else of a contrary opinion.
And I, retorted Critias, should say that there is no one whom I could not compel to admit that riches are bad for some men.
But surely, if they were a good, they could not appear bad for any one?
Here I interposed and said to them: If you two were having an argument about equitation and what was the best way of riding, supposing that I knew the art myself, I should try to bring you to an agreement.
For I should be ashamed if I were present and did not do what I could to prevent your difference.
And I should do the same if you were quarrelling about any other art and were likely, unless you agreed on the point in dispute, to part as enemies instead of as friends.
But now, when we are contending about a thing of which the usefulness continues during the whole of life, and it makes an enormous difference whether we are to regard it as beneficial or not,--a thing, too, which is esteemed of the highest importance by the Hellenes:--(for parents, as soon as their children are, as they think, come to years of discretion, urge them to consider how wealth may be acquired, since by riches the value of a man is judged):--When, I say, we are thus in earnest, and you, who agree in other respects, fall to disputing about a matter of such moment, that is, about wealth, and not merely whether it is black or white, light or heavy, but whether it is a good or an evil, whereby, although you are now the dearest of friends and kinsmen, the most bitter hatred may arise betwixt you, I must hinder your dissension to the best of my power.
If I could, I would tell you the truth, and so put an end to the dispute; but as I cannot do this, and each of you supposes that you can bring the other to an agreement, I am prepared, as far as my capacity admits, to help you in solving the question.
Please, therefore, Critias, try to make us accept the doctrines which you yourself entertain.
CRITIAS: I should like to follow up the argument, and will ask Eryxias whether he thinks that there are just and unjust men?
ERYXIAS: Most decidedly.
CRITIAS: And does injustice seem to you an evil or a good?
ERYXIAS: An evil.
CRITIAS: Do you consider that he who bribes his neighbour's wife and commits adultery with her, acts justly or unjustly, and this although both the state and the laws forbid?
ERYXIAS: Unjustly.
CRITIAS: And if the wicked man has wealth and is willing to spend it, he will carry out his evil purposes?
whereas he who is short of means cannot do what he fain would, and therefore does not sin?
In such a case, surely, it is better that a person should not be wealthy, if his poverty prevents the accomplishment of his desires, and his desires are evil?
Or, again, should you call sickness a good or an evil?
ERYXIAS: An evil.
CRITIAS: Well, and do you think that some men are intemperate?
ERYXIAS: Yes.
CRITIAS: Then, if it is better for his health that the intemperate man should refrain from meat and drink and other pleasant things, but he cannot owing to his intemperance, will it not also be better that he should be too poor to gratify his lust rather than that he should have a superabundance of means?
For thus he will not be able to sin, although he desire never so much.
Critias appeared to be arguing so admirably that Eryxias, if he had not been ashamed of the bystanders, would probably have got up and struck him.
For he thought that he had been robbed of a great possession when it became obvious to him that he had been wrong in his former opinion about wealth.
I observed his vexation, and feared that they would proceed to abuse and quarrelling: so I said,--I heard that very argument used in the Lyceum yesterday by a wise man, Prodicus of Ceos; but the audience thought that he was talking mere nonsense, and no one could be persuaded that he was speaking the truth.
And when at last a certain talkative young gentleman came in, and, taking his seat, began to laugh and jeer at Prodicus, tormenting him and demanding an explanation of his argument, he gained the ear of the audience far more than Prodicus.
Can you repeat the discourse to us?
Said Erasistratus.
SOCRATES: If I can only remember it, I will.
The youth began by asking Prodicus, In what way did he think that riches were a good and in what an evil?
Prodicus answered, as you did just now, that they were a good to good men and to those who knew in what way they should be employed, while to the bad and the ignorant they were an evil.
The same is true, he went on to say, of all other things; men make them to be what they are themselves.
The saying of Archilochus is true:-'Men's thoughts correspond to the things which they meet with.'
Well, then, replied the youth, if any one makes me wise in that wisdom whereby good men become wise, he must also make everything else good to me.
Not that he concerns himself at all with these other things, but he has converted my ignorance into wisdom.
If, for example, a person teach me grammar or music, he will at the same time teach me all that relates to grammar or music, and so when he makes me good, he makes things good to me.
Prodicus did not altogether agree: still he consented to what was said.
And do you think, said the youth, that doing good things is like building a house,--the work of human agency; or do things remain what they were at first, good or bad, for all time?
Prodicus began to suspect, I fancy, the direction which the argument was likely to take, and did not wish to be put down by a mere stripling before all those present:--(if they two had been alone, he would not have minded):--so he answered, cleverly enough: I think that doing good things is a work of human agency.
And is virtue in your opinion, Prodicus, innate or acquired by instruction?
The latter, said Prodicus.
Then you would consider him a simpleton who supposed that he could obtain by praying to the Gods the knowledge of grammar or music or any other art, which he must either learn from another or find out for himself?
Prodicus agreed to this also.
And when you pray to the Gods that you may do well and receive good, you mean by your prayer nothing else than that you desire to become good and wise:--if, at least, things are good to the good and wise and evil to the evil.
But in that case, if virtue is acquired by instruction, it would appear that you only pray to be taught what you do not know.
Hereupon I said to Prodicus that it was no misfortune to him if he had been proved to be in error in supposing that the Gods immediately granted to us whatever we asked:--if, I added, whenever you go up to the Acropolis you earnestly entreat the Gods to grant you good things, although you know not whether they can yield your request, it is as though you went to the doors of the grammarian and begged him, although you had never made a study of the art, to give you a knowledge of grammar which would enable you forthwith to do the business of a grammarian.
While I was speaking, Prodicus was preparing to retaliate upon his youthful assailant, intending to employ the argument of which you have just made use; for he was annoyed to have it supposed that he offered a vain prayer to the Gods.
But the master of the gymnasium came to him and begged him to leave because he was teaching the youths doctrines which were unsuited to them, and therefore bad for them.
I have told you this because I want you to understand how men are circumstanced in regard to philosophy.
Had Prodicus been present and said what you have said, the audience would have thought him raving, and he would have been ejected from the gymnasium.
But you have argued so excellently well that you have not only persuaded your hearers, but have brought your opponent to an agreement.
For just as in the law courts, if two witnesses testify to the same fact, one of whom seems to be an honest fellow and the other a rogue, the testimony of the rogue often has the contrary effect on the judges' minds to what he intended, while the same evidence if given by the honest man at once strikes them as perfectly true.
And probably the audience have something of the same feeling about yourself and Prodicus; they think him a Sophist and a braggart, and regard you as a gentleman of courtesy and worth.
For they do not pay attention to the argument so much as to the character of the speaker.
But truly, Socrates, said Erasistratus, though you may be joking, Critias does seem to me to be saying something which is of weight.
SOCRATES: I am in profound earnest, I assure you.
But why, as you have begun your argument so prettily, do you not go on with the rest?
There is still something lacking, now you have agreed that (wealth) is a good to some and an evil to others.
It remains to enquire what constitutes wealth; for unless you know this, you cannot possibly come to an understanding as to whether it is a good or an evil.
I am ready to assist you in the enquiry to the utmost of my power: but first let him who affirms that riches are a good, tell us what, in his opinion, is wealth.
ERASISTRATUS: Indeed, Socrates, I have no notion about wealth beyond that which men commonly have.
I suppose that wealth is a quantity of money (compare Arist.
Pol.
); and this, I imagine, would also be Critias' definition.
SOCRATES: Then now we have to consider, What is money?
Or else later on we shall be found to differ about the question.
For instance, the Carthaginians use money of this sort.
Something which is about the size of a stater is tied up in a small piece of leather: what it is, no one knows but the makers.
A seal is next set upon the leather, which then passes into circulation, and he who has the largest number of such pieces is esteemed the richest and best off.
And yet if any one among us had a mass of such coins he would be no wealthier than if he had so many pebbles from the mountain.
At Lacedaemon, again, they use iron by weight which has been rendered useless: and he who has the greatest mass of such iron is thought to be the richest, although elsewhere it has no value.
In Ethiopia engraved stones are employed, of which a Lacedaemonian could make no use.
Once more, among the Nomad Scythians a man who owned the house of Polytion would not be thought richer than one who possessed Mount Lycabettus among ourselves.
And clearly those things cannot all be regarded as possessions; for in some cases the possessors would appear none the richer thereby: but, as I was saying, some one of them is thought in one place to be money, and the possessors of it are the wealthy, whereas in some other place it is not money, and the ownership of it does not confer wealth; just as the standard of morals varies, and what is honourable to some men is dishonourable to others.
And if we wish to enquire why a house is valuable to us but not to the Scythians, or why the Carthaginians value leather which is worthless to us, or the Lacedaemonians find wealth in iron and we do not, can we not get an answer in some such way as this: Would an Athenian, who had a thousand talents weight of the stones which lie about in the Agora and which we do not employ for any purpose, be thought to be any the richer?
ERASISTRATUS: He certainly would not appear so to me.
SOCRATES: But if he possessed a thousand talents weight of some precious stone, we should say that he was very rich?
ERASISTRATUS: Of course.
SOCRATES: The reason is that the one is useless and the other useful?
ERASISTRATUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And in the same way among the Scythians a house has no value because they have no use for a house, nor would a Scythian set so much store on the finest house in the world as on a leather coat, because he could use the one and not the other.
Or again, the Carthaginian coinage is not wealth in our eyes, for we could not employ it, as we can silver, to procure what we need, and therefore it is of no use to us.
ERASISTRATUS: True.
SOCRATES: What is useful to us, then, is wealth, and what is useless to us is not wealth?
But how do you mean, Socrates?
said Eryxias, interrupting.
Do we not employ in our intercourse with one another speech and violence (?)
and various other things?
These are useful and yet they are not wealth.
SOCRATES: Clearly we have not yet answered the question, What is wealth?
That wealth must be useful, to be wealth at all,--thus much is acknowledged by every one.
But what particular thing is wealth, if not all things?
Let us pursue the argument in another way; and then we may perhaps find what we are seeking.
What is the use of wealth, and for what purpose has the possession of riches been invented,--in the sense, I mean, in which drugs have been discovered for the cure of disease?
Perhaps in this way we may throw some light on the question.
It appears to be clear that whatever constitutes wealth must be useful, and that wealth is one class of useful things; and now we have to enquire, What is the use of those useful things which constitute wealth?
For all things probably may be said to be useful which we use in production, just as all things which have life are animals, but there is a special kind of animal which we call 'man.'
Now if any one were to ask us, What is that of which, if we were rid, we should not want medicine and the instruments of medicine, we might reply that this would be the case if disease were absent from our bodies and either never came to them at all or went away again as soon as it appeared; and we may therefore conclude that medicine is the science which is useful for getting rid of disease.
But if we are further asked, What is that from which, if we were free, we should have no need of wealth?
can we give an answer?
If we have none, suppose that we restate the question thus:--If a man could live without food or drink, and yet suffer neither hunger nor thirst, would he want either money or anything else in order to supply his needs?
ERYXIAS: He would not.
SOCRATES: And does not this apply in other cases?
If we did not want for the service of the body the things of which we now stand in need, and heat and cold and the other bodily sensations were unperceived by us, there would be no use in this so-called wealth, if no one, that is, had any necessity for those things which now make us wish for wealth in order that we may satisfy the desires and needs of the body in respect of our various wants.
And therefore if the possession of wealth is useful in ministering to our bodily wants, and bodily wants were unknown to us, we should not need wealth, and possibly there would be no such thing as wealth.
ERYXIAS: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Then our conclusion is, as would appear, that wealth is what is useful to this end?
Eryxias once more gave his assent, but the small argument considerably troubled him.
SOCRATES: And what is your opinion about another question:--Would you say that the same thing can be at one time useful and at another useless for the production of the same result?
ERYXIAS: I cannot say more than that if we require the same thing to produce the same result, then it seems to me to be useful; if not, not.
SOCRATES: Then if without the aid of fire we could make a brazen statue, we should not want fire for that purpose; and if we did not want it, it would be useless to us?
And the argument applies equally in other cases.
ERYXIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And therefore conditions which are not required for the existence of a thing are not useful for the production of it?
ERYXIAS: Of course not.
SOCRATES: And if without gold or silver or anything else which we do not use directly for the body in the way that we do food and drink and bedding and houses,--if without these we could satisfy the wants of the body, they would be of no use to us for that purpose?
ERYXIAS: They would not.
SOCRATES: They would no longer be regarded as wealth, because they are useless, whereas that would be wealth which enabled us to obtain what was useful to us?
ERYXIAS: O Socrates, you will never be able to persuade me that gold and silver and similar things are not wealth.
But I am very strongly of opinion that things which are useless to us are not wealth, and that the money which is useful for this purpose is of the greatest use; not that these things are not useful towards life, if by them we can procure wealth.
SOCRATES: And how would you answer another question?
There are persons, are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus procure those things of which they stand in need?
ERYXIAS: There are.
SOCRATES: And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of gold and silver?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Then if they procure by this means what they want for the purposes of life, that art will be useful towards life?
For do we not say that silver is useful because it enables us to supply our bodily needs?
ERYXIAS: We do.
SOCRATES: Then if these arts are reckoned among things useful, the arts are wealth for the same reason as gold and silver are, for, clearly, the possession of them gives wealth.
Yet a little while ago we found it difficult to accept the argument which proved that the wisest are the wealthiest.
But now there seems no escape from this conclusion.
Suppose that we are asked, 'Is a horse useful to everybody?'
will not our reply be, 'No, but only to those who know how to use a horse?'
ERYXIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And so, too, physic is not useful to every one, but only to him who knows how to use it?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And the same is the case with everything else?
ERYXIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then gold and silver and all the other elements which are supposed to make up wealth are only useful to the person who knows how to use them?
ERYXIAS: Exactly.
SOCRATES: And were we not saying before that it was the business of a good man and a gentleman to know where and how anything should be used?
ERYXIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: The good and gentle, therefore will alone have profit from these things, supposing at least that they know how to use them.
But if so, to them only will they seem to be wealth.
It appears, however, that where a person is ignorant of riding, and has horses which are useless to him, if some one teaches him that art, he makes him also richer, for what was before useless has now become useful to him, and in giving him knowledge he has also conferred riches upon him.
ERYXIAS: That is the case.
SOCRATES: Yet I dare be sworn that Critias will not be moved a whit by the argument.
CRITIAS: No, by heaven, I should be a madman if I were.
But why do you not finish the argument which proves that gold and silver and other things which seem to be wealth are not real wealth?
For I have been exceedingly delighted to hear the discourses which you have just been holding.
SOCRATES: My argument, Critias (I said), appears to have given you the same kind of pleasure which you might have derived from some rhapsode's recitation of Homer; for you do not believe a word of what has been said.
But come now, give me an answer to this question.
Are not certain things useful to the builder when he is building a house?
CRITIAS: They are.
SOCRATES: And would you say that those things are useful which are employed in house building,--stones and bricks and beams and the like, and also the instruments with which the builder built the house, the beams and stones which they provided, and again the instruments by which these were obtained?
CRITIAS: It seems to me that they are all useful for building.
SOCRATES: And is it not true of every art, that not only the materials but the instruments by which we procure them and without which the work could not go on, are useful for that art?
CRITIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And further, the instruments by which the instruments are procured, and so on, going back from stage to stage ad infinitum,--are not all these, in your opinion, necessary in order to carry out the work?
CRITIAS: We may fairly suppose such to be the case.
SOCRATES: And if a man has food and drink and clothes and the other things which are useful to the body, would he need gold or silver or any other means by which he could procure that which he now has?
CRITIAS: I do not think so.
SOCRATES: Then you consider that a man never wants any of these things for the use of the body?
CRITIAS: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: And if they appear useless to this end, ought they not always to appear useless?
For we have already laid down the principle that things cannot be at one time useful and at another time not, in the same process.
CRITIAS: But in that respect your argument and mine are the same.
For you maintain if they are useful to a certain end, they can never become useless; whereas I say that in order to accomplish some results bad things are needed, and good for others.
SOCRATES: But can a bad thing be used to carry out a good purpose?
CRITIAS: I should say not.
SOCRATES: And we call those actions good which a man does for the sake of virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But can a man learn any kind of knowledge which is imparted by word of mouth if he is wholly deprived of the sense of hearing?
CRITIAS: Certainly not, I think.
SOCRATES: And will not hearing be useful for virtue, if virtue is taught by hearing and we use the sense of hearing in giving instruction?
CRITIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And since medicine frees the sick man from his disease, that art too may sometimes appear useful in the acquisition of virtue, e.g.
when hearing is procured by the aid of medicine.
CRITIAS: Very likely.
SOCRATES: But if, again, we obtain by wealth the aid of medicine, shall we not regard wealth as useful for virtue?
CRITIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And also the instruments by which wealth is procured?
CRITIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then you think that a man may gain wealth by bad and disgraceful means, and, having obtained the aid of medicine which enables him to acquire the power of hearing, may use that very faculty for the acquisition of virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: But can that which is evil be useful for virtue?
CRITIAS: No.
SOCRATES: It is not therefore necessary that the means by which we obtain what is useful for a certain object should always be useful for the same object: for it seems that bad actions may sometimes serve good purposes?
The matter will be still plainer if we look at it in this way:--If things are useful towards the several ends for which they exist, which ends would not come into existence without them, how would you regard them?
Can ignorance, for instance, be useful for knowledge, or disease for health, or vice for virtue?
CRITIAS: Never.
SOCRATES: And yet we have already agreed--have we not?--that there can be no knowledge where there has not previously been ignorance, nor health where there has not been disease, nor virtue where there has not been vice?
CRITIAS: I think that we have.
SOCRATES: But then it would seem that the antecedents without which a thing cannot exist are not necessarily useful to it.
Otherwise ignorance would appear useful for knowledge, disease for health, and vice for virtue.
Critias still showed great reluctance to accept any argument which went to prove that all these things were useless.
I saw that it was as difficult to persuade him as (according to the proverb) it is to boil a stone, so I said: Let us bid 'good-bye' to the discussion, since we cannot agree whether these things are useful and a part of wealth or not.
But what shall we say to another question: Which is the happier and better man,--he who requires the greatest quantity of necessaries for body and diet, or he who requires only the fewest and least?
The answer will perhaps become more obvious if we suppose some one, comparing the man himself at different times, to consider whether his condition is better when he is sick or when he is well?
CRITIAS: That is not a question which needs much consideration.
SOCRATES: Probably, I said, every one can understand that health is a better condition than disease.
But when have we the greatest and the most various needs, when we are sick or when we are well?
CRITIAS: When we are sick.
SOCRATES: And when we are in the worst state we have the greatest and most especial need and desire of bodily pleasures?
CRITIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And seeing that a man is best off when he is least in need of such things, does not the same reasoning apply to the case of any two persons, of whom one has many and great wants and desires, and the other few and moderate?
For instance, some men are gamblers, some drunkards, and some gluttons: and gambling and the love of drink and greediness are all desires?
CRITIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: But desires are only the lack of something: and those who have the greatest desires are in a worse condition than those who have none or very slight ones?
CRITIAS: Certainly I consider that those who have such wants are bad, and that the greater their wants the worse they are.
SOCRATES: And do we think it possible that a thing should be useful for a purpose unless we have need of it for that purpose?
CRITIAS: No.
SOCRATES: Then if these things are useful for supplying the needs of the body, we must want them for that purpose?
CRITIAS: That is my opinion.
SOCRATES: And he to whom the greatest number of things are useful for his purpose, will also want the greatest number of means of accomplishing it, supposing that we necessarily feel the want of all useful things?
CRITIAS: It seems so.
SOCRATES: The argument proves then that he who has great riches has likewise need of many things for the supply of the wants of the body; for wealth appears useful towards that end.
And the richest must be in the worst condition, since they seem to be most in want of such things.
EUTHYPHRO By Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett INTRODUCTION.
In the Meno, Anytus had parted from Socrates with the significant words: 'That in any city, and particularly in the city of Athens, it is easier to do men harm than to do them good;' and Socrates was anticipating another opportunity of talking with him.
In the Euthyphro, Socrates is awaiting his trial for impiety.
But before the trial begins, Plato would like to put the world on their trial, and convince them of ignorance in that very matter touching which Socrates is accused.
An incident which may perhaps really have occurred in the family of Euthyphro, a learned Athenian diviner and soothsayer, furnishes the occasion of the discussion.
This Euthyphro and Socrates are represented as meeting in the porch of the King Archon.
(Compare Theaet.)
Both have legal business in hand.
Socrates is defendant in a suit for impiety which Meletus has brought against him (it is remarked by the way that he is not a likely man himself to have brought a suit against another); and Euthyphro too is plaintiff in an action for murder, which he has brought against his own father.
The latter has originated in the following manner:--A poor dependant of the family had slain one of their domestic slaves in Naxos.
The guilty person was bound and thrown into a ditch by the command of Euthyphro's father, who sent to the interpreters of religion at Athens to ask what should be done with him.
Before the messenger came back the criminal had died from hunger and exposure.
This is the origin of the charge of murder which Euthyphro brings against his father.
Socrates is confident that before he could have undertaken the responsibility of such a prosecution, he must have been perfectly informed of the nature of piety and impiety; and as he is going to be tried for impiety himself, he thinks that he cannot do better than learn of Euthyphro (who will be admitted by everybody, including the judges, to be an unimpeachable authority) what piety is, and what is impiety.
What then is piety?
Euthyphro, who, in the abundance of his knowledge, is very willing to undertake all the responsibility, replies: That piety is doing as I do, prosecuting your father (if he is guilty) on a charge of murder; doing as the gods do--as Zeus did to Cronos, and Cronos to Uranus.
Socrates has a dislike to these tales of mythology, and he fancies that this dislike of his may be the reason why he is charged with impiety.
'Are they really true?'
'Yes, they are;' and Euthyphro will gladly tell Socrates some more of them.
But Socrates would like first of all to have a more satisfactory answer to the question, 'What is piety?'
'Doing as I do, charging a father with murder,' may be a single instance of piety, but can hardly be regarded as a general definition.
Euthyphro replies, that 'Piety is what is dear to the gods, and impiety is what is not dear to them.'
But may there not be differences of opinion, as among men, so also among the gods?
Especially, about good and evil, which have no fixed rule; and these are precisely the sort of differences which give rise to quarrels.
And therefore what may be dear to one god may not be dear to another, and the same action may be both pious and impious; e.g.
your chastisement of your father, Euthyphro, may be dear or pleasing to Zeus (who inflicted a similar chastisement on his own father), but not equally pleasing to Cronos or Uranus (who suffered at the hands of their sons).
Euthyphro answers that there is no difference of opinion, either among gods or men, as to the propriety of punishing a murderer.
Yes, rejoins Socrates, when they know him to be a murderer; but you are assuming the point at issue.
If all the circumstances of the case are considered, are you able to show that your father was guilty of murder, or that all the gods are agreed in approving of our prosecution of him?
And must you not allow that what is hated by one god may be liked by another?
Waiving this last, however, Socrates proposes to amend the definition, and say that 'what all the gods love is pious, and what they all hate is impious.'
To this Euthyphro agrees.
Socrates proceeds to analyze the new form of the definition.
He shows that in other cases the act precedes the state; e.g.
the act of being carried, loved, etc.
precedes the state of being carried, loved, etc., and therefore that which is dear to the gods is dear to the gods because it is first loved of them, not loved of them because it is dear to them.
But the pious or holy is loved by the gods because it is pious or holy, which is equivalent to saying, that it is loved by them because it is dear to them.
Here then appears to be a contradiction,--Euthyphro has been giving an attribute or accident of piety only, and not the essence.
Euthyphro acknowledges himself that his explanations seem to walk away or go round in a circle, like the moving figures of Daedalus, the ancestor of Socrates, who has communicated his art to his descendants.
Socrates, who is desirous of stimulating the indolent intelligence of Euthyphro, raises the question in another manner: 'Is all the pious just?'
'Yes.'
'Is all the just pious?'
'No.'
'Then what part of justice is piety?'
Euthyphro replies that piety is that part of justice which 'attends' to the gods, as there is another part of justice which 'attends' to men.
But what is the meaning of 'attending' to the gods?
The word 'attending,' when applied to dogs, horses, and men, implies that in some way they are made better.
But how do pious or holy acts make the gods any better?
Euthyphro explains that he means by pious acts, acts of service or ministration.
Yes; but the ministrations of the husbandman, the physician, and the builder have an end.
To what end do we serve the gods, and what do we help them to accomplish?
Euthyphro replies, that all these difficult questions cannot be resolved in a short time; and he would rather say simply that piety is knowing how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices.
In other words, says Socrates, piety is 'a science of asking and giving'--asking what we want and giving what they want; in short, a mode of doing business between gods and men.
But although they are the givers of all good, how can we give them any good in return?
'Nay, but we give them honour.'
Then we give them not what is beneficial, but what is pleasing or dear to them; and this is the point which has been already disproved.
Socrates, although weary of the subterfuges and evasions of Euthyphro, remains unshaken in his conviction that he must know the nature of piety, or he would never have prosecuted his old father.
He is still hoping that he will condescend to instruct him.
But Euthyphro is in a hurry and cannot stay.
And Socrates' last hope of knowing the nature of piety before he is prosecuted for impiety has disappeared.
As in the Euthydemus the irony is carried on to the end.
The Euthyphro is manifestly designed to contrast the real nature of piety and impiety with the popular conceptions of them.
But when the popular conceptions of them have been overthrown, Socrates does not offer any definition of his own: as in the Laches and Lysis, he prepares the way for an answer to the question which he has raised; but true to his own character, refuses to answer himself.
Euthyphro is a religionist, and is elsewhere spoken of, if he be the same person, as the author of a philosophy of names, by whose 'prancing steeds' Socrates in the Cratylus is carried away.
He has the conceit and self-confidence of a Sophist; no doubt that he is right in prosecuting his father has ever entered into his mind.
Like a Sophist too, he is incapable either of framing a general definition or of following the course of an argument.
His wrong-headedness, one-sidedness, narrowness, positiveness, are characteristic of his priestly office.
His failure to apprehend an argument may be compared to a similar defect which is observable in the rhapsode Ion.
But he is not a bad man, and he is friendly to Socrates, whose familiar sign he recognizes with interest.
Though unable to follow him he is very willing to be led by him, and eagerly catches at any suggestion which saves him from the trouble of thinking.
Moreover he is the enemy of Meletus, who, as he says, is availing himself of the popular dislike to innovations in religion in order to injure Socrates; at the same time he is amusingly confident that he has weapons in his own armoury which would be more than a match for him.
He is quite sincere in his prosecution of his father, who has accidentally been guilty of homicide, and is not wholly free from blame.
To purge away the crime appears to him in the light of a duty, whoever may be the criminal.
Thus begins the contrast between the religion of the letter, or of the narrow and unenlightened conscience, and the higher notion of religion which Socrates vainly endeavours to elicit from him.
'Piety is doing as I do' is the idea of religion which first occurs to him, and to many others who do not say what they think with equal frankness.
For men are not easily persuaded that any other religion is better than their own; or that other nations, e.g.
the Greeks in the time of Socrates, were equally serious in their religious beliefs and difficulties.
The chief difference between us and them is, that they were slowly learning what we are in process of forgetting.
Greek mythology hardly admitted of the distinction between accidental homicide and murder: that the pollution of blood was the same in both cases is also the feeling of the Athenian diviner.
He had not as yet learned the lesson, which philosophy was teaching, that Homer and Hesiod, if not banished from the state, or whipped out of the assembly, as Heracleitus more rudely proposed, at any rate were not to be appealed to as authorities in religion; and he is ready to defend his conduct by the examples of the gods.
These are the very tales which Socrates cannot abide; and his dislike of them, as he suspects, has branded him with the reputation of impiety.
Here is one answer to the question, 'Why Socrates was put to death,' suggested by the way.
Another is conveyed in the words, 'The Athenians do not care about any man being thought wise until he begins to make other men wise; and then for some reason or other they are angry:' which may be said to be the rule of popular toleration in most other countries, and not at Athens only.
In the course of the argument Socrates remarks that the controversial nature of morals and religion arises out of the difficulty of verifying them.
There is no measure or standard to which they can be referred.
The next definition, 'Piety is that which is loved of the gods,' is shipwrecked on a refined distinction between the state and the act, corresponding respectively to the adjective (philon) and the participle (philoumenon), or rather perhaps to the participle and the verb (philoumenon and phileitai).
The act is prior to the state (as in Aristotle the energeia precedes the dunamis); and the state of being loved is preceded by the act of being loved.
But piety or holiness is preceded by the act of being pious, not by the act of being loved; and therefore piety and the state of being loved are different.
Through such subtleties of dialectic Socrates is working his way into a deeper region of thought and feeling.
He means to say that the words 'loved of the gods' express an attribute only, and not the essence of piety.
Then follows the third and last definition, 'Piety is a part of justice.'
Thus far Socrates has proceeded in placing religion on a moral foundation.
He is seeking to realize the harmony of religion and morality, which the great poets Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Pindar had unconsciously anticipated, and which is the universal want of all men.
To this the soothsayer adds the ceremonial element, 'attending upon the gods.'
When further interrogated by Socrates as to the nature of this 'attention to the gods,' he replies, that piety is an affair of business, a science of giving and asking, and the like.
Socrates points out the anthropomorphism of these notions, (compare Symp.
; Republic; Politicus.)
But when we expect him to go on and show that the true service of the gods is the service of the spirit and the co-operation with them in all things true and good, he stops short; this was a lesson which the soothsayer could not have been made to understand, and which every one must learn for himself.
There seem to be altogether three aims or interests in this little Dialogue: (1) the dialectical development of the idea of piety; (2) the antithesis of true and false religion, which is carried to a certain extent only; (3) the defence of Socrates.
The subtle connection with the Apology and the Crito; the holding back of the conclusion, as in the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, and other Dialogues; the deep insight into the religious world; the dramatic power and play of the two characters; the inimitable irony, are reasons for believing that the Euthyphro is a genuine Platonic writing.
The spirit in which the popular representations of mythology are denounced recalls Republic II.
The virtue of piety has been already mentioned as one of five in the Protagoras, but is not reckoned among the four cardinal virtues of Republic IV.
The figure of Daedalus has occurred in the Meno; that of Proteus in the Euthydemus and Io.
The kingly science has already appeared in the Euthydemus, and will reappear in the Republic and Statesman.
But neither from these nor any other indications of similarity or difference, and still less from arguments respecting the suitableness of this little work to aid Socrates at the time of his trial or the reverse, can any evidence of the date be obtained.
EUTHYPHRO PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Euthyphro.
SCENE: The Porch of the King Archon.
EUTHYPHRO: Why have you left the Lyceum, Socrates?
and what are you doing in the Porch of the King Archon?
Surely you cannot be concerned in a suit before the King, like myself?
SOCRATES: Not in a suit, Euthyphro; impeachment is the word which the Athenians use.
EUTHYPHRO: What!
I suppose that some one has been prosecuting you, for I cannot believe that you are the prosecutor of another.
SOCRATES: Certainly not.
EUTHYPHRO: Then some one else has been prosecuting you?
SOCRATES: Yes.
EUTHYPHRO: And who is he?
SOCRATES: A young man who is little known, Euthyphro; and I hardly know him: his name is Meletus, and he is of the deme of Pitthis.
Perhaps you may remember his appearance; he has a beak, and long straight hair, and a beard which is ill grown.
EUTHYPHRO: No, I do not remember him, Socrates.
But what is the charge which he brings against you?
SOCRATES: What is the charge?
Well, a very serious charge, which shows a good deal of character in the young man, and for which he is certainly not to be despised.
He says he knows how the youth are corrupted and who are their corruptors.
I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends.
And of this our mother the state is to be the judge.
Of all our political men he is the only one who seems to me to begin in the right way, with the cultivation of virtue in youth; like a good husbandman, he makes the young shoots his first care, and clears away us who are the destroyers of them.
This is only the first step; he will afterwards attend to the elder branches; and if he goes on as he has begun, he will be a very great public benefactor.
EUTHYPHRO: I hope that he may; but I rather fear, Socrates, that the opposite will turn out to be the truth.
My opinion is that in attacking you he is simply aiming a blow at the foundation of the state.
But in what way does he say that you corrupt the young?
SOCRATES: He brings a wonderful accusation against me, which at first hearing excites surprise: he says that I am a poet or maker of gods, and that I invent new gods and deny the existence of old ones; this is the ground of his indictment.
EUTHYPHRO: I understand, Socrates; he means to attack you about the familiar sign which occasionally, as you say, comes to you.
He thinks that you are a neologian, and he is going to have you up before the court for this.
He knows that such a charge is readily received by the world, as I myself know too well; for when I speak in the assembly about divine things, and foretell the future to them, they laugh at me and think me a madman.
Yet every word that I say is true.
But they are jealous of us all; and we must be brave and go at them.
SOCRATES: Their laughter, friend Euthyphro, is not a matter of much consequence.
For a man may be thought wise; but the Athenians, I suspect, do not much trouble themselves about him until he begins to impart his wisdom to others, and then for some reason or other, perhaps, as you say, from jealousy, they are angry.
EUTHYPHRO: I am never likely to try their temper in this way.
SOCRATES: I dare say not, for you are reserved in your behaviour, and seldom impart your wisdom.
But I have a benevolent habit of pouring out myself to everybody, and would even pay for a listener, and I am afraid that the Athenians may think me too talkative.
Now if, as I was saying, they would only laugh at me, as you say that they laugh at you, the time might pass gaily enough in the court; but perhaps they may be in earnest, and then what the end will be you soothsayers only can predict.
EUTHYPHRO: I dare say that the affair will end in nothing, Socrates, and that you will win your cause; and I think that I shall win my own.
SOCRATES: And what is your suit, Euthyphro?
are you the pursuer or the defendant?
EUTHYPHRO: I am the pursuer.
SOCRATES: Of whom?
EUTHYPHRO: You will think me mad when I tell you.
SOCRATES: Why, has the fugitive wings?
EUTHYPHRO: Nay, he is not very volatile at his time of life.
SOCRATES: Who is he?
EUTHYPHRO: My father.
SOCRATES: Your father!
my good man?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And of what is he accused?
EUTHYPHRO: Of murder, Socrates.
SOCRATES: By the powers, Euthyphro!
how little does the common herd know of the nature of right and truth.
A man must be an extraordinary man, and have made great strides in wisdom, before he could have seen his way to bring such an action.
EUTHYPHRO: Indeed, Socrates, he must.
SOCRATES: I suppose that the man whom your father murdered was one of your relatives--clearly he was; for if he had been a stranger you would never have thought of prosecuting him.
EUTHYPHRO: I am amused, Socrates, at your making a distinction between one who is a relation and one who is not a relation; for surely the pollution is the same in either case, if you knowingly associate with the murderer when you ought to clear yourself and him by proceeding against him.
The real question is whether the murdered man has been justly slain.
If justly, then your duty is to let the matter alone; but if unjustly, then even if the murderer lives under the same roof with you and eats at the same table, proceed against him.
Now the man who is dead was a poor dependant of mine who worked for us as a field labourer on our farm in Naxos, and one day in a fit of drunken passion he got into a quarrel with one of our domestic servants and slew him.
My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with him.
Meanwhile he never attended to him and took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that no great harm would be done even if he did die.
Now this was just what happened.
For such was the effect of cold and hunger and chains upon him, that before the messenger returned from the diviner, he was dead.
And my father and family are angry with me for taking the part of the murderer and prosecuting my father.
They say that he did not kill him, and that if he did, the dead man was but a murderer, and I ought not to take any notice, for that a son is impious who prosecutes a father.
Which shows, Socrates, how little they know what the gods think about piety and impiety.
SOCRATES: Good heavens, Euthyphro!
and is your knowledge of religion and of things pious and impious so very exact, that, supposing the circumstances to be as you state them, you are not afraid lest you too may be doing an impious thing in bringing an action against your father?
EUTHYPHRO: The best of Euthyphro, and that which distinguishes him, Socrates, from other men, is his exact knowledge of all such matters.
What should I be good for without it?
SOCRATES: Rare friend!
I think that I cannot do better than be your disciple.
Then before the trial with Meletus comes on I shall challenge him, and say that I have always had a great interest in religious questions, and now, as he charges me with rash imaginations and innovations in religion, I have become your disciple.
You, Meletus, as I shall say to him, acknowledge Euthyphro to be a great theologian, and sound in his opinions; and if you approve of him you ought to approve of me, and not have me into court; but if you disapprove, you should begin by indicting him who is my teacher, and who will be the ruin, not of the young, but of the old; that is to say, of myself whom he instructs, and of his old father whom he admonishes and chastises.
And if Meletus refuses to listen to me, but will go on, and will not shift the indictment from me to you, I cannot do better than repeat this challenge in the court.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, indeed, Socrates; and if he attempts to indict me I am mistaken if I do not find a flaw in him; the court shall have a great deal more to say to him than to me.
SOCRATES: And I, my dear friend, knowing this, am desirous of becoming your disciple.
For I observe that no one appears to notice you--not even this Meletus; but his sharp eyes have found me out at once, and he has indicted me for impiety.
And therefore, I adjure you to tell me the nature of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so well, and of murder, and of other offences against the gods.
What are they?
Is not piety in every action always the same?
and impiety, again--is it not always the opposite of piety, and also the same with itself, having, as impiety, one notion which includes whatever is impious?
EUTHYPHRO: To be sure, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what is piety, and what is impiety?
EUTHYPHRO: Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime--whether he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be--that makes no difference; and not to prosecute them is impiety.
And please to consider, Socrates, what a notable proof I will give you of the truth of my words, a proof which I have already given to others:--of the principle, I mean, that the impious, whoever he may be, ought not to go unpunished.
For do not men regard Zeus as the best and most righteous of the gods?--and yet they admit that he bound his father (Cronos) because he wickedly devoured his sons, and that he too had punished his own father (Uranus) for a similar reason, in a nameless manner.
And yet when I proceed against my father, they are angry with me.
So inconsistent are they in their way of talking when the gods are concerned, and when I am concerned.
SOCRATES: May not this be the reason, Euthyphro, why I am charged with impiety--that I cannot away with these stories about the gods?
and therefore I suppose that people think me wrong.
But, as you who are well informed about them approve of them, I cannot do better than assent to your superior wisdom.
What else can I say, confessing as I do, that I know nothing about them?
Tell me, for the love of Zeus, whether you really believe that they are true.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates; and things more wonderful still, of which the world is in ignorance.
SOCRATES: And do you really believe that the gods fought with one another, and had dire quarrels, battles, and the like, as the poets say, and as you may see represented in the works of great artists?
The temples are full of them; and notably the robe of Athene, which is carried up to the Acropolis at the great Panathenaea, is embroidered with them.
Are all these tales of the gods true, Euthyphro?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates; and, as I was saying, I can tell you, if you would like to hear them, many other things about the gods which would quite amaze you.
SOCRATES: I dare say; and you shall tell me them at some other time when I have leisure.
But just at present I would rather hear from you a more precise answer, which you have not as yet given, my friend, to the question, What is 'piety'?
When asked, you only replied, Doing as you do, charging your father with murder.
EUTHYPHRO: And what I said was true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No doubt, Euthyphro; but you would admit that there are many other pious acts?
EUTHYPHRO: There are.
SOCRATES: Remember that I did not ask you to give me two or three examples of piety, but to explain the general idea which makes all pious things to be pious.
Do you not recollect that there was one idea which made the impious impious, and the pious pious?
EUTHYPHRO: I remember.
SOCRATES: Tell me what is the nature of this idea, and then I shall have a standard to which I may look, and by which I may measure actions, whether yours or those of any one else, and then I shall be able to say that such and such an action is pious, such another impious.
EUTHYPHRO: I will tell you, if you like.
SOCRATES: I should very much like.
EUTHYPHRO: Piety, then, is that which is dear to the gods, and impiety is that which is not dear to them.
SOCRATES: Very good, Euthyphro; you have now given me the sort of answer which I wanted.
But whether what you say is true or not I cannot as yet tell, although I make no doubt that you will prove the truth of your words.
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: Come, then, and let us examine what we are saying.
That thing or person which is dear to the gods is pious, and that thing or person which is hateful to the gods is impious, these two being the extreme opposites of one another.
Was not that said?
EUTHYPHRO: It was.
SOCRATES: And well said?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, I thought so; it was certainly said.
SOCRATES: And further, Euthyphro, the gods were admitted to have enmities and hatreds and differences?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, that was also said.
SOCRATES: And what sort of difference creates enmity and anger?
Suppose for example that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number; do differences of this sort make us enemies and set us at variance with one another?
Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end to them by a sum?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: Or suppose that we differ about magnitudes, do we not quickly end the differences by measuring?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: And we end a controversy about heavy and light by resorting to a weighing machine?
EUTHYPHRO: To be sure.
SOCRATES: But what differences are there which cannot be thus decided, and which therefore make us angry and set us at enmity with one another?
I dare say the answer does not occur to you at the moment, and therefore I will suggest that these enmities arise when the matters of difference are the just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable.
Are not these the points about which men differ, and about which when we are unable satisfactorily to decide our differences, you and I and all of us quarrel, when we do quarrel?
(Compare Alcib.)
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, the nature of the differences about which we quarrel is such as you describe.
SOCRATES: And the quarrels of the gods, noble Euthyphro, when they occur, are of a like nature?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly they are.
SOCRATES: They have differences of opinion, as you say, about good and evil, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable: there would have been no quarrels among them, if there had been no such differences--would there now?
EUTHYPHRO: You are quite right.
SOCRATES: Does not every man love that which he deems noble and just and good, and hate the opposite of them?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: But, as you say, people regard the same things, some as just and others as unjust,--about these they dispute; and so there arise wars and fightings among them.
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: Then the same things are hated by the gods and loved by the gods, and are both hateful and dear to them?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And upon this view the same things, Euthyphro, will be pious and also impious?
EUTHYPHRO: So I should suppose.
SOCRATES: Then, my friend, I remark with surprise that you have not answered the question which I asked.
For I certainly did not ask you to tell me what action is both pious and impious: but now it would seem that what is loved by the gods is also hated by them.
And therefore, Euthyphro, in thus chastising your father you may very likely be doing what is agreeable to Zeus but disagreeable to Cronos or Uranus, and what is acceptable to Hephaestus but unacceptable to Here, and there may be other gods who have similar differences of opinion.
EUTHYPHRO: But I believe, Socrates, that all the gods would be agreed as to the propriety of punishing a murderer: there would be no difference of opinion about that.
SOCRATES: Well, but speaking of men, Euthyphro, did you ever hear any one arguing that a murderer or any sort of evil-doer ought to be let off?
EUTHYPHRO: I should rather say that these are the questions which they are always arguing, especially in courts of law: they commit all sorts of crimes, and there is nothing which they will not do or say in their own defence.
SOCRATES: But do they admit their guilt, Euthyphro, and yet say that they ought not to be punished?
EUTHYPHRO: No; they do not.
SOCRATES: Then there are some things which they do not venture to say and do: for they do not venture to argue that the guilty are to be unpunished, but they deny their guilt, do they not?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then they do not argue that the evil-doer should not be punished, but they argue about the fact of who the evil-doer is, and what he did and when?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And the gods are in the same case, if as you assert they quarrel about just and unjust, and some of them say while others deny that injustice is done among them.
For surely neither God nor man will ever venture to say that the doer of injustice is not to be punished?
EUTHYPHRO: That is true, Socrates, in the main.
SOCRATES: But they join issue about the particulars--gods and men alike; and, if they dispute at all, they dispute about some act which is called in question, and which by some is affirmed to be just, by others to be unjust.
Is not that true?
EUTHYPHRO: Quite true.
SOCRATES: Well then, my dear friend Euthyphro, do tell me, for my better instruction and information, what proof have you that in the opinion of all the gods a servant who is guilty of murder, and is put in chains by the master of the dead man, and dies because he is put in chains before he who bound him can learn from the interpreters of the gods what he ought to do with him, dies unjustly; and that on behalf of such an one a son ought to proceed against his father and accuse him of murder.
How would you show that all the gods absolutely agree in approving of his act?
Prove to me that they do, and I will applaud your wisdom as long as I live.
EUTHYPHRO: It will be a difficult task; but I could make the matter very clear indeed to you.
SOCRATES: I understand; you mean to say that I am not so quick of apprehension as the judges: for to them you will be sure to prove that the act is unjust, and hateful to the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes indeed, Socrates; at least if they will listen to me.
SOCRATES: But they will be sure to listen if they find that you are a good speaker.
There was a notion that came into my mind while you were speaking; I said to myself: 'Well, and what if Euthyphro does prove to me that all the gods regarded the death of the serf as unjust, how do I know anything more of the nature of piety and impiety?
for granting that this action may be hateful to the gods, still piety and impiety are not adequately defined by these distinctions, for that which is hateful to the gods has been shown to be also pleasing and dear to them.'
And therefore, Euthyphro, I do not ask you to prove this; I will suppose, if you like, that all the gods condemn and abominate such an action.
But I will amend the definition so far as to say that what all the gods hate is impious, and what they love pious or holy; and what some of them love and others hate is both or neither.
Shall this be our definition of piety and impiety?
EUTHYPHRO: Why not, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Why not!
certainly, as far as I am concerned, Euthyphro, there is no reason why not.
But whether this admission will greatly assist you in the task of instructing me as you promised, is a matter for you to consider.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I should say that what all the gods love is pious and holy, and the opposite which they all hate, impious.
SOCRATES: Ought we to enquire into the truth of this, Euthyphro, or simply to accept the mere statement on our own authority and that of others?
What do you say?
EUTHYPHRO: We should enquire; and I believe that the statement will stand the test of enquiry.
SOCRATES: We shall know better, my good friend, in a little while.
The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: I do not understand your meaning, Socrates.
SOCRATES: I will endeavour to explain: we, speak of carrying and we speak of being carried, of leading and being led, seeing and being seen.
You know that in all such cases there is a difference, and you know also in what the difference lies?
EUTHYPHRO: I think that I understand.
SOCRATES: And is not that which is beloved distinct from that which loves?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Well; and now tell me, is that which is carried in this state of carrying because it is carried, or for some other reason?
EUTHYPHRO: No; that is the reason.
SOCRATES: And the same is true of what is led and of what is seen?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And a thing is not seen because it is visible, but conversely, visible because it is seen; nor is a thing led because it is in the state of being led, or carried because it is in the state of being carried, but the converse of this.
And now I think, Euthyphro, that my meaning will be intelligible; and my meaning is, that any state of action or passion implies previous action or passion.
It does not become because it is becoming, but it is in a state of becoming because it becomes; neither does it suffer because it is in a state of suffering, but it is in a state of suffering because it suffers.
Do you not agree?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Is not that which is loved in some state either of becoming or suffering?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the same holds as in the previous instances; the state of being loved follows the act of being loved, and not the act the state.
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And what do you say of piety, Euthyphro: is not piety, according to your definition, loved by all the gods?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Because it is pious or holy, or for some other reason?
EUTHYPHRO: No, that is the reason.
SOCRATES: It is loved because it is holy, not holy because it is loved?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And that which is dear to the gods is loved by them, and is in a state to be loved of them because it is loved of them?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then that which is dear to the gods, Euthyphro, is not holy, nor is that which is holy loved of God, as you affirm; but they are two different things.
EUTHYPHRO: How do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I mean to say that the holy has been acknowledged by us to be loved of God because it is holy, not to be holy because it is loved.
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: But that which is dear to the gods is dear to them because it is loved by them, not loved by them because it is dear to them.
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: But, friend Euthyphro, if that which is holy is the same with that which is dear to God, and is loved because it is holy, then that which is dear to God would have been loved as being dear to God; but if that which is dear to God is dear to him because loved by him, then that which is holy would have been holy because loved by him.
But now you see that the reverse is the case, and that they are quite different from one another.
For one (theophiles) is of a kind to be loved cause it is loved, and the other (osion) is loved because it is of a kind to be loved.
Thus you appear to me, Euthyphro, when I ask you what is the essence of holiness, to offer an attribute only, and not the essence--the attribute of being loved by all the gods.
But you still refuse to explain to me the nature of holiness.
And therefore, if you please, I will ask you not to hide your treasure, but to tell me once more what holiness or piety really is, whether dear to the gods or not (for that is a matter about which we will not quarrel); and what is impiety?
EUTHYPHRO: I really do not know, Socrates, how to express what I mean.
For somehow or other our arguments, on whatever ground we rest them, seem to turn round and walk away from us.
SOCRATES: Your words, Euthyphro, are like the handiwork of my ancestor Daedalus; and if I were the sayer or propounder of them, you might say that my arguments walk away and will not remain fixed where they are placed because I am a descendant of his.
But now, since these notions are your own, you must find some other gibe, for they certainly, as you yourself allow, show an inclination to be on the move.
EUTHYPHRO: Nay, Socrates, I shall still say that you are the Daedalus who sets arguments in motion; not I, certainly, but you make them move or go round, for they would never have stirred, as far as I am concerned.
SOCRATES: Then I must be a greater than Daedalus: for whereas he only made his own inventions to move, I move those of other people as well.
And the beauty of it is, that I would rather not.
For I would give the wisdom of Daedalus, and the wealth of Tantalus, to be able to detain them and keep them fixed.
But enough of this.
As I perceive that you are lazy, I will myself endeavour to show you how you might instruct me in the nature of piety; and I hope that you will not grudge your labour.
Tell me, then--Is not that which is pious necessarily just?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is, then, all which is just pious?
or, is that which is pious all just, but that which is just, only in part and not all, pious?
EUTHYPHRO: I do not understand you, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And yet I know that you are as much wiser than I am, as you are younger.
But, as I was saying, revered friend, the abundance of your wisdom makes you lazy.
Please to exert yourself, for there is no real difficulty in understanding me.
What I mean I may explain by an illustration of what I do not mean.
The poet (Stasinus) sings-'Of Zeus, the author and creator of all these things, You will not tell: for where there is fear there is also reverence.'
Now I disagree with this poet.
Shall I tell you in what respect?
EUTHYPHRO: By all means.
SOCRATES: I should not say that where there is fear there is also reverence; for I am sure that many persons fear poverty and disease, and the like evils, but I do not perceive that they reverence the objects of their fear.
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation.
EUTHYPHRO: No doubt.
SOCRATES: Then we are wrong in saying that where there is fear there is also reverence; and we should say, where there is reverence there is also fear.
But there is not always reverence where there is fear; for fear is a more extended notion, and reverence is a part of fear, just as the odd is a part of number, and number is a more extended notion than the odd.
I suppose that you follow me now?
EUTHYPHRO: Quite well.
SOCRATES: That was the sort of question which I meant to raise when I asked whether the just is always the pious, or the pious always the just; and whether there may not be justice where there is not piety; for justice is the more extended notion of which piety is only a part.
Do you dissent?
EUTHYPHRO: No, I think that you are quite right.
SOCRATES: Then, if piety is a part of justice, I suppose that we should enquire what part?
If you had pursued the enquiry in the previous cases; for instance, if you had asked me what is an even number, and what part of number the even is, I should have had no difficulty in replying, a number which represents a figure having two equal sides.
Do you not agree?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I quite agree.
SOCRATES: In like manner, I want you to tell me what part of justice is piety or holiness, that I may be able to tell Meletus not to do me injustice, or indict me for impiety, as I am now adequately instructed by you in the nature of piety or holiness, and their opposites.
EUTHYPHRO: Piety or holiness, Socrates, appears to me to be that part of justice which attends to the gods, as there is the other part of justice which attends to men.
SOCRATES: That is good, Euthyphro; yet still there is a little point about which I should like to have further information, What is the meaning of 'attention'?
For attention can hardly be used in the same sense when applied to the gods as when applied to other things.
For instance, horses are said to require attention, and not every person is able to attend to them, but only a person skilled in horsemanship.
Is it not so?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: I should suppose that the art of horsemanship is the art of attending to horses?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Nor is every one qualified to attend to dogs, but only the huntsman?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: And I should also conceive that the art of the huntsman is the art of attending to dogs?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: As the art of the oxherd is the art of attending to oxen?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
SOCRATES: In like manner holiness or piety is the art of attending to the gods?--that would be your meaning, Euthyphro?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is not attention always designed for the good or benefit of that to which the attention is given?
As in the case of horses, you may observe that when attended to by the horseman's art they are benefited and improved, are they not?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: As the dogs are benefited by the huntsman's art, and the oxen by the art of the oxherd, and all other things are tended or attended for their good and not for their hurt?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly, not for their hurt.
SOCRATES: But for their good?
EUTHYPHRO: Of course.
SOCRATES: And does piety or holiness, which has been defined to be the art of attending to the gods, benefit or improve them?
Would you say that when you do a holy act you make any of the gods better?
EUTHYPHRO: No, no; that was certainly not what I meant.
SOCRATES: And I, Euthyphro, never supposed that you did.
I asked you the question about the nature of the attention, because I thought that you did not.
EUTHYPHRO: You do me justice, Socrates; that is not the sort of attention which I mean.
SOCRATES: Good: but I must still ask what is this attention to the gods which is called piety?
EUTHYPHRO: It is such, Socrates, as servants show to their masters.
SOCRATES: I understand--a sort of ministration to the gods.
EUTHYPHRO: Exactly.
SOCRATES: Medicine is also a sort of ministration or service, having in view the attainment of some object--would you not say of health?
EUTHYPHRO: I should.
SOCRATES: Again, there is an art which ministers to the ship-builder with a view to the attainment of some result?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates, with a view to the building of a ship.
SOCRATES: As there is an art which ministers to the house-builder with a view to the building of a house?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And now tell me, my good friend, about the art which ministers to the gods: what work does that help to accomplish?
For you must surely know if, as you say, you are of all men living the one who is best instructed in religion.
EUTHYPHRO: And I speak the truth, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Tell me then, oh tell me--what is that fair work which the gods do by the help of our ministrations?
EUTHYPHRO: Many and fair, Socrates, are the works which they do.
SOCRATES: Why, my friend, and so are those of a general.
But the chief of them is easily told.
Would you not say that victory in war is the chief of them?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Many and fair, too, are the works of the husbandman, if I am not mistaken; but his chief work is the production of food from the earth?
EUTHYPHRO: Exactly.
SOCRATES: And of the many and fair things done by the gods, which is the chief or principal one?
EUTHYPHRO: I have told you already, Socrates, that to learn all these things accurately will be very tiresome.
Let me simply say that piety or holiness is learning how to please the gods in word and deed, by prayers and sacrifices.
Such piety is the salvation of families and states, just as the impious, which is unpleasing to the gods, is their ruin and destruction.
SOCRATES: I think that you could have answered in much fewer words the chief question which I asked, Euthyphro, if you had chosen.
But I see plainly that you are not disposed to instruct me--clearly not: else why, when we reached the point, did you turn aside?
Had you only answered me I should have truly learned of you by this time the nature of piety.
Now, as the asker of a question is necessarily dependent on the answerer, whither he leads I must follow; and can only ask again, what is the pious, and what is piety?
Do you mean that they are a sort of science of praying and sacrificing?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: And sacrificing is giving to the gods, and prayer is asking of the gods?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Upon this view, then, piety is a science of asking and giving?
EUTHYPHRO: You understand me capitally, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Yes, my friend; the reason is that I am a votary of your science, and give my mind to it, and therefore nothing which you say will be thrown away upon me.
Please then to tell me, what is the nature of this service to the gods?
Do you mean that we prefer requests and give gifts to them?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: Is not the right way of asking to ask of them what we want?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And the right way of giving is to give to them in return what they want of us.
There would be no meaning in an art which gives to any one that which he does not want.
EUTHYPHRO: Very true, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Then piety, Euthyphro, is an art which gods and men have of doing business with one another?
EUTHYPHRO: That is an expression which you may use, if you like.
SOCRATES: But I have no particular liking for anything but the truth.
I wish, however, that you would tell me what benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts.
There is no doubt about what they give to us; for there is no good thing which they do not give; but how we can give any good thing to them in return is far from being equally clear.
If they give everything and we give nothing, that must be an affair of business in which we have very greatly the advantage of them.
EUTHYPHRO: And do you imagine, Socrates, that any benefit accrues to the gods from our gifts?
SOCRATES: But if not, Euthyphro, what is the meaning of gifts which are conferred by us upon the gods?
EUTHYPHRO: What else, but tributes of honour; and, as I was just now saying, what pleases them?
SOCRATES: Piety, then, is pleasing to the gods, but not beneficial or dear to them?
EUTHYPHRO: I should say that nothing could be dearer.
SOCRATES: Then once more the assertion is repeated that piety is dear to the gods?
EUTHYPHRO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And when you say this, can you wonder at your words not standing firm, but walking away?
Will you accuse me of being the Daedalus who makes them walk away, not perceiving that there is another and far greater artist than Daedalus who makes them go round in a circle, and he is yourself; for the argument, as you will perceive, comes round to the same point.
Were we not saying that the holy or pious was not the same with that which is loved of the gods?
Have you forgotten?
EUTHYPHRO: I quite remember.
SOCRATES: And are you not saying that what is loved of the gods is holy; and is not this the same as what is dear to them--do you see?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: Then either we were wrong in our former assertion; or, if we were right then, we are wrong now.
EUTHYPHRO: One of the two must be true.
SOCRATES: Then we must begin again and ask, What is piety?
That is an enquiry which I shall never be weary of pursuing as far as in me lies; and I entreat you not to scorn me, but to apply your mind to the utmost, and tell me the truth.
For, if any man knows, you are he; and therefore I must detain you, like Proteus, until you tell.
If you had not certainly known the nature of piety and impiety, I am confident that you would never, on behalf of a serf, have charged your aged father with murder.
You would not have run such a risk of doing wrong in the sight of the gods, and you would have had too much respect for the opinions of men.
I am sure, therefore, that you know the nature of piety and impiety.
Speak out then, my dear Euthyphro, and do not hide your knowledge.
EUTHYPHRO: Another time, Socrates; for I am in a hurry, and must go now.
SOCRATES: Alas!
my companion, and will you leave me in despair?
I was hoping that you would instruct me in the nature of piety and impiety; and then I might have cleared myself of Meletus and his indictment.
I would have told him that I had been enlightened by Euthyphro, and had given up rash innovations and speculations, in which I indulged only through ignorance, and that now I am about to lead a better life.
LESSER HIPPIAS by Plato (see Appendix I) Translated by Benjamin Jowett APPENDIX I.
It seems impossible to separate by any exact line the genuine writings of Plato from the spurious.
The only external evidence to them which is of much value is that of Aristotle; for the Alexandrian catalogues of a century later include manifest forgeries.
Even the value of the Aristotelian authority is a good deal impaired by the uncertainty concerning the date and authorship of the writings which are ascribed to him.
And several of the citations of Aristotle omit the name of Plato, and some of them omit the name of the dialogue from which they are taken.
Prior, however, to the enquiry about the writings of a particular author, general considerations which equally affect all evidence to the genuineness of ancient writings are the following: Shorter works are more likely to have been forged, or to have received an erroneous designation, than longer ones; and some kinds of composition, such as epistles or panegyrical orations, are more liable to suspicion than others; those, again, which have a taste of sophistry in them, or the ring of a later age, or the slighter character of a rhetorical exercise, or in which a motive or some affinity to spurious writings can be detected, or which seem to have originated in a name or statement really occurring in some classical author, are also of doubtful credit; while there is no instance of any ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with length.
A really great and original writer would have no object in fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the 'literary hack' of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or genius.
Further, in attempting to balance the evidence for and against a Platonic dialogue, we must not forget that the form of the Platonic writing was common to several of his contemporaries.
Aeschines, Euclid, Phaedo, Antisthenes, and in the next generation Aristotle, are all said to have composed dialogues; and mistakes of names are very likely to have occurred.
Greek literature in the third century before Christ was almost as voluminous as our own, and without the safeguards of regular publication, or printing, or binding, or even of distinct titles.
An unknown writing was naturally attributed to a known writer whose works bore the same character; and the name once appended easily obtained authority.
A tendency may also be observed to blend the works and opinions of the master with those of his scholars.
To a later Platonist, the difference between Plato and his imitators was not so perceptible as to ourselves.
The Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Dialogues of Plato are but a part of a considerable Socratic literature which has passed away.
And we must consider how we should regard the question of the genuineness of a particular writing, if this lost literature had been preserved to us.
These considerations lead us to adopt the following criteria of genuineness: (1) That is most certainly Plato's which Aristotle attributes to him by name, which (2) is of considerable length, of (3) great excellence, and also (4) in harmony with the general spirit of the Platonic writings.
But the testimony of Aristotle cannot always be distinguished from that of a later age (see above); and has various degrees of importance.
Those writings which he cites without mentioning Plato, under their own names, e.g.
the Hippias, the Funeral Oration, the Phaedo, etc., have an inferior degree of evidence in their favour.
They may have been supposed by him to be the writings of another, although in the case of really great works, e.g.
the Phaedo, this is not credible; those again which are quoted but not named, are still more defective in their external credentials.
There may be also a possibility that Aristotle was mistaken, or may have confused the master and his scholars in the case of a short writing; but this is inconceivable about a more important work, e.g.
the Laws, especially when we remember that he was living at Athens, and a frequenter of the groves of the Academy, during the last twenty years of Plato's life.
Nor must we forget that in all his numerous citations from the Platonic writings he never attributes any passage found in the extant dialogues to any one but Plato.
And lastly, we may remark that one or two great writings, such as the Parmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly devoid of Aristotelian (1) credentials may be fairly attributed to Plato, on the ground of (2) length, (3) excellence, and (4) accordance with the general spirit of his writings.
Indeed the greater part of the evidence for the genuineness of ancient Greek authors may be summed up under two heads only: (1) excellence; and (2) uniformity of tradition--a kind of evidence, which though in many cases sufficient, is of inferior value.
Proceeding upon these principles we appear to arrive at the conclusion that nineteen-twentieths of all the writings which have ever been ascribed to Plato, are undoubtedly genuine.
There is another portion of them, including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected by the ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal and external evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject.
But there still remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm either that they are genuine or spurious.
They may have been written in youth, or possibly like the works of some painters, may be partly or wholly the compositions of pupils; or they may have been the writings of some contemporary transferred by accident to the more celebrated name of Plato, or of some Platonist in the next generation who aspired to imitate his master.
Not that on grounds either of language or philosophy we should lightly reject them.
Some difference of style, or inferiority of execution, or inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considered decisive of their spurious character.
For who always does justice to himself, or who writes with equal care at all times?
Certainly not Plato, who exhibits the greatest differences in dramatic power, in the formation of sentences, and in the use of words, if his earlier writings are compared with his later ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus with the Laws.
Or who can be expected to think in the same manner during a period of authorship extending over above fifty years, in an age of great intellectual activity, as well as of political and literary transition?
Certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separated from his later ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculation as that which separates his later writings from Aristotle.
The dialogues which have been translated in the first Appendix, and which appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonic writings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, the First Alcibiades.
Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Oration are cited by Aristotle; the first in the Metaphysics, the latter in the Rhetoric.
Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in his citation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in the extant dialogues.
From the mention of 'Hippias' in the singular by Aristotle, we may perhaps infer that he was unacquainted with a second dialogue bearing the same name.
Moreover, the mere existence of a Greater and Lesser Hippias, and of a First and Second Alcibiades, does to a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them.
Though a very clever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to contain anything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a careful student of the earlier Platonic writings, to invent.
The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen.
Mem., and there is no similar instance of a 'motive' which is taken from Xenophon in an undoubted dialogue of Plato.
On the other hand, the upholders of the genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of a Platonic authorship.
In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument 'whither the wind blows.'
That no conclusion is arrived at is also in accordance with the character of the earlier dialogues.
The resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot with certainty be adduced on either side of the argument.
On the whole, more may be said in favour of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it.
The Menexenus or Funeral Oration is cited by Aristotle, and is interesting as supplying an example of the manner in which the orators praised 'the Athenians among the Athenians,' falsifying persons and dates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history.
It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, and was, perhaps, intended to rival that great work.
If genuine, the proper place of the Menexenus would be at the end of the Phaedrus.
The satirical opening and the concluding words bear a great resemblance to the earlier dialogues; the oration itself is professedly a mimetic work, like the speeches in the Phaedrus, and cannot therefore be tested by a comparison of the other writings of Plato.
The funeral oration of Pericles is expressly mentioned in the Phaedrus, and this may have suggested the subject, in the same manner that the Cleitophon appears to be suggested by the slight mention of Cleitophon and his attachment to Thrasymachus in the Republic; and the Theages by the mention of Theages in the Apology and Republic; or as the Second Alcibiades seems to be founded upon the text of Xenophon, Mem.
A similar taste for parody appears not only in the Phaedrus, but in the Protagoras, in the Symposium, and to a certain extent in the Parmenides.
To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the First Alcibiades, which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has the greatest merit, and is somewhat longer than any of them, though not verified by the testimony of Aristotle, and in many respects at variance with the Symposium in the description of the relations of Socrates and Alcibiades.
Like the Lesser Hippias and the Menexenus, it is to be compared to the earlier writings of Plato.
The motive of the piece may, perhaps, be found in that passage of the Symposium in which Alcibiades describes himself as self-convicted by the words of Socrates.
For the disparaging manner in which Schleiermacher has spoken of this dialogue there seems to be no sufficient foundation.
At the same time, the lesson imparted is simple, and the irony more transparent than in the undoubted dialogues of Plato.
We know, too, that Alcibiades was a favourite thesis, and that at least five or six dialogues bearing this name passed current in antiquity, and are attributed to contemporaries of Socrates and Plato.
(1) In the entire absence of real external evidence (for the catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot be regarded as trustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks either of poetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we have express testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearing the name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on the genuineness of the extant dialogue.
Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw an absolute line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings of Plato.
They fade off imperceptibly from one class to another.
There may have been degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as there are certainly degrees of evidence by which they are supported.
The traditions of the oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may have formed the basis of semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be of the same mixed character which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates, although the form of them is different.
But the writings of Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle, seem never to have been confused with the writings of his disciples: this was probably due to their definite form, and to their inimitable excellence.
The three dialogues which we have offered in the Appendix to the criticism of the reader may be partly spurious and partly genuine; they may be altogether spurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly admitted.
Nor can we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the Parmenides, and the Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection can be urged against them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight (chiefly) of internal evidence in their favour.
Nor, on the other hand, can we exclude a bare possibility that some dialogues which are usually rejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may be genuine.
The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings require more careful study and more comparison of them with one another, and with forged writings in general, than they have yet received, before we can finally decide on their character.
We do not consider them all as genuine until they can be proved to be spurious, as is often maintained and still more often implied in this and similar discussions; but should say of some of them, that their genuineness is neither proven nor disproven until further evidence about them can be adduced.
And we are as confident that the Epistles are spurious, as that the Republic, the Timaeus, and the Laws are genuine.
On the whole, not a twentieth part of the writings which pass under the name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancients themselves and two or three other plausible inventions, can be fairly doubted by those who are willing to allow that a considerable change and growth may have taken place in his philosophy (see above).
That twentieth debatable portion scarcely in any degree affects our judgment of Plato, either as a thinker or a writer, and though suggesting some interesting questions to the scholar and critic, is of little importance to the general reader.
LESSER HIPPIAS INTRODUCTION.
The Lesser Hippias may be compared with the earlier dialogues of Plato, in which the contrast of Socrates and the Sophists is most strongly exhibited.
Hippias, like Protagoras and Gorgias, though civil, is vain and boastful: he knows all things; he can make anything, including his own clothes; he is a manufacturer of poems and declamations, and also of seal-rings, shoes, strigils; his girdle, which he has woven himself, is of a finer than Persian quality.
He is a vainer, lighter nature than the two great Sophists (compare Protag.
), but of the same character with them, and equally impatient of the short cut-and-thrust method of Socrates, whom he endeavours to draw into a long oration.
At last, he gets tired of being defeated at every point by Socrates, and is with difficulty induced to proceed (compare Thrasymachus, Protagoras, Callicles, and others, to whom the same reluctance is ascribed).
Hippias like Protagoras has common sense on his side, when he argues, citing passages of the Iliad in support of his view, that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest, Odysseus the wisest of the Greeks.
But he is easily overthrown by the superior dialectics of Socrates, who pretends to show that Achilles is not true to his word, and that no similar inconsistency is to be found in Odysseus.
Hippias replies that Achilles unintentionally, but Odysseus intentionally, speaks falsehood.
But is it better to do wrong intentionally or unintentionally?
Socrates, relying on the analogy of the arts, maintains the former, Hippias the latter of the two alternatives...All this is quite conceived in the spirit of Plato, who is very far from making Socrates always argue on the side of truth.
The over-reasoning on Homer, which is of course satirical, is also in the spirit of Plato.
Poetry turned logic is even more ridiculous than 'rhetoric turned logic,' and equally fallacious.
There were reasoners in ancient as well as in modern times, who could never receive the natural impression of Homer, or of any other book which they read.
The argument of Socrates, in which he picks out the apparent inconsistencies and discrepancies in the speech and actions of Achilles, and the final paradox, 'that he who is true is also false,' remind us of the interpretation by Socrates of Simonides in the Protagoras, and of similar reasonings in the first book of the Republic.
The discrepancies which Socrates discovers in the words of Achilles are perhaps as great as those discovered by some of the modern separatists of the Homeric poems... At last, Socrates having caught Hippias in the toils of the voluntary and involuntary, is obliged to confess that he is wandering about in the same labyrinth; he makes the reflection on himself which others would make upon him (compare Protagoras).
He does not wonder that he should be in a difficulty, but he wonders at Hippias, and he becomes sensible of the gravity of the situation, when ordinary men like himself can no longer go to the wise and be taught by them.
It may be remarked as bearing on the genuineness of this dialogue: (1) that the manners of the speakers are less subtle and refined than in the other dialogues of Plato; (2) that the sophistry of Socrates is more palpable and unblushing, and also more unmeaning; (3) that many turns of thought and style are found in it which appear also in the other dialogues:--whether resemblances of this kind tell in favour of or against the genuineness of an ancient writing, is an important question which will have to be answered differently in different cases.
For that a writer may repeat himself is as true as that a forger may imitate; and Plato elsewhere, either of set purpose or from forgetfulness, is full of repetitions.
The parallelisms of the Lesser Hippias, as already remarked, are not of the kind which necessarily imply that the dialogue is the work of a forger.
The parallelisms of the Greater Hippias with the other dialogues, and the allusion to the Lesser (where Hippias sketches the programme of his next lecture, and invites Socrates to attend and bring any friends with him who may be competent judges), are more than suspicious:--they are of a very poor sort, such as we cannot suppose to have been due to Plato himself.
The Greater Hippias more resembles the Euthydemus than any other dialogue; but is immeasurably inferior to it.
The Lesser Hippias seems to have more merit than the Greater, and to be more Platonic in spirit.
The character of Hippias is the same in both dialogues, but his vanity and boasting are even more exaggerated in the Greater Hippias.
His art of memory is specially mentioned in both.
He is an inferior type of the same species as Hippodamus of Miletus (Arist.
Pol.).
Some passages in which the Lesser Hippias may be advantageously compared with the undoubtedly genuine dialogues of Plato are the following:--Less.
Hipp.
: compare Republic (Socrates' cunning in argument): compare Laches (Socrates' feeling about arguments): compare Republic (Socrates not unthankful): compare Republic (Socrates dishonest in argument).
The Lesser Hippias, though inferior to the other dialogues, may be reasonably believed to have been written by Plato, on the ground (1) of considerable excellence; (2) of uniform tradition beginning with Aristotle and his school.
That the dialogue falls below the standard of Plato's other works, or that he has attributed to Socrates an unmeaning paradox (perhaps with the view of showing that he could beat the Sophists at their own weapons; or that he could 'make the worse appear the better cause'; or merely as a dialectical experiment)--are not sufficient reasons for doubting the genuineness of the work.
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Eudicus, Socrates, Hippias.
EUDICUS: Why are you silent, Socrates, after the magnificent display which Hippias has been making?
Why do you not either refute his words, if he seems to you to have been wrong in any point, or join with us in commending him?
There is the more reason why you should speak, because we are now alone, and the audience is confined to those who may fairly claim to take part in a philosophical discussion.
SOCRATES: I should greatly like, Eudicus, to ask Hippias the meaning of what he was saying just now about Homer.
I have heard your father, Apemantus, declare that the Iliad of Homer is a finer poem than the Odyssey in the same degree that Achilles was a better man than Odysseus; Odysseus, he would say, is the central figure of the one poem and Achilles of the other.
Now, I should like to know, if Hippias has no objection to tell me, what he thinks about these two heroes, and which of them he maintains to be the better; he has already told us in the course of his exhibition many things of various kinds about Homer and divers other poets.
EUDICUS: I am sure that Hippias will be delighted to answer anything which you would like to ask; tell me, Hippias, if Socrates asks you a question, will you answer him?
HIPPIAS: Indeed, Eudicus, I should be strangely inconsistent if I refused to answer Socrates, when at each Olympic festival, as I went up from my house at Elis to the temple of Olympia, where all the Hellenes were assembled, I continually professed my willingness to perform any of the exhibitions which I had prepared, and to answer any questions which any one had to ask.
SOCRATES: Truly, Hippias, you are to be congratulated, if at every Olympic festival you have such an encouraging opinion of your own wisdom when you go up to the temple.
I doubt whether any muscular hero would be so fearless and confident in offering his body to the combat at Olympia, as you are in offering your mind.
HIPPIAS: And with good reason, Socrates; for since the day when I first entered the lists at Olympia I have never found any man who was my superior in anything.
(Compare Gorgias.)
SOCRATES: What an ornament, Hippias, will the reputation of your wisdom be to the city of Elis and to your parents!
But to return: what say you of Odysseus and Achilles?
Which is the better of the two?
and in what particular does either surpass the other?
For when you were exhibiting and there was company in the room, though I could not follow you, I did not like to ask what you meant, because a crowd of people were present, and I was afraid that the question might interrupt your exhibition.
But now that there are not so many of us, and my friend Eudicus bids me ask, I wish you would tell me what you were saying about these two heroes, so that I may clearly understand; how did you distinguish them?
HIPPIAS: I shall have much pleasure, Socrates, in explaining to you more clearly than I could in public my views about these and also about other heroes.
I say that Homer intended Achilles to be the bravest of the men who went to Troy, Nestor the wisest, and Odysseus the wiliest.
SOCRATES: O rare Hippias, will you be so good as not to laugh, if I find a difficulty in following you, and repeat my questions several times over?
Please to answer me kindly and gently.
HIPPIAS: I should be greatly ashamed of myself, Socrates, if I, who teach others and take money of them, could not, when I was asked by you, answer in a civil and agreeable manner.
SOCRATES: Thank you: the fact is, that I seemed to understand what you meant when you said that the poet intended Achilles to be the bravest of men, and also that he intended Nestor to be the wisest; but when you said that he meant Odysseus to be the wiliest, I must confess that I could not understand what you were saying.
Will you tell me, and then I shall perhaps understand you better; has not Homer made Achilles wily?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates; he is the most straight-forward of mankind, and when Homer introduces them talking with one another in the passage called the Prayers, Achilles is supposed by the poet to say to Odysseus:-'Son of Laertes, sprung from heaven, crafty Odysseus, I will speak out plainly the word which I intend to carry out in act, and which will, I believe, be accomplished.
For I hate him like the gates of death who thinks one thing and says another.
But I will speak that which shall be accomplished.'
Now, in these verses he clearly indicates the character of the two men; he shows Achilles to be true and simple, and Odysseus to be wily and false; for he supposes Achilles to be addressing Odysseus in these lines.
SOCRATES: Now, Hippias, I think that I understand your meaning; when you say that Odysseus is wily, you clearly mean that he is false?
HIPPIAS: Exactly so, Socrates; it is the character of Odysseus, as he is represented by Homer in many passages both of the Iliad and Odyssey.
SOCRATES: And Homer must be presumed to have meant that the true man is not the same as the false?
HIPPIAS: Of course, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And is that your own opinion, Hippias?
HIPPIAS: Certainly; how can I have any other?
SOCRATES: Well, then, as there is no possibility of asking Homer what he meant in these verses of his, let us leave him; but as you show a willingness to take up his cause, and your opinion agrees with what you declare to be his, will you answer on behalf of yourself and him?
HIPPIAS: I will; ask shortly anything which you like.
SOCRATES: Do you say that the false, like the sick, have no power to do things, or that they have the power to do things?
HIPPIAS: I should say that they have power to do many things, and in particular to deceive mankind.
SOCRATES: Then, according to you, they are both powerful and wily, are they not?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And are they wily, and do they deceive by reason of their simplicity and folly, or by reason of their cunning and a certain sort of prudence?
HIPPIAS: By reason of their cunning and prudence, most certainly.
SOCRATES: Then they are prudent, I suppose?
HIPPIAS: So they are--very.
SOCRATES: And if they are prudent, do they know or do they not know what they do?
HIPPIAS: Of course, they know very well; and that is why they do mischief to others.
SOCRATES: And having this knowledge, are they ignorant, or are they wise?
HIPPIAS: Wise, certainly; at least, in so far as they can deceive.
SOCRATES: Stop, and let us recall to mind what you are saying; are you not saying that the false are powerful and prudent and knowing and wise in those things about which they are false?
HIPPIAS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: And the true differ from the false--the true and the false are the very opposite of each other?
HIPPIAS: That is my view.
SOCRATES: Then, according to your view, it would seem that the false are to be ranked in the class of the powerful and wise?
HIPPIAS: Assuredly.
SOCRATES: And when you say that the false are powerful and wise in so far as they are false, do you mean that they have or have not the power of uttering their falsehoods if they like?
HIPPIAS: I mean to say that they have the power.
SOCRATES: In a word, then, the false are they who are wise and have the power to speak falsely?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then a man who has not the power of speaking falsely and is ignorant cannot be false?
HIPPIAS: You are right.
SOCRATES: And every man has power who does that which he wishes at the time when he wishes.
I am not speaking of any special case in which he is prevented by disease or something of that sort, but I am speaking generally, as I might say of you, that you are able to write my name when you like.
Would you not call a man able who could do that?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And tell me, Hippias, are you not a skilful calculator and arithmetician?
HIPPIAS: Yes, Socrates, assuredly I am.
SOCRATES: And if some one were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, you would tell him the true answer in a moment, if you pleased?
HIPPIAS: certainly I should.
SOCRATES: Is not that because you are the wisest and ablest of men in these matters?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And being as you are the wisest and ablest of men in these matters of calculation, are you not also the best?
HIPPIAS: To be sure, Socrates, I am the best.
SOCRATES: And therefore you would be the most able to tell the truth about these matters, would you not?
HIPPIAS: Yes, I should.
SOCRATES: And could you speak falsehoods about them equally well?
I must beg, Hippias, that you will answer me with the same frankness and magnanimity which has hitherto characterized you.
If a person were to ask you what is the sum of 3 multiplied by 700, would not you be the best and most consistent teller of a falsehood, having always the power of speaking falsely as you have of speaking truly, about these same matters, if you wanted to tell a falsehood, and not to answer truly?
Would the ignorant man be better able to tell a falsehood in matters of calculation than you would be, if you chose?
Might he not sometimes stumble upon the truth, when he wanted to tell a lie, because he did not know, whereas you who are the wise man, if you wanted to tell a lie would always and consistently lie?
HIPPIAS: Yes, there you are quite right.
SOCRATES: Does the false man tell lies about other things, but not about number, or when he is making a calculation?
HIPPIAS: To be sure; he would tell as many lies about number as about other things.
SOCRATES: Then may we further assume, Hippias, that there are men who are false about calculation and number?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Who can they be?
For you have already admitted that he who is false must have the ability to be false: you said, as you will remember, that he who is unable to be false will not be false?
HIPPIAS: Yes, I remember; it was so said.
SOCRATES: And were you not yourself just now shown to be best able to speak falsely about calculation?
HIPPIAS: Yes; that was another thing which was said.
SOCRATES: And are you not likewise said to speak truly about calculation?
HIPPIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Then the same person is able to speak both falsely and truly about calculation?
And that person is he who is good at calculation--the arithmetician?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Who, then, Hippias, is discovered to be false at calculation?
Is he not the good man?
For the good man is the able man, and he is the true man.
HIPPIAS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: Do you not see, then, that the same man is false and also true about the same matters?
And the true man is not a whit better than the false; for indeed he is the same with him and not the very opposite, as you were just now imagining.
HIPPIAS: Not in that instance, clearly.
SOCRATES: Shall we examine other instances?
HIPPIAS: Certainly, if you are disposed.
SOCRATES: Are you not also skilled in geometry?
HIPPIAS: I am.
SOCRATES: Well, and does not the same hold in that science also?
Is not the same person best able to speak falsely or to speak truly about diagrams; and he is--the geometrician?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: He and no one else is good at it?
HIPPIAS: Yes, he and no one else.
SOCRATES: Then the good and wise geometer has this double power in the highest degree; and if there be a man who is false about diagrams the good man will be he, for he is able to be false; whereas the bad is unable, and for this reason is not false, as has been admitted.
HIPPIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Once more--let us examine a third case; that of the astronomer, in whose art, again, you, Hippias, profess to be a still greater proficient than in the preceding--do you not?
HIPPIAS: Yes, I am.
SOCRATES: And does not the same hold of astronomy?
HIPPIAS: True, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And in astronomy, too, if any man be able to speak falsely he will be the good astronomer, but he who is not able will not speak falsely, for he has no knowledge.
HIPPIAS: Clearly not.
SOCRATES: Then in astronomy also, the same man will be true and false?
HIPPIAS: It would seem so.
SOCRATES: And now, Hippias, consider the question at large about all the sciences, and see whether the same principle does not always hold.
I know that in most arts you are the wisest of men, as I have heard you boasting in the agora at the tables of the money-changers, when you were setting forth the great and enviable stores of your wisdom; and you said that upon one occasion, when you went to the Olympic games, all that you had on your person was made by yourself.
You began with your ring, which was of your own workmanship, and you said that you could engrave rings; and you had another seal which was also of your own workmanship, and a strigil and an oil flask, which you had made yourself; you said also that you had made the shoes which you had on your feet, and the cloak and the short tunic; but what appeared to us all most extraordinary and a proof of singular art, was the girdle of your tunic, which, you said, was as fine as the most costly Persian fabric, and of your own weaving; moreover, you told us that you had brought with you poems, epic, tragic, and dithyrambic, as well as prose writings of the most various kinds; and you said that your skill was also pre-eminent in the arts which I was just now mentioning, and in the true principles of rhythm and harmony and of orthography; and if I remember rightly, there were a great many other accomplishments in which you excelled.
I have forgotten to mention your art of memory, which you regard as your special glory, and I dare say that I have forgotten many other things; but, as I was saying, only look to your own arts--and there are plenty of them--and to those of others; and tell me, having regard to the admissions which you and I have made, whether you discover any department of art or any description of wisdom or cunning, whichever name you use, in which the true and false are different and not the same: tell me, if you can, of any.
But you cannot.
HIPPIAS: Not without consideration, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Nor will consideration help you, Hippias, as I believe; but then if I am right, remember what the consequence will be.
HIPPIAS: I do not know what you mean, Socrates.
SOCRATES: I suppose that you are not using your art of memory, doubtless because you think that such an accomplishment is not needed on the present occasion.
I will therefore remind you of what you were saying: were you not saying that Achilles was a true man, and Odysseus false and wily?
HIPPIAS: I was.
SOCRATES: And now do you perceive that the same person has turned out to be false as well as true?
If Odysseus is false he is also true, and if Achilles is true he is also false, and so the two men are not opposed to one another, but they are alike.
HIPPIAS: O Socrates, you are always weaving the meshes of an argument, selecting the most difficult point, and fastening upon details instead of grappling with the matter in hand as a whole.
Come now, and I will demonstrate to you, if you will allow me, by many satisfactory proofs, that Homer has made Achilles a better man than Odysseus, and a truthful man too; and that he has made the other crafty, and a teller of many untruths, and inferior to Achilles.
And then, if you please, you shall make a speech on the other side, in order to prove that Odysseus is the better man; and this may be compared to mine, and then the company will know which of us is the better speaker.
SOCRATES: O Hippias, I do not doubt that you are wiser than I am.
But I have a way, when anybody else says anything, of giving close attention to him, especially if the speaker appears to me to be a wise man.
Having a desire to understand, I question him, and I examine and analyse and put together what he says, in order that I may understand; but if the speaker appears to me to be a poor hand, I do not interrogate him, or trouble myself about him, and you may know by this who they are whom I deem to be wise men, for you will see that when I am talking with a wise man, I am very attentive to what he says; and I ask questions of him, in order that I may learn, and be improved by him.
And I could not help remarking while you were speaking, that when you recited the verses in which Achilles, as you argued, attacks Odysseus as a deceiver, that you must be strangely mistaken, because Odysseus, the man of wiles, is never found to tell a lie; but Achilles is found to be wily on your own showing.
At any rate he speaks falsely; for first he utters these words, which you just now repeated,-'He is hateful to me even as the gates of death who thinks one thing and says another:'-And then he says, a little while afterwards, he will not be persuaded by Odysseus and Agamemnon, neither will he remain at Troy; but, says he,-'To-morrow, when I have offered sacrifices to Zeus and all the Gods, having loaded my ships well, I will drag them down into the deep; and then you shall see, if you have a mind, and if such things are a care to you, early in the morning my ships sailing over the fishy Hellespont, and my men eagerly plying the oar; and, if the illustrious shaker of the earth gives me a good voyage, on the third day I shall reach the fertile Phthia.'
And before that, when he was reviling Agamemnon, he said,-'And now to Phthia I will go, since to return home in the beaked ships is far better, nor am I inclined to stay here in dishonour and amass wealth and riches for you.'
But although on that occasion, in the presence of the whole army, he spoke after this fashion, and on the other occasion to his companions, he appears never to have made any preparation or attempt to draw down the ships, as if he had the least intention of sailing home; so nobly regardless was he of the truth.
Now I, Hippias, originally asked you the question, because I was in doubt as to which of the two heroes was intended by the poet to be the best, and because I thought that both of them were the best, and that it would be difficult to decide which was the better of them, not only in respect of truth and falsehood, but of virtue generally, for even in this matter of speaking the truth they are much upon a par.
HIPPIAS: There you are wrong, Socrates; for in so far as Achilles speaks falsely, the falsehood is obviously unintentional.
He is compelled against his will to remain and rescue the army in their misfortune.
But when Odysseus speaks falsely he is voluntarily and intentionally false.
SOCRATES: You, sweet Hippias, like Odysseus, are a deceiver yourself.
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates; what makes you say so?
SOCRATES: Because you say that Achilles does not speak falsely from design, when he is not only a deceiver, but besides being a braggart, in Homer's description of him is so cunning, and so far superior to Odysseus in lying and pretending, that he dares to contradict himself, and Odysseus does not find him out; at any rate he does not appear to say anything to him which would imply that he perceived his falsehood.
HIPPIAS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Did you not observe that afterwards, when he is speaking to Odysseus, he says that he will sail away with the early dawn; but to Ajax he tells quite a different story?
HIPPIAS: Where is that?
SOCRATES: Where he says,-'I will not think about bloody war until the son of warlike Priam, illustrious Hector, comes to the tents and ships of the Myrmidons, slaughtering the Argives, and burning the ships with fire; and about my tent and dark ship, I suspect that Hector, although eager for the battle, will nevertheless stay his hand.'
Now, do you really think, Hippias, that the son of Thetis, who had been the pupil of the sage Cheiron, had such a bad memory, or would have carried the art of lying to such an extent (when he had been assailing liars in the most violent terms only the instant before) as to say to Odysseus that he would sail away, and to Ajax that he would remain, and that he was not rather practising upon the simplicity of Odysseus, whom he regarded as an ancient, and thinking that he would get the better of him by his own cunning and falsehood?
HIPPIAS: No, I do not agree with you, Socrates; but I believe that Achilles is induced to say one thing to Ajax, and another to Odysseus in the innocence of his heart, whereas Odysseus, whether he speaks falsely or truly, speaks always with a purpose.
SOCRATES: Then Odysseus would appear after all to be better than Achilles?
HIPPIAS: Certainly not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Why, were not the voluntary liars only just now shown to be better than the involuntary?
HIPPIAS: And how, Socrates, can those who intentionally err, and voluntarily and designedly commit iniquities, be better than those who err and do wrong involuntarily?
Surely there is a great excuse to be made for a man telling a falsehood, or doing an injury or any sort of harm to another in ignorance.
And the laws are obviously far more severe on those who lie or do evil, voluntarily, than on those who do evil involuntarily.
SOCRATES: You see, Hippias, as I have already told you, how pertinacious I am in asking questions of wise men.
And I think that this is the only good point about me, for I am full of defects, and always getting wrong in some way or other.
My deficiency is proved to me by the fact that when I meet one of you who are famous for wisdom, and to whose wisdom all the Hellenes are witnesses, I am found out to know nothing.
For speaking generally, I hardly ever have the same opinion about anything which you have, and what proof of ignorance can be greater than to differ from wise men?
But I have one singular good quality, which is my salvation; I am not ashamed to learn, and I ask and enquire, and am very grateful to those who answer me, and never fail to give them my grateful thanks; and when I learn a thing I never deny my teacher, or pretend that the lesson is a discovery of my own; but I praise his wisdom, and proclaim what I have learned from him.
And now I cannot agree in what you are saying, but I strongly disagree.
Well, I know that this is my own fault, and is a defect in my character, but I will not pretend to be more than I am; and my opinion, Hippias, is the very contrary of what you are saying.
For I maintain that those who hurt or injure mankind, and speak falsely and deceive, and err voluntarily, are better far than those who do wrong involuntarily.
Sometimes, however, I am of the opposite opinion; for I am all abroad in my ideas about this matter, a condition obviously occasioned by ignorance.
And just now I happen to be in a crisis of my disorder at which those who err voluntarily appear to me better than those who err involuntarily.
My present state of mind is due to our previous argument, which inclines me to believe that in general those who do wrong involuntarily are worse than those who do wrong voluntarily, and therefore I hope that you will be good to me, and not refuse to heal me; for you will do me a much greater benefit if you cure my soul of ignorance, than you would if you were to cure my body of disease.
I must, however, tell you beforehand, that if you make a long oration to me you will not cure me, for I shall not be able to follow you; but if you will answer me, as you did just now, you will do me a great deal of good, and I do not think that you will be any the worse yourself.
And I have some claim upon you also, O son of Apemantus, for you incited me to converse with Hippias; and now, if Hippias will not answer me, you must entreat him on my behalf.
EUDICUS: But I do not think, Socrates, that Hippias will require any entreaty of mine; for he has already said that he will refuse to answer no man.--Did you not say so, Hippias?
HIPPIAS: Yes, I did; but then, Eudicus, Socrates is always troublesome in an argument, and appears to be dishonest.
(Compare Gorgias; Republic.)
SOCRATES: Excellent Hippias, I do not do so intentionally (if I did, it would show me to be a wise man and a master of wiles, as you would argue), but unintentionally, and therefore you must pardon me; for, as you say, he who is unintentionally dishonest should be pardoned.
EUDICUS: Yes, Hippias, do as he says; and for our sake, and also that you may not belie your profession, answer whatever Socrates asks you.
HIPPIAS: I will answer, as you request me; and do you ask whatever you like.
SOCRATES: I am very desirous, Hippias, of examining this question, as to which are the better--those who err voluntarily or involuntarily?
And if you will answer me, I think that I can put you in the way of approaching the subject: You would admit, would you not, that there are good runners?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And there are bad runners?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who runs well is a good runner, and he who runs ill is a bad runner?
HIPPIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And he who runs slowly runs ill, and he who runs quickly runs well?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then in a race, and in running, swiftness is a good, and slowness is an evil quality?
HIPPIAS: To be sure.
SOCRATES: Which of the two then is a better runner?
He who runs slowly voluntarily, or he who runs slowly involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: He who runs slowly voluntarily.
SOCRATES: And is not running a species of doing?
HIPPIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And if a species of doing, a species of action?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then he who runs badly does a bad and dishonourable action in a race?
HIPPIAS: Yes; a bad action, certainly.
SOCRATES: And he who runs slowly runs badly?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the good runner does this bad and disgraceful action voluntarily, and the bad involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: That is to be inferred.
SOCRATES: Then he who involuntarily does evil actions, is worse in a race than he who does them voluntarily?
HIPPIAS: Yes, in a race.
SOCRATES: Well, but at a wrestling match--which is the better wrestler, he who falls voluntarily or involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: He who falls voluntarily, doubtless.
SOCRATES: And is it worse or more dishonourable at a wrestling match, to fall, or to throw another?
HIPPIAS: To fall.
SOCRATES: Then, at a wrestling match, he who voluntarily does base and dishonourable actions is a better wrestler than he who does them involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: That appears to be the truth.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of any other bodily exercise--is not he who is better made able to do both that which is strong and that which is weak--that which is fair and that which is foul?--so that when he does bad actions with the body, he who is better made does them voluntarily, and he who is worse made does them involuntarily.
HIPPIAS: Yes, that appears to be true about strength.
SOCRATES: And what do you say about grace, Hippias?
Is not he who is better made able to assume evil and disgraceful figures and postures voluntarily, as he who is worse made assumes them involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Then voluntary ungracefulness comes from excellence of the bodily frame, and involuntary from the defect of the bodily frame?
HIPPIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of an unmusical voice; would you prefer the voice which is voluntarily or involuntarily out of tune?
HIPPIAS: That which is voluntarily out of tune.
SOCRATES: The involuntary is the worse of the two?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you choose to possess goods or evils?
HIPPIAS: Goods.
SOCRATES: And would you rather have feet which are voluntarily or involuntarily lame?
HIPPIAS: Feet which are voluntarily lame.
SOCRATES: But is not lameness a defect or deformity?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is not blinking a defect in the eyes?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you rather always have eyes with which you might voluntarily blink and not see, or with which you might involuntarily blink?
HIPPIAS: I would rather have eyes which voluntarily blink.
SOCRATES: Then in your own case you deem that which voluntarily acts ill, better than that which involuntarily acts ill?
HIPPIAS: Yes, certainly, in cases such as you mention.
SOCRATES: And does not the same hold of ears, nostrils, mouth, and of all the senses--those which involuntarily act ill are not to be desired, as being defective; and those which voluntarily act ill are to be desired as being good?
HIPPIAS: I agree.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of instruments;--which are the better sort of instruments to have to do with?--those with which a man acts ill voluntarily or involuntarily?
For example, had a man better have a rudder with which he will steer ill, voluntarily or involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: He had better have a rudder with which he will steer ill voluntarily.
SOCRATES: And does not the same hold of the bow and the lyre, the flute and all other things?
HIPPIAS: Very true.
SOCRATES: And would you rather have a horse of such a temper that you may ride him ill voluntarily or involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: I would rather have a horse which I could ride ill voluntarily.
SOCRATES: That would be the better horse?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then with a horse of better temper, vicious actions would be produced voluntarily; and with a horse of bad temper involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And that would be true of a dog, or of any other animal?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is it better to possess the mind of an archer who voluntarily or involuntarily misses the mark?
HIPPIAS: Of him who voluntarily misses.
SOCRATES: This would be the better mind for the purposes of archery?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the mind which involuntarily errs is worse than the mind which errs voluntarily?
HIPPIAS: Yes, certainly, in the use of the bow.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of the art of medicine;--has not the mind which voluntarily works harm to the body, more of the healing art?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then in the art of medicine the voluntary is better than the involuntary?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, and in lute-playing and in flute-playing, and in all arts and sciences, is not that mind the better which voluntarily does what is evil and dishonourable, and goes wrong, and is not the worse that which does so involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: That is evident.
SOCRATES: And what would you say of the characters of slaves?
Should we not prefer to have those who voluntarily do wrong and make mistakes, and are they not better in their mistakes than those who commit them involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And should we not desire to have our own minds in the best state possible?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And will our minds be better if they do wrong and make mistakes voluntarily or involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: O, Socrates, it would be a monstrous thing to say that those who do wrong voluntarily are better than those who do wrong involuntarily!
SOCRATES: And yet that appears to be the only inference.
HIPPIAS: I do not think so.
SOCRATES: But I imagined, Hippias, that you did.
Please to answer once more: Is not justice a power, or knowledge, or both?
Must not justice, at all events, be one of these?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But if justice is a power of the soul, then the soul which has the greater power is also the more just; for that which has the greater power, my good friend, has been proved by us to be the better.
HIPPIAS: Yes, that has been proved.
SOCRATES: And if justice is knowledge, then the wiser will be the juster soul, and the more ignorant the more unjust?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: But if justice be power as well as knowledge--then will not the soul which has both knowledge and power be the more just, and that which is the more ignorant be the more unjust?
Must it not be so?
HIPPIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And is not the soul which has the greater power and wisdom also better, and better able to do both good and evil in every action?
HIPPIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: The soul, then, which acts ill, acts voluntarily by power and art--and these either one or both of them are elements of justice?
HIPPIAS: That seems to be true.
SOCRATES: And to do injustice is to do ill, and not to do injustice is to do well?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And will not the better and abler soul when it does wrong, do wrong voluntarily, and the bad soul involuntarily?
HIPPIAS: Clearly.
SOCRATES: And the good man is he who has the good soul, and the bad man is he who has the bad?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then the good man will voluntarily do wrong, and the bad man involuntarily, if the good man is he who has the good soul?
HIPPIAS: Which he certainly has.
SOCRATES: Then, Hippias, he who voluntarily does wrong and disgraceful things, if there be such a man, will be the good man?
HIPPIAS: There I cannot agree with you.
SOCRATES: Nor can I agree with myself, Hippias; and yet that seems to be the conclusion which, as far as we can see at present, must follow from our argument.
As I was saying before, I am all abroad, and being in perplexity am always changing my opinion.
Now, that I or any ordinary man should wander in perplexity is not surprising; but if you wise men also wander, and we cannot come to you and rest from our wandering, the matter begins to be serious both to us and to you.
The Categories By Aristotle Translated by E. M. Edghill Section 1 Part 1 Things are said to be named 'equivocally' when, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each.
Thus, a real man and a figure in a picture can both lay claim to the name 'animal'; yet these are equivocally so named, for, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each.
For should any one define in what sense each is an animal, his definition in the one case will be appropriate to that case only.
On the other hand, things are said to be named 'univocally' which have both the name and the definition answering to the name in common.
A man and an ox are both 'animal', and these are univocally so named, inasmuch as not only the name, but also the definition, is the same in both cases: for if a man should state in what sense each is an animal, the statement in the one case would be identical with that in the other.
Things are said to be named 'derivatively', which derive their name from some other name, but differ from it in termination.
Thus the grammarian derives his name from the word 'grammar', and the courageous man from the word 'courage'.
Part 2 Forms of speech are either simple or composite.
Examples of the latter are such expressions as 'the man runs', 'the man wins'; of the former 'man', 'ox', 'runs', 'wins'.
Of things themselves some are predicable of a subject, and are never present in a subject.
Thus 'man' is predicable of the individual man, and is never present in a subject.
By being 'present in a subject' I do not mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject.
Some things, again, are present in a subject, but are never predicable of a subject.
For instance, a certain point of grammatical knowledge is present in the mind, but is not predicable of any subject; or again, a certain whiteness may be present in the body (for colour requires a material basis), yet it is never predicable of anything.
Other things, again, are both predicable of a subject and present in a subject.
Thus while knowledge is present in the human mind, it is predicable of grammar.
There is, lastly, a class of things which are neither present in a subject nor predicable of a subject, such as the individual man or the individual horse.
But, to speak more generally, that which is individual and has the character of a unit is never predicable of a subject.
Yet in some cases there is nothing to prevent such being present in a subject.
Thus a certain point of grammatical knowledge is present in a subject.
Part 3 When one thing is predicated of another, all that which is predicable of the predicate will be predicable also of the subject.
Thus, 'man' is predicated of the individual man; but 'animal' is predicated of 'man'; it will, therefore, be predicable of the individual man also: for the individual man is both 'man' and 'animal'.
If genera are different and co-ordinate, their differentiae are themselves different in kind.
Take as an instance the genus 'animal' and the genus 'knowledge'.
'With feet', 'two-footed', 'winged', 'aquatic', are differentiae of 'animal'; the species of knowledge are not distinguished by the same differentiae.
One species of knowledge does not differ from another in being 'two-footed'.
But where one genus is subordinate to another, there is nothing to prevent their having the same differentiae: for the greater class is predicated of the lesser, so that all the differentiae of the predicate will be differentiae also of the subject.
Part 4 Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or affection.
To sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are 'man' or 'the horse', of quantity, such terms as 'two cubits long' or 'three cubits long', of quality, such attributes as 'white', 'grammatical'.
'Double', 'half', 'greater', fall under the category of relation; 'in the market place', 'in the Lyceum', under that of place; 'yesterday', 'last year', under that of time.
'Lying', 'sitting', are terms indicating position, 'shod', 'armed', state; 'to lance', 'to cauterize', action; 'to be lanced', 'to be cauterized', affection.
No one of these terms, in and by itself, involves an affirmation; it is by the combination of such terms that positive or negative statements arise.
For every assertion must, as is admitted, be either true or false, whereas expressions which are not in any way composite such as 'man', 'white', 'runs', 'wins', cannot be either true or false.
Part 5 Substance, in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance, the individual man or horse.
But in a secondary sense those things are called substances within which, as species, the primary substances are included; also those which, as genera, include the species.
For instance, the individual man is included in the species 'man', and the genus to which the species belongs is 'animal'; these, therefore--that is to say, the species 'man' and the genus 'animal,-are termed secondary substances.
It is plain from what has been said that both the name and the definition of the predicate must be predicable of the subject.
For instance, 'man' is predicated of the individual man.
Now in this case the name of the species 'man' is applied to the individual, for we use the term 'man' in describing the individual; and the definition of 'man' will also be predicated of the individual man, for the individual man is both man and animal.
Thus, both the name and the definition of the species are predicable of the individual.
With regard, on the other hand, to those things which are present in a subject, it is generally the case that neither their name nor their definition is predicable of that in which they are present.
Though, however, the definition is never predicable, there is nothing in certain cases to prevent the name being used.
For instance, 'white' being present in a body is predicated of that in which it is present, for a body is called white: the definition, however, of the colour 'white' is never predicable of the body.
Everything except primary substances is either predicable of a primary substance or present in a primary substance.
This becomes evident by reference to particular instances which occur.
'Animal' is predicated of the species 'man', therefore of the individual man, for if there were no individual man of whom it could be predicated, it could not be predicated of the species 'man' at all.
Again, colour is present in body, therefore in individual bodies, for if there were no individual body in which it was present, it could not be present in body at all.
Thus everything except primary substances is either predicated of primary substances, or is present in them, and if these last did not exist, it would be impossible for anything else to exist.
Of secondary substances, the species is more truly substance than the genus, being more nearly related to primary substance.
For if any one should render an account of what a primary substance is, he would render a more instructive account, and one more proper to the subject, by stating the species than by stating the genus.
Thus, he would give a more instructive account of an individual man by stating that he was man than by stating that he was animal, for the former description is peculiar to the individual in a greater degree, while the latter is too general.
Again, the man who gives an account of the nature of an individual tree will give a more instructive account by mentioning the species 'tree' than by mentioning the genus 'plant'.
Moreover, primary substances are most properly called substances in virtue of the fact that they are the entities which underlie everything else, and that everything else is either predicated of them or present in them.
Now the same relation which subsists between primary substance and everything else subsists also between the species and the genus: for the species is to the genus as subject is to predicate, since the genus is predicated of the species, whereas the species cannot be predicated of the genus.
Thus we have a second ground for asserting that the species is more truly substance than the genus.
Of species themselves, except in the case of such as are genera, no one is more truly substance than another.
We should not give a more appropriate account of the individual man by stating the species to which he belonged, than we should of an individual horse by adopting the same method of definition.
In the same way, of primary substances, no one is more truly substance than another; an individual man is not more truly substance than an individual ox.
It is, then, with good reason that of all that remains, when we exclude primary substances, we concede to species and genera alone the name 'secondary substance', for these alone of all the predicates convey a knowledge of primary substance.
For it is by stating the species or the genus that we appropriately define any individual man; and we shall make our definition more exact by stating the former than by stating the latter.
All other things that we state, such as that he is white, that he runs, and so on, are irrelevant to the definition.
Thus it is just that these alone, apart from primary substances, should be called substances.
Further, primary substances are most properly so called, because they underlie and are the subjects of everything else.
Now the same relation that subsists between primary substance and everything else subsists also between the species and the genus to which the primary substance belongs, on the one hand, and every attribute which is not included within these, on the other.
For these are the subjects of all such.
If we call an individual man 'skilled in grammar', the predicate is applicable also to the species and to the genus to which he belongs.
This law holds good in all cases.
It is a common characteristic of all substance that it is never present in a subject.
For primary substance is neither present in a subject nor predicated of a subject; while, with regard to secondary substances, it is clear from the following arguments (apart from others) that they are not present in a subject.
For 'man' is predicated of the individual man, but is not present in any subject: for manhood is not present in the individual man.
In the same way, 'animal' is also predicated of the individual man, but is not present in him.
Again, when a thing is present in a subject, though the name may quite well be applied to that in which it is present, the definition cannot be applied.
Yet of secondary substances, not only the name, but also the definition, applies to the subject: we should use both the definition of the species and that of the genus with reference to the individual man.
Thus substance cannot be present in a subject.
Yet this is not peculiar to substance, for it is also the case that differentiae cannot be present in subjects.
The characteristics 'terrestrial' and 'two-footed' are predicated of the species 'man', but not present in it.
For they are not in man.
Moreover, the definition of the differentia may be predicated of that of which the differentia itself is predicated.
For instance, if the characteristic 'terrestrial' is predicated of the species 'man', the definition also of that characteristic may be used to form the predicate of the species 'man': for 'man' is terrestrial.
The fact that the parts of substances appear to be present in the whole, as in a subject, should not make us apprehensive lest we should have to admit that such parts are not substances: for in explaining the phrase 'being present in a subject', we stated' that we meant 'otherwise than as parts in a whole'.
It is the mark of substances and of differentiae that, in all propositions of which they form the predicate, they are predicated univocally.
For all such propositions have for their subject either the individual or the species.
It is true that, inasmuch as primary substance is not predicable of anything, it can never form the predicate of any proposition.
But of secondary substances, the species is predicated of the individual, the genus both of the species and of the individual.
Similarly the differentiae are predicated of the species and of the individuals.
Moreover, the definition of the species and that of the genus are applicable to the primary substance, and that of the genus to the species.
For all that is predicated of the predicate will be predicated also of the subject.
Similarly, the definition of the differentiae will be applicable to the species and to the individuals.
But it was stated above that the word 'univocal' was applied to those things which had both name and definition in common.
It is, therefore, established that in every proposition, of which either substance or a differentia forms the predicate, these are predicated univocally.
All substance appears to signify that which is individual.
In the case of primary substance this is indisputably true, for the thing is a unit.
In the case of secondary substances, when we speak, for instance, of 'man' or 'animal', our form of speech gives the impression that we are here also indicating that which is individual, but the impression is not strictly true; for a secondary substance is not an individual, but a class with a certain qualification; for it is not one and single as a primary substance is; the words 'man', 'animal', are predicable of more than one subject.
Yet species and genus do not merely indicate quality, like the term 'white'; 'white' indicates quality and nothing further, but species and genus determine the quality with reference to a substance: they signify substance qualitatively differentiated.
The determinate qualification covers a larger field in the case of the genus that in that of the species: he who uses the word 'animal' is herein using a word of wider extension than he who uses the word 'man'.
Another mark of substance is that it has no contrary.
What could be the contrary of any primary substance, such as the individual man or animal?
It has none.
Nor can the species or the genus have a contrary.
Yet this characteristic is not peculiar to substance, but is true of many other things, such as quantity.
There is nothing that forms the contrary of 'two cubits long' or of 'three cubits long', or of 'ten', or of any such term.
A man may contend that 'much' is the contrary of 'little', or 'great' of 'small', but of definite quantitative terms no contrary exists.
Substance, again, does not appear to admit of variation of degree.
I do not mean by this that one substance cannot be more or less truly substance than another, for it has already been stated that this is the case; but that no single substance admits of varying degrees within itself.
For instance, one particular substance, 'man', cannot be more or less man either than himself at some other time or than some other man.
One man cannot be more man than another, as that which is white may be more or less white than some other white object, or as that which is beautiful may be more or less beautiful than some other beautiful object.
The same quality, moreover, is said to subsist in a thing in varying degrees at different times.
A body, being white, is said to be whiter at one time than it was before, or, being warm, is said to be warmer or less warm than at some other time.
But substance is not said to be more or less that which it is: a man is not more truly a man at one time than he was before, nor is anything, if it is substance, more or less what it is.
Substance, then, does not admit of variation of degree.
The most distinctive mark of substance appears to be that, while remaining numerically one and the same, it is capable of admitting contrary qualities.
From among things other than substance, we should find ourselves unable to bring forward any which possessed this mark.
Thus, one and the same colour cannot be white and black.
Nor can the same one action be good and bad: this law holds good with everything that is not substance.
But one and the selfsame substance, while retaining its identity, is yet capable of admitting contrary qualities.
The same individual person is at one time white, at another black, at one time warm, at another cold, at one time good, at another bad.
This capacity is found nowhere else, though it might be maintained that a statement or opinion was an exception to the rule.
The same statement, it is agreed, can be both true and false.
For if the statement 'he is sitting' is true, yet, when the person in question has risen, the same statement will be false.
The same applies to opinions.
For if any one thinks truly that a person is sitting, yet, when that person has risen, this same opinion, if still held, will be false.
Yet although this exception may be allowed, there is, nevertheless, a difference in the manner in which the thing takes place.
It is by themselves changing that substances admit contrary qualities.
It is thus that that which was hot becomes cold, for it has entered into a different state.
Similarly that which was white becomes black, and that which was bad good, by a process of change; and in the same way in all other cases it is by changing that substances are capable of admitting contrary qualities.
But statements and opinions themselves remain unaltered in all respects: it is by the alteration in the facts of the case that the contrary quality comes to be theirs.
The statement 'he is sitting' remains unaltered, but it is at one time true, at another false, according to circumstances.
What has been said of statements applies also to opinions.
Thus, in respect of the manner in which the thing takes place, it is the peculiar mark of substance that it should be capable of admitting contrary qualities; for it is by itself changing that it does so.
If, then, a man should make this exception and contend that statements and opinions are capable of admitting contrary qualities, his contention is unsound.
For statements and opinions are said to have this capacity, not because they themselves undergo modification, but because this modification occurs in the case of something else.
The truth or falsity of a statement depends on facts, and not on any power on the part of the statement itself of admitting contrary qualities.
In short, there is nothing which can alter the nature of statements and opinions.
As, then, no change takes place in themselves, these cannot be said to be capable of admitting contrary qualities.
But it is by reason of the modification which takes place within the substance itself that a substance is said to be capable of admitting contrary qualities; for a substance admits within itself either disease or health, whiteness or blackness.
It is in this sense that it is said to be capable of admitting contrary qualities.
To sum up, it is a distinctive mark of substance, that, while remaining numerically one and the same, it is capable of admitting contrary qualities, the modification taking place through a change in the substance itself.
Let these remarks suffice on the subject of substance.
Part 6 Quantity is either discrete or continuous.
Moreover, some quantities are such that each part of the whole has a relative position to the other parts: others have within them no such relation of part to part.
Instances of discrete quantities are number and speech; of continuous, lines, surfaces, solids, and, besides these, time and place.
In the case of the parts of a number, there is no common boundary at which they join.
For example: two fives make ten, but the two fives have no common boundary, but are separate; the parts three and seven also do not join at any boundary.
Nor, to generalize, would it ever be possible in the case of number that there should be a common boundary among the parts; they are always separate.
Number, therefore, is a discrete quantity.
The same is true of speech.
That speech is a quantity is evident: for it is measured in long and short syllables.
I mean here that speech which is vocal.
Moreover, it is a discrete quantity for its parts have no common boundary.
There is no common boundary at which the syllables join, but each is separate and distinct from the rest.
A line, on the other hand, is a continuous quantity, for it is possible to find a common boundary at which its parts join.
In the case of the line, this common boundary is the point; in the case of the plane, it is the line: for the parts of the plane have also a common boundary.
Similarly you can find a common boundary in the case of the parts of a solid, namely either a line or a plane.
Space and time also belong to this class of quantities.
Time, past, present, and future, forms a continuous whole.
Space, likewise, is a continuous quantity; for the parts of a solid occupy a certain space, and these have a common boundary; it follows that the parts of space also, which are occupied by the parts of the solid, have the same common boundary as the parts of the solid.
Thus, not only time, but space also, is a continuous quantity, for its parts have a common boundary.
Quantities consist either of parts which bear a relative position each to each, or of parts which do not.
The parts of a line bear a relative position to each other, for each lies somewhere, and it would be possible to distinguish each, and to state the position of each on the plane and to explain to what sort of part among the rest each was contiguous.
Similarly the parts of a plane have position, for it could similarly be stated what was the position of each and what sort of parts were contiguous.
The same is true with regard to the solid and to space.
But it would be impossible to show that the parts of a number had a relative position each to each, or a particular position, or to state what parts were contiguous.
Nor could this be done in the case of time, for none of the parts of time has an abiding existence, and that which does not abide can hardly have position.
It would be better to say that such parts had a relative order, in virtue of one being prior to another.
Similarly with number: in counting, 'one' is prior to 'two', and 'two' to 'three', and thus the parts of number may be said to possess a relative order, though it would be impossible to discover any distinct position for each.
This holds good also in the case of speech.
None of its parts has an abiding existence: when once a syllable is pronounced, it is not possible to retain it, so that, naturally, as the parts do not abide, they cannot have position.
Thus, some quantities consist of parts which have position, and some of those which have not.
Strictly speaking, only the things which I have mentioned belong to the category of quantity: everything else that is called quantitative is a quantity in a secondary sense.
It is because we have in mind some one of these quantities, properly so called, that we apply quantitative terms to other things.
We speak of what is white as large, because the surface over which the white extends is large; we speak of an action or a process as lengthy, because the time covered is long; these things cannot in their own right claim the quantitative epithet.
For instance, should any one explain how long an action was, his statement would be made in terms of the time taken, to the effect that it lasted a year, or something of that sort.
In the same way, he would explain the size of a white object in terms of surface, for he would state the area which it covered.
Thus the things already mentioned, and these alone, are in their intrinsic nature quantities; nothing else can claim the name in its own right, but, if at all, only in a secondary sense.
Quantities have no contraries.
In the case of definite quantities this is obvious; thus, there is nothing that is the contrary of 'two cubits long' or of 'three cubits long', or of a surface, or of any such quantities.
A man might, indeed, argue that 'much' was the contrary of 'little', and 'great' of 'small'.
But these are not quantitative, but relative; things are not great or small absolutely, they are so called rather as the result of an act of comparison.
For instance, a mountain is called small, a grain large, in virtue of the fact that the latter is greater than others of its kind, the former less.
Thus there is a reference here to an external standard, for if the terms 'great' and 'small' were used absolutely, a mountain would never be called small or a grain large.
Again, we say that there are many people in a village, and few in Athens, although those in the city are many times as numerous as those in the village: or we say that a house has many in it, and a theatre few, though those in the theatre far outnumber those in the house.
The terms 'two cubits long', 'three cubits long', and so on indicate quantity, the terms 'great' and 'small' indicate relation, for they have reference to an external standard.
It is, therefore, plain that these are to be classed as relative.
Again, whether we define them as quantitative or not, they have no contraries: for how can there be a contrary of an attribute which is not to be apprehended in or by itself, but only by reference to something external?
Again, if 'great' and 'small' are contraries, it will come about that the same subject can admit contrary qualities at one and the same time, and that things will themselves be contrary to themselves.
For it happens at times that the same thing is both small and great.
For the same thing may be small in comparison with one thing, and great in comparison with another, so that the same thing comes to be both small and great at one and the same time, and is of such a nature as to admit contrary qualities at one and the same moment.
Yet it was agreed, when substance was being discussed, that nothing admits contrary qualities at one and the same moment.
For though substance is capable of admitting contrary qualities, yet no one is at the same time both sick and healthy, nothing is at the same time both white and black.
Nor is there anything which is qualified in contrary ways at one and the same time.
Moreover, if these were contraries, they would themselves be contrary to themselves.
For if 'great' is the contrary of 'small', and the same thing is both great and small at the same time, then 'small' or 'great' is the contrary of itself.
But this is impossible.
The term 'great', therefore, is not the contrary of the term 'small', nor 'much' of 'little'.
And even though a man should call these terms not relative but quantitative, they would not have contraries.
It is in the case of space that quantity most plausibly appears to admit of a contrary.
For men define the term 'above' as the contrary of 'below', when it is the region at the centre they mean by 'below'; and this is so, because nothing is farther from the extremities of the universe than the region at the centre.
Indeed, it seems that in defining contraries of every kind men have recourse to a spatial metaphor, for they say that those things are contraries which, within the same class, are separated by the greatest possible distance.
Quantity does not, it appears, admit of variation of degree.
One thing cannot be two cubits long in a greater degree than another.
Similarly with regard to number: what is 'three' is not more truly three than what is 'five' is five; nor is one set of three more truly three than another set.
Again, one period of time is not said to be more truly time than another.
Nor is there any other kind of quantity, of all that have been mentioned, with regard to which variation of degree can be predicated.
The category of quantity, therefore, does not admit of variation of degree.
The most distinctive mark of quantity is that equality and inequality are predicated of it.
Each of the aforesaid quantities is said to be equal or unequal.
For instance, one solid is said to be equal or unequal to another; number, too, and time can have these terms applied to them, indeed can all those kinds of quantity that have been mentioned.
That which is not a quantity can by no means, it would seem, be termed equal or unequal to anything else.
One particular disposition or one particular quality, such as whiteness, is by no means compared with another in terms of equality and inequality but rather in terms of similarity.
Thus it is the distinctive mark of quantity that it can be called equal and unequal.
Section 2 Part 7 Those things are called relative, which, being either said to be of something else or related to something else, are explained by reference to that other thing.
For instance, the word 'superior' is explained by reference to something else, for it is superiority over something else that is meant.
Similarly, the expression 'double' has this external reference, for it is the double of something else that is meant.
So it is with everything else of this kind.
There are, moreover, other relatives, e.g.
habit, disposition, perception, knowledge, and attitude.
The significance of all these is explained by a reference to something else and in no other way.
Thus, a habit is a habit of something, knowledge is knowledge of something, attitude is the attitude of something.
So it is with all other relatives that have been mentioned.
Those terms, then, are called relative, the nature of which is explained by reference to something else, the preposition 'of' or some other preposition being used to indicate the relation.
Thus, one mountain is called great in comparison with another; for the mountain claims this attribute by comparison with something.
Again, that which is called similar must be similar to something else, and all other such attributes have this external reference.
It is to be noted that lying and standing and sitting are particular attitudes, but attitude is itself a relative term.
To lie, to stand, to be seated, are not themselves attitudes, but take their name from the aforesaid attitudes.
It is possible for relatives to have contraries.
Thus virtue has a contrary, vice, these both being relatives; knowledge, too, has a contrary, ignorance.
But this is not the mark of all relatives; 'double' and 'triple' have no contrary, nor indeed has any such term.
It also appears that relatives can admit of variation of degree.
For 'like' and 'unlike', 'equal' and 'unequal', have the modifications 'more' and 'less' applied to them, and each of these is relative in character: for the terms 'like' and 'unequal' bear a reference to something external.
Yet, again, it is not every relative term that admits of variation of degree.
No term such as 'double' admits of this modification.
All relatives have correlatives: by the term 'slave' we mean the slave of a master, by the term 'master', the master of a slave; by 'double', the double of its half; by 'half', the half of its double; by 'greater', greater than that which is less; by 'less', less than that which is greater.
So it is with every other relative term; but the case we use to express the correlation differs in some instances.
Thus, by knowledge we mean knowledge of the knowable; by the knowable, that which is to be apprehended by knowledge; by perception, perception of the perceptible; by the perceptible, that which is apprehended by perception.
Sometimes, however, reciprocity of correlation does not appear to exist.
This comes about when a blunder is made, and that to which the relative is related is not accurately stated.
If a man states that a wing is necessarily relative to a bird, the connexion between these two will not be reciprocal, for it will not be possible to say that a bird is a bird by reason of its wings.
The reason is that the original statement was inaccurate, for the wing is not said to be relative to the bird qua bird, since many creatures besides birds have wings, but qua winged creature.
If, then, the statement is made accurate, the connexion will be reciprocal, for we can speak of a wing, having reference necessarily to a winged creature, and of a winged creature as being such because of its wings.
Occasionally, perhaps, it is necessary to coin words, if no word exists by which a correlation can adequately be explained.
If we define a rudder as necessarily having reference to a boat, our definition will not be appropriate, for the rudder does not have this reference to a boat qua boat, as there are boats which have no rudders.
Thus we cannot use the terms reciprocally, for the word 'boat' cannot be said to find its explanation in the word 'rudder'.
As there is no existing word, our definition would perhaps be more accurate if we coined some word like 'ruddered' as the correlative of 'rudder'.
If we express ourselves thus accurately, at any rate the terms are reciprocally connected, for the 'ruddered' thing is 'ruddered' in virtue of its rudder.
So it is in all other cases.
A head will be more accurately defined as the correlative of that which is 'headed', than as that of an animal, for the animal does not have a head qua animal, since many animals have no head.
Thus we may perhaps most easily comprehend that to which a thing is related, when a name does not exist, if, from that which has a name, we derive a new name, and apply it to that with which the first is reciprocally connected, as in the aforesaid instances, when we derived the word 'winged' from 'wing' and from 'rudder'.
All relatives, then, if properly defined, have a correlative.
I add this condition because, if that to which they are related is stated as haphazard and not accurately, the two are not found to be interdependent.
Let me state what I mean more clearly.
Even in the case of acknowledged correlatives, and where names exist for each, there will be no interdependence if one of the two is denoted, not by that name which expresses the correlative notion, but by one of irrelevant significance.
The term 'slave', if defined as related, not to a master, but to a man, or a biped, or anything of that sort, is not reciprocally connected with that in relation to which it is defined, for the statement is not exact.
Further, if one thing is said to be correlative with another, and the terminology used is correct, then, though all irrelevant attributes should be removed, and only that one attribute left in virtue of which it was correctly stated to be correlative with that other, the stated correlation will still exist.
If the correlative of 'the slave' is said to be 'the master', then, though all irrelevant attributes of the said 'master', such as 'biped', 'receptive of knowledge', 'human', should be removed, and the attribute 'master' alone left, the stated correlation existing between him and the slave will remain the same, for it is of a master that a slave is said to be the slave.
On the other hand, if, of two correlatives, one is not correctly termed, then, when all other attributes are removed and that alone is left in virtue of which it was stated to be correlative, the stated correlation will be found to have disappeared.
For suppose the correlative of 'the slave' should be said to be 'the man', or the correlative of 'the wing' is 'the bird'; if the attribute 'master' be withdrawn from 'the man', the correlation between 'the man' and 'the slave' will cease to exist, for if the man is not a master, the slave is not a slave.
Similarly, if the attribute 'winged' be withdrawn from 'the bird', 'the wing' will no longer be relative; for if the so-called correlative is not winged, it follows that 'the wing' has no correlative.
Thus it is essential that the correlated terms should be exactly designated; if there is a name existing, the statement will be easy; if not, it is doubtless our duty to construct names.
When the terminology is thus correct, it is evident that all correlatives are interdependent.
Correlatives are thought to come into existence simultaneously.
This is for the most part true, as in the case of the double and the half.
The existence of the half necessitates the existence of that of which it is a half.
Similarly the existence of a master necessitates the existence of a slave, and that of a slave implies that of a master; these are merely instances of a general rule.
Moreover, they cancel one another; for if there is no double it follows that there is no half, and vice versa; this rule also applies to all such correlatives.
Yet it does not appear to be true in all cases that correlatives come into existence simultaneously.
The object of knowledge would appear to exist before knowledge itself, for it is usually the case that we acquire knowledge of objects already existing; it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a branch of knowledge the beginning of the existence of which was contemporaneous with that of its object.
Again, while the object of knowledge, if it ceases to exist, cancels at the same time the knowledge which was its correlative, the converse of this is not true.
It is true that if the object of knowledge does not exist there can be no knowledge: for there will no longer be anything to know.
Yet it is equally true that, if knowledge of a certain object does not exist, the object may nevertheless quite well exist.
Thus, in the case of the squaring of the circle, if indeed that process is an object of knowledge, though it itself exists as an object of knowledge, yet the knowledge of it has not yet come into existence.
Again, if all animals ceased to exist, there would be no knowledge, but there might yet be many objects of knowledge.
This is likewise the case with regard to perception: for the object of perception is, it appears, prior to the act of perception.
If the perceptible is annihilated, perception also will cease to exist; but the annihilation of perception does not cancel the existence of the perceptible.
For perception implies a body perceived and a body in which perception takes place.
Now if that which is perceptible is annihilated, it follows that the body is annihilated, for the body is a perceptible thing; and if the body does not exist, it follows that perception also ceases to exist.
Thus the annihilation of the perceptible involves that of perception.
But the annihilation of perception does not involve that of the perceptible.
For if the animal is annihilated, it follows that perception also is annihilated, but perceptibles such as body, heat, sweetness, bitterness, and so on, will remain.
Again, perception is generated at the same time as the perceiving subject, for it comes into existence at the same time as the animal.
But the perceptible surely exists before perception; for fire and water and such elements, out of which the animal is itself composed, exist before the animal is an animal at all, and before perception.
Thus it would seem that the perceptible exists before perception.
It may be questioned whether it is true that no substance is relative, as seems to be the case, or whether exception is to be made in the case of certain secondary substances.
With regard to primary substances, it is quite true that there is no such possibility, for neither wholes nor parts of primary substances are relative.
The individual man or ox is not defined with reference to something external.
Similarly with the parts: a particular hand or head is not defined as a particular hand or head of a particular person, but as the hand or head of a particular person.
It is true also, for the most part at least, in the case of secondary substances; the species 'man' and the species 'ox' are not defined with reference to anything outside themselves.
Wood, again, is only relative in so far as it is some one's property, not in so far as it is wood.
It is plain, then, that in the cases mentioned substance is not relative.
But with regard to some secondary substances there is a difference of opinion; thus, such terms as 'head' and 'hand' are defined with reference to that of which the things indicated are a part, and so it comes about that these appear to have a relative character.
Indeed, if our definition of that which is relative was complete, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to prove that no substance is relative.
If, however, our definition was not complete, if those things only are properly called relative in the case of which relation to an external object is a necessary condition of existence, perhaps some explanation of the dilemma may be found.
The former definition does indeed apply to all relatives, but the fact that a thing is explained with reference to something else does not make it essentially relative.
From this it is plain that, if a man definitely apprehends a relative thing, he will also definitely apprehend that to which it is relative.
Indeed this is self-evident: for if a man knows that some particular thing is relative, assuming that we call that a relative in the case of which relation to something is a necessary condition of existence, he knows that also to which it is related.
For if he does not know at all that to which it is related, he will not know whether or not it is relative.
This is clear, moreover, in particular instances.
If a man knows definitely that such and such a thing is 'double', he will also forthwith know definitely that of which it is the double.
For if there is nothing definite of which he knows it to be the double, he does not know at all that it is double.
Again, if he knows that a thing is more beautiful, it follows necessarily that he will forthwith definitely know that also than which it is more beautiful.
He will not merely know indefinitely that it is more beautiful than something which is less beautiful, for this would be supposition, not knowledge.
For if he does not know definitely that than which it is more beautiful, he can no longer claim to know definitely that it is more beautiful than something else which is less beautiful: for it might be that nothing was less beautiful.
It is, therefore, evident that if a man apprehends some relative thing definitely, he necessarily knows that also definitely to which it is related.
Now the head, the hand, and such things are substances, and it is possible to know their essential character definitely, but it does not necessarily follow that we should know that to which they are related.
It is not possible to know forthwith whose head or hand is meant.
Thus these are not relatives, and, this being the case, it would be true to say that no substance is relative in character.
It is perhaps a difficult matter, in such cases, to make a positive statement without more exhaustive examination, but to have raised questions with regard to details is not without advantage.
Part 8 By 'quality' I mean that in virtue of which people are said to be such and such.
Quality is a term that is used in many senses.
One sort of quality let us call 'habit' or 'disposition'.
Habit differs from disposition in being more lasting and more firmly established.
The various kinds of knowledge and of virtue are habits, for knowledge, even when acquired only in a moderate degree, is, it is agreed, abiding in its character and difficult to displace, unless some great mental upheaval takes place, through disease or any such cause.
The virtues, also, such as justice, self-restraint, and so on, are not easily dislodged or dismissed, so as to give place to vice.
By a disposition, on the other hand, we mean a condition that is easily changed and quickly gives place to its opposite.
Thus, heat, cold, disease, health, and so on are dispositions.
For a man is disposed in one way or another with reference to these, but quickly changes, becoming cold instead of warm, ill instead of well.
So it is with all other dispositions also, unless through lapse of time a disposition has itself become inveterate and almost impossible to dislodge: in which case we should perhaps go so far as to call it a habit.
It is evident that men incline to call those conditions habits which are of a more or less permanent type and difficult to displace; for those who are not retentive of knowledge, but volatile, are not said to have such and such a 'habit' as regards knowledge, yet they are disposed, we may say, either better or worse, towards knowledge.
Thus habit differs from disposition in this, that while the latter in ephemeral, the former is permanent and difficult to alter.
Habits are at the same time dispositions, but dispositions are not necessarily habits.
For those who have some specific habit may be said also, in virtue of that habit, to be thus or thus disposed; but those who are disposed in some specific way have not in all cases the corresponding habit.
Another sort of quality is that in virtue of which, for example, we call men good boxers or runners, or healthy or sickly: in fact it includes all those terms which refer to inborn capacity or incapacity.
Such things are not predicated of a person in virtue of his disposition, but in virtue of his inborn capacity or incapacity to do something with ease or to avoid defeat of any kind.
Persons are called good boxers or good runners, not in virtue of such and such a disposition, but in virtue of an inborn capacity to accomplish something with ease.
Men are called healthy in virtue of the inborn capacity of easy resistance to those unhealthy influences that may ordinarily arise; unhealthy, in virtue of the lack of this capacity.
Similarly with regard to softness and hardness.
Hardness is predicated of a thing because it has that capacity of resistance which enables it to withstand disintegration; softness, again, is predicated of a thing by reason of the lack of that capacity.
A third class within this category is that of affective qualities and affections.
Sweetness, bitterness, sourness, are examples of this sort of quality, together with all that is akin to these; heat, moreover, and cold, whiteness, and blackness are affective qualities.
It is evident that these are qualities, for those things that possess them are themselves said to be such and such by reason of their presence.
Honey is called sweet because it contains sweetness; the body is called white because it contains whiteness; and so in all other cases.
The term 'affective quality' is not used as indicating that those things which admit these qualities are affected in any way.
Honey is not called sweet because it is affected in a specific way, nor is this what is meant in any other instance.
Similarly heat and cold are called affective qualities, not because those things which admit them are affected.
What is meant is that these said qualities are capable of producing an 'affection' in the way of perception.
For sweetness has the power of affecting the sense of taste; heat, that of touch; and so it is with the rest of these qualities.
Whiteness and blackness, however, and the other colours, are not said to be affective qualities in this sense, but because they themselves are the results of an affection.
It is plain that many changes of colour take place because of affections.
When a man is ashamed, he blushes; when he is afraid, he becomes pale, and so on.
So true is this, that when a man is by nature liable to such affections, arising from some concomitance of elements in his constitution, it is a probable inference that he has the corresponding complexion of skin.
For the same disposition of bodily elements, which in the former instance was momentarily present in the case of an access of shame, might be a result of a man's natural temperament, so as to produce the corresponding colouring also as a natural characteristic.
All conditions, therefore, of this kind, if caused by certain permanent and lasting affections, are called affective qualities.
For pallor and duskiness of complexion are called qualities, inasmuch as we are said to be such and such in virtue of them, not only if they originate in natural constitution, but also if they come about through long disease or sunburn, and are difficult to remove, or indeed remain throughout life.
For in the same way we are said to be such and such because of these.
Those conditions, however, which arise from causes which may easily be rendered ineffective or speedily removed, are called, not qualities, but affections: for we are not said to be such in virtue of them.
The man who blushes through shame is not said to be a constitutional blusher, nor is the man who becomes pale through fear said to be constitutionally pale.
He is said rather to have been affected.
Thus such conditions are called affections, not qualities.
In like manner there are affective qualities and affections of the soul.
That temper with which a man is born and which has its origin in certain deep-seated affections is called a quality.
I mean such conditions as insanity, irascibility, and so on: for people are said to be mad or irascible in virtue of these.
Similarly those abnormal psychic states which are not inborn, but arise from the concomitance of certain other elements, and are difficult to remove, or altogether permanent, are called qualities, for in virtue of them men are said to be such and such.
Those, however, which arise from causes easily rendered ineffective are called affections, not qualities.
Suppose that a man is irritable when vexed: he is not even spoken of as a bad-tempered man, when in such circumstances he loses his temper somewhat, but rather is said to be affected.
Such conditions are therefore termed, not qualities, but affections.
The fourth sort of quality is figure and the shape that belongs to a thing; and besides this, straightness and curvedness and any other qualities of this type; each of these defines a thing as being such and such.
Because it is triangular or quadrangular a thing is said to have a specific character, or again because it is straight or curved; in fact a thing's shape in every case gives rise to a qualification of it.
Rarity and density, roughness and smoothness, seem to be terms indicating quality: yet these, it would appear, really belong to a class different from that of quality.
For it is rather a certain relative position of the parts composing the thing thus qualified which, it appears, is indicated by each of these terms.
A thing is dense, owing to the fact that its parts are closely combined with one another; rare, because there are interstices between the parts; smooth, because its parts lie, so to speak, evenly; rough, because some parts project beyond others.
There may be other sorts of quality, but those that are most properly so called have, we may safely say, been enumerated.
These, then, are qualities, and the things that take their name from them as derivatives, or are in some other way dependent on them, are said to be qualified in some specific way.
In most, indeed in almost all cases, the name of that which is qualified is derived from that of the quality.
Thus the terms 'whiteness', 'grammar', 'justice', give us the adjectives 'white', 'grammatical', 'just', and so on.
There are some cases, however, in which, as the quality under consideration has no name, it is impossible that those possessed of it should have a name that is derivative.
For instance, the name given to the runner or boxer, who is so called in virtue of an inborn capacity, is not derived from that of any quality; for both those capacities have no name assigned to them.
In this, the inborn capacity is distinct from the science, with reference to which men are called, e.g.
boxers or wrestlers.
Such a science is classed as a disposition; it has a name, and is called 'boxing' or 'wrestling' as the case may be, and the name given to those disposed in this way is derived from that of the science.
Sometimes, even though a name exists for the quality, that which takes its character from the quality has a name that is not a derivative.
For instance, the upright man takes his character from the possession of the quality of integrity, but the name given him is not derived from the word 'integrity'.
Yet this does not occur often.
We may therefore state that those things are said to be possessed of some specific quality which have a name derived from that of the aforesaid quality, or which are in some other way dependent on it.
One quality may be the contrary of another; thus justice is the contrary of injustice, whiteness of blackness, and so on.
The things, also, which are said to be such and such in virtue of these qualities, may be contrary the one to the other; for that which is unjust is contrary to that which is just, that which is white to that which is black.
This, however, is not always the case.
Red, yellow, and such colours, though qualities, have no contraries.
If one of two contraries is a quality, the other will also be a quality.
This will be evident from particular instances, if we apply the names used to denote the other categories; for instance, granted that justice is the contrary of injustice and justice is a quality, injustice will also be a quality: neither quantity, nor relation, nor place, nor indeed any other category but that of quality, will be applicable properly to injustice.
So it is with all other contraries falling under the category of quality.
Qualities admit of variation of degree.
Whiteness is predicated of one thing in a greater or less degree than of another.
This is also the case with reference to justice.
Moreover, one and the same thing may exhibit a quality in a greater degree than it did before: if a thing is white, it may become whiter.
Though this is generally the case, there are exceptions.
For if we should say that justice admitted of variation of degree, difficulties might ensue, and this is true with regard to all those qualities which are dispositions.
There are some, indeed, who dispute the possibility of variation here.
They maintain that justice and health cannot very well admit of variation of degree themselves, but that people vary in the degree in which they possess these qualities, and that this is the case with grammatical learning and all those qualities which are classed as dispositions.
However that may be, it is an incontrovertible fact that the things which in virtue of these qualities are said to be what they are vary in the degree in which they possess them; for one man is said to be better versed in grammar, or more healthy or just, than another, and so on.
The qualities expressed by the terms 'triangular' and 'quadrangular' do not appear to admit of variation of degree, nor indeed do any that have to do with figure.
For those things to which the definition of the triangle or circle is applicable are all equally triangular or circular.
Those, on the other hand, to which the same definition is not applicable, cannot be said to differ from one another in degree; the square is no more a circle than the rectangle, for to neither is the definition of the circle appropriate.
In short, if the definition of the term proposed is not applicable to both objects, they cannot be compared.
Thus it is not all qualities which admit of variation of degree.
Whereas none of the characteristics I have mentioned are peculiar to quality, the fact that likeness and unlikeness can be predicated with reference to quality only, gives to that category its distinctive feature.
One thing is like another only with reference to that in virtue of which it is such and such; thus this forms the peculiar mark of quality.
We must not be disturbed because it may be argued that, though proposing to discuss the category of quality, we have included in it many relative terms.
We did say that habits and dispositions were relative.
In practically all such cases the genus is relative, the individual not.
Thus knowledge, as a genus, is explained by reference to something else, for we mean a knowledge of something.
But particular branches of knowledge are not thus explained.
The knowledge of grammar is not relative to anything external, nor is the knowledge of music, but these, if relative at all, are relative only in virtue of their genera; thus grammar is said be the knowledge of something, not the grammar of something; similarly music is the knowledge of something, not the music of something.
Thus individual branches of knowledge are not relative.
And it is because we possess these individual branches of knowledge that we are said to be such and such.
It is these that we actually possess: we are called experts because we possess knowledge in some particular branch.
Those particular branches, therefore, of knowledge, in virtue of which we are sometimes said to be such and such, are themselves qualities, and are not relative.
Further, if anything should happen to fall within both the category of quality and that of relation, there would be nothing extraordinary in classing it under both these heads.
Section 3 Part 9 Action and affection both admit of contraries and also of variation of degree.
Heating is the contrary of cooling, being heated of being cooled, being glad of being vexed.
Thus they admit of contraries.
They also admit of variation of degree: for it is possible to heat in a greater or less degree; also to be heated in a greater or less degree.
Thus action and affection also admit of variation of degree.
So much, then, is stated with regard to these categories.
We spoke, moreover, of the category of position when we were dealing with that of relation, and stated that such terms derived their names from those of the corresponding attitudes.
As for the rest, time, place, state, since they are easily intelligible, I say no more about them than was said at the beginning, that in the category of state are included such states as 'shod', 'armed', in that of place 'in the Lyceum' and so on, as was explained before.
Part 10 The proposed categories have, then, been adequately dealt with.
We must next explain the various senses in which the term 'opposite' is used.
Things are said to be opposed in four senses: (i) as correlatives to one another, (ii) as contraries to one another, (iii) as privatives to positives, (iv) as affirmatives to negatives.
Let me sketch my meaning in outline.
An instance of the use of the word 'opposite' with reference to correlatives is afforded by the expressions 'double' and 'half'; with reference to contraries by 'bad' and 'good'.
Opposites in the sense of 'privatives' and 'positives' are 'blindness' and 'sight'; in the sense of affirmatives and negatives, the propositions 'he sits', 'he does not sit'.
(i) Pairs of opposites which fall under the category of relation are explained by a reference of the one to the other, the reference being indicated by the preposition 'of' or by some other preposition.
Thus, double is a relative term, for that which is double is explained as the double of something.
Knowledge, again, is the opposite of the thing known, in the same sense; and the thing known also is explained by its relation to its opposite, knowledge.
For the thing known is explained as that which is known by something, that is, by knowledge.
Such things, then, as are opposite the one to the other in the sense of being correlatives are explained by a reference of the one to the other.
(ii) Pairs of opposites which are contraries are not in any way interdependent, but are contrary the one to the other.
The good is not spoken of as the good of the bad, but as the contrary of the bad, nor is white spoken of as the white of the black, but as the contrary of the black.
These two types of opposition are therefore distinct.
Those contraries which are such that the subjects in which they are naturally present, or of which they are predicated, must necessarily contain either the one or the other of them, have no intermediate, but those in the case of which no such necessity obtains, always have an intermediate.
Thus disease and health are naturally present in the body of an animal, and it is necessary that either the one or the other should be present in the body of an animal.
Odd and even, again, are predicated of number, and it is necessary that the one or the other should be present in numbers.
Now there is no intermediate between the terms of either of these two pairs.
On the other hand, in those contraries with regard to which no such necessity obtains, we find an intermediate.
Blackness and whiteness are naturally present in the body, but it is not necessary that either the one or the other should be present in the body, inasmuch as it is not true to say that everybody must be white or black.
Badness and goodness, again, are predicated of man, and of many other things, but it is not necessary that either the one quality or the other should be present in that of which they are predicated: it is not true to say that everything that may be good or bad must be either good or bad.
These pairs of contraries have intermediates: the intermediates between white and black are grey, sallow, and all the other colours that come between; the intermediate between good and bad is that which is neither the one nor the other.
Some intermediate qualities have names, such as grey and sallow and all the other colours that come between white and black; in other cases, however, it is not easy to name the intermediate, but we must define it as that which is not either extreme, as in the case of that which is neither good nor bad, neither just nor unjust.
(iii) 'privatives' and 'positives' have reference to the same subject.
Thus, sight and blindness have reference to the eye.
It is a universal rule that each of a pair of opposites of this type has reference to that to which the particular 'positive' is natural.
We say that that is capable of some particular faculty or possession has suffered privation when the faculty or possession in question is in no way present in that in which, and at the time at which, it should naturally be present.
We do not call that toothless which has not teeth, or that blind which has not sight, but rather that which has not teeth or sight at the time when by nature it should.
For there are some creatures which from birth are without sight, or without teeth, but these are not called toothless or blind.
To be without some faculty or to possess it is not the same as the corresponding 'privative' or 'positive'.
'Sight' is a 'positive', 'blindness' a 'privative', but 'to possess sight' is not equivalent to 'sight', 'to be blind' is not equivalent to 'blindness'.
Blindness is a 'privative', to be blind is to be in a state of privation, but is not a 'privative'.
Moreover, if 'blindness' were equivalent to 'being blind', both would be predicated of the same subject; but though a man is said to be blind, he is by no means said to be blindness.
To be in a state of 'possession' is, it appears, the opposite of being in a state of 'privation', just as 'positives' and 'privatives' themselves are opposite.
There is the same type of antithesis in both cases; for just as blindness is opposed to sight, so is being blind opposed to having sight.
That which is affirmed or denied is not itself affirmation or denial.
By 'affirmation' we mean an affirmative proposition, by 'denial' a negative.
Now, those facts which form the matter of the affirmation or denial are not propositions; yet these two are said to be opposed in the same sense as the affirmation and denial, for in this case also the type of antithesis is the same.
For as the affirmation is opposed to the denial, as in the two propositions 'he sits', 'he does not sit', so also the fact which constitutes the matter of the proposition in one case is opposed to that in the other, his sitting, that is to say, to his not sitting.
It is evident that 'positives' and 'privatives' are not opposed each to each in the same sense as relatives.
The one is not explained by reference to the other; sight is not sight of blindness, nor is any other preposition used to indicate the relation.
Similarly blindness is not said to be blindness of sight, but rather, privation of sight.
Relatives, moreover, reciprocate; if blindness, therefore, were a relative, there would be a reciprocity of relation between it and that with which it was correlative.
But this is not the case.
Sight is not called the sight of blindness.
That those terms which fall under the heads of 'positives' and 'privatives' are not opposed each to each as contraries, either, is plain from the following facts: Of a pair of contraries such that they have no intermediate, one or the other must needs be present in the subject in which they naturally subsist, or of which they are predicated; for it is those, as we proved, in the case of which this necessity obtains, that have no intermediate.
Moreover, we cited health and disease, odd and even, as instances.
But those contraries which have an intermediate are not subject to any such necessity.
It is not necessary that every substance, receptive of such qualities, should be either black or white, cold or hot, for something intermediate between these contraries may very well be present in the subject.
We proved, moreover, that those contraries have an intermediate in the case of which the said necessity does not obtain.
Yet when one of the two contraries is a constitutive property of the subject, as it is a constitutive property of fire to be hot, of snow to be white, it is necessary determinately that one of the two contraries, not one or the other, should be present in the subject; for fire cannot be cold, or snow black.
Thus, it is not the case here that one of the two must needs be present in every subject receptive of these qualities, but only in that subject of which the one forms a constitutive property.
Moreover, in such cases it is one member of the pair determinately, and not either the one or the other, which must be present.
In the case of 'positives' and 'privatives', on the other hand, neither of the aforesaid statements holds good.
For it is not necessary that a subject receptive of the qualities should always have either the one or the other; that which has not yet advanced to the state when sight is natural is not said either to be blind or to see.
Thus 'positives' and 'privatives' do not belong to that class of contraries which consists of those which have no intermediate.
On the other hand, they do not belong either to that class which consists of contraries which have an intermediate.
For under certain conditions it is necessary that either the one or the other should form part of the constitution of every appropriate subject.
For when a thing has reached the stage when it is by nature capable of sight, it will be said either to see or to be blind, and that in an indeterminate sense, signifying that the capacity may be either present or absent; for it is not necessary either that it should see or that it should be blind, but that it should be either in the one state or in the other.
Yet in the case of those contraries which have an intermediate we found that it was never necessary that either the one or the other should be present in every appropriate subject, but only that in certain subjects one of the pair should be present, and that in a determinate sense.
It is, therefore, plain that 'positives' and 'privatives' are not opposed each to each in either of the senses in which contraries are opposed.
Again, in the case of contraries, it is possible that there should be changes from either into the other, while the subject retains its identity, unless indeed one of the contraries is a constitutive property of that subject, as heat is of fire.
For it is possible that that that which is healthy should become diseased, that which is white, black, that which is cold, hot, that which is good, bad, that which is bad, good.
The bad man, if he is being brought into a better way of life and thought, may make some advance, however slight, and if he should once improve, even ever so little, it is plain that he might change completely, or at any rate make very great progress; for a man becomes more and more easily moved to virtue, however small the improvement was at first.
It is, therefore, natural to suppose that he will make yet greater progress than he has made in the past; and as this process goes on, it will change him completely and establish him in the contrary state, provided he is not hindered by lack of time.
In the case of 'positives' and 'privatives', however, change in both directions is impossible.
There may be a change from possession to privation, but not from privation to possession.
The man who has become blind does not regain his sight; the man who has become bald does not regain his hair; the man who has lost his teeth does not grow a new set.
(iv) Statements opposed as affirmation and negation belong manifestly to a class which is distinct, for in this case, and in this case only, it is necessary for the one opposite to be true and the other false.
Neither in the case of contraries, nor in the case of correlatives, nor in the case of 'positives' and 'privatives', is it necessary for one to be true and the other false.
Health and disease are contraries: neither of them is true or false.
'Double' and 'half' are opposed to each other as correlatives: neither of them is true or false.
The case is the same, of course, with regard to 'positives' and 'privatives' such as 'sight' and 'blindness'.
In short, where there is no sort of combination of words, truth and falsity have no place, and all the opposites we have mentioned so far consist of simple words.
At the same time, when the words which enter into opposed statements are contraries, these, more than any other set of opposites, would seem to claim this characteristic.
'Socrates is ill' is the contrary of 'Socrates is well', but not even of such composite expressions is it true to say that one of the pair must always be true and the other false.
For if Socrates exists, one will be true and the other false, but if he does not exist, both will be false; for neither 'Socrates is ill' nor 'Socrates is well' is true, if Socrates does not exist at all.
In the case of 'positives' and 'privatives', if the subject does not exist at all, neither proposition is true, but even if the subject exists, it is not always the fact that one is true and the other false.
For 'Socrates has sight' is the opposite of 'Socrates is blind' in the sense of the word 'opposite' which applies to possession and privation.
Now if Socrates exists, it is not necessary that one should be true and the other false, for when he is not yet able to acquire the power of vision, both are false, as also if Socrates is altogether non-existent.
But in the case of affirmation and negation, whether the subject exists or not, one is always false and the other true.
For manifestly, if Socrates exists, one of the two propositions 'Socrates is ill', 'Socrates is not ill', is true, and the other false.
This is likewise the case if he does not exist; for if he does not exist, to say that he is ill is false, to say that he is not ill is true.
Thus it is in the case of those opposites only, which are opposite in the sense in which the term is used with reference to affirmation and negation, that the rule holds good, that one of the pair must be true and the other false.
Part 11 That the contrary of a good is an evil is shown by induction: the contrary of health is disease, of courage, cowardice, and so on.
But the contrary of an evil is sometimes a good, sometimes an evil.
For defect, which is an evil, has excess for its contrary, this also being an evil, and the mean, which is a good, is equally the contrary of the one and of the other.
It is only in a few cases, however, that we see instances of this: in most, the contrary of an evil is a good.
In the case of contraries, it is not always necessary that if one exists the other should also exist: for if all become healthy there will be health and no disease, and again, if everything turns white, there will be white, but no black.
Again, since the fact that Socrates is ill is the contrary of the fact that Socrates is well, and two contrary conditions cannot both obtain in one and the same individual at the same time, both these contraries could not exist at once: for if that Socrates was well was a fact, then that Socrates was ill could not possibly be one.
It is plain that contrary attributes must needs be present in subjects which belong to the same species or genus.
Disease and health require as their subject the body of an animal; white and black require a body, without further qualification; justice and injustice require as their subject the human soul.
Moreover, it is necessary that pairs of contraries should in all cases either belong to the same genus or belong to contrary genera or be themselves genera.
White and black belong to the same genus, colour; justice and injustice, to contrary genera, virtue and vice; while good and evil do not belong to genera, but are themselves actual genera, with terms under them.
Part 12 There are four senses in which one thing can be said to be 'prior' to another.
Primarily and most properly the term has reference to time: in this sense the word is used to indicate that one thing is older or more ancient than another, for the expressions 'older' and 'more ancient' imply greater length of time.
Secondly, one thing is said to be 'prior' to another when the sequence of their being cannot be reversed.
In this sense 'one' is 'prior' to 'two'.
For if 'two' exists, it follows directly that 'one' must exist, but if 'one' exists, it does not follow necessarily that 'two' exists: thus the sequence subsisting cannot be reversed.
It is agreed, then, that when the sequence of two things cannot be reversed, then that one on which the other depends is called 'prior' to that other.
In the third place, the term 'prior' is used with reference to any order, as in the case of science and of oratory.
For in sciences which use demonstration there is that which is prior and that which is posterior in order; in geometry, the elements are prior to the propositions; in reading and writing, the letters of the alphabet are prior to the syllables.
Similarly, in the case of speeches, the exordium is prior in order to the narrative.
Besides these senses of the word, there is a fourth.
That which is better and more honourable is said to have a natural priority.
In common parlance men speak of those whom they honour and love as 'coming first' with them.
This sense of the word is perhaps the most far-fetched.
Such, then, are the different senses in which the term 'prior' is used.
Yet it would seem that besides those mentioned there is yet another.
For in those things, the being of each of which implies that of the other, that which is in any way the cause may reasonably be said to be by nature 'prior' to the effect.
It is plain that there are instances of this.
The fact of the being of a man carries with it the truth of the proposition that he is, and the implication is reciprocal: for if a man is, the proposition wherein we allege that he is true, and conversely, if the proposition wherein we allege that he is true, then he is.
The true proposition, however, is in no way the cause of the being of the man, but the fact of the man's being does seem somehow to be the cause of the truth of the proposition, for the truth or falsity of the proposition depends on the fact of the man's being or not being.
Thus the word 'prior' may be used in five senses.
Part 13 The term 'simultaneous' is primarily and most appropriately applied to those things the genesis of the one of which is simultaneous with that of the other; for in such cases neither is prior or posterior to the other.
Such things are said to be simultaneous in point of time.
Those things, again, are 'simultaneous' in point of nature, the being of each of which involves that of the other, while at the same time neither is the cause of the other's being.
This is the case with regard to the double and the half, for these are reciprocally dependent, since, if there is a double, there is also a half, and if there is a half, there is also a double, while at the same time neither is the cause of the being of the other.
Again, those species which are distinguished one from another and opposed one to another within the same genus are said to be 'simultaneous' in nature.
I mean those species which are distinguished each from each by one and the same method of division.
Thus the 'winged' species is simultaneous with the 'terrestrial' and the 'water' species.
These are distinguished within the same genus, and are opposed each to each, for the genus 'animal' has the 'winged', the 'terrestrial', and the 'water' species, and no one of these is prior or posterior to another; on the contrary, all such things appear to be 'simultaneous' in nature.
Each of these also, the terrestrial, the winged, and the water species, can be divided again into subspecies.
Those species, then, also will be 'simultaneous' in point of nature, which, belonging to the same genus, are distinguished each from each by one and the same method of differentiation.
But genera are prior to species, for the sequence of their being cannot be reversed.
If there is the species 'water-animal', there will be the genus 'animal', but granted the being of the genus 'animal', it does not follow necessarily that there will be the species 'water-animal'.
Those things, therefore, are said to be 'simultaneous' in nature, the being of each of which involves that of the other, while at the same time neither is in any way the cause of the other's being; those species, also, which are distinguished each from each and opposed within the same genus.
Those things, moreover, are 'simultaneous' in the unqualified sense of the word which come into being at the same time.
Part 14 There are six sorts of movement: generation, destruction, increase, diminution, alteration, and change of place.
It is evident in all but one case that all these sorts of movement are distinct each from each.
Generation is distinct from destruction, increase and change of place from diminution, and so on.
But in the case of alteration it may be argued that the process necessarily implies one or other of the other five sorts of motion.
This is not true, for we may say that all affections, or nearly all, produce in us an alteration which is distinct from all other sorts of motion, for that which is affected need not suffer either increase or diminution or any of the other sorts of motion.
Thus alteration is a distinct sort of motion; for, if it were not, the thing altered would not only be altered, but would forthwith necessarily suffer increase or diminution or some one of the other sorts of motion in addition; which as a matter of fact is not the case.
Similarly that which was undergoing the process of increase or was subject to some other sort of motion would, if alteration were not a distinct form of motion, necessarily be subject to alteration also.
But there are some things which undergo increase but yet not alteration.
The square, for instance, if a gnomon is applied to it, undergoes increase but not alteration, and so it is with all other figures of this sort.
Alteration and increase, therefore, are distinct.
Speaking generally, rest is the contrary of motion.
But the different forms of motion have their own contraries in other forms; thus destruction is the contrary of generation, diminution of increase, rest in a place, of change of place.
As for this last, change in the reverse direction would seem to be most truly its contrary; thus motion upwards is the contrary of motion downwards and vice versa.
In the case of that sort of motion which yet remains, of those that have been enumerated, it is not easy to state what is its contrary.
It appears to have no contrary, unless one should define the contrary here also either as 'rest in its quality' or as 'change in the direction of the contrary quality', just as we defined the contrary of change of place either as rest in a place or as change in the reverse direction.
For a thing is altered when change of quality takes place; therefore either rest in its quality or change in the direction of the contrary may be called the contrary of this qualitative form of motion.
In this way becoming white is the contrary of becoming black; there is alteration in the contrary direction, since a change of a qualitative nature takes place.
Part 15 The term 'to have' is used in various senses.
In the first place it is used with reference to habit or disposition or any other quality, for we are said to 'have' a piece of knowledge or a virtue.
Then, again, it has reference to quantity, as, for instance, in the case of a man's height; for he is said to 'have' a height of three or four cubits.
It is used, moreover, with regard to apparel, a man being said to 'have' a coat or tunic; or in respect of something which we have on a part of ourselves, as a ring on the hand: or in respect of something which is a part of us, as hand or foot.
The term refers also to content, as in the case of a vessel and wheat, or of a jar and wine; a jar is said to 'have' wine, and a corn-measure wheat.
The expression in such cases has reference to content.
Or it refers to that which has been acquired; we are said to 'have' a house or a field.
A man is also said to 'have' a wife, and a wife a husband, and this appears to be the most remote meaning of the term, for by the use of it we mean simply that the husband lives with the wife.
Other senses of the word might perhaps be found, but the most ordinary ones have all been enumerated.
EUTHYDEMUS by Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett INTRODUCTION.
The Euthydemus, though apt to be regarded by us only as an elaborate jest, has also a very serious purpose.
It may fairly claim to be the oldest treatise on logic; for that science originates in the misunderstandings which necessarily accompany the first efforts of speculation.
Several of the fallacies which are satirized in it reappear in the Sophistici Elenchi of Aristotle and are retained at the end of our manuals of logic.
But if the order of history were followed, they should be placed not at the end but at the beginning of them; for they belong to the age in which the human mind was first making the attempt to distinguish thought from sense, and to separate the universal from the particular or individual.
How to put together words or ideas, how to escape ambiguities in the meaning of terms or in the structure of propositions, how to resist the fixed impression of an 'eternal being' or 'perpetual flux,' how to distinguish between words and things--these were problems not easy of solution in the infancy of philosophy.
They presented the same kind of difficulty to the half-educated man which spelling or arithmetic do to the mind of a child.
It was long before the new world of ideas which had been sought after with such passionate yearning was set in order and made ready for use.
To us the fallacies which arise in the pre-Socratic philosophy are trivial and obsolete because we are no longer liable to fall into the errors which are expressed by them.
The intellectual world has become better assured to us, and we are less likely to be imposed upon by illusions of words.
The logic of Aristotle is for the most part latent in the dialogues of Plato.
The nature of definition is explained not by rules but by examples in the Charmides, Lysis, Laches, Protagoras, Meno, Euthyphro, Theaetetus, Gorgias, Republic; the nature of division is likewise illustrated by examples in the Sophist and Statesman; a scheme of categories is found in the Philebus; the true doctrine of contradiction is taught, and the fallacy of arguing in a circle is exposed in the Republic; the nature of synthesis and analysis is graphically described in the Phaedrus; the nature of words is analysed in the Cratylus; the form of the syllogism is indicated in the genealogical trees of the Sophist and Statesman; a true doctrine of predication and an analysis of the sentence are given in the Sophist; the different meanings of one and being are worked out in the Parmenides.
Here we have most of the important elements of logic, not yet systematized or reduced to an art or science, but scattered up and down as they would naturally occur in ordinary discourse.
They are of little or no use or significance to us; but because we have grown out of the need of them we should not therefore despise them.
They are still interesting and instructive for the light which they shed on the history of the human mind.
There are indeed many old fallacies which linger among us, and new ones are constantly springing up.
But they are not of the kind to which ancient logic can be usefully applied.
The weapons of common sense, not the analytics of Aristotle, are needed for their overthrow.
Nor is the use of the Aristotelian logic any longer natural to us.
We no longer put arguments into the form of syllogisms like the schoolmen; the simple use of language has been, happily, restored to us.
Neither do we discuss the nature of the proposition, nor extract hidden truths from the copula, nor dispute any longer about nominalism and realism.
We do not confuse the form with the matter of knowledge, or invent laws of thought, or imagine that any single science furnishes a principle of reasoning to all the rest.
Neither do we require categories or heads of argument to be invented for our use.
Those who have no knowledge of logic, like some of our great physical philosophers, seem to be quite as good reasoners as those who have.
Most of the ancient puzzles have been settled on the basis of usage and common sense; there is no need to reopen them.
No science should raise problems or invent forms of thought which add nothing to knowledge and are of no use in assisting the acquisition of it.
This seems to be the natural limit of logic and metaphysics; if they give us a more comprehensive or a more definite view of the different spheres of knowledge they are to be studied; if not, not.
The better part of ancient logic appears hardly in our own day to have a separate existence; it is absorbed in two other sciences: (1) rhetoric, if indeed this ancient art be not also fading away into literary criticism; (2) the science of language, under which all questions relating to words and propositions and the combinations of them may properly be included.
To continue dead or imaginary sciences, which make no signs of progress and have no definite sphere, tends to interfere with the prosecution of living ones.
The study of them is apt to blind the judgment and to render men incapable of seeing the value of evidence, and even of appreciating the nature of truth.
Nor should we allow the living science to become confused with the dead by an ambiguity of language.
The term logic has two different meanings, an ancient and a modern one, and we vainly try to bridge the gulf between them.
Many perplexities are avoided by keeping them apart.
There might certainly be a new science of logic; it would not however be built up out of the fragments of the old, but would be distinct from them--relative to the state of knowledge which exists at the present time, and based chiefly on the methods of Modern Inductive philosophy.
Such a science might have two legitimate fields: first, the refutation and explanation of false philosophies still hovering in the air as they appear from the point of view of later experience or are comprehended in the history of the human mind, as in a larger horizon: secondly, it might furnish new forms of thought more adequate to the expression of all the diversities and oppositions of knowledge which have grown up in these latter days; it might also suggest new methods of enquiry derived from the comparison of the sciences.
Few will deny that the introduction of the words 'subject' and 'object' and the Hegelian reconciliation of opposites have been 'most gracious aids' to psychology, or that the methods of Bacon and Mill have shed a light far and wide on the realms of knowledge.
These two great studies, the one destructive and corrective of error, the other conservative and constructive of truth, might be a first and second part of logic.
Ancient logic would be the propaedeutic or gate of approach to logical science,--nothing more.
But to pursue such speculations further, though not irrelevant, might lead us too far away from the argument of the dialogue.
The Euthydemus is, of all the Dialogues of Plato, that in which he approaches most nearly to the comic poet.
The mirth is broader, the irony more sustained, the contrast between Socrates and the two Sophists, although veiled, penetrates deeper than in any other of his writings.
Even Thrasymachus, in the Republic, is at last pacified, and becomes a friendly and interested auditor of the great discourse.
But in the Euthydemus the mask is never dropped; the accustomed irony of Socrates continues to the end... Socrates narrates to Crito a remarkable scene in which he has himself taken part, and in which the two brothers, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, are the chief performers.
They are natives of Chios, who had settled at Thurii, but were driven out, and in former days had been known at Athens as professors of rhetoric and of the art of fighting in armour.
To this they have now added a new accomplishment--the art of Eristic, or fighting with words, which they are likewise willing to teach 'for a consideration.'
But they can also teach virtue in a very short time and in the very best manner.
Socrates, who is always on the look-out for teachers of virtue, is interested in the youth Cleinias, the grandson of the great Alcibiades, and is desirous that he should have the benefit of their instructions.
He is ready to fall down and worship them; although the greatness of their professions does arouse in his mind a temporary incredulity.
A circle gathers round them, in the midst of which are Socrates, the two brothers, the youth Cleinias, who is watched by the eager eyes of his lover Ctesippus, and others.
The performance begins; and such a performance as might well seem to require an invocation of Memory and the Muses.
It is agreed that the brothers shall question Cleinias.
'Cleinias,' says Euthydemus, 'who learn, the wise or the unwise?'
'The wise,' is the reply; given with blushing and hesitation.
'And yet when you learned you did not know and were not wise.'
Then Dionysodorus takes up the ball: 'Who are they who learn dictation of the grammar-master; the wise or the foolish boys?'
'The wise.'
'Then, after all, the wise learn.'
'And do they learn,' said Euthydemus, 'what they know or what they do not know?'
'The latter.'
'And dictation is a dictation of letters?'
'Yes.'
'And you know letters?'
'Yes.'
'Then you learn what you know.'
'But,' retorts Dionysodorus, 'is not learning acquiring knowledge?'
'Yes.'
'And you acquire that which you have not got already?'
'Yes.'
'Then you learn that which you do not know.'
Socrates is afraid that the youth Cleinias may be discouraged at these repeated overthrows.
He therefore explains to him the nature of the process to which he is being subjected.
The two strangers are not serious; there are jests at the mysteries which precede the enthronement, and he is being initiated into the mysteries of the sophistical ritual.
This is all a sort of horse-play, which is now ended.
The exhortation to virtue will follow, and Socrates himself (if the wise men will not laugh at him) is desirous of showing the way in which such an exhortation should be carried on, according to his own poor notion.
He proceeds to question Cleinias.
The result of the investigation may be summed up as follows:-All men desire good; and good means the possession of goods, such as wealth, health, beauty, birth, power, honour; not forgetting the virtues and wisdom.
And yet in this enumeration the greatest good of all is omitted.
What is that?
Good fortune.
But what need is there of good fortune when we have wisdom already:--in every art and business are not the wise also the fortunate?
This is admitted.
And again, the possession of goods is not enough; there must also be a right use of them which can only be given by knowledge: in themselves they are neither good nor evil--knowledge and wisdom are the only good, and ignorance and folly the only evil.
The conclusion is that we must get 'wisdom.'
But can wisdom be taught?
'Yes,' says Cleinias.
The ingenuousness of the youth delights Socrates, who is at once relieved from the necessity of discussing one of his great puzzles.
'Since wisdom is the only good, he must become a philosopher, or lover of wisdom.'
'That I will,' says Cleinias.
After Socrates has given this specimen of his own mode of instruction, the two brothers recommence their exhortation to virtue, which is of quite another sort.
'You want Cleinias to be wise?'
'Yes.'
'And he is not wise yet?'
'No.'
'Then you want him to be what he is not, and not to be what he is?--not to be--that is, to perish.
Pretty lovers and friends you must all be!'
Here Ctesippus, the lover of Cleinias, interposes in great excitement, thinking that he will teach the two Sophists a lesson of good manners.
But he is quickly entangled in the meshes of their sophistry; and as a storm seems to be gathering Socrates pacifies him with a joke, and Ctesippus then says that he is not reviling the two Sophists, he is only contradicting them.
'But,' says Dionysodorus, 'there is no such thing as contradiction.
When you and I describe the same thing, or you describe one thing and I describe another, how can there be a contradiction?'
Ctesippus is unable to reply.
Socrates has already heard of the denial of contradiction, and would like to be informed by the great master of the art, 'What is the meaning of this paradox?
Is there no such thing as error, ignorance, falsehood?
Then what are they professing to teach?'
The two Sophists complain that Socrates is ready to answer what they said a year ago, but is 'non-plussed' at what they are saying now.
'What does the word "non-plussed" mean?'
Socrates is informed, in reply, that words are lifeless things, and lifeless things have no sense or meaning.
Ctesippus again breaks out, and again has to be pacified by Socrates, who renews the conversation with Cleinias.
The two Sophists are like Proteus in the variety of their transformations, and he, like Menelaus in the Odyssey, hopes to restore them to their natural form.
He had arrived at the conclusion that Cleinias must become a philosopher.
And philosophy is the possession of knowledge; and knowledge must be of a kind which is profitable and may be used.
What knowledge is there which has such a nature?
Not the knowledge which is required in any particular art; nor again the art of the composer of speeches, who knows how to write them, but cannot speak them, although he too must be admitted to be a kind of enchanter of wild animals.
Neither is the knowledge which we are seeking the knowledge of the general.
For the general makes over his prey to the statesman, as the huntsman does to the cook, or the taker of quails to the keeper of quails; he has not the use of that which he acquires.
The two enquirers, Cleinias and Socrates, are described as wandering about in a wilderness, vainly searching after the art of life and happiness.
At last they fix upon the kingly art, as having the desired sort of knowledge.
But the kingly art only gives men those goods which are neither good nor evil: and if we say further that it makes us wise, in what does it make us wise?
Not in special arts, such as cobbling or carpentering, but only in itself: or say again that it makes us good, there is no answer to the question, 'good in what?'
At length in despair Cleinias and Socrates turn to the 'Dioscuri' and request their aid.
Euthydemus argues that Socrates knows something; and as he cannot know and not know, he cannot know some things and not know others, and therefore he knows all things: he and Dionysodorus and all other men know all things.
'Do they know shoemaking, etc?'
'Yes.'
The sceptical Ctesippus would like to have some evidence of this extraordinary statement: he will believe if Euthydemus will tell him how many teeth Dionysodorus has, and if Dionysodorus will give him a like piece of information about Euthydemus.
Even Socrates is incredulous, and indulges in a little raillery at the expense of the brothers.
But he restrains himself, remembering that if the men who are to be his teachers think him stupid they will take no pains with him.
Another fallacy is produced which turns on the absoluteness of the verb 'to know.'
And here Dionysodorus is caught 'napping,' and is induced by Socrates to confess that 'he does not know the good to be unjust.'
Socrates appeals to his brother Euthydemus; at the same time he acknowledges that he cannot, like Heracles, fight against a Hydra, and even Heracles, on the approach of a second monster, called upon his nephew Iolaus to help.
Dionysodorus rejoins that Iolaus was no more the nephew of Heracles than of Socrates.
For a nephew is a nephew, and a brother is a brother, and a father is a father, not of one man only, but of all; nor of men only, but of dogs and sea-monsters.
Ctesippus makes merry with the consequences which follow: 'Much good has your father got out of the wisdom of his puppies.'
'But,' says Euthydemus, unabashed, 'nobody wants much good.'
Medicine is a good, arms are a good, money is a good, and yet there may be too much of them in wrong places.
'No,' says Ctesippus, 'there cannot be too much gold.'
And would you be happy if you had three talents of gold in your belly, a talent in your pate, and a stater in either eye?'
Ctesippus, imitating the new wisdom, replies, 'And do not the Scythians reckon those to be the happiest of men who have their skulls gilded and see the inside of them?'
'Do you see,' retorts Euthydemus, 'what has the quality of vision or what has not the quality of vision?'
'What has the quality of vision.'
'And you see our garments?'
'Yes.'
'Then our garments have the quality of vision.'
A similar play of words follows, which is successfully retorted by Ctesippus, to the great delight of Cleinias, who is rebuked by Socrates for laughing at such solemn and beautiful things.
'But are there any beautiful things?
And if there are such, are they the same or not the same as absolute beauty?'
Socrates replies that they are not the same, but each of them has some beauty present with it.
'And are you an ox because you have an ox present with you?'
After a few more amphiboliae, in which Socrates, like Ctesippus, in self-defence borrows the weapons of the brothers, they both confess that the two heroes are invincible; and the scene concludes with a grand chorus of shouting and laughing, and a panegyrical oration from Socrates:-First, he praises the indifference of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus to public opinion; for most persons would rather be refuted by such arguments than use them in the refutation of others.
Secondly, he remarks upon their impartiality; for they stop their own mouths, as well as those of other people.
Thirdly, he notes their liberality, which makes them give away their secret to all the world: they should be more reserved, and let no one be present at this exhibition who does not pay them a handsome fee; or better still they might practise on one another only.
He concludes with a respectful request that they will receive him and Cleinias among their disciples.
Crito tells Socrates that he has heard one of the audience criticise severely this wisdom,--not sparing Socrates himself for countenancing such an exhibition.
Socrates asks what manner of man was this censorious critic.
'Not an orator, but a great composer of speeches.'
Socrates understands that he is an amphibious animal, half philosopher, half politician; one of a class who have the highest opinion of themselves and a spite against philosophers, whom they imagine to be their rivals.
They are a class who are very likely to get mauled by Euthydemus and his friends, and have a great notion of their own wisdom; for they imagine themselves to have all the advantages and none of the drawbacks both of politics and of philosophy.
They do not understand the principles of combination, and hence are ignorant that the union of two good things which have different ends produces a compound inferior to either of them taken separately.
Crito is anxious about the education of his children, one of whom is growing up.
The description of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus suggests to him the reflection that the professors of education are strange beings.
Socrates consoles him with the remark that the good in all professions are few, and recommends that 'he and his house' should continue to serve philosophy, and not mind about its professors.
...
There is a stage in the history of philosophy in which the old is dying out, and the new has not yet come into full life.
Great philosophies like the Eleatic or Heraclitean, which have enlarged the boundaries of the human mind, begin to pass away in words.
They subsist only as forms which have rooted themselves in language--as troublesome elements of thought which cannot be either used or explained away.
The same absoluteness which was once attributed to abstractions is now attached to the words which are the signs of them.
The philosophy which in the first and second generation was a great and inspiring effort of reflection, in the third becomes sophistical, verbal, eristic.
It is this stage of philosophy which Plato satirises in the Euthydemus.
The fallacies which are noted by him appear trifling to us now, but they were not trifling in the age before logic, in the decline of the earlier Greek philosophies, at a time when language was first beginning to perplex human thought.
Besides he is caricaturing them; they probably received more subtle forms at the hands of those who seriously maintained them.
They are patent to us in Plato, and we are inclined to wonder how any one could ever have been deceived by them; but we must remember also that there was a time when the human mind was only with great difficulty disentangled from such fallacies.
To appreciate fully the drift of the Euthydemus, we should imagine a mental state in which not individuals only, but whole schools during more than one generation, were animated by the desire to exclude the conception of rest, and therefore the very word 'this' (Theaet.)
from language; in which the ideas of space, time, matter, motion, were proved to be contradictory and imaginary; in which the nature of qualitative change was a puzzle, and even differences of degree, when applied to abstract notions, were not understood; in which there was no analysis of grammar, and mere puns or plays of words received serious attention; in which contradiction itself was denied, and, on the one hand, every predicate was affirmed to be true of every subject, and on the other, it was held that no predicate was true of any subject, and that nothing was, or was known, or could be spoken.
Let us imagine disputes carried on with religious earnestness and more than scholastic subtlety, in which the catchwords of philosophy are completely detached from their context.
(Compare Theaet.)
To such disputes the humour, whether of Plato in the ancient, or of Pope and Swift in the modern world, is the natural enemy.
Nor must we forget that in modern times also there is no fallacy so gross, no trick of language so transparent, no abstraction so barren and unmeaning, no form of thought so contradictory to experience, which has not been found to satisfy the minds of philosophical enquirers at a certain stage, or when regarded from a certain point of view only.
The peculiarity of the fallacies of our own age is that we live within them, and are therefore generally unconscious of them.
Aristotle has analysed several of the same fallacies in his book 'De Sophisticis Elenchis,' which Plato, with equal command of their true nature, has preferred to bring to the test of ridicule.
At first we are only struck with the broad humour of this 'reductio ad absurdum:' gradually we perceive that some important questions begin to emerge.
Here, as everywhere else, Plato is making war against the philosophers who put words in the place of things, who tear arguments to tatters, who deny predication, and thus make knowledge impossible, to whom ideas and objects of sense have no fixedness, but are in a state of perpetual oscillation and transition.
Two great truths seem to be indirectly taught through these fallacies: (1) The uncertainty of language, which allows the same words to be used in different meanings, or with different degrees of meaning: (2) The necessary limitation or relative nature of all phenomena.
Plato is aware that his own doctrine of ideas, as well as the Eleatic Being and Not-being, alike admit of being regarded as verbal fallacies.
The sophism advanced in the Meno, 'that you cannot enquire either into what you know or do not know,' is lightly touched upon at the commencement of the Dialogue; the thesis of Protagoras, that everything is true to him to whom it seems to be true, is satirized.
In contrast with these fallacies is maintained the Socratic doctrine that happiness is gained by knowledge.
The grammatical puzzles with which the Dialogue concludes probably contain allusions to tricks of language which may have been practised by the disciples of Prodicus or Antisthenes.
They would have had more point, if we were acquainted with the writings against which Plato's humour is directed.
Most of the jests appear to have a serious meaning; but we have lost the clue to some of them, and cannot determine whether, as in the Cratylus, Plato has or has not mixed up purely unmeaning fun with his satire.
The two discourses of Socrates may be contrasted in several respects with the exhibition of the Sophists: (1) In their perfect relevancy to the subject of discussion, whereas the Sophistical discourses are wholly irrelevant: (2) In their enquiring sympathetic tone, which encourages the youth, instead of 'knocking him down,' after the manner of the two Sophists: (3) In the absence of any definite conclusion--for while Socrates and the youth are agreed that philosophy is to be studied, they are not able to arrive at any certain result about the art which is to teach it.
This is a question which will hereafter be answered in the Republic; as the conception of the kingly art is more fully developed in the Politicus, and the caricature of rhetoric in the Gorgias.
The characters of the Dialogue are easily intelligible.
There is Socrates once more in the character of an old man; and his equal in years, Crito, the father of Critobulus, like Lysimachus in the Laches, his fellow demesman (Apol.
), to whom the scene is narrated, and who once or twice interrupts with a remark after the manner of the interlocutor in the Phaedo, and adds his commentary at the end; Socrates makes a playful allusion to his money-getting habits.
There is the youth Cleinias, the grandson of Alcibiades, who may be compared with Lysis, Charmides, Menexenus, and other ingenuous youths out of whose mouths Socrates draws his own lessons, and to whom he always seems to stand in a kindly and sympathetic relation.
Crito will not believe that Socrates has not improved or perhaps invented the answers of Cleinias (compare Phaedrus).
The name of the grandson of Alcibiades, who is described as long dead, (Greek), and who died at the age of forty-four, in the year 404 B.C., suggests not only that the intended scene of the Euthydemus could not have been earlier than 404, but that as a fact this Dialogue could not have been composed before 390 at the soonest.
Ctesippus, who is the lover of Cleinias, has been already introduced to us in the Lysis, and seems there too to deserve the character which is here given him, of a somewhat uproarious young man.
But the chief study of all is the picture of the two brothers, who are unapproachable in their effrontery, equally careless of what they say to others and of what is said to them, and never at a loss.
They are 'Arcades ambo et cantare pares et respondere parati.'
Some superior degree of wit or subtlety is attributed to Euthydemus, who sees the trap in which Socrates catches Dionysodorus.
The epilogue or conclusion of the Dialogue has been criticised as inconsistent with the general scheme.
Such a criticism is like similar criticisms on Shakespeare, and proceeds upon a narrow notion of the variety which the Dialogue, like the drama, seems to admit.
Plato in the abundance of his dramatic power has chosen to write a play upon a play, just as he often gives us an argument within an argument.
At the same time he takes the opportunity of assailing another class of persons who are as alien from the spirit of philosophy as Euthydemus and Dionysodorus.
The Eclectic, the Syncretist, the Doctrinaire, have been apt to have a bad name both in ancient and modern times.
The persons whom Plato ridicules in the epilogue to the Euthydemus are of this class.
They occupy a border-ground between philosophy and politics; they keep out of the dangers of politics, and at the same time use philosophy as a means of serving their own interests.
Plato quaintly describes them as making two good things, philosophy and politics, a little worse by perverting the objects of both.
Men like Antiphon or Lysias would be types of the class.
Out of a regard to the respectabilities of life, they are disposed to censure the interest which Socrates takes in the exhibition of the two brothers.
They do not understand, any more than Crito, that he is pursuing his vocation of detecting the follies of mankind, which he finds 'not unpleasant.'
(Compare Apol.)
Education is the common subject of all Plato's earlier Dialogues.
The concluding remark of Crito, that he has a difficulty in educating his two sons, and the advice of Socrates to him that he should not give up philosophy because he has no faith in philosophers, seems to be a preparation for the more peremptory declaration of the Meno that 'Virtue cannot be taught because there are no teachers.'
The reasons for placing the Euthydemus early in the series are: (1) the similarity in plan and style to the Protagoras, Charmides, and Lysis;--the relation of Socrates to the Sophists is still that of humorous antagonism, not, as in the later Dialogues of Plato, of embittered hatred; and the places and persons have a considerable family likeness; (2) the Euthydemus belongs to the Socratic period in which Socrates is represented as willing to learn, but unable to teach; and in the spirit of Xenophon's Memorabilia, philosophy is defined as 'the knowledge which will make us happy;' (3) we seem to have passed the stage arrived at in the Protagoras, for Socrates is no longer discussing whether virtue can be taught--from this question he is relieved by the ingenuous declaration of the youth Cleinias; and (4) not yet to have reached the point at which he asserts 'that there are no teachers.'
Such grounds are precarious, as arguments from style and plan are apt to be (Greek).
But no arguments equally strong can be urged in favour of assigning to the Euthydemus any other position in the series.
EUTHYDEMUS PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, who is the narrator of the Dialogue.
Crito, Cleinias, Euthydemus, Dionysodorus, Ctesippus.
SCENE: The Lyceum.
CRITO: Who was the person, Socrates, with whom you were talking yesterday at the Lyceum?
There was such a crowd around you that I could not get within hearing, but I caught a sight of him over their heads, and I made out, as I thought, that he was a stranger with whom you were talking: who was he?
SOCRATES: There were two, Crito; which of them do you mean?
CRITO: The one whom I mean was seated second from you on the right-hand side.
In the middle was Cleinias the young son of Axiochus, who has wonderfully grown; he is only about the age of my own Critobulus, but he is much forwarder and very good-looking: the other is thin and looks younger than he is.
SOCRATES: He whom you mean, Crito, is Euthydemus; and on my left hand there was his brother Dionysodorus, who also took part in the conversation.
CRITO: Neither of them are known to me, Socrates; they are a new importation of Sophists, as I should imagine.
Of what country are they, and what is their line of wisdom?
SOCRATES: As to their origin, I believe that they are natives of this part of the world, and have migrated from Chios to Thurii; they were driven out of Thurii, and have been living for many years past in these regions.
As to their wisdom, about which you ask, Crito, they are wonderful--consummate!
I never knew what the true pancratiast was before; they are simply made up of fighting, not like the two Acarnanian brothers who fight with their bodies only, but this pair of heroes, besides being perfect in the use of their bodies, are invincible in every sort of warfare; for they are capital at fighting in armour, and will teach the art to any one who pays them; and also they are most skilful in legal warfare; they will plead themselves and teach others to speak and to compose speeches which will have an effect upon the courts.
And this was only the beginning of their wisdom, but they have at last carried out the pancratiastic art to the very end, and have mastered the only mode of fighting which had been hitherto neglected by them; and now no one dares even to stand up against them: such is their skill in the war of words, that they can refute any proposition whether true or false.
Now I am thinking, Crito, of placing myself in their hands; for they say that in a short time they can impart their skill to any one.
CRITO: But, Socrates, are you not too old?
there may be reason to fear that.
SOCRATES: Certainly not, Crito; as I will prove to you, for I have the consolation of knowing that they began this art of disputation which I covet, quite, as I may say, in old age; last year, or the year before, they had none of their new wisdom.
I am only apprehensive that I may bring the two strangers into disrepute, as I have done Connus the son of Metrobius, the harp-player, who is still my music-master; for when the boys who go to him see me going with them, they laugh at me and call him grandpapa's master.
Now I should not like the strangers to experience similar treatment; the fear of ridicule may make them unwilling to receive me; and therefore, Crito, I shall try and persuade some old men to accompany me to them, as I persuaded them to go with me to Connus, and I hope that you will make one: and perhaps we had better take your sons as a bait; they will want to have them as pupils, and for the sake of them willing to receive us.
CRITO: I see no objection, Socrates, if you like; but first I wish that you would give me a description of their wisdom, that I may know beforehand what we are going to learn.
SOCRATES: In less than no time you shall hear; for I cannot say that I did not attend--I paid great attention to them, and I remember and will endeavour to repeat the whole story.
Providentially I was sitting alone in the dressing-room of the Lyceum where you saw me, and was about to depart; when I was getting up I recognized the familiar divine sign: so I sat down again, and in a little while the two brothers Euthydemus and Dionysodorus came in, and several others with them, whom I believe to be their disciples, and they walked about in the covered court; they had not taken more than two or three turns when Cleinias entered, who, as you truly say, is very much improved: he was followed by a host of lovers, one of whom was Ctesippus the Paeanian, a well-bred youth, but also having the wildness of youth.
Cleinias saw me from the entrance as I was sitting alone, and at once came and sat down on the right hand of me, as you describe; and Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, when they saw him, at first stopped and talked with one another, now and then glancing at us, for I particularly watched them; and then Euthydemus came and sat down by the youth, and the other by me on the left hand; the rest anywhere.
I saluted the brothers, whom I had not seen for a long time; and then I said to Cleinias: Here are two wise men, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, Cleinias, wise not in a small but in a large way of wisdom, for they know all about war,--all that a good general ought to know about the array and command of an army, and the whole art of fighting in armour: and they know about law too, and can teach a man how to use the weapons of the courts when he is injured.
They heard me say this, but only despised me.
I observed that they looked at one another, and both of them laughed; and then Euthydemus said: Those, Socrates, are matters which we no longer pursue seriously; to us they are secondary occupations.
Indeed, I said, if such occupations are regarded by you as secondary, what must the principal one be; tell me, I beseech you, what that noble study is?
The teaching of virtue, Socrates, he replied, is our principal occupation; and we believe that we can impart it better and quicker than any man.
My God!
I said, and where did you learn that?
I always thought, as I was saying just now, that your chief accomplishment was the art of fighting in armour; and I used to say as much of you, for I remember that you professed this when you were here before.
But now if you really have the other knowledge, O forgive me: I address you as I would superior beings, and ask you to pardon the impiety of my former expressions.
But are you quite sure about this, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus?
the promise is so vast, that a feeling of incredulity steals over me.
You may take our word, Socrates, for the fact.
Then I think you happier in having such a treasure than the great king is in the possession of his kingdom.
And please to tell me whether you intend to exhibit your wisdom; or what will you do?
That is why we have come hither, Socrates; and our purpose is not only to exhibit, but also to teach any one who likes to learn.
But I can promise you, I said, that every unvirtuous person will want to learn.
I shall be the first; and there is the youth Cleinias, and Ctesippus: and here are several others, I said, pointing to the lovers of Cleinias, who were beginning to gather round us.
Now Ctesippus was sitting at some distance from Cleinias; and when Euthydemus leaned forward in talking with me, he was prevented from seeing Cleinias, who was between us; and so, partly because he wanted to look at his love, and also because he was interested, he jumped up and stood opposite to us: and all the other admirers of Cleinias, as well as the disciples of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, followed his example.
And these were the persons whom I showed to Euthydemus, telling him that they were all eager to learn: to which Ctesippus and all of them with one voice vehemently assented, and bid him exhibit the power of his wisdom.
Then I said: O Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, I earnestly request you to do myself and the company the favour to exhibit.
There may be some trouble in giving the whole exhibition; but tell me one thing,--can you make a good man of him only who is already convinced that he ought to learn of you, or of him also who is not convinced, either because he imagines that virtue is a thing which cannot be taught at all, or that you are not the teachers of it?
Has your art power to persuade him, who is of the latter temper of mind, that virtue can be taught; and that you are the men from whom he will best learn it?
Certainly, Socrates, said Dionysodorus; our art will do both.
And you and your brother, Dionysodorus, I said, of all men who are now living are the most likely to stimulate him to philosophy and to the study of virtue?
Yes, Socrates, I rather think that we are.
Then I wish that you would be so good as to defer the other part of the exhibition, and only try to persuade the youth whom you see here that he ought to be a philosopher and study virtue.
Exhibit that, and you will confer a great favour on me and on every one present; for the fact is I and all of us are extremely anxious that he should become truly good.
His name is Cleinias, and he is the son of Axiochus, and grandson of the old Alcibiades, cousin of the Alcibiades that now is.
He is quite young, and we are naturally afraid that some one may get the start of us, and turn his mind in a wrong direction, and he may be ruined.
Your visit, therefore, is most happily timed; and I hope that you will make a trial of the young man, and converse with him in our presence, if you have no objection.
These were pretty nearly the expressions which I used; and Euthydemus, in a manly and at the same time encouraging tone, replied: There can be no objection, Socrates, if the young man is only willing to answer questions.
He is quite accustomed to do so, I replied; for his friends often come and ask him questions and argue with him; and therefore he is quite at home in answering.
What followed, Crito, how can I rightly narrate?
For not slight is the task of rehearsing infinite wisdom, and therefore, like the poets, I ought to commence my relation with an invocation to Memory and the Muses.
Now Euthydemus, if I remember rightly, began nearly as follows: O Cleinias, are those who learn the wise or the ignorant?
The youth, overpowered by the question blushed, and in his perplexity looked at me for help; and I, knowing that he was disconcerted, said: Take courage, Cleinias, and answer like a man whichever you think; for my belief is that you will derive the greatest benefit from their questions.
Whichever he answers, said Dionysodorus, leaning forward so as to catch my ear, his face beaming with laughter, I prophesy that he will be refuted, Socrates.
While he was speaking to me, Cleinias gave his answer: and therefore I had no time to warn him of the predicament in which he was placed, and he answered that those who learned were the wise.
Euthydemus proceeded: There are some whom you would call teachers, are there not?
The boy assented.
And they are the teachers of those who learn--the grammar-master and the lyre-master used to teach you and other boys; and you were the learners?
Yes.
And when you were learners you did not as yet know the things which you were learning?
No, he said.
And were you wise then?
No, indeed, he said.
But if you were not wise you were unlearned?
Certainly.
You then, learning what you did not know, were unlearned when you were learning?
The youth nodded assent.
Then the unlearned learn, and not the wise, Cleinias, as you imagine.
At these words the followers of Euthydemus, of whom I spoke, like a chorus at the bidding of their director, laughed and cheered.
Then, before the youth had time to recover his breath, Dionysodorus cleverly took him in hand, and said: Yes, Cleinias; and when the grammar-master dictated anything to you, were they the wise boys or the unlearned who learned the dictation?
The wise, replied Cleinias.
Then after all the wise are the learners and not the unlearned; and your last answer to Euthydemus was wrong.
Then once more the admirers of the two heroes, in an ecstasy at their wisdom, gave vent to another peal of laughter, while the rest of us were silent and amazed.
Euthydemus, observing this, determined to persevere with the youth; and in order to heighten the effect went on asking another similar question, which might be compared to the double turn of an expert dancer.
Do those, said he, who learn, learn what they know, or what they do not know?
Again Dionysodorus whispered to me: That, Socrates, is just another of the same sort.
Good heavens, I said; and your last question was so good!
Like all our other questions, Socrates, he replied--inevitable.
I see the reason, I said, why you are in such reputation among your disciples.
Meanwhile Cleinias had answered Euthydemus that those who learned learn what they do not know; and he put him through a series of questions the same as before.
Do you not know letters?
He assented.
All letters?
Yes.
But when the teacher dictates to you, does he not dictate letters?
To this also he assented.
Then if you know all letters, he dictates that which you know?
This again was admitted by him.
Then, said the other, you do not learn that which he dictates; but he only who does not know letters learns?
Nay, said Cleinias; but I do learn.
Then, said he, you learn what you know, if you know all the letters?
He admitted that.
Then, he said, you were wrong in your answer.
The word was hardly out of his mouth when Dionysodorus took up the argument, like a ball which he caught, and had another throw at the youth.
Cleinias, he said, Euthydemus is deceiving you.
For tell me now, is not learning acquiring knowledge of that which one learns?
Cleinias assented.
And knowing is having knowledge at the time?
He agreed.
And not knowing is not having knowledge at the time?
He admitted that.
And are those who acquire those who have or have not a thing?
Those who have not.
And have you not admitted that those who do not know are of the number of those who have not?
He nodded assent.
Then those who learn are of the class of those who acquire, and not of those who have?
He agreed.
Then, Cleinias, he said, those who do not know learn, and not those who know.
Euthydemus was proceeding to give the youth a third fall; but I knew that he was in deep water, and therefore, as I wanted to give him a respite lest he should be disheartened, I said to him consolingly: You must not be surprised, Cleinias, at the singularity of their mode of speech: this I say because you may not understand what the two strangers are doing with you; they are only initiating you after the manner of the Corybantes in the mysteries; and this answers to the enthronement, which, if you have ever been initiated, is, as you will know, accompanied by dancing and sport; and now they are just prancing and dancing about you, and will next proceed to initiate you; imagine then that you have gone through the first part of the sophistical ritual, which, as Prodicus says, begins with initiation into the correct use of terms.
The two foreign gentlemen, perceiving that you did not know, wanted to explain to you that the word 'to learn' has two meanings, and is used, first, in the sense of acquiring knowledge of some matter of which you previously have no knowledge, and also, when you have the knowledge, in the sense of reviewing this matter, whether something done or spoken by the light of this newly-acquired knowledge; the latter is generally called 'knowing' rather than 'learning,' but the word 'learning' is also used; and you did not see, as they explained to you, that the term is employed of two opposite sorts of men, of those who know, and of those who do not know.
There was a similar trick in the second question, when they asked you whether men learn what they know or what they do not know.
These parts of learning are not serious, and therefore I say that the gentlemen are not serious, but are only playing with you.
For if a man had all that sort of knowledge that ever was, he would not be at all the wiser; he would only be able to play with men, tripping them up and oversetting them with distinctions of words.
He would be like a person who pulls away a stool from some one when he is about to sit down, and then laughs and makes merry at the sight of his friend overturned and laid on his back.
And you must regard all that has hitherto passed between you and them as merely play.
But in what is to follow I am certain that they will exhibit to you their serious purpose, and keep their promise (I will show them how); for they promised to give me a sample of the hortatory philosophy, but I suppose that they wanted to have a game with you first.
And now, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, I think that we have had enough of this.
Will you let me see you explaining to the young man how he is to apply himself to the study of virtue and wisdom?
And I will first show you what I conceive to be the nature of the task, and what sort of a discourse I desire to hear; and if I do this in a very inartistic and ridiculous manner, do not laugh at me, for I only venture to improvise before you because I am eager to hear your wisdom: and I must therefore ask you and your disciples to refrain from laughing.
And now, O son of Axiochus, let me put a question to you: Do not all men desire happiness?
And yet, perhaps, this is one of those ridiculous questions which I am afraid to ask, and which ought not to be asked by a sensible man: for what human being is there who does not desire happiness?
There is no one, said Cleinias, who does not.
Well, then, I said, since we all of us desire happiness, how can we be happy?--that is the next question.
Shall we not be happy if we have many good things?
And this, perhaps, is even a more simple question than the first, for there can be no doubt of the answer.
He assented.
And what things do we esteem good?
No solemn sage is required to tell us this, which may be easily answered; for every one will say that wealth is a good.
Certainly, he said.
And are not health and beauty goods, and other personal gifts?
He agreed.
Can there be any doubt that good birth, and power, and honours in one's own land, are goods?
He assented.
And what other goods are there?
I said.
What do you say of temperance, justice, courage: do you not verily and indeed think, Cleinias, that we shall be more right in ranking them as goods than in not ranking them as goods?
For a dispute might possibly arise about this.
What then do you say?
They are goods, said Cleinias.
Very well, I said; and where in the company shall we find a place for wisdom--among the goods or not?
Among the goods.
And now, I said, think whether we have left out any considerable goods.
I do not think that we have, said Cleinias.
Upon recollection, I said, indeed I am afraid that we have left out the greatest of them all.
What is that?
he asked.
Fortune, Cleinias, I replied; which all, even the most foolish, admit to be the greatest of goods.
True, he said.
On second thoughts, I added, how narrowly, O son of Axiochus, have you and I escaped making a laughing-stock of ourselves to the strangers.
Why do you say so?
Why, because we have already spoken of good-fortune, and are but repeating ourselves.
What do you mean?
I mean that there is something ridiculous in again putting forward good-fortune, which has a place in the list already, and saying the same thing twice over.
He asked what was the meaning of this, and I replied: Surely wisdom is good-fortune; even a child may know that.
The simple-minded youth was amazed; and, observing his surprise, I said to him: Do you not know, Cleinias, that flute-players are most fortunate and successful in performing on the flute?
He assented.
And are not the scribes most fortunate in writing and reading letters?
Certainly.
Amid the dangers of the sea, again, are any more fortunate on the whole than wise pilots?
None, certainly.
And if you were engaged in war, in whose company would you rather take the risk--in company with a wise general, or with a foolish one?
With a wise one.
And if you were ill, whom would you rather have as a companion in a dangerous illness--a wise physician, or an ignorant one?
A wise one.
You think, I said, that to act with a wise man is more fortunate than to act with an ignorant one?
He assented.
Then wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man would ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.
We contrived at last, somehow or other, to agree in a general conclusion, that he who had wisdom had no need of fortune.
I then recalled to his mind the previous state of the question.
You remember, I said, our making the admission that we should be happy and fortunate if many good things were present with us?
He assented.
And should we be happy by reason of the presence of good things, if they profited us not, or if they profited us?
If they profited us, he said.
And would they profit us, if we only had them and did not use them?
For example, if we had a great deal of food and did not eat, or a great deal of drink and did not drink, should we be profited?
Certainly not, he said.
Or would an artisan, who had all the implements necessary for his work, and did not use them, be any the better for the possession of them?
For example, would a carpenter be any the better for having all his tools and plenty of wood, if he never worked?
Certainly not, he said.
And if a person had wealth and all the goods of which we were just now speaking, and did not use them, would he be happy because he possessed them?
No indeed, Socrates.
Then, I said, a man who would be happy must not only have the good things, but he must also use them; there is no advantage in merely having them?
True.
Well, Cleinias, but if you have the use as well as the possession of good things, is that sufficient to confer happiness?
Yes, in my opinion.
And may a person use them either rightly or wrongly?
He must use them rightly.
That is quite true, I said.
And the wrong use of a thing is far worse than the non-use; for the one is an evil, and the other is neither a good nor an evil.
You admit that?
He assented.
Now in the working and use of wood, is not that which gives the right use simply the knowledge of the carpenter?
Nothing else, he said.
And surely, in the manufacture of vessels, knowledge is that which gives the right way of making them?
He agreed.
And in the use of the goods of which we spoke at first--wealth and health and beauty, is not knowledge that which directs us to the right use of them, and regulates our practice about them?
He assented.
Then in every possession and every use of a thing, knowledge is that which gives a man not only good-fortune but success?
He again assented.
And tell me, I said, O tell me, what do possessions profit a man, if he have neither good sense nor wisdom?
Would a man be better off, having and doing many things without wisdom, or a few things with wisdom?
Look at the matter thus: If he did fewer things would he not make fewer mistakes?
if he made fewer mistakes would he not have fewer misfortunes?
and if he had fewer misfortunes would he not be less miserable?
Certainly, he said.
And who would do least--a poor man or a rich man?
A poor man.
A weak man or a strong man?
A weak man.
A noble man or a mean man?
A mean man.
And a coward would do less than a courageous and temperate man?
Yes.
And an indolent man less than an active man?
He assented.
And a slow man less than a quick; and one who had dull perceptions of seeing and hearing less than one who had keen ones?
All this was mutually allowed by us.
Then, I said, Cleinias, the sum of the matter appears to be that the goods of which we spoke before are not to be regarded as goods in themselves, but the degree of good and evil in them depends on whether they are or are not under the guidance of knowledge: under the guidance of ignorance, they are greater evils than their opposites, inasmuch as they are more able to minister to the evil principle which rules them; and when under the guidance of wisdom and prudence, they are greater goods: but in themselves they are nothing?
That, he replied, is obvious.
What then is the result of what has been said?
Is not this the result--that other things are indifferent, and that wisdom is the only good, and ignorance the only evil?
He assented.
Let us consider a further point, I said: Seeing that all men desire happiness, and happiness, as has been shown, is gained by a use, and a right use, of the things of life, and the right use of them, and good-fortune in the use of them, is given by knowledge,--the inference is that everybody ought by all means to try and make himself as wise as he can?
Yes, he said.
And when a man thinks that he ought to obtain this treasure, far more than money, from a father or a guardian or a friend or a suitor, whether citizen or stranger--the eager desire and prayer to them that they would impart wisdom to you, is not at all dishonourable, Cleinias; nor is any one to be blamed for doing any honourable service or ministration to any man, whether a lover or not, if his aim is to get wisdom.
Do you agree?
I said.
Yes, he said, I quite agree, and think that you are right.
Yes, I said, Cleinias, if only wisdom can be taught, and does not come to man spontaneously; for this is a point which has still to be considered, and is not yet agreed upon by you and me-But I think, Socrates, that wisdom can be taught, he said.
Best of men, I said, I am delighted to hear you say so; and I am also grateful to you for having saved me from a long and tiresome investigation as to whether wisdom can be taught or not.
But now, as you think that wisdom can be taught, and that wisdom only can make a man happy and fortunate, will you not acknowledge that all of us ought to love wisdom, and you individually will try to love her?
Certainly, Socrates, he said; I will do my best.
I was pleased at hearing this; and I turned to Dionysodorus and Euthydemus and said: That is an example, clumsy and tedious I admit, of the sort of exhortations which I would have you give; and I hope that one of you will set forth what I have been saying in a more artistic style: or at least take up the enquiry where I left off, and proceed to show the youth whether he should have all knowledge; or whether there is one sort of knowledge only which will make him good and happy, and what that is.
For, as I was saying at first, the improvement of this young man in virtue and wisdom is a matter which we have very much at heart.
Thus I spoke, Crito, and was all attention to what was coming.
I wanted to see how they would approach the question, and where they would start in their exhortation to the young man that he should practise wisdom and virtue.
Dionysodorus, who was the elder, spoke first.
Everybody's eyes were directed towards him, perceiving that something wonderful might shortly be expected.
And certainly they were not far wrong; for the man, Crito, began a remarkable discourse well worth hearing, and wonderfully persuasive regarded as an exhortation to virtue.
Tell me, he said, Socrates and the rest of you who say that you want this young man to become wise, are you in jest or in real earnest?
I was led by this to imagine that they fancied us to have been jesting when we asked them to converse with the youth, and that this made them jest and play, and being under this impression, I was the more decided in saying that we were in profound earnest.
Dionysodorus said: Reflect, Socrates; you may have to deny your words.
I have reflected, I said; and I shall never deny my words.
Well, said he, and so you say that you wish Cleinias to become wise?
Undoubtedly.
And he is not wise as yet?
At least his modesty will not allow him to say that he is.
You wish him, he said, to become wise and not, to be ignorant?
That we do.
You wish him to be what he is not, and no longer to be what he is?
I was thrown into consternation at this.
Taking advantage of my consternation he added: You wish him no longer to be what he is, which can only mean that you wish him to perish.
Pretty lovers and friends they must be who want their favourite not to be, or to perish!
When Ctesippus heard this he got very angry (as a lover well might) and said: Stranger of Thurii--if politeness would allow me I should say, A plague upon you!
What can make you tell such a lie about me and the others, which I hardly like to repeat, as that I wish Cleinias to perish?
Euthydemus replied: And do you think, Ctesippus, that it is possible to tell a lie?
Yes, said Ctesippus; I should be mad to say anything else.
And in telling a lie, do you tell the thing of which you speak or not?
You tell the thing of which you speak.
And he who tells, tells that thing which he tells, and no other?
Yes, said Ctesippus.
And that is a distinct thing apart from other things?
Certainly.
And he who says that thing says that which is?
Yes.
And he who says that which is, says the truth.
And therefore Dionysodorus, if he says that which is, says the truth of you and no lie.
Yes, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus; but in saying this, he says what is not.
Euthydemus answered: And that which is not is not?
True.
And that which is not is nowhere?
Nowhere.
And can any one do anything about that which has no existence, or do to Cleinias that which is not and is nowhere?
I think not, said Ctesippus.
Well, but do rhetoricians, when they speak in the assembly, do nothing?
Nay, he said, they do something.
And doing is making?
Yes.
And speaking is doing and making?
He agreed.
Then no one says that which is not, for in saying what is not he would be doing something; and you have already acknowledged that no one can do what is not.
And therefore, upon your own showing, no one says what is false; but if Dionysodorus says anything, he says what is true and what is.
Yes, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus; but he speaks of things in a certain way and manner, and not as they really are.
Why, Ctesippus, said Dionysodorus, do you mean to say that any one speaks of things as they are?
Yes, he said--all gentlemen and truth-speaking persons.
And are not good things good, and evil things evil?
He assented.
And you say that gentlemen speak of things as they are?
Yes.
Then the good speak evil of evil things, if they speak of them as they are?
Yes, indeed, he said; and they speak evil of evil men.
And if I may give you a piece of advice, you had better take care that they do not speak evil of you, since I can tell you that the good speak evil of the evil.
And do they speak great things of the great, rejoined Euthydemus, and warm things of the warm?
To be sure they do, said Ctesippus; and they speak coldly of the insipid and cold dialectician.
You are abusive, Ctesippus, said Dionysodorus, you are abusive!
Indeed, I am not, Dionysodorus, he replied; for I love you and am giving you friendly advice, and, if I could, would persuade you not like a boor to say in my presence that I desire my beloved, whom I value above all men, to perish.
I saw that they were getting exasperated with one another, so I made a joke with him and said: O Ctesippus, I think that we must allow the strangers to use language in their own way, and not quarrel with them about words, but be thankful for what they give us.
If they know how to destroy men in such a way as to make good and sensible men out of bad and foolish ones--whether this is a discovery of their own, or whether they have learned from some one else this new sort of death and destruction which enables them to get rid of a bad man and turn him into a good one--if they know this (and they do know this--at any rate they said just now that this was the secret of their newly-discovered art)--let them, in their phraseology, destroy the youth and make him wise, and all of us with him.
But if you young men do not like to trust yourselves with them, then fiat experimentum in corpore senis; I will be the Carian on whom they shall operate.
And here I offer my old person to Dionysodorus; he may put me into the pot, like Medea the Colchian, kill me, boil me, if he will only make me good.
Ctesippus said: And I, Socrates, am ready to commit myself to the strangers; they may skin me alive, if they please (and I am pretty well skinned by them already), if only my skin is made at last, not like that of Marsyas, into a leathern bottle, but into a piece of virtue.
And here is Dionysodorus fancying that I am angry with him, when really I am not angry at all; I do but contradict him when I think that he is speaking improperly to me: and you must not confound abuse and contradiction, O illustrious Dionysodorus; for they are quite different things.
Contradiction!
said Dionysodorus; why, there never was such a thing.
Certainly there is, he replied; there can be no question of that.
Do you, Dionysodorus, maintain that there is not?
You will never prove to me, he said, that you have heard any one contradicting any one else.
Indeed, said Ctesippus; then now you may hear me contradicting Dionysodorus.
Are you prepared to make that good?
Certainly, he said.
Well, have not all things words expressive of them?
Yes.
Of their existence or of their non-existence?
Of their existence.
Yes, Ctesippus, and we just now proved, as you may remember, that no man could affirm a negative; for no one could affirm that which is not.
And what does that signify?
said Ctesippus; you and I may contradict all the same for that.
But can we contradict one another, said Dionysodorus, when both of us are describing the same thing?
Then we must surely be speaking the same thing?
He assented.
Or when neither of us is speaking of the same thing?
For then neither of us says a word about the thing at all?
He granted that proposition also.
But when I describe something and you describe another thing, or I say something and you say nothing--is there any contradiction?
How can he who speaks contradict him who speaks not?
Here Ctesippus was silent; and I in my astonishment said: What do you mean, Dionysodorus?
I have often heard, and have been amazed to hear, this thesis of yours, which is maintained and employed by the disciples of Protagoras, and others before them, and which to me appears to be quite wonderful, and suicidal as well as destructive, and I think that I am most likely to hear the truth about it from you.
The dictum is that there is no such thing as falsehood; a man must either say what is true or say nothing.
Is not that your position?
He assented.
But if he cannot speak falsely, may he not think falsely?
No, he cannot, he said.
Then there is no such thing as false opinion?
No, he said.
Then there is no such thing as ignorance, or men who are ignorant; for is not ignorance, if there be such a thing, a mistake of fact?
Certainly, he said.
And that is impossible?
Impossible, he replied.
Are you saying this as a paradox, Dionysodorus; or do you seriously maintain no man to be ignorant?
Refute me, he said.
But how can I refute you, if, as you say, to tell a falsehood is impossible?
Very true, said Euthydemus.
Neither did I tell you just now to refute me, said Dionysodorus; for how can I tell you to do that which is not?
O Euthydemus, I said, I have but a dull conception of these subtleties and excellent devices of wisdom; I am afraid that I hardly understand them, and you must forgive me therefore if I ask a very stupid question: if there be no falsehood or false opinion or ignorance, there can be no such thing as erroneous action, for a man cannot fail of acting as he is acting--that is what you mean?
Yes, he replied.
And now, I said, I will ask my stupid question: If there is no such thing as error in deed, word, or thought, then what, in the name of goodness, do you come hither to teach?
And were you not just now saying that you could teach virtue best of all men, to any one who was willing to learn?
And are you such an old fool, Socrates, rejoined Dionysodorus, that you bring up now what I said at first--and if I had said anything last year, I suppose that you would bring that up too--but are non-plussed at the words which I have just uttered?
Why, I said, they are not easy to answer; for they are the words of wise men: and indeed I know not what to make of this word 'nonplussed,' which you used last: what do you mean by it, Dionysodorus?
You must mean that I cannot refute your argument.
Tell me if the words have any other sense.
No, he replied, they mean what you say.
And now answer.
What, before you, Dionysodorus?
I said.
Answer, said he.
And is that fair?
Yes, quite fair, he said.
Upon what principle?
I said.
I can only suppose that you are a very wise man who comes to us in the character of a great logician, and who knows when to answer and when not to answer--and now you will not open your mouth at all, because you know that you ought not.
You prate, he said, instead of answering.
But if, my good sir, you admit that I am wise, answer as I tell you.
I suppose that I must obey, for you are master.
Put the question.
Are the things which have sense alive or lifeless?
They are alive.
And do you know of any word which is alive?
I cannot say that I do.
Then why did you ask me what sense my words had?
Why, because I was stupid and made a mistake.
And yet, perhaps, I was right after all in saying that words have a sense;--what do you say, wise man?
If I was not in error, even you will not refute me, and all your wisdom will be non-plussed; but if I did fall into error, then again you are wrong in saying that there is no error,--and this remark was made by you not quite a year ago.
I am inclined to think, however, Dionysodorus and Euthydemus, that this argument lies where it was and is not very likely to advance: even your skill in the subtleties of logic, which is really amazing, has not found out the way of throwing another and not falling yourself, now any more than of old.
Ctesippus said: Men of Chios, Thurii, or however and whatever you call yourselves, I wonder at you, for you seem to have no objection to talking nonsense.
Fearing that there would be high words, I again endeavoured to soothe Ctesippus, and said to him: To you, Ctesippus, I must repeat what I said before to Cleinias--that you do not understand the ways of these philosophers from abroad.
They are not serious, but, like the Egyptian wizard, Proteus, they take different forms and deceive us by their enchantments: and let us, like Menelaus, refuse to let them go until they show themselves to us in earnest.
When they begin to be in earnest their full beauty will appear: let us then beg and entreat and beseech them to shine forth.
And I think that I had better once more exhibit the form in which I pray to behold them; it might be a guide to them.
I will go on therefore where I left off, as well as I can, in the hope that I may touch their hearts and move them to pity, and that when they see me deeply serious and interested, they also may be serious.
You, Cleinias, I said, shall remind me at what point we left off.
Did we not agree that philosophy should be studied?
and was not that our conclusion?
Yes, he replied.
And philosophy is the acquisition of knowledge?
Yes, he said.
And what knowledge ought we to acquire?
May we not answer with absolute truth--A knowledge which will do us good?
Certainly, he said.
And should we be any the better if we went about having a knowledge of the places where most gold was hidden in the earth?
Perhaps we should, he said.
But have we not already proved, I said, that we should be none the better off, even if without trouble and digging all the gold which there is in the earth were ours?
And if we knew how to convert stones into gold, the knowledge would be of no value to us, unless we also knew how to use the gold?
Do you not remember?
I said.
I quite remember, he said.
Nor would any other knowledge, whether of money-making, or of medicine, or of any other art which knows only how to make a thing, and not to use it when made, be of any good to us.
Am I not right?
He agreed.
And if there were a knowledge which was able to make men immortal, without giving them the knowledge of the way to use the immortality, neither would there be any use in that, if we may argue from the analogy of the previous instances?
To all this he agreed.
Then, my dear boy, I said, the knowledge which we want is one that uses as well as makes?
True, he said.
And our desire is not to be skilful lyre-makers, or artists of that sort--far otherwise; for with them the art which makes is one, and the art which uses is another.
Although they have to do with the same, they are divided: for the art which makes and the art which plays on the lyre differ widely from one another.
Am I not right?
He agreed.
And clearly we do not want the art of the flute-maker; this is only another of the same sort?
He assented.
But suppose, I said, that we were to learn the art of making speeches--would that be the art which would make us happy?
I should say, no, rejoined Cleinias.
And why should you say so?
I asked.
I see, he replied, that there are some composers of speeches who do not know how to use the speeches which they make, just as the makers of lyres do not know how to use the lyres; and also some who are of themselves unable to compose speeches, but are able to use the speeches which the others make for them; and this proves that the art of making speeches is not the same as the art of using them.
Yes, I said; and I take your words to be a sufficient proof that the art of making speeches is not one which will make a man happy.
And yet I did think that the art which we have so long been seeking might be discovered in that direction; for the composers of speeches, whenever I meet them, always appear to me to be very extraordinary men, Cleinias, and their art is lofty and divine, and no wonder.
For their art is a part of the great art of enchantment, and hardly, if at all, inferior to it: and whereas the art of the enchanter is a mode of charming snakes and spiders and scorpions, and other monsters and pests, this art of their's acts upon dicasts and ecclesiasts and bodies of men, for the charming and pacifying of them.
Do you agree with me?
Yes, he said, I think that you are quite right.
Whither then shall we go, I said, and to what art shall we have recourse?
I do not see my way, he said.
But I think that I do, I replied.
And what is your notion?
asked Cleinias.
I think that the art of the general is above all others the one of which the possession is most likely to make a man happy.
I do not think so, he said.
Why not?
I said.
The art of the general is surely an art of hunting mankind.
What of that?
I said.
Why, he said, no art of hunting extends beyond hunting and capturing; and when the prey is taken the huntsman or fisherman cannot use it; but they hand it over to the cook, and the geometricians and astronomers and calculators (who all belong to the hunting class, for they do not make their diagrams, but only find out that which was previously contained in them)--they, I say, not being able to use but only to catch their prey, hand over their inventions to the dialectician to be applied by him, if they have any sense in them.
Good, I said, fairest and wisest Cleinias.
And is this true?
Certainly, he said; just as a general when he takes a city or a camp hands over his new acquisition to the statesman, for he does not know how to use them himself; or as the quail-taker transfers the quails to the keeper of them.
If we are looking for the art which is to make us blessed, and which is able to use that which it makes or takes, the art of the general is not the one, and some other must be found.
CRITO: And do you mean, Socrates, that the youngster said all this?
SOCRATES: Are you incredulous, Crito?
CRITO: Indeed, I am; for if he did say so, then in my opinion he needs neither Euthydemus nor any one else to be his instructor.
SOCRATES: Perhaps I may have forgotten, and Ctesippus was the real answerer.
CRITO: Ctesippus!
nonsense.
SOCRATES: All I know is that I heard these words, and that they were not spoken either by Euthydemus or Dionysodorus.
I dare say, my good Crito, that they may have been spoken by some superior person: that I heard them I am certain.
CRITO: Yes, indeed, Socrates, by some one a good deal superior, as I should be disposed to think.
But did you carry the search any further, and did you find the art which you were seeking?
SOCRATES: Find!
my dear sir, no indeed.
And we cut a poor figure; we were like children after larks, always on the point of catching the art, which was always getting away from us.
But why should I repeat the whole story?
At last we came to the kingly art, and enquired whether that gave and caused happiness, and then we got into a labyrinth, and when we thought we were at the end, came out again at the beginning, having still to seek as much as ever.
CRITO: How did that happen, Socrates?
SOCRATES: I will tell you; the kingly art was identified by us with the political.
CRITO: Well, and what came of that?
SOCRATES: To this royal or political art all the arts, including the art of the general, seemed to render up the supremacy, that being the only one which knew how to use what they produce.
Here obviously was the very art which we were seeking--the art which is the source of good government, and which may be described, in the language of Aeschylus, as alone sitting at the helm of the vessel of state, piloting and governing all things, and utilizing them.
CRITO: And were you not right, Socrates?
SOCRATES: You shall judge, Crito, if you are willing to hear what followed; for we resumed the enquiry, and a question of this sort was asked: Does the kingly art, having this supreme authority, do anything for us?
To be sure, was the answer.
And would not you, Crito, say the same?
CRITO: Yes, I should.
SOCRATES: And what would you say that the kingly art does?
If medicine were supposed to have supreme authority over the subordinate arts, and I were to ask you a similar question about that, you would say--it produces health?
CRITO: I should.
SOCRATES: And what of your own art of husbandry, supposing that to have supreme authority over the subject arts--what does that do?
Does it not supply us with the fruits of the earth?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And what does the kingly art do when invested with supreme power?
Perhaps you may not be ready with an answer?
CRITO: Indeed I am not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No more were we, Crito.
But at any rate you know that if this is the art which we were seeking, it ought to be useful.
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And surely it ought to do us some good?
CRITO: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And Cleinias and I had arrived at the conclusion that knowledge of some kind is the only good.
CRITO: Yes, that was what you were saying.
SOCRATES: All the other results of politics, and they are many, as for example, wealth, freedom, tranquillity, were neither good nor evil in themselves; but the political science ought to make us wise, and impart knowledge to us, if that is the science which is likely to do us good, and make us happy.
CRITO: Yes; that was the conclusion at which you had arrived, according to your report of the conversation.
SOCRATES: And does the kingly art make men wise and good?
CRITO: Why not, Socrates?
SOCRATES: What, all men, and in every respect?
and teach them all the arts,--carpentering, and cobbling, and the rest of them?
CRITO: I think not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: But then what is this knowledge, and what are we to do with it?
For it is not the source of any works which are neither good nor evil, and gives no knowledge, but the knowledge of itself; what then can it be, and what are we to do with it?
Shall we say, Crito, that it is the knowledge by which we are to make other men good?
CRITO: By all means.
SOCRATES: And in what will they be good and useful?
Shall we repeat that they will make others good, and that these others will make others again, without ever determining in what they are to be good; for we have put aside the results of politics, as they are called.
This is the old, old song over again; and we are just as far as ever, if not farther, from the knowledge of the art or science of happiness.
CRITO: Indeed, Socrates, you do appear to have got into a great perplexity.
SOCRATES: Thereupon, Crito, seeing that I was on the point of shipwreck, I lifted up my voice, and earnestly entreated and called upon the strangers to save me and the youth from the whirlpool of the argument; they were our Castor and Pollux, I said, and they should be serious, and show us in sober earnest what that knowledge was which would enable us to pass the rest of our lives in happiness.
CRITO: And did Euthydemus show you this knowledge?
SOCRATES: Yes, indeed; he proceeded in a lofty strain to the following effect: Would you rather, Socrates, said he, that I should show you this knowledge about which you have been doubting, or shall I prove that you already have it?
What, I said, are you blessed with such a power as this?
Indeed I am.
Then I would much rather that you should prove me to have such a knowledge; at my time of life that will be more agreeable than having to learn.
Then tell me, he said, do you know anything?
Yes, I said, I know many things, but not anything of much importance.
That will do, he said: And would you admit that anything is what it is, and at the same time is not what it is?
Certainly not.
And did you not say that you knew something?
I did.
If you know, you are knowing.
Certainly, of the knowledge which I have.
That makes no difference;--and must you not, if you are knowing, know all things?
Certainly not, I said, for there are many other things which I do not know.
And if you do not know, you are not knowing.
Yes, friend, of that which I do not know.
Still you are not knowing, and you said just now that you were knowing; and therefore you are and are not at the same time, and in reference to the same things.
A pretty clatter, as men say, Euthydemus, this of yours!
and will you explain how I possess that knowledge for which we were seeking?
Do you mean to say that the same thing cannot be and also not be; and therefore, since I know one thing, that I know all, for I cannot be knowing and not knowing at the same time, and if I know all things, then I must have the knowledge for which we are seeking--May I assume this to be your ingenious notion?
Out of your own mouth, Socrates, you are convicted, he said.
Well, but, Euthydemus, I said, has that never happened to you?
for if I am only in the same case with you and our beloved Dionysodorus, I cannot complain.
Tell me, then, you two, do you not know some things, and not know others?
Certainly not, Socrates, said Dionysodorus.
What do you mean, I said; do you know nothing?
Nay, he replied, we do know something.
Then, I said, you know all things, if you know anything?
Yes, all things, he said; and that is as true of you as of us.
O, indeed, I said, what a wonderful thing, and what a great blessing!
And do all other men know all things or nothing?
Certainly, he replied; they cannot know some things, and not know others, and be at the same time knowing and not knowing.
Then what is the inference?
I said.
They all know all things, he replied, if they know one thing.
O heavens, Dionysodorus, I said, I see now that you are in earnest; hardly have I got you to that point.
And do you really and truly know all things, including carpentering and leather-cutting?
Certainly, he said.
And do you know stitching?
Yes, by the gods, we do, and cobbling, too.
And do you know things such as the numbers of the stars and of the sand?
Certainly; did you think we should say No to that?
By Zeus, said Ctesippus, interrupting, I only wish that you would give me some proof which would enable me to know whether you speak truly.
What proof shall I give you?
he said.
Will you tell me how many teeth Euthydemus has?
and Euthydemus shall tell how many teeth you have.
Will you not take our word that we know all things?
Certainly not, said Ctesippus: you must further tell us this one thing, and then we shall know that you are speak the truth; if you tell us the number, and we count them, and you are found to be right, we will believe the rest.
They fancied that Ctesippus was making game of them, and they refused, and they would only say in answer to each of his questions, that they knew all things.
For at last Ctesippus began to throw off all restraint; no question in fact was too bad for him; he would ask them if they knew the foulest things, and they, like wild boars, came rushing on his blows, and fearlessly replied that they did.
At last, Crito, I too was carried away by my incredulity, and asked Euthydemus whether Dionysodorus could dance.
Certainly, he replied.
And can he vault among swords, and turn upon a wheel, at his age?
has he got to such a height of skill as that?
He can do anything, he said.
And did you always know this?
Always, he said.
When you were children, and at your birth?
They both said that they did.
This we could not believe.
And Euthydemus said: You are incredulous, Socrates.
Yes, I said, and I might well be incredulous, if I did not know you to be wise men.
But if you will answer, he said, I will make you confess to similar marvels.
Well, I said, there is nothing that I should like better than to be self-convicted of this, for if I am really a wise man, which I never knew before, and you will prove to me that I know and have always known all things, nothing in life would be a greater gain to me.
Answer then, he said.
Ask, I said, and I will answer.
Do you know something, Socrates, or nothing?
Something, I said.
And do you know with what you know, or with something else?
With what I know; and I suppose that you mean with my soul?
Are you not ashamed, Socrates, of asking a question when you are asked one?
Well, I said; but then what am I to do?
for I will do whatever you bid; when I do not know what you are asking, you tell me to answer nevertheless, and not to ask again.
Why, you surely have some notion of my meaning, he said.
Yes, I replied.
Well, then, answer according to your notion of my meaning.
Yes, I said; but if the question which you ask in one sense is understood and answered by me in another, will that please you--if I answer what is not to the point?
That will please me very well; but will not please you equally well, as I imagine.
I certainly will not answer unless I understand you, I said.
You will not answer, he said, according to your view of the meaning, because you will be prating, and are an ancient.
Now I saw that he was getting angry with me for drawing distinctions, when he wanted to catch me in his springes of words.
And I remembered that Connus was always angry with me when I opposed him, and then he neglected me, because he thought that I was stupid; and as I was intending to go to Euthydemus as a pupil, I reflected that I had better let him have his way, as he might think me a blockhead, and refuse to take me.
So I said: You are a far better dialectician than myself, Euthydemus, for I have never made a profession of the art, and therefore do as you say; ask your questions once more, and I will answer.
Answer then, he said, again, whether you know what you know with something, or with nothing.
Yes, I said; I know with my soul.
The man will answer more than the question; for I did not ask you, he said, with what you know, but whether you know with something.
Again I replied, Through ignorance I have answered too much, but I hope that you will forgive me.
And now I will answer simply that I always know what I know with something.
And is that something, he rejoined, always the same, or sometimes one thing, and sometimes another thing?
Always, I replied, when I know, I know with this.
Will you not cease adding to your answers?
My fear is that this word 'always' may get us into trouble.
You, perhaps, but certainly not us.
And now answer: Do you always know with this?
Always; since I am required to withdraw the words 'when I know.'
You always know with this, or, always knowing, do you know some things with this, and some things with something else, or do you know all things with this?
All that I know, I replied, I know with this.
There again, Socrates, he said, the addition is superfluous.
Well, then, I said, I will take away the words 'that I know.'
Nay, take nothing away; I desire no favours of you; but let me ask: Would you be able to know all things, if you did not know all things?
Quite impossible.
And now, he said, you may add on whatever you like, for you confess that you know all things.
I suppose that is true, I said, if my qualification implied in the words 'that I know' is not allowed to stand; and so I do know all things.
And have you not admitted that you always know all things with that which you know, whether you make the addition of 'when you know them' or not?
for you have acknowledged that you have always and at once known all things, that is to say, when you were a child, and at your birth, and when you were growing up, and before you were born, and before the heaven and earth existed, you knew all things, if you always know them; and I swear that you shall always continue to know all things, if I am of the mind to make you.
But I hope that you will be of that mind, reverend Euthydemus, I said, if you are really speaking the truth, and yet I a little doubt your power to make good your words unless you have the help of your brother Dionysodorus; then you may do it.
Tell me now, both of you, for although in the main I cannot doubt that I really do know all things, when I am told so by men of your prodigious wisdom--how can I say that I know such things, Euthydemus, as that the good are unjust; come, do I know that or not?
Certainly, you know that.
What do I know?
That the good are not unjust.
Quite true, I said; and that I have always known; but the question is, where did I learn that the good are unjust?
Nowhere, said Dionysodorus.
Then, I said, I do not know this.
You are ruining the argument, said Euthydemus to Dionysodorus; he will be proved not to know, and then after all he will be knowing and not knowing at the same time.
Dionysodorus blushed.
I turned to the other, and said, What do you think, Euthydemus?
Does not your omniscient brother appear to you to have made a mistake?
What, replied Dionysodorus in a moment; am I the brother of Euthydemus?
Thereupon I said, Please not to interrupt, my good friend, or prevent Euthydemus from proving to me that I know the good to be unjust; such a lesson you might at least allow me to learn.
You are running away, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, and refusing to answer.
No wonder, I said, for I am not a match for one of you, and a fortiori I must run away from two.
I am no Heracles; and even Heracles could not fight against the Hydra, who was a she-Sophist, and had the wit to shoot up many new heads when one of them was cut off; especially when he saw a second monster of a sea-crab, who was also a Sophist, and appeared to have newly arrived from a sea-voyage, bearing down upon him from the left, opening his mouth and biting.
When the monster was growing troublesome he called Iolaus, his nephew, to his help, who ably succoured him; but if my Iolaus, who is my brother Patrocles (the statuary), were to come, he would only make a bad business worse.
And now that you have delivered yourself of this strain, said Dionysodorus, will you inform me whether Iolaus was the nephew of Heracles any more than he is yours?
I suppose that I had best answer you, Dionysodorus, I said, for you will insist on asking--that I pretty well know--out of envy, in order to prevent me from learning the wisdom of Euthydemus.
Then answer me, he said.
Well then, I said, I can only reply that Iolaus was not my nephew at all, but the nephew of Heracles; and his father was not my brother Patrocles, but Iphicles, who has a name rather like his, and was the brother of Heracles.
And is Patrocles, he said, your brother?
Yes, I said, he is my half-brother, the son of my mother, but not of my father.
Then he is and is not your brother.
Not by the same father, my good man, I said, for Chaeredemus was his father, and mine was Sophroniscus.
And was Sophroniscus a father, and Chaeredemus also?
Yes, I said; the former was my father, and the latter his.
Then, he said, Chaeredemus is not a father.
He is not my father, I said.
But can a father be other than a father?
or are you the same as a stone?
I certainly do not think that I am a stone, I said, though I am afraid that you may prove me to be one.
Are you not other than a stone?
I am.
And being other than a stone, you are not a stone; and being other than gold, you are not gold?
Very true.
And so Chaeredemus, he said, being other than a father, is not a father?
I suppose that he is not a father, I replied.
For if, said Euthydemus, taking up the argument, Chaeredemus is a father, then Sophroniscus, being other than a father, is not a father; and you, Socrates, are without a father.
Ctesippus, here taking up the argument, said: And is not your father in the same case, for he is other than my father?
Assuredly not, said Euthydemus.
Then he is the same?
He is the same.
I cannot say that I like the connection; but is he only my father, Euthydemus, or is he the father of all other men?
Of all other men, he replied.
Do you suppose the same person to be a father and not a father?
Certainly, I did so imagine, said Ctesippus.
And do you suppose that gold is not gold, or that a man is not a man?
They are not 'in pari materia,' Euthydemus, said Ctesippus, and you had better take care, for it is monstrous to suppose that your father is the father of all.
But he is, he replied.
What, of men only, said Ctesippus, or of horses and of all other animals?
Of all, he said.
And your mother, too, is the mother of all?
Yes, our mother too.
Yes; and your mother has a progeny of sea-urchins then?
Yes; and yours, he said.
And gudgeons and puppies and pigs are your brothers?
And yours too.
And your papa is a dog?
And so is yours, he said.
If you will answer my questions, said Dionysodorus, I will soon extract the same admissions from you, Ctesippus.
You say that you have a dog.
Yes, a villain of a one, said Ctesippus.
And he has puppies?
Yes, and they are very like himself.
And the dog is the father of them?
Yes, he said, I certainly saw him and the mother of the puppies come together.
And is he not yours?
To be sure he is.
Then he is a father, and he is yours; ergo, he is your father, and the puppies are your brothers.
Let me ask you one little question more, said Dionysodorus, quickly interposing, in order that Ctesippus might not get in his word: You beat this dog?
Ctesippus said, laughing, Indeed I do; and I only wish that I could beat you instead of him.
Then you beat your father, he said.
I should have far more reason to beat yours, said Ctesippus; what could he have been thinking of when he begat such wise sons?
much good has this father of you and your brethren the puppies got out of this wisdom of yours.
But neither he nor you, Ctesippus, have any need of much good.
And have you no need, Euthydemus?
he said.
Neither I nor any other man; for tell me now, Ctesippus, if you think it good or evil for a man who is sick to drink medicine when he wants it; or to go to war armed rather than unarmed.
Good, I say.
And yet I know that I am going to be caught in one of your charming puzzles.
That, he replied, you will discover, if you answer; since you admit medicine to be good for a man to drink, when wanted, must it not be good for him to drink as much as possible; when he takes his medicine, a cartload of hellebore will not be too much for him?
Ctesippus said: Quite so, Euthydemus, that is to say, if he who drinks is as big as the statue of Delphi.
And seeing that in war to have arms is a good thing, he ought to have as many spears and shields as possible?
Very true, said Ctesippus; and do you think, Euthydemus, that he ought to have one shield only, and one spear?
I do.
And would you arm Geryon and Briareus in that way?
Considering that you and your companion fight in armour, I thought that you would have known better...Here Euthydemus held his peace, but Dionysodorus returned to the previous answer of Ctesippus and said:-Do you not think that the possession of gold is a good thing?
Yes, said Ctesippus, and the more the better.
And to have money everywhere and always is a good?
Certainly, a great good, he said.
And you admit gold to be a good?
Certainly, he replied.
And ought not a man then to have gold everywhere and always, and as much as possible in himself, and may he not be deemed the happiest of men who has three talents of gold in his belly, and a talent in his pate, and a stater of gold in either eye?
Yes, Euthydemus, said Ctesippus; and the Scythians reckon those who have gold in their own skulls to be the happiest and bravest of men (that is only another instance of your manner of speaking about the dog and father), and what is still more extraordinary, they drink out of their own skulls gilt, and see the inside of them, and hold their own head in their hands.
And do the Scythians and others see that which has the quality of vision, or that which has not?
said Euthydemus.
That which has the quality of vision clearly.
And you also see that which has the quality of vision?
he said.
[Note: the ambiguity of (Greek), 'things visible and able to see,' (Greek), 'the speaking of the silent,' the silent denoting either the speaker or the subject of the speech, cannot be perfectly rendered in English.]
Compare Aristot.
Soph.
Elenchi (Poste's translation):-'Of ambiguous propositions the following are instances:-'I hope that you the enemy may slay.
'Whom one knows, he knows.
Either the person knowing or the person known is here affirmed to know.
'What one sees, that one sees: one sees a pillar: ergo, that one pillar sees.
'What you ARE holding, that you are: you are holding a stone: ergo, a stone you are.
'Is a speaking of the silent possible?
"The silent" denotes either the speaker are the subject of speech.
'There are three kinds of ambiguity of term or proposition.
The first is when there is an equal linguistic propriety in several interpretations; the second when one is improper but customary; the third when the ambiguity arises in the combination of elements that are in themselves unambiguous, as in "knowing letters."
"Knowing" and "letters" are perhaps separately unambiguous, but in combination may imply either that the letters are known, or that they themselves have knowledge.
Such are the modes in which propositions and terms may be ambiguous.'
Yes, I do.
Then do you see our garments?
Yes.
Then our garments have the quality of vision.
They can see to any extent, said Ctesippus.
What can they see?
Nothing; but you, my sweet man, may perhaps imagine that they do not see; and certainly, Euthydemus, you do seem to me to have been caught napping when you were not asleep, and that if it be possible to speak and say nothing--you are doing so.
And may there not be a silence of the speaker?
said Dionysodorus.
Impossible, said Ctesippus.
Or a speaking of the silent?
That is still more impossible, he said.
But when you speak of stones, wood, iron bars, do you not speak of the silent?
Not when I pass a smithy; for then the iron bars make a tremendous noise and outcry if they are touched: so that here your wisdom is strangely mistaken; please, however, to tell me how you can be silent when speaking (I thought that Ctesippus was put upon his mettle because Cleinias was present).
When you are silent, said Euthydemus, is there not a silence of all things?
Yes, he said.
But if speaking things are included in all things, then the speaking are silent.
What, said Ctesippus; then all things are not silent?
Certainly not, said Euthydemus.
Then, my good friend, do they all speak?
Yes; those which speak.
Nay, said Ctesippus, but the question which I ask is whether all things are silent or speak?
Neither and both, said Dionysodorus, quickly interposing; I am sure that you will be 'non-plussed' at that answer.
Here Ctesippus, as his manner was, burst into a roar of laughter; he said, That brother of yours, Euthydemus, has got into a dilemma; all is over with him.
This delighted Cleinias, whose laughter made Ctesippus ten times as uproarious; but I cannot help thinking that the rogue must have picked up this answer from them; for there has been no wisdom like theirs in our time.
Why do you laugh, Cleinias, I said, at such solemn and beautiful things?
Why, Socrates, said Dionysodorus, did you ever see a beautiful thing?
Yes, Dionysodorus, I replied, I have seen many.
Were they other than the beautiful, or the same as the beautiful?
Now I was in a great quandary at having to answer this question, and I thought that I was rightly served for having opened my mouth at all: I said however, They are not the same as absolute beauty, but they have beauty present with each of them.
And are you an ox because an ox is present with you, or are you Dionysodorus, because Dionysodorus is present with you?
God forbid, I replied.
But how, he said, by reason of one thing being present with another, will one thing be another?
Is that your difficulty?
I said.
For I was beginning to imitate their skill, on which my heart was set.
Of course, he replied, I and all the world are in a difficulty about the non-existent.
What do you mean, Dionysodorus?
I said.
Is not the honourable honourable and the base base?
That, he said, is as I please.
And do you please?
Yes, he said.
And you will admit that the same is the same, and the other other; for surely the other is not the same; I should imagine that even a child will hardly deny the other to be other.
But I think, Dionysodorus, that you must have intentionally missed the last question; for in general you and your brother seem to me to be good workmen in your own department, and to do the dialectician's business excellently well.
What, said he, is the business of a good workman?
tell me, in the first place, whose business is hammering?
The smith's.
And whose the making of pots?
The potter's.
And who has to kill and skin and mince and boil and roast?
The cook, I said.
And if a man does his business he does rightly?
Certainly.
And the business of the cook is to cut up and skin; you have admitted that?
Yes, I have admitted that, but you must not be too hard upon me.
Then if some one were to kill, mince, boil, roast the cook, he would do his business, and if he were to hammer the smith, and make a pot of the potter, he would do their business.
Poseidon, I said, this is the crown of wisdom; can I ever hope to have such wisdom of my own?
And would you be able, Socrates, to recognize this wisdom when it has become your own?
Certainly, I said, if you will allow me.
What, he said, do you think that you know what is your own?
Yes, I do, subject to your correction; for you are the bottom, and Euthydemus is the top, of all my wisdom.
Is not that which you would deem your own, he said, that which you have in your own power, and which you are able to use as you would desire, for example, an ox or a sheep--would you not think that which you could sell and give and sacrifice to any god whom you pleased, to be your own, and that which you could not give or sell or sacrifice you would think not to be in your own power?
Yes, I said (for I was certain that something good would come out of the questions, which I was impatient to hear); yes, such things, and such things only are mine.
Yes, he said, and you would mean by animals living beings?
Yes, I said.
You agree then, that those animals only are yours with which you have the power to do all these things which I was just naming?
I agree.
Then, after a pause, in which he seemed to be lost in the contemplation of something great, he said: Tell me, Socrates, have you an ancestral Zeus?
Here, anticipating the final move, like a person caught in a net, who gives a desperate twist that he may get away, I said: No, Dionysodorus, I have not.
What a miserable man you must be then, he said; you are not an Athenian at all if you have no ancestral gods or temples, or any other mark of gentility.
Nay, Dionysodorus, I said, do not be rough; good words, if you please; in the way of religion I have altars and temples, domestic and ancestral, and all that other Athenians have.
And have not other Athenians, he said, an ancestral Zeus?
That name, I said, is not to be found among the Ionians, whether colonists or citizens of Athens; an ancestral Apollo there is, who is the father of Ion, and a family Zeus, and a Zeus guardian of the phratry, and an Athene guardian of the phratry.
But the name of ancestral Zeus is unknown to us.
No matter, said Dionysodorus, for you admit that you have Apollo, Zeus, and Athene.
Certainly, I said.
And they are your gods, he said.
Yes, I said, my lords and ancestors.
At any rate they are yours, he said, did you not admit that?
I did, I said; what is going to happen to me?
And are not these gods animals?
for you admit that all things which have life are animals; and have not these gods life?
They have life, I said.
Then are they not animals?
They are animals, I said.
And you admitted that of animals those are yours which you could give away or sell or offer in sacrifice, as you pleased?
I did admit that, Euthydemus, and I have no way of escape.
Well then, said he, if you admit that Zeus and the other gods are yours, can you sell them or give them away or do what you will with them, as you would with other animals?
At this I was quite struck dumb, Crito, and lay prostrate.
Ctesippus came to the rescue.
Bravo, Heracles, brave words, said he.
Bravo Heracles, or is Heracles a Bravo?
said Dionysodorus.
Poseidon, said Ctesippus, what awful distinctions.
I will have no more of them; the pair are invincible.
Then, my dear Crito, there was universal applause of the speakers and their words, and what with laughing and clapping of hands and rejoicings the two men were quite overpowered; for hitherto their partisans only had cheered at each successive hit, but now the whole company shouted with delight until the columns of the Lyceum returned the sound, seeming to sympathize in their joy.
To such a pitch was I affected myself, that I made a speech, in which I acknowledged that I had never seen the like of their wisdom; I was their devoted servant, and fell to praising and admiring of them.
What marvellous dexterity of wit, I said, enabled you to acquire this great perfection in such a short time?
There is much, indeed, to admire in your words, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, but there is nothing that I admire more than your magnanimous disregard of any opinion--whether of the many, or of the grave and reverend seigniors--you regard only those who are like yourselves.
And I do verily believe that there are few who are like you, and who would approve of such arguments; the majority of mankind are so ignorant of their value, that they would be more ashamed of employing them in the refutation of others than of being refuted by them.
I must further express my approval of your kind and public-spirited denial of all differences, whether of good and evil, white or black, or any other; the result of which is that, as you say, every mouth is sewn up, not excepting your own, which graciously follows the example of others; and thus all ground of offence is taken away.
But what appears to me to be more than all is, that this art and invention of yours has been so admirably contrived by you, that in a very short time it can be imparted to any one.
I observed that Ctesippus learned to imitate you in no time.
Now this quickness of attainment is an excellent thing; but at the same time I would advise you not to have any more public entertainments; there is a danger that men may undervalue an art which they have so easy an opportunity of acquiring; the exhibition would be best of all, if the discussion were confined to your two selves; but if there must be an audience, let him only be present who is willing to pay a handsome fee;--you should be careful of this;--and if you are wise, you will also bid your disciples discourse with no man but you and themselves.
For only what is rare is valuable; and 'water,' which, as Pindar says, is the 'best of all things,' is also the cheapest.
And now I have only to request that you will receive Cleinias and me among your pupils.
Such was the discussion, Crito; and after a few more words had passed between us we went away.
I hope that you will come to them with me, since they say that they are able to teach any one who will give them money; no age or want of capacity is an impediment.
And I must repeat one thing which they said, for your especial benefit,--that the learning of their art did not at all interfere with the business of money-making.
CRITO: Truly, Socrates, though I am curious and ready to learn, yet I fear that I am not like-minded with Euthydemus, but one of the other sort, who, as you were saying, would rather be refuted by such arguments than use them in refutation of others.
And though I may appear ridiculous in venturing to advise you, I think that you may as well hear what was said to me by a man of very considerable pretensions--he was a professor of legal oratory--who came away from you while I was walking up and down.
'Crito,' said he to me, 'are you giving no attention to these wise men?'
'No, indeed,' I said to him; 'I could not get within hearing of them--there was such a crowd.'
'You would have heard something worth hearing if you had.'
'What was that?'
I said.
'You would have heard the greatest masters of the art of rhetoric discoursing.'
'And what did you think of them?'
I said.
'What did I think of them?'
he said:--'theirs was the sort of discourse which anybody might hear from men who were playing the fool, and making much ado about nothing.'
That was the expression which he used.
'Surely,' I said, 'philosophy is a charming thing.'
'Charming!'
he said; 'what simplicity!
philosophy is nought; and I think that if you had been present you would have been ashamed of your friend--his conduct was so very strange in placing himself at the mercy of men who care not what they say, and fasten upon every word.
And these, as I was telling you, are supposed to be the most eminent professors of their time.
But the truth is, Crito, that the study itself and the men themselves are utterly mean and ridiculous.'
Now censure of the pursuit, Socrates, whether coming from him or from others, appears to me to be undeserved; but as to the impropriety of holding a public discussion with such men, there, I confess that, in my opinion, he was in the right.
SOCRATES: O Crito, they are marvellous men; but what was I going to say?
First of all let me know;--What manner of man was he who came up to you and censured philosophy; was he an orator who himself practises in the courts, or an instructor of orators, who makes the speeches with which they do battle?
CRITO: He was certainly not an orator, and I doubt whether he had ever been into court; but they say that he knows the business, and is a clever man, and composes wonderful speeches.
SOCRATES: Now I understand, Crito; he is one of an amphibious class, whom I was on the point of mentioning--one of those whom Prodicus describes as on the border-ground between philosophers and statesmen--they think that they are the wisest of all men, and that they are generally esteemed the wisest; nothing but the rivalry of the philosophers stands in their way; and they are of the opinion that if they can prove the philosophers to be good for nothing, no one will dispute their title to the palm of wisdom, for that they are themselves really the wisest, although they are apt to be mauled by Euthydemus and his friends, when they get hold of them in conversation.
This opinion which they entertain of their own wisdom is very natural; for they have a certain amount of philosophy, and a certain amount of political wisdom; there is reason in what they say, for they argue that they have just enough of both, and so they keep out of the way of all risks and conflicts and reap the fruits of their wisdom.
CRITO: What do you say of them, Socrates?
There is certainly something specious in that notion of theirs.
SOCRATES: Yes, Crito, there is more speciousness than truth; they cannot be made to understand the nature of intermediates.
For all persons or things, which are intermediate between two other things, and participate in both of them--if one of these two things is good and the other evil, are better than the one and worse than the other; but if they are in a mean between two good things which do not tend to the same end, they fall short of either of their component elements in the attainment of their ends.
Only in the case when the two component elements which do not tend to the same end are evil is the participant better than either.
Now, if philosophy and political action are both good, but tend to different ends, and they participate in both, and are in a mean between them, then they are talking nonsense, for they are worse than either; or, if the one be good and the other evil, they are better than the one and worse than the other; only on the supposition that they are both evil could there be any truth in what they say.
I do not think that they will admit that their two pursuits are either wholly or partly evil; but the truth is, that these philosopher-politicians who aim at both fall short of both in the attainment of their respective ends, and are really third, although they would like to stand first.
There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs--which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are.
CRITO: I have often told you, Socrates, that I am in a constant difficulty about my two sons.
What am I to do with them?
There is no hurry about the younger one, who is only a child; but the other, Critobulus, is getting on, and needs some one who will improve him.
I cannot help thinking, when I hear you talk, that there is a sort of madness in many of our anxieties about our children:--in the first place, about marrying a wife of good family to be the mother of them, and then about heaping up money for them--and yet taking no care about their education.
But then again, when I contemplate any of those who pretend to educate others, I am amazed.
To me, if I am to confess the truth, they all seem to be such outrageous beings: so that I do not know how I can advise the youth to study philosophy.
SOCRATES: Dear Crito, do you not know that in every profession the inferior sort are numerous and good for nothing, and the good are few and beyond all price: for example, are not gymnastic and rhetoric and money-making and the art of the general, noble arts?
CRITO: Certainly they are, in my judgment.
SOCRATES: Well, and do you not see that in each of these arts the many are ridiculous performers?
CRITO: Yes, indeed, that is very true.
SOCRATES: And will you on this account shun all these pursuits yourself and refuse to allow them to your son?
CRITO: That would not be reasonable, Socrates.
SOCRATES: Do you then be reasonable, Crito, and do not mind whether the teachers of philosophy are good or bad, but think only of philosophy herself.
Try and examine her well and truly, and if she be evil seek to turn away all men from her, and not your sons only; but if she be what I believe that she is, then follow her and serve her, you and your house, as the saying is, and be of good cheer.
THE SYMPOSIUM By Xenophon Translation by H. G. Dakyns Xenophon the Athenian was born 431 B.C.
He was a pupil of Socrates.
He marched with the Spartans, and was exiled from Athens.
Sparta gave him land and property in Scillus, where he lived for many years before having to move once more, to settle in Corinth.
He died in 354 B.C.
The Symposium records the discussion of Socrates and company at a dinner given by Callias for the youth Autolycus.
Dakyns believed that Plato knew of this work, and that it influenced him to some degree when he wrote his own "Symposium."
PREPARER'S NOTE This was typed from Dakyns' series, "The Works of Xenophon," a four-volume set.
The complete list of Xenophon's works (though there is doubt about some of these) is: Work Number of books The Anabasis 7 The Hellenica 7 The Cyropaedia 8 The Memorabilia 4 The Symposium 1 The Economist 1 On Horsemanship 1 The Sportsman 1 The Cavalry General 1 The Apology 1 On Revenues 1 The Hiero 1 The Agesilaus 1 The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians 2 Text in brackets "{}" is my transliteration of Greek text into English using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.
The diacritical marks have been lost.
THE SYMPOSIUM or The Banquet I For myself, (1) I hold to the opinion that not alone are the serious transactions of "good and noble men" (2) most memorable, but that words and deeds distinctive of their lighter moods may claim some record.
(3) In proof of which contention, I will here describe a set of incidents within the scope of my experience.
(4) (1) See Aristid.
ii.
foll.
(2) Or, "nature's noblemen."
(3) Cf.
Plut.
"Ages."
29 (Clough, iv.
35): "And indeed if, as Xenophon says, in conversation good men, even in their sports and at their wine, let fall many sayings that are worth preserving."
See Grote, "Plato," ii.
228 foll.
as to the sportive character of the work.
(4) Or, "let me describe a scene which I was witness of."
See Hug.
"Plat.
Symp."
p. xv.
foll.
The occasion was a horse-race (5) at the great Panathenaic festival.
(6) Callias, (7) the son of Hipponicus, being a friend and lover of the boy Autolycus, (8) had brought the lad, himself the winner of the pankration, (9) to see the spectacle.
(5) See "Hipparch," ii.
1.
(6) "Held towards the end of July (Hecatombaeon) every year, and with greater pomp every four years (the third of each Olympiad)."
--Gow, 84, 129, n. (7) Callias.
Cobet, "Pros.
X."
p. 67 foll.
; Boeckh, "P. E.
A."
p. 481.
(8) See Cobet, op.
cit.
p. 54; Plut.
"Lysand."
15 (Clough, iii.
120); Grote, "H. G." ix.
261.
(9) 420 B.C., al.
421.
The date is fixed by the "Autolycus" of Eupolis.
See Athen.
v. 216.
For the pankration, which comprised wrestling and boxing, see Aristot.
"Rhet."
i. S. 14.
As soon as the horse race was over, (10) Callias proceeded to escort Autolycus and his father, Lycon, to his house in the Piraeus, being attended also by Niceratus.
(11) But catching sight of Socrates along with certain others (Critobulus, (12) Hermogenes, Antisthenes, and Charmides), he bade an attendant conduct the party with Autolycus, whilst he himself approached the group, exclaiming: (10) See A. Martin, op.
cit.
p. 265.
(11) Niceratus.
See Cobet, op.
cit.
71; Boeckh, "P. E.
A."
480; Plat.
"Lach."
200 C; "Hell."
II.
iii.
39; Lys.
xviii.
; Diod.
xiv.
5.
(12) Critobulus, Hermogenes, Antisthenes, Charmides.
See "Mem."
A happy chance brings me across your path, just when I am about to entertain Autolycus and his father at a feast.
The splendour of the entertainment shall be much enhanced, I need not tell you, if my hall (13) should happily be graced by worthies like yourselves, who have attained to purity of soul, (14) rather than by generals and cavalry commanders (15) and a crowd of place-hunters.
(16) (13) Or, "dining-room."
See Becker, "Charicles," 265.
(14) See Grote, "H. G." viii.
619 foll.
Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." 527 D; "Soph."
230 E. (15) Lit.
Strategoi, Hipparchs.
(16) Or, "petitioners for offices of state."
Reading {spoudarkhiais}.
Whereat Socrates: When will you have done with your gibes, Callias?
Why, because you have yourself spent sums of money on Protagoras, (17) and Gorgias, and Prodicus, and a host of others, to learn wisdom, must you pour contempt on us poor fellows, who are but self-taught tinkers (18) in philosophy compared with you?
(17) As to Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Prodicus of Ceos, see Plat.
"Prot."
314 C, "Rep." x.
600 C, "Apol."
19 E; "Anab."
II.
vi.
17; "Mem."
II.
i.
21; "Encyc.
Brit."
"Sophists," H. Jackson.
(18) Or, "hand-to-mouth cultivators of philosophy," "roturiers."
Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." 565 A: "A third class who work for themselves"; Thuc.
i.
141: "The Peloponnesians cultivate their own soil, and they have no wealth either public or private."
Cf.
"Econ."
v. 4.
Hitherto, no doubt (retorted Callias), although I had plenty of wise things to say, I have kept my wisdom to myself; but if only you will honour me with your company to-day, I promise to present myself in quite another light; you will see I am a person of no mean consideration after all.
(19) (19) Or, "I will prove to you that I am worthy of infinite respect."
Socrates and the others, while thanking Callias politely for the invitation, were not disposed at first to join the dinner party; but the annoyance of the other so to be put off was so obvious that in the end the party were persuaded to accompany their host.
After an interval devoted to gymnastic exercise (and subsequent anointing of the limbs) by some, whilst others of them took a bath, the guests were severally presented to the master of the house.
Autolycus was seated next his father, as was natural, (20) while the rest reclined on couches.
Noting the scene presented, the first idea to strike the mind of any one must certainly have been that beauty has by nature something regal in it; and the more so, if it chance to be combined (as now in the person of Autolycus) with modesty and self-respect.
Even as when a splendid object blazes forth at night, the eyes of men are riveted, (21) so now the beauty of Autolycus drew on him the gaze of all; nor was there one of those onlookers but was stirred to his soul's depth by him who sat there.
(22) Some fell into unwonted silence, while the gestures of the rest were equally significant.
(20) Al.
"Autolycus found a seat beside his father, while the rest reclined on couches in the usual fashion."
See Schneider's note.
(21) Passage imitated by Max.
Tyr.
"Or."
xxiv.
4.
(22) Cf.
Plat.
"Charm."
154.
It seems the look betokening divine possession, no matter who the god, must ever be remarkable.
Only, whilst the subject of each commoner emotion passion-whirled may be distinguished by flashings of the eye, by terror-striking tones of voice, and by the vehement fervour of the man's whole being, so he who is inspired by temperate and harmonious love (23) will wear a look of kindlier welcome in his eyes; the words he utters fall from his lips with softer intonation; and every gesture of his bodily frame conform to what is truly frank and liberal.
Such, at any rate, the strange effects now wrought on Callias by love.
He was like one transformed, the cynosure of all initiated in the mysteries of this divinity.
(24) (23) Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." iii.
403 A: "Whereas true love is a love of beauty and order, temperate and harmonious."
(24) Cf.
"Econ."
xxi.
12.
So they supped in silence, the whole company, as if an injunction had been laid upon them by some superior power.
But presently there came a knocking on the door!
Philippus the jester bade the doorkeeper (25) announce him, with apologies for seeking a night's lodging: (26) he had come, he said, provided with all necessaries for dining, at a friend's expense: his attendant was much galled with carrying, nothing but an empty bread-basket.
(27) To this announcement Callias, appealing to his guests, replied: "It would never do to begrudge the shelter of one's roof: (28) let him come in."
And as he spoke, he glanced across to where Autolycus was seated, as if to say: "I wonder how you take the jest."
(25) Lit.
"him who answers the knock," "the concierge" or hall-porter.
Cf.
Theophr.
"Char."
xiv.
7; Aristot.
"Oec."
i.
6.
(26) Lit.
"and why he wished to put up."
(27) Lit.
"and being breakfastless"; cf.
Theocr.
i.
51.
The jester's humour resembles Pistol's ("Merry Wives," i.
3.
23) "O base Hungarian wight!"
(28) Or, "How say you, my friends, it would hardly do, methinks, to shut the door upon him."
See Becker, "Charicles," p. 92.
Meanwhile the jester, standing at the door of the apartment where the feast was spread, addressed the company: I believe you know, sirs, that being a jester by profession, it is my business to make jokes.
I am all the readier, therefore, to present myself, feeling convinced it is a better joke to come to dinner thus unbidden than by solemn invitation.
Be seated, (29) then (replied the host).
The company are fully fed on serious thoughts, you see, if somewhat starved of food for laughter.
(29) Lit.
"Pray, find a couch then."
The feast proceeded; and, if only to discharge the duty laid upon him at a dinner-party, Philippus must try at once to perpetrate a jest.
Failing to stir a smile, poor fellow, he made no secret of his perturbation.
Presently he tried again; and for the second time the joke fell flat.
Whereat he paused abruptly in the middle of the course, and muffling up his face, fell prostrate on the couch.
Then Callias: What ails you, sirrah?
Have you the cramp?
the toothache?
what?
To which the other heaving a deep groan: Yes, Callias, an atrocious ache; since laughter has died out among mankind, my whole estate is bankrupt.
(30) In old days I would be asked to dinner to amuse the company with jests.
(31) Now all is changed, and who will be at pains to ask me out to dinner any more?
I might as well pretend to be immortal as to be serious.
Nor will any one invite me in hopes of reclining at my board in his turn.
Everyone knows so serious a thing as dinner in my house was never heard of; it's against the rules--the more's the pity.
(30) Cf.
"Cyrop."
VI.
i.
3; Plat.
"Laws," 677 C. (31) Lit.
"by the laughter which I stirred in them."
And as he spoke he blew his nose and snuffled, uttering the while so truly dolorous a moan (32) that everybody fell to soothing him.
"They would all laugh again another day," they said, and so implored him to have done and eat his dinner; till Critobulus could not stand his lamentation longer, but broke into a peal of laughter.
The welcome sound sufficed.
The sufferer unveiled his face, and thus addressed his inner self: (33) "Be of good cheer, my soul, there are many battles (34) yet in store for us," and so he fell to discussing the viands once again.
(32) Philippus would seem to have anticipated Mr. Woodward; see Prologue to "She Stoops to Conquer": Pray, would you know the reason I'm crying?
The Comic Muse long sick is now a-dying!
And if she goes... (33) Cf.
"Cyrop."
I. iv.
13; Eur.
"Med."
1056, 1242; Aristoph.
"Ach."
357, 480.
(34) Or add, "ere we have expended our last shot."
Philippus puns on the double sense of {sumbolai}.
Cf.
Aristoph.
"Ach."
1210, where Lamachus groans {talas ego xumboles bareias}, and Dicaeopolis replies {tois Khousi gar tis xumbolas epratteto}.
Lam.
'Twas at the final charge; I'd paid before A number of the rogues; at least a score.
Dic.
It was a most expensive charge you bore: Poor Lamachus!
he was forced to pay the score.
H. Frere.
II Now the tables were removed, and in due order they had poured out the libation, and had sung the hymn.
(1) To promote the revelry, there entered now a Syracusan, with a trio of assistants: the first, a flute-girl, perfect in her art; and next, a dancing-girl, skilled to perform all kinds of wonders; lastly, in the bloom of beauty, a boy, who played the harp and danced with infinite grace.
This Syracusan went about exhibiting his troupe, whose wonderful performance was a source of income to him.
(1) See Plat.
"Symp."
176 A; Athen.
ix.
408.
After the girl had played to them upon the flute, and then the boy in turn upon the harp, and both performers, as it would appear, had set the hearts of every one rejoicing, Socrates turned to Callias: A feast, upon my word, O princeliest entertainer!
(2) Was it not enough to set before your guests a faultless dinner, but you must feast our eyes and ears on sights and sounds the most delicious?
(2) Lit.
"in consummate style."
To which the host: And that reminds me, a supply of unguents might not be amiss; (3) what say you?
Shall we feast on perfumes also?
(4) (3) Lit.
"suppose I tell the servant to bring in some perfumes, so that we may further feast on fragrance..." Cf.
Theophr.
"Char."
vii.
6 (Jebb ad loc.)
(4) See Athen.
xv.
686.
No, I protest (the other answered).
Scents resemble clothes.
One dress is beautiful on man and one on woman; and so with fragrance: what becomes the woman, ill becomes the man.
Did ever man anoint himself with oil of myrrh to please his fellow?
Women, and especially young women (like our two friends' brides, Niceratus' and Critobulus'), need no perfume, being but compounds themselves of fragrance.
(5) No, sweeter than any perfume else to women is good olive-oil, suggestive of the training-school: (6) sweet if present, and when absent longed for.
And why?
Distinctions vanish with the use of perfumes.
The freeman and the slave have forthwith both alike one odour.
But the scents derived from toils--those toils which every free man loves (7)--need customary habit first, and time's distillery, if they are to be sweet with freedom's breath, at last.
(8) (5) Cf.
Solomon's Song, iv.
10: "How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!
how much better is thy love than wine!
and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!"
(6) Lit.
"the gymnasium."
(7) Cf.
Aristoph.
"Clouds," 1002 foll.
See J.
A. Symonds, "The Greek Poets," 1st s., p. 281.
(8) See "Mem."
III.
x.
5; "Cyrop."
VIII.
i.
43.
Here Lycon interposed: That may be well enough for youths, but what shall we do whose gymnastic days are over?
What fragrance is left for us?
Soc.
Why, that of true nobility, of course.
Lyc.
And whence shall a man obtain this chrism?
Soc.
Not from those that sell perfumes and unguents, in good sooth.
Lyc.
But whence, then?
Soc.
Theognis has told us: From the good thou shalt learn good things, but if with the evil Thou holdest converse, thou shalt lose the wit that is in thee.
(9) (9) Theog.
35 foll.
See "Mem."
I. ii.
20; Plat.
"Men."
95 D. Lyc.
(turning to his son).
Do you hear that, my son?
That he does (Socrates answered for the boy), and he puts the precept into practice also; to judge, at any rate, from his behaviour.
When he had set his heart on carrying off the palm of victory in the pankration, he took you into his counsel; (10) and will again take counsel to discover the fittest friend to aid him in his high endeavour, (11) and with this friend associate.
(10) It looks as if something had been lost intimating that Autolycus would have need of some one to instruct him in spiritual things.
For attempts to fill up the lacuna see Schenkl.
(11) Or, "these high pursuits."
Thereupon several of the company exclaimed at once.
"Where will he find a teacher to instruct him in that wisdom?"
one inquired.
"Why, it is not to be taught!"
exclaimed another; to which a third rejoined: "Why should it not be learnt as well as other things?"
(12) (12) Cf.
for the question {ei arete didakton}, "Mem."
I. ii.
19; IV.
i; "Cyrop."
III.
i.
17; III.
iii.
53.
Then Socrates: The question would seem at any rate to be debatable.
Suppose we defer it till another time, and for the present not interrupt the programme of proceedings.
I see, the dancing-girl is standing ready; they are handing her some hoops.
And at the instant her fellow with the flute commenced a tune to keep her company, whilst some one posted at her side kept handing her the hoops till she had twelve in all.
With these in her hands she fell to dancing, and the while she danced she flung the hoops into the air--overhead she sent them twirling--judging the height they must be thrown to catch them, as they fell, in perfect time.
(13) (13) "In time with the music and the measure of the dance."
Then Socrates: The girl's performance is one proof among a host of others, sirs, that woman's nature is nowise inferior to man's.
All she wants is strength and judgment; (14) and that should be an encouragement to those of you who have wives, to teach them whatever you would have them know as your associates.
(15) (14) Reading, as vulg.
{gnomes de kai iskhuos deitai}; al.
continuing {ouden} from the first half of the sentence, transl.
"she has no lack of either judgment or physical strength."
Lange conj.
{romes} for {gnomes}, "all she needs is force and strength of body."
See Newman, op.
cit.
i.
419.
(15) Lit.
"so that, if any of you has a wife, he may well take heart and teach her whatever he would wish her to know in dealing with her."
Cf.
"N.
A."
i.
17.
Antisthenes rejoined: If that is your conclusion, Socrates, why do you not tutor your own wife, Xanthippe, (16) instead of letting her (17) remain, of all the wives that are, indeed that ever will be, I imagine, the most shrewish?
(16) See Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 56; "Mem."
II.
ii.
1; Aul.
Gell.
"N.
A."
i.
17.
(17) Lit.
"dealing with her," "finding in her"; {khro} corresponding to {khresthai} in Socrates' remarks.
Well now, I will tell you (he answered).
I follow the example of the rider who wishes to become an expert horseman: "None of your soft-mouthed, docile animals for me," he says; "the horse for me to own must show some spirit": (18) in the belief, no doubt, if he can manage such an animal, it will be easy enough to deal with every other horse besides.
And that is just my case.
I wish to deal with human beings, to associate with man in general; hence my choice of wife.
(19) I know full well, if I can tolerate her spirit, I can with ease attach myself to every human being else.
(18) Lit.
"Because I see the man who aims at skill in horsemanship does not care to own a soft-mouthed, docile animal, but some restive, fiery creature."
(19) Lit.
"being anxious to have intercourse with all mankind, to deal with every sort of human being, I possess my wife."
A well-aimed argument, not wide of the mark by any means!
(20) the company were thinking.
(20) Cf.
Plat.
"Theaet."
179 C. Hereupon a large hoop studded with a bristling row of upright swords (21) was introduced; and into the centre of this ring of knives and out of it again the girl threw somersaults backwards, forwards, several times, till the spectators were in terror of some accident; but with the utmost coolness and without mishap the girl completed her performance.
(21) See Becker, "Char."
p. 101.
Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
190; "Euthyd."
294.
Here Socrates, appealing to Antisthenes: None of the present company, I take it, who have watched this spectacle will ever again deny that courage can be taught, (22) when the girl there, woman should she be, rushes so boldly into the midst of swords.
(22) Cf.
"Mem."
III.
ix.
1.
He, thus challenged, answered: No; and what our friend, the Syracusan here, should do is to exhibit his dancing-girl to the state.
(23) Let him tell the authorities he is prepared, for a consideration, to give the whole Athenian people courage to face the hostile lances at close quarters.
(23) Or, "to the city," i.e.
of Athens.
Whereat the jester: An excellent idea, upon my word; and when it happens, may I be there to see that mighty orator (24) Peisander learning to throw somersaults (25) into swords; since incapacity to look a row of lances in the face at present makes him shy of military service.
(26) (24) Or, "tribune of the people."
Cf.
Plat.
"Gorg."
520 B; "Laws," 908 D. (25) Or, "learning to go head over heels into swords."
(26) For Peisander see Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 46 foll.
A thoroughgoing oligarch (Thuc.
viii.
90), he was the occasion of much mirth to the comic writers (so Grote, "H. G." viii.
12).
See re his "want of spirit" Aristoph.
"Birds," 1556: {entha kai Peisandros elthe deomenos psukhen idein, e zont ekeinon proulipe, k.t.l.}
where the poet has a fling at Socrates also: Socrates beside the brink, Summons from the murky sink Many a disembodied ghost; And Peisander reached the coast To raise the spirit that he lost; With conviction strange and new, A gawky camel which he slew, Like Ulysses.--Whereupon, etc.
H. Frere Cf.
"Peace," 395; "Lysistr."
490.
At this stage of the proceedings the boy danced.
The dance being over, Socrates exclaimed: Pray, did you notice how the beauty of the child, so lovely in repose, became enhanced with every movement of his supple body?
To which Charmides replied: How like a flatterer you are!
one would think you had set yourself to puff the dancing-master.
(27) (27) See "The Critic," I. ii.
To be sure (he answered solemnly); and there's another point I could not help observing: how while he danced no portion of his body remained idle; neck and legs and hands together, one and all were exercised.
(28) That is how a man should dance, who wants to keep his body light and healthy.
(29) (Then turning to the Syracusan, he added): I cannot say how much obliged I should be to you, O man of Syracuse, for lessons in deportment.
Pray teach me my steps.
(30) (28) Cf.
"Pol.
Lac."
v. 9.
(29) Cf.
Aristot.
"H.
A."
vi.
21.
4.
(30) "Gestures," "postures," "figures."
See Eur.
"Cycl."
221; Aristoph.
"Peace," 323; Isocr.
"Antid."
183.
And what use will you make of them?
(the other asked).
God bless me!
I shall dance, of course (he answered).
The remark was greeted with a peal of merriment.
Then Socrates, with a most serious expression of countenance: (31) You are pleased to laugh at me.
Pray, do you find it so ridiculous my wishing to improve my health by exercise?
or to enjoy my victuals better?
to sleep better?
or is it the sort of exercise I set my heart on?
Not like those runners of the long race, (32) to have my legs grow muscular and my shoulders leaner in proportion; nor like a boxer, thickening chest and shoulders at expense of legs; but by distribution of the toil throughout my limbs (33) I seek to give an even balance to my body.
Or are you laughing to think that I shall not in future have to seek a partner in the training school, (34) whereby it will not be necessary for an old man like myself to strip in public?
(35) All I shall need will be a seven-sofa'd chamber, (36) where I can warm to work, (37) just like the lad here who has found this room quite ample for the purpose.
And in winter I shall do gymnastics (38) under cover, or when the weather is broiling under shade....
But what is it you keep on laughing at--the wish on my part to reduce to moderate size a paunch a trifle too rotund?
Is that the source of merriment?
(39) Perhaps you are not aware, my friends, that Charmides--yes!
he there--caught me only the other morning in the act of dancing?
(31) "Bearing a weighty and serious brow."
(32) "Like your runner of the mile race."
Cf.
Plat.
"Prot."
335 E. (33) Or, "resolute exercise of the whole body."
See Aristot.
"Pol."
viii.
4.
9; "Rhet."
i.
5.
14.
(34) Or, "be dependent on a fellow-gymnast."
"Pol.
Lac."
ix.
5; Plat.
"Soph."
218 B; "Laws," 830 B; "Symp."
217 B, C. (35) Or, "to strip in public when my hair turns gray."
Socrates was (421 B.C.)
about 50, but is pictured, I think, as an oldish man.
(36) See Aristot.
"H.
A."
ix.
45.
1; "Econ."
viii.
13.
(37) Passage referred to by Diog.
Laert.
ii.
5.
15; Lucian, "de Salt."
25; Plut.
"Praec.
San."
496.
(38) "Take my exercise."
(39) Zeune cf.
Max.
Tyr.
"Diss."
vii.
9; xxxix.
5.
Yes, that I will swear to (the other answered), and at first I stood aghast, I feared me you had parted with your senses; but when I heard your explanation, pretty much what you have just now told us, I went home and--I will not say, began to dance myself (it is an accomplishment I have not been taught as yet), but I fell to sparring, (40) an art of which I have a very pretty knowledge.
(40) "Sparring," etc., an art which Quintil.
"Inst.
Or."
i.
11, 17, attributes to Socrates.
Cf.
Herod.
vi.
129 concerning Hippocleides; and Rich, "Dict.
of Antiq."
s.v.
"Chironomia."
That's true, upon my life!
(exclaimed the jester).
One needs but look at you to see there's not a dram of difference between legs and shoulders.
(41) I'll be bound, if both were weighed in the scales apart, like "tops and bottoms," the clerks of the market (42) would let you off scot-free.
(41) Lit.
"your legs are equal in weight with your shoulders."
Cf.
"Od."
xviii.
373, {elikes... isophoroi boes}, "of equal age and force to bear the yoke."
--Butcher and Lang.
(42) See Boeckh, "Public Economy of Athens," p. 48; Aristoph.
"Acharn."
723; Lys.
165, 34.
Then Callias: O Socrates, do please invite me when you begin your dancing lessons.
I will be your vis-a-vis, (43) and take lessons with you.
(43) Cf.
"Anab."
V. iv.
12.
Come on (the jester shouted), give us a tune upon the pipe, and let me show you how to dance.
So saying up he got, and mimicked the dances of the boy and girl in burlesque fashion, and inasmuch as the spectators had been pleased to think the natural beauty of the boy enhanced by every gesture of his body in the dance, so the jester must give a counter-representation, (44) in which each twist and movement of his body was a comical exaggeration of nature.
(44) Reading {antepedeizen}.
Cf.
Plat.
"Theaet."
162 B; "Ages."
i.
12; if vulg.
{antapedeizen}, transl.
"would prove per contra each bend," etc.
Cf.
Aristot.
"Rhet."
ii.
26.
3.
And since the girl had bent herself backwards and backwards, till she was nearly doubled into the form of a hoop, so he must try to imitate a hoop by stooping forwards and ducking down his head.
And as finally, the boy had won a round of plaudits for the manner in which he kept each muscle of the body in full exercise whilst dancing, so now the jester, bidding the flute-girl quicken the time (presto!
presto!
prestissimo!
), fell to capering madly, tossing legs and arms and head together, until he was fairly tired out, and threw himself dead beat upon the sofa, gasping: There, that's a proof that my jigs too are splendid exercise; at any rate, I am dying of thirst; let the attendant kindly fill me the mighty goblet.
(45) (45) Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
223 C. Quite right (said Callias), and we will pledge you.
Our throats are parched with laughing at you.
At this point Socrates: Nay, gentlemen, if drinking is the order of the day, I heartily approve.
Wine it is in very truth that moistens the soul of man, (46) that lulls at once all cares to sleep, even as mandragora (47) drugs our human senses, and at the same time kindles light-hearted thoughts, (48) as oil a flame.
Yet it fares with the banquets of men, (49) if I mistake not, precisely as with plants that spring and shoot on earth.
When God gives these vegetable growths too full a draught of rain, they cannot lift their heads nor feel the light air breathe through them; but if they drink in only the glad supply they need, they stand erect, they shoot apace, and reach maturity of fruitage.
So we, too, if we drench our throats with over-copious draughts, (50) ere long may find our legs begin to reel and our thoughts begin to falter; (51) we shall scarce be able to draw breath, much less to speak a word in season.
But if (to borrow language from the mint of Gorgias (52)), if only the attendants will bedew us with a frequent mizzle (53) of small glasses, we shall not be violently driven on by wine to drunkenness, but with sweet seduction reach the goal of sportive levity.
(46) Cf.
Plat.
"Laws," 649; Aristoph.
"Knights," 96: Come, quick now, bring me a lusty stoup of wine, To moisten my understanding and inspire me (H. Frere).
(47) Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." vi.
488 C; Dem.
"Phil."
iv.
133.
1; Lucian v., "Tim."
2; lxxiii., "Dem.
Enc."
36.
See "Othello," iii.
3.
330: Not poppy, nor mandragora, Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world; "Antony and Cl."
i.
5, 4.
(48) Cf.
1 Esdras iii.
20: "It turneth also every thought into jollity and mirth," {eis euokhian kai euphrosunen}.
The whole passage is quoted by Athen.
504.
Stob.
"Fl."
lvi.
17.
(49) Reading {sumposia}, cf.
Theog.
298, 496; or if after Athen.
{somata} transl.
"persons."
(50) Or, "if we swallow at a gulp the liquor."
Cf.
Plat.
"Sym."
176 D. (51) See "Cyrop."
I. iii.
10, VIII.
viii.
10; Aristoph.
"Wasps," 1324; "Pol.
Lac."
v. 7.
(52) For phrases filed by Gorgias, see Aristot.
"Rhet."
iii.
3; "faults of taste in the use of metaphors," Longin.
"de Subl."
3.
See also Plat.
"Symp."
198 C. (53) Cf.
Aristoph.
"Peace," 1141; Theophr.
"Lap."
13; Lucian, xvii., "De merc.
cond."
27; Cic.
"Cat.
m." 14, transl.
"pocula... minuta atque rorantia."
The proposition was unanimously carried, with a rider appended by Philippus: The cup-bearers should imitate good charioteers, and push the cups round, quickening the pace each circuit.
(54) (54) Or, "at something faster than a hand-gallop each round."
See the drinking song in "Antony and Cl."
i.
7.
120.
III During this interval, whilst the cup-bearers carried out their duties, the boy played on the lyre tuned to accompany the flute, and sang.
(1) (1) Cf.
Plat.
"Laws," 812 C; Aristot.
"Poet."
i.
4.
The performance won the plaudits of the company, and drew from Charmides a speech as follows: Sirs, what Socrates was claiming in behalf of wine applies in my opinion no less aptly to the present composition.
So rare a blending of boyish and of girlish beauty, and of voice with instrument, is potent to lull sorrow to sleep, and to kindle Aphrodite's flame.
Then Socrates, reverting in a manner to the charge: The young people have fully proved their power to give us pleasure.
Yet, charming as they are, we still regard ourselves, no doubt, as much their betters.
What a shame to think that we should here be met together, and yet make no effort ourselves to heighten the festivity!
(2) (2) See Plat.
"Prot."
347 D; "A company like this of ours, and men such as we profess to be, do not require the help of another's voice," etc.--Jowett.
Cf.
id.
"Symp."
176: "To-day let us have conversation instead; and if you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of conversation."
Several of the company exclaimed at once: Be our director then yourself.
Explain what style of talk we should engage in to achieve that object.
(3) (3) {exegou}.
"Prescribe the form of words we must lay hold of to achieve the object, and we will set to work, arch-casuist."
Nothing (he replied) would please me better than to demand of Callias a prompt performance of his promise.
He told us, you recollect, if we would dine with him, he would give us an exhibition of his wisdom.
To which challenge Callias: That I will readily, but you on your side, one and all, must propound some virtue of which you claim to have the knowledge.
Socrates replied: At any rate, not one of us will have the least objection to declaring what particular thing he claims to know as best worth having.
Agreed (proceeded Callias); and for my part I proclaim at once what I am proudest of.
My firm belief is, I have got the gift to make my fellow-mortals better.
Make men better!
(cried Antisthenes); and pray how?
by teaching them some base mechanic art?
or teaching them nobility of soul?
(4) (4) Or, "beauty and nobility of soul" ({kalokagathia}).
See "Mem."
I. vi.
14.
The latter (he replied), if justice (5) be synonymous with that high type of virtue.
(5) i.e.
"social uprightness."
Of course it is (rejoined Antisthenes) the most indisputable specimen.
Since, look you, courage and wisdom may at times be found calamitous to friends or country, (6) but justice has no single point in common with injustice, right and wrong cannot commingle.
(7) (6) See "Mem."
IV.
ii.
33.
(7) i.e.
"the one excludes the other."
Well then (proceeded Callias), as soon (8) as every one has stated his peculiar merit, (9) I will make no bones of letting you into my secret.
You shall learn the art by which I consummate my noble end.
(10) So now, Niceratus, suppose you tell us on what knowledge you most pride yourself.
(8) Reading {emon}.
Al.
{umon}, "when you others."
(9) Lit.
"what he has for which to claim utility."
(10) Or, "give the work completeness."
Cf.
Plat.
"Charm."
173 A; "Gorg."
454 A.
He answered: My father, (11) in his pains to make me a good man, compelled me to learn the whole of Homer's poems, and it so happens that even now I can repeat the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey" by heart.
(12) (11) Nicias.
(12) Of, "off-hand."
See "Mem."
III.
vi.
9; Plat.
"Theaet."
142 D. You have not forgotten (interposed Antisthenes), perhaps, that besides yourself there is not a rhapsodist who does not know these epics?
Forgotten!
is it likely (he replied), considering I had to listen to them almost daily?
Ant.
And did you ever come across a sillier tribe of people than these same rhapsodists?
(13) (13) Cf.
"Mem."
IV.
ii.
10.
Nic.
Not I, indeed.
Don't ask me to defend their wits.
It is plain (suggested Socrates), they do not know the underlying meaning.
(14) But you, Niceratus, have paid large sums of money to Anaximander, and Stesimbrotus, and many others, (15) so that no single point in all that costly lore is lost upon you.
(16) But what (he added, turning to Critobulus) do you most pride yourself upon?
(14) i.e.
"they haven't the key (of knowledge) to the allegorical or spiritual meaning of the sacred text."
Cf.
Plat.
"Crat."
407; "Ion," 534; "Rep." 378, 387; "Theaet."
180; "Prot."
316.
See Grote, "H. G." i.
564.
(15) See Aristot.
"Rhet."
iii.
11, 13.
"Or we may describe Niceratus (not improbably our friend) as a 'Philoctetes stung by Pratys,' using the simile of Thrasymachus when he saw Niceratus after his defeat by Pratys in the rhapsody with his hair still dishevelled and his face unwashed."--Welldon.
As to Stesimbrotus, see Plat.
"Ion," 530: "Ion.
Very true, Socrates; interpretation has certainly been the most laborious part of my art; and I believe myself able to speak about Homer better than any man; and that neither Metrodorus of Lampsacus, nor Stesimbrotus of Thasos, nor Glaucon, nor any one else who ever was, had as good ideas about Homer, or as many of them, as I have."--Jowett.
Anaximander, probably of Lampsacus, the author of a {'Erologia}; see Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 8.
(16) Or, "you will not have forgotten one point of all that precious teaching."
Like Sir John Falstaff's page (2 "Henry IV."
ii.
2.
100), Niceratus, no doubt, has got many "a crown's worth of good interpretations."
On beauty (answered Critobulus).
What (Socrates rejoined), shall you be able to maintain that by your beauty you can make us better?
Crit.
That will I, or prove myself a shabby sort of person.
Soc.
Well, and what is it you pride yourself upon, Antisthenes?
On wealth (he answered).
Whereupon Hermogenes inquired: Had he then a large amount of money?
(17) (17) i.e.
"out at interest," or, "in the funds," as we should say.
Not one sixpence: (18) that I swear to you (he answered).
(18) Lit.
"not an obol" = "a threepenny bit," circa.
Herm.
Then you possess large property in land?
Ant.
Enough, I daresay, for the youngster there, Autolycus, to dust himself withal.
(19) (19) i.e.
"to sprinkle himself with sand, after anointing."
Cf.
Lucian, xxxviii., "Amor."
45.
Well, we will lend you our ears, when your turn comes (exclaimed the others).
Soc.
And do you now tell us, Charmides, on what you pride yourself.
Oh, I, for my part, pride myself on poverty (he answered).
Upon my word, a charming business!
(exclaimed Socrates).
Poverty!
of all things the least liable to envy; seldom, if ever, an object of contention; (20) never guarded, yet always safe; the more you starve it, the stronger it grows.
(20) Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." 521 A; "Laws," 678 C. And you, Socrates, yourself (their host demanded), what is it you pride yourself upon?
Then he, with knitted brows, quite solemnly: On pandering.
(21) And when they laughed to hear him say this, (22) he continued: Laugh to your hearts content, my friends; but I am certain I could make a fortune, if I chose to practise this same art.
(21) Or, more politely, "on playing the go-between."
See Grote, "H. G." viii.
457, on the "extremely Aristophanic" character of the "Symposium" of Xenophon.
(22) "Him, the master, thus declare himself."
At this point Lycon, turning to Philippus: We need not ask you what you take the chiefest pride in.
What can it be, you laughter-making man, except to set folk laughing?
Yes (he answered), and with better right, I fancy, than Callippides, (23) the actor, who struts and gives himself such pompous airs, to think that he alone can set the crowds a-weeping in the theatre.
(24) (23) For illustrative tales about him see Plut.
"Ages."
xxi.
; "Alcib."
xxxii.
; Polyaen.
vi.
10.
Cf.
"Hell."
IV.
viii.
16.
(24) Or, "set for their sins a-weeping."
And now you, Lycon, tell us, won't you (asked Antisthenes), what it is you take the greatest pride in?
You all of you, I fancy, know already what that is (the father answered); it is in my son here.
And the lad himself (some one suggested) doubtless prides himself, beyond all else, on having won the prize of victory.
At that Autolycus (and as he spoke he blushed) answered for himself: (25) No indeed, not I.
(25) Cf.
Plat.
"Charm."
158 C. The company were charmed to hear him speak, and turned and looked; and some one asked: On what is it then, Autolycus?
To which he answered: On my father (and leaned closer towards him).
At which sight Callias, turning to the father: Do you know you are the richest man in the whole world, Lycon?
To which Lycon: Really, I was not aware of that before.
Then Callias: Why then, it has escaped you that you would refuse the whole of Persia's wealth, (26) in exchange for your own son.
(26) Lit.
"of the Great King."
Cf.
"Cyrop."
VIII.
iii.
26.
Most true (he answered), I plead guilty; here and now I am convicted (27) of being the wealthiest man in all the world!
(27) "Caught flagrante delicto.
I do admit I do out-Croesus Croesus."
And you, Hermogenes, on what do you plume yourself most highly?
(asked Niceratus).
On the virtue and the power of my friends (he answered), and that being what they are, they care for me.
At this remark they turned their eyes upon the speaker, and several spoke together, asking: Will you make them known to us?
I shall be very happy (he replied).
IV At this point, Socrates took up the conversation: It now devolves on us to prove in turn that what we each have undertaken to defend is really valuable.
Then Callias: Be pleased to listen to me first: My case is this, that while the rest of you go on debating what justice and uprightness are, (1) I spend my time in making men more just and upright.
(1) {to to dikaion}; cf.
"Mem."
IV.
iv.
Soc.
And how do you do that, good sir?
Call.
By giving money, to be sure.
Antisthenes sprang to his feet at once, and with the manner of a cross-examiner demanded: Do human beings seem to you to harbour justice in their souls, or in their purses, (2) Callias?
(2) Or, "pockets."
Call.
In their souls.
Ant.
And do you pretend to make their souls more righteous by putting money in their pockets?
Call.
Undoubtedly.
Ant.
Pray how?
Call.
In this way.
When they know that they are furnished with the means, that is to say, my money, to buy necessaries, they would rather not incur the risk of evil-doing, and why should they?
Ant.
And pray, do they repay you these same moneys?
Call.
I cannot say they do.
Ant.
Well then, do they requite your gifts of gold with gratitude?
Call.
No, not so much as a bare "Thank you."
In fact, some of them are even worse disposed towards me when they have got my money than before.
Now, here's a marvel!
(exclaimed Antisthenes, and as he spoke he eyed the witness with an air of triumph).
You can render people just to all the world, but towards yourself you cannot?
Pray, where's the wonder?
(asked the other).
Do you not see what scores of carpenters and house-builders there are who spend their time in building houses for half the world; but for themselves they simply cannot do it, and are forced to live in lodgings.
And so admit that home-thrust, Master Sophist; (3) and confess yourself confuted.
(3) "Professor of wisdom."
Upon my soul, he had best accept his fate (4) (said Socrates).
Why, after all, you are only like those prophets who proverbially foretell the future for mankind, but cannot foresee what is coming upon themselves.
(4) Or, "the coup de grace."
And so the first discussion ended.
(5) (5) Or, "so ended fytte the first of the word-controversy."
Thereupon Niceratus: Lend me your ears, and I will tell you in what respects you shall be better for consorting with myself.
I presume, without my telling you, you know that Homer, being the wisest of mankind, has touched upon nearly every human topic in his poems.
(6) Whosoever among you, therefore, would fain be skilled in economy, or oratory, or strategy; whose ambition it is to be like Achilles, or Ajax, Nestor, or Odysseus--one and all pay court to me, for I have all this knowledge at my fingers' ends.
(6) Or, "his creations are all but coextensive with every mortal thing."
Pray (interposed Antisthenes), (7) do you also know the way to be a king?
(8) since Homer praises Agamemnon, you are well aware, as being A goodly king and eke a spearman bold.
(9) (7) Some modern critics (e.g.
F. Dummler, "Antisthenica," p. 29 foll.)
maintain plausibly that the author is here glancing (as also Plato in the "Ion") at Antisthenes' own treatises against the Rhapsodists and on a more correct interpretation of Homer, {peri exegeton} and {peri 'Omerou}.
(8) Or, "Have you the knowledge also how to play the king?"
(9) "Il."
iii.
179.
See "Mem."
III.
ii.
2.
Nic.
Full well I know it, and full well I know the duty of a skilful charioteer; how he who holds the ribbons must turn his chariot nigh the pillar's edge (10) Himself inclined upon the polished chariot-board A little to the left of the twin pair: the right hand horse Touch with the prick, and shout a cheery shout, and give him rein.
(11) I know another thing besides, and you may put it to the test this instant, if you like.
Homer somewhere has said: (12) And at his side an onion, which to drink gives relish.
So if some one will but bring an onion, you shall reap the benefit of my sage lore (13) in less than no time, and your wine will taste the sweeter.
(10) "Il."
xxiii.
335; Plat.
"Ion," 537.
(11) Lit.
"yield him the reins with his hands."
(12) "Il."
xi.630: "And set out a leek savourer of drink" (Purves).
Plat.
"Ion," 538 C. (13) "My culinary skill."
Here Charmides exclaimed: Good sirs, let me explain.
Niceratus is anxious to go home, redolent of onions, so that his fair lady may persuade herself, it never entered into anybody's head to kiss her lord.
(14) (14) See Shakesp.
"Much Ado," v. 2.
51 foll.
; "Mids.
N. D." iv.
2.
Bless me, that isn't all (continued Socrates); if we do not take care, we shall win ourselves a comic reputation.
(15) A relish must it be, in very truth, that can sweeten cup as well as platter, this same onion; and if we are to take to munching onions for desert, see if somebody does not say of us, "They went to dine with Callias, and got more than their deserts, the epicures."
(16) (15) Lit.
"I warrant you!
(quoth Socrates) and there's another funny notion we have every chance of getting fathered on us."
(16) Or, "and had a most hilarious and herbaceous time."
No fear of that (rejoined Niceratus).
Always take a bite of onion before speeding forth to battle, just as your patrons of the cock-pit give their birds a feed of garlic (17) before they put them for the fight.
But for ourselves our thoughts are less intent perhaps on dealing blows than blowing kisses.
(18) (17) Cf.
Aristoph.
"Knights," 494: Chorus.
And here's the garlic.
Swallow it down!
Sausage Seller.... What for?
Chorus.
It will prime you up and make you fight the better.
H. Frere.
(18) "We are concerned less with the lists of battle than of love"; "we meditate no furious close of battle but of lips."
Lit.
"how we shall kiss some one rather than do battle with."
After such sort the theme of their discourse reached its conclusion.
Then Critobulus spoke: It is now my turn, I think, to state to you the grounds on which I pride myself on beauty.
(19) (19) See "Hellenica Essays," p. 353.
A chorus of voices rejoined: Say on.
Crit.
To begin with, if I am not beautiful, as methinks I be, you will bring on your own heads the penalty of perjury; for, without waiting to have the oath administered, you are always taking the gods to witness that you find me beautiful.
And I must needs believe you, for are you not all honourable men?
(20) If I then be so beautiful and affect you, even as I also am affected by him whose fair face here attracts me, (21) I swear by all the company of heaven I would not choose the great king's empire in exchange for what I am--the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.
(22) And at this instant I feast my eyes on Cleinias (23) gladlier than on all other sights which men deem fair.
Joyfully will I welcome blindness to all else, if but these eyes may still behold him and him only.
With sleep and night I am sore vexed, which rob me of his sight; but to daylight and the sun I owe eternal thanks, for they restore him to me, my heart's joy, Cleinias.
(24) (20) Or, "beautiful and good."
(21) Or, "whose fair face draws me."
Was Cleinias there as a "muta persona"?
Hardly, in spite of {nun}.
It is the image of him which is present to the mind's eye.
(22) Lit.
"being beautiful"; but there is a touch of bombast infused into the speech by the artist.
Cf.
the speech of Callias ("Hell."
VI.
iii.
3) and, for the humour, "Cyrop."
passim.
(23) See Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 59.
Cf.
"Mem."
I. iii.
8.
(24) Or, "for that they reveal his splendour to me."
Yes, and herein also have we, the beautiful, (25) just claim to boast.
The strong man may by dint of toil obtain good things; the brave, by danger boldly faced, and the wise by eloquence of speech; but to the beautiful alone it is given to achieve all ends in absolute quiescence.
To take myself as an example.
I know that riches are a sweet possession, yet sweeter far to me to give all that I have to Cleinias than to receive a fortune from another.
Gladly would I become a slave--ay, forfeit freedom--if Cleinias would deign to be my lord.
Toil in his service were easier for me than rest from labour: danger incurred in his behalf far sweeter than security of days.
So that if you, Callias, may boast of making men more just and upright, to me belongs by juster right than yours to train mankind to every excellence.
We are the true inspirers (26) who infuse some subtle fire into amorous souls, we beauties, and thereby raise them to new heights of being; we render them more liberal in the pursuit of wealth; we give them a zest for toil that mocks at danger, and enables them where honour the fair vision leads, to follow.
(27) We fill their souls with deeper modesty, a self-constraint more staunch; about the things they care for most, there floats a halo of protecting awe.
(28) Fools and unwise are they who choose not beauteous men to be their generals.
How merrily would I, at any rate, march through fire by the side of Cleinias; (29) and so would all of you, I know full well, in company of him who now addresses you.
(25) "We beauties."
(26) The {eispnelas} in relation to the {aitas}, the Inspirer to the Hearer.
Cf.
Theocr.
xii.
13; Ael.
"V. H." iii.
12.
See Muller, "Dorians," ii.
300 foll.
(27) {philokaloterous}.
Cf.
Plat.
"Phaedr."
248 D; "Criti."
111 E; Aristot.
"Eth.
N." iv.
4.
4; x.
9.
3.
(28) Lit.
"they feel most awe of what they most desire."
(29) Cf.
"Mem."
I. iii.
9.
Cease, therefore, your perplexity, O Socrates, abandon fears and doubts, believe and know that this thing of which I make great boast, my beauty, has power to confer some benefit on humankind.
Once more, let no man dare dishonour beauty, merely because the flower of it soon fades, since even as a child has growth in beauty, so is it with the stripling, the grown man, the reverend senior.
(30) And this the proof of my contention.
Whom do we choose to bear the sacred olive-shoot (31) in honour of Athena?--whom else save beautiful old men?
witnessing thereby (32) that beauty walks hand in hand as a companion with every age of life, from infancy to eld.
(30) Cf.
ib.
III.
iii.
12.
(31) Cf.
Aristoph.
"Wasps," 544.
(32) Or, "beauty steps in attendance lovingly hand in hand at every season of the life of man."
So Walt Whitman, passim.
Or again, if it be sweet to win from willing hearts the things we seek for, I am persuaded that, by the eloquence of silence, I could win a kiss from yonder girl or boy more speedily than ever you could, O sage!
by help of half a hundred subtle arguments.
Eh, bless my ears, what's that?
(Socrates broke in upon this final flourish of the speaker).
So beautiful you claim to rival me, you boaster?
Crit.
Why, yes indeed, I hope so, or else I should be uglier than all the Silenuses in the Satyric drama.
(33) (33) The MSS.
add ("to whom, be it noted, Socrates indeed bore a marked resemblance").
Obviously a gloss.
Cf.
Aristoph.
"Clouds," 224; Plat.
"Symp."
215 B.
Good!
(Socrates rejoined); the moment the programme of discussion is concluded, (34) please remember, we must obtain a verdict on the point of beauty.
Judgment shall be given--not at the bar of Alexander, son of Priam--but of these (35) who, as you flatter yourself, have such a hankering to kiss you.
(34) Lit.
"the arguments proposed have gone the round."
(35) i.e.
"the boy and girl."
Al.
"the present company, who are so eager to bestow on you their kisses."
Oh, Socrates (he answered, deprecatingly), will you not leave it to the arbitrament of Cleinias?
Then Socrates: Will you never tire of repeating that one name?
It is Cleinias here, there, and everywhere with you.
Crit.
And if his name died on my lips, think you my mind would less recall his memory?
Know you not, I bear so clear an image of him in my soul, that had I the sculptor's or the limner's skill, I might portray his features as exactly from this image of the mind as from contemplation of his actual self.
But Socrates broke in: Pray, why then, if you bear about this lively image, why do you give me so much trouble, dragging me to this and that place, where you hope to see him?
Crit.
For this good reason, Socrates, the sight of him inspires gladness, whilst his phantom brings not joy so much as it engenders longing.
At this point Hermogenes protested: I find it most unlike you, Socrates, to treat thus negligently one so passion-crazed as Critobulus.
Socrates replied: Do you suppose the sad condition of the patient dates from the moment only of our intimacy?
Herm.
Since when, then?
Soc.
Since when?
Why, look at him: the down begins to mantle on his cheeks, (36) and on the nape (37) of Cleinias' neck already mounts.
The fact is, when they fared to the same school together, he caught the fever.
This his father was aware of, and consigned him to me, hoping I might be able to do something for him.
Ay, and his plight is not so sorry now.
Once he would stand agape at him like one whose gaze is fixed upon the Gorgons, (38) his eyes one stony stare, and like a stone himself turn heavily away.
But nowadays I have seen the statue actually blink.
(39) And yet, may Heaven help me!
my good sirs, I think, between ourselves, the culprit must have bestowed a kiss on Cleinias, than which love's flame asks no fiercer fuel.
(40) So insatiable a thing it is and so suggestive of mad fantasy.
(And for this reason held perhaps in higher honour, because of all external acts the close of lip with lip bears the same name as that of soul with soul in love.)
(41) Wherefore, say I, let every one who wishes to be master of himself and sound of soul abstain from kisses imprinted on fair lips.
(42) (36) Lit.
"creeping down beside his ears."
Cf.
"Od."
xi.
319: {prin sphoin upo krotaphoisin ioulous anthesai pukasai te genus euanthei lakhne.}
"(Zeus destroyed the twain) ere the curls had bloomed beneath their temples, and darked their chins with the blossom of youth."
--Butcher and Lang.
Cf.
Theocr.
xv.
85: {praton ioulon apo krotaphon kataballon}, "with the first down upon his cheeks" (Lang); Aesch.
"Theb."
534.
(37) {pros to opisthen}, perhaps = "ad posteriorem capitis partem," which would be more applicable to Critobulus, whose whiskers were just beginning to grow, than to Callias.
Possibly we should read (after Pollux, ii.
10) {peri ten upenen}, "on the upper lip."
See Plat.
"Protag."
309 B; "Il."
xxiv.
348; "Od."
x.
279.
(38) Cf.
Pind.
"Pyth."
x.
75.
(39) See "Cyrop."
I. iv.
28; Shakesp.
"Ven.
and Ad."
89: "But when her lips were ready for his pay, he winks, and turns his lips another way."
(40) Or, "a kiss which is to passion as dry combustious matter is to fire," Shakesp.
ib.
1162.
(41) Or, "is namesake of the love within the soul of lovers."
The whole passage, involving a play on the words {philein phileisthai}, "where kisses rain without, love reigns within," is probably to be regarded as a gloss.
Cf.
"Mem."
I. iii.
13.
(42) Cf.
"Mem."
I. iii.
8-14.
Then Charmides: Oh!
Socrates, why will you scare your friends with these hobgoblin terrors, (43) bidding us all beware of handsome faces, whilst you yourself--yes, by Apollo, I will swear I saw you at the schoolmaster's (44) that time when both of you were poring over one book, in which you searched for something, you and Critobulus, head to head, shoulder to shoulder bare, as if incorporate?
(45) (43) Cf.
Plat.
"Crit."
46 D; "Hell."
IV.
iv.
17; Arist.
"Birds," 1245.
(44) "Grammarian's."
Plat.
"Protag."
312 B; 326 D; Dem.
315.
8.
(45) Like Hermia and Helena, "Mids.
N. D." iii.
2.
208.
As yes, alack the day!
(he answered); and that is why, no doubt, my shoulder ached for more than five days afterwards, as if I had been bitten by some fell beast, and methought I felt a sort of scraping at the heart.
(46) Now therefore, in the presence of these witnesses, I warn you, Critobulus, never again to touch me till you wear as thick a crop of hair (47) upon your chin as on your head.
(46) Reading {knisma}, "scratching."
Plat.
"Hipp.
maj." 304 A. Al.
{knesma}.
(47) See Jebb, "Theophr.
Ch."
xxiv.
16.
So pell-mell they went at it, half jest half earnest, and so the medley ended.
Callias here called on Charmides.
Call.
Now, Charmides, it lies with you to tell us why you pride yourself on poverty.
(48) (48) Zeune, cf.
"Cyrop."
VIII.
iii.
35-50.
Charmides responded: On all hands it is admitted, I believe, that confidence is better than alarm; better to be a freeman than a slave; better to be worshipped than pay court to others; better to be trusted than to be suspected by one's country.
Well now, I will tell you how it fared with me in this same city when I was wealthy.
First, I lived in daily terror lest some burglar should break into my house and steal my goods and do myself some injury.
I cringed before informers.
(49) I was obliged to pay these people court, because I knew that I could injure them far less than they could injure me.
Never-ending the claims upon my pocket which the state enforced upon me; and as to setting foot abroad, that was beyond the range of possibility.
But now that I have lost my property across the frontier, (50) and derive no income from my lands in Attica itself; now that my very household goods have been sold up, I stretch my legs at ease, I get a good night's rest.
The distrust of my fellow-citizens has vanished; instead of trembling at threats, it is now my turn to threaten; at last I feel myself a freeman, with liberty to go abroad or stay at home as suits my fancy.
The tables now are turned.
It is the rich who rise to give me their seats, who stand aside and make way for me as I meet them in the streets.
To-day I am like a despot, yesterday I was literally a slave; formerly it was I who had to pay my tribute (51) to the sovereign people, now it is I who am supported by the state by means of general taxation.
(52) (49) "And police agents."
(50) Cf.
"Mem."
II.
viii.
1.
(51) {phoros}, tributum.
Al.
"property-tax."
Cf.
"Econ."
ii.
6.
(52) {telos}, vectigal.
Sturz, "Lex.
Xen."
s.v.
Cf.
"Pol.
Ath."
i.
3.
And there is another thing.
So long as I was rich, they threw in my teeth as a reproach that I was friends with Socrates, but now that I am become a beggar no one troubles his head two straws about the matter.
Once more, the while I rolled in plenty I had everything to lose, and, as a rule, I lost it; what the state did not exact, some mischance stole from me.
But now that is over.
I lose nothing, having nought to lose; but, on the contrary, I have everything to gain, and live in hope of some day getting something.
(53) (53) "I feed on the pleasures of hope, and fortune in the future."
Call.
And so, of course, your one prayer is that you may never more be rich, and if you are visited by a dream of luck your one thought is to offer sacrifice to Heaven to avert misfortune.
(54) (54) Or, "you wake up in a fright, and offer sacrifice to the 'Averters.'"
For {tois apotropaiois} see Aristoph.
"Plutus," 359; Plat.
"Laws," 854 B; "Hell."
III.
iii.
4.
Char.
No, that I do not.
On the contrary, I run my head into each danger most adventurously.
I endure, if haply I may see a chance of getting something from some quarter of the sky some day.
Come now (Socrates exclaimed), it lies with you, sir, you, Antisthenes, to explain to us, how it is that you, with means so scanty, make so loud a boast of wealth.
Because (he answered) I hold to the belief, sirs, that wealth and poverty do not lie in a man's estate, but in men's souls.
Even in private life how many scores of people have I seen, who, although they roll in wealth, yet deem themselves so poor, there is nothing they will shrink from, neither toil nor danger, in order to add a little to their store.
(55) I have known two brothers, (56) heirs to equal fortunes, one of whom has enough, more than enough, to cover his expenditure; the other is in absolute indigence.
And so to monarchs, there are not a few, I perceive, so ravenous of wealth that they will outdo the veriest vagrants in atrocity.
Want (57) prompts a thousand crimes, you must admit.
Why do men steal?
why break burglariously into houses?
why hale men and women captive and make slaves of them?
Is it not from want?
Nay, there are monarchs who at one fell swoop destroy whole houses, make wholesale massacre, and oftentimes reduce entire states to slavery, and all for the sake of wealth.
These I must needs pity for the cruel malady which plagues them.
Their condition, to my mind, resembles that poor creature's who, in spite of all he has (58) and all he eats, can never stay the wolf that gnaws his vitals.
(55) Cf.
"Cyrop."
VIII.
ii.
21; Hor.
"Epist."
i.
2.
26, "semper avarus eget."
(56) Is Antisthenes thinking of Callias and Hermogenes?
(presuming these are sons of Hipponicus and brothers).
Cf.
"Mem."
II.
x.
3.
(57) Or, "'Tis want that does it."
See "Pol.
Ath."
i.
5; "Rev," i.
1.
(58) Reading {ekhon}, or if {pinon}, transl.
"who eats and drinks, but never sates himself."
But as to me, my riches are so plentiful I cannot lay my hands on them myself; (59) yet for all that I have enough to eat till my hunger is stayed, to drink till my thirst is sated; (60) to clothe myself withal; and out of doors not Callias there, with all his riches, is more safe than I from shivering; and when I find myself indoors, what warmer shirting (61) do I need than my bare walls?
what ampler greatcoat than the tiles above my head?
these seem to suit me well enough; and as to bedclothes, I am not so ill supplied but it is a business to arouse me in the morning.
(59) "That I can scarce discover any portion of it."
Zeune cf.
"Econ."
viii.
2.
(60) So "the master" himself.
See "Mem."
I. ii.
1, vi.
5.
(61) Cf.
Aristot.
"Pol."
ii.
8.
1, of Hippodamus.
And as to sexual desire, my body's need is satisfied by what comes first to hand.
Indeed, there is no lack of warmth in the caress which greets me, just because it is unsought by others.
(62) (62) Cf.
"Mem."
I. iii.
14, the germ of cynicism and stoicism, the Socratic {XS} form of "better to marry than to burn."
Well then, these several pleasures I enjoy so fully that I am much more apt to pray for less than more of them, so strongly do I feel that some of them are sweeter than what is good for one or profitable.
But of all the precious things in my possession, I reckon this the choicest, that were I robbed of my whole present stock, there is no work so mean, but it would amply serve me to furnish me with sustenance.
Why, look you, whenever I desire to fare delicately, I have not to purchase precious viands in the market, which becomes expensive, but I open the storehouse of my soul, and dole them out.
(63) Indeed, as far as pleasure goes, I find it better to await desire before I suffer meat or drink to pass my lips, than to have recourse to any of your costly viands, as, for instance, now, when I have chanced on this fine Thasian wine, (64) and sip it without thirst.
But indeed, the man who makes frugality, not wealth of worldly goods, his aim, is on the face of it a much more upright person.
And why?--the man who is content with what he has will least of all be prone to clutch at what is his neighbour's.
(63) Or, "turn to the storehouse of a healthy appetite."
See "Apol."
18, the same sentiment "ex ore Socratis."
(64) See Athen.
"Deipnos."
i.
28.
And here's a point worth noting.
Wealth of my sort will make you liberal of soul.
Look at Socrates; from him it was I got these riches.
He did not supply me with it by weight or by measure, but just as much as I could carry, he with bounteous hand consigned to me.
And I, too, grudge it to no man now.
To all my friends without distinction I am ready to display my opulence: come one, come all; and whosoever likes to take a share is welcome to the wealth that lies within my soul.
Yes, and moreover, that most luxurious of possessions, (65) unbroken leisure, you can see, is mine, which leaves me free to contemplate things worthy of contemplation, (66) and to drink in with my ears all charming sounds.
And what I value most, freedom to spend whole days in pure scholastic intercourse (67) with Socrates, to whom I am devoted.
(68) And he, on his side, is not the person to admire those whose tale of gold and silver happens to be the largest, but those who are well-pleasing to him he chooses for companions, and will consort with to the end.
(65) See Eur.
"Ion," 601.
Lit.
"at every moment I command it."
(66) "To gaze upon all fairest shows (like a spectator in the theatre), and to drink in sounds most delectable."
So Walt Whitman.
(67) Aristot.
"Rhet."
ii.
4.
12; "Eth.
N." ix.
4.
9.
(68) See "Mem."
III.
xi.
17.
With these words the speaker ended, and Callias exclaimed: By Hera, I envy you your wealth, Antisthenes, firstly, because the state does not lay burthens on you and treat you like a slave; and secondly, people do not fall into a rage with you when you refuse to be their creditor.
You may stay your envy (interposed Niceratus), I shall presently present myself to borrow of him this same key of his to independence.
(69) Trained as I am to cast up figures by my master Homer-Seven tripods, which ne'er felt the fire, and of gold ten talents And burnished braziers twenty, and horses twelve-(70) by weight and measure duly reckoned, (71) I cannot stay my craving for enormous wealth.
And that's the reason certain people, I daresay, imagine I am inordinately fond of riches.
(69) Or, "his want-for-nothing," or, "supply-all."
(70) Niceratus quotes "Il."
ix.
122, 123, 263, 264.
(71) Or, "by number and by measure," "so much apiece, so much a pound," in reference to Antisthenes' remark that Socrates does not stint his "good things."
The remark drew forth a peal of laughter from the company, who thought the speaker hit the truth exactly.
Then some one: It lies with you, Hermogenes, to tell us who your friends are; and next, to demonstrate the greatness of their power and their care for you, if you would prove to us your right to pride yoruself on them.
Herm.
That the gods know all things, that the present and the future lie before their eyes, are tenets held by Hellenes and barbarians alike.
This is obvious; or else, why do states and nations, one and all, inquire of the gods by divination what they ought to do and what they ought not?
This also is apparent, that we believe them able to do us good and to do us harm; or why do all men pray to Heaven to avert the evil and bestow the good?
Well then, my boast is that these gods, who know and can do all things, (72) deign to be my friends; so that, by reason of their care for me, I can never escape from their sight, (73) neither by night nor by day, whithersoever I essay to go, whatsoever I take in hand to do.
(74) But because they know beforehand the end and issue of each event, they give me signals, sending messengers, be it some voice, (75) or vision of the night, with omens of the solitary bird, which tell me what I should and what I should not do.
When I listen to their warnings all goes well with me, I have no reason to repent; but if, as ere now has been the case, I have been disobedient, chastisement has overtaken me.
(72) Cf.
"Mem."
I. i.
19; I. iv.
18.
(73) Schneid.
cf.
Hom.
"Il."
x.
279, {oude se letho kinomenos}, "nor doth any motion of mine escape thee" (A. Lang); and see Arrian, "Epictet."
i.
12.
3.
(74) Cf.
Ps.
cxxxix.
"Domine probasti."
(75) See "Mem."
I. i.
3; "Apol."
xii.
13; "Cyrop."
VIII.
vii.
3.
Then Socrates: All this I well believe, (76) but there is one thing I would gladly learn of you: What service do you pay the gods, so to secure their friendship?
(76) Lit.
"Nay, nought of the things you tell us is incredible, but..." Truly it is not a ruinous service, Socrates (he answered)--far from it.
I give them thanks, which is not costly.
I make return to them of all they give to me from time to time.
I speak well of them, with all the strength I have.
And whenever I take their sacred names to witness, I do not wittingly falsify my word.
Then God be praised (said Socrates), if being what you are, you have such friends; the gods themselves, it would appear, delight in nobleness of soul.
(77) (77) {kalokagathia}, "beautiful and gentle manhood."
Thus, in solemn sort, the theme was handled, thus gravely ended.
But now it was the jester's turn, and so they fell to asking him: (78) What could he see to pride himself upon so vastly in the art of making people laugh?
(78) Lit.
"now that they had come to Philippus (in the 'period' of discussion), they..." Or read, after Hartman, "An.
Xen."
p. 242, {eken} (sc.
{o logos}).
Surely I have good reason (he replied).
The whole world knows my business is to set them laughing, so when they are in luck's way, they eagerly invite me to a share of it; but if ill betide them, helter-skelter off they go, and never once turn back, (79) so fearful are they I may set them laughing will he nill he.
(79) Plat.
"Rep." 620 E; "Laws," 854 C. Nic.
Heavens!
you have good reason to be proud; with me it is just the opposite.
When any of my friends are doing well, they take good care to turn their backs on me, (80) but if ever it goes ill with them, they claim relationship by birth, (81) and will not let their long-lost cousin out of sight.
(80) Or, "they take good care to get out of my way," "they hold aloof from me entirely."
(81) Or, "produce the family-pedigree and claim me for a cousin."
Cf.
Lucian v., "Tim."
49; Ter.
"Phorm."
ii.
33, 45.
Charm.
Well, well!
and you, sir (turning to the Syracusan), what do you pride yourself upon?
No doubt, upon the boy?
The Syr.
Not I, indeed; I am terribly afraid concerning him.
It is plain enough to me that certain people are contriving for his ruin.
(82) (82) {diaphtheirai} = (1) to destroy, make away with; (2) to ruin and corrupt, seduce by bribes or otherwise.
Good gracious!
(83) (Socrates exclaimed, when he heard that), what crime can they conceive your boy is guilty of that they should wish to make an end of him?
(83) Lit.
"Heracles!"
"Zounds!"
The Syr.
I do not say they want to murder him, but wheedle him away with bribes to pass his nights with them.
Soc.
And if that happened, you on your side, it appears, believe the boy will be corrupted?
The Syr.
Beyond all shadow of a doubt, most villainously.
Soc.
And you, of course, you never dream of such a thing.
You don't spend nights with him?
The Syr.
Of course I do, all night and every night.
Soc.
By Hera, what a mighty piece of luck (84) for you--to be so happily compounded, of such flesh and blood.
You alone can't injure those who sleep beside you.
You have every right, it seems, to boast of your own flesh, if nothing else.
(84) Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
217 A.
The Syr.
Nay, in sooth, it is not on that I pride myself.
Soc.
Well, on what then?
The Syr.
Why, on the silly fools who come and see my puppet show.
(85) I live on them.
(85) "My marionettes."
Cf.
Herod.
ii.
48; Lucian lxxii., "De Syr.
d." 16; Aristot.
"de Mund."
6.
Phil.
Ah yes!
and that explains how the other day I heard you praying to the gods to grant you, wheresoe'er you chance to be, great store of corn and wine, but dearth of wits.
(86) (86) Or, "of fruits abundance, but of wits a famine."
Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." 546 A.
His prayer resembles that of the thievish trader in Ovid, "Fast."
v. 675 foll., "Grant me to-day my daily...
fraud!"
but in spite of himself (like Dogberry), he seems to pray to the gods to "write him down an ass"!
Pass on (said Callias); now it is your turn, Socrates.
What have you to say to justify your choice?
How can you boast of so discredited an art?
(87) (87) Sc.
"the hold-door trade."
He answered: Let us first decide (88) what are the duties of the good go-between; (89) and please to answer every question without hesitating; let us know the points to which we mutually assent.
(90) Are you agreed to that?
(88) Or, "define in common."
Cf.
"Mem."
IV.
vi.
15.
(89) Or, "man-praiser."
Cf.
"The Manx Witch," p. 47 (T. E. Brown), "And Harry, more like a dooiney-molla For Jack, lak helpin him to woo."
See, too, Mr. Hall Caine's "Manxman," p. 73.
(90) See Plat.
"Rep." 342 D, for a specimen of Socratic procedure, "from one point of agreement to another."
The Company, in chorus.
Without a doubt (they answered, and the formula, once started, was every time repeated by the company, full chorus).
Soc.
Are you agreed it is the business of a good go-between to make him (or her) on whom he plies his art agreeable to those with them?
(91) (91) Al.
"their followers."
See "Mem."
II.
vi.
36.
Omnes.
Without a doubt.
Soc.
And, further, that towards agreeableness, one step at any rate consists in wearing a becoming fashion of the hair and dress?
(92) Are you agreed to that?
(92) See Becker, "Char."
Exc.
iii.
to Sc.
xi.
Omnes.
Without a doubt.
Soc.
And we know for certain, that with the same eyes a man may dart a look of love or else of hate (93) on those he sees.
Are you agreed?
(93) See "Mem."
III.
x.
5.
Omnes.
Without a doubt.
Soc.
Well!
and with the same tongue and lips and voice may speak with modesty or boastfulnes?
Omnes.
Without a doubt.
Soc.
And there are words that bear the stamp of hate, and words that tend to friendliness?
(94) (94) Cf.
Ep.
St. James iii.
10, "Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing."
Omnes.
Without a doubt.
Soc.
The good go-between will therefore make his choice between them, and teach only what conduces to agreeableness?
Omnes.
Without a doubt.
Soc.
And is he the better go-between who can make his clients pleasing to one person only, or can make them pleasing to a number?
(95) (95) Or, "to the many."
The question is ambiguous.
{e} = "an" or "quam."
The company was here divided; the one half answered, "Yes, of course, the largest number," whilst the others still maintained, "Without a doubt."
And Socrates, remarking, "That proposition is agreed to also," thus proceeded: And if further he were able to make them pleasing to the whole community, should we not have found in this accomplished person an arch-go-between?
Clearly so (they answered with one voice).
Soc.
If then a man had power to make his clients altogether pleasing; that man, I say, might justly pride himself upon his art, and should by rights receive a large reward?
(96) (96) Or, "he deserves to do a rattling business," "to take handsome fees."
Cf.
Sheridan's Mrs. Coupler, in "A Trip to Scarborough."
And when these propositions were agreed to also, he turned about and said: Just such a man, I take it, is before you in the person of Antisthenes!
(97) (97) See Diog.
Laert.
"Antisth."
VI.
i.
8; Plut.
"Symp."
ii.
1.
503.
Whereupon Antisthenes exclaimed: What!
are you going to pass on the business?
will you devolve this art of yours on me as your successor, Socrates?
(98) (98) Or, "going to give up business, and hand on the trade to me as your successor?"
I will, upon my word, I will (he answered): since I see that you have practised to some purpose, nay elaborated, an art which is the handmaid to this other.
And what may that be?
asked Antisthenes.
Soc.
The art of the procurer.
(99) (99) Cf.
Plat.
"Theaet."
150 A; Aristot.
"Eth.
N." v. 2, 13; Aeschin.
3, 7; Plut.
"Solon," 23.
The other (in a tone of deep vexation): Pray, what thing of the sort are you aware I ever perpetrated?
Soc.
I am aware that it was you who introduced our host here, Callias, to that wise man Prodicus; (100) they were a match, you saw, the one enamoured of philosophy, and the other in need of money.
It was you again, I am well enough aware, who introduced him once again to Hippias (101) of Elis, from whom he learnt his "art of memory"; (102) since which time he has become a very ardent lover, (103) from inability to forget each lovely thing he sets his eyes on.
And quite lately, if I am not mistaken, it was you who sounded in my ears such praise of our visitor from Heraclea, (104) that first you made me thirst for his society, and then united us.
(105) For which indeed I am your debtor, since I find him a fine handsome fellow and true gentleman.
(106) And did you not, moreover, sing the praises of Aeschylus of Phlius (107) in my ears and mine in his?--in fact, affected us so much by what you said, we fell in love and took to coursing wildly in pursuit of one another like two dogs upon a trail.
(108) (100) Or, "the sage," "the sophist."
See "Mem."
I. vi.
13; II.
i.
21.
(101) See "Mem."
IV.
iv.
5; and for his art of memory cf.
Plat.
"Hipp.
min."
368 D; "Hipp.
maj." 285 E. (102) The "memoria technica" (see Aristot.
"de An."
iii.
3, 6), said to have been invented by Simonides of Ceos.
Cic.
"de Or."
ii.
86; "de Fin."
ii.
32; Quinct.
xi.
2.
559.
(103) Or, "has grown amorous to a degree" (al.
"an adept in love's lore himself."
Cf.
Plat.
"Rep." 474 D, "an authority in love."
-Jowett) "for the simple reason he can't forget each lovely thing he once has seen."
Through the "ars memoriae" of Hippias, it becomes an "idee fixe" of the mind.
(104) Perhaps Zeuxippus.
See Plat.
"Prot."
318 B. Al.
Zeuxis, also a native of Heraclea.
See "Mem."
I. iv.
3; "Econ."
x.
1.
(105) Or, "introduced him to me."
Cf.
"Econ."
iii.
14; Plat.
"Lach."
200 D. (106) "An out-and-out {kalos te kagathos}."
(107) Who this Phliasian is, no one knows.
(108) Al.
"like two hounds chevying after one another."
With such examples of your wonder-working skill before my eyes, I must suppose you are a first-rate matchmaker.
For consider, a man with insight to discern two natures made to be of service to each other, and with power to make these same two people mutually enamoured!
That is the sort of man, I take it, who should weld together states in friendship; cement alliances with gain to the contracting parties; (109) and, in general, be found an acquisition to those several states; to friends and intimates, and partisans in war, a treasure worth possessing.
(110) But you, my friend, you got quite angry.
One would suppose I had given you an evil name in calling you a first-rate matchmaker.
(109) Al.
"and cement desirable matrimonial connections."
Cf.
Aristot.
"Pol."
iii.
9, 13.
1280 B; v. 4, 5-8.
1303 B.
(110) See the conversation with Critobulus, so often referred to, {peri philias}, in "Mem."
II.
vi.
Yes (he answered meekly), but now I am calm.
It is clear enough, if I possess these powers I shall find myself surcharged with spiritual riches.
In this fashion the cycle of the speeches was completed.
(111) (111) See Hug, "Einleitung," xxxi.
"Quellen des Platonischen Symposion."
V Then Callias: Our eyes are on you, Critobulus.
Yours to enter the lists (1) against the champion Socrates, who claims the prize of beauty.
Do you hesitate?
(1) Soph.
"Fr."
234; Thuc.
i.
93.
Soc.
Likely enough he does, for possibly he sees Sir Pandarus stands high in their esteem who are the judges of the contest.
In spite of which (retorted Critobulus), I am not for drawing back.
(2) I am ready; so come on, and if you have any subtle argument to prove that you are handsomer than I am, now's your time, instruct us.
But just stop one minute; have the goodness, please, to bring the lamp a little closer.
(2) Or, "I do; but all the same, I am not for shirking."
Cf.
Aristoph.
"Frogs," 860, {etiomos eum egoge, kouk anaduomai, daknein}: "I'm up to it; I am resolved" (Frere); Dem.
"de F.
Leg."
406 20: "His resolution never reached that point, but shrank back, for his conscience checked it" (Kennedy).
Soc.
Well then, I call upon you first of all, as party to this suit, to undergo the preliminary examination.
(3) Attend to what I say, and please be good enough to answer.
(3) The {anakrisis}, or "previous inquiry" (before one of the archons) of parties concerned in a suit, to see whether the action lay.
Cf.
Plat.
"Charm."
176 C. See Gow, "Companion," xiv.
74.
Crit.
Do you be good enough yourself to put your questions.
Soc.
Do you consider that the quality of beauty is confined to man, or is it to be found in other objects also?
What is your belief on this point?
Crit.
For my part, I consider it belongs alike to animals--the horse, the ox--and to many things inanimate: that is to say, a shield, a sword, a spear are often beautiful.
Soc.
How is it possible that things, in no respect resembling one another, should each and all be beautiful?
(4) (4) See "Mem."
III.
viii.
5, quoted by Galen, "de Usu Part."
i.
370.
Crit.
Of course it is, God bless me!
if well constructed by the hand of man to suit the sort of work for which we got them, or if naturally adapted to satisfy some want, the things in either case are beautiful.
Soc.
Can you tell me, then, what need is satisfied by our eyes?
Crit.
Clearly, the need of vision.
Soc.
If so, my eyes are proved at once to be more beautiful than yours.
Crit.
How so?
Soc.
Because yours can only see just straight in front of them, whereas mine are prominent and so projecting, they can see aslant.
(5) (5) Or, "squint sideways and command the flanks."
Crit.
And amongst all animals, you will tell us that the crab has loveliest eyes?
(6) Is that your statement?
(6) Or, "is best provided in respect of eyeballs."
Soc.
Decidedly, the creature has.
And all the more so, since for strength and toughness its eyes by nature are the best constructed.
Crit.
Well, let that pass.
To come to our two noses, which is the more handsome, yours or mine?
Soc.
Mine, I imagine, if, that is, the gods presented us with noses for the sake of smelling.
Your nostrils point to earth; but mine are spread out wide and flat, as if to welcome scents from every quarter.
Crit.
But consider, a snubness of the nose, how is that more beautiful than straightness?
(7) (7) Or, "your straight nose."
Cf.
Plat.
"Theaet."
209 C: Soc.
"Or, if I had further known you not only as having nose and eyes, but as having a snub nose and prominent eyes, should I have any more notion of you than myself and others who resemble me?"
Cf.
also Aristot.
"Pol."
v. 9, 7: "A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be a good shape and agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all symmetry is lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part of the human body.
The same law of proportion holds in states."--Jowett.
Soc.
For this good reason, that a snub nose does not discharge the office of a barrier; (8) it allows the orbs of sight free range of vision: whilst your towering nose looks like an insulting wall of partition to shut off the two eyes.
(9) (8) Or, "the humble snub is not a screen or barricade."
(9) Cf.
"Love's Labour Lost," v. 2.
568: Boyet.
"Your nose says no, you are not, for it stands too right"; also "The Song of Solomon," vii.
4: "Thy nose is the tower of Lebanon, which looketh toward Damascus."
As to the mouth (proceeded Critobulus), I give in at once; for, given mouths are made for purposes of biting, you could doubtless bite off a much larger mouthful with your mouth than I with mine.
Soc.
Yes, and you will admit, perhaps, that I can give a softer kiss than you can, thanks to my thick lips.
Crit.
It seems I have an uglier mouth than any ass.
Soc.
And here is a fact which you will have to reckon with, if further evidence be needed to prove that I am handsomer than you.
The naiads, nymphs, divine, have as their progeny Sileni, who are much more like myself, I take it, than like you.
Is that conclusive?
Nay, I give it up (cried Critobulus), I have not a word to say in answer.
I am silenced.
Let them record the votes.
I fain would know at once what I must suffer or must pay.
(10) Only (he added) let them vote in secret.
(11) I am afraid your wealth and his (Antisthenes') combined may overpower me.
(10) For this formula see "Dict.
Ant."
{timema}.
Cf.
"Econ."
xi.
25; Plat.
"Apol."
36 B; "Statesm."
299 A; "Laws," freq.
; Dem.
529.
23; 533.
2.
(11) And not as in the case described (Thuc.
iv.
74), where the people (at Megara) were compelled to give sentence on the political opponents of the oligarchs by an open vote.
Cf.
Lysias, 133, 12, {ten de psephon ouk eis kadiskous, alla phaneran epi tas trapezas tautas dei tithenai}.
Accordingly the boy and girl began to register the votes in secret, while Socrates directed the proceedings.
He would have the lamp-stand (12) this time brought close up to Critobulus; the judges must on no account be taken in; the victor in the suit would get from the two judges, not a wreath of ribands (13) for a chaplet, but some kisses.
(12) {ton lukhnon} here, above, S. 2, {ton lamptera}.
Both, I take it, are oil-lamps, and differ merely as "light" and "lamp."
(13) Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
213; "Hell."
V. i.
3.
When the urns were emptied, it was found that every vote, without exception, had been cast for Critobulus.
(14) (14) Lit.
"When the pebbles were turned out and proved to be with Critobulus, Socrates remarked, 'Papae!'"
which is as much to say, "Od's pity!"
Whereat Socrates: Bless me!
you don't say so?
The coin you deal in, Critobulus, is not at all like that of Callias.
His makes people just; whilst yours, like other filthy lucre, can corrupt both judge and jury.
(15) (15) {kai dikastas kai kritas}, "both jury and presiding judges," i.e.
the company and the boy and girl.
VI Thereupon some members of the party called on Critobulus to accept the meed of victory in kisses (due from boy and girl); others urged him first to bribe their master; whilst others bandied other jests.
Amidst the general hilarity Hermogenes alone kept silence.
Whereat Socrates turned to the silent man, and thus accosted him: Hermogenes, what is a drunken brawl?
Can you explain to us?
He answered: If you ask me what it is, I do not know, but I can tell you what it seems to me to be.
Soc.
That seems as good.
What does it seem?
Her.
A drunken brawl, in my poor judgment, is annoyance caused to people over wine.
Soc.
Are you aware that you at present are annoying us by silence?
Her.
What, whilst you are talking?
Soc.
No, when we pause a while.
Her.
Then you have not observed that, as to any interval between your talk, a man would find it hard to insert a hair, much more one grain of sense.
Then Socrates: O Callias, to the rescue!
help a man severely handled by his cross-examiner.
Call.
With all my heart (and as he spoke he faced Hermogenes).
Why, when the flute is talking, we are as silent as the grave.
Her.
What, would you have me imitate Nicostratus (1) the actor, reciting his tetrameters (2) to the music of the fife?
Must I discourse to you in answer to the flute?
(1) See Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 53; and cf.
Diog.
Laert.
iv.
3, 4; Polyaen.
vi.
10; "Hell."
IV.
viii.
18.
(2) See Aristoph.
"Clouds," where Socrates is giving Strepsiades a lesson in "measures," 639-646: {poteron to trimetron e to tetrametron}.
Then Socrates: By all that's holy, I wish you would, Hermogenes.
How delightful it would be.
Just as a song sounds sweeter in concert with the flute, so would your talk be more mellifluous attuned to its soft pipings; and particularly if you would use gesticulation like the flute-girl, to suit the tenor of your speech.
Here Callias demanded: And when our friend (Antisthenes) essays to cross-examine people (3) at a banquet, what kind of piping (4) should he have?
(3) Or, "a poor body," in reference to the elentic onslaught made on himself by Antisthenes above.
(4) {to aulema}, a composition for reed instruments, "music for the flute."
Cf.
Aristoph.
"Frogs," 1302.
Ant.
The person in the witness-box would best be suited with a serpent-hissing theme.
(5) (5) Or, "motif on a scrannel pipe."
See L. & S. s.v.
{puthaules}.
Cf.
Poll.
iv.
81, {puthikon aulema}, an air ({nomos}) played on the {puthois aulos}, expressing the battle between Apollo and the Python, the hiss of which was imitated.
Thus the stream of talk flowed on; until the Syracusan, who was painfully aware that while the company amused themselves, his "exhibition" was neglected, turned, in a fit of jealous spleen, at last on Socrates.
(6) (6) "The Syracusan is 'civil as an orange, and of that jealous complexion.'"
The Syr.
They call you Socrates.
Are you that person commonly nicknamed the thinker?
(7) (7) Apparently he has been to see the "Clouds" (exhibited first in 423 B.C.
), and has conceived certain ideas concerning Socrates, "a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause."
Plat.
"Apol."
18 B, 19 C. "Clouds," 101, 360, {khair o presbuta ... ton nun meteorosophiston... ta te meteora phrontistes}.
Soc.
Which surely is a better fate than to be called a thoughtless person?
The Syr.
Perhaps, if you were not thought to split your brains on things above us--transcendental stuff.
(8) (8) Or, "if only you were held to be less 'meteoric,' less head-inairy in your speculations."
Soc.
And is there anything more transcendental than the gods?
The Syr.
By heaven!
no, it is not the gods above us whom you care for, but for matters void of use and valueless.
(9) (9) It is impossible to give the play on words.
The Syr.
{anophelestaton}.
Soc.
{ano... ophelousin}.
Schenkl after Madvig emend.
: {ton ano en nephelais onton} = "but for things in the clouds above."
Soc.
It seems, then, by your showing I do care for them.
How value less the gods, not more, if being above us they make the void of use to send us rain, and cause their light to shine on us?
And now, sir, if you do not like this frigid (10) argument, why do you cause me trouble?
The fault is yours.
(11) (10) Cf.
"Cyrop."
VIII.
iv.
22, 23.
(11) {pho parekhousin... pragmata moi parekhon}.
Lit.
"cause light ... causing me trouble."
Well, let that be (the other answered); answer me one question: How many fleas' feet distance is it, pray, from you to me?
(12) They say you measure them by geometric scale.
(12) See Aristoph.
"Clouds," 144 foll.
: {aneret' arti Khairephonta Sokrates psullan oposous alloito tous autes podas dakousa gar...} Cf.
Lucian, ii.
"Prom.
in Verb.
6," and "Hudibras, the Second Part of," canto iii.
: How many scores a Flea will jump Of his own length from Head to Rump Which Socrates and Chaerephon In vain essayed so long agon.
But here Antisthenes, appealing to Philippus, interposed: You are a man full of comparisons.
(13) Does not this worthy person strike you as somewhat like a bully seeking to pick a quarrel?
(14) (13) Like Biron, "L. L. L." v. 2.
854.
Or, "you are a clever caricaturist."
See Plat.
"Symp."
215 A; Hug, "Enleitung," xiv.
; Aristoph.
"Birds," 804 (Frere, p. 173); "Wasps," 1309.
(14) Aristoph.
"Frogs," 857, "For it ill beseems illustrious bards to scold like market-women."
(Frere, p. 269); "Knights," 1410, "to bully"; "Eccles."
142: {kai loidorountai g' osper empepokotes, kai ton paroinount' ekpherous' oi toxotai.}
Yes (replied the jester), he has a striking likeness to that person and a heap of others.
He bristles with metaphors.
Soc.
For all that, do not you be too eager to draw comparisons at his expense, or you will find yourself the image of a scold and brawler.
(15) (15) Or, "a striking person."
Phil.
But what if I compare him to all the primest creatures of the world, to beauty's nonpareils, (16) to nature's best--I might be justly likened to a flatterer but not a brawler.
(17) (16) Lit.
"compare him to those in all things beauteous and the best."
With {tois pasi kalois kai tois beltistois} cf.
Thuc.
v. 28, {oi 'Argeioi arista eskhon tois pasi}, "The Argives were in excellent condition in all respects."
As to Philippus's back-handed compliment to the showman, it reminds one of Peter Quince's commendation of Bottom: "Yea and the best person too; and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice."
(17) It is not easy to keep pace with the merryman's jests; but if I follow his humour, he says to Socrates: "If the cap is to fit, you must liken me to one who quits 'assault and battery' for 'compliments (sotto voce, "lies") and flattery.'"
Soc.
Why now, you are like a person apt to pick a quarrel, since you imply they are all his betters.
(18) (18) When Socrates says {ei pant' autou beltio phes einai, k.t.l.
}, the sense seems to be: "No, if you say that all these prime creatures are better than he is, you are an abusive person still."
Phil.
What, would you have me then compare him to worse villains?
Soc.
No, not even to worse villains.
Phil.
What, then, to nothing, and to nobody?
Soc.
To nought in aught.
Let him remain his simple self-Phil.
Incomparable.
But if my tongue is not to wag, whatever shall I do to earn my dinner?
Soc.
Why, that you shall quite easily, if with your wagging tongue you do not try to utter things unutterable.
Here was a pretty quarrel over wine soon kindled and soon burnt.
VII But on the instant those who had not assisted in the fray gave tongue, the one part urging the jester to proceed with his comparisons, and the other part dissuading.
The voice of Socrates was heard above the tumult: Since we are all so eager to be heard at once, what fitter time than now to sing a song, in chorus.
And suiting the action to the words, he commenced a stave.
The song was barely finished, when a potter's wheel was brought in, on which the dancing-girl was to perform more wonders.
At this point Socrates addressed the man of Syracuse: It seems I am likely to deserve the title which you gave me of a thinker in good earnest.
Just now I am speculating by what means your boy and girl may pass a happy time, and we spectators still derive the greatest pleasure from beholding them; and this, I take it, is precisely what you would yourself most wish.
Now I maintain, that throwing somersaults in and out of swords is a display of danger uncongenial to a banquet.
And as for writing and reading on a wheel that all the while keeps whirling, I do not deny the wonder of it, but what pleasure such a marvel can present, I cannot for the life of me discover.
Nor do I see how it is a whit more charming to watch these fair young people twisting about their bodies and imitating wheels than to behold them peacefully reposing.
We need not fare far afield to light on marvels, if that is our object.
All about us here is full of marvel; we can begin at once by wondering, why it is the candle gives a light by dint of its bright flame, while side by side with it the bright bronze vessel gives no light, but shows within itself those other objects mirrored.
(1) Or, how is it that oil, being moist and liquid, keeps that flame ablaze, but water, just because it is liquid, quenches fire.
But no more do these same marvels tend to promote the object of the wine-cup.
(2) (1) Cf.
"Mem."
IV.
vii.
7.
Socrates' criticism of Anaxagoras' theory with regard to the sun.
(2) Lit.
"work to the same end as wine."
But now, supposing your young people yonder were to tread a measure to the flute, some pantomime in dance, like those which the Graces and the Hours with the Nymphs are made to tread in pictures, (3) I think they would spend a far more happy time themselves, and our banquet would at once assume a grace and charm unlooked for.
(3) Cf.
Plat.
"Laws," vii.
815 C; Hor.
"Carm."
i.
4.
6: iunctaeque Nymphis Gratiae decentes alterno terram quatiunt pede.
The Graces and the Nymphs, together knit, With rhythmic feet the meadow beat (Conington).
Ib.
iv.
7.
5.
The Syracusan caught the notion readily.
By all that's holy, Socrates (he cried), a capital suggestion, and for my part, I warrant you, I will put a piece upon the stage, which will delight you, one and all.
VIII With these words the Syracusan made his exit, bent on organising his performance.
(1) As soon as he was gone, Socrates once more essayed a novel argument.
(2) He thus addressed them: (1) {sunekroteito}, "on the composition of his piece."
Al.
"amidst a round of plaudits."
(2) "Struck the keynote of a novel theme."
Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
177 E. It were but reasonable, sirs, on our part not to ignore the mighty power here present, (3) a divinity in point of age coequal with the everlasting gods, yet in outward form the youngest, (4) who in magnitude embraces all things, and yet his shrine is planted in the soul of man.
Love (5) is his name!
and least of all should we forget him who are one and all votaries of this god.
(6) For myself I cannot name the time at which I have not been in love with some one.
(7) And Charmides here has, to my knowledge, captivated many a lover, while his own soul has gone out in longing for the love of not a few himself.
(8) So it is with Critobulus also; the beloved of yesterday is become the lover of to-day.
Ay, and Niceratus, as I am told, adores his wife, and is by her adored.
(9) As to Hermogenes, which of us needs to be told (10) that the soul of this fond lover is consumed with passion for a fair ideal--call it by what name you will--the spirit blent of nobleness and beauty.
(11) See you not what chaste severity dwells on his brow; (12) how tranquil his gaze; (13) how moderate his words; how gentle his intonation; now radiant his whole character.
And if he enjoys the friendship of the most holy gods, he keeps a place in his regard for us poor mortals.
But how is it that you alone, Antisthenes, you misanthrope, love nobody?
(3) Cf.
Shelley, "Hymn to Intellectual Beauty": The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats, though unseen, among us.... (4) Reading with L. D. after Blomfield (Aesch.
"Ag."
p. 304), {idrumenou}, or if as vulg.
{isoumenou}, transl.
"but in soul is fashioned like to mortal man."
(5) "Eros."
(6) Or, "who are each and all of us members of his band."
For {thiasotai} cf.
Aristot.
"Eth.
N." viii.
9.
5; Aristoph.
"Frogs," 327.
(7) Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
177 D: "No one will vote against you, Erysimachus, said Socrates; on the only subject ({ta erotika}) of which I profess to have any knowledge, I certainly cannot refuse to speak, nor, I presume, Agathon and Pasuanias; and there can be no doubt of Arisophanes, who is the constant servant of Dionysus and Aphrodite; nor will any one disagree of those I see around me" (Jowett).
(8) Or, "has had many a passionate admirer, and been enamoured of more than one true love himself."
See Plat.
"Charm.," ad in.
(9) For Love and Love-for-Love, {eros} and {anteros}, see Plat.
"Phaedr."
255 D. Cf.
Aristot.
"Eth.
N." ix.
1.
(10) Lit.
"which of us but knows his soul is melting away with passion."
Cf.
Theocr.
xiv.
26.
(11) Lit.
"beautiful and gentle manhood."
(12) Lit.
"how serious are his brows."
(13) The phrases somehow remind one of Sappho's famous ode: {phainetai moi kenos isos theoisin emmen oner, ostis enantios toi izanei, kai plasion adu phoneusas upakouei kai gelosas imeroen}.
But there we must stop.
Hermogenes is a sort of Sir Percivale, "such a courtesy spake thro' the limbs and in the voice."
Nay, so help me Heaven!
(he replied), but I do love most desperately yourself, O Socrates!
Whereat Socrates, still carrying on the jest, with a coy, coquettish air, (14) replied: Yes; only please do not bother me at present.
I have other things to do, you see.
(14) Al.
"like a true coquet."
Cf.
Plat.
"Phaedr."
228 C. Antisthenes replied: How absolutely true to your own character, arch go-between!
(15) It is always either your familiar oracle won't suffer you, that's your pretext, and so you can't converse with me; or you are bent upon something or somebody else.
(15) See "Mem."
III.
xi.
14.
Then Socrates: For Heaven's sake, don't carbonado (16) me, Antisthenes, that's all.
Any other savagery on your part I can stand, and will stand, as a lover should.
However (he added), the less we say about your love the better, since it is clearly an attachment not to my soul, but to my lovely person.
(16) Or, "tear and scratch me."
And then, turning to Callias: And that you, Callias, do love Autolycus, this whole city knows and half the world besides, (17) if I am not mistaken; and the reason is that you are both sons of famous fathers, and yourselves illustrious.
For my part I have ever admired your nature, but now much more so, when I see that you are in love with one who does not wanton in luxury or languish in effeminacy, (18) but who displays to all his strength, his hardihood, his courage, and sobriety of soul.
To be enamoured of such qualities as these is a proof itself of a true lover's nature.
(17) Lit.
"many a foreign visitor likewise."
(18) See the Attic type of character, as drawn by Pericles, Thuc.
ii.
40.
Whether indeed Aphrodite be one or twain (19) in personality, the heavenly and the earthly, I cannot tell, for Zeus, who is one and indivisible, bears many titles.
(20) But this thing I know, that these twain have separate altars, shrines, and sacrifices, (21) as befits their nature--she that is earthly, of a lighter and a laxer sort; she that is heavenly, purer and holier in type.
And you may well conjecture, it is the earthly goddess, the common Aphrodite, who sends forth the bodily loves; while from her that is named of heaven, Ourania, proceed those loves which feed upon the soul, on friendship and on noble deeds.
It is by this latter, Callias, that you are held in bonds, if I mistake not, Love divine.
(22) This I infer as well from the fair and noble character of your friend, as from the fact that you invite his father to share your life and intercourse.
(23) Since no part of these is hidden from the father by the fair and noble lover.
(19) For Aphrodite Ourania and Pandemos see Plat.
"Symp."
180.
(20) Lit.
"that is believed to be the same."
See Cic.
"De N. D." iii.
16.
Cf.
Aesch.
"Prom."
210 (of Themis and Gaia), {pollon onomaton morphe mia}.
(21) e.g.
to Aphrodite Pandemos a white goat, {mekas leuke}, but to Aphrodite Ourania a heifer, and {thusiai nephaliai}, offerings without wine, i.e.
of water, milk, and honey.
Schol.
to Soph.
"Oed.
Col." 100; Lucian, lxvii.
"Dial.
Mer."
7.
1.
(22) Lit.
"by Eros."
(23) Cf.
Plat.
"Prot."
318 A; Aristoph.
"Thesmoph."
21, "learned conversazioni."
Hermogenes broke in: By Hera, Socrates, I much admire you for many things, and now to see how in the act of gratifying Callias you are training him in duty and true excellence.
(24) (24) Lit.
"teaching him what sort of man he ought to be."
This, as we know, is the very heart and essence of the Socratic (= {XS}) method.
See "Mem."
I. ii.
3.
Why, yes (he said), if only that his cup of happiness may overflow, I wish to testify to him how far the love of soul is better than the love of body.
Without friendship, (25) as we full well know, there is no society of any worth.
And this friendship, what is it?
On the part of those whose admiration (26) is bestowed upon the inner disposition, it is well named a sweet and voluntary compulsion.
But among those whose desire (26) is for the body, there are not a few who blame, nay hate, the ways of their beloved ones.
And even where attachment (26) clings to both, (27) even so the bloom of beauty after all does quickly reach its prime; the flower withers, and when that fails, the affection which was based upon it must also wither up and perish.
But the soul, with every step she makes in her onward course towards deeper wisdom, grows ever worthier of love.
(25) Lit.
"That without love no intercourse is worth regarding, we all know."
(26) N.B.--{agamenon, epithumounton, sterxosi}.
Here, as often, the author seems to have studied the {orthoepeia} of Prodicus.
See "Mem."
II.
i.
24.
(27) i.e.
"body and character."
Ay, and in the enjoyment of external beauty a sort of surfeit is engendered.
Just as the eater's appetite palls through repletion with regard to meats, (28) so will the feelings of a lover towards his idol.
But the soul's attachment, owing to its purity, knows no satiety.
(29) Yet not therefore, as a man might fondly deem, has it less of the character of loveliness.
(30) But very clearly herein is our prayer fulfilled, in which we beg the goddess to grant us words and deeds that bear the impress of her own true loveliness.
(31) (28) Cf.
"Mem."
III.
xi.
13.
(29) Lit.
"is more insatiate."
Cf.
Charles Wesley's hymn: O Love Divine, how sweet Thou art!
When shall I find my willing heart All taken up by Thee?
(30) Lit.
"is she, the soul, more separate from Aphrodite."
(31) Or, "stamped with the image of Aphrodite."
Zeune cf.
Lucr.
i.
24, addressing Venus, "te sociam studeo scribendis versibus esse," "I would have thee for a helpmate in writing the verses..."; and below, 28, "quo magis aeternum da dictis, diva, leporem," "Wherefore all the more, O lady, lend my lays an ever-living charm" (H. A. J. Munro).
That a soul whose bloom is visible alike in beauty of external form, free and unfettered, and an inner disposition, bashful, generous; a spirit (32) at once imperial and affable, (33) born to rule among its fellows--that such a being will, of course, admire and fondly cling to his beloved, is a thesis which needs no further argument on my part.
Rather I will essay to teach you, how it is natural that this same type of lover should in turn be loved by his soul's idol.
(34) (32) Cf.
Plat.
"Phaedr."
252 E. (33) The epithet {philophron} occurs "Mem."
III.
i.
6, of a general; ib.
III.
v. 3 (according to the vulg.
reading), of the Athenians.
(34) Or, "the boy whom he cherishes."
How, in the first place, is it possible for him to hate a lover who, he knows, regards him as both beautiful and good?
(35) and, in the next place, one who, it is clear, is far more anxious to promote the fair estate of him he loves (36) than to indulge his selfish joys?
and above all, when he has faith and trust that neither dereliction, (37) nor loss of beauty through sickness, nor aught else, will diminish their affection.
(35) Or, "perfection."
(36) Lit.
"the boy."
(37) Reading {en para ti poiese}.
Al.
"come what come may," lit.
"no alteration"; or if reading {parebese} transl.
"although his May of youth should pass, and sickness should mar his features, the tie of friendship will not be weakened."
If, then, they own a mutual devotion, (38) how can it but be, they will take delight in gazing each into the other's eyes, hold kindly converse, trust and be trusted, have forethought for each other, in success rejoice together, in misfortune share their troubles; and so long as health endures make merry cheer, day in day out; or if either of them should fall on sickness, then will their intercourse be yet more constant; and if they cared for one another face to face, much more will they care when parted.
(39) Are not all these the outward tokens of true loveliness?
(40) In the exercise of such sweet offices, at any rate, they show their passion for holy friendship's state, and prove its bliss, continuously pacing life's path from youth to eld.
(38) For beauty of style (in the original) Zeune cf.
"Mem."
II.
vi.
28 foll.
; III.
xi.
10.
(39) "Albeit absent from one another in the body, they are more present in the soul."
Cf.
Virg.
"Aen."
iv.
83, "illum absens absentem auditque videtque."
(40) Or, "bear the stamp of Aphrodite."
But the lover who depends upon the body, (41) what of him?
First, why should love-for-love be given to such a lover?
because, forsooth, he bestows upon himself what he desires, and upon his minion things of dire reproach?
or that what he hastens to exact, infallibly must separate that other from his nearest friends?
(41) Or, "is wholly taken up with."
Cf.
Plat.
"Laws," 831 C. If it be pleaded that persuasion is his instrument, not violence; is that no reason rather for a deeper loathing?
since he who uses violence (42) at any rate declares himself in his true colours as a villain, while the tempter corrupts the soul of him who yields to his persuasions.
(42) Cf.
"Hiero," iii.
3; "Cyrop."
III.
i.
39.
Ay, and how should he who traffics with his beauty love the purchaser, any more than he who keeps a stall in the market-place and vends to the highest bidder?
Love springs not up, I trow, because the one is in his prime, and the other's bloom is withered, because fair is mated with what is not fair, and hot lips are pressed to cold.
Between man and woman it is different.
There the wife at any rate shares with her husband in their nuptial joys; but here conversely, the one is sober and with unimpassioned eye regards his fellow, who is drunken with the wine of passion.
(43) (43) Lit.
"by Aphrodite."
Cf.
Plat.
"Phaedr."
240, "But the lover ... when he is drunk" (Jowett); "Symp."
214 C. Wherefore it is no marvel if, beholding, there springs up in his breast the bitterest contempt and scorn for such a lover.
Search and you shall find that nothing harsh was ever yet engendered by attachment based on moral qualities; whilst shameless intercourse, time out of mind, has been the source of countless hateful and unhallowed deeds.
(44) (44) Zeune cf.
Ael.
"V. H." viii.
9, re Archelaus king of Macedon, concerning whom Aristotle, "Pol."
v. 10.
1311 B: "Many conspiracies have originated in shameful attempts made by sovereigns on the persons of their subjects.
Such was the attack of Crataeus upon Archelaus," etc.
(Jowett).
I have next to show that the society of him whose love is of the body, not the soul, is in itself illiberal.
The true educator who trains another in the path of virtue, who will teach us excellence, whether of speech or conduct, (45) may well be honoured, even as Cheiron and Phoenix (46) were honoured by Achilles.
But what can he expect, who stretches forth an eager hand to clutch the body, save to be treated (47) as a beggar?
That is his character; for ever cringing and petitioning a kiss, or some other soft caress, (48) this sorry suitor dogs his victims.
(45) Phoenix addresses Achilles, "Il."
ix.
443: {muthon te reter' emenai, prektera te ergon} Therefore sent he (Peleus) me to thee to teach thee all things, To be both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds (W. Leaf).
(46) See "Il."
xi.
831; "Hunting," ch.
i., as to Cheiron and his scholars, the last of whom is Achilles.
(47) {an periepoito}.
"He will be scurvily treated."
Cf.
"Hell."
III.
i.
19.
(48) Cf.
"Mem."
I. ii.
29.
If my language has a touch of turbulence, (49) do not marvel: partly the wine exalts me; partly that love which ever dwells within my heart of hearts now pricks me forward to use great boldness of speech (50) against his base antagonist.
Why, yes indeed, it seems to me that he who fixes his mind on outward beauty is like a man who has taken a farm on a short lease.
He shows no anxiety to improve its value; his sole object being to take off it the largest crops he can himself.
But he whose heart is set on loyal friendship resembles rather a man who has a farmstead of his own.
At any rate, he scours the wide world to find what may enhance the value of his soul's delight.
(51) (49) Or, "wantonness"; and for the apology see Plat.
"Phaedr."
238: "I appear to be in a divine fury, for already I am getting into dithyrambics" (Jowett).
(50) Lit.
"to speak openly against that other sort of love which is its rival."
(51) Cf.
Michelet, I think, as to the French peasant-farmer regarding his property as "sa femme."
Again, let us consider the effect upon the object of attachment.
Let him but know his beauty is a bond sufficient to enthrall his lover, (52) and what wonder if he be careless of all else and play the wanton.
Let him discover, on the contrary, that if he would retain his dear affection he must himself be truly good and beautiful, and it is only natural he should become more studious of virtue.
But the greatest blessing which descends on one beset with eager longing to convert the idol of his soul into a good man and true friend is this: necessity is laid upon himself to practise virtue; since how can he hope to make his comrade good, if he himself works wickedness?
Is it conceivable that the example he himself presents of what is shameless and incontinent, (53) will serve to make the beloved one temperate and modest?
(52) Or, "that by largess of beauty he can enthrall his lover."
(53) See Plat.
"Symp."
182 A, 192 A. I have a longing, Callias, by mythic argument (54) to show you that not men only, but gods and heroes, set greater store by friendship of the soul than bodily enjoyment.
Thus those fair women (55) whom Zeus, enamoured of their outward beauty, wedded, he permitted mortal to remain; but those heroes whose souls he held in admiration, these he raised to immortality.
Of whom are Heracles and the Dioscuri, and there are others also named.
(56) As I maintain, it was not for his body's sake, but for his soul's, that Ganymede (57) was translated to Olympus, as the story goes, by Zeus.
And to this his very name bears witness, for is it not written in Homer?
And he gladdens ({ganutai}) to hear his voice.
(58) This the poet says, meaning "he is pleased to listen to his words."
(54) Or, "I have a desire to romance a little," "for your benefit to explain by legendary lore."
Cf.
Isocr.
120 C; Plat.
"Rep." 392 B.
(55) e.g.
Leda, Danae, Europa, Alcmena, Electra, Latona, Laodamia (Zeune).
(56) See "Hunting," i.; "Hell."
VI.
iii.
6.
(57) See Plat.
"Phaedr."
255 C; Cic.
"Tusc."
i.
26, "nec Homerum audio ... divina mallem ad nos," a protest against anthropomorphism in religion.
(58) Not in "our" version of Homer, but cf.
"Il."
xx.
405, {ganutai de te tois 'Enosikhthon}; "Il."
xiii.
493, {ganutai d' ara te phrena poimen}.
And again, in another passage he says: Knowing deep devices ({medea}) in his mind, (59) which is as much as to say, "knowing wise counsels in his mind."
Ganymede, therefore, bears a name compounded of the two words, "joy" and "counsel," and is honoured among the gods, not as one "whose body," but "whose mind" "gives pleasure."
(59) Partly "Il."
xxiv.
674, {pukina phresi mede' ekhontes}; and "Il."
xxiv.
424, {phila phresi medea eidos}.
Cf.
"Od."
vi.
192; xviii.
67, 87; xxii.
476.
Furthermore (I appeal to you, Niceratus), (60) Homer makes Achilles avenge Patroclus in that brilliant fashion, not as his favourite, but as his comrade.
(61) Yes, and Orestes and Pylades, (62) Theseus and Peirithous, (63) with many another noble pair of demigods, are celebrated as having wrought in common great and noble deeds, not because they lay inarmed, but because of the admiration they felt for one another.
(60) As an authority on Homer.
(61) Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
179 E: "The notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen," etc.
(in his "Myrmidons").
See J.
A. Symonds, "The Greek Poets," 2nd series, "Achilles," p. 66 foll.
(62) Concerning whom Ovid ("Pont."
iii.
2.
70) says, "nomina fama tenet."
(63) See Plut.
"Thes."
30 foll.
(Clough, i. p. 30 foll.
); cf.
Lucian, xli.
"Toxaris," 10.
Nay, take the fair deeds of to-day: and you shall find them wrought rather for the sake of praise by volunteers in toil and peril, than by men accustomed to choose pleasure in place of honour.
And yet Pausanias, (64) the lover of the poet Agathon, (65) making a defence in behalf (66) of some who wallow in incontinence, has stated that an army composed of lovers and beloved would be invincible.
(67) These, in his opinion, would, from awe of one another, have the greatest horror of destruction.
A truly marvellous argument, if he means that men accustomed to turn deaf ears to censure and to behave to one another shamelessly, are more likely to feel ashamed of doing a shameful deed.
He adduced as evidence the fact that the Thebans and the Eleians (68) recognise the very principle, and added: Though they sleep inarmed, they do not scruple to range the lover side by side with the beloved one in the field of battle.
An instance which I take to be no instance, or at any rate one-sided, (69) seeing that what they look upon as lawful with us is scandalous.
(70) Indeed, it strikes me that this vaunted battle-order would seem to argue some mistrust on their part who adopt it--a suspicion that their bosom friends, once separated from them, may forget to behave as brave men should.
But the men of Lacedaemon, holding that "if a man but lay his hand upon the body and for lustful purpose, he shall thereby forfeit claim to what is beautiful and noble"--do, in the spirit of their creed, contrive to mould and fashion their "beloved ones" to such height of virtue, (71) that should these find themselves drawn up with foreigners, albeit no longer side by side with their own lovers, (72) conscience will make desertion of their present friends impossible.
Self-respect constrains them: since the goddess whom the men of Lacedaemon worship is not "Shamelessness," but "Reverence."
(73) (64) See Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 15; Plat.
"Protag."
315 D; Ael.
"V. H." ii.
21.
(65) Ib.
; Aristot.
"Poet."
ix.
(66) Or, "in his 'Apology' for."
(67) Plat.
"Symp."
179 E, puts the sentiment into the mouth of Phaedrus: "And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at one another's side, although not a mere handful, they would overcome the world.
For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms?
He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this.
Or would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?
The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him.
That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the soul of heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover" (Jowett).
Cf.
"Hunting," xii.
20; "Anab."
VII.
iv.
7; "Cyrop."
VII.
i.
30.
(68) Sc.
in their institutions.
Cf.
Plat.
"Symp."
182, "in Elis and Boeotia"; "Pol.
Lac."
ii.
13; Ael.
"V. H." iii.
12, xiii.
5; Athen.
xiii.
2.
For the Theban Sacred Band see Plut.
"Pelop."
18, 19 (Clough, ii.
218).
(69) Or, "not in pari materia, so to speak."
(70) Is not Xenophon imputing himself to Socrates?
Henkel cf.
Plat.
"Crito," 52 E. See Newman, op.
cit.
i.
396.
(71) Or, "shape to so fine a manhood that..." (72) Reading {en te aute taxei}.
Al.
{... polei}, transl.
"nor indeed in the same city."
Cf.
"Hell."
V. iv.
33, re death of Cleonymus at Leuctra.
(73) Lit.
"Aidos not Anaideia."
See Paus.
"Lac."
xx.
10; "Attica," xvii.
1; Cic.
"de Leg."
ii.
11, a reference which I owe to M. Eugene Talbot, "Xen."
i.
236.
I fancy we should all agree with one another on the point in question, if we thus approached it.
Ask yourself to which type of the two must he (74) accord, to whom you would entrust a sum of money, make him the guardian of your children, look to find in him a safe and sure depositary of any favour?
(75) For my part, I am certain that the very lover addicted to external beauty would himself far sooner have his precious things entrusted to the keeping of one who has the inward beauty of the soul.
(76) (74) He (the master-mistress of my passion).
(75) {kharitas} = "kindly offices," beneficia.
Cf.
"Ages."
iv.
4; "Mem."
IV.
iv.
17.
Al.
= delicias, "to deposit some darling object."
(76) Or, "some one truly lovable in soul and heart."
Ah, yes!
and you, my friend (he turned to Callias), you have good reason to be thankful to the gods who of their grace inspired you with love for your Autolycus.
Covetous of honour, (77) beyond all controversy, must he be, who could endure so many toils and pains to hear his name proclaimed (78) victor in the "pankration."
(77) See "Mem."
II.
iii.
16; "Isocr."
189 C, {ph.
kai megalopsukhoi}.
(78) i.e.
"by the public herald."
But what if the thought arose within him: (79) his it is not merely to add lustre to himself and to his father, but that he has ability, through help of manly virtue, to benefit his friends and to exalt his fatherland, by trophies which he will set up against our enemies in war, (80) whereby he will himself become the admired of all observers, nay, a name to be remembered among Hellenes and barbarians.
(81) Would he not in that case, think you, make much of (82) one whom he regarded as his bravest fellow-worker, laying at his feet the greatest honours?
(79) Cf.
Theogn.
947: {patrida kosmeso, liparen polin, out' epi demo trepsas out' adikois andrasi peithomenos}.
(80) Who in 421 B.C.
were of course the Lacedaemonians and the allies.
Autolycus was killed eventually by the Thirty to please the Lacedaemonian harmost.
See Plut.
"Lysand."
15 (Clough, iii.
120); Paus.
i.
18.
3; ix.
32.
8.
Cf.
"Hell."
II.
iii.
14.
(81) Cf.
"Anab."
IV.
i.
20; "Mem."
III.
vi.
2.
(82) {periepein}.
Cf.
"Cyrop."
IV.
iv.
12; "Mem."
II.
ix.
5.
If, then, you wish to be well-pleasing in his eyes, you had best inquire by what knowledge Themistocles (83) was able to set Hellas free.
You should ask yourself, what keen wit belonged to Pericles (83) that he was held to be the best adviser of his fatherland.
You should scan (84) the field of history to learn by what sage wisdom Solon (85) established for our city her consummate laws.
I would have you find the clue to that peculiar training by which the men of Lacedaemon have come to be regarded as the best of leaders.
(86) Is it not at your house that their noblest citizens are lodged as representatives of a foreign state?
(87) (83) See "Mem."
II.
vi.
13; III.
vi.
2; IV.
ii.
2.
(84) For the diction, {skepteon, skepteon, aphreteon, ereuneteon, epistamenos, eidos, philosopheras}, Xenophon's rhetorical style imitates the {orthoepeia} of Prodicus.
(85) See "Econ."
xiv.
4.
(86) Or, "won for themselves at all hands the reputation of noblest generalship."
Cf.
"Ages."
i.
3; "Pol.
Lac."
xiv.
3.
(87) Reading as vulg.
{proxenoi d' ei...} or if with Schenkl, {proxenos d' ei...} transl.
"You are their consul-general; at your house their noblest citizens are lodged from time to time."
As to the office, cf.
Dem.
475.
10; 1237.
17; Thuc.
ii.
29; Boeckh, "P. E.
A."
50.
Callias appears as the Lac.
{proxenos} ("Hell."
V. iv.
22) 378 B.C., and at Sparta, 371 B.C., as the peace commissioner ("Hell."
VI.
iii.
3).
Be sure that our state of Athens would speedily entrust herself to your direction were you willing.
(88) Everything is in your favour.
You are of noble family, "eupatrid" by descent, a priest of the divinities, (89) and of Erechtheus' famous line, (90) which with Iacchus marched to encounter the barbarian.
(91) And still, at the sacred festival to-day, it is agreed that no one among your ancestors has ever been more fitted to discharge the priestly office than yourself; yours a person the goodliest to behold in all our city, and a frame adapted to undergo great toils.
(88) Cf.
"Mem."
III.
vii.
(89) i.e.
Demeter and Core.
Callias (see "Hell."
VI.
l.c.)
was dadouchos (or torch-holder) in the mysteries.
(90) Or, "whose rites date back to Erechtheus."
Cf.
Plat.
"Theag."
122.
(91) At Salamis.
The tale is told by Herod.
viii.
65, and Plut.
"Themist."
15; cf.
Polyaen.
"Strat."
iii.
11.
2.
Just as Themistocles had won the battle of Salamis by help of Iacchus on the 16th Boedromion, the first day of the mysteries, so Chabrias won the sea-fight of Naxos by help of the day itself, {to 'Alade mustai}, 376 B.C.
But if I seem to any of you to indulge a vein more serious than befits the wine-cup, marvel not.
It has long been my wont to share our city's passion for noble-natured souls, alert and emulous in pursuit of virtue.
He ended, and, while the others continued to discuss the theme of his discourse, Autolycus sat regarding Callias.
That other, glancing the while at the beloved one, turned to Socrates.
Call.
Then, Socrates, be pleased, as go-between, (92) to introduce me to the state, that I may employ myself in state affairs and never lapse from her good graces.
(93) (92) Lit.
"as pander."
(93) So Critobulus in the conversation so often referred to.
"Mem."
II.
vi.
Never fear (he answered), if only people see your loyalty to virtue is genuine, (94) not of mere repute.
A false renown indeed is quickly seen for what it is worth, being tested; but true courage (95) (save only what some god hinder) perpetually amidst the storm and stress of circumstance (96) pours forth a brighter glory.
(94) See "Mem."
I. vii.
1, passim; II.
vi.
39; "Econ."
x.
9.
(95) Cf.
Thuc.
ii.
42, {andragathia}, "true courage in the public service covers a multitude of private shortcomings."
(96) {en tais praxesi}.
Cf.
Plat.
"Phaedr."
271 D, "in actual life."
IX On such a note he ended his discourse.
At that, Autolycus, whose hour for walking exercise had now come, arose.
His father, Lycon, was about to leave the room along with him, but before so doing, turned to Socrates, remarking: By Hera, Socrates, if ever any one deserved the appellation "beautiful and good," (1) you are that man!
(1) For {kalos ge kalathos} see "Econ."
vii.
2 and passim.
So the pair departed.
After they were gone, a sort of throne was first erected in the inner room abutting on the supper chamber.
Then the Syracusan entered, with a speech: With your good pleasure, sirs, Ariadne is about to enter the bridal chamber set apart for her and Dionysus.
Anon Dionysus will appear, fresh from the table of the gods, wine-flushed, and enter to his bride.
In the last scene the two will play (2) with one another.
(2) {paixountai}.
The Syracusan naturally uses the Doric form.
See Cobet, "Pros.
Xen."
p. 16, note 23.
Rutherford, "N. Phrynicus," p. 91.
He had scarce concluded, when Ariadne entered, attired like a bride.
She crossed the stage and sate herself upon the throne.
Meanwhile, before the god himself appeared a sound of flutes was heard; the cadence of the Bacchic air proclaimed his coming.
At this point the company broke forth in admiration of the ballet-master.
For no sooner did the sound of music strike upon the ear of Ariadne than something in her action revealed to all the pleasure which it caused her.
She did not step forward to meet her lover, she did not rise even from her seat; but the flutter of her unrest was plain to see.
(3) (3) Lit.
"the difficulty she had to keep so still was evident."
When Dionysus presently caught sight of her he loved, lightly he danced towards her, and with show of tenderest passion gently reclined upon her knees; his arms entwined about her lovingly, and upon her lips he sealed a kiss; (4)--she the while with most sweet bashfulness was fain to wind responsive arms about her lover; till the banqueters, the while they gazed all eyes, clapped hands and cried "Encore!"
But when Dionysus rose upon his feet, and rising lifted Ariadne to her full height, the action of those lovers as they kissed and fondled one another was a thing to contemplate.
(5) As to the spectators, they could see that Dionysus was indeed most beautiful, and Ariadne like some lovely blossom; nor were those mocking gestures, but real kisses sealed on loving lips; and so, (6) with hearts aflame, they gazed expectantly.
They could hear the question asked by Dionysus, did she love him?
and her answer, as prettily she swore she did.
And withal so earnestly, not Dionysus only, but all present, had sworn an oath in common: the boy and girl were verily and indeed a pair of happy lovers.
So much less did they resemble actors, trained to certain gestures, than two beings bent on doing what for many a long day they had set their hearts on.
(4) Or, "and encircling his arms about her impressed upon her lips a kiss."
(5) Or, "then was it possible to see the more than mimic gestures."
(6) Or, "on the tiptoe of excitement."
Cf.
"Hell."
III.
i.
14, iv.
2.
At last when these two lovers, caught in each other's arms, were seen to be retiring to the nuptial couch, the members of the supper party turned to withdraw themselves; and whilst those of them who were unmarried swore that they would wed, those who were wedded mounted their horses and galloped off to join their wives, in quest of married joys.
Only Socrates, and of the rest the few who still remained behind, anon set off with Callias, to see out Lycon and his son, and share the walk.
And so this supper party, assembled in honour of Autolycus, broke up.
SYMPOSIUM By Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett INTRODUCTION.
Of all the works of Plato the Symposium is the most perfect in form, and may be truly thought to contain more than any commentator has ever dreamed of; or, as Goethe said of one of his own writings, more than the author himself knew.
For in philosophy as in prophecy glimpses of the future may often be conveyed in words which could hardly have been understood or interpreted at the time when they were uttered (compare Symp.)
--which were wiser than the writer of them meant, and could not have been expressed by him if he had been interrogated about them.
Yet Plato was not a mystic, nor in any degree affected by the Eastern influences which afterwards overspread the Alexandrian world.
He was not an enthusiast or a sentimentalist, but one who aspired only to see reasoned truth, and whose thoughts are clearly explained in his language.
There is no foreign element either of Egypt or of Asia to be found in his writings.
And more than any other Platonic work the Symposium is Greek both in style and subject, having a beauty 'as of a statue,' while the companion Dialogue of the Phaedrus is marked by a sort of Gothic irregularity.
More too than in any other of his Dialogues, Plato is emancipated from former philosophies.
The genius of Greek art seems to triumph over the traditions of Pythagorean, Eleatic, or Megarian systems, and 'the old quarrel of poetry and philosophy' has at least a superficial reconcilement.
(Rep.) An unknown person who had heard of the discourses in praise of love spoken by Socrates and others at the banquet of Agathon is desirous of having an authentic account of them, which he thinks that he can obtain from Apollodorus, the same excitable, or rather 'mad' friend of Socrates, who is afterwards introduced in the Phaedo.
He had imagined that the discourses were recent.
There he is mistaken: but they are still fresh in the memory of his informant, who had just been repeating them to Glaucon, and is quite prepared to have another rehearsal of them in a walk from the Piraeus to Athens.
Although he had not been present himself, he had heard them from the best authority.
Aristodemus, who is described as having been in past times a humble but inseparable attendant of Socrates, had reported them to him (compare Xen.
Mem.).
The narrative which he had heard was as follows:-Aristodemus meeting Socrates in holiday attire, is invited by him to a banquet at the house of Agathon, who had been sacrificing in thanksgiving for his tragic victory on the day previous.
But no sooner has he entered the house than he finds that he is alone; Socrates has stayed behind in a fit of abstraction, and does not appear until the banquet is half over.
On his appearing he and the host jest a little; the question is then asked by Pausanias, one of the guests, 'What shall they do about drinking?
as they had been all well drunk on the day before, and drinking on two successive days is such a bad thing.'
This is confirmed by the authority of Eryximachus the physician, who further proposes that instead of listening to the flute-girl and her 'noise' they shall make speeches in honour of love, one after another, going from left to right in the order in which they are reclining at the table.
All of them agree to this proposal, and Phaedrus, who is the 'father' of the idea, which he has previously communicated to Eryximachus, begins as follows:-He descants first of all upon the antiquity of love, which is proved by the authority of the poets; secondly upon the benefits which love gives to man.
The greatest of these is the sense of honour and dishonour.
The lover is ashamed to be seen by the beloved doing or suffering any cowardly or mean act.
And a state or army which was made up only of lovers and their loves would be invincible.
For love will convert the veriest coward into an inspired hero.
And there have been true loves not only of men but of women also.
Such was the love of Alcestis, who dared to die for her husband, and in recompense of her virtue was allowed to come again from the dead.
But Orpheus, the miserable harper, who went down to Hades alive, that he might bring back his wife, was mocked with an apparition only, and the gods afterwards contrived his death as the punishment of his cowardliness.
The love of Achilles, like that of Alcestis, was courageous and true; for he was willing to avenge his lover Patroclus, although he knew that his own death would immediately follow: and the gods, who honour the love of the beloved above that of the lover, rewarded him, and sent him to the islands of the blest.
Pausanias, who was sitting next, then takes up the tale:--He says that Phaedrus should have distinguished the heavenly love from the earthly, before he praised either.
For there are two loves, as there are two Aphrodites--one the daughter of Uranus, who has no mother and is the elder and wiser goddess, and the other, the daughter of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and common.
The first of the two loves has a noble purpose, and delights only in the intelligent nature of man, and is faithful to the end, and has no shadow of wantonness or lust.
The second is the coarser kind of love, which is a love of the body rather than of the soul, and is of women and boys as well as of men.
Now the actions of lovers vary, like every other sort of action, according to the manner of their performance.
And in different countries there is a difference of opinion about male loves.
Some, like the Boeotians, approve of them; others, like the Ionians, and most of the barbarians, disapprove of them; partly because they are aware of the political dangers which ensue from them, as may be seen in the instance of Harmodius and Aristogeiton.
At Athens and Sparta there is an apparent contradiction about them.
For at times they are encouraged, and then the lover is allowed to play all sorts of fantastic tricks; he may swear and forswear himself (and 'at lovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs'); he may be a servant, and lie on a mat at the door of his love, without any loss of character; but there are also times when elders look grave and guard their young relations, and personal remarks are made.
The truth is that some of these loves are disgraceful and others honourable.
The vulgar love of the body which takes wing and flies away when the bloom of youth is over, is disgraceful, and so is the interested love of power or wealth; but the love of the noble mind is lasting.
The lover should be tested, and the beloved should not be too ready to yield.
The rule in our country is that the beloved may do the same service to the lover in the way of virtue which the lover may do to him.
A voluntary service to be rendered for the sake of virtue and wisdom is permitted among us; and when these two customs--one the love of youth, the other the practice of virtue and philosophy--meet in one, then the lovers may lawfully unite.
Nor is there any disgrace to a disinterested lover in being deceived: but the interested lover is doubly disgraced, for if he loses his love he loses his character; whereas the noble love of the other remains the same, although the object of his love is unworthy: for nothing can be nobler than love for the sake of virtue.
This is that love of the heavenly goddess which is of great price to individuals and cities, making them work together for their improvement.
The turn of Aristophanes comes next; but he has the hiccough, and therefore proposes that Eryximachus the physician shall cure him or speak in his turn.
Eryximachus is ready to do both, and after prescribing for the hiccough, speaks as follows:-He agrees with Pausanias in maintaining that there are two kinds of love; but his art has led him to the further conclusion that the empire of this double love extends over all things, and is to be found in animals and plants as well as in man.
In the human body also there are two loves; and the art of medicine shows which is the good and which is the bad love, and persuades the body to accept the good and reject the bad, and reconciles conflicting elements and makes them friends.
Every art, gymnastic and husbandry as well as medicine, is the reconciliation of opposites; and this is what Heracleitus meant, when he spoke of a harmony of opposites: but in strictness he should rather have spoken of a harmony which succeeds opposites, for an agreement of disagreements there cannot be.
Music too is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm.
In the abstract, all is simple, and we are not troubled with the twofold love; but when they are applied in education with their accompaniments of song and metre, then the discord begins.
Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair Urania and the coarse Polyhymnia, who must be indulged sparingly, just as in my own art of medicine care must be taken that the taste of the epicure be gratified without inflicting upon him the attendant penalty of disease.
There is a similar harmony or disagreement in the course of the seasons and in the relations of moist and dry, hot and cold, hoar frost and blight; and diseases of all sorts spring from the excesses or disorders of the element of love.
The knowledge of these elements of love and discord in the heavenly bodies is termed astronomy, in the relations of men towards gods and parents is called divination.
For divination is the peacemaker of gods and men, and works by a knowledge of the tendencies of merely human loves to piety and impiety.
Such is the power of love; and that love which is just and temperate has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and friendship with the gods and with one another.
I dare say that I have omitted to mention many things which you, Aristophanes, may supply, as I perceive that you are cured of the hiccough.
Aristophanes is the next speaker:-He professes to open a new vein of discourse, in which he begins by treating of the origin of human nature.
The sexes were originally three, men, women, and the union of the two; and they were made round--having four hands, four feet, two faces on a round neck, and the rest to correspond.
Terrible was their strength and swiftness; and they were essaying to scale heaven and attack the gods.
Doubt reigned in the celestial councils; the gods were divided between the desire of quelling the pride of man and the fear of losing the sacrifices.
At last Zeus hit upon an expedient.
Let us cut them in two, he said; then they will only have half their strength, and we shall have twice as many sacrifices.
He spake, and split them as you might split an egg with an hair; and when this was done, he told Apollo to give their faces a twist and re-arrange their persons, taking out the wrinkles and tying the skin in a knot about the navel.
The two halves went about looking for one another, and were ready to die of hunger in one another's arms.
Then Zeus invented an adjustment of the sexes, which enabled them to marry and go their way to the business of life.
Now the characters of men differ accordingly as they are derived from the original man or the original woman, or the original man-woman.
Those who come from the man-woman are lascivious and adulterous; those who come from the woman form female attachments; those who are a section of the male follow the male and embrace him, and in him all their desires centre.
The pair are inseparable and live together in pure and manly affection; yet they cannot tell what they want of one another.
But if Hephaestus were to come to them with his instruments and propose that they should be melted into one and remain one here and hereafter, they would acknowledge that this was the very expression of their want.
For love is the desire of the whole, and the pursuit of the whole is called love.
There was a time when the two sexes were only one, but now God has halved them,--much as the Lacedaemonians have cut up the Arcadians,--and if they do not behave themselves he will divide them again, and they will hop about with half a nose and face in basso relievo.
Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may obtain the goods of which love is the author, and be reconciled to God, and find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world.
And now I must beg you not to suppose that I am alluding to Pausanias and Agathon (compare Protag.
), for my words refer to all mankind everywhere.
Some raillery ensues first between Aristophanes and Eryximachus, and then between Agathon, who fears a few select friends more than any number of spectators at the theatre, and Socrates, who is disposed to begin an argument.
This is speedily repressed by Phaedrus, who reminds the disputants of their tribute to the god.
Agathon's speech follows:-He will speak of the god first and then of his gifts: He is the fairest and blessedest and best of the gods, and also the youngest, having had no existence in the old days of Iapetus and Cronos when the gods were at war.
The things that were done then were done of necessity and not of love.
For love is young and dwells in soft places,--not like Ate in Homer, walking on the skulls of men, but in their hearts and souls, which are soft enough.
He is all flexibility and grace, and his habitation is among the flowers, and he cannot do or suffer wrong; for all men serve and obey him of their own free will, and where there is love there is obedience, and where obedience, there is justice; for none can be wronged of his own free will.
And he is temperate as well as just, for he is the ruler of the desires, and if he rules them he must be temperate.
Also he is courageous, for he is the conqueror of the lord of war.
And he is wise too; for he is a poet, and the author of poesy in others.
He created the animals; he is the inventor of the arts; all the gods are his subjects; he is the fairest and best himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best in others; he makes men to be of one mind at a banquet, filling them with affection and emptying them of disaffection; the pilot, helper, defender, saviour of men, in whose footsteps let every man follow, chanting a strain of love.
Such is the discourse, half playful, half serious, which I dedicate to the god.
The turn of Socrates comes next.
He begins by remarking satirically that he has not understood the terms of the original agreement, for he fancied that they meant to speak the true praises of love, but now he finds that they only say what is good of him, whether true or false.
He begs to be absolved from speaking falsely, but he is willing to speak the truth, and proposes to begin by questioning Agathon.
The result of his questions may be summed up as follows:-Love is of something, and that which love desires is not that which love is or has; for no man desires that which he is or has.
And love is of the beautiful, and therefore has not the beautiful.
And the beautiful is the good, and therefore, in wanting and desiring the beautiful, love also wants and desires the good.
Socrates professes to have asked the same questions and to have obtained the same answers from Diotima, a wise woman of Mantinea, who, like Agathon, had spoken first of love and then of his works.
Socrates, like Agathon, had told her that Love is a mighty god and also fair, and she had shown him in return that Love was neither, but in a mean between fair and foul, good and evil, and not a god at all, but only a great demon or intermediate power (compare the speech of Eryximachus) who conveys to the gods the prayers of men, and to men the commands of the gods.
Socrates asks: Who are his father and mother?
To this Diotima replies that he is the son of Plenty and Poverty, and partakes of the nature of both, and is full and starved by turns.
Like his mother he is poor and squalid, lying on mats at doors (compare the speech of Pausanias); like his father he is bold and strong, and full of arts and resources.
Further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge:--in this he resembles the philosopher who is also in a mean between the wise and the ignorant.
Such is the nature of Love, who is not to be confused with the beloved.
But Love desires the beautiful; and then arises the question, What does he desire of the beautiful?
He desires, of course, the possession of the beautiful;--but what is given by that?
For the beautiful let us substitute the good, and we have no difficulty in seeing the possession of the good to be happiness, and Love to be the desire of happiness, although the meaning of the word has been too often confined to one kind of love.
And Love desires not only the good, but the everlasting possession of the good.
Why then is there all this flutter and excitement about love?
Because all men and women at a certain age are desirous of bringing to the birth.
And love is not of beauty only, but of birth in beauty; this is the principle of immortality in a mortal creature.
When beauty approaches, then the conceiving power is benign and diffuse; when foulness, she is averted and morose.
But why again does this extend not only to men but also to animals?
Because they too have an instinct of immortality.
Even in the same individual there is a perpetual succession as well of the parts of the material body as of the thoughts and desires of the mind; nay, even knowledge comes and goes.
There is no sameness of existence, but the new mortality is always taking the place of the old.
This is the reason why parents love their children--for the sake of immortality; and this is why men love the immortality of fame.
For the creative soul creates not children, but conceptions of wisdom and virtue, such as poets and other creators have invented.
And the noblest creations of all are those of legislators, in honour of whom temples have been raised.
Who would not sooner have these children of the mind than the ordinary human ones?
(Compare Bacon's Essays, 8:--'Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public.')
I will now initiate you, she said, into the greater mysteries; for he who would proceed in due course should love first one fair form, and then many, and learn the connexion of them; and from beautiful bodies he should proceed to beautiful minds, and the beauty of laws and institutions, until he perceives that all beauty is of one kindred; and from institutions he should go on to the sciences, until at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science of universal beauty, and then he will behold the everlasting nature which is the cause of all, and will be near the end.
In the contemplation of that supreme being of love he will be purified of earthly leaven, and will behold beauty, not with the bodily eye, but with the eye of the mind, and will bring forth true creations of virtue and wisdom, and be the friend of God and heir of immortality.
Such, Phaedrus, is the tale which I heard from the stranger of Mantinea, and which you may call the encomium of love, or what you please.
The company applaud the speech of Socrates, and Aristophanes is about to say something, when suddenly a band of revellers breaks into the court, and the voice of Alcibiades is heard asking for Agathon.
He is led in drunk, and welcomed by Agathon, whom he has come to crown with a garland.
He is placed on a couch at his side, but suddenly, on recognizing Socrates, he starts up, and a sort of conflict is carried on between them, which Agathon is requested to appease.
Alcibiades then insists that they shall drink, and has a large wine-cooler filled, which he first empties himself, and then fills again and passes on to Socrates.
He is informed of the nature of the entertainment; and is ready to join, if only in the character of a drunken and disappointed lover he may be allowed to sing the praises of Socrates:-He begins by comparing Socrates first to the busts of Silenus, which have images of the gods inside them; and, secondly, to Marsyas the flute-player.
For Socrates produces the same effect with the voice which Marsyas did with the flute.
He is the great speaker and enchanter who ravishes the souls of men; the convincer of hearts too, as he has convinced Alcibiades, and made him ashamed of his mean and miserable life.
Socrates at one time seemed about to fall in love with him; and he thought that he would thereby gain a wonderful opportunity of receiving lessons of wisdom.
He narrates the failure of his design.
He has suffered agonies from him, and is at his wit's end.
He then proceeds to mention some other particulars of the life of Socrates; how they were at Potidaea together, where Socrates showed his superior powers of enduring cold and fatigue; how on one occasion he had stood for an entire day and night absorbed in reflection amid the wonder of the spectators; how on another occasion he had saved Alcibiades' life; how at the battle of Delium, after the defeat, he might be seen stalking about like a pelican, rolling his eyes as Aristophanes had described him in the Clouds.
He is the most wonderful of human beings, and absolutely unlike anyone but a satyr.
Like the satyr in his language too; for he uses the commonest words as the outward mask of the divinest truths.
When Alcibiades has done speaking, a dispute begins between him and Agathon and Socrates.
Socrates piques Alcibiades by a pretended affection for Agathon.
Presently a band of revellers appears, who introduce disorder into the feast; the sober part of the company, Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others, withdraw; and Aristodemus, the follower of Socrates, sleeps during the whole of a long winter's night.
When he wakes at cockcrow the revellers are nearly all asleep.
Only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon hold out; they are drinking from a large goblet, which they pass round, and Socrates is explaining to the two others, who are half-asleep, that the genius of tragedy is the same as that of comedy, and that the writer of tragedy ought to be a writer of comedy also.
And first Aristophanes drops, and then, as the day is dawning, Agathon.
Socrates, having laid them to rest, takes a bath and goes to his daily avocations until the evening.
Aristodemus follows.
...
If it be true that there are more things in the Symposium of Plato than any commentator has dreamed of, it is also true that many things have been imagined which are not really to be found there.
Some writings hardly admit of a more distinct interpretation than a musical composition; and every reader may form his own accompaniment of thought or feeling to the strain which he hears.
The Symposium of Plato is a work of this character, and can with difficulty be rendered in any words but the writer's own.
There are so many half-lights and cross-lights, so much of the colour of mythology, and of the manner of sophistry adhering--rhetoric and poetry, the playful and the serious, are so subtly intermingled in it, and vestiges of old philosophy so curiously blend with germs of future knowledge, that agreement among interpreters is not to be expected.
The expression 'poema magis putandum quam comicorum poetarum,' which has been applied to all the writings of Plato, is especially applicable to the Symposium.
The power of love is represented in the Symposium as running through all nature and all being: at one end descending to animals and plants, and attaining to the highest vision of truth at the other.
In an age when man was seeking for an expression of the world around him, the conception of love greatly affected him.
One of the first distinctions of language and of mythology was that of gender; and at a later period the ancient physicist, anticipating modern science, saw, or thought that he saw, a sex in plants; there were elective affinities among the elements, marriages of earth and heaven.
(Aesch.
Frag.
Dan.)
Love became a mythic personage whom philosophy, borrowing from poetry, converted into an efficient cause of creation.
The traces of the existence of love, as of number and figure, were everywhere discerned; and in the Pythagorean list of opposites male and female were ranged side by side with odd and even, finite and infinite.
But Plato seems also to be aware that there is a mystery of love in man as well as in nature, extending beyond the mere immediate relation of the sexes.
He is conscious that the highest and noblest things in the world are not easily severed from the sensual desires, or may even be regarded as a spiritualized form of them.
We may observe that Socrates himself is not represented as originally unimpassioned, but as one who has overcome his passions; the secret of his power over others partly lies in his passionate but self-controlled nature.
In the Phaedrus and Symposium love is not merely the feeling usually so called, but the mystical contemplation of the beautiful and the good.
The same passion which may wallow in the mire is capable of rising to the loftiest heights--of penetrating the inmost secret of philosophy.
The highest love is the love not of a person, but of the highest and purest abstraction.
This abstraction is the far-off heaven on which the eye of the mind is fixed in fond amazement.
The unity of truth, the consistency of the warring elements of the world, the enthusiasm for knowledge when first beaming upon mankind, the relativity of ideas to the human mind, and of the human mind to ideas, the faith in the invisible, the adoration of the eternal nature, are all included, consciously or unconsciously, in Plato's doctrine of love.
The successive speeches in praise of love are characteristic of the speakers, and contribute in various degrees to the final result; they are all designed to prepare the way for Socrates, who gathers up the threads anew, and skims the highest points of each of them.
But they are not to be regarded as the stages of an idea, rising above one another to a climax.
They are fanciful, partly facetious performances, 'yet also having a certain measure of seriousness,' which the successive speakers dedicate to the god.
All of them are rhetorical and poetical rather than dialectical, but glimpses of truth appear in them.
When Eryximachus says that the principles of music are simple in themselves, but confused in their application, he touches lightly upon a difficulty which has troubled the moderns as well as the ancients in music, and may be extended to the other applied sciences.
That confusion begins in the concrete, was the natural feeling of a mind dwelling in the world of ideas.
When Pausanias remarks that personal attachments are inimical to despots.
The experience of Greek history confirms the truth of his remark.
When Aristophanes declares that love is the desire of the whole, he expresses a feeling not unlike that of the German philosopher, who says that 'philosophy is home sickness.'
When Agathon says that no man 'can be wronged of his own free will,' he is alluding playfully to a serious problem of Greek philosophy (compare Arist.
Nic.
Ethics).
So naturally does Plato mingle jest and earnest, truth and opinion in the same work.
The characters--of Phaedrus, who has been the cause of more philosophical discussions than any other man, with the exception of Simmias the Theban (Phaedrus); of Aristophanes, who disguises under comic imagery a serious purpose; of Agathon, who in later life is satirized by Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae, for his effeminate manners and the feeble rhythms of his verse; of Alcibiades, who is the same strange contrast of great powers and great vices, which meets us in history--are drawn to the life; and we may suppose the less-known characters of Pausanias and Eryximachus to be also true to the traditional recollection of them (compare Phaedr., Protag.
; and compare Sympos.
with Phaedr.).
We may also remark that Aristodemus is called 'the little' in Xenophon's Memorabilia (compare Symp.).
The speeches have been said to follow each other in pairs: Phaedrus and Pausanias being the ethical, Eryximachus and Aristophanes the physical speakers, while in Agathon and Socrates poetry and philosophy blend together.
The speech of Phaedrus is also described as the mythological, that of Pausanias as the political, that of Eryximachus as the scientific, that of Aristophanes as the artistic (!
), that of Socrates as the philosophical.
But these and similar distinctions are not found in Plato;--they are the points of view of his critics, and seem to impede rather than to assist us in understanding him.
When the turn of Socrates comes round he cannot be allowed to disturb the arrangement made at first.
With the leave of Phaedrus he asks a few questions, and then he throws his argument into the form of a speech (compare Gorg., Protag.).
But his speech is really the narrative of a dialogue between himself and Diotima.
And as at a banquet good manners would not allow him to win a victory either over his host or any of the guests, the superiority which he gains over Agathon is ingeniously represented as having been already gained over himself by her.
The artifice has the further advantage of maintaining his accustomed profession of ignorance (compare Menex.).
Even his knowledge of the mysteries of love, to which he lays claim here and elsewhere (Lys.
), is given by Diotima.
The speeches are attested to us by the very best authority.
The madman Apollodorus, who for three years past has made a daily study of the actions of Socrates--to whom the world is summed up in the words 'Great is Socrates'--he has heard them from another 'madman,' Aristodemus, who was the 'shadow' of Socrates in days of old, like him going about barefooted, and who had been present at the time.
'Would you desire better witness?'
The extraordinary narrative of Alcibiades is ingeniously represented as admitted by Socrates, whose silence when he is invited to contradict gives consent to the narrator.
We may observe, by the way, (1) how the very appearance of Aristodemus by himself is a sufficient indication to Agathon that Socrates has been left behind; also, (2) how the courtesy of Agathon anticipates the excuse which Socrates was to have made on Aristodemus' behalf for coming uninvited; (3) how the story of the fit or trance of Socrates is confirmed by the mention which Alcibiades makes of a similar fit of abstraction occurring when he was serving with the army at Potidaea; like (4) the drinking powers of Socrates and his love of the fair, which receive a similar attestation in the concluding scene; or the attachment of Aristodemus, who is not forgotten when Socrates takes his departure.
(5) We may notice the manner in which Socrates himself regards the first five speeches, not as true, but as fanciful and exaggerated encomiums of the god Love; (6) the satirical character of them, shown especially in the appeals to mythology, in the reasons which are given by Zeus for reconstructing the frame of man, or by the Boeotians and Eleans for encouraging male loves; (7) the ruling passion of Socrates for dialectics, who will argue with Agathon instead of making a speech, and will only speak at all upon the condition that he is allowed to speak the truth.
We may note also the touch of Socratic irony, (8) which admits of a wide application and reveals a deep insight into the world:--that in speaking of holy things and persons there is a general understanding that you should praise them, not that you should speak the truth about them--this is the sort of praise which Socrates is unable to give.
Lastly, (9) we may remark that the banquet is a real banquet after all, at which love is the theme of discourse, and huge quantities of wine are drunk.
The discourse of Phaedrus is half-mythical, half-ethical; and he himself, true to the character which is given him in the Dialogue bearing his name, is half-sophist, half-enthusiast.
He is the critic of poetry also, who compares Homer and Aeschylus in the insipid and irrational manner of the schools of the day, characteristically reasoning about the probability of matters which do not admit of reasoning.
He starts from a noble text: 'That without the sense of honour and dishonour neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work.'
But he soon passes on to more common-place topics.
The antiquity of love, the blessing of having a lover, the incentive which love offers to daring deeds, the examples of Alcestis and Achilles, are the chief themes of his discourse.
The love of women is regarded by him as almost on an equality with that of men; and he makes the singular remark that the gods favour the return of love which is made by the beloved more than the original sentiment, because the lover is of a nobler and diviner nature.
There is something of a sophistical ring in the speech of Phaedrus, which recalls the first speech in imitation of Lysias, occurring in the Dialogue called the Phaedrus.
This is still more marked in the speech of Pausanias which follows; and which is at once hyperlogical in form and also extremely confused and pedantic.
Plato is attacking the logical feebleness of the sophists and rhetoricians, through their pupils, not forgetting by the way to satirize the monotonous and unmeaning rhythms which Prodicus and others were introducing into Attic prose (compare Protag.).
Of course, he is 'playing both sides of the game,' as in the Gorgias and Phaedrus; but it is not necessary in order to understand him that we should discuss the fairness of his mode of proceeding.
The love of Pausanias for Agathon has already been touched upon in the Protagoras, and is alluded to by Aristophanes.
Hence he is naturally the upholder of male loves, which, like all the other affections or actions of men, he regards as varying according to the manner of their performance.
Like the sophists and like Plato himself, though in a different sense, he begins his discussion by an appeal to mythology, and distinguishes between the elder and younger love.
The value which he attributes to such loves as motives to virtue and philosophy is at variance with modern and Christian notions, but is in accordance with Hellenic sentiment.
The opinion of Christendom has not altogether condemned passionate friendships between persons of the same sex, but has certainly not encouraged them, because though innocent in themselves in a few temperaments they are liable to degenerate into fearful evil.
Pausanias is very earnest in the defence of such loves; and he speaks of them as generally approved among Hellenes and disapproved by barbarians.
His speech is 'more words than matter,' and might have been composed by a pupil of Lysias or of Prodicus, although there is no hint given that Plato is specially referring to them.
As Eryximachus says, 'he makes a fair beginning, but a lame ending.'
Plato transposes the two next speeches, as in the Republic he would transpose the virtues and the mathematical sciences.
This is done partly to avoid monotony, partly for the sake of making Aristophanes 'the cause of wit in others,' and also in order to bring the comic and tragic poet into juxtaposition, as if by accident.
A suitable 'expectation' of Aristophanes is raised by the ludicrous circumstance of his having the hiccough, which is appropriately cured by his substitute, the physician Eryximachus.
To Eryximachus Love is the good physician; he sees everything as an intelligent physicist, and, like many professors of his art in modern times, attempts to reduce the moral to the physical; or recognises one law of love which pervades them both.
There are loves and strifes of the body as well as of the mind.
Like Hippocrates the Asclepiad, he is a disciple of Heracleitus, whose conception of the harmony of opposites he explains in a new way as the harmony after discord; to his common sense, as to that of many moderns as well as ancients, the identity of contradictories is an absurdity.
His notion of love may be summed up as the harmony of man with himself in soul as well as body, and of all things in heaven and earth with one another.
Aristophanes is ready to laugh and make laugh before he opens his mouth, just as Socrates, true to his character, is ready to argue before he begins to speak.
He expresses the very genius of the old comedy, its coarse and forcible imagery, and the licence of its language in speaking about the gods.
He has no sophistical notions about love, which is brought back by him to its common-sense meaning of love between intelligent beings.
His account of the origin of the sexes has the greatest (comic) probability and verisimilitude.
Nothing in Aristophanes is more truly Aristophanic than the description of the human monster whirling round on four arms and four legs, eight in all, with incredible rapidity.
Yet there is a mixture of earnestness in this jest; three serious principles seem to be insinuated:--first, that man cannot exist in isolation; he must be reunited if he is to be perfected: secondly, that love is the mediator and reconciler of poor, divided human nature: thirdly, that the loves of this world are an indistinct anticipation of an ideal union which is not yet realized.
The speech of Agathon is conceived in a higher strain, and receives the real, if half-ironical, approval of Socrates.
It is the speech of the tragic poet and a sort of poem, like tragedy, moving among the gods of Olympus, and not among the elder or Orphic deities.
In the idea of the antiquity of love he cannot agree; love is not of the olden time, but present and youthful ever.
The speech may be compared with that speech of Socrates in the Phaedrus in which he describes himself as talking dithyrambs.
It is at once a preparation for Socrates and a foil to him.
The rhetoric of Agathon elevates the soul to 'sunlit heights,' but at the same time contrasts with the natural and necessary eloquence of Socrates.
Agathon contributes the distinction between love and the works of love, and also hints incidentally that love is always of beauty, which Socrates afterwards raises into a principle.
While the consciousness of discord is stronger in the comic poet Aristophanes, Agathon, the tragic poet, has a deeper sense of harmony and reconciliation, and speaks of Love as the creator and artist.
All the earlier speeches embody common opinions coloured with a tinge of philosophy.
They furnish the material out of which Socrates proceeds to form his discourse, starting, as in other places, from mythology and the opinions of men.
From Phaedrus he takes the thought that love is stronger than death; from Pausanias, that the true love is akin to intellect and political activity; from Eryximachus, that love is a universal phenomenon and the great power of nature; from Aristophanes, that love is the child of want, and is not merely the love of the congenial or of the whole, but (as he adds) of the good; from Agathon, that love is of beauty, not however of beauty only, but of birth in beauty.
As it would be out of character for Socrates to make a lengthened harangue, the speech takes the form of a dialogue between Socrates and a mysterious woman of foreign extraction.
She elicits the final truth from one who knows nothing, and who, speaking by the lips of another, and himself a despiser of rhetoric, is proved also to be the most consummate of rhetoricians (compare Menexenus).
The last of the six discourses begins with a short argument which overthrows not only Agathon but all the preceding speakers by the help of a distinction which has escaped them.
Extravagant praises have been ascribed to Love as the author of every good; no sort of encomium was too high for him, whether deserved and true or not.
But Socrates has no talent for speaking anything but the truth, and if he is to speak the truth of Love he must honestly confess that he is not a good at all: for love is of the good, and no man can desire that which he has.
This piece of dialectics is ascribed to Diotima, who has already urged upon Socrates the argument which he urges against Agathon.
That the distinction is a fallacy is obvious; it is almost acknowledged to be so by Socrates himself.
For he who has beauty or good may desire more of them; and he who has beauty or good in himself may desire beauty and good in others.
The fallacy seems to arise out of a confusion between the abstract ideas of good and beauty, which do not admit of degrees, and their partial realization in individuals.
But Diotima, the prophetess of Mantineia, whose sacred and superhuman character raises her above the ordinary proprieties of women, has taught Socrates far more than this about the art and mystery of love.
She has taught him that love is another aspect of philosophy.
The same want in the human soul which is satisfied in the vulgar by the procreation of children, may become the highest aspiration of intellectual desire.
As the Christian might speak of hungering and thirsting after righteousness; or of divine loves under the figure of human (compare Eph.
'This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church'); as the mediaeval saint might speak of the 'fruitio Dei;' as Dante saw all things contained in his love of Beatrice, so Plato would have us absorb all other loves and desires in the love of knowledge.
Here is the beginning of Neoplatonism, or rather, perhaps, a proof (of which there are many) that the so-called mysticism of the East was not strange to the Greek of the fifth century before Christ.
The first tumult of the affections was not wholly subdued; there were longings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized, which no art could satisfy.
To most men reason and passion appear to be antagonistic both in idea and fact.
The union of the greatest comprehension of knowledge and the burning intensity of love is a contradiction in nature, which may have existed in a far-off primeval age in the mind of some Hebrew prophet or other Eastern sage, but has now become an imagination only.
Yet this 'passion of the reason' is the theme of the Symposium of Plato.
And as there is no impossibility in supposing that 'one king, or son of a king, may be a philosopher,' so also there is a probability that there may be some few--perhaps one or two in a whole generation--in whom the light of truth may not lack the warmth of desire.
And if there be such natures, no one will be disposed to deny that 'from them flow most of the benefits of individuals and states;' and even from imperfect combinations of the two elements in teachers or statesmen great good may often arise.
Yet there is a higher region in which love is not only felt, but satisfied, in the perfect beauty of eternal knowledge, beginning with the beauty of earthly things, and at last reaching a beauty in which all existence is seen to be harmonious and one.
The limited affection is enlarged, and enabled to behold the ideal of all things.
And here the highest summit which is reached in the Symposium is seen also to be the highest summit which is attained in the Republic, but approached from another side; and there is 'a way upwards and downwards,' which is the same and not the same in both.
The ideal beauty of the one is the ideal good of the other; regarded not with the eye of knowledge, but of faith and desire; and they are respectively the source of beauty and the source of good in all other things.
And by the steps of a 'ladder reaching to heaven' we pass from images of visible beauty (Greek), and from the hypotheses of the Mathematical sciences, which are not yet based upon the idea of good, through the concrete to the abstract, and, by different paths arriving, behold the vision of the eternal (compare Symp.
(Greek) Republic (Greek) also Phaedrus).
Under one aspect 'the idea is love'; under another, 'truth.'
In both the lover of wisdom is the 'spectator of all time and of all existence.'
This is a 'mystery' in which Plato also obscurely intimates the union of the spiritual and fleshly, the interpenetration of the moral and intellectual faculties.
The divine image of beauty which resides within Socrates has been revealed; the Silenus, or outward man, has now to be exhibited.
The description of Socrates follows immediately after the speech of Socrates; one is the complement of the other.
At the height of divine inspiration, when the force of nature can no further go, by way of contrast to this extreme idealism, Alcibiades, accompanied by a troop of revellers and a flute-girl, staggers in, and being drunk is able to tell of things which he would have been ashamed to make known if he had been sober.
The state of his affections towards Socrates, unintelligible to us and perverted as they appear, affords an illustration of the power ascribed to the loves of man in the speech of Pausanias.
He does not suppose his feelings to be peculiar to himself: there are several other persons in the company who have been equally in love with Socrates, and like himself have been deceived by him.
The singular part of this confession is the combination of the most degrading passion with the desire of virtue and improvement.
Such an union is not wholly untrue to human nature, which is capable of combining good and evil in a degree beyond what we can easily conceive.
In imaginative persons, especially, the God and beast in man seem to part asunder more than is natural in a well-regulated mind.
The Platonic Socrates (for of the real Socrates this may be doubted: compare his public rebuke of Critias for his shameful love of Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorabilia) does not regard the greatest evil of Greek life as a thing not to be spoken of; but it has a ridiculous element (Plato's Symp.
), and is a subject for irony, no less than for moral reprobation (compare Plato's Symp.).
It is also used as a figure of speech which no one interpreted literally (compare Xen.
Symp.).
Nor does Plato feel any repugnance, such as would be felt in modern times, at bringing his great master and hero into connexion with nameless crimes.
He is contented with representing him as a saint, who has won 'the Olympian victory' over the temptations of human nature.
The fault of taste, which to us is so glaring and which was recognized by the Greeks of a later age (Athenaeus), was not perceived by Plato himself.
We are still more surprised to find that the philosopher is incited to take the first step in his upward progress (Symp.)
by the beauty of young men and boys, which was alone capable of inspiring the modern feeling of romance in the Greek mind.
The passion of love took the spurious form of an enthusiasm for the ideal of beauty--a worship as of some godlike image of an Apollo or Antinous.
But the love of youth when not depraved was a love of virtue and modesty as well as of beauty, the one being the expression of the other; and in certain Greek states, especially at Sparta and Thebes, the honourable attachment of a youth to an elder man was a part of his education.
The 'army of lovers and their beloved who would be invincible if they could be united by such a tie' (Symp.
), is not a mere fiction of Plato's, but seems actually to have existed at Thebes in the days of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, if we may believe writers cited anonymously by Plutarch, Pelop.
Vit.
It is observable that Plato never in the least degree excuses the depraved love of the body (compare Charm.
; Rep.; Laws; Symp.
; and once more Xenophon, Mem.
), nor is there any Greek writer of mark who condones or approves such connexions.
But owing partly to the puzzling nature of the subject these friendships are spoken of by Plato in a manner different from that customary among ourselves.
To most of them we should hesitate to ascribe, any more than to the attachment of Achilles and Patroclus in Homer, an immoral or licentious character.
There were many, doubtless, to whom the love of the fair mind was the noblest form of friendship (Rep.), and who deemed the friendship of man with man to be higher than the love of woman, because altogether separated from the bodily appetites.
The existence of such attachments may be reasonably attributed to the inferiority and seclusion of woman, and the want of a real family or social life and parental influence in Hellenic cities; and they were encouraged by the practice of gymnastic exercises, by the meetings of political clubs, and by the tie of military companionship.
They were also an educational institution: a young person was specially entrusted by his parents to some elder friend who was expected by them to train their son in manly exercises and in virtue.
It is not likely that a Greek parent committed him to a lover, any more than we should to a schoolmaster, in the expectation that he would be corrupted by him, but rather in the hope that his morals would be better cared for than was possible in a great household of slaves.
It is difficult to adduce the authority of Plato either for or against such practices or customs, because it is not always easy to determine whether he is speaking of 'the heavenly and philosophical love, or of the coarse Polyhymnia:' and he often refers to this (e.g.
in the Symposium) half in jest, yet 'with a certain degree of seriousness.'
We observe that they entered into one part of Greek literature, but not into another, and that the larger part is free from such associations.
Indecency was an element of the ludicrous in the old Greek Comedy, as it has been in other ages and countries.
But effeminate love was always condemned as well as ridiculed by the Comic poets; and in the New Comedy the allusions to such topics have disappeared.
They seem to have been no longer tolerated by the greater refinement of the age.
False sentiment is found in the Lyric and Elegiac poets; and in mythology 'the greatest of the Gods' (Rep.) is not exempt from evil imputations.
But the morals of a nation are not to be judged of wholly by its literature.
Hellas was not necessarily more corrupted in the days of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, or of Plato and the Orators, than England in the time of Fielding and Smollett, or France in the nineteenth century.
No one supposes certain French novels to be a representation of ordinary French life.
And the greater part of Greek literature, beginning with Homer and including the tragedians, philosophers, and, with the exception of the Comic poets (whose business was to raise a laugh by whatever means), all the greater writers of Hellas who have been preserved to us, are free from the taint of indecency.
Some general considerations occur to our mind when we begin to reflect on this subject.
(1) That good and evil are linked together in human nature, and have often existed side by side in the world and in man to an extent hardly credible.
We cannot distinguish them, and are therefore unable to part them; as in the parable 'they grow together unto the harvest:' it is only a rule of external decency by which society can divide them.
Nor should we be right in inferring from the prevalence of any one vice or corruption that a state or individual was demoralized in their whole character.
Not only has the corruption of the best been sometimes thought to be the worst, but it may be remarked that this very excess of evil has been the stimulus to good (compare Plato, Laws, where he says that in the most corrupt cities individuals are to be found beyond all praise).
(2) It may be observed that evils which admit of degrees can seldom be rightly estimated, because under the same name actions of the most different degrees of culpability may be included.
No charge is more easily set going than the imputation of secret wickedness (which cannot be either proved or disproved and often cannot be defined) when directed against a person of whom the world, or a section of it, is predisposed to think evil.
And it is quite possible that the malignity of Greek scandal, aroused by some personal jealousy or party enmity, may have converted the innocent friendship of a great man for a noble youth into a connexion of another kind.
Such accusations were brought against several of the leading men of Hellas, e.g.
Cimon, Alcibiades, Critias, Demosthenes, Epaminondas: several of the Roman emperors were assailed by similar weapons which have been used even in our own day against statesmen of the highest character.
(3) While we know that in this matter there is a great gulf fixed between Greek and Christian Ethics, yet, if we would do justice to the Greeks, we must also acknowledge that there was a greater outspokenness among them than among ourselves about the things which nature hides, and that the more frequent mention of such topics is not to be taken as the measure of the prevalence of offences, or as a proof of the general corruption of society.
It is likely that every religion in the world has used words or practised rites in one age, which have become distasteful or repugnant to another.
We cannot, though for different reasons, trust the representations either of Comedy or Satire; and still less of Christian Apologists.
(4) We observe that at Thebes and Lacedemon the attachment of an elder friend to a beloved youth was often deemed to be a part of his education; and was encouraged by his parents--it was only shameful if it degenerated into licentiousness.
Such we may believe to have been the tie which united Asophychus and Cephisodorus with the great Epaminondas in whose companionship they fell (Plutarch, Amat.
; Athenaeus on the authority of Theopompus).
(5) A small matter: there appears to be a difference of custom among the Greeks and among ourselves, as between ourselves and continental nations at the present time, in modes of salutation.
We must not suspect evil in the hearty kiss or embrace of a male friend 'returning from the army at Potidaea' any more than in a similar salutation when practised by members of the same family.
But those who make these admissions, and who regard, not without pity, the victims of such illusions in our own day, whose life has been blasted by them, may be none the less resolved that the natural and healthy instincts of mankind shall alone be tolerated (Greek); and that the lesson of manliness which we have inherited from our fathers shall not degenerate into sentimentalism or effeminacy.
The possibility of an honourable connexion of this kind seems to have died out with Greek civilization.
Among the Romans, and also among barbarians, such as the Celts and Persians, there is no trace of such attachments existing in any noble or virtuous form.
(Compare Hoeck's Creta and the admirable and exhaustive article of Meier in Ersch and Grueber's Cyclopedia on this subject; Plutarch, Amatores; Athenaeus; Lysias contra Simonem; Aesch.
c.
Timarchum.)
The character of Alcibiades in the Symposium is hardly less remarkable than that of Socrates, and agrees with the picture given of him in the first of the two Dialogues which are called by his name, and also with the slight sketch of him in the Protagoras.
He is the impersonation of lawlessness--'the lion's whelp, who ought not to be reared in the city,' yet not without a certain generosity which gained the hearts of men,--strangely fascinated by Socrates, and possessed of a genius which might have been either the destruction or salvation of Athens.
The dramatic interest of the character is heightened by the recollection of his after history.
He seems to have been present to the mind of Plato in the description of the democratic man of the Republic (compare also Alcibiades 1).
There is no criterion of the date of the Symposium, except that which is furnished by the allusion to the division of Arcadia after the destruction of Mantinea.
This took place in the year B.C.
384, which is the forty-fourth year of Plato's life.
The Symposium cannot therefore be regarded as a youthful work.
As Mantinea was restored in the year 369, the composition of the Dialogue will probably fall between 384 and 369.
Whether the recollection of the event is more likely to have been renewed at the destruction or restoration of the city, rather than at some intermediate period, is a consideration not worth raising.
The Symposium is connected with the Phaedrus both in style and subject; they are the only Dialogues of Plato in which the theme of love is discussed at length.
In both of them philosophy is regarded as a sort of enthusiasm or madness; Socrates is himself 'a prophet new inspired' with Bacchanalian revelry, which, like his philosophy, he characteristically pretends to have derived not from himself but from others.
The Phaedo also presents some points of comparison with the Symposium.
For there, too, philosophy might be described as 'dying for love;' and there are not wanting many touches of humour and fancy, which remind us of the Symposium.
But while the Phaedo and Phaedrus look backwards and forwards to past and future states of existence, in the Symposium there is no break between this world and another; and we rise from one to the other by a regular series of steps or stages, proceeding from the particulars of sense to the universal of reason, and from one universal to many, which are finally reunited in a single science (compare Rep.).
At first immortality means only the succession of existences; even knowledge comes and goes.
Then follows, in the language of the mysteries, a higher and a higher degree of initiation; at last we arrive at the perfect vision of beauty, not relative or changing, but eternal and absolute; not bounded by this world, or in or out of this world, but an aspect of the divine, extending over all things, and having no limit of space or time: this is the highest knowledge of which the human mind is capable.
Plato does not go on to ask whether the individual is absorbed in the sea of light and beauty or retains his personality.
Enough for him to have attained the true beauty or good, without enquiring precisely into the relation in which human beings stood to it.
That the soul has such a reach of thought, and is capable of partaking of the eternal nature, seems to imply that she too is eternal (compare Phaedrus).
But Plato does not distinguish the eternal in man from the eternal in the world or in God.
He is willing to rest in the contemplation of the idea, which to him is the cause of all things (Rep.), and has no strength to go further.
The Symposium of Xenophon, in which Socrates describes himself as a pander, and also discourses of the difference between sensual and sentimental love, likewise offers several interesting points of comparison.
But the suspicion which hangs over other writings of Xenophon, and the numerous minute references to the Phaedrus and Symposium, as well as to some of the other writings of Plato, throw a doubt on the genuineness of the work.
The Symposium of Xenophon, if written by him at all, would certainly show that he wrote against Plato, and was acquainted with his works.
Of this hostility there is no trace in the Memorabilia.
Such a rivalry is more characteristic of an imitator than of an original writer.
The (so-called) Symposium of Xenophon may therefore have no more title to be regarded as genuine than the confessedly spurious Apology.
There are no means of determining the relative order in time of the Phaedrus, Symposium, Phaedo.
The order which has been adopted in this translation rests on no other principle than the desire to bring together in a series the memorials of the life of Socrates.
SYMPOSIUM PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Apollodorus, who repeats to his companion the dialogue which he had heard from Aristodemus, and had already once narrated to Glaucon.
Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, Alcibiades, A Troop of Revellers.
SCENE: The House of Agathon.
Concerning the things about which you ask to be informed I believe that I am not ill-prepared with an answer.
For the day before yesterday I was coming from my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my acquaintance, who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out playfully in the distance, said: Apollodorus, O thou Phalerian (Probably a play of words on (Greek), 'bald-headed.')
man, halt!
So I did as I was bid; and then he said, I was looking for you, Apollodorus, only just now, that I might ask you about the speeches in praise of love, which were delivered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon's supper.
Phoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me of them; his narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you knew, and I wish that you would give me an account of them.
Who, if not you, should be the reporter of the words of your friend?
And first tell me, he said, were you present at this meeting?
Your informant, Glaucon, I said, must have been very indistinct indeed, if you imagine that the occasion was recent; or that I could have been of the party.
Why, yes, he replied, I thought so.
Impossible: I said.
Are you ignorant that for many years Agathon has not resided at Athens; and not three have elapsed since I became acquainted with Socrates, and have made it my daily business to know all that he says and does.
There was a time when I was running about the world, fancying myself to be well employed, but I was really a most wretched being, no better than you are now.
I thought that I ought to do anything rather than be a philosopher.
Well, he said, jesting apart, tell me when the meeting occurred.
In our boyhood, I replied, when Agathon won the prize with his first tragedy, on the day after that on which he and his chorus offered the sacrifice of victory.
Then it must have been a long while ago, he said; and who told you--did Socrates?
No indeed, I replied, but the same person who told Phoenix;--he was a little fellow, who never wore any shoes, Aristodemus, of the deme of Cydathenaeum.
He had been at Agathon's feast; and I think that in those days there was no one who was a more devoted admirer of Socrates.
Moreover, I have asked Socrates about the truth of some parts of his narrative, and he confirmed them.
Then, said Glaucon, let us have the tale over again; is not the road to Athens just made for conversation?
And so we walked, and talked of the discourses on love; and therefore, as I said at first, I am not ill-prepared to comply with your request, and will have another rehearsal of them if you like.
For to speak or to hear others speak of philosophy always gives me the greatest pleasure, to say nothing of the profit.
But when I hear another strain, especially that of you rich men and traders, such conversation displeases me; and I pity you who are my companions, because you think that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing.
And I dare say that you pity me in return, whom you regard as an unhappy creature, and very probably you are right.
But I certainly know of you what you only think of me--there is the difference.
COMPANION: I see, Apollodorus, that you are just the same--always speaking evil of yourself, and of others; and I do believe that you pity all mankind, with the exception of Socrates, yourself first of all, true in this to your old name, which, however deserved, I know not how you acquired, of Apollodorus the madman; for you are always raging against yourself and everybody but Socrates.
APOLLODORUS: Yes, friend, and the reason why I am said to be mad, and out of my wits, is just because I have these notions of myself and you; no other evidence is required.
COMPANION: No more of that, Apollodorus; but let me renew my request that you would repeat the conversation.
APOLLODORUS: Well, the tale of love was on this wise:--But perhaps I had better begin at the beginning, and endeavour to give you the exact words of Aristodemus: He said that he met Socrates fresh from the bath and sandalled; and as the sight of the sandals was unusual, he asked him whither he was going that he had been converted into such a beau:-To a banquet at Agathon's, he replied, whose invitation to his sacrifice of victory I refused yesterday, fearing a crowd, but promising that I would come to-day instead; and so I have put on my finery, because he is such a fine man.
What say you to going with me unasked?
I will do as you bid me, I replied.
Follow then, he said, and let us demolish the proverb:-'To the feasts of inferior men the good unbidden go;' instead of which our proverb will run:-'To the feasts of the good the good unbidden go;' and this alteration may be supported by the authority of Homer himself, who not only demolishes but literally outrages the proverb.
For, after picturing Agamemnon as the most valiant of men, he makes Menelaus, who is but a fainthearted warrior, come unbidden (Iliad) to the banquet of Agamemnon, who is feasting and offering sacrifices, not the better to the worse, but the worse to the better.
I rather fear, Socrates, said Aristodemus, lest this may still be my case; and that, like Menelaus in Homer, I shall be the inferior person, who 'To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.'
But I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you will have to make an excuse.
'Two going together,' he replied, in Homeric fashion, one or other of them may invent an excuse by the way (Iliad).
This was the style of their conversation as they went along.
Socrates dropped behind in a fit of abstraction, and desired Aristodemus, who was waiting, to go on before him.
When he reached the house of Agathon he found the doors wide open, and a comical thing happened.
A servant coming out met him, and led him at once into the banqueting-hall in which the guests were reclining, for the banquet was about to begin.
Welcome, Aristodemus, said Agathon, as soon as he appeared--you are just in time to sup with us; if you come on any other matter put it off, and make one of us, as I was looking for you yesterday and meant to have asked you, if I could have found you.
But what have you done with Socrates?
I turned round, but Socrates was nowhere to be seen; and I had to explain that he had been with me a moment before, and that I came by his invitation to the supper.
You were quite right in coming, said Agathon; but where is he himself?
He was behind me just now, as I entered, he said, and I cannot think what has become of him.
Go and look for him, boy, said Agathon, and bring him in; and do you, Aristodemus, meanwhile take the place by Eryximachus.
The servant then assisted him to wash, and he lay down, and presently another servant came in and reported that our friend Socrates had retired into the portico of the neighbouring house.
'There he is fixed,' said he, 'and when I call to him he will not stir.'
How strange, said Agathon; then you must call him again, and keep calling him.
Let him alone, said my informant; he has a way of stopping anywhere and losing himself without any reason.
I believe that he will soon appear; do not therefore disturb him.
Well, if you think so, I will leave him, said Agathon.
And then, turning to the servants, he added, 'Let us have supper without waiting for him.
Serve up whatever you please, for there is no one to give you orders; hitherto I have never left you to yourselves.
But on this occasion imagine that you are our hosts, and that I and the company are your guests; treat us well, and then we shall commend you.'
After this, supper was served, but still no Socrates; and during the meal Agathon several times expressed a wish to send for him, but Aristodemus objected; and at last when the feast was about half over--for the fit, as usual, was not of long duration--Socrates entered.
Agathon, who was reclining alone at the end of the table, begged that he would take the place next to him; that 'I may touch you,' he said, 'and have the benefit of that wise thought which came into your mind in the portico, and is now in your possession; for I am certain that you would not have come away until you had found what you sought.'
How I wish, said Socrates, taking his place as he was desired, that wisdom could be infused by touch, out of the fuller into the emptier man, as water runs through wool out of a fuller cup into an emptier one; if that were so, how greatly should I value the privilege of reclining at your side!
For you would have filled me full with a stream of wisdom plenteous and fair; whereas my own is of a very mean and questionable sort, no better than a dream.
But yours is bright and full of promise, and was manifested forth in all the splendour of youth the day before yesterday, in the presence of more than thirty thousand Hellenes.
You are mocking, Socrates, said Agathon, and ere long you and I will have to determine who bears off the palm of wisdom--of this Dionysus shall be the judge; but at present you are better occupied with supper.
Socrates took his place on the couch, and supped with the rest; and then libations were offered, and after a hymn had been sung to the god, and there had been the usual ceremonies, they were about to commence drinking, when Pausanias said, And now, my friends, how can we drink with least injury to ourselves?
I can assure you that I feel severely the effect of yesterday's potations, and must have time to recover; and I suspect that most of you are in the same predicament, for you were of the party yesterday.
Consider then: How can the drinking be made easiest?
I entirely agree, said Aristophanes, that we should, by all means, avoid hard drinking, for I was myself one of those who were yesterday drowned in drink.
I think that you are right, said Eryximachus, the son of Acumenus; but I should still like to hear one other person speak: Is Agathon able to drink hard?
I am not equal to it, said Agathon.
Then, said Eryximachus, the weak heads like myself, Aristodemus, Phaedrus, and others who never can drink, are fortunate in finding that the stronger ones are not in a drinking mood.
(I do not include Socrates, who is able either to drink or to abstain, and will not mind, whichever we do.)
Well, as of none of the company seem disposed to drink much, I may be forgiven for saying, as a physician, that drinking deep is a bad practice, which I never follow, if I can help, and certainly do not recommend to another, least of all to any one who still feels the effects of yesterday's carouse.
I always do what you advise, and especially what you prescribe as a physician, rejoined Phaedrus the Myrrhinusian, and the rest of the company, if they are wise, will do the same.
It was agreed that drinking was not to be the order of the day, but that they were all to drink only so much as they pleased.
Then, said Eryximachus, as you are all agreed that drinking is to be voluntary, and that there is to be no compulsion, I move, in the next place, that the flute-girl, who has just made her appearance, be told to go away and play to herself, or, if she likes, to the women who are within (compare Prot.).
To-day let us have conversation instead; and, if you will allow me, I will tell you what sort of conversation.
This proposal having been accepted, Eryximachus proceeded as follows:-I will begin, he said, after the manner of Melanippe in Euripides, 'Not mine the word' which I am about to speak, but that of Phaedrus.
For often he says to me in an indignant tone:--'What a strange thing it is, Eryximachus, that, whereas other gods have poems and hymns made in their honour, the great and glorious god, Love, has no encomiast among all the poets who are so many.
There are the worthy sophists too--the excellent Prodicus for example, who have descanted in prose on the virtues of Heracles and other heroes; and, what is still more extraordinary, I have met with a philosophical work in which the utility of salt has been made the theme of an eloquent discourse; and many other like things have had a like honour bestowed upon them.
And only to think that there should have been an eager interest created about them, and yet that to this day no one has ever dared worthily to hymn Love's praises!
So entirely has this great deity been neglected.'
Now in this Phaedrus seems to me to be quite right, and therefore I want to offer him a contribution; also I think that at the present moment we who are here assembled cannot do better than honour the god Love.
If you agree with me, there will be no lack of conversation; for I mean to propose that each of us in turn, going from left to right, shall make a speech in honour of Love.
Let him give us the best which he can; and Phaedrus, because he is sitting first on the left hand, and because he is the father of the thought, shall begin.
No one will vote against you, Eryximachus, said Socrates.
How can I oppose your motion, who profess to understand nothing but matters of love; nor, I presume, will Agathon and Pausanias; and there can be no doubt of Aristophanes, whose whole concern is with Dionysus and Aphrodite; nor will any one disagree of those whom I see around me.
The proposal, as I am aware, may seem rather hard upon us whose place is last; but we shall be contented if we hear some good speeches first.
Let Phaedrus begin the praise of Love, and good luck to him.
All the company expressed their assent, and desired him to do as Socrates bade him.
Aristodemus did not recollect all that was said, nor do I recollect all that he related to me; but I will tell you what I thought most worthy of remembrance, and what the chief speakers said.
Phaedrus began by affirming that Love is a mighty god, and wonderful among gods and men, but especially wonderful in his birth.
For he is the eldest of the gods, which is an honour to him; and a proof of his claim to this honour is, that of his parents there is no memorial; neither poet nor prose-writer has ever affirmed that he had any.
As Hesiod says:-'First Chaos came, and then broad-bosomed Earth, The everlasting seat of all that is, And Love.'
In other words, after Chaos, the Earth and Love, these two, came into being.
Also Parmenides sings of Generation: 'First in the train of gods, he fashioned Love.'
And Acusilaus agrees with Hesiod.
Thus numerous are the witnesses who acknowledge Love to be the eldest of the gods.
And not only is he the eldest, he is also the source of the greatest benefits to us.
For I know not any greater blessing to a young man who is beginning life than a virtuous lover, or to the lover than a beloved youth.
For the principle which ought to be the guide of men who would nobly live--that principle, I say, neither kindred, nor honour, nor wealth, nor any other motive is able to implant so well as love.
Of what am I speaking?
Of the sense of honour and dishonour, without which neither states nor individuals ever do any good or great work.
And I say that a lover who is detected in doing any dishonourable act, or submitting through cowardice when any dishonour is done to him by another, will be more pained at being detected by his beloved than at being seen by his father, or by his companions, or by any one else.
The beloved too, when he is found in any disgraceful situation, has the same feeling about his lover.
And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves (compare Rep.), they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world.
For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms?
He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this.
Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?
The veriest coward would become an inspired hero, equal to the bravest, at such a time; Love would inspire him.
That courage which, as Homer says, the god breathes into the souls of some heroes, Love of his own nature infuses into the lover.
Love will make men dare to die for their beloved--love alone; and women as well as men.
Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias, is a monument to all Hellas; for she was willing to lay down her life on behalf of her husband, when no one else would, although he had a father and mother; but the tenderness of her love so far exceeded theirs, that she made them seem to be strangers in blood to their own son, and in name only related to him; and so noble did this action of hers appear to the gods, as well as to men, that among the many who have done virtuously she is one of the very few to whom, in admiration of her noble action, they have granted the privilege of returning alive to earth; such exceeding honour is paid by the gods to the devotion and virtue of love.
But Orpheus, the son of Oeagrus, the harper, they sent empty away, and presented to him an apparition only of her whom he sought, but herself they would not give up, because he showed no spirit; he was only a harp-player, and did not dare like Alcestis to die for love, but was contriving how he might enter Hades alive; moreover, they afterwards caused him to suffer death at the hands of women, as the punishment of his cowardliness.
Very different was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus--his lover and not his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far).
And greatly as the gods honour the virtue of love, still the return of love on the part of the beloved to the lover is more admired and valued and rewarded by them, for the lover is more divine; because he is inspired by God.
Now Achilles was quite aware, for he had been told by his mother, that he might avoid death and return home, and live to a good old age, if he abstained from slaying Hector.
Nevertheless he gave his life to revenge his friend, and dared to die, not only in his defence, but after he was dead.
Wherefore the gods honoured him even above Alcestis, and sent him to the Islands of the Blest.
These are my reasons for affirming that Love is the eldest and noblest and mightiest of the gods; and the chiefest author and giver of virtue in life, and of happiness after death.
This, or something like this, was the speech of Phaedrus; and some other speeches followed which Aristodemus did not remember; the next which he repeated was that of Pausanias.
Phaedrus, he said, the argument has not been set before us, I think, quite in the right form;--we should not be called upon to praise Love in such an indiscriminate manner.
If there were only one Love, then what you said would be well enough; but since there are more Loves than one,--should have begun by determining which of them was to be the theme of our praises.
I will amend this defect; and first of all I will tell you which Love is deserving of praise, and then try to hymn the praiseworthy one in a manner worthy of him.
For we all know that Love is inseparable from Aphrodite, and if there were only one Aphrodite there would be only one Love; but as there are two goddesses there must be two Loves.
And am I not right in asserting that there are two goddesses?
The elder one, having no mother, who is called the heavenly Aphrodite--she is the daughter of Uranus; the younger, who is the daughter of Zeus and Dione--her we call common; and the Love who is her fellow-worker is rightly named common, as the other love is called heavenly.
All the gods ought to have praise given to them, but not without distinction of their natures; and therefore I must try to distinguish the characters of the two Loves.
Now actions vary according to the manner of their performance.
Take, for example, that which we are now doing, drinking, singing and talking--these actions are not in themselves either good or evil, but they turn out in this or that way according to the mode of performing them; and when well done they are good, and when wrongly done they are evil; and in like manner not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.
The Love who is the offspring of the common Aphrodite is essentially common, and has no discrimination, being such as the meaner sort of men feel, and is apt to be of women as well as of youths, and is of the body rather than of the soul--the most foolish beings are the objects of this love which desires only to gain an end, but never thinks of accomplishing the end nobly, and therefore does good and evil quite indiscriminately.
The goddess who is his mother is far younger than the other, and she was born of the union of the male and female, and partakes of both.
But the offspring of the heavenly Aphrodite is derived from a mother in whose birth the female has no part,--she is from the male only; this is that love which is of youths, and the goddess being older, there is nothing of wantonness in her.
Those who are inspired by this love turn to the male, and delight in him who is the more valiant and intelligent nature; any one may recognise the pure enthusiasts in the very character of their attachments.
For they love not boys, but intelligent beings whose reason is beginning to be developed, much about the time at which their beards begin to grow.
And in choosing young men to be their companions, they mean to be faithful to them, and pass their whole life in company with them, not to take them in their inexperience, and deceive them, and play the fool with them, or run away from one to another of them.
But the love of young boys should be forbidden by law, because their future is uncertain; they may turn out good or bad, either in body or soul, and much noble enthusiasm may be thrown away upon them; in this matter the good are a law to themselves, and the coarser sort of lovers ought to be restrained by force; as we restrain or attempt to restrain them from fixing their affections on women of free birth.
These are the persons who bring a reproach on love; and some have been led to deny the lawfulness of such attachments because they see the impropriety and evil of them; for surely nothing that is decorously and lawfully done can justly be censured.
Now here and in Lacedaemon the rules about love are perplexing, but in most cities they are simple and easily intelligible; in Elis and Boeotia, and in countries having no gifts of eloquence, they are very straightforward; the law is simply in favour of these connexions, and no one, whether young or old, has anything to say to their discredit; the reason being, as I suppose, that they are men of few words in those parts, and therefore the lovers do not like the trouble of pleading their suit.
In Ionia and other places, and generally in countries which are subject to the barbarians, the custom is held to be dishonourable; loves of youths share the evil repute in which philosophy and gymnastics are held, because they are inimical to tyranny; for the interests of rulers require that their subjects should be poor in spirit (compare Arist.
Politics), and that there should be no strong bond of friendship or society among them, which love, above all other motives, is likely to inspire, as our Athenian tyrants learned by experience; for the love of Aristogeiton and the constancy of Harmodius had a strength which undid their power.
And, therefore, the ill-repute into which these attachments have fallen is to be ascribed to the evil condition of those who make them to be ill-reputed; that is to say, to the self-seeking of the governors and the cowardice of the governed; on the other hand, the indiscriminate honour which is given to them in some countries is attributable to the laziness of those who hold this opinion of them.
In our own country a far better principle prevails, but, as I was saying, the explanation of it is rather perplexing.
For, observe that open loves are held to be more honourable than secret ones, and that the love of the noblest and highest, even if their persons are less beautiful than others, is especially honourable.
Consider, too, how great is the encouragement which all the world gives to the lover; neither is he supposed to be doing anything dishonourable; but if he succeeds he is praised, and if he fail he is blamed.
And in the pursuit of his love the custom of mankind allows him to do many strange things, which philosophy would bitterly censure if they were done from any motive of interest, or wish for office or power.
He may pray, and entreat, and supplicate, and swear, and lie on a mat at the door, and endure a slavery worse than that of any slave--in any other case friends and enemies would be equally ready to prevent him, but now there is no friend who will be ashamed of him and admonish him, and no enemy will charge him with meanness or flattery; the actions of a lover have a grace which ennobles them; and custom has decided that they are highly commendable and that there no loss of character in them; and, what is strangest of all, he only may swear and forswear himself (so men say), and the gods will forgive his transgression, for there is no such thing as a lover's oath.
Such is the entire liberty which gods and men have allowed the lover, according to the custom which prevails in our part of the world.
From this point of view a man fairly argues that in Athens to love and to be loved is held to be a very honourable thing.
But when parents forbid their sons to talk with their lovers, and place them under a tutor's care, who is appointed to see to these things, and their companions and equals cast in their teeth anything of the sort which they may observe, and their elders refuse to silence the reprovers and do not rebuke them--any one who reflects on all this will, on the contrary, think that we hold these practices to be most disgraceful.
But, as I was saying at first, the truth as I imagine is, that whether such practices are honourable or whether they are dishonourable is not a simple question; they are honourable to him who follows them honourably, dishonourable to him who follows them dishonourably.
There is dishonour in yielding to the evil, or in an evil manner; but there is honour in yielding to the good, or in an honourable manner.
Evil is the vulgar lover who loves the body rather than the soul, inasmuch as he is not even stable, because he loves a thing which is in itself unstable, and therefore when the bloom of youth which he was desiring is over, he takes wing and flies away, in spite of all his words and promises; whereas the love of the noble disposition is life-long, for it becomes one with the everlasting.
The custom of our country would have both of them proven well and truly, and would have us yield to the one sort of lover and avoid the other, and therefore encourages some to pursue, and others to fly; testing both the lover and beloved in contests and trials, until they show to which of the two classes they respectively belong.
And this is the reason why, in the first place, a hasty attachment is held to be dishonourable, because time is the true test of this as of most other things; and secondly there is a dishonour in being overcome by the love of money, or of wealth, or of political power, whether a man is frightened into surrender by the loss of them, or, having experienced the benefits of money and political corruption, is unable to rise above the seductions of them.
For none of these things are of a permanent or lasting nature; not to mention that no generous friendship ever sprang from them.
There remains, then, only one way of honourable attachment which custom allows in the beloved, and this is the way of virtue; for as we admitted that any service which the lover does to him is not to be accounted flattery or a dishonour to himself, so the beloved has one way only of voluntary service which is not dishonourable, and this is virtuous service.
For we have a custom, and according to our custom any one who does service to another under the idea that he will be improved by him either in wisdom, or in some other particular of virtue--such a voluntary service, I say, is not to be regarded as a dishonour, and is not open to the charge of flattery.
And these two customs, one the love of youth, and the other the practice of philosophy and virtue in general, ought to meet in one, and then the beloved may honourably indulge the lover.
For when the lover and beloved come together, having each of them a law, and the lover thinks that he is right in doing any service which he can to his gracious loving one; and the other that he is right in showing any kindness which he can to him who is making him wise and good; the one capable of communicating wisdom and virtue, the other seeking to acquire them with a view to education and wisdom, when the two laws of love are fulfilled and meet in one--then, and then only, may the beloved yield with honour to the lover.
Nor when love is of this disinterested sort is there any disgrace in being deceived, but in every other case there is equal disgrace in being or not being deceived.
For he who is gracious to his lover under the impression that he is rich, and is disappointed of his gains because he turns out to be poor, is disgraced all the same: for he has done his best to show that he would give himself up to any one's 'uses base' for the sake of money; but this is not honourable.
And on the same principle he who gives himself to a lover because he is a good man, and in the hope that he will be improved by his company, shows himself to be virtuous, even though the object of his affection turn out to be a villain, and to have no virtue; and if he is deceived he has committed a noble error.
For he has proved that for his part he will do anything for anybody with a view to virtue and improvement, than which there can be nothing nobler.
Thus noble in every case is the acceptance of another for the sake of virtue.
This is that love which is the love of the heavenly godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the work of their own improvement.
But all other loves are the offspring of the other, who is the common goddess.
To you, Phaedrus, I offer this my contribution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore.
Pausanias came to a pause--this is the balanced way in which I have been taught by the wise to speak; and Aristodemus said that the turn of Aristophanes was next, but either he had eaten too much, or from some other cause he had the hiccough, and was obliged to change turns with Eryximachus the physician, who was reclining on the couch below him.
Eryximachus, he said, you ought either to stop my hiccough, or to speak in my turn until I have left off.
I will do both, said Eryximachus: I will speak in your turn, and do you speak in mine; and while I am speaking let me recommend you to hold your breath, and if after you have done so for some time the hiccough is no better, then gargle with a little water; and if it still continues, tickle your nose with something and sneeze; and if you sneeze once or twice, even the most violent hiccough is sure to go.
I will do as you prescribe, said Aristophanes, and now get on.
Eryximachus spoke as follows: Seeing that Pausanias made a fair beginning, and but a lame ending, I must endeavour to supply his deficiency.
I think that he has rightly distinguished two kinds of love.
But my art further informs me that the double love is not merely an affection of the soul of man towards the fair, or towards anything, but is to be found in the bodies of all animals and in productions of the earth, and I may say in all that is; such is the conclusion which I seem to have gathered from my own art of medicine, whence I learn how great and wonderful and universal is the deity of love, whose empire extends over all things, divine as well as human.
And from medicine I will begin that I may do honour to my art.
There are in the human body these two kinds of love, which are confessedly different and unlike, and being unlike, they have loves and desires which are unlike; and the desire of the healthy is one, and the desire of the diseased is another; and as Pausanias was just now saying that to indulge good men is honourable, and bad men dishonourable:--so too in the body the good and healthy elements are to be indulged, and the bad elements and the elements of disease are not to be indulged, but discouraged.
And this is what the physician has to do, and in this the art of medicine consists: for medicine may be regarded generally as the knowledge of the loves and desires of the body, and how to satisfy them or not; and the best physician is he who is able to separate fair love from foul, or to convert one into the other; and he who knows how to eradicate and how to implant love, whichever is required, and can reconcile the most hostile elements in the constitution and make them loving friends, is a skilful practitioner.
Now the most hostile are the most opposite, such as hot and cold, bitter and sweet, moist and dry, and the like.
And my ancestor, Asclepius, knowing how to implant friendship and accord in these elements, was the creator of our art, as our friends the poets here tell us, and I believe them; and not only medicine in every branch but the arts of gymnastic and husbandry are under his dominion.
Any one who pays the least attention to the subject will also perceive that in music there is the same reconciliation of opposites; and I suppose that this must have been the meaning of Heracleitus, although his words are not accurate; for he says that The One is united by disunion, like the harmony of the bow and the lyre.
Now there is an absurdity saying that harmony is discord or is composed of elements which are still in a state of discord.
But what he probably meant was, that harmony is composed of differing notes of higher or lower pitch which disagreed once, but are now reconciled by the art of music; for if the higher and lower notes still disagreed, there could be no harmony,--clearly not.
For harmony is a symphony, and symphony is an agreement; but an agreement of disagreements while they disagree there cannot be; you cannot harmonize that which disagrees.
In like manner rhythm is compounded of elements short and long, once differing and now in accord; which accordance, as in the former instance, medicine, so in all these other cases, music implants, making love and unison to grow up among them; and thus music, too, is concerned with the principles of love in their application to harmony and rhythm.
Again, in the essential nature of harmony and rhythm there is no difficulty in discerning love which has not yet become double.
But when you want to use them in actual life, either in the composition of songs or in the correct performance of airs or metres composed already, which latter is called education, then the difficulty begins, and the good artist is needed.
Then the old tale has to be repeated of fair and heavenly love--the love of Urania the fair and heavenly muse, and of the duty of accepting the temperate, and those who are as yet intemperate only that they may become temperate, and of preserving their love; and again, of the vulgar Polyhymnia, who must be used with circumspection that the pleasure be enjoyed, but may not generate licentiousness; just as in my own art it is a great matter so to regulate the desires of the epicure that he may gratify his tastes without the attendant evil of disease.
Whence I infer that in music, in medicine, in all other things human as well as divine, both loves ought to be noted as far as may be, for they are both present.
The course of the seasons is also full of both these principles; and when, as I was saying, the elements of hot and cold, moist and dry, attain the harmonious love of one another and blend in temperance and harmony, they bring to men, animals, and plants health and plenty, and do them no harm; whereas the wanton love, getting the upper hand and affecting the seasons of the year, is very destructive and injurious, being the source of pestilence, and bringing many other kinds of diseases on animals and plants; for hoar-frost and hail and blight spring from the excesses and disorders of these elements of love, which to know in relation to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies and the seasons of the year is termed astronomy.
Furthermore all sacrifices and the whole province of divination, which is the art of communion between gods and men--these, I say, are concerned only with the preservation of the good and the cure of the evil love.
For all manner of impiety is likely to ensue if, instead of accepting and honouring and reverencing the harmonious love in all his actions, a man honours the other love, whether in his feelings towards gods or parents, towards the living or the dead.
Wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves and to heal them, and divination is the peacemaker of gods and men, working by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which exist in human loves.
Such is the great and mighty, or rather omnipotent force of love in general.
And the love, more especially, which is concerned with the good, and which is perfected in company with temperance and justice, whether among gods or men, has the greatest power, and is the source of all our happiness and harmony, and makes us friends with the gods who are above us, and with one another.
I dare say that I too have omitted several things which might be said in praise of Love, but this was not intentional, and you, Aristophanes, may now supply the omission or take some other line of commendation; for I perceive that you are rid of the hiccough.
Yes, said Aristophanes, who followed, the hiccough is gone; not, however, until I applied the sneezing; and I wonder whether the harmony of the body has a love of such noises and ticklings, for I no sooner applied the sneezing than I was cured.
Eryximachus said: Beware, friend Aristophanes, although you are going to speak, you are making fun of me; and I shall have to watch and see whether I cannot have a laugh at your expense, when you might speak in peace.
You are right, said Aristophanes, laughing.
I will unsay my words; but do you please not to watch me, as I fear that in the speech which I am about to make, instead of others laughing with me, which is to the manner born of our muse and would be all the better, I shall only be laughed at by them.
Do you expect to shoot your bolt and escape, Aristophanes?
Well, perhaps if you are very careful and bear in mind that you will be called to account, I may be induced to let you off.
Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus.
Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love.
For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race.
I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you.
In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different.
The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word 'Androgynous' is only preserved as a term of reproach.
In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and four feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond.
He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.
Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round like their parents.
Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods.
Doubt reigned in the celestial councils.
Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained.
At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way.
He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us.
They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.'
He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility.
Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms.
So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw in, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state.
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they were on the point of dying from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them,--being the sections of entire men or women,--and clung to that.
They were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity of them invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life: so ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.
Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half.
Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort.
But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature.
Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them.
And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saving.
When they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,--if at all, they do so only in obedience to the law; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded; and such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him.
And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together; yet they could not explain what they desire of one another.
For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.
Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, 'What do you people want of one another?'
they would be unable to explain.
And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: 'Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night to be in one another's company?
for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt you into one and let you grow together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul instead of two--I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire, and whether you are satisfied to attain this?'
--there is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need (compare Arist.
Pol.).
And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love.
There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians (compare Arist.
Pol.).
And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures having only half a nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like tallies.
Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him--he is the enemy of the gods who opposes him.
For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present.
I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing.
But my words have a wider application--they include men and women everywhere; and I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy.
And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love.
Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed.
This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.
Indeed, I am not going to attack you, said Eryximachus, for I thought your speech charming, and did I not know that Agathon and Socrates are masters in the art of love, I should be really afraid that they would have nothing to say, after the world of things which have been said already.
But, for all that, I am not without hopes.
Socrates said: You played your part well, Eryximachus; but if you were as I am now, or rather as I shall be when Agathon has spoken, you would, indeed, be in a great strait.
You want to cast a spell over me, Socrates, said Agathon, in the hope that I may be disconcerted at the expectation raised among the audience that I shall speak well.
I should be strangely forgetful, Agathon replied Socrates, of the courage and magnanimity which you showed when your own compositions were about to be exhibited, and you came upon the stage with the actors and faced the vast theatre altogether undismayed, if I thought that your nerves could be fluttered at a small party of friends.
Do you think, Socrates, said Agathon, that my head is so full of the theatre as not to know how much more formidable to a man of sense a few good judges are than many fools?
Nay, replied Socrates, I should be very wrong in attributing to you, Agathon, that or any other want of refinement.
And I am quite aware that if you happened to meet with any whom you thought wise, you would care for their opinion much more than for that of the many.
But then we, having been a part of the foolish many in the theatre, cannot be regarded as the select wise; though I know that if you chanced to be in the presence, not of one of ourselves, but of some really wise man, you would be ashamed of disgracing yourself before him--would you not?
Yes, said Agathon.
But before the many you would not be ashamed, if you thought that you were doing something disgraceful in their presence?
Here Phaedrus interrupted them, saying: not answer him, my dear Agathon; for if he can only get a partner with whom he can talk, especially a good-looking one, he will no longer care about the completion of our plan.
Now I love to hear him talk; but just at present I must not forget the encomium on Love which I ought to receive from him and from every one.
When you and he have paid your tribute to the god, then you may talk.
Very good, Phaedrus, said Agathon; I see no reason why I should not proceed with my speech, as I shall have many other opportunities of conversing with Socrates.
Let me say first how I ought to speak, and then speak:-The previous speakers, instead of praising the god Love, or unfolding his nature, appear to have congratulated mankind on the benefits which he confers upon them.
But I would rather praise the god first, and then speak of his gifts; this is always the right way of praising everything.
May I say without impiety or offence, that of all the blessed gods he is the most blessed because he is the fairest and best?
And he is the fairest: for, in the first place, he is the youngest, and of his youth he is himself the witness, fleeing out of the way of age, who is swift enough, swifter truly than most of us like:--Love hates him and will not come near him; but youth and love live and move together--like to like, as the proverb says.
Many things were said by Phaedrus about Love in which I agree with him; but I cannot agree that he is older than Iapetus and Kronos:--not so; I maintain him to be the youngest of the gods, and youthful ever.
The ancient doings among the gods of which Hesiod and Parmenides spoke, if the tradition of them be true, were done of Necessity and not of Love; had Love been in those days, there would have been no chaining or mutilation of the gods, or other violence, but peace and sweetness, as there is now in heaven, since the rule of Love began.
Love is young and also tender; he ought to have a poet like Homer to describe his tenderness, as Homer says of Ate, that she is a goddess and tender:-'Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps, Not on the ground but on the heads of men:' herein is an excellent proof of her tenderness,--that she walks not upon the hard but upon the soft.
Let us adduce a similar proof of the tenderness of Love; for he walks not upon the earth, nor yet upon the skulls of men, which are not so very soft, but in the hearts and souls of both gods and men, which are of all things the softest: in them he walks and dwells and makes his home.
Not in every soul without exception, for where there is hardness he departs, where there is softness there he dwells; and nestling always with his feet and in all manner of ways in the softest of soft places, how can he be other than the softest of all things?
Of a truth he is the tenderest as well as the youngest, and also he is of flexile form; for if he were hard and without flexure he could not enfold all things, or wind his way into and out of every soul of man undiscovered.
And a proof of his flexibility and symmetry of form is his grace, which is universally admitted to be in an especial manner the attribute of Love; ungrace and love are always at war with one another.
The fairness of his complexion is revealed by his habitation among the flowers; for he dwells not amid bloomless or fading beauties, whether of body or soul or aught else, but in the place of flowers and scents, there he sits and abides.
Concerning the beauty of the god I have said enough; and yet there remains much more which I might say.
Of his virtue I have now to speak: his greatest glory is that he can neither do nor suffer wrong to or from any god or any man; for he suffers not by force if he suffers; force comes not near him, neither when he acts does he act by force.
For all men in all things serve him of their own free will, and where there is voluntary agreement, there, as the laws which are the lords of the city say, is justice.
And not only is he just but exceedingly temperate, for Temperance is the acknowledged ruler of the pleasures and desires, and no pleasure ever masters Love; he is their master and they are his servants; and if he conquers them he must be temperate indeed.
As to courage, even the God of War is no match for him; he is the captive and Love is the lord, for love, the love of Aphrodite, masters him, as the tale runs; and the master is stronger than the servant.
And if he conquers the bravest of all others, he must be himself the bravest.
Of his courage and justice and temperance I have spoken, but I have yet to speak of his wisdom; and according to the measure of my ability I must try to do my best.
In the first place he is a poet (and here, like Eryximachus, I magnify my art), and he is also the source of poesy in others, which he could not be if he were not himself a poet.
And at the touch of him every one becomes a poet, even though he had no music in him before (A fragment of the Sthenoaoea of Euripides.
); this also is a proof that Love is a good poet and accomplished in all the fine arts; for no one can give to another that which he has not himself, or teach that of which he has no knowledge.
Who will deny that the creation of the animals is his doing?
Are they not all the works of his wisdom, born and begotten of him?
And as to the artists, do we not know that he only of them whom love inspires has the light of fame?--he whom Love touches not walks in darkness.
The arts of medicine and archery and divination were discovered by Apollo, under the guidance of love and desire; so that he too is a disciple of Love.
Also the melody of the Muses, the metallurgy of Hephaestus, the weaving of Athene, the empire of Zeus over gods and men, are all due to Love, who was the inventor of them.
And so Love set in order the empire of the gods--the love of beauty, as is evident, for with deformity Love has no concern.
In the days of old, as I began by saying, dreadful deeds were done among the gods, for they were ruled by Necessity; but now since the birth of Love, and from the Love of the beautiful, has sprung every good in heaven and earth.
Therefore, Phaedrus, I say of Love that he is the fairest and best in himself, and the cause of what is fairest and best in all other things.
And there comes into my mind a line of poetry in which he is said to be the god who 'Gives peace on earth and calms the stormy deep, Who stills the winds and bids the sufferer sleep.'
This is he who empties men of disaffection and fills them with affection, who makes them to meet together at banquets such as these: in sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord--who sends courtesy and sends away discourtesy, who gives kindness ever and never gives unkindness; the friend of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who have the better part in him; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire, fondness, softness, grace; regardful of the good, regardless of the evil: in every word, work, wish, fear--saviour, pilot, comrade, helper; glory of gods and men, leader best and brightest: in whose footsteps let every man follow, sweetly singing in his honour and joining in that sweet strain with which love charms the souls of gods and men.
Such is the speech, Phaedrus, half-playful, yet having a certain measure of seriousness, which, according to my ability, I dedicate to the god.
When Agathon had done speaking, Aristodemus said that there was a general cheer; the young man was thought to have spoken in a manner worthy of himself, and of the god.
And Socrates, looking at Eryximachus, said: Tell me, son of Acumenus, was there not reason in my fears?
and was I not a true prophet when I said that Agathon would make a wonderful oration, and that I should be in a strait?
The part of the prophecy which concerns Agathon, replied Eryximachus, appears to me to be true; but not the other part--that you will be in a strait.
Why, my dear friend, said Socrates, must not I or any one be in a strait who has to speak after he has heard such a rich and varied discourse?
I am especially struck with the beauty of the concluding words--who could listen to them without amazement?
When I reflected on the immeasurable inferiority of my own powers, I was ready to run away for shame, if there had been a possibility of escape.
For I was reminded of Gorgias, and at the end of his speech I fancied that Agathon was shaking at me the Gorginian or Gorgonian head of the great master of rhetoric, which was simply to turn me and my speech into stone, as Homer says (Odyssey), and strike me dumb.
And then I perceived how foolish I had been in consenting to take my turn with you in praising love, and saying that I too was a master of the art, when I really had no conception how anything ought to be praised.
For in my simplicity I imagined that the topics of praise should be true, and that this being presupposed, out of the true the speaker was to choose the best and set them forth in the best manner.
And I felt quite proud, thinking that I knew the nature of true praise, and should speak well.
Whereas I now see that the intention was to attribute to Love every species of greatness and glory, whether really belonging to him or not, without regard to truth or falsehood--that was no matter; for the original proposal seems to have been not that each of you should really praise Love, but only that you should appear to praise him.
And so you attribute to Love every imaginable form of praise which can be gathered anywhere; and you say that 'he is all this,' and 'the cause of all that,' making him appear the fairest and best of all to those who know him not, for you cannot impose upon those who know him.
And a noble and solemn hymn of praise have you rehearsed.
But as I misunderstood the nature of the praise when I said that I would take my turn, I must beg to be absolved from the promise which I made in ignorance, and which (as Euripides would say (Eurip.
Hyppolytus)) was a promise of the lips and not of the mind.
Farewell then to such a strain: for I do not praise in that way; no, indeed, I cannot.
But if you like to hear the truth about love, I am ready to speak in my own manner, though I will not make myself ridiculous by entering into any rivalry with you.
Say then, Phaedrus, whether you would like to have the truth about love, spoken in any words and in any order which may happen to come into my mind at the time.
Will that be agreeable to you?
Aristodemus said that Phaedrus and the company bid him speak in any manner which he thought best.
Then, he added, let me have your permission first to ask Agathon a few more questions, in order that I may take his admissions as the premisses of my discourse.
I grant the permission, said Phaedrus: put your questions.
Socrates then proceeded as follows:-In the magnificent oration which you have just uttered, I think that you were right, my dear Agathon, in proposing to speak of the nature of Love first and afterwards of his works--that is a way of beginning which I very much approve.
And as you have spoken so eloquently of his nature, may I ask you further, Whether love is the love of something or of nothing?
And here I must explain myself: I do not want you to say that love is the love of a father or the love of a mother--that would be ridiculous; but to answer as you would, if I asked is a father a father of something?
to which you would find no difficulty in replying, of a son or daughter: and the answer would be right.
Very true, said Agathon.
And you would say the same of a mother?
He assented.
Yet let me ask you one more question in order to illustrate my meaning: Is not a brother to be regarded essentially as a brother of something?
Certainly, he replied.
That is, of a brother or sister?
Yes, he said.
And now, said Socrates, I will ask about Love:--Is Love of something or of nothing?
Of something, surely, he replied.
Keep in mind what this is, and tell me what I want to know--whether Love desires that of which love is.
Yes, surely.
And does he possess, or does he not possess, that which he loves and desires?
Probably not, I should say.
Nay, replied Socrates, I would have you consider whether 'necessarily' is not rather the word.
The inference that he who desires something is in want of something, and that he who desires nothing is in want of nothing, is in my judgment, Agathon, absolutely and necessarily true.
What do you think?
I agree with you, said Agathon.
Very good.
Would he who is great, desire to be great, or he who is strong, desire to be strong?
That would be inconsistent with our previous admissions.
True.
For he who is anything cannot want to be that which he is?
Very true.
And yet, added Socrates, if a man being strong desired to be strong, or being swift desired to be swift, or being healthy desired to be healthy, in that case he might be thought to desire something which he already has or is.
I give the example in order that we may avoid misconception.
For the possessors of these qualities, Agathon, must be supposed to have their respective advantages at the time, whether they choose or not; and who can desire that which he has?
Therefore, when a person says, I am well and wish to be well, or I am rich and wish to be rich, and I desire simply to have what I have--to him we shall reply: 'You, my friend, having wealth and health and strength, want to have the continuance of them; for at this moment, whether you choose or no, you have them.
And when you say, I desire that which I have and nothing else, is not your meaning that you want to have what you now have in the future?'
He must agree with us--must he not?
He must, replied Agathon.
Then, said Socrates, he desires that what he has at present may be preserved to him in the future, which is equivalent to saying that he desires something which is non-existent to him, and which as yet he has not got: Very true, he said.
Then he and every one who desires, desires that which he has not already, and which is future and not present, and which he has not, and is not, and of which he is in want;--these are the sort of things which love and desire seek?
Very true, he said.
Then now, said Socrates, let us recapitulate the argument.
First, is not love of something, and of something too which is wanting to a man?
Yes, he replied.
Remember further what you said in your speech, or if you do not remember I will remind you: you said that the love of the beautiful set in order the empire of the gods, for that of deformed things there is no love--did you not say something of that kind?
Yes, said Agathon.
Yes, my friend, and the remark was a just one.
And if this is true, Love is the love of beauty and not of deformity?
He assented.
And the admission has been already made that Love is of something which a man wants and has not?
True, he said.
Then Love wants and has not beauty?
Certainly, he replied.
And would you call that beautiful which wants and does not possess beauty?
Certainly not.
Then would you still say that love is beautiful?
Agathon replied: I fear that I did not understand what I was saying.
You made a very good speech, Agathon, replied Socrates; but there is yet one small question which I would fain ask:--Is not the good also the beautiful?
Yes.
Then in wanting the beautiful, love wants also the good?
I cannot refute you, Socrates, said Agathon:--Let us assume that what you say is true.
Say rather, beloved Agathon, that you cannot refute the truth; for Socrates is easily refuted.
And now, taking my leave of you, I would rehearse a tale of love which I heard from Diotima of Mantineia (compare 1 Alcibiades), a woman wise in this and in many other kinds of knowledge, who in the days of old, when the Athenians offered sacrifice before the coming of the plague, delayed the disease ten years.
She was my instructress in the art of love, and I shall repeat to you what she said to me, beginning with the admissions made by Agathon, which are nearly if not quite the same which I made to the wise woman when she questioned me: I think that this will be the easiest way, and I shall take both parts myself as well as I can (compare Gorgias).
As you, Agathon, suggested (supra), I must speak first of the being and nature of Love, and then of his works.
First I said to her in nearly the same words which he used to me, that Love was a mighty god, and likewise fair; and she proved to me as I proved to him that, by my own showing, Love was neither fair nor good.
'What do you mean, Diotima,' I said, 'is love then evil and foul?'
'Hush,' she cried; 'must that be foul which is not fair?'
'Certainly,' I said.
'And is that which is not wise, ignorant?
do you not see that there is a mean between wisdom and ignorance?'
'And what may that be?'
I said.
'Right opinion,' she replied; 'which, as you know, being incapable of giving a reason, is not knowledge (for how can knowledge be devoid of reason?
nor again, ignorance, for neither can ignorance attain the truth), but is clearly something which is a mean between ignorance and wisdom.'
'Quite true,' I replied.
'Do not then insist,' she said, 'that what is not fair is of necessity foul, or what is not good evil; or infer that because love is not fair and good he is therefore foul and evil; for he is in a mean between them.'
'Well,' I said, 'Love is surely admitted by all to be a great god.'
'By those who know or by those who do not know?'
'By all.'
'And how, Socrates,' she said with a smile, 'can Love be acknowledged to be a great god by those who say that he is not a god at all?'
'And who are they?'
I said.
'You and I are two of them,' she replied.
'How can that be?'
I said.
'It is quite intelligible,' she replied; 'for you yourself would acknowledge that the gods are happy and fair--of course you would--would you dare to say that any god was not?'
'Certainly not,' I replied.
'And you mean by the happy, those who are the possessors of things good or fair?'
'Yes.'
'And you admitted that Love, because he was in want, desires those good and fair things of which he is in want?'
'Yes, I did.'
'But how can he be a god who has no portion in what is either good or fair?'
'Impossible.'
'Then you see that you also deny the divinity of Love.'
'What then is Love?'
I asked; 'Is he mortal?'
'No.'
'What then?'
'As in the former instance, he is neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two.'
'What is he, Diotima?'
'He is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal.'
'And what,' I said, 'is his power?'
'He interprets,' she replied, 'between gods and men, conveying and taking across to the gods the prayers and sacrifices of men, and to men the commands and replies of the gods; he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way.
For God mingles not with man; but through Love all the intercourse and converse of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on.
The wisdom which understands this is spiritual; all other wisdom, such as that of arts and handicrafts, is mean and vulgar.
Now these spirits or intermediate powers are many and diverse, and one of them is Love.'
'And who,' I said, 'was his father, and who his mother?'
'The tale,' she said, 'will take time; nevertheless I will tell you.
On the birthday of Aphrodite there was a feast of the gods, at which the god Poros or Plenty, who is the son of Metis or Discretion, was one of the guests.
When the feast was over, Penia or Poverty, as the manner is on such occasions, came about the doors to beg.
Now Plenty who was the worse for nectar (there was no wine in those days), went into the garden of Zeus and fell into a heavy sleep, and Poverty considering her own straitened circumstances, plotted to have a child by him, and accordingly she lay down at his side and conceived Love, who partly because he is naturally a lover of the beautiful, and because Aphrodite is herself beautiful, and also because he was born on her birthday, is her follower and attendant.
And as his parentage is, so also are his fortunes.
In the first place he is always poor, and anything but tender and fair, as the many imagine him; and he is rough and squalid, and has no shoes, nor a house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses, taking his rest; and like his mother he is always in distress.
Like his father too, whom he also partly resembles, he is always plotting against the fair and good; he is bold, enterprising, strong, a mighty hunter, always weaving some intrigue or other, keen in the pursuit of wisdom, fertile in resources; a philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter, sorcerer, sophist.
He is by nature neither mortal nor immortal, but alive and flourishing at one moment when he is in plenty, and dead at another moment, and again alive by reason of his father's nature.
But that which is always flowing in is always flowing out, and so he is never in want and never in wealth; and, further, he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge.
The truth of the matter is this: No god is a philosopher or seeker after wisdom, for he is wise already; nor does any man who is wise seek after wisdom.
Neither do the ignorant seek after wisdom.
For herein is the evil of ignorance, that he who is neither good nor wise is nevertheless satisfied with himself: he has no desire for that of which he feels no want.'
'But who then, Diotima,' I said, 'are the lovers of wisdom, if they are neither the wise nor the foolish?'
'A child may answer that question,' she replied; 'they are those who are in a mean between the two; Love is one of them.
For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and Love is of the beautiful; and therefore Love is also a philosopher or lover of wisdom, and being a lover of wisdom is in a mean between the wise and the ignorant.
And of this too his birth is the cause; for his father is wealthy and wise, and his mother poor and foolish.
Such, my dear Socrates, is the nature of the spirit Love.
The error in your conception of him was very natural, and as I imagine from what you say, has arisen out of a confusion of love and the beloved, which made you think that love was all beautiful.
For the beloved is the truly beautiful, and delicate, and perfect, and blessed; but the principle of love is of another nature, and is such as I have described.'
I said, 'O thou stranger woman, thou sayest well; but, assuming Love to be such as you say, what is the use of him to men?'
'That, Socrates,' she replied, 'I will attempt to unfold: of his nature and birth I have already spoken; and you acknowledge that love is of the beautiful.
But some one will say: Of the beautiful in what, Socrates and Diotima?--or rather let me put the question more clearly, and ask: When a man loves the beautiful, what does he desire?'
I answered her 'That the beautiful may be his.'
'Still,' she said, 'the answer suggests a further question: What is given by the possession of beauty?'
'To what you have asked,' I replied, 'I have no answer ready.'
'Then,' she said, 'let me put the word "good" in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the question once more: If he who loves loves the good, what is it then that he loves?'
'The possession of the good,' I said.
'And what does he gain who possesses the good?'
'Happiness,' I replied; 'there is less difficulty in answering that question.'
'Yes,' she said, 'the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things.
Nor is there any need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final.'
'You are right.'
I said.
'And is this wish and this desire common to all?
and do all men always desire their own good, or only some men?--what say you?'
'All men,' I replied; 'the desire is common to all.'
'Why, then,' she rejoined, 'are not all men, Socrates, said to love, but only some of them?
whereas you say that all men are always loving the same things.'
'I myself wonder,' I said, 'why this is.'
'There is nothing to wonder at,' she replied; 'the reason is that one part of love is separated off and receives the name of the whole, but the other parts have other names.'
'Give an illustration,' I said.
She answered me as follows: 'There is poetry, which, as you know, is complex and manifold.
All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making, and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers.'
'Very true.'
'Still,' she said, 'you know that they are not called poets, but have other names; only that portion of the art which is separated off from the rest, and is concerned with music and metre, is termed poetry, and they who possess poetry in this sense of the word are called poets.'
'Very true,' I said.
'And the same holds of love.
For you may say generally that all desire of good and happiness is only the great and subtle power of love; but they who are drawn towards him by any other path, whether the path of money-making or gymnastics or philosophy, are not called lovers--the name of the whole is appropriated to those whose affection takes one form only--they alone are said to love, or to be lovers.'
'I dare say,' I replied, 'that you are right.'
'Yes,' she added, 'and you hear people say that lovers are seeking for their other half; but I say that they are seeking neither for the half of themselves, nor for the whole, unless the half or the whole be also a good.
And they will cut off their own hands and feet and cast them away, if they are evil; for they love not what is their own, unless perchance there be some one who calls what belongs to him the good, and what belongs to another the evil.
For there is nothing which men love but the good.
Is there anything?'
'Certainly, I should say, that there is nothing.'
'Then,' she said, 'the simple truth is, that men love the good.'
'Yes,' I said.
'To which must be added that they love the possession of the good?'
'Yes, that must be added.'
'And not only the possession, but the everlasting possession of the good?'
'That must be added too.'
'Then love,' she said, 'may be described generally as the love of the everlasting possession of the good?'
'That is most true.'
'Then if this be the nature of love, can you tell me further,' she said, 'what is the manner of the pursuit?
what are they doing who show all this eagerness and heat which is called love?
and what is the object which they have in view?
Answer me.'
'Nay, Diotima,' I replied, 'if I had known, I should not have wondered at your wisdom, neither should I have come to learn from you about this very matter.'
'Well,' she said, 'I will teach you:--The object which they have in view is birth in beauty, whether of body or soul.'
'I do not understand you,' I said; 'the oracle requires an explanation.'
'I will make my meaning clearer,' she replied.
'I mean to say, that all men are bringing to the birth in their bodies and in their souls.
There is a certain age at which human nature is desirous of procreation--procreation which must be in beauty and not in deformity; and this procreation is the union of man and woman, and is a divine thing; for conception and generation are an immortal principle in the mortal creature, and in the inharmonious they can never be.
But the deformed is always inharmonious with the divine, and the beautiful harmonious.
Beauty, then, is the destiny or goddess of parturition who presides at birth, and therefore, when approaching beauty, the conceiving power is propitious, and diffusive, and benign, and begets and bears fruit: at the sight of ugliness she frowns and contracts and has a sense of pain, and turns away, and shrivels up, and not without a pang refrains from conception.
And this is the reason why, when the hour of conception arrives, and the teeming nature is full, there is such a flutter and ecstasy about beauty whose approach is the alleviation of the pain of travail.
For love, Socrates, is not, as you imagine, the love of the beautiful only.'
'What then?'
'The love of generation and of birth in beauty.'
'Yes,' I said.
'Yes, indeed,' she replied.
'But why of generation?'
'Because to the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,' she replied; 'and if, as has been already admitted, love is of the everlasting possession of the good, all men will necessarily desire immortality together with good: Wherefore love is of immortality.'
All this she taught me at various times when she spoke of love.
And I remember her once saying to me, 'What is the cause, Socrates, of love, and the attendant desire?
See you not how all animals, birds, as well as beasts, in their desire of procreation, are in agony when they take the infection of love, which begins with the desire of union; whereto is added the care of offspring, on whose behalf the weakest are ready to battle against the strongest even to the uttermost, and to die for them, and will let themselves be tormented with hunger or suffer anything in order to maintain their young.
Man may be supposed to act thus from reason; but why should animals have these passionate feelings?
Can you tell me why?'
Again I replied that I did not know.
She said to me: 'And do you expect ever to become a master in the art of love, if you do not know this?'
'But I have told you already, Diotima, that my ignorance is the reason why I come to you; for I am conscious that I want a teacher; tell me then the cause of this and of the other mysteries of love.'
'Marvel not,' she said, 'if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old.
Nay even in the life of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation--hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing.
Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going; and equally true of knowledge, and what is still more surprising to us mortals, not only do the sciences in general spring up and decay, so that in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them individually experiences a like change.
For what is implied in the word "recollection," but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten, and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind--unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another?
And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way.
Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality.'
I was astonished at her words, and said: 'Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?'
And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist: 'Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame.
They are ready to run all risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal.
Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which still survives among us, would be immortal?
Nay,' she said, 'I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.
'Those who are pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children--this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future.
But souls which are pregnant--for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain.
And what are these conceptions?--wisdom and virtue in general.
And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor.
But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice.
And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate.
He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in deformity he will beget nothing--and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal.
Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones?
Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory?
Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say?
There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, who have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind; and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of children such as theirs; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.
'These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain.
But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can.
For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognize that the beauty in every form is and the same!
And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form.
So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere.
To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention: 'He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being, as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place; but beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.
He who from these ascending under the influence of true love, begins to perceive that beauty, is not far from the end.
And the true order of going, or being led by another, to the things of love, is to begin from the beauties of earth and mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, using these as steps only, and from one going on to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
This, my dear Socrates,' said the stranger of Mantineia, 'is that life above all others which man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing them only and conversing with them without meat or drink, if that were possible--you only want to look at them and to be with them.
But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality and all the colours and vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty simple and divine?
Remember how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.
Would that be an ignoble life?'
Such, Phaedrus--and I speak not only to you, but to all of you--were the words of Diotima; and I am persuaded of their truth.
And being persuaded of them, I try to persuade others, that in the attainment of this end human nature will not easily find a helper better than love: And therefore, also, I say that every man ought to honour him as I myself honour him, and walk in his ways, and exhort others to do the same, and praise the power and spirit of love according to the measure of my ability now and ever.
The words which I have spoken, you, Phaedrus, may call an encomium of love, or anything else which you please.
When Socrates had done speaking, the company applauded, and Aristophanes was beginning to say something in answer to the allusion which Socrates had made to his own speech, when suddenly there was a great knocking at the door of the house, as of revellers, and the sound of a flute-girl was heard.
Agathon told the attendants to go and see who were the intruders.
'If they are friends of ours,' he said, 'invite them in, but if not, say that the drinking is over.'
A little while afterwards they heard the voice of Alcibiades resounding in the court; he was in a great state of intoxication, and kept roaring and shouting 'Where is Agathon?
Lead me to Agathon,' and at length, supported by the flute-girl and some of his attendants, he found his way to them.
'Hail, friends,' he said, appearing at the door crowned with a massive garland of ivy and violets, his head flowing with ribands.
'Will you have a very drunken man as a companion of your revels?
Or shall I crown Agathon, which was my intention in coming, and go away?
For I was unable to come yesterday, and therefore I am here to-day, carrying on my head these ribands, that taking them from my own head, I may crown the head of this fairest and wisest of men, as I may be allowed to call him.
Will you laugh at me because I am drunk?
Yet I know very well that I am speaking the truth, although you may laugh.
But first tell me; if I come in shall we have the understanding of which I spoke (supra Will you have a very drunken man?
etc.)?
Will you drink with me or not?'
The company were vociferous in begging that he would take his place among them, and Agathon specially invited him.
Thereupon he was led in by the people who were with him; and as he was being led, intending to crown Agathon, he took the ribands from his own head and held them in front of his eyes; he was thus prevented from seeing Socrates, who made way for him, and Alcibiades took the vacant place between Agathon and Socrates, and in taking the place he embraced Agathon and crowned him.
Take off his sandals, said Agathon, and let him make a third on the same couch.
By all means; but who makes the third partner in our revels?
said Alcibiades, turning round and starting up as he caught sight of Socrates.
By Heracles, he said, what is this?
here is Socrates always lying in wait for me, and always, as his way is, coming out at all sorts of unsuspected places: and now, what have you to say for yourself, and why are you lying here, where I perceive that you have contrived to find a place, not by a joker or lover of jokes, like Aristophanes, but by the fairest of the company?
Socrates turned to Agathon and said: I must ask you to protect me, Agathon; for the passion of this man has grown quite a serious matter to me.
Since I became his admirer I have never been allowed to speak to any other fair one, or so much as to look at them.
If I do, he goes wild with envy and jealousy, and not only abuses me but can hardly keep his hands off me, and at this moment he may do me some harm.
Please to see to this, and either reconcile me to him, or, if he attempts violence, protect me, as I am in bodily fear of his mad and passionate attempts.
There can never be reconciliation between you and me, said Alcibiades; but for the present I will defer your chastisement.
And I must beg you, Agathon, to give me back some of the ribands that I may crown the marvellous head of this universal despot--I would not have him complain of me for crowning you, and neglecting him, who in conversation is the conqueror of all mankind; and this not only once, as you were the day before yesterday, but always.
Whereupon, taking some of the ribands, he crowned Socrates, and again reclined.
Then he said: You seem, my friends, to be sober, which is a thing not to be endured; you must drink--for that was the agreement under which I was admitted--and I elect myself master of the feast until you are well drunk.
Let us have a large goblet, Agathon, or rather, he said, addressing the attendant, bring me that wine-cooler.
The wine-cooler which had caught his eye was a vessel holding more than two quarts--this he filled and emptied, and bade the attendant fill it again for Socrates.
Observe, my friends, said Alcibiades, that this ingenious trick of mine will have no effect on Socrates, for he can drink any quantity of wine and not be at all nearer being drunk.
Socrates drank the cup which the attendant filled for him.
Eryximachus said: What is this, Alcibiades?
Are we to have neither conversation nor singing over our cups; but simply to drink as if we were thirsty?
Alcibiades replied: Hail, worthy son of a most wise and worthy sire!
The same to you, said Eryximachus; but what shall we do?
That I leave to you, said Alcibiades.
'The wise physician skilled our wounds to heal (from Pope's Homer, Il.)'
shall prescribe and we will obey.
What do you want?
Well, said Eryximachus, before you appeared we had passed a resolution that each one of us in turn should make a speech in praise of love, and as good a one as he could: the turn was passed round from left to right; and as all of us have spoken, and you have not spoken but have well drunken, you ought to speak, and then impose upon Socrates any task which you please, and he on his right hand neighbour, and so on.
That is good, Eryximachus, said Alcibiades; and yet the comparison of a drunken man's speech with those of sober men is hardly fair; and I should like to know, sweet friend, whether you really believe what Socrates was just now saying; for I can assure you that the very reverse is the fact, and that if I praise any one but himself in his presence, whether God or man, he will hardly keep his hands off me.
For shame, said Socrates.
Hold your tongue, said Alcibiades, for by Poseidon, there is no one else whom I will praise when you are of the company.
Well then, said Eryximachus, if you like praise Socrates.
What do you think, Eryximachus?
said Alcibiades: shall I attack him and inflict the punishment before you all?
What are you about?
said Socrates; are you going to raise a laugh at my expense?
Is that the meaning of your praise?
I am going to speak the truth, if you will permit me.
I not only permit, but exhort you to speak the truth.
Then I will begin at once, said Alcibiades, and if I say anything which is not true, you may interrupt me if you will, and say 'that is a lie,' though my intention is to speak the truth.
But you must not wonder if I speak any how as things come into my mind; for the fluent and orderly enumeration of all your singularities is not a task which is easy to a man in my condition.
And now, my boys, I shall praise Socrates in a figure which will appear to him to be a caricature, and yet I speak, not to make fun of him, but only for the truth's sake.
I say, that he is exactly like the busts of Silenus, which are set up in the statuaries' shops, holding pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and have images of gods inside them.
I say also that he is like Marsyas the satyr.
You yourself will not deny, Socrates, that your face is like that of a satyr.
Aye, and there is a resemblance in other points too.
For example, you are a bully, as I can prove by witnesses, if you will not confess.
And are you not a flute-player?
That you are, and a performer far more wonderful than Marsyas.
He indeed with instruments used to charm the souls of men by the power of his breath, and the players of his music do so still: for the melodies of Olympus (compare Arist.
Pol.)
are derived from Marsyas who taught them, and these, whether they are played by a great master or by a miserable flute-girl, have a power which no others have; they alone possess the soul and reveal the wants of those who have need of gods and mysteries, because they are divine.
But you produce the same effect with your words only, and do not require the flute: that is the difference between you and him.
When we hear any other speaker, even a very good one, he produces absolutely no effect upon us, or not much, whereas the mere fragments of you and your words, even at second-hand, and however imperfectly repeated, amaze and possess the souls of every man, woman, and child who comes within hearing of them.
And if I were not afraid that you would think me hopelessly drunk, I would have sworn as well as spoken to the influence which they have always had and still have over me.
For my heart leaps within me more than that of any Corybantian reveller, and my eyes rain tears when I hear them.
And I observe that many others are affected in the same manner.
I have heard Pericles and other great orators, and I thought that they spoke well, but I never had any similar feeling; my soul was not stirred by them, nor was I angry at the thought of my own slavish state.
But this Marsyas has often brought me to such a pass, that I have felt as if I could hardly endure the life which I am leading (this, Socrates, you will admit); and I am conscious that if I did not shut my ears against him, and fly as from the voice of the siren, my fate would be like that of others,--he would transfix me, and I should grow old sitting at his feet.
For he makes me confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the wants of my own soul, and busying myself with the concerns of the Athenians; therefore I hold my ears and tear myself away from him.
And he is the only person who ever made me ashamed, which you might think not to be in my nature, and there is no one else who does the same.
For I know that I cannot answer him or say that I ought not to do as he bids, but when I leave his presence the love of popularity gets the better of me.
And therefore I run away and fly from him, and when I see him I am ashamed of what I have confessed to him.
Many a time have I wished that he were dead, and yet I know that I should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to die: so that I am at my wit's end.
And this is what I and many others have suffered from the flute-playing of this satyr.
Yet hear me once more while I show you how exact the image is, and how marvellous his power.
For let me tell you; none of you know him; but I will reveal him to you; having begun, I must go on.
See you how fond he is of the fair?
He is always with them and is always being smitten by them, and then again he knows nothing and is ignorant of all things--such is the appearance which he puts on.
Is he not like a Silenus in this?
To be sure he is: his outer mask is the carved head of the Silenus; but, O my companions in drink, when he is opened, what temperance there is residing within!
Know you that beauty and wealth and honour, at which the many wonder, are of no account with him, and are utterly despised by him: he regards not at all the persons who are gifted with them; mankind are nothing to him; all his life is spent in mocking and flouting at them.
But when I opened him, and looked within at his serious purpose, I saw in him divine and golden images of such fascinating beauty that I was ready to do in a moment whatever Socrates commanded: they may have escaped the observation of others, but I saw them.
Now I fancied that he was seriously enamoured of my beauty, and I thought that I should therefore have a grand opportunity of hearing him tell what he knew, for I had a wonderful opinion of the attractions of my youth.
In the prosecution of this design, when I next went to him, I sent away the attendant who usually accompanied me (I will confess the whole truth, and beg you to listen; and if I speak falsely, do you, Socrates, expose the falsehood).
Well, he and I were alone together, and I thought that when there was nobody with us, I should hear him speak the language which lovers use to their loves when they are by themselves, and I was delighted.
Nothing of the sort; he conversed as usual, and spent the day with me and then went away.
Afterwards I challenged him to the palaestra; and he wrestled and closed with me several times when there was no one present; I fancied that I might succeed in this manner.
Not a bit; I made no way with him.
Lastly, as I had failed hitherto, I thought that I must take stronger measures and attack him boldly, and, as I had begun, not give him up, but see how matters stood between him and me.
So I invited him to sup with me, just as if he were a fair youth, and I a designing lover.
He was not easily persuaded to come; he did, however, after a while accept the invitation, and when he came the first time, he wanted to go away at once as soon as supper was over, and I had not the face to detain him.
The second time, still in pursuance of my design, after we had supped, I went on conversing far into the night, and when he wanted to go away, I pretended that the hour was late and that he had much better remain.
So he lay down on the couch next to me, the same on which he had supped, and there was no one but ourselves sleeping in the apartment.
All this may be told without shame to any one.
But what follows I could hardly tell you if I were sober.
Yet as the proverb says, 'In vino veritas,' whether with boys, or without them (In allusion to two proverbs.
); and therefore I must speak.
Nor, again, should I be justified in concealing the lofty actions of Socrates when I come to praise him.
Moreover I have felt the serpent's sting; and he who has suffered, as they say, is willing to tell his fellow-sufferers only, as they alone will be likely to understand him, and will not be extreme in judging of the sayings or doings which have been wrung from his agony.
For I have been bitten by a more than viper's tooth; I have known in my soul, or in my heart, or in some other part, that worst of pangs, more violent in ingenuous youth than any serpent's tooth, the pang of philosophy, which will make a man say or do anything.
And you whom I see around me, Phaedrus and Agathon and Eryximachus and Pausanias and Aristodemus and Aristophanes, all of you, and I need not say Socrates himself, have had experience of the same madness and passion in your longing after wisdom.
Therefore listen and excuse my doings then and my sayings now.
But let the attendants and other profane and unmannered persons close up the doors of their ears.
When the lamp was put out and the servants had gone away, I thought that I must be plain with him and have no more ambiguity.
So I gave him a shake, and I said: 'Socrates, are you asleep?'
'No,' he said.
'Do you know what I am meditating?
'What are you meditating?'
he said.
'I think,' I replied, 'that of all the lovers whom I have ever had you are the only one who is worthy of me, and you appear to be too modest to speak.
Now I feel that I should be a fool to refuse you this or any other favour, and therefore I come to lay at your feet all that I have and all that my friends have, in the hope that you will assist me in the way of virtue, which I desire above all things, and in which I believe that you can help me better than any one else.
And I should certainly have more reason to be ashamed of what wise men would say if I were to refuse a favour to such as you, than of what the world, who are mostly fools, would say of me if I granted it.'
To these words he replied in the ironical manner which is so characteristic of him:--'Alcibiades, my friend, you have indeed an elevated aim if what you say is true, and if there really is in me any power by which you may become better; truly you must see in me some rare beauty of a kind infinitely higher than any which I see in you.
And therefore, if you mean to share with me and to exchange beauty for beauty, you will have greatly the advantage of me; you will gain true beauty in return for appearance--like Diomede, gold in exchange for brass.
But look again, sweet friend, and see whether you are not deceived in me.
The mind begins to grow critical when the bodily eye fails, and it will be a long time before you get old.'
Hearing this, I said: 'I have told you my purpose, which is quite serious, and do you consider what you think best for you and me.'
'That is good,' he said; 'at some other time then we will consider and act as seems best about this and about other matters.'
Whereupon, I fancied that he was smitten, and that the words which I had uttered like arrows had wounded him, and so without waiting to hear more I got up, and throwing my coat about him crept under his threadbare cloak, as the time of year was winter, and there I lay during the whole night having this wonderful monster in my arms.
This again, Socrates, will not be denied by you.
And yet, notwithstanding all, he was so superior to my solicitations, so contemptuous and derisive and disdainful of my beauty--which really, as I fancied, had some attractions--hear, O judges; for judges you shall be of the haughty virtue of Socrates--nothing more happened, but in the morning when I awoke (let all the gods and goddesses be my witnesses) I arose as from the couch of a father or an elder brother.
What do you suppose must have been my feelings, after this rejection, at the thought of my own dishonour?
And yet I could not help wondering at his natural temperance and self-restraint and manliness.
I never imagined that I could have met with a man such as he is in wisdom and endurance.
And therefore I could not be angry with him or renounce his company, any more than I could hope to win him.
For I well knew that if Ajax could not be wounded by steel, much less he by money; and my only chance of captivating him by my personal attractions had failed.
So I was at my wit's end; no one was ever more hopelessly enslaved by another.
All this happened before he and I went on the expedition to Potidaea; there we messed together, and I had the opportunity of observing his extraordinary power of sustaining fatigue.
His endurance was simply marvellous when, being cut off from our supplies, we were compelled to go without food--on such occasions, which often happen in time of war, he was superior not only to me but to everybody; there was no one to be compared to him.
Yet at a festival he was the only person who had any real powers of enjoyment; though not willing to drink, he could if compelled beat us all at that,--wonderful to relate!
no human being had ever seen Socrates drunk; and his powers, if I am not mistaken, will be tested before long.
His fortitude in enduring cold was also surprising.
There was a severe frost, for the winter in that region is really tremendous, and everybody else either remained indoors, or if they went out had on an amazing quantity of clothes, and were well shod, and had their feet swathed in felt and fleeces: in the midst of this, Socrates with his bare feet on the ice and in his ordinary dress marched better than the other soldiers who had shoes, and they looked daggers at him because he seemed to despise them.
I have told you one tale, and now I must tell you another, which is worth hearing, 'Of the doings and sufferings of the enduring man' while he was on the expedition.
One morning he was thinking about something which he could not resolve; he would not give it up, but continued thinking from early dawn until noon--there he stood fixed in thought; and at noon attention was drawn to him, and the rumour ran through the wondering crowd that Socrates had been standing and thinking about something ever since the break of day.
At last, in the evening after supper, some Ionians out of curiosity (I should explain that this was not in winter but in summer), brought out their mats and slept in the open air that they might watch him and see whether he would stand all night.
There he stood until the following morning; and with the return of light he offered up a prayer to the sun, and went his way (compare supra).
I will also tell, if you please--and indeed I am bound to tell--of his courage in battle; for who but he saved my life?
Now this was the engagement in which I received the prize of valour: for I was wounded and he would not leave me, but he rescued me and my arms; and he ought to have received the prize of valour which the generals wanted to confer on me partly on account of my rank, and I told them so, (this, again, Socrates will not impeach or deny), but he was more eager than the generals that I and not he should have the prize.
There was another occasion on which his behaviour was very remarkable--in the flight of the army after the battle of Delium, where he served among the heavy-armed,--I had a better opportunity of seeing him than at Potidaea, for I was myself on horseback, and therefore comparatively out of danger.
He and Laches were retreating, for the troops were in flight, and I met them and told them not to be discouraged, and promised to remain with them; and there you might see him, Aristophanes, as you describe (Aristoph.
Clouds), just as he is in the streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling his eyes, calmly contemplating enemies as well as friends, and making very intelligible to anybody, even from a distance, that whoever attacked him would be likely to meet with a stout resistance; and in this way he and his companion escaped--for this is the sort of man who is never touched in war; those only are pursued who are running away headlong.
I particularly observed how superior he was to Laches in presence of mind.
Many are the marvels which I might narrate in praise of Socrates; most of his ways might perhaps be paralleled in another man, but his absolute unlikeness to any human being that is or ever has been is perfectly astonishing.
You may imagine Brasidas and others to have been like Achilles; or you may imagine Nestor and Antenor to have been like Pericles; and the same may be said of other famous men, but of this strange being you will never be able to find any likeness, however remote, either among men who now are or who ever have been--other than that which I have already suggested of Silenus and the satyrs; and they represent in a figure not only himself, but his words.
For, although I forgot to mention this to you before, his words are like the images of Silenus which open; they are ridiculous when you first hear them; he clothes himself in language that is like the skin of the wanton satyr--for his talk is of pack-asses and smiths and cobblers and curriers, and he is always repeating the same things in the same words (compare Gorg.
), so that any ignorant or inexperienced person might feel disposed to laugh at him; but he who opens the bust and sees what is within will find that they are the only words which have a meaning in them, and also the most divine, abounding in fair images of virtue, and of the widest comprehension, or rather extending to the whole duty of a good and honourable man.
This, friends, is my praise of Socrates.
I have added my blame of him for his ill-treatment of me; and he has ill-treated not only me, but Charmides the son of Glaucon, and Euthydemus the son of Diocles, and many others in the same way--beginning as their lover he has ended by making them pay their addresses to him.
Wherefore I say to you, Agathon, 'Be not deceived by him; learn from me and take warning, and do not be a fool and learn by experience, as the proverb says.'
When Alcibiades had finished, there was a laugh at his outspokenness; for he seemed to be still in love with Socrates.
You are sober, Alcibiades, said Socrates, or you would never have gone so far about to hide the purpose of your satyr's praises, for all this long story is only an ingenious circumlocution, of which the point comes in by the way at the end; you want to get up a quarrel between me and Agathon, and your notion is that I ought to love you and nobody else, and that you and you only ought to love Agathon.
But the plot of this Satyric or Silenic drama has been detected, and you must not allow him, Agathon, to set us at variance.
I believe you are right, said Agathon, and I am disposed to think that his intention in placing himself between you and me was only to divide us; but he shall gain nothing by that move; for I will go and lie on the couch next to you.
Yes, yes, replied Socrates, by all means come here and lie on the couch below me.
Alas, said Alcibiades, how I am fooled by this man; he is determined to get the better of me at every turn.
I do beseech you, allow Agathon to lie between us.
Certainly not, said Socrates, as you praised me, and I in turn ought to praise my neighbour on the right, he will be out of order in praising me again when he ought rather to be praised by me, and I must entreat you to consent to this, and not be jealous, for I have a great desire to praise the youth.
Hurrah!
cried Agathon, I will rise instantly, that I may be praised by Socrates.
The usual way, said Alcibiades; where Socrates is, no one else has any chance with the fair; and now how readily has he invented a specious reason for attracting Agathon to himself.
Agathon arose in order that he might take his place on the couch by Socrates, when suddenly a band of revellers entered, and spoiled the order of the banquet.
Some one who was going out having left the door open, they had found their way in, and made themselves at home; great confusion ensued, and every one was compelled to drink large quantities of wine.
Aristodemus said that Eryximachus, Phaedrus, and others went away--he himself fell asleep, and as the nights were long took a good rest: he was awakened towards daybreak by a crowing of cocks, and when he awoke, the others were either asleep, or had gone away; there remained only Socrates, Aristophanes, and Agathon, who were drinking out of a large goblet which they passed round, and Socrates was discoursing to them.
Aristodemus was only half awake, and he did not hear the beginning of the discourse; the chief thing which he remembered was Socrates compelling the other two to acknowledge that the genius of comedy was the same with that of tragedy, and that the true artist in tragedy was an artist in comedy also.
To this they were constrained to assent, being drowsy, and not quite following the argument.
And first of all Aristophanes dropped off, then, when the day was already dawning, Agathon.
Socrates, having laid them to sleep, rose to depart; Aristodemus, as his manner was, following him.
At the Lyceum he took a bath, and passed the day as usual.
In the evening he retired to rest at his own home.
PARMENIDES By Plato Translated by Benjamin Jowett INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS.
The awe with which Plato regarded the character of 'the great' Parmenides has extended to the dialogue which he calls by his name.
None of the writings of Plato have been more copiously illustrated, both in ancient and modern times, and in none of them have the interpreters been more at variance with one another.
Nor is this surprising.
For the Parmenides is more fragmentary and isolated than any other dialogue, and the design of the writer is not expressly stated.
The date is uncertain; the relation to the other writings of Plato is also uncertain; the connexion between the two parts is at first sight extremely obscure; and in the latter of the two we are left in doubt as to whether Plato is speaking his own sentiments by the lips of Parmenides, and overthrowing him out of his own mouth, or whether he is propounding consequences which would have been admitted by Zeno and Parmenides themselves.
The contradictions which follow from the hypotheses of the one and many have been regarded by some as transcendental mysteries; by others as a mere illustration, taken at random, of a new method.
They seem to have been inspired by a sort of dialectical frenzy, such as may be supposed to have prevailed in the Megarian School (compare Cratylus, etc.).
The criticism on his own doctrine of Ideas has also been considered, not as a real criticism, but as an exuberance of the metaphysical imagination which enabled Plato to go beyond himself.
To the latter part of the dialogue we may certainly apply the words in which he himself describes the earlier philosophers in the Sophist: 'They went on their way rather regardless of whether we understood them or not.'
The Parmenides in point of style is one of the best of the Platonic writings; the first portion of the dialogue is in no way defective in ease and grace and dramatic interest; nor in the second part, where there was no room for such qualities, is there any want of clearness or precision.
The latter half is an exquisite mosaic, of which the small pieces are with the utmost fineness and regularity adapted to one another.
Like the Protagoras, Phaedo, and others, the whole is a narrated dialogue, combining with the mere recital of the words spoken, the observations of the reciter on the effect produced by them.
Thus we are informed by him that Zeno and Parmenides were not altogether pleased at the request of Socrates that they would examine into the nature of the one and many in the sphere of Ideas, although they received his suggestion with approving smiles.
And we are glad to be told that Parmenides was 'aged but well-favoured,' and that Zeno was 'very good-looking'; also that Parmenides affected to decline the great argument, on which, as Zeno knew from experience, he was not unwilling to enter.
The character of Antiphon, the half-brother of Plato, who had once been inclined to philosophy, but has now shown the hereditary disposition for horses, is very naturally described.
He is the sole depositary of the famous dialogue; but, although he receives the strangers like a courteous gentleman, he is impatient of the trouble of reciting it.
As they enter, he has been giving orders to a bridle-maker; by this slight touch Plato verifies the previous description of him.
After a little persuasion he is induced to favour the Clazomenians, who come from a distance, with a rehearsal.
Respecting the visit of Zeno and Parmenides to Athens, we may observe--first, that such a visit is consistent with dates, and may possibly have occurred; secondly, that Plato is very likely to have invented the meeting ('You, Socrates, can easily invent Egyptian tales or anything else,' Phaedrus); thirdly, that no reliance can be placed on the circumstance as determining the date of Parmenides and Zeno; fourthly, that the same occasion appears to be referred to by Plato in two other places (Theaet., Soph.).
Many interpreters have regarded the Parmenides as a 'reductio ad absurdum' of the Eleatic philosophy.
But would Plato have been likely to place this in the mouth of the great Parmenides himself, who appeared to him, in Homeric language, to be 'venerable and awful,' and to have a 'glorious depth of mind'?
(Theaet.).
It may be admitted that he has ascribed to an Eleatic stranger in the Sophist opinions which went beyond the doctrines of the Eleatics.
But the Eleatic stranger expressly criticises the doctrines in which he had been brought up; he admits that he is going to 'lay hands on his father Parmenides.'
Nothing of this kind is said of Zeno and Parmenides.
How then, without a word of explanation, could Plato assign to them the refutation of their own tenets?
The conclusion at which we must arrive is that the Parmenides is not a refutation of the Eleatic philosophy.
Nor would such an explanation afford any satisfactory connexion of the first and second parts of the dialogue.
And it is quite inconsistent with Plato's own relation to the Eleatics.
For of all the pre-Socratic philosophers, he speaks of them with the greatest respect.
But he could hardly have passed upon them a more unmeaning slight than to ascribe to their great master tenets the reverse of those which he actually held.
Two preliminary remarks may be made.
First, that whatever latitude we may allow to Plato in bringing together by a 'tour de force,' as in the Phaedrus, dissimilar themes, yet he always in some way seeks to find a connexion for them.
Many threads join together in one the love and dialectic of the Phaedrus.
We cannot conceive that the great artist would place in juxtaposition two absolutely divided and incoherent subjects.
And hence we are led to make a second remark: viz.
that no explanation of the Parmenides can be satisfactory which does not indicate the connexion of the first and second parts.
To suppose that Plato would first go out of his way to make Parmenides attack the Platonic Ideas, and then proceed to a similar but more fatal assault on his own doctrine of Being, appears to be the height of absurdity.
Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical power than that in which he assails his own theory of Ideas.
The arguments are nearly, if not quite, those of Aristotle; they are the objections which naturally occur to a modern student of philosophy.
Many persons will be surprised to find Plato criticizing the very conceptions which have been supposed in after ages to be peculiarly characteristic of him.
How can he have placed himself so completely without them?
How can he have ever persisted in them after seeing the fatal objections which might be urged against them?
The consideration of this difficulty has led a recent critic (Ueberweg), who in general accepts the authorised canon of the Platonic writings, to condemn the Parmenides as spurious.
The accidental want of external evidence, at first sight, seems to favour this opinion.
In answer, it might be sufficient to say, that no ancient writing of equal length and excellence is known to be spurious.
Nor is the silence of Aristotle to be hastily assumed; there is at least a doubt whether his use of the same arguments does not involve the inference that he knew the work.
And, if the Parmenides is spurious, like Ueberweg, we are led on further than we originally intended, to pass a similar condemnation on the Theaetetus and Sophist, and therefore on the Politicus (compare Theaet., Soph.).
But the objection is in reality fanciful, and rests on the assumption that the doctrine of the Ideas was held by Plato throughout his life in the same form.
For the truth is, that the Platonic Ideas were in constant process of growth and transmutation; sometimes veiled in poetry and mythology, then again emerging as fixed Ideas, in some passages regarded as absolute and eternal, and in others as relative to the human mind, existing in and derived from external objects as well as transcending them.
The anamnesis of the Ideas is chiefly insisted upon in the mythical portions of the dialogues, and really occupies a very small space in the entire works of Plato.
Their transcendental existence is not asserted, and is therefore implicitly denied in the Philebus; different forms are ascribed to them in the Republic, and they are mentioned in the Theaetetus, the Sophist, the Politicus, and the Laws, much as Universals would be spoken of in modern books.
Indeed, there are very faint traces of the transcendental doctrine of Ideas, that is, of their existence apart from the mind, in any of Plato's writings, with the exception of the Meno, the Phaedrus, the Phaedo, and in portions of the Republic.
The stereotyped form which Aristotle has given to them is not found in Plato (compare Essay on the Platonic Ideas in the Introduction to the Meno.)
The full discussion of this subject involves a comprehensive survey of the philosophy of Plato, which would be out of place here.
But, without digressing further from the immediate subject of the Parmenides, we may remark that Plato is quite serious in his objections to his own doctrines: nor does Socrates attempt to offer any answer to them.
The perplexities which surround the one and many in the sphere of the Ideas are also alluded to in the Philebus, and no answer is given to them.
Nor have they ever been answered, nor can they be answered by any one else who separates the phenomenal from the real.
To suppose that Plato, at a later period of his life, reached a point of view from which he was able to answer them, is a groundless assumption.
The real progress of Plato's own mind has been partly concealed from us by the dogmatic statements of Aristotle, and also by the degeneracy of his own followers, with whom a doctrine of numbers quickly superseded Ideas.
As a preparation for answering some of the difficulties which have been suggested, we may begin by sketching the first portion of the dialogue:-Cephalus, of Clazomenae in Ionia, the birthplace of Anaxagoras, a citizen of no mean city in the history of philosophy, who is the narrator of the dialogue, describes himself as meeting Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora at Athens.
'Welcome, Cephalus: can we do anything for you in Athens?'
'Why, yes: I came to ask a favour of you.
First, tell me your half-brother's name, which I have forgotten--he was a mere child when I was last here;--I know his father's, which is Pyrilampes.'
'Yes, and the name of our brother is Antiphon.
But why do you ask?'
'Let me introduce to you some countrymen of mine, who are lovers of philosophy; they have heard that Antiphon remembers a conversation of Socrates with Parmenides and Zeno, of which the report came to him from Pythodorus, Zeno's friend.'
'That is quite true.'
'And can they hear the dialogue?'
'Nothing easier; in the days of his youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present, his thoughts have another direction: he takes after his grandfather, and has given up philosophy for horses.'
'We went to look for him, and found him giving instructions to a worker in brass about a bridle.
When he had done with him, and had learned from his brothers the purpose of our visit, he saluted me as an old acquaintance, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue.
At first, he complained of the trouble, but he soon consented.
He told us that Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they had come to Athens at the great Panathenaea, the former being at the time about sixty-five years old, aged but well-favoured--Zeno, who was said to have been beloved of Parmenides in the days of his youth, about forty, and very good-looking:--that they lodged with Pythodorus at the Ceramicus outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them: Zeno was reading one of his theses, which he had nearly finished, when Pythodorus entered with Parmenides and Aristoteles, who was afterwards one of the Thirty.
When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the treatise might be read again.'
'You mean, Zeno,' said Socrates, 'to argue that being, if it is many, must be both like and unlike, which is a contradiction; and each division of your argument is intended to elicit a similar absurdity, which may be supposed to follow from the assumption that being is many.'
'Such is my meaning.'
'I see,' said Socrates, turning to Parmenides, 'that Zeno is your second self in his writings too; you prove admirably that the all is one: he gives proofs no less convincing that the many are nought.
To deceive the world by saying the same thing in entirely different forms, is a strain of art beyond most of us.'
'Yes, Socrates,' said Zeno; 'but though you are as keen as a Spartan hound, you do not quite catch the motive of the piece, which was only intended to protect Parmenides against ridicule by showing that the hypothesis of the existence of the many involved greater absurdities than the hypothesis of the one.
The book was a youthful composition of mine, which was stolen from me, and therefore I had no choice about the publication.'
'I quite believe you,' said Socrates; 'but will you answer me a question?
I should like to know, whether you would assume an idea of likeness in the abstract, which is the contradictory of unlikeness in the abstract, by participation in either or both of which things are like or unlike or partly both.
For the same things may very well partake of like and unlike in the concrete, though like and unlike in the abstract are irreconcilable.
Nor does there appear to me to be any absurdity in maintaining that the same things may partake of the one and many, though I should be indeed surprised to hear that the absolute one is also many.
For example, I, being many, that is to say, having many parts or members, am yet also one, and partake of the one, being one of seven who are here present (compare Philebus).
This is not an absurdity, but a truism.
But I should be amazed if there were a similar entanglement in the nature of the ideas themselves, nor can I believe that one and many, like and unlike, rest and motion, in the abstract, are capable either of admixture or of separation.'
Pythodorus said that in his opinion Parmenides and Zeno were not very well pleased at the questions which were raised; nevertheless, they looked at one another and smiled in seeming delight and admiration of Socrates.
'Tell me,' said Parmenides, 'do you think that the abstract ideas of likeness, unity, and the rest, exist apart from individuals which partake of them?
and is this your own distinction?'
'I think that there are such ideas.'
'And would you make abstract ideas of the just, the beautiful, the good?'
'Yes,' he said.
'And of human beings like ourselves, of water, fire, and the like?'
'I am not certain.'
'And would you be undecided also about ideas of which the mention will, perhaps, appear laughable: of hair, mud, filth, and other things which are base and vile?'
'No, Parmenides; visible things like these are, as I believe, only what they appear to be: though I am sometimes disposed to imagine that there is nothing without an idea; but I repress any such notion, from a fear of falling into an abyss of nonsense.'
'You are young, Socrates, and therefore naturally regard the opinions of men; the time will come when philosophy will have a firmer hold of you, and you will not despise even the meanest things.
But tell me, is your meaning that things become like by partaking of likeness, great by partaking of greatness, just and beautiful by partaking of justice and beauty, and so of other ideas?'
'Yes, that is my meaning.'
'And do you suppose the individual to partake of the whole, or of the part?'
'Why not of the whole?'
said Socrates.
'Because,' said Parmenides, 'in that case the whole, which is one, will become many.'
'Nay,' said Socrates, 'the whole may be like the day, which is one and in many places: in this way the ideas may be one and also many.'
'In the same sort of way,' said Parmenides, 'as a sail, which is one, may be a cover to many--that is your meaning?'
'Yes.'
'And would you say that each man is covered by the whole sail, or by a part only?'
'By a part.'
'Then the ideas have parts, and the objects partake of a part of them only?'
'That seems to follow.'
'And would you like to say that the ideas are really divisible and yet remain one?'
'Certainly not.'
'Would you venture to affirm that great objects have a portion only of greatness transferred to them; or that small or equal objects are small or equal because they are only portions of smallness or equality?'
'Impossible.'
'But how can individuals participate in ideas, except in the ways which I have mentioned?'
'That is not an easy question to answer.'
'I should imagine the conception of ideas to arise as follows: you see great objects pervaded by a common form or idea of greatness, which you abstract.'
'That is quite true.'
'And supposing you embrace in one view the idea of greatness thus gained and the individuals which it comprises, a further idea of greatness arises, which makes both great; and this may go on to infinity.'
Socrates replies that the ideas may be thoughts in the mind only; in this case, the consequence would no longer follow.
'But must not the thought be of something which is the same in all and is the idea?
And if the world partakes in the ideas, and the ideas are thoughts, must not all things think?
Or can thought be without thought?'
'I acknowledge the unmeaningness of this,' says Socrates, 'and would rather have recourse to the explanation that the ideas are types in nature, and that other things partake of them by becoming like them.'
'But to become like them is to be comprehended in the same idea; and the likeness of the idea and the individuals implies another idea of likeness, and another without end.'
'Quite true.'
'The theory, then, of participation by likeness has to be given up.
You have hardly yet, Socrates, found out the real difficulty of maintaining abstract ideas.'
'What difficulty?'
'The greatest of all perhaps is this: an opponent will argue that the ideas are not within the range of human knowledge; and you cannot disprove the assertion without a long and laborious demonstration, which he may be unable or unwilling to follow.
In the first place, neither you nor any one who maintains the existence of absolute ideas will affirm that they are subjective.'
'That would be a contradiction.'
'True; and therefore any relation in these ideas is a relation which concerns themselves only; and the objects which are named after them, are relative to one another only, and have nothing to do with the ideas themselves.'
'How do you mean?'
said Socrates.
'I may illustrate my meaning in this way: one of us has a slave; and the idea of a slave in the abstract is relative to the idea of a master in the abstract; this correspondence of ideas, however, has nothing to do with the particular relation of our slave to us.--Do you see my meaning?'
'Perfectly.'
'And absolute knowledge in the same way corresponds to absolute truth and being, and particular knowledge to particular truth and being.'
Clearly.'
'And there is a subjective knowledge which is of subjective truth, having many kinds, general and particular.
But the ideas themselves are not subjective, and therefore are not within our ken.'
'They are not.'
'Then the beautiful and the good in their own nature are unknown to us?'
'It would seem so.'
'There is a worse consequence yet.'
'What is that?'
'I think we must admit that absolute knowledge is the most exact knowledge, which we must therefore attribute to God.
But then see what follows: God, having this exact knowledge, can have no knowledge of human things, as we have divided the two spheres, and forbidden any passing from one to the other:--the gods have knowledge and authority in their world only, as we have in ours.'
'Yet, surely, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.'
--'These are some of the difficulties which are involved in the assumption of absolute ideas; the learner will find them nearly impossible to understand, and the teacher who has to impart them will require superhuman ability; there will always be a suspicion, either that they have no existence, or are beyond human knowledge.'
'There I agree with you,' said Socrates.
'Yet if these difficulties induce you to give up universal ideas, what becomes of the mind?
and where are the reasoning and reflecting powers?
philosophy is at an end.'
'I certainly do not see my way.'
'I think,' said Parmenides, 'that this arises out of your attempting to define abstractions, such as the good and the beautiful and the just, before you have had sufficient previous training; I noticed your deficiency when you were talking with Aristoteles, the day before yesterday.
Your enthusiasm is a wonderful gift; but I fear that unless you discipline yourself by dialectic while you are young, truth will elude your grasp.'
'And what kind of discipline would you recommend?'
'The training which you heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I admire your saying to him that you did not care to consider the difficulty in reference to visible objects, but only in relation to ideas.'
'Yes; because I think that in visible objects you may easily show any number of inconsistent consequences.'
'Yes; and you should consider, not only the consequences which follow from a given hypothesis, but the consequences also which follow from the denial of the hypothesis.
For example, what follows from the assumption of the existence of the many, and the counter-argument of what follows from the denial of the existence of the many: and similarly of likeness and unlikeness, motion, rest, generation, corruption, being and not being.
And the consequences must include consequences to the things supposed and to other things, in themselves and in relation to one another, to individuals whom you select, to the many, and to the all; these must be drawn out both on the affirmative and on the negative hypothesis,--that is, if you are to train yourself perfectly to the intelligence of the truth.'
'What you are suggesting seems to be a tremendous process, and one of which I do not quite understand the nature,' said Socrates; 'will you give me an example?'
'You must not impose such a task on a man of my years,' said Parmenides.
'Then will you, Zeno?'
'Let us rather,' said Zeno, with a smile, 'ask Parmenides, for the undertaking is a serious one, as he truly says; nor could I urge him to make the attempt, except in a select audience of persons who will understand him.'
The whole party joined in the request.
Here we have, first of all, an unmistakable attack made by the youthful Socrates on the paradoxes of Zeno.
He perfectly understands their drift, and Zeno himself is supposed to admit this.
But they appear to him, as he says in the Philebus also, to be rather truisms than paradoxes.
For every one must acknowledge the obvious fact, that the body being one has many members, and that, in a thousand ways, the like partakes of the unlike, the many of the one.
The real difficulty begins with the relations of ideas in themselves, whether of the one and many, or of any other ideas, to one another and to the mind.
But this was a problem which the Eleatic philosophers had never considered; their thoughts had not gone beyond the contradictions of matter, motion, space, and the like.
It was no wonder that Parmenides and Zeno should hear the novel speculations of Socrates with mixed feelings of admiration and displeasure.
He was going out of the received circle of disputation into a region in which they could hardly follow him.
From the crude idea of Being in the abstract, he was about to proceed to universals or general notions.
There is no contradiction in material things partaking of the ideas of one and many; neither is there any contradiction in the ideas of one and many, like and unlike, in themselves.
But the contradiction arises when we attempt to conceive ideas in their connexion, or to ascertain their relation to phenomena.
Still he affirms the existence of such ideas; and this is the position which is now in turn submitted to the criticisms of Parmenides.
To appreciate truly the character of these criticisms, we must remember the place held by Parmenides in the history of Greek philosophy.
He is the founder of idealism, and also of dialectic, or, in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and logic (Theaet., Soph.).
Like Plato, he is struggling after something wider and deeper than satisfied the contemporary Pythagoreans.
And Plato with a true instinct recognizes him as his spiritual father, whom he 'revered and honoured more than all other philosophers together.'
He may be supposed to have thought more than he said, or was able to express.
And, although he could not, as a matter of fact, have criticized the ideas of Plato without an anachronism, the criticism is appropriately placed in the mouth of the founder of the ideal philosophy.
There was probably a time in the life of Plato when the ethical teaching of Socrates came into conflict with the metaphysical theories of the earlier philosophers, and he sought to supplement the one by the other.
The older philosophers were great and awful; and they had the charm of antiquity.
Something which found a response in his own mind seemed to have been lost as well as gained in the Socratic dialectic.
He felt no incongruity in the veteran Parmenides correcting the youthful Socrates.
Two points in his criticism are especially deserving of notice.
First of all, Parmenides tries him by the test of consistency.
Socrates is willing to assume ideas or principles of the just, the beautiful, the good, and to extend them to man (compare Phaedo); but he is reluctant to admit that there are general ideas of hair, mud, filth, etc.
There is an ethical universal or idea, but is there also a universal of physics?--of the meanest things in the world as well as of the greatest?
Parmenides rebukes this want of consistency in Socrates, which he attributes to his youth.
As he grows older, philosophy will take a firmer hold of him, and then he will despise neither great things nor small, and he will think less of the opinions of mankind (compare Soph.).
Here is lightly touched one of the most familiar principles of modern philosophy, that in the meanest operations of nature, as well as in the noblest, in mud and filth, as well as in the sun and stars, great truths are contained.
At the same time, we may note also the transition in the mind of Plato, to which Aristotle alludes (Met.
), when, as he says, he transferred the Socratic universal of ethics to the whole of nature.
The other criticism of Parmenides on Socrates attributes to him a want of practice in dialectic.
He has observed this deficiency in him when talking to Aristoteles on a previous occasion.
Plato seems to imply that there was something more in the dialectic of Zeno than in the mere interrogation of Socrates.
Here, again, he may perhaps be describing the process which his own mind went through when he first became more intimately acquainted, whether at Megara or elsewhere, with the Eleatic and Megarian philosophers.
Still, Parmenides does not deny to Socrates the credit of having gone beyond them in seeking to apply the paradoxes of Zeno to ideas; and this is the application which he himself makes of them in the latter part of the dialogue.
He then proceeds to explain to him the sort of mental gymnastic which he should practise.
He should consider not only what would follow from a given hypothesis, but what would follow from the denial of it, to that which is the subject of the hypothesis, and to all other things.
There is no trace in the Memorabilia of Xenophon of any such method being attributed to Socrates; nor is the dialectic here spoken of that 'favourite method' of proceeding by regular divisions, which is described in the Phaedrus and Philebus, and of which examples are given in the Politicus and in the Sophist.
It is expressly spoken of as the method which Socrates had heard Zeno practise in the days of his youth (compare Soph.).
The discussion of Socrates with Parmenides is one of the most remarkable passages in Plato.
Few writers have ever been able to anticipate 'the criticism of the morrow' on their favourite notions.
But Plato may here be said to anticipate the judgment not only of the morrow, but of all after-ages on the Platonic Ideas.
For in some points he touches questions which have not yet received their solution in modern philosophy.
The first difficulty which Parmenides raises respecting the Platonic ideas relates to the manner in which individuals are connected with them.
Do they participate in the ideas, or do they merely resemble them?
Parmenides shows that objections may be urged against either of these modes of conceiving the connection.
Things are little by partaking of littleness, great by partaking of greatness, and the like.
But they cannot partake of a part of greatness, for that will not make them great, etc.
; nor can each object monopolise the whole.
The only answer to this is, that 'partaking' is a figure of speech, really corresponding to the processes which a later logic designates by the terms 'abstraction' and 'generalization.'
When we have described accurately the methods or forms which the mind employs, we cannot further criticize them; at least we can only criticize them with reference to their fitness as instruments of thought to express facts.
Socrates attempts to support his view of the ideas by the parallel of the day, which is one and in many places; but he is easily driven from his position by a counter illustration of Parmenides, who compares the idea of greatness to a sail.
He truly explains to Socrates that he has attained the conception of ideas by a process of generalization.
At the same time, he points out a difficulty, which appears to be involved--viz.
that the process of generalization will go on to infinity.
Socrates meets the supposed difficulty by a flash of light, which is indeed the true answer 'that the ideas are in our minds only.'
Neither realism is the truth, nor nominalism is the truth, but conceptualism; and conceptualism or any other psychological theory falls very far short of the infinite subtlety of language and thought.
But the realism of ancient philosophy will not admit of this answer, which is repelled by Parmenides with another truth or half-truth of later philosophy, 'Every subject or subjective must have an object.'
Here is the great though unconscious truth (shall we say?)
or error, which underlay the early Greek philosophy.
'Ideas must have a real existence;' they are not mere forms or opinions, which may be changed arbitrarily by individuals.
But the early Greek philosopher never clearly saw that true ideas were only universal facts, and that there might be error in universals as well as in particulars.
Socrates makes one more attempt to defend the Platonic Ideas by representing them as paradigms; this is again answered by the 'argumentum ad infinitum.'
We may remark, in passing, that the process which is thus described has no real existence.
The mind, after having obtained a general idea, does not really go on to form another which includes that, and all the individuals contained under it, and another and another without end.
The difficulty belongs in fact to the Megarian age of philosophy, and is due to their illogical logic, and to the general ignorance of the ancients respecting the part played by language in the process of thought.
No such perplexity could ever trouble a modern metaphysician, any more than the fallacy of 'calvus' or 'acervus,' or of 'Achilles and the tortoise.'
These 'surds' of metaphysics ought to occasion no more difficulty in speculation than a perpetually recurring fraction in arithmetic.
It is otherwise with the objection which follows: How are we to bridge the chasm between human truth and absolute truth, between gods and men?
This is the difficulty of philosophy in all ages: How can we get beyond the circle of our own ideas, or how, remaining within them, can we have any criterion of a truth beyond and independent of them?
Parmenides draws out this difficulty with great clearness.
According to him, there are not only one but two chasms: the first, between individuals and the ideas which have a common name; the second, between the ideas in us and the ideas absolute.
The first of these two difficulties mankind, as we may say, a little parodying the language of the Philebus, have long agreed to treat as obsolete; the second remains a difficulty for us as well as for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the stumbling-block of Kant's Kritik, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation of Kant, as well as of the Platonic ideas.
It has been said that 'you cannot criticize Revelation.'
'Then how do you know what is Revelation, or that there is one at all,' is the immediate rejoinder--'You know nothing of things in themselves.'
'Then how do you know that there are things in themselves?'
In some respects, the difficulty pressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves.
For conceiving of God more under the attribute of knowledge than we do, he was more under the necessity of separating the divine from the human, as two spheres which had no communication with one another.
It is remarkable that Plato, speaking by the mouth of Parmenides, does not treat even this second class of difficulties as hopeless or insoluble.
He says only that they cannot be explained without a long and laborious demonstration: 'The teacher will require superhuman ability, and the learner will be hard of understanding.'
But an attempt must be made to find an answer to them; for, as Socrates and Parmenides both admit, the denial of abstract ideas is the destruction of the mind.
We can easily imagine that among the Greek schools of philosophy in the fourth century before Christ a panic might arise from the denial of universals, similar to that which arose in the last century from Hume's denial of our ideas of cause and effect.
Men do not at first recognize that thought, like digestion, will go on much the same, notwithstanding any theories which may be entertained respecting the nature of the process.
Parmenides attributes the difficulties in which Socrates is involved to a want of comprehensiveness in his mode of reasoning; he should consider every question on the negative as well as the positive hypothesis, with reference to the consequences which flow from the denial as well as from the assertion of a given statement.
The argument which follows is the most singular in Plato.
It appears to be an imitation, or parody, of the Zenonian dialectic, just as the speeches in the Phaedrus are an imitation of the style of Lysias, or as the derivations in the Cratylus or the fallacies of the Euthydemus are a parody of some contemporary Sophist.
The interlocutor is not supposed, as in most of the other Platonic dialogues, to take a living part in the argument; he is only required to say 'Yes' and 'No' in the right places.
A hint has been already given that the paradoxes of Zeno admitted of a higher application.
This hint is the thread by which Plato connects the two parts of the dialogue.
The paradoxes of Parmenides seem trivial to us, because the words to which they relate have become trivial; their true nature as abstract terms is perfectly understood by us, and we are inclined to regard the treatment of them in Plato as a mere straw-splitting, or legerdemain of words.
Yet there was a power in them which fascinated the Neoplatonists for centuries afterwards.
Something that they found in them, or brought to them--some echo or anticipation of a great truth or error, exercised a wonderful influence over their minds.
To do the Parmenides justice, we should imagine similar aporiai raised on themes as sacred to us, as the notions of One or Being were to an ancient Eleatic.
'If God is, what follows?
If God is not, what follows?'
Or again: If God is or is not the world; or if God is or is not many, or has or has not parts, or is or is not in the world, or in time; or is or is not finite or infinite.
Or if the world is or is not; or has or has not a beginning or end; or is or is not infinite, or infinitely divisible.
Or again: if God is or is not identical with his laws; or if man is or is not identical with the laws of nature.
We can easily see that here are many subjects for thought, and that from these and similar hypotheses questions of great interest might arise.
And we also remark, that the conclusions derived from either of the two alternative propositions might be equally impossible and contradictory.
When we ask what is the object of these paradoxes, some have answered that they are a mere logical puzzle, while others have seen in them an Hegelian propaedeutic of the doctrine of Ideas.
The first of these views derives support from the manner in which Parmenides speaks of a similar method being applied to all Ideas.
Yet it is hard to suppose that Plato would have furnished so elaborate an example, not of his own but of the Eleatic dialectic, had he intended only to give an illustration of method.
The second view has been often overstated by those who, like Hegel himself, have tended to confuse ancient with modern philosophy.
We need not deny that Plato, trained in the school of Cratylus and Heracleitus, may have seen that a contradiction in terms is sometimes the best expression of a truth higher than either (compare Soph.).
But his ideal theory is not based on antinomies.
The correlation of Ideas was the metaphysical difficulty of the age in which he lived; and the Megarian and Cynic philosophy was a 'reductio ad absurdum' of their isolation.
To restore them to their natural connexion and to detect the negative element in them is the aim of Plato in the Sophist.
But his view of their connexion falls very far short of the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being.
The Being and Not-being of Plato never merge in each other, though he is aware that 'determination is only negation.'
After criticizing the hypotheses of others, it may appear presumptuous to add another guess to the many which have been already offered.
May we say, in Platonic language, that we still seem to see vestiges of a track which has not yet been taken?
It is quite possible that the obscurity of the Parmenides would not have existed to a contemporary student of philosophy, and, like the similar difficulty in the Philebus, is really due to our ignorance of the mind of the age.
There is an obscure Megarian influence on Plato which cannot wholly be cleared up, and is not much illustrated by the doubtful tradition of his retirement to Megara after the death of Socrates.
For Megara was within a walk of Athens (Phaedr.
), and Plato might have learned the Megarian doctrines without settling there.
We may begin by remarking that the theses of Parmenides are expressly said to follow the method of Zeno, and that the complex dilemma, though declared to be capable of universal application, is applied in this instance to Zeno's familiar question of the 'one and many.'
Here, then, is a double indication of the connexion of the Parmenides with the Eristic school.
The old Eleatics had asserted the existence of Being, which they at first regarded as finite, then as infinite, then as neither finite nor infinite, to which some of them had given what Aristotle calls 'a form,' others had ascribed a material nature only.
The tendency of their philosophy was to deny to Being all predicates.
The Megarians, who succeeded them, like the Cynics, affirmed that no predicate could be asserted of any subject; they also converted the idea of Being into an abstraction of Good, perhaps with the view of preserving a sort of neutrality or indifference between the mind and things.
As if they had said, in the language of modern philosophy: 'Being is not only neither finite nor infinite, neither at rest nor in motion, but neither subjective nor objective.'
This is the track along which Plato is leading us.
Zeno had attempted to prove the existence of the one by disproving the existence of the many, and Parmenides seems to aim at proving the existence of the subject by showing the contradictions which follow from the assertion of any predicates.
Take the simplest of all notions, 'unity'; you cannot even assert being or time of this without involving a contradiction.
But is the contradiction also the final conclusion?
Probably no more than of Zeno's denial of the many, or of Parmenides' assault upon the Ideas; no more than of the earlier dialogues 'of search.'
To us there seems to be no residuum of this long piece of dialectics.
But to the mind of Parmenides and Plato, 'Gott-betrunkene Menschen,' there still remained the idea of 'being' or 'good,' which could not be conceived, defined, uttered, but could not be got rid of.
Neither of them would have imagined that their disputation ever touched the Divine Being (compare Phil.).
The same difficulties about Unity and Being are raised in the Sophist; but there only as preliminary to their final solution.
If this view is correct, the real aim of the hypotheses of Parmenides is to criticize the earlier Eleatic philosophy from the point of view of Zeno or the Megarians.
It is the same kind of criticism which Plato has extended to his own doctrine of Ideas.
Nor is there any want of poetical consistency in attributing to the 'father Parmenides' the last review of the Eleatic doctrines.
The latest phases of all philosophies were fathered upon the founder of the school.
Other critics have regarded the final conclusion of the Parmenides either as sceptical or as Heracleitean.
In the first case, they assume that Plato means to show the impossibility of any truth.
But this is not the spirit of Plato, and could not with propriety be put into the mouth of Parmenides, who, in this very dialogue, is urging Socrates, not to doubt everything, but to discipline his mind with a view to the more precise attainment of truth.
The same remark applies to the second of the two theories.
Plato everywhere ridicules (perhaps unfairly) his Heracleitean contemporaries: and if he had intended to support an Heracleitean thesis, would hardly have chosen Parmenides, the condemner of the 'undiscerning tribe who say that things both are and are not,' to be the speaker.
Nor, thirdly, can we easily persuade ourselves with Zeller that by the 'one' he means the Idea; and that he is seeking to prove indirectly the unity of the Idea in the multiplicity of phenomena.
We may now endeavour to thread the mazes of the labyrinth which Parmenides knew so well, and trembled at the thought of them.
The argument has two divisions: There is the hypothesis that 1.
One is.
2.
One is not.
If one is, it is nothing.
If one is not, it is everything.
But is and is not may be taken in two senses: Either one is one, Or, one has being, from which opposite consequences are deduced, 1.a.
If one is one, it is nothing.
1.b.
If one has being, it is all things.
To which are appended two subordinate consequences: 1.aa.
If one has being, all other things are.
1.bb.
If one is one, all other things are not.
The same distinction is then applied to the negative hypothesis: 2.a.
If one is not one, it is all things.
2.b.
If one has not being, it is nothing.
Involving two parallel consequences respecting the other or remainder: 2.aa.
If one is not one, other things are all.
2.bb.
If one has not being, other things are not.
..... 'I cannot refuse,' said Parmenides, 'since, as Zeno remarks, we are alone, though I may say with Ibycus, who in his old age fell in love, I, like the old racehorse, tremble at the prospect of the course which I am to run, and which I know so well.
But as I must attempt this laborious game, what shall be the subject?
Suppose I take my own hypothesis of the one.'
'By all means,' said Zeno.
'And who will answer me?
Shall I propose the youngest?
he will be the most likely to say what he thinks, and his answers will give me time to breathe.'
'I am the youngest,' said Aristoteles, 'and at your service; proceed with your questions.'
--The result may be summed up as follows:-1.a.
One is not many, and therefore has no parts, and therefore is not a whole, which is a sum of parts, and therefore has neither beginning, middle, nor end, and is therefore unlimited, and therefore formless, being neither round nor straight, for neither round nor straight can be defined without assuming that they have parts; and therefore is not in place, whether in another which would encircle and touch the one at many points; or in itself, because that which is self-containing is also contained, and therefore not one but two.
This being premised, let us consider whether one is capable either of motion or rest.
For motion is either change of substance, or motion on an axis, or from one place to another.
But the one is incapable of change of substance, which implies that it ceases to be itself, or of motion on an axis, because there would be parts around the axis; and any other motion involves change of place.
But existence in place has been already shown to be impossible; and yet more impossible is coming into being in place, which implies partial existence in two places at once, or entire existence neither within nor without the same; and how can this be?
And more impossible still is the coming into being either as a whole or parts of that which is neither a whole nor parts.
The one, then, is incapable of motion.
But neither can the one be in anything, and therefore not in the same, whether itself or some other, and is therefore incapable of rest.
Neither is one the same with itself or any other, or other than itself or any other.
For if other than itself, then other than one, and therefore not one; and, if the same with other, it would be other, and other than one.
Neither can one while remaining one be other than other; for other, and not one, is the other than other.
But if not other by virtue of being one, not by virtue of itself; and if not by virtue of itself, not itself other, and if not itself other, not other than anything.
Neither will one be the same with itself.
For the nature of the same is not that of the one, but a thing which becomes the same with anything does not become one; for example, that which becomes the same with the many becomes many and not one.
And therefore if the one is the same with itself, the one is not one with itself; and therefore one and not one.
And therefore one is neither other than other, nor the same with itself.
Neither will the one be like or unlike itself or other; for likeness is sameness of affections, and the one and the same are different.
And one having any affection which is other than being one would be more than one.
The one, then, cannot have the same affection with and therefore cannot be like itself or other; nor can the one have any other affection than its own, that is, be unlike itself or any other, for this would imply that it was more than one.
The one, then, is neither like nor unlike itself or other.
This being the case, neither can the one be equal or unequal to itself or other.
For equality implies sameness of measure, as inequality implies a greater or less number of measures.
But the one, not having sameness, cannot have sameness of measure; nor a greater or less number of measures, for that would imply parts and multitude.
Once more, can one be older or younger than itself or other?
or of the same age with itself or other?
That would imply likeness and unlikeness, equality and inequality.
Therefore one cannot be in time, because that which is in time is ever becoming older and younger than itself, (for older and younger are relative terms, and he who becomes older becomes younger,) and is also of the same age with itself.
None of which, or any other expressions of time, whether past, future, or present, can be affirmed of one.
One neither is, has been, nor will be, nor becomes, nor has, nor will become.
And, as these are the only modes of being, one is not, and is not one.
But to that which is not, there is no attribute or relative, neither name nor word nor idea nor science nor perception nor opinion appertaining.
One, then, is neither named, nor uttered, nor known, nor perceived, nor imagined.
But can all this be true?
'I think not.'
1.b.
Let us, however, commence the inquiry again.
We have to work out all the consequences which follow on the assumption that the one is.
If one is, one partakes of being, which is not the same with one; the words 'being' and 'one' have different meanings.
Observe the consequence: In the one of being or the being of one are two parts, being and one, which form one whole.
And each of the two parts is also a whole, and involves the other, and may be further subdivided into one and being, and is therefore not one but two; and thus one is never one, and in this way the one, if it is, becomes many and infinite.
Again, let us conceive of a one which by an effort of abstraction we separate from being: will this abstract one be one or many?
You say one only; let us see.
In the first place, the being of one is other than one; and one and being, if different, are so because they both partake of the nature of other, which is therefore neither one nor being; and whether we take being and other, or being and one, or one and other, in any case we have two things which separately are called either, and together both.
And both are two and either of two is severally one, and if one be added to any of the pairs, the sum is three; and two is an even number, three an odd; and two units exist twice, and therefore there are twice two; and three units exist thrice, and therefore there are thrice three, and taken together they give twice three and thrice two: we have even numbers multiplied into even, and odd into even, and even into odd numbers.
But if one is, and both odd and even numbers are implied in one, must not every number exist?
And number is infinite, and therefore existence must be infinite, for all and every number partakes of being; therefore being has the greatest number of parts, and every part, however great or however small, is equally one.
But can one be in many places and yet be a whole?
If not a whole it must be divided into parts and represented by a number corresponding to the number of the parts.
And if so, we were wrong in saying that being has the greatest number of parts; for being is coequal and coextensive with one, and has no more parts than one; and so the abstract one broken up into parts by being is many and infinite.
But the parts are parts of a whole, and the whole is their containing limit, and the one is therefore limited as well as infinite in number; and that which is a whole has beginning, middle, and end, and a middle is equidistant from the extremes; and one is therefore of a certain figure, round or straight, or a combination of the two, and being a whole includes all the parts which are the whole, and is therefore self-contained.
But then, again, the whole is not in the parts, whether all or some.
Not in all, because, if in all, also in one; for, if wanting in any one, how in all?--not in some, because the greater would then be contained in the less.
But if not in all, nor in any, nor in some, either nowhere or in other.
And if nowhere, nothing; therefore in other.
The one as a whole, then, is in another, but regarded as a sum of parts is in itself; and is, therefore, both in itself and in another.
This being the case, the one is at once both at rest and in motion: at rest, because resting in itself; in motion, because it is ever in other.
And if there is truth in what has preceded, one is the same and not the same with itself and other.
For everything in relation to every other thing is either the same with it or other; or if neither the same nor other, then in the relation of part to a whole or whole to a part.
But one cannot be a part or whole in relation to one, nor other than one; and is therefore the same with one.
Yet this sameness is again contradicted by one being in another place from itself which is in the same place; this follows from one being in itself and in another; one, therefore, is other than itself.
But if anything is other than anything, will it not be other than other?
And the not one is other than the one, and the one than the not one; therefore one is other than all others.
But the same and the other exclude one another, and therefore the other can never be in the same; nor can the other be in anything for ever so short a time, as for that time the other will be in the same.
And the other, if never in the same, cannot be either in the one or in the not one.
And one is not other than not one, either by reason of other or of itself; and therefore they are not other than one another at all.
Neither can the not one partake or be part of one, for in that case it would be one; nor can the not one be number, for that also involves one.
And therefore, not being other than the one or related to the one as a whole to parts or parts to a whole, not one is the same as one.
Wherefore the one is the same and also not the same with the others and also with itself; and is therefore like and unlike itself and the others, and just as different from the others as they are from the one, neither more nor less.
But if neither more nor less, equally different; and therefore the one and the others have the same relations.
This may be illustrated by the case of names: when you repeat the same name twice over, you mean the same thing; and when you say that the other is other than the one, or the one other than the other, this very word other (eteron), which is attributed to both, implies sameness.
One, then, as being other than others, and other as being other than one, are alike in that they have the relation of otherness; and likeness is similarity of relations.
And everything as being other of everything is also like everything.
Again, same and other, like and unlike, are opposites: and since in virtue of being other than the others the one is like them, in virtue of being the same it must be unlike.
Again, one, as having the same relations, has no difference of relation, and is therefore not unlike, and therefore like; or, as having different relations, is different and unlike.
Thus, one, as being the same and not the same with itself and others--for both these reasons and for either of them--is also like and unlike itself and the others.
Again, how far can one touch itself and the others?
As existing in others, it touches the others; and as existing in itself, touches only itself.
But from another point of view, that which touches another must be next in order of place; one, therefore, must be next in order of place to itself, and would therefore be two, and in two places.
But one cannot be two, and therefore cannot be in contact with itself.
Nor again can one touch the other.
Two objects are required to make one contact; three objects make two contacts; and all the objects in the world, if placed in a series, would have as many contacts as there are objects, less one.
But if one only exists, and not two, there is no contact.
And the others, being other than one, have no part in one, and therefore none in number, and therefore two has no existence, and therefore there is no contact.
For all which reasons, one has and has not contact with itself and the others.
Once more, Is one equal and unequal to itself and the others?
Suppose one and the others to be greater or less than each other or equal to one another, they will be greater or less or equal by reason of equality or greatness or smallness inhering in them in addition to their own proper nature.
Let us begin by assuming smallness to be inherent in one: in this case the inherence is either in the whole or in a part.
If the first, smallness is either coextensive with the whole one, or contains the whole, and, if coextensive with the one, is equal to the one, or if containing the one will be greater than the one.
But smallness thus performs the function of equality or of greatness, which is impossible.
Again, if the inherence be in a part, the same contradiction follows: smallness will be equal to the part or greater than the part; therefore smallness will not inhere in anything, and except the idea of smallness there will be nothing small.
Neither will greatness; for greatness will have a greater;--and there will be no small in relation to which it is great.
And there will be no great or small in objects, but greatness and smallness will be relative only to each other; therefore the others cannot be greater or less than the one; also the one can neither exceed nor be exceeded by the others, and they are therefore equal to one another.
And this will be true also of the one in relation to itself: one will be equal to itself as well as to the others (talla).
Yet one, being in itself, must also be about itself, containing and contained, and is therefore greater and less than itself.
Further, there is nothing beside the one and the others; and as these must be in something, they must therefore be in one another; and as that in which a thing is is greater than the thing, the inference is that they are both greater and less than one another, because containing and contained in one another.
Therefore the one is equal to and greater and less than itself or other, having also measures or parts or numbers equal to or greater or less than itself or other.
But does one partake of time?
This must be acknowledged, if the one partakes of being.
For 'to be' is the participation of being in present time, 'to have been' in past, 'to be about to be' in future time.
And as time is ever moving forward, the one becomes older than itself; and therefore younger than itself; and is older and also younger when in the process of becoming it arrives at the present; and it is always older and younger, for at any moment the one is, and therefore it becomes and is not older and younger than itself but during an equal time with itself, and is therefore contemporary with itself.
And what are the relations of the one to the others?
Is it or does it become older or younger than they?
At any rate the others are more than one, and one, being the least of all numbers, must be prior in time to greater numbers.
But on the other hand, one must come into being in a manner accordant with its own nature.
Now one has parts or others, and has therefore a beginning, middle, and end, of which the beginning is first and the end last.
And the parts come into existence first; last of all the whole, contemporaneously with the end, being therefore younger, while the parts or others are older than the one.
But, again, the one comes into being in each of the parts as much as in the whole, and must be of the same age with them.
Therefore one is at once older and younger than the parts or others, and also contemporaneous with them, for no part can be a part which is not one.
Is this true of becoming as well as being?
Thus much may be affirmed, that the same things which are older or younger cannot become older or younger in a greater degree than they were at first by the addition of equal times.
But, on the other hand, the one, if older than others, has come into being a longer time than they have.
And when equal time is added to a longer and shorter, the relative difference between them is diminished.
In this way that which was older becomes younger, and that which was younger becomes older, that is to say, younger and older than at first; and they ever become and never have become, for then they would be.
Thus the one and others always are and are becoming and not becoming younger and also older than one another.
And one, partaking of time and also partaking of becoming older and younger, admits of all time, present, past, and future--was, is, shall be--was becoming, is becoming, will become.
And there is science of the one, and opinion and name and expression, as is already implied in the fact of our inquiry.
Yet once more, if one be one and many, and neither one nor many, and also participant of time, must there not be a time at which one as being one partakes of being, and a time when one as not being one is deprived of being?
But these two contradictory states cannot be experienced by the one both together: there must be a time of transition.
And the transition is a process of generation and destruction, into and from being and not-being, the one and the others.
For the generation of the one is the destruction of the others, and the generation of the others is the destruction of the one.
There is also separation and aggregation, assimilation and dissimilation, increase, diminution, equalization, a passage from motion to rest, and from rest to motion in the one and many.
But when do all these changes take place?
When does motion become rest, or rest motion?
The answer to this question will throw a light upon all the others.
Nothing can be in motion and at rest at the same time; and therefore the change takes place 'in a moment'--which is a strange expression, and seems to mean change in no time.
Which is true also of all the other changes, which likewise take place in no time.
1.aa.
But if one is, what happens to the others, which in the first place are not one, yet may partake of one in a certain way?
The others are other than the one because they have parts, for if they had no parts they would be simply one, and parts imply a whole to which they belong; otherwise each part would be a part of many, and being itself one of them, of itself, and if a part of all, of each one of the other parts, which is absurd.
For a part, if not a part of one, must be a part of all but this one, and if so not a part of each one; and if not a part of each one, not a part of any one of many, and so not of one; and if of none, how of all?
Therefore a part is neither a part of many nor of all, but of an absolute and perfect whole or one.
And if the others have parts, they must partake of the whole, and must be the whole of which they are the parts.
And each part, as the word 'each' implies, is also an absolute one.
And both the whole and the parts partake of one, for the whole of which the parts are parts is one, and each part is one part of the whole; and whole and parts as participating in one are other than one, and as being other than one are many and infinite; and however small a fraction you separate from them is many and not one.
Yet the fact of their being parts furnishes the others with a limit towards other parts and towards the whole; they are finite and also infinite: finite through participation in the one, infinite in their own nature.
And as being finite, they are alike; and as being infinite, they are alike; but as being both finite and also infinite, they are in the highest degree unlike.
And all other opposites might without difficulty be shown to unite in them.
1.bb.
Once more, leaving all this: Is there not also an opposite series of consequences which is equally true of the others, and may be deduced from the existence of one?
There is.
One is distinct from the others, and the others from one; for one and the others are all things, and there is no third existence besides them.
And the whole of one cannot be in others nor parts of it, for it is separated from others and has no parts, and therefore the others have no unity, nor plurality, nor duality, nor any other number, nor any opposition or distinction, such as likeness and unlikeness, some and other, generation and corruption, odd and even.
For if they had these they would partake either of one opposite, and this would be a participation in one; or of two opposites, and this would be a participation in two.
Thus if one exists, one is all things, and likewise nothing, in relation to one and to the others.
2.a.
But, again, assume the opposite hypothesis, that the one is not, and what is the consequence?
In the first place, the proposition, that one is not, is clearly opposed to the proposition, that not one is not.
The subject of any negative proposition implies at once knowledge and difference.
Thus 'one' in the proposition--'The one is not,' must be something known, or the words would be unintelligible; and again this 'one which is not' is something different from other things.
Moreover, this and that, some and other, may be all attributed or related to the one which is not, and which though non-existent may and must have plurality, if the one only is non-existent and nothing else; but if all is not-being there is nothing which can be spoken of.
Also the one which is not differs, and is different in kind from the others, and therefore unlike them; and they being other than the one, are unlike the one, which is therefore unlike them.
But one, being unlike other, must be like itself; for the unlikeness of one to itself is the destruction of the hypothesis; and one cannot be equal to the others; for that would suppose being in the one, and the others would be equal to one and like one; both which are impossible, if one does not exist.
The one which is not, then, if not equal is unequal to the others, and in equality implies great and small, and equality lies between great and small, and therefore the one which is not partakes of equality.
Further, the one which is not has being; for that which is true is, and it is true that the one is not.
And so the one which is not, if remitting aught of the being of non-existence, would become existent.
For not being implies the being of not-being, and being the not-being of not-being; or more truly being partakes of the being of being and not of the being of not-being, and not-being of the being of not-being and not of the not-being of not-being.
And therefore the one which is not has being and also not-being.
And the union of being and not-being involves change or motion.
But how can not-being, which is nowhere, move or change, either from one place to another or in the same place?
And whether it is or is not, it would cease to be one if experiencing a change of substance.
The one which is not, then, is both in motion and at rest, is altered and unaltered, and becomes and is destroyed, and does not become and is not destroyed.
2.b.
Once more, let us ask the question, If one is not, what happens in regard to one?
The expression 'is not' implies negation of being:--do we mean by this to say that a thing, which is not, in a certain sense is?
or do we mean absolutely to deny being of it?
The latter.
Then the one which is not can neither be nor become nor perish nor experience change of substance or place.
Neither can rest, or motion, or greatness, or smallness, or equality, or unlikeness, or likeness either to itself or other, or attribute or relation, or now or hereafter or formerly, or knowledge or opinion or perception or name or anything else be asserted of that which is not.
2.aa.
Once more, if one is not, what becomes of the others?
If we speak of them they must be, and their very name implies difference, and difference implies relation, not to the one, which is not, but to one another.
And they are others of each other not as units but as infinities, the least of which is also infinity, and capable of infinitesimal division.
And they will have no unity or number, but only a semblance of unity and number; and the least of them will appear large and manifold in comparison with the infinitesimal fractions into which it may be divided.
Further, each particle will have the appearance of being equal with the fractions.
For in passing from the greater to the less it must reach an intermediate point, which is equality.
Moreover, each particle although having a limit in relation to itself and to other particles, yet it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; for there is always a beginning before the beginning, and a middle within the middle, and an end beyond the end, because the infinitesimal division is never arrested by the one.
Thus all being is one at a distance, and broken up when near, and like at a distance and unlike when near; and also the particles which compose being seem to be like and unlike, in rest and motion, in generation and corruption, in contact and separation, if one is not.
2.bb.
Once more, let us inquire, If the one is not, and the others of the one are, what follows?
In the first place, the others will not be the one, nor the many, for in that case the one would be contained in them; neither will they appear to be one or many; because they have no communion or participation in that which is not, nor semblance of that which is not.
If one is not, the others neither are, nor appear to be one or many, like or unlike, in contact or separation.
In short, if one is not, nothing is.
The result of all which is, that whether one is or is not, one and the others, in relation to themselves and to one another, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be, in all manner of ways.
I.
On the first hypothesis we may remark: first, That one is one is an identical proposition, from which we might expect that no further consequences could be deduced.
The train of consequences which follows, is inferred by altering the predicate into 'not many.'
Yet, perhaps, if a strict Eristic had been present, oios aner ei kai nun paren, he might have affirmed that the not many presented a different aspect of the conception from the one, and was therefore not identical with it.
Such a subtlety would be very much in character with the Zenonian dialectic.
Secondly, We may note, that the conclusion is really involved in the premises.
For one is conceived as one, in a sense which excludes all predicates.
When the meaning of one has been reduced to a point, there is no use in saying that it has neither parts nor magnitude.
Thirdly, The conception of the same is, first of all, identified with the one; and then by a further analysis distinguished from, and even opposed to it.
Fourthly, We may detect notions, which have reappeared in modern philosophy, e.g.
the bare abstraction of undefined unity, answering to the Hegelian 'Seyn,' or the identity of contradictions 'that which is older is also younger,' etc., or the Kantian conception of an a priori synthetical proposition 'one is.'
II.
In the first series of propositions the word 'is' is really the copula; in the second, the verb of existence.
As in the first series, the negative consequence followed from one being affirmed to be equivalent to the not many; so here the affirmative consequence is deduced from one being equivalent to the many.
In the former case, nothing could be predicated of the one, but now everything--multitude, relation, place, time, transition.
One is regarded in all the aspects of one, and with a reference to all the consequences which flow, either from the combination or the separation of them.
The notion of transition involves the singular extra-temporal conception of 'suddenness.'
This idea of 'suddenness' is based upon the contradiction which is involved in supposing that anything can be in two places at once.
It is a mere fiction; and we may observe that similar antinomies have led modern philosophers to deny the reality of time and space.
It is not the infinitesimal of time, but the negative of time.
By the help of this invention the conception of change, which sorely exercised the minds of early thinkers, seems to be, but is not really at all explained.
The difficulty arises out of the imperfection of language, and should therefore be no longer regarded as a difficulty at all.
The only way of meeting it, if it exists, is to acknowledge that this rather puzzling double conception is necessary to the expression of the phenomena of motion or change, and that this and similar double notions, instead of being anomalies, are among the higher and more potent instruments of human thought.
The processes by which Parmenides obtains his remarkable results may be summed up as follows: (1) Compound or correlative ideas which involve each other, such as, being and not-being, one and many, are conceived sometimes in a state of composition, and sometimes of division: (2) The division or distinction is sometimes heightened into total opposition, e.g.
between one and same, one and other: or (3) The idea, which has been already divided, is regarded, like a number, as capable of further infinite subdivision: (4) The argument often proceeds 'a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter' and conversely: (5) The analogy of opposites is misused by him; he argues indiscriminately sometimes from what is like, sometimes from what is unlike in them: (6) The idea of being or not-being is identified with existence or non-existence in place or time: (7) The same ideas are regarded sometimes as in process of transition, sometimes as alternatives or opposites: (8) There are no degrees or kinds of sameness, likeness, difference, nor any adequate conception of motion or change: (9) One, being, time, like space in Zeno's puzzle of Achilles and the tortoise, are regarded sometimes as continuous and sometimes as discrete: (10) In some parts of the argument the abstraction is so rarefied as to become not only fallacious, but almost unintelligible, e.g.
in the contradiction which is elicited out of the relative terms older and younger: (11) The relation between two terms is regarded under contradictory aspects, as for example when the existence of the one and the non-existence of the one are equally assumed to involve the existence of the many: (12) Words are used through long chains of argument, sometimes loosely, sometimes with the precision of numbers or of geometrical figures.
The argument is a very curious piece of work, unique in literature.
It seems to be an exposition or rather a 'reductio ad absurdum' of the Megarian philosophy, but we are too imperfectly acquainted with this last to speak with confidence about it.
It would be safer to say that it is an indication of the sceptical, hyperlogical fancies which prevailed among the contemporaries of Socrates.
It throws an indistinct light upon Aristotle, and makes us aware of the debt which the world owes to him or his school.
It also bears a resemblance to some modern speculations, in which an attempt is made to narrow language in such a manner that number and figure may be made a calculus of thought.
It exaggerates one side of logic and forgets the rest.
It has the appearance of a mathematical process; the inventor of it delights, as mathematicians do, in eliciting or discovering an unexpected result.
It also helps to guard us against some fallacies by showing the consequences which flow from them.
In the Parmenides we seem to breathe the spirit of the Megarian philosophy, though we cannot compare the two in detail.
But Plato also goes beyond his Megarian contemporaries; he has split their straws over again, and admitted more than they would have desired.
He is indulging the analytical tendencies of his age, which can divide but not combine.
And he does not stop to inquire whether the distinctions which he makes are shadowy and fallacious, but 'whither the argument blows' he follows.
III.
The negative series of propositions contains the first conception of the negation of a negation.
Two minus signs in arithmetic or algebra make a plus.
Two negatives destroy each other.
This abstruse notion is the foundation of the Hegelian logic.
The mind must not only admit that determination is negation, but must get through negation into affirmation.
Whether this process is real, or in any way an assistance to thought, or, like some other logical forms, a mere figure of speech transferred from the sphere of mathematics, may be doubted.
That Plato and the most subtle philosopher of the nineteenth century should have lighted upon the same notion, is a singular coincidence of ancient and modern thought.
IV.
The one and the many or others are reduced to their strictest arithmetical meaning.
That one is three or three one, is a proposition which has, perhaps, given rise to more controversy in the world than any other.
But no one has ever meant to say that three and one are to be taken in the same sense.
Whereas the one and many of the Parmenides have precisely the same meaning; there is no notion of one personality or substance having many attributes or qualities.
The truth seems to be rather the opposite of that which Socrates implies: There is no contradiction in the concrete, but in the abstract; and the more abstract the idea, the more palpable will be the contradiction.
For just as nothing can persuade us that the number one is the number three, so neither can we be persuaded that any abstract idea is identical with its opposite, although they may both inhere together in some external object, or some more comprehensive conception.
Ideas, persons, things may be one in one sense and many in another, and may have various degrees of unity and plurality.
But in whatever sense and in whatever degree they are one they cease to be many; and in whatever degree or sense they are many they cease to be one.
Two points remain to be considered: 1st, the connexion between the first and second parts of the dialogue; 2ndly, the relation of the Parmenides to the other dialogues.
I.
In both divisions of the dialogue the principal speaker is the same, and the method pursued by him is also the same, being a criticism on received opinions: first, on the doctrine of Ideas; secondly, of Being.
From the Platonic Ideas we naturally proceed to the Eleatic One or Being which is the foundation of them.
They are the same philosophy in two forms, and the simpler form is the truer and deeper.
For the Platonic Ideas are mere numerical differences, and the moment we attempt to distinguish between them, their transcendental character is lost; ideas of justice, temperance, and good, are really distinguishable only with reference to their application in the world.
If we once ask how they are related to individuals or to the ideas of the divine mind, they are again merged in the aboriginal notion of Being.
No one can answer the questions which Parmenides asks of Socrates.
And yet these questions are asked with the express acknowledgment that the denial of ideas will be the destruction of the human mind.
The true answer to the difficulty here thrown out is the establishment of a rational psychology; and this is a work which is commenced in the Sophist.
Plato, in urging the difficulty of his own doctrine of Ideas, is far from denying that some doctrine of Ideas is necessary, and for this he is paving the way.
In a similar spirit he criticizes the Eleatic doctrine of Being, not intending to deny Ontology, but showing that the old Eleatic notion, and the very name 'Being,' is unable to maintain itself against the subtleties of the Megarians.
He did not mean to say that Being or Substance had no existence, but he is preparing for the development of his later view, that ideas were capable of relation.
The fact that contradictory consequences follow from the existence or non-existence of one or many, does not prove that they have or have not existence, but rather that some different mode of conceiving them is required.
Parmenides may still have thought that 'Being was,' just as Kant would have asserted the existence of 'things in themselves,' while denying the transcendental use of the Categories.
Several lesser links also connect the first and second parts of the dialogue: (1) The thesis is the same as that which Zeno has been already discussing: (2) Parmenides has intimated in the first part, that the method of Zeno should, as Socrates desired, be extended to Ideas: (3) The difficulty of participating in greatness, smallness, equality is urged against the Ideas as well as against the One.
II.
The Parmenides is not only a criticism of the Eleatic notion of Being, but also of the methods of reasoning then in existence, and in this point of view, as well as in the other, may be regarded as an introduction to the Sophist.
Long ago, in the Euthydemus, the vulgar application of the 'both and neither' Eristic had been subjected to a similar criticism, which there takes the form of banter and irony, here of illustration.
The attack upon the Ideas is resumed in the Philebus, and is followed by a return to a more rational philosophy.
The perplexity of the One and Many is there confined to the region of Ideas, and replaced by a theory of classification; the Good arranged in classes is also contrasted with the barren abstraction of the Megarians.
The war is carried on against the Eristics in all the later dialogues, sometimes with a playful irony, at other times with a sort of contempt.
But there is no lengthened refutation of them.
The Parmenides belongs to that stage of the dialogues of Plato in which he is partially under their influence, using them as a sort of 'critics or diviners' of the truth of his own, and of the Eleatic theories.
In the Theaetetus a similar negative dialectic is employed in the attempt to define science, which after every effort remains undefined still.
The same question is revived from the objective side in the Sophist: Being and Not-being are no longer exhibited in opposition, but are now reconciled; and the true nature of Not-being is discovered and made the basis of the correlation of ideas.
Some links are probably missing which might have been supplied if we had trustworthy accounts of Plato's oral teaching.
To sum up: the Parmenides of Plato is a critique, first, of the Platonic Ideas, and secondly, of the Eleatic doctrine of Being.
Neither are absolutely denied.
But certain difficulties and consequences are shown in the assumption of either, which prove that the Platonic as well as the Eleatic doctrine must be remodelled.
The negation and contradiction which are involved in the conception of the One and Many are preliminary to their final adjustment.
The Platonic Ideas are tested by the interrogative method of Socrates; the Eleatic One or Being is tried by the severer and perhaps impossible method of hypothetical consequences, negative and affirmative.
In the latter we have an example of the Zenonian or Megarian dialectic, which proceeded, not 'by assailing premises, but conclusions'; this is worked out and improved by Plato.
When primary abstractions are used in every conceivable sense, any or every conclusion may be deduced from them.
The words 'one,' 'other,' 'being,' 'like,' 'same,' 'whole,' and their opposites, have slightly different meanings, as they are applied to objects of thought or objects of sense--to number, time, place, and to the higher ideas of the reason;--and out of their different meanings this 'feast' of contradictions 'has been provided.'
...
The Parmenides of Plato belongs to a stage of philosophy which has passed away.
At first we read it with a purely antiquarian or historical interest; and with difficulty throw ourselves back into a state of the human mind in which Unity and Being occupied the attention of philosophers.
We admire the precision of the language, in which, as in some curious puzzle, each word is exactly fitted into every other, and long trains of argument are carried out with a sort of geometrical accuracy.
We doubt whether any abstract notion could stand the searching cross-examination of Parmenides; and may at last perhaps arrive at the conclusion that Plato has been using an imaginary method to work out an unmeaning conclusion.
But the truth is, that he is carrying on a process which is not either useless or unnecessary in any age of philosophy.
We fail to understand him, because we do not realize that the questions which he is discussing could have had any value or importance.
We suppose them to be like the speculations of some of the Schoolmen, which end in nothing.
But in truth he is trying to get rid of the stumbling-blocks of thought which beset his contemporaries.
Seeing that the Megarians and Cynics were making knowledge impossible, he takes their 'catch-words' and analyzes them from every conceivable point of view.
He is criticizing the simplest and most general of our ideas, in which, as they are the most comprehensive, the danger of error is the most serious; for, if they remain unexamined, as in a mathematical demonstration, all that flows from them is affected, and the error pervades knowledge far and wide.
In the beginning of philosophy this correction of human ideas was even more necessary than in our own times, because they were more bound up with words; and words when once presented to the mind exercised a greater power over thought.
There is a natural realism which says, 'Can there be a word devoid of meaning, or an idea which is an idea of nothing?'
In modern times mankind have often given too great importance to a word or idea.
The philosophy of the ancients was still more in slavery to them, because they had not the experience of error, which would have placed them above the illusion.
The method of the Parmenides may be compared with the process of purgation, which Bacon sought to introduce into philosophy.
Plato is warning us against two sorts of 'Idols of the Den': first, his own Ideas, which he himself having created is unable to connect in any way with the external world; secondly, against two idols in particular, 'Unity' and 'Being,' which had grown up in the pre-Socratic philosophy, and were still standing in the way of all progress and development of thought.
He does not say with Bacon, 'Let us make truth by experiment,' or 'From these vague and inexact notions let us turn to facts.'
The time has not yet arrived for a purely inductive philosophy.
The instruments of thought must first be forged, that they may be used hereafter by modern inquirers.
How, while mankind were disputing about universals, could they classify phenomena?
How could they investigate causes, when they had not as yet learned to distinguish between a cause and an end?
How could they make any progress in the sciences without first arranging them?
These are the deficiencies which Plato is seeking to supply in an age when knowledge was a shadow of a name only.
In the earlier dialogues the Socratic conception of universals is illustrated by his genius; in the Phaedrus the nature of division is explained; in the Republic the law of contradiction and the unity of knowledge are asserted; in the later dialogues he is constantly engaged both with the theory and practice of classification.
These were the 'new weapons,' as he terms them in the Philebus, which he was preparing for the use of some who, in after ages, would be found ready enough to disown their obligations to the great master, or rather, perhaps, would be incapable of understanding them.
Numberless fallacies, as we are often truly told, have originated in a confusion of the 'copula,' and the 'verb of existence.'
Would not the distinction which Plato by the mouth of Parmenides makes between 'One is one' and 'One has being' have saved us from this and many similar confusions?
We see again that a long period in the history of philosophy was a barren tract, not uncultivated, but unfruitful, because there was no inquiry into the relation of language and thought, and the metaphysical imagination was incapable of supplying the missing link between words and things.
The famous dispute between Nominalists and Realists would never have been heard of, if, instead of transferring the Platonic Ideas into a crude Latin phraseology, the spirit of Plato had been truly understood and appreciated.
Upon the term substance at least two celebrated theological controversies appear to hinge, which would not have existed, or at least not in their present form, if we had 'interrogated' the word substance, as Plato has the notions of Unity and Being.
These weeds of philosophy have struck their roots deep into the soil, and are always tending to reappear, sometimes in new-fangled forms; while similar words, such as development, evolution, law, and the like, are constantly put in the place of facts, even by writers who profess to base truth entirely upon fact.
In an unmetaphysical age there is probably more metaphysics in the common sense (i.e.
more a priori assumption) than in any other, because there is more complete unconsciousness that we are resting on our own ideas, while we please ourselves with the conviction that we are resting on facts.
We do not consider how much metaphysics are required to place us above metaphysics, or how difficult it is to prevent the forms of expression which are ready made for our use from outrunning actual observation and experiment.
In the last century the educated world were astonished to find that the whole fabric of their ideas was falling to pieces, because Hume amused himself by analyzing the word 'cause' into uniform sequence.
Then arose a philosophy which, equally regardless of the history of the mind, sought to save mankind from scepticism by assigning to our notions of 'cause and effect,' 'substance and accident,' 'whole and part,' a necessary place in human thought.
Without them we could have no experience, and therefore they were supposed to be prior to experience--to be incrusted on the 'I'; although in the phraseology of Kant there could be no transcendental use of them, or, in other words, they were only applicable within the range of our knowledge.
But into the origin of these ideas, which he obtains partly by an analysis of the proposition, partly by development of the 'ego,' he never inquires--they seem to him to have a necessary existence; nor does he attempt to analyse the various senses in which the word 'cause' or 'substance' may be employed.
The philosophy of Berkeley could never have had any meaning, even to himself, if he had first analyzed from every point of view the conception of 'matter.'
This poor forgotten word (which was 'a very good word' to describe the simplest generalization of external objects) is now superseded in the vocabulary of physical philosophers by 'force,' which seems to be accepted without any rigid examination of its meaning, as if the general idea of 'force' in our minds furnished an explanation of the infinite variety of forces which exist in the universe.
A similar ambiguity occurs in the use of the favourite word 'law,' which is sometimes regarded as a mere abstraction, and then elevated into a real power or entity, almost taking the place of God.
Theology, again, is full of undefined terms which have distracted the human mind for ages.
Mankind have reasoned from them, but not to them; they have drawn out the conclusions without proving the premises; they have asserted the premises without examining the terms.
The passions of religious parties have been roused to the utmost about words of which they could have given no explanation, and which had really no distinct meaning.
One sort of them, faith, grace, justification, have been the symbols of one class of disputes; as the words substance, nature, person, of another, revelation, inspiration, and the like, of a third.
All of them have been the subject of endless reasonings and inferences; but a spell has hung over the minds of theologians or philosophers which has prevented them from examining the words themselves.
Either the effort to rise above and beyond their own first ideas was too great for them, or there might, perhaps, have seemed to be an irreverence in doing so.
About the Divine Being Himself, in whom all true theological ideas live and move, men have spoken and reasoned much, and have fancied that they instinctively know Him.
But they hardly suspect that under the name of God even Christians have included two characters or natures as much opposed as the good and evil principle of the Persians.
To have the true use of words we must compare them with things; in using them we acknowledge that they seldom give a perfect representation of our meaning.
In like manner when we interrogate our ideas we find that we are not using them always in the sense which we supposed.
And Plato, while he criticizes the inconsistency of his own doctrine of universals and draws out the endless consequences which flow from the assertion either that 'Being is' or that 'Being is not,' by no means intends to deny the existence of universals or the unity under which they are comprehended.
There is nothing further from his thoughts than scepticism.
But before proceeding he must examine the foundations which he and others have been laying; there is nothing true which is not from some point of view untrue, nothing absolute which is not also relative (compare Republic).
And so, in modern times, because we are called upon to analyze our ideas and to come to a distinct understanding about the meaning of words; because we know that the powers of language are very unequal to the subtlety of nature or of mind, we do not therefore renounce the use of them; but we replace them in their old connexion, having first tested their meaning and quality, and having corrected the error which is involved in them; or rather always remembering to make allowance for the adulteration or alloy which they contain.
We cannot call a new metaphysical world into existence any more than we can frame a new universal language; in thought as in speech, we are dependent on the past.
We know that the words 'cause' and 'effect' are very far from representing to us the continuity or the complexity of nature or the different modes or degrees in which phenomena are connected.
Yet we accept them as the best expression which we have of the correlation of forces or objects.
We see that the term 'law' is a mere abstraction, under which laws of matter and of mind, the law of nature and the law of the land are included, and some of these uses of the word are confusing, because they introduce into one sphere of thought associations which belong to another; for example, order or sequence is apt to be confounded with external compulsion and the internal workings of the mind with their material antecedents.
Yet none of them can be dispensed with; we can only be on our guard against the error or confusion which arises out of them.
Thus in the use of the word 'substance' we are far from supposing that there is any mysterious substratum apart from the objects which we see, and we acknowledge that the negative notion is very likely to become a positive one.
Still we retain the word as a convenient generalization, though not without a double sense, substance, and essence, derived from the two-fold translation of the Greek ousia.
So the human mind makes the reflection that God is not a person like ourselves--is not a cause like the material causes in nature, nor even an intelligent cause like a human agent--nor an individual, for He is universal; and that every possible conception which we can form of Him is limited by the human faculties.
We cannot by any effort of thought or exertion of faith be in and out of our own minds at the same instant.
How can we conceive Him under the forms of time and space, who is out of time and space?
How get rid of such forms and see Him as He is?
How can we imagine His relation to the world or to ourselves?
Innumerable contradictions follow from either of the two alternatives, that God is or that He is not.
Yet we are far from saying that we know nothing of Him, because all that we know is subject to the conditions of human thought.
To the old belief in Him we return, but with corrections.
He is a person, but not like ourselves; a mind, but not a human mind; a cause, but not a material cause, nor yet a maker or artificer.
The words which we use are imperfect expressions of His true nature; but we do not therefore lose faith in what is best and highest in ourselves and in the world.
'A little philosophy takes us away from God; a great deal brings us back to Him.'
When we begin to reflect, our first thoughts respecting Him and ourselves are apt to be sceptical.
For we can analyze our religious as well as our other ideas; we can trace their history; we can criticize their perversion; we see that they are relative to the human mind and to one another.
But when we have carried our criticism to the furthest point, they still remain, a necessity of our moral nature, better known and understood by us, and less liable to be shaken, because we are more aware of their necessary imperfection.
They come to us with 'better opinion, better confirmation,' not merely as the inspirations either of ourselves or of another, but deeply rooted in history and in the human mind.
PARMENIDES PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Cephalus, Adeimantus, Glaucon, Antiphon, Pythodorus, Socrates, Zeno, Parmenides, Aristoteles.
Cephalus rehearses a dialogue which is supposed to have been narrated in his presence by Antiphon, the half-brother of Adeimantus and Glaucon, to certain Clazomenians.
We had come from our home at Clazomenae to Athens, and met Adeimantus and Glaucon in the Agora.
Welcome, Cephalus, said Adeimantus, taking me by the hand; is there anything which we can do for you in Athens?
Yes; that is why I am here; I wish to ask a favour of you.
What may that be?
he said.
I want you to tell me the name of your half brother, which I have forgotten; he was a mere child when I last came hither from Clazomenae, but that was a long time ago; his father's name, if I remember rightly, was Pyrilampes?
Yes, he said, and the name of our brother, Antiphon; but why do you ask?
Let me introduce some countrymen of mine, I said; they are lovers of philosophy, and have heard that Antiphon was intimate with a certain Pythodorus, a friend of Zeno, and remembers a conversation which took place between Socrates, Zeno, and Parmenides many years ago, Pythodorus having often recited it to him.
Quite true.
And could we hear it?
I asked.
Nothing easier, he replied; when he was a youth he made a careful study of the piece; at present his thoughts run in another direction; like his grandfather Antiphon he is devoted to horses.
But, if that is what you want, let us go and look for him; he dwells at Melita, which is quite near, and he has only just left us to go home.
Accordingly we went to look for him; he was at home, and in the act of giving a bridle to a smith to be fitted.
When he had done with the smith, his brothers told him the purpose of our visit; and he saluted me as an acquaintance whom he remembered from my former visit, and we asked him to repeat the dialogue.
At first he was not very willing, and complained of the trouble, but at length he consented.
He told us that Pythodorus had described to him the appearance of Parmenides and Zeno; they came to Athens, as he said, at the great Panathenaea; the former was, at the time of his visit, about 65 years old, very white with age, but well favoured.
Zeno was nearly 40 years of age, tall and fair to look upon; in the days of his youth he was reported to have been beloved by Parmenides.
He said that they lodged with Pythodorus in the Ceramicus, outside the wall, whither Socrates, then a very young man, came to see them, and many others with him; they wanted to hear the writings of Zeno, which had been brought to Athens for the first time on the occasion of their visit.
These Zeno himself read to them in the absence of Parmenides, and had very nearly finished when Pythodorus entered, and with him Parmenides and Aristoteles who was afterwards one of the Thirty, and heard the little that remained of the dialogue.
Pythodorus had heard Zeno repeat them before.
When the recitation was completed, Socrates requested that the first thesis of the first argument might be read over again, and this having been done, he said: What is your meaning, Zeno?
Do you maintain that if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and that this is impossible, for neither can the like be unlike, nor the unlike like--is that your position?
Just so, said Zeno.
And if the unlike cannot be like, or the like unlike, then according to you, being could not be many; for this would involve an impossibility.
In all that you say have you any other purpose except to disprove the being of the many?
and is not each division of your treatise intended to furnish a separate proof of this, there being in all as many proofs of the not-being of the many as you have composed arguments?
Is that your meaning, or have I misunderstood you?
No, said Zeno; you have correctly understood my general purpose.
I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno would like to be not only one with you in friendship but your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way, and would fain make believe that he is telling us something which is new.
For you, in your poems, say The All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he on the other hand says There is no many; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming evidence.
You affirm unity, he denies plurality.
And so you deceive the world into believing that you are saying different things when really you are saying much the same.
This is a strain of art beyond the reach of most of us.
Yes, Socrates, said Zeno.
But although you are as keen as a Spartan hound in pursuing the track, you do not fully apprehend the true motive of the composition, which is not really such an artificial work as you imagine; for what you speak of was an accident; there was no pretence of a great purpose; nor any serious intention of deceiving the world.
The truth is, that these writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who make fun of him and seek to show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation of the one.
My answer is addressed to the partisans of the many, whose attack I return with interest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of many, if carried out, appears to be still more ridiculous than the hypothesis of the being of one.
Zeal for my master led me to write the book in the days of my youth, but some one stole the copy; and therefore I had no choice whether it should be published or not; the motive, however, of writing, was not the ambition of an elder man, but the pugnacity of a young one.
This you do not seem to see, Socrates; though in other respects, as I was saying, your notion is a very just one.
I understand, said Socrates, and quite accept your account.
But tell me, Zeno, do you not further think that there is an idea of likeness in itself, and another idea of unlikeness, which is the opposite of likeness, and that in these two, you and I and all other things to which we apply the term many, participate--things which participate in likeness become in that degree and manner like; and so far as they participate in unlikeness become in that degree unlike, or both like and unlike in the degree in which they participate in both?
And may not all things partake of both opposites, and be both like and unlike, by reason of this participation?--Where is the wonder?
Now if a person could prove the absolute like to become unlike, or the absolute unlike to become like, that, in my opinion, would indeed be a wonder; but there is nothing extraordinary, Zeno, in showing that the things which only partake of likeness and unlikeness experience both.
Nor, again, if a person were to show that all is one by partaking of one, and at the same time many by partaking of many, would that be very astonishing.
But if he were to show me that the absolute one was many, or the absolute many one, I should be truly amazed.
And so of all the rest: I should be surprised to hear that the natures or ideas themselves had these opposite qualities; but not if a person wanted to prove of me that I was many and also one.
When he wanted to show that I was many he would say that I have a right and a left side, and a front and a back, and an upper and a lower half, for I cannot deny that I partake of multitude; when, on the other hand, he wants to prove that I am one, he will say, that we who are here assembled are seven, and that I am one and partake of the one.
In both instances he proves his case.
So again, if a person shows that such things as wood, stones, and the like, being many are also one, we admit that he shows the coexistence of the one and many, but he does not show that the many are one or the one many; he is uttering not a paradox but a truism.
If however, as I just now suggested, some one were to abstract simple notions of like, unlike, one, many, rest, motion, and similar ideas, and then to show that these admit of admixture and separation in themselves, I should be very much astonished.
This part of the argument appears to be treated by you, Zeno, in a very spirited manner; but, as I was saying, I should be far more amazed if any one found in the ideas themselves which are apprehended by reason, the same puzzle and entanglement which you have shown to exist in visible objects.
While Socrates was speaking, Pythodorus thought that Parmenides and Zeno were not altogether pleased at the successive steps of the argument; but still they gave the closest attention, and often looked at one another, and smiled as if in admiration of him.
When he had finished, Parmenides expressed their feelings in the following words:-Socrates, he said, I admire the bent of your mind towards philosophy; tell me now, was this your own distinction between ideas in themselves and the things which partake of them?
and do you think that there is an idea of likeness apart from the likeness which we possess, and of the one and many, and of the other things which Zeno mentioned?
I think that there are such ideas, said Socrates.
Parmenides proceeded: And would you also make absolute ideas of the just and the beautiful and the good, and of all that class?
Yes, he said, I should.
And would you make an idea of man apart from us and from all other human creatures, or of fire and water?
I am often undecided, Parmenides, as to whether I ought to include them or not.
And would you feel equally undecided, Socrates, about things of which the mention may provoke a smile?--I mean such things as hair, mud, dirt, or anything else which is vile and paltry; would you suppose that each of these has an idea distinct from the actual objects with which we come into contact, or not?
Certainly not, said Socrates; visible things like these are such as they appear to us, and I am afraid that there would be an absurdity in assuming any idea of them, although I sometimes get disturbed, and begin to think that there is nothing without an idea; but then again, when I have taken up this position, I run away, because I am afraid that I may fall into a bottomless pit of nonsense, and perish; and so I return to the ideas of which I was just now speaking, and occupy myself with them.
Yes, Socrates, said Parmenides; that is because you are still young; the time will come, if I am not mistaken, when philosophy will have a firmer grasp of you, and then you will not despise even the meanest things; at your age, you are too much disposed to regard the opinions of men.
But I should like to know whether you mean that there are certain ideas of which all other things partake, and from which they derive their names; that similars, for example, become similar, because they partake of similarity; and great things become great, because they partake of greatness; and that just and beautiful things become just and beautiful, because they partake of justice and beauty?
Yes, certainly, said Socrates that is my meaning.
Then each individual partakes either of the whole of the idea or else of a part of the idea?
Can there be any other mode of participation?
There cannot be, he said.
Then do you think that the whole idea is one, and yet, being one, is in each one of the many?
Why not, Parmenides?
said Socrates.
Because one and the same thing will exist as a whole at the same time in many separate individuals, and will therefore be in a state of separation from itself.
Nay, but the idea may be like the day which is one and the same in many places at once, and yet continuous with itself; in this way each idea may be one and the same in all at the same time.
I like your way, Socrates, of making one in many places at once.
You mean to say, that if I were to spread out a sail and cover a number of men, there would be one whole including many--is not that your meaning?
I think so.
And would you say that the whole sail includes each man, or a part of it only, and different parts different men?
The latter.
Then, Socrates, the ideas themselves will be divisible, and things which participate in them will have a part of them only and not the whole idea existing in each of them?
That seems to follow.
Then would you like to say, Socrates, that the one idea is really divisible and yet remains one?
Certainly not, he said.
Suppose that you divide absolute greatness, and that of the many great things, each one is great in virtue of a portion of greatness less than absolute greatness--is that conceivable?
No.
Or will each equal thing, if possessing some small portion of equality less than absolute equality, be equal to some other thing by virtue of that portion only?
Impossible.
Or suppose one of us to have a portion of smallness; this is but a part of the small, and therefore the absolutely small is greater; if the absolutely small be greater, that to which the part of the small is added will be smaller and not greater than before.
How absurd!
Then in what way, Socrates, will all things participate in the ideas, if they are unable to participate in them either as parts or wholes?
Indeed, he said, you have asked a question which is not easily answered.
Well, said Parmenides, and what do you say of another question?
What question?
I imagine that the way in which you are led to assume one idea of each kind is as follows:--You see a number of great objects, and when you look at them there seems to you to be one and the same idea (or nature) in them all; hence you conceive of greatness as one.
Very true, said Socrates.
And if you go on and allow your mind in like manner to embrace in one view the idea of greatness and of great things which are not the idea, and to compare them, will not another greatness arise, which will appear to be the source of all these?
It would seem so.
Then another idea of greatness now comes into view over and above absolute greatness, and the individuals which partake of it; and then another, over and above all these, by virtue of which they will all be great, and so each idea instead of being one will be infinitely multiplied.
But may not the ideas, asked Socrates, be thoughts only, and have no proper existence except in our minds, Parmenides?
For in that case each idea may still be one, and not experience this infinite multiplication.
And can there be individual thoughts which are thoughts of nothing?
Impossible, he said.
The thought must be of something?
Yes.
Of something which is or which is not?
Of something which is.
Must it not be of a single something, which the thought recognizes as attaching to all, being a single form or nature?
Yes.
And will not the something which is apprehended as one and the same in all, be an idea?
From that, again, there is no escape.
Then, said Parmenides, if you say that everything else participates in the ideas, must you not say either that everything is made up of thoughts, and that all things think; or that they are thoughts but have no thought?
The latter view, Parmenides, is no more rational than the previous one.
In my opinion, the ideas are, as it were, patterns fixed in nature, and other things are like them, and resemblances of them--what is meant by the participation of other things in the ideas, is really assimilation to them.
But if, said he, the individual is like the idea, must not the idea also be like the individual, in so far as the individual is a resemblance of the idea?
That which is like, cannot be conceived of as other than the like of like.
Impossible.
And when two things are alike, must they not partake of the same idea?
They must.
And will not that of which the two partake, and which makes them alike, be the idea itself?
Certainly.
Then the idea cannot be like the individual, or the individual like the idea; for if they are alike, some further idea of likeness will always be coming to light, and if that be like anything else, another; and new ideas will be always arising, if the idea resembles that which partakes of it?
Quite true.
The theory, then, that other things participate in the ideas by resemblance, has to be given up, and some other mode of participation devised?
It would seem so.
Do you see then, Socrates, how great is the difficulty of affirming the ideas to be absolute?
Yes, indeed.
And, further, let me say that as yet you only understand a small part of the difficulty which is involved if you make of each thing a single idea, parting it off from other things.
What difficulty?
he said.
There are many, but the greatest of all is this:--If an opponent argues that these ideas, being such as we say they ought to be, must remain unknown, no one can prove to him that he is wrong, unless he who denies their existence be a man of great ability and knowledge, and is willing to follow a long and laborious demonstration; he will remain unconvinced, and still insist that they cannot be known.
What do you mean, Parmenides?
said Socrates.
In the first place, I think, Socrates, that you, or any one who maintains the existence of absolute essences, will admit that they cannot exist in us.
No, said Socrates; for then they would be no longer absolute.
True, he said; and therefore when ideas are what they are in relation to one another, their essence is determined by a relation among themselves, and has nothing to do with the resemblances, or whatever they are to be termed, which are in our sphere, and from which we receive this or that name when we partake of them.
And the things which are within our sphere and have the same names with them, are likewise only relative to one another, and not to the ideas which have the same names with them, but belong to themselves and not to them.
What do you mean?
said Socrates.
I may illustrate my meaning in this way, said Parmenides:--A master has a slave; now there is nothing absolute in the relation between them, which is simply a relation of one man to another.
But there is also an idea of mastership in the abstract, which is relative to the idea of slavery in the abstract.
These natures have nothing to do with us, nor we with them; they are concerned with themselves only, and we with ourselves.
Do you see my meaning?
Yes, said Socrates, I quite see your meaning.
And will not knowledge--I mean absolute knowledge--answer to absolute truth?
Certainly.
And each kind of absolute knowledge will answer to each kind of absolute being?
Yes.
But the knowledge which we have, will answer to the truth which we have; and again, each kind of knowledge which we have, will be a knowledge of each kind of being which we have?
Certainly.
But the ideas themselves, as you admit, we have not, and cannot have?
No, we cannot.
And the absolute natures or kinds are known severally by the absolute idea of knowledge?
Yes.
And we have not got the idea of knowledge?
No.
Then none of the ideas are known to us, because we have no share in absolute knowledge?
I suppose not.
Then the nature of the beautiful in itself, and of the good in itself, and all other ideas which we suppose to exist absolutely, are unknown to us?
It would seem so.
I think that there is a stranger consequence still.
What is it?
Would you, or would you not say, that absolute knowledge, if there is such a thing, must be a far more exact knowledge than our knowledge; and the same of beauty and of the rest?
Yes.
And if there be such a thing as participation in absolute knowledge, no one is more likely than God to have this most exact knowledge?
Certainly.
But then, will God, having absolute knowledge, have a knowledge of human things?
Why not?
Because, Socrates, said Parmenides, we have admitted that the ideas are not valid in relation to human things; nor human things in relation to them; the relations of either are limited to their respective spheres.
Yes, that has been admitted.
And if God has this perfect authority, and perfect knowledge, his authority cannot rule us, nor his knowledge know us, or any human thing; just as our authority does not extend to the gods, nor our knowledge know anything which is divine, so by parity of reason they, being gods, are not our masters, neither do they know the things of men.
Yet, surely, said Socrates, to deprive God of knowledge is monstrous.
These, Socrates, said Parmenides, are a few, and only a few of the difficulties in which we are involved if ideas really are and we determine each one of them to be an absolute unity.
He who hears what may be said against them will deny the very existence of them--and even if they do exist, he will say that they must of necessity be unknown to man; and he will seem to have reason on his side, and as we were remarking just now, will be very difficult to convince; a man must be gifted with very considerable ability before he can learn that everything has a class and an absolute essence; and still more remarkable will he be who discovers all these things for himself, and having thoroughly investigated them is able to teach them to others.
I agree with you, Parmenides, said Socrates; and what you say is very much to my mind.
And yet, Socrates, said Parmenides, if a man, fixing his attention on these and the like difficulties, does away with ideas of things and will not admit that every individual thing has its own determinate idea which is always one and the same, he will have nothing on which his mind can rest; and so he will utterly destroy the power of reasoning, as you seem to me to have particularly noted.
Very true, he said.
But, then, what is to become of philosophy?
Whither shall we turn, if the ideas are unknown?
I certainly do not see my way at present.
Yes, said Parmenides; and I think that this arises, Socrates, out of your attempting to define the beautiful, the just, the good, and the ideas generally, without sufficient previous training.
I noticed your deficiency, when I heard you talking here with your friend Aristoteles, the day before yesterday.
The impulse that carries you towards philosophy is assuredly noble and divine; but there is an art which is called by the vulgar idle talking, and which is often imagined to be useless; in that you must train and exercise yourself, now that you are young, or truth will elude your grasp.
And what is the nature of this exercise, Parmenides, which you would recommend?
That which you heard Zeno practising; at the same time, I give you credit for saying to him that you did not care to examine the perplexity in reference to visible things, or to consider the question that way; but only in reference to objects of thought, and to what may be called ideas.
Why, yes, he said, there appears to me to be no difficulty in showing by this method that visible things are like and unlike and may experience anything.
Quite true, said Parmenides; but I think that you should go a step further, and consider not only the consequences which flow from a given hypothesis, but also the consequences which flow from denying the hypothesis; and that will be still better training for you.
What do you mean?
he said.
I mean, for example, that in the case of this very hypothesis of Zeno's about the many, you should inquire not only what will be the consequences to the many in relation to themselves and to the one, and to the one in relation to itself and the many, on the hypothesis of the being of the many, but also what will be the consequences to the one and the many in their relation to themselves and to each other, on the opposite hypothesis.
Or, again, if likeness is or is not, what will be the consequences in either of these cases to the subjects of the hypothesis, and to other things, in relation both to themselves and to one another, and so of unlikeness; and the same holds good of motion and rest, of generation and destruction, and even of being and not-being.
In a word, when you suppose anything to be or not to be, or to be in any way affected, you must look at the consequences in relation to the thing itself, and to any other things which you choose,--to each of them singly, to more than one, and to all; and so of other things, you must look at them in relation to themselves and to anything else which you suppose either to be or not to be, if you would train yourself perfectly and see the real truth.
That, Parmenides, is a tremendous business of which you speak, and I do not quite understand you; will you take some hypothesis and go through the steps?--then I shall apprehend you better.
That, Socrates, is a serious task to impose on a man of my years.
Then will you, Zeno?
said Socrates.
Zeno answered with a smile:--Let us make our petition to Parmenides himself, who is quite right in saying that you are hardly aware of the extent of the task which you are imposing on him; and if there were more of us I should not ask him, for these are not subjects which any one, especially at his age, can well speak of before a large audience; most people are not aware that this roundabout progress through all things is the only way in which the mind can attain truth and wisdom.
And therefore, Parmenides, I join in the request of Socrates, that I may hear the process again which I have not heard for a long time.
When Zeno had thus spoken, Pythodorus, according to Antiphon's report of him, said, that he himself and Aristoteles and the whole company entreated Parmenides to give an example of the process.
I cannot refuse, said Parmenides; and yet I feel rather like Ibycus, who, when in his old age, against his will, he fell in love, compared himself to an old racehorse, who was about to run in a chariot race, shaking with fear at the course he knew so well--this was his simile of himself.
And I also experience a trembling when I remember through what an ocean of words I have to wade at my time of life.
But I must indulge you, as Zeno says that I ought, and we are alone.
Where shall I begin?
And what shall be our first hypothesis, if I am to attempt this laborious pastime?
Shall I begin with myself, and take my own hypothesis the one?
and consider the consequences which follow on the supposition either of the being or of the not-being of one?
By all means, said Zeno.
And who will answer me?
he said.
Shall I propose the youngest?
He will not make difficulties and will be the most likely to say what he thinks; and his answers will give me time to breathe.
I am the one whom you mean, Parmenides, said Aristoteles; for I am the youngest and at your service.
Ask, and I will answer.
Parmenides proceeded: 1.a.
If one is, he said, the one cannot be many?
Impossible.
Then the one cannot have parts, and cannot be a whole?
Why not?
Because every part is part of a whole; is it not?
Yes.
And what is a whole?
would not that of which no part is wanting be a whole?
Certainly.
Then, in either case, the one would be made up of parts; both as being a whole, and also as having parts?
To be sure.
And in either case, the one would be many, and not one?
True.
But, surely, it ought to be one and not many?
It ought.
Then, if the one is to remain one, it will not be a whole, and will not have parts?
No.
But if it has no parts, it will have neither beginning, middle, nor end; for these would of course be parts of it.
Right.
But then, again, a beginning and an end are the limits of everything?
Certainly.
Then the one, having neither beginning nor end, is unlimited?
Yes, unlimited.
And therefore formless; for it cannot partake either of round or straight.
But why?
Why, because the round is that of which all the extreme points are equidistant from the centre?
Yes.
And the straight is that of which the centre intercepts the view of the extremes?
True.
Then the one would have parts and would be many, if it partook either of a straight or of a circular form?
Assuredly.
But having no parts, it will be neither straight nor round?
Right.
And, being of such a nature, it cannot be in any place, for it cannot be either in another or in itself.
How so?
Because if it were in another, it would be encircled by that in which it was, and would touch it at many places and with many parts; but that which is one and indivisible, and does not partake of a circular nature, cannot be touched all round in many places.
Certainly not.
But if, on the other hand, one were in itself, it would also be contained by nothing else but itself; that is to say, if it were really in itself; for nothing can be in anything which does not contain it.
Impossible.
But then, that which contains must be other than that which is contained?
for the same whole cannot do and suffer both at once; and if so, one will be no longer one, but two?
True.
Then one cannot be anywhere, either in itself or in another?
No.
Further consider, whether that which is of such a nature can have either rest or motion.
Why not?
Why, because the one, if it were moved, would be either moved in place or changed in nature; for these are the only kinds of motion.
Yes.
And the one, when it changes and ceases to be itself, cannot be any longer one.
It cannot.
It cannot therefore experience the sort of motion which is change of nature?
Clearly not.
Then can the motion of the one be in place?
Perhaps.
But if the one moved in place, must it not either move round and round in the same place, or from one place to another?
It must.
And that which moves in a circle must rest upon a centre; and that which goes round upon a centre must have parts which are different from the centre; but that which has no centre and no parts cannot possibly be carried round upon a centre?
Impossible.
But perhaps the motion of the one consists in change of place?
Perhaps so, if it moves at all.
And have we not already shown that it cannot be in anything?
Yes.
Then its coming into being in anything is still more impossible; is it not?
I do not see why.
Why, because anything which comes into being in anything, can neither as yet be in that other thing while still coming into being, nor be altogether out of it, if already coming into being in it.
Certainly not.
And therefore whatever comes into being in another must have parts, and then one part may be in, and another part out of that other; but that which has no parts can never be at one and the same time neither wholly within nor wholly without anything.
True.
And is there not a still greater impossibility in that which has no parts, and is not a whole, coming into being anywhere, since it cannot come into being either as a part or as a whole?
Clearly.
Then it does not change place by revolving in the same spot, nor by going somewhere and coming into being in something; nor again, by change in itself?
Very true.
Then in respect of any kind of motion the one is immoveable?
Immoveable.
But neither can the one be in anything, as we affirm?
Yes, we said so.
Then it is never in the same?
Why not?
Because if it were in the same it would be in something.
Certainly.
And we said that it could not be in itself, and could not be in other?
True.
Then one is never in the same place?
It would seem not.
But that which is never in the same place is never quiet or at rest?
Never.
One then, as would seem, is neither at rest nor in motion?
It certainly appears so.
Neither will it be the same with itself or other; nor again, other than itself or other.
How is that?
If other than itself it would be other than one, and would not be one.
True.
And if the same with other, it would be that other, and not itself; so that upon this supposition too, it would not have the nature of one, but would be other than one?
It would.
Then it will not be the same with other, or other than itself?
It will not.
Neither will it be other than other, while it remains one; for not one, but only other, can be other than other, and nothing else.
True.
Then not by virtue of being one will it be other?
Certainly not.
But if not by virtue of being one, not by virtue of itself; and if not by virtue of itself, not itself, and itself not being other at all, will not be other than anything?
Right.
Neither will one be the same with itself.
How not?
Surely the nature of the one is not the nature of the same.
Why not?
It is not when anything becomes the same with anything that it becomes one.
What of that?
Anything which becomes the same with the many, necessarily becomes many and not one.
True.
But, if there were no difference between the one and the same, when a thing became the same, it would always become one; and when it became one, the same?
Certainly.
And, therefore, if one be the same with itself, it is not one with itself, and will therefore be one and also not one.
Surely that is impossible.
And therefore the one can neither be other than other, nor the same with itself.
Impossible.
And thus the one can neither be the same, nor other, either in relation to itself or other?
No.
Neither will the one be like anything or unlike itself or other.
Why not?
Because likeness is sameness of affections.
Yes.
And sameness has been shown to be of a nature distinct from oneness?
That has been shown.
But if the one had any other affection than that of being one, it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one; which is impossible.
True.
Then the one can never be so affected as to be the same either with another or with itself?
Clearly not.
Then it cannot be like another, or like itself?
No.
Nor can it be affected so as to be other, for then it would be affected in such a way as to be more than one.
It would.
That which is affected otherwise than itself or another, will be unlike itself or another, for sameness of affections is likeness.
True.
But the one, as appears, never being affected otherwise, is never unlike itself or other?
Never.
Then the one will never be either like or unlike itself or other?
Plainly not.
Again, being of this nature, it can neither be equal nor unequal either to itself or to other.
How is that?
Why, because the one if equal must be of the same measures as that to which it is equal.
True.
And if greater or less than things which are commensurable with it, the one will have more measures than that which is less, and fewer than that which is greater?
Yes.
And so of things which are not commensurate with it, the one will have greater measures than that which is less and smaller than that which is greater.
Certainly.
But how can that which does not partake of sameness, have either the same measures or have anything else the same?
Impossible.
And not having the same measures, the one cannot be equal either with itself or with another?
It appears so.
But again, whether it have fewer or more measures, it will have as many parts as it has measures; and thus again the one will be no longer one but will have as many parts as measures.
Right.
And if it were of one measure, it would be equal to that measure; yet it has been shown to be incapable of equality.
It has.
Then it will neither partake of one measure, nor of many, nor of few, nor of the same at all, nor be equal to itself or another; nor be greater or less than itself, or other?
Certainly.
Well, and do we suppose that one can be older, or younger than anything, or of the same age with it?
Why not?
Why, because that which is of the same age with itself or other, must partake of equality or likeness of time; and we said that the one did not partake either of equality or of likeness?
We did say so.
And we also said, that it did not partake of inequality or unlikeness.
Very true.
How then can one, being of this nature, be either older or younger than anything, or have the same age with it?
In no way.
Then one cannot be older or younger, or of the same age, either with itself or with another?
Clearly not.
Then the one, being of this nature, cannot be in time at all; for must not that which is in time, be always growing older than itself?
Certainly.
And that which is older, must always be older than something which is younger?
True.
Then, that which becomes older than itself, also becomes at the same time younger than itself, if it is to have something to become older than.
What do you mean?
I mean this:--A thing does not need to become different from another thing which is already different; it IS different, and if its different has become, it has become different; if its different will be, it will be different; but of that which is becoming different, there cannot have been, or be about to be, or yet be, a different--the only different possible is one which is becoming.
That is inevitable.
But, surely, the elder is a difference relative to the younger, and to nothing else.
True.
Then that which becomes older than itself must also, at the same time, become younger than itself?
Yes.
But again, it is true that it cannot become for a longer or for a shorter time than itself, but it must become, and be, and have become, and be about to be, for the same time with itself?
That again is inevitable.
Then things which are in time, and partake of time, must in every case, I suppose, be of the same age with themselves; and must also become at once older and younger than themselves?
Yes.
But the one did not partake of those affections?
Not at all.
Then it does not partake of time, and is not in any time?
So the argument shows.
Well, but do not the expressions 'was,' and 'has become,' and 'was becoming,' signify a participation of past time?
Certainly.
And do not 'will be,' 'will become,' 'will have become,' signify a participation of future time?
Yes.
And 'is,' or 'becomes,' signifies a participation of present time?
Certainly.
And if the one is absolutely without participation in time, it never had become, or was becoming, or was at any time, or is now become or is becoming, or is, or will become, or will have become, or will be, hereafter.
Most true.
But are there any modes of partaking of being other than these?
There are none.
Then the one cannot possibly partake of being?
That is the inference.
Then the one is not at all?
Clearly not.
Then the one does not exist in such way as to be one; for if it were and partook of being, it would already be; but if the argument is to be trusted, the one neither is nor is one?
True.
But that which is not admits of no attribute or relation?
Of course not.
Then there is no name, nor expression, nor perception, nor opinion, nor knowledge of it?
Clearly not.
Then it is neither named, nor expressed, nor opined, nor known, nor does anything that is perceive it.
So we must infer.
But can all this be true about the one?
I think not.
1.b.
Suppose, now, that we return once more to the original hypothesis; let us see whether, on a further review, any new aspect of the question appears.
I shall be very happy to do so.
We say that we have to work out together all the consequences, whatever they may be, which follow, if the one is?
Yes.
Then we will begin at the beginning:--If one is, can one be, and not partake of being?
Impossible.
Then the one will have being, but its being will not be the same with the one; for if the same, it would not be the being of the one; nor would the one have participated in being, for the proposition that one is would have been identical with the proposition that one is one; but our hypothesis is not if one is one, what will follow, but if one is:--am I not right?
Quite right.
We mean to say, that being has not the same significance as one?
Of course.
And when we put them together shortly, and say 'One is,' that is equivalent to saying, 'partakes of being'?
Quite true.
Once more then let us ask, if one is what will follow.
Does not this hypothesis necessarily imply that one is of such a nature as to have parts?
How so?
In this way:--If being is predicated of the one, if the one is, and one of being, if being is one; and if being and one are not the same; and since the one, which we have assumed, is, must not the whole, if it is one, itself be, and have for its parts, one and being?
Certainly.
And is each of these parts--one and being--to be simply called a part, or must the word 'part' be relative to the word 'whole'?
The latter.
Then that which is one is both a whole and has a part?
Certainly.
Again, of the parts of the one, if it is--I mean being and one--does either fail to imply the other?
is the one wanting to being, or being to the one?
Impossible.
Thus, each of the parts also has in turn both one and being, and is at the least made up of two parts; and the same principle goes on for ever, and every part whatever has always these two parts; for being always involves one, and one being; so that one is always disappearing, and becoming two.
Certainly.
And so the one, if it is, must be infinite in multiplicity?
Clearly.
Let us take another direction.
What direction?
We say that the one partakes of being and therefore it is?
Yes.
And in this way, the one, if it has being, has turned out to be many?
True.
But now, let us abstract the one which, as we say, partakes of being, and try to imagine it apart from that of which, as we say, it partakes--will this abstract one be one only or many?
One, I think.
Let us see:--Must not the being of one be other than one?
for the one is not being, but, considered as one, only partook of being?
Certainly.
If being and the one be two different things, it is not because the one is one that it is other than being; nor because being is being that it is other than the one; but they differ from one another in virtue of otherness and difference.
Certainly.
So that the other is not the same--either with the one or with being?
Certainly not.
And therefore whether we take being and the other, or being and the one, or the one and the other, in every such case we take two things, which may be rightly called both.
How so.
In this way--you may speak of being?
Yes.
And also of one?
Yes.
Then now we have spoken of either of them?
Yes.
Well, and when I speak of being and one, I speak of them both?
Certainly.
And if I speak of being and the other, or of the one and the other,--in any such case do I not speak of both?
Yes.
And must not that which is correctly called both, be also two?
Undoubtedly.
And of two things how can either by any possibility not be one?
It cannot.
Then, if the individuals of the pair are together two, they must be severally one?
Clearly.
And if each of them is one, then by the addition of any one to any pair, the whole becomes three?
Yes.
And three are odd, and two are even?
Of course.
And if there are two there must also be twice, and if there are three there must be thrice; that is, if twice one makes two, and thrice one three?
Certainly.
There are two, and twice, and therefore there must be twice two; and there are three, and there is thrice, and therefore there must be thrice three?
Of course.
If there are three and twice, there is twice three; and if there are two and thrice, there is thrice two?
Undoubtedly.
Here, then, we have even taken even times, and odd taken odd times, and even taken odd times, and odd taken even times.
True.
And if this is so, does any number remain which has no necessity to be?
None whatever.
Then if one is, number must also be?
It must.
But if there is number, there must also be many, and infinite multiplicity of being; for number is infinite in multiplicity, and partakes also of being: am I not right?
Certainly.
And if all number participates in being, every part of number will also participate?
Yes.
Then being is distributed over the whole multitude of things, and nothing that is, however small or however great, is devoid of it?
And, indeed, the very supposition of this is absurd, for how can that which is, be devoid of being?
In no way.
And it is divided into the greatest and into the smallest, and into being of all sizes, and is broken up more than all things; the divisions of it have no limit.
True.
Then it has the greatest number of parts?
Yes, the greatest number.
Is there any of these which is a part of being, and yet no part?
Impossible.
But if it is at all and so long as it is, it must be one, and cannot be none?
Certainly.
Then the one attaches to every single part of being, and does not fail in any part, whether great or small, or whatever may be the size of it?
True.
But reflect:--Can one, in its entirety, be in many places at the same time?
No; I see the impossibility of that.
And if not in its entirety, then it is divided; for it cannot be present with all the parts of being, unless divided.
True.
And that which has parts will be as many as the parts are?
Certainly.
Then we were wrong in saying just now, that being was distributed into the greatest number of parts.
For it is not distributed into parts more than the one, into parts equal to the one; the one is never wanting to being, or being to the one, but being two they are co-equal and co-extensive.
Certainly that is true.
The one itself, then, having been broken up into parts by being, is many and infinite?
True.
Then not only the one which has being is many, but the one itself distributed by being, must also be many?
Certainly.
Further, inasmuch as the parts are parts of a whole, the one, as a whole, will be limited; for are not the parts contained by the whole?
Certainly.
And that which contains, is a limit?
Of course.
Then the one if it has being is one and many, whole and parts, having limits and yet unlimited in number?
Clearly.
And because having limits, also having extremes?
Certainly.
And if a whole, having beginning and middle and end.
For can anything be a whole without these three?
And if any one of them is wanting to anything, will that any longer be a whole?
No.
Then the one, as appears, will have beginning, middle, and end.
It will.
But, again, the middle will be equidistant from the extremes; or it would not be in the middle?
Yes.
Then the one will partake of figure, either rectilinear or round, or a union of the two?
True.
And if this is the case, it will be both in itself and in another too.
How?
Every part is in the whole, and none is outside the whole.
True.
And all the parts are contained by the whole?
Yes.
And the one is all its parts, and neither more nor less than all?
No.
And the one is the whole?
Of course.
But if all the parts are in the whole, and the one is all of them and the whole, and they are all contained by the whole, the one will be contained by the one; and thus the one will be in itself.
That is true.
But then, again, the whole is not in the parts--neither in all the parts, nor in some one of them.
For if it is in all, it must be in one; for if there were any one in which it was not, it could not be in all the parts; for the part in which it is wanting is one of all, and if the whole is not in this, how can it be in them all?
It cannot.
Nor can the whole be in some of the parts; for if the whole were in some of the parts, the greater would be in the less, which is impossible.
Yes, impossible.
But if the whole is neither in one, nor in more than one, nor in all of the parts, it must be in something else, or cease to be anywhere at all?
Certainly.
If it were nowhere, it would be nothing; but being a whole, and not being in itself, it must be in another.
Very true.
The one then, regarded as a whole, is in another, but regarded as being all its parts, is in itself; and therefore the one must be itself in itself and also in another.
Certainly.
The one then, being of this nature, is of necessity both at rest and in motion?
How?
The one is at rest since it is in itself, for being in one, and not passing out of this, it is in the same, which is itself.
True.
And that which is ever in the same, must be ever at rest?
Certainly.
Well, and must not that, on the contrary, which is ever in other, never be in the same; and if never in the same, never at rest, and if not at rest, in motion?
True.
Then the one being always itself in itself and other, must always be both at rest and in motion?
Clearly.
And must be the same with itself, and other than itself; and also the same with the others, and other than the others; this follows from its previous affections.
How so?
Everything in relation to every other thing, is either the same or other; or if neither the same nor other, then in the relation of a part to a whole, or of a whole to a part.
Clearly.
And is the one a part of itself?
Certainly not.
Since it is not a part in relation to itself it cannot be related to itself as whole to part?
It cannot.
But is the one other than one?
No.
And therefore not other than itself?
Certainly not.
If then it be neither other, nor a whole, nor a part in relation to itself, must it not be the same with itself?
Certainly.
But then, again, a thing which is in another place from 'itself,' if this 'itself' remains in the same place with itself, must be other than 'itself,' for it will be in another place?
True.
Then the one has been shown to be at once in itself and in another?
Yes.
Thus, then, as appears, the one will be other than itself?
True.
Well, then, if anything be other than anything, will it not be other than that which is other?
Certainly.
And will not all things that are not one, be other than the one, and the one other than the not-one?
Of course.
Then the one will be other than the others?
True.
But, consider:--Are not the absolute same, and the absolute other, opposites to one another?
Of course.
Then will the same ever be in the other, or the other in the same?
They will not.
If then the other is never in the same, there is nothing in which the other is during any space of time; for during that space of time, however small, the other would be in the same.
Is not that true?
Yes.
And since the other is never in the same, it can never be in anything that is.
True.
Then the other will never be either in the not-one, or in the one?
Certainly not.
Then not by reason of otherness is the one other than the not-one, or the not-one other than the one.
No.
Nor by reason of themselves will they be other than one another, if not partaking of the other.
How can they be?
But if they are not other, either by reason of themselves or of the other, will they not altogether escape being other than one another?
They will.
Again, the not-one cannot partake of the one; otherwise it would not have been not-one, but would have been in some way one.
True.
Nor can the not-one be number; for having number, it would not have been not-one at all.
It would not.
Again, is the not-one part of the one; or rather, would it not in that case partake of the one?
It would.
If then, in every point of view, the one and the not-one are distinct, then neither is the one part or whole of the not-one, nor is the not-one part or whole of the one?
No.
But we said that things which are neither parts nor wholes of one another, nor other than one another, will be the same with one another:--so we said?
Yes.
Then shall we say that the one, being in this relation to the not-one, is the same with it?
Let us say so.
Then it is the same with itself and the others, and also other than itself and the others.
That appears to be the inference.
And it will also be like and unlike itself and the others?
Perhaps.
Since the one was shown to be other than the others, the others will also be other than the one.
Yes.
And the one is other than the others in the same degree that the others are other than it, and neither more nor less?
True.
And if neither more nor less, then in a like degree?
Yes.
In virtue of the affection by which the one is other than others and others in like manner other than it, the one will be affected like the others and the others like the one.
How do you mean?
I may take as an illustration the case of names: You give a name to a thing?
Yes.
And you may say the name once or oftener?
Yes.
And when you say it once, you mention that of which it is the name?
and when more than once, is it something else which you mention?
or must it always be the same thing of which you speak, whether you utter the name once or more than once?
Of course it is the same.
And is not 'other' a name given to a thing?
Certainly.
Whenever, then, you use the word 'other,' whether once or oftener, you name that of which it is the name, and to no other do you give the name?
True.
Then when we say that the others are other than the one, and the one other than the others, in repeating the word 'other' we speak of that nature to which the name is applied, and of no other?
Quite true.
Then the one which is other than others, and the other which is other than the one, in that the word 'other' is applied to both, will be in the same condition; and that which is in the same condition is like?
Yes.
Then in virtue of the affection by which the one is other than the others, every thing will be like every thing, for every thing is other than every thing.
True.
Again, the like is opposed to the unlike?
Yes.
And the other to the same?
True again.
And the one was also shown to be the same with the others?
Yes.
And to be the same with the others is the opposite of being other than the others?
Certainly.
And in that it was other it was shown to be like?
Yes.
But in that it was the same it will be unlike by virtue of the opposite affection to that which made it like; and this was the affection of otherness.
Yes.
The same then will make it unlike; otherwise it will not be the opposite of the other.
True.
Then the one will be both like and unlike the others; like in so far as it is other, and unlike in so far as it is the same.
Yes, that argument may be used.
And there is another argument.
What?
In so far as it is affected in the same way it is not affected otherwise, and not being affected otherwise is not unlike, and not being unlike, is like; but in so far as it is affected by other it is otherwise, and being otherwise affected is unlike.
True.
Then because the one is the same with the others and other than the others, on either of these two grounds, or on both of them, it will be both like and unlike the others?
Certainly.
And in the same way as being other than itself and the same with itself, on either of these two grounds and on both of them, it will be like and unlike itself?
Of course.
Again, how far can the one touch or not touch itself and others?--consider.
I am considering.
The one was shown to be in itself which was a whole?
True.
And also in other things?
Yes.
In so far as it is in other things it would touch other things, but in so far as it is in itself it would be debarred from touching them, and would touch itself only.
Clearly.
Then the inference is that it would touch both?
It would.
But what do you say to a new point of view?
Must not that which is to touch another be next to that which it is to touch, and occupy the place nearest to that in which what it touches is situated?
True.
Then the one, if it is to touch itself, ought to be situated next to itself, and occupy the place next to that in which itself is?
It ought.
And that would require that the one should be two, and be in two places at once, and this, while it is one, will never happen.
No.
Then the one cannot touch itself any more than it can be two?
It cannot.
Neither can it touch others.
Why not?
The reason is, that whatever is to touch another must be in separation from, and next to, that which it is to touch, and no third thing can be between them.
True.
Two things, then, at the least are necessary to make contact possible?
They are.
And if to the two a third be added in due order, the number of terms will be three, and the contacts two?
Yes.
And every additional term makes one additional contact, whence it follows that the contacts are one less in number than the terms; the first two terms exceeded the number of contacts by one, and the whole number of terms exceeds the whole number of contacts by one in like manner; and for every one which is afterwards added to the number of terms, one contact is added to the contacts.
True.
Whatever is the whole number of things, the contacts will be always one less.
True.
But if there be only one, and not two, there will be no contact?
How can there be?
And do we not say that the others being other than the one are not one and have no part in the one?
True.
Then they have no number, if they have no one in them?
Of course not.
Then the others are neither one nor two, nor are they called by the name of any number?
No.
One, then, alone is one, and two do not exist?
Clearly not.
And if there are not two, there is no contact?
There is not.
Then neither does the one touch the others, nor the others the one, if there is no contact?
Certainly not.
For all which reasons the one touches and does not touch itself and the others?
True.
Further--is the one equal and unequal to itself and others?
How do you mean?
If the one were greater or less than the others, or the others greater or less than the one, they would not be greater or less than each other in virtue of their being the one and the others; but, if in addition to their being what they are they had equality, they would be equal to one another, or if the one had smallness and the others greatness, or the one had greatness and the others smallness--whichever kind had greatness would be greater, and whichever had smallness would be smaller?
Certainly.
Then there are two such ideas as greatness and smallness; for if they were not they could not be opposed to each other and be present in that which is.
How could they?
If, then, smallness is present in the one it will be present either in the whole or in a part of the whole?
Certainly.
Suppose the first; it will be either co-equal and co-extensive with the whole one, or will contain the one?
Clearly.
If it be co-extensive with the one it will be co-equal with the one, or if containing the one it will be greater than the one?
Of course.
But can smallness be equal to anything or greater than anything, and have the functions of greatness and equality and not its own functions?
Impossible.
Then smallness cannot be in the whole of one, but, if at all, in a part only?
Yes.
And surely not in all of a part, for then the difficulty of the whole will recur; it will be equal to or greater than any part in which it is.
Certainly.
Then smallness will not be in anything, whether in a whole or in a part; nor will there be anything small but actual smallness.
True.
Neither will greatness be in the one, for if greatness be in anything there will be something greater other and besides greatness itself, namely, that in which greatness is; and this too when the small itself is not there, which the one, if it is great, must exceed; this, however, is impossible, seeing that smallness is wholly absent.
True.
But absolute greatness is only greater than absolute smallness, and smallness is only smaller than absolute greatness.
Very true.
Then other things not greater or less than the one, if they have neither greatness nor smallness; nor have greatness or smallness any power of exceeding or being exceeded in relation to the one, but only in relation to one another; nor will the one be greater or less than them or others, if it has neither greatness nor smallness.
Clearly not.
Then if the one is neither greater nor less than the others, it cannot either exceed or be exceeded by them?
Certainly not.
And that which neither exceeds nor is exceeded, must be on an equality; and being on an equality, must be equal.
Of course.
And this will be true also of the relation of the one to itself; having neither greatness nor smallness in itself, it will neither exceed nor be exceeded by itself, but will be on an equality with and equal to itself.
Certainly.
Then the one will be equal both to itself and the others?
Clearly so.
And yet the one, being itself in itself, will also surround and be without itself; and, as containing itself, will be greater than itself; and, as contained in itself, will be less; and will thus be greater and less than itself.
It will.
Now there cannot possibly be anything which is not included in the one and the others?
Of course not.
But, surely, that which is must always be somewhere?
Yes.
But that which is in anything will be less, and that in which it is will be greater; in no other way can one thing be in another.
True.
And since there is nothing other or besides the one and the others, and they must be in something, must they not be in one another, the one in the others and the others in the one, if they are to be anywhere?
That is clear.
But inasmuch as the one is in the others, the others will be greater than the one, because they contain the one, which will be less than the others, because it is contained in them; and inasmuch as the others are in the one, the one on the same principle will be greater than the others, and the others less than the one.
True.
The one, then, will be equal to and greater and less than itself and the others?
Clearly.
And if it be greater and less and equal, it will be of equal and more and less measures or divisions than itself and the others, and if of measures, also of parts?
Of course.
And if of equal and more and less measures or divisions, it will be in number more or less than itself and the others, and likewise equal in number to itself and to the others?
How is that?
It will be of more measures than those things which it exceeds, and of as many parts as measures; and so with that to which it is equal, and that than which it is less.
True.
And being greater and less than itself, and equal to itself, it will be of equal measures with itself and of more and fewer measures than itself; and if of measures then also of parts?
It will.
And being of equal parts with itself, it will be numerically equal to itself; and being of more parts, more, and being of less, less than itself?
Certainly.
And the same will hold of its relation to other things; inasmuch as it is greater than them, it will be more in number than them; and inasmuch as it is smaller, it will be less in number; and inasmuch as it is equal in size to other things, it will be equal to them in number.
Certainly.
Once more, then, as would appear, the one will be in number both equal to and more and less than both itself and all other things.
It will.
Does the one also partake of time?
And is it and does it become older and younger than itself and others, and again, neither younger nor older than itself and others, by virtue of participation in time?
How do you mean?
If one is, being must be predicated of it?
Yes.
But to be (einai) is only participation of being in present time, and to have been is the participation of being at a past time, and to be about to be is the participation of being at a future time?
Very true.
Then the one, since it partakes of being, partakes of time?
Certainly.
And is not time always moving forward?
Yes.
Then the one is always becoming older than itself, since it moves forward in time?
Certainly.
And do you remember that the older becomes older than that which becomes younger?
I remember.
Then since the one becomes older than itself, it becomes younger at the same time?
Certainly.
Thus, then, the one becomes older as well as younger than itself?
Yes.
And it is older (is it not?)
when in becoming, it gets to the point of time between 'was' and 'will be,' which is 'now': for surely in going from the past to the future, it cannot skip the present?
No.
And when it arrives at the present it stops from becoming older, and no longer becomes, but is older, for if it went on it would never be reached by the present, for it is the nature of that which goes on, to touch both the present and the future, letting go the present and seizing the future, while in process of becoming between them.
True.
But that which is becoming cannot skip the present; when it reaches the present it ceases to become, and is then whatever it may happen to be becoming.
Clearly.
And so the one, when in becoming older it reaches the present, ceases to become, and is then older.
Certainly.
And it is older than that than which it was becoming older, and it was becoming older than itself.
Yes.
And that which is older is older than that which is younger?
True.
Then the one is younger than itself, when in becoming older it reaches the present?
Certainly.
But the present is always present with the one during all its being; for whenever it is it is always now.
Certainly.
Then the one always both is and becomes older and younger than itself?
Truly.
And is it or does it become a longer time than itself or an equal time with itself?
An equal time.
But if it becomes or is for an equal time with itself, it is of the same age with itself?
Of course.
And that which is of the same age, is neither older nor younger?
No.
The one, then, becoming and being the same time with itself, neither is nor becomes older or younger than itself?
I should say not.
And what are its relations to other things?
Is it or does it become older or younger than they?
I cannot tell you.
You can at least tell me that others than the one are more than the one--other would have been one, but the others have multitude, and are more than one?
They will have multitude.
And a multitude implies a number larger than one?
Of course.
And shall we say that the lesser or the greater is the first to come or to have come into existence?
The lesser.
Then the least is the first?
And that is the one?
Yes.
Then the one of all things that have number is the first to come into being; but all other things have also number, being plural and not singular.
They have.
And since it came into being first it must be supposed to have come into being prior to the others, and the others later; and the things which came into being later, are younger than that which preceded them?
And so the other things will be younger than the one, and the one older than other things?
True.
What would you say of another question?
Can the one have come into being contrary to its own nature, or is that impossible?
Impossible.
And yet, surely, the one was shown to have parts; and if parts, then a beginning, middle and end?
Yes.
And a beginning, both of the one itself and of all other things, comes into being first of all; and after the beginning, the others follow, until you reach the end?
Certainly.
And all these others we shall affirm to be parts of the whole and of the one, which, as soon as the end is reached, has become whole and one?
Yes; that is what we shall say.
But the end comes last, and the one is of such a nature as to come into being with the last; and, since the one cannot come into being except in accordance with its own nature, its nature will require that it should come into being after the others, simultaneously with the end.
Clearly.
Then the one is younger than the others and the others older than the one.
That also is clear in my judgment.
Well, and must not a beginning or any other part of the one or of anything, if it be a part and not parts, being a part, be also of necessity one?
Certainly.
And will not the one come into being together with each part--together with the first part when that comes into being, and together with the second part and with all the rest, and will not be wanting to any part, which is added to any other part until it has reached the last and become one whole; it will be wanting neither to the middle, nor to the first, nor to the last, nor to any of them, while the process of becoming is going on?
True.
Then the one is of the same age with all the others, so that if the one itself does not contradict its own nature, it will be neither prior nor posterior to the others, but simultaneous; and according to this argument the one will be neither older nor younger than the others, nor the others than the one, but according to the previous argument the one will be older and younger than the others and the others than the one.
Certainly.
After this manner then the one is and has become.
But as to its becoming older and younger than the others, and the others than the one, and neither older nor younger, what shall we say?
Shall we say as of being so also of becoming, or otherwise?
I cannot answer.
But I can venture to say, that even if one thing were older or younger than another, it could not become older or younger in a greater degree than it was at first; for equals added to unequals, whether to periods of time or to anything else, leave the difference between them the same as at first.
Of course.
Then that which is, cannot become older or younger than that which is, since the difference of age is always the same; the one is and has become older and the other younger; but they are no longer becoming so.
True.
And the one which is does not therefore become either older or younger than the others which are.
No.
But consider whether they may not become older and younger in another way.
In what way?
Just as the one was proven to be older than the others and the others than the one.
And what of that?
If the one is older than the others, has come into being a longer time than the others.
Yes.
But consider again; if we add equal time to a greater and a less time, will the greater differ from the less time by an equal or by a smaller portion than before?
By a smaller portion.
Then the difference between the age of the one and the age of the others will not be afterwards so great as at first, but if an equal time be added to both of them they will differ less and less in age?
Yes.
And that which differs in age from some other less than formerly, from being older will become younger in relation to that other than which it was older?
Yes, younger.
And if the one becomes younger the others aforesaid will become older than they were before, in relation to the one.
Certainly.
Then that which had become younger becomes older relatively to that which previously had become and was older; it never really is older, but is always becoming, for the one is always growing on the side of youth and the other on the side of age.
And in like manner the older is always in process of becoming younger than the younger; for as they are always going in opposite directions they become in ways the opposite to one another, the younger older than the older, and the older younger than the younger.
They cannot, however, have become; for if they had already become they would be and not merely become.
But that is impossible; for they are always becoming both older and younger than one another: the one becomes younger than the others because it was seen to be older and prior, and the others become older than the one because they came into being later; and in the same way the others are in the same relation to the one, because they were seen to be older, and prior to the one.
That is clear.
Inasmuch then, one thing does not become older or younger than another, in that they always differ from each other by an equal number, the one cannot become older or younger than the others, nor the others than the one; but inasmuch as that which came into being earlier and that which came into being later must continually differ from each other by a different portion--in this point of view the others must become older and younger than the one, and the one than the others.
Certainly.
For all these reasons, then, the one is and becomes older and younger than itself and the others, and neither is nor becomes older or younger than itself or the others.
Certainly.
But since the one partakes of time, and partakes of becoming older and younger, must it not also partake of the past, the present, and the future?
Of course it must.
Then the one was and is and will be, and was becoming and is becoming and will become?
Certainly.
And there is and was and will be something which is in relation to it and belongs to it?
True.
And since we have at this moment opinion and knowledge and perception of the one, there is opinion and knowledge and perception of it?
Quite right.
Then there is name and expression for it, and it is named and expressed, and everything of this kind which appertains to other things appertains to the one.
Certainly, that is true.
Yet once more and for the third time, let us consider: If the one is both one and many, as we have described, and is neither one nor many, and participates in time, must it not, in as far as it is one, at times partake of being, and in as far as it is not one, at times not partake of being?
Certainly.
But can it partake of being when not partaking of being, or not partake of being when partaking of being?
Impossible.
Then the one partakes and does not partake of being at different times, for that is the only way in which it can partake and not partake of the same.
True.
And is there not also a time at which it assumes being and relinquishes being--for how can it have and not have the same thing unless it receives and also gives it up at some time?
Impossible.
And the assuming of being is what you would call becoming?
I should.
And the relinquishing of being you would call destruction?
I should.
The one then, as would appear, becomes and is destroyed by taking and giving up being.
Certainly.
And being one and many and in process of becoming and being destroyed, when it becomes one it ceases to be many, and when many, it ceases to be one?
Certainly.
And as it becomes one and many, must it not inevitably experience separation and aggregation?
Inevitably.
And whenever it becomes like and unlike it must be assimilated and dissimilated?
Yes.
And when it becomes greater or less or equal it must grow or diminish or be equalized?
True.
And when being in motion it rests, and when being at rest it changes to motion, it can surely be in no time at all?
How can it?
But that a thing which is previously at rest should be afterwards in motion, or previously in motion and afterwards at rest, without experiencing change, is impossible.
Impossible.
And surely there cannot be a time in which a thing can be at once neither in motion nor at rest?
There cannot.
But neither can it change without changing.
True.
When then does it change; for it cannot change either when at rest, or when in motion, or when in time?
It cannot.
And does this strange thing in which it is at the time of changing really exist?
What thing?
The moment.
For the moment seems to imply a something out of which change takes place into either of two states; for the change is not from the state of rest as such, nor from the state of motion as such; but there is this curious nature which we call the moment lying between rest and motion, not being in any time; and into this and out of this what is in motion changes into rest, and what is at rest into motion.
So it appears.
And the one then, since it is at rest and also in motion, will change to either, for only in this way can it be in both.
And in changing it changes in a moment, and when it is changing it will be in no time, and will not then be either in motion or at rest.
It will not.
And it will be in the same case in relation to the other changes, when it passes from being into cessation of being, or from not-being into becoming--then it passes between certain states of motion and rest, and neither is nor is not, nor becomes nor is destroyed.
Very true.
And on the same principle, in the passage from one to many and from many to one, the one is neither one nor many, neither separated nor aggregated; and in the passage from like to unlike, and from unlike to like, it is neither like nor unlike, neither in a state of assimilation nor of dissimilation; and in the passage from small to great and equal and back again, it will be neither small nor great, nor equal, nor in a state of increase, or diminution, or equalization.
True.
All these, then, are the affections of the one, if the one has being.
Of course.
1.aa.
But if one is, what will happen to the others--is not that also to be considered?
Yes.
Let us show then, if one is, what will be the affections of the others than the one.
Let us do so.
Inasmuch as there are things other than the one, the others are not the one; for if they were they could not be other than the one.
Very true.
Nor are the others altogether without the one, but in a certain way they participate in the one.
In what way?
Because the others are other than the one inasmuch as they have parts; for if they had no parts they would be simply one.
Right.
And parts, as we affirm, have relation to a whole?
So we say.
And a whole must necessarily be one made up of many; and the parts will be parts of the one, for each of the parts is not a part of many, but of a whole.
How do you mean?
If anything were a part of many, being itself one of them, it will surely be a part of itself, which is impossible, and it will be a part of each one of the other parts, if of all; for if not a part of some one, it will be a part of all the others but this one, and thus will not be a part of each one; and if not a part of each, one it will not be a part of any one of the many; and not being a part of any one, it cannot be a part or anything else of all those things of none of which it is anything.
Clearly not.
Then the part is not a part of the many, nor of all, but is of a certain single form, which we call a whole, being one perfect unity framed out of all--of this the part will be a part.
Certainly.
If, then, the others have parts, they will participate in the whole and in the one.
True.
Then the others than the one must be one perfect whole, having parts.
Certainly.
And the same argument holds of each part, for the part must participate in the one; for if each of the parts is a part, this means, I suppose, that it is one separate from the rest and self-related; otherwise it is not each.
True.
But when we speak of the part participating in the one, it must clearly be other than one; for if not, it would not merely have participated, but would have been one; whereas only the itself can be one.
Very true.
Both the whole and the part must participate in the one; for the whole will be one whole, of which the parts will be parts; and each part will be one part of the whole which is the whole of the part.
True.
And will not the things which participate in the one, be other than it?
Of course.
And the things which are other than the one will be many; for if the things which are other than the one were neither one nor more than one, they would be nothing.
True.
But, seeing that the things which participate in the one as a part, and in the one as a whole, are more than one, must not those very things which participate in the one be infinite in number?
How so?
Let us look at the matter thus:--Is it not a fact that in partaking of the one they are not one, and do not partake of the one at the very time when they are partaking of it?
Clearly.
They do so then as multitudes in which the one is not present?
Very true.
And if we were to abstract from them in idea the very smallest fraction, must not that least fraction, if it does not partake of the one, be a multitude and not one?
It must.
And if we continue to look at the other side of their nature, regarded simply, and in itself, will not they, as far as we see them, be unlimited in number?
Certainly.
And yet, when each several part becomes a part, then the parts have a limit in relation to the whole and to each other, and the whole in relation to the parts.
Just so.
The result to the others than the one is that the union of themselves and the one appears to create a new element in them which gives to them limitation in relation to one another; whereas in their own nature they have no limit.
That is clear.
Then the others than the one, both as whole and parts, are infinite, and also partake of limit.
Certainly.
Then they are both like and unlike one another and themselves.
How is that?
Inasmuch as they are unlimited in their own nature, they are all affected in the same way.
True.
And inasmuch as they all partake of limit, they are all affected in the same way.
Of course.
But inasmuch as their state is both limited and unlimited, they are affected in opposite ways.
Yes.
And opposites are the most unlike of things.
Certainly.
Considered, then, in regard to either one of their affections, they will be like themselves and one another; considered in reference to both of them together, most opposed and most unlike.
That appears to be true.
Then the others are both like and unlike themselves and one another?
True.
And they are the same and also different from one another, and in motion and at rest, and experience every sort of opposite affection, as may be proved without difficulty of them, since they have been shown to have experienced the affections aforesaid?
True.
1.bb.
Suppose, now, that we leave the further discussion of these matters as evident, and consider again upon the hypothesis that the one is, whether opposite of all this is or is not equally true of the others.
By all means.
Then let us begin again, and ask, If one is, what must be the affections of the others?
Let us ask that question.
Must not the one be distinct from the others, and the others from the one?
Why so?
Why, because there is nothing else beside them which is distinct from both of them; for the expression 'one and the others' includes all things.
Yes, all things.
Then we cannot suppose that there is anything different from them in which both the one and the others might exist?
There is nothing.
Then the one and the others are never in the same?
True.
Then they are separated from each other?
Yes.
And we surely cannot say that what is truly one has parts?
Impossible.
Then the one will not be in the others as a whole, nor as part, if it be separated from the others, and has no parts?
Impossible.
Then there is no way in which the others can partake of the one, if they do not partake either in whole or in part?
It would seem not.
Then there is no way in which the others are one, or have in themselves any unity?
There is not.
Nor are the others many; for if they were many, each part of them would be a part of the whole; but now the others, not partaking in any way of the one, are neither one nor many, nor whole, nor part.
True.
Then the others neither are nor contain two or three, if entirely deprived of the one?
True.
Then the others are neither like nor unlike the one, nor is likeness and unlikeness in them; for if they were like and unlike, or had in them likeness and unlikeness, they would have two natures in them opposite to one another.
That is clear.
But for that which partakes of nothing to partake of two things was held by us to be impossible?
Impossible.
Then the others are neither like nor unlike nor both, for if they were like or unlike they would partake of one of those two natures, which would be one thing, and if they were both they would partake of opposites which would be two things, and this has been shown to be impossible.
True.
Therefore they are neither the same, nor other, nor in motion, nor at rest, nor in a state of becoming, nor of being destroyed, nor greater, nor less, nor equal, nor have they experienced anything else of the sort; for, if they are capable of experiencing any such affection, they will participate in one and two and three, and odd and even, and in these, as has been proved, they do not participate, seeing that they are altogether and in every way devoid of the one.
Very true.
Therefore if one is, the one is all things, and also nothing, both in relation to itself and to other things.
Certainly.
2.a.
Well, and ought we not to consider next what will be the consequence if the one is not?
Yes; we ought.
What is the meaning of the hypothesis--If the one is not; is there any difference between this and the hypothesis--If the not one is not?
There is a difference, certainly.
Is there a difference only, or rather are not the two expressions--if the one is not, and if the not one is not, entirely opposed?
They are entirely opposed.
And suppose a person to say:--If greatness is not, if smallness is not, or anything of that sort, does he not mean, whenever he uses such an expression, that 'what is not' is other than other things?
To be sure.
And so when he says 'If one is not' he clearly means, that what 'is not' is other than all others; we know what he means--do we not?
Yes, we do.
When he says 'one,' he says something which is known; and secondly something which is other than all other things; it makes no difference whether he predicate of one being or not-being, for that which is said 'not to be' is known to be something all the same, and is distinguished from other things.
Certainly.
Then I will begin again, and ask: If one is not, what are the consequences?
In the first place, as would appear, there is a knowledge of it, or the very meaning of the words, 'if one is not,' would not be known.
True.
Secondly, the others differ from it, or it could not be described as different from the others?
Certainly.
Difference, then, belongs to it as well as knowledge; for in speaking of the one as different from the others, we do not speak of a difference in the others, but in the one.
Clearly so.
Moreover, the one that is not is something and partakes of relation to 'that,' and 'this,' and 'these,' and the like, and is an attribute of 'this'; for the one, or the others than the one, could not have been spoken of, nor could any attribute or relative of the one that is not have been or been spoken of, nor could it have been said to be anything, if it did not partake of 'some,' or of the other relations just now mentioned.
True.
Being, then, cannot be ascribed to the one, since it is not; but the one that is not may or rather must participate in many things, if it and nothing else is not; if, however, neither the one nor the one that is not is supposed not to be, and we are speaking of something of a different nature, we can predicate nothing of it.
But supposing that the one that is not and nothing else is not, then it must participate in the predicate 'that,' and in many others.
Certainly.
And it will have unlikeness in relation to the others, for the others being different from the one will be of a different kind.
Certainly.
And are not things of a different kind also other in kind?
Of course.
And are not things other in kind unlike?
They are unlike.
And if they are unlike the one, that which they are unlike will clearly be unlike them?
Clearly so.
Then the one will have unlikeness in respect of which the others are unlike it?
That would seem to be true.
And if unlikeness to other things is attributed to it, it must have likeness to itself.
How so?
If the one have unlikeness to one, something else must be meant; nor will the hypothesis relate to one; but it will relate to something other than one?
Quite so.
But that cannot be.
No.
Then the one must have likeness to itself?
It must.
Again, it is not equal to the others; for if it were equal, then it would at once be and be like them in virtue of the equality; but if one has no being, then it can neither be nor be like?
It cannot.
But since it is not equal to the others, neither can the others be equal to it?
Certainly not.
And things that are not equal are unequal?
True.
And they are unequal to an unequal?
Of course.
Then the one partakes of inequality, and in respect of this the others are unequal to it?
Very true.
And inequality implies greatness and smallness?
Yes.
Then the one, if of such a nature, has greatness and smallness?
That appears to be true.
And greatness and smallness always stand apart?
True.
Then there is always something between them?
There is.
And can you think of anything else which is between them other than equality?
No, it is equality which lies between them.
Then that which has greatness and smallness also has equality, which lies between them?
That is clear.
Then the one, which is not, partakes, as would appear, of greatness and smallness and equality?
Clearly.
Further, it must surely in a sort partake of being?
How so?
It must be so, for if not, then we should not speak the truth in saying that the one is not.
But if we speak the truth, clearly we must say what is.
Am I not right?
Yes.
And since we affirm that we speak truly, we must also affirm that we say what is?
Certainly.
Then, as would appear, the one, when it is not, is; for if it were not to be when it is not, but (Or, 'to remit something of existence in relation to not-being.')
were to relinquish something of being, so as to become not-being, it would at once be.
Quite true.
Then the one which is not, if it is to maintain itself, must have the being of not-being as the bond of not-being, just as being must have as a bond the not-being of not-being in order to perfect its own being; for the truest assertion of the being of being and of the not-being of not-being is when being partakes of the being of being, and not of the being of not-being--that is, the perfection of being; and when not-being does not partake of the not-being of not-being but of the being of not-being--that is the perfection of not-being.
Most true.
Since then what is partakes of not-being, and what is not of being, must not the one also partake of being in order not to be?
Certainly.
Then the one, if it is not, clearly has being?
Clearly.
And has not-being also, if it is not?
Of course.
But can anything which is in a certain state not be in that state without changing?
Impossible.
Then everything which is and is not in a certain state, implies change?
Certainly.
And change is motion--we may say that?
Yes, motion.
And the one has been proved both to be and not to be?
Yes.
And therefore is and is not in the same state?
Yes.
Thus the one that is not has been shown to have motion also, because it changes from being to not-being?
That appears to be true.
But surely if it is nowhere among what is, as is the fact, since it is not, it cannot change from one place to another?
Impossible.
Then it cannot move by changing place?
No.
Nor can it turn on the same spot, for it nowhere touches the same, for the same is, and that which is not cannot be reckoned among things that are?
It cannot.
Then the one, if it is not, cannot turn in that in which it is not?
No.
Neither can the one, whether it is or is not, be altered into other than itself, for if it altered and became different from itself, then we could not be still speaking of the one, but of something else?
True.
But if the one neither suffers alteration, nor turns round in the same place, nor changes place, can it still be capable of motion?
Impossible.
Now that which is unmoved must surely be at rest, and that which is at rest must stand still?
Certainly.
Then the one that is not, stands still, and is also in motion?
That seems to be true.
But if it be in motion it must necessarily undergo alteration, for anything which is moved, in so far as it is moved, is no longer in the same state, but in another?
Yes.
Then the one, being moved, is altered?
Yes.
And, further, if not moved in any way, it will not be altered in any way?
No.
Then, in so far as the one that is not is moved, it is altered, but in so far as it is not moved, it is not altered?
Right.
Then the one that is not is altered and is not altered?
That is clear.
And must not that which is altered become other than it previously was, and lose its former state and be destroyed; but that which is not altered can neither come into being nor be destroyed?
Very true.
And the one that is not, being altered, becomes and is destroyed; and not being altered, neither becomes nor is destroyed; and so the one that is not becomes and is destroyed, and neither becomes nor is destroyed?
True.
2.b.
And now, let us go back once more to the beginning, and see whether these or some other consequences will follow.
Let us do as you say.
If one is not, we ask what will happen in respect of one?
That is the question.
Yes.
Do not the words 'is not' signify absence of being in that to which we apply them?
Just so.
And when we say that a thing is not, do we mean that it is not in one way but is in another?
or do we mean, absolutely, that what is not has in no sort or way or kind participation of being?
Quite absolutely.
Then, that which is not cannot be, or in any way participate in being?
It cannot.
And did we not mean by becoming, and being destroyed, the assumption of being and the loss of being?
Nothing else.
And can that which has no participation in being, either assume or lose being?
Impossible.
The one then, since it in no way is, cannot have or lose or assume being in any way?
True.
Then the one that is not, since it in no way partakes of being, neither perishes nor becomes?
No.
Then it is not altered at all; for if it were it would become and be destroyed?
True.
But if it be not altered it cannot be moved?
Certainly not.
Nor can we say that it stands, if it is nowhere; for that which stands must always be in one and the same spot?
Of course.
Then we must say that the one which is not never stands still and never moves?
Neither.
Nor is there any existing thing which can be attributed to it; for if there had been, it would partake of being?
That is clear.
And therefore neither smallness, nor greatness, nor equality, can be attributed to it?
No.
Nor yet likeness nor difference, either in relation to itself or to others?
Clearly not.
Well, and if nothing should be attributed to it, can other things be attributed to it?
Certainly not.
And therefore other things can neither be like or unlike, the same, or different in relation to it?
They cannot.
Nor can what is not, be anything, or be this thing, or be related to or the attribute of this or that or other, or be past, present, or future.
Nor can knowledge, or opinion, or perception, or expression, or name, or any other thing that is, have any concern with it?
No.
Then the one that is not has no condition of any kind?
Such appears to be the conclusion.
2.aa.
Yet once more; if one is not, what becomes of the others?
Let us determine that.
Yes; let us determine that.
The others must surely be; for if they, like the one, were not, we could not be now speaking of them.
True.
But to speak of the others implies difference--the terms 'other' and 'different' are synonymous?
True.
Other means other than other, and different, different from the different?
Yes.
Then, if there are to be others, there is something than which they will be other?
Certainly.
And what can that be?--for if the one is not, they will not be other than the one.
They will not.
Then they will be other than each other; for the only remaining alternative is that they are other than nothing.
True.
And they are each other than one another, as being plural and not singular; for if one is not, they cannot be singular, but every particle of them is infinite in number; and even if a person takes that which appears to be the smallest fraction, this, which seemed one, in a moment evanesces into many, as in a dream, and from being the smallest becomes very great, in comparison with the fractions into which it is split up?
Very true.
And in such particles the others will be other than one another, if others are, and the one is not?
Exactly.
And will there not be many particles, each appearing to be one, but not being one, if one is not?
True.
And it would seem that number can be predicated of them if each of them appears to be one, though it is really many?
It can.
And there will seem to be odd and even among them, which will also have no reality, if one is not?
Yes.
And there will appear to be a least among them; and even this will seem large and manifold in comparison with the many small fractions which are contained in it?
Certainly.
And each particle will be imagined to be equal to the many and little; for it could not have appeared to pass from the greater to the less without having appeared to arrive at the middle; and thus would arise the appearance of equality.
Yes.
And having neither beginning, middle, nor end, each separate particle yet appears to have a limit in relation to itself and other.
How so?
Because, when a person conceives of any one of these as such, prior to the beginning another beginning appears, and there is another end, remaining after the end, and in the middle truer middles within but smaller, because no unity can be conceived of any of them, since the one is not.
Very true.
And so all being, whatever we think of, must be broken up into fractions, for a particle will have to be conceived of without unity?
Certainly.
And such being when seen indistinctly and at a distance, appears to be one; but when seen near and with keen intellect, every single thing appears to be infinite, since it is deprived of the one, which is not?
Nothing more certain.
Then each of the others must appear to be infinite and finite, and one and many, if others than the one exist and not the one.
They must.
Then will they not appear to be like and unlike?
In what way?
Just as in a picture things appear to be all one to a person standing at a distance, and to be in the same state and alike?
True.
But when you approach them, they appear to be many and different; and because of the appearance of the difference, different in kind from, and unlike, themselves?
True.
And so must the particles appear to be like and unlike themselves and each other.
Certainly.
And must they not be the same and yet different from one another, and in contact with themselves, although they are separated, and having every sort of motion, and every sort of rest, and becoming and being destroyed, and in neither state, and the like, all which things may be easily enumerated, if the one is not and the many are?
Most true.
2.bb.
Once more, let us go back to the beginning, and ask if the one is not, and the others of the one are, what will follow.
Let us ask that question.
In the first place, the others will not be one?
Impossible.
Nor will they be many; for if they were many one would be contained in them.
But if no one of them is one, all of them are nought, and therefore they will not be many.
True.
If there be no one in the others, the others are neither many nor one.
They are not.
Nor do they appear either as one or many.
Why not?
Because the others have no sort or manner or way of communion with any sort of not-being, nor can anything which is not, be connected with any of the others; for that which is not has no parts.
True.
Nor is there an opinion or any appearance of not-being in connexion with the others, nor is not-being ever in any way attributed to the others.
No.
Then if one is not, there is no conception of any of the others either as one or many; for you cannot conceive the many without the one.
You cannot.
Then if one is not, the others neither are, nor can be conceived to be either one or many?
It would seem not.
Nor as like or unlike?
No.
Nor as the same or different, nor in contact or separation, nor in any of those states which we enumerated as appearing to be;--the others neither are nor appear to be any of these, if one is not?
True.
Then may we not sum up the argument in a word and say truly: If one is not, then nothing is?
Certainly.
Let thus much be said; and further let us affirm what seems to be the truth, that, whether one is or is not, one and the others in relation to themselves and one another, all of them, in every way, are and are not, and appear to be and appear not to be.
Most true.
A SHORT HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY BY JOHN MARSHALL M.A.
OXON., LL.D.
EDIN.
RECTOR OF THE ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY IN THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, LEEDS LONDON PERCIVAL AND CO. 1891 _All rights reserved_ PREFACE The main purpose which I have had in view in writing this book has been to present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits of brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting--_authentic_, as being based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary sources; _interesting_, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, in language freed as far as possible from technicality and abstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on questions of permanent significance and value.
There has been no attempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried in their day to solve; but I have endeavoured to show, by a sympathetic treatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but that in fact the philosophers of twenty-four centuries ago were dealing with exactly similar difficulties as to the bases of belief and of right action as, under different forms, beset thoughtful men and women to-day.
In the general treatment of the subject, I have followed in the main the order, and drawn chiefly on the selection of passages, in Ritter and Preller's _Historia Philosophiae Graecae_.
It is hoped that in this way the little book may be found useful at the universities, as a running commentary on that excellent work; and the better to aid students in the use of it for that purpose, the corresponding sections in Ritter and Preller are indicated by the figures in the margin.
In the sections on Plato, and occasionally elsewhere, I have drawn to some extent, by the kind permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon Press and his own, on Professor Jowett's great commentary and translation.
JOHN MARSHALL.
Transcriber's notes: The passage numbers in the Ritter-Preller book mentioned in the second paragraph above are indicated in this book with square brackets, e.g.
"[10]".
In the original book they were formatted as sidenotes.
In this e-book they are embedded in the text approximately where they appear in the original book, unless they are at the start of a paragraph, in which case they appear immediately before that paragraph.
Page numbers are indicated with curly brackets, e.g.
"{5}".
They are embedded into the text where page breaks occurred in the original book.
In the original book, pages had headings that varied with the material being discussed on that pair of pages.
In this e-book, those headings have been collected into an "introductory" paragraph at the beginning of each chapter.
The original book uses several Greek words.
These words, the chapters they are used in, and their transliterations are as follows: Chapter I (pages 3, 4, 12) "arche" alpha (with the soft-breathing mark), rho, chi, eta; "phloios" phi, lambda, omicron, iota, omicron, final sigma.
Chapter III (page 28) "soma" sigma, omega, mu, alpha; "sema" sigma, eta, mu, alpha.
Chapter IV (page 33, 34 "doxa" delta, omicron, xi, alpha; "Peri" PI, epsilon, rho, iota; "Phueos" PHI, upsilon, sigma, epsilon, omega, final sigma.
Chapter V (page 48) "logos" lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, final sigma; "hule" upsilon with rough breathing mark, lambda, eta.
CONTENTS CHAP.
I.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS-I. Thales .
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1 II.
Anaximander .
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7 II.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_)-III.
Anaximenes .
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14 IV.
Heraclitus .
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15 III.--PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS .
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22 IV.--THE ELEATICS-I. Xenophanes .
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31 II.
Parmenides .
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33 V.--THE ELEATICS (_concluded_)-III.
Zeno .
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42 IV.
Melissus .
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46 VI.--THE ATOMISTS-I. Anaxagoras .
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52 VII.--THE ATOMISTS (_continued_)-II.
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58 VIII.--THE ATOMISTS (_concluded_)-III.
Leucippus and Democritus .
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74 IX.--THE SOPHISTS-I. Protagoras .
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85 X.--THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_)-II.
Gorgias .
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92 XI.--SOCRATES .
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101 XII.--SOCRATES (concluded) .
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116 XIII.--THE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS-I. Aristippus and the Cyrenaics .
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124 II.
Antisthenes and the Cynics .
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128 III.
Euclides and the Megarics .
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132 XIV.--PLATO .
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134 XV.--PLATO (_continued_) .
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146 XVI.--PLATO (_continued_) .
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154 XVII.--PLATO (_concluded_) .
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162 XVIII.--ARISTOTLE .
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172 XIX.--ARISTOTLE (_continued_) .
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187 XX.--ARISTOTLE (_concluded_) .
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199 XXI.--THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS .
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210 XXII.--THE STOICS .
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238 INDEX .
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245 {1} CHAPTER I THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS _The question of Thales--Water the beginning of things--Soul in all things--Mystery in science--Abstraction and reality--Theory of development_ I.
THALES.--For several centuries prior to the great Persian invasions of Greece, perhaps the very greatest and wealthiest city of the Greek world was Miletus.
Situate about the centre of the Ionian coasts of Asia Minor, with four magnificent harbours and a strongly defensible position, it gathered to itself much of the great overland trade, which has flowed for thousands of years eastward and westward between India and the Mediterranean; while by its great fleets it created a new world of its own along the Black Sea coast.
Its colonies there were so numerous that Miletus was named 'Mother of Eighty Cities.'
From Abydus on the Bosphorus, past Sinope, and so onward to the Crimea and the Don, and thence round to Thrace, a busy community of colonies, mining, manufacturing, ship-building, corn-raising, owned Miletus for their mother-city.
Its {2} marts must therefore have been crowded with merchants of every country from India to Spain, from Arabia to Russia; the riches and the wonders of every clime must have become familiar to its inhabitants.
And fitly enough, therefore, in this city was born the first notable Greek geographer, the first constructor of a map, the first observer of natural and other curiosities, the first recorder of varieties of custom among various communities, the first speculator on the causes of strange phenomena,--Hecataeus.
His work is in great part lost, but we know a good deal about it from the frequent references to him and it in the work of his rival and follower, Herodotus.
The city naturally held a leading place politically as well as commercially.
Empire in our sense was alien to the instincts of the Greek race; but Miletus was for centuries recognised as the foremost member of a great commercial and political league, the political character of the league becoming more defined, as first the Lydian and then the Persian monarchy became an aggressive neighbour on its borders.
[8] It was in this active, prosperous, enterprising state, and at the period of its highest activity, that Thales, statesman, practical engineer, mathematician, philosopher, flourished.
Without attempting to fix his date too closely, we may take it that he was a leading man in Miletus for the greater part of the {3} first half of the sixth century before Christ.
We hear of an eclipse predicted by him, of the course of a river usefully changed, of shrewd and profitable handling of the market, of wise advice in the general councils of the league.
He seems to have been at once a student of mathematics and an observer of nature, and withal something having analogy with both, an inquirer or speculator into the _origin_ of things.
To us nowadays this suggests a student of geology, or physiography, or some such branch of physical science; to Thales it probably rather suggested a theoretical inquiry into the simplest _thinkable_ aspect of things as existing.
"Under what form known to us," he would seem to have asked, "may we assume an identity in all known things, so as best to cover or render explicable the things as we know them?"
The 'beginning' of things (for it was thus he described this assumed identity) was not conceived by him as something which was long ages before, and which had ceased to be; rather it meant the reality of things now.
Thales then was the putter of a question, which had not been asked expressly before, but which has never ceased to be asked since.
He was also the formulator of a new meaning for a word; the word 'beginning' ((Greek) _arche_) got the meaning of 'underlying reality' and so of 'ending' as well.
In short, he so dealt with a word, on the surface of it implying {4} time, as to eliminate the idea of time, and suggest a method of looking at the world, more profound and far-reaching than had been before imagined.
[1] It is interesting to find that the man who was thus the first philosopher, the first observer who took a metaphysical, non-temporal, analytical view of the world, and so became the predecessor of all those votaries of 'other-world' ways of thinking,--whether as academic idealist, or 'budge doctor of the Stoic fur,' or Christian ascetic or what not, whose ways are such a puzzle to the 'hard-headed practical man,'--was himself one of the shrewdest men of his day, so shrewd that by common consent he was placed foremost in antiquity among the Seven Sages, or seven shrewd men, whose practical wisdom became a world's tradition, enshrined in anecdote and crystallised in proverb.
[9] The chief record that we possess of the philosophic teaching of Thales is contained in an interesting notice of earlier philosophies by Aristotle, the main part of which as regards Thales runs as follows: "The early philosophers as a rule formulated the originative principle ((Greek) _arche_) of all things under some material expression.
By the originative principle or element of things they meant that of which all {5} existing things are composed, that which determines their coming into being, and into which they pass on ceasing to be.
Where these philosophers differed from each other was simply in the answer which they gave to the question what was the nature of this principle, the differences of view among them applying both to the number, and to the character, of the supposed element or elements.
"Thales, the pioneer of this philosophy, maintained that _Water_ was the originative principle of all things.
It was doubtless in this sense that he said that the earth rested on water.
What suggested the conception to him may have been such facts of observation, as that all forms of substance which promote life are moist, that heat itself seems to be conditioned by moisture, that the life-producing seed in all creatures is moist, and so on."
Other characteristics of water, it is elsewhere suggested, may have been in Thales' mind, such as its readiness to take various shapes, its convertibility from water into vapour or ice, its ready mixture with other substances, and so forth.
What we have chiefly to note is, that the more unscientific this theory about the universe may strike us as being, the more completely out of accord with facts now familiar to everybody, the more striking is it as marking a new mood of mind, in which _unity_, though only very partially suggested or discoverable by the senses, is {6} preferred to that infinite and indefinite _variety_ and _difference_ which the senses give us at every moment.
There is here the germ of a new aspiration, of a determination not to rest in the merely momentary and different, but at least to try, even against the apparent evidence of the senses, for something more permanently intelligible.
As a first suggestion of what this permanent underlying reality may be, _Water_ might very well pass.
It is probable that even to Thales himself it was only a symbol, like the figure in a mathematical proposition, representing by the first passable physical phenomenon which came to hand, that ideal reality underlying all change, which is at once the beginning, the middle, and the end of all.
That he did not mean Water, in the ordinary prosaic sense, to be identical with this, is suggested by some [10] other sayings of his.
"Thales," says Aristotle elsewhere, "thought the whole universe was full of gods."
"All things," he is recorded as saying, "have a _soul_ in them, in virtue of which they move other things, and are themselves moved, even as the magnet, by virtue of its life or soul, moves the iron."
Without pushing these fragmentary utterances too far, we may well conclude that whether Thales spoke of the soul of the universe and its divine indwelling powers, or gods, or of water as the origin of things, he was only vaguely symbolising in different ways an idea as yet formless and void, like the primeval chaos, but nevertheless, {7} like it, containing within it a promise and a potency of greater life hereafter.
II.
ANAXIMANDER.--Our information with respect to thinkers so remote as these men is too scanty and too fragmentary, to enable us to say in what manner or degree they influenced each other.
We cannot say for certain that any one of them was pupil or antagonist of another.
They appear each of them, one might say for a moment only, from amidst the darkness of antiquity; a few sayings of theirs we catch vaguely across the void, and then they disappear.
There is not, consequently, any very distinct progression or continuity observable among them, and so far therefore one has to confess that the title 'School of Miletus' is a misnomer.
We have already quoted the words of Aristotle in which he classes the Ionic philosophers together, as all of them giving a _material_ aspect of some kind to the originative principle of the universe (see above, P. 4).
But while this is a characteristic observable in some of them, it is not so obviously discoverable in the second of their number, Anaximander.
This philosopher is said to have been younger by [11] one generation than Thales, but to have been intimate with him.
He, like Thales, was a native of Miletus, and while we do not hear of him as a person, like Thales, of political eminence and activity, he was certainly the equal, if not the superior, of Thales in {8} mathematical and scientific ability.
He is said to have either invented or at least made known to Greece the construction of the sun-dial.
He was associated with Hecataeus in the construction of the earliest geographical charts or maps; he devoted himself with some success to the science of astronomy.
His familiarity with the abstractions of mathematics perhaps accounts for the more abstract form, in which he expressed his idea of the principle of all things.
[21] To Anaximander this principle was, as he expressed it, the _infinite_; not water nor any other of the so-called elements, but a different thing from any of them, something hardly namable, out of whose formlessness the heavens and all the worlds in them came to be.
And by necessity into that same infinite or indefinite existence, out of which they originally emerged, did every created thing return.
Thus, as he poetically expressed it, "Time brought its revenges, and for the wrong-doing of existence all things paid the penalty of death."
The momentary resting-place of Thales on the confines of the familiar world of things, in his formulation of Water as the principle of existence, is thus immediately removed.
We get, as it were, to the earliest conception of things as we find it in Genesis; before the heavens were, or earth, or the waters under the earth, or light, or sun, or moon, or grass, or the beast of the field, when the "earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the {9} face of the deep."
Only, be it observed, that while in the primitive Biblical idea this formless void precedes in _time_ an ordered universe, in Anaximander's conception this formless infinitude is always here, is in fact the only reality which ever is here, something without beginning or ending, underlying all, enwrapping all, governing all.
To modern criticism this may seem to be little better than verbiage, having, perhaps, some possibilities of poetic treatment, but certainly very unsatisfactory if regarded as science.
But to this we have to reply that one is not called upon to regard it as science.
Behind science, as much to-day when our knowledge of the details of phenomena is so enormously increased, as in the times when science had hardly begun, there lies a world of mystery which we cannot pierce, and yet which we are compelled to assume.
No scientific treatise can begin without assuming Matter and Force as data, and however much we may have learned about the relations of _forces_ and the affinities of _things_, Matter and Force as such remain very much the same dim infinities, that the originative 'Infinite' was to Anaximander.
It is to be noted, however, that while modern science assumes necessarily _two_ correlative data or originative principles,--Force, namely, as well as Matter,--Anaximander seems to have been content {10} with the formulation of but one; and perhaps it is just here that a kinship still remains between him and Thales and other philosophers of the school.
He, no more than they, seems to have definitely raised the question, How are we to account for, or formulate, the principle of _difference_ or change?
What is it that causes things to come into being out of, or recalls them back from being into, the infinite void?
It is to be confessed, however, that our accounts on this point are somewhat conflicting.
One authority actually says that he formulated motion as eternal also.
So far as he attempted to grasp the idea of difference in relation to that of unity, he seems to have regarded the principle of change or difference as inhering in [13] the infinite itself.
Aristotle in this connection contrasts his doctrine with that of Anaxagoras, who formulated _two_ principles of existence--Matter and Mind (see below, p. 54).
Anaximander, he points out, found all he wanted in the one.
As a mathematician Anaximander must have been familiar in various aspects with the functions of the Infinite or Indefinable in the organisation of thought.
To the student of Euclid, for example, the impossibility of adequately defining any of the fundamental elements of the science of geometry--the point, the line, the surface--is a familiar fact.
In so far as a science of geometry is possible at all, the exactness, which is its essential characteristic, is only {11} attainable by starting from data which are in themselves impossible, as of a point which has no magnitude, of a line which has no breadth, of a surface which has no thickness.
So in the science of abstract number the fundamental assumptions, as that 1=1, _x=x_, etc., are contradicted by every fact of experience, for in the world as we know it, absolute equality is simply impossible to discover; and yet these fundamental conceptions are in their development most powerful instruments for the extension of man's command over his own experiences.
Their completeness of abstraction from the accidents of experience, from the differences, qualifications, variations which contribute so largely to the personal interests of life, this it is which makes the abstract sciences demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable.
In so far, therefore, as we are permitted to grasp the conception of a perfectly abstract existence prior to, and underlying, and enclosing, all separate existences, so far also do we get to a conception which is demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable throughout the whole world of knowable objects.
Such a conception, however, by its absolute emptiness of content, does not afford any means in itself of progression; somehow and somewhere a principle of movement, of development, of concrete reality, must be found or assumed, to link this ultimate abstraction of existence to the multifarious phenomena {12} of existence as known.
And it was, perhaps, because Anaximander failed to work out this aspect of the question, that in the subsequent leaders of the school _movement_, rather than mere existence, was the principle chiefly insisted upon.
Before passing, however, to these successors of Anaximander, some opinions of his which we have not perhaps the means of satisfactorily correlating with his general conception, but which are not without their individual interest, may here be noted.
[14] The word _husk_ or _bark_ ((Greek) _phloios_) seems to have been a favourite one with him, as implying and depicting a conception of interior and necessary development in things.
Thus he seems to have postulated an inherent tendency or law in the infinite, which compelled it to develop contrary characters, as hot and cold, dry and moist.
In consequence of this fundamental tendency an envelope of fire, he says, came into being, encircling another envelope of air, which latter in turn enveloped the sphere of earth, each being like the 'husk' of the other, or like the bark which encloses the tree.
This concentric system he conceives as having in some way been parted up into various systems, represented by the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth.
The last he figured as hanging in space, and deriving its stability from the inherent and perfect balance or relation of its parts.
{13} [16] Then, again, as to the origin of man, he seems to have in like manner taught a theory of development from lower forms of life.
In his view the first living creatures must have come into being in moisture (thus recalling the theory of Thales).
As time went on, and these forms of life reached their fuller possibilities, they came to be transferred to the dry land, casting off their old nature like a husk or bark.
More particularly he insists that man must have developed out of other and lower forms of life, because of his exceptional need, under present conditions, of care and nursing in his earlier years.
Had he come into being at once as a human creature he could never have survived.
The analogies of these theories with modern speculations are obvious and interesting.
But without enlarging on these, one has only to say in conclusion that, suggestive and interesting as many of these poor fragments, these _disjecti membra poetae_, are individually, they leave us more and more impressed with a sense of incompleteness in our knowledge of Anaximander's theory as a whole.
It may be that as a consistent and perfected system the theory never was worked out; it may be that it never was properly understood.
[1] By some authorities it is stated that Anaximander, the second philosopher of this school, was the first to use the word _arche_ in the philosophic sense.
Whether this be so or not, Thales certainly had the idea.
{14} CHAPTER II THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_) _Air the beginning of things--All things pass--The eternal and the temporary--The weeping philosopher_ [17] III.
ANAXIMENES.--This philosopher was also a native of Miletus, and is said to have been a hearer or pupil of Anaximander.
As we have said, the [19] tendency of the later members of the school was towards emphasising the _motive_ side of the supposed underlying principle of nature, and accordingly Anaximenes chose Air as the element which best [18] represented or symbolised that principle.
Its fluidity, readiness of movement, wide extension, and absolute neutrality of character as regards colour, taste, smell, form, etc., were obvious suggestions.
The breath also, whose very name to the ancients implied an identity with the life or soul, was nothing but air; and the identification of Air with Life supplied just that principle of productiveness and movement, which was felt [20] to be necessary in the primal element of being.
The process of existence, then, he conceived as consisting in a certain concentration of this diffused life-giving element into more or less solidified forms, and the {15} ultimate separation and expansion of these back into the formless air again.
The contrary forces previously used by Anaximander--heat and cold, drought and moisture--are with Anaximenes also the agencies which institute these changes.
This is pretty nearly all that we know of Anaximenes.
So far as the few known facts reveal him, we can hardly say that except as supplying a step towards the completer development of the _motive_ [22] idea in being, he greatly adds to the chain of progressive thought.
IV.
HERACLITUS.--Although not a native of Miletus, but of Ephesus, Heraclitus, both by his nationality as an Ionian and by his position in the development of philosophic conceptions, falls naturally to be classed with the philosophers of Miletus.
His period may be given approximately as from about 560 to 500 B.C., though others place him a generation later.
Few authentic particulars have been preserved of him.
We hear of extensive travels, of his return to his native city only to refuse a share in its activities, of his retirement to a hermit's life.
He seems to have formed a contrast to the preceding philosophers in his greater detachment from the ordinary interests of civic existence; and much in his teaching suggests the ascetic if not the misanthrope.
He received the nickname of 'The Obscure,' from the studied mystery in which he was supposed to involve his {16} [23] teaching.
He wrote not for the vulgar, but for the gifted few.
'Much learning makes not wise' was the motto of his work; the man of gift, of insight, that man is better than ten thousand.
He was savage in his criticism of other writers, even the greatest.
Homer, he said, and Archilochus too, deserved to be hooted from the platform and thrashed.
Even the main purport of his writings was differently interpreted.
Some named his work 'The Muses,' as though it were chiefly a poetic vision; others named it 'The sure Steersman to the Goal of Life'; others, more prosaically, 'A Treatise of Nature.'
[26] The fundamental principle or fact of being Heraclitus formulated in the famous dictum, 'All things pass.'
In the eternal flux or flow of being consisted its reality; even as in a river the water is ever changing, and the river exists as a river only in virtue of this continual change; or as in a living body, wherein while there is life there is no stability or fixedness; stability and fixedness are the attributes of the unreal image of life, not of life itself.
Thus, as will be observed, from the _material_ basis of being as conceived by Thales, with only a very vague conception of the counter-principle of movement, philosophy has wheeled round in Heraclitus to the other extreme; he finds his permanent element in the negation of permanence; being or reality consists in never 'being' but always 'becoming,' not in stability but in change.
{17} [27] This eternal movement he pictures elsewhere as an eternal strife of opposites, whose differences nevertheless consummate themselves in finest harmony.
Thus oneness emerges out of multiplicity, multiplicity out of oneness; and the harmony of the universe is of contraries, as of the lyre and the bow.
_War_ is the father and king and lord of all things.
Neither god nor man presided at the creation of anything that is; that which was, is that which is, and that which ever shall be; even an ever-living Fire, ever kindling and ever being extinguished.
[28] Thus in _Fire_, as an image or symbol of the underlying reality of existence, Heraclitus advanced to the furthest limit attainable on physical lines, for the expression of its essentially _motive_ character.
That this Fire was no more than a symbol, suggested by the special characteristics of fire in nature,--its subtlety, its mobility, its power of penetrating all things and devouring all things, its powers for beneficence in the warmth of living bodies and the life-giving power of the sun,--is seen in the fact that he readily varies his expression for this principle, calling it at times the Thunderbolt, at others the eternal Reason, [29] or Law, or Fate.
To his mental view creation was a process eternally in action, the fiery element descending by the law of its being into the cruder [30] forms of water and earth, only to be resolved again by upward process into fire; even as one sees the {18} vapour from the sea ascending and melting into the [32] aether.
As a kindred vapour or exhalation he recognised the Soul or Breath for a manifestation of the essential element.
It is formless, ever changing with every breath we take, yet it is the constructive and unifying force which keeps the body together, and conditions its life and growth.
At this point [33] Heraclitus comes into touch with Anaximenes.
In the act of breathing we draw into our own being a portion of the all-pervading vital element of all being; in this universal being we thereby live and move and have our consciousness; the eternal and omnipresent wisdom becomes, through the channels of our senses, and especially through the eyes, in fragments at least our wisdom.
In sleep we are not indeed cut off wholly from this wisdom; through our breathing we hold as it were to its root; but of its flower we are then deprived.
On awaking again we begin once more to partake according to our full measure of the living thought; even as coals when brought near the fire are themselves made partakers of it, but when taken away again become quenched.
[34] Hence, in so far as man is wise, it is because his spirit is kindled by union with the universal spirit; but there is a baser, or, as Heraclitus termed it, a moister element also in him, which is the element of unreason, as in a drunken man.
And thus the trustworthiness or otherwise of the senses, as the {19} channels of communication with the divine, depends on the _dryness_ or _moistness_,--or, as we should express it, using, after all, only another metaphor,--on the _elevation_ or _baseness_ of the spirit that is within.
To those whose souls are base and barbarous, the eternal movement, the living fire, is invisible; and thus what they do see is nothing but death.
Immersed in the mere appearances of things and their supposed stability, they, whether sleeping or waking, behold only dead forms; their spirits are dead.
[35] For the guidance of life there is no law but the common sense, which is the union of those fragmentary perceptions of eternal law, which individual men [37] attain, in so far as their spirits are dry and pure.
Of absolute knowledge human nature is not capable, but only the Divine.
To the Eternal, therefore, alone all things are good and beautiful and just, because to Him alone do things appear in their totality.
To the human partial reason some things are unjust and others just.
Hence life, by reason of the limitations [38] involved in it, he sometimes spoke of as the death of the soul, and death as the renewal of its life.
And so, [39] in the great events of man's life and in the small, as in the mighty circle of the heavens, good and evil, life and death, growth and decay, are but the systole and diastole, the outward and inward pulsation, of an eternal good, an eternal harmony.
Day and {20} night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and hunger--each conditions the other, all are part of God.
It is sickness that makes health good and sweet, hunger that gives its pleasure to feeding, weariness that makes sleep a good.
[39] This vision of existence in its eternal flux and interchange, seems to have inspired Heraclitus with a contemplative melancholy.
In the traditions of later times he was known as the _weeping_ philosopher.
Lucian represents him as saying, "To me it is a sorrow that there is nothing fixed or secure, and that all things are thrown confusedly together, so that pleasure and pain, knowledge and ignorance, the great and the small, are the same, ever circling round and passing one into the other in the sport of time."
"Time," he says elsewhere, "is like a child that plays with the dice."
The highest good, therefore, for mortals is that clarity of perception in respect of oneself and all that is, whereby we shall learn to apprehend somewhat of the eternal unity and harmony, that underlies the good and evil of time, the shock and stress of circumstance and place.
The highest virtue for man is a placid and a quiet constancy, whatever the changes and chances of life may bring.
It is the pantheistic apathy.
The sadder note of humanity, the note of Euripides and at times of Sophocles, the note of Dante and of the _Tempest_ of Shakespeare, of Shelley and Arnold {21} and Carlyle,--this note we hear thus early and thus clear, in the dim and distant utterances of Heraclitus.
The mystery of existence, the unreality of what seems most real, the intangibility and evanescence of all things earthly,--these thoughts obscurely echoing to us across the ages from Heraclitus, have remained, and always will remain, among the deepest and most insistent of the world's thoughts, in its sincerest moments and in its greatest thinkers.
{22} CHAPTER III PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS _The Pythagorean Brotherhood--Number the master--God the soul of the world--Music and morals_ [41] The birthplace of Pythagoras is uncertain.
He is generally called the Samian, and we know, at all events, that he lived for some time in that island, during or immediately before the famous tyranny [43] of Polycrates.
All manner of legends are told of the travels of Pythagoras to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and even to India.
Others tell of a mysterious initiation at the sacred cave of Jupiter in Crete, and of a similar ceremony at the Delphic oracle.
What is certain is that at some date towards the end of the sixth century B.C.
he removed to Southern Italy, which was then extensively colonised by Greeks, and that there he became a great philosophic teacher, and ultimately even a predominating political influence.
[46] He instituted a school in the strictest sense, with its various grades of learners, subject for years to a vow of silence, holding all things in common, and admitted, according to their approved fitness, to {23} [47] successive revelations of the true doctrine of the Master.
Those in the lower grades were called Listeners; those in the higher, Mathematicians or Students; those in the most advanced stage, Physicists or Philosophers.
With the political relations of the school we need not here concern ourselves.
In Crotona and many other Greek cities in Italy Pythagoreans became a predominant aristocracy, who, having learned obedience under their master, applied what they had learned in an anti-democratic policy of government.
This lasted for some thirty years, but ultimately democracy gained the day, and Pythagoreanism as a political power was violently rooted out.
Returning to the philosophy of Pythagoras, in its relation to the general development of Greek theory, we may note, to begin with, that it is not necessary, or perhaps possible, to disentangle the theory of Pythagoras himself from that of his followers, Philolaus and others.
The teaching was largely oral, and was developed by successive leaders of the school.
The doctrine, therefore, is generally spoken of as that, not of Pythagoras, but of the Pythagoreans.
Nor can we fix for certain on one fundamental conception, upon which the whole structure of their doctrine was built.
[52] One dictum we may start with because of its analogies with what has been said of the earlier {24} philosophies.
The universe, said the Pythagoreans, was constituted of _indefinites_ and _definers_, _i.e._ of that which has no character, but has infinite capacities of taking a character; and secondly, of things or forces which impose a character upon this.
Out of the combination of these two elements or principles all knowable [53] existences come into being.
"All things," they said, "as known have _Number_; and this number has two natures, the Odd and the Even; the known thing is the Odd-Even or union of the two."
[66] By a curious and somewhat fanciful development of this conception the Pythagoreans drew up two parallel columns of antithetical principles in nature, ten in each, thus:-Definite Indefinite Odd Even One Many Right Left Male Female Steadfast Moving Straight Bent Light Dark Good Evil Four Square Irregular Looking down these two lists we shall see that the first covers various aspects of what is conceived as the ordering, defining, formative principle in nature; and that the second in like manner comprises various {25} aspects of the unordered, neutral, passive, or disorganised element or principle; the first, to adopt a later method of expression, is _Form_, the second _Matter_.
How this antithesis was worked out by Plato and Aristotle we shall see later on.
[54] While, in a sense, then, even the indefinite has number, inasmuch as it is capable of having number or order imposed upon it (and only in so far as it has this imposed upon it, does it become knowable or intelligible), yet, as a positive factor, Number belongs only to the first class; as such it is the source of all knowledge and of all good.
In reality the Pythagoreans had not got any further by this representation of nature than was reached, for example, by Anaximander, and still more definitely by Heraclitus, when they posited an Indefinite or Infinite principle in nature which by the clash of innate antagonisms developed into a knowable universe (see above, pp.
12, 16).
But one can easily imagine that once the idea of Number became associated with that of the knowable in things, a wide field of detailed development and experiment, so to speak, in the arcana of nature, seemed to be opened.
Every arithmetical or geometrical theorem became in this view another window giving light into the secret heart of things.
Number became a kind of god, a revealer; and the philosophy of number a kind of religion or mystery.
And this is why the {26} second grade of disciples were called Mathematicians; mathematics was the essential preparation for and initiation into philosophy.
Whether that which truly exists was actually identical with Number or Numbers, or whether it was something different from Number, but had a certain relation to Number; whether if there were such a relation, this was merely a relation of analogy or of conformability, or whether Number were something actually embodied in that which truly exists--these were speculative questions which were variously answered by various teachers, and which probably interested the later more than the earlier leaders of the school.
[56] A further question arose: Assuming that ultimately the elements of knowable existence are but two, the One or Definite, and the Manifold or Indefinite, it was argued by some that there must be some third or higher principle governing the relations of these; there must be some law or harmony which shall render their intelligible union [57] possible.
This principle of union was God, ever-living, ever One, eternal, immovable, self-identical.
[58] This was the supreme reality, the Odd-Even or Many in One, One in Many, in whom was gathered up, as in an eternal harmony, all the contrarieties of lower [61] existence.
Through the interchange and intergrowth of these contrarieties God realises Himself; the {27} universe in its evolution is the self-picturing of God.
[62] God is diffused as the seminal principle throughout [68] the universe; He is the Soul of the world, and the world itself is God in process.
The world, therefore, is in a sense a living creature.
At its heart and circumference are purest fire; between these circle the sun, the moon, and the five planets, whose ordered movements, as of seven chords, produce an eternal music, the 'Music of the Spheres.'
Earth, too, like the planets, is a celestial body, moving like them around the central fire.
[71] By analogy with this conception of the universe as the realisation of God, so also the body, whether [72] of man or of any creature, is the realisation for the time being of a soul.
Without the body and the life of the body, that soul were a blind and fleeting ghost.
Of such unrealised souls there are many in various degrees and states; the whole air indeed is full of spirits, who are the causes of dreams and omens.
[73] Thus the change and flux that are visible in all else are visible also in the relations of soul and body.
Multitudes of fleeting ghosts or spirits are continually seeking realisation through union with bodies, passing at birth into this one and that, and at death issuing forth again into the void.
Like wax which takes now one impression now another, yet remains in itself ever the same, so souls vary in the outward {28} [74] form that envelops and realises them.
In this bodily life, the Pythagoreans are elsewhere described as saying, we are as it were in bonds or in a prison, whence we may not justly go forth till the Lord calls us.
This idea Cicero mistranslated with a truly Roman fitness: according to him they taught that in this life we are as sentinels at our post, who may not quit it till our Commander orders.
On the one hand, therefore, the union of soul with body was necessary for the realisation of the former ((Greek) _soma, body_, being as it were (Greek) _sema, expression_), even as the reality of God was not in the Odd or Eternal Unity, but in the Odd-Even, the Unity in Multiplicity.
On the other hand this union implied a certain loss or degradation.
In other words, in so far as the soul became realised it also became corporealised, subject to the influence of passion and [75] change.
In a sense therefore the soul as realised was double; in itself it partook of the eternal reason, as associated with body it belonged to the realm of unreason.
This disruption of the soul into two the Pythagoreans naturally developed in time into a threefold division, _pure thought_, _perception_, and _desire_; or even more nearly approaching the Platonic division (see below, p. 169), they divided it into _reason_, _passion_, and _desire_.
But the later developments were largely influenced by Platonic and other doctrines, and need not be further followed here.
{29} [78] Music had great attractions for Pythagoras, not only for its soothing and refining effects, but for the intellectual interest of its numerical relations.
Reference has already been made (see above, p. 27) to their quaint doctrine of the music of the spheres; and the same idea of rhythmic harmony pervaded the whole system.
The life of the soul was a harmony; the virtues were perfect numbers; and the influence of music on the soul was only one instance among many of the harmonious relations of things throughout the universe.
Thus we have Pythagoras described as soothing mental afflictions, and bodily ones also, by rhythmic measure and by song.
With the morning's dawn he would be astir, harmonising his own spirit to his lyre, and chanting ancient hymns of the Cretan Thales, of Homer, and of Hesiod, till all the tremors of his soul were calmed and still.
Night and morning also he prescribed for himself and his followers an examination, as it were a _tuning_ and testing of oneself.
At these times especially was it meet for us to take account of our soul and its doings; in the evening to ask, "Wherein have I transgressed?
What done?
What failed to do?"
In the morning, "What must I do?
Wherein repair past days' forgetfulness?"
But the first duty of all was truth,--truth to one's own highest, truth to the highest beyond us.
Through truth alone could the soul approach the divine.
{30} Falsehood was of the earth; the real life of the soul must be in harmony with the heavenly and eternal verities.
Pythagoreanism remained a power for centuries throughout the Greek world and beyond.
All subsequent philosophies borrowed from it, as it in its later developments borrowed from them; and thus along with them it formed the mind of the world, for further apprehensions, and yet more authentic revelations, of divine order and moral excellence.
{31} CHAPTER IV THE ELEATICS _God and nature--Knowledge and opinion--Being and evolution--Love the creator--The modern egotism_ [79] I.
XENOPHANES.--Xenophanes was a native of Colophon, one of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, but having been forced at the age of twenty-five to leave his native city owing to some political revolution, he wandered to various cities of Greece, and ultimately to Zancle and Catana, Ionian colonies in Sicily, and thence to Elea or Velia, a Greek city on the coast of Italy.
This city had, like Miletus, reached a high pitch of commercial prosperity, and like it also became a centre of philosophic teaching.
For there Xenophanes remained and founded a school, so that he and his successors received the name of Eleatics.
His date is uncertain; but he seems to have been contemporary with Anaximander [80] and Pythagoras, and to have had some knowledge of the doctrine of both.
He wrote in various poetic measures, using against the poets, and especially against Homer and Hesiod, their own weapons, to [83] denounce their anthropomorphic theology.
If oxen {32} or lions had hands, he said, they would have fashioned gods after their likeness which would have been as [85] authentic as Homer's.
As against these poets, and the popular mythology, he insisted that God must be one, eternal, incorporeal, without beginning or ending.
[87] As Aristotle strikingly expresses it, "He looked forth over the whole heavens and said that God is one, [88] that that which is one is God."
The favourite antitheses of his time, the definite and the indefinite, movable and immovable, change-producing and by change produced--these and such as these, he maintained, were inapplicable to the eternally and [86] essentially existent.
In this there was no partition of organs or faculties, no variation or shadow of turning; the Eternal Being was like a sphere, everywhere equal; everywhere self-identical.
[84] His proof of this was a logical one; the absolutely self-existent could not be thought in conjunction with attributes which either admitted any external influencing Him, or any external influenced by Him.
The prevailing dualism he considered to be, as an ultimate theory of the universe, unthinkable and therefore false.
Outside the Self-existent there could be no second self-existent, otherwise each would be conditioned by the existence of the other, and the Self-existent would be gone.
Anything different from the Self-existent must be of the non-existent, _i.e._ must be nothing.
{33} One can easily see in these discussions some adumbration of many theological or metaphysical difficulties of later times, as of the origin of evil, of freewill in man, of the relation of the created world to its Creator.
If these problems cannot be said to be solved yet, we need not be surprised that Xenophanes did not solve them.
He was content to emphasise that which seemed to him to be necessary and true, that God was God, and not either a partner with, or a function of, matter.
[89] At the same time he recognised a world of phenomena, or, as he expressed it, a world of guesswork or opinion ((Greek) _doxa_).
As to the origin of things within this sphere he was ready enough to borrow [90] from the speculations of his predecessors.
Earth and water are the sources from which we spring; and he imagined a time when there was neither sea nor land, but an all-pervading slough and slime; nay, many such periods of inundation and emergence had been, hence the sea-shells on the tops of mountains and the fossils in the rocks.
Air and fire also as agencies of change are sometimes referred to by him; anticipations in fact are visible of the fourfold classification of the elements which was formally made by some of his successors.
[91] II.
PARMENIDES.--The pupil and successor of Xenophanes was PARMENIDES, a native of Elea.
In a celebrated dialogue of Plato bearing the name of {34} this philosopher he is described as visiting Socrates when the latter was very young.
"He was then already advanced in years, very hoary, yet noble to look upon, in years some sixty and five."
Socrates was born about 479 B.C.
The birth of Parmenides might therefore, if this indication be authentic, be about 520.
He was of a wealthy and noble family, and able therefore to devote himself to a learned leisure.
Like his master he expounded his views in verse, and fragments of his poem of considerable length and importance have been preserved.
The title of the work was _Peri Phueos_--_Of Nature_.
[93] The exordium of the poem is one of some grandeur.
The poet describes himself as soaring aloft to the sanctuary of wisdom where it is set in highest aether, the daughters of the Sun being his guides; under whose leading having traversed the path of perpetual day and at length attained the temple of the goddess, he from her lips received instruction in the eternal verities, and had shown to him the deceptive guesses of mortals.
"'Tis for thee," she says, "to hear of both,--to have disclosed to thee on the one hand the sure heart of convincing verity, on the other hand the guesses of mortals wherein is no ascertainment.
Nevertheless thou shalt learn of these also, that having gone through them all thou may'st see by what unsureness of path must he go who goeth the way of opinion.
From such a way of searching {35} restrain thou thy thought, and let not the much-experimenting habit force thee along the path wherein thou must use thine eye, yet being sightless, and the ear with its clamorous buzzings, and the chattering tongue.
'Tis by Reason that thou must in lengthened trial judge what I shall say to thee."
[94] Thus, like Xenophanes, Parmenides draws a deep division between the world of reason and the world of sensation, between probative argument and the guess-work of sense-impressions.
The former is the world of Being, the world of that which truly is, self-existent, uncreated, unending, unmoved, unchanging, ever self-poised and self-sufficient, like a sphere.
[98] Knowledge is of this, and of this only, and as such, knowledge is identical with its object; for outside this known reality there is nothing.
In other words, Knowledge can only be of that which is, and that which is alone can know.
All things which mortals have imagined to be realities are but words; as of the birth and death of things, of things which were and have ceased to be, of here and there, of now and then.
It is obvious enough that in all this, and in much more to the same effect reiterated throughout the poem, we have no more than a statement, in various forms of negation, of the inconceivability by human reason of that passage from _being_ as such, to that world of phenomena which is now, but was not before, {36} and will cease to be,--from _being_ to _becoming_, from eternity to time, from the infinite to the finite (or, as Parmenides preferred to call it, from the perfect to the imperfect, the definite to the indefinite).
In all this Parmenides was not contradicting such observed facts as generation, or motion, or life, or death; he was talking of a world which has nothing to do with observation; he was endeavouring to grasp what was assumed or necessarily implied as a prior condition of observation, or of a world to observe.
What he and his school seem to have felt was that there was a danger in all this talk of water or air or other material symbol, or even of the _indefinite_ or _characterless_ as the original of all,--the danger, namely, that one should lose sight of the idea of law, of rationality, of eternal self-centred force, and so be carried away by some vision of a gradual process of evolution from mere emptiness to fulness of being.
Such a position would be not dissimilar to that of many would-be metaphysicians among evolutionists, who, not content with the doctrine of evolution as a theory in science, an ordered and organising view of observed facts, will try to elevate it into a vision of what is, and alone is, behind the observed facts.
They fail to see that the more blind, the more accidental, so to speak, the process of differentiation may be; the more it is shown that the struggle for existence drives the wheels of progress along the {37} lines of least resistance by the most commonplace of mechanical necessities, in the same proportion must a law be posited behind all this process, a reason in nature which gathers up the beginning and the ending.
The protoplasmic cell which the imagination of evolutionists places at the beginning of time as the starting-point of this mighty process is not merely this or that, has not merely this or that quality or possibility, it _is_; and in the power of that little word is enclosed a whole world of thought, which is there at the first, remains there all through the evolutions of the protoplasm, will be there when these are done, is in fact independent of time and space, has nothing to do with such distinctions, expresses rather their ultimate unreality.
So far then as Parmenides and his school kept a firm grip on this other-world aspect of nature as implied even in the simple word _is_, or _be_, so far they did good service in the process of the world's thought.
On the other hand, he and they were naturally enough disinclined, as we all are disinclined, to remain in the merely or mainly negative or defensive.
He would not lose his grip of heaven and eternity, but he would fain know the secrets of earth and time as well.
And hence was fashioned the second part of his poem, in which he expounds his theory of the world of opinion, or guess-work, or observation.
[99] In this world he found two originative principles {38} at work, one pertaining to light and heat, the other to darkness and cold.
From the union of these two principles all observable things in creation come, and over this union a God-given power presides, whose name is Love.
Of these two principles, the bright one being analogous to _Fire_, the dark one to _Earth_, he considered the former to be the male or formative element, the latter the female or passive element; the former therefore had analogies to Being as such, the latter to Non-being.
The heavenly existences, the sun, the moon, the stars, are of pure Fire, have therefore an eternal and unchangeable being; they are on the extremest verge of the universe, and corresponding to them at the centre is another fiery sphere, which, itself unmoved, is the cause of all motion and generation in the mixed region between.
The motive and procreative power, sometimes called Love, is at other times called by Parmenides Necessity, Bearer of the Keys, Justice, Ruler, etc.
But while in so far as there was union in the production of man or any other creature, the [102] presiding genius might be symbolised as _Love_; on the other hand, since this union was a union of opposites (Light and Dark), _Discord_ or _Strife_ also had her say in the union.
Thus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of two antagonistic forces, and depended for its particular excellence or defect on the proportions in which these two elements--the {39} light and the dark, the fiery and the earthy--had been commingled.
No character in Greek antiquity, at least in the succession of philosophic teachers, held a more honoured position than Parmenides.
He was looked on with almost superstitious reverence by his fellow-countrymen.
Plato speaks of him as his "Father Parmenides," whom he "revered and honoured more than all the other philosophers together."
To quote Professor Jowett in his introduction to Plato's dialogue _Parmenides_, he was "the founder of idealism and also of dialectic, or in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and of logic."
Of the logical aspect of his teaching we shall see a fuller exemplification in his pupil and successor Zeno; of his metaphysics, by way of summing up what has been already said, it may be remarked that its substantial excellence consists in the perfect clearness and precision with which Parmenides enunciated as fundamental in any theory of the knowable universe the priority of Existence itself, not in time merely or chiefly, but as a condition of having any problem to inquire into.
He practically admits that he does not see how to bridge over the partition between Existence in itself and the changeful, temporary, existing things which the senses give us notions of.
But whatever the connection may be, if there is a connection, he is convinced that nothing would be more absurd than {40} to make the data of sense in any way or degree the measure of the reality of existence, or the source from which existence itself comes into being.
On this serenely impersonal position he took his stand; we find little or nothing of the querulous personal note so characteristic of much modern philosophy.
We never find him asking, "What is to become of _me_ in all this?"
"What is _my_ position with regard to this eternally-existing reality?"
Of course this is not exclusively a characteristic of Parmenides, but of the time.
The idea of personal relation to an eternal Rewarder was only vaguely held in historical times in Greece.
The conception of personal immortality was a mere pious opinion, a doctrine whispered here and there in secret mystery; it was not an influential force on men's motives or actions.
Thought was still occupied with the wider universe, the heavens and their starry wonders, and the strange phenomena of law in nature.
In the succession of the seasons, the rising and setting, the fixities and aberrations, of the heavenly bodies, in the mysteries of coming into being and passing out of it, in these and other similar marvels, and in the thoughts which they evoked, a whole and ample world seemed open for inquiry.
Men and their fate were interesting enough to men, but as yet the egotism of man had not attempted to isolate his destiny from the general problem of nature.
{41} To the _crux_ of philosophy as it appeared to Parmenides in the relation of being as such to things which seem to be, modernism has appended a sort of corollary, in the relation of being as such to _my_ being.
Till the second question was raised its answer, of course, could not be attempted.
But all those who in modern times have said with Tennyson-Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: Thou madest man, he knows not why; He thinks he was not made to die; And Thou hast made him: Thou art just, may recognise in Parmenides a pioneer for them.
Without knowing it, he was fighting the battle of personality in man, as well as that of reality in nature.
{42} CHAPTER V THE ELEATICS (_concluded_) _Zeno's dialectic--Achilles and the tortoise--The dilemma of being--The all a sphere--The dilemmas of experience_ [106] III.
ZENO.--The third head of the Eleatic school was ZENO.
He is described by Plato in the _Parmenides_ as accompanying his master to Athens on the visit already referred to (see above, p. 34), and as being then "nearly forty years of age, of a noble figure and fair aspect."
In personal character he was a worthy pupil of his master, being, like him, a devoted patriot.
He is even said to have fallen a victim to his patriotism, and to have suffered bravely the extremest tortures at the hands of a tyrant Nearchus rather than betray his country.
His philosophic position was a very simple one.
He had nothing to add to or to vary in the doctrine of Parmenides.
His function was primarily that of an expositor and defender of that doctrine, and his particular pre-eminence consists in the ingenuity of his dialectic resources of defence.
He is in fact pronounced by Aristotle to have been the inventor of dialectic or systematic logic.
The relation of {43} the two is humorously expressed thus by Plato (Jowett, _Plato_, vol.
iv.
p. 128); "I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno is your second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way, and would fain deceive us into believing that he is telling us what is new.
For you, in your poems, say, All is one, and of this you adduce excellent proofs; and he, on the other hand, says, There is no many; and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming evidence."
To this Zeno replies, admitting the fact, and adds: "These writings of mine were meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who scoff at him, and show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they suppose to follow from the affirmation of the One.
My answer is an address to the partisans of the many, whose attack I return with interest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of many if carried out appears in a still more ridiculous light than the hypothesis of the being of one."
The arguments of Zeno may therefore be regarded as strictly arguments _in kind_; quibbles if you please, but in answer to quibbles.
The secret of his method was what Aristotle calls Dichotomy--that is, he put side by side two contradictory propositions with respect to any particular supposed real thing in experience, and then proceeded to show that both these contradictories alike imply what is {44} [105] inconceivable.
Thus "a thing must consist either of a finite number of parts or an infinite number."
Assume the number of parts to be finite.
Between them there must either be something or nothing.
If there is something between them, then the whole consists of more parts than it consists of.
If there is nothing between them, then they are not separated, therefore they are not parts; therefore the whole has no parts at all; therefore it is nothing.
If, on the other hand, the number of parts is infinite, then, the same kind of argument being applied, the magnitude of the whole is by infinite successive positing of intervening parts shown to be infinite; therefore this one thing, being infinitely large, is everything.
[107] Take, again, any supposed fact, as that an arrow moves.
An arrow cannot move except in space.
It cannot move in space without being in space.
At any moment of its supposed motion it must be in a particular space.
Being in that space, it must at the time during which it is in it be at rest.
But the total time of its supposed motion is made up of the moments composing that time, and to each of these moments the same argument applies; therefore either the arrow never was anywhere, or it always was at rest.
Or, again, take objects moving at unequal rates, as Achilles and a tortoise.
Let the tortoise have a start of any given length, then Achilles, however {45} much he excel in speed, will never overtake the tortoise.
For, while Achilles has passed over the originally intervening space, the tortoise will have passed over a certain space, and when Achilles has passed over this second space the tortoise will have again passed over some space, and so on _ad infinitum_; therefore in an infinite time there must always be a space, though infinitely diminishing, between the tortoise and Achilles, _i.e._ the tortoise must always be at least a little in front.
These will be sufficient to show the kind of arguments employed by Zeno.
In themselves they are of no utility, and Zeno never pretended that they had any.
But as against those who denied that existence as such was a datum independent of experience, something different from a mere sum of isolated things, his arguments were not only effective, but substantial.
The whole modern sensational or experiential school, who derive our 'abstract ideas,' as they are called, from 'phenomena' or 'sensation,' manifest the same impatience of any analysis of what they mean by phenomena or sensation, as no doubt Zeno's opponents manifested of his analyses.
As in criticising the one, modern critics are ready with their answer that Zeno's quibbles are simply "a play of words on the well-known properties of infinities," so they are quick to tell us that sensation is an "affection of the sentient organism"; ignoring in {46} the first case the prior question where the idea of infinity came from, and in the second, where the idea of a sentient organism came from.
Indirectly, as we shall see, Zeno had a great effect on subsequent philosophies by the development of a process of ingenious verbal distinction, which in the hands of so-called sophists and others became a weapon of considerable, if temporary, power.
[109] IV.
MELISSUS.--The fourth and last of the Eleatic philosophers was Melissus, a native of Samos.
His date may be fixed as about 440 B.C.
He took an active part in the politics of his native country, and on one occasion was commander of the Samian fleet in a victorious engagement with the Athenians, when Samos was being besieged by Pericles.
He belongs to the Eleatic school in respect of doctrine and method, but we have no evidence of his ever having resided at Elea, nor any reference to his connection with the philosophers there, except the statement that he was a pupil of Parmenides.
He developed very fully what is technically called in the science of Logic [110] the _Dilemma_.
Thus, for example, he begins his treatise _On Existence_ or _On Nature_ thus: "If nothing exists, then there is nothing for us to talk about.
But if there is such a thing as existence it must either come into being or be ever-existing.
If it come into being, it must come from the existing or the non-existing.
Now that anything which exists, {47} above all, that which is absolutely existent, should come from what is not, is impossible.
Nor can it come from that which is.
For then it would be already, and would not come into being.
That which exists, therefore, comes not into being; it must therefore be ever-existing."
[111] By similar treatment of other conceivable alternatives he proceeds to show that as the existent had no beginning so it can have no ending in time.
From this, by a curious transition which Aristotle quotes as an example of loose reasoning, he concludes that the existent can have no limit in space [112] either.
As being thus unlimited it must be one, therefore immovable (there being nothing else into which it can move or change), and therefore always self-identical in extent and character.
It cannot, therefore, have any body, for body has parts and is not therefore one.
[113] Being incapable of change one might perhaps conclude that the absolutely existing being is incapable of any mental activity or consciousness.
We have no authority for assuming that Melissus came to this conclusion; but there is a curious remark of Aristotle's respecting this and previous philosophers of the school which certain critics have [114] made to bear some such interpretation.
He says: "Parmenides seems to hold by a Unity in thought, Melissus by a Material unity.
Hence the first {48} defined the One as limited, the second declared it to be unlimited.
Xenophanes made no clear statement on this question; he simply, gazing up to the arch of heaven, declared, The One is God."
But the difference between Melissus and his master can hardly be said to be a difference of doctrine; point for point, they are identical.
The difference is a difference of vision or mental picture as to this mighty All which is One.
Melissus, so to speak, places himself at the centre of this Universal being, and sees it stretching out infinitely, unendingly, in space and in time.
Its oneness comes to him as the _sum_ of these infinities.
Parmenides, on the other hand, sees all these endless immensities as related to a centre; he, so to speak, enfolds them all in the grasp of his unifying thought, and as thus equally and necessarily related to a central unity he pronounces the All a sphere, and therefore limited.
The two doctrines, antithetical in terms, are identical in fact.
The absolutely unlimited and the absolutely self-limited are only two ways of saying the same thing.
This difference of view or vision Aristotle in the passage quoted expresses as a difference between _thought_ ((Greek) _logos_) and _matter_ ((Greek) _hule_).
This is just a form of his own radical distinction between Essence and Difference, Form and Matter, of which much will be said later on.
It is like the difference {49} between Deduction and Induction; in the first you start from the universal and see within it the particulars; in the second you start from the particulars and gather them into completeness and reality in a universal.
The substance remains the same, only the point of view is different.
To put the matter in modern mathematical form, one might say, The universe is to be conceived as a _sphere_ (Parmenides) of _infinite radius_ (Melissus).
Aristotle is not blaming Melissus or praising Parmenides.
As for Xenophanes, Aristotle after his manner finds in him the potentiality of both.
He is prior both to the process of thought from universal to particular, and to that from particular to universal.
He does not argue at all; his function is Intuition.
"He looks out on the mighty sky, and says, The One is God."
Melissus applied the results of his analysis in an interesting way to the question already raised by his predecessors, of the trustworthiness of sensation.
His argument is as follows: "If there were many real existences, to each of them the same reasonings must apply as I have already used with reference to the one existence.
That is to say, if earth really exists, and water and air and iron and gold and fire and things living and things dead; and black and white, and all the various things whose reality men ordinarily assume,--if all these really exist, and our sight and our hearing give us _facts_, then each of these as {50} really existing must be what we concluded the one existence must be; among other things, each must be unchangeable, and can never become other than it really is.
But assuming that sight and hearing and apprehension are true, we find the cold becoming hot and the hot becoming cold; the hard changes to soft, the soft to hard; the living thing dies; and from that which is not living, a living thing comes into being; in short, everything changes, and what now is in no way resembles what was.
It follows therefore that we neither see nor apprehend realities.
"In fact we cannot pay the slightest regard to experience without being landed in self-contradictions.
We assume that there are all sorts of really existing things, having a permanence both of form and power, and yet we imagine these very things altering and changing according to what we from time to time see about them.
If they were realities as we first perceived them, our sight must now be wrong.
For if they were real, they could not change.
Nothing can be stronger than reality.
Whereas to suppose it changed, we must affirm that the real has ceased to be, and that that which was not has displaced it."
To Melissus therefore, as to his predecessors, the world of sense was a world of illusion; the very first principles or assumptions of which, as of the truthfulness of the senses and the reality of the various objects which we see, are unthinkable and absurd.
{51} The weakness as well as the strength of the Eleatic position consisted in its purely negative and critical attitude.
The assumptions of ordinary life and experience could not stand for a moment when assailed in detail by their subtle analysis.
So-called facts were like a world of ghosts, which the sword of truth passed through without resistance.
But somehow the sword might pierce them through and through, and show by all manner of arguments their unsubstantiality, but there they were still thronging about the philosopher and refusing to be gone.
The world of sense might be only illusion, but there the illusion was.
You could not lay it or exorcise it by calling it illusion or opinion.
What was this opinion?
What was the nature of its subject matter?
How did it operate?
And if its results were not true or real, what was their nature?
These were questions which still remained when the analysis of the idea of absolute existence had been pushed to its completion.
These were the questions which the next school of philosophy attempted to answer.
After the Idealists, the Realists; after the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of matter.
{52} CHAPTER VI THE ATOMISTS _Anaxagoras and the cosmos--Mind in nature--The seeds of existence_ [129] I.
ANAXAGORAS.--Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae, a city of Ionia, about the year 500 B.C.
At the age of twenty he removed to Athens, of which city Clazomenae was for some time a dependency.
This step on his part may have been connected with the circumstances attending the great invasion of Greece by Xerxes in the year 480.
For Xerxes drew a large contingent of his army from the Ionian cities which he had subdued, and many who were unwilling to serve against their mother-country may have taken refuge about that time in Athens.
At Athens he resided for nearly fifty years, and during that period became the friend and teacher of many eminent men, among the rest of Pericles, the great Athenian [118] statesman, and of Euripides, the dramatist.
Like most of the Ionian philosophers he had a taste for mathematics and astronomy, as well as for certain practical applications of mathematics.
Among other books he is said to have written a treatise on the art {53} of scene-designing for the stage, possibly to oblige his friend and pupil Euripides.
In his case, as in that of his predecessors, only fragments of his philosophic writings have been preserved, and the connection of certain portions of his teaching as they have come down to us remains somewhat uncertain.
[119] With respect to the constitution of the universe we have the following: "Origination and destruction are phrases which are generally misunderstood among the Greeks.
Nothing really is originated or destroyed; the only processes which actually take place are combination and separation of elements already existing.
[120] These elements we are to conceive as having been in a state of chaos at first, infinite in number and infinitely small, forming in their immobility a confused and characterless unity.
About this chaos was spread the air and aether, infinite also in the multitude of their particles, and infinitely extended.
Before separation commenced there was no clear colour or appearance in anything, whether of moist or dry, of hot or cold, of bright or dark, but only an infinite number of the seeds of things, having concealed in them all manner of forms and colours and savours."
There is a curious resemblance in this to the opening verses of Genesis, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
Nor is the next step in his philosophy without its resemblance to that in the Biblical record.
[122] As summarised by Diogenes Laertius it takes this form, "All things were as one: then cometh Mind, and by division brought all things into order."
[121] "Conceiving," as Aristotle puts it, "that the original elements of things had no power to generate or develop out of themselves things as they exist, philosophers were forced by the facts themselves to seek the immediate cause of this development.
They were unable to believe that fire, or earth, or any such principle was adequate to account for the order and beauty visible in the frame of things; nor did they think it possible to attribute these to mere innate necessity or chance.
_One_ (Anaxagoras) observing how in living creatures Mind is the ordering force, declared that in nature also this must be the cause of order and beauty, and in so declaring he seemed, when compared with those before him, as one sober amidst a crowd of babblers."
[122] Elsewhere, however, Aristotle modifies this commendation.
"Anaxagoras," he says, "uses Mind only as a kind of last resort, dragging it in when he fails otherwise to account for a phenomenon, but never thinking of it else."
And in the _Phaedo_ Plato makes Socrates speak of the high hopes with which he had taken to the works of Anaxagoras, and how grievously he had been disappointed.
"As I proceeded," he says, "I found my philosopher altogether forsaking Mind or any other principle of order, and having {55} recourse to air, and aether, and water, and other eccentricities."
Anaxagoras, then, at least on this side of his teaching, must be considered rather as the author of a phrase than as the founder of a philosophy.
The phrase remained, and had a profound influence on subsequent philosophies, but in his own hands it was little more than a dead letter.
His immediate interest was rather in the variety of phenomena than in their conceived principle of unity; he is theoretically, perhaps, 'on the side of the angels,' in practice he is a materialist.
[12] Mind he conceived as something apart, sitting throned like Zeus upon the heights, giving doubtless the first impulse to the movement of things, but leaving them for the rest to their own inherent tendencies.
As distinguished from them it was, he conceived, the one thing which was absolutely pure and unmixed.
All things else had intermixture with every other, the mixtures increasing in complexity towards the centre of things.
On the outmost verge were distributed the finest and least complex forms of things--the sun, the moon, the stars; the more dense gathering together, to form as it were in the centre of the vortex, the earth and its manifold existences.
By the intermixture of air and earth and water, containing in themselves the infinitely varied seeds of things, plants and animals were {56} developed.
The seeds themselves are too minute to be apprehended by the senses, but we can divine their character by the various characters of the visible things themselves, each of these having a necessary correspondence with the nature of the seeds from which they respectively were formed.
[128] Thus for a true apprehension of things sensation and reason are both necessary--sensation to certify to the apparent characters of objects, reason to pass from these to the nature of the invisible seeds or atoms which cause those characters.
Taken by themselves our sensations are false, inasmuch as they give us only combined impressions, yet they are a necessary stage towards the truth, as providing the materials which reason must separate into their real elements.
From this brief summary we may gather that Mind was conceived, so to speak, as placed at the _beginning_ of existence, inasmuch as it is the first originator of the vortex motions of the atoms or seeds of things; it was conceived also at the _end_ of existence as the power which by analysis of the data of sensation goes back through the complexity of actual being to the original unmingled or undeveloped nature of things.
But the whole process of nature itself between these limits Anaxagoras conceived as a purely mechanical or at least physical development, the uncertainty of his view as between these two alternative ways of considering it being {57} typified in his use of the two expressions _atoms_ and _seeds_.
The analogies of this view with those of modern materialism, which finds in the ultimate molecules of matter "the promise and the potency of all life and all existence," need not be here enlarged upon.
After nearly half a century's teaching at Athens Anaxagoras was indicted on a charge of inculcating doctrines subversive of religion.
It is obvious enough that his theories left no room for the popular mythology, but the Athenians were not usually very sensitive as to the bearing of mere theories upon their public institutions.
It seems probable that the accusation was merely a cloak for political hostility.
Anaxagoras was the friend and intimate of Pericles, leader of the democratic party in the state, and the attack upon Anaxagoras was really a political move intended to damage Pericles.
As such Pericles himself accepted it, and the trial became a contest of strength, which resulted in a partial success and a partial defeat for both sides.
Pericles succeeded in saving his friend's life, but the opposite party obtained a sentence of fine and banishment against him.
Anaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, a city on the Hellespont, and there, after some five years, he died.
{58} CHAPTER VII THE ATOMISTS (_continued_) _Empedocles at Etna--Brief life and scanty vision--The four elements--The philosophy of contradiction--Philosophy a form of poesy--The philosopher a prophet--Sensation through kinship--The whole creation groaneth_ [129] II.
EMPEDOCLES.--Empedocles was a native of Agrigentum, a Greek colony in Sicily.
At the time when he flourished in his native city (circa 440 B.C.)
it was one of the wealthiest and most powerful communities in that wealthy and powerful island.
It had, however, been infested, like its neighbours, by the designs of tyrants and the dissensions of rival factions.
Empedocles was a man of high family, and he exercised the influence which his position and his abilities secured him in promoting and maintaining the liberty of his fellow-countrymen.
Partly on this account, partly from a reputation which with or without his own will he acquired for an almost miraculous skill in healing and necromantic arts, Empedocles attained to a position of singular personal power over his contemporaries, and was indeed regarded as semi-divine.
His death was hedged about with mystery.
According to one story he gave a great feast to his friends and offered a {59} sacrifice; then when his friends went to rest he disappeared, and was no more seen.
According to a story less dignified and better known-Deus immortalis haberi Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam Insiluit.
HOR.
_Ad Pisones_, 464 _sqq_.
"Eager to be deemed a god, Empedocles coldly threw himself in burning Etna."
The fraud, it was said, was detected by one of his shoes being cast up from the crater.
Whatever the manner of his end, the Etna story may probably be taken as an ill-natured joke of some sceptic wit; and it is certain that no such story was believed by his fellow-citizens, who rendered in after years divine honours to his name.
Like Xenophanes, Parmenides, and other Graeco-Italian philosophers, he expounded his views in verse; but he reached a poetic excellence unattained by any predecessor.
Aristotle characterises his gift as Homeric, and himself as a master of style, employing freely metaphors and other poetic forms.
Lucretius also speaks of him in terms of high admiration (_De Nat.
Rer.
i.
716 sqq._): "Foremost among them is Empedocles of Agrigentum, child of the island with the triple capes, a land wondrous deemed in many wise, and worthy to be viewed of all men.
Rich it is in all manner of good things, and strong {60} in the might of its men, yet naught within its borders men deem more divine or more wondrous or more dear than her illustrious son.
Nay, the songs which issued from his godlike breast are eloquent yet, and expound his findings wondrous well, so that hardly is he thought to have been of mortal clay."
[180] Like the Eleatics he denies that the senses are an absolute test of truth.
"For straitened are the powers that have been shed upon our frames, and many the frets that cross us and defeat our care, and short the span of unsatisfying existence wherein 'tis given us to see.
Shortlived as a wreath of smoke men rise and fleet away, persuaded but of that alone which each has chanced to light upon, driven hither and thither, and vainly do they pray to find _the whole_.
For this men may not see or hear or grasp with the hand of thought."
Yet that there is a kind or degree of knowledge possible for man his next words suggest when he continues: "Thou therefore since hither thou hast been borne, hear, and thou shalt learn so much as 'tis given to mortal thought to reach."
Then follows an invocation in true Epic style to the "much-wooed white-armed virgin Muse," wherein he prays that "folly and impurity may be far from the lips of him the teacher, and that sending forth her swift-reined chariot from the shrine of Piety, the Muse may grant him to hear so much as is given to mortal hearing."
{61} Then follows a warning uttered by the Muse to her would-be disciple: "Thee the flowers of mortal distinctions shall not seduce to utter in daring of heart more than thou mayest, that thereby thou mightest soar to the highest heights of wisdom.
And now behold and see, availing thyself of every device whereby the truth may in each matter be revealed, trusting not more to sight for thy learning than to hearing, nor to hearing with its loud echoings more than to the revelations of the tongue, nor to any one of the many ways whereby there is a path to knowledge.
Keep a check on the revelation of the hands also, and apprehend each matter in the way whereby it is made plain to thee."
The correction of the one sense by the others, and of all by reason, this Empedocles deemed the surest road to knowledge.
He thus endeavoured to hold a middle place between the purely abstract reasoning of the Eleatic philosophy and the unreasoned first guesses of ordinary observation suggested by this or that sense, and chiefly by the eyes.
The senses might supply the raw materials of knowledge, unordered, unrelated, nay even chaotic and mutually destructive; but in their contradictions of each other he hoped to find a starting-point for order amidst the seeming chaos; reason should weigh, reason should reject, but reason also should find a residuum of truth.
{62} [181] In our next fragment we have his enunciation in symbolical language of the _four_ elements, by him first formulated: "Hear first of all what are the root principles of all things, being four in number,--Zeus the bright shiner (_i.e._ fire), and Hera (air), and life-bearing Aidoneus (earth), and Nestis (water), who with her teardrops waters the fountain of mortality.
Hear also this other that I will tell thee.
Nothing of all that perisheth ever is created, nothing ever really findeth an end in death.
There is naught but a mingling, and a parting again of that which was mingled, and this is what men call a coming into being.
Foolish they, for in them is no far-reaching thought, that they should dream that what was not before can be, or that aught which is can utterly perish and die."
Thus again Empedocles shows himself an Eclectic; in denying that aught can come into being, he holds with the Eleatics (see above, p. 47); in identifying all seeming creation, and ceasing to be with certain mixtures and separations of matter eternally existing, he links himself rather to the doctrine of Anaxagoras (see above, p. 53).
[132] These four elements constitute the total _corpus_ of the universe, eternal, as a whole unmoved and immovable, perfect like a sphere.
But within this sphere-like self-centred All there are eternally proceeding separations and new unions of the elements of things; and every one of these is at once a birth {63} and an infinity of dyings, a dying and an infinity of births.
Towards this perpetual life in death, and death in life, two forces work inherent in the universe.
One of these he names Love, Friendship, Harmony, Aphrodite goddess of Love, Passion, Joy; the other he calls Hate, Discord, Ares god of War, Envy, Strife.
Neither of the one nor of the other may man have apprehension by the senses; they are spiritually discerned; yet of the first men have some adumbration in the creative force within their own members, which they name by the names of Love and Nuptial Joy.
Somewhat prosaically summing up the teaching of Empedocles, Aristotle says that he thus posited _six_ first principles in nature--four material, two motive or efficient.
And he goes on to remark that in the working out of his theory of nature Empedocles, though using his originative principles more consistently than Anaxagoras used his principle of _Nous_ or Thought, not infrequently, nevertheless, resorts to some natural force in the elements themselves, or even to chance or necessity.
"Nor," he continues, "has he clearly marked off the functions of his two efficient forces, nay, he has so confounded them that at times it is Discord that through separation leads to new unions, and Love that through union causes diremption of that which was before."
At times, too, Empedocles seems to have had a vision of these two forces, not as the counteracting yet {64} co-operative _pulsations_, so to speak, of the universal life, but as rival forces having had in time their periods of alternate supremacy and defeat.
While all things were in union under the influence of Love, then was there neither Earth nor Water nor Air nor Fire, much less any of the individual things that in eternal interchange are formed of them; but all was in perfect sphere-like balance, enwrapped in the serenity of an eternal silence.
Then came the reign of Discord, whereby war arose in heaven as of the fabled giants, and endless change,--endless birth, and endless death.
These inconsistencies of doctrine, which Aristotle notes as faults in Empedocles, are perhaps rather proofs of the philosophic value of his conceptions.
Just as Hegel in modern philosophy could only adequately formulate his conceptions through logical contradictions, so also, perhaps, under the veil of antagonisms of utterance, Empedocles sought to give a fuller vision,--Discord, in his own doctrine, not less than in his conception of nature, being thus the co-worker with Love.
The ordinary mind for the ordinary purposes of science seeks exactness of distinction in things, and language, being the creation of ordinary experience, lends itself to such a purpose; the philosophic mind, finding ready to its hand no forms of expression adapted to its conceptions, which have for their final end Union and not Distinction, {65} can only attain its purpose by variety, or even contradictoriness, of representation.
Thus to ordinary conception cause must precede effect; to the philosophic mind, dealing as it does with the idea of an organic whole, everything is at once cause and effect, is at once therefore prior to and subsequent to every other, is at once the ruling and the ruled, the conditioning and that which is conditioned.
So, to Empedocles there are four elements, yet in the eternal perfection, the silent reign of Love, there are none of them.
There are two forces working upon these and against each other, yet each is like the other either a unifying or a separating force, as one pleases to regard them; and in the eternal silence, the ideal perfectness, there is no warfare at all.
There is joy in Love which creates, and in creating destroys; there is joy in the eternal Stillness, nay, this is itself the ultimate joy.
There are two forces working, Love and Hate, yet is there but one force, and that force is Necessity.
And for final contradiction, the universe is self-balanced, self-conditioned, a perfect sphere; therefore this Necessity is perfect self-realisation, and consequently perfect freedom.
The men who have had the profoundest vision of things--Heraclitus, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, ay, and Aristotle himself when he was the thinker and not the critic; not to speak of the great moderns, whether preachers or philosophers--have none of {66} them been greatly concerned for consistency of expression, for a mere logical self-identity of doctrine.
Life in every form, nay, existence in any form, is a union of contradictories, a complex of antagonisms; and the highest and deepest minds are those that are most adequate to have the vision of these antagonisms in their contrariety, and also in their unity; to see and hear as Empedocles did the eternal war and clamour, but to discern also, as he did in it and through it and behind it and about it, the eternal peace and the eternal silence.
Philosophy, in fact, is a form of poesy; it is, if one pleases so to call it, 'fiction founded upon fact.'
It is not for that reason the less noble a form of human thought, rather is it the more noble, in the same way as poetry is nobler than mere narrative, and art than representation, and imagination than perception.
Philosophy is indeed one of the noblest forms of poetry, because the facts which are its basis are the profoundest, the most eternally interesting, the most universally significant.
And not only has it nobility in respect of the greatness of its subject matter, it has also possibilities of an essential truth deeper and more far-reaching and more fruitful than any demonstrative system of fact can have.
A great poem or work of art of any kind is an adumbration of truths which transcend any actual fact, and as such it brings us nearer to the underlying fundamentals of {67} reality which all actual occurrences only by accumulation _tend_ to realise.
Philosophy, then, in so far as it is great, is, like other great art, prophetic in both interpretations of the word, both as expounding the inner truth that is anterior to actuality, and also as anticipating that final realisation of all things for which 'the whole creation groaneth.'
It is thus at the basis of religion, of art, of morals; it is the accumulated sense of the highest in man with respect to what is greatest and most mysterious in and about him.
The facts, indeed, with which philosophy attempts to deal are so vital and so vast that even the greatest intellects may well stagger occasionally under the burden of their own conceptions of them.
To rise to the height of such an argument demands a more than Miltonic imagination; and criticisms directed only at this or that fragment of the whole are as irrelevant, if not as inept, as the criticism of the mathematician directed against _Paradise Lost_, that it 'proved nothing.'
The mystery of being and of life, the true purport and reality of this world of which we seem to be a part, and yet of which we seem to have some apprehension as though we were other than a part; the strange problems of creation and change and birth and death, of love and sin and purification; of a heaven dreamt of or believed in, or somehow actually apprehended; of life here, and of an immortality yearned after and hoped for--these {68} problems, these mysteries, no philosophy ever did or ever can empty of their strangeness, or bring down to the level of the commonplace 'certainties' of daily life or of science, which are no more than shadows after all, that seem certainties because of the background of mystery on which they are cast.
But just as an individual is a higher being, a fuller, more truly human creature, when he has got so far removed from the merely animal existence as to realise that there are such problems and mysteries, so also the humanisation of the race, the development of its noblest peoples and its noblest literatures, have been conditioned by the successive visions of these mysteries in more and more complex organisation by the great philosophers and poets and preachers.
The systems of such men may die, but such deaths mean, as Empedocles said of the ordinary deaths of things, only an infinity of new births.
Being dead, their systems yet speak in the inherited language and ideas and aspirations and beliefs that form the never-ending, still-renewing material for new philosophies and new faiths.
In Thales, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles we have been touching hands with an apostolic succession of great men and great thinkers and great poets--men of noble life and lofty thoughts, true prophets and revealers.
And the apostolic succession even within the Greek world does not fail for centuries yet.
{69} Passing from the general conceptions of Empedocles to those more particular rationalisations of particular problems which very largely provided the motive of early philosophies, while scientific methods were in an undeveloped and uncritical condition, we may notice such interesting statements as the following: [135] "The earth, which is at the centre of the sphere of the universe, remains firm, because the spin of the universe as a whole keeps it in its place like the water in a spinning cup."
He has the same conception of the early condition of the earth as in other cosmogonies.
At first it was a chaos of watery slough, which slowly, under the influence of sky and sun, parted off into earth and sea.
The sea was the 'sweat' of the earth, and by analogy with the sweat it was salt.
The heavens, on the other hand, were formed of air and fire, and the sun was, as it were, a speculum at which the effulgence and the heat of the whole heavens concentrated.
But that the aether and the fire had not been fully separated from earth and water he held to be proved by the hot fountains and fiery phenomena which must have been so familiar to a native of Sicily.
Curiously enough he imagined fire to possess a solidifying power, and therefore attributed to it the solidity of the earth and the hardness of the rocks.
No doubt he had observed some effects of fire in 'metamorphic' formations in his own vicinity.
{70} [137] He had also a conception of the gradual development on the earth of higher and higher forms of life, the first being rude and imperfect, and a 'struggle for existence' ensuing in which the monstrous and the deficient gradually were eliminated--the "two-faced, the double-breasted, the oxen-shaped with human prows, or human-shaped with head of ox, or hemaphrodite," and so forth.
Love and Strife worked out their ends upon these varied forms; some procreated and reproduced after their image, others were incapable of reproduction from mere monstrosity or [138] weakness, and disappeared.
Something other than mere chance thus governed the development of things; there was a law, a reason, a _Logos_ governing the process.
This law or reason he perhaps fancifully illustrated by attributing the different characters of flesh and sinew and bone to the different numerical proportions, in which they severally contain the different elements.
On this Aristotle, keen-scented critic as he was, has a question, or series of questions, to ask as to the relation between this Logos, or principle of orderly combination, and Love as the ruling force in all unions of things.
"Is Love," he asks, "a cause of mixtures of any sort, or only of such sorts as Logos dictates?
And whether then is Love identical with this Logos, or are they separate and distinct; and if so, what settles their separate functions?"
Questions {71} which Empedocles did not answer, and perhaps would not have tried to answer had he heard them.
[139] The soul or life-principle in man Empedocles regarded as an ordered composite of all the elements or principles of the life in nature, and in this kinship of the elements in man and the elements in nature he found a rationale of our powers of perception.
"By the earth," said he, "we have perception of earth; by water we have perception of water; of the divine aether, by aether; of destructive fire, by fire; of love, by love; of strife, by strife."
He therefore, as Aristotle observes, drew no radical distinction between sense-apprehension and thought.
He located the faculty of apprehension more specifically in the blood, conceiving that in it the combination of the elements was most complete.
And the variety of apprehensive gift in different persons he attributed to the greater or lesser perfectness of this blood mixture in them individually.
Those that were dull and stupid had a relative deficiency of the lighter and more invisible elements; those that were quick and impulsive had a relatively larger proportion of these.
Again, specific faculties depended on local perfection of mixture in certain organs; orators having this perfectness in their tongues, cunning craftsmen possessing it in their hands, and so on.
And the degrees of capacity of sensation, which he found in various animals, or even plants, he explained in similar fashion.
{72} The process of sensation he conceived to be conditioned by an actual emission from the bodies perceived of elements or images of themselves which found access to our apprehension through channels [140] congruous to their nature.
But ordering, criticising, organising these various apprehensions was the Mind or _Nous_, which he conceived to be of divine nature, to be indeed an expression or emanation of the Divine.
And here has been preserved a strangely interesting passage, in which he incorporates and develops in characteristic fashion the doctrine of transmigration [141] of souls: "There is a decree of Necessity, a law given of old from the gods, eternal, sealed with mighty oaths, that when any heavenly creature (daemon) of those that are endowed with length of days, shall in waywardness of heart defile his hands with sin of deed or speech, he shall wander for thrice ten thousand seasons far from the dwellings of the blest, taking upon him in length of time all manner of mortal forms, traversing in turn the many toilsome paths of existence.
Him the aetherial wrath hurries onward to the deep, and the deep spews him forth on to the threshold of earth, and unworn earth casts him up to the fires of the sun, and again the aether hurls him into the eddies.
One receives him, and then another, but detested is he of them all.
Of such am I also one, an exile and a wanderer from God, a slave to strife and its madness."
{73} Thus to his mighty conception the life of all creation, and not of man only, was a great expiation, an eternal round of punishment for sin; and in the unending flux of life each creature rose or fell in the scale of existence according to the deeds of good or ill done in each successive life; rising sometimes to the state of men, or among men to the high functions of physicians and prophets and kings, or among beasts to the dignity of the lion, or among trees to the beauty of the laurel; or, on the contrary, sinking through sin to lowest forms of bestial or vegetable life.
Till at the last they who through obedience and right-doing have expiated their wrong, are endowed by the blessed gods with endless honour, to dwell for ever with them and share their banquets, untouched any more with human care and sorrow and pain.
[143] The slaying of any living creature, therefore, Empedocles, like Pythagoras, abhorred, for all were kin.
All foul acts were forms of worse than suicide; life should be a long act of worship, of expiation, of purification.
And in the dim past he pictured a vision of a golden age, in which men worshipped not many gods, but Love only, and not with sacrifices of blood, but with pious images, and cunningly odorous incense, and offerings of fragrant myrrh.
With abstinence also, and above all with that noblest abstinence, the abstinence from vice and wrong.
{74} CHAPTER VIII THE ATOMISTS (_concluded_) _The laughing philosopher--Atoms and void--No god and no truth_ [143] III.
LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS.--Leucippus is variously called a native of Elea, of Abdera, of Melos, of Miletus.
He was a pupil of Zeno the Eleatic.
[144] Democritus was a native of Abdera.
They seem to have been almost contemporary with Socrates.
The two are associated as thorough-going teachers of the 'Atomic Philosophy,' but Democritus, 'the laughing philosopher,' as he was popularly called in later times, in distinction from Heraclitus, 'the weeping philosopher,' was much the more famous.
[145] He lived to a great age.
He himself refers to his travels and studies thus: "Above all the men of my time I travelled farthest, and extended my inquiries to places the most distant.
I visited the most varied climates and countries, heard the largest number of learned men, nor has any one surpassed me in the gathering together of writings and their interpretation, no, not even the most learned of the Egyptians, with whom I spent five years."
We {75} are also informed that, through desire of learning, he visited Babylon and Chaldaea, to visit the astrologers and the priests.
[146] Democritus was not less prolific as a writer than he was voracious as a student, and in him first the division of philosophy into certain great sections, such as physical, mathematical, ethical, was clearly [147] drawn.
We are, however, mainly concerned with his teaching in its more strictly philosophical aspects.
His main doctrine was professedly antithetical to that of the Eleatics, who, it will be remembered, worked out on abstract lines a theory of one indivisible, eternal, immovable Being.
Democritus, on the contrary, declared for two co-equal elements, the Full and the Empty, or Being and Nonentity.
The latter, he maintained, was as real as the former.
As we should put it, Body is unthinkable except by reference to space which that body does not occupy, as well as to space which it does occupy; and conversely Space is unthinkable except by reference to body actually or potentially filling or defining it.
What Democritus hoped to get by this double or correlative system was a means of accounting for or conceiving of _change_ in nature.
The difficulty with the Eleatics was, as we have seen, how to understand whence or why the transition from that which absolutely is, to this strange, at least apparent, system of eternal flux and transformation.
Democritus {76} hoped to get over this difficulty by starting as fully with that which _is not_, in other words, with that which _wants_ change in order to have any recognisable being at all, as with that which _is_, and which therefore might be conceived as seeking and requiring only to be what it is.
[148] Having got his principle of stability and his principle of change on an equal footing, Democritus next laid it down that all the differences visible in things were differences either of shape, of arrangement, or of position; practically, that is, he considered that what seem, to us to be qualitative differences in things, _e.g._ hot or cold, sweet or sour, green or yellow, are only resulting impressions from different shapes, or different arrangements, or different modes of presentation, among the atoms of which things are composed.
Coming now to that which _is_, Democritus, as against the Eleatics, maintained that this was not a unity, some one immovable, unchangeable existence, but an innumerable number of atoms, invisible by reason of their smallness, which career through empty space (that which _is not_), and by their union bring objects into being, by their separation bring these to destruction.
The action of these atoms on each other depended on the manner in which they were brought into contact; but in any case the unity of any object was only an apparent unity, it being really constituted of a multitude of interlaced and mutually related {77} particles, and all growth or increase of the object being conditioned by the introduction into the structure of additional atoms from without.
[149] For the motions of the atoms he had no anterior cause to offer, other than necessity or fate.
They existed, and necessarily and always had existed, in a state of whirl; and for that which always had been he maintained that no preceding cause could legitimately or reasonably be demanded.
[150] Nothing, then, could come out of nothing; all the visible structure of the universe had its origin in the movements of the atoms that constituted it, and conditioned its infinite changes.
The atoms, by a useful but perhaps too convenient metaphor, he called the _seeds_ of all things.
They were infinite in number, though not infinite in the number, of their shapes.
Many atoms were similar to each other, and this similarity formed a basis of union among them, a warp, so to speak, or solid foundation across which the woof of dissimilar atoms played to constitute the differences of things.
[151] Out of this idea of an eternal eddy or whirl Democritus developed a cosmogony.
The lighter atoms he imagined flew to the outmost rim of the eddy, there constituting the heavenly fires and the heavenly aether.
The heavier atoms gathered at the centre, forming successively air and water and the solid earth.
Not that there was only one such {78} system or world, but rather multitudes of them, all varying one from the other; some without sun or moon, others with greater luminaries than those of our system, others with a greater number.
All, however, had necessarily a centre; all as systems were necessarily spherical.
[152] As regards the atoms he conceived that when they differed in weight this must be in respect of a difference in their essential size.
In this he was no doubt combating the notion that the atoms say of lead or gold were in their substance, taking equal quantities, of greater weight than atoms of water or air.
The difference of weight in objects depended on the proportion which the atoms in them bore to the amount of empty space which was interlaced with them.
On the other hand, a piece of iron was lighter yet harder than a piece of lead of equal size, because of the special way in which the atoms in it were linked together.
There were fewer atoms in it, but they were, in consequence of their structure and arrangement, more tightly strung.
[153] In all this Democritus was with great resolution working out what we may call a strictly mechanical theory of the universe.
Even the soul or life-principle in living creatures was simply a structure of the finest and roundest (and therefore most nimble) atoms, with which he compared the extremely attenuated dust particles visible in their never-ending {79} dance in a beam of light passed into a darkened room.
This structure of exceeding tenuity and nimbleness was the source of the motion characteristic of living creatures, and provided that elastic counteracting force to the inward-pressing nimble air, whereby were produced the phenomena of respiration.
Every object, in fact, whether living or not, kept its form and distinctive existence by its possession in degree of a kind of soul or spirit of resistance in its structure, adequate to counteract the pressure of external forces upon its particles.
[155] Sensation and perception were forms in which these external forces acted upon the more nimble and lively existences, more particularly on living creatures.
For every body was continually sending forth emanations or images resembling itself sufficiently in form and structure to affect perceptive bodies with an apprehension of that form and structure.
These images travelled by a process of successive transmission, similar to that by which wave-motions are propagated in water.
They were, in other words, not movements of the _particles_ of the objects, which latter must otherwise in time grow less and fade away, but a modification in the arrangement of the particles immediately next the object, which modification reproduced itself in the next following, and so on right through the medium to the perceptive body.
{80} [156] These images tended by extension in all directions to reach vast dimensions at times, and to influence the minds of men in sleep and on other occasions in strange ways.
Hence men imagined gods, and attributed those mighty phenomena of nature--earthquakes, tempests, lightning and thunder, and dire eclipses of sun and moon, to the vaguely visible powers which they imagined they saw.
There was indeed a soul or spirit of the universe, as there was a soul or spirit of every individual thing that constituted it.
But this was only a finer system of atoms after all.
All else is convention or dream; the only realities are Atoms and Emptiness, Matter and Space.
[157] Of absolute verity through the senses we know nothing; our perceptions are only conventional interpretations of we know not what.
For to other living creatures these same sensations have other meanings than they have to us, and even the same person is not always affected alike by the same thing; which then is the true of two differing perceptions we cannot say.
And therefore either there is no such thing as truth, or, at all events, we know through the senses nothing of it.
The only genuine knowledge is that which transcends appearances, and reasons out what is, irrespective of appearances,--in other words, the only genuine knowledge is that of the (atomic) philosopher.
And his knowledge is {81} the result of the happy mixture of his atoms whereby all is in equal balance, neither too hot nor too cold.
Such a man seeing in the mind's eye the whole universe a tissue of whirling and interlacing atoms, with no real mystery or terror before or after, will live a life of cheerful fearlessness, undisturbed by terrors of a world to come or of powers unseen.
His happiness is not in feastings or in gold, but in a mind at peace.
And three human perfections he will seek to attain: to reason rightly, to speak graciously, to do his duty.
{82} CHAPTER IX THE SOPHISTS _Anarchic philosophy--Success not truth--Man the measure--All opinions true--Reductio ad absurdum_ A certain analogy may perhaps be discerned between the progression of philosophic thought in Greece as we have traced it, and the political development which had its course in almost every Greek state during the same period.
The Ionic philosophy may be regarded as corresponding with the _kingly_ era in Greek politics.
Philosophy sits upon the heights and utters its authoritative dicta for the resolution of the seeming contradictions of things.
One principle is master, but the testimony of the senses is not denied; a harmony of thought and sensation is sought in the interpretation of appearances by the light of a ruling idea.
In Pythagoras and his order we have an _aristocratic_ organisation of philosophy.
Its truths are for the few, the best men are the teachers, equal as initiated partakers in the mysteries, supreme over all outside their society.
A reasoned and reasonable order and method are {83} symbolised by their theory of Number; their philosophy is political, their politics oligarchic.
In the Eleatic school we have a succession of personal attempts to construct a _domination_ in the theory of Nature; some ideal conception is attempted to be so elevated above the data of sensation as to override them altogether, and the general result we are now to see throughout the philosophic world, as it was seen also throughout the world of politics, in a total collapse of the principle of forced authority, and a development, of successively nearer approaches to anarchic individualism and doubt.
The notion of an ultimately true and real, whatever form it might assume in various theorists' hands, being in its essence apart from and even antagonistic to the perceptions of sense, was at last definitely cast aside as a delusion; what remained were the individual perceptions, admittedly separate, unreasoned, unrelated; Reason was dethroned, Chaos was king.
In other words, what _seemed_ to any individual sentient being at any moment to be, that for him was, and nothing else was.
The distinction between the real and the apparent was definitely attempted to be abolished, not as hitherto by rejecting the sensually apparent in favour of the rationally conceived real, but by the denial of any such real altogether.
The individualistic revolution in philosophy not {84} only, however, had analogies with the similar revolution contemporaneously going on in Greek politics, it was greatly facilitated by it.
Each, in short, acted and reacted on the other.
Just as the sceptical philosophy of the Encyclopaedists in France promoted the Revolution, and the Revolution in its turn developed and confirmed the philosophic scepticism, so also the collapse of contending philosophies in Greece promoted the collapse of contending systems of political authority, and the collapse of political authority facilitated the growth of that individualism in thought with which the name of the Sophists is associated.
[178] Cicero (_Brut_.
12) definitely connects the rise of these teachers with the expulsion of the tyrants and the establishment of democratic republics in Sicily.
From 466 to 406 B.C.
Syracuse was democratically governed, and a 'free career to talents,' as in revolutionary France, so also in revolutionary Greece, began to be promoted by the elaboration of a system of persuasive argument.
Devices of method called 'commonplaces' were constructed, whereby, irrespective of the truth or falsehood of the subject-matter, a favourable vote in the public assemblies, a successful verdict in the public courts, might more readily be procured.
Thus by skill of verbal rhetoric, the worse might be made to appear the better reason; and philosophy, so far as it continued its functions, {85} became a search, not for the real amidst the confusions of the seeming and unreal, but a search for the seeming and the plausible, to the detriment, or at least to the ignoring, of any reality at all.
The end of philosophy then was no longer universal truth, but individual success; and consistently enough, the philosopher himself professed the individualism of his own point of view, by teaching only those who were prepared to pay him for his teaching.
All over Greece, with the growth of democracy, this philosophy of persuasion became popular; but it was to Athens, under Pericles at this time the centre of all that was most vivid and splendid in Greek life and thought, that the chief teachers of the new philosophy flocked from every part of the Greek world.
[177] The first great leader of the Sophists was _Protagoras_.
He, it is said, was the first to teach for pay; he also was the first to adopt the name of Sophist.
In the word Sophist there was indeed latent the idea which subsequently attached to it, but as first used it seems to have implied this only, that _skill_ was the object of the teaching rather than _truth_; the new teachers professed themselves 'practical men,' not mere theorists.
The Greek word, in short, meant an able cultivated man in any branch of the arts; and the development of practical capacity was doubtless what Protagoras {86} intended to indicate as the purpose of his teaching, when he called himself a Sophist.
But the ability he really undertook to cultivate was ability to _persuade_, for Greece at this time was nothing if not political; and persuasive oratory was the one road to political success.
And as Athens was the great centre of Greek politics, as well as of Greek intellect, to Athens Protagoras came as a teacher.
He was born at Abdera, in Thrace (birthplace also of Democritus), in 480 B.C., began to teach at Athens about 451 B.C., and soon acquired great influence with Pericles, the distinguished leader of the Athenian democracy at this time.
It is even alleged that when in 445 the Athenians were preparing to establish a colony at Thurii in Italy, Protagoras was requested to draw up a code of laws for the new state, and personally to superintend its execution.
After spending some time in Italy he returned to Athens, and taught there with great success for a number of years.
Afterwards he taught for some time in Sicily, and died at the age of seventy, after [178] about forty years of professional activity.
He does not seem to have contented himself with the merely practical task of teaching rhetoric, but in a work which he, perhaps ironically, entitled _Truth_, he enunciated the principles on which he based his teaching.
Those principles were summed up in the sentence, "Man (by which he meant _each_ man) is {87} the measure of all things, whether of their existence when they do exist, or of their non-existence when [179] they do not."
In the development of this doctrine Protagoras starts from a somewhat similar analysis of things to that of Heraclitus and others.
Everything is in continual flux, and the apparently real objects in nature are the mere temporary and illusory result of the in themselves invisible movements and minglings of the elements of which they are composed; and not only is it a delusion to attempt to give a factitious reality to the things which appear, it is equally a delusion to attempt to separate the (supposed) thing perceived from the perception itself.
A thing is only as and when it is perceived.
And a third delusion is to attempt to separate a supposed perceiving mind from the perception; all three exist only in and through the momentary perception; the supposed reality behind this, whether external in the object or internal in the mind, is a mere imagination.
Thus the Heraclitean flux in Nature was extended to Mind also; only the sensation exists, and that only at the moment of its occurrence; this alone is truth, this alone is reality; all else is delusion.
[180] It followed from this that as a man felt a thing to be, so for him it veritably was.
Thus abstract truth or falsity could not be; the same statements could be indifferently true or false--to different {88} individuals at the same time, to the same individual at different times.
It followed that all appearances were equally true: what seemed to be to any man, that was alone the true for him.
The relation of such a doctrine as this to politics and to morals is not far to seek.
Every man's opinion was as good as another's; if by persuasion you succeeded in altering a man's opinion, you had not deceived the man, his new opinion was as true (to him) as the old one.
Persuasiveness, therefore, was the only wisdom.
Thus if a man is ill what he eats and drinks seems bitter to him, and it is so; when he is well it seems the opposite, and is so.
He is not a wiser man in the second state than in the first, but the second state is pleasanter.
If then you can persuade him that what he thinks bitter is really sweet, you have done him good.
This is what the physician tries to do by his drugs; this is what the Sophist tries to do by his words.
Virtue then is teachable in so far as it is possible to persuade a boy or a man by rhetoric that that course of conduct which pleases others is a pleasant course for him.
But if any one happens not to be persuaded of this, and continues to prefer his own particular course of conduct, this _is_ for him the good course.
You cannot blame him; you cannot say he is wrong.
If you punish him you simply endeavour to supply the dose of unpleasantness which may {89} be needed to put the balance in his case on the same side as it already occupies in the case of other people.
It may be worth while to anticipate a little, and insert here in summary the refutation of this position put into the mouth of Socrates by Plato in the _Theaetetus_: "But I ought not to conceal from you that there is a serious objection which may be urged against this doctrine of Protagoras.
For there are states, such as madness and dreaming, in which perception is false; and half our life is spent in dreaming; and who can say that at this instant we are not dreaming?
Even the fancies of madmen are real at the time.
But if knowledge is perception, how can we distinguish between the true and the false in such cases?
.
.
.
Shall I tell you what amazes me in your friend Protagoras?
'What may that be?'
I like his doctrine that what appears is; but I wonder that he did not begin his great work on truth with a declaration that a pig, or a dog-faced baboon, or any other monster which has sensation, is a measure of all things; then while we were reverencing him as a god he might have produced a magnificent effect by expounding to us that he was no wiser than a tadpole.
For if truth is only sensation, and one man's discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own judge, and everything that he judges is right and true, then {90} what need of Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why should we be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every man is the measure of all things?"
.
.
.
Socrates now resumes the argument.
As he is very desirous of doing justice to Protagoras, he insists on citing his own words: 'What appears to each man is to him.'
"And how," asks Socrates, "are these words reconcilable with the fact that all mankind are agreed in thinking themselves wiser than others in some respects, and inferior to them in others?
In the hour of danger they are ready to fall down and worship any one who is their superior in wisdom as if he were a god.
And the world is full of men who are asking to be taught and willing to be ruled, and of other men who are willing to rule and teach them.
All which implies that men do judge of one another's impressions, and think some wise and others foolish.
How will Protagoras answer this argument?
For he cannot say that no one deems another ignorant or mistaken.
If you form a judgment, thousands and tens of thousands are ready to maintain the opposite.
The multitude may not and do not agree in Protagoras' own thesis, 'that man is the measure of all things,' and then who is to decide?
Upon hip own showing must not his 'truth' depend on the number of suffrages, and be more or less true in proportion as he has more or fewer of them?
And {91} [the majority being against him] he will be bound to acknowledge that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, which is a famous jest.
And if he admits that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, he must admit that he himself does not speak truly.
But his opponents will refuse to admit this as regards themselves, and he must admit that they are right in their refusal.
The conclusion is, that all mankind, including Protagoras himself, will deny that he speaks truly; and his truth will be true neither to himself nor to anybody else" (Jowett, _Plato_, iv.
pp.
239 _sqq._) The refutation seems tolerably complete, but a good deal had to happen before Greece was ready to accept or Plato to offer such a refutation.
{92} CHAPTER X THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_) _Nothing knowable--The solitude of scepticism--The lawlessness of scepticism--The good in scepticism_ [183] Gorgias was perhaps even more eminent a Sophist than Protagoras.
He was a native of Leontini in Sicily, and came to Athens in the year 427 B.C.
on a public embassy from his native city.
The splendid reputation for political and rhetorical ability, which preceded him to Athens, he fully justified both by his public appearances before the Athenian assembly, and by the success of his private instructions to the crowds of wealthy young men who resorted to him.
He dressed in magnificent style, and affected a lofty and poetical manner of speech, which offended the more critical, but which pleased the crowd.
[181] He also, like Protagoras, published a treatise in which he expounded his fundamental principles, and like Protagoras, he preceded it with a striking if somewhat ironical title, and an apophthegm in which he summarised his doctrine.
The title of his work was _Of the Non-Existent_, that is, _Of Nature_, and {93} his dictum, "Nothing exists, or if anything exists, it cannot be apprehended by man, and even if it could be apprehended, the man who apprehended it could not expound or explain it to his neighbour."
In support of this strange doctrine, Gorgias adopted the quibbling method of argument which had been applied with some success to dialectical purposes by Zeno, Melissus, and others (see above, pp.
44 _sqq._) [185] His chief argument to prove the first position laid down by him depended on a double and ambiguous use of the word _is_; "That which is not, _is_ the non-existent: the word _is_ must, therefore, be applicable to it as truly as when we say That which is, _is_; therefore, being is predicable of that which is not."
So conversely he proved not-being to be predicable of that which is.
And in like manner he made away with any possible assertions as to the finite or infinite, the eternal or created, nature of that which is.
Logic could supply him with alternative arguments from whatever point he started, such as would seem to land the question in absurdity.
Hence his first position was (he claimed) established, that 'Nothing is.'
To prove the second, that even if anything is, it cannot be known to man, he argued thus: "If what a man thinks is not identical with what is, plainly what is cannot be thought.
And that what a man thinks is not identical with what is can be {94} shown from the fact that thinking does not affect the facts.
You may imagine a man flying, or a chariot coursing over the deep, but you do not find these things to occur because you imagine them.
Again, if we assume that what we think is identical with what is, then it must be impossible to think of what is not.
But this is absurd; for we can think of such admittedly imaginary beings as Scylla and Chimaera, and multitudes of others.
There is therefore no necessary relation between our thoughts and any realities; we may believe, but we cannot prove, which (if any) of our conceptions have relation to an external fact and which have not."
[187] Nor thirdly, supposing any man had obtained an apprehension of what is real, could he possibly communicate it to any one else.
If a man saw anything, he could not possibly by verbal description make clear what it is he sees to a man who has never seen.
And so if a man has not himself the apprehension of reality, mere words from another cannot possibly give him any idea of it.
He may imagine he has the same idea as the speaker, but where is he going to get the common test by which to establish the identity?
Without attempting to follow Gorgias further, we can see plainly enough the object and purport of the whole doctrine.
Its main result is to _isolate_.
It isolates each man from his fellows; he cannot tell {95} what they know or think, they cannot reach any common ground with him.
It isolates him from nature; he cannot tell what nature is, he cannot tell whether he knows anything of nature or reality at all.
It isolates him from himself; he cannot tell for certain what relation exists (if any) between what he imagines he perceives at any moment and any remembered or imagined previous experiences; he cannot be sure that there ever were any such experiences, or what that self was (if anything) which had them, or whether there was or is any self perceiving anything.
Let us imagine the moral effect on the minds of the ablest youth of Greece of such an absolute collapse of belief.
The philosophic scepticism did not deprive them of their appetites or passions; it did not in the least alter their estimate of the prizes of success, or the desirability of wealth and power.
All it did was to shatter the invisible social bonds of reverence and honour and truth and justice, which in greater or less degree act as a restraining force upon the purely selfish appetites of men.
Not only belief in divine government disappeared, but belief in any government external or internal; justice became a cheating device to deprive a man of what was ready to his grasp; good-faith was stupidity when it was not a more subtle form of deceit; morality was at best a mere convention which a man might cancel if {96} he pleased; the one reality was the appetite of the moment, the one thing needful its gratification; society, therefore, was universal war, only with subtler weapons.
Of course Protagoras and Gorgias were only notable types of a whole horde of able men who in various ways, and with probably less clear notions than these men of the drift or philosophic significance of their activity, helped all over Greece in the promulgation of this new gospel of self-interest.
Many Sophists no doubt troubled themselves very little with philosophical questions; they were 'agnostics,' know-nothings; all they professed to do was to teach some practical skill of a verbal or rhetorical character.
They had nothing to do with the nature or value of ideals; they did not profess to say whether any end or aim was in itself good or bad, but given an end or aim, they were prepared to help those who hired them to acquire a skill which would be useful towards attaining it.
But whether a philosophy or ultimate theory of life be expressly stated or realised by a nation or an individual, or be simply ignored by them, there always is some such philosophy or theory underlying their action, and that philosophy or theory tends to work itself out to its logical issue in action, whether men openly profess it or no.
And the theory of negation of law in nature or in man which underlay {97} the sophistic practice had its logical and necessary effect on the social structure throughout Greece, in a loosening of the bonds of religion, of family reverence and affection, of patriotism, of law, of honour.
Thucydides in a well-known passage (iii.
82) thus describes the prevalent condition of thought in his own time, which was distinctively that of the sophistic teaching: "The common meaning of words was turned about at men's pleasure; the most reckless bravo was deemed the most desirable friend; a man of prudence and moderation was styled a coward; a man who listened to reason was a good-for-nothing simpleton.
People were trusted exactly in proportion to their violence and unscrupulousness, and no one was so popular as the successful conspirator, except perhaps one who had been clever enough to outwit him at his own trade, but any one who honestly attempted to remove the causes of such treacheries was considered a traitor to his party.
As for oaths, no one imagined they were to be kept a moment longer than occasion required; it was, in fact, an added pleasure to destroy your enemy if you had managed to catch him through his trusting to your word."
These are the words not of Plato, who is supposed often enough to allow his imagination to carry him beyond his facts about the Sophists as about others, nor are they the words of a satiric poet such as {98} Aristophanes.
They are the words of the most sober and philosophic of Greek historians, and they illustrate very strikingly the tendency, nay, the absolute necessity, whereby the theories of philosophers in the closet extend themselves into the market-place and the home, and find an ultimate realisation of themselves for good or for evil in the 'business and bosoms' of the common crowd.
It is not to be said that the individualistic and iconoclastic movement which the Sophists represented was wholly bad, or wholly unnecessary, any more (to again quote a modern instance) than that the French Revolution was.
There was much, no doubt, in the traditional religion and morality of Greece at that time which represented obsolete and antiquated conditions, when every city lived apart from its neighbours with its own narrow interests and local cults and ceremonials.
Greece was ceasing to be an unconnected crowd of little separate communities; unconsciously it was preparing itself for a larger destiny, that of conqueror and civiliser of East and West.
This scepticism, utterly untenable and unworkable on the lines extravagantly laid down by its leading teachers, represented the birth of new conditions of thought and action adapted to the new conditions of things.
On the surface, and accepted literally, it seemed to deny the possibility of knowledge; it threatened to destroy humanity and {99} civilisation.
But its strength lay latent in an implied denial only of what was merely traditional; it denied the finality of purely Greek preconceptions; it was laying the foundations of a broader humanity.
It represented the claim of a new generation to have no dogma or assumption thrust on it by mere force, physical or moral.
"_I_ too am a man," it said; "_I_ have rights; _my_ reason must be convinced."
This is the fundamental thought at the root of most revolutions and reformations and revivals, and the thought is therefore a necessary and a just one.
Unfortunately it seems to be an inevitable condition of human affairs that nothing new, however necessary or good can come into being out of the old, without much sorrow and many a birth-pang.
The extravagant, the impetuous, the narrow-minded on both sides seize on their points of difference, raise them into battle-cries, and make what might be a peaceful regeneration a horrid battlefield of contending hates.
The Christ when He comes brings not peace into the world, but a sword.
And men of evil passions and selfish ambitions are quick on both sides to make the struggle of old and new ideals a handle for their own indulgence or their own advancement; the Pharisees and the Judases between them make the Advent in some of its aspects a sorry spectacle.
A reconciler was wanted who should wed what {100} was true in the new doctrine of individualism with what was valuable in the old doctrine of universal and necessary truth; who should be able to say, "Yes, I acknowledge that your individual view of things must be reckoned with, and mine, and everybody else's; and for that very reason do I argue for a universal and necessary truth, because the very truth for you as an individual is just this universal."
The union and identification of the Individual and Universal,--this paradox of philosophy is the doctrine of Socrates.
{101} CHAPTER XI SOCRATES _The crisis of philosophy--Philosophic midwifery--The wisest of men--The gadfly of Athens--Justice, beauty, utility--Virtue is knowledge_ The sophistic teaching having forced philosophy to descend into the practical interests and personal affairs of men, it followed that any further step in philosophy, any reaction against the Sophists, could only begin from the moral point of view.
Philosophy, as an analysis of the data of perception or of nature, had issued in a social and moral chaos.
Only by brooding on the moral chaos could the spirit of truth evoke a new order; only out of the moral darkness could a new intellectual light be made to shine.
The social and personal anarchy seemed to be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the philosophy of nature; if ever the philosophy of nature was to be recovered it must be through a revision of the theory of morals.
If it could be proved that the doctrine of individualism, of isolation, which the analysis of a Protagoras or a Gorgias had reached, was not only _unlivable_ but unthinkable,--carried the seeds of its own destruction, theoretical as well as practical, within {102} itself,--then the analysis of _perception_, from which this moral individualism issued, might itself be called to submit to revision, and a stable point of support in the moral world might thus become a centre of stability for the intellectual and the physical also.
By a perfectly logical process, therefore, the crisis of philosophy produced in Greece through the moral and social chaos of the sophistic teaching had two issues, or perhaps we may call it one issue, carried out on the one side with a less, on the other side with a greater completeness.
The less complete reaction from sophistic teaching attempted only such reconstruction of the moral point of view as should recover a law or principle of general and universally cogent character, whereon might be built anew a _moral_ order without attempting to extend the inquiry as to a universal principle into the regions of abstract truth or into physics.
The more complete and logical reaction, starting, indeed, from a universal principle in morals, undertook a logical reconstruction on the recovered universal basis all along the line of what was knowable.
To Socrates it was given to recover the lost point of stability in the world of morals, and by a system of attack, invented by himself, to deal in such a manner with the anarchists about him as to prepare the way for his successors, when the time was ripe for a more extended exposition of the new point of {103} view.
Those who in succession to him worked out a more limited theory of law, mainly or exclusively in the world of morals, only were called the _Incomplete Socratics_.
Those who undertook to work it out through the whole field of the knowable, the _Complete Socratics_, were the two giants of philosophy, Plato and Aristotle.
Greek philosophy then marks with the life of Socrates a parting of the ways in two senses: _first_, inasmuch as with him came the reaction from a physical or theoretical philosophy, having its issue in a moral chaos; and _second_, inasmuch as from him the two great streams of later philosophy issued--the one a philosophy of law or universals in _action_, the other a philosophy of law or universals in _thought_ and _nature_ as well.
Socrates, son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phaenarete a midwife, was born at Athens in or about the year 469 B.C.
His parents were probably poor, for Socrates is represented as having been too poor to pay the fees required for instruction by the Sophists of his time.
But in whatever way acquired or assimilated, it is certain that there was little of the prevalent culture in cultivated Athens with which Socrates had not ultimately a working acquaintance.
Among a people distinguished generally for their handsome features and noble proportions, Socrates was a notable exception.
His face was squat and {104} round, his eyes protruding, his lips thick; he was clumsy and uncouth in appearance, careless of dress, a thorough 'Bohemian,' as we should call him.
He was, however, gifted with an uncommon bodily vigour, was indifferent to heat and cold, by temperament moderate in food and drink, yet capable on occasion of drinking most people 'under the table.'
He was of an imperturbable humour, not to be excited either by danger or by ridicule.
His vein of sarcasm was keen and trenchant, his natural shrewdness astonishing, all the more astonishing because crossed with a strange vein of mysticism and a curious self-forgetfulness.
As he grew up he felt the visitation of a mysterious internal voice, to which or to his own internal communings he would sometimes be observed to listen in abstracted stillness for hours.
The voice within him was felt as a restraining force, limiting his action in various ways, but leaving him free to wander about among his fellows, to watch their doings and interpret their thoughts, to question unweariedly his fellows of every class, high and low, rich and poor, concerning righteousness and justice and goodness and purity and truth.
He did not enter on his philosophic work with some grand general principle ready-made, to which he was prepared to fit the facts by hook or by crook.
Rather he compared himself to his mother, the midwife; he sought to help others to {105} express themselves; he had nothing to tell them, he wanted them to tell him.
This was the irony of Socrates, the eternal _questioning_, which in time came to mean in people's minds what the word does now.
For it was hard, and grew every year harder, to convince people that so subtle a questioner was as ignorant as he professed to be; or that the man who could touch so keenly the weak point of all other men's answers, had no answer to the problems of life himself.
In striking contrast, then, to the method of all previous philosophies, Socrates busied himself to begin with, not with some general intellectual _principle_, but with a multitude of different _people_, with their notions especially on moral ideas, with the meaning or no-meaning which they attached to particular words,--in short, with the individual, the particular, the concrete, the every-day.
He did not at all deny that he had a purpose in all this.
On the contrary, he openly professed that he was in search of the lost universal, the lost _law_ of men's thoughts and actions.
He was convinced that life was not the chaos that the Sophists made out; that nobody really believed it to be a chaos; that, on the contrary, everybody had a meaning and purport in his every word and act, which could be made intelligible to himself and others, if you could only get people to think out clearly what they really meant.
Philosophy {106} had met her destruction in the busy haunts of men; there where had been the bane, Socrates' firm faith sought ever and everywhere the antidote.
This simple enough yet profound and far-reaching practice of Socrates was theorised in later times as a logical method, known to us as _Induction_, or the discovery of universal laws or principles out [195] of an accumulation of particular facts.
And thus Aristotle, with his technical and systematising intellect, attributes two main innovations in philosophy to Socrates; the _Inductive_ process of reasoning, and the establishing of _General Ideas_ or Definitions upon or through this process.
This, true enough as indicating what was latent in the Socratic method, and what was subsequently actually developed out of it by Aristotle himself, is nevertheless probably an anachronism if one seeks to represent it as consciously present in Socrates' mind.
Socrates adopted the method unconsciously, just because he wanted to get at the people about him, and through them at what they thought.
He was the pioneer of Induction rather than its inventor; he created, so to speak, the raw material for a theory of induction and definition; he knew and cared nothing about such theories himself.
A story which may or may not be true in fact is put in Socrates' mouth by Plato, as to the cause which first started him on his "search for definitions."
{107} One of his friends, he tells us, named Chaerephon, went to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and asked whether there was anybody wiser than Socrates.
The answer was given that there was none wiser.
This answer was reported to Socrates, who was much astonished, his own impression being that he had no wisdom or knowledge at all.
So with a view to prove the oracle wrong he went in succession to various people of eminence and reputation in the various walks of life,--statesmen and poets and handicraftsmen and others,--in the expectation that they would show, on being questioned, such a knowledge of the principles on which their work was based as would prove their superior wisdom.
But to his astonishment he found one after another of these men wanting in any apprehension of principles at all.
They seemed to work by a kind of haphazard or 'rule of thumb,' and indeed felt annoyed that anything more should be expected of them.
From which at the last Socrates came to the conclusion that perhaps the oracle was right in this sense at least, that, if he himself knew nothing more than his fellows, he was at least conscious of his own ignorance, whereas they were not.
Whether this tale may not itself be a specimen of Socrates' irony we cannot tell, but at all events it illustrates from another point of view the real meaning of Socrates' life.
He, at least, was not content {108} to rest in haphazard and rule of thumb; he was determined to go on till he found out what was the law or principle of men's acts and words.
The ignorance of others as to any such law or principle in their own case did not convince him that there was no such law or principle; only it was there (he thought) working unconsciously, and therefore in a way defencelessly.
And so he compares himself at times to a gadfly, whose function it is to sting and irritate people out of their easy indifference, and force them to ask themselves what they were really driving at.
Or again, he compares himself to the torpedo-fish, because he tried to give people a shock whenever they attempted to satisfy him with shallow and unreal explanations of their thoughts and actions.
The disinterested self-sacrificing nobility of Socrates' life, thus devoted to awakening them that sleep out of their moral torpor; the enmities that his keen and trenchant questionings of quacks and pretenders of every kind induced; the devotion of some of his friends, the unhappy falling away of others; the calumnies of interested enemies, the satires of poets; and lastly, the story of the final attack by an ungrateful people on their one great teacher, of his unjust condemnation and heroic death--all this we must pass over here.
The story is in outline, at least, a familiar one, and it is one of the noblest in history.
What is more to {109} the purpose for us is to ascertain how far his search for definitions was successful; how far he was able to Take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them; how far, in short, he was able to evolve a law, a universal principle, out of the confused babel of common life and thought and speech, strong enough and wide enough on which to build a new order for this world, a new hope for the world beyond.
We have said that Socrates made the individual and the concrete the field of his search.
And not only did he look to individuals for light, he looked to each individual specifically in that aspect of his character and faculty which was most particular to himself.
That is to say, if he met a carpenter, it was on his carpentering that he questioned him; if a sculptor, on his practice as a sculptor; if a statesman, on his statesmanship.
In short, he did not want general vague theories on subjects of which his interlocutors could not be supposed to have any special experience or knowledge; he interrogated each on the subject which he knew best.
And what struck him, in contrast to the confusion and uncertainty and isolation of the sophistic teaching 'in the air,' was that when you get a man to talk on his own trade, which he _knows_, as is proved by the actual work he produces, you find invariably two {110} things--_first_, that the skill is the man's _individual_ possession no doubt, the result of inborn capacity and continuous training and practice; but _second_, that just in proportion to that individual skill is the man's conviction that his skill has reference to a _law_ higher than himself, outside himself.
If the man whom Socrates interviewed was a skilful statesman, he would tell you he sought to produce obedience to _law_ or right among the citizens; if he was a skilful sculptor, he produced _beautiful_ things; if he was a skilful handicraftsman, he produced _useful_ things.
Justice, beauty, utility; these three words in different ways illustrated the existence of something always realising itself no doubt in individuals and their works, but nevertheless exercising a governing influence upon these to such a degree that this ideal something might be conceived as _prior_ to the individual or his work; or secondly, as _inherent_ in them and giving value to them; or thirdly, as coming in at the end as the _perfection_ or completion of them.
This law or ideal then had a threefold aspect in its own nature, being conceivable as Justice, as Beauty, as Utility; it had a threefold aspect in relation to the works produced in accordance with it, as the cause _producing_, the cause _inhering_, the cause completing or _perfecting_.
We may therefore conceive Socrates as arguing thus: "You clever Sophists, when we let you take {111} us into the region of abstract talk, have a knack of so playing with words that in the end we don't seem to know anything for certain, especially on such subjects as we have hitherto thought the most important, such as God and right and truth and justice and purity.
We seem to be perfectly defenceless against you; and what is more, any smart youth, whose opinion on any practical matter no one would think of taking, can very soon pick up the trick from you, and bewilder plain people really far wiser than himself by his clever argumentation; all going to prove that there is nothing certain, nothing real, nothing binding; nothing but opinions and conventions and conscious or unconscious humbug in the universe.
"But when I go and have a quiet talk with any man who really is a known master of some craft or skill, about that craft or skill, I find no doubt whatever existing in his mind about there being a law, a something absolutely real and beautiful and true in connection with it.
He, on the contrary, lives with no other purpose or hope or desire but as far as he can to realise in what he works at something of this real and beautiful and true, which was before him, will be after him, is the only valuable thing in him, but yet which honours him with the function of, in his day and generation, expressing it before the eyes of men."
{112} "Have we not here a key to the great secret?
If each man, in respect of that which he knows best because he lives by it and for it, knows with intimate knowledge and certainty that there at least there is a Law working, not himself, but higher and greater than he,--have we not here a hint of the truth for the universe as a whole; that there also and in all its operations, great as well as small, there must be a Law, a great Idea or Ideal working, which was before all things, works in and gives value to all things, will be the consummation of all things?
Is not this what we mean by the Divine?"
Thus Socrates, despising not the meaner things of life, but bending from the airy speculations of the proud to the realities which true labour showed him, laid his ear, so to speak, close to the breast of nature, and caught there the sound of her very heart-beats.
"Virtue is knowledge," thus he formulated his new vision of things.
Knowledge, yes; but _real_ knowledge; not mere head-knowledge or lip-knowledge, but the knowledge of the skilled man, the man who by obedience and teachableness and self-restraint has come to a knowledge evidencing itself in _works_ expressive of the law that is in him, as he is in it.
_Virtue is knowledge_; on the one hand, therefore, not something in the air, unreal, intangible; but something in me, in you, in each man, something which you cannot handle except as individual and {113} in individuals; on the other hand, something more than individual or capricious or uncertain,--something which is absolute, over-ruling, eternal.
_Virtue is knowledge_.
And so if a man is virtuous, he is realising what is best and truest in himself, he is fulfilling also what is best and truest without himself.
He is free, for only the truth makes free; he is obedient to law, but it is at once a law eternally valid, and a law which he dictates to himself.
And therefore virtue is teachable, inasmuch as the law in the teacher, perfected in him, is also the law in the taught, latent in him, by both individually possessed, but possessed by both in virtue of its being greater than both, of its being something more than individual.
_Virtue is knowledge_.
And therefore the law of virtuous growth is expressed in the maxim engraved on the Delphic temple, 'Know thyself.'
Know thyself, that is, realise thyself; by obedience and self-control come to your full stature; be in fact what you are in possibility; satisfy yourself, in the only way in which true self-satisfaction is possible, by realising in yourself the law which constitutes your real being.
_Virtue is knowledge_.
And therefore all the manifold relations of life,--the home, the market, the city, the state; all the multiform activities of life,--labour and speech and art and literature and {114} law; all the sentiments of life,--friendship and love and reverence and courage and hope,--all these are parts of a knowable whole; they are expressions of law; they are Reason realising itself through individuals, and in the same process realising them.
{115} CHAPTER XII SOCRATES (_concluded_) _The dialectic method--Instruction through humiliation--Justice and utility--Righteousness transcending rule_ It must not be imagined that anywhere in the recorded conversations of Socrates can we find thus in so many words expounded his fundamental doctrine.
Socrates was not an expositor but a questioner; he disclaimed the position of a teacher, he refused to admit that any were his pupils or disciples.
But his questioning had two sides, each in its way leading people on to an apprehension of the ideal in existence.
The first side may be called the negative or destructive, the second, the positive or constructive.
In the first, whose object was to break down all formalism, all mere regard for rules or traditions or unreasoned maxims, his method had considerable resemblance to that of the Sophists; like them he descended not infrequently to what looked very like quibbling and word-play.
As Aristotle observes, the dialectic method differed from that of the Sophists not so much in its form, as in the purpose for which it was employed.
The end of the {116} Sophists was to confuse, the end of Socrates was through confusion to reach a more real, because a more reasoned certainty; the Sophists sought to leave the impression that there was no such thing as truth; he wished to lead people to the conviction that there was a far deeper truth than they were as yet possessed of.
A specimen of his manner of conversation preserved for us by Xenophon (_Memor_.
IV.
ii.)
will make the difference clearer.
Euthydemus was a young man who had shown great industry in forming a collection of wise sayings from poets and others, and who prided himself on his superior wisdom because of his knowledge of these.
Socrates skilfully manages to get the ear of this young man by commending him for his collection, and asks him what he expects his learning to help him to become?
A physician?
No, Euthydemus answers.
An architect?
No.
And so in like manner with other practical skills,--the geometrician's, astronomer's, professional reciter's.
None of these he discovers is what Euthydemus aims at.
He hopes to become a great politician and statesman.
Then of course he hopes to be a just man himself?
Euthydemus flatters himself he is that already.
"But," says Socrates, "there must be certain acts which are the proper products of justice, as of other functions or skills?"
--"No doubt."
--"Then of course you can tell us what {117} those acts or products are?"
--"Of course I can, and the products of injustice as well."
--"Very good; then suppose we write down in two opposite columns what acts are products of justice and what of injustice."
--"I agree," says Euthydemus.--"Well now, what of falsehood?
In which column shall we put it?"
--"Why, of course in the unjust column."
--"And cheating?"
--"In the same column."
--"And stealing?"
--"In it too."
--"And enslaving?"--"Yes."
--"Not one of these can go to the just column?"
--"Why, that would be an unheard-of thing."
"Well but," says Socrates, "suppose a general has to deal with some enemy of his country that has done it great wrong; if he conquer and enslave this enemy, is that wrong?"
--"Certainly not."
--"If he carries off the enemy's goods or cheats him in his strategy, what about these acts?"
--"Oh, of course they are quite right.
But I thought you were talking about deceiving or ill-treating friends."
--"Then in some cases we shall have to put these very same acts in both columns?"
--"I suppose so."
"Well, now, suppose we confine ourselves to friends.
Imagine a general with an army under him discouraged and disorganised.
Suppose he tells them that reserves are coming up, and by cheating them into this belief he saves them from their discouragement, and enables them to win a victory.
What about this cheating of one's friends?"
--"Why, I {118} suppose we shall have to put this too on the just side."
--"Or suppose a lad needs medicine, but refuses to take it, and his father cheats him into the belief that it is something nice, and getting him to take it, saves his life; what about that cheat?"
--"That will have to go to the just side too."
--"Or suppose you find a friend in a desperate frenzy, and steal his sword from him, for fear he should kill himself; what do you say to that theft?"
--"That will have to go there too."
--"But I thought you said there must be no cheating of friends?"
--"Well, I must take it all back, if you please."
--"Very good.
But now there is another point I should like to ask you.
Whether do you think the man more unjust who is a voluntary violator of justice, or he who is an involuntary violator of it?"
--"Upon my word, Socrates, I no longer have any confidence in my answers.
For the whole thing has turned out to be exactly the contrary of what I previously imagined.
However, suppose I say that the voluntary deceiver is the more unjust."
--"Do you consider that justice is a matter of knowledge just as much (say) as writing?"
--"Yes, I do."
--"Well now, which do you consider the better skilled as a writer, the man who makes a mistake in writing or in reading what is written, because he chooses to do so, or the man who does so because he can't help it?"
--"Oh, the first; because he can put it right whenever he likes."
--"Very {119} well, if a man in the same way breaks the rule of right, knowing what he is doing, while another breaks the same rule because he can't help it, which by analogy must be the better versed in justice?"
--"The first, I suppose."
--"And the man who is better versed in justice must be the juster man?"
--"Apparently so; but really, Socrates, I don't know where I am.
I have been flattering myself that I was in possession of a philosophy which could make a good and able man of me.
But how great, think you, must now be my disappointment, when I find myself unable to answer the simplest question on the subject?"
Many other questions are put to him, tending to probe his self-knowledge, and in the end he is brought to the conclusion that perhaps he had better hold his tongue, for it seems he knows nothing at all.
And so he went away deeply despondent, despising himself as an absolute dolt.
"Now many," adds Xenophon, "when brought into this condition by Socrates, never came near him again.
But Euthydemus concluded that his only hope of ever being worth anything was in seeing as much of Socrates as he could, and so he never quitted his side as long as he had a chance, but tried to follow his mode of living.
And Socrates, when he perceived this to be his temper, no longer tormented him, but sought with all simplicity and clearness to {120} show him what he deemed it best for him to do and think."
Was this cross-examination mere 'tormenting' with a purpose, or can we discover underlying it any hint of what Socrates deemed to be the truth about justice?
Let us note that throughout he is in search of a _definition_, but that as soon as any attempt is made to define or classify any particular type of action as just or unjust, _special circumstances_ are suggested which overturn the classification.
Let us note further that while the immediate result is apparently only to confuse, the remoter but more permanent result is to raise a suspicion of any hard and fast definitions, and to suggest that there is something deeper in life than language is adequate to express, a 'law in the members,' a living principle for good, which transcends forms and maxims, and which alone gives real value to acts.
Note further the suggestion that this living principle has a character analogous to the knowledge or skill of an accomplished artificer; it has relation on the one hand to law, as a principle binding on the individual, it has relation on the other hand to _utility_, as expressing itself, not in words, but in acts beneficial to those concerned.
Hence the Socratic formula, Justice is equivalent to the _Lawful_ on the one hand, to the _Useful_ on the other.
{121} Socrates had thus solved by anticipation the apparently never-ending controversy about morality.
Is it a matter imposed by God upon the heart and conscience of each individual?
Is it dictated by the general sense of the community?
Is it the product of Utility?
The Socratic answer would be that it is all three, and that all three mean ultimately the same thing.
What God prescribes is what man when he is truly man desires; and what God prescribes and man desires is that which is good and useful for man.
It is not a matter for verbal definition but for vital realisation; the true morality is that which _works_; the ideally desirable, is ultimately the only possible, course of action, for all violations of it are ultimately suicidal.
Note finally the suggestion that the man who _knows_ (in Socrates' sense of knowledge) what is right, shows only more fully his righteousness when he voluntarily sins; it is the 'unwilling sinner' who is the wrongdoer.
When we consider this strange doctrine in relation to the instances given,--the general with his army, the father with his son, the prudent friend with his friend in desperate straits,--we see that what is meant is that 'sin' in the real sense is not to be measured or defined by conformity or otherwise to some formal standard, at least in the case of those who _know_, that is, in the case of men who have realised goodness in its true nature in {122} their characters and lives.
As St. Paul expressed it (Rom.
xiii.
10), "Love is the fulfilling of the law."
Or again (Gal.
v. 23), after enumerating the 'fruits of the spirit'--love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--he adds, "Against such there is no law."
In the domain of life, not less than in that of the arts, the highest activity does not always or necessarily take the form of conformity to rule.
There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in fact, obedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of which rules and formulae are at best only an adumbration.
The originality of the great musician or painter consists in just such transcendence of accepted formulae; this is why he invariably encounters opposition and obloquy from the learned conventional pedants of his time.
And in the domain of morals the martyrs, reformers, prophets are in like manner 'willing sinners.'
They are denounced, persecuted, crucified; for are they not disturbers of society; do they not unsettle young men; do they not come, as Christ came, not to bring peace into the world, but a sword?
And thus it is that the willing sinners of one generation are the martyrs and heroes of the next.
Through their life and death a richer meaning has been given to the law of beauty or of rectitude, only, alas!
in its turn to be translated into new conventions, new {123} formulae, which shall in due time require new martyrs to transcend them.
And thus, on the other hand, the perfectly honest sticklers for the old and common-place, unwilling sinners all unconscious of their sin, are fated to bear in history the brand of men who have persecuted the righteous without cause.
To each, according to the strange sad law of life, time brings its revenges.
{124} CHAPTER XIII THE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS _A philosopher at ease--The sensual sty--Citizens of the world--The tub of Diogenes--A philosophy of abstracts_ [204] I. ARISTIPPUS AND THE CYRENAICS.--Aristippus was a native of Cyrene, a Greek colony on the north coast of Africa.
He is said to have come to Athens because of his desire to hear Socrates; but from the notices of him which we find in Xenophon's memoirs he appears to have been from the first a somewhat intractable follower, dissenting especially from the poverty and self-denial of the master's mode of life.
[205] He in course of time founded a school of his own, called the Cyrenaic from his own place of birth, and from the fact that many subsequent leaders of the school also belonged to Cyrene.
Among his notable disciples were his daughter Arete, her son named Aristippus after his grandfather, Ptolemaeus the Aethiopian, Antipater of Cyrene, and a long succession of others.
Aristippus was a man of considerable subtlety of mind, a ready speaker, clever in adapting himself to persons and circumstances.
On one occasion, being {125} asked what benefit he considered philosophy had conferred upon him, he answered, "The capacity of associating with every one without embarrassment."
Philosophy, in fact, was to Aristippus a method of social culture, a means of making the best of life as he found it.
As Horace observes of him (_Epp_.
i.
17.
23)-Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum.
"Every aspect and manner of life and fortune fitted Aristippus; he aimed at what was greater, yet kept an even, mind whatever his present condition."
[206] As we have already said, this school was _incompletely_ Socratic, inasmuch as philosophy was not an end in itself, knowledge whether of oneself or of other matters had no intrinsic interest for them; philosophy was only a means towards pleasurable living, enabling them so to analyse and classify the several experiences of life as to render a theory of satisfactory [207] existence possible.
With them first came into prominence a phrase which held a large place in all subsequent Greek philosophy, the _End_ of existence, by which was meant that which summed up the good in existence, that which made life worth living, that which was good and desirable in and for itself, and not merely as a means to something else.
What then according to the Cyrenaics was the End of life?
{126} Their answer was that life had at each moment its own End, in the pleasure of that moment.
The past was gone, the future not yet with us; remembrance of the one, fear or hope of the other, might contribute to affect the purity of the present pleasure, but such as it was the present pleasure was a thing apart, complete in and for itself.
Nor was its perfection qualified by any question of the means by which it was procured; the moment's pleasure was pleasurable, whatever men might say as to the manner of its [208] procuring.
This pleasure was a tranquil activity of the being, like the gently heaving sea, midway between violent motion which was pain, and absolute calm which was insensibility.
As a state of activity it was something positive, not a mere release from [209] pain, not a simple filling up of a vacuum.
Nothing was in its essential nature either just or noble or base; custom and convention pronounced them one or other.
The wise man made the best he could of his conditions; valuing mental activity and friendship and wealth and bodily exercise, and avoiding envy and excessive indulgence of passion and superstition, not because the first were in themselves good or the second evil, but because they were respectively helpers or hinderers of pleasure.
He is the master and possessor of pleasure not who abstains from it, but who uses it and keeps his self-command in the using.
Moderate indulgence--this is wisdom.
{127} [210] The one criterion, whether of good or of truth, is the feeling of the moment for the man who feels it; all question of causes of feelings is delusive.
We can say with truth and certainty, I have the sensation of white or the sensation of sweet.
But that there is a white or a sweet thing which is the cause of the sensation, that we cannot say for certain.
A man may very well have the sensation white or sweet from something which has no such quality, as men in delusion or madness have impressions that are true and real inasmuch as they have them, although other people do not admit their reality.
There is, therefore, no criterion of truth as between man and man; we may employ the same words, but each has his own impressions and his own individual experiences.
One can easily understand this as the doctrine of such a man as Aristippus, the easy-going man of the world, the courtier and the wit, the favourite of the tyrant Dionysius; it fits in well enough with a life of genial self-indulgence; it always reappears whenever a man has reconciled himself 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.'
But life is not always, nor for most persons at any time, a thing of ease and soft enchantments, and the Cyrenaic philosophy must remain for the general work-a-day world a stale exotic.
'Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost,' is a maxim which comes as a rule {128} only to the lips of the worldly successful, while they think themselves strong enough to stand alone.
But this solitude of selfishness neither works nor lasts; every man at some time becomes 'the hindmost,' if not before, at least in the hour of death for him or his; at that hour he is hardly disposed, for himself or those he loves, to repeat his maxim.
II.
ANTISTHENES AND THE CYNICS.--Aristippus, in his praises of pleasure as the one good for man (see above, p. 126), remarks that there were some who [209] refused pleasure "from perversity of mind," taking pleasure, so to speak, in the denial of pleasure.
The school of the Cynics made this perverse mood, as Aristippus deemed it, the maxim of their philosophy.
As the Cyrenaic school was the school of the rich, the courtly, the self-indulgent, so the Cynic was the school of the poor, the exiles, the ascetics.
Each was an extreme expression of a phase of Greek life and thought, though there was this point of union [215] between them, that _liberty_ of a kind was sought by both.
The Cyrenaics claimed liberty to please themselves in the choice of their enjoyments; the Cynics sought liberty through denial of enjoyments.
[219] Both, moreover, were cosmopolitan; they mark the decay of the Greek patriotism, which was essentially civic, and the rise of the wider but less intense conception of humanity.
Aristippus, in a conversation with Socrates (Xenoph.
_Memor_.
II.
i.)
on the {129} qualifications of those who are fitted to be magistrates, disclaims all desire to hold such a position himself.
"There is," he says, "to my thinking, a middle way, neither of rule nor of slavery, but of freedom, which leads most surely to true happiness.
So to avoid all the evils of partisanship and faction I nowhere take upon me the position of a citizen, but in every city remain a sojourner and a stranger."
And in like manner Antisthenes the Cynic, being asked how a man should approach politics, answered, "He will approach it as he will fire, not too near, lest he be burnt; not too far away, lest he starve of cold."
And Diogenes, being asked of what city he was, answered, "I am a citizen of the world."
The Cynic ideal, in fact, was summed up in these four words--wisdom, independence, free speech, liberty.
[214] Antisthenes, founder of the school, was a native of Athens, but being of mixed blood (his mother was a Thracian) he was not recognised as an Athenian citizen.
He was a student first under Gorgias, and acquired from him a considerable elegance of literary style; subsequently he became a devoted hearer of Socrates, and became prominent among his followers for an asceticism surpassing his master's.
One day, we are told, he showed a great rent in the thread-bare cloak which was his only garment, whereupon Socrates slily remarked, "I can see through your cloak your love of glory."
He carried a leathern {130} scrip and a staff, and the 'scrip and staff' became distinctive marks of his school.
The name Cynic, derived from the Greek word for a dog, is variously accounted for, some attributing it to the 'doglike' habits of the school, others to their love of 'barking' criticism, others to the fact that a certain gymnasium in the outskirts of Athens, called Cynosarges, sacred to Hercules the patron-divinity of men in the political position of Antisthenes, was a favourite resort of his.
He was a voluminous, some thought a too voluminous, [216] expounder of his tenets.
Like the other Incomplete Socratics, his teaching was mainly on ethical questions.
[215] His chief pupil and successor was the famous Diogenes, a native of Sinope, a Greek colony on the Euxine Sea.
He even bettered the instructions of his master in the matter of extreme frugality of living, claiming that he was a true follower of Hercules in preferring independence to every other good.
The tale of his living in a cask or tub is well known.
His theory was that the peculiar privilege of the gods consisted in their need of nothing; men approached nearest the life of the gods in needing as little as possible.
[217] Many other sayings of one or other teacher are quoted, all tending to the same conclusion.
For example, "I had rather be mad than enjoying myself!"
"Follow the pleasures that come after pains, not those which bring pains in their train."
"There {131} are pains that are useless, there are pains that are natural: the wise choose the latter, and thus find happiness even through pain.
For the very contempt of pleasure comes with practice to be the highest pleasure."
"When I wish a treat," says Antisthenes, "I do not go and buy it at great cost in the marketplace; I find my storehouse of pleasures in the soul."
[218] The life of the wise man, therefore, was a training of mind and body to despise pleasure and attain independence.
In this way virtue was teachable, and could be so acquired as to become an inseparable possession.
The man who had thus attained to wisdom, not of words, but of deeds, was, as it were, in an impregnable fortress that could neither crumble into ruin nor be lost by treachery.
And so Antisthenes, being asked what was the most essential point of learning, answered, "To unlearn what is evil."
That is to say, to the Cynic conception, men were born with a root of evil in them in the love of pleasure; the path of wisdom was a weaning of soul and body by practice from the allurements of pleasure, until both were so perfectly accustomed to its denial as to find an unalloyed pleasure in the very act of [219] refusing it.
In this way virtue became absolutely sufficient for happiness, and so far was it from being necessary to have wealth or the admiration of men in addition, that the true kingly life was "to do well, {132} and be ill spoken of."
All else but virtue was a matter of indifference.
The cosmopolitan temper of these men led them to hold of small account the forms and prejudices of ordinary society: they despised the rites of marriage; they thought no flesh unclean.
They believed in no multifarious theology; there was but one divinity--the power that ruled all nature, the one absolutely self-centred independent being, whose manner of [221] existence they sought to imitate.
Nor had they any sympathy with the subtleties of verbal distinction cultivated by some of the Socratics, as by other philosophers or Sophists of their time.
Definitions and abstractions and classifications led to no good.
A man was a man; what was good was good; to say that a man was good did not establish the existence of some abstract class of goods.
As Antisthenes once said to Plato, "A horse I see, but 'horseness' I do not see."
What the exact point of this criticism was we may reserve for the present.
[222] III.
EUCLIDES THE MEGARIC.--Euclides, a native of Megara on the Corinthian isthmus, was a devoted hearer of Socrates, making his way to hear him, sometimes even at the 'risk of his life, in defiance of a decree of his native city forbidding intercourse with Athens.
When Plato and other Athenian followers of Socrates thought well to quit Athens for {133} a time after Socrates' execution, they were kindly entertained by Euclides at Megara.
The exact character of the development which the Socratic teaching received from Euclides and his school is a matter of considerable doubt.
The allusions to the tenets of the school in Plato and [223] others are only fragmentary.
We gather, however, from them that Euclides was wholly antithetical to the personal turn given to philosophy, both by the Cyrenaics and the Cynics.
He revived and developed with much dialectical subtlety the metaphysical system of Parmenides and the Eleatics, maintaining that there is but one absolute existence, and that sense and sense-perceptions as against this [224] are nothing.
This one absolute existence was alone absolutely good, and the good for man could only be found in such an absorption of himself in this one absolute good through reason and contemplation, as would bring his spirit into perfectness of union with it.
Such absorption raised a man above the troubles and pains of life, and thus, in insensibility to these through reason, man attained his highest good.
The school is perhaps interesting only in so far as it marks the continued survival of the abstract dialectic method of earlier philosophy.
As such it had a very definite influence, sometimes through agreement, sometimes by controversy, on the systems of Plato and Aristotle now to be dealt with.
{134} CHAPTER XIV PLATO _Student and wanderer--The Dialogues--Immortal longings--Art is love--Knowledge through remembrance--Platonic love_ [239] This great master, the Shakespeare of Greek philosophy, as one may call him, for his fertility, his variety, his humour, his imagination, his poetic grace, was born at Athens in the year 429 B.C.
He was of noble family, numbering among his ancestors no less a man than the great lawgiver Solon, and tracing back his descent even further to the [240] legendary Codrus, last king of Athens.
At a very early age he seems to have begun to study the philosophers, Heraclitus more particularly, and before he was twenty he had written a tragedy.
About that time, however, he met Socrates; and at once giving up all thought of poetic fame he burnt his poem, and devoted himself to the hearing of Socrates.
For ten years he was his constant companion.
When Socrates met his death in 399, Plato and other followers of the master fled at first to Megara, as already mentioned (above, p. 132); he then entered on a period of extended travel, first to Cyrene and {135} Egypt, thence to Italy and Sicily.
In Italy he devoted himself specially to a study of the doctrine of Pythagoras.
It is said that at Syracuse he offended the tyrant Dionysius the elder by his freedom of speech, and was delivered up to the Spartans, who were then at war with Athens.
[241] Ultimately he was ransomed, and found his way back to Athens, but he is said to have paid a second visit to Sicily when the younger Dionysius became tyrant.
He seems to have entertained the hope that he might so influence this young man as to be able to realise through him the dream of his life, a government in accordance with the dictates of [242] philosophy.
His dream, however, was disappointed of fruition, and he returned to Athens, there in the 'groves of Academus' a mythic hero of Athens, to spend the rest of his days in converse with his followers, and there at the ripe age of eighty-one he died.
From the scene of his labours his philosophy has ever since been known as the Academic [243] philosophy.
Unlike Socrates, he was not content to leave only a memory of himself and his conversations.
He was unwearied in the redaction and correction of his written dialogues, altering them here and there both in expression and in structure.
It is impossible, therefore, to be absolutely certain as to the historical order of composition or publication among his numerous {136} dialogues, but a certain approximate order may be fixed.
We may take first a certain number of comparatively short dialogues, which are strongly Socratic in the following respects: _first_, they each seek a definition of some particular virtue or quality; _second_, each suggests some relation between it and knowledge; _third_, each leaves the answer somewhat open, treating the matter suggestively rather than dogmatically.
These dialogues are _Charmides_, which treats of Temperance (_mens sana in corpore sano_); _Lysis_, which treats of Friendship; _Laches_, Of Courage; _Ion_, Of Poetic Inspiration; _Meno_, Of the teachableness of Virtue; _Euthyphro_, Of Piety.
The last of these may be regarded as marking a transition to a second series, which are concerned with the trial and death of Socrates.
The _Euthyphro_ opens with an allusion by Socrates to his approaching trial, and in the _Apology_ we have a Platonic version of Socrates' speech in his own defence; in _Crito_ we have the story of his noble self-abnegation and civic obedience after his condemnation; in _Phaedo_ we have his last conversation with his friends on the subject of Immortality, and the story of his death.
Another series of the dialogues may be formed of those, more or less satirical, in which the ideas and methods of the Sophists are criticised: _Protagoras_, {137} in which Socrates suggests that all virtues are essentially one; _Euthydemus_, in which the assumption and 'airs' of some of the Sophists are made fun of; _Cratylus_, Of the sophistic use of words; _Gorgias_, Of the True and the False, the truly Good and the truly Evil; _Hippias_, Of Voluntary and Involuntary Sin; _Alcibiades_, Of Self-Knowledge; _Menexenus_, a (possibly ironical) set oration after the manner of the Sophists, in praise of Athens.
The whole of this third series are characterised by humour, dramatic interest, variety of personal type among the speakers, keenness rather than depth of philosophic insight.
There are many suggestions of profounder thoughts, afterwards worked out more fully; but on the whole these dialogues rather stimulate thought than satisfy it; the great poet-thinker is still playing with his tools.
A higher stage is reached in the _Symposium_, which deals at once humorously and profoundly with the subject of Love, human and divine, and its relations to Art and Philosophy, the whole consummated in a speech related by Socrates as having been spoken to him by Diotima, a wise woman of Mantineia.
From this speech an extract as translated by Professor Jowett may be quoted here.
It marks the transition point from the merely playful and critical to the relatively serious and dogmatic stage in the mind of Plato:-{138} "Marvel not," she said, "if you believe that love is of the immortal, as we have already several times acknowledged; for here again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a new existence in the place of the old.
Nay even in the life of the same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and reparation--hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always changing.
Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and going; and equally true of knowledge, which is still more surprising--for not only do the sciences in general come and go, so that in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them individually experiences a like change.
For what is implied in the word 'recollection,' but the departure of knowledge, which is ever being forgotten and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving another new and similar existence behind--unlike the divine, which is always the same and not another?
And in this way, Socrates, the mortal body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in another way.
Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of immortality."
I was astonished at her words, and said: "Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?"
And she answered with all the authority of a sophist: "Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame.
They are ready to run risks greater far than they would have run for their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of {139} toil, and even to die for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal.
Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the memory of their virtues, which is still retained among us, would be immortal?
Nay," she said, "I am persuaded that all men do all things, and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.
"They whose bodies only are creative, betake themselves to women and beget children--this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and give them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future.
But creative souls--for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or retain.
And what are these conceptions?--wisdom and virtue in general.
And such creators are poets and all artists who are deserving of the name inventor.
But the greatest and fairest sort of wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states and families, and which is called temperance and justice.
And he who in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate.
He wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in deformity he will beget nothing--and naturally embraces the beautiful rather than the deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of a good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company with him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer and more immortal.
Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other great poets, {140} would not rather have their children than ordinary human ones?
Who would not emulate them in the creation of children such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them everlasting glory?
Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of Hellas, as one may say?
There is Solon, too, who is the revered father of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both among Hellenes and barbarians.
All of them have given to the world many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind, and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of their children; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of his mortal children.
"These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain.
But I will do my utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can.
For he who would proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one such form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognise that the beauty in every form is one and the same!
And when he perceives this he will abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more honourable than the beauty of the outward form.
So that if a virtuous soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of one youth or man or {141} institution, himself a slave mean and narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere.
To this I will proceed; please to give me your very best attention.
"He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or waxing and waning, in the next place not fair in one point of view and foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech or knowledge, or existing in any other being; as for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place, but beauty only, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.
He who under the influence of true love rising upward from these begins to see that beauty, is not far from the end.
And the true order of going or being led by another to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps along which he mounts upwards for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, and at last knows what the essence of beauty is.
This, my dear Socrates," said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all others which a man should live, in the contemplation of beauty absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be content to live seeing only and conversing with them without meat or drink, {142} if that were possible--you only want to be with them and to look at them.
But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty--the divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality, and all the colours and vanities of human life--thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty divine and simple?
Do you not see that in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.
Would that be an ignoble life?"
(Jowett, _Plato_, vol.
ii.
p. 58).
Closely connected in subject with the _Symposium_ is the _Phaedrus_.
As Professor Jowett observes: "The two dialogues together contain the whole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in _The Republic_ and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced playfully or as a figure of speech.
But in the _Phaedrus_ and _Symposium_ love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the other.
The spiritual and emotional is elevated into the ideal, to which in the _Symposium_ mankind are described as looking forward, and which in the _Phaedrus_, as well as in the _Phaedo_, they are seeking to recover from a former state of existence."
We are here introduced to one of the most famous conceptions of Plato, that of _Reminiscence_, or Recollection, based upon a theory of the prior existence of the soul.
In the _Meno_, already alluded to, Socrates is representing as eliciting from one of Meno's slaves {143} correct answers to questions involving a knowledge or apprehension of certain axioms of the science of mathematics, which, as Socrates learns, the slave had never been taught.
Socrates argues that since he was never taught these axioms, and yet actually knows them, he must have known them before his birth, and concludes from this to the immortality of the soul.
In the _Phaedo_ this same argument is worked out more fully.
As we grow up we discover in the exercise of our senses that things are equal in certain respects, unequal in many others; or again, we appropriate to things or acts the qualities, for example, of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness.
At the same time we recognise that these are _ideals_, to which in actual experience we never find more than an approximation, for we never discover in any really existing thing or act _absolute_ equality, or justice, or goodness.
In other words, any act of judgment on our part of actual experiences consists in a measuring of these experiences by standards which we give or apply to them, and which no number of experiences can give to us because they do not possess or exemplify them.
We did not consciously possess these notions, or ideals, or _ideas_, as he prefers to call them, at birth; they come into consciousness in connection with or in consequence of the action of the senses; but since the senses could not give these ideas, the process of {144} knowledge must be a process of _Recollection_.
Socrates carries the argument a step further.
"Then may we not say," he continues, "that if, as we are always repeating, there is an absolute beauty and goodness and other similar ideas or essences, and to this standard, which is now discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our sensations, and with this compare them--assuming these ideas to have a prior existence, then our souls must have had a prior existence, but if not, not?
There is the same proof that these ideas must have existed before we were born, as that our souls existed before we were born; and if not the ideas, then not the souls."
In the _Phaedrus_ this conception of a former existence is embodied in one of the _Myths_ in which Plato's imaginative powers are seen at their highest.
In it the soul is compared to a charioteer driving two winged steeds, one mortal, the other immortal; the one ever tending towards the earth, the other seeking ever to soar into the sky, where it may behold those blessed visions of loveliness and wisdom and goodness, which are the true nurture of the soul.
When the chariots of the gods go forth in mighty and glorious procession, the soul would fain ride forth in their train; but alas!
the mortal steed is ever hampering the immortal, and dragging it down.
If the soul yields to this influence and descends to earth, there she takes human form, but in higher {145} or lower degree, according to the measure of her vision of the truth.
She may become a philosopher, a king, a trader, an athlete, a prophet, a poet, a husbandman, a sophist, a tyrant.
But whatever her lot, according to her manner of life in it, may she rise, or sink still further, even to a beast or plant.
Only those souls take the form of humanity that have had _some_ vision of eternal truth.
And this vision they retain in a measure, even when clogged in mortal clay.
And so the soul of man is ever striving and fluttering after something beyond; and specially is she stirred to aspiration by the sight of bodily loveliness.
Then above all comes the test of good and evil in the soul.
The nature that has been corrupted would fain rush to brutal joys; but the purer nature looks with reverence and wonder at this beauty, for it is an adumbration of the celestial joys which he still remembers vaguely from the heavenly vision.
And thus pure and holy love becomes an opening back to heaven; it is a source of happiness unalloyed on earth; it guides the lovers on upward wings back to the heaven whence they came.
{146} CHAPTER XV PLATO (_continued_) _The Republic--Denizens of the cave--The Timaeus--A dream of creation_ And now we pass to the central and crowning work of Plato, _The Republic_, or _Of Justice_--the longest with one exception, and certainly the greatest of all his works.
It combines the humour and irony, the vivid characterisation and lively dialogue of his earlier works, with the larger and more serious view, the more constructive and statesmanlike aims of his later life.
The dialogue opens very beautifully.
There has been a festal procession at the Piraeus, the harbour of Athens, and Socrates with a companion is wending his way homeward, when he is recalled by other companions, who induce him to visit the house of an aged friend of his, Cephalus, whom he does not visit too often.
Him he finds seated in his court, crowned, as the custom was, for the celebration of a family sacrifice, and beholds beaming on his face the peace of a life well spent and reconciled.
They talk of the happiness that comes in old age to those who have done good and not evil, and who are not too severely {147} tried in the matter of worldly cares.
Life to this good old man seems a very simple matter; duty to God, duty to one's neighbours, each according to what is prescribed and orderly; this is all, and this is sufficient.
Then comes in the questioning Socrates, with his doubts and difficulties as to what is one's duty in special circumstances; and the discussion is taken up, not by the good old man, "who goes away to the sacrifice," but by his son, who can quote the authorities; and by Thrasymachus, the Sophist, who will have nothing to do with authority, but maintains that _interest_ is the only real meaning of justice, and that Might is Right.
Socrates, by analogy of the arts, shows that Might absolutely without tincture of justice is mere weakness, and that there is honour even among thieves.
Yet the exhibition of the 'law working in the members' seems to have its weak side so long as we look to individual men, in whom there are many conflicting influences, and many personal chances and difficulties, which obscure the relation between just action and happiness.
Socrates therefore will have justice 'writ large' in the community as a whole, first pictured in its simpler, and then in its more complex and luxurious forms.
The relation of the individual to the community is represented chiefly as one of education and training; and many strange theories--as of the equal {148} training of men and women, and the community of wives, ideas partially drawn from Sparta--are woven into the ideal structure.
Then the dialogue rises to a larger view of education, as a preparation of the soul of man, not for a community on earth, but for that heavenly life which was suggested above (p. 144) in the myth of the steeds.
The purely earthly unideal life is represented as a life of men tied neck and heels from birth in a cave, having their backs to the light, and their eyes fixed only on the shadows which are cast upon the wall.
These they take for the only realities, and they may acquire much skill in interpreting the shadows.
Turn these men suddenly to the true light, and they will be dazzled and blinded.
They will feel as though they had lost the realities, and been plunged into dreams.
And in pain and sorrow they will be tempted to grope back again to the familiar darkness.
Yet if they hold on in patience, and struggle up the steep till the sun himself breaks on their vision, what pain and dazzling once more, yet at the last what glorious revelation!
True, if they revisit their old dwelling-place, they will not see as well as their fellows who are still living contentedly there, knowing nothing other than the shadows.
They may even seem to these as dreamers who have lost their senses; and should they try to enlighten these denizens of the cave, they may be persecuted or {149} even put to death.
Such are the men who have had a sight of the heavenly verities, when compared with the children of earth and darkness.
Yet the world will never be right till those who have had this vision come back to the things of earth and order them according to the eternal verities; the philosopher must be king if ever the perfect life is to be lived on earth, either by individual or community.
As it would be expressed in Scriptural language, "The kingdoms of this world must become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ."
For the training of these ideal rulers an ideal education is required, which Plato calls dialectic; something of its nature is described later on (p. 170), and we need not linger over it here.
The argument then seems to fall to a lower level.
There are various approximations in actual experience to the ideal community, each more or less perfect according to the degree in which the good of the individual is also made the good of all, and the interests of governors and governed are alike.
Parallel with each lower form of state is a lower individual nature, the worst of all being that of the tyrant, whose will is his only law, and his own self-indulgence his only motive.
In him indeed Might is Right; but his life is the very antithesis of happiness.
Nay, pleasure of any kind can give no law to reason; reason can judge of pleasure, but not _vice versâ_.
There is no profit to a {150} man though he gain the whole world, if _himself_ be lost; if he become worse; if the better part of him be silenced and grow weaker.
And after this 'fitful fever' is over, may there not be a greater bliss beyond?
There have been stories told us, visions of another world, where each man is rewarded according to his works.
And the book closes with a magnificent Vision of Judgment.
It is the story of Er, son of Armenius, who being wounded in battle, after twelve days' trance comes back to life, and tells of the judgment seat, of heavenly bliss and hellish punishments, and of the renewal of life and the new choice given to souls not yet purified wholly of sin.
"God is blameless; Man's Soul is immortal; Justice and Truth are the only things eternally good."
Such is the final revelation.
The _Timaeus_ is an attempt by Plato, under the guise of a Pythagorean philosopher, to image forth as in a vision or dream the actual framing of the universe, conceived as a realisation of the Eternal Thought or Idea.
It will be remembered that in the analysis already given (p. 143) of the process of knowledge in individual men, Plato found that prior to the suggestions of the senses, though not coming into consciousness except in connection with sensation, men had _ideas_ that gave them a power of rendering their sensations intelligible.
In the _Timaeus_ Plato attempts a vision of the universe as though he saw {151} it working itself into actuality on the lines of those ideas.
The vision is briefly as follows: There is the Eternal Creator, who desired to make the world because He was good and free from jealousy, and therefore willed that all things should be like Himself; that is, that the formless, chaotic, unrealised void might receive form and order, and become, in short, real as He was.
Thus creation is the process by which the Eternal Creator works out His own image, His own ideas, in and through that which is formless, that which has no name, which is nothing but possibility,--dead earth, namely, or _Matter_.
And first the world-soul, image of the divine, is formed, on which as on a "diamond network" the manifold structure of things is fashioned--the stars, the seven planets with their sphere-music, the four elements, and all the various creatures, aetherial or fiery, aerial, aqueous, and earthy, with the consummation of them all in microcosm, in the animal world, and specially in man.
One can easily see that this is an attempt by Plato to carry out the reverse process in thought to that which first comes to thinking man.
Man has sensations, that is, he comes first upon that which is conceivably last in creation, on the immediate and temporary things or momentary occurrences of earth.
In these sensations, as they accumulate into a kind of habitual or unreasoned knowledge or opinion, he discovers elements which have been active to {152} correlate the sensations, which have from the first exercised a governing influence upon the sensations, without which, indeed, no two sensations could be brought together to form anything one could name.
These regulative, underlying, permanent elements are Ideas, _i.e._ General Forms or Notions, which, although they may come second as regards time into consciousness, are by reason known to have been there before, because through them alone can the sensations become intelligibly possible, or thinkable, or namable.
Thus Plato is led to the conception of an order the reverse of our individual experience, the order of creation, the order of God's thought, which is equivalent to the order of God's working; for God's thought and God's working are inseparable.
Of course Plato, in working out his dream of creation absolutely without any scientific knowledge, the further he travels the more obviously falls into confusion and absurdity; where he touches on some ideas having a certain resemblance to modern scientific discoveries, as the law of gravitation, the circulation of the blood, the quantitative basis of differences of quality, etc., these happy guesses are apt to lead more frequently wrong than right, because they are not kept in check by any experimental tests.
But taken as a 'myth,' which is perhaps all that Plato intended, the work offers much that is profoundly interesting.
{153} With the _Timaeus_ is associated another dialogue called the _Critias_, which remains only as a fragment.
In it is contained a description of the celebrated visionary kingdom of Atlantis, lying far beyond the pillars of Hercules, a land of splendour and luxury and power, a land also of gentle manners and wise orderliness.
"The fiction has exercised a great influence over the imagination of later ages.
As many attempts have been made to find the great island as to discover the country of the lost tribes.
Without regard to the description of Plato, and without a suspicion that the whole narrative is a fabrication, interpreters have looked for the spot in every part of the globe--America, Palestine, Arabia Felix, Ceylon, Sardinia, Sweden.
The story had also an effect on the early navigators of the sixteenth century" (Jowett, _Plato_, vol.
iii.
p. 679).
{154} CHAPTER XVI PLATO (_continued_) _Metaphysics and psychology--Reason and pleasure--Criticism of the ideas--Last ideals_ We now come to a series of highly important dialogues, marked as a whole by a certain diminution in the purely artistic attraction, having less of vivid characterisation, less humour, less dramatic interest, less perfect construction in every way, but, on the other hand, peculiarly interesting as presenting a kind of after-criticism of his own philosophy.
In them Plato brings his philosophic conceptions into striking relation with earlier or rival theories such as the Eleatic, the Megarian, the Cyrenaic, and the Cynic, and touches in these connections on many problems of deep and permanent import.
The most remarkable feature in these later dialogues is the disappearance, or even in some cases the apparently hostile criticism, of the doctrine of Ideas, and consequently of Reminiscence as the source of knowledge, and even, apparently, of Personal {155} Immortality, so far as the doctrine of Reminiscence was imagined to guarantee it.
This, however, is perhaps to push the change of view too far.
We may say that Plato in these dialogues is rather the psychologist than the metaphysician; he is attempting a revised analysis of mental processes.
From this point of view it was quite intelligible that he should discover difficulties in his former theory of our mental relation to the external reality, without therefore seeing reason to doubt the existence of that reality.
The position is somewhat similar to that of a modern philosopher who attempts to think out the psychological problem of Human Will in relation to Almighty and Over-ruling Providence.
One may very clearly see the psychological difficulties, without ceasing to believe either in the one or the other as facts.
Throughout Plato's philosophy, amidst every variation of expression, we may take these three as practically fixed points of belief or of faith, or at least of hope; _first_, that Mind is eternally master of the universe; _second_, that Man in realising what is most truly himself is working in harmony with the Eternal Mind, and is in this way a master of nature, reason governing experience and not being a product of experience; and _thirdly_ (as Socrates said before his judges), that at death we go to powers who are wise and good, and to men departed who in their day shared in the divine wisdom and goodness,--that, in short, there is something remaining for the dead, and better for those that have done good than for those that have done evil.
The first of the 'psychological dialogues,' as we have called them, is the _Philebus_.
The question here is of the _summum bonum_ or chief good.
What is it?
Is it pleasure?
Is it wisdom?
Or is it both?
In the process of answering these questions Plato lays down rules for true definition, and establishes classifications which had an immense influence on his successor Aristotle, but which need not be further referred to here.
The general gist of the argument is as follows.
Pleasure could not be regarded as a sufficient or perfect good if it was entirely emptied of the purely intellectual elements of anticipation and consciousness and memory.
This would be no better than the pleasure of an oyster.
On the other hand, a purely intellectual existence can hardly be regarded as perfect and sufficient either.
The perfect life must be a union of both.
But this union must be an orderly and rational union; in other words, it must be one in which Mind is master and Pleasure servant; the finite, the regular, the universal must govern the indefinite, variable, particular.
Thus in the perfect life there are four elements; in the body, earth, water, air, fire; in the soul, the finite, the indefinite, the union of the {157} two, and the cause of that union.
If this be so, he argues, may we not by analogy argue for a like four-fold order in the universe?
There also we find regulative elements, and indefinite elements, and the union of the two.
Must there not also be the Great Cause, even Divine Wisdom, ordering and governing all things?
The second of the psychological series is the _Parmenides_, in which the great Eleatic philosopher, in company with his disciple Zeno, is imagined instructing the youthful Socrates when the two were on a visit to Athens, which may or may not be historical (see above, p. 34).
The most striking portion of this dialogue is the criticism already alluded to of Plato's own theory of Ideas, put into the mouth of Parmenides.
Parmenides ascertains from Socrates that he is quite clear about there being Ideas of Justice, Beauty, Goodness, eternally existing, but how about Ideas of such common things as hair, mud, filth, etc.?
Socrates is not so sure; to which Parmenides rejoins that as he grows older philosophy will take a surer hold of him, and that he will recognise the same law in small things and in great.
But now as to the nature of these Ideas.
What, Parmenides asks, is the relation of these, as eternally existing in the mind of God, to the same ideas as possessed by individual men?
Does each individual actually _partake_ in the thought of God through {158} the ideas, or are his ideas only _resemblances_ of the eternal?
If he partakes, then the eternal ideas are not one but many, as many as the persons who possess them.
If his ideas only resemble, then there must be some basis of reference by which the resemblance is established, a _tertium quid_ or third existence resembling both, and so _ad infinitum_.
Socrates is puzzled by this, and suggests that perhaps the Ideas are only notions in our minds.
But to this it is replied that there is an end in that case of any reality in our ideas.
Unless in some way they have a true and causal relation with something beyond our minds, there is an end of mind altogether, and with mind gone everything goes.
This, as Professor Jowett remarks, "remains a difficulty for us as well as for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the stumbling-block of Kant's _Critic_, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation of Kant as well as of the Platonic ideas.
It has been said that 'you cannot criticise Revelation.'
'Then how do you know what is Revelation, or that there is one at all?'
is the immediate rejoinder.
'You know nothing of things in themselves.'
--'Then how do you know that there are things in themselves?'
In some respects the difficulty pressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves.
For conceiving of God more under the attribute of knowledge than we do, he was more under the necessity of {159} separating the divine from the human, as two spheres which had no communication with one another."
Next follows an extraordinary analysis of the ideas of 'Being' and 'Unity,' remarkable not only for its subtlety, but for the relation which it historically bears to the modern philosophic system of Hegel.
"Every affirmation is _ipso facto_ a negation;" "the negation of a negation is an affirmation;" these are the psychological (if not metaphysical) facts, on which the analysis of Parmenides and the philosophy of Hegel are both founded.
We may pass more rapidly by the succeeding dialogues of the series: the _Theaetetus_ (already quoted from above, p. 89), which is a close and powerful investigation of the nature of knowledge on familiar Platonic lines; the _Sophist_, which is an analysis of fallacious reasoning; and the _Statesman_, which, under the guise of a dialectical search for the true ruler of men, represents once more Plato's ideal of government, and contrasts this with the ignorance and charlatanism of actual politics.
In relation to subsequent psychology, and more particularly to the logical system of Aristotle, these dialogues are extremely important.
We may indeed say that the systematic logic of Aristotle, as contained in the _Organon_, is little more than an abstract {160} or digest of the logical theses of these dialogues.
Definition and division, the nature and principle of classification, the theory of predication, the processes of induction and deduction, the classification and criticism of fallacies,--all these are to be found in them.
The only addition really made by Aristotle was the systematic theory of the syllogism.
The _Laws_, the longest of Plato's works, seems to have been composed by him in the latest years of his long life, and was probably not published till after his death.
It bears traces of its later origin in the less artful juncture of its parts, in the absence of humour, in the greater overloading of details, in the less graphic and appropriate characterisation of the speakers.
These speakers are three--an Athenian, a Cretan, and a Spartan.
A new colony is to be led forth from Crete, and the Cretan takes advice of the others as to the ordering of the new commonwealth.
We are no longer, as in _The Republic_, in an ideal world, a city coming down from, or set in, the heavens.
There is no longer a perfect community; nor are philosophers to be its kings.
Laws more or less similar to those of Sparta fill about half the book.
But the old spirit of obedience and self-sacrifice and community is not forgotten; and on all men and women, noble and humble alike, the duty is cast, to bear in common the common burden of life.
{161} Thus, somewhat in sadness and decay, yet with a dignity and moral grandeur not unworthy of his life's high argument, the great procession of the Ideal Philosopher's dialogues closes.
{162} CHAPTER XVII PLATO (_concluded_) _Search for universals--The thoughts of God--God cause and consummation--Dying to earth--The Platonic education_ If we attempt now, by way of appendix to this very inadequate summary of the dialogues, to give in brief review some account of the main doctrines of Plato, as they may be gathered from a general view of them, we are at once met by difficulties many and serious.
In the case of a genius such as Plato's, at once ironical, dramatic, and allegorical, we cannot be absolutely certain that in any given passage Plato is expressing, at all events adequately and completely, his own personal views, even at the particular stage of his own mental development then represented.
And when we add to this that in a long life of unceasing intellectual development, Plato inevitably grew out of much that once satisfied him, and attained not infrequently to new points of view even of doctrines or conceptions which remained essentially unchanged, a Platonic dogma in the strict sense must clearly not be expected.
One may, however, attempt in rough outline to summarise the main {163} _tendencies_ of his thought, without professing to represent its settled and authenticated results.
[251] We may begin by an important summary of Plato's philosophy given by Aristotle (_Met_.
A.
6): "In immediate succession to the Pythagorean and Eleatic philosophies came the work of Plato.
In many respects his views coincided with these; in some respects, however, he is independent of the Italians.
For in early youth he became a student of Cratylus and of the school of Heraclitus, and accepted from them the view that the objects of sense are in eternal flux, and that of these, therefore, there can be no absolute knowledge.
Then came Socrates, who busied himself only with questions of morals, and not at all with the world of physics.
But in his ethical inquiries his search was ever for universals, and he was the first to set his mind to the discovery of definitions.
Plato following him in this, came to the conclusion that these universals could not belong to the things of sense, which were ever changing, but to some other kind of existences.
Thus he came to conceive of universals as forms or _ideas_ of real existences, by reference to which, and in consequence of analogies to which, the things of sense in every case received their names, and became thinkable objects."
From this it followed to Plato that in so far as the senses took an illusive appearance of themselves giving {164} the knowledge which really was supplied by reason as the organ of ideas, in the same degree the body which is the instrument of sense can only be a source of illusion and a hindrance to knowledge.
The wise man, therefore, will seek to free himself from the bonds of the body, and die while he lives by philosophic contemplation, free as far as possible from the disturbing influence of the senses.
This process of _rational_ realisation Plato called Dialectic.
The objects contemplated by the reason, brought into consciousness on the occurrence of sensible perception, but never caused by these, were not mere notions in the mind of the individual thinker, nor were they mere properties of individual things; this would be to make an end of science on the one hand, of reality on the other.
Nor had they existence in any mere place, not even beyond the heavens.
Their home was Mind, not this mind or that, but Mind Universal, which is God.
In these 'thoughts of God' was the root or essence which gave reality to the things of sense; they were the Unity which realised itself in multiplicity.
It is because things partake of the Idea that we give them a name.
The thing as such is seen, not known; the idea as such is known, not seen.
[252] The whole conception of Plato in this connection is based on the assumption that there is such a thing as knowledge.
If all things are ever in change, then knowledge is impossible; but conversely, if there is {165} such a thing as knowledge, then there must be a continuing object of knowledge; and beauty, goodness, [253] reality are then no dreams.
The process of apprehension of these 'thoughts of God,' these eternal objects of knowledge, whether occasioned by sensation or not, is essentially a process of self-inquiry, or, as he in one stage called it, of Reminiscence.
The process is the same in essence, whether going on in thought or expressed in speech; it is a process of _naming_.
Not that names ever resemble realities fully; they are only approximations, limited by the conditions [254] of human error and human convention.
There is nevertheless an inter-communion between ideas and things.
We must neither go entirely with those who affirm the one (the Eleatics), nor with those who affirm the many (the Heracliteans), but accept both.
There is a union in all that exists both of That Which _Is_, and of that concerning which all we can say is that it is _Other_ than what is.
This 'Other,' through union with what is, attains to being of a kind; while on the other hand, What Is by union with the 'Other' attains to variety, and thus more fully realises itself.
[258] That which Plato here calls 'What Is' he elsewhere calls 'The Limiting or Defining'; the 'Other' he calls 'The Unlimited or Undefined.'
Each has a function in the divine process.
The thoughts of God attain realisation in the world of things which change and pass, through the infusion {166} of themselves in, or the superimposing of themselves upon, that which is Nothing apart from them,--the mere negation of what is, and yet necessary as the 'Other' or correlative of what is.
Thus we get, in fact, _four_ forms of existence: there is the Idea or Limiting (apart); there is the Negative or Unlimited (apart), there is the Union of the two (represented in language by subject and predicate), which as a whole is this frame of things as we know it; and fourthly, there is the _Cause_ of the Union, which is God.
And God is cause not only as the beginning of all things, but also as the measure and law of their perfection, and the end towards which they go.
He is the Good, and the cause of Good, and the consummation and realisation of Good.
This absolute Being, this perfect Good, we cannot see, blinded as we are, like men that have been dwelling in a cave, by excess of light.
We must, therefore, look on Him indirectly, as on an image of Him, in our own souls and in the world, in so far as in either we discern, by reason, that which is rational and good.
[269] Thus God is not only the cause and the end of all good, He is also the cause and the end of all knowledge.
Even as the sun is not only the most glorious of all visible objects, but is also the cause of the life and beauty of all other things, and the provider of the light whereby we see them, so also {167} is it for the eye of the soul.
God is its light, God is the most glorious object of its contemplation, God we behold imaged forth in all the objects which the soul by reason contemplates.
[260] The ideas whereof the 'Other' (or, as he again calls it, the 'Great and Small' or 'More and Less,' meaning that which is unnamable, or wholly neutral in character, and which may therefore be represented equally by contradictory attributes) by participation becomes a resemblance, Plato compared to the 'Numbers' of the Pythagoreans (cf.
above, p. 25).
Hence, Aristotle remarks (_Met_.
A.
6), Plato found in the ideas the originative or formative Cause of things, that which made them what they were or could be called,--their _Essence_; in the 'Great and Small' he found the opposite principle or _Matter_ (Raw Material) of things.
In this way the antithesis of Mind and Matter, whether on the great scale in creation or on the small in rational perception, is not an antithesis of unrelated opposition.
Each is correlative of the other, so to speak as the male and the female; the one is generative, formative, active, positive; the other is capable of being impregnated, receptive, passive, negative; but neither can realise itself apart from the other.
[262] This relation of 'Being' with that which is 'Other than Being' is Creation, wherein we can {168} conceive of the world as coming to be, yet not in [261] Time.
And in the same way Plato speaks of a third form, besides the Idea and that which receives it, namely, 'Formless Space, the mother of all things.'
As Kant might have formulated it, Time and Space are not prior to creation, they are forms under which creation becomes thinkable.
[271] The 'Other' or Negative element, Plato more or less vaguely connected with the evil that is in the world.
This evil we can never expect to perish utterly from the world; it must ever be here as the antithesis of the good.
But with the gods it dwells not; here in this mortal nature, and in this region of mingling, it must of necessity still be found.
The wise man will therefore seek to die to the evil, and while yet in this world of mortality, to think immortal things, and so as far as may be flee from the evil.
Thereby shall he liken himself to the divine.
For it is a likening to the divine to be just and holy and true.
[273] This, then, is the _summum bonum_, the end of life.
For as the excellence or end of any organ or instrument consists in that perfection of its parts, whereby each separately and the whole together work well towards the fulfilling of that which it is designed to accomplish, so the excellence of man must consist in a perfect ordering of all his parts to the perfect working of his whole organism as a {169} [276] rational being.
The faculties of man are three: the Desire of the body, the Passion of the heart, the Thought of the soul; the perfect working of all three, Temperance, Courage, Wisdom, and consequently the perfect working of the whole man, is Righteousness.
From this springs that ordered tranquillity which is at once true happiness and perfect virtue.
[277] Yet since individual men are not self-sufficient, but have separate capacities, and a need of union for mutual help and comfort, the perfect realisation of this virtue can only be in a perfect civic [278] community.
And corresponding with the three parts of the man there will be three orders in the community: the Workers and Traders, the Soldiers, and the Ruling or Guardian class.
When all these perform their proper functions in perfect harmony, then is the perfection of the whole realised, in Civic Excellence or Justice.
[281] To this end a careful civic education is necessary, _first_, because to _know_ what is for the general good is difficult, for we have to learn not only in general but in detail that even the individual good can be secured only through the general; and _second_, because few, if any, are capable of seeking the general good, even if they know it, without the guidance of discipline and the restraints of law.
Thus, with a view to its own perfection, and the good of all {170} its members, Education is the chief work of the State.
It will be remembered (see foregoing page) that in Plato's division of the soul of man there are three faculties, Desire, Passion, Reason; in the division of the soul's perfection three corresponding virtues, Temperance, Courage, Wisdom; and in the division of the state three corresponding orders, Traders, Soldiers, Guardians.
So in Education there are three stages.
First, _Music_ (including all manner of artistic and refining influences), whose function it is so to attemper the desires of the heart that all animalism and sensualism may be eliminated, and only the love and longing for that which is lovely and of good report may remain.
Second, _Gymnastic_, whose function it is through ordered labour and suffering so to subdue and rationalise the passionate part of the soul, that it may become the willing and obedient servant of that which is just and true.
And third, _Mathematics_, by which the rational element of the soul may be trained to realise itself, being weaned, by the ordered apprehension of the 'diamond net' of laws which underlie all the phenomena of nature, away from the mere surface appearances of things, the accidental, individual, momentary,--to the deep-seated realities, which are necessary, universal, eternal.
And just as there was a perfectness of the soul {171} transcending all particular virtues, whether of Temperance or Courage or Wisdom, namely, that absolute Rightness or Righteousness which gathered them all into itself, so at the end of these three stages of education there is a higher mood of thought, wherein the soul, purified, chastened, enlightened, in communing with itself through _Dialectic_ (the Socratic art of questioning transfigured) communes also with the Divine, and in thinking out its own deepest thoughts, thinks out the thoughts of the great Creator Himself, becomes one with Him, finds its final realisation through absorption into Him, and in His light sees light.
{172} CHAPTER XVIII ARISTOTLE _An unruly pupil--The philosopher's library--The predominance of Aristotle--Relation to Plato--The highest philosophy--Ideas and things--The true realism_ Plato before his death bequeathed his Academy to his nephew Speusippus, who continued its president for eight years; and on his death the office passed to Xenocrates, who held it for twenty-five years.
From him it passed in succession to Polemo, Crates, Crantor, and others.
Plato was thus the founder of a school or sect of teachers who busied themselves with commenting, expanding, modifying here and there the doctrines of the master.
Little of their works beyond the names has been preserved, and indeed we can hardly regret the loss.
These men no doubt did much to popularise the thoughts of their master, and in this way largely influenced the later development of philosophy; but they had nothing substantial to add, and so the stern pruning-hook of time has cut them off from remembrance.
[297] Aristotle was the son of a Greek physician, member of the colony of Stagira in Thrace.
His father, Nicomachus by name, was a man of such {173} eminence in his profession as to hold the post of physician to Amyntas, king of Macedonia, father of Philip the subverter of Greek freedom.
Not only was his father an expert physician, he was also a student of natural history, and wrote several works on the subject.
We shall find that the fresh element which Aristotle brought to the Academic philosophy was in a very great measure just that minute attention to details and keen apprehension of vital phenomena which we may consider he inherited from his father.
He was born 384 B.C., and on the death of his father, in his eighteenth year, he came to Athens, and became a student of philosophy under Plato, whose pupil he continued to be for twenty years,--indeed till the death of the master.
That he, undoubtedly a far greater man than Speusippus or Xenocrates, should not have been nominated to the succession has been variously explained; he is said to have been lacking in respect and gratitude to the master; Plato is said to have remarked of him that he needed the curb as much as Xenocrates needed the spur.
The facts really need no explanation.
The original genius is never sufficiently subordinate and amenable to discipline.
He is apt to be critical, to startle his easy-going companions with new and seemingly heterodox views, he is the 'ugly duckling' whom all the virtuous and commonplace brood must cackle {174} at.
The Academy, when its great master died, was no place for Aristotle.
He retired to Atarneus, a city of Mysia opposite to Lesbos, where a friend named Hermias was tyrant, and there he married Hermias' niece.
After staying at Atarneus some three years he was invited by Philip, now king of Macedon, to undertake the instruction of his son Alexander, the future conqueror, who was then thirteen years old.
He remained with Alexander for eight years, though of course he could hardly be regarded as Alexander's tutor during all that time, since Alexander at a very early age was called to take a part in public affairs.
However a strong friendship was formed between the philosopher and the young prince, and in after years Alexander loaded his former master with benefits.
Even while on his march of conquest through Asia he did not forget him, but sent him from every country through which he passed specimens which might help him in his projected History of Animals, as well as an enormous sum of money to aid him in his investigations.
After the death of Philip, Aristotle returned to Athens, and opened a school of philosophy on his own account in the Lyceum.
Here some authorities tell us he lectured to his pupils while he paced up and down before them; hence the epithet applied to the school, the _Peripatetics_.
Probably, however, the name is derived from the 'Peripati' or covered {175} walks in the neighbourhood of that temple in which he taught.
He devoted his mornings to lectures of a more philosophical and technical character; to these only the abler and more advanced students were admitted.
In the afternoons he lectured on subjects of a more popular kind--rhetoric, the art of politics, etc.--to larger audiences.
Corresponding with this division, he also was in the habit of classifying his writings as Acroatic or technical, and Exoteric or popular.
He accumulated a large library and museum, to which he contributed an astonishing number of works of his own, on every conceivable branch of knowledge.
The after history of Aristotle's library, including the MSS.
of his own works, is interesting and even romantic.
Aristotle's successor in the school was Theophrastus, who added to the library bequeathed him by Aristotle many works of his own, and others purchased by him.
Theophrastus bequeathed the entire library to Neleus, his friend and pupil, who, on leaving Athens to reside at Scepsis in the Troad, took the library with him.
There it remained for nearly two hundred years in possession of the Neleus family, who kept the collection hidden in a cellar for fear it should be seized to increase the royal library of Pergamus.
In such a situation the works suffered much harm from worms and damp, till at last (_circa_ 100 B.C.)
they were brought out {176} and sold to one Apellicon, a rich gentleman resident in Athens, himself a member of the Peripatetic school.
In 86 B.C.
Sulla, the Roman dictator, besieged and captured Athens, and among other prizes conveyed the library of Apellicon to Rome, and thus many of the most important works of Aristotle for the first time were made known to the Roman and Alexandrian schools.
It is a curious circumstance that the philosopher whose influence was destined to be paramount for more than a thousand years in the Christian era, was thus deprived by accident of his legitimate importance in the centuries immediately following his own.
But his temporary and accidental eclipse was amply compensated in the effect upon the civilised world which he subsequently exercised.
So all-embracing, so systematic, so absolutely complete did his philosophy appear, that he seemed to after generations to have left nothing more to discover.
He at once attained a supremacy which lasted for some two thousand years, not only over the Greek-speaking world, but over every form of the civilisation of that long period, Greek, Roman, Syrian, Arabic, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, from Africa to Britain.
His authority was accepted equally by the learned doctors of Moorish Cordova and the Fathers of the Church; to know Aristotle was to have all {177} knowledge; not to know him was to be a boor; to deny him was to be a heretic.
His style has nothing of the grace of Plato; he illuminates his works with no myths or allegories; his manner is dry, sententious, familiar, without the slightest attempt at ornament.
There are occasional touches of caustic humour, but nothing of emotion, still less of rhapsody.
His strength lies in the vast architectonic genius by which he correlates every domain of the knowable in a single scheme, and in the extraordinary faculty for illustrative detail with which he fills the scheme in every part.
He knows, and can shrewdly criticise every thinker and writer who has preceded him; he classifies them as he classifies the mental faculties, the parts of logical speech, the parts of sophistry, the parts of rhetoric, the parts of animals, the parts of the soul, the parts of the state; he defines, distinguishes, combines, classifies, with the same sureness and minuteness of method in them all.
He can start from a general conception, expand it into its parts, separate these again by distinguishing details till he brings the matter down to its lowest possible terms, or _infimae species_.
Or he can start from these, find analogies among them constituting more general species, and so in ascending scale travel surely up to a general conception, or _summum genus_.
In his general conception of philosophy he was {178} to a large extent in agreement with Plato; but he endeavoured to attain to a more technical precision; he sought to systematise into greater completeness; he pared off everything which he considered merely metaphorical or fanciful, and therefore non-essential.
The operations of nature, the phenomena of life, were used in a much fuller and more definite way to illustrate or even formulate the theory; but in its main ideas Aristotle's philosophy is Plato's philosophy.
The one clothed it in poetry, the other in formulae; the one had a more entrancing vision, the other a clearer and more exact apprehension; but there is no essential divergence.
Aristotle's account of the origin or foundation of [300] philosophy is as follows (_Met_.
A.
2): "Wonder is and always has been the first incentive to philosophy.
At first men wondered at what puzzled them near at hand, then by gradual advance they came to notice and wonder at things still greater, as at the phases of the moon, the eclipses of sun and moon, the wonders of the stars, and the origin of the universe.
Now he who is puzzled and in a maze regards himself as a know-nothing; wherefore the philosopher is apt to be fond of wondrous tales or myths.
And inasmuch as it was a consciousness of ignorance that drove men to philosophy, it is for the correction of this ignorance, and not for any material utility, that the pursuit of knowledge exists.
Indeed it is, {179} as a rule, only when all other wants are well supplied that, by way of ease and recreation, men turn to this inquiry.
And thus, since no satisfaction beyond itself is sought by philosophy, we speak of it as we speak of the freeman.
We call that man free whose existence is for himself and not for another; so also philosophy is of all the sciences the only one that is free, for it alone exists for itself.
"Moreover, this philosophy, which is the investigation of the first causes of things, is the most truly educative among the sciences.
For instructors are persons who show us the causes of things.
And knowledge for the sake of knowledge belongs most properly to that inquiry which deals with what is most truly a matter of knowledge.
For he who is seeking knowledge for its own sake will choose to have that knowledge which most truly deserves the name, the knowledge, namely, of what most truly appertains to knowledge.
Now the things that most truly appertain to knowledge are the first causes; for in virtue of one's possession of these, and by deduction from these, all else comes to be known; we do not come to know them through what is inferior to them and underlying them.
.
.
.
The wise man ought therefore to know not only those things which are the outcome and product of first causes, he must be possessed of the truth as to the first causes themselves.
And wisdom indeed is just this {180} thoughtful science, a science of what is highest, not truncated of its head."
[301] "To the man, therefore, who has in fullest measure this knowledge of universals, all knowledge must lie to hand; for in a way he knows all that underlies them.
Yet in a sense these universals are what men find hardest to apprehend, because they stand at the furthest extremity from the perceptions of sense."
[302] "Yet if anything exist which is eternal, immovable, freed from gross matter, the contemplative science alone can apprehend this.
Physical science certainly cannot, for physics is of that which is ever in flux; nor can mathematical science apprehend it; we must look to a mode of science prior to and higher than both.
The objects of physics are neither unchangeable nor free from matter; the objects of mathematics are indeed unchangeable, but we can hardly say they are free from matter; they have certainly relations with matter.
But the first and highest science has to do with that which is unmoved and apart from matter; its function is with the eternal first causes of things.
There are therefore three modes of theoretical inquiry: the science of physics, the science of mathematics, the science of God.
For it is clear that if the divine is anywhere, it must be in that form of existence I have spoken of (_i.e._ in first causes).
.
.
.
If, therefore, there be {181} any form of existence immovable, this we must regard as prior, and the philosophy of this we must consider the first philosophy, universal for the same reason that it is first.
It deals with existence as such, inquiring what it is and what are its attributes as pure existence."
This is somewhat more technical than the language of Plato, but if we compare it with what was said above (p. 142) we shall find an essential identity.
Yet Aristotle frequently impugns Plato's doctrine of ideas, sometimes on the lines already [322] taken by Plato himself (above, p. 158), sometimes in other ways.
Thus (_Met_.
Z.
15, 16) he says: "That which is _one_ cannot be in many places at one time, but that which is common or general is in many places at one time.
Hence it follows that no universal exists apart from the individual things.
But those who hold the doctrine of ideas, on one side are right, viz.
in maintaining their separate existence, if they are to be substances or existences at all.
On the other side they are wrong, because by the idea or form which they maintain to be separate they mean the one attribute predicable of many things.
The reason why they do this is because they cannot indicate what these supposed imperishable essences are, apart from the individual substances which are the objects of perception.
The result is that they simply represent them under the same forms as {182} those of the perishable objects of sensation which are familiar to our senses, with the addition of a phrase--_i.e._ they say 'man as such,' 'horse as such,' or 'the absolute man,' 'the absolute horse.'"
Aristotle here makes a point against Plato and his school, inasmuch as, starting from the assumption that of the world of sense there could be no knowledge, no apprehension fixed or certain, and setting over against this a world of general forms which were fixed and certain, they had nothing with which to fill this second supposed world except the data of sense as found in individuals.
Plato's mistake was in confusing the mere 'this,' which is the conceived starting-point of any sensation, but which, like a mathematical point, has nothing which can be said about it, with individual objects as they exist and are known in all the manifold and, in fact, infinite relations of reality.
The bare subject 'this' presents at the one extreme the same emptiness, the same mere possibility of knowledge, which is presented at the other by the bare predicate 'is.'
But Plato, having an objection to the former, as representing to him the merely physical and therefore the passing and unreal, clothes it for the nonce in the various attributes which are ordinarily associated with it when we say, 'this man,' 'this horse,' only to strip them off successively as data of sensation, and so at last get, by an illusory process of {183} abstraction and generalisation, to the ultimate generality of being, which is the mere 'is' of bare predication converted into a supposed eternal substance.
Aristotle was as convinced as Plato that there must be some fixed and immovable object or reality corresponding to true and certain knowledge, but with his scientific instincts he was not content to have it left in a condition of emptiness, attractive enough to the more emotional and imaginative Plato.
And hence we have elsewhere quite as strong and definite statements as those quoted above about universals [316] (p. 180), to the effect that existence is in the fullest and most real sense to be predicated of _individual_ things, and that only in a secondary sense can existence be predicated of universals, in virtue of their being found in individual things.
Moreover, among universals the _species_, he maintains, has more of existence in it than the genus, because it is nearer to the individual or primary existence.
For if you predicate of an individual thing of what species it is, you supply a statement more full of information and more closely connected with the thing than if you predicate to what genus it belongs; for example, if asked, "What is this?"
and you answer, "A man," you give more information than if you say, "A living creature."
How did Aristotle reconcile these two points of {184} view, the one, in which he conceives thought as starting from first causes, the most universal objects of knowledge, and descending to particulars; the other, in which thought starts from the individual objects, and predicates of them by apprehension of their properties?
The antithesis is no accidental one; on the contrary, it is the governing idea of his Logic, with its ascending process or Induction, and its descending process or Syllogism.
Was thought a mere process in an unmeaning circle, the 'upward and downward way' of Plato?
As to this we may answer first that while formally Aristotle displays much the same 'dualism' or unreconciled separation of the 'thing' and the 'idea' as Plato, his practical sense and his scientific instincts led him to occupy himself largely not with either the empty 'thing' or the equally empty 'idea,' but with the true _individuals_, which are at the same time the true universals, namely, real objects as known, having, so far as they are known, certain forms or categories under which you can class them, having, so far as they are not yet fully known, a certain raw material for further inquiry through observation.
In this way Thought and Matter, instead of being in eternal and irreconcilable antagonism as the Real and the Unreal, become parts of the same reality, the first summing up the knowledge of things already attained, the second symbolising the infinite {185} [317] possibilities of further ascertainment.
And thus the word 'Matter' is applied by Aristotle to the highest genus, as the relatively indefinite compared with the more fully defined species included under it; it is also applied by him to the individual object, in so far as that object contains qualities not yet fully brought into predication.
[319] And second, we observe that Aristotle introduced a new conception which to his view established a _vital relation_ between the universal and the individual.
This conception he formulated in the correlatives, _Potentiality_ and _Actuality_.
With these he closely connected the idea of _Final Cause_.
The three to Aristotle constituted a single reality; they are organically correlative.
In a living creature we find a number of members or organs all closely interdependent and mutually conditioning each other.
Each has its separate function, yet none of them can perform its particular function well unless all the others are performing theirs well, and the effect of the right performance of function by each is to enable the others also to perform theirs.
The total result of all these mutually related functions is _Life_; this is their End or Final Cause, which does not exist apart from them, but is constituted at every moment by them.
This Life is at the same time the condition on which alone each and every one of the functions constituting it can be performed.
Thus {186} life in an organism is at once the end and the middle and the beginning; it is the cause final, the cause formal, the cause efficient.
Life then is an _Entelechy_, as Aristotle calls it, by which he means the realisation in unity of the total activities exhibited in the members of the living organism.
In such an existence every part is at once a potentiality and an actuality, and so also is the whole.
We can begin anywhere and travel out from that point to the whole; we can take the whole and find in it all the parts.
{187} CHAPTER XIX ARISTOTLE (_continued_) _Realisation and reminiscence--The crux of philosophy--Reason in education--The chief good--Origin of communities_ If we look closely at this conception of Aristotle's we shall see that it has a nearer relation to the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, and even to the doctrine of Reminiscence, than perhaps even Aristotle himself realised.
The fundamental conception of Plato, it will be remembered, is that of an eternally existing 'thought of God,' in manifold forms or 'ideas,' which come into the consciousness of men in connection with or on occasion of sensations, which are therefore in our experience later than the sensations, but which we nevertheless by reason recognise as necessarily prior to the sensations, inasmuch as it is through these ideas alone that the sensations are knowable or namable at all.
Thus the final end for man is by contemplation and 'daily dying to the world of sense,' to come at last into the full inheritance in conscious knowledge of that 'thought of God' which was latent from the first in his soul, and of which in its fulness God Himself is eternally and necessarily possessed.
{188} [311] This is really Aristotle's idea, only Plato expresses it rather under a psychological, Aristotle under a vital, formula.
God, Aristotle says, is eternally and necessarily Entelechy, absolute realisation.
_To us_, that which is first _in time_ (the individual perception) is not first in _essence_, or absolutely.
What is first in essence or absolutely, is the universal, that is, the form or idea, the datum of reason.
And this distinction between time and the absolute, between our individual experience and the essential or ultimate reality, runs all through the philosophy of Aristotle.
The 'Realisation' of Aristotle is the 'Reminiscence' of Plato.
This conception Aristotle extended to Thought, to the various forms of life, to education, to morals, to politics.
_Thought_ is an entelechy, an organic whole, in which every process conditions and is conditioned by every other.
If we begin with sensation, the sensation, blank as regards predication, has relations to that which is infinitely real,--the object, the real thing before us,--which relations science will never exhaust.
If we start from the other end, with the datum of thought, consciousness, existence, mind, this is equally blank as regards predication, yet it has relations to another existence infinitely real,--the subject that thinks,--which relations religion and morality and sentiment and love will never exhaust.
Or, as {189} Aristotle and as common sense prefers to do, if we, with our developed habits of thought and our store of accumulated information, choose to deal with things from a basis midway between the two extremes, in the ordinary way of ordinary people, we shall find both processes working simultaneously and in organic correlation.
That is to say, we shall be increasing the _individuality_ of the objects known, by the operation of true thought and observation in the discovery of new characters or qualities in them; we shall be increasing by the same act the _generality_ of the objects known, by the discovery of new relations, new genera under which to bring them.
Individualisation and generalisation are only opposed, as mutually conditioning factors of the same organic function.
[316] This analysis of thought must be regarded rather as a paraphrase of Aristotle than as a literal transcript.
He is hesitating and obscure, and at times apparently self-contradictory.
He has not, any more than Plato, quite cleared himself of the confusion between the mutually contrary individual and universal in _propositions_, and the organically correlative individual and universal in _things as known_.
But on the whole the tendency of his analysis is towards an apprehension of the true realism, which neither denies matter in favour of mind nor mind in favour of matter, but recognises that both mind and matter are organically correlated, and ultimately identical.
{190} The crux of philosophy, so far as thus apprehended by Aristotle, is no longer in the supposed dualism of mind and matter, but there is a crux still.
What is the meaning of this 'Ultimately'?
Or, putting it in Aristotle's formula, Why this relation of potentiality and actuality?
Why this eternal coming to be, even if the coming to be is no unreasoned accident, but a coming to be of that which is vitally or in germ _there_?
Or theologically, Why did God make the world?
Why this groaning and travailing of the creature?
Why this eternal 'By and by' wherein all sin is to disappear, all sorrow to be consoled, all the clashings and the infinite deceptions of life to be stilled and satisfied?
An illustration of Aristotle's attempt to answer this question will be given later on (p. 201).
That the answer is a failure need not surprise us.
If we even now 'see only as in a glass darkly' on such a question, we need not blame Plato or Aristotle for not seeing 'face to face.'
[326] _Life_ is an entelechy, not only abstractedly, as already shown (above, p. 186), but in respect of the varieties of its manifestations.
We pass from the elementary life of mere growth common to plants and animals, to the animal life of impulse and sensation, thence we rise still higher to the life of rational action which is the peculiar function of man.
Each is a _potentiality_ to that which is immediately above it; in {191} other words, each contains in germ the possibilities which are realised in that stage which is higher.
Thus is there a touch of nature which makes the whole world kin, a purpose running through all the manifestations of life; each is a preparation for something higher.
[339] _Education_ is in like manner an entelechy.
For what is the _differentia_, the distinguishing character of the life of man?
Aristotle answers, the possession of reason.
It is the action of reason upon the desires that raises the life of man above the brutes.
This, observe, is not the restraining action of something wholly alien to the desires, which is too often how Plato represents the matter.
This would be to lose the dynamic idea.
The desires, as Aristotle generally conceives them, are there in the animal life, prepared, so to speak, to receive the organic perfection which reason alone can give them.
Intellect, on the other hand, is equally in need of the desires, for thought without desire cannot supply motive.
If intellect is _logos_ or reason, desire is that which is fitted to be obedient to reason.
It will be remembered that the question to which Plato addressed himself in one of his earlier dialogues, already frequently referred to, the _Meno_, was the teachableness of Virtue; in that dialogue he comes to the conclusion that Virtue is teachable, but that there are none capable of teaching it; for the {192} wise men of the time are guided not by knowledge but by right opinion, or by a divine instinct which is incommunicable.
Plato is thus led to seek a machinery of education, and it is with a view to this that he constructs his ideal _Republic_.
Aristotle took up this view of the state as educative of the individual citizens, and brought it under the dynamic formula.
In the child reason is not actual; there is no rational law governing his acts, these are the immediate result of the strongest impulse.
Yet only when a succession of virtuous acts has formed the virtuous habit can a man be said to be truly good.
How is this process to begin?
The answer is that the reason which is only latent or dynamic in the child is actual or realised in the parent or teacher, or generally in the community which educates the child.
The law at first then is imposed on the child from without, it has an appearance of unnaturalness, but only an appearance.
For the law is there in the child, prepared, as he goes on in obedience, gradually to answer from within to the summons from without, till along with the virtuous habit there emerges also into the consciousness of the child, no longer a child but a man, the apprehension of the law as his own truest nature.
These remarks on education are sufficient to show that in Morals also, as conceived by Aristotle, there is a law of vital development.
It may be {193} sufficient by way of illustration to quote the introductory sentences of Aristotle's _Ethics_, in which the question of the nature of the chief good is, in his usual tentative manner, discussed: "If there be any end of what we do which we desire for itself, while all other ends are desired for it, that is, if we do not in every case have some ulterior end (for if that were so we should go on to infinity, and our efforts would be vain and useless), this ultimate end desired for itself will clearly be the chief good and the ultimate best.
Now since every activity, whether of knowing or doing, aims at some good, it is for us to settle what the good is which the civic activity aims at,--what, in short, is the ultimate end of all 'goods' connected with conduct?
So far as the name goes all are pretty well agreed as to the answer; gentle and simple alike declare it to be happiness, involving, however, in their minds on the one hand well-living, on the other hand, well-doing.
When you ask them, however, to define this happiness more exactly, you find that opinions are divided, and the many and the philosophers have different answers.
"But if you ask a musician or a sculptor or any man of skill, any person, in fact, who has some special work and activity, what the chief good is for him, he will tell you that the chief good is in the work well done.
If then man has any special work or function, we may assume that the chief good for man {194} will be in the well-doing of that function.
What now is man's special function?
It cannot be mere living, for that he has in common with plants, and we are seeking what is peculiar to him.
The mere life of nurture and growth must therefore be put on one side.
We come next to life as sensitive to pleasure and pain.
But this man shares with the horse, the ox, and other animals.
What remains is the life of action of a reasonable being.
Now of reason as it is in man there are two parts, one obeying, one possessing and considering.
And there are also two aspects in which the active or moral life may be taken, one potential, one actual.
Clearly for our definition of the chief good we must take the moral life in its full actual realisation, since this is superior to the other.
"If our view thus far be correct, it follows that the chief good for man consists in the full realisation and perfection of the life of man as man, in accordance with the specific excellence belonging to that life, and if there be more specific excellences than one, then in accordance with that excellence which is the best and the most rounded or complete.
We must add, however, the qualification, 'in a rounded life.'
For one swallow does not make a summer, nor yet one day.
And so one day or some brief period of attainment is not sufficient to make a man happy and blest."
{195} The close relation of this to the teaching of Socrates and Plato need hardly be insisted on, or the way in which he correlates their ideas with his own conception of an actualised perfection.
[340] Aristotle then proceeds to a definition of the 'specific excellence' or virtue of man, which is to be the standard by which we decide how far he has fully and perfectly realised the possibilities of his being.
To this end he distinguishes in man's nature three modes of existence: first, _feelings_ such as joy, pain, anger; second, _potentialities_ or capacities for such feelings; third, _habits_ which are built upon these potentialities, but with an element of reason or deliberation superadded.
He has no difficulty in establishing that the virtue of man must be a habit.
And the test of the excellence of that habit, as of every other developed capacity, will be twofold; it will make the worker good, it will cause him to produce good work.
So far Aristotle's analysis of virtue is quite on the lines of his general philosophy.
Here, however, he diverges into what seems at first a curiously mechanical conception.
Pointing out that in everything quantitative there are two extremes conceivable, and a _mean_ or average between them, he proceeds to define virtue as a mean between two extremes, a mean, however, having relation to no mere numerical standard, but having reference _to us_.
In this last {196} qualification he perhaps saves his definition from its mechanical turn, while he leaves himself scope for much curious and ingenious observation on the several virtues regarded as means between two extremes.
He further endeavours to save it by adding, that it is "defined by reason, and as the wise man would define it."
Reason then, as the impersonal ruler,--the wise man, as the personification of reason,--this is the standard of virtue, and therefore also of happiness.
How then shall we escape an externality in our standard, divesting it of that binding character which comes only when the law without is also recognised and accepted as the law within?
The answer of Aristotle, as of his predecessors, is that this will be brought about by wise training and virtuous surroundings, in short, by the civic community being itself good and happy.
Thus we get another dynamic relation; for regarded as a member of the body politic each individual becomes a potentiality along with all the other members, conditioned by the state of which he and they are members, brought gradually into harmony with the reason which is in the state, and in the process realising not his own possibilities only, but those of the community also, which exists only in and through its members.
Thus each and all, in so far as they realise their own well-being by the perfect development of the virtuous {197} habit in their lives, contribute _ipso facto_ to the supreme end of the state, which is the perfect realisation of the whole possibilities of the total organism, and consequently of every member of it.
[342] The _State_ therefore is also an entelechy.
For man is not made to dwell alone.
"There is first the fact of sex; then the fact of children; third, the fact of variety of capacity, implying variety of position, some having greater powers of wisdom and forethought, and being therefore naturally the rulers; others having bodily powers suitable for carrying out the rulers' designs, and being therefore naturally subjects.
Thus we have as a first or simplest community the family, next the village, then the full or perfect state, which, seeking to realise an absolute self-sufficiency within itself, rises from mere living to well-living as an aim of existence.
This higher existence is as natural and necessary as any simpler form, being, in fact, the end or final and necessary perfection of all such lower forms of existence.
Man therefore is by the natural necessity of his being a 'political animal,' and he who is not a citizen,--that is, by reason of something peculiar in his nature and not by a mere accident,--must either be deficient or something superhuman.
And while man is the noblest of animals when thus fully perfected in an ordered community, on the other hand when deprived of law and justice he is the very worst.
{198} For there is nothing so dreadful as lawlessness armed.
And man is born with the arms of thought and special capacities or excellences, which it is quite possible for him to use for other and contrary purposes.
And therefore man is the most wicked and cruel animal living when he is vicious, the most lustful and the most gluttonous.
The justice which restrains all this is a civic quality; and law is the orderly arrangement of the civic community" (Arist.
_Pol_.
i. p. 2).
{199} CHAPTER XX ARISTOTLE (_concluded_) _God and necessity--The vital principle--Soul as realisation--Function and capacity--His method_ Throughout Aristotle's physical philosophy the [334] same conception runs: "All animals in their fully developed state require two members above all--one whereby to take in nourishment, the other whereby to get rid of what is superfluous.
For no animal can exist or grow without nourishment.
And there is a third member in them all half-way between these, in which resides the principle of their life.
This is the heart, which all blood-possessing animals have.
From it comes the arterial system which Nature has made hollow to contain the liquid blood.
The situation of the heart is a commanding one, being near the middle and rather above than below, and rather towards the front than the back.
For Nature ever establishes that which is most honourable in the most honourable places, unless some supreme necessity overrules.
We see this most clearly in the case of man; but the same tendency for the heart to occupy the centre is seen also in {200} other animals, when we regard only that portion of their body which is essential, and the limit of this is at the place where superfluities are removed.
The limbs are arranged differently in different animals, and are not among the parts essential to life; consequently animals may live even if these are removed.
.
.
.
Anaxagoras says that man is the wisest of animals because he possesses hands.
It would be more reasonable to say that he possesses hands because he is the wisest.
For the hands are an instrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted to use it, just as a sensible man would.
For it is more reasonable to give a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some flutes the art of playing them.
To that which is the greater and higher she adds what is less important, and not _vice versâ_.
Therefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of skills Nature assigned the hand, the instrument useful for the largest number of purposes" (Arist.
_De Part.
An._ iv.
p. 10).
[332] And in the macrocosm, the visible and invisible world about us, the same conception holds: "The existence of God is an eternally perfect entelechy, a life everlasting.
In that, therefore, which belongs to the divine there must be an eternally perfect movement.
Therefore the heavens, which are as it were the body of the Divine, are in form a sphere, of {201} necessity ever in circular motion.
Why then is not this true of every portion of the universe?
Because there must of necessity be a point of rest of the circling body at the centre.
Yet the circling body cannot rest either as a whole or as regards any part of it, otherwise its motion could not be eternal, which by nature it is.
Now that which is a violation of nature cannot be eternal, but the violation is posterior to that which is in accordance with nature, and thus the unnatural is a kind of displacement or degeneracy from the natural, taking the form of a coming into being.
"Necessity then requires earth, as the element standing still at the centre.
Now if there must be earth, there must be fire.
For if one of two opposites is natural or necessary, the other must be necessary too, each, in fact, implying the necessity of the other.
For the two have the same substantial basis, only the positive form is naturally prior to the negative; for instance, warm is prior to cold.
And in the same way motionlessness and heaviness are predicated in virtue of the absence of motion and lightness, _i.e._ the latter are essentially prior.
"Further, if there are fire and earth, there must also be the elements which lie between these, each having an antithetic relation to each.
From this it follows that there must be a process of coming into being, because none of these elements can be eternal, {202} but each affects, and is affected by each, and they are mutually destructive.
Now it is not to be argued that anything which can be moved can be eternal, except in the case of that which by its own nature has eternal motion.
And if coming into being must be predicated of these, then other forms of change can also be predicated" (Arist.
_De Coelo_, ii.
p. 3).
This passage is worth quoting as illustrating, not only Aristotle's conception of the divine entelechy, but also the ingenuity with which he gave that appearance of logical completeness to the vague and ill-digested scientific imaginations of the time, which remained so evil an inheritance for thousands of years.
It is to be observed, in order to complete Aristotle's theory on this subject, that the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, are all equally in a world which is "contrary to nature," that is, the world of change, of coming into being, and going out of being.
Apart from these there is the element of the Eternal Cosmos, which is "in accordance with nature," having its own natural and eternal motion ever the same.
This is the fifth or divine element, the aetherial, by the schoolmen translated _Quinta Essentia_, whence by a curious degradation we have our modern word Quintessence, of that which is the finest and subtlest extract.
Still more clearly is the organic conception carried {203} out in Aristotle's discussion of the Vital principle or Soul in the various grades of living creatures and in man.
It will be sufficient to quote at length a chapter of Aristotle's treatise on the subject (_De Anima_, ii.
p. 1) in which this fundamental conception of Aristotle's philosophy is very completely illustrated:-"Now as to Substance we remark that this is one particular category among existences, having three different aspects.
First there is, so to say, the raw material or Matter, having in it no definite character or quality; next the Form or Specific character, in virtue of which the thing becomes namable; and third, there is the Thing or Substance which these two together constitute.
The Matter is, in other words, the _potentiality_ of the thing, the Form is the _realisation_ of that potentiality.
We may further have this realisation in two ways, corresponding in character to the distinction between _knowledge_ (which we have but are not necessarily using) and actual _contemplation_ or mental perception.
"Among substances as above defined those are most truly such which we call _bodily objects_, and among these most especially objects which are the products of nature, inasmuch as all other bodies must be derived from them.
Now among such natural objects some are possessed of life, some are not; by _life_ I mean a process of spontaneous nourishment, growth, and decay.
Every natural {204} object having life is a substance compounded, so to say, of several qualities.
It is, in fact, a bodily substance defined in virtue of its having life.
Between the living body thus defined and the Soul or Vital principle, a marked distinction must be drawn.
The body cannot be said to 'subsist in' something else; rather must we say that it is the matter or substratum in which something else subsists.
And what we mean by the soul is just this substance in the sense of the _form_ or specific character that subsists in the natural body which is _potentially_ living.
In other words, the Soul is substance as _realisation_, only, however, of such a body as has just been defined.
Recalling now the distinction between realisation as possessed knowledge and as actual contemplation, we shall see that in its essential nature the Soul or Vital principle corresponds rather with the first than with the second.
For both sleep and waking depend on the Soul or Life being there, but of these waking only can be said to correspond with the active form of knowledge; sleep is rather to be compared with the state of having without being immediately conscious that we have.
Now if we compare these two states in respect of their priority of development in a particular person, we shall see that the state of latent possession comes first.
We may therefore define the Soul or Vital principle as _The earliest {205} realisation (entelechy) of a natural body having in it the potentiality of life_.
"To every form of organic structure this definition applies, for even the parts of plants are organs, although very simple ones; thus the outer leaf is a protection to the pericarp, and the pericarp to the fruit.
Or, again, the roots are organs bearing an analogy to the mouth in animals, both serving to take in food.
Putting our definition, then, into a form applicable to every stage of the Vital principle, we shall say that _The Soul is the earliest realisation of a natural body having organisation_.
"In this way we are relieved from the necessity of asking whether Soul and body are one.
We might as well ask whether the wax and the impression are one, or, in short, whether the _matter_ of any object and that whereof it is the matter or substratum are one.
As has been pointed out, unity and substantiality may have several significations, but the truest sense of both is found in _realisation_.
"The general definition of the Soul or Vital principle above given may be further explained as follows.
The Soul is the _rational_ substance (or function), that is to say, it is that which gives essential meaning and reality to a body as knowable.
Thus if an axe were a _natural_ instrument or organ, its rational substance would be found in its realisation of what an axe means; this would be its _soul_.
Apart {206} from such realisation it would not be an axe at all, except in name.
Being, however, such as it is, the axe remains an axe independently of any such realisation.
For the statement that the Soul is the _reason_ of a thing, that which gives it essential meaning and reality, does not apply to such objects as an axe, but only to natural bodies having power of spontaneous motion (including growth) and rest.
"Or we may illustrate what has been said by reference to the bodily members.
If the eye be a living creature, _sight_ will be its soul, for this is the _rational_ substance (or function) of the eye.
On the other hand, the eye itself is the _material_ substance in which this function subsists, which function being gone, the eye would no longer be an eye, except in name, just as we can speak of the eye of a statue or of a painted form.
Now apply this illustration from a part of the body to the whole.
For as any one sense stands related to its organ, so does the vital sense in general to the whole sensitive organism as such, always remembering that we do not mean a dead body, but one which really has in it potential life, as the seed or fruit has.
Of course there is a form of realisation to which the name applies in a specially full sense, as when the axe is actually cutting, the eye actually seeing, the man fully awake.
But the Soul or Vital principle corresponds rather with the _function_ of sight, or the _capacity_ for cutting which {207} the axe has, the body, on the other hand, standing in a relation of _potentiality_ to it.
Now just as the eye may mean both the actual organ or pupil, and also the function of sight, so also the living creature means both the body and the soul.
We cannot, therefore, think of body apart from soul, or soul apart from body.
If, however, we regard the soul as composed of parts, we can see that the realisation to which we give the name of soul is in some cases essentially a realisation of certain parts of the body.
We may, however, conceive the soul as in other aspects separable, in so far as the realisation cannot be connected with any bodily parts.
Nay, we cannot be certain whether the soul may not be the realisation or perfection of the body as the sailor is of his boat."
Observe that at the last Aristotle, though very tentatively, leaves an opening for immortality, where, as in the case of man, there are functions of the soul, such as philosophic contemplation, which cannot be related to bodily conditions.
He really was convinced that in man there was a portion of that diviner aether which dwelt eternally in the heavens, and was the ever-moving cause of all things.
If there was in man a _passive_ mind, which became all things, as all things through sensation affected it, there was also, Aristotle argued, a _creative_ mind in man, which is above, and unmixed with, that which it apprehends, {208} gives laws to this, is essentially prior to all particular knowledge, is therefore eternal, not subject to the conditions of time and space, consequently indestructible.
Finally, as a note on Aristotle's method, one may observe in this passage, _first_, Aristotle's use of 'defining examples,' the wax, the leaf and fruit, the axe, the eye, etc.
; _second_, his practice of developing his distinctions gradually, Form and Matter in the abstract, then in substances of every kind, then in natural bodies, then in organic bodies of various grades, in separate organs, in the body as a whole, and in the Soul as separable in man; and _thirdly_, his method of approaching completeness in thought, by apparent contradictions or qualifications, which aim at meeting the complexity of nature by an equally organised complexity of analysis.
To this let us simply add, by way of final characterisation, that in the preceding pages we have given but the merest fragment here and there of Aristotle's vast accomplishment.
So wide is the range of his ken, so minute his observation, so subtle and complicated and allusive his illustrations, that it is doubtful if any student of his, through all the centuries in which he has influenced the world, ever found life long enough to fairly and fully grasp him.
Meanwhile he retains his grasp upon us.
Form and matter, final and efficient causes, potential and actual existences, {209} substance, accident, difference, genus, species, predication, syllogism, deduction, induction, analogy, and multitudes of other joints in the machinery of thought for all time, were forged for us in the workshop of Aristotle.
{210} CHAPTER XXI THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS _Greek decay--The praises of Lucretius--Canonics--Physics--The proofs of Lucretius--The atomic soul--Mental pleasures--Natural pleasures--Lower philosophy and higher_ Philosophy, equally complete, equally perfect in all its parts, had its final word in Plato and Aristotle; on the great lines of universal knowledge no further really original structures were destined to be raised by Greek hands.
We have seen a parallelism between Greek philosophy and Greek politics in their earlier phases (see above, p. 82); the same parallelism continues to the end.
Greece broke the bonds of her intense but narrow civic life and civic thought, and spread herself out over the world in a universal monarchy and a cosmopolitan philosophy; but with this widening of the area of her influence reaction came and disruption and decay; an immense stimulus was given on the one hand to the political activity, on the other, to the thought and knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was 'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary farce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to an Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of death,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and stern.
The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy, faded as the life of Greece decayed.
[356] The first phase of the change, _Scepticism_, or Pyrrhonism, as it was named from its first teacher, need not detain us long.
Pyrrho was priest of Elis; in earlier life he accompanied Alexander the Great as far as India, and is said to have become acquainted with certain of the philosophic sects in that country.
In his sceptical doctrine he had, like his predecessors, a school with its succession of teachers; but the [358] world has remembered little more of him or them than two phrases 'suspense of judgment'--this for the intellectual side of philosophy; 'impassibility'--this for the moral.
The doctrine is a negation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once, when surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was hard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself.'
Vigorous men and growing nations are never agnostic.
They decline to rest in mere suspense; they are extremely the opposite of impassive; they believe earnestly, they feel strongly.
[365] A more interesting, because more positive and constructive, personality was that of Epicurus.
This philosopher was born at Samos, in the year 341 B.C., of Athenian parents.
He came to Athens in his eighteenth year.
Xenocrates was then teaching at {212} the Academy, Aristotle at the Lyceum, but Epicurus heard neither the one nor the other.
After some wanderings he returned to Athens and set up on his [366] own account as a teacher of philosophy.
He made it a matter of boasting that he was a self-taught philosopher; and Cicero (_De Nat.
Deor._ i.
26) sarcastically remarks that one could have guessed as much, even if Epicurus had not stated it himself; as one might of the proprietor of an ugly house, who should boast that he had employed no architect.
The style of Epicurus was, in fact, plain and unadorned, but he seems all the same to have been able to say what he meant; and few if any writers ancient or modern have ever had so splendid a literary tribute, as Epicurus had from the great Roman poet Lucretius, his follower and expositor.
"Glory of the Greek race," he says, "who first hadst power to raise high so bright a light in the midst of darkness so profound, shedding a beam on all the interests of life, thee do I follow, and in the markings of thy track do I set my footsteps now.
Not that I desire to rival thee, but rather for love of thee would fain call myself thy disciple.
For how shall the swallow rival the swan, or what speed may the kid with its tottering limbs attain, compared with the brave might of the scampering steed?
Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature, thou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213} illustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the flowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden and right worthy to live for ever.
For soon as thy philosophy, birth of thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things, straightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are broken apart, and through all the void I see nature in the working.
I behold the gods in manifestation of their power, I discern their blissful seats, which never winds assail nor rain-clouds sprinkle with their showers, nor snow falling white with hoary frost doth buffet, but cloudless aether ever wraps them round, beaming in broad diffusion of glorious light.
For nature supplies their every want nor aught impairs their peace of soul.
But nowhere do I see any regions of hellish darkness, nor does the earth impose a barrier to our sight of what is done in the void beneath our feet.
Wherefore a holy ecstasy and thrill of awe possess me, while thus by thy power the secrets of nature are disclosed to view" (Lucret.
_De Nat.
Rer._ iii, 1-30).
[367] This devotion to the memory of Epicurus on the part of Lucretius was paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words by heart.
He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214} a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights.
Personally we may take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires; and indeed throughout its history Epicureanism as a rule of conduct has generally been associated with the finer forms of enjoyment, rather than the more sensual.
The 'sensual sty' is a nickname, not a description.
[369] Philosophy Epicurus defined as a process of thought and reasoning tending to the realisation of happiness.
Arts or sciences which had no such practical end he contemned; and, as will be observed in Lucretius' praises of him above, even physics had but one purpose or interest, to free the soul from [370] terrors of the unseen.
Thus philosophy was mainly concerned with conduct, _i.e._ with Ethics, but secondarily and negatively with Physics, to which was appended what Epicurus called Canonics, or the science of testing, that is, a kind of logic.
[371] Beginning with _Canonics_, as the first part of philosophy in order of time, from the point of view of human knowledge, Epicurus laid it down that the only source of knowledge was the senses, which gave us an immediate and true perception of that which actually came into contact with them.
Even the visions of madmen or of dreamers he considered were in themselves true, being produced by a physical cause of some kind, of which these visions were the direct and immediate report.
Falsity came in with {215} people's interpretations or imaginations with respect to these sensations.
Sensations leave a trace in the memory, and out of similarities or analogies among sensations there are developed in the mind general notions or types, such as 'man,' 'house,' which are also true, because [373] they are reproductions of sensations.
Thirdly, when a sensation occurs, it is brought into relation in the mind with one or more of these types or notions; this is _predication_, true also in so far as its elements are true, but capable of falsehood, as subsequent or independent sensation may prove.
If supported or not contradicted by sensation, it is or may be true; if contradicted or not supported by sensation, it is or may be false.
The importance of this statement of the canon of truth or falsehood will be understood when we come to the physics of Epicurus, at the basis of which is his theory of Atoms, which by their very nature can never be directly testified to by sensation.
[374] This and no more was what Epicurus had to teach on the subject of logic.
He had no theory of definition, or division, or ratiocination, or refutation, or explication; on all these matters Epicurus was, as Cicero said, 'naked and unarmed.'
Like most self-taught or ill-taught teachers, Epicurus trusted to his dogmas; he knew nothing and cared nothing for logical defence.
{216} [375] In his _Physics_ Epicurus did little more than reproduce the doctrine of Democritus.
He starts from the fundamental proposition that 'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish.'
The veritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to be discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite size, and cannot further be divided.
They have also a definite weight and form, but no qualities other than these.
There is an infinity of empty space; this Epicurus proves on abstract grounds, practically because a limit to space is unthinkable.
It follows that there must be an infinite number of the atoms, otherwise they would disperse throughout the infinite void and disappear.
There is a limit, however, to the number of varieties among the atoms in respect of form, size, and weight.
The existence of the void space is proved by the fact that motion takes place, to which he adds the argument that it necessarily exists also to separate the atoms one from another.
So far Epicurus and Democritus are agreed.
To the Democritean doctrine, however, Epicurus made a curious addition, to which he himself is said to have attached much importance.
The natural course (he said) for all bodies having weight is downwards in a straight line.
It struck Epicurus that this being so, the atoms would all travel for ever in parallel lines, and those 'clashings and interminglings' of {217} atoms out of which he conceived all visible forms to be produced, could never occur.
He therefore laid it down that the atoms _deviated_ the least little bit from the straight, thus making a world possible.
And Epicurus considered that this supposed deviation of the atoms not only made a world possible, but human freedom also.
In the deviation, without apparent cause, of the descending atoms, the law of necessity was broken, and there was room on the one hand for man's free will, on the other, for prayer to the gods, and for hope of their interference on our behalf.
It may be worth while summarising the proofs which Lucretius in his great poem, professedly following in the footsteps of Epicurus, adduces for these various doctrines.
Epicurus' first dogma is, 'Nothing proceeds from nothing,' that is, every material object has some matter previously existing exactly equal in quantity to it, out of which it was made.
To prove this Lucretius appeals to the _order of nature_ as seen in the seasons, in the phenomena of growth, in the fixed relations which exist between life and its environment as regards what is helpful or harmful, in the limitation of size and of faculties in the several species and the fixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities of cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and under certain conditions.
{218} To prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction; _force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago.
Moreover, he points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living things, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the eternal stars.
Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted all the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal.
Moreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and the forces necessary to their destruction.
Finally, apparent violations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm it.
The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may reappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which feed on them.
Nor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so all-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible.
The same is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which lash the waves and overwhelm great fleets.
There are odours also that float unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices.
There is the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone, {219} yet cannot see its vapour departing.
There is the gradual invisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by dripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the streets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as they pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into along the shore.
That there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions on land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest things, as we see in dripping caves.
There is the food also which disperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle.
Voices pass through closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones.
Things equal in size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a lump of lead.
So much for Lucretius.
For abstract theories on physics, except as an adjunct and support to his moral conceptions, Epicurus seems to have had very little inclination.
He thus speaks of the visible universe or Cosmos.
[373] The Cosmos is a sort of skyey enclosure, which holds within it the stars, the earth, and all visible things.
It is cut off from the infinite by a wall of division which may be either rare or dense, in motion or at rest, round or three-cornered or any other form.
That there is such a wall of division is quite admissible, for no object of which we have observation is without its limit.
Were this wall of division to {220} break, everything contained within it would tumble out.
We may conceive that there are an infinite number of such Cosmic systems, with inter-cosmic intervals throughout the infinity of space.
He is very disinclined to assume that similar phenomena, _e.g._ eclipses of the sun or moon, always have the same cause.
The various accidental implications and interminglings of the atoms may produce the same effect in various ways.
In fact Epicurus has the same impatience of theoretical physics as of theoretical philosophy.
He is a 'practical man.'
[378] He is getting nearer his object when he comes to the nature of the soul.
The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms, extremely delicate and fine.
It very much resembles the breath, with a mixture of heat thrown in, sometimes coming nearer in nature to the first, sometimes to the second.
Owing to the delicacy of its composition it is extremely subject to variation, as we see in its passions and liability to emotion, its phases of thought and the varied experiences without which we cannot live.
It is, moreover, the chief cause of sensation being possible for us.
Not that it could of itself have had sensation, without the enwrapping support of the rest of the structure.
The rest of the structure, in fact, having prepared this chief cause, gets from it a share of what comes to it, but not a share of all which the soul has.
The soul being of material composition equally {221} with the other portions of the bodily structure, dies of course with it, that is, its particles like the rest are dispersed, to form new bodies.
There is nothing dreadful therefore about death, for there is nothing left to know or feel anything about it.
As regards the process of sensation, Epicurus, like Democritus, conceived bodies as having a power of emitting from their surface extremely delicate images of themselves.
These are composed of very fine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain for a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable after a time to distortion.
They fly with great celerity through the void, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul, which by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and apprehends their form.
[379] The gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and subtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body.
Their life is one of perfect blessedness and peace.
They are in number countless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting them.
They are not subject to the passions of humanity.
Anger and joy are alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of strength.
They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces.
As Cicero jestingly remarks: "Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so pure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind could blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between two worlds, for fear of breakage."
[380] Coming finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general resemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus.
The end of life is pleasure or the absence of pain.
He differs, however, from the Cyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the end, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we ought in our conduct to have regard to the future.
Further he denies that pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and quiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the absence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive pleasure.
And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily pleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these characteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the present feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the past.
And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack.
Better indeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish.
In a similar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: "In the enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life I write this letter to you.
Strangury has supervened, and the extremest agony of internal {223} pains, yet resisting these has been my joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the past."
[381] We must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much with the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought for thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with contemplation.
They were essentially connected with bodily experiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future, bodily pleasures.
For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with Epicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily processes.
Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily experience preceding it.
Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined the matter: "A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has good hope that it will continue so."
Directly or indirectly, therefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus, to one's belly at last.
[382] This theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial self-indulgence.
If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental apprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in this, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper restriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for filling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or sorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train.
But (Epicurus argues) this is far from being the case.
Moreover there are many pleasures keen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the remembering.
And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the highest parts of our nature.
What those 'highest parts' are, and by what standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does not say.
He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the widest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and hope, of conception, of sight and hearing.
Moreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural and compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such as the desire for crowns or statues.
The last of these the wise man will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his freedom.
For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we cannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few.
"For I am convinced," Epicurus continues, "that they have the greatest enjoyment of wealth, who are least dependent upon it for enjoyment."
Thus if Epicurus did not absolutely teach simplicity of living, he taught his disciples the necessity of being capable of such simplicity, which they could {225} hardly be without practice.
So that in reality the doctrine of Epicurus came very near that of his opponents.
As Seneca the Stoic observed, "Pleasure with him comes to be something very thin and pale.
In fact that law which we declare for virtue, the same law he lays down for pleasure."
One of the chief and highest pleasures of life Epicurus found in the possession of friends, who provided for each other not only help and protection, but a lifelong joy.
For the 'larger friendship' of the civic community, Epicurus seems to have had only a very neutral regard.
Justice, he says, is a convention of interests, with a view of neither hurting or being hurt.
The wise man will have nothing to do with politics, if he can help it.
In spite of much that may offend in the doctrines of Epicurus, there is much at least in the man which is sympathetic and attractive.
What one observes, however, when we compare such a philosophy with that of Plato or Aristotle, is first, a total loss of constructive imagination.
The parts of the 'philosophy,' if we are so to call it, of Epicurus hang badly together, and neither the Canonics nor the Physics show any real faculty of serious thinking at all.
The Ethics has a wider scope and a more real relation to experience if not to reason.
But it can never satisfy the deeper apprehension of mankind.
The truest and most permanently valid revelations {226} of life come not to the many but to the one or the few, who communicate the truth to the many, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, always at the cost of antagonism and ridicule.
A philosophy therefore which only represents in theoretical form the average practice of the average man, comes into the world still-born.
It has nothing to say; its hearers know it all, and the exact value of it all, already.
And in their heart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal, and sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess of pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a lurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a slaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders of the 'divine institution.'
There is a wasting sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory of living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly and speak moderately.
They are generally a little weary if not cynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but they prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into new courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue.
"May I die," said the Cynic, "rather than lead a life of pleasure."
"May I die," says the Epicurean, "rather than make a fool of myself."
The Idealist is to them, if not {227} a hypocrite, at least a visionary,--if not a Tartuffe, at least a Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
Yet even for poor Don Quixote, with all his blindness and his follies, the world retains a sneaking admiration.
It can spare a few or a good many of its worldly-wisdoms, rather than lose altogether its enthusiasms and its dreams.
And the one thing which saves Epicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the idealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there.
No man and no theory is wholly self-centred.
Pleasure is supplanted by Utility, and Utility becomes the greatest Happiness of the greatest Number, and so, as Horace says (_Ep._ I. x.
24)-Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, Nature (like Love) thrust out of the door, will come back by the window; and the Idealism which is not allowed to make pain a pleasure, is required at last to translate pleasure into pains.
{228} CHAPTER XXII THE STOICS _Semitic admixture--Closed fist and open hand--'Tabula rasa'--Necessity of evil--Hymn of Cleanthes--Things indifferent--Ideal and real--Philosophy and humanity_ Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born _circa_ 340 B.C.
), was a native of Citium in Cyprus.
The city was Greek, but with a large Phoenician admixture.
And it is curious that in this last and sternest phase of Greek thought, not the founder only, but a large proportion of the successive leaders of the school, came from this and other places having Semitic elements in them.
Among these places notable as nurseries of Stoicism was Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace of St. Paul.
The times of preparation were drawing to a close; and through these men, with their Eastern intensity and capacities of self-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece was linking itself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews.
Zeno came to Athens to study philosophy, and for twenty years he was a pupil first of Crates the Cynic, and then of other teachers.
At length he set up a school of his own in the celebrated _Stoa {229} Poecile_ (Painted Colonnade), so named because it was adorned with frescoes by Polygnotus.
There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily ended his life when close on a century old.
His life, as Antigonus, King of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his doctrine--abstemious, [386] frugal, laborious, dutiful.
He was succeeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia [387] Minor.
But the great constructor of the Stoic doctrine, without whom, as his contemporaries said, there had been no Stoic school at all, was Chrysippus, a native of Soli or of Tarsus in Cilicia.
He wrote at enormous length, supporting his teachings by an immense erudition, and culling liberally from the poets to illustrate and enforce his views.
Learned and pedantic, his works had no inherent attraction, and nothing of them but fragments has been preserved.
We know the Stoic doctrine mainly from the testimony and criticisms of later times.
[389] Like the Epicureans, Zeno and his successors made philosophy primarily a search for the chief good, a doctrine of practice and morals.
But like them they were impelled to admit a logic and a physics, at least by way of preliminary basis to their [390] ethics.
The relations of the three they illustrated by various images.
Philosophy was like an animal; logic was its bones and sinews, ethics its flesh, physics its life or soul.
Or again, philosophy was {230} an egg; logic was the shell, ethics the white, physics, the yolk.
Or again, it was a fruitful field; logic was the hedge, ethics the crop, physics the soil.
Or it was a city, well ordered and strongly fortified, and so on.
The images seem somewhat confused, but the general idea is clear enough.
Morality was the essential, the living body, of philosophy; physics supplied its raw material, or the conditions under which a moral life could be lived; logic secured that we should use that material rightly and wisely for the end desired.
[391] Logic the Stoics divided into two parts--Rhetoric, the 'science of the open hand,' and Dialectic, the 'science of the closed fist,' as Zeno called them.
They indulged in elaborate divisions and subdivisions of each, with which we need not meddle.
The only points of interest to us are contained in their analysis [392] of the processes of perception and thought.
A sensation, Zeno taught, was the result of an external _impulse_, which when combined with an internal _assent_, produced a mental state that revealed at the same time itself and the external object producing it.
The perception thus produced he compared to the grip which the hand took of a solid object; and real perceptions, those, that is, which were caused by a real external object, and not by some illusion, always testified to the reality of their cause by this sensation of 'grip.'
{231} The internal assent of the mind was voluntary, and at the same time necessary; for the mind could not do otherwise than will the acceptance of that which it was fitted to receive.
The peculiarity of their physics, which we shall have to refer to later on, namely, the denial of the existence of anything not material, implied that in some way there was a material action of the external object on the structure of the perceiving mind (itself also material).
What exactly the nature of this action was the Stoics themselves were not quite agreed.
The idea of an 'impression' such as a seal makes upon wax was a tempting one, but they had difficulty in comprehending how there could be a multitude of different impressions on the same spot without effacing each other.
Some therefore preferred the vaguer and safer expression, 'modification'; had they possessed our modern science, they might have illustrated their meaning by reference to the phenomena of magnetism or electricity.
An interesting passage may be quoted from [393] Plutarch on the Stoic doctrine of knowledge: "The Stoics maintain," he says, "that when a human being is born, he has the governing part of his soul like a sheet of paper ready prepared for the reception of writing, and on this the soul inscribes in succession its various ideas.
The first form of the writing is produced through the senses.
When we perceive, for example, {232} a white object, the recollection remains when the object is gone.
And when many similar recollections have accumulated, we have what is called _experience_.
Besides the ideas which we get in this natural and quite undesigned way, there are other ideas which we get through teaching and information.
In the strict sense only these latter ought to be called ideas; the former should rather be called perceptions.
Now the rational faculty, in virtue of which we are called reasoning beings, is developed out of, or over and beyond, the mass of perceptions, in the second seven years' period of life.
In fact a thought may be defined as a kind of mental image, such as a rational animal alone is capable of having."
Thus there are various gradations of mental apprehensions; first, those of sensible qualities obtained through the action of the objects and the assent of the perceiving subject, as already described; then by experience, by comparison, by analogy, by the combinations of the reasoning faculty, further and more general notions are arrived at, and conclusions formed, as, for example, that the gods exist and exercise a providential care over the world.
By this faculty also the wise man ascends to the apprehension of the good and true.
The physics of the Stoics started from the fundamental [398] proposition that in the universe of things there were two elements--the active and the passive.
{233} The latter was Matter or unqualified existence; the former was the reason or qualifying element in Matter, that is, God, who being eternal, is the fashioner of every individual thing throughout the universe of matter.
God is One; He is Reason, and Fate, and Zeus.
In fact all the gods are only various representations of His faculties and powers.
He being from the beginning of things by Himself, turneth all existence through air to water.
And even as the genital seed is enclosed in the semen, so also was the seed of the world concealed in the water, making its matter apt for the further birth of things; then first it brought into being the four elements--fire, water, air, earth.
For there was a finer fire or air which was the moving spirit of things; later and lower than this were the material elements of fire and air.
It follows that the universe of things is threefold; there is first God Himself, the source of all character and individuality, who is indestructible and eternal, the fashioner of all things, who in certain cycles of ages gathers up all things into Himself, and then out of Himself brings them again to birth; there is the matter of the universe whereon God works; and thirdly, there is the union of the two.
Thus the world is governed by reason and forethought, and this reason extends through every part, even as the soul or life extends to every part of us.
The universe therefore is a living thing, having a {234} soul or reason in it.
This soul or reason one teacher likened to the air, another to the sky, another to the sun.
For the soul of nature is, as it were, a finer air or fire, having a power of creation in it, and moving in an ordered way to the production of things.
[399] The universe is one and of limited extension, being spherical in form, for this is the form which best adapts itself to movement.
Outside this universe is infinite bodiless space; but within the universe there is no empty part; all is continuous and united, as is proved by the harmony of relation which exists between the heavenly bodies and those upon the earth.
The world as such is destructible, for its parts are subject to change and to decay; yet is this change or destruction only in respect of the qualities imposed upon it from time to time by the Reason inherent in it; the mere unqualified Matter remains indestructible.
[408] In the universe evil of necessity exists; for evil being the opposite of good, where no evil is there no good can be.
For just as in a comedy there are absurdities, which are in themselves bad, but yet add a certain attraction to the poem as a whole, so also one may blame evil regarded in itself, yet for the whole it is not without its use.
So also God is the cause of death equally with birth; for even as cities when the inhabitants have multiplied overmuch, {235} remove their superfluous members by colonisation or by war, so also is God a cause of destruction.
In man in like manner good cannot exist save with evil; for wisdom being a knowledge of good and evil, remove the evil and wisdom itself goes.
Disease and other natural evils, when looked at in the light of their effects, are means not of evil but of good; there is throughout the universe a balance and interrelation of good and evil.
Not that God hath in Himself any evil; the law is not the cause of lawlessness, nor God Himself responsible for any violation of right.
[404] The Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a mighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure which it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a Socrates, a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same friends and fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same endeavours.
At the termination of each cycle there was a burning up of all things, and thereafter a renewal of the great round of life.
[408] Nothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that which is corporeal; body alone can affect body.
The soul therefore must be corporeal.
Death is the separation of soul from body, but it is impossible to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore, again, the soul must {236} be corporeal.
In the belief of Cleanthes, the souls of all creatures remained to the next period of cyclic conflagration; Chrysippus believed that only the souls of the wise and good remained.
[413] Coming finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the chief end of life this definition, 'A life consistent with itself,' or, as it was otherwise expressed, 'A life consistent with Nature.'
The two definitions are really identical; for the law of nature is the law of our nature, and the reason in our being the reason which also is in God, the supreme Ruler of the universe.
This is substantially in accordance with the celebrated law of right action laid down by Kant, "Act so that the maxim of thine action be capable of being made a law of universal action."
Whether a man act thus or no, by evil if not by good the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question is of import only for the man's own happiness.
Let his will accord with the universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be happy.
Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, but the man will bear the penalty.
This was expressed by Cleanthes in a hymn which ran somewhat thus-Lead me, O Zeus most great, And thou, Eternal Fate: What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel That way I'll follow without fret or cavil.
{237} Or if I evil be And spurn thy high decree, Even so I still shall follow, soon or late.
Thus in the will alone consists the difference of good or ill for us; in either case Nature's great law fulfils itself infallibly.
To their view on this point we may apply the words of Hamlet: "If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the _readiness_ is all."
This universal law expresses itself in us in various successive manifestations.
From the moment of birth it implants in us a supreme self-affection, whereby of infallible instinct we seek our own self-preservation, rejoice in that which is suitable to our existence, shrink from that which is unsuitable.
As we grow older, further and higher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more and more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable and advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods.
Till finally the surpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so clear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only we may attain to that.
Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we come to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness, nothing absolutely bad but sin.
Other things, inasmuch as they have no character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be relatively preferable or relatively undesirable.
Even pleasure and pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being, are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil.
Yet have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them was so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse are drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly enemy.
Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to eradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but so to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to render them obedient and subservient to herself.
[415] That which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage, temperance--does good only and never ill to us.
All other things,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, birth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity, weakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in themselves neither a benefit nor a curse.
They may do us good, they may do us harm.
We may use them for good, we may use them for evil.
[417] Thus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of righteousness as the chief and {239} only good.
Across this ideal picture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers within, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience.
'What,' it was asked, 'of _progress_ in goodness?
Is this a middle state between good and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a contradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it?'
Here the wiser teachers had to be content to answer that it _tended_ towards good, was good in possibility, would be absolutely good when the full attainment came, and the straining after right had been swallowed up in the perfect calm of settled virtue.
'How also of the wise man tormented by pain, or in hunger and poverty and rags, is his perfectness of wisdom and goodness really sufficient to make him happy?'
Here, again, the answer had to be hesitating and provisional, through no fault of the Stoics.
In this world, while we are still under the strange dominion of time and circumstance, the ideal can never wholly fit the real.
There must still be difficulty and incompleteness here, only to be solved and perfected 'when iniquity shall have an end.'
Our eyes may fail with looking upward, yet the upward look is well; and the jibes upon the Stoic 'king in rags' that Horace and others were so fond of, do not affect the question.
It may have been, and probably often was, the case that Stoic teachers {240} were apt to transfer to themselves personally the ideal attributes, which they justly assigned to the ideal man in whom wisdom was perfected.
The doctrine gave much scope for cant and mental pride and hypocrisy, as every ideal doctrine does, including the Christian.
But the existence of these vices in individuals no more affected the doctrine of an ideal goodness in its Stoic form, than it does now in its Christian one.
That only the good man is truly wise or free or happy; that vice, however lavishly it surround itself with luxury and ease and power, is inherently wretched and foolish and slavish;--these are things which are worth saying and worth believing, things, indeed, which the world dare not and cannot permanently disbelieve, however difficult or even impossible it may be to mark men off into two classes, the good and the bad, however strange the irony of circumstance which so often shows the wicked who 'are not troubled as other men, neither are they plagued like other men; they have more than their heart could wish,' while good men battle with adversity, often in vain.
Still will the permanent, fruitful, progressive faith of man 'look to the end'; still will the ideal be powerful to plead for the painful right, and spoil, even in the tasting, the pleasant wrong.
The doctrine, of course, like every doctrine worth anything, was pushed to extravagant lengths, and {241} thrust into inappropriate quarters, by foolish doctrinaires.
As that the wise man is the only orator, critic, poet, physician, nay, cobbler if you please; that the wise man knows all that is to be known, and can do everything that is worth doing, and so on.
The school was often too academic, too abstract, too fond of hearing itself talk.
This, alas!
is what most schools are, and most schoolmasters.
Yet the Stoics were not altogether alien to the ordinary interests and duties of life.
They admitted a duty of co-operating in politics, at least in such states as showed some desire for, or approach to, virtue.
They approved of the wise man taking part in education, of his marrying and bringing up children, both for his own sake and his country's.
He will be ready even to 'withdraw himself from life on behalf of his country or his friends.
This 'withdrawal,' which was their word for suicide, came unhappily to be much in the mouths of later, and especially of the Roman, Stoics, who, in the sadness and restraint of prevailing despotism, came to thank God that no one was compelled to remain in life; he might 'withdraw' when the burden of life, the hopelessness of useful activity, became too great.
With this sad, stern, yet not undignified note, the philosophy of Greece speaks its last word.
The later scepticism of the New Academy, directed mainly to a negative criticism of the crude enough logic of the {242} Stoics, or of the extravagances of their ethical doctrine, contributed no substantial element to thought or morals.
As an eclectic system it had much vogue, side by side with Stoicism and Epicureanism, among the Romans, having as its chief exponent Cicero, as Epicureanism had Lucretius, and Stoicism, Seneca.
The common characteristic of all these systems in their later developments, is their _cosmopolitanism_.
_Homo sum, nil humani a me alienum puto_, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in any of them.
And the reason of this is not far to seek.
We have seen already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely conditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of Greece.
The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of Socrates and Plato.
Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union between the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128).
And the march of politics was always tending in the same direction.
First through great leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek letters all over the Eastern {243} world, and the influx upon Greek centres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign intelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming world of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and its incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which had divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race disappeared, and only a common humanity remained.
The only effective philosophies for such a community were those which regarded man as an _individual_, with a world politically omnipotent hedging him about, and driving him in upon himself.
Thus the New Academy enlarged on the doubtfulness of all beyond the individual consciousness; Stoicism insisted on individual dutifulness, Epicureanism on individual self-satisfaction.
The first sought to make life worth living through culture, the second through indifference, the third through a moderate enjoyment.
But all alike felt themselves very helpless in face of the growing sadness of life, in face of the deepening mystery of the world beyond.
All alike were controversial, and quick enough to ridicule their rivals; none was hopefully constructive, or (unless in the poetic enthusiasm of a Lucretius) very confident of the adequacy of its own conceptions.
They all rather quickened the sense of emptiness in human existence, than satisfied it; {244} at the best they enabled men to "absent themselves a little while from the felicity of death."
Thus all over the wide area of Greek and Roman civilisation, the activity of the later schools was effectual to familiarise humanity with the language of philosophy, and to convince humanity of the inadequacy of its results.
Both of these things the Greeks taught to Saul of Tarsus; at a higher Source he found the satisfying of his soul; but from the Greek philosophies he learned the language through which the new Revelation was to be taught in the great world of Roman rule and Grecian culture.
And thus through the Pauline theology, Greek philosophy had its part in the moral regeneration of the world; as it has had, in later times, in every emancipation and renascence of its thought.
{245} INDEX Abdera, birthplace of Democritus, 74; of Protagoras, 86 Absolute knowledge, unattainable by man, 19; absorption in, 133; no separate existence, 182 Abstract ideas not derivable from experience, 45; abstract truth impossible, 87; of no value, 132; revival of, 133 Academus, grove of, 135 Achilles and tortoise, 44; death of, 139 Acroatic, kind of lectures, 175 Actuality, see _Realisation_.
Agrigentum, birthplace of Empedocles, 59 Air, beginning of things, 14 Alcestis, referred to, 139 Alcibiades, dialogue, 137 Alexander, relations with Aristotle, 174; influence of conquests of, 242 Anarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 83; reaction against, by Socrates, 102 Anaxagoras, 52; relation of Empedocles to, 62; quoted by Aristotle, 200 Anaximander, 7 Anaximenes, 14 Anthropomorphism, criticised, 32 Antigonus, friend of Zeno, 229 Antisthenes, 128 Apology, dialogue, 136 Appetite, the only reality, 96 Archilochus, criticised by Heraclitus, 16 Aristippus, 124 Aristocracy, in politics and in philosophy, 82 Aristotle, on Thales, 4; on Xenophanes, 32; on Zeno, 42; on Melissus, 47; on Anaxagoras, 54; on Empedocles, 59, 63, 70; a complete Socratic, 103; on Socrates, 106; on Sophists, 115; debt to Plato, 159; on Plato, 163; chapters on, 172 _sqq._; his fresh contributions to Academic philosophy, 173; two classes of lectures, 175; library, _ib._; predominance of, 176; style, 177; differences from Plato, 178 Art, a greater revealer than science, 66; relation of Love to, 137; a mode of creation, 139 Asceticism, of Cynics, 128; of Plato, 168; of Epicurus, 225 Atarneus, residence of Aristotle, 174 Athens, visited by Parmenides and Zeno, 34, 42, 157; residence of Anaxagoras, 52; centre of sophistry, 85; birthplace of Socrates, 103; visited by Aristippus, 124; birthplace of Antisthenes, 129; and of Plato, 134; dialogue in praise of, 137; residence of Aristotle, 173; of Epicurus, 211 Atlantis, kingdom of, 153 Atomists, 52; revived theory of, 215 Atoms, constituents of nature, 76, 216; deviation of, 216 Beauty, one aspect of ideal, 110; relation to creative instinct, 139; science of universal beauty, 141 Becoming, the fundamental principle, 16; passage from Being to, 36, 39 Beginning (_arche_), of Thales, 3; Aristotle's definition, 4; difficulties of material theories of, 36l Being, eternal being like a sphere, 32; passage from, to Becoming, 36, 39; a co-equal element with Nonentity, 75; analysis of, 159; and the Other, 165 Body, realisation of soul, 27; a prison, 28; unthinkable except with reference to space, 75; source of illusion, 164 Canonics, form of logic, 215 Cause, three causes, 110; equals essence, 167; first causes subject of philosophy, 179; relation of, to potentiality, 185 Cave, of this life, 148, 166 Chaldaea, visited by Pythagoras, 22; by Democritus, 74 Change, how account for, 10, 35, 39, 75 Chaos, of the Atomists, 53; of Empedocles, 69; king in philosophy, 83; life not a chaos, 105 Charmides, dialogue, 136 Christ, brings sword, 99; kingdom of, 149 Chrysippus, successor of Cleanthes, 229 Cicero, mistranslates Pythagoras, 28; criticises Epicurus, 212, 221; exponent of New Academy, 242 Citium, birthplace of Zeno, 228 Clazomenae, birthplace of Anaxagoras, 52 Cleanthes, successor of Zeno, 229; hymn of, 236 Codrus, Plato descended from, 134; sacrifice of, 139 Colophon, birthplace of Xenophanes, 31 Commonplaces, function of, in sophistry, 84 Community of wives, 148; ideal community, 149 (and see _State_) Contradiction, philosophy of, 65 Cosmogony, of Democritus, 77; of Plato, 150; of Aristotle, 200; of Epicurus, 219; of the Stoics, 231 Cosmopolitanism, of Cyrenaics and Cynics, 128; of later systems, 242 Courage, treated of in _Laches_, 136 Cratylus, dialogue, 137 Creation, a great expiation, 73; in the soul, 139; working out of God's image, 151; union of Essence and Matter, 167 Criterion, feeling the only, 127 Critias, dialogue, 153 Crito, dialogue, 136 Crux, in philosophy, 190 Cynic, origin of name, 130; influence of school on Plato, 154; _v._ Epicurean, 226 Cyrene, seat of Cyrenaic school, 124; visited by Plato, 134; influence of school on Plato, 154 Death, birth of the soul, 19 Deduction, _v._ Induction, 48; function of, in Aristotle, 184 Definitions, search for, by Socrates, 106; of no value, 132; rules for, laid down by Plato, 156 Democritus, 74; relation of Epicurus to, 216 Demonstrative science, based on abstraction, 11 Desire, part of soul, 28, 169; thought without, gives no motive, 191; distinctions among, 224 Destruction, meaning of, 53 Dialectic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; Platonic theory of, 164, 171 Dichotomy, invented by Zeno, 43 Difference (see _Essence_), all difference quantitative, 76; conditioned by dissimilarity in atoms, 77 Dilemma, Melissus' use of, 46 Diogenes, pupil of Antisthenes, 130 Dionysius, elder and younger, connection of Plato with, 135 Diotima, conversation of, with Socrates, 137 Dry light, 19 Dualism, unthinkable, 32; in nature, 38; of Plato and Aristotle, 184 Dynamic, see _Potentiality_ Earth, principle in nature, 38 Education, preparation for heaven, 148; ideal, 149; true function of, 169; three stages, 170; an entelechy, 191 Egypt, visited by Pythagoras, 22; Democritus, 74; Plato, 135 Elea, seat of Eleatic school, 30; birthplace of Parmenides, 33 Eleatics, relation of Empedocles to, 62; of Democritus, 75; of Plato, 154, 165 Elements, the four, 62; in creation, 151; in body and in soul, 156 Empedocles, 58 Ends of Life, indifference as to, 96; importance in later Greek philosophy, 125; Plato's view of, 168; Aristotle's, 193; Epicurean, 222 Entelechy, Life, 186, 190; God, 188; Thought, _ib._; Education, 191; Morality, 193; State, 197; physical world, 199; Soul, 203 Ephesus, birthplace of Heraclitus, 15 Epicurus, 211; praises of, by Lucretius, 212; garden of, 213; relation to Democritus, 216 Essence _v._ Difference, 48; equals Cause, 167 Euclides, 132 Euripides, friend of Anaxagoras, 52 Euthydemus, conversation with Socrates, 116; dialogue, 137 Euthyphro, dialogue, 136 Even, _v._ Odd, 24 Evil, origin of, 33; necessary on earth, 168; God cause of evil, but hath none, 234 Evolution, Anaximander's conception of, 12; Xenophanes' theory of, 33; relation of, to fundamental conception of Being, _ib._; view of Empedocles, 70 Existence, an idea prior to Time and Space, 37; not given by Experience, 45; four forms of, 166; philosophy treats of existence as such, 181 Exoteric kind of lectures, 175 Female, see _Male_ Fire, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38 Flux, of all things, 16; of life, 27, 73; sophistic theory of, 87 Form _v._ Matter, 25, 48; Aristotle's theory of, 203 Formulae, never adequate, 122 Freewill, problem of, 33; relation to law, 113; and overruling providence, 155 Friendship, treated of in _Lysis_, 136 Genus, has less of existence than species, 183 God, soul of the world, 27; the Odd-Even, 26; the universe His self-picturing, 26; God is one, 32; not a function of matter, 33; atomic origin of idea of, 80; the law or ideal in the universe, 112; Man the friend of God, 142; works out His image in creation, 151; God's thought and God's working, 152; is Mind universal, 164; cause of union in creation, 166; His visible images in Man and Nature, _ib._; cause both of good and of knowledge, 166; thoughts of, eternally existing, 187; an entelechy, 188; Epicurean theory of, 221; Stoic theory of, 233 Golden age, 73 Gorgias, 92; Antisthenes pupil of, 129; dialogue, 137 Greek _v._ Modern difficulties, 158 Gymnastic, function of, 170 Habit, Aristotle's definition of, 195 Happiness, chief good, 193; reason standard of, 196 Harmony, the eternal, 19; soul a harmony, 29 Hecataeus, referred to by Herodotus, 2 Hegel, philosophic system of, 159 Heraclitus, 15; _v._ Democritus, 74; Plato student of, 134; relation of Plato to, 163 Hercules, patron-god of Cynics, 130 Herodotus, notices Hecataeus, 2 Hesiod, praised, 139 Hippias, dialogue, 137 Homer, criticised by Heraclitus, 16; anthropomorphism of, 31; praised, 139 Horace, quoted, 125 Humanitarianism, began in scepticism, 99 Humanity, granted only to possessors of eternal truth, 145 Husk, symbol of evolution, 12 Idea, exists prior to sensation, 143; eternal in universe, 150; rational element in sensation, 152; Platonic criticism of, 157; universals are ideas of real existences, 163; things partake of, 164; relation of, to Pythagorean 'Numbers,' 167; Aristotelian criticism of, 181; necessarily prior to sensation, 187 Ideal, struggle of old and new, 99; in the arts, 110; has three aspects, Justice, Beauty, Utility, _ib._; great ideal in the universe, 112; can never wholly fit the real, 239 Idealism, _v._ Practicality, 4, 96; Parmenides founder of, 39; _v._ Realism, 51; _v._ Epicureanism, 216 Immortality, aspect of, to Greeks, 40; Parmenides pioneer for, 41; _Phaedo_ dialogue on, 136; Love and immortality, 138; of soul, 150; relation of doctrine to Platonic recollection, 154; faith as to, 155; Man must put on, 168; Aristotle's view of, 207 Inconsistency, not forbidden in philosophy, 64 Individual, _v._ Universal, 99; relation of, to community, 147, 196; reality of, 184; importance of, in later systems, 243 Individualism, in philosophy, 83, 85; not wholly bad, 98; required reconciling with universalism, 100 Induction (see Deduction); Socrates inventor of, 106; Plato's contributions to, 160; function of, in Aristotle, 184 Infinite or indefinite, origin of things, 8; function of, in mathematics, 10; relation to definite, 24, 26, 165 Infinity, origin of idea of, 46 Intellect, division of soul, 28, 169 Ion, dialogue, 136 Irony, of Socrates, 105 Jowett, Prof., quoted, 39, 43, 89, 138, 142, 153, 158 Judgment, vision of, 150 Justice, a cheating device, 95; one form of ideal or universal, 110; related to law and to utility, 120; the fairest wisdom, 139; dialogue on, 146; only interest of stronger, 147; writ large in state, 147; perfection of whole man, and of state, 169; a civic quality restraining, 198; Epicurean theory of, 225 Kant, his _Critic_ referred to, 158; maxim of, 236 Knowledge, _v._ Opinion, 33, 35, 51; impossible, 93; really exists, 164; first causes pertain to, 179; must have real object, 183; potential and actual, 203 'Know thyself,' 113; dialogue on, 137 Laches, dialogue, 136 Lampsacus, place of death of Anaxagoras, 57 Laughing philosopher, 74 Law, in universe, 112; relation to Freewill, 113; relation to Justice, 120; fulfilled through Love, 122; Laws, dialogue, 160; potential and actual, 192 Leontini, birthplace of Gorgias, 92 Leucippus, 74 Life, death of the soul, 19; a prison, 28; a sentinel-post, _ib._; a union of contradictories, 66; a dwelling in cave, 148; organic idea of, 185; an entelechy, 190; different kinds of, 194; Aristotle's definition, 203 Listeners, in Pythagorean system, 23 Logic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; contributions of Plato and Aristotle to, 159; governing idea of Aristotle's, 184; of Epicurus, 215; Stoic divisions of, 230 Love, motive force in Nature, 38; one of two principles, 38, 63; fulfilling of the law, 122; dialogues on, 137, 144; pure and impure, 145 Lucretius, praises Empedocles, 59; Epicurus, 212; proofs by, of Epicurus' theory, 217; exponent of Roman Epicureanism, 242 Lyceum, school of Aristotle, 174 Lycurgus, praised, 140 Lysis, dialogue, 136 Magnet, soul of, 6 Male and Female, Pythagorean view of, 24; principles in Nature, 38; equality of, 148; correlative, 167; basis of State, 197 Man, measure of truth, 87; working with Eternal Mind, 155; Does Man partake in God's ideas?
158; differentia of, possession of reason, 191; function of, 193; a political animal, 197; wisest of animals, why?
200 Materialism, ancient and modern, 57; of Epicureans, 220; of Stoics, 233 Mathematicians, in system of Pythagoras, 23 Mathematics, based on indefinables, 10; function of, in Pythagorean philosophy, 25; and in Platonic, 170 Matter (see _Mind_), _v._ Thought, 48; another name for the formless, 151, 167; correlative of Mind, 167; what it symbolises, 184; relation to Form, 203 Mechanical theory, of universe, 56, 78; of virtue, 195 Megara, birthplace of Euclides, 132; influence of school on Plato, 154 Melissus, 46 Menexenus, dialogue, 137 Meno, dialogue, 136; relation to Aristotle's doctrine, 191 Midwifery of Socrates, 104 Might, without Right is weak, 147; is Right in tyrant, 149 Miletus, birthplace of Thales, 1; of Anaximander, 7; of Anaximenes, 14 Mind, _v._ Matter, 51, 167; function of, in the universe, 54; God's mind working on matter, 151; ruler of universe, 155; must rule pleasure, 156; home of ideas, 164; correlative of matter, 167; passive and creative, 207 Moist or base element, 18 Monarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 82 Morality, a convention, 95, 126; traditional morality of Greece required remodelling, 98; question as to origin solved by Socrates, 121; can never exhaust Subject, 188; an entelechy, 192; potential and actual, 194 Motion, animal, how accounted for, 79 Multiplicity, see _Unity_ Music, of the spheres, 27; of seven planets, 151; function of, in education, 29, 170 Myth, of Steeds, 144; of Judgment, 150; of Creation, 152; philosophers fond of, 178 Names, approximations to reality, 165 Nature, treatises on, 16, 34, 46, 217; a reason in, 37; male and female principles in, 38; Love motive force in, _ib._; the non-existent, 92; 'touch of nature,' 191; Aristotle's conception of, 199; violations of, 201; order of, 217; clearly immortal, 218; a life consistent with, 236 Necessity, creative power, 38, 63; how used by Democritus, 78; Aristotle's conception of, 201 Neleus, family (owners of Aristotle's library), 175 Nicomachus, father of Aristotle, 172 Notions, Epicurus' view of, 215 Number, original of things, 24; relation of ideas to, 167 Obedience, through disobedience, 122 Obscure, epithet of Heraclitus, 15 Odd, _v._ Even, 24 Opinion, _v._ Knowledge, 33, 35 Oracle, answer of, respecting Socrates, 107; maxim engraved on, 113 Organism, idea of, in Aristotle, 185, 205 Organon, of Aristotle, 159 Origination, meaning of, 53, 62 Other, the 'Other' of Plato, 165 Pains, classification of, 131; converted into pleasures, 131, 227; moral function of, 238 Pantheistic apathy, 20 Parmenides, 33; relation of Zeno to, 42; visited Athens, 157; dialogue, _ib._ Particular, see _Universal_ Passion, part of soul, 28, 169 Paul, St., influence of Stoicism on, 228; relation of, to Greek philosophy, 244 Pericles, friend of Anaxagoras, 52; and of Protagoras, 86 Peripatetics, origin of name, 174 Personality, absence of, in Greek thought, 40 Persuasion, only true wisdom, 88 Phaedo, quoted from, 54; dialogue, 136 Phaedrus, dialogue, 142 Phenomena, not source of abstract ideas, 15 Philebus, dialogue, 156 Philosophy, different from science, 9; does not forbid inconsistency, 64; a form of poesy or fiction, 66; at the basis of religion, art, and morals, 67; great philosophies never die, 68; first systematically divided by Democritus, 75; relation to politics, 82, 97; paradox of, 100; crisis of, _ib._; of nature and of moral, 101; a means of social culture, 125; relation of Love to, 137; must rule on earth, 149; only makes happy guesses in science, 152; origin of, 178; investigates first causes, 179; crux in, 190; Epicurus' definition of, 214; a search for chief good, 229 Plato, criticism of Protagoras, 89; a _complete_ Socratic, 103: took refuge with Euclides, 132, 134; compared to Shakespeare, 134; as psychologist, 155; central doctrines of, 155; dogma impossible, 162; Aristotle on, 163; relation to Heraclitus, _ib._; and to the Eleatics, 165; relation of Aristotle to, 178, 181; his mistake as to universals, 182 Pleasure, end of life, 126; contempt of, 131; reason gives law to, 149; is it chief good?
156; Epicurean theory of, 222; moral function of, 238 Politics, relation to philosophy, 82, 97; influence of sophistry upon, 88 Politicus, see _Statesman_ Potentiality (Dynamic idea), how used by Aristotle, 185; of feeling, 195; equals matter, 203 Practicality, _v._ Idealism, 4 Predication, Epicurus' view of, 215 Propositions, _v._ Things, 189 Protagoras, 85; Plato's criticism of, 89; dialogue, 136 Protoplasm, explains nothing, 37 Punishment, Sophistic theory of, 88 Pyrrho, founder of Scepticism, 211 Pythagoras, 23 Quinta Essentia, origin of, 202 Quixote, the world admires, 227 Realisation (Actuality), correlative of potentiality, 185; relation to Plato's Recollection, 188; chief good, 194 Reality, standard of, 40, 51; distinction between, and appearance, abolished, 83, 87; no necessary relation between thought and reality, 94; the only reality appetite, 96; thoughts of God the only reality, 164; approximations to, 165; ideal can never wholly fit, 239 Reason, function of, 37, 56; corrector of the senses, 61; governs evolution, 70; worse made to appear better, 84; realises itself through individuals, 114; gives law to pleasure, 149, 156; man possesses, 191; actual and latent, 192; partly obedient, partly contemplative, 194; an element in Habit, 195; an impersonal ruler, 196 Recollection (or Reminiscence), departure and renewal of knowledge, 138; doctrine of, in Plato, 142; Platonic criticism of, 154; nature of, 165; relation of Aristotle's theory to, 188 Reminiscence, see _Recollection_ Republic, dialogue, 146; relation of, to Aristotle's doctrine, 192 Revelation, how criticise?
158 Right, Might without, is weak, 147 Samos, birthplace of Pythagoras, 23; of Melissus, 46; of Epicurus, 211 Scepticism, its isolating influence, 94; destroys not appetite, but moral restraint, 95; represented birth of new conditions, 98; phase of decay in distinctively Greek life, 211 Science, philosophy different from, 9; happy guesses in, 152; different kinds of, 180; can never exhaust object, 188 Scrip and staff, emblems of Cynics, 130 Semitic elements in later Greek philosophy, 228 Seneca, on Epicurus, 225; exponent of Roman Stoicism, 242 Senses (or Sensation), channel for the eternal wisdom, 18; data of, no measure of reality, 40; not source of ideas, 45; untrustworthy, 49; necessary to truth, 56; no test of truth, 60; relation to reason, 61; based on composite character of body, 71; atomic theory of, 79; give no absolute truth, 80; no distinction between, and thing or mind, 87; reaction of moral theory on theory of sensation, 102; invalid as against reason, 133; has rational elements conditioning, 151; universal cannot belong to, 163; universals furthest removed from, 180; only source of knowledge, 214; Epicurean theory of emission, 221; Stoic theory, 230 Shakespeare, Plato compared to, 134 Sicily, birthplace of Empedocles, 58; connection with rise of Sophistry, 84, 86, 92; connection of Plato with, 135 Sin, willing and unwilling, 121 Sinope, birthplace of Diogenes, 130 Sleep, cuts us off from eternal wisdom, 18 Socrates, 101; relation to Anaxagoras, 54; his doctrine in general, 100; marks a parting of ways, 103; warning 'voice' or 'daemon' of, 104; philosophic midwifery, _ib._; irony, 105; not an expositor, 115; relation to Sophists, _ib._; Aristippus student of, 124; criticises Antisthenes, 129; Plato pupil of, 134; dialogue concerning, 136; conversation of Diotima with, 137; in _Republic_, 146 Socratics, complete and incomplete, 103; incomplete, 125, 128 Solon, Plato descended from, 134; praised, 140 Sophists, 82; name first used by Protagoras, 85; influence of, on politics, 88, 97; refuted by the arts, 111; relation to Socrates, 115; Platonic dialogues on, 136; dialogue so named, 159 Soul of all things, 6; a fiery exhalation, 18; God soul of the world, 27; soul realised in body, _ib._; soul double, 28; triple, 28, 169; life of soul a harmony, 29; composed of finest atoms, 78; even that of universe, 80; loss of one's soul, 150; world-soul the first creation, 151; divisions of, 169; an entelechy, 203; definition of, 204; _v._ body, 205; Epicurean theory of, 220 Space, existence prior to, 37, 167; unthinkable except with reference to body, 75 Sparta, ideas from, in _Republic_, 148; influence on Plato's Laws, 160 Species, has more of existence than genus, 183 Speusippus, successor of Plato, 172 Stagira, birthplace of Aristotle, 172 State, Justice writ large in, 147; classes in, 169; an entelechy, 196 Statesman (or Politicus), dialogue, 159 Stoicism, Semitic element in, 228; origin of name, 229 Strife, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38, 63 Substance defined, 203 Sulla, brought Aristotle's library to Rome, 176 Summum bonum, what?
156; relation of man's perfection, 168; philosophy search for, 229 Symposium, dialogue, 137 Tabula rasa, Stoic theory of, 231 Tarsus, birthplace of St. Paul and (possibly) of Chrysippus, 229 Temperance, treated of in _Charmides_, 136; fairest sort of wisdom, 139 Thales, 2 Theaetetus, quoted from, 89; dialogue, 159 Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, 175 Things, in themselves, how known?
158; partake in the idea, 164; _v._ Propositions, 189 Thought, of God, 150; ideal elements in, 152; of God, source of reality, 164; relation to matter, 184; of God, eternally existing in ideas, 187; an entelechy, 188; without desire, no motive, 191; arms of, 198; only converted sensation, 223 Thucydides, quoted, 97 Thurii, code for, drawn up by Protagoras, 86 Timaeus, dialogue, 150 Time, brings its revenges, 8; plays with the dice, 20; existence prior to, 37, 168 Tortoise, see _Achilles_ Transmigration of souls, 27, 73 Truth, first duty of man, 29 senses give no absolute, 80; title of work by Protagoras, 86; man measure of, 87; abstract truth impossible, _ib._; dialogue concerning, 137 Tyranny, in politics and in philosophy, 83 Ultimately, significance of word, 190 Unity, _v._ Multiplicity, 28; of objects only apparent, 76; no absolute unity either of body or soul, 138; analysis of, 159; in thoughts of God, 164 Universal, _v._ Particular, 48; _v._ Individual, 99; search after lost, 105, 163; three forms, Justice, Beauty, Utility, 110; cannot belong to sense, 163; knowledge of, function of philosophy, 180; does not exist apart from particulars, 181; has less of existence than particulars, 183; they are not antithetical, 189 Universe, the self-picturing of God, 27; mechanical theory of, 56; ideal working in, 112; origin of, 151, 165, 200, 216, 232 Utility, relation to Justice, 120; philosophy does not seek, 178 Virtue, teachable through persuasion, 88; is knowledge, 112, 118; teachable through training, 131; sufficient for happiness, _ib._; teachableness of, 136, 191; immortal product of soul, 139; a habit, 195; a mean, _ib._; Reason standard of, 196; alone absolutely good, 238 Void, existence of, 75; proofs of, 219 Water, beginning of things, 4 Weeping philosopher, 20; _v._ laughing philosopher, 74 Wisdom, persuasion only true, 88; moderate indulgence, 126; a weaning of soul from pleasure, 131; temperance and justice the fairest, 139; heavenly and earthly, 148; Is it chief good?
156; Divine wisdom governor, 157; Aristotle's definition of, 180 Wise man, personification of reason, 196 Withdrawal, Stoic name for suicide, 241 World, a living creature, 27; why did God make?
190 Xenocrates, academic philosopher, 172 Xenophanes, 31, 48 Xenophon, quoted, 116 Xerxes, invasion of, 52 Zeno, the Eleatic, 42; the Stoic, 238
THE FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE BY WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE PRESIDENT OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1924 _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
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Published September, 1904.
Reprinted January, 1905; January, 1906; January, 1908; June, 1910.
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped.
Published September, 1911.
Reprinted May, 1912; May, 1913; May, 1914; July, 1915; January, November, 1917; August, 1919; February, October, 1920; June, November, 1921; September, 1922; June, 1923; September, 1924.
Norwood Press J.S.
Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION When asked why some men with moderate talents and meagre technical equipment succeed, where others with greater ability and better preparation fail; why some women with plain features and few accomplishments charm, while others with all the advantages of beauty and cultivation repel, we are wont to conceal our ignorance behind the vague term _personality_.
Undoubtedly the deeper springs of personality are below the threshold of consciousness, in hereditary traits and early training.
Still some of the higher elements of personality rise above this threshold, are reducible to philosophical principles, and amenable to rational control.
The five centuries from the birth of Socrates to the death of Jesus produced five such principles: the Epicurean pursuit of pleasure, genial but ungenerous; the Stoic law of self-control, strenuous but forbidding; the Platonic plan of subordination, sublime but ascetic; the Aristotelian sense of proportion, practical but uninspiring; and the Christian Spirit of Love, broadest and deepest of them all.
The purpose of this book is to let the masters of these sane and wholesome principles of personality talk to us in their own words; with just enough of comment and interpretation to bring us to their points of view, and make us welcome their friendly assistance in the philosophical guidance of life.
Why a new edition under a new title?
Because "From Epicurus to Christ" had an antiquarian flavor; while the book presents those answers to the problem of life, which, though offered first by the ancients, are still so broad, deep, and true that all our modern answers are mere varieties of these five great types.
Because the former title suggested that the historical aspect was a finality; whereas it is here used merely as the most effective approach to present-day solutions of the fundamental problems of life.
"Why rewrite the last chapter?"
Because, while the faith of the world has found in Jesus much more than a philosophy of life, in its quest for greater things it has almost overlooked that.
Yet Jesus' Spirit of Love is the final philosophy of life.
To the question in its Jewish form, "What is the great commandment?"
Jesus answers, "The first is Love to God; and the second, just like it, Love to man."
Translated into modern, ethical terms his philosophy of life is a grateful and helpful appreciation; first of the whole system of relations, physical, mental, social, and spiritual, as Personal like ourselves, but Infinite, seeking perfection, caring for each lowliest member as an essential and precious part of the whole; and, second, of other finite and imperfect persons, whose aims, interests, and affections are just as real, and therefore to be held just as sacred, as our own.
To love, to dwell in this grateful and helpful appreciation of the Father and our brothers,--this is life: and all that falls short of it is intellectually the illusion of selfishness; spiritually the death penalty of sin.
From this central point of view every phase of Jesus' teaching, his democracy, compassion, courage, humility, earnestness, charitableness, sacrifice, can be shown to flow straight and clear.
Of course such a limitation to his philosophy of life leaves out of account all supernatural and eschatological considerations.
We here consider only the truth and worth of the teaching; not who the Teacher is, nor what may happen to us hereafter if we obey or disobey.
Yet even from this limited point of view we may get a glimpse, more real and convincing than any to be gained by the traditional, dogmatic approach, of the divine and eternal quality of both Teacher and teaching--we may see that beyond Love truth cannot go; above Love life cannot rise; that he who loves is one with God; that out of Love all is hell, whether here or hereafter; and that in Love lies heaven, both now and forevermore.
WILLIAM DE WITT HYDE.
BOWDOIN COLLEGE, BRUNSWICK, MAINE, July 25, 1911.
CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE PAGE I. Selections from the Epicurean Scriptures 1 II.
The Epicurean View of Work and Play 20 III.
The Epicurean Price of Happiness 29 IV.
The Defects of Epicureanism 36 V. An Example of Epicurean Character 46 VI.
The Confessions of an Epicurean Heretic 53 CHAPTER II STOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW I.
The Psychological Law of Apperception 66 II.
Selections from the Stoic Scriptures 71 III.
The Stoic Reverence for Universal Law 82 IV.
The Stoic Solution of the Problem of Evil 87 V. The Stoic Paradoxes 90 VI.
The Religious Aspect of Stoicism 95 VII.
The Permanent Value of Stoicism 101 VIII.
The Defects of Stoicism 106 CHAPTER III THE PLATONIC SUBORDINATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER I.
The Nature of Virtue 110 II.
Righteousness writ Large 116 III.
The Cardinal Virtues 123 IV.
Plato's Scheme of Education 131 V. Righteousness the Comprehensive Virtue 138 VI.
The Stages of Degeneration 143 VII.
The Intrinsic Superiority of Righteousness 153 VIII.
Truth and Error in Platonism 159 CHAPTER IV THE ARISTOTELIAN SENSE OF PROPORTION I. Aristotle's Objections to Previous Systems 169 II.
The Social Nature of Man 176 III.
Right and Wrong determined by the End 179 IV.
The Need of Instruments 191 V. The Happy Mean 194 VI.
The Aristotelian Virtues and their Acquisition 199 VII.
Aristotelian Friendship 209 VIII.
Criticism and Summary of Aristotle's Teaching 212 CHAPTER V THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF LOVE I.
The Teaching of Love 215 II.
The Fulfilment of Law through Love 219 III.
The Counterfeits of Love 239 IV.
The Whole-heartedness of Love 247 V. The Cultivation of Love 257 VI.
The Blessedness of Love 264 VII.
The Supremacy of Love 277 INDEX 293 THE FIVE GREAT PHILOSOPHIES OF LIFE CHAPTER I THE EPICUREAN PURSUIT OF PLEASURE I SELECTIONS FROM THE EPICUREAN SCRIPTURES Epicureanism is so simple a philosophy of life that it scarcely needs interpretation.
In fact, as the following citations show, it was originally little more than a set of directions for living "the simple life," with pleasure as the simplifying principle.
The more subtle teaching of the other philosophies will require to be introduced by explanatory statement, or else accompanied by a running commentary as it proceeds.
The best way to understand Epicureanism, however, is to let Epicurus and his disciples speak for themselves.
Accordingly, as in religious services the sermon is preceded by reading of the Scriptures and singing of hymns, we will open our study of the Epicurean philosophy of life by selections from their scriptures and hymns.
First the master, though unfortunately he is not so good a master of style as many of his disciples, shall speak.
The gist of Epicurus's teaching is contained in the following passages.
"The end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear; and when once we have attained this, all the tempest of the soul is laid, seeing that the living creature has not to go to find something that is wanting, or to seek something else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled."
"Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life.
Pleasure is our first and kindred good.
From it is the commencement of every choice and every aversion, and to it we come back, and make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing."
"When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal, or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood by some who are either ignorant and prejudiced for other views, or inclined to misinterpret our statements.
By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and trouble in the soul.
It is not an unbroken succession of drinking feasts and of revelry, not the enjoyments of the fish and other delicacies of a splendid table, which produce a pleasant life: it is sober reasoning, searching out the reasons for every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which great tumults take possession of the soul."
"Nothing is so productive of cheerfulness as to abstain from meddling, and not to engage in difficult undertakings, nor force yourself to do something beyond your power.
For all this involves your nature in tumults."
"The main part of happiness is the disposition which is under our own control.
Service in the field is hard work, and others hold command.
Public speaking abounds in heart-throbs and in anxiety whether you can carry conviction.
Why then pursue an object like this, which is at the disposal of others?"
"Wealth beyond the requirements of nature is no more benefit to men than water to a vessel which is full.
Both alike overflow.
We can look upon another's goods without perturbation and can enjoy purer pleasure than they, for we are free from their arduous struggle."
"Thou must also keep in mind that of desires some are natural, and some are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some are natural only.
And of the necessary desires, some are necessary if we are to be happy, and some if the body is to remain unperturbed, and some if we are even to live.
By the clear and certain understanding of these things we learn to make every preference and aversion, so that the body may have health and the soul tranquillity, seeing that this is the sum and end of a blessed life."
"Cheerful poverty is an honourable thing."
"Great wealth is but poverty when matched with the law of nature."
"If any one thinks his own not to be most ample, he may become lord of the whole world, and will yet be wretched."
"Fortune but slightly crosses the wise man's path."
"If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches, but take away from his desires."
"And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatsoever, but oftentimes pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them.
And oftentimes we consider pains superior to pleasures, and submit to the pain for a long time, when it is attended for us with a greater pleasure.
All pleasure, therefore, because of its kinship with our nature, is a good, but it is not in all cases our choice, even as every pain is an evil, though pain is not always, and in every case, to be shunned."
"It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, that all these things must be judged.
Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good; and we regard independence of outward goods as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little, if we have not much, being thoroughly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured, and only the vain and worthless hard to win.
Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when once the pain due to want is removed; and bread and water confer the highest pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips.
To habituate self, therefore, to plain and inexpensive diet gives all that is needed for health, and enables a man to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking, and it places us in a better frame when we approach at intervals a costly fare, and renders us fearless of fortune."
"Riches according to nature are of limited extent, and can be easily procured; but the wealth craved after by vain fancies knows neither end nor limit.
He who has understood the limits of life knows how easy it is to get all that takes away the pain of want, and all that is required to make our life perfect at every point.
In this way he has no need of anything which involves a contest."
"The beginning and the greatest good is prudence.
Wherefore prudence is a more precious thing even than philosophy: from it grow all the other virtues, for it teaches that we cannot lead a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honour, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honour, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure.
For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them."
"Of all the things which wisdom procures for the happiness of life as a whole, by far the greatest is the acquisition of friendship."
"We ought to look round for people to eat and drink with, before we look for something to eat and drink: to feed without a friend is the life of a lion and a wolf."
"Do everything as if Epicurus had his eye upon you.
Retire into yourself chiefly at that time when you are compelled to be in a crowd."
"We ought to select some good man and keep him ever before our eyes, so that we may, as it were, live under his eye, and do everything in his sight."
"No one loves another except for his own interest."
"Among the other ills which attend folly is this: it is always beginning to live."
"A foolish life is restless and disagreeable: it is wholly engrossed with the future."
"We are born once: twice we cannot be born, and for everlasting we must be non-existent.
But thou, who art not master of the morrow, puttest off the right time.
Procrastination is the ruin of life for all; and, therefore, each of us is hurried and unprepared at death."
"Learn betimes to die, or if it please thee better to pass over to the gods."
"He who is least in need of the morrow will meet the morrow most pleasantly."
"Injustice is not in itself a bad thing: but only in the fear, arising from anxiety on the part of the wrong-doer, that he will not escape punishment."
"A wise man will not enter political life unless something extraordinary should occur."
"The free man will take his free laugh over those who are fain to be reckoned in the list with Lycurgus and Solon."
"The first duty of salvation is to preserve our vigour and to guard against the defiling of our life in consequence of maddening desires."
"Accustom thyself in the belief that death is nothing to us, for good and evil are only where they are felt, and death is the absence of all feeling: therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes enjoyable the mortality of life, not by adding to years an illimitable time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality.
For in life there can be nothing to fear, to him who has thoroughly apprehended that there is nothing to cause fear in what time we are not alive.
Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect.
Whatsoever causes no annoyance when it is present causes only a groundless pain by the expectation thereof.
Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that when we are, death is not yet, and when death comes, then we are not.
It is nothing then, either to the living or the dead, for it is not found with the living, and the dead exist no longer."
These words of the master, given with no attempt to reconcile their apparent inconsistencies, convey very fairly the substance of his teaching, including both its excellences and its deep defects.
The exalted esteem in which his doctrines were held, leading his disciples to commit them to memory as sacred and verbally inspired; the personal reverence for his character; and the extravagant expectations as to what his philosophy was to do for the world, together with a glimpse into the Epicurean idea of heaven, are well illustrated by the following sentences at the opening of the third book of Lucretius, addressed to Epicurus:-"Thee, who first wast able amid such thick darkness to raise on high so bright a beacon and shed a light on the true interests of life, thee I follow, glory of the Greek race, and plant now my footsteps firmly fixed in thy imprinted marks, not so much from a desire to rival thee as that from the love I bear thee I yearn to imitate thee.
Thou, father, art discoverer of things, thou furnishest us with fatherly precepts, and like as bees sip of all things in the flowery lawns, we, O glorious being, in like manner, feed from out thy pages upon all the golden maxims, golden I say, most worthy ever of endless life.
For soon as thy philosophy issuing from a godlike intellect has begun with loud voice to proclaim the nature of things, the terrors of the mind are dispelled, the walls of the world part asunder, I see things in operation throughout the whole void: the divinity of the gods is revealed, and their tranquil abodes which neither winds do shake, nor clouds drench with rains nor snow congealed by sharp frost harms with hoary fall: an ever cloudless ether o'ercanopies them, and they laugh with light shed largely round.
Nature too supplies all their wants, and nothing ever impairs their peace of mind."
Horace is so saturated with Epicureanism that it is hard to select any one of his odes as more expressive of it than another.
His ode on the "Philosophy of Life" perhaps presents it in as short compass as any.
He asks what he shall pray for?
Not crops, and ivory, and gold gained by laborious and risky enterprise; but healthy, solid contentment with the simple, universal pleasures near at hand.
"Why to Apollo's shrine repair New hallowed?
Why present with prayer Libation?
Not those crops to gain, Which fill Sardinia's teeming plain, "Herds from Calabria's sunny fields, Nor ivory that India yields, Nor gold, nor tracts where Liris glides So noiseless down its drowsy sides.
"Blest owners of Calenian vines, Crop them; ye merchants, drain the wines, That cargoes brought from Syria buy, In cups of gold.
For ye, who try "The broad Atlantic thrice a year And never drown, must sure be dear To gods in heaven.
Me--small my need-Light mallows, olives, chiccory, feed.
"Give me then health, Apollo; give Sound mind; on gotten goods to live Contented; and let song engage An honoured, not a base, old age."
For a lesson from the new Epicurean testament we cannot do better than turn to the sensible pages of Herbert Spencer's "Data of Ethics."
"The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.
To see this it needs but to contrast one whose self-regard has maintained bodily well-being with one whose regardlessness of self has brought its natural results; and then to ask what must be the contrast between two societies formed of two such kinds of individuals.
"Bounding out of bed after an unbroken sleep, singing or whistling as he dresses, coming down with beaming face ready to laugh on the smallest provocation, the healthy man of high powers, conscious of past successes and, by his energy, quickness, resource, made confident of the future, enters on the day's business not with repugnance but with gladness; and from hour to hour experiencing satisfactions from work effectually done, comes home with an abundant surplus of energy remaining for hours of relaxation.
Far otherwise is it with one who is enfeebled by great neglect of self.
Already deficient, his energies are made more deficient by constant endeavours to execute tasks that prove beyond his strength, and by the resulting discouragement.
Hours of leisure which, rightly passed, bring pleasures that raise the tide of life and renew the powers of work, cannot be utilized: there is not vigour enough for enjoyments involving action, and lack of spirits prevents passive enjoyments from being entered upon with zest.
In brief, life becomes a burden.
Now if, as must be admitted, in a community composed of individuals like the first the happiness will be relatively great, while in one composed of individuals like the last there will be relatively little happiness, or rather much misery; it must be admitted that conduct causing the one result is good and conduct causing the other is bad.
"He who carries self-regard far enough to keep himself in good health and high spirits, in the first place thereby becomes an immediate source of happiness to those around, and in the second place maintains the ability to increase their happiness by altruistic actions.
But one whose bodily vigour and mental health are undermined by self-sacrifice carried too far, in the first place becomes to those around a cause of depression, and in the second place renders himself incapable, or less capable, of actively furthering their welfare.
"Full of vivacity, the one is ever welcome.
For his wife he has smiles and jocose speeches; for his children stores of fun and play; for his friends pleasant talk interspersed with the sallies of wit that come from buoyancy.
Contrariwise, the other is shunned.
The irritability resulting now from ailments, now from failures caused by feebleness, his family has daily to bear.
Lacking adequate energy for joining in them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his children; and he is called a wet blanket by his friends.
Little account as our ethical reasonings take note of it, yet is the fact obvious that since happiness and misery are infectious, such regard for self as conduces to health and high spirits is a benefaction to others, and such disregard of self as brings on suffering, bodily or mental, is a malefaction to others.
"The adequately egoistic individual retains those powers which make altruistic activities possible.
The individual who is inadequately egoistic loses more or less of his ability to be altruistic.
The truth of the one proposition is self-evident; and the truth of the other is daily forced on us by examples.
Note a few of them.
Here is a mother who, brought up in the insane fashion usual among the cultivated, has a physique not strong enough for suckling her infant, but who, knowing that its natural food is the best, and anxious for its welfare, continues to give milk for a longer time than her system will bear.
Eventually the accumulating reaction tells.
There comes exhaustion running, it may be, into illness caused by depletion; occasionally ending in death, and often entailing chronic weakness.
She becomes, perhaps for a time, perhaps permanently, incapable of carrying on household affairs; her other children suffer from the loss of maternal attention; and where the income is small, payments for nurse and doctor tell injuriously on the whole family.
Instance, again, what not unfrequently happens with the father.
Similarly prompted by a high sense of obligation, and misled by current moral theories into the notion that self-denial may rightly be carried to any extent, he daily continues his office work for long hours regardless of hot head and cold feet; and debars himself from social pleasures, for which he thinks he can afford neither time nor money.
What comes of this entirely unegoistic course?
Eventually a sudden collapse, sleeplessness, inability to work.
That rest which he would not give himself when his sensations prompted he has now to take in long measure.
The extra earnings laid by for the benefit of his family are quickly swept away by costly journeys in aid of recovery and by the many expenses which illness entails.
Instead of increased ability to do his duty by his offspring there comes now inability.
Lifelong evils on them replace hoped-for goods.
And so is it, too, with the social effects of inadequate egoism.
All grades furnish examples of the mischiefs, positive and negative, inflicted on society by excessive neglect of self.
Now the case is that of a labourer who, conscientiously continuing his work under a broiling sun, spite of violent protests from his feelings, dies of sunstroke; and leaves his family a burden to the parish.
Now the case is that of a clerk whose eyes permanently fail from overstraining, or who, daily writing for hours after his fingers are painfully cramped, is attacked with 'scrivener's palsy,' and, unable to write at all, sinks with aged parents into poverty which friends are called on to mitigate.
"And now the case is that of a man devoted to public ends who, shattering his health by ceaseless application, fails to achieve all he might have achieved by a more reasonable apportionment of his time between labour on behalf of others, and ministration to his own needs."
After this lengthy prose extract, let us turn to the modern Epicurean poets.
At once the best and the worst rendering of Epicureanism into verse is Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam.
It is the best because of the frankness with which it draws out to its logical conclusion, in a cynical despair of everything nobler than the pleasure of the moment, the consequences of identifying the self with mere pleasure-seeking.
It is the worst because, instead of presenting Epicureanism mixed with nobler elements, as Walt Whitman and Stevenson do, it gives us the pure and undiluted article as a final gospel of life.
The fact that it has proved such a fad during the past few years is striking evidence of the husky fare on which our modern prodigals can be content to feed.
"Come fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of repentance fling: The bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.
"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow.
"Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears _To-day_ of past Regrets and future Fears: _To-morrow!_--Why, To-morrow I may be Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.
"I sent my soul through the Invisible, Some letter of that After-life to spell: And by and by my Soul return'd to me, And answer'd, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell: "Heav'n but the vision of fulfill'd Desire, And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on Fire, Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, So late emerged from, shall so soon expire."
From this melancholy attempt to offer us Epicureanism as a complete account of life, overshadowed as it is by the gloom of the Infinite which the man who stakes his all on momentary pleasure feels doomed to forego, it is a relief to turn to men who strike cheerfully and firmly the Epicurean note; but pass instantly on to blend it with sterner notes and larger views of life, in which it plays its essential, yet strictly subordinate part.
Of all the men who thus strike scattered Epicurean notes, without attempting the impossible task of making a harmonious and satisfactory tune out of them, our American Pagan, Walt Whitman, is the best example.
"What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my good will, Scattering it freely forever.
"O the joy of manly self-hood!
To be servile to none, to defer to none, not to any tyrant known or unknown, To walk with erect carriage, a step springy and elastic, To look with calm gaze or with flashing eye, To speak with a full and sonorous voice out of a broad chest, To confront with your personality all the other personalities of the earth.
"O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, To meet life as a powerful conqueror, No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, To these proud laws of the air, the water, and the ground, proving my interior soul impregnable, And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.
"For not life's joys alone I sing, repeating--the joy of death!
The beautiful touch of death, soothing and benumbing a few moments, for reasons, Myself discharging my excrementitious body to be burn'd, or render'd to powder, or buried, My real body doubtless left to me for other spheres, My voided body nothing more to me, returning to the purifications, further offices, eternal uses of the earth.
"O to have life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on!
To be a sailor of the world bound for all ports, A swift and swelling ship full of rich words, full of joys."
Whitman, with this wild ecstasy, to be sure is an Epicurean and something more.
Indeed, pure Epicureanism, unmixed with better elements, is rather hard to find in modern literature.
One other hymn, by Robert Louis Stevenson, likewise adds to pure Epicureanism a note of strenuous intensity in the great task of happiness which was foreign to the more easy-going form of the ancient doctrine.
In Stevenson Epicureanism is only a flavour to more substantial viands.
THE CELESTIAL SURGEON "If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:-Lord, thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake!
Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them in."
While we are with Stevenson, we may as well conclude our selections from the Epicurean scriptures in these words from his Christmas Sermon: "Gentleness and cheerfulness, these come before all morality: they are the perfect duties.
If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it they are wrong.
I do not say, 'give them up,' for they may be all you have; but conceal them like a vice, lest they should spoil the lives of better men."
II THE EPICUREAN VIEW OF WORK AND PLAY Pleasure is our great task, "the gist of life, the end of ends."
To be happy ourselves and radiating centres of happiness to choice circles of congenial friends,--this is the Epicurean ideal.
The world is a vast reservoir of potential pleasures.
Our problem is to scoop out for ourselves and our friends full measure of these pleasures as they go floating by.
We did not make the world.
It made itself by a fortuitous concourse of atoms.
It would be foolish for us to try to alter it.
Our only concern is to get out of it all the pleasure we can; without troubling ourselves to put anything valuable back into it.
Since it is accidental, impersonal, we owe it nothing.
We simply owe ourselves as big a share of pleasure as we can grasp and hold.
This, however, is a task in which it is easy to make mistakes.
We need prudence to avoid cheating ourselves with short-lived pleasures that cost too much; wisdom to choose the simpler pleasures that cost less and last longer.
Such shrewd calculation of the relative cost and worth of different pleasures is the sum and substance of the Epicurean philosophy.
He who is shrewd to discern and prompt to snatch the most pleasure at least cost, as it is offered on the bargain counter of life,--he is the Epicurean sage.
We might work this out into a great variety of applications: but one or two spheres must suffice.
Eating and drinking, as the most elemental relations of life, are the ones commonly chosen as applications of the Epicurean principle.
These applications, however, the selections from Epicurus and Horace have already made clear.
The Epicurean will regulate his diet, not by the immediate, trivial, short-lived pleasures of taste, though these he will by no means despise, but mainly by their permanent effects upon health.
Wholesome food, and enough of it, daintily prepared and served, he will do his best to obtain.
But elaborate and ostentatious feasting he will avoid, as involving too much expense and trouble, and too heavy penalties of disease and discomfort.
He will find out by practical experience the quantity, quality, and variety of simple food that keeps him in perfect condition; and no enticements of sweetmeats or stimulants will divert him from the simplicity in which the most permanent pleasure is found.
To eat cake and candy between meals, to sip tea at all hours, no less than to drink whiskey to the point of intoxication, are sins against the simplicity of the true Epicurean regimen.
The Epicurean will not lose an hour of needed sleep nor tolerate such an abomination as an alarm clock in his house.
If he permits himself to be awakened in the morning, it will be as Thomas B. Reed used to when, as a student at Bowdoin College, he was obliged to be in chapel at six o'clock.
He had the janitor call him at half-past four, in order that he might have the luxury of feeling that he had another whole hour in which to sleep, and then call him again at the last moment which would permit him to dress in time for chapel.
These things, however, we may for the most part take for granted.
We do not require a philosopher to regulate our diet for us; or to put us to bed at night, and tuck us in, and hear us say our prayers.
Those elementary lessons were doubtless needed in the childhood of the race.
The selection from Spencer on work and play strikes closer to the problem of the modern man; and it is at this point that we all sorely need to go to school to Epicurus.
Perhaps we are inclined to look down on Epicurus's ideal as a low one.
Well, if it is a low ideal, it is all the more disgraceful to fall below it.
And most of us do fall below it every day of our tense and restless lives.
Let us test ourselves by this ideal, and answer honestly the questions it puts to us.
How many of us are slaving all day and late into the night to add artificial superfluities to the simple necessities?
How many of us know how to stop working when it begins to encroach upon our health; and to cut off anxiety and worry altogether?
How many of us measure the amount and intensity of our toil by our physical strength; doing what we can do healthfully, cheerfully, joyously, and leaving the rest undone, instead of straining up to the highest notch of nervous tension during early manhood and womanhood, only to break down when the life forces begin to turn against us?
Every man in any position of responsibility and influence has opportunity to do the work of twenty men.
How many of us in such circumstances choose the one thing we can do best, and leave the other nineteen for other people to do, or else to remain undone?
How many of us have ever seriously stopped to think where the limit of healthful effort and endurance lies, unless insomnia or dyspepsia or nervous prostration have laid their heavy hands upon us and compelled us to pause?
Every breakdown from avoidable causes, every stroke of work we do after the border-land of exhaustion and nervous strain is crossed, is a crime against the teaching of Epicurus; and these diseases that beset our modern business life are the penalties with which nature visits us in vindication of the wisdom of his teachings.
Every day that we work beyond our strength; every hour that we spend in consequent exhaustion and depression; every minute that we give over to worrying about things beyond our immediate control, we either fall below, or else rise above, Epicurus's level.
If we rise above him, to serve higher ideals, conscious of the sacrifice we make, and clear about the superior ends we gain thereby, then we may be forgiven.
What some of those higher ideals are we shall have occasion to consider later.
But to work ourselves into depression, disease, and pain, for no better reason than to get high mark in some rank-book or other, to gratify somebody's false vanity, to get together a little more gold than we can spend wisely or our children can inherit without enervation, to live in a bigger house than our neighbour has or we can afford to take care of--to work for such ends as these beyond the point where work is healthy and happy, is to commit a sin which neither Epicurus nor Nature will forgive.
With the people who have risen above Epicurus, and are deliberately sacrificing to some extent the Epicurean to one of the higher ideals, as I have said, we have no quarrel; for them we have only hearty commendation.
We do not ask the mother whose child is dangerously sick, the statesman in a political crisis, the artist when the conception of his great work comes over him, to heed for the time being the limits of strength and the conditions of completest health.
All we ask of them is that later on, when the child has recovered, when the crisis is past, when the picture is painted, they shall reverently and humbly pay to Epicurus, or to Nature whom he represents, the penalty for their sin, by a corresponding period of complete rest and relaxation.
We must bear strain at times; and Nature will forgive us if we do not take it too often.
But we must not bunch our strains.
We must not pass from one strain to another, and another, without periods of relaxation between.
We must not let the attitude of strain become chronic, and develop into a moral tetanus, which keeps us forever on the rack of exertion from sheer restless inability to sit down and enjoy ourselves.
What we take from excessive work Epicurus would bid us add to needed play.
Play is an arrangement by which we get artificially, in highly concentrated form, the pleasure which in ordinary life is diffused over long periods, and attainable only in attenuated form.
Play puts the great fundamental pleasures of the race at the disposal of the individual.
Foot-ball, for instance, gives the student of to-day the essential joy in combat of his barbarian ancestors, with the modern field-marshal's delight in subtle tragedy thrown in.
Base-ball gives the intense zest that comes of speed, accuracy, and cunning exercised in emergencies.
Golf, in milder form, gives us the pleasure that comes of accuracy of aim and calculation of conditions in good company and in the open air.
Billiards give to the clerk cramped all day over his desk the joy of a delicate touch which otherwise would be the exclusive property of his artisan brother.
The various games of cards give the mechanic and the housewife a taste at evening of the eager interests that fill the banker's and the broker's days.
Checkers and chess give to the humblest in their homes some touch of the pleasures of the general and admiral.
Dancing carries to the limit of orderly expression that delight in the person and presence of the opposite sex which otherwise would have to be postponed until youth was able to assume the more serious responsibilities of permanent relationships.
Sailing, tramping, camping out, hunting, fishing, mountain climbing, are all devices for bringing into the lives of studious, strenuous, city people the elemental pleasures which otherwise would be the monopoly of sailors, fishermen, foresters, and explorers.
Swimming, skating, bicycle riding, driving a horse or an automobile, all give the keen joy that comes of the mastery of graceful and forceful motion.
The theatre, which embodies so distinctively the peculiar essence of play that its performances have appropriated the name, takes us in a couple of hours through the epitomised experience of many persons extending over many years in circumstances far removed from our individual lives.
Poetry, novels, biographies, histories, painting, music, and all the forms of art perform for us this same function.
They take us out of our local and temporal situation, and let us live in other days and other lands, in other customs and costumes; and so enormously widen the world of experience we imaginatively make our own.
Besides in all the forms of play and art the ends are made artificially simple, the means are made supernaturally accessible; so that instead of toiling for years in doubt of results as in actual work, we experience in play, and witness in artistic representation, the whole process of selecting materials and moulding them to a successful issue in a few minutes, or a few hours at most.
All this reacts upon our power to prosecute with confidence the remoter ends, and marshal the more obdurate means of real work.
It expands and limbers our capacity to subordinate means to ends and find delight in the process as well as in the outcome.
Hence a man who goes a year without a considerable period given over to play, or a week without at least one or two solid periods of it, or lets many days go by without any play whatever, is selling his birthright of personality for a mess of pottage.
Psychology and pedagogy are recognising the important function of play in the development of personality as never before.
Professor Baldwin, in his "Social and Ethical Interpretations," sums up the functions of play in these words: "In the education of the individual for his life-work in a network of social relationships play is a most important form of organic exercise,--a most important method of realisation of the social instincts; gives flexibility of mind and body with self-control; gives constant opportunity for imitative learning and invention, and is the experimental verification of the benefits and pleasures of united action."
III THE EPICUREAN PRICE OF HAPPINESS Whoever contracts his work and expands his play, on Epicurean principles, will of course have common sense enough to cut off hurry and worry altogether.
Both are sheer waste and wantonness,--the most foolish and wicked things in the whole list of forbidden sins.
The Epicurean will live his life in care-tight, worry-proof compartments; working with all his might while he works; and then cutting it off short; never letting the cares of work intrude on the precious precincts of well-earned leisure, or permitting the strain of remembered or anticipated toil to mar the hours sacred to rest and recreation.
Some things are bound to go wrong in every life.
That is our misfortune.
But there is no need of brooding over them in gratuitous grief after they have gone, or dreading them in gloomy anticipation before they come.
If either in anticipation or in retrospect these evils are permitted to darken the hours when they are physically absent, that is not our misfortune; it is our folly and our fault.
We hear a great deal in these days about mind cures, and rest cures, and faith cures, and cures by hypnotism, and cures by patent medicines.
If anybody needs these cures, of course he is welcome to them; though there is much to be said for the stalwart conservative who refused proffered aid of this sort with the remark that he would rather die in the hands of a skilful physician than be cured by a quack.
Strict obedience to the plain, homely doctrine of Epicurus would prevent ninety-nine one hundredths of the physical and mental ailments which these various systems of healing profess to cure.
In almost every such case work, or the square of work which is hurry, or the cube of work which is worry, carried beyond the sane limits which Epicurus prescribes, is at the root of trouble.
Where it is not work and worry, it is their passive counterparts, grief nursed long after its occasion has gone by, or fear harboured long before its appropriate object has arrived.
Cut these off and all the use you will have for either healers or physicians will be on such comparatively rare occasions as birth, death, contagious diseases, and unavoidable accident.
You will not be the chronic patient of any doctor regular or irregular; or the consumer of any medicine, patented or prescribed.
Neither useless regrets for the past nor profitless forebodings for the future should ever cast their shadows over the present, which taken in itself is always endurable, and may generally be made positively happy.
Memory should be purged of all its unpleasantness before its pictures are permitted to appear before the footlights of reflection; and the searchlight of expectation should always be turned toward the pleasures that are still in store for us.
Past and future are mainly in our power, so far as the quality of things we remember and anticipate are concerned.
And even the brief and fleeting present is mainly filled by reminiscence and anticipation, so that it too is largely what we please to make it.
"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."
If any one of us is not happy all the time, except at the rare instants when toothache, or the news of a friend's illness or death, or a bad turn in our investments takes us by surprise--if happiness is not the dominant tone of our ordinary life, it is simply because we do not want it, in that thoughtful, enterprising, insistent way in which the scholar wants knowledge, or the business man wants money, or the politician wants votes.
Whoever is willing to pay the price in prudent planning of his daily pleasures, in relentless exclusion of the enterprises and indulgences that cost more pain than they can return in pleasure; whoever will cut out remorselessly the things in his past life on which he cannot dwell with pleasure, and lop off the considerations which give rise to dread; whoever is willing to pay this Epicurean price for happiness can have it just as soon and just as often as he pays down the cash of a faithful and consistent application of these principles.
If any man goes about the world in a chronic unhappiness, it is ninety-nine per cent the fault, not of his circumstances, but of himself.
There is not a reader of this book whose circumstances are so black that another person, in those same circumstances, would not find a way to be supremely and dominantly, if not exclusively and continuously, happy.
There is not a reader of this book so rich, so blessed with family and friends, so occupied and diverted, but that another person in those same circumstances would be miserable himself, and a source of misery to everybody with whom he came in contact.
Epicurus is right, that happiness is up at auction all the time, and sold in lots to suit the purchaser whenever he bids high enough.
And the price is not exorbitant: prudence to plan for the simple pleasures that can be had for the asking; resolution to cut off the pleasures that come too high; determination to amputate our reflections the instant they develop morbid symptoms, and to take an anti-toxine against fret and worry, the moment we feel the approach of their contagious atmosphere; concentration, to live in a self-chosen present from which profitless regret and unprofitable anxieties, projected from the past or borrowed from the future, are absolutely banished.
It is high time to treat melancholy, depression, gloom, fretfulness, unhappiness, not merely as diseases, but as the inexcusable follies, the intolerable vices, the unpardonable sins which a sane and wholesome Epicureanism pronounces them to be.
The Epicurean principle, then, forbids us to go whining, whimpering, and weeping through this glorious and otherwise cheery world, making ourselves a burden and nuisance to our friends; and tells us frankly that if we are so much as tempted to such melancholy living, it is because we are too improvident, too slothful, too stupid to cast out these devils, which a little plain fare, hard work, outdoor exercise, vigorous play, and unworried rest would exorcise forever.
It bids us put in place of these banished sighs and groans and tears, the laughter, song, and shout that "spin the great wheel of earth about."
We may sum it all up in the picture of a worthy Epicurean's day.
After a night of sleep too sound to harbour an unpleasant dream, he greets the hour of rising with a shout and bound, plunges into the bath, meets with gusto the shock it gives, and rejoices in the glow of exhilaration a vigorous rubbing brings; greets the household "with morning face and morning heart," eager to share with the family the meal, the news, the outlook on the day, resolved like Pippa to "waste no wavelet of his twelve-hours' treasure"; then, whether work calls him forth immediately or not, takes a few minutes of brisk walking and deep breathing in the open air until he feels the great forces of earth, air, and sunshine pulsing in his veins; then greets the work of kitchen or factory, office or field, schoolroom or counter, bench or desk with an inward cheer, as something to put forth his surplus energy upon; and through the swift, precious forenoon hours delights in the mastery over difficulty his stored-up power imparts; takes the noon-day meal gayly and leisurely with congenial people; through the early afternoon hours does the lighter portion of the day's work if he must; gets out for an hour or two in the open air if he may, with horse, or wheel, or automobile, or boat, or racket, or golf clubs, or skates, or rod, or gun, or at least a friend and two stout walking shoes; comes to the evening meal in the family circle widened to include a few welcome guests, or at the home of some hospitable host, in garments from which all trace of stain or hint of strain has been removed, to share the best things market and purse afford, served in such wise as to prolong the opportunity for the interchange of wit and banter, cursory discussion and kindly compliment; spends the evening in quiet reading or public entertainment, games with his children or visiting with friends; and then returns again to sleep with such a sense of gratitude for the dear joys of the day as sends an echo of "All's well" down through even the shadowy substance of his unconscious dreams.
Surely there are some features of this Epicurean day which we, in our bustling, restless, overelaborated lives, might introduce with great profit to ourselves, and great advantage to the people with whom we are intimately thrown.
A series of such days, varied by even happier holidays and Sundays, broken once or twice a year at least by considerable vacations, added together, will make a life which Epicurus says a man may live with satisfaction, and after which he may pass away content.
If there be no other life, let us by all means make the most of this.
And if, both here and hereafter, there be a larger life than that perceivable by sense,--as, on deeper grounds than the Epicurean psychology recognises, most of us believe there is,--this healthy, hearty, wholesome determination to live intensely and exclusively in the present is a much more sincere and effective way to develop it than the foolish attempt of a false other-worldliness to anticipate or discount the future, by a half-hearted, far-away affectation of superiority to the simple homely pleasures of to-day.
IV THE DEFECTS OF EPICUREANISM Thus far we have pointed out certain valuable elements of truth which Epicureanism contains.
Only incidentally have we encountered certain deep defects.
Epicurus's "free laugh" at those who attempt to fulfil their political duties, his quiet ignoring of all interests that lie outside his little circle, or reach beyond the grave, his naïve remark about the intrinsic harmlessness of wrong-doing, provided only the wrong-doer could escape the fear of being caught, must have made us aware that there are heights of nobleness, depths of devotion, lengths of endurance, breadths of sympathy altogether foreign to this easy-going, pleasure-seeking view of life.
Justice requires us to dwell more explicitly on these Epicurean shortcomings.
Much that has been charged against the school in the form of swinish sensuality is the grossest slander.
Still there are defects in this view of life which are both logically deducible from its premises, and practically visible in the lives of its consistent disciples.
The fundamental defect of Epicureanism is its false definition of personality.
According to Epicurus the person is merely a bundle of appetites and passions; and the gratification of these is made synonymous with the satisfaction of himself.
But gratifications are short; while appetites are long.
The result is that which Schopenhauer has so conclusively pointed out.
During the long periods when desire burns unsatisfied, the balance of pleasure is against us.
In the comparatively brief and rare intervals when passions are in process of gratification, the balance can never be more than even.
Therefore our account with the world at the end of any period, whether a week or a year or a lifetime, is bound to stand as follows: credit, a few rare, brief moments--moments, too, which have long since vanished into nothingness--when appetites and passions were in process of satisfaction.
Debit, the vast majority of moments, amounting in the aggregate to almost the total period considered, when appetites and passions were clamouring for a satisfaction that was not forthcoming.
The obvious conclusion from the frequent examination of the Epicurean account-book is that which Schopenhauer so triumphantly demonstrates,--pessimism.
The sooner we cease doing business on those terms, the less will be the balance of pain, or unsatisfied desire, against us.
To be entirely frank, the devotees of Omar Khayyam would have to confess that it is this note of pessimism, despair, and self-pity, at the sorry contrast of the vast unattainable and the petty attained, which is the secret of his unquestionably fascinating lines.
Here the blasé amusement-seeker finds consolation in the fact that a host of other people are also yielding to the temptation to bury the unwelcome consciousness of a self they cannot satisfy in wine, or any other momentary sensuous titillation that will conceal the sense of their spiritual failure--a failure, however, which they are glad to be assured is shared by so many that the sense of it has been dignified by the name of a philosophy and sung by a poet.
Pleasure cannot be sought directly with success; for pleasure comes indirectly as the effect of causes far higher and deeper and wider than any that are recognised in the Epicurean philosophy.
Pleasure comes unsought to those who lose themselves in large intellectual, artistic, social, and spiritual interests.
But such noble losing of self without thought of gain is explicitly excluded from the consistent Epicurean creed.
In the picture of the Epicurean life already drawn, while domestic and political life have been presupposed as a background, nothing has been said about the sacrifice which one is called upon to make in the support and defence of a pure home and a free country.
That was expressly excluded by Epicurus.
Whatever attractiveness there was in the picture of the Epicurean life previously presented was largely due to this background of presupposition that this happy life was lived in a well-ordered and stable family, and in a free and just municipal and national life.
In fact it is only as a parasite on these great domestic, social, and political institutions which it does nothing to create or maintain, and much to weaken and destroy, that Epicureanism is even a tolerable account of life.
If we now paint our picture of the Epicurean man and woman with this background of domestic and civic life withdrawn, the ugliness and meanness of this parasitic Epicureanism will stare us in the face; and while we ought not to forget the valuable lessons it has to teach us, we shall shrink from the completed picture as a thing of deformity and degradation.
Who then is the consistent Epicurean man?
He is the club man, who lives in easy luxury and fares sumptuously every day.
Everything is done for him.
Servants wait on him.
He serves nobody, and is responsible for no one's welfare.
He has a congenial set of cronies, loosely attached to be sure; and constantly changing, as matrimony, financial reverses, business engagements, professional responsibilities call one or another of his circle away to a more strenuous life.
He is a good fellow, genial, free-handed with his set, indifferent to all who are outside.
He generally hires some woman to serve for a few months as the instrument of his passions; only to cast her off to be hired by another and another until in due time she dies, he cares not when or how.
As business men these Epicureans are apt to be easy-going, and therefore failures.
As debtors, they are the hardest people in the world from whom to collect a bill.
As creditors or landlords they are the most merciless in their exactions.
Their devotion to the state is generally confined to betting on the elections; the returns of which they watch with the same interest as the results of a horse-race.
Their religion is confined to poking fun at the people who are foolish enough to be going to church while they are at their Sunday morning breakfast.
We all know these Epicureans; we do business with them; we meet them socially; we treat them decently; but it is to be hoped that underneath the smooth exterior we all detect their selfish heartlessness.
They have taken a doctrine, which, as applied to the good things which are made to minister to our appetites is sound and true, and have perverted it into a moral monstrosity by daring to treat human hearts and social institutions as mere things, mere instruments of their selfish pleasures.
Epicurean women, likewise, abound in every wealthy community.
They spend the winter in Florida, New York, or Washington; dividing the rest of the year between the sea-shore, the mountains, and the lakes, with occasional visits to what they call their homes.
They must have the best of everything, and assume no responsibility beyond running up bills for their husbands to pay, or to remain unpaid.
Their special paradise is foreign travel, and no pension or hotel along the beaten highways of Europe is without its quota of these precious daughters of Epicurus.
They flit hither and thither where least ennui and most diversion allures.
Two or three years of this irresponsible existence is sufficient to disqualify them for usefulness either in Europe or America, either here or hereafter.
When they return, if they ever do, to their native town or city, the drudgery of housekeeping has become intolerable, the responsibilities of social life unendurable, and their poor husbands are glad enough when the restless fit seizes them again and they can be packed off to Egypt, or Russia, or whatever remote corner of the earth remains for their idle hands and restless feet, their empty minds and hollow hearts, to invade with their unearned gold.
There is no guarantee that the Epicurean will be the chaste husband of one wife, or a faithful mother, or a good provider for the family, or a devoted citizen of the republic, or a strenuous servant of art or science, or a heroic martyr in the cause of progress and reform.
If all men were Epicureans, the world would speedily retrograde into the barbarism and animalism whence it has slowly and painfully emerged.
The great interests of the family, the state, society, and civilisation are not accurately reflected in the feelings of the individual; and if the individual has no guide but feeling, he will prove a traitor to such of these higher interests as may have the misfortune to be intrusted to his pleasure-loving, self-indulgent, unheroic hands.
There are hard things to do and to endure; and if we are to meet them bravely, we shall have to call the Stoic to our aid.
There are sordid and trivial things to put up with, or to rise above, and there we may need at times the Platonist and the mystic to show us the eternal reality underneath the temporal appearance.
There are problems of conduct to be solved; conflicting claims to be adjusted; and for this the Aristotelian sense of proportion must be developed in our souls.
Finally there are other persons to be considered, and one great Personal Spirit living and working in the world; and for our proper attitude toward these persons, human and divine, we must look to the Christian principle.
To meet these higher relationships with no better equipment than Epicureanism offers, would be as foolish as to try to run barefoot across a continent, or swim naked across the sea.
Naked, barefoot Epicureanism has its place on the sandy beaches and in the sheltered coves of life; but has no business on the mountain tops or in the depths of human experience.
It will not make a man an efficient workman, or a thorough scholar, or a brave soldier, or a public-spirited citizen.
It spoils completely every woman whom it gets hold of, unless at the same time she has firm hold on something better; unless she has a husband and children whom she loves, or work in which she delights for its own sake, or friends and interests dearer than life itself.
Epicureanism will not lift either man or woman far toward heaven, or save them in the hour when the pains of hell get hold of them.
No home can be reared on it.
The divorce court is the logical outcome of every marriage between a man and a woman who are both Epicureans.
For it is the very essence of Epicureanism to treat others as means; while no marriage is tolerable unless at least one of the two parties is large and unselfish enough to treat the other as an end.
No Epicurean state or city could endure longer than it would take for the men who are in politics for their pockets to plunder the people who are out of politics for the same reason.
An Epicurean heaven, a place where eternally each should get his fill of pleasure at the expense of everybody else, would be insufferably insipid, incomparably unendurable.
It is fortunate for the fame of Epicurus and the permanence of his philosophy that he evaded the necessity of thinking out the conditions of immortal blessedness by his specious dilemma in which he thought to prove that death ends all.
As a temporary parasite upon a political and moral order already established, Epicureanism might thrive and flourish; but as a principle on which to rest a decent society here or a hope of heaven hereafter, Epicureanism is utterly lacking.
If there were nothing better than Epicureanism in store for us through the long eternities, we all might well pray to be excused, as Epicurus happily believed we should be.
For any ultimate delight in life must be rooted in something deeper than self-centred pleasure: it must love persons and seek ends for their own sake; and find its joy, not in the satisfaction of the man as he is, but in the development of that which his thought and love enable him to become.
V AN EXAMPLE OF EPICUREAN CHARACTER The clearest example of the shortcomings of Epicureanism is the character of Tito Melema in George Eliot's "Romola."
Pleasure and the avoidance of pain are this young Greek's only principles.
He is "of so easy a conscience that he would make a stepping-stone of his father's corpse."
"He has a lithe sleekness about him that seems marvellously fitted for slipping into any nest he fixes his mind on."
"He had an unconquerable aversion to any thing unpleasant, even when an object very much loved and admired was on the other side of it."
According to his thinking "any maxims that required a man to fling away the good that was needed to make existence sweet, were only the lining of human selfishness turned outward; they were made by men who wanted others to sacrifice themselves for their sake."
"He would rather that Baldassarre should not suffer; he liked no one to suffer; but could any philosophy prove to him that he was bound to care for another's suffering more than for his own?
To do so, he must have loved Baldassarre devotedly, and he did not love him: was that his own fault?
Gratitude!
seen closely, it made no valid claim; his father's life would have been dreary without him; are we convicted of a debt to men for the pleasure they give themselves?"
"He had simply chosen to make life easy to himself--to carry his human lot if possible in such a way that it should pinch him nowhere; but the choice had at various times landed him in unexpected positions."
"Tito could not arrange life at all to his mind without a considerable sum of money, and that problem of arranging life to his mind had been the source of all his misdoing."
"He would have been equal to any sacrifice that was not unpleasant."
"Of other goods than pleasure he can form no conception."
As Romola says in her reproaches: "You talk of substantial good, Tito!
Are faithfulness, and love, and sweet grateful memories no good?
Is it no good that we should keep our silent promises on which others build because they believe in our love and truth?
Is it no good that a just life should be justly honoured?
Or, is it good that we should harden our hearts against all the wants and hopes of those who have depended on us?
What good can belong to men who have such souls?
To talk cleverly, perhaps, and find soft couches for themselves, and live and die with their base selves as their best companions."
This pleasure-loving Tito Melema, "when he was only seven years old, Baldassarre had rescued from blows, had taken to a home that seemed like opened paradise, where there was sweet food and soothing caresses, all had on Baldassarre's knee; and from that time till the hour they had parted, Tito had been the one centre of Baldassarre's fatherly cares."
Instead of finding and rescuing this man who, long years ago, had rescued Tito when a little boy from a life of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong, had reared him tenderly and been to him as a father, Tito sold the jewels which belonged to his father and would have been sufficient to ransom him from slavery, and finally, when found by Baldassarre in Florence, denied him and pronounced him a madman.
He betrayed an innocent, trusting young girl into a mock marriage, at the same time ruining her and proving false to his lawful wife.
He sold the library which it was Romola's father's dying wish to have kept in Florence as a distinct memorial to his life and work.
He entered into selfish intrigues in the politics of the city, ready to betray his associates and friends whenever his own safety required it.
What wonder that Romola came to have "her new scorn of that thing called pleasure which made men base--that dexterous contrivance for selfish ease, that shrinking from endurance and strain, when others were bowing beneath burdens too heavy for them, which now made one image with her husband."
In her own distress she learns from Savonarola that there is a higher law than individual pleasure.
"She felt that the sanctity attached to all close relations, and therefore preëminently to the closest, was but the expression in outward law, of that result toward which all human goodness and nobleness must spontaneously tend; that the light abandonment of ties, whether inherited or voluntary, because they had ceased to be pleasant, was the uprooting of social and personal virtue.
What else had Tito's crime toward Baldassarre been but that abandonment working itself out to the most hideous extreme of falsity and ingratitude?
To her, as to him, there had come one of those moments in life when the soul must dare to act on its own warrant, not only without external law to appeal to, but in the face of a law which is not unarmed with Divine lightnings--lightnings that may yet fall if the warrant has been false."
The whole teaching of the book is summed up in the Epilogue.
In the conversation between Romola and Tito's illegitimate son Lillo, Lillo says, "I should like to be something that would make me a great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder me from having a good deal of pleasure."
"That is not easy, my Lillo.
It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow pleasures.
We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves; and this sort of happiness often brings so much pain with it, that we can only tell it from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else, because our souls see it is good.
There are so many things wrong and difficult in the world, that no man can be great--he can hardly keep himself from wickedness--unless he gives up thinking much about pleasure or rewards, and gets strength to endure what is hard and painful.
My father had the greatness that belongs to integrity; he chose poverty and obscurity rather than falsehood.
And there was Fra Girolamo--you know why I keep to-morrow sacred; he had the greatness which belongs to a life spent in struggling against powerful wrong, and in trying to raise men to the highest deeds they are capable of.
And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men, you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen to you because of it.
And remember, if you were to choose something lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure, and escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say, 'It would have been better for me if I had never been born.'"
The trouble with Epicureanism is its assumption that the self is a bundle of natural appetites and passions, and that the end of life is their gratification.
Experience shows, as in the case of Tito, that such a policy consistently pursued, brings not pleasure but pain--pain first of all to others, and then pain to the individual through their contempt, indignation, and vengeance.
The truest pleasure must come through the development within one of generous emotions, kind sympathies, and large social interests.
The man must be made over before the pleasures of the new man can be rightly sought and successfully found.
This making over of man is no consistent part of the logical Epicurean programme, and consequently pure Epicureanism is sure to land one in the narrowness, selfishness, and heartlessness of a Tito Melema, and to bring upon one essentially the same condemnation and disaster.
Still, not in criticism or unkindness would we take leave of the serene and genial Epicurus.
We may frankly recognise his fundamental limitations, and yet gratefully accept the good counsel he has to give.
Parasite as it is,--a thing that can only live by sucking its life out of ideals and principles higher and hardier than itself, it is yet a graceful and ornamental parasite, which will beautify and shield the hard outlines of our more strenuous principles.
There are dreary wastes in all our lives, into which we can profitably turn those streams of simple pleasure he commends.
There are points of undue strain and tension where Epicurean prudence would bid us forego the slight fancied gain to save the ruinous expense to health and happiness.
Let us fill up these gaps with hearty indulgence of healthy appetite, with vigorous exercise of dormant powers, with the eager joys of new-learned recreations.
Let us tone down the strain and tension of our anxious, worried, worn, and weary lives by the rigid elimination of the superfluous, the strict concentration on the perpetual present, the resolute banishment from it of all past or future springs of depression and discouragement.
Before we are through we shall see far nobler ideals than this; but we must not despise the day of small things.
Though the lowest and least of them all, the Epicurean is one of the historical ideals of life.
It has its claims which none of us may with impunity ignore.
To serve him faithfully in the lower spheres of life is a wholesome preparation for the intelligent and reasonable service of Stoic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Christian ideals which rule the higher realms.
He who is false to the humble, homely demands of Epicurus can never be quite at his best in the grander service of Zeno and Plato, Aristotle and Jesus.
VI THE CONFESSIONS OF AN EPICUREAN HERETIC A heretic is a man who, while professing to hold the tenets of the sect to which he adheres, and sincerely believing that he is in substantial agreement with his more orthodox brethren, yet in his desire to be honest and reasonable, so modifies these tenets as to empty them of all that is distinctive of the sect in question, and thus unintentionally gives aid and comfort to its enemies.
Every vigorous and vital school of thought soon or late develops this species of _enfant terrible_.
Like the Christian church, the Epicurean school has been blessed with numerous progeny of this disturbing sort.
The one among them all who most stoutly professes the fundamental principles of Epicureanism, and then proceeds to admit pretty much everything its opponents advance against it, is John Stuart Mill.
His "Utilitarianism" is a fort manned with the most approved idealistic guns, yet with the Epicurean flag floating bravely over the whole.
He "holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.
By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure.
Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends; and all desirable things are desirable either for the pleasure inherent in themselves, or as means to the promotion of pleasure and the prevention of pain."
A more square and uncompromising statement of Epicureanism than this it would be impossible to make.
Having thus squarely identified himself with the Epicurean school, Mr. Mill proceeds to add to this doctrine in turn the doctrines of each one of the four schools which we are to consider later.
First he introduces a distinction in the kind of pleasure, "assigning to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments, a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation."
When asked what he means by difference of quality in pleasures, or what makes one pleasure more valuable than another, merely as a pleasure, except its being greater in amount, although he tells us there is but one possible answer, he gives us two or three.
First he appeals to the verdict of competent judges.
"Of two pleasures, if there be one to which all or almost all who have experience of both give a decided preference, irrespective of any feeling of moral obligation to prefer it, that is the more desirable pleasure.
If one of the two is, by those who are competently acquainted with both, placed so far above the other that they prefer it, even though knowing it to be attended with a greater amount of discontent, and would not resign it for any quantity of the other pleasure which their nature is capable of, we are justified in ascribing to the preferred enjoyment a superiority in quality, so far outweighing quantity as to render it, in comparison, of small account."
This appeal to competent judges, or, in other words, to authority, involves no philosophical principle at all unless we may call the doctrine of papal infallibility, to which this appeal of Mill is essentially akin, a principle.
If these judges are competent, there must be a reason for the preference they give.
In the next paragraph Mill tells us what that principle is; but in doing so introduces the principle of the subordination of lower to higher faculties, which we shall see later is the distinguishing principle of Plato.
On this point Mill is as clear as Plato himself.
"Now it is an unquestionable fact that those who are equally acquainted with, and equally capable of appreciating and enjoying both, do give a most marked preference to the manner of existence which employs their higher faculties.
Few human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals, for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasures; no intelligent human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be an ignoramus, no person of feeling and conscience would be selfish and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs.
They would not resign what they possess more than he, for the most complete satisfaction of all the desires which they have in common with him.
If they ever fancy they would, it is only in cases of unhappiness so extreme, that to escape from it they would exchange their lot for almost any other, however undesirable in their own eyes.
A being of higher faculties requires more to make him happy, is capable probably of more acute suffering, and is certainly accessible to it at more points, than one of an inferior type; but in spite of these liabilities, he can never really wish to sink into what he feels to be a lower grade of existence."
This appeal to quality rather than quantity of pleasure puts Mill, in spite of himself, squarely on Platonic ground and abandons consistent Epicureanism.
An illustration will make this clear.
A man professes that money is his supreme end, the only thing he cares for in the world; he tells us that whatever he does is done for money, and whenever he refrains from doing anything it is to avoid losing money.
So far he puts his conduct on a consistently mercenary basis.
Suppose, however, that in the next sentence he tells us that he prizes certain kinds of money.
If we ask him what is the basis of the distinction, he replies that he prizes money honestly earned and despises money dishonestly acquired.
Should we not at once recognise, that in spite of his original declaration, he is not the consistently mercenary being he professed himself to be?
The fact that he prefers honest to dishonest money shows that honesty, not money, is his real principle; and, in spite of his original profession, this distinction lifts him out of the class of mercenary money lovers into the class of men whose real principle is not money but honesty.
Precisely so Mill's confession that he cares for the height and dignity of the faculties employed rather than the quantity of pleasure gained lifts him out of the Epicurean school to which he professes adherence and makes him an idealist.
When asked for an explanation of his preference of higher to lower, Mill at once shifts to Stoic ground in the following sentences: "We may give what explanation we please of this unwillingness; we may attribute it to pride, a name which is given indiscriminately to some of the most and to some of the least estimable feelings of which mankind are capable; we may refer it to the love of liberty and personal independence, an appeal to which was with the Stoics one of the most effective means for the inculcation of it; to the love of power, or to the love of excitement, both of which do really enter into and contribute to it; but its most appropriate appellation is a sense of dignity, which all human beings possess in one form or another, and in some, though by no means in exact, proportion to their highest faculties, and which is so essential a part of the happiness of those in whom it is strong, that nothing which conflicts with it could be, otherwise than momentarily, an object of desire to them.
Whoever supposes that this preference takes place at a sacrifice of happiness--that the superior being, in anything like equal circumstances, is not happier than the inferior--confounds the two very different ideas of happiness and content.
It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which we can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect.
But he can learn to bear its imperfections if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.
The other party to the comparison knows both sides."
When pressed for a sanction of motive Mill appeals to the Aristotelian principle that the individual can only realise his conception of himself through union with his fellows in society: to the social nature of man and his inability to find himself in any smaller sphere, or through devotion to any lesser end.
"This firm foundation is that of the social feelings of mankind; the desire to be in unity with our fellow-creatures, which is already a powerful principle in human nature, and happily one of those which tend to become stronger, even without express inculcation, from the influences of advancing civilisation.
The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that, except in some unusual circumstances or by an effort of voluntary abstraction, he never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body; and this association is riveted more and more, as mankind are farther removed from the state of savage independence.
Any condition, therefore, which is essential to a state of society, becomes more and more an inseparable part of every person's conception of the state of things which he is born into, and which is the destiny of a human being.
In this way people grow up unable to conceive as possible to them a state of total disregard of other people's interests.
They are under a necessity of conceiving themselves as at least abstaining from all the grosser injuries, and (if only for their own protection) living in a state of constant protest against them.
They are also familiar with the fact of coöperating with others, and proposing to themselves a collective, not an individual, interest, as the aim (at least for the time being) of their actions.
So long as they are coöperating, their ends are identified with those of others; there is at least a temporary feeling that the interests of others are their own interests.
Not only does all strengthening of social ties, and all healthy growth of society, give to each individual a stronger personal interest in practically consulting the welfare of others; it also leads him to identify his feelings more and more with their good, or at least with an ever greater degree of practical consideration for it.
He comes, as though instinctively, to be conscious of himself as a being who of course pays regard to others.
The good of others becomes to him a thing naturally and necessarily to be attended to.
This mode of conceiving ourselves and human life, as civilisation goes on, is felt to be more and more natural.
Every step in political improvement renders it more so by removing the sources of opposition of interest, and levelling those inequalities of legal privilege between individuals or classes, owing to which there are large portions of mankind whose happiness it is still practicable to disregard.
In an improving state of the human mind, the influences are constantly on the increase, which tend to generate in each individual a feeling of unity with all the rest; which feeling, if perfect, would make him never think of, or desire, any beneficial condition for himself, in the benefits of which they are not included.
The deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being tends to make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow-creatures.
It does not present itself to their minds as a superstition of education, or a law despotically imposed by the power of society, but as an attribute which it would not be well for them to be without."
Lastly Mill introduces the Christian ideal.
"As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.
In the golden rule of Jesus of Nazareth, we read the complete spirit of the ethics of utility.
To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbour as one's self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality."
In his attempt to prove the Christian obligation on an Epicurean basis the inconsistency between his Epicurean principle and his Christian preaching and practice becomes evident.
Master of logic as Mill was, an author of a standard text-book on the subject, yet so desperate was the plight in which his attempt to stretch Epicureanism to Christian dimensions placed him, that he was compelled to resort to the following fallacy of composition, the fallaciousness of which every student of logic recognises at a glance.
"Happiness is a good; each person's happiness is a good to that person, and the general happiness, therefore, a good to the aggregate of all persons."
As Carlyle has pointed out, this is equivalent to saying, since each pig wants all the swill in the trough for itself, a litter of pigs in the aggregate will desire each member of the litter to have its share of the whole,--a fallacy which a single experience in feeding pigs will sufficiently refute.
It requires something deeper and higher than Epicurean principles to lift men to a plane where Christian altruism is the natural and inevitable conduct which Mill rightly says it ought to be.
These confessions of an Epicurean heretic, wrung from a man who had been rigidly trained by a stern father in Epicurean principles, yet whose surpassing candour compelled him to make these admissions, so fatal to the system, so ennobling to the man and to the doctrine he proclaimed, serve as an admirable preparation for the succeeding chapters, where these same principles, which Mill introduces as supplements, and modifications, and amendments to Epicureanism, will be presented as the foundation-stones of larger and deeper views of life.
Mill starts with a jack-knife which he publicly proclaims to be in every part of the handle and in every blade through and through Epicurean; then gets a new handle from the Stoics; borrows one blade from Plato, and another from Aristotle; unconsciously steals the biggest blade of all from Christianity; makes one of the best knives to be found on the moral market: yet still, in loyalty to early parental training, insists on calling the finished product by the same name as that with which he started out.
The result is a splendid knife to cut with; but a difficult one to classify.
Our quest for the principles of personality will not bring us anything much better, for practical purposes, than the lofty teaching of Mill's "Utilitarianism," and its companion in inconsistency, Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Ethics."
All our five principles are present in these so-called hedonistic treatises.
But it is a great theoretical advantage, and ultimately carries with it considerable practical gain, to give credit where credit is due, and to call things by their right names.
Thanks to the candour of these heretics, though the names we encounter hereafter will be new, we shall greet most of the principles we discover under these new names as old friends to whom the Epicurean heretics gave us our first introduction.
CHAPTER II STOIC SELF-CONTROL BY LAW I THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF APPERCEPTION The shortest way to understand the Stoic principle is through the psychological doctrine of apperception.
According to this now universally accepted doctrine, the mind is not an empty cabinet into which ready-made impressions of external things are dumped.
The mind is an active process; and the meaning and value of any sensation presented from without is determined by the reaction upon it of the ideas and aims that are dominant within.
This doctrine has revolutionised psychology and pedagogy, and when rightly introduced into the personal life proves even more revolutionary there.
Stoicism works this doctrine for all that it is worth.
Christian Science and kindred popular cults of the present day are perhaps working it for rather more than it is worth.
Translated into simple everyday terms, this doctrine in its application to the personal life means that the value of any external fact or possession or experience depends on the way in which we take it.
Take riches, for example.
Stocks and bonds, real estate and mortgages, money and bank accounts, in themselves do not make a man either rich or poor.
They may enrich or they may impoverish his personality.
It is not until they are taken up into the mind, thought over, related to one's general scheme of conduct, made the basis of one's purposes and plans, that they become a factor in the personal life.
Obviously the same amount of money, a hundred thousand dollars, may be worked over into personal life in a great variety of ways.
One man is made proud by it.
Another is made lazy.
Another is made hard-hearted.
Another is made avaricious for more.
Another is fired with the desire to speculate.
Another is filled with anxiety lest he may lose it.
All these are obviously impoverished by the so-called wealth which they possess.
To rich men's wives and children, whose wealth comes without the strenuous exertion and close human contact involved in earning it, it generally works their personal impoverishment in one or more of these fatal ways.
For wealth, in an indolent, self-indulgent, vain, conceited, ostentatious, unsympathetic mind, takes on the colour of these odious qualities, and becomes a curse to its possessor; just because he or she is cursed with these evil propensities already, and the wealth simply adds fuel to the preëxistent, though perhaps latent and smouldering flames.
On the other hand one man is made grateful for the wealth he has been able to accumulate.
Another is made more sympathetic.
Another is made generous.
Another is urged into the larger public service his independent means makes possible.
Another is lifted up into a sense of responsibility for its right use.
On the whole the men and women who earn their money honestly are usually affected in one or more of these beneficial ways, and their wealth becomes an enrichment of their personality.
Now it is impossible that this hundred thousand dollars should get into any man's mind, and become a mental state, without its being mixed with one or other of these mental, emotional, and volitional accompaniments.
The mental state, in other words, is a compound, of which the external fact, in this case the hundred thousand dollars, is the least important ingredient.
It is so unimportant a factor that the Stoics pronounced it indifferent.
The tone and temper in which we accept our riches, the ends to which we devote them, the spirit in which we hold them, the way in which we spend them, are so vastly more important than the mere fact of having them, that by comparison, the fact itself seems indifferent.
Like all strong statements, this is doubtless an exaggeration.
You cannot have just the same mental state without riches that you can have with them.
The external fact is a factor, though a relatively small one, in the composite mental state.
The virtues of a rich man are not precisely the same as the virtues of a poor man.
Yet the Stoic paradox is very much nearer the truth than the statement of the average man, that external things are the whole, or even the most important part of our mental states.
The same thing is true of health and sickness.
Health often makes one careless, insensitive, negligent of duty; while sickness often makes one conscientious, considerate, faithful, and thus more useful and efficient than his healthy brother.
Popularity often puffs up with pride; while persecution, by humbling, prepares the heart for truer blessedness.
Hence whether an external fact is good or evil, depends on how we take it, what we make of it, the state of mind and heart and will into which it enters as a factor; and that in turn depends, the Stoic tells us, on ourselves, and is under our control Stoicism is fundamentally this psychological doctrine of apperception, carried over and applied in the field of the personal life,--the doctrine, namely, that no external thing alone can affect us for good or evil, until we have woven it into the texture of our mental life, painted it with the colour of our dominant mood and temper, and stamped it with the approval of our will.
Thus everything except a slight residuum is through and through mental, our own product, the expression of what we are and desire to be.
The only difference between Stoicism and Christian Science at this point is that Stoicism recognises the material element; though it does so only to minimise it, and pronounce it indifferent.
Christian Science denies that there is any physical fact, or even the raw material out of which to make one.
All is merely mental, says the consistent Christian Scientist with the toothache.
There is no matter there to ache.
The Stoic, truer to the facts, and in not less but more heroic spirit declares: "There is matter, but it doesn't matter if there is."
The toothache can be taken as a spur to greater fortitude and equanimity than the man whose teeth are all sound has had opportunity to practically exemplify; and so the total mental state, toothache-borne-with-fortitude, may be positively good.
This doctrine that external things never in themselves constitute a mental state; that they are consequently indifferent; that the all-important contribution is made by the mind itself; that this contribution from the mind is what gives the tone and determines the worth of the total mental state; and that this contribution is exclusively our own affair and may be brought entirely under our own control;--this is the first and most fundamental Stoic principle.
If we have grasped this principle, we are prepared to read intelligently and sympathetically the otherwise startling and paradoxical deliverances of the Stoic masters.
II SELECTIONS FROM THE STOIC SCRIPTURES First let us listen to Epictetus, the slave, the Stoic of the cottage as he has been called:-"Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot.
If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the affair by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be borne; but rather by the opposite, that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you, and thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne."
Here the handle is a homely but effective figure for the mass of mental association into which the external fact of a brother who acts unjustly is introduced before he actually enters our mental state, and determines how we shall feel and act.
"If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry.
And do you feel no shame in delivering up your mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?"
The reviling does not become a determining factor in my own mental state unless I choose to let it.
If I feel humiliated and stung by it, it is because I am weak and foolish enough to stake my estimate of myself, and my consequent happiness, upon what somebody who does not know me says about me, rather than on what I, who know myself better than anybody else, actually think.
A boy at Phillips Andover Academy once drew this distinction very adroitly for another boy.
There had been a free fight among the boys causing a great deal of disturbance, and Principal Bancroft had traced the beginning of it to an insulting remark on the part of the boy in question.
Dr. Bancroft accused him of beginning the trouble.
"No, sir," said the boy, "I did not begin it.
The other fellow began it."
"Well," said Principal Bancroft, "you tell me precisely what took place, and I will decide who began it."
"Oh," replied the boy, "I simply called him a 'darned' fool, and he took offence."
Now if the other boy had been a Stoic, he would not have taken offence, and the first boy might have called him a fool with impunity.
Imputing Stoicism to that extent to other people, however, is very dangerous business.
Stoicism is a doctrine to be strictly applied to ourselves, but never imputed to other people, least of all to the people we wish to abuse and revile.
Epictetus again states his doctrine most explicitly on the subject of terrors.
"Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of things.
Thus death is nothing terrible else it would have appeared so to Socrates.
But the terror consists in our notion of death, that it is terrible.
When, therefore, we are hindered, or disturbed, or grieved, let us never impute it to others, but to ourselves; that is, to our views."
Again he makes a sharp distinction between what is in our power,--that is, what we think about things; and what are not in our power,--that is external facts.
"There are things which are within our power, and there are things which are beyond our power.
Within our power are opinion, aim, desire, aversion, and, in one word, whatever affairs are our own.
Beyond our power are body, property, reputation, office, and, in one word, whatever are not properly our own affairs."
"Now the things within our power are by nature free, unrestricted, unhindered; but those beyond our power are weak, dependent, restricted, alien.
Remember, then, that if you attribute freedom to things by nature dependent, and seek for your own that which is really controlled by others, you will be hindered, you will lament, you will be disturbed, you will find fault both with gods and men.
But if you take for your own only that which is your own, and view what belongs to others just as it really is, then no one will ever compel you, no one will restrict you; you will find fault with no one, you will accuse no one, you will do nothing against your will; no one will hurt you, you will not have an enemy, nor will you suffer any harm."
All this is simply carrying out the principle that we need not concern ourselves about purely external things, for those things pure and simple can never get into our minds, or affect us one way or the other.
The only things that enter into us are things as we think about them, facts as we feel about them, forces as we react upon them, and these thoughts, feelings, and reactions are our own affairs; and if we do not think serenely, feel tranquilly, and act freely with reference to them, it is not the fault of external things, but of ourselves.
In his discourse on tranquillity Epictetus gives us the same counsel.
"Consider, you who are about to undergo trial, what you wish to preserve, and in what to succeed.
For if you wish to preserve a mind in harmony with nature, you are entirely safe; everything goes well; you have no trouble on your hands.
While you wish to preserve that freedom which belongs to you, and are contented with that, for what have you longer to be anxious?
For who is the master of things like these?
Who can take them away?
If you wish to be a man of modesty and fidelity, who shall prevent you?
If you wish not to be restrained or compelled, who shall compel you to desires contrary to your principles?
to aversions contrary to your opinion?
The judge, perhaps, will pass a sentence against you which he thinks formidable; but can he likewise make you receive it with shrinking?
Since, then, desire and aversion are in your power, for what have you to be anxious?"
Epictetus bids us meet difficulties in the same way.
"Difficulties are things that show what men are.
For the future, in case of any difficulty, remember that God, like a gymnastic trainer, has pitted you against a rough antagonist.
For what end?
That you may be an Olympic conqueror; and this cannot be without toil.
No man, in my opinion, has a more profitable difficulty on his hands than you have, provided you but use it as an athletic champion uses his antagonist."
Epictetus does not shrink from the logic of his teaching in its application to the sorrows of others, though here it is tempered by a concession to the weakness of ordinary mortals.
"When you see a person weeping in sorrow, either when a child goes abroad, or when he is dead, or when the man has lost his property, take care that the appearance do not hurry you away with it as if he were suffering in external things.
But straightway make a distinction in your mind, and be in readiness to say, it is not that which has happened that afflicts this man, for it does not afflict another, but it is the opinion about this thing which afflicts the man.
So far as words, then, do not be unwilling to show him sympathy, and even if it happens so, to lament with him.
But take care that you do not lament internally also."
At this point, if not before, we feel that Stoicism is doing violence to the nobler feelings of our nature, and are prepared to break with it.
Stoicism is too hard and cold and individualistic to teach us our duty, or even to leave us free to act out our best inclinations, toward our neighbour.
We may be as Stoical as we please in our own troubles and afflictions; but let us beware how we carry over its icy distinctions into our interpretation of our neighbour's suffering.
I have drawn most of my illustrations from Epictetus, because this resignation comes with rather better grace from a poor, lame man, who has been a slave, and who lives on the barest necessities of life, than from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the wealthy courtier Seneca.
Yet the most distinctive utterances of these men teach the same lesson.
Seneca attributes it to his pilot in the famous prayer, "Oh, Neptune, you may save me if you will; you may sink me if you will; but whatever happens, I shall keep my rudder true."
Marcus Aurelius says: "Let the part of thy soul which leads and governs be undisturbed by the movements in the flesh, whether of pleasure or pain; and let it not unite itself with them, but let it circumscribe itself, and limit those effects to their parts."
"Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if thou art doing thy duty, and whether dying or doing something else.
For it is one of the acts of life,--this act by which we die; it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in hand."
"External things touch not the soul, not in the least degree."
"Remember on every occasion which leads thee to vexation to apply this principle: that this is not a misfortune, but to bear it nobly is good fortune."
The most recent prophet of Stoicism is Maurice Maeterlinck.
In "Wisdom and Destiny," he says:-"The event itself is pure water that flows from the pitcher of fate, and seldom has it either savour or perfume or colour.
But even as the soul may be wherein it seeks shelter, so will the event become joyous or sad, become tender or hateful, become deadly or quick with life.
To those round about us there happen incessant and countless adventures, whereof every one, it would seem, contains a germ of heroism; but the adventure passes away, and heroic deed there is none.
But when Jesus Christ met the Samaritan, met a few children, an adulterous woman, then did humanity rise three times in succession to the level of God."
"It might almost be said that there happens to men only that they desire.
It is true that on certain external events our influence is of the feeblest, but we have all-powerful action on that which these events shall become in ourselves--in other words, on their spiritual part.
The life of most men will be saddened or lightened by the thing that may chance to befall them,--in the men whom I speak of, whatever may happen is lit up by their inward life.
If you have been deceived, it is not the deception that matters, but the forgiveness whereto it gave birth in your soul, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of this forgiveness,--by these shall your eyes see more clearly than if all men had ever been faithful.
But if, by this act of deceit, there have come not more simpleness, loftier faith, wider range to your love, then have you been deceived in vain, and may truly say nothing has happened."
"Let us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of the nature of ourselves.
There comes no adventure but wears to our soul the shape of our everyday thoughts; and deeds of heroism are but offered to those who, for many long years, have been heroes in obscurity and silence.
And whether you climb up the mountain or go down the hill to the valley, whether you journey to the end of the world or merely walk round your house, none but yourself shall you meet on the highway of fate.
If Judas go forth to-night, it is toward Judas his steps will tend, nor will chance for betrayal be lacking; but let Socrates open his door,--he shall find Socrates asleep on the threshold before him, and there will be occasion for wisdom.
We become that which we discover in the sorrows and joys that befall us; and the least expected caprices of fate soon mould themselves to our thought.
It is in our past that Destiny finds all her weapons, her vestments, her jewels.
A sorrow your soul has changed into sweetness, to indulgence or patient smiles, is a sorrow that shall never return without spiritual ornament; and a fault or defect you have looked in the face can harm you no more.
All that has thus been transformed can belong no more to the hostile powers.
Real fatality exists only in certain external disasters--as disease, accident, the sudden death of those we love; but inner fatality there is none.
Wisdom has will power sufficient to rectify all that does not deal death to the body; it will even at times invade the narrow domain of external fatality.
Even when the deed has been done, the misfortune has happened, it still rests with ourselves to deny her the least influence on that which shall come to pass in our soul.
She may strike at the heart that is eager for good, but still is she helpless to keep back the light that shall stream to this heart from the error acknowledged, the pain undergone.
It is not in her power to prevent the soul from transforming each single affliction into thoughts, into feelings, and treasure she dare not profane.
Be her empire never so great over all things external, she always must halt when she finds on the threshold a silent guardian of the inner life.
For even as triumph of dictators and consuls could be celebrated only in Rome, so can the true triumph of Fate take place nowhere save in our soul."
It would be easy to cite passage after passage in which the great masters of Stoicism ring the changes on this idea, that the external thing, whether it be good or evil, cannot get into the fortified citadel of my mind, and therefore cannot touch me.
Before it can touch me it must first be incorporated into my mind.
In the very act of incorporation it undergoes a transformation, which in the perverse man may change the best external things into poison and bitterness; and in the sage is able to convert the worst of external facts into virtue, glory, and honour.
Out of indifferent external matter, thinking makes the world in which we live; and if it is not a good world, the fault is, not with the indifferent external matters,--such as, to take Epictetus's enumeration of them, "wealth, health, life, death, pleasure, and pain, which lie between the virtues and the vices,"--but in our weak and erroneous thinking.
III THE STOIC REVERENCE FOR UNIVERSAL LAW The first half of the Stoic doctrine is that we give our world the colour of our thoughts.
The second half of Stoicism is concerned with what these thoughts of ours shall be.
The first half of the doctrine alone would leave us in crude fantastic Cynicism,--the doctrine out of which the broader and deeper Stoic teaching took its rise.
The Cynic paints the world in the flaring colours of his undisciplined, individual caprice.
Modern apostles of the essential Stoic principle incline to paint the world in the roseate hues of a merely optional optimism.
They want to be well, and happy, and serene, and self-satisfied; they think they are; and thinking makes them so.
If Stoicism had been as superficial as that, as capricious, and temperamental, and individualistic, it would not have lasted as it has for more than two thousand years.
The Stoic thought had substance, content, objective reality, as unfortunately most of the current phases of popular philosophy have not.
This objective and universal principle the Stoic found in law.
We must think things, not as we would like to have them, which is the optimism of the fabled ostrich, with its head in the sand; not in some vague, general phrases which mean nothing, which is the optimism of mysticism: but in the hard, rigid terms of universal law.
Everything that happens is part of the one great whole.
The law of the whole determines the nature and worth of the part.
Seen from the point of view of the whole, every part is necessary, and therefore good,--everything except, as Cleanthes says in his hymn, "what the wicked do in their foolishness."
The typical evils of life can all be brought under the Stoic formula, under some beneficial law; all, that is, except sin.
That particular form of evil was not satisfactorily dealt with until the advent of Christianity.
Take evils of accident to begin with.
An aged man slips on the ice, falls, breaks a bone, and is left, like Epictetus, lame for life.
The particular application of the law of gravitation in this case has unfortunate results for the individual.
But the law is good.
We should not know how to get along in the world without this beneficent law.
Shall we repine and complain against the law that holds the stars and planets in their courses, shapes the mountains, sways the tides, brings down the rain, and draws the rivers to the sea, turning ten thousand mill-wheels of industry as it goes rejoicing on its way; shall we complain against this law because in one instance in a thousand million it chances to throw down an individual, which happens to be me, and breaks a bone or two of mine, and leaves me for the brief span of my remaining pilgrimage with a limping gait?
If Epictetus could say to his cruel master under torture, "You will break my leg if you keep on," and then when it broke could smilingly add, "I told you so,"--cannot we endure with fortitude, and even grateful joy, the incidental inflictions which so beneficent a master as the great law of gravitation in its magnificent impartiality may see fit to mete out to us?
A current of electricity, seeking its way from sky to earth, finds on some particular occasion the body of a beloved husband, a dear son, an honoured father of dependent children, the best conductor between the air and the earth, and kills the person through whose body it takes its swift and fatal course.
Yet this law has no malevolence in its impartial heart.
On the contrary the beneficent potency of the laws of electricity is so great that our largest hopes for the improvement of our economic condition rest on its unexplored resources.
A group of bacteria, ever alert to find matter not already appropriated and held in place by vital forces stronger than their own, find their food and breeding place within a human body, and subject our friend or our child to weeks of fever, and perchance to death.
Yet we cannot call evil the great biological law that each organism shall seek its meat from God wherever it can find it.
Indeed were it not for these micro-organisms, and their alertness to seize upon and transform into their own living substance everything morbid and unwholesome, the whole earth would be nothing but a vast charnel house reeking with the intolerable stench of the undisintegrated and unburied dead.
The most uncompromising exponent of this second half of the Stoic doctrine in the modern world is Immanuel Kant.
According to him the whole worth and dignity of life turns not on external fortune, nor even on good natural endowments, but on our internal reaction, the reverence of our will for universal law.
"Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a Good Will.
Intelligence, wit, judgment, and the other _talents_ of the mind, however they may be named, or courage, resolution, perseverance, as qualities of temperament, are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects; but these gifts of nature may also become extremely bad and mischievous if the will which is to make use of them, and which, therefore, constitutes what is called character, is not good.
It is the same with the gifts of fortune.
Power, riches, honour, even health, and the general well-being and contentment with one's condition which is called happiness, inspire pride and often presumption, if there is not a good will to correct the influence of these on the mind."
"Everything in nature works according to laws.
Rational beings alone have the faculty of acting according to the conception of laws, that is, according to principles; _i.e._ have a will."
"Consequently the only good action is that which is done out of pure reverence for universal law.
This categorical imperative of duty is expressed as follows: 'Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a Universal Law of Nature.'
And since every other rational being must conduct himself on the same rational principle that holds for me, I am bound to respect him as I do myself.
Hence the second practical imperative is: 'So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end, never as means only.'"
In Kant Stoicism reaches its climax.
Law and the will are everything: possessions, even graces are nothing.
IV THE STOIC SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF EVIL The problem of evil was the great problem of the Stoic, as the problem of pleasure was the problem of the Epicurean.
To this problem the Stoic gives substantially four answers, with all of which we are already somewhat familiar:-First: Only that is evil which we choose to regard as such.
To quote Marcus Aurelius once more on this fundamental point: "Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in thy power.
Take away then, when thou choosest, thy opinion, and like a mariner who has doubled the promontory, thou wilt find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay."
"Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint: I have been harmed.
Take away the complaint: I have been harmed, and the harm is done away."
Second: Since virtue or integrity is the only good, nothing but the loss of that can be a real evil.
When this is present, nothing of real value can be lacking.
A Stoic then says, "Virtue suffers no vacancy in the place she inhabits; she fills the whole soul, takes away the sensibility of any loss, and is herself sufficient."
"As the stars hide their diminished heads before the brightness of the sun, so pains, afflictions, and injuries are all crushed and dissipated by the greatness of virtue; whenever she shines, everything but what borrows its splendour from her disappears, and all manner of annoyances have no more effect upon her than a shower of rain upon the sea."
"It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it."
"Where a man can live at all, he can live well."
"I must die.
Must I then die lamenting?
I must go into exile.
Does any man hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?"
"Life itself is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil."
"It is the edge and temper of the blade that make a good sword, not the richness of the scabbard; and so it is not money and possessions that make a man considerable, but his virtue."
"They are amusing fellows who are proud of things which are not in our power.
A man says: I am better than you for I possess much land, and you are wasting with hunger.
Another says: I am of consular rank; another: I have curly hair.
But a horse does not say to a horse: I am superior to you, for I possess much fodder and much barley, and my bits are of gold, and my harness is embroidered; but he says: I am swifter than you.
And every animal is better or worse from his own merit or his own badness.
Is there then no virtue in man only, and must we look to our hair, and our clothes, and to our ancestors?"
"Let our riches consist in coveting nothing, and our peace in fearing nothing."
Third: What seems evil to the individual is good for the whole: and since we are members of the whole is good for us.
"Must my leg be lamed?"
the Stoic asks.
"Wretch, do you then on account of one poor leg find fault with the world?
Wilt thou not willingly surrender it for the whole?
Know you not how small a part you are compared with the whole?"
"If a good man had foreknowledge of what would happen, he would coöperate toward his own sickness and death and mutilation, since he knows that these things are assigned to him according to the universal arrangement, and that the whole is superior to the part."
Fourth: Trial brings out our best qualities, is "stuff to try the soul's strength on," and "educe the man," as Browning puts it.
This interpretation of evil as a means of bringing out the higher moral qualities, though not peculiar to Stoicism, was very congenial to their system, and appears frequently in their writings.
"Just as we must understand when it is said that �sculapius prescribed to this man horse exercise, or bathing in cold water, or going without shoes, so we must understand it when it is said that the nature of the universe prescribed to this man disease, or mutilation, or loss of anything of the kind."
"Calamity is the touchstone of a brave mind, that resolves to live and die master of itself.
Adversity is the better for us all, for it is God's mercy to show the world their errors, and that the things they fear and covet are neither good nor evil, being the common and promiscuous lot of good men and bad."
V THE STOIC PARADOXES A good test of one's appreciation of the Stoic position is whether or not one can see the measure of truth their paradoxes contain.
The first paradox is that there are no degrees in vice.
In the words of the Stoic, "The man who is a hundred furlongs from Canopus, and the man who is only one, are both equally not in Canopus."
One of the few bits of moral counsel which I remember from the infant class in the Sunday-school runs as follows:-"It is a sin To steal a pin: Much more to steal A greater thing."
This, in spite of its exquisite lyrical expression, the Stoic would flatly deny.
The theft of a pin, and the defalcation of a bank cashier for a hundred thousand dollars; a cross word to a dog, and a course of conduct which breaks a woman's heart, are from the Stoic standpoint precisely on a level.
For it is not the consequences but the form of our action that is the important thing.
It is not how we make other people feel as a result of our act, but how we ourselves think of it, as we propose to do it, or after it is done, that determines its goodness or badness.
If I steal a pin, I violate the universal law just as clearly and absolutely as though I stole the hundred thousand dollars.
I can no more look with deliberate approval on the cross word to a dog, than on the breaking of a woman's heart.
There are things that do not admit of degrees.
We must either fire our gun off or not fire it.
We cannot fire part of the charge.
We want either an absolutely good egg for breakfast, or no egg at all.
One that is partially good, or on the line between goodness and badness, we send back as altogether bad.
If there is a little round hole in a pane of glass, cut by a bullet, we reject the whole pane as imperfect, just as though a big jagged hole had been made in it by a brickbat.
We get an echo of this paradox in the statement of St. James, "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all."
This paradox becomes plain, self-evident truth, the moment we admit the Stoic position that not external things, and their appeal to our sensibility, but our internal attitudes toward universal law, are the points on which our virtue hangs.
Either we intend to obey the universal law of nature or we do not; and between the intention of obedience and the intention of disobedience there is no middle ground.
Second: The wise man, the Stoic sage, is absolutely perfect, the complete master of himself, and rightfully the ruler of the world.
If everything depends on our thought, and our thought is in tune with the universal law, then obviously we are perfect.
Beyond such complete inner response to the universal law it is impossible for man to advance.
Curiously enough, the religious doctrine of perfectionism, which often arises in Methodist circles, and in such holiness movements as have taken their rise from the influence of Methodism, shows this same root in the conception of law.
Wesley's definition of sin is "the violation of a known law."
If that be all there is of sin, then any of us who is ordinarily decent and conscientious, may boast of perfection.
You can number perfectionists by tens of thousands on such abstract terms as these.
But if sin be not merely deliberate violation of abstract law; if it be failure to fulfil to the highest degree the infinitely delicate personal, domestic, civic, and social relations in which we stand; then the very notion of perfection is preposterous, and the profession of it little less than blasphemy.
But like the modern religious perfectionists, the Stoics had little concern for the concrete, individual, personal ties which bind men and women together in families, societies, and states.
Perfection was an easy thing, because they had defined it in such abstract terms.
Still, though not by any means the whole of virtue as deeper schools have apprehended it, it is something to have our inner motive absolutely right, when measured by the standard of universal law.
That at least the Stoic professed to have attained.
Third: The Stoic is a citizen of the whole world.
Local, domestic, national ties bind him not.
But this is a cheap way of gaining universality,--this skipping the particulars of which the universal is composed.
To be as much interested in the politics of Rio Janeiro or Hong Kong as you are in those of the ward of your own city does not mean much until we know how much you are interested in the politics of your own ward.
And in the case of the Stoic this interest was very attenuated.
As is usually the case, extension of interest to the ends of the earth was purchased at the cost of defective intensity close at home, where charity ought to begin.
As a matter of fact the Stoics were very defective in their standards of citizenship.
Still, what the law of justice demanded, that they were disposed to render to every man; and thus, though on a very superficial basis, the Stoics laid the broad foundation of an international democracy which knows no limits of colour, race, or stage of development.
Though Stoicism falls far short of the warmth and devotion of modern Christian missions, yet the early stage of the missionary movement, in which people were interested, not in the concrete welfare of specific peoples, but in vast aggregates of "souls," represented on maps, and in diagrams, bears a close resemblance to the Stoic cosmopolitanism.
We have all seen people who would give and work to save the souls of the heathen, who would never under any circumstances think of calling on the neighbour on the same street who chanced to be a little below their own social circle.
The soul of a heathen is a very abstract conception; the lowly neighbour a very concrete affair.
The Stoics are not the only people who have deceived themselves with vast abstractions.
VI THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF STOICISM The Stoics had a genuine religion.
The Epicureans, too, had their gods, but they never took them very seriously.
In a world made up of atoms accidentally grouped in transient relations, of which countless accidental groupings I happen to be one, there is no room for a real religious relationship.
Consequently the Epicurean, though he amused himself with poetic pictures of gods who led lives of undisturbed serenity, unconcerned about the affairs of men, had no consciousness of a great spiritual whole of which he was a part, or of an Infinite Person to whom he was personally related.
To the Stoic, on the contrary, the round world is part of a single universe, which holds all its parts in the grasp and guidance of one universal law, determining each particular event.
By making that law of the universe his own, the individual man at once worships the all-controlling Providence, and achieves his own freedom.
For the law to which he yields is at once the law of the whole universe, and the law of his own nature as a part of the universe.
"We are born subjects," exclaims the Stoic, "but to obey God is perfect liberty."
"Everything," says Marcus Aurelius, "harmonises with me which is harmonious to thee, O universe.
Nothing for me is too early or too late, which is in due time for thee."
A characteristic prayer and meditation and hymn will show us, far better than description, what this Stoic religion meant to those who devoutly held it.
Epictetus gives us this prayer of the dying Cynic: "I stretch out my hands to God and say: The means which I have received from thee for seeing thy administration of the world and following it I have not neglected: I have not dishonoured thee by my acts: see how I have used my perceptions: have I ever blamed thee?
have I been discontented with anything that happens or wished it to be otherwise?
Have I wished to transgress the relations of things?
That thou hast given me life, I thank thee for what thou hast given: so long as I have used the things which are thine I am content; take them back and place them wherever thou mayest choose; for thine were all things,--thou gavest them to me.
Is it not enough to depart in this state of mind, and what life is better and more becoming than that of a man who is in this state of mind, and what end is more happy?"
He also offers us this meditation on the inevitable losses of life, by which he consoles himself with the thought that all he has is a loan from God, which these seeming losses but restore to their rightful owner, who had lent them to us for a while.
"Never say about anything, I have lost it; but say, I have restored it.
Is your child dead?
It has been restored.
Is your wife dead?
She has been restored.
Has your estate been taken from you?
Has not this been also restored?
'But he who has taken it from me is a bad man.'
But what is it to you by whose hands the giver demanded it back?
So long as he may allow you, take care of it as a thing which belongs to another, as travellers do with their inn."
The grandest expression of the Stoic religion, however, is found in the hymn of Cleanthes.
Elsewhere there is too evident a disposition to condescend to use God's aid in keeping up the Stoic temper; with little of outgoing adoration for the greatness and glory which are in God himself.
But in this grand hymn we have genuine reverence, devotion, worship, praise, self-surrender,--in short, that confession of the glory of the Infinite by the conscious weakness of the finite in which the heart of true religion everywhere consists.
Nowhere outside of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures has adoration breathed itself in more exalted and fervent strains.
The hymn is addressed to Zeus, as the Stoics freely used the names of the popular gods to express their own deeper meanings.
HYMN TO ZEUS "Thee it is lawful for all mortals to address.
For we are Thy offspring, and alone of living creatures possess a voice which is the image of reason.
Therefore I will forever sing Thee and celebrate Thy power.
All this universe rolling round the earth obeys Thee, and follows willingly at Thy command.
Such a minister hast Thou in Thy invincible hands, the two-edged, flaming, vivid thunderbolt.
O King, most High, nothing is done without Thee, neither in heaven or on earth, nor in the sea, except what the wicked do in their foolishness.
Thou makest order out of disorder, and what is worthless becomes precious in Thy sight; for Thou hast fitted together good and evil into one, and hast established one law that exists forever.
But the wicked fly from Thy law, unhappy ones, and though they desire to possess what is good, yet they see not, neither do they hear the universal law of God.
If they would follow it with understanding, they might have a good life.
But they go astray, each after his own devices,--some vainly striving after reputation, others turning aside after gain excessively, others after riotous living and wantonness.
Nay, but, O Zeus, Giver of all things, who dwellest in dark clouds and rulest over the thunder, deliver men from their foolishness.
Scatter it from their souls, and grant them to obtain wisdom, for by wisdom Thou dost rightly govern all things; that being honoured we may repay Thee with honour, singing Thy works without ceasing, as it is right for us to do.
For there is no greater thing than this, either for mortal men or for the gods, to sing rightly the universal law."
Modern literature of the nobler sort has many a Stoic note; and we ought to be able to recognise it in its modern as well as in its ancient dress.
The very best brief expression of the Stoic creed is found in Henley's Lines to R. T. H. B.:-"Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
"In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed.
"Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find me unafraid.
"It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul."
The chief modern type of Stoicism, however, is Matthew Arnold.
His great remedy for the ills of which life is so full is stated in the concluding lines of "The Youth of Man":-"While the locks are yet brown on thy head, While the soul still looks through thine eyes, While the heart still pours The mantling blood to thy cheek, Sink, O youth, in thy soul!
Yearn to the greatness of Nature; Rally the good in the depths of thyself!"
VII THE PERMANENT VALUE OF STOICISM If now we know the two fundamental principles of Stoicism, the indifference of external circumstance as compared with the reaction of our own thought upon it, and the sanctification of our thought by self-surrender to the universal law; and if we have learned to recognise these Stoic notes alike in ancient and modern prose and poetry, we are ready to discriminate between the good in it which we wish to cherish, and the shortcomings of the system which it is well for us to avoid.
We can all reduce enormously our troubles and vexations by bringing to bear upon them the two Stoic formulas.
Toward material things, toward impersonal events at least, we may all with profit put on the Stoic armour, or to use the figure of the turtle, which is most expressive of the Stoic attitude, we can all draw the soft sensitive flesh of our feelings inside the hard shell of resolute thoughts.
There is a way of looking at our poverty, our plainness of feature, our lack of mental brilliancy, our humble social estate, our unpopularity, our physical ailments, which, instead of making us miserable, will make us modest, contented, cheerful, serene.
The mistakes that we make, the foolish words we say, the unfortunate investments into which we get drawn, the failures we experience, all may be transformed by the Stoic formula into spurs to greater effort and stimulus to wiser deeds in days to come.
Simply to shift the emphasis from the dead external fact beyond our control, to the live option which always presents itself within; and to know that the circumstance that can make us miserable simply does not exist, unless it exists by our consent within our own minds;--this is a lesson well worth spending an hour with the Stoics to learn once for all.
And the other aspect of their doctrine, its quasi-religious side, though not by any means the last word about religion, is a valuable first lesson in the reality of religion.
To know that the universal law is everywhere, and that its will may in every circumstance be done; to measure the petty perturbations of our little lives by the vast orbits of natural forces moving according to beneficent and unchanging law; when we come out of the exciting political meeting, or the roar of the stock-exchange, to look up at the calm stars and the tranquil skies and hear them say to us, "So hot, my little man";--this elevation of our individual lives by the reverent contemplation of the universe and its unswerving laws, is something which we may all learn with profit from the old Stoic masters.
Business, house-keeping, school-teaching, professional life, politics, society, would all be more noble and dignified if we could bring to them every now and then a touch of this Stoic strength and calm.
Criticism, complaint, fault-finding, malicious scandal, unpopularity, and all the shafts of the censorious are impotent to slay or even wound the spirit of the Stoic.
If these criticisms are true, they are welcomed as aids in the discovery of faults which are to be frankly faced, and strenuously overcome.
If they are false, unfounded, due to the querulousness or jealousy of the critic rather than to any fault of the Stoic, then he feels only contempt for the criticisms and pity for the poor misguided critic.
The true Stoic can be the serene husband of a scolding shrew of a wife; the complacent representative of dissatisfied and enraged constituents; maintain unruffled equanimity when cut by his aristocratic acquaintances and excluded from the most select social circles: for he carries the only valid standard of social measurement under his own hat, and needs not the adoration of his wife, the cheers of his constituents, the cards and invitations, the nods and smiles of the four hundred to assure him of his dignity and worth.
If he is an author, it does not trouble him that his books are unsold, unread, uncut.
If the many could appreciate him, he would have to be one of themselves, and then there would be no use in his trying to instruct them.
His book is what the universal law gave him to say, and decreed that it should be; and whether there be many or few to whom the universal law has revealed the same truth, and granted power to appreciate it, is the concern of the universal, not of himself, the individual author.
Again, if he is in poor health, weary, exhausted, if each stroke of work must be wrought in agony and pain,--that, too, is decreed for him by those just laws which he or his ancestors have blindly violated; and he will accept even this dictate of the universal law as just and good: he will not suffer these trifling incidental pains and aches to diminish by one jot the output of his hand or brain.
When disillusion and disappointment overtake him; when the things his youth had sighed for finally take themselves forever out of his reach; when he sees clearly that only a few more years remain to him, and those must be composed of the same monotonous round of humdrum details, duties that have lost the charm of novelty, functions that have long since been relegated to the unconsciousness of habit, vexations that have been endured a thousand times, petty pleasures that have long since lost their zest: even then the Stoic says that this, too, is part of the universal programme, and must be accepted resignedly.
If there is little that nature has left to give him for which he cares, yet he can return to her the tribute of an obedient will and a contented mind: if he can expect little from the world, he can contribute something to it; and so to the last he maintains,-"One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
When there is hard work to be done, to which there is no pleasure, no honour, no emolument attached; when there are evils to be rebuked which will bring down the wrath and vengeance of the powers that be on him who exposes the wrong; when there are poor relatives to be supported, and slights to be endured, and injustice to be borne, it is well for us all to know this Stoic formula, and fortify our souls behind its impenetrable walls.
To consider not what happens to us, but how we react upon it; to measure good in terms not of sensuous pleasure, but of mental attitude; to know that if we are for the universal law, it matters not how many things may be against us; to rest assured that there can be no circumstance or condition in which this law cannot be done by us, and therefore no situation of which we cannot be more than master, through implicit obedience to the great law that governs all,--this is the stern consolation of Stoicism; and there are few of us so happily situated in all respects that there do not come to us times when such a conviction is a defence and refuge for our souls.
Beyond and above Stoicism we shall try to climb in later chapters.
But below Stoicism one may not suffer his life to fall, if he would escape the fearful hells of depression, despair, and melancholia.
As we lightly send back across the centuries our thanks to Epicurus for teaching us to prize at their true worth health and the good things of life, so let us reverently bow before the Stoic sages, who taught us the secret of that hardy virtue which bears with fortitude life's inevitable ills.
VIII THE DEFECTS OF STOICISM Why we cannot rest in Stoicism as our final guide to life, the mere statement of their doctrine must have made clear to every one; and in calling attention to its limitations I shall only be saying for the reader what he has been saying to himself all through the chapter.
It may be well enough to treat things as indifferent, and work them over into such mental combinations as best serve our rational interests.
To treat persons in that way, however, to make them mere pawns in the game which reason plays, is heartless, monstrous.
The affections are as essential to man as his reason.
It is a poor substitute for the warm, sweet, tender ties that bind together husband and wife, parent and child, friend and friend,--this freezing of people together through their common relation to the universal law.
I suppose that is why, in all the history of Stoicism, though college girls usually have a period of flirting with the Stoic melancholy of Matthew Arnold, no woman was ever known to be a consistent and steadfast Stoic.
Indeed a Stoic woman is a contradiction in terms.
One might as well talk of a warm iceberg, or soft granite, or sweet vinegar.
Stoicism is something of which men, unmarried or badly married men at that, have an absolute monopoly.
Again if its disregard of particulars and individuals is cold and hard, its attempted substitute of abstract, vague universality is a bit absurd.
Sometimes the lighter mood of caricature best brings out the weaknesses that are concealed in grave systems when taken too seriously.
Mr. W. S. Gilbert has put the dash of absurdity there is in the Stoic doctrines so convincingly that his lines may serve the purpose of illustrating the inherent weakness of the Stoic position better than more formal criticism.
They are addressed TO THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE "Roll on, thou ball, roll on; Through pathless realms of space Roll on.
What though I'm in a sorry case?
What though I cannot pay my bills?
What though I suffer toothache's ills?
What though I swallow countless pills?
Never you mind!
Roll on.
"Roll on, thou ball, roll on; Through seas of inky air Roll on.
It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bills are due; It's true my prospects all look blue-But don't let that unsettle you-Never you mind!
Roll on.
(It rolls on.)"
The incompleteness of the Stoic position is precisely this tendency to slight and ignore the external conditions out of which life is made.
Its God is fate.
Instead of a living, loving will, manifest in the struggle with present conditions, Stoicism sees only an impersonal law, rigid, fixed, fatal, unalterable, unimprovable, uncompanionable.
Man's only freedom lies in unconditional surrender to what was long ago decreed.
Of glad and original coöperation with its beneficent designs, thus helping to make the world happier and better than it could have been had not the universal will found and chosen just this individual me, to work freely for its improvement, Stoicism knows nothing.
Its satisfaction is staked on a dead law to be obeyed, not a live will to be loved.
Its ideal is a monotonous identity of law-abiding agents who differ from each other chiefly in the names by which they chance to be designated.
It has no place for the development of rich and varied individuality in each through intense, passionate devotion to other individuals as widely different as age, sex, training, and temperament can make them.
Before we find the perfect guidance of life we must look beyond the Stoic as well as the Epicurean, to Plato, to Aristotle, and, above all, to Jesus.
CHAPTER III THE PLATONIC SUBORDINATION OF LOWER TO HIGHER I THE NATURE OF VIRTUE Epicureanism tells us how to gain pleasure; Stoicism tells us how to bear pain.
But life is not so simple as these systems assume.
It is not merely the problem of getting all the pleasure we can; nor of taking pain in such wise that it does not hurt.
It is a question of the worth of the things in which we find our pleasure, and the relative values of the things we suffer for.
Plato squarely attacks that larger problem.
He says that the Epicurean is like a musician who tunes his violin as much as he can without breaking the strings.
The wise musician, on the contrary, recognises that the tuning is merely incidental to the music; and that when you have tuned it up to a certain point, it is worse than useless to go on tuning it any more.
Just as the tuning is for the sake of the music, and when you have reached a point where the instrument gives perfect music, you must stop the tuning and begin to play; so when you have brought any particular pleasure, say that of eating, up to a certain point, you must stop eating, and begin to live the life for the sake of which you eat.
To the Stoic Plato gives a similar answer.
The Stoic, he says, is like a physician who gives his patient all the medicine he can, and prides himself on being a better physician than others because he gives his patients bigger doses, and more of them.
The wise physician gives medicine up to a certain point, and then stops.
That point is determined by the health, which the medicine is given to promote.
Precisely so, it is foolish to bear all the pain we can, and boast ourselves of our ability to swallow big doses of tribulation and pronounce it good.
The wise man will bear pain up to a certain point; and when he reaches that limit, he will stop.
What is the point?
Where is the limit?
Virtue is the point up to which the bearing of pain is good, the limit beyond which the bearing of pain becomes an evil.
Virtue, then, is the supreme good, and makes everything that furthers it, whether pleasurable or painful, good.
Virtue makes everything that hinders it, whether pleasurable or painful, bad.
What, then, is virtue?
In what does this priceless pearl consist?
We have our two analogies.
Virtue is to pleasure what the music is to the tuning of the instrument.
Just as the perfection of the music proves the excellence of the tuning, so the perfection of virtue justifies the particular pleasures we enjoy.
Virtue stands related to the endurance of pain, as health stands related to the taking of medicine.
The perfection of health proves that, however distasteful the medicine may be, it is nevertheless good; and any imperfection of health that may result from either too much or too little medicine shows that in the quantity taken the medicine was bad for us.
Precisely so pain is good for us up to the point where virtue requires it.
Below or above that point, pain becomes an evil.
Plato spared no pains to disentangle the question of virtue from its complications with rewards and penalties, pleasures and pains.
As the virtue of a violin is not in its carving or polish, but in the music it produces; as the virtue of medicine is not in its sweetness or its absence of bitterness, so the virtue of man has primarily nothing to do with rewards and penalties, pleasures or pains.
In our study of virtue, he says, we must strip it naked of all rewards, honours, and emoluments; indeed we must go farther and even dress it up in the outer habiliments of vice; we must make the virtuous man poor, persecuted, forsaken, unpopular, distrusted, reviled, and condemned.
Then we may be able to see what there is in virtue which, in every conceivable circumstance, makes it superior to vice.
He makes one of his characters in the Republic complain that: "No one has ever adequately described either in verse or prose the true essential nature of either righteousness or unrighteousness immanent in the soul, and invisible to any human or divine eye; or shown that of all the things of a man's soul which he has within him, righteousness is the greatest good, and unrighteousness the greatest evil.
Therefore I say, not only prove to us that righteousness is better than unrighteousness, but show what either of them do to the possessors of them, which makes the one to be good and the other evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men."
Accordingly he attributes to the unrighteous man skill to win a reputation for righteousness, even while acting most unrighteously.
He clothes him with power and glory, and fame, and family, and influence; fills his life with delights; surrounds him with friends; cushions him in ease and security.
Over against this man who is really unrighteous, but has all the advantages that come from being supposed to be righteous, he sets the man who is really righteous, and clothes him with all the disabilities which come from being supposed to be unrighteous.
"Let him be scourged and racked; let him have his eyes burnt out, and finally, after suffering every kind of evil, let him be impaled."
Then, says Plato, when both have reached the uttermost extreme, the one of righteousness treated shamefully and cruelly, the other of unrighteousness treated honourably and obsequiously, let judgment be given which of them is the happier of the two.
Translating the language of the "Gorgias" and the "Republic" into modern equivalents: Who would we rather be, a man who by successful manipulation of dishonest financial schemes had come to be a millionnaire, the mayor of his city, the pillar of the church, the ornament of the best society, the Senator from his state, or the Ambassador of his country at a European Court; or a man who in consequence of his integrity had won the enmity of evil men in power, and been sent in disgrace to State prison; a man whom no one would speak to; whom his best friends had deserted, whose own children were being brought up to reproach him?
Which of the two men would we rather be?
And we must not introduce any consideration of reversals hereafter.
Supposing that death ends all, and that there is no God to reverse the decisions of men; suppose these two men were to die as they lived, without hope of resurrection; which of the two would we rather be for the next forty years of our lives, assuming that after that there is nothing?
Plato in a myth puts the case even more strongly than this.
Gyges, a shepherd and servant of the king of Lydia, found a gold ring which had the remarkable property of making its wearer visible when he turned the collet one way, and invisible when he turned it the other way.
Being astonished at this, he made several trials of the ring, always with the same result; when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared.
Perceiving this he immediately contrived to be chosen messenger to the court, where he no sooner arrived than he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.
Plato asks us what we should do if we had such a ring.
We could do anything we pleased and no one would be the wiser.
We could become invisible, out of the reach of external consequences, the instant our deed was done.
Would we, with such a ring on our finger, stand fast in righteousness?
Could we trust ourselves to wear that ring night and day?
Would we feel safe if we knew that our next-door neighbour, even our most intimate friend, had such a ring, and could do just what he pleased to us, and yet never get caught?
Can we tell why a man with such a ring on his finger should not do any unjust, unkind, impure, or dishonourable deed?
II RIGHTEOUSNESS WRIT LARGE The Republic is Plato's answer to this question.
Why, you may ask, should he give us a treatise on politics in answer to a question of personal character?
Because the state is simply the individual writ large, and as we can read large letters more easily than small letters, we shall get at the principle of righteousness more readily if we first consider what it is in the large letters of the state.
In presenting this analogy of the state I shall freely translate Plato's teachings into their modern equivalent.
What, then, is the difference between a righteous and unrighteous state?
An unrighteous state is one in which the working-men in each industry are organised into a union which uses its power to force the wages of its members up to an exorbitant level, and uses intimidation and violence to prevent any one else from working for less or producing more than the standards fixed by the union; it is a state in which the owners of capital, in each line of industry, combine into overcapitalised trusts for the purpose of making the small sums which they put into the business, and the larger sums which they do not put in at all, except on paper, earn exorbitant dividends at the expense of the public; it is a state in which the politicians are in politics for their pockets, using the opportunities for advantageous contracts which offices afford, and the opportunities for legislation in favour of private schemes, to enrich themselves out of the public purse; it is a state in which the police intimidate the other citizens, and sell permission to commit crime to the highest bidder; it is a state in which the scholars concern themselves exclusively about their own special and technical interests, and as long as the institutions with which they are connected are supported by the gifts of rich men, care little how the poor are oppressed and the many are made to suffer by the corrupt use of wealth and the selfish misuse of power.
Such is the unrighteous state.
And wherein does its unrighteousness consist?
Obviously in the fact that each of the great classes in the state--working-men, capitalists, police, politicians, scholars--are living exclusively for themselves and are ready to sacrifice the interests of the community as a whole to their private interests.
Now a state which should be completely unrighteous, in which everybody should succeed in carrying out his own selfish interests at the expense of everybody else, would be intolerable.
United action would be impossible.
No one would wish to live in such a state.
There must be honour even among thieves; otherwise stealing could not be successful on any considerable scale.
The trouble with it is that each part is arrayed in antagonism against every other part, and the whole is sacrificed to the supposed interests of its constituent members.
What, then, in contrast to this would be a righteous state?
It would be a state in which each of these classes fulfils its part well, with a view to the good of the whole.
It would be a state where labour would be organised into unions, which would not insist on having the greatest possible wages for the least possible work, but which would maintain a high standard of efficiency, and intelligence, and character in the members, with a view to doing the best possible work in their trade, at such wages as the resources and needs of the community, as indicated by the normal action of demand and supply, would warrant.
It would be a state in which the capitalists would organise their business in such a way that they might invite public inspection of the relation between the capital, enterprise, skill, economy, and industry expended, and the prices they charge for commodities furnished and services rendered.
It would be a state in which the police would maintain that order and law which is the equal interest of the rich and poor alike.
It would be a state in which the men in political offices would use their official positions and influence for the protection of the lives and promotion of the interests of the whole people whom they represent and profess to serve.
It would be a state in which the colleges and universities would be intensely alive to economic, social, and public questions, and devote their learning to the maintenance of healthful material conditions, just distribution of wealth, sound morals, and wise determination of public policy.
Wherein, then, does the difference between an unrighteous and a righteous state consist?
Simply in this--that in the unrighteous state each class in the community is playing for its own hand and regarding the community as a mere means to its own selfish interests as the supreme end,--while a righteous state on the contrary is one in which each class in the community is doing its own work as economically and efficiently as possible, with a view to the interests of the community as a whole.
In the unrighteous state the whole is subordinated to each separate part; in the righteous state each part is subordinated to the common interests of the whole.
If, then, we ask as did Adeimantus in the Republic, "Where, then, is righteousness, and in which particular part of the state is it to be found," our answer will be that given by Socrates, "that each individual man shall be put to that use for which nature designs him, and every man will do his own business so that the whole city will be not many but one."
Righteousness, then, in the state consists in having each class mind its own business with a view to the good of the whole.
On this, which is Plato's fundamental principle, we can all agree.
As to the method by which the righteous state is to be brought about probably we should all profoundly differ from him.
His method for securing the subordination of what he calls the lower class of society to what he calls the higher class is that of repression, force, and fraud.
The obedience of the working-men is to be secured by intimidation; the devotion of the higher classes is to be secured partly by suppression of natural instincts and interests, partly by an elaborate and prolonged education.
The rulers are to have no property and no wives and families that they can call their own.
He attempts to get devotion to the whole by suppressing those more individual and special forms of devotion which spring from private property and family affection.
In all these details of his scheme we must frankly recognise that Plato was profoundly wrong.
The working classes cannot and ought not to be driven like dumb cattle to their tasks by a force external to themselves.
The ruling class, the scholars and statesmen, can never be successfully trained for disinterested public life by taking away from them those fundamental interests and affections out of which, in the long run, all public spirit takes its rise and draws its inspiration.
In opposition to this communism based on repression and suppression by force and fraud, the modern democracy sets a community of interest and a devotion of personal resources, be they great or small, to the common good on the part of every citizen of every class.
The utter inadequacy and impracticability of the details of Plato's communistic schemes about the wives and property of his ruling class should not blind us to the profound truth of his essential definition of righteousness in a state: That each class shall "do the work for which they draw the wage" with a view to the effect it will have, not on themselves alone, but primarily on the welfare of the whole state, of which each class is a serving and contributing member.
This essential truth of Plato our modern democracy has taken up.
The difference is that, while Plato proposed to have intelligence and authority in one, and obedience and manual labour in another class, the problem of modern democracy is to give an intelligent and public-spirited outlook to the working-man, and a spirit of honest work to the scholar and the statesman.
The defect of Plato lies in the external arrangements by which he proposed to secure the right relation of parts to the whole.
His measures for securing this subordination were partly material and physical, partly visionary and unnatural, where ours must be natural, social, intellectual, and spiritual.
But he did lay down for all time the great principle that the due subordination of the parts to the whole, of the members to the organism, of the classes to society, of individuals to the state is the essence of righteousness in a state, and an indispensable condition of political well-being.
III THE CARDINAL VIRTUES Righteousness in a state then consists in each class minding its own business, and performing its specific function for the good of the state as a whole.
Righteousness in the individual is precisely the same thing.
There are three grand departments of each man's life: his appetites, his spirit, and his reason.
Neither of these is good or bad in itself.
Neither of them should be permitted to set up housekeeping on its own account.
Any one of them is bad if it acts for itself alone, regardless of the interests of the self as a whole.
Let us take up these departments in order, and see wherein the vice and the virtue of each consists.
First the appetites, which in the individual correspond to the working class in the state.
Let us take eating as a specimen, remembering, however, that everything we say about the appetite for food is equally true of all the other elementary appetites, such as those that deal with drink, sex, dress, property, amusement, and the like.
The Epicurean said they are all good if they do not clash and contradict each other.
The Stoic implied that they are all, if not positively bad, at least so low and unimportant that the wise man will not pay much attention to them.
Plato says they are all good in their place, and that they are all bad out of their place.
What, then, is their place?
It is one of subordination and service to the self as a whole.
Which is the better breakfast: a half pound of beefsteak, with fried potatoes, an omelette, some griddle cakes and maple syrup, with a doughnut or two, and a generous piece of mince pie?
or a little fruit and a cereal, a roll, and a couple of eggs?
Intrinsically the first breakfast is, if anything, better than the second.
There is more of it.
It offers greater variety.
It takes longer to eat it.
It will stay by you longer.
If you are at a hotel conducted on the American plan, you are getting more for your money.
Righteousness, however, is concerned with none of these considerations.
What makes one breakfast better than the other is the way it fits into one's life as a whole.
Which breakfast will enable you to do the best forenoon's work?
Which one will give you acute headache and chronic dyspepsia?
Immediate appetite cannot answer these questions.
Reason is the only one of our three departments that can tell us what is good for the self as a whole.
Now for most people in ordinary circumstances, reason prescribes the second breakfast, or something like it.
The second breakfast fits into one's permanent plan of life.
The work to be done in the forenoon, the feelings one will have in the afternoon, the general efficiency which we desire to maintain from day to day and year to year, all point to the second breakfast as the more adapted to promote the welfare of the self as a whole throughout the entire life history.
If we eat the first breakfast, appetite rules and reason is thrust into subjection.
The lower has conquered the higher; the part has domineered the whole.
To eat such a breakfast, for ninety-nine men out of every hundred, would be gluttony.
Yet, though eating it is vicious, the fault is not in the breakfast, not in the hunger for it; but in the fact that the appetite had its own way, regardless of the permanent interests of the self as a whole; and that so far forth reason was dethroned, and appetite set up as ruler in its place.
Indeed there are circumstances in which the first breakfast would be the right one to choose.
If one were on the borders of civilisation, setting out for a long tramp through the wilderness, where every ounce of food must be carried on his back, and no more fresh meat and home cooking could be expected for several days, even reason herself might prescribe the first breakfast as more beneficial to the whole man than the second.
Precisely the same breakfast which is good in one set of circumstances becomes bad in another.
The raw appetite of hunger is obviously neither good nor bad.
The rule of appetite over reason and the whole self, however, is bad always, everywhere, and for everybody.
It is in this rising up of the lower part of the self against the higher, and its sacrifice of the self as a whole to a particular gratification that all vice consists.
On the other hand, the rule of reason over appetite, the gratification or the restraint of appetite according as the interests of the total self require, is always and everywhere and for everybody good.
This is the essence of virtue; and the particular form of virtue that results from this control of the appetites by reason in the interest of the permanent and total self is temperance--the first and most fundamental of Plato's cardinal virtues.
The second element of human nature, spirit, must be dealt with in the same way.
By spirit Plato means the fighting element in us, that which prompts us to defend ourselves, the faculty of indignation, anger, and vengeance.
To make it concrete, let us take a case.
Suppose the cook in our kitchen has times of being careless, cross, saucy, wilful, and disobedient.
The spirit within prompts us to upbraid her, quarrel with her, and when she grows in turn more insolent and impertinent, to discharge her.
Is such an exercise of spirit a virtuous act?
It may be virtuous, or it may be vicious.
In this element, considered in itself, there is no more virtue or vice than in appetite considered in itself.
It is again a question of how this particular act of this particular side of our nature stands related to the self as a whole.
What does reason say?
If I send this cook away, shall I be a long while without any; and after much vexation probably put up with another not half so good?
Will my household be thrown into confusion?
Will hospitality be made impossible?
Will the working power of the members of my household be impaired by lack of well-prepared, promptly served food?
In the present state of this servant problem, all these things and worse are quite likely to happen.
Consequently reason declares in unmistakable terms that the interests of the self as a whole demand the retention of the cook.
But it galls and frets our spirit to keep this impertinent, disobedient servant, and hear her irritating words, and see her aggravating behaviour.
Never mind, reason says to the spirited element in us.
The spirit is not put into us in order that it may have a good time all by itself on its own account.
It is put into us to protect and promote the interests of the self as a whole.
You must bear patiently with the incidental failings of your cook, and return soft answers to her harsh words; because in that way you will best serve that whole self which your spirit is given you to defend.
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a quarrel with a cook, on such grounds, in present conditions, would be prejudicial to the interests of the self as a whole.
It is the sacrifice of the whole to the part; which as we saw in the case of appetite is the essence of all vice.
Only in this case the vice would be, not intemperance, but cowardice, inability to bear a transient, trifling pain patiently and bravely for the sake of the self as a whole.
Still, there might be aggravated cases in which the sharp reproof, the quarrel, and the prompt discharge might be the brave and right thing to do.
If one felt it a contribution one was required to make to the whole servant problem, and after considering all the inconvenience it would cost, still felt that life as a whole was worth more with this particular servant out of the house than in it, then precisely the same act, which ordinarily would be wrong, in this exceptional case would be right.
It is not what you do, but how you do it, that determines whether an outburst of anger is virtuous or vicious.
If the whole self is in it, if all interests have been fully weighed by the reason, if, in short, you are all there when you do it, then the act is a virtuous act, and the special name of this virtue of the spirit is courage or fortitude.
Anger and indignation going off on its own account is always vicious.
Anger and indignation properly controlled by reason in the interest of the total self is always good.
Precisely the same outward act done by one man in one set of circumstances is bad, and shows the man to be vicious, cowardly, and weak; while, if done by another man in other circumstances, it shows him to be strong, brave, and manly.
Virtue and vice are questions of the subordination or insubordination of the lower to the higher elements of our nature; of the parts of our selves to the whole.
The subordination of appetite to reason has given us the first of the four virtues.
The subordination of spirit to reason has given us fortitude, the second.
Wisdom, the third of Plato's cardinal virtues, consists in the supremacy of reason over spirit and appetite; just as temperance and courage consisted in the subordination of appetite and spirit to reason.
Wisdom, then, is much the same thing as temperance and courage, only in more positive and comprehensive form.
Wisdom is the vision of the good, the true end of man, for the sake of which the lower elements must be subordinated.
What, then, is the good, according to Plato?
The good is the principle of order, proportion, and harmony that binds the many parts of an object into the effective unity of an organic whole.
The good of a watch is that perfect working together of all its springs and wheels and hands, which makes it keep time.
The good of a thing is the thing's proper and distinctive function; and the condition of its performing its function is the subordination of its parts to the interest of the whole.
The good of a horse is strength and speed; but this in turn involves the coördination of its parts in graceful, free movement.
The good of a state is the coöperation of all its citizens, according to their several capacities, for the happiness and welfare of the whole community.
Wisdom in the statesman is the power to see such an ideal relation of the citizens to each other, and the means by which it can be attained and conserved.
The good of the individual man, likewise, is the harmonious working together of all the elements in him, so as to produce a satisfactory life; and wisdom is the vision of such a truly satisfactory life, and of the conditions of its attainment.
Since man lives in a world full of natural objects, and of works of art; since he is surrounded by other men and is a member of a state; and since his welfare depends on his fulfilling his relations to these objects and persons, it follows that wisdom to see his own true good will involve a knowledge of these objects, persons, and institutions around him.
Hence rather more than half the Republic is occupied with the problem of education; or the training of men in that wisdom which consists in the knowledge of the good.
IV PLATO'S SCHEME OF EDUCATION Education, therefore, in Plato's ideal Republic, was a lifelong affair, and from first to last practical.
For the guardians, the men who were to be rulers or, as we should say, leaders of their fellows, he prescribed the following course: From early childhood until the age of seventeen,--that is, through our elementary and high school periods,--he would give chief attention to what he calls music; that is, to literature, music, and the plastic arts, with popular descriptive science, or, as we call it nowadays, nature study.
This, with elementary mathematics and gymnastics as incidental, constituted the curriculum for the first ten or twelve years.
The chief stress through all these years he lays on good literature,--good both in substance and in form; for children at this age are intensely imitative.
Plato practically anticipated the latest results of child study, which tell us that the child builds up the whole substance of his conception of himself out of materials borrowed from others and incorporated in himself by imitative reproduction; and then in turn interprets and understands others only in so far as he can eject this borrowed material into other persons.
Hence Plato says it is of supreme importance that the children shall learn to admire and love good literature.
That teachers should be able to teach the children to read and write and cipher and draw he would take for granted.
The prime qualification, however, would be the ability to so interpret the best literature as to make the children admire and imitate and incorporate the noble qualities this literature embodies.
Into the literature thus inspiringly taught in the school, only that which praised noble deeds in noble language should be admitted.
Plato's description of good literature for schools will bear repeating: "Any deeds of endurance which are acted or told by famous men, these the children ought to see and hear.
If they imitate at all, they should imitate the temperate, holy, free, courageous, and the like; but they should not depict or be able to imitate any kind of illiberality or other baseness, lest from imitation they come to be what they imitate.
Did you never observe how imitations, beginning in early youth, at last sink into the constitution and become a second nature of body, voice, and mind?"
"Of the harmonies I know nothing, but I want to have one warlike, which will sound the word or note which a brave man utters in the hour of danger and stern resolve, or when his cause is failing and he is going to wounds or death or is overtaken by some other evil, and at every such crisis meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and another which may be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action, when there is no pressure of necessity--expressive of entreaty, or persuasion, or prayer to God, or instruction of man, or again of willingness to listen to persuasion or entreaty or advice; and which represents him when he has accomplished his aim, not carried away by success, but acting moderately and wisely, and acquiescing in the event.
These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity and the strain of freedom, the strain of courage, and the strain of temperance.
We would not have our guardians grow up amid images of moral deformity, as in some noxious pasture, and there browse and feed upon many a baneful herb and flower day by day, little by little, until they silently gather a festering mass of corruption in their own souls.
Let our artists rather be those who are gifted to discern the true nature of beauty and grace; then will our youth dwell in a land of health, amid fair sights and sounds; and beauty, the effluence of fair works, will meet the sense like a breeze, and insensibly draw the soul, even in childhood, into harmony with the beauty of reason.
Rhythm and harmony find their way into the secret places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, bearing grace in their movements, and making the soul graceful of him who is rightly educated, or ungraceful if ill educated; and also because he who has received this true education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art or nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason of the thing; and when reason comes, he will recognise and salute her as a friend with whom his education has made him long familiar."
Thus, according to Plato, the important thing for a youth to secure by the time he is seventeen is the admiration of noble deeds, and noble words, and noble character.
The love of good literature is the backbone of this elementary education.
Manual training and nature study, as a means to the appreciation of beautiful works of art and beautiful objects in nature, he would also approve.
On the whole Plato is an advocate of those very reforms which are now being introduced into the elementary and secondary schools in the name of the New Education.
What one loves is of more importance than what one knows; what one wants to do, and is interested in trying to do, is of more consequence at this stage than what one has done.
Early education should be an introduction to the true, the beautiful, and the good in the form of great men, brave deeds, beautiful objects, and beneficent laws.
The development of taste is more than the acquisition of information; the inspiration of literature, history, art, and descriptive science is far more valuable than drill beyond the essentials in grammar, geography, and arithmetic.
Plato's programme for the years from seventeen to twenty, three of our four college years, is even more startling and heretical; and quite in line with certain tendencies in our own day.
He would set apart the three years from seventeen to twenty for gymnastic exercises, including in such exercises, however, military drill.
Plato appreciated both the advantage and disadvantage of intense athletic exercises.
"The period, whether of two or three years, which passes in this sort of training is useless for any other purpose,--for sleep and exercise are unpropitious to learning; and the trial is one of the most important tests to which they are subjected."
At the age of twenty he would select the most promising youths and give them a ten years' course in severe study of science.
This systematic study corresponds to the graduate and professional period in modern education, only he extends it over ten years, where we confine it to three or four.
Again at thirty there is another selection of those who are most steadfast in their learning and most faithful in their military and public duties, and these are given a five years' course in dialectic or philosophy.
They are trained to see the relation of the special sciences to each other and how each department of truth is related to the whole.
At the age of thirty-five they must be appointed to military and other offices.
"In this way they will get their experience of life, and there will be an opportunity to try whether, when they are drawn all manner of ways by temptation, they will stand firm or stir at all."
And when they have reached the age of fifty, after fifteen years of this laboratory work in actual public service, holding subordinate offices and learning to discriminate good and evil, not as we find them done up in packages and labelled in the study, but as they are interwoven in the complicated texture of real life, "those who still survive and have distinguished themselves in every deed and in all knowledge, come at last to their graduation; the time has now arrived at which they must raise the eye of the soul to the universal light which lightens all things and behold the absolute good; for that is the pattern according to which they are to order the state and the lives of individuals and the remainder of their own lives also, making philosophy their chief pursuit; but when their turn comes, also toiling at politics and ruling for the public good."
The wisdom which comes of this prolonged and elaborate education is the third of Plato's four cardinal virtues.
In the state it is the ruling principle, and its agents are the philosophers.
As Plato says in a famous passage: "Until then philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who follow either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never cease from ill,--no, nor the human race, as I believe,--and then only will this our state have a possibility of life and behold the light of day."
Precisely so, no individual will attain his true estate until this philosophic principle, which sees the good, through training has been so developed that it can bring both appetite and spirit into subjection to it, as a charioteer controls his headstrong horses.
V RIGHTEOUSNESS THE COMPREHENSIVE VIRTUE We now have three of the cardinal virtues: temperance, the subjection of appetite to reason; fortitude, the control of the spirit by reason; and wisdom, won through education, the assertion of the dictates of reason over the clamour of both appetite and spirit.
But where, amid all this, Plato asks, is righteousness?
In reply he remarks, "that when we first began our inquiry, ages ago, there lay righteousness rolling at our feet, and we, fools that we were, failed to see her, like people who go about looking for what they have in their hands.
Righteousness is the comprehensive aspect of the three virtues already considered in detail.
It is the ultimate cause and condition of the existence of all of them.
Righteousness in a state consists in each citizen doing the thing to which his nature is most perfectly adapted: in minding one's own business, in other words, with a view to the good of the whole.
Righteousness in an individual, then, consists in having each part of one's nature devoted to its specific function: in having the appetites obey, in having the spirit steadfast in difficulty and danger, and in having the reason rule supreme.
Thus righteousness, that subordination and coordination of all the parts of the soul in the service of the soul as a whole, includes each of the other three virtues and comprehends them all in the unity of the soul's organic life.
"For the righteous man does not permit the several elements within him to meddle with one another, but he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master, and at peace with himself; when he has bound together the three principles within him, and is no longer many, but has become one entirely temperate and perfectly adjusted nature, then he will begin to act, if he has to act, whether in a matter of property, or in the treatment of the body, or in some affairs of politics or of private business; in all which cases he will think and call just and good action, that which preserves and coöperates with this condition, and the knowledge which presides over this wisdom."
Unrighteousness, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of this.
"Then assuming the threefold division of the soul, must not unrighteousness be a kind of quarrel between these three--a meddlesomeness and interference, a rising up of a part of the soul against the whole soul, an assertion of unlawful authority, which is made by a rebellious subject against a true prince, of whom he is the natural vassal--this is the sort of thing; the confusion and error of these parts or elements in unrighteousness and intemperance, cowardice, and ignorance, and in general all vice."
In other words, righteousness and unrighteousness "are like disease and health; being in the soul just what disease and health are in the body."
"Then virtue is the health and beauty and well-being of the soul, vice is the disease and weakness and deformity of the soul."
From this point of view our old question of the comparative advantage of righteousness and unrighteousness answers itself.
Indeed, the question whether it is more profitable to be righteous and do righteously and practice virtue, whether seen or unseen of gods and men, or to be unrighteous and act unrighteously if only unpunished, becomes, Plato says, ridiculous.
"If when the bodily constitution is gone, life is no longer endurable, though pampered with every sort of meats and drinks, and having all wealth and all power, shall we be told that life is worth having when the very essence of the vital principle is undermined and corrupted, even though a man be allowed to do whatever he pleases, if at the same time he is forbidden to escape from vice and unrighteousness, or attain righteousness and virtue, seeing that we now know the true nature of each?"
Righteousness, according to Plato, is the condition of the soul's health and life.
To part with righteousness for any external advantage is to commit the supreme folly of selling our own souls.
Righteousness is the organising principle of the soul; unrighteousness is the disorganising principle.
Health and life rest on organisation.
Disorganisation and vice are synonymous with disease and death.
Therefore, all seeming gains that one may win in the paths of unrighteousness really involve the greatest possible loss.
We have now seen what righteousness is, whether in a state or in an individual.
It is the health, harmony, beauty, excellence of the whole state or the whole man, secured by having each member attend strictly to its own distinctive work, with a view to the good of the whole state or the whole man.
Thus defined it is something so obviously desirable and essential, that nothing else is worthy to be compared with it.
Whoever parts with it even in exchange for the greatest outward honours, emoluments, comforts, or pleasures, is bound to get the worst of the bargain.
Yet men do part with it; states do part with it.
And the eighth and ninth books of the Republic are devoted to a description of the four stages of degeneration through which states and individuals pass on the downward road from righteousness and virtue to unrighteousness and vice.
The breaking up of a thing often reveals its nature as effectually as the putting it together; and as we have traced the four virtues by which either the state or the soul is constructed, it will throw added light upon the problem to trace in conclusion the four stages through which men and states go down to destruction.
VI THE STAGES OF DEGENERATION The first step down is where, instead of the good, men seek personal honour and distinction.
At first the deterioration, whether in state or individual, is hardly noticeable.
An ambitious statesman, on the whole, will advocate, if he is shrewd and far-sighted, much the same measures as the statesman who is intent on the welfare of the state.
For he knows that by promoting the public welfare he will most effectively gain the reputation and distinction he desires.
Yet there is a marked difference in the attitude of mind, and in the long run that difference will express itself in action.
When it comes to a close and hard decision, where the real interest of the state lies in one direction, and the waves of popular enthusiasm are running in an opposite direction, the man who cares for the real welfare of the state will stand fast, while the man who cares supremely for honour and distinction will be more likely to give way.
Besides, contention and strife will arise, since the ambitious man is more anxious to do something himself than he is to have the best thing done by some one else.
Hence the state where the statesmen love power, office, and honour will be less well off than the state where they are disinterestedly devoted to the public good.
Just so the man who is supremely covetous of power and honour will be weaker than the man who loves the good and follows the guidance of reason as supreme, in both these respects.
He will be prone to follow the clamour of the multitude when he knows it is not the voice of reason; and he will try to have his own way, even when he knows that the way of another man is better than his.
As Plato says, "He gives up the kingdom that is within him to the middle principle of contentiousness and passion, and becomes proud and ambitious."
Here, then, are the two tests by which each man may judge for himself whether he is a degenerate of the first grade or not.
First: Will you do what reason shows you to be right every time, at all costs, no matter if all the honours and emoluments are attached to doing something a shade or two off from this absolutely right and reasonable course?
Second: Would you rather have what is best done by somebody else, and let him have the credit of it, rather than get all the credit yourself by doing something not quite so good?
The man of pride and ambition can never be quite disinterested in his service of the good, although incidentally most of the things he does will be good things.
As Plato puts it, "He is not single-minded toward virtue, having lost his best guardian."
He has neglected "the one thing that can preserve a man's goodness through his life--reason blended with music."
It is a short and easy step, in state and individual, from the love of honour down to the love of money as the guiding principle of life.
The appetitive side of life is always present, even in the most upright of men.
It may be asleep, but it is never dead.
And when there is nothing more deep and vital than the love of honour to hold it in restraint, it is sure to wake up and prowl about.
Rivalry for honour soon reveals the fact that directly or indirectly honour and office can be bought.
Then comes the state of things where only rich men can get office, or can afford to hold it if it comes to them.
That in the state is what Plato calls an oligarchy.
The deterioration of a state under this condition is very rapid, for, as he says, "When riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.
And so at last, instead of loving contention and glory, men become lovers of trade and of money, and they honour and reverence the rich man and make a ruler of him, and dishonour the poor man."
The evils of this oligarchical rule, he says, are illustrated by considering the nature of the qualification for office and influence.
"Just think what would happen if the pilots were to be chosen according to their property, and a poor man refused permission to steer, even though he were the better pilot?"
The other defect is "the inevitable division; such a state is not one but two states, the one of poor men, the other of rich men, who are living on the same spot and ever conspiring against one another."
The avaricious man is like the state which is governed by rich men.
"Is not this man likely to seat the concupiscent and covetous elements on the vacant throne?
And when he has made the reasoning and passionate faculties sit on the ground obediently on either side, and taught them to know their place, he compels the one to think only of the method by which lesser sums may be converted into larger ones, and schools the other into the worship and admiration of riches and rich men.
Of all conversions there is none so speedy or so sure as when the ambitious youth changes into the avaricious one."
Nowhere is Plato more keen or more fair than in his judgment of the money-maker.
He says that he will generally do the right thing; he will be eminently respectable; he will not sink to very low or disreputable courses.
All his goodness, however, will be of a forced, constrained, artificial, and at bottom unreal character.
He will be good because he has to, in order to maintain that standing in the community on which his wealth depends.
In Plato's own words: "He coerces his bad passions by an effort of virtue; not that he convinces them of evil, or exerts over them the gentle influence of reason, but he acts upon them by necessity and fear, and because he trembles for his possessions.
This sort of man will be at war with himself: he will be two men, not one; but, in general, his better desires will be found to prevail over his inferior ones.
For these reasons such an one will be more decent than many are; yet the true virtue of a unanimous and harmonious soul will be far out of his reach."
The next step down for the state is what Plato calls democracy.
Of the democracy of intelligence and self-control diffused throughout the body of self-respecting citizens Plato had formed and could form no conception.
By democracy he meant the state of things where each man does that which is right in his own eyes.
"In the first place the citizens are free.
The city is full of freedom and frankness--there a man may do as he likes.
They have a complete assortment of constitutions; and if a man has a mind to establish a state, he must go to a democracy as he would go to a bazaar, where they sell them, and pick out one that suits him.
Democracy is a most accommodating and charming form of government, full of variety and diversity, and (this, perhaps, is the keenest of all Plato's keen thrusts) _dispensing equality to equals and unequals alike_."
The man corresponding to democracy in the state, is the man whose life is given over to the undiscriminating enjoyment of all sorts of pleasures.
"In this way the young man passes out of his original nature which was trained in the school of necessity, into the freedom and libertinism of useless and unnecessary pleasures, putting the government of himself into the hands of the one of his pleasures that offers and wins the turn; and when he has had enough of that, then into the hands of another, and is very impartial in his encouragement of them all.
Neither does he receive or admit into the fortress any true word of advice; if any one says to him that some pleasures are the satisfactions of good and noble desires, and others of evil desires, and that he ought to use and honour some and curtail and reduce others--whenever this is repeated to him he shakes his head and says that they are all alike, and that one is as honourable as another.
He lives through the day, indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he is for total abstinence, and tries to get thin; then again, he is at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is at politics, and starts to his feet and says and does anything that may turn up; and, if he is emulous of any one who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or of men of business, once more in that.
His life has neither order nor law; and this is the way of him,--this he terms joy and freedom and happiness.
There is liberty, equality, and fraternity enough in him."
The life of chance desire, unregulated by any subordinating principle, then, is the third stage of the descent and degradation of the soul.
In the state democracy speedily and inevitably passes over into tyranny.
All appetite is insatiable.
In a state where each citizen does what he pleases "all things are just ready to burst with liberty; excess of liberty, whether in states or individuals, seems only to pass into excess of slavery.
Then tyranny naturally arises out of democracy."
He then proceeds, with prophetic pen, to trace the evolution of the modern political boss.
First there develops a class of drones who get their living as professional politicians.
Second, "there is the richest class, which, in a nation of traders, is generally the most orderly; they are the most squeezable persons and yield the largest amount of honey to the drones; this is called the wealthy class, and the drones feed upon them.
There is also a third class, consisting of working-men who are not politicians and have little to live upon; these, when assembled, are the largest and most powerful class in a democracy; but then, the multitude is seldom willing to meet unless they get a little honey.
Their leaders take the estates of the rich and give to the people as much of them as they can consistently with keeping the greater part themselves.
The people have always some one as a champion whom they raise into greatness.
This is the very root from which a tyrant (that is, as we should say, a boss) comes.
When he first appears above ground, he is a protector.
At first, in the early days of his power, he smiles upon every one and salutes every one; he, to be called a tyrant who is making promises in public and also in private, and wanting to be kind and good to every one!
Thus liberty, getting out of all order and reason, passes into the harshest and bitterest form of slavery."
The worst form of government, according to Plato, is that which we know too well to-day in our great cities: the government of the professional politician who maintains himself by buying the votes of the poor with the money he has squeezed out of the rich.
All pretence of administering the government in the interest of the community is frankly abandoned.
The boss, or tyrant, as Plato calls him, frankly and unblushingly avows that he is in politics for what he can get out of it.
The true statesman, the philosopher king, in Plato's phrase, sees and serves the public good.
Such a government Plato calls an aristocracy, or the government of the best for the good of all.
First below that comes timocracy, or the government of those who are ambitious for power and place.
Next comes oligarchy, the government of the rich for the protection of the interests of the moneyed class.
Next below that, and as a logical consequence, comes populism, which is our word for what Plato calls democracy; a government which aims to satisfy the immediate wants of everybody, regardless of moral, legal, or constitutional restraints.
Last, and lowest of all, comes the rule of the professional politician who has thrown all pretence of regard for the public good, all consideration of honour, all loyalty to the rich and genuine sympathy for the poor to the winds, and is simply manipulating the forms of government, getting and distributing offices, collecting assessments and distributing bribes, all in the interests of his own private pocket.
Between disinterested service of the public good and such unblushing pursuit of private gain, Plato says that there is no stopping place.
Logically Plato is right; historically, too, he was right at the time when he was writing.
Modern democracy, however, is a very different thing from the populistic democracy with which Plato was familiar and which our large cities know too well.
A democracy, resting on intelligence and public spirit, diffused through rich and poor alike, was beyond Plato's profoundest dreams.
That great experiment the American people, with their public-school system, and their principle of the equality of all before the law, are now trying on a gigantic scale.
Corresponding to the tyrannical state comes the tyrannical man.
"The wild beast in our nature gets the upper hand and the man becomes drunken, lustful, passionate, the best elements in him are enslaved; and there is a small ruling part which is also the worst and the maddest.
He has the soul of the slave, and the tyrannical soul must always be poor and insatiable.
He is by far the most miserable of all men."
"He who is the real tyrant, whatever men may think, is the real servant and is obliged to practice the greatest adulation and servility and be the flatterer of mankind; he has desires which he is truly unable to satisfy, and has more wants than any one, and is truly poor if you know how to inspect the soul of him.
All his life long he is beset with fear and is full of convulsions and distractions.
Even as the state which he resembles, he grows worse from having power; he becomes of necessity more jealous, more faithless, more unjust, more impious; he entertains and nurtures every evil sentiment, and the consequence is that he is supremely miserable and thus he makes everybody else equally miserable."
VII THE INTRINSIC SUPERIORITY OF RIGHTEOUSNESS Plato first constructs the ideal character and shows that it consists in the righteous rule of the intelligent principle in man over the spirit and the appetites.
A soul thus in harmony with itself, under the rule of reason, is at once healthy, happy, beautiful, and good.
Later, reversing the process, he shows how the good, beautiful, true, healthy condition of the soul may be destroyed through the successive steps of pride, avarice, lawless liberty, ending at last in the tyrannous rule of some single appetite or passion which has dethroned reason and set itself up as supreme.
The consequence of it all is that "the most righteous man is also the happiest, and this is he who is the most royal master of himself; the worst and most unrighteous man is also the most miserable; this is he who is also the greatest tyrant of himself and the most complete slave."
The reason why the life of a righteous man is happier than the life of an unrighteous man is that it has "a greater share in pure existence as a more real being."
"If there be a pleasure in being filled with that which agrees with nature; that which is more really filled with more real being will have more real and true joy and pleasure; whereas, that which participates in less real being will be less truly and surely satisfied and will participate in a less true and real pleasure.
Those, then, who know not wisdom and virtue, and are always busy with gluttony and sensuality, never pass into the true upper world; neither are they truly filled with true being, nor do they taste of true and abiding pleasure.
Like brute animals, with their eyes down and bodies bent to the earth, or leaning on the dining table, they fatten and feed and breed, and, in their excessive love of these delights, they kick and butt at one another with horns and hoofs which are made of iron; they kill one another by reason of their insatiable lust; for they fill themselves with that which is not substantial, and the part of themselves which they fill is also unsubstantial and incontinent."
"Thus when the whole soul follows the philosophical principle, and there is no division, the several parts, each of them, do their own business and are righteous, and each of them enjoy their own best and truest pleasures.
But when either of the other principles prevails, it fails in attaining its own pleasure and compels the others to pursue after a shadow of pleasure which is not theirs."
Having reached this point Plato introduces a figure, which carries the whole point of his argument.
"Do you now model the form of a multitudinous, polycephalous beast, having a head of all manner of beasts, tame and wild, making a second form as of a lion, and a third of a man; the second smaller than the first, and the third smaller than the second; then join them and let the three grow into one.
Now fashion the outside into a single image as of a man, so that he who is not able to look within may believe the beast to be a single human creature.
Now unrighteousness consists in feasting the monster and strengthening the lion in one in such wise as to weaken and starve the man; while righteousness consists in so strengthening the man within him that he may govern the many-headed monster."
"Righteousness subjects the beast to the man, or rather to the god in man, and unrighteousness is that which subjects the man to the beast."
Finally Plato sums up the discussion by anticipating the question which Jesus asked four centuries later.
"How would a man profit if he receive gold and silver on the condition that he was to enslave the noblest part of him to the worst?
Who can imagine that a man who sold his son or daughter into slavery for money, especially if he sold them into the hands of fierce and evil men, would be the gainer, however much might be the sum which he received?
And will any one say that he is not a miserable caitiff who sells his own divine being to that which is most godless and detestable and has no pity?
Eriphyle took the necklace as the price of her husband's life, but he is taking a bribe in order to compass a worse ruin."
He even pushes the question a step further and asks, "What shall a man be profited by unrighteousness even if his unrighteousness be undetected?
For he who is undetected only gets worse; whereas he who is detected and punished has the brutal part of his nature silenced and humanised; the gentler element in him is liberated and his whole soul is perfected and ennobled by the acquirement of righteousness and temperance and wisdom.
The man of understanding will concentrate himself on this as the work of life.
In the first place he will honour studies which impress these qualities on his soul and will disregard others.
In the next place he will keep under his body and will be far from yielding to brutal and irrational pleasures, and he will be always desirous of preserving the harmony of the body for the sake of the concord of the soul.
He will not allow himself to be dazzled by the opinion of the world and heap up riches to his own infinite harm.
He will look at the city which is within him, and he will duly regulate his acquisition and expense, in so far as he is able, and for the same reason he will accept such honours as he deems likely to make him a better man.
He will look at the nature of the soul, and, from the consideration of this, he will determine which is the better and which is the worst life and make his choice, giving the name of evil to the life which will make his soul more unrighteous, and good to the life which will make his soul more righteous; for this is the best choice,--best for this life and after death.
Wherefore my counsel is, that we hold fast to the heavenly way and follow after righteousness and virtue always, considering that the soul is immortal and able to endure every sort of good and every sort of evil; then shall we live dear to one another and the gods, both while remaining here and when, like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we receive our reward."
With this magnificent tribute to the intrinsic superiority of righteousness over unrighteousness Plato concludes his greatest work.
The question why a man should do right, even if he wore the ring of Gyges which would exempt him from all external consequences of his misdeeds, has been answered by a thoroughgoing analysis of the nature of the soul, and the demonstration that righteousness is that organisation of the elements of the soul into an active and harmonious unity, wherein its health and beauty and life and happiness consist.
In conclusion let us borrow from another of Plato's dialogues the prayer which he ascribes to Socrates,--a brief and simple prayer, yet one which, in the light of our study of the Republic, I trust we shall recognise as summing up the spirit of his teaching as a whole.
"Beloved Pan, and all ye gods who haunt this place, give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one.
May I reckon the wise to be the wealthy; and may I have such a quantity of gold as none but the temperate can carry.
Anything more?
That prayer, I think, is enough for me."
VIII TRUTH AND ERROR IN PLATONISM Obviously this Platonic principle is vastly deeper and truer than anything we have had before.
The personality at which both Stoic and Epicurean aimed was highly abstract,--something to be gained by getting away from the tangle and complexity of life rather than by conquering and transforming the conditions of existence into expressions of ourselves.
Epicurus makes a few sallies from his cosey comfortable camp, to forage for provender.
The Stoic draws into the citadel of his own self-sufficiency; and from this fortified position defies attack.
Plato comes out into the open field, and squarely gives battle to the hosts of appetite, passion, temptation, and corruption, of which the world outside, and our hearts inside are full.
In this he is true to the moral experience of the race: and his trumpet-call to the higher departments of our nature to enter the "great combat of righteousness"; his demand of instantaneous and absolute surrender which he presents to everything low and sensual within us, are clear, strong notes which it is good for every one of us to hear and heed.
To him as to Carlyle, "Life is not a May-game, but a battle and a march, a warfare with principalities and powers.
No idle promenade through fragrant orange-groves and green flowery spaces waited on by the choral muses and the rosy hours; it is a stern pilgrimage through the rough, burning sandy solitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice.
He walks among men, loves men with inexpressible soft pity, as they _cannot_ love him; but his soul dwells in solitude, in the uttermost parts of creation.
All Heaven, all Pandemonium are his escort.
The stars, keen glancing, from the immensities, send tidings to him; the graves, silent with their dead, from the eternities.
Deep calls for him unto deep.
"Thou, O World, how wilt thou secure thyself against this man?
None of thy promotions is necessary for him.
His place is with the stars of Heaven; to thee it may be momentous, to thee it may be life or death; to him it is indifferent, whether thou place him in the lowest hut, or forty feet higher at the top of thy stupendous high tower, while here on Earth.
He wants none of thy rewards; behold also he fears none of thy penalties.
Thou canst not hire him by thy guineas; nor by thy gibbets and law-penalties restrain him.
Thou canst not forward him; thou canst not hinder him.
Thy penalties, thy poverties, neglects, contumelies,--behold all these are good for him.
To this man death is not a bugbear; to this man life is already as earnest and awful, and beautiful and terrible as death."
This is a note which appeals forcibly to every noble youth.
It has been struck by the Hebrew Prophets and the Christian Apostles: by Savonarola and Fichte, and a host of heroic souls; but by no one more clearly and constrainingly than by Plato.
It is the note of earnest and aggressive righteousness; without which no personality can be either sound or strong.
The man who has never heard this summons to go forth and conquer the evils of the world without and of his own heart within him, in the name of a righteousness high above both his own attainment and the attainment of the world about him as the heavens are higher than the earth, is still in the nursery stage of personal development.
On the other hand, there is danger in the very sharpness of the antithesis which Platonism makes between the higher and the lower.
For the most part this danger is latent in Plato himself; though even in him it came out in his tendency to regard family life and private property as detrimental rather than serviceable to that development of character on which the larger devotion to the state, and the ideal order, must ultimately rest.
In Neoplatonism, in the many forms of mysticism, in certain aspects of Christian asceticism, and notably in the numerous phases of what calls itself "New Thought" to-day, what was for the most part latent in Plato, becomes frankly explicit.
In general it is a loosening of the ties that hold us to drudgery and homely duty; a weakening of the bonds that bind us to the men and women by our side, in order to gaze more serenely on the ineffable beyond the clouds.
This developed Platonism admits that we must live after a fashion in this very imperfect world; but says our real conversation all the time must be in heaven.
Individual people are but faulty, imperfect copies of the pattern of the perfect good laid up on high.
We must buy and sell, work and play, laugh and cry, love and hate down here among the shadows; but we must all the time feed our souls on the good, the true, the beautiful, which these distorted human shadows only serve to hide.
These Platonic lovers of something better than their husbands or wives, or associates or friends, go through the world with a serene smile, and an air of other-worldliness which, if we do not inquire too closely into their domestic life and business efficiency, we cannot but admire.
They undoubtedly exert a tranquillising influence in their way, especially on those who are so fortunate as to behold them from a little distance.
But they are not the most comfortable people to live with, as husband or wife, colleague or business partner.
Louisa Alcott had this Platonic type in mind when she defined a philosopher as a man up in a balloon, with his family and friends having hold of the ropes, trying to pull him down to earth.
A good deal that passes for religion is this Neoplatonism masquerading in Christian dress.
All such hymns as "The Sweet By and By," "Oh, Paradise, Oh, Paradise," and the like, which set heaven and eternity in sharp antithesis against earth and time, are simply Neoplatonism baptized into Christian phraseology; and the baptism is by sprinkling rather than immersion.
Thomas à Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," and indeed all the mystical books of devotion--Tauler, Fénelon, "The Theologia Germanica"--are saturated with this Platonic or Neoplatonic spirit.
"Thou shalt lamentably fall away, if thou set a value upon any worldly thing."
"Let therefore nothing which thou doest seem to thee great; let nothing be grand, nothing of value or beauty, nothing worthy of honour save what is eternal."
"Man approacheth so much the nearer unto God, the farther he departeth from all earthly comfort."
These words from the "Imitation of Christ" sound orthodox enough in our ears.
But we ought to understand once for all that it is Neoplatonic mysticism, not essential Christianity, that breathes through them.
This type of personality reduces the world to two mutually exclusive elements, God and self; and permits no reconciliation or mediation between them.
Fénelon puts this dualism in the form of a dilemma.
"There is no middle course; we must refer everything either to God or to self; if to self, we have no other God than self; if to God, we are then without selfish interests, and we enter into self-abandonment."
Undoubtedly for evangelistic purposes the sharp antithesis has great practical advantages.
It is an easy way to reach heaven--this of scorning earth; an easy definition of the infinite to pronounce it the negation of the finite.
As Carlyle has represented for us the stronger side of Platonism, his friend Emerson shall serve to illustrate the weakness that lurks half hidden in all this way of thinking.
It is so concealed that we shall hardly detect it unless we are sharply on the watch for this tendency to exalt the Infinite at the expense of the finite; the Universal at the expense of the particular; God at the expense of our neighbour.
"Higher far into the pure realm, Over sun and star, Over the flickering Dæmon film, Thou must mount for love; Into vision where all form In one only form dissolves; Where unlike things are like; Where good and ill, And joy and moan, Melt into one."
"Thus we are put in training for a love which knows not sex, nor person, nor partiality.
We are made to feel that our affections are but tents of a night.
There are moments when the affections rule and absorb the man, and make his happiness depend on a person or persons.
But the warm loves and fears that swept over us as clouds must lose their finite character, and blend with God, to attain their own perfection."
"Before that heaven which our presentiments foreshow us, we cannot easily praise any form of life we have seen or read of.
Pressed on our attention, the saints and demigods whom history worships fatigue and invade.
The soul gives itself, alone, original, and pure, to the Lonely, Original, and Pure, who on that condition gladly inhabits it."
"The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy to establish it with flesh and blood.
We walk alone in the world.
Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables.
But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring, daring, which can love us and which we can love."
"I do then with my friends as I do with my books.
I would have them where I can find them, but I seldom use them.
We must have society on our own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause.
I cannot afford to speak much with my friend.
Then, though I prize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose my own.
It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy or search of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods."
"True love transcends the unworthy object and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth, and feels its independency the surer."
Here you have Plato and Thomas à Kempis in the elegant garb of a heretical transcendentalist.
But you get the same dualism of finite and infinite, perfect and imperfect; unworthy, crumbling earth-mask to be gotten rid of here on earth, and the stars to be sought out and gazed at up in heaven.
The combat of the higher against the lower is one in which we must all engage; and no doubt in order to win we must at times keep the lower solicitations at arm's-length.
If, however, what appeals to us in the name of the highest counsels any relaxing of definite obligation, any alienation from the man or woman whom social institutions have placed closest by our side; any disloyalty to the plain companions and humble associates whom society or business places in our way; any breaking of social bonds which generations of self-sacrifice and self-control have laboriously woven, and centuries of experience have approved as beneficent; then it is time to abandon Plato, or rather those who have assumed to wear his mantle, and look for personal guidance to those greater masters who have transcended the antithesis of higher and lower, which it was Plato's great mission to make so sharp and clear.
The principle of such a reconciliation we shall find in Aristotle; its complete accomplishment we shall find in Jesus.
CHAPTER IV THE ARISTOTELIAN SENSE OF PROPORTION I ARISTOTLE'S OBJECTIONS TO PREVIOUS SYSTEMS Our principles of personality thus far, though increasingly complex, have all been comparatively simple.
To get the maximum of pleasure; to keep the universal law; to subordinate lower impulses to higher according to some fixed scale of value, are all principles which are easy to grasp and by no means difficult to apply.
The fundamental trouble with them all is that they are too easy.
Life is not the cut-and-dried affair which they presuppose.
A man might have a lot of pleasure, and yet be contemptible.
He might keep all the commandments, and yet be no better than a Pharisee.
Even Plato's principle in actual practice has not always escaped the awful abyss of asceticism.
In opposition to Epicurus Aristotle says, "Pleasure is not the good and all pleasures are not desirable.
No one would choose to live on condition of having no more intellect than a child all his life, even though he were to enjoy to the full the pleasures of a child.
With regard to the pleasures which all admit to be base, we must deny that they are pleasures at all, except to those whose nature is corrupt.
What the good man thinks is pleasure will be pleasure; what he delights in will be truly pleasant.
Those pleasures which perfect the activity of the perfect and truly happy man may be called in the truest sense the pleasures of a man.
The pleasure which is proper to a good activity is therefore good; that attached to a bad one is bad.
As, then, activities differ, so do the pleasures which accompany them."
In our discussion of Epicureanism we saw that the principle of pleasure consistently carried out produced bad results, and, as in the case of Tito Melema, developed the most contemptible character.
Aristotle shows conclusively why this must be so.
Pleasure is the sign and seal of healthful exercise of function.
A life which has all its powers in effective and well-proportioned exercise will, indeed, be a life crowned with pleasure.
You cannot, however, reverse this proposition, as the Epicurean attempts to do, and say that a life which seeks the maximum of pleasure will inevitably have the healthy and proportionate exercise of function as its consequent.
According to Aristotle healthy exercise of function in a well-proportioned life in devotion to wide social ends and permanent personal interests, is the cause of which happiness is the appropriate and inevitable effect.
Seek the cause and you will get the effect.
Seek directly the effect, and you will miss both the cause you neglect and the effect which only the cause can bring.
The criticism which we quoted from George Eliot on the career of Melema is the quintessence of the Aristotelian doctrine.
To put it in a figure: Build a good fire and warm your room, and the mercury in the thermometer will rise.
The cause produces the effect.
But it does not follow that because you raise the mercury in the thermometer by breathing on the bulb, or holding it in your hand, that the fire will burn, or the room will be warmed.
The Epicureans and hedonists are people who go about with the clinical thermometer of pleasure under their tongues all the time, and expect to see the world lighted with benevolence and warmed with love in consequence.
Aristotle bids them take their clinical thermometers out of their mouths; stop fingering their emotional pulse; go to work about some useful business; pursue some large and generous end; and then, not otherwise, in case from time to time they have occasion to feel their pulse and take their temperature, they will as a matter of fact find that they are normal.
But it isn't taking the temperature and feeling the pulse that makes them morally sound; it is doing their proper work and keeping in vigorous exercise that gives them the healthy pulse and normal temperature.
There are, however, two apparently contradictory teachings about pleasure in Aristotle, and it is a good test of our grasp of his doctrine to see whether we can reconcile them.
First he says, "In all cases we must be especially on our guard against pleasant things, and against pleasure; for we can scarce judge her impartially.
And so, in our behaviour toward her, we should imitate the behaviour of the old counsellors toward Helen, and in all cases repeat their saying: If we dismiss her, we shall be less likely to go wrong."
"It is pleasure that moves us to do what is base, and pain that moves us to refrain from what is noble."
On the other hand he says: "The pleasure or pain that accompanies the acts must be taken as a test of character.
He who faces danger with pleasure, or, at any rate, without pain, is courageous, but he to whom this is painful is a coward.
Indeed we all more or less make pleasure our test in judging actions."
Can we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory statements?
Perfectly.
On the one hand if we do an act simply for the pleasure it will give, without first asking how the proposed act will fit into our permanent plan of life, we are pretty sure to go astray.
For pleasure registers the goodness of the isolated act; not the goodness of the act as related to the whole plan of life.
Thus if I drink strong coffee at eleven o'clock at night, the taste is pleasant and the immediate effect is stimulating.
But if it keeps me awake half the night and unfits me for the duties of the next day, in spite of the pleasure gained, the act is wrong.
And it is wrong, not fundamentally because of the pains of wakefulness it brings; it is wrong because it takes out of my life as a whole, and my contribution to the life of the world, something for which the petty transient pleasure I gained at the moment of indulgence is no compensation whatsoever.
Is not Aristotle right?
Do we not pity as a miserable weakling, hardly fit to have been graduated from the nursery, any man or woman who will let the mere physical sensation of a few moments at the end of an evening count so much as the dust in the balance against the efficiency of the coming forenoon's life and work?
If we see this half of Aristotle's truth, we see that the other is not its contradiction but its complement.
If we are sorely and grievously tempted by the coffee, if we give it up with pain, if saying "No, I thank you," comes fearfully hard, if we cannot forego it cheerfully without so much as seriously considering the drinking of it as possible for us, why then it reveals how little we care for the life and work of the morrow; and since life and work are but a succession of to-morrows, how little we care for our life and work anyway.
If we had great aims burning in our minds and hearts, wide interests to which body and soul were devoted, it would not be a pain, it would be a pleasure, to give up for the sake of them ten thousand times as big a thing as a cup of coffee, if it stood in the way of their accomplishment.
Yes; Aristotle is right on both points.
Pleasure isolated from our plan of life and followed as an end will lead us into weakness and wickedness every time we yield to its insidious solicitation.
On the other hand, the resolute and consistent prosecution of large ends and generous interests will make a positive pleasure of everything we either endure or do to promote those ends and interests.
Pleasure directly pursued is the utter demoralisation of life.
Ends and interests, pursued for their own sakes, inevitably carry with them a host of noble pleasures, and the power to conquer and transform what to the aimless life would be intolerable pains.
Aristotle rejects the Epicurean principle of pleasure; because, though a proof that isolated tendencies are satisfied, it is no adequate criterion of the satisfaction of the self as a whole.
He rejects the Stoic principle of conformity to law; because it fails to recognise the supreme worth of individuality.
He rejects the Platonic principle of subordination of appetites and passions to a supreme good which is above them; because he dreads above all things the blight of asceticism, and strives for a good which is concrete and practical.
What, then, is this good, which is neither a sum of pleasures, nor conformity to law; nor yet superiority to appetite and passion?
What is this principle which can at once enjoy pleasure to the full, and at the same time forego it gladly; which can make laws for itself more severe than any lawgiver ever dared to lay down; and yet is not afraid to break any law which its own conception of good requires it to break; which honours all our elemental appetites and passions, uses money and honour and power as the servants of its own ends, without ever being enslaved by them?
Evidently we are now on the track of a principle infinitely more subtle and complex than anything the pleasure-loving Epicurean, or the formal Stoic, or the transcendental Platonist has ever dreamed of.
We are entering the presence of the world's master moralist; and if we have ever for a moment supposed that either of these previous systems was satisfactory or final, it behooves us now to take the shoes from off our feet, and reverently listen to a voice as much profounder and more reasonable than them all, as they are superior to the senseless appetites and blind passions of the mob.
For if we have a little patience with his subtlety, and can endure the temporary shock of his apparent laxity, he will admit us to the very holy of holies of personality.
II THE SOCIAL NATURE OF MAN Before coming to Aristotle's positive doctrine we must consider one fundamental axiom.
Man is by nature a social being.
Whatever a man seeks has a necessary and inevitable reference to the judgment of other men, and the interest of society as a whole.
Strip a man of his relations and you have no man left.
The man who is neither son, brother, husband, father, citizen, neighbour or workman, is inconceivable.
The good which a man seeks, therefore, will express itself consciously or unconsciously in terms of other men's approval, and the furtherance of interests which he inevitably shares with them.
The Greek word for private, peculiar to myself, unrelated to the thought or interest of anybody else, is our word for idiot.
The New Testament uses this word to describe the place to which Judas went; a place which just suited such a man as he, and was fit for nobody else.
Now a man who tries to be his own scientist, or his own lawgiver, or his own statesman, or his own business manager, or his own poet, or his own architect, without reference to the standards and expectations of his fellow-men, is just an idiot; or, as we say, a "crank."
A wise man may defy these standards.
The reformer often must do so.
But if he is really wise, if he is a true reformer, he must reckon with them; he must understand them; he must appeal to the actual or possible judgment and interest of his fellows for the confirmation of what he says and the justification of what he does.
This social reference of all our thoughts and actions, which Aristotle grasped by intuition, psychology in our day is laboriously and analytically seeking to confirm.
Aristotle lays it down as an axiom, that a man who does not devote himself to some section of the social and spiritual world, if such a being were conceivable, would be no man at all.
Family, or friends, or reputation, or country, or God are there in the background, secretly summoned to justify our every thought and word and deed.
Because man's nature is social, his end must be social also.
It will prevent misunderstanding later, if we put the question squarely here, Does the end justify the means?
As popularly understood, most emphatically No.
The support of a school is a good end.
Does it justify the raising of money by a lottery?
Certainly not.
The support of one's family is a good end.
Does it justify drawing a salary for which no adequate services are rendered?
Certainly not.
Yet if we push the question farther, and ask why these particular ends do not justify these particular means, we discover that it is because these means employed are destructive of an end vastly higher and greater than the particular ends they are employed to serve.
They break down the structure and undermine the foundations of the industrial and social order; an end infinitely more important than the maintenance of any particular school, or the support of any individual family.
Hence these means are not to be judged by their promotion of certain specific ends, but by their failure to promote the greatest and best end of all; the comprehensive welfare of society as a whole, of which all institutions and families and individuals are but subordinate members.
Throughout our discussion of Aristotle we must understand that the word "end" always has this large social reference, and includes the highest social service of which the man is capable.
If we attempt to apply to particular private ends of our own what Aristotle applies to the universal end at which all men ought to aim, we shall make his teaching a pretext for the grossest crimes, and reduce it to little more than sophisticated selfishness.
With this understanding of his terms, we may venture to plunge boldly into his system and state it in its most paradoxical and startling form.
III RIGHT AND WRONG DETERMINED BY THE END We are not either good or bad at the start.
Pleasure in itself is neither good nor bad.
Laws in themselves are neither good nor bad.
It is impossible to say with Plato that some faculties are so high that they always ought to be exercised, and others are so low that as a rule they ought to be suppressed.
The right and wrong of eating and drinking, of work and play, of sex and society, of property and politics, lie not in the elemental acts involved.
All of these things are right for one man in one set of circumstances, wrong for another man in another set of circumstances.
We cannot say that a man who takes a vow of poverty is either a better or a worse man than a multi-millionnaire.
We cannot say that the monk who takes a vow of celibacy is a purer man than one who does not.
For the very fact that one is compelled to take a vow of poverty or celibacy is a sign that these elemental impulses are not effectively and satisfactorily related to the normal ends they are naturally intended to subserve.
All attempts to put virginity above motherhood, to put poverty above riches, to put obscurity above fame are, from the Aristotelian point of view, essentially immoral.
For they all assume that there can be badness in external things, wrong in isolated actions, vice in elemental appetites, and sin in natural passions; whereas Aristotle lays down the fundamental principle that the only place where either badness or wrong or vice or sin can reside is in the relation in which these external things and particular actions stand to the clearly conceived and deliberately cherished end which the man is seeking to promote.
A simpler way of saying the same thing, but a way so simple and familiar as to be in danger of missing the whole point, is to say that virtue and vice reside exclusively in the wills of free agents.
That, every one will admit.
But will is the pursuit of ends.
A will that seeks no ends is a will that wills nothing; in other words, no will at all.
Whether an act is wrong or right, then, depends on the whole plan of life of which it is a part; on the relation in which it stands to one's permanent interests.
For these many years I have defied class after class of college students to bring in a single example of any elemental appetite or passion which is intrinsically bad; which in all circumstances and relations is evil.
And never yet has any student brought me one such case.
If brandy will tide the weak heart over the crisis that follows a surgical operation, then that glass of brandy is just as good and precious as the dear life it saves.
The proposition that sexual love is intrinsically evil, and those who take vows of celibacy are intrinsically superior, is true only on condition that racial suicide is the greatest good, and all the sweet ties of home and family and parenthood and brotherly love are evils which it is our duty to combat.
To deny that wealth is good is only possible to him who is prepared to go farther and denounce civilisation as a calamity.
He who brands ambition as intrinsically evil must be prepared to herd with swine, and share contentedly their fare of husks.
The foundation of personality, therefore, is the power to clearly grasp an imaginary condition of ourselves which is preferable to any practical alternative; and then translate that potential picture into an accomplished fact.
Whoever lives at a lower level than this constant translation of pictured potency into energetic reality: whoever, seeing the picture of the self he wants to be, suffers aught less noble and less imperative than that to determine his action misses the mark of personality.
Whoever sees the picture, and holds it before his mind so clearly that all external things which favour it are chosen for its sake, and all proposed actions which would hinder it are remorselessly rejected in its holy name and by its mighty power;--he rises to the level of personality, and his personality is of that clear, strong, joyous, compelling, conquering, triumphant sort which alone is worthy of the name.
How much deeper this goes than anything we have had before!
A man comes up for judgment.
If Epicurus chances to be seated on the throne, he asks the candidate, "Have you had a good time?"
If he has, he opens the gates of Paradise; if he has not, he bids him be off to the place of torment where people who don't know how to enjoy themselves ought to go.
The Stoic asks him whether he has kept all the commandments.
If he has, then he may be promoted to serve the great Commander in other departments of the cosmic order.
If he has broken the least of them, no matter on what pretext, or under what temptation, he is irrevocably doomed.
Plato asks him how well he has managed to keep under his appetites and passions.
If the man has risen above them, Plato will promote him to seats nearer the perfect goodness of the gods.
If he has slipped or failed, then he must return for longer probation in the prison-house of sense.
Aristotle's judgment seat is a very different place.
A man comes to him who has had a very sorry time: who has broken many commandments; who has yielded time and again to sensuous desires; yet who is a good husband, a kind father, an honest workman, a loyal citizen, a disinterested scientist or artist, a lover of his fellows, a worshipper of God's beauty and beneficence; and in spite of the sad time he has had, in spite of the laws he has broken, in spite of the appetites which have proved too strong for him, Aristotle gives him his hand, and bids him go up higher.
For that man stands in genuine relations to some aspects of the great social end to which he devotes himself.
And because some portion of the real world has been made better by the conception of it he has cherished, and the fidelity with which he has translated his conception into fact, therefore a share in the great glory of the splendid whole belongs of right to him.
Good honest work, after an ideal plan, to the full measure of his powers, with wise selection of appropriate means, gives each individual his place and rank in the vast workshop wherein the eternal thoughts of God, revealed to men as their several ideals, are wrought out into the actuality of the social, economic, political, æsthetic and spiritual order of the world.
On the other hand, the man of scattered and unfruitful pleasures, the man of merely clear conscience, pure life, unstained reputation, with his boast of rites observed, and ceremonies performed, and laws unbroken, "faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null," is the man above all others whom Aristotle cannot endure.
Do you wish, then, to know precisely where you stand in the scale of personality?
Here is the test.
How large a section of this world do you care for, in such a vital, responsible way, that you are thinking about its welfare, forming schemes for its improvement, bending your energies toward its advancement?
Do you care for your profession in that way?
Do you care for your family like that?
Do you love your country with such jealous solicitude for its honour and prosperity?
Can you honestly say that your neighbour gets represented in your mind in this imaginative, sympathetic, helpful way?
Do you think of God's great universe as something in the goodness of which you rejoice, and for the welfare of which you are earnestly enlisted?
Begin down at the bottom, with your stomach, your pocket-book, your calling list, and go up the scale until you come to these wider interests, and mark the point where you cease to think how these things might be better than they are and to work to make them so, and that point where your imagination and your service stops, and your indifference and irresponsibility begins, will show you precisely how you stand on the rank-book of God.
The magnitude of the ends you see and serve is the measure of your personality.
Personality is not an entity we carry around in our spiritual pockets.
It is an energy, which is no whit larger or smaller than the ends it aims at and the work it does.
If you are not doing anything or caring for anybody, or devoted to any end, you will not be called up at some future time and formally punished for your negligence.
Plato might flatter your self-importance with that notion, but not Aristotle.
Aristotle tells you, not that your soul will be punished hereafter, but that it is lost already.
Goodness does not consist in doing or refraining from doing this or that particular thing.
It depends on the whole aim and purpose of the man who does it, or refrains from doing it.
Anything which a good man does as part of the best plan of life is made thereby a good act.
And anything that a bad man does, as part of a bad plan of life, becomes thereby an evil act.
Precisely the same external act is good for one man and bad for another.
An example or two will make this clear.
Two men seek political office.
For one man it is the gate of heaven; to the other it is the door to hell.
One man has established himself in a business or profession in which he can earn an honest living and support his family.
He has acquired sufficient standing in his business so that he can turn it over temporarily to his partners or subordinates.
He has solved his own problem; and he has strength, time, energy, capacity, money, which he can give to solving the problems of the public.
Were he to shirk public office, or evade it, or fail to take all legitimate means to secure it, he would be a coward, a traitor, a parasite on the body politic.
For there is good work to be done, which he is able to do, and can afford to do, without unreasonable sacrifice of himself or his family.
Hence public office is for this man the gateway of heaven.
The other man has not mastered any business or profession; he has not made himself indispensable to any employer or firm; he has no permanent means of supporting himself and his family.
He sees a political office in which he can get a little more salary for doing a good deal less work than is possible in his present position.
He seeks the office, as a means of getting his living out of the public.
From that day forth he joins the horde of mere office-seekers, aiming to get out of the public a living he is too lazy, or too incompetent, or too proud to earn in private employment.
Thus the very same external act, which was the other man's strait, narrow gateway to heaven, is for this man the broad, easy descent into hell.
Two women join the same woman's club, and take part in the same programme.
One of them has her heart in her home; has fulfilled all the sweet charities of daughter, sister, wife, or mother; and in order to bring back to these loved ones at home wider interests, larger friendships, and a richer and more varied interest in life, has gone out into the work and life of the club.
No angel in heaven is better employed than she in the preparation and delivery of her papers and her attendance on committee meetings and afternoon teas.
The other woman finds home life dull and monotonous.
She likes to get away from her children.
She craves excitement, flattery, fame, social importance.
She is restless, irritable, out of sorts, censorious, complaining at home; animated, gracious, affable, complaisant abroad.
For drudgery and duty she has no strength, taste, or talent; and the thought of these things are enough to give her dyspepsia, insomnia, and nervous prostration.
But for all sorts of public functions, for the preparation of reports, and the organisation of new charitable and philanthropic and social schemes, she has all the energy of a steam-engine, the power of a dynamo.
When this woman joins a new club, or writes a new paper, or gets a new office, though she does not a single thing more than her angel sister who sits by her side, she is playing the part of a devil.
It is not what one does; it is the whole purpose of life consciously or unconsciously expressed in the doing that measures the worth of the man or woman who does it.
At the family table, at the bench in the shop, at the desk in the office, in the seats at the theatre, in the ranks of the army, in the pews of the church, saint and sinner sit side by side; and often the keenest outward observer cannot detect the slightest difference in the particular things that they do.
The good man is he who, in each act he does or refrains from doing, is seeking the good of all the persons who are affected by his action.
The bad man is the man who, whatever he does or refrains from doing, leaves out of account the interests of some of the people whom his action is sure to affect.
Is there any sphere of human welfare to which you are indifferent?
Are there any people in the world whose interests you deliberately disregard?
Then, no matter how many acts of charity and philanthropy, and industry and public spirit you perform--acts which would be good if a good man did them--in spite of them all, you are to that extent an evil man.
We have, then, clearly in mind Aristotle's first great concept.
The end of life, which he calls happiness, he defines as the identification of one's self with some large social or intellectual object, and the devotion of all one's powers to its disinterested service.
So far forth it is Carlyle's gospel of the blessedness of work in a worthy cause.
"Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
He has a work, a life purpose; he has found it, and will follow it.
The only happiness a brave man ever troubled himself with asking much about was happiness enough to get his work done.
Whatsoever of morality and of intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of strength the man had in him will lie written in the work he does.
To work: why, it is to try himself against Nature and her everlasting unerring laws; these will tell a true verdict as to the man."
When we read Carlyle, we are apt to think such words merely exaggerated rhetoric.
Now Aristotle says the same thing in the cold, calculated terms of precise philosophy.
A man is what he does.
He can do nothing except what he first sees as an unaccomplished idea, and then bends all his energies to accomplish.
In working out his ideas and making them real, he at the same time works out his own powers, and becomes a living force, a working will in the world.
And since the soul is just this working will, the man has so much soul, no more, no less, than he registers in manual or mental work performed.
To be able to point to some sphere of external reality, a bushel of corn, a web of cloth, a printed page, a healthful tenement, an educated youth, a moral community, and say that these things would not have been there in the outward world, if they had not first been in your mind as an idea controlling your thought and action;--this is to point to the external and visible counterpart and measure of the invisible and internal energy which is your life, your soul, your self, your personality.
IV THE NEED OF INSTRUMENTS Aristotle's first doctrine, then, is that we must work for worthy ends.
The second follows directly from it.
We must have tools to work with; means by which to gain our ends.
General Gordon, who was something of a Platonist, remarked to Cecil Rhodes, who was a good deal of an Aristotelian, that he once had a whole room full of gold offered him, and declined to take it.
"I should have taken it," replied Mr. Rhodes.
"What is the use of having great schemes if you haven't the means to carry them out?"
As Aristotle says: "Happiness plainly requires external goods; for it is impossible, or at least not easy, to act nobly without some furniture of fortune.
There are many things that can be done only through instruments, so to speak, such as friends and wealth and political influence; and there are some things whose absence takes the bloom off our happiness, as good birth, the blessing of children, personal beauty.
Happiness, then, seems to stand in need of this kind of prosperity."
How different this from all our previous teachings!
The Epicurean wants little wealth, no family, no official station; because all these things involve so much care and bother.
The Stoic barely tolerates them as indifferent.
Plato took especial pains to deprive his guardians of most of these very things.
Aristotle on this point is perfectly sane.
He says you want them; because, to the fullest life and the largest work, they are well-nigh indispensable.
The editor of a metropolitan newspaper, the president of a railroad, the corporation attorney cannot live their lives and do their work effectively without comfortable homes, enjoyable vacations, social connections, educational opportunities, which cost a great deal of money.
For them to despise money would be to despise the conditions of their own effective living, to pour contempt on their own souls.
Is Aristotle, then, a gross materialist, a mere money-getter, pleasure-lover, office-seeker?
Far from it.
These things are not the end of a noble life, but means by which to serve ends far worthier than themselves.
To make these things the ends of life, he explicitly says is shameful and unnatural.
The good, the true end, is "something which is a man's own, and cannot be taken away from him."
Now we have two fundamental Aristotelian doctrines.
We must have an end, some section of the world which we undertake to mould according to a pattern clearly seen and firmly grasped in our own minds.
Second, we must have instruments, tools, furniture of fortune in the shape of health, wealth, influence, power, friends, business and social and political connections with which to carry out our ends.
And the larger and nobler our ends, the more of these instruments shall we require.
If, like Cecil Rhodes, we undertake for instance to paint the map of Africa British red, we shall want a monopoly of the product of the Kimberley and adjacent diamond mines.
V THE HAPPY MEAN The third great Aristotelian principle follows directly from these two.
If we are to use instruments for some great end, then the amount of the instruments we want, and the extent to which we shall use them, will obviously be determined by the end at which we aim.
We must take just so much of them as will best promote that end.
This is Aristotle's much misunderstood but most characteristic doctrine of the mean.
Approached from the point of view which we have already gained, this doctrine of the mean is perfectly intelligible, and altogether reasonable.
For instance, if you are an athlete, and the winning of a foot-ball game is your end, and you have an invitation to a ball the evening before the game, what is the right and reasonable thing to do?
Dancing in itself is good.
You enjoy it.
You would like to go.
You need recreation after the long period of training.
But if you are wise, you will decline.
Why?
Because the excitement of the ball, the late hours, the physical effort, the nervous expenditure will use up more energy than can be recovered before the game comes off upon the morrow.
You decline, not because the ball is an intrinsic evil, or dancing is intrinsically bad, or recreation is inherently injurious, but because too much of these things, in the precise circumstances in which you are placed, with the specific end you have in view, would be disastrous.
On the other hand, will you have no recreation the evening before the game; but simply sit in your room and mope?
That would be even worse than going to the ball.
For nature abhors a vacuum in the mind no less than in the world of matter.
If you sit alone in your room, you will begin to worry about the game, and very likely lose your night's sleep, and be utterly unfitted when the time arrives.
Too little recreation in these circumstances is as fatal as too much.
What you want is just enough to keep your mind pleasantly diverted, without effort or exertion on your part.
If the glee club can be brought around to sing some jolly songs, if a funny man can be found to tell amusing stories, you have the happy mean; that is, just enough recreation to put you in condition for a night's sound sleep, and bring you to the contest on the morrow in prime physical and mental condition.
Aristotle, in his doctrine of the mean, is simply telling us that this problem of the athlete on the night before the contest is the personal problem of us all every day of our lives.
How late shall the student study at night?
Shall he keep on until past midnight year after year?
If he does, he will undermine his health, lose contact with society, and defeat those ends of social usefulness which ought to be part of every worthy scholar's cherished end.
On the other hand, shall he fritter away all his evenings with convivial fellows, and the society butterflies?
Too much of that sort of thing would soon put an end to scholarship altogether.
His problem is to find that amount of study which will keep him sensitively alive to the latest problems of his chosen subject; and yet not make all his acquisitions comparatively worthless either through broken health, or social estrangement from his fellow-men.
How rare and precious that mean is, those of us who have to find college professors are well aware.
It is easy to find scores of men who know their subject so well that they know nothing and nobody else aright.
It is easy to find jolly, easy-going fellows who would not object to positions as college professors.
But the man who has enough good fellowship and physical vigour to make his scholarship attractive and effective, and enough scholarship to make his vigour and good fellowship intellectually powerful and personally stimulating,--he is the man who has hit the Aristotelian mean; he is the man we are all after; he is the man whom we would any of us give a year's salary to find.
The mean is not midway between zero and the maximum attainable.
As Aristotle says, "By the mean relatively to us I understand that which is neither too much nor too little for us; and that is not one and the same for all.
For instance, if ten be too large and two be too small, if we take six, we take the mean relatively to the thing itself, or the arithmetical mean.
But the mean relatively to us cannot be found in this way.
If ten pounds of food is too much for a given man to eat, and two pounds too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order him six pounds; for that also may perhaps be too much for the man in question, or too little; too little for Milo, too much for the beginner.
And so we may say generally that a master in any art avoids what is too much and what is too little, and seeks for the mean and chooses it--not the absolute but the relative mean.
So that people are wont to say of a good work, that nothing could be taken from it or added to it, implying that excellence is destroyed by excess or deficiency, but secured by observing the mean."
The Aristotelian principle, of judging a situation on its merits, and subordinating means to the supreme end, was never more clearly stated than in Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley: "I would save the Union.
If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.
If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.
My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do that.
What I do about slavery and the coloured race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
I shall do less whenever I believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more when I shall believe doing more will help the cause."
VI THE ARISTOTELIAN VIRTUES AND THEIR ACQUISITION The special forms that the one great virtue of seeking the relative mean takes in actual life bear a close correspondence to the cardinal virtues of Plato; yet with a difference which marks a positive advance in insight.
Aristotle, to begin with, distinguishes wisdom from prudence.
Wisdom is the theoretic knowledge of things as they are, irrespective of their serviceableness to our practical interests.
In modern terms it is devotion to pure science.
This corresponds to Plato's contemplation of the Good.
According to Aristotle this devotion to knowledge for its own sake underlies all virtue; for only he who knows how things stand related to each other in the actual world, will be able to grasp aright that relation of means to ends on which the success of the practical life depends.
Just as the engineer cannot build a bridge across the Mississippi unless he knows those laws of pure mathematics and physics which underlie the stability of all structures, so the man who is ignorant of economics, politics, sociology, psychology, and ethics is sure to make a botch of any attempts he may make to build bridges across the gulf which separates one man from another man; one group of citizens from another group.
Pure science is at the basis of all art, consciously or unconsciously; and therefore wisdom is the fundamental form of virtue.
Prudence comes next; the power to see, not the theoretical relations of men and things to each other, but the practical relationships of men and things to our self-chosen ends.
Wisdom knows the laws which govern the strength of materials.
Prudence knows how strong a structure is necessary to support the particular strain we wish to place upon it.
Wisdom knows sociology.
Prudence tells us whether in a given case it is better to give a beggar a quarter of a dollar, an order on a central bureau, a scolding, or a kick.
The most essential, and yet the rarest kind of prudence is that considerateness which sensitively appreciates the point of view of the people with whom we deal, and takes proper account of those subtle and complex sentiments, prejudices, traditions, and ways of thinking, which taken together constitute the social situation.
Temperance, again, is not the repression of lower impulses in the interest of those abstractly higher, as it came to be in the popular interpretations of Platonism, and as it was in Stoicism.
With Aristotle it is the stern and remorseless exclusion of whatever cannot be brought into subjection to my chosen ends, whatever they may be.
As Stevenson says in true Aristotelian spirit, "We are not damned for doing wrong: we are damned for not doing right."
For temperance lies not in the external thing done or left undone; but in that relation of means to worthy ends which either the doing or the not doing of certain things may most effectively express.
We shall never get any common basis of understanding on what we call the temperance question of to-day until we learn to recognise this internal and moral, as distinct from the external and physical, definition of what true temperance is.
Temperance isn't abstinence.
Temperance isn't indulgence.
Neither is it moderation in the ordinary sense of that term.
True temperance is the using of just so much of a thing,--no more, no less, but just so much,--as best promotes the ends one has at heart.
To discover whether a man is temperate or not in anything, you must first know the ends at which he aims; and then the strictness with which he uses the means that best further those ends, and foregoes the things that would hinder them.
Temperance of this kind looks at first sight like license.
So it is if one's aims be not broad and high.
In the matter of sexual morality, Aristotle's doctrine as applied in his day was notoriously loose.
Whatever did not interfere with one's duties as citizen and soldier was held to be permissible.
Yet as Green and Muirhead, and all the commentators on Aristotle have pointed out, it is a deeper grasp of this very principle of Aristotle, a widening of the conception of the true social end, which is destined to put chastity on its eternal rock foundation, and make of sexual immorality the transparently weak and wanton, cruel and unpardonable vice it is.
To do this, to be sure, there must be grafted on to it the Christian principle of democracy,--a regard for the rights and interests of persons as persons.
The beauty of the Aristotelian principle is that it furnishes so stout and sturdy a stock to graft this principle on to.
When Christianity is unsupported by some such solid trunk of rationality, it easily drops into a sentimental asceticism.
Take, for example, this very matter of sexual morality.
Divorced from some such great social end as Aristotelianism requires, the only defence you have against the floods of sensuality is the vague, sentimental, ascetic notion that in some way or other these things are naughty, and good people ought not to do them.
How utterly ineffective such a barrier is, everybody who has had much dealing with young men knows perfectly well.
And yet that is pretty much all the opposition current and conventional morality is offering at the present time.
The Aristotelian doctrine, with the Christian principle grafted on, puts two plain questions to every man.
Do you include the sanctity of the home, the peace and purity of family life, the dignity and welfare of every man and woman, the honest birthright of every child, as part of the social end at which you aim?
If you do, you are a noble and honourable man.
If you do not, then you are a disgrace to the mother who bore you, and the home where you were reared.
So much for the question of the end.
The second question is concerned with the means.
Do you honestly believe that loose and promiscuous sexual relations conduce to that sanctity of the home, that peace and purity of family life, that dignity and welfare of every man and woman, that honest birthright of every child, which as an honourable man you must admit to be the proper end at which to aim?
If you think these means are conducive to these ends, then you are certainly an egregious fool.
Temperance in these matters, then, or to use its specific name, chastity, is simply the refusal to ignore the great social end which every decent man must recognise as reasonable and right; and the resolute determination not to admit into his own life, or inflict on the lives of others, anything that is destructive of that social end.
Chastity is neither celibacy nor licentiousness.
It is far deeper than either, and far nobler than them both.
It is devotion to the great ends of family integrity, personal dignity, and social stability.
It is including the welfare of society, and of every man, woman, and child involved, in the comprehensive end for which we live; and holding all appetites and passions in strict relation to that reasonable and righteous end.
Aristotelian courage is simply the other side of temperance.
Temperance remorselessly cuts off whatever hinders the ends at which we aim.
Courage, on the other hand, resolutely takes on whatever dangers and losses, whatever pains and penalties are incidental to the effective prosecution of these ends.
To hold consistently an end, is to endure cheerfully whatever means the service of that end demands.
Aristotelian courage, rightly conceived, leads us to the very threshold of Christian sacrifice.
He who comes to Christian sacrifice by this approach of Aristotelian courage, will be perfectly clear about the reasonableness of it, and will escape that abyss of sentimentalism into which too largely our Christian doctrine of sacrifice has been allowed to drop.
Courage does not depend on whether you save your life, or risk your life, or lose your life.
A brave man may save his life in situations where a coward would lose it and a fool would risk it.
The brave man is he who is so clear and firm in his grasp of some worthy end that he will live if he can best serve it by living; that he will die if he can best serve it by dying; and he will take his chances of life or death if taking those chances is the best way to serve this end.
The brave man does not like criticism, unpopularity, defeat, hostility, any better than anybody else.
He does not pretend to like them.
He does not court them.
He does not pose as a martyr every chance that he can get.
He simply takes these pains and ills as under the circumstances the best means of furthering the ends he has at heart.
For their sake he swallows criticism and calls it good; invites opposition and glories in overcoming it, or being overcome by it, as the fates may decree; accepts persecution and rejoices to be counted worthy to suffer in so good a cause.
It is all a question here as everywhere in Aristotle of the ends at which one aims, and the sense of proportion with which he chooses his means.
In his own words: "The man, then, who governs his fear and likewise his confidence aright, facing dangers it is right to face, and for the right cause, in the right manner, and at the right time, is courageous.
For the courageous man regulates both his feelings and his actions with due regard to the circumstances and as reason and proportion suggest.
The courageous man, therefore, faces danger and does the courageous thing because it is a fine thing to do."
As Muirhead sums up Aristotle's teaching on this point: "True courage must be for a noble object.
Here, as in all excellence, action and object, consequence and motive, are inseparable.
Unless the action is inspired by a noble motive, and permeated throughout its whole structure by a noble character, it has no claim to the name of courage."
The virtues cannot be learned out of a book, or picked up ready-made.
They must be acquired, by practice, as is the case with the arts; and they are not really ours until they have become so habitual as to be practically automatic.
The sign and seal of the complete acquisition of any virtue is the pleasure we take in it.
Such pleasure once gained becomes one's lasting and inalienable possession.
In Aristotle's words: "We acquire the virtues by doing the acts, as is the case with the arts too.
We learn an art by doing that which we wish to do when we have learned it; we become builders by building, and harpers by playing on the harp.
And so by doing just acts we become just, and by doing acts of temperance and courage we become temperate and courageous.
It is by our conduct in our intercourse with other men that we become just or unjust, and by acting in circumstances of danger, and training ourselves to feel fear or confidence, that we become courageous or cowardly."
"The happy man, then, as we define him, will have the property of permanence, and all through life will preserve his character; for he will be occupied continually, or with the least possible interruption, in excellent deeds and excellent speculations; and whatever his fortune may be, he will take it in the noblest fashion, and bear himself always and in all things suitably.
And if it is what man does that determines the character of his life, then no happy man will become miserable, for he will never do what is hateful and base.
For we hold that the man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances, as a good general will turn the forces at his command to the best account."
This doctrine that virtue, like skill in any game or craft, is gained by practice, deserves a word of comment.
It seems to say, "You must do the thing before you know how, in order to know how after you have done it."
Paradox or no paradox, that is precisely the fact.
The swimmer learns to swim by floundering and splashing around in the water; and if he is unwilling to do the floundering and splashing before he can swim, he will never become a swimmer.
The ball-player must do a lot of muffing and wild throwing before he can become a sure catcher and a straight thrower.
If he is ashamed to go out on the diamond and make these errors, he may as well give up at once all idea of ever becoming a ball-player.
For it is by the progressive elimination of errors that the perfect player is developed.
The only place where no errors are made, whether in base-ball or in life, is on the grand stand.
The courage to try to do a thing before you know how, and the patience to keep on trying after you have found out that you don't know how, and the perseverance to renew the trial as many times as necessary until you do know how, are the three conditions of the acquisition of physical skill, mental power, moral virtue, or personal excellence.
VII ARISTOTELIAN FRIENDSHIP We are now prepared to see why Aristotle regards friendship as the crown and consummation of a virtuous life.
No one has praised friendship more highly, or written of it more profoundly than he.
Friendship he defines as "unanimity on questions of the public advantage and on all that touches life."
This unanimity, however, is very different from agreement in opinion.
It is seeing things from the same point of view; or, more accurately, it is the appreciation of each other's interests and aims.
The whole tendency of Aristotle thus far has been to develop individuality; to make each man different from every other man.
Conventional people are all alike.
But the people who have cherished ends of their own, and who make all their choices with reference to these inwardly cherished ends, become highly differentiated.
The more individual your life becomes, the fewer people there are who can understand you.
The man who has ends of his own is bound to be unintelligible to the man who has no such ends, and is merely drifting with the crowd.
Now friendship is the bringing together of these intensely individual, highly differentiated persons on a basis of mutual sympathy and common understanding.
Friendship is the recognition and respect of individuality in others by persons who are highly individualised themselves.
That is why Aristotle says true friendship is possible only between the good; between people, that is, who are in earnest about ends that are large and generous and public-spirited enough to permit of being shared.
"The bad," he says, "desire the company of others, but avoid their own.
And because they avoid their own company, there is no real basis for union of aims and interests with their fellows."
"Having nothing lovable about them, they have no friendly feelings toward themselves.
If such a condition is consummately miserable, the moral is to shun vice, and strive after virtue with all one's might.
For in this way we shall at once have friendly feelings toward ourselves and become the friends of others.
A good man stands in the same relation to his friend as to himself, seeing that his friend is a second self."
"The conclusion, therefore, is that if a man is to be happy, he will require good friends."
Friendship has as many planes as human life and human association.
The men with whom we play golf and tennis, billiards and whist, are friends on the lowest plane--that of common pleasures.
Our professional and business associates are friends upon a little higher plane--that of the interests we share.
The men who have the same social customs and intellectual tastes; the men with whom we read our favourite authors, and talk over our favourite topics, are friends upon a still higher plane--that of identity of æsthetic and intellectual pursuits.
The highest plane, the best friends, are those with whom we consciously share the spiritual purpose of our lives.
This highest friendship is as precious as it is rare.
With such friends we drop at once into a matter-of-course intimacy and communion.
Nothing is held back, nothing is concealed; our aims are expressed with the assurance of sympathy; even our shortcomings are confessed with the certainty that they will be forgiven.
Such friendship lasts as long as the virtue which is its common bond.
Jealousy cannot come in to break it up.
Absolute sincerity, absolute loyalty,--these are the high terms on which such friendship must be held.
A person may have many such friends on one condition: that he shall not talk to any one friend about what his friendship permits him to know of another friend.
Each such relation must be complete within itself; and hermetically sealed, so far as permitting any one else to come inside the sacred circle of its mutual confidence.
In such friendship, differences, as of age, sex, station in life, divide not, but rather enhance, the sweetness and tenderness of the relationship.
In Aristotle's words: "The friendship of the good, and of those who have the same virtues, is perfect friendship.
Such friendship, therefore, endures so long as each retains his character, and virtue is a lasting thing."
VIII CRITICISM AND SUMMARY OF ARISTOTLE'S TEACHING If finally we ask what are the limitations of Aristotle, we find none save the limitations of the age and city in which he lived.
He lived in a city-state where thirty thousand full male citizens, with some seventy thousand women and children dependent upon them, were supported by the labour of some hundred thousand slaves.
The rights of man as such, whether native or alien, male or female, free or slave, had not yet been affirmed.
That crowning proclamation of universal emancipation was reserved for Christianity three centuries and a half later.
Without this Christian element no principle of personality is complete.
Not until the city-state of Plato and Aristotle is widened to include the humblest man, the lowliest woman, the most defenceless little child, does their doctrine become final and universal.
Yet with this single limitation of its range, the form of Aristotle's teaching is complete and ultimate.
Deeper, saner, stronger, wiser statement of the principles of personality the world has never heard.
His teaching may be summed up in the following:-TEN ARISTOTELIAN COMMANDMENTS Thou shalt devote thy utmost powers to some section of our common social welfare.
Thou shalt hold this end above all lesser goods, such as pleasure, money, honour.
Thou shalt hold the instruments essential to the service of this end second only to the end itself.
Thou shalt ponder and revere the universal laws that bind ends and means together in the ordered universe.
Thou shalt master and obey the specific laws that govern the relation of means to thy chosen end.
Thou shalt use just so much of the materials and tools of life as the service of thy end requires.
Thou shalt exclude from thy life all that exceeds or falls below this mean, reckless of pleasure lost.
Thou shalt endure whatever hardship and privation the maintenance of this mean in the service of thy end requires, heedless of pain involved.
Thou shalt remain steadfast in this service until habit shall have made it a second nature, and custom shall have transformed it into joy.
Thou shalt find and hold a few like-minded friends, to share with thee this lifelong devotion to that common social welfare which is the task and goal of man.
CHAPTER V THE CHRISTIAN SPIRIT OF LOVE I THE TEACHING OF LOVE Jesus taught His philosophy of life in three ways: the personal, by example; the artistic, by parable; and the scientific, by propositions.
The first, though most vital and effective of all, is expensive and wasteful.
For in life principles are so embedded in "muddy particulars," trivial and sordid details, that they are liable to get lost.
The Master may be a long time with His disciples, and yet not really be known.
Even the disciples themselves, after months of such teaching, like James and John may not know what manner of spirit they are of.
Indeed it may become expedient for them that the Master go away, that His Spirit may be more clearly revealed.
The artistic method, too, has drawbacks.
For though it gives the principles a new artificial setting, with carefully selected details to catch the crowd, yet the crowd catch simply the story.
Only the initiated are instructed; those who do not already know the principles learn nothing, but "seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not understand," as Jesus, past master of this art though He was, so often lamented.
The third or scientific method is dry and prosaic.
It observes what qualities go together, or refuse to go together, in the swift stream of life; pulls them out of the stream; fixes them in concepts; marks them by names; and states propositions about them.
It may go one short step farther: it may arrange its propositions in syllogisms, and deduce general conclusions, or laws.
It may take, for instance, as its major premise, Love is the divine secret of blessedness.
Then for its minor premise it may take some plain observed fact, Humility is essential to Love.
Then the conclusion or law will be, The humble share the divine life and all the blessings it brings.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Of course no one but a pedant draws out his teaching in this laboured logical form.
The syllogism is condensed; the major, and perhaps even the minor, premise is omitted, and often only the conclusion appears.
At its best this method is hard and dry; yet this is the method employed in such sayings as those handed down in the summary called the Sermon on the Mount.
Perhaps that is why the teaching of the "Sermon," in spite of its clear-cut form, is much less studied and understood than the teaching of Jesus' life and parables.
To recover this largely lost teaching one must warm and moisten the cold, dry terms; supply, when necessary, omitted premises; use some one word rather than many for the often suppressed middle term; and so draw out the latent logic that underlies these laws.
The middle term of all this argument is Love.
For that old-fashioned word, in spite of its sentimental associations, much better than its modern scientific synonyms, such as the socialising of the self, expresses that outgoing of the self into the lives of others, which, according to Jesus, is the actual nature of God, the potential nature of man, the secret of individual blessedness and the promise of social salvation.
In the two or three cases where the logic of His principle, applied to our complex modern life, points clearly to a modification of His literal precepts, as in the management of wealth and the bestowal of charity, I shall not hesitate to put the logic of the teaching in place of the letter of the precept, citing the latter afterward for comparison.
A logical commentary like this will be most helpful if it reverses the order usual in commentaries of mere erudition, and introduces the steps of the argument before rather than after the passage they seek to make clear.
In whichever of the three ways it is taught, Love shines by its own light and speaks with its own authority to all who have eyes to see and ears to hear.
A person who loves carries with him a generous light-heartedness, a genial optimism, which show all his friends that he has found some secret which it is worth their while to learn.
Every well-told parable or fable, every artistically constructed novel or play, makes us take sides with the large-hearted hero against the mean, selfish villain.
In the same way Love's formulated laws, showing on what conditions it depends and to what results it leads, convince every one who has the experience by which to interpret them (and only to him who hath experience is interpretation given) that Love is the supreme law of life, and its requirements the right and reasonable conditions of individual and social well-being.
II THE FULFILMENT OF LAW THROUGH LOVE Jesus was born in a nation which had developed law to the utmost nicety of detail, and recognised all laws as expressions of the good will of God seeking the welfare of men.
Prolonged experiments in living had proved certain kinds of conduct disastrous, and the states of mind corresponding to them, despicable.
Law had prohibited this disastrous conduct, and the prophets had denounced these despicable traits.
Of course latent in the prohibitions of law was the constitution of the blessed Kingdom that would result if the law were observed; and dimly foreshadowed in the figurative expressions of the prophets was the vision of the glorified human society that would emerge when the despicable traits should be extirpated and the better order introduced.
This negative and latent implication of law Jesus developed into Love as the positive and explicit principle of life; and this figuratively foreshadowed prophet's vision He translated into the actual fact of a community united in Love.
He fulfilled the law by putting Love in the heart, and fulfilled the prophets by establishing a community based on Love.
Jesus taught us to make every human interest we touch as precious as our own, and to treat all persons with whom we deal as members of that beneficent system of mutual good-will which is the Kingdom of Heaven.
But the moment we begin to do that, law as law becomes superfluous; for what the law requires is the very thing we most desire to do: prophecy as prophecy is fulfilled; for the best man's heart can dream has come to pass.
In the ideal home, between well-married husband and wife, child and parent, brother and sister, this sweet law prevails.
In choice circles of intimate friends it is found.
Jesus extended this interpretation of others in terms of ourselves, and of both others and self in terms of the system of relations in which both self and others inhere, so as to include all the dealing of official and citizen, teacher and pupil, dealer and customer, employer and employee, man and man.
Jesus does not judge us by the formal test of whether we have kept or broken this or that specific commandment, but by the deeper and more searching requirement that our lives shall detract nothing from and add something to the glory of God and the welfare of man.
Is the world a happier, holier, better world because we are here in it, helping on God's good-will for men?
If that be the grand, comprehensive purpose of our lives, honestly cherished, frankly avowed, systematically cultivated, then, no matter how far below perfection we may fall, that single purpose, in spite of failure, defeat, and repented sin, pulls us through.
If we have this Spirit of Love in our hearts, and if with Christ's help we are trying to do something to make it real in our lives and effective in the world, our eternal salvation is assured.
On the other hand, is there a single point on which we deliberately are working evil?
Is the lot of any poor man harder, or the life of any unhappy woman more sad and bitter, for aught that we have done or left undone?
Is any good institution the weaker, or any bad custom more prevalent, for aught that we are deliberately and persistently withholding of help or contributing of harm?
If so, if in any one point we are consciously and unrepentingly arrayed against God's righteous purpose, and the human welfare which is dear to God; if there is a single point on which we are deliberately setting aside His righteous will, and doing intentional evil to the humblest of His children; then, notwithstanding our high rank on other matters, our lack of the right purpose, at even a single point, makes us guilty of the whole; we are unfit for His kingdom.
Jesus' principle of Love, though for clearness and incisiveness often stated in terms of mere altruism, or regard for others, yet taken in its total context, in the light of His never absent reference to the Father's will and the Kingdom of Heaven, is much deeper and broader than that.
It gives each man his place and function in the total beneficent system which is the coming Kingdom of God, and then treats him not merely as he may wish to be treated, or we may wish to treat him, but as his place and function in that system require.
Mere altruism is often weakly kind, making others feebly dependent on our benefactions instead of sturdily self-supporting; making others unconsciously egotistic as the result of our superfluous ministrations or uncritical indulgence; and even fostering a subtle egotism in ourselves, as the result of the fatal habit of doing the easy, kind thing rather than the hard, severe thing that is needed to lift them to their highest attainment.
A true mother is never half as sentimentally altruistic toward her child as a grandmother or an aunt; she does not hesitate to reprove and correct, when that is what the child needs to suppress the low and lazy, and rouse the higher and stronger self.
The just administrator discharges the incompetent and exposes the dishonest employee, not merely because the good of the whole requires it; but because even for the person discharged or exposed, that is better than it would be to allow him to drag out an unprofitable and cumbersome life in tolerated uselessness or countenanced graft.
"Treat both others and yourself as their place and yours in God's coming Kingdom require;" that is the Golden Rule in its complete form.
"All things, therefore, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you" (remembering that both you and they have places and functions in the Father's Kingdom of Love); "even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets."
This fulfilment of law is a very different thing from selfishly breaking the law.
That such a reformer as Jesus ever took the conservative side of any question seems at first sight so preposterous that most candid critics believe that He never said the words attributed to Him about breaking one of the least of these commandments, or else that He said them in a lost context which would greatly alter their meaning.
That, however, is not quite sure.
For Love at its best is never rudely iconoclastic.
Every good law in its original intent is aimed to lift men out of their sensuality and selfishness into at least an outward conformity to the requirements of social well-being.
And however grotesque, fantastic, and superfluous such a law under changed conditions may become, its original intent will always keep it sacred and precious, even after its purpose can be accomplished better without it.
To fulfil is not to destroy, or to take delight in destruction.
"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets; I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth shall pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished."
At the same time Love is always changing and superseding laws and institutions by pressure of adjustment to the changing demands of individual and social well-being.
Laws and institutions are made for men, rather than men for institutions and laws; and the instant an old law ceases to serve a new need in the best possible way, Love erects the better service into a new law or institution, superseding the old.
Any law that fails to promote the physical, mental, social, and spiritual good of the persons and the community concerned, thereby loses Love's sanction and becomes obsolete.
Law for law's sake, rather than for the sake of man and society, is the flat denial of Love.
To exalt any tradition, institution, custom, or prohibition above the human and social good it has ceased to serve, is to sink to the level of the scribe and Pharisee--the deadliest enemies of Jesus, and all for which He stood.
"For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."
In Love's eyes all anger, contempt, and quarrelsomeness are as bad as murder--indeed are incipient murder, stopped short of overt crime through fear.
The look, or word, or deed of unkindness, the thought, or wish, or hope that evil may befall another, even the attitude of cold indifference, is murder in the heart.
And it is only because we lack the courage to translate wish into will that in such cases we do not do the thing which, if done without our responsibility, by accident or nature, we should rejoice to see accomplished.
From a strange and unexpected source there has come the confirmation of this New Testament conception of the prevalence, not to say the universality, of murder.
A brilliant but grossly perverse English man of letters was sentenced to imprisonment a few years ago for the foulest crime.
From the gaol in which he was confined there came a most realistic description of the last days and final execution within its walls of a lieutenant in the British army, who was condemned for killing a woman whom he loved.
The poem has the exaggeration of a perverted and embittered nature; but beneath the exaggeration there is the original truth, which underlies Jesus' identification of murder and hate.
After describing the last days of the condemned man, his execution and his burial, the poem concludes as follows:-"In Reading Gaol by Reading town There is a pit of shame, And in it lies a wretched man Eaten by teeth of flame, In a burning winding sheet he lies And his grave has got no name.
"And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie: No need to waste the foolish tear, Or heave the windy sigh: The man had killed the thing he loved, And so he had to die.
"And all men kill the thing they love, By all let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word: The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword."
Charge up against ourselves as murder the bitter looks, the hateful words, the unkind thoughts, the selfish actions, which have lessened the vitality, diminished the joy, wounded the heart, and murdered the happiness of those whom we ought to love, whom perhaps at times we think we do love, and who can profess to be guiltless?
The harboured grudge, the unrepented injury, the offence for which we have not begged pardon, the employer's refusal to "recognise" his employees or their representatives, and treat with them on fair and equal terms, the workman's cultivated attitude of hostility to his employer, are all such flagrant violations of Love that acts of formal piety or public worship on the part of a person who harbours such feelings are an affront.
Controversies, lawsuits, industrial or political warfare in mere pride of opinion, class prejudice, or greed of gain, without first making every effort to respect the rights and protect the interests of the other party and so bring about a reconciliation, are all violations of Love and doom the person who is guilty of them to dwell in the narrow prison-house of a hard and hateful secularity, where the last farthing of exacted penalty must be paid, and hate is lord of life.
"Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment; and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the hell of fire.
If, therefore, thou art offering thy gift at the altar and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last farthing."
Marriage to the Christian is an infinitely higher and holier estate than it could have been to any of the earlier schools.
It is an opportunity to share with another person the creative prerogative of God.
It brings opportunity for Love enhanced by the highest of complementary differences, under circumstances of tenderest intimacy, with the requirement of lifelong constancy.
From Love's point of view any lack of tender reverence for the person of another, whether in or out of marriage sinks man to the plane of the brute.
Not that the normal exercise of any appetite or passion is base or evil in itself.
All are holy, pure, divine, when Love through them assumes the lifelong responsibilities they involve.
All that falls short of such tender reverence and permanent responsibility is lust.
Jesus established chastity on the broad, rational basis of respect for the dignity of woman and the sanctity of sex.
The logic of His teaching on this point is to place chastity on the eternal rock foundation of treating another only as Love and a true regard for the other's permanent welfare will warrant.
In other words, Jesus permits no man to even wish to treat any woman as he would be unwilling another man should treat his own mother, sister, wife, or daughter.
For, from His standpoint, all women are our sisters, daughters of the most high God.
This standard is searching and severe, no doubt; but it is reasonable and right.
There is not a particle of asceticism about it.
And the man who violates it is not merely departing a little from the beaten path of approved conventionalities.
He is doing a cruel, wanton wrong.
He is doing to another what he would bitterly resent if done to one whom he held dear.
And what right has any man to hold any woman cheap, a mere means of his selfish gratification, and not an object of his protection, and reverence, and chivalrous regard?
The worst mark of uneliminated brutality and barbarism which the civilised world is carrying over into the twentieth century, to curse and blacken and pollute and embitter human life for a few generations more, is this indifference to the Spirit of Love, as it applies at this crucial point.
To destroy a wife's health, to purchase a moment's pleasure at the cost of a woman's lasting degradation, or to participate in practices which doom a whole class of wretched women to short-lived disease and shame, and early and dishonoured death (a recent reliable report estimates the cost of lives from this cause alone in a single city as 5000 a year) is so gross and wanton a perversion of manhood, that in comparison it would be better not to be a man at all.
All the devices for gratifying sexual passions without the assumption of permanent responsibilities, such as seduction, prostitution, and the keeping of mistresses, Christianity brands as the desecration of God's holiest temple, the human body, and the wanton wounding of His most sensitive creation,--woman's heart.
The Greeks placed little restriction on man's passions beyond such as was necessary to maintain sufficient physical health and mental vigour to perform his duties as a citizen in peace and in war.
If the individual is complete in himself, with no God above who cares, no Christ who would be grieved, no Spirit of Love to reproach, no rights of universal brotherhood and sisterhood to be sensitively respected and chivalrously maintained, then indeed it is impossible to make out a valid claim for severer control in these matters than Plato and Aristotle advocate.
If there are persons in the world who are practically slaves, persons who have no claim on our consideration, then licentiousness and prostitution are logical and legitimate expressions of human nature and inevitable accompaniments of human society.
Christianity, however, has freed the slave in a deeper and higher sense than the world has yet realised.
Christianity does not permit any one who calls himself a Christian to leave any man or woman outside the pale of that consideration which makes this other person's dignity, and interest, and welfare as precious and sacred to him as his own.
Obviously all loose and temporary sexual connections involve such degradation, shame, and sorrow to the woman involved, that no one who holds her character, and happiness, and lasting welfare dear to him can will for her these woful consequences.
One cannot at the same time be a friend of the kindly, generous, sympathetic Christ and treat a woman in that way.
It is for this reason, not on cold, ascetic grounds, that Christianity limits sexual relations to the monogamous family; for there only are the consequences to all concerned such as one can choose for another whom he really loves.
If Christianity, at these and other vital points, asks man to give up things which Plato and Aristotle permit, it is not that the Christian is narrower or more ascetic than they; it is because Christianity has introduced a Love so much higher, and deeper, and broader than anything of which the profoundest Greeks had dreamed, that it has made what was permissible to their hard hearts forever impossible for all the more sensitive souls in whom the Love of Christ has come to dwell.
"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery; but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell."
Divorce is a confession of failure in Love's supreme undertaking.
No two Christians, who have caught and kept alive the Spirit of Love in the married state, ever were or ever will be, ever wished to be or ever can be, divorced.
No one Christian who has the true Christian Spirit of Love toward husband or wife will ever seek divorce unless it be under such circumstances of infidelity or brutality, neglect or cruelty, as render the continuance of the relation a fruitless casting of the pearls of affection before the swinishness of sensuality.
The determination of the grounds on which divorce shall be granted belongs to the sphere of the state, and is a problem of social self-protection.
The Christian church makes a serious mistake when it spends its energies in trying to build up legal barriers against divorce.
Its real mission at this point is to build up in the hearts of its adherents the Spirit of Love which will make marriage so sweet and sacred that those who once enter it will find, as all true Christians do find, divorce intolerable between two Christians; and tolerable even for one Christian only as a last resort against hopeless and useless degradation.
To translate Christ's Spirit into the life of the family is a much more Christian thing to do than to attempt to enact this or that somewhat general and enigmatical answer of His into civil law.
It is generally a mistake, a departure from the Spirit of the Master, when the Christian community as such turns from its specific task of positive upbuilding of personality to the legal prohibition of the things that are contrary to the Christian Spirit.
Laws and prohibitions, statutes and penalties against drunkenness, Sabbath-breaking, theft, murder, gambling, and divorce, we must have.
But those laws and penalties are best devised and enforced by the state, as the representative of the average sentiment of the community as a whole, rather than by the distinctively Christian element in the community, which in the nature of things is very far above the average sentiment.
Undoubtedly the Christian Spirit is the only force strong enough to save the family from degeneration and dissolution in this intensely individualistic, independent, materialistic, luxurious age.
But we must rely mainly on the Spirit working within, not on a law imposed from without; on the healing touch of the gentle Master, not on the hasty sword of the impetuous Peter.
"It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress; and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery."
Love fulfils at once the law of truth-telling and the law against swearing; for words spoken in Love need no adventitious support.
The appeal to anything outside one's self, and one's simple statement, is clear evidence that there is no Love, and therefore no truth within.
Love has no desire to deceive, and hence no fear of being disbelieved.
To back up one's words with an oath is to confess one's own lack of confidence in what one is saying, and to invite lack of confidence in others.
Anything more than a plain statement of fact or feeling comes out of an insincere or unloving heart.
Of course here, as in the case of divorce, what is the obvious and only law for the disciple of Jesus may or may not be wise for the civil authorities to enact into law and impose upon all.
If the state and the courts think an oath helpful, the sensible Christian usually will conform to public custom and requirement; even though for him the practice is superfluous and meaningless.
"Again, ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; but I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by the heaven, for it is the throne of God; nor by the earth, for it is the footstool of his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King.
Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, for thou canst not make one hair white or black.
But let your speech be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay; and whatsoever is more than these is of the evil one."
Love is slow to take offence, and quick to overlook.
Selfishness is sensitive to slights, resentful at wrongs; for it sees others only as their acts affect us.
Love seeks out the whole man behind the harsh word or bad deed, takes his point of view, and tries to discover some clue to his concealed better self.
Whether he does well or ill, Love lets us appeal to nothing less than his best self, and do nothing less than what on the whole is best for him and for the community to which he and we both belong.
Hence, whether we give or withhold what he specifically asks (and Love enlightened by modern sociology tells us we usually must withhold from beggars and tramps what they ask), in either case we shall not consult merely our personal convenience and impulse, but do what we should wish to have done to us, for the sake of society and for our own good as members of society, if we were in his unfortunate plight.
"Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you, Resist not him that is evil, but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him twain.
Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."
Love is kind to the evil and vicious, and magnanimous to the hostile and hateful.
Kindness in return for favours received or in hope of favours to come; kindness to those whose conduct and character we admire, is all very well in its way, but is no sign whatever that he who is kind on these easy terms is a true child of Love.
To share the great Love of God one must go out freely to all, regardless of return or desert,--be impartial as sunshine and shower.
When our enemy is plotting to harm us, to break down our good name, to injure those whom we love, even while we defend ourselves and our dear ones against his malice and meanness, we must be secretly watching our chances to do him a good turn, and win him from hatred to Love.
Nothing less than this complete identification with the interests of all the persons we in any way touch, however bad some of their acts, however unworthy some of their traits, can make us sharers and receivers, agents and bestowers of that perfect Love which is at once the nature of God, the capacity of man, the fulfilment of law, and the condition of social well-being.
"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thy enemy; but I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you, that ye may be sons of your Father which is in heaven; for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.
For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye?
do not even the publicans the same?
And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?
do not even the Gentiles the same?
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."
III THE COUNTERFEITS OF LOVE Just because Love is so costly, it has a host of counterfeits.
These counterfeits are chiefly devices for gaining the rewards and honours of Love, without the effort and sacrifice of loving.
One of the most obvious rewards of Love is being thought kind, generous, good.
But this can be secured, apparently, by professing religion, joining the church, repeating the creed, giving money to the poor, subscribing large sums to good causes,--all of which are much cheaper and easier than being kind, and true, and faithful, and considerate in the home, on the farm, in the factory, in the store.
Yet Jesus tells us that unless we have Love in the close and intimate relations of our domestic, economic, social, and political life, all symbols of its presence elsewhere, all "services" directed otherwise, become intolerable nuisances, whose places would be better filled, and whose work better done, if they were once well out of the way and decently buried.
All this, however, is not to deny, but by contrast to affirm, the great indispensable uses of symbols, officers, and institutions that are genuinely and effectively devoted to the cultivation and propagation of Love.
The pure gold of the Spirit is most conveniently and effectually circulated when mixed with the alloy of rites, ceremonies, creeds, officers, and organisations.
Though no essential part of the pure Gospel, yet these forms and observances, these bishops and clergy, these covenants and confessions, are as practically useful for the maintenance and spread of the Christian Spirit as courts and constitutions, governors and judges, are for the orderly conduct of the state.
Their authority is founded on their practical utility.
When their utility ceases, when they come to obscure rather than reveal the Spirit they are intended to express, then schism and reformation serve the same beneficent purpose in the church that declarations of independence and revolution have so often achieved in the state.
That form of church government is best which in any given age and society works best; and this may well be concentrated personal authority in one set of circumstances, and democratic representative administration in another.
Each has its advantages and its disadvantages.
Modes of worship rest on the same practical basis.
Spontaneous prayer or elaborate ritual, much or little participation by the people, long or short sermons, prayer-meetings or no prayer-meetings,--all are to be determined by the test of practical experience.
It is absurd to profess to draw hard and fast rules about these matters from the precept or practice of Jesus and His Apostles, or the early church fathers, working as they did under conditions so widely different from our own.
Probably centralised authority and elaborate ritual are most effective when bishops and priests can be found who will not abuse their power for their own aggrandisement.
Until then, more democratic forms of worship and of government are doubtless more expedient.
The friendly competition of the two systems side by side helps to keep sacerdotalism modest and make independency effective.
Creeds likewise have their practical usefulness, especially in times of theological ferment and transition, serving the purposes of party platforms in a political campaign.
But it is the grossest perversion of their function to make assent to them obligatory on all who wish to enjoy the most intimate Christian fellowship, or to test Christian character by their formulas.
One might as well refuse citizenship to every person who could not assent to every word in some party platform or other.
The creed is an intellectual formulation of the results of Christian experience, interpreting the Christian revelation; and it will vary from age to age with ripening experience, and maturer views of the content of the revelation.
No creed was altogether false at the time of its formulation.
No creed in Christendom is such as every intelligent Christian can honestly assent to.
The attempt to make creed subscription a test of church membership, or even a condition of ministerial standing, is sure to confuse intellectual and spiritual things to the serious disadvantage of both.
The most sensitively honest men will more and more decline to enter the service of the church, until subscription to antiquated formulas, long since become incredible to the majority of well-trained scholars, ceases to be required either literally or "for substance of doctrine."
It is sufficient that each candidate for the ministry be asked to make his own statement, either in his own words or in the words of any creed he finds acceptable, leaving it for his brethren to decide whether or not such intellectual statement is consistent with that spiritual service which is to be his chief concern.
Unless Christianity, in the persons of its leaders as well as of its laity, can breathe as free an intellectual atmosphere as that of Stoic or Epicurean, Plato or Aristotle, it will at this point prove itself their inferior.
Infinitely superior as it is in every other respect, it is a burning shame that its timid and conservative modern adherents should endeavour, at this point of absolute intellectual openness and integrity, to place it at a disadvantage with the least noble of its ancient competitors.
The pure Spirit of Love will win the devotion of all honest hearts and candid minds.
But the insistence on these antiquated formulas is sure to repel an increasing number of the most thoughtful and enlightened from organised Christian fellowship.
The only serious reason for preferring the independent to the hierarchical forms of church organisation at the present time is the tendency of the latter to keep up these forms of intellectual imposition and imposture.
Until the church as a whole shall rise to the standards of intellectual honesty now universally prevalent in the world of secular science, the mission of the independent protest will remain but partially fulfilled.
"Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?
It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men."
Any thought of the reputation or respectability or honour a right act will bring, just because it puts something else in place of Love, destroys the rightness of the act and the righteousness of the doer.
Righteousness will always remain a dry, dreary, forbidding, impossible thing until we welcome right as the service of those whom we love, and the promotion of interests we share with them; and shrink from wrong as what harms them and defeats our common ends.
Without Love, righteousness either dries up into a cold, hard asceticism, or evaporates into a hollow, formal respectability; and in one way or the other misses the spontaneity and expansion of soul which is Love's crown and joy.
"Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to be seen of them: else ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."
Love is too intent on its objects to be aware of itself or call attention to its own operations.
The air of doing a favour takes all the Love out of an act; for Love gives so simply and quietly that it seems to ask rather than bestow the favour.
In this way both giver and receiver together share Love's distinctive reward of two lives bound together as one in the common Love of the Father.
"When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee."
Professed Love, if unfruitful or pernicious, is false.
If we make no one happier; help no one over hard places; bind no wounds; comfort no sorrows; serve no just cause; do no good work; still worse, if we make any one's lot harder; add to his burden or sorrow; corrupt public officials; break down beneficent institutions; plunder the poor, even if within technical legal forms; drive the weak to the wall; and connive in the perversion of justice,--then the absence of good fruits, or the presence of bad ones, is proof positive that we have never seen or known Love, that our profession of Love is a lie, our proper place is with Love's foes, and our destiny with the doers of evil.
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by thy name, and by thy name cast out devils, and by thy name do many mighty works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
Neither eloquent speech nor elegant writing, neither ornate ceremonial nor orthodox symbol, nor anything short of actual toil to serve human need and help human joy can translate Love into life.
Though the most beautiful idea in the world, the mere idea of Love is of no more value than any other mere idea.
If it fails of expression in hard, costly deeds, its ritualistic or verbal profession is a sham.
In Love's service, so far as things done are concerned, there is no high or low, first or last.
To preach sermons and conduct religious services, to teach science in the university, or make laws in Congress, is no better and no worse than to make shoes in the shoeshop or cook food in the kitchen.
All work done in Love counts, stands, endures.
All work done in vanity and self-seeking, all work shirked with pretence of religion, or excuse of wealth, or pride of social station, leaves the soul hard, hollow, unreal, and fails to stand Love's searching test.
"Every one therefore which heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, shall be likened unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon the rock.
And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand; and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall thereof."
IV THE WHOLE-HEARTEDNESS OF LOVE Love asks for the whole heart or nothing; and all the heart has, be it little or much, must go with it.
The pursuit or possession of wealth, as an end in itself, or a means to mere selfish ends, will drive Love out of the soul.
All the wealth we can give to Love's service is most useful and welcome; but the retention of any for miserly pride, or vain ostentation, or indolent uselessness for ourselves or our children, fills the heart so full of self that Love can find there no room.
Not that giving away all one has is essential or desirable; but that every dollar one gives, spends, keeps, invests, or controls be held subject to the orders of Love.
Wealth is not so essential to the Christian as it was to Epicurus and Aristotle, for God can be glorified and man can be served with very little furniture of fortune; and therefore the Christian is able, in whatsoever material state he is, therewith to be content.
On the other hand, the Christian cares more for money than either the Stoic or Plato; for there are ranges in God's universe of beauty, truth, and goodness which cannot be æsthetically appreciated and artistically and scientifically appropriated without large expenditure of labour and the wealth by which labour is supported; and there are wide spheres of business enterprise and social service essential to human welfare which only the rich man or nation can effectively promote.
Divine and human service is possible in poverty; it is more effective and at the same time more difficult in wealth.
The Christian rich and the Christian poor serve the same Lord, and have the same Spirit; but the accomplishment of the Christian rich man can be so much greater than that of the Christian widow with her mite, that the Christian who is strong enough to stand it is in duty bound to treat money as a talent which in all just ways he ought to multiply.
On the contrary, the moment it begins to make him less sympathetic, less generous, less thankful, less responsible, he must give it away as the only alternative to the loss of his soul, the deterioration of his personality.
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also."
Toward science and art, business and politics, the application of the Christian Spirit is different from anything we have met before.
The Christian will not shirk these things, like the Epicurean and the Stoic; because they are ways of serving that truth, beauty, welfare, and order which are included in the Father's will for all His human children.
In all these things we are co-workers with God for the good of man.
Diligence and enthusiasm, devotion and self-sacrifice in one or more of these directions is the imperative duty, the inestimable privilege of every one who would be a grateful and obedient son of God, a helpful and efficient brother to his fellow-men.
Yet in all his devotion to science or art, in all the energy with which he gives himself to business or politics, the Christian can never forget that God is greater than any one of these points at which we come in contact with Him; and that, when we have done our utmost in one or another of these lines, we are still comparatively unprofitable servants in His vast household.
As God is more than the thing at which we work, so the Christian, through relation to Him, is always more than his work.
He never lets his personality become absorbed and evaporated in the work he does; but ever renews his personal life at the fountain which is behind the special work he undertakes to do.
Thus the true Christian is never without some useful social work to do; and he never lets himself get lost in doing it.
To keep this balance of energy in the task and elevation above it, which enables one to take success without elation and bear failure without depression, is perhaps the crowning achievement of practical Christianity.
"The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness!
No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other.
Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
He who heartily loves and serves others will trust Love in God and his fellows to take proper care of himself.
One who really loves others will take reasonable care not to be a burden to them, and to the world, and will avail himself of the insurance company, the savings bank, and the bond market as the devices of a complex modern society to distribute losses and conserve gains to the common advantage of all.
Love does not make the individual or his family a parasite on the economy and industry of society.
Love makes a man bear his own permanent burden as a preliminary to being of much use and no harm to his family, his friends, and his community.
Such prudent provision of the means of Love's independence and service is consistent with entire absence of worry about one's personal fortunes.
The essential question which Love, and Jesus as the Lord and Master of Love, puts to a man is not "How much money have you?"
but "What use do you intend to make of whatever you have, be that little or much?"
If that aim is selfish, and the money is either saved or spent in sordid, worried selfishness, that low aim makes the money a curse.
If held subject to whatever drafts Love may make upon it,--whether gifts to the poor, or support of good causes, or employment of honest workmen, or development of industrial enterprises, be the form Love's drafts take,--then all wealth so held is a blessing to the world and an honour to its owner, a glory to God and a service to man.
"Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on.
Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?
Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are not ye of much more value than they?
And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto his stature?
And why are ye anxious concerning raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat?
or, What shall we drink?
or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things."
Though material means sought as ends are fatal to Love, Love's ends kept in view insure needed means.
To worry about to-morrow is to fail in devotion to the tasks of to-day, and so spoil both days.
To do our best work to-day is to gain power for to-morrow.
Competition complicates, but does not render insoluble, the problem of making all that we have and all that we do express Love to all whom our action affects.
To be sure, there are city slums, uninsured accidents and sickness, unsanitary tenements, unjust conditions of labour, where even the service of Love does not bring to the worker appropriate means and rewards; but it is because Love has not quite kept pace at these points with swift-moving modern conditions.
But public spirit, political progress, economic reform, are more sensitive to these violations of its laws than ever before, and eagerly bent on finding and applying the remedy,--more Love of all for each, and each for all.
"But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, for the morrow will be anxious for itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Love throws off all that hampers its action, as a runner his coat for a race.
Love requires the sound body, the clear mind, the strong will, the sensitive heart, and foregoes all indulgences that impair these things, though in themselves innocent as eating and drinking.
Yet Love makes no fuss about its sacrifices, takes them as a simple matter of course, not worth mentioning; for what Love gives up in mere sensuous indulgence is as nothing to the widened affections and enlarged interests gained.
To be solemn or sad over what we give up, to proclaim or parade one's self-denials, would be an insult to Love; it would show that the persons we love and the causes we serve are not really as dear to our hearts as the pitiful things we forego for their sake--would show that our Love was a sham.
All pleasure that comes from healthy exercise of body, rational exercise of mind, sympathetic expansion of the affections, strenuous effort of the will, in just and generous living, is at the same time a glorifying of God and an enrichment of ourselves.
All pleasure which sacrifices the vigour of the body to the indulgence of some separate appetite, all pleasure which enslaves or degrades or embitters the persons from whom it is procured, all pleasure which breaks down the sacred institutions on which society is founded,--is shameful and debasing, a sin against God, and a wrong to our own souls.
The Christian will forego many pleasures which Epicurus and even Aristotle would permit, because he is infinitely more sensitive than they to the effect his pleasures have on poor men and unprotected women whose welfare these earlier teachers did not take into account.
On the other hand, the Christian will enter heartily into the joys of pure domestic life, and the delights of struggle with untoward social and political conditions, from which Plato and the Stoics thought it honourable to withdraw.
Where God can be glorified and men can be served, there the Christian will either find his pleasure, or with optimistic art, create a pleasure that he does not find.
"Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance; for they disfigure their faces, that they may be seen of men to fast.
Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward.
But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head, and wash thy face, that thou be not seen of men to fast, but of thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall recompense thee."
Just because Love includes the interests of all the persons we deal with, it excludes all mean, selfish traits from our hearts.
There can be no pride and guile, no lust and cruelty, no avarice and hypocrisy, no malice and censoriousness, in a heart which welcomes to its interest and affection, and serves and loves as its own, the aims and needs of its fellows.
That is why Love's true disciples are few, and the slaves of selfishness many.
Ask how many,--not entirely succeed, for none do,--but how many make it the constant aim of their lives to treat others as more widely extended aspects of themselves, and, in order to do that, endeavour to keep out all the greed, hate, lust, pride, envy, jealousy, that would draw lines between self and others, and we see the answer: that the way must be narrow, a way few find, and still fewer follow when found.
"Enter ye in by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many be they that enter in thereby.
For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few be they that find it."
V THE CULTIVATION OF LOVE Love is so akin to our nature, so eager to enter our souls, that to want is to get it; to seek is to find it; to open our hearts to its presence is to discover it already there.
Whoever knows what true prayer is--the intense, eager yearning for good of insistent, importunate hearts--knows that there never was and never can be one unanswered prayer.
No man who has longed to have Love the law of his life, and struggled for it as a miser struggles for money, or a politician strives to win votes, ever failed to get what he wanted.
For every person we meet gives occasion for Love, and every situation in life affords a chance to express it.
The difficulty is not to get all we want, but to want all we can have for the asking.
"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you, for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone, or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"
Love will not grow in our hearts without deep, unseen communion with the Spirit of Love, who is God.
To dwell reverently on the Infinite Love; to keep in one's heart a sacred place where His holy name is adored; to eagerly seek for Love's coming in our own hearts, in the hearts of all men, and in all the affairs of the world; to gratefully receive all material blessings as gifts for use in Love's service; to beseech for ourselves and bestow on others that forgiveness which is Love's attitude toward our human frailties and failings; to fortify ourselves in advance against the allurements of sense, and the base desire to gain good for ourselves at cost of evil to others; to remember that all right rule, all true strength, all worthy honour inhere in and flow from Love, and Love's Father, God,--to do this day by day sincerely and simply without formality or ostentation,--this is to pray, and to insure prayer's inevitable answer--a life through which Love freely flows to bless both the world and ourselves.
"And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee.
And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not therefore like unto them; for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
Our only ground of assurance that Love forgives us is our loving forgiveness of others.
In the light of that fact of experience it is easy and obvious to believe that the Father whose children we are, is not less loving and forgiving than we.
If we restore to our esteem and friendship those who have wronged us, then we are sure that Love at the heart of the Universe, Love in the Father, Love in all the Father's true children, fully and freely forgives us.
If we have this experience of our own forgiveness of our fellows, we know that Love would not be Love, but hate, God would not be God, but a devil, if any sincerely repented wrong or shortcoming of which we have been guilty could remain unforgiven.
"For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."
To judge harshly another man's failings, however bad they may be, shows that we are less loving than he.
For he may have failed through strength of appetite, or heat of passion,--failings that are still consistent with Love; but harsh judgment has no such excuse, and is therefore a deadly--that is, loveless--sin.
We would never think of proclaiming to the idly curious or the coldly critical the failings of one whom we love; hence proclamations of any one's failings is a sure sign that we have no Love for him, and as long as there are any whom we do not love and protect, we have no part or lot in the great Love of God.
Yet such charitableness does not forbid our practical judgment of the difference between sheep and wolves, good men and bad, when important issues are involved.
That Love requires.
What it forbids is the rolling as a sweet morsel under our tongue, and the gleeful recital to others, of the mistake or the sin of another, as something in which we take mean delight because we think it makes him inferior to ourselves.
"Judge not that ye be not judged.
For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you.
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye, and lo, the beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
Love will waste no time trying to explain itself to the selfish.
If Love does not commend itself by its own light and warmth to a man, no forms of words can make him understand it.
The sensual, the greedy, the hard, and the cruel Love will treat as gently and kindly as circumstances permit; yet expect as a matter of course that they will interpret Love's justice as hardness, kindness as weakness, temperance as asceticism, forbearance as cowardice, sacrifice as stupidity.
Those who love will not mind being misunderstood by those who do not; knowing that any attempted explanation would only increase their conceit and hardness of heart, and so make a bad matter worse.
"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you."
Since Love is "the greatest thing in the world," we are bound to stand ready with girt loins, and trimmed, burning lamps, to shed its light far and wide.
To cover it up would be to deprive ourselves and our fellows of the one sight in all the world best worth seeing, and so to hinder its spread.
False modesty that would keep Love's good works out of sight is as bad as false pride that would thrust oneself forward.
Though works done merely to be seen are not good at all, yet good works genuinely done for Love's sake gain added influence and lustre when frankly and freely allowed to be seen as the beautiful things that they are.
The Christian is under spiritual compulsion to be a missionary.
Other systems draw their little circles of disciples about them, as Jesus drew His twelve.
One cannot hold what he believes to be a true and helpful view of life without wishing to communicate it to others.
Yet this tendency, which is natural to every principle, is characteristic of Christianity in a unique degree.
For the Christian Spirit consists in Love, the desire to give to others the best one has.
And what can be so good, so desirable to impart, as this very Spirit of Love, which is Christianity itself?
That is why the Christian must, in some form or other,--by journeying to foreign lands, by contribution to missionary work at home, by gifts to Christian education, by support of settlement work, or perhaps best of all by the silent diffusion of a Christian example in the neighbourhood, or the unnoticed expression of the Christian Spirit in the home,--be a propagator of the Spirit of Love he has himself received.
"Ye are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill cannot be hid.
Neither do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but on the stand; and it shineth unto all that are in the house.
Even so let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."
VI THE BLESSEDNESS OF LOVE Does virtue bring happiness?
is a question every philosophy of life must meet.
Yet before it can be rightly answered it must be rightly put.
For if by virtue you mean something negative, conventional,--not lying, not cheating, not swearing, not drinking; and if by happiness you mean something passive, external,--riches, offices, entertainments, and honours; then virtue and happiness do not necessarily go together in life, and no philosophy can show that they should.
If a man were to persuade himself that they do go together, and should seek this sort of happiness by cultivating this sort of virtue, he would miss true virtue and true happiness.
For both virtue and happiness are positive, active; so interrelated that the happiness must be found in that furtherance of our common social interests in which the exercise of virtue consists.
Jesus bids us take an active, devoted interest in the interests of others and of society.
Now whoever shares and serves a wide range of interests has an interested, and therefore an interesting, life.
But the interesting life is the happy life.
Love, whether it has much or little wealth and station, always has interests and aims; always finds or makes friends to share them,--in other words, is always happy.
The beatitudes are illustrations of this deep identity between interest taken and happiness found; statements of the truth that Love going out to serve and share the interests and aims of others, and blessedness flowing in to fill the heart thereby enlarged for its reception, are the outside and inside of the same spiritual experience.
To think little of self is the key to the joy that goes with much thought for others.
Love is so going out to others as to make them as real as self.
But that is what no man puffed up with self-importance can do.
Where self is much in the foreground others are pushed to the rear.
Self-importance and Love cannot dwell together in the same house of clay.
As one goes up in the scales of the balance the other goes down.
To be rich in the shared lives of others one must be poor in his own self-esteem.
The two are in inverse proportion.
Modesty is impossible of direct cultivation.
It isn't safe to talk or even think about it much.
As Pascal remarks, "Few people talk of humility humbly."
Like Love it is the manifestation of something deeper than itself.
Unless one is in intimate personal relations with one whom he reveres as greater, stronger, better than himself, it is obviously impossible for him to be modest.
If he is in such relations, it is equally impossible for him not to be modest.
Hence, as Love is the inmost quality of the Christian, the inevitable manifestation to his fellow-men of what the Father is to him, so modesty is the surest outward sign of this inward grace.
Conceit is a public proclamation of the poverty of one's personal relations.
For if this conceited fellow, this vain woman, really had the honour of the intimate acquaintance of some one better and greater than their petty, miserable selves, they could not possibly be the vain, conceited creatures that they are.
Every one who lives in the presence of the great Father, and walks in the company of His glorious Son, is sure to find modesty and humility the natural and spontaneous expression of his side of these great relationships.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Our shortcomings frankly confessed prepare us for Love's consolation.
We all fall short of that patient consideration, that courteous kindliness, which makes the feelings and interests of others as precious as our own.
Some of us fail in one way, some in another.
But we all are unprofitable servants of the Love that would make our lives one with all the lives that we touch.
To forget or deny that we fail is to lose sight of Love altogether.
He who thinks he succeeds thereby shows that he fails; he who knows and laments that he fails comes as near as man can to the goal.
Love neither asks nor expects a clean record; else it would have no disciples.
Love fully and freely forgives, at the eleventh hour welcomes the idler, and offers its fulness of joy to all who, whatever their repented past may have been, make service and kindness to others their eager present concern.
For no sin frankly confessed, no wrong deed sincerely repented, no loss squarely met, no bereavement bravely endured, can shut out from Love's consolation those who serve with the best there is in them the persons who still need their aid.
"Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted."
To meet criticism with kindness, crossness with geniality, insult with courtesy, and injury with charity is the way to conquer the world.
By nature we are creatures of suggestion.
A hateful look, an ugly word, a spiteful sneer, a cruel blow, make us hateful and ugly and spiteful and cruel in turn.
For the empty heart flashes back in resentment whatever attitude another's act suggests.
Meekness greets as a friend the just critic, and for unjust and unkind treatment makes allowance as due to the blindness or hardness or weakness of the pitiful person who has nothing better to give.
Meekness makes the soft answer that turns away wrath, and treats one who wrongs us all the more gently.
Thus the meekness of Love gives both power to possess our own souls in patience under all provocation, and power, not indeed to coerce the bodies of others, but to win the consent of their souls.
"Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth."
Righteousness is something of which we can have no more and no less than we wish.
He who is good enough is not good at all, and never will be any better.
For righteousness is right relation to others; and so long as there are things we can do to help others, its infinite task is unfinished.
Yet though the goal ever advances and never comes within reach, aspiration is achievement; progress is attainment.
If we could come to the end of our journey; if we could see the world's claims on us met, the deeds of which we are capable done, that moment would mark the death of our souls.
Just because Love grows by loving and serving, and makes ever greater and greater demands, it prophesies there shall be forever and ever things to do that will make life worth while.
"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled."
The depth of our sympathy for those below us in secular service and station measures our worth in the eyes of those spiritually higher than we.
Love is like a tree; if it is not to be scorched in the blaze of ambition and withered in the heat of competition, its roots of sympathy must go down as deep into the soil of the obscure and lowly lives on whose humble toil we depend as its branches spread into the upper air of social distinction and station.
Unless we have much sympathy for those who toil on the farm and on the sea, in the factory and the mine, behind the counter and the desk, in the kitchen and laundry, what we call courtesy in the drawing room, or charity on the platform, is hollow mockery and Pharisaic sham.
"Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy."
In order for Love to shine through them there must be nothing else in our hearts.
Love demands everything or nothing.
It refuses to dwell in quarters or halves of our souls.
The least flaw of pride, greed, or lust is enough to make them opaque.
Greed, lust, pride, hate, so blind our eyes to the real selves of others that we cannot see or treat them as they really are; that is, cannot love them.
It reduces them to mere means and tools of our passions and pleasures; and one who so regards persons can never love either them or any person aright.
Only the pure can see Love; for only the pure can experience that union of one's whole self with the whole self of others in which Love consists.
"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God."
Just so sure as we love two or more persons we shall do all in our power to keep them from hating each other.
We wish everyone to love those whom we love.
If anybody hates one we love, it hurts us as much as it does the one hated, even more than it would to be hated ourselves.
And if anyone whom we love is hating another, we are even more sorry for him than we are for the person he hates, and make all haste to deliver him from this most dreadful condition.
The more we love our fellows, the more we hate to see misunderstanding, ill-will, strife, between them.
Not that the Christian is unwilling or afraid to fight.
Where deliberate wrong is arrayed against the rights of men, where fraud is practised on the unprotected, where hypocrisy imposes on the credulous, where vice betrays the innocent, where inefficiency sacrifices precious human interests, where avarice oppresses the poor, where tyranny tramples on the weak, there the man who shares the Father's Love for His maltreated children, the man who walks daily in the companionship of the Christ who owns all the downtrodden as His brothers, will be the most fearless and uncompromising foe of every form of injustice and oppression.
Property, reputation, position, time, strength, influence, health, life itself if need be, will be thrown unreservedly into the fight against vice and sin.
He cannot keep in with the Father and with Christ and not come out in opposition to everything that wrongs and injures the humblest man, the lowliest woman, the most defenceless little child.
Fighting, however, is not altogether uncongenial to the descendants of our brute progenitors.
To fight our own battles, and occasionally a few for our neighbours, comes all too naturally to most of us.
Fighting God's battles on principle is a very different thing.
To feel entirely tranquil in the midst of the combat; to know that we are not alone on the side of the right; to have the real interests of our opponents at heart all the time; to be ever ready to forgive them, and to ask their forgiveness for any excess of zeal we may have shown; to have the peace of God in our hearts, and no trace of malice, in deed, or word, or thought, or feeling,--this is not altogether natural, and the man who does his fighting on that basis gives pretty good assurance of dwelling in the Christian Spirit.
No other adequate provision for maintaining peace in the midst of effective warfare, and making peace for others as well as for ourselves the instant the need for war is over, has ever been devised.
The peacemakers of this fearless, earnest, strenuous type have the unmistakable right to be called the children of God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God."
All who love must expect to be hated by the foes of those whom they love.
Because Jesus loved the common people and sought to deliver them from their fears and errors, the men who traded on those fears and errors put Him to an ignominious death.
If we love and serve the despised, the abused, the plundered, those who despise and abuse and plunder them will do to us the worst they dare.
The road of Love is marked at every turn by a cross.
Whoever in business, society, or politics makes as real as his own the interests and the wrongs of all whom he can reach and touch, will be disliked, criticised, misrepresented, vilified, condemned.
He will pay Love's price of persecution.
Christian sacrifice closely resembles Greek temperance and courage.
There is, however, this essential distinction.
The Christian takes on not merely the pains and privations which are essential to his personal welfare, or the welfare of his community or state; he takes on whatever suffering the Father's Love for all His children calls him to undergo; gives up whatever indulgences the service of Christ requires him to dispense with; adopts whatever mingling of hardship and self-denial will keep him in most effective and sympathetic fellowship with those who have discovered the same great spiritual secret as himself.
Thus, though to the uninitiated outsider much of his life looks hard and severe, on the inside it is easy and light; for the companionship with the Father, with Christ, and with Christian people is so much greater and dearer than the material and sensuous delights it may incidentally take away, that on the inside it does not wear the aspect of loss and sacrifice at all, but rather that of a glory and a gain.
Still, since this element of pleasant things foregone, and hard things endured, is ever present, and since it has to be judged by people on the outside as well as by those on the inside of the experience, in recognition of this truth Christianity has made its symbol before the uninitiated world the cross.
As in the life of the Master, so in the life of every faithful disciple, the cross must be borne, the perpetual sacrifice must be made, as the price of Love's presence in a world of selfishness and hate; but the cross is transfigured into a crown of rejoicing, the sacrifice is transformed into privilege and pleasure by those precious personal relationships which are the supreme glory and gladness of the soul, and which could be maintained on no cheaper terms.
The sacrifice that the Christian makes to get his Father's will, his Master's mission, accomplished in the world which so sorely needs it, is like the sacrifice a mother makes for her sick and suffering child,--the dearest and sweetest experience of life.
The cross thus gladly borne, the yoke of sacrifice thus unostentatiously assumed, is the supreme expression of the Christian Spirit.
Like all high-cost things, sacrifice for Love's sake carries a high premium.
It admits, as nothing else does, to the inner circle of the immortal lovers of their fellows, to the intimate fellowship of the Lord of Love, Jesus Christ.
Joy follows incidentally and inevitably from the maintenance of these great Christian relationships.
A gloomy, depressed, despondent tone and temper, unless it be demonstrably pathological, is public proclamation that the deep mines of these Christian relationships, with their inexhaustible resources, are either undeveloped or unworked.
For no man who looks through sunshine and shower, through food and raiment, through family and friendship, through society and the moral order of the world, up into the face of the Giver of them all as his Father; who knows how to summon to his side the gentle and gracious companionship of Christ, alike in the pressure of perplexity and in the quiet of solitude; who knows how to unlock the treasures of Christian literature, to appropriate the meaning of Christian worship, and to avail himself of the comfort and support that is always latent in the hearts of his Christian friends,--no man in whom these vast personal resources are developed and employed can ever long remain disconsolate.
Even in prosperity, popularity, and outward success it takes considerable mixture of these deeper elements to keep the tone of life constantly on the high level of joy.
But adversity is the real test.
Then the man without these interior resources gives way, breaks down, becomes querulous, fretful, irritable, sour.
On the other hand, the man who can make mistakes, and take the criticism they bring, and go on as cheerfully as if no blunder had been made and no vote of censure had been passed; the man who can be hated for the good things he tries to do, and condemned for bad things he never did and never meant to do; the man who can work hard, and contentedly take poverty for pay; the man who can serve devotedly people who revile and betray him in return; the man who can discount in advance the unpopularity, misrepresentation, and defeat a right course will cost, and then resolutely set about it; the man who takes persecution and treachery as serenely as other men take honours and emoluments,--this man, we may be sure, has dug deep an invested heavily in the field where the priceless Christian treasure lies concealed.
"Blessed are they that have been persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."
VII THE SUPREMACY OF LOVE Jesus' Spirit of Love is capable of absorbing into itself whatever we have found valuable in the four previous systems.
The Epicurean's varied and spontaneous joy in life is not diminished, but enhanced, by the Christian Spirit, which multiplies this joy as many times as there are persons whom one knows and loves.
The Epicurean lives in the little world of himself, and a few equally self-centred companions.
The Christian lives in the great world of God, and shares its joys with all God's human children.
It is the absence of this larger world, the exclusive concern for his own narrow pleasures, that makes the consistent Epicurean, with all his polish and charm, the essentially mean and despicable creature we found him to be.
To be sure, Mill, Spencer, and others have endeavoured to graft the altruistic fruits of Christianity on to the old Epicurean stock.
There is this great difference, however, between such Christianised Epicureanism as that of Mill and Spencer, and Christianity itself.
These systems have no logical bridge, no emotional bond by which to pass from the pleasures of self to the pleasures of others.
They can and do point out the incompleteness of merely egoistic Epicureanism; they exhort us to care for the pleasures of others as we do for our own.
But the logical nexus, the moral dynamic, the spiritual motive, is lacking in these systems; and consequently these systems fail to work, except with the few highly altruistic souls who need no spiritual physician.
This logical bond, this moral dynamic, this spiritual motive which impels toward altruistic conduct, the Christian finds in Christ.
He certainly did love all men, and care for their happiness as dearly as He cared for His own.
But this same Christ is the Christian's Lord and Master and Friend.
Yet friendship for Him, the acceptance of Him as Lord and Master, is a contradiction in terms, unless one is at the same time willing to cultivate His Spirit, which is the Spirit of service, the Spirit which holds the happiness and welfare of others just as sacred and precious as one's own.
He that hath not this Spirit of Christ is none of His.
Hence what men like Mill and Spencer preach as a duty, and support by what their critics have found to be very inadequate and fallacious logical processes, Christianity proclaims as a fact in the nature of God, as embodied in Christ, and a condition of the divine life for everyone who desires to be a child of God, a follower and friend of Jesus Christ.
Christianity, therefore, includes everything of value in Epicureanism, and infinitely more.
It has the Epicurean gladness without its exclusiveness, its joy without its selfishness, its naturalness without its baseness, its geniality without its heartlessness.
In like manner Christianity takes up all that is true in the Stoic teaching, without falling into its hardness and narrowness.
The truth of the Stoic teaching consisted in its power to transform into an expression of the man himself, and of the beneficent laws of Nature, whatever outward circumstance might befall him, Now put in place of the abstract self the love of the perfect Christ, and instead of universal law the loving will of the Father for all His children, and you have a deepened, sweetened, softened Stoicism which is identical with a sturdy, strenuous, and virile Christianity.
If a man has in his heart the earnest desire to be like Christ, and to do the things that help to carry out Christ's Spirit in the world, it is absolutely impossible that he should ever find himself in a situation where what he most desires to do cannot be done.
Now a man who in every conceivable situation can do what he most desires to do is as completely "master of his fate" and "captain of his soul" as the most strenuous Stoic ever prayed to be.
And yet he is saved from the coldness and hardness and repulsiveness of the mere Stoic, because the object of his devotion, the aim of his assertion, is not his own barren, frigid, formal self, but the kindly, sympathetic, loving Christ, whom he has chosen to be his better self.
Like the Stoic, he brings every thought into captivity; but it is not the captivity of a prison, the empty chamber of his individual soul, swept and garnished; it is captivity to the most gracious and gentle and generous person the world has ever known,--it is captivity to Christ.
When misfortune and calamity overtakes him, he transforms it into a blessing and a discipline, not like the mere Stoic through passive resignation to an impersonal law, as of gravitation, or electricity, or bacteriology, but through active devotion to that glory of God which is to be furthered mainly by kindness and sympathy and service to our fellow-men.
The man who has this love of Christ in his heart, and who is devoted to the doing of the Father's loving will, can exclaim in every untoward circumstance, "I can do all things in Him that strengtheneth me."
He can shout with more than Stoic defiance: "O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?"
In all the literature of Stoic exultation in the face of frowning danger and impending doom, there is nothing that can match the splendid outburst of the great Apostle: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Everything that we found noble, and strong, and brave in Stoicism we find also here; the power to transform external evil into internal good, and to hold so tightly to our self-chosen good that no power in earth or heaven can ever wrest it from us,--a good so universal that the circumstance is inconceivable in which it would fail to work.
Yet with all this tenacious, world-conquering strength, there is, drawn from the divine Source of this affection a gentleness, and sympathy, and tenderness, and humble human helpfulness, which the Stoic in his boastfulness, and hardness, and self-sufficiency could never know.
The Christian abhors lying and stealing, scolding and slandering, slavery and prostitution, meanness and murder, not less but far more than the Stoic.
But he refrains from these things, not under constraint of abstract law, but because he cares so deeply and sensitively for the people whom these things affect that he cannot endure the thought that any word or deed of his should bring them pain or loss or shame or degradation.
Thus he gets the Stoic strength without its hardness, the Stoic universality without its barrenness, the Stoic exaltation without its pride, the Stoic integrity without its formalism, the Stoic calm without its impassiveness.
Christianity is as lofty as Platonism; but it gets its elevation by a different process.
Instead of rising above drudgery and details, it lifts them up into a clearer atmosphere, where nothing is servile or menial which can glorify God or serve a fellow-man.
The great truth which Plato taught was the subordination of the lower elements in human nature to the higher.
In the application of this truth, as we saw, Plato went far astray.
His highest was not attainable by every man; and he proposed to enforce the dictates of reason by fraud and intimidation on those incapable of comprehending their reasonableness.
Thus he was led into that fallacy of the abstract universal which is common to all socialistic schemes.
Christianity takes the Platonic principle of subordination of lower to higher; but it adds a new definition to what the higher or rather the highest is; and it introduces a new appeal for the lowliest to become willing servants and friends of the highest, instead of mere constrained serfs and slaves.
This highest principle is, of course, Love of the God who loves all His human children, friendship to the Christ who is the friend of every man.
Consequently there are no humble working-men to be coerced and no unfortunate women to be maltreated; no deformed and ill-begotten children to be exposed to early death, as in Plato's exclusive scheme.
To the Christian every child is a child of God, every woman a sister of Christ, every man a son of the Father, and consequently no one of them can be disregarded in our plans of fellowship and sympathy and service; for whoever should dare to leave them out of his own sympathy and love would thereby exclude himself from the Love of God, likeness to Christ, and participation in the Christian Spirit.
Thus Christianity gives us all that was wise and just in the Platonic principle of the subordination of the lower elements in our nature to the higher; but its higher is so much above the highest dream of Plato that it guards certain forms of social good at points where, even in Plato's ideal Republic, they were ruthlessly betrayed.
Christianity finally gathers up into itself whatever is good in the principle of Aristotle.
The Aristotelian principle was the devotion of life to a worthy end and the selection of efficient means for its accomplishment.
On that general formula it is impossible to improve.
"To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world," is Jesus' justification of His mission, when questioned by Pontius Pilate.
"One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus," is Paul's magnificent apology for his way of life.
The concentration of one's whole energy upon a worthy end, and the willing acceptance of pains, privations, and penalties which may be incidental to the effective prosecution of that end, is the comprehensive formula of every brave and heroic life, whether it be the life of Jew or Gentile, Greek or Christian.
It is not because it sets forth something different from this wise and brave prosecution of a noble end that Christianity is an improvement on the teaching of Aristotle; it is because the end at which the Christian aims is so much higher, and the fortitude demanded by it is so much deeper, that Christianity has superseded and deserves to supersede the noblest teaching of the greatest Greeks.
What was the end which Aristotle set before himself and his disciples?
Citizenship in a city state half free and half enslaved, with leisure for the philosophic contemplation of the learned few, bought by the constrained toil of the ignorant, degraded many; the refined companionship of choice congenial spirits for which it was expected that the multitude would be forever incapacitated and from which they would be forcibly excluded.
Over against this aristocracy of birth, opportunity, leisure, training, and intelligence Jesus sets the wide democracy of virtue, service, Love.
Whoever is capable of doing the humblest deed in Love to God and service to man becomes thereby a member of the kingdom of the choicest spirits to be found in earth or heaven, and entitled to the same courteous and delicate consideration which the disciple would show to his Master.
The building up of such a kingdom and the extension of its membership to include all the nations of the earth and all classes and conditions of men within its happy fellowship, and in its noble service, is the great end which Jesus set before himself and which He invites each disciple to share.
Whatever hardship and toil, whatever pain and persecution, whatever reviling and contumely, whatever privation and poverty may be necessary to the accomplishment of this great end the Master himself gladly bore, and He asks His followers to do the same.
In a world full of hypocrisy and corruption, pride and pretence, avarice and greed, cruelty and lust, malice and hate, selfishness and sin, there are bound to be many trials to be borne, much hard work to be done, many blows to be received, much suffering to be endured.
All that is inevitable, whatever view one takes of life.
Christ, however, shows us the way to do and bear these things cheerfully and bravely as part of His great work of redeeming the world from the bondage and misery of these powers of evil, and establishing His kingdom of Love.
To keep the clear vision of that great end before our eyes, to keep the sense of His companionship warm and glowing within our hearty never to lose the sense of the great liberation and blessing this kingdom will bring to our downtrodden, maltreated brothers and sisters in the humbler walks of life, Jesus tells us is the secret of that sanity and sacrifice which is able to make the yoke of useful toil easy, and the burden of social service light; and to transform the cross of suffering into a crown of joy.
Each of these four previous principles is valuable and essential; and the fact that Christianity is higher than them all, no more warrants the Christian in dispensing with the lower elements, than the supremacy of the roof enables it to dispense with the foundation and the intervening stories.
Both for ourselves, and for the world in which we live, we need to make our ideal of personality broad and comprehensive.
We need to combine in harmonious and graceful unity the happy Epicurean disposition to take fresh from the hand of nature all the pleasures she innocently offers; the strong Stoic temper that takes complacently whatever incidental pains and ills the path of duty may have in store for us; the occasional Platonic mood which from time to time shall lift us out of the details of drudgery when they threaten to obscure the larger outlook of the soul; the shrewd Aristotelian insight which weighs the worth of transient impulses and passing pleasures in the impartial scales of intellectual and social ends; and then, not as a thing apart, but rather as the crown and consummation of all these other elements, the generous Christian Spirit, which makes the joys and sorrows, the aims and interests, of others as precious as one's own, and sets the Will of God which includes the good of all His creatures high above all lesser aims, as the bond that binds them all together in the unity of a personal life which is in principle perfect with some faint approximation to the divine perfection.
The omission of any truth for which the other ancient systems stood mutilates and impoverishes the Christian view of life.
Ascetic Puritanism, for instance, is Christianity minus the truth taught by Epicurus.
Sentimental liberalism is Christianity without the Stoic note.
Dogmatic orthodoxy is Christianity sadly in need of Plato's search-light of sincerity.
Sacerdotal ecclesiasticism is Christianity that has lost the Aristotelian disinterestedness of devotion to intellectual and social ends higher and wider than its own institutional aggrandisement.
The time is ripe for a Christianity which shall have room for all the innocent joys of sense and flesh, of mind and heart, which Epicurus taught us to prize aright, yet shall have the Stoic strength to make whatever sacrifice of them the universal good requires; which shall purge the heart of pride and pretence by questionings of motive as searching as those of Plato, and at the same time shall hold life to as strict accountability for practical usefulness and social progress as Aristotle's doctrines of the end and the mean require.
It is by some such world-wide, historical approach, and the inclusion of whatever elements of truth and worth other systems have separately emphasised, that we shall reach a Christianity that is really catholic.
To take the duties and trials, the practical problems and personal relationships of life up into the atmosphere of Love, so that what we do and how we treat people becomes the resultant, not of the outward situation and our natural appetites and passions, but of the outward situation and Love within our hearts,--this is what it means to live in the Christian Spirit; this is the essence of Christianity.
Strengthened character and straightened conduct are sure to follow the maintenance of this spiritual relationship.
Not that it will transform one's hereditary traits and acquired habits all at once, or save one from many a slip and flaw.
Even the Christian Spirit of Love takes time to work its moral transformation.
The tendency of it, however, is steady and strong in the right direction; and in due time it will conquer the heart and control the action of any man who, whether verbally or silently, whether formally or informally, maintains this conscious relationship to that Love at the heart of things which most of us call God.
Jesus and all who have shared His spiritual insight tell us that the maintenance of this relationship, close, warm, and quick, is the pearl of great price, the one thing needful, the potency of righteousness, the secret of blessedness; and that there is more hope of a man with a bad record and many besetting sins who honestly tries to keep this relationship alive within his breast, than there is of the self-righteous man who boasts that he can keep himself outwardly immaculate without these inward aids.
Christianity of this simple, vital sort is the world's salvation.
Criticised by enemies and caricatured by friends; fossilised in the minds of the aged, and forced on the tongues of the immature; mingled with all manner of exploded superstition, false philosophy, science that is not so, and history that never happened; obscured under absurd rites; buried in incredible creeds; professed by hypocrites; discredited by sentimentalists; evaporated by mystics; stereotyped by literalists; monopolised by sacerdotalists; it has lived in spite of all the grave-clothes its unbelieving disciples have tried to wrap around it, and holds the keys of eternal life.
INDEX Accident, Stoic explanation of, 83-85.
Adversity, test of Christian character, 276.
Altruism, 10-15, 222.
Ambition, 143-144, 182.
Amputation of morbid reflections, 33.
Apperception, 66-70.
Aristotle-Limitations of, 212-213.
Summary of, 213-214.
On-Celibacy, 180-181.
Chastity, 202-204.
Courage, 204-206.
Friendship, 209-212.
Need of instruments, 191-194.
Pleasure, 160-175.
Prudence, 200.
Social nature of man, 176-179.
Temperance, 201.
Test of character, 184.
The end, 179-191.
The mean, 194-198.
The virtues, 199-208.
Wealth, 192.
Wisdom, 199.
Completed in Christianity, 284-287.
Arnold, Matthew, 100, 107.
Avarice, 146-147.
Bacteria, on the whole beneficent, 84-85.
Beatitudes, 265.
Blessedness of Love, 264-277.
Boss, political, evolution of, 150-151.
Carlyle, 160-161, 190.
Celestial Surgeon, 19.
Celibacy, 180-181.
Chastity, 202-204, 229-232.
Cheerfulness, 19.
Christian-Church government, 240.
Forgiveness, 259-260.
Joy, 275.
Modesty, 265.
Peace, 270-272.
Sacrifice, 254-256, 273-274.
Use and misuse of creeds, 241-243.
Worship, 240.
Interpretation of-Art, 249-251. Business, 249-251.
Divorce, 233-235.
Marriage, 228.
Murder, 225-228.
Pleasure, 255.
Politics, 249-251.
Profanity, 235.
Science, 249-251.
Wealth, 248-252.
Christianity-The completion of-Aristotle, 284-287.
Epicureanism, 277-279.
Plato, 282-284.
Stoicism, 279-282.
Missionary character of, 262-263.
In need of intellectual honesty, 241-243.
Supremacy of, 277-291.
Christmas Sermon, Stevenson's, 19.
Circumstances alter acts, 129.
Cleanthes' hymn, 97-99.
Clubs, women's, 188-189.
Commandments, Aristotelian, 213.
Cosmopolitanism, Stoic, 94-95.
Courage, 204-206.
Cowardice, 128.
Creeds, 241-243.
Cynicism, 82.
Cynic's prayer, 96-97.
Death, Christian triumph over, 281.
Epicurean disposition of, 7, 8, 45.
Stoic view of, 73, 77.
Whitman on, 18.
Degeneration, Plato's stages of, 143-153.
Democracy, ancient and modern, 122.
Plato on, 147-149.
Depression, 32-33.
Diet, 5, 21-22, 124-126.
Difficulty, Stoic attitude toward, 75-76.
Divorce, logical outcome of Epicureanism, 44.
Christian attitude toward, 233-235.
Education, Plato's scheme of, 131-138.
Egoism, duty of adequate, 10-15.
Electricity, beneficent, 84.
Eliot, George, 46-51.
Emerson, 165-167.
End, not justification of means, 178-179.
Epictetus, 71-77, 81, 84, 87, 88, 89, 96, 97.
Epicurean-Day, 34-35.
Definition of personality, 37, 51.
Gods, 9, 95.
Heaven, 45.
Man, 40-41.
Woman, 42-44.
Epicureanism, defects of, 36-45, 110, 159, 169-172.
Merits of, 23-25, 52-53.
Parasitic character of, 40, 44-45, 52.
Epicurus, 1-9.
Equality, Plato on, 148.
Evil, Stoic solution of, 87-90.
Eye of good man upon us, 6.
Fighting, a Christian duty, 270-272.
Fitzgerald, 15-16.
Forgiveness, 79, 259-260.
Fortitude, 126-129.
Friendship, 6, 166-167, 209-212.
Gentleness before all morality, 19.
Gilbert, W.S., To the Terrestrial Globe, 108.
Gluttony, 125.
Golden Rule, 223.
Good, the, according to Plato, 130.
Gravitation, beneficent, 83-84.
Gyges' ring, 115-116.
Handles, two to everything, 71.
Happiness and Virtue, 264.
Harmony, effect of, in education, 134.
Health, 10-13, 69. Henley, To R. T. H. B., 100.
Heretic, definition of, 53-54.
Honesty, intellectual, 241-243.
Horace, Ode on Philosophy of Life, 10.
Humility, 265.
Hurry, 29-30.
Imaginary presence of good man, 6.
Independence of outward goods, 4, 74.
Indifference to external things, 71, 77-78, 81.
Intellectual honesty, 241-243.
Jesus' three ways of teaching, 215-218.
Joy, 275.
Judas meets himself, 79.
Judging others, 260.
Judgment, Epicurean, Stoic, Platonic, and Aristotelian, 183.
Christian, 220-221.
Kant, categorical imperative, 86.
Good-will only real good, 85-86.
Uncompromising modern Stoic, 85.
Law, Jewish, transcended by Christianity, 219-238.
Stoic reverence for, 82-86.
Liberty, excess of, leads to slavery, 149.
Lincoln's letter to Greeley, 198.
Literature in education, 132-135.
Love, Christian, 215-291.
Lucretius, 8-9.
Marcus Aurelius, 77, 96.
Marriage, 228.
Mean, Aristotle's doctrine of the, 194-198.
Meekness, 268.
Melancholy, 33-34.
Mental healing, 30, 66, 70.
Mercy, 269.
Mill, Christian elements in his doctrine, 63.
Definition of happiness, 54.
Distinction in quality of happiness, 55-57.
Incompleteness of doctrine, 277-278.
Inconsistency of, 57-58, 63-65.
On social nature of man, 60-62.
Missionary character of Christianity, 262-263.
Modesty, 265.
Morrow, how meet most pleasantly, 7.
Murder, Christian definition of, 225-228.
Mysticism, 164.
Narrow way, 256.
Natural desires, 3.
Neoplatonism, 161-164.
"New Thought," 162.
Oaths, 235.
Obligation not to be relaxed, 167-168.
Office, good for one, bad for another, 186-187.
Omar Khayyam, 15-17, 38.
Opinion in our power, 74-75, 87.
Optimism, superficiality of modern, 82.
Otherworldliness, 36.
Pain, 2, 4.
Parasitic character of Epicureanism, 40, 44-45.
Patience, 128.
Penitence, 267.
Perfectionism, 92-93.
Persecution, 272-276.
Pessimism, 37-38.
Philosophers, as kings, 138.
Plato-Defects of, 120-122, 162-168.
Merits of, 159-162, 278.
On-Athletics, 136.
Cardinal virtues, 123-131.
Democracy, 147-149.
Education, 131-138.
Literature in education, 132-135.
Philosophers as kings, 138.
Riches and rich men, 145-147.
Righteousness, 113-223, 138-142, 153-159.
The good, 130, 137.
Completed in Christianity, 282-284.
Play, 26-28.
Pleasure, 2-4, 20, 39, 30-65, 110-111, 169-175, 255.
Politician, 117-119, 150-152.
Poverty, 4.
Power, things in our, 74.
Prayer, 257-258, 268.
Present, the time to live, 6, 36.
Procrastination, 6-7.
Prudence, 5-6, 20, 251.
Purity, 270.
Reading Gaol, 226.
Religion of Stoics, 95-100.
Reverence, 215.
Rewards and penalties not essential to virtue, 112-115.
Riches, 4-5, 67-69, 89, 145-147, 248-252.
Righteousness, 113-123, 138-142, 153-159.
Romola, 46-51.
Sacrifice, 254-256, 273-274.
Self-regard and excessive self-sacrifice, 10-15.
Seneca's pilot, 77.
Sexual morality, 202-204, 270.
Sin, 93.
Sleep, 22.
Social nature of man, 60-62, 176-179.
Socrates' prayer, 159.
Sorrow, Stoic attitude toward, 76-77.
Spencer, 10-15, 277-278.
Spirit, one of three elements in our nature, 126-128.
Stevenson, 18, 19, 201.
Stoic-Acceptance of criticism, 103.
Attitude toward sorrow, 76-77, 78, 80, 101-102.
Cosmopolitanism, 94-95.
Doctrine of no degrees in vice, 90-92.
Equanimity, 103-105.
Fortitude, 105-106.
Indifference, 71-81.
Paradoxes, 90-95.
Perfection of the sage, 93-93.
Religion, 95-103.
Resignation, 97, 104-105.
Reverence for law, 82-86.
Solution of problem of evil, 87-90.
Stoicism, coldness of, 107-109.
Completed in Christianity, 279-282.
Defects of, 106-109, 159.
Permanent value of, 101-106, 279-282.
Two principles of, 101.
Temperance, 200-204.
Theatre, 27.
Tito Melema, 46-51.
Tranquillity, 75.
Travel, foreign, the paradise of Epicurean women, 42.
Trial, Stoic endurance of, 75,89-90.
Tyranny, Plato on, 149-153.
Tyrant, most miserable of men, 153.
Unrighteousness the greatest evil, 140-141, 154-157.
Vexation, Stoic formula for, 78.
Virtue, 87-88, 110-116, 199-208.
Wealth, 4-5, 67-69, 145-148, 182, 248-252.
Whitman, Walt, 17, 18.
Wisdom, 129-131, 199.
Work, excessive, 10-15, 23-25.
Worry, folly of, 24, 29-30, 33, 252-253.
Printed in the United States of America.
OF THE NATURE OF THINGS By Titus Lucretius Carus A Metrical Translation By William Ellery Leonard BOOK I PROEM Mother of Rome, delight of Gods and men, Dear Venus that beneath the gliding stars Makest to teem the many-voyaged main And fruitful lands--for all of living things Through thee alone are evermore conceived, Through thee are risen to visit the great sun-Before thee, Goddess, and thy coming on, Flee stormy wind and massy cloud away, For thee the daedal Earth bears scented flowers, For thee waters of the unvexed deep Smile, and the hollows of the serene sky Glow with diffused radiance for thee!
For soon as comes the springtime face of day, And procreant gales blow from the West unbarred, First fowls of air, smit to the heart by thee, Foretoken thy approach, O thou Divine, And leap the wild herds round the happy fields Or swim the bounding torrents.
Thus amain, Seized with the spell, all creatures follow thee Whithersoever thou walkest forth to lead, And thence through seas and mountains and swift streams, Through leafy homes of birds and greening plains, Kindling the lure of love in every breast, Thou bringest the eternal generations forth, Kind after kind.
And since 'tis thou alone Guidest the Cosmos, and without thee naught Is risen to reach the shining shores of light, Nor aught of joyful or of lovely born, Thee do I crave co-partner in that verse Which I presume on Nature to compose For Memmius mine, whom thou hast willed to be Peerless in every grace at every hour-Wherefore indeed, Divine one, give my words Immortal charm.
Lull to a timely rest O'er sea and land the savage works of war, For thou alone hast power with public peace To aid mortality; since he who rules The savage works of battle, puissant Mars, How often to thy bosom flings his strength O'ermastered by the eternal wound of love-And there, with eyes and full throat backward thrown, Gazing, my Goddess, open-mouthed at thee, Pastures on love his greedy sight, his breath Hanging upon thy lips.
Him thus reclined Fill with thy holy body, round, above!
Pour from those lips soft syllables to win Peace for the Romans, glorious Lady, peace!
For in a season troublous to the state Neither may I attend this task of mine With thought untroubled, nor mid such events The illustrious scion of the Memmian house Neglect the civic cause.
Whilst human kind Throughout the lands lay miserably crushed Before all eyes beneath Religion--who Would show her head along the region skies, Glowering on mortals with her hideous face-A Greek it was who first opposing dared Raise mortal eyes that terror to withstand, Whom nor the fame of Gods nor lightning's stroke Nor threatening thunder of the ominous sky Abashed; but rather chafed to angry zest His dauntless heart to be the first to rend The crossbars at the gates of Nature old.
And thus his will and hardy wisdom won; And forward thus he fared afar, beyond The flaming ramparts of the world, until He wandered the unmeasurable All.
Whence he to us, a conqueror, reports What things can rise to being, what cannot, And by what law to each its scope prescribed, Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
Wherefore Religion now is under foot, And us his victory now exalts to heaven.
I know how hard it is in Latian verse To tell the dark discoveries of the Greeks, Chiefly because our pauper-speech must find Strange terms to fit the strangeness of the thing; Yet worth of thine and the expected joy Of thy sweet friendship do persuade me on To bear all toil and wake the clear nights through, Seeking with what of words and what of song I may at last most gloriously uncloud For thee the light beyond, wherewith to view The core of being at the centre hid.
And for the rest, summon to judgments true, Unbusied ears and singleness of mind Withdrawn from cares; lest these my gifts, arranged For thee with eager service, thou disdain Before thou comprehendest: since for thee I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky, And the primordial germs of things unfold, Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies And fosters all, and whither she resolves Each in the end when each is overthrown.
This ultimate stock we have devised to name Procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things, Or primal bodies, as primal to the world.
I fear perhaps thou deemest that we fare An impious road to realms of thought profane; But 'tis that same religion oftener far Hath bred the foul impieties of men: As once at Aulis, the elected chiefs, Foremost of heroes, Danaan counsellors, Defiled Diana's altar, virgin queen, With Agamemnon's daughter, foully slain.
She felt the chaplet round her maiden locks And fillets, fluttering down on either cheek, And at the altar marked her grieving sire, The priests beside him who concealed the knife, And all the folk in tears at sight of her.
With a dumb terror and a sinking knee She dropped; nor might avail her now that first 'Twas she who gave the king a father's name.
They raised her up, they bore the trembling girl On to the altar--hither led not now With solemn rites and hymeneal choir, But sinless woman, sinfully foredone, A parent felled her on her bridal day, Making his child a sacrificial beast To give the ships auspicious winds for Troy: Such are the crimes to which Religion leads.
And there shall come the time when even thou, Forced by the soothsayer's terror-tales, shalt seek To break from us.
Ah, many a dream even now Can they concoct to rout thy plans of life, And trouble all thy fortunes with base fears.
I own with reason: for, if men but knew Some fixed end to ills, they would be strong By some device unconquered to withstand Religions and the menacings of seers.
But now nor skill nor instrument is theirs, Since men must dread eternal pains in death.
For what the soul may be they do not know, Whether 'tis born, or enter in at birth, And whether, snatched by death, it die with us, Or visit the shadows and the vasty caves Of Orcus, or by some divine decree Enter the brute herds, as our Ennius sang, Who first from lovely Helicon brought down A laurel wreath of bright perennial leaves, Renowned forever among the Italian clans.
Yet Ennius too in everlasting verse Proclaims those vaults of Acheron to be, Though thence, he said, nor souls nor bodies fare, But only phantom figures, strangely wan, And tells how once from out those regions rose Old Homer's ghost to him and shed salt tears And with his words unfolded Nature's source.
Then be it ours with steady mind to clasp The purport of the skies--the law behind The wandering courses of the sun and moon; To scan the powers that speed all life below; But most to see with reasonable eyes Of what the mind, of what the soul is made, And what it is so terrible that breaks On us asleep, or waking in disease, Until we seem to mark and hear at hand Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago.
SUBSTANCE IS ETERNAL This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only Nature's aspect and her law, Which, teaching us, hath this exordium: Nothing from nothing ever yet was born.
Fear holds dominion over mortality Only because, seeing in land and sky So much the cause whereof no wise they know, Men think Divinities are working there.
Meantime, when once we know from nothing still Nothing can be create, we shall divine More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.
Suppose all sprang from all things: any kind Might take its origin from any thing, No fixed seed required.
Men from the sea Might rise, and from the land the scaly breed, And, fowl full fledged come bursting from the sky; The horned cattle, the herds and all the wild Would haunt with varying offspring tilth and waste; Nor would the same fruits keep their olden trees, But each might grow from any stock or limb By chance and change.
Indeed, and were there not For each its procreant atoms, could things have Each its unalterable mother old?
But, since produced from fixed seeds are all, Each birth goes forth upon the shores of light From its own stuff, from its own primal bodies.
And all from all cannot become, because In each resides a secret power its own.
Again, why see we lavished o'er the lands At spring the rose, at summer heat the corn, The vines that mellow when the autumn lures, If not because the fixed seeds of things At their own season must together stream, And new creations only be revealed When the due times arrive and pregnant earth Safely may give unto the shores of light Her tender progenies?
But if from naught Were their becoming, they would spring abroad Suddenly, unforeseen, in alien months, With no primordial germs, to be preserved From procreant unions at an adverse hour.
Nor on the mingling of the living seeds Would space be needed for the growth of things Were life an increment of nothing: then The tiny babe forthwith would walk a man, And from the turf would leap a branching tree-Wonders unheard of; for, by Nature, each Slowly increases from its lawful seed, And through that increase shall conserve its kind.
Whence take the proof that things enlarge and feed From out their proper matter.
Thus it comes That earth, without her seasons of fixed rains, Could bear no produce such as makes us glad, And whatsoever lives, if shut from food, Prolongs its kind and guards its life no more.
Thus easier 'tis to hold that many things Have primal bodies in common (as we see The single letters common to many words) Than aught exists without its origins.
Moreover, why should Nature not prepare Men of a bulk to ford the seas afoot, Or rend the mighty mountains with their hands, Or conquer Time with length of days, if not Because for all begotten things abides The changeless stuff, and what from that may spring Is fixed forevermore?
Lastly we see How far the tilled surpass the fields untilled And to the labour of our hands return Their more abounding crops; there are indeed Within the earth primordial germs of things, Which, as the ploughshare turns the fruitful clods And kneads the mould, we quicken into birth.
Else would ye mark, without all toil of ours, Spontaneous generations, fairer forms.
Confess then, naught from nothing can become, Since all must have their seeds, wherefrom to grow, Wherefrom to reach the gentle fields of air.
Hence too it comes that Nature all dissolves Into their primal bodies again, and naught Perishes ever to annihilation.
For, were aught mortal in its every part, Before our eyes it might be snatched away Unto destruction; since no force were needed To sunder its members and undo its bands.
Whereas, of truth, because all things exist, With seed imperishable, Nature allows Destruction nor collapse of aught, until Some outward force may shatter by a blow, Or inward craft, entering its hollow cells, Dissolve it down.
And more than this, if Time, That wastes with eld the works along the world, Destroy entire, consuming matter all, Whence then may Venus back to light of life Restore the generations kind by kind?
Or how, when thus restored, may daedal Earth Foster and plenish with her ancient food, Which, kind by kind, she offers unto each?
Whence may the water-springs, beneath the sea, Or inland rivers, far and wide away, Keep the unfathomable ocean full?
And out of what does Ether feed the stars?
For lapsed years and infinite age must else Have eat all shapes of mortal stock away: But be it the Long Ago contained those germs, By which this sum of things recruited lives, Those same infallibly can never die, Nor nothing to nothing evermore return.
And, too, the selfsame power might end alike All things, were they not still together held By matter eternal, shackled through its parts, Now more, now less.
A touch might be enough To cause destruction.
For the slightest force Would loose the weft of things wherein no part Were of imperishable stock.
But now Because the fastenings of primordial parts Are put together diversely and stuff Is everlasting, things abide the same Unhurt and sure, until some power comes on Strong to destroy the warp and woof of each: Nothing returns to naught; but all return At their collapse to primal forms of stuff.
Lo, the rains perish which Ether-father throws Down to the bosom of Earth-mother; but then Upsprings the shining grain, and boughs are green Amid the trees, and trees themselves wax big And lade themselves with fruits; and hence in turn The race of man and all the wild are fed; Hence joyful cities thrive with boys and girls; And leafy woodlands echo with new birds; Hence cattle, fat and drowsy, lay their bulk Along the joyous pastures whilst the drops Of white ooze trickle from distended bags; Hence the young scamper on their weakling joints Along the tender herbs, fresh hearts afrisk With warm new milk.
Thus naught of what so seems Perishes utterly, since Nature ever Upbuilds one thing from other, suffering naught To come to birth but through some other's death.
***** And now, since I have taught that things cannot Be born from nothing, nor the same, when born, To nothing be recalled, doubt not my words, Because our eyes no primal germs perceive; For mark those bodies which, though known to be In this our world, are yet invisible: The winds infuriate lash our face and frame, Unseen, and swamp huge ships and rend the clouds, Or, eddying wildly down, bestrew the plains With mighty trees, or scour the mountain tops With forest-crackling blasts.
Thus on they rave With uproar shrill and ominous moan.
The winds, 'Tis clear, are sightless bodies sweeping through The sea, the lands, the clouds along the sky, Vexing and whirling and seizing all amain; And forth they flow and pile destruction round, Even as the water's soft and supple bulk Becoming a river of abounding floods, Which a wide downpour from the lofty hills Swells with big showers, dashes headlong down Fragments of woodland and whole branching trees; Nor can the solid bridges bide the shock As on the waters whelm: the turbulent stream, Strong with a hundred rains, beats round the piers, Crashes with havoc, and rolls beneath its waves Down-toppled masonry and ponderous stone, Hurling away whatever would oppose.
Even so must move the blasts of all the winds, Which, when they spread, like to a mighty flood, Hither or thither, drive things on before And hurl to ground with still renewed assault, Or sometimes in their circling vortex seize And bear in cones of whirlwind down the world: The winds are sightless bodies and naught else-Since both in works and ways they rival well The mighty rivers, the visible in form.
Then too we know the varied smells of things Yet never to our nostrils see them come; With eyes we view not burning heats, nor cold, Nor are we wont men's voices to behold.
Yet these must be corporeal at the base, Since thus they smite the senses: naught there is Save body, having property of touch.
And raiment, hung by surf-beat shore, grows moist, The same, spread out before the sun, will dry; Yet no one saw how sank the moisture in, Nor how by heat off-driven.
Thus we know, That moisture is dispersed about in bits Too small for eyes to see.
Another case: A ring upon the finger thins away Along the under side, with years and suns; The drippings from the eaves will scoop the stone; The hooked ploughshare, though of iron, wastes Amid the fields insidiously.
We view The rock-paved highways worn by many feet; And at the gates the brazen statues show Their right hands leaner from the frequent touch Of wayfarers innumerable who greet.
We see how wearing-down hath minished these, But just what motes depart at any time, The envious nature of vision bars our sight.
Lastly whatever days and nature add Little by little, constraining things to grow In due proportion, no gaze however keen Of these our eyes hath watched and known.
No more Can we observe what's lost at any time, When things wax old with eld and foul decay, Or when salt seas eat under beetling crags.
Thus Nature ever by unseen bodies works.
THE VOID But yet creation's neither crammed nor blocked About by body: there's in things a void-Which to have known will serve thee many a turn, Nor will not leave thee wandering in doubt, Forever searching in the sum of all, And losing faith in these pronouncements mine.
There's place intangible, a void and room.
For were it not, things could in nowise move; Since body's property to block and check Would work on all and at an times the same.
Thus naught could evermore push forth and go, Since naught elsewhere would yield a starting place.
But now through oceans, lands, and heights of heaven, By divers causes and in divers modes, Before our eyes we mark how much may move, Which, finding not a void, would fail deprived Of stir and motion; nay, would then have been Nowise begot at all, since matter, then, Had staid at rest, its parts together crammed.
Then too, however solid objects seem, They yet are formed of matter mixed with void: In rocks and caves the watery moisture seeps, And beady drops stand out like plenteous tears; And food finds way through every frame that lives; The trees increase and yield the season's fruit Because their food throughout the whole is poured, Even from the deepest roots, through trunks and boughs; And voices pass the solid walls and fly Reverberant through shut doorways of a house; And stiffening frost seeps inward to our bones.
Which but for voids for bodies to go through 'Tis clear could happen in nowise at all.
Again, why see we among objects some Of heavier weight, but of no bulkier size?
Indeed, if in a ball of wool there be As much of body as in lump of lead, The two should weigh alike, since body tends To load things downward, while the void abides, By contrary nature, the imponderable.
Therefore, an object just as large but lighter Declares infallibly its more of void; Even as the heavier more of matter shows, And how much less of vacant room inside.
That which we're seeking with sagacious quest Exists, infallibly, commixed with things-The void, the invisible inane.
Right here I am compelled a question to expound, Forestalling something certain folk suppose, Lest it avail to lead thee off from truth: Waters (they say) before the shining breed Of the swift scaly creatures somehow give, And straightway open sudden liquid paths, Because the fishes leave behind them room To which at once the yielding billows stream.
Thus things among themselves can yet be moved, And change their place, however full the Sum-Received opinion, wholly false forsooth.
For where can scaly creatures forward dart, Save where the waters give them room?
Again, Where can the billows yield a way, so long As ever the fish are powerless to go?
Thus either all bodies of motion are deprived, Or things contain admixture of a void Where each thing gets its start in moving on.
Lastly, where after impact two broad bodies Suddenly spring apart, the air must crowd The whole new void between those bodies formed; But air, however it stream with hastening gusts, Can yet not fill the gap at once--for first It makes for one place, ere diffused through all.
And then, if haply any think this comes, When bodies spring apart, because the air Somehow condenses, wander they from truth: For then a void is formed, where none before; And, too, a void is filled which was before.
Nor can air be condensed in such a wise; Nor, granting it could, without a void, I hold, It still could not contract upon itself And draw its parts together into one.
Wherefore, despite demur and counter-speech, Confess thou must there is a void in things.
And still I might by many an argument Here scrape together credence for my words.
But for the keen eye these mere footprints serve, Whereby thou mayest know the rest thyself.
As dogs full oft with noses on the ground, Find out the silent lairs, though hid in brush, Of beasts, the mountain-rangers, when but once They scent the certain footsteps of the way, Thus thou thyself in themes like these alone Can hunt from thought to thought, and keenly wind Along even onward to the secret places And drag out truth.
But, if thou loiter loth Or veer, however little, from the point, This I can promise, Memmius, for a fact: Such copious drafts my singing tongue shall pour From the large well-springs of my plenished breast That much I dread slow age will steal and coil Along our members, and unloose the gates Of life within us, ere for thee my verse Hath put within thine ears the stores of proofs At hand for one soever question broached.
NOTHING EXISTS per se EXCEPT ATOMS AND THE VOID But, now again to weave the tale begun, All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists Of twain of things: of bodies and of void In which they're set, and where they're moved around.
For common instinct of our race declares That body of itself exists: unless This primal faith, deep-founded, fail us not, Naught will there be whereunto to appeal On things occult when seeking aught to prove By reasonings of mind.
Again, without That place and room, which we do call the inane, Nowhere could bodies then be set, nor go Hither or thither at all--as shown before.
Besides, there's naught of which thou canst declare It lives disjoined from body, shut from void-A kind of third in nature.
For whatever Exists must be a somewhat; and the same, If tangible, however fight and slight, Will yet increase the count of body's sum, With its own augmentation big or small; But, if intangible and powerless ever To keep a thing from passing through itself On any side, 'twill be naught else but that Which we do call the empty, the inane.
Again, whate'er exists, as of itself, Must either act or suffer action on it, Or else be that wherein things move and be: Naught, saving body, acts, is acted on; Naught but the inane can furnish room.
And thus, Beside the inane and bodies, is no third Nature amid the number of all things-Remainder none to fall at any time Under our senses, nor be seized and seen By any man through reasonings of mind.
Name o'er creation with what names thou wilt, Thou'lt find but properties of those first twain, Or see but accidents those twain produce.
A property is that which not at all Can be disjoined and severed from a thing Without a fatal dissolution: such, Weight to the rocks, heat to the fire, and flow To the wide waters, touch to corporal things, Intangibility to the viewless void.
But state of slavery, pauperhood, and wealth, Freedom, and war, and concord, and all else Which come and go whilst nature stands the same, We're wont, and rightly, to call accidents.
Even time exists not of itself; but sense Reads out of things what happened long ago, What presses now, and what shall follow after: No man, we must admit, feels time itself, Disjoined from motion and repose of things.
Thus, when they say there "is" the ravishment Of Princess Helen, "is" the siege and sack Of Trojan Town, look out, they force us not To admit these acts existent by themselves, Merely because those races of mankind (Of whom these acts were accidents) long since Irrevocable age has borne away: For all past actions may be said to be But accidents, in one way, of mankind,-In other, of some region of the world.
Add, too, had been no matter, and no room Wherein all things go on, the fire of love Upblown by that fair form, the glowing coal Under the Phrygian Alexander's breast, Had ne'er enkindled that renowned strife Of savage war, nor had the wooden horse Involved in flames old Pergama, by a birth At midnight of a brood of the Hellenes.
And thus thou canst remark that every act At bottom exists not of itself, nor is As body is, nor has like name with void; But rather of sort more fitly to be called An accident of body, and of place Wherein all things go on.
CHARACTER OF THE ATOMS Bodies, again, Are partly primal germs of things, and partly Unions deriving from the primal germs.
And those which are the primal germs of things No power can quench; for in the end they conquer By their own solidness; though hard it be To think that aught in things has solid frame; For lightnings pass, no less than voice and shout, Through hedging walls of houses, and the iron White-dazzles in the fire, and rocks will burn With exhalations fierce and burst asunder.
Totters the rigid gold dissolved in heat; The ice of bronze melts conquered in the flame; Warmth and the piercing cold through silver seep, Since, with the cups held rightly in the hand, We oft feel both, as from above is poured The dew of waters between their shining sides: So true it is no solid form is found.
But yet because true reason and nature of things Constrain us, come, whilst in few verses now I disentangle how there still exist Bodies of solid, everlasting frame-The seeds of things, the primal germs we teach, Whence all creation around us came to be.
First since we know a twofold nature exists, Of things, both twain and utterly unlike-Body, and place in which an things go on-Then each must be both for and through itself, And all unmixed: where'er be empty space, There body's not; and so where body bides, There not at all exists the void inane.
Thus primal bodies are solid, without a void.
But since there's void in all begotten things, All solid matter must be round the same; Nor, by true reason canst thou prove aught hides And holds a void within its body, unless Thou grant what holds it be a solid.
Know, That which can hold a void of things within Can be naught else than matter in union knit.
Thus matter, consisting of a solid frame, Hath power to be eternal, though all else, Though all creation, be dissolved away.
Again, were naught of empty and inane, The world were then a solid; as, without Some certain bodies to fill the places held, The world that is were but a vacant void.
And so, infallibly, alternate-wise Body and void are still distinguished, Since nature knows no wholly full nor void.
There are, then, certain bodies, possessed of power To vary forever the empty and the full; And these can nor be sundered from without By beats and blows, nor from within be torn By penetration, nor be overthrown By any assault soever through the world-For without void, naught can be crushed, it seems, Nor broken, nor severed by a cut in twain, Nor can it take the damp, or seeping cold Or piercing fire, those old destroyers three; But the more void within a thing, the more Entirely it totters at their sure assault.
Thus if first bodies be, as I have taught, Solid, without a void, they must be then Eternal; and, if matter ne'er had been Eternal, long ere now had all things gone Back into nothing utterly, and all We see around from nothing had been born-But since I taught above that naught can be From naught created, nor the once begotten To naught be summoned back, these primal germs Must have an immortality of frame.
And into these must each thing be resolved, When comes its supreme hour, that thus there be At hand the stuff for plenishing the world.
***** So primal germs have solid singleness Nor otherwise could they have been conserved Through aeons and infinity of time For the replenishment of wasted worlds.
Once more, if nature had given a scope for things To be forever broken more and more, By now the bodies of matter would have been So far reduced by breakings in old days That from them nothing could, at season fixed, Be born, and arrive its prime and top of life.
For, lo, each thing is quicker marred than made; And so whate'er the long infinitude Of days and all fore-passed time would now By this have broken and ruined and dissolved, That same could ne'er in all remaining time Be builded up for plenishing the world.
But mark: infallibly a fixed bound Remaineth stablished 'gainst their breaking down; Since we behold each thing soever renewed, And unto all, their seasons, after their kind, Wherein they arrive the flower of their age.
Again, if bounds have not been set against The breaking down of this corporeal world, Yet must all bodies of whatever things Have still endured from everlasting time Unto this present, as not yet assailed By shocks of peril.
But because the same Are, to thy thinking, of a nature frail, It ill accords that thus they could remain (As thus they do) through everlasting time, Vexed through the ages (as indeed they are) By the innumerable blows of chance.
So in our programme of creation, mark How 'tis that, though the bodies of all stuff Are solid to the core, we yet explain The ways whereby some things are fashioned soft-Air, water, earth, and fiery exhalations-And by what force they function and go on: The fact is founded in the void of things.
But if the primal germs themselves be soft, Reason cannot be brought to bear to show The ways whereby may be created these Great crags of basalt and the during iron; For their whole nature will profoundly lack The first foundations of a solid frame.
But powerful in old simplicity, Abide the solid, the primeval germs; And by their combinations more condensed, All objects can be tightly knit and bound And made to show unconquerable strength.
Again, since all things kind by kind obtain Fixed bounds of growing and conserving life; Since Nature hath inviolably decreed What each can do, what each can never do; Since naught is changed, but all things so abide That ever the variegated birds reveal The spots or stripes peculiar to their kind, Spring after spring: thus surely all that is Must be composed of matter immutable.
For if the primal germs in any wise Were open to conquest and to change, 'twould be Uncertain also what could come to birth And what could not, and by what law to each Its scope prescribed, its boundary stone that clings So deep in Time.
Nor could the generations Kind after kind so often reproduce The nature, habits, motions, ways of life, Of their progenitors.
And then again, Since there is ever an extreme bounding point ***** Of that first body which our senses now Cannot perceive: That bounding point indeed Exists without all parts, a minimum Of nature, nor was e'er a thing apart, As of itself,--nor shall hereafter be, Since 'tis itself still parcel of another, A first and single part, whence other parts And others similar in order lie In a packed phalanx, filling to the full The nature of first body: being thus Not self-existent, they must cleave to that From which in nowise they can sundered be.
So primal germs have solid singleness, Which tightly packed and closely joined cohere By virtue of their minim particles-No compound by mere union of the same; But strong in their eternal singleness, Nature, reserving them as seeds for things, Permitteth naught of rupture or decrease.
Moreover, were there not a minimum, The smallest bodies would have infinites, Since then a half-of-half could still be halved, With limitless division less and less.
Then what the difference 'twixt the sum and least?
None: for however infinite the sum, Yet even the smallest would consist the same Of infinite parts.
But since true reason here Protests, denying that the mind can think it, Convinced thou must confess such things there are As have no parts, the minimums of nature.
And since these are, likewise confess thou must That primal bodies are solid and eterne.
Again, if Nature, creatress of all things, Were wont to force all things to be resolved Unto least parts, then would she not avail To reproduce from out them anything; Because whate'er is not endowed with parts Cannot possess those properties required Of generative stuff--divers connections, Weights, blows, encounters, motions, whereby things Forevermore have being and go on.
CONFUTATION OF OTHER PHILOSOPHERS And on such grounds it is that those who held The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.
Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech Among the silly, not the serious Greeks Who search for truth.
For dolts are ever prone That to bewonder and adore which hides Beneath distorted words, holding that true Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears, Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.
For how, I ask, can things so varied be, If formed of fire, single and pure?
No whit 'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned, If all the parts of fire did still preserve But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.
The heat were keener with the parts compressed, Milder, again, when severed or dispersed-And more than this thou canst conceive of naught That from such causes could become; much less Might earth's variety of things be born From any fires soever, dense or rare.
This too: if they suppose a void in things, Then fires can be condensed and still left rare; But since they see such opposites of thought Rising against them, and are loath to leave An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep And lose the road of truth.
Nor do they see, That, if from things we take away the void, All things are then condensed, and out of all One body made, which has no power to dart Swiftly from out itself not anything-As throws the fire its light and warmth around, Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.
But if perhaps they think, in other wise, Fires through their combinations can be quenched And change their substance, very well: behold, If fire shall spare to do so in no part, Then heat will perish utterly and all, And out of nothing would the world be formed.
For change in anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before; And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed Amid the world, lest all return to naught, And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.
Now since indeed there are those surest bodies Which keep their nature evermore the same, Upon whose going out and coming in And changed order things their nature change, And all corporeal substances transformed, 'Tis thine to know those primal bodies, then, Are not of fire.
For 'twere of no avail Should some depart and go away, and some Be added new, and some be changed in order, If still all kept their nature of old heat: For whatsoever they created then Would still in any case be only fire.
The truth, I fancy, this: bodies there are Whose clashings, motions, order, posture, shapes Produce the fire and which, by order changed, Do change the nature of the thing produced, And are thereafter nothing like to fire Nor whatso else has power to send its bodies With impact touching on the senses' touch.
Again, to say that all things are but fire And no true thing in number of all things Exists but fire, as this same fellow says, Seems crazed folly.
For the man himself Against the senses by the senses fights, And hews at that through which is all belief, Through which indeed unto himself is known The thing he calls the fire.
For, though he thinks The senses truly can perceive the fire, He thinks they cannot as regards all else, Which still are palpably as clear to sense-To me a thought inept and crazy too.
For whither shall we make appeal?
for what More certain than our senses can there be Whereby to mark asunder error and truth?
Besides, why rather do away with all, And wish to allow heat only, then deny The fire and still allow all else to be?-Alike the madness either way it seems.
Thus whosoe'er have held the stuff of things To be but fire, and out of fire the sum, And whosoever have constituted air As first beginning of begotten things, And all whoever have held that of itself Water alone contrives things, or that earth Createth all and changes things anew To divers natures, mightily they seem A long way to have wandered from the truth.
Add, too, whoever make the primal stuff Twofold, by joining air to fire, and earth To water; add who deem that things can grow Out of the four--fire, earth, and breath, and rain; As first Empedocles of Acragas, Whom that three-cornered isle of all the lands Bore on her coasts, around which flows and flows In mighty bend and bay the Ionic seas, Splashing the brine from off their gray-green waves.
Here, billowing onward through the narrow straits, Swift ocean cuts her boundaries from the shores Of the Italic mainland.
Here the waste Charybdis; and here Aetna rumbles threats To gather anew such furies of its flames As with its force anew to vomit fires, Belched from its throat, and skyward bear anew Its lightnings' flash.
And though for much she seem The mighty and the wondrous isle to men, Most rich in all good things, and fortified With generous strength of heroes, she hath ne'er Possessed within her aught of more renown, Nor aught more holy, wonderful, and dear Than this true man.
Nay, ever so far and pure The lofty music of his breast divine Lifts up its voice and tells of glories found, That scarce he seems of human stock create.
Yet he and those forementioned (known to be So far beneath him, less than he in all), Though, as discoverers of much goodly truth, They gave, as 'twere from out of the heart's own shrine, Responses holier and soundlier based Than ever the Pythia pronounced for men From out the triped and the Delphian laurel, Have still in matter of first-elements Made ruin of themselves, and, great men, great Indeed and heavy there for them the fall: First, because, banishing the void from things, They yet assign them motion, and allow Things soft and loosely textured to exist, As air, dew, fire, earth, animals, and grains, Without admixture of void amid their frame.
Next, because, thinking there can be no end In cutting bodies down to less and less Nor pause established to their breaking up, They hold there is no minimum in things; Albeit we see the boundary point of aught Is that which to our senses seems its least, Whereby thou mayst conjecture, that, because The things thou canst not mark have boundary points, They surely have their minimums.
Then, too, Since these philosophers ascribe to things Soft primal germs, which we behold to be Of birth and body mortal, thus, throughout, The sum of things must be returned to naught, And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew-Thou seest how far each doctrine stands from truth.
And, next, these bodies are among themselves In many ways poisons and foes to each, Wherefore their congress will destroy them quite Or drive asunder as we see in storms Rains, winds, and lightnings all asunder fly.
Thus too, if all things are create of four, And all again dissolved into the four, How can the four be called the primal germs Of things, more than all things themselves be thought, By retroversion, primal germs of them?
For ever alternately are both begot, With interchange of nature and aspect From immemorial time.
But if percase Thou think'st the frame of fire and earth, the air, The dew of water can in such wise meet As not by mingling to resign their nature, From them for thee no world can be create-No thing of breath, no stock or stalk of tree: In the wild congress of this varied heap Each thing its proper nature will display, And air will palpably be seen mixed up With earth together, unquenched heat with water.
But primal germs in bringing things to birth Must have a latent, unseen quality, Lest some outstanding alien element Confuse and minish in the thing create Its proper being.
But these men begin From heaven, and from its fires; and first they feign That fire will turn into the winds of air, Next, that from air the rain begotten is, And earth created out of rain, and then That all, reversely, are returned from earth-The moisture first, then air thereafter heat-And that these same ne'er cease in interchange, To go their ways from heaven to earth, from earth Unto the stars of the aethereal world-Which in no wise at all the germs can do.
Since an immutable somewhat still must be, Lest all things utterly be sped to naught; For change in anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before.
Wherefore, since those things, mentioned heretofore, Suffer a changed state, they must derive From others ever unconvertible, Lest an things utterly return to naught.
Then why not rather presuppose there be Bodies with such a nature furnished forth That, if perchance they have created fire, Can still (by virtue of a few withdrawn, Or added few, and motion and order changed) Fashion the winds of air, and thus all things Forevermore be interchanged with all?
"But facts in proof are manifest," thou sayest, "That all things grow into the winds of air And forth from earth are nourished, and unless The season favour at propitious hour With rains enough to set the trees a-reel Under the soak of bulking thunderheads, And sun, for its share, foster and give heat, No grains, nor trees, nor breathing things can grow."
True--and unless hard food and moisture soft Recruited man, his frame would waste away, And life dissolve from out his thews and bones; For out of doubt recruited and fed are we By certain things, as other things by others.
Because in many ways the many germs Common to many things are mixed in things, No wonder 'tis that therefore divers things By divers things are nourished.
And, again, Often it matters vastly with what others, In what positions the primordial germs Are bound together, and what motions, too, They give and get among themselves; for these Same germs do put together sky, sea, lands, Rivers, and sun, grains, trees, and breathing things, But yet commixed they are in divers modes With divers things, forever as they move.
Nay, thou beholdest in our verses here Elements many, common to many worlds, Albeit thou must confess each verse, each word From one another differs both in sense And ring of sound--so much the elements Can bring about by change of order alone.
But those which are the primal germs of things Have power to work more combinations still, Whence divers things can be produced in turn.
Now let us also take for scrutiny The homeomeria of Anaxagoras, So called by Greeks, for which our pauper-speech Yieldeth no name in the Italian tongue, Although the thing itself is not o'erhard For explanation.
First, then, when he speaks Of this homeomeria of things, he thinks Bones to be sprung from littlest bones minute, And from minute and littlest flesh all flesh, And blood created out of drops of blood, Conceiving gold compact of grains of gold, And earth concreted out of bits of earth, Fire made of fires, and water out of waters, Feigning the like with all the rest of stuff.
Yet he concedes not any void in things, Nor any limit to cutting bodies down.
Wherefore to me he seems on both accounts To err no less than those we named before.
Add too: these germs he feigns are far too frail-If they be germs primordial furnished forth With but same nature as the things themselves, And travail and perish equally with those, And no rein curbs them from annihilation.
For which will last against the grip and crush Under the teeth of death?
the fire?
the moist?
Or else the air?
which then?
the blood?
the bones?
No one, methinks, when every thing will be At bottom as mortal as whate'er we mark To perish by force before our gazing eyes.
But my appeal is to the proofs above That things cannot fall back to naught, nor yet From naught increase.
And now again, since food Augments and nourishes the human frame, 'Tis thine to know our veins and blood and bones And thews are formed of particles unlike To them in kind; or if they say all foods Are of mixed substance having in themselves Small bodies of thews, and bones, and also veins And particles of blood, then every food, Solid or liquid, must itself be thought As made and mixed of things unlike in kind-Of bones, of thews, of ichor and of blood.
Again, if all the bodies which upgrow From earth, are first within the earth, then earth Must be compound of alien substances.
Which spring and bloom abroad from out the earth.
Transfer the argument, and thou may'st use The selfsame words: if flame and smoke and ash Still lurk unseen within the wood, the wood Must be compound of alien substances Which spring from out the wood.
Right here remains A certain slender means to skulk from truth, Which Anaxagoras takes unto himself, Who holds that all things lurk commixed with all While that one only comes to view, of which The bodies exceed in number all the rest, And lie more close to hand and at the fore-A notion banished from true reason far.
For then 'twere meet that kernels of the grains Should oft, when crunched between the might of stones, Give forth a sign of blood, or of aught else Which in our human frame is fed; and that Rock rubbed on rock should yield a gory ooze.
Likewise the herbs ought oft to give forth drops Of sweet milk, flavoured like the uddered sheep's; Indeed we ought to find, when crumbling up The earthy clods, there herbs, and grains, and leaves, All sorts dispersed minutely in the soil; Lastly we ought to find in cloven wood Ashes and smoke and bits of fire there hid.
But since fact teaches this is not the case, 'Tis thine to know things are not mixed with things Thuswise; but seeds, common to many things, Commixed in many ways, must lurk in things.
"But often it happens on skiey hills" thou sayest, "That neighbouring tops of lofty trees are rubbed One against other, smote by the blustering south, Till all ablaze with bursting flower of flame."
Good sooth--yet fire is not ingraft in wood, But many are the seeds of heat, and when Rubbing together they together flow, They start the conflagrations in the forests.
Whereas if flame, already fashioned, lay Stored up within the forests, then the fires Could not for any time be kept unseen, But would be laying all the wildwood waste And burning all the boscage.
Now dost see (Even as we said a little space above) How mightily it matters with what others, In what positions these same primal germs Are bound together?
And what motions, too, They give and get among themselves?
how, hence, The same, if altered 'mongst themselves, can body Both igneous and ligneous objects forth-Precisely as these words themselves are made By somewhat altering their elements, Although we mark with name indeed distinct The igneous from the ligneous.
Once again, If thou suppose whatever thou beholdest, Among all visible objects, cannot be, Unless thou feign bodies of matter endowed With a like nature,--by thy vain device For thee will perish all the germs of things: 'Twill come to pass they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or moisten with salty tear-drops cheeks and chins.
THE INFINITY OF THE UNIVERSE Now learn of what remains!
More keenly hear!
And for myself, my mind is not deceived How dark it is: But the large hope of praise Hath strook with pointed thyrsus through my heart; On the same hour hath strook into my breast Sweet love of the Muses, wherewith now instinct, I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought, Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, Trodden by step of none before.
I joy To come on undefiled fountains there, To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers, To seek for this my head a signal crown From regions where the Muses never yet Have garlanded the temples of a man: First, since I teach concerning mighty things, And go right on to loose from round the mind The tightened coils of dread religion; Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame Songs so pellucid, touching all throughout Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem, Is not without a reasonable ground: But as physicians, when they seek to give Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch The brim around the cup with the sweet juice And yellow of the honey, in order that The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled, Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus Grow strong again with recreated health: So now I too (since this my doctrine seems In general somewhat woeful unto those Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd Starts back from it in horror) have desired To expound our doctrine unto thee in song Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-If by such method haply I might hold The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, Till thou see through the nature of all things, And how exists the interwoven frame.
But since I've taught that bodies of matter, made Completely solid, hither and thither fly Forevermore unconquered through all time, Now come, and whether to the sum of them There be a limit or be none, for thee Let us unfold; likewise what has been found To be the wide inane, or room, or space Wherein all things soever do go on, Let us examine if it finite be All and entire, or reach unmeasured round And downward an illimitable profound.
Thus, then, the All that is is limited In no one region of its onward paths, For then 'tmust have forever its beyond.
And a beyond 'tis seen can never be For aught, unless still further on there be A somewhat somewhere that may bound the same-So that the thing be seen still on to where The nature of sensation of that thing Can follow it no longer.
Now because Confess we must there's naught beside the sum, There's no beyond, and so it lacks all end.
It matters nothing where thou post thyself, In whatsoever regions of the same; Even any place a man has set him down Still leaves about him the unbounded all Outward in all directions; or, supposing A moment the all of space finite to be, If some one farthest traveller runs forth Unto the extreme coasts and throws ahead A flying spear, is't then thy wish to think It goes, hurled off amain, to where 'twas sent And shoots afar, or that some object there Can thwart and stop it?
For the one or other Thou must admit and take.
Either of which Shuts off escape for thee, and does compel That thou concede the all spreads everywhere, Owning no confines.
Since whether there be Aught that may block and check it so it comes Not where 'twas sent, nor lodges in its goal, Or whether borne along, in either view 'Thas started not from any end.
And so I'll follow on, and whereso'er thou set The extreme coasts, I'll query, "what becomes Thereafter of thy spear?"
'Twill come to pass That nowhere can a world's-end be, and that The chance for further flight prolongs forever The flight itself.
Besides, were all the space Of the totality and sum shut in With fixed coasts, and bounded everywhere, Then would the abundance of world's matter flow Together by solid weight from everywhere Still downward to the bottom of the world, Nor aught could happen under cope of sky, Nor could there be a sky at all or sun-Indeed, where matter all one heap would lie, By having settled during infinite time.
But in reality, repose is given Unto no bodies 'mongst the elements, Because there is no bottom whereunto They might, as 'twere, together flow, and where They might take up their undisturbed abodes.
In endless motion everything goes on Forevermore; out of all regions, even Out of the pit below, from forth the vast, Are hurtled bodies evermore supplied.
The nature of room, the space of the abyss Is such that even the flashing thunderbolts Can neither speed upon their courses through, Gliding across eternal tracts of time, Nor, further, bring to pass, as on they run, That they may bate their journeying one whit: Such huge abundance spreads for things around-Room off to every quarter, without end.
Lastly, before our very eyes is seen Thing to bound thing: air hedges hill from hill, And mountain walls hedge air; land ends the sea, And sea in turn all lands; but for the All Truly is nothing which outside may bound.
That, too, the sum of things itself may not Have power to fix a measure of its own, Great nature guards, she who compels the void To bound all body, as body all the void, Thus rendering by these alternates the whole An infinite; or else the one or other, Being unbounded by the other, spreads, Even by its single nature, ne'ertheless Immeasurably forth....
Nor sea, nor earth, nor shining vaults of sky, Nor breed of mortals, nor holy limbs of gods Could keep their place least portion of an hour: For, driven apart from out its meetings fit, The stock of stuff, dissolved, would be borne Along the illimitable inane afar, Or rather, in fact, would ne'er have once combined And given a birth to aught, since, scattered wide, It could not be united.
For of truth Neither by counsel did the primal germs 'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind, Each in its proper place; nor did they make, Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move; But since, being many and changed in many modes Along the All, they're driven abroad and vexed By blow on blow, even from all time of old, They thus at last, after attempting all The kinds of motion and conjoining, come Into those great arrangements out of which This sum of things established is create, By which, moreover, through the mighty years, It is preserved, when once it has been thrown Into the proper motions, bringing to pass That ever the streams refresh the greedy main With river-waves abounding, and that earth, Lapped in warm exhalations of the sun, Renews her broods, and that the lusty race Of breathing creatures bears and blooms, and that The gliding fires of ether are alive-What still the primal germs nowise could do, Unless from out the infinite of space Could come supply of matter, whence in season They're wont whatever losses to repair.
For as the nature of breathing creatures wastes, Losing its body, when deprived of food: So all things have to be dissolved as soon As matter, diverted by what means soever From off its course, shall fail to be on hand.
Nor can the blows from outward still conserve, On every side, whatever sum of a world Has been united in a whole.
They can Indeed, by frequent beating, check a part, Till others arriving may fulfil the sum; But meanwhile often are they forced to spring Rebounding back, and, as they spring, to yield, Unto those elements whence a world derives, Room and a time for flight, permitting them To be from off the massy union borne Free and afar.
Wherefore, again, again: Needs must there come a many for supply; And also, that the blows themselves shall be Unfailing ever, must there ever be An infinite force of matter all sides round.
And in these problems, shrink, my Memmius, far From yielding faith to that notorious talk: That all things inward to the centre press; And thus the nature of the world stands firm With never blows from outward, nor can be Nowhere disparted--since all height and depth Have always inward to the centre pressed (If thou art ready to believe that aught Itself can rest upon itself ); or that The ponderous bodies which be under earth Do all press upwards and do come to rest Upon the earth, in some way upside down, Like to those images of things we see At present through the waters.
They contend, With like procedure, that all breathing things Head downward roam about, and yet cannot Tumble from earth to realms of sky below, No more than these our bodies wing away Spontaneously to vaults of sky above; That, when those creatures look upon the sun, We view the constellations of the night; And that with us the seasons of the sky They thus alternately divide, and thus Do pass the night coequal to our days, But a vain error has given these dreams to fools, Which they've embraced with reasoning perverse For centre none can be where world is still Boundless, nor yet, if now a centre were, Could aught take there a fixed position more Than for some other cause 'tmight be dislodged.
For all of room and space we call the void Must both through centre and non-centre yield Alike to weights where'er their motions tend.
Nor is there any place, where, when they've come, Bodies can be at standstill in the void, Deprived of force of weight; nor yet may void Furnish support to any,--nay, it must, True to its bent of nature, still give way.
Thus in such manner not at all can things Be held in union, as if overcome By craving for a centre.
But besides, Seeing they feign that not all bodies press To centre inward, rather only those Of earth and water (liquid of the sea, And the big billows from the mountain slopes, And whatsoever are encased, as 'twere, In earthen body), contrariwise, they teach How the thin air, and with it the hot fire, Is borne asunder from the centre, and how, For this all ether quivers with bright stars, And the sun's flame along the blue is fed (Because the heat, from out the centre flying, All gathers there), and how, again, the boughs Upon the tree-tops could not sprout their leaves, Unless, little by little, from out the earth For each were nutriment... ***** Lest, after the manner of the winged flames, The ramparts of the world should flee away, Dissolved amain throughout the mighty void, And lest all else should likewise follow after, Aye, lest the thundering vaults of heaven should burst And splinter upward, and the earth forthwith Withdraw from under our feet, and all its bulk, Among its mingled wrecks and those of heaven, With slipping asunder of the primal seeds, Should pass, along the immeasurable inane, Away forever, and, that instant, naught Of wrack and remnant would be left, beside The desolate space, and germs invisible.
For on whatever side thou deemest first The primal bodies lacking, lo, that side Will be for things the very door of death: Wherethrough the throng of matter all will dash, Out and abroad.
These points, if thou wilt ponder, Then, with but paltry trouble led along... ***** For one thing after other will grow clear, Nor shall the blind night rob thee of the road, To hinder thy gaze on nature's Farthest-forth.
Thus things for things shall kindle torches new.
BOOK II PROEM 'Tis sweet, when, down the mighty main, the winds Roll up its waste of waters, from the land To watch another's labouring anguish far, Not that we joyously delight that man Should thus be smitten, but because 'tis sweet To mark what evils we ourselves be spared; 'Tis sweet, again, to view the mighty strife Of armies embattled yonder o'er the plains, Ourselves no sharers in the peril; but naught There is more goodly than to hold the high Serene plateaus, well fortressed by the wise, Whence thou may'st look below on other men And see them ev'rywhere wand'ring, all dispersed In their lone seeking for the road of life; Rivals in genius, or emulous in rank, Pressing through days and nights with hugest toil For summits of power and mastery of the world.
O wretched minds of men!
O blinded hearts!
In how great perils, in what darks of life Are spent the human years, however brief!-O not to see that nature for herself Barks after nothing, save that pain keep off, Disjoined from the body, and that mind enjoy Delightsome feeling, far from care and fear!
Therefore we see that our corporeal life Needs little, altogether, and only such As takes the pain away, and can besides Strew underneath some number of delights.
More grateful 'tis at times (for nature craves No artifice nor luxury), if forsooth There be no golden images of boys Along the halls, with right hands holding out The lamps ablaze, the lights for evening feasts, And if the house doth glitter not with gold Nor gleam with silver, and to the lyre resound No fretted and gilded ceilings overhead, Yet still to lounge with friends in the soft grass Beside a river of water, underneath A big tree's boughs, and merrily to refresh Our frames, with no vast outlay--most of all If the weather is laughing and the times of the year Besprinkle the green of the grass around with flowers.
Nor yet the quicker will hot fevers go, If on a pictured tapestry thou toss, Or purple robe, than if 'tis thine to lie Upon the poor man's bedding.
Wherefore, since Treasure, nor rank, nor glory of a reign Avail us naught for this our body, thus Reckon them likewise nothing for the mind: Save then perchance, when thou beholdest forth Thy legions swarming round the Field of Mars, Rousing a mimic warfare--either side Strengthened with large auxiliaries and horse, Alike equipped with arms, alike inspired; Or save when also thou beholdest forth Thy fleets to swarm, deploying down the sea: For then, by such bright circumstance abashed, Religion pales and flees thy mind; O then The fears of death leave heart so free of care.
But if we note how all this pomp at last Is but a drollery and a mocking sport, And of a truth man's dread, with cares at heels, Dreads not these sounds of arms, these savage swords But among kings and lords of all the world Mingles undaunted, nor is overawed By gleam of gold nor by the splendour bright Of purple robe, canst thou then doubt that this Is aught, but power of thinking?--when, besides The whole of life but labours in the dark.
For just as children tremble and fear all In the viewless dark, so even we at times Dread in the light so many things that be No whit more fearsome than what children feign, Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
This terror then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only nature's aspect and her law.
ATOMIC MOTIONS Now come: I will untangle for thy steps Now by what motions the begetting bodies Of the world-stuff beget the varied world, And then forever resolve it when begot, And by what force they are constrained to this, And what the speed appointed unto them Wherewith to travel down the vast inane: Do thou remember to yield thee to my words.
For truly matter coheres not, crowds not tight, Since we behold each thing to wane away, And we observe how all flows on and off, As 'twere, with age-old time, and from our eyes How eld withdraws each object at the end, Albeit the sum is seen to bide the same, Unharmed, because these motes that leave each thing Diminish what they part from, but endow With increase those to which in turn they come, Constraining these to wither in old age, And those to flower at the prime (and yet Biding not long among them).
Thus the sum Forever is replenished, and we live As mortals by eternal give and take.
The nations wax, the nations wane away; In a brief space the generations pass, And like to runners hand the lamp of life One unto other.
But if thou believe That the primordial germs of things can stop, And in their stopping give new motions birth, Afar thou wanderest from the road of truth.
For since they wander through the void inane, All the primordial germs of things must needs Be borne along, either by weight their own, Or haply by another's blow without.
For, when, in their incessancy so oft They meet and clash, it comes to pass amain They leap asunder, face to face: not strange-Being most hard, and solid in their weights, And naught opposing motion, from behind.
And that more clearly thou perceive how all These mites of matter are darted round about, Recall to mind how nowhere in the sum Of All exists a bottom,--nowhere is A realm of rest for primal bodies; since (As amply shown and proved by reason sure) Space has no bound nor measure, and extends Unmetered forth in all directions round.
Since this stands certain, thus 'tis out of doubt No rest is rendered to the primal bodies Along the unfathomable inane; but rather, Inveterately plied by motions mixed, Some, at their jamming, bound aback and leave Huge gaps between, and some from off the blow Are hurried about with spaces small between.
And all which, brought together with slight gaps, In more condensed union bound aback, Linked by their own all inter-tangled shapes,-These form the irrefragable roots of rocks And the brute bulks of iron, and what else Is of their kind...
The rest leap far asunder, far recoil, Leaving huge gaps between: and these supply For us thin air and splendour-lights of the sun.
And many besides wander the mighty void-Cast back from unions of existing things, Nowhere accepted in the universe, And nowise linked in motions to the rest.
And of this fact (as I record it here) An image, a type goes on before our eyes Present each moment; for behold whenever The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see The many mites in many a manner mixed Amid a void in the very light of the rays, And battling on, as in eternal strife, And in battalions contending without halt, In meetings, partings, harried up and down.
From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds Amid the mightier void--at least so far As small affair can for a vaster serve, And by example put thee on the spoor Of knowledge.
For this reason too 'tis fit Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light: Namely, because such tumblings are a sign That motions also of the primal stuff Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind.
For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled By viewless blows, to change its little course, And beaten backwards to return again, Hither and thither in all directions round.
Lo, all their shifting movement is of old, From the primeval atoms; for the same Primordial seeds of things first move of self, And then those bodies built of unions small And nearest, as it were, unto the powers Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows, And these thereafter goad the next in size: Thus motion ascends from the primevals on, And stage by stage emerges to our sense, Until those objects also move which we Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears What blows do urge them.
Herein wonder not How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand Supremely still, except in cases where A thing shows motion of its frame as whole.
For far beneath the ken of senses lies The nature of those ultimates of the world; And so, since those themselves thou canst not see, Their motion also must they veil from men-For mark, indeed, how things we can see, oft Yet hide their motions, when afar from us Along the distant landscape.
Often thus, Upon a hillside will the woolly flocks Be cropping their goodly food and creeping about Whither the summons of the grass, begemmed With the fresh dew, is calling, and the lambs, Well filled, are frisking, locking horns in sport: Yet all for us seem blurred and blent afar-A glint of white at rest on a green hill.
Again, when mighty legions, marching round, Fill all the quarters of the plains below, Rousing a mimic warfare, there the sheen Shoots up the sky, and all the fields about Glitter with brass, and from beneath, a sound Goes forth from feet of stalwart soldiery, And mountain walls, smote by the shouting, send The voices onward to the stars of heaven, And hither and thither darts the cavalry, And of a sudden down the midmost fields Charges with onset stout enough to rock The solid earth: and yet some post there is Up the high mountains, viewed from which they seem To stand--a gleam at rest along the plains.
Now what the speed to matter's atoms given Thou mayest in few, my Memmius, learn from this: When first the dawn is sprinkling with new light The lands, and all the breed of birds abroad Flit round the trackless forests, with liquid notes Filling the regions along the mellow air, We see 'tis forthwith manifest to man How suddenly the risen sun is wont At such an hour to overspread and clothe The whole with its own splendour; but the sun's Warm exhalations and this serene light Travel not down an empty void; and thus They are compelled more slowly to advance, Whilst, as it were, they cleave the waves of air; Nor one by one travel these particles Of the warm exhalations, but are all Entangled and enmassed, whereby at once Each is restrained by each, and from without Checked, till compelled more slowly to advance.
But the primordial atoms with their old Simple solidity, when forth they travel Along the empty void, all undelayed By aught outside them there, and they, each one Being one unit from nature of its parts, Are borne to that one place on which they strive Still to lay hold, must then, beyond a doubt, Outstrip in speed, and be more swiftly borne Than light of sun, and over regions rush, Of space much vaster, in the self-same time The sun's effulgence widens round the sky.
***** Nor to pursue the atoms one by one, To see the law whereby each thing goes on.
But some men, ignorant of matter, think, Opposing this, that not without the gods, In such adjustment to our human ways, Can nature change the seasons of the years, And bring to birth the grains and all of else To which divine Delight, the guide of life, Persuades mortality and leads it on, That, through her artful blandishments of love, It propagate the generations still, Lest humankind should perish.
When they feign That gods have stablished all things but for man, They seem in all ways mightily to lapse From reason's truth: for ev'n if ne'er I knew What seeds primordial are, yet would I dare This to affirm, ev'n from deep judgment based Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-This to maintain by many a fact besides-That in no wise the nature of the world For us was builded by a power divine-So great the faults it stands encumbered with: The which, my Memmius, later on, for thee We will clear up.
Now as to what remains Concerning motions we'll unfold our thought.
Now is the place, meseems, in these affairs To prove for thee this too: nothing corporeal Of its own force can e'er be upward borne, Or upward go--nor let the bodies of flames Deceive thee here: for they engendered are With urge to upwards, taking thus increase, Whereby grow upwards shining grains and trees, Though all the weight within them downward bears.
Nor, when the fires will leap from under round The roofs of houses, and swift flame laps up Timber and beam, 'tis then to be supposed They act of own accord, no force beneath To urge them up.
'Tis thus that blood, discharged From out our bodies, spurts its jets aloft And spatters gore.
And hast thou never marked With what a force the water will disgorge Timber and beam?
The deeper, straight and down, We push them in, and, many though we be, The more we press with main and toil, the more The water vomits up and flings them back, That, more than half their length, they there emerge, Rebounding.
Yet we never doubt, meseems, That all the weight within them downward bears Through empty void.
Well, in like manner, flames Ought also to be able, when pressed out, Through winds of air to rise aloft, even though The weight within them strive to draw them down.
Hast thou not seen, sweeping so far and high, The meteors, midnight flambeaus of the sky, How after them they draw long trails of flame Wherever Nature gives a thoroughfare?
How stars and constellations drop to earth, Seest not?
Nay, too, the sun from peak of heaven Sheds round to every quarter its large heat, And sows the new-ploughed intervales with light: Thus also sun's heat downward tends to earth.
Athwart the rain thou seest the lightning fly; Now here, now there, bursting from out the clouds, The fires dash zig-zag--and that flaming power Falls likewise down to earth.
In these affairs We wish thee also well aware of this: The atoms, as their own weight bears them down Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times, In scarce determined places, from their course Decline a little--call it, so to speak, Mere changed trend.
For were it not their wont Thuswise to swerve, down would they fall, each one, Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void; And then collisions ne'er could be nor blows Among the primal elements; and thus Nature would never have created aught.
But, if perchance be any that believe The heavier bodies, as more swiftly borne Plumb down the void, are able from above To strike the lighter, thus engendering blows Able to cause those procreant motions, far From highways of true reason they retire.
For whatsoever through the waters fall, Or through thin air, must quicken their descent, Each after its weight--on this account, because Both bulk of water and the subtle air By no means can retard each thing alike, But give more quick before the heavier weight; But contrariwise the empty void cannot, On any side, at any time, to aught Oppose resistance, but will ever yield, True to its bent of nature.
Wherefore all, With equal speed, though equal not in weight, Must rush, borne downward through the still inane.
Thus ne'er at all have heavier from above Been swift to strike the lighter, gendering strokes Which cause those divers motions, by whose means Nature transacts her work.
And so I say, The atoms must a little swerve at times-But only the least, lest we should seem to feign Motions oblique, and fact refute us there.
For this we see forthwith is manifest: Whatever the weight, it can't obliquely go, Down on its headlong journey from above, At least so far as thou canst mark; but who Is there can mark by sense that naught can swerve At all aside from off its road's straight line?
Again, if ev'r all motions are co-linked, And from the old ever arise the new In fixed order, and primordial seeds Produce not by their swerving some new start Of motion to sunder the covenants of fate, That cause succeed not cause from everlasting, Whence this free will for creatures o'er the lands, Whence is it wrested from the fates,--this will Whereby we step right forward where desire Leads each man on, whereby the same we swerve In motions, not as at some fixed time, Nor at some fixed line of space, but where The mind itself has urged?
For out of doubt In these affairs 'tis each man's will itself That gives the start, and hence throughout our limbs Incipient motions are diffused.
Again, Dost thou not see, when, at a point of time, The bars are opened, how the eager strength Of horses cannot forward break as soon As pants their mind to do?
For it behooves That all the stock of matter, through the frame, Be roused, in order that, through every joint, Aroused, it press and follow mind's desire; So thus thou seest initial motion's gendered From out the heart, aye, verily, proceeds First from the spirit's will, whence at the last 'Tis given forth through joints and body entire.
Quite otherwise it is, when forth we move, Impelled by a blow of another's mighty powers And mighty urge; for then 'tis clear enough All matter of our total body goes, Hurried along, against our own desire-Until the will has pulled upon the reins And checked it back, throughout our members all; At whose arbitrament indeed sometimes The stock of matter's forced to change its path, Throughout our members and throughout our joints, And, after being forward cast, to be Reined up, whereat it settles back again.
So seest thou not, how, though external force Drive men before, and often make them move, Onward against desire, and headlong snatched, Yet is there something in these breasts of ours Strong to combat, strong to withstand the same?-Wherefore no less within the primal seeds Thou must admit, besides all blows and weight, Some other cause of motion, whence derives This power in us inborn, of some free act.-Since naught from nothing can become, we see.
For weight prevents all things should come to pass Through blows, as 'twere, by some external force; But that man's mind itself in all it does Hath not a fixed necessity within, Nor is not, like a conquered thing, compelled To bear and suffer,--this state comes to man From that slight swervement of the elements In no fixed line of space, in no fixed time.
Nor ever was the stock of stuff more crammed, Nor ever, again, sundered by bigger gaps: For naught gives increase and naught takes away; On which account, just as they move to-day, The elemental bodies moved of old And shall the same hereafter evermore.
And what was wont to be begot of old Shall be begotten under selfsame terms And grow and thrive in power, so far as given To each by Nature's changeless, old decrees.
The sum of things there is no power can change, For naught exists outside, to which can flee Out of the world matter of any kind, Nor forth from which a fresh supply can spring, Break in upon the founded world, and change Whole nature of things, and turn their motions about.
ATOMIC FORMS AND THEIR COMBINATIONS Now come, and next hereafter apprehend What sorts, how vastly different in form, How varied in multitudinous shapes they are-These old beginnings of the universe; Not in the sense that only few are furnished With one like form, but rather not at all In general have they likeness each with each, No marvel: since the stock of them's so great That there's no end (as I have taught) nor sum, They must indeed not one and all be marked By equal outline and by shape the same.
***** Moreover, humankind, and the mute flocks Of scaly creatures swimming in the streams, And joyous herds around, and all the wild, And all the breeds of birds--both those that teem In gladsome regions of the water-haunts, About the river-banks and springs and pools, And those that throng, flitting from tree to tree, Through trackless woods--Go, take which one thou wilt, In any kind: thou wilt discover still Each from the other still unlike in shape.
Nor in no other wise could offspring know Mother, nor mother offspring--which we see They yet can do, distinguished one from other, No less than human beings, by clear signs.
Thus oft before fair temples of the gods, Beside the incense-burning altars slain, Drops down the yearling calf, from out its breast Breathing warm streams of blood; the orphaned mother, Ranging meanwhile green woodland pastures round, Knows well the footprints, pressed by cloven hoofs, With eyes regarding every spot about, For sight somewhere of youngling gone from her; And, stopping short, filleth the leafy lanes With her complaints; and oft she seeks again Within the stall, pierced by her yearning still.
Nor tender willows, nor dew-quickened grass, Nor the loved streams that glide along low banks, Can lure her mind and turn the sudden pain; Nor other shapes of calves that graze thereby Distract her mind or lighten pain the least-So keen her search for something known and hers.
Moreover, tender kids with bleating throats Do know their horned dams, and butting lambs The flocks of sheep, and thus they patter on, Unfailingly each to its proper teat, As nature intends.
Lastly, with any grain, Thou'lt see that no one kernel in one kind Is so far like another, that there still Is not in shapes some difference running through.
By a like law we see how earth is pied With shells and conchs, where, with soft waves, the sea Beats on the thirsty sands of curving shores.
Wherefore again, again, since seeds of things Exist by nature, nor were wrought with hands After a fixed pattern of one other, They needs must flitter to and fro with shapes In types dissimilar to one another.
***** Easy enough by thought of mind to solve Why fires of lightning more can penetrate Than these of ours from pitch-pine born on earth.
For thou canst say lightning's celestial fire, So subtle, is formed of figures finer far, And passes thus through holes which this our fire, Born from the wood, created from the pine, Cannot.
Again, light passes through the horn On the lantern's side, while rain is dashed away.
And why?--unless those bodies of light should be Finer than those of water's genial showers.
We see how quickly through a colander The wines will flow; how, on the other hand, The sluggish olive-oil delays: no doubt, Because 'tis wrought of elements more large, Or else more crook'd and intertangled.
Thus It comes that the primordials cannot be So suddenly sundered one from other, and seep, One through each several hole of anything.
And note, besides, that liquor of honey or milk Yields in the mouth agreeable taste to tongue, Whilst nauseous wormwood, pungent centaury, With their foul flavour set the lips awry; Thus simple 'tis to see that whatsoever Can touch the senses pleasingly are made Of smooth and rounded elements, whilst those Which seem the bitter and the sharp, are held Entwined by elements more crook'd, and so Are wont to tear their ways into our senses, And rend our body as they enter in.
In short all good to sense, all bad to touch, Being up-built of figures so unlike, Are mutually at strife--lest thou suppose That the shrill rasping of a squeaking saw Consists of elements as smooth as song Which, waked by nimble fingers, on the strings The sweet musicians fashion; or suppose That same-shaped atoms through men's nostrils pierce When foul cadavers burn, as when the stage Is with Cilician saffron sprinkled fresh, And the altar near exhales Panchaean scent; Or hold as of like seed the goodly hues Of things which feast our eyes, as those which sting Against the smarting pupil and draw tears, Or show, with gruesome aspect, grim and vile.
For never a shape which charms our sense was made Without some elemental smoothness; whilst Whate'er is harsh and irksome has been framed Still with some roughness in its elements.
Some, too, there are which justly are supposed To be nor smooth nor altogether hooked, With bended barbs, but slightly angled-out, To tickle rather than to wound the sense-And of which sort is the salt tartar of wine And flavours of the gummed elecampane.
Again, that glowing fire and icy rime Are fanged with teeth unlike whereby to sting Our body's sense, the touch of each gives proof.
For touch--by sacred majesties of Gods!-Touch is indeed the body's only sense-Be't that something in-from-outward works, Be't that something in the body born Wounds, or delighteth as it passes out Along the procreant paths of Aphrodite; Or be't the seeds by some collision whirl Disordered in the body and confound By tumult and confusion all the sense-As thou mayst find, if haply with the hand Thyself thou strike thy body's any part.
On which account, the elemental forms Must differ widely, as enabled thus To cause diverse sensations.
And, again, What seems to us the hardened and condensed Must be of atoms among themselves more hooked, Be held compacted deep within, as 'twere By branch-like atoms--of which sort the chief Are diamond stones, despisers of all blows, And stalwart flint and strength of solid iron, And brazen bars, which, budging hard in locks, Do grate and scream.
But what are liquid, formed Of fluid body, they indeed must be Of elements more smooth and round--because Their globules severally will not cohere: To suck the poppy-seeds from palm of hand Is quite as easy as drinking water down, And they, once struck, roll like unto the same.
But that thou seest among the things that flow Some bitter, as the brine of ocean is, Is not the least a marvel... For since 'tis fluid, smooth its atoms are And round, with painful rough ones mixed therein; Yet need not these be held together hooked: In fact, though rough, they're globular besides, Able at once to roll, and rasp the sense.
And that the more thou mayst believe me here, That with smooth elements are mixed the rough (Whence Neptune's salt astringent body comes), There is a means to separate the twain, And thereupon dividedly to see How the sweet water, after filtering through So often underground, flows freshened forth Into some hollow; for it leaves above The primal germs of nauseating brine, Since cling the rough more readily in earth.
Lastly, whatso thou markest to disperse Upon the instant--smoke, and cloud, and flame-Must not (even though not all of smooth and round) Be yet co-linked with atoms intertwined, That thus they can, without together cleaving, So pierce our body and so bore the rocks.
Whatever we see...
Given to senses, that thou must perceive They're not from linked but pointed elements.
The which now having taught, I will go on To bind thereto a fact to this allied And drawing from this its proof: these primal germs Vary, yet only with finite tale of shapes.
For were these shapes quite infinite, some seeds Would have a body of infinite increase.
For in one seed, in one small frame of any, The shapes can't vary from one another much.
Assume, we'll say, that of three minim parts Consist the primal bodies, or add a few: When, now, by placing all these parts of one At top and bottom, changing lefts and rights, Thou hast with every kind of shift found out What the aspect of shape of its whole body Each new arrangement gives, for what remains, If thou percase wouldst vary its old shapes, New parts must then be added; follows next, If thou percase wouldst vary still its shapes, That by like logic each arrangement still Requires its increment of other parts.
Ergo, an augmentation of its frame Follows upon each novelty of forms.
Wherefore, it cannot be thou'lt undertake That seeds have infinite differences in form, Lest thus thou forcest some indeed to be Of an immeasurable immensity-Which I have taught above cannot be proved.
***** And now for thee barbaric robes, and gleam Of Meliboean purple, touched with dye Of the Thessalian shell...
The peacock's golden generations, stained With spotted gaieties, would lie o'erthrown By some new colour of new things more bright; The odour of myrrh and savours of honey despised; The swan's old lyric, and Apollo's hymns, Once modulated on the many chords, Would likewise sink o'ermastered and be mute: For, lo, a somewhat, finer than the rest, Would be arising evermore.
So, too, Into some baser part might all retire, Even as we said to better might they come: For, lo, a somewhat, loathlier than the rest To nostrils, ears, and eyes, and taste of tongue, Would then, by reasoning reversed, be there.
Since 'tis not so, but unto things are given Their fixed limitations which do bound Their sum on either side, 'tmust be confessed That matter, too, by finite tale of shapes Does differ.
Again, from earth's midsummer heats Unto the icy hoar-frosts of the year The forward path is fixed, and by like law O'ertravelled backwards at the dawn of spring.
For each degree of hot, and each of cold, And the half-warm, all filling up the sum In due progression, lie, my Memmius, there Betwixt the two extremes: the things create Must differ, therefore, by a finite change, Since at each end marked off they ever are By fixed point--on one side plagued by flames And on the other by congealing frosts.
The which now having taught, I will go on To bind thereto a fact to this allied And drawing from this its proof: those primal germs Which have been fashioned all of one like shape Are infinite in tale; for, since the forms Themselves are finite in divergences, Then those which are alike will have to be Infinite, else the sum of stuff remains A finite--what I've proved is not the fact, Showing in verse how corpuscles of stuff, From everlasting and to-day the same, Uphold the sum of things, all sides around By old succession of unending blows.
For though thou view'st some beasts to be more rare, And mark'st in them a less prolific stock, Yet in another region, in lands remote, That kind abounding may make up the count; Even as we mark among the four-foot kind Snake-handed elephants, whose thousands wall With ivory ramparts India about, That her interiors cannot entered be-So big her count of brutes of which we see Such few examples.
Or suppose, besides, We feign some thing, one of its kind and sole With body born, to which is nothing like In all the lands: yet now unless shall be An infinite count of matter out of which Thus to conceive and bring it forth to life, It cannot be created and--what's more-It cannot take its food and get increase.
Yea, if through all the world in finite tale Be tossed the procreant bodies of one thing, Whence, then, and where in what mode, by what power, Shall they to meeting come together there, In such vast ocean of matter and tumult strange?-No means they have of joining into one.
But, just as, after mighty ship-wrecks piled, The mighty main is wont to scatter wide The rowers' banks, the ribs, the yards, the prow, The masts and swimming oars, so that afar Along all shores of lands are seen afloat The carven fragments of the rended poop, Giving a lesson to mortality To shun the ambush of the faithless main, The violence and the guile, and trust it not At any hour, however much may smile The crafty enticements of the placid deep: Exactly thus, if once thou holdest true That certain seeds are finite in their tale, The various tides of matter, then, must needs Scatter them flung throughout the ages all, So that not ever can they join, as driven Together into union, nor remain In union, nor with increment can grow-But facts in proof are manifest for each: Things can be both begotten and increase.
'Tis therefore manifest that primal germs, Are infinite in any class thou wilt-From whence is furnished matter for all things.
Nor can those motions that bring death prevail Forever, nor eternally entomb The welfare of the world; nor, further, can Those motions that give birth to things and growth Keep them forever when created there.
Thus the long war, from everlasting waged, With equal strife among the elements Goes on and on.
Now here, now there, prevail The vital forces of the world--or fall.
Mixed with the funeral is the wildered wail Of infants coming to the shores of light: No night a day, no dawn a night hath followed That heard not, mingling with the small birth-cries, The wild laments, companions old of death And the black rites.
This, too, in these affairs 'Tis fit thou hold well sealed, and keep consigned With no forgetting brain: nothing there is Whose nature is apparent out of hand That of one kind of elements consists-Nothing there is that's not of mixed seed.
And whatsoe'er possesses in itself More largely many powers and properties Shows thus that here within itself there are The largest number of kinds and differing shapes Of elements.
And, chief of all, the earth Hath in herself first bodies whence the springs, Rolling chill waters, renew forevermore The unmeasured main; hath whence the fires arise-For burns in many a spot her flamed crust, Whilst the impetuous Aetna raves indeed From more profounder fires--and she, again, Hath in herself the seed whence she can raise The shining grains and gladsome trees for men; Whence, also, rivers, fronds, and gladsome pastures Can she supply for mountain-roaming beasts.
Wherefore great mother of gods, and mother of beasts, And parent of man hath she alone been named.
Her hymned the old and learned bards of Greece ***** Seated in chariot o'er the realms of air To drive her team of lions, teaching thus That the great earth hangs poised and cannot lie Resting on other earth.
Unto her car They've yoked the wild beasts, since a progeny, However savage, must be tamed and chid By care of parents.
They have girt about With turret-crown the summit of her head, Since, fortressed in her goodly strongholds high, 'Tis she sustains the cities; now, adorned With that same token, to-day is carried forth, With solemn awe through many a mighty land, The image of that mother, the divine.
Her the wide nations, after antique rite, Do name Idaean Mother, giving her Escort of Phrygian bands, since first, they say, From out those regions 'twas that grain began Through all the world.
To her do they assign The Galli, the emasculate, since thus They wish to show that men who violate The majesty of the mother and have proved Ingrate to parents are to be adjudged Unfit to give unto the shores of light A living progeny.
The Galli come: And hollow cymbals, tight-skinned tambourines Resound around to bangings of their hands; The fierce horns threaten with a raucous bray; The tubed pipe excites their maddened minds In Phrygian measures; they bear before them knives, Wild emblems of their frenzy, which have power The rabble's ingrate heads and impious hearts To panic with terror of the goddess' might.
And so, when through the mighty cities borne, She blesses man with salutations mute, They strew the highway of her journeyings With coin of brass and silver, gifting her With alms and largesse, and shower her and shade With flowers of roses falling like the snow Upon the Mother and her companion-bands.
Here is an armed troop, the which by Greeks Are called the Phrygian Curetes.
Since Haply among themselves they use to play In games of arms and leap in measure round With bloody mirth and by their nodding shake The terrorizing crests upon their heads, This is the armed troop that represents The arm'd Dictaean Curetes, who, in Crete, As runs the story, whilom did out-drown That infant cry of Zeus, what time their band, Young boys, in a swift dance around the boy, To measured step beat with the brass on brass, That Saturn might not get him for his jaws, And give its mother an eternal wound Along her heart.
And 'tis on this account That armed they escort the mighty Mother, Or else because they signify by this That she, the goddess, teaches men to be Eager with armed valour to defend Their motherland, and ready to stand forth, The guard and glory of their parents' years.
A tale, however beautifully wrought, That's wide of reason by a long remove: For all the gods must of themselves enjoy Immortal aeons and supreme repose, Withdrawn from our affairs, detached, afar: Immune from peril and immune from pain, Themselves abounding in riches of their own, Needing not us, they are not touched by wrath They are not taken by service or by gift.
Truly is earth insensate for all time; But, by obtaining germs of many things, In many a way she brings the many forth Into the light of sun.
And here, whoso Decides to call the ocean Neptune, or The grain-crop Ceres, and prefers to abuse The name of Bacchus rather than pronounce The liquor's proper designation, him Let us permit to go on calling earth Mother of Gods, if only he will spare To taint his soul with foul religion.
So, too, the wooly flocks, and horned kine, And brood of battle-eager horses, grazing Often together along one grassy plain, Under the cope of one blue sky, and slaking From out one stream of water each its thirst, All live their lives with face and form unlike, Keeping the parents' nature, parents' habits, Which, kind by kind, through ages they repeat.
So great in any sort of herb thou wilt, So great again in any river of earth Are the distinct diversities of matter.
Hence, further, every creature--any one From out them all--compounded is the same Of bones, blood, veins, heat, moisture, flesh, and thews-All differing vastly in their forms, and built Of elements dissimilar in shape.
Again, all things by fire consumed ablaze, Within their frame lay up, if naught besides, At least those atoms whence derives their power To throw forth fire and send out light from under, To shoot the sparks and scatter embers wide.
If, with like reasoning of mind, all else Thou traverse through, thou wilt discover thus That in their frame the seeds of many things They hide, and divers shapes of seeds contain.
Further, thou markest much, to which are given Along together colour and flavour and smell, Among which, chief, are most burnt offerings.
***** Thus must they be of divers shapes composed.
A smell of scorching enters in our frame Where the bright colour from the dye goes not; And colour in one way, flavour in quite another Works inward to our senses--so mayst see They differ too in elemental shapes.
Thus unlike forms into one mass combine, And things exist by intermixed seed.
But still 'tmust not be thought that in all ways All things can be conjoined; for then wouldst view Portents begot about thee every side: Hulks of mankind half brute astarting up, At times big branches sprouting from man's trunk, Limbs of a sea-beast to a land-beast knit, And nature along the all-producing earth Feeding those dire Chimaeras breathing flame From hideous jaws--Of which 'tis simple fact That none have been begot; because we see All are from fixed seed and fixed dam Engendered and so function as to keep Throughout their growth their own ancestral type.
This happens surely by a fixed law: For from all food-stuff, when once eaten down, Go sundered atoms, suited to each creature, Throughout their bodies, and, conjoining there, Produce the proper motions; but we see How, contrariwise, nature upon the ground Throws off those foreign to their frame; and many With viewless bodies from their bodies fly, By blows impelled--those impotent to join To any part, or, when inside, to accord And to take on the vital motions there.
But think not, haply, living forms alone Are bound by these laws: they distinguished all.
***** For just as all things of creation are, In their whole nature, each to each unlike, So must their atoms be in shape unlike-Not since few only are fashioned of like form, But since they all, as general rule, are not The same as all.
Nay, here in these our verses, Elements many, common to many words, Thou seest, though yet 'tis needful to confess The words and verses differ, each from each, Compounded out of different elements-Not since few only, as common letters, run Through all the words, or no two words are made, One and the other, from all like elements, But since they all, as general rule, are not The same as all.
Thus, too, in other things, Whilst many germs common to many things There are, yet they, combined among themselves, Can form new wholes to others quite unlike.
Thus fairly one may say that humankind, The grains, the gladsome trees, are all made up Of different atoms.
Further, since the seeds Are different, difference must there also be In intervening spaces, thoroughfares, Connections, weights, blows, clashings, motions, all Which not alone distinguish living forms, But sunder earth's whole ocean from the lands, And hold all heaven from the lands away.
ABSENCE OF SECONDARY QUALITIES Now come, this wisdom by my sweet toil sought Look thou perceive, lest haply thou shouldst guess That the white objects shining to thine eyes Are gendered of white atoms, or the black Of a black seed; or yet believe that aught That's steeped in any hue should take its dye From bits of matter tinct with hue the same.
For matter's bodies own no hue the least-Or like to objects or, again, unlike.
But, if percase it seem to thee that mind Itself can dart no influence of its own Into these bodies, wide thou wand'rest off.
For since the blind-born, who have ne'er surveyed The light of sun, yet recognise by touch Things that from birth had ne'er a hue for them, 'Tis thine to know that bodies can be brought No less unto the ken of our minds too, Though yet those bodies with no dye be smeared.
Again, ourselves whatever in the dark We touch, the same we do not find to be Tinctured with any colour.
Now that here I win the argument, I next will teach ***** Now, every colour changes, none except, And every...
Which the primordials ought nowise to do.
Since an immutable somewhat must remain, Lest all things utterly be brought to naught.
For change of anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before.
Wherefore be mindful not to stain with colour The seeds of things, lest things return for thee All utterly to naught.
But now, if seeds Receive no property of colour, and yet Be still endowed with variable forms From which all kinds of colours they beget And vary (by reason that ever it matters much With what seeds, and in what positions joined, And what the motions that they give and get), Forthwith most easily thou mayst devise Why what was black of hue an hour ago Can of a sudden like the marble gleam,-As ocean, when the high winds have upheaved Its level plains, is changed to hoary waves Of marble whiteness: for, thou mayst declare, That, when the thing we often see as black Is in its matter then commixed anew, Some atoms rearranged, and some withdrawn, And added some, 'tis seen forthwith to turn Glowing and white.
But if of azure seeds Consist the level waters of the deep, They could in nowise whiten: for however Thou shakest azure seeds, the same can never Pass into marble hue.
But, if the seeds-Which thus produce the ocean's one pure sheen-Be now with one hue, now another dyed, As oft from alien forms and divers shapes A cube's produced all uniform in shape, 'Twould be but natural, even as in the cube We see the forms to be dissimilar, That thus we'd see in brightness of the deep (Or in whatever one pure sheen thou wilt) Colours diverse and all dissimilar.
Besides, the unlike shapes don't thwart the least The whole in being externally a cube; But differing hues of things do block and keep The whole from being of one resultant hue.
Then, too, the reason which entices us At times to attribute colours to the seeds Falls quite to pieces, since white things are not Create from white things, nor are black from black, But evermore they are create from things Of divers colours.
Verily, the white Will rise more readily, is sooner born Out of no colour, than of black or aught Which stands in hostile opposition thus.
Besides, since colours cannot be, sans light, And the primordials come not forth to light, 'Tis thine to know they are not clothed with colour-Truly, what kind of colour could there be In the viewless dark?
Nay, in the light itself A colour changes, gleaming variedly, When smote by vertical or slanting ray.
Thus in the sunlight shows the down of doves That circles, garlanding, the nape and throat: Now it is ruddy with a bright gold-bronze, Now, by a strange sensation it becomes Green-emerald blended with the coral-red.
The peacock's tail, filled with the copious light, Changes its colours likewise, when it turns.
Wherefore, since by some blow of light begot, Without such blow these colours can't become.
And since the pupil of the eye receives Within itself one kind of blow, when said To feel a white hue, then another kind, When feeling a black or any other hue, And since it matters nothing with what hue The things thou touchest be perchance endowed, But rather with what sort of shape equipped, 'Tis thine to know the atoms need not colour, But render forth sensations, as of touch, That vary with their varied forms.
Besides, Since special shapes have not a special colour, And all formations of the primal germs Can be of any sheen thou wilt, why, then, Are not those objects which are of them made Suffused, each kind with colours of every kind?
For then 'twere meet that ravens, as they fly, Should dartle from white pinions a white sheen, Or swans turn black from seed of black, or be Of any single varied dye thou wilt.
Again, the more an object's rent to bits, The more thou see its colour fade away Little by little till 'tis quite extinct; As happens when the gaudy linen's picked Shred after shred away: the purple there, Phoenician red, most brilliant of all dyes, Is lost asunder, ravelled thread by thread; Hence canst perceive the fragments die away From out their colour, long ere they depart Back to the old primordials of things.
And, last, since thou concedest not all bodies Send out a voice or smell, it happens thus That not to all thou givest sounds and smells.
So, too, since we behold not all with eyes, 'Tis thine to know some things there are as much Orphaned of colour, as others without smell, And reft of sound; and those the mind alert No less can apprehend than it can mark The things that lack some other qualities.
But think not haply that the primal bodies Remain despoiled alone of colour: so, Are they from warmth dissevered and from cold And from hot exhalations; and they move, Both sterile of sound and dry of juice; and throw Not any odour from their proper bodies.
Just as, when undertaking to prepare A liquid balm of myrrh and marjoram, And flower of nard, which to our nostrils breathes Odour of nectar, first of all behooves Thou seek, as far as find thou may and can, The inodorous olive-oil (which never sends One whiff of scent to nostrils), that it may The least debauch and ruin with sharp tang The odorous essence with its body mixed And in it seethed.
And on the same account The primal germs of things must not be thought To furnish colour in begetting things, Nor sound, since pow'rless they to send forth aught From out themselves, nor any flavour, too, Nor cold, nor exhalation hot or warm.
***** The rest; yet since these things are mortal all-The pliant mortal, with a body soft; The brittle mortal, with a crumbling frame; The hollow with a porous-all must be Disjoined from the primal elements, If still we wish under the world to lay Immortal ground-works, whereupon may rest The sum of weal and safety, lest for thee All things return to nothing utterly.
Now, too: whate'er we see possessing sense Must yet confessedly be stablished all From elements insensate.
And those signs, So clear to all and witnessed out of hand, Do not refute this dictum nor oppose; But rather themselves do lead us by the hand, Compelling belief that living things are born Of elements insensate, as I say.
Sooth, we may see from out the stinking dung Live worms spring up, when, after soaking rains, The drenched earth rots; and all things change the same: Lo, change the rivers, the fronds, the gladsome pastures Into the cattle, the cattle their nature change Into our bodies, and from our body, oft Grow strong the powers and bodies of wild beasts And mighty-winged birds.
Thus nature changes All foods to living frames, and procreates From them the senses of live creatures all, In manner about as she uncoils in flames Dry logs of wood and turns them all to fire.
And seest not, therefore, how it matters much After what order are set the primal germs, And with what other germs they all are mixed, And what the motions that they give and get?
But now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind, Constraining thee to sundry arguments Against belief that from insensate germs The sensible is gendered?--Verily, 'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed, Are yet unable to gender vital sense.
And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs This to remember: that I have not said Senses are born, under conditions all, From all things absolutely which create Objects that feel; but much it matters here Firstly, how small the seeds which thus compose The feeling thing, then, with what shapes endowed, And lastly what they in positions be, In motions, in arrangements.
Of which facts Naught we perceive in logs of wood and clods; And yet even these, when sodden by the rains, Give birth to wormy grubs, because the bodies Of matter, from their old arrangements stirred By the new factor, then combine anew In such a way as genders living things.
Next, they who deem that feeling objects can From feeling objects be create, and these, In turn, from others that are wont to feel ***** When soft they make them; for all sense is linked With flesh, and thews, and veins--and such, we see, Are fashioned soft and of a mortal frame.
Yet be't that these can last forever on: They'll have the sense that's proper to a part, Or else be judged to have a sense the same As that within live creatures as a whole.
But of themselves those parts can never feel, For all the sense in every member back To something else refers--a severed hand, Or any other member of our frame, Itself alone cannot support sensation.
It thus remains they must resemble, then, Live creatures as a whole, to have the power Of feeling sensation concordant in each part With the vital sense; and so they're bound to feel The things we feel exactly as do we.
If such the case, how, then, can they be named The primal germs of things, and how avoid The highways of destruction?--since they be Mere living things and living things be all One and the same with mortal.
Grant they could, Yet by their meetings and their unions all, Naught would result, indeed, besides a throng And hurly-burly all of living things-Precisely as men, and cattle, and wild beasts, By mere conglomeration each with each Can still beget not anything of new.
But if by chance they lose, inside a body, Their own sense and another sense take on, What, then, avails it to assign them that Which is withdrawn thereafter?
And besides, To touch on proof that we pronounced before, Just as we see the eggs of feathered fowls To change to living chicks, and swarming worms To bubble forth when from the soaking rains The earth is sodden, sure, sensations all Can out of non-sensations be begot.
But if one say that sense can so far rise From non-sense by mutation, or because Brought forth as by a certain sort of birth, 'Twill serve to render plain to him and prove There is no birth, unless there be before Some formed union of the elements, Nor any change, unless they be unite.
In first place, senses can't in body be Before its living nature's been begot,-Since all its stuff, in faith, is held dispersed About through rivers, air, and earth, and all That is from earth created, nor has met In combination, and, in proper mode, Conjoined into those vital motions which Kindle the all-perceiving senses--they That keep and guard each living thing soever.
Again, a blow beyond its nature's strength Shatters forthwith each living thing soe'er, And on it goes confounding all the sense Of body and mind.
For of the primal germs Are loosed their old arrangements, and, throughout, The vital motions blocked,--until the stuff, Shaken profoundly through the frame entire, Undoes the vital knots of soul from body And throws that soul, to outward wide-dispersed, Through all the pores.
For what may we surmise A blow inflicted can achieve besides Shaking asunder and loosening all apart?
It happens also, when less sharp the blow, The vital motions which are left are wont Oft to win out--win out, and stop and still The uncouth tumults gendered by the blow, And call each part to its own courses back, And shake away the motion of death which now Begins its own dominion in the body, And kindle anew the senses almost gone.
For by what other means could they the more Collect their powers of thought and turn again From very doorways of destruction Back unto life, rather than pass whereto They be already well-nigh sped and so Pass quite away?
Again, since pain is there Where bodies of matter, by some force stirred up, Through vitals and through joints, within their seats Quiver and quake inside, but soft delight, When they remove unto their place again: 'Tis thine to know the primal germs can be Assaulted by no pain, nor from themselves Take no delight; because indeed they are Not made of any bodies of first things, Under whose strange new motions they might ache Or pluck the fruit of any dear new sweet.
And so they must be furnished with no sense.
Once more, if thus, that every living thing May have sensation, needful 'tis to assign Sense also to its elements, what then Of those fixed elements from which mankind Hath been, by their peculiar virtue, formed?
Of verity, they'll laugh aloud, like men, Shaken asunder by a spasm of mirth, Or sprinkle with dewy tear-drops cheeks and chins, And have the cunning hardihood to say Much on the composition of the world, And in their turn inquire what elements They have themselves,--since, thus the same in kind As a whole mortal creature, even they Must also be from other elements, And then those others from others evermore-So that thou darest nowhere make a stop.
Oho, I'll follow thee until thou grant The seed (which here thou say'st speaks, laughs, and ***** thinks) Is yet derived out of other seeds Which in their turn are doing just the same.
But if we see what raving nonsense this, And that a man may laugh, though not, forsooth, Compounded out of laughing elements, And think and utter reason with learn'd speech, Though not himself compounded, for a fact, Of sapient seeds and eloquent, why, then, Cannot those things which we perceive to have Their own sensation be composed as well Of intermixed seeds quite void of sense?
INFINITE WORLDS Once more, we all from seed celestial spring, To all is that same father, from whom earth, The fostering mother, as she takes the drops Of liquid moisture, pregnant bears her broods-The shining grains, and gladsome shrubs and trees, And bears the human race and of the wild The generations all, the while she yields The foods wherewith all feed their frames and lead The genial life and propagate their kind; Wherefore she owneth that maternal name, By old desert.
What was before from earth, The same in earth sinks back, and what was sent From shores of ether, that, returning home, The vaults of sky receive.
Nor thus doth death So far annihilate things that she destroys The bodies of matter; but she dissipates Their combinations, and conjoins anew One element with others; and contrives That all things vary forms and change their colours And get sensations and straight give them o'er.
And thus may'st know it matters with what others And in what structure the primordial germs Are held together, and what motions they Among themselves do give and get; nor think That aught we see hither and thither afloat Upon the crest of things, and now a birth And straightway now a ruin, inheres at rest Deep in the eternal atoms of the world.
Why, even in these our very verses here It matters much with what and in what order Each element is set: the same denote Sky, and the ocean, lands, and streams, and sun; The same, the grains, and trees, and living things.
And if not all alike, at least the most-But what distinctions by positions wrought!
And thus no less in things themselves, when once Around are changed the intervals between, The paths of matter, its connections, weights, Blows, clashings, motions, order, structure, shapes, The things themselves must likewise changed be.
Now to true reason give thy mind for us.
Since here strange truth is putting forth its might To hit thee in thine ears, a new aspect Of things to show its front.
Yet naught there is So easy that it standeth not at first More hard to credit than it after is; And naught soe'er that's great to such degree, Nor wonderful so far, but all mankind Little by little abandon their surprise.
Look upward yonder at the bright clear sky And what it holds--the stars that wander o'er, The moon, the radiance of the splendour-sun: Yet all, if now they first for mortals were, If unforeseen now first asudden shown, What might there be more wonderful to tell, What that the nations would before have dared Less to believe might be?--I fancy, naught-So strange had been the marvel of that sight.
The which o'erwearied to behold, to-day None deigns look upward to those lucent realms.
Then, spew not reason from thy mind away, Beside thyself because the matter's new, But rather with keen judgment nicely weigh; And if to thee it then appeareth true, Render thy hands, or, if 'tis false at last, Gird thee to combat.
For my mind-of-man Now seeks the nature of the vast Beyond There on the other side, that boundless sum Which lies without the ramparts of the world, Toward which the spirit longs to peer afar, Toward which indeed the swift elan of thought Flies unencumbered forth.
Firstly, we find, Off to all regions round, on either side, Above, beneath, throughout the universe End is there none--as I have taught, as too The very thing of itself declares aloud, And as from nature of the unbottomed deep Shines clearly forth.
Nor can we once suppose In any way 'tis likely, (seeing that space To all sides stretches infinite and free, And seeds, innumerable in number, in sum Bottomless, there in many a manner fly, Bestirred in everlasting motion there), That only this one earth and sky of ours Hath been create and that those bodies of stuff, So many, perform no work outside the same; Seeing, moreover, this world too hath been By nature fashioned, even as seeds of things By innate motion chanced to clash and cling-After they'd been in many a manner driven Together at random, without design, in vain-And as at last those seeds together dwelt, Which, when together of a sudden thrown, Should alway furnish the commencements fit Of mighty things--the earth, the sea, the sky, And race of living creatures.
Thus, I say, Again, again, 'tmust be confessed there are Such congregations of matter otherwhere, Like this our world which vasty ether holds In huge embrace.
Besides, when matter abundant Is ready there, when space on hand, nor object Nor any cause retards, no marvel 'tis That things are carried on and made complete, Perforce.
And now, if store of seeds there is So great that not whole life-times of the living Can count the tale... And if their force and nature abide the same, Able to throw the seeds of things together Into their places, even as here are thrown The seeds together in this world of ours, 'Tmust be confessed in other realms there are Still other worlds, still other breeds of men, And other generations of the wild.
Hence too it happens in the sum there is No one thing single of its kind in birth, And single and sole in growth, but rather it is One member of some generated race, Among full many others of like kind.
First, cast thy mind abroad upon the living: Thou'lt find the race of mountain-ranging wild Even thus to be, and thus the scions of men To be begot, and lastly the mute flocks Of scaled fish, and winged frames of birds.
Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else, Exist not sole and single--rather in number Exceeding number.
Since that deeply set Old boundary stone of life remains for them No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth No less, than every kind which here on earth Is so abundant in its members found.
Which well perceived if thou hold in mind, Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord, And forthwith free, is seen to do all things Herself and through herself of own accord, Rid of all gods.
For--by their holy hearts Which pass in long tranquillity of peace Untroubled ages and a serene life!-Who hath the power (I ask), who hath the power To rule the sum of the immeasurable, To hold with steady hand the giant reins Of the unfathomed deep?
Who hath the power At once to roll a multitude of skies, At once to heat with fires ethereal all The fruitful lands of multitudes of worlds, To be at all times in all places near, To stablish darkness by his clouds, to shake The serene spaces of the sky with sound, And hurl his lightnings,--ha, and whelm how oft In ruins his own temples, and to rave, Retiring to the wildernesses, there At practice with that thunderbolt of his, Which yet how often shoots the guilty by, And slays the honourable blameless ones!
Ere since the birth-time of the world, ere since The risen first-born day of sea, earth, sun, Have many germs been added from outside, Have many seeds been added round about, Which the great All, the while it flung them on, Brought hither, that from them the sea and lands Could grow more big, and that the house of heaven Might get more room and raise its lofty roofs Far over earth, and air arise around.
For bodies all, from out all regions, are Divided by blows, each to its proper thing, And all retire to their own proper kinds: The moist to moist retires; earth gets increase From earthy body; and fires, as on a forge, Beat out new fire; and ether forges ether; Till nature, author and ender of the world, Hath led all things to extreme bound of growth: As haps when that which hath been poured inside The vital veins of life is now no more Than that which ebbs within them and runs off.
This is the point where life for each thing ends; This is the point where nature with her powers Curbs all increase.
For whatsoe'er thou seest Grow big with glad increase, and step by step Climb upward to ripe age, these to themselves Take in more bodies than they send from selves, Whilst still the food is easily infused Through all the veins, and whilst the things are not So far expanded that they cast away Such numerous atoms as to cause a waste Greater than nutriment whereby they wax.
For 'tmust be granted, truly, that from things Many a body ebbeth and runs off; But yet still more must come, until the things Have touched development's top pinnacle; Then old age breaks their powers and ripe strength And falls away into a worser part.
For ever the ampler and more wide a thing, As soon as ever its augmentation ends, It scatters abroad forthwith to all sides round More bodies, sending them from out itself.
Nor easily now is food disseminate Through all its veins; nor is that food enough To equal with a new supply on hand Those plenteous exhalations it gives off.
Thus, fairly, all things perish, when with ebbing They're made less dense and when from blows without They are laid low; since food at last will fail Extremest eld, and bodies from outside Cease not with thumping to undo a thing And overmaster by infesting blows.
Thus, too, the ramparts of the mighty world On all sides round shall taken be by storm, And tumble to wrack and shivered fragments down.
For food it is must keep things whole, renewing; 'Tis food must prop and give support to all,-But to no purpose, since nor veins suffice To hold enough, nor nature ministers As much as needful.
And even now 'tis thus: Its age is broken and the earth, outworn With many parturitions, scarce creates The little lives--she who created erst All generations and gave forth at birth Enormous bodies of wild beasts of old.
For never, I fancy, did a golden cord From off the firmament above let down The mortal generations to the fields; Nor sea, nor breakers pounding on the rocks Created them; but earth it was who bore-The same to-day who feeds them from herself.
Besides, herself of own accord, she first The shining grains and vineyards of all joy Created for mortality; herself Gave the sweet fruitage and the pastures glad, Which now to-day yet scarcely wax in size, Even when aided by our toiling arms.
We break the ox, and wear away the strength Of sturdy farm-hands; iron tools to-day Barely avail for tilling of the fields, So niggardly they grudge our harvestings, So much increase our labour.
Now to-day The aged ploughman, shaking of his head, Sighs o'er and o'er that labours of his hands Have fallen out in vain, and, as he thinks How present times are not as times of old, Often he praises the fortunes of his sire, And crackles, prating, how the ancient race, Fulfilled with piety, supported life With simple comfort in a narrow plot, Since, man for man, the measure of each field Was smaller far i' the old days.
And, again, The gloomy planter of the withered vine Rails at the season's change and wearies heaven, Nor grasps that all of things by sure degrees Are wasting away and going to the tomb, Outworn by venerable length of life.
BOOK III PROEM O thou who first uplifted in such dark So clear a torch aloft, who first shed light Upon the profitable ends of man, O thee I follow, glory of the Greeks, And set my footsteps squarely planted now Even in the impress and the marks of thine-Less like one eager to dispute the palm, More as one craving out of very love That I may copy thee!--for how should swallow Contend with swans or what compare could be In a race between young kids with tumbling legs And the strong might of the horse?
Our father thou, And finder-out of truth, and thou to us Suppliest a father's precepts; and from out Those scriven leaves of thine, renowned soul (Like bees that sip of all in flowery wolds), We feed upon thy golden sayings all-Golden, and ever worthiest endless life.
For soon as ever thy planning thought that sprang From god-like mind begins its loud proclaim Of nature's courses, terrors of the brain Asunder flee, the ramparts of the world Dispart away, and through the void entire I see the movements of the universe.
Rises to vision the majesty of gods, And their abodes of everlasting calm Which neither wind may shake nor rain-cloud splash, Nor snow, congealed by sharp frosts, may harm With its white downfall: ever, unclouded sky O'er roofs, and laughs with far-diffused light.
And nature gives to them their all, nor aught May ever pluck their peace of mind away.
But nowhere to my vision rise no more The vaults of Acheron, though the broad earth Bars me no more from gazing down o'er all Which under our feet is going on below Along the void.
O, here in these affairs Some new divine delight and trembling awe Takes hold through me, that thus by power of thine Nature, so plain and manifest at last, Hath been on every side laid bare to man!
And since I've taught already of what sort The seeds of all things are, and how, distinct In divers forms, they flit of own accord, Stirred with a motion everlasting on, And in what mode things be from them create, Now, after such matters, should my verse, meseems, Make clear the nature of the mind and soul, And drive that dread of Acheron without, Headlong, which so confounds our human life Unto its deeps, pouring o'er all that is The black of death, nor leaves not anything To prosper--a liquid and unsullied joy.
For as to what men sometimes will affirm: That more than Tartarus (the realm of death) They fear diseases and a life of shame, And know the substance of the soul is blood, Or rather wind (if haply thus their whim), And so need naught of this our science, then Thou well may'st note from what's to follow now That more for glory do they braggart forth Than for belief.
For mark these very same: Exiles from country, fugitives afar From sight of men, with charges foul attaint, Abased with every wretchedness, they yet Live, and where'er the wretches come, they yet Make the ancestral sacrifices there, Butcher the black sheep, and to gods below Offer the honours, and in bitter case Turn much more keenly to religion.
Wherefore, it's surer testing of a man In doubtful perils--mark him as he is Amid adversities; for then alone Are the true voices conjured from his breast, The mask off-stripped, reality behind.
And greed, again, and the blind lust of honours Which force poor wretches past the bounds of law, And, oft allies and ministers of crime, To push through nights and days with hugest toil To rise untrammelled to the peaks of power-These wounds of life in no mean part are kept Festering and open by this fright of death.
For ever we see fierce Want and foul Disgrace Dislodged afar from secure life and sweet, Like huddling Shapes before the doors of death.
And whilst, from these, men wish to scape afar, Driven by false terror, and afar remove, With civic blood a fortune they amass, They double their riches, greedy, heapers-up Of corpse on corpse they have a cruel laugh For the sad burial of a brother-born, And hatred and fear of tables of their kin.
Likewise, through this same terror, envy oft Makes them to peak because before their eyes That man is lordly, that man gazed upon Who walks begirt with honour glorious, Whilst they in filth and darkness roll around; Some perish away for statues and a name, And oft to that degree, from fright of death, Will hate of living and beholding light Take hold on humankind that they inflict Their own destruction with a gloomy heart-Forgetful that this fear is font of cares, This fear the plague upon their sense of shame, And this that breaks the ties of comradry And oversets all reverence and faith, Mid direst slaughter.
For long ere to-day Often were traitors to country and dear parents Through quest to shun the realms of Acheron.
For just as children tremble and fear all In the viewless dark, so even we at times Dread in the light so many things that be No whit more fearsome than what children feign, Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
This terror, then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning sun disperse, But only nature's aspect and her law.
NATURE AND COMPOSITION OF THE MIND First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call The intellect, wherein is seated life's Counsel and regimen, is part no less Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts Of one whole breathing creature.
[But some hold] That sense of mind is in no fixed part seated, But is of body some one vital state,-Named "harmony" by Greeks, because thereby We live with sense, though intellect be not In any part: as oft the body is said To have good health (when health, however, 's not One part of him who has it), so they place The sense of mind in no fixed part of man.
Mightily, diversly, meseems they err.
Often the body palpable and seen Sickens, while yet in some invisible part We feel a pleasure; oft the other way, A miserable in mind feels pleasure still Throughout his body--quite the same as when A foot may pain without a pain in head.
Besides, when these our limbs are given o'er To gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame At random void of sense, a something else Is yet within us, which upon that time Bestirs itself in many a wise, receiving All motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.
Now, for to see that in man's members dwells Also the soul, and body ne'er is wont To feel sensation by a "harmony" Take this in chief: the fact that life remains Oft in our limbs, when much of body's gone; Yet that same life, when particles of heat, Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.
Thus mayst thou know that not all particles Perform like parts, nor in like manner all Are props of weal and safety: rather those-The seeds of wind and exhalations warm-Take care that in our members life remains.
Therefore a vital heat and wind there is Within the very body, which at death Deserts our frames.
And so, since nature of mind And even of soul is found to be, as 'twere, A part of man, give over "harmony"-Name to musicians brought from Helicon,-Unless themselves they filched it otherwise, To serve for what was lacking name till then.
Whate'er it be, they're welcome to it--thou, Hearken my other maxims.
Mind and soul, I say, are held conjoined one with other, And form one single nature of themselves; But chief and regnant through the frame entire Is still that counsel which we call the mind, And that cleaves seated in the midmost breast.
Here leap dismay and terror; round these haunts Be blandishments of joys; and therefore here The intellect, the mind.
The rest of soul, Throughout the body scattered, but obeys-Moved by the nod and motion of the mind.
This, for itself, sole through itself, hath thought; This for itself hath mirth, even when the thing That moves it, moves nor soul nor body at all.
And as, when head or eye in us is smit By assailing pain, we are not tortured then Through all the body, so the mind alone Is sometimes smitten, or livens with a joy, Whilst yet the soul's remainder through the limbs And through the frame is stirred by nothing new.
But when the mind is moved by shock more fierce, We mark the whole soul suffering all at once Along man's members: sweats and pallors spread Over the body, and the tongue is broken, And fails the voice away, and ring the ears, Mists blind the eyeballs, and the joints collapse,-Aye, men drop dead from terror of the mind.
Hence, whoso will can readily remark That soul conjoined is with mind, and, when 'Tis strook by influence of the mind, forthwith In turn it hits and drives the body too.
And this same argument establisheth That nature of mind and soul corporeal is: For when 'tis seen to drive the members on, To snatch from sleep the body, and to change The countenance, and the whole state of man To rule and turn,--what yet could never be Sans contact, and sans body contact fails-Must we not grant that mind and soul consist Of a corporeal nature?--And besides Thou markst that likewise with this body of ours Suffers the mind and with our body feels.
If the dire speed of spear that cleaves the bones And bares the inner thews hits not the life, Yet follows a fainting and a foul collapse, And, on the ground, dazed tumult in the mind, And whiles a wavering will to rise afoot.
So nature of mind must be corporeal, since From stroke and spear corporeal 'tis in throes.
Now, of what body, what components formed Is this same mind I will go on to tell.
First, I aver, 'tis superfine, composed Of tiniest particles--that such the fact Thou canst perceive, if thou attend, from this: Nothing is seen to happen with such speed As what the mind proposes and begins; Therefore the same bestirs itself more swiftly Than aught whose nature's palpable to eyes.
But what's so agile must of seeds consist Most round, most tiny, that they may be moved, When hit by impulse slight.
So water moves, In waves along, at impulse just the least-Being create of little shapes that roll; But, contrariwise, the quality of honey More stable is, its liquids more inert, More tardy its flow; for all its stock of matter Cleaves more together, since, indeed, 'tis made Of atoms not so smooth, so fine, and round.
For the light breeze that hovers yet can blow High heaps of poppy-seed away for thee Downward from off the top; but, contrariwise, A pile of stones or spiny ears of wheat It can't at all.
Thus, in so far as bodies Are small and smooth, is their mobility; But, contrariwise, the heavier and more rough, The more immovable they prove.
Now, then, Since nature of mind is movable so much, Consist it must of seeds exceeding small And smooth and round.
Which fact once known to thee, Good friend, will serve thee opportune in else.
This also shows the nature of the same, How nice its texture, in how small a space 'Twould go, if once compacted as a pellet: When death's unvexed repose gets hold on man And mind and soul retire, thou markest there From the whole body nothing ta'en in form, Nothing in weight.
Death grants ye everything, But vital sense and exhalation hot.
Thus soul entire must be of smallmost seeds, Twined through the veins, the vitals, and the thews, Seeing that, when 'tis from whole body gone, The outward figuration of the limbs Is unimpaired and weight fails not a whit.
Just so, when vanished the bouquet of wine, Or when an unguent's perfume delicate Into the winds away departs, or when From any body savour's gone, yet still The thing itself seems minished naught to eyes, Thereby, nor aught abstracted from its weight-No marvel, because seeds many and minute Produce the savours and the redolence In the whole body of the things.
And so, Again, again, nature of mind and soul 'Tis thine to know created is of seeds The tiniest ever, since at flying-forth It beareth nothing of the weight away.
Yet fancy not its nature simple so.
For an impalpable aura, mixed with heat, Deserts the dying, and heat draws off the air; And heat there's none, unless commixed with air: For, since the nature of all heat is rare, Athrough it many seeds of air must move.
Thus nature of mind is triple; yet those all Suffice not for creating sense--since mind Accepteth not that aught of these can cause Sense-bearing motions, and much less the thoughts A man revolves in mind.
So unto these Must added be a somewhat, and a fourth; That somewhat's altogether void of name; Than which existeth naught more mobile, naught More an impalpable, of elements More small and smooth and round.
That first transmits Sense-bearing motions through the frame, for that Is roused the first, composed of little shapes; Thence heat and viewless force of wind take up The motions, and thence air, and thence all things Are put in motion; the blood is strook, and then The vitals all begin to feel, and last To bones and marrow the sensation comes-Pleasure or torment.
Nor will pain for naught Enter so far, nor a sharp ill seep through, But all things be perturbed to that degree That room for life will fail, and parts of soul Will scatter through the body's every pore.
Yet as a rule, almost upon the skin These motion aIl are stopped, and this is why We have the power to retain our life.
Now in my eagerness to tell thee how They are commixed, through what unions fit They function so, my country's pauper-speech Constrains me sadly.
As I can, however, I'll touch some points and pass.
In such a wise Course these primordials 'mongst one another With inter-motions that no one can be From other sundered, nor its agency Perform, if once divided by a space; Like many powers in one body they work.
As in the flesh of any creature still Is odour and savour and a certain warmth, And yet from all of these one bulk of body Is made complete, so, viewless force of wind And warmth and air, commingled, do create One nature, by that mobile energy Assisted which from out itself to them Imparts initial motion, whereby first Sense-bearing motion along the vitals springs.
For lurks this essence far and deep and under, Nor in our body is aught more shut from view, And 'tis the very soul of all the soul.
And as within our members and whole frame The energy of mind and power of soul Is mixed and latent, since create it is Of bodies small and few, so lurks this fourth, This essence void of name, composed of small, And seems the very soul of all the soul, And holds dominion o'er the body all.
And by like reason wind and air and heat Must function so, commingled through the frame, And now the one subside and now another In interchange of dominance, that thus From all of them one nature be produced, Lest heat and wind apart, and air apart, Make sense to perish, by disseverment.
There is indeed in mind that heat it gets When seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes More swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind, Much, and so cold, companion of all dread, Which rouses the shudder in the shaken frame; There is no less that state of air composed, Making the tranquil breast, the serene face.
But more of hot have they whose restive hearts, Whose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage-Of which kind chief are fierce abounding lions, Who often with roaring burst the breast o'erwrought, Unable to hold the surging wrath within; But the cold mind of stags has more of wind, And speedier through their inwards rouses up The icy currents which make their members quake.
But more the oxen live by tranquil air, Nor e'er doth smoky torch of wrath applied, O'erspreading with shadows of a darkling murk, Rouse them too far; nor will they stiffen stark, Pierced through by icy javelins of fear; But have their place half-way between the two-Stags and fierce lions.
Thus the race of men: Though training make them equally refined, It leaves those pristine vestiges behind Of each mind's nature.
Nor may we suppose Evil can e'er be rooted up so far That one man's not more given to fits of wrath, Another's not more quickly touched by fear, A third not more long-suffering than he should.
And needs must differ in many things besides The varied natures and resulting habits Of humankind--of which not now can I Expound the hidden causes, nor find names Enough for all the divers shapes of those Primordials whence this variation springs.
But this meseems I'm able to declare: Those vestiges of natures left behind Which reason cannot quite expel from us Are still so slight that naught prevents a man From living a life even worthy of the gods.
So then this soul is kept by all the body, Itself the body's guard, and source of weal: For they with common roots cleave each to each, Nor can be torn asunder without death.
Not easy 'tis from lumps of frankincense To tear their fragrance forth, without its nature Perishing likewise: so, not easy 'tis From all the body nature of mind and soul To draw away, without the whole dissolved.
With seeds so intertwined even from birth, They're dowered conjointly with a partner-life; No energy of body or mind, apart, Each of itself without the other's power, Can have sensation; but our sense, enkindled Along the vitals, to flame is blown by both With mutual motions.
Besides the body alone Is nor begot nor grows, nor after death Seen to endure.
For not as water at times Gives off the alien heat, nor is thereby Itself destroyed, but unimpaired remains-Not thus, I say, can the deserted frame Bear the dissevering of its joined soul, But, rent and ruined, moulders all away.
Thus the joint contact of the body and soul Learns from their earliest age the vital motions, Even when still buried in the mother's womb; So no dissevering can hap to them, Without their bane and ill. And thence mayst see That, as conjoined is their source of weal, Conjoined also must their nature be.
If one, moreover, denies that body feel, And holds that soul, through all the body mixed, Takes on this motion which we title "sense," He battles in vain indubitable facts: For who'll explain what body's feeling is, Except by what the public fact itself Has given and taught us?
"But when soul is parted, Body's without all sense."
True!--loses what Was even in its life-time not its own; And much beside it loses, when soul's driven Forth from that life-time.
Or, to say that eyes Themselves can see no thing, but through the same The mind looks forth, as out of opened doors, Is--a hard saying; since the feel in eyes Says the reverse.
For this itself draws on And forces into the pupils of our eyes Our consciousness.
And note the case when often We lack the power to see refulgent things, Because our eyes are hampered by their light-With a mere doorway this would happen not; For, since it is our very selves that see, No open portals undertake the toil.
Besides, if eyes of ours but act as doors, Methinks that, were our sight removed, the mind Ought then still better to behold a thing-When even the door-posts have been cleared away.
Herein in these affairs nowise take up What honoured sage, Democritus, lays down-That proposition, that primordials Of body and mind, each super-posed on each, Vary alternately and interweave The fabric of our members.
For not only Are the soul-elements smaller far than those Which this our body and inward parts compose, But also are they in their number less, And scattered sparsely through our frame.
And thus This canst thou guarantee: soul's primal germs Maintain between them intervals as large At least as are the smallest bodies, which, When thrown against us, in our body rouse Sense-bearing motions.
Hence it comes that we Sometimes don't feel alighting on our frames The clinging dust, or chalk that settles soft; Nor mists of night, nor spider's gossamer We feel against us, when, upon our road, Its net entangles us, nor on our head The dropping of its withered garmentings; Nor bird-feathers, nor vegetable down, Flying about, so light they barely fall; Nor feel the steps of every crawling thing, Nor each of all those footprints on our skin Of midges and the like.
To that degree Must many primal germs be stirred in us Ere once the seeds of soul that through our frame Are intermingled 'gin to feel that those Primordials of the body have been strook, And ere, in pounding with such gaps between, They clash, combine and leap apart in turn.
But mind is more the keeper of the gates, Hath more dominion over life than soul.
For without intellect and mind there's not One part of soul can rest within our frame Least part of time; companioning, it goes With mind into the winds away, and leaves The icy members in the cold of death.
But he whose mind and intellect abide Himself abides in life.
However much The trunk be mangled, with the limbs lopped off, The soul withdrawn and taken from the limbs, Still lives the trunk and draws the vital air.
Even when deprived of all but all the soul, Yet will it linger on and cleave to life,-Just as the power of vision still is strong, If but the pupil shall abide unharmed, Even when the eye around it's sorely rent-Provided only thou destroyest not Wholly the ball, but, cutting round the pupil, Leavest that pupil by itself behind-For more would ruin sight.
But if that centre, That tiny part of eye, be eaten through, Forthwith the vision fails and darkness comes, Though in all else the unblemished ball be clear.
'Tis by like compact that the soul and mind Are each to other bound forevermore.
THE SOUL IS MORTAL Now come: that thou mayst able be to know That minds and the light souls of all that live Have mortal birth and death, I will go on Verses to build meet for thy rule of life, Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil.
But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both; And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul, Teaching the same to be but mortal, think Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind-Since both are one, a substance inter-joined.
First, then, since I have taught how soul exists A subtle fabric, of particles minute, Made up from atoms smaller much than those Of water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke, So in mobility it far excels, More prone to move, though strook by lighter cause Even moved by images of smoke or fog-As where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled, The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft-For, beyond doubt, these apparitions come To us from outward.
Now, then, since thou seest, Their liquids depart, their waters flow away, When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke Depart into the winds away, believe The soul no less is shed abroad and dies More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn From out man's members it has gone away.
For, sure, if body (container of the same Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause, And rarefied by loss of blood from veins, Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then Thinkst thou it can be held by any air-A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?
Besides we feel that mind to being comes Along with body, with body grows and ages.
For just as children totter round about With frames infirm and tender, so there follows A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then, Where years have ripened into robust powers, Counsel is also greater, more increased The power of mind; thereafter, where already The body's shattered by master-powers of eld, And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers, Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way; All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.
Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved, Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air; Since we behold the same to being come Along with body and grow, and, as I've taught, Crumble and crack, therewith outworn by eld.
Then, too, we see, that, just as body takes Monstrous diseases and the dreadful pain, So mind its bitter cares, the grief, the fear; Wherefore it tallies that the mind no less Partaker is of death; for pain and disease Are both artificers of death,--as well We've learned by the passing of many a man ere now.
Nay, too, in diseases of body, often the mind Wanders afield; for 'tis beside itself, And crazed it speaks, or many a time it sinks, With eyelids closing and a drooping nod, In heavy drowse, on to eternal sleep; From whence nor hears it any voices more, Nor able is to know the faces here Of those about him standing with wet cheeks Who vainly call him back to light and life.
Wherefore mind too, confess we must, dissolves, Seeing, indeed, contagions of disease Enter into the same.
Again, O why, When the strong wine has entered into man, And its diffused fire gone round the veins, Why follows then a heaviness of limbs, A tangle of the legs as round he reels, A stuttering tongue, an intellect besoaked, Eyes all aswim, and hiccups, shouts, and brawls, And whatso else is of that ilk?--Why this?-If not that violent and impetuous wine Is wont to confound the soul within the body?
But whatso can confounded be and balked, Gives proof, that if a hardier cause got in, 'Twould hap that it would perish then, bereaved Of any life thereafter.
And, moreover, Often will some one in a sudden fit, As if by stroke of lightning, tumble down Before our eyes, and sputter foam, and grunt, Blither, and twist about with sinews taut, Gasp up in starts, and weary out his limbs With tossing round.
No marvel, since distract Through frame by violence of disease.
***** Confounds, he foams, as if to vomit soul, As on the salt sea boil the billows round Under the master might of winds.
And now A groan's forced out, because his limbs are griped, But, in the main, because the seeds of voice Are driven forth and carried in a mass Outwards by mouth, where they are wont to go, And have a builded highway.
He becomes Mere fool, since energy of mind and soul Confounded is, and, as I've shown, to-riven, Asunder thrown, and torn to pieces all By the same venom.
But, again, where cause Of that disease has faced about, and back Retreats sharp poison of corrupted frame Into its shadowy lairs, the man at first Arises reeling, and gradually comes back To all his senses and recovers soul.
Thus, since within the body itself of man The mind and soul are by such great diseases Shaken, so miserably in labour distraught, Why, then, believe that in the open air, Without a body, they can pass their life, Immortal, battling with the master winds?
And, since we mark the mind itself is cured, Like the sick body, and restored can be By medicine, this is forewarning too That mortal lives the mind.
For proper it is That whosoe'er begins and undertakes To alter the mind, or meditates to change Any another nature soever, should add New parts, or readjust the order given, Or from the sum remove at least a bit.
But what's immortal willeth for itself Its parts be nor increased, nor rearranged, Nor any bit soever flow away: For change of anything from out its bounds Means instant death of that which was before.
Ergo, the mind, whether in sickness fallen, Or by the medicine restored, gives signs, As I have taught, of its mortality.
So surely will a fact of truth make head 'Gainst errors' theories all, and so shut off All refuge from the adversary, and rout Error by two-edged confutation.
And since the mind is of a man one part, Which in one fixed place remains, like ears, And eyes, and every sense which pilots life; And just as hand, or eye, or nose, apart, Severed from us, can neither feel nor be, But in the least of time is left to rot, Thus mind alone can never be, without The body and the man himself, which seems, As 'twere the vessel of the same--or aught Whate'er thou'lt feign as yet more closely joined: Since body cleaves to mind by surest bonds.
Again, the body's and the mind's live powers Only in union prosper and enjoy; For neither can nature of mind, alone of self Sans body, give the vital motions forth; Nor, then, can body, wanting soul, endure And use the senses.
Verily, as the eye, Alone, up-rended from its roots, apart From all the body, can peer about at naught, So soul and mind it seems are nothing able, When by themselves.
No marvel, because, commixed Through veins and inwards, and through bones and thews, Their elements primordial are confined By all the body, and own no power free To bound around through interspaces big, Thus, shut within these confines, they take on Motions of sense, which, after death, thrown out Beyond the body to the winds of air, Take on they cannot--and on this account, Because no more in such a way confined.
For air will be a body, be alive, If in that air the soul can keep itself, And in that air enclose those motions all Which in the thews and in the body itself A while ago 'twas making.
So for this, Again, again, I say confess we must, That, when the body's wrappings are unwound, And when the vital breath is forced without, The soul, the senses of the mind dissolve,-Since for the twain the cause and ground of life Is in the fact of their conjoined estate.
Once more, since body's unable to sustain Division from the soul, without decay And obscene stench, how canst thou doubt but that The soul, uprisen from the body's deeps, Has filtered away, wide-drifted like a smoke, Or that the changed body crumbling fell With ruin so entire, because, indeed, Its deep foundations have been moved from place, The soul out-filtering even through the frame, And through the body's every winding way And orifice?
And so by many means Thou'rt free to learn that nature of the soul Hath passed in fragments out along the frame, And that 'twas shivered in the very body Ere ever it slipped abroad and swam away Into the winds of air.
For never a man Dying appears to feel the soul go forth As one sure whole from all his body at once, Nor first come up the throat and into mouth; But feels it failing in a certain spot, Even as he knows the senses too dissolve Each in its own location in the frame.
But were this mind of ours immortal mind, Dying 'twould scarce bewail a dissolution, But rather the going, the leaving of its coat, Like to a snake.
Wherefore, when once the body Hath passed away, admit we must that soul, Shivered in all that body, perished too.
Nay, even when moving in the bounds of life, Often the soul, now tottering from some cause, Craves to go out, and from the frame entire Loosened to be; the countenance becomes Flaccid, as if the supreme hour were there; And flabbily collapse the members all Against the bloodless trunk--the kind of case We see when we remark in common phrase, "That man's quite gone," or "fainted dead away"; And where there's now a bustle of alarm, And all are eager to get some hold upon The man's last link of life.
For then the mind And all the power of soul are shook so sore, And these so totter along with all the frame, That any cause a little stronger might Dissolve them altogether.--Why, then, doubt That soul, when once without the body thrust, There in the open, an enfeebled thing, Its wrappings stripped away, cannot endure Not only through no everlasting age, But even, indeed, through not the least of time?
Then, too, why never is the intellect, The counselling mind, begotten in the head, The feet, the hands, instead of cleaving still To one sole seat, to one fixed haunt, the breast, If not that fixed places be assigned For each thing's birth, where each, when 'tis create, Is able to endure, and that our frames Have such complex adjustments that no shift In order of our members may appear?
To that degree effect succeeds to cause, Nor is the flame once wont to be create In flowing streams, nor cold begot in fire.
Besides, if nature of soul immortal be, And able to feel, when from our frame disjoined, The same, I fancy, must be thought to be Endowed with senses five,--nor is there way But this whereby to image to ourselves How under-souls may roam in Acheron.
Thus painters and the elder race of bards Have pictured souls with senses so endowed.
But neither eyes, nor nose, nor hand, alone Apart from body can exist for soul, Nor tongue nor ears apart.
And hence indeed Alone by self they can nor feel nor be.
And since we mark the vital sense to be In the whole body, all one living thing, If of a sudden a force with rapid stroke Should slice it down the middle and cleave in twain, Beyond a doubt likewise the soul itself, Divided, dissevered, asunder will be flung Along with body.
But what severed is And into sundry parts divides, indeed Admits it owns no everlasting nature.
We hear how chariots of war, areek With hurly slaughter, lop with flashing scythes The limbs away so suddenly that there, Fallen from the trunk, they quiver on the earth, The while the mind and powers of the man Can feel no pain, for swiftness of his hurt, And sheer abandon in the zest of battle: With the remainder of his frame he seeks Anew the battle and the slaughter, nor marks How the swift wheels and scythes of ravin have dragged Off with the horses his left arm and shield; Nor other how his right has dropped away, Mounting again and on.
A third attempts With leg dismembered to arise and stand, Whilst, on the ground hard by, the dying foot Twitches its spreading toes.
And even the head, When from the warm and living trunk lopped off, Keeps on the ground the vital countenance And open eyes, until 't has rendered up All remnants of the soul.
Nay, once again: If, when a serpent's darting forth its tongue, And lashing its tail, thou gettest chance to hew With axe its length of trunk to many parts, Thou'lt see each severed fragment writhing round With its fresh wound, and spattering up the sod, And there the fore-part seeking with the jaws After the hinder, with bite to stop the pain.
So shall we say that these be souls entire In all those fractions?--but from that 'twould follow One creature'd have in body many souls.
Therefore, the soul, which was indeed but one, Has been divided with the body too: Each is but mortal, since alike is each Hewn into many parts.
Again, how often We view our fellow going by degrees, And losing limb by limb the vital sense; First nails and fingers of the feet turn blue, Next die the feet and legs, then o'er the rest Slow crawl the certain footsteps of cold death.
And since this nature of the soul is torn, Nor mounts away, as at one time, entire, We needs must hold it mortal.
But perchance If thou supposest that the soul itself Can inward draw along the frame, and bring Its parts together to one place, and so From all the members draw the sense away, Why, then, that place in which such stock of soul Collected is, should greater seem in sense.
But since such place is nowhere, for a fact, As said before, 'tis rent and scattered forth, And so goes under.
Or again, if now I please to grant the false, and say that soul Can thus be lumped within the frames of those Who leave the sunshine, dying bit by bit, Still must the soul as mortal be confessed; Nor aught it matters whether to wrack it go, Dispersed in the winds, or, gathered in a mass From all its parts, sink down to brutish death, Since more and more in every region sense Fails the whole man, and less and less of life In every region lingers.
And besides, If soul immortal is, and winds its way Into the body at the birth of man, Why can we not remember something, then, Of life-time spent before?
why keep we not Some footprints of the things we did of, old?
But if so changed hath been the power of mind, That every recollection of things done Is fallen away, at no o'erlong remove Is that, I trow, from what we mean by death.
Wherefore 'tis sure that what hath been before Hath died, and what now is is now create.
Moreover, if after the body hath been built Our mind's live powers are wont to be put in, Just at the moment that we come to birth, And cross the sills of life, 'twould scarcely fit For them to live as if they seemed to grow Along with limbs and frame, even in the blood, But rather as in a cavern all alone.
(Yet all the body duly throngs with sense.)
But public fact declares against all this: For soul is so entwined through the veins, The flesh, the thews, the bones, that even the teeth Share in sensation, as proven by dull ache, By twinge from icy water, or grating crunch Upon a stone that got in mouth with bread.
Wherefore, again, again, souls must be thought Nor void of birth, nor free from law of death; Nor, if, from outward, in they wound their way, Could they be thought as able so to cleave To these our frames, nor, since so interwove, Appears it that they're able to go forth Unhurt and whole and loose themselves unscathed From all the thews, articulations, bones.
But, if perchance thou thinkest that the soul, From outward winding in its way, is wont To seep and soak along these members ours, Then all the more 'twill perish, being thus With body fused--for what will seep and soak Will be dissolved and will therefore die.
For just as food, dispersed through all the pores Of body, and passed through limbs and all the frame, Perishes, supplying from itself the stuff For other nature, thus the soul and mind, Though whole and new into a body going, Are yet, by seeping in, dissolved away, Whilst, as through pores, to all the frame there pass Those particles from which created is This nature of mind, now ruler of our body, Born from that soul which perished, when divided Along the frame.
Wherefore it seems that soul Hath both a natal and funeral hour.
Besides are seeds of soul there left behind In the breathless body, or not?
If there they are, It cannot justly be immortal deemed, Since, shorn of some parts lost, 'thas gone away: But if, borne off with members uncorrupt, 'Thas fled so absolutely all away It leaves not one remainder of itself Behind in body, whence do cadavers, then, From out their putrid flesh exhale the worms, And whence does such a mass of living things, Boneless and bloodless, o'er the bloated frame Bubble and swarm?
But if perchance thou thinkest That souls from outward into worms can wind, And each into a separate body come, And reckonest not why many thousand souls Collect where only one has gone away, Here is a point, in sooth, that seems to need Inquiry and a putting to the test: Whether the souls go on a hunt for seeds Of worms wherewith to build their dwelling places, Or enter bodies ready-made, as 'twere.
But why themselves they thus should do and toil 'Tis hard to say, since, being free of body, They flit around, harassed by no disease, Nor cold nor famine; for the body labours By more of kinship to these flaws of life, And mind by contact with that body suffers So many ills.
But grant it be for them However useful to construct a body To which to enter in, 'tis plain they can't.
Then, souls for self no frames nor bodies make, Nor is there how they once might enter in To bodies ready-made--for they cannot Be nicely interwoven with the same, And there'll be formed no interplay of sense Common to each.
Again, why is't there goes Impetuous rage with lion's breed morose, And cunning with foxes, and to deer why given The ancestral fear and tendency to flee, And why in short do all the rest of traits Engender from the very start of life In the members and mentality, if not Because one certain power of mind that came From its own seed and breed waxes the same Along with all the body?
But were mind Immortal, were it wont to change its bodies, How topsy-turvy would earth's creatures act!
The Hyrcan hound would flee the onset oft Of antlered stag, the scurrying hawk would quake Along the winds of air at the coming dove, And men would dote, and savage beasts be wise; For false the reasoning of those that say Immortal mind is changed by change of body-For what is changed dissolves, and therefore dies.
For parts are re-disposed and leave their order; Wherefore they must be also capable Of dissolution through the frame at last, That they along with body perish all.
But should some say that always souls of men Go into human bodies, I will ask: How can a wise become a dullard soul?
And why is never a child's a prudent soul?
And the mare's filly why not trained so well As sturdy strength of steed?
We may be sure They'll take their refuge in the thought that mind Becomes a weakling in a weakling frame.
Yet be this so, 'tis needful to confess The soul but mortal, since, so altered now Throughout the frame, it loses the life and sense It had before.
Or how can mind wax strong Coequally with body and attain The craved flower of life, unless it be The body's colleague in its origins?
Or what's the purport of its going forth From aged limbs?--fears it, perhaps, to stay, Pent in a crumbled body?
Or lest its house, Outworn by venerable length of days, May topple down upon it?
But indeed For an immortal perils are there none.
Again, at parturitions of the wild And at the rites of Love, that souls should stand Ready hard by seems ludicrous enough-Immortals waiting for their mortal limbs In numbers innumerable, contending madly Which shall be first and chief to enter in!-Unless perchance among the souls there be Such treaties stablished that the first to come Flying along, shall enter in the first, And that they make no rivalries of strength!
Again, in ether can't exist a tree, Nor clouds in ocean deeps, nor in the fields Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be, Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged Where everything may grow and have its place.
Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone Without the body, nor exist afar From thews and blood.
But if 'twere possible, Much rather might this very power of mind Be in the head, the shoulders or the heels, And, born in any part soever, yet In the same man, in the same vessel abide.
But since within this body even of ours Stands fixed and appears arranged sure Where soul and mind can each exist and grow, Deny we must the more that they can have Duration and birth, wholly outside the frame.
For, verily, the mortal to conjoin With the eternal, and to feign they feel Together, and can function each with each, Is but to dote: for what can be conceived Of more unlike, discrepant, ill-assorted, Than something mortal in a union joined With an immortal and a secular To bear the outrageous tempests?
Then, again, Whatever abides eternal must indeed Either repel all strokes, because 'tis made Of solid body, and permit no entrance Of aught with power to sunder from within The parts compact--as are those seeds of stuff Whose nature we've exhibited before; Or else be able to endure through time For this: because they are from blows exempt, As is the void, the which abides untouched, Unsmit by any stroke; or else because There is no room around, whereto things can, As 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-Even as the sum of sums eternal is, Without or place beyond whereto things may Asunder fly, or bodies which can smite, And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.
But if perchance the soul's to be adjudged Immortal, mainly on ground 'tis kept secure In vital forces--either because there come Never at all things hostile to its weal, Or else because what come somehow retire, Repelled or ere we feel the harm they work, ***** For, lo, besides that, when the frame's diseased, Soul sickens too, there cometh, many a time, That which torments it with the things to be, Keeps it in dread, and wearies it with cares; And even when evil acts are of the past, Still gnaw the old transgressions bitterly.
Add, too, that frenzy, peculiar to the mind, And that oblivion of the things that were; Add its submergence in the murky waves Of drowse and torpor.
FOLLY OF THE FEAR OF DEATH Therefore death to us Is nothing, nor concerns us in the least, Since nature of mind is mortal evermore.
And just as in the ages gone before We felt no touch of ill, when all sides round To battle came the Carthaginian host, And the times, shaken by tumultuous war, Under the aery coasts of arching heaven Shuddered and trembled, and all humankind Doubted to which the empery should fall By land and sea, thus when we are no more, When comes that sundering of our body and soul Through which we're fashioned to a single state, Verily naught to us, us then no more, Can come to pass, naught move our senses then-No, not if earth confounded were with sea, And sea with heaven.
But if indeed do feel The nature of mind and energy of soul, After their severance from this body of ours, Yet nothing 'tis to us who in the bonds And wedlock of the soul and body live, Through which we're fashioned to a single state.
And, even if time collected after death The matter of our frames and set it all Again in place as now, and if again To us the light of life were given, O yet That process too would not concern us aught, When once the self-succession of our sense Has been asunder broken.
And now and here, Little enough we're busied with the selves We were aforetime, nor, concerning them, Suffer a sore distress.
For shouldst thou gaze Backwards across all yesterdays of time The immeasurable, thinking how manifold The motions of matter are, then couldst thou well Credit this too: often these very seeds (From which we are to-day) of old were set In the same order as they are to-day-Yet this we can't to consciousness recall Through the remembering mind.
For there hath been An interposed pause of life, and wide Have all the motions wandered everywhere From these our senses.
For if woe and ail Perchance are toward, then the man to whom The bane can happen must himself be there At that same time.
But death precludeth this, Forbidding life to him on whom might crowd Such irk and care; and granted 'tis to know: Nothing for us there is to dread in death, No wretchedness for him who is no more, The same estate as if ne'er born before, When death immortal hath ta'en the mortal life.
Hence, where thou seest a man to grieve because When dead he rots with body laid away, Or perishes in flames or jaws of beasts, Know well: he rings not true, and that beneath Still works an unseen sting upon his heart, However he deny that he believes.
His shall be aught of feeling after death.
For he, I fancy, grants not what he says, Nor what that presupposes, and he fails To pluck himself with all his roots from life And cast that self away, quite unawares Feigning that some remainder's left behind.
For when in life one pictures to oneself His body dead by beasts and vultures torn, He pities his state, dividing not himself Therefrom, removing not the self enough From the body flung away, imagining Himself that body, and projecting there His own sense, as he stands beside it: hence He grieves that he is mortal born, nor marks That in true death there is no second self Alive and able to sorrow for self destroyed, Or stand lamenting that the self lies there Mangled or burning.
For if it an evil is Dead to be jerked about by jaw and fang Of the wild brutes, I see not why 'twere not Bitter to lie on fires and roast in flames, Or suffocate in honey, and, reclined On the smooth oblong of an icy slab, Grow stiff in cold, or sink with load of earth Down-crushing from above.
"Thee now no more The joyful house and best of wives shall welcome, Nor little sons run up to snatch their kisses And touch with silent happiness thy heart.
Thou shalt not speed in undertakings more, Nor be the warder of thine own no more.
Poor wretch," they say, "one hostile hour hath ta'en Wretchedly from thee all life's many guerdons," But add not, "yet no longer unto thee Remains a remnant of desire for them" If this they only well perceived with mind And followed up with maxims, they would free Their state of man from anguish and from fear.
"O even as here thou art, aslumber in death, So shalt thou slumber down the rest of time, Released from every harrying pang.
But we, We have bewept thee with insatiate woe, Standing beside whilst on the awful pyre Thou wert made ashes; and no day shall take For us the eternal sorrow from the breast."
But ask the mourner what's the bitterness That man should waste in an eternal grief, If, after all, the thing's but sleep and rest?
For when the soul and frame together are sunk In slumber, no one then demands his self Or being.
Well, this sleep may be forever, Without desire of any selfhood more, For all it matters unto us asleep.
Yet not at all do those primordial germs Roam round our members, at that time, afar From their own motions that produce our senses-Since, when he's startled from his sleep, a man Collects his senses.
Death is, then, to us Much less--if there can be a less than that Which is itself a nothing: for there comes Hard upon death a scattering more great Of the throng of matter, and no man wakes up On whom once falls the icy pause of life.
This too, O often from the soul men say, Along their couches holding of the cups, With faces shaded by fresh wreaths awry: "Brief is this fruit of joy to paltry man, Soon, soon departed, and thereafter, no, It may not be recalled."
--As if, forsooth, It were their prime of evils in great death To parch, poor tongues, with thirst and arid drought, Or chafe for any lack.
Once more, if Nature Should of a sudden send a voice abroad, And her own self inveigh against us so: "Mortal, what hast thou of such grave concern That thou indulgest in too sickly plaints?
Why this bemoaning and beweeping death?
For if thy life aforetime and behind To thee was grateful, and not all thy good Was heaped as in sieve to flow away And perish unavailingly, why not, Even like a banqueter, depart the halls, Laden with life?
why not with mind content Take now, thou fool, thy unafflicted rest?
But if whatever thou enjoyed hath been Lavished and lost, and life is now offence, Why seekest more to add--which in its turn Will perish foully and fall out in vain?
O why not rather make an end of life, Of labour?
For all I may devise or find To pleasure thee is nothing: all things are The same forever.
Though not yet thy body Wrinkles with years, nor yet the frame exhausts Outworn, still things abide the same, even if Thou goest on to conquer all of time With length of days, yea, if thou never diest"-What were our answer, but that Nature here Urges just suit and in her words lays down True cause of action?
Yet should one complain, Riper in years and elder, and lament, Poor devil, his death more sorely than is fit, Then would she not, with greater right, on him Cry out, inveighing with a voice more shrill: "Off with thy tears, and choke thy whines, buffoon!
Thou wrinklest--after thou hast had the sum Of the guerdons of life; yet, since thou cravest ever What's not at hand, contemning present good, That life has slipped away, unperfected And unavailing unto thee.
And now, Or ere thou guessed it, death beside thy head Stands--and before thou canst be going home Sated and laden with the goodly feast.
But now yield all that's alien to thine age,-Up, with good grace!
make room for sons: thou must."
Justly, I fancy, would she reason thus, Justly inveigh and gird: since ever the old Outcrowded by the new gives way, and ever The one thing from the others is repaired.
Nor no man is consigned to the abyss Of Tartarus, the black.
For stuff must be, That thus the after-generations grow,-Though these, their life completed, follow thee; And thus like thee are generations all-Already fallen, or some time to fall.
So one thing from another rises ever; And in fee-simple life is given to none, But unto all mere usufruct.
Look back: Nothing to us was all fore-passed eld Of time the eternal, ere we had a birth.
And Nature holds this like a mirror up Of time-to-be when we are dead and gone.
And what is there so horrible appears?
Now what is there so sad about it all?
Is't not serener far than any sleep?
And, verily, those tortures said to be In Acheron, the deep, they all are ours Here in this life.
No Tantalus, benumbed With baseless terror, as the fables tell, Fears the huge boulder hanging in the air: But, rather, in life an empty dread of Gods Urges mortality, and each one fears Such fall of fortune as may chance to him.
Nor eat the vultures into Tityus Prostrate in Acheron, nor can they find, Forsooth, throughout eternal ages, aught To pry around for in that mighty breast.
However hugely he extend his bulk-Who hath for outspread limbs not acres nine, But the whole earth--he shall not able be To bear eternal pain nor furnish food From his own frame forever.
But for us A Tityus is he whom vultures rend Prostrate in love, whom anxious anguish eats, Whom troubles of any unappeased desires Asunder rip.
We have before our eyes Here in this life also a Sisyphus In him who seeketh of the populace The rods, the axes fell, and evermore Retires a beaten and a gloomy man.
For to seek after power--an empty name, Nor given at all--and ever in the search To endure a world of toil, O this it is To shove with shoulder up the hill a stone Which yet comes rolling back from off the top, And headlong makes for levels of the plain.
Then to be always feeding an ingrate mind, Filling with good things, satisfying never-As do the seasons of the year for us, When they return and bring their progenies And varied charms, and we are never filled With the fruits of life--O this, I fancy, 'tis To pour, like those young virgins in the tale, Waters into a sieve, unfilled forever.
***** Cerberus and Furies, and that Lack of Light ***** Tartarus, out-belching from his mouth the surge Of horrible heat--the which are nowhere, nor Indeed can be: but in this life is fear Of retributions just and expiations For evil acts: the dungeon and the leap From that dread rock of infamy, the stripes, The executioners, the oaken rack, The iron plates, bitumen, and the torch.
And even though these are absent, yet the mind, With a fore-fearing conscience, plies its goads And burns beneath the lash, nor sees meanwhile What terminus of ills, what end of pine Can ever be, and feareth lest the same But grow more heavy after death.
Of truth, The life of fools is Acheron on earth.
This also to thy very self sometimes Repeat thou mayst: "Lo, even good Ancus left The sunshine with his eyes, in divers things A better man than thou, O worthless hind; And many other kings and lords of rule Thereafter have gone under, once who swayed O'er mighty peoples.
And he also, he-Who whilom paved a highway down the sea, And gave his legionaries thoroughfare Along the deep, and taught them how to cross The pools of brine afoot, and did contemn, Trampling upon it with his cavalry, The bellowings of ocean--poured his soul From dying body, as his light was ta'en.
And Scipio's son, the thunderbolt of war, Horror of Carthage, gave his bones to earth, Like to the lowliest villein in the house.
Add finders-out of sciences and arts; Add comrades of the Heliconian dames, Among whom Homer, sceptered o'er them all, Now lies in slumber sunken with the rest.
Then, too, Democritus, when ripened eld Admonished him his memory waned away, Of own accord offered his head to death.
Even Epicurus went, his light of life Run out, the man in genius who o'er-topped The human race, extinguishing all others, As sun, in ether arisen, all the stars.
Wilt thou, then, dally, thou complain to go?-For whom already life's as good as dead, Whilst yet thou livest and lookest?--who in sleep Wastest thy life--time's major part, and snorest Even when awake, and ceasest not to see The stuff of dreams, and bearest a mind beset By baseless terror, nor discoverest oft What's wrong with thee, when, like a sotted wretch, Thou'rt jostled along by many crowding cares, And wanderest reeling round, with mind aswim."
If men, in that same way as on the mind They feel the load that wearies with its weight, Could also know the causes whence it comes, And why so great the heap of ill on heart, O not in this sort would they live their life, As now so much we see them, knowing not What 'tis they want, and seeking ever and ever A change of place, as if to drop the burden.
The man who sickens of his home goes out, Forth from his splendid halls, and straight--returns, Feeling i'faith no better off abroad.
He races, driving his Gallic ponies along, Down to his villa, madly,--as in haste To hurry help to a house afire.--At once He yawns, as soon as foot has touched the threshold, Or drowsily goes off in sleep and seeks Forgetfulness, or maybe bustles about And makes for town again.
In such a way Each human flees himself--a self in sooth, As happens, he by no means can escape; And willy-nilly he cleaves to it and loathes, Sick, sick, and guessing not the cause of ail.
Yet should he see but that, O chiefly then, Leaving all else, he'd study to divine The nature of things, since here is in debate Eternal time and not the single hour, Mortal's estate in whatsoever remains After great death.
And too, when all is said, What evil lust of life is this so great Subdues us to live, so dreadfully distraught In perils and alarms?
one fixed end Of life abideth for mortality; Death's not to shun, and we must go to meet.
Besides we're busied with the same devices, Ever and ever, and we are at them ever, And there's no new delight that may be forged By living on.
But whilst the thing we long for Is lacking, that seems good above all else; Thereafter, when we've touched it, something else We long for; ever one equal thirst of life Grips us agape.
And doubtful 'tis what fortune The future times may carry, or what be That chance may bring, or what the issue next Awaiting us.
Nor by prolonging life Take we the least away from death's own time, Nor can we pluck one moment off, whereby To minish the aeons of our state of death.
Therefore, O man, by living on, fulfil As many generations as thou may: Eternal death shall there be waiting still; And he who died with light of yesterday Shall be no briefer time in death's No-more Than he who perished months or years before.
BOOK IV PROEM I wander afield, thriving in sturdy thought, Through unpathed haunts of the Pierides, Trodden by step of none before.
I joy To come on undefiled fountains there, To drain them deep; I joy to pluck new flowers, To seek for this my head a signal crown From regions where the Muses never yet Have garlanded the temples of a man: First, since I teach concerning mighty things, And go right on to loose from round the mind The tightened coils of dread religion; Next, since, concerning themes so dark, I frame Song so pellucid, touching all throughout Even with the Muses' charm--which, as 'twould seem, Is not without a reasonable ground: For as physicians, when they seek to give Young boys the nauseous wormwood, first do touch The brim around the cup with the sweet juice And yellow of the honey, in order that The thoughtless age of boyhood be cajoled As far as the lips, and meanwhile swallow down The wormwood's bitter draught, and, though befooled, Be yet not merely duped, but rather thus Grow strong again with recreated health: So now I too (since this my doctrine seems In general somewhat woeful unto those Who've had it not in hand, and since the crowd Starts back from it in horror) have desired To expound our doctrine unto thee in song Soft-speaking and Pierian, and, as 'twere, To touch it with sweet honey of the Muse-If by such method haply I might hold The mind of thee upon these lines of ours, Till thou dost learn the nature of all things And understandest their utility.
EXISTENCE AND CHARACTER OF THE IMAGES But since I've taught already of what sort The seeds of all things are, and how distinct In divers forms they flit of own accord, Stirred with a motion everlasting on, And in what mode things be from them create, And since I've taught what the mind's nature is, And of what things 'tis with the body knit And thrives in strength, and by what mode uptorn That mind returns to its primordials, Now will I undertake an argument-One for these matters of supreme concern-That there exist those somewhats which we call The images of things: these, like to films Scaled off the utmost outside of the things, Flit hither and thither through the atmosphere, And the same terrify our intellects, Coming upon us waking or in sleep, When oft we peer at wonderful strange shapes And images of people lorn of light, Which oft have horribly roused us when we lay In slumber--that haply nevermore may we Suppose that souls get loose from Acheron, Or shades go floating in among the living, Or aught of us is left behind at death, When body and mind, destroyed together, each Back to its own primordials goes away.
And thus I say that effigies of things, And tenuous shapes from off the things are sent, From off the utmost outside of the things, Which are like films or may be named a rind, Because the image bears like look and form With whatso body has shed it fluttering forth-A fact thou mayst, however dull thy wits, Well learn from this: mainly, because we see Even 'mongst visible objects many be That send forth bodies, loosely some diffused-Like smoke from oaken logs and heat from fires-And some more interwoven and condensed-As when the locusts in the summertime Put off their glossy tunics, or when calves At birth drop membranes from their body's surface, Or when, again, the slippery serpent doffs Its vestments 'mongst the thorns--for oft we see The breres augmented with their flying spoils: Since such takes place, 'tis likewise certain too That tenuous images from things are sent, From off the utmost outside of the things.
For why those kinds should drop and part from things, Rather than others tenuous and thin, No power has man to open mouth to tell; Especially, since on outsides of things Are bodies many and minute which could, In the same order which they had before, And with the figure of their form preserved, Be thrown abroad, and much more swiftly too, Being less subject to impediments, As few in number and placed along the front.
For truly many things we see discharge Their stuff at large, not only from their cores Deep-set within, as we have said above, But from their surfaces at times no less-Their very colours too.
And commonly The awnings, saffron, red and dusky blue, Stretched overhead in mighty theatres, Upon their poles and cross-beams fluttering, Have such an action quite; for there they dye And make to undulate with their every hue The circled throng below, and all the stage, And rich attire in the patrician seats.
And ever the more the theatre's dark walls Around them shut, the more all things within Laugh in the bright suffusion of strange glints, The daylight being withdrawn.
And therefore, since The canvas hangings thus discharge their dye From off their surface, things in general must Likewise their tenuous effigies discharge, Because in either case they are off-thrown From off the surface.
So there are indeed Such certain prints and vestiges of forms Which flit around, of subtlest texture made, Invisible, when separate, each and one.
Again, all odour, smoke, and heat, and such Streams out of things diffusedly, because, Whilst coming from the deeps of body forth And rising out, along their bending path They're torn asunder, nor have gateways straight Wherethrough to mass themselves and struggle abroad.
But contrariwise, when such a tenuous film Of outside colour is thrown off, there's naught Can rend it, since 'tis placed along the front Ready to hand.
Lastly those images Which to our eyes in mirrors do appear, In water, or in any shining surface, Must be, since furnished with like look of things, Fashioned from images of things sent out.
There are, then, tenuous effigies of forms, Like unto them, which no one can divine When taken singly, which do yet give back, When by continued and recurrent discharge Expelled, a picture from the mirrors' plane.
Nor otherwise, it seems, can they be kept So well conserved that thus be given back Figures so like each object.
Now then, learn How tenuous is the nature of an image.
And in the first place, since primordials be So far beneath our senses, and much less E'en than those objects which begin to grow Too small for eyes to note, learn now in few How nice are the beginnings of all things-That this, too, I may yet confirm in proof: First, living creatures are sometimes so small That even their third part can nowise be seen; Judge, then, the size of any inward organ-What of their sphered heart, their eyes, their limbs, The skeleton?--How tiny thus they are!
And what besides of those first particles Whence soul and mind must fashioned be?--Seest not How nice and how minute?
Besides, whatever Exhales from out its body a sharp smell-The nauseous absinth, or the panacea, Strong southernwood, or bitter centaury-If never so lightly with thy [fingers] twain Perchance [thou touch] a one of them ***** Then why not rather know that images Flit hither and thither, many, in many modes, Bodiless and invisible?
But lest Haply thou holdest that those images Which come from objects are the sole that flit, Others indeed there be of own accord Begot, self-formed in earth's aery skies, Which, moulded to innumerable shapes, Are borne aloft, and, fluid as they are, Cease not to change appearance and to turn Into new outlines of all sorts of forms; As we behold the clouds grow thick on high And smirch the serene vision of the world, Stroking the air with motions.
For oft are seen The giants' faces flying far along And trailing a spread of shadow; and at times The mighty mountains and mountain-sundered rocks Going before and crossing on the sun, Whereafter a monstrous beast dragging amain And leading in the other thunderheads.
Now [hear] how easy and how swift they be Engendered, and perpetually flow off From things and gliding pass away.... ***** For ever every outside streams away From off all objects, since discharge they may; And when this outside reaches other things, As chiefly glass, it passes through; but where It reaches the rough rocks or stuff of wood, There 'tis so rent that it cannot give back An image.
But when gleaming objects dense, As chiefly mirrors, have been set before it, Nothing of this sort happens.
For it can't Go, as through glass, nor yet be rent--its safety, By virtue of that smoothness, being sure.
'Tis therefore that from them the images Stream back to us; and howso suddenly Thou place, at any instant, anything Before a mirror, there an image shows; Proving that ever from a body's surface Flow off thin textures and thin shapes of things.
Thus many images in little time Are gendered; so their origin is named Rightly a speedy.
And even as the sun Must send below, in little time, to earth So many beams to keep all things so full Of light incessant; thus, on grounds the same, From things there must be borne, in many modes, To every quarter round, upon the moment, The many images of things; because Unto whatever face of things we turn The mirror, things of form and hue the same Respond.
Besides, though but a moment since Serenest was the weather of the sky, So fiercely sudden is it foully thick That ye might think that round about all murk Had parted forth from Acheron and filled The mighty vaults of sky--so grievously, As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome night, Do faces of black horror hang on high-Of which how small a part an image is There's none to tell or reckon out in words.
Now come; with what swift motion they are borne, These images, and what the speed assigned To them across the breezes swimming on-So that o'er lengths of space a little hour Alone is wasted, toward whatever region Each with its divers impulse tends--I'll tell In verses sweeter than they many are; Even as the swan's slight note is better far Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes Among the southwind's aery clouds.
And first, One oft may see that objects which are light And made of tiny bodies are the swift; In which class is the sun's light and his heat, Since made from small primordial elements Which, as it were, are forward knocked along And through the interspaces of the air To pass delay not, urged by blows behind; For light by light is instantly supplied And gleam by following gleam is spurred and driven.
Thus likewise must the images have power Through unimaginable space to speed Within a point of time,--first, since a cause Exceeding small there is, which at their back Far forward drives them and propels, where, too, They're carried with such winged lightness on; And, secondly, since furnished, when sent off, With texture of such rareness that they can Through objects whatsoever penetrate And ooze, as 'twere, through intervening air.
Besides, if those fine particles of things Which from so deep within are sent abroad, As light and heat of sun, are seen to glide And spread themselves through all the space of heaven Upon one instant of the day, and fly O'er sea and lands and flood the heaven, what then Of those which on the outside stand prepared, When they're hurled off with not a thing to check Their going out?
Dost thou not see indeed How swifter and how farther must they go And speed through manifold the length of space In time the same that from the sun the rays O'erspread the heaven?
This also seems to be Example chief and true with what swift speed The images of things are borne about: That soon as ever under open skies Is spread the shining water, all at once, If stars be out in heaven, upgleam from earth, Serene and radiant in the water there, The constellations of the universe-Now seest thou not in what a point of time An image from the shores of ether falls Unto the shores of earth?
Wherefore, again, And yet again, 'tis needful to confess With wondrous... ***** THE SENSES AND MENTAL PICTURES Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
From certain things flow odours evermore, As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls Around the coasts.
Nor ever cease to flit The varied voices, sounds athrough the air.
Then too there comes into the mouth at times The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch The wormword being mixed, its bitter stings.
To such degree from all things is each thing Borne streamingly along, and sent about To every region round; and nature grants Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow, Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have, And all the time are suffered to descry And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.
Besides, since shape examined by our hands Within the dark is known to be the same As that by eyes perceived within the light And lustrous day, both touch and sight must be By one like cause aroused.
So, if we test A square and get its stimulus on us Within the dark, within the light what square Can fall upon our sight, except a square That images the things?
Wherefore it seems The source of seeing is in images, Nor without these can anything be viewed.
Now these same films I name are borne about And tossed and scattered into regions all.
But since we do perceive alone through eyes, It follows hence that whitherso we turn Our sight, all things do strike against it there With form and hue.
And just how far from us Each thing may be away, the image yields To us the power to see and chance to tell: For when 'tis sent, at once it shoves ahead And drives along the air that's in the space Betwixt it and our eyes.
And thus this air All glides athrough our eyeballs, and, as 'twere, Brushes athrough our pupils and thuswise Passes across.
Therefore it comes we see How far from us each thing may be away, And the more air there be that's driven before, And too the longer be the brushing breeze Against our eyes, the farther off removed Each thing is seen to be: forsooth, this work With mightily swift order all goes on, So that upon one instant we may see What kind the object and how far away.
Nor over-marvellous must this be deemed In these affairs that, though the films which strike Upon the eyes cannot be singly seen, The things themselves may be perceived.
For thus When the wind beats upon us stroke by stroke And when the sharp cold streams, 'tis not our wont To feel each private particle of wind Or of that cold, but rather all at once; And so we see how blows affect our body, As if one thing were beating on the same And giving us the feel of its own body Outside of us.
Again, whene'er we thump With finger-tip upon a stone, we touch But the rock's surface and the outer hue, Nor feel that hue by contact--rather feel The very hardness deep within the rock.
Now come, and why beyond a looking-glass An image may be seen, perceive.
For seen It soothly is, removed far within.
'Tis the same sort as objects peered upon Outside in their true shape, whene'er a door Yields through itself an open peering-place, And lets us see so many things outside Beyond the house.
Also that sight is made By a twofold twin air: for first is seen The air inside the door-posts; next the doors, The twain to left and right; and afterwards A light beyond comes brushing through our eyes, Then other air, then objects peered upon Outside in their true shape.
And thus, when first The image of the glass projects itself, As to our gaze it comes, it shoves ahead And drives along the air that's in the space Betwixt it and our eyes, and brings to pass That we perceive the air ere yet the glass.
But when we've also seen the glass itself, Forthwith that image which from us is borne Reaches the glass, and there thrown back again Comes back unto our eyes, and driving rolls Ahead of itself another air, that then 'Tis this we see before itself, and thus It looks so far removed behind the glass.
Wherefore again, again, there's naught for wonder ***** In those which render from the mirror's plane A vision back, since each thing comes to pass By means of the two airs.
Now, in the glass The right part of our members is observed Upon the left, because, when comes the image Hitting against the level of the glass, 'Tis not returned unshifted; but forced off Backwards in line direct and not oblique,-Exactly as whoso his plaster-mask Should dash, before 'twere dry, on post or beam, And it should straightway keep, at clinging there, Its shape, reversed, facing him who threw, And so remould the features it gives back: It comes that now the right eye is the left, The left the right.
An image too may be From mirror into mirror handed on, Until of idol-films even five or six Have thus been gendered.
For whatever things Shall hide back yonder in the house, the same, However far removed in twisting ways, May still be all brought forth through bending paths And by these several mirrors seen to be Within the house, since nature so compels All things to be borne backward and spring off At equal angles from all other things.
To such degree the image gleams across From mirror unto mirror; where 'twas left It comes to be the right, and then again Returns and changes round unto the left.
Again, those little sides of mirrors curved Proportionate to the bulge of our own flank Send back to us their idols with the right Upon the right; and this is so because Either the image is passed on along From mirror unto mirror, and thereafter, When twice dashed off, flies back unto ourselves; Or else the image wheels itself around, When once unto the mirror it has come, Since the curved surface teaches it to turn To usward.
Further, thou might'st well believe That these film-idols step along with us And set their feet in unison with ours And imitate our carriage, since from that Part of a mirror whence thou hast withdrawn Straightway no images can be returned.
Further, our eye-balls tend to flee the bright And shun to gaze thereon; the sun even blinds, If thou goest on to strain them unto him, Because his strength is mighty, and the films Heavily downward from on high are borne Through the pure ether and the viewless winds, And strike the eyes, disordering their joints.
So piecing lustre often burns the eyes, Because it holdeth many seeds of fire Which, working into eyes, engender pain.
Again, whatever jaundiced people view Becomes wan-yellow, since from out their bodies Flow many seeds wan-yellow forth to meet The films of things, and many too are mixed Within their eye, which by contagion paint All things with sallowness.
Again, we view From dark recesses things that stand in light, Because, when first has entered and possessed The open eyes this nearer darkling air, Swiftly the shining air and luminous Followeth in, which purges then the eyes And scatters asunder of that other air The sable shadows, for in large degrees This air is nimbler, nicer, and more strong.
And soon as ever 'thas filled and oped with light The pathways of the eyeballs, which before Black air had blocked, there follow straightaway Those films of things out-standing in the light, Provoking vision--what we cannot do From out the light with objects in the dark, Because that denser darkling air behind Followeth in, and fills each aperture And thus blockades the pathways of the eyes That there no images of any things Can be thrown in and agitate the eyes.
And when from far away we do behold The squared towers of a city, oft Rounded they seem,--on this account because Each distant angle is perceived obtuse, Or rather it is not perceived at all; And perishes its blow nor to our gaze Arrives its stroke, since through such length of air Are borne along the idols that the air Makes blunt the idol of the angle's point By numerous collidings.
When thuswise The angles of the tower each and all Have quite escaped the sense, the stones appear As rubbed and rounded on a turner's wheel-Yet not like objects near and truly round, But with a semblance to them, shadowily.
Likewise, our shadow in the sun appears To move along and follow our own steps And imitate our carriage--if thou thinkest Air that is thus bereft of light can walk, Following the gait and motion of mankind.
For what we use to name a shadow, sure Is naught but air deprived of light.
No marvel: Because the earth from spot to spot is reft Progressively of light of sun, whenever In moving round we get within its way, While any spot of earth by us abandoned Is filled with light again, on this account It comes to pass that what was body's shadow Seems still the same to follow after us In one straight course.
Since, evermore pour in New lights of rays, and perish then the old, Just like the wool that's drawn into the flame.
Therefore the earth is easily spoiled of light And easily refilled and from herself Washeth the black shadows quite away.
And yet in this we don't at all concede That eyes be cheated.
For their task it is To note in whatsoever place be light, In what be shadow: whether or no the gleams Be still the same, and whether the shadow which Just now was here is that one passing thither, Or whether the facts be what we said above, 'Tis after all the reasoning of mind That must decide; nor can our eyeballs know The nature of reality.
And so Attach thou not this fault of mind to eyes, Nor lightly think our senses everywhere Are tottering.
The ship in which we sail Is borne along, although it seems to stand; The ship that bides in roadstead is supposed There to be passing by.
And hills and fields Seem fleeing fast astern, past which we urge The ship and fly under the bellying sails.
The stars, each one, do seem to pause, affixed To the ethereal caverns, though they all Forever are in motion, rising out And thence revisiting their far descents When they have measured with their bodies bright The span of heaven.
And likewise sun and moon Seem biding in a roadstead,--objects which, As plain fact proves, are really borne along.
Between two mountains far away aloft From midst the whirl of waters open lies A gaping exit for the fleet, and yet They seem conjoined in a single isle.
When boys themselves have stopped their spinning round, The halls still seem to whirl and posts to reel, Until they now must almost think the roofs Threaten to ruin down upon their heads.
And now, when nature begins to lift on high The sun's red splendour and the tremulous fires, And raise him o'er the mountain-tops, those mountains-O'er which he seemeth then to thee to be, His glowing self hard by atingeing them With his own fire--are yet away from us Scarcely two thousand arrow-shots, indeed Oft scarce five hundred courses of a dart; Although between those mountains and the sun Lie the huge plains of ocean spread beneath The vasty shores of ether, and intervene A thousand lands, possessed by many a folk And generations of wild beasts.
Again, A pool of water of but a finger's depth, Which lies between the stones along the pave, Offers a vision downward into earth As far, as from the earth o'erspread on high The gulfs of heaven; that thus thou seemest to view Clouds down below and heavenly bodies plunged Wondrously in heaven under earth.
Then too, when in the middle of the stream Sticks fast our dashing horse, and down we gaze Into the river's rapid waves, some force Seems then to bear the body of the horse, Though standing still, reversely from his course, And swiftly push up-stream.
And wheresoe'er We cast our eyes across, all objects seem Thus to be onward borne and flow along In the same way as we.
A portico, Albeit it stands well propped from end to end On equal columns, parallel and big, Contracts by stages in a narrow cone, When from one end the long, long whole is seen,-Until, conjoining ceiling with the floor, And the whole right side with the left, it draws Together to a cone's nigh-viewless point.
To sailors on the main the sun he seems From out the waves to rise, and in the waves To set and bury his light--because indeed They gaze on naught but water and the sky.
Again, to gazers ignorant of the sea, Vessels in port seem, as with broken poops, To lean upon the water, quite agog; For any portion of the oars that's raised Above the briny spray is straight, and straight The rudders from above.
But other parts, Those sunk, immersed below the water-line, Seem broken all and bended and inclined Sloping to upwards, and turned back to float Almost atop the water.
And when the winds Carry the scattered drifts along the sky In the night-time, then seem to glide along The radiant constellations 'gainst the clouds And there on high to take far other course From that whereon in truth they're borne.
And then, If haply our hand be set beneath one eye And press below thereon, then to our gaze Each object which we gaze on seems to be, By some sensation twain--then twain the lights Of lampions burgeoning in flowers of flame, And twain the furniture in all the house, Two-fold the visages of fellow-men, And twain their bodies.
And again, when sleep Has bound our members down in slumber soft And all the body lies in deep repose, Yet then we seem to self to be awake And move our members; and in night's blind gloom We think to mark the daylight and the sun; And, shut within a room, yet still we seem To change our skies, our oceans, rivers, hills, To cross the plains afoot, and hear new sounds, Though still the austere silence of the night Abides around us, and to speak replies, Though voiceless.
Other cases of the sort Wondrously many do we see, which all Seek, so to say, to injure faith in sense-In vain, because the largest part of these Deceives through mere opinions of the mind, Which we do add ourselves, feigning to see What by the senses are not seen at all.
For naught is harder than to separate Plain facts from dubious, which the mind forthwith Adds by itself.
Again, if one suppose That naught is known, he knows not whether this Itself is able to be known, since he Confesses naught to know.
Therefore with him I waive discussion--who has set his head Even where his feet should be.
But let me grant That this he knows,--I question: whence he knows What 'tis to know and not-to-know in turn, And what created concept of the truth, And what device has proved the dubious To differ from the certain?--since in things He's heretofore seen naught of true.
Thou'lt find That from the senses first hath been create Concept of truth, nor can the senses be Rebutted.
For criterion must be found Worthy of greater trust, which shall defeat Through own authority the false by true; What, then, than these our senses must there be Worthy a greater trust?
Shall reason, sprung From some false sense, prevail to contradict Those senses, sprung as reason wholly is From out the senses?--For lest these be true, All reason also then is falsified.
Or shall the ears have power to blame the eyes, Or yet the touch the ears?
Again, shall taste Accuse this touch or shall the nose confute Or eyes defeat it?
Methinks not so it is: For unto each has been divided off Its function quite apart, its power to each; And thus we're still constrained to perceive The soft, the cold, the hot apart, apart All divers hues and whatso things there be Conjoined with hues.
Likewise the tasting tongue Has its own power apart, and smells apart And sounds apart are known.
And thus it is That no one sense can e'er convict another.
Nor shall one sense have power to blame itself, Because it always must be deemed the same, Worthy of equal trust.
And therefore what At any time unto these senses showed, The same is true.
And if the reason be Unable to unravel us the cause Why objects, which at hand were square, afar Seemed rounded, yet it more availeth us, Lacking the reason, to pretend a cause For each configuration, than to let From out our hands escape the obvious things And injure primal faith in sense, and wreck All those foundations upon which do rest Our life and safety.
For not only reason Would topple down; but even our very life Would straightaway collapse, unless we dared To trust our senses and to keep away From headlong heights and places to be shunned Of a like peril, and to seek with speed Their opposites!
Again, as in a building, If the first plumb-line be askew, and if The square deceiving swerve from lines exact, And if the level waver but the least In any part, the whole construction then Must turn out faulty--shelving and askew, Leaning to back and front, incongruous, That now some portions seem about to fall, And falls the whole ere long--betrayed indeed By first deceiving estimates: so too Thy calculations in affairs of life Must be askew and false, if sprung for thee From senses false.
So all that troop of words Marshalled against the senses is quite vain.
And now remains to demonstrate with ease How other senses each their things perceive.
Firstly, a sound and every voice is heard, When, getting into ears, they strike the sense With their own body.
For confess we must Even voice and sound to be corporeal, Because they're able on the sense to strike.
Besides voice often scrapes against the throat, And screams in going out do make more rough The wind-pipe--naturally enough, methinks, When, through the narrow exit rising up In larger throng, these primal germs of voice Have thus begun to issue forth.
In sooth, Also the door of the mouth is scraped against [By air blown outward] from distended [cheeks].
***** And thus no doubt there is, that voice and words Consist of elements corporeal, With power to pain.
Nor art thou unaware Likewise how much of body's ta'en away, How much from very thews and powers of men May be withdrawn by steady talk, prolonged Even from the rising splendour of the morn To shadows of black evening,--above all If 't be outpoured with most exceeding shouts.
Therefore the voice must be corporeal, Since the long talker loses from his frame A part.
Moreover, roughness in the sound Comes from the roughness in the primal germs, As a smooth sound from smooth ones is create; Nor have these elements a form the same When the trump rumbles with a hollow roar, As when barbaric Berecynthian pipe Buzzes with raucous boomings, or when swans By night from icy shores of Helicon With wailing voices raise their liquid dirge.
Thus, when from deep within our frame we force These voices, and at mouth expel them forth, The mobile tongue, artificer of words, Makes them articulate, and too the lips By their formations share in shaping them.
Hence when the space is short from starting-point To where that voice arrives, the very words Must too be plainly heard, distinctly marked.
For then the voice conserves its own formation, Conserves its shape.
But if the space between Be longer than is fit, the words must be Through the much air confounded, and the voice Disordered in its flight across the winds-And so it haps, that thou canst sound perceive, Yet not determine what the words may mean; To such degree confounded and encumbered The voice approaches us.
Again, one word, Sent from the crier's mouth, may rouse all ears Among the populace.
And thus one voice Scatters asunder into many voices, Since it divides itself for separate ears, Imprinting form of word and a clear tone.
But whatso part of voices fails to hit The ears themselves perishes, borne beyond, Idly diffused among the winds.
A part, Beating on solid porticoes, tossed back Returns a sound; and sometimes mocks the ear With a mere phantom of a word.
When this Thou well hast noted, thou canst render count Unto thyself and others why it is Along the lonely places that the rocks Give back like shapes of words in order like, When search we after comrades wandering Among the shady mountains, and aloud Call unto them, the scattered.
I have seen Spots that gave back even voices six or seven For one thrown forth--for so the very hills, Dashing them back against the hills, kept on With their reverberations.
And these spots The neighbouring country-side doth feign to be Haunts of the goat-foot satyrs and the nymphs; And tells ye there be fauns, by whose night noise And antic revels yonder they declare The voiceless silences are broken oft, And tones of strings are made and wailings sweet Which the pipe, beat by players' finger-tips, Pours out; and far and wide the farmer-race Begins to hear, when, shaking the garmentings Of pine upon his half-beast head, god-Pan With puckered lip oft runneth o'er and o'er The open reeds,--lest flute should cease to pour The woodland music!
Other prodigies And wonders of this ilk they love to tell, Lest they be thought to dwell in lonely spots And even by gods deserted.
This is why They boast of marvels in their story-tellings; Or by some other reason are led on-Greedy, as all mankind hath ever been, To prattle fables into ears.
Again, One need not wonder how it comes about That through those places (through which eyes cannot View objects manifest) sounds yet may pass And assail the ears.
For often we observe People conversing, though the doors be closed; No marvel either, since all voice unharmed Can wind through bended apertures of things, While idol-films decline to--for they're rent, Unless along straight apertures they swim, Like those in glass, through which all images Do fly across.
And yet this voice itself, In passing through shut chambers of a house, Is dulled, and in a jumble enters ears, And sound we seem to hear far more than words.
Moreover, a voice is into all directions Divided up, since off from one another New voices are engendered, when one voice Hath once leapt forth, outstarting into many-As oft a spark of fire is wont to sprinkle Itself into its several fires.
And so, Voices do fill those places hid behind, Which all are in a hubbub round about, Astir with sound.
But idol-films do tend, As once sent forth, in straight directions all; Wherefore one can inside a wall see naught, Yet catch the voices from beyond the same.
Nor tongue and palate, whereby we flavour feel, Present more problems for more work of thought.
Firstly, we feel a flavour in the mouth, When forth we squeeze it, in chewing up our food,-As any one perchance begins to squeeze With hand and dry a sponge with water soaked.
Next, all which forth we squeeze is spread about Along the pores and intertwined paths Of the loose-textured tongue.
And so, when smooth The bodies of the oozy flavour, then Delightfully they touch, delightfully They treat all spots, around the wet and trickling Enclosures of the tongue.
And contrariwise, They sting and pain the sense with their assault, According as with roughness they're supplied.
Next, only up to palate is the pleasure Coming from flavour; for in truth when down 'Thas plunged along the throat, no pleasure is, Whilst into all the frame it spreads around; Nor aught it matters with what food is fed The body, if only what thou take thou canst Distribute well digested to the frame And keep the stomach in a moist career.
Now, how it is we see some food for some, Others for others.... ***** I will unfold, or wherefore what to some Is foul and bitter, yet the same to others Can seem delectable to eat,--why here So great the distance and the difference is That what is food to one to some becomes Fierce poison, as a certain snake there is Which, touched by spittle of a man, will waste And end itself by gnawing up its coil.
Again, fierce poison is the hellebore To us, but puts the fat on goats and quails.
That thou mayst know by what devices this Is brought about, in chief thou must recall What we have said before, that seeds are kept Commixed in things in divers modes.
Again, As all the breathing creatures which take food Are outwardly unlike, and outer cut And contour of their members bounds them round, Each differing kind by kind, they thus consist Of seeds of varying shape.
And furthermore, Since seeds do differ, divers too must be The interstices and paths (which we do call The apertures) in all the members, even In mouth and palate too.
Thus some must be More small or yet more large, three-cornered some And others squared, and many others round, And certain of them many-angled too In many modes.
For, as the combination And motion of their divers shapes demand, The shapes of apertures must be diverse And paths must vary according to their walls That bound them.
Hence when what is sweet to some, Becomes to others bitter, for him to whom 'Tis sweet, the smoothest particles must needs Have entered caressingly the palate's pores.
And, contrariwise, with those to whom that sweet Is sour within the mouth, beyond a doubt The rough and barbed particles have got Into the narrows of the apertures.
Now easy it is from these affairs to know Whatever... ***** Indeed, where one from o'er-abundant bile Is stricken with fever, or in other wise Feels the roused violence of some malady, There the whole frame is now upset, and there All the positions of the seeds are changed,-So that the bodies which before were fit To cause the savour, now are fit no more, And now more apt are others which be able To get within the pores and gender sour.
Both sorts, in sooth, are intermixed in honey-What oft we've proved above to thee before.
Now come, and I will indicate what wise Impact of odour on the nostrils touches.
And first, 'tis needful there be many things From whence the streaming flow of varied odours May roll along, and we're constrained to think They stream and dart and sprinkle themselves about Impartially.
But for some breathing creatures One odour is more apt, to others another-Because of differing forms of seeds and pores.
Thus on and on along the zephyrs bees Are led by odour of honey, vultures too By carcasses.
Again, the forward power Of scent in dogs doth lead the hunter on Whithersoever the splay-foot of wild beast Hath hastened its career; and the white goose, The saviour of the Roman citadel, Forescents afar the odour of mankind.
Thus, diversly to divers ones is given Peculiar smell that leadeth each along To his own food or makes him start aback From loathsome poison, and in this wise are The generations of the wild preserved.
Yet is this pungence not alone in odours Or in the class of flavours; but, likewise, The look of things and hues agree not all So well with senses unto all, but that Some unto some will be, to gaze upon, More keen and painful.
Lo, the raving lions, They dare not face and gaze upon the cock Who's wont with wings to flap away the night From off the stage, and call the beaming morn With clarion voice--and lions straightway thus Bethink themselves of flight, because, ye see, Within the body of the cocks there be Some certain seeds, which, into lions' eyes Injected, bore into the pupils deep And yield such piercing pain they can't hold out Against the cocks, however fierce they be-Whilst yet these seeds can't hurt our gaze the least, Either because they do not penetrate, Or since they have free exit from the eyes As soon as penetrating, so that thus They cannot hurt our eyes in any part By there remaining.
To speak once more of odour; Whatever assail the nostrils, some can travel A longer way than others.
None of them, However, 's borne so far as sound or voice-While I omit all mention of such things As hit the eyesight and assail the vision.
For slowly on a wandering course it comes And perishes sooner, by degrees absorbed Easily into all the winds of air;-And first, because from deep inside the thing It is discharged with labour (for the fact That every object, when 'tis shivered, ground, Or crumbled by the fire, will smell the stronger Is sign that odours flow and part away From inner regions of the things).
And next, Thou mayest see that odour is create Of larger primal germs than voice, because It enters not through stony walls, wherethrough Unfailingly the voice and sound are borne; Wherefore, besides, thou wilt observe 'tis not So easy to trace out in whatso place The smelling object is.
For, dallying on Along the winds, the particles cool off, And then the scurrying messengers of things Arrive our senses, when no longer hot.
So dogs oft wander astray, and hunt the scent.
Now mark, and hear what objects move the mind, And learn, in few, whence unto intellect Do come what come.
And first I tell thee this: That many images of objects rove In many modes to every region round-So thin that easily the one with other, When once they meet, uniteth in mid-air, Like gossamer or gold-leaf.
For, indeed, Far thinner are they in their fabric than Those images which take a hold on eyes And smite the vision, since through body's pores They penetrate, and inwardly stir up The subtle nature of mind and smite the sense.
Thus, Centaurs and the limbs of Scyllas, thus The Cerberus-visages of dogs we see, And images of people gone before-Dead men whose bones earth bosomed long ago; Because the images of every kind Are everywhere about us borne--in part Those which are gendered in the very air Of own accord, in part those others which From divers things do part away, and those Which are compounded, made from out their shapes.
For soothly from no living Centaur is That phantom gendered, since no breed of beast Like him was ever; but, when images Of horse and man by chance have come together, They easily cohere, as aforesaid, At once, through subtle nature and fabric thin.
In the same fashion others of this ilk Created are.
And when they're quickly borne In their exceeding lightness, easily (As earlier I showed) one subtle image, Compounded, moves by its one blow the mind, Itself so subtle and so strangely quick.
That these things come to pass as I record, From this thou easily canst understand: So far as one is unto other like, Seeing with mind as well as with the eyes Must come to pass in fashion not unlike.
Well, now, since I have shown that I perceive Haply a lion through those idol-films Such as assail my eyes, 'tis thine to know Also the mind is in like manner moved, And sees, nor more nor less than eyes do see (Except that it perceives more subtle films) The lion and aught else through idol-films.
And when the sleep has overset our frame, The mind's intelligence is now awake, Still for no other reason, save that these-The self-same films as when we are awake-Assail our minds, to such degree indeed That we do seem to see for sure the man Whom, void of life, now death and earth have gained Dominion over.
And nature forces this To come to pass because the body's senses Are resting, thwarted through the members all, Unable now to conquer false with true; And memory lies prone and languishes In slumber, nor protests that he, the man Whom the mind feigns to see alive, long since Hath been the gain of death and dissolution.
And further, 'tis no marvel idols move And toss their arms and other members round In rhythmic time--and often in men's sleeps It haps an image this is seen to do; In sooth, when perishes the former image, And other is gendered of another pose, That former seemeth to have changed its gestures.
Of course the change must be conceived as speedy; So great the swiftness and so great the store Of idol-things, and (in an instant brief As mind can mark) so great, again, the store Of separate idol-parts to bring supplies.
It happens also that there is supplied Sometimes an image not of kind the same; But what before was woman, now at hand Is seen to stand there, altered into male; Or other visage, other age succeeds; But slumber and oblivion take care That we shall feel no wonder at the thing.
And much in these affairs demands inquiry, And much, illumination--if we crave With plainness to exhibit facts.
And first, Why doth the mind of one to whom the whim To think has come behold forthwith that thing?
Or do the idols watch upon our will, And doth an image unto us occur, Directly we desire--if heart prefer The sea, the land, or after all the sky?
Assemblies of the citizens, parades, Banquets, and battles, these and all doth she, Nature, create and furnish at our word?-Maugre the fact that in same place and spot Another's mind is meditating things All far unlike.
And what, again, of this: When we in sleep behold the idols step, In measure, forward, moving supple limbs, Whilst forth they put each supple arm in turn With speedy motion, and with eyeing heads Repeat the movement, as the foot keeps time?
Forsooth, the idols they are steeped in art, And wander to and fro well taught indeed,-Thus to be able in the time of night To make such games!
Or will the truth be this: Because in one least moment that we mark-That is, the uttering of a single sound-There lurk yet many moments, which the reason Discovers to exist, therefore it comes That, in a moment how so brief ye will, The divers idols are hard by, and ready Each in its place diverse?
So great the swiftness, So great, again, the store of idol-things, And so, when perishes the former image, And other is gendered of another pose, The former seemeth to have changed its gestures.
And since they be so tenuous, mind can mark Sharply alone the ones it strains to see; And thus the rest do perish one and all, Save those for which the mind prepares itself.
Further, it doth prepare itself indeed, And hopes to see what follows after each-Hence this result.
For hast thou not observed How eyes, essaying to perceive the fine, Will strain in preparation, otherwise Unable sharply to perceive at all?
Yet know thou canst that, even in objects plain, If thou attendest not, 'tis just the same As if 'twere all the time removed and far.
What marvel, then, that mind doth lose the rest, Save those to which 'thas given up itself?
So 'tis that we conjecture from small signs Things wide and weighty, and involve ourselves In snarls of self-deceit.
SOME VITAL FUNCTIONS In these affairs We crave that thou wilt passionately flee The one offence, and anxiously wilt shun The error of presuming the clear lights Of eyes created were that we might see; Or thighs and knees, aprop upon the feet, Thuswise can bended be, that we might step With goodly strides ahead; or forearms joined Unto the sturdy uppers, or serving hands On either side were given, that we might do Life's own demands.
All such interpretation Is aft-for-fore with inverse reasoning, Since naught is born in body so that we May use the same, but birth engenders use: No seeing ere the lights of eyes were born, No speaking ere the tongue created was; But origin of tongue came long before Discourse of words, and ears created were Much earlier than any sound was heard; And all the members, so meseems, were there Before they got their use: and therefore, they Could not be gendered for the sake of use.
But contrariwise, contending in the fight With hand to hand, and rending of the joints, And fouling of the limbs with gore, was there, O long before the gleaming spears ere flew; And nature prompted man to shun a wound, Before the left arm by the aid of art Opposed the shielding targe.
And, verily, Yielding the weary body to repose, Far ancienter than cushions of soft beds, And quenching thirst is earlier than cups.
These objects, therefore, which for use and life Have been devised, can be conceived as found For sake of using.
But apart from such Are all which first were born and afterwards Gave knowledge of their own utility-Chief in which sort we note the senses, limbs: Wherefore, again, 'tis quite beyond thy power To hold that these could thus have been create For office of utility.
Likewise, 'Tis nothing strange that all the breathing creatures Seek, even by nature of their frame, their food.
Yes, since I've taught thee that from off the things Stream and depart innumerable bodies In modes innumerable too; but most Must be the bodies streaming from the living-Which bodies, vexed by motion evermore, Are through the mouth exhaled innumerable, When weary creatures pant, or through the sweat Squeezed forth innumerable from deep within.
Thus body rarefies, so undermined In all its nature, and pain attends its state.
And so the food is taken to underprop The tottering joints, and by its interfusion To re-create their powers, and there stop up The longing, open-mouthed through limbs and veins, For eating.
And the moist no less departs Into all regions that demand the moist; And many heaped-up particles of hot, Which cause such burnings in these bellies of ours, The liquid on arriving dissipates And quenches like a fire, that parching heat No longer now can scorch the frame.
And so, Thou seest how panting thirst is washed away From off our body, how the hunger-pang It, too, appeased.
Now, how it comes that we, Whene'er we wish, can step with strides ahead, And how 'tis given to move our limbs about, And what device is wont to push ahead This the big load of our corporeal frame, I'll say to thee--do thou attend what's said.
I say that first some idol-films of walking Into our mind do fall and smite the mind, As said before.
Thereafter will arises; For no one starts to do a thing, before The intellect previsions what it wills; And what it there pre-visioneth depends On what that image is.
When, therefore, mind Doth so bestir itself that it doth will To go and step along, it strikes at once That energy of soul that's sown about In all the body through the limbs and frame-And this is easy of performance, since The soul is close conjoined with the mind.
Next, soul in turn strikes body, and by degrees Thus the whole mass is pushed along and moved.
Then too the body rarefies, and air, Forsooth as ever of such nimbleness, Comes on and penetrates aboundingly Through opened pores, and thus is sprinkled round Unto all smallest places in our frame.
Thus then by these twain factors, severally, Body is borne like ship with oars and wind.
Nor yet in these affairs is aught for wonder That particles so fine can whirl around So great a body and turn this weight of ours; For wind, so tenuous with its subtle body, Yet pushes, driving on the mighty ship Of mighty bulk; one hand directs the same, Whatever its momentum, and one helm Whirls it around, whither ye please; and loads, Many and huge, are moved and hoisted high By enginery of pulley-blocks and wheels, With but light strain.
Now, by what modes this sleep Pours through our members waters of repose And frees the breast from cares of mind, I'll tell In verses sweeter than they many are; Even as the swan's slight note is better far Than that dispersed clamour of the cranes Among the southwind's aery clouds.
Do thou Give me sharp ears and a sagacious mind,-That thou mayst not deny the things to be Whereof I'm speaking, nor depart away With bosom scorning these the spoken truths, Thyself at fault unable to perceive.
Sleep chiefly comes when energy of soul Hath now been scattered through the frame, and part Expelled abroad and gone away, and part Crammed back and settling deep within the frame-Whereafter then our loosened members droop.
For doubt is none that by the work of soul Exist in us this sense, and when by slumber That sense is thwarted, we are bound to think The soul confounded and expelled abroad-Yet not entirely, else the frame would lie Drenched in the everlasting cold of death.
In sooth, where no one part of soul remained Lurking among the members, even as fire Lurks buried under many ashes, whence Could sense amain rekindled be in members, As flame can rise anew from unseen fire?
By what devices this strange state and new May be occasioned, and by what the soul Can be confounded and the frame grow faint, I will untangle: see to it, thou, that I Pour forth my words not unto empty winds.
In first place, body on its outer parts-Since these are touched by neighbouring aery gusts-Must there be thumped and strook by blows of air Repeatedly.
And therefore almost all Are covered either with hides, or else with shells, Or with the horny callus, or with bark.
Yet this same air lashes their inner parts, When creatures draw a breath or blow it out.
Wherefore, since body thus is flogged alike Upon the inside and the out, and blows Come in upon us through the little pores Even inward to our body's primal parts And primal elements, there comes to pass By slow degrees, along our members then, A kind of overthrow; for then confounded Are those arrangements of the primal germs Of body and of mind.
It comes to pass That next a part of soul's expelled abroad, A part retreateth in recesses hid, A part, too, scattered all about the frame, Cannot become united nor engage In interchange of motion.
Nature now So hedges off approaches and the paths; And thus the sense, its motions all deranged, Retires down deep within; and since there's naught, As 'twere, to prop the frame, the body weakens, And all the members languish, and the arms And eyelids fall, and, as ye lie abed, Even there the houghs will sag and loose their powers.
Again, sleep follows after food, because The food produces same result as air, Whilst being scattered round through all the veins; And much the heaviest is that slumber which, Full or fatigued, thou takest; since 'tis then That the most bodies disarrange themselves, Bruised by labours hard.
And in same wise, This three-fold change: a forcing of the soul Down deeper, more a casting-forth of it, A moving more divided in its parts And scattered more.
And to whate'er pursuit A man most clings absorbed, or what the affairs On which we theretofore have tarried much, And mind hath strained upon the more, we seem In sleep not rarely to go at the same.
The lawyers seem to plead and cite decrees, Commanders they to fight and go at frays, Sailors to live in combat with the winds, And we ourselves indeed to make this book, And still to seek the nature of the world And set it down, when once discovered, here In these my country's leaves.
Thus all pursuits, All arts in general seem in sleeps to mock And master the minds of men.
And whosoever Day after day for long to games have given Attention undivided, still they keep (As oft we note), even when they've ceased to grasp Those games with their own senses, open paths Within the mind wherethrough the idol-films Of just those games can come.
And thus it is For many a day thereafter those appear Floating before the eyes, that even awake They think they view the dancers moving round Their supple limbs, and catch with both the ears The liquid song of harp and speaking chords, And view the same assembly on the seats, And manifold bright glories of the stage-So great the influence of pursuit and zest, And of the affairs wherein 'thas been the wont Of men to be engaged-nor only men, But soothly all the animals.
Behold, Thou'lt see the sturdy horses, though outstretched, Yet sweating in their sleep, and panting ever, And straining utmost strength, as if for prize, As if, with barriers opened now... And hounds of huntsmen oft in soft repose Yet toss asudden all their legs about, And growl and bark, and with their nostrils sniff The winds again, again, as though indeed They'd caught the scented foot-prints of wild beasts, And, even when wakened, often they pursue The phantom images of stags, as though They did perceive them fleeing on before, Until the illusion's shaken off and dogs Come to themselves again.
And fawning breed Of house-bred whelps do feel the sudden urge To shake their bodies and start from off the ground, As if beholding stranger-visages.
And ever the fiercer be the stock, the more In sleep the same is ever bound to rage.
But flee the divers tribes of birds and vex With sudden wings by night the groves of gods, When in their gentle slumbers they have dreamed Of hawks in chase, aswooping on for fight.
Again, the minds of mortals which perform With mighty motions mighty enterprises, Often in sleep will do and dare the same In manner like.
Kings take the towns by storm, Succumb to capture, battle on the field, Raise a wild cry as if their throats were cut Even then and there.
And many wrestle on And groan with pains, and fill all regions round With mighty cries and wild, as if then gnawed By fangs of panther or of lion fierce.
Many amid their slumbers talk about Their mighty enterprises, and have often Enough become the proof of their own crimes.
Many meet death; many, as if headlong From lofty mountains tumbling down to earth With all their frame, are frenzied in their fright; And after sleep, as if still mad in mind, They scarce come to, confounded as they are By ferment of their frame.
The thirsty man, Likewise, he sits beside delightful spring Or river and gulpeth down with gaping throat Nigh the whole stream.
And oft the innocent young, By sleep o'ermastered, think they lift their dress By pail or public jordan and then void The water filtered down their frame entire And drench the Babylonian coverlets, Magnificently bright.
Again, those males Into the surging channels of whose years Now first has passed the seed (engendered Within their members by the ripened days) Are in their sleep confronted from without By idol-images of some fair form-Tidings of glorious face and lovely bloom, Which stir and goad the regions turgid now With seed abundant; so that, as it were With all the matter acted duly out, They pour the billows of a potent stream And stain their garment.
And as said before, That seed is roused in us when once ripe age Has made our body strong... As divers causes give to divers things Impulse and irritation, so one force In human kind rouses the human seed To spurt from man.
As soon as ever it issues, Forced from its first abodes, it passes down In the whole body through the limbs and frame, Meeting in certain regions of our thews, And stirs amain the genitals of man.
The goaded regions swell with seed, and then Comes the delight to dart the same at what The mad desire so yearns, and body seeks That object, whence the mind by love is pierced.
For well-nigh each man falleth toward his wound, And our blood spurts even toward the spot from whence The stroke wherewith we are strook, and if indeed The foe be close, the red jet reaches him.
Thus, one who gets a stroke from Venus' shafts-Whether a boy with limbs effeminate Assault him, or a woman darting love From all her body--that one strains to get Even to the thing whereby he's hit, and longs To join with it and cast into its frame The fluid drawn even from within its own.
For the mute craving doth presage delight.
THE PASSION OF LOVE This craving 'tis that's Venus unto us: From this, engender all the lures of love, From this, O first hath into human hearts Trickled that drop of joyance which ere long Is by chill care succeeded.
Since, indeed, Though she thou lovest now be far away, Yet idol-images of her are near And the sweet name is floating in thy ear.
But it behooves to flee those images; And scare afar whatever feeds thy love; And turn elsewhere thy mind; and vent the sperm, Within thee gathered, into sundry bodies, Nor, with thy thoughts still busied with one love, Keep it for one delight, and so store up Care for thyself and pain inevitable.
For, lo, the ulcer just by nourishing Grows to more life with deep inveteracy, And day by day the fury swells aflame, And the woe waxes heavier day by day-Unless thou dost destroy even by new blows The former wounds of love, and curest them While yet they're fresh, by wandering freely round After the freely-wandering Venus, or Canst lead elsewhere the tumults of thy mind.
Nor doth that man who keeps away from love Yet lack the fruits of Venus; rather takes Those pleasures which are free of penalties.
For the delights of Venus, verily, Are more unmixed for mortals sane-of-soul Than for those sick-at-heart with love-pining.
Yea, in the very moment of possessing, Surges the heat of lovers to and fro, Restive, uncertain; and they cannot fix On what to first enjoy with eyes and hands.
The parts they sought for, those they squeeze so tight, And pain the creature's body, close their teeth Often against her lips, and smite with kiss Mouth into mouth,--because this same delight Is not unmixed; and underneath are stings Which goad a man to hurt the very thing, Whate'er it be, from whence arise for him Those germs of madness.
But with gentle touch Venus subdues the pangs in midst of love, And the admixture of a fondling joy Doth curb the bites of passion.
For they hope That by the very body whence they caught The heats of love their flames can be put out.
But nature protests 'tis all quite otherwise; For this same love it is the one sole thing Of which, the more we have, the fiercer burns The breast with fell desire.
For food and drink Are taken within our members; and, since they Can stop up certain parts, thus, easily Desire of water is glutted and of bread.
But, lo, from human face and lovely bloom Naught penetrates our frame to be enjoyed Save flimsy idol-images and vain-A sorry hope which oft the winds disperse.
As when the thirsty man in slumber seeks To drink, and water ne'er is granted him Wherewith to quench the heat within his members, But after idols of the liquids strives And toils in vain, and thirsts even whilst he gulps In middle of the torrent, thus in love Venus deludes with idol-images The lovers.
Nor they cannot sate their lust By merely gazing on the bodies, nor They cannot with their palms and fingers rub Aught from each tender limb, the while they stray Uncertain over all the body.
Then, At last, with members intertwined, when they Enjoy the flower of their age, when now Their bodies have sweet presage of keen joys, And Venus is about to sow the fields Of woman, greedily their frames they lock, And mingle the slaver of their mouths, and breathe Into each other, pressing teeth on mouths-Yet to no purpose, since they're powerless To rub off aught, or penetrate and pass With body entire into body--for oft They seem to strive and struggle thus to do; So eagerly they cling in Venus' bonds, Whilst melt away their members, overcome By violence of delight.
But when at last Lust, gathered in the thews, hath spent itself, There come a brief pause in the raging heat-But then a madness just the same returns And that old fury visits them again, When once again they seek and crave to reach They know not what, all powerless to find The artifice to subjugate the bane.
In such uncertain state they waste away With unseen wound.
To which be added too, They squander powers and with the travail wane; Be added too, they spend their futile years Under another's beck and call; their duties Neglected languish and their honest name Reeleth sick, sick; and meantime their estates Are lost in Babylonian tapestries; And unguents and dainty Sicyonian shoes Laugh on her feet; and (as ye may be sure) Big emeralds of green light are set in gold; And rich sea-purple dress by constant wear Grows shabby and all soaked with Venus' sweat; And the well-earned ancestral property Becometh head-bands, coifs, and many a time The cloaks, or garments Alidensian Or of the Cean isle.
And banquets, set With rarest cloth and viands, are prepared-And games of chance, and many a drinking cup, And unguents, crowns and garlands.
All in vain, Since from amid the well-spring of delights Bubbles some drop of bitter to torment Among the very flowers--when haply mind Gnaws into self, now stricken with remorse For slothful years and ruin in baudels, Or else because she's left him all in doubt By launching some sly word, which still like fire Lives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart; Or else because he thinks she darts her eyes Too much about and gazes at another,-And in her face sees traces of a laugh.
These ills are found in prospering love and true; But in crossed love and helpless there be such As through shut eyelids thou canst still take in-Uncounted ills; so that 'tis better far To watch beforehand, in the way I've shown, And guard against enticements.
For to shun A fall into the hunting-snares of love Is not so hard, as to get out again, When tangled in the very nets, and burst The stoutly-knotted cords of Aphrodite.
Yet even when there enmeshed with tangled feet, Still canst thou scape the danger-lest indeed Thou standest in the way of thine own good, And overlookest first all blemishes Of mind and body of thy much preferred, Desirable dame.
For so men do, Eyeless with passion, and assign to them Graces not theirs in fact.
And thus we see Creatures in many a wise crooked and ugly The prosperous sweethearts in a high esteem; And lovers gird each other and advise To placate Venus, since their friends are smit With a base passion--miserable dupes Who seldom mark their own worst bane of all.
The black-skinned girl is "tawny like the honey"; The filthy and the fetid's "negligee"; The cat-eyed she's "a little Pallas," she; The sinewy and wizened's "a gazelle"; The pudgy and the pigmy is "piquant, One of the Graces sure"; the big and bulky O she's "an Admiration, imposante"; The stuttering and tongue-tied "sweetly lisps"; The mute girl's "modest"; and the garrulous, The spiteful spit-fire, is "a sparkling wit"; And she who scarcely lives for scrawniness Becomes "a slender darling"; "delicate" Is she who's nearly dead of coughing-fit; The pursy female with protuberant breasts She is "like Ceres when the goddess gave Young Bacchus suck"; the pug-nosed lady-love "A Satyress, a feminine Silenus"; The blubber-lipped is "all one luscious kiss"-A weary while it were to tell the whole.
But let her face possess what charm ye will, Let Venus' glory rise from all her limbs,-Forsooth there still are others; and forsooth We lived before without her; and forsooth She does the same things--and we know she does-All, as the ugly creature, and she scents, Yes she, her wretched self with vile perfumes; Whom even her handmaids flee and giggle at Behind her back.
But he, the lover, in tears Because shut out, covers her threshold o'er Often with flowers and garlands, and anoints Her haughty door-posts with the marjoram, And prints, poor fellow, kisses on the doors-Admitted at last, if haply but one whiff Got to him on approaching, he would seek Decent excuses to go out forthwith; And his lament, long pondered, then would fall Down at his heels; and there he'd damn himself For his fatuity, observing how He had assigned to that same lady more-Than it is proper to concede to mortals.
And these our Venuses are 'ware of this.
Wherefore the more are they at pains to hide All the-behind-the-scenes of life from those Whom they desire to keep in bonds of love-In vain, since ne'ertheless thou canst by thought Drag all the matter forth into the light And well search out the cause of all these smiles; And if of graceful mind she be and kind, Do thou, in thy turn, overlook the same, And thus allow for poor mortality.
Nor sighs the woman always with feigned love, Who links her body round man's body locked And holds him fast, making his kisses wet With lips sucked into lips; for oft she acts Even from desire, and, seeking mutual joys, Incites him there to run love's race-course through.
Nor otherwise can cattle, birds, wild beasts, And sheep and mares submit unto the males, Except that their own nature is in heat, And burns abounding and with gladness takes Once more the Venus of the mounting males.
And seest thou not how those whom mutual pleasure Hath bound are tortured in their common bonds?
How often in the cross-roads dogs that pant To get apart strain eagerly asunder With utmost might?--When all the while they're fast In the stout links of Venus.
But they'd ne'er So pull, except they knew those mutual joys-So powerful to cast them unto snares And hold them bound.
Wherefore again, again, Even as I say, there is a joint delight.
And when perchance, in mingling seed with his, The female hath o'erpowered the force of male And by a sudden fling hath seized it fast, Then are the offspring, more from mothers' seed, More like their mothers; as, from fathers' seed, They're like to fathers.
But whom seest to be Partakers of each shape, one equal blend Of parents' features, these are generate From fathers' body and from mothers' blood, When mutual and harmonious heat hath dashed Together seeds, aroused along their frames By Venus' goads, and neither of the twain Mastereth or is mastered.
Happens too That sometimes offspring can to being come In likeness of their grandsires, and bring back Often the shapes of grandsires' sires, because Their parents in their bodies oft retain Concealed many primal germs, commixed In many modes, which, starting with the stock, Sire handeth down to son, himself a sire; Whence Venus by a variable chance Engenders shapes, and diversely brings back Ancestral features, voices too, and hair.
A female generation rises forth From seed paternal, and from mother's body Exist created males: since sex proceeds No more from singleness of seed than faces Or bodies or limbs of ours: for every birth Is from a twofold seed; and what's created Hath, of that parent which it is more like, More than its equal share; as thou canst mark,-Whether the breed be male or female stock.
Nor do the powers divine grudge any man The fruits of his seed-sowing, so that never He be called "father" by sweet children his, And end his days in sterile love forever.
What many men suppose; and gloomily They sprinkle the altars with abundant blood, And make the high platforms odorous with burnt gifts, To render big by plenteous seed their wives-And plague in vain godheads and sacred lots.
For sterile are these men by seed too thick, Or else by far too watery and thin.
Because the thin is powerless to cleave Fast to the proper places, straightaway It trickles from them, and, returned again, Retires abortively.
And then since seed More gross and solid than will suit is spent By some men, either it flies not forth amain With spurt prolonged enough, or else it fails To enter suitably the proper places, Or, having entered, the seed is weakly mixed With seed of the woman: harmonies of Venus Are seen to matter vastly here; and some Impregnate some more readily, and from some Some women conceive more readily and become Pregnant.
And many women, sterile before In several marriage-beds, have yet thereafter Obtained the mates from whom they could conceive The baby-boys, and with sweet progeny Grow rich.
And even for husbands (whose own wives, Although of fertile wombs, have borne for them No babies in the house) are also found Concordant natures so that they at last Can bulwark their old age with goodly sons.
A matter of great moment 'tis in truth, That seeds may mingle readily with seeds Suited for procreation, and that thick Should mix with fluid seeds, with thick the fluid.
And in this business 'tis of some import Upon what diet life is nourished: For some foods thicken seeds within our members, And others thin them out and waste away.
And in what modes the fond delight itself Is carried on--this too importeth vastly.
For commonly 'tis thought that wives conceive More readily in manner of wild-beasts, After the custom of the four-foot breeds, Because so postured, with the breasts beneath And buttocks then upreared, the seeds can take Their proper places.
Nor is need the least For wives to use the motions of blandishment; For thus the woman hinders and resists Her own conception, if too joyously Herself she treats the Venus of the man With haunches heaving, and with all her bosom Now yielding like the billows of the sea-Aye, from the ploughshare's even course and track She throws the furrow, and from proper places Deflects the spurt of seed.
And courtesans Are thuswise wont to move for their own ends, To keep from pregnancy and lying in, And all the while to render Venus more A pleasure for the men--the which meseems Our wives have never need of.
Sometimes too It happens--and through no divinity Nor arrows of Venus--that a sorry chit Of scanty grace will be beloved by man; For sometimes she herself by very deeds, By her complying ways, and tidy habits, Will easily accustom thee to pass With her thy life-time--and, moreover, lo, Long habitude can gender human love, Even as an object smitten o'er and o'er By blows, however lightly, yet at last Is overcome and wavers.
Seest thou not, Besides, how drops of water falling down Against the stones at last bore through the stones?
BOOK V PROEM O WHO can build with puissant breast a song Worthy the majesty of these great finds?
Or who in words so strong that he can frame The fit laudations for deserts of him Who left us heritors of such vast prizes, By his own breast discovered and sought out?-There shall be none, methinks, of mortal stock.
For if must needs be named for him the name Demanded by the now known majesty Of these high matters, then a god was he,-Hear me, illustrious Memmius--a god; Who first and chief found out that plan of life Which now is called philosophy, and who By cunning craft, out of such mighty waves, Out of such mighty darkness, moored life In havens so serene, in light so clear.
Compare those old discoveries divine Of others: lo, according to the tale, Ceres established for mortality The grain, and Bacchus juice of vine-born grape, Though life might yet without these things abide, Even as report saith now some peoples live.
But man's well-being was impossible Without a breast all free.
Wherefore the more That man doth justly seem to us a god, From whom sweet solaces of life, afar Distributed o'er populous domains, Now soothe the minds of men.
But if thou thinkest Labours of Hercules excel the same, Much farther from true reasoning thou farest.
For what could hurt us now that mighty maw Of Nemeaean Lion, or what the Boar Who bristled in Arcadia?
Or, again, O what could Cretan Bull, or Hydra, pest Of Lerna, fenced with vipers venomous?
Or what the triple-breasted power of her The three-fold Geryon...
The sojourners in the Stymphalian fens So dreadfully offend us, or the Steeds Of Thracian Diomedes breathing fire From out their nostrils off along the zones Bistonian and Ismarian?
And the Snake, The dread fierce gazer, guardian of the golden And gleaming apples of the Hesperides, Coiled round the tree-trunk with tremendous bulk, O what, again, could he inflict on us Along the Atlantic shore and wastes of sea?-Where neither one of us approacheth nigh Nor no barbarian ventures.
And the rest Of all those monsters slain, even if alive, Unconquered still, what injury could they do?
None, as I guess.
For so the glutted earth Swarms even now with savage beasts, even now Is filled with anxious terrors through the woods And mighty mountains and the forest deeps-Quarters 'tis ours in general to avoid.
But lest the breast be purged, what conflicts then, What perils, must bosom, in our own despite!
O then how great and keen the cares of lust That split the man distraught!
How great the fears!
And lo, the pride, grim greed, and wantonness-How great the slaughters in their train!
and lo, Debaucheries and every breed of sloth!
Therefore that man who subjugated these, And from the mind expelled, by words indeed, Not arms, O shall it not be seemly him To dignify by ranking with the gods?-And all the more since he was wont to give, Concerning the immortal gods themselves, Many pronouncements with a tongue divine, And to unfold by his pronouncements all The nature of the world.
ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK AND NEW PROEM AGAINST A TELEOLOGICAL CONCEPT And walking now In his own footprints, I do follow through His reasonings, and with pronouncements teach The covenant whereby all things are framed, How under that covenant they must abide Nor ever prevail to abrogate the aeons' Inexorable decrees,--how (as we've found), In class of mortal objects, o'er all else, The mind exists of earth-born frame create And impotent unscathed to abide Across the mighty aeons, and how come In sleep those idol-apparitions, That so befool intelligence when we Do seem to view a man whom life has left.
Thus far we've gone; the order of my plan Hath brought me now unto the point where I Must make report how, too, the universe Consists of mortal body, born in time, And in what modes that congregated stuff Established itself as earth and sky, Ocean, and stars, and sun, and ball of moon; And then what living creatures rose from out The old telluric places, and what ones Were never born at all; and in what mode The human race began to name its things And use the varied speech from man to man; And in what modes hath bosomed in their breasts That awe of gods, which halloweth in all lands Fanes, altars, groves, lakes, idols of the gods.
Also I shall untangle by what power The steersman nature guides the sun's courses, And the meanderings of the moon, lest we, Percase, should fancy that of own free will They circle their perennial courses round, Timing their motions for increase of crops And living creatures, or lest we should think They roll along by any plan of gods.
For even those men who have learned full well That godheads lead a long life free of care, If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts), Again are hurried back unto the fears Of old religion and adopt again Harsh masters, deemed almighty,--wretched men, Unwitting what can be and what cannot, And by what law to each its scope prescribed, Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
But for the rest,--lest we delay thee here Longer by empty promises--behold, Before all else, the seas, the lands, the sky: O Memmius, their threefold nature, lo, Their bodies three, three aspects so unlike, Three frames so vast, a single day shall give Unto annihilation!
Then shall crash That massive form and fabric of the world Sustained so many aeons!
Nor do I Fail to perceive how strange and marvellous This fact must strike the intellect of man,-Annihilation of the sky and earth That is to be,--and with what toil of words 'Tis mine to prove the same; as happens oft When once ye offer to man's listening ears Something before unheard of, but may not Subject it to the view of eyes for him Nor put it into hand--the sight and touch, Whereby the opened highways of belief Lead most directly into human breast And regions of intelligence.
But yet I will speak out.
The fact itself, perchance, Will force belief in these my words, and thou Mayst see, in little time, tremendously With risen commotions of the lands all things Quaking to pieces--which afar from us May she, the steersman Nature, guide: and may Reason, O rather than the fact itself, Persuade us that all things can be o'erthrown And sink with awful-sounding breakage down!
But ere on this I take a step to utter Oracles holier and soundlier based Than ever the Pythian pronounced for men From out the tripod and the Delphian laurel, I will unfold for thee with learned words Many a consolation, lest perchance, Still bridled by religion, thou suppose Lands, sun, and sky, sea, constellations, moon, Must dure forever, as of frame divine-And so conclude that it is just that those, (After the manner of the Giants), should all Pay the huge penalties for monstrous crime, Who by their reasonings do overshake The ramparts of the universe and wish There to put out the splendid sun of heaven, Branding with mortal talk immortal things-Though these same things are even so far removed From any touch of deity and seem So far unworthy of numbering with the gods, That well they may be thought to furnish rather A goodly instance of the sort of things That lack the living motion, living sense.
For sure 'tis quite beside the mark to think That judgment and the nature of the mind In any kind of body can exist-Just as in ether can't exist a tree, Nor clouds in the salt sea, nor in the fields Can fishes live, nor blood in timber be, Nor sap in boulders: fixed and arranged Where everything may grow and have its place.
Thus nature of mind cannot arise alone Without the body, nor have its being far From thews and blood.
Yet if 'twere possible?-Much rather might this very power of mind Be in the head, the shoulders, or the heels, And, born in any part soever, yet In the same man, in the same vessel abide But since within this body even of ours Stands fixed and appears arranged sure Where soul and mind can each exist and grow, Deny we must the more that they can dure Outside the body and the breathing form In rotting clods of earth, in the sun's fire, In water, or in ether's skiey coasts.
Therefore these things no whit are furnished With sense divine, since never can they be With life-force quickened.
Likewise, thou canst ne'er Believe the sacred seats of gods are here In any regions of this mundane world; Indeed, the nature of the gods, so subtle, So far removed from these our senses, scarce Is seen even by intelligence of mind.
And since they've ever eluded touch and thrust Of human hands, they cannot reach to grasp Aught tangible to us.
For what may not Itself be touched in turn can never touch.
Wherefore, besides, also their seats must be Unlike these seats of ours,--even subtle too, As meet for subtle essence--as I'll prove Hereafter unto thee with large discourse.
Further, to say that for the sake of men They willed to prepare this world's magnificence, And that 'tis therefore duty and behoof To praise the work of gods as worthy praise, And that 'tis sacrilege for men to shake Ever by any force from out their seats What hath been stablished by the Forethought old To everlasting for races of mankind, And that 'tis sacrilege to assault by words And overtopple all from base to beam,-Memmius, such notions to concoct and pile, Is verily--to dote.
Our gratefulness, O what emoluments could it confer Upon Immortals and upon the Blessed That they should take a step to manage aught For sake of us?
Or what new factor could, After so long a time, inveigle them-The hitherto reposeful--to desire To change their former life?
For rather he Whom old things chafe seems likely to rejoice At new; but one that in fore-passed time Hath chanced upon no ill, through goodly years, O what could ever enkindle in such an one Passion for strange experiment?
Or what The evil for us, if we had ne'er been born?-As though, forsooth, in darkling realms and woe Our life were lying till should dawn at last The day-spring of creation!
Whosoever Hath been begotten wills perforce to stay In life, so long as fond delight detains; But whoso ne'er hath tasted love of life, And ne'er was in the count of living things, What hurts it him that he was never born?
Whence, further, first was planted in the gods The archetype for gendering the world And the fore-notion of what man is like, So that they knew and pre-conceived with mind Just what they wished to make?
Or how were known Ever the energies of primal germs, And what those germs, by interchange of place, Could thus produce, if nature's self had not Given example for creating all?
For in such wise primordials of things, Many in many modes, astir by blows From immemorial aeons, in motion too By their own weights, have evermore been wont To be so borne along and in all modes To meet together and to try all sorts Which, by combining one with other, they Are powerful to create, that thus it is No marvel now, if they have also fallen Into arrangements such, and if they've passed Into vibrations such, as those whereby This sum of things is carried on to-day By fixed renewal.
But knew I never what The seeds primordial were, yet would I dare This to affirm, even from deep judgments based Upon the ways and conduct of the skies-This to maintain by many a fact besides-That in no wise the nature of all things For us was fashioned by a power divine-So great the faults it stands encumbered with.
First, mark all regions which are overarched By the prodigious reaches of the sky: One yawning part thereof the mountain-chains And forests of the beasts do have and hold; And cliffs, and desert fens, and wastes of sea (Which sunder afar the beaches of the lands) Possess it merely; and, again, thereof Well-nigh two-thirds intolerable heat And a perpetual fall of frost doth rob From mortal kind.
And what is left to till, Even that the force of nature would o'errun With brambles, did not human force oppose,-Long wont for livelihood to groan and sweat Over the two-pronged mattock and to cleave The soil in twain by pressing on the plough.
***** Unless, by the ploughshare turning the fruitful clods And kneading the mould, we quicken into birth, [The crops] spontaneously could not come up Into the free bright air.
Even then sometimes, When things acquired by the sternest toil Are now in leaf, are now in blossom all, Either the skiey sun with baneful heats Parches, or sudden rains or chilling rime Destroys, or flaws of winds with furious whirl Torment and twist.
Beside these matters, why Doth nature feed and foster on land and sea The dreadful breed of savage beasts, the foes Of the human clan?
Why do the seasons bring Distempers with them?
Wherefore stalks at large Death, so untimely?
Then, again, the babe, Like to the castaway of the raging surf, Lies naked on the ground, speechless, in want Of every help for life, when nature first Hath poured him forth upon the shores of light With birth-pangs from within the mother's womb, And with a plaintive wail he fills the place,-As well befitting one for whom remains In life a journey through so many ills.
But all the flocks and herds and all wild beasts Come forth and grow, nor need the little rattles, Nor must be treated to the humouring nurse's Dear, broken chatter; nor seek they divers clothes To suit the changing skies; nor need, in fine, Nor arms, nor lofty ramparts, wherewithal Their own to guard--because the earth herself And nature, artificer of the world, bring forth Aboundingly all things for all.
THE WORLD IS NOT ETERNAL And first, Since body of earth and water, air's light breath, And fiery exhalations (of which four This sum of things is seen to be compact) So all have birth and perishable frame, Thus the whole nature of the world itself Must be conceived as perishable too.
For, verily, those things of which we see The parts and members to have birth in time And perishable shapes, those same we mark To be invariably born in time And born to die.
And therefore when I see The mightiest members and the parts of this Our world consumed and begot again, 'Tis mine to know that also sky above And earth beneath began of old in time And shall in time go under to disaster.
And lest in these affairs thou deemest me To have seized upon this point by sleight to serve My own caprice--because I have assumed That earth and fire are mortal things indeed, And have not doubted water and the air Both perish too and have affirmed the same To be again begotten and wax big-Mark well the argument: in first place, lo, Some certain parts of earth, grievously parched By unremitting suns, and trampled on By a vast throng of feet, exhale abroad A powdery haze and flying clouds of dust, Which the stout winds disperse in the whole air.
A part, moreover, of her sod and soil Is summoned to inundation by the rains; And rivers graze and gouge the banks away.
Besides, whatever takes a part its own In fostering and increasing [aught]... ***** Is rendered back; and since, beyond a doubt, Earth, the all-mother, is beheld to be Likewise the common sepulchre of things, Therefore thou seest her minished of her plenty, And then again augmented with new growth.
And for the rest, that sea, and streams, and springs Forever with new waters overflow, And that perennially the fluids well, Needeth no words--the mighty flux itself Of multitudinous waters round about Declareth this.
But whatso water first Streams up is ever straightway carried off, And thus it comes to pass that all in all There is no overflow; in part because The burly winds (that over-sweep amain) And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves) Do minish the level seas; in part because The water is diffused underground Through all the lands.
The brine is filtered off, And then the liquid stuff seeps back again And all regathers at the river-heads, Whence in fresh-water currents on it flows Over the lands, adown the channels which Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along The liquid-footed floods.
Now, then, of air I'll speak, which hour by hour in all its body Is changed innumerably.
For whatso'er Streams up in dust or vapour off of things, The same is all and always borne along Into the mighty ocean of the air; And did not air in turn restore to things Bodies, and thus recruit them as they stream, All things by this time had resolved been And changed into air.
Therefore it never Ceases to be engendered off of things And to return to things, since verily In constant flux do all things stream.
Likewise, The abounding well-spring of the liquid light, The ethereal sun, doth flood the heaven o'er With constant flux of radiance ever new, And with fresh light supplies the place of light, Upon the instant.
For whatever effulgence Hath first streamed off, no matter where it falls, Is lost unto the sun.
And this 'tis thine To know from these examples: soon as clouds Have first begun to under-pass the sun, And, as it were, to rend the rays of light In twain, at once the lower part of them Is lost entire, and earth is overcast Where'er the thunderheads are rolled along-So know thou mayst that things forever need A fresh replenishment of gleam and glow, And each effulgence, foremost flashed forth, Perisheth one by one.
Nor otherwise Can things be seen in sunlight, lest alway The fountain-head of light supply new light.
Indeed your earthly beacons of the night, The hanging lampions and the torches, bright With darting gleams and dense with livid soot, Do hurry in like manner to supply With ministering heat new light amain; Are all alive to quiver with their fires,-Are so alive, that thus the light ne'er leaves The spots it shines on, as if rent in twain: So speedily is its destruction veiled By the swift birth of flame from all the fires.
Thus, then, we must suppose that sun and moon And stars dart forth their light from under-births Ever and ever new, and whatso flames First rise do perish always one by one-Lest, haply, thou shouldst think they each endure Inviolable.
Again, perceivest not How stones are also conquered by Time?-Not how the lofty towers ruin down, And boulders crumble?--Not how shrines of gods And idols crack outworn?--Nor how indeed The holy Influence hath yet no power There to postpone the Terminals of Fate, Or headway make 'gainst Nature's fixed decrees?
Again, behold we not the monuments Of heroes, now in ruins, asking us, In their turn likewise, if we don't believe They also age with eld?
Behold we not The rended basalt ruining amain Down from the lofty mountains, powerless To dure and dree the mighty forces there Of finite time?--for they would never fall Rended asudden, if from infinite Past They had prevailed against all engin'ries Of the assaulting aeons, with no crash.
Again, now look at This, which round, above, Contains the whole earth in its one embrace: If from itself it procreates all things-As some men tell--and takes them to itself When once destroyed, entirely must it be Of mortal birth and body; for whate'er From out itself giveth to other things Increase and food, the same perforce must be Minished, and then recruited when it takes Things back into itself.
Besides all this, If there had been no origin-in-birth Of lands and sky, and they had ever been The everlasting, why, ere Theban war And obsequies of Troy, have other bards Not also chanted other high affairs?
Whither have sunk so oft so many deeds Of heroes?
Why do those deeds live no more, Ingrafted in eternal monuments Of glory?
Verily, I guess, because The Sum is new, and of a recent date The nature of our universe, and had Not long ago its own exordium.
Wherefore, even now some arts are being still Refined, still increased: now unto ships Is being added many a new device; And but the other day musician-folk Gave birth to melic sounds of organing; And, then, this nature, this account of things Hath been discovered latterly, and I Myself have been discovered only now, As first among the first, able to turn The same into ancestral Roman speech.
Yet if, percase, thou deemest that ere this Existed all things even the same, but that Perished the cycles of the human race In fiery exhalations, or cities fell By some tremendous quaking of the world, Or rivers in fury, after constant rains, Had plunged forth across the lands of earth And whelmed the towns--then, all the more must thou Confess, defeated by the argument, That there shall be annihilation too Of lands and sky.
For at a time when things Were being taxed by maladies so great, And so great perils, if some cause more fell Had then assailed them, far and wide they would Have gone to disaster and supreme collapse.
And by no other reasoning are we Seen to be mortal, save that all of us Sicken in turn with those same maladies With which have sickened in the past those men Whom nature hath removed from life.
***** gain, Whatever abides eternal must indeed Either repel all strokes, because 'tis made Of solid body, and permit no entrance Of aught with power to sunder from within The parts compact--as are those seeds of stuff Whose nature we've exhibited before; Or else be able to endure through time For this: because they are from blows exempt, As is the void, the which abides untouched, Unsmit by any stroke; or else because There is no room around, whereto things can, As 'twere, depart in dissolution all,-Even as the sum of sums eternal is, Without or place beyond whereto things may Asunder fly, or bodies which can smite, And thus dissolve them by the blows of might.
But not of solid body, as I've shown, Exists the nature of the world, because In things is intermingled there a void; Nor is the world yet as the void, nor are, Moreover, bodies lacking which, percase, Rising from out the infinite, can fell With fury-whirlwinds all this sum of things, Or bring upon them other cataclysm Of peril strange; and yonder, too, abides The infinite space and the profound abyss-Whereinto, lo, the ramparts of the world Can yet be shivered.
Or some other power Can pound upon them till they perish all.
Thus is the door of doom, O nowise barred Against the sky, against the sun and earth And deep-sea waters, but wide open stands And gloats upon them, monstrous and agape.
Wherefore, again, 'tis needful to confess That these same things are born in time; for things Which are of mortal body could indeed Never from infinite past until to-day Have spurned the multitudinous assaults Of the immeasurable aeons old.
Again, since battle so fiercely one with other The four most mighty members the world, Aroused in an all unholy war, Seest not that there may be for them an end Of the long strife?--Or when the skiey sun And all the heat have won dominion o'er The sucked-up waters all?--And this they try Still to accomplish, though as yet they fail,-For so aboundingly the streams supply New store of waters that 'tis rather they Who menace the world with inundations vast From forth the unplumbed chasms of the sea.
But vain--since winds (that over-sweep amain) And skiey sun (that with his rays dissolves) Do minish the level seas and trust their power To dry up all, before the waters can Arrive at the end of their endeavouring.
Breathing such vasty warfare, they contend In balanced strife the one with other still Concerning mighty issues,--though indeed The fire was once the more victorious, And once--as goes the tale--the water won A kingdom in the fields.
For fire o'ermastered And licked up many things and burnt away, What time the impetuous horses of the Sun Snatched Phaethon headlong from his skiey road Down the whole ether and over all the lands.
But the omnipotent Father in keen wrath Then with the sudden smite of thunderbolt Did hurl the mighty-minded hero off Those horses to the earth.
And Sol, his sire, Meeting him as he fell, caught up in hand The ever-blazing lampion of the world, And drave together the pell-mell horses there And yoked them all a-tremble, and amain, Steering them over along their own old road, Restored the cosmos,--as forsooth we hear From songs of ancient poets of the Greeks-A tale too far away from truth, meseems.
For fire can win when from the infinite Has risen a larger throng of particles Of fiery stuff; and then its powers succumb, Somehow subdued again, or else at last It shrivels in torrid atmospheres the world.
And whilom water too began to win-As goes the story--when it overwhelmed The lives of men with billows; and thereafter, When all that force of water-stuff which forth From out the infinite had risen up Did now retire, as somehow turned aside, The rain-storms stopped, and streams their fury checked.
FORMATION OF THE WORLD AND ASTRONOMICAL QUESTIONS But in what modes that conflux of first-stuff Did found the multitudinous universe Of earth, and sky, and the unfathomed deeps Of ocean, and courses of the sun and moon, I'll now in order tell.
For of a truth Neither by counsel did the primal germs 'Stablish themselves, as by keen act of mind, Each in its proper place; nor did they make, Forsooth, a compact how each germ should move; But, lo, because primordials of things, Many in many modes, astir by blows From immemorial aeons, in motion too By their own weights, have evermore been wont To be so borne along and in all modes To meet together and to try all sorts Which, by combining one with other, they Are powerful to create: because of this It comes to pass that those primordials, Diffused far and wide through mighty aeons, The while they unions try, and motions too, Of every kind, meet at the last amain, And so become oft the commencements fit Of mighty things--earth, sea, and sky, and race Of living creatures.
In that long-ago The wheel of the sun could nowhere be discerned Flying far up with its abounding blaze, Nor constellations of the mighty world, Nor ocean, nor heaven, nor even earth nor air.
Nor aught of things like unto things of ours Could then be seen--but only some strange storm And a prodigious hurly-burly mass Compounded of all kinds of primal germs, Whose battling discords in disorder kept Interstices, and paths, coherencies, And weights, and blows, encounterings, and motions, Because, by reason of their forms unlike And varied shapes, they could not all thuswise Remain conjoined nor harmoniously Have interplay of movements.
But from there Portions began to fly asunder, and like With like to join, and to block out a world, And to divide its members and dispose Its mightier parts--that is, to set secure The lofty heavens from the lands, and cause The sea to spread with waters separate, And fires of ether separate and pure Likewise to congregate apart.
For, lo, First came together the earthy particles (As being heavy and intertangled) there In the mid-region, and all began to take The lowest abodes; and ever the more they got One with another intertangled, the more They pressed from out their mass those particles Which were to form the sea, the stars, the sun, And moon, and ramparts of the mighty world-For these consist of seeds more smooth and round And of much smaller elements than earth.
And thus it was that ether, fraught with fire, First broke away from out the earthen parts, Athrough the innumerable pores of earth, And raised itself aloft, and with itself Bore lightly off the many starry fires; And not far otherwise we often see ***** And the still lakes and the perennial streams Exhale a mist, and even as earth herself Is seen at times to smoke, when first at dawn The light of the sun, the many-rayed, begins To redden into gold, over the grass Begemmed with dew.
When all of these are brought Together overhead, the clouds on high With now concreted body weave a cover Beneath the heavens.
And thuswise ether too, Light and diffusive, with concreted body On all sides spread, on all sides bent itself Into a dome, and, far and wide diffused On unto every region on all sides, Thus hedged all else within its greedy clasp.
Hard upon ether came the origins Of sun and moon, whose globes revolve in air Midway between the earth and mightiest ether,-For neither took them, since they weighed too little To sink and settle, but too much to glide Along the upmost shores; and yet they are In such a wise midway between the twain As ever to whirl their living bodies round, And ever to dure as parts of the wide Whole; In the same fashion as certain members may In us remain at rest, whilst others move.
When, then, these substances had been withdrawn, Amain the earth, where now extend the vast Cerulean zones of all the level seas, Caved in, and down along the hollows poured The whirlpools of her brine; and day by day The more the tides of ether and rays of sun On every side constrained into one mass The earth by lashing it again, again, Upon its outer edges (so that then, Being thus beat upon, 'twas all condensed About its proper centre), ever the more The salty sweat, from out its body squeezed, Augmented ocean and the fields of foam By seeping through its frame, and all the more Those many particles of heat and air Escaping, began to fly aloft, and form, By condensation there afar from earth, The high refulgent circuits of the heavens.
The plains began to sink, and windy slopes Of the high mountains to increase; for rocks Could not subside, nor all the parts of ground Settle alike to one same level there.
Thus, then, the massy weight of earth stood firm With now concreted body, when (as 'twere) All of the slime of the world, heavy and gross, Had run together and settled at the bottom, Like lees or bilge.
Then ocean, then the air, Then ether herself, the fraught-with-fire, were all Left with their liquid bodies pure and free, And each more lighter than the next below; And ether, most light and liquid of the three, Floats on above the long aerial winds, Nor with the brawling of the winds of air Mingles its liquid body.
It doth leave All there--those under-realms below her heights-There to be overset in whirlwinds wild,-Doth leave all there to brawl in wayward gusts, Whilst, gliding with a fixed impulse still, Itself it bears its fires along.
For, lo, That ether can flow thus steadily on, on, With one unaltered urge, the Pontus proves-That sea which floweth forth with fixed tides, Keeping one onward tenor as it glides.
And that the earth may there abide at rest In the mid-region of the world, it needs Must vanish bit by bit in weight and lessen, And have another substance underneath, Conjoined to it from its earliest age In linked unison with the vasty world's Realms of the air in which it roots and lives.
On this account, the earth is not a load, Nor presses down on winds of air beneath; Even as unto a man his members be Without all weight--the head is not a load Unto the neck; nor do we feel the whole Weight of the body to centre in the feet.
But whatso weights come on us from without, Weights laid upon us, these harass and chafe, Though often far lighter.
For to such degree It matters always what the innate powers Of any given thing may be.
The earth Was, then, no alien substance fetched amain, And from no alien firmament cast down On alien air; but was conceived, like air, In the first origin of this the world, As a fixed portion of the same, as now Our members are seen to be a part of us.
Besides, the earth, when of a sudden shook By the big thunder, doth with her motion shake All that's above her--which she ne'er could do By any means, were earth not bounden fast Unto the great world's realms of air and sky: For they cohere together with common roots, Conjoined both, even from their earliest age, In linked unison.
Aye, seest thou not That this most subtle energy of soul Supports our body, though so heavy a weight,-Because, indeed, 'tis with it so conjoined In linked unison?
What power, in sum, Can raise with agile leap our body aloft, Save energy of mind which steers the limbs?
Now seest thou not how powerful may be A subtle nature, when conjoined it is With heavy body, as air is with the earth Conjoined, and energy of mind with us?
Now let us sing what makes the stars to move.
In first place, if the mighty sphere of heaven Revolveth round, then needs we must aver That on the upper and the under pole Presses a certain air, and from without Confines them and encloseth at each end; And that, moreover, another air above Streams on athwart the top of the sphere and tends In same direction as are rolled along The glittering stars of the eternal world; Or that another still streams on below To whirl the sphere from under up and on In opposite direction--as we see The rivers turn the wheels and water-scoops.
It may be also that the heavens do all Remain at rest, whilst yet are borne along The lucid constellations; either because Swift tides of ether are by sky enclosed, And whirl around, seeking a passage out, And everywhere make roll the starry fires Through the Summanian regions of the sky; Or else because some air, streaming along From an eternal quarter off beyond, Whileth the driven fires, or, then, because The fires themselves have power to creep along, Going wherever their food invites and calls, And feeding their flaming bodies everywhere Throughout the sky.
Yet which of these is cause In this our world 'tis hard to say for sure; But what can be throughout the universe, In divers worlds on divers plan create, This only do I show, and follow on To assign unto the motions of the stars Even several causes which 'tis possible Exist throughout the universal All; Of which yet one must be the cause even here Which maketh motion for our constellations.
Yet to decide which one of them it be Is not the least the business of a man Advancing step by cautious step, as I.
Nor can the sun's wheel larger be by much Nor its own blaze much less than either seems Unto our senses.
For from whatso spaces Fires have the power on us to cast their beams And blow their scorching exhalations forth Against our members, those same distances Take nothing by those intervals away From bulk of flames; and to the sight the fire Is nothing shrunken.
Therefore, since the heat And the outpoured light of skiey sun Arrive our senses and caress our limbs, Form too and bigness of the sun must look Even here from earth just as they really be, So that thou canst scarce nothing take or add.
And whether the journeying moon illuminate The regions round with bastard beams, or throw From off her proper body her own light,-Whichever it be, she journeys with a form Naught larger than the form doth seem to be Which we with eyes of ours perceive.
For all The far removed objects of our gaze Seem through much air confused in their look Ere minished in their bigness.
Wherefore, moon, Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form, May there on high by us on earth be seen Just as she is with extreme bounds defined, And just of the size.
And lastly, whatso fires Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these Thou mayst consider as possibly of size The least bit less, or larger by a hair Than they appear--since whatso fires we view Here in the lands of earth are seen to change From time to time their size to less or more Only the least, when more or less away, So long as still they bicker clear, and still Their glow's perceived.
Nor need there be for men Astonishment that yonder sun so small Can yet send forth so great a light as fills Oceans and all the lands and sky aflood, And with its fiery exhalations steeps The world at large.
For it may be, indeed, That one vast-flowing well-spring of the whole Wide world from here hath opened and out-gushed, And shot its light abroad; because thuswise The elements of fiery exhalations From all the world around together come, And thuswise flow into a bulk so big That from one single fountain-head may stream This heat and light.
And seest thou not, indeed, How widely one small water-spring may wet The meadow-lands at times and flood the fields?
'Tis even possible, besides, that heat From forth the sun's own fire, albeit that fire Be not a great, may permeate the air With the fierce hot--if but, perchance, the air Be of condition and so tempered then As to be kindled, even when beat upon Only by little particles of heat-Just as we sometimes see the standing grain Or stubble straw in conflagration all From one lone spark.
And possibly the sun, Agleam on high with rosy lampion, Possesses about him with invisible heats A plenteous fire, by no effulgence marked, So that he maketh, he, the Fraught-with-fire, Increase to such degree the force of rays.
Nor is there one sure cause revealed to men How the sun journeys from his summer haunts On to the mid-most winter turning-points In Capricorn, the thence reverting veers Back to solstitial goals of Cancer; nor How 'tis the moon is seen each month to cross That very distance which in traversing The sun consumes the measure of a year.
I say, no one clear reason hath been given For these affairs.
Yet chief in likelihood Seemeth the doctrine which the holy thought Of great Democritus lays down: that ever The nearer the constellations be to earth The less can they by whirling of the sky Be borne along, because those skiey powers Of speed aloft do vanish and decrease In under-regions, and the sun is thus Left by degrees behind amongst those signs That follow after, since the sun he lies Far down below the starry signs that blaze; And the moon lags even tardier than the sun: In just so far as is her course removed From upper heaven and nigh unto the lands, In just so far she fails to keep the pace With starry signs above; for just so far As feebler is the whirl that bears her on, (Being, indeed, still lower than the sun), In just so far do all the starry signs, Circling around, o'ertake her and o'erpass.
Therefore it happens that the moon appears More swiftly to return to any sign Along the Zodiac, than doth the sun, Because those signs do visit her again More swiftly than they visit the great sun.
It can be also that two streams of air Alternately at fixed periods Blow out from transverse regions of the world, Of which the one may thrust the sun away From summer-signs to mid-most winter goals And rigors of the cold, and the other then May cast him back from icy shades of chill Even to the heat-fraught regions and the signs That blaze along the Zodiac.
So, too, We must suppose the moon and all the stars, Which through the mighty and sidereal years Roll round in mighty orbits, may be sped By streams of air from regions alternate.
Seest thou not also how the clouds be sped By contrary winds to regions contrary, The lower clouds diversely from the upper?
Then, why may yonder stars in ether there Along their mighty orbits not be borne By currents opposite the one to other?
But night o'erwhelms the lands with vasty murk Either when sun, after his diurnal course, Hath walked the ultimate regions of the sky And wearily hath panted forth his fires, Shivered by their long journeying and wasted By traversing the multitudinous air, Or else because the self-same force that drave His orb along above the lands compels Him then to turn his course beneath the lands.
Matuta also at a fixed hour Spreadeth the roseate morning out along The coasts of heaven and deploys the light, Either because the self-same sun, returning Under the lands, aspires to seize the sky, Striving to set it blazing with his rays Ere he himself appear, or else because Fires then will congregate and many seeds Of heat are wont, even at a fixed time, To stream together--gendering evermore New suns and light.
Just so the story goes That from the Idaean mountain-tops are seen Dispersed fires upon the break of day Which thence combine, as 'twere, into one ball And form an orb.
Nor yet in these affairs Is aught for wonder that these seeds of fire Can thus together stream at time so fixed And shape anew the splendour of the sun.
For many facts we see which come to pass At fixed time in all things: burgeon shrubs At fixed time, and at a fixed time They cast their flowers; and Eld commands the teeth, At time as surely fixed, to drop away, And Youth commands the growing boy to bloom With the soft down and let from both his cheeks The soft beard fall.
And lastly, thunder-bolts, Snow, rains, clouds, winds, at seasons of the year Nowise unfixed, all do come to pass.
For where, even from their old primordial start Causes have ever worked in such a way, And where, even from the world's first origin, Thuswise have things befallen, so even now After a fixed order they come round In sequence also.
Likewise, days may wax Whilst the nights wane, and daylight minished be Whilst nights do take their augmentations, Either because the self-same sun, coursing Under the lands and over in two arcs, A longer and a briefer, doth dispart The coasts of ether and divides in twain His orbit all unequally, and adds, As round he's borne, unto the one half there As much as from the other half he's ta'en, Until he then arrives that sign of heaven Where the year's node renders the shades of night Equal unto the periods of light.
For when the sun is midway on his course Between the blasts of northwind and of south, Heaven keeps his two goals parted equally, By virtue of the fixed position old Of the whole starry Zodiac, through which That sun, in winding onward, takes a year, Illumining the sky and all the lands With oblique light--as men declare to us Who by their diagrams have charted well Those regions of the sky which be adorned With the arranged signs of Zodiac.
Or else, because in certain parts the air Under the lands is denser, the tremulous Bright beams of fire do waver tardily, Nor easily can penetrate that air Nor yet emerge unto their rising-place: For this it is that nights in winter time Do linger long, ere comes the many-rayed Round Badge of the day.
Or else because, as said, In alternating seasons of the year Fires, now more quick, and now more slow, are wont To stream together,--the fires which make the sun To rise in some one spot--therefore it is That those men seem to speak the truth [who hold A new sun is with each new daybreak born].
The moon she possibly doth shine because Strook by the rays of sun, and day by day May turn unto our gaze her light, the more She doth recede from orb of sun, until, Facing him opposite across the world, She hath with full effulgence gleamed abroad, And, at her rising as she soars above, Hath there observed his setting; thence likewise She needs must hide, as 'twere, her light behind By slow degrees, the nearer now she glides, Along the circle of the Zodiac, From her far place toward fires of yonder sun,-As those men hold who feign the moon to be Just like a ball and to pursue a course Betwixt the sun and earth.
There is, again, Some reason to suppose that moon may roll With light her very own, and thus display The varied shapes of her resplendence there.
For near her is, percase, another body, Invisible, because devoid of light, Borne on and gliding all along with her, Which in three modes may block and blot her disk.
Again, she may revolve upon herself, Like to a ball's sphere--if perchance that be-One half of her dyed o'er with glowing light, And by the revolution of that sphere She may beget for us her varying shapes, Until she turns that fiery part of her Full to the sight and open eyes of men; Thence by slow stages round and back she whirls, Withdrawing thus the luminiferous part Of her sphered mass and ball, as, verily, The Babylonian doctrine of Chaldees, Refuting the art of Greek astrologers, Labours, in opposition, to prove sure-As if, forsooth, the thing for which each fights, Might not alike be true,--or aught there were Wherefore thou mightest risk embracing one More than the other notion.
Then, again, Why a new moon might not forevermore Created be with fixed successions there Of shapes and with configurations fixed, And why each day that bright created moon Might not miscarry and another be, In its stead and place, engendered anew, 'Tis hard to show by reason, or by words To prove absurd--since, lo, so many things Can be create with fixed successions: Spring-time and Venus come, and Venus' boy, The winged harbinger, steps on before, And hard on Zephyr's foot-prints Mother Flora, Sprinkling the ways before them, filleth all With colours and with odours excellent; Whereafter follows arid Heat, and he Companioned is by Ceres, dusty one, And by the Etesian Breezes of the north; Then cometh Autumn on, and with him steps Lord Bacchus, and then other Seasons too And other Winds do follow--the high roar Of great Volturnus, and the Southwind strong With thunder-bolts.
At last earth's Shortest-Day Bears on to men the snows and brings again The numbing cold.
And Winter follows her, His teeth with chills a-chatter.
Therefore, 'tis The less a marvel, if at fixed time A moon is thus begotten and again At fixed time destroyed, since things so many Can come to being thus at fixed time.
Likewise, the sun's eclipses and the moon's Far occultations rightly thou mayst deem As due to several causes.
For, indeed, Why should the moon be able to shut out Earth from the light of sun, and on the side To earthward thrust her high head under sun, Opposing dark orb to his glowing beams-And yet, at same time, one suppose the effect Could not result from some one other body Which glides devoid of light forevermore?
Again, why could not sun, in weakened state, At fixed time for-lose his fires, and then, When he has passed on along the air Beyond the regions, hostile to his flames, That quench and kill his fires, why could not he Renew his light?
And why should earth in turn Have power to rob the moon of light, and there, Herself on high, keep the sun hid beneath, Whilst the moon glideth in her monthly course Athrough the rigid shadows of the cone?-And yet, at same time, some one other body Not have the power to under-pass the moon, Or glide along above the orb of sun, Breaking his rays and outspread light asunder?
And still, if moon herself refulgent be With her own sheen, why could she not at times In some one quarter of the mighty world Grow weak and weary, whilst she passeth through Regions unfriendly to the beams her own?
ORIGINS OF VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL LIFE And now to what remains!--Since I've resolved By what arrangements all things come to pass Through the blue regions of the mighty world,-How we can know what energy and cause Started the various courses of the sun And the moon's goings, and by what far means They can succumb, the while with thwarted light, And veil with shade the unsuspecting lands, When, as it were, they blink, and then again With open eye survey all regions wide, Resplendent with white radiance--I do now Return unto the world's primeval age And tell what first the soft young fields of earth With earliest parturition had decreed To raise in air unto the shores of light And to entrust unto the wayward winds.
In the beginning, earth gave forth, around The hills and over all the length of plains, The race of grasses and the shining green; The flowery meadows sparkled all aglow With greening colour, and thereafter, lo, Unto the divers kinds of trees was given An emulous impulse mightily to shoot, With a free rein, aloft into the air.
As feathers and hairs and bristles are begot The first on members of the four-foot breeds And on the bodies of the strong-y-winged, Thus then the new Earth first of all put forth Grasses and shrubs, and afterward begat The mortal generations, there upsprung-Innumerable in modes innumerable-After diverging fashions.
For from sky These breathing-creatures never can have dropped, Nor the land-dwellers ever have come up Out of sea-pools of salt.
How true remains, How merited is that adopted name Of earth--"The Mother!"
--since from out the earth Are all begotten.
And even now arise From out the loams how many living things-Concreted by the rains and heat of the sun.
Wherefore 'tis less a marvel, if they sprang In Long Ago more many, and more big, Matured of those days in the fresh young years Of earth and ether.
First of all, the race Of the winged ones and parti-coloured birds, Hatched out in spring-time, left their eggs behind; As now-a-days in summer tree-crickets Do leave their shiny husks of own accord, Seeking their food and living.
Then it was This earth of thine first gave unto the day The mortal generations; for prevailed Among the fields abounding hot and wet.
And hence, where any fitting spot was given, There 'gan to grow womb-cavities, by roots Affixed to earth.
And when in ripened time The age of the young within (that sought the air And fled earth's damps) had burst these wombs, O then Would Nature thither turn the pores of earth And make her spurt from open veins a juice Like unto milk; even as a woman now Is filled, at child-bearing, with the sweet milk, Because all that swift stream of aliment Is thither turned unto the mother-breasts.
There earth would furnish to the children food; Warmth was their swaddling cloth, the grass their bed Abounding in soft down.
Earth's newness then Would rouse no dour spells of the bitter cold, Nor extreme heats nor winds of mighty powers-For all things grow and gather strength through time In like proportions; and then earth was young.
Wherefore, again, again, how merited Is that adopted name of Earth--The Mother!-Since she herself begat the human race, And at one well-nigh fixed time brought forth Each breast that ranges raving round about Upon the mighty mountains and all birds Aerial with many a varied shape.
But, lo, because her bearing years must end, She ceased, like to a woman worn by eld.
For lapsing aeons change the nature of The whole wide world, and all things needs must take One status after other, nor aught persists Forever like itself.
All things depart; Nature she changeth all, compelleth all To transformation.
Lo, this moulders down, A-slack with weary eld, and that, again, Prospers in glory, issuing from contempt.
In suchwise, then, the lapsing aeons change The nature of the whole wide world, and earth Taketh one status after other.
And what She bore of old, she now can bear no longer, And what she never bore, she can to-day.
In those days also the telluric world Strove to beget the monsters that upsprung With their astounding visages and limbs-The Man-woman--a thing betwixt the twain, Yet neither, and from either sex remote-Some gruesome Boggles orphaned of the feet, Some widowed of the hands, dumb Horrors too Without a mouth, or blind Ones of no eye, Or Bulks all shackled by their legs and arms Cleaving unto the body fore and aft, Thuswise, that never could they do or go, Nor shun disaster, nor take the good they would.
And other prodigies and monsters earth Was then begetting of this sort--in vain, Since Nature banned with horror their increase, And powerless were they to reach unto The coveted flower of fair maturity, Or to find aliment, or to intertwine In works of Venus.
For we see there must Concur in life conditions manifold, If life is ever by begetting life To forge the generations one by one: First, foods must be; and, next, a path whereby The seeds of impregnation in the frame May ooze, released from the members all; Last, the possession of those instruments Whereby the male with female can unite, The one with other in mutual ravishments.
And in the ages after monsters died, Perforce there perished many a stock, unable By propagation to forge a progeny.
For whatsoever creatures thou beholdest Breathing the breath of life, the same have been Even from their earliest age preserved alive By cunning, or by valour, or at least By speed of foot or wing.
And many a stock Remaineth yet, because of use to man, And so committed to man's guardianship.
Valour hath saved alive fierce lion-breeds And many another terrorizing race, Cunning the foxes, flight the antlered stags.
Light-sleeping dogs with faithful heart in breast, However, and every kind begot from seed Of beasts of draft, as, too, the woolly flocks And horned cattle, all, my Memmius, Have been committed to guardianship of men.
For anxiously they fled the savage beasts, And peace they sought and their abundant foods, Obtained with never labours of their own, Which we secure to them as fit rewards For their good service.
But those beasts to whom Nature has granted naught of these same things-Beasts quite unfit by own free will to thrive And vain for any service unto us In thanks for which we should permit their kind To feed and be in our protection safe-Those, of a truth, were wont to be exposed, Enshackled in the gruesome bonds of doom, As prey and booty for the rest, until Nature reduced that stock to utter death.
But Centaurs ne'er have been, nor can there be Creatures of twofold stock and double frame, Compact of members alien in kind, Yet formed with equal function, equal force In every bodily part--a fact thou mayst, However dull thy wits, well learn from this: The horse, when his three years have rolled away, Flowers in his prime of vigour; but the boy Not so, for oft even then he gropes in sleep After the milky nipples of the breasts, An infant still.
And later, when at last The lusty powers of horses and stout limbs, Now weak through lapsing life, do fail with age, Lo, only then doth youth with flowering years Begin for boys, and clothe their ruddy cheeks With the soft down.
So never deem, percase, That from a man and from the seed of horse, The beast of draft, can Centaurs be composed Or e'er exist alive, nor Scyllas be-The half-fish bodies girdled with mad dogs-Nor others of this sort, in whom we mark Members discordant each with each; for ne'er At one same time they reach their flower of age Or gain and lose full vigour of their frame, And never burn with one same lust of love, And never in their habits they agree, Nor find the same foods equally delightsome-Sooth, as one oft may see the bearded goats Batten upon the hemlock which to man Is violent poison.
Once again, since flame Is wont to scorch and burn the tawny bulks Of the great lions as much as other kinds Of flesh and blood existing in the lands, How could it be that she, Chimaera lone, With triple body--fore, a lion she; And aft, a dragon; and betwixt, a goat-Might at the mouth from out the body belch Infuriate flame?
Wherefore, the man who feigns Such beings could have been engendered When earth was new and the young sky was fresh (Basing his empty argument on new) May babble with like reason many whims Into our ears: he'll say, perhaps, that then Rivers of gold through every landscape flowed, That trees were wont with precious stones to flower, Or that in those far aeons man was born With such gigantic length and lift of limbs As to be able, based upon his feet, Deep oceans to bestride or with his hands To whirl the firmament around his head.
For though in earth were many seeds of things In the old time when this telluric world First poured the breeds of animals abroad, Still that is nothing of a sign that then Such hybrid creatures could have been begot And limbs of all beasts heterogeneous Have been together knit; because, indeed, The divers kinds of grasses and the grains And the delightsome trees--which even now Spring up abounding from within the earth-Can still ne'er be begotten with their stems Begrafted into one; but each sole thing Proceeds according to its proper wont And all conserve their own distinctions based In nature's fixed decree.
ORIGINS AND SAVAGE PERIOD OF MANKIND But mortal man Was then far hardier in the old champaign, As well he should be, since a hardier earth Had him begotten; builded too was he Of bigger and more solid bones within, And knit with stalwart sinews through the flesh, Nor easily seized by either heat or cold, Or alien food or any ail or irk.
And whilst so many lustrums of the sun Rolled on across the sky, men led a life After the roving habit of wild beasts.
Not then were sturdy guiders of curved ploughs, And none knew then to work the fields with iron, Or plant young shoots in holes of delved loam, Or lop with hooked knives from off high trees The boughs of yester-year.
What sun and rains To them had given, what earth of own accord Created then, was boon enough to glad Their simple hearts.
Mid acorn-laden oaks Would they refresh their bodies for the nonce; And the wild berries of the arbute-tree, Which now thou seest to ripen purple-red In winter time, the old telluric soil Would bear then more abundant and more big.
And many coarse foods, too, in long ago The blooming freshness of the rank young world Produced, enough for those poor wretches there.
And rivers and springs would summon them of old To slake the thirst, as now from the great hills The water's down-rush calls aloud and far The thirsty generations of the wild.
So, too, they sought the grottos of the Nymphs-The woodland haunts discovered as they ranged-From forth of which they knew that gliding rills With gush and splash abounding laved the rocks, The dripping rocks, and trickled from above Over the verdant moss; and here and there Welled up and burst across the open flats.
As yet they knew not to enkindle fire Against the cold, nor hairy pelts to use And clothe their bodies with the spoils of beasts; But huddled in groves, and mountain-caves, and woods, And 'mongst the thickets hid their squalid backs, When driven to flee the lashings of the winds And the big rains.
Nor could they then regard The general good, nor did they know to use In common any customs, any laws: Whatever of booty fortune unto each Had proffered, each alone would bear away, By instinct trained for self to thrive and live.
And Venus in the forests then would link The lovers' bodies; for the woman yielded Either from mutual flame, or from the man's Impetuous fury and insatiate lust, Or from a bribe--as acorn-nuts, choice pears, Or the wild berries of the arbute-tree.
And trusting wondrous strength of hands and legs, They'd chase the forest-wanderers, the beasts; And many they'd conquer, but some few they fled, A-skulk into their hiding-places... ***** With the flung stones and with the ponderous heft Of gnarled branch.
And by the time of night O'ertaken, they would throw, like bristly boars, Their wildman's limbs naked upon the earth, Rolling themselves in leaves and fronded boughs.
Nor would they call with lamentations loud Around the fields for daylight and the sun, Quaking and wand'ring in shadows of the night; But, silent and buried in a sleep, they'd wait Until the sun with rosy flambeau brought The glory to the sky.
From childhood wont Ever to see the dark and day begot In times alternate, never might they be Wildered by wild misgiving, lest a night Eternal should possess the lands, with light Of sun withdrawn forever.
But their care Was rather that the clans of savage beasts Would often make their sleep-time horrible For those poor wretches; and, from home y-driven, They'd flee their rocky shelters at approach Of boar, the spumy-lipped, or lion strong, And in the midnight yield with terror up To those fierce guests their beds of out-spread leaves.
And yet in those days not much more than now Would generations of mortality Leave the sweet light of fading life behind.
Indeed, in those days here and there a man, More oftener snatched upon, and gulped by fangs, Afforded the beasts a food that roared alive, Echoing through groves and hills and forest-trees, Even as he viewed his living flesh entombed Within a living grave; whilst those whom flight Had saved, with bone and body bitten, shrieked, Pressing their quivering palms to loathsome sores, With horrible voices for eternal death-Until, forlorn of help, and witless what Might medicine their wounds, the writhing pangs Took them from life.
But not in those far times Would one lone day give over unto doom A soldiery in thousands marching on Beneath the battle-banners, nor would then The ramping breakers of the main seas dash Whole argosies and crews upon the rocks.
But ocean uprisen would often rave in vain, Without all end or outcome, and give up Its empty menacings as lightly too; Nor soft seductions of a serene sea Could lure by laughing billows any man Out to disaster: for the science bold Of ship-sailing lay dark in those far times.
Again, 'twas then that lack of food gave o'er Men's fainting limbs to dissolution: now 'Tis plenty overwhelms.
Unwary, they Oft for themselves themselves would then outpour The poison; now, with nicer art, themselves They give the drafts to others.
BEGINNINGS OF CIVILIZATION Afterwards, When huts they had procured and pelts and fire, And when the woman, joined unto the man, Withdrew with him into one dwelling place, ***** Were known; and when they saw an offspring born From out themselves, then first the human race Began to soften.
For 'twas now that fire Rendered their shivering frames less staunch to bear, Under the canopy of the sky, the cold; And Love reduced their shaggy hardiness; And children, with the prattle and the kiss, Soon broke the parents' haughty temper down.
Then, too, did neighbours 'gin to league as friends, Eager to wrong no more or suffer wrong, And urged for children and the womankind Mercy, of fathers, whilst with cries and gestures They stammered hints how meet it was that all Should have compassion on the weak.
And still, Though concord not in every wise could then Begotten be, a good, a goodly part Kept faith inviolate--or else mankind Long since had been unutterably cut off, And propagation never could have brought The species down the ages.
Lest, perchance, Concerning these affairs thou ponderest In silent meditation, let me say 'Twas lightning brought primevally to earth The fire for mortals, and from thence hath spread O'er all the lands the flames of heat.
For thus Even now we see so many objects, touched By the celestial flames, to flash aglow, When thunderbolt has dowered them with heat.
Yet also when a many-branched tree, Beaten by winds, writhes swaying to and fro, Pressing 'gainst branches of a neighbour tree, There by the power of mighty rub and rub Is fire engendered; and at times out-flares The scorching heat of flame, when boughs do chafe Against the trunks.
And of these causes, either May well have given to mortal men the fire.
Next, food to cook and soften in the flame The sun instructed, since so oft they saw How objects mellowed, when subdued by warmth And by the raining blows of fiery beams, Through all the fields.
And more and more each day Would men more strong in sense, more wise in heart, Teach them to change their earlier mode and life By fire and new devices.
Kings began Cities to found and citadels to set, As strongholds and asylums for themselves, And flocks and fields to portion for each man After the beauty, strength, and sense of each-For beauty then imported much, and strength Had its own rights supreme.
Thereafter, wealth Discovered was, and gold was brought to light, Which soon of honour stripped both strong and fair; For men, however beautiful in form Or valorous, will follow in the main The rich man's party.
Yet were man to steer His life by sounder reasoning, he'd own Abounding riches, if with mind content He lived by thrift; for never, as I guess, Is there a lack of little in the world.
But men wished glory for themselves and power Even that their fortunes on foundations firm Might rest forever, and that they themselves, The opulent, might pass a quiet life-In vain, in vain; since, in the strife to climb On to the heights of honour, men do make Their pathway terrible; and even when once They reach them, envy like the thunderbolt At times will smite, O hurling headlong down To murkiest Tartarus, in scorn; for, lo, All summits, all regions loftier than the rest, Smoke, blasted as by envy's thunderbolts; So better far in quiet to obey, Than to desire chief mastery of affairs And ownership of empires.
Be it so; And let the weary sweat their life-blood out All to no end, battling in hate along The narrow path of man's ambition; Since all their wisdom is from others' lips, And all they seek is known from what they've heard And less from what they've thought.
Nor is this folly Greater to-day, nor greater soon to be, Than' twas of old.
And therefore kings were slain, And pristine majesty of golden thrones And haughty sceptres lay o'erturned in dust; And crowns, so splendid on the sovereign heads, Soon bloody under the proletarian feet, Groaned for their glories gone--for erst o'er-much Dreaded, thereafter with more greedy zest Trampled beneath the rabble heel.
Thus things Down to the vilest lees of brawling mobs Succumbed, whilst each man sought unto himself Dominion and supremacy.
So next Some wiser heads instructed men to found The magisterial office, and did frame Codes that they might consent to follow laws.
For humankind, o'er wearied with a life Fostered by force, was ailing from its feuds; And so the sooner of its own free will Yielded to laws and strictest codes.
For since Each hand made ready in its wrath to take A vengeance fiercer than by man's fair laws Is now conceded, men on this account Loathed the old life fostered by force.
'Tis thence That fear of punishments defiles each prize Of wicked days; for force and fraud ensnare Each man around, and in the main recoil On him from whence they sprung.
Not easy 'tis For one who violates by ugly deeds The bonds of common peace to pass a life Composed and tranquil.
For albeit he 'scape The race of gods and men, he yet must dread 'Twill not be hid forever--since, indeed, So many, oft babbling on amid their dreams Or raving in sickness, have betrayed themselves (As stories tell) and published at last Old secrets and the sins.
But nature 'twas Urged men to utter various sounds of tongue And need and use did mould the names of things, About in same wise as the lack-speech years Compel young children unto gesturings, Making them point with finger here and there At what's before them.
For each creature feels By instinct to what use to put his powers.
Ere yet the bull-calf's scarce begotten horns Project above his brows, with them he 'gins Enraged to butt and savagely to thrust.
But whelps of panthers and the lion's cubs With claws and paws and bites are at the fray Already, when their teeth and claws be scarce As yet engendered.
So again, we see All breeds of winged creatures trust to wings And from their fledgling pinions seek to get A fluttering assistance.
Thus, to think That in those days some man apportioned round To things their names, and that from him men learned Their first nomenclature, is foolery.
For why could he mark everything by words And utter the various sounds of tongue, what time The rest may be supposed powerless To do the same?
And, if the rest had not Already one with other used words, Whence was implanted in the teacher, then, Fore-knowledge of their use, and whence was given To him alone primordial faculty To know and see in mind what 'twas he willed?
Besides, one only man could scarce subdue An overmastered multitude to choose To get by heart his names of things.
A task Not easy 'tis in any wise to teach And to persuade the deaf concerning what 'Tis needful for to do.
For ne'er would they Allow, nor ne'er in anywise endure Perpetual vain dingdong in their ears Of spoken sounds unheard before.
And what, At last, in this affair so wondrous is, That human race (in whom a voice and tongue Were now in vigour) should by divers words Denote its objects, as each divers sense Might prompt?--since even the speechless herds, aye, since The very generations of wild beasts Are wont dissimilar and divers sounds To rouse from in them, when there's fear or pain, And when they burst with joys.
And this, forsooth, 'Tis thine to know from plainest facts: when first Huge flabby jowls of mad Molossian hounds, Baring their hard white teeth, begin to snarl, They threaten, with infuriate lips peeled back, In sounds far other than with which they bark And fill with voices all the regions round.
And when with fondling tongue they start to lick Their puppies, or do toss them round with paws, Feigning with gentle bites to gape and snap, They fawn with yelps of voice far other then Than when, alone within the house, they bay, Or whimpering slink with cringing sides from blows.
Again the neighing of the horse, is that Not seen to differ likewise, when the stud In buoyant flower of his young years raves, Goaded by winged Love, amongst the mares, And when with widening nostrils out he snorts The call to battle, and when haply he Whinnies at times with terror-quaking limbs?
Lastly, the flying race, the dappled birds, Hawks, ospreys, sea-gulls, searching food and life Amid the ocean billows in the brine, Utter at other times far other cries Than when they fight for food, or with their prey Struggle and strain.
And birds there are which change With changing weather their own raucous songs-As long-lived generations of the crows Or flocks of rooks, when they be said to cry For rain and water and to call at times For winds and gales.
Ergo, if divers moods Compel the brutes, though speechless evermore, To send forth divers sounds, O truly then How much more likely 'twere that mortal men In those days could with many a different sound Denote each separate thing.
And now what cause Hath spread divinities of gods abroad Through mighty nations, and filled the cities full Of the high altars, and led to practices Of solemn rites in season--rites which still Flourish in midst of great affairs of state And midst great centres of man's civic life, The rites whence still a poor mortality Is grafted that quaking awe which rears aloft Still the new temples of gods from land to land And drives mankind to visit them in throngs On holy days--'tis not so hard to give Reason thereof in speech.
Because, in sooth, Even in those days would the race of man Be seeing excelling visages of gods With mind awake; and in his sleeps, yet more-Bodies of wondrous growth.
And, thus, to these Would men attribute sense, because they seemed To move their limbs and speak pronouncements high, Befitting glorious visage and vast powers.
And men would give them an eternal life, Because their visages forevermore Were there before them, and their shapes remained, And chiefly, however, because men would not think Beings augmented with such mighty powers Could well by any force o'ermastered be.
And men would think them in their happiness Excelling far, because the fear of death Vexed no one of them at all, and since At same time in men's sleeps men saw them do So many wonders, and yet feel therefrom Themselves no weariness.
Besides, men marked How in a fixed order rolled around The systems of the sky, and changed times Of annual seasons, nor were able then To know thereof the causes.
Therefore 'twas Men would take refuge in consigning all Unto divinities, and in feigning all Was guided by their nod.
And in the sky They set the seats and vaults of gods, because Across the sky night and the moon are seen To roll along--moon, day, and night, and night's Old awesome constellations evermore, And the night-wandering fireballs of the sky, And flying flames, clouds, and the sun, the rains, Snow and the winds, the lightnings, and the hail, And the swift rumblings, and the hollow roar Of mighty menacings forevermore.
O humankind unhappy!--when it ascribed Unto divinities such awesome deeds, And coupled thereto rigours of fierce wrath!
What groans did men on that sad day beget Even for themselves, and O what wounds for us, What tears for our children's children!
Nor, O man, Is thy true piety in this: with head Under the veil, still to be seen to turn Fronting a stone, and ever to approach Unto all altars; nor so prone on earth Forward to fall, to spread upturned palms Before the shrines of gods, nor yet to dew Altars with profuse blood of four-foot beasts, Nor vows with vows to link.
But rather this: To look on all things with a master eye And mind at peace.
For when we gaze aloft Upon the skiey vaults of yon great world And ether, fixed high o'er twinkling stars, And into our thought there come the journeyings Of sun and moon, O then into our breasts, O'erburdened already with their other ills, Begins forthwith to rear its sudden head One more misgiving: lest o'er us, percase, It be the gods' immeasurable power That rolls, with varied motion, round and round The far white constellations.
For the lack Of aught of reasons tries the puzzled mind: Whether was ever a birth-time of the world, And whether, likewise, any end shall be How far the ramparts of the world can still Outstand this strain of ever-roused motion, Or whether, divinely with eternal weal Endowed, they can through endless tracts of age Glide on, defying the o'er-mighty powers Of the immeasurable ages.
Lo, What man is there whose mind with dread of gods Cringes not close, whose limbs with terror-spell Crouch not together, when the parched earth Quakes with the horrible thunderbolt amain, And across the mighty sky the rumblings run?
Do not the peoples and the nations shake, And haughty kings do they not hug their limbs, Strook through with fear of the divinities, Lest for aught foully done or madly said The heavy time be now at hand to pay?
When, too, fierce force of fury-winds at sea Sweepeth a navy's admiral down the main With his stout legions and his elephants, Doth he not seek the peace of gods with vows, And beg in prayer, a-tremble, lulled winds And friendly gales?--in vain, since, often up-caught In fury-cyclones, is he borne along, For all his mouthings, to the shoals of doom.
Ah, so irrevocably some hidden power Betramples forevermore affairs of men, And visibly grindeth with its heel in mire The lictors' glorious rods and axes dire, Having them in derision!
Again, when earth From end to end is rocking under foot, And shaken cities ruin down, or threaten Upon the verge, what wonder is it then That mortal generations abase themselves, And unto gods in all affairs of earth Assign as last resort almighty powers And wondrous energies to govern all?
Now for the rest: copper and gold and iron Discovered were, and with them silver's weight And power of lead, when with prodigious heat The conflagrations burned the forest trees Among the mighty mountains, by a bolt Of lightning from the sky, or else because Men, warring in the woodlands, on their foes Had hurled fire to frighten and dismay, Or yet because, by goodness of the soil Invited, men desired to clear rich fields And turn the countryside to pasture-lands, Or slay the wild and thrive upon the spoils.
(For hunting by pit-fall and by fire arose Before the art of hedging the covert round With net or stirring it with dogs of chase.)
Howso the fact, and from what cause soever The flamy heat with awful crack and roar Had there devoured to their deepest roots The forest trees and baked the earth with fire, Then from the boiling veins began to ooze O rivulets of silver and of gold, Of lead and copper too, collecting soon Into the hollow places of the ground.
And when men saw the cooled lumps anon To shine with splendour-sheen upon the ground, Much taken with that lustrous smooth delight, They 'gan to pry them out, and saw how each Had got a shape like to its earthy mould.
Then would it enter their heads how these same lumps, If melted by heat, could into any form Or figure of things be run, and how, again, If hammered out, they could be nicely drawn To sharpest points or finest edge, and thus Yield to the forgers tools and give them power To chop the forest down, to hew the logs, To shave the beams and planks, besides to bore And punch and drill.
And men began such work At first as much with tools of silver and gold As with the impetuous strength of the stout copper; But vainly--since their over-mastered power Would soon give way, unable to endure, Like copper, such hard labour.
In those days Copper it was that was the thing of price; And gold lay useless, blunted with dull edge.
Now lies the copper low, and gold hath come Unto the loftiest honours.
Thus it is That rolling ages change the times of things: What erst was of a price, becomes at last A discard of no honour; whilst another Succeeds to glory, issuing from contempt, And day by day is sought for more and more, And, when 'tis found, doth flower in men's praise, Objects of wondrous honour.
Now, Memmius, How nature of iron discovered was, thou mayst Of thine own self divine.
Man's ancient arms Were hands, and nails and teeth, stones too and boughs-Breakage of forest trees--and flame and fire, As soon as known.
Thereafter force of iron And copper discovered was; and copper's use Was known ere iron's, since more tractable Its nature is and its abundance more.
With copper men to work the soil began, With copper to rouse the hurly waves of war, To straw the monstrous wounds, and seize away Another's flocks and fields.
For unto them, Thus armed, all things naked of defence Readily yielded.
Then by slow degrees The sword of iron succeeded, and the shape Of brazen sickle into scorn was turned: With iron to cleave the soil of earth they 'gan, And the contentions of uncertain war Were rendered equal.
And, lo, man was wont Armed to mount upon the ribs of horse And guide him with the rein, and play about With right hand free, oft times before he tried Perils of war in yoked chariot; And yoked pairs abreast came earlier Than yokes of four, or scythed chariots Whereinto clomb the men-at-arms.
And next The Punic folk did train the elephants-Those curst Lucanian oxen, hideous, The serpent-handed, with turrets on their bulks-To dure the wounds of war and panic-strike The mighty troops of Mars.
Thus Discord sad Begat the one Thing after other, to be The terror of the nations under arms, And day by day to horrors of old war She added an increase.
Bulls, too, they tried In war's grim business; and essayed to send Outrageous boars against the foes.
And some Sent on before their ranks puissant lions With armed trainers and with masters fierce To guide and hold in chains--and yet in vain, Since fleshed with pell-mell slaughter, fierce they flew, And blindly through the squadrons havoc wrought, Shaking the frightful crests upon their heads, Now here, now there.
Nor could the horsemen calm Their horses, panic-breasted at the roar, And rein them round to front the foe.
With spring The infuriate she-lions would up-leap Now here, now there; and whoso came apace Against them, these they'd rend across the face; And others unwitting from behind they'd tear Down from their mounts, and twining round them, bring Tumbling to earth, o'ermastered by the wound, And with those powerful fangs and hooked claws Fasten upon them.
Bulls would toss their friends, And trample under foot, and from beneath Rip flanks and bellies of horses with their horns, And with a threat'ning forehead jam the sod; And boars would gore with stout tusks their allies, Splashing in fury their own blood on spears Splintered in their own bodies, and would fell In rout and ruin infantry and horse.
For there the beasts-of-saddle tried to scape The savage thrusts of tusk by shying off, Or rearing up with hoofs a-paw in air.
In vain--since there thou mightest see them sink, Their sinews severed, and with heavy fall Bestrew the ground.
And such of these as men Supposed well-trained long ago at home, Were in the thick of action seen to foam In fury, from the wounds, the shrieks, the flight, The panic, and the tumult; nor could men Aught of their numbers rally.
For each breed And various of the wild beasts fled apart Hither or thither, as often in wars to-day Flee those Lucanian oxen, by the steel Grievously mangled, after they have wrought Upon their friends so many a dreadful doom.
(If 'twas, indeed, that thus they did at all: But scarcely I'll believe that men could not With mind foreknow and see, as sure to come, Such foul and general disaster.--This We, then, may hold as true in the great All, In divers worlds on divers plan create,-Somewhere afar more likely than upon One certain earth.)
But men chose this to do Less in the hope of conquering than to give Their enemies a goodly cause of woe, Even though thereby they perished themselves, Since weak in numbers and since wanting arms.
Now, clothes of roughly inter-plaited strands Were earlier than loom-wove coverings; The loom-wove later than man's iron is, Since iron is needful in the weaving art, Nor by no other means can there be wrought Such polished tools--the treadles, spindles, shuttles, And sounding yarn-beams.
And nature forced the men, Before the woman kind, to work the wool: For all the male kind far excels in skill, And cleverer is by much--until at last The rugged farmer folk jeered at such tasks, And so were eager soon to give them o'er To women's hands, and in more hardy toil To harden arms and hands.
But nature herself, Mother of things, was the first seed-sower And primal grafter; since the berries and acorns, Dropping from off the trees, would there beneath Put forth in season swarms of little shoots; Hence too men's fondness for ingrafting slips Upon the boughs and setting out in holes The young shrubs o'er the fields.
Then would they try Ever new modes of tilling their loved crofts, And mark they would how earth improved the taste Of the wild fruits by fond and fostering care.
And day by day they'd force the woods to move Still higher up the mountain, and to yield The place below for tilth, that there they might, On plains and uplands, have their meadow-plats, Cisterns and runnels, crops of standing grain, And happy vineyards, and that all along O'er hillocks, intervales, and plains might run The silvery-green belt of olive-trees, Marking the plotted landscape; even as now Thou seest so marked with varied loveliness All the terrain which men adorn and plant With rows of goodly fruit-trees and hedge round With thriving shrubberies sown.
But by the mouth To imitate the liquid notes of birds Was earlier far 'mongst men than power to make, By measured song, melodious verse and give Delight to ears.
And whistlings of the wind Athrough the hollows of the reeds first taught The peasantry to blow into the stalks Of hollow hemlock-herb.
Then bit by bit They learned sweet plainings, such as pipe out-pours, Beaten by finger-tips of singing men, When heard through unpathed groves and forest deeps And woodsy meadows, through the untrod haunts Of shepherd folk and spots divinely still.
Thus time draws forward each and everything Little by little unto the midst of men, And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
These tunes would soothe and glad the minds of mortals When sated with food,--for songs are welcome then.
And often, lounging with friends in the soft grass Beside a river of water, underneath A big tree's branches, merrily they'd refresh Their frames, with no vast outlay--most of all If the weather were smiling and the times of the year Were painting the green of the grass around with flowers.
Then jokes, then talk, then peals of jollity Would circle round; for then the rustic muse Was in her glory; then would antic Mirth Prompt them to garland head and shoulders about With chaplets of intertwined flowers and leaves, And to dance onward, out of tune, with limbs Clownishly swaying, and with clownish foot To beat our mother earth--from whence arose Laughter and peals of jollity, for, lo, Such frolic acts were in their glory then, Being more new and strange.
And wakeful men Found solaces for their unsleeping hours In drawing forth variety of notes, In modulating melodies, in running With puckered lips along the tuned reeds, Whence, even in our day do the watchmen guard These old traditions, and have learned well To keep true measure.
And yet they no whit Do get a larger fruit of gladsomeness Than got the woodland aborigines In olden times.
For what we have at hand-If theretofore naught sweeter we have known-That chiefly pleases and seems best of all; But then some later, likely better, find Destroys its worth and changes our desires Regarding good of yesterday.
And thus Began the loathing of the acorn; thus Abandoned were those beds with grasses strewn And with the leaves beladen.
Thus, again, Fell into new contempt the pelts of beasts-Erstwhile a robe of honour, which, I guess, Aroused in those days envy so malign That the first wearer went to woeful death By ambuscades,--and yet that hairy prize, Rent into rags by greedy foemen there And splashed by blood, was ruined utterly Beyond all use or vantage.
Thus of old 'Twas pelts, and of to-day 'tis purple and gold That cark men's lives with cares and weary with war.
Wherefore, methinks, resides the greater blame With us vain men to-day: for cold would rack, Without their pelts, the naked sons of earth; But us it nothing hurts to do without The purple vestment, broidered with gold And with imposing figures, if we still Make shift with some mean garment of the Plebs.
So man in vain futilities toils on Forever and wastes in idle cares his years-Because, of very truth, he hath not learnt What the true end of getting is, nor yet At all how far true pleasure may increase.
And 'tis desire for better and for more Hath carried by degrees mortality Out onward to the deep, and roused up From the far bottom mighty waves of war.
But sun and moon, those watchmen of the world, With their own lanterns traversing around The mighty, the revolving vault, have taught Unto mankind that seasons of the years Return again, and that the Thing takes place After a fixed plan and order fixed.
Already would they pass their life, hedged round By the strong towers; and cultivate an earth All portioned out and boundaried; already Would the sea flower and sail-winged ships; Already men had, under treaty pacts, Confederates and allies, when poets began To hand heroic actions down in verse; Nor long ere this had letters been devised-Hence is our age unable to look back On what has gone before, except where reason Shows us a footprint.
Sailings on the seas, Tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads, Dress and the like, all prizes, all delights Of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes Of polished sculptures--all these arts were learned By practice and the mind's experience, As men walked forward step by eager step.
Thus time draws forward each and everything Little by little into the midst of men, And reason uplifts it to the shores of light.
For one thing after other did men see Grow clear by intellect, till with their arts They've now achieved the supreme pinnacle.
BOOK VI PROEM 'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name, That whilom gave to hapless sons of men The sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life, And decreed laws; and she the first that gave Life its sweet solaces, when she begat A man of heart so wise, who whilom poured All wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth; The glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day, Because of those discoveries divine Renowned of old, exalted to the sky.
For when saw he that well-nigh everything Which needs of man most urgently require Was ready to hand for mortals, and that life, As far as might be, was established safe, That men were lords in riches, honour, praise, And eminent in goodly fame of sons, And that they yet, O yet, within the home, Still had the anxious heart which vexed life Unpausingly with torments of the mind, And raved perforce with angry plaints, then he, Then he, the master, did perceive that 'twas The vessel itself which worked the bane, and all, However wholesome, which from here or there Was gathered into it, was by that bane Spoilt from within,--in part, because he saw The vessel so cracked and leaky that nowise 'T could ever be filled to brim; in part because He marked how it polluted with foul taste Whate'er it got within itself.
So he, The master, then by his truth-speaking words, Purged the breasts of men, and set the bounds Of lust and terror, and exhibited The supreme good whither we all endeavour, And showed the path whereby we might arrive Thereunto by a little cross-cut straight, And what of ills in all affairs of mortals Upsprang and flitted deviously about (Whether by chance or force), since nature thus Had destined; and from out what gates a man Should sally to each combat.
And he proved That mostly vainly doth the human race Roll in its bosom the grim waves of care.
For just as children tremble and fear all In the viewless dark, so even we at times Dread in the light so many things that be No whit more fearsome than what children feign, Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
This terror then, this darkness of the mind, Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light, Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse, But only nature's aspect and her law.
Wherefore the more will I go on to weave In verses this my undertaken task.
And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults Are mortal and that sky is fashioned Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er Therein go on and must perforce go on ***** The most I have unravelled; what remains Do thou take in, besides; since once for all To climb into that chariot' renowned ***** Of winds arise; and they appeased are So that all things again... ***** Which were, are changed now, with fury stilled; All other movements through the earth and sky Which mortals gaze upon (O anxious oft In quaking thoughts!
), and which abase their minds With dread of deities and press them crushed Down to the earth, because their ignorance Of cosmic causes forces them to yield All things unto the empery of gods And to concede the kingly rule to them.
For even those men who have learned full well That godheads lead a long life free of care, If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts), Again are hurried back unto the fears Of old religion and adopt again Harsh masters, deemed almighty,--wretched men, Unwitting what can be and what cannot, And by what law to each its scope prescribed, Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
Wherefore the more are they borne wandering on By blindfold reason.
And, Memmius, unless From out thy mind thou spuest all of this And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be Unworthy gods and alien to their peace, Then often will the holy majesties Of the high gods be harmful unto thee, As by thy thought degraded,--not, indeed, That essence supreme of gods could be by this So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek Revenges keen; but even because thyself Thou plaguest with the notion that the gods, Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose, Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath; Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast Shrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be In tranquil peace of mind to take and know Those images which from their holy bodies Are carried into intellects of men, As the announcers of their form divine.
What sort of life will follow after this 'Tis thine to see.
But that afar from us Veriest reason may drive such life away, Much yet remains to be embellished yet In polished verses, albeit hath issued forth So much from me already; lo, there is The law and aspect of the sky to be By reason grasped; there are the tempest times And the bright lightnings to be hymned now-Even what they do and from what cause soe'er They're borne along--that thou mayst tremble not, Marking off regions of prophetic skies For auguries, O foolishly distraught Even as to whence the flying flame hath come, Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how Through walled places it hath wound its way, Or, after proving its dominion there, How it hath speeded forth from thence amain-Whereof nowise the causes do men know, And think divinities are working there.
Do thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse, Solace of mortals and delight of gods, Point out the course before me, as I race On to the white line of the utmost goal, That I may get with signal praise the crown, With thee my guide!
GREAT METEOROLOGICAL PHENOMENA, ETC.
And so in first place, then, With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven, Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft, Together clash, what time 'gainst one another The winds are battling.
For never a sound there comes From out the serene regions of the sky; But wheresoever in a host more dense The clouds foregather, thence more often comes A crash with mighty rumbling.
And, again, Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame As stones and timbers, nor again so fine As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight, Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be To keep their mass, or to retain within Frore snows and storms of hail.
And they give forth O'er skiey levels of the spreading world A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about Betwixt the poles and cross-beams.
Sometimes, too, Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves And imitates the tearing sound of sheets Of paper--even this kind of noise thou mayst In thunder hear--or sound as when winds whirl With lashings and do buffet about in air A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.
For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds Cannot together crash head-on, but rather Move side-wise and with motions contrary Graze each the other's body without speed, From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears, So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed From out their close positions.
And, again, In following wise all things seem oft to quake At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls Of the wide reaches of the upper world There on the instant to have sprung apart, Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once Twisted its way into a mass of clouds, And, there enclosed, ever more and more Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud To grow all hollow with a thickened crust Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force And the keen onset of the wind have weakened That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain, Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
No marvel this; since oft a bladder small, Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst, Give forth a like large sound.
There's reason, too, Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds: We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds Rough-edged or branched many forky ways; And 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow, Making the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.
It happens too at times that roused force Of the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud, Breaking right through it by a front assault; For what a blast of wind may do up there Is manifest from facts when here on earth A blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees And sucks them madly from their deepest roots.
Besides, among the clouds are waves, and these Give, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar; As when along deep streams or the great sea Breaks the loud surf.
It happens, too, whenever Out from one cloud into another falls The fiery energy of thunderbolt, That straightaway the cloud, if full of wet, Extinguishes the fire with mighty noise; As iron, white from the hot furnaces, Sizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow Down the cold water.
Further, if a cloud More dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound, As if a flame with whirl of winds should range Along the laurel-tressed mountains far, Upburning with its vast assault those trees; Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame Consumes with sound more terrible to man Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.
Oft, too, the multitudinous crash of ice And down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound Among the mighty clouds on high; for when The wind hath packed them close, each mountain mass Of rain-cloud, there congealed utterly And mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms... ***** Likewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck, By their collision, forth the seeds of fire: As if a stone should smite a stone or steel, For light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters The shining sparks.
But with our ears we get The thunder after eyes behold the flash, Because forever things arrive the ears More tardily than the eyes--as thou mayst see From this example too: when markest thou Some man far yonder felling a great tree With double-edged ax, it comes to pass Thine eye beholds the swinging stroke before The blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears: Thus also we behold the flashing ere We hear the thunder, which discharged is At same time with the fire and by same cause, Born of the same collision.
In following wise The clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands, And the storm flashes with tremulous elan: When the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there, Hath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud Into a hollow with a thickened crust, It becomes hot of own velocity: Just as thou seest how motion will o'erheat And set ablaze all objects,--verily A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space, Even melts.
Therefore, when this same wind a-fire Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds, Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force Of sudden from the cloud;--and these do make The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth The detonation which attacks our ears More tardily than aught which comes along Unto the sight of eyeballs.
This takes place-As know thou mayst--at times when clouds are dense And one upon the other piled aloft With wonderful upheavings--nor be thou Deceived because we see how broad their base From underneath, and not how high they tower.
For make thine observations at a time When winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on, Or when about the sides of mighty peaks Thou seest them one upon the other massed And burdening downward, anchored in high repose, With the winds sepulchred on all sides round: Then canst thou know their mighty masses, then Canst view their caverns, as if builded there Of beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes In gathered storm have filled utterly, Then, prisoned in clouds, they rave around With mighty roarings, and within those dens Bluster like savage beasts, and now from here, And now from there, send growlings through the clouds, And seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about, And roll from 'mid the clouds the seeds of fire, And heap them multitudinously there, And in the hollow furnaces within Wheel flame around, until from bursted cloud In forky flashes they have gleamed forth.
Again, from following cause it comes to pass That yon swift golden hue of liquid fire Darts downward to the earth: because the clouds Themselves must hold abundant seeds of fire; For, when they be without all moisture, then They be for most part of a flamy hue And a resplendent.
And, indeed, they must Even from the light of sun unto themselves Take multitudinous seeds, and so perforce Redden and pour their bright fires all abroad.
And therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust, Hath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds, They pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out, Which make to flash these colours of the flame.
Likewise, it lightens also when the clouds Grow rare and thin along the sky; for, when The wind with gentle touch unravels them And breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds Which make the lightnings must by nature fall; At such an hour the horizon lightens round Without the hideous terror of dread noise And skiey uproar.
To proceed apace, What sort of nature thunderbolts possess Is by their strokes made manifest and by The brand-marks of their searing heat on things, And by the scorched scars exhaling round The heavy fumes of sulphur.
For all these Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.
Again, they often enkindle even the roofs Of houses and inside the very rooms With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.
Know thou that nature fashioned this fire Subtler than fires all other, with minute And dartling bodies,--a fire 'gainst which there's naught Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt, The mighty, passes through the hedging walls Of houses, like to voices or a shout,-Through stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes, Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth, The wine-jars intact,--because, ye see, Its heat arriving renders loose and porous Readily all the wine--jar's earthen sides, And winding its way within, it scattereth The elements primordial of the wine With speedy dissolution--process which Even in an age the fiery steam of sun Could not accomplish, however puissant he With his hot coruscations: so much more Agile and overpowering is this force.
***** Now in what manner engendered are these things, How fashioned of such impetuous strength As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all To overtopple, and to wrench apart Timbers and beams, and heroes' monuments To pile in ruins and upheave amain, And to take breath forever out of men, And to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,-Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this, All this and more, I will unfold to thee, Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.
The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived As all begotten in those crasser clouds Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene And from the clouds of lighter density, None are sent forth forever.
That 'tis so Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares: To wit, at such a time the densed clouds So mass themselves through all the upper air That we might think that round about all murk Had parted forth from Acheron and filled The mighty vaults of sky--so grievously, As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might, Do faces of black horror hang on high-When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.
Besides, full often also out at sea A blackest thunderhead, like cataract Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed Tremendously with fires and winds, that even Back on the lands the people shudder round And seek for cover.
Therefore, as I said, The storm must be conceived as o'er our head Towering most high; for never would the clouds O'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark, Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap, To shut the round sun off.
Nor could the clouds, As on they come, engulf with rain so vast As thus to make the rivers overflow And fields to float, if ether were not thus Furnished with lofty-piled clouds.
Lo, then, Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires-Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.
For, verily, I've taught thee even now How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable Of fiery exhalations, and they must From off the sunbeams and the heat of these Take many still.
And so, when that same wind (Which, haply, into one region of the sky Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same The many fiery seeds, and with that fire Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself, O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now, Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.
For in a two-fold manner is that wind Enkindled all: it trembles into heat Both by its own velocity and by Repeated touch of fire.
Thereafter, when The energy of wind is heated through And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt, Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash Leaps onward, lumining with forky light All places round.
And followeth anon A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults, As if asunder burst, seem from on high To engulf the earth.
Then fearfully a quake Pervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies Run the far rumblings.
For at such a time Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through, And roused are the roarings,--from which shock Comes such resounding and abounding rain, That all the murky ether seems to turn Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down, To summon the fields back to primeval floods: So big the rains that be sent down on men By burst of cloud and by the hurricane, What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt That cracks the cloud, flies forth along.
At times The force of wind, excited from without, Smiteth into a cloud already hot With a ripe thunderbolt.
And when that wind Hath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith Yon fiery coil of flame which still we call, Even with our fathers' word, a thunderbolt.
The same thing haps toward every other side Whither that force hath swept.
It happens, too, That sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth Without all fire, yet in its voyage through space Igniteth, whilst it comes along, along,-Losing some larger bodies which cannot Pass, like the others, through the bulks of air,-And, scraping together out of air itself Some smaller bodies, carries them along, And these, commingling, by their flight make fire: Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball Grows hot upon its aery course, the while It loseth many bodies of stark cold And taketh into itself along the air New particles of fire.
It happens, too, That force of blow itself arouses fire, When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain-No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke 'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff Can stream together from out the very wind And, simultaneously, from out that thing Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies The fire when with the steel we hack the stone; Nor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold, Rush the less speedily together there Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.
And therefore, thuswise must an object too Be kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply 'Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.
Yet force of wind must not be rashly deemed As altogether and entirely cold-That force which is discharged from on high With such stupendous power; but if 'tis not Upon its course already kindled with fire, It yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.
And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because Their roused force itself collects itself First always in the clouds, and then prepares For the huge effort of their going-forth; Next, when the cloud no longer can retain The increment of their fierce impetus, Their force is pressed out, and therefore flies With impetus so wondrous, like to shots Hurled from the powerful Roman catapults.
Note, too, this force consists of elements Both small and smooth, nor is there aught that can With ease resist such nature.
For it darts Between and enters through the pores of things; And so it never falters in delay Despite innumerable collisions, but Flies shooting onward with a swift elan.
Next, since by nature always every weight Bears downward, doubled is the swiftness then And that elan is still more wild and dread, When, verily, to weight are added blows, So that more madly and more fiercely then The thunderbolt shakes into shivers all That blocks its path, following on its way.
Then, too, because it comes along, along With one continuing elan, it must Take on velocity anew, anew, Which still increases as it goes, and ever Augments the bolt's vast powers and to the blow Gives larger vigour; for it forces all, All of the thunder's seeds of fire, to sweep In a straight line unto one place, as 'twere,-Casting them one by other, as they roll, Into that onward course.
Again, perchance, In coming along, it pulls from out the air Some certain bodies, which by their own blows Enkindle its velocity.
And, lo, It comes through objects leaving them unharmed, It goes through many things and leaves them whole, Because the liquid fire flieth along Athrough their pores.
And much it does transfix, When these primordial atoms of the bolt Have fallen upon the atoms of these things Precisely where the intertwined atoms Are held together.
And, further, easily Brass it unbinds and quickly fuseth gold, Because its force is so minutely made Of tiny parts and elements so smooth That easily they wind their way within, And, when once in, quickly unbind all knots And loosen all the bonds of union there.
And most in autumn is shaken the house of heaven, The house so studded with the glittering stars, And the whole earth around--most too in spring When flowery times unfold themselves: for, lo, In the cold season is there lack of fire, And winds are scanty in the hot, and clouds Have not so dense a bulk.
But when, indeed, The seasons of heaven are betwixt these twain, The divers causes of the thunderbolt Then all concur; for then both cold and heat Are mixed in the cross-seas of the year, So that a discord rises among things And air in vast tumultuosity Billows, infuriate with the fires and winds-Of which the both are needed by the cloud For fabrication of the thunderbolt.
For the first part of heat and last of cold Is the time of spring; wherefore must things unlike Do battle one with other, and, when mixed, Tumultuously rage.
And when rolls round The latest heat mixed with the earliest chill-The time which bears the name of autumn--then Likewise fierce cold-spells wrestle with fierce heats.
On this account these seasons of the year Are nominated "cross-seas."
--And no marvel If in those times the thunderbolts prevail And storms are roused turbulent in heaven, Since then both sides in dubious warfare rage Tumultuously, the one with flames, the other With winds and with waters mixed with winds.
This, this it is, O Memmius, to see through The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt; O this it is to mark by what blind force It maketh each effect, and not, O not To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular, Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods, Even as to whence the flying flame hath come, Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how Through walled places it hath wound its way, Or, after proving its dominion there, How it hath speeded forth from thence amain, Or what the thunderstroke portends of ill From out high heaven.
But if Jupiter And other gods shake those refulgent vaults With dread reverberations and hurl fire Whither it pleases each, why smite they not Mortals of reckless and revolting crimes, That such may pant from a transpierced breast Forth flames of the red levin--unto men A drastic lesson?--why is rather he-O he self-conscious of no foul offence-Involved in flames, though innocent, and clasped Up-caught in skiey whirlwind and in fire?
Nay, why, then, aim they at eternal wastes, And spend themselves in vain?--perchance, even so To exercise their arms and strengthen shoulders?
Why suffer they the Father's javelin To be so blunted on the earth?
And why Doth he himself allow it, nor spare the same Even for his enemies?
O why most oft Aims he at lofty places?
Why behold we Marks of his lightnings most on mountain tops?
Then for what reason shoots he at the sea?-What sacrilege have waves and bulk of brine And floating fields of foam been guilty of?
Besides, if 'tis his will that we beware Against the lightning-stroke, why feareth he To grant us power for to behold the shot?
And, contrariwise, if wills he to o'erwhelm us, Quite off our guard, with fire, why thunders he Off in yon quarter, so that we may shun?
Why rouseth he beforehand darkling air And the far din and rumblings?
And O how Canst thou believe he shoots at one same time Into diverse directions?
Or darest thou Contend that never hath it come to pass That divers strokes have happened at one time?
But oft and often hath it come to pass, And often still it must, that, even as showers And rains o'er many regions fall, so too Dart many thunderbolts at one same time.
Again, why never hurtles Jupiter A bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad Clap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all?
Or, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds Have come thereunder, then into the same Descend in person, that from thence he may Near-by decide upon the stroke of shaft?
And, lastly, why, with devastating bolt Shakes he asunder holy shrines of gods And his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks The well-wrought idols of divinities, And robs of glory his own images By wound of violence?
But to return apace, Easy it is from these same facts to know In just what wise those things (which from their sort The Greeks have named "bellows") do come down, Discharged from on high, upon the seas.
For it haps that sometimes from the sky descends Upon the seas a column, as if pushed, Round which the surges seethe, tremendously Aroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er Of ships are caught within that tumult then Come into extreme peril, dashed along.
This haps when sometimes wind's aroused force Can't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs That cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky Upon the seas pushed downward--gradually, As if a Somewhat from on high were shoved By fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened Far to the waves.
And when the force of wind Hath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes Down on the seas, and starts among the waves A wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl Descends and downward draws along with it That cloud of ductile body.
And soon as ever 'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main That laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then Plunges its whole self into the waters there And rouses all the sea with monstrous roar, Constraining it to seethe.
It happens too That very vortex of the wind involves Itself in clouds, scraping from out the air The seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere, The "bellows" pushed from heaven.
And when this shape Hath dropped upon the lands and burst apart, It belches forth immeasurable might Of whirlwind and of blast.
Yet since 'tis formed At most but rarely, and on land the hills Must block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there On the broad prospect of the level main Along the free horizons.
Into being The clouds condense, when in this upper space Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly, As round they flew, unnumbered particles-World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm, The one on other caught.
These particles First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon, These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock And grow by their conjoining, and by winds Are borne along, along, until collects The tempest fury.
Happens, too, the nearer The mountain summits neighbour to the sky, The more unceasingly their far crags smoke With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes Can there behold them (tenuous as they be), The carrier-winds will drive them up and on Unto the topmost summits of the mountain; And then at last it happens, when they be In vaster throng upgathered, that they can By this very condensation lie revealed, And that at same time they are seen to surge From very vertex of the mountain up Into far ether.
For very fact and feeling, As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear That windy are those upward regions free.
Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore, When in they take the clinging moisture, prove That nature lifts from over all the sea Unnumbered particles.
Whereby the more 'Tis manifest that many particles Even from the salt upheavings of the main Can rise together to augment the bulk Of massed clouds.
For moistures in these twain Are near akin.
Besides, from out all rivers, As well as from the land itself, we see Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath Are forced out from them and borne aloft, To curtain heaven with their murk, and make, By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.
For, in addition, lo, the heat on high Of constellated ether burdens down Upon them, and by sort of condensation Weaveth beneath the azure firmament The reek of darkling cloud.
It happens, too, That hither to the skies from the Beyond Do come those particles which make the clouds And flying thunderheads.
For I have taught That this their number is innumerable And infinite the sum of the Abyss, And I have shown with what stupendous speed Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass Amain through incommunicable space.
Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft In little time tempest and darkness cover With bulking thunderheads hanging on high The oceans and the lands, since everywhere Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether, Yea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes Of the great upper-world encompassing, There be for the primordial elements Exits and entrances.
Now come, and how The rainy moisture thickens into being In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands 'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers, I will unfold.
And first triumphantly Will I persuade thee that up-rise together, With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water From out all things, and that they both increase-Both clouds and water which is in the clouds-In like proportion, as our frames increase In like proportion with our blood, as well As sweat or any moisture in our members.
Besides, the clouds take in from time to time Much moisture risen from the broad marine,-Whilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea, Like hanging fleeces of white wool.
Thuswise, Even from all rivers is there lifted up Moisture into the clouds.
And when therein The seeds of water so many in many ways Have come together, augmented from all sides, The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo, The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng) Giveth an urge and pressure from above And makes the rains out-pour.
Besides when, too, The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops, Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top, Wasteth and liquefies abundantly.
But comes the violence of the bigger rains When violently the clouds are weighted down Both by their cumulated mass and by The onset of the wind.
And rains are wont To endure awhile and to abide for long, When many seeds of waters are aroused, And clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream In piled layers and are borne along From every quarter, and when all the earth Smoking exhales her moisture.
At such a time When sun with beams amid the tempest-murk Hath shone against the showers of black rains, Then in the swart clouds there emerges bright The radiance of the bow.
And as to things Not mentioned here which of themselves do grow Or of themselves are gendered, and all things Which in the clouds condense to being--all, Snow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill, And freezing, mighty force--of lakes and pools The mighty hardener, and mighty check Which in the winter curbeth everywhere The rivers as they go--'tis easy still, Soon to discover and with mind to see How they all happen, whereby gendered, When once thou well hast understood just what Functions have been vouchsafed from of old Unto the procreant atoms of the world.
Now come, and what the law of earthquakes is Hearken, and first of all take care to know That the under-earth, like to the earth around us, Is full of windy caverns all about; And many a pool and many a grim abyss She bears within her bosom, ay, and cliffs And jagged scarps; and many a river, hid Beneath her chine, rolls rapidly along Its billows and plunging boulders.
For clear fact Requires that earth must be in every part Alike in constitution.
Therefore, earth, With these things underneath affixed and set, Trembleth above, jarred by big down-tumblings, When time hath undermined the huge caves, The subterranean.
Yea, whole mountains fall, And instantly from spot of that big jar There quiver the tremors far and wide abroad.
And with good reason: since houses on the street Begin to quake throughout, when jarred by a cart Of no large weight; and, too, the furniture Within the house up-bounds, when a paving-block Gives either iron rim of the wheels a jolt.
It happens, too, when some prodigious bulk Of age-worn soil is rolled from mountain slopes Into tremendous pools of water dark, That the reeling land itself is rocked about By the water's undulations; as a basin Sometimes won't come to rest until the fluid Within it ceases to be rocked about In random undulations.
And besides, When subterranean winds, up-gathered there In the hollow deeps, bulk forward from one spot, And press with the big urge of mighty powers Against the lofty grottos, then the earth Bulks to that quarter whither push amain The headlong winds.
Then all the builded houses Above ground--and the more, the higher up-reared Unto the sky--lean ominously, careening Into the same direction; and the beams, Wrenched forward, over-hang, ready to go.
Yet dread men to believe that there awaits The nature of the mighty world a time Of doom and cataclysm, albeit they see So great a bulk of lands to bulge and break!
And lest the winds blew back again, no force Could rein things in nor hold from sure career On to disaster.
But now because those winds Blow back and forth in alternation strong, And, so to say, rallying charge again, And then repulsed retreat, on this account Earth oftener threatens than she brings to pass Collapses dire.
For to one side she leans, Then back she sways; and after tottering Forward, recovers then her seats of poise.
Thus, this is why whole houses rock, the roofs More than the middle stories, middle more Than lowest, and the lowest least of all.
Arises, too, this same great earth-quaking, When wind and some prodigious force of air, Collected from without or down within The old telluric deeps, have hurled themselves Amain into those caverns sub-terrene, And there at first tumultuously chafe Among the vasty grottos, borne about In mad rotations, till their lashed force Aroused out-bursts abroad, and then and there, Riving the deep earth, makes a mighty chasm-What once in Syrian Sidon did befall, And once in Peloponnesian Aegium, Twain cities which such out-break of wild air And earth's convulsion, following hard upon, O'erthrew of old.
And many a walled town, Besides, hath fall'n by such omnipotent Convulsions on the land, and in the sea Engulfed hath sunken many a city down With all its populace.
But if, indeed, They burst not forth, yet is the very rush Of the wild air and fury-force of wind Then dissipated, like an ague-fit, Through the innumerable pores of earth, To set her all a-shake--even as a chill, When it hath gone into our marrow-bones, Sets us convulsively, despite ourselves, A-shivering and a-shaking.
Therefore, men With two-fold terror bustle in alarm Through cities to and fro: they fear the roofs Above the head; and underfoot they dread The caverns, lest the nature of the earth Suddenly rend them open, and she gape, Herself asunder, with tremendous maw, And, all confounded, seek to chock it full With her own ruins.
Let men, then, go on Feigning at will that heaven and earth shall be Inviolable, entrusted evermore To an eternal weal: and yet at times The very force of danger here at hand Prods them on some side with this goad of fear-This among others--that the earth, withdrawn Abruptly from under their feet, be hurried down, Down into the abyss, and the Sum-of-Things Be following after, utterly fordone, Till be but wrack and wreckage of a world.
***** EXTRAORDINARY AND PARADOXICAL TELLURIC PHENOMENA In chief, men marvel nature renders not Bigger and bigger the bulk of ocean, since So vast the down-rush of the waters be, And every river out of every realm Cometh thereto; and add the random rains And flying tempests, which spatter every sea And every land bedew; add their own springs: Yet all of these unto the ocean's sum Shall be but as the increase of a drop.
Wherefore 'tis less a marvel that the sea, The mighty ocean, increaseth not.
Besides, Sun with his heat draws off a mighty part: Yea, we behold that sun with burning beams To dry our garments dripping all with wet; And many a sea, and far out-spread beneath, Do we behold.
Therefore, however slight The portion of wet that sun on any spot Culls from the level main, he still will take From off the waves in such a wide expanse Abundantly.
Then, further, also winds, Sweeping the level waters, can bear off A mighty part of wet, since we behold Oft in a single night the highways dried By winds, and soft mud crusted o'er at dawn.
Again, I've taught thee that the clouds bear off Much moisture too, up-taken from the reaches Of the mighty main, and sprinkle it about O'er all the zones, when rain is on the lands And winds convey the aery racks of vapour.
Lastly, since earth is porous through her frame, And neighbours on the seas, girdling their shores, The water's wet must seep into the lands From briny ocean, as from lands it comes Into the seas.
For brine is filtered off, And then the liquid stuff seeps back again And all re-poureth at the river-heads, Whence in fresh-water currents it returns Over the lands, adown the channels which Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along The liquid-footed floods.
And now the cause Whereby athrough the throat of Aetna's Mount Such vast tornado-fires out-breathe at times, I will unfold: for with no middling might Of devastation the flamy tempest rose And held dominion in Sicilian fields: Drawing upon itself the upturned faces Of neighbouring clans, what time they saw afar The skiey vaults a-fume and sparkling all, And filled their bosoms with dread anxiety Of what new thing nature were travailing at.
In these affairs it much behooveth thee To look both wide and deep, and far abroad To peer to every quarter, that thou mayst Remember how boundless is the Sum-of-Things, And mark how infinitely small a part Of the whole Sum is this one sky of ours-O not so large a part as is one man Of the whole earth.
And plainly if thou viewest This cosmic fact, placing it square in front, And plainly understandest, thou wilt leave Wondering at many things.
For who of us Wondereth if some one gets into his joints A fever, gathering head with fiery heat, Or any other dolorous disease Along his members?
For anon the foot Grows blue and bulbous; often the sharp twinge Seizes the teeth, attacks the very eyes; Out-breaks the sacred fire, and, crawling on Over the body, burneth every part It seizeth on, and works its hideous way Along the frame.
No marvel this, since, lo, Of things innumerable be seeds enough, And this our earth and sky do bring to us Enough of bane from whence can grow the strength Of maladies uncounted.
Thuswise, then, We must suppose to all the sky and earth Are ever supplied from out the infinite All things, O all in stores enough whereby The shaken earth can of a sudden move, And fierce typhoons can over sea and lands Go tearing on, and Aetna's fires o'erflow, And heaven become a flame-burst.
For that, too, Happens at times, and the celestial vaults Glow into fire, and rainy tempests rise In heavier congregation, when, percase, The seeds of water have foregathered thus From out the infinite.
"Aye, but passing huge The fiery turmoil of that conflagration!"
So sayst thou; well, huge many a river seems To him that erstwhile ne'er a larger saw; Thus, huge seems tree or man; and everything Which mortal sees the biggest of each class, That he imagines to be "huge"; though yet All these, with sky and land and sea to boot, Are all as nothing to the sum entire Of the all-Sum.
But now I will unfold At last how yonder suddenly angered flame Out-blows abroad from vasty furnaces Aetnaean.
First, the mountain's nature is All under-hollow, propped about, about With caverns of basaltic piers.
And, lo, In all its grottos be there wind and air-For wind is made when air hath been uproused By violent agitation.
When this air Is heated through and through, and, raging round, Hath made the earth and all the rocks it touches Horribly hot, and hath struck off from them Fierce fire of swiftest flame, it lifts itself And hurtles thus straight upwards through its throat Into high heav'n, and thus bears on afar Its burning blasts and scattereth afar Its ashes, and rolls a smoke of pitchy murk And heaveth the while boulders of wondrous weight-Leaving no doubt in thee that 'tis the air's Tumultuous power.
Besides, in mighty part, The sea there at the roots of that same mount Breaks its old billows and sucks back its surf.
And grottos from the sea pass in below Even to the bottom of the mountain's throat.
Herethrough thou must admit there go... ***** And the conditions force [the water and air] Deeply to penetrate from the open sea, And to out-blow abroad, and to up-bear Thereby the flame, and to up-cast from deeps The boulders, and to rear the clouds of sand.
For at the top be "bowls," as people there Are wont to name what we at Rome do call The throats and mouths.
There be, besides, some thing Of which 'tis not enough one only cause To state--but rather several, whereof one Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy Lying afar some fellow's lifeless corse, 'Twere meet to name all causes of a death, That cause of his death might thereby be named: For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel, By cold, nor even by poison nor disease, Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him We know--And thus we have to say the same In divers cases.
Toward the summer, Nile Waxeth and overfloweth the champaign, Unique in all the landscape, river sole Of the Aegyptians.
In mid-season heats Often and oft he waters Aegypt o'er, Either because in summer against his mouths Come those northwinds which at that time of year Men name the Etesian blasts, and, blowing thus Upstream, retard, and, forcing back his waves, Fill him o'erfull and force his flow to stop.
For out of doubt these blasts which driven be From icy constellations of the pole Are borne straight up the river.
Comes that river From forth the sultry places down the south, Rising far up in midmost realm of day, Among black generations of strong men With sun-baked skins.
'Tis possible, besides, That a big bulk of piled sand may bar His mouths against his onward waves, when sea, Wild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland; Whereby the river's outlet were less free, Likewise less headlong his descending floods.
It may be, too, that in this season rains Are more abundant at its fountain head, Because the Etesian blasts of those northwinds Then urge all clouds into those inland parts.
And, soothly, when they're thus foregathered there, Urged yonder into midmost realm of day, Then, crowded against the lofty mountain sides, They're massed and powerfully pressed.
Again, Perchance, his waters wax, O far away, Among the Aethiopians' lofty mountains, When the all-beholding sun with thawing beams Drives the white snows to flow into the vales.
Now come; and unto thee I will unfold, As to the Birdless spots and Birdless tarns, What sort of nature they are furnished with.
First, as to name of "birdless,"--that derives From very fact, because they noxious be Unto all birds.
For when above those spots In horizontal flight the birds have come, Forgetting to oar with wings, they furl their sails, And, with down-drooping of their delicate necks, Fall headlong into earth, if haply such The nature of the spots, or into water, If haply spreads thereunder Birdless tarn.
Such spot's at Cumae, where the mountains smoke, Charged with the pungent sulphur, and increased With steaming springs.
And such a spot there is Within the walls of Athens, even there On summit of Acropolis, beside Fane of Tritonian Pallas bountiful, Where never cawing crows can wing their course, Not even when smoke the altars with good gifts,-But evermore they flee--yet not from wrath Of Pallas, grieved at that espial old, As poets of the Greeks have sung the tale; But very nature of the place compels.
In Syria also--as men say--a spot Is to be seen, where also four-foot kinds, As soon as ever they've set their steps within, Collapse, o'ercome by its essential power, As if there slaughtered to the under-gods.
Lo, all these wonders work by natural law, And from what causes they are brought to pass The origin is manifest; so, haply, Let none believe that in these regions stands The gate of Orcus, nor us then suppose, Haply, that thence the under-gods draw down Souls to dark shores of Acheron--as stags, The wing-footed, are thought to draw to light, By sniffing nostrils, from their dusky lairs The wriggling generations of wild snakes.
How far removed from true reason is this, Perceive thou straight; for now I'll try to say Somewhat about the very fact.
And, first, This do I say, as oft I've said before: In earth are atoms of things of every sort; And know, these all thus rise from out the earth-Many life-giving which be good for food, And many which can generate disease And hasten death, O many primal seeds Of many things in many modes--since earth Contains them mingled and gives forth discrete.
And we have shown before that certain things Be unto certain creatures suited more For ends of life, by virtue of a nature, A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike For kinds alike.
Then too 'tis thine to see How many things oppressive be and foul To man, and to sensation most malign: Many meander miserably through ears; Many in-wind athrough the nostrils too, Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath; Of not a few must one avoid the touch; Of not a few must one escape the sight; And some there be all loathsome to the taste; And many, besides, relax the languid limbs Along the frame, and undermine the soul In its abodes within.
To certain trees There hath been given so dolorous a shade That often they gender achings of the head, If one but be beneath, outstretched on the sward.
There is, again, on Helicon's high hills A tree that's wont to kill a man outright By fetid odour of its very flower.
And when the pungent stench of the night-lamp, Extinguished but a moment since, assails The nostrils, then and there it puts to sleep A man afflicted with the falling sickness And foamings at the mouth.
A woman, too, At the heavy castor drowses back in chair, And from her delicate fingers slips away Her gaudy handiwork, if haply she Hath got the whiff at menstruation-time.
Once more, if thou delayest in hot baths, When thou art over-full, how readily From stool in middle of the steaming water Thou tumblest in a fit!
How readily The heavy fumes of charcoal wind their way Into the brain, unless beforehand we Of water 've drunk.
But when a burning fever, O'ermastering man, hath seized upon his limbs, Then odour of wine is like a hammer-blow.
And seest thou not how in the very earth Sulphur is gendered and bitumen thickens With noisome stench?--What direful stenches, too, Scaptensula out-breathes from down below, When men pursue the veins of silver and gold, With pick-axe probing round the hidden realms Deep in the earth?--Or what of deadly bane The mines of gold exhale?
O what a look, And what a ghastly hue they give to men!
And seest thou not, or hearest, how they're wont In little time to perish, and how fail The life-stores in those folk whom mighty power Of grim necessity confineth there In such a task?
Thus, this telluric earth Out-streams with all these dread effluvia And breathes them out into the open world And into the visible regions under heaven.
Thus, too, those Birdless places must up-send An essence bearing death to winged things, Which from the earth rises into the breezes To poison part of skiey space, and when Thither the winged is on pennons borne, There, seized by the unseen poison, 'tis ensnared, And from the horizontal of its flight Drops to the spot whence sprang the effluvium.
And when 'thas there collapsed, then the same power Of that effluvium takes from all its limbs The relics of its life.
That power first strikes The creatures with a wildering dizziness, And then thereafter, when they're once down-fallen Into the poison's very fountains, then Life, too, they vomit out perforce, because So thick the stores of bane around them fume.
Again, at times it happens that this power, This exhalation of the Birdless places, Dispels the air betwixt the ground and birds, Leaving well-nigh a void.
And thither when In horizontal flight the birds have come, Forthwith their buoyancy of pennons limps, All useless, and each effort of both wings Falls out in vain.
Here, when without all power To buoy themselves and on their wings to lean, Lo, nature constrains them by their weight to slip Down to the earth, and lying prostrate there Along the well-nigh empty void, they spend Their souls through all the openings of their frame.
***** Further, the water of wells is colder then At summer time, because the earth by heat Is rarefied, and sends abroad in air Whatever seeds it peradventure have Of its own fiery exhalations.
The more, then, the telluric ground is drained Of heat, the colder grows the water hid Within the earth.
Further, when all the earth Is by the cold compressed, and thus contracts And, so to say, concretes, it happens, lo, That by contracting it expresses then Into the wells what heat it bears itself.
'Tis said at Hammon's fane a fountain is, In daylight cold and hot in time of night.
This fountain men be-wonder over-much, And think that suddenly it seethes in heat By intense sun, the subterranean, when Night with her terrible murk hath cloaked the lands-What's not true reasoning by a long remove: I' faith when sun o'erhead, touching with beams An open body of water, had no power To render it hot upon its upper side, Though his high light possess such burning glare, How, then, can he, when under the gross earth, Make water boil and glut with fiery heat?-And, specially, since scarcely potent he Through hedging walls of houses to inject His exhalations hot, with ardent rays.
What, then's, the principle?
Why, this, indeed: The earth about that spring is porous more Than elsewhere the telluric ground, and be Many the seeds of fire hard by the water; On this account, when night with dew-fraught shades Hath whelmed the earth, anon the earth deep down Grows chill, contracts; and thuswise squeezes out Into the spring what seeds she holds of fire (As one might squeeze with fist), which render hot The touch and steam of the fluid.
Next, when sun, Up-risen, with his rays has split the soil And rarefied the earth with waxing heat, Again into their ancient abodes return The seeds of fire, and all the Hot of water Into the earth retires; and this is why The fountain in the daylight gets so cold.
Besides, the water's wet is beat upon By rays of sun, and, with the dawn, becomes Rarer in texture under his pulsing blaze; And, therefore, whatso seeds it holds of fire It renders up, even as it renders oft The frost that it contains within itself And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots.
There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind That makes a bit of tow (above it held) Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too, A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round Along its waves, wherever 'tis impelled Afloat before the breeze.
No marvel, this: Because full many seeds of heat there be Within the water; and, from earth itself Out of the deeps must particles of fire Athrough the entire fountain surge aloft, And speed in exhalations into air Forth and abroad (yet not in numbers enow As to make hot the fountain).
And, moreo'er, Some force constrains them, scattered through the water, Forthwith to burst abroad, and to combine In flame above.
Even as a fountain far There is at Aradus amid the sea, Which bubbles out sweet water and disparts From round itself the salt waves; and, behold, In many another region the broad main Yields to the thirsty mariners timely help, Belching sweet waters forth amid salt waves.
Just so, then, can those seeds of fire burst forth Athrough that other fount, and bubble out Abroad against the bit of tow; and when They there collect or cleave unto the torch, Forthwith they readily flash aflame, because The tow and torches, also, in themselves Have many seeds of latent fire.
Indeed, And seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps Thou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished A moment since, it catches fire before 'Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch?
And many another object flashes aflame When at a distance, touched by heat alone, Before 'tis steeped in veritable fire.
This, then, we must suppose to come to pass In that spring also.
Now to other things!
And I'll begin to treat by what decree Of nature it came to pass that iron can be By that stone drawn which Greeks the magnet call After the country's name (its origin Being in country of Magnesian folk).
This stone men marvel at; and sure it oft Maketh a chain of rings, depending, lo, From off itself!
Nay, thou mayest see at times Five or yet more in order dangling down And swaying in the delicate winds, whilst one Depends from other, cleaving to under-side, And ilk one feels the stone's own power and bonds-So over-masteringly its power flows down.
In things of this sort, much must be made sure Ere thou account of the thing itself canst give, And the approaches roundabout must be; Wherefore the more do I exact of thee A mind and ears attent.
First, from all things We see soever, evermore must flow, Must be discharged and strewn about, about, Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
From certain things flow odours evermore, As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls Along the coasts.
Nor ever cease to seep The varied echoings athrough the air.
Then, too, there comes into the mouth at times The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch The wormwood being mixed, its bitter stings.
To such degree from all things is each thing Borne streamingly along, and sent about To every region round; and nature grants Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow, Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have, And all the time are suffered to descry And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.
Now will I seek again to bring to mind How porous a body all things have--a fact Made manifest in my first canto, too.
For, truly, though to know this doth import For many things, yet for this very thing On which straightway I'm going to discourse, 'Tis needful most of all to make it sure That naught's at hand but body mixed with void.
A first ensample: in grottos, rocks o'erhead Sweat moisture and distil the oozy drops; Likewise, from all our body seeps the sweat; There grows the beard, and along our members all And along our frame the hairs.
Through all our veins Disseminates the foods, and gives increase And aliment down to the extreme parts, Even to the tiniest finger-nails.
Likewise, Through solid bronze the cold and fiery heat We feel to pass; likewise, we feel them pass Through gold, through silver, when we clasp in hand The brimming goblets.
And, again, there flit Voices through houses' hedging walls of stone; Odour seeps through, and cold, and heat of fire That's wont to penetrate even strength of iron.
Again, where corselet of the sky girds round ***** And at same time, some Influence of bane, When from Beyond 'thas stolen into [our world].
And tempests, gathering from the earth and sky, Back to the sky and earth absorbed retire-With reason, since there's naught that's fashioned not With body porous.
Furthermore, not all The particles which be from things thrown off Are furnished with same qualities for sense, Nor be for all things equally adapt.
A first ensample: the sun doth bake and parch The earth; but ice he thaws, and with his beams Compels the lofty snows, up-reared white Upon the lofty hills, to waste away; Then, wax, if set beneath the heat of him, Melts to a liquid.
And the fire, likewise, Will melt the copper and will fuse the gold, But hides and flesh it shrivels up and shrinks.
The water hardens the iron just off the fire, But hides and flesh (made hard by heat) it softens.
The oleaster-tree as much delights The bearded she-goats, verily as though 'Twere nectar-steeped and shed ambrosia; Than which is naught that burgeons into leaf More bitter food for man.
A hog draws back For marjoram oil, and every unguent fears Fierce poison these unto the bristled hogs, Yet unto us from time to time they seem, As 'twere, to give new life.
But, contrariwise, Though unto us the mire be filth most foul, To hogs that mire doth so delightsome seem That they with wallowing from belly to back Are never cloyed.
A point remains, besides, Which best it seems to tell of, ere I go To telling of the fact at hand itself.
Since to the varied things assigned be The many pores, those pores must be diverse In nature one from other, and each have Its very shape, its own direction fixed.
And so, indeed, in breathing creatures be The several senses, of which each takes in Unto itself, in its own fashion ever, Its own peculiar object.
For we mark How sounds do into one place penetrate, Into another flavours of all juice, And savour of smell into a third.
Moreover, One sort through rocks we see to seep, and, lo, One sort to pass through wood, another still Through gold, and others to go out and off Through silver and through glass.
For we do see Through some pores form-and-look of things to flow, Through others heat to go, and some things still To speedier pass than others through same pores.
Of verity, the nature of these same paths, Varying in many modes (as aforesaid) Because of unlike nature and warp and woof Of cosmic things, constrains it so to be.
Wherefore, since all these matters now have been Established and settled well for us As premises prepared, for what remains 'Twill not be hard to render clear account By means of these, and the whole cause reveal Whereby the magnet lures the strength of iron.
First, stream there must from off the lode-stone seeds Innumerable, a very tide, which smites By blows that air asunder lying betwixt The stone and iron.
And when is emptied out This space, and a large place between the two Is made a void, forthwith the primal germs Of iron, headlong slipping, fall conjoined Into the vacuum, and the ring itself By reason thereof doth follow after and go Thuswise with all its body.
And naught there is That of its own primordial elements More thoroughly knit or tighter linked coheres Than nature and cold roughness of stout iron.
Wherefore, 'tis less a marvel what I said, That from such elements no bodies can From out the iron collect in larger throng And be into the vacuum borne along, Without the ring itself do follow after.
And this it does, and followeth on until 'Thath reached the stone itself and cleaved to it By links invisible.
Moreover, likewise, The motion's assisted by a thing of aid (Whereby the process easier becomes),-Namely, by this: as soon as rarer grows That air in front of the ring, and space between Is emptied more and made a void, forthwith It happens all the air that lies behind Conveys it onward, pushing from the rear.
For ever doth the circumambient air Drub things unmoved, but here it pushes forth The iron, because upon one side the space Lies void and thus receives the iron in.
This air, whereof I am reminding thee, Winding athrough the iron's abundant pores So subtly into the tiny parts thereof, Shoves it and pushes, as wind the ship and sails.
The same doth happen in all directions forth: From whatso side a space is made a void, Whether from crosswise or above, forthwith The neighbour particles are borne along Into the vacuum; for of verity, They're set a-going by poundings from elsewhere, Nor by themselves of own accord can they Rise upwards into the air.
Again, all things Must in their framework hold some air, because They are of framework porous, and the air Encompasses and borders on all things.
Thus, then, this air in iron so deeply stored Is tossed evermore in vexed motion, And therefore drubs upon the ring sans doubt And shakes it up inside.... ***** In sooth, that ring is thither borne along To where 'thas once plunged headlong--thither, lo, Unto the void whereto it took its start.
It happens, too, at times that nature of iron Shrinks from this stone away, accustomed By turns to flee and follow.
Yea, I've seen Those Samothracian iron rings leap up, And iron filings in the brazen bowls Seethe furiously, when underneath was set The magnet stone.
So strongly iron seems To crave to flee that rock.
Such discord great Is gendered by the interposed brass, Because, forsooth, when first the tide of brass Hath seized upon and held possession of The iron's open passage-ways, thereafter Cometh the tide of the stone, and in that iron Findeth all spaces full, nor now hath holes To swim through, as before.
'Tis thus constrained With its own current 'gainst the iron's fabric To dash and beat; by means whereof it spues Forth from itself--and through the brass stirs up-The things which otherwise without the brass It sucks into itself.
In these affairs Marvel thou not that from this stone the tide Prevails not likewise other things to move With its own blows: for some stand firm by weight, As gold; and some cannot be moved forever, Because so porous in their framework they That there the tide streams through without a break, Of which sort stuff of wood is seen to be.
Therefore, when iron (which lies between the two) Hath taken in some atoms of the brass, Then do the streams of that Magnesian rock Move iron by their smitings.
Yet these things Are not so alien from others, that I Of this same sort am ill prepared to name Ensamples still of things exclusively To one another adapt.
Thou seest, first, How lime alone cementeth stones: how wood Only by glue-of-bull with wood is joined-So firmly too that oftener the boards Crack open along the weakness of the grain Ere ever those taurine bonds will lax their hold.
The vine-born juices with the water-springs Are bold to mix, though not the heavy pitch With the light oil-of-olive.
And purple dye Of shell-fish so uniteth with the wool's Body alone that it cannot be ta'en Away forever--nay, though thou gavest toil To restore the same with the Neptunian flood, Nay, though all ocean willed to wash it out With all its waves.
Again, gold unto gold Doth not one substance bind, and only one?
And is not brass by tin joined unto brass?
And other ensamples how many might one find!
What then?
Nor is there unto thee a need Of such long ways and roundabout, nor boots it For me much toil on this to spend.
More fit It is in few words briefly to embrace Things many: things whose textures fall together So mutually adapt, that cavities To solids correspond, these cavities Of this thing to the solid parts of that, And those of that to solid parts of this-Such joinings are the best.
Again, some things Can be the one with other coupled and held, Linked by hooks and eyes, as 'twere; and this Seems more the fact with iron and this stone.
Now, of diseases what the law, and whence The Influence of bane upgathering can Upon the race of man and herds of cattle Kindle a devastation fraught with death, I will unfold.
And, first, I've taught above That seeds there be of many things to us Life-giving, and that, contrariwise, there must Fly many round bringing disease and death.
When these have, haply, chanced to collect And to derange the atmosphere of earth, The air becometh baneful.
And, lo, all That Influence of bane, that pestilence, Or from Beyond down through our atmosphere, Like clouds and mists, descends, or else collects From earth herself and rises, when, a-soak And beat by rains unseasonable and suns, Our earth hath then contracted stench and rot.
Seest thou not, also, that whoso arrive In region far from fatherland and home Are by the strangeness of the clime and waters Distempered?--since conditions vary much.
For in what else may we suppose the clime Among the Britons to differ from Aegypt's own (Where totters awry the axis of the world), Or in what else to differ Pontic clime From Gades' and from climes adown the south, On to black generations of strong men With sun-baked skins?
Even as we thus do see Four climes diverse under the four main-winds And under the four main-regions of the sky, So, too, are seen the colour and face of men Vastly to disagree, and fixed diseases To seize the generations, kind by kind: There is the elephant-disease which down In midmost Aegypt, hard by streams of Nile, Engendered is--and never otherwhere.
In Attica the feet are oft attacked, And in Achaean lands the eyes.
And so The divers spots to divers parts and limbs Are noxious; 'tis a variable air That causes this.
Thus when an atmosphere, Alien by chance to us, begins to heave, And noxious airs begin to crawl along, They creep and wind like unto mist and cloud, Slowly, and everything upon their way They disarrange and force to change its state.
It happens, too, that when they've come at last Into this atmosphere of ours, they taint And make it like themselves and alien.
Therefore, asudden this devastation strange, This pestilence, upon the waters falls, Or settles on the very crops of grain Or other meat of men and feed of flocks.
Or it remains a subtle force, suspense In the atmosphere itself; and when therefrom We draw our inhalations of mixed air, Into our body equally its bane Also we must suck in.
In manner like, Oft comes the pestilence upon the kine, And sickness, too, upon the sluggish sheep.
Nor aught it matters whether journey we To regions adverse to ourselves and change The atmospheric cloak, or whether nature Herself import a tainted atmosphere To us or something strange to our own use Which can attack us soon as ever it come.
THE PLAGUE ATHENS 'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones, Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens The Athenian town.
For coming from afar, Rising in lands of Aegypt, traversing Reaches of air and floating fields of foam, At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped; Whereat by troops unto disease and death Were they o'er-given.
At first, they'd bear about A skull on fire with heat, and eyeballs twain Red with suffusion of blank glare.
Their throats, Black on the inside, sweated oozy blood; And the walled pathway of the voice of man Was clogged with ulcers; and the very tongue, The mind's interpreter, would trickle gore, Weakened by torments, tardy, rough to touch.
Next when that Influence of bane had chocked, Down through the throat, the breast, and streamed had E'en into sullen heart of those sick folk, Then, verily, all the fences of man's life Began to topple.
From the mouth the breath Would roll a noisome stink, as stink to heaven Rotting cadavers flung unburied out.
And, lo, thereafter, all the body's strength And every power of mind would languish, now In very doorway of destruction.
And anxious anguish and ululation (mixed With many a groan) companioned alway The intolerable torments.
Night and day, Recurrent spasms of vomiting would rack Alway their thews and members, breaking down With sheer exhaustion men already spent.
And yet on no one's body couldst thou mark The skin with o'er-much heat to burn aglow, But rather the body unto touch of hands Would offer a warmish feeling, and thereby Show red all over, with ulcers, so to say, Inbranded, like the "sacred fires" o'erspread Along the members.
The inward parts of men, In truth, would blaze unto the very bones; A flame, like flame in furnaces, would blaze Within the stomach.
Nor couldst aught apply Unto their members light enough and thin For shift of aid--but coolness and a breeze Ever and ever.
Some would plunge those limbs On fire with bane into the icy streams, Hurling the body naked into the waves; Many would headlong fling them deeply down The water-pits, tumbling with eager mouth Already agape.
The insatiable thirst That whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops.
Respite of torment was there none.
Their frames Forspent lay prone.
With silent lips of fear Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw So many a time men roll their eyeballs round, Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep, The heralds of old death.
And in those months Was given many another sign of death: The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread Deranged, the sad brow, the countenance Fierce and delirious, the tormented ears Beset with ringings, the breath quick and short Or huge and intermittent, soaking sweat A-glisten on neck, the spittle in fine gouts Tainted with colour of crocus and so salt, The cough scarce wheezing through the rattling throat.
Aye, and the sinews in the fingered hands Were sure to contract, and sure the jointed frame To shiver, and up from feet the cold to mount Inch after inch: and toward the supreme hour At last the pinched nostrils, nose's tip A very point, eyes sunken, temples hollow, Skin cold and hard, the shuddering grimace, The pulled and puffy flesh above the brows!-O not long after would their frames lie prone In rigid death.
And by about the eighth Resplendent light of sun, or at the most On the ninth flaming of his flambeau, they Would render up the life.
If any then Had 'scaped the doom of that destruction, yet Him there awaited in the after days A wasting and a death from ulcers vile And black discharges of the belly, or else Through the clogged nostrils would there ooze along Much fouled blood, oft with an aching head: Hither would stream a man's whole strength and flesh.
And whoso had survived that virulent flow Of the vile blood, yet into thews of him And into his joints and very genitals Would pass the old disease.
And some there were, Dreading the doorways of destruction So much, lived on, deprived by the knife Of the male member; not a few, though lopped Of hands and feet, would yet persist in life, And some there were who lost their eyeballs: O So fierce a fear of death had fallen on them!
And some, besides, were by oblivion Of all things seized, that even themselves they knew No longer.
And though corpse on corpse lay piled Unburied on ground, the race of birds and beasts Would or spring back, scurrying to escape The virulent stench, or, if they'd tasted there, Would languish in approaching death.
But yet Hardly at all during those many suns Appeared a fowl, nor from the woods went forth The sullen generations of wild beasts-They languished with disease and died and died.
In chief, the faithful dogs, in all the streets Outstretched, would yield their breath distressfully For so that Influence of bane would twist Life from their members.
Nor was found one sure And universal principle of cure: For what to one had given the power to take The vital winds of air into his mouth, And to gaze upward at the vaults of sky, The same to others was their death and doom.
In those affairs, O awfullest of all, O pitiable most was this, was this: Whoso once saw himself in that disease Entangled, ay, as damned unto death, Would lie in wanhope, with a sullen heart, Would, in fore-vision of his funeral, Give up the ghost, O then and there.
For, lo, At no time did they cease one from another To catch contagion of the greedy plague,-As though but woolly flocks and horned herds; And this in chief would heap the dead on dead: For who forbore to look to their own sick, O these (too eager of life, of death afeard) Would then, soon after, slaughtering Neglect Visit with vengeance of evil death and base-Themselves deserted and forlorn of help.
But who had stayed at hand would perish there By that contagion and the toil which then A sense of honour and the pleading voice Of weary watchers, mixed with voice of wail Of dying folk, forced them to undergo.
This kind of death each nobler soul would meet.
The funerals, uncompanioned, forsaken, Like rivals contended to be hurried through.
***** And men contending to ensepulchre Pile upon pile the throng of their own dead: And weary with woe and weeping wandered home; And then the most would take to bed from grief.
Nor could be found not one, whom nor disease Nor death, nor woe had not in those dread times Attacked.
By now the shepherds and neatherds all, Yea, even the sturdy guiders of curved ploughs, Began to sicken, and their bodies would lie Huddled within back-corners of their huts, Delivered by squalor and disease to death.
O often and often couldst thou then have seen On lifeless children lifeless parents prone, Or offspring on their fathers', mothers' corpse Yielding the life.
And into the city poured O not in least part from the countryside That tribulation, which the peasantry Sick, sick, brought thither, thronging from every quarter, Plague-stricken mob.
All places would they crowd, All buildings too; whereby the more would death Up-pile a-heap the folk so crammed in town.
Ah, many a body thirst had dragged and rolled Along the highways there was lying strewn Besides Silenus-headed water-fountains,-The life-breath choked from that too dear desire Of pleasant waters.
Ah, everywhere along The open places of the populace, And along the highways, O thou mightest see Of many a half-dead body the sagged limbs, Rough with squalor, wrapped around with rags, Perish from very nastiness, with naught But skin upon the bones, well-nigh already Buried--in ulcers vile and obscene filth.
All holy temples, too, of deities Had Death becrammed with the carcasses; And stood each fane of the Celestial Ones Laden with stark cadavers everywhere-Places which warders of the shrines had crowded With many a guest.
For now no longer men Did mightily esteem the old Divine, The worship of the gods: the woe at hand Did over-master.
Nor in the city then Remained those rites of sepulture, with which That pious folk had evermore been wont To buried be.
For it was wildered all In wild alarms, and each and every one With sullen sorrow would bury his own dead, As present shift allowed.
And sudden stress And poverty to many an awful act Impelled; and with a monstrous screaming they Would, on the frames of alien funeral pyres, Place their own kin, and thrust the torch beneath Oft brawling with much bloodshed round about Rather than quit dead bodies loved in life.
[Transcriber's Notes] This text is derived from a copy in the Ave Maria University library, catalog number "B 171 .S8" [End Transcriber's Notes] A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd TORONTO A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY BY W. T. STACE MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1920 COPYRIGHT GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. {v} PREFACE This book contains the substance, and for the most part the words, of a course of public lectures delivered during the first three months of 1919.
The original division into lectures has been dropped, the matter being more conveniently redivided into chapters.
The audience to whom the lectures were delivered was composed of members of the general public, and not only of students.
For the most part they possessed no previous knowledge of philosophy.
Hence this book, like the original lectures, assumes no previous special knowledge, though it assumes, of course, a state of general education in the reader.
Technical philosophical terms are carefully explained when first introduced; and a special effort has been made to put philosophical ideas in the clearest way possible.
But it must be remembered that many of the profoundest as well as the most difficult of human conceptions are to be found in Greek philosophy.
Such ideas are difficult in themselves, however clearly expressed.
No amount of explanation can ever render them anything but difficult to the unsophisticated mind, and anything in the nature of "philosophy made easy" is only to be expected from quacks and charlatans.
Greek philosophy is not, even now, antiquated.
It is not from the point of view of an antiquary or historian {vi} that its treasures are valuable.
We are dealing here with living things, and not with mere dead things--not with the dry bones and debris of a bygone age.
And I have tried to lecture and write for living people, and not for mere fossil-grubbers.
If I did not believe that there is to be found here, in Greek philosophy, at least a measure of the truth, the truth that does not grow old, I would not waste five minutes of my life upon it.
"We do not," says a popular modern writer, [Footnote 1] "bring the young mind up against the few broad elemental questions that are the _questions of metaphysics_ .... We do not make it discuss, correct it, elucidate it.
That was the way of the Greeks, and we worship that divine people far too much to adopt their way.
No, we lecture to our young people about not philosophy but philosophers, we put them through book after book, telling how other people have discussed these questions.
We avoid the questions of metaphysics, but we deliver semi-digested half views of the discussions of, and answers to these questions made by men of all sorts and qualities, in various remote languages and under conditions quite different from our own.
.
.
.
It is as if we began teaching arithmetic by long lectures upon the origin of the Roman numerals, and then went on to the lives and motives of the Arab mathematicians in Spain, or started with Roger Bacon in chemistry, or Sir Richard Owen in comparative anatomy ....
It is time the educational powers began to realise that the questions of metaphysics, the elements of philosophy, are, here and now to be done afresh in each mind .... What is wanted is philosophy, and not a shallow smattering of the history of philosophy ... {vii} The proper way to discuss metaphysics, like the proper way to discuss mathematics or chemistry, is to discuss the accumulated and digested product of human thought in such matters."
[Footnote 1: H. G. Wells in "First and Last Things."]
Plausible words these, certain to seem conclusive to the mob, notwithstanding that for one element of truth they contain nine of untruth!
The elements of truth are that our educational system unwarrantably leaves unused the powerful weapon of oral discussion--so forcibly wielded by the Greeks--and develops book knowledge at the expense of original thought.
Though even here it must be remembered, as regards the Greeks, (1) that if they studied the history of philosophy but little, it was because there was then but little history of philosophy to study, and (2) that if anyone imagines that the great Greek thinkers did not fully master the thought of their predecessors before constructing their own systems, he is grievously mistaken, and (3) that in some cases the over-reliance on oral discussion--the opposite fault to ours--led to intellectual dishonesty, quibbling, ostentation, disregard of truth, shallowness, and absence of all principle; this was the case with the Sophists.
As to the comparisons between arithmetic and philosophy, chemistry and philosophy, etc., they rest wholly upon a false parallel, and involve a total failure to comprehend the nature of philosophic truth, and its fundamental difference from arithmetical, chemical, or physical truth.
If Eratosthenes thought the circumference of the earth to be so much, whereas it has now been discovered to be so much, then the later correct view simply cancels and renders nugatory the older view.
{viii} The one is correct, the other incorrect.
We can ignore and forget the incorrect view altogether.
But the development of philosophy proceeds on quite other principles.
Philosophical truth is no sum in arithmetic to be totted up so that the answer is thus formally and finally correct or incorrect.
Rather, the philosophical truth unfolds itself, factor by factor, in time, in the successive systems of philosophy, and it is only in the complete series that the complete truth is to be found.
The system of Aristotle does not simply cancel and refute that of Plato.
Spinoza does not simply abolish Descartes.
Aristotle completes Plato, as his necessary complement.
Spinoza does the same for Descartes.
And so it is always.
The calculation of Eratosthenes is simply wrong, and so we can afford to forget it.
But the systems of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz, etc., are all alike factors of the truth.
They are as true now as they were in their own times, though they are not, and never were, the whole truth.
And therefore it is that they are not simply wrong, done with, finished, ended, and that we cannot afford to forget them.
Whether it is not possible to bring the many lights to a single focus, to weld the various factors of the truth into a single organic whole or system, which should thus be the total result to date, is another question.
Only one such attempt has ever been made, but no one will pretend that it is possible to understand it without a thorough knowledge of all previous systems, a knowledge, in fact, of the separate factors of the truth before they are thus combined into a total result.
Besides, that attempt, too, is now part of the history of philosophy!
Hence any philosophical thinking which is not founded {ix} upon a thorough study of the systems of the past will necessarily be shallow and worthless.
And the notions that we can dispense with this study, and do everything out of our own heads, that everyone is to be his own philosopher, and is competent to construct his own system in his own way--such ideas are utterly empty and hollow.
Of these truths, indeed, we see a notable example in what the writer just quoted styles his "metaphysic."
This so-called metaphysic is wholly based upon the assumption that knowledge and its object exist, each on its own account, external to one another, the one here, the other there over against it, and that knowledge is an "instrument" which in this external manner takes hold of its object and makes it its own.
The very moment the word "instrument" is used here, all the rest, including the invalidity of knowledge, follows as a matter of course.
Such assumption then--that knowledge is an "instrument"--our writer makes, wholly uncritically, and without a shadow of right.
He gives no sign that it has ever even occurred to him that this is an assumption, that it needs any enquiry, or that it is possible for anyone to think otherwise.
Yet anyone who will take the trouble, not merely superficially to dip into the history of philosophy, but thoroughly to submit himself to its discipline, will at least learn that this is an assumption, a very doubtful assumption, too, which no one now has the right to foist upon the public without discussion as if it were an axiomatic truth.
He might even learn that it is a false assumption.
And he will note, as an ominous sign, that the subjectivism which permeates and directs the whole course of Mr. Wells's thinking is identical in character with that {x} subjectivism which was the essential feature of the decay and _downfall_ of the Greek philosophic spirit, and was the cause of its final _ruin_ and _dissolution_.
I would counsel the young, therefore, to pay no attention to plausible and shallow words such as those quoted, but, before forming their own philosophic opinions, most thoroughly and earnestly to study and master the history of past philosophies, first the Greek and then the modern.
That this cannot be done merely by reading a modern resume of that history, but only by studying the great thinkers in their own works, is true.
But philosophical education must begin, and the function of such books as this, is, not to complete it, but to begin it; and to obtain first of all a general view of what must afterwards be studied in detail is no bad way of beginning.
Moreover, the study of the development and historical connexions of the various philosophies, which is not found in the original writings themselves, will always provide a work for histories of philosophy to do.
Two omissions in this book require, perhaps, a word of explanation.
Firstly, in dealing with Plato's politics I have relied on the "Republic," and said nothing of the "Laws."
This would not be permissible in a history of political theories, nor even in a history of philosophy which laid any special emphasis on politics.
But, from my point of view, politics lie on the extreme outer margin of philosophy, so that a more slender treatment of the subject is permissible.
Moreover, the "Republic," whether written early or late, expresses, in my opinion, the views of Plato, and not those of Socrates, and it still remains the outstanding, typical, and characteristic {xi} expression of the Platonic political ideal, however much that ideal had afterwards to be modified by practical considerations.
Secondly, I have not even mentioned the view, now held by some, that the theory of Ideas is really the work of Socrates, and not of Plato, and that Plato's own philosophy consisted in some sort of esoteric number-theory, combined with theistic and other doctrines.
I can only say that this theory, as expounded for example by Professor Burnet, does not commend itself to me, that, in fact, I do not believe it, but that, it being impossible to discuss it adequately in a book of this kind, I have thought that, rather than discuss it inadequately, it were better to leave it alone altogether.
Moreover, it stands on a totally different footing from, say, Professor Burnet's interpretation of Parmenides, which I have discussed.
That concerned the interpretation of the true meaning of a philosophy.
This merely concerns the question who was the author of a philosophy.
That was a question of principle, this merely of personalities.
That was of importance to the philosopher, this merely to the historian and antiquary.
It is like the Bacon-Shakespeare question, which no lover of drama, as such, need concern himself with at all.
No doubt the Plato-Socrates question is of interest to antiquarians, but after all, fundamentally, it does not matter who is to have the credit of the theory of Ideas, the only essential thing for us being to understand that theory, and rightly to apprehend its value as a factor of the truth.
This book is primarily concerned with philosophical ideas, their truth, meaning, and significance, and not with the rights and wrongs of antiquarian disputes.
It does indeed purport to {xii} be a _history_, as well as a discussion of philosophic conceptions.
But this only means that it takes up philosophical ideas in their historical sequence and connexions, and it does this only because the conceptions of evolution in philosophy, of the onward march of thought to a determined goal; of its gradual and steady rise to the supreme heights of idealism, its subsequent decline, and ultimate collapse, are not only profoundly impressive as historical phenomena, but are of vital importance to a true conception of philosophy itself.
Were it not for this, Mr. Wells would, I think, be right, and I for one should abandon treatment in historical order altogether.
Lastly, I may remark that the description of this book as a _critical_ history means that it is, or attempts to be critical, not of dates, texts, readings, and the like, but of philosophical conceptions.
I owe a debt of thanks to Mr. F. L. Woodward, M.A., late principal of Mahinda College, Galle, Ceylon, for assisting me in the compilation of the index of names, and in sundry other matters.
W.T.S.
_January_, 1920.
{xiii} CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I.
THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL.
THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 1 II.
THE IONICS.
THALES.
ANAXIMANDER.
ANAXIMENES.
OTHER IONIC THINKERS 20 III.
THE PYTHAGOREANS 31 IV.
THE ELEATICS.
XENOPHANES.
PARMENIDES.
ZENO.
CRITICAL REMARKS ON ELEATICISM 40 V. HERACLEITUS 72 VI.
EMPEDOCLES 81 VII.
THE ATOMISTS 86 VIII.
ANAXAGORAS 94 IX.
THE SOPHISTS 106 X. SOCRATES 127 XI.
THE SEMI-SOCRATICS.
THE CYNICS.
THE CYRENAICS.
THE MEGARICS 155 XII.
PLATO 164 (i.)
Life and writings 165 (ii.)
The theory of knowledge 177 (iii.)
Dialectic, or the theory of Ideas 183 (iv.)
Physics, or the theory of existence 207 (a) The doctrine of the world 207 (b) The doctrine of the human soul 211 {xiv} (v.) Ethics 217 (a) Of the individual 217 (b) The State 225 (vi.)
Views upon art 229 (vii.)
Critical estimate of Plato's philosophy 234 XIII.
ARISTOTLE: (i.)
Life, Writings, and general character of his work 249 (ii.)
Logic 260 (iii.)
Metaphysics 261 (iv.)
Physics, or the philosophy of nature 288 (v.) Ethics: (a) The individual 314 (b) The State 320 (vi.)
Aesthetics, or the theory of art 325 (vii.)
Critical estimate of Aristotle's philosophy 331 XIV.
THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY 339 XV.
THE STOICS.
LOGIC.
PHYSICS.
ETHICS 344 XVI.
THE EPICUREANS.
PHYSICS.
ETHICS 354 XVII.
THE SCEPTICS.
PYRRHO.
THE NEW ACADEMY.
LATER SCEPTICISM 361 XVIII.
TRANSITION TO NEO-PLATONISM 368 XIX.
THE NEO-PLATONISTS 372 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 378 INDEX OF NAMES 382 {1} A CRITICAL HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY CHAPTER I THE IDEA OF PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL.
THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY It is natural that, at the commencement of any study, one should be expected to say what the subject-matter of that study is.
Botany is the knowledge of plants, astronomy of the heavenly bodies, geology of the rocks of the earth's crust.
What, then, is the special sphere of philosophy?
What is philosophy about?
Now it is not as easy to give a concise definition of philosophy, as it is of the other sciences.
In the first place, the content of philosophy has differed considerably in different periods of history.
In general the tendency has been to narrow down the scope of the subject as knowledge advanced, to exclude from philosophy what was formerly included in it.
Thus in the time of Plato, physics and astronomy were included as parts of philosophy, whereas now they constitute separate sciences.
This, however, is not an insurmountable difficulty.
What chiefly militates against the effort to frame a definition is that the precise content of philosophy is differently viewed by different schools of thought.
Thus a definition of {2} philosophy which a follower of Herbert Spencer might frame would be unacceptable to an Hegelian, and the Hegelian definition would be rejected by the Spencerian.
If we were to include in our definition some such phrase as "the knowledge of the Absolute," while this might suit some philosophers, others would deny that there is any Absolute at all.
Another school would say that there may be an Absolute, but that it is unknowable, so that philosophy cannot be the knowledge of it.
Yet another school would tell us that, whether there is or is not an Absolute, whether it is or is not knowable, the knowledge of it is in any case useless, and ought not to be sought.
Hence no definition of philosophy can be appreciated without some knowledge of the special tenets of the various schools.
In a word, the proper place to give a definition is not at the beginning of the study of philosophy, but at the end of it.
Then, with all views before us, we might be able to decide the question.
I shall make no attempt, therefore, to place before you a precise definition.
But perhaps the same purpose will be served, if I pick out some of the leading traits of philosophy, which serve to distinguish it from other branches of knowledge, and illustrate them by enumerating--but without any attempt at completeness--some of the chief problems which philosophers have usually attempted to solve.
And firstly, philosophy is distinguished from other branches of knowledge by the fact that, whereas these each take some particular portion of the universe for their study, philosophy does not specialize in this way, but deals with the universe as a whole.
The universe is one, and ideal knowledge of it would be one; but the principles of specialization and division of {3} labour apply here as elsewhere, and so astronomy takes for its subject that portion of the universe which we call the heavenly bodies, botany specializes in plant life, psychology in the facts of the mind, and so on.
But philosophy does not deal with this or that particular sphere of being, but with being as such.
It seeks to see the universe as a single co-ordinated system of things.
It might be described as the science of things in general.
The world in its most universal aspects is its subject.
All sciences tend to generalize, to reduce multitudes of particular facts to single general laws.
Philosophy carries this process to its highest limit.
It generalizes to the utmost.
It seeks to view the entire universe in the light of the fewest possible general principles, in the light, if possible, of a single ultimate principle.
It is a consequence of this that the special sciences take their subject matter, and much of their contents, for granted, whereas philosophy seeks to trace everything back to its ultimate grounds.
It may be thought that this description of the sciences is incorrect.
Is not the essential maxim of modern science to assume nothing, to take nothing for granted, to assert nothing without demonstration, to prove all?
This is no doubt true within certain limits, but beyond those limits it does not hold good.
All the sciences take quite for granted certain principles and facts which are, for them, ultimate.
To investigate these is the portion of the philosopher, and philosophy thus takes up the thread of knowledge where the sciences drop it.
It begins where they end.
It investigates what they take as a matter of course.
Let us consider some examples of this.
The science of geometry deals with the laws of space.
But it takes {4} space just as it finds it in common experience.
It takes space for granted.
No geometrician asks what space is.
This, then, will be a problem for philosophy.
Moreover, geometry is founded upon certain fundamental propositions which, it asserts, being self-evident, require no investigation.
These are called "axioms."
That two straight lines cannot enclose a space, and that equals being added to equals the results are equal, are common examples.
Into the ground of these axioms the geometrician does not enquire.
That is the business of philosophy.
Not that philosophers affect to doubt the truth of these axioms.
But surely it is a very strange thing, and a fact quite worthy of study, that there are some statements of which we feel that we must give the most laborious proofs, and others in the case of which we feel no such necessity.
How is it that some propositions can be self-evident and others must be proved?
What is the ground of this distinction?
And when one comes to think of it, it is a very extraordinary property of mind that it should be able to make the most universal and unconditional statements about things, without a jot of evidence or proof.
When we say that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, we do not mean merely that this has been found true in regard to all the particular pairs of straight lines with which we have tried the experiment.
We mean that it never can be and never has been otherwise.
We mean that a million million years ago two straight lines did not enclose a space, and that it will be the same a million million years hence, and that it is just as true on those stars, if there are any, which are invisible even to the greatest telescopes.
But we have no experience of what will {5} happen a million million years hence, or of what can take place among those remote stars.
And yet we assert, with absolute confidence, that our axiom is and must be equally true everywhere and at all times.
Moreover, we do not found this on probabilities gathered from experience.
Nobody would make experiments or use telescopes to prove such axioms.
How is it that they are thus self-evident, that the mind can make these definite and far-reaching assertions without any evidence at all?
Geometricians do not consider these questions.
They take the facts for granted.
To solve these problems is for philosophy.
Again, the physical sciences take the existence of matter for granted.
But philosophy asks what matter is.
At first sight it might appear that this question is one for the physicist and not the philosopher.
For the problem of "the constitution of matter" is a well-known physical problem.
But a little consideration will show that this is quite a different question from the one the philosopher propounds.
For even if it be shown that all matter is ether, or electricity, or vortex-atoms, or other such, this does not help us in our special problem.
For these theories, even if proved, only teach us that the different kinds of matter are forms of some one physical existence.
But what we want to know is what physical existence itself is.
To prove that one kind of matter is really another kind of matter does not tell us what is the essential nature of matter.
That, therefore, is a problem, not of science, but of philosophy.
In the same way, all the sciences take the existence of the universe for granted.
But philosophy seeks to know why it is that there is a universe at all.
Is it {6} true, for example, that there is some single ultimate reality which produces all things?
And if so, what sort of a reality is it?
Is it matter, or mind, or something different from both?
Is it good or evil?
And if it is good, how is it that there is evil in the world?
Moreover every science, except the purely mathematical sciences, assumes the truth of the law of causation.
Every student of logic knows that this is the ultimate canon of the sciences, the foundation of them all.
If we did not believe in the truth of the law of causation, namely, that everything which has a beginning has a cause, and that in the same circumstances the same things invariably happen, all the sciences would at once crumble to dust.
In every scientific investigation, this truth is assumed.
If we ask the zoologist how he knows that all camels are herbivorous, he will no doubt point in the first instance to experience.
The habits of many thousands of camels have been observed.
But this only proves that those particular camels are herbivorous.
How about the millions that have never been observed at all?
He can only appeal to the law of causation.
The camel's structure is such that it cannot digest meat.
It is a case of cause and effect.
How do we know that water always freezes at 0° centigrade (neglecting questions of pressure, etc.)?
How do we know that this is true at those regions of the earth where no one has ever been to see?
Only because we believe that in the same circumstances the same thing always happens, that like causes always produce like effects.
But how do we know the truth of this law of causation itself?
Science does not consider the question.
It traces its assertions back to this law, but goes no {7} further.
Its fundamental canon it takes for granted.
The grounds of causation, why it is true, and how we know it is true, are, therefore, philosophical questions.
One may be tempted to enquire whether many of these questions, especially those connected with the ultimate reality, do not transcend human faculties altogether, and whether we had not better confine our enquiries to matters that are not "too high for us."
One may question whether it is possible for finite minds to comprehend the infinite.
Now it is very right that such questions should be asked, and it is essential that a correct answer should be found.
But, for the present, there is nothing to say about the matter, except that these questions themselves constitute one of the most important problems of philosophy, though it is one which, as a matter of fact, has scarcely been considered in full until modern times.
The Greeks did not raise the question.
[Footnote 2] And as this is itself one of the problems of philosophy, it will be well to start with an open mind.
The question cannot be decided offhand, but must be thoroughly investigated.
That the finite mind of man cannot understand the infinite is one of those popular dogmatic assertions, which are bruited about from mouth to mouth, as if they were self-evident, and so come to tyrannize over men's minds.
But for the most part those who make this statement have never thoroughly sifted the grounds of it, but simply take it as something universally admitted, and trouble no further about it.
But at the very least we should first know exactly what {8} we mean by such terms as "mind," "finite," and "infinite."
And we shall not find that our difficulties end even there.
[Footnote 2: The reasoning of the Sceptics and others no doubt involved this question.
But they did not consider it in its peculiar modern form.]
Philosophy, then, deals with the universe as a whole; and it seeks to take nothing for granted.
A third characteristic may be noted as especially important, though here no doubt we are trenching upon matters upon which there is no such universal agreement.
Philosophy is essentially an attempt to rise from sensuous to pure, that is, non-senuous, thought.
This requires some explanation.
We are conscious, so to speak, of two different worlds, the external physical world and the internal mental world.
If we look outwards we are aware of the former, if we turn our gaze inwards upon our own minds we become aware of the latter.
It may appear incorrect to say that the external world is purely physical, for it includes other minds.
I am aware of your mind, and this is, to me, part of the world which is external to me.
But I am not now speaking of what we know by inference, but only of what we directly perceive.
I cannot directly perceive your mind, but only your physical body.
In the last resort it will be found that I am aware of the existence of your mind only by inference from perceived physical facts, such as the movements of your body and the sounds that issue from your lips.
The only mind which I can immediately perceive is my own.
There is then a physical world external to us, and an internal mental world.
Which of these will naturally be regarded as the most real?
Men will regard as the most real that which is the most familiar, that which they came first into {9} contact with, and have most experience of.
And this is unquestionably the external material world.
When a child is born, it turns its eyes to the light, which is an external physical thing.
Gradually it gets to know different objects in the room.
It comes to know its mother, but its mother is, in the first instance, a physical object, a body.
It is only long afterwards that its mother becomes for the child a mind or a soul.
In general, all our earliest experiences are of the material world.
We come to know of the mental world only by introspection, and the habit of introspection comes in youth or manhood only, and to many people it hardly comes at all.
In all those early impressionable years, therefore, when our most durable ideas of the universe are formed, we are concerned almost exclusively with the material world.
The mental world with which we are much less familiar consequently tends to appear to all of us something comparatively unreal, a world of shadows.
The bent of our minds becomes materialistic.
What I have said of the individual is equally true of the race.
Primitive man does not brood over the facts of his own mind.
Necessity compels him to devote most of his life to the acquisition of food, and to warding off the dangers which continually threaten him from other physical objects.
And even among ourselves, the majority of men have to spend most of their time upon considering various aspects of things external to them.
By the individual training of each man, and by long hereditary habit, then, it comes about that men tend to regard the physical world as more real than the mental.
{10} Abundant evidences of this are to be found in the structure of human language.
We seek to explain what is strange by means of what is well-known.
We try to express the unfamiliar in terms of the familiar.
We shall find that language always seeks to express the mental by the analogy of the physical.
We speak of a man as a "clear" thinker.
"Clear" is an attribute of physical objects.
Water is clear if it has no extraneous matter in it.
We say that a man's ideas are "luminous," thus taking a metaphor from physical light.
We talk of having an idea "at the back of the mind."
"At the back of"?
Has the mind got a front and a back?
We are thinking of it as if it were a physical thing in space.
We speak of mental habits of "attention."
"Attention" means stretching or turning the mind in a special direction.
We "reflect."
"Reflection" means bending our thoughts back upon themselves.
But, literally speaking, only physical objects can be stretched, turned, and bent.
Whenever we wish to express something mental we do it by a physical analogy.
We talk of it in terms of physical things.
This shows how deep-rooted our materialism is.
If the mental world were more familiar and real to us than the material, language would have been constructed on the opposite principle.
The earliest words of language would have expressed mental facts, and we should afterwards have tried to express physical things by means of mental analogies.
In the East one commonly hears Oriental idealism contrasted with Western materialism.
Such phrases may possess a certain relative truth.
But if they mean that there is in the East, or anywhere else in the world, {11} a race of men who are naturally idealists, they are nonsense.
Materialism is ingrained in all men.
We, Easterns or Westerns, are born materialists.
Hence when we try to think of objects which are commonly regarded as non-material, such as God or the soul, it requires continual effort, a tremendous struggle, to avoid picturing them as material things.
It goes utterly against the grain.
Perhaps hundreds of thousands of years of hereditary materialism are against us.
The popular idea of ghosts will illustrate this.
Those who believe in ghosts, I suppose, regard them as some sort of disembodied souls.
The pictures of ghosts in magazines show them as if composed of matter, but matter of some _thin_ kind, such as vapour.
Certain Indian systems of thought, which are by way of regarding themselves as idealistic, nevertheless teach that thought or mind is an extremely subtle kind of matter, far subtler than any ever dealt with by the physicist and chemist.
This is very interesting, because it shows that the authors of such ideas feel vaguely that it is wrong to think of thought as if it were matter, but being unable to think of it in any other way, owing to man's ingrained materialism, they seek to palliate their sin by making it thin matter.
Of course this is just as absurd as the excuse made by the mother of an illegitimate child, that it was a very small one.
This thin matter is just as material as lead or brass.
And such systems are purely materialistic.
But they illustrate the extraordinary difficulty that the ordinary mind experiences in attempting to rise from sensuous to non-sensuous thinking.
They illustrate the ingrained materialism of man.
This natural human materialism is also the cause {12} of mysticism and symbolism.
A symbolic thought necessarily contains two terms, the symbol and the reality which it symbolizes.
The symbol is always a sensuous or material object, or the mental image of such an object, and the reality is always something non-sensuous.
Because the human mind finds it such an incredible struggle to think non-sensuously, it seeks to help itself by symbols.
It takes a material thing and makes it stand for the non-material thing which it is too weak to grasp.
Thus we talk of God as the "light of lights."
No doubt this is a very natural expression of the religious consciousness, and it has its meaning.
But it is not the naked truth.
Light is a physical existence, and God is no more light than he is heat or electricity.
People talk of symbolism as if it were a very high and exalted thing.
They say, "What a wonderful piece of symbolism!"
But, in truth symbolism is the mark of an infirm mind.
It is the measure of our weakness and not of our strength.
Its root is in materialism, and it is produced and propagated by those who are unable to rise above a materialistic level.
Now philosophy is essentially the attempt to get beyond this sort of symbolic and mystical thinking, to get at the naked truth, to grasp what lies behind the symbol as it is in itself.
These inferior modes of thought are a help to those who are themselves below their level, but are a hindrance to those who seek to reach the highest level of truth.
It is often said that philosophy is a very difficult and abstruse subject.
Its difficulty lies almost wholly in the struggle to think non-sensuously.
Whenever we {13} come to anything in philosophy that seems beyond us, we shall generally find that the root of the trouble is that we are trying to think non-sensuous objects in a sensuous way, that is, we are trying to form mental pictures and images of them, for all mental pictures are composed of sensuous materials, and hence no such picture is adequate for a pure thought.
It is impossible to exaggerate this difficulty.
Even the greatest philosophers have succumbed to it.
We shall constantly have to point out that when a great thinker, such as Parmenides or Plato, fails, and begins to flounder in difficulties, the reason usually is that, though for a time he has attained to pure thought, he has sunk back exhausted into sensuous thinking, and has attempted to form mental pictures of what is beyond the power of any such picture to represent, and so has fallen into contradictions.
We must keep this constantly in mind in the study of philosophy.
In modern times philosophy is variously divided, as into metaphysics, which is the theory of reality, ethics, the theory of the good, and aesthetics, the theory of the beautiful.
Modern divisions do not, however, altogether fit in with Greek philosophy, and it is better to let the natural divisions develop themselves as we go on, than to attempt to force our material into these moulds.
If, now, we look round the world and ask; in what countries and what ages the kind of thought we have described has attained a high degree of development, we shall find such a development only in ancient Greece and in modern Europe.
There were great civilizations in Egypt, China, Assyria, and so on.
They produced art and religion, but no philosophy to speak of.
Even {14} ancient Rome added nothing to the world's philosophical knowledge.
Its so-called philosophers, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Lucretius, produced no essentially new principle.
They were merely disciples of Greek Schools, whose writings may be full of interest and of noble feeling, but whose essential thoughts contained nothing not already developed by the Greeks.
The case of India is more doubtful.
Opinions may differ as to whether India ever had any philosophy.
The Upanishads contain religio-philosophical thinking of a kind.
And later we have the six so-called schools of philosophy.
The reasons why this Indian thought is not usually included in histories of philosophy are as follows.
Firstly, philosophy in India has never separated itself from religious and practical needs.
The ideal of knowledge for its own sake is rarely to be found.
Knowledge is desired merely as a means towards salvation.
Philosophy and science, said Aristotle, have their roots in wonder,--the desire to know and understand for the sole sake of knowing and understanding.
But the roots of Indian thought lie in the anxiety of the individual to escape from the ills and calamities of existence.
This is not the scientific, but the practical spirit.
It gives birth to religions, but not to philosophies.
Of course it is a mistake to imagine that philosophy and religion are totally separate and have no community.
They are in fact fundamentally akin.
But they are also distinct.
Perhaps the truest view is that they are identical in substance, but different in form.
The substance of both is the absolute reality and the relation of all things, including men, to that reality.
But whereas philosophy presents this subject-matter scientifically, in {15} the form of pure thought, religion gives it in the form of sensuous pictures, myths, images, and symbols.
And this gives us the second reason why Indian thought is more properly classed as religious than philosophical.
It seldom or never rises from sensuous to pure thought.
It is poetical rather than scientific.
It is content with symbols and metaphors in place of rational explanations, and all this is a mark of the religious, rather than the philosophical, presentation of the truth.
For example, the main thought of the Upanishads is that the entire universe is derived from a single, changeless, eternal, infinite, being, called Brahman or Paramatman.
When we come to the crucial question how the universe arises out of this being, we find such passages as this:--"As the colours in the flame or the red-hot iron proceed therefrom a thousand-fold, so do all beings proceed from the Unchangeable, and return again to it."
Or again, "As the web issues from the spider, as little sparks proceed from fire, so from the one soul proceed all living animals, all worlds, all the gods and all beings."
There are thousands of such passages in the Upanishads.
But obviously these neither explain nor attempt to explain anything.
They are nothing but hollow metaphors.
They are poetic rather than scientific.
They may satisfy the imagination and the religious feelings, but not the rational understanding.
Or when again Krishna, in the Bhagavat-Gita, describes himself as the moon among the lunar mansions, the sun among the stars, Meru among the high-peaked mountains, it is clear that we are merely piling sensuous image upon sensuous image without any further understanding of what the nature of the absolute being in its own self is.
{16} The moon, the sun, Meru, are physical sense-objects.
And this is totally sensuous thinking, whereas the aim of philosophy is to rise to pure thought.
In such passages we are still on the level of symbolism, and philosophy only begins when symbolism has been surpassed.
No doubt it is possible to take the line that man's thought is not capable of grasping the infinite as it is in itself, and can only fall back upon symbols.
But that is another question, and at any rate, whether it is or is not possible to rise from sensuous to pure thought, philosophy is essentially the attempt to do so.
Lastly, Indian thought is usually excluded from the history of philosophy because, whatever its character, it lies outside the main stream of human development.
It has been cut off by geographical and other barriers.
Consequently, whatever its value in itself, it has exerted little influence upon philosophy in general.
The claim is sometimes put forward by Orientals themselves that Greek philosophy came from India, and if this were true, it would greatly affect the statement made in the last paragraph.
But it is not true.
It used to be believed that Greek philosophy came from "the East," but this meant Egypt.
And even this theory is now abandoned.
Greek culture, especially mathematics and astronomy, owed much to Egypt.
But Greece did not owe its philosophy to that source.
The view that it did was propagated by Alexandrian priests and others, whose sole motive was, that to represent the triumphs of Greek philosophy as borrowed from Egypt, flattered their national vanity.
It was a great thing, wherever they found anything good, to say, "this must have come from us."
A precisely similar motive lies behind the {17} Oriental claim that Greek philosophy came from India.
There is not a scrap of evidence for it, and it rests entirely upon the supposed resemblance between the two.
But this resemblance is in fact mythical.
The whole character of Greek philosophy is European and unoriental to the back-bone.
The doctrine of re-incarnation is usually appealed to.
This characteristically Indian doctrine was held by the Pythagoreans, from whom it passed to Empedocles and Plato.
The Pythagoreans got it from the Orphic sect, to whom quite possibly it came indirectly from India, although even this is by no means certain, and is in fact highly doubtful.
But even if this be true, it proves nothing.
Re-incarnation is of little importance in Greek philosophy.
Even in Plato, who makes much of it, it is quite unessential to the fundamental ideas of his philosophy, and is only artificially connected with them.
And the influence of this doctrine upon Plato's philosophy was thoroughly bad.
It was largely responsible for leading him into the main error of his philosophy, which it required an Aristotle to correct.
All this will be evident when we come to consider the systems of Plato and Aristotle.
The origin of Greek philosophy is not to be found in India, or Egypt, or in any country outside Greece.
The Greeks themselves were solely responsible for it.
It is not as if history traces back their thought only to a point at which it was already highly developed, and cannot explain its beginnings.
We know its history from the time, so to speak, when it was in the cradle.
In the next two chapters we shall see that the first Greek attempts at philosophising were so much the beginnings of a beginner, were so very crude and unformed, that it is {18} mere perversity to suppose that they could not make these simple efforts for themselves.
From those crude beginnings we can trace the whole development in detail up to its culmination in Aristotle, and beyond.
So there is no need to assume foreign influence at any point.
Greek philosophy begins in the sixth century before Christ.
It begins when men for the first time attempted to give a scientific reply to the question, "what is the explanation of the world?"
Before this era we have, of course, the mythologies, cosmogonies, and theologies of the poets.
But they contain no attempt at a naturalistic explanation of things.
They belong to the spheres of poetry and religion, not to philosophy.
It must not be supposed, when we speak of the philosophy of Greece, that we refer only to the mainland of what is now called Greece.
Very early in history, Greeks of the mainland migrated to the islands of the Aegean, to Sicily, to the South of Italy, to the coast of Asia Minor, and elsewhere, and founded flourishing colonies.
The Greece of philosophy includes all these places.
It is to be thought of rather racially than territorially.
It is the philosophy of the men of Greek race, wherever they happened to be situated.
And in fact the first period of Greek philosophy deals exclusively with the thoughts of these colonial Greeks.
It was not till just before the time of Socrates that philosophy was transplanted to the mainland.
Greek philosophy falls naturally into three periods.
The first may be roughly described as pre-Socratic philosophy, though it does not include the Sophists who were both the contemporaries and the predecessors of Socrates.
This period is the rise of Greek philosophy.
{19} Secondly, the period from the Sophists to Aristotle, which includes Socrates and Plato, is the maturity of Greek philosophy, the actual zenith and culmination of which is undoubtedly the system of Aristotle.
Lastly, the period of post-Aristotelian philosophy constitutes the decline and fall of the national thought.
These are not merely arbitrary divisions.
Each period has its own special characters, which will be described in the sequel.
A few words must be said of the sources of our knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy.
If we want to know what Plato and Aristotle thought about any matter, we have only to consult their works.
But the works of the earlier philosophers have not come down to us, except in fragments, and several of them never committed their opinions to writing.
Our knowledge of their doctrines is the result of the laborious sifting by scholars of such materials as are available.
Luckily the material has been plentiful.
It may be divided into three classes.
First come the fragments of the original writings of the philosophers themselves.
These are in many cases long and important, in other cases scanty.
Secondly, there are the references in Plato and Aristotle.
Of these by far the most important are to be found in the first book of Aristotle's "Metaphysics," which is a history of philosophy up to his own time, and is the first attempt on record to write a history of philosophy.
Thirdly, there is an enormous mass of references, some valuable, some worthless, contained in the works of later, but still ancient, writers.
{20} CHAPTER II THE IONICS.
The earliest Greek philosophers belong to what in after times came to be called the Ionic school.
The name was derived from the fact that the three chief representatives of this school, Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, were all men of Ionia, that is to say, the coast of Asia Minor.
Thales As the founder of the earliest school in history, Thales of Miletus is generally accounted the founder and father of all philosophy.
He was born about 624 B.C.
and died about 550 B.C.
These dates are approximate, and it should be understood that the same thing is true of nearly all the dates of the early philosophers.
Different scholars vary, sometimes as much as ten years, in the dates they give.
We shall not enter into these questions at all, because they are of no importance.
And throughout these lectures it should be understood that the dates given are approximate.
Thales, at any rate, was a contemporary of Solon and Croesus.
He was famous in antiquity for his mathematical and astronomical learning, and also for his practical sagacity and wisdom.
He is included in {21} all the accounts of the Seven Sages.
The story of the Seven Sages is unhistorical, but the fact that the lists of their names differ considerably as given by different writers, whereas the name of Thales appears in all, shows with what veneration he was anciently regarded.
An eclipse of the sun occurred in 585 B.C., and Thales is alleged to have predicted it, which was a feat for the astronomy of those times.
And he must have been a great engineer, for he caused a diversion of the river Halys, when Croesus and his army were unable to cross it.
Nothing else is known of his life, though there were many apocryphal stories.
No writings by Thales were extant even in the time of Aristotle, and it is believed that he wrote nothing.
His philosophy, if we can call it by that name, consisted, so far as we know, of two propositions.
Firstly, that the principle of all things is water, that all comes from water, and to water all returns.
And secondly, that the earth is a flat disc which floats upon water.
The first, which is the chief proposition, means that water is the one primal kind of existence and that everything else in the universe is merely a modification of water.
Two questions will naturally occur to us.
Why did Thales choose water as the first principle?
And by what process does water, in his opinion, come to be changed into other things; how was the universe formed out of water?
We cannot answer either of these questions with certainty.
Aristotle says that Thales "probably derived his opinion from observing that the nutriment of all things is moist, and that even actual heat is generated therefrom, and that animal life is sustained by water, ... and from the fact that the seeds of all things possess {22} a moist nature, and that water is a first principle of all things that are humid."
This is very likely the true explanation.
But it will be noted that even Aristotle uses the word "probably," and so gives his statement merely as a conjecture.
How, in the opinion of Thales, the universe arose out of water, is even more uncertain.
Most likely he never asked himself the question, and gave no explanation.
At any rate nothing is known on the point.
This being the sum and substance of the teaching of Thales, we may naturally ask why, on account of such a crude and undeveloped idea, he should be given the title of the father of philosophy.
Why should philosophy be said to begin here in particular?
Now, the significance of Thales is not that his water-philosophy has any value in itself, but that this was the first recorded attempt to explain the universe on naturalistic and scientific principles, without the aid of myths and anthropomorphic gods.
Moreover, Thales propounded the problem, and determined the direction and character, of all pre-Socratic philosophy.
The fundamental thought of that period was, that under the multiplicity of the world there must be a single ultimate principle.
The problem of all philosophers from Thales to Anaxagoras was, what is the nature of that first principle from which all things have issued?
Their systems are all attempts to answer this question, and may be classified according to their different replies.
Thus Thales asserted that the ultimate reality is water, Anaximander indefinite matter, Anaximenes air, the Pythagoreans number, the Eleatics Being, Heracleitus fire, Empedocles the four elements, Democritus atoms, and so on.
The first period is thus {23} essentially cosmological in character, and it was Thales who determined the character.
His importance is that he was the first to propound the question, not that he gave any rational reply to it.
We saw in the first chapter, that man is naturally a materialist, and that philosophy is the movement from sensuous to non-sensuous thought.
As we should expect, then, philosophy begins in materialism.
The first answer to the question, what the ultimate reality is, places the nature of that reality in a sensuous object, water.
The other members of the Ionic school, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, are also materialists.
And from their time onwards we can trace the gradual rise of thought, with occasional breaks and relapses, from this sensualism of the Ionics, through the semi-sensuous idealism of the Eleatics, to the highest point of pure non-sensuous thought, the idealism of Plato and Aristotle.
It is important to keep in mind, then, that the history of philosophy is not a mere chaotic hotch-potch of opinions and theories, succeeding each other without connection or order.
It is a logical and historical evolution, each step in which is determined by the last, and advances beyond the last towards a definite goal.
The goal, of course, is visible to us, but was not visible to the early thinkers themselves.
Since man begins by looking outwards upon the external world and not inwards upon his own self, this fact too determines the character of the first period of Greek philosophy.
It concerns itself solely with nature, with the external world, and only with man as a part of nature.
It demands an explanation of nature.
And this is the same as saying that it is cosmological.
The {24} problems of man, of life, of human destiny, of ethics, are treated by it scantily, or not at all.
It is not till the time of the Sophists that the Greek spirit turns inwards upon itself and begins to consider these problems, and with the emergence of that point of view we have passed from the first to the second period of Greek philosophy.
Because the Ionic philosophers were all materialists they are also sometimes called Hylicists, from the Greek _hulé_ which means matter.
Anaximander The next philosopher of the Ionic school is Anaximander.
He was an exceedingly original and audacious thinker.
He was probably born about 611 B.C.
and died about 547.
He was an inhabitant of Miletus, and is said to have been a disciple of Thales.
It will be seen, thus, that he was a younger contemporary of Thales.
He was born at the time that Thales was flourishing, and was about a generation younger.
He was the first Greek to write a philosophic treatise, which however has been unfortunately lost.
He was eminent for his astronomical and geographical knowledge, and in this connection was the first to construct a map.
Details of his life are not known.
Now Thales had made the ultimate principle of the universe, water.
Anaximander agrees with Thales that the ultimate principle of things is material, but he does not name it water, does not in fact believe that it is any particular kind of matter.
It is rather a formless, indefinite, and absolutely featureless matter in general.
{25} Matter, as we know it, is always some particular kind of matter.
It must be iron, brass, water, air, or other such.
The difference between the different kinds of matter is qualitative, that is to say, we know that air is air because it has the qualities of air and differs from iron because iron has the qualities of iron, and so on.
The primeval matter of Anaximander is just matter not yet sundered into the different kinds of matter.
It is therefore formless and characterless.
And as it is thus indeterminate in quality, so it is illimitable in quantity.
Anaximander believed that this matter stretches out to infinity through space.
The reason he gave for this opinion was, that if there were a limited amount of matter it would long ago have been used up in the creation and destruction of the "innumerable worlds."
Hence he called it "the boundless."
In regard to these "innumerable worlds," the traditional opinion about Anaximander was that he believed these worlds to succeed each other in time, and that first a world was created, developed, and was destroyed, then another world arose, was developed and destroyed, and that this periodic revolution of worlds went on for ever.
Professor Burnet, however, is of opinion that the "innumerable worlds" of Anaximander were not necessarily successive but rather simultaneously existing worlds.
According to this view there may be any number of worlds existing at the same time.
But, even so, it is still true that these worlds were not everlasting, but began, developed and decayed, giving place in due time to other worlds.
How, now, have these various worlds been formed out of the formless, indefinite, indeterminate matter of {26} Anaximander?
On this question Anaximander is vague and has nothing very definite to put forward.
Indeterminate matter by a vaguely conceived process separates itself into "the hot" and "the cold."
The cold is moist or damp.
This cold and moist matter becomes the earth, in the centre of the universe.
The hot matter collects into a sphere of fire surrounding the earth.
The earth in the centre was originally fluid.
The heat of the surrounding sphere caused the waters of the earth progressively to evaporate giving rise to the envelope of air which surrounds the earth.
For the early Greeks regarded the air and vapour as the same thing.
As this air or vapour expanded under the action of heat it burst the outside hot sphere of fire into a series of enormous "wheel-shaped husks," resembling cart wheels, which encircle the earth.
You may naturally ask how it is that if these are composed of fire we do not see them continually glowing.
Anaximander's answer was that these wheel-shaped husks are encrusted with thick, opaque vapour, which conceals the inner fire from our view.
But there are apertures, or pipe-like holes in the vapour-crust, and through these the fire gleams, causing the appearance of the sun, stars, and moon.
You will note that the moon was, on this theory, considered to be fiery, and not, as we now know it to be, a cold surface reflecting the sun's light.
There were three of these "cart wheels"; the first was that of the sun, furthest away from the earth, nearer to us was that of the moon, and closest of all was that of the fixed stars.
The "wheel-shaped husks" containing the heavenly bodies are revolved round the earth by means of currents of air.
The earth in the centre was believed by {27} Anaximander to be not spherical but cylindrical.
Men live on the top end of this pillar or cylinder.
Anaximander also developed a striking theory about the origin and evolution of living beings.
In the beginning the earth was fluid and in the gradual drying up by evaporation of this fluid, living beings were produced from the heat and moisture.
In the first instance these beings were of a low order.
They gradually evolved into successively higher and higher organisms by means of adaptation to their environment.
Man was in the first instance a fish living in the water.
The gradual drying up left parts of the earth high and dry, and marine animals migrated to the land, and their fins by adaptation became members fitted for movement on land.
The resemblance of this primitive theory to modern theories of evolution is remarkable.
It is easy to exaggerate its importance, but it is at any rate clear that Anaximander had, by a happy guess, hit upon the central idea of adaptation of species to their environment.
The teaching of Anaximander exhibits a marked advance beyond the position of Thales.
Thales had taught that the first principle of things is water.
The formless matter of Anaximander is, philosophically, an advance on this, showing the operation of thought and abstraction.
Secondly, Anaximander had definitely attempted to apply this idea, and to derive from it the existent world.
Thales had left the question how the primal water developed into a world, entirely unanswered.
Anaximenes Like the two previous thinkers Anaximenes was an inhabitant of Miletus.
He was born about 588 B.C.
and {28} died about 524.
He wrote a treatise of which a small fragment still remains.
He agreed with Thales and Anaximander that the first principle of the universe is material.
With Thales too, he looked upon it as a particular kind of matter, not indeterminate matter as taught by Anaximander.
Thales had declared it to be water.
Anaximenes named air as first principle.
This air, like the matter of Anaximander, stretches illimitably through space.
Air is constantly in motion and has the power of motion inherent in it and this motion brought about the development of the universe from air.
As operating process of this development Anaximenes named the two opposite processes of (1) Rarefaction, (2) Condensation.
Rarefaction is the same thing as heat or growing hot, and condensation is identified with growing cold.
The air by rarefaction becomes fire, and fire borne aloft upon the air becomes the stars.
By the opposite process of condensation, air first becomes clouds and, by further degrees of condensation, becomes successively water, earth, and rocks.
The world resolves again in the course of time into the primal air.
Anaximenes, like Anaximander, held the theory of "innumerable worlds," and these worlds are, according to the traditional view, successive.
But here again Professor Burnet considers that the innumerable worlds may have been co-existent as well as successive.
Anaximenes considered the earth to be a flat disc floating upon air.
The origin of the air theory of Anaximenes seems to have been suggested to him by the fact that air in the form of breath is the principle of life.
The teaching of Anaximenes seems at first sight to be {29} a falling off from the position of Anaximander, because he goes back to the position of Thales in favour of a determinate matter as first principle.
But in one respect at least there is here an advance upon Anaximander.
The latter had been vague as to how formless matter differentiates itself into the world of objects.
Anaximenes names the definite processes of rarefaction and condensation.
If you believe, as these early physicists did, that every different kind of matter is ultimately one kind of matter, the problem of the differentiation of the qualities of the existent elements arises.
For example, if this paper is really composed of air, how do we account for its colour, its hardness, texture, etc.
Either these qualities must be originally in the primal air, or not.
If the qualities existed in it then it was not really one homogeneous matter like air, but must have been simply a mixture of different kinds of matter.
If not, how do these properties arise?
How can this air which has not in it the qualities of things we see, develop them?
The simplest way of getting out of the difficulty is to found quality upon quantity, and to explain the former by the amount or quantity, more or less, of matter existent in the same volume.
This is precisely what is meant by rarefaction and condensation.
Condensation would result in compressing more matter into the same volume.
Rarefaction would give rise to the opposite process.
Great compression of air, a great amount of it in a small space, might account for the qualities, say, of earth and stones, for example, their heaviness, hardness, colour, etc.
Hence Anaximenes was to some extent a more logical and definite thinker than Anaximander, but cannot {30} compare with him in audacity and originality of thought.
Other Ionic Thinkers We have now considered the three chief thinkers of the Ionic School.
Others there were, but they added nothing new to the teaching of these three.
They followed either Thales or Anaximenes in stating the first principle of the world either as water or as air.
Hippo, for example, followed Thales, and for him the world is composed of water, Idaeus agreed with Anaximenes that it is derived from air.
Diogenes of Apollonia is chiefly remarkable for the fact that he lived at a very much later date.
He was a contemporary of Anaxagoras, and opposed to the more developed teachings of that philosopher the crude materialism of the Ionic School.
Air was by him considered to be the ground of all things.
{31} CHAPTER III THE PYTHAGOREANS Not much is known of the life of Pythagoras.
Three so-called biographies have come down to us from antiquity, but they were written hundreds of years after the event, and are filled with a tissue of extravagant fancies, and with stories of miracles and wonders worked by Pythagoras.
All sorts of fantastic legends seem to have gathered very early around his life, obscuring from us the actual historical details.
A few definite facts, however, are known.
He was born somewhere between 580 and 570 B.C.
at Samos, and about middle age he migrated to Crotona in South Italy.
According to legend, before he arrived in South Italy he had travelled extensively in Egypt and other countries of the East.
There is, however, no historical evidence of this.
There is nothing in itself improbable in the belief that Pythagoras made these travels, but it cannot be accepted as proved for lack of evidence.
The legend is really founded simply upon the oriental flavour of his doctrines.
In middle age he arrived in South Italy and settled at Crotona.
There he founded the Pythagorean Society and lived for many years at the head of it.
His later life, the date and manner of his death, are not certainly known.
Now it is important to note that the Pythagorean {32} Society was not primarily a school of philosophy at all.
It was really a religious and moral Order, a Society of religious reformers.
The Pythagoreans were closely associated with the Orphic Sect, and took from it the belief in the transmigration of souls, including transmigration of human souls into animals.
They also taught the doctrine of the "wheel of things," and the necessity of obtaining "release" from it, by which one could escape from the weary round of reincarnate lives.
Thus they shared with the Orphic religious Sect the principle of reincarnation.
The Orphic Sect believed that "release" from the wheel of life was to be obtained by religious ceremonial and ritual.
The Pythagoreans had a similar ritual, but they added to this the belief that intellectual pursuits, the cultivation of science and philosophy, and, in general, the intellectual contemplation of the ultimate things of the universe would be of great help towards the "release" of the soul.
From this arose the tendency to develop science and philosophy.
Gradually their philosophy attained a semi-independence from their religious rites which justifies us in regarding it definitely as philosophy.
The Pythagorean ethical views were rigorous and ascetic in character.
They insisted upon the utmost purity of life in the members of the Order.
Abstinence from flesh was insisted upon, although this was apparently a late development.
We know that Pythagoras himself was not a total abstainer from flesh.
They forbade the eating of beans.
They wore a garb peculiar to themselves.
The body, they taught, is the prison or tomb of the soul.
They thought that one must not attempt to obtain "release" by suicide, because "man is the {33} property of God," the chattel of God.
They were not politicians in the modern sense, but their procedure in practice amounted to the greatest possible interference in politics.
It appears that the Pythagoreans attempted to impose their ordinances upon the ordinary citizens of Crotona.
They aimed at the supersession of the State by their own Order and they did actually capture the government of Crotona for a short period.
This led to attacks on the Order, and the persecution of its members.
When the plain citizen of Crotona was told not to eat beans, and that under no circumstances could he eat his own dog, this was too much.
A general persecution occurred.
The meeting place of the Pythagoreans was burnt to the ground, the Society was scattered, and its members killed or driven away.
This occurred between the years 440 and 430 B.C.
Some years later the Society revived and continued its activities, but we do not hear much of it after the fourth century B.C.
It was largely a mystical society.
The Pythagoreans developed their own ritual, ceremonial and mysteries.
This love of mystery, and their general character as miracle-mongers, largely account for the legends which grew up around the life of Pythagoras himself.
Their scientific activities were also considerable.
They enforced moral self-control.
They cultivated the arts and crafts, gymnastics, music, medicine, and mathematics.
The development of mathematics in early Greece was largely the work of the Pythagoreans.
Pythagoras is said to have discovered the 47th Proposition of Euclid, and to have sacrificed an ox in honour thereof.
And there is good reason to believe that practically the whole of the substance of the First Book of Euclid is the work of Pythagoras.
{34} Turning now to their philosophical teaching, the first thing that we have to understand is that we cannot speak of the philosophy of Pythagoras, but only of the philosophy of the Pythagoreans.
For it is not known what share Pythagoras had in this philosophy or what share was contributed by his successors.
Now we recognize objects in the universe by means of their qualities.
But the majority of these qualities are not universal in their scope; some things possess some qualities; others possess others.
A leaf, for example, is green, but not all things are green.
Some things have no colour at all.
The same is true of tastes and smells.
Some things are sweet; some bitter.
But there is one quality in things which is absolutely universal in its scope, which applies to everything in the universe--corporeal or incorporeal.
All things are _numerable_, and can be counted.
Moreover, it is impossible to conceive a universe in which number is not to be found.
You could easily imagine a universe in which there is no colour, or no sweet taste, or a universe in which nothing possesses weight.
But you cannot imagine a universe in which there is no number.
This is an inconceivable thought.
Upon these grounds we should be justified in concluding that number is an extremely important aspect of things, and forms a fundamental pad of the framework of the world.
And it is upon this aspect of things that the Pythagoreans laid emphasis.
They drew attention to proportion, order, and harmony as the dominant notes of the universe.
Now when we examine the ideas of proportion, order, and harmony, we shall see that they are closely connected with number.
Proportion, for example, must necessarily {35} be expressible by the relation of one number to another.
Similarly order is measurable by numbers.
When we say that the ranks of a regiment exhibit order, we mean that they are arranged in such a way that the soldiers stand at certain regular distances from each other, and these distances are measurable by numbers of feet or inches.
Lastly, consider the idea of harmony.
If, in modern times, we were to say that the universe is a harmonious whole, we should understand that we are merely using a metaphor from music.
But the Pythagoreans lived in an age when men were not practised in thought, and they confused cosmical harmony with musical harmony.
They thought that the two things were the same.
Now musical harmony is founded upon numbers, and the Pythagoreans were the first to discover this.
The difference of notes is due to the different numbers of vibrations of the sounding instrument.
The musical intervals are likewise based upon numerical proportions.
So that since, for the Pythagoreans, the universe is a musical harmony, it follows that the essential character of the universe is number.
The study of mathematics confirmed the Pythagoreans in this idea.
Arithmetic is the science of numbers, and all other mathematical sciences are ultimately reducible to numbers.
For instance, in geometry, angles are measured by the number of degrees.
Now, as already pointed out, considering all these facts, we might well be justified in concluding that number is a very important aspect of the universe, and is fundamental in it.
But the Pythagoreans went much further than this.
They drew what seems to us the extraordinary conclusion that the world is _made of_ {36} numbers.
At this point, then, we reach the heart of the Pythagorean philosophy.
Just as Thales had said that the ultimate reality, the first principle of which things are composed, is water, so now the Pythagoreans teach that the first principle of things is number.
Number is the world-ground, the stuff out of which the universe is made.
In the detailed application of this principle to the world of things we have a conglomeration of extraordinary fancies and extravagances.
In the first place, all numbers arise out of the unit.
This is the prime number, every other number being simply so many units.
The unit then is the first in the order of things in the universe.
Again, numbers are divided into odd and even.
The universe, said the Pythagoreans, is composed of pairs of opposites and contradictories, and the fundamental character of these opposites is that they are composed of the odd and even.
The odd and even, moreover, they identified with the limited and the unlimited respectively.
How this identification was made seems somewhat doubtful.
But it is clearly connected with the theory of bipartition.
An even number can be divided by two and therefore it does not set a limit to bipartition.
Hence it is unlimited.
An odd number cannot be divided by two, and therefore it sets a limit to bipartition.
The limited and the unlimited become therefore the ultimate principles of the universe.
The Limit is identified with the unit, and this again with the central fire of the universe.
The Limit is first formed and proceeds to draw more and more of the unlimited towards itself, and to limit it.
Becoming limited, it becomes a definite "something," a thing.
So the formation of the {37} world of things proceeds.
The Pythagoreans drew up a list of ten opposites of which the universe is composed.
They are (1) Limited and unlimited, (2) odd and even, (3) one and many, (4) right and left, (5) masculine and feminine, (6) rest and motion, (7) straight and crooked, (8) light and darkness, (9) good and evil, (10) square and oblong.
With the further development of the number-theory Pythagoreanism becomes entirely arbitrary and without principle.
We hear, for example, that 1 is the point, 2 is the line, 3 is the plane, 4 is the solid, 5 physical qualities, 6 animation, 7 intelligence, health, love, wisdom.
There is no principle in all this.
Identification of the different numbers with different things can only be left to the whim and fancy of the individual.
The Pythagoreans disagreed among themselves as to what number is to be assigned to what thing.
For example, justice, they said, is that which returns equal for equal.
If I do a man an injury, justice ordains that injury should be done to me, thus giving equal for equal.
Justice must, therefore, be a number which returns equal for equal.
Now the only numbers which do this are square numbers.
Four equals two into two, and so returns equal for equal.
Four, then, must be justice.
But nine is equally the square of three.
Hence other Pythagoreans identified justice with nine.
According to Philolaus, one of the most prominent Pythagoreans, the quality of matter depends upon the number of sides of its smallest particles.
Of the five regular solids, three were known to the Pythagoreans.
That matter whose smallest particles are regular tetrahedra, said Philolaus, is fire.
Similarly earth is composed {38} of cubes, and the universe is identified with the dodecahedron.
This idea was developed further by Plato in the "Timaeus," where we find all the five regular solids brought into the theory.
The central fire, already mentioned as identified with the unit, is a characteristic doctrine of the Pythagoreans.
Up to this time it had been believed that the earth is the centre of the universe, and that everything revolves round it.
But with the Pythagoreans the earth revolves round the central fire.
One feels inclined at once to identify this with the sun.
But this is not correct.
The sun, like the earth, revolves round the central fire.
We do not see the central fire because that side of the earth on which we live is perpetually turned away from it.
This involves the theory that the earth revolves round the central fire in the same period that it takes to rotate upon its axis.
The Pythagoreans were the first to see that the earth is itself one of the planets, and to shake themselves free from the geocentric hypothesis.
Round the central fire, sometimes mystically called "the Hearth of the Universe," revolve ten bodies.
First is the "counter-earth," a non-existent body invented by the Pythagoreans, next comes the earth, then the sun, the moon, the five planets, and lastly the heaven of the fixed stars.
This curious system might have borne fruit in astronomy.
That it did not do so was largely due to the influence of Aristotle, who discountenanced the theory, and insisted that the earth is the centre of the universe.
But in the end the Pythagorean view won the day.
We know that Copernicus derived the suggestion of his heliocentric hypothesis from the Pythagoreans.
{39} The Pythagoreans also taught "The Great Year," probably a period of 10,000 years, in which the world comes into being and passes away, going in each such period through the same evolution down to the smallest details.
There is little to be said by way of criticism of the Pythagorean system.
It is entirely crude philosophy.
The application of the number theory issues in a barren and futile arithmetical mysticism.
Hegel's words in this connection are instructive:-"We may certainly," he says, "feel ourselves prompted to associate the most general characteristics of thought with the first numbers: saying one is the simple and immediate, two is difference and mediation, and three the unity of both these.
Such associations however are purely external; there is nothing in the mere numbers to make them express these definite thoughts.
With every step in this method, the more arbitrary grows the association of definite numbers with definite thoughts ... To attach, as do some secret societies of modern times, importance to all sorts of numbers and figures is, to some extent an innocent amusement, but it is also a sign of deficiency of intellectual resource.
These numbers, it is said, conceal a profound meaning, and suggest a deal to think about.
But the point in philosophy is not what you may think but what you do think; and the genuine air of thought is to be sought in thought itself and not in arbitrarily selected symbols."
[Footnote 3] [Footnote 3: Hegel's _Smaller Logic_, translated by Wallace, second edition, page 198.]
{40} CHAPTER IV THE ELEATICS The Eleatics are so called because the seat of their school was at Elea, a town in South Italy, and Parmenides and Zeno, the two chief representatives of the school, were both citizens of Elea.
So far we have been dealing with crude systems of thought in which only the germs of philosophic thinking can be dimly discerned.
Now, however, with the Eleatics we step out definitely for the first time upon the platform of philosophy.
Eleaticism is the first true philosophy.
In it there emerges the first factor of the truth, however poor, meagre, and inadequate.
For philosophy is not, as many persons suppose, simply a collection of freak speculations, which we may study in historical order, but at the end of which, God alone knows which we ought to believe.
On the contrary, the history of philosophy presents a definite line of evolution.
The truth unfolds itself gradually in time.
Xenophanes The reputed founder of the Eleatic School was Xenophanes.
It is, however, doubtful whether Xenophanes ever went to Elea.
Moreover, he belongs more properly {41} to the history of religion than to the history of philosophy.
The real creator of the Eleatic School was Parmenides.
But Parmenides seized upon certain germs of thought latent in Xenophanes and transmuted them into philosophic principles.
We have, therefore, in the first instance, to say something of Xenophanes.
He was born about the year 576 B.C., at Colophon in Ionia.
His long life was spent in wandering up and down the cities of Hellas, as a poet and minstrel, singing songs at banquets and festivals.
Whether, as sometimes stated; he finally settled at Elea is a matter of doubt, but we know definitely that at the advanced age of ninety-two he was still wandering about Greece.
His philosophy, such as it is, is expressed in poems.
He did not, however, write philosophical poems, but rather elegies and satires upon various subjects, only incidentally expressing his religious views therein.
Fragments of these poems have come down to us.
Xenophanes is the originator of the quarrel between philosophy and religion.
He attacked the popular religious notions of the Greeks with a view to founding a purer and nobler conception of Deity.
Popular Greek religion consisted of a belief in a number of gods who were conceived very much as in the form of human beings.
Xenophanes attacks this conception of God as possessing human form.
It is absurd, he says, to suppose that the gods wander about from place to place, as represented in the Greek legends.
It is absurd to suppose that the gods had a beginning.
It is disgraceful to impute to them stories of fraud, adultery, theft and deceit.
And Xenophanes inveighs against Homer and Hesiod for disseminating these degrading conceptions {42} of the Deity.
He argues, too, against the polytheistic notion of a plurality of gods.
That which is divine can only be one.
There can only be one best.
Therefore, God is to be conceived as one.
And this God is comparable to mortals neither in bodily form nor understanding.
He is "all eye, all ear, all thought."
It is he "who, without trouble, by his thought governs all things."
But it would be a mistake to suppose that Xenophanes thought of this God as a being external to the world, governing it from the outside, as a general governs his soldiers.
On the contrary, Xenophanes identified God with the world.
The world is God, a sentient being, though without organs of sense.
Looking out into the wide heavens, he said, "The One is God."
[Footnote 4] The thought of Xenophanes is therefore more properly described as pantheism than as monotheism.
God is unchangeable, immutable, undivided, unmoved, passionless, undisturbed.
Xenophanes appears, thus, rather as a religious reformer than as a philosopher.
Nevertheless, inasmuch as he was the first to enunciate the proposition "All is one," he takes his place in philosophy.
It was upon this thought that Parmenides built the foundations of the Eleatic philosophy.
[Footnote 4: Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, Book I. chapter v.] Certain other opinions of Xenophanes have been preserved.
He observed fossils, and found shells inland, and the forms of fish and sea-weed embedded in the rocks in the quarries of Syracuse and elsewhere.
From these he concluded that the earth had risen out of the sea and would again partially sink into it.
Then the human race would be destroyed.
But the earth would again rise from the sea and the human race would again [43] be renewed.
He believed that the sun and stars were burning masses of vapour.
The sun, he thought, does not revolve round the earth.
It goes on in a straight line, and disappears in the remote distance in the evening.
It is not the same sun which rises the next morning.
Every day a new sun is formed out of the vapours of the sea.
This idea is connected with his general attitude towards the popular religion.
His motive was to show that the sun and stars are not divine beings, but like other beings, ephemeral.
Xenophanes also ridiculed the Pythagoreans, especially their doctrine of re-incarnation.
Parmenides Parmenides was born about 514 B.C.
at Elea.
Not much is known of his life.
He was in his early youth a Pythagorean, but recanted that philosophy and formulated a philosophy of his own.
He was greatly revered in antiquity both for the depth of his intellect, and the sublimity and nobility of his character.
Plato refers to him always with reverence.
His philosophy is comprised in a philosophic didactic poem which is divided into two parts.
The first part expounds his own philosophy and is called "the way of truth."
The second part describes the false opinions current in his day and is called "the way of opinion."
The reflection of Parmenides takes its rise from observation of the transitoriness and changeableness of things.
The world, as we know it, is a world of change and mutation.
All things arise and pass away.
Nothing is permanent, nothing stands.
One moment it is, another moment it is not.
It is as true to say of {44} anything, that it is not, as that it is.
The truth of things cannot lie here, for no knowledge of that which is constantly changing is possible.
Hence the thought of Parmenides becomes the effort to find the eternal amid the shifting, the abiding and everlasting amid the change and mutation of things.
And there arises in this way the antithesis between Being and not-being.
The absolutely real is Being.
Not-being is the unreal.
Not-being is not at all.
And this not-being he identifies with becoming, with the world of shifting and changing things, the world which is known to us by the senses.
The world of sense is unreal, illusory, a mere appearance.
It is not-being.
Only Being truly is.
As Thales designated water the one reality, as the Pythagoreans named number, so now for Parmenides the sole reality, the first principle of things, is Being, wholly unmixed with not-being, wholly excludent of all becoming.
The character of Being he describes, for the most part, in a series of negatives.
There is in it no change, it is absolutely unbecome and imperishable.
It has neither beginning nor end, neither arising nor passing away.
If Being began, it must have arisen either from Being or from not-being.
But for Being to arise out of Being, that is not a beginning, and for Being to arise out of not-being is impossible, since there is then no reason why it should arise later rather than sooner.
Being cannot come out of not-being, nor something out of nothing.
_Ex nihilo nihil fit_.
This is the fundamental thought of Parmenides.
Moreover, we cannot say of Being that it was, that it is, that it will be.
There is for it no past, no present, and no future.
It is rather eternally and timelessly present.
It is undivided and indivisible.
For anything to be divided {45} it must be divided by something other than itself.
But there is nothing other than Being; there is no not-being.
Therefore there is nothing by which Being can be divided.
Hence it is indivisible.
It is unmoved and undisturbed, for motion and disturbance are forms of becoming, and all becoming is excluded from Being.
It is absolutely self-identical.
It does not arise from anything other than itself.
It does not pass into anything other than itself.
It has its whole being in itself.
It does not depend upon anything else for its being and reality.
It does not pass over into otherness; it remains, steadfast, and abiding in itself.
Of positive character Being has nothing.
Its sole character is simply its being.
It cannot be said that it is this or that; it cannot be said that it has this or that quality, that it is here or there, then or now.
It simply _is_.
Its only quality is, so to speak, "isness."
But in Parmenides there emerges for the first time a distinction of fundamental importance in philosophy, the distinction between Sense and Reason.
The world of falsity and appearance, of becoming, of not-being, this is, says Parmenides, the world which is presented to us by the senses.
True and veritable Being is known to us only by reason, by thought.
The senses therefore, are, for Parmenides, the sources of all illusion and error.
Truth lies only in reason.
This is exceedingly important, because this, _that truth lies in reason and not in the world of sense_, is the fundamental position of idealism.
The doctrine of Being, just described, occupies the first part of the poem of Parmenides.
The second part is the way of false opinion.
But whether Parmenides is here simply giving an account of the false philosophies {46} of his day, (and in doing this there does not seem much point,) or whether he was, with total inconsistency, attempting, in a cosmological theory of his own, to explain the origin of that world of appearance and illusion, whose very being he has, in the first part of the poem, denied--this does not seem to be clear.
The theory here propounded, at any rate, is that the sense-world is composed of the two opposites, the hot and the cold, or light and darkness.
The more hot there is, the more life, the more reality; the more cold, the more unreality and death.
What position, now, are we to assign to Parmenides in philosophy?
How are we to characterize his system?
Such writers as Hegel, Erdmann, and Schwegler, have always interpreted his philosophy in an idealistic sense.
Professor Burnet, however, takes the opposite view.
To quote his own words: "Parmenides is not, as some have said, the father of idealism.
On the contrary, all materialism depends upon his view."
[Footnote 5] Now if we cannot say whether Parmenides was a materialist or an idealist, we cannot be said to understand much about his philosophy.
The question is therefore of cardinal importance.
Let us see, in the first place, upon what grounds the materialistic interpretation of Parmenides is based.
It is based upon a fact which I have so far not mentioned, leaving it for explanation at this moment.
Parmenides said that Being, which is for him the ultimate reality, occupies space, is finite, and is spherical or globe-shaped.
Now that which occupies space, and has shape, is matter.
The ultimate reality of things, therefore, is conceived by Parmenides as material, and this, of course, is the {47} cardinal thesis of materialism.
This interpretation of Parmenides is further emphasized in the disagreement between himself and Melissus, as to whether Being is finite or infinite.
Melissus was a younger adherent of the Eleatic School, whose chief interest lies in his views on this question.
His philosophical position in general is the same as that of Parmenides.
But on this point they differed.
Parmenides asserted that Being is globe-shaped, and therefore finite.
Now it was an essential part of the doctrine of Parmenides that empty space is non-existent.
Empty space is an existent non-existence.
This is self-contradictory, and for Parmenides, therefore, empty space is simply not-being.
There are, for example, no interstices, or empty spaces between the particles of matter.
Being is "the full," that is, full space with no mixture of empty space in it.
Now Melissus agreed with Parmenides that there is no such thing as empty space; and he pointed out, that if Being is globe-shaped, it must be bounded on the outside by empty space.
And as this is impossible, it cannot be true that Being is globe-shaped, or finite, but must, on the contrary, extend illimitably through space.
This makes it quite clear that Parmenides, Melissus, and the Eleatics generally, did regard Being as, in some sense, material.
[Footnote 5: _Early Greek Philosophy_, chap.
iv.
§ 89.]
Now, however, let us turn to the other side of the picture.
What ground is there for regarding Parmenides as an idealist?
In the first place, we may say that his ultimate principle, Being, whatever he may have thought of it, is not in fact material, but is essentially an abstract thought, a concept.
Being is not here, it is not there.
It is not in any place or time.
It is not to be found by the senses.
It is to be found only in reason.
{48} We form the idea of Being by the process of abstraction.
For example, we see this desk.
Our entire knowledge of the desk consists in our knowledge of its qualities.
It is square, brown, hard, odourless, etc.
Now suppose we successively strip off these qualities in thought--its colour, its size, its shape.
We shall ultimately be left with nothing at all except its mere being.
We can no longer say of it that it is hard, square, etc.
We can only say "it is."
As Parmenides said, Being is not divisible, movable; it is not here nor there, then nor now.
It simply "is."
This is the Eleatic notion of Being, and it is a pure concept.
It may be compared to such an idea as "whiteness."
We cannot see "whiteness."
We see white things, but not "whiteness" itself.
What, then, is "whiteness"?
It is a concept, that is to say, not a particular thing, but a general idea, which we form by abstraction, by considering the quality which all white things have in common, and neglecting the qualities in which they differ.
Just so, if we consider the common character of all objects in the universe, and neglect their differences, we shall find that what they all have in common is simply "being."
Being then is a general idea, or concept.
It is a thought, and not a thing.
Parmenides, therefore, actually placed the absolute reality of things in an idea, in a thought, though he may have conceived it in a material and sensuous way.
Now the cardinal thesis of idealism is precisely this, that the absolute reality, of which the world is a manifestation, consists in thought, in concepts.
Parmenides, on this view, was an idealist.
Moreover, Parmenides has clearly made the distinction between sense and reason.
True Being is not known to {49} the senses, but only to reason, and this distinction is an essential feature of all idealism.
Materialism is precisely the view that reality is to be found in the world of sense.
But the proposition of Parmenides is the exact opposite of this, namely, that reality is to be found only in reason.
Again, there begins to appear for the first time in Parmenides the distinction between reality and appearance.
Parmenides, of course, would not have used these terms, which have been adopted in modern times.
But the thought which they express is unmistakably there.
This outward world, the world of sense, he proclaims to be illusion and appearance.
Reality is something which lies behind, and is invisible to the senses.
Now the very essence of materialism is that this material world, this world of sense, is the real world.
Idealism is the doctrine that the sense-world is an appearance.
How then can Parmenides be called a materialist?
How are we to reconcile these two conflicting views of Parmenides?
I think the truth is that these two contradictories lie side by side in Parmenides unreconciled, and still mutually contradicting each other.
Parmenides himself did not see the contradiction.
If we emphasize the one side, then Parmenides was a materialist.
If we emphasize the other side, then he is to be interpreted as an idealist.
In point of fact, in the history of Greek philosophy, both these sides of Parmenides were successively emphasized.
He became the father both of materialism and of idealism.
His immediate successors, Empedocles and Democritus, seized upon the materialistic aspect of his thought, and developed it.
The essential thought of Parmenides was that Being cannot arise from not-being, and that Being neither {50} arises nor passes away.
If we apply this idea to matter we get what in modern times is called the doctrine of the "indestructibility of matter."
Matter has no beginning and no end.
The apparent arising and passing away of things is simply the aggregation and separation of particles of matter which, in themselves, are indestructible.
This is precisely the position of Democritus.
And his doctrine, therefore, is a materialistic rendering of the main thought of Parmenides that Being cannot arise from not-being or pass into not-being.
It was not till the time of Plato that the idealistic aspect of the Parmenidean doctrine was developed.
It was the genius of Plato which seized upon the germs of idealism in Parmenides and developed them.
Plato was deeply influenced by Parmenides.
His main doctrine was that the reality of the world is to be found in thought, in concepts, in what is called "the Idea."
And he identified the Idea with the Being of Parmenides.
But still, it may be asked, which is the true view of Parmenides?
Which is the historical Parmenides?
Was not Plato in interpreting him idealistically reading his own thought into Parmenides?
Are not we, if we interpret him as an idealist, reading into him later ideas?
In one sense this is perfectly true.
It is clear from what Parmenides himself said that he regarded the ultimate reality of things as material.
It would be a complete mistake to attribute to him a fully developed and consistent system of idealism.
If you had told Parmenides that he was an idealist, he would not have understood you.
The distinction between materialism and idealism was not then developed.
If you had told him, moreover, that Being is a concept, he would not have understood {51} you, because the theory of concepts was not developed until the time of Socrates and Plato.
Now it is the function of historical criticism to insist upon this, to see that later thought is not attributed to Parmenides.
But if this is the function of historical scholarship, it is equally the function of philosophic insight to seize upon the germs of a higher thought amid the confused thinking of Parmenides, to see what he was groping for, to see clearly what he saw only vaguely and dimly, to make explicit what in him was merely implicit, to exhibit the true inwardness of his teaching, to separate what is valuable and essential in it from what is worthless and accidental.
And I say that in this sense the true and essential meaning of Parmenides is his idealism.
I said in the first chapter that philosophy is the movement from sensuous to non-sensuous thought.
I said that it is only with the utmost difficulty that this movement occurs.
And I said that even the greatest philosophers have sometimes failed herein.
In Parmenides we have the first example of this.
He began by propounding the truth that Being is the essential reality, and Being, as we saw, is a concept.
But Parmenides was a pioneer.
He trod upon unbroken ground.
He had not behind him, as we have, a long line of idealistic thinkers to guide him.
So he could not maintain this first non-sensuous thought.
He could not resist the temptation to frame for himself a mental image, a picture, of Being.
Now all mental images and pictures are framed out of materials supplied to us by the senses.
Hence it comes about that Parmenides pictured Being as a globe-shaped something occupying space.
But this is not the truth of Parmenides.
This is simply his failure to realise {52} and understand his own principle, and to think his own thought.
It is true that his immediate successors, Empedocles and Democritus, seized upon this, and built their philosophies upon it.
But in doing so they were building upon the darkness of Parmenides, upon his dimness of vision, upon his inability to grapple with his own idea.
It was Plato who built upon the light of Parmenides.
Zeno The third and last important thinker of the Eleatic School is Zeno who, like Parmenides, was a man of Elea.
His birth is placed about 489 B.C.
He composed a prose treatise in which he developed his philosophy.
Zeno's contribution to Eleaticism is, in a sense, entirely negative.
He did not add anything positive to the teachings of Parmenides.
He supports Parmenides in the doctrine of Being.
But it is not the conclusions of Zeno that are novel, it is rather the reasons which he gave for them.
In attempting to support the Parmenidean doctrine from a new point of view he developed certain ideas about the ultimate character of space and time which have since been of the utmost importance in philosophy.
Parmenides had taught that the world of sense is illusory and false.
The essentials of that world are two-multiplicity and change.
True Being is absolutely one; there is in it no plurality or multiplicity.
Being, moreover, is absolutely static and unchangeable.
There is in it no motion.
Multiplicity and motion are the two characteristics of the false world of sense.
Against multiplicity and motion, therefore, Zeno directed his {53} arguments, and attempted indirectly to support the conclusions of Parmenides by showing that multiplicity and motion are impossible.
He attempted to force multiplicity and motion to refute themselves by showing that, if we assume them as real, contradictory propositions follow from that assumption.
Two propositions which contradict each other cannot both be true.
Therefore the assumptions from which both follow, namely, multiplicity and motion, cannot be real things.
_Zeno's arguments against multiplicity_.
(1) If the many is, it must be both infinitely small and infinitely large.
The many must be infinitely small.
For it is composed of units.
This is what we mean by saying that it is many.
It is many parts or units.
These units must be indivisible.
For if they are further divisible, then they are not units.
Since they are indivisible they can have no magnitude, for that which has magnitude is divisible.
The many, therefore, is composed of units which have no magnitude.
But if none of the parts of the many have magnitude, the many as a whole has none.
Therefore, the many is infinitely small.
But the many must also be infinitely large.
For the many has magnitude, and as such, is divisible into parts.
These parts still have magnitude, and are therefore further divisible.
However far we proceed with the division the parts still have magnitude and are still divisible.
Hence the many is divisible _ad infinitum_.
It must therefore be composed of an infinite number of parts, each having magnitude.
But the smallest magnitude, multiplied by infinity, becomes an infinite magnitude.
Therefore the many is infinitely large.
(2) The {54} many must be, in number, both limited and unlimited.
It must be limited because it is just as many as it is, no more, no less.
It is, therefore, a definite number.
But a definite number is a finite or limited number.
But the many must be also unlimited in number.
For it is infinitely divisible, or composed of an infinite number of parts.
_Zeno's arguments against motion_.
(1) In order to travel a distance, a body must first travel half the distance.
There remains half left for it still to travel.
It must then travel half the remaining distance.
There is still a remainder.
This progress proceeds infinitely, but there is always a remainder untravelled.
Therefore, it is impossible for a body to travel from one point to another.
It can never arrive.
(2) Achilles and the tortoise run a race.
If the tortoise is given a start, Achilles can never catch it up.
For, in the first place, he must run to the point from which the tortoise started.
When he gets there, the tortoise will have gone to a point further on.
Achilles must then run to that point, and finds then that the tortoise has reached a third point.
This will go on for ever, the distance between them continually diminishing, but never being wholly wiped out.
Achilles will never catch up the tortoise.
(3) This is the story of the flying arrow.
An object cannot be in two places at the same time.
Therefore, at any particular moment in its flight the arrow is in one place and not in two.
But to be in one place is to be at rest.
Therefore in each and every moment of its flight it is at rest.
It is thus at rest throughout.
Motion is impossible.
{55} This type of argument is, in modern times, called "antinomy."
An antinomy is a proof that, since two contradictory propositions equally follow from a given assumption, that assumption must be false.
Zeno is also called by Aristotle the inventor of dialectic.
Dialectic originally meant simply discussion, but it has come to be a technical term in philosophy, and is used for that type of reasoning which seeks to develop the truth by making the false refute and contradict itself.
The conception of dialectic is especially important in Zeno, Plato, Kant, and Hegel.
All the arguments which Zeno uses against multiplicity and motion are in reality merely variations of one argument.
That argument is as follows.
It applies equally to space, to time, or to anything which can be quantitatively measured.
For simplicity we will consider it only in its spatial significance.
Any quantity of space, say the space enclosed within a circle, must either be composed of ultimate indivisible units, or it must be divisible _ad infinitum_.
If it is composed of indivisible units, these must have magnitude, and we are faced with the contradiction of a magnitude which cannot be divided.
If it is divisible _ad infinitum_, we are faced with the contradiction of supposing that an infinite number of parts can be added up and make a finite sum-total.
It is thus a great mistake to suppose that Zeno's stories of Achilles and the tortoise, and of the flying arrow, are merely childish puzzles.
On the contrary, Zeno was the first, by means of these stories, to bring to light the essential contradictions which lie in our ideas of space and time, and thus to set an important problem for all subsequent philosophy.
{56} All Zeno's arguments are based upon the one argument described above, which may be called the antinomy of infinite divisibility.
For example, the story of the flying arrow.
At any moment of its flight, says Zeno, it must be in one place, because it cannot be in two places at the same moment.
This depends upon the view of time as being infinitely divisible.
It is only in an infinitesimal moment, an absolute moment having no duration, that the arrow is at rest.
This, however, is not the only antinomy which we find in our conceptions of space and time.
Every mathematician is acquainted with the contradictions immanent in our ideas of infinity.
For example, the familiar proposition that parallel straight lines meet at infinity, is a contradiction.
Again, a decreasing geometrical progression can be added up to infinity, the infinite number of its terms adding up in the sum-total to a finite number.
The idea of infinite space itself is a contradiction.
You can say of it exactly what Zeno said of the many.
There must be in existence as much space as there is, no more.
But this means that there must be a definite and limited amount of space.
Therefore space is finite.
On the other hand, it is impossible to conceive a limit to space.
Beyond the limit there must be more space.
Therefore space is infinite.
Zeno himself gave expression to this antinomy in the form of an argument which I have not so far mentioned.
He said that everything which exists is in space.
Space itself exists, therefore space must be in space.
That space must be in another space and so _ad infinitum_.
This of course is merely a quaint way of saying that to conceive a limit to space is impossible.
But to return to the antinomy of infinite divisibility, {57} on which most of Zeno's arguments rest, you will perhaps expect me to say something of the different solutions which have been offered.
In the first place, we must not forget Zeno's own solution.
He did not propound this contradiction for its own sake, but to support the thesis of Parmenides.
His solution is that as multiplicity and motion contain these contradictions, therefore multiplicity and motion cannot be real.
Therefore, there is, as Parmenides said, only one Being, with no multiplicity in it, and excludent of all motion and becoming.
The solution given by Kant in modern times is essentially similar.
According to Kant, these contradictions are immanent in our conceptions of space and time, and since time and space involve these contradictions it follows that they are not real beings, but appearances, mere phenomena.
Space and time do not belong to things as they are in themselves, but rather to our way of looking at things.
They are forms of our perception.
It is our minds which impose space and time upon objects, and not objects which impose space and time upon our minds.
Further, Kant drew from these contradictions the conclusion that to comprehend the infinite is beyond the capacity of human reason.
He attempted to show that, wherever we try to think the infinite, whether the infinitely large or the infinitely small, we fall into irreconcilable contradictions.
Therefore, he concluded that human faculties are incapable of apprehending infinity.
As might be expected, many thinkers have attempted to solve the problem by denying one or other side of the contradiction, by saying that one or other side does not follow from the premises, that one is true and the other false.
David Hume, for example, {58} denied the infinite divisibility of space and time, and declared that they are composed of indivisible units having magnitude.
But the difficulty that it is impossible to conceive of units having magnitude which are yet indivisible is not satisfactorily explained by Hume.
And in general, it seems that any solution which is to be satisfactory must somehow make room for both sides of the contradiction.
It will not do to deny one side or the other, to say that one is false and the other true.
A true solution is only possible by rising above the level of the two antagonistic principles and taking them both up to the level of a higher conception, in which both opposites are reconciled.
This was the procedure followed by Hegel in his solution of the problem.
Unfortunately his solution cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of his general philosophical principles, on which it wholly depends.
I will, however, try to make it as plain as possible.
In the first place, Hegel did not go out of his way to solve these antinomies.
They appear as mere incidents in the development of his thought.
He did not regard them as isolated cases of contradiction which occur in thought, as exceptions to a general rule, which therefore need special explanation.
On the contrary, he regarded them, not as exceptions to, but as examples of, the essential character of reason.
All thought, all reason, for Hegel, contains immanent contradictions which it first posits and then reconciles in a higher unity, and this particular contradiction of infinite divisibility is reconciled in the higher notion of quantity.
The notion of quantity contains two factors, namely the one and the many.
Quantity means precisely a many in {59} one, or a one in many.
If, for example, we consider a quantity of anything, say a heap of wheat, this is, in the first place, one; it is one whole.
Secondly, it is many; for it is composed of many parts.
As one it is continuous; as many it is discrete.
Now the true notion of quantity is not one, apart from many, nor many apart from one.
It is the synthesis of both.
It is a many _in_ one.
The antinomy we are considering arises from considering one side of the truth in a false abstraction from the other.
To conceive unity as not being in itself multiplicity, or multiplicity as not being unity, is a false abstraction.
The thought of the one involves the thought of the many, and the thought of the many involves the thought of the one.
You cannot have a many without a one, any more than you can have one end of a stick without the other.
Now, if we consider anything which is quantitatively measured, such as a straight line, we may consider it, in the first place, as one.
In that case it is a continuous indivisible unit.
Next we may regard it as many, in which case it falls into parts.
Now each of these parts may again be regarded as one, and as such is an indivisible unit; and again each part may be regarded as many, in which case it falls into further parts; and this alternating process may go on for ever.
This is the view of the matter which gives rise to the contradictions we have been considering.
But it is a false view.
It involves the false abstraction of first regarding the many as something that has reality apart from the one, and then regarding the one as something that has reality apart from the many.
If you persist in saying that the line is simply one and not many, then there arises the theory of indivisible units.
If you {60} persist in saying it is simply many and not one, then it is divisible _ad infinitum_.
But the truth is that it is neither simply many nor simply one; it is a many in one, that is, it is a _quantity_.
Both sides of the contradiction are, therefore, in one sense true, for each is a factor of the truth.
But both sides are also false, if and in so far as, each sets itself up as the whole truth.
Critical Remarks on Eleaticism.
The consideration of the meaning of Zeno's doctrine will give us an insight into the essentials of the position of the Eleatics.
Zeno said that motion and multiplicity are not real.
Now what does this mean?
Did Zeno mean to say that when he walked about the streets of Elea, it was not true that he walked about?
Did he mean that it was not a fact that he moved from place to place?
When I move my arms, did he mean that I am not moving my arms, but that they really remain at rest all the time?
If so, we might justly conclude that this philosophy is a mere craze of speculation run mad, or else a joke.
But this is not what is meant.
The Eleatic position is that though the world of sense, of which multiplicity and motion are essential features, may exist, yet that outward world is not the true Being.
They do not deny that the world exists.
They do not deny that motion exists or that multiplicity exists.
These things no sane man can deny.
The existence of motion and multiplicity is, as Hegel says, as sensuously certain as the existence of elephants.
Zeno, then, does not deny the existence of the world.
What he denies is the truth of existence.
What he means is: certainly there is motion and multiplicity; certainly the world is here, is present to our senses, but it is not the true world.
It is {61} not reality.
It is mere appearance, illusion, an outward show and sham, a hollow mask which hides the real being of things.
You may ask what is meant by this distinction between appearance and reality.
Is not even an appearance real?
It appears.
It exists.
Even a delusion exists, and is therefore a real thing.
So is not the distinction between appearance and reality itself meaningless?
Now all this is perfectly true, but it does not comprehend quite what is meant by the distinction.
What is meant is that the objects around us have existence, but not self-existence, not self-substantiality.
That is to say, their being is not in themselves, their existence is not grounded in themselves but is grounded in another, and flows from that other.
They exist, but they are not independent existences.
They are rather beings whose being flows into them from another, which itself is self-existent and self-substantial.
They are, therefore, mere appearances of that other, which is the reality.
Of course the Eleatics did not speak of appearance and reality in these terms.
But this is what they were groping for, and dimly saw.
If we now look back upon the road on which we have travelled from the beginning of Greek philosophy, we shall be able to characterize the direction in which we have been moving.
The earliest Greek philosophers, the Ionics, propounded the question, "what is the ultimate principle of things?"
and answered it by declaring that the first principle of things is matter.
The second Greek School, the Pythagoreans, answered the same question by declaring numbers to be the first principle.
The third school, the Eleatics, answered the question by asserting that the first principle of things is Being.
{62} Now the universe, as we know it, is both quantitative and qualitative.
Quantity and quality are characteristics of every sense-object.
These are not, indeed, the only characteristics of the world, but they are the only characteristics which have so far come to light.
Now the position of the Ionics was that the ultimate reality is both quantitative and qualitative, that is to say, it is matter, for matter is just what has both quantity and quality.
The Pythagoreans abstracted from the quality of things.
They stripped off the qualitative aspect from things, and were accordingly left with only quantity as ultimate reality.
Quantity is the same as number.
Hence the Pythagorean position that the world is made of numbers.
The Eleatic philosophy, proceeding one step further in the same direction, abstracted from quantity as well as quality.
Whereas the Pythagoreans had denied the qualitative aspect of things, leaving themselves only with the quantitative, the Eleatics denied both quantity and quality, for in denying multiplicity they denied quantity.
Therefore they are left with the total abstraction of mere Being which has in it neither dividedness (quantity), nor positive character (quality).
The rise from the Ionic to the Eleatic philosophy is therefore essentially a rise from sensuous to pure thinking.
The Eleatic Being is a pure abstract thought.
The position of the Pythagoreans on the other hand is that of semi-sensuous thought.
They form the stepping-stone from the Ionics to the Eleatics.
Now let us consider what of worth there is in this Eleatic principle, and what its defects are.
In the first place, it is necessary for us to understand that the Eleatic philosophy is the first monism.
A monistic philosophy {63} is a philosophy which attempts to explain the entire universe from one single principle.
The opposite of monism is therefore pluralism, which is that kind of philosophy which seeks to explain the universe from many ultimate and equally underived principles.
But more particularly and more frequently we speak of the opposite of monism as being dualism, that is to say, the position that there are two ultimate principles of explanation.
If, for example, we say that all the good in the universe arises from one source which is good, and that all the evil arises from another source which is evil, and that these sources of good and evil cannot be subordinated one to the other, and that one does not arise out of the other, but both are co-ordinate and equally primeval and independent, that position would be a dualism.
All philosophy, which is worthy of the name, seeks, in some sense, a monistic explanation of the universe, and when we find that a system of philosophy breaks down and fails, then we may nearly always be sure its defect will reveal itself as an unreconciled dualism.
Such a philosophy will begin with a monistic principle, and will attempt to derive or deduce the entire universe from it, but somewhere or other it comes across something in the world which it cannot bring under that principle.
Then it is left with two equally ultimate existences, neither of which can be derived from the other.
Thus it breaks out into dualism.
Now the search for a monistic explanation of things is a universal tendency of human thought.
Wherever we look in the world of thought, we find that this monistic tendency appears.
I have already said that it appears throughout the history of philosophy.
It reveals itself, {64} too, very clearly in the history of religion.
Religion begins in polytheism, the belief in many gods.
From that it passes on to monotheism, the belief in one God, who is the sole author and creator of the universe.
In Hindu thought we find the same thing.
Hindu thought is based upon the principle that "All is one."
Everything in the world is derived from one ultimate being, Brahman.
But not only is this monistic tendency traceable in religion and philosophy; it is also traceable in science.
The progress of scientific explanation is essentially a progress towards monism.
In the first place, the explanation of isolated facts consists always in assigning causes for them.
Suppose there is a strange noise in your room at night.
You say it is explained when you find that it is due to the falling of a book or the scuttling of a rat across the floor.
The noise is thus explained by assigning a cause for it.
But this simply means that you have robbed it of its isolated and exceptional position, and reduced it to the position of an example of a general law.
When the water freezes in your jug, you say that the cause of this is the cold.
It is an example of the law that whenever the cold reaches a certain degree, then, other things being equal, water solidifies.
But to assign causes in this way is not really to explain anything.
It does not give any reason for an event happening.
You cannot see any reason why water should solidify in the cold.
It merely tells us that the event is not exceptional, but is an example of what always happens.
It reduces the isolated event to a case of a general law, which "explains," not merely this one event, but possibly millions of events.
It is not merely that cold solidifies the water in your jug.
{65} It equally solidifies the water in everybody's jug.
The same law "explains" all these, and likewise "explains" icebergs and the polar caps on the earth and the planet Mars.
In fact scientific explanation means the reduction of millions of facts to one principle.
But science does not stop here.
It seeks further to explain the laws themselves, and its method is to reduce the many laws to one higher and more general law.
A familiar example of this is the explanation of Kepler's laws of the planetary motions.
Kepler laid down three such laws.
The first was that planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun in one focus.
The second was that planets describe equal areas in equal times.
The third was a rather more complicated law.
Kepler knew these laws from observation, but he could not explain them.
They were explained by Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation.
Newton proved that Kepler's three laws could be mathematically deduced from the law of gravitation.
In that way Kepler's laws were explained, and not only Kepler's laws, but many other astronomical laws and facts.
Thus the explanation of the many isolated facts consists in their reduction to the one law, and the explanation of the many laws consists in their reduction to the one more general law.
As knowledge advances, the phenomena of the universe come to be explained by fewer and fewer, and wider and wider, general principles.
Obviously the ultimate goal would be the explanation of all things by one principle.
I do not mean to say that scientific men have this end consciously in view.
But the point is that the monistic tendency is there.
What is meant by the explanation is the reduction of all things to one principle.
{66} In philosophy, in religion, and in science, then, we find this monistic tendency of thought.
But it might be asked how we know that this universal tendency is right?
How do we know that it is not merely a universal error?
Is there no logical or philosophical basis for the belief that the ultimate explanation of things must be one?
Now this is a subject which takes us far afield from Greek philosophy.
The philosophical basis of monism was never thought out till the time of Spinoza.
So we cannot go into it at length here.
But, quite shortly, the question is--Is there any reason for believing that the ultimate explanation of things must be one?
Now if we are to explain the universe, two conditions must be fulfilled.
In the first place, the ultimate reality by which we attempt to explain everything must explain all the other things in the world.
It must be possible to deduce the whole world from it.
Secondly, the first principle must explain itself.
It cannot be a principle which itself still requires explanation by something else.
If it is itself not self-explanatory, but is an ultimate mystery, then even if we succeed in deducing the universe from it, nothing is thereby explained.
This, for example, is precisely the defect of materialism.
Even if we suppose it proved that all things, including mind, arise from matter, yet the objection remains that this explains nothing at all, for matter is not a self-explanatory existence.
It is an unintelligible mystery.
And to reduce the universe to an ultimate mystery is not to explain it.
Again; some people think that the world is to be explained by what they call a "first cause."
But why should any cause be the first?
Why should we stop anywhere in the chain of causes?
Every cause is {67} necessarily the effect of a prior cause.
The child, who is told that God made the world, and who inquires who, in that case, made God, is asking a highly sensible question.
Or suppose, in tracing back the chain of causes, we come upon one which we have reason to say is really the first, is anything explained thereby?
Still we are left with an ultimate mystery.
Whatever the principle of explanation is, it cannot be a principle of this kind.
It must be a principle which explains itself, and does not lead to something further, such as another cause.
In other words, it must be a principle which has its whole being in itself, which does not for its completeness refer us to anything beyond itself.
It must be something fully comprehended in itself, without reference to anything outside it.
That is to say, it must be what we call self-determined or absolute.
Now any absolute principle must necessarily be one.
Suppose that it were two.
Suppose you attempt to explain the world by two principles, X and Y, each of which is ultimate, neither being derived from the other.
Then what relation does X bear to Y?
We cannot fully comprehend X without knowing its relation to Y.
Part of the character and being of X is constituted by its relation to Y.
Part of X's character has to be explained by Y.
But that is not to be self-explained.
It is to be explained by something not itself.
Therefore, the ultimate explanation of things must be one.
The Eleatics, then, were perfectly correct in saying that all is one, and that the ultimate principle of the universe, Being, is one.
But if we examine the way in which they carried out their monism, we shall see that it broke down in a hopeless dualism.
How did they {68} explain the existence of the world?
They propounded the principle of Being, as the ultimate reality.
How then did they derive the actual world from that principle?
The answer is that they neither derived it nor made any attempt to derive it.
Instead of deducing the world from their first principle, they simply denied the reality of the world altogether.
They attempted to solve the problem by denying the existence of the problem.
The world, they said, is simply not-being.
It is an illusion.
Now certainly it is a great thing to know which is the true world, and which the false, but after all this is not an explanation.
To call the world an illusion is not to explain it.
If the world is reality, then the problem of philosophy is, how does that reality arise?
If the world is illusion, then the problem is, how does that illusion arise?
Call it illusion, if you like.
But this is not explaining it.
It is simply calling it names.
This is the defect, too, of Indian philosophy in which the world is said to be Maya--delusion.
Hence in the Eleatic philosophy there are two worlds brought face to face, lying side by side of each other, unreconciled--the world of Being, which is the true world, and the world of facts, which is illusion.
Although the Eleatics deny the sense-world, and call it illusion, yet of this illusion they cannot rid themselves.
In some sense or other, this world is here, is present.
It comes back upon our senses, and demands explanation.
Call it illusion, but it still stands beside the true world, and demands that it be deduced from that.
So that the Eleatics have two principles, the false world and the true world, simply lying side by side, without any connecting link between them, without anything to {69} show how the one arises from the other.
It is an utterly irreconcilable dualism.
It is easy to see why the Eleatic philosophy broke down in this dualism.
It is due to the barrenness of their first principle itself.
Being, they say, has in it no becoming.
All principle of motion is expressly excluded from it.
Likewise they deny to it any multiplicity.
It is simply one, without any many in it.
If you expressly exclude multiplicity and becoming from your first principle, then you can never get multiplicity and becoming out of it.
You cannot get out of it anything that is not in it.
If you say absolutely there is no multiplicity in the Absolute, then it is impossible to explain how multiplicity comes into this world.
It is exactly the same in regard to the question of quality.
Pure Being is without quality.
It is mere "isness."
It is an utterly featureless, characterless Being, perfectly empty and abstract.
How then can the quality of things issue from it?
How can all the riches and variety of the world come out of this emptiness?
The Eleatics are like jugglers who try to make you believe that they get rabbits, guinea-pigs, pieces of string, paper, and ribbon, out of an entirely empty top-hat.
One can see how utterly barren and empty this principle is, if one translates it into figurative language, that is to say, into the language of religion.
The Eleatic principle would correspond to a religion in which we said that "God is," but beyond the fact that He "is," He has absolutely no character.
But surely this is a wholly barren and meagre conception of the Deity.
In the Christian religion we are accustomed to hear such expressions as, not only that "God is," but that "God is Love," "God is Power," {70} "God is Goodness," "God is Wisdom."
Now objection may certainly be taken to these predicates and epithets on the ground that they are merely figurative and anthropomorphic.
In fact, they exhibit the tendency to think non-sensuous objects sensuously.
These predicates are merely picked up from the finite world and applied haphazard to God, for whom they are entirely inadequate.
But at least these expressions teach us, that out of mere emptiness nothing can come; that the world cannot arise out of something which is lower and poorer than itself.
Here in the world we find in a certain measure, love, wisdom, excellence, power.
These things cannot spring from a source which is so poor that it contains nothing but "isness."
The less can arise out of the greater, but not the greater out of the less.
We may contrast Eleaticism not only with Christianity, but even with popular modern agnosticism.
According to this, the Absolute is unknowable.
But what the agnostic means is that human reason is inadequate to grasp the greatness of the ultimate being.
But the Eleatic principle is, not that in saying "God is Love, Power, Wisdom," we are saying too little about God, and that our ideas are inadequate to express the fullness of His being, but on the contrary, that they express too high an idea for God, of whom nothing can be said except "He is," because there is absolutely nothing more to say.
This conception of God is the conception of an absolutely empty being.
Monism, I said, is a necessary idea in philosophy.
The Absolute must be one.
But an utterly abstract monism is impossible.
If the Absolute is simply one, wholly excludent of all process and multiplicity, out of such an abstraction the process and multiplicity of the {71} world cannot issue.
The Absolute is not simply one, or simply many.
It must be a many in one, as correctly set forth in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
Religion moves from an abstract polytheism (God is many) to an abstract monotheism (God is one; Judaism, Hinduism and Islam).
But it does not stop there.
It rightly passes on to a concrete monotheism (God is many in one; Christianity).
There are two popular misconceptions regarding the doctrine of the Trinity.
The first mistake is that of popular rationalism, the second is that of popular theology.
Popular rationalism asserts that the doctrine of the Trinity is contrary to reason.
Popular theology asserts that it is a mystery which transcends reason.
But the truth is that it neither contradicts nor transcends reason.
On the contrary, it is in itself the highest manifestation of reason.
What is really a mystery, what really contradicts reason, is to suppose that God, the Absolute, is simply one without any multiplicity.
This contradiction results in the fatal dualism which broke out in Eleaticism, and has broken out in every other system of thought, such as that of the Hindus or that of Spinoza, which begins with the conception of the Absolute as a pure one, totally exclusive of the many.
{72} CHAPTER V HERACLEITUS Heracleitus was born about 535 B.C., and is believed to have lived to the age of sixty.
This places his death at 475 B.C.
He was thus subsequent to Xenophanes, contemporary with Parmenides, and older than Zeno.
In historical order of time, therefore, he runs parallel to the Eleatics.
Heracleitus was a man of Ephesus in Asia Minor.
He was an aristocrat, descendant of a noble Ephesian family, and occupied in Ephesus the nominal position of basileus, or King.
This, however, merely meant that he was the Chief Priest of the local branch of the Eleusinian mysteries, and this position he resigned in favour of his brother.
He appears to have been a man of a somewhat aloof, solitary, and scornful nature.
He looked down, not only upon the common herd, but even upon the great men of his own race.
He mentions Xenophanes and Pythagoras in terms of obloquy.
Homer, he thinks, should be taken out and whipped.
Hesiod he considers to be the teacher of the common herd, one with them, "a man," he says, "who does not even know day and night."
Upon the common herd of mortals he looks down with infinite scorn.
Some of his sayings remind us not a little of Schopenhauer in their pungency and sharpness.
"Asses prefer straw to {73} gold."
"Dogs bark at everyone they do not know."
Many of his sayings, however, are memorable and trenchant epitomes of practical wisdom.
"Man's character is his fate."
"Physicians who cut, burn, stab and rack the sick, demand a fee for doing it, which they do not deserve to get."
From his aloof and aristocratic standpoint he launched forth denunciations against the democracy of Ephesus.
Heracleitus embodied his philosophical thoughts in a prose treatise, which was well-known at the time of Socrates, but of which only fragments have come down to us.
His style soon became proverbial for its difficulty and obscurity, and he gained the nickname of Heracleitus the "Dark," or the "Obscure."
Socrates said of his work that what he understood of it was excellent, what not, he believed was equally so, but that the book required a tough swimmer.
He has even been accused of intentional obscurity.
But there does not seem to be any foundation for this charge.
The fact is that if he takes no great trouble to explain his thoughts, neither does he take any trouble to conceal them.
He does not write for fools.
His attitude appears to be that if his readers understand him, well; if not, so much the worse for his readers.
He wastes no time in elaborating and explaining his thought, but embodies it in short, terse, pithy, and pregnant sayings.
His philosophical principle is the direct antithesis of Eleaticism.
The Eleatics had taught that only Being is, and Becoming is not at all.
All change, all Becoming is mere illusion.
For Heracleitus, on the contrary, only Becoming is, and Being, permanence, identity, these are nothing but illusion.
All things sublunary are {74} perpetually changing, passing over into new forms and new shapes.
Nothing stands, nothing holds fast, nothing remains what it is.
"Into the same river," he says, "we go down, and we do not go down; for into the same river no man can enter twice; ever it flows in and flows out."
Not only does he deny all absolute permanence, but even a relative permanence of things is declared to be illusory.
We all know that everything has its term, that all things arise and pass away, from the insects who live an hour to the "eternal" hills.
Yet we commonly attribute to these things at least a relative permanence, a shorter or longer continuance in the same state.
But even this Heracleitus will not allow.
Nothing is ever the same, nothing remains identical from one consecutive moment to another.
The appearance of relative permanence is an illusion, like that which makes us think that a wave passing over the surface of the water remains all the time the same identical wave.
Here, as we know, the water of which the wave is composed changes from moment to moment, only the form remaining the same.
Precisely so, for Heracleitus, the permanent appearance of things results from the inflow and outflow in them of equivalent quantities of substance.
"All is flux."
It is not, for example, the same sun which sets to-day and rises to-morrow.
It is a new sun.
For the fire of the sun burns itself out and is replenished from the vapours of the sea.
Not only do things change from moment to moment.
Even in one and the same moment they are and are not the same.
It is not merely that a thing first is, and then a moment afterwards, is not.
It both is and is not at the same time.
The at-onceness of "is" and "is not" {75} is the meaning of Becoming.
We shall understand this better if we contrast it with the Eleatic principle.
The Eleatics described all things under two concepts, Being and not-being.
Being has, for them, all truth, all reality.
Not-being is wholly false and illusory.
For Heracleitus both Being and not-being are equally real.
The one is as true as the other.
Both are true, for both are identical.
Becoming is the identity of Being and not-being.
For Becoming has only two forms, namely, the arising of things and their passing away, their beginning and their end, their origination and their decease.
Perhaps you may think that this is not correct, that there are other forms of change besides origination and decease.
A man is born.
That is his origination.
He dies.
That is his decease.
Between his birth and his death there are intermediate changes.
He grows larger, grows older, grows wiser or more foolish, his hair turns grey.
So also the leaf of a tree does not merely come into being and pass out of being.
It changes in shape, form, colour.
From light green it becomes dark green, and from dark green, yellow.
But there is after all nothing in all this except origination and decease, not of the thing itself, but of its qualities.
The change from green to yellow is the decease of green colour, the origination of yellow colour.
Origination is the passage of not-being into Being.
Decease is the passage of Being into not-being.
Becoming, then, has in it only the two factors of Being and not-being, and it means the passing of one into the other.
But this passage does not mean, for Heracleitus, that at one moment there is Being, and at the next moment not-being.
It means that Being and not-being are in everything at one and the same time.
Being is {76} not-being.
Being has not-being in it.
Take as an example the problem of life and death.
Ordinarily we think that death is due to external causes, such as accident or disease.
We consider that while life lasts, it is what it is, and remains what it is, namely life, unmixed with death, and that it goes on being life until something comes from outside, as it were, in the shape of external causes, and puts an end to it.
You may have read Metchnikoff's book "The Nature of Man."
In the course of that book he develops this idea.
Death, he says, is always due to external causes.
Therefore, if we could remove the causes, we could conquer death.
The causes of death are mostly disease and accident, for even old age is disease.
There is no reason why science should not advance so far as to eliminate disease and accident from life.
In that case life might be made immortal, or at any rate, indefinitely prolonged.
Now this is founded upon a confusion of ideas.
No doubt death is always due to external causes.
Every event in the world is determined, and wholly determined, by causes.
The law of causation admits of no exception whatever.
Therefore it is perfectly true that in every case of death causes precede it.
But, as I explained in the last chapter, [Footnote 6] to give the cause is not to give any reason for an event.
Causation is never a principle of explanation of anything.
It tells us that the phenomenon A is invariably and unconditionally followed by the phenomenon B, and we call A the cause of B.
But this only means that whenever B happens, it happens in a certain regular order and succession of events.
But it does not tell us why B happens at all.
The reason of a thing is to be {77} distinguished from its cause.
The reason why a man dies is not to be found in the causes which bring about his death.
The reason rather is that life has the germ of death already in it, that life is already death potentially, that Being has not-being in it.
The causation of death is merely the mechanism, by the instrumentality of which, through one set of causes or another, the inevitable end is brought about.
[Footnote 6: Page 64.]
Not only is Being, for Heracleitus, identical with not-being, but everything in the universe has in it its own opposite.
Every existent thing is a "harmony of opposite tensions."
A harmony contains necessarily two opposite principles which, in spite of their opposition, reveal an underlying unity.
That it is by virtue of this principle that everything in the universe exists, is the teaching of Heracleitus.
All things contain their own opposites within them.
In the struggle and antagonism between hostile principles consists their life, their being, their very existence.
At the heart of things is conflict.
If there were no conflict in a thing, it would cease to exist.
This idea is expressed by Heracleitus in a variety of ways.
"Strife," he says, "is the father of all things."
"The one, sundering from itself, coalesces with itself, like the harmony of the bow and the lyre."
"God is day and night, summer and winter, war and peace, satiety and hunger."
"Join together whole and unwhole, congruous and incongruous, accordant and discordant, then comes from one all and from all one."
In this sense, too, he censures Homer for having prayed that strife might cease from among gods and men.
If such a prayer were granted, the universe itself would pass away.
{78} Side by side with this metaphysic, Heracleitus lays down a theory of physics.
All things are composed of fire.
"This world," he says, "neither one of the gods nor of the human race has made; but it is, it was, and ever shall be, an eternally living fire."
All comes from fire, and to fire all returns.
"All things are exchanged for fire and fire for all, as wares for gold and gold for wares."
Thus there is only one ultimate kind of matter, fire, and all other forms of matter are merely modifications and variations of fire.
It is clear for what reason Heracleitus enunciated this principle.
It is an exact physical parallel to the metaphysical principle of Becoming.
Fire is the most mutable of the elements.
It does not remain the same from one moment to another.
It is continually taking up matter in the form of fuel, and giving off equivalent matter in the form of smoke and vapour.
The primal fire, according to Heracleitus, transmutes itself into air, air into water, and water into earth.
This he calls "the downward path."
To it corresponds "the upward path," the transmutation of earth into water, water to air, and air to fire.
All transformation takes place in this regular order, and therefore, says Heracleitus, "the upward and the downward path are one."
Fire is further specially identified with life and reason.
It is the rational element in things.
The more fire there is, the more life, the more movement.
The more dark and heavy materials there are, the more death, cold, and not-being.
The soul, accordingly, is fire, and like all other fires it continually burns itself out and needs replenishment.
This it obtains, through the senses and the breath, from the common life and reason of the {79} world, that is, from the surrounding and all-pervading fire.
In this we live and move and have our being.
No man has a separate soul of his own.
It is merely part of the one universal soul-fire.
Hence if communication with this is cut off, man becomes irrational and finally dies.
Sleep is the half-way house to death.
In sleep the passages of the senses are stopped up, and the outer fire reaches us only through breath.
Hence in sleep we become irrational and senseless, turning aside from the common life of the world, each to a private world of his own.
Heracleitus taught also the doctrine of periodic world-cycles.
The world forms itself out of fire, and by conflagration passes back to the primitive fire.
In his religious opinions Heracleitus was sceptical.
But he does not, like Xenophanes, direct his attacks against the central ideas of religion, and the doctrine of the gods.
He attacks mostly the outward observances and forms in which the religious spirit manifests itself.
He inveighs against the worship of images, and urges the uselessness of blood sacrifice.
With the Eleatics he distinguishes between sense and reason, and places truth in rational cognition.
The illusion of permanence he ascribes to the senses.
It is by reason that we rise to the knowledge of the law of Becoming.
In the comprehension of this law lies the duty of man, and the only road to happiness.
Understanding this, man becomes resigned and contented.
He sees that evil is the necessary counterpart of good, and pain the necessary counterpart of pleasure, and that both together are necessary to form the harmony of the world.
Good and evil are principles on the struggle {80} between which the very existence of things depends.
Evil, too, is necessary, has its place in the world.
To see this is to put oneself above pitiful and futile struggles against the supreme law of the universe.
CHAPTER VI EMPEDOCLES Empedocles was a man of Agrigentum in Sicily.
The dates of his birth and death are placed about 495 and 435 B.C.
respectively.
Like Pythagoras, he possessed a powerful and magnetic personality.
Hence all kinds of legends quickly grew up and wove themselves round his life and death.
He was credited with the performance of miracles, and romantic stories were circulated about his death.
A man of much persuasive eloquence he raised himself to the leadership of the Agrigentine democracy, until he was driven out into exile.
The philosophy of Empedocles is eclectic in character.
Greek philosophy had now developed a variety of conflicting principles, and the task of Empedocles is to reconcile these, and to weld them together in a new system, containing however no new thought of its own.
In speaking of Parmenides, I pointed out that his teaching may be interpreted either in an idealistic or a materialistic sense, and that these two aspects of thought lie side by side in Parmenides, and that it is possible to emphasize either the one or the other.
Empedocles seizes upon the materialistic side.
The essential thought of Parmenides was that Being cannot pass into not-being, nor not-being into Being.
Whatever is, remains for ever what it is.
{82} If we take that in a purely material context, what it means is that matter has neither beginning nor end, is uncreated and indestructible.
And this is the first basic principle of Empedocles.
On the other hand, Heracleitus had shown that becoming and change cannot be denied.
This is the second basic principle of Empedocles.
That there is no absolute becoming, no creation, and utter destruction of things, and yet that things do somehow arise and pass away, this must be explained, these contradictory ideas must be reconciled.
Now if we assert that matter is uncreated and indestructible, and yet that things arise and pass away, there is only one way of explaining this.
We must suppose that objects, as wholes begin and cease to be, but that the material particles of which they are composed are uncreated and indestructible.
This thought now forms the first principle of Empedocles, and of his successors, Anaxagoras, and the Atomists.
Now the Ionic philosophers had taught that all things are composed of some one ultimate matter.
Thales believed it to be water, Anaximenes air.
This necessarily involved that the ultimate kind of matter must be capable of transformation into other kinds of matter.
If it is water, then water must be capable of turning into brass, wood, iron, air, or whatever other kind of matter exists.
And the same thing applies to the air of Anaximenes.
Parmenides, however, had taught that whatever is, remains always the same, no change or transformation being possible.
Empedocles here too follows Parmenides, and interprets his doctrine in his own way.
One kind of matter, he thinks, can never change into another kind of matter; fire never becomes {83} water, nor does earth ever become air.
This leads Empedocles at once to a doctrine of elements.
The word "elements," indeed, is of later invention, and Empedocles speaks of the elements as "the roots of all."
There are four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.
Empedocles was therefore the originator of the familiar classification of the four elements.
All other kinds of matter are to be explained as mixtures, in various proportions, of these four.
Thus all origination and decease, as well as the differential qualities of certain kinds of matter, are now explained by the mixing and unmixing of the four elements.
All becoming is simply composition and decomposition.
But the coming together and separation of the elements involves the movement of particles, and to explain this there must exist some moving force.
The Ionic philosophers had assumed that matter has the power or force required for movement immanent in itself.
The air of Anaximenes, of its own inherent power, transforms itself into other kinds of matter.
This doctrine Empedocles rejects.
Matter is for him absolutely dead and lifeless, without any principle of motion in itself.
There is, therefore, only one remaining possibility.
Forces acting upon matter from the outside must be assumed.
And as the two essential processes of the world, mixing and unmixing, are opposite in character, so there must be two opposite forces.
These he calls by the names Love and Hate, or Harmony and Discord.
Though these terms may have an idealistic sound, Empedocles conceives them as entirely physical and material forces.
But he identifies the attractions and repulsions of human beings, which we call love and hate, with the universally operating forces of the material world.
Human love and {84} hate are but the manifestations in us of the mechanical forces of attraction and repulsion at work in the world at large.
Empedocles taught the doctrine of periodic world-cycles.
The world-process is, therefore, properly speaking, circular, and has neither beginning nor end.
But in describing this process one must begin somewhere.
We will begin, then, with the sphairos (sphere).
In the primeval sphere the four elements are completely mixed, and interpenetrate each other completely.
Water is not separated off from air, nor air from earth.
All are chaotically mixed together.
In any portion of the sphere there must be an equal quantity of earth, air, fire and water.
The elements are thus in union, and the sole force operative within the sphere is Love or Harmony.
Hence the sphere is called a "blessed god."
Hate, however, exists all round the outside of the sphere.
Hate gradually penetrates from the circumference towards the centre and introduces the process of separation and disunion of the elements.
This process continues till, like coming together with like, the elements are wholly separated.
All the water is together; all the fire is together, and so on.
When this process of disintegration is complete, Hate is supreme and Love is entirely driven out.
But Love again begins to penetrate matter, to cause union and mixture of the elements, and finally brings the world back to the state of the original sphere.
Then the same process begins again.
At what position in this circular movement is our present world to be placed?
The answer is that it is neither in the complete union of the sphere, nor is it completely disintegrated.
It is half-way between the sphere and the stage of total {85} disintegration.
It is proceeding from the former towards the later, and Hate is gradually gaining the upper hand.
In the formation of the present world from the sphere the first element to be separated off was air, next fire, then the earth.
Water is squeezed out of the earth by the rapidity of its rotation.
The sky is composed of two halves.
One is of fire, and this is the day.
The other is dark matter with masses of fire scattered about in it, and this is the night.
Empedocles believed in the transmigration of souls.
He also put forward a theory of sense-perception, the essential of which is that like perceives like.
The fire in us perceives external fire, and so with the other elements.
Sight is caused by effluences of the fire and water of the eyes meeting similar effluences from external objects.
{86} CHAPTER VII THE ATOMISTS The founder of the Atomist philosophy was Leucippus.
Practically nothing is known of his life.
The date of his birth, the date of his death, and his place of residence, are alike unknown, but it is believed that he was a contemporary of Empedocles and Anaxagoras.
Democritus was a citizen of Abdera in Thrace.
He was a man of the widest learning, as learning was understood in his day.
A passion for knowledge and the possession of adequate means for the purpose, determined him to undertake extensive travels in order to acquire the wisdom and knowledge of other nations.
He travelled largely in Egypt, also probably in Babylonia.
The date of his death is unknown, but he certainly lived to a great age, estimated at from ninety to one hundred years.
Exactly what were the respective contributions of Leucippus and Democritus to the Atomist philosophy, is also a matter of doubt.
But it is believed that all the essentials of this philosophy were the work of Leucippus, and that Democritus applied and extended them, worked out details, and made the theory famous.
Now we saw that the philosophy of Empedocles was based upon an attempt to reconcile the doctrine of Parmenides with the doctrine of Heracleitus.
The {87} fundamental thought of Empedocles was that there is no absolute becoming in the strict sense, no passage of Being into not-being or not-being into Being.
Yet the objects of the senses do, in some way, arise and pass away, and the only method by which this is capable of explanation is to suppose that objects, as whole objects, come to be and cease to be, but that the material particles of which they are composed are eternally existent.
But the detailed development which Empedocles gave to this principle was by no means satisfactory.
In the first place, if we hold that all objects are composed of parts, and that all becoming is due to the mixing and unmixing of pre-existent matter, we must have a theory of particles.
And we do hear vaguely of physical particles in the doctrine of Empedocles, but no definition is given of their nature, and no clear conception is formed of their character.
Secondly, the moving forces of Empedocles, Love and Hate, are fanciful and mythological.
Lastly, though there are in Empedocles traces of the doctrine that the qualities of things depend on the position and arrangement of their particles, this idea is not consistently developed.
For Empedocles there are only four ultimate kinds of matter, qualitatively distinguished.
The differential qualities of all other kinds of matter must, therefore, be due to the mixing of these four elements.
Thus the qualities of the four elements are ultimate and underived, but all other qualities must be founded upon the position and arrangement of particles of the four elements.
This is the beginning of the mechanical explanation of quality.
But to develop this theory fully and consistently, it should be shown, not merely that some qualities are ultimate and some {88} derived from position and arrangement of particles, but that all quality whatever is founded upon position and arrangement.
All becoming is explained by Empedocles as the result of motion of material particles.
To bring this mechanical philosophy to its logical conclusion, all qualitativeness of things must be explained in the same way.
Hence it was impossible that the philosophy of mechanism and materialism should stand still in the position in which Empedocles left it.
It had to advance to the position of Atomism.
The Atomists, therefore, maintain the essential position of Empedocles, after eliminating the inconsistencies which we have just noted.
The philosophy of Empedocles is therefore to be considered as merely transitional in character.
First, the Atomists developed the theory of particles.
According to Leucippus and Democritus, if matter were divided far enough, we should ultimately come to indivisible units.
These indivisible units are called atoms, and atoms are therefore the ultimate constituents of matter.
They are infinite in number, and are too small to be perceptible to the senses.
Empedocles had assumed four different kinds of matter.
But, for the Atomists, there is only one kind.
All the atoms are composed of exactly the same kind of matter.
With certain exceptions, which I will mention in a moment, they possess no quality.
They are entirely non-qualitative, the only differences between them being differences of quantity.
They differ in size, some being larger, some smaller.
And they likewise differ in shape.
Since the ultimate particles of things thus possess no quality, all the actual qualities of objects must be due to the {89} arrangement and position of the atoms.
This is the logical development of the tentative mechanism of Empedocles.
I said that the atoms possess no qualities.
They must, however, be admitted to possess the quality of solidity, or impenetrability, since they are defined as being indivisible.
Moreover it is a question whether the atoms of Democritus and Leucippus were thought to possess weight, or whether the weight of objects is to be explained, like other qualities, by the position and movement of the atoms.
There is no doubt that the Epicureans of a later date considered the atoms to have weight.
The Epicureans took over the atomism of Democritus and Leucippus, with few modifications, and made it the basis of their own teaching.
They ascribed weight to the atoms, and the only question is whether this was a modification introduced by them, or whether it was part of the original doctrine of Democritus and Leucippus.
The atoms are bounded, and separated off from each other.
Therefore, they must be separated by something, and this something can only be empty space.
Moreover, since all becoming and all qualitativeness of things are to be explained by the mixing and unmixing of atoms, and since this involves movement of the atoms, for this reason also empty space must be assumed to exist, for nothing can move unless it has empty space to move in.
Hence there are two ultimate realities, atoms and empty space.
These correspond respectively to the Being and not-being of the Eleatics.
But whereas the latter denied any reality to not-being, the Atomists affirm that not-being, that is, empty space, is just as real as being.
Not-being also exists.
"Being," said {90} Democritus, "is by nothing more real than nothing."
The atoms being non-qualitative, they differ in no respect from empty space, except that they are "full."
Hence atoms and the void are also called the _plenum_ and the _vacuum_.
How, now, is the movement of the atoms brought about?
Since all becoming is due to the separation and aggregation of atoms, a moving force is required.
What is this moving force?
This depends upon the question whether atoms have weight.
If we assume that they have weight, then the origin of the world, and the motion of atoms, becomes clear.
In the system of the Epicureans the original movement of the atoms is due to their weight, which causes them to fall perpetually downwards through infinite space.
Of course the Atomists had no true ideas of gravitation, nor did they understand that there is no absolute up and down.
The large atoms are heavier than the smaller.
The matter of which they are composed is always the same.
Therefore, volume for volume, they weigh the same.
Their weight is thus proportional to their size, and if one atom is twice as large as another, it will also be twice as heavy.
Here the Atomists made another mistake, in supposing that heavier things fall in a vacuum more quickly than light things.
They fall, as a matter of fact, with the same speed.
But according to the Atomists, the heavier atoms, falling faster, strike against the lighter, and push them to one side and upwards.
Through this general concussion of atoms a vortex is formed, in which like atoms come together with like.
From the aggregation of atoms worlds are created.
As space is infinite and the atoms go on falling eternally, there must have been innumerable worlds of which our world is only one.
{91} When the aggregated atoms fall apart again, this particular world will cease to exist.
But all this depends upon the theory that the atoms have weight.
According to Professor Burnet, however, the weight of atoms is a later addition of the Epicureans.
If that is so, it is very difficult to say how the early Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, explained the original motion.
What was their moving force, if it was not weight?
If the atoms have no weight, their original movement cannot have been a fall.
"It is safest to say," says Professor Burnet, "that it is simply a confused motion this way and that."
[Footnote 7] Probably this is a very _safe_ thing to say, because it means nothing in particular.
Motion itself cannot be confused.
It is only our ideas of motion which can be confused.
If this theory is correct, then, we can only say that the Atomists had no definite solution of the problem of the origin of motion and the character of the moving force.
They apparently saw no necessity for explanation, which seems unlikely in view of the fact that Empedocles had already seen the necessity of solving the problem, and given a definite, if unsatisfactory, solution, in his theory of Love and Hate.
This remark would apply to Democritus, if not to Leucippus.
[Footnote 7: _Early Greek Philosophy_, chap.
ix.
§ 179.]
The Atomists also spoke of all movement being under the force of "necessity."
Anaxagoras was at this time teaching that all motion of things is produced by a world-intelligence, or reason.
Democritus expressly opposes to this the doctrine of necessity.
There is no reason or intelligence in the world.
On the contrary, all phenomena and all becoming are completely determined by blind mechanical causes.
In this connection there arises {92} among the Atomists a polemic against the popular gods and the popular religion.
Belief in gods Democritus explains as being due to fear of great terrestrial and astronomical phenomena, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, comets, and meteors.
But somewhat inconsistently with this, Democritus believed that the air is inhabited by beings resembling men, but larger and of longer life, and explained belief in the gods as being due to projection from these of images of themselves composed of atoms which impinge upon human senses, and produce the ideas of gods.
Different kinds of matter must be explained, in any atomic theory, by the shape, size, and position of the atoms of which they are composed.
Thus the Atomists taught that fire is composed of smooth round atoms.
The soul is also composed of smooth round atoms, and is an exceptionally pure and refined fire.
At death the soul atoms are scattered, and hence there is, of course, no question of a future life.
Democritus also put forward a theory of perception, according to which objects project into space images of themselves composed of atoms.
These images strike against the senses.
Like atoms are perceived by like.
Thought is true when the soul is equable in temperature.
The sensible qualities of things, such as smell, taste, colour, do not exist in the things themselves, but merely express the manner in which they affect our senses, and are therefore relative to us.
A number of the ethical maxims of Democritus have come down to us.
But they are not based in any way upon the Atomic theory, and cannot be deduced from it.
Hence they have no scientific foundation but are merely detached sayings, epitomizing the experience {93} and worldly wisdom of Democritus.
That one should enjoy oneself as much and vex oneself as little as possible seems to have been his principal idea.
This, however, is not to be interpreted in any low, degraded, or sensual way.
On the contrary, Democritus says that the happiness of man does not depend on material possessions, but upon the state of the soul.
He praises equanimity and cheerfulness, and these are best attained, he thinks, by moderation and simplicity.
{94} CHAPTER VIII ANAXAGORAS Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae in Asia Minor about 500 B.C.
He was a man of noble family, and possessed considerable property.
He neglected his property in the search for knowledge and in the pursuit of science and philosophy.
Leaving his home at Clazomenae, he settled down in Athens.
We have not heard so far anything of Athens in the history of Greek Philosophy.
It was Anaxagoras who transplanted philosophy to Athens, which from his time forward became the chief centre of Greek thought.
At Athens, Anaxagoras came into contact with all the famous men of the time.
He was an intimate friend of Pericles, the statesman, and of Euripides, the poet.
But his friendship with Pericles cost him dear.
There was a strong political faction opposed to Pericles.
So far as we know Anaxagoras never meddled in politics, but he was a friend of the statesman Pericles, and that was quite enough.
The enemies of Pericles determined to teach Anaxagoras a lesson, and a charge of atheism and blasphemy was accordingly brought against him.
The particulars of the charge were that Anaxagoras said that the sun was a red-hot stone, and that the moon was made of earth.
This was quite true, as that is exactly what Anaxagoras did say of the sun and the moon.
But the Greeks {95} regarded the heavenly bodies as gods; even Plato and Aristotle thought that the stars were divine beings.
To call the sun a red-hot stone, and to say that the moon was made of earth, was therefore blasphemy according to Greek ideas.
Anaxagoras was charged, tried, and condemned.
The details of the trial, and of what followed, are not known with accuracy.
But it appears that Anaxagoras escaped, probably with the help of Pericles, and from Athens went back to his native country in Asia Minor.
He settled at Lampsacus, and died there at the age of 72.
He was the author of a treatise in which he wrote down his philosophical ideas.
This treatise was well-known at the time of Socrates, but only fragments now remain.
The foundation of the philosophy of Anaxagoras is the same as that of Empedocles and the Atomists.
He denied any absolute becoming in the strict sense of the passing of being into not-being and not-being into being.
Matter is uncreated and indestructible, and all becoming must be accounted for by the mixing and unmixing of its component parts.
This principle Anaxagoras himself expressed with great clearness, in a fragment of his treatise which has come down to us.
"The Greeks," he says, "erroneously assume origination and destruction, for nothing originates and nothing is destroyed.
All is only mixed and unmixed out of pre-existent things, and it were more correct to call the one process composition and the other process decomposition."
The Atomists had assumed the ultimate constituents of things to be atoms composed of the same kind of matter.
Empedocles had believed in four ultimate and underived kinds of matter.
With neither of these does Anaxagoras agree.
For him, all the different kinds of {96} matter are equally ultimate and underived, that is to say, such things as gold, bone, hair, earth, water, wood, etc., are ultimate kinds of matter, which do not arise from anything else, and do not pass over into one another.
He also disagrees with the conception of the Atomists that if matter is divided far enough, ultimate and indivisible particles will be reached.
According to Anaxagoras matter is infinitely divisible.
In the beginning all these kinds of matter were mixed together in a chaotic mass.
The mass stretches infinitely throughout space.
The different kinds of matter wholly intermingle and interpenetrate each other.
The process of world-formation is brought about by the unmixing of the conglomeration of all kinds of matter, and the bringing together of like matter with like.
Thus the gold particles separating out of the mass come together, and form gold; the wood particles come together and form wood, and so on.
But as matter is infinitely divisible and the original mixing of the elements was complete, they were, so to speak, mixed to an infinite extent.
Therefore the process of unmixing would take infinite time, is now going on, and will always go on.
Even in the purest element there is still a certain admixture of particles of other kinds of matter.
There is no such thing as pure gold.
Gold is merely matter in which the gold particles predominate.
As with Empedocles and the Atomists, a moving force is required to explain the world-process of unmixing.
What, in the philosophy of Anaxagoras, is this force?
Now up to the present point the philosophy of Anaxagoras does not rise above the previous philosophies of Empedocles and the Atomists.
On the contrary, in clearness {97} and logical consistency, it falls considerably below the teaching of the latter.
But it is just here, on the question of the moving force, that Anaxagoras becomes for the first time wholly original, and introduces a principle peculiar to himself, a principle, moreover, which is entirely new in philosophy.
Empedocles had taken as his moving forces, Love and Hate, mythical and fanciful on the one hand, and yet purely physical on the other.
The forces of the Atomists were also completely material.
But Anaxagoras conceives the moving force as wholly non-physical and incorporeal.
It is called Nous, that is, mind or intelligence.
It is intelligence which produces the movement in things which brings about the formation of the world.
What was it, now, which led Anaxagoras to the doctrine of a world-governing intelligence?
It seems that he was struck with the apparent design, order, beauty and harmony of the universe.
These things, he thought, could not be accounted for by blind forces.
The world is apparently a rationally governed world.
It moves towards definite ends.
Nature shows plentiful examples of the adaptation of means to ends.
There appears to be plan and purpose in the world.
The Atomists had assumed nothing but matter and physical force.
How can design, order, harmony and beauty be brought about by blind forces acting upon chaotic matter?
Blind forces acting upon a chaos would produce motion and change.
But the change would be meaningless and purposeless.
They could not produce a rationally ordered cosmos.
One chaos would succeed another chaos ad infinitum.
That alone which can produce law and order is intelligence.
There must therefore be a world-controlling Nous.
{98} What is the character of the Nous, according to Anaxagoras?
Is it, in the first place, really conceived as purely non-material and incorporeal?
Aristotle, who was in a position to know more of the matter than any modern scholar, clearly implies in his criticism that the Nous of Anaxagoras is an incorporeal principle, and he has been followed in this by the majority of the best modern writers, such as Zeller and Erdmann.
But the opposite view has been maintained, by Grote, for example, and more recently by Professor Burnet, who thinks that Anaxagoras conceived the Nous as a material and physical force.
[Footnote 8] As the matter is of fundamental importance, I will mention the chief arguments upon which Professor Burnet rests his case.
In the first place Anaxagoras described the Nous as the "thinnest and purest of all things."
He also said that it was "unmixed," that it had in it no mixture of anything besides itself.
Professor Burnet argues that such words as "thin" and "unmixed" would be meaningless in connection with an incorporeal principle.
Only material things can properly be described as thin, pure, and unmixed.
Secondly, Professor Burnet thinks that it is quite certain that the Nous occupies space, for Anaxagoras speaks of greater and smaller portions of it.
Greater and smaller are spatial relations.
Hence the Nous occupies space, and that which occupies space is material.
But surely these are very inconclusive arguments.
In the first place as regards the use of the words "thin" and "unmixed."
It is true that these terms express primarily physical qualities.
But, as I pointed out in {99} the first chapter, almost all words by which we seek to express incorporeal ideas have originally a physical signification.
And if Anaxagoras is to be called a materialist because he described the Nous as thin, then we must also plead guilty to materialism if we say that the thought of Plato is "luminous," or that the mind of Aristotle is "clear."
The fact is that all philosophy labours under the difficulty of having to express non-sensuous thought in language which has been evolved for the purpose of expressing sensuous ideas.
There is no philosophy in the world, even up to the present day, in which expressions could not be found in plenty which are based upon the use of physical analogies to express entirely non-physical ideas.
Then as regards the Nous occupying space, it is not true that greater and smaller are necessarily spatial relations.
They are also qualitative relations of degree.
I say that the mind of Plato is greater than the mind of Callias.
Am I to be called a materialist?
Am I to be supposed to mean that Plato's mind occupies more space than that of Callias?
And it is certainly in this way that Anaxagoras uses the terms.
"All Nous," he says, "is alike, both the greater and the smaller."
He means thereby that the world-forming mind (the greater) is identical in character with the mind of man (the smaller).
For Anaxagoras it is the one Nous which animates all living beings, men, animals, and even plants.
These different orders of beings are animated by the same Nous but in different degrees, that of man being the greatest.
But this does not mean that the Nous in man occupies more space than the Nous in a plant.
But even if Anaxagoras did conceive the Nous as spatial, it does not follow that he {100} regarded it as material.
The doctrine of the non-spatiality of mind is a modern doctrine, never fully developed till the time of Descartes.
And to say that Anaxagoras did not realize that mind is non-spatial is merely to say that he lived before the time of Descartes.
No doubt it would follow from this that the incorporeality of mind is vaguely and indistinctly conceived by Anaxagoras, that the antithesis between matter and mind is not so sharply drawn by him as it is by us.
But still the antithesis is conceived, and therefore it is correct to say that the Nous of Anaxagoras is an incorporeal principle.
The whole point of this introduction of the Nous into the philosophy of Anaxagoras is because he could not explain the design and order of the universe on a purely physical basis.
[Footnote 8: _Early Greek Philosophy_, chap.
vi.
§ 132.]
The next characteristic of Nous is that it is to be thought of as essentially the ground of motion.
It is because he cannot in any other way explain purposive motion that Anaxagoras introduces mind into his otherwise materialistic system.
Mind plays the part of the moving force which explains the world-process of unmixing.
As the ground of motion, the Nous is itself unmoved; for if there were any motion in it we should have to seek for the ground of this motion in something else outside it.
That which is the cause of all motion, cannot itself be moved.
Next, the Nous is absolutely pure and unmixed with anything else.
It exists apart, by itself, wholly in itself, and for itself.
In contrast to matter, it is uncompounded and simple.
It is this which gives it omnipotence, complete power over everything, because there is no mixture of matter in it to limit it, to clog and hinder its activities.
We moderns are {101} inclined to ask the question whether the Nous is personal.
Is it, for example, a personal being like the God of the Christians?
This is a question which it is almost impossible to answer.
Anaxagoras certainly never considered it.
According to Zeller, the Greeks had an imperfect and undeveloped conception of personality.
Even in Plato we find the same difficulty.
The antithesis between God as a personal and as an impersonal being, is a wholly modern idea.
No Greek ever discussed it.
To come now to the question of the activity of the Nous and its function in the philosophy of Anaxagoras, we must note that it is essentially a world-forming, and not a world-creating, intelligence.
The Nous and matter exist side by side from eternity.
It does not create matter, but only arranges it.
"All things were together," says Anaxagoras, "infinitely numerous, infinitely little; then came the Nous and set them in order."
In this Anaxagoras showed a sound logical sense.
He based his idea of the existence of Nous upon the design which exhibits itself in the world.
In modern times the existence of design in the world has been made the foundation of an argument for the existence of God, which is known as the teleological argument.
The word teleology means the view of things as adapting means towards purposive ends.
To see intelligent design in the universe is to view the universe teleologically.
And the teleological argument for the existence of God asserts that, as there is evidence of purpose in nature, this must be due to an intelligent cause.
But, as a matter of fact, taken by itself, teleology cannot possibly be made the basis of an argument for the existence of a world-creating intelligence, but only for the existence of a world-designing {102} intelligence.
If you find in the desert the ruins of ancient cities and temples, you are entitled to conclude therefrom, that there existed a mind which designed these cities and buildings, and which arranged matter in that purposive way, but you are not entitled to conclude that the mind which designed the cities also created the matter out of which they were made.
Anaxagoras was, therefore, in that sense quite right.
Teleology is not evidence of a world-creating mind, and if we are to prove that, we must have recourse to other lines of reasoning.
In the beginning, then, there was a chaotic mixture of different kinds of matter.
The Nous produced a vortex at one point in the middle of this mass.
This vortex spread itself outwards in the mass of matter, like rings caused by the fall of a stone in water.
It goes on for ever and continually draws more and more matter out of the infinite mass into itself.
The movement, therefore, is never-ending.
It causes like kinds of matter to come together with like, gold to gold, wood to wood, water to water, and so on.
It is to be noted, therefore, that the action of the Nous is apparently confined to the first movement.
It acts only at the one central point, and every subsequent movement is caused by the vortex itself, which draws in more and more of the surrounding matter into itself.
First are separated out the warm, dry, and light particles, and these form the aether or upper air.
Next come the cold, moist, dark, and dense particles which form the lower air.
Rotation takes the latter towards the centre, and out of this the earth is formed.
The earth, as with Anaximenes, is a flat disc, borne upon the air.
The heavenly bodies consist of {103} masses of stone which have been torn from the earth by the force of its rotation, and being projected outwards become incandescent through the rapidity of their movement.
The moon is made of earth and reflects the light of the sun.
Anaxagoras was thus the first to give the true cause of the moon's light.
He was also the first to discover the true theory of eclipses, since he taught that the solar eclipse is due to the intervention of the moon between the sun and the earth, and that lunar eclipses arise from the shadow of the earth falling upon the moon.
He believed that there are other worlds besides our own with their own suns and moons.
These worlds are inhabited.
The sun, according to Anaxagoras, is many times as large as the Peloponnese.
The origin of life upon the earth is accounted for by germs which existed in the atmosphere, and which were brought down into the terrestrial slime by rain water, and there fructified.
Anaxagoras's theory of perception is the opposite of the theories of Empedocles and the Atomists.
Perception takes place by unlike matter meeting unlike.
Anaxagoras owes his importance in the history of philosophy to the theory of the Nous.
This was the first time that a definite distinction had been made between the corporeal and incorporeal.
Anaxagoras is the last philosopher of the first period of Greek philosophy.
In the second chapter, [Footnote 9] I observed that this first period is characterized by the fact that in it the Greek mind looks only outward upon the external world.
It attempts to explain the operations of nature.
It had not yet learned to look inward upon itself.
But the transition to the introspective study of mind is found in the Nous of {104} Anaxagoras.
Mind is now brought to the fore as a problem for philosophy.
To find reason, intelligence, mind, in all things, in the State, in the individual, in external nature, this is the characteristic of the second period of Greek philosophy.
To have formulated the antithesis between mind and matter is the most important work of Anaxagoras.
[Footnote 9: Pages 23-4.]
Secondly, it is to the credit of Anaxagoras that he was the first to introduce the idea of teleology into philosophy.
The system of the Atomists formed the logical completion of the mechanical theory of the world.
The theory of mechanism seeks to explain all things by causes.
But, as we saw, causation can explain nothing.
The mechanism of the world shows us by what means events are brought about, but it does not explain why they are brought about at all.
That can only be explained by showing the reason for things, by exhibiting all process as a means towards rational ends.
To look to the beginning (cause) of things for their explanation is the theory of mechanism.
To look to their ends for explanation of them is teleology.
Anaxagoras was the first to have dimly seen this.
And for this reason Aristotle praises him, and, contrasting him with the mechanists, Leucippus and Democritus, says that he appears like "a sober man among vain babblers."
The new principle which he thus introduced into philosophy was developed, and formed the central idea of Plato and Aristotle.
To have realized the twin antitheses of matter and mind, of mechanism and teleology, is the glory of Anaxagoras.
But it is just here, in the development of these two ideas, that the defects of his system make their appearance.
Firstly, he so separated matter and mind that {105} his philosophy ends in sheer dualism.
He assumes the Nous and matter as existing from the beginning, side by side, as equally ultimate and underived principles.
A monistic materialism would have derived the Nous from matter, and a monistic idealism would have derived matter from the Nous.
But Anaxagoras does neither.
Each is left, in his theory, an inexplicable ultimate mystery.
His philosophy is, therefore, an irreconcilable dualism.
Secondly, his teleology turns out in the end to be only a new theory of mechanism.
The only reason which induces him to introduce the Nous into the world, is because he cannot otherwise explain the origin of movement.
It is only the first movement of things, the formation of the vortex, which he explains by mind.
All subsequent process is explained by the action of the vortex itself, which draws the surrounding matter into itself.
The Nous is thus nothing but another piece of mechanism to account for the first impulse to motion.
He regards the Nous simply as a first cause, and thus the characteristic of all mechanism, to look back to first causes, to the beginning, rather than to the end of things for their explanation, appears here.
Aristotle, as usual, puts the matter in a nutshell.
"Anaxagoras," he says, "uses mind as a _deus ex machina_ to account for the formation of the world, and whenever he is at a loss to explain why anything necessarily is, he drags it in by force.
But in other cases he assigns as a cause for things anything else in preference to mind."
[Footnote 10] [Footnote 10; Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, book i, chap.
iv.]
{106} CHAPTER IX THE SOPHISTS The first period of Greek philosophy closes with Anaxagoras.
His doctrine of the world-forming intelligence introduced a new principle into philosophy, the principle of the antithesis between corporeal matter and incorporeal mind, and therefore, by implication, the antithesis between nature and man.
And if the first period of philosophy has for its problem the origin of the world, and the explanation of the being and becoming of nature, the second period of philosophy opens, in the Sophists, with the problem of the position of man in the universe.
The teaching of the earlier philosophers was exclusively cosmological, that of the Sophists exclusively humanistic.
Later in this second period, these two modes of thought come together and fructify one another.
The problem of the mind and the problem of nature are subordinated as factors of the great, universal, all-embracing, world-systems of Plato and Aristotle.
It is not possible to understand the activities and teaching of the Sophists without some knowledge of the religious, political, and social conditions of the time.
After long struggles between the people and the nobles, democracy had almost everywhere triumphed.
But in Greece democracy did not mean what we now mean by {107} that word.
It did not mean representative institutions, government by the people through their elected deputies.
Ancient Greece was never a single nation under a single government.
Every city, almost every hamlet, was an independent State, governed only by its own laws.
Some of these States were so small that they comprised merely a handful of citizens.
All were so small that all the citizens could meet together in one place, and themselves in person enact the laws and transact public business.
There was no necessity for representation.
Consequently in Greece every citizen was himself a politician and a legislator.
In these circumstances, partisan feeling ran to extravagant lengths.
Men forgot the interests of the State in the interests of party, and this ended in men forgetting the interests of their party in their own interests.
Greed, ambition, grabbing, selfishness, unrestricted egotism, unbridled avarice, became the dominant notes of the political life of the time.
Hand in hand with the rise of democracy went the decay of religion.
Belief in the gods was almost everywhere discredited.
This was partly due to the moral worthlessness of the Greek religion itself.
Any action, however scandalous or disgraceful, could be justified by the examples of the gods themselves as related by the poets and mythologers of Greece.
But, in greater measure, the collapse of religion was due to that advance of science and philosophy which we have been considering in these lectures.
The universal tendency of that philosophy was to find natural causes for what had hitherto been ascribed to the action of the divine powers, and this could not but have an undermining effect upon popular {108} belief.
Nearly all the philosophers had been secretly, and many of them openly, antagonistic to the people's religion.
The attack was begun by Xenophanes; Heracleitus carried it on; and lastly Democritus had attempted to explain belief in the gods as being caused by fear of gigantic terrestrial and astronomical phenomena.
No educated man any longer believed in divination, auguries, and miracles.
A wave of rationalism and scepticism passed over the Greek people.
The age became one of negative, critical, and destructive thought.
Democracy had undermined the old aristocratic institutions of the State, and science had undermined religious orthodoxy.
With the downfall of these two pillars of things established, all else went too.
All morality, all custom, all authority, all tradition, were criticised and rejected.
What was regarded with awe and pious veneration by their fore-fathers the modern Greeks now looked upon as fit subjects for jest and mockery.
Every restraint of custom, law, or morality, was resented as an unwarrantable restriction upon the natural impulses of man.
What alone remained when these were thrust aside were the lust, avarice, and self-will of the individual.
The teaching of the Sophists was merely a translation into theoretical propositions of these practical tendencies of the period.
The Sophists were the children of their time, and the interpreters of their age.
Their philosophical teachings were simply the crystallization of the impulses which governed the life of the people into abstract principles and maxims.
Who and what were the Sophists?
In the first place, they were not a school of philosophers.
They are not to be compared, for example, with the Pythagoreans or {109} Eleatics.
They had not, as a school has, any system of philosophy held in common by them all.
None of them constructed systems of thought.
They had in common only certain loose tendencies of thought.
Nor were they, as we understand the members of a school to be, in any close personal association with one another.
They were a professional class rather than a school, and as such they were scattered over Greece, and nourished among themselves the usual professional rivalries.
They were professional teachers and educators.
The rise of the Sophists was due to the growing demand for popular education, which was partly a genuine demand for light and knowledge, but was mostly a desire for such spurious learning as would lead to worldly, and especially political, success.
The triumph of democracy had brought it about that political careers were now open to the masses who had hitherto been wholly shut out from them.
Any man could rise to the highest positions in the State, if he were endowed with cleverness, ready speech, whereby to sway the passions of the mob, and a sufficient equipment in the way of education.
Hence the demand arose for such an education as would enable the ordinary man to carve out a political career for himself.
It was this demand which the Sophists undertook to satisfy.
They wandered about Greece from place to place, they gave lectures, they took pupils, they entered into disputations.
For these services they exacted large fees.
They were the first in Greece to take fees for the teaching of wisdom.
There was nothing disgraceful in this in itself, but it had never been customary.
The wise men of Greece had never accepted any payment for their wisdom.
Socrates, who never accepted any payment, {110} but gave his wisdom freely to all who sought it, somewhat proudly contrasted himself with the Sophists in this respect.
The Sophists were not, technically speaking, philosophers.
They did not specialise in the problems of philosophy.
Their tendencies were purely practical.
They taught any subject whatever for the teaching of which there was a popular demand.
For example, Protagoras undertook to impart to his pupils the principles of success as a politician or as a private citizen.
Gorgias taught rhetoric and politics, Prodicus grammar and etymology, Hippias history, mathematics and physics.
In consequence of this practical tendency of the Sophists we hear of no attempts among them to solve the problem of the origin of nature, or the character of the ultimate reality.
The Sophists have been described as teachers of virtue, and the description is correct, provided that the word virtue is understood in its Greek sense, which did not restrict it to morality alone.
For the Greeks, it meant the capacity of a person successfully to perform his functions in the State.
Thus the virtue of a mechanic is to understand machinery, the virtue of a physician to cure the sick, the virtue of a horse trainer the ability to train horses.
The Sophists undertook to train men to virtue in this sense, to make them successful citizens and members of the State.
But the most popular career for a Greek of ability at the time was the political, which offered the attraction of high positions in the State.
And for this career what was above all necessary was eloquence, or if that were unattainable, at least ready speech, the ability to argue, to meet every point as it arose, if not with sound {111} reasoning, then with quick repartee.
Hence the Sophists very largely concentrated their energies upon the teaching of rhetoric.
In itself this was good.
They were the first to direct attention to the science of rhetoric, of which they may be considered the founders.
But their rhetoric also had its bad side, which indeed, soon became its only side.
The aims of the young politicians whom they trained were, not to seek out the truth for its own sake, but merely to persuade the multitude of whatever they wished them to believe.
Consequently the Sophists, like lawyers, not caring for the truth of the matter, undertook to provide a stock of arguments on any subject, or to prove any proposition.
They boasted of their ability to make the worse appear the better reason, to prove that black is white.
Some of them, like Gorgias, asserted that it was not necessary to have any knowledge of a subject to give satisfactory replies as regards it.
And Gorgias ostentatiously undertook to answer any question on any subject instantly and without consideration.
To attain these ends mere quibbling, and the scoring of verbal points, were employed.
Hence our word "sophistry."
The Sophists, in this way, endeavoured to entangle, entrap, and confuse their opponents, and even, if this were not possible, to beat them down by mere violence and noise.
They sought also to dazzle by means of strange or flowery metaphors, by unusual figures of speech, by epigrams and paradoxes, and in general by being clever and smart, rather than earnest and truthful.
When a man is young he is often dazzled by brilliance and cleverness, by paradox and epigram, but as he grows older he learns to discount these things and to care chiefly for the substance and {112} truth of what is said.
And the Greeks were a young people.
They loved clever sayings.
And this it is which accounts for the toleration which they extended even to the most patent absurdities of the Sophists.
The modern question whether a man has ceased beating his wife is not more childish than many of the rhetorical devices of the Sophists, and is indeed characteristic of the methods of the more extravagant among them.
The earliest known Sophist is Protagoras.
He was born at Abdera, about 480 B.C.
He wandered up and down Greece, and settled for some time at Athens.
At Athens, however, he was charged with impiety and atheism.
This was on account of a book written by him on the subject of the gods, which began with the words, "As for the gods, I am unable to say whether they exist or whether they do not exist."
The book was publicly burnt, and Protagoras had to fly from Athens.
He fled to Sicily, but was drowned on the way about the year 410 B.C.
Protagoras was the author of the famous saying, "Man is the measure of all things; of what is, that it is; of what is not, that it is not."
Now this saying puts in a nutshell, so to speak, the whole teaching of Protagoras.
And, indeed, it contains in germ the entire thought of the Sophists.
It is well, therefore, that we should fully understand exactly what it means.
The earlier Greek philosophers had made a clear distinction between sense and thought, between perception and reason, and had believed that the truth is to be found, not by the senses, but by reason.
The Eleatics had been the first to emphasize this distinction.
The ultimate reality of {113} things, they said, is pure Being, which is known only through reason; it is the senses which delude us with a show of becoming.
Heracleitus had likewise affirmed that the truth, which was, for him, the law of becoming, is known by thought, and that it is the senses which delude us with a show of permanence.
Even Democritus believed that true being, that is, material atoms, are so small that the senses cannot perceive them, and only reason is aware of their existence.
Now the teaching of Protagoras really rests fundamentally upon the denying and confusing of this distinction.
If we are to see this, we must first of all understand that reason is the universal, sensation the particular, element in man.
In the first place, reason is communicable, sensation incommunicable.
My sensations and feelings are personal to myself, and cannot be imparted to other people.
For example, no one can communicate the sensation of redness to a colour-blind man, who has not already experienced it.
But a thought, or rational idea, can be communicated to any rational being.
Now suppose the question is whether the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal.
We may approach the problem in two ways.
We may appeal either to the senses or to reason.
If we appeal to the senses, one man will come forward and say that to him the angles look equal.
Another man will say that one angle looks bigger than the other, and so on.
But if, like Euclid, we appeal to reason, then it can be proved that the two angles are equal, and there is no room left for mere personal impressions, because reason is a law universally valid and binding upon all men.
My sensations are private and peculiar to myself.
They bind no one but myself.
My {114} impressions about the triangle are not a law to anyone except myself.
But my reason I share with all other rational beings.
It is not a law for me merely, but for all.
It is one and the same reason in me and in other men.
Reason, therefore, is the universal, sensation the particular, element in man.
Now it is practically this distinction that Protagoras denied.
Man, he said, is the measure of all things.
By man he did not mean mankind at large.
He meant the individual man.
And by measure of all things he meant the standard of the truth of all things.
Each individual man is the standard of what is true to himself.
There is no truth except the sensations and impressions of each man.
What seems true to me is true for me.
What seems true to you is true for you.
We commonly distinguish between subjective impressions and objective truth.
The words subjective and objective are constantly recurring throughout the history of philosophy, and as this is the first time I use them, I will explain them here.
In every act of thought there must necessarily be two terms.
I am now looking at this desk and thinking of this desk.
There is the "I" which thinks, and there is the desk which is thought.
"I" am the subject of the thought, the desk is the object of the thought.
In general, the subject is that which thinks, and the object is that which is thought.
Subjective is that which appertains to the subject, and objective is that which appertains to the object.
So the meaning of the distinction between subjective impressions and the objective truth is clear.
My personal impression may be that the earth is flat, but the objective truth is that the {115} earth is round.
Travelling through a desert, I may be subject to a mirage, and think that there is water in front of me.
That is my subjective impression.
The objective truth is that there is nothing but sand.
The objective truth is something which has an existence of its own, independent of me.
It does not matter what I think, or what you think, what I want, or what you want; the truth is what it is.
We must conform ourselves to the truth.
Truth will not conform itself to our personal inclinations, wishes, or impressions.
The teaching of Protagoras practically amounted to a denial of this.
What it meant was that there is no objective truth, no truth independent of the individual subject.
Whatever seems to the individual true is true for that individual.
Thus truth is identified with subjective sensations and impressions.
To deny the distinction between objective truth and subjective impression is the same as to deny the distinction between reason and sense.
To my senses the earth seems flat.
It looks flat to the eye.
It is only through reason that I know the objective truth that the world is round.
Reason, therefore, is the only possible standard of objective truth.
If you deny the rational element its proper part, it follows that you will be left a helpless prey to diverse personal impressions.
The impressions yielded by the senses differ in different people.
One man sees a thing in one way, another sees it in another.
If, therefore, what seems to me true is true for me, and what seems to you true is true for you, and if our impressions differ, it will follow that two contradictory propositions must both be true.
Protagoras clearly understood this, {116} and did not flinch from the conclusion.
He taught that all opinions are true, that error is impossible, and that, whatever proposition is put forward, it is always possible to oppose to it a contradictory proposition with equally good arguments and with equal truth.
In reality, the result of this procedure is to rob the distinction between truth and falsehood of all meaning.
It makes no difference whether we say that all opinions are true, or whether we say that all are false.
The words truth and falsehood, in such context, have no meaning.
To say that whatever I feel is the truth for me means only that what I feel I feel.
To call this "truth for me," adds nothing to the meaning.
Protagoras seems to have been led to these doctrines partly by observing the different accounts of the same object which the sense-organs yield to different people, and even to the same person at different times.
If knowledge depends upon these impressions, the truth about the object cannot be ascertained.
He was also influenced by the teaching of Heracleitus.
Heracleitus had taught that all permanence is illusion.
Everything is a perpetual becoming; all things flow.
What is at this moment, at the next moment is not.
Even at one and the same moment, Heracleitus believed, a thing is and is not.
If it is true to say that it is, it is equally true that it is not.
And this is, in effect, the teaching of Protagoras.
The Protagorean philosophy thus amounts to a declaration that knowledge is impossible.
If there is no objective truth, there cannot be any knowledge of it.
The impossibility of knowledge is also the standpoint of Gorgias.
The title of his book is characteristic of {117} the Sophistical love of paradox.
It was called "On Nature, or the non-existent."
In this book he attempted to prove three propositions, (1) that nothing exists: (2) that if anything exists, it cannot be known: (3) that if it can be known, the knowledge of it cannot be communicated.
For proof of the first proposition, "nothing exists," Gorgias attached himself to the school of the Eleatics, especially to Zeno.
Zeno had taught that in all multiplicity and motion, that is to say, in all existence, there are irreconcilable contradictions.
Zeno was in no sense a sceptic.
He did not seek for contradictions in things for the sake of the contradictions, but in order to support the positive thesis of Parmenides, that only being is, and that becoming is not at all.
Zeno, therefore, is to be regarded as a constructive, and not merely as a destructive, thinker.
But it is obvious that by emphasizing only the negative element in his philosophy, it is possible to use his antinomies as powerful weapons in the cause of scepticism and nihilism.
And it was in this way that Gorgias made use of the dialectic of Zeno.
Since all existence is self-contradictory, it follows that nothing exists.
He also made use of the famous argument of Parmenides regarding the origin of being.
If anything is, said Gorgias, it must have had a beginning.
Its being must have arisen either from being, or from not-being.
If it arose from being, there is no beginning.
If it arose from not-being, this is impossible, since something cannot arise out of nothing.
Therefore nothing exists.
The second proposition of Gorgias, that if anything exists it cannot be known, is part and parcel of the whole Sophistic tendency of thought, which identifies knowledge {118} with sense-perception, and ignores the rational element.
Since sense-impressions differ in different people, and even in the same person, the object as it is in itself cannot be known.
The third proposition follows from the same identification of knowledge with sensation, since sensation is what cannot be communicated.
The later Sophists went much further than Protagoras and Gorgias.
It was their work to apply the teaching of Protagoras to the spheres of politics and morals.
If there is no objective truth, and if what seems true to each individual is for him the truth, so also, there can be no objective moral code, and what seems right to each man is right for him.
If we are to have anything worth calling morality, it is clear that it must be a law for all, and not merely a law for some.
It must be valid for, and binding upon, all men.
It must, therefore, be founded upon that which is universal in man, that is to say, his reason.
To found it upon sense-impressions and feelings is to found it upon shifting quicksands.
My feelings and sensations are binding upon no man but myself, and therefore a universally valid law cannot be founded upon them.
Yet the Sophists identified morality with the feelings of the individual.
Whatever I think right is right for me.
Whatever you think right is right for you.
Whatever each man, in his irrational self-will, chooses to do, that is, for him, legitimate.
These conclusions were drawn by Polus, Thrasymachus, and Critias.
Now if there is, in this way, no such thing as objective right, it follows that the laws of the State can be founded upon nothing except force, custom, and convention.
We often speak of just laws, and good laws.
But to speak in that way involves the existence of an objective {119} standard of goodness and justice, with which we can compare the law, and see whether it agrees with that standard or not.
To the Sophists, who denied any such standard, it was mere nonsense to speak of just and good laws.
No law is in itself good or just, because there is no such thing as goodness or justice.
Or if they used such a word as justice, they defined it as meaning the right of the stronger; or the right of the majority.
Polus and Thrasymachus, consequently, drew the conclusion that the laws of the State were inventions of the weak, who were cunning enough, by means of this stratagem, to control the strong, and rob them of the natural fruits of their strength.
The law of force is the only law which nature recognizes.
If a man, therefore, is powerful enough to defy the law with impunity, he has a perfect right to do so.
The Sophists were thus the first, but not the last, to preach the doctrine that might is right.
And, in similar vein, Critias explained popular belief in the gods as the invention of some crafty statesman for controlling the mob through fear.
Now it is obvious that the whole tendency of this sophistical teaching is destructive and anti-social.
It is destructive of religion, of morality, of the foundations of the State, and of all established institutions.
And we can now see that the doctrines of the Sophists were, in fact, simply the crystallization into abstract thought of the practical tendencies of the age.
The people in practice, the Sophists in theory, decried and trod under foot the restrictions of law, authority, and custom, leaving nothing but the deification of the individual in his crude self-will and egotism.
It was in fact an age of "aufklärung," which means enlightenment or {120} illumination.
Such periods of illumination, it seems, recur periodically in the history of thought, and in the history of civilization.
This is the first, but not the last, such period with which the history of philosophy deals.
This is the Greek illumination.
Such periods present certain characteristic features.
They follow, as a rule, upon an era of constructive thought.
In the present instance the Greek illumination followed closely upon the heels of the great development of science and philosophy from Thales to Anaxagoras.
In such a constructive period the great thinkers bring to birth new principles, which, in the course of time, filter down to the masses of the people and cause popular, if shallow, science, and a wide-spread culture.
Popular education becomes a feature of the time.
The new ideas, fermenting among the people, break up old prejudices and established ideas, and thus thought, at first constructive, becomes, among the masses, destructive in character.
Hence the popular thought, in a period of enlightenment, issues in denial, scepticism, and disbelief.
It is merely negative in its activities and results.
Authority, tradition, and custom are wholly or partially destroyed.
And since authority, tradition, and custom are the cement of the social structure, there results a general dissolution of that structure into its component individuals.
All emphasis is now laid on the individual.
Thought becomes egocentric.
Individualism is the dominant note.
Extreme subjectivity is the principle of the age.
All these features make their appearance in the Greek aufklärung.
The Sophistical doctrine that the truth is what I think, the good what I choose to do, is the extreme application of the subjective and egocentric principles.
{121} The early eighteenth century in England and France was likewise a period of enlightenment, and the era from which we are now, perhaps, just emerging, bears many of the characteristics of aufklärung.
It is sceptical and destructive.
All established institutions, marriage, the family, the state, the law, come in for much destructive criticism.
It followed immediately upon the close of a great period of constructive thought, the scientific development of the nineteenth century.
And lastly, the age has produced its own Protagorean philosophy, which it calls pragmatism.
If pragmatism is not egocentric, it is at least anthropocentric.
Truth is no longer thought of as an objective reality, to which mankind must conform.
On the contrary, the truth must conform itself to mankind.
Whatever it is useful to believe, whatever belief "works" in practice, is declared to be true.
But since what "works" in one age and country does not "work" in another, since what it is useful to believe to-day will be useless to-morrow, it follows that there is no objective truth independent of mankind at all.
Truth is not now defined as dependent on the sensations of man, as it was with Protagoras, but as dependent on the volition of man.
In either case it is not the universal in man, his reason, which is made the basis of truth and morals, but the subjective, individual, particular element in him.
We must not forget the many merits of the Sophists.
Individually, they were often estimable men.
Nothing is known against the character of Protagoras, and Prodicus was proverbial for his wisdom and the genuine probity and uprightness of his principles.
Moreover the Sophists contributed much to the advance of learning.
{122} They were the first to direct attention to the study of words, sentences, style, prosody, and rhythm.
They were the founders of the science of rhetoric.
They spread education and culture far and wide in Greece, they gave a great impulse to the study of ethical ideas, which made possible the teaching of Socrates, and they stirred up a ferment of ideas without which the great period of Plato and Aristotle could never have seen the light.
But, from the philosophical point of view, their merit is for the first time to have brought into general recognition _the right of the subject_.
For there is, after all, much reason in these attacks made by the Sophists upon authority, upon established things, upon tradition, custom and dogma.
Man, as a rational being, ought not to be tyrannized over by authority, dogma, and tradition.
He cannot be subjected, thus violently, to the imposition of beliefs from an external source.
No man has the right to say to me, "you _shall_ think this," or "you _shall_ think that."
I, as a rational being, have the right to use my reason, and judge for myself.
If a man would convince me, he must not appeal to force, but to reason.
In doing so, he is not imposing his opinions externally upon me; he is educing his opinions from the internal sources of my own thought; he is showing me that his opinions are in reality my own opinions, if I only knew it.
But the mistake of the Sophists was that, in thus recognizing the right of the subject, they wholly ignored and forgot _the right of the object_.
For the truth has objective existence, and is what it is, whether I think it or not.
Their mistake was that though they rightly saw that for truth and morality to be valid for me, they must be assented to by, and developed out of, {123} me myself, not imposed from the outside, yet they laid the emphasis on my merely accidental and particular characteristics, my impulses, feelings, and sensations, and made these the source of truth and morality, instead of emphasizing as the source of truth and right the universal part of me, my reason.
"Man is the measure of all things"; certainly, but man as a rational being, not man as a bundle of particular sensations, subjective impressions, impulses, irrational prejudices, self-will, mere eccentricities, oddities, foibles, and fancies.
Good examples of the right and wrong principles of the Sophists are to be found in modern Protestantism and modern democracy.
Protestantism, it is often said, is founded upon the right of private judgment, and this is simply the right of the subject, the right of the individual to exercise his own reason.
But if this is interpreted to mean that each individual is entitled to set up his mere whims and fancies as the law in religious matters, then we have the bad sort of Protestantism.
Again, democracy is simply political protestantism, and democratic ideas are the direct offspring of the protestant Reformation.
The democratic principle is that no rational being can be asked to obey a law to which his own reason has not assented.
But the law must be founded upon reason, upon the universal in man.
I, as an individual, as a mere ego, have no rights whatever.
It is only as a rational being, as a potentially universal being, as a member of the commonwealth of reason, that I have any rights, that I can claim to legislate for myself and others.
But if each individual's capricious self-will, his mere whims and fancies, are erected into a law, then democracy turns into anarchism and bolshevism.
{124} It is a great mistake to suppose that the doctrines of the Sophists are merely antiquated ideas, dead and fossilized thoughts, of interest only to historians, but of no importance to us.
On the contrary, modern popular thought positively reeks with the ideas and tendencies of the Sophists.
It is often said that a man ought to have strong convictions, and some people even go so far as to say that it does not much matter what a man believes, so long as what he believes he believes strongly and firmly.
Now certainly it is quite true that a man with strong convictions is more interesting than a man without any opinions.
The former is at least a force in the world, while the latter is colourless and ineffectual.
But to put exclusive emphasis on the mere fact of having convictions is wrong.
After all, the final test of worth must be whether the man's convictions are true or false.
There must be an objective standard of truth, and to forget this, to talk of the mere fact of having strong opinions as in itself a merit, is to fall into the error of the Sophists.
Another common saying is that everyone has a right to his own opinions.
This is quite true, and it merely expresses the right of the subject to use his own reason.
But it is sometimes interpreted in a different way.
If a man holds a totally irrational opinion, and if every weapon is beaten out of his hands, if he is driven from every position he takes up--so that there is nothing left for him to do, except to admit that he is wrong, such a man will sometimes take refuge in the saying, that, after all, argue as you may, he has a right to his own opinion.
But we cannot allow the claim.
No man has a right to wrong opinions.
There cannot be any right {125} in wrong opinions.
You have no right to an opinion unless it is founded upon that which is universal in man, his reason.
You cannot claim this right on behalf of your subjective impressions, and irrational whims.
To do so is to make the mistake of the Sophists.
The tendencies of the more shallow type of modern rationalism exhibit a similar Sophistical thought.
It is pointed out that moral ideas vary very much in different countries and ages, that in Japan, for example, prostitution is condoned, and that in ancient Egypt incest was not condemned.
Now it is important to know these facts.
They should serve as a warning to us against dogmatic narrow-mindedness in moral matters.
But some people draw from these facts the conclusion that there is no universally valid and objectively real moral law.
The conclusion does not follow from the premises, and the conclusion is false.
People's opinions differ, not only on moral questions, but upon every subject under the sun.
Because men, a few hundred years ago, believed that the earth was flat, whereas now we believe it is round, it does not follow that it has in reality no shape at all, that there is no objective truth in the matter.
And because men's opinions differ, in different ages and countries, as to what the true moral law is, it does not follow that there is no objective moral law.
We will take as our last example the current talk about the importance of developing one's personality.
A man, it is said, should "be himself," and the expression of his own individuality must be his leading idea.
Now certainly it is good to be oneself in the sense that it is hypocritical to pretend to be what one is not.
Moreover, it is no doubt true that each man has certain special {126} gifts, which he ought to develop, so that all, in their diverse ways, may contribute as much as possible to the spiritual and material wealth of the world.
But this ideal of individuality often leads to false developments, as we see in the spheres of art and of education.
Such a man as Oscar Wilde, whose personality is essentially evil, defends his artistic principles on the ground that he must needs express his personality, that art is nothing but such personal expression, and that it is subject to no standard save the individuality of the artist.
Some writers on education, among them Mr. Bernard Shaw, who has many points in common with the Sophists, tell us that to attempt to mould the character of a child by discipline, is to sin against its personality, and that the child should be allowed to develop its individuality unchecked in its own way.
But against this we have to protest that to make the cultivation of individuality an end in itself, and to put exclusive emphasis on this, is wrong.
The cultivation of an individuality is not in itself a good thing; it is not a good thing if the individuality be a worthless one.
If a child exhibits savage or selfish tendencies, it must be subjected to discipline, and it is ridiculous to make a fetish of its personality to such an extent as to allow it to develop as it likes.
In a similar way, the ideal of individuality is often interpreted to mean that the cultivation of the mere eccentricities and oddities of the individual is something good.
But the personal peculiarities of a man are just what is worthless about him.
That alone which entitles him to the sacred rights of a "person" is his rational and universal nature.
{127} CHAPTER X SOCRATES Amid the destruction of all ideals of truth and morality, which was brought about by the Sophists, there appeared in Athens the figure of Socrates, who was destined to restore order out of chaos, and to introduce sanity into the disordered intellectual life of the time.
Socrates was born about 470 B.C.
in Athens.
His father was a sculptor, his mother a midwife.
Very little is known of his early years and education, except that he took up his father's occupation as a sculptor.
In later years some statues used to be shown at the Acropolis in Athens, which were said to be the work of Socrates.
But comparatively early in life he deserted his profession in order to devote himself to what he considered his mission in life, philosophy.
He spent his entire life in Athens, never departing from it, save for short periods on three occasions, when he served in military expeditions in the Athenian army.
For from twenty to thirty years he laboured at his philosophical mission in Athens, until, in his seventieth year, he was charged with denying the national gods, introducing new gods of his own, and corrupting the Athenian youth.
On these charges he was condemned to death and executed.
{128} The personal appearance of Socrates was grotesque.
He was short, thick-set, and ugly.
As he grew older he became bald; his nose was broad, flat, and turned up; he walked with a peculiar gait, and had a trick of rolling his eyes.
His clothes were old and poor.
He cared little or nothing for external appearances.
Socrates believed that he was guided in all his actions by a supernatural voice, which he called his "daemon."
This voice, he thought, gave him premonitions of the good or evil consequences of his proposed actions, and nothing would induce him to disobey its injunctions.
Socrates constructed no philosophy, that is to say, no system of philosophy.
He was the author of philosophical tendencies, and of a philosophic method.
He never committed his opinions to writing.
His method of philosophizing was purely conversational.
It was his habit to go down every day to the market place in Athens, or to any other spot where people gathered, and there to engage in conversation with anyone who was ready to talk to him about the deep problems of life and death.
Rich or poor, young or old, friend or stranger, whoever came, and would attend, could listen freely to the talk of Socrates.
He took no fees, as the Sophists did, and remained always a poor man.
He did not, like the Sophists, deliver long speeches, tirades, and monologues.
He never monopolised the conversation, and frequently it was the other party who did most of the talking, Socrates only interposing questions and comments, and yet remaining always master of the conversation, and directing it into fruitful channels.
The conversation proceeded chiefly by the method of question and answer, Socrates by acute questions educing, bringing to birth, {129} the thoughts of his partner, correcting, refuting, or developing them.
In carrying on this daily work, Socrates undoubtedly regarded himself as engaged upon a mission in some way supernaturally imposed upon him by God.
Of the origin of this mission we have an account in the "Apology" of Plato, who puts into the mouth of Socrates the following words:--"Chairephon .... made a pilgrimage to Delphi and had the audacity to ask this question from the oracle ....
He actually asked if there was any man wiser than I.
And the priestess answered, No ....
When I heard the answer, I asked myself: What can the god mean?
what can he be hinting?
For certainly I have never thought myself wise in anything, great or small.
What can he mean then, when he asserts that I am the wisest of men?
He cannot lie, of course: that would be impossible for him.
And for a long while I was at a loss to think what he could mean.
At last, after much thought, I started on some such course as this.
I betook myself to one of the men who seemed wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I should refute the utterance, and could say to the oracle: 'This man is wiser than I, and you said I was the wisest.'
Now when I looked into the man--there is no need to give his name--it was one of our citizens, men of Athens, with whom I had an experience of this kind--when we talked together I thought, 'This man seems wise to many men, and above all to himself, but he is not so'; and then I tried to show that he thought he was wise, but he was not.
Then he got angry with me and so did many who heard us, but I went away and thought to myself, 'Well, at any rate I am wiser than this man: probably neither of {130} us knows anything of beauty or of good, but he thinks he knows something when he knows nothing, and I, if I know nothing, at least never suppose that I do.
So it looks as though I really were a little wiser than he, just in so far as I do not imagine myself to know things about which I know nothing at all.'
After that I went to another man who seemed to be wiser still, and I had exactly the same experience, and then he got angry with me too, and so did many more.
Thus I went round them all, one after the other, aware of what was happening and sorry for it, and afraid that they were getting to hate me."
In this passage we can see, too, the supposed origin of another peculiar Socratic feature, the Socratic "irony."
In any discussion, Socrates would, as a rule, profess himself to be totally ignorant of the matter in hand, and only anxious to learn the wisdom possessed by his interlocutor.
This professed ignorance was not affectation.
He was genuinely impressed with the notion that not only he, but all other men, live for the most part in ignorance of the things that are the most important to be known, the nature of goodness, beauty, and truth.
He believed that the self-styled knowledge of the wise was, for the most part, nothing but pretentious ignorance.
Nevertheless, he used this profession of ignorance as a weapon of offence, and it became in his hands a powerful rhetorical instrument, which he used with specially telling effect against those who, puffed up with their own importance and wisdom, pretended to knowledge which they did not possess.
Such hollow pretence of knowledge met with uncompromising exposure at the hands of Socrates.
With such persons he would open the {131} conversation with a confession of his own ignorance and an expression of his desire to learn the wisdom, which, he knew, they possessed.
In their eagerness to show off their knowledge, they would, perhaps, rush into the breach with some very positive assertion.
Socrates would express himself as delighted with this, but would add that there were one or two things about it which he did not fully understand, and he would proceed, with a few dexterous questions, to expose the hollowness, the shallowness, or the ignorance of the answers.
It was chiefly the young men of Athens who gathered round Socrates, who was for them a centre of intellectual activity and a fountain of inspiration.
It was this fact which afterwards formed the basis of the charge that he "corrupted the youth."
He was a man of the noblest character and of the simplest life.
Accepting no fees, he acquired no wealth.
Poor, caring nothing for worldly goods, wholly independent of the ordinary needs and desires of men, he devoted himself exclusively to the acquisition of that which, in his eyes, alone had value, wisdom and virtue.
He was endowed with the utmost powers of physical endurance and moral strength.
When he served with the army in the Peloponnesian war, he astonished his fellow-soldiers by his bravery, and his cheerful endurance of every hardship.
On two occasions, at considerable risk to himself, he saved the lives of his companions.
At the battle of Delium it is said that Socrates was the only man who kept his head in the rout of the Athenians.
He was an excellent companion, and though simple in his habits, and independent of all material pleasures, never made a fetish of this independence, nor allowed it to degenerate into a harsh asceticism, {132} Thus, he needed no wine, but yet, if occasion called for it, he not only drank, but could drink more than any other man without turning a hair.
In the "Banquet" of Plato, Socrates is depicted sitting all night long drinking and talking philosophy with his friends.
One by one the guests succumbed, leaving only Socrates and two others, and at last, as the dawn broke, these two also fell asleep.
But Socrates got up, washed himself, and went down to the market place to begin his daily work.
In his seventieth year he was tried on three charges: (1) for denying the national gods, (2) for setting up new gods of his own, (3) for corrupting the youth.
All these charges were entirely baseless.
The first might well have been brought against almost any of the earlier Greek thinkers with some justice.
Most of them disbelieved in the national religion; many of them openly denied the existence of the gods.
Socrates, almost alone, had refrained from any such attitude.
On the contrary, he always enjoined veneration towards the gods, and urged his hearers, in whatever city they might be, to honour the gods according to the custom of that city.
According to Xenophon, however, he distinguished between the many gods and the one creator of the universe, who controls, guides, and guards over the lives of men.
The second charge appears to have been based upon the claim of Socrates to be guided by a supernatural inner voice, but whatever we may think of this claim, it can hardly constitute good ground for a charge of introducing new gods.
The third charge, that of corrupting the youth, was equally baseless, though the fact that Alcibiades, who had been a favourite pupil of Socrates, afterwards turned traitor to Athens, and {133} led, moreover, a dissolute and unprincipled life, no doubt prejudiced the philosopher in the eyes of the Athenians.
But Socrates was not responsible for the misdeeds of Alcibiades, and his general influence upon the Athenian youth was the very opposite of corrupting.
What then were the real reasons for these accusations?
In the first place, there is no doubt that Socrates had made many personal enemies.
In his daily disputations he had not spared even the most powerful men in Athens, but had ruthlessly laid bare the ignorance of those who pretended to be wise.
There is, however, no reason to believe that the three men who actually laid the charges, Melitus, Lycon, and Anytus, did so out of any personal animosity.
But they were men of straw, put forward by more powerful persons who remained behind the scenes.
In the second place, Socrates had rendered himself obnoxious to the Athenian democracy.
He was no aristocrat in feeling, nor was he a supporter of the vested interests and privileges of the few.
But he could not accommodate himself to the mob-rule which then went by the name of democracy.
The government of the State, he believed, should be in the hands of the wise, the just, and the good, those competent and trained to govern, and these are necessarily the few.
He himself had taken no part in the political life of the time, preferring to guide by his influence and advice the young men on whom some day the duties of the State would devolve.
On two occasions only did he take an active part in politics, and on both occasions his conduct gave great offence.
Both these incidents are recounted in a passage in Plato's "Apology," which I will quote.
The {134} first incident refers to the aftermath of the battle of Arginusae.
The Athenian fleet had gained a victory here, but lost twenty-five ships of war, and the whole of the crews of these ships were drowned.
This was attributed to the carelessness of the generals, and there was great indignation in Athens, upon their return whither the generals were put upon their trial.
According to the law of Athens each accused had to be given a separate trial, but in their eagerness to have the generals condemned, the judges in this instance decided to try them all in a body.
"You know, men of Athens," says Socrates in the "Apology," "that I have never held any other office in the State, but I did serve on the Council.
And it happened that my tribe, Antiochis, had the Presidency at the time you decided to try the ten generals who had not taken up the dead after the fight at sea.
You decided to try them in one body, contrary to law, as you all felt afterwards.
On that occasion I was the only one of the Presidents who opposed you, and told you not to break the law; and I gave my vote against you; and when the orators were ready to impeach and arrest me, and you encouraged them and hooted me, I thought then that I ought to take all the risks on the side of law and justice, rather than side with you, when your decisions were unjust, through fear of imprisonment or death.
That was while the city was still under the democracy.
When the oligarchy came into power, the Thirty, in their turn, summoned me with four others to the Rotunda, and commanded us to fetch Leon of Salamis from that island, in order to put him to death: the sort of commands they often gave to many others, anxious as they were to incriminate all they could.
And on that occasion {135} I showed not by words only, that for death, to put it bluntly, I did not care one straw--but I did care, and to the full, about doing what was wicked and unjust.
I was not terrified then into doing wrong by that government in all its power; when we left the Rotunda, the other four went off to Salamis and brought Leon back, but I went home.
And probably I should have been put to death for it, if the government had not been overthrown soon afterwards."
But there was a third, and greater reason, for the condemnation of Socrates.
These charges were brought against him because the popular mind confused him with the Sophists.
This was entirely absurd, because Socrates in no respect resembled the Sophists, either in the manner of his life or in the tendency of his thought, which was wholly anti-sophistical.
But that such a confusion did exist in the popular mind is clearly proved by "The Clouds" of Aristophanes.
Aristophanes was a reactionary in thought and politics, and, hating the Sophists as the representatives of modernism, he lampooned them in his comedy, "The Clouds."
Socrates appears in the play as the central character, and the chief of the Sophists.
This was entirely unjust, but it affords evidence of the fact that Socrates was commonly mistaken for a Sophist by the Athenians.
Aristophanes would not have ventured to introduce such a delusion into his play, had his audience not shared in it.
Now at this time a wave of reaction was passing over Athens, and there was great indignation against the Sophists, who were rightly supposed to be overturning all ideals of truth and goodness.
Socrates fell a victim to the anger of the populace against the Sophists.
{136} At the trial Socrates conducted himself with dignity and confidence.
It was usual in those days for an accused person to weep and lament, to flatter the judges, to seek indulgence by grovelling and fawning, to appeal for pity by parading his wife and children in the court.
Socrates refused to do any of these things, considering them unmanly.
His "defence" was, indeed, not so much a defence of himself as an arraignment of his judges, the people of Athens, for their corruption and vice.
This attitude of Socrates certainly brought about his condemnation.
There is every reason to believe that if he had adopted a grovelling, even a conciliatory tone, he would have been acquitted.
As it was, he was found guilty by a bare majority.
The law enacted that, when the charge was proved, those who had brought the accusation should first propose the penalty which they thought fitting; then the accused himself should propose an alternative penalty.
It was for the judges to decide which of the two should be inflicted.
The accusers of Socrates proposed the death-penalty.
Here again Socrates might have escaped by proposing at once some petty punishment.
This would have satisfied the people, who were only anxious to score off the troublesome philosopher and pedant.
But Socrates proudly affirmed that, as he was guilty of no crime, he deserved no punishment.
To propose a penalty would be to admit his guilt.
Far from being a guilty person, he considered himself in the light of a public benefactor, and as such, if he were to get his deserts, he proposed that he should be publicly honoured by being given a seat at the President's table.
Nevertheless, as the law forced him to propose a penalty, he would, without prejudice to his {137} plea of innocence, suggest a fine of thirty minas.
This conduct so exasperated the judges that he was now condemned to death by a large majority, about eighty of those who had previously voted for his acquittal now voting for his execution.
Thirty days elapsed before he was executed, and these days were spent in prison.
His friends, who had free access to him, urged him to escape.
These things were possible in Athens.
Anaxagoras had apparently escaped with the help of Pericles.
A little silver in the hands of the jailguards would probably have settled the matter.
Socrates could fly to Thessaly, where the law could not reach him, as Anaxagoras had fled to Ionia.
But Socrates steadily refused, saying that to flee from death was cowardly, and that one ought to obey the laws.
The law had decreed his death, and he must obey.
After thirty days, therefore, the poison cup was brought to him, and he drank it without flinching.
Here is Plato's account of the death of Socrates, which I quote from the "Phaedo."
In detail it cannot be considered historical, but we may well believe that the main incidents as well as the picture it gives us of the bearing and demeanour of the philosopher in his last moments, are accurate representations of the facts.
"He rose and went into a chamber to bathe, and Crito followed him, but he directed us to wait for him.
We waited, therefore, conversing among ourselves about what had been said, and considering it again, and sometimes speaking about our calamity, how severe it would be to us, sincerely thinking that, like those who are deprived of a father, we should pass the rest of our lives as orphans.
When he had bathed and his {138} children were brought to him, for he had two little sons and one grown up, and the women belonging to his family were come, having conversed with them in the presence of Crito, and given them such injunctions as he wished, he directed the women and children to go away, and then returned to us.
And it was now near sunset; for he spent a considerable time within.
But when he came from bathing he sat down and did not speak much afterwards: then the officer of the Eleven came in and standing near him said, 'Socrates, I shall not have to find that fault with you that I do with the others, that they are angry with me, and curse me, when, by order of the archons, I bid them drink the poison.
But you, on all other occasions during the time you have been here, I have found to be the most noble, meek and excellent man of all that ever came into this place; and, therefore, I am now well convinced that you will not be angry with me.
Now, then, for you know what I came to announce to you, farewell, and endeavour to bear what is inevitable as easily as possible.'
And at the same time, bursting into tears, he turned away and withdrew.
And Socrates, looking after him, said, 'And thou too, farewell, we will do as you direct.'
At the same time, turning to us he said 'How courteous the man is; during the whole time I have been here he has visited me, and conversed with me sometimes, and proved the worthiest of men; and how generously he weeps for me.
But come, Crito, let us obey him and let some one bring the poison, if it is ready pounded, but if not let the man pound it.'
"Then Crito said, 'But I think, Socrates, that the sun is still on the mountains, and has not yet set.
Besides, {139} I know that others have drunk the poison very late, after it had been announced to them, and have supped and drunk freely, and some even have enjoyed the objects of their love.
Do not hasten them, for there is yet time.'
"Upon this Socrates replied, 'These men whom you mention, Crito, do these things with good reason, for they think they shall gain by so doing, and I too with good reason, shall not do so; for I think I shall gain nothing by drinking a little later, except to become ridiculous to myself, in being so fond of life, and sparing of it when none any longer remains.
Go then,' he said, 'obey, and do not resist.'
"Crito having heard this, nodded to the boy that stood near.
And the boy having gone out, and stayed for some time, came, bringing with him the man that was to administer the poison, who brought it ready pounded in a cup.
And Socrates, on seeing the man, said, 'Well, my good friend, as you are skilled in these matters, what must I do?'
'Nothing else,' he replied, 'than when you have drunk it walk about, until there is a heaviness in your legs, then lie down; thus it will do its purpose.'
And at the same time he held out the cup to Socrates.
And he having received it very cheerfully, Echecrates, neither trembling, nor changing at all in colour or countenance, but, as he was wont, looking steadfastly at the man, said, 'what say you of this potion, with respect to making a libation to anyone, is it lawful or not?'
'We only pound so much, Socrates,' he said, 'as we think sufficient to drink.'
'I understand you,' he said, 'but it is certainly both lawful and right to pray to the gods that my departure hence thither may be happy; which therefore I pray, and so {140} may it be.'
And as he said this he drank it off readily and calmly.
Thus far, most of us were with difficulty able to restrain ourselves from weeping, but when we saw him drinking, and having finished the draught, we could do so no longer; but in spite of myself the tears came in full torrent, so that, covering my face, I wept for myself, for I did not weep for him, but for my own fortune, in being deprived of such a friend.
But Crito, even before me, when he could not restrain his tears, had risen up.
But Apollodorus even before this had not ceased weeping, and then, bursting into an agony of grief, weeping and lamenting, he pierced the heart of everyone present, except Socrates himself.
But he said.
'What are you doing, my admirable friends?
I indeed, for this reason chiefly, sent away the women, that they might not commit any folly of this kind.
For I have heard that it is right to die with good omens.
Be quiet, therefore, and bear up.'
"When we heard this we were ashamed, and restrained our tears.
But he, having walked about, when he said that his legs were growing heavy, lay down on his back; for the man so directed him.
And at the same time he who gave him the poison, taking hold of him, after a short interval examined his feet and legs; and then having pressed his foot hard, he asked if he felt it; he said that he did not.
And after this he pressed his thighs; and thus going higher he showed us that he was growing cold and stiff.
Then Socrates touched himself, and said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart.
But now the parts around the lower belly were almost cold; when uncovering himself, for he had been covered over, he said; and they were his {141} last words.
'Crito, we owe a cock to AEsculapius; pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it.'
'It shall be done,' said Crito, 'but consider whether you have anything else to say.'
"To this question he gave no reply; but shortly after he gave a convulsive movement, and the man covered him, and his eyes were fixed, and Crito, perceiving it, closed his mouth and eyes.
"This, Echecrates, was the end of our friend, a man, as we may say, the best of all of his time that we have known, and moreover, the most wise and just."
Our knowledge of the teaching of Socrates is derived chiefly from two sources, Plato and Xenophon, for the peculiarities of each of whom allowances must be made.
Plato in his dialogues makes Socrates the mouthpiece of his own teaching, consequently the majority of the tenets to which Socrates is made to give expression are purely Platonic doctrines of which the historical Socrates could never even have dreamed.
It might, therefore, seem at first sight that there is no possibility of ascertaining from Plato's dialogues any trustworthy account of the ideas of Socrates.
But on closer inspection this does not turn out to be correct, because the earlier dialogues of Plato were written before he had developed his own philosophy, and when he was, to all intents and purposes, simply a disciple of Socrates, bent only upon giving the best expression to the Socratic doctrine.
Even in these Socratic dialogues, however, we have what is no doubt an idealized portrait of Socrates.
Plato makes no pretence of being merely a biographer or historian.
The incidents and conversation, although they are no doubt frequently founded upon facts, are, in the {142} main, imaginary.
All we can say is that they contain the gist and substance of the philosophy of Socrates.
The other source, Xenophon, also has his peculiarities.
If Plato was an idealizing philosopher, Xenophon was a prosaic and matter of fact man of affairs.
He was a plain, honest soldier.
He had no great insight into any philosophy, Socratic or otherwise.
He was not attached to Socrates primarily as a philosopher, but as an admirer of his character and personality.
If Plato puts the teaching of Socrates too high, Xenophon puts it too low.
But, in spite of this, Xenophon's Memorabilia contains a mass of valuable information both about the life and the philosophical ideas of Socrates.
The Socratic teaching is essentially ethical in character.
In this alone did Socrates bear any resemblance to the Sophists.
It was the Sophists who had introduced into Greek philosophy the problem of man, and of the duties of man.
And to these problems Socrates also turns his exclusive attention.
He brushes aside all questions as to the origin of the world, or the nature of the ultimate reality, of which we have heard so much in the philosophies of the earlier thinkers.
Socrates openly deprecated such speculations and considered all such knowledge comparatively worthless as against ethical knowledge, the knowledge of man.
Mathematics, physics, and astronomy, he thought, were not valuable forms of knowledge.
He said that he never went for walks outside the city, because there is nothing to be learnt from fields and trees.
Nevertheless the ethical teaching of Socrates was founded upon a theory of knowledge, which is quite simple, but extremely important.
The Sophists had founded knowledge upon perception, with the result {143} that all objective standards of truth had been destroyed.
It was the work of Socrates to found knowledge upon reason, and thereby to restore to truth its objectivity.
Briefly, the theory of Socrates may be summarized by saying that he taught that _all knowledge is knowledge through concepts_.
What is a concept?
When we are directly conscious of the presence of any particular thing, a man, a tree, a house, or a star, such consciousness is called perception.
When, shutting our eyes, we frame a mental picture of such an object, such consciousness is called an image or representation.
Such mental images are, like perceptions, always ideas of particular individual objects.
But besides these ideas of individual objects, whether through sense-perception or imagination, we have also general ideas, that is to say, not ideas of any particular thing, but ideas of whole classes of things.
If I say "Socrates is mortal," I am thinking of the individual, Socrates.
But if I say "Man is mortal," I am thinking, not of any particular man, but of the class of men in general.
Such an idea is called a general idea, or a concept.
All class-names, such as man, tree, house, river, animal, horse, being, which stand, not for one thing, but for a multitude of things, represent concepts.
We form these general ideas by including in them all the qualities which the whole class of objects has in common, and excluding from them all the qualities in which they differ, that is to say, the qualities which some of the objects possess, but others do not.
For example, I cannot include the quality whiteness in my general idea of horses, because, though some horses are white, others are not.
But I can include the quality vertebrate because all horses agree in being vertebrate.
Thus a {144} concept is formed by bringing together the ideas in which all the members of a class of objects agree with one another, and neglecting the ideas in which they differ.
Now reason is the faculty of concepts.
This may not, at first sight, be obvious.
Reason, it might be objected, is the faculty of arguing, of drawing conclusions from premises.
But a little consideration will show us that, though this is so, yet all reasoning is employed upon concepts.
All reasoning is either deductive or inductive.
Induction consists in the formulation of general principles from particular cases.
A general principle is always a statement made, not about a particular thing, but about a whole class of things, that is, about a concept.
Concepts are formed inductively by comparing numerous examples of a class.
Deductive reasoning is always the opposite process of applying general principles to particular cases.
If we argue that Socrates must be mortal because all men are so, the question is whether Socrates is a man, that is to say, whether the concept, man, is properly applied to the particular object called Socrates.
Thus inductive reasoning is concerned with the formation of concepts, deductive reasoning with the application of them.
Socrates, in placing all knowledge in concepts, was thus making reason the organ of knowledge.
This was in direct opposition to the principle of the Sophists, who placed all knowledge in sense-perception.
Now since reason is the universal element in man, it follows that Socrates, in identifying knowledge with concepts, was restoring the belief in an objective truth, valid for all men, and binding upon all men, and was destroying the Sophistic teaching that the truth is whatever each {145} individual chooses to think it is.
We shall see this more clearly if we reflect that a concept is the same thing as a definition.
If we wish to define any word, for example, the word man, we must include in our definition only the qualities which all men have in common.
We cannot, for example, define man as a white-skinned animal, because all men are not white-skinned.
Similarly we cannot include "English-speaking" in our definition, because, though some men speak English, others do not.
But we might include such a quality as "two-legged," because "two-legged" is a quality common to all human beings, except mere aberrations and distortions of the normal type.
Thus a definition is formed in the same way as a concept, namely, by including the common qualities of a class of objects, and excluding the qualities in which the members of the class differ.
A definition, in fact, is merely the expression of a concept in words.
Now by the process of fixing definitions we obtain objective standards of truth.
If, for example, we fix the definition of a triangle, then we can compare any geometrical figure with it, and say whether it is a triangle or not.
It is no longer open to anyone to declare that whatever he chooses to call a triangle is a triangle.
Similarly, if we fix upon a definition of the word man, we can then compare any object with that definition, and say whether it is a man or not.
Again, if we can decide what the proper concept of virtue is, then the question whether any particular act is virtuous can only be decided by comparing that act with the concept, and seeing if they agree.
The Sophist can no longer say, "whatever seems to me right, is right for me.
Whatever I choose to do is virtuous for me."
His act must be judged, not by {146} his subjective impressions, but by the concept or definition, which is thus an objective standard of truth, independent of the individual.
This, then, was the theory of knowledge propounded by Socrates.
Knowledge, he said, is not the same thing as the sensations of the individual, which would mean that each individual can name as the truth whatever he pleases.
Knowledge means knowledge of things as they objectively are, independently of the individual, and such knowledge is knowledge of the concepts of things.
Therefore the philosophizing of Socrates consisted almost exclusively in trying to frame proper concepts.
He went about enquiring, "What is virtue?"
"What is prudence?"
"What is temperance?"
--meaning thereby "what are the true concepts or definitions of these things?"
In this way he attempted to find a basis for believing in an objectively real truth and an objectively real moral law.
His method of forming concepts was by induction.
He would take common examples of actions which are universally admitted to be prudent, and would attempt to find the quality which they all have in common, and by virtue of which they are all classed together, and so form the concept of prudence.
Then he would bring up fresh examples, and see whether they agreed with the concept so formed.
If not, the concept might have to be corrected in the light of the new examples.
But the Socratic theory of knowledge was not a theory put forward for its own sake, but for practical ends.
Socrates always made theory subservient to practice.
He wanted to know what the concept of virtue is, only in order to practise virtue in life.
And this brings us to the central point of the ethical teaching of Socrates, {147} which was the identification of virtue with knowledge.
Socrates believed that a man cannot act rightly, unless he first knows what is right, unless, in fact, he knows the concept of right.
Moral action is thus founded upon knowledge, and must spring from it.
But not only did Socrates think that if a man has not knowledge, he cannot do right.
He also put forward the much more doubtful assertion that if a man possesses knowledge, he cannot do wrong.
All wrong-doing arises from ignorance.
If a man only knows what is right, he must and will infallibly do what is right.
All men seek the good, but men differ as to what the good is.
"No man," said Socrates, "intentionally does wrong."
He does wrong, because he does not know the true concept of right, and being ignorant, thinks that what he is doing is good.
"If a man intentionally does wrong," said Socrates again, "he is better than a man who does so unintentionally."
For the former has in him the essential condition of goodness, knowledge of what goodness is, but the latter, lacking that knowledge, is hopeless.
Aristotle, in commenting upon this whole doctrine, observed that Socrates had ignored or forgotten the irrational parts of the soul.
Socrates imagined that everybody's actions are governed solely by reason, and that therefore if only they reasoned aright, they must do right.
He forgot that the majority of men's actions are governed by passions and emotions, "the irrational parts of the soul."
Aristotle's criticism of Socrates is unanswerable.
All experience shows that men do deliberately do wrong, that, knowing well what is right, they nevertheless do wrong.
But it is easy to see why Socrates made this mistake; he was arguing only from {148} his own case.
Socrates really does appear to have been above human weakness.
He was not guided by passions, but by reason, and it followed as the night follows the day, that if Socrates knew what was right, he did it.
He was unable to understand how men, knowing the right, could yet do the wrong.
If they are vicious, he thought, it must be because they do not know what is right.
The criticism of Aristotle is thus justified.
Yet for all that, the theory of Socrates is not to be too quickly brushed aside.
There is more truth in it than appears at first sight.
We say that a man believes one thing and does another.
Yet it is a matter of question what a man really believes, and what is the test of his belief.
Men go to church every Sunday, and there repeat formulas and prayers, of which the main idea is that all earthly riches are worthless in comparison with spiritual treasures.
Such men, if asked, might tell us that they believe this to be true.
They believe that they believe it.
And yet in actual life, perhaps, they seek only for earthly riches, and behave as if they thought these the supreme good.
What do such men really believe?
Do they believe as they speak, or as they act?
Is it not at least arguable that they are really pursuing what they believe to be good, and that, if they were genuinely convinced of the superiority of spiritual treasures, they would seek them, and not material riches?
This at least is what Socrates thought.
All men seek the good, but the many do not know what the good is.
There is certainly truth in this in many cases, though in others there can be no doubt that men do deliberately what they know to be evil.
There are two other characteristic Socratic propositions {149} which flow from the same general idea, that virtue is identical with knowledge.
The first is, that virtue can be taught.
We do not ordinarily think that virtue can be taught like arithmetic.
We think that virtue depends upon a number of factors, prominent among which are the inborn disposition of a man, heredity, environment, modified to some extent by education, practice, and habit.
The consequence is that a man's character does not change very much as he grows older.
By constant practice, by continual self-control, a man may, to some extent, make himself better, but on the whole, what he is he remains.
The leopard, we say, does not change his spots.
But as, for Socrates, the sole condition of virtue is knowledge, and as knowledge is just what can be imparted by teaching, it followed that virtue must be teachable.
The only difficulty is to find the teacher, to find some one who knows the concept of virtue.
What the concept of virtue is--that is, thought Socrates, the precious piece of knowledge, which no philosopher has ever discovered, and which, if it were only discovered, could at once be imparted by teaching, whereupon men would at once become virtuous.
The other Socraticism is that "virtue is one."
We talk of many virtues, temperance, prudence, foresight, benevolence, kindness, etc.
Socrates believed that all these particular virtues flowed from the one source, knowledge.
Therefore knowledge itself, that is to say, wisdom, is the sole virtue, and this includes all the others.
This completes the exposition of the positive teaching of Socrates.
It only remains for us to consider what position Socrates holds in the history of thought.
There are two sides of the Socratic teaching.
In the first {150} place, there is the doctrine of knowledge, that all knowledge is through concepts.
This is the scientific side of the philosophy of Socrates.
Secondly, there is his ethical teaching.
Now the essential and important side of Socrates is undoubtedly the scientific theory of concepts.
It is this which gives him his position in the history of philosophy.
His ethical ideas, suggestive as they were, were yet all tainted with the fallacy that men are governed only by reason.
Hence they have exercised no great influence on the history of thought.
But the theory of concepts worked a revolution in philosophy.
Upon a development of it is founded the whole of Plato's philosophy, and, through Plato, the philosophy of Aristotle, and, indeed, all subsequent idealism.
The immediate effect of this theory, however, was the destruction of the teaching of the Sophists.
The Sophists taught the doctrine that truth is sense-perception, and as the perceptions of different individuals differ in regard to the same object, it followed that truth became a matter of taste with the individual.
This undermined all belief in truth as an objective reality, and, by similar reasoning, faith in the objectivity of the moral law was also destroyed.
The essential position of Socrates is that of a restorer of faith.
His greatness lay in the fact that he saw that the only way to combat the disastrous results of the Sophistic teaching was to refute the fundamental assumption from which all that teaching flowed, the assumption, namely, that knowledge is perception.
Against this, therefore, Socrates opposed the doctrine that knowledge is through concepts.
To base knowledge upon concepts is to base it upon the universality of reason, and therefore to restore it from the {151} position of a subjective seeming to that of an objective reality.
But though Socrates is thus a restorer of faith, we must not imagine that his thought is therefore a mere retrogression to the intellectual condition of pre-Sophistic times.
It was, on the contrary, an advance beyond the Sophists.
We have here, in fact, an example of what is the normal development of all thought, whether in the individual or the race.
The movement of thought exhibits three stages.
The first stage is positive belief, not founded upon reason; it is merely conventional belief.
At the second stage thought becomes destructive and sceptical.
It denies what was affirmed in the previous stage.
The third stage is the restoration of positive belief now founded upon the concept, upon reason, and not merely upon custom.
Before the time of the Sophists, men took it for granted that truth and goodness are objective realities; nobody specially affirmed it, because nobody denied it.
It seemed obvious.
It was, thus, not believed on rational grounds, but through custom and habit.
This, the first stage of thought, we may call the era of simple faith.
When the Sophists came upon the scene, they brought reason and thought to bear upon what had hitherto been accepted as a matter of course, namely law, custom, and authority.
The first encroachment of reason upon simple faith is always destructive, and hence the Sophists undermined all ideals of goodness and truth.
Socrates is the restorer of these ideals, but with him they are no longer the ideals of simple faith; they are the ideals of reason.
They are based upon reason.
Socrates substituted comprehending belief for unintelligent assent.
We may contrast him, in this {152} respect, with Aristophanes.
Aristophanes, the conservative, the believer in the "good old times," saw, as clearly as Socrates, the disastrous effects worked by the Sophists upon public morals.
But the remedy he proposed was a violent return to the "good old times."
Since it was thought which worked these ill effects, thought must be suppressed.
We must go back to simple faith.
But simple faith, once destroyed by thought, never returns either to the individual, or to the race.
This can no more happen than a man can again become a child.
There is only one remedy for the ills of thought, and that is, more thought.
If thought, in its first inroads, leads, as it always does, to scepticism and denial, the only course is, not to suppress thought, but to found faith upon it.
This was the method of Socrates, and it is the method, too, of all great spirits.
They are not frightened of shadows.
They have faith in reason.
If reason leads them into the darkness, they do not scuttle back in fright.
They advance till the light comes again.
They are false teachers who counsel us to give no heed to the promptings of reason, if reason brings doubt into our beliefs.
Thought cannot be thus suppressed.
Reason has rights upon us as rational beings.
We cannot go back.
We must go on, and make our beliefs rational.
We must found them upon the concept, as Socrates did.
Socrates did not deny the principle of the Sophists that all institutions, all ideals, all existing and established things must justify themselves before the tribunal of reason.
He accepted this without question.
He took up the challenge of thought, and won the battle of reason in his day.
The Sophists brought to light the principle of subjectivity, the principle that the truth must be _my_ truth, {153} and the right _my_ right.
They must be the products of my own thinking, not standards forcibly imposed upon me from without.
But the mistake of the Sophists was to imagine that the truth must be mine, merely in my capacity as a percipient creature of sense, which means that I have a private truth of my own.
Socrates corrected this by admitting that the truth must be my truth, but mine in my capacity as a rational being, which means, since reason is the universal, that it is not my private truth, but universal truth which is shared by and valid for all rational beings.
Truth is thus established as being not mere subjective appearance, but objective reality, independent of the sensations, whims, and self-will of the individual.
The whole period of Socrates and the Sophists is full of instruction.
Its essential lesson is that to deny the supremacy of reason, to set up any other process of consciousness above reason, must inevitably end in scepticism and the denial of the objectivity of truth and morality.
Many theosophists and others, at the present day, teach the doctrine of what they call "intuition."
The supreme kind of religious knowledge, they think, is to be reached by intuition, which is conceived as something higher than reason.
But this is simply to make the mistake of Protagoras over again.
It is true that this so-called intuition is not merely sense-perception, as was the case with Protagoras.
It is, however, a form of immediate spiritual perception.
It is immediate apprehension of the object as being present to me, as having _thereness_.
It is therefore of the nature of perception.
It is spiritual and super-sensuous, as opposed to material and sensuous, perception.
But it makes no difference at all whether perception is sensuous {154} or super-sensuous.
To place the truth in any sort of perception is, in principle, to do as Protagoras did, to yield oneself up a helpless prey to the subjective impressions of the individual.
I intuit one thing; another man intuits the opposite.
What I intuit must be true for me, what he intuits true for him.
For we have denied reason, we have placed it below intuition, and have thereby discarded that which alone can subject the varying impressions of each individual to the rule of a universal and objective standard.
The logical conclusion is that, since each man's intuition is true for him, there is no such thing as an objective truth.
Nor can there be such a thing, in these circumstances, as an objective goodness.
Thus the theory must end in total scepticism and darkness.
The fact that theosophists do not, as a matter of fact, draw these sceptical conclusions, simply means that they are not as clear-headed and logical as Protagoras was.
{155} CHAPTER XI THE SEMI-SOCRATICS Upon the death of Socrates there ensued a phenomenon which is not infrequent in the history of thought.
A great and many-sided personality combines in himself many conflicting tendencies and ideas.
Let us take an example, not, however, from the sphere of intellect, but from the sphere of practical life.
We often say that it is difficult to reconcile mercy and justice.
Among the many small personalities, one man follows only the ideal of mercy, and as his mercy has not in it the stern stuff of justice, it degenerates into mawkishness and sentimental humanitarianism.
Another man follows only the ideal of justice, forgetting mercy, and he becomes harsh and unsympathetic.
It takes a greater man, a larger personality, harmoniously to combine the two.
And as it is in the sphere of practical life, so it is in the arena of thought and philosophy.
A great thinker is not he who seizes upon a single aspect of the truth, and pushes that to its extreme limit, but the man who combines, in one many-sided system, all the varying and conflicting sides of truth.
By emphasizing one thought, by being obsessed by a single idea and pushing it to its logical conclusion, regardless of the other aspects of the truth, one may indeed achieve a considerable local and {156} temporary reputation; because such a procedure often leads to striking paradoxes, to strange and seemingly uncommon conclusions.
The reputations of such men as Nietzsche, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, are made chiefly in this way.
But upon the death of a great all-embracing personality, just because his thought is a combination of so many divergent truths, we often find that it splits up into its component parts, each of which gives rise to a one-sided school of thought.
The disciples, being smaller men, are not able to grasp the great man's thought in its wholeness and many-sidedness.
Each disciple seizes upon that portion of his master's teaching which has most in common with his own temperament, and proceeds to erect this one incomplete idea into a philosophy, treating the part as if it were the whole.
This is exactly what happened after the death of Socrates.
Only one man among his disciples was able to grasp the whole of his teaching, and understand the whole of his personality, and that was Plato.
Among the lesser men who were the followers and personal friends of Socrates, there were three who founded schools of philosophy, each partial and one-sided, but each claiming to be the exponent of the true Socraticism.
Antisthenes founded the Cynic school, Aristippus the Cyrenaic, and Euclid the Megaric.
Now, of the two aspects of the Socratic philosophy, the theory of concepts, and the ethical theory, it is easy for us, looking back upon history, to see which it was that influenced the history of thought most, and which, therefore, was the most important.
But the men of his own time could not see this.
What they fastened upon was the obvious aspect of Socrates, his ethics, and above all the ethical teaching which was expressed, not so {157} much in abstract ideas, as in the life and personality of the master.
Both this life and this teaching might be summed up in the thought that virtue is the sole end of life, that, as against virtue, all else in the world, comfort, riches, learning, is comparatively worthless.
It is this, then, that virtue is the sole end of life, which forms the point of agreement between all the three semi-Socratic schools.
We have now to see upon what points they diverge from one another.
If virtue is the sole end of life, what precisely is virtue?
Socrates had given no clear answer to this question.
The only definition he had given was that virtue is knowledge, but upon examination it turns out that this is not a definition at all.
Virtue is knowledge, but knowledge of what?
It is not knowledge of astronomy, of mathematics, or of physics.
It is ethical knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of virtue.
To define virtue as the knowledge of virtue is to think in a circle, and gets us no further in the enquiry what virtue is.
But Socrates, as a matter of fact, did not think in a circle.
He did not mean that virtue is knowledge, although his doctrine is often, somewhat misleadingly, stated in that form.
What he meant was--quite a different thing--that virtue _depends upon_ knowledge.
It is the first condition of virtue.
The principle, accurately stated, is, not that virtue is the knowledge of virtue, which is thinking in a circle, but that virtue depends upon the knowledge of virtue, which is quite straight thinking.
Only if you know what virtue is can you be virtuous.
Hence we have not here any definition of virtue, or any attempt to define it.
We are still left with the question, "what is virtue?"
unanswered.
{158} No doubt this was due in part to the unmethodical and unsystematic manner in which Socrates developed his thought, and this, in its turn, was due to his conversational style of philosophizing.
For it is not possible to develop systematic thinking in the course of casual conversations.
But in part, too, it was due to the very universality of the man's genius.
He was broad enough to realize that it is not possible to tie down virtue in any single narrow formula, which shall serve as a practical receipt for action in all the infinitely various circumstances of life.
So that, in spite of the fact that his whole principle lay in the method of definitions, Socrates, in fact, left his followers without any definition of the supreme concept of his philosophy, virtue.
It was upon this point, therefore, that the followers of Socrates disagreed.
They all agreed that virtue is the sole end of life, but they developed different ideas as to what sort of life is in fact virtuous.
The Cynics.
Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynic School, repeated the familiar propositions that virtue is founded upon knowledge, is teachable, and is one.
But what aroused the admiration of Antisthenes was not Socrates, the man of intellect, the man of science, the philosopher, but Socrates, the man of independent character, who followed his own notions of right with complete indifference to the opinions of others.
This independence was in fact merely a by-product of the Socratic life.
Socrates had been independent of all earthly goods and possessions, caring neither for riches nor for applause, only because his heart was set upon a greater treasure, the acquisition of wisdom.
Mere independence and indifference to the {159} opinions of others were not for him ends in themselves.
He did not make fetishes of them.
But the Cynics interpreted his teaching to mean that the independence of earthly pleasures and possessions is in itself the end and object of life.
This, in fact, was their definition of virtue, complete renunciation of everything that, for ordinary men, makes life worth living, absolute asceticism, and rigorous self-mortification.
Socrates, again, thinking that the only knowledge of supreme value is ethical knowledge, had exhibited a tendency to disparage other kinds of knowledge.
This trait the Cynics exaggerated into a contempt for all art and learning so great as frequently to amount to ignorance and boorishness.
"Virtue is sufficient for happiness," said Antisthenes, "and for virtue nothing is requisite but the strength of a Socrates; it is a matter of action, and does not require many words, or much learning."
The Cynic ideal of virtue is thus purely negative; it is the absence of all desire, freedom from all wants, complete independence of all possessions.
Many of them refused to own houses or any dwelling place, and wandered about as vagrants and beggars.
Diogenes, for the same reason, lived in a tub.
Socrates, following single-heartedly what he knew to be good, cared nothing what the vulgar said.
But this indifference to the opinion of others was, like his independence of possessions, not an end in itself.
He did not interpret it to mean that he was wantonly to offend public opinion.
But the Cynics, to show their indifference, flouted public opinion, and gave frequent and disgusting exhibitions of indecency.
Virtue, for the Cynics, is alone good.
Vice is the only evil.
Nothing else in the world is either good or bad.
{160} Everything else is "indifferent."
Property, pleasure, wealth, freedom, comfort, even life itself, are not to be regarded as goods.
Poverty, misery, illness, slavery, and death itself, are not to be regarded as evils.
It is no better to be a freeman than a slave, for if the slave have virtue, he is in himself free, and a born ruler.
Suicide is not a crime, and a man may destroy his life, not however to escape from misery and pain (for these are not ills), but to show that for him life is indifferent.
And as the line between virtue and vice is absolutely definite, so is the distinction between the wise man and the fool.
All men are divided into these two classes.
There is no middle term between them.
Virtue being one and indivisible, either a man possesses it whole or does not possess it at all.
In the former case he is a wise man, in the latter case a fool.
The wise man possesses all virtue, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all perfection.
The fool possesses all evil, all misery, all imperfection.
The Cyrenaics.
For the Cyrenaics, too, virtue is, at least formally, the sole object of life.
It is only formally, however, because they give to virtue a definition which robbed it of all meaning.
Socrates had not infrequently recommended virtue on account of the advantages which it brings.
Virtue, he said, is the sole path to happiness, and he had not refrained from holding out happiness as a motive for virtue.
This did not mean, however, that he did not recognize a man's duty to do the right for its own sake, and not for the sake of the advantage it brings.
"Honesty," we say, "is the best policy," {161} but we do not mean thereby to deny that it is the duty of men to be honest even if it is not, in some particular case, the best policy.
Socrates, however, had not been very clear upon these points, and had been unable to find any definite basis for morality, other than that of happiness.
It was this side of his teaching which Aristippus now pressed to its logical conclusions, regardless of all other claims.
Doubtless virtue is the sole end of life, but the sole end of virtue is one's own advantage, that is to say, pleasure.
One may as well say at once that the sole end of life is pleasure.
The influence of Protagoras and the Sophists also played its part in moulding the thought of Aristippus.
Protagoras had denied the objectivity of truth, and the later Sophists had applied the same theory to morals.
Each man is a law unto himself.
There is no moral code binding upon the individual against his own wishes.
Aristippus combined this with his doctrine of pleasure.
Pleasure being the sole end of life, no moral law externally imposed can invalidate its absolute claims.
Nothing is wicked, nothing evil, provided only it satisfies the individual's thirst for pleasure.
Whether such a philosophy will lead, in practice, to the complete degradation of its devotees, depends chiefly upon what sort of pleasure they have in mind.
If refined and intellectual pleasures are meant, there is no reason why a comparatively good life should not result.
If bodily pleasures are intended, the results are not likely to be noble.
The Cyrenaics by no means wholly ignored the pleasures of the mind, but they pointed out that feelings of bodily pleasure are more potent and intense, and it was upon these, therefore, that they chiefly {162} concentrated their attention.
Nevertheless they were saved from the lowest abysses of sensuality and bestiality by their doctrine that, in the pursuit of pleasure, the wise man must exercise prudence.
Completely unrestrained pursuit of pleasure leads in fact to pain and disaster.
Pain is that which has to be avoided.
Therefore the wise man will remain always master of himself, will control his desires, and postpone a more urgent to a less urgent desire, if thereby in the end more pleasure and less pain will accrue to him.
The Cyrenaic ideal of the wise man is the man of the world, bent indeed solely upon pleasure, restrained by no superstitious scruples, yet pursuing his end with prudence, foresight, and intelligence.
Such principles would, of course, admit of various interpretations, according to the temperament of the individual.
We may notice two examples.
Anniceris, the Cyrenaic, believed indeed that pleasure is the sole end, but set such store upon the pleasures that arise from friendship and family affection, that he admitted that the wise man should be ready to sacrifice himself for his friends or family--a gleam of light in the moral darkness.
Hegesias, a pessimist, considered that positive enjoyment is impossible of attainment.
In practice the sole end of life which can be realized is the avoidance of pain.
The Megarics.
Euclid of Megara was the founder of this school.
His principle was a combination of Socraticism with Eleaticism.
Virtue is knowledge, but knowledge of what?
It is here that the Eleatic influence became visible.
With Parmenides, the Megarics believed in the One Absolute Being.
All multiplicity, all motion, are illusory.
{163} the world of sense has in it no true reality.
Only Being is.
If virtue is knowledge, therefore, it can only be the knowledge of this Being.
If the essential concept of Socrates was the Good and the essential concept of Parmenides Being, Euclid now combined the two.
The Good is identified with Being.
Being, the One, God, the Good, divinity, are merely different names for one and the same thing.
Becoming, the many, Evil, are the names of its opposite, not-being, Multiplicity is thus identified with evil, and both are declared illusory.
Evil has no real existence.
The Good alone truly is.
The various virtues, as benevolence, temperance, prudence, are merely different names for the one virtue, knowledge of Being.
Zeno, the Eleatic, had shown that multiplicity and motion are not only unreal but even impossible, since they are self-contradictory.
The Megarics appropriated this idea, together with the dialectic of Zeno, and concluded that since not-being is impossible, Being includes all possibility.
Whatever is possible is also actual.
There is no such thing as a possible something, which yet does not exist.
As the Cynics found virtue in renunciation and negative independence, the Cyrenaics in the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, so the Megarics find it in the life of philosophic contemplation, the knowledge of Being.
{164} CHAPTER XII PLATO None of the predecessors of Plato had constructed a system of philosophy.
What they had produced, and in great abundance, were isolated philosophical ideas, theories, hints, and suggestions.
Plato was the first person in the history of the world to produce a great all-embracing system of philosophy, which has its ramifications in all departments of thought and reality.
In doing this, Plato laid all previous thought under contribution.
He gathered the entire harvest of Greek philosophy.
All that was best in the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, Heracleitus, and Socrates, reappears, transfigured in the system of Plato.
But it is not to be imagined, on this account, that Plato was a mere eclectic, or a plagiarist, who took the best thoughts of others, and worked them into some sort of a patch-work philosophy of his own.
He was, on the contrary, in the highest degree an original thinker.
But like all great systems of thought, that of Plato grows out of the thought of previous thinkers.
He does indeed appropriate the ideas of Heracleitus, Parmenides, and Socrates.
But he does not leave them as he finds them.
He takes them as the germs of a new development.
They are the foundations, below ground, upon which he builds the palace of philosophy.
In his hands, all previous thought becomes {165} transfigured under the light of a new and original principle.
1.
Life and Writings.
The exact date of the birth of Plato is a matter of doubt.
But the date usually given, 429-7 B.C.
cannot be far wrong.
He came of an aristocratic Athenian family, and was possessed of sufficient wealth to enable him to command that leisure which was essential for a life devoted to philosophy.
His youth coincided with the most disastrous period of Athenian history.
After a bitter struggle, which lasted over a quarter of a century, the Peloponnesian war ended in the complete downfall of Athens as a political power.
And the internal affairs of the State were in no less confusion than the external.
Here, as elsewhere, a triumphant democracy had developed into mob-rule.
Then at the close of the Peloponnesian war, the aristocratic party again came into power with the Thirty Tyrants, among whom were some of Plato's own relatives.
But the aristocratic party, so far from improving affairs, plunged at once into a reign of bloodshed, terror, and oppression.
These facts have an important bearing upon the history of Plato's life.
If he ever possessed any desire to adopt a political career, the actual condition of Athenian affairs must have quenched it.
An aristocrat, both in thought and by birth, he could not accommodate himself to the rule of the mob.
And if he ever imagined that the return of the aristocracy to power would improve matters, he must have been bitterly disillusioned by the proceedings of the Thirty Tyrants.
Disgusted alike with the democracy and the aristocracy he seems to have retired into seclusion.
He never once, throughout his long life, appeared as a {166} speaker in the popular assembly.
He regarded the Athenian constitution as past help.
Not much is known of the philosopher's youth.
He composed poems.
He was given the best education that an Athenian citizen of those days could obtain.
His teacher, Cratylus, was a follower of Heracleitus, and Plato no doubt learned from him the doctrines of that philosopher.
It is improbable that he allowed himself to remain unacquainted with the disputations of the Sophists, many of whom were his own contemporaries.
He probably read the book of Anaxagoras, which was easily obtainable in Athens at the time.
But on all these points we have no certain information.
What we do know is that the decisive event in his youth, and indeed in his life, was his association with Socrates.
For the last eight years of the life of Socrates, Plato was his friend and his faithful disciple.
The teaching and personality of the master constituted the supreme intellectual impulse of his life, and the inspiration of his entire thought.
And the devotion and esteem which he felt for Socrates, so far from waning as the years went by, seem, on the contrary, to have grown continually stronger.
For it is precisely in the latest dialogues of his long life that some of the most charming and admiring portraits of Socrates are to be found.
Socrates became for him the pattern and exemplar of the true philosopher.
After the death of Socrates a second period opens in the life of Plato, the period of his travels.
He migrated first to Megara, where his friend and fellow-disciple Euclid was then founding the Megaric school.
The Megaric philosophy was a combination of the thought of Socrates with that of the Eleatics.
And it was no doubt here, at {167} Megara, under the influence of Euclid, that Plato formed his deeper acquaintance with the teaching of Parmenides, which exercised an all-important influence upon his own philosophy.
From Megara he travelled to Cyrene, Egypt, Italy, and Sicily.
In Italy he came in contact with the Pythagoreans.
And to the effects of this journey may be attributed the strong Pythagorean elements which permeate his thought.
In Sicily he attended the court of Dionysius the Elder, tyrant of Syracuse.
But here his conduct seems to have given grave offence.
Dionysius was so angered by his moralizings and philosophical diatribes that he put Plato up to auction in the slave market.
Plato narrowly escaped the fate of slavery, but was ransomed by Anniceris, the Cyrenaic.
He then returned to Athens, his travels having occupied a period of about ten years.
With the return of Plato to Athens we enter upon the third and last period of his life.
With the exception of two journeys to be mentioned shortly, he never again left Athens.
He now appeared for the first time as a professional teacher and philosopher.
He chose for the scene of his activities a gymnasium, called the Academy.
Here he gradually collected round him a circle of pupils and disciples.
For the rest of his life, a period of about forty years, he occupied himself in literary activity, and in the management of the school which he had founded.
His manner of life was in strong contrast to that of Socrates.
Only in one respect did he resemble his master.
He took no fees for his teaching.
Otherwise the lives of the two great men bear no resemblance to each other.
Socrates had gone out into the highways and byways in search of wisdom.
He had wrangled in {168} the market-place with all comers.
Plato withdrew himself into the seclusion of a school, protected from the hubbub of the world by a ring of faithful disciples.
It was not to be expected that a man of Plato's refinement, culture, and aristocratic feelings, should appreciate, as Socrates, the man of the people, had done, the rough-and-tumble life of the Athenian market-place.
Nor was it desirable for the advancement of philosophy that it should be so.
The Socratic philosophy had suffered from the Socratic manner of life.
It was unmethodical and inchoate.
Systematic thought is not born of disputes at the street corner.
For the development of a great world-system, such as that of Plato, laborious study and quiet seclusion were essential.
This period of Plato's mastership was broken only by two journeys to Sicily, both undertaken with political objects.
Plato knew well that the perfect State, as depicted in his "Republic," was not capable of realization in the Greece of his own time.
Nevertheless, he took his political philosophy very seriously.
Though the perfect republic was an unattainable ideal, yet, he thought, any real reform of the State must at least proceed in the direction of that ideal.
One of the essential principles of the "Republic" was that the rulers must also be philosophers.
Not till philosopher and ruler were combined in one and the same person could the State be governed upon true principles.
Now, in the year 368 B.C., Dionysius the Elder died, and Dionysius the younger became tyrant of Syracuse.
Dionysius despatched an invitation to Plato to attend his court and give him the benefit of his advice.
Here was an opportunity to experiment.
Plato could train and educate a {169} philosopher-king.
He accepted the invitation.
But the expedition ended disastrously.
Dionysius received him with enthusiasm, and interested himself in the philosophical discourses of his teacher.
But he was young, impetuous, hot-headed, and without genuine philosophic bent.
His first interest gave place to weariness and irritation.
Plato left Syracuse a disappointed man; and returned to Athens.
Nevertheless, after the lapse of a few years, Dionysius again invited him to Syracuse, and again he accepted the invitation.
But the second journey ended in disaster like the first, and Plato was even in danger of his life, but was rescued by the intervention of the Pythagoreans.
He returned to Athens in his seventieth year, and lived till his death in the seclusion of his school, never again attempting to intervene in practical politics.
For more than another decade he dwelt and taught in Athens.
His life was serene, quiet, and happy.
He died peacefully at the age of eighty-two.
Plato's writings take the form of dialogues.
In the majority of these, the chief part is taken by Socrates, into whose mouth Plato puts the exposition of his own philosophy.
In a few, as for example the "Parmenides," other speakers enunciate the Platonic teaching, but even in these Socrates always plays an important _rôle_.
Plato was not only a philosopher, but a consummate literary artist.
The dialogues are genuinely dramatic, enlivened by incident, humour, and life-like characterization.
Not only is the portrait of Socrates drawn with loving affection, but even the minor characters are flesh and blood.
A most important element of Plato's style is his use of myths.
He does not always explain his meaning in {170} the form of direct scientific exposition.
He frequently teaches by allegories, fables, and stories, all of which may be included under the one general appellation of Platonic myths.
These are often of great literary beauty, but in spite of this they involve grave disadvantages.
Plato slips so easily from scientific exposition into myth, that it is often no easy matter to decide whether his statements are meant literally or allegorically.
Moreover, the myths usually signify a defect in his thought itself.
The fact is that the combination of poet and philosopher in one man is an exceedingly dangerous combination.
I have explained before that the object of philosophy is, not merely to feel the truth, as the poet and mystic feel it, but intellectually to comprehend it, not merely to give us a series of pictures and metaphors, but a reasoned explanation of things upon scientific principles.
When a man, who is at once a poet and a philosopher, cannot rationally explain a thing, it is a terrible temptation to him to substitute poetic metaphors for the explanation which is lacking.
We saw, for example, that the writers of the Upanishads, who believed that the whole world issues forth from the one, absolute, imperishable, being, which they called Brahman, being unable to explain why the One thus differentiates itself into the many, took refuge in metaphors.
As the sparks from the substantial fire, so, they say, do all finite beings issue forth from the One.
But this explains nothing, and the aim of the philosopher is not thus vaguely to feel, but rationally to understand.
Now this is not merely my view of the functions of philosophy.
It is emphatically Plato's own view.
In fact Plato was the originator of it.
He is perpetually insisting that {171} nothing save full rational comprehension deserves the names of knowledge and philosophy.
No writer has ever used such contemptuous language as Plato used of the mere mystic and poet, who says wise and beautiful things, without in the least understanding why they are wise and beautiful.
No man has formed such a low estimate of the functions of the poet and mystic.
Plato is, in theory at least, the prince of rationalists and intellectualists.
In practice, however, he must be convicted of the very fault he so severely censured in others.
This, in fact, is the explanation of most of the Platonic myths.
Wherever Plato is unable to explain anything, he covers up the gap in his system with a myth.
This is particularly noticeable, for example, in the "Timaeus."
Plato having, in other dialogues, developed his theory of the nature of the ultimate reality, arrives, in the "Timaeus," at the problem how the actual world is to be explained from that ultimate reality.
At this point, as we shall see, Plato's system breaks down.
His account of the absolute reality is defective, and in consequence, it affords no principle whereby the actual universe can be explained.
In the "Timaeus," therefore, instead of a reasoned explanation, he gives us a series of wholly fanciful myths about the origin of the world.
Wherever we find myths in Plato's dialogues, we may suspect that we have arrived at one of the weak points of the system.
If we are to study Plato intelligently, it is essential that we should cease to regard the dialogues as if they were all produced _en bloc_ from a single phase of their author's mind.
His literary activity extended over a period of not less than fifty years.
During that time, he did not stand still.
His thought, and his mode of {172} expression, were constantly developing.
If we are to understand Plato, we must obtain some clue to enable us to trace this development.
And this means that we must know something of the order in which the dialogues were written.
Unfortunately, however, they have not come down to us dated and numbered.
It is a matter of scholarship and criticism to deduce the period at which any dialogue was written from internal evidences.
Many minor points are still undecided, as well as a few questions of importance, such as the date of the "Phaedrus," [Footnote 11] which some critics place quite early and some very late in Plato's life.
Neglecting these points, however, we may say in general that unanimity has been reached, and that we now know enough to be able to trace the main lines of development.
[Footnote 11: The same remark applies to the "Symposium," the "Republic," and the "Theaetetus."]
The dialogues fall into three main groups, which correspond roughly to the three periods of Plato's life.
Those of the earliest group were written about the time of the death of Socrates, and before the author's journey to Megara.
Some of them may have been written before the death of Socrates.
This group includes the "Hippias Minor," the "Lysis," the "Charmides," the "Laches," the "Euthyphro," the "Apology," the "Crito," and the "Protagoras."
The "Protagoras" is the longest, the most complex in thought, and the most developed.
It is probably the latest, and forms the bridge to the second group.
All these early dialogues are short and simple, and are still, as regards their thought, entirely under the influence of Socrates.
Plato has not as yet developed {173} any philosophy of his own.
He propounds the philosophy of Socrates almost unaltered.
Even so, however, he is no mere plagiarist.
There are throughout these dialogues evidences of freshness and originality, but these qualities exhibit themselves rather in the literary form than in the philosophical substance.
We find here all the familiar Socratic propositions, that virtue is knowledge, is one, is teachable; that all men seek the good, but that men differ as to what the good is; that a man who does wrong deliberately is better than a man who does it unintentionally; and so on.
Moreover, just as Socrates had occupied himself in attempting to fix the concepts of the virtues, asking "what is prudence?
", "what is temperance?
", and the like, so in many of these dialogues Plato pursues similar inquiries.
The "Lysis" discusses the concept of friendship, the "Charmides" of temperance, the "Laches" of bravery.
On the whole, the philosophical substance of these early writings is thin and meagre.
There is a preponderance of incident and much biographical detail regarding Socrates.
There is more art than matter.
Consequently, from a purely literary point of view, these are among the most charming of Plato's dialogues, and many of them, such as the "Apology" and the "Crito," are especially popular with those who care for Plato rather as an artist than as a philosopher.
The second group of dialogues is generally connected with the period of Plato's travels.
In addition to the influence of Socrates, we have now the influence of the Eleatics, which naturally connects these dialogues with the period of the philosopher's sojourn at Megara.
But it is in these dialogues, too, that Plato for the first time {174} develops his own special philosophical thesis.
This is in fact his great constructive period.
The central and governing principle of his philosophy is the theory of Ideas.
All else hinges on this, and is dominated by this.
In a sense, his whole philosophy is nothing but the theory of Ideas and what depends upon it.
It is in this second period that the theory of Ideas is founded and developed, and its relationship to the Eleatic philosophy of Being discussed.
We have here the spectacle of Plato's most original thoughts in the pangs of childbirth.
He is now at grips with the central problems of philosophy.
He is intent upon the thought itself, and cares little for the ornaments of style.
He is struggling to find expression for ideas newly-formed in his mind, of which he is not yet completely master, and which he cannot manipulate with ease.
Consequently, the literary graces of the first period recede into the background.
There is little incident, and no humour.
There is nothing but close reasoning, hard and laborious discussion.
The twin dialogues, "Gorgias" and "Theaetetus" are probably the earliest of this group.
They result in nothing very definite, and are chiefly negative in character.
Plato is here engaged merely in a preparatory clearing of the ground.
The "Gorgias" discusses and refutes the Sophistic identification of virtue and pleasure, and attempts to show, as against it, that the good must be something objectively existent, and independent of the pleasure of the individual.
The "Theaetetus," similarly, shows that truth is not, as the Sophists thought, merely the subjective impression of the individual, but is something objectively true in itself.
The other {175} dialogues of the group are the "Sophist," the "Statesman," and the "Parmenides."
The "Sophist" discusses Being and not-being, and their relationship to the theory of Ideas.
The "Parmenides" inquires whether the absolute reality is to be regarded, in the manner of the Eleatics, as an abstract One.
It gives us, therefore, Plato's conception of the relation of his own philosophy to Eleaticism.
The dialogues of the third group are the work of Plato's maturity.
He has now completely mastered his thought, and turns it with ease in all directions.
Hence the style returns to the lucidity and purity of the first period.
If the first period was marked chiefly by literary grace, the second by depth of thought, the third period combines both.
The perfect substance is now moulded in the perfect form.
But a peculiarity of all the dialogues of this period is that they take it for granted that the theory of Ideas is already established and familiar to the reader.
They proceed to apply it to all departments of thought.
The second period was concerned with the formulation and proof of the theory of Ideas, the third period undertakes its systematic application.
Thus the "Symposium," which has for its subject the metaphysic of love, attempts to connect man's feeling for beauty with the intellectual knowledge of the Ideas.
The "Philebus" applies the theory of Ideas to the sphere of ethics, the "Timaeus" to the sphere of physics, and the "Republic" to the sphere of politics.
The "Phaedo" founds the doctrine of the immortality of the soul upon the theory of Ideas.
The "Phaedrus" is probably to be grouped with the "Symposium."
The beauty, grace, and lucidity of the style, and the fact that it assumes throughout that {176} the theory of Ideas is a thing established, lead us to the belief that it belongs to the period of Plato's maturity.
Zeller's theory that it was written at the beginning of the second period, and is then offered to the reader as a sort of sweetmeat to induce him to enter upon the laborious task of reading the "Sophist," the "Statesman," and the "Parmenides," seems to be far-fetched and unnecessary.
[Footnote 12] [Footnote 12: Zeller's _Plato and the Older Academy_, chap.
iii.]
If the second is the great constructive period of Plato's life, the third may be described as his systematic and synthetic period.
Every part of his philosophy is here linked up with every other part.
All the details of the system are seen to flow from the one central principle of his thought, the theory of Ideas.
Every sphere of knowledge and being is in turn exhibited in the light of that principle, is permeated and penetrated by it.
The plan for expounding Plato which first suggests itself is to go through the dialogues, one by one, and extract the doctrine of each successively.
But this suggestion has to be given up as soon as it is mentioned.
For although the philosophy of Plato is in itself a systematic and coherent body of thought, he did not express it in a systematic way.
On the contrary, he scatters his ideas in all directions.
He throws them out at random in any order.
What logically comes first often appears last.
It may be found at the end of a dialogue, and the next step in reasoning may make its appearance at the beginning, or even in a totally different dialogue.
If, therefore, we are to get any connected view of the system, we must abandon Plato's own order of exposition, and piece the thought together for ourselves.
We must begin {177} with what logically comes first, wherever we may find it, and proceed with the exposition in the same manner.
A similar difficulty attends the question of the division of Plato's philosophy.
He himself has given us no single and certain principle of division.
But the principle usually adopted divides his philosophy into Dialectic, Physics, and Ethics.
Dialectic, or the theory of Ideas, is Plato's doctrine of the nature of the absolute reality.
Physics is the theory of phenomenal existence in space and time, and includes therefore the doctrine of the soul and its migrations, since these are happenings in time.
Ethics includes politics, the theory of the duty of man as a citizen, as well as the ethics of the individual.
Certain portions of the system, the doctrine of Eros, for example, do not fall very naturally into any of these divisions.
But, on the other hand, though some dialogues are mixed as to their subject matter, others, and those the most important, fall almost exclusively into one or other division.
For example, the "Timaeus," the "Phaedo," and the "Phaedrus," are physical.
The "Philebus," the "Gorgias," and the "Republic," are ethical.
The "Theaetetus," the "Sophist," and the "Parmenides," are dialectical.
2.
The Theory of Knowledge.
The theory of Ideas is itself based upon the theory of knowledge.
What is knowledge?
What is truth?
Plato opens the discussion by telling us first what knowledge and truth are not.
His object here is the refutation of false theories.
These must be disposed of to clear the ground preparatory to positive exposition.
The first such false theory which he attacks is that knowledge {178} is perception.
To refute this is the main object of the "Theaetetus."
His arguments may be summarized as follows:-(1) That knowledge is perception is the theory of Protagoras and the Sophists, and we have seen to what results it leads.
What it amounts to is that what appears to each individual true is true for that individual.
But this is at any rate false in its application to our judgment of future events.
The frequent mistakes which men make about the future show this.
It may appear to me that I shall be Chief Justice next year.
But instead of that, I find myself, perhaps, in prison.
In general, what appears to each individual to be the truth about the future frequently does not turn out so in the event.
(2) Perception yields contradictory impressions.
The same object appears large when near, small when removed to a distance.
Compared with some things it is light, with others heavy.
In one light it is white, in another green, and in the dark it has no colour at all.
Looked at from one angle this piece of paper seems square, from another it appears to be a rhombus.
Which of all these impressions is true?
To know which is true, we must be able to exercise a choice among these varying impressions, to prefer one to another, to discriminate, to accept this and reject that.
But if knowledge is perception, then we have no right to give one perception preference over another.
For all perceptions are knowledge.
All are true.
(3) This doctrine renders all teaching, all discussion, proof, or disproof, impossible.
Since all perceptions are equally true, the child's perceptions must be just as much the truth as those of his teachers.
His teachers, {179} therefore, can teach him nothing.
As to discussion and proof, the very fact that two people dispute about anything implies that they believe in the existence of an objective truth.
Their impressions, if they contradict each other, cannot both be true.
For if so, there is nothing to dispute about.
Thus all proof and refutation are rendered futile by the theory of Protagoras.
(4) If perception is truth, man is the measure of all things, in his character as a percipient being.
But since animals are also percipient beings, the lowest brute must be, equally with man, the measure of all things.
(5) The theory of Protagoras contradicts itself.
For Protagoras admits that what appears to me true is true.
If, therefore, it appears to me true that the doctrine of Protagoras is false, Protagoras himself must admit that it is false.
(6) It destroys the objectivity of truth, and renders the distinction between truth and falsehood wholly meaningless.
The same thing is true and false at the same time, true for you and false for me.
Hence it makes no difference at all whether we say that a proposition is true, or whether we say that it is false.
Both statements mean the same thing, that is to say, neither of them means anything.
To say that whatever I perceive is true for me merely gives a new name to my perception, but does not add any value to it.
(7) In all perception there are elements which are not contributed by the senses.
Suppose I say, "This piece of paper is white."
This, we might think, is a pure judgment of perception.
Nothing is stated except what I perceive by means of my senses.
But on consideration it turns out that this is not correct.
First of all I must {180} think "this piece of paper."
Why do I call it paper?
My doing so means that I have classified it.
I have mentally compared it with other pieces of paper, and decided that it is of a class with them.
My thought, then, involves comparison and classification.
The object is a compound sensation of whiteness, squareness, etc.
I can only recognise it as a piece of paper by identifying these sensations, which I have now, with sensations received from other similar objects in the past.
And not only must I recognize the sameness of the sensations, but I must recognize their difference from other sensations.
I must not confound the sensations I receive from paper with those which I receive from a piece of wood.
Both identities and differences of sensations must be known before I can say "this piece of paper."
The same is true when I go on to say that it "is white."
This is only possible by classifying it with other white objects, and differentiating it from objects of other colours.
But the senses themselves cannot perform these acts of comparison and contrast.
Each sensation is, so to speak, an isolated dot.
It cannot go beyond itself to compare itself with others.
This operation must be performed by my mind, which acts as a co-ordinating central authority, receiving the isolated sensations, combining, comparing, and contrasting them.
This is particularly noticeable in cases where we compare sensations of one sense with those of another.
Feeling a ball with my fingers, I say it feels round.
Looking at it with my eyes, I say it looks round.
But the feel is quite a different sensation from the look.
Yet I use the same word, "round," to describe both.
And this shows that I have identified the two sensations.
This {181} cannot be done by the senses themselves.
For my eyes cannot feel, and my fingers cannot see.
It must be the mind itself, standing above the senses, which performs the identification.
Thus the ideas of identity and difference are not yielded to me by my senses.
The intellect itself introduces them into things.
Yet they are involved in all knowledge, for they are involved even in the simplest acts of knowledge, such as the proposition, "This is white."
Knowledge, therefore, cannot consist simply of sense-impressions, as Protagoras thought, for even the simplest propositions contain more than sensation.
If knowledge is not the same as perception, neither is it, on the other hand, the same as opinion.
That knowledge is opinion is the second false theory that Plato seeks to refute.
Wrong opinion is clearly not knowledge.
But even right opinion cannot be called knowledge.
If I say, without any grounds for the statement, that there will be a thunderstorm next Easter Sunday, it may chance that my statement turns out to be correct.
But it cannot be said that, in making this blind guess, I had any knowledge, although, as it turned out, I had right opinion.
Right opinion may also be grounded, not on mere guess-work, but on something which, though better, is still not true understanding.
We often feel intuitively, or instinctively, that something is true, though we cannot give any definite grounds for our belief.
The belief may be quite correct, but it is not, according to Plato, knowledge.
It is only right opinion.
To possess knowledge, one must not only know that a thing is so, but why it is so.
One must know the reasons.
Knowledge must be full and complete understanding, rational comprehension, and not mere instinctive belief.
{182} It must be grounded on reason, and not on faith.
Right opinion may be produced by persuasion and sophistry, by the arts of the orator and rhetorician.
Knowledge can only be produced by reason.
Right opinion may equally be removed by the false arts of rhetoric, and is therefore unstable and uncertain.
But true knowledge cannot be thus shaken.
He who truly knows and understands cannot be robbed of his knowledge by the glamour of words.
Opinion, lastly, may be true or false.
Knowledge can only be true.
These false theories being refuted, we can now pass to the positive side of the theory of knowledge.
If knowledge is neither perception nor opinion, what is it?
Plato adopts, without alteration, the Socratic doctrine that all knowledge is knowledge through concepts.
This, as I explained in the lecture on Socrates, gets rid of the objectionable results of the Sophistic identification of knowledge with perception.
A concept, being the same thing as a definition, is something fixed and permanent, not liable to mutation according to the subjective impressions of the individual.
It gives us objective truth.
This also agrees with Plato's view of opinion.
Knowledge is not opinion, founded on instinct or intuition.
Knowledge is founded on reason.
This is the same as saying that it is founded upon concepts, since reason is the faculty of concepts.
But if Plato, in answering the question, "What is knowledge?"
follows implicitly the teaching of Socrates, he yet builds upon this teaching a new and wholly un-Socratic metaphysic of his own.
The Socratic theory of knowledge he now converts into a theory of the nature of reality.
This is the subject-matter of Dialectic.
{183} 3.
Dialectic, or the Theory of Ideas.
The concept had been for Socrates merely a rule of thought.
Definitions, like guide-rails, keep thought upon the straight path; we compare any act with the definition of virtue in order to ascertain whether it is virtuous.
But what was for Socrates merely regulative of thought, Plato now transforms into a metaphysical substance.
His theory of Ideas is the theory of the objectivity of concepts.
That the concept is not merely an idea in the mind, but something which has a reality of its own, outside and independent of the mind--this is the essence of the philosophy of Plato.
How did Plato arrive at this doctrine?
It is founded upon the view that truth means the correspondence of one's ideas with the facts of existence.
If I see a lake of water, and if there really is such a lake, then my idea is true.
But if there is no lake, then my idea is false.
It is an hallucination.
Truth, according to this view, means that the thought in my mind is a copy of something outside my mind.
Falsehood consists in having an idea which is not a copy of anything which really exists.
Knowledge, of course, means knowledge of the truth.
And when I say that a thought in my mind is knowledge, I must therefore mean that this thought is a copy of something that exists.
But we have already seen that knowledge is the knowledge of concepts.
And if a concept is true knowledge, it can only be true in virtue of the fact that it corresponds to an objective reality.
There must, therefore, be general ideas or concepts, outside my mind.
It were a contradiction to suppose, on the one hand, that the concept is true knowledge, and on the other, that it corresponds to nothing external {184} to us.
This would be like saying that my idea of the lake of water is a true idea, but that no such lake really exists.
The concept in my mind must be a copy of the concept outside it.
Now if knowledge by concepts is true, our experiences through sensation must be false.
Our senses make us aware of many individual horses.
Our intellect gives us the concept of the horse in general.
If the latter is the sole truth, the former must be false.
And this can only mean that the objects of sensation have no true reality.
What has reality is the concept; what has no reality is the individual thing which is perceived by the senses.
This and that particular horse have no true being.
Reality belongs only to the idea of the horse in general.
Let us approach this theory from a somewhat different direction.
Suppose I ask you the question, "What is beauty?"
You point to a rose, and say, "Here is beauty."
And you say the same of a woman's face, a piece of woodland scenery, and a clear moonlight night.
But I answer that this is not what I want to know.
I did not ask what things are beautiful, but what is beauty.
I did not ask for many things, but for one thing, namely, beauty.
If beauty is a rose, it cannot be moonlight, because a rose and moonlight are quite different things.
By beauty we mean, not many things, but one.
This is proved by the fact that we use only one word for it.
And what I want to know is what this one beauty is, which is distinct from all beautiful objects.
Perhaps you will say that there is no such thing as beauty apart from beautiful objects, and that, though we use one word, yet this is only a manner of {185} speech, and that there are in reality many beauties, each residing in a beautiful object.
In that case, I observe that, though the many beauties are all different, yet, since you use the one word to describe them all, you evidently think that they are similar to each other.
How do you know that they are similar?
Your eyes cannot inform you of this similarity, because it involves comparison, and we have already seen that comparison is an act of the mind, and not of the senses.
You must therefore have an idea of beauty in your mind, with which you compare the various beautiful objects and so recognise them as all resembling your idea of beauty, and therefore as resembling each other.
So that there is at any rate an idea of one beauty in your mind.
Either this idea corresponds to something outside you, or it does not.
In the latter case, your idea of beauty is a mere invention, a figment of your own brain.
If so, then, in judging external objects by your subjective idea, and in making it the standard of whether they are beautiful or not, you are back again at the position of the Sophists.
You are making yourself and the fancies of your individual brain the standard of external truth.
Therefore, the only alternative is to believe that there is not only an idea of beauty in your mind, but that there is such a thing as the one beauty itself, of which your idea is a copy.
This beauty exists outside the mind, and it is something distinct from all beautiful objects.
What has been said of beauty may equally be said of justice, or of goodness, or of whiteness, or of heaviness.
There are many just acts, but only one justice, since we use one word for it.
This justice must be a real thing, distinct from all particular just acts.
Our ideas of justice {186} are copies of it.
So also there are many white objects, but also the one whiteness.
Of the above examples, several are very exalted moral ideas, such as beauty, justice, and goodness.
But the case of whiteness will serve to show that the theory attributes reality not only to exalted ideas, but to others also.
In fact, we might quite well substitute evil for goodness, and all the same arguments would apply.
Or we might take a corporeal object such as the horse, and ask what "horse" means.
It does not mean the many individual horses, for since one word is used it must mean one thing, which is related to individual horses, just as whiteness is related to individual white things.
It means the universal horse, the idea of the horse in general, and this, just as much as goodness or beauty, must be something objectively real.
Now beauty, justice, goodness, whiteness, the horse in general, are all concepts.
The idea of beauty is formed by including what is common to all beautiful objects, and excluding those points in which they differ.
And this, as we have seen, is just what is meant by a concept.
Plato's theory, therefore, is that concepts are objective realities.
And he gives to these objective concepts the technical name Ideas.
This is his answer to the chief question of philosophy, namely, what, amid all the appearances and unrealities of things, is that absolute and ultimate reality, from which all else is to be explained?
It consists, for Plato, in Ideas.
Let us see next what the characteristics of the Ideas are.
In the first place, they are substances.
Substance is a technical term in philosophy, but its philosophical meaning is merely a more consistent development of its {187} popular meaning.
In common talk, we generally apply the word substance to material things such as iron, brass, wood, or water.
And we say that these substances possess qualities.
For example, hardness and shininess are qualities of the substance iron.
The qualities cannot exist apart from the substances.
They do not exist on their own account, but are dependent on the substance.
The shininess cannot exist by itself.
There must be a shiny something.
But, according to popular ideas, though the qualities are not independent of the substance, the substance is independent of the qualities.
The qualities derive their reality from the substance.
But the substance has reality in itself.
The philosophical use of the term substance is simply a more consistent application of this idea.
Substance means, for the philosopher, that which has its whole being in itself, whose reality does not flow into it from anything else, but which is the source of its own reality.
It is self-caused, and self-determined.
It is the ground of other things, but itself has no ground except itself.
For example, if we believe the popular Christian idea that God created the world, but is Himself an ultimate and uncreated being, then, since the world depends for its existence upon God, but God's existence depends only upon Himself, God is a substance and the world is not.
In this sense the word is correctly used in the Creed where it speaks of God as "three persons, but one substance."
Again, if, with the Idealists, we think that mind is a self-existent reality, and that matter owes its existence to mind, then in that case matter is not substance, but mind is.
In this technical sense the Ideas are substances.
They are absolute and ultimate realities.
{188} Their whole being is in themselves.
They depend on nothing, but all things depend on them.
They are the first principles of the universe.
Secondly, the Ideas are universal.
An Idea is not any particular thing.
The Idea of the horse is not this or that horse.
It is the general concept of all horses.
It is the universal horse.
For this reason the Ideas are, in modern times, often called "universals."
Thirdly, the Ideas are not things, but thoughts.
There is no such thing as the horse-in-general.
If there were, we should be able to find it somewhere, and it would then be a particular thing instead of a universal.
But in saying that the Ideas are thoughts, there are two mistakes to be carefully avoided.
The first is to suppose that they are the thoughts of a person, that they are your thoughts or my thoughts.
The second is to suppose that they are thoughts in the mind of God.
Both these views are wrong.
It would be absurd to suppose that our thoughts can be the cause of the universe.
Our concepts are indeed copies of the Ideas, but to confuse them with the Ideas themselves is, for Plato, as absurd as to confuse our idea of a mountain with the mountain itself.
Nor are they the thoughts of God.
They are indeed sometimes spoken of as the "Ideas in the divine mind."
But this is only a figurative expression.
We can, if we like, talk of the sum of all the Ideas as constituting the "divine mind."
But this means nothing in particular, and is only a poetical phrase.
Both these mistakes are due to the fact that we find it difficult to conceive of thoughts without a thinker.
This, however, is just what Plato meant.
They are not subjective ideas, that is, the ideas in a particular and existent {189} mind.
They are objective Ideas, thoughts which have reality on their own account, independently of any mind.
Fourthly, each Idea is a unity.
It is the one amid the many.
The Idea of man is one, although individual men are many.
There cannot be more than one Idea for each class of objects.
If there were several Ideas of justice, we should have to seek for the common element among them, and this common element would itself constitute the one Idea of justice.
Fifthly, the Ideas are immutable and imperishable.
A concept is the same as a definition.
And the whole point in a definition is that it should always be the same.
The object of a definition is to compare individual things with it, and to see whether they agree with it or not.
But if the definition of a triangle differed from day to day, it would be useless, since we could never say whether any particular figure were a triangle or not, just as the standard yard in the Tower of London would be useless if it changed in length, and were twice as long to-day as it was yesterday.
A definition is thus something absolutely permanent, and a definition is only the expression in words of the nature of an Idea.
Consequently the Ideas cannot change.
The many beautiful objects arise and pass away, but the one Beauty neither begins nor ends.
It is eternal, unchangeable, and imperishable.
The many beautiful things are but the fleeting expressions of the one eternal beauty.
The definition of man would remain the same, even if all men were destroyed.
The Idea of man is eternal, and remains untouched by the birth, old age, decay, and death, of individual men.
Sixthly, the Ideas are the Essences of all things.
The definition gives us what is essential to a thing.
If we {190} define man as a rational animal, this means that reason is of the essence of man.
The fact that this man has a turned-up nose, and that man red hair, are accidental facts, not essential to their humanity.
We do not include them in the definition of man.
Seventhly, each Idea is, in its own kind, an absolute perfection, and its perfection is the same as its reality.
The perfect man is the one universal type-man, that is, the Idea of man, and all individual men deviate more or less from this perfect type.
In so far as they fall short of it, they are imperfect and unreal.
Eighthly, the Ideas are outside space and time.
That they are outside space is obvious.
If they were in space, they would have to be in some particular place.
We ought to be able to find them somewhere.
A telescope or microscope might reveal them.
And this would mean that they are individual and particular things, and not universals at all.
They are also outside time.
For they are unchangeable and eternal; and this does not mean that they are the same at all times.
If that were so, their immutability would be a matter of experience, and not of reason.
We should, so to speak, have to look at them from time to time to see that they had not really changed.
But their immutability is not a matter of experience, but is known to thought.
It is not merely that they are always the same in time, but that time is irrelevant to them.
They are timeless.
In the "Timaeus" eternity is distinguished from infinite time.
The latter is described as a mere copy of eternity.
Ninthly, the Ideas are rational, that is to say, they are apprehended through reason.
The finding of the common element in the manifold is the work of inductive {191} reason, and through this alone is knowledge of the Ideas possible.
This should be noted by those persons who imagine that Plato was some sort of benevolent mystic.
The imperishable One, the absolute reality, is apprehended, not by intuition, or in any kind of mystic ecstasy, but only by rational cognition and laborious thought.
Lastly, towards the end of his life, Plato identified the Ideas with the Pythagorean numbers.
We know this from Aristotle, but it is not mentioned in the dialogues of Plato himself.
It appears to have been a theory adopted in old age, and set forth in the lectures which Aristotle attended.
It is a retrograde step, and tends to degrade the great and lucid idealism of Plato into a mathematical mysticism.
In this, as in other respects, the influence of the Pythagoreans upon Plato was harmful.
It results from this whole theory of Ideas that there are two sources of human experience, sense-perception and reason.
Sense-perception has for its object the world of sense; reason has for its object the Ideas.
The world of sense has all the opposite characteristics to the Ideas.
The Ideas are absolute reality, absolute Being.
Objects of sense are absolute unreality, not-being, except in so far as the Ideas are in them.
Whatever reality they have they owe to the Ideas.
There is in Plato's system a principle of absolute not-being which we shall consider when we come to deal with his Physics.
Objects of sense participate both in the Ideas and in this not-being.
They are, therefore, half way between Being and not-being.
They are half real.
Ideas, again, are universal; things of sense are always particular and individual.
The Idea is one, the sense-object is always {192} a multiplicity.
Ideas are outside space and time, things of sense are both temporal and spatial.
The Idea is eternal and immutable; sense-objects are changeable and in perpetual flux.
As regards the last point, Plato adopts the view of Heracleitus that there is an absolute Becoming, and he identifies it with the world of sense, which contains nothing stable and permanent, but is a constant flow.
The Idea always is, and never becomes; the thing of sense always becomes, and never is.
It is for this reason that, in the opinion of Plato, no knowledge of the world of sense is possible, for one can have no knowledge of that which changes from moment to moment.
Knowledge is only possible if its subject stands fixed before the mind, is permanent and changeless.
The only knowledge, then, is knowledge of the Ideas.
This may seem, at first sight, a very singular doctrine.
That there can be no knowledge of sense-objects would, it might seem to us moderns, involve the denial that modern physical science, with all its exactitude and accumulated knowledge, is knowledge at all.
And surely, though all earthly things arise and pass away, many of them last long enough to admit of knowledge.
Surely the mountains are sufficiently permanent to allow us to know something of them.
They have relative, though not absolute, permanence.
This criticism is partly justified.
Plato did underestimate the value of physical knowledge.
But for the most part, the criticism is a misunderstanding.
By the world of sense Plato means bare sensation with no rational element in it.
Now physical science has not such crude sensation for its object.
Its objects are rationalized sensations.
{193} If, in Plato's manner, we think only of pure sensation, then it is true that it is nothing but a constant flux without stability; and knowledge of it is impossible.
The mountains are comparatively permanent.
But our sensation of the mountains is perpetually changing.
Every change of light, every cloud that passes over the sun, changes the colours and the shades.
Every time we move from one situation to another, the mountain appears a different shape.
The permanence of the mountain itself is due to the fact that all these varying sensations are identified as sensations of one and the same object.
The idea of identity is involved here, and it is, as it were, a thread upon which these fleeting sensations are strung.
But the idea of identity cannot be obtained from the senses.
It is introduced into things by reason.
Hence knowledge of this permanent mountain is only possible through the exercise of reason.
In Plato's language, all we can know of the mountain is the Ideas in which it participates.
To revert to a previous example, even the knowledge "this paper is white" involves the activity of intellect, and is impossible through sensation alone.
Bare sensation is a flow, of which no knowledge is possible.
Aristotle observes that Plato's theory of Ideas has three sources, the teachings of the Eleatics, of Heracleitus, and of Socrates.
From Heracleitus, Plato took the notion of a sphere of Becoming, and it appears in his system as the world of sense.
From the Eleatics he took the idea of a sphere of absolute Being.
From Socrates he took the doctrine of concepts, and proceeded to identify the Eleatic Being with the Socratic concepts.
This gives him his theory of Ideas.
{194} Sense objects, so far as they are knowable, that is so far as they are more than bare sensations, are so only because the Idea resides in them.
And this yields the clue to Plato's teaching regarding the relation of sense objects to the Ideas.
The Ideas are, in the first place the cause, that is to say, the ground (not the mechanical cause) of sense-objects.
The Ideas are the absolute reality by which individual things must be explained.
The being of things flows into them from the Ideas.
They are "copies," "imitations," of the Ideas.
In so far as they resemble the Idea, they are real; in so far as they differ from it, they are unreal.
In general, sense objects are, in Plato's opinion, only very dim, poor and imperfect copies of the Ideas.
They are mere shadows, and half-realities.
Another expression frequently used by Plato to express this relationship is that of "participation."
Things participate in the Ideas.
White objects participate in the one whiteness, beautiful objects, in the one beauty.
In this way beauty itself is the cause or explanation of beautiful objects, and so of all other Ideas.
The Ideas are thus both transcendent and immanent; immanent in so far as they reside in the things of sense, transcendent inasmuch as they have a reality of their own apart from the objects of sense which participate in them.
The Idea of man would still be real even if all men were destroyed, and it was real before any man existed, if there ever was such a time.
For the Ideas, being timeless, cannot be real now and not then.
Of what kinds of things are there Ideas?
That there are moral Ideas, such as Justice, Goodness, and Beauty, Ideas of corporeal things, such as horse, man, tree, star, river, and Ideas of qualities, such as whiteness, heaviness, {195} sweetness, we have already seen.
But there are Ideas not only of natural corporeal objects, but likewise of manufactured articles; there are Ideas of beds, tables, clothes.
And there are Ideas not only of exalted moral entities, such as Beauty and Justice.
There are also the Ideal Ugliness, and the Ideal Injustice.
There are even Ideas of the positively nauseating, such as hair, filth, and dirt.
This is asserted in the "Parmenides."
In that dialogue Plato's teaching is put into the mouth of Parmenides.
He questions the young Socrates whether there are Ideas of hair, filth, and dirt.
Socrates denies that there can be Ideas of such base things.
But Parmenides corrects him, and tells him that, when he has attained the highest philosophy, he will no longer despise such things.
Moreover, these Ideas of base things are just as much perfection in their kind as Beauty and Goodness are in theirs.
In general, the principle is that there must be an Idea wherever a concept can be formed; that is, wherever there is a class of many things called by one name.
We saw, in treating of the Eleatics, that for them the absolute Being contained no not-being, and the absolute One no multiplicity.
And it was just because they denied all not-being and multiplicity of the absolute reality that they were unable to explain the world of existence, and were forced to deny it altogether.
The same problem arises for Plato.
Is Being absolutely excludent of not-being?
Is the Absolute an abstract One, utterly exclusive of the many?
Is his philosophy a pure monism?
Is it a pluralism?
Or is it a combination of the two?
These questions are discussed in the "Sophist" and the "Parmenides."
{196} Plato investigates the relations of the One and the many, Being and not-being, quite in the abstract.
He decides the principles involved, and leaves it to the reader to apply them to the theory of Ideas.
Whether the Absolute is one or many, Being or not-being, can be decided independently of any particular theory of the nature of the Absolute, and therefore independently of Plato's own theory, which was that the Absolute consists of Ideas.
Plato does not accept the Eleatic abstraction.
The One cannot be simply one, for every unity must necessarily be a multiplicity.
The many and the One are correlative ideas which involve each other.
Neither is thinkable without the other.
A One which is not many is as absurd an abstraction as a whole which has no parts.
For the One can only be defined as that which is not many, and the many can only be defined as the not-one.
The One is unthinkable except as standing out against a background of the many.
The idea of the One therefore involves the idea of the many, and cannot be thought without it.
Moreover, an abstract One is unthinkable and unknowable, because all thought and knowledge consist in applying predicates to subjects, and all predication involves the duality of its subject.
Consider the simplest affirmation that can be made about the One, namely, "The One is."
Here we have two things, "the One," and "is," that is to say, being.
The proposition means that the One is Being.
Hence the One is two.
Firstly, it is itself, "One."
Secondly, it is "Being," and the proposition affirms that these two things are one.
Similarly with any other predicate we apply to the One.
Whatever we say of it involves its duality.
Thus we find that all systems of thought which {197} postulate an abstract unity as ultimate reality, such as Eleaticism, Hinduism, and the system of Spinoza, attempt to avoid the difficulty by saying nothing positive about the One.
They apply to it only negative predicates, which tell us not what it is, but what it is not.
Thus the Hindus speak of Brahman as form_less_, _im_mutable, _im_perishable, _un_moved, _un_created.
But this, of course, is a futile expedient.
In the first place, even a negative predicate involves the duality of the subject.
And, in the second place, a negative predicate is always, by implication, a positive one.
You cannot have a negative without a positive.
To deny one thing is to affirm its opposite.
To deny motion of the One, by calling it the unmoved, is to affirm rest of it.
Thus a One which is not also a many is unthinkable.
Similarly, the idea of the many is inconceivable without the idea of the One.
For the many is many ones.
Hence the One and the many cannot be separated in the Eleatic manner.
Every unity must be a unity of the many.
And every many is _ipso facto_ a unity, since we think the many in one idea, and, if we did not, we should not even know that it is a many.
The Absolute must therefore be neither an abstract One, nor an abstract many.
It must be a many in one.
Similarly, Being cannot totally exclude not-being.
They are, just as much as the One and the many, correlatives, which mutually involve each other.
The being of anything is the not-being of its opposite.
The being of light is the not-being of darkness.
All being, therefore, has not-being in it.
Let us apply these principles to the theory of Ideas.
The absolute reality, the world of Ideas, is many, since {198} there are many Ideas, but it is one, because the Ideas are not isolated units, but members of a single organized system.
There is, in fact, a hierarchy of Ideas.
Just as the one Idea presides over many individual things of which it is the common element, so one higher Idea presides over many lower Ideas, and is the common element in them.
And over this higher Idea, together with many others, a still higher Idea will rule.
For example, the Ideas of whiteness, redness, blueness, are all subsumed under the one Idea of colour.
The Ideas of sweetness and bitterness come under the one Idea of taste.
But the Ideas of colour and taste themselves stand under the still higher Idea of quality.
In this way, the Ideas form, as it were, a pyramid, and to this pyramid there must be an apex.
There must be one highest Idea, which is supreme over all the others.
This Idea will be the one final and absolutely real Being which is the ultimate ground, of itself, of the other Ideas, and of the entire universe.
This Idea is, Plato tells us, the Idea of the Good.
We have seen that the world of Ideas is many, and we now see that it is one.
For it is one single system culminating in one supreme Idea, which is the highest expression of its unity.
Moreover, each separate Idea is, in the same way, a many in one.
It is one in regard to itself.
That is to say, if we ignore its relations to other Ideas, it is, in itself, single.
But as it has also many relations to other Ideas, it is, in this way, a multiplicity.
Every Idea is likewise a Being which contains not-being.
For each Idea combines with some Ideas and not with others.
Thus the Idea of corporeal body combines both with the Idea of rest and that of motion.
{199} But the Ideas of rest and motion will not combine with each other.
The Idea of rest, therefore, is Being in regard to itself, not-being in regard to the Idea of motion, for the being of rest is the not-being of motion.
All Ideas are Being in regard to themselves, and not-being in regard to all those other Ideas with which they do not combine.
In this way there arises a science of Ideas which is called dialectic.
This word is sometimes used as identical with the phrase, "theory of Ideas."
But it is also used, in a narrower sense, to mean the science which has to do with the knowledge of which Ideas will combine and which not.
Dialectic is the correct joining and disjoining of Ideas.
It is the knowledge of the relations of all the Ideas to each other.
The attainment of this knowledge is, in Plato's opinion, the chief problem of philosophy.
To know all the Ideas, each in itself and in its relations to other Ideas, is the supreme task.
This involves two steps.
The first is the formation of concepts.
Its object is to know each Idea separately, and its procedure is by inductive reason to find the common element in which the many individual objects participate.
The second step consists in the knowledge of the inter-relation of Ideas, and involves the two processes of classification and division.
Classification and division both have for their object to arrange the lower Ideas under the proper higher Ideas, but they do this in opposite ways.
One may begin with the lower Ideas, such as redness, whiteness, etc., and range them under their higher Idea, that of colour.
This is classification.
Or one may begin with the higher Idea, colour, and divide it into the lower Ideas, red, white, {200} etc.
Classification proceeds from below upwards.
Division proceeds from above downwards.
Most of the examples of division which Plato gives are divisions by dichotomy.
We may either divide colour straight away into red, blue, white, etc.
; or we may divide each class into two sub-classes.
Thus colour will be divided into red and not-red, not-red into white and not-white, not-white into blue and not-blue, and so on.
This latter process is division by dichotomy, and Plato prefers it because, though it is tedious, it is very exhaustive and systematic.
Plato's actual performance of the supreme task of dialectic, the classification and arrangement of all Ideas, is not great.
He has made no attempt to complete it.
All he has done is to give us numerous examples.
And this is, in reality, all that can be expected, for the number of Ideas is obviously infinite, and therefore the task of arranging them cannot be completed.
There is, however, one important defect in the dialectic, which Plato ought certainly to have remedied.
The supreme Idea, he tells us, is the Good.
This, as being the ultimate reality, is the ground of all other Ideas.
Plato ought therefore to have derived all other Ideas from it, but this he has not done.
He merely asserts, in a more or less dogmatic way, that the Idea of the Good is the highest, but does nothing to connect it with the other Ideas.
It is easy to see, however, why he made this assertion.
It is, in fact, a necessary logical outcome of his system.
For every Idea is perfection in its kind.
All the Ideas have perfection in common.
And just as the one beauty is the Idea which presides over all beautiful things, so the one perfection must be the supreme Idea which presides {201} over all the perfect Ideas.
The supreme Idea, therefore, must be perfection itself, that is to say, the Idea of the Good.
On the other hand it might, with equal force, be argued that since all the Ideas are substances, therefore the highest Idea is the Idea of substance.
All that can be said is that Plato has left these matters in obscurity, and has merely asserted that the highest Idea is the Good.
Consideration of the Idea of the Good leads us naturally to enquire how far Plato's system is teleological in character.
A little consideration will show that it is out and out teleological.
We can see this both by studying the many lower Ideas, and the one supreme Idea.
Each Idea is perfection of its kind.
And each Idea is the ground of the existence of the individual objects which come under it.
Thus the explanation of white objects is the perfect whiteness, of beautiful objects the perfect beauty.
Or we may take as our example the Idea of the State which Plato describes in the "Republic."
The ordinary view is that Plato was describing a State which was the invention of his own fancy, and is therefore to be regarded as entirely unreal.
This is completely to misunderstand Plato.
So far was he from thinking the ideal State unreal, that he regarded it, on the contrary, as the only real State.
All existent States, such as the Athenian or the Spartan, are unreal in so far as they differ from the ideal State.
And moreover, this one reality, the ideal State, is the ground of the existence of all actual States.
They owe their existence to its reality.
Their existence can only be explained by it.
Now since the ideal State is not yet reached in fact, but is the perfect State towards which all actual States tend, it is clear that we have here {202} a teleological principle.
The real explanation of the State is not to be found in its beginnings in history, in an original contract, or in biological necessities, but in its end, the final or perfect State.
Or, if we prefer to put it so; the true beginning is the end.
The end must be in the beginning, potentially and ideally, otherwise it could never begin: It is the same with all other things.
Man is explained by the ideal man, the perfect man; white things by the perfect whiteness, and so on.
Everything is explained by its end, and not by its beginning.
Things are not explained by mechanical causes, but by reasons.
And the teleology of Plato culminates in the Idea of the Good.
That Idea is the final explanation of all other Ideas, and of the entire universe.
And to place the final ground of all things in perfection itself means that the universe arises out of that perfect end towards which all things move.
Another matter which requires elucidation here is the place which the conception of God holds in Plato's system.
He frequently uses the word God both in the singular and the plural, and seems to slip with remarkable ease from the monotheistic to the polytheistic manner of speaking.
In addition to the many gods, we have frequent reference to the one supreme Creator, controller, and ruler of the world, who is further conceived as a Being providentially watching over the lives of men.
But in what relation does this supreme God stand to the Ideas, and especially to the Idea of the Good?
If God is separate from the highest Idea, then, as Zeller points out, [Footnote 13] only three relations are possible, all of which are {203} equally objectionable.
Firstly, God may be the cause or ground of the Idea of the Good.
But this destroys the substantiality of the Idea, and indeed, destroys Plato's whole system.
The very essence of his philosophy is that the Idea is the ultimate reality, which is self-existent, and owes its being to nothing else.
But this theory makes it a mere creature of God, dependent on Him for its existence.
Secondly, God may owe His being to the Idea.
The Idea may be the ground of God's existence as it is the ground of all else in the universe.
But this theory does violence to the idea of God, turning Him into a mere derivative existence, and, in fact, into an appearance.
Thirdly, God and the Idea may be co-ordinate in the system as equally primordial independent ultimate realities.
But this means that Plato has given two mutually inconsistent accounts of the ultimate reality, or, if not, that his system is a hopeless dualism.
As none of these theories can be maintained, it must be supposed that God is identical with the Idea of the Good, and we find certain expressions in the "Philebus" which seem clearly to assert this.
But in that case God is not a personal God at all, since the Idea is not a person.
The word God, if used in this way, is merely a figurative term for the Idea.
And this is the most probable theory, if we reflect that there is in fact no room for a personal God in a system which places all reality in the Idea, and that to introduce such a conception threatens to break up the whole system.
Plato probably found it useful to take the popular conceptions about the personality of God or the gods and use them, in mythical fashion, to express his Ideas.
Those parts of Plato which speak of God, and the governance of God, {204} are to be interpreted on the same principles as the other Platonic myths.
[Footnote 13: _Plato and the Older Academy_, chap.
vi.]
Before closing our discussion of dialectic, it may be well to consider what place it occupies in the life of man, and what importance is attached to it.
Here Plato's answer is emphatic.
Dialectic is the crown of knowledge, and knowledge is the crown of life.
All other spiritual activities have value only in so far as they lead up to the knowledge of the Idea.
All other subjects of intellectual study are merely preparatory to the study of philosophy.
The special sciences have no value in themselves, but they have value inasmuch as their definitions and classifications form a preparation for the knowledge of Ideas.
Mathematics is important because it is a stepping-stone from the world of sense to the Ideas.
Its objects, namely, numbers and geometrical figures, resemble the Ideas in so far as they are immutable, and they resemble sense-objects in so far as they are in space or time.
In the educational curriculum of Plato, philosophy comes last.
Not everyone may study it.
And none may study it till he has been through all the preparatory stages of education, which form a rigorous discipline of the mind before it finally enters upon dialectic.
Thus all knowledge ends in dialectic, and that life has not attained its end which falls short of philosophy.
Perhaps the most striking illustration of the subordination of all spiritual activities to philosophy is to be found in the doctrine of Eros, or Love.
The phrase "platonic love" is on the lips of many, but, as a rule, something very different from Plato's own doctrine is meant.
According to him, love is always concerned with beauty, and his teaching on the subject is expounded {205} chiefly in the "Symposium," He believed that before birth the soul dwelt disembodied in the pure contemplation of the world of Ideas.
Sinking down into a body, becoming immersed in the world of sense, it forgets the Ideas.
The sight of a beautiful object reminds it of that one Idea of beauty of which the object is a copy.
This accounts for the mystic rapture, the emotion, the joy, with which we greet the sight of the beautiful.
Since Plato had expressly declared that there are Ideas of the ugly as well as of the beautiful, that there are Ideas, for example, of hair, filth, and dirt, and since these Ideas are just as divine and perfect as the Idea of the beautiful, we ought, on this theory, to greet the ugly, the filthy, and the nauseating, with a ravishment of joy similar to that which we experience in the presence of beauty.
Why this is not the case Plato omitted to explain.
However, having learned to love the one beautiful object, the soul passes on to the love of others.
Then it perceives that it is the same beauty which reveals itself in all these.
It passes from the love of beautiful forms to the love of beautiful souls, and from that to the love of beautiful sciences.
It ceases to be attached to the many objects, as such, that is to say, to the sensuous envelopes of the Idea of beauty.
Love passes into the knowledge of the Idea of beauty itself, and from this to the knowledge of the world of Ideas in general.
It passes in fact into philosophy.
In this development there are two points which we cannot fail to note.
In the first place, emotional love is explained as being simply the blind groping of reason towards the Idea.
It is reason which has not yet recognized itself as such.
It appears, therefore, in the {206} guise of feeling.
Secondly, the later progress of the soul's love is simply the gradual recognition of itself by reason.
When the soul perceives that the beauty in all objects is the same, that it is the common element amid the many, this is nothing but the process of inductive reasoning.
And this development ends at last in the complete rational cognition of the world of Ideas, in a word, philosophy.
Love is but an instinctive reason.
The animal has no feeling of the beautiful, just because it has no reason.
Love of the beautiful is founded upon the nature of man, not as a percipient or feeling being, but as a rational being.
And it must end in the complete recognition of reason by itself, not in the feeling and intuition, but in the rational comprehension, of the Idea.
One can imagine what Plato's answer would be to the sort of vulgarians and philistines who want to know what the use of philosophy is, and in what way it is "practical."
To answer such a question is for Plato impossible, because the question itself is illegitimate.
For a thing to have a use involves that it is a means towards an end.
Fire has use, because it may be made a means towards the cooking of food.
Money is useful, because it is a means to the acquisition of goods.
That which is an end in itself, and not a means towards any further end, cannot possibly have any use.
To suggest that philosophy ought to have use is, therefore, to put the cart before the horse, to invert the whole scale of values.
It suggests that philosophy is a means towards some further end, instead of being the absolute end to which all other things are means.
Philosophy is not _for_ anything.
Everything else is _for_ it.
And, if this seems an exaggerated or unpractical view, we may at least {207} remember that this is the view taken by the religious consciousness of man.
Religion makes the supreme end of life the knowledge of, and communion with, God.
God is for religion what the Idea is for philosophy.
God is a figurative name for the Idea.
To place the end of life in the knowledge of the Absolute, or the Idea, is therefore the teaching both of philosophy and religion.
4.
Physics, or the Theory of Existence.
Dialectic is the theory of reality, physics the theory of existence, dialectic of that which lies behind things as their ground, physics of the things which are thus grounded.
That is to say, physics is concerned with phenomena and appearances, things which exist in space and time, as opposed to the timeless and non-spatial Ideas.
Things of this kind are both corporeal and incorporeal.
Physics falls therefore into two parts, the doctrine of the outward corporeality, the world, with its incorporeal essence, the World-Soul, and the doctrine of the incorporeal soul of man.
_(a) The Doctrine of the World_.
If, in the dialectic, Plato has given an account of the nature of the first principle and ground of all things, the problem now arises of explaining how the actual universe of things arises out of that ground, how it is derived from the first principle.
In other words, the Ideas being the absolute reality, how does the world of sense, and, in general, the existent universe, arise out of the Ideas?
Faced with this problem, the system of Plato broke down.
The things of sense are, we are told, "copies" or "imitations" of the Ideas.
{208} They "participate" in the Ideas.
So far, so good.
But why should there be any copies of the Ideas?
Why should the Ideas give rise to copies of themselves, and how is the production of these copies effected?
To these questions Plato has no answer, and he therefore has recourse to the use of myths.
Poetic description here takes the place of scientific explanation.
This poetic description of the origin of the world is to be found in the "Timaeus."
We have seen that the Ideas are absolute Being, and that things of sense are half real and half unreal.
They are partly real because they participate in Being.
They are partly unreal because they participate in not-being.
There must be, therefore, a principle of absolute not-being.
This, in Plato's opinion, is matter.
Things of sense are copies of the Ideas fashioned out of, or stamped upon, matter.
But Plato does not understand by matter what we, in modern times, understand by it.
Matter, in our sense, is always some particular kind of matter.
It is brass, or wood, or iron, or stone.
It is matter which has determinate character and quality.
But the possession of specific character means that it is matter with the copy of Ideas already stamped upon it.
Since iron exists in great quantities in the world, and there is a common element in all the various pieces of iron, by virtue of which all are classed together, there must be a concept of iron.
There is, therefore, an Idea of iron in the world of Ideas.
And the iron which we find in the earth must be matter which is already formed into a copy of this Idea.
It participates in the Idea of iron.
The same remarks apply to any other particular kind of matter.
In fact, all form, all the specific characters and {209} features of matter, as we know it, are due to the operation of the Ideas.
Hence matter as it is in itself, before the image of the Ideas is stamped upon it, must be absolutely without quality, featureless, formless.
But to be absolutely without any quality is to be simply nothing at all.
This matter is, therefore, as Plato says, absolute not-being.
Zeller conjectures, probably rightly, that what Plato meant was simply empty space.
[Footnote 14] Empty space is an existent not-being, and it is totally indeterminate and formless.
It accords with this view that Plato adopted the Pythagorean tenet that the differential qualities of material substances are due to their smallest particles being regular geometrical figures limited out of the unlimited, that is, out of space.
Thus earth is composed of cubes.
That is to say, empty space when bound into cubes (the limiting of the unlimited) becomes earth.
The smallest particles of fire are _tetrahedra_, of air _octahedra_, of water _icosahedra_.
[Footnote 14: _Plato and the Older Academy_, chap.
vii. ]
We have, then, on the one hand, the world of Ideas, on the other, matter, an absolutely formless, chaotic, mass.
By impressing the images of the Ideas upon this mass, "things" arise, that is to say, the specific objects of sense.
They thus participate both in Being and in not-being.
But how is this mixing of Being and not-being brought about?
How do the Ideas come to have their images stamped upon matter?
It is at this point that we enter upon the region of myth.
Up to this point Plato is certainly to be taken literally.
He of course believed in the reality of the world of Ideas, and he no doubt also believed in his principle of matter.
And he thought that the objects of sense are to be {210} explained as copies of the Ideas impressed upon matter.
But now, with the problem how this copying is brought about, Plato leaves the method of scientific explanation behind.
If the Ideas are the absolute ground of all things, then the copying process must be done by the Ideas themselves.
They must themselves be made the principles for the production of things.
But this is, for Plato, impossible.
For production involves change.
If the Ideas produce things out of themselves, the Ideas must in the process undergo change.
But Plato has declared them to be absolutely unchangeable, and to be thus immutable is to be sterile.
Hence the Ideas have within themselves no principle for the production of things, and the scientific explanation of things by this means becomes impossible.
Hence there is nothing for it but to have recourse to myth.
Plato can only imagine that things are produced by a world-former, or designer, who, like a human artist, fashions the plastic matter into images of the Ideas.
God, the Creator, the world-designer, finds beside him, on the one hand, the Ideas, on the other, formless matter.
First, he creates the World-Soul.
This is incorporeal, but occupies space.
He spreads it out like a huge net in empty space.
He bisects it, and bends the two halves into an inner and an outer circle, these circles being destined to become the spheres of the planets and the stars respectively.
He takes matter and binds it into the four elements, and these elements he builds into the empty framework of the World-Soul.
When this is done, the creation of the universe is complete.
The rest of the "Timaeus" is occupied with the details of Plato's ideas of astronomy and physical {211} science.
These are mostly worthless and tedious, and we need not pursue them here.
But we may mention that Plato, of course, regarded the earth as the centre of the world.
The stars, which are divine beings, revolve around it.
They necessarily move in circles, because the circle is the perfect figure.
The stars, being divine, are governed solely by reason, and their movement must therefore be circular, because a circular motion is the motion of reason.
The above account of the origin of the world is merely myth, and Plato knows that it is myth.
What he apparently did believe in, however, was the existence of the World-Soul, and a few words upon this subject are necessary.
The soul, in Plato's system, is the mediator between the world of Ideas and the world of sense.
Like the former, it is incorporeal and immortal.
Like the latter, it occupies space.
Plato thought that there must be a soul in the world to account for the rational behaviour of things, and to explain motion.
The reason which governs and directs the world dwells in the World-Soul.
And the World-Soul is the cause of motion in the outer universe, just as the human soul is the cause of the motions of the human body.
The cosmos is a living being.
_(b) The Doctrine of the Human Soul_.
The human soul is similar in kind to the World-Soul.
It is the cause of the body's movements, and in it the human reason dwells.
It has affinities both with the world of Ideas and the world of sense.
It is divided into two parts, of which one part is again subdivided into two.
The highest part is reason, which is {212} that part of the soul which apprehends the Ideas.
It is simple and indivisible.
Now all destruction of things means the sundering of their parts.
But the rational part of the soul, being simple, has no parts.
Therefore it is indestructible and immortal.
The irrational part of the soul is mortal, and is subdivided into a noble and an ignoble half.
To the noble half belong courage, love of honour, and in general the nobler emotions.
To the ignoble portion belong the sensuous appetites.
The noble half has a certain affinity with reason, in that it has an instinct for what is noble and great.
Nevertheless, this is mere instinct, and is not rational.
The seat of reason is the head, of the noble half of the lower soul, the breast, of the ignoble half, the lower part of the body.
Man alone possesses the three parts of the soul.
Animals possess the two lower parts, plants only the appetitive soul.
What distinguishes man from the lower orders of creation is thus that he alone possesses reason.
Plato connects the doctrine of the immortality of the rational soul with the theory of Ideas by means of the doctrines of recollection and transmigration.
According to the former doctrine, all knowledge is recollection of what was experienced by the soul in its disembodied state before birth.
It must carefully be noted, however, that the word knowledge is here used in the special and restricted sense of Plato.
Not everything that we should call knowledge is recollection.
The sensuous element in my perception that this paper is white is not recollection, since, as being merely sensuous, it is not, in Plato's opinion, to be called knowledge.
Here, as elsewhere, he confines the term {213} to rational knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of the Ideas, though it is doubtful whether he is wholly consistent with himself in the matter, especially in regard to mathematical knowledge.
It must also be noted that this doctrine has nothing in common with the Oriental doctrine of the memory of our past lives upon the earth.
An example of this is found in the Buddhist Jàtakas, where the Buddha relates from memory many things that happened to him in the body in his previous births.
Plato's doctrine is quite different.
It refers only to recollection of the experiences of the soul in its disembodied state in the world of Ideas.
The reasons assigned by Plato for believing in this doctrine may be reduced to two.
Firstly, knowledge of the Ideas cannot be derived from the senses, because the Idea is never pure in its sensuous manifestation, but always mixed.
The one beauty, for example, is only found in experience mixed with the ugly.
The second reason is more striking.
And, if the doctrine of recollection is itself fantastic, this, the chief reason upon which Plato bases it, is interesting and important.
He pointed out that mathematical knowledge seems to be innate in the mind.
It is neither imparted to us by instruction, nor is it gained from experience.
Plato, in fact, came within an ace of discovering what, in modern times, is called the distinction between necessary and contingent knowledge, a distinction which was made by Kant the basis of most far-reaching developments in philosophy.
The character of necessity attaches to rational knowledge, but not to sensuous.
To explain this distinction, we may take as our example of rational knowledge such a proposition as that two {214} and two make four.
This does not mean merely that, as a matter of fact, every two objects and every other two objects, with which we have tried the experiment, make four.
It is not merely a fact, it is a necessity.
It is not merely that two and two do make four, but that they must make four.
It is inconceivable that they should not.
We have not got to go and see whether, in each new case, they do so.
We know beforehand that they will, because they must.
It is quite otherwise with such a proposition as, "gold is yellow."
There is no necessity about it.
It is merely a fact.
For all anybody can see to the contrary it might just as well be blue.
There is nothing inconceivable about its being blue, as there is about two and two making five.
Of course, that gold is yellow is no doubt a mechanical necessity, that is, it is determined by causes, and in that sense could not be otherwise.
But it is not a logical necessity.
It is not a logical contradiction to imagine blue gold, as it would be to imagine two and two making five.
Any other proposition in mathematics possesses the same necessity.
That the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal is a necessary proposition.
It could not be otherwise without contradiction.
Its opposite is unthinkable.
But that Socrates is standing is not a necessary truth.
He might just as well be sitting.
Since a mathematical proposition is necessarily true, its truth is known without verification by experience.
Having proved the proposition about the isosceles triangle, we do not go about measuring the angles of triangular objects to make sure there is no exception.
We know it without any experience at all.
And if we {215} were sufficiently clever, we might even evolve mathematical knowledge out of the resources of our own minds, without its being told us by any teacher.
That Caesar was stabbed by Brutus is a fact which no amount of cleverness could ever reveal to me.
This information I can only get by being told it.
But that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal I could discover by merely thinking about it.
The proposition about Brutus is not a necessary proposition.
It might be otherwise.
And therefore I must be told whether it is true or not.
But the proposition about the isosceles triangle is necessary, and therefore I can see that it must be true without being told.
Now Plato did not clearly make this distinction between necessary and non-necessary knowledge.
But what he did perceive was that mathematical knowledge can be known without either experience or instruction.
Kant afterwards gave a less fantastic explanation of these facts.
But Plato concluded that such knowledge must be already present in the mind at birth.
It must be recollected from a previous existence.
It might be answered that, though this kind of knowledge is not gained from the experience of the senses, it may be gained from teaching.
It may be imparted by another mind.
We have to teach children mathematics, which we should not have to do if it were already in their minds.
But Plato's answer is that when the teacher explains a geometrical theorem to the child, directly the child understands what is meant, he assents.
He sees it for himself.
But if the teacher explains that Lisbon is on the Tagus, the child cannot see that this is true for himself.
He must either believe the word {216} of the teacher, or he must go and see.
In this case, therefore, the knowledge is really imparted from one mind to another.
The teacher transfers to the child knowledge which the child does not possess.
But the mathematical theorem is already present in the child's mind, and the process of teaching merely consists in making him see what he already potentially knows.
He has only to look into his own mind to find it.
This is what we mean by saying that the child sees it for himself.
In the "Meno" Plato attempts to give an experimental proof of the doctrine of recollection.
Socrates is represented as talking to a slave-boy, who admittedly has no education in mathematics, and barely knows what a square is.
By dint of skilful questioning Socrates elicits from the boy's mind a theorem about the properties of the square.
The point of the argument is that Socrates tells him nothing at all.
He imparts no information.
He only asks questions.
The boy's knowledge of the theorem, therefore, is not due to the teaching of Socrates, nor is it due to experience.
It can only be recollection.
But if knowledge is recollection, it may be asked, why is it that we do not remember at once?
Why is the tedious process of education in mathematics necessary?
Because the soul, descending from the world of Ideas into the body, has its knowledge dulled and almost blotted out by its immersion in the sensuous.
It has forgotten, or it has only the dimmest and faintest recollection.
It has to be reminded, and it takes a great effort to bring the half-lost ideas back to the mind.
This process of being reminded is education.
With this, of course, is connected the doctrine of {217} transmigration, which Plato took, no doubt, from the Pythagoreans.
Most of the details of Plato's doctrine of transmigration are mere myth.
Plato does not mean them seriously, as is shown by the fact that he gives quite different and inconsistent accounts of these details in different dialogues.
What, in all probability, he did believe, however, may be summarized as follows.
The soul is pre-existent as well as immortal.
Its natural home is the world of Ideas, where at first it existed, without a body, in the pure and blissful contemplation of Ideas.
But because it has affinities with the world of sense, it sinks down into a body.
After death, if a man has lived a good life, and especially if he has cultivated the knowledge of Ideas, philosophy, the soul returns to its blissful abode in the world of Ideas, till, after a long period it again returns to earth in a body.
Those who do evil suffer after death severe penalties, and are then reincarnated in the body of some being lower than themselves.
A man may become a woman.
Men may even, if their lives have been utterly sensual, pass into the bodies of animals.
5.
Ethics _(a) The Ethics of the Individual_ Just as Plato's theory of knowledge begins with a negative portion, designed to refute false theories of what truth is, so does his theory of morals begin with a negative portion, intended to refute false theories of what virtue is.
These two negative departments of Plato's philosophy correspond in every way.
As he was then engaged in showing that knowledge is not perception, as Protagoras thought, so he now urges that {218} virtue is not the same as pleasure.
And as knowledge is not mere right opinion, neither is virtue mere right action.
The propositions that knowledge is perception, and that virtue is pleasure, are indeed only the same principle applied to different spheres of thought.
For the Sophists whatever appeared true to the individual was true for that individual.
This is the same as saying that knowledge is perception.
For the Sophists, again, whatever appeared right to the individual was right for that individual.
This is the same as saying that it is right for each man to do whatever he pleases.
Virtue is defined as the pleasure of the individual.
This consequence of the Sophistic principles was drawn both by many of the Sophists themselves, and later by the Cyrenaics.
As these two propositions are thus in fact only one principle, what Plato has said in refutation of the former provides also his refutation of the latter.
The theory that virtue is pleasure has the same destructive influence upon morals as the theory that knowledge is perception had upon truth.
We may thus shortly summarize Plato's arguments.
(1) As the Sophistic theory of truth destroys the objectivity of truth, so the doctrine that virtue is the pleasure of the individual destroys the objectivity of the good.
Nothing is good in itself.
Things are only good for me or for you.
There results an absolute moral relativity, in which the idea of an objective standard of goodness totally disappears.
(2) This theory destroys the distinction between good and evil.
Since the good is whatever the individual pleases, and since the pleasure of one individual is the {219} displeasure of another, the same thing is both good and evil at the same time, good for one person and evil for another.
Good and evil are therefore not distinct.
They are the same.
(3) Pleasure is the satisfaction of our desires.
Desires are merely feelings.
This theory, therefore, founds morality upon feeling.
But an objective morality cannot be founded upon what is peculiar to individuals.
If the moral code is to be a law binding upon all men, it can only be founded upon that which is common to all men, the universal reason.
(4) The end of moral activity must fall within, and not outside, the moral act itself.
Morality must have an intrinsic, not a merely extrinsic, value.
We must not do right for the sake of something else.
We must do right because it is right, and thus make virtue an end in itself.
But the Sophistic theory places the end of morality outside morality.
We are to do right, not for its own sake, but for the sake of pleasure.
Morality is thus not an end in itself, but merely a means towards a further end.
Virtue, therefore, is not pleasure, any more than knowledge is perception.
Likewise, just as knowledge is not right opinion, so virtue is not right action.
Right opinion may be held upon wrong grounds, and right action may be performed on wrong grounds.
For true virtue we must not only know what is right, but why it is right.
True virtue is thus right action proceeding from a rational comprehension of true values.
Hence there arises in Plato's philosophy a distinction between philosophic virtue and customary virtue.
Philosophic virtue is founded upon reason, and understands the {220} principle on which it acts.
It is, in fact, action governed by principles.
Customary virtue is right action proceeding from any other grounds, such as custom, habit, tradition, good impulses, benevolent feelings, instinctive goodness.
Men do right merely because other people do it, because it is customary, and they do it without understanding the reasons for it.
This is the virtue of the ordinary honest citizen, the "respectable" person.
It is the virtue of bees and ants, who act as if rationally, but without any understanding of what they are doing.
And Plato observes--no doubt with an intentional spice of humour--that such people may in the next life find themselves born as bees and ants.
Plato denies philosophic virtue not only to the masses of men, but even to the best statesmen and politicians of Greece.
As true virtue is virtue which knows at what it is aiming, the knowledge of the nature of the highest aim becomes the chief question of ethics.
What is the end of moral activity?
Now we have just seen that that end must fall within, and not outside, the moral act.
The end of goodness is the good.
What, then, is the good?
What is the supreme good, the _summum bonum_?
A note of warning is necessary before we enter upon the details of this problem.
Plato frequently speaks of all moral activity aiming at, and ending in, happiness.
With modern phrases ringing in our ears, we might easily suppose this to mean that Plato is a utilitarian.
The utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill is distinguished by the fact that it places the end of morality in happiness.
Yet Plato was not a utilitarian, and would unhesitatingly have condemned the theory of Mill.
He {221} would have found it identical in principle with the Sophistic doctrine that pleasure is the end of virtue.
The only difference is that, whereas the Sophists identified virtue with the pleasure of the individual, Mill makes it the pleasure of the community.
That act is right which leads to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."
In practice, of course, this makes a tremendous difference.
But the principle is equally objectionable because, like the Sophistic theory, it founds morality upon mere feeling, instead of upon reason, and because it places the end of morality outside morality itself.
Yet the formula of Mill, that the end of morals is happiness, seems the same as Plato's formula.
What is the difference?
The fact is that what Mill calls happiness Plato would have called pleasure.
Pleasure is the satisfaction of one's desires, whether they are noble or ignoble.
Then what is happiness?
It can only be defined as the general harmonious well-being of life.
Only that man is happy whose soul is in the state it ought to be in, only in fact the just, the good, and the moral man.
Happiness has nothing to do with pleasure.
If you could conceive an absolutely just and upright man, who was yet weighed down with every possible misery and disaster, in whose life pleasure had no part, such a man would still be absolutely happy.
Happiness is, therefore, in Plato, merely another name for the _summum bonum_.
In saying that the _summum bonum_ is happiness, Plato is not telling us anything about it.
He is merely giving it a new name.
And we are still left to enquire: what is the _summum bonum_?
what is happiness?
Plato's answer, as indeed his whole ethics, is but {222} an application of the theory of Ideas.
But here we can distinguish two different and, to some extent, inconsistent strains of thought, which exist side by side in Plato, and perpetually struggle for the mastery.
Both views depend upon the theory of Ideas.
In the first place, the Idea, in Plato's philosophy, is the sole reality.
The object of sense is unreal, and merely clogs and dims the soul's vision of the Ideas.
Matter is that which obstructs the free activity of the Idea.
Sense-objects hide the Idea from our view.
Therefore the world of sense is wholly evil.
True virtue must consist in flying from the world of sense, in retiring from the affairs of the world, and even from the beauty of the senses, into the calm of philosophic contemplation.
And if this were all, philosophy, the knowledge of the Ideas, would be the sole constituent of the _summum bonum_.
But it is possible to regard sense-objects in another light.
They are, after all, copies of the Ideas.
They are therefore a manifestation and revelation of the ideal world.
Hence Plato is compelled by this thought to allow a certain value to the world of sense, its affairs, and its beauty.
The result of this inconsistency is, at any rate, that Plato remains broad and human.
He does not, on the one hand, preach a purely selfish retirement into philosophy, or a narrow ascetic ideal.
He does not, on the other hand, adopt a low utilitarian view of life, allowing value only to that which is "practical."
He remains true to the Greek ideal of life as a harmonious play of all the faculties, in which no one part of man is over-developed at the expense of the others.
The result is that Plato's _summum bonum_ is not a single {223} end.
It is a compound consisting of four parts.
First, and chief of all, is the knowledge of the Ideas as they are in themselves, philosophy.
Secondly, the contemplation of the Ideas as they reveal themselves in the world of sense, the love and appreciation of all that is beautiful, ordered, and harmonious.
Thirdly, the cultivation of the special sciences and arts.
And fourthly, indulgence in pure, refined, and innocent pleasures of the senses, excluding, of course, whatever is base and evil.
Plato had also a specific doctrine of virtue.
As already stated, he distinguished between philosophic and customary virtue, and attached absolute value only to the former.
He does not, however, deny a relative value to customary virtue, inasmuch as it is a means towards true virtue.
Plato saw that man cannot rise at one bound to the pinnacles of rational virtue.
He must needs pass through the preparatory stage of customary virtue.
In the man in whom reason is not yet awakened, good habits and customs must be implanted, in order that, when reason comes, it may find the ground ready prepared.
Socrates had taught that virtue is one.
And Plato in his earlier writings adopted this view.
But later on he came to see that every faculty of man has its place and its function, and the due performance of its function is a virtue.
He did not, however, surrender the unity of virtue altogether, but believed that its unity is compatible with its plurality.
There are four cardinal virtues.
Three of these correspond to the three parts of the soul, and the fourth is the unity of the others.
The virtue of reason is wisdom, of the noble half of {224} the mortal soul courage, of the ignoble appetites, temperance or self-control, in which the passions allow themselves to be governed by reason.
The fourth virtue, justice, arises from the others.
Justice means proportion and harmony, and accrues to the soul when all three parts perform their functions and co-operate with each other.
Following Zeller, we may add to this account of the virtues some of Plato's views upon the details of life.
And first, his opinion of women and marriage.
Here Plato does not rise above the level of ordinary Greek morals.
He has nothing specially original to say, but reflects the opinions of his age.
Women he regards as essentially inferior to men.
Moreover, the modern view of woman as the complement of man, as possessing those special virtues of womanliness, which a man lacks, is quite alien to Plato.
The difference between men and women is, in his view, not one of kind but only of degree.
The only specific difference between the sexes is the physical difference.
Spiritually they are quite the same, except that woman is inferior.
Hence Plato would not exclude women from the same education which man receives.
He would educate them in exactly the same way, but this involves the imposition upon them of the same burdens.
Even military duties are not outside the sphere of women.
His views of marriage flow from the same principle.
Since woman is not the complement of man, she is in no special sense fitted to be his companion.
Hence the ideal of spiritual companionship is absent from Plato's view of marriage, the sole object of which, in his opinion, is the propagation of children.
The natural companion {225} of a man is not a woman, but another man.
The ideal of friendship, therefore, takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in Plato and, indeed, among the ancients generally.
Slavery is not denounced by Plato.
He takes no trouble to justify it, because he thinks it so obviously right that it needs no justification.
All that can be said to his credit is that he demands humane and just, though firm and unsentimental, treatment of slaves.
If in these respects Plato never transcends the Greek view of life, in one matter at least he does so.
The common view of his time was that one ought to do good to one's friends and evil to one's enemies.
This Plato expressly repudiates.
It can never be good, he thinks, to do evil.
One should rather do good to one's enemies, and so convert them into friends.
To return good for evil is no less a Platonic than a Christian maxim.
_(b) The State_.
We pass from the ethics of individual life to the ethics of the community.
Plato's "Republic" is not an attempt to paint an imaginary and unreal perfection.
Its object is to found politics on the theory of Ideas by depicting the Idea of the State.
This State is, therefore, not unreal, but the only real State, and its reality is the ground of the existence of all actually existent States.
We can trace here, too, the same two strains of thought as we found in considering the ethics of the individual.
On the one hand, since the Idea alone is real, the existent world a mere illusion, the service of the {226} State cannot be the ideal life for a rational being.
Complete retirement from the world into the sphere of Ideas is a far nobler end, and the aims of the ordinary politician are, in comparison, worthless baubles.
Though only the philosopher is competent to rule, yet he will not undertake the business of the State, except under compulsion.
In the political States, as they exist in the world, the philosopher dwells with his body, but his soul is a stranger, ignorant of their standards, unmoved by their ambitions.
But the opposite strain of thought is uppermost when we are told that it is, after all, only in the State, only in his capacity as a citizen and a social being that the individual can attain perfection.
It is only possible to reconcile these views in one way.
If the ideals of the State and of philosophy seem inconsistent, they must be brought together by adapting the State to philosophy.
We must have a State founded upon philosophy and reason.
Then only can the philosopher dwell in it with his soul as well as with his body.
Then only can either the individual or the State reach perfection.
To found the State upon reason is the keynote of Plato's politics.
And this gives us, too, the clue to the problem, what is the end of the State?
Why should there be a State at all?
This does not mean, how has the State arisen in history?
We are not in search of the cause, but of the reason, or end, of the State.
The end of all life is wisdom, virtue, and knowledge.
The unassisted individual cannot reach these ends.
It is only by the State that they can be brought down from heaven to earth.
The end of the State is thus the virtue and happiness (not pleasure) of the citizens.
And since this is only possible {227} through education, the State's primary function is educational.
Since the State is to be founded upon reason, its laws must be rational, and rational laws can only be made by rational men, philosophers.
The rulers must be philosophers.
And since the philosophers are few, we must have an aristocracy, not of birth, or of wealth, but of intellect.
The first operative principle of the State is reason, the second is force.
For it is not to be expected that the irrational masses will willingly submit to rational laws.
They must be compelled.
And since the work of the world must go on, the third operative principle will be labour.
Plato believed in the principle of division of labour.
Only he can excel at any occupation whose life is devoted to it.
Hence to the three operative principles correspond three classes, castes, or professions.
Reason is embodied in the philosopher-rulers, force in the warriors, labour in the masses.
This division of the functions of the State is based upon the threefold division of the soul.
To the rational soul correspond the philosopher-rulers, to the nobler half of the mortal soul the warriors, to the appetitive soul the masses.
Consequently the four cardinal virtues belong to the State through the functioning of the three classes.
The virtue of the philosopher-rulers is wisdom, of the warriors courage, of the masses, temperance.
The harmonious co-operation of all three produces justice.
The rulers must not cease to be philosophers.
Most of their time must be spent in the study of the Ideas, philosophy, and only a portion in the affairs of government.
This is rendered possible by the system of taking turns.
Those who are not at any particular time {228} engaged upon government retire into thought.
The duty of the warriors is the protection of the State, both against its external enemies, and against the irrational impulses of the masses of its own citizens.
Normally, the latter will be their chief duty, the enforcement of the decrees of the philosopher-rulers upon the masses.
The masses will engage themselves in trade, commerce, and agriculture.
Both the other ranks are prohibited from soiling their fingers with trade or agriculture, upon which Plato, as a Greek aristocrat, looked down with unbounded contempt.
To what rank a citizen belongs is not determined by birth, nor by individual choice.
No individual can choose his own profession.
This will be determined by the officers of the State, who will base their decision, however, upon the disposition and capabilities of the individual.
As they have also to decide the numbers required for each rank, the magistrates also control the birth of children.
Parents cannot have children when they wish.
The sanction of the State is required.
Since the end of the State is the virtue of the citizens, this involves the destruction of whatever is evil and the encouragement of whatever is good.
To compass the destruction of evil, the children of bad parents, or offspring not sanctioned by the State, will be destroyed.
Weak and sickly children will also not be allowed to live.
The positive encouragement of good involves the education of the citizens by the State.
Children from their earliest years do not belong to their parents, but to the State.
They are, therefore, at once removed from the custody of their parents, and transferred to State nurseries.
Since the parents are to have no {229} property nor interest in them, stringent means are adopted to see that, after removal to the public nurseries, parents shall never again be able to recognize their own children.
All the details of the educational curriculum are decreed by the State.
Poetry, for example, is only allowed in an emasculated form.
Of the three kinds, epic, dramatic, and lyric, the two former are banished from the State altogether, because, in the base example of the immorality of the gods, which they depict, they are powerful instruments in the propagation of evil.
Only lyric poetry is allowed, and that under strict supervision.
The subject, the form, even the metre, will be prescribed by the proper authorities.
Poetry is not recognized as valuable in itself, but only as an educative moral influence.
All poems, therefore, must strictly inculcate virtue.
It is, in Plato's opinion, intolerable that the individual should have any interest apart from the interests of the State.
Private interests clash with those of the community, and must therefore be abolished.
The individual can possess no property either in material things, or in the members of his family.
This involves the community of goods, community of wives, and the State ownership of children from their birth.
6.
Views upon Art.
In modern times aesthetics is recognized as a separate division of philosophy.
This was not the case in Plato's time, and yet his opinions upon art cannot be fitted into either dialectic, physics, or ethics.
On the other hand, they cannot be ignored, and there is nothing for it, therefore, but to treat them as a sort of appendix {230} to his philosophy.
Plato has no systematic theory of art, but only scattered opinions, the most important of which will now be mentioned.
Most modern theories of art are based upon the view that art is an end in itself, that the beautiful has, as such, absolute value, and not value merely as a means to some further end.
Upon such a view, art is recognized as autonomous within its own sphere, governed only by its own laws, judged only by its own standards.
It cannot be judged, as Tolstoi would have us believe, by the standard of morals.
The beautiful is not a means to the good.
They may be indeed, ultimately identical, but their identity cannot be recognized till their difference has been admitted.
Nor can one be subordinated to the other.
Now this view of art finds no place at all in Plato's thought.
Art is, for him, absolutely subservient both to morals and to philosophy.
That it subserves morality we see from the "Republic," where only that poetry is allowed which inculcates virtue, and only because it inculcates virtue.
It is no sufficient justification of a poem to plead that it is beautiful.
Beautiful or not, if it does not subserve the ends of morality, it is forbidden.
Hence too the preposterous notion that its exercise is to be controlled, even in details, by the State.
That this would mean the utter destruction of art either did not occur to Plato, or if it did, did not deter him.
If poetry cannot exist under the yoke of morality, it must not be allowed to exist at all.
That art is merely a means to philosophy is even more evident.
The end of all education is the knowledge of the Ideas, and every other subject, science, mathematics, art, is introduced into the {231} educational curriculum solely as a preparation for that end.
They have no value in themselves.
This is obvious from the teaching of the "Republic," and it is even more evident in the "Symposium," where the love of beautiful objects is made to end, not in itself, but in philosophy.
Plato's low estimate of art appears also in his theory of art as imitation, and his contemptuous references to the nature of artistic genius.
As to the first, art is, to him, only imitation.
It is the copy of an object of the senses, and this again is only a copy of an Idea.
Hence a work of art is only a copy of a copy.
Plato did not recognise the creativeness of art.
This view is certainly false.
If the aims of art were merely to imitate, a photograph would be the best picture, since it is the most accurate copy of its object.
What Plato failed to see was that the artist does not copy his object, but idealizes it.
And this means that he does not see the object simply as an object, but as the revelation of an Idea.
He does not see the phenomenon with the eyes of other men, but penetrates the sensuous envelope and exhibits the Idea shining through the veils of sense.
The second point is Plato's estimate of artistic genius.
The artist does not work by reason, but by inspiration.
He does not, or he should not, create the beautiful by means of rules, or by the application of principles.
It is only after the work of art is created that the critic discovers rules in it.
This does not mean that the discovery of rules is false, but that the artist follows them unconsciously and instinctively.
If, for example, we believe Aristotle's dictum that the object of tragedy {232} is to purge the heart by terror and pity, we do not mean that the tragedian deliberately sets out to accomplish that end.
He does so without knowing or intending it.
And this kind of instinctive impulse we call the inspiration of the artist.
Now Plato fully recognizes these facts.
But far from considering inspiration something exalted, he thinks it, on the contrary, comparatively low and contemptible, just because it is not rational.
He calls it "divine madness," divine indeed, because the artist produces beautiful things, but madness because he himself does not know how or why he has done it.
The poet says very wise and beautiful things, but he does not know why they are wise and beautiful.
He merely feels, and does not understand anything.
His inspiration, therefore, is not on the level of knowledge, but only of right opinion, which knows what is true, but does not know why.
Plato's views of art are thus not satisfactory.
He is doubtless right in placing inspiration below reason, and art below philosophy.
They do stand to each other in the relation of higher and lower.
Not that such a question can be decided by mere personal preferences.
The usual discussions whether art or philosophy is better, whether emotion or reason is higher, are pointless and insipid, because the disputants merely exalt their personal peculiarities.
The man of artistic temperament naturally prefers art, and says it is the highest.
The philosopher exalts philosophy above art, merely because it is his pet hobby.
This kind of discussion is futile.
The matter must be decided upon some principle.
And the principle is quite clear.
Both art and philosophy have the same object, the {233} apprehension of the Absolute, or the Idea.
Philosophy apprehends it as it is in itself, that is to say, as thought.
Art apprehends it in a merely sensuous form.
Philosophy apprehends it in its truth, art in a comparatively untrue way.
Philosophy, therefore, is the higher.
But while any true philosophy of art must recognize this, it must not interpret it to mean that art is to be made merely a means towards philosophy.
It must somehow find room for the recognition of the truth that art is an end in itself, and it is in this that Plato fails.
Aristotle, who had no spark of artistic capacity in his composition, whose own writings are the severest of scientific treatises, did far greater justice to art than Plato, and propounded a far more satisfactory theory.
Plato, himself a great artist, is utterly unjust to art.
Paradoxical as it may appear, the very reason why Aristotle could be just to art was that he was no artist.
Being solely a philosopher, his own writings are scientific and inartistic.
This enables him to recognize art as a separate sphere, and therefore as having its own rights.
Plato could not keep the two separate.
His dialogues are both works of art and of philosophy.
We have seen already that this fact exercised an evil influence on his philosophy, since it made him substitute poetic myths for scientific explanation.
Now we see that it exercised an equally evil influence on his views of art.
As a philosopher-artist his own practice is to use literary art solely as a means towards the expression of philosophical ideas.
And this colours his whole view of art.
It is, to him, nothing but a means towards philosophy.
And this is the tap-root of his entire view of the subject.
{234} 7.
Critical Estimate of Plato's Philosophy, If we are to form a just estimate of the value of Plato's philosophy, we must not fritter away our criticism on the minor points, the external details, the mere outworks of the system.
We must get at the heart and governing centre of it all.
Amid the mass of thought which Plato has developed, in all departments of speculation, that which stands out as the central thesis of the whole system is the theory of Ideas.
All else is but deduction from this.
His physics, his ethics, his politics, his views upon art, all flow from this one governing theory.
It is here then that we must look, alike for the merits and the defects of Plato's system.
The theory of Ideas is not a something sprung suddenly upon the world out of Plato's brain.
It has its roots in the past.
It is, as Aristotle showed, the outcome of Eleatic, Heracleitean, and Socratic determinations.
Fundamentally, however, it grows out of the distinction between sense and reason, which had been the common property of Greek thinkers since the time of Parmenides.
Parmenides was the first to emphasize this distinction, and to teach that the truth is to be found by reason, the world of sense being illusory.
Heracleitus, and even Democritus, were pronounced adherents of reason, as against sense.
The crisis came with the Sophists, who attempted to obliterate the distinction altogether, and to find all knowledge in sensation, thus calling forth the opposition of Socrates and Plato.
As against them Socrates pointed out that all knowledge is through concepts, reason: and Plato added to this that the concept is not a mere rule of thought but a metaphysical reality.
This was the substance of the theory of Ideas.
{235} Every philosophy which makes a systematic attempt to solve the riddle of the universe necessarily begins with a theory of the nature of that absolute and ultimate reality from which the universe is derived.
This absolute reality we will call simply the Absolute.
Plato's theory is that the Absolute consists of concepts.
To say that the Absolute is reason, is thought, is concepts, is the universal--these are merely four different expressions of the same theory.
Now this proposition, that the Absolute is reason, is the fundamental thesis of all idealism.
Since Plato's time there have been several great idealistic systems of philosophy.
That the Absolute is reason is the central teaching of them all.
Plato, therefore, is the founder and initiator of all idealism.
It is this that gives him his great place in the history of philosophy.
That the Absolute is universal thought, this is what Plato has contributed to the philosophical speculation of the world.
This is his crowning merit.
But we must go somewhat more into details.
We must see how far he applied this principle successfully to the unravelment of the great problems of philosophy.
In lecturing upon the Eleatics, I said that any successful philosophy must satisfy at least two conditions.
It must give such an account of the Absolute, that the Absolute is shown as capable of explaining the world.
It must be possible to deduce the actual world of facts from the first principle.
Secondly, not only must this first principle explain the world; it must also explain itself.
It must be really ultimate, that is, we must not, in order to understand it, have to refer to anything beyond and outside it.
If we have to do so then our ultimate is not an ultimate at all; our first principle {236} is not first.
That thing by means of which we explain it must itself be the ultimate reality.
And besides being ultimate, our principle must be wholly intelligible.
It must not be a mere ultimate mystery; for to reduce the whole world to an ultimate mystery is clearly not to explain it.
Our first principle must, in a word, be self-explanatory.
Let us apply this two-fold test to Plato's system.
Let us see, firstly, whether the principle of Ideas explains the world, and secondly, whether it explains itself.
Does it explain the world?
Is the actual existence of things, horses, trees, stars, men, explained by it?
What, in the first place, is the relation between things and the Ideas?
Things, says Plato, are "copies," or "imitations" of the Ideas.
They "participate" in the Ideas.
The Ideas are "archetypal" of things.
Now all these phrases are mere poetic metaphors.
They do not really tell us how things are related to Ideas.
But suppose we ignore this, and assume, for the sake of argument, that we understand what is meant by "participation" and that things are, in the literal sense, "copies" of Ideas.
The question still remains, why do such copies exist, how do they arise?
Now, if this problem is to be solved, it is not enough to show, merely as a fact, that, by some mysterious act, copies of Ideas come into existence.
There must be a reason for it, and this reason it is the business of philosophy to explain.
This reason, too, must exist in the nature of the Ideas themselves, and not outside them.
There must be, in the very nature of the Ideas, some inner necessity which forces them to reproduce themselves in things.
This is what we {237} mean by saying that the Ideas are a sufficient explanation of the existence of things.
But there is in Plato's Ideas no such necessity.
The Ideas are defined as being the sole reality.
They have already all reality in themselves.
They are self-sufficient.
They lack nothing.
It is not necessary for them further to realize their being in the concrete manifestation of things, because they, as wholly real, need no realization.
Why, then, should they not remain for ever simply as they are?
Why should they go out of themselves into things?
Why should they not remain in themselves and by themselves?
Why should they need to reproduce themselves in objects?
There are, we know, white objects in the universe.
Their existence, we are told, is explained by the Idea of whiteness?
But why should the Idea of whiteness produce white things?
It is itself the perfect whiteness.
Why should it stir itself?
Why should it not remain by itself, apart, sterile, in the world of Ideas, for all eternity?
We cannot see.
There is in the Ideas no necessity urging them towards reproduction of themselves, and this means that they possess no principle for the explanation of things.
Nevertheless Plato has to make some attempt to meet the difficulty.
And as the Ideas are themselves impotent to produce things, Plato, unable to solve the problem by reason, attempts to solve it by violence.
He drags in the notion of God from nowhere in particular, and uses him as a _deus ex machina_.
God fashions matter into the images of Ideas.
The very fact that Plato is forced to introduce a creator shows that, in the Ideas themselves, there is no ground of explanation.
Things ought to be explained by the Ideas themselves, {238} but as they are incapable of explaining anything, God is called upon to do their work for them.
Thus Plato, faced with the problem of existence, practically deserts his theory of Ideas, and falls back upon a crude theism.
Or if we say that the term God is not to be taken literally, and that Plato uses it merely as a figurative term for the Idea of Good, then this saves Plato from the charge of introducing a theism altogether inconsistent with his philosophy, but it brings us back to the old difficulty.
For in this case, the existence of things must be explained by means of the Idea of the Good.
But this Idea is just as impotent as the other Ideas.
In this connection, too, the dualism of Plato's system becomes evident.
If everything is grounded in the one ultimate reality, the Ideas, then the entire universe must be clasped together in a system, all parts of which flow out of the Ideas.
If there exists in the universe anything which stands aloof from this system, remains isolated, and cannot be reduced to a manifestation of the Ideas, then the philosophy has failed to explain the world, and we have before us a confessed dualism.
Now not only has Plato to drag in God for the explanation of things, he has also to drag in matter.
God takes matter and forms it into copies of the Ideas.
But what is this matter, and where does it spring from?
Clearly, if the sole reality is the Ideas, matter, like all else, must be grounded in the Ideas.
But this is not the case in Plato's system.
Matter appears as a principle quite independent of the Ideas.
As its being is self-derived and original, it must be itself a substance.
But this is just what Plato denies, calling it absolute {239} not-being.
Yet since it has not its source in the Ideas or in anything outside itself, we must say that though Plato calls it absolute not-being, it is in fact an absolute being.
The Ideas and matter stand face to face in Plato's system neither derived from the other, equally ultimate co-ordinate, absolute realities.
This is sheer dualism.
The source of this dualism is to be found in the absolute separation which Plato makes between sense and reason.
He places the world of sense on one side, the world of reason on the other, as things radically different and opposed.
Hence it is impossible for him ever to bridge the gulf that he has himself created between them.
We may expect the dualism of a philosophy which builds upon such premises to break out at numerous points in the system.
And so indeed it does.
It exhibits itself as the dualism of Ideas and matter, of the sense-world and the thought-world, of body and soul.
Not, of course, that it is not quite right to recognize the distinction between sense and reason.
Any genuine philosophy must recognize that.
And no doubt too it is right to place truth and reality on the side of reason rather than sense.
But although sense and reason are distinct, they must also be identical.
They must be divergent streams flowing from one source.
And this means that a philosophy which considers the absolute reality to be reason must exhibit sense as a lower form of reason.
Because Plato fails to see the identity of sense and reason, as well as their difference, his philosophy becomes a continual fruitless effort to overreach the dualism thus generated.
Thus the answer to our first question, whether the theory of Ideas explains the world of things, must be {240} answered in the negative.
Let us pass on to the second test.
Is the principle of Ideas a self-explanatory principle?
Such a principle must be understood purely out of itself.
It must not be a principle, like that of the materialist, which merely reduces the whole universe to an ultimate mysterious fact.
For even if it be shown that the reason of everything is matter, it is still open to us to ask what the reason of matter is.
We cannot see any reason why matter should exist.
It is a mere fact, which dogmatically forces itself upon our consciousness without giving any reason for itself.
Our principle must be such that we cannot ask a further reason of it.
It must be its own reason, and so in itself satisfy the demand for a final explanation.
Now there is only one such principle in the world, namely, reason itself.
You can ask the reason of everything else in the world.
You can ask the reason of the sun, the moon, stars, the soul, God, or the devil.
But you cannot ask the reason of reason, because reason is its own reason.
Let us put the same thought in another way.
When we demand the explanation of anything, what do we mean by explanation?
What is it we want?
Do we not mean that the thing appears to us irrational, and we want it shown that it is rational?
When this is done, we say it is explained.
Think, for example, of what is called the problem of evil.
People often talk of it as the problem of the "origin of evil," as if what we want to know is, how evil began.
But even if we knew this, it would not explain anything.
Suppose that evil began because someone ate an apple.
Does this make the matter any clearer?
Do we feel that all our difficulties about the existence of evil are solved?
No.
This is {241} not what we want to know.
The difficulty is that evil appears to us something irrational.
The problem can only be solved by showing us that somehow, in spite of appearances, it is rational that evil should exist.
Show us this, and evil is explained.
Explanation of a thing, then, means showing that the thing is rational.
Now we can ask that everything else in the world should be shown to be rational.
But we cannot demand that the philosopher shall show that reason is rational.
This is absurd.
Reason is what is already absolutely rational.
It is what explains itself.
It is its own reason.
It is a self-explanatory principle.
This, then, must be the principle of which we are in search.
The Absolute, we said, must be a self-explanatory principle, and there is only one such, namely, reason.
The Absolute, therefore, is reason.
It was the greatness and glory of Plato to have seen this, and thereby to have become the founder of all true philosophy.
For to say that the Absolute is concepts is the same as saying it is reason.
It might seem, then, that Plato has satisfied the second canon of criticism.
He takes as first principle a self-explanatory reality.
But we cannot quite so quickly jump to this conclusion.
After all, the mere word reason is not a key which will unlock to us the doors of the universe.
Something more is necessary than the mere word.
We must, in fact, be told what reason is.
Now there are two senses in which we might ask the question, what reason is, one of which is legitimate, the other illegitimate.
It is illegitimate to ask what reason is, in the sense of asking that it shall be explained to us in terms of something else, which is not reason.
This would be {242} to give up our belief that reason is its own reason.
It would be to seek the reason of reason in something which is not reason.
It would be to admit that reason, in itself, is not rational.
And this is absurd.
But it is legitimate to ask, what reason is, meaning thereby, what is the _content_ of reason.
The content of reason, we have seen, is concepts.
But what concepts?
How are we to know whether any particular concept is part of the system of reason or not?
Only, it is evident, by ascertaining whether it is a rational concept.
If a concept is wholly rational, then it is a part of reason.
If not, not.
What we need, then, is a detailed account of all the concepts which reason contains, and a proof that each of these concepts is really rational.
It is obvious that only in this way can we make a satisfactory beginning in philosophy.
Before we can show that reason explains, that is, rationalizes the world, we must surely first show that reason itself is rational, or rather, to be more accurate, that _our conception_ of reason is rational.
There must not be any mere inexplicable facts, any mysteries, any dark places, in our notion of reason.
It must be penetrated through and through by the light of reason.
It must be absolutely transparent, crystalline.
How can we hope to explain the world, if our very first principle itself contains irrationalities?
Each concept then must prove itself rational.
And this means that it must be a necessary concept.
A necessary proposition, we saw, is one, such as that two and two equal four, the opposite of which is unthinkable.
So for Plato's Ideas to be really necessary it ought to be logically impossible for us to deny their {243} reality.
It ought to be impossible to think the world at all without these concepts.
To attempt to deny them ought to be shown to be self-contradictory.
They ought to be so necessarily involved in reason that thought without them becomes impossible.
Clearly this is the same as saying that the Ideas must not be mere ultimate inexplicable facts.
Of such a fact we assert merely that it is so, but we cannot see any reason for it.
To see a reason for it is the same as seeing its necessity, seeing not merely that it is so, but that it must be so.
Now Plato's Ideas are not of this necessary kind.
There is, we are told, an Idea of whiteness.
But why should there be such an Idea?
It is a mere fact.
It is not a necessity.
We can think the world quite well without the Idea of whiteness.
The world, so far as we can see, could get on perfectly well without either white objects or the Idea of whiteness.
To deny its reality leads to no self-contradictions.
Put it in another way.
There are certainly white objects in the world.
We demand that these, among other things, be explained.
Plato tells us, by way of explanation, that there are white objects because there is an Idea of whiteness.
But in that case why is there an Idea of whiteness?
We cannot see.
There is no reason.
There is no necessity in this.
The same thing applies to all the other Ideas.
They are not rational concepts.
They are not a part of the system of reason.
But at this point, perhaps, a glimmer of hope dawns upon us.
We ask the reason for these Ideas.
Has not Plato asserted that the ultimate reason and ground of all the lower Ideas will be found in the supreme Idea of {244} the Good?
Now if this is so, it means that the lower Ideas must find their necessity in the highest Idea.
If we could see that the Idea of the Good necessarily involves the other Ideas, then these other Ideas would be really explained.
In other words, we ought to be able to deduce all the other Ideas from this one Idea.
It ought to be possible to show that, granted the Idea of the Good, all the other Ideas necessarily follow, that to assume the Good and deny the other Ideas would be self-contradictory and unthinkable.
There are examples in Plato of the kind of deduction we require.
For example, in the "Parmenides" he showed that the Idea of the one necessarily involves the Idea of the many, and vice versa.
You cannot think the one without also thinking the many.
This means that the many is deduced from the one, and the one from the many.
Just in the same way, we ought to be able to deduce the Idea of whiteness from the Idea of the Good.
But this is clearly not possible.
You may analyse the Good as long as you like, you may turn it in every conceivable direction, but you cannot get whiteness out of it.
The two Ideas do not involve each other.
They are thinkable apart.
It is quite possible to think the Good without thinking whiteness.
And it is the same with all the other Ideas.
None of them can be deduced from the Good.
And the reason of this is very obvious.
Just as the lower Ideas contain only what is common among the things of a class, and exclude their differences, so the higher Ideas include what is common to the Ideas that come under them, but exclude what is not common.
For example, the Idea of colour contains what white, blue, red, and green, have in common.
But all colours {245} have not whiteness in common.
Green, for example, is not white.
Hence the Idea of colour excludes the Idea of whiteness, and it likewise excludes all the Ideas of the other particular colours.
So too the highest Idea of all contains only what all the Ideas agree in, but all the rest falls outside it.
Thus the Idea of whiteness is perfect in its kind.
And as all Ideas are likewise perfect, the highest Idea is that in which they all agree, namely, perfection itself.
But this means that the perfection of the Idea of whiteness is contained in the supreme Idea, but its specific character in which it differs from other Ideas is excluded.
Its specific character is just its whiteness.
Thus the perfection of whiteness is contained in the Good, but its whiteness is not.
Consequently it is impossible to deduce whiteness from the Good, because the Good does not contain whiteness.
You cannot get out of it what is not in it.
When Plato deduced the many from the one, he did so only by showing that the One contains the many.
He cannot deduce whiteness from goodness, because goodness does not contain whiteness.
The lower Ideas thus have not the character of necessity.
They are mere facts.
And the hope that we shall find their necessity in the supreme Idea fails.
But suppose we waive this.
Suppose we grant that there must be an Idea of whiteness, because there is an Idea of the Good.
Then why is there an Idea of the Good?
What is the necessity of that?
We cannot see any necessity in it.
What we said of the other Ideas applies with equal force to the highest Idea.
The Good may be a necessary Idea, but Plato has not shown it.
Thus, though Plato named reason as the Absolute, {246} and though reason is a self-explanatory principle, his account of the detailed content of reason is so unsatisfactory that none of the concepts which he includes in it are really shown to be rational.
His philosophy breaks down upon the second test as it did upon the first.
He has neither explained the world from the Ideas, nor has he made the Ideas explain themselves.
There is one other defect in Plato's system which is of capital importance.
There runs throughout it a confusion between the notions of reality and existence.
To distinguish between existence and reality is an essential feature of all idealism.
Even if we go back to the dim idealism of the Eleatics, we shall see this.
Zeno, we saw, denied motion, multiplicity, and the world of sense.
But he did not deny the existence of the world.
That is an impossibility.
Even if the world is delusion, the delusion exists.
What he denied was the reality of existence.
But if reality is not existence, what is it?
It is Being, replied the Eleatics.
But Being does not exist.
Whatever exists is this or that particular sort of being.
Being itself is not anywhere to be found.
Thus the Eleatics first denied that existence is reality, and then that reality exists.
They did not themselves draw this conclusion, but it is involved in their whole position.
With a fully developed idealism, like Plato's, this ought to be still clearer.
And, in a sense, it is.
The individual horse is not real.
But it certainly exists.
The universal horse is real.
But it does not exist.
But, upon this last point, Plato wavered and fell.
He cannot resist the temptation to think of the absolute reality as existing.
And consequently the Ideas are {247} not merely thought as the real universal in the world, but as having a separate existence in a world of their own.
Plato must have realised what is, in truth, involved in his whole position, that the absolute reality has no existence.
For he tells us that it is the universal, and not any particular individual thing.
But everything that exists is an individual thing.
Again, he tells us that the Idea is outside time.
But whatever exists must exist at some time.
Here then this central idealistic thought seems well fixed in Plato's mind.
But when he goes on to speak of recollection and reincarnation, when he tells us that the soul before birth dwelt apart in the world of Ideas, to which after death it may hope to return, it is clear that Plato has forgotten his own philosophy, that he is now thinking of the Ideas as individual existences in a world of their own.
This is a world of Ideas having a separate existence and place of its own.
It is not this world.
It is a world beyond.
Thus the Platonic philosophy which began on a high level of idealistic thinking, proclaiming the sole reality of the universal, ends by turning the universal itself into nothing but an existent particular.
It is the old old story of trying to form mental pictures of that which no picture is adequate to comprehend.
Since all pictures are formed out of sensuous materials, and since we can form no picture of anything that is not an individual thing, to form a picture of the universal necessarily means thinking of it as just what it is not, an individual.
So Plato commits the greatest sin that can be ascribed to a philosopher.
He treats thought as a thing.
To sum up.
Plato is the great founder of idealism, the initiator of all subsequent truths in philosophy.
{248} But, as always with pioneers, his idealism is crude.
It cannot explain the world; it cannot explain itself.
It cannot even keep true to its own principles, because, having for the first time in history definitely enunciated the truth that reality is the universal, it straightway forgets its own creed and plunges back into a particularism which regards the Ideas as existent individuals.
It was these defects which Aristotle set himself to rectify in a purer idealism, shorn of Plato's impurities.
{249} CHAPTER XIII ARISTOTLE 1.
Life, Writings, and general character of his Work.
Aristotle was born in 384 B.C.
at Stagirus, a Grecian colony and seaport on the coast of Thrace.
His father Nichomachus was court physician to King Amyntas of Macedonia, and from this began Aristotle's long association with the Macedonian Court, which considerably influenced his life and destinies.
While he was still a boy his father died, and he was sent by his guardian, Proxenus, to Athens, the intellectual centre of the world, to complete his education.
He was then aged seventeen.
He joined the Academy and studied under Plato, attending the latter's lectures for a period of twenty years.
In subsequent times, Aristotle's detractors, anxious to vilify his character, accused him of "ingratitude" to his master, Plato.
It was said that Plato's old age had been embittered by dissensions in the school caused by the factious spirit of Aristotle.
That there is no ground for attaching any blame to Aristotle for the troubles of Plato, which either did not exist or have been grossly exaggerated, is evident both from the facts within our knowledge and from the reference to Plato in Aristotle's works.
It is not likely that, had Aristotle rendered himself genuinely objectionable, he could have remained for twenty years in {250} the Academy, and only left it upon the death of Plato.
Moreover, although Aristotle in his works attacks the teaching of Plato with unsparing vigour, there is nowhere to be found in these attacks any suggestion of acrimony or personal rancour.
On the contrary, he refers to himself as the friend of Plato, but a greater friend of the truth.
The fact, in all probability, is that a man of such independent and original mind as Aristotle did not accord to Plato the kind of blind adoration and hero-worship which he may have received from the inferior intellects in the school.
As is so often the case with young men of marked ability, the brilliant student may have suffered from the impatience and self-assertion of youth.
There was certainly nothing worse.
While at the Academy Aristotle exhibited an unflagging spirit and unwearied zeal in the pursuit of knowledge in all its forms, a spirit which gave rise to nick-names and anecdotes, which probably contained as much truth, or as little, as most of the anecdotes which gather round remarkable characters.
One of these stories was that he used a mechanical contrivance to wake him up whenever sleep threatened to put an end to his hours of study.
In 347 B.C.
Plato died, and his nephew Speusippus was chosen as head of the Academy.
Aristotle left Athens with his fellow-student Xenocrates, and together they repaired to the court of Hermeias, King of Atarneus, in Asia Minor.
Hermeias, a man of low origin, but of high instincts and advanced education, had himself attended the lectures of Plato, and received the two young philosophers as welcome guests.
Aristotle stayed three years at Atarneus, and, while there, married {251} Pythias, the niece of the King.
In later life he was married a second time to one Herpyllis, who bore him a son, Nichomachus.
At the end of three years Hermeias fell a victim to the treachery of the Persians, and Aristotle went to Mytilene.
Here he remained for several years till he received an invitation from Philip of Macedonia to become the tutor of the young Alexander, afterwards conqueror of the world, then aged thirteen.
Aristotle obeyed the summons, and for about five years superintended the education of Alexander.
Both Philip and Alexander appear to have paid Aristotle high honour, and there were stories that he was supplied by the Macedonian court, not only with funds for the prosecution of learning, but even with thousands of slaves for the collection of specimens.
These stories are probably false and certainly exaggerated.
But there is no doubt that, in his scientific and philosophical enquiries, he was backed by the influence of the court, and could even perhaps have looked to that quarter for supplies, had it ever been necessary.
Upon the death of Philip, Alexander succeeded to the kingship.
The period of his studies was now over, and he began to make preparations for his subsequent conquests.
Aristotle's work being finished, he returned to Athens, which he had not visited since the death of Plato.
He found the Platonic school flourishing under Xenocrates, and Platonism the dominant philosophy of Athens.
He thereupon set up his own school at a place called the Lyceum.
It was in connection with this that his followers became known, in after years, as the "peripatetics," a name which arose from Aristotle's habit of walking about as he discoursed.
The period of {252} his residence in Athens lasted thirteen years, during which time he was occupied in the leadership of his school and in literary labours.
This appears to have been the most fruitful period of his life.
There is no doubt that all his most important writings were composed at this time.
But at the end of this period his fortunes changed.
In B.C.
323 Alexander the Great died suddenly at Babylon in the midst of his triumphs.
The Athenian Government was in the hands of a pro-Macedonian party.
Upon the death of Alexander this party was overthrown, and a general reaction occurred against everything Macedonian.
Alexander had been regarded in Greece much as Napoleon was regarded in Europe a century ago.
He had insulted the free Greek cities.
He had even sacked the city of Thebes.
The whole of Greece lived in perpetual terror of invasion.
Now that this fear was removed by his death, there was a general outburst of feeling against Macedonia.
An anti-Macedonian party came into power.
Now Aristotle had always been regarded as a representative and protege of the Macedonian court, although, as a matter of fact, he had recently fallen out of favour with the autocratic Alexander.
A charge of impiety was trumped up against him.
To escape prosecution he fled to Chalcis in Euboea, in order that, as he said, "the Athenians might not have another opportunity of sinning against philosophy as they had already done in the person of Socrates."
He perhaps intended to return to Athens as soon as the storm had blown over.
But in the first year of his residence at Chalcis he was overtaken by a sudden illness, and died at the age of sixty-three, in B.C.
322.
{253} Aristotle is said to have composed some four hundred books.
Our astonishment at this productivity diminishes somewhat when we remember that what is here called a "book" is much the same as what we should call a chapter in a modern treatise.
More than three-quarters of these writings have been lost.
But, by good fortune, what remains to us is undoubtedly by far the most important part, and we have preserved in it a fairly complete account of the whole Aristotelian system in all its departments.
Nearly all the writings, however, have come down to us in a mutilated state.
This is especially the case with the "Metaphysics."
This treatise is unfinished, and it was probably left unfinished by its author at his death.
But apart from this, several of the books of the "Metaphysics" are undoubtedly spurious.
Others apparently come in the wrong order.
We end one book in the middle of a discussion, and when we begin the next we find ourselves in the middle of an entirely different subject.
There are frequent repetitions, and parts of it read as if they were mere lecture notes.
There are many interpolations.
The same characteristics are to be observed in Aristotle's other writings, though in a less degree.
It seems probable that they were not intended, in their present state, for publication.
Final revision and finishing touches are lacking.
In spite of these defects, the writings are voluminous and clear enough to enable us to trace out the whole of the main positions of Aristotle's thought.
We saw, in the case of Plato, that, as his literary activity lasted over a period of half a century, during which his philosophy was in constant development, it became important to trace this development in the {254} order of his Dialogues.
The same thing is not true in the case of Aristotle.
The whole of his writings, or rather those that have come down to us, seem to have been written during his last thirteen years, while he was at Athens, that is to say, after he had passed his fiftieth year.
His system was then complete, mature, and fully developed.
The question of the order in which they were written has no great importance.
The result of critical investigations, however, is to show that he probably began with the various works upon logic, composed next the treatises upon physical science, next the ethical and political books, and lastly the "Metaphysics," which he left unfinished.
It must not be forgotten that Aristotle was not only a philosopher in the modern restricted sense of that term.
He was a man of universal learning.
There is no branch of knowledge which did not receive his attention, and upon which he was not the greatest expert of his time, except perhaps mathematics.
So far was he from being only an abstract philosopher, that his natural tastes seem to have lain rather in the field of physical science than of abstract thought.
But his design seems to have been to work over the entire field of knowledge, thoroughly to overhaul the sciences already in existence, rejecting what seemed false in the work of his predecessors, and invariably adding to the residue valuable developments and suggestions of his own.
Where there was no science already in existence, his plan involved the foundation of new sciences wherever necessary, and he thus became the founder of at least two sciences, Logic and Zoology.
He thus attained to a pre-eminence in all branches {255} of knowledge which would be impossible for a single man in modern times.
His works include treatises upon Logic and Metaphysics, upon Ethics, Politics, and Art.
He wrote a treatise upon the principles of Rhetoric, another upon Astronomy, under the title "On the Heavens," another upon Meteorology.
Several of his treatises deal with the biology of animal life, in which he was intensely interested.
They include books entitled "On the Parts of Animals," "On the Movements of Animals," "On the Origin of Animals," as well as his great treatise, "Researches on Animals," which contains an enormous mass of facts collected from every possible source.
It is true that a large proportion of these facts have turned out to be fictions, but this was inevitable in the infancy of science.
It has been calculated that Aristotle shows himself acquainted with about five hundred different species of living beings, though they are not, of course, classified by him in the modern way.
With these books upon animals he founded the science of Zoology, for no one before his day had made any special study of the subject.
It has been said that everyone has either an Aristotelian or a Platonic type of mind.
As this implies that Aristotle and Plato are opposites, it is considerably less than a half truth.
No genuine understanding of Aristotle can endorse the opinion that his philosophical system was the opposite of Plato's.
It would be truer to say that Aristotle was the greatest of all Platonists, since his system is still founded upon the Idea, and is an attempt to found an idealism free from the defects of Plato's system.
It is in fact a development of Platonism.
What is the cause then of the popular notion that {256} Aristotle was the opposite of Plato?
Now the fact is that they _were_ opposites in many important respects.
But there was a fundamental agreement between them which lies deeper than the differences.
The differences are largely superficial, the agreement is deep-seated.
Hence it is the differences that are most obvious, and it was the differences, too, which were most obvious to Aristotle himself.
The popular opinion arises largely from the fact that Aristotle never loses an opportunity of attacking the Platonic theory of Ideas.
He is continually at pains to emphasize the difference between himself and Plato, but says nothing of the agreement.
But no man is a judge of his own deeper relations to his predecessors and contemporaries.
It is only in after years, when the hubbub of controversy has settled down into the silence of the past, that the historian can see the true perspective, and can penetrate the relations of each great man to the time in which he lived.
Plato was the founder of idealism, and his idealism was in many respects crude and untenable.
It was the special mission of Aristotle to clear away these crudities, and so develop Platonism into a tenable philosophy.
And it was natural that he should emphasize the crudities, which he had to fight so hard to overcome, rather than that substratum of truth which Plato had already developed, and which therefore required no special treatment at his hands.
It was the differences between himself and his predecessor which were most obvious to him, and it was inevitable that he should adopt a thoroughly polemical attitude towards his master.
But if the agreement was more deep-seated than the differences, and lay in the recognition of the Idea as the {257} absolute foundation of the world, the differences were none the less very striking.
In the first place, Aristotle loved facts.
What he wanted was always definite scientific knowledge.
Plato, on the other hand, had no love of facts and no gift for physical enquiries.
And what disgusted Aristotle about the system of Plato was the contempt which it poured upon the world of sense.
To depreciate objects of sense, and to proclaim the knowledge of them valueless, was a fundamental characteristic of all Plato's thinking.
But the world of sense is the world of facts, and Aristotle was deeply interested in facts.
No matter in what branch of knowledge, any fact was received by Aristotle with enthusiasm.
To Plato it appeared of no interest what the habits of some obscure animal might be.
That alone which should be pursued is the knowledge of the Idea.
And he went so far as to deny that knowledge of the sense-world could properly be described as knowledge at all.
But the habits of animals appeared to Aristotle a matter worthy of investigation for its own sake.
Francis Bacon in his "Novum Organum" has many contemptuous references to Aristotle.
And the gist of them all is that Aristotle had no regard for facts, but theorized a priori out of his head, and that instead of patiently investigating the facts of nature, he decided, upon so-called "rational" grounds, what nature ought to do, and squared the facts with his theories.
It was natural for Bacon to be unjust to him.
He, with the other thinkers of his time, was engaged upon an uphill fight against scholasticism, then dominant, which claimed to represent the true teaching of Aristotle.
And it was true that the schoolmen theorized a priori, {258} and ignored facts, or, what was worse, appealed to the writings of Aristotle to decide questions of fact which should have been decided by an appeal to nature.
And Bacon not unnaturally confounded Aristotle with these modern Aristotelians, and attributed to him the faults that were really theirs.
But no man was ever keener on facts than Aristotle as is proved by his treatises upon animals, which contain evidences of astonishing patience and laborious work in the collection of facts.
It is true, however, that even in the domain of facts, Aristotle, like all the ancients, was guilty of introducing _a priori_ reasonings when they were quite out of place.
Thus he does not scruple to argue that the stars must move in circles because the circle is the perfect figure.
And numerous similar instances could be quoted.
But it was inevitable that, with science in its swaddling clothes, without the aid of any instruments, or of any body of previously ascertained truths, Aristotle should fall into these snares.
He well understood the fundamental necessity of all natural sciences for a laborious investigation of facts, but, when this was impossible, he used the only means in his power, his reason.
Secondly, in spite of Plato's rationalism, he had allowed to myths and poetry a large share in the development of his thoughts, and had even exhibited a distinct tendency towards mysticism.
Here again what Aristotle wanted was definite knowledge.
It pained him to see poetic metaphors substituted for rational explanation.
And this accounts for the third main difference between Plato and Aristotle, the marked contrast in their prose styles.
Plato was a master-artist in words.
Aristotle cared nothing for the ornaments and beauties of style.
{259} He harshly excludes them from his work.
What alone he is intent upon is the meaning, the truth that the words express.
He is too much in earnest with philosophy to lose himself in a haze of beautiful words, or to be put off with metaphors instead of reasons.
His style is even harsh, abrupt, and ugly.
But what it loses in beauty it gains in clearness of conception.
For every thought or shade of thought which it is desired to express there is an accurate term.
If no term in common use will express the thought, Aristotle coins one.
Hence he is one of the greatest terminologists that ever lived.
He adapted or invented an enormous number of terms.
He may be not unjustly regarded as the founder of philosophical language, as the inventor of a vocabulary of technical terms.
Many of the terms used to this day to express man's most abstract thoughts, were invented or introduced by Aristotle.
It must not be supposed that Aristotle wrote in a rigidly scientific style because he had no aesthetic sense.
The very contrary is the case.
His treatise on art shows him by far the best critic of the ancient world, and in his appreciation and estimation of the beautiful he far excels Plato.
But he saw that art and science have each their own sphere, and that it is fatal to confuse the two.
Nothing is so damaging to art as to be made the mere vehicle of reasoning.
Nothing is so damaging to philosophy as to allow itself to be governed by poetry.
If we want beauty, we must follow the path of art.
But if we desire truth, we must stick close to reason.
Aristotle's system falls most easily into the fivefold division of logic, metaphysics, physics, ethics, and aesthetics.
{260} 2.
Logic.
Not much need be said under this head, because whoever knows the common logic of the text-books knows the logic of Aristotle.
Of the two branches of reasoning, deductive and inductive, Aristotle clearly recognizes the latter.
And many of his observations upon induction are acute and penetrating.
But he has not reduced induction to a science.
He has not laid bare the fundamental canons of inductive thought.
This was a work not performed until comparatively modern times.
His name therefore is more especially associated with deductive logic, of which he was the founder.
He not only founded the science, but practically completed it.
What we now know as "formal logic," what is to this day contained in all text-books, taught in all schools and universities, is, in all its essentials, nothing more than the logic of Aristotle.
His writings upon the subject include the treatment of the well-known laws of thought, the doctrine of the ten categories, the five predicables, the doctrines of terms, of propositions, of syllogisms, and of the reduction of the other figures to the first figure of the syllogism.
And these heads might well form the list of contents of a modern work on formal logic.
In only two respects has any advance been made upon Aristotle by subsequent logicians.
The fourth figure of the syllogism is not recognized by Aristotle; and he dealt only with categorical syllogisms, and does not treat conditional syllogisms.
But whether or not the fourth figure of the syllogism has any value is still a matter open to dispute.
And though the doctrine of conditional syllogisms is important, it is not essential, because all conditional syllogisms can be reduced to categorical {261} syllogisms.
The categorical syllogism is the fundamental type of reasoning, to which every other form of deduction can be reduced.
As for the rest of the huge treatises on formal logic which some moderns have produced, the supposed additions are nothing but wearisome, endless, useless, nauseating, academic distinctions and refinements, which are much better forgotten than remembered.
Aristotle's logic contains therefore all that is essential to the subject.
The only ground on which it can be attacked is its wholly empirical procedure.
But that is another story.
As a collection, arrangement, and analysis of the facts of reason, it is to all intents and purposes finality achieved at one stroke.
3.
Metaphysics.
The treatise now known as the "Metaphysics" of Aristotle did not originally bear that name.
Aristotle's name for this subject is "first philosophy," by which he means the knowledge of the first, highest, or most general principles of the universe.
All other branches of knowledge are subordinate to this science, not because they are inferior in value, but because they are lower in logical sequence as dealing with principles less universal in their scope.
Thus all the special sciences deal with one or another particular sphere of being, but the "first philosophy" has for its subject being as such, "being so far forth as it is being."
It studies, not the characteristics of this or that kind of being, but the principles which are equally true of all being.
The laws of Zoology apply only to animals, but the principles of the "first philosophy" apply to everything.
The name "metaphysics" came into use only half a century B.C., when {262} Andronicus published a complete edition of Aristotle's known works.
In this edition the treatise on "first philosophy" was placed after the "physics," and "metaphysics" signifies simply "after physics."
The derivation of the word thus appears to be merely accidental and adventitious.
Whether it was also in any way intended to signify that the subject is "beyond physics," that is, deals with what transcends physical existence, seems doubtful.
Aristotle's metaphysical theory grows naturally out of his polemic against Plato's theory of Ideas, because his own system was in effect simply an attempt to overcome the defects which he found in Plato.
The main heads of this polemic are the following:-(1) Plato's Ideas do not explain the existence of things.
To explain why the world is here is after all the main problem of philosophy, and Plato's theory fails to do this.
Even admitting that, say, the Idea of whiteness exists, we cannot see how it produces white objects.
(2) Plato has not explained the relation of Ideas to things.
Things, we are told, are "copies" of Ideas, and "participate" in them.
But how are we to understand this "participation"?
In using such phrases, says Aristotle, Plato is giving no real account of the relationship, but is merely "uttering poetic metaphors."
(3) Even if the existence of things is explained by the Ideas, their motion is not.
Suppose that the Idea of whiteness produces white things, the Idea of beauty beautiful things, and so on, yet, since the Ideas themselves are immutable and motionless, so will be the world which is their copy.
Thus the universe would be {263} absolutely static, like Coleridge's "painted ship upon a painted ocean."
But the world, on the contrary, is a world of change, motion, life, becoming.
Plato makes no attempt to explain the unceasing becoming of things.
Even if the Idea of whiteness explains white objects, yet why do these objects arise, develop, decay, and cease to exist?
To explain this there must be some principle of motion in the Ideas themselves.
But there is not.
They are immovable and lifeless.
(4) The world consists of a multitude of things, and it is the business of philosophy to explain why they exist.
By way of explanation Plato merely assumes the existence of another multitude of things, the Ideas.
But the only effect of this is to double the number of things to be explained.
How does it help thus to duplicate everything?
And Aristotle likens Plato to a man who, being unable to count with a small number, fancies that, if he doubles the number, he will find it easier to count.
(5) The Ideas are supposed to be non-sensuous, but they are, in fact, sensuous.
Plato thought that a non-sensuous principle must be sought in order to explain the world of sense.
But not being able to find any such principle, he merely took the objects of sense over again and called them non-sensuous.
But there is, in fact, no difference between the horse and the Idea of the horse, between the man and the Idea of the man, except a useless and meaningless "in-itself" or "in-general" attached to each object of sense to make it appear something different.
The Ideas are nothing but hypostatized things of sense, and Aristotle likens them to the anthropomorphic gods of the popular religion.
"As {264} these," he says, "are nothing but deified men, so the Ideas are nothing but eternalized things of nature."
Things are said to be copies of Ideas, but in fact the Ideas are only copies of things.
(6) Next comes the argument of the "third man," so called by Aristotle from the illustration by which he explained it.
Ideas are assumed in order to explain what is common to many objects.
Wherever there is a common element there must be an Idea.
Thus there is a common element in all men, and therefore there is an Idea of man.
But there is also an element common to the individual man and to the Idea of man.
There must, therefore, be a further Idea, the "third man," to explain this.
And between this further Idea and the individual man there must be yet another Idea to explain what they have in common, and so on _ad infinitum_.
(7) But by far the most important of all Aristotle's objections to the ideal theory, and that which, to all intents and purposes, sums up all the others, is that it assumes that Ideas are the essences of things, and yet places those essences outside the things themselves.
The essence of a thing must be in it, and not outside it.
But Plato separated Ideas from things, and placed the Ideas away somewhere in a mysterious world of their own.
The Idea, as the universal, can only exist in the particular.
Possibly the reality in all horses is the universal horse, but the universal horse is not something that exists by itself and independently of individual horses.
Hence Plato was led into the absurdity of talking as if, besides the individual horses we know, there is somewhere another individual called the horse-in-general, or as if besides white objects there is a thing called {265} whiteness.
And this is in fact the supreme self-contradiction of the theory of Ideas, that it begins by saying that the universal is real, and the particular unreal, but ends by degrading the universal again into a particular.
This is the same thing as saying that Plato's mistake lay in first (rightly) seeing that existence is not reality, but then (wrongly) going on to imagine that the reality is an existence.
Out of this last objection grows Aristotle's own philosophy, the fundamental principle of which is that the universal is indeed the absolute reality, but that it is a universal which exists only in the particular.
What is reality?
What is substance?
This is the first question for the metaphysician.
Now substance is what has an independent existence of its own; it is that whose being does not flow into it from any source outside itself.
Consequently, substance is what is never a predicate; it is that to which all predicates are applied.
Thus in the proposition, "Gold is heavy," gold is the subject, or substance, and "heavy" is its predicate.
The heaviness is dependent for its existence on the gold, and it is therefore the latter, and not the former, that is the substance.
Now, keeping this in mind, are universals, as Plato asserts, substances?
No; because the universal is merely a common predicate which attaches to many objects of a class.
Thus the concept of man is merely what is common to all men.
It is the same thing as the predicate "humanness."
But humanness cannot exist apart from human beings, any more than heaviness apart from the heavy object.
Universals, then, are not substances.
But neither are particulars substances.
For there is no such thing as that which is absolutely {266} particular and isolated.
If humanness does not exist apart from men, neither do men exist apart from humanness.
Take away from a man what he has in common with other men, and what he has in common with other objects, and you will find that, having stripped him of all his qualities, there is absolutely nothing left.
We say gold is heavy, yellow, malleable, etc.
Now the heaviness, the yellowness, and the other qualities, cannot exist apart from the gold.
But it is equally true that the gold cannot exist apart from its qualities.
Strip off all its qualities in thought, and then ask yourself what the gold itself is apart from its qualities.
You will find that your mind is a total blank.
In taking away the qualities you have taken away the gold itself.
The gold can only be thought through its qualities.
It only exists through its qualities.
The gold, therefore, just as much depends on the qualities for its existence as the qualities depend upon the gold.
Hence neither of them, considered apart from the other, is substance.
But the qualities are the universal element in the gold, the gold without the qualities is the absolutely particular and isolated.
For, first, the yellowness is a quality which this gold has in common with that gold, and is therefore a universal, and so with all the qualities.
Even if a particular piece of gold has a quality possessed by no other gold, it is yet possessed by some other object in the universe, or it would be unknowable.
Every quality is consequently a universal.
Secondly, the gold without its qualities is the absolutely particular.
For, being stripped of all qualities, it is stripped of whatever it has in common with other things; it is stripped of whatever universality it has, and it remains an absolute particular.
Hence the {267} universal is not substance, nor is the particular.
For neither of them can exist without the other.
Substance must be a compound of the two; it must be the universal in the particular.
And this means that that alone which is substance is the individual object, for example, the gold with all its qualities attached to it.
It is usually believed that Aristotle contradicted himself in as much as he first states, as above, that the individual object, the compound of universal and particular, is substance, but later on allows a superior reality to the universal, or "form" as he calls it, and in effect teaches, like Plato, that the universal is what alone is absolutely real, that is, that the universal is substance.
I do not agree that there is any real inconsistency in Aristotle.
Or rather, the inconsistency is one of words and not of thought.
It must be remembered that, whenever Aristotle says that the individual, and not the universal, is substance, he is thinking of Plato.
What he means to deny is that the universal can exist on its own account, as Plato thought.
Nevertheless he agrees with Plato that the universal is the real.
When he says that the universal is not substance he means, as against Plato, that it is not existent.
What alone exists is the individual thing, the compound of universal and particular.
When he says, or implies, that the universal is substance, he means that, though it is not existent, it is real.
His words are contradictory, but his meaning is not.
He has not expressed himself as clearly as he should; that is all.
The further development of Aristotle's metaphysics depends upon his doctrine of causation.
By causation here, however, is meant a very much wider conception {268} than what is understood by that term in modern times.
I have in previous lectures attempted to make clear the distinction between causes and reasons.
The cause of a thing does not give any reason for it, and therefore does not explain it.
The cause is merely the mechanism by which a reason produces its consequence.
Death is caused by accident or disease, but these causes explain nothing as to why death should be in the world at all.
Now if we accept this distinction, we may say that Aristotle's conception of causation includes both what we have called causes and reasons.
Whatever is necessary, whether facts or principles, whether causes or reasons, fully to understand the existence of a thing, or the happening of an event, is included in the Aristotelian notion of causation.
Taking causation in this wide sense, Aristotle finds that there are four kinds of causes, the material, the efficient, the formal, and the final cause.
These are not alternative causes; it is not meant that, to explain anything, one or other of the four must be present.
In every case of the existence or production of a thing all four causes operate simultaneously.
Moreover the same four causes are to be found both in human and in cosmic production, in the making of manufactured articles by man and in the production of things by nature.
They are more clearly and easily seen, however, in human production, from which sphere, therefore, we select our example.
The material cause of a thing is the matter of which it is composed.
It is the raw material which becomes the thing.
For example, in the making of a bronze statue of Hermes, the bronze is the material cause of the statue.
This example might lead one to suppose {269} that Aristotle means by material cause what we call matter, physical substance, such as brass, iron, or wood.
As we shall see later, this is not necessarily the case, though it is so in the present instance.
The efficient cause is always defined by Aristotle as the cause of motion.
It is the energy or moving force required to bring about change.
It must be remembered that by motion Aristotle means not merely change of place but change of any sort.
The alteration of a leaf from green to yellow is just as much motion, in his sense, as the falling of a stone.
The efficient cause, then, is the cause of all change.
In the example taken, what causes the bronze to become a statue, what produces this change, is the sculptor.
He is, therefore, the efficient cause of the statue.
The formal cause Aristotle defines as the substance and essence of the thing.
Now the essence of a thing is given in its definition.
But the definition is the explication of the concept.
Therefore the formal cause is the concept, or, as Plato would call it, the Idea of the thing.
Plato's Ideas thus reappear in Aristotle as formal causes.
The final cause is the end, purpose, or aim, towards which the movement is directed.
When a statue is being produced, the end of this activity, what the sculptor aims at, is the completed statue itself.
And the final cause of a thing in general is the thing itself, the completed being of the object.
We can see at once how much wider this conception of causation is than the modern conception.
If we take Mill's definition of a cause as the best expression of modern scientific ideas, we find that he defines a cause as the "invariable and unconditional antecedent of a phenomenon."
This cuts out final causes at once.
For {270} the final cause is the end, and is not an antecedent in time.
It also does not include formal causes.
For we do not now think of the concept of a thing as being part of its cause.
This leaves us with only material and efficient causes, and these correspond roughly to the modern notions of matter and energy.
Even the efficient causes of Aristotle, however, appear on further consideration, to be excluded from the modern idea of causation.
For, though the efficient cause is the energy which produces motion, modern science regards it as purely mechanical energy, whereas Aristotle thinks of it, as we shall see, as an ideal force, operating not from the beginning but from the end.
But it must not be supposed that, in saying that the modern idea of causation excludes formal and final causes, we mean that Aristotle is wrong in adding them, or that the modern idea is better than Aristotle's.
It is not a question of better and worse at all.
Modern science does not in any way deny the reality of formal and final causes.
It merely considers them to be outside its sphere.
It is no business of science whether they exist or not.
As knowledge advances, differentiation and division of labour occur.
Science takes as its province mechanical causes, and leaves formal and final causes to the philosopher to explicate.
Thus, for example, formal causes are not considered by science because they are not, in the modern sense, causes at all.
They are what we have called reasons.
If we are to explain the existence of an object in the universe it may be necessary to introduce formal causes, concepts, to show why the thing exists, to show in fact its reasons.
But science makes no attempt to explain the existence of objects.
It takes their {271} existence for granted, and seeks to trace their history and their relations to each other.
Therefore it does not require formal causes.
It seeks to work out the mechanical view of the universe, and therefore considers only mechanical causes.
But Aristotle's theory, as being philosophy rather than science, includes both the principles of mechanism and teleology.
It was not Aristotle's habit to propound his theories as if they were something absolutely new, sprung for the first time out of his own brain.
In attacking any problem, his custom was to begin by enumerating current and past opinions, to criticise them, to reject what was valueless in them, to retain the residue of truth, and to add to it his own suggestions and original ideas.
The resultant of this process was his own theory, which he thus represented, not as absolutely new, but as a development of the views of his predecessors.
This course he follows also in the present instance.
The first book of the "Metaphysics" is a history of all previous philosophy, from Thales to Plato, undertaken with the object of investigating how far the four causes had been recognized by his predecessors.
The material cause, he says, had been recognized from the first.
The Ionics believed in this and no other cause.
They sought to explain everything by matter, though they differed among themselves as to the nature of the material cause, Thales describing it as water, Anaximenes as air.
Later philosophers also gave different accounts of it, Heracleitus thinking it was fire, Empedocles the four elements, Anaxagoras an indefinite number of kinds of matter.
But the point is that they all recognized the necessity for a material cause of some sort to explain the universe.
{272} The earliest thinkers, then, the Ionics, assumed only this one cause.
But as thought advanced, says Aristotle, and other philosophers came upon the scene, "the thing itself guided them."
It was seen that a second cause was necessary to explain the motion and becoming of things.
For matter itself does not produce its motion.
Wood is not the cause of its becoming a bed, nor is brass the cause of its becoming a statue.
Hence arose the idea of the efficient cause.
The Eleatics did not recognize it, for they denied motion, and for them, therefore, no cause of motion could be assumed.
But Parmenides, Aristotle thinks, wavered on this point, somehow allowing vaguely the existence of a second cause, which he denominated the hot and the cold.
The reference is, of course, to the second part of the poem of Parmenides.
Other philosophers clearly assumed an efficient cause, for they thought that one element, for example, fire, is more active, that is, more productive of motion, than others.
Empedocles certainly attained to the idea of an efficient cause, for he named as moving forces, harmony and discord, love and hate.
Anaxagoras also, used Nous as a moving force.
Formal causes had, perhaps, been recognized by the Pythagoreans, for numbers are forms.
But they straightway degraded the formal cause to the level of a material cause by declaring that number is the stuff or matter of which things are made.
Plato alone clearly saw the necessity for the formal cause, for formal causes are, as we have seen, the same as Plato's Ideas.
But Plato's philosophy contains only two of the four causes, namely the material and the formal, for Plato made all things out of matter and the Ideas.
Since the Ideas have in them {273} no principle of motion, Plato's system contains no efficient cause.
As for final causes, Plato had indeed the vague idea that everything is for the sake of the Good, but he makes no use of this conception and does not develop it.
Final causes were introduced into philosophy by Anaxagoras, whose doctrine of the world forming mind was assumed to explain the design and purpose which the universe exhibits.
But as his system developed he forgot about this, and used the Nous merely as a piece of mechanism to explain motion, thus letting it sink into nothing more than an efficient cause.
In the result, Aristotle finds that all four causes have been recognized in greater or lesser degrees by his predecessors, and this, in his opinion, greatly reinforces his own doctrine.
But whereas material and efficient causes have been clearly understood, his predecessors had only vaguely foreshadowed and dimly perceived the value of formal and final causes.
The next step in Aristotle's metaphysics is to reduce these four principles to two, which he calls matter and form.
This reduction takes place by showing that formal cause, efficient cause, and final cause, all melt into the single conception of form.
In the first place, the formal cause and the final cause are the same.
For the formal cause is the essence, the concept, the Idea, of the thing.
Now the final cause, or the end, is simply the realisation of the Idea of the thing in actuality.
What the thing aims at is the definite expression of its form.
It thus aims at its form.
Its end, final cause, is thus the same as its formal cause.
Secondly, the efficient cause is the same as the final cause.
For the efficient cause is the cause of becoming.
The final cause is the end of {274} the becoming, it is what it becomes.
And, in Aristotle's opinion, what causes the becoming is just that it aims at the end.
The striving of all things is towards the end, and exists because of the end.
The end is thus itself the cause of becoming or motion.
That is to say, the final cause is the real efficient cause.
We may see this better by an example.
The end or final cause of the acorn is the oak.
And it is the oak which is the cause of the acorn's growth, which consists essentially in a movement by which the acorn is drawn towards its end, the oak.
We may see this even more definitely in the case of human productions, because here the striving towards an end is conscious, whereas in nature it is unconscious or instinctive.
The efficient cause of the statue is the sculptor.
It is he that moves the brass.
But what moves the sculptor, and causes him to act upon the brass, is the idea of the completed statue in his mind.
The idea of the end, the final cause, is thus the real ultimate cause of the movement.
Only, in the case of human production, the idea of the end is actually present in the sculptor's mind as a motive.
In nature there is no mind in which the end is conscious of itself, but nevertheless nature moves towards the end, and the end is the cause of the movement.
Thus the three causes named all melt into a single notion, which Aristotle calls the form of the thing.
And this leaves only the material cause unreduced to any other.
So we are left with the single antithesis of matter and form.
Now as matter and form are the fundamental categories of Aristotle's philosophy, by means of which he seeks to explain the entire universe, it is essential that we should thoroughly understand their characteristics.
{275} First of all, matter and form are inseparable.
We think of them as separate in order to understand them clearly.
And this is quite right, because they are opposite principles, and therefore they are separable in thought.
But they are never separable in fact.
There is no such thing as form without matter, or matter without form.
Every existent thing, that is, every individual object, is a compound of matter and form.
We may compare them in this respect to the material and the shape of a thing, though we must be careful not to think that form is merely shape.
Geometry considers shapes as if they existed by themselves.
But, in fact, we know that there are no such things as squares, circles, and triangles.
There are only square objects, circular objects, etc.
And as there are no shapes without objects, so there are no objects without shapes.
We talk of things being "shapeless," but this only means that their shape is irregular or unusual.
Some shape an object must have.
Yet, though shape and matter are inseparable in fact, they are opposite principles, and are separable in thought.
Geometry is quite right to treat shapes as if they existed by themselves, but it is nevertheless dealing with mere abstractions.
Just in the same way, matter and form are never apart, and to think of form by itself or matter by itself is a mere abstraction.
No such thing exists.
In fact, to imagine that forms can exist by themselves was just the mistake of which, as we have seen, Aristotle accuses Plato.
For the form is the Idea, and Plato imagined that Ideas exist in a world of their own.
From this, too, we can see that the form is the universal, the matter the particular.
For the form is the Idea, and the Idea is the universal.
To say that form and {276} matter cannot exist apart is thus the same as saying that the universal only exists in the particular, which, as we have seen, is the fundamental note of Aristotle's philosophy.
But if we thus identify matter with the particular element in things, we must be careful that we do not confuse the particular with the individual.
We often use these two words as practically synonymous, and there is no harm in this, but here we must be careful to separate them.
For every individual is, according to Aristotle, a compound of matter and form, of the particular and the universal.
And when we say that matter is the particular, we mean, not that it is such a compound, but that it is the absolutely particular which has no universal in it.
But the absolutely particular and isolated does not exist.
A piece of gold, for instance, only exists by virtue of its properties, yellowness, heaviness, etc., and these qualities are just what it has in common with other things.
So that the particular, as such, has no existence, but this is only the same as saying, what we have already said, that matter has no existence apart from form.
A very natural mistake would be to suppose that by matter Aristotle meant the same as we do, namely, physical substance, such as wood or iron, and that by form he meant simply shape.
Now although there is a kinship in the ideas, these two pairs of ideas are far from identical.
Let us begin with matter.
Our ordinary idea of matter as physical substance is an absolute conception.
That is to say, a thing which we call material is absolutely, once and for all, matter.
It is not material from one point of view, and immaterial from another.
In every possible relation it is, and {277} remains, matter.
Nor does it in process of time cease to be matter.
Brass never becomes anything but matter.
No doubt there are in nature changes of one sort of matter into another, for example, radium into helium.
And for all we know, brass may become lead.
But even so, it does not cease to be matter.
But Aristotle's conception of matter is a relative conception.
Matter and form are fluid.
They flow into one another.
The same thing, from one point of view, is matter, from another, form.
In all change, matter is that which becomes, that upon which the change is wrought.
That is form towards which the change operates.
What becomes is matter.
What it becomes is form.
Thus wood is matter if considered in relation to the bed.
For it is what becomes the bed.
But wood is form if considered in relation to the growing plant.
For it is what the plant becomes.
The oak is the form of the acorn, but it is the matter of the oak furniture.
That matter and form are relative terms shows, too, that the form cannot be merely the shape.
For what is form in one aspect is matter in another.
But shape is never anything but shape.
No doubt the shape is part of the form, for the form in fact includes all the qualities of the thing.
But the shape is quite an unimportant part of the form.
For form includes organization, the relation of part to part, and the subordination of all parts to the whole.
The form is the sum of the internal and external relations, the ideal framework, so to speak, into which the thing is moulded.
Form also includes function.
For it includes the final cause.
Now the function of a thing is just what the thing is for.
And what it is for is the same as its end, or final cause.
{278} Therefore function is included in form.
For example, the function of a hand, its power of gripping, is part of its form.
And therefore, if it loses its function by being cut off from the arm, it likewise loses its form.
Even the dead hand, of course, has some form, for every individual object is a compound of matter and form.
But it has lost the highest part of its form, and relatively to the living hand it is mere matter, although, relatively to the flesh and bones of which it is composed, it is still form.
Clearly, then, form is not merely shape.
For the hand cut off does not lose its shape.
The form includes all the qualities of the thing.
The matter is what has the qualities.
For the qualities are all universals.
A piece of gold is yellow, and this means simply that it has this in common with other pieces of gold, and other yellow objects.
To say that anything has a quality is immediately to place it in a class.
And what the class has in common is a universal.
A thing without qualities cannot exist, nor qualities without a thing.
And this is the same as saying that form and matter cannot exist separately.
The matter, then, is the absolutely formless.
It is the substratum which underlies everything.
It has, in itself, no character.
It is absolutely featureless, indefinite, without any quality.
Whatever gives a thing definiteness, character, quality, whatever makes it a this or that, is its form.
Consequently, there are no differences within matter.
One thing can only differ from another by having different qualities.
And as matter has no qualities, it has no difference.
And this in itself shows that the Aristotelian notion of matter is not the same as our notion of physical substance.
For, according {279} to our modern usage, one kind of matter differs from another, as brass from iron.
But this is a difference of quality, and for Aristotle all quality is part of the form.
So in his view the difference of brass from iron is not a difference of matter, but a difference of form.
Consequently, matter may become anything, according to the form impressed upon it.
It is thus the possibility of everything, though it is actually nothing.
It only becomes something by the acquisition of form.
And this leads directly to a most important Aristotelian antithesis, that between potentiality and actuality.
Potentiality is the same as matter, actuality as form.
For matter is potentially everything.
It may become everything.
It is not actually anything.
It is a mere potentiality, or capacity of becoming something.
But whatever gives it definiteness as a this or that, whatever makes it an actual thing, is its form.
Thus the actuality of a thing is simply its form.
Aristotle claims, by means of the antithesis of potentiality and actuality, to have solved the ancient problem of becoming, a riddle, propounded by the Eleatics, which had never ceased to trouble Greek thinkers.
How is becoming possible?
For being to pass into being is not becoming, for it involves no change, and for not-being to pass into being is impossible, since something cannot come out of nothing.
For Aristotle, the sharp line drawn between not-being and being does not exist.
For these absolute terms he substitutes the relative terms potentiality and actuality, which shade off into each other.
Potentiality in his philosophy takes the place of not-being in previous systems.
It solves the riddle because it is not an absolute not-being.
It is {280} not-being inasmuch as it is actually nothing, but it is being because it is potential being.
Becoming, therefore, does not involve the impossible leap from nothing to something.
It involves the transition from potential to actual being.
All change, all motion, is thus the passage of potentiality into actuality, of matter into form.
Since matter is in itself nothing, a bare unrealised capacity, while form is actuality, the completed and perfected being, it follows that form is something higher than matter.
But matter is what becomes form.
In order of time, therefore, matter is earlier, form later.
But in order of thought, and in reality, it is otherwise.
For when we say that matter is the potentiality of what it is to become, this implies that what it is to become is already present in it ideally and potentially, though not actually.
The end, therefore, is already present in the beginning.
The oak is in the acorn, ideally, otherwise the oak could never come out of it.
And since all becoming is towards the end, and would not take place but for the end, the end is the operative principle and true cause of becoming.
Motion is produced not by a mechanical propulsive force, pushing from behind, so to speak, but by an ideal attractive force, drawing the thing towards its end, as a piece of iron is drawn to the magnet.
It is the end itself which exerts this force.
And, therefore, the end must be present at the beginning, for if it were not present it could exert no force.
Nay, more.
It is not only present in the beginning, it is anterior to it.
For the end is the cause of the motion, and the cause is logically prior to its consequence.
The end, or the principle of form, is thus the absolute first in thought and reality, though it may be the last in time.
If, then, {281} we ask what, for Aristotle, is that ultimate reality, that first principle, from which the entire universe flows, the answer is, the end, the principle of form.
And as form is the universal, the Idea, we see that his fundamental thesis is the same as Plato's.
It is the one thesis of all idealism, namely, that thought, the universal, reason, is the absolute being, the foundation of the world.
Where he differs from Plato is in denying that form has any existence apart from the matter in which it exhibits itself.
Now all this may strike the unsophisticated as very strange.
That the absolute being whence the universe flows should be described as that which lies at the end of the development of the universe, and that philosophy should proceed to justify this by asserting that the end is really prior to the beginning, this is so far removed from the common man's mode of thought, that it may appear mere paradox.
It is, however, neither strange nor paradoxical.
It is essentially sound and true, and it seems strange to the ordinary man only because it penetrates so much deeper into things than he can.
This thought is, in fact, essential to a developed idealism, and till it is grasped no advance can be made in philosophy.
Whether it is understood is, indeed, a good test of whether a man has any talent for philosophy or not.
The fact is that all philosophies of this sort regard time as unreal, as an appearance.
This being so, the relation of the absolute being, or God, to the world cannot be a relation of time at all.
The common man's idea is that, if there is a first principle or God at all, He must have existed before the world began, and then, somehow, perhaps billions of years ago, something happened as a {282} result of which the world came into being.
The Absolute is thus conceived as the cause, the world as the effect, and the cause always precedes its effect in time.
Or if, on the other hand, we think that the world never had a beginning, the ordinary man's thought would lead him to believe that, in that case, it is no longer necessary to assume a first principle at all.
But if time is a mere appearance, this whole way of looking at things must be wrong.
God is not related to the world as cause to effect.
It is not a relation of time at all.
It is a _logical_ relation.
God is rather the logical premise, of which the world is the conclusion, so that, God granted, the world follows necessarily, just as, the premises granted, the conclusion follows.
This is the reason why, in discussing Plato, we said that it must be possible to _deduce_ the world from his first principle.
If the Absolute were merely the cause of the world in time, it would not explain the world, for, as I have so often pointed out, causes explain nothing.
But if the world be deducible from the Absolute, the world is explained, a reason, not a cause, is given for it, just as the premises constitute the reason for the conclusion.
Now the conclusion of a syllogism follows from the premises, that is, the premises come first, the conclusion second.
But the premise only comes first in thought, not in time.
It is a logical succession, not a time-succession.
Just in the same way, the Absolute, or in Aristotle's language, the form, is logically first, but is not first in order of time.
And though it is the end, it is in thought the absolute beginning, and is thus the foundation of the world, the first principle from which the world flows.
The objection may be, taken that if the relation of the {283} Absolute to the world is not a time-relation, then it can no more be the end than the beginning.
This objection is, as we shall see, a misunderstanding of Aristotle's philosophy.
Although things in time strive towards the end, yet the absolute end is not in time at all, or, in other words, the end is never reached.
Its relation to the world as end is just as much a logical, and not a time-relation, as its relation to the world as beginning or absolute prius.
As far as time is concerned, the universe is without beginning or end.
As the world-process is a continual elevation of matter into higher and higher forms, there results the conception that the universe exhibits a continuous scale of being.
That is higher in the scale in which form predominates, that lower in which matter outweighs form.
At the bottom of the scale will be absolutely formless matter, at the top, absolutely matterless form.
Both these extremes, however, are abstractions.
Neither of them exists, because matter and form cannot be separated.
Whatever exists comes somewhere between the two, and the universe thus exhibits a process of continuous gradations.
Motion and change are produced by the effort to pass from the lower to the higher under the attractive force of the end.
That which comes at the top of the scale, absolute form, is called by Aristotle, God.
And the definitions of God's character follow from this as a matter of course.
First, since form is actuality, God alone is absolutely actual.
He alone is real.
All existent things are more or less unreal.
The higher in the scale are the more real, as possessing more form.
The scale of being is thus also a scale of reality, shading off through infinite gradations {284} from the absolutely real, God, to the absolutely unreal, formless matter.
Secondly, since the principle of form contains the formal, the final, and the efficient causes, God is all these.
As formal cause, He is the Idea.
He is essentially thought, reason.
As final cause, He is the absolute end.
He is that to which all beings strive.
Each being has no doubt its own end in itself.
But as absolute end, God includes all lower ends.
And as the end of each thing is the completed perfection of the thing, so, as absolute end, God is absolute perfection.
Lastly, as efficient cause, God is the ultimate cause of all motion and becoming.
He is the first mover.
As such, He is Himself unmoved.
That the first mover should be itself unmoved is a necessary consequence of Aristotle's conception of it as end and form.
For motion is the transition of a thing towards its end.
The absolute end can have no end beyond it, and therefore cannot be moved.
Likewise motion is the passage of matter into form.
Absolute form cannot pass into any higher form, and is therefore unmoved.
But the argument which Aristotle himself more frequently uses to establish the immovability of the first mover is that, unless we so conceive it, no cause of motion appears.
The moving object is moved perhaps by another moving object.
The motion of the latter demands a further cause.
If this further cause is itself moving, we must again ask for the cause of its motion.
If this process goes on for ever, then motion is unexplained, and no real cause of it has been shown.
The real and ultimate cause must therefore be unmoved.
This last argument sounds as if Aristotle is now thinking in terms of mechanism.
It sounds as if he meant that {285} the first mover is something at the beginning of time, which, so to speak, gave things a push to start them off.
This is not what Aristotle means.
For the true efficient cause is the final cause.
And God is the first mover only in His character as absolute end.
As far as time is concerned, neither the universe, nor the motion in it, ever had any beginning.
Every mechanical cause has its cause in turn, and so _ad infinitum_.
God is not a first cause, in our sense, that is, a first mechanical cause which existed before the world, and created it.
He is a teleological cause working from the end.
But as such, He is logically prior to all beginning, and so is the first mover.
And just as the universe has no beginning in time, so it has no end in time.
It will go on for ever.
Its end is absolute form, but this can never be reached, because if it were, this would mean that absolute form would exist, whereas we have seen that form cannot exist apart from matter.
God is thought.
But the thought of what?
As absolute form, he is not the form of matter, but the form of form.
His matter, so to speak, is form.
Form, as the universal, is thought.
And this gives us Aristotle's famous definition of God as "the thought of thought."
He thinks only his own self.
He is at once the subject and the object of his thought.
As mortal men think material things, as I now think the paper on which I write, so God thinks thought.
In more modern terms, he is self-consciousness, the absolute subject-object.
That God should think anything other than thought is inconceivable, because the end of all other thought is outside the thought itself.
If I think this paper, the end of my thought, the paper, is outside me.
But the thought of {286} God, as the absolute end, cannot have any end outside itself.
Were God to think anything else than thought, he would be determined by that which is not himself.
By way of further expression of the same idea, Aristotle passes into figurative language.
God, he says, lives in eternal blessedness, and his blessedness consists in the everlasting contemplation of his own perfection.
A modern will naturally ask whether Aristotle's God is personal.
It does not do to be very dogmatic upon the point.
Aristotle, like Plato, never discusses the question.
No Greek ever did.
It is a modern question.
What we have to do, then, is to take the evidence on both sides.
The case for personality is that the language Aristotle uses implies it.
The very word God, used instead of the Absolute, or form, conveys the idea of personality.
And when he goes on to speak of God living in eternal blessedness, these words, if taken literally, can mean nothing except that God is a conscious person.
If we say that this language is merely figurative, it may be replied that Aristotle on principle objects to figurative language, that he frequently censures Plato for using it, that what he demands and sets out to supply is exact, literal, scientific terminology, and that he is not likely to have broken his own canons of philosophic expression by using merely poetical phrases.
To see the other side of the case, we must first ask what personality means.
Now without entering into an intricate discussion of this most elusive idea, we may answer that personality at any rate implies an _individual_ and _existent_ consciousness.
But, in the first place, God is absolute form, and form is the universal.
What is universal, with no particular in it, cannot be an individual.
{287} God, therefore, cannot be individual.
Secondly, form without matter cannot exist.
And as God is form without matter, he cannot be called existent, though he is absolutely real.
God, therefore, is neither existent nor individual.
And this means that he is not a person.
To degrade the real to the level of the existent, to convert the universal into the individual, is exactly the fault for which Aristotle blames Plato.
It is exactly the fault which it was the whole object of his philosophy to remedy.
If he thought that God is a person, he committed the same fault himself in an aggravated form.
We have, then, two hypotheses, both of which involve that Aristotle was guilty of some inconsistency.
If God is not a person, then Aristotle's language is figurative, and his use of such language is inconsistent with his rooted objection to its use.
This, however, is, after all, merely an inconsistency of language, and not of thought.
It does not mean that Aristotle really contradicted himself.
It merely means that, though he set himself to express his philosophy in technical scientific terms, and to exclude figurative language, yet he found himself compelled in a few passages to make use of it.
There are some metaphysical ideas so abstract, so abstruse, that it is almost impossible to express them at all without the use of figures of speech.
Language was made by common men for common purposes, and this fact often forces the philosopher to use terms which he knows only figure forth his meaning without accurately expressing it.
Perhaps every philosophy in the world finds itself sometimes under this necessity, and, if Aristotle did so, and was thereby technically inconsistent with himself, it is no wonder, and involves no serious blame upon him.
{288} But the other hypothesis, that God is a person, means that Aristotle committed a contradiction, not merely in words, but in thought, and not merely as regards some unimportant detail, but as regards the central thesis of his system.
It means that he stultified himself by making his conception of God absolutely contradict the essentials of his system.
For what is the whole of Aristotle's philosophy, put in a nutshell?
It is that the Absolute is the universal, but that the universal does not exist apart from the particular.
Plato supplied the thought of the first clause of the sentence.
Aristotle added the last clause, and it is the essential of his philosophy.
To assert that God, the absolute form, exists as an individual, is flatly to contradict this.
It is not likely that Aristotle should have contradicted himself in so vital a matter, and in a manner which simply means that his system falls to the ground like a house of cards.
My conclusion, then, is that it was not Aristotle's intention that what he calls God should be regarded as a person.
God is thought, but not subjective thought.
He is not thought existent in a mind, but objective thought, real on its own account, apart from any mind which thinks it, like Plato's Ideas.
But Plato's mistake was to suppose that because thought is real and objective, it must exist.
Aristotle avoids this error.
The absolute thought is the absolutely real.
But it does not exist.
With the concept of God the metaphysics of Aristotle closes.
4.
Physics, or the Philosophy of Nature.
The existent universe is a scale of being lying between the two extremes of formless matter and matterless form.
But this must not be merely asserted, as a general {289} principle.
It must be carried out in detail.
The passage of matter into form must be shown in its various stages in the world of nature.
To do this is the object of Aristotle's Physics, or philosophy of nature.
If nature is to be understood, we must keep in mind certain general points of view.
In the first place, since form includes end, the entire world-process, as passage of matter into form, is essentially movement towards ends.
Everything in nature has its end and function.
Nothing is purposeless.
Nature seeks everywhere to attain the best possible.
Everywhere we find evidences of design and of rational plan.
Aristotle's philosophy of nature is essentially teleological.
This does not, however, exclude the principle of mechanism, and to investigate mechanical causes is part of the duty of science.
But mechanical causes turn out in the end to be teleological, because the true efficient cause is the final cause.
But if nothing in nature is aimless or useless, this is not to be interpreted in a narrow anthropocentric spirit.
It does not mean that everything exists for the use of man, that the sun was created to give him light by day, the moon by night, and that plants and animals exist only for his food.
It is true that, in a certain sense, everything else sublunary is _for_ man.
For man is the highest in the scale of beings in this terrestrial sphere, and therefore as the higher end, he includes all lower ends.
But this does not exclude the fact that lower beings have each its own end.
They exist for themselves and not for us.
Another mistake which we must avoid is to suppose that the design in nature means that nature is conscious of her designs, or, on the other hand, that there is any {290} existent consciousness outside the world which governs and controls it.
The latter supposition is excluded by the fact that God is not an existent conscious person, the former by its own inherent absurdity.
The only being upon this earth who is conscious of his ends is man.
Such animals as bees and ants appear to work rationally, and their activities are clearly governed by design.
But it is not to be supposed that they are reasoning beings.
They attain their ends instinctively.
And when we come to inorganic matter, we find that even here its movements are purposive, but no one could suppose them deliberate and conscious.
These manifold activities of lower nature are indeed the work of reason, but not of an existent or self-conscious reason.
And this means that instinct, and even mechanical forces such as gravitation are, in their essence, reason.
It is not that they are created by reason, but that they are reason, exhibiting itself in lower forms.
In commenting upon Plato's dualism of sense and reason, I remarked that any true philosophy, though recognizing the distinction between sense and reason, must yet find room for their identity, and must show that sense is but a lower form of reason.
This idea Aristotle thoroughly understood, and sought to show, not merely that sense is reason, but even that the activities of inorganic matter, such as gravitation, are so.
In the result, nature, though working through reason, is not conscious of the fact, does so blindly and instinctively, and is compared to a creative artist, who forms beautiful objects by instinct, or, as we should say, by inspiration, without setting before his mind the end to be attained or the rules to be observed in order to attain it.
{291} In the process of nature, it is always form which impels, matter which retards and obstructs.
The entire world-movement is the effort of form to mould matter, but, just because matter has in itself a power of resistance, this effort does not always succeed.
This is the reason why form cannot exist without matter, because it can never wholly overcome the clogging activity of matter, and therefore matter can never be wholly moulded into form.
And this explains, too, the occasional occurrence in nature of freaks, monstrosities, abortions, and unnatural births.
In these the form has failed to mould the matter.
Nature has failed to attain her ends.
Science, therefore, should study the normal and natural rather than the abnormal and monstrous.
For it is in the normal that the ends of nature are to be seen, and through them alone nature can be understood.
Aristotle is fond of using the words "natural" and "unnatural," but he uses them always with this special meaning.
That is natural which attains its end, that in which the form successfully masters the matter.
No doctrine of physics can ignore the fundamental notions of motion, space, and time.
Aristotle, therefore, finds it necessary to consider these.
Motion is the passage of matter into form, and it is of four kinds.
The first is motion which affects the substance of a thing, origination and decease.
Secondly, change of quality.
Thirdly, change of quantity, increase and decrease.
Fourthly, locomotion, change of place.
Of these, the last is the most fundamental and important.
Aristotle rejects the definition of space as the void.
Empty space is an impossibility.
Hence, too, he disagrees with the view of Plato and the Pythagoreans that {292} the elements are composed of geometrical figures.
And connected with this is his repudiation of the mechanical hypothesis that all quality is founded upon quantity, or upon composition and decomposition.
Quality has a real existence of its own.
He rejects, also, the view that space is a physical thing.
If this were true, there would be two bodies occupying the same place at the same time, namely the object and the space it fills.
Hence there is nothing for it but to conceive space as limit.
Space is, therefore, defined as the limit of the surrounding body towards what is surrounded.
As we shall see later, in another connexion, Aristotle did not regard space as infinite.
Time is defined as the measure of motion in regard to what is earlier and later.
It thus depends for its existence upon motion.
If there were no change in the universe, there would be no time.
And since it is the measuring or counting of motion, it also depends for its existence upon a counting mind.
If there were no mind to count, there could be no time.
This presents difficulties to us, if we conceive that there was a time when conscious beings did not exist.
But this difficulty is non-existent for Aristotle, who believed that men and animals have existed from all eternity.
The essentials of time, therefore, are two: change and consciousness.
Time is the succession of thoughts.
If we object that the definition is bad because succession already involves time, there is doubtless no answer possible.
As to the infinite divisibility of space and time, and the riddles proposed thereupon by Zeno, Aristotle is of opinion that space and time are potentially divisible {293} _ad infinitum_, but are not actually so divided.
There is nothing to prevent us from going on for ever with the process of division, but space and time are not given in experience as infinitely divided.
After these preliminaries, we can pass on to consider the main subject of physics, the scale of being.
We should notice, in the first place, that it is also a scale of values.
What is higher in the scale of being is of more worth, because the principle of form is more advanced in it.
It constitutes also a theory of development, a philosophy of evolution.
The lower develops into the higher.
It does not, however, so develop in time.
That the lower form passes in due time into a higher form is a discovery of modern times.
Such a conception was impossible for Aristotle.
For him, genus and species are eternal.
They have neither beginning nor end.
Individual men are born and die, but the species man never dies, and has always existed upon the earth.
The same is true of plants and animals.
And since man has always existed, he cannot have evolved in time from a lower being.
There is no room here for Darwinism.
In what sense, then, is this a theory of development or evolution?
The process involved is not a time-process, it is a logical process, and the development is a logical development.
The lower always contains the higher potentially.
The man is in the ape ideally.
The higher, again, contains the lower actually.
The man is all that the ape is, and more also.
What is merely implicit in the lower form is explicit in the higher.
The form which is dimly seen struggling to light in the lower, has realized itself in the higher.
The higher is the same thing as the lower, but it is the same thing in a more {294} evolved state.
The higher presupposes the lower and rests upon it as foundation.
The higher is the form of which the lower is the matter.
It actually is what the lower is struggling to become.
Hence the entire universe is one continuous chain.
It is a process; not a time-process, but an eternal process.
The one ultimate reality, God, reason, absolute form, eternally exhibits itself in every stage of its development.
All the stages, therefore, must exist for ever side by side.
Now the form of a thing is its organization.
Hence to be higher in the scale means to be more organized.
The first distinction, therefore, with which nature presents us is between the organic and the inorganic.
Aristotle was the discoverer of the idea of organism, as he was also the inventor of the word.
At the bottom of the scale of being, therefore, is inorganic matter.
Inorganic matter is the nearest existent thing to absolutely formless matter, which, of course, does not exist.
In the inorganic world matter preponderates to such an extent as almost to overwhelm form, and we can only expect to see the universal exhibiting itself in it in a vague and dim way.
What, then, is its form?
And this is the same as asking what its function, end, or essential activity is.
The end of inorganic matter is merely external to it.
Form has not truly entered into it at all, and remains outside it.
Hence the activity of inorganic matter can only be to move in space towards its external end.
This is the explanation of what we, in modern times, call gravitation.
But, according to Aristotle, every element has its peculiar and natural motion; its end is conceived merely spatially, and its activity is to move towards its "proper place," and, having thus reached its end, it rests.
The natural {295} movement of fire is up.
We may call this a principle of levitation, as opposed to gravitation.
Aristotle has been the subject of cheap criticism on account of his frequent use of the words "natural" and "unnatural."
[Footnote 15] It is said that he was satisfied to explain the operations of nature by simply labelling them "natural."
If you ask a quite uneducated person why heavy bodies fall, he may quite possibly reply, "Oh!
_naturally_ they fall."
This simply means that the man has never thought about the matter at all, and thinks whatever is absolutely familiar to him is "natural" and needs no explanation.
It is like the feminine argument that a thing is so, "because it is."
It is assumed that Aristotle was guilty of a like futility.
This is not the case.
His use of the word "natural" does not indicate lack of thought.
There is a thought, an idea, here.
No doubt he was quite wrong in many of his facts.
Thus there is no such principle as levitation in the universe.
But there is a principle of gravitation, and when he explains this by saying it is "natural" for earth to move downwards, he means, not that the fact is familiar, but that the principle of form, or the world-reason, can only exhibit itself here so dimly as to give rise to a comparatively aimless and purposeless movement in a straight line.
Not absolutely purposeless, however, because nothing in the world is such, and the purpose here is simply the movement of matter towards its end.
This may or may not be a true explanation of gravity.
But has anybody since ever explained it better?
[Footnote 15: See, _e.g._ Sir Alexander Grant's _Aristotle_ in the Ancient Classics for English Readers Series (Blackwood), pages 119-121.]
This gives us, too, the clue to the distinction between {296} the inorganic and the organic.
If inorganic matter is what has its end outside itself, organic matter will be what has its end within itself.
This is the essential character of an organism, that its end is internal to it.
It is an inward self-developing principle.
Its function, therefore, can only be the actualisation, the self-realization of this inward end.
Whereas, therefore, inorganic matter has no activity except spatial movement, organic matter has for its activity growth, and this growth is not the mere mechanical addition of extraneous matter, as we add a pound of tea to a pound of tea.
It is true growth from within.
It is the making outward of what is inward.
It is the making explicit of what is implicit.
It is the making actual of what is potential in the embryo organism.
The lowest in the scale of being is thus inorganic matter, and above it comes organic matter, in which the principle of form becomes real and definite as the inward organization of the thing.
This inward organization is the life, or what we call the soul, of the organism.
Even the human soul is nothing but the organization of the body.
It stands to the body in the relation of form to matter.
With organism, then, we reach the idea of living soul.
But this living soul will itself have lower and higher grades of being, the higher being a higher realization of the principle of form.
As the essential of organism is self-realization, this will express itself first as self-preservation.
Self-preservation means first the preservation of the individual, and this gives the function of nutrition.
Secondly, it means preservation of the species, and this gives the function of propagation.
The lowest grade in the organic kingdom will, therefore, be {297} those organisms whose sole functions are to nourish themselves, grow, and propagate their kind.
These are plants.
And we may sum up this by saying that plants possess the nutritive soul.
Aristotle intended to write a treatise upon plants, which intention, however, he never carried out.
All that we have from him on plants is scattered references in his other books.
Had the promised treatise been forthcoming, we cannot doubt what its plan would have been.
Aristotle would have shown, as he did in the case of animals, that there are higher and lower grades of organism within the plant kingdom, and he would have attempted to trace the development in detail through all the then known species of plants.
Next above plants in the scale of being come animals.
Since the higher always contains the lower, but exhibits a further realization of form peculiar to itself, animals share with plants the functions of nutrition and propagation.
What is peculiar to them, the point in which they rise above plants, is the possession of sensation.
Sense-perception is therefore the special function of animals, and they possess, therefore, the nutritive and the sensitive souls.
With sensation come pleasure and pain, for pleasure is a pleasant sensation, and pain the opposite.
Hence arises the impulse to seek the pleasant and avoid the painful.
This can only be achieved by the power of movement.
Most animals, accordingly, have the power of locomotion, which is not possessed by plants, because they do not require it, since they are not sensitive to pleasure and pain.
In his books upon animals Aristotle attempts to carry out the principle of development in detail, showing what are the higher, and what the lower, animal organisms.
This he connects with the {298} methods of propagation employed by different animals.
Sex-generation is the mark of a higher organism than parthenogenesis.
The scale of being proceeds from animals to man.
The human organism, of course, contains the principles of all lower organisms.
Man nourishes himself, grows, propagates his kind, moves about, and is endowed with sense-perception.
But he must have in addition his own special function, which constitutes his advance beyond the animals.
This is reason.
Reason is the essential, the proper end and activity of man.
His soul is nutritive, sensitive, and rational.
In man, therefore, the world-reason which could only appear in inorganic matter as gravitation and levitation, in plants as nutrition, in animals as sensation, appears at last in its own proper form, as what it essentially is, reason.
The world-reason, so long struggling towards the light, has reached it, has become actual, has become existent, in man.
The world-process has attained its proximate end.
Within human consciousness there are lower and higher grades, and Aristotle has taken great pains to trace these from the bottom to the top.
These stages of consciousness are what are ordinarily called "faculties."
But Aristotle notes that it is nonsense to talk, as Plato did, of the "parts" of the soul.
The soul, being a single indivisible being, has no parts.
They are different aspects of the activity of one and the same being; different stages of its development.
They can no more be separated than the convex and concave aspects of a curve.
The lowest faculty, if we must use that word, is sense-perception.
Now what we perceive in a thing is its qualities.
Perception tells us that a piece of gold is {299} heavy, yellow, etc.
The underlying substratum which supports the qualities cannot be perceived.
This means that the matter is unknowable, the form knowable, for the qualities are part of the form.
Sense-perception, therefore, takes place when the object stamps its form upon the soul.
This is important for what it implies rather than what it states.
It shows the thoroughly idealistic trend of Aristotle's thought.
For if the form is what is knowable in a thing, the more form there is, the more knowable it will be.
Absolute form, God, will be the absolutely knowable.
That the Absolute is what alone is completely knowable, intelligible, and comprehensible, and the finite and material comparatively unknowable, is a point of view essential to idealism, and stands in marked contrast to the popular idea of rationalism that the Absolute is unknowable, and matter knowable.
For idealism, the Absolute is reason, thought.
What can be more thoroughly intelligible than reason?
What can thought understand, if not thought?
This, of course, is not stated by Aristotle.
But it is implied in his theory of sense-perception.
Next in the scale above the senses comes the common sense.
This has nothing to do with what we understand by that phrase in every-day language.
It means the central sensation-ganglion in which isolated sensations meet, are combined, and form a unity of experience.
We saw, in considering Plato, that the simplest kind of knowledge, such as, "this paper is white," involves, not only isolated sensations, but their comparison and contrast.
Bare sensations would not even make objects.
For every object is a combined bundle of sensations.
What thus combines the various sensations, and in {300} particular those received from different sense-organs, what compares and contrasts them, and turns them from a blind medley of phantasms into a definite experience, a single cosmos, is the common sense.
Its organ is the heart.
Above the common sense is the faculty of imagination.
By this Aristotle means, not the creative imagination of the artist, but the power, which everyone possesses, of forming mental images and pictures.
This is due to the excitation in the sense-organ continuing after the object has ceased to affect it.
The next faculty is memory.
This is the same as imagination, except that there is combined with the image a recognition of it as a copy of a past sense-impression.
Recollection, again, is higher than memory.
Memory images drift purposelessly through the mind.
Recollection is the deliberate evoking of memory-images.
From recollection we pass to the specifically human faculty of reason.
But reason itself has two grades.
The lower is called passive reason, the higher active reason.
The mind has the power of thought before it actually thinks.
This latent capacity is passive reason.
The mind is here like a smooth piece of wax which has the power to receive writing, but has not received it.
The positive activity of thought itself is active reason.
The comparison with wax must not mislead us into supposing that the soul only receives its impressions from sensation.
It is pure thought which writes upon the wax.
Now the sum of the faculties in general we call the soul.
And the soul, we saw, is simply the organization {301} or form, of the body.
As form is inseparable from matter, the soul cannot exist without the body.
It is the function of the body.
It is to the body what sight is to the eye.
And in the same sense Aristotle denies the doctrine of Pythagoras and Plato that the soul reincarnates itself in new bodies, particularly in the bodies of animals.
What is the function of one thing cannot become the function of another.
Exactly what the soul is to the body the music of the flute is to the flute itself.
It is the form of which the flute is the matter.
It is, to speak metaphorically, the soul of the flute.
And you might as well talk, says Aristotle, of the art of flute-playing becoming reincarnate in the blacksmith's anvil, as of the soul passing into another body.
This would seem also to preclude any doctrine of immortality.
For the function perishes with the thing.
We shall return to that point in a moment.
But we may note, meanwhile, that Aristotle's theory of the soul is not only a great advance upon Plato's, but is a great advance upon popular thinking of the present day.
The ordinary view of the soul, which was Plato's view, is that the soul is a sort of thing.
No doubt it is non-material and supersensuous.
But still it is a thing; it can be put into a body and taken out of it, as wine can be put into or taken out of a bottle.
The connection between body and soul is thus purely mechanical.
They are attached to each other by no necessary bond, but rather by force.
They have, in their own natures, no connexion with each other, and it is difficult to see why the soul ever entered a body, if it is in its nature something quite separate.
But Aristotle's view is that the soul, as form of the body, is not separable from it.
You cannot have {302} a soul without a body.
The connection between them is not mechanical, but organic.
The soul is not a thing which comes into the body and goes out of it.
It is not a thing at all.
It is a function.
But to this doctrine Aristotle makes an exception in favour of the active reason.
All the lower faculties perish with the body, including the passive reason.
Active reason is imperishable and eternal.
It has neither beginning nor end.
It comes into the body from without, and departs from it at death.
God being absolute reason, man's reason comes from God, and returns to him, after the body ceases to function.
But before we hail this as a doctrine of personal immortality, we had best reflect.
All the lower faculties perish at death, and this includes memory.
Now memory is an essential of personality.
Without memory our experiences would be a succession of isolated sensations, with no connecting link.
What connects my last with my present experience is that my last experience was "mine."
To be mine it must be remembered.
Memory is the string upon which isolated experiences are strung together, and which makes them into that unity I call myself, my personality.
If memory perishes, there can be no personal life.
And it must be remembered that Aristotle does not mean merely that, in that future life--if we persist in calling it such--the memory of this life is obliterated.
He means that in the future life itself reason has no memory of itself from moment to moment.
We cannot be dogmatic about what Aristotle himself thought.
He seems to avoid the question.
He probably shrank from disturbing popular beliefs on the subject.
We have, at any rate, no definite pronouncement from {303} him.
All we can say is that his doctrine does not provide the material for belief in personal immortality.
It expressly removes the material in that it denies the persistence of memory.
Moreover, if Aristotle really thought that reason is a thing, which goes in and out of the body, an exception, in the literal sense, to his general doctrine of soul, all we can say is that he undergoes a sudden drop in the philosophic scale.
Having propounded so advanced a theory, he sinks back to the crude view of Plato.
And as this is not likely, the most probable explanation is that he is here speaking figuratively, perhaps with the intention of propitiating the religious and avoiding any rude disturbance of popular belief.
If so, the statements that active reason is immortal, comes from God, and returns to God, mean simply that the world-reason is eternal, and that man's reason is the actualization of this eternal reason, and in that sense "comes from God" and returns to Him.
We may add, too, that since God, though real, is not to be regarded as an existent individual, our return to Him cannot be thought as a continuation of individual existence.
Personal immortality is inconsistent with the fundamentals of Aristotle's system.
We ought not to suppose that he contradicted himself in this way.
Yet if Aristotle used language which seems to imply personal immortality, this is neither meaningless nor dishonest.
It is as true for him as for others that the soul is eternal.
But eternal does not mean everlasting in time.
It means timeless.
And reason, even our reason, is timeless.
The soul has eternity in it.
It is "eternity in an hour."
And it is this which puts the difference between man and the brutes.
{304} We have traced the scale of being from inorganic matter, through plants and animals, to man.
What then?
What is the next step?
Or does the scale stop there?
Now there is a sort of break in Aristotle's system at this point, which has led many to say that man is the top of the scale.
The rest of Aristotle's physics deal with what is outside our earth, such as the stars and planets.
And they deal with them quite as if they were a different subject, having little or nothing to do with the terrestrial scale of being which we have been considering.
But here we must not forget two facts.
The first is that Aristotle's writings have come down to us mutilated, and in many cases unfinished.
The second is that Aristotle had a curious habit of writing separate monographs on different parts of his system, and omitting to point out any connexion between them, although such a connexion undoubtedly exists.
Now although Aristotle himself does not say it, there are several good reasons for thinking that the true interpretation of his meaning is that the scale of being does not stop at man, that there is no gap in the chain here, but that it proceeds from man through planets and stars--which Aristotle, like Plato, regarded as divine beings--right up to God himself.
In the first place, this is required by the logic of his system.
The scale has formless matter at the bottom and matterless form at the top.
It should proceed direct from one to the other.
It is essential to his philosophy that the universe is a single continuous chain.
There is no place for such a hiatus between man and the higher beings.
Secondly, it is not as if terrestrial life formed a scale, and celestial beings were all on a par, having among themselves no {305} scale of higher and lower.
This is not the case.
The heavenly bodies have grades among themselves.
The higher are related to the lower as form to matter.
Thus stars are higher than planets.
So that if we suppose that evolution stops at man, what we have is a gap in the middle, a scale below it, and a scale above it.
It is like a bridge over a sheet of water, the two ends of which are intact, but which is broken down in the middle.
The natural completion of this scheme involves the filling up of the gap.
Thirdly, we have another very important piece of evidence.
With his valuable idea of evolution Aristotle combined another very curious, and no doubt, absurd, theory.
This was that in the scale of the universe the lowest existence is to be found in the middle, the highest at the periphery, and that in general the higher is always outside the lower, so that the spatial universe is a system of concentric spheres, the outer sphere being related to the inner sphere as higher to lower, as form to matter.
At the centre of the spherical universe is our earth.
Earth, as the lowest element, is in the middle.
Then comes a layer of water, then of air, then of fire.
Among the heavenly bodies there are fifty-six spheres.
The stars are outside the planets and are therefore higher beings.
And in conformity with this scheme, the supreme being, God, is outside the outermost sphere.
Now it is obvious that, in this scheme, the passage from the centre of the earth to the stars forms a spatial continuity, and it is impossible to resist the conclusion that it also forms a logical continuity, that is, that there is no break in the chain of evolution.
Noting that this is not what Aristotle in so many words says, but that it is our interpretation of his {306} intention, which is almost certainly correct, we conclude that man is not the top of the scale.
Next to him come the heavenly bodies.
The planets include the sun and the moon, which, revolve round the earth in a direction opposite to that of the stars.
Next in the scale come the stars.
We need not go into details of the fifty-six spheres.
The stars and planets are divine beings.
But this is only a comparative term.
Man, as the possessor of reason, is also divine, but the heavenly bodies infinitely more so.
And this means that they are more rational than man, and so higher in the scale.
They live an absolutely blessed and perfect life.
They are immortal and eternal, because they are the supreme self-realization of the eternal reason.
It is only upon this earth that death and corruption occur, a circumstance which has no doubt emphasized that view of Aristotle's philosophy which holds the gap between man and the stars to be a real one.
The heavenly bodies are not composed of the four elements, but of a fifth, a quintessence, which is called ether.
Like all elements it must have its natural motion.
And as it is the finest and most perfect, its motion must be perfect.
And it must be an eternal motion, because the stars are eternal beings.
It cannot be motion in a straight line, because that never comes to an end, and so is never perfect.
Circular motion alone is perfect.
And it is eternal because its end and its beginning are one.
Hence the natural motion of ether is circular, and the stars move in perfect circles.
Leaving the stars behind, we reach the summit of the long ladder from matter to form.
This is the absolute form, God.
As formless matter is not an existent thing, nor is matterless form.
God, therefore, is not in the {307} world of space and time at all.
But it is one of the curiosities of thought that Aristotle nevertheless gives him a place outside the outermost sphere.
What is outside the sphere is, therefore, not space.
All space and time are inside this globular universe.
Space is therefore finite.
And God must be outside the outermost sphere because he is the highest being, and the higher always comes outside the lower.
We have now described the entire scale of evolution.
Looking back upon it, we can see its inner significance.
The Absolute is reason, matterless form.
Everything in the world, therefore, is, in its essence, reason.
If we wish to know the essential nature even of this clod of earth, the answer is that it is reason, although this view is not consistently developed by Aristotle, since he allows that matter is a separate principle which cannot be reduced to form.
The whole universal process of things is nothing but the struggle of reason to express itself, to actualize itself, to become existent in the world.
This it definitely does, for the first time proximately in man, and completely in the stars.
It can only express itself in lower beings as sensation (animals), as nutrition (plants), or as gravitation and its opposite (inorganic matter).
The value of Aristotle's theory of evolution is immense.
It is not the details that signify.
The application of the principle in the world of matter and life could not be carried out satisfactorily in the then state of physical science.
It could not be carried out with perfection even now.
Omniscience alone could give finality to such a scheme.
But it is the principle itself which matters.
And that it is one of the most valuable conceptions in {308} philosophy will perhaps be more evident if we compare it, firstly, with modern scientific theories of evolution and secondly, with certain aspects of Hindu pantheism.
What has Aristotle in common with such a writer a Herbert Spencer?
According to Spencer, evolution is a movement from the indefinite, incoherent, and homogeneous, to the definite, coherent, and heterogeneous.
Aristotle has all this, though his words are different.
He calls it a movement from matter to form.
Form he describes as whatever gives definiteness to a thing.
Matter is the indefinite substrate, form gives it definiteness.
Hence for him too the higher being is more definite because it has more form.
That matter is the homogeneous, form the heterogeneous, follows from this.
We saw that there are in matter itself no differences, because there are no qualities.
And this is the same as saying it is homogeneous.
Heterogeneity, that is, differentiation, is introduced by form.
Coherence is the same thing as organization.
Aristotle has himself defined the form of a thing as its organization.
For him, as for Spencer, the higher being is simply that which is more organized.
Every theory of evolution depends fundamentally upon the idea of organism.
Aristotle invented the idea and the word.
Spencer carried it no further, though the more advanced physical knowledge of his day enabled him to illustrate it more copiously.
But of course the great difference between Aristotle and the moderns, is that the former did not guess, what the latter have discovered, namely that evolution is not only a logical development, but is a fact in time.
Aristotle knew what was meant by the higher and lower organism as well as Darwin, but he did not know, that the latter {309} actually turns into the former in the course of years.
But this, though the most obvious, is not really the most important difference between Spencer and Aristotle.
The real difference is that Aristotle penetrated far more deeply into the philosophy of evolution than modern science does; that, in fact, modern science has no philosophy of evolution at all.
For the fundamental problem here is, if we speak of higher and lower beings, what rational ground have we for calling them higher and lower?
That the lower passes in time into the higher is no doubt a very interesting fact to discover, but it dwindles into insignificance beside the problem just indicated, because, on the solution of that problem it depends whether the universe is to be regarded as futile, meaningless, and irrational, or whether we are to see in it order, plan, and purpose.
Is Spencer's doctrine a theory of development at all?
Or is it not rather simply a theory of change?
Something resembling an ape becomes a man.
Is there development here, that is, is it a movement from something really lower to something really higher?
Or is it merely change from one indifferent thing to another?
Is there improvement, or only difference?
In the latter case, it makes not the slightest difference whether the ape becomes man, or man becomes an ape.
The one is as good as the other.
In either case, it is merely a change from Tweedledum to Tweedledee.
The change is meaningless, and has no significance.
The modern doctrine of evolution can only render the world more intelligible, can only develop into a philosophy of evolution, by showing that there is evolution and not merely change, and this it can only do by {310} giving a rational basis for the belief that some forms of existence are higher than others.
To put the matter bluntly, why is a man higher than a horse, or a horse than a sponge?
Answer that, and you have a philosophy of evolution.
Fail to answer it, and you have none.
Now the man in the street will say that man is higher than the horse, because he not merely eats grass, but thinks, deliberates, possesses art, science, religion, morality.
Ask him why these things are higher than eating grass, and he has no answer.
From him, then, we turn to Spencer, and there we find a sort of answer.
Man is higher because he is more organized.
But why is it better to be more organized?
Science, as such, has no answer.
If pressed in this way, science may of course turn round and say: "there is in the reality of things no higher and no lower; what I mean by higher and lower is simply more and less organized; higher and lower are mere metaphors; they are the human way of looking at things; we naturally call higher what is nearest ourselves; but from the absolute point of view there is no higher and lower."
But this is to reduce the universe to a madhouse.
It means that there is no purpose, no reason, in anything that happens.
The universe, in this case, is irrational.
No explanation of it is possible.
Philosophy is futile, and not only philosophy, but morality and everything else.
If there is really no higher and lower, there is no better and no worse.
It is just as good to be a murderer as to be a saint.
Evil is the same as good.
Instead of striving to be saints, statesmen, philosophers, we may as well go and play marbles, because all these values of higher and lower are mere delusions, "the human way of looking at things."
{311} Spencer then has no answer to the question why it is better to be more organized.
So we turn at last to Aristotle.
He has an answer.
He sees that it is meaningless to talk of development, advance, higher and lower, except in relation to an end.
There is no such thing as advance unless it is an advance towards something.
A body moving purposelessly in a straight line through infinite space does not advance.
It might as well be here as a mile hence.
In either case it is no nearer to anything.
But if it is moving towards a definite point, we can call this advance.
Every mile it moves it gets nearer to its end.
So, if we are to have a philosophy of evolution, it must be teleological.
If nature is not advancing towards an end, there is no nearer and further, no higher and lower, no development.
What then is the end?
It is the actualization of reason, says Aristotle.
The primal being is eternal reason, but this is not existent.
It must come to exist.
It first enunciates itself vaguely as gravitation.
But this is far off from its end, which is the existence of reason, as such, in the world.
It comes nearer in plants and animals.
It is proximately reached in man, for man is the existent reason.
But there is no question of the universe coming to a stop, when it reaches its end--(the usual objection to teleology).
For the absolute end, absolute form, can never be reached.
The higher is thus the more rational, the lower the less rational.
Now if we try to go on asking, "why is it better to be more rational?"
we find we cannot ask such a question.
The word "why" means that we want a reason.
And our question is absurd because we are asking a reason for reason.
Why is it better to be rational means simply, "how is reason rational."
To {312} doubt it is a self-contradiction.
Or, to put the same thing in another way, reason is the Absolute.
And to ask why it is better to be rational is to demand that the ultimate should be expressed in terms of something beyond it.
Hence modern science has no philosophy of evolution, whereas Aristotle has.
[Footnote 16] [Footnote 16: See H. S. Macran's _Hegel's Doctrine of Formal Logic_ (Clarendon Press), Introduction, section on the Conception of Evolution, to which I am much indebted in the above paragraphs.]
The main idea of pantheism is that everything is God.
The clod of earth is divine because it is a manifestation of Deity.
Now this idea is all very well, and is in fact essential to philosophy.
We find it in Aristotle himself, since the entire world is, for him, the actualization of reason, and reason is God.
But this is also a very dangerous idea, if not supplemented by a rationally grounded scale of values.
No doubt everything is, in a sense, God.
But if we leave it at this, it would follow that, since everything is equally divine, there is no higher and lower.
If the clod of earth, like the saintliest man, is God, and there is no more to say of the matter, then how is the saint higher than the clod of earth?
Why should one ever struggle towards higher things, when in reality all are equally high?
Why avoid evil, when evil is as much a manifestation of God as good?
Mere pantheism must necessarily end in this calamitous view.
And these deplorable effects explain the fact that Hinduism, with all its high thinking, finds room for the worship of cows and snakes, and, with all its undoubted moral elevation, yet allows into its fold the grossest abominations.
Both these features are due to the pantheistic placing of all things on a par as equally {313} divine.
Not of course that Hinduism has not a sort of doctrine of evolution, a belief in a higher and lower.
As everyone knows, it admits the belief that in successive incarnations the soul may mount higher and higher till it perhaps rejoins the common source of all things.
There is probably no race of man so savage that it does not instinctively feel that there is a higher and lower, a better and worse, in things.
But the point is that, although Hinduism has its scale of values, and its doctrine of development, it has no rational foundation for these, and though it has the idea of higher and lower, yet, because this is without foundation, it lets it slip, it never grips the idea, and so easily slides into the view that all is equally divine.
The thought that all is God, and the thought that there are higher and lower beings, are, on the surface, opposed and inconsistent theories.
Yet both are necessary, and it is the business of philosophy to find a reconciliation.
This Aristotle does, but Hinduism fails to do.
It asserts both, but fails to bring them to unity.
Now it asserts one view, and again at another time it asserts the other.
And this, of course, is connected with the general defect of oriental thinking, its vagueness.
Everything is seen, but seen in a haze, in which all things appear one, in which shapes flow into another, in which nothing has an outline, in which even vital distinctions are obliterated.
Hence it is that, though oriental thought contains, in one way or another, practically all philosophical ideas, it grips none, and can hold nothing fast.
It seizes its object, but its flabby grasp relaxes and slips off.
Hinduism, like modern science, has its doctrine of evolution.
But it has no philosophy of evolution.
{314} 5.
Ethics.
_(a) The Individual_.
A strong note of practical moderation pervades the ethics of Aristotle.
While Plato's ethical teaching transcended the ordinary limits of human life, and so lost itself in ideal Utopias, Aristotle, on the other hand, sits down to make practical suggestions: He wishes to enquire what the good is, but by this he means, not some ideal good impossible of attainment upon this earth, but rather that good which, in all the circumstances in which men find themselves, ought to be realizable.
The ethical theories of Plato and Aristotle are thus characteristic of the two men.
Plato despised the world of sense, and sought to soar altogether beyond the common life of the senses.
Aristotle, with his love of facts and of the concrete, keeps close within the bounds of actual human experience.
The first question for ethics is the nature of the _summum bonum_.
We desire one thing for the sake of a second, we desire that for the sake of a third.
But if this series of means and ends goes on _ad infinitum_, then all desire and all action are futile and purposeless.
There must be some one thing which we desire, not for the sake of anything else, but on its own account.
What is this end in itself, this _summum bonum_, at which all human activity ultimately aims.
Everybody, says Aristotle, is agreed about the name of this end.
It is happiness.
What all men seek, what is the motive of all their actions, that which they desire for the sake of itself and nothing beyond, is happiness.
But though all agree as to the name, beyond that there is no agreement.
Philosophers, {315} no less than the vulgar, differ as to what this word happiness means.
Some say it is a life of pleasure.
Others say it consists in the renunciation of pleasures.
Some recommend one life, some another.
We must repeat here the warning which was found necessary in the case of Plato, who also called the _summum bonum_ happiness.
Aristotle's doctrine is no more to be confused with modern utilitarianism than is Plato's.
Moral activity is usually accompanied by a subjective feeling of enjoyment.
In modern times the word happiness connotes the feeling of enjoyment.
But for the Greeks it was the moral activity which the word signified.
For Aristotle an action is not good because it yields enjoyment.
On the contrary, it yields enjoyment because it is good.
The utilitarian doctrine is that the enjoyment is the ground of the moral value.
But, for Aristotle, the enjoyment is the consequence of the moral value.
Hence when he tells us that the highest good is happiness, he is giving us no information regarding its nature, but merely applying a new name to it.
We have still to enquire what the nature of the good is.
As he himself says, everyone agrees upon the name, but the real question is what this name connotes.
Aristotle's solution of this problem follows from the general principles of his philosophy.
We have seen that, throughout nature, every being has its proper end, and the attainment of this end is its special function.
Hence the good for each being must be the adequate performance of its special function.
The good for man will not consist in the pleasure of the senses.
Sensation is the special function of animals, but not of man.
Man's special function is reason.
Hence the proper {316} activity of reason is the _summum bonum_, the good for man.
Morality consists in the life of reason.
But what precisely that means we have still to see.
Man is not only a reasoning animal.
As the higher being, he contains within himself the faculties of the lower beings also.
Like plants he is appetitive, like animals, sensitive.
The passions and appetites are an organic part of his nature.
Hence virtue will be of two kinds.
The highest virtues will be found in the life of reason, and the life of thought, philosophy.
These intellectual virtues are called by Aristotle dianoetic.
Secondly, the ethical virtues proper will consist in the submission of the passions and appetites to the control of reason.
The dianoetic virtues are the higher, because in them man's special function alone is in operation, and also because the thinking man most resembles God, whose life is a life of pure thought.
Happiness, therefore, consists in the combination of dianoetic and ethical virtues.
They alone are of absolute value to man.
Yet, though he places happiness in virtue, Aristotle, in his broad and practical way, does not overlook the fact that external goods and circumstances have a profound influence upon happiness, and cannot be ignored, as the Cynics attempted to ignore them.
Not that Aristotle regards externals as having any value in themselves.
What alone is good in itself, is an end in itself, is virtue.
But external goods help a man in his quest of virtue.
Poverty, sickness, and misfortune, on the other hand, hinder his efforts.
Therefore, though externals are not goods in themselves, they may be a means towards the good.
Hence they are not to be despised and rejected.
Riches, friends, health, {317} good fortune, are not happiness.
But they are negative conditions of it.
With them happiness is within our grasp.
Without them its attainment is difficult.
They will be valued accordingly.
Aristotle says little in detail of the dianoetic virtues.
And we may turn at once to the main subject of his moral system, the ethical virtues.
These consist in the governance of the passions by reason.
Socrates was wrong in supposing that virtue is purely intellectual, that nothing save knowledge is needed for it, and that if a man thinks right he must needs do right.
He forgot the existence of the passions, which are not easily controlled.
A man may reason perfectly, his reason may point him to the right path, but his passions may get the upper hand and lead him out of it.
How then is reason to gain control over the appetites?
Only by practice.
It is only by continual effort, by the constant exercise of self-control, that the unruly passions can be tamed.
Once brought under the yoke, their control becomes habit.
Aristotle lays the utmost emphasis on the importance of habit in morality.
It is only by cultivating good habits that a man becomes good.
Now if virtue consists in the control of the appetites by reason, it thus contains two constituents, reason and appetite.
Both must be present.
There must be passions, if they are to be controlled.
Hence the ascetic ideal of rooting out the passions altogether is fundamentally wrong.
It overlooks the fact that the higher form does not exclude the lower--that were contrary to the conception of evolution--it includes and transcends it.
It forgets that the passions are an organic part of man, and that to destroy them is to do injury to his {318} nature by destroying one of its essential members.
The passions and appetites are, in fact, the matter of virtue, reason its form, and the mistake of asceticism is that it destroys the matter of virtue, and supposes that the form can subsist by itself.
Virtue means that the appetites must be brought under control, not that they must be eradicated.
Hence there are two extremes to be avoided.
It is extreme, on the one hand, to attempt to uproot the passions; and it is extreme, on the other, to allow them to run riot.
Virtue means moderation.
It consists in hitting the happy mean as regards the passions, in not allowing them to get the upper hand of reason, and yet in not being quite passionless and apathetic.
From this follows the famous Aristotelian doctrine of virtue as the mean between two extremes.
Every virtue lies between two vices, which are the excess and defect of appetite respectively.
What is the criterion here?
Who is to judge?
How are we to know what is the proper mean in any matter?
Mathematical analogies will not help us.
It is not a case of drawing a straight line from one extreme to the other, and finding the middle point by bisection.
And Aristotle refuses to lay down any rule of thumb in the matter.
There is no golden rule by virtue of which we can tell where the proper mean is.
It all depends on circumstances, and on the person involved.
What is the proper mean in one case is not the proper mean in another.
What is moderate for one man is immoderate for his neighbour.
Hence the matter must be left to the good judgment of the individual.
A sort of fine tact, good sense, is required to know the mean, which Aristotle calls "insight."
This insight is both the cause and the {319} effect of virtue.
It is the cause, because he who has it knows what he ought to do.
It is the effect, because it is only developed by practice.
Virtue renders virtue easy.
Each time a man, by use of his insight, rightly decides upon the mean, it becomes easier for him to discriminate next time.
Aristotle attempts no systematic classification of the virtues, as Plato had done.
This sort of schematism is contrary to the practical character of his thought.
He sees that life is far too complex to be treated in this way.
The proper mean is different in every different case, and therefore there are as many virtues as there are circumstances in life.
His list of virtues, therefore, is not intended to be exhaustive.
It is merely illustrative.
Though the number of virtues is infinite, there are certain well-recognized kinds of good action, which are of such constant importance in life that they have received names.
By the example of some of these virtues Aristotle illustrates his doctrine of the mean.
For instance, courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness.
That is to say, cowardice is the defect of boldness, rashness the excess, courage the reasonable medium.
Munificence is the mean between pettiness and vulgar profusion, good temper between spiritlessness and irascibility, politeness between rudeness and obsequiousness, modesty between shamelessness and bashfulness, temperance between insensibility and intemperance.
Justice hardly comes into the scheme; it is rather a virtue of the State than of the individual, and it has been thought by some that the book devoted to it in the "Ethics" has been misplaced.
Justice is of two kinds, distributive and corrective.
Its fundamental idea {320} is the assignment of advantages and disadvantages according to merit.
Distributive justice assigns honours and rewards according to the worth of the individuals involved.
Corrective justice has to do with punishment.
If a man improperly obtains an advantage, things must be equalized by the imposition on him of a corresponding disadvantage.
Justice, however, is a general principle, and no general principle is equal to the complexity of life.
Special cases cannot be foreseen, The necessary adjustment of human relations arising from this cause is equity.
Aristotle is a pronounced supporter of the freedom of the will.
He censures Socrates because the latter's theory of virtue practically amounts to a denial of freedom.
According to Socrates, whoever thinks right must necessarily do right.
But this is equivalent to denying a man's power to choose evil.
And if he cannot choose evil, he cannot choose good.
For the right-thinking man does not do right voluntarily, but necessarily.
Aristotle believed, on the contrary, that man has the choice of good and evil.
The doctrine of Socrates makes all actions involuntary.
But in Aristotle's opinion only actions performed under forcible compulsion are involuntary.
Aristotle did not, however, consider the special difficulties in the theory of free will which in modern times have made it one of the most thorny of all philosophical problems.
Hence his treatment of the subject is not of great value to us.
_(b) The State_.
Politics is not a separate subject from Ethics.
It is merely another division of the same subject.
And {321} this, not merely because politics is the ethics of the State as against the individual, but because the morality of the individual really finds its end in the State, and is impossible without it.
Aristotle agrees with Plato that the object of the State is the virtue and happiness of the citizens, which are impossible except in the State.
For man is a political animal by nature, as is proved by his possession of speech, which would be useless to any save a social being.
And the phrase "by nature" means the same here as elsewhere in Aristotle.
It means that the State is the end of the individual, and that activity in the State is part of man's essential function.
The State, in fact, is the form, the individual, the matter.
The State provides both an education in virtue and the necessary opportunities for its exercise.
Without it man would not be man at all.
He would be a savage animal.
The historical origin of the State Aristotle finds in the family.
At first there is the individual.
The individual gets himself a mate, and the family arises.
The family, in Aristotle's opinion, includes the slaves: for, like Plato, he sees no wrong in the institution of slavery.
A number of families, joining together, develop into a village community, and a number of village communities into a _polis_ (city), or State.
Beyond the city, of course, the Greek idea of the State did not extend.
Such then is the historical origin of the State.
But it is of capital importance to understand that, in Aristotle's opinion, this question of historical origin has nothing on earth to do with the far more important question what the State essentially is.
It is no mere mechanical aggregate of families and village communities, {322} The _nature_ of the State is not explained in this way.
For though the family is prior to the State in order of time, the State is prior to the family and to the individual in order of thought, and in reality.
For the State is the end, and the end is always prior to that of which it is the end.
The state as form is prior to the family as matter, and in the same way the family is prior to the individual.
And as the explanation of things is only possible by teleology, it is the end which explains the beginning, it is the State which explains the family, and not vice versa.
The true nature of the State, therefore, is not that it is a mechanical sum of individuals, as a heap of sand is the sum of its grains.
The State is a real organism, and the connexion of part to part is not mechanical, but organic.
The State has a life of its own.
And its members also have their own lives, which are included in the higher life of the State.
All the parts of an organism are themselves organisms.
And as the distinction between organic and inorganic is that the former has its end in itself, while the latter has its end external to it, this means that the State is an end in itself, that the individual is an end in himself, and that the former end includes the latter.
Or we may express the same thought otherwise by saying that, in the State, both the whole and the parts are to be regarded as real, both having their own lives and, in their character as ends, their own rights.
Consequently, there are two kinds of views of the nature of the State, which are, according to Aristotle, fundamentally erroneous.
The first is the kind of view which depends upon asserting the reality of the parts, but denying the reality of the whole, or, what is the same {323} thing, allowing that the individual is an end in himself, but denying that the State as a whole is such an end or has a separate life of its own.
The second kind of false view is of the opposite kind, and consists in allowing reality only to the whole State, and denying the reality of its parts, the individuals.
The opinions that the State is merely a mechanical aggregate of individuals, that it is formed by the combination of individuals or families for the sake of mutual protection and benefit, and that it exists only for these purposes, are examples of the first kind.
Such views subordinate the State to the individual.
The State is treated as an external contrivance for securing the life, the property, or the convenience of the individual.
The State exists solely for the sake of the individual, and is not in itself an end.
The individual alone is real, the State unreal, because it is only a collection of individuals.
These views forget that the State is an organism, and they forget all that this implies.
Aristotle would have condemned, on these grounds, the social contract theory so popular in the eighteenth century, and likewise the view of modern individualism that the State exists solely to ensure that the liberty of the individual is curtailed only by the right of other individuals to the same liberty.
The opposite kind of false view is illustrated by the ideal State of Plato.
As the views we have just discussed deny the reality of the whole, Plato's view, on the contrary, denies the reality of the parts.
For him the individual is nothing, the State everything.
The individual is absolutely sacrificed to the State.
He exists only _for_ the State, and thus Plato makes the mistake of setting up the State as sole end and denying that the {324} individual is an end in himself.
Plato imagined that the State is a homogeneous unity, in which its parts totally disappear.
But the true view is that the State, as an organism, is a unity which contains heterogeneity.
It is coherent, yet heterogeneous.
And Plato makes the same mistake in his view of the family as in his view of the individual.
The family, Aristotle thinks, is, like the individual, a real part of the social whole.
It is an organism within an organism.
As such, it is an end in itself, has absolute rights, and cannot be obliterated.
But Plato expressly proposed to abolish the family in favour of the State, and by suggesting community of wives and the education of children in State nurseries from the year of their birth, struck a deadly blow at an essential part of the State organization.
Aristotle thus supports the institution of family, not on sentimental, but upon philosophic grounds.
Aristotle gives no exhaustive classification of different kinds of State, because forms of government may be as various as the circumstances which give rise to them.
His classification is intended to include only outstanding types.
He finds that there are six such types, of which three are good.
The other three are bad, because they are corruptions of the good types.
These are (1) Monarchy, the rule of one man by virtue of his being so superior in wisdom to all his fellows that he naturally rules them.
The corruption of Monarchy is (2) Tyranny, the rule of one man founded not on wisdom and capacity, but upon force.
The second good form is (3) Aristocracy, the rule of the wiser and better few, of which the corrupt form is (4) Oligarchy, the rule of the rich and powerful few.
(5) Constitutional Republic or Timocracy arises {325} where all the citizens are of fairly equal capacity, i.e., where no stand-out individual or class exists, so that all or most take a share in the government.
The corresponding corrupt form is (6) Democracy, which, though it is the rule of the many, is more especially characterized as being the rule of the poor.
Unlike Plato, Aristotle depicts no ideal State.
No single State, he thinks, is in itself the best.
Everything must depend upon the circumstances.
What is the best State in one age and county will not be the best in another.
Moreover, it is useless to discuss Utopian constitutions.
What alone interests the sane and balanced mind of Aristotle is the kind of constitution which we may hope actually to realize.
Of the three good forms of government he considers that monarchy is theoretically the best.
The rule of a single perfectly wise and just man would be better than any other.
But it has to be given up as impracticable, because such perfect individuals do not exist.
And it is only among primitive peoples that we find the hero, the man whose moral stature so completely exalts him above his fellows that he rules as a matter of course.
The next best State is aristocracy.
And last, in Aristotle's opinion, comes constitutional republic, which is, however, perhaps the State best suited to the special needs and level of development of the Greek city-states.
6.
Aesthetics, or the Theory of Art.
Plato had no systematic philosophy of Art, and his views had to be collected from scattered references.
Aristotle likewise has scarcely a system, though his opinions are more connected, and though he devoted a special tretise, the "Poetics", to the subject.
And this {326} book, which has come down to us in a fragmentary condition, deals exclusively with poetry, and even in poetry only the drama is considered in detail.
What we have from Aristotle on the subject of aesthetics may be divided roughly into two classes, firstly, reflections on the nature and significance of art in general, and, secondly, a more detailed application of these principles to the art of poetry.
We shall deal with these two classes of opinions in that order.
In order to know what art is, we must first know what it is not.
It must be distinguished from kindred activities.
And firstly, it is distinguished from morality in that morality is concerned with action, art with production.
Morality consists in the activity itself, art in that which the activity produces.
Hence the state of mind of the actor, his motives, feelings, etc., are important in morality, for they are part of the act itself.
But they are not important in art, the only essential being that the work of art should turn out well, however it has been produced.
Secondly, art is distinguished from the activity of nature, which it in many respects resembles.
Organic beings reproduce their own kind, and, in the fact that it is concerned with production, generation resembles art.
But in generation, the living being produces only itself.
The plant produces a plant, man begets man.
But the artist produces something quite other than himself, a poem, a picture, a statue.
Art is of two kinds, according as it aims at completing the work of nature, or at creating something new, an imaginary world of its own which is a copy of the real world.
In the former case, we get such arts as that of {327} medicine.
Where nature has failed to produce a healthy body, the physician helps nature out, and completes the work that she has begun.
In the latter case, we get what are, in modern times, called the fine arts.
These Aristotle calls the imitative arts.
We saw that Plato regarded all art as imitative, and that such a view is essentially unsatisfactory.
Now Aristotle uses the same word, which he perhaps borrowed from Plato, but his meaning is not the same as Plato's, nor does he fall into the same mistakes.
That in calling art imitative he has not in mind the thought that it has for its aim merely the faithful copying of natural objects is proved by the fact that he mentions music as the most imitative of the arts, whereas music is, in fact, in this sense, the least imitative of all.
The painter may conceivably be regarded as imitating trees, rivers, or men, but the musician for the most part produces what is unlike anything in nature.
What Aristotle means is that the artist copies, not the sensuous object, but what Plato would call the Idea.
Art is thus not, in Plato's contemptuous phrase, a copy of a copy.
It is a copy of the original.
Its object is not this or that particular thing, but the universal which manifests itself in the particular.
Art idealizes nature, that is, sees the Idea in it.
It regards the individual thing, not as an individual, but in its universal aspects, as the fleeting embodiment of an eternal thought.
Hence it is that the sculptor depicts not the individual man, but rather the type-man, the perfection of his kind.
Hence too, in modern times, the portrait painter is not concerned to paint a faithful image of his model, but takes the model merely as a suggestion, and seizes upon that essential and eternal {328} essence, that ideal thought, or universal, which he sees shining through the sensuous materials in which it is imprisoned.
His task is to free it from this imprisonment.
The common man sees only the particular object.
The artist sees the universal in the particular.
Every individual thing is a compound of matter and form, of particular and universal.
The function of art is to exhibit the universal in it.
Hence poetry is truer, more philosophical, than history.
For history deals only with the particular as the particular.
It tells us only of the _fact_, of what has happened.
Its truth is mere correctness, accuracy.
It has not in it, as art has, the living and eternal truth.
It does not deal with the Idea.
It yields us only the knowledge of something that, having happened, having gone by, is finished.
Its object is transient and perishable.
It concerns only the endless iteration of meaningless events.
But the object of art is that inner essence of objects and events, which perishes not, and of which the objects and events are the mere external drapery.
If therefore we would arrange philosophy, art, and history, in order of their essential nobility and truth, we should place philosophy first, because its object is the universal as it is in itself, the pure universal.
We should place art second, because its object is the universal in the particular, and history last, because it deals only with the particular as such.
Yet because each thing in the world has its own proper function, and errs if it seeks to perform the functions of something else, hence, in Aristotle's opinion, art must not attempt to emulate philosophy.
It must not deal with the abstract universal.
The poet must not use his verses as a vehicle of abstract thought.
His proper {329} sphere is the universal as it manifests itself in the particular, not the universal as it is in itself.
Aristotle, for this reason, censures didactic poetry.
Such a poem as that of Empedocles, who unfolded his philosophical system in metre, is not, in fact, poetry at all.
It is versified philosophy.
Art is thus lower than philosophy.
The absolute reality, the inner essence of the world, is thought, reason, the universal.
To contemplate this reality is the object alike of philosophy and of art.
But art sees the Absolute not in its final truth, but wrapped up in a sensuous drapery.
Philosophy sees the Absolute as it is in itself, in its own nature, in its full truth; it sees it as what it essentially is, thought.
Philosophy, therefore, is the perfect truth.
But this does not mean that art is to be superseded and done away with.
Because philosophy is higher than art, it does not follow that a man should suppress the artist in himself in order to rise to philosophy.
For an essential thought of the Aristotelian philosophy is that, in the scale of beings, even the lower form is an end in itself, and has absolute rights.
The higher activities presuppose the lower, and rest upon them.
The higher includes the lower, and the lower, as an organic part of its being, cannot be eradicated without injury to the whole.
To suppress art in favour of philosophy would be a mistake precisely parallel to the moral error of asceticism.
In treating of Aristotle's ethics we saw that, although the activity of reason is held in highest esteem, the attempt to uproot the passions was censured as erroneous.
So here, though philosophy is the crown of man's spiritual activity, art has its rights, and is an absolute end in itself, a point which Plato failed to see.
In the human organism, the head is the {330} chief of the members.
But one does not cut off the hand because it is not the head.
Coming now to Aristotle's special treatment of the art of poetry, we may note that he concentrates his attention almost exclusively upon the drama.
It does not matter whether the plot of a drama is historical or fictitious.
For the object of art, the exhibition of the universal, is just as well attained in an imaginary as in a real series of events.
Its aim is not correctness, but truth, not facts, but the Idea.
Drama is of two kinds, tragedy and comedy.
Tragedy exhibits the nobler specimens of humanity, comedy the worse.
This remark should be carefully understood.
It does not mean that the hero of a tragedy is necessarily a good man in the ordinary sense.
He may even be a wicked man.
But the point is that, in some sense, he must be a great personality.
He cannot be an insignificant person.
He cannot be a nonentity.
Be he good or bad, he must be conceived in the grand manner.
Milton's Satan is not good, but he is great, and would be a fit subject for a tragedy.
The soundness of Aristotle's thought here is very noteworthy.
What is mean and sordid can never form the basis of tragedy.
Modern newspapers have done their best to debauch this word tragedy.
Some wretched noteless human being is crushed to death by a train, and the newspapers head their paragraph "Fearful Tragedy at Peckham Rye."
Now such an incident may be sad, it may be dreadful, it may be horrible, but it is not tragic.
Tragedy no doubt deals with suffering.
But there is nothing great and ennobling about this suffering, and tragedy is concerned with the sufferings of greatness.
In the same way, Aristotle does not mean that the comic {331} hero is necessarily a wicked man, but that he is, on the whole, a poor creature, an insignificant being.
He may be very worthy, but there is something low and ignoble about him which makes us laugh.
Tragedy brings about a purification of the soul through pity and terror.
Mean, sordid, or dreadful things do not ennoble us.
But the representation of truly great and tragic sufferings arouses in the beholder pity and terror which purge his spirit, and render it serene and pure.
This is the thought of a great and penetrating critic.
The theory of certain scholars, based upon etymological grounds, that it means that the soul is purged, not _through_, but _of_ pity and terror, that by means of a diarrhoea of these unpleasant emotions we get rid of them and are left happy, is the thought of men whose scholarship may be great, but whose understanding of art is limited.
Such a theory would reduce Aristotle's great and illuminating criticism to the meaningless babble of a philistine.
7.
Critical Estimate of Aristotle's Philosophy.
It is not necessary to spend so much time upon criticising Aristotle as we spent upon doing the same for Plato, and that for two reasons.
In the first place, Plato with his obvious greatness abounded in defects which had to be pointed out, whereas we have but little adverse criticism for Aristotle.
Secondly, Aristotle's main defect is a dualism almost identical with that of Plato, and what has been said of the one need only be shortly applied to the other.
At bottom Aristotle's philosophy is the same as Plato's, with some of the main defects and crudities removed.
Plato was the founder of the philosophy of the Idea.
{332} But in his hands, idealism was clogged with unessentials, and overgrown with excrescences.
His crude theory of the soul as a thing mechanically forced in and out of the body, his doctrines of reincarnation and recollection, the belief that this _thing_ the soul can travel to some place far away where it will see those _things_ the Ideas, and above all, what is the root of all these, the confusion between reality and existence, with its consequent degradation of the universal to a mere particular--these were the unessentials with which Plato connected his essential idealism.
To take the pure theory of Ideas--albeit not under that name--to purge it of these encumbrances and to cast them upon the rubbish heap, to cleanse Plato's gold of its dross, this was the task of Aristotle.
Thought, the universal, the Idea, form--call it what you will--this is the ultimate reality, the foundation of the world, the absolute prius of all things.
So thought both Plato and Aristotle.
But whereas Plato began to draw mental pictures of the universal, to imagine that it existed apart in a world of its own, and so might be experienced by the vision of the wandering soul, Aristotle saw that this was to treat thought as if it were a thing, to turn it into a mere particular again.
He saw that the universal, though it is the real, has no existence in a world of its own, but only in this world, only as a formative principle of particular things.
This is the key-note of his philosophy.
Aristotle registers, therefore, an enormous advance upon Plato.
His system is the perfected and completed Greek idealism.
It is the highest point reached in the philosophy of Greece.
The flower of all previous thought, the essence and pure distillation of the Greek philosophic spirit, the gathering {333} up of all that is good in his predecessors and the rejection of all that is faulty and worthless--such is the philosophy of Aristotle.
It was not possible for the Greek spirit to advance further.
Further development could be only decay.
And so, in fact, it turned out to be.
Aristotle deserves, too, the credit of having produced the only philosophy of evolution which the world has ever seen, with the exception of that of Hegel; and Hegel was enabled to found a newer theory of evolution only by following largely in the footsteps of Aristotle.
This was perhaps Aristotle's most original contribution to thought.
Yet the factors of the problem, though not its solution, he took from his predecessors.
The problem of becoming had tortured Greek thought from the earliest ages.
The philosophy of Heracleitus, in which it was most prominent, had failed to solve it.
Heracleitus and his successors racked their brains to discover how becoming could be possible.
But even if they had solved this minor problem, the greater question still remained in the background, what does this becoming mean?
Becoming for them was only meaningless change.
It was not development.
The world-process was an endless stream of futile and purposeless events, "a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Aristotle not merely asked himself how becoming is possible.
He showed that becoming has a meaning, that it signifies something, that the world-process is a rationally ordered development towards a rational end.
But, though Aristotle's philosophy is the highest presentation of the truth in ancient times, it cannot be accepted as anything final and faultless.
Doubtless no philosophy can ever attain to finality.
Let us apply our {334} two-fold test.
Does his principle explain the world, and does it explain itself?
First, does it explain the world?
The cause of Plato's failure here was the dualism in his system between sense and thought, between matter and the Ideas.
It was impossible to derive the world from the Ideas, because they were absolutely separated from the world.
The gulf was so great that it could never be bridged.
Matter and Idea lay apart, and could never be brought together.
Now Aristotle saw this dualism in Plato, and attempted to surmount it.
The universal and the particular, he said, do not thus lie apart, in different worlds.
The Idea is not a thing here, and matter a thing there, so that these two incommensurables have to be somehow mechanically and violently forced together to form a world.
Universal and particular, matter and form, are inseparable.
The connexion between them is not mechanical, but organic.
The dualism of Plato is thus admitted and refuted.
But is it really surmounted?
The answer must be in the negative.
It is not enough by a _tour de force_ to bring matter and form together, to assert that they are inseparable, while they remain all the time, in principle, separate entities.
If the Absolute is form, matter ought to be deduced from form, shown to be merely a projection and manifestation of it.
It must be shown that form not only moulds matter but produces it.
If we assert that the one primal reality is form, then clearly we must prove that all else in the world, including matter, arises out of that prime being.
Either matter arises out of form or it does not.
If it does, this arising must be exhibited.
If it does not, then form is not the sole ultimate reality, for matter is equally an ultimate, underivative, {335} primordial substance.
In that case, we thus have two equally real ultimate beings, each underived from the other, existing side by side from all eternity.
This is dualism, and this is the defect of Aristotle.
Not only does he not derive matter from form, but he obviously sees no necessity for doing so.
He would probably have protested against any attempt to do so, for, when he identifies the formal, final, and efficient causes with each other, leaving out the material cause, this is equivalent to an assertion that matter cannot be reduced to form.
Thus his dualism is deliberate and persistent.
The world, says Aristotle, is composed of matter and form.
Where does this matter come from?
As it does not, in his system, arise out of form, we can only conclude that its being is wholly in itself, i.e., that it is a substance, an absolute reality.
And this is utterly inconsistent with Aristotle's assertion that it is in itself nothing but a mere potentiality.
Thus, in the last resort, this dualism of sense and thought, of matter and Idea, of unlimited and limiting, which runs, "the little rift within the lute," through all Greek philosophy, is not resolved.
The world is not explained, because it is not derived from a single principle.
If form be the Absolute, the whole world must flow out of it.
In Aristotle's system, it does not.
Secondly, is the principle of form self-explanatory?
Here, again, we must answer negatively.
Most of what was said of Plato under this head applies equally to Aristotle.
Plato asserted that the Absolute is reason, and it was therefore incumbent on him to show that his account of reason was truly rational.
He failed to do so.
Aristotle asserts the same thing, for form is only {336} another word for reason.
Hence he must show us that this form is a rational principle, and this means that he must show us that it is necessary.
But he fails to do so.
How is form a necessary and self-determining principle?
Why should there be such a principle as form?
We cannot see any necessity.
It is a mere fact.
It is nothing but an ultimate mystery.
It is so, and that is an end of it.
But why it should be so, we cannot see.
Nor can we see why there should be any of the particular kinds of form that there are.
To explain this, Aristotle ought to have shown that the forms constitute a systematic unity, that they can be deduced one from another, just as we saw that Plato ought to have deduced all the Ideas from one another.
Thus Aristotle asserts that the form of plants is nutrition, of animals sensation, and that the one passes into the other.
But even if this assertion be true, it is a mere fact.
He ought not merely to have asserted this, but to have deduced sensation from nutrition.
Instead of being content to allege that, as a fact, nutrition passes into sensation, he ought to have shown that it must pass into sensation, that the passage from one to the other is a logical necessity.
Otherwise, we cannot see the reason why this change occurs.
That is to say, the change is not _explained_.
Consider the effects of this omission upon the theory of evolution.
We are told that the world-process moves towards an end, and that this end is the self-realization of reason, and that it is proximately attained in man, because man is a reasoning being.
So far this is quite intelligible.
But this implies that each step in evolution is higher than the last because it approaches nearer to {337} the end of the world-process.
And as that end is the realization of reason, this is equivalent to saying that each step is higher than the last because it is more rational.
But how is sensation more rational than nutrition?
Why should it not be the other way about?
Nutrition passes through sensation into human reason.
But why should not sensation pass through nutrition into human reason?
Why should not the order be reversed?
We cannot explain.
And such an admission is absolutely fatal to any philosophy of evolution.
The whole object of such a philosophy is to make it clear to us why the higher form is higher, and why the lower is lower: why, for example, nutrition must, as lower, come first, and sensation second, and not _vice versa_.
If we can see no reason why the order should not be reversed, this simply means that our philosophy of evolution has failed in its main point.
It means that we cannot see any real difference between lower and higher, and that therefore we have merely change without development, since it is indifferent whether A passes into B, or B into A.
The only way in which Aristotle could have surmounted these difficulties would have been to prove that sensation is a development of reason which goes beyond nutrition.
And he could only do this by showing that sensation logically arises out of nutrition.
For a logical development is the same as a rational development.
He ought to have logically deduced sensation from nutrition, and so with all the other forms.
As it is, all that can be said is that Aristotle was the founder of a philosophy of evolution because he saw that evolution implies movement towards an end, and because he attempted to point out the different stages in the attainment of that end, {338} but that he failed rationally to develop the doctrine stage by stage.
As neither the principle of form in general was shown to be necessary, nor were the particular forms deduced from each other, we have to conclude that Aristotle like Plato, _named_ a self-explanatory principle, reason or form, as ultimate principle of things, but failed to show in detail that it is self-explanatory.
Yet, in spite these defects, the philosophy of Aristotle is one of the greatest philosophies that the world has ever seen, or is ever likely to see.
If it does not solve all problems, it does render the world more intelligible to us than it was before.
{339} CHAPTER XIV THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY The rest of the story of Greek philosophy is soon told, for it is the story of decay.
The post-Aristotelian is the least instructive of the three periods of Greek thought, and I shall delineate only its main outlines.
The general characteristics of the decay of thought which set in after Aristotle are intimately connected with the political, social, and moral events of the time.
Although the huge empire of Alexander had broken up at the conqueror's death, this fact had in no way helped the Greek States to throw off the yoke of their oppressors.
With the single exception of Sparta, which stubbornly held out, they had become, for all intents and purposes, subject to the dominion of Macedonia.
And the death of Alexander did not alter this fact.
It was not merely that rude might had overwhelmed a beautiful and delicate civilization.
That civilization itself was decaying.
The Greeks had ceased to be a great and free people.
Their vitality was ebbing.
Had it not been one conqueror it would have been another.
They were growing old.
They had to give way before younger and sturdier races.
It was not so many years now before Greece, passing from one alien yoke to another, was to become no more than a Roman province.
{340} Philosophy is not something that subsists independently of the growth and decay of the spirit of man.
It goes hand in hand with political, social, religious, and artistic development.
Political organization, art, religion, science, and philosophy, are but different forms in which the life of a people expresses itself.
The innermost substance of the national life is found in the national philosophy, and the history of philosophy is the kernel of the history of nations.
It was but natural, then, that from the time of Alexander onwards Greek philosophy should exhibit symptoms of decay.
The essential mark of the decay of Greek thought was the intense subjectivism which is a feature of all the post-Aristotelian schools.
Not one of them is interested in the solution of the world-problem for its own sake.
The pure scientific spirit, the desire for knowledge for its own sake, is gone.
That curiosity, that wonder, of which Aristotle speaks as the inspiring spirit of philosophy, is dead.
The motive power of philosophy is no longer the disinterested pursuit of truth, but only the desire of the individual to escape from the ills of life.
Philosophy only interests men in so far as it affects their lives.
It becomes anthropocentric and egocentric.
Everything pivots on the individual subject, his destiny, his fate, the welfare of his soul.
Religion has long since become corrupted and worthless, and philosophy is now expected to do the work of religion, and to be a haven of refuge from the storms of life.
Hence it becomes essentially practical.
Before everything else it is ethical.
All other departments of thought are now subordinated to ethics.
It is not as in the days of the strength and youth of the Greek spirit, when Xenophanes or {341} Anaxagoras looked out into the heavens, and naively wondered what the sun and the stars were, and how the world arose.
Men's thought no longer turns outward toward the stars, but only inward upon themselves.
It is not the riddle of the universe, but the riddle of human life, which makes them ponder.
This subjectivism has as its necessary consequences, one-sidedness, absence of originality, and finally complete scepticism.
Since men are no longer interested in the wider problems of the universe, but only in the comparatively petty problems of human life, their outlook becomes exclusively ethical, narrow, and one-sided.
He who cannot forget his own self, cannot merge and lose himself in the universe, but looks at all things only as they affect himself, does not give birth to great and universal thoughts.
He becomes self-centred, and makes the universe revolve round him.
Hence we no longer have now great, universal, all-embracing systems, like those of Plato and Aristotle.
Metaphysics, physics, logic, are not studied for their own sakes, but only as preparations for ethics.
Narrowness, however, is always compensated by intensity, which in the end becomes fanaticism.
Hence the intense earnestness and almost miraculous heights of fanatical asceticism, to which the Stoics attained.
And an unbalanced and one-sided philosophy leads to extremes.
Such a philosophy, obsessed by a single idea, unrestrained by any consideration for other and equally important factors of truth, regardless of all other claims, pushes its idea pig-headedly to its logical extreme.
Such a procedure results in paradoxes and extravagances.
Hence the Stoics, if they made duty their watchword, must needs conceive it in {342} the most extreme opposition to all natural impulses, with a sternness unheard of in any previous ethical doctrine save that of the Cynics.
Hence the Sceptics, if they lighted on the thought that knowledge is difficult of attainment, must needs rush to the extreme conclusion that any knowledge is utterly impossible.
Hence the Neo-Platonists must needs cap all these tendencies by making out a drunken frenzy of the soul to be the true organ of philosophy, and by introducing into speculation all the fantastic paraphernalia of sorcery, demons, and demi-gods.
Absence of sanity and balance, then, are characteristics of the last period of Greek philosophy.
The serenity and calm of Plato and Aristotle are gone, and in their place we have turgidity and extravagance.
Lack of originality is a second consequence of the subjectivism of the age.
Since metaphysics, physics, and logic are not cultivated, except in a purely practical interest, they do not flourish.
Instead of advancing in these arenas of thought, the philosophies of the age go backwards.
Older systems, long discredited, are revived, and their dead bones triumphantly paraded abroad.
The Stoics return to Heracleitus for their physics, Epicurus resurrects the atomism of Democritus.
Even in ethics, on which they concentrate all their thought, these post-Aristotelian systems have nothing essentially new to say.
Stoicism borrows its principal ideas from the Cynics, Epicureanism from the Cyrenaics.
The post-Aristotelians rearrange old thoughts in a new order.
They take up the ideas of the past and exaggerate this or that aspect of them.
They twist and turn them in all directions, and squeeze them dry for a drop of new life.
{343} But in the end nothing new eventuates.
Greek thought is finished, and there is nothing new to be got out of it, torture it how they will.
From the first Stoic to the last Neo-Platonist, there is no essentially new principle added to philosophy, unless we count as such the sad and jaded ideas which the Neo-Platonists introduced from the East.
Lastly, subjectivism ends naturally in scepticism, the denial of all knowledge, the rejection of all philosophy.
We have already seen, in the Sophists, the phenomenon of subjectivism leading to scepticism.
The Sophists made the individual subject the measure of truth and morals, and in the end this meant the denial of truth and morality altogether.
So it is now.
The subjectivism of the Stoics and Epicureans is followed by the scepticism of Pyrrho and his successors.
With them, as with the Sophists, nothing is true or good in itself, but only opinion makes it so.
{344} CHAPTER XV THE STOICS Zeno of Cyprus, the founder of the Stoic School, a Greek of Phoenician descent, was born about 342 B.C., and died in 270.
He is said to have followed philosophy; because he lost all his property in a ship-wreck--a motive characteristic of the age.
He came to Athens, and learned philosophy under Crates the Cynic, Stilpo the Megaric, and Polemo the Academic.
About 300 B.C.
he founded his school at the Stoa Poecile (many-coloured portico) whence the name Stoic.
He died by his own hand.
He was followed by Cleanthes, and then by Chrysippus, as leaders of the school.
Chrysippus was a man of immense productivity and laborious scholarship.
He composed over seven hundred books, but all are lost.
Though not the founder, he was the chief pillar of Stoicism.
The school attracted many adherents, and flourished for many centuries, not only in Greece, but later in Rome, where the most thoughtful writers, such as Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, counted themselves among its followers.
We know little for certain as to what share particular Stoics, Zeno, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, had in the formation of the doctrines of the school.
But after Chrysippus the main lines of the doctrine were complete.
{345} We shall deal, therefore, with Stoicism as a whole, and not with the special teaching of particular Stoics.
The system is divided into three parts, Logic, Physics, and Ethics, of which the first two are entirely subservient to the last.
Stoicism is essentially a system of ethics which, however, is guided by a logic as theory of method, and rests upon physics as foundation.
Logic.
We may pass over the formal logic of the Stoics, which is, in all essentials, the logic of Aristotle.
To this, however, they added a theory, peculiar to themselves, of the origin of knowledge and the criterion of truth.
All knowledge, they said, enters the mind through the senses.
The mind is a _tabula rasa_, upon which sense-impressions are inscribed.
It may have a certain activity of its own, but this activity is confined exclusively to materials supplied by the physical organs of sense.
This theory stands, of course, in sheer opposition to the idealism of Plato, for whom the mind alone was the source of knowledge, the senses being the sources of all illusion and error.
The Stoics denied the metaphysical reality of concepts.
Concepts are merely ideas in the mind, abstracted from particulars, and have no reality outside consciousness.
Since all knowledge is a knowledge of sense-objects, truth is simply the correspondence of our impressions to things.
How are we to know whether our ideas are correct copies of things?
How distinguish between reality and imagination, dreams, or illusions?
What is the criterion of truth?
It cannot lie in concepts, since these are of our own making.
Nothing is true save {346} sense-impressions, and therefore the criterion of truth must lie in sensation itself.
It cannot be in thought, but must be in feeling.
Real objects, said the Stoics, produce in us an intense feeling, or conviction, of their reality.
The strength and vividness of the image distinguish these real perceptions from a dream or fancy.
Hence the sole criterion of truth is this striking conviction, whereby the real forces itself upon our consciousness, and will not be denied.
The relapse into complete subjectivity will here be noted.
There is no universally grounded criterion of truth.
It is based, not on reason, but on feeling.
All depends on the subjective convictions of the individual.
Physics.
The fundamental proposition of the Stoic physics is that "nothing incorporeal exists."
This materialism coheres with the sensationalism of their doctrine of knowledge.
Plato placed knowledge in thought, and reality, therefore, in the Idea.
The Stoics, however, place knowledge in physical sensation, and reality, therefore, in what is known by the senses, matter.
All things, they said, even the soul, even God himself, are material and nothing more than material.
This belief they based upon two main considerations.
Firstly, the unity of the world demands it.
The world is one, and must issue from one principle.
We must have a monism.
The idealism of Plato and Aristotle had resolved itself into a futile struggle against the dualism of matter and thought.
Since the gulf cannot be bridged from the side of the Idea, we must take our stand on matter, and reduce mind to it.
Secondly, body and soul, God and {347} the world, are pairs which act and react upon one another.
The body, for example, produces thoughts (sense-impressions) in the soul, the soul produces movements in the body.
This would be impossible if both were not of the same substance.
The corporeal cannot act on the incorporeal, nor the incorporeal on the corporeal.
There is no point of contact.
Hence all must be equally corporeal.
All things being material, what is the original kind of matter, or stuff, out of which the world is made?
The Stoics turned to Heracleitus for an answer.
Fire is the primordial kind of being, and all things are composed of fire.
With this materialism the Stoics combined pantheism.
The primal fire is God.
God is related to the world exactly as the soul to the body.
The human soul is likewise fire, and comes from the divine fire.
It permeates and penetrates the entire body, and, in order that its interpenetration might be regarded as complete, the Stoics denied the impenetrability of matter.
Just as the soul-fire permeates the whole body, so God, the primal fire, pervades the entire world.
He is the soul of the world.
The world is His body.
But in spite of this materialism, the Stoics averred that God is absolute reason.
This is not a return to idealism.
It does not imply the incorporeality of God.
For reason, like all else, is material.
It means simply that the divine fire is a rational element.
Since God is reason, it follows that the world is governed by reason, and this means two things.
It means, firstly, that there is purpose in the world, and therefore, order, harmony, beauty, and design.
Secondly, since reason is law as opposed to the lawless, it means that the universe is {348} subject to the absolute sway of law, is governed by the rigorous necessity of cause and effect.
Hence the individual is not free.
There can be no true freedom of the will in a world governed by necessity.
We may, without harm, say that we choose to do this or that, that our acts are voluntary.
But such phrases merely mean that we assent to what we do.
What we do is none the less governed by causes, and therefore by necessity.
The world-process is circular.
God changes the fiery substance of himself first into air, then water, then earth.
So the world arises.
But it will be ended by a conflagration in which all things will return into the primal fire.
Thereafter, at a pre-ordained time, God will again transmute himself into a world.
It follows from the law of necessity that the course taken by this second, and every subsequent, world, will be identical in every way with the course taken by the first world.
The process goes on for ever, and nothing new ever happens.
The history of each successive world is the same as that of all the others down to the minutest details.
The human soul is part of the divine fire, and proceeds into man from God.
Hence it is a rational soul, and this is a point of cardinal importance in connexion with the Stoic ethics.
But the soul of each individual does not come direct from God.
The divine fire was breathed into the first man, and thereafter passes from parent to child in the act of procreation.
After death, all souls, according to some, but only the souls of the good, according to others, continue in individual existence until the general conflagration in which they, and all else, return to God.
{349} Ethics.
The Stoic ethical teaching is based upon two principles already developed in their physics; first, that the universe is governed by absolute law, which admits of no exceptions; and second, that the essential nature of man is reason.
Both are summed up in the famous Stoic maxim, "Live according to nature."
For this maxim has two aspects.
It means, in the first place, that men should conform themselves to nature in the wider sense, that is, to the laws of the universe, and secondly, that they should conform their actions to nature in the narrower sense, to their own essential nature, reason.
These two expressions mean, for the Stoics, the same thing.
For the universe is governed not only by law, but by the law of reason, and man in following his own rational nature is _ipso facto_ conforming himself to the laws of the larger world.
In a sense, of course, there is no possibility of man's disobeying the laws of nature, for he, like all else in the world, acts of necessity.
And it might be asked, what is the use of exhorting a man to obey the laws of the universe, when, as part of the great mechanism of the world, he cannot by any possibility do anything else?
It is not to be supposed that a genuine solution of this difficulty is to be found in Stoic philosophy.
They urged, however, that, though man will in any case do as the necessity of the world compels him, it is given to him alone, not merely to obey the law, but to assent to his own obedience, to follow the law consciously and deliberately, as only a rational being can.
Virtue, then, is the life according to reason.
Morality is simply rational action.
It is the universal reason which is to govern our lives, not the caprice and self-will {350} of the individual.
The wise man consciously subordinates his life to the life of the whole universe, and recognises himself as merely a cog in the great machine.
Now the definition of morality as the life according to reason is not a principle peculiar to the Stoics.
Both Plato and Aristotle taught the same.
In fact, as we have already seen, to found morality upon reason, and not upon the particular foibles, feelings, or intuitions, of the individual self, is the basis of every genuine ethic.
But what was peculiar to the Stoics was the narrow and one-sided interpretation which they gave to this principle.
Aristotle had taught that the essential nature of man is reason, and that morality consists in following this, his essential nature.
But he recognized that the passions and appetites have their place in the human organism.
He did not demand their suppression, but merely their control by reason.
But the Stoics looked upon the passions as essentially irrational, and demanded their complete extirpation.
They envisaged life as a battle against the passions, in which the latter had to be completely annihilated.
Hence their ethical views end in a rigorous and unbalanced asceticism.
Aristotle, in his broad and moderate way, though he believed virtue alone to possess intrinsic value, yet allowed to external goods and circumstances a place in the scheme of life.
The Stoics asserted that virtue alone is good, vice alone evil, and that all else is absolutely indifferent.
Poverty, sickness, pain, and death, are not evils.
Riches, health, pleasure, and life, are not goods.
A man may commit suicide, for in destroying his life he destroys nothing of value.
Above all, pleasure is not a good.
One ought not to seek pleasure.
Virtue is {351} the only happiness.
And man must be virtuous, not for the sake of pleasure, but for the sake of duty.
And since virtue alone is good, vice alone evil, there followed the further paradox that all virtues are equally good, and all vices equally evil.
There are no degrees.
Virtue is founded upon reason, and so upon knowledge.
Hence the importance of science, physics, logic, which are valued not for themselves, but because they are the foundations of morality.
The prime virtue, and the root of all other virtues, is therefore wisdom.
The wise man is synonymous with the good man.
From the root-virtue, wisdom, spring the four cardinal virtues, insight, bravery, self-control, justice.
But since all virtues have one root, he who possesses wisdom possesses all virtue, he who lacks it lacks all.
A man is either wholly virtuous, or wholly vicious.
The world is divided into wise men and fools, the former perfectly good, the latter absolutely evil.
There is nothing between the two.
There is no such thing as a gradual transition from one to the other.
Conversion must be instantaneous.
The wise man is perfect, has all happiness, freedom, riches, beauty.
He alone is the perfect king, statesman, poet, prophet, orator, critic, physician.
The fool has all vice, all misery, all ugliness, all poverty.
And every man is one or the other.
Asked where such a wise man was to be found, the Stoics pointed doubtfully at Socrates and Diogenes the Cynic.
The number of the wise, they thought, is small, and is continually growing smaller.
The world, which they painted in the blackest colours as a sea of vice and misery, grows steadily worse.
In all this we easily recognize the features of a resuscitated Cynicism.
But the Stoics modified and softened {352} the harsh outlines of Cynicism, and rounded off its angles.
To do this meant inconsistency.
It meant that they first laid down harsh principles, and then proceeded to tone them down, to explain them away, to admit exceptions.
Such inconsistency the Stoics accepted with their habitual cheerfulness.
This process of toning down their first harsh utterances took place mainly in three ways.
In the first place, they modified their principle of the complete extirpation of the passions.
Since this is impossible, and, if possible, could only lead to immovable inactivity, they admitted that the wise man might exhibit certain mild and rational emotions, and that the roots of the passions might be found in him, though he never allowed them to grow.
In the second place, they modified their principle that all else, save virtue and vice, is indifferent.
Such a view is unreal, and out of accord with life.
Hence the Stoics, with a masterly disregard of consistency, stuck to the principle, and yet declared that among things indifferent some are preferable to others.
If the wise man has the choice between health and sickness, he will choose the former.
Indifferent things were divided into three classes, those to be preferred, those to be avoided, and those which are absolutely indifferent.
In the third place, the Stoics toned down the principle that men are either wholly good, or wholly evil.
The famous heroes and statesmen of history, though fools, are yet polluted with the common vices of mankind less than others.
Moreover, what were the Stoics to say about themselves?
Were they wise men or fools?
They hesitated to claim perfection, to put themselves on a level with Socrates and Diogenes.
Yet they could not bring themselves to admit that there was {353} no difference between themselves and the common herd.
They were "proficients," and, if not absolutely wise, approximated to wisdom.
If the Stoics were thus merely less consistent Cynics, and originated nothing in the doctrines of physics and ethics so far considered, yet of one idea at least they can claim to be the inventors.
This was the idea of cosmopolitanism.
This they deduced from two grounds.
Firstly, the universe is one, proceeds from one God, is ordered by one law, and forms one system.
Secondly, however much men may differ in unessentials, they share their essential nature, their reason, in common.
Hence all men are of one stock, as rational beings, and should form one State.
The division of mankind into warring States is irrational and absurd.
The wise man is not a citizen of this or that State.
He is a citizen of the world.
This is, however, only an application of principles already asserted.
The Stoics produced no essentially new thought, in physics, or in ethics.
Their entire stock of ideas is but a new combination of ideas already developed by their predecessors.
They were narrow, extreme, over-rigorous, and one-sided.
Their truths are all half-truths.
And they regarded philosophy too subjectively.
What alone interested them was the question, how am I to live?
Yet in spite of these defects, there is undoubtedly something grand and noble about their zeal for duty, their exaltation above all that is petty and paltry, their uncompromising contempt for all lower ends.
Their merit, says Schwegler, was that "in an age of ruin they held fast by the moral idea."
{354} CHAPTER XVI THE EPICUREANS Epicurus was born at Samos in 342 B.C.
He founded his school a year or two before Zeno founded the Stoa, so that the two schools from the first ran parallel in time.
The school of Epicurus lasted over six centuries.
Epicurus early became acquainted with the atomism of Democritus, but his learning in earlier systems of philosophy does not appear to have been extensive.
He was a man of estimable life and character.
He founded his school in 306 B.C.
The Epicurean philosophy was both founded and completed by him.
No subsequent Epicurean to any appreciable extent added to or altered the doctrines laid down by the founder.
The Epicurean system is even more purely practical in tendency than the Stoic.
In spite of the fact that Stoicism subordinates logic and physics to ethics, yet the diligence and care which the Stoics bestowed upon such doctrines as those of the criterion of truth, the nature of the world, the soul, and so on, afford evidence of a genuine, if subordinate, interest in these subjects.
Epicurus likewise divided his system into logic (which he called canonic), physics, and ethics, yet the two former branches of thought are pursued with an obvious carelessness and absence of interest.
It is evident that learned {355} discussions bored Epicurus.
His system is amiable and shallow.
Knowledge for its own sake is not desired.
Mathematics, he said, are useless, because they have no connexion with life.
The logic, or canonic, we may pass over completely, as possessing no elements of interest, and come at once to the physics.
Physics.
Physics interests Epicurus only from one point of view--its power to banish superstitious fear from the minds of men.
All supernatural religion, he thought, operates for the most part upon mankind by means of fear.
Men are afraid of the gods, afraid of retribution, afraid of death because of the stories of what comes after death.
This incessant fear and anxiety is one of the chief causes of the unhappiness of men.
Destroy it, and we have at least got rid of the prime hindrance to human happiness.
We can only do this by means of a suitable doctrine of physics.
What is necessary is to be able to regard the world as a piece of mechanism, governed solely by natural causes, without any interference by supernatural beings, in which man is free to find his happiness how and when he will, without being frightened by the bogeys of popular religion.
For though the world is ruled mechanically, man, thought Epicurus in opposition to the Stoics, possesses free will, and the problem of philosophy is to ascertain how he can best use this gift in a world otherwise mechanically governed.
What he required, therefore, was a purely mechanical philosophy.
To invent such a philosophy for himself was a task not suited to his indolence, and for which he could not pretend to possess the necessary {356} qualifications.
Therefore he searched the past, and soon found what he wanted in the atomism of Democritus.
This, as an entirely mechanical philosophy, perfectly suited his ends, and the pragmatic spirit in which he chose his beliefs, not on any abstract grounds of their objective truth, but on the basis of his subjective needs and personal wishes, will be noted.
It is a sign of the times.
When truth comes to be regarded as something that men may construct in accordance with their real or imagined needs, and not in accordance with any objective standard, we are well advanced upon the downward path of decay.
Epicurus, therefore, adopted the atomism of Democritus _en bloc_, or with trifling modifications.
All things are composed of atoms and the void.
Atoms differ only in shape and weight, not in quality.
They fall eternally through the void.
By virtue of free will, they deviate infinitesimally from the perpendicular in their fall, and so clash against one another.
This, of course, is an invention of Epicurus, and formed no part of the doctrine of Democritus.
It might be expected of Epicurus that his modifications would not be improvements.
In the present case, the attribution of free will to the atoms adversely affects the logical consistency of the mechanical theory.
From the collision of atoms arises a whirling movement out of which the world emerges.
Not only the world, but all individual phenomena, are to be explained mechanically.
Teleology is rigorously excluded.
In any particular case, however, Epicurus is not interested to know what particular causes determine a phenomenon.
It is enough for him to be sure that it is wholly determined by mechanical causes, and that supernatural agencies are excluded.
{357} The soul being composed of atoms which are scattered at death, a future life is not to be thought of.
But this is to be regarded as the greatest blessing.
It frees us from the fear of death, and the fear of a hereafter.
Death is not an evil.
For if death is, we are not; if we are, death is not.
When death comes we shall not feel it, for is it not the end of all feeling and consciousness?
And there is no reason to fear now what we know that we shall not feel when it comes.
Having thus disposed of the fear of retribution in a future life, Epicurus proceeds to dispose of the fear of the interference of the gods in this life.
One might have expected that Epicurus would for this purpose have embraced atheism.
But he does not deny the existence of the gods.
On the contrary, he believed that there are innumerable gods.
They have the form of men, because that is the most beautiful of all forms.
They have distinctions in sex.
They eat, drink, and talk Greek.
Their bodies are composed of a substance like light.
But though Epicurus allows them to exist, he is careful to disarm them, and to rob them of their fears.
They live in the interstellar spaces, an immortal, calm, and blessed existence.
They do not intervene in the affairs of the world, because they are perfectly happy.
Why should they burden themselves with the control of that which nowise concerns them?
Theirs is the beatitude of a wholly untroubled joy.
"Immortal are they, clothed with powers, Not to be comforted at all, Lords over all the fruitless hours, Too great to appease, too high to appal, Too far to call."
[Footnote 17] [Footnote 17: A. C. Swinburne's _Felise_.]
{358} Man, therefore, freed from the fear of death and the fear of the gods, has no duty save to live as happily as he can during his brief space upon earth.
We can quit the realm of physics with a light heart, and turn to what alone truly matters, ethics, the consideration of how man ought to conduct his life.
Ethics.
If the Stoics were the intellectual successors of the Cynics, the Epicureans bear the same relation to the Cyrenaics.
Like Aristippus, they founded morality upon pleasure, but they differ because they developed a purer and nobler conception of pleasure than the Cyrenaics had known.
Pleasure alone is an end in itself.
It is the only good.
Pain is the only evil.
Morality, therefore, is an activity which yields pleasure.
Virtue has no value on its own account, but derives its value from the pleasure which accompanies it.
This is the only foundation which Epicurus could find, or desired to find, for moral activity.
This is his only ethical principle.
The rest of the Epicurean ethics consists in the interpretation of the idea of pleasure.
And, firstly, by pleasure Epicurus did not mean, as the Cyrenaics did, merely the pleasure of the moment, whether physical or mental.
He meant the pleasure that endures throughout a lifetime, a happy life.
Hence we are not to allow ourselves to be enslaved by any particular pleasure or desire.
We must master our appetites.
We must often forego a pleasure if it leads in the end to greater pain.
We must be ready to undergo pain for the sake of a greater pleasure to come.
And it was just for this reason, secondly, that the {359} Epicureans regarded spiritual and mental pleasures as far more important than those of the body.
For the body feels pleasure and pain only while they last.
The body has in itself neither memory nor fore-knowledge.
It is the mind which remembers and foresees.
And by far the most potent pleasures and pains are those of remembrance and anticipation.
A physical pleasure is a pleasure to the body only now.
But the anticipation of a future pain is mental anxiety, the remembrance of a past joy is a present delight.
Hence what is to be aimed at above all is a calm untroubled mind, for the pleasures of the body are ephemeral, those of the spirit enduring.
The Epicureans, like the Stoics, preached the necessity of superiority to bodily pains and external circumstances.
So a man must not depend for his happiness upon externals; he must have his blessedness in his own self.
The wise man can be happy even in bodily torment, for in the inner tranquillity of his soul he possesses a happiness which far outweighs any bodily pain.
Yet innocent pleasures of sense are neither forbidden, nor to be despised.
The wise man will enjoy whatever he can without harm.
Of all mental pleasures the Epicureans laid, perhaps, most stress upon friendship.
The school was not merely a collection of fellow-philosophers, but above all a society of friends.
Thirdly, the Epicurean ideal of pleasure tended rather towards a negative than a positive conception of it.
It was not the state of enjoyment that they aimed at, much less the excitement of the feelings.
Not the feverish pleasures of the world constituted their ideal.
They aimed rather at a negative absence of pain, at tranquillity, quiet calm, repose of spirit, undisturbed by fears and {360} anxieties.
As so often with men whose ideal is pleasure, their view of the world was tinged with a gentle and even luxurious pessimism.
Positive happiness is beyond the reach of mortals.
All that man can hope for is to avoid pain, and to live in quiet contentment.
Fourthly, pleasure does not consist in the multiplication of needs and their subsequent satisfaction.
The multiplication of wants only renders it more difficult to satisfy them.
It complicates life without adding to happiness.
We should have as few needs as possible.
Epicurus himself lived a simple life, and advised his followers to do the same.
The wise man, he said, living on bread and water, could vie with Zeus himself in happiness.
Simplicity, cheerfulness, moderation, temperance, are the best means to happiness.
The majority of human wants, and the example of the thirst for fame is quoted, are entirely unnecessary and useless.
Lastly, the Epicurean ideal, though containing no possibility of an exalted nobility, was yet by no means entirely selfish.
A kindly, benevolent temper appeared in these men.
It is pleasanter, they said, to do a kindness than to receive one.
There is little of the stern stuff of heroes, but there is much that is gentle and lovable, in the amiable moralizings of these butterfly-philosophers.
{361} CHAPTER XVII THE SCEPTICS Scepticism is a semi-technical term in philosophy, and means the doctrine which doubts or denies the possibility of knowledge.
It is thus destructive of philosophy, since philosophy purports to be a form of knowledge.
Scepticism appears and reappears at intervals in the history of thought.
We have already met with it among the Sophists.
When Gorgias said that, if anything exists, it cannot be known, this was a direct expression of the sceptical spirit.
And the Protagorean "Man is the measure of all things" amounts to the same thing, for it implies that man can only know things as they appear to him, and not as they are in themselves.
In modern times the most noted sceptic was David Hume, who attempted to show that the most fundamental categories of thought, such as substance and causality, are illusory, and thereby to undermine the fabric of knowledge.
Subjectivism usually ends in scepticism.
For knowledge is the relation of subject and object, and to lay exclusive emphasis upon one of its terms, the subject, ignoring the object, leads to the denial of the reality of everything except that which appears to the subject.
This was so with the Sophists.
And now we have the reappearance of a similar {362} phenomenon.
The Sceptics, of whom we are about to treat, made their appearance at about the same time as the Stoics and Epicureans.
The subjective tendencies of these latter schools find their logical conclusion in the Sceptics.
Scepticism makes its appearance usually, but not always, when the spiritual forces of a race are in decay.
When its spiritual and intellectual impulses are spent, the spirit flags, grows weary, loses confidence, begins to doubt its power of finding truth; and the despair of truth is scepticism.
Pyrrho.
The first to introduce a thorough-going scepticism among the Greeks was Pyrrho.
He was born about 360 B.C., and was originally a painter.
He took part in the Indian expedition of Alexander the Great.
He left no writings, and we owe our knowledge of his thoughts chiefly to his disciple Timon of Phlius.
His philosophy, in common with all post-Aristotelian systems, is purely practical in its outlook.
Scepticism, the denial of knowledge, is not posited on account of its speculative interest, but only because Pyrrho sees in it the road to happiness, and the escape from the calamities of life.
The proper course of the sage, said Pyrrho, is to ask himself three questions.
Firstly, he must ask what things are and how they are constituted; secondly, how we are related to these things; thirdly, what ought to be our attitude towards them.
As to what things are, we can only answer that we know nothing.
We only know how things appear to us, but of their inner substance we are ignorant.
The same thing appears differently to different people, and therefore it is {363} impossible to know which opinion is right.
The diversity of opinion among the wise, as well as among the vulgar, proves this.
To every assertion the contradictory assertion can be opposed with equally good grounds, and whatever my opinion, the contrary opinion is believed by somebody else who is quite as clever and competent to judge as I am.
Opinion we may have, but certainty and knowledge are impossible.
Hence our attitude to things (the third question), ought to be complete suspense of judgment.
We can be certain of nothing, not even of the most trivial assertions.
Therefore we ought never to make any positive statements on any subject.
And the Pyrrhonists were careful to import an element of doubt even into the most trifling assertions which they might make in the course of their daily life.
They did not say, "it is so," but "it seems so," or "it appears so to me."
Every observation would be prefixed with a "perhaps," or "it may be."
This absence of certainty applies as much to practical as to theoretical matters.
Nothing is in itself true or false.
It only appears so.
In the same way, nothing is in itself good or evil.
It is only opinion, custom, law, which makes it so.
When the sage realizes this, he will cease to prefer one course of action to another, and the result will be apathy, _"ataraxia.
"_ All action is the result of preference, and preference is the belief that one thing is better than another.
If I go to the north, it is because, for one reason or another, I believe that it is better than going to the south.
Suppress this belief, learn that the one is not in reality better than the other, but only appears so, and one would go in no direction at all.
Complete suppression of opinion would mean complete {364} suppression of action, and it was at this that Pyrrho aimed.
To have no opinions was the sceptical maxim, because in practice it meant apathy, total quietism.
All action is founded on belief, and all belief is delusion, hence the absence of all activity is the ideal of the sage.
In this apathy he will renounce all desires, for desire is the opinion that one thing is better than another.
He will live in complete repose, in undisturbed tranquillity of soul, free from all delusions.
Unhappiness is the result of not attaining what one desires, or of losing it when attained.
The wise man, being free from desires, is free from unhappiness.
He knows that, though men struggle and fight for what they desire, vainly supposing some things better than others, such activity is but a futile struggle about nothing, for all things are equally indifferent, and nothing matters.
Between health and sickness, life and death, difference there is none.
Yet in so far as the sage is compelled to act, he will follow probability, opinion, custom, and law, but without any belief in the essential validity or truth of these criteria.
The New Academy.
The scepticism founded by Pyrrho soon became extinct, but an essentially similar doctrine began to be taught in the school of Plato.
After the death of Plato, the Academy continued, under various leaders, to follow in the path marked out by the founder.
But, under the leadership of Arcesilaus, scepticism was introduced into the school, and from that time, therefore, it is usually known as the New Academy, for though its historical continuity as a school was not broken, its essential character underwent change.
What especially {365} characterized the New Academy was its fierce opposition to the Stoics, whom its members attacked as the chief dogmatists of the time.
Dogmatism, for us, usually means making assertions without proper grounds.
But since scepticism regards all assertions as equally ill-grounded, the holding of any positive opinion whatever is by it regarded as dogmatism.
The Stoics were the most powerful, influential, and forceful of all those who at that time held any positive philosophical opinions.
Hence they were singled out for attack by the New Academy as the greatest of dogmatists.
Arcesilaus attacked especially their doctrine of the criterion of truth.
The striking conviction which, according to the Stoics, accompanies truth, equally accompanies error.
There is no criterion of truth, either in sense or in reason.
"I am certain of nothing," said Arcesilaus; "I am not even certain that I am certain of nothing."
But the Academics did not draw from their scepticism, as Pyrrho had done, the full logical conclusion as regards action.
Men, they thought, must act.
And, although certainty and knowledge are impossible, probability is a sufficient guide for action.
Carneades is usually considered the greatest of the Academic Sceptics.
Yet he added nothing essentially new to their conclusions.
He appears, however, to have been a man of singularly acute and powerful mind, whose destructive criticism acted like a battering-ram not only upon Stoicism, but upon all established philosophies.
As examples of his thoughts may be mentioned the two following.
Firstly, nothing can ever be proved.
For the conclusion must be proved by premises, which in turn require proof, and so _ad infinitum_.
Secondly, {366} it is impossible to know whether our ideas of an object are true, i.e., whether they resemble the object, because we cannot compare our idea with the object itself.
To do so would involve getting outside our own minds.
We know nothing of the object except our idea of it, and therefore we cannot compare the original and the copy, since we can see only the copy.
Later Scepticism.
After a period of obliteration, Scepticism again revived in the Academy.
Of this last phase of Greek scepticism, Aenesidemus, a contemporary of Cicero, is the earliest example, and later we have the well-known names of Simplicius and Sextus Empiricus.
The distinctive character of later scepticism is its return to the position of Pyrrho.
The New Academy, in its eagerness to overthrow the Stoic dogmatism, had fallen into a dogmatism of its own.
If the Stoics dogmatically asserted, the Academics equally dogmatically denied.
But wisdom lies neither in assertion nor denial, but in doubt.
Hence the later Sceptics returned to the attitude of complete suspense of judgment.
Moreover, the Academics had allowed the possibility of probable knowledge.
And even this is now regarded as dogmatism.
Aenesidemus was the author of the ten well-known arguments to show the impossibility of knowledge.
They contain in reality, not ten, but only two or three distinct ideas, several being merely different expressions of the same line of reasoning.
They are as follows.
(1) The feelings and perceptions of all living beings differ.
(2) Men have physical and mental differences, which make things appear different to them.
(3) The different senses give different {367} impressions of things.
(4) Our perceptions depend on our physical and intellectual conditions at the time of perception.
(5) Things appear different in different positions, and at different distances.
(6) Perception is never direct, but always through a medium.
For example, we see things through the air.
(7) Things appear different according to variations in their quantity, colour, motion, and temperature.
(8) A thing impresses us differently when it is familiar and when it is unfamiliar.
(9) All supposed knowledge is predication.
All predicates give us only the relation of things to other things or to ourselves; they never tell us what the thing in itself is.
(10) The opinions and customs of men are different in different countries.
{368} CHAPTER XVIII TRANSITION TO NEO-PLATONISM It has been doubted whether Neo-Platonism ought to be included in Greek philosophy at all, and Erdmann, in his "History of Philosophy," places it in the medieval division.
For, firstly, an interval of no less than five centuries separates the foundation of Neo-Platonism from the foundation of the preceding Greek schools, the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Sceptic.
How long a period this is will be seen if we remember that the entire development of Greek thought from Thales to the Sceptics occupied only about three centuries.
Plotinus, the real founder of Neo-Platonism, was born in 205 A.D., so that it is, as far as historical time is concerned, a product of the Christian era.
Secondly, its character is largely un-Greek and un-European.
The Greek elements are largely swamped by oriental mysticism.
Its seat was not in Greece, but at Alexandria, which was not a Greek, but a cosmopolitan, city.
Men of all races met here, and, in particular, it was here that East and West joined hands, and the fusion of thought which resulted was Neo-Platonism.
But, on the other hand, it seems wrong to include the thought of Plotinus and his successors in medieval philosophy.
The whole character of what is usually called medieval philosophy was determined by its growth upon a distinctively Christian soil.
It was {369} Christian philosophy.
It was the product of the new era which Christianity had substituted for paganism.
Neo-Platonism, on the other hand, is not only unchristian, but even anti-christian.
The only Christian influence to be detected in it is that of opposition.
It is a survival of the pagan spirit in Christian times.
In it the old pagan spirit struggles desperately against its younger antagonist, and finally succumbs.
In it we see the last gasp and final expiry of the ancient culture of the Greeks.
So far as it is not Asiatic in its elements, it draws its inspiration wholly from the philosophies of the past, from the thought and culture of Greece.
On the whole, therefore, it is properly classified as the last school of Greek philosophy.
The long interval of time which elapsed between the rise of the preceding Greek schools, whose history we have traced, and the foundation of Neo-Platonism, was filled up by the continued existence, in more or less fossilized form, of the main Greek schools, the Academic, the Peripatetic, the Stoic, and the Epicurean, scattered and harried at times by the inroads of scepticism.
It would be wearisome to follow in detail the development in these schools, and the more or less trifling disputes of which it consists.
No new thought, no original principle, supervened.
It is sufficient to say that, as time went on, the differences between the schools became softened, and their agreements became more prominent.
As intellectual vigour wanes, there is always the tendency to forget differences, to rest, as the orientals do, in the good-natured and comfortable delusion that all religions and all philosophies really mean much the same thing.
Hence eclecticism became characteristic of the schools.
{370} They did not keep themselves distinct.
We find Stoic doctrines taught by Academics, Academic doctrines by Stoics.
Only the Epicureans kept their race pure, and stood aloof from the general eclecticism of the time.
Certain other tendencies also made their appearance.
There was a recrudescence of Pythagoreanism, with its attendant symbolism and mysticism.
There grew up a tendency to exalt the conception of God so high above the world, to widen so greatly the gulf which divides them, that it was felt that there could be no community between the two, that God could not act upon matter, nor matter upon God.
Such interaction would contaminate the purity of the Absolute.
Hence all kinds of beings were invented, demons, spirits, and angels, intended to fill up the gap, and to act as intermediaries between God and the world.
As an example of these latter tendencies, and as precursor of Neo-Platonism proper, Philo the Jew deserves a brief mention.
He lived at Alexandria between 30 B.C.
and 50 A.D. A staunch upholder of the religion and scriptures of the Hebrew race, he believed in the verbal inspiration of the Old Testament.
But he was learned in Greek studies, and thought that Greek philosophy was a dimmer revelation of those truths which were more perfectly manifested in the sacred books of his own race.
And just as Egyptian priests, out of national vanity, made out that Greek philosophy came from Egypt, just as orientals now pretend that it came from India, so Philo declared that the origin of all that was great in Greek philosophy was to be found in Judea.
Plato and Aristotle, he was certain, were followers of Moses, used the Old Testament, and gained their wisdom therefrom!
{371} Philo's own ideas were governed by the attempt to fuse Jewish theology and Greek philosophy into a homogeneous system.
It was Philo, therefore, who was largely responsible for contaminating the pure clear air of Greek thought with the enervating fogs of oriental mysticism.
Philo taught that God, as the absolutely infinite, must be elevated completely above all that is finite.
No name, no thought, can correspond to the infinity of God.
He is the unthinkable and the ineffable, and His nature is beyond the reach of reason.
The human soul reaches up to God, not through thought, but by means of a mystical inner illumination and revelation that transcends thought.
God cannot act directly upon the world, for this would involve His defilement by matter and the limitation of His infinity.
There are therefore intermediate spiritual beings, who, as the ministers of God, created and control the world.
All these intermediaries are included in the Logos, which is the rational thought which governs the world.
The relation of God to the Logos, and of the Logos to the world, is one of progressive emanation.
Clearly the idea of emanation is a mere metaphor which explains nothing, and this becomes more evident when Philo compares the emanations to rays of light issuing from an effulgent centre and growing less and less bright as they radiate outwards.
When we hear this, we know in what direction we are moving.
This has the characteristic ring of Asiatic pseudo-philosophy.
It reminds us forcibly of the Upanishads.
We are passing out of the realm of thought, reason, and philosophy, into the dream-and-shadow-land of oriental mysticism, where the heavy scents of beautiful poison flowers drug the intellect and obliterate thought in a blissful and languorous repose.
{372} CHAPTER XIX THE NEO-PLATONISTS The word Neo-Platonism is a misnomer.
It does not stand for a genuine revival of Platonism.
The Neo-Platonists were no doubt the offspring of Plato, but they were the illegitimate offspring.
The true greatness of Plato lay in his rationalistic idealism; his defects were mostly connected with his tendency to myth and mysticism.
The Neo-Platonists hailed his defects as the true and inner secret of his doctrine, developed them out of all recognition, and combined them with the hazy dream-philosophies of the East.
The reputed founder was Ammonius Saccas, but we may pass him over and come at once to his disciple Plotinus, who was the first to develop Neo-Platonism into a system, was the greatest of all its exponents, and may be regarded as its real founder.
He was born in 205 A.D. at Lycopolis in Egypt, went to Rome in 245, founded his School there, and remained at the head of it till his death in 270.
He left extensive writings which have been preserved.
Plato had shown that the idea of the One, exclusive of all multiplicity, was an impossible abstraction.
Even to say "the One is," involves the duality of the One.
The Absolute Being can be no abstract unity, but only a unity in multiplicity.
Plotinus begins by ignoring this {373} supremely important philosophical principle.
He falls back upon the lower level of oriental monism.
God, he thinks, is absolutely One.
He is the unity which lies beyond all multiplicity.
There is in him no plurality, no movement, no distinction.
Thought involves the distinction between object and subject; therefore the One is above and beyond thought.
Nor is the One describable in terms of volition or activity.
For volition involves the distinction between the willer and the willed, activity between the actor and that upon which he acts.
God, therefore, is neither thought, nor volition, nor activity.
He is beyond all thought and all being.
As absolutely infinite, He is also absolutely indeterminate.
All predicates limit their subject, and hence nothing can be predicated of the One.
He is unthinkable, for all thought limits and confines that which is thought.
He is the ineffable and inconceivable.
The sole predicates which Plotinus applies to Him are the One and the Good.
He sees, however, that these predicates, as much as any others, limit the infinite.
He regards them, therefore, not as literally expressing the nature of the infinite, but as figuratively shadowing it forth.
They are applied by analogy only.
We can, in truth, know nothing of the One, except that it _is_.
Now it is impossible to derive the world from a first principle of this kind.
As being utterly exalted above the world, God cannot enter into the world.
As absolutely infinite, He can never limit Himself to become finite, and so give rise to the world of objects.
As absolutely One, the many can never issue out of Him.
The One cannot create the world, for creation is an activity, and the One is immutable and excludes all {374} activity.
As the infinite first principle of all things, the One must be regarded as in some sense the source of all being.
And yet how it can give rise to being is inconceivable, since any such act destroys its unity and infinity.
We saw once for all, in the case of the Eleatics, that it is fatal to define the Absolute as unity exclusive of all multiplicity, as immutable essence exclusive of all process, and that if we do so we cut off all hope of showing how the world has issued from the Absolute.
It is just the same with Plotinus.
There is in his system the absolute contradiction that the One is regarded, on the one hand, as source of the world, and on the other as so exalted above the world that all relationship to the world is impossible.
We come, therefore, to a complete deadlock at this point.
We can get no further.
We can find no way to pass from God to the world.
We are involved in a hopeless, logical contradiction.
But Plotinus was a mystic, and logical absurdities do not trouble mystics.
Being unable to explain how the world can possibly arise out of the vacuum of the One, he has recourse, in the oriental style, to poetry and metaphors.
God, by reason of His super-perfection, "overflows" Himself, and this overflow becomes the world.
He "sends forth a beam" from Himself.
As flame emits light, as snow cold, so do all lower beings issue from the One.
Thus, without solving the difficulty, Plotinus deftly smothers it in flowery phrases, and quietly passes on his way.
The first emanation from the One is called the Nous.
This Nous is thought, mind, reason.
We have seen that Plato regarded the Absolute itself as thought.
For Plotinus, however, thought is derivative.
The One is beyond thought, and thought issues forth from the One {375} as first emanation.
The Nous is not discursive thought, however.
It is not in time.
It is immediate apprehension, or intuition.
Its object is twofold.
Firstly, it thinks the One, though its thought thereof is necessarily inadequate.
Secondly, it thinks itself.
It is the thought of thought, like Aristotle's God.
It corresponds to Plato's world of Ideas.
The Ideas of all things exist in the Nous, and not only the Ideas of classes, but of every individual thing.
From the Nous, as second emanation, proceeds the world-soul.
This is, in Erdmann's phrase, a sort of faded-out copy of the Nous, and it is outside time, incorporeal, and indivisible.
It works rationally, but yet is not conscious.
It has a two-fold aspect, inclining upwards to the Nous on the one hand, and downwards to the world of nature on the other.
It produces out of itself the individual souls which inhabit the world.
The idea of emanation is essentially a poetical metaphor, and not a rational concept.
It is conceived poetically by Plotinus as resembling light which radiates from a bright centre, and grows dimmer as it passes outwards, till it shades off at last into total darkness.
This total darkness is matter.
Matter, as negation of light, as the limit of being, is in itself not-being.
Thus the crucial difficulty of all Greek philosophy, the problem of the whence of matter, the dualism of matter and thought, which we have seen Plato and Aristotle struggling in vain to subjugate, is loosely and lightly slurred over by Plotinus with poetic metaphors and roseate phrases.
Matter Plotinus considers to be the ground of plurality and the cause of all evil.
Hence the object of life can {376} only be, as with Plato, to escape from the material world of the senses.
The first step in this process of liberation is _"katharsis,"_ purification, the freeing of oneself from the dominion of the body and the senses.
This includes all the ordinary ethical virtues.
The second step is thought, reason, and philosophy.
In the third stage the soul rises above thought to an intuition of the Nous.
But all these are merely preparatory for the supreme and final stage of exaltation into the Absolute One, by means of trance, rapture, ecstasy.
Here all thought is transcended, and the soul passes into a state of unconscious swoon, during which it is mystically united with God.
It is not a thought of God, it is not even that the soul sees God, for all such conscious activities involve the separation of the subject from its object.
In the ecstasy all such disunion and separation are annihilated.
The soul does not look upon God from the outside.
It becomes one with God.
It is God.
Such mystical raptures can, in the nature of the case, only be momentary, and the soul sinks back exhausted to the levels of ordinary consciousness.
Plotinus claimed to have been exalted in this divine ecstasy several times during his life.
After Plotinus Neo-Platonism continues with modifications in his successors, Porphyry, Iamblicus, Syrianus, Proclus, and others.
The essential character of Neo-Platonism comes out in its theory of the mystical exaltation of the subject to God.
It is the extremity of subjectivism, the forcing of the individual subject to the centre of the universe, to the position of the Absolute Being.
And it follows naturally upon the heels of Scepticism.
In the Sceptics all faith in the power of thought and reason had finally died out.
They {377} took as their watchword the utter impotence of reason to reach the truth.
From this it was but a step to the position that, if we cannot attain truth by the natural means of thought, we will do so by a miracle.
If ordinary consciousness will not suffice, we will pass beyond ordinary consciousness altogether.
Neo-Platonism is founded upon despair, the despair of reason.
It is the last frantic struggle of the Greek spirit to reach, by desperate means, by force, the point which it felt it had failed to reach by reason.
It seeks to take the Absolute by storm.
It feels that where sobriety has failed, the violence of spiritual intoxication may succeed.
It was natural that philosophy should end here.
For philosophy is founded upon reason.
It is the effort to comprehend, to understand, to grasp the reality of things intellectually.
Therefore it cannot admit anything higher than reason.
To exalt intuition, ecstasy, or rapture, above thought--this is death to philosophy.
Philosophy in making such an admission, lets out its own life-blood, which is thought.
In Neo-Platonism, therefore, ancient philosophy commits suicide.
This is the end.
The place of philosophy is taken henceforth by religion.
Christianity triumphs, and sweeps away all independent thought from its path.
There is no more philosophy now till a new spirit of enquiry and wonder is breathed into man at the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Then the new era begins, and gives birth to a new philosophic impulse, under the influence of which we are still living.
But to reach that new era of philosophy, the human spirit had first to pass through the arid wastes of Scholasticism.
SUBJECT INDEX A Abortions, 291.
Absolute, The; as many in one, 70-71, 197; as reason, 240-1, 307; as knowable, 299; as form, 307.
Actuality, 279.
Air, as first principle, 28.
Antinomy, 54.
Appearance, 61.
Aristocracy, 324.
Asceticism, defect of, 317.
_Ataraxia_, 363.
Atoms, 88 et seq, 356.
Aufklärung, 119-120.
B Becoming; Parmenides on, 44; Heracleitus on, 73; Empedocles on, 82; Plato on, 192; Aristotle on, 279-280 Being; Parmenides on, 44 et seq; Plato on, 191, 197.
C Causation, 6-7; as explanation, 64; Aristotle's doctrine of, 267-73.
Classification, 199.
Comedy, 330-1.
Concepts; defined, 143; identified with definitions, 145; Socrates's doctrine of, 143-6; objectivity of, 183; Stoics on, 345.
Condensation, 28.
Contract, the social, 323.
Cosmopolitanism, 353.
Counter-earth, 38.
Criterion, The Stoic, 345-6.
D Darwinism, 293.
Death, problem of, 76-7.
Democracy, 123, 325.
Dialectic, 55, 183, 199, 204.
Dichotomy, 200.
Division, 199.
Dualism; defined, 63; of Eleatics, 68-70; of Anaxagoras, 105; of Plato, 238; of Aristotle, 334-5.
E Eclipses, 103.
Ecstasy, 376-7.
Efficient cause, 269; identified with final cause, 273-4.
Elements, The Four, 83.
Emanation, 371, 374-5.
Empty Space, 47, 89, 291-2 Eros, 204.
Evolution; Anaximander and, 27; Aristotle's doctrine of, 293-9, 307-12, 333, 336-7; Spencer's doctrine of, 308 et seq.
{379} Evil, problem of, 240-1.
Explanation, scientific, 64-5.
External goods, value of, 159, 31-6, 350, 359.
F Faith, age of, 151.
Family, The; Aristotle on, 324.
Final cause, 269; identified with formal cause, 273.
Fire, as first principle, 78, 347.
First Cause, 66.
First Mover, 284-5.
Form, Aristotle's doctrine of, 267, 274-8.
Formal cause, 269; identified with final cause, 273.
Free Will, 320, 348, 355.
Friendship, 225, 359.
G Genius, artistic, 231.
Geocentric hypothesis, 38, 211, 305.
Geometry, 3-5, 275.
God; Xenophanes on, 41-2; Socrates on, 132; Plato on, 202-4; Aristotle on, 283-8; as first mover, 284-5; as thought of thought, 285-6; relation of, to the world, 282; Plotinus on, 373.
Gods, The; Democritus on, 92; Protagoras on, 112; Socrates on, 132; Epicurus on, 357.
Good, The Idea of, 198, 200-1, 244; as God, 203.
Gravitation, 294-5.
H Habit, 7.
Happiness; Antisthenes on, 159; Plato on, 220-1; Aristotle on, 314-15; Stoics on, 351; Epicurus on, 358, 361; distinguished from pleasure, 221.
Heavenly bodies, The; Anaximander on, 26; Pythagoreans on, 38; Xenophanes on, 43; Anaxagoras on, 103; Plato on, 211; Aristotle on, 305-6.
Heliocentric hypothesis, 38.
Hinduism, 71, 197, 308, 312-13.
I Idealism; of Parmenides, 47 et seq; essentials of, 48, 49, 235; Plato as founder of, 235.
Ideas, Theory of, 174, 183-207; Aristotle on, 262-5.
Imagination, 300.
Immortality; Atomists on, 92; Plato on, 175, 212; Aristotle on, 302-3; Epicurus on, 357.
Indian Thought, 14-16; see also Hinduism.
Individualism, 323.
Induction, 144, 146, 190, 206, 260.
Infinite divisibility; Zeno on, 56; Anaxagoras on, 96; Aristotle on, 292-3; Hume on, 57-8; Kant on, 57; Hegel on, 58-60.
Inorganic matter, 294-6.
Insight, moral, 318.
Intuition, 153, 375, 377.
Irony, of Socrates, 130.
J Judaism, 71.
Justice; Pythagoreans on, 37; Plato on, 224; Aristotle on, 319-20.
{380} K Knowledge; of the Infinite, 7-8; of the Absolute, 299; through concepts, 146, 182; Plato on, 177-82; as recollection, 212-17; necessary knowledge, 213-15.
L Life; Aristotle's doctrine of, 296.
Limit, The, 36.
Love, Platonic, 204-6.
M Marriage, 224.
Material cause, 268.
Materialism; origin of, 9-11; of Ionics, 23; defect of, 66.
Matter; indestructibility of, 50; Platonic, 208; Aristotle's doctrine of, 275-9; Plotinus on, 375.
Mechanical theories, 88.
Memory, 300.
Monarchy, 324.
Monism, 62-7.
Monstrosities,29l.
Morality; founded on reason, 118.
Motion; Zeno on, 54; Aristotle on, 29l.
Multiplicity; Zeno on, 53.
Mysticism, 12, 171, 371, 372, 374, 376.
Myths, of Plato, 170-71, 208, 209, 210, 211.
N Necessary Knowledge, 213-15; necessary concepts, 242.
Non-sensuous thought, 8-13.
Not-being, 44, 75, 76, 77, 89, 191, 208, 279, 280.
Nous; of Anaxagoras, 97-105; of Plotinus, 375.
Numbers, as first principle, 36.
O Object, the right of the, 122.
Objectivity; defined, 113; of concepts, 183.
Oligarchy, 324.
Opinion, 181-2.
Organic matter, organism, 294-6.
P Pantheism, 312.
Participation, 194, 236.
Personality, 286.
Pleasure, 161-2, 218-19, 350, 358; distinguished from happiness, 221.
Potentiality, 279.
Pragmatism, 121.
Protestantism, 123.
Q Quality, mechanical explanation of, 87-8.
R Rarefaction, 28.
Reality; distinguished from appearance, 61; distinguished from existence, 60-1, 246-7.
Reason; distinguished from sense, 45, 79, 112, 113, 115, 239, 290; distinguished from cause, 64, 76; as universal, 113; as concepts, 144; supremacy of, 153-4; as basis of love, 205-6; as Absolute, 240-1; passive and active, 300; as basis of morals, 118, 317, 349-50.
{381} Recollection; knowledge as, 212-17; Aristotle on, 300.
Reincarnation; see Transmigration.
Religion; relation to philosophy, 14-15, 207; Xenophanes on, 41-2; Heracleitus on, 79; Democritus on, 92; decay of Greek, 107-8.
Rhetoric, 111, 122.
S Scepticism, 343, 361.
Sensation; particularism of, 113; distinguished from reason, 45, 79, 112, 113, 115, 239, 290.
Slavery, 225, 321.
Soul; Heracleitus on, 78-9; Atomists on, 92; Plato on, 211-17; Aristotle on, 296 et seq; Stoics on, 348; Epicureans on, 357.
Space, 3-4, 56; see also Empty space.
Sphere, of Empedocles, 84.
State, The; Sophists on, 119; Plato's, 201-2, 225-29; Aristotle on, 320-5.
Subject, the right of the, 122, 152.
Subjectivism, Preface, 340-3, 361, 376.
Subjectivity, defined, 113.
Substance; defined, 186-7; Ideas as, 186-8; Aristotle's doctrine of 265-7.
Suicide, 160, 350.
_Summum Bonum_, 222, 314.
Symbolism, 12.
T Teleology; defined,101; of Anaxagoras, 104, 105; of Plato, 201-2; of Aristotle, 289.
Theosophists, 153-4.
Time, 282, 292.
Timocracy, 324.
Tragedy, 330-1.
Transmigration, 17, 32, 85, 212, 217, 301.
Tyranny, 324.
U Universals, 188.
Utilitarianism, 220-21, 315.
V Virtue; as knowledge, 147, 157; teachable, 149; unity of, 149, 223, 351; as sole good, 159-60, 350; relation to pleasure, 161, 218-19; customary and philosophic, 220; dianoetic, 316, 317; as the mean, 317.
Void, The, 90.
Vortex, 90, 102.
W Water, as first principle, 21.
Wise Man, The; of the Cynics, 160; of the Cyrenaics, 162; of the Stoics, 351.
Women, status of, 224.
World-Soul, The, 210, 211, 375.
{382} INDEX OF NAMES A Abdera, 86, 112.
Academy, The, 167, 249, 250; The New, 364-6.
Aegean, The, 18.
Aenesidemus, 366-7.
AEsculapius, 141.
Agrigentum, 81.
Alcibiades, 132, 133.
Alexander the Great, 251, 252, 339, 340, 362.
Alexandria, 368, 370.
Ammonius Saccas, 372.
Amyntas, 249.
Anaxagoras, 22, 30, 82, 86, 91, 94-105, 106, 120, 137, 166, 271, 272, 273, 340 Anaximander, 20, 22, 23, 24-7, 28, 29.
Anaximenes, 20, 22, 23, 27-30, 82, 83, 102, 271.
Andronicus, 262.
Anniceris, 162, 167.
Antiochis, 134.
Antisthenes, 156, 158, 159.
Anytus, 133.
Appolonia, 30.
Apollodorus, 140.
_Apology, The_, 129, 133, 134, 172, 173.
Arcesilaus, 364, 365.
Arginusae, 134.
Aristippus, 156, 161, 358.
Aristophanes, 135, 152.
Aristotle, 14, 17, 18, 19,23, 38, 42 (footnote), 55, 95, 98, 99, 106, 122, 148, 150, 191, 193, 231, 233, 248, 249-338, 339, 340, 341, 342, 345, 346, 350, 370; on Thales, 21-2; on Anaxagoras, 104, 105; on Socrates, 147,317,320; on Plato, 193, 262-5, 323-4.
Asia Minor, 18, 20, 72, 94, 95, 250.
Assyria, 13.
Atarneus, 250.
Athens, 94, 95, 112, 127, 128, 129, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 165, 166, 167, 169, 249, 250, 251, 252, 254, 344.
Atomists, The, 82, 86-93, 95, 96, 97, 103, 104.
Aurelius, Marcus, 14, 344.
B Babylon, 252.
Babylonia, 86.
Bacon, Francis, 257-8.
_Banquet, The_, 132.
See also _Symposium, The_.
Bentham, 220.
_Bhagavat Gita, The,_ 15.
Brahman, 15, 64, 170, 197.
Buddha, The, 213.
Burnet Prof., Preface, 25, 28, 46, 91, 98.
{383} C Carneades, 365.
Chairephon, 129.
Chalcis, 252.
_Charmides, The_, 172, 173.
China, 13.
Christianity, 69, 70, 71, 101, 369, 377.
Chrysippus, 344.
Cicero, 366.
Clazomenae, 94.
Cleanthes, 344.
_Clouds, The_, of Aristophanes, 135.
Coleridge, S. T., 263.
Colophon, 41.
Copernicus, 38.
Crates, 344.
Cratylus, 166.
Critias, 118.
Crito, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141.
_Crito, The_, 172, 173.
Croesus, 20, 21.
Crotona, 31, 33.
Cynics, The, 156, 158-60, 163, 316, 342, 351, 353, 358.
Cyprus, 344.
Cyrenaics, The, 156, 160-2, 163, 218, 342, 358.
Cyrene, 167.
D Darwin, 308.
Delium, 131.
Delphi, 129.
Democritus, 22, 49, 50, 52, 86, 93, 104, 108, 112, 234, 342, 354, 356.
Diogenes of Apollonia, 30.
Diogenes the Cynic, 159, 351, 352.
Dionysius the Elder, 167, 168.
Dionysius the Younger, 168, 169.
E Echechrates, 139, 141.
Egypt, 13, 16, 17, 31, 86, 125, 167, 372.
Elea, 40, 41, 43, 52, 60.
Eleatics, The, 22, 23, 40-71, 72, 73, 75, 79, 89, 109, 112, 117, 162, 164, 166, 173, 174, 175, 193, 195, 196, 197, 234, 235, 246, 272, 279, 374.
Eleusinian mysteries, 72.
Empedocles, 17, 22, 49, 52, 81-5, 86, 87-8, 89, 95, 96, 97, 103, 271, 272, 329.
Empiricus, Sextus, 366.
England, 121.
Ephesus, 72, 73.
Epictetus, 14, 344.
Epicureans, The, 89, 90, 91, 342, 343, 354-60, 362, 368, 369.
Epicurus, 342, 345-60.
Erdmann, 46, 98, 368, 375.
_Ethics, The_, of Aristotle, 319.
Euboea, 252.
Euclid, the geometrician, 33, 113.
Euclid of Megara, 156, 162-3, 166, 167.
Euripides, 94.
_Euthyphro, The_, 172.
F France, 121.
G Gorgias, 110, 111, 116-18, 361.
_Gorgias, The_, 174, 177.
Grant, Sir A., 295 (footnote).
Greece, 13, 16, 17, 18, 33, 41, 107, 109, 112, 122, 168, 220, 252, 339, 344, 368.
Grote, 98.
{384} H Halys, 21.
Hegel, 38, 46, 55, 58-60, 312 (footnote), 333.
Hegesias, 162.
Hellas, 41.
Heracleitus, 22, 72-80, 82, 86, 108, 112, 116, 164, 166, 192, 193, 234, 271, 333, 342, 347.
Hermeias, 250.
Herpyllis, 251.
Hesiod, 41, 72, 77.
Hippias, 110.
_Hippias Minor, The_, 172.
Hippo, 30.
Homer, 41, 72.
Hume, David, 57, 58, 361.
Hylicists, The, 24.
I Iamblicus, 376.
Idaeus, 30.
India, 14, 16, 17.
Ionia, 20, 41, 137.
Ionics, The, 20-30, 61, 62, 82, 83, 271, 272.
Islam, 71.
Italy, 18, 31, 40, 167.
J Japan, 125.
+Jàtakas, The+, 213.
Judaea, 370.
K Kant, 55, 57, 213, 215.
Kepler, 65.
Krishna, 15.
L _Laches, The_, 172, 173.
Lampsacus, 95.
Leon, 134-5.
Leucippus, 86, 88, 89, 91, 104.
London, 189.
Lucretius, 14.
Lyceum, The, 251.
Lycon, 133.
Lycopolis, 372.
_Lysis, The_, 172, 173.
M Macedonia, 249, 252, 339.
Macran, H. S., 312 (footnote).
Megara, 166, 167, 172, 173.
Megarics, The, 156, 162-3.
Melissus, 46.
Melitus, 133.
_Memorabilia, The_, 142.
_Meno, The_, 216.
Meru, 15, 16.
_Metaphysics, The_, of Aristotle, 19, 42, 105, 253, 254, 261, 271.
Metchnikoff, 76.
Miletus, 20, 24, 27.
Mill, J. S., 220, 221, 269.
Milton, 330.
Moses, 370.
Mytilene, 251.
N Napoleon, 252.
Neo-Platonists, The, 342, 343, 368, 369, 372-377.
Newton, 65.
Nichomachus, 249, 251 Nietzsche, 156.
O Orphics, The, 17, 32.
P Paramatman, 15.
Parmenides, 13,40,41, 42, 43, 52, 53, 57, 72, 81, 82, 86, 117, 162, 163, 164, 167, 234.
_Parmenides, The_, 169, 175, 176, 177, 195, 244.
Peloponnese, The, 103.
{385} Peloponnesian War, The, 131, 165.
Pericles, 94, 95, 137.
Peripatetics, The, 251, 369.
Persians, The, 251.
_Phaedo, The_, 137, 175, 177.
_Phaedrus, The_, 172, 175, 177.
_Philebus, The_, 175, 203.
Philip of Macedonia, 251.
Philo the Jew, 370-1.
Philolaus, 37.
Phlius, 262.
Plato, 1, 13, 17, 19, 23, 38, 50, 51, 52, 55, 95, 99, 101, 104, 106, 122, 129, 132, 133, 137, 141, 142, 150, 156, 164-248, 249, 250, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 262-5, 267, 269, 271, 272, 273, 275, 281, 282, 286, 287, 288, 290, 291, 298, 299, 301, 303, 304, 314, 319, 321, 323, 324, 325, 327, 329, 331, 332, 334, 335, 336, 338, 341, 342, 345, 346, 350, 364, 370, 372, 374, 375.
Plotinus, 368, 372-6.
Porphyry, 376.
Proclus, 376.
_Poetics, The_, of Aristotle, 326.
Polus, 118-9.
Polemo, 344.
Prodicus, 110, 121.
Protagoras, 110, 112-6, 118, 121, 153, 154, 161, 178, 179, 181, 217, 361.
_Protagoras, The_, 172.
Proxenus, 249.
Pyrrho, 343, 362-4, 365, 366.
Pythagoras, 31, 32, 33, 34, 72, 81, 301.
Pythagoreans, The, 17, 22, 31-9, 43, 44, 61, 62, 109, 164, 167, 169, 191, 209, 217, 272, 291, 370.
Pythias, 251.
R _Republic, The_, Preface, 168, 175, 177, 201-2, 225-9, 230, 231.
Rome, 14, 344, 372.
Rotunda, The, 134, 135.
S Salamis, 134, 135.
Satan, Milton's, 330.
Sceptics, The, 7 (footnote), 342, 361-7, 368, 376.
Schopenhauer,72.
Schwegler, 46, 353.
Seneca, 14, 344.
Seven Sages, The, 21.
Shaw, Bernard, 126, 156.
Sicily, 18, 81, 112, 176, 168.
Simplicius, 366.
Socrates, 18, 19, 51, 73, 95, 110, 122, 127-54, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 172, 173, 182, 183, 193, 223, 234, 252, 317, 320, 351, 352.
Solon, 20.
_Sophist, The_, 175, 176, 177, 195.
Sophists, The, 18, 19, 24, 106-26, 127, 128, 135, 142, 144, 145, 150, 151, 152, 153, 161, 166, 174, 178, 182, 185, 218, 219, 221, 234, 343, 361.
Sparta, 339.
Spencer, Herbert, 2, 308-12.
Speusippus, 250.
Spinoza, 66, 71, 197.
Stagirus, 249.
_Statesman, The_, 175, 176.
Stilpo, 344.
Stoa, The, 344.
Stoics, The, 341, 342, 343, 344-53, 358, 359, 362, 365, 366, 368, 369, 370.
Swinburne, A. C., 357.
{386} _Symposium, The_, 175, 205-6, 231.
See also _Banquet, The_.
Syracuse, 42, 167, 168, 169.
Syrianus, 376.
T Thales 20-4, 27, 28, 29, 30, 36, 44, 82, 120, 271, 368.
Thebes, 252.
Thessaly, 137.
Thirty Tyrants, The, 134, 165.
Thrace, 86, 249.
Thrasymachus, 118-9.
_Timaeus, The_, 38, 171, 175, 177, 190, 208, 210.
Timon of Phlius, 362.
Tolstoi, 230.
U _Upanishads, The_, 14, 15, 170, 371.
W Wallace, 38 (footnote).
Wells, H. G., Preface.
Wilde, Oscar, 126, 156.
X Xenocrates, 250, 251.
Xenophanes, 40-3, 72, 79, 108, 340.
Xenophon, 132, 141, 142.
Z Zeller, 98, 101, 176, 202, 209, 224.
Zeno the Eleatic, 40, 52-60, 72, 117, 163, 246, 292.
Zeno the Stoic, 344, 354.
Zeus, 360.
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PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
BY GEORGE GROTE, AUTHOR OF THE 'HISTORY OF GREECE'.
_A NEW EDITION._ IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL.
II.
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1888.
_The right of Translation is reserved._ CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII.
ALKIBIADES I.
AND II.
Situation supposed in the dialogue.
Persons--Sokrates and Alkibiades 1 Exorbitant hopes and political ambition of Alkibiades 2 Questions put by Sokrates, in reference to Alkibiades in his intended function as adviser of the Athenians.
What does he intend to advise them upon?
What has he learnt, and what does he know?
_ib._ Alkibiades intends to advise the Athenians on questions of war and peace.
Questions of Sokrates thereupon.
We must fight those whom it is better to fight--to what standard does better refer?
To just and unjust 3 How, or from whom, has Alkibiades learnt to discern or distinguish Just and Unjust?
He never learnt it from any one; he always knew it, even as a boy 4 Answer amended.
Alkibiades learnt it from the multitude, as he learnt to speak Greek.--The multitude cannot teach just and unjust, for they are at variance among themselves about it.
Alkibiades is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself 5 Answer farther amended.
The Athenians do not generally debate about just or unjust--which they consider plain to every one--but about expedient and inexpedient, which are not coincident with just and unjust.
But neither does Alkibiades know the expedient.
He asks Sokrates to explain.
Sokrates declines: he can do nothing but question 6 Comment on the preceding--Sokratic method--the respondent makes the discoveries for himself _ib._ Alkibiades is brought to admit that whatever is just, is good, honourable, expedient: and that whoever acts honourably, both does well, and procures for himself happiness thereby.
Equivocal reasoning of Sokrates 7 Humiliation of Alkibiades.
Other Athenian statesmen are equally ignorant.
But the real opponents, against whom Alkibiades is to measure himself, are, the kings of Sparta and Persia.
Eulogistic description of those kings.
To match them, Alkibiades must make himself as good as possible 8 But good--for what end, and under what circumstances?
Abundant illustrative examples 9 Alkibiades, puzzled and humiliated, confesses his ignorance.
Encouragement given by Sokrates.
It is an advantage to make such discovery in youth 10 Platonic Dialectic--its actual effect--its anticipated effect--applicable to the season of youth 11 Know Thyself--Delphian maxim--its urgent importance--What is myself?
My mind is myself _ib._ I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind.
Self-knowledge is temperance.
Temperance and Justice are the conditions both of happiness and of freedom 11 Alkibiades feels himself unworthy to be free, and declares that he will never quit Sokrates 12 Second Alkibiades--situation supposed _ib._ Danger of mistake in praying to the Gods for gifts which may prove mischievous.
Most men are unwise.
Unwise is the generic word: madmen, a particular variety under it _ib._ Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended under it, was not then familiar 13 Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that when obtained, they are misfortunes.
Every one fancies that he knows what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance 14 Mistake in predications about ignorance generally.
We must discriminate.
Ignorance of _what?_ Ignorance of good, is always mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always _ib._ Wise public counsellors are few.
Upon what ground do we call these few wise?
Not because they possess merely special arts or accomplishments, but because they know besides, upon what occasions and under what limits each of these accomplishments ought to be used 15 Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial 16 It is unsafe for Alkibiades to proceed with his sacrifice, until he has learnt what is the proper language to address to the Gods.
He renounces his sacrifice, and throws himself upon the counsel of Sokrates _ib._ Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues 17 Grounds for disallowing them--less strong against the Second than against the First 18 The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of inferiority _ib._ The two dialogues may probably be among Plato's earlier compositions 20 Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia--Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men 21 Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this feature in Sokrates _ib._ Plato's manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates.
Magical influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates 22 The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in Alkibiades I.
Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge 24 Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a conviction of his own ignorance 25 Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties.
He exhorts to Justice and Virtue--but these are acknowledged Incognita 26 Prolixity of Alkibiadês I.--Extreme multiplication of illustrative examples--How explained _ib._ Alkibiadês II.
leaves its problem avowedly undetermined 27 Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours undefined--his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency of the Gods--he prays to them for premonitory warnings 28 Comparison of Alkibiadês II.
with the Xenophontic Memorabilia, especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus.
Sokrates not always consistent with himself 29 Remarkable doctrine of Alkibiadês II.--that knowledge is not always Good.
The knowledge of Good itself is indispensable: without that, the knowledge of other things is more hurtful than beneficial _ib._ Knowledge of Good--appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles 31 The Good--the Profitable--what is it?--How are we to know it?
Plato leaves this undetermined _ib._ CHAPTER XIII.
HIPPIAS MAJOR--HIPPIAS MINOR.
Hippias Major--situation supposed--character of the dialogue.
Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias 33 Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia--subject of that debate 34 Opening of the Hippias Major**--Hippias describes the successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as the gain acquired by his lectures 35 Hippias had met with no success at Sparta.
Why the Spartans did not admit his instructions--their law forbids _ib._ Question, What is law?
The law-makers always aim at the Profitable, but sometimes fail to attain it.
When they fail, they fail to attain law.
The lawful is the Profitable: the Unprofitable is also unlawful 36 Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates 37 The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable.
This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere 38 Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c., but upon the question--What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth?
39 Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in the background, who has just been puzzling him with it--What is the Beautiful?
_ib._ Hippias thinks the question easy to answer 40 Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something.
What is Beauty, or the Beautiful?
_ib._ Hippias does not understand the question.
He answers by indicating one particularly beautiful object _ib._ Cross-questioning by Sokrates--Other things also are beautiful; but each thing is beautiful only by comparison, or under some particular circumstances--it is sometimes beautiful, sometimes not beautiful 41 Second answer of Hippias--_ Gold_, is that by the presence of which all things become beautiful--scrutiny applied to the answer.
Complaint by Hippias about vulgar analogies _ib._ Third answer of Hippias--questions upon it--proof given that it fails of universal application 42 Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself--1.
The Suitable or Becoming--objections thereunto--it is rejected 43 2.
The useful or profitable--objections--it will not hold 44 3.
The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable--that which is received through the eye and the ear 45 Objections to this last--What property is there common to both sight and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of these two senses the exclusive privilege of being beautiful?
_ib._ Answer--There is, belonging to each and to both in common, the property of being innocuous and profitable pleasures--upon this ground they are called beautiful 46 This will not hold--the Profitable is the cause of Good, and is therefore different from Good--to say that the beautiful is the Profitable, is to say that it is different from Good but this has been already declared inadmissible _ib._ Remarks upon the Dialogue--the explanations ascribed to Hippias are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed to Sokrates are attempts to assign some general concept 47 Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to Sokrates, and those given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia 49 Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and Sokrates 51 Rhetoric against Dialectic 52 Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the speculative and analytical philosophers _ib._ Concrete Aggregates--abstract or logical Aggregates.
Distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for the Dialectician 53 Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty 54 Hippias Minor--characters and situation supposed 55 Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which he extols Achilles as better than Odysseus--the veracious and straightforward hero better than the mendacious and crafty 56 This is contested by Sokrates.
The veracious man and the mendacious man are one and the same--the only man who can answer truly if he chooses, is he who can also answer falsely if he chooses, _i.
e._ the knowing man--the ignorant man cannot make sure of doing either the one or the other 57 Analogy of special arts--it is only the arithmetician who can speak falsely on a question of arithmetic when he chooses _ib._ View of Sokrates respecting Achilles in the Iliad.
He thinks that Achilles speaks falsehood cleverly.
Hippias maintains that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, it is with an innocent purpose, whereas Odysseus does the like with fraudulent purpose 58 Issue here taken--Sokrates contends that those who hurt, or cheat, or lie wilfully, are better than those who do the like unwillingly--he entreats Hippias to enlighten him and answer his questions _ib._ Questions of Sokrates--multiplied analogies of the special arts.
The unskilful artist, who runs, wrestles, or sings badly, whether he will or not, is worse than the skilful, who can sing well when he chooses, but can also sing badly when he chooses 59 It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark only by design, than that of one who misses even when he intends to hit 60 Dissent and repugnance of Hippias _ib._ Conclusion--That none but the good man can do evil wilfully: the bad man does evil unwillingly.
Hippias cannot resist the reasoning, but will not accept the conclusion--Sokrates confesses his perplexity 61 Remarks on the dialogue.
If the parts had been inverted, the dialogue would have been cited by critics as a specimen of the sophistry and corruption of the Sophists 62 Polemical purpose of the dialogue--Hippias humiliated by Sokrates 63 Philosophical purpose of the dialogue--theory of the Dialogues of Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by Plato _ib._ The Hippias is an exemplification of this theory--Sokrates sets forth a case of confusion, and avows his inability to clear it up.
Confusion shown up in the Lesser Hippias--Error in the Greater 64 The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also affirmed by the historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia 66 Aristotle combats the thesis.
Arguments against it 67 Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct _ib._ They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts--they take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and blame 68 Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be suggestive, and that it shall bring before us different aspects of the question under review 69 Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic 70 CHAPTER XIV.
HIPPARCHUS--MINOS.
Hipparchus--Question--What is the definition of Lover of Gain?
He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing.
Sokrates cross-examines upon this explanation.
No man expects to gain from things which he knows to be worth nothing: in this sense, no man is a lover of gain 71 Gain is good.
Every man loves good: therefore all men are lovers of gain 72 Apparent contradiction.
Sokrates accuses the companion of trying to deceive him--accusation is retorted upon Sokrates 73 Precept inscribed formerly by Hipparchus the Peisistratid--never deceive a friend.
Eulogy of Hipparchus by Sokrates _ib._ Sokrates allows the companion to retract some of his answers.
The companion affirms that some gain is good, other gain is evil 74 Questions by Sokrates--bad gain is _gain_, as much as good gain.
What is the common property, in virtue of which both are called Gain?
Every acquisition, made with no outlay, or with a smaller outlay, is gain.
Objections--the acquisition may be evil--embarrassment confessed _ib._ It is essential to gain, that the acquisition made shall be greater not merely in quantity, but also in value, than the outlay.
The valuable is the profitable--the profitable is the good.
Conclusion comes back.
That Gain is Good 75 Recapitulation.
The debate has shown that all gain is good, and that there is no evil gain--all men are lovers of gain--no man ought to be reproached for being so the companion is compelled to admit this, though he declares that he is not persuaded _ib._ Minos.
Question put by Sokrates to the companion.
What is Law, or The Law?
All law is the same, _quatenus_ law: what is the common constituent attribute?
76 Answer--Law is, 1.
The consecrated and binding customs.
2.
The decree of the city.
3.
Social or civic opinion _ib._ Cross-examination by Sokrates--just and lawfully-behaving men are so through law; unjust and lawless men are so through the absence of law.
Law is highly honourable and useful: lawlessness is ruinous.
Accordingly, bad decrees of the city--or bad social opinion--cannot be law 77 Suggestion by Sokrates--Law is the _good_ opinion of the city--but good opinion is true opinion, or the finding out of reality.
Law therefore wishes (tends) to be the finding out of reality, though it does not always succeed in doing so 77 Objection taken by the Companion--That there is great discordance of laws in different places--he specifies several cases of such discordance at some length.
Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and requests him to confine himself to question or answer 78 Farther questions by Sokrates--Things heavy and light, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted so everywhere.
Real things are always accounted real.
Whoever fails in attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful _ib._ There are laws of health and of cure, composed by the few physicians wise upon those subjects, and unanimously declared by them.
So also there are laws of farming, gardening, cookery, declared by the few wise in those respective pursuits.
In like manner, the laws of a city are the judgments declared by the few wise men who know how to rule 79 That which is right is the regal law, the only true and real law--that which is not right, is not law, but only seems to be law in the eyes of the ignorant 80 Minos, King of Krete--his laws were divine and excellent, and have remained unchanged from time immemorial _ib._ Question about the character of Minos--Homer and Hesiod declare him to have been admirable, the Attic tragedians defame him as a tyrant, because he was an enemy of Athens 81 That Minos was really admirable--and that he has found out truth and reality respecting the administration of the city--we may be sure from the fact that his laws have remained so long unaltered _ib._ The question is made more determinate--What is it that the good lawgiver prescribes and measures out for the health of the mind, as the physician measures out food and exercise for the body?
Sokrates cannot tell.
Close 81 The Hipparchus and Minos are analogous to each other, and both of them inferior works of Plato, perhaps unfinished 82 Hipparchus--double meaning of [Greek: philokerdê\s] and [Greek: ke/rdos] _ib._ State or mind of the agent, as to knowledge, frequent inquiry in Plato.
No tenable definition found 83 Admitting that there is bad gain, as well as good gain, what is the meaning of the word _gain_**?
None is found _ib._ Purpose of Plato in the dialogue--to lay bare the confusion, and to force the mind of the respondent into efforts for clearing it up 84 Historical narrative and comments given in the dialogue respecting Hipparchus--afford no ground for declaring the dialogue to be spurious _ib._ Minos.
Question--What is the characteristic property connoted by the word [Greek: No/mos] or law?
86 This question was discussed by the historical Sokrates, Memorabilia of Xenophon _ib._ Definitions of law--suggested and refuted.
Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad decrees are not laws 86 Sokrates affirms that law is everywhere the same--it is the declared judgment and command of the Wise man upon the subject to which it refers--it is truth and reality, found out and certified by him 87 Reasoning of Sokrates in the Minos is unsound, but Platonic.
The Good, True, and Real, coalesce in the mind of Plato--he acknowledges nothing to be Law, except what he thinks ought to _be_ Law 88 Plato worships the Ideal of his own mind--the work of systematic constructive theory by the Wise Man 89 Different applications of this general Platonic view, in the Minos, Politikus, Kratylus, &c. _Natural_ Rectitude of Law, Government, Names, &c _ib._ Eulogy on Minos, as having established laws on this divine type or natural rectitude 90 The Minos was arranged by Aristophanes at first in a Trilogy along with the Leges 91 Explanations of the word Law--confusion in its meaning _ib._ CHAPTER XV.
THEAGES.
Theagês--has been declared spurious by some modern critics--grounds for such opinion not sufficient 98 Persons of the dialogue--Sokrates, with Demodokus and Theagês, father and son.
Theagês (the son), eager to acquire knowledge, desires to be placed under the teaching of a Sophist 99 Sokrates questions Theagês, inviting him to specify what he wants _ib._ Theagês desires to acquire that wisdom by which he can govern freemen with their own consent 100 Incompetence of the best practical statesmen to teach any one else.
Theagês requests that Sokrates will himself teach him _ib._ Sokrates declares that he is not competent to teach--that he knows nothing except about matters of love.
Theagês maintains that many of his young friends have profited largely by the conversation of Sokrates 101 Sokrates explains how this has sometimes happened--he recites his experience of the divine sign or Dæmon _ib._ The Dæmon is favourable to some persons, adverse to others.
Upon this circumstance it depends how far any companion profits by the society of Sokrates.
Aristeides has not learnt anything from Sokrates, yet has improved much by being near to him 102 Theagês expresses his anxiety to be received as the companion of Sokrates 103 Remarks on the Theagês--analogy with the Lachês 104 Chief peculiarity of the Theagês--stress laid upon the divine sign or Dæmon _ib._ Plato employs this divine sign here to render some explanation of the singularity and eccentricity of Sokrates, and of his unequal influence upon different companions _ib._ Sokrates, while continually finding fault with other teachers, refused to teach himself--difficulty of finding an excuse for his refusal.
The Theagês furnishes an excuse 106 Plato does not always, nor in other dialogues, allude to the divine sign in the same way.
Its character and working essentially impenetrable.
Sokrates a privileged person _ib._ CHAPTER XVI.
ERASTÆ OR ANTERASTÆ--RIVALES.
Erastæ--subject and persons of the dialogue--dramatic introduction--interesting youths in the palæstra 111 Two rival Erastæ--one of them literary, devoted to philosophy--the other gymnastic, hating philosophy _ib._ Question put by Sokrates--What is philosophy?
It is the perpetual accumulation of knowledge, so as to make the largest sum total 112 In the case of the body, it is not the maximum of exercise which does good, but the proper, measured quantity.
For the mind also, it is not the maximum of knowledge, but the measured quantity which is good.
Who is the judge to determine this measure?
_ib._ No answer given.
What is the best conjecture?
Answer of the literary Erastes.
A man must learn that which will yield to him the greatest reputation as a philosopher--as much as will enable him to talk like an intelligent critic, though not to practise 113 The philosopher is one who is second-best in several different arts--a Pentathlus--who talks well upon each _ib._ On what occasions can such second-best men be useful?
There are always regular practitioners at hand, and no one will call in the second-best man when he can have the regular practitioner 114 Philosophy cannot consist in multiplication of learned acquirements _ib._ Sokrates changes his course of examination--questions put to show that there is one special art, regal and political, of administering and discriminating the bad from the good 115 In this art the philosopher must not only be second-best, competent to talk--but he must be a fully qualified practitioner, competent to act _ib._ Close of the dialogue--humiliation of the literary Erastes 116 Remarks--animated manner of the dialogue _ib._ Definition of philosophy--here sought for the first time--Platonic conception of measure--referee not discovered 117 View taken of the second-best critical talking man, as compared with the special proficient and practitioner 118 Plato's view--that the philosopher has a province special to himself, distinct from other specialties--dimly indicated--regal or political art 119 Philosopher--the supreme artist controlling other artists 120 CHAPTER XVII.
ION.
Ion.
Persons of the dialogue.
Difference of opinion among modern critics as to its genuineness 124 Rhapsodes as a class in Greece.
They competed for prizes at the festivals.
Ion has been triumphant 124 Functions of the Rhapsodes.
Recitation--exposition of the poets--arbitrary exposition of the poets was then frequent 125 The popularity of the Rhapsodes was chiefly derived from their recitation--powerful effect which they produced _ib._ Ion both reciter and expositor--Homer was considered more as an instructor than as a poet 126 Plato disregards and disapproves the poetic or emotional working _ib._ Ion devoted himself to Homer exclusively.
Questions of Sokrates to him--How happens it that you cannot talk equally upon other poets?
The poetic art is one 127 Explanation given by Sokrates--both the Rhapsode and the Poet work, not by art and system, but by divine inspiration--fine poets are bereft of their reason, and possessed by inspiration from some God _ib._ Analogy of the Magnet, which holds up by attraction successive stages of iron rings.
The Gods first inspire Homer, then act through him and through Ion upon the auditors 128 This comparison forms the central point of the dialogue.
It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates in the Apology 129 Platonic Antithesis: systematic procedure distinguished from unsystematic: which latter was either blind routine, or madness inspired by the Gods.
Varieties of madness, good and bad 129 Special inspiration from the Gods was a familiar fact in Grecian life--privileged communications from the Gods to Sokrates--his firm belief in them 130 Condition of the inspired person--his reason is for the time withdrawn 131 Ion does not admit himself to be inspired and out of his mind 132 Homer talks upon all subjects--Is Ion competent to explain what Homer says upon all of them?
Rhapsodic art.
What is its province?
_ib._ The Rhapsode does not know special matters, such as the craft of the pilot, physician, farmer, &c., but he knows the business of the general, and is competent to command soldiers, having learnt it from Homer 133 Conclusion.
Ion expounds Homer, not with any knowledge of what he says, but by divine inspiration 134 The generals in Greece usually possessed no professional experience--Homer and the poets were talked of as the great teachers--Plato's view of the poet, as pretending to know everything, but really knowing nothing _ib._ Knowledge, opposed to divine inspiration without knowledge 136 Illustration of Plato's opinion respecting the uselessness of written geometrical treatises _ib._ CHAPTER XVIII.
LACHES.
Lachês.
Subject and persons of the dialogue--whether it is useful that two young men should receive lessons from a master of arms.
Nikias and Lachês differ in opinion 138 Sokrates is invited to declare his opinion--he replies that the point cannot be decided without a competent professional judge 139 Those who deliver an opinion must begin by proving their competence to judge--Sokrates avows his own incompetence 140 Nikias and Lachês submit to be cross-examined by Sokrates 141 Both of them give opinions offhand, according to their feelings on the special case--Sokrates requires that the question shall be generalised, and examined as a branch of education 141 Appeal of Sokrates to the judgment of the One Wise Man--this man is never seen or identified 142 We must know what virtue is, before we give an opinion on education--virtue, as a whole, is too large a question--we will enquire about one branch of virtue--courage _ib._ Question--what is courage?
Laches answers by citing one particularly manifest case of courage--mistake of not giving a general explanation 143 Second answer.
Courage is a sort of endurance of the mind--Sokrates points out that the answer is vague and incorrect--endurance is not always courage: even intelligent endurance is not always courage _ib._ Confusion.
New answer given by Nikias.
Courage is a sort of Intelligence--the intelligence of things terrible and not terrible.
Objections of Lachês 144 Questions of Sokrates to Nikias.
It is only future events, not past or present, which are terrible; but intelligence of future events cannot be had without intelligence of past or present 145 Courage therefore must be intelligence of good and evil generally.
But this definition would include the whole of virtue, and we declared that courage was only a part thereof--it will not hold therefore as a definition of courage 146 Remarks.
Warfare of Sokrates against the false persuasion of knowledge.
Brave generals deliver opinions confidently about courage without knowing what it is _ib._ No solution given by Plato--apparent tendency of his mind, in looking for a solution.
Intelligence--cannot be understood without reference to some object or end 147 Object--is supplied in the answer of Nikias.
Intelligence--of things terrible and not terrible.
Such intelligence is not possessed by professional artists 148 Postulate of a Science of Ends, or Teleology, dimly indicated by Plato.
The Unknown Wise Man--correlates with the undiscovered Science of Ends _ib._ Perfect condition of the intelligence--is the one sufficient condition of virtue 149 Dramatic contrast between Lachês and Sokrates, as cross-examiners 150 CHAPTER XIX.
CHARMIDES.
Scene and personages of the dialogue.
Crowded palæstra.
Emotions of Sokrates 153 Question, What is Temperance?
addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides.
Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness 154 But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary.
Temperance cannot be slowness _ib._ Second answer.
Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame.
Refuted by Sokrates _ib._ Third answer.
Temperance consists in doing one's own business.
Defended by Kritias.
Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it.
Distinction between making and doing 155 Fourth answer, by Kritias.
Temperance consists in self-knowledge.
_ib._ Questions of Sokrates thereupon.
What good does self-knowledge procure for us?
What is the object known, in this case?
Answer: There is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself 156 Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given _cognitum_ as its object.
Analogies to prove that knowledge of knowledge is impossible 156 All knowledge must be relative to some object 157 All properties are relative--every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference to something else _ib._ Even if cognition of cognition were possible, cognition of non-cognition would be impossible.
A man may know what he knows, but he cannot know what he is ignorant of.
He knows the fact _that_ he knows: but he does not know how much he knows, and how much he does not know 158 Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value 159 But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied, still Temperance would be of little value.
Suppose that all separate work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not attain our end--Happiness _ib._ Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or happiness?
That by which we know good and evil 160 Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be of little or of no service.
Temperance is not the science of good and evil, and is of little service 161 Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research.
He cannot find out what temperance is: although several concessions have been made which cannot be justified _ib._ Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell whether he is temperate or not; since what temperance is remains unknown 162 Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue.
Dramatic ornament throughout _ib._ The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search.
Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed 163 Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind.
Plato stands alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental process.
Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious ignorance 164 Familiar words--constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but never understood nor defined--ordinary phenomenon in human society 165 Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues 167 Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible _ib._ In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential and inestimable.
Necessity for the student to have presented to him dissentient points of view _ib._ Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning, except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil 168 Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good and Evil.
Without this last, the special sciences are of no use _ib._ Knowledge, always relative to some object known.
Postulate or divination of a Science of Teleology 169 Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle.
Comparison between the two 170 CHAPTER XX.
LYSIS.
Analogy between Lysis and Charmides.
Richness of dramatic incident in both.
Youthful beauty 172 Scenery and personages of the Lysis _ib._ Origin of the conversation.
Sokrates promises to give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit 173 Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis _ib._ Lysis is humiliated.
Distress of Hippothalês 177 Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain to Menexenus _ib._ Value of the first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, as an illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner 177 Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting friendship.
Who is to be called a friend?
Halt in the dialogue 178 Questions addressed to Lysis.
Appeal to the maxims of the poets.
Like is the friend of like.
Canvassed and rejected _ib._ Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of aversion; unlikeness, of friendship.
Reasons _pro_ and _con_.
Rejected 179 Confusion of Sokrates.
He suggests, That the Indifferent (neither good nor evil) is friend to the Good 180 Suggestion canvassed.
If the Indifferent is friend to the Good, it is determined to become so by the contact of felt evil, from which it is anxious to escape 180 Principle illustrated by the philosopher.
His intermediate condition--not wise, yet painfully feeling his own ignorance 181 Sokrates dissatisfied.
He originates a new suggestion.
The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us, _per se_: by relation or resemblance to which other objects become dear _ib._ The cause of love is desire.
We desire that which is akin to us or our own 182 Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is alien to every one.
Inconsistency with what has been previously laid down 183 Failure of the enquiry.
Close of the dialogue 184 Remarks.
No positive result.
Sokratic purpose in analysing the familiar words--to expose the false persuasion of knowledge _ib._ Subject of Lysis.
Suited for a Dialogue of Search.
Manner of Sokrates, multiplying defective explanations, and showing reasons why each is defective 185 The process of trial and error is better illustrated by a search without result than with result.
Usefulness of the dialogue for self-working minds 186 Subject of friendship, handled both by the Xenophontic Sokrates, and by Aristotle _ib._ Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real.
Assumptions made by the Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the real Sokrates would have found reason for challenging 188 Peculiar theory about friendship broached by Sokrates.
Persons neither good nor evil by nature, yet having a superficial tinge of evil, and desiring good to escape from it 189 This general theory illustrated by the case of the philosopher or lover of wisdom.
Painful consciousness of ignorance the attribute of the philosopher.
Value set by Sokrates and Plato upon this attribute 190 Another theory of Sokrates.
The Primum Amabile, or original and primary object of Love.
Particular objects are loved through association with this.
The object is Good 191 Statement by Plato of the general law of mental association _ib._ Theory of the Primum Amabile, here introduced by Sokrates, with numerous derivative objects of love.
Platonic Idea.
Generic communion of Aristotle, distinguished by him from the feebler analogical communion 192 Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima Amicitia of Aristotle.
Each of them is head of an analogical aggregate, not member of a generic family 194 The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment _ib._ CHAPTER XXI.
EUTHYDEMUS.
Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus.
Judgments of various critics 195 Scenery and personages _ib._ The two Sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: manner in which they are here presented 196 Conversation carried on with Kleinias, first by Sokrates, next by the two Sophists _ib._ Contrast between the two different modes of interrogation 197 Wherein this contrast does not consist 198 Wherein it does consist 199 Abuse of fallacies by the Sophists--their bidding for the applause of the by-standers _ibid._ Comparison of the Euthydêmus with the Parmenidês 200 Necessity of settling accounts with the negative, before we venture upon the affirmative, is common to both: in the one the process is solitary and serious; in the other, it is vulgarised and ludicrous 201 Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias talked to their auditors 202 That opinion is unfounded.
Sokrates was much more Eristic than Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or lecture _ib._ Sokrates in the Euthydêmus is drawn suitably to the purpose of that dialogue 203 The two Sophists in the Euthydêmus are not to be taken as real persons, or representatives of real persons 204 Colloquy of Sokrates with Kleinias--possession of good things is useless, unless we also have intelligence how to use them _ib._ But intelligence--of what?
It must be such intelligence, or such an art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use of it when made 205 Where is such an art to be found?
The regal or political art looks like it; but what does this art do for us?
No answer can be found.
Ends in puzzle 206 Review of the cross-examination just pursued by Sokrates.
It is very suggestive--puts the mind upon what to look for 207 Comparison with other dialogues--Republic, Philêbus, Protagoras.
The only distinct answer is found in the Protagoras 208 The talk of the two Sophists, though ironically admired while it is going on, is shown at the end to produce no real admiration, but the contrary _ib._ Mistaken representations about the Sophists--Aristotle's definition--no distinguishable line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician 210 Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus--exposure of fallacies, in Plato's dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples 211 Aristotle (Soph.
Elench.)
attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato enumerates them without classification 212 Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the Euthydêmus _ib._ Fallacies--_à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter_--in the Euthydêmus 213 Obstinacy shown by the two Sophists in their replies--determination not to contradict themselves 214 Farther verbal equivocations _ib._ Fallacies involving deeper logical principles--contradiction is impossible.--To speak falsely is impossible 215 Plato's Euthydêmus is the earliest known attempt to set out and expose fallacies--the only way of exposing fallacies is to exemplify the fallacy by particular cases, in which the conclusion proved is known _aliunde_ to be false and absurd 216 Mistake of supposing fallacies to have been invented and propagated by Athenian Sophists--they are inherent inadvertencies and liabilities to error, in the ordinary process of thinking.
Formal debate affords the best means of correcting them 217 Wide-spread prevalence of erroneous belief, misguided by one or other of these fallacies, attested by Sokrates, Plato, Bacon, &c.,--complete enumeration of heads of fallacies by Mill 218 Value of formal debate as a means for testing and confuting fallacies 221 Without the habit of formal debate, Plato could not have composed his Euthydêmus, nor Aristotle the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis _ib._ Probable popularity of the Euthydêmus at Athens--welcomed by all the enemies of Dialectic 222 Epilogue of Plato to the Dialogue, trying to obviate this inference by opponents--Conversation between Sokrates and Kriton 223 Altered tone in speaking of Euthydêmus--Disparagement of persons half-philosophers, half-politicians 224 Kriton asks Sokrates for advice about the education of his sons--Sokrates cannot recommend a teacher--tells him to search for himself 225 Euthydêmus is here cited as representative of Dialectic and philosophy 226 Who is the person here intended by Plato, half-philosopher, half-politician?
Is it Isokrates?
227 Variable feeling at different times, between Plato and Isokrates 228 CHAPTER XXII.
MENON.
Persons of the Dialogue 232 Question put by Menon--Is virtue teachable?
Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is.
Surprise of Menon _ib._ Sokrates stands alone in this confession.
Unpopularity entailed by it 233 Answer of Menon--plurality of virtues, one belonging to each different class and condition.
Sokrates enquires for the property common to all of them _ib._ Analogous cases cited--definitions of figure and colour 235 Importance at that time of bringing into conscious view, logical subordination and distinctions--Neither logic nor grammar had then been cast into system _ib._ Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces 236 Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates confounds him like an electric shock--Sokrates replies that he is himself in the same state of confusion and ignorance.
He urges continuance of search by both 237 But how is the process of search available to any purpose?
No man searches for what he already knows: and for what he does not know, it is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he has found it _ib._ Theory of reminiscence propounded by Sokrates--anterior immortality of the soul--what is called teaching is the revival and recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but forgotten _ib._ Illustration of this theory--knowledge may be revived by skilful questions in the mind of a man thoroughly untaught.
Sokrates questions the slave of Menon 238 Enquiry taken up--Whether virtue is teachable?
without determining what virtue is 239 Virtue is knowledge--no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge _ib._ Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable.
Yet there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable.
No teachers of it can be found 239 Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue 240 Confused state of the discussion.
No way of acquiring virtue is shown _ib._ Sokrates modifies his premisses--knowledge is not the only thing which guides to good results--right opinion will do the same _ib._ Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach others--good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods 241 All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration from the Gods 242 But what virtue itself is, remains unknown _ib._ Remarks on the dialogue.
Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates _ib._ Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled _ib._ Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon--desire of good alleged to be universally felt--in what sense this is true 243 Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what?
244 Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras--diversity of handling--Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it 245 Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research 246 Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers--criterion of truth--Wherein consists the process of verification?
_ib._ None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by Plato--that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience 247 Plato's view of the immortality of the soul--difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon 249 Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind--how far correct?
_ib._ Plato's doctrine about _à priori_ reasonings--different from the modern doctrine 251 Plato's theory about pre-natal experience.
He took no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal experience 252 Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or Forms 253 What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning--his distinction between knowledge and right opinion _ib._ This distinction compared with modern philosophical views 254 Manifestation of Anytus--intense antipathy to the Sophists and to philosophy generally 255 The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists--practical statesmen 256 The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen 257 CHAPTER XXIII.
PROTAGORAS.
Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue 259 Introduction.
Eagerness of the youthful Hippokrates to become acquainted with Protagoras 260 Sokrates questions Hippokrates as to his purpose and expectations from Protagoras _ib._ Danger of going to imbibe the instruction of a Sophist without knowing beforehand what he is about to teach 262 Remarks on the Introduction.
False persuasion of knowledge brought to light 263 Sokrates and Hippokrates go to the house of Kallias.
Company therein.
Respect shown to Protagoras 264 Questions of Sokrates to Protagoras.
Answer of the latter, declaring the antiquity of the sophistical profession, and his own openness in avowing himself a sophist _ib._ Protagoras prefers to converse in presence of the assembled company 266 Answers of Protagoras.
He intends to train young men as virtuous citizens _ib._ Sokrates doubts whether virtue is teachable.
Reasons for such doubt.
Protagoras is asked to explain whether it is or not.
_ib._ Explanation of Protagoras.
He begins with a mythe 267 Mythe.
First fabrication of men by the Gods.
Prometheus and Epimetheus.
Bad distribution of endowments to man by the latter.
It is partly amended by Prometheus 267 Prometheus gave to mankind skill for the supply of individual wants, but could not give them the social art--Mankind are on the point of perishing, when Zeus sends to them the dispositions essential for society 268 Protagoras follows up his mythe by a discourse.
Justice and the sense of shame are not professional attributes, but are possessed by all citizens and taught by all to all 269 Constant teaching of virtue.
Theory of punishment 270 Why eminent men cannot make their sons eminent 271 Teaching by parents, schoolmaster, harpist, laws, dikastery, &c. _ib._ All learn virtue from the same teaching by all.
Whether a learner shall acquire more or less of it, depends upon his own individual aptitude 272 Analogy of learning vernacular Greek.
No special teacher thereof.
Protagoras teaches virtue somewhat better than others 273 The sons of great artists do not themselves become great artists 274 Remarks upon the mythe and discourse.
They explain the manner in which the established sentiment of a community propagates and perpetuates itself 274 Antithesis of Protagoras and Sokrates.
Whether virtue is to be assimilated to a special art 275 Procedure of Sokrates in regard to the discourse of Protagoras--he compliments it as an exposition, and analyses some of the fundamental assumptions 276 One purpose of the dialogue.
To contrast continuous discourse with short cross-examining question and answer 277 Questions by Sokrates--Whether virtue is one and indivisible, or composed of different parts?
Whether the parts are homogeneous or heterogeneous?
_ib._ Whether justice is just, and holiness holy?
How far justice is like to holiness?
Sokrates protests against an answer, "If you please" 278 Intelligence and moderation are identical, because they have the same contrary 279 Insufficient reasons given by Sokrates.
He seldom cares to distinguish different meanings of the same term _ib._ Protagoras is puzzled, and becomes irritated 280 Sokrates presses Protagoras farther.
His purpose is, to test opinions and not persons.
Protagoras answers with angry prolixity _ib._ Remonstrance of Sokrates against long answers as inconsistent with the laws of dialogue.
Protagoras persists.
Sokrates rises to depart 281 Interference of Kallias to get the debate continued.
Promiscuous conversation.
Alkibiades declares that Protagoras ought to acknowledge superiority of Sokrates in dialogue 282 Claim of a special _locus standi_ and professorship for Dialectic, apart from Rhetoric _ib._ Sokrates is prevailed upon to continue, and invites Protagoras to question him _ib._ Protagoras extols the importance of knowing the works of the poets, and questions about parts of a song of Simonides.
Dissenting opinions about the interpretation of the song 283 Long speech of Sokrates, expounding the purpose of the song, and laying down an ironical theory about the numerous concealed sophists at Krete and Sparta, masters of short speech 283 Character of this speech--its connection with the dialogue, and its general purpose.
Sokrates inferior to Protagoras in continuous speech 284 Sokrates depreciates the value of debates on the poets.
Their meaning is always disputed, and you can never ask from themselves what it is.
Protagoras consents reluctantly to resume the task of answering 285 Purpose of Sokrates to sift difficulties which he really feels in his own mind.
Importance of a colloquial companion for this purpose 287 The interrupted debate is resumed.
Protagoras says that courage differs materially from the other branches of virtue 288 Sokrates argues to prove that courage consists in knowledge or intelligence.
Protagoras does not admit this.
Sokrates changes his attack _ib._ Identity of the pleasurable with the good--of the painful with the evil.
Sokrates maintains it.
Protagoras denies.
Debate 289 Enquiry about knowledge.
Is it the dominant agency in the mind?
Or is it overcome frequently by other agencies, pleasure or pain?
Both agree that knowledge is dominant 290 Mistake of supposing that men act contrary to knowledge.
We never call pleasures evils, except when they entail a preponderance of pain, or a disappointment of greater pleasures 291 Pleasure is the only good--pain the only evil.
No man does evil voluntarily, knowing it to be evil.
Difference between pleasures present and future--resolves itself into pleasure and pain 292 Necessary resort to the measuring art for choosing pleasures rightly--all the security of our lives depend upon it 293 To do wrong, overcome by pleasure, is only a bad phrase for describing what is really a case of grave ignorance 294 Reasoning of Sokrates assented to by all.
Actions which conduct to pleasures or freedom from pain, are honourable 295 Explanation of courage.
It consists in a wise estimate of things terrible and not terrible _ib._ Reluctance of Protagoras to continue answering.
Close of the discussion.
Sokrates declares that the subject is still in confusion, and that he wishes to debate it again with Protagoras.
Amicable reply of Protagoras 297 Remarks on the dialogue.
It closes without the least allusion to Hippokrates 298 Two distinct aspects of ethics and politics exhibited: one under the name of Protagoras; the other, under that of Sokrates 299 Order of ethical problems, as conceived by Sokrates _ib._ Difference of method between him and Protagoras flows from this difference of order.
Protagoras assumes what virtue is, without enquiry 300 Method of Protagoras.
Continuous lectures addressed to established public sentiments with which he is in harmony 301 Method of Sokrates.
Dwells upon that part of the problem which Protagoras had left out _ib._ Antithesis between the eloquent lecturer and the analytical cross-examiner 303 Protagoras not intended to be always in the wrong, though he is described as brought to a contradiction _ib._ Affirmation of Protagoras about courage is affirmed by Plato himself elsewhere _ib._ The harsh epithets applied by critics to Protagoras are not borne out by the dialogue.
He stands on the same ground as the common consciousness 304 Aversion of Protagoras for dialectic.
Interlude about the song of Simonides 305 Ethical view given by Sokrates worked out at length clearly.
Good and evil consist in right or wrong calculation of pleasures and pains of the agent _ib._ Protagoras is at first opposed to this theory 306 Reasoning of Sokrates 307 Application of that reasoning to the case of courage _ib._ The theory which Plato here lays down is more distinct and specific than any theory laid down in other dialogues 308 Remarks on the theory here laid down by Sokrates.
It is too narrow, and exclusively prudential 309 Comparison with the Republic 310 The discourse of Protagoras brings out an important part of the whole case, which is omitted in the analysis by Sokrates 311 The Ethical End, as implied in the discourse of Protagoras, involves a direct regard to the pleasures and pains of other persons besides the agent himself 312 Plato's reasoning in the dialogue is not clear or satisfactory, especially about courage 313 Doctrine of Stallbaum and other critics is not correct.
That the analysis here ascribed to Sokrates is not intended by Plato as serious, but as a mockery of the sophists 314 Grounds of that doctrine.
Their insufficiency 315 Subject is professedly still left unsettled at the close of the dialogue 316 CHAPTER XXIV.
GORGIAS.
Persons who debate in the Gorgias.
Celebrity of the historical Gorgias 317 Introductory circumstances of the dialogue.
Polus and Kalliklês 318 Purpose of Sokrates in questioning.
Conditions of a good definition _ib._ Questions about the definition of Rhetoric.
It is the artisan of persuasion 319 The Rhetor produces belief without knowledge.
Upon what matters is he competent to advise?
319 The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the opinion of the special expert.
He appears to know, among the ignorant 320 Gorgias is now made to contradict himself.
Polus takes up the debate with Sokrates 321 Polemical tone of Sokrates.
At the instance of Polus he gives his own definition of rhetoric.
It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery.
It is a branch under the general head flattery _ib._ Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body and mind--and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in reality aim at immediate pleasure 322 Questions of Polus.
Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real power, because they do nothing which they really wish 323 All men wish for what is good for them.
Despots and Rhetors, when they kill any one, do so because they think it good for them.
If it be really not good, they do not do what they will, and therefore have no real power 324 Comparison of Archelaus, usurping despot of Macedonia--Polus affirms that Archelaus is happy, and that every one thinks so--Sokrates admits that every one thinks so, but nevertheless denies it 325 Sokrates maintains--1.
That it is a greater evil to do wrong, than to suffer wrong.
2.
That if a man has done wrong, it is better for him to be punished than to remain unpunished 326 Sokrates offers proof--Definition of Pulchrum and Turpe--Proof of the first point 327 Proof of the second point _ib._ The criminal labours under a mental distemper, which though not painful, is a capital evil.
Punishment is the only cure for him.
To be punished is best for him 328 Misery of the Despot who is never punished.
If our friend has done wrong, we ought to get him punished: if our enemy, we ought to keep him unpunished 329 Argument of Sokrates paradoxical--Doubt expressed by Kalliklês whether he means it seriously 330 Principle laid down by Sokrates--That every one acts with a view to the attainment of happiness and avoidance of misery _ib._ Peculiar view taken by Plato of Good--Evil--Happiness 331 Contrast of the usual meaning of these words, with the Platonic meaning _ib._ Examination of the proof given by Sokrates--Inconsistency between the general answer of Polus and his previous declarations--Law and Nature 332 The definition of Pulchrum and Turpe, given by Sokrates, will not hold 334 Worse or better--for whom?
The argument of Sokrates does not specify.
If understood in the sense necessary for his inference, the definition would be inadmissible _ib._ Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar to himself.
His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does not give the true reasons for it 335 If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which punishment is considered would be reversed 336 Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily distemper--Material difference between the two--Distemper must be felt by the distempered persons 337 Kalliklês begins to argue against Sokrates--he takes a distinction between Just by Law and Just by nature--Reply of Sokrates, that there is no variance between the two, properly understood 338 What Kalliklês says is not to be taken as a sample of the teachings of Athenian sophists.
Kalliklês--rhetor and politician 339 Uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority.
It may be pleaded in favour of opposite theories.
The theory of Kalliklês is made to appear repulsive by the language in which he expresses it 340 Sokrates maintains that self-command and moderation is requisite for the strong man as well as for others.
Kalliklês defends the negative 343 Whether the largest measure of desires is good for a man, provided he has the means of satisfying them?
Whether all varieties of desire are good?
Whether the pleasurable and the good are identical?
344 Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical.
Sokrates refutes him.
Some pleasures are good, others bad.
A scientific adviser is required to discriminate them 345 Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the Protagoras _ib._ Views of critics about this contradiction 346 Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of Sokrates in both dialogues _ib._ Distinct statement in the Protagoras.
What are good and evil, and upon what principles the scientific adviser is to proceed in discriminating them.
No such distinct statement in the Gorgias 347 Modern ethical theories.
Intuition.
Moral sense--not recognised by Plato in either of the dialogues 348 In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is self-regarding as respects the agent: not considering the pleasures and pains of other persons, so far as affected by the agent 349 Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues is in substance the same, but differing in classification _ib._ Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias, maintains a different argument from that which Sokrates combats in the Protagoras 350 The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful--it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras 351 Permanent elements--and transient elements--of human agency--how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues 353 In the Protagoras _ib._ In the Gorgias 354 Character of the Gorgias generally--discrediting all the actualities of life 355 Argument of Sokrates resumed--multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure 357 The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public--even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else--citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles 357 Necessity for temperance, regulation, order.
This is the condition of virtue and happiness 358 Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force 359 Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse _ib._ Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself--to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction 360 Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art.
Danger of doing this 361 Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life--the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded _ib._ Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates--Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias 362 He merges politics in Ethics--he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community _id._ _Idéal_ of Plato--a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own 363 Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health--incomplete analogy--circumstances of difference _ib._ Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits.
Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence 364 Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen.
He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic 365 Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric _ib._ Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen 366 Probable feelings of Plato on this subject--Claim put forward in the Gorgias of an independent _locus standi_ for philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates 367 Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion.
Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance 368 Issue between philosophy and rhetoric--not satisfactorily handled by Plato.
Injustice done to rhetoric.
Ignoble manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês 369 Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias 370 The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived 371 Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various established sentiments and opinions.
Erroneous inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato 373 The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline.
But order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good.
Divergent ideas about virtue 374 How to discriminate the right order from the wrong.
Plato does not advise us 375 The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity of the dissenting philosopher _ib._ CHAPTER XXV.
PHÆDON.
The Phædon is affirmative and expository 377 Situation and circumstances assumed in the Phædon.
Pathetic interest which they inspire _ib._ Simmias and Kebês, the two collocutors with Sokrates.
Their feelings and those of Sokrates 378 Emphasis of Sokrates in insisting on freedom of debate, active exercise of reason, and independent judgment for each reasoner 379 Anxiety of Sokrates that his friends shall be on their guard against being influenced by his authority--that they shall follow only the convictions of their own reason 380 Remarkable manifestation of earnest interest for reasoned truth and the liberty of individual dissent 381 Phædon and Symposion--points of analogy and contrast 382 Phædon--compared with Republic and Timæus.
No recognition of the triple or lower souls.
Antithesis between soul and body 383 Different doctrines of Plato about the soul.
Whether all the three souls are immortal, or the rational soul alone 385 The life and character of a philosopher is a constant struggle to emancipate his soul from his body.
Death alone enables him to do this completely 386 Souls of the ordinary or unphilosophical men pass after death into the bodies of different animals.
The philosopher alone is relieved from all communion with body 387 Special privilege claimed for philosophers in the Phædon apart from the virtuous men who are not philosophers 388 Simmias and Kebês do not admit readily the immortality of the soul, but are unwilling to trouble Sokrates by asking for proof.
Unabated interest of Sokrates in rational debate 390 Simmias and Kebês believe fully in the pre-existence of the soul, but not in its post-existence.
Doctrine--That the soul is a sort of harmony--refuted by Sokrates _ib._ Sokrates unfolds the intellectual changes or wanderings through which his mind had passed 391 First doctrine of Sokrates as to cause.
Reasons why he rejected it _ib._ Second doctrine.
Hopes raised by the treatise of Anaxagoras 393 Disappointment because Anaxagoras did not follow out the optimistic principle into detail.
Distinction between causes efficient and causes co-efficient 394 Sokrates could neither trace out the optimistic principle for himself, nor find any teacher thereof.
He renounced it, and embraced a third doctrine about cause 395 He now assumes the separate existence of ideas.
These ideas are the causes why particular objects manifest certain attributes 396 Procedure of Sokrates if his hypothesis were impugned.
He insists upon keeping apart the discussion of the hypothesis and the discussion of its consequences 397 Exposition of Sokrates welcomed by the hearers.
Remarks upon it 398 The philosophical changes in Sokrates all turned upon different views as to a true cause _ib._.
Problems and difficulties of which Sokrates first sought solution 399 Expectations entertained by Sokrates from the treatise of Anaxagoras.
His disappointment.
His distinction between causes and co-efficients 400 Sokrates imputes to Anaxagoras the mistake of substituting physical agencies in place of mental.
This is the same which Aristophanes and others imputed to Sokrates 401 The supposed theory of Anaxagoras cannot be carried out, either by Sokrates himself or any one else.
Sokrates turns to general words, and adopts the theory of ideas 403 Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the word Cause.
That is a cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to his inquisitive feelings 404 Dissension and perplexity on the question.--What is a cause?
revealed by the picture of Sokrates--no intuition to guide him 407 Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about causation, causes regular and irregular.
Inductive theory of causation, elaborated in modern times _ib._ Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from things to words--to the adoption of the theory of ideas.
Great multitude of ideas assumed, each fitting a certain number of particulars 410 Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme generality 411 Plato's demonstration of the immortality of the soul rests upon the assumption of the Platonic ideas.
Reasoning to prove this 412 The soul always brings life, and is essentially living.
It cannot receive death: in other words, it is immortal 413 The proof of immortality includes pre-existence as well as post-existence--animals as well as man--also the metempsychosis or translation of the soul from one body to another 414 After finishing his proof that the soul is immortal, Sokrates enters into a description, what will become of it after the death of the body.
He describes a [Greek: Nekui/a] 415 Sokrates expects that his soul is going to the islands of the blest.
Reply to Kriton about burying his body 416 Preparations for administering the hemlock.
Sympathy of the gaoler.
Equanimity of Sokrates _ib._ Sokrates swallows the poison.
Conversation with the gaoler 417 Ungovernable sorrow of the friends present.
Self-command of Sokrates.
Last words to Kriton, and death _ib._ Extreme pathos, and probable trustworthiness of these personal details 419 Contrast between the Platonic Apology and the Phædon _ib._.
Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the Phædon compared with the profession of ignorance which we read in the Apology 421 Total renunciation and discredit of the body in the Phædon.
Different feeling about the body in other Platonic dialogues 422 Plato's argument does not prove the immortality of the soul.
Even if it did prove that, yet the mode of pre-existence and the mode of post-existence, of the soul, would be quite undetermined 423 The philosopher will enjoy an existence of pure soul unattached to any body 425 Plato's demonstration of the immortality of the soul did not appear satisfactory to subsequent philosophers.
The question remained debated and problematical 426 PLATO.
CHAPTER XII ALKIBIADES I.
AND II.
ALKIBIADES I.--ON THE NATURE OF MAN.
[Side-note: Situation supposed in the dialogue.
Persons--Sokrates and Alkibiades.]
This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Alkibiades.
It introduces Alkibiades as about twenty years of age, having just passed through the period of youth, and about to enter on the privileges and duties of a citizen.
The real dispositions and circumstances of the historical Alkibiades (magnificent personal beauty, stature, and strength, high family and connections, great wealth already possessed, since his father had died when he was a child,--a full measure of education and accomplishments--together with exorbitant ambition and insolence, derived from such accumulated advantages) are brought to view in the opening address of Sokrates.
Alkibiades, during the years of youth which he had just passed, had been surrounded by admirers who tried to render themselves acceptable to him, but whom he repelled with indifference, and even with scorn.
Sokrates had been among them, constantly present and near to Alkibiades, but without ever addressing a word to him.
The youthful beauty being now exchanged for manhood, all these admirers had retired, and Sokrates alone remains.
His attachment is to Alkibiades himself: to promise of mind rather than to attractions of person.
Sokrates has been always hitherto restrained, by his divine sign or Dæmon, from speaking to Alkibiades.
But this prohibition has now been removed; and he accosts him for the first time, in the full belief that he shall be able to give improving counsel, essential to the success of that political career upon which the youth is about to enter.
[1] [Footnote 1: Plato, Alkib.
i.
103, 104, 105.
Perikles is supposed to be still alive and political leader of Athens--104 B. I have briefly sketched the imaginary situation to which this dialogue is made to apply.
The circumstances of it belong to Athenian manners of the Platonic age.
Some of the critics, considering that the relation supposed between Sokrates and Alkibiades is absurd and unnatural, allege this among their reasons for denying the authenticity of the dialogue.
But if any one reads the concluding part of the Symposion--the authenticity of which has never yet been denied by any critic--he will find something a great deal more abnormal in what is there recounted about Sokrates and Alkibiades.
In a dialogue composed by Æschines Socraticus (cited by the rhetor Aristeides--[Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s], Or.
xlv.
p. 23-24), expressions of intense love for Alkibiades are put into the mouth of Sokrates.
Æschines was [Greek: gnê/sios e(tai=ros Sôkra/tous], not less than Plato.
The different companions of Sokrates thus agreed in their picture of the relation between him and Alkibiades.]
[Side-note: Exorbitant hopes and political ambition of Alkibiades.]
You are about to enter on public life (says Sokrates to Alkibiades) with the most inordinate aspirations for glory and aggrandisement.
You not only thirst for the acquisition of ascendancy such as Perikles possesses at Athens, but your ambition will not be satisfied unless you fill Asia with your renown, and put yourself upon a level with Cyrus and Xerxes.
Now such aspirations cannot be gratified except through my assistance.
I do not deal in long discourses such as you have been accustomed to hear from others: I shall put to you only some short interrogatories, requiring nothing more than answers to my questions.
[2] [Footnote 2: Plato, Alkib.
i.
106 B.
[Greek: A)=ra e)rôtta=|s ei)/ tina e)/chô ei)pei=n lo/gon makro/n, oi(/ous dê\ a)kou/ein ei)/thisai?
ou) ga/r e)sti toiou=ton to\ e)mo/n.]
I give here, as elsewhere, not an exact translation, but an abstract.]
[Side-note: Questions put by Sokrates, in reference to Alkibiades in his intended function as adviser of the Athenians.
What does he intend to advise them upon?
What has he learnt, and what does he know?]
_Sokr._--You are about to step forward as adviser of the public assembly.
Upon what points do you intend to advise them?
Upon points which you know better than they?
_Alk._--Of course.
_Sokr._--All that you know, has been either learnt from others or found out by yourself.
_Alk._--Certainly.
_Sokr._--But you would neither have learnt any thing, nor found out any thing, without the desire to learn or find out: and you would have felt no such desire, in respect to that which you believed yourself to know already.
That which you now know, therefore, there was a time when you believed yourself not to know?
_Alk._--Necessarily so.
_Sokr._--Now all that you have learnt, as I am well aware, consists of three things--letters, the harp, gymnastics.
Do you intend to advise the Athenians when they are debating about letters, or about harp-playing, or about gymnastics?
_Alk._--Neither of the three.
_Sokr._--Upon what occasions, then, do you propose to give advice?
Surely, not when the Athenians are debating about architecture, or prophetic warnings, or the public health: for to deliver opinions on each of these matters, belongs not to you but to professional men--architects, prophets, physicians; whether they be poor or rich, high-born or low-born?
If not _then_, upon what other occasions will you tender your counsel?
_Alk._--When they are debating about affairs of their own.
[Side-note: Alkibiades intends to advise the Athenians on questions of war and peace.
Questions of Sokrates thereupon.
We must fight those whom it is better to fight--to what standard does better refer?
To just and unjust.]
_Sokr._--But about what affairs of their own?
Not about affairs of shipbuilding: for of that you know nothing.
_Alk._--When they are discussing war and peace, or any other business concerning the city.
_Sokr._--You mean when they are discussing the question with whom they shall make war or peace, and in what manner?
But it is certain that we must fight those whom it is best to fight--also _when_ it is best--and _as long as_ it is best.
_Alk._--Certainly.
_Sokr._--Now, if the Athenians wished to know whom it was best to wrestle with, and when or how long it was best which of the two would be most competent to advise them, you or the professional trainer?
_Alk._--The trainer, undoubtedly.
_Sokr._--So, too, about playing the harp or singing.
But when you talk about _better_, in wrestling or singing, what standard do you refer to?
Is it not to the gymnastic or musical art?
_Alk._--Yes.
_Sokr._--Answer me in like manner about war or peace, the subjects on which you are going to advise your countrymen, whom, and at what periods, it is _better_ to fight, and _better_ not to fight?
What in this last case do you mean by _better_?
To what standard, or to what end, do you refer?
[3] _Alk._--I cannot say.
_Sokr._--But is it not a disgrace, since you profess to advise your countrymen when and against whom it is better for them to war,--not to be able to say to what end your _better_ refers?
Do not you know what are the usual grounds and complaints urged when war is undertaken?
_Alk._--Yes: complaints of having been cheated, or robbed, or injured.
_Sokr._--Under what circumstances?
_Alk._--You mean, whether justly or unjustly?
That makes all the difference.
_Sokr._--Do you mean to advise the Athenians to fight those who behave justly, or those who behave unjustly?
_Alk._--The question is monstrous.
Certainly not those who behave justly.
It would be neither lawful nor honourable.
_Sokr._--Then when you spoke about _better_, in reference to war or peace, what you meant was _juster_--you had in view justice and injustice?
_Alk._--It seems so.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Alkib.
i.
108 E--109 A.
[Greek: i)/thi dê/, kai\ to\ en tô=| polemei=n be/ltion kai\ to\ en tô=| ei)rê/nên a)/gein, tou=to to\ be/ltion ti/ o)noma/zeis?
ô(/sper e)kei= e)ph' e)ka/stô| e)/leges to\ a)/meinon, o(/ti mousikô/teron, kai\ e)pi\ tô=| e(terô|, o(/ti gumnastikô/teron; peirô= dê\ kai\ e)ntau=tha le/gein to\ be/ltion .
.
.
.
.
pro\s ti/ teinei to\ e)n tô=| ei)rê/nên te a)/gein a)/meinon kai\ to\ e)n tô=| polemei=n oi(=s dei=?]
_Alkib._ [Greek: A)lla\ skopô=n ou) du/namai e)nnoê=sai.]]
[Side-note: How, or from whom, has Alkibiades learnt to discern or distinguish Just and Unjust?
He never learnt it from any one; he always knew it, even as a boy.]
_Sokr._--How is this?
How do you know, or where have you learnt, to distinguish just from unjust?
Have you frequented some master, without my knowledge, to teach you this?
If you have, pray introduce me to him, that I also may learn it from him.
_Alk._--You are jesting.
_Sokr._--Not at all: I love you too well to jest.
_Alk._--But what if I had no master?
Cannot I know about justice and injustice, without a master?
_Sokr._--Certainly: you might find out for yourself, if you made search and investigated.
But this you would not do, unless you were under the persuasion that you did not already know.
_Alk._--Was there not a time when I really believed myself not to know it?
_Sokr._--Perhaps there may have been: tell me _when_ that time was.
Was it last year?
_Alk._--No: last year I thought that I knew.
_Sokr._--Well, then two years, three years, &c., ago?
_Alk._--No: the case was the same then, also, I thought that I knew.
_Sokr._--But before that, you were a mere boy; and during your boyhood you certainly believed yourself to know what was just and unjust; for I well recollect hearing you then complain confidently of other boys, for acting unjustly towards you.
_Alk._--Certainly: I was not then ignorant on the point: I knew distinctly that they were acting unjustly towards me.
_Sokr._--You knew, then, even in your boyhood, what was just and what was unjust?
_Alk._--Certainly: I knew even then.
_Sokr._--At what moment did you first find it out?
Not when you already believed yourself to know: and what time was there when you did not believe yourself to know?
_Alk._--Upon my word, I cannot say.
[Side-note: Answer amended.
Alkibiades learnt it from the multitude, as he learnt to speak Greek.--The multitude cannot teach just and unjust, for they are at variance among themselves about it.
Alkibiades is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself.]
_Sokr._--Since, accordingly, you neither found it out for yourself, nor learnt it from others, how come you to know justice or injustice at all, or from what quarter?
_Alk._--I was mistaken in saying that I had not learnt it.
I learnt it, as others do, from the multitude.
[4] _Sokr._--Your teachers are none of the best: no one can learn from them even such small matters as playing at draughts: much less, what is just and unjust.
_Alk._--I learnt it from them as I learnt to speak Greek, in which, too, I never had any special teacher.
_Sokr._--Of that the multitude are competent teachers, for they are all of one mind.
Ask which is a tree or a stone,--a horse or a man,--you get the same answer from every one.
But when you ask not simply which are _horses_, but also which horses are fit to run well in a race--when you ask not merely about which are _men_, but which men are healthy or unhealthy--are the multitude all of one mind, or all competent to answer?
_Alk._--Assuredly not.
_Sokr._--When you see the multitude differing among themselves, that is a clear proof that they are not competent to teach others.
_Alk._--It is so.
_Sokr._--Now, about the question, What is just and unjust--are the multitude all of one mind, or do they differ among themselves?
_Alk._--They differ prodigiously: they not only dispute, but quarrel and destroy each other, respecting justice and injustice, far more than about health and sickness.
[5] _Sokr._ How, then, can we say that the multitude know what is just and unjust, when they thus fiercely dispute about it among themselves?
_Alk._--I now perceive that we cannot say so.
_Sokr._--How can we say, therefore, that they are fit to teach others: and how can you pretend to know, who have learnt from no other teachers?
_Alk._--From what you say, it is impossible.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Alkib.
i.
110 D-E. [Greek: e)/mathon, oi)=mai, kai\ e)gô\ ô(/sper kai\ oi( a)/lloi .
.
.
.
para\ tô=n pollô=n.]]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Alkib.
i.
112 A.
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ de\ dê\?
nu=n peri\ tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn a)nthrô/pôn kai\ pragma/tôn, oi( polloi\ dokou=si/ soi o(mologei=n au)toi\ e(autoi=s ê)\ a)llê/lois?]
_Alkib._ [Greek: Ê(/kista, nê\ Di/', ô)= Sô/krates.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ de/?
ma/lista peri\ au)tô=n diaphe/resthai?]
_Alkib._ [Greek: polu/ ge.]]
_Sokr._--No: not from what _I_ say, but from what _you_ say yourself.
I merely ask questions: it is you who give all the answers.
[6] And what you have said amounts to this--that Alkibiades knows nothing about what is just and unjust, but believes himself to know, and is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself?
[Footnote 6: Plato, Alkib.
i.
112-113.]
[Side-note: Answer farther amended.
The Athenians do not generally debate about just or unjust--which they consider plain to every one--but about expedient and inexpedient, which are not coincident with just and unjust.
But neither does Alkibiades know the expedient.
He asks Sokrates to explain.
Sokrates declines: he can do nothing but question.]
_Alk._--But, Sokrates, the Athenians do not often debate about what is just and unjust.
They think that question self-evident; they debate generally about what is expedient or not expedient.
Justice and expediency do not do not always coincide.
Many persons commit great crimes, and are great gainers by doing so: others again behave justly, and suffer from it.
[7] _Sokr_--Do you then profess to know what is expedient or inexpedient?
From whom have you learnt--or when did you find out for yourself?
I might ask you the same round of questions, and you would be compelled to answer in the same manner.
But we will pass to a different point.
You say that justice and expediency are not coincident.
Persuade _me_ of this, by interrogating me as I interrogated you.
_Alk._--That is beyond my power.
_Sokr._--But when you rise to address the assembly, you will have to persuade _them_.
If you can persuade them, you can persuade me.
Assume _me_ to be the assembly, and practise upon me.
[8] _Alk._--You are too hard upon me, Sokrates.
It is for you to speak and prove the point.
_Sokr_--No: I can only question: you must answer.
You will be most surely persuaded when the point is determined by your own answers.
[9] [Footnote 7: Plato, Alkib.
i.
113 D. [Greek: Oi)=mai me\n o)liga/kis A)thênai/ous bouleu/esthai po/tera dikaio/tera ê)\ a)dikôtera; ta\ me\n ga\r toiau=ta ê(gou=ntai dê=la ei)=nai], &c.] [Footnote 8: Plato, Alkib.
i.
114 B-C.
This same argument is addressed by Sokrates to Glaukon, in Xenoph.
Memor.
iii.
6, 14-15.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Alkib.
i.
114 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ei) le/geis o(/ti tau=th' ou(/tôs e)/chei, ma/list' a)\n ei)/ês pepeisme/nos?]]
[Side-note: Comment on the preceding--Sokratic method--the respondent makes the discoveries for himself.]
Such is the commencing portion (abbreviated or abstracted) of Plato's First Alkibiadês.
It exhibits a very characteristic specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic method: both in its negative and positive aspect.
By the negative, false persuasion of knowledge is exposed.
Alkibiades believes himself competent to advise about just and unjust, which he has neither learnt from any teacher nor investigated for himself--which he has picked up from the multitude, and supposes to be clear to every one, but about which nevertheless there is so much difference of appreciation among the multitude, that fierce and perpetual quarrels are going on.
On the positive side, Sokrates restricts himself to the function of questioning: he neither affirms nor denies any thing.
It is Alkibiades who affirms or denies every thing, and who makes all the discoveries for himself out of his own mind, instigated indeed, but not taught, by the questions of his companion.
[Side-note: Alkibiades is brought to admit that whatever is just, is good, honourable, expedient: and that whoever acts honourably, both does well, and procures for himself happiness thereby.
Equivocal reasoning of Sokrates.]
By a farther series of questions, Sokrates next brings Alkibiades to the admission that what is just, is also honourable, good, expedient--what is unjust, is dishonourable, evil, inexpedient: and that whoever acts justly, and honourably, thereby acquires happiness.
Admitting, first, that an act which is good, honourable, just, expedient, &c., considered in one aspect or in reference to some of its conditions--may be at the same time bad, dishonourable, unjust, considered in another aspect or in reference to other conditions; Sokrates nevertheless brings his respondent to admit, that every act, _in so far as it is just and honourable_, is also good and expedient.
[10] And he contends farther, that whoever acts honourably, does well: now every man who does well, becomes happy, or secures good things thereby: therefore the just, the honourable, and the good or expedient, coincide.
[11] The argument, whereby this conclusion is here established, is pointed out by Heindorf, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, as not merely inconclusive, but as mere verbal equivocation and sophistry--the like of which, however, we find elsewhere in Plato.
[12] [Footnote 10: Plato, Alkib.
i.
115 B--116 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n tê\n toiau/tên boêthei/an kalê\n me\n le/geis kata\ tê\n e)pichei/rêsin tou= sô=sai ou(=s e)/dei; tou=to d' e)sti\n a)ndri/a; .
.
.
.
kakê\n de/ ge kata\ tou\s thana/tous te kai\ ta\ e(/lkê.
.
.
.
Ou)kou=n ô(=de di/kaion prosagoreu/ein e(ka/stên tô=n pra/xeôn; ei)/per ê)=| kako\n a)perga/zetai kakê\n kalei=s, kai\ ê)=| a)gatho\n a)gathê\n klête/on.
A)r' ou)=n kai\ ê)=| a)gatho\n kalo/n,--ê)=| de\ kako\n ai)schro/n?
Nai/.]
Compare Plato, Republic, v. p. 479, where he maintains that in every particular case, what is just, honourable, virtuous, &c., is also unjust, dishonourable, vicious, &c. Nothing remains unchanged, nor excludes the contrary, except the pure, self-existent, Idea or general Concept.--[Greek: au)to\-dikaiosu/nê], &c.] [Footnote 11: Plato, Alkib.
i.
116 E.] [Footnote 12: The words [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein--eu)pragi/a] have a double sense, like our "doing well".
Stallbaum, Proleg.
p. 175; Steinhart, Einl.
p. 149.
We have, p. 116 B, the equivocation between [Greek: kalô=s pra/ttein] and [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein], also with [Greek: kakô=s pra/ttein], p. 134 A, 135 A; compare Heindorf ad Platon.
Charmid.
p. 172 A, p. 174 B; also Platon.
Gorgias, p. 507 C, where similar equivocal meanings occur.]
[Side-note: Humiliation of Alkibiades.
Other Athenian statesmen are equally ignorant.
But the real opponents, against whom Alkibiades is to measure himself, are, the kings of Sparta and Persia.
Eulogistic description of those kings.
To match them, Alkibiades must make himself as good as possible.]
Alkibiades is thus reduced to a state of humiliating embarrassment, and stands convicted, by his own contradictions and confession, of ignorance in its worst form: that is, of being ignorant, and yet believing himself to know.
[13] But other Athenian statesmen are no wiser.
Even Perikles is proved to be equally deficient--by the fact that he has never been able to teach or improve any one else, not even his own sons and those whom he loved best.
[14] "At any rate" (contends Alkibiades) "I am as good as my competitors, and can hold my ground against them."
But Sokrates reminds him that the real competitors with whom he ought to compare himself, are foreigners, liable to become the enemies of Athens, and against whom he, if he pretends to lead Athens, must be able to contend.
In an harangue of unusual length, Sokrates shows that the kings of Sparta and Persia are of nobler breed, as well as more highly and carefully trained, than the Athenian statesmen.
[15] Alkibiades must be rescued from his present ignorance, and exalted, so as to be capable of competing with these kings: which object cannot be attained except through the auxiliary interposition of Sokrates.
Not that Sokrates professes to be himself already on this elevation, and to stand in need of no farther improvement.
But he can, nevertheless, help others to attain it for themselves, through the discipline and stimulus of his interrogatories.
[16] [Footnote 13: Plato, Alkib.
i. p.
118.]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Alkib.
i. p.
118-119.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Alkib.
i. p.
120-124.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Alkib.
i. p.
124.]
[Side-note: But good--for what end, and under what circumstances?
Abundant illustrative examples.]
The dialogue then continues.
_Sokr._--We wish to become as good as possible.
But in what sort of virtue?
_Alk._--In that virtue which belongs to good men.
_Sokr._--Yes, but _good_, in what matters?
_Alk._--Evidently, to men who are good in transacting business.
_Sokr._--Ay, but what kind of business?
business relating to horses, or to navigation?
If that be meant, we must go and consult horse-trainers or mariners?
_Alk._--No, I mean such business as is transacted by the most esteemed leaders in Athens.
_Sokr._--You mean the intelligent men.
Every man is good, in reference to that which he understands: every man is bad, in reference to that which he does not understand.
_Alk._--Of course.
_Sokr._--The cobbler understands shoemaking, and is therefore good at _that_: he does not understand weaving, and is therefore bad at that.
The same man thus, in your view, will be both good and bad?
[17] _Alk._--No: that cannot be.
_Sokr._--Whom then do you mean, when you talk of _the good_?
_Alk._--I mean those who are competent to command in the city.
_Sokr._--But to command whom or what--horses or men?
_Alk._--To command men.
_Sokr._--But what men, and under what circumstances?
sick men, or men on shipboard, or labourers engaged in harvesting, or in what occupations?
_Alk._--I mean, men living in social and commercial relation with each other, as we live here; men who live in common possession of the same laws and government.
_Sokr._--When men are in communion of a sea voyage and of the same ship, how do we name the art of commanding them, and to what purpose does it tend?
_Alk._--It is the art of the pilot; and the purpose towards which it tends, is, bringing them safely through the dangers of the sea.
_Sokr._--When men are in social and political communion, to what purpose does the art of commanding them tend?
_Alk._--Towards the better preservation and administration of the city.
[18] _Sokr._--But what do you mean by _better_?
What is that, the presence or absence of which makes _better_ or _worse_?
If in regard to the management of the body, you put to me the same question, I should reply, that it is the presence of health, and the absence of disease.
What reply will you make, in the case of the city?
_Alk._--I should say, when friendship and unanimity among the citizens are present, and when discord and antipathy are absent.
_Sokr._--This unanimity, of what nature is it?
Respecting what subject?
What is the art or science for realising it?
If I ask you what brings about unanimity respecting numbers and measures, you will say the arithmetical and the metrêtic art.
_Alk._--I mean that friendship and unanimity which prevails between near relatives, father and son, husband and wife.
_Sokr._--But how can there be unanimity between any two persons, respecting subjects which one of them knows, and the other does not know?
For example, about spinning and weaving, which the husband does not know, or about military duties, which the wife does not know, how can there be unanimity between the two?
_Alk._--No: there cannot be.
_Sokr._--Nor friendship, if unanimity and friendship go together?
_Alk._--Apparently there cannot.
_Sokr._--Then when men and women each perform their own special duties, there can be no friendship between them.
Nor can a city be well administered, when each citizen performs his own special duties?
or (which is the same thing) when each citizen acts justly?
_Alk._--Not so: I think there may be friendship, when each person performs his or her own business.
_Sokr._--Just now you said the reverse.
What is this friendship or unanimity which we must understand and realise, in order to become good men?
[Footnote 17: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 125 B.
[Greek: O( au)to\s a)/ra tou/tô| ge tô=| lo/gô| kako/s te kai\ a)gatho/s.]
Plato slides unconsciously here, as in other parts of his reasonings, _à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter_.]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 126 A.
[Greek: ti/ de/?
ê)\n su\ kalei=s eu)bouli/an, ei)s ti/ e)stin?]
_Alk._ [Greek: Ei)s to\ a)/meinon tê\n po/lin dioikei=n kai\ sô/zesthai.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: A)meinon de\ dioikei=tai kai\ sô/zetai ti/nos paragignome/nou ê)\ a)pogignomenou?]]
[Side-note: Alkibiades, puzzled and humiliated, confesses his ignorance.
Encouragement given by Sokrates.
It is an advantage to make such discovery in youth.]
_Alk._--In truth, I am puzzled myself to say.
I find myself in a state of disgraceful ignorance, of which I had no previous suspicion.
_Sokr._--Do not be discouraged.
If you had made this discovery when you were fifty years old, it would have been too late for taking care of yourself and applying a remedy: but at your age, it is the right time for making the discovery.
_Alk._--What am I to do, now that I have made it?
_Sokr._--You must answer my questions.
If my auguries are just, we shall soon be both of us better for the process.
[19] [Footnote 19: Plato, Alkib.
i.
127 D-E. _Alk._ [Greek: A)lla\ ma\ tou\s theou/s, ou)d' au)to\s oi)=da o(/ ti le/gô, kinduneu/ô de\ kai\ pa/lai lelêthe/nai e)mauto\n ai)/schist' e)/chôn.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: A)lla\ chrê\ thar)r(ei=n; ei) me\n ga\r au)to\ ê)=|sthou peponthô\s pentêkontae/tês, chalepo\n a)\n ê)=n soi e)pimelêthê=nai sautou=; nu=n de\ ê)\n e)/cheis ê(liki/an, au)/tê e)sti/n, e)n ê(=| dei= au)to\ ai)sthe/sthai.]
_Alk._ [Greek: Ti/ ou)=n to\n ai(stho/menon chrê\ poiei=n?]
_Sokr._ [Greek: _A)pokri/nesthai ta\ e)rôtô/mena_, kai\ e)a\n tou=to poiê=|s, a)\n theo\s e)the/lê|, ei)/ ti dei= kai\ tê=| e)mê=| mantei/a| pisteu/ein, su/ te ka)gô\ beltio/nôs schê/somen.]]
[Side-note: Platonic Dialectic--its actual effect--its anticipated effect--applicable to the season of youth.]
Here we have again, brought into prominent relief, the dialectic method of Plato, under two distinct aspects: 1.
Its actual effects, in exposing the false supposition of knowledge, in forcing upon the respondent the humiliating conviction, that he does not know familiar topics which he supposed to be clear both to himself and to others.
2.
Its anticipated effects, if continued, in remedying such defect: and in generating out of the mind of the respondent, real and living knowledge.
Lastly, it is plainly intimated that this shock of humiliation and mistrust, painful but inevitable, must be undergone in youth.
[Side-note: Know Thyself--Delphian maxim--its urgent importance--What is myself?
My mind is myself.]
The dialogue continues, in short questions and answers, of which the following is an abstract.
_Sokr._--What is meant by a man _taking care of himself_?
Before I can take care of myself, I must know what myself is: I must _know myself_, according to the Delphian motto.
I cannot make myself better, without knowing what _myself_ is.
[20] That which belongs to me is not _myself_: my body is not myself, but an instrument governed by myself.
[21] My mind or soul only, is myself.
To take care of myself is, to take care of my mind.
At any rate, if this be not strictly true,[22] my mind is the most important and dominant element within me.
The physician who knows his own body, does not for that reason know himself: much less do the husbandman or the tradesman, who know their own properties or crafts, know themselves, or perform what is truly their own business.
[Footnote 20: Plato, Alkib.
i.
129 B.
[Greek: ti/n' a)\n tro/pon eu(rethei/ê _au)to\ to\ au)to/_?]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Alkib.
i.
128-130.
All this is greatly expanded in the dialogue--p. 128 D: [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra o)/tan tô=n sautou= e)pimelê=|, sautou= e)pime/lei?]
This same antithesis is employed by Isokrates, De Permutatione, sect.
309, p. 492, Bekker.
He recommends [Greek: au)tou= pro/teron ê)\ tô=n au)tou= poiei=sthai tê\n e)pime/leian].]
[Footnote 22: Plato considers this point to be not clearly made out.
Alkib.
i.
130.]
[Side-note: I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind.
Self-knowledge is temperance.
Temperance and Justice are the conditions both of happiness and of freedom.]
Since temperance consists in self-knowledge, neither of these professional men, as such, is temperate: their professions are of a vulgar cast, and do not belong to the virtuous life.
[23] How are we to know our own minds?
We know it by looking into another mind, and into the most rational and divine portion thereof: just as the eye can only know itself by looking into another eye, and seeing itself therein reflected.
[24] It is only in this way that we can come to know ourselves, or become temperate: and if we do not know ourselves, we cannot even know what belongs to ourselves, or what belongs to others: all these are branches of one and the same cognition.
We can have no knowledge of affairs, either public or private: we shall go wrong, and shall be unable to secure happiness either for ourselves or for others.
It is not wealth or power which are the conditions of happiness, but justice and temperance.
Both for ourselves individually, and for the public collectively, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth and power.
The evil and unjust man ought to have no power, but to be the slave of those who are better than himself.
[25] He is fit for nothing but to be a slave: none deserve freedom except the virtuous.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Alkib.
i.
131 B.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Alkib.
i.
133.]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Alkib.
i.
134-135 B-C. [Greek: Pri\n de/ ge a)retê\n e)/chein, to\ a)/rchesthai a)/meinon u(po\ tou= belti/onos ê)\ to\ a)/rchein a)ndri\, ou) mo/non paidi/ .
.
.
.
Pre/pei a)/ra tô=| kakô=| douleu/ein; a)/meinon ga/r.]]
[Side-note: Alkibiades feels himself unworthy to be free, and declares that he will never quit Sokrates.]
_Sokr._--How do you feel your own condition now, Alkibiades.
Are you worthy of freedom?
_Alk._--I feel but too keenly that I am not.
I cannot emerge from this degradation except by your society and help.
From this time forward I shall never leave you.
[26] [Footnote 26: Plato, Alkib.
i.
135.]
ALKIBIADES II.
[Side-note: Second Alkibiades--situation supposed.]
The other Platonic dialogue, termed the Second Alkibiades, introduces Alkibiades as about to offer prayer and sacrifice to the Gods.
[Side-note: Danger of mistake in praying to the Gods for gifts which may prove mischievous.
Most men are unwise.
Unwise is the generic word: madmen, a particular variety under it.]
_Sokr._--You seem absorbed in thought, Alkibiades, and not unreasonably.
In supplicating the Gods, caution is required not to pray for gifts which are really mischievous.
The Gods sometimes grant men's prayers, even when ruinously destructive; as they granted the prayers of Oedipus, to the destruction of his own sons.
_Alk._--Oedipus was mad: what man in his senses would put up such a prayer?
_Sokr._--You think that madness is the opposite of good sense or wisdom.
You recognise men wise and unwise: and you farther admit that every man must be one or other of the two,--just as every man must be either healthy or sick: there is no third alternative possible?
_Alk._--I think so.
_Sokr._--But each thing can have but one opposite:[27] to be unwise, and to be mad, are therefore identical?
_Alk._--They are.
_Sokr._--Wise men are only few, the majority of our citizens are unwise: but do you really think them mad?
How could any of us live safely in the society of so many mad-men?
_Alk._--No: it cannot be so: I was mistaken.
_Sokr._--Here is the illustration of your mistake.
All men who have gout, or fever, or ophthalmia are sick; but all sick men have not gout, or fever, or ophthalmia.
So, too, all carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors, are craftsmen; but all craftsmen are not carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors.
In like manner, all mad men are unwise; but all unwise men are not mad.
_Unwise_ comprises many varieties and gradations of which the extreme is, being mad: but these varieties are different among themselves, as one disease differs from another, though all agree in being disease and one art differs from another, though all agree in being art.
[28] [Footnote 27: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 139 B.
[Greek: Kai\ mê\n du/o ge u(penanti/a e(ni\ pra/gmati pô=s a)\n ei)/ê?]
That each thing has one opposite, and no more, is asserted in the Protagoras also, p.
192-193.]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 139-140 A-B.
[Greek: Kai\ ga\r oi( pure/ttontes pa/ntes nosou=sin, ou) me/nntoioi( nosou=ntes pa/ntes pure/ttousin ou)de\ podagrô=sin ou)de/ ge o)phthalmiô=sin; a)lla\ no/sos me\n pa=n to\ toiou=to/n e)sti, diaphe/rein de/ phasin ou(\s dê\ kalou=men i)atros tê\n a)pergasi/an au)tô=n; ou) ga\r pa=sai ou)/te o(/moiai ou)/te o(moi/ôs diapra/ttontai, a)lla\ kata\ tê\n au)tê=s du/namin e(ka/stê.]]
[Side-note: Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended under it, was not then familiar.]
(We may remark that Plato here, as in the Euthyphron, brings under especial notice one of the most important distinctions in formal logic--that between a generic between a term and the various specific terms comprehended under it.
Possessing as yet no technical language for characterising this distinction, he makes it understood by an induction of several separate but analogous cases.
Because the distinction is familiar now to instructed men, we must not suppose that it was familiar then.)
[Side-note: Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that when obtained, they are misfortunes.
Every one fancies that he knows what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance.]
_Sokr._--Whom do you call wise and unwise?
Is not the wise man, he who knows what it is proper to say and do--and the unwise man, he who does not know?
_Alk._--Yes.
_Sokr._--The unwise man will thus often unconsciously say or do what ought not to be said or done?
Though not mad like Oedipus, he will nevertheless pray to the Gods for gifts, which will be hurtful to him if obtained.
You, for example, would be overjoyed if the Gods were to promise that you should become despot not only over Athens, but also over Greece.
_Alk._--Doubtless I should: and every one else would feel as I do.
_Sokr._--But what if you were to purchase it with your life, or to damage yourself by the employment of it?
_Alk._--Not on those conditions.
[29] _Sokr._--But you are aware that many ambitious aspirants, both at Athens and elsewhere (among them, the man who just now killed the Macedonian King Archelaus, and usurped his throne), have acquired power and aggrandisement, so as to be envied by every one: yet have presently found themselves brought to ruin and death by the acquisition.
So, also, many persons pray that they may become fathers; but discover presently that their children are the source of so much grief to them, that they wish themselves again childless.
Nevertheless, though such reverses are perpetually happening, every one is still not only eager to obtain these supposed benefits, but importunate with the Gods in asking for them.
You see that it is not safe even to accept without reflection boons offered to you, much less to pray for boons to be conferred.
[30] _Alk._--I see now how much mischief ignorance produces.
Every one thinks himself competent to pray for what is beneficial to himself; but ignorance makes him unconsciously imprecate mischief on his own head.
[Footnote 29: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
141.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
141-142.]
[Side-note: Mistake in predications about ignorance generally.
We must discriminate.
Ignorance of _what?_ Ignorance of good, is always mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always.]
_Sokr._--You ought not to denounce ignorance in this unqualified manner.
You must distinguish and specify.
Ignorance of what?
and under what modifications of persons and circumstances?
_Alk._--How?
Are there _any_ matters or circumstances in which it is better for a man to be ignorant, than to know?
_Sokr._--You will see that there are such.
Ignorance of good, or ignorance of what is best, is always mischievous: moreover, assuming that a man knows what is best, then all other knowledge will be profitable to him.
In his special case, ignorance on any subject cannot be otherwise than hurtful.
But if a man be ignorant things of good, or of what is best, in his case knowledge on other subjects will be more often hurtful than profitable.
To a man like Orestes, so misguided on the question, "What is good?"
as to resolve to kill his mother, it would be a real benefit, if for the time he did not know his mother.
Ignorance on that point, in his state of mind, would be better for him than knowledge.
[31] _Alk._--It appears so.
[Footnote 31: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
144.]
[Side-note: Wise public counsellors are few.
Upon what ground do we call these few wise?
Not because they possess merely special arts or accomplishments, but because they know besides, upon what occasions and under what limits each of these accomplishments ought to be used.]
_Sokr._--Follow the argument farther.
When we come forward to say or do any thing, we either know what we are about to say and do, or at least believe ourselves to know it.
Every statesman who gives counsel to the public, does so in the faith of such knowledge.
Most citizens are unwise, and ignorant of good as well as of other things.
The wise are but few, and by their advice the city is conducted.
Now upon what ground do we call these few, wise and useful public counsellors?
If a statesman knows war, but does not know whether it is best to go to war, or at what juncture it is best--should we call him wise?
If he knows how to kill men, or dispossess them, or drive them into exile,--but does not know upon whom, or on what occasions, it is good to inflict this treatment--is he a useful counsellor?
If he can ride, or shoot, or wrestle, well,--we give him an epithet derived from this special accomplishment: we do not call him wise.
What would be the condition of a community composed of bowmen, horsemen, wrestlers, rhetors, &c., accomplished and excellent each in his own particular craft, yet none of them knowing what is good, nor when, nor on what occasions, it is good to employ their craft?
When each man pushes forward his own art and speciality, without any knowledge whether it is good on the whole either for himself or for the city, will not affairs thus conducted be reckless and disastrous?
[32] _Alk._--They will be very bad indeed.
[Footnote 32: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
145.]
[Side-note: Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial.]
_Sokr._--If, then, a man has no knowledge of good or of the better--if upon this cardinal point he obeys fancy without reason--the possession of knowledge upon special subjects will be oftener hurtful than profitable to him; because it will make him more forward in action, without any good result.
Possessing many arts and accomplishments, and prosecuting one after another, but without the knowledge of good,--he will only fall into greater trouble, like a ship sailing without a pilot.
Knowledge of good is, in other words, knowledge of what is useful and profitable.
In conjunction with this, all other knowledge is valuable, and goes to increase a man's competence as a counsellor: apart from this, all other knowledge will not render a man competent as a counsellor, but will be more frequently hurtful than beneficial.
[33] Towards right living, what we need is, the knowledge of good: just as the sick stand in need of a physician, and the ship's crew of a pilot.
_Alk._--I admit your reasoning.
My opinion is changed.
I no longer believe myself competent to determine what I ought to accept from the Gods, or what I ought to pray for.
I incur serious danger of erring, and of asking for mischiefs, under the belief that they are benefits.
[Footnote 33: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
145 C: [Greek: O(/stis a)/ra ti tô=n toiou/tôn oi)=den, e)a\n me\n pare/pêtai au)tô=| ê( _tou= belti/stou e)pistê/mê--au(/tê d' ê)=n ê( au)tê\ dê/pou ê(/per kai\ ê( tou= ô)pheli/mou_--phro/nimo/n ge au)to\n phê/somen kai\ a)pochrô=nta xu/mboulou kai\ tê=| po/lei kai\ au)to\n au(tô=|; to\n de\ mê\ toiou=ton, ta)nanti/a tou/tôn.]
([Greek: Touou=ton] is Schneider's emendation for [Greek: poiou=nta].)
Ibid.
146 C: [Greek: Ou)kou=n phame\n pa/lin tou\s pollou\s diêmartêke/nai tou= belti/stou, ô(s ta\ polla/ ge, oi)=mai, a)/neu nou= do/xê| pepisteuko/tas?]
Ibid.
146 E: [Greek: O(ra=|s ou)=n, o(/te g' e)/phên kinduneu/ein to/ ge tô=n a)/llôn e)pistêmô=n ktê=ma, e)a/n tis a)/neu tê=s tou= belti/stou e)pistê/mês kektême/nos ê)=|, o)liga/kis me\n ô)phelei=n bla/ptein de\ ta\ plei/ô ton e)/chont' au)to/.]
Ibid.
147 A: [Greek: O( de\ dê\ tê\n kaloume/nên poluma/theia/n te kai\ polutechni/an kektême/nos, o)rphano\s de\ ô)\n tau/tês tê=s e)pistê/mês, a)go/menos de\ u(po\ mia=s e(ka/stês tô=n a)/llôn, a)=r' ou)chi\ tô=| o)/nti dikai/ôs pollô=| cheimô=ni chrê/setai, a(/t', oi)=mai, a)/neu kubernê/tou diatelô=n e)n pela/gei], &c.] [Side-note: It is unsafe for Alkibiades to proceed with his sacrifice, until he has learnt what is the proper language to address to the Gods.
He renounces his sacrifice, and throws himself upon the counsel of Sokrates.]
_Sokr._--The Lacedæmonians, when they offer sacrifice, pray simply that they may obtain what is honourable and good, without farther specification.
This language is acceptable to the Gods, more acceptable than the costly festivals of Athens.
It has procured for the Spartans more continued prosperity than the Athenians have enjoyed.
[34] The Gods honour wise and just men, that is, men who know what they ought to say and do both towards Gods and towards men--more than numerous and splendid offerings.
[35] You see, therefore, that it is not safe for you to proceed with your sacrifice, until you have learnt what is the proper language to be used, and what are the really good gifts to be prayed for.
Otherwise your sacrifice will not prove acceptable, and you may even bring upon yourself positive mischief.
[36] _Alk._--When shall I be able to learn this, and who is there to teach me?
I shall be delighted to meet him.
_Sokr._--There is a person at hand most anxious for your improvement.
What he must do is, first to disperse the darkness from your mind, next, to impart that which will teach you to discriminate evil from good, which at present you are unable to do.
_Alk._--I shall shrink from no labour to accomplish this object.
Until then, I postpone my intended sacrifice: and I tender my sacrificial wreath to you, in gratitude for your counsel.
[37] _Sokr._--I accept the wreath as a welcome augury of future friendship and conversation between us, to help us out of the present embarrassment.
[Footnote 34: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
148.]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
150.]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
150.]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p.
151.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues.]
The two dialogues, called First and Second Alkibiadês, of which I have just given some account, resemble each other more than most of the Platonic dialogues, not merely in the personages introduced, but in general spirit, in subject, and even in illustrations.
The First Alkibiadês was recognised as authentic by all critics without exception, until the days of Schleiermacher.
Nay, it was not only recognised, but extolled as one of the most valuable and important of all the Platonic compositions; proper to be studied first, as a key to all the rest.
Such was the view of Jamblichus and Proklus, transmitted to modern times; until it received a harsh contradiction from Schleiermacher, who declared the dialogue to be both worthless and spurious.
The Second Alkibiadês was also admitted both by Thrasyllus, and by the general body of critics in ancient times: but there were some persons (as we learn from Athenæus)[38] who considered it to be a work of Xenophon; perceiving probably (what is the fact) that it bears much analogy to several conversations which Xenophon has set down.
But those who held this opinion are not to be considered as of one mind with critics who reject the dialogue as a forgery or imitation of Plato.
Compositions emanating from Xenophon are just as much Sokratic, probably even more Sokratic, than the most unquestioned Platonic dialogues, besides that they must of necessity be contemporary also.
Schleiermacher has gone much farther: declaring the Second as well as the First to be an unworthy imitation of Plato.
[39] [Footnote 38: Athenæus, xi.
p.
506.]
[Footnote 39: See the Einleitung of Schleiermacher to Alkib.
i. part ii.
vol.
iii.
p. 293 seq.
Einleitung to Alkib.
ii.
part i. vol.
ii.
p. 365 seq.
His notes on the two dialogues contain various additional reasons, besides what is urged in his Introduction.]
[Side-note: Grounds for disallowing them--less strong against the Second than against the First.]
Here Ast agrees with Schleiermacher fully, including both the First and Second Alkibiades in his large list of the spurious.
Most of the subsequent critics go with Schleiermacher only half-way: Socher, Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, recognise the First Alkibiadês, but disallow the Second.
[40] In my judgment, Schleiermacher and Ast are more consistently right, or more consistently wrong, in rejecting both, than the other critics who find or make so capital a distinction between the two.
The similarity of tone and topics between the two is obvious, and is indeed admitted by all.
Moreover, if I were compelled to make a choice, I should say that the grounds for suspicion are rather less strong against the Second than against the First; and that Schleiermacher, reasoning upon the objections admitted by his opponents as conclusive against the Second, would have no difficulty in showing that his own objections against the First were still more forcible.
The long speech assigned in the First Alkibiadês to Sokrates, about the privileges of the Spartan and Persian kings,[41] including the mention of Zoroaster, son of Oromazes, and the Magian religion, appears to me more unusual with Plato than anything which I find in the Second Alkibiadês.
It is more Xenophontic[42] than Platonic.
[Footnote 40: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 112.
Stallbaum, Prolegg.
to Alkib.
i. and ii.
vol.
v. pp.
171-304.
K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
und Syst.
der Platon.
Philos.
p. 420-439.
Steinhart, Einleitungen to Alkib.
i. and ii.
in Hieronymus Müller's Uebersetzung des Platon's Werke, vol.
i. pp.
135-509.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 121-124.
Whoever reads the objections in Steinhart's Einleitung (p. 148-150) against the First Alkibiadês, will see that they are quite as forcible as what he urges against the Second; only, that in the case of the First, he gives these objections their legitimate bearing, allowing them to tell against the merit of the dialogue, but not against its authenticity.]
[Footnote 42: See Xenoph.
Oekonom.
c. 4; Cyropæd.
vii.
5, 58-64, viii.
1, 5-8-45; Laced.
Repub.
c.
15.]
[Side-note: The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of inferiority.]
But I must here repeat, that because I find, in this or any other dialogue, some peculiarities not usual with Plato, I do not feel warranted thereby in declaring the dialogue spurious.
In my judgment, we must look for a large measure of diversity in the various dialogues; and I think it an injudicious novelty, introduced by Schleiermacher, to set up a canonical type of Platonism, all deviations from which are to be rejected as forgeries.
Both the First and the Second Alkibiadês appear to me genuine, even upon the showing of those very critics who disallow them.
Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, all admit that there is in both the dialogues a considerable proportion of Sokratic and Platonic ideas: but they maintain that there are also other ideas which are not Sokratic or Platonic, and that the texture, style, and prolixity of the Second Alkibiadês (Schleiermacher maintains this about the First also) are unworthy of Plato.
But if we grant these premisses, the reasonable inference would be, not to disallow it altogether, but to admit it as a work by Plato, of inferior merit; perhaps of earlier days, before his powers of composition had attained their maturity.
To presume that because Plato composed many excellent dialogues, therefore all that he composed must have been excellent, is a pretension formally disclaimed by many critics, and asserted by none.
[42] Steinhart himself allows that the Second Alkibiadês, though not composed by Plato, is the work of some other author contemporary, an untrained Sokratic disciple attempting to imitate Plato.
[44] But we do not know that there were any contemporaries who tried to imitate Plato: though Theopompus accused him of imitating others, and called most of his dialogues useless as well as false: while Plato himself, in his inferior works, will naturally appear like an imitator of his better self.
[Footnote 43: Stallbaum (Prolegg.
ad Alcib.
i. p. 186) makes this general statement very justly, but he as well as other critics are apt to forget it in particular cases.]
[Footnote 44: Steinhart, Einleitung, p. 516-519.
Stallbaum and Boeckh indeed assign the dialogue to a later period.
Heindorf (ad Lysin, p. 211) thinks it the work "antiqui auctoris, sed non Platonis".
Steinhart and others who disallow the authenticity of the Second Alkibiadês insist much (p. 518) upon the enormity of the chronological blunder, whereby Sokrates and Alkibiadês are introduced as talking about the death of Archelaus king of Macedonia, who was killed in 399 B.C., in the same year as Sokrates, and four years after Alkibiades.
Such an anachronism (Steinhart urges) Plato could never allow himself to commit.
But when we read the Symposion, we find Aristophanes in a company of which Sokrates, Alkibiades, and Agathon form a part, alluding to the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia, which took place in 386 B.C.
No one has ever made this glaring anachronism a ground for disallowing the Symposion.
Steinhart says that the style of the Second Alkibiadês copies Plato too closely (die ängstlich platonisirende Sprache des Dialogs, p. 515), yet he agrees with Stallbaum that in several places it departs too widely from Plato.]
[Side-note: The two dialogues may probably be among Plato's earlier compositions.]
I agree with Schleiermacher and the other recent critics in considering the First and Second Alkibiadês to be inferior in merit to Plato's best dialogues; and I contend that their own premisses justify no more.
They may probably be among his earlier productions, though I do not believe that the First Alkibiadês was composed during the lifetime of Sokrates, as Socher, Steinhart, and Stallbaum endeavour to show.
[45] I have already given my reasons, in a previous chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates; still less in that of Alkibiadês, who died four years earlier.
There is certainly nothing in either Alkibiadês I. or II.
to shake this belief.
[Footnote 45: Stallbaum refers the composition of Alkib.
i. to a time not long before the accusation of Sokrates, when the enemies of Sokrates were calumniating him in consequence of his past intimacy with Alkibiades (who had before that time been killed in 404 B.C.)
and when Plato was anxious to defend his master (Prolegg.
p. 186).
Socher and Steinhart (p. 210) remark that such writings would do little good to Sokrates under his accusation.
They place the composition of the dialogue earlier, in 406 B.C.
(Steinhart, p. 151-152), and they consider it the first exercise of Plato in the strict dialectic method.
Both Steinhart and Hermann (Gesch.
Plat.
Phil.
p. 440) think that the dialogue has not only a speculative but a political purpose; to warn and amend Alkibiades, and to prevent him from surrendering himself blindly to the democracy.
I cannot admit the hypothesis that the dialogue was written in 406 B.C.
(when Plato was twenty-one years of age, at most twenty-two), nor that it had any intended bearing upon the real historical Alkibiades, who left Athens in 415 B.C.
at the head of the armament against Syracuse, was banished three months afterwards, and never came back to Athens until May 407 B.C.
(Xenoph.
Hellen.
i.
4, 13; i.
5, 17).
He then enjoyed four months of great ascendancy at Athens, left it at the head of the fleet to Asia in Oct. 407 B.C., remained in command of the fleet for about three months or so, then fell into disgrace and retired to Chersonese, never revisiting Athens.
In 406 B.C.
Alkibiades was again in banishment, out of the reach of all such warnings as Hermann and Steinhart suppose that Plato intended to address to him in Alkib.
i. Steinhart says (p. 152), "In dieser Zeit also, _wenige Jahre nach seiner triumphirenden Rückkehr_, wo Alkibiades," &c. Now Alkibiades left the Athenian service, irrevocably, within less _than one year_ after his triumphant return.
Steinhart has not realised in his mind the historical and chronological conditions of the period.]
[Side-note: Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia--Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men.]
If we compare various colloquies of Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, we shall find Alkibiadês I. and II.
very analogous to them both in purpose and spirit.
In Alkibiadês I. the situation conceived is the same as that of Sokrates and Glaukon, in the third book of the Memorabilia.
Xenophon recounts how the presumptuous Glaukon, hardly twenty years of age, fancied himself already fit to play a conspicuous part in public affairs, and tried to force himself, in spite of rebuffs and humiliations, upon the notice of the assembly.
[46] No remonstrances of friends could deter him, nor could anything, except the ingenious dialectic of Sokrates, convince him of his own impertinent forwardness and exaggerated self-estimation.
Probably Plato (Glaukon's elder brother) had heard of this conversation, but whether the fact be so or not, we see the same situation idealised by him in Alkibiadês I., and worked out in a way of his own.
Again, we find in the Xenophontic Memorabilia another colloquy, wherein Sokrates cross-questions, perplexes, and humiliates, the studious youth Euthydemus,[47] whom he regards as over-confident in his persuasions and too well satisfied with himself.
It was among the specialties of Sokrates to humiliate confident young men, with a view to their future improvement.
He made his conversation "an instrument of chastisement," in the language of Xenophon: or (to use a phrase of Plato himself in the Lysis) he conceived.
"that the proper way of talking to youth whom you love, was, not to exalt and puff them up, but to subdue and humiliate them".
[48] [Footnote 46: Xenoph.
Memor.
iii.
6.]
[Footnote 47: Xenoph.
Mem.
iv.
2.]
[Footnote 48: Xenoph.
Mem.
i.
4, 1.
[Greek: skepsa/menoi mê\ mo/non a(\ e)kei=nos] (Sokrates) [Greek: _kolastêri/ou e(/neka _tou/s pa/nt' oi)ome/nous ei)de/nai e)rôtô=n ê)/legchen, a)lla\ kai\ a(\ le/gôn sunême/reue toi=s sundiatri/bousin], &c. So in the Platonic Lysis, the youthful Lysis says to Sokrates "Talk to Menexenus, [Greek: i(/n' au)to\n kola/sê|s]" (Plat.
Lysis, 211 B).
And Sokrates himself says, a few lines before (210 E), [Greek: Ou(/tô chrê\ toi=s paidikoi=s diale/gesthai, tapeinou=nta kai\ suste/llonta, kai\ mê\ ô(/sper su\ chaunou=nta kai\ diathru/ptonta.]]
[Side-note: Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this feature in Sokrates.]
If Plato wished to idealise this feature in the character of Sokrates, no name could be more suitable to his purpose than that of Alkibiades: who, having possessed as a youth the greatest personal beauty (to which Sokrates was exquisitely sensible) had become in his mature life distinguished not less for unprincipled ambition and insolence, than for energy and ability.
We know the real Alkibiadês both from Thucydides and Xenophon, and we also know that Alkibiades had in his youth so far frequented the society of Sokrates as to catch some of that dialectic ingenuity, which the latter was expected and believed to impart.
[49] The contrast, as well as the companionship, between Sokrates and Alkibiades was eminently suggestive to the writers of Sokratic dialogues, and nearly all of them made use of it, composing dialogues in which Alkibiades was the principal name and figure.
[50] It would be surprising indeed if Plato had never done the same: which is what we must suppose, if we adopt Schleiermacher's view, that both Alkibiadês I. and II.
are spurious.
In the Protagoras as well as in the Symposion, Alkibiades figures; but in neither of them is he the principal person, or titular hero, of the piece.
In Alkibiadês I. and II., he is introduced as the solitary respondent to the questions of Sokrates--[Greek: kolastêri/ou e(/neka]: to receive from Sokrates a lesson of humiliation such as the Xenophontic Sokrates administers to Glaukon and Euthydemus, taking care to address the latter when alone.
[51] [Footnote 49: The sensibility of Sokrates to youthful beauty is as strongly declared in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (i.
3, 8-14), as in the Platonic Lysis, Charmidês, or Symposion.
The conversation reported by Xenophon between Alkibiades, when not yet twenty years of age, and his guardian Perikles, the first man in Athens--wherein Alkibiades puzzles Perikles by a Sokratic cross-examination--is likely enough to be real, and was probably the fruit of his sustained society with Sokrates (Xen.
Memor.
i.
2, 40).]
[Footnote 50: Stallbaum observes (Prolegg.
ad Alcib.
i. p. 215, 2nd ed.
), "Ceterum etiam Æschines, Euclides, Phædon, et Antisthenes, dialogos _Alcibiadis_ nomine inscriptos composuisse narrantur".
Respecting the dialogues composed by Æschines, see the first note to this chapter.]
[Footnote 51: Xenoph.
Mem.
iv.
2, 8.]
[Side-note: Plato's manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates.
Magical influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates.]
I conceive Alkibiadês I. and II.
as composed by Plato among his earlier writings (perhaps between 399-390 B.C.
)[52] giving an imaginary picture of the way in which "Sokrates handled every respondent just as he chose" (to use the literal phrase of Xenophon[53]): taming even that most overbearing youth, whom Aristophanes characterises as the lion's whelp.
[54] In selecting Alkibiades as the sufferer under such a chastising process, Plato rebuts in his own ideal style that charge which Xenophon answers with prosaic directness--the charge made against Sokrates by his enemies, that he taught political craft without teaching ethical sobriety; and that he had encouraged by his training the lawless propensities of Alkibiades.
[55] When Schleiermacher, and others who disallow the dialogue, argue that the inordinate insolence ascribed to Alkibiades, and the submissive deference towards Sokrates also ascribed to him, are incongruous and incompatible attributes,--I reply that such a conjunction is very improbable in any real character.
But this does not hinder Plato from combining them in one and the same ideal character, as we shall farther see when we come to the manifestation of Alkibiades in the Symposion: in which dialogue we find a combination of the same elements, still more extravagant and high-coloured.
Both here and there we are made to see that Sokrates, far from encouraging Alkibiades, is the only person who ever succeeded in humbling him.
Plato attributes to the personality and conversation of Sokrates an influence magical and almost superhuman: which Cicero and Plutarch, proceeding probably upon the evidence of the Platonic dialogues, describe as if it were historical fact.
They represent Alkibiades as shedding tears of sorrow and shame, and entreating Sokrates to rescue him from a sense of degradation insupportably painful.
[56] Now Xenophon mentions Euthydemus and other young men as having really experienced these profound and distressing emotions.
[56] But he does not at all certify the same about Alkibiades, whose historical career is altogether adverse to the hypothesis.
The Platonic picture is an _idéal_, drawn from what may have been actually true about other interlocutors of Sokrates, and calculated to reply to Melêtus and his allies.
[Footnote 52: The date which I here suppose for the composition of Alkib.
i.
(_i.e._ after the death of Sokrates, but early in the literary career of Plato), is farther sustained (against those critics who place it in 406 B.C.
or 402 B.C.
before the death of Sokrates) by the long discourse (p. 121-124) of Sokrates about the Persian and Spartan kings.
In reference to the Persian monarchy Sokrates says (p. 123 B), [Greek: e)pei/ pot' e)gô\ ê(/kousa a)ndro\s a)xiopi/stou tô=n a)nabebêko/tôn para\ basile/a, o(\s e)/phê parelthei=n chô/ran pa/nu pollê\n kai\ a)gathê/n--ê(\n kalei=n tou\s e)pichôri/ous zô/nên tê=s basile/ôs gunaiko/s], &c. Olympiodorus and the Scholiast both suppose that Plato here refers to Xenophon and the Anabasis, in which a statement very like this is found (i.
4, 9).
It is plain, therefore, that _they_ did not consider the dialogue to have been composed before the death of Sokrates.
I think it very probable that Plato had in his mind Xenophon (either his Anabasis, or personal communications with him); but at any rate visits of Greeks to the Persian court became very numerous between 399-390 B.C., whereas Plato can hardly have seen any such visitors at Athens in 406 B.C.
(before the close of the war), nor probably in 402 B.C., when Athens, though relieved from the oligarchy, was still in a state of great public prostration.
Between 399 B.C.
and the peace of Antalkidas (387 B.C.
), visitors from Greece to the interior of Persia became more and more frequent, the Persian kings interfering very actively in Grecian politics.
Plato may easily have seen during these years intelligent Greeks who had been up to the Persian court on military or political business.
Both the Persian kings and the Spartan kings were then in the maximum of power and ascendancy--it is no wonder therefore that Sokrates should here be made to dwell upon their prodigious dignity in his discourse with Alkibiades.
Steinhart (Einl.
p. 150) feels the difficulty of reconciling this part of the dialogue with his hypothesis that it was composed in 406 B.C.
: yet he and Stallbaum both insist that it must have been composed before the death of Sokrates, for which they really produce no grounds at all.]
[Footnote 53: Xen.
Mem.
i.
2, 14.
[Greek: toi=s de\ dialegome/nois au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs bou/loito.]]
[Footnote 54: Aristoph.
Ran.
1431.
[Greek: ou) chrê\ le/ontos sku/mnon e)n po/lei tre/phein.]
Thucyd.
vi.
15.
[Greek: phobêthe/ntes ga\r au)tou=] (Alkib.)
[Greek: oi( polloi\ to\ me/gethos tê=s te kata\ to\ e(autou= sô=ma paranomi/as e)s tê\n di/aitan, kai\ tê=s dianoi/as ô(=n kath' e(\n e(/kaston, e)n o(/tô| gi/gnoito, e)/prassen, ô(s turanni/dos e)pithumou=nti pole/mioi kathe/stasan], &c.] [Footnote 55: Xenoph.
Memorab.
i.
2, 17.]
[Footnote 56: Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
iii.
32, 77; Plutarch, Alkib.
c. 4-6.
Compare Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 127 D, 135 C; Symposion, p.
215-216.]
[Footnote 57: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
2, 39-40.]
[Side-note: The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in Alkib.
I.
Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge.]
Looking at Alkibiadês I. and II.
in this point of view, we shall find them perfectly Sokratic both in topics proclaimed and in manner--whatever may be said about unnecessary prolixity and common-place here and there.
The leading ideas of Alkibiadês I. may be found, nearly all, in the Platonic Apology.
That warfare, which Sokrates proclaims in the Apology as having been the mission of his life, against the false persuasion of knowledge, or against beliefs ethical and æsthetical, firmly entertained without having been preceded by conscious study or subjected to serious examination--is exemplified in Alkibiadês I. and II.
as emphatically as in any Platonic composition.
In both these dialogues, indeed (especially in the first), we find an excessive repetition of specialising illustrations, often needless and sometimes tiresome: a defect easily intelligible if we assume them to have been written when Plato was still a novice in the art of dialogic composition.
But both dialogues are fully impregnated with the spirit of the Sokratic process, exposing, though with exuberant prolixity, the firm and universal belief, held and affirmed by every one even at the age of boyhood, without any assignable grounds or modes of acquisition, and amidst angry discordance between the affirmation of one man and another.
The emphasis too with which Sokrates insists upon his own single function of merely questioning, and upon the fact that Alkibiades gives all the answers and pronounces all the self-condemnation with his own mouth[58]--is remarkable in this dialogue: as well as the confidence with which he proclaims the dialogue as affording the only, but effective, cure.
[59] The ignorance of which Alkibiades stands unexpectedly convicted, is expressly declared to be common to him with the other Athenian politicians: an exception being half allowed to pass in favour of the semi-philosophical Perikles, whom Plato judges here with less severity than elsewhere[60]--and a decided superiority being claimed for the Spartan and Persian kings, who are extolled as systematically trained from childhood.
[Footnote 58: Plato, Alkib.
i. p.
112-113.]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 127 E.] [Footnote 60: Plato, Alkib.
i. p.
118-120.]
[Side-note: Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a conviction of his own ignorance.]
The main purpose of Sokrates is to drive Alkibiades into self-contradictions, and to force upon him a painful consciousness of ignorance and mental defect, upon grave and important subjects, while he is yet young enough to amend it.
Towards this purpose he is made to lay claim to a divine mission similar to that which the real Sokrates announces in the Apology[61] A number of perplexing questions and difficulties are accumulated: it is not meant that these difficulties are insoluble, but that they cannot be solved by one who has never seriously reflected on them--by one who (as the Xenophontic Sokrates says to Euthydemus),[62] is so confident of knowing the subject that he has never meditated upon it at all.
The disheartened Alkibiades feels the necessity of improving himself and supplicates the assistance of Sokrates:[63] who reminds him that he must first determine what "Himself" is.
Here again we find ourselves upon the track of Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, and under the influence of the memorable inscription at Delphi--_Nosce teipsum_.
Your mind is yourself; your body is a mere instrument of your mind: your wealth and power are simple appurtenances or adjuncts.
To know yourself, which is genuine Sophrosynê or temperance, is to know your mind: but this can only be done by looking into another mind, and into its most intelligent compartment: just as the eye can only see itself by looking into the centre of vision of another eye.
[64] [Footnote 61: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 124 C-127 E.] [Footnote 62: Xenoph.
Mem.
iv.
2, 36.
[Greek: A)lla\ tau=ta me/n, e)/phê o( Sôkra/tês, i)/sôs, dia\ to\ spho/dra posteu/ein ei)de/nai, ou)d' e)/skepsai.]]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 128-132 A.]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Alkib.
i. p. 133.
A Platonic metaphor, illustrating the necessity for two separate minds co-operating in dialectic colloquy.]
[Side-note: Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties.
He exhorts to Justice and Virtue--but these are acknowledged Incognita.]
At the same time, when, after having convicted Alkibiades of deplorable ignorance, Sokrates is called upon to prescribe remedies--all distinctness of indication disappears.
It is exacted only when the purpose is to bring difficulties and contradictions to view: it is dispensed with, when the purpose is to solve them.
The conclusion is, that assuming happiness as the acknowledged ultimate end,[65] Alkibiades cannot secure this either for himself or for his city, by striving for wealth and power, private or public: he can only secure it by acquiring for himself, and implanting in his country-men, justice, temperance, and virtue.
This is perfectly Sokratic, and conformable to what is said by the real Sokrates in the Platonic Apology.
But coming at the close of Alkibiadês I., it presents no meaning and imparts no instruction: because Sokrates had shown in the earlier part of the dialogue, that neither he himself, nor Alkibiades, nor the general public, knew what justice and virtue were.
The positive solution which Sokrates professes to give, is therefore illusory.
He throws us back upon those old, familiar, emotional, associations, unconscious products and unexamined transmissions from mind to mind--which he had already shown to represent the fancy of knowledge without the reality--deep-seated belief without any assignable intellectual basis, or outward standard of rectitude.
[Footnote 65: Plat.
Alkibiad.
i. p.
134.]
[Side-note: Prolixity of Alkibiadês I.--Extreme multiplication of illustrative examples--How explained.]
Throughout the various Platonic dialogues, we find alternately two distinct and opposite methods of handling--the generalising of the special, and the specialising of the general.
In Alkibiadês I, the specialising of the general preponderates--as it does in most of the conversations of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: the number of exemplifying particulars is unusually great.
Sokrates does not accept as an answer a general term, without illustrating it by several of the specific terms comprehended under it: and this several times on occasions when an instructed reader thinks it superfluous and tiresome: hence, partly, the inclination of some modern critics to disallow the dialogue.
But we must recollect that though a modern reader practised in the use of general terms may seize the meaning at once, an Athenian youth of the Platonic age would not be sure of doing the same.
No conscious analysis had yet been applied to general terms: no grammar or logic then entered into education.
Confident affirmation, without fully knowing the meaning of what is affirmed, is the besetting sin against which Plato here makes war: and his precautions for exposing it are pushed to extreme minuteness.
So, too, in the Sophistês and Politikus, when he wishes to illustrate the process of logical division and subdivision, he applies it to cases so trifling and so multiplied, that Socher is revolted and rejects the dialogues altogether.
But Plato himself foresees and replies to the objection; declaring expressly that his main purpose is, not to expound the particular subject chosen, but to make manifest and familiar the steps and conditions of the general classifying process--and that prolixity cannot be avoided.
[66] We must reckon upon a similar purpose in Alkibiadês I.
The dialogue is a specimen of that which Aristotle calls Inductive Dialectic, as distinguished from Syllogistic: the Inductive he considers to be plainer and easier, suitable when you have an ordinary collocutor--the Syllogistic is the more cogent, when you are dealing with a practised disputant.
[67] [Footnote 66: Plato, Politikus, 285-286.]
[Footnote 67: Aristotel.
Topic.
i.
104, a.
16.
[Greek: Po/sa tô=n lo/gôn ei)/dê tô=n dialektikô=n--e)/sti de\ to\ me\n e)pagôgê/, to\ de\ sullogismo/s .
.
.
.
e)/sti d' ê( me\n e)pagôgê\ pithanô/teron kai\ saphe/steron kai\ kata\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin gnôrimô/teron kai\ toi=s polloi=s koino/n; o( de\ sullogismo\s biastikô/teron kai\ pro\s tou\s a)ntilogikou\s e)nerge/steron.]]
[Side-note: Alkibiadês II.
leaves its problem avowedly undetermined.]
It has been seen that Alkibiadês I, though professing to give something like a solution, gives what is really no solution at all.
Alkibiadês II., similar in many respects, is here different, inasmuch as it does not even profess to solve the difficulty which had been raised.
The general mental defect--false persuasion of knowledge without the reality--is presented in its application to a particular case.
Alkibiades is obliged to admit that he does not know what he ought to pray to the Gods for: neither what is _good_, to be granted, nor what is _evil_, to be averted.
He relies upon Sokrates for dispelling this mist from his mind: which Sokrates promises to do, but adjourns for another occasion.
[Side-note: Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours undefined--his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency of the Gods--he prays to them for premonitory warnings.]
Sokrates here ascribes to the Spartans, and to various philosophers, the practice of putting up prayers in undefined language, for good and honourable things generally.
He commends that practice.
Xenophon tells us that the historical Sokrates observed it:[68] but he tells us also that the historical Sokrates, though not praying for any special presents from the Gods, yet prayed for and believed himself to receive special irregular revelations and advice as to what was good to be done or avoided in particular cases.
He held that these special revelations were essential to any tolerable life: that the dispensations of the Gods, though administered upon regular principles on certain subjects and up to a certain point, were kept by them designedly inscrutable beyond that point: but that the Gods would, if properly solicited, afford premonitory warnings to any favoured person, such as would enable him to keep out of the way of evil, and put himself in the way of good.
He declared that to consult and obey oracles and prophets was not less a maxim of prudence than a duty of piety: for himself, he was farther privileged through his divine sign or monitor, which he implicitly followed.
[69] Such premonitory warnings were the only special favour which he thought it suitable to pray for--besides good things generally.
For special presents he did not pray, because he professed not to know whether any of the ordinary objects of desire were good or bad.
He proves in his conversation with Euthydêmus, that all those acquisitions which are usually accounted means of happiness--beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, nay, even good health and wisdom--are sometimes good or causes of happiness, sometimes evil or causes of misery; and therefore cannot be considered either as absolutely the one or absolutely the other.
[70] [Footnote 68: Xenoph.
Mem.
i.
3, 2; Plat.
Alk.
ii.
p.
143-148.]
[Footnote 69: These opinions of Sokrates are announced in various passages of the Xenophontic Memorabilia, i.
1, 1-10--[Greek: e)/phê de\ dei=n, a(\ me\n matho/ntas poiei=n e)/dôkan oi( theoi/, mantha/nein; a(\ de\ mê\ dê=la toi=s a)nthrô/pois e)sti/, peira=sthai dia\ mantikê=s para\ tô=n theô=n puntha/nesthai; tou\s theou\s ga/r, oi(=s a)\n ô)=sin i(/leô|, sêmai/nein]--i.
3, 4; i.
4, 2-15; iv.
3, 12; iv.
7, 10; iv.
8, 5-11.]
[Footnote 70: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
2, 31-32-36.
[Greek: Tau=ta ou)=n pote\ me\n ô)phelou=nta pote\ de\ bla/ptonta, ti/ ma=llon a)gatha\ ê)\ kaka/ e)stin?]]
[Side-note: Comparison of Alkibiadês II.
with the Xenophontic Memorabilia, especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus.
Sokrates not always consistent with himself.]
This impossibility of determining what is good and what is evil, in consequence of the uncertainty in the dispensations of the Gods and in human affairs--is a doctrine forcibly insisted on by the Xenophontic Sokrates in his discourse with Euthydêmus, and much akin to the Platonic Alkibiadês II., being applied to the special case of prayer.
But we must not suppose that Sokrates adheres to this doctrine throughout all the colloquies of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: on the contrary, we find him, in other places, reasoning upon such matters, as health, strength, and wisdom, as if they were decidedly good.
[71] The fact is, that the arguments of Sokrates, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, vary materially according to the occasion and the person with whom he is discoursing: and the case is similar with the Platonic dialogues: illustrating farther the questionable evidence on which Schleiermacher and other critics proceed, when they declare one dialogue to be spurious, because it contains reasoning inconsistent with another.
[Footnote 71: For example, Xen.
Mem.
iv.
5, 6--[Greek: sophi/an to\ me/giston a)gatho/n], &c.] We find in Alkibiadês II.
another doctrine which is also proclaimed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: that the Gods are not moved by costly sacrifice more than by humble sacrifice, according to the circumstances of the offerer:[72] they attend only to the mind of the offerer, whether he be just and wise: that is, "whether he knows what ought to be done both towards Gods and towards men".
[73] [Footnote 72: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 149-150; Xen.
Mem.
i.
3.
Compare Plato, Legg.
x. p. 885; Isokrat.
ad Nikok.]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 149 E, 150 B.]
[Side-note: Remarkable doctrine of Alkibiadês II.--that knowledge is not always Good.
The knowledge of Good itself is indispensable: without that, the knowledge of other things is more hurtful than beneficial.]
But we find also in Alkibiadês II.
another doctrine, more remarkable.
Sokrates will not proclaim absolutely that knowledge is good, and that ignorance is evil.
In some cases, he contends, ignorance is good; and he discriminates which the cases are.
That which we are principally interested in knowing, is _Good_, or The _Best_--The _Profitable_:[74] phrases used as equivalent.
The knowledge of this is good, and the ignorance of it mischievous, under all supposable circumstances.
And if a man knows good, the more he knows of everything else, the better; since he will sure to make a good use of his knowledge.
But if he does not know good, the knowledge of other things will be hurtful rather than beneficial to him.
To be skilful in particular arts and accomplishments, under the capital mental deficiency supposed, will render him an instrument of evil and not of good.
The more he knows--and the more he believes himself to know--the more forward will he be in acting, and therefore the greater amount of harm will he do.
It is better that he should act as little as possible.
Such a man is not fit to direct his own conduct, like a freeman: he must be directed and controlled by others, like a slave.
The greater number of mankind are fools of this description--ignorant of good: the wise men who know good, and are fit to direct, are very few.
The wise man alone, knowing good, follows reason: the rest trust to opinion, without reason.
[75] He alone is competent to direct both his own conduct and that of the society.
[Footnote 74: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 145 C. [Greek: O(/stis a)/ra ti tô=n toiou/tôn oi)=den, e)a\n me\n pare/pêtai au)tô=| ê( tou= belti/stou e)pistê/mê--au)tê\ d' ê)=n ê( au)tê\ dê/pou ê(per kai\ ê( tou= ô)pheli/mou]--also 146 B.]
[Footnote 75: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 146 A-D. [Greek: a)/neu nou= do/xê| pepisteuko/tas.]]
The stress which is laid here upon the knowledge of good, as distinguished from all other varieties of knowledge--the identification of the good with the profitable, and of the knowledge of good with reason ([Greek: nou=s]), while other varieties of knowledge are ranked with opinion ([Greek: do/xa])--these are points which, under one phraseology or another, pervade many of the Platonic dialogues.
The old phrase of Herakleitus--[Greek: Polumathi/ê no/on ou) dida/skei]--"much learning does not teach reason"--seems to have been present to the mind of Plato in composing this dialogue.
The man of much learning and art, without the knowledge of good, and surrendering himself to the guidance of one or other among his accomplishments, is like a vessel tossed about at sea without a pilot.
[76] [Footnote 76: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
p. 147 A.
[Greek: o( de\ dê\ tê\n kaloume/nên poluma/theia/n te kai\ polutechni/an kektême/nos, o)rphano\s de\ ô)\n tau/tês tê=s e)pistê/mês, a)go/menos de\ u(po\ mia=s e(ka/stês tô=n a)/llôn], &c.] [Side-note: Knowledge of Good--appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles.]
What Plato here calls the knowledge of Good, or Reason--the just discrimination and comparative appreciation of Ends and Means--appears in the Politikus and Euthydêmus, under the title of the Regal or Political Art, of employing or directing[77] the results of all other arts, which are considered as subordinate: in the Protagoras, under the title of art of calculation or mensuration: in the Philêbus, as measure and proportion: in the Phædrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning to account, for the main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, stratagems, decorations, &c., imparted by professional masters.
In the Republic, it is personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the Reason of the society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and Producers) are bound implicitly to follow: the virtue of the subordinates consisting in this implicit obedience.
In the Leges, it is defined as the complete subjection in the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason,[78] without which, no special aptitudes are worth having.
In the Xenophontic Memorabilia, it stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of Sophrosynê or Temperance:[79] and the Profitable is declared identical with the Good, as the directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits and proceedings.
[80] [Footnote 77: Plato, Politikus, 292 B, 304 B, 305 A; Euthydêmus, 291 B, 292 B.
Compare Xenophon, Oekonomicus, i.
8, 13.]
[Footnote 78: Leges, iii.
689 A-D, 691 A.]
[Footnote 79: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2.
17; iv.
3.
1.]
[Footnote 80: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
6, 8; iv.
7, 7.]
[Side-note: The Good--the Profitable--what is it?--How are we to know it?
Plato leaves this undetermined.]
But what are we to understand by the _Good_, about which there are so many disputes, according to the acknowledgment of Plato as well as of Sokrates?
And what are we to understand by the Profitable?
In what relation does it stand to the Pleasurable and the Painful?
These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined.
We shall find him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, and elsewhere.
We have here the title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be pursued.
We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title and postulate with a more definite meaning.
CHAPTER XIII.
HIPPIAS MAJOR--HIPPIAS MINOR.
[Side-note: Hippias Major--situation supposed--character of the dialogue.
Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.]
Both these two dialogues are carried on between Sokrates and the Eleian Sophist Hippias.
The general conception of Hippias--described as accomplished, eloquent, and successful, yet made to say vain and silly things--is the same in both dialogues: in both also the polemics of Sokrates against him are conducted in a like spirit, of affected deference mingled with insulting sarcasm.
Indeed the figure assigned to Hippias is so contemptible, that even an admiring critic like Stallbaum cannot avoid noticing the "petulans pene et proterva in Hippiam oratio," and intimating that Plato has handled Hippias more coarsely than any one else.
Such petulance Stallbaum attempts to excuse by saying that the dialogue is a youthful composition of Plato:[1] while Schleiermacher numbers it among the reasons for suspecting the dialogue, and Ast, among the reasons for declaring positively that Plato is not the author.
[2] This last conclusion I do not at all accept: nor even the hypothesis of Stallbaum, if it be tendered as an excuse for improprieties of tone: for I believe that the earliest of Plato's dialogues was composed after he was twenty-eight years of age--that is, after the death of Sokrates.
It is however noway improbable, that both the Greater and Lesser Hippias may have been among Plato's earlier compositions.
We see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon that there was repeated and acrimonious controversy between Sokrates and Hippias: so that we may probably suppose feelings of special dislike, determining Plato to compose two distinct dialogues, in which an imaginary Hippias is mocked and scourged by an imaginary Sokrates.
[Footnote 1: Stallbaum, Prolegg.
in Hipp.
Maj. p. 149-150; also Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 42-43), who says, after an outpouring of his usual invective against the Sophist: "Nevertheless the coarse jesting of the dialogue seems almost to exceed the admissible limit of comic effect," &c. Again, p. 50, Steinhart talks of the banter which Sokrates carries on with Hippias, in a way not less cruel (grausam) than purposeless, tormenting him with a string of successive new propositions about the definition of the Beautiful, which propositions, as fast as Hippias catches at them, he again withdraws of his own accord, and thus at last dismisses him (as he had dismissed Ion) uninstructed and unimproved, without even leaving behind in him the sting of anger, &c. It requires a powerful hatred against the persons called Sophists, to make a critic take pleasure in a comedy wherein silly and ridiculous speeches are fastened upon the name of one of them, in his own day not merely honoured but acknowledged as deserving honour by remarkable and varied accomplishments--and to make the critic describe the historical Hippias (whom we only know from Plato and Xenophon--see Steinhart, note 7, p. 89; Socher, p. 221) as if he had really delivered these speeches, or something equally absurd.
How this comedy may be appreciated is doubtless a matter of individual taste.
For my part, I agree with Ast in thinking it misplaced and unbecoming: and I am not surprised that he wishes to remove the dialogue from the Platonic canon, though I do not concur either in this inference, or in the general principle on which it proceeds, viz., that all objections against the composition of a dialogue are to be held as being also objections against its genuineness as a work of Plato.
The Nubes of Aristophanes, greatly superior as a comedy to the Hippias of Plato, is turned to an abusive purpose when critics put it into court as evidence about the character of the real Sokrates.
K. F. Hermann, in my judgment, takes a more rational view of the Hippias Major (Gesch.
und Syst.
der Plat.
Phil.
p. 487-647).
Instead of expatiating on the glory of Plato in deriding an accomplished contemporary, he dwells upon the logical mistakes and confusion which the dialogue brings to view; and he reminds us justly of the intellectual condition of the age, when even elementary distinctions in logic and grammar had been scarcely attended to.
Both K. F. Hermann and Socher consider the Hippias to be not a juvenile production of Plato, but to belong to his middle age.]
[Footnote 2: Schleierm.
Einleitung.
p. 401; Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, p.
457-459.]
[Side-note: Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia--subject of that debate.]
One considerable point in the Hippias Major appears to have a bearing on the debate between Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: in which debate, Hippias taunts Sokrates with always combating and deriding the opinions of others, while evading to give opinions of his own.
It appears that some antecedent debates between the two had turned upon the definition of the Just, and that on these occasions Hippias had been the respondent, Sokrates the objector.
Hippias professes to have reflected upon these debates, and to be now prepared with a definition which neither Sokrates nor any one else can successfully assail, but he will not say what the definition is, until Sokrates has laid down one of his own.
In reply to this challenge, Sokrates declares the Just to be equivalent to the Lawful or Customary: he defends this against various objections of Hippias, who concludes by admitting it.
[3] Probably this debate, as reported by Xenophon, or something very like it, really took place.
If so, we remark with surprise the feebleness of the objections of Hippias, in a case where Sokrates, if he had been the objector, would have found such strong ones--and the feeble replies given by Sokrates, whose talent lay in starting and enforcing difficulties, not in solving them.
[4] Among the remarks which Sokrates makes in illustration to Hippias, one is--that Lykurgus had ensured superiority to Sparta by creating in the Spartans a habit of implicit obedience to the laws.
[5] Such is the character of the Xenophontic debate.
[Footnote 3: Xenoph.
Mem.
iv.
4, 12-25.]
[Footnote 4: Compare the puzzling questions which Alkibiades when a youth is reported to have addressed to Perikles, and which he must unquestionably have heard from Sokrates himself, respecting the meaning of the word [Greek: No/mos] (Xen.
Mem.
i.
2, 42).
All the difficulties in determining the definition of [Greek: No/mos], occur also in determining that of [Greek: No/mimon], which includes both Jus Scriptum and Jus Moribus Receptum.]
[Footnote 5: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
4, 15.]
[Side-note: Opening of the Hippias Major--Hippias describes the successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as the gain acquired by his lectures.]
Here, in the beginning of the Hippias Major, the Platonic Sokrates remarks that Hippias has been long absent from Athens: which absence, the latter explains, by saying that he has visited many cities in Greece, giving lectures with great success, and receiving high pay: and that especially he has often visited Sparta, partly to give lectures, but partly also to transact diplomatic business for his countrymen the Eleians, who trusted him more than any one else for such duties.
His lectures (he says) were eminently instructive and valuable for the training of youth: moreover they were so generally approved, that even from a small Sicilian town called Inykus, he obtained a considerable sum in fees.
[Side-note: Hippias had met with no success at Sparta.
Why the Spartans did not admit his instructions--their law forbids.]
Upon this Sokrates asks--In which of the cities were your gains the largest: probably at Sparta?
_Hip._--No; I received nothing at all at Sparta.
_Sokr._--How?
You amaze me!
Were not your lectures calculated to improve the Spartan youth?
or did not the Spartans desire to have their youth improved?
or had they no money?
_Hip._--Neither one nor the other.
The Spartans, like others, desire the improvement of their youth: they also have plenty of money: moreover my lectures were very beneficial to them as well as to the rest.
[6] _Sokr._--How could it happen then, that at Sparta, a city great and eminent for its good laws, your valuable instructions were left unrewarded; while you received so much at the inconsiderable town of Inykus?
_Hip._--It is not the custom of the country, Sokrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons in a way different from their ordinary routine.
_Sokr._--How say you?
It is not the custom of the country for the Spartans to do right, but to do wrong?
_Hip._--I shall not say that, Sokrates.
_Sokr._--But surely they would do right, in educating their children better and not worse?
_Hip._--Yes, they would do right: but it is not lawful for them to admit a foreign mode of education.
If any one could have obtained payment there for education, I should have obtained a great deal; for they listen to me with delight and applaud me: but, as I told you, their law forbids.
[Footnote 6: Plato, Hipp.
Maj.
283-284.]
[Side-note: Question, What is law?
The law-makers always aim at the Profitable, but sometimes fail to attain it.
When they fail, they fail to attain law.
The lawful is the Profitable: the Unprofitable is also unlawful.]
_Sokr._--Do you call law a hurt or benefit to the city?
_Hip._--Law is enacted with a view to benefit: but it sometimes hurts if it be badly enacted.
[7] _Sokr._--But what?
Do not the enactors enact it as the maximum of good, without which the citizens cannot live a regulated life?
_Hip._--Certainly: they do so.
_Sokr._--Therefore, when those who try to enact laws miss the attainment of good, they also miss the lawful and law itself.
How say you?
_Hip._--They do so, if you speak with strict propriety: but such is not the language which men commonly use.
_Sokr._--What men?
the knowing?
or the ignorant?
_Hip._--The Many.
_Sokr._--The Many; is it _they_ who know what truth is?
_Hip._--Assuredly not.
_Sokr._--But surely those who do know, account the profitable to be in truth more lawful than the unprofitable, to all men.
Don't you admit this?
_Hip._--Yes, I admit they account it so in truth.
_Sokr._--Well, and it is so, too: the truth is as the knowing men account it.
_Hip._--Most certainly.
_Sokr._--Now you affirm, that it is more profitable to the Spartans to be educated according to your scheme, foreign as it is, than according to their own native scheme.
_Hip._--I affirm it, and with truth too.
_Sokr._--You affirm besides, that things more profitable are at the same time more lawful?
_Hip._--I said so.
_Sokr._--According to your reasoning, then, it is more lawful for the Spartan children to be educated by Hippias, and more unlawful for them to be educated by their fathers-if in reality they will be more benefited by you?
_Hip._--But they will be more benefited by me.
_Sokr._--The Spartans therefore act unlawfully, when they refuse to give you money and to confide to you their sons?
_Hip._--I admit that they do: indeed your reasoning seems to make in my favour, so that I am noway called upon to resist it.
_Sokr._--We find then, after all, that the Spartans are enemies of law, and that too in the most important matters--though they are esteemed the most exemplary followers of law.
[8] [Footnote 7: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 284 C-B.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Hipp.
Maj.
285.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates.]
Perhaps Plato intended the above argument as a derisory taunt against the Sophist Hippias, for being vain enough to think his own tuition better than that of the Spartan community.
If such was his intention, the argument might have been retorted against Plato himself, for his propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that the enemies of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes adopted in any actual community.
But the argument becomes interesting when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias that the Just is equivalent to the Lawful.
In that Xenophontic dialogue, all the difficulties which embarrass this explanation are kept out of sight, and Sokrates is represented as gaining an easy victory over Hippias.
In this Platonic dialogue, the equivocal use of the word [Greek: no/mimon] is expressly adverted to, and Sokrates reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him pronounce the Spartans to be enemies of law: [Greek: paranomou/s] bearing a double sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the other.
In the argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not attain its intended purpose of benefiting the community, is no law at all,--not lawful:[9] so that we are driven back again upon the objections of Alkibiades against Perikles (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law.
In the argument of the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually established, by official authority or custom--and the Spartans are produced as eminent examples of a lawfully minded community.
As far as we can assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which men always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually established or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that which men always intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether prescribed by any living authority or not.
This (he says) is the opinion of the wise men who know: though the ignorant vulgar hold the contrary opinion.
The explanation of [Greek: to\ di/kaion] given by the Xenophontic Sokrates ([Greek: to\ di/kaion = to\ no/mimon]), would be equivalent, if we construe [Greek: to\ no/mimon] in the sense of the Platonic Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation that The Just was the generally useful--[Greek: To\ di/kaion = to\ koinê=| su/mphoron].
[Footnote 9: Compare a similar argument of Sokrates against Thrasymachus--Republic, i.
339.]
[Side-note: The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable.
This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere.]
There exists however in all this, a prevalent confusion between Law (or the Lawful) as actually established, and Law (or the Lawful) as it ought to be established, in the judgment of the critic, or of those whom he follows: that is (to use the phrase of Mr. Austin in his 'Province of Jurisprudence') Law as it would be, if it conformed to its assumed measure or test.
In the first of these senses, [Greek: to\ no/mimon] is not one and the same, but variable according to place and time--one thing at Sparta, another thing elsewhere: accordingly it would not satisfy the demand of Plato's mind, when he asks for an explanation of [Greek: to\ di/kaion].
It is an explanation in the second of the two senses which Plato seeks--a common measure or test applicable universally, at all times and places.
In so far as he ever finds one, it is that which I have mentioned above as delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in this dialogue: viz., the Just or Good, that which ought to be the measure or test of Law and Positive Morality, is, the beneficial or profitable.
This (I repeat) is the only approach to a solution which we ever find in Plato.
But this is seldom clearly enunciated, never systematically followed out, and sometimes, in appearance, even denied.
* * * * * [Side-note: Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c., but upon the question--What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth.]
I resume the thread of the Hippias Major.
Sokrates asks Hippias what sort of lectures they were that he delivered with so much success at Sparta?
The Spartans (Hippias replies) knew nothing and cared nothing about letters, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy: but they took delight in hearing tales about heroes, early ancestors, foundation-legends of cities, &c., which his mnemonic artifice enabled him to deliver.
[10] The Spartans delight in you (observes Sokrates) as children delight in old women's tales.
Yes (replies Hippias), but that is not all: I discoursed to them also, recently, about fine and honourable pursuits, much to their admiration: I supposed a conversation between Nestor and Neoptolemus, after the capture of Troy, in which the veteran, answering a question put by his youthful companion, enlarged upon those pursuits which it was fine, honourable, beautiful for a young man to engage in.
My discourse is excellent, and obtained from the Spartans great applause.
I am going to deliver it again here at Athens, in the school-room of Pheidostratus, and I invite you, Sokrates, to come and hear it, with as many friends as you can bring.
[11] [Footnote 10: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 285 E.] [Footnote 11: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 286 A-B.]
[Side-note: Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in the background, who has just been puzzling him with it--What is the Beautiful?]
I shall come willingly (replied Sokrates).
But first answer me one small question, which will rescue me from a present embarrassment.
Just now, I was shamefully puzzled in conversation with a friend, to whom I had been praising some things as honourable and beautiful,--blaming other things as mean and ugly.
He surprised me by the interrogation--How do you know, Sokrates, what things are beautiful, and what are ugly?
Come now, can you tell me, What is the Beautiful?
I, in my stupidity, was altogether puzzled, and could not answer the question.
But after I had parted from him, I became mortified and angry with myself; and I vowed that the next time I met any wise man, like you, I would put the question to him, and learn how to answer it; so that I might be able to renew the conversation with my friend.
Your coming here is most opportune.
I entreat you to answer and explain to me clearly what the Beautiful is; in order that I may not again incur the like mortification.
You can easily answer: it is a small matter for you, with your numerous attainments.
[Side-note: Hippias thinks the question easy to answer.]
Oh--yes--a small matter (replies Hippias); the question is easy to answer.
I could teach you to answer many questions harder than that: so that no man shall be able to convict you in dialogue.
[12] [Footnote 12: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 286 C-D.] Sokrates then proceeds to interrogate Hippias, in the name of the absentee, starting one difficulty after another as if suggested by this unknown prompter, and pretending to be himself under awe of so impracticable a disputant.
[Side-note: Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something.
What is Beauty, or the Beautiful?]
All persons are just, through Justice--wise, through Wisdom--good, through Goodness or the Good--beautiful, through Beauty or the Beautiful.
Now Justice, Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty or the Beautiful, must each be _something_.
Tell me what the Beautiful is?
[Side-note: Hippias does not understand the question.
He answers by indicating one particularly beautiful object.]
Hippias does not conceive the question.
Does the man want to know what is a beautiful thing?
_Sokr._--No; he wants to know what is _The Beautiful_.
_Hip._--I do not see the difference.
I answer that a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing.
No one can deny that.
[13] [Footnote 13: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 287 A.]
_Sokr._--My disputatious friend will not accept your answer.
He wants you to tell him, What is the Self-Beautiful?--that Something through which all beautiful things become beautiful.
Am I to tell him, it is because a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing?
He will say--Is not a beautiful mare a beautiful thing also?
and a beautiful lyre as well?
_Hip._--Yes;--both of them are so.
_Sokr._--Ay, and a beautiful pot, my friend will add, well moulded and rounded by a skilful potter, is a beautiful thing too.
_Hip._--How, Sokrates?
Who can your disputatious friend be?
Some ill-taught man, surely; since he introduces such trivial names into a dignified debate.
_Sokr._--Yes; that is his character: not polite, but vulgar, anxious for nothing else but the truth.
_Hip._--A pot, if it be beautifully made, must certainly be called beautiful; yet still, all such objects are unworthy to be counted as beautiful, if compared with a maiden, a mare, or a lyre.
[Side-note: Cross-questioning by Sokrates--Other things also are beautiful; but each thing is beautiful only by comparison, or under some particular circumstances--it is sometimes beautiful, sometimes not beautiful.]
_Sokr._--I understand.
You follow the analogy suggested by Herakleitus in his dictum--That the most beautiful ape is ugly, if compared with the human race.
So you say, the most beautiful pot is ugly, when compared with the race of maidens.
_Hip_--Yes.
That is my meaning.
_Sokr._--Then my friend will ask you in return, whether the race of maidens is not as much inferior to the race of Gods, as the pot to the maiden?
whether the most beautiful maiden will not appear ugly, when compared to a Goddess?
whether the wisest of men will not appear an ape, when compared to the Gods, either in beauty or in wisdom.
[14] _Hip._--No one can dispute it.
_Sokr._--My friend will smile and say--You forget what was the question put.
I asked you, What is the Beautiful?--the Self-Beautiful: and your answer gives me, as the Self-Beautiful, something which you yourself acknowledge to be no more beautiful than ugly?
If I had asked you, from the first, what it was that was both beautiful and ugly, your answer would have been pertinent to the question.
Can you still think that the Self-Beautiful,--that Something, by the presence of which all other things become beautiful,--is a maiden, or a mare, or a lyre?
[Footnote 14: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj.
289.]
[Side-note: Second answer of Hippias--_Gold_, is that by the presence of which all things become beautiful--scrutiny applied to the answer.
Complaint by Hippias about vulgar analogies.]
_Hip._--I have another answer to which your friend can take no exception.
That, by the presence of which all things become beautiful, is Gold.
What was before ugly, will (we all know), when ornamented with gold, appear beautiful.
_Sokr._--You little know what sort of man my friend is.
He will laugh at your answer, and ask you--Do you think, then, that Pheidias did not know his profession as a sculptor?
How came he not to make the statue of Athênê all gold, instead of making (as he has done) the face, hands, and feet of ivory, and the pupils of the eyes of a particular stone?
Is not ivory also beautiful, and particular kinds of stone?
_Hip._--Yes, each is beautiful, where it is becoming.
_Sokr._--And ugly, where it is not becoming.
[15] _Hip._--Doubtless.
I admit that what is becoming or suitable, makes that to which it is applied appear beautiful: that which is not becoming or suitable, makes it appear ugly.
_Sokr._--My friend will next ask you, when you are boiling the beautiful pot of which we spoke just now, full of beautiful soup, what sort of ladle will be suitable and becoming--one made of gold, or of fig-tree wood?
Will not the golden ladle spoil the soup, and the wooden ladle turn it out good?
Is not the wooden ladle, therefore, better than the golden?
_Hip._--By Hêraklês, Sokrates!
what a coarse and stupid fellow your friend is!
I cannot continue to converse with a man who talks of such matters.
_Sokr._--I am not surprised that you, with your fine attire and lofty reputation, are offended with these low allusions.
But I have nothing to spoil by intercourse with this man; and I entreat you to persevere, as a favour to me.
He will ask you whether a wooden soup-ladle is not more beautiful than a ladle of gold,--since it is more suitable and becoming?
So that though you said--The Self-Beautiful is Gold--you are now obliged to acknowledge that gold is not more beautiful than fig-tree wood?
[Footnote 15: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj.
290.]
[Side-note: Third answer of Hippias--questions upon it--proof given that it fails of universal application.]
_Hip._--I acknowledge that it is so.
But I have another answer ready which will silence your friend.
I presume you wish me to indicate as The Beautiful, something which will never appear ugly to any one, at any time, or at any place.
[16] _Sokr._--That is exactly what I desire.
_Hip._--Well, I affirm, then, that to every man, always, and everywhere, the following is most beautiful.
A man being healthy, rich, honoured by the Greeks, having come to old age and buried his own parents well, to be himself buried by his own sons well and magnificently.
_Sokr._--Your answer sounds imposing; but my friend will laugh it to scorn, and will remind me again, that his question pointed to the Beautiful _itself_[17]--something which, being present as attribute in any subject, will make that subject (whether stone, wood, man, God, action, study, &c.) beautiful.
Now that which you have asserted to be beautiful to every one everywhere, was not beautiful to Achilles, who accepted by preference the lot of dying before his father--nor is it so to the heroes, or to the sons of Gods, who do not survive or bury their fathers.
To some, therefore, what you specify is beautiful--to others it is not beautiful but ugly: that is, it is both beautiful and ugly, like the maiden, the lyre, the pot, on which we have already remarked.
_Hip._--I did not speak about the Gods or Heroes.
Your friend is intolerable, for touching on such profanities.
[18] _Sokr._--However, you cannot deny that what you have indicated is beautiful only for the sons of men, and not for the sons of Gods.
My friend will thus make good his reproach against your answer.
He will tell me, that all the answers, which we have as yet given, are too absurd.
And he may perhaps at the same time himself suggest another, as he sometimes does in pity for my embarrassment.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 291 C-D.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 292 D.] [Footnote 18: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 293 B.]
[Side-note: Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself--1.
The Suitable or Becoming--objections thereunto--it is rejected.]
Sokrates then mentions, as coming from hints of the absent friend, three or four different explanations of the Self-Beautiful: each of which, when first introduced, he approves, and Hippias approves also: but each of which he proceeds successively to test and condemn.
It is to be remarked that all of them are general explanations: not consisting in conspicuous particular instances, like those which had come from Hippias.
His explanations are the following:-1.
The suitable or becoming (which had before been glanced at).
It is the suitable or becoming which constitutes the Beautiful.
[19] [Footnote 19: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 293 E.] To this Sokrates objects: The suitable, or becoming, is what causes objects to _appear_ beautiful--not what causes them to _be really_ beautiful.
Now the latter is that which we are seeking.
The two conditions do not always go together.
Those objects, institutions, and pursuits which _are really_ beautiful (fine, honourable) very often do not appear so, either to individuals or to cities collectively; so that there is perpetual dispute and fighting on the subject.
The suitable or becoming, therefore, as it is certainly what makes objects appear beautiful, so it cannot be what makes them really beautiful.
[20] [Footnote 20: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 294 B-E.] [Side-note: 2.
The useful or profitable--objections--it will not hold.]
2.
The useful or profitable.--We call objects beautiful, looking to the purpose which they are calculated or intended to serve: the human body, with a view to running, wrestling, and other exercises--a horse, an ox, a cock, looking to the service required from them--implements, vehicles on land and ships at sea, instruments for music and other arts all upon the same principle, looking to the end which they accomplish or help to accomplish.
Laws and pursuits are characterised in the same way.
In each of these, we give the name Beautiful to the useful, in so far as it is useful, when it is useful, and for the purpose to which it is useful.
To that which is useless or hurtful, in the same manner, we give the name Ugly.
[21] [Footnote 21: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 295 C-D.] Now that which is capable of accomplishing each end, is useful for such end: that which is incapable, is useless.
It is therefore capacity, or power, which is beautiful: incapacity, or impotence, is ugly.
[22] [Footnote 22: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 295 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n to\ dunato\n e(/kaston a)perga/zesthai, ei)s o(/per dunato/n, ei)s tou=to kai\ chrê/simon; to\ de\ a)du/naton a)/chrêston?
.
.
.
.
Du/namis me\n a)/ra kalo/n--a)dunami/a de\ ai)schro/n?]]
Most certainly (replies Hippias): this is especially true in our cities and communities, wherein political power is the finest thing possible, political impotence, the meanest.
Yet, on closer inspection (continues Sokrates), such a theory will not hold.
Power is employed by all men, though unwillingly, for bad purposes: and each man, through such employment of his power, does much more harm than good, beginning with his childhood.
Now power, which is useful for the doing of evil, can never be called beautiful.
[23] [Footnote 23: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 296 C-D.] You cannot therefore say that Power, taken absolutely, is beautiful.
You must add the qualification--Power used for the production of some good, is beautiful.
This, then, would be the profitable--the cause or generator of good.
[24] But the cause is different from its effect: the generator or father is different from the generated or son.
The beautiful would, upon this view, be the cause of the good.
But then the beautiful would be different from the good, and the good different from the beautiful?
Who can admit this?
It is obviously wrong: it is the most ridiculous theory which we have yet hit upon.
[25] [Footnote 24: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 297 B.]
[Footnote 25: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 297 D-E. [Greek: ei) oi(=o/n t' e)sti/n, e(kei/nôn ei)=nai (kinduneu/ei) geloio/teros tô=n prô/tôn.]]
[Side-note: 3.
The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable--that which is received through the eye and the ear.]
3.
The Beautiful is a particular variety of the agreeable or pleasurable: that which characterises those things which cause pleasure to us through sight and hearing.
Thus the men, the ornaments, the works of painting or sculpture, upon which we look with admiration,[26] are called beautiful: also songs, music, poetry, fable, discourse, in like manner; nay even laws, customs, pursuits, which we consider beautiful, might be brought under the same head.
[27] [Footnote 26: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 298 A-B.]
[Footnote 27: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 298 D. Professor Bain observes:--"The eye and the ear are the great avenues to the mind for the æsthetic class of influences; the other senses are more or less in the monopolist interest.
The blue sky, the green woods, and all the beauties of the landscape, can fill the vision of a countless throng of admirers.
So with the pleasing sounds, &c." 'The Emotions and the Will.'
ch.
xiv.
(The Æsthetic Emotions), sect.
2, p. 226, 3rd ed.]
[Side-note: Objections to this last--What property is there common to both sight and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of these two senses the exclusive privilege of being beautiful?]
The objector, however, must now be dealt with.
He will ask us--Upon what ground do you make so marked a distinction between the pleasures of sight and hearing, and other pleasures?
Do you deny that these others (those of taste, smell, eating, drinking, sex) are really pleasures?
No, surely (we shall reply); we admit them to be pleasures,--but no one will tolerate us in calling them beautiful: especially the pleasures of sex, which as pleasures are the greatest of all, but which are ugly and disgraceful to behold.
He will answer--I understand you: you are ashamed to call these pleasures beautiful, because they do not seem so to the multitude: but I did not ask you, what _seems_ beautiful to the multitude--I asked you, what _is_ beautiful.
[28] You mean to affirm, that all pleasures which do not belong to sight and hearing, are not beautiful: Do you mean, all which do not belong to both?
or all which do not belong to one or the other?
We shall reply--To either one of the two--or to both the two.
Well!
but, why (he will ask) do you single out these pleasures of sight and hearing, as beautiful exclusively?
What is there peculiar in them, which gives them a title to such distinction?
All pleasures are alike, so far forth as pleasures, differing only in the more or less.
Next, the pleasures of sight cannot be considered as beautiful by reason of their coming through sight--for that reason would not apply to the pleasures of hearing: nor again can the pleasures of hearing be considered as beautiful by reason of their coming through hearing.
[29] We must find something possessed as well by sight as by hearing, common to both, and peculiar to them,--which confers beauty upon the pleasures of both and of each.
Any attribute of one, which does not also belong to the other, will not be sufficient for our purpose.
[30] Beauty must depend upon some essential characteristic which both have in common.
[31] We must therefore look out for some such characteristic, which belongs to both as well as to each separately.
[Footnote 28: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 298 E, 299 A.
[Greek: Mantha/nô, a)\n i)/sôs phai/ê, kai\ e)gô/, o(/ti pa/lai ai)schu/nesthe tau/tas ta\s ê(dona\s pha/nai kala\s ei)=nai, o(/ti ou) dokei= toi=s a)nthrô/pois; a)ll' e)gô\ ou) tou=to ê)rô/tôn, _o(\ dokei= toi=s polloi=s kalo\n ei)=nai_, a)ll' o(\, _ti e)/stin_.]]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 299 D-E.] [Footnote 30: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 300 B.
A separate argument between Sokrates and Hippias is here as it were interpolated; Hippias affirms that he does not see how any predicate can be true of both which is not true of either separately.
Sokrates points out that two men are Both, even in number, while each is One, an odd number.
You cannot say of the two that they are one, nor can you say of either that he is Both.
There are two classes of predicates; some which are true of either but not true of the two together, or _vice versâ_; some again which are true of the two and true also of each one--such as just, wise, handsome, &c. p. 301-303 B.]
[Footnote 31: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 302 C. [Greek: tê=| ou)si/a| tê=| e)p' a)mpho/tera e(pome/nê| ô)=|mên, ei)/per a)mpho/tera/ e)sti kala/, tau/tê| dei=n au)ta\ kala\ ei)=nai, tê=| de\ kata\ ta\ e(/tera a)poleipome/nê| mê/.
kai\ e(/ti nu=n oi)=omai.]]
[Side-note: Answer--There is, belonging to each and to both in common, the property of being innocuous and profitable pleasures--upon this ground they are called beautiful.]
Now there is one characteristic which may perhaps serve.
The pleasures of sight and hearing, both and each, are distinguished from other pleasures by being the most innocuous and the best.
[32] It is for this reason that we call them beautiful.
The Beautiful, then, is profitable pleasure--or pleasure producing good--for the profitable is, that which produces good.
[33] [Footnote 32: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 303 E. [Greek: o(/ti a)sine/statai au(=tai tô=n ê(donô=n ei)si kai\ be/ltistai, kai\ a)mpho/terai kai\ e(kate/ra.]]
[Footnote 33: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 303 E. [Greek: le/gete dê\ to\ kalo\n ei)=nai, _ê(donê\n ô)phe/limon_.]]
[Side-note: This will not hold--the Profitable is the cause of Good, and is therefore different from Good--to say that the beautiful is the Profitable, is to say that it is different from Good but this has been already declared inadmissible.]
Nevertheless the objector will not be satisfied even with this.
He will tell us--You declare the Beautiful to be Pleasure producing good.
But we before agreed, that the producing agent or cause is different from what is produced or the effect.
Accordingly, the Beautiful is different from the good: or, in other words, the Beautiful is not good, nor is the Good beautiful--if each of them is a different thing.
[34] Now these propositions we have already pronounced to be inadmissible, so that your present explanation will not stand better than the preceding.
[Footnote 34: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 303 E--304 A.
[Greek: Ou)/koun ô)phe/limon, phê/sei, to\ poiou=n ta)gatho/n, to\ de\ poiou=n kai\ to\ poiou/menon, e(/teron nu=n dê\ e)pha/nê, kai\ ei)s to\n pro/teron lo/gon ê(/kei u(mi=n o( lo/gos?
_ou)/te ga\r to\ a)gatho\n a)\n ei)/ê kalo\n ou)/te to\ kalo\n a)gatho/n, ei)/per a)/llo au)tô=n e(ka/tero/n e)stin_.]
These last words deserve attention, because they coincide with the doctrine ascribed to Antisthenes, which has caused so many hard words to be applied to him (as well as to Stilpon) by critics, from Kolôtes downwards.
The general principle here laid down by Plato is--A is something different from B, therefore A is not B and B is not A.
In other words, A cannot be predicated of B nor B of A. Antisthenes said in like manner--[Greek: A)/nthrôpos] and [Greek: A)gatho\s] are different from each other, therefore you cannot say [Greek: A)/nthrôpos e)stin a)gatho/s].
You can only say [Greek: A)/nthrôpos e)stin A)/nthrôpos]--A)gatho/s e)stin a)gatho/s].
I have touched farther upon this point in my chapter upon Antisthenes and the other Viri Sokratici.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks upon the Dialogue--the explanations ascribed to Hippias are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed to Sokrates are attempts to assign some general concept.]
Thus finish the three distinct explanations of [Greek: To\ kalo\n], which Plato in this dialogue causes to be first suggested by Sokrates, successively accepted by Hippias, and successively refuted by Sokrates.
In comparing them with the three explanations which he puts into the mouth of Hippias, we note this distinction: That the explanations proposed by Hippias are conspicuous particular exemplifications of the Beautiful, substituted in place of the general concept: as we remarked, in the Dialogue Euthyphron, that the explanations of the Holy given by Euthyphron in reply to Sokrates, were of the same exemplifying character.
On the contrary, those suggested by Sokrates keep in the region of abstractions, and seek to discover some more general concept, of which the Beautiful is only a derivative or a modification, so as to render a definition of it practicable.
To illustrate this difference by the language of Dr. Whewell respecting many of the classifications in Natural History, we may say--That according to the views here represented by Hippias, the group of objects called beautiful is given by Type, not by Definition:[35] while Sokrates proceeds like one convinced that some common characteristic attribute may be found, on which to rest a Definition.
To search for Definitions of general words, was (as Aristotle remarks) a novelty, and a valuable novelty, introduced by Sokrates.
His contemporaries, the Sophists among them, were not accustomed to it: and here the Sophist Hippias (according to Plato's frequent manner) is derided as talking nonsense,[36] because, when asked for an explanation of The Self-Beautiful, he answers by citing special instances of beautiful objects.
But we must remember, first, that Sokrates, who is introduced as trying several general explanations of the Self-Beautiful, does not find one which will stand: next, that even if one such could be found, particular instances can never be dispensed with, in the way of illustration; lastly, that there are many general terms (the Beautiful being one of them) of which no definitions can be provided, and which can only be imperfectly explained, by enumerating a variety of objects to which the term in question is applied.
[37] Plato thought himself entitled to objectivise every general term, or to assume a substantive Ens, called a Form or Idea, corresponding to it.
This was a logical mistake quite as serious as any which we know to have been committed by Hippias or any other Sophist.
The assumption that wherever there is a general term, there must also be a generic attribute corresponding to it--is one which Aristotle takes much pains to negative: he recognises terms of transitional analogy, as well as terms equivocal: while he also especially numbers the Beautiful among equivocal terms.
[38] [Footnote 35: See Dr. Whewell's 'History of the Inductive Sciences,' ii.
120 seq.
; and Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' iv.
8, 3.
I shall illustrate this subject farther when I come to the dialogue called Lysis.]
[Footnote 36: Stallbaum, in his notes, bursts into exclamations of wonder at the incredible stupidity of Hippias--"En hominis stuporem prorsus admirabilem," p. 289 E.] [Footnote 37: Mr. John Stuart Mill observes in his System of Logic, i.
1, 5: "One of the chief sources of lax habits of thought is the custom of using connotative terms without a distinctly ascertained connotation, and with no more precise notion of their meaning than can be loosely collected from observing what objects they are used to denote.
It is in this manner that we all acquire, and inevitably so, our first knowledge of our vernacular language.
A child learns the meaning of Man, White, &c., by hearing them applied to a number of individual objects, and finding out, by a process of generalisation of which he is but imperfectly conscious, what those different objects have in common.
In many cases objects bear a general resemblance to each other, which leads to their being familiarly classed together under a common name, while it is not immediately apparent what are the particular attributes upon the possession of which in common by them all their general resemblance depends.
In this manner names creep on from subject to subject until all traces of a common meaning sometimes disappear, and the word comes to denote a number of things not only independently of any common attribute, but which have actually no attribute in common, or none but what is shared by other things to which the name is capriciously refused.
It would be well if this degeneracy of language took place only in the hands of the untaught vulgar; but some of the most remarkable instances are to be found in terms of art, and among technically educated persons, such as English lawyers.
_Felony_, _e.g._, is a law-term with the sound of which all are familiar: _but there is no lawyer who would undertake to tell what a felony is, otherwise than by enumerating the various offences so called._ Originally the word _felony_ had a meaning; it denoted all offences, the penalty of which included forfeiture of lands or goods, but subsequent Acts of Parliament have declared various offences to be felonies without enjoining that penalty, and have taken away that penalty from others which continue nevertheless to be called felonies, insomuch that the acts so called have now no property whatever in common save that of being unlawful and punishable."]
[Footnote 38: Aristot.
Topic, i.
106, a.
21.
[Greek: Ta\ pollachô=s lego/mena--ta\ pleonachô=s lego/mena]--are perpetually noted and distinguished by Aristotle.]
[Side-note: Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to Sokrates, and those given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia.]
We read in the Xenophontic Memorabilia a dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, on this same subject--What is the Beautiful, which affords a sort of contrast between the Dialogues of Search and those of Exposition.
In the Hippias Major, we have the problem approached on several different sides, various suggestions being proposed, and each successively disallowed, on reasons shown, as failures: while in the Xenophontic dialogue, Sokrates declares an affirmative doctrine, and stands to it--but no pains are taken to bring out the objections against it and rebut them.
The doctrine is, that the Beautiful is coincident with the Good, and that both of them are resolvable into the Useful: thus all beautiful objects, unlike as they may be to the eye or touch, bear that name because they have in common the attribute of conducing to one and the same purpose--the security, advantage, or gratification, of man, in some form or other.
This is one of the three explanations broached by the Platonic Sokrates, and afterwards refuted by him, in the Hippias: while his declaration (which Hippias puts aside as unseemly)--that a pot and a wooden soup-ladle conveniently made are beautiful is perfectly in harmony with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates, that a basket for carrying dung is beautiful, if it performs its work well.
[39] We must moreover remark, that the objections whereby the Platonic Sokrates, after proposing the doctrine and saying much in its favour, finds himself compelled at last to disallow it--these objections are not produced and refuted, but passed over without notice, in the Xenophontic dialogue, wherein Sokrates affirms it decidedly.
[40] The affirming Sokrates, and the objecting Sokrates, are not on the stage at once.
[Footnote 39: Xen.
Mem.
iii.
6, 2, 7; iv.
6, 8.
Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 288 D, 290 D. I am obliged to translate the words [Greek: to\ Kalo/n] by the Beautiful or beauty, to avoid a tiresome periphrasis.
But in reality the Greek words include more besides: they mean also the _fine_, the _honourable or that which is worthy of honour_, the _exalted_, &c. If we have difficulty in finding any common property connoted by the English word, the difficulty in the case of the Greek word is still greater.]
[Footnote 40: In regard to the question, Wherein consists [Greek: To\ Kalo/n]?
and objections against the theory of the Xenophontic Sokrates, it is worth while to compare the views of modern philosophers.
Dugald Stewart says (on the Beautiful, 'Philosophical Essays,' p. 214 seq.
), "It has long been a favourite problem with philosophers to ascertain the common quality or qualities which entitle a thing to the denomination of Beautiful.
But the success of their speculations has been so inconsiderable, that little can be inferred from them except the impossibility of the problem to which they have been directed.
The speculations which have given occasion to these remarks have evidently originated in a prejudice which has descended to modern times from the scholastic ages.
That when a word admits of a variety of significations, these different significations must all be species of the same genus, and must consequently include some essential idea common to every individual to which the generic term can be applied.
Of this principle, which has been an abundant source of obscurity and mystery in the different sciences, it would be easy to expose the unsoundness and futility.
Socrates, whose plain good sense appears, on this as on other occasions, to have fortified his understanding to a wonderful degree against the metaphysical subtleties which misled his successors, was evidently apprised fully of the justice of the foregoing remarks, if any reliance can be placed on the account given by Xenophon of his conversation with Aristippus about the Good and the Beautiful," &c. Stewart then proceeds to translate a portion of the Xenophontic dialogue (Memorab.
iii.
8).
But unfortunately he does not translate the whole of it.
If he had he would have seen that he has misconceived the opinion of Sokrates, who maintains the very doctrine here disallowed by Stewart, viz., That there is an essential idea common to all beautiful objects, the fact of being conducive to human security, comfort, or enjoyment.
This is unquestionably an important common property, though the multifarious objects which possess it may be unlike in all other respects.
As to the general theory I think that Stewart is right: it is his compliment to Sokrates, on this occasion, which I consider misplaced.
He certainly would not have agreed with Sokrates (nor should I agree with him) in calling by the epithet _beautiful_ a basket for carrying dung when well made for its own purpose, or a convenient boiling-pot, or a soup-ladle made of fig-tree wood, as the Platonic Sokrates affirms in the Hippias (288 D, 290 D).
The Beautiful and the Useful sometimes coincide; more often or at least very often, they do not.
Hippias is made to protest, in this dialogue, against the mention of such vulgar objects as the pot and the ladle; and this is apparently intended by Plato as a defective point in his character, denoting silly affectation and conceit, like his fine apparel.
But Dugald Stewart would have agreed in the sentiment ascribed to Hippias--that vulgar and mean objects have no place in an inquiry into the Beautiful; and that they belong, when well-formed for their respective purposes, to the category of the Useful.
The Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia is mistaken in confounding the Beautiful with the Good and the Useful.
But his remarks are valuable in another point of view, as they insist most forcibly on the essential relativity both of the Beautiful and the Good.
The doctrine of Dugald Stewart is supported by Mr. John Stuart Mill ('System of Logic,' iv.
4, 5, p. 220 seq.
);** and Professor Bain has expounded the whole subject still more fully in a chapter (xiv.
p. 225 seq., on the Æsthetic Emotions) of his work on the Emotions and the Will.]
The concluding observations of this dialogue, interchanged between Hippias and Sokrates, are interesting as bringing out the antithesis between rhetoric and dialectic--between the concrete and exemplifying, as contrasted with the abstract and analytical.
Immediately after Sokrates has brought his own third suggestion to an inextricable embarrassment, Hippias remarks-[Side-note: Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and Sokrates.]
"Well, Sokrates, what do you think now of all these reasonings of yours?
They are what I declared them to be just now,--scrapings and parings of discourse, divided into minute fragments.
But the really beautiful and precious acquirement is, to be able to set out well and finely a regular discourse before the Dikastery or the public assembly, to persuade your auditors, and to depart carrying with you not the least but the greatest of all prizes--safety for yourself, your property, and your friends.
These are the real objects to strive for.
Leave off your petty cavils, that you may not look like an extreme simpleton, handling silly trifles as you do at present.
"[41] "My dear Hippias," (replies Sokrates) "you are a happy man, since you know what pursuits a man ought to follow, and have yourself followed them, as you say, with good success.
But I, as it seems, am under the grasp of an unaccountable fortune: for I am always fluctuating and puzzling myself, and when I lay my puzzle before you wise men, I am requited by you with hard words.
I am told just what you have now been telling me, that I busy myself about matters silly, petty, and worthless.
When on the contrary, overborne by your authority, I declare as you do, that it is the finest thing possible to be able to set out well and beautifully a regular discourse before the public assembly, and bring it to successful conclusion--then there are other men at hand who heap upon me bitter reproaches: especially that one man, my nearest kinsman and inmate, who never omits to convict me.
When on my return home he hears me repeat what you have told me, he asks, if I am not ashamed of my impudence in talking about beautiful (honourable) pursuits, when I am so manifestly convicted upon this subject, of not even knowing what the Beautiful (Honourable) is.
How can you (he says), being ignorant what the Beautiful is, know _who_ has set out a discourse beautifully and _who_ has not--_who_ has performed a beautiful exploit and _who_ has not?
Since you are in a condition so disgraceful, can you think life better for you than death?
Such then is my fate--to hear disparagement and reproaches from you on the one side, and from him on the other.
Necessity however perhaps requires that I should endure all these discomforts: for it will be nothing strange if I profit by them.
Indeed I think that I have already profited both by your society, Hippias, and by his: for I now think that I know what the proverb means--Beautiful (Honourable) things are difficult.
"[42] [Footnote 41: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 304 A.]
[Footnote 42: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 304 D-E.] [Side-note: Rhetoric against Dialectic.]
Here is a suitable termination for one of the Dialogues of Search: "My mind has been embarrassed by contradictions as yet unreconciled, but this is a stage indispensable to future improvement".
We have moreover an interesting passage of arms between Rhetoric and Dialectic: two contemporaneous and contending agencies, among the stirring minds of Athens, in the time of Plato and Isokrates.
The Rhetor accuses the Dialectician of departing from the conditions of reality--of breaking up the integrity of those concretes, which occur in nature each as continuous and indivisible wholes.
Each of the analogous particular cases forms a continuum or concrete by itself, which may be compared with the others, but cannot be taken to pieces, and studied in separate fragments.
[43] The Dialectician on his side treats the Abstract ([Greek: to\ kalo\n]) as the real Integer, and the highest abstraction as the first of all integers, containing in itself and capable of evolving all the subordinate integers: the various accompaniments, which go along with each Abstract to make up a concrete, he disregards as shadowy and transient disguises.
[Footnote 43: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. 301 B.
[Greek: A)lla\ ga\r dê\ su/, ô)= Sô/krates, ta\ me\n o(/la tô=n pragma/tôn ou) skopei=s, ou)d' e)kei=noi, oi(=s su\ ei)/ôthas diale/gesthai, krou/ete de\ a)polamba/nontes to\ kalo\n kai\ e(/kaston tô=n o)/ntôn e)n toi=s lo/gois katate/mnontes; dia\ tau=ta ou(/tô mega/la u(ma=s lantha/nei kai\ _dianekê= sô/mata tê=s ou)si/as pephuko/ta_.]
Compare 301 E. The words [Greek: dianekê= sô/mata tê=s ou)si/as pephuko/ta] correspond as nearly as can be to the logical term _Concrete_, opposed to _Abstract_.
Nature furnishes only Concreta, not Abstracta.]
[Side-note: Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the speculative and analytical philosophers.]
Hippias accuses Sokrates of never taking into his view Wholes, and of confining his attention to separate parts and fragments, obtained by logical analysis and subdivision.
Aristophanes, when he attacks the Dialectic of Sokrates, takes the same ground, employing numerous comic metaphors to illustrate the small and impalpable fragments handled, and the subtle transpositions which they underwent in the reasoning.
Isokrates again deprecates the over-subtlety of dialectic debate, contrasting it with discussions (in his opinion) more useful; wherein entire situations, each with its full clothing and assemblage of circumstances, were reviewed and estimated.
[44] All these are protests, by persons accustomed to deal with real life, and to talk to auditors both numerous and commonplace, against that conscious analysis and close attention to general and abstract terms, which Sokrates first insisted on and transmitted to his disciples.
On the other side, we have the emphatic declaration made by the Platonic Sokrates (and made still earlier by the Xenophontic[45] or historical Sokrates)--That a man was not fit to talk about beautiful things in the concrete--that he had no right to affirm or deny that attribute, with respect to any given subject--that he was not** even fit to live unless he could explain what was meant by The Beautiful, or Beauty in the abstract.
Here are two distinct and conflicting intellectual habits, the antithesis between which, indicated in this dialogue, is described at large and forcibly in the Theætêtus.
[46] [Footnote 44: Aristophan.
Nubes, 130.
[Greek: lo/gôn a)kribô=n schindala/mous--paipa/lê.]
Nub.
261, Aves, 430.
[Greek: leptota/tôn lê/rôn i(ereu=], Nub.
359.
[Greek: gnô/mais leptais], Nub.
1404.
[Greek: skariphismoi=si lê/rôn], Ran.
1497.
[Greek: smileu/mata]--id.
819.
Isokrates, [Greek: Pro\s Nikokle/a], s. 69, antithesis of the [Greek: lo/goi politikoi\] and [Greek: lo/goi e)ristikoi/--ma/lista me\n kai\ a)po\ tôn kairô=n theôrei=n sumbouleu/ontas, ei) de\ mê\, _kath' o(/lôn tô=n pragma/tôn_ le/gontas]--which is almost exactly the phrase ascribed to Hippias by Plato in this Hippias Major.
Also Isokrates, Contra Sophistas, s. 24-25, where he contrasts the useless [Greek: logi/dia], debated by the contentious dialecticians (Sokrates and Plato being probably included in this designation), with his own [Greek: lo/goi politikoi/].
Compare also Isokrates, Or.
xv.
De Permutatione, s.
211-213-285-287.]
[Footnote 45: Xen.
Mem.
i.
1, 16.]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
173-174-175.]
[Side-note: Concrete Aggregates--abstract or logical Aggregates.
Distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for the Dialectician.]
When Hippias accuses Sokrates of neglecting to notice Wholes or Aggregates, this is true in the sense of Concrete Wholes--the phenomenal sequences and co-existences, perceived by sense or imagined.
But the Universal (as Aristotle says)[47] is one kind of Whole: a Logical Whole, having logical parts.
In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the Logical Whole separable into its logical parts and into them only, were preponderant.
[Footnote 47: Aristot.
Physic.
i.
1.
[Greek: to\ ga\r o(/lon kata\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin gnôrimô/teron, _to\ de\ katho/lou o(/lon ti e)sti; polla\ ga\r perilamba/nei ô(s me/rê to\ katho/lou_.]
Compare Simplikius, Schol.
Brandis ad loc.
p. 324, a.
10-26.]
[Side-note: Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.]
One other point deserves peculiar notice, in the dialogue under our review.
The problem started is, What is the Beautiful--the Self-Beautiful, or Beauty _per se_: and it is assumed that this must be Something,[48] that from the accession of which, each particular beautiful thing becomes beautiful.
But Sokrates presently comes to make a distinction between that which is really beautiful and that which appears to be beautiful.
Some things (he says) appear beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not appear so.
The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that is which makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes them really beautiful.
This distinction, as we find it in the language of Hippias, is one of degree only:[49] that _is_ beautiful which appears so to every one and at all times.
But in the language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to _be_ beautiful is one thing, to _appear_ beautiful is another; whatever makes a thing appear beautiful without being so in reality, is a mere engine of deceit, and not what Sokrates is enquiring for.
[50] The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty is so, whether any one perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute, which exists _per se_, having no relation to any sentient or percipient subject.
[51] At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato conceives it, when he starts here as a problem to enquire, What it is.
[Footnote 48: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 286 K. [Greek: au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(/, ti e)/stin.]
Also 287 D, 289 D.] [Footnote 49: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 291 D, 292 E.] [Footnote 50: Plato, Hipp.
Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.]
[Footnote 51: Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, observes (sect.
i. and ii.
p. 14-16):-"Beauty is either original or comparative, or, if any like the terms better, absolute or relative; only let it be observed, that by _absolute_ or _original_, is not understood any quality supposed to be in the object, which should of itself be beautiful, without relation to any mind which perceives it.
For Beauty, like other names of sensible ideas, properly denotes the perception of some mind.
.
.
.
.
Our inquiry is only about the qualities which are beautiful to men, or about the foundation of their sense of beauty, for (as above hinted) Beauty has always relation to the sense of some mind; and when we afterwards show how generally the objects that occur to us are beautiful, we mean that such objects are agreeable to the sense of men, &c." The same is repeated, sect.
iv.
p. 40; sect.
vi.
p.
72.]
Herein we note one of the material points of disagreement between Plato and his master: for Sokrates (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) affirms distinctly that Beauty is altogether relative to human wants and appreciations.
The Real and Absolute, on the one hand, wherein alone resides truth and beauty--as against the phenomenal and relative, on the other hand, the world of illusion and meanness--this is an antithesis which we shall find often reproduced in Plato.
I shall take it up more at large, when I come to discuss his argument against Protagoras in the Theætêtus.
* * * * * [Side-note: Hippias Minor--characters and situation supposed.]
I now come to the Lesser Hippias: in which (as we have already seen in the Greater) that Sophist is described by epithets, affirming varied and extensive accomplishments, as master of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, poetry (especially that of Homer), legendary lore, music, metrical and rhythmical diversities, &c. His memory was prodigious, and he had even invented for himself a technical scheme for assisting memory.
He had composed poems, epic, lyric, and tragic, as well as many works in prose: he was, besides, a splendid lecturer on ethical and political subjects, and professed to answer any question which might be asked.
Furthermore, he was skilful in many kinds of manual dexterity: having woven his own garments, plaited his own girdle, made his own shoes, engraved his own seal-ring, and fabricated for himself a curry-comb and oil-flask.
[52] Lastly, he is described as wearing fine and showy apparel.
What he is made to say is rather in harmony with this last point of character, than with the preceding.
He talks with silliness and presumption, so as to invite and excuse the derisory sting of Sokrates, There is a third interlocutor, Eudikus: but he says very little, and other auditors are alluded to generally, who say nothing.
[53] [Footnote 52: Plato, Hipp.
Minor, 368.]
[Footnote 53: Plato, Hipp.
Minor, 369 D, 373 B. Ast rejects both the dialogues called by the name of Hippias, as not composed by Plato.
Schleiermacher doubts about both, and rejects the Hippias Minor (which he considers as perhaps worked up by a Platonic scholar from a genuine sketch by Plato himself) but will not pass the same sentence upon the Hippias Major (Schleierm.
Einleit.
vol.
ii.
pp.
293-296; vol.
v. 399-403.
Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp.
457-464).
Stallbaum defends both the dialogues as genuine works of Plato, and in my judgment with good reason (Prolegg.
ad Hipp.
Maj. vol.
iv.
pp.
145-150; ad Hipp.
Minor, pp.
227-235).
Steinhart (Einleit.
p. 99) and Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 144 seq., 215 seq.)
maintain the same opinion on these dialogues as Stallbaum.
It is to be remarked that Schleiermacher states the reasons both for and against the genuineness of the dialogues; and I think that even in his own statement the reasons _for_ preponderate.
The reasons which both Schleiermacher and Ast produce as proving the spuriousness, are in my view quite insufficient to sustain their conclusion.
There is bad taste, sophistry, an overdose of banter and derision (they say very truly), in the part assigned to Sokrates: there are also differences of view, as compared with Sokrates in other dialogues; various other affirmations (they tell us) are _not_ Platonic.
I admit much of this, but I still do not accept their conclusion.
These critics cannot bear to admit any Platonic work as genuine unless it affords to them ground for superlative admiration and glorification of the author.
This postulate I altogether contest; and I think that differences of view, as between Sokrates in one dialogue and Sokrates in another, are both naturally to be expected and actually manifested (witness the Protagoras and Gorgias).
Moreover Ast designates (p. 404) a doctrine as "durchaus unsokratisch" which Stallbaum justly remarks (p. 233) to have been actually affirmed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.
Stallbaum thinks that both the two dialogues (Socher, that the Hippias Minor only) were composed by Plato among his earlier works, and this may probably be true.
The citation and refutation of the Hippias Minor by Aristotle (Metaphys.
[Greek: D].
1025, a.
6) counts with me as a strong corroborative proof that the dialogue is Plato's work.
Schleiermacher and Ast set this evidence aside because Aristotle does not name Plato as the author.
But if the dialogue had been composed by any one less celebrated than Plato, Aristotle would have named the author.
Mention by Aristotle, though without Plato's name, is of greater value to support the genuineness than the purely internal grounds stated by Ast and Schleiermacher against it.]
[Side-note: Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which he extols Achilles as better than Odysseus--the veracious and straightforward hero better than the mendacious and crafty.]
In the Hippias Minor, that Sophist appears as having just concluded a lecture upon Homer, in which he had extolled Achilles as better than Odysseus: Achilles being depicted as veracious and straightforward, Odysseus as mendacious and full of tricks.
Sokrates, who had been among the auditors, cross-examines Hippias upon the subject of this affirmation.
Homer (says Hippias) considers veracious men, and mendacious men, to be not merely different, but opposite: and I agree with him.
Permit me (Sokrates remarks) to ask some questions about the meaning of this from you, since I cannot ask any from Homer himself.
You will answer both for yourself and him.
[54] [Footnote 54: Plat.
Hipp.
Minor, 365 C-D.
The remark here made by Sokrates--"The poet is not here to answer for himself, so that you cannot put any questions to him" is a point of view familiar to Plato: insisted upon forcibly in the Protagoras (347 E), and farther generalised in the Phædrus, so as to apply to all written matter compared with personal converse (Phædrus, p. 275 D).
This ought to count, so far as it goes, as a fragment of proof that the Hippias Minor is a genuine work of Plato, instead of which Schleiermacher treats it (p. 295) as evincing a poor copy, made by some imitator of Plato, from the Protagoras.]
Mendacious men (answers Hippias, to a string of questions, somewhat prolix) are capable, intelligent, wise: they are not incapable or ignorant.
If a man be incapable of speaking falsely, or ignorant, he is not mendacious.
Now the capable man is one who can make sure of doing what he wishes to do, at the time and occasion when he does wish it, without let or hindrance.
[55] [Footnote 55: Plat.
Hipp.
Minor, 366 B-C.] [Side-note: This is contested by Sokrates.
The veracious man and the mendacious man are one and the same--the only man who can answer truly if he chooses, is he who can also answer falsely if he chooses, _i.e._ the knowing man--the ignorant man cannot make sure of doing either the one or the other.]
You, Hippias (says Sokrates), are expert on matters of arithmetic: you can make sure of answering truly any question put to you on the subject.
You are _better_ on the subject than the ignorant man, who cannot make sure of doing the same.
But as you can make sure of answering truly, so likewise you can make sure of answering falsely, whenever you choose to do so.
Now the ignorant man cannot make sure of answering falsely.
He may, by reason of his ignorance, when he wishes to answer falsely, answer truly without intending it.
You, therefore, the intelligent man and the good in arithmetic, are better than the ignorant and the bad for both purposes--for speaking falsely, and for speaking truly.
[56] [Footnote 56: Plato, Hippias Minor, 366 E. [Greek: Po/teron su\ a)\n ma/lista pseu/doio kai\ a)ei\ kata\ tau)ta\ pseudê= le/gois peri\ tou/tôn, boulo/menos pseu/desthai kai\ mêde/pote a)lêthê= a)pokri/nesthai?
ê)/ o( a)mathê\s ei)s logismou\s du/nait' a)\n sou= ma=llon pseu/desthai boulome/nou?
ê)\ o( me\n a)mathê\s polla/kis a)\n boulo/menos pseudê= le/gein ta)lêthê= a)\n ei)/poi a)/kôn, ei) tu/choi, dia\ to\ mê\ ei)de/nai--su\ de\ o( sopho/s, ei)/per bou/loio pseu/desthai, a)ei\ a)\n kata\ ta\ au)ta\ pseu/doio?]]
[Side-note: Analogy of special arts--it is only the arithmetician who can speak falsely on a question of arithmetic when he chooses.]
What is true about arithmetic, is true in other departments also.
The only man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses is the man who can speak truly whenever he chooses.
Now, the mendacious man, as we agreed, is the man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses.
Accordingly, the mendacious man, and the veracious man, are the same.
They are not different, still less opposite: nay, the two epithets belong only to one and the same person.
The veracious man is not better than the mendacious--seeing that he is one and the same.
[57] [Footnote 57: Plato, Hipp.
Minor, 367 C, 368 E, 369 A-B.]
You see, therefore, Hippias, that the distinction, which you drew and which you said that Homer drew, between Achilles and Odysseus, will not hold.
You called Achilles veracious, and Odysseus, mendacious: but if one of the two epithets belongs to either of them, the other must belong to him also.
[58] [Footnote 58: Plat.
Hipp.
Minor, 360 B.]
[Side-note: View of Sokrates respecting Achilles in the Iliad.
He thinks that Achilles speaks falsehood cleverly.
Hippias maintains that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, it is with an innocent purpose, whereas Odysseus does the like with fraudulent purpose.]
Sokrates then tries to make out that Achilles speaks falsehood in the Iliad, and speaks it very cleverly, because he does so in a way to escape detection from Odysseus himself.
To this Hippias replies, that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, he does it innocently, without any purpose of cheating or injuring any one; whereas the falsehoods of Odysseus are delivered with fraudulent and wicked intent.
[59] It is impossible (he contends) that men who deceive and do wrong wilfully and intentionally, should be better than those who do so unwillingly and without design.
The laws deal much more severely with the former than with the latter.
[60] [Footnote 59: Plat.
Hipp.
Minor, 370 E.] [Footnote 60: Plat.
Hipp.
Minor, 372 A.]
[Side-note: Issue here taken--Sokrates contends that those who hurt, or cheat, or lie wilfully, are better than those who do the like unwillingly--he entreats Hippias to enlighten him and answer his questions.]
Upon this point, Hippias (says Sokrates), I dissent from you entirely.
I am, unhappily, a stupid person, who cannot find out the reality of things: and this appears plainly enough when I come to talk with wise men like you, for I always find myself differing from you.
My only salvation consists in my earnest anxiety to put questions and learn from you, and in my gratitude for your answers and teaching.
I think that those who hurt mankind, or cheat, or lie, or do wrong, _wilfully_--are better than those who do the same _unwillingly_.
Sometimes, indeed, from my stupidity, the opposite view presents itself to me, and I become confused: but now, after talking with you, the fit of confidence has come round upon me again, to pronounce and characterise the persons who do wrong _unwillingly_, as worse than those who do wrong _wilfully_.
I entreat you to heal this disorder of my mind.
You will do me much more good than if you cured my body of a distemper.
But it will be useless for you to give me one of your long discourses: for I warn you that I cannot follow it.
The only way to confer upon me real service, will be to answer my questions again, as you have hitherto done.
Assist me, Eudikus, in persuading Hippias to do so.
Assistance from me (says Eudikus) will hardly be needed, for Hippias professed himself ready to answer any man's questions.
Yes--I did so (replies Hippias)--but Sokrates always brings trouble into the debate, and proceeds like one disposed to do mischief.
Eudikus repeats his request, and Hippias, in deference to him, consents to resume the task of answering.
[61] [Footnote 61: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
373 B.]
[Side-note: Questions of Sokrates--multiplied analogies of the special arts.
The unskilful artist, who runs, wrestles, or sings badly, whether he will or not, is worse than the skilful, who can sing well when he chooses, but can also sing badly when he chooses.]
Sokrates then produces a string of questions, with a view to show that those who do wrong wilfully, are better than those who do wrong unwillingly.
He appeals to various analogies.
In running, the good runner is he who runs quickly, the bad runner is he who runs slowly.
What is evil and base in running is, to run slowly.
It is the good runner who does this evil wilfully: it is the bad runner who does it unwillingly.
[62] The like is true about wrestling and other bodily exercises.
He that is good in the body, can work either strongly or feebly,--can do either what is honourable or what is base; so that when he does what is base, he does it wilfully.
But he that is bad in the body does what is base unwillingly, not being able to help it.
[63] [Footnote 62: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
373 D-E.] [Footnote 63: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
374 B.]
What is true about the bodily movements depending upon strength, is not less true about those depending on grace and elegance.
To be wilfully ungraceful, belongs only to the well-constituted body: none but the badly-constituted body is ungraceful without wishing it.
The same, also, about the feet, voice, eyes, ears, nose: of these organs, those which act badly through will and intention, are preferable to those which act badly without will or intention.
Lameness of feet is a misfortune and disgrace: feet which go lame only by intention are much to be preferred.
[64] [Footnote 64: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
374 C-D.] Again, in the instruments which we use, a rudder or a bow,--or the animals about us, horses or dogs,--those are better with which we work badly when we choose; those are worse, with which we work badly without design, and contrary to our own wishes.
[Side-note: It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark only by design, than that of one who misses even when he intends to hit.]
It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark by design, than that of one who misses when he tries to hit.
The like about all other arts--the physician, the harper, the flute-player.
In each of these artists, _that_ mind is better, which goes wrong only wilfully--_that_ mind is worse, which goes wrong unwillingly, while wishing to go right.
In regard to the minds of our slaves, we should all prefer those which go wrong only when they choose, to those which go wrong without their own choice.
[65] [Footnote 65: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
376 B-D.] Having carried his examination through this string of analogous particulars, and having obtained from Hippias successive answers--"Yes--true in that particular case," Sokrates proceeds to sum up the result:-_Sokr._--Well!
should we not wish to have our own minds as good as possible?
_Hip._--Yes.
_Sokr._--We have seen that they will be better if they do mischief and go wrong wilfully, than if they do so unwillingly?
_Hip._--But it will be dreadful, Sokrates, if the willing wrong-doers are to pass for better men than the unwilling.
[Side-note: Dissent and repugnance of Hippias.]
_Sokr._--Nevertheless--it seems so: from what we have said.
_Hip._--It does not seem so to me.
_Sokr._--I thought that it would have seemed so to you, as it does to me.
However, answer me once more--Is not justice either a certain mental capacity?
or else knowledge?
or both together?
[66] _Hip._--Yes!
it is.
_Sokr._--If justice be a capacity of the mind, the more capable mind will also be the juster: and we have already seen that the more capable soul is the better.
_Hip._--We have.
_Sokr._--If it be knowledge, the more knowing or wiser mind will of course be the juster: if it be a combination of both capacity and knowledge, that mind which is more capable as well as more knowing,--will be the juster that which is less capable and less knowing, will be the more unjust.
_Hip._--So it appears.
_Sokr._--Now we have shown that the more capable and knowing mind is at once the better mind, and more competent to exert itself both ways--to do what is honourable as well as what is base--in every employment.
_Hip._--Yes.
_Sokr._--When, therefore, such a mind does what is base, it does so wilfully, through its capacity or intelligence, which we have seen to be of the nature of justice?
_Hip._--It seems so.
_Sokr._--Doing base things, is acting unjustly: doing honourable things, is acting justly.
Accordingly, when this more capable and better mind acts unjustly, it will do so wilfully; while the less capable and worse mind will do so without willing it?
_Hip._--Apparently.
[Footnote 66: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
375 D. [Greek: ê( dikaiosu/nê ou)chi ê)\ du/nami/s ti/s e)stin, ê)\ e)pistê/mê, ê)\ a)mpho/tera?]]
[Side-note: Conclusion--That none but the good man can do evil wilfully: the bad man does evil unwillingly.
Hippias cannot resist the reasoning, but will not accept the conclusion--Sokrates confesses his perplexity.]
_Sokr._--Now the good man is he that has the good mind: the bad man is he that has the bad mind.
It belongs therefore to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man, to do wrong without wishing it--that is, if the good man be he that has the good mind?
_Hip._--But that is unquestionable--that he has it.
_Sokr._--Accordingly, he that goes wrong and does base and unjust things wilfully, if there be any such character--can be no other than the good man.
_Hip._--I do not know how to concede _that_ to you, Sokrates.
[67] _Sokr._--Nor I, how to concede it to myself, Hippias: yet so it must appear to us, now at least, from the past debate.
As I told you long ago, I waver hither and thither upon this matter; my conclusions never remain the same.
No wonder indeed that I and other vulgar men waver; but if you wise men waver also, that becomes a fearful mischief even to us, since we cannot even by coming to you escape from our embarrassment.
[68] [Footnote 67: Plat.
Hipp.
Min.
375 E, 376 B.]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Hipp.
Min.
376 C.] * * * * * I will here again remind the reader, that in this, as in the other dialogues, the real speaker is Plato throughout: and that it is he alone who prefixes the different names to words determined by himself.
[Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue.
If the parts had been inverted, the dialogue would have been cited by critics as a specimen of the sophistry and corruption of the Sophists.]
Now, if the dialogue just concluded had come down to us with the parts inverted, and with the reasoning of Sokrates assigned to Hippias, most critics would probably have produced it as a tissue of sophistry justifying the harsh epithets which they bestow upon the Athenian Sophists--as persons who considered truth and falsehood to be on a par--subverters of morality--and corruptors of the youth of Athens.
[69] But as we read it, all that, which in the mouth of Hippias would have passed for sophistry, is here put forward by Sokrates; while Hippias not only resists his conclusions, and adheres to the received ethical sentiment tenaciously, even when he is unable to defend it, but hates the propositions forced upon him, protests against the perverse captiousness of Sokrates, and requires much pressing to induce him to continue the debate.
Upon the views adopted by the critics, Hippias ought to receive credit for this conduct, as a friend of virtue and morality.
To me, such reluctance to debate appears a defect rather than a merit; but I cite the dialogue as illustrating what I have already said in another place--that Sokrates and Plato threw out more startling novelties in ethical doctrine, than either Hippias or Protagoras, or any of the other persons denounced as Sophists.
[Footnote 69: Accordingly one of the Platonic critics, Schwalbe (Oeuvres de Platon, p. 116), explains Plato's purpose in the Hippias Minor by saying, that Sokrates here serves out to the Sophists a specimen of their own procedure, and gives them an example of sophistical dialectic, by defending a sophistical thesis in a sophistical manner: That he chooses and demonstrates at length the thesis--the liar is not different from the truth-teller--as an exposure of the sophistical art of proving the contrary of any given proposition, and for the purpose of deriding and unmasking the false morality of Hippias, who in this dialogue talks reasonably enough.
Schwalbe, while he affirms that this is the purpose of Plato, admits that the part here assigned to Sokrates is unworthy of him; and Steinhart maintains that Plato never could have had any such purpose, "however frequently" (Steinhart says), "sophistical artifices may occur in this conversation of Sokrates, which artifices Sokrates no more disdained to employ than any other philosopher or rhetorician of that day" ("so häufig auch in seinen Erörterungen sophistische Kunstgriffe vorkommen mögen, die Sokrates eben so wenig verschmaht hat, als irgend ein Philosoph oder Redekünstler dieser Zeit").
Steinhart, Einleitung zum Hipp.
Minor, p. 109.
I do not admit the purpose here ascribed to Plato by Schwalbe, but I refer to the passage as illustrating what Platonic critics think of the reasoning assigned to Sokrates in the Hippias Minor, and the hypotheses which they introduce to colour it.
The passage cited from Steinhart also--that Sokrates no more disdained to employ sophistical artifices than any other philosopher or rhetorician of the age--is worthy of note, as coming from one who is so very bitter in his invectives against the sophistry of the persons called Sophists, of which we have no specimens left.]
[Side-note: Polemical purpose of the dialogue--Hippias humiliated by Sokrates.]
That Plato intended to represent this accomplished Sophist as humiliated by Sokrates, is evident enough: and the words put into his mouth are suited to this purpose.
The eloquent lecturer, so soon as his admiring crowd of auditors has retired, proves unable to parry the questions of a single expert dialectician who remains behind, upon a matter which appears to him almost self-evident, and upon which every one (from Homer downward) agrees with him.
Besides this, however, Plato is not satisfied without making him say very simple and absurd things.
All this is the personal, polemical, comic scope of the dialogue.
It lends (whether well-placed or not) a certain animation and variety, which the author naturally looked out for, in an aggregate of dialogues all handling analogous matters about man and society.
But though the polemical purpose of the dialogue is thus plain, its philosophical purpose perplexes the critics considerably.
They do not like to see Sokrates employing sophistry against the Sophists: that is, as they think, casting out devils by the help of Beelzebub.
And certainly, upon the theory which they adopt, respecting the relation between Plato and Sokrates on one side, and the Sophists on the other, I think this dialogue is very difficult to explain.
But I do not think it is difficult, upon a true theory of the Platonic writings.
[Side-note: Philosophical purpose of the dialogue--theory of the Dialogues of Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by Plato.]
In a former chapter, I tried to elucidate the general character and purpose of those Dialogues of Search, which occupy more than half the Thrasyllean Canon, and of which we have already reviewed two or three specimens--Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, &c. We have seen that they are distinguished by the absence of any affirmative conclusion: that they prove nothing, but only, at the most, disprove one or more supposable solutions: that they are not processes in which one man who knows communicates his knowledge to ignorant hearers, but in which all are alike ignorant, and all are employed, either in groping, or guessing, or testing the guesses of the rest.
We have farther seen that the value of these Dialogues depends upon the Platonic theory about knowledge; that Plato did not consider any one to know, who could not explain to others all that he knew, reply to the cross-examination of a Sokratic Elenchus, and cross-examine others to test their knowledge: that knowledge in this sense could not be attained by hearing, or reading, or committing to memory a theorem, together with the steps of reasoning which directly conducted to it:--but that there was required, besides, an acquaintance with many counter-theorems, each having more or less appearance of truth; as well as with various embarrassing aspects and plausible delusions on the subject, which an expert cross-examiner would not fail to urge.
Unless you are practised in meeting all the difficulties which he can devise, you cannot be said _to know_.
Moreover, it is in this last portion of the conditions of knowledge, that most aspirants are found wanting.
[Side-note: The Hippias is an exemplification of this theory--Sokrates sets forth a case of confusion, and avows his inability to clear it up.
Confusion shown up in the Lesser Hippias--Error in the Greater.]
Now the Greater and Lesser Hippias are peculiar specimens of these Dialogues of Search, and each serves the purpose above indicated.
The Greater Hippias enumerates a string of tentatives, each one of which ends in acknowledged failure: the Lesser Hippias enunciates a thesis, which Sokrates proceeds to demonstrate, by plausible arguments such as Hippias is forced to admit.
But though Hippias admits each successive step, he still mistrusts the conclusion, and suspects that he has been misled--a feeling which Plato[70] describes elsewhere as being frequent among the respondents of Sokrates.
Nay, Sokrates himself shares in the mistrust--presents himself as an unwilling propounder of arguments which force themselves upon him,[71] and complains of his own mental embarrassment.
Now you may call this sophistry, if you please; and you may silence its propounders by calling them hard names.
But such ethical prudery--hiding all the uncomfortable logical puzzles which start up when you begin to analyse an established sentiment, and treating them as non-existent because you refuse to look at them--is not the way, to attain what Plato calls knowledge.
If there be any argument, the process of which seems indisputable, while yet its conclusion contradicts, or seems to contradict, what is known, upon other evidence--the full and patient analysis of that argument is indispensable, before you can become master of the truth and able to defend it.
Until you have gone through such analysis, your mind must remain in that state of confusion which is indicated by Sokrates at the end of the Lesser Hippias.
As it is a part of the process of Search, to travel in the path of the Greater Hippias--that is, to go through a string of erroneous solutions, each of which can be proved, by reasons shown, to _be_ erroneous: so it is an equally important part of the same process, to travel in the path of the Lesser Hippias--that is, to acquaint ourselves with all those arguments, bearing on the case, in which two contrary conclusions appear to be both of them plausibly demonstrated, and in which therefore we cannot as yet determine which of them is erroneous--or whether both are not erroneous.
The Greater Hippias exhibits errors,--the Lesser Hippias puts before us confusion.
With both these enemies the Searcher for truth must contend: and Bacon tells us, that confusion is the worst enemy of the two--"Citius emergit veritas ex errore, quam ex confusione".
Plato, in the Lesser Hippias, having in hand a genuine Sokratic thesis, does not disdain to invest Sokrates with the task (sophistical, as some call it, yet not the less useful and instructive) of setting forth at large this case of confusion, and avowing his inability to clear it up.
It is enough for Sokrates that he brings home the painful sense of confusion to the feelings of his hearer as well as to his own.
In that painful sentiment lies the stimulus provocative of farther intellectual effort.
[72] The dialogue ends but the process of search, far from ending along with it, is emphatically declared to be unfinished, and, to be in a condition not merely unsatisfactory but intolerable, not to be relieved except by farther investigation, which thus becomes a necessary sequel.
[Footnote 70: Plato, Republ.
vi.
487 B.
[Greek: Kai\ o( A)dei/mantos, Ô)= Sô/krates, e)/phê, pro\s me\n tau=ta/ soi ou)dei\s a)\n oi(=os t' ei)/ê a)nteipei=n; a)lla\ ga\r toio/nde ti pa/schousin oi( a)kou/ontes e)ka/stote a)\ nu=n le/geis; ê(gou=ntai di' a)peiri/an tou= e)rôta=|n kai\ a)pokri/nesthai u(po\ tou= lo/gou par' e(/kaston to\ e)rô/têma smikro\n parago/menoi, a)throisthe/ntôn tô=n smikrô=n e)pi\ teleutê=s tô=n lo/gôn, me/ga to\ spha/lma kai\ e)nanti/on toi=s prô/tois a)naphai/nesthai .
.
.
e)pei to/ ge a)lêthe\s ou)de/n ti ma=llon tau/tê| e)/chein.]
This passage, attesting the effect of the Sokratic examination upon the minds of auditors, ought to be laid to heart by those Platonic critics who denounce the Sophists for generating scepticism and uncertainty.]
[Footnote 71: Plato, Hipp.
Minor, 373 B; also the last sentence of the dialogue.]
[Footnote 72: See the passage in Republic, vii.
523-524, where the [Greek: to\ paraklêtiko\n kai\ e)gertiko\n tê=s noê/seôs] is declared to arise from the pain of a felt contradiction.]
There are two circumstances which lend particular interest to this dialogue--Hippias Minor.
1.
That the thesis out of which the confusion arises, is one which we know to have been laid down by the historical Sokrates himself.
2.
That Aristotle expressly notices this thesis, as well as the dialogue in which it is contained, and combats it.
[Side-note: The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also affirmed by the historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.]
Sokrates in his conversation with the youthful Euthydemus (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) maintains, that of two persons, each of whom deceives his friends in a manner to produce mischief, the one who does so wilfully is not so unjust as the one who does so unwillingly.
[73] Euthydemus (like Hippias in this dialogue) maintains the opposite, but is refuted by Sokrates; who argues that justice is a matter to be learnt and known like letters; that the lettered man, who has learnt and knows letters, can write wrongly when he chooses, but never writes wrongly unless he chooses--while it is only the unlettered man who writes wrongly unwillingly and without intending it: that in like manner the just man, he that has learnt and knows justice, never commits injustice unless when he intends it--while the unjust man, who has not learnt and does not know justice, commits injustice whether he will or not.
It is the just man therefore, and none but the just man (Sokrates maintains), who commits injustice knowingly and wilfully: it is the unjust man who commits injustice without wishing or intending it.
[74] [Footnote 73: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
2, 19.
[Greek: tô=n de\ dê\ tou\s phi/lous e)xapatô/ntôn e)pi\ blabê=| (i(/na mêde\ tou=to paralei/pômen a)/skepton) po/teros a)dikô/tero/s e)stin, o( e(kô\n ê)\ o( a)/kôn?]
The natural meaning of [Greek: e)pi\ blabê=|] would be, "for the purpose of mischief"; and Schneider, in his Index, gives "nocendi causâ".
But in that meaning the question would involve an impossibility, for the words [Greek: o( a)/kôn] exclude any such purpose.]
[Footnote 74: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
2, 19-22.]
This is the same view which is worked out by the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor: beginning with the antithesis between the veracious and mendacious man (as Sokrates begins in Xenophon); and concluding with the general result--that it belongs to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man to do wrong unwillingly.
[Side-note: Aristotle combats the thesis.
Arguments against it.]
Aristotle,[75] in commenting upon this doctrine of the Hippias Minor, remarks justly, that Plato understands the epithets _veracious_ and _mendacious_ in a sense different from that which they usually bear.
Plato understands the words as designating one who _can_ tell the truth if he chooses--one who _can_ speak falsely if he chooses: and in this sense he argues plausibly that the two epithets go together, and that no man can be mendacious unless he be also veracious.
Aristotle points out that the epithets in their received meaning are applied, not to the power itself, but to the habitual and intentional use of that power.
The power itself is doubtless presupposed or implied as one condition to the applicability of the epithets, and is one common condition to the applicability of both epithets: but the distinction, which they are intended to draw, regards the intentions and dispositions with which the power is employed.
So also Aristotle observes that Plato's conclusion--"He that does wrong wilfully is a better man than he that does wrong unwillingly," is falsely collected from induction or analogy.
The analogy of the special arts and accomplishments, upon which the argument is built, is not applicable.
_Better_ has reference, not to the amount of intelligence but to the dispositions and habitual intentions; though it presupposes a certain state and amount of intelligence as indispensable.
[Footnote 75: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
[Greek: D].
p. 1025, a.
8; compare Ethic.
Nikomach.
iv.
p. 1127, b.
16.]
[Side-note: Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct.]
Both Sokrates and Plato (in many of his dialogues) commit the error of which the above is one particular manifestation--that of dwelling exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct,[76] and omitting to give proper attention to the emotional and volitional, as essentially co-operating or preponderating in the complex meaning of ethical attributes.
The reasoning ascribed to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor exemplifies this one-sided view.
What he says is true, but it is only a part of the truth.
When he speaks of a person "who does wrong unwillingly," he seems to have in view one who does wrong without knowing that he does so: one whose intelligence is so defective that he does not know when he speaks truth and when he speaks falsehood.
Now a person thus unhappily circumstanced must be regarded as half-witted or imbecile, coming under the head which the Xenophontic Sokrates called _madness_:[77] unfit to perform any part in society, and requiring to be placed under tutelage.
Compared with such a person, the opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be defended--that the mendacious person, who _can_ tell truth when he chooses, is the better of the two in the sense of less mischievous or dangerous.
But he is the object of a very different sentiment; moreover, this is not the comparison present to our minds when we call one man veracious, another man mendacious.
We always assume, in every one, a measure of intelligence equal or superior to the admissible minimum; under such assumption, we compare two persons, one of whom speaks to the best of his knowledge and belief, the other, contrary to his knowledge and belief.
We approve the former and disapprove the latter, according to the different intention and purpose of each (as Aristotle observes); that is, looking at them under the point of view of emotion and volition--which is logically distinguishable from the intelligence, though always acting in conjunction with it.
[Footnote 76: Aristotle has very just observations on these views of Sokrates, and on the incompleteness of his views when he resolved all virtue into knowledge, all vice into ignorance.
See, among other passages, Aristot.
Ethica Magna, i.
1182, a.
16; 1183, b.
9; 1190, b.
28; Ethic.
Eudem.
i.
1216, b, 4.
The remarks of Aristotle upon Sokrates and Plato evince a real progress in ethical theory.]
[Footnote 77: Xen.
Mem.
iii.
9, 7.
[Greek: tou\s diêmartêko/tas, ô(=n oi( polloi\ gignô/skousi, mainome/nous kalei=n], &c.] [Side-note: They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts--They take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and blame.]
Again, the analogy of the special arts, upon which the Platonic Sokrates dwells in the Hippias Minor, fails in sustaining his inference.
By a good runner, wrestler, harper, singer, speaker, &c., we undoubtedly mean one who can, if he pleases, perform some one of these operations well; although he can also, if he pleases, perform them badly.
But the epithets _good_ or _bad_, in this case, consider exclusively that element which was left out, and leave out that element which was exclusively considered, in the former case.
The good singer is declared to stand distinguished from the bad singer, or from the [Greek: i)diô/tês], who, if he sings at all, will certainly sing badly, by an attribute belonging to his intelligence and vocal organs.
To sing well is a special accomplishment, which is possessed only by a few, and which no man is blamed for not possessing.
The distinction between such special accomplishments, and justice or rectitude of behaviour, is well brought out in the speech which Plato puts into the mouth of the Sophist Protagoras.
[78] "The special artists (he says) are few in number: one of them is sufficient for many private citizens.
But every citizen, without exception, must possess justice and a sense of shame: if he does not, he must be put away as a nuisance--otherwise, society could not be maintained."
The special artist is a citizen also; and as such, must be subject to the obligations binding on all citizens universally.
In predicating of him that he is _good_ or _bad_ as a citizen, we merely assume him to possess the average intelligence, of the community; and the epithet declares whether his emotional and volitional attributes exceed, or fall short of, the minimum required in the application of that intelligence to his social obligations.
It is thus that the words _good_ or _bad_ when applied to him as a citizen, have a totally different bearing from that which the same words have when applied to him in his character of special artist.
[Footnote 78: Plato, Protagoras, 322.]
[Side-note: Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be suggestive, and that it shall bring before us different aspects of the question under review.]
The value of these debates in the Platonic dialogues consists in their raising questions like the preceding, for the reflection of the reader--whether the Platonic Sokrates may or may not be represented as taking what we think the right view of the question.
For a Dialogue of Search, the great merit is, that it should be suggestive; that it should bring before our attention the conditions requisite for a right and proper use of these common ethical epithets, and the state of circumstances which is tacitly implied whenever any one uses them.
No man ever learns to reflect upon the meaning of such familiar epithets, which he has been using all his life--unless the process be forced upon his attention by some special conversation which brings home to him an uncomfortable sentiment of perplexity and contradiction.
If a man intends to acquire any grasp of ethical or political theory, he must render himself master, not only of the sound arguments and the guiding analogies but also of the unsound arguments and the misleading analogies, which bear upon each portion of it.
[Side-note: Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic.]
There is one other point of similitude deserving notice, between the Greater and Lesser Hippias.
In both of them, Hippias makes special complaint of Sokrates, for breaking the question in pieces and picking out the minute puzzling fragments--instead of keeping it together as a whole, and applying to it the predicates which it merits when so considered.
[79] Here is the standing antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic: between those unconsciously acquired mental combinations which are poured out in eloquent, impressive, unconditional, and undistinguishing generalities--and the logical analysis which resolves the generality into its specialities, bringing to view inconsistencies, contradictions, limits, qualifications, &c. I have already touched upon this at the close of the Greater Hippias.
[Footnote 79: Plato, Hipp.
Min.
369 B-C. [Greek: Ô)= Sô/krates, a)ei\ su/ tinas toiou/tous ple/keis lo/gous, kai\ a)polamba/nôn o(/ a)\n ê)=| duschere/staton tou= lo/gou, tou/tou e)/chei kata\ smikro\n e)phapto/menos, kai\ ou)ch o(/lô a)gôni/zei tô=| pra/gmati, peri\ o(/tou a)\n o( lo/gos ê)=|], &c. A remark of Aristotle (Topica, viii.
164, b.
2) illustrates this dissecting function of the Dialectician.
[Greek: e)/sti ga/r, ô(s a(plô=s ei)pei=n, dialektiko\s o( protatiko\s kai\ e)nstatiko/s; e)/sti de\ to\ me\n protei/nesthai, e(\n poiei=n ta\ plei/ô (dei= ga\r e(\n o(/lô| lêphthê=nai pro\s o(\ o( lo/gos), to\ d' e)ni/stasthai, to\ e(n polla/; ê)\ ga\r diairei=, ê)\ a)nairei=, to\ me\n didou/s, to\ de\ ou)/, tô=n proteinome/nôn.]]
CHAPTER XIV.
HIPPARCHUS--MINOS.
In these two dialogues, Plato sets before us two farther specimens of that error and confusion which beset the enquirer during his search after "reasoned truth".
Sokrates forces upon the attention of a companion two of the most familiar words of the market-place, to see whether a clear explanation of their meaning can be obtained.
[Side-note: Hipparchus--Question--What is the definition of Lover of Gain?
He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing.
Sokrates cross-examines upon this explanation.
No man expects to gain from things which he knows to be worth nothing: in this sense, no man is a lover of gain.]
In the dialogue called Hipparchus, the debate turns on the definition of [Greek: to\ philokerde\s] or [Greek: o( philokerdê/s]--the love of gain or the lover of gain.
Sokrates asks his Companion to define the word.
The Companion replies--He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing.
[1] Does he do this (asks Sokrates) knowing that the things are worth nothing?
or not knowing?
If the latter, he is simply ignorant.
He knows it perfectly well (is the reply).
He is cunning and wicked; and it is because he cannot resist the temptation of gain, that he has the impudence to make profit by such things, though well aware that they are worth nothing.
_Sokr._--Suppose a husbandman, knowing that the plant which he is tending is worthless--and yet thinking that he ought to gain by it: does not that correspond to your description of the lover of gain?
_Comp._--The lover of gain, Sokrates, thinks that he ought to gain from every thing.
_Sokr._--Do not answer in that reckless manner,[2] as if you had been wronged by any one; but answer with attention.
You agree that the lover of gain knows the value of that from which he intends to derive profit; and that the husbandman is the person cognizant of the value of plants.
_Comp._--Yes: I agree.
_Sokr._--Do not therefore attempt, you are so young, to deceive an old man like me, by giving answers not in conformity with your own admissions; but tell me plainly, Do you believe that the experienced husbandman, when he knows that he is planting a tree worth nothing, thinks that he shall gain by it?
_Comp._--No, certainly: I do not believe it.
[Footnote 1: Plato, Hipparch.
225 A.
[Greek: oi(\ a)\n kerdai/nein a)xiô=sin a)po\ tô=n mêdeno\s a)xi/ôn.]]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Hipparch.
225 C.] Sokrates then proceeds to multiply illustrations to the same general point.
The good horseman does not expect to gain by worthless food given to his horse: the good pilot, by worthless tackle put into his ship: the good commander, by worthless arms delivered to his soldiers: the good fifer, harper, bowman, by employing worthless instruments of their respective arts, if they know them to be worthless.
[Side-note: Gain is good.
Every man loves good: therefore all men are lovers of gain.]
None of these persons (concludes Sokrates) correspond to your description of the lover of gain.
Where then can you find a lover of gain?
On your explanation, no man is so.
[3] _Comp._--I mean, Sokrates, that the lovers of gain are those, who, through greediness, long eagerly for things altogether petty and worthless; and thus display a love of gain.
[4] _Sokr._--Not surely knowing them to be worthless--for this we have shown to be impossible--but ignorant that they are worthless, and believing them to be valuable.
_Comp._--It appears so.
_Sokr._--Now gain is the opposite of loss: and loss is evil and hurt to every one: therefore gain (as the opposite of loss) is good.
_Comp._--Yes.
_Sokr._--It appears then that the lovers of good are those whom you call lovers of gain?
_Comp._--Yes: it appears so.
_Sokr._--Do not you yourself love good--all good things?
_Comp._--Certainly.
_Sokr._--And I too, and every one else.
All men love good things, and hate evil.
Now we agreed that gain was a good: so that by this reasoning, it appears that all men are lovers of gain while by the former reasoning, we made out that none were so.
[5] Which of the two shall we adopt, to avoid error.
_Comp._--We shall commit no error, Sokrates, if we rightly conceive the lover of gain.
He is one who busies himself upon, and seeks to gain from, things from which good men do not venture to gain.
[Footnote 3: Plat.
Hipparch.
226 D.] [Footnote 4: Plat.
Hipparch.
226 D. [Greek: A)ll' e)gô\, ô)= Sô/krates, bou/lomai le/gein tou/tous philokerdei=s ei)=nai, oi(\ e(ka/stote u(po\ a)plêsti/as kai\ panu\ smikra\ kai\ o)li/gou a)/xia kai\ ou)deno\s gli/chontai u(perphuô=s kai\ philokerdou=sin.]]
[Footnote 5: Plat.
Hipparch.
227 C.] [Side-note: Apparent contradiction.
Sokrates accuses the companion of trying to deceive him.
Accusation is retorted upon Sokrates.]
_Sokr._--But, my friend, we agreed just now, that gain was a good, and that all men always love good.
It follows therefore, that good men as well as others love all gains, if gains are good things.
_Comp._--Not, certainly, those gains by which they will afterwards be hurt.
_Sokr._--Be hurt: you mean, by which they will become losers.
_Comp._--I mean that and nothing else.
_Sokr._--Do they become losers by gain, or by loss?
_Comp._--By both: by loss, and by evil gain.
_Sokr._--Does it appear to you that any useful and good thing is evil?
_Comp._--No.
_Sokr._--Well!
we agreed just now that gain was the opposite of loss, which was evil; and that, being the opposite of evil, gain was good.
_Comp._--That was what we agreed.
_Sokr._--You see how it is: you are trying to deceive me: you purposely contradict what we just now agreed upon.
_Comp._--Not at all, by Zeus: on the contrary, it is you, Sokrates, who deceive me, wriggling up and down in your talk, I cannot tell how.
[6] _Sokr._--Be careful what you say: I should be very culpable, if I disobeyed a good and wise monitor.
_Comp._--Whom do you mean: and what do you mean?
_Sokr._--Hipparchus, son of Peisistratus.
[Footnote 6: Plat.
Hipparch.
228 A.
_Sokr._--[Greek: O(ra=|s ou)=n?
e)picheirei=s me e)xapata=|n, e)pi/têdes e)nanti/a le/gôn oi(=s a)/rti ô(mologê/samen.]
_Comp._ [Greek: Ou) ma\ Di/', ô)= Sô/krates; a)lla\ tou)nanti/on su\ e)me\ e)xapata=|s, kai\ ou)k oi)=da o(pê=| e)n toi=s lo/gois a)/nô kai\ ka/tô stre/pheis.]]
[Side-note: Precept inscribed formerly by Hipparchus the Peisistratid--"Never deceive a friend".
Eulogy of Hipparchus by Sokrates.]
Sokrates then describes at some length the excellent character of Hipparchus: his beneficent rule, his wisdom, his anxiety for the moral improvement of the Athenians: the causes, different from what was commonly believed, which led to his death; and the wholesome precepts which he during his life had caused to be inscribed on various busts of Hermes throughout Attica.
One of these busts or Hermæ bore the words--Do not deceive a friend.
[7] [Footnote 7: Plat.
Hipparch.
228 B-229 D. The picture here given of Hipparchus deserves notice.
We are informed that he was older than his brother Hippias, which was the general belief at Athens, as Thucydides (i.
20, vi.
58) affirms, though himself contradicting it, and affirming that Hippias was the elder brother.
Plato however agrees with Thucydides in this point, that the three years after the assassination of Hipparchus, during which Hippias ruled alone, were years of oppression and tyranny; and that the hateful recollection of the Peisistratidæ, which always survived in the minds of the Athenians, was derived from these three last years.
The picture which Plato here gives of Hipparchus is such as we might expect from a philosopher.
He dwells upon the pains which Hipparchus took to have the recitation of the Homeric poems made frequent and complete: also upon his intimacy with the poets Anakreon and Simonides.
The colouring which Plato gives to the intimacy between Aristogeiton and Harmodius is also peculiar.
The [Greek: e)rastê\s] is represented by Plato as eager for the education and improvement of the [Greek: e)rô/menos]; and the jealousy felt towards Hipparchus is described as arising from the distinguished knowledge and abilities of Hipparchus, which rendered him so much superior and more effective as an educator.]
The Companion resumes: Apparently, Sokrates, either you do not account me your friend, or you do not obey Hipparchus: for you are certainly deceiving me in some unaccountable way in your talk.
You cannot persuade me to the contrary.
[Side-note: Sokrates allows the companion to retract some of his answers.
The companion affirms that some gain is good, other gain is evil.]
_Sokr._--Well then!
in order that you may not think yourself deceived, you may take back any move that you choose, as if we were playing at draughts.
Which of your admissions do you wish to retract--That all men desire good things?
That loss (to be a loser) is evil?
That gain is the opposite of loss: that to gain is the opposite of to lose?
That to gain, as being the opposite of evil is a good thing?
_Comp._--No.
I do not retract any one of these.
_Sokr._--You think then, it appears, that some gain is good, other gain evil?
_Comp._--Yes, that is what I do think.
[8] _Sokr._--Well, I give you back that move: let it stand as you say.
Some gain is good: other gain is bad.
But surely the good gain is no more _gain_, than the bad gain: both are _gain_, alike and equally.
_Comp._--How do you mean?
[Footnote 8: Plat.
Hipparch.
229 E, 230 A.]
[Side-note: Questions by Sokrates--bad gain is _gain_, as much as good gain.
What is the common property, in virtue of which both are called Gain?
Every acquisition, made with no outlay, or with a smaller outlay, is gain.
Objections--the acquisition may be evil--embarrassment confessed.]
Sokrates then illustrates his question by two or three analogies.
Bad food is just as much _food_, as good food: bad drink, as much _drink_ as good drink: a good man is no more _man_ than a bad man.
[9] [Footnote 9: Plat.
Hipparch.
230 C.] _Sokr._--In like manner, bad gain, and good gain, are (both of them) _gain_ alike--neither of them more or less than the other.
Such being the case, what is that common quality possessed by both, which induces you to call them by the same name _Gain_?
[10] Would you call _Gain_ any acquisition which one makes either with a smaller outlay or with no outlay at all?
[11] _Comp._--Yes.
I should call that gain.
_Sokr._--For example, if after being at a banquet, not only without any outlay, but receiving an excellent dinner, you acquire an illness?
_Comp._--Not at all: that is no gain.
_Sokr._--But if from the banquet you acquire health, would that be gain or loss?
_Comp._--It would be gain.
_Sokr._--Not every acquisition therefore is gain, but only such acquisitions as are good and not evil: if the acquisition be evil, it is loss.
_Comp._--Exactly so.
_Sokr._--Well, now, you see, you are come round again to the very same point: Gain is good.
Loss is evil.
_Comp._--I am puzzled what to say.
[12] _Sokr._--You have good reason to be puzzled.
[Footnote 10: Plat.
Hipparch.
230 E. [Greek: dia\ ti/ pote a)mpho/tera au)ta\ ke/rdos kalei=s?
ti/ tau)to\n e)n a)mphote/rois o(rô=n?]]
[Footnote 11: Plat.
Hipparch.
231 A.]
[Footnote 12: Plat.
Hipparch.
231 C. _Sokr._ [Greek: O(ra=|s ou)=n, ô(s pa/lin au)= peritre/cheis ei)s to\ au)to\--to\ me\n ke/rdos a)gatho\n phai/netai, ê( de\ zêmi/a kako/n?]
_Comp._ [Greek: A)porô= e)/gôge o(\, ti ei)/pô.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ou)k a)di/kôs ge su\ a)porô=n.]]
[Side-note: It is essential to gain, that the acquisition made shall be greater not merely in quantity, but also in value, than the outlay.
The valuable is the profitable--the profitable is the good.
Conclusion comes back.
That Gain is Good.]
But tell me: you say that if a man lays out little and acquires much, that is gain?
_Comp._--Yes: but not if it be evil: it is gain, if it be good, like gold or silver.
_Sokr._--I will ask you about gold and silver.
Suppose a man by laying out one pound of gold acquires two pounds of silver, is it gain or loss?
_Comp._--It is loss, decidedly, Sokrates: gold is twelve times the value of silver.
_Sokr._--Nevertheless he has acquired more: double is more than half.
_Comp._--Not in value: double silver is not more than half gold.
_Sokr._--It appears then that we must include value as essential to gain, not merely quantity.
The valuable is gain: the valueless is no gain.
The valuable is that which is valuable to possess: is that the profitable, or the unprofitable?
_Comp._--It is the profitable.
_Sokr._--But the profitable is good?
_Comp._--Yes: it is.
_Sokr._--Why then, here, the same conclusion comes back to us as agreed, for the third or fourth time.
The gainful is good.
_Comp._--It appears so.
[13] [Footnote 13: Plato, Hipparch.
231 D-E, 232 A.]
[Side-note: Recapitulation.
The debate has shown that all gain is good, and that there is no evil gain--all men are lovers of gain--no man ought to be reproached for being so.
The companion is compelled to admit this, though he declares that he is not persuaded.]
_Sokr._--Let me remind you of what has passed.
You contended that good men did not wish to acquire all sorts of gain, but only such as were good, and not such as were evil.
But now, the debate has compelled us to acknowledge that all gains are good, whether small or great.
_Comp._--As for me, Sokrates, the debate has compelled me rather than persuaded me.
[14] _Sokr._--Presently, perhaps, it may even persuade you.
But now, whether you have been persuaded or not, you at least concur with me in affirming that all gains, whether small or great, are good.
That all good men wish for all good things.
_Comp._--I do concur.
_Sokr._--But you yourself stated that evil men love all gains, small and great?
_Comp._--I said so.
_Sokr._--According to your doctrine then, all men are lovers of gain, the good men as well as the evil?
_Comp._--Apparently so.
_Sokr._--It is therefore wrong to reproach any man as a lover of gain: for the person who reproaches is himself a lover of gain, just as much.
[Footnote 14: Plat.
Hipparch.
232 A-B.
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ou)kou=n nu=n pa/nta ta\ ke/rdê o( lo/gos ê(ma=s ê)na/gkake kai\ smikra\ kai\ mega/la o(mologei=n a)gatha\ ei)=nai?]
_Comp._ [Greek: Ê)na/gkake ga/r, ô)= Sô/krates, ma=llon e)me/ ge ê)\ pe/peiken.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: A)ll' i)/sôs meta\ tou=to kai\ pei/seien a)\n.]]
[Side-note: Minos.
Question put by Sokrates to the companion.
What is Law, or The Law?
All law is the same, _quatenus_ law: what is the common constituent attribute?]
The Minos, like the Hipparchus, is a dialogue carried on between Sokrates and a companion not named.
It relates to Law, or The Law-_Sokr._--What is Law (asks Sokrates)?
_Comp._--Respecting what sort of Law do you enquire (replies the Companion)?
_Sokr._--What!
is there any difference between one law and another law, as to that identical circumstance, of being Law?
Gold does not differ from gold, so far as the being gold is concerned--nor stone from stone, so far as being stone is concerned.
In like manner, one law does not differ from another, all are the same, in so far as each is Law alike:--not, one of them more, and another less.
It is about this as a whole that I ask you--What is Law?
[Side-note: Answer--Law is, 1.
The consecrated and binding customs.
2.
The decree of the city.
3.
Social or civic opinion.]
_Comp._--What should Law be, Sokrates, other than the various assemblage of consecrated and binding customs and beliefs?
[15] _Sokr._--Do you think, then, that discourse is, the things spoken: that sight is, the things seen?
that hearing is, the things heard?
Or are they not distinct, in each of the three cases--and is not Law also one thing, the various customs and beliefs another?
_Comp._--Yes!
I now think that they are distinct.
[16] _Sokr._--Law is that whereby these binding customs become binding.
What is it?
_Comp._--Law can be nothing else than the public resolutions and decrees promulgated among us.
Law is the decree of the city.
[17] _Sokr._--You mean, that Law is social opinion.
_Comp._--Yes I do.
[Footnote 15: Plato, Minos, 313 B.
[Greek: Ti/ ou)=n a)/llo no/mos ei)/ê a)\n a)ll' ê)\ ta\ nomizo/mena?]]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Minos, 313 B-C.
I pass over here an analogy started by Sokrates in his next question; as [Greek: o)/psis] to [Greek: ta\ o(rô/mena], so [Greek: no/mos] to [Greek: ta\ nomizo/mena], &c.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Minos, 814 A.
[Greek: e)peidê\ no/mô| ta\ nomizo/mena nomi/zetai, ti/ni o)/nti tô=| no/mô| nomi/zetai?]]
[Side-note: Cross-examination by Sokrates--just and lawfully-behaving men are so through law; unjust and lawless men are so through the absence of law.
Law is highly honourable and useful: lawlessness is ruinous.
Accordingly, bad decrees of the city--or bad social opinion--cannot be law.]
_Sokr._--Perhaps you are right: but let us examine.
You call some persons wise:--they are wise through wisdom.
You call some just:--they are just through justice.
In like manner, the lawfully-behaving men are so through law: the lawless men are so through lawlessness.
Now the lawfully-behaving men are just: the lawless men are unjust.
_Comp._--It is so.
_Sokr._--Justice and Law, are highly honourable: injustice and lawlessness, highly dishonourable: the former preserves cities, the latter ruins them.
_Comp._--Yes--it does.
_Sokr._--Well, then!
we must consider law as something honourable; and seek after it, under the assumption that it is a good thing.
You defined law to be the decree of the city: Are not some decrees good, others evil?
_Comp._--Unquestionably.
_Sokr._--But we have already said that law is not evil.
_Comp._--I admit it.
_Sokr._--It is incorrect therefore to answer, as you did broadly, that law is the decree of the city.
An evil decree cannot be law.
_Comp._--I see that it is incorrect.
[18] [Footnote 18: Plato, Minos, 314 B-C-D.] [Side-note: Suggestion by Sokrates--Law is the _good_ opinion of the city--but good opinion is true opinion, or the finding out of reality.
Law therefore wishes (tends) to be the finding out of reality, though it does not always succeed in doing so.]
_Sokr._--Still--I think, myself, that law is opinion of some sort; and since it is not evil opinion, it must be good opinion.
Now good opinion is true opinion: and true opinion is, the finding out of reality.
_Comp._--I admit it.
_Sokr._--Law therefore wishes or tends to be, the finding out of reality.
[19] _Comp._--But, Sokrates, if law is the finding out of reality--if we have therein already found out realities--how comes it that all communities of men do not use the same laws respecting the same matters?
_Sokr._--The law does not the less wish or tend to find out realities; but it is unable to do so.
That is, if the fact be true as you state--that we change our laws, and do not all of us use the same.
_Comp._--Surely, the fact as a fact is obvious enough.
[20] [Footnote 19: Plato, Minos, 315 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n ê( a)lêthê\s do/xa tou= o)/ntos e)stin e)xeu/resis?
.
.
.
o( no/mos a)/ra bou/letai tou= o)/ntos ei)=nai e)xeu/resis?]]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Minos, 315 A-B.]
[Side-note: Objection taken by the Companion--That there is great discordance of laws in different places--he specifies several cases of such discordance at some length.
Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and requests him to confine himself to question or answer.]
(The Companion here enumerates some remarkable local rites, venerable in one place, abhorrent in another, such as the human sacrifices at Carthage, &c., thus lengthening his answer much beyond what it had been before.
Sokrates then continues): _Sokr._--Perhaps you are right, and these matters have escaped me.
But if you and I go on making long speeches each for ourselves, we shall never come to an agreement.
If we are to carry on our research together, we must do so by question and answer.
Question me, if you prefer:--if not, answer me.
_Comp._--I am quite ready, Sokrates, to answer whatever you ask.
[Side-note: Farther questions by Sokrates--Things heavy and light, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted so everywhere.
Real things are always accounted real.
Whoever fails in attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful.]
_Sokr._--Well, then!
do you think that just things are just and unjust things are unjust?
_Comp._--I think they are.
_Sokr._--Do not all men in all communities, among the Persians as well as here, now as well as formerly, think so too?
_Comp._--Unquestionably they do.
_Sokr._--Are not things which weigh more, accounted heavier; and things which weigh less, accounted lighter, here, at Carthage, and everywhere else?
[21] _Comp._--Certainly.
_Sokr._--It seems, then, that honourable things are accounted honourable everywhere, and dishonourable things dishonourable?
not the reverse.
_Comp._--Yes, it is so.
_Sokr._--Then, speaking universally, existent things or realities (not non-existents) are accounted existent and real, among us as well as among all other men?
_Comp._--I think they are.
_Sokr._--Whoever therefore fails in attaining the real fails in attaining the lawful.
[22] _Comp._--As you now put it, Sokrates, it would seem that the same things are accounted lawful both by us at all times, and by all the rest of mankind besides.
But when I reflect that we are perpetually changing our laws, I cannot persuade myself of what you affirm.
[Footnote 21: Plato, Minos, 316 A.
[Greek: Po/teron de\ ta\ plei=on e)/lkonta baru/tera nomi/zetai e)ntha/de, ta\ de\ e)/latton, koupho/tera, ê)\ tou)nanti/on?]
The verb [Greek: nomi/zetai] deserves attention here, being the same word as has been employed in regard to law, and derived from [Greek: no/mos].]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Minos, 316 B.
[Greek: ou)kou=n, ô(s kata\ pa/ntôn ei)pei=n, ta\ o)/nta nomi/zetai ei)=nai, ou) ta\ mê\ o)/nta, kai\ par' ê(mi=n kai\ para\ toi=s a)/llois a(/pasin.]
_Comp._ [Greek: E)/moige dokei=.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: O(\s a)\n a)/ra tou= o)/ntos a(marta/nê|, tou= nomi/mou a(marta/nei.]]
[Side-note: There are laws of health and of cure, composed by the few physicians wise upon those subjects, and unanimously declared by them.
So also there are laws of farming, gardening, cookery, declared by the few wise in those respective pursuits.
In like manner, the laws of a city are the judgments declared by the few wise men who know how to rule.]
_Sokr._--Perhaps you do not reflect that pieces on the draught-board, when their position is changed, still remain the same.
You know medical treatises: you know that physicians are the really knowing about matters of health: and that they agree with each other in writing about them.
_Comp._--Yes--I know that.
_Sokr._--The case is the same whether they be Greeks or not Greeks: Those who know, must of necessity hold the same opinion with each other, on matters which they know: always and everywhere.
_Comp._--Yes--always and everywhere.
_Sokr._--Physicians write respecting matters of health what they account to be true, and these writings of theirs are the medical laws?
_Comp._--Certainly they are.
_Sokr._--The like is true respecting the laws of farming--the laws of gardening--the laws of cookery.
All these are the writings of persons, knowing in each of the respective pursuits?
_Comp._--Yes.
[23] _Sokr._--In like manner, what are the laws respecting the government of a city?
Are they not the writings of those who know how to govern--kings, statesmen, and men of superior excellence?
_Comp._--Truly so.
_Sokr._--Knowing men like these will not write differently from each other about the same things, nor change what they have once written.
If, then, we see some doing this, are we to declare them knowing or ignorant?
_Comp._--Ignorant--undoubtedly.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Minos, 316 D-E.] [Side-note: That which is right is the regal law, the only true and real law--that which is not right, is not law, but only seems to be law in the eyes of the ignorant.]
_Sokr._--Whatever is right, therefore, we may pronounce to be lawful; in medicine, gardening, or cookery: whatever is not right, not to be lawful but lawless.
And the like in treatises respecting just and unjust, prescribing how the city is to be administered: That which is right, is the regal law--that which is not right, is not so, but only seems to be law in the eyes of the ignorant--being in truth lawless.
_Comp._--Yes.
_Sokr._--We were correct therefore in declaring Law to be the finding out of reality.
_Comp._--It appears so.
[24] _Sokr._--It is the skilful husbandman who gives right laws on the sowing of land: the skilful musician on the touching of instruments: the skilful trainer, respecting exercise of the body: the skilful king or governor, respecting the minds of the citizens.
_Comp._--Yes--it is.
[25] [Footnote 24: Plato, Minos, 317 C. [Greek: to\ me\n o)rtho\n no/mos e)sti\ basiliko/s; to\ de\ mê\ o)rtho/n ou)/, o(\ dokei= no/mos ei)=nai toi=s ei)do/sin; e)/sti ga\r a)/nomon.]]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Minos, 318 A.]
[Side-note: Minos, King of Krete--his laws were divine and excellent, and have remained unchanged from time immemorial.]
_Sokr._--Can you tell me which of the ancient kings has the glory of having been a good lawgiver, so that his laws still remain in force as divine institutions?
_Comp._--I cannot tell.
_Sokr._--But can you not say which among the Greeks have the most ancient laws?
_Comp._--Perhaps you mean the Lacedæmonians and Lykurgus?
_Sokr._--Why, the Lacedæmonian laws are hardly more than three hundred years old: besides, whence is it that the best of them come?
_Comp._--From Krete, they say.
_Sokr._--Then it is the Kretans who have the most ancient laws in Greece?
_Comp._--Yes.
_Sokr._--Do you know those good kings of Krete, from whom these laws are derived--Minos and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus and Europa?
_Comp._--Rhadamanthus certainly is said to have been a just man, Sokrates; but Minos quite the reverse--savage, ill-tempered, unjust.
_Sokr._--What you affirm, my friend, is a fiction of the Attic tragedians.
It is not stated either by Homer or Hesiod, who are far more worthy of credit than all the tragedians put together.
_Comp._--What is it that Homer and Hesiod say about Minos?
[26] [Footnote 26: Plato, Minos, 318 E.] [Side-note: Question about the character of Minos--Homer and Hesiod declare him to have been admirable, the Attic tragedians defame him as a tyrant, because he was an enemy of Athens.]
Sokrates replies by citing, and commenting upon, the statements of Homer and Hesiod respecting Minos, as the cherished son, companion, and pupil, of Zeus; who bestowed upon him an admirable training, teaching him wisdom and justice, and thus rendering him consummate as a lawgiver and ruler of men.
It was through these laws, divine as emanating from the teaching of Zeus, that Krete (and Sparta as the imitator of Krete) had been for so long a period happy and virtuous.
As ruler of Krete, Minos had made war upon Athens, and compelled the Athenians to pay tribute.
Hence he had become odious to the Athenians, and especially odious to the tragic poets who were the great teachers and charmers of the crowd.
These poets, whom every one ought to be cautious of offending, had calumniated Minos as the old enemy of Athens.
[27] [Footnote 27: Plato, Minos, 319-320.]
[Side-note: That Minos was really admirable--and that he has found out truth and reality respecting the administration of the city--we may be sure from the fact that his laws have remained so long unaltered.]
But that these tales are mere calumny (continues Sokrates), and that Minos was truly a good lawgiver, and a good shepherd ([Greek: nomeu\s a)gatho/s]) of his people--we have proof through the fact, that his laws still remain unchanged: which shows that he has really found out truth and reality respecting the administration of a city.
[28] _Comp._--Your view seems plausible, Sokrates.
_Sokr._--If I am right, then, you think that the Kretans have more ancient laws than any other Greeks?
and that Minos and Rhadamanthus are the best of all ancient lawgivers, rulers, and shepherds of mankind?
_Comp._--I think they are.
[Footnote 28: Plato, Minos, 321 B.
[Greek: tou=to me/giston sêmei=on, o(/ti a)ki/nêtoi au)tou= oi( no/moi ei)si/n, a)/te tou= o)/ntos peri\ po/leôs oi)kê/seôs e)xeuro/ntos eu)= tê\n a)lê/theian.]]
[Side-note: The question is made more determinate--What is it that the good lawgiver prescribes and measures out for the health of the mind, as the physician measures out food and exercise for the body?
Sokrates cannot tell.
Close.]
_Sokr._--Now take the case of the good lawgiver and good shepherd for the body--If we were asked, what it is that he prescribes for the body, so as to render it better?
we should answer, at once, briefly, and well, by saying--food and labour: the former to sustain the body, the latter to exercise and consolidate it.
_Comp._--Quite correct.
_Sokr._--And if after that we were asked, What are those things which the good lawgiver prescribes for the mind to make it better, what should we say, so as to avoid discrediting ourselves?
_Comp._--I really cannot tell.
_Sokr._--But surely it is discreditable enough both for your mind and mine--to confess, that we do not know upon what it is that good and evil for our minds depends, while we can define upon what it is that the good or evil of our bodies depends?
[29] [Footnote 29: Plato, Minos, 321 C-B.]
* * * * * [Side-note: The Hipparchus and Minos are analogous to each other, and both of them inferior works of Plato, perhaps unfinished.]
I have put together the two dialogues Hipparchus and Minos, partly because of the analogy which really exists between them, partly because that analogy is much insisted on by Boeckh, Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and other recent critics; who not only strike them both out of the list of Platonic works, but speak of them with contempt as compositions.
On the first point, I dissent from them altogether: on the second, I agree with them thus far--that I consider the two dialogues inferior works of Plato:--much inferior to his greatest and best compositions,--certainly displaying both less genius and less careful elaboration--probably among his early performances--perhaps even unfinished projects, destined for a farther elaboration, which they never received, and not published until after his decease.
Yet in Hipparchus as well as in Minos, the subjects debated are important as regards ethical theory.
Several questions are raised and partially canvassed: no conclusion is finally attained.
These characteristics they have in common with several of the best Platonic dialogues.
[Side-note: Hipparchus--Double meaning of [Greek: philokerdê\s] and [Greek: ke/rdos].]
In Hipparchus, the question put by Sokrates is, about the definition of [Greek: o( philokerdê\s] (the lover of gain), and of [Greek: ke/rdos] itself--gain.
The first of these two words (like many in Greek as well as in English) is used in two senses.
In its plain, etymological sense, it means an attribute belonging to all men: all men love gain, hate loss.
But since this is predicable of all, there is seldom any necessity for predicating it of any one man or knot of men in particular.
Accordingly, when you employ the epithet as a predicate of A or B, what you generally mean is, to assert something more than its strict etymological meaning: to declare that he has the attribute in unusual measure; or that he has shown himself, on various occasions, wanting in other attributes, which on those occasions ought, in your judgment, to have countervailed it.
The epithet thus comes to connote a sentiment of blame or reproach, in the mind of the speaker.
[30] [Footnote 30: Aristotle adverts to this class of ethical epithets, connoting both an attribute in the person designated and an unfavourable sentiment in the speaker (Ethic.
Nikom.
ii.
6, p. 1107, a.
9).
[Greek: Ou) pa=sa d' e)pide/chetai pra=xis, ou)de\ pa=n pa/thos, tê\n meso/têta; e)/nia ga\r eu)thu\s ô)no/mastai suneilêmme/na meta\ tê=s phaulo/têtos, oi)=on], &c.] [Side-note: State or mind of the agent, as to knowledge, frequent inquiry in Plato.
No tenable definition found.]
The Companion or Collocutor, being called upon by Sokrates to explain [Greek: to\ philokerde\s], defines it in this last sense, as conveying or connoting a reproach.
He gives three different explanations of it (always in this sense), each of which Sokrates shows to be untenable.
A variety of parallel cases are compared, and the question is put (so constantly recurring in Plato's writings), what is the state of the agent's mind as to knowledge?
The cross-examination makes out, that if the agent be supposed to know,--then there is no man corresponding to the definition of a [Greek: philokerdê/s]: if the agent be supposed not to know--then, on the contrary, every man will come under the definition.
The Companion is persuaded that there is such a thing as "love of gain" in the blamable sense.
Yet he cannot find any tenable definition, to discriminate it from "love of gain" in the ordinary or innocent sense.
[Side-note: Admitting that there is bad gain, as well as good gain, what is the meaning of the word _gain_?
None is found.]
The same question comes back in another form, after Sokrates has given the liberty of retractation.
The Collocutor maintains that there is bad _gain_, as well as good _gain_.
But what is that common, generic, quality, designated well as good by the word _gain_, apart from these two distinctive epithets?
He cannot find it out or describe it.
He gives two definitions, each of which is torn up by Sokrates.
To deserve the name of _gain_, that which a man acquires must be good; and it must surpass, in value as well as in quantity, the loss or outlay which he incurs in order to acquire it.
But when thus understood, all gains are good.
There is no meaning in the distinction between good and bad gains: all men are lovers of gain.
[Side-note: Purpose of Plato in the dialogue--to lay bare the confusion, and to force the mind of the respondent into efforts for clearing it up.]
With this confusion, the dialogue closes.
The Sokratic notion of _good_, as what every one loves--_evil_ as what every one hates--also of evil-doing, as performed by every evil-doer only through ignorance or mistake is brought out and applied to test the ethical phraseology of a common-place respondent.
But it only serves to lay bare a state of confusion and perplexity, without clearing up any thing.
Herein, so far as I can see, lies Plato's purpose in the dialogue.
The respondent is made aware of the confusion, which he did not know before; and this, in Plato's view, is a progress.
The respondent cannot avoid giving contradictory answers, under an acute cross-examination: but he does not adopt any new belief.
He says to Sokrates at the close--"The debate has constrained rather than persuaded me".
[31] This is a simple but instructive declaration of the force put by Sokrates upon his collocutors; and of the reactionary effort likely to be provoked in their minds, with a view to extricate themselves from a painful sense of contradiction.
If such effort be provoked, Plato's purpose is attained.
[Footnote 31: Plato, Hipparch.
232 B.
[Greek: ê)na/gkake ga\r (o( lo/gos) ma=llon e)me/ ge ê)\ pe/peiken.]]
One peculiarity there is, analogous to what we have already seen in the Hippias Major.
It is not merely the Collocutor who charges Sokrates, but also Sokrates who accuses the Collocutor--each charging the other with attempts to deceive a friend.
[32] This seems intended by Plato to create an occasion for introducing what he had to say about Hipparchus--_apropos_ of the motto on the Hipparchean Hermes--[Greek: mê\ phi/lon e)xapa/ta].
[Footnote 32: Plato, Hipparch.
225 E, 228 A.]
[Side-note: Historical narrative and comments given in the dialogue respecting Hipparchus--afford no ground for declaring the dialogue to be spurious.]
The modern critics, who proclaim the Hipparchus not to be the work of Plato, allege as one of the proofs of spuriousness, the occurrence of this long narrative and comment upon the historical Hipparchus and his behaviour; which narrative (the critics maintain) Plato would never have introduced, seeing that it contributes nothing to the settlement of the question debated.
But to this we may reply, first, That there are other dialogues[33] (not to mention the Minos) in which Plato introduces recitals of considerable length, historical or quasi-historical recitals; bearing remotely, or hardly bearing at all, upon the precise question under discussion; next,--That even if no such analogies could be cited, and if the case stood single, no modern critic could fairly pretend to be so thoroughly acquainted with Plato's views and the surrounding circumstances, as to put a limit on the means which Plato might choose to take, for rendering his dialogues acceptable and interesting.
Plato's political views made him disinclined to popular government generally, and to the democracy of Athens in particular.
Conformably with such sentiment, he is disposed to surround the rule of the Peisistratidæ with an ethical and philosophical colouring: to depict Hipparchus as a wise man busied in instructing and elevating the citizens; and to discredit the renown of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, by affirming them to have been envious of Hipparchus, as a philosopher who surpassed themselves by his own mental worth.
All this lay perfectly in the vein of Plato's sentiment; and we may say the same about the narrative in the Minos, respecting the divine parentage and teaching of Minos, giving rise to his superhuman efficacy as a lawgiver and ruler.
It is surely very conceivable, that Plato, as a composer of ethical dialogues or dramas, might think that such recitals lent a charm or interest to some of them.
Moreover, something like variety, or distinctive features as between one dialogue and another, was a point of no inconsiderable moment.
I am of opinion that Plato did so conceive these narratives.
But at any rate, what I here contend is, that no modern critics have a right to assume as certain that he did not.
[Footnote 33: See Alkibiad.
ii.
pp.
142-149-150; Alkibiad.
i. pp.
121-122: Protagoras, 342-344; Politikus, 268 D., [Greek: schedo\n paidia\n e)gkerasame/nous] and the two or three pages which follow.
F. A. Wolf, and various critics after him, contend that the genuineness of the Hipparchus was doubted in antiquity, on the authority of Ælian, V. H. viii.
2.
But I maintain that this is not the meaning of the passage, unless upon the supposition that the word [Greek: mathêtê\s] is struck out of the text conjecturally.
The passage may be perfectly well construed, leaving [Greek: mathêtê\s] in the text: we must undoubtedly suppose the author to have made an assertion historically erroneous: but this is nowise impossible in the case of Ælian.
If you construe the passage as it stands, without such conjectural alteration, it does not justify Wolf's inference.]
[Side-note: Minos.
Question--What is the characteristic property connoted by the word [Greek: No/mos] or law?]
I now come to the Minos.
The subject of this dialogue is, the explanation or definition of Law.
Sokrates says to his Companion or Collocutor,--Tell me what is the generic constituent of Law: All Laws are alike _quatenus_ Law.
Take no note of the difference between one law and another, but explain to me what characteristic property it is, which is common to all Law, and is implied in or connoted by the name Law.
This question is logically the same as that which Sokrates asks in the Hipparchus with reference to [Greek: ke/rdos] or gain.
[Side-note: This question was discussed by the historical Sokrates, Memorabilia of Xenophon.]
That the definition of [Greek: No/mos] or Law was discussed by Sokrates, we know, not only from the general description of his debates given in Xenophon, but also from the interesting description (in that author) of the conversation between the youthful Alkibiades and Perikles.
[34] The interrogations employed by Alkibiades on that occasion are Sokratic, and must have been derived, directly or indirectly, from Sokrates.
They are partially analogous to the questions of Sokrates in the dialogue Minos, and they end by driving Perikles into a confusion, left unexplained, between Law and Lawlessness.
[Footnote 34: Xen.
Mem.
i.
1, 16; i.
2, 42-46.]
[Side-note: Definitions of law--suggested and refuted.
Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad decrees are not laws.]
Definitions of [Greek: No/mos] are here given by the Companion, who undergoes a cross-examination upon them.
First, he says, that [Greek: No/mos = ta\ nomizo/mena].
But this is rejected by Sokrates, who intimates that Law is not the aggregate of laws enacted or of customs held binding: but that which lies behind these laws and customs, imparting to them their binding force.
[35] We are to enquire what this is.
The Companion declares that it is the public decree of the city: political or social opinion.
But this again Sokrates contests: putting questions to show that Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, beauty, and preservation of the city with its possessions; while lawlessness includes injustice, evil, ugliness, and destruction.
There can be no such thing as bad or wicked law.
[36] But among decrees of the city, some are bad, some are good.
Therefore to define Law as a decree of the city, thus generally, is incorrect.
It is only the good decree, not the bad decree, which is Law.
Now the good decree or opinion, is the true opinion: that is, it is the finding out of reality.
Law therefore wishes or aims to be the finding out of reality: and if there are differences between different nations, this is because the power to find out does not always accompany the wish to find out.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Minos, 314 A.
[Greek: e)peidê\ no/mô| ta\ nomizo/mena nomi/zetai, ti/ni o)/nti tô=| no/mô| nomi/zetai?]]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Minos, 314 E. [Greek: kai\ mê\n no/mos ge ou)k ê)=n ponêro/s.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates affirms that law is everywhere the same--it is the declared judgment and command of the Wise man upon the subject to which it refers--it is truth and reality, found out and certified by him.]
As to the assertion--that Law is one thing here, another thing there, one thing at one time, another thing at another--Sokrates contests it.
Just things are just (he says) everywhere and at all times; unjust things are unjust also.
Heavy things are heavy, light things light, at one time, as well as at another.
So also honourable things are everywhere honourable, base things everywhere base.
In general phrase, existent things are everywhere existent,[37] non-existent things are not existent.
Whoever therefore fails to attain the existent and real, fails to attain the lawful and just.
It is only the man of art and knowledge, in this or that department, who attains the existent, the real, the right, true, lawful, just.
Thus the authoritative rescripts or laws in matters of medicine, are those laid down by practitioners who know that subject, all of whom agree in what they lay down: the laws of cookery, the laws of agriculture and of gardening--are rescripts delivered by artists who know respectively each of those subjects.
So also about Just and Unjust, about the political and social arrangements of the city--the authoritative rescripts or laws are, those laid down by the artists or men of knowledge in that department, all of whom agree in laying down the same: that is, all the men of art called kings or lawgivers.
It is only the right, the true, the real--that which these artists attain--which is properly a law and is entitled to be so called.
That which is not right is not a law,--ought not to be so called--and is only supposed to be a law by the error of ignorant men.
[38] [Footnote 37: M. Boeckh remarks justly in his note on this passage--"neque enim illud demonstratum est, eadem omnibus legitima esse--sed tantum, _notionem_" (rather the sentiment or emotion) "_legitimi_ omnibus eandem esse.
Sed omnia scriptor hic confundit."]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Minos, 317 C.] [Side-note: Reasoning of Sokrates in the Minos is unsound, but Platonic.
The Good, True, and Real, coalesce in the mind of Plato--he acknowledges nothing to be Law, except what he thinks ought to _be_ Law.]
That the reasoning of Sokrates in this dialogue is confused and unsound (as M. Boeckh and other critics have remarked), I perfectly agree.
But it is not the less completely Platonic; resting upon views and doctrines much cherished and often reproduced by Plato.
The dialogue Minos presents, in a rude and awkward manner, without explanation or amplification, that worship of the Abstract and the Ideal, which Plato, in other and longer dialogues, seeks to diversify as well as to elaborate.
The definitions of Law here combated and given by Sokrates, illustrate this.
The good, the true, the right, the beautiful, the real--all coalesce in the mind of Plato.
There is nothing (in his view) real, except _The_ Good, _The_ Just, &c. ([Greek: to\ au)to-a)gatho\n]; [Greek: au)to-di/kaion]--Absolute Goodness and Justice): particular good and just things have no reality, they are no more good and just than bad and unjust--they are one or the other, according to circumstances--they are ever variable, floating midway between the real and unreal.
[39] The real alone is knowable, correlating with knowledge or with the knowing Intelligence [Greek: Nou=s].
As Sokrates distinguishes elsewhere [Greek: to\ di/kaion] or [Greek: au)to-di/kaion] from [Greek: ta\ di/kaia]--so here he distinguishes ([Greek: no/mos] from [Greek: ta\ nomizo/mena]) _Law_, from the assemblage of actual commands or customs received as _laws_ among mankind.
These latter are variable according to time and place; but Law is always one and the same.
Plato will acknowledge nothing to _be_ Law, except that which (he thinks) _ought to be_ Law: that which emanates from a lawgiver of consummate knowledge, who aims at the accomplishment of the good and the real, and knows how to discover and realise that end.
So far as "the decree of the city" coincides with what would have been enacted by this lawgiver (_i.
e._ so far as it is good and right), Sokrates admits it as a valid explanation of Law; but no farther.
He considers the phrase _bad law_ to express a logical impossibility, involving a contradiction _in adjecto_.
[40] What others call a bad law, he regards as being no real law, but only a fallacious image, mistaken for such by the ignorant.
He does not consider such ignorant persons as qualified to judge: he recognises only the judgment of the knowing one or few, among whom he affirms that there can be no difference of opinion.
Every one admits just things to be just,--unjust things to be unjust,--heavy things to be heavy,--the existent and the real, to be the existent and the real.
If then the lawgiver in any of his laws fails to attain this reality, he fails in the very purpose essential to the conception of law:[41] _i.
e._ his pretended law is no law at all.
[Footnote 39: See the remarkable passage in the fifth book of the Republic, pp.
479-480; compare vii.
538 E.] [Footnote 40: Plato, Minos, 314 D. The same argument is brought to bear by the Platonic Sokrates against Hippias in the Hippias Major, 284-285.
If the laws are not really profitable, which is the only real purpose for which they were established, they are no laws at all.
The Spartans are [Greek: para/nomoi].
Some of the answers assigned to Hippias (284 D) are pertinent enough; but he is overborne.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Minos, 316 B.
[Greek: O(\s a)\n a)/ra tou= o)/ntos a(marta/nê, tou= nomi/mou a(marta/nei.]]
[Side-note: Plato worships the Ideal of his own mind--the work of systematic constructive theory by the Wise Man.]
By _Law_ then, Plato means--not the assemblage of actual positive rules, nor any general property common to and characteristic of them, nor the free determination of an assembled Demos as distinguished from the mandates of a despot--but the Type of Law as it ought to be, and as it would be, if prescribed by a perfectly wise ruler, aiming at good and knowing how to realise it.
This, which is the ideal of his own mind, Plato worships and reasons upon as if it were the only reality; as Law by nature, or natural Law, distinguished from actual positive laws: which last have either been set by some ill-qualified historical ruler, or have grown up insensibly.
Knowledge, art, philosophy, systematic and constructive, applied by some one or few exalted individuals, is (in his view) the only cause capable of producing that typical result which is true, good, real, permanent, and worthy of the generic name.
[Side-note: Different applications of this general Platonic view, in the Minos, Politikus, Kratylus, &c. _Natural_ Rectitude of Law, Government, Names, &c.] In the Minos, this general Platonic view is applied to Law: in the Politikus, to government and social administration: in the Kratylus, to naming or language.
In the Politikus, we find the received classification of governments (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) discarded as improper; and the assertion advanced, That there is only one government right, true, genuine, really existing--government by the uncontrolled authority and superintendence of the man of exalted intelligence: he who is master in the art of governing, whether such man do in fact hold power anywhere or not.
All other governments are degenerate substitutes for this type, some receding from it less, some more.
[42] Again, in the Kratylus, where names and name-giving are discussed, Sokrates[43] maintains that things can only be named according to their true and real nature--that there is, belonging to each thing, one special and appropriate Name-Form, discernible only by the sagacity of the intelligent Lawgiver: who alone is competent to bestow upon each thing its right, true, genuine, real name, possessing rectitude by nature ([Greek: o)rtho/tês phu/sei]).
[44] This Name-Form (according to Sokrates) is the same in all languages in so far as they are constructed by different intelligent Lawgivers, although the letters and syllables in which they may clothe the Form are very different.
[45] If names be not thus apportioned by the systematic purpose of an intelligent Lawgiver, but raised up by insensible and unsystematic growth--they will be unworthy substitutes for the genuine type, though they are the best which actual societies possess; according to the opinion announced by Kratylus in that same dialogue, they will not be names at all.
[46] [Footnote 42: Plato, Politikus, 293 C-E. [Greek: tau/tên o)rthê\n diaphero/ntôs ei)=nai kai\ mo/nên politei/an, e)n ê(=| tis a)\n eu(/riskoi tou\s a)/rchontas a)lêthô=s e)pistê/monas kai\ ou) dokou=ntas mo/non .
.
.
to/te kai\ kata\ tou\s toiou/tous o(/rous ê(mi=n mo/nên o)rthê\n politei/an ei)=nai r(ête/on.
o(/sas de\ a)/llas le/gomen, _ou) gnêsi/as ou)d' o)/ntôs ou)/sas lekte/on_, a)lla\ memimême/nas tau/tên, a(/s me\n eu)no/mous le/gomen, e)pi\ ta\ kalli/ô, ta\s de\ a)/llas e)pi\ ta\ ai)schi/ona memimê=sthai.]
The historical (Xenophontic) Sokrates asserts this same position in Xenophon's Memorabilia (iii.
9, 10).
"Sokrates said that Kings and Rulers were those who knew how to command, not those who held the sceptre or were chosen by election or lot, or had acquired power by force or fraud," &c. The Kings of Sparta and Macedonia, the [Greek: Boulê\] and [Greek: Dê=mos] of Athens, the Despot of Syracuse or Pheræ are here declared to be not real rulers at all.]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Kratylus, 387 D.] [Footnote 44: Plato, Kratyl.
388 A-E.] [Footnote 45: Plato, Kratyl.
389 E, 390 A, 432 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ou)/tôs a)xiô/seis kai\ to\n nomothe/tên to/n te e)ntha/de kai\ to\n e)n toi=s barba/rois, e(/ôs a)\n to\ tou= o)no/matos ei)=dos a)podidô=| to\ prosê=kon e(ka/stô| e)n o(poiaisou=n sullabai=s, ou)de\n chei/rô nomothe/tên ei)=nai to\n e)ntha/de ê)\ to\n o(pouou=n a)/llothi?]
Compare this with the Minos, 315 E, 316 D, where Sokrates evades, by an hypothesis very similar, the objection made by the collocutor, that the laws in one country are very different from those in another--[Greek: i)/sôs ga\r ou)k e)nnoei=s tau=ta metapetteuo/mena o(/ti tau)ta/ e)stin.]]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Kratyl.
430 A, 432 A, 433 D, 435 C. Kratylus says that a name badly given is no name at all; just as Sokrates says in the Minos that a bad law is no law at all.]
[Side-note: Eulogy on Minos, as having established laws on this divine type or natural rectitude.]
The Kretan Minos (we here find it affirmed), son, companion, and pupil of Zeus, has learnt to establish laws of this divine type or natural rectitude: the proof of which is, that the ancient Kretan laws have for immemorial ages remained, and still do remain,[47] unchanged.
But when Sokrates tries to determine, Wherein consists this Law-Type?
What is it that the wise Lawgiver prescribes for the minds of the citizens--as the wise gymnastic trainer prescribes proper measure of nourishment and exercise for their bodies?--the question is left unanswered.
Sokrates confesses with shame that he cannot answer it: and the dialogue ends in a blank.
The reader--according to Plato's manner--is to be piqued and shamed into the effort of meditating the question for himself.
[Footnote 47: Plato, Minos, 319 B, 321 A.]
[Side-note: The Minos was arranged by Aristophanes at first in a Trilogy along with the Leges.]
An attempt to answer this question will be found in Plato's Treatise De Legibus--in the projected Kretan colony, of which he there sketches the fundamental laws.
Aristophanes of Byzantium very naturally placed this treatise as sequel to the Minos; second in the Trilogy of which the Minos was first.
[48] [Footnote 48: I reserve for an Appendix some further remarks upon the genuineness of Hipparchus and Minos.]
[Side-note: Explanations of the word Law--confusion in its meaning.]
Whoever has followed the abstract of the Minos, which I have just given, will remark the different explanations of the word Law--both those which are disallowed, and that which is preferred, though left incomplete, by Sokrates.
On this same subject, there are in many writers, modern as well an ancient, two distinct modes of confusion traceable--pointed out by eminent recent jurists, such as Mr. Bentham, Mr. Austin, and Mr. Maine.
1.
Between Law as it is, and Law as it ought to be.
2.
Between Laws Imperative, set by intelligent rulers, and enforced by penal sanction--and Laws signifying uniformities of fact expressed in general terms, such as the Law of Gravitation, Crystallisation, &c.--We can hardly say that in the dialogue Minos, Plato falls into the first of these two modes of confusion: for he expressly says that he only recognises the Ideal of Law, or Law as it ought to be (actual Laws everywhere being disallowed, except in so far as they conform thereunto).
But he does fall into the second, when he identifies the Lawful with the Real or Existent.
His Ideal stands in place of generalisations of fact.
There is also much confusion, if we compare the Minos with other dialogues; wherein Plato frequently talks of Laws as the laws and customs actually existing or imperative in any given state--Athens, Sparta, or elsewhere ([Greek: No/mos = ta\ nomizo/mena], according to the first words in the Minos).
For example, in the harangue which he supposes to be addressed to Sokrates in the Kriton, and which he invests with so impressive a character--the Laws of Athens are introduced as speakers: but according to the principles laid down in the Minos, three-fourths of the Laws of Athens could not be regarded as laws at all.
If therefore we take Plato's writings throughout, we shall not find that he is constant to one uniform sense of the word Law, or that he escapes the frequent confusion between Law as it actually exists and Law as it ought to be.
[49] [Footnote 49: The first explanation of [Greek: No/mos] advanced by the Companion in reply to Sokrates (viz.
[Greek: No/mos = ta\ nomizo/mena], coincides substantially with the meaning of [Greek: No/mos basileu\s] in Pindar and Herodotus (see above, chap.
viii.
), who is an imaginary ruler, occupying a given region, and enforcing [Greek: ta\ nomizo/mena].
It coincides also with the precept [Greek: No/mô| po/leôs], as prescribed by the Pythian priestess to applicants who asked advice about the proper forms of religious worship (Xen.
Mem.
i.
3, 1); though this precept, when Cicero comes to report it (Legg.
ii.
16, 40), appears divested of its simplicity, and over-clouded with the very confusion touched upon in my text.
Aristotle does not keep clear of the confusion (compare Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
1, 1094, b.
16, and v. 5, 1130, b.
24).
I shall revert again to the distinction between [Greek: no/mos] and [Greek: phu/sis], in touching on other Platonic dialogues.
Cicero expressly declares (Legg.
ii.
5, 11), conformably to what is said by the Platonic Sokrates in the Minos, that a bad law, however passed in regular form, is no law at all; and this might be well if he adhered consistently to the same phraseology, but he perpetually uses, in other places, the words _Lex_ and _Leges_ to signify laws actually in force at Rome, good or bad.
Mr. Bentham gives an explanation of Law or The Law, which coincides with [Greek: No/mos = ta\ nomizo/mena].
He says (Principles of Morals and Legislation, vol.
ii.
ch.
17, p. 257, ed.
1823), "Now Law, or The Law, taken indefinitely, is an abstract and collective term, which, when it means anything, can mean neither more nor less than the sum total of a number of individual laws taken together".
Mr. Austin in his Lectures, 'The Province of Jurisprudence Determined', has explained more clearly and copiously than any antecedent author, the confused meanings of the word Law adverted to in my text.
See especially his first lecture and his fifth, pp.
88 seq.
and 171 seq., 4th ed.]
* * * * * APPENDIX.
In continuing to recognise Hipparchus and Minos as Platonic works, contrary to the opinion of many modern critics, I have to remind the reader, not only that both are included in the Canon of Thrasyllus, but that the Minos was expressly acknowledged by Aristophanes of Byzantium, and included by him among the Trilogies: showing that it existed then (220 B.C.)
in the Alexandrine Museum as a Platonic work.
The similarity between the Hipparchus and Minos is recognised by all the Platonic critics, most of whom declare that both of them are spurious.
Schleiermacher affirms and vindicates this opinion in his Einleitung and notes: but it will be convenient to take the arguments advanced to prove the spuriousness, as they are set forth by M. Boeckh, in his "Comment.
in Platonis qui vulgo fertur Minoem": in which treatise, though among his early works, the case is argued with all that copious learning and critical ability, which usually adorn his many admirable contributions to the improvement of philology.
M. Boeckh not only rejects the pretensions of Hipparchus and Minos to be considered as works of Plato, but advances an affirmative hypothesis to show what they are.
He considers these two dialogues, together with those De Justo, and De Virtute (two short dialogues in the pseudo-Platonic list, not recognised by Thrasyllus) as among the dialogues published by Simon; an Athenian citizen and a shoemaker by trade, in whose shop Sokrates is said to have held many of his conversations.
Simon is reported to have made many notes of these conversations, and to have composed and published, from them, a volume of thirty-three dialogues (Diog.
L. ii.
122), among the titles of which there are two--[Greek: Peri\ Philkerdou=s] and [Greek: Peri\ No/mou].
Simon was, of course, contemporary with Plato; but somewhat older in years.
With this part of M. Boeckh's treatise, respecting the supposed authorship of Simon, I have nothing to do.
I only notice the arguments by which he proposes to show that Hipparchus and Minos are not works of Plato.
In the first place, I notice that M. Boeckh explicitly recognises them as works of an author contemporary with Plato, not later than 380 B.C.
(p. 46).
Hereby many of the tests, whereby we usually detect spurious works, become inapplicable.
In the second place, he admits that the dialogues are composed in good Attic Greek, suitable to the Platonic age both in character and manners--"At veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores, totus denique character, spondeat," p. 32.
The reasons urged by M. Boeckh to prove the spuriousness of the Minos, are first, that it is unlike Plato--next, that it is too much like Plato.
"Dupliciter dialogus a Platonis ingenio discrepat: partim quod parum, partim quod nimium, similis ceteris ejusdem scriptis sit.
Parum similis est in rebus permultis.
Nam cum Plato adhuc vivos ac videntes aut nuper defunctos notosque homines, ut scenicus poeta actores, moribus ingeniisque accurate descriptis, nominatim producat in medium--in isto opusculo cum Socrate colloquens persona plané incerta est ac nomine carens: quippe cum imperitus scriptor esset artis illius colloquiis suis _dulcissimas veneres_ illas inferendi, quæ ex peculiaribus personarum moribus pingendis redundant, atque à Platone ut flores per amplos dialogorum hortos sunt disseminatæ" (pp.
7-8): again, p. 9, it is complained that there is an "infinitus secundarius collocutor" in the Hipparchus.
Now the sentence, just transcribed from M. Boeckh, shows that he had in his mind as standard of comparison, a certain number of the Platonic works, but that he did not take account of all of them.
The Platonic Protagoras begins with a dialogue between Sokrates and an unknown, nameless person; to whom Sokrates, after a page of conversation with him, recounts what has just passed between himself, Protagoras, and others.
Next, if we turn to the Sophistês and Politikus, we find that in both of them, not simply the secundarius collocutor, but even the principal speaker, is an unknown and nameless person, described only as a Stranger from Elea, and never before seen by Sokrates.
Again, in the Leges, the principal speaker is only an [Greek: A)thênai=os xe/nos], without a name.
In the face of such analogies, it is unsafe to lay down a peremptory rule, that no dialogue can be the work of Plato, which acknowledges as _collocutor_ an unnamed person.
Then again--when M. Boeckh complains that the Hipparchus and Minos are destitute of those "_flores et dulcissimæ Veneres_" which Plato is accustomed to spread through his dialogues--I ask, Where are the "dulcissimæ Veneres" in the Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Leges, Timæus, Kritias?
I find none.
The presence of "dulcissimæ Veneres" is not a condition _sine quâ non_, in every composition which pretends to Plato as its author: nor can the absence of them be admitted as a reason for disallowing Hipparchus and Minos.
The analogy of the Sophistês and Politikus (besides Symposium, Republic, and Leges) farther shows, that there is nothing wonderful in finding the titles of Hipparchus and Minos derived from the subjects ([Greek: Peri\ Philkerdou=s] and [Greek: Peri\ No/mou]), not from the name of one of the collocutors:--whether we suppose the titles to have been bestowed by Plato himself, or by some subsequent editor (Boeckh, p. 10).
To illustrate his first ground of objection--Dissimilarity between the Minos and the true Platonic writings--M. Boeckh enumerates (pp.
12-23) several passages of the dialogue which he considers unplatonic.
Moreover, he includes among them (p. 12) examples of confused and illogical reasoning.
I confess that to me this evidence is noway sufficient to prove that Plato is not the author.
That certain passages may be picked out which are obscure, confused, inelegant--is certainly no sufficient evidence.
If I thought so, I should go along with Ast in rejecting the Euthydêmus, Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, &c., against all which Ast argues as spurious, upon evidence of the same kind.
It is not too much to say, that against almost every one of the dialogues, taken severally, a case of the same kind, more or less plausible, might be made out.
You might in each of them find passages peculiar, careless, awkwardly expressed.
The expression [Greek: tê\n a)nthrôpei/an a)ge/lên tou= sô/matos], which M. Boeckh insists upon so much as improper, would probably have been considered as a mere case of faulty text, if it had occurred in any other dialogue: and so it may fairly be considered in the Minos.
Moreover as to faults of logic and consistency in the reasoning, most certainly these cannot be held as proving the Minos not to be Plato's work.
I would engage to produce, from most of his dialogues, defects of reasoning quite as grave as any which the Minos exhibits.
On the principle assumed by M. Boeckh, every one who agreed with Panætius in considering the elaborate proof given in the Phædon, of the immortality of the soul, as illogical and delusive--would also agree with Panætius in declaring that the Phædon was not the work of Plato.
It is one question, whether the reasoning in any dialogue be good or bad: it is another question, whether the dialogue be written by Plato or not.
Unfortunately, the Platonic critics often treat the first question as if it determined the second.
M. Boeckh himself considers that the evidence arising from dissimilarity (upon which I have just dwelt) is not the strongest part of his case.
He relies more upon the evidence arising from _too much similarity_, as proving still more clearly the spuriousness of the Minos.
"Jam pergamus ad alteram partem nostræ argumentationis, _eamque etiam firmiorem_, de _nimia similitudine_ Platonicorum aliquot locorum, quæ imitationem doceat subesse.
Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: nisi si quis dubitet de sanâ ejus mente" (p. 23).
Again, p. 26, "Jam vero in nostro colloquio Symposium, Politicum, Euthyphronem, Protagoram, Gorgiam, Cratylum, Philêbum, dialogos expressos ac tantum non compilatos reperies".
And M. Boeckh goes on to specify various passages of the Minos, which he considers to have been imitated, and badly imitated, from one or other of these dialogues.
I cannot agree with M. Boeckh in regarding this _nimia similitudo_ as the strongest part of his case.
On the contrary, I consider it as the weakest: because his own premisses (in my judgment) not only do not prove his conclusion, but go far to prove the opposite.
When we find him insisting, in such strong language, upon the great analogy which subsists between the Minos and seven of the incontestable Platonic dialogues, this is surely a fair proof that its author is the same as their author.
To me it appears as conclusive as internal evidence ever can be; unless there be some disproof _aliunde_ to overthrow it.
But M. Boeckh produces no such disproof.
He converts these analogies into testimony in his own favour, simply by bestowing upon them the name _imitatio,--stulta imitatio_ (p. 27).
This word involves an hypothesis, whereby the point to be proved is assumed--viz.
: difference of authorship.
"Plato cannot have imitated himself" (M. Boeckh observes).
I cannot admit such impossibility, even if you describe the fact in that phrase: but if you say "Plato in one dialogue thought and wrote like Plato in another"--you describe the same fact in a different phrase, and it then appears not merely possible but natural and probable.
Those very real analogies, to which M. Boeckh points in the word _imitatio_, are in my judgment cases of the Platonic thought in one dialogue being like the Platonic thought in another.
The _similitudo_, between Minos and these other dialogues, can hardly be called _nimia_, for M. Boeckh himself points out that it is accompanied with much difference.
It is a similitude, such as we should expect between one Platonic dialogue and another: with this difference, that whereas, in the Minos, Plato gives the same general views in a manner more brief, crude, abrupt--in the other dialogues he works them out with greater fulness of explanation and illustration, and some degree of change not unimportant.
That there should be this amount of difference between one dialogue of Plato and another appears to me perfectly natural.
On the other hand--that there should have been a contemporary _falsarius_ (scriptor miser, insulsus, vilissimus, to use phrases of M. Boeckh), who studied and pillaged the best dialogues of Plato, for the purpose of putting together a short and perverted abbreviation of them--and who contrived to get his miserable abbreviation recognised by the Byzantine Aristophanes among the genuine dialogues notwithstanding the existence of the Platonic school--this, I think highly improbable.
I cannot therefore agree with M. Boeckh in thinking, that "ubique se prodens Platonis imitatio" (p. 31) is an irresistible proof of spuriousness: nor can I think that his hypothesis shows itself to advantage, when he says, p. 10--"Ipse autem dialogus (Minos) quum post Politicum compositus sit, quod quædam in eo dicta rebus ibi expositis manifesté nitantur, ut paullo post ostendemus--quis est qui artificiosissimum philosophum, postquam ibi (in Politico) accuratius de naturâ legis egisset, de eâ iterum putet negligenter egisse?"
--I do not think it so impossible as it appears to M. Boeckh, that a philosopher, after having _written_ upon a given subject _accuratius_, should subsequently write upon it _negligenter_.
But if I granted this ever so fully, I should still contend that there remains another alternative.
The negligent workmanship may have preceded the accurate: an alternative which I think is probably the truth, and which has nothing to exclude it except M. Boeckh's pure hypothesis, that the Minos must have been copied from the Politikus.
While I admit then that the Hipparchus and Minos are among the inferior and earlier compositions of Plato, I still contend that there is no ground for excluding them from the list of his works.
Though the Platonic critics of this century are for the most part of an adverse opinion, I have with me the general authority of the critics anterior to this century--from Aristophanes of Byzantium down to Bentley and Ruhnken--see Boeckh, pp.
7-32.
Yxem defends the genuineness of the Hipparchus--(Ueber Platon's Kleitophon, p. 8.
Berlin, 1846).
CHAPTER XV.
THEAGES.
[Side-note: Theagês--has been declared spurious by some modern critics--grounds for such opinion not sufficient.]
This is among the dialogues declared by Schleiermacher, Ast, Stallbaum, and various other modern critics, to be spurious and unworthy of Plato: the production of one who was not merely an imitator, but a bad and silly imitator.
[1] Socher on the other hand defends the dialogue against them, reckoning it as a juvenile production of Plato.
[2] The arguments which are adduced to prove its spuriousness appear to me altogether insufficient.
It has some features of dissimilarity with that which we read in other dialogues--these the above-mentioned critics call un-Platonic: it has other features of similarity--these they call bad imitation by a _falsarius_: lastly, it is inferior, as a performance, to the best of the Platonic dialogues.
But I am prepared to expect (and have even the authority of Schleiermacher for expecting) that some dialogues will be inferior to others.
I also reckon with certainty, that between two dialogues, both genuine, there will be points of similarity as well as points of dissimilarity.
Lastly, the critics find marks of a bad, recent, un-Platonic style: but Dionysius of Halikarnassus--a judge at least equally competent upon such a matter--found no such marks.
He expressly cites the dialogue as the work of Plato,[3] and explains the peculiar phraseology assigned to Demodokus by remarking, that the latter is presented as a person of rural habits and occupations.
[Footnote 1: Stallbaum, Proleg.
pp.
220-225, "ineptus tenebrio," &c. Schleiermacher, Einleitung, part ii.
v. iii.
pp.
247-252.
Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp.
495-497.
Ast speaks with respect (differing in this respect from the other two) of the Theagês as a composition, though he does not believe it to be the work of Plato.
Schleiermacher also admits (see the end of his Einleitung) that the style in general has a good Platonic colouring, though he considers some particular phrases as un-Platonic.]
[Footnote 2: Socher, Ueber Platon, pp.
92-102.
M. Cobet also speaks of it as a work of Plato (Novæ Lectiones, &c., p. 624.
Lugd.
Bat.
1858).]
[Footnote 3: Dionys.
Hal.
Ars Rhetor.
p. 405, Reiske.
Compare Theagês, 121 D. [Greek: ei)s to\ a)/stu katabai/nontes].
In general, in discussions on the genuineness of any of the Platonic dialogues, I can do nothing but reply to the arguments of those critics who consider them spurious.
But in the case of the Theagês there is one argument which tends to mark Plato positively as the author.
In the Theagês, p. 125, the senarius [Greek: sophoi\ tu/rannoi tô=n sophô=n sunousi/a|] is cited as a verse of _Euripides_.
Now it appears that this is an error of memory, and that the verse really belongs to _Sophokles_, [Greek: e)n Ai)/anti Lokrô=|].
If the error had only appeared in this dialogue, Stallbaum would probably have cited it as one more instance of stupidity on the part of the _ineptus tenebrio_ whom he supposes to have written the dialogue.
But unfortunately the error does not belong to the Theagês alone.
It is found also in the Republic (viii.
568 B), the most unquestionable of all the Platonic compositions.
Accordingly, Schleiermacher tells us in his note that the _falsarius_ of the Theagês has copied this error out of the above-named passage of the Republic of Plato (notes, p. 500).
This last supposition of Schleiermacher appears to me highly improbable.
Since we know that the mistake is one made by Plato himself, surely we ought rather to believe that he made it in two distinct compositions.
In other words, the occurrence of the same exact mistake in the Republic and the Theagês affords strong presumption that both are by the same author--Plato.]
[Side-note: Persons of the dialogue--Sokrates, with Demodokus and Theagês, father and son.
Theagês (the son), eager to acquire knowledge, desires to be placed under the teaching of a Sophist.]
Demodokus, an elderly man (of rank and landed property), and his youthful son Theagês, have come from their Deme to Athens, and enter into conversation with Sokrates: to whom the father explains, that Theagês has contracted, from the conversation of youthful companions, an extraordinary ardour for the acquisition of wisdom.
The son has importuned his father to put him under the tuition of one of the Sophists, who profess to teach wisdom.
The father, though not unwilling to comply with the request, is deterred by the difficulty of finding a good teacher and avoiding a bad one.
He entreats the advice of Sokrates, who invites the young man to explain what it is that he wants, over and above the usual education of an Athenian youth of good family (letters, the harp, wrestling, &c.), which he has already gone through.
[4] [Footnote 4: Plato, Theagês, 122.]
[Side-note: Sokrates questions Theagês, inviting him to specify what he wants.]
_Sokr._--You desire wisdom: but what kind of wisdom?
That by which men manage chariots?
or govern horses?
or pilot ships?
_Theag._--No: that by which men are governed.
_Sokr._--But what men?
those in a state of sickness--or those who are singing in a chorus--or those who are under gymnastic training?
Each of these classes has its own governor, who bears a special title, and belongs to a special art by itself--the medical, musical, gymnastic, &c. _Theag._--No: I mean that wisdom by which we govern, not these classes alone, but all the other residents in the city along with them--professional as well as private--men as well as women.
[5] [Footnote 5: Plato, Theagês, 124 A-B.
Schleiermacher (Einleit.
p. 250) censures the prolixity of the inductive process in this dialogue, and the multitude of examples here accumulated to prove a general proposition obvious enough without proof.
Let us grant this to be true; we cannot infer from it that the dialogue is not the work of Plato.
By very similar arguments Socher endeavours to show that the Sophistês and the Politikus are not works of Plato, because in both these dialogues logical division and differentiation is accumulated with tiresome prolixity, and applied to most trivial subjects.
But Plato himself (in Politikus, pp.
285-286) explains why he does so, and tells us that he wishes to familiarise his readers with logical subdivision and classification as a process.
In like manner I maintain that prolixity in the [Greek: lo/goi e)paktikoi/] is not to be held as proof of spurious authorship, any more than prolixity in the process of logical subdivision and classification.
I noticed the same objection in the case of the First Alkibiadês.]
[Side-note: Theagês desires to acquire that wisdom by which he can govern freemen with their own consent.]
Sokrates now proves to Theagês, that this function and power which he is desirous of obtaining, is, the function and power of a despot: and that no one can aid him in so culpable a project.
I might yearn (says Theagês) for such despotic power over all: so probably would you and every other man.
But it is not _that_ to which I now aspire.
I aspire to govern freemen, with their own consent; as was done by Themistokles, Perikles, Kimon, and other illustrious statesmen,[6] who have been accomplished in the political art.
[Footnote 6: Plato, Theagês, 126 A.]
_Sokr._--Well, if you wished to become accomplished in the art of horsemanship, you would put yourself under able horsemen: if in the art of darting the javelin, under able darters.
By parity of reasoning, since you seek to learn the art of statesmanship, you must frequent able statesmen.
[7] [Footnote 7: Plato, Theagês, 126 C.] [Side-note: Incompetence of the best practical statesmen to teach any one else.
Theagês requests that Sokrates will himself teach him.]
_Theag._--No, Sokrates.
I have heard of the language which you are in the habit of using to others.
You pointed out to them that these eminent statesmen cannot train their own sons to be at all better than curriers: of course therefore they cannot do _me_ any good.
[8] _Sokr._--But what can your father do for you better than this, Theagês?
What ground have you for complaining of him?
He is prepared to place you under any one of the best and most excellent men of Athens, whichever of them you prefer.
_Theag._--Why will not you take me yourself, Sokrates?
I look upon you as one of these men, and I desire nothing better.
[9] [Footnote 8: Plato, Theagês, 126 D. Here again Stallbaum (p. 222) urges, among his reasons for believing the dialogue to be spurious--How absurd to represent the youthful Theagês as knowing what arguments Sokrates had addressed to others!
But the youthful Theætêtus is also represented as having heard from others the cross-examinations made by Sokrates (Theætêt.
148 E).
So likewise the youthful sons of Lysimachus--(Lachês, 181 A); compare also Lysis, 211 A.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Theagês, 127 A.]
Demodokus joins his entreaties with those of Theagês to prevail upon Sokrates to undertake this function.
But Sokrates in reply says that he is less fit for it than Demodokus himself, who has exercised high political duties, with the esteem of every one; and that if practical statesmen are considered unfit, there are the professional Sophists, Prodikus, Gorgias, Polus, who teach many pupils, and earn not merely good pay, but also the admiration and gratitude of every one--of the pupils as well as their senior relatives.
[10] [Footnote 10: Plato, Theagês, 127 D-E, 128 A.]
[Side-note: Sokrates declares that he is not competent to teach--that he knows nothing except about matters of love.
Theagês maintains that many of his young friends have profited largely by the conversation of Sokrates.]
_Sokr._--I know nothing of the fine things which these Sophists teach: I wish I did know.
I declare everywhere, that I know nothing whatever except one small matter--what belongs to love.
In that, I surpass every one else, past as well as present.
[11] _Theag._--Sokrates is only mocking us.
I know youths (of my own age and somewhat older), who were altogether worthless and inferior to every one, before they went to him; but who, after they had frequented his society, became in a short time superior to all their former rivals.
The like will happen with me, if he will only consent to receive me.
[12] [Footnote 11: Plato, Theagês, 128 B.
[Greek: a)lla\ kai\ le/gô dê/pou a)ei/, o(/ti e)gô\ tugcha/nô, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n, ou)de\n e)pista/menos plê/n ge smikrou= tino\s mathê/matos, tô=n e)rôtikô=n, tou=to me/ntoi to\ ma/thêma par' o(ntinou=n poiou=mai deino\s ei)=nai, kai\ tô=n progegono/tôn a)nthrô/pôn kai\ tô=n nu=n.]]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Theagês, 128 C.] [Side-note: Sokrates explains how this has sometimes happened--he recites his experience of the divine sign or Dæmon.]
_Sokr._--You do not know how this happens; I will explain it to you.
From my childhood, I have had a peculiar superhuman something attached to me by divine appointment: a voice, which, whenever it occurs, warns me to abstain from that which I am about to do, but never impels me.
[13] Moreover, when any one of my friends mentions to me what he is about to do, if the voice shall then occur to me it is a warning for him to abstain.
The examples of Charmides and Timarchus (here detailed by Sokrates) prove what I say: and many persons will tell you how truly I forewarned them of the ruin of the Athenian armament at Syracuse.
[14] My young friend Sannion is now absent, serving on the expedition under Thrasyllus to Ionia: on his departure, the divine sign manifested itself to me, and I am persuaded that some grave calamity will befall him.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Theagês, 128 D. [Greek: e)sti ga/r ti thei/a| moi/ra| parepo/menon e)moi\ e)k paido\s a)rxa/menon daimo/nion; e)/sti de\ tou=to phônê/, ê)\ o(/tan ge/nêtai, a)ei/ moi sêmai/nei, o(\ a)\n me/llô pra/ttein, tou/tou a)potropê/n, protre/pei de\ ou)de/pote.]]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Theag.
129.]
[Side-note: The Dæmon is favourable to some persons, adverse to others.
Upon this circumstance it depends how far any companion profits by the society of Sokrates.
Aristeides has not learnt anything from Sokrates, yet has improved much by being near to him.]
These facts I mention to you (Sokrates continues) because it is that same divine power which exercises paramount influence over my intercourse with companions.
[15] Towards many, it is positively adverse; so that I cannot even enter into companionship with them.
Towards others, it does not forbid, yet neither does it co-operate: so that they derive no benefit from me.
There are others again in whose case it co-operates; these are the persons to whom you allude, who make rapid progress.
[16] With some, such improvement is lasting: others, though they improve wonderfully while in my society, yet relapse into commonplace men when they leave me.
Aristeides, for example (grandson of Aristeides the Just), was one of those who made rapid progress while he was with me.
But he was forced to absent himself on military service; and on returning, he found as my companion Thucydides (son of Melesias), who however had quarrelled with me for some debate of the day before.
I understand (said Aristeides to me) that Thucydides has taken offence and gives himself airs; he forgets what a poor creature he was, before he came to you.
[17] I myself, too, have fallen into a despicable condition.
When I left you, I was competent to discuss with any one and make a good figure, so that I courted debate with the most accomplished men.
Now, on the contrary, I avoid them altogether--so thoroughly am I ashamed of my own incapacity.
Did the capacity (I, _Sokrates_, asked Aristeides) forsake you all at once, or little by little?
Little by little, he replied.
And when you possessed it (I asked), did you get it by learning from me?
or in what other way?
I will tell you, Sokrates (he answered), what seems incredible, yet is nevertheless true.
[18] I never learnt from you any thing at all.
You yourself well know this.
But I always made progress, whenever I was along with you, even if I were only in the same house without being in the same room; but I made greater progress, if I was in the same room--greater still, if I looked in your face, instead of turning my eyes elsewhere--and the greatest of all, by far, if I sat close and touching you.
But now (continued Aristeides) all that I then acquired has dribbled out of me.
[19] [Footnote 15: Plato, Theagês, 129 E. [Greek: tau=ta dê\ pa/nta ei)/rêka/ soi, o(/ti ê( du/namis au(/tê tou= daimoni/ou tou/tou kai\ ei)s ta\s sunousi/as tô=n met' e)mou= sundiatribo/ntôn to\ a(/pan du/natai.
polloi=s me\n ga\r e)nantiou=tai, kai\ ou)k e)/sti tou/tois ô)phelêthênai met' e)mou= diatri/bousin.]]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Theag.
129 E. [Greek: oi(=s d' a)\n sulla/bêtai tê=s sunousi/as ê( tou= daimo/niou du/namis, ou(=toi ei)sin ô(=n kai\ su\ ê)/|sthêsai; tachu\ ga\r parachrê=ma e)pidido/asin.]]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Theag.
130 A-B.
[Greek: Ti/ dai/?
ou)k oi)=den, e)/phê, pri\n soi\ suggene/sthai, oi(=on ê)=n to\ a)ndra/podon?]]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Theag.
130 D. [Greek: Ê(ni/ka de/ soi parege/neto (ê( du/namis), po/teron matho/nti par' e)mou= ti parege/neto, ê)/ tini a)/llô| tro/pô|?
E)gô/ soi, e)/phê, e)rô=, ô)= Sô/krates, a)/piston me\n nê\ tou\s theou/s, a)lêthe\s de/.
e)gô\ ga\r e)/mathon me\n para\ sou= ou)de\n pô/pote, ô(s au)to\s oi)=stha; e)pedi/doun de\ o(pote soi sunei/ên, ka)\n ei) e)n tê=| au)tê=| mo/non oi)ki/a| ei)/ên, mê\ e)n tô=| au)tô=| de\ oi)kê/mati], &c.] [Footnote 19: Plato, Theag.
130 E. [Greek: polu\ de\ ma/lista kai\ plei=ston e)pedi/doun, o(po/te par' au)to/n se kathoi/mên e)cho/meno/s sou kai\ a(pto/menos.
nu=n de/, ê)= d' o(/s, pa=sa e)kei/nê ê(\ e(/xis e)xer)r(u/êken.]]
[Side-note: Theagês expresses his anxiety to be received as the companion of Sokrates.]
_Sokr._--I have now explained to you, Theagês, what it is to become my companion.
If it be the pleasure of the God, you will make great and rapid progress: if not, not.
Consider, therefore, whether it is not safer for you to seek instruction from some of those who are themselves masters of the benefits which they impart, rather than to take your chance of the result with me.
[20] _Theag._--I shall be glad, Sokrates, to become your companion, and to make trial of this divine coadjutor.
If he shows himself propitious, that will be the best of all: if not, we can then take counsel, whether I shall try to propitiate him by prayer, sacrifice, or any other means which the prophets may recommend or whether I shall go to some other teacher.
[21] [Footnote 20: Plato, Theag.
130 E. [Greek: o(/ra ou)=n mê/ soi a)sphale/steron ê)=| par' e)kei/nôn tini\ paideu/esthai, oi(\ e)gkratei=s au)toi/ ei)si tê=s ô)phelei/as, ê)\n ô)phelou=si tou\s a)nthrô/pous, ma=llon ê)\ par' e)mou= o(/, ti a)\n tu/chê|, tou=to pra=xai.]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Theag.
131 A.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks on the Theagês--analogy with the Lachês.]
The Theagês figured in the list of Thrasyllus as first in the fifth Tetralogy: the other three members of the same Tetralogy being Charmidês, Lachês, Lysis.
Some persons considered it suitable to read as first dialogue of all.
[22] There are several points of analogy between the Theagês and the Lachês, though with a different turn given to them.
Aristeides and Thucydides are mentioned in both of them: Sokrates also is solicited to undertake the duty of teacher.
The ardour of the young Theagês to acquire wisdom reminds us of Hippokrates at the beginning of the Protagoras.
The string of questions put by Sokrates to Theagês, requiring that what is called wisdom shall be clearly defined and specialised, has its parallel in many of the Platonic dialogues.
Moreover the declaration of Sokrates, that he knows nothing except about matters of love, but that in them he is a consummate master--is the same as what he explicitly declares both in the Symposion and other dialogues.
[23] [Footnote 22: Diog.
L. iii.
59-61.]
[Footnote 23: Symposion, 177 E. [Greek: ou)/te ga\r a)/n pou e)gô\ a)pophê/saimi, o(\s ou)de/n phêmi a)/llo e)pi/stasthai ê)\ ta\ e)rôtika/.]
Compare the same dialogue, p. 212 B, 216 C. Phædrus, 227 E, 257 A; Lysis, 204 B.
Compare also Xenoph.
Memor.
ii.
6, 28; Xenoph.
Sympos.
iv.
27.
It is not reasonable to treat this declaration of Sokrates, in the Theagês, as an evidence that the dialogue is the work of a _falsarius_, when a declaration quite similar is ascribed to Sokrates in other Platonic dialogues.]
[Side-note: Chief peculiarity of the Theagês--stress laid upon the divine sign or Dæmon.]
But the chief peculiarity of the Theagês consists in the stress which is laid upon the Dæmon, the divine voice, the inspiration of Sokrates.
This divine auxiliary is here described, not only as giving a timely check or warning to Sokrates, when either he or his friends contemplated any inauspicious project--but also as intervening, in the case of those youthful companions with whom he conversed, to promote the improvement of one, to obstruct that of others; so that whether Sokrates will produce any effect or not in improving any one, depends neither upon his own efforts nor upon those of the recipient, but upon the unpredictable concurrence of a divine agency.
[24] [Footnote 24: See some remarks on this point in Appendix.]
[Side-note: Plato employs this divine sign here to render some explanation of the singularity and eccentricity of Sokrates, and of his unequal influence upon different companions.]
Plato employs the Sokratic Dæmon, in the Theagês, for a philosophical purpose, which, I think, admits of reasonable explanation.
During the eight (perhaps ten) years of his personal communion with Sokrates, he had had large experience of the variable and unaccountable effect produced by the Sokratic conversation upon different hearers: a fact which is also attested by the Xenophontic Memorabilia.
This difference of effect was in no way commensurate to the unequal intelligence of the hearers.
Chærephon, Apollodôrus, Kriton, seem to have been ordinary men:--[25] while Kritias and Alkibiades, who brought so much discredit both upon Sokrates and his teaching, profited little by him, though they were among the ablest pupils that he ever addressed: moreover Antisthenes, and Aristippus, probably did not appear to Plato (since he greatly dissented from their philosophical views) to have profited much by the common companionship with Sokrates.
Other companions there must have been also personally known to Plato, though not to us: for we must remember that Sokrates passed his whole day in talking with all listeners.
Now when Plato in after life came to cast the ministry of Sokrates into dramatic scenes, and to make each scene subservient to the illustration of some philosophical point of view, at least a negative--he was naturally led to advert to the Dæmon or divine inspiration, which formed so marked a feature in the character of his master.
The concurrence or prohibition of this divine auxiliary served to explain why it was that the seed, sown broadcast by Sokrates, sometimes fructified, and sometimes did not fructify, or speedily perished afterwards--when no sufficient explanatory peculiarity could be pointed out in the ground on which it fell.
It gave an apparent reason for the perfect singularity of the course pursued by Sokrates: for his preternatural acuteness in one direction, and his avowed incapacity in another: for his mastery of the Elenchus, convicting men of ignorance, and his inability to supply them with knowledge: for his refusal to undertake the duties of a teacher.
All these are mysterious features of the Sokratic character.
The intervention of the Dæmon appears to afford an explanation, by converting them into religious mysteries: which, though it be no explanation at all, yet is equally efficacious by stopping the mouth of the questioner, and by making him believe that it is guilt and impiety to ask for explanation--as Sokrates himself declared in regard to astronomical phenomena, and as Herodotus feels, when his narrative is crossed by strange religious legends.
[26] [Footnote 25: Xenophon, Apol.
Sokr.
28.
[Greek: A)pollo/dôros--e)pithumê/tês me\n i)schurô=s au)tou=, a)/llôs d' eu)ê/thês.]--Plat.
Phædon, 117 D.] [Footnote 26: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
7, 5-6; Herodot.
ii.
3, 45-46.]
[Side-note: Sokrates, while continually finding fault with other teachers, refused to teach himself--difficulty of finding an excuse for his refusal.
The Theagês furnishes an excuse.]
In this manner, the Theagês is made by Plato to exhibit one way of parrying the difficulty frequently addressed to Sokrates by various hearers: "You tell us that the leading citizens cannot even teach their own sons, and that the Sophists teach nothing worth having: you perpetually call upon us to seek for better teachers, without telling us where such are to be found.
We entreat you to teach us yourself, conformably to your own views."
If a leader of political opposition, after years employed in denouncing successive administrators as ignorant and iniquitous, refuses, when invited, to take upon himself the business of administration--an intelligent admirer must find some decent pretence to colour the refusal.
Such a pretence is found for Sokrates in the Theagês: "I am not my own master on this point.
I am the instrument of a divine ally, without whose active working I can accomplish nothing: who forbids altogether my teaching of one man--tolerates, without assisting, my unavailing lessons to another--assists efficaciously in my teaching of a third, in which case alone the pupil receives any real benefit.
The assistance of this divine ally is given or withheld according to motives of his own, which I cannot even foretell, much less influence.
I should deceive you therefore if I undertook to teach, when I cannot tell whether I shall do good or harm."
The reply of Theagês meets this scruple.
He asks permission to make the experiment, and promises to propitiate the divine auxiliary by prayer and sacrifice; under which reserve Sokrates gives consent.
[Side-note: Plato does not always, nor in other dialogues, allude to the divine sign in the same way.
Its character and working essentially impenetrable.
Sokrates a privileged person.]
It is in this way that the Dæmon or divine auxiliary serves the purpose of reconciling what would otherwise be an inconsistency in the proceedings of Sokrates.
I mean, that such is the purpose served in _this_ dialogue: I know perfectly that Plato deals with the case differently elsewhere: but I am not bound (as I have said more than once) to force upon all the dialogues one and the same point of view.
That the agency of the Gods was often and in the most important cases, essentially undiscoverable and unpredictable, and that in such cases they might sometimes be prevailed on to give special warnings to favoured persons--were doctrines which the historical Sokrates in Xenophon asserts with emphasis.
[27] The Dæmon of Sokrates was believed, both by himself and his friends, to be a special privilege and an extreme case of divine favour and communication to him.
[28] It was perfectly applicable to the scope of the Theagês, though Plato might not choose always to make the same employment of it.
It is used in the same general way in the Theætêtus;[29] doubtless with less expansion, and blended with another analogy (that of the mid-wife) which introduces a considerable difference.
[30] [Footnote 27: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1, 8-9-19.
Euripid.
Hecub.
944.
[Greek: phu/rousi d' au)ta\ theoi\ pa/lin te kai\ pro/sô, taragmo\n e)ntithe/ntes, ô(s a)gnôsi/a| se/bômen au)tou/s.]]
[Footnote 28: Xenoph.
Mem.
iv.
3, 12.]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Theætêt.
150 D-E.] [Footnote 30: Plato, Apolog.
Sokr.
33 C. [Greek: e)moi\ de\ tou=to, ô(s e)gô/ phêmi, proste/taktai u(po\ toou= theou= pra/ttein kai\ e)k manteiô=n kai\ e)x e)nupni/ôn kai\ panti\ tro/pô|, ô(=|pe/r ti/s pote kai\ a)/llê thei/a moio/ra a)nthrô/pô| kai\ o(tiou=n prose/taxe pra/ttein.]
40 A.
[Greek: ê( ga\r ei)ôthui=a/ moi mantikê\ ê( tou= daimoni/ou e)n me\n tô=| pro/sthen _chro/nô| panti\ pa/nu puknê\ a)ei\ ê)=n kai\ pa/nu e)pi\ smikroi=s e)nantioume/nê_, ei)/ ti me/lloimi mê\ o)rthô=s pra/xein.]
Compare Xenophon, Memor.
iv.
8, 5; Apol.
Sokr.
c.
13.]
APPENDIX.
[Greek: To\ daimo/nion sêmei=on.]
Here is one of the points most insisted on by Schleiermacher and Stallbaum, as proving that the Theagês is not the work of Plato.
These critics affirm (to use the language of Stallbaum, Proleg.
p. 220) "Quam Plato alias de Socratis dæmonio prodidit sententiam, ea longissimè recedit ab illâ ratione, quæ in hoc sermone exposita est".
He says that the representation of the Dæmon of Sokrates, given in the Theagês, has been copied from a passage in the Theætêtus, by an imitator who has not understood the passage, p. 150, D, E. But Socher (p. 97) appears to me to have shown satisfactorily, that there is no such material difference as these critics affirm between this passage of the Theætêtus and the Theagês.
In the Theætêtus, Sokrates declares, that none of his companions learnt any thing from him, but that all of them [Greek: oi(=sper a)\n o( theo\s parei/kê|] (the very same term is used at the close of the Theagês--131 A, [Greek: e)a\n me\n parei/kê| ê(mi=n--to\ daimo/nion]) made astonishing progress and improvement in his company.
Stallbaum says, "Itaque [Greek: o( theo\s], qui ibi memoratur, non est Socratis dæmonium, sed potius deus _i.e._ sors divina.
Quod non perspiciens _noster tenebrio_ protenus illud dæmonium, quod Socrates sibi semper adesse dictitabat, ad eum dignitatis et potentiæ gradum evexit, ut, &c." I agree with Socher in thinking that the phrase [Greek: o( theo\s] in the Theætêtus has substantially the same meaning as [Greek: to\ daimo/nion] in the Theagês.
Both Schleiermacher (Notes on the Apology, p. 432) and Ast (p. 482), have notes on the phrase [Greek: to\ daimo/nion]--and I think the note of Ast is the more instructive of the two.
In Plato and Xenophon, the words [Greek: to\ daimo/nion], [Greek: to\ thei=on], are in many cases undistinguishable in meaning from [Greek: o( dai/môn], [Greek: o( theo/s].
Compare the Phædrus, 242 E, about [Greek: theo\s] and [Greek: thei=o/n ti].
Sokrates, in his argument against Meletus in the Apology (p. 27) emphatically argues that no man could believe in any thing [Greek: daimo/nion], without also believing in [Greek: daimo/nes].
The special [Greek: thei=o/n ti kai\ daimo/nion (Apol.
p. 31 C), which presented itself in regard to him and his proceedings, was only one of the many modes in which (as he believed) [Greek: o( theo/s] commanded and stimulated him to work upon the minds of the Athenians:--[Greek: e)moi\ de\ tou=to, ô(s e)gô/ phêmi, proste/taktai u(po\ tou= theou= pra/ttein kai\ e)k manteiô=n kai\ e)x e)nupni/ôn kai\ panti\ tro/pô|, ô(=|pe/r ti/s pote kai\ a)/llê thei/a moi=ra a)nthrô/pô| kai\ o(tiou=n prose/taxe pra/ttein] (Apol.
p. 33 C).
So again in Apol.
p. 40 A, B, [Greek: ê( ei)ôthui=a/ moi mantikê\ ê( tou= daimoni/ou]--and four lines afterwards we read the very same fact intimated in the words, [Greek: to\ tou= theou= sêmei=on], where Sokratis dæmonium--and Deus--are identified: thus refuting the argument above cited from Stallbaum.
There is therefore no such discrepancy, in reference to [Greek: to\ daimo/nion], as Stallbaum and Schleiermacher contend for.
We perceive indeed this difference between them--that in the Theætêtus, the simile of the obstetric art is largely employed, while it is not noticed in the Theagês.
But we should impose an unwarrantable restriction upon Plato's fancy, if we hindered him from working out his variety and exuberance of metaphors, and from accommodating each dialogue to the metaphor predominant with him at the time.
Moreover, in respect to what is called the Dæmon of Sokrates, we ought hardly to expect that either Plato or Xenophon would always be consistent even with themselves.
It is unsafe for a modern critic to determine beforehand, by reason or feelings of his own, in what manner either of them would speak upon this mysterious subject.
The belief and feeling of a divine intervention was very real on the part of both, but their manner of conceiving it might naturally fluctuate: and there was, throughout all the proceedings of Sokrates, a mixture of the serious and the playful, of the sublime and the eccentric, of ratiocinative acuteness with impulsive superstition--which it is difficult to bring into harmonious interpretation.
Such heterogeneous mixture is forcibly described in the Platonic Symposium, pp.
215-222.
When we consider how undefined, and undefinable, the idea of this [Greek: daimo/nion] was, we cannot wonder if Plato ascribes to it different workings and manifestations at different times.
Stallbaum affirms that it is made ridiculous in the Theagês: and Kühner declares that Plutarch makes it ridiculous, in his treatise De Genio Sokratia (Comm.
ad.
Xenoph.
Memor.
p. 23).
But this is because its agency is described more in detail.
You can easily present it in a ridiculous aspect, by introducing it as intervening on petty and insignificant matters.
Now it is remarkable, that in the Apology, we are expressly told that it actually did intervene on the most trifling occasions--[Greek: pa/nu e)pi\ smikroi=s e)nantioume/nê].
The business of an historian of philosophy is, to describe it as it was really felt and believed by Sokrates and Plato--whether a modern critic may consider the description ridiculous or not.
When Schleiermacher says (Einleitung, p. 248), respecting the _falsarius_ whom he supposes to have written the Theagês--"Damit ist ihm begegnet, auf eine höchst verkehrte Art wunderbar zusammenzurühren diese göttliche Schickung, und jenes persönliche Vorgefühl welches dem Sokrates zur göttlichen Stimme ward".--I contend that the mistake is chargeable to Schleiermacher himself, for bisecting into two phenomena that which appears in the Apology as the same phenomenon under two different names--[Greek: to\ daimo/nion]--[Greek: to\ tou= theou= sêmei=on].
Besides, to treat the Dæmon as a mere "personal presentiment" of Sokrates, may be a true view:--but it is the view of one who does not inhale the same religious atmosphere as Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon.
It cannot therefore be properly applied in explaining their sayings or doings.
Kühner, who treats the Theagês as not composed by Plato, grounds this belief partly on the assertion, that the [Greek: daimo/nion] of Sokrates is described therein as something peculiar to Sokrates; which, according to Kühner, was the fiction of a subsequent time.
By Sokrates and his contemporaries (Kühner says) it was considered "non sibi soli tanquam proprium quoddam beneficium a Diis tributum, sed commune sibi esse cum cæteris hominibus" (pp.
20-21).
I dissent entirely from this view, which is contradicted by most of the passages noticed even by Kühner himself.
It is at variance with the Platonic Apology, as well as with the Theætêtus (150 D), and Republic (vi.
496 C).
Xenophon does indeed try, in the first Chapter of the Memorabilia, as the defender of Sokrates, to soften the _invidia_ against Sokrates, by intimating that other persons had communications from the Gods as well as he.
But we see plainly, even from other passages of the Memorabilia, that this was not the persuasion of Sokrates himself, nor of his friends, nor of his enemies.
They all considered it (as it is depicted in the Theagês also) to be a special privilege and revelation.
CHAPTER XVI.
ERASTÆ OR ANTERASTÆ--RIVALES.
The main subject of this short dialogue is--What is philosophy?
[Greek: ê( philosophi/a--to\ philosophei=n].
How are we to explain or define it?
What is its province and purport?
[Side-note: Erastæ--subject and persons of the dialogue--dramatic introduction--interesting youths in the palæstra.]
Instead of the simple, naked, self-introducing, conversation, which we read in the Menon, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Sokrates recounts a scene and colloquy, which occurred when he went into the house of Dionysius the grammatist or school-master,[1] frequented by many elegant and high-born youths as pupils.
Two of these youths were engaged in animated debate upon some geometrical or astronomical problem, in the presence of various spectators; and especially of two young men, rivals for the affection of one of them.
Of these rivals, the one is a person devoted to music, letters, discourse, philosophy:--the other hates and despises these pursuits, devoting himself to gymnastic exercise, and bent on acquiring the maximum of athletic force.
[2] It is much the same contrast as that between the brothers Amphion and Zethus in the Antiopê of Euripides--which is beautifully employed as an illustration by Plato in the Gorgias.
[3] [Footnote 1: Plato, Erastæ, 132.
[Greek: ei)s Dionusi/ou tou= grammatistou= ei)sê=lthon, kai\ ei)=don au)to/thi tô=n te ne/ôn tou\s e)pieikesta/tous dokou=ntas ei)=nai tê\n i)de/an kai\ pate/rôn eu)doki/môn kai\ tou/tôn e)rasta/s.]]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Erast.
132 E.] [Footnote 3: Plato, Gorgias, 485-486.
Compare Cicero De Oratore, ii.
37, 156.]
[Side-note: Two rival Erastæ--one of them literary, devoted to philosophy--the other gymnastic, hating philosophy.]
As soon as Sokrates begins his interrogatories, the two youths relinquish[4] their geometrical talk, and turn to him as attentive listeners.
Their approach affects his emotions hardly less than those of the Erastes.
He first enquires from the athletic Erastes, What is it that these two youths are so intently engaged upon?
It must surely be something very fine, to judge by the eagerness which they display?
How do you mean _fine_ (replies the athlete)?
They are only prosing about astronomical matters--talking nonsense--philosophising!
The literary rival, on the contrary, treats this athlete as unworthy of attention, speaks with enthusiastic admiration of philosophy, and declares that all those to whom it is repugnant are degraded specimens of humanity.
[Footnote 4: The powerful sentiment of admiration ascribed to Sokrates in the presence of these beautiful youths deserves notice as a point in his character.
Compare the beginning of the Charmidês and the Lysis.]
[Side-note: Question put by Sokrates--What is philosophy?
It is the perpetual accumulation of knowledge, so as to make the largest sum total.]
_Sokr._--You think philosophy a fine thing?
But you cannot tell whether it is fine or not, unless you know what it is.
[5] Pray explain to me what philosophy is.
_Erast._--I will do so readily.
Philosophy consists in the perpetual growth of a man's knowledge--in his going on perpetually acquiring something new, both in youth and in old age, so that he may learn as much as possible during life.
Philosophy is polymathy.
[6] _Sokr._--You think philosophy not only a fine thing, but good?
_Erast._--Yes--very good.
_Sokr._--But is the case similar in regard to gymnastic?
Is a man's bodily condition benefited by taking as much exercise, or as much nourishment, as possible?
Is such very great quantity good for the body?
[7] [Footnote 5: Plat.
Erast.
133 A-B.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Erast.
133 D. [Greek: tê\n philosophi/an--poluma/theian.]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Erast.
133 E.] [Side-note: In the case of the body, it is not the maximum of exercise which does good, but the proper, measured quantity.
For the mind also, it is not the maximum of knowledge, but the measured quantity which is good.
Who is the judge to determine this measure?]
It appears after some debate (in which the other or athletic Erastes sides with Sokrates[8]) that in regard to exercise and food it is not the great quantity or the small quantity, which is good for the body--but the moderate or measured quantity.
[9] For the mind, the case is admitted to be similar.
Not the _much_, nor the _little_, of learning is good for it but the right or measured amount.
_Sokr._--And who is the competent judge, how much of either is right measure for the body?
_Erast._--The physician and the gymnastic trainer.
_Sokr._--Who is the competent judge, how much seed is right measure for sowing a field?
_Erast._--The farmer.
_Sokr._--Who is the competent judge, in reference to the sowing and planting of knowledge in the mind, which varieties are good, and how much of each is right measure?
[Footnote 8: Plat.
Erast.
134 B-C.
The literary Erastes says to Sokrates, "To _you_, I have no objection to concede this point, and to admit that my previous answer must be modified.
But if I were to debate the point only with _him_ (the athletic rival), I could perfectly well have defended my answer, and even worse answer still, for _he_ is quite worthless ([Greek: ou)de\n ga/r e)sti])."
This is a curious passage, illustrating the dialectic habits of the day, and the pride felt in maintaining an answer once given.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Erastæ, 134 B-D. [Greek: ta\ me/tria ma/lista ô)phelei=n, a)lla\ mê\ ta\ polla\ mêde\ ta\ o)li/ga.]]
[Side-note: No answer given.
What is the best conjecture?
Answer of the literary Erastes.
A man must learn that which will yield to him the greatest reputation as a philosopher--as much as will enable him to talk like an intelligent critic, though not to practise.]
The question is one which none of the persons present can answer.
[10] None of them can tell who is the special referee, about training of mind; corresponding to the physician or the farmer in the analogous cases.
Sokrates then puts a question somewhat different: _Sokr._--Since we have agreed, that the man who prosecutes philosophy ought not to learn many things, still less all things--what is the best conjecture that we can make, respecting the matters which he ought to learn?
_Erast._--The finest and most suitable acquirements for him to aim at, are those which will yield to him the greatest reputation as a philosopher.
He ought to appear accomplished in every variety of science, or at least in all the more important; and with that view, to learn as much of each as becomes a freeman to know:--that is, what belongs to the intelligent critic, as distinguished from the manual operative: to the planning and superintending architect, as distinguished from the working carpenter.
[11] _Sokr._--But you cannot learn even two different arts to this extent--much less several considerable arts.
_Erast._--I do not of course mean that the philosopher can be supposed to know each of them accurately, like the artist himself--but only as much as may be expected from the free and cultivated citizen.
That is, he shall be able to appreciate, better than other hearers, the observations made by the artist: and farther to deliver a reasonable opinion of his own, so as to be accounted, by all the hearers, more accomplished in the affairs of the art than themselves.
[12] [Footnote 10: Plato, Erast.
134 E, 135 A.]
[Footnote 11: Plat.
Erast.
135 B.
[Greek: o(/sa xune/seôs e)/chetai, mê\ o(/sa cheirourgi/as.]]
[Footnote 12: Plat.
Erast.
135 D.] [Side-note: The philosopher is one who is second-best in several different arts--a Pentathlus--who talks well upon each.]
_Sokr._--You mean that the philosopher is to be second-best in several distinct pursuits: like the Pentathlus, who is not expected to equal either the runner or the wrestler in their own separate departments, but only to surpass competitors in the five matches taken together.
[13] _Erast._--Yes--I mean what you say.
He is one who does not enslave himself to any one matter, nor works out any one with such strictness as to neglect all others: he attends to all of them in reasonable measure.
[14] [Footnote 13: Plat.
Erast.
135 E, 136 A.
[Greek: kai\ ou(/tôs gi/gnesthai peri\ pa/nta u(/pakro/n tina a)/ndra to\n pephilosophêko/ta.]
The five matches were leaping, running, throwing the quoit and the javelin, wrestling.]
[Footnote 14: Plat.
Erast.
136 B.
[Greek: a)lla\ pa/ntôn metri/ôs e)phê=phthai.]]
[Side-note: On what occasions can such second-best men be useful?
There are always regular practitioners at hand, and no one will call in the second-best man when he can have the regular practitioner.]
Upon this answer Sokrates proceeds to cross-examine: _Sokr._--Do you think that good men are useful, bad men useless?
_Erast._--Yes I do.
_Sokr._--You think that philosophers, as you describe them, are useful?
_Erast._--Certainly: extremely useful.
_Sokr._--But tell me on what occasions such second-best men are useful: for obviously they are inferior to each separate artist.
If you fall sick will you send for one of _them_, or for a professional physician?
_Erast._--I should send for both.
_Sokr._--That is no answer: I wish to know, which of the two you will send for first and by preference?
_Erast._--No doubt I shall send for the professional physician.
_Sokr._--The like also, if you are in danger on shipboard, you will entrust your life to the pilot rather than to the philosopher: and so as to all other matters, as long as a professional man is to be found, the philosopher is of no use?
_Erast._--So it appears.
_Sokr._--Our philosopher then is one of the useless persons: for we assuredly have professional men at hand.
Now we agreed before, that good men were useful, bad men useless.
[15] _Erast._--Yes; that was agreed.
[Footnote 15: Plat.
Erast.
136 C-D.] [Side-note: Philosophy cannot consist in multiplication of learned acquirements.]
_Sokr._--If then you have correctly defined a philosopher to be one who has a second-rate knowledge on many subjects, he is useless so long as there exist professional artists on each subject.
Your definition cannot therefore be correct.
Philosophy must be something quite apart from this multifarious and busy meddling with different professional subjects, or this multiplication of learned acquirements.
Indeed I fancied, that to be absorbed in professional subjects and in variety of studies, was vulgar and discreditable rather than otherwise.
[16] [Footnote 16: Plato, Erast.
137 B.]
Let us now, however (continues Sokrates), take up the matter in another way.
In regard to horses and dogs, those who punish rightly are also those who know how to make them better, and to discriminate with most exactness the good from the bad?
_Erast._--Yes: such is the fact.
[Side-note: Sokrates changes his course of examination--questions put to show that there is one special art, regal and political, of administering and discriminating the bad from the good.]
_Sokr._--Is not the case similar with men?
Is it not the same art, which punishes men rightly, makes them better, and best distinguishes the good from the bad?
whether applied to one, few, or many?
_Erast._--It is so.
[17] _Sokr._--The art or science, whereby men punish evil-doers rightly, is the judicial or justice: and it is by the same that they know the good apart from the bad, either one or many.
If any man be a stranger to this art, so as not to know good men apart from bad, is he not also ignorant of himself, whether he be a good or a bad man?
_Erast._--Yes: he is.
_Sokr._--To be ignorant of yourself, is to be wanting in sobriety or temperance; to know yourself is to be sober or temperate.
But this is the same art as that by which we punish rightly--or justice.
Therefore justice and temperance are the same: and the Delphian rescript, _Know thyself_, does in fact enjoin the practice both of justice and of sobriety.
[18] _Erast._--So it appears.
_Sokr._--Now it is by this same art, when practised by a king, rightly punishing evil-doers, that cities are well governed; it is by the same art practised by a private citizen or house-master, that the house is well-governed: so that this art, justice or sobriety, is at the same time political, regal, economical; and the just and sober man is at once the true king, statesman, house-master.
[19] _Erast._--I admit it.
[Footnote 17: Plato, Erast.
137 C-D.] [Footnote 18: Plato, Erast.
138 A.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Erast.
138 C.] [Side-note: In this art the philosopher must not only be second-best, competent to talk--but he must be a fully qualified practitioner, competent to act.]
_Sokr._--Now let me ask you.
You said that it was discreditable for the philosopher, when in company with a physician or any other craftsman talking about matters of his own craft, not to be able to follow what he said and comment upon it.
Would it not also be discreditable to the philosopher, when listening to any king, judge, or house-master, about professional affairs, not to be able to understand and comment?
_Erast._--Assuredly it would be most discreditable upon matters of such grave moment.
_Sokr._--Shall we say then, that upon these matters also, as well as all others, the philosopher ought to be a Pentathlus or second-rate performer, useless so long as the special craftsman is at hand?
or shall we not rather affirm, that he must not confide his own house to any one else, nor be the second-best within it, but must himself judge and punish rightly, if his house is to be well administered?
_Erast._--That too I admit.
[20] _Sokr._--Farther, if his friends shall entrust to him the arbitration of their disputes,--if the city shall command him to act as Dikast or to settle any difficulty,--in those cases also it will be disgraceful for him to stand second or third, and not to be first-rate?
_Erast._--I think it will be.
_Sokr._--You see then, my friend, philosophy is something very different from much learning and acquaintance with multifarious arts or sciences.
[21] [Footnote 20: Plato, Erast.
138 E. [Greek: Po/teron ou)=n kai\ peri\ tau=ta le/gômen, pe/ntathlon au)to\n dei=n ei)=nai kai\ u(/pakron, ta\ deuterei=a e)/chonta pa/ntôn, to\n philo/sophon, kai\ a)chrei=on ei)=nai, e(/ôs a)\n tou/tôn tis ê)=|?
ê)\ prô=ton me\n tê\n au(tou= oi)ki/an ou)k a)llô| e)pitrepte/on ou)de ta\ deuterei=a e)n tou/tô| e(kte/on, a)ll' au)to\n kolaste/on dika/zonta o)rthô=s, ei) me/llei eu)= oi)kei=sthai au)tou= ê( oi)ki/a?]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Erast.
139 A.
[Greek: Pollou= a)/ra dei= ê(mi=n, ô)= be/ltiste, to\ philosophei=n poluma/theia/ te ei)=nai kai\ ê( peri\ ta\s te/chnas pragmatei/a.]]
[Side-note: Close of the dialogue--humiliation of the literary Erastes.]
Upon my saying this (so Sokrates concludes his recital of the conversation) the literary one of the two rivals was ashamed and held his peace; while the gymnastic rival declared that I was in the right, and the other hearers also commended what I had said.
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks--animated manner of the dialogue.]
The antithesis between the philo-gymnast, hater of philosophy,--and the enthusiastic admirer of philosophy, who nevertheless cannot explain what it is--gives much point and vivacity to this short dialogue.
This last person is exhibited as somewhat presumptuous and confident; thus affording a sort of excuse for the humiliating cross-examination put upon him by Sokrates to the satisfaction of his stupid rival.
Moreover, the dramatic introduction is full of animation, like that of the Charmidês and Lysis.
Besides the animated style of the dialogue, the points raised for discussion in it are of much interest.
The word philosophy has at all times been vague and ambiguous.
Certainly no one before Sokrates--probably no one before Plato--ever sought a definition of it.
In no other Platonic dialogue than this, is the definition of it made a special topic of research.
[Side-note: Definition of philosophy--here sought for the first time--Platonic conception of measure--referee not discovered.]
It is here handled in Plato's negative, elenchtic, tentative, manner.
By some of his contemporaries, philosophy was really considered as equivalent to polymathy, or to much and varied knowledge: so at least Plato represents it as being considered by Hippias the Sophist, contrary to the opinion of Protagoras.
[22] The exception taken by Sokrates to a definition founded on simple quantity, without any standard point of sufficiency by which much or little is to be measured, introduces that governing idea of [Greek: to\ me/trion] (the moderate, that which conforms to a standard measure) upon which Plato insists so much in other more elaborate dialogues.
The conception of a measure, of a standard of measurement--and of conformity thereunto, as the main constituent of what is good and desirable--stands prominent in his mind,[23] though it is not always handled in the same way.
We have seen it, in the Second Alkibiadês, indicated under another name as knowledge of Good or of the Best: without which, knowledge on special matters was declared to be hurtful rather than useful.
[24] Plato considers that this Measure is neither discernible nor applicable except by a specially trained intelligence.
In the Erastæ as elsewhere, such an intelligence is called for in general terms: but when it is asked, Where is the person possessing such intelligence, available in the case of mental training--neither Sokrates nor any one else can point him out.
To suggest a question, and direct attention to it, yet still to leave it unanswered--is a practice familiar with Plato.
In this respect the Erastæ is like other dialogues.
The answer, if any, intended to be understood or divined, is, that such an intelligence is the philosopher himself.
[Footnote 22: Plato, Protag.
318 E. Compare too, the Platonic dialogues, Hippias Major and Minor.]
[Footnote 23: See about [Greek: ê( tou= metri/ou phu/sis] as [Greek: ou)si/a]--as [Greek: o)/ntôs gigno/menon].--Plato, Politikus, 283-284.
Compare also the Philêbus, p. 64 D, and the Protagoras, pp.
356-357, where [Greek: ê( metrêtikê\ te/chnê] is declared to be the principal saviour of life and happiness.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
145-146; supra, ch.
xii.
p.
16.]
[Side-note: View taken of the second-best critical talking man, as compared with the special proficient and practitioner.]
The second explanation of philosophy here given--that the philosopher is one who is second-best in many departments, and a good talker upon all, but inferior to the special master in each--was supposed by Thrasyllus in ancient times to be pointed at Demokritus.
By many Platonic critics, it is referred to those persons whom they single out to be called Sophists.
I conceive it to be applicable (whether intended or not) to the literary men generally of that age, the persons called Sophists included.
That which Perikles expressed by the word, when he claimed the love of wisdom and the love of beauty as characteristic features of the Athenian citizen--referred chiefly to the free and abundant discussion, the necessity felt by every one for talking over every thing before it was done, yet accompanied with full energy in action as soon as the resolution was taken to act.
[25] Speech, ready and pertinent, free conflict of opinion on many different topics--was the manifestation and the measure of knowledge acquired.
Sokrates passed his life in talking, with every one indiscriminately, and upon each man's particular subject; often perplexing the artist himself.
Xenophon recounts conversations with various professional men--a painter, a sculptor, an armourer--and informs us that it was instructive to all of them, though Sokrates was no practitioner in any craft.
[26] It was not merely Demokritus, but Plato and Aristotle also, who talked or wrote upon almost every subject included in contemporary observation.
The voluminous works of Aristotle,--the Timæus, Republic, and Leges, of Plato,--embrace a large variety of subjects, on each of which, severally taken, these two great men were second-best or inferior to some special proficient.
Yet both of them had judgments to give, which it was important to hear, upon all subjects:[27] and both of them could probably talk better upon each than the special proficient himself.
Aristotle, for example, would write better upon rhetoric than Demosthenes--upon tragedy, than Sophokles.
Undoubtedly, if an oration or a tragedy were to be composed--if resolution or action were required on any real state of particular circumstances--the special proficient would be called upon to act: but it would be a mistake to infer from hence, as the Platonic Sokrates intimates in the Erastæ, that the second-best, or theorizing reasoner, was a useless man.
The theoretical and critical point of view, with the command of language apt for explaining and defending it, has a value of its own; distinct from, yet ultimately modifying and improving, the practical.
And such comprehensive survey and comparison of numerous objects, without having the attention exclusively fastened or enslaved to any one of them, deserves to rank high as a variety of intelligence whether it be adopted as the definition of a philosopher, or not.
[Footnote 25: Thucyd.
ii.
39 fin.--40.
[Greek: kai\ e)/n te tou/tois tê\n po/lin a)xi/an ei)=nai thauma/zesthai, kai\ e)/ti e)n a)/llois.
philokalou=men ga\r met' eu)telei/as kai\ philosophou=men a)/neu malaki/as], &c., and the remarkable sequel of the same chapter about the intimate conjunction of abundant speech with energetic action in the Athenian character.]
[Footnote 26: Xen.
Mem.
iii.
10; iii.
11; iii.
12.]
[Footnote 27: The [Greek: pe/ntathlos] or [Greek: u(/pakros] whom Plato criticises in this dialogue, coincides with what Aristotle calls "the man of universal education or culture".--Ethic.
Nikom.
I. i.
1095, a.
1.
[Greek: e(/kastos de\ kri/nei kalô=s a(\ gignô/skei, kai\ tou/tôn e)sti\n a)gatho\s kritê/s; kath' e(/kaston a)/ra, o( pepaideume/nos; a(plô=s de/, o( peri\ pa=n pepaideume/nos.]]
[Side-note: Plato's view--that the philosopher has a province special to himself, distinct from other specialties--dimly indicated--regal or political art.]
Plato undoubtedly did not conceive the definition of the philosopher in the same way as Sokrates.
The close of the Erastæ is employed in opening a distant and dim view of the Platonic conception.
We are given to understand, that the philosopher has a province of his own, wherein he is not second-best, but a first-rate actor and adviser.
To indicate, in many different ways, that there is or must be such a peculiar, appertaining to philosophy--distinct from, though analogous to, the peculiar of each several art--is one leading purpose in many Platonic dialogues.
But what is the peculiar of the philosopher?
Here, as elsewhere, it is marked out in a sort of misty outline, not as by one who already knows and is familiar with it, but as one who is trying to find it without being sure that he has succeeded.
Here, we have it described as the art of discriminating good from evil, governing, and applying penal sanctions rightly.
This is the supreme art or science, of which the philosopher is the professor; and in which, far from requiring advice from others, he is the only person competent both to advise and to act: the art which exercises control over all other special arts, directing how far, and on what occasions, each of them comes into appliance.
It is philosophy, looked at in one of its two aspects: not as a body of speculative truth, to be debated, proved, and discriminated from what cannot be proved or can be disproved--but as a critical judgment bearing on actual life, prescribing rules or giving directions in particular cases, with a view to the attainment of foreknown ends, recognised as _expetenda_.
[28] This is what Plato understands by the measuring or calculating art, the regal or political art, according as we use the language of the Protagoras, Politikus, Euthydêmus, Republic.
Both justice and sobriety are branches of this art; and the distinction between the two loses its importance when the art is considered as a whole--as we find both in the Erastæ and in the Republic.
[29] [Footnote 28: The difference between the second explanation of philosophy and the third explanation, suggested in the Erastæ, will be found to coincide pretty nearly with the distinction which Aristotle takes much pains to draw between [Greek: sophi/a] and [Greek: phro/nêsis].--Ethic.
Nikomach.
vi.
5, pp.
1140-1141; also Ethic.
Magn.
i. pp.
1197-1198.]
[Footnote 29: See Republic, iv.
433 A; Gorgias, 526 C; Charmidês 164 B; and Heindorf's note on the passage in the Charmidês.]
[Side-note: Philosopher--the supreme artist controlling other artists.]
Here, in the Erastæ, this conception of the philosopher as the supreme artist controlling all other artists, is darkly indicated and crudely sketched.
We shall find the same conception more elaborately illustrated in other dialogues; yet never passing out of that state.
* * * * * APPENDIX.
This is one of the dialogues declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, and Stallbaum, all of them critics of the present century.
In my judgment, their grounds for such declaration are altogether inconclusive.
They think the dialogue an inferior composition, unworthy of Plato; and they accordingly find reasons, more or less ingenious, for relieving Plato from the discredit of it.
I do not think so meanly of the dialogue as they do; but even if I did, I should not pronounce it to be spurious, without some evidence bearing upon that special question.
No such evidence, of any value, is produced.
It is indeed contended, on the authority of a passage in Diogenes (ix.
37), that Thrasyllus himself doubted of the authenticity of the Erastæ.
The passage is as follows, in his life of Demokritus--[Greek: ei)/per oi( A)nterastai\ Pla/tôno/s ei)si, phêsi\ Thra/sullos, ou(=tos a)\n ei)/ê o( parageno/menos a)nô/numos, tô=n peri\ Oi)nopi/dên kai\ A)naxago/ran e(/teros, e)n tê=| pro\s Sôkra/tên o(mili/a| dialego/menos peri\ philosophi/as; ô(=|, phêsi/n, ô(s penta/thlô| e)/oiken o( philo/sophos; kai\ ê)=n ô(s a)lêthô=s e)n philosophi/a| pe/ntathlos] (Demokritus).
Now in the first place, Schleiermacher and Stallbaum both declare that Thrasyllus can never have said that which Diogenes here makes him say (Schleierm.
p. 510; Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad.
Erast.
p. 266, and not.
p. 273).
Next, it is certain that Thrasyllus did consider it the undoubted work of Plato, for he enrolled it in his classification, as the third dialogue in the fourth tetralogy (Diog.
L. iii.
59).
Yxem, who defends the genuineness of the Erastæ (Ueber Platon's Kleitophon, pp.
6-7, Berlin, 1846), insists very properly on this point; not merely as an important fact in itself, but as determining the sense of the words [Greek: ei)/per oi( A)nterastai\ Pla/tôno/s ei)si], and as showing that the words rather affirm, than deny, the authenticity of the dialogue.
"If the Anterastæ are the work of Plato, _as they are universally admitted to be_."
You must supply the parenthesis in this way, in order to make Thrasyllus consistent with himself.
Yxem cites a passage from Galen, in which [Greek: ei)/per] is used, and in which the parenthesis must be supplied in the way indicated: no doubt at all being meant to be hinted.
And I will produce another passage out of Diogenes himself, where [Greek: ei)/per] is used in the same way; not as intended to convey the smallest doubt, but merely introducing the premiss for a conclusion immediately following.
Diogenes says, respecting the Platonic Ideas, [Greek: ei)/per e)sti\ mnê/mê, ta\s i)de/as e)n toi=s ou)=sin u(pa/rchein] (iii.
15).
He does not intend to suggest any doubt whether there be such a fact as memory.
[Greek: Ei)/per] is sometimes the equivalent of [Greek: e)peidê/per]: as we learn from Hermann ad Viger.
VIII.
6, p. 512.
There is therefore no fair ground for supposing that Thrasyllus doubted the genuineness of the Erastæ.
And when I read what modern critics say in support of their verdict of condemnation, I feel the more authorised in dissenting from it.
I will cite a passage or two from Stallbaum.
Stallbaum begins his Prolegomena as follows, pp.
205-206: "Quanquam hic libellus genus dicendi habet purum, castum, elegans, nihil ut inveniri queat quod à Platonis aut Xenophontis elegantiâ, abhorreat--tamen quin à Boeckhio, Schleiermachero, Astio, Sochero, Knebelio, aliis jure meritoque pro suppositicio habitus sit, haudquaquam dubitamus.
Est enim materia operis adeo non ad Platonis mentem rationemque elaborata, ut potius cuivis alii Socraticorum quam huic rectè adscribi posse videatur."
After stating that the Erastæ may be divided into two principal sections, Stallbaum proceeds:--"Neutra harum partium ita tractata est, ut nihil desideretur, quod ad justam argumenti explicationem merito requiras--nihil inculcatum reperiatur, quod vel alio modo illustratum vel omnino omissum esse cupias".
I call attention to this sentence as a fair specimen of the grounds upon which the Platonic critics proceed when they strike dialogues out of the Platonic Canon.
If there be anything wanting in it which is required for what they consider a proper setting forth of the argument--if there be anything which they would desire to see omitted or otherwise illustrated--this is with them a reason for deciding that it is not Plato's work.
That is, if there be any defects in it of any kind, it cannot be admitted as Plato's work;--_his genuine works have no defects_.
I protest altogether against this _ratio decidendi_.
If I acknowledged it and applied it consistently I should strike out every dialogue in the Canon.
Certainly, the presumption in favour of the Catalogue of Thrasyllus must be counted as _nil_, if it will not outweigh such feeble counter-arguments as these.
One reason given by Stallbaum for considering the Erastæ as spurious is, that the Sophists are not derided in it.
"Quis est igitur, qui Platonem sibi persuadeat illos non fuisse castigaturum, et omnino non significaturum, quinam illi essent, adversus quos hanc disputationem instituisset?"
It is strange to be called on by learned men to strike out all dialogues from the Canon in which there is no derision of the Sophists.
Such derision exists already in excess: we hear until we are tired how mean it is to receive money for lecturing.
Again, Stallbaum says that the persons whose opinions are here attacked are not specified by name.
But who are the [Greek: ei)dô=n phi/loi], attacked in the Sophistês?
They are not specified by name, and critics differ as to the persons intended.
CHAPTER XVII.
ION.
[Side-note: Ion.
Persons of the dialogue.
Difference of opinion among modern critics as to its genuineness.]
The dialogue called Ion is carried on between Sokrates and the Ephesian rhapsode Ion.
It is among those disallowed by Ast, first faintly defended, afterwards disallowed, by Schleiermacher,[1] and treated contemptuously by both.
Subsequent critics, Hermann,[2] Stallbaum, Steinhart, consider it as genuine, yet as an inferior production, of little worth, and belonging to Plato's earliest years.
[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher, Einleit.
zum Ion, p. 261-266; Ast, Leben und Schriften des Platon, p.
406.]
[Footnote 2: K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
und Syst.
der Plat.
Phil.
pp.
437-438; Steinhart, Einleitung, p.
15.]
[Side-note: Rhapsodes as a class in Greece.
They competed for prizes at the festivals.
Ion has been triumphant.]
I hold it to be genuine, and it may be comparatively early; but I see no ground for the disparaging criticism which has often been applied to it.
The personage whom it introduces to us as subjected to the cross-examination of Sokrates is a rhapsode of celebrity; one among a class of artists at that time both useful and esteemed.
They recited or sang,[3] with appropriate accent and gesture, the compositions of Homer and of other epic poets: thus serving to the Grecian epic, the same purpose as the actors served to the dramatic, and the harp-singers ([Greek: kitharô|doi\]) to the lyric.
There were various solemn festivals such as that of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, and (most especially) the Panathenæa at Athens, where prizes were awarded for the competition of the rhapsodes.
Ion is described as having competed triumphantly in the festival at Epidaurus, and carried off the first prize.
He appeared there in a splendid costume, crowned with a golden wreath, amidst a crowd which is described as containing more than 20,000 persons.
[4] [Footnote 3: The word [Greek: a)/|dein] is in this very dialogue (532 D, 535 A) applied to the rhapsoding of Ion.]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Ion, 535 D.] [Side-note: Functions of the Rhapsodes.
Recitation--Exposition of the poets.
Arbitrary exposition of the poets was then frequent.]
Much of the acquaintance of cultivated Greeks with Homer and the other epic poets was both acquired and maintained through such rhapsodes; the best of whom contended at the festivals, while others, less highly gifted as to vocal power and gesticulation, gave separate declamations and lectures of their own, and even private lessons to individuals.
[5] Euthydêmus, in one of the Xenophontic conversations with Sokrates, and Antisthenes in the Xenophontic Symposion, are made to declare that the rhapsodes as a class were extremely silly.
This, if true at all, can apply only to the expositions and comments with which they accompanied their recital of Homer and other poets.
Moreover we cannot reasonably set it down (though some modern critics do so) as so much incontestable truth: we must consider it as an opinion delivered by one of the speakers in the conversation, but not necessarily well founded.
[6] Unquestionably, the comments made upon Homer (both in that age and afterwards) were often fanciful and misleading.
Metrodorus, Anaxagoras, and others, resolved the Homeric narrative into various allegories, physical, ethical, and theological: and most men who had an opinion to defend, rejoiced to be able to support or enforce it by some passages of Homer, well or ill-explained--just as texts of the Bible are quoted in modern times.
In this manner, Homer was pressed into the service of every disputant; and the Homeric poems were presented as containing, or at least as implying, doctrines quite foreign to the age in which they were composed.
[7] [Footnote 5: Xen.
Sympos.
iii.
6.
Nikêratus says that he heard the rhapsodes nearly every day.
He professes to be able to repeat both the Iliad and the Odyssey from memory.]
[Footnote 6: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
2, 10; Sympos.
iii.
6; Plato, Ion, 530 E. Steinhart cites this judgment about the rhapsodes as if it had been pronounced by the Xenophontic Sokrates himself, which is not the fact (Steinhart, Einleitung p.
3).]
[Footnote 7: Diogenes Laert.
ii.
11; Nitzsch, Die Heldensage des Griechen, pp.
74-78; Lobeck, Agloaphamus, p. 157.
Seneca, Epistol.
88: "modo Stoicum Homerum faciunt--modo Epicureum .
.
.
modo Peripateticum, tria genera bonorum inducentem: modo Academicum, incerta omnia dicentem.
Apparet nihil horum esse in illo, cui omnia insunt: ista enim inter se dissident."]
[Side-note: The popularity of the Rhapsodes was chiefly derived from their recitation.
Powerful effect which they produced.]
The Rhapsodes, in so far as they interpreted Homer, were probably not less disposed than others to discover in him their own fancies.
But the character in which they acquired most popularity, was, not as expositors, but as reciters, of the poems.
The powerful emotion which, in the process of reciting, they both felt themselves and communicated to their auditors, is declared in this dialogue: "When that which I recite is pathetic (says Ion), my eyes are filled with tears: when it is awful or terrible, my hair stands on end, and my heart leaps.
Moreover I see the spectators also weeping, sympathising with my emotions, and looking aghast at what they hear.
"[8] This assertion of the vehement emotional effect produced by the words of the poet as declaimed or sung by the rhapsode, deserves all the more credit--because Plato himself, far from looking upon it favourably, either derides or disapproves it.
Accepting it as a matter of fact, we see that the influence of rhapsodes, among auditors generally, must have been derived more from their efficacy as actors than from their ability as expositors.
[Footnote 8: Plato, Ion, 535 C-E.
The description here given is the more interesting because it is the only intimation remaining of the strong effect produced by these rhapsodic representations.]
[Side-note: Ion both reciter and expositor--Homer was considered more as an instructor than as a poet.]
Ion however is described in this dialogue as combining the two functions of reciter and expositor: a partnership like that of Garrick and Johnson, in regard to Shakspeare.
It is in the last of the two functions, that Sokrates here examines him: considering Homer, not as a poet appealing to the emotions of hearers, but as a teacher administering lessons and imparting instruction.
Such was the view of Homer entertained by a large proportion of the Hellenic world.
In that capacity, his poems served as a theme for rhapsodes, as well as for various philosophers and Sophists who were not rhapsodes, nor accomplished reciters.
[Side-note: Plato disregards and disapproves the poetic or emotional working.]
The reader must keep in mind, in following the questions put by Sokrates, that this pædagogic and edifying view of Homer is the only one present to the men of the Sokratic school--and especially to Plato.
Of the genuine functions of the gifted poet, who touches the chords of strong and diversified emotion--"qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet" (Horat.
Epist.
II.
1, 212)--Plato takes no account: or rather, he declares open war against them, either as childish delusions[9], or as mischievous stimulants, tending to exalt the unruly elements of the mind, and to overthrow the sovereign authority of reason.
We shall find farther manifestations on this point in the Republic and Leges.
[Footnote 9: The question of Sokrates (Ion, 535 D), about the emotion produced in the hearers by the recital of Homer's poetry, bears out what is here asserted.]
[Side-note: Ion devoted himself to Homer exclusively.
Questions of Sokrates to him--How happens it that you cannot talk equally upon other poets?
The poetic art is one.]
Ion professes to have devoted himself to the study of Homer exclusively, neglecting other poets: so that he can interpret the thoughts, and furnish reflections upon them, better than any other expositor.
[10] How does it happen (asked Sokrates) that you have so much to say about Homer, and nothing at all about other poets?
Homer may be the best of all poets: but he is still only one of those who exercise the poetic art, and he must necessarily talk about the same subjects as other poets.
Now the art of poetry is _One_ altogether--like that of painting, sculpture, playing on the flute, playing on the harp, rhapsodizing, &c.[11] Whoever is competent to judge and explain one artist,--what he has done well and what he has done ill,--is competent also to judge any other artist in the same profession.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Ion, 536 E.] [Footnote 11: Plato, Ion, 531 A, 532 C-D. [Greek: poiêtikê\ pou/ e)sti to\ o(/lon.
.
.
Ou)kou=n e)peida\n la/bê| tis kai\ a)/llên te/chnên ê(ntinou=n o(/lên, o( au)to\s tro/pos tê=s ske/pseô/s e)sti peri\ a(pasô=n tô=n technô=n?]
533 A.]
I cannot explain to you how it happens (replies Ion): I only know the fact incontestably--that when I talk about Homer, my thoughts flow abundantly, and every one tells me that my discourse is excellent.
Quite the reverse, when I talk of any other poet.
[12] [Footnote 12: Plato, Ion, 533 C.] [Side-note: Explanation given by Sokrates.
Both the Rhapsode and the Poet work, not by art and system, but by divine inspiration.
Fine poets are bereft of their reason, and possessed by inspiration from some God.]
_I_ can explain it (says Sokrates).
Your talent in expounding Homer is not an art, acquired by system and method--otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides.
It is a special gift, imparted to you by divine power and inspiration.
The like is true of the poet whom you expound.
His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses.
[13] A poet is a light, airy, holy, person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him.
[14] The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse, either towards epic, dithyramb, encomiastic hymns, hyporchemata, &c., one or other of these.
Each poet receives one of these special gifts, but is incompetent for any of the others: whereas, if their ability had been methodical or artistic, it would have displayed itself in all of them alike.
Like prophets, and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become servants of the Gods.
[15] It is not _they_ who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains: it is the God who speaks to us, and speaks through them.
You may see this by Tynnichus of Chalkis; who composed his Pæan, the finest of all Pæans, which is in every one's mouth, telling us himself, that it was the invention of the Muses--but who never composed anything else worth hearing.
It is through this worthless poet that the God has sung the most sublime hymn:[16] for the express purpose of showing us that these fine compositions are not human performances at all, but divine: and that the poet is only an interpreter of the Gods, possessed by one or other of them, as the case may be.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Ion, 533 E--534 A.
[Greek: pa/ntes ga\r oi(/ te tô=n e)pô=n poiêtai\ oi( a)gathoi\ ou)k e)k te/chnês a)ll' e)/ntheoi o)/ntes kai\ katecho/menoi pa/nta tau=ta ta\ kala\ le/gousi poiê/mata, kai\ oi( melopoioi\ oi( a)gathoi\ ô(sau/tôs; ô(/sper oi( korubantintiô=tes ou)k e)/mphrones o)/ntes o)rchou=ntai, ou(/tô kai\ oi(] melopoioi\ ou)k e)/mphrones o)/ntes ta\ kala\ me/lê tau=ta poiou=sin], &c.]] [Footnote 14: Plato, Ion, 534 B.
[Greek: kou=phon ga\r chrê=ma poiêtê/s e)sti kai\ ptêno\n kai\ i(ero/n, kai\ ou) pro/teron oi(=o/s te poiei=n pri\n a)\n e)/ntheo/s te ge/nêtai kai\ e)/kphrôn kai\ o( nou=s mêke/ti e)n au)tô=| e)nê=|; e(/ôs d' a)\n touti\ e)/chê| to\ ktê=ma, a)du/natos pa=s poiei=n e)stin a)/nthrôpos kai\ chrêsmô|dei=n.]]
[Footnote 15: Plato.
Ion, 534 C-D. [Greek: dia\ tau=ta de\ o( theo\s e)xairou/menos tou/tôn to\n nou=n tou/tois chrê=tai u(pêre/tais kai\ toi=s chrêsmô|doi=s kai\ toi=s ma/ntesi toi=s thei/ois, i(/na ê(mei=s oi( a)kou/ontes ei)dô=men, o(/ti ou)ch ou(=toi/ ei)sin oi( tau=ta le/gontes ou(/tô pollou= a)/xia, a)ll' o( theo\s au)to/s e)stin o( le/gôn, dia\ tou/tôn de\ phthe/ggetai pro\s ê(ma=s.]]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Ion.
534 E. [Greek: tau=ta e)ndeiknu/menos o( theo\s e)xepi/têdes dia\ tou= phaulota/tou poiêtou= to\ ka/lliston me/los ê)=|sen.]]
[Side-note: Analogy of the Magnet, which holds up by attraction successive stages of iron rings.
The Gods first inspire Homer, then act through him and through Ion upon the auditors.]
Homer is thus (continues Sokrates) not a man of art or reason, but the interpreter of the Gods; deprived of his reason, but possessed, inspired, by them.
You, Ion, are the interpreter of Homer: and the divine inspiration, carrying away your reason, is exercised over you through him.
It is in this way that the influence of the Magnet is shown, attracting and holding up successive stages of iron rings.
[17] The first ring is in contact with the Magnet itself: the second is suspended to the first, the third to the second, and so on.
The attractive influence of the Magnet is thus transmitted through a succession of different rings, so as to keep suspended several which are a good way removed from itself.
So the influence of the Gods is exerted directly and immediately upon Homer: through him, it passes by a second stage to you: through him and you, it passes by a third stage to those auditors whom you so powerfully affect and delight, becoming however comparatively enfeebled at each stage of transition.
[Footnote 17: Plato, Ion, 533 D-E.] [Side-note: This comparison forms the central point of the dialogue.
It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates in the Apology.]
The passage and comparison here given by Sokrates--remarkable as an early description of the working of the Magnet--forms the central point or kernel of the dialogue called Ion.
It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates himself in his Apology to the Dikasts, and it is repeated in more than one place by Plato.
[18] Sokrates declares in his Apology that he had applied his testing cross-examination to several excellent poets; and that finding them unable to give any rational account of their own compositions, he concluded that they composed without any wisdom of their own, under the same inspiration as prophets and declarers of oracles.
In the dialogue before us, this thought is strikingly illustrated and amplified.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 22 D; Plato, Menon, p. 99 D.] [Side-note: Platonic Antithesis: systematic procedure distinguished from unsystematic: which latter was either blind routine, or madness inspired by the Gods.
Varieties of madness, good and bad.]
The contrast between systematic, professional, procedure, deliberately taught and consciously acquired, capable of being defended at every step by appeal to intelligible rules founded upon scientific theory, and enabling the person so qualified to impart his qualification to others--and a different procedure purely impulsive and unthinking, whereby the agent, having in his mind a conception of the end aimed at, proceeds from one intermediate step to another, without knowing why he does so or how he has come to do so, and without being able to explain his practice if questioned or to impart it to others--this contrast is a favourite one with Plato.
The last-mentioned procedure--the unphilosophical or irrational--he conceives under different aspects: sometimes as a blind routine or insensibly acquired habit,[19] sometimes as a stimulus applied from without by some God, superseding the reason of the individual.
Such a condition Plato calls _madness_, and he considers those under it as persons out of their senses.
But he recognises different varieties of madness, according to the God from whom it came: the bad madness was a disastrous visitation and distemper--the good madness was a privilege and blessing, an inspiration superior to human reason.
Among these privileged madmen he reckoned prophets and poets; another variety under the same genus, is, that mental love, between a well-trained adult, and a beautiful, intelligent, youth, which he regards as the most exalted of all human emotions.
[20] In the Ion, this idea of a privileged madness--inspiration from the Gods superseding reason--is applied not only to the poet, but also to the rhapsode who recites the poem, and even to the auditors whom he addresses.
The poet receives the inspiration directly from the Gods: he inoculates the rhapsode with it, who again inoculates the auditors--the fervour is, at each successive communication, diminished.
The auditor represents the last of the rings; held in suspension, through the intermediate agency of other rings, by the inherent force of the magnet.
[21] [Footnote 19: Plato, Phædon, 82 A; Gorgias, 463 A, 486 A.]
[Footnote 20: This doctrine is set forth at length by Sokrates in the Platonic Phædrus, in the second discourse of Sokrates about Eros, pp.
244-245-249 D.] [Footnote 21: Plato, Ion, 535 E. [Greek: ou(=to/s e)stin o( theatê\s tô=n daktuli/ôn o( e)/schatos .
.
.
.
o( de\ me/sos su\ o( r(apsô|do\s kai\ u(pokritê\s, o( de\ prô=tos, au)to\s o( poiêtê/s.]]
[Side-note: Special inspiration from the Gods was a familiar fact in Grecian life.
Privileged communications from the Gods to Sokrates--his firm belief in them.]
We must remember, that privileged communications from the Gods to men, and special persons recipient thereof, were acknowledged and witnessed everywhere as a constant phenomenon of Grecian life.
There were not only numerous oracular temples, which every one could visit to ask questions in matters of doubt--but also favoured persons who had received from the Gods the gift of predicting the future, of interpreting omens, of determining the good or bad indications furnished by animals sacrificed.
[22] In every town or village--or wherever any body of men were assembled--there were always persons who prophesied or delivered oracles, and to whom special revelations were believed to be vouchsafed, during periods of anxiety.
No one was more familiar with this fact than the Sokratic disciples: for Sokrates himself had perhaps a greater number of special communications from the Gods than any man of his age: his divine sign having begun when he was a child, and continuing to move him frequently, even upon small matters, until his death: though the revelations were for the most part negative, not affirmative--telling him often what was not to be done--seldom what was to be done--resembling in this respect his own dialogues with other persons.
Moreover Sokrates inculcated upon his friends emphatically, that they ought to have constant recourse to prophecy: that none but impious men neglected to do so: that the benevolence of the Gods was nowhere more conspicuous than in their furnishing such special revelations and warnings, to persons whom they favoured: that the Gods administered the affairs of the world partly upon principles of regular sequence, so that men by diligent study might learn what they were to expect,--but partly also, and by design, in a manner irregular and undecypherable, such that it could not be fathomed by any human study, and could not be understood except through direct and special revelation from themselves.
[23] [Footnote 22: Not only the [Greek: chrêsmolo/goi, ma/nteis] oracular temples, &c., are often mentioned in Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, &c., but Aristotle also recognises [Greek: oi( numpho/lêptoi kai\ theo/lêptoi tô=n a)nthrô/pôn, e)pipnoi/a| daimoni/ou tino\s ô(/sper e)nthousia/zontes], as a real and known class of persons.
See Ethic.
Eudem.
i. p. 1214, a.
23; Ethic.
Magna, ii.
p. 1207, b.
8.
The [Greek: ma/ntis] is a recognised profession, the gift of Apollo, not merely according to Homer, but according to Solon (Frag.
xi.
52, Schn.
): [Greek: A)/llon ma/ntin e)/thêken a)/nax e(ka/ergos A)po/llôn, e)/gnô d' a)ndri\ kako\n têlo/then e)rcho/menon], &c.] [Footnote 23: These views of Sokrates are declared in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, i.
1, 6-10; i.
4, 2-18; iv.
3, 12.
It is plain from Xenophon (Mem.
i.
1, 3) that many persons were offended with Sokrates because they believed,--or at least because he affirmed--that he received more numerous and special revelations from the Gods than any one else.]
[Side-note: Condition of the inspired person--his reason is for the time withdrawn.]
Here, as well as elsewhere, Plato places inspiration, both of the prophet and the poet, in marked contrast with reason and intelligence.
Reason is supposed to be for the time withdrawn or abolished, and inspiration is introduced by the Gods into its place.
"When Monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes."
The person inspired (prophet or poet) becomes for the time the organ of an extraneous agency, speaking what he neither originates nor understands.
The genuine gift of prophecy[24] (Plato says) attaches only to a disabled, enfeebled, distempered, condition of the intelligence; the gift of poetry is conferred by the Gods upon the most inferior men, as we see by the case of Tynnichus--whose sublime pæan shows us, that it is the Gods alone who utter fine poetry through the organs of a person himself thoroughly incompetent.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Timæus, 71 E. [Greek: i(kano\n de\ sêmei=on ô(s mantikê\n a)phrosu/nê| theo\s a)nthrôpi/nê| de/dôken; ou)dei\s ga\r e)/nnous e)pha/ptetai mantikê=s e)nthe/ou kai\ a)lêthou=s, a)ll' ê)\ kath' u(/pnon tê\n tê=s phronê/seôs pedêthei\s du/namin, ê)\ dia\ no/son ê)/ tina e)nthousiasmo\n paralla/xas.]
Compare Plato, Menon, pp.
99-100.
[Greek: oi( chrêsmô|doi/ te kai\ oi( theoma/nteis .
.
.
.
le/gousi me\n a)lêthê= kai\ polla\ i)/sasi de\ ou)de\n ô(=n le/gousi.]
Compare Plato, Legg.
iv.
719.]
[Side-note: Ion does not admit himself to be inspired and out of his mind.]
It is thus that Plato, setting before himself a process of systematised reason,--originating in a superior intellect, laying down universal principles and deducing consequences from them--capable of being consistently applied, designedly taught, and defended against objections--enumerates the various mental conditions opposed to it, and ranks inspiration as one of them.
In this dialogue, Sokrates seeks to prove that the success of Ion as a rhapsode depends upon his being out of his mind or inspired.
But Ion does not accept the compliment: _Ion._--You speak well, Sokrates; but I should be surprised if you spoke well enough to create in me the new conviction, that I am possessed and mad when I eulogize Homer.
I do not think that you would even yourself say so, if you heard me discourse on the subject.
[25] [Footnote 25: Plato, Ion, 536 E.] [Side-note: Homer talks upon all subjects--Is Ion competent to explain what Homer says upon all of them?
Rhapsodic art.
What is its province?]
_Sokr._--But Homer talks upon all subjects.
Upon which of them can you discourse?
_Ion._--Upon all.
_Sokr._--Not surely on such as belong to special arts, professions.
Each portion of the matter of knowledge is included under some special art, and is known through that art by those who possess it.
Thus, you and I, both of us, know the number of our fingers; we know it through the same art, which both of us possess--the arithmetical.
But Homer talks of matters belonging to many different arts or occupations, that of the physician, the charioteer, the fisherman, &c. You cannot know these; since you do not belong to any of these professions, but are a rhapsode.
Describe to me what are the matters included in the rhapsodic art.
The rhapsodic art is one art by itself, distinct from the medical and others: it cannot know every thing; tell me what matters come under its special province.
[26] _Ion._--The rhapsodic art does not know what belongs to any one of the other special arts: but that of which it takes cognizance, and that which I know, is, what is becoming and suitable to each variety of character described by Homer: to a man or woman--to a freeman or slave--to the commander who gives orders or to the subordinate who obeys them, &c. This is what belongs to the peculiar province of the rhapsode to appreciate and understand.
[27] _Sokr._--Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for the commander of a ship to say to his seamen, during a dangerous storm, better than the pilot?
Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for one who gives directions about the treatment of a sick man, better than the physician?
Will the rhapsode know what is suitable to be said by the herdsman when the cattle are savage and distracted, or to the female slaves when busy in spinning?
_Ion._--No: the rhapsode will not know these things so well as the pilot, the physician, the grazier, the mistress, &c.[28] _Sokr._--Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for the military commander to say, when he is exhorting his soldiers?
_Ion._--Yes: the rhapsode will know this well: at least I know it well.
[Footnote 26: Plato, Ion, 538-539.]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Ion, 540 A.
[Greek: a)\ tô=| r(apsô|dô=| prosê/kei kai\ skopei=sthai kai\ diakri/nein para\ tou\s a)/llous a)nthrô/pous], 539 E.] [Footnote 28: Plato, Ion, 540 B-C.] [Side-note: The Rhapsode does not know special matters, such as the craft of the pilot, physician, farmer, &c., but he knows the business of the general, and is competent to command soldiers, having learnt it from Homer.]
_Sokr._--Perhaps, Ion, you are not merely a rhapsode, but possess also the competence for being a general.
If you know matters belonging to military command, do you know them in your capacity of general, or in your capacity of rhapsode?
_Ion._--I think there is no difference.
_Sokr._--How say you?
Do you affirm that the rhapsodic art, and the strategic art, are one?
_Ion._--I think they are one.
_Sokr._--Then whosoever is a good rhapsode, is also a good general?
_Ion._--Unquestionably.
_Sokr._--And of course, whoever is a good general, is also a good rhapsode?
_Ion._--No: I do not think that.
_Sokr._--But you do maintain, that whosoever is a good rhapsode, is also a good general?
_Ion._--Decidedly.
_Sokr._--You are yourself the best rhapsode in Greece?
_Ion._--By far.
_Sokr._--Are you then also the best general in Greece?
_Ion._--Certainly I am, Sokrates: and that too, by having learnt it from Homer.
[29] [Footnote 29: Plato, Ion, 540 D--541 B.]
After putting a question or two, not very forcible, to ask how it happens that Ion, being an excellent general, does not obtain a military appointment from Athens, Sparta, or some other city, Sokrates winds up the dialogue as follows:-[Side-note: Conclusion.
Ion expounds Homer, not with any knowledge of what he says, but by divine inspiration.]
Well, Ion, if it be really true that you possess a rational and intelligent competence to illustrate the beauties of Homer, you wrong and deceive me, because after promising to deliver to me a fine discourse about Homer, you will not even comply with my preliminary entreaty--that you will first tell me what those matters are, on which your superiority bears.
You twist every way like Proteus, until at last you slip through my fingers and appear as a general.
If your powers of expounding Homer depend on art and intelligence, you are a wrong-doer and deceiver, for not fulfilling** your promise to me.
But you are not chargeable with wrong, if the fact be as I say; that is, if you know nothing about Homer, but are only able to discourse upon him finely and abundantly, through a divine inspiration with which you are possessed by him.
Choose whether you wish me to regard you as a promise-breaker, or as a divine man.
_Ion._--I choose the last: it is much better to be regarded as a divine man.
[30] [Footnote 30: Plato, Ion, 541 E--542 A.
[Greek: ei) me\n a)lêthê/ le/geis, ô(s te/chnê| kai\ e)pistê/mê| oi(=o/s te ei)= O(/mêrou e)painei=n, a)dikei=s .
.
.
ei) de\ mê\ techniko\s ei)=, a)lla\ thei/a| moi/ra| katecho/menos e)x O(mê/rou mêde\n ei)dô\s polla\ kai\ kala\ le/geis peri\ tou= poiêtou=, ô(/sper e)gô\ ei)=pon peri\ sou=, ou)de\n a)dikei=s; e(lou= ou)=n, po/tera bou/lei nomi/zesthai u(ph' ê(mô=n a)/dikos a)nê\r ei)=nai ê)\ thei=os.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: The generals in Greece usually possessed no professional experience--Homer and the poets were talked of as the great teachers--Plato's view of the poet, as pretending to know everything, but really knowing nothing.]
It seems strange to read such language put into Ion's mouth (we are not warranted in regarding it as what any rhapsode ever did say), as the affirmation--that every good rhapsode was also a good general, and that he had become the best of generals simply through complete acquaintance with Homer.
But this is only a caricature of a sentiment largely prevalent at Athens, according to which the works of the poets, especially the Homeric poems, were supposed to be a mine of varied instruction, and were taught as such to youth.
[31] In Greece, the general was not often required (except at Sparta, and not always even there) to possess professional experience.
[32] Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic conversations, tries to persuade Nikomachides, a practised soldier (who had failed in getting himself elected general, because a successful Chorêgus had been preferred to him), how much the qualities of an effective Chorêgus coincided with those of an effective general.
[33] The poet Sophokles was named by the Athenians one of the generals of the very important armament for reconquering Samos: though Perikles, one of his colleagues, as well as his contemporary declared that he was an excellent poet, but knew nothing of generalship.
[34] Plato frequently seeks to make it evident how little the qualities required for governing numbers, either civil or military, were made matter of professional study or special teaching.
The picture of Homer conveyed in the tenth book of the Platonic Republic is, that of a man who pretends to know everything, but really knows nothing: an imitative artist, removed by two stages from truth and reality,--who gives the shadows of shadows, resembling only enough to satisfy an ignorant crowd.
This is the picture there presented of poets generally, and of Homer as the best among them.
The rhapsode Ion is here brought under the same category as the poet Homer, whom he has by heart and recites.
The whole field of knowledge is assumed to be distributed among various specialties, not one of which either of the two can claim.
Accordingly, both of them under the mask of universal knowledge, conceal the reality of universal ignorance.
[Footnote 31: Aristophan.
Ranæ, 1032.
[Greek: O)rpheu\s me\n ga\r teleta/s th' ê(mi=n kate/deixe pho/nôn t' a)pe/chesthai Mousai=os d' e)xake/seis te no/sôn kai\ chrêsmou/s, Ê(si/odos de\ Gê=s e)rgasi/as, karpô=n ô(/ras, a)ro/tous; o( de\ thei=os O(/mêros A)po\ tou= timê\n kai\ kle/os e)/schein, plê\n tou=d', o(/ti chrê/st' e)di/daxe.
Ta/xeis, a)reta/s, o(pli/seis a)ndrô=n?
.
.
.
.
A)ll' a)/llous toi pollou\s a)gathou\s (e)di/daxen), ô(=n ê)=n kai\ La/machos ê(/rôs.]
See these views combated by Plato, Republ.
x.
599-600-606 E. The exaggerated pretension here ascribed to Ion makes him look contemptible--like the sentiment ascribed to him, 535 E, "If I make the auditors weep, I myself shall laugh and pocket money," &c.] [Footnote 32: Xenoph.
Memor.
iii.
5, 21, in the conversation between the younger Perikles and Sokrates--[Greek: tô=n de\ stratêgô=n oi( plei=stoi au)toschedia/zousin.]
Also iii.
5, 24.
Compare, respecting the generals, the striking lines of Euripides, Androm.
698, and the encomium of Cicero (Academ.
Prior.
2, 1) respecting the quickness and facility with which Lucullus made himself an excellent general.]
[Footnote 33: Xen.
Mem.
iii.
4, especially iii.
4, 6, where Nikomachides asks with surprise, [Greek: le/geis su/, ô)= Sô/krates, ô(s tou= au)tou= a)ndro/s e)sti chorêgei=n te kalô=s kai\ stratêgei=n?]]
[Footnote 34: See the very curious extract from the contemporary Ion of Chios, in Athenæus, xiii.
604.
Aristophanes of Byzantium says that the appointment of Sophokles to this military function arose from the extra-ordinary popularity of his tragedy Antigonê, exhibited a little time before.
See Boeckh's valuable 'Dissertation on the Antigonê,' appended to his edition thereof, pp.
121-124.]
[Side-note: Knowledge, opposed to divine inspiration without knowledge.]
Ion is willing enough (as he promises) to exhibit before Sokrates one of his eloquent discourses upon Homer.
But Sokrates never permits him to arrive at it: arresting him always by preliminary questions, and requiring him to furnish an intelligible description of the matter which his discourse is intended to embrace, and thus to distinguish it from other matters left untouched.
A man who cannot comply with this requisition,--who cannot (to repeat what I said in a previous chapter) stand a Sokratic cross-examination on the subject--possesses no rational intelligence of his own proceedings: no art, science, knowledge, system, or method.
If as a practitioner he executes well what he promises (which is often the case), and attains success--he does so either by blind imitation of some master, or else under the stimulus and guidance of some agency foreign to himself--of the Gods or Fortune.
This is the Platonic point of view; developed in several different ways and different dialogues, but hardly anywhere more conspicuously than in the Ion.
[Side-note: Illustration of Plato's opinion respecting the uselessness of written geometrical treatises.]
I have observed that in this dialogue, Ion is anxious to embark on his eloquent expository discourse, but Sokrates will not allow him to begin: requiring as a preliminary stage that certain preliminary difficulties shall first be cleared up.
Here we have an illustration of Plato's doctrine, to which I adverted in a former chapter,[35]--that no written geometrical treatise could impart a knowledge of geometry to one ignorant thereof.
The geometrical writer begins by laying down a string of definitions and axioms; and then strikes out boldly in demonstrating his theorems.
But Plato would refuse him the liberty of striking out, until he should have cleared up the preliminary difficulties about the definitions and axioms themselves.
This the geometrical treatise does not even attempt.
[36] [Footnote 35: Chap.
viii.
p.
353.]
[Footnote 36: Compare Plato, Republic, vi.
510 C; vii.
538 C-D.] CHAPTER XVIII.
LACHES.
The main substance of this dialogue consists of a discussion, carried on by Sokrates with Nikias and Lachês, respecting Courage.
Each of the two latter proposes an explanation of Courage: Sokratês criticises both of them, and reduces each to a confessed contradiction.
[Side-note: Lachês.
Subject and persons of the dialogue, Whether it is useful that two young men should receive lessons from a master of arms.
Nikias and Lachês differ in opinion.]
The discussion is invited, or at least dramatically introduced, by two elderly men--Lysimachus, son of Aristeides the Just,--and Melêsias, son of Thucydides the rival of Perikles.
Lysimachus and Melêsias, confessing with shame that they are inferior to their fathers, because their education has been neglected, wish to guard against the same misfortune in the case of their own sons: respecting the education of whom, they ask the advice of Nikias and Lachês.
The question turns especially upon the propriety of causing their sons to receive lessons from a master of arms just then in vogue.
Nikias and Lachês, both of them not merely distinguished citizens but also commanders of Athenian armies, are assumed to be well qualified to give advice.
Accordingly they deliver their opinions: Nikias approving such lessons as beneficial, in exalting the courage of a young man, and rendering him effective on the field of battle: while Lachês takes an opposite view, disparages the masters of arms as being no soldiers, and adds that they are despised by the Lacedæmonians, to whose authority on military matters general deference was paid in Greece.
[1] Sokratês,--commended greatly by Nikias for his acuteness and sagacity, by Lachês for his courage in the battle of Delium,--is invited to take part in the consultation.
Being younger than both, he waits till they have delivered their opinions, and is then called upon to declare with which of the two his own judgment will concur.
[2] [Footnote 1: Plato, Lachês, 182-183.]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Lachês, 184 D. Nikias is made to say that Sokrates has recently recommended to him Damon, as a teacher of [Greek: mousikê\] to his sons, and that Damon had proved an admirable teacher as well as companion (180 D).
Damon is mentioned by Plato generally with much eulogy.]
[Side-note: Sokrates is invited to declare his opinion.
He replies that the point cannot be decided without a competent professional judge.]
_Sokr._--The question must not be determined by a plurality of votes, but by superiority of knowledge.
[3] If we were debating about the proper gymnastic discipline for these young men, we should consult a known artist or professional trainer, or at least some one who had gone through a course of teaching and practice under the trainer.
The first thing to be enquired therefore is, whether, in reference to the point now under discussion, there be any one of us professionally or technically competent, who has studied under good masters, and has proved his own competence as a master by producing well-trained pupils.
The next thing is, to understand clearly what it is, with reference to which such competence is required.
[4] _Nikias._--Surely the point before us is, whether it be wise to put these young men under the lessons of the master of arms?
That is what we want to know.
_Sokr._--Doubtless it is: but that is only one particular branch of a wider and more comprehensive enquiry.
When you are considering whether a particular ointment is good for your eyes, it is your eyes, and their general benefit, which form the subject of investigation--not the ointment simply.
The person to assist you will be, he who understands professionally the general treatment of the eyes.
So in this case, you are enquiring whether lessons in arms will be improving for the minds and character of your sons.
Look out therefore for some one who is professionally competent, from having studied under good masters, in regard to the general treatment of the mind.
[5] _Lachês._--But there are various persons who, without ever having studied under masters, possess greater technical competence than others who have so studied.
_Sokr._--There are such persons: but you will never believe it upon their own assurance, unless they can show you some good special work actually performed by themselves.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Lachês, 184 E. [Greek: e)pistê/mê| dei= kri/nesthai a)ll' ou) plê/thei to\ me/llon kalô=s krithê/sesthai.]]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Lachês, 185 C.] [Footnote 5: Plato, Lachês, 185 E. [Greek: ei)/ tis ê(mô=n techniko\s peri\ psuchê=s therapei/an, kai\ oi(=o/s te kalô=s tou=to therapeu=sai, kai\ o(/tô| dida/skaloi a)gathoi\ gego/nasi, tou=to skepte/on.]]
[Side-note: Those who deliver an opinion must begin by proving their competence to judge--Sokrates avows his own incompetence.]
_Sokr._--Now then, Lysimachus, since you have invited Lachês and Nikias, as well as me, to advise you on the means of most effectively improving the mind of your son, it is for us to show you that we possess competent professional skill respecting the treatment of the youthful mind.
We must declare to you who are the masters from whom we have learnt, and we must prove their qualifications.
Or if we have had no masters, we must demonstrate to you our own competence by citing cases of individuals, whom we have successfully trained, and who have become incontestably good under our care.
If we can fulfil neither of these two conditions, we ought to confess our incompetence and decline advising you.
We must not begin to try our hands upon so precious a subject as the son of a friend, at the hazard of doing him more harm than good.
[6] [Footnote 6: Plato, Lachês, 186 B.]
As to myself, I frankly confess that I have neither had any master to impart to me such competence, nor have I been able to acquire it by my own efforts.
I am not rich enough to pay the Sophists, who profess to teach it.
But as to Nikias and Lachês, they are both older and richer than I am: so that they may well have learnt it from others, or acquired it for themselves.
They must be thoroughly satisfied of their own knowledge on the work of education; otherwise they would hardly have given such confident opinions, pronouncing what pursuits are good or bad for youth.
For my part, I trust them implicitly: the only thing which surprises me, is, that they dissent from each other.
[7] It is for you therefore, Lysimachus, to ask Nikias and Lachês,--Who have been their masters?
Who have been their fellow-pupils?
If they have been their own masters, what proof can they produce of previous success in teaching, and what examples can they cite of pupils whom they have converted from bad to good?
[8] [Footnote 7: Plato, Lachês, 186 C-D. [Greek: dokou=si dê/ moi dunatoi\ ei)=nai paideu=sai a)/nthrôpon; ou) ga\r a)\n pote a)deô=s a)pephai/nonto peri\ e)pitêdeuma/tôn ne/ô| chrêstô=n te kai\ ponêrô=n, ei) mê\ au)toi=s e)pi/steuon i(kanô=s ei)de/nai.
ta\ me\n ou)=n a)/lla, e)/gôge tou/tois pisteu/ô, o(/ti de\ diaphe/resthon a)llê/loin, e)thau/masa.]]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Lachês, 186-187.]
[Side-note: Nikias and Lachês submit to be cross-examined by Sokrates.]
_Nikias._--I knew from the beginning that we should both of us fall under the cross-examination of Sokrates, and be compelled to give account of our past lives.
For my part, I have already gone through this scrutiny before, and am not averse to undergo it again.
_Lachês._--And I, though I have never experienced it before, shall willingly submit to learn from Sokrates, whom I know to be a man thoroughly courageous and honest in his actions.
I hate men whose lives are inconsistent with their talk.
[9]--Thus speak both of them.
[Footnote 9: Plato, Lachês, 188.
"Ego odi homines ignavâ operâ et philosophiâ sententiâ," is a line cited by Cicero out of one of the Latin comic writers.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Both of them give opinions offhand, according to their feelings on the special case--Sokrates requires that the question shall be generalised, and examined as a branch of education.]
This portion of the dialogue, which forms a sort of preamble to the main discussion, brings out forcibly some of the Platonic points of view.
We have seen it laid down in the Kriton--That in questions about right and wrong, good and evil, &c., we ought not to trust the decision of the Many, but only that of the One Wise Man.
Here we learn something about the criteria by which this One man may be known.
He must be one who has gone through a regular training under some master approved in ethical or educational teaching: or, if he cannot produce such a certificate, he must at least cite sufficient examples of men whom he has taught well himself.
This is the Sokratic comparison, assimilating the general art of living well to the requirements of a special profession, which a man must learn through express teaching, from a master who has proved his ability, and through conscious application of his own.
Nikias and Lachês give their opinions offhand and confidently, upon the question whether lessons from the master of arms be profitable to youth or not.
Plato, on the contrary, speaking through Sokrates, points out that this is only one branch of the more comprehensive question as to education generally--"What are the qualities and habits proper to be imparted to youth by training?
What is the proper treatment of the mind?
No one is competent to decide the special question, except he who has professionally studied the treatment of the mind."
To deal with the special question, without such preliminary general preparation, involves rash and unverified assumptions, which render any opinion so given dangerous to act upon.
Such is the judgment of the Platonic Sokrates, insisting on the necessity of taking up ethical questions in their most comprehensive aspect.
[Side-note: Appeal of Sokrates to the judgment of the One Wise Man--this man is never seen or identified.]
Consequent upon this preamble, we should expect that Lachês and Nikias would be made to cite the names of those who had been their masters; or to produce some examples of persons effectively taught by themselves.
This would bring us a step nearer to that One Wise Man--often darkly indicated, but nowhere named or brought into daylight--from whom alone we can receive a trustworthy judgment.
But here, as in the Kriton and so many other Platonic dialogues, we get only a Pisgah view of our promised adviser--nothing more.
The discussion takes a different turn.
* * * * * [Side-note: We must know what virtue is, before we give an opinion on education.
Virtue, as a whole, is too large a question.
We will enquire about one branch of virtue--courage.]
_Sokr._--"We will pursue a line of enquiry which conducts to the same result; and which starts even more decidedly from the beginning.
[10] We are called upon to advise by what means virtue can be imparted to these youths, so as to make them better men.
Of course, this implies that we know what virtue is: otherwise how can we give advice as to the means of acquiring it?
_Lachês._--We could give no advice at all.
_Sokr._--We affirm ourselves therefore to know what virtue is?
_Lachês._--We do.
_Sokr._--Since therefore we know, we can farther declare what it is.
[11] _Lachês._--Of course we can.
_Sokr._--Still, we will not at once enquire as to the whole of virtue, which might be an arduous task, but as to a part of it--Courage: that part to which the lessons of the master of arms are supposed to tend.
We will first enquire what courage is: after that has been determined, we will then consider how it can best be imparted to these youths."
[Footnote 10: Plato, Lachês, 189 E. [Greek: kai\ ê( toia/de ske/psis ei)s tau)to\n phe/rei, schedo\n de/ ti kai\ ma=llon e)x a)rchê=s ei)/ê a)\n.]]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Lachês, 190 C. [Greek: phame\n a)/ra, ô)= La/chês, ei)de/nai au)to\ (tê\n a)retê\n) o(/, ti e)/sti.
Phame\n me/ntoi.
Ou)kou=n o(/ ge i)/smen, ka)\n ei)/poimen dê/pou, ti/ e)/sti.
Pô=s ga\r ou)/?]]
"Try then if you can tell me, Lachês, what courage is.
_Lachês._--There is no difficulty in telling you that.
Whoever keeps his place in the rank, repels the enemy, and does not run away, is a courageous man.
"[12] [Footnote 12: Plato, Lachês, 190 D-E.] [Side-note: Question--what is courage?
Lachês answers by citing one particularly manifest case of courage.
Mistake of not giving a general explanation.]
Here is the same error in replying, as was committed by Euthyphron when asked, What is the Holy?
and by Hippias, about the Beautiful.
One particular case of courageous behaviour, among many, is indicated, as if it were an explanation of the whole: but the general feature common to all acts of courage is not declared.
Sokrates points out that men are courageous, not merely among hoplites who keep their rank and fight, but also among the Scythian horsemen who fight while running away; others also are courageous against disease, poverty, political adversity, pain and fear of every sort; others moreover, against desires and pleasures.
What is the common attribute which in all these cases constitutes Courage?
If you asked me what is _quickness_--common to all those cases when a man runs, speaks, plays, learns, &c., quickly--I should tell you that it was that which accomplished much in a little time.
Tell me in like manner, what is the common fact or attribute pervading all cases of courage?
Lachês at first does not understand the question:[13] and Sokrates elucidates it by giving the parallel explanation of quickness.
Here, as elsewhere, Plato takes great pains to impress the conception in its full generality, and he seems to have found difficulty in making others follow him.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Lachês, 191-192.
[Greek: pa/lin ou)=n peirô= ei)pei=n a)ndrei/an prô=ton, ti/ o)\n e)n pa=si tou/tois tau)to/n e)stin.
ê)\ ou)/pô katamantha/neis o(\ le/gô?]
_Lachês._ [Greek: Ou) pa/nu ti.
.
.
.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: peirô= dê\ tê\n a)ndrei/an ou(/tôs ei)pein, ti/s ou)=sa du/namis ê( au)tê\ e)n ê(donê=| kai\ e)n lu/pê| kai\ e)n a(/pasin oi(=s nu=n dê\ e)le/gomen au)tê\n ei)=nai, e)/peit' a)ndrei/a ke/klêtai.]]
[Side-note: Second answer.
Courage is a sort of endurance of the mind.
Sokrates points out that the answer is vague and incorrect.
Endurance is not always courage: even intelligent endurance is not always courage.]
Lachês then gives a general definition of courage.
It is a sort of endurance of the mind.
[14] [Footnote 14: Plato, Lachês, 192 B.
[Greek: karteri/a tis tê=s psuchê=s.]]
Surely not _all_ endurance (rejoins Sokrates)?
You admit that courage is a fine and honourable thing.
But endurance without intelligence is hurtful and dishonourable: it cannot therefore be courage.
Only intelligent endurance, therefore, can be courage.
And then what is meant by _intelligent_?
Intelligent--of what--or to what end?
A man, who endures the loss of money, understanding well that he will thereby gain a larger sum, is he courageous?
No.
He who endures fighting, knowing that he has superior skill, numbers, and all other advantages on his side, manifests more of intelligent endurance, than his adversary who knows that he has all these advantages against him, yet who nevertheless endures fighting.
Nevertheless this latter is the most courageous of the two.
[15] Unintelligent endurance is in this case courage: but unintelligent endurance was acknowledged to be bad and hurtful, and courage to be a fine thing.
We have entangled ourselves in a contradiction.
We must at least show our own courage, by enduring until we can get right.
For my part (replies Lachês) I am quite prepared for such endurance.
I am piqued and angry that I cannot express what I conceive.
I seem to have in my mind clearly what courage is: but it escapes me somehow or other, when I try to put it in words.
[16] [Footnote 15: Plato, Lachês, 192 D-E. [Greek: ê( phro/nimos karteri/a .
.
.
i)/dômen dê/, _ê( ei)s ti/_ phro/nimos; ê)\ ê( ei)s a(/panta kai\ ta\ mega/la kai\ ta\ smikra/?]]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Lachês, 193 C, 194 B.]
Sokrates now asks aid from Nikias.
_Nikias._--My explanation of courage is, that it is a sort of knowledge or intelligence.
_Sokr._--But what sort of intelligence?
Not certainly intelligence of piping or playing the harp.
Intelligence of what?
[Side-note: Confusion.
New answer given by Nikias.
Courage is a sort of intelligence--the intelligence of things terrible and not terrible.
Objections of Lachês.]
_Nikias._--Courage is intelligence of things terrible, and things not terrible, both in war and in all other conjunctures.
_Lachês._--What nonsense!
Courage is a thing totally apart from knowledge or intelligence.
[17] The intelligent physician knows best what is terrible, and what is not terrible, in reference to disease: the husbandman, in reference to agriculture.
But they are not for that reason courageous.
_Nikias._--They are not; but neither do they know what is terrible, or what is not terrible.
Physicians can predict the result of a patient's case: they can tell what may cure him, or what will kill him.
But whether it be better for him to die or to recover--_that_ they do not know, and cannot tell him.
To some persons, death is a less evil than life:--defeat, than victory:--loss of wealth, than gain.
None except the person who can discriminate these cases, knows what is really terrible and what is not so.
He alone is really courageous.
[18] _Lachês._--Where is there any such man?
It can be only some God.
Nikias feels himself in a puzzle, and instead of confessing it frankly as I have done, he is trying to help himself out by evasions more fit for a pleader before the Dikastery.
[19] [Footnote 17: Plato, Lachês, 195 A.
[Greek: tê\n tô=n deinôn kai\ thar)r(ale/ôn e)pistê/mên kai\ e)n pole/mô| kai\ e)n toi=s a)/llois a(/pasin.]
_Lachês._--[Greek: Ô(s a)/topa le/gei!--chôri\s dê/ pou sophi/a e)sti\n a)ndrei/as.]
It appears from two other passages (195 E, and 198 B) that [Greek: thar)r(a/leos] here is simply the negation of [Greek: deino\s] and cannot be translated by any affirmative word.]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Lachês, 195-196.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Lachês, 196 B.]
[Side-note: Questions of Sokrates to Nikias.
It is only future events, not past or present, which are terrible; but intelligence of future events cannot be had without intelligence of past or present.]
_Sokr._--You do not admit, then, Nikias, that lions, tigers, boars, &c., and such animals, are courageous?
_Nikias._--No: they are without fear--simply from not knowing the danger--like children: but they are not courageous, though most people call them so.
I may call them bold, but I reserve the epithet courageous for the intelligent.
_Lachês._--See how Nikias strips those, whom every one admits to be courageous, of this honourable appellation!
_Nikias._--Not altogether, Lachês: I admit you, and Lamachus, and many other Athenians, to be courageous, and of course therefore intelligent.
_Lachês._--I feel the compliment: but such subtle distinctions befit a Sophist rather than a general in high command.
[20] _Sokr._--The highest measure of intelligence befits one in the highest command.
What you have said, Nikias, deserves careful examination.
You remember that in taking up the investigation of courage, we reckoned it only as a portion of virtue: you are aware that there are other portions of virtue, such as justice, temperance, and the like.
Now you define courage to be, intelligence of what is terrible or not terrible: of that which causes fear, or does not cause fear.
But nothing causes fear, except future or apprehended evils: present or past evils cause no fear.
Hence courage, as you define it, is intelligence respecting future evils, and future events not evil.
But how can there be intelligence respecting the future, except in conjunction with intelligence respecting the present and the past?
In every special department, such as medicine, military proceedings, agriculture, &c., does not the same man, who knows the phenomena of the future, know also the phenomena of present and past?
Are they not all inseparable acquirements of one and the same intelligent mind?
[21] [Footnote 20: Plato, Lachês, 197.
[Greek: Kai\ ga\r pre/pei, ô)= Sô/krates, sophistê=| ta\ toiau=ta ma=llon kompseu/esthai ê)\ a)ndri\ o(\n ê( po/lis a)xioi= au(tê=s proi+sta/nai.]
Assuredly the distinctions which here Plato puts into the mouth of Nikias are nowise more subtle than those which he is perpetually putting into the mouth of Sokrates.
He cannot here mean to distinguish the Sophists from Sokrates, but to distinguish the dialectic talkers, including both one and the other, from the active political leaders.]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Lachês, 198 D. [Greek: peri\ o(/sôn e)sti\n e)pistê/mê, ou)k a)/llê me\n ei)=nai peri\ gegono/tos, ei)de/nai o(/pê| ge/gonen, a)/llê de\ peri\ gignome/nôn, o(/pê| gi/gnetai, a)/llê de\ o(/pê| a)\n ka/llista ge/noito kai\ genê/setai to\ mê/pô gegono/s--a)ll' ê( au)tê/.
oi(=on peri\ to\ u(gieino\n ei)s a(/pantas tou\s chro/nous ou)k a)/llê tis ê)\ ê( i)atrikê/, mi/a ou)=sa, e)phora=| kai\ gigno/mena kai\ gegono/ta kai\ genêso/mena, o(/pê| genê/setai.]
199 B.
[Greek: ê( de/ g' au)tê\ e)pistê/mê tô=n au)tô=n kai\ mello/ntôn kai\ pa/ntôs e)cho/ntôn ei)=nai [ô(molo/gêtai].]
[Side-note: Courage therefore must be intelligence of good and evil generally.
But this definition would include the whole of virtue, and we declared that courage was only a part thereof.
It will not hold therefore as a definition of courage.]
Since therefore courage, according to your definition, is the knowledge of futurities evil and not evil, or future evil and good--and since such knowledge cannot exist without the knowledge of good and evil generally--it follows that courage is the knowledge of good and evil generally.
[22] But a man who knows thus much, cannot be destitute of any part of virtue.
He must possess temperance and justice as well as courage.
Courage, therefore, according to your definition, is not only a part of virtue, it is the whole.
Now we began the enquiry by stating that it was only a part of virtue, and that there were other parts of virtue which it did not comprise.
It is plain therefore that your definition of courage is not precise, and cannot be sustained.
We have not yet discovered what courage is.
[23] [Footnote 22: Plato, Lachês, 199 C. [Greek: kata\ to\n so\n lo/gon ou) mo/non deinô=n te kai\ thar)r(ale/ôn ê( e)pistê/mê a)ndrei/a e)sti/n, a)lla\ schedo/n ti ê( peri\ pa/ntôn a)gathô=n te kai\ kakô=n kai\ pa/ntôs e)cho/ntôn], &c.] [Footnote 23: Plato, Lachês, 199 E. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra eu)rê/kamen, a)ndrei/a o(/, ti e)/stin.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks.
Warfare of Sokrates against the false persuasion of knowledge.
Brave generals deliver opinions confidently about courage without knowing what it is.]
Here ends the dialogue called Lachês, without any positive result.
Nothing is proved except the ignorance of two brave and eminent generals respecting the moral attribute known by the name _Courage_: which nevertheless they are known to possess, and have the full sentiment and persuasion of knowing perfectly; so that they give confident advice as to the means of imparting it.
"I am unaccustomed to debates like these" (says Lachês): "but I am piqued and mortified--because I feel that I know well what Courage is, yet somehow or other I cannot state my own thoughts in words."
Here is a description[24] of the intellectual deficiency which Sokrates seeks to render conspicuous to the consciousness, instead of suffering it to remain latent and unknown, as it is in the ordinary mind.
Here, as elsewhere, he impugns the false persuasion of knowledge, and the unconscious presumption of estimable men in delivering opinions upon ethical and social subjects, which have become familiar and interwoven with deeply rooted associations, but have never been studied under a master, nor carefully analysed and discussed, nor looked at in their full generality.
This is a mental defect which he pronounces to be universal: belonging not less to men of action like Nikias and Lachês, than to Sophists and Rhetors like Protagoras and Gorgias.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Lachês, 194.
[Greek: Kai/toi a)ê/thês g' ei)mi\] (Lachês) [Greek: tô=n toiou/tôn lo/gôn; a)lla/ ti/s me kai\ philoneiki/a ei)/lêphe pro\s ta\ ei)rême/na, kai\ ô(s a)lêthô=s a)ganaktô=, ei) ou(tôsi\ a)\ noô= mê\ oi(=o/s t' ei)mi\ ei)pei=n; noei=n me\n ga\r e)/moige dokô= peri\ a)ndrei/as o(/, ti e)/stin, ou)k oi)=da d' o(/pê| me a)/rti die/phugen, ô(/ste mê\ xullabei=n tô=| lo/gô| au)tê\n kai\ ei)pei=n o(/, ti e)/stin.]
Compare the Charmidês p. 159 A, 160 D, where Sokrates professes to tell Charmides, If temperance is really in you, you can of course inform us what it is.]
[Side-note: No solution given by Plato.
Apparent tendency of his mind, in looking for a solution.
Intelligence--cannot be understood without reference to some object or end.]
Here, as elsewhere, Plato (or the Platonic Sokrates) exposes the faulty solutions of others, but proposes no better solution of his own, and even disclaims all ability to do so.
We may nevertheless trace, in the refutation which he gives of the two unsatisfactory explanations, hints guiding the mind into that direction in which Plato looks to supply the deficiency.
Thus when Lachês, after having given as his first answer (to the question, What is Courage?)
a definition not even formally sufficient, is put by Sokrates upon giving his second answer,--That Courage is intelligent endurance: Sokrates asks him[25]--"Yes, _intelligent_: but intelligent to _what end_?
Do you mean, to all things alike, great as well as little?"
We are here reminded that _intelligence_, simply taken, is altogether undefined; that intelligence must relate to _something_--and when human conduct is in question, must relate to some end; and that the Something, and the End, to which it relates, must be set forth, before the proposition can be clearly understood.
[Footnote 25: Plato, Lachês, 192 D. [Greek: ê( phro/nimos karteri/a .
.
.
i)/dômen dê/, ê( ei)s ti phro/nimos; ê)\ ê( ei)s a(/panta kai\ ta\ mega/la kai\ ta\ smikra/?]]
[Side-note: Object--is supplied in the answer of Nikias.
Intelligence--of things terrible and not terrible.
Such intelligence is not possessed by professional artists.]
Coming to the answer given by Nikias, we perceive that this deficiency is in a certain manner supplied.
Courage is said to consist in knowledge: in knowledge of things terrible, and things not terrible.
When Lachês applies his cross-examination to the answer, the manner in which Nikias defends it puts us upon a distinction often brought to view, though not always adhered to, in the Platonic writings.
There can be no doubt that death, distemper, loss of wealth, defeat, &c. are terrible things (_i.e._ the prospect of them inspires fear) in the estimation of mankind generally.
Correct foresight of such contingencies, and of the antecedents tending to produce or avert them, is possessed by the physician and other professional persons: who would therefore, it should seem, possess the knowledge of things terrible and not terrible.
But Nikias denies this.
He does not admit that the contingencies here enumerated are, always or necessarily, proper objects of fear.
In some cases, he contends, they are the least of two evils.
Before you can be said to possess the knowledge of things terrible and not terrible, you must be able to take correct measure not only of the intervening antecedents or means, but also of the end itself as compared with other alternative ends: whether, in each particular case, it be the end most to be feared, or the real evil under the given circumstances.
The professional man can do the former, but he cannot do the latter.
He advises as to means, and executes: but he assumes his own one end as an indisputable datum.
The physician seeks to cure his patient, without ever enquiring whether it may not be a less evil for such patient to die than to survive.
[Side-note: Postulate of a Science of Ends, or Teleology, dimly indicated by Plato.
The Unknown Wise Man--correlates with the undiscovered Science of Ends.]
The ulterior, yet not less important, estimate of the comparative worth of different ends, is reserved for that unknown master whom Nikias himself does not farther specify, and whom Lachês sets aside as nowhere to be found, under the peculiar phrase of "some God".
Subjectively considered, this is an appeal to the judgment of that One Wise Man, often alluded to by Plato as an absent Expert who might be called into court--yet never to be found at the exact moment, nor produced in visible presence: Objectively considered, it is a postulate or divination of some yet undiscovered Teleology or Science of Ends: that Science of the Good, which (as we have already noticed in Alkibiadês II.)
Plato pronounces to be the crowning and capital science of all--and without which he there declared, that knowledge on all other topics was useless and even worse than useless.
[26] The One Wise Man--the _Science of Good_--are the Subject and Object corresponding to each other, and postulated by Plato.
None but the One Wise Man can measure things terrible and not terrible: none else can estimate the good or evil, or the comparative value of two alternative evils, in each individual case.
The items here directed to be taken into the calculation, correspond with what is laid down by Sokrates in the Protagoras, not with that laid down in the Gorgias: we find here none of that marked antithesis between pleasure and good--between pain and evil--upon which Sokrates expatiates in the Gorgias.
[Footnote 26: Plato, Alkib.
ii.
146-147.
See above, ch.
xii.
p.
16.]
[Side-note: Perfect condition of the intelligence--is the one sufficient condition of virtue.]
This appears still farther when the cross-examination is taken up by Sokrates instead of by Lachês.
We are then made to perceive, that the knowledge of things terrible and not terrible is a part, but an inseparable part, of the knowledge of good and evil generally: the lesser cannot be had without the greater--and the greater carries with it not merely courage, but all the other virtues besides.
None can know good or evil generally except the perfectly Wise Man.
The perfect condition of the Intelligence, is the sole and all-sufficient condition of virtue.
None can possess one mode of virtue separately.
This is the doctrine to which the conclusion of the Lachês points, though the question debated is confessedly left without solution.
It is a doctrine which seems to have been really maintained by the historical Sokrates, and is often implied in the reasonings of the Platonic Sokrates, but not always nor consistently.
[Side-note: Dramatic contrast between Lachês and Sokrates, as cross-examiners.]
In reference to this dialogue, the dramatic contrast is very forcible, between the cross-examination carried on by Lachês, and that carried on by Sokrates.
The former is pettish and impatient, bringing out no result, and accusing the respondent of cavil and disingenuousness: the latter takes up the same answer patiently, expands it into the full generality wrapped up in it, and renders palpable its inconsistency with previous admissions.
APPENDIX.
Ast is the only critic who declares the Lachês not to be Plato's work (Platon's Leben und Schr.
pp.
451-456).
He indeed even finds it difficult to imagine how Schleiermacher can accept it as genuine (p. 454).
He justifies this opinion by numerous reasons--pointing out what he thinks glaring defects, absurdity, and bad taste, both in the ratiocination and in the dramatic handling, also _dicta_ alleged to be _un-Platonic_.
Compare Schleiermacher's Einleitung zum Lachês, p. 324 seq.
I do not concur with Ast in the estimation of those passages which serve as premisses to his conclusion.
But even if I admitted his premisses, I still should not admit his conclusion.
I should conclude that the dialogue was an inferior work of Plato, but I should conclude nothing beyond.
Stallbaum (Prolegg.
ad Lachet.
p. 29-30, 2nd ed.)
and Socher discover "adolescentiæ vestigia" in it, which are not apparent to me.
Socher, Stallbaum, and K. F. Hermann pass lightly over the objections of Ast; and Steinhart (Einleit.
p. 355) declares them to be unworthy of a serious answer.
For my part, I draw from these dissensions among the Platonic critics a conviction of the uncertain evidence upon which all of them proceed.
Each has his own belief as to what Plato _must_ say, _ought to_ say, and _could not_ have said; and each adjudicates thereupon with a degree of confidence which surprises me.
The grounds upon which Ast rejects Lachês, Charmidês, and Lysis, though inconclusive, appear to me not more inconclusive than those on which he and other critics reject the Erastæ, Theagês.
Hippias Major, Alkibiadês II., &c. The dates which Stallbaum, Schleiermacher, Socher, and Steinhart assign to the Lachês (about 406-404 B.C.)
are in my judgment erroneous.
I have already shown my reasons for believing that not one of the Platonic dialogues was composed until after the death of Sokrates.
The hypotheses also of Steinhart (p. 357) as to the special purposes of Plato in composing the dialogue are unsupported by any evidence; and are all imagined so as to fit his supposition as to the date.
So also Schleiermacher tells us that a portion of the Lachês is intended by Plato as a defence of himself against accusations which had been brought against him, a young man, for impertinence in having attacked Lysias in the Phædrus, and Protagoras in the Protagoras, both of them much older than Plato.
But Steinhart justly remarks that this explanation can only be valid if we admit Schleiermacher's theory that the Phædrus and the Protagoras are earlier compositions than the Lachês, which theory Steinhart and most of the others deny.
Steinhart himself adapts his hypotheses to his own idea of the date of the Lachês: and he is open to the same remark as he himself makes upon Schleiermacher.
CHAPTER XIX.
CHARMIDES.
As in Lachês, we have pursued an enquiry into the nature of Courage--so in Charmidês, we find an examination of Temperance, Sobriety, Moderation.
[1] Both dialogues conclude without providing any tenable explanation.
In both there is an abundant introduction--in Charmidês, there is even the bustle of a crowded palæstra, with much dramatic incident--preluding to the substantive discussion.
I omit the notice of this dramatic incident, though it is highly interesting to read.
[Footnote 1: I translate [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] Temperance, though it is very inadequate, but I know no single English word better suited.]
[Side-note: Scene and personages of the dialogue.
Crowded palæstra.
Emotions of Sokrates.]
The two persons with whom Sokrates here carries on the discussion, are Charmides and Kritias; both of whom, as historical persons, were active movers in the oligarchical government of the Thirty, with its numerous enormities.
In this dialogue, Charmides appears as a youth just rising into manhood, strikingly beautiful both in face and stature: Kritias his cousin is an accomplished literary man of mature age.
The powerful emotion which Sokrates describes himself as experiencing,[2] from the sight and close neighbourhood of the beautiful Charmides, is remarkable, as a manifestation of Hellenic sentiment.
The same exaltation of the feelings and imagination, which is now produced only by beautiful women, was then excited chiefly by fine youths.
Charmides is described by Kritias as exhibiting dispositions at once philosophical and poetical:[3] illustrating the affinity of these two intellectual veins, as Plato conceived them.
He is also described as eminently temperate and modest:[4] from whence the questions of Sokrates take their departure.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Charm.
154 C. Ficinus, in his Argumentum to this dialogue (p. 767), considers it as mainly allegorical, especially the warm expressions of erotic sentiment contained therein, which he compares to the Song of Solomon.
"Etsi omnia in hoc dialogo mirificam habeant allegoriam, amatoria maxime, non aliter quam Cantica Salomonis--mutavi tamen nonnihil--nonnihil etiam prætermisi.
Quæ enim consonabant castigatissimis auribus Atticorum, rudioribus fortè auribus minimé consonarent."]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Charm.
155 A.]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Charm.
157 D. About the diffidence of Charmides in his younger years, see Xen.
Mem.
iii.
7, 1.]
[Side-note: Question, What is Temperance?
addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides.
Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness.]
You are said to be temperate, Charmides (says Sokrates).
If so, your temperance will surely manifest itself within you in some way, so as to enable you to form and deliver an opinion, What Temperance is.
Tell us in plain language what you conceive it to be.
Temperance, replies Charmides (after some hesitation),[5] consists in doing every thing in an orderly and sedate manner, when we walk in the highway, or talk, or perform other matters in the presence of others.
It is, in short, a kind of sedateness or slowness.
[Footnote 5: Plato, Charm.
159 B.
[Greek: to\ kosmi/ôs pa/nta pra/ttein kai\ ê(suchê=|, e)/n te tai=s o)doi=s badi/zein kai\ diale/gesthai .
.
.
sullê/bdên ê(suchio/tês tis.]]
[Side-note: But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary.
Temperance cannot be slowness.]
Sokrates begins his cross-examination upon this answer, in the same manner as he had begun it with Laches in respect to courage.
_Sokr._--Is not temperance a fine and honourable thing?
Does it not partake of the essence and come under the definition, of what is fine or and honourable?
[6] _Char._--Undoubtedly it does.
_Sokr._--But if we specify in detail our various operations, either of body or mind--such as writing, reading, playing on the harp, boxing, running, jumping, learning, teaching, recollecting, comprehending, deliberating, determining, &c.--we shall find that to do them quickly is more fine and honourable than to do them slowly.
Slowness does not, except by accident, belong to the fine and honourable: therefore temperance, which does so belong to it, cannot be a kind of slowness.
[7] [Footnote 6: Plato, Charm.
159 C--160 D. [Greek: ou) tô=n kalô=n me/ntoi ê( sôphrosu/nê e)sti/n?
.
.
.
e)peidê\ _e)n tô=| lo/gô|_ tô=n kalô=n ti ê(mi=n ê( sôphrosu/nê u(pete/thê.]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Charm.
160 C.] [Side-note: Second answer.
Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame.
Refuted by Sokrates.]
Charmides next declares Temperance to be a variety of the feeling of shame or modesty.
But this (observes Sokrates) will not hold more than the former explanation: since Homer has pronounced shame not to be good, for certain persons and under certain circumstances.
[8] [Footnote 8: Plato, Charm.
161 A.]
[Side-note: Third answer.
Temperance consists in doing one's own business.
Defended by Kritias.
Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it.
Distinction between making and doing.]
"Temperance consists in doing one's own business."
Here we have a third explanation, proposed by Charmides and presently espoused by Kritias.
Sokrates professes not to understand it, and pronounces it to be like a riddle.
[9] Every tradesman or artisan does the business of others as well as his own.
Are we to say for that reason that he is not temperate?
I distinguish (says Kritias) between _making_ and _doing_: the artisan _makes_ for others, but he does not _do_ for others, and often cannot be said to _do_ at all.
_To do_, implies honourable, profitable, good, occupation: this alone is a man's own business, and this I call temperance.
When a man acts so as to harm himself, he does not do his own business.
[10] The doing of good things, is temperance.
[11] [Footnote 9: Plato, Charm.
161 C--162 B.
[Greek: sôphrosu/nê--to\ ta\ au(tou= pra/ttein .
.
.
ai)ni/gmati/ tini e)/oiken.]
There is here a good deal of playful vivacity in the dialogue: Charmidês gives this last answer, which he has heard from Kritias, who is at first not forward to defend it, until Charmides forces him to come forward, by hints and side-insinuations.
This is the dramatic art and variety of Plato, charming to read, but not bearing upon him as a philosopher.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Charm.
163 C-D. [Greek: ta\ kalô=s kai\ ô)pheli/môs poiou/mena .
.
.
oi)kei=a mo/na ta\ toiau=ta ê(gei=sthai, ta\ de\ blabera\ pa/nta a)llo/tria .
.
.
o(/ti ta\ oi)kei=a te kai\ ta\ au(tou= a)gatha\ kaloi/ês, kai\ ta\s tô=n a)gathô=n poiê/seis pra/xeis.]]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Charm.
163 E. [Greek: tê\n tô=n a)gathô=n pra=xin sôphrosu/nên ei)=nai saphô=s soi diori/zomai.]]
[Side-note: Fourth answer, by Kritias.
Temperance consists in self-knowledge.]
_Sokr._--Perhaps it is.
But does the well-doer always and certainly know that he is doing well?
Does the temperate man know his own temperance?
_Krit._--He certainly must.
Indeed I think that the essence of temperance is, _Self-knowledge_.
_Know thyself_ is the precept of the Delphian God, who means thereby the same as if he had said--Be temperate.
I now put aside all that I have said before, and take up this new position, That temperance consists in a man's knowing himself.
If you do not admit it, I challenge your cross-examination.
[12] [Footnote 12: Plato, Charm.
164-165.]
[Side-note: Questions of Sokrates thereupon.
What good does self-knowledge procure for us?
What is the object known, in this case?
Answer: There is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself.]
_Sokr._--I cannot tell you whether I admit it or not, until I have investigated.
You address me as if I professed to know the subject: but it is because I do not know, that I examine, in conjunction with you, each successive answer.
[13] If temperance consists in knowing, it must be a knowledge of something.
_Krit._--It is so: it is knowledge of a man's self.
_Sokr._--What good does this knowledge procure for us?
as medical knowledge procures for us health--architectural knowledge, buildings, &c.?
_Krit._--It has no object positive result of analogous character: but neither have arithmetic nor geometry.
_Sokr._--True, but in arithmetic and geometry, we can at least indicate a something known, distinct from the knowledge.
Number and proportion are distinct from arithmetic, the science which takes cognizance of them.
Now what is that, of which temperance is the knowledge,--distinct from temperance itself?
_Krit._--It is on this very point that temperance differs from all the other cognitions.
Each of the others is knowledge of something different from itself, but not knowledge of itself: while temperance is knowledge of all the other sciences and of itself also.
[14] _Sokr._--If this be so, it will of course be a knowledge of ignorance, as well as a knowledge of knowledge?
_Krit._--Certainly.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Charm.
165 C.] [Footnote 14: Plato, Charm.
166 C. [Greek: ai( me\n a)/llai pa=sai a)/llou ei)si\n e)pistê=mai, e(autô=n d' ou)/; ê( de\ mo/nê tô=n te a)/llôn e)pistêmô=n e)pistê/mê e)sti\ kai\ au)tê\ e(autê=s.]
So also 166 E.] [Side-note: Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given _cognitum_ as its object.
Analogies to prove that knowledge of knowledge is impossible.]
_Sokr._--According to your explanation, then, it is only the temperate man who knows himself.
He alone is able to examine himself, and thus to find out what he really knows and does not know: he alone is able to examine others, and thus to find out what each man knows, or what each man only believes himself to know without really knowing.
Temperance, or self-knowledge, is the knowledge what a man knows, and what he does not know.
[15] Now two questions arise upon this: First, is it possible for a man to know, that he knows what he does know, and that he does not know what he does not know?
Next, granting it to be possible, in what way do we gain by it?
The first of these two questions involves much difficulty.
How can there be any cognition, which is not cognition of a given _cognitum_, but cognition merely of other cognitions and non-cognitions?
There is no vision except of some colour, no audition except of some sound: there can be no vision of visions, or audition of auditions.
So likewise, all desire is desire of some pleasure; there is no desire of desires.
All volition is volition of some good; there is no volition of volitions: all love applies to something beautiful--there is no love of other loves.
The like is true of fear, opinion, &c. It would be singular therefore, if contrary to all these analogies, there were any cognition not of some _cognitum_, but of itself and other cognitions.
[16] [Footnote 15: Plato, Charm.
167 A.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Charm.
167-168.]
[Side-note: All knowledge must be relative to some object.]
It is of the essence of cognition to be cognition of something, and to have its characteristic property with reference to some correlate.
[17] What is greater, has its property of being greater in relation to something else, which is less--not in relation to itself.
It cannot be greater than itself, for then it would also be less than itself.
It cannot include in itself the characteristic property of the _correlatum_ as well as that of the _relatum_.
So too about what is older, younger, heavier, lighter: there is always a something distinct, to which reference is made.
Vision does not include in itself both the property of seeing, and that of being seen: the _videns_ is distinct from the _visum_.
A movement implies something else to be moved: a heater something else to be heated.
[Footnote 17: Plato, Charm.
168 B.
[Greek: e)/sti me\n au(tê\ ê( e)pistê/mê tino\s e)pistê/mê, kai\ e)/chei tina toiau/tên du/namin ô(/ste tino\s ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: All properties are relative--every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference to something else.]
In all these cases (concludes Sokrates) the characteristic property is essentially relative, implying something distinguishable from, yet correlating with, itself.
May we generalise the proposition, and affirm, That all properties are relative, and that every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference, not to itself, but to something else?
Or is this true only of some things and not of all--so that cognition may be something in the latter category?
This is an embarrassing question, which I do not feel qualified to decide: neither the general question, whether there be any cases of characteristic properties having no reference to any thing beyond themselves, and therefore not relative, but absolute--nor the particular question, whether cognition be one of those cases, implying no separate _cognitum_, but being itself both _relatum_ and _correlatum_--cognition of cognition.
[18] [Footnote 18: Plato, Charm.
168-169.
169 A: [Greek: mega/lou dê/ tinos a)ndro\s dei=, o(/stis tou=to kata\ pa/ntôn i(kanô=s diairê/setai, po/teron ou)de\n tô=n o)/ntôn tê\n au(tou= du/namin au)to\ pro\s e(auto\ pe/phuken e)/chein, a)lla\ pro\s a)llo\--ê)\ ta\ me\n, ta\ d' ou)/; kai\ ei) e)/stin au(= a(/tina au)ta\ pro\s e(auta\ e)/chei, a)=r' e)n tou/tois e)sti\n e)pistê/mê, ê(\n dê\ ê(mei=s sôphrosu/nên phame\n ei)=nai.
e)gô\ me\n ou) pisteu/ô e)mautô=| i(kano\s ei)=nai tau=ta diele/sthtai.]]
But even if cognition of cognition be possible, I shall not admit it as an explanation of what temperance is, until I have satisfied myself that it is beneficial.
For I have a presentiment that temperance must be something beneficial and good.
[19] [Footnote 19: Plato, Charm.
169 B.
[Greek: ô)phelimo/n ti ka)gatho\n manteu/omai ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: Even if cognition of cognition were possible, cognition of non-cognition would be impossible.
A man may know what he knows, but he cannot know what he is ignorant of.
He knows the fact _that_ he knows: but he does not know how much he knows, and how much he does not know.]
Let us concede for the present discussion (continues Sokrates) that cognition of cognition is possible.
Still how does this prove that there can be cognition of non-cognition?
that a man can know both what he knows and what he does not know?
For this is what we declared self-knowledge and temperance to be.
[20] To have cognition of cognition is one thing: to have cognition of non-cognition is a different thing, not necessarily connected with it.
If you have cognition of cognition, you will be enabled to distinguish that which is cognition from that which is not--but no more.
Now the knowledge or ignorance of the matter of health is known by medical science: that of justice known by political science.
The knowledge of knowledge simply--cognition of cognition--is different from both.
The person who possesses this last only, without knowing either medicine or politics, will become aware that he knows something and possesses some sort of knowledge, and will be able to verify so much with regard to others.
But _what_ it is that he himself knows, or that others know, he will not thereby be enabled to find out: he will not distinguish whether that which is known belong to physiology or to politics; to do this, special acquirements are needed.
You, a temperate man therefore, as such, do not know _what_ you know and _what_ you do not know; you know the bare fact, _that_ you know and _that_ you do not know.
You will not be competent to cross-examine any one who professes to know medicine or any other particular subject, so as to ascertain whether the man really possesses what he pretends to possess.
There will be no point in common between you and him.
You, as a temperate man, possess cognition of cognition, but you do not know any special _cognitum_: the special man knows his own special _cognitum_ but is a stranger to cognition generally.
You cannot question him, nor criticise what he says or performs, in his own specialty--for of that you are ignorant:--no one can do it except some fellow _expert_.
You can ascertain that he possesses some knowledge: but whether he possesses that particular knowledge to which he lays claim, or whether he falsely pretends to it, you cannot ascertain:--since, as a temperate man, you know only cognition and non-cognition generally.
To ascertain this point, you must be not only a temperate man, but a man of special cognition besides.
[21] You can question and test no one, except another temperate man like yourself.
[Footnote 20: Plato, Charm.
169 D. [Greek: nu=n me\n tou=to xugchôrê/sômen, dunato\n ei)=nai gene/sthai e)pistê/mên e)pistê/mês--i)/thi dê\ ou)=n, ei) o(/, ti ma/lista dunato\n tou=to, ti/ ma=llon oi(=o/n te/ e)stin ei)de/nai a(/ te/ tis oi)=de kai\ a(\ mê/?
tou=to ga\r dê/pou e)/phamen ei)=nai to\ gignô/skein au(to\n kai\ sôphronei=n.]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Charm.
170-171.
171 C: [Greek: Panto\s a)/ra ma=llon, ei) ê( sôphrosu/nê e)pistê/mês e)pisê/mê mo/non e)sti\ kai\ a)nepistêmosu/nês, ou)/te i)atro\n diakri=nai oi(/a te e)/stai e)pista/menon ta\ tê=s te/chnês, ê)\ mê\ e)pista/menon prospoiou/menon de\ ê)\ oi)o/menon, ou)/te a)//lon ou)de/na tô=n e)pistame/nôn kai\ o(tiou=n, plê/n ge to\n au(tou= o(mo/technon, ô(/sper oi( a)/lloi dêmiourgoi/.]]
[Side-note: Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value.]
But if this be all that temperance can do, of what use is it to us (continues Sokrates)?
It is indeed a great benefit to know how much we know, and how much we do not know: it is also a great benefit to know respecting others, how much _they_ know, and how much they do not know.
If thus instructed, we should make fewer mistakes: we should do by ourselves only what we knew how to do,--we should commit to others that which they knew how to do, and which we did not know.
But temperance (meaning thereby cognition of cognition and of non-cognition generally) does not confer such instruction, nor have we found any science which does.
[22] How temperance benefits us, does not yet appear.
[Footnote 22: Plato, Charm.
172 A.
[Greek: o(ra=|s, o(/ti ou)damou= e)pistê/mê ou)demi/a toiau/tê ou)=sa pe/phantai.]]
[Side-note: But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied, still Temperance would be of little value.
Suppose that all separate work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not attain our end--Happiness.]
But let us even concede--what has been just shown to be impossible--that through temperance we become aware of what we do know and what we do not know.
Even upon this hypothesis, it will be of little service to us.
We have been too hasty in conceding that it would be a great benefit if each of us did only what he knew, committing to others to do only what they knew.
I have an awkward suspicion (continues Sokrates) that after all, this would be no great benefit.
[23] It is true that upon this hypothesis, all operations in society would be conducted scientifically and skilfully.
We should have none but competent pilots, physicians, generals, &c., acting for us, each of them doing the work for which he was fit.
The supervision exercised by temperance (in the sense above defined) would guard us against all pretenders.
Let us even admit that as to prediction of the future, we should have none but competent and genuine prophets to advise us; charlatans being kept aloof by this same supervision.
We should thus have every thing done scientifically and in a workmanlike manner.
But should we for that reason do well and be happy?
Can that be made out, Kritias?
[24] [Footnote 23: Plato, Charm.
172-173.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Charm.
173 C-D. [Greek: kateskeuasme/non dê\ ou(/tô to\ a)nthrô/pinon ge/nos o(/ti me\n e)pistêmo/nôs a)\n pra/ttoi kai\ zô=|ê, e(/pomai--o(/ti d' e)pistêmo/nôs a)\n pra/ttontes eu)= a)\n pra/ttoimen kai\ eu)daimonoi=men, tou=to de\ ou(/pô duna/metha mathei=n, ô)= phi/le Kriti/a.]]
[Side-note: Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or happiness?
That by which we know good and evil.]
_Krit._--You will hardly find the end of well-doing anywhere else, if you deny that it follows on doing scientifically or according to knowledge.
[25] _Sokr._--But according to knowledge, of _what_?
Of leather-cutting, brazen work, wool, wood, &c.?
_ Krit._--No, none of these.
_Sokr._--Well then, you see, we do not follow out consistently your doctrine--That the happy man is he who lives scientifically, or according to knowledge.
For all these men live according to knowledge, and still you do not admit them to be happy.
Your definition of happiness applies only to some portion of those who live according to knowledge, but not to all.
How are we to distinguish which of them?
Suppose a man to know every thing past, present, and future; which among the fractions of such omniscience would contribute most to make him happy?
Would they all contribute equally?
_Krit._--By no means.
_Sokr._--Which of them then would contribute most?
Would it be that by which he knew the art of gaming?
_Krit._--Certainly not.
_Sokr._--Or that by which he knew the art of computing?
_Krit._--No.
_Sokr._--Or that by which he knew the conditions of health?
_Krit._--That will suit better.
_Sokr._--But which of them most of all?
_Krit._--That by which he knew good and evil.
[26] [Footnote 25: Plato, Charm.
173 D. [Greek: A)lla\ me/ntoi, ê)= d' o(/s, ou) r(a|di/ôs eu(rê/seis a)/llo ti te/los tou= eu)= pra/ttein e)a\n to\ e)pistêmo/nôs a)tima/sês.]]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Charm.
174.]
[Side-note: Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be of little or of no service.
Temperance is not the science of good and evil, and is of little service.]
_Sokr._--Here then, you have been long dragging me round in a circle, keeping back the fact, that well-doing and happiness does not arise from living according to science generally, not of all other matters taken together--but from living according to the science of this one single matter, good and evil.
If you exclude this last, and leave only the other sciences, each of these others will work as before: the medical man will heal, the weaver will prepare clothes, the pilot will navigate his vessel, the general will conduct his army--each of them scientifically.
Nevertheless, that each of these things shall conduce to our well-being and profit, will be an impossibility, if the science of good and evil be wanting.
[27] Now this science of good and evil, the special purpose of which is to benefit us,[28] is altogether different from temperance; which you have defined as the science of cognition and non-cognition, and which appears not to benefit us at all.
_Krit._--Surely it does benefit us: for it presides over and regulates all the other sciences, and of course regulates this very science, of good and evil, among the rest.
_Sokr._--In what way can it benefit us?
It does not procure for us any special service, such as good health: _that_ is the province of medicine: in like manner, each separate result arises from its own producing art.
To confer benefit is, as we have just laid down, the special province of the science of good and evil.
[29] Temperance, as the science of cognition and non-cognition, cannot work any benefit at all.
[Footnote 27: Plato, Charm.
174 C-D. [Greek: e)pei\ ei) the/leis e)xelei=n tau/tên tê\n e)pistê/mên] (of good and evil) [Greek: e)k tô=n a)/llôn e)pistêmô=n, ê(=tto/n ti ê( me\n i)atrikê\ u(giai/nein poiê/sei, ê( de\ skutikê\ u(podede/sthai, ê( de\ u(phantikê\ ê(mphie/sthai, ê( de\ kubbernêtikê\ kôlu/sei e)n tê=| thala/ttê| a)pothnê/skein kai\ ê( stratêgikê\ e)n pole/mô|?
Ou)de\n ê(=tton, e)/phê.
A)lla\ to\ eu)= te tou/tôn e(/kasta gi/gnesthai kai\ ô)pheli/môs a)poleloipo\s ê(ma=s e)/stai tau/tês a)pou/sês.]]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Charm.
174 D. [Greek: ê(=s e)/rgon e)sti\ to\ ô)phelei=n ê(ma=s], &c.] [Footnote 29: Plato, Charm.
175 A.
[Greek: Ou)k a)/ra u(giei/as e)/stai dêmiourgo/s (ê( sôphrosu/nê).
Ou) dê=ta.
A)/llês ga\r ê)=n te/chnês u(giei/a, ê)\ ou)/?
A)/llês.
Ou)d' a)/ra ô)phelei/as, ô)= e(/taire; a)/llê| ga\r au)= a)pe/domen tou=to to\ e)/rgon te/chnê| nu=n dê/; ê)= ga/r?
Pa/nu ge.
Pô=s ou)=n ô)phe/limos e)/stai ê( sôphrosu/nê, ou)demia=s ô)phelei/as ou)=sa dêmiourgo/s?
Ou)damô=s, ô)= Sô/krates, e)/oike/ ge.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research.
He cannot find out what temperance is: although several concessions have been made which cannot be justified.]
Thus then, concludes Sokrates, we are baffled in every way: we cannot find out what temperance is, nor what that name has been intended to designate.
All our tentatives have failed; although, in our anxiety to secure some result, we have accepted more than one inadmissible hypothesis.
Thus we have admitted that there might exist cognition of cognition, though our discussion tended to negative such a possibility.
We have farther granted, that this cognition of cognition, or science of science, might know all the operations of each separate and special science: so that the temperate man (_i.e._ he who possesses cognition of cognition) might know both what he knows and what he does not know: might know, namely, that he knows the former and that he does not know the latter.
We have granted this, though it is really an absurdity to say, that what a man does not know at all, he nevertheless does know after a certain fashion.
[30] Yet after these multiplied concessions against strict truth, we have still been unable to establish our definition of temperance: for temperance as we defined it has, after all, turned out to be thoroughly unprofitable.
[Footnote 30: Plato, Charm.
175 B.
[Greek: kai\ ga\r e)pistê/mên e)pistê/mês ei)=nai xunechôrê/samen, ou)k e)ô=ntos tou= lo/gou ou)de\ pha/skontos ei)=nai; kai\ tau/tê| au)= tê=| e)pistê/mê| kai\ ta\ tô=n a)/llôn e)pistêmô=n e)/rga gignô/skein xunechôrê/samen, ou)de\ tou=t' e)ô=ntos tou= lo/gou, i(/na dê\ ê(mi=n ge/noito o( sô/phrôn e)pistê/môn ô(=n te oi)=den, o(/ti oi)=de, kai\ ô(=n mê\ oi)=den, o(/ti ou)k oi)=de.
tou=to me\n dê\ kai\ panta/pasi megaloprepô=s xunechôrê/samen, ou)d' e)piskepsa/menoi to\ a)du/naton ei)=nai a(/ tis mê\ oi)=de mêdamô=s, tau=ta ei)de/nai a(mô=s ge/ pôs; o(/ti ga\r ou)k oi)=de, phêsi\n au)ta\ ei)de/nai ê( ê(mete/ra o(mologi/a.
kai/toi, ô(s e)gô=mai, ou)deno\s o(/tou ou)chi\ a)logô/teron tou=t' a)\n phanei/ê.]
This would not appear an absurdity to Aristotle.
See Analyt.
Priora, ii.
p. 67, a.
21; Anal.
Post.
i.
71, a.
28.]
[Side-note: Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell whether he is temperate or not; since what temperance is remains unknown.]
It is plain that we have taken the wrong road, and that I (Sokrates) do not know how to conduct the enquiry.
For temperance, whatever it may consist in, must assuredly be a great benefit: and you, Charmides, are happy if you possess it.
How can I tell (rejoins Charmides) whether I possess it or not: since even men like you and Kritias cannot discover what it is?
[31] [Footnote 31: Plato, Charm.
176 A.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue.
Dramatic ornament throughout.]
Here ends the dialogue called Charmidês[32] after the interchange of a few concluding compliments, forming part of the great dramatic richness which characterises this dialogue from the beginning.
I make no attempt to reproduce this latter attribute; though it is one of the peculiar merits of Plato in reference to ethical enquiry, imparting to the subject a charm which does not naturally belong to it.
I confine myself to the philosophical bearing of the dialogue.
According to the express declaration of Sokrates, it ends in nothing but disappointment.
No positive result is attained.
The problem--What is Temperance?--remains unsolved, after four or five different solutions have been successively tested and repudiated.
[Footnote 32: See Appendix at end of chapter.]
[Side-note: The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search.
Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed.]
The Charmidês (like the Lachês) is a good illustrative specimen of those Dialogues of Search, the general character and purpose of which I have explained in my eighth** chapter.
It proves nothing: it disproves several hypotheses: but it exhibits (and therein consists its value) the anticipating, guessing, tentative, and eliminating process, without which no defensible conclusions can be obtained--without which, even if such be found, no advocate can be formed capable of defending them against an acute cross-examiner.
In most cases, this tentative process is forgotten or ignored: even when recognised as a reality, it is set aside with indifference, often with ridicule.
A writer who believes himself to have solved any problem, publishes his solution together with the proofs; and acquires deserved credit for it, if those proofs give satisfaction.
But he does not care to preserve, nor do the public care to know, the steps by which such solution has been reached.
Nevertheless in most cases, and in all cases involving much difficulty, there has been a process, more or less tedious, of tentative and groping--of guesses at first hailed as promising, then followed out to a certain extent, lastly discovered to be untenable.
The history of science,[33] astronomical, physical, chemical, physiological, &c., wherever it has been at all recorded, attests this constant antecedence of a period of ignorance, confusion, and dispute, even in cases where ultimately a solution has been found commanding the nearly unanimous adhesion of the scientific world.
But on subjects connected with man and society, this period of dispute and confusion continues to the present moment.
No unanimity has ever been approached, among nations at once active in intellect and enjoying tolerable liberty of dissent.
Moreover--apart from the condition of different sciences among mature men--we must remember that the transitive process, above described, represents the successive stages by which every adult mind has been gradually built up from infancy.
Trial and error--alternate guess and rejection, generation and destruction of sentiments and beliefs--is among the most widespread facts of human intelligence.
[34] Even those ordinary minds, which in mature life harden with the most exemplary fidelity into the locally prevalent type of orthodoxy,--have all in their earlier years gone through that semi-fluid and indeterminate period, in which the type to come is yet a matter of doubt--in which the head might have been permanently lengthened or permanently flattened, according to the direction in which pressure was applied.
[Footnote 33: It is not often that historians of science take much pains to preserve and bring together the mistaken guesses and tentatives which have preceded great physical discoveries.
One instance in which this has been ably and carefully done is in the 'Biography of Cavendish,' the chemist and natural philosopher, by Dr. Geo.
Wilson.
The great chemical discovery of the composition of water, accomplished during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, has been claimed as the privilege of three eminent scientific men--Cavendish, Watt, and Lavoisier.
The controversy on the subject, voluminous and bitter, has been the means of recording each successive scientific phase and point of view.
It will be found admirably expounded in this biography.
Wilson sets forth the misconceptions, confusion of ideas, approximations to truth seen but not followed out, &c., which prevailed upon the scientific men of that day, especially under the misleading influence of the "phlogiston theory," then universally received.
To Plato such a period of mental confusion would have been in itself an interesting object for contemplation and description.
He might have dramatised it under the names of various disputants, with the cross-examining Elenchus, personified in Sokrates, introduced to stir up the debate, either by first advocating, then refuting, a string of successive guesses and dreams (Charmidês, 173 A) of his own, or by exposing similar suggestions emanating from others; especially in regard to the definition of _phlogiston_, an entity which then overspread and darkened all chemical speculation, but which every theorist thought himself obliged to define.
The dialogues would have ended (as the Protagoras, Lysis, Charmidês, &c., now end) by Sokrates deriding the ill success which had attended them in the search for an explanation, and by his pointing out that while all the theorists talked familiarly about _phlogiston_ as a powerful agent, none of them could agree what it was.
See Dr. Wilson's 'Biography of Cavendish,' pp.
36-198-320-325, and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 34: It is strikingly described by Plato in one of the most remarkable passages of the speech of Diotima in the Symposion, pp.
207-208.]
[Side-note: Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind.
Plato stands alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental process.
Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious ignorance.]
We shall follow Plato towards the close of his career (Treatise De Legibus), into an imperative and stationary orthodoxy of his own: but in the dialogues which I have already reviewed, as well as in several others which I shall presently notice, no mention is made of any given affirmative doctrine as indispensable to arrive at ultimately.
Plato here concentrates his attention upon the indeterminate period of the mind: looking upon the mind not as an empty vessel, requiring to be filled by ready-made matter from without--nor as a blank sheet, awaiting a foreign hand to write characters upon it--but as an assemblage of latent capacities, which must be called into action by stimulus and example, but which can only attain improvement through multiplied trials and multiplied failures.
Whereas in most cases these failures are forgotten, the peculiarity of Plato consists in his bringing them to view with full detail, explaining the reasons of each.
He illustrates abundantly, and dramatises with the greatest vivacity, the intellectual process whereby opinions are broached, at first adopted, then mistrusted, unmade, and re-made--or perhaps not re-made at all, but exchanged for a state of conscious ignorance.
The great hero and operator in this process is the Platonic Sokrates, who accepts for himself this condition of conscious ignorance, and even makes it a matter of comparative pride, that he stands nearly alone in such confession.
[35] His colloquial influence, working powerfully and almost preternaturally,[36] not only serves both to spur and to direct the activity of hearers still youthful and undecided, but also exposes those who have already made up their minds and confidently believe themselves to know.
Sokrates brings back these latter from the false persuasion of knowledge to the state of conscious ignorance, and to the prior indeterminate condition of mind, in which their opinions have again to be put together by the tentative and guessing process.
This tentative process, prosecuted under the drill of Sokrates, is in itself full of charm and interest for Plato, whether it ends by finding a good solution or only by discarding a bad one.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Apolog.
Sokr.
pp.
21-22-23.]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Symposion, 213 E, 215-216; Menon, 80 A-B.]
[Side-note: Familiar words--constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but never understood nor defined--ordinary phenomenon in human society.]
The Charmidês is one of the many Platonic dialogues wherein such intellectual experimentation appears depicted without any positive result: except as it adds fresh matter to illustrate that wide-spread mental fact,--(which has already come before the reader, in Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, Hippias, Erastæ, Lachês, &c., as to holiness, beauty, philosophy, courage, &c., and is now brought to view in the case of _temperance_ also; all of them words in every one's mouth, and tacitly assumed by every one as known quantities) the perpetual and confident judgments which mankind are in the habit of delivering--their apportionment of praise and blame, as well as of reward and punishment consequent on praise and blame--without any better basis than that of strong emotion imbibed they know not how, and without being able to render any rational explanation even of the familiar words round which such emotions are grouped.
No philosopher has done so much as Plato to depict in detail this important fact--the habitual condition of human society, modern as well as ancient, and for that very reason generally unnoticed.
[37] The emotional or subjective value of temperance is all that Sokrates determines, and which indeed he makes his point of departure.
Temperance is essentially among the fine, beautiful, honourable, things:[38] but its rational or objective value (_i.e._, what is the common object characterising all temperate acts or persons), he cannot determine.
Here indeed Plato is not always consistent with himself: for we shall come to other dialogues wherein he professes himself incompetent to say whether a thing be beautiful or not, until it be determined what the thing is:[39] and we have already found Sokrates declaring (in the Hippias Major), that we cannot determine whether any particular object is beautiful or not, until we have first determined, What is Beauty in the Absolute, or the Self-Beautiful?
a problem nowhere solved by Plato.
[Footnote 37: "Whoever has reflected on the generation of ideas in his own mind, or has investigated the causes of misunderstandings among mankind, will be obliged to proclaim as a fact deeply seated in human nature--That most of the misunderstandings and contradictions among men, most of the controversies and errors both in science and in society, arise usually from our assuming (consciously or unconsciously) fundamental maxims and fundamental facts as if they were self-evident, and as if they must be assumed by every one else besides.
Accordingly we never think of closely examining them, until at length experience has taught us that these _self-evident_ matters are exactly what stand most in need of proof, and what form the special root of divergent opinions."--(L.
O. Bröcker--Untersuchungen über die Glaubwürdigkeit der alt-Römischen Geschichte, p.
490.)]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Charm.
159 B, 160 D. [Greek: ê( sôphrosu/nê--tô=n kalô=n ti--e)n tô=| lo/gô=| tô=n kalô=n ti].
So also Sokrates in the Lachês (192 C), assumes that courage is [Greek: tô=n pa/nu kalô=n pragma/tôn], though he professes not to know nor to be able to discover what courage is.]
[Footnote 39: See Gorgias, 462 B, 448 E; Menon, 70 B.]
[Side-note: Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues.]
Among the various unsuccessful definitions of temperance propounded, there is more than one which affords farther example to show how differently Plato deals with the same subject in different dialogues.
Here we have the phrase--"to do one's own business"--treated as an unmeaning puzzle, and exhibited as if it were analogous to various other phrases, with which the analogy is more verbal than real.
But in the Republic, Plato admits this phrase as well understood, and sets it forth as the constituent element of justice; in the Gorgias, as the leading mark of philosophical life.
[40] [Footnote 40: Plato, Republ.
iv.
433, vi.
496 C, viii.
550 A; Gorgias, 526 C. Compare also Timæus, 72 A, Xen, Mem.
ii.
9, 1.]
[Side-note: Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible.]
Again, another definition given by Kritias is, That temperance consists in knowing yourself, or in self-knowledge.
In commenting upon this definition, Sokrates makes out--first, that self-knowledge is impossible: next, that if possible, it would be useless.
You cannot know yourself, he argues: you cannot know what you know, and what you do not know: to say that you know what you know, is either tautological or untrue--to say that you know what you do not know, is a contradiction.
All cognition must be cognition of something distinct from yourself: it is a relative term which must have some correlate, and cannot be its own correlate: you cannot have cognition of cognition, still less cognition of non-cognition.
[Side-note: In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential and inestimable.
Necessity for the student to have presented to him dissentient points of view.]
This is an important point of view, which I shall discuss more at length when I come to the Platonic Theætetus.
I bring it to view here only as contrasting with different language held by the Platonic Sokrates in other dialogues; where he insists on the great value and indispensable necessity of self-knowledge, as a preliminary to all other knowledge--upon the duty of eradicating from men's minds that false persuasion of their own knowledge which they universally cherished--and upon the importance of forcing them to know their own ignorance as well as their own knowledge.
In the face of this last purpose, so frequently avowed by the Platonic Sokrates (indirectly even in this very dialogue),[41] we remark a material discrepancy, when he here proclaims self-knowledge to be impossible.
We must judge every dialogue by itself, illustrating it when practicable by comparison with others, but not assuming consistence between them as a postulate _à priori_.
It is a part of Plato's dramatic and tentative mode of philosophising to work out different ethical points of view, and to have present to his mind one or other of them, with peculiar force in each different dialogue.
The subject is thus brought before us on all its sides, and the reader is familiarised with what a dialectician might say, whether capable of being refuted or not.
Inconsistency between one dialogue and another is not a fault in the Platonic dialogues of Search; but is, on the contrary, a part of the training process, for any student who is destined to acquire that full mastery of question and answer which Plato regards as the characteristic test of knowledge.
It is a puzzle and provocative to the internal meditation of the student.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Charm.
166 D.] [Side-note: Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning, except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil.]
In analyzing the Lachês, we observed that the definition of courage given by Nikias was shown by Sokrates to have no meaning, except in so far as it coincided with the general knowledge or cognition of good and evil.
Here, too, in the Charmidês, we are brought in the last result to the same terminus--the general cognition of good and evil.
But Temperance, as previously good and defined, is not comprehended under that cognition, and is therefore pronounced to be unprofitable.
[Side-note: Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good and Evil.
Without this last, the special sciences are of no use.]
This cognition of good and evil--the science of the profitable--is here (in the Charmidês) proclaimed by Sokrates to have a place of its own among the other sciences; and even to be first among them, essentially necessary to supervise and direct them, as it had been declared in Alkibiadês II.
Now the same supervising place and directorship had been claimed by Kritias for Temperance as he defines it--that is, self-knowledge, or the cognition of our cognitions and non-cognitions.
But Sokrates doubts even the reality of such self-knowledge: and granting for argument's sake that it exists, he still does not see how it can be profitable.
For the utmost which its supervision can ensure would be, that each description of work shall be scientifically done, by the skilful man, and not by the unskilful.
But it is not true, absolutely speaking (he argues), that acting scientifically or with knowledge is sufficient for well doing or for happiness: for the question must next be asked--Knowledge--of what?
Not knowledge of leather-cutting, carpenter's or brazier's work, arithmetic, or even medicine: these, and many others, a man may possess, and may act according to them; but still he will not attain the end of being happy.
All cognitions contribute in greater or less proportion towards that end: but what contributes most, and most essentially, is the cognition of good and evil, without which all the rest are insufficient.
Of this last-mentioned cognition or science, it is the special object to ensure profit or benefit:[42] to take care that everything done by the other sciences shall be done well or in a manner conducing towards the end Happiness.
After this, there is no province left for temperance--_i.e._, self-knowledge, or the knowledge of cognitions and non-cognitions: no assignable way in which it can yield any benefit.
[43] [Footnote 42: Plato, Charm.
174 D. [Greek: Ou)ch au(/tê| de/ ge, ô(s e)/oiken, e)sti\n ê( sôphrosu/nê, a)ll' ê(=s e)/rgon e)sti\ to\ ô)phelei=n ê(ma=s.
Ou) ga\r e)pistêmô=n ge kai\ a)nepistêmosunô=n ê( e)pistê/mê e)sti/n, a)lla\ a)gathou= te kai\ kakou=.]]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Charm.
174 E. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra u(giei/as e)/stai dêmiourgo/s?
Ou) dê=ta.
A)/llês ga\r ê)=n te/chnês u(gi/eia?
ê)\ ou)/?
A)/llês; Ou)d' a)/ra ô)phelei/as, ô)= e(tai=re; a)/llê| ga\r au)= a)pe/domen tou=to to\ e)/rgon te/chnê| nu=n dê/; ê)= ga\r?
Pa/nu ge.
Pô=s ou)=n ô)phe/limos e)/stai ê(sôphrosu/nê, ou)demia=s ô)phelei/as ou)=sa dêmiourgo/s?
Ou)damô=s, ô)= Sô/krates, e)/oike/ ge.]]
[Side-note: Knowledge, always relative to some object known.
Postulate or divination of a Science of Teleology.]
Two points are here to be noted, as contained and debated in the handling of this dialogue.
1.
Knowledge absolutely, is a word without meaning: all knowledge is relative, and has a definite object or _cognitum_: there can be no _scientia scientiarum_.
2.
Among the various objects of knowledge (_cognita_ or _cognoscenda_), one is, _good and evil_.
There is a science of good and evil, the function of which is, to watch over and compare the results of the other sciences, in order to promote results of happiness, and to prevent results of misery: without the supervision of this latter science, the other sciences might be all exactly followed out, but no rational comparison could be had between them.
[44] In other words, there is a science of Ends, estimating the comparative worth of each End in relation to other Ends (Teleology): distinct from those other more special sciences, which study the means each towards a separate End of its own.
Here we fall into the same track as we have already indicated in Lachês and Alkibiadês II.
[Footnote 44: Compare what has been said upon the same subject in my remarks on Alkib.
i. and ii.
p.
31.
**] [Side-note: Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle.
Comparison between the two.]
These matters I shall revert to in other dialogues, where we shall find them turned over and canvassed in many different ways.
One farther observation remains to be made on the Lachês and Charmidês, discussing as they do Courage (which is also again discussed in the Protagoras) and Temperance.
An interesting comparison may be made between them and the third book of the Nikomachean Ethics of Aristotle,[45] where the same two subjects are handled in the Aristotelian manner.
The direct, didactic, systematising, brevity of Aristotle contrasts remarkably with the indirect and circuitous prolixity, the multiplied suggestive comparisons, the shifting points of view, which we find in Plato.
Each has its advantages: and both together will be found not more than sufficient, for any one who is seriously bent on acquiring what Plato calls knowledge, with the cross-examining power included in it.
Aristotle is greatly superior to Plato in one important attribute of a philosopher: in the care which he takes to discriminate the different significations of the same word: the univocal and the equivocal, the generically identical from the remotely analogical, the proper from the improper, the literal from the metaphorical.
Of such precautions we discover little or no trace in Plato, who sometimes seems not merely to neglect, but even to deride them.
Yet Aristotle, assisted as he was by all Plato's speculations before us, is not to be understood as having superseded the necessity for that negative Elenchus which animates the Platonic dialogues of Search: nor would his affirmative doctrines have held their grounds before a cross-examining Sokrates.
[Footnote 45: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
iii.
p. 1115, 1119; also Ethic.
Eudem.
iii.
1229-1231.
The comments of Aristotle upon the doctrine of Sokrates respecting Courage seem to relate rather to the Protagoras than to the Lachês of Plato.
See Eth.
Nik.
1116, 6, 4; Eth.
Eud.
1229, a.
15.]
APPENDIX.
The dialogue Charmidês is declared to be spurious, not only by Ast, but also by Socher (Ast, Platon's Leb.
pp.
419-428; Socher, Ueber Platon, pp.
130-137).
Steinhart maintains the genuineness of the dialogue against them; declaring (as in regard to the Lachês) that he can hardly conceive how critics can mistake the truly Platonic character of it, though here too, as in the Lachês, he detects "adolescentiæ vestigia" (Steinhart, Einleit.
zum Charmidês, pp.
290-293).
Schleiermacher considers Charmidês as well as Lachês to be appendixes to the Protagoras, which opinion both Stallbaum (Proleg.
ad Charm, p. 121; Proleg.
ad Lachet.
p. 30, 2nd ed.)
and Steinhart controvert.
The views of Stallbaum respecting the Charmidês are declared by Steinhart (p. 290) to be "recht äusserlich und oberflächlich".
To me they appear much nearer the truth than the profound and recondite meanings, the far-sighted indirect hints, which Steinhart himself perceives or supposes in the words of Plato.
These critics consider the dialogue as composed during the government of the Thirty at Athens, in which opinion I do not concur.
CHAPTER XX.
LYSIS.
[Side-note: Analogy between Lysis and Charmidês.
Richness of dramatic incident in both.
Youthful beauty.]
The Lysis, as well as the Charmidês, is a dialogue recounted by Sokrates himself, describing both incidents and a conversation in a crowded Palæstra; wherein not merely bodily exercises were habitually practised, but debate was carried on and intellectual instruction given by a Sophist named Mikkus, companion and admirer of Sokrates.
There is a lively dramatic commencement, introducing Sokrates into the Palæstra, and detailing the preparation and scenic arrangements, before the real discussion opens.
It is the day of the Hermæa, or festival of Hermes, celebrated by sacrifice and its accompanying banquets among the frequenters of gymnasia.
[Side-note: Scenery and personages of the Lysis.]
Lysis, like Charmidês, is an Athenian youth, of conspicuous beauty, modesty, and promise.
His father Demokrates represents an ancient family of the Æxonian Deme in Attica, and is said to be descended from Zeus and the daughter of the Archêgetês or Heroic Founder of that Deme.
The family moreover are so wealthy, that they have gained many victories at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, both with horses and with chariots and four.
Menexenus, companion of Lysis, is somewhat older, and is his affectionate friend.
The persons who invite Sokrates into the palæstra, and give occasion to the debate, are Ktesippus and Hippothalês: both of them adults, yet in the vigour of age.
Hippothalês is the Erastes of Lysis, passionately attached to him.
He is ridiculed by Ktesippus for perpetually talking about Lysis, as well as for addressing to him compositions both in prose and verse, full of praise and flattery; extolling not only his personal beauty, but also his splendid ancestry and position.
[1] [Footnote 1: Plato, Lysis, 203-205.]
[Side-note: Origin of the conversation.
Sokrates promises to give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit.]
In reference to these addresses, Sokrates remonstrates with Hippothalês on the imprudence and mischief of addressing to a youth flatteries calculated to turn his head.
He is himself then invited by Hippothalês to exhibit a specimen of the proper mode of talking to youth; such as shall be at once acceptable to the person addressed, and unobjectionable.
Sokrates agrees to do so, if an opportunity be afforded him of conversing with Lysis.
[2] Accordingly after some well-imagined incidents, interesting as marks of Greek manners--Sokrates and Ktesippus with others seat themselves in the palæstra, amidst a crowd of listeners.
[3] Lysis, too modest at first to approach, is emboldened to sit down by seeing Menexenus seated by the side of Sokrates: while Hippothalês, not daring to put himself where Lysis can see him, listens, but conceals himself behind some of the crowd.
Sokrates begins the conversation with Menexenus and Lysis jointly: but presently Menexenus is called away for a moment, and he talks with Lysis singly.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Lysis, 206.]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Lysis, 206-207.]
[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis.]
_Sokr._--Well--Lysis--your father and mother love you extremely.
_Lysis._--Assuredly they do.
_Sokr._--They would wish you therefore to be as happy as possible.
_Lysis._--Undoubtedly.
_Sokr._--Do you think any man happy, who is a slave, and who is not allowed to do any thing that he desires?
_Lysis._--I do not think him happy at all.
_Sokr._--Since therefore your father and mother are so anxious that you should be happy, they of course allow you to do the things which you desire, and never reprove nor forbid you.
_Lysis._--Not at all, by Zeus, Sokrates: there are a great many things that they forbid me.
_Sokr._--How say you!
they wish you to be happy--and they hinder you from doing what you wish!
Tell me, for example, when one of your father's chariots is going to run a race, if you wished to mount and take the reins, would not they allow you to do so?
_Lysis._--No--certainly: they would not allow me.
_Sokr._--But whom do they allow, then?
_Lysis._--My father employs a paid charioteer.
_Sokr._--What!
do they permit a hireling, in preference to _you_, to do what he wishes with the horses?
and do they give him pay besides for doing so?
_Lysis._--Why--to be sure.
_Sokr._--But doubtless, I imagine, they trust the team of mules to your direction; and if you chose to take the whip and flog, they would allow you?
_Lysis._--Allow me?
not at all.
_Sokr._--What!
is no one allowed to flog them?
_Lysis._--Yes--certainly--the mule-groom.
_Sokr._--Is he a slave or free?
_Lysis._--A slave.
_Sokr._--Then, it seems, they esteem a slave higher than you their son; trusting their property to him rather than to you, letting _him_ do what he pleases, while they forbid you.
But tell me farther: do they allow you to direct yourself--or do not they even trust you so far as that?
_Lysis._--How can you imagine that they trust me?
_Sokr._--But does any one else direct you?
_Lysis._--Yes--this tutor here.
_Sokr._--Is he a slave?
_Lysis._--To be sure: belonging to our family.
_Sokr._--That is shocking: one of free birth to be under the direction of a slave!
But what is it that he does, as your director?
_Lysis._--He conducts me to my teacher's house.
_Sokr._--What!
do _they_ govern you also, these teachers?
_Lysis._--Undoubtedly they do.
_Sokr._--Then your father certainly is bent on putting over you plenty of directors and governors.
But surely, when you come home to your mother, she at least, anxious that you should be happy as far as she is concerned, lets you do what you please about the wool or the web, when she is weaving: she does not forbid you to meddle with the bodkin or any of the other instruments of her work?
_Lysis._--Ridiculous!
not only does she forbid me, but I should be beaten if I did meddle.
_Sokr._--How is this, by Heraklês?
Have you done any wrong to your father and mother?
_Lysis._--Never at all, by Zeus.
_Sokr._--From what provocation is it, then, that they prevent you in this terrible way, from being happy and doing what you wish?
keeping you the whole day in servitude to some one, and never your own master?
so that you derive no benefit either from the great wealth of the family, which is managed by every one else rather than by you--or from your own body, noble as it is.
Even _that_ is consigned to the watch and direction of another: while you, Lysis, are master of nothing, nor can do any one thing of what you desire.
_Lysis._--The reason is, Sokrates, that I am not yet old enough.
_Sokr._--That can hardly be the reason; for to a certain extent your father and mother do trust you, without waiting for you to grow older.
If they want any thing to be written or read for them, they employ you for that purpose in preference to any one in the house: and you are then allowed to write or read first, whichever of the letters you think proper.
Again, when you take up the lyre, neither father nor mother hinder you from tightening or relaxing the strings, or striking them either with your finger or with the plectrum.
_Lysis._--They do not.
_Sokr._--Why is it, then, that they do not hinder you in this last case, as they did in the cases before mentioned?
_Lysis._--I suppose it is because I know this last, but did not know the others.
_Sokr._--Well, my good friend, you see that it is not your increase of years that your father waits for; but on the very day that he becomes convinced that you know better than he, he will entrust both himself and his property to your management.
_Lysis._--I suppose that he will.
_Sokr._--Ay--and your neighbour too will judge in the same way as your father.
As soon as he is satisfied that you understand house-management better than he does, which do you think he will rather do--confide his house to you, or continue to manage it himself?
_Lysis._--I think he will confide it to me.
_Sokr._--The Athenians too: do not you think that they also will put their affairs into your management, as soon as they perceive that you have intelligence adequate to the task?
_Lysis._--Yes: I do.
_Sokr._--What do you say about the Great King also, by Zeus!
When his meat is being boiled, would he permit his eldest son who is to succeed to the rule of Asia, to throw in any thing that he pleases into the sauce, rather than us, if we come and prove to him that we know better than his son the way of preparing sauce?
_Lysis._--Clearly, he will rather permit us.
_Sokr._--The Great King will not let his son throw in even a pinch of salt: while we, if we chose to take up an entire handful, should be allowed to throw it in.
_Lysis._--No doubt.
_Sokr._--What if his son has a complaint in his eyes; would the Great King, knowing him to be ignorant of medicine, allow him even to touch his own eyes or would he forbid him?
_Lysis._--He would forbid him.
_Sokr._--As to us, on the contrary, if he accounted us good physicians, and if we desired even to open the eyes and drop a powder into them, he would not hinder us, in the conviction that we understood what we were doing.
_Lysis._--You speak truly.
_Sokr._--All other matters, in short, on which he believed us to be wiser than himself or his son, he would entrust to us rather than to himself or his son?
_Lysis._--Necessarily so, Sokrates.
_Sokr._--This is the state of the case, then, my dear Lysis: On those matters on which we shall have become intelligent, all persons will put trust in us--Greeks as well as barbarians, men as well as women.
We shall do whatever we please respecting them: no one will be at all inclined to interfere with us on such matters; not only we shall be ourselves free, but we shall have command over others besides.
These matters will be really ours, because we shall derive real good from them.
[4] As to those subjects, on the contrary, on which we shall not have acquired intelligence, no one will trust us to do what we think right: every one,--not merely strangers, but father and mother and nearer relatives if there were any,--will obstruct us as much as they can: we shall be in servitude so far as these subjects are concerned; and they will be really alien to us, for we shall derive no real good from them.
Do you admit that this is the case?
[5] _Lysis._--I do admit it.
_Sokr._--Shall we then be friends to any one, or will any one love us, on those matters on which we are unprofitable _Lysis._--Certainly not.
_Sokr._--You see that neither does your father love you, nor does any man love another, in so far as he is useless?
_Lysis._--Apparently not.
_Sokr._--If then you become intelligent, my boy, all persons will be your friends and all persons will be your kinsmen: for you will be useful and good: if you do not, no one will be your friend,--not even your father nor your mother nor your other relatives.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Lysis, 210 B.
[Greek: kai\ ou)dei\s ê(ma=s e(kô\n ei)=nai e)mpodiei=, a)ll' au)toi/ te e)leu/theroi e)so/metha e)n au)toi=s kai\ a)/llôn a)/rchontes, ê(me/tera/ te tau=ta e)/stai; o)nêso/metha ga\r a)p' au)tô=n.]]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Lysis, 210 C. [Greek: au)toi/ te e)n au)toi=s e)so/metha a)/llôn u(pêkooi, kai\ ê(mi=n e)/stai a)llo/tria; ou)de\n ga\r a)p' au)tô=n o)nêso/metha.
Sugchôrei=s ou(/tôs e)/chein?
Sugchôrô=.]]
Is it possible then, Lysis, for a man to think highly of himself on those matters on which he does not yet think aright?
_Lysis._--How can it be possible?
_Sokr._--If you stand in need of a teacher, you do not yet think aright?
_Lysis._--True.
_Sokr._--Accordingly, you are not presumptuous on the score of intelligence, since you are still without intelligence.
_Lysis._--By Zeus, Sokrates, I think not.
[6] [Footnote 6: Plato, Lysis, 210 D. [Greek: Oi(=o/n te ou)=n e)pi\ tou/tois, ô)= Lu/si, me/ga phronei=n, e)n oi(=s tis mê/pô phronei=?
Kai\ pô=s a)\n?
e)/phê.
Ei) d' a)/ra su\ didaska/lou de/ei, ou)/pô phronei=s.
A)lêthê=.
Ou)d' a)/ra megalo/phrôn ei)=, ei)/per a)/phrôn e)/ti.
Ma\ Di/', e)/phê, ô)= Sô/krates, ou)/ moi dokei=.]
There is here a double sense of [Greek: me/ga phronei=n, megalo/phrôn], which cannot easily be made to pass into any other language.]
[Side-note: Lysis is humiliated.
Distress of Hippothalês.]
When I heard Lysis speak thus (continues Sokrates, who is here the narrator), I looked towards Hippothalês and I was on the point of committing a blunder: for it occurred to me to say, That is the way, Hippothalês, to address a youth whom you love: you ought to check and humble him, not puff him up and spoil him, as you have hitherto done.
But when I saw him agitated and distressed by what had been said, I called to mind that, though standing close by, he wished not to be seen by Lysis.
Accordingly, I restrained myself and said nothing of the kind.
[7] [Footnote 7: Plato, Lysis, 210 E.] [Side-note: Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain to Menexenus.]
Lysis accepts this as a friendly lesson, inculcating humility: and seeing Menexenus just then coming back, he says aside to Sokrates, Talk to Menexenus, as you have been talking to me.
You can tell him yourself (replies Sokrates) what you have heard from me: you listened very attentively.
Most certainly I shall tell him (says Lysis): but meanwhile pray address to him yourself some other questions, for me to hear.
You must engage to help me if I require it (answers Sokrates): for Menexenus is a formidable disputant, scholar of our friend Ktesippus, who is here ready to assist him.
I know he is (rejoined Lysis), and it is for that very reason that I want you to talk to him--that you may chasten and punish him.
[8] [Footnote 8: Plato, Lysis, 211 B-C. [Greek: a)ll' o(/ra o(/pôs e)pikourê/seis moi, e)a/n me e)le/gchein e)picheirê=| o( Mene/xenos.
ê)\ ou)k oi)=stha o(/ti e)ristiko/s e)sti?
Nai\ ma\ Di/a, e)/phê, spho/dra ge.
dia\ tau=ta/ toi kai\ bou/lomai/ se au)tô=| diale/gesthai--i(/n' au)to\n kola/sê|s.]
Compare Xenophon, Memor.
i.
4, 1, where he speaks of the chastising purpose often contemplated by Sokrates in his conversation--[Greek: a)\ e)kei=nos kolastêri/ou e(/neka tou\s pa/nt' oi)ome/nous ei)de/nai e)rôtô=n ê)/legchen.]]
[Side-note: Value of the first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, as an illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner.]
I have given at length, and almost literally (with some few abbreviations), this first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, because it is a very characteristic passage, exhibiting conspicuously several peculiar features of the Platonico-Sokratic interrogation.
Facts common and familiar are placed in a novel point of view, ingeniously contrasted, and introduced as stepping-stones to a very wide generality.
Wisdom or knowledge is exalted into the ruling force with liberty of action not admissible except under its guidance: the questions are put in an inverted half-ironical tone (not uncommon with the historical Sokrates[9]), as if an affirmative answer were expected as a matter of course, while in truth the answer is sure to be negative: lastly, the purpose of checking undue self-esteem is proclaimed.
The rest of the dialogue, which contains the main substantive question investigated, I can report only in brief abridgment, with a few remarks following.
[Footnote 9: See the conversation of Sokrates with Glaukon in Xenophon, Memor.
iii.
6; also the conversation with Perikles, iii.
5, 23-24.]
[Side-note: Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting friendship.
Who is to be called a friend?
Halt in the dialogue.]
Sokrates begins, as Lysis requests, to interrogate Menexenus--first premising--Different men have different tastes: some love horses and dogs, others wealth or honours.
For my part, I care little about all such acquisitions: but I ardently desire to possess friends, and I would rather have a good friend than all the treasures of Persia.
You two, Menexenus and Lysis, are much to be envied, because at your early age, each of you has made an attached friend of the other.
But I am so far from any such good fortune, that I do not even know how any man becomes the friend of another.
This is what I want to ask from you, Menexenus, as one who must know,[10] having acquired such a friend already.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Lysis, 211-212.]
When one man loves another, which becomes the friend of which?
Does he who loves, become the friend of him whom he loves, whether the latter returns the affection or not?
Or is the person loved, whatever be his own dispositions, the friend of the person who loves him?
Or is reciprocity of affection necessary, in order that either shall be the friend of the other?
The speakers cannot satisfy themselves that the title of _friend_ fits either of the three cases;[11] so that this line of interrogating comes to a dead lock.
Menexenus avows his embarrassment, while Lysis expresses himself more hopefully.
[Footnote 11: Plato, Lysis, 212-213.
213 C:--[Greek: ei) mê/te oi( philou=ntes (1) phi/loi e)/sontai, mê/th' oi( philou/menoi (2), mê/th' oi( philou=nte/s te kai\ philou/menoi] (3), &c. Sokrates here professes to have shown grounds for rejecting all these three suppositions.
But if we follow the preceding argument, we shall see that he has shown grounds only against the first two, not against the third.]
[Side-note: Questions addressed to Lysis.
Appeal to the maxims of the poets.
Like is the friend of like.
Canvassed and rejected.]
Sokrates now takes up a different aspect of the question, and turns to Lysis, inviting him to consider what has been laid down by the poets, "our fathers and guides in respect of wisdom".
[12] Homer says that the Gods originate friendship, by bringing the like man to his like: Empedokles and other physical philosophers have also asserted, that like must always and of necessity be the friend of like.
These wise teachers cannot mean (continues Sokrates) that bad men are friends of each other.
The bad man can be no one's friend.
He is not even like himself, but ever wayward and insane:--much less can he be like to any one else, even to another bad man.
They mean that the good alone are like to each other, and friends to each other.
[13] But is this true?
What good, or what harm, can like do to like, which it does not also do to itself?
How can there be reciprocal love between parties who render to each other no reciprocal aid?
Is not the good man, so far forth as good, sufficient to himself,--standing in need of no one--and therefore loving no one?
How can good men care much for each other, seeing that they thus neither regret each other when absent, nor have need of each other when present?
[14] [Footnote 12: Plato, Lysis, 213 E: [Greek: skopou=nta kata\ tou\s poiêta/s; ou(=toi ga\r ê(mi=n ô(/sper pate/res tê=s sophi/as ei)si\ kai\ ê(gemo/nes.]]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Lysis, 214.]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Lysis 215 B: [Greek: O( de\ mê/ tou deo/menos, ou)de/ ti a)gapô/| a)\n.
.
.
.
O(\ de\ mê\ a)gapô/|ê, ou)d' a)\n philoi=.
.
.
.
Pô=s ou)=n oi( a)gathoi\ toi=s a)gathoi=s ê(mi=n phi/loi e)/sontai tê\n a)rchê/n, oi(\ mê/te a(po/ntes potheinoi\ a)llê/lois--i(kanoi\ ga\r e(autoi=s kai\ chôri\s o)/ntes--mê/te paro/ntes chrei/an au)tô=n e)/chousi?
tou\s dê\ toiou/tous ti/s mêchanê\ peri\ pollou= poiei=sthai a)llêlous?]]
[Side-note: Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of aversion; unlikeness, of friendship.
Reasons _pro_ and _con_.
Rejected.]
It appears, therefore, Lysis (continues Sokrates), that we are travelling in the wrong road, and must try another direction.
I now remember to have recently heard some one affirming--contrary to what we have just said--that likeness is a cause of aversion, and** unlikeness a cause of friendship.
He too produced evidence from the poets: for Hesiod tells us, that "potter is jealous of potter, and bard of bard".
Things most alike are most full of envy, jealousy and hatred to each other: things most unlike, are most full of friendship.
Thus the poor man is of necessity a friend to the rich, the weak man to the strong, for the sake of protection: the sick man, for similar reason, to the physician.
In general, every ignorant man loves, and is a friend to, the man of knowledge.
Nay, there are also physical philosophers, who assert that this principle pervades all nature; that dry is the friend of moist, cold of hot, and so forth: that all contraries serve as nourishment to their contraries.
These are ingenious teachers: but if we follow them, we shall have the cleverest disputants attacking us immediately, and asking--What!
is the opposite essentially a friend to its opposite?
Do you mean that unjust is essentially the friend of just--temperate of intemperate--good of evil?
Impossible: the doctrine cannot be maintained.
[15] [Footnote 15: Plato, Lysis, 215-216.]
[Side-note: Confusion of Sokrates.
He suggests, That the Indifferent (neither good nor evil) is friend to the Good.]
My head turns (continues Sokrates) with this confusion and puzzle--since neither like is the friend of like, nor contrary of contrary.
But I will now hazard a different guess of my own.
[16] There are three genera in all: the good--the evil--and that which is neither good nor evil, the indifferent.
Now we have found that good is not a friend to good--nor evil to evil--nor good to evil--nor evil to good.
If therefore there exist any friendship at all, it must be the indifferent that is friend, either to its like, or to the good: for nothing whatever can be a friend to evil.
But if the indifferent be a friend at all, it cannot be a friend to its own like; since we have already shown that like generally is not friend to like.
It remains therefore, that the indifferent, in itself neither good nor evil, is friend to the good.
[17] [Footnote 16: Plato, Lysis, 216 C-D: [Greek: tô=| o)/nti au)to\s i)liggiô= u(po\ tê=s tou= lo/gou a)pori/as--Le/gô toi/nun a)pomanteuo/menos], &c.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Lysis, 216 D.] [Side-note: Suggestion canvassed.
If the Indifferent is friend to the Good, it is determined to become so by the contact of felt evil, from which it is anxious to escape.]
Yet hold!
Are we on the right scent?
What reason is there to determine, on the part of the indifferent, attachment to the good?
It will only have such attachment under certain given circumstances: when, though neither good nor evil in itself, it has nevertheless evil associated with it, of which it desires to be rid.
Thus the body in itself is neither good nor evil: but when diseased, it has evil clinging to it, and becomes in consequence of this evil, friendly to the medical art as a remedy.
But this is true only so long as the evil is only apparent, and not real: so long as it is a mere superficial appendage, and has not become incorporated with the essential nature of the body.
When evil has become engrained, the body ceases to be indifferent (_i.e._, neither good nor evil), and loses all its attachment to good.
Thus that which determines the indifferent to become friend of the good, is, the contact and pressure of accessory evil not in harmony with its own nature, accompanied by a desire for the cure of such evil.
[18] [Footnote 18: Plato, Lysis, 217 E: [Greek: To\ mê/te kako\n a)/ra mê/t' a)gatho\n e)ni/ote kakou= paro/ntos ou)/pô kako/n e)stin, e)/sti d' o(/te ê)/dê to\ toiou=ton ge/gonen.
Pa/nu ge.
Ou)kou=n o(/tan mê/pô lalo\n ê(=| kakou= paro/ntos, au)tê\ me\n ê( parousi/a a)gathou= au)to\ poiei= e)pithumei=n, ê( de\ kako\n poiou=sa a)posterei= au)to\ tê=s t' e)pithumi/as a)/ma kai\ tê=s phili/as ta)gathou=.
Ou) ga\r e)/ti e)sti\n ou)/te kako\n ou)/t' a)gatho/n, a)lla\ kako/n; phi/lon de\ a)gathô=| kako\n ou)k ê)=n.]]
[Side-note: Principle illustrated by the philosopher.
His intermediate condition--not wise, yet painfully feeling his own ignorance.]
Under this head comes the explanation of the philosopher--the friend or lover of wisdom.
The man already wise is not a lover of wisdom: nor the man thoroughly bad and stupid, with whose nature ignorance is engrained.
Like does not love like, nor does contrary love contrary.
The philosopher is intermediate between the two: he is not wise, but neither has he yet become radically stupid and unteachable.
He has ignorance cleaving to him as an evil, but he knows his own ignorance, and yearns for wisdom as a cure for it.
[19] [Footnote 19: Plato, Lysis, 218 A.
[Greek: dia\ tau=ta dê\ phai=men a)\n kai\ tou\s ê)/dê sophou\s mêke/ti philosophei=n, ei)/te theoi\ ei)/te a)/nthrôpoi/ ei)sin ou(=toi; ou)d' au)= e)kei/nous philosophei=n tou\s ou(/tôs a)/gnoian e)/chontas ô(/ste kakou\s ei)=nai; kako\n ga\r kai\ a)mathê= ou)de/na philosophei=n.
lei/pontai dê\ oi( e)/chontes me\n to\ kako\n tou=to, tê\n a)/gnoian, mê/pô de\ u(p' au)tou= o)/ntes a)gnô/mones mêd' a)mathei=s, a)ll' e)/ti ê(gou/menoi mê\ ei)de/nai a(\ mê\ i)/sasin.
dio\ dê\ philosophou=sin oi( ou)/te a)gathoi\ ou)/te kakoi/ pô o)/ntes.
o(/soi de\ kakoi\, ou) philosophou=sin, ou)de\ oi( a)gathoi/.]
Compare Plato, Symposion, 204.]
[Side-note: Sokrates dissatisfied.
He originates a new suggestion.
The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us, _per se_: by relation or resemblance to which other objects become dear.]
The two young collocutors with Sokrates welcome this explanation heartily, and Sokrates himself appears for the moment satisfied with it.
But he presently bethinks himself, and exclaims, Ah!
Lysis and Menexenus, our wealth is all a dream!
we have been yielding again to delusions!
Let us once more examine.
You will admit that all friendship is on account of something and for the sake of something: it is relative both to some producing cause, and to some prospective end.
Thus the body, which is in itself neither good nor evil, becomes when sick a friend to the medical art: on account of sickness, which is an evil--and for the sake of health, which is a good.
The medical art is dear to us, because health is dear: but is there any thing behind, for the sake of which health also is dear?
It is plain that we cannot push the series of references onward for ever, and that we must come ultimately to something which is dear _per se_, not from reference to any ulterior _aliud_.
We must come to some _primum amabile_, dear by its own nature, to which all other dear things refer, and from which they are derivatives.
[20] It is this _primum amabile_ which is the primitive, essential, and constant, object of our affections: we love other things only from their being associated with it.
Thus suppose a father tenderly attached to his son, and that the son has drunk hemlock, for which wine is an antidote; the father will come by association to prize highly, not merely the wine which saves his son's life, but even the cup in which the wine is contained.
Yet it would be wrong to say that he prizes the wine or the cup as much as his son: for the truth is, that all his solicitude is really on behalf of his son, and extends only in a derivative and secondary way to the wine and the cup.
So about gold and silver: we talk of prizing highly gold and silver--but this is incorrect, for what we really prize is not gold, but the ulterior something, whatever it be, for the attainment of which gold and other instrumental means are accumulated.
In general terms--when we say that B is dear on account of A, we are really speaking of A under the name of B.
What is really dear, is that primitive object of love, _primum amabile_, towards which all the affections which we bear to other things, refer and tend.
[21] [Footnote 20: Plato, Lysis, 219 C-D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n ou)k a)na/gkê a)peipei=n ê(ma=s ou(/tôs i)o/ntas, kai\ a)phike/sthai e)pi/ tina a)rchê\n, ê)\ ou)ke/t' e)panoi/sei e)p' a)/llo phi/lon, a)ll' ê(/xei e)p' e)kei=no o(/ e)sti _prô=ton phi/lon_, ou(= e(/neka kai\ ta)/lla phame\n pa/nta phi/la ei)=nai?]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Lysis, c. 37, p. 220 B.
[Greek: O(/sa ga/r phamen phi/la ei)=nai ê(mi=n e(/neka phi/lou tino/s, e(te/rô| r(ê/mati phaino/metha le/gontes _au)to/_; phi/lon de\ _tô=| o)/nti_ kinduneu/ei _e)kei=no au)to\_, ei)s o(\ pa=sai au(=tai ai( lego/menai phili/ai teleutô=sin.]]
[Side-note: The cause of love is desire.
We desire that which is akin to us or our own.]
Is it then true (continues Sokrates) that good is our _primum amabile_, and dear to us in itself?
If so, is it dear to us on account of evil?
that is, only as a remedy for evil; so that if evil were totally banished, good would cease to be prized?
Is it true that evil is the cause why any thing is dear to us?
[22] This cannot be: because even if all evil were banished, the appetites and desires, such of them as were neither good nor evil, would still remain: and the things which gratify those appetites will be dear to us.
It is not therefore true that evil is the cause of things being dear to us.
We have just found out another cause for loving and being loved--desire.
He who desires, loves what he desires and as long as he desires: he desires moreover that of which he is in want, and he is in want of that which has been taken away from him--of his own.
[23] It is therefore this _own_ which is the appropriate object of desire, friendship, and love.
If you two, Lysis and Menexenus, love each other, it is because you are somehow of kindred nature with each other.
The lover would not become a lover, unless there were, between him and his beloved, a certain kinship or affinity in mind, disposition, tastes, or form.
We love, by necessary law, that which has a natural affinity to us; so that the real and genuine lover may be certain of a return of affection from his beloved.
[24] [Footnote 22: Plato, Lysis, 220 D. We may see that in this chapter Plato runs into a confusion between [Greek: to\ dia/ ti] and [Greek: to\ e(/neka/ tou], which two he began by carefully distinguishing.
Thus in 218 D he says, [Greek: o( phi/los e)sti\ tô| phi/los--e(/neka/ tou kai\ dia/ ti.]
Again 219 A, he says--[Greek: to\ sô=ma tê=s i)atrikê=s phi/lon e)sti/n, _dia\ tê\n no/son, e(/neka tê=s u(giei/as_.]
This is a very clear and important distinction.
It is continued in 220 D--[Greek: o(/ti _dia\ to\ kako\n_ ta)gatho\n ê)gapô=men kai\ e)philou=men, ô(s pha/rmakon o)\n tou= kakou= to\ a)gatho/n, to\ de\ kako/n no/sma.]
But in 220 E--[Greek: to\ de\ tô=| o)/nti phi/lon pa=n tou)nanti/on tou/tou phai/netai pephuko/s; _phi/lon ga\r ê(mi=n a)nepha/nê o(\n e(chthrou= e(/neka_.]
To make the reasoning consistent with what had gone before, these two last words ought to be exchanged for [Greek: dia\ to\ e)chthro/n].
Plato had laid down the doctrine that good is loved--[Greek: dia\ to\ kako/n], not [Greek: e(/neka tou= kakou=].
Good is loved on _account of evil_, but for _the sake of obtaining_ a remedy to or cessation of the evil.
Steinhart (in his note on Hieron.
Müller's translation of Plato, p. 268) calls this a "sophistisches Räthselspiel"; and he notes other portions of the dialogue which "remind us of the deceptive tricks of the Sophists" (die Trugspiele der Sophisten, see p. 222-224-227-230).
He praises Plato here for his "fine pleasantry on the deceptive arts of the Sophists".
Admitting that Plato puts forward sophistical quibbles with the word [Greek: phi/los], he tells us that this is suitable for the purpose of puzzling the contentious young man Menexenus.
The confusion between [Greek: e(/neka/ tou] and [Greek: dia/ ti] (noticed above) appears to be numbered by Steinhart among the fine jests against Protagoras, Prodikus, or some of the Sophists.
I can see nothing in it except an unconscious inaccuracy in Plato's reasoning.]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Lysis, 221 E. [Greek: To\ e)pithumou=n ou(= a)\n e)ndee\s ê)=|, tou/tou e)pithumei=--e)ndee\s de\ gi/gnetai ou(= a)/n tis a)phairê=tai--tou= oi)kei/ou dê/, ô(s e)/oiken, o(/ te e)/rôs kai\ ê( phili/a kai\ ê( e)pithumi/a tugcha/nei ou)=sa.]
This is the same doctrine as that which we read, expanded and cast into a myth with comic turn, in the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposion, pp.
191-192-193.
[Greek: e(/kastos ou)=n ê(mô=n e)/stin a)nthrô/pou su/mbolon, a)/te tetmême/nos ô(/sper ai( psê=ttai e)x e(no\s du/o.
zêtei= dê\ a)ei\ to\ au)tou= e(/kastos xu/mbolon] (191 D)--[Greek: dikai/ôs a)\n u(mnoi=men E)/rôta, o(\s e)/n te tô=| paro/nti plei=sta ê(ma=s o)ni/nêsin ei)s to\ oi)kei=on a)/gôn], &c. (193 D).]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Lysis, 221-222.]
[Side-note: Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is alien to every one.
Inconsistency with what has been previously laid down.]
But is there any real difference between what is akin and what is like?
We must assume that there is: for we showed before, that like was useless to like, and therefore not dear to like.
Shall we say that good is of a nature akin to every one, and evil of a nature foreign to every one?
If so, then there can be no friendship except between one good man and another good man.
But this too has been proved to be impossible.
All our tentatives have been alike unsuccessful.
[Side-note: Failure of the enquiry.
Close of the dialogue.]
In this dilemma (continues Sokrates, the narrator) I was about to ask assistance from some of the older men around.
But the tutors of Menexenus and Lysis came up to us and insisted on conveying their pupils home--the hour being late.
As the youths were departing I said to them--Well, we must close our dialogue with the confession, that we have all three made a ridiculous figure in it: I, an old man, as well as you two youths.
Our hearers will go away declaring, that we fancy ourselves to be friends each to the other two; but that we have not yet been able to find out what a friend is.
[25] [Footnote 25: Plato, Lysis, 223 B.
[Greek: Nu=n me\n katage/lastoi gego/namen e)gô/ te, gerô\n a)nê/r, kai\ u(mei=s], &c.] * * * * * [Side-note: Remarks.
No positive result.
Sokratic purpose in analysing the familiar words--to expose the false persuasion of knowledge.]
Thus ends the main discussion of the Lysis: not only without any positive result, but with speakers and hearers more puzzled than they were at the beginning: having been made to feel a great many difficulties which they never felt before.
Nor can I perceive any general purpose running through the dialogue, except that truly Sokratic and Platonic purpose--To show, by cross-examination on the commonest words that what every one appears to know, and talks about most confidently, no one really knows or can distinctly explain.
[26] This is the meaning of the final declaration put into the mouth of Sokrates.
"We believe ourselves to be each other's friends, yet we none of us know what a friend is."
The question is one, which no one had ever troubled himself to investigate, or thought it requisite to ask from others.
Every one supposed himself to know, and every one had in his memory an aggregate of conceptions and beliefs which he accounted tantamount to knowledge: an aggregate generated by the unconscious addition of a thousand facts and associations, each separately unimportant and often inconsistent with the remainder: while no rational analysis had ever been applied to verify the consistency of this spontaneous product, or to define the familiar words in which it is expressed.
The reader is here involved in a cloud of confusion respecting Friendship.
No way out of it is shown, and how is he to find one?
He must take the matter into his own active and studious meditation: which he has never yet done, though the word is always in his mouth, and though the topic is among the most common and familiar, upon which "the swain treads daily with his clouted shoon".
[Footnote 26: Among the many points of analogy between the Lysis and the Charmidês, one is, That both of them are declared to be spurious and unworthy of Plato, by Socher as well as by Ast (Ast, Platon's Leben, pp.
429-434; Socher, Ueber Platon, pp.
137-144).
Schleiermacher ranks the Lysis as second in his Platonic series of dialogues, an appendix to the Phædrus (Einl.
p. 174 seq.
); K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, and nearly all the other critics dissent from this view: they place the Lysis as an early dialogue, along with Charmidês and Lachês, anterior to the Protagoras (K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
und Syst.
Plat.
Phil.
pp.
447-448; Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Lys.
p. 90 (110 2nd ed.
); Steinhart, Einl.
p. 221) near to or during the government of the Thirty.
All of them profess to discover in the Lysis "adolescentiæ vestigia".
Ast and Socher characterise the dialogue as a tissue of subtle sophistry and eristic contradiction, such as (in their opinion) Plato cannot have composed.
Stallbaum concedes the sophistry, but contends that it is put by Plato intentionally, for the purpose of deriding, exposing, disgracing, the Sophists and their dialectical tricks: "ludibrii causâ" (p. 88); "ut illustri aliquo exemplo demonstretur dialecticam istam, quam adolescentes magno quodam studio sectabantur, nihil esse aliud, nisi inanem quandam argutiarum captatricem," &c. (p. 87).
Nevertheless he contends that along with this derisory matter there is intermingled serious reasoning which may be easily distinguished (p. 87), but which certainly he does not clearly point out.
(Compare pp.
108-9-14-15, 2nd ed.)
Schleiermacher and Steinhart also (pp.
222-224-227) admit the sophistry in which Sokrates is here made to indulge.
But Steinhart maintains that there is an assignable philosophical purpose in the dialogue, which Plato purposely wrapped up in enigmatical language, but of which he (Steinhart) professes to give the solution (p.
228).]
[Side-note: Subject of Lysis.
Suited for a Dialogue of Search.
Manner of Sokrates, multiplying defective explanations, and showing reasons why each is defective.]
This was a proper subject for a dialogue of Search.
In the dialogue Lysis, Plato describes Sokrates as engaged in one of these searches, handling, testing, and dropping, one point of view after another, respecting the idea and foundation of friendship.
He speaks, professedly, as a diviner or guesser; following out obscure promptings which he does not yet understand himself.
[27] In this character, he suggests several different explanations, not only distinct but inconsistent with each other; each of them true to a certain extent, under certain conditions and circumstances: but each of them untrue, when we travel beyond those limits: other contradictory considerations then interfering.
To multiply defective explanations, and to indicate why each is defective, is the whole business of the dialogue.
[Footnote 27: Plato, Lysis, 216 D. [Greek: le/gô toi/nun a)pomanteuo/menos], &c.] [Side-note: The process of trial and error is better illustrated by a search without result than with result.
Usefulness of the dialogue for self-working minds.]
Schleiermacher discovers in this dialogue indications of a positive result not plainly enunciated: but he admits that Aristotle did not discover them--nor can I believe them to have been intended by the author.
[28] But most critics speak slightingly of it, as alike sceptical and sophistical: and some even deny its authenticity on these grounds.
Plato might have replied by saying that he intended it as a specimen illustrating the process of search for an unknown _quæsitum_; and as an exposition of what can be said for, as well as against, many different points of view.
The process of trial and error, the most general fact of human intelligence, is even better illustrated when the search is unsuccessful: because when a result is once obtained, most persons care for nothing else and forget the antecedent blunders.
To those indeed, who ask only to hear the result as soon as it is found, and who wait for others to look for it--such a dialogue as the Lysis will appear of little value.
But to any one who intends to search for it himself, or to study the same problem for himself, the report thus presented of a previous unsuccessful search, is useful both as guidance and warning.
Every one of the tentative solutions indicated in the Lysis has something in its favour, yet is nevertheless inadmissible.
To learn the grounds which ultimately compel us to reject what at first appears admissible, is instruction not to be despised; at the very least, it helps to preserve us from mistake, and to state the problem in the manner most suitable for obtaining a solution.
[Footnote 28: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Lysis, i. p.
177.]
[Side-note: Subject of friendship, handled both by the Xenophontic Sokrates, and by Aristotle.]
In truth, no one general solution is attainable, such as Plato here professes to search for.
[29] In one of the three Xenophontic dialogues wherein the subject of friendship is discussed we find the real Sokrates presenting it with a juster view of its real complications.
[30] The same remark may be made upon Aristotle's manner of handling friendship in the Ethics.
He seems plainly to allude to the Lysis (though not mentioning it by name); and to profit by it at least in what he puts out of consideration, if not in what he brings forward.
[31] He discards the physical and cosmical analogies, which Plato borrows from Empedokles and Herakleitus, as too remote and inapplicable: he considers that the question must be determined by facts and principles relating to human dispositions and conduct.
In other ways, he circumscribes the problem, by setting aside (what Plato includes) all objects of attachment which are not capable of reciprocating attachment.
[32] The problem, as set forth here by Plato, is conceived in great generality.
In what manner does one man become the friend of another?
[33] How does a man become the object of friendship or love from another?
What is that object towards which our love or friendship is determined?
These terms are so large, that they include everything belonging to the Tender Emotion generally.
[34] [Footnote 29: Turgot has some excellent remarks on the hopelessness of such problems as that which Plato propounds, here well as in other dialogues, to find definitions of common and vague terms.
We read in his article Etymologie, in the Encyclopédie (vol.
iii.
pp.
70-72 of his Oeuvres Complets): "Qu'on se répresente la foule des acceptions du mot _esprit_, depuis son sens primitif _spiritus, haleine_, jusqu'à ceux qu'on lui donne dans la chimie, dans la littérature, dans la jurisprudence, _esprit acide_, esprit de Montaigne, _esprit des loix_, &c.--qu'on essaie d'extraire de toutes ces acceptions une idée qui soit commune à toutes--on verra s'évanouir tous les caractères qui distinguent _l'esprit_ de toute autre chose, dans quelque sens qu'on le prenne.
.
.
.
La multitude et l'incompatibilité des acceptions du mot _esprit_, sont telles, que personne n'a été tenté de les comprendre toutes dans une seule _définition_, et de définir l'esprit en général.
Mais le vice de cette méthode n'est pas moins réel lorsqu'il n'est pas assez sensible pour empêcher qu'on ne la suive.
"A mesure que le nombre et la diversité des acceptions diminue, l'absurdité s'affoiblit: et quand elle disparoit, il reste encore l'erreur.
J'ose dire, que presque toutes les _définitions_ où l'on annonce qu'on va définir les choses _dans le sens le plus général_, ont ce défaut, et ne définissent véritablement rien: parceque leurs auteurs, en voulant renfermer toutes les acceptions d'un mot, ont entrepris une chose impossible: je veux dire, de rassembler sous une seule idée générale des idées très différentes entre elles, et qu'un même nom n'a jamais pu désigner que successivement, en cessant en quelque sorte d'être le même mot."
See also the remarks of Mr. John Stuart Mill on the same subject.
System of Logic, Book IV.
chap.
4, s.
5.]
[Footnote 30: See Xenophon, Memor.
ii.
4-5-6.
In the last of these three conversations (s. 21-22), Sokrates says to Kritobulus [Greek: A)ll' e)/chei me\n poiki/lôs pôs tau=ta, ô)= Krito/boule; phu/sei ga\r e)/chousin oi( a)/nthrôpoi ta\ me\n philika/; de/ontai te ga\r a)llê/lôn, kai\ e)leou=si, kai\ sunergou=ntes ô)phelou=si, kai\ tou=to sunie/ntes cha/rin e)/chousin a)llê/lois, ta\ de\ polemika/; ta/ te ga\r au)ta\ kala\ kai\ ê(de/a nomi/zontes u(pe\r tou/tôn ma/chontai, kai\ dichognômonou=ntes e)nantiou=ntai; polemiko\n de\ kai\ e)/ris kai\ o)rgê/; kai\ dusmene\s me\n o( tou= pleonektei=n e)/rôs, misêto\n de\ o( phtho/nos.]
This observation of Sokrates is very true and valuable--that the causes of friendship and the causes of enmity are both of them equally natural, _i.e._ equally interwoven with the constant conditions of individual and social life.
This is very different from the vague, partial, and encomiastic predicates with which [Greek: to\ phu/sei] is often decorated elsewhere by Sokrates himself, as well as by Plato and Aristotle.]
[Footnote 31: Aristot.
Eth.
Nikom.
viii.
1, p. 1155 b.
Compare Plato, Lysis, 214 A--215 E.] [Footnote 32: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nik.
viii.
2, p. 1155, b.
28; Plato, Lysis, 212 D.] [Footnote 33: Plato, Lysis, 212 A: [Greek: o(/ntina tro/pon gi/gnetai phi/los e(/teros e(te/rou.]
223 ad fin.
: [Greek: o(/, ti e)sti\n o( phi/los.]]
[Footnote 34: See the chapter on Tender Emotion in Mr. Bain's elaborate classification and description of the Emotions.
'The Emotions and the Will,' ch.
vii.
p. 94 seq.
(3rd ed., p. 124).
In the Lysis, 216 C-D, we read, among the suppositions thrown out by Sokrates, about [Greek: to\ phi/lon--kinduneu/ei kata\ tê\n a)rchai/an paroimi/an to\ kalo\n phi/lon ei)=nai.
e)/oike gou=n malakô=| tini kai\lei/ô| kai\ liparô=|; dio\ kai\ i)/sôs r(a|di/ôs diolisthai/nei kai\ diadu/etai ê(ma=s, a(/te toiou=ton o)/n; le/gô ga\r ta)gatho\n kalo\n ei)=nai.]
This allusion to the soft and the smooth is not very clear; a passage in Mr. Bain's chapter serves to illustrate it.
"Among the sensations of the senses we find some that have the power of awakening tender emotion.
The sensations that incline to tenderness are, in the first place, the effects of very gentle or soft stimulants, such as soft touches, gentle sounds, slow movements, temperate warmth, mild sunshine.
These sensations must be felt in order to produce the effect, which is mental and not simply organic.
We have seen that an acute sensation raises a vigorous muscular expression, as in wonder; a contrast to this is exhibited by gentle pressure or mild radiance.
Hence tenderness is passive emotion by pre-eminence: we see it flourishing best in the quiescence of the moving members.
Remotely there may be a large amount of action stimulated by it, but the proper outgoing accompaniment of it is organic not muscular."
That the sensations of the soft and the smooth dispose to the Tender Emotion is here pointed out as a fact in human nature, agreeably to the comparison of Plato.
Mr. Bain's treatise has the rare merit of describing fully the physical as well as the mental characteristics of each separate emotion.]
[Side-note: Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real.
Assumptions made by the Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the real Sokrates would have found reason for challenging.]
The debate in the Lysis is partly verbal: _i.e._, respecting the word [Greek: phi/los], whether it means the person loving, or the person loved, or whether it shall be confined to those cases in which the love is reciprocal, and then applied to both.
Herein the question is about the meaning of words--a word and nothing more.
The following portions of the dialogue enter upon questions not verbal but real--"Whether we are disposed to love what is like to ourselves, or what is unlike or opposite to ourselves?"
Though both these are occasionally true, it is shown that as general explanations neither of them will hold.
But this is shown by means of the following assumptions, which not only those whom Plato here calls the "very clever Disputants,"[35] but Sokrates himself at other times, would have called in question, viz.
: "That bad men cannot be friends to each other--that men like to each other (therefore good men as well as bad) can be of no use to each other, and therefore there can be no basis of friendship between them--that the good man is self-sufficing, stands in need of no one, and therefore will not love any one.
"[36] All these assumptions Sokrates would have found sufficient reason for challenging, if they had been advanced by Protagoras or any other opponents.
They stand here as affirmed by him; but here, as elsewhere in Plato, the reader must apply his own critical intellect, and test what he reads for himself.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Lysis, 216 A.: [Greek: oi( pa/nsophoi a)/ndres oi( a)ntilogikoi/], &c. Yet Plato, in the Phædrus and Symposion, indicates colloquial debate as the great generating cause of the most intense and durable friendship.
Aristeides the Rhetor says, Orat.
xlvii.
([Greek: Pro\s Kapi/tôna]), p. 418, Dindorf, [Greek: e)pei\ kai\ Pla/tôn to\ a)lêthe\s a(pantachou= tima=|, kai\ ta\s e)n toi=s lo/gois sunousi/as a)phormê\n phili/as a)lêthinê=s u(polamba/nei.]]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Lysis, 214-215.
The discourse of Cicero, De Amicitiâ, is composed in a style of pleasing rhetoric; suitable to Lælius, an ancient Roman senator and active politician, who expressly renounces the accurate subtlety of Grecian philosophers (v. 18).
There is little in it which we can compare with the Platonic Lysis; but I observe that he too, giving expression to his own feelings, maintains that there can be no friendship except between the good and virtuous: a position which is refuted by the "nefaria vox," cited by himself as spoken by C. Blossius, xi.
37.]
[Side-note: Peculiar theory about friendship broached by Sokrates.
Persons neither good nor evil by nature, yet having a superficial tinge of evil, and desiring good to escape from it.]
It is thus shown, or supposed to be shown, that the persons who love are neither the Good, nor the Bad: and that the objects loved, are neither things or persons similar, nor opposite, to the persons loving.
Sokrates now adverts to the existence of a third category--Persons who are neither good, nor bad, but intermediate between the two--Objects which are intermediate between likeness and opposition.
He announces as his own conjecture,[37] that the Subject of friendly or loving feeling, is, that which is neither good nor evil: the Object of the feeling, Good: and the cause of the feeling, the superficial presence of evil, which the subject desires to see removed.
[38] The evil must be present in a superficial and removable manner--like whiteness in the hair caused by white paint, not by the grey colour of old age.
Sokrates applies this to the state of mind of the philosopher, or lover of knowledge: who is not yet either thoroughly good or thoroughly bad,--either thoroughly wise or thoroughly unwise--but in a state intermediate between the two: ignorant, yet conscious of his own ignorance, and feeling it as a misfortune which he was anxious to shake off.
[39] [Footnote 37: Plato, Lysis, 216 D. [Greek: le/gô toi/nun a)pomanteuo/menos], &c.] [Footnote 38: Plato, Lysis, 216-217.]
[Footnote 39: Plato, Lysis, 218 C. [Greek: lei/pontai dê\ oi( e)/chontes me\n to\ kako\ tou=to, tê\n a)/gnoian, mê/pô de\ u(p' au)tou= o)/ntes a)gnô/mones mêd' a)mathei=s, a)ll' e)/ti ê(gou/menoi mê\ ei)de/nai a)\ mê\ i)/sasi; dio\ dê\ philosophou=sin oi( ou)/te a)gathoi\ ou)/te kakoi/ pô o)/ntes; o(/soi de\ kakoi/, ou) philosophou=sin, ou)de\ oi( a)gathoi/.]
Compare the phrase of Seneca, Epist.
59, p. 211, Gronov.
: "Elui difficile est: non enim inquinati sumus, sed infecti".]
[Side-note: This general theory illustrated by the case of the philosopher or lover of wisdom.
Painful consciousness of ignorance the attribute of the philosopher.
Value set by Sokrates and Plato upon this attribute.]
This meaning of philosophy, though it is not always and consistently maintained throughout the Platonic writings, is important as expanding and bringing into system the position laid down by Sokrates in the Apology.
He there disclaimed all pretensions to wisdom, but he announced himself as a philosopher, in the above literal sense: that is, as ignorant, yet as painfully conscious of his own ignorance, and anxiously searching for wisdom as a corrective to it: while most men were equally ignorant, but were unconscious of their own ignorance, believed themselves to be already wise, and delivered confident opinions without ever having analysed the matters on which they spoke.
The conversation of Sokrates (as I have before remarked) was intended, not to teach wisdom, but to raise men out of this false persuasion of wisdom, which he believed to be the natural state of the human mind, into that mental condition which he called philosophy.
His Elenchus made them conscious of their ignorance, anxious to escape from it, and prepared for mental efforts in search of knowledge: in which search Sokrates assisted them, but without declaring, and even professing inability to declare, where that truth lay in which the search was to end.
He considered that this change was in itself a great and serious improvement, converting what was evil, radical, and engrained--into evil superficial and removable; which was a preliminary condition to any positive acquirement.
The first thing to be done was to create searchers after truth, men who would look at the subject for themselves with earnest attention, and make up their own individual convictions.
Even if nothing ulterior were achieved, that alone would be a great deal.
Such was the scope of the Sokratic conversation; and such the conception of philosophy (the capital peculiarity which Plato borrowed from Sokrates), which is briefly noted in this passage of the Lysis, and developed in other Platonic dialogues, especially in the Symposion,[40] which we shall reach presently.
[Footnote 40: Plato, Sympos.
202-203-204.
Phædrus, 278 D.] [Side-note: Another theory of Sokrates.
The Primum Amabile, or original and primary object of Love.
Particular objects are loved through association with this.
The object is, Good.]
Still, however, Sokrates is not fully satisfied with this hypothesis, but passes on to another.
If we love anything, we must love it (he says) for the sake of something.
This implies that there must exist, in the background, a something which is the primitive and real object of affection.
The various things which we actually love, are not loved for their own sake, but for the sake of this _primum amabile_, and as shadows projected by it: just as a man who loves his son, comes to love by association what is salutary or comforting to his son--or as he loves money for the sake of what money will purchase.
The _primum amabile_, in the view of Sokrates, is _Good_; particular things loved, are loved as shadows of good.
[Side-note: Statement by Plato of the general law of mental association.]
This is a doctrine which we shall find reproduced in other dialogues.
We note with interest here, that it appears illustrated, by a statement of the general law of mental association--the calling up of one idea by other ideas or by sensations, and the transference of affections from one object to others which have been apprehended in conjunction with it, either as antecedents or consequents.
Plato states this law clearly in the Phædon and elsewhere:[41] but he here conceives it imperfectly: for he seems to believe that, if an affection be transferred by association from a primitive object A, to other objects, B, C, D, &c., A always continues to be the only real object of affection, while B, C, D, &c., operate upon the mind merely by carrying it back to A.
The affection towards B, C, D, &c., therefore is, in the view of Plato, only the affection for A under other denominations and disguises.
[42] Now this is doubtless often the case; but often also, perhaps even more generally, it is not the case.
After a certain length of repetition and habit, all conscious reference to the primitive object of affection will commonly be left out, and the affection towards the secondary object will become a feeling both substantive and immediate.
What was originally loved as means, for the sake of an ulterior end, will in time come to be loved as an end for itself; and to constitute a new centre of force, from whence derivatives may branch out.
It may even come to be loved more vehemently than any primitive object of affection, if it chance to accumulate in itself derivative influences from many of those objects.
[43] This remark naturally presents itself, when we meet here for the first time, distinctly stated by Plato, the important psychological doctrine of the transference of affections by association from one object to others.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Phædon, 73-74.
It is declared differently, and more clearly, by Aristotle in the treatise [Greek: Peri\ Mnê/mês kai\ A)namnê/seôs], pp.
451-452.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Lysis, 220 B.
[Greek: o(/sa ga/r phamen phi/la ei)=nai ê(mi=n e(/neka phi/lou tino/s, e(te/rô| r(ê/mati phaino/metha le/gontes au)to/; phi/lon de\ tô=| o)/nti kinduneu/ei e)kei=no au)to\ ei)=nai, ei)s o(\ pa=sai au(=tai ai( lego/menai phili/ai teleutô=sin.]]
[Footnote 43: There is no stronger illustration of this than the love of money, which is the very example that Plato himself here cites.
The important point to which I here call attention, in respect to the law of Mental Association, is forcibly illustrated by Mr. James Mill in his 'Analysis of the Human Mind,' chapters xxi.
and xxii., and by Professor Bain in his works on the Senses and the Intellect,--Intellect, chap.
i. sect.
47-48, p. 404 seq.
ed.
3; and on the Emotions and the Will, chap.
iv.
sect.
4-5, p. 428 seq.
(3rd ed.
p. 363 seq.).]
[Side-note: Theory of the Primum Amabile, here introduced by Sokrates, with numerous derivative objects of love.
Platonic Idea.
Generic communion of Aristotle, distinguished by him from the feebler analogical communion.]
The _primum amabile_, here introduced by Sokrates, is described in restricted terms, as valuable merely to correct evil, and as having no value _per se_, if evil were assumed not to exist.
In consequence chiefly of this restriction, Sokrates discards it as unsatisfactory.
Such restriction, however, is noway essential to the doctrine: which approaches to, but is not coincident with, the Ideal Good or Idea of Good, described in other dialogues as what every one yearns after and aspires to, though without ever attaining it and without even knowing what it is.
[44] The Platonic Idea was conceived as a substantive, intelligible, Ens, distinct in its nature from all the particulars bearing the same name, and separated from them all by a gulf which admitted no gradations of nearer and farther--yet communicating itself to, or partaken by, all of them, in some inexplicable way.
Aristotle combated this doctrine, denying the separate reality of the Idea, and admitting only a common generic essence, dwelling in and pervading the particulars, but pervading them all equally.
The general word connoting this generic unity was said by Aristotle (retaining the Platonic phraseology) to be [Greek: lego/menon kata\ mi/an i)de/an] or [Greek: kath' e(/n].
[Footnote 44: Plato, Republ.
vi.
pp.
505-506.]
But apart from and beyond such generic unity, which implied a common essence belonging to all, Aristotle recognised a looser, more imperfect, yet more extensive, communion, founded upon common relationship towards some [Greek: A)rchê\]--First Principle or First Object.
Such relationship was not always the same in kind: it might be either resemblance, concomitance, antecedence or consequence, &c.: it might also be different in degree, closer or more remote, direct or indirect.
Here, then, there was room for graduation, or ordination of objects as former and latter, first, second, third, &c., according as, when compared with each other, they were more or less related to the common root.
This imperfect communion was designated by Aristotle under the title [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an], as contrasted with [Greek: kata\ ge/nos]: the predicate which affirmed it was said to be applied, not [Greek: kata\ mi/an i)de/an] or [Greek: kath' e(/n], but [Greek: pro\s mi/an phu/sin] or [Greek: pro\s e(/n]:[45] it was affirmed neither entirely [Greek: sunônu/môs] (which would imply generic communion), nor entirely [Greek: o(mônu/môs] (which would be casual and imply no communion at all), but midway between the two, so as to admit of a graduated communion, and an arrangement as former and later, first cousin, or second, third cousin.
Members of the same Genus were considered to be brothers, all on a par: but wherever there was this graduated cousinship or communion (signified by the words Former and Later, more or less in degree of relationship), Aristotle did not admit a common Genus, nor did Plato admit a Substantive Idea.
[46] [Footnote 45: Arist.
Metaphys.
A.
1072, a.
26-29; Bonitz, Comm.
p. 497 id.
[Greek: Prô=ton o)rekto/n--Prô=ton voêto/n (prô=ton o)rekto\n]--"quod _per se_ appetibile est et concupiscitur").
"Quod autem primum est in aliquâ serie, id præcipue etiam habet qualitatem, quæ in reliquâ cernitur serie, c. a.
993, b.
24: ergo prima illa substantia est [Greek: to\ a)/riston]"--also [Greek: G] 1004, a.
25-26, 1005, a.
7, about the [Greek: prô=ton e(/n--prô=ton o)/n].
These were [Greek: ta\ pollachô=s lego/mena--ta\ pleonachô=s lego/mena]--which were something less than [Greek: sunô/numa] and more than [Greek: o(mô/numa]; intermediate between the two, having no common [Greek: lo/gos] or generical unity, and yet not entirely equivocal, but designating a [Greek: koino\n kat' a)nalogi/an]: not [Greek: kata\ mi/an i)de/an lego/mena], but [Greek: pro\s e(\n] or [Greek: pro\s mi/an phu/sin]; having a certain relation to one common [Greek: phu/sis] called [Greek: to\ prô=ton].
See the Metaphys.
[Greek: G].
1003, a.
33--[Greek: to/ de\ o)/n le/getai me\n pollachô=s, a)lla\ pro\s e(/n kai\ mi/an tina\ phu/sin, kai\ ou)ch o(mônu/môs, a)ll' ô(/sper to\ u(gieino\n a(/pan pro\s u(giei/an, to\ me\n tô=| phula/ttein, to\ de\ tô=| poiei=n, to\ de\ tê| sêmei=on ei)=nai tê=s u(giei/as, to\ d' o(/ti dektiko\n au)tê=s--kai\ to\ i)atriko\n pro\s i)atrikê/n], &c. The Scholion of Alexander upon this passage is instructive (p. 638, a. Brandis); and a very copious explanation of the whole doctrine is given by M. Brentano, in his valuable treatise, 'Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung _des Seienden_ nach Aristoteles,' Freiburg, 1862, pp.
85-108-147.
Compare Aristotel.
Politic.
III.
i.
9, p. 1275, a.
35.
The distinction drawn by Aristotle between [Greek: to\ koino\n kat' i)de/an] and [Greek: to\ koino\n kat' a)nalogi/an]--between [Greek: ta\ kata\ mi/an i)de/an lego/mena], and [Greek: ta\ pro\s e(\n] or [Greek: pro\s mi/an phu/sin lego/mena]--this distinction corresponds in part to that which is drawn by Dr. Whewell between classes which are given by Definition, and natural groups which are given by Type.
"Such a natural group" (says Dr. Whewell) "is steadily fixed, though not precisely limited; it is given, though not circumscribed; it is determined, not by a boundary but by a central point within, &c." The coincidence between this doctrine and the Aristotelian is real, though only partial: [Greek: to\ prô=ton phi/lon, to\ prô=ton o(rekto/n], may be considered as types of _objects loveable, objects desirable_, &c., but [Greek: ê( u(giei/a] cannot be considered as a type of [Greek: ta\ u(gieina\] nor [Greek: ê( i)atrikê\] as a type of [Greek: ta\ i)atrika/], though it is "the central point" to which all things so called are referred.
See Dr. Whewell's doctrine stated in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, i.
476-477; and the comments of Mr. John Stuart Mill on the doctrine--'System of Logic,' Book iv.
ch.
7.
I have adverted to this same doctrine in remarking on the Hippias Major, supra, p. 47; also on the Philêbus, infra, chap.
32, vol.
III.]
[Footnote 46: This is attested by Aristotle, Eth.
Nik.
i.
64, p. 1096, a.
16.
[Greek: Oi( de\ komi/santes tê\n do/xan tau/tên, ou)k e)poi/oun i)de/as e)n oi(=s to\ pro/teron kai\ to\ u(/steron e)/legon; dio/per ou)de\ tô=n a)rithmô=n i)de/an kateskeu/azon]: compare Ethic.
Eudem.
i.
8, 1218, a.
2.
He goes on to object that Plato, having laid this down as a general principle, departed from it in recognizing an [Greek: i)de/an a)gathou=], because [Greek: ta)gatho\n] was predicated in all the categories, in that of [Greek: ou)si/a] as well as in that of [Greek: pro/s ti--to\ de\ kath' au(to\ kai\ ê( ou)si/a pro/teron tê=| phu/sei tou= pro/s ti--ô(/ste ou)k a)\n ei)/ê koinê/ tis e)pi\ tou/tôn i)de/a.]]
[Side-note: Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima Amicitia of Aristotle.
Each of them is head of an analogical aggregate, not member of a generic family.]
Now the [Greek: Prô=ton phi/lon] or Primum Amabile which we find in the Lysis, is described as the principium or initial root of one of these imperfectly united aggregates; ramifying into many branches more or less distant, in obedience to one or other of the different laws of association.
Aristotle expresses the same idea in another form of words: instead of a Primum Amabile, he gives us a Prima Amicitia--affirming that the diversities of friendship are not species comprehended under the same genus, but gradations or degeneracies departing in one direction or other from the First or pure Friendship.
The Primum Amabile, in Plato's view, appears to be the Good, though he does not explicitly declare it: the Prima Amicitia, with Aristotle, is friendship subsisting between two good persons, who have had sufficient experience to know, esteem, and trust, each other.
[47] [Footnote 47: Aristotel.
Eth.
Nikom.
viii.
2, 1155, b.
12, viii.
5, 1157, a.
30, viii.
4; Eth.
Eudem.
vii.
2, 1236, a.
15.
The statement is more full in the Eudemian Ethics than in the Nikomachean; he begins the seventh book by saying that [Greek: phili/a] is not said [Greek: monachô=s] but [Greek: pleonachô=s]; and in p. 1236 he says [Greek: A)na/gkê a)/ra tri/a phili/as ei)/dê ei)=nai, kai\ _mête kath' e(\n a(pa/sas_ mêth' ô(s _ei)/dê e(no\s ge/nous_, mê/te pa/mpan le/gesthai o(mônu/môs; pro\s _mi/an ga/r tina le/gontai kai\ prô/tên, ô(/sper to\ i)atriko/n_], &c. The whole passage is instructive, but is too long to cite.
Bonitz gives some good explanations of these passages.
Observationes Criticæ in Aristotelis quæ feruntur _Magna Moralia_ et _Eudemia_, pp.
55-57.]
[Side-note: The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment.]
In regard to the Platonic Lysis, I have already observed that no positive result can be found in it, and that all the hypotheses broached are successively negatived.
What is kept before the reader's mind, however, more than anything else, though not embodied in any distinct formula, is--The Good and the Beautiful considered as objects of love or attachment.
CHAPTER XXI.
EUTHYDEMUS.
[Side-note: Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus.
Judgments of various critics.]
Dramatic vivacity, and comic force, holding up various persons to ridicule or contempt, are attributes which Plato manifests often and abundantly.
But the dialogue in which these qualities reach their maximum, is, the Euthydêmus.
Some portions of it approach to the Nubes of Aristophanes: so that Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and other admiring critics have some difficulty in explaining, to their own satisfaction,[1] how Plato, the sublime moralist and lawgiver, can here have admitted so much trifling and buffoonery.
Ast even rejects the dialogue as spurious; declaring it to be unworthy of Plato and insisting on various peculiarities, defects, and even absurdities, which offend his critical taste.
His conclusion in this case has found no favour: yet I think it is based on reasons quite as forcible as those upon which other dialogues have been condemned:[2] upon reasons, which, even if admitted, might prove that the dialogue was an inferior performance, but would not prove that Plato was not the author.
[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Euthydemos, vol.
iii.
pp.
400-403-407; Stallbaum.
Proleg.
in Euthydem.
p.
14.]
[Footnote 2: Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp.
408-418.]
[Side-note: Scenery and personages.]
Sokrates recounts (to Kriton) a conversation in which he has just been engaged with two Sophists, Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, in the undressing-room belonging to the gymnasium of the Lykeium.
There were present, besides, Kleinias, a youth of remarkable beauty and intelligence, cousin of the great Alkibiades--Ktesippus, an adult man, yet still young, friend of Sokrates and devotedly attached to Kleinias--and a crowd of unnamed persons, partly friends of Kleinias, partly admirers and supporters of the two Sophists.
[Side-note: The two Sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: manner in which they are here presented.]
This couple are described and treated throughout by Sokrates, with the utmost admiration and respect: that is, in terms designating such feelings, but intended as the extreme of irony or caricature.
They are masters of the art of Contention, in its three varieties[3]--1.
Arms, and the command of soldiers.
2.
Judicial and political rhetoric, fighting an opponent before the assembled Dikasts or people.
3.
Contentious Dialectic--they can reduce every respondent to a contradiction, if he will only continue to answer their questions--whether what he says be true or false.
[4] All or each of these accomplishments they are prepared to teach to any pupil who will pay the required fee: the standing sarcasm of Plato against the paid teacher, occurring here as in so many other places.
Lastly, they are brothers, old and almost toothless--natives of Chios, colonists from thence to Thurii, and exiles from Thurii and resident at Athens, yet visiting other cities for the purpose of giving lessons.
[5] Their dialectic skill is described as a recent acquisition,--made during their old age, only in the preceding year,--and completing their excellence as professors of the tripartite Eristic.
But they now devote themselves to it more than to the other two parts.
Moreover they advertise themselves as teachers of virtue.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Euthyd.
pp.
271-272.]
[Footnote 4: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 272 B.
[Greek: e)xele/gchein to\ a)ei\ lego/menon, o(moi/ôs e)a/n te pseu=dos e)a/n t' a)lêthe\s ê)=|]: p. 275 C. [Greek: ou)de\n diaphe/rei, e)a\n mo/non e)the/lê| a)pokri/nesthai o( neani/skos.]]
[Footnote 5: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 273 B-C. "quamvis essent ætate grandiores et _edentuli_" says Stallbaum in his Proleg.
p. 10.
He seems to infer this from page 294 C; the inference, though not very certain, is plausible.
Steinhart, in his Einleitung zum Euthydemos (vol.
ii.
p. 2 of Hieronym.
Müller's translation of Plato) repeats these antecedents of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus, as recited in the dialogue before us, as if they were matter of real history, exemplifications of the character of the class called Sophists.
He might just as well produce what is said by the comic poets Eupolis and Aristophanes--the proceedings as recounted by the Sokratic disciple in the [Greek: phrontistê/rion] (Nubes)--as evidence about the character of Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Conversation carried on with Kleinias, first by Sokrates, next by the two Sophists.]
The two Sophists, having announced themselves as competent to teach virtue and stimulate pupils to a virtuous life, are entreated by Sokrates to exercise their beneficent influence upon the youth Kleinias, in whose improvement he as well as Ktesippus feels the warmest interest.
Sokrates gives a specimen of what he wishes by putting a series of questions himself.
Euthydêmus follows, and begins questioning Kleinias; who, after answering three or four successive questions, is forced to contradict himself.
Dionysodorus then takes up the last answer of Kleinias, puts him through another series of interrogations, and makes him contradict himself again.
In this manner the two Sophists toss the youthful respondent backwards and forwards to each other, each contriving to entangle him in some puzzle and contradiction.
They even apply the same process to Sokrates, who cannot avoid being entangled in the net; and to Ktesippus, who becomes exasperated, and retorts upon them with contemptuous asperity.
The alternate interference of the two Sophists is described with great smartness and animation; which is promoted by the use of the dual number, peculiar to the Greek language, employed by Plato in speaking of them.
[Side-note: Contrast between the two different modes of interrogation.]
This mode of dialectic, conducted by the two Sophists, is interrupted on two several occasions by a counter-exhibition of dialectic on the part of Sokrates: who, under colour of again showing to the couple a specimen of that which he wishes them to do, puts two successive batches of questions to Kleinias in his own manner.
[6] The contrast between Sokrates and the two Sophists, in the same work, carried on respectively by him and by them, of interrogating Kleinias, is evidently meant as one of the special matters to arrest attention in the dialogue.
The questions put by the couple are made to turn chiefly on verbal quibbles and ambiguities: they are purposely designed to make the respondent contradict himself, and are proclaimed to be certain of bringing about this result, provided the respondent will conform to the laws of dialectic--by confining his answer to the special point of the question, without adding any qualification of his own, or asking for farther explanation from the questioner, or reverting to any antecedent answer lying apart from the actual question of the moment.
[7] Sokrates, on the contrary, addresses interrogations, each of which has a clear and substantive meaning, and most of which Kleinias is able to answer without embarrassment: he professes no other design except that of encouraging Kleinias to virtue, and assisting him to determine in what virtue consists: he resorts to no known quibbles or words of equivocal import.
The effect of the interrogations is represented as being, not to confound and silence the youth, but to quicken and stimulate his mind and to call forth an unexpected amount of latent knowledge: insomuch that he makes one or two answers very much beyond his years, exciting the greatest astonishment and admiration, in Sokrates as well as in Kriton.
[8] In this respect, the youth Kleinias serves the same illustrative purpose as the youthful slave in the Menon:[9] each is supposed to be quickened by the interrogatory of Sokrates, into a manifestation of knowledge noway expected, nor traceable to any teaching.
But in the Menon, this magical evocation of knowledge from an untaught youth is explained by the theory of reminiscence, pre-existence, and omniscience, of the soul: while in the Euthydêmus, no allusion is made to any such theory, nor to any other cause except the stimulus of the Sokratic cross-questioning.
[Footnote 6: Plat.
Euthydêm.
pp.
279-288.]
[Footnote 7: Plat.
Euthyd.
pp.
275 E--276 E. [Greek: Pa/nta toiau=ta ê(mei=s e)rôtô=men a)/phukta], pp.
287 B--295 B--296 A, &c.] [Footnote 8: Plat.
Euthydêm.
pp.
290-291.
The unexpected wisdom, exhibited by the youth Kleinias in his concluding answer, can be understood only as illustrating the obstetric efficacy of Sokratic interrogations.
See Winckelmann, Proleg.
ad Euthyd.
pp.
xxxiii.
xxxiv.
The words [Greek: tô=n kreitto/nôn] must have the usual signification, as recognised by Routh and Heindorf, though Schleiermacher treats it as absurd, p. 552, notes.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Menon, pp.
82-85.]
[Side-note: Wherein this contrast does not consist.]
In the dialogue _Euthydêmus_, then, one main purpose of Plato is to exhibit in contrast two distinct modes of questioning: one practised by Euthydemus and Dionysodorus; the other, by Sokrates.
Of these two, it is the first which is shown up in the most copious and elaborate manner: the second is made subordinate, serving mainly as a standard of comparison with the first.
We must take care however to understand in what the contrast between the two consists, and in what it does not consist.
The contrast does not consist in this--that Sokrates so contrives his string of questions as to bring out some established and positive conclusion, while Euthydemus and his brother leave everything in perplexity.
Such is not the fact.
Sokrates ends without any result, and with a confession of his inability to find any.
Professing earnest anxiety to stimulate Kleinias in the path of virtue, he is at the same time unable to define what the capital condition of virtue is.
[10] On this point, then, there is no contrast between Sokrates and his competitors: if they land their pupil in embarrassment, so does he.
Nor, again, does Sokrates stand distinguished from them by affirming (or rather implying in his questions) nothing but what is true and indisputable.
[11] [Footnote 10: Plat.
Euthydêm.
pp.
291 A--293 A; Plat.
Kleitophon, pp.
409-410.]
[Footnote 11: See Plat.
Euthydêm.
p. 281 C-D, where undoubtedly the positions laid down by Sokrates would not have passed without contradiction by an opponent.]
[Side-note: Wherein it does consist.]
The real contrast between the competitors, consists, first in the pretensions--next in the method.
The two Sophists are described as persons of exorbitant arrogance, professing to teach virtue,[12] and claiming a fee as if they did teach it: Sokrates disdains the fee, doubts whether such teaching is possible, and professes only to encourage or help forward on the road a willing pupil.
The pupil in this case is a given subject, Kleinias, a modest and intelligent youth: and the whole scene passes in public before an indiscriminate audience.
To such a pupil, what is needed is, encouragement and guidance.
Both of these are really administered by the questions of Sokrates, which are all suggestive and pertinent to the matter in hand, though failing to reach a satisfactory result: moreover, Sokrates attends only to Kleinias, and is indifferent to the effect on the audience around.
The two Sophists, on the contrary, do not say a word pertinent to the object desired.
Far from seeking (as they promised) to encourage Kleinias,[13] they confuse and humiliate him from the beginning: all their implements for teaching consist only of logical puzzles; lastly, their main purpose is to elicit applause from the by-standers, by reducing both the modest Kleinias and every other respondent to contradiction and stand-still.
[Footnote 12: Plat.
Euthydêm.
pp.
273 D, 275 A, 304 B.]
[Footnote 13: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 278 C. [Greek: e)pha/tên ga\r e)pidei/xasthai tê\n protreptikê\n sophi/an.]]
[Side-note: Abuse of fallacies by the Sophists--their bidding for the applause of the by-standers.]
Such is the real contrast between Sokrates and the two Sophists, and such is the real scene which we read in the dialogue.
The presence, as well as the loud manifestations of an indiscriminate crowd in the Lykeium, are essential features of the drama.
[14] The point of view which Plato is working out, is, the abusive employment, the excess, and the misplacement, of logical puzzles: which he brings before us as administered for the humiliation of a youth who requires opposite treatment, in the prosecution of an object which they do not really promote and before undiscerning auditors, for whose applause the two Sophists are bidding.
[15] The whole debate upon these fallacies is rendered ridiculous; and when conducted with Ktesippus, degenerates into wrangling and ribaldry.
[Footnote 14: The [Greek: o)/chlos] (surrounding multitude) is especially insisted on in the first sentence of the dialogue, and is perpetually adverted to throughout all the recital of Sokrates to Kriton, pp.
276 B-D, 303 B.]
[Footnote 15: Plat.
Euthydêm.
p. 303 B.]
[Side-note: Comparison of the Euthydêmus with the Parmenidês.]
The bearing of the Euthydêmus, as I here state it, will be better understood if we contrast it with the Parmenidês.
In this last-mentioned dialogue, the amount of negative dialectic and contradiction is greater and more serious than that which we read in the Euthydêmus.
One single case of it is elaborately built up in the long Antinomies at the close of the Parmenidês (which occupy as much space, and contain nearly as much sophistry, as the speeches assigned to the two Sophists in Euthydêmus), while we are given to understand that many more remain behind.
[16] These perplexing Antinomies (addressed by the veteran Parmenides to Sokrates as his junior), after a variety of other objections against the Platonic theory of Ideas, which theory Sokrates has been introduced as affirming,--are drawn up for the avowed purpose of checking premature affirmation, and of illustrating the difficult exercises and problems which must be solved, before affirmation can become justifiable.
This task, though long and laborious, cannot be evaded (we are here told) by aspirants in philosophy.
But it is a task which ought only to be undertaken in conjunction with a few select companions.
"Before any large audience, it would be unseemly and inadmissible: for the public are not aware that without such roundabout and devious journey in all directions, no man can hit upon truth or acquire intelligence.
"[17] [Footnote 16: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 B. I shall revert to this point when I notice the Parmenidês.]
[Footnote 17: Plat.
Parmen.
pp.
135-136.
[Greek: e(/lkuson de\ sauto\n kai\ gu/mnasai ma=llon dia\ tê=s dokou/sês a)chrê/stou ei)=nai kai\ kaloume/nês u(po\ tô=n pollô=n a)doleschi/as, e(/ôs e(/ti ne/os ei)=--ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê(=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai], (to request Parmenides to give a specimen of dialectic) [Greek: a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)/neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou te kai\ pla/nês, a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.]]
[Side-note: Necessity of settling accounts with the negative, before we venture upon the affirmative, is common to both: in the one the process is solitary and serious; in the other, it is vulgarised and ludicrous.]
This important proposition--That before a man can be entitled to lay down with confidence any affirmative theory, in the domain of philosophy or "reasoned truth," he must have had before him the various knots tied by negative dialectic, and must find out the way of untying them--is a postulate which lies at the bottom of Plato's Dialogues of Search, as I have remarked in the eighth chapter of this work.
But there is much difference in the time, manner, and circumstances, under which such knots are brought before the student for solution.
In the Parmenidês the process is presented as one both serious and indispensable, yet requiring some precautions: the public must be excluded, for they do not understand the purpose: and the student under examination must be one who is competent or more than competent to bear the heavy burthen put upon him, as Sokrates is represented to be in the Parmenidês.
[18] In the Euthydêmus, on the contrary, the process is intended to be made ridiculous; accordingly these precautions are disregarded.
The crowd of indiscriminate auditors are not only present, but are the persons whose feelings the two Sophists address--and who either admire what is said as dexterous legerdemain, or laugh at the interchange of thrusts, as the duel becomes warmer: in fact, the debate ends with general mirth, in which the couple themselves are among the loudest.
[19] Lastly, Kleinias, the youth under interrogation, is a modest novice; not represented, like Lysis in the dialogue just reviewed, as in danger of corruption from the exorbitant flatteries of an Erastes, nor as requiring a lowering medicine to be administered by a judicious friend.
When the Xenophontic (historical) Sokrates cross-examines and humiliates Euthydêmus (a youth, but nevertheless more advanced than Kleinias in the Platonic Euthydêmus is represented to be), we shall see that he not only lays a train for the process by antecedent suggestions, but takes especial care to attack Euthydêmus when alone.
[20] The cross-examination pursued by Sokrates inflicts upon this accomplished young man the severest distress and humiliation, and would have been utterly intolerable, if there had been by-standers clapping their hands (as we read in the Platonic Euthydêmus) whenever the respondent was driven into a corner.
We see that it was hardly tolerable even when the respondent was alone with Sokrates; for though Euthydêmus bore up against the temporary suffering, cultivated the society of Sokrates, and was handled by him more gently afterwards; yet there were many other youths whom Sokrates cross-examined in the same way, and who suffered so much humiliation from the first solitary colloquy, that they never again came near him (so Xenophon expressly tells us)[21] for a second.
This is quite enough to show us how important is the injunction delivered in the Platonic Parmenidês--to carry on these testing colloquies apart from indiscriminate auditors, in the presence, at most, of a few select companions.
[Footnote 18: See the compliments to Sokrates, on his strenuous ardour and vocation for philosophy, addressed by Parmenides, p. 135 D.] [Footnote 19: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 303 B.
[Greek: E)ntau=tha me/ntoi, ô)= phi/le Kri/tôn, ou)deis o(/stis ou) tô=n paro/ntôn u(perepê/nese to\n lo/gon, kai\ tô\ a)/ndre] (Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus) [Greek: gelô=nte kai\ krotou=nte kai\ chai/ronte o)li/gou pareta/thêsan.]]
[Footnote 20: Xenophon.
Memor.
iv.
2, 5-8.
[Greek: ô(s d' ê)/|stheto] (Sokrates) [Greek: au)to\n e)toimo/teron u(pome/nonta, o(/te diale/goito, kai\ prothumo/teron a)kou/onta, _mo/nos ê)=lthen_ ei)s to\ ê(niopoiei=on; parakathezome/non d' au)tô=| tou= Eu)thudê/mou, Ei)=pe/ moi, e)/phê], &c.] [Footnote 21: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
2, 39-40.
Compare the remarks of Sokrates in Plato, Theætêtus, p. 151 C.] [Side-note: Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias talked to their auditors.]
Stallbaum, Steinhart, and other commentators denounce in severe terms the Eristics or controversial Sophists of Athens, as disciples of Protagoras and Gorgias, infected with the mania of questioning and disputing every thing, and thereby corrupting the minds of youth.
They tell us that Sokrates was the constant enemy of this school, but that nevertheless he was unjustly confounded with them by the comic poets, and others; from which confusion alone his unpopularity with the Athenian people arose.
[22] In the Platonic dialogue of Euthydêmus the two Sophists (according to these commentators) represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias with their disciples reasoned: and the purpose of the dialogue is to contrast this with the way in which Sokrates reasoned.
[Footnote 22: Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Plat.
Euthydêm.
pp.
9-11-13; Winckelmann, Proleg.
ad eundem, pp.
xxxiii.-xxxiv.]
[Side-note: That opinion is unfounded.
Sokrates was much more Eristic than Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or lecture.]
Now, in this opinion, I think that there is much of unfounded assumption, as well as a misconception of the real contrast intended in the Platonic Euthydêmus.
Comparing Protagoras with Sokrates, I maintain that Sokrates was decidedly the more Eristic of the two, and left behind him a greater number of active disciples.
In so far as we can trust the picture given by Plato in the dialogue called Protagoras, we learn that the Sophist of that name chiefly manifested himself in long continuous speeches or rhetoric; and though he also professed, if required, to enter into dialectic colloquy, in this art he was no match for Sokrates.
[23] Moreover, we know by the evidence of Sokrates himself, that _he_ was an Eristic not only by taste, but on principle, and by a sense of duty.
He tells us, in the Platonic Apology, that he felt himself under a divine mission to go about convicting men of ignorance, and that he had prosecuted this vocation throughout many years of a long life.
Every one of these convictions must have been brought about by one or more disputes of his own seeking: every such dispute, with occasional exceptions, made him unpopular, in the outset at least, with the person convicted: the rather, as his ability in the process is known, upon the testimony of Xenophon[24] as well as of Plato, to have been consummate.
It is therefore a mistake to decry Protagoras and the Protagoreans (if there were any) as the special Eristics, and to represent Sokrates as a tutelary genius, the opponent of such habits.
If the commentators are right (which I do not think they are) in declaring the Athenian mind to have been perverted by Eristic, Sokrates is much more chargeable with the mischief than Protagoras.
And the comic poets, when they treated Sokrates as a specimen and teacher of Eristic, proceeded very naturally upon what they actually saw or heard of him.
[25] [Footnote 23: See Plat.
Protag., especially pp.
329 and 336.
About the eristic disposition of Sokrates, see the striking passage in Plato, Theætêt.
169 B-C; also Lachês, 187, 188.]
[Footnote 24: Xen.
Mem.
i.
2.]
[Footnote 25: Stallbaum, Proleg.
in Platon.
Euthydêm.
pp.
50-51.
"Sed hoc utcunque se habet, illud quidem ex Aristophane pariter atque ex ipso Platone evidenter apparet, Socratem non tantum ab orationum scriptoribus, sed etiam ab aliis, in vanissimorum sophistaram loco habitum fuisse."]
[Side-note: Sokrates in the Euthydêmus is drawn suitably to the purpose of that dialogue.]
The fact is, that the Platonic Sokrates when he talks with the two Sophists in the dialogue Euthydêmus, is a character drawn by Plato for the purpose of that dialogue, and is very different from the real historical Sokrates, whom the public of Athens saw and heard in the market-place or gymnasia.
He is depicted as a gentle, soothing, encouraging talker, with his claws drawn in, and affecting inability even to hold his own against the two Sophists: such indeed as he sometimes may have been in conversing with particular persons (so Xenophon[26] takes pains to remind his readers in the Memorabilia), but with entire elimination of that characteristic aggressive Elenchus for which he himself (in the Platonic Apology) takes credit, and which the auditors usually heard him exhibit.
[Footnote 26: Xen.
Mem.
i.
4, 1; iv.
2, 40.]
[Side-note: The two Sophists in the Euthydêmus are not to be taken as real persons, or representatives of real persons.]
This picture, accurate or not, suited the dramatic scheme of the Euthydêmus.
Such, in my judgment, is the value and meaning of the Euthydêmus, as far as regards personal contrasts.
One style of reasoning is represented by Sokrates, the other by the two Sophists: both are the creatures of Plato, having the same dramatic reality as Sokrates and Strepsiades, or the [Greek: Di/kaios Lo/gos] and [Greek: A)/dikos Lo/gos], of Aristophanes, but no more.
That they correspond to any actual persons at Athens, is neither proved nor probable.
The comic poets introduce Sokrates as talking what was either nonsensical, or offensive to the feelings of the Athenians: and Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) complains that the Dikasts judged him, not according to what he had really said or done, but according to the impression made on them by this dramatic picture.
The Athenian Sophists would have equal right to complain of those critics, who not only speak of Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus with a degree of acrimony applicable only to historical persons, but also describe them as representative types of Protagoras, Gorgias, and their disciples.
[27] [Footnote 27: The language of Schleiermacher is more moderate than that of Stallbaum, Steinhart, and others.
He thinks moreover, that the polemical purpose of this dialogue is directed not against Protagoras or Gorgias, but against the Megarics and against Antisthenes, who (so Schleiermacher supposes) had brought the attack upon themselves by attacking Plato first (Einleitung zum Euthyd.
p. 404 seq.).
Schleiermacher cannot make out who the two Sophists were personally, but he conceives them as obscure persons, deserving no notice.
This is a conjecture which admits of no proof; but if any real victim is here intended by Plato, we may just as reasonably suppose Antisthenes as Protagoras.]
[Side-note: Colloquy of Sokrates with Kleinias--possession of good things is useless, unless we also have intelligence how to use them.]
The conversation of Sokrates with the youth Kleinias is remarkable for its plainness and simplicity.
His purpose is to implant or inflame in the youth the aspiration and effort towards wisdom or knowledge ([Greek: philosophi/a], in its etymological sense).
"You, like every one else, wish to do well or to be happy.
The way to be happy is, to have many good things.
Every one knows this: every one knows too, that among these good things, wealth is an indisputable item:[28] likewise health, beauty, bodily activity, good birth, power over others, honour in our city, temperance, justice, courage, wisdom, &c. Good fortune does not count as a distinct item, because it resolves itself into wisdom.
[29]--But it is not enough to have all these good things: we must not only have them but use them: moreover, we must use them not wrongly, but rightly.
If we use them wrongly, they will not produce their appropriate consequences.
They will even make us more miserable than if we had them not, because the possession of them will prompt us to be active and meddlesome: whereas, if we have them not, we shall keep in the back-ground and do little.
[30] But to use these good things rightly, depends upon wisdom, knowledge, intelligence.
It thus appears that the enumerated items are not really good, except on the assumption that they are under the guidance of intelligence: if they are under the guidance of ignorance, they are not good; nay, they even produce more harm than good, since they are active instruments in the service of a foolish master.
[31] [Footnote 28: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 279 A.
[Greek: a)gatha\ de\ poi=a a)/ra tô=n o)/ntôn tugcha/nei ê(mi=n o)/nta?
ê)\ ou) chalepo\n ou)de\ semnou= a)ndro\s pa/nu ti ou)de\ tou=to e)/oiken ei)=nai eu(rei=n?
pa=s ga\r a)\n ê(mi=n ei)/poi o(/ti to\ ploutei=n a)gatho/n?]]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
279-280.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 281 C. [Greek: ê(=tton de\ kakô=s pra/ttôn, a)/thlios ê(=tton a)\n ei)/ê.]]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Euthyd.
p. 282 E. If we compare this with p. 279 C-D we shall see that the argument of Sokrates is open to the exception which he himself takes in the case of [Greek: eu)tuchi/a--di\s tau)ta\ le/gein].
Wisdom is counted twice over.]
[Side-note: But intelligence--of what?
It must be such intelligence, or such an art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use of it when made.]
"But what intelligence do we want for the purpose?
Is it _all_ intelligence?
Or is there any one single variety of intelligence, by the possession of which we shall become good and happy?
[32] Obviously, it must be must be such as will be profitable to us.
[33] We have seen that there is no good in possessing wealth--that we should gain nothing by knowing how to acquire wealth or even to turn stones into gold, unless we at the same time knew how to use it rightly.
Nor should we gain any thing by knowing how to make ourselves healthy, or even immortal, unless we knew how to employ rightly our health or immortality.
We want knowledge or intelligence, of such a nature, as to include both acting, making, or construction and rightly using what we have done, made, or constructed.
[34] The makers of lyres and flutes may be men of skill, but they cannot play upon the instruments which they have made: the logographers compose fine discourses, but hand them over for others to deliver.
Even masters in the most distinguished arts--such as military commanders, geometers, arithmeticians, astronomers, &c., do not come up to our requirement.
They are all of them varieties under the general class _hunters_: they find and seize, but hand over what they have seized for others to use.
The hunter, when he has caught or killed game, hands it over to the cook; the general, when he has taken a town, delivers it to the political leader or minister: the geometer makes over his theorems to be employed by the dialectician or comprehensive philosopher.
[35] [Footnote 32: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 282 E. Sokrates here breaks off the string of questions to Kleinias, but resumes them, p. 288 D.] [Footnote 33: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 288 D. [Greek: ti/na pot' ou)=n a)\n ktêsa/menoi e)pistê/mên o)rthô=s ktêsai/metha?
a)=r' ou) tou=to me\n a(plou=n, o(/ti tau/tên ê(/tis ê(ma=s o)nê/sei?]]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Euthyd.
p. 289 B.
[Greek: toiau/tês tino\s a)/r' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mês dei=, e)n ê(=| sumpe/ptôken a(/ma to/ te poiei=n kai\ to\ e)pi/stasthai chrê=sthai ô(=| a)\n poiê=|.]]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Euthyd.
p.290 C-D.] [Side-note: Where is such an art to be found?
The regal or political art looks like it; but what does this art do for us?
No answer can be found.
Ends in puzzle.]
"Where then can we find such an art--such a variety of knowledge or intelligence--as we are seeking?
The regal or political art looks like it: that art which regulates and enforces all the arrangements of the city.
But what is the work which this art performs?
What product does it yield, as the medical art supplies good health, and the farmer's art, provision?
What good does it effect?
You may say that it makes the citizens wealthy, free, harmonious in their intercourse.
But we have already seen that these acquisitions are not good, unless they be under the guidance of intelligence: that nothing is really good, except some variety of intelligence.
[36] Does the regal art then confer knowledge?
If so, does it confer every variety of knowledge--that of the carpenter, currier, &c., as well as others?
Not certainly any of these, for we have already settled that they are in themselves neither good nor bad.
The regal art can thus impart no knowledge except itself; and what is _itself_?
how are we to use it?
If we say, that we shall render other men _good_--the question again recurs, _Good_--in what respect?
_useful_--for what purpose?
[37] [Footnote 36: Plato, Euthyd.
p. 292 B.
[Greek: A)gatho\n de/ ge/ pou ô(mologê/samen a)llê/lois--ou)de\n ei)=nai a)/llo ê)\ e)pistê/mên tina/.]]
[Footnote 37: Plat.
Euthydêm.
p. 292 D. [Greek: A)lla\ ti/na dê\ e)pistê/mên?
ê(=| ti/ chrêso/metha?
tô=n me\n ga\r e)/rgôn ou)deno\s dei= au)tê\n dêmiourgo\n ei)=nai tô=n mê/te kakô=n mê/te a)gathô=n, e)pistê/mên de\ paradido/nai mêdemi/an a)/llên ê)\ au)tê\n e(autê/n; le/gômen dê\ ou)=n, ti/s pote e)/stin au(tê\ ê(=| ti/ chrêso/metha?]]
"Here then" (concludes Sokrates), "we come to a dead lock: we can find no issue.
[38] We cannot discover what the regal art does for us or gives us: yet this is the art which is to make us happy."
In this difficulty, Sokrates turns to the two Sophists, and implores their help.
The contrast between him and them is thus brought out.
[Footnote 38: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 292 E.] [Side-note: Review of the cross-examination just pursued by Sokrates.
It is very suggestive--puts the mind upon what to look for.]
The argument of Sokrates, which I have thus abridged from the Euthydêmus, arrives at no solution: but it is nevertheless eminently suggestive, and puts the question in a way to receive solution.
What is the regal or political art which directs or regulates all others?
A man has many different impulses, dispositions, qualities, aptitudes, advantages, possessions, &c., which we describe by saying that he is an artist, a general, a tradesman, clever, just, temperate, brave, strong, rich, powerful, &c. But in the course of life, each particular situation has its different exigencies, while the prospective future has its exigencies also.
The whole man is one, with all these distinct and sometimes conflicting attributes: in following one impulse, he must resist others--in turning his aptitudes to one object, he must turn them away from others--he must, as Plato says, distinguish the right use of his force from the wrong, by virtue of knowledge, intelligence, reason.
Such discriminating intelligence, which in this dialogue is called the Regal or political art,--what is the object of it?
It is intelligence or knowledge,--But _of what_?
Not certainly of the way how each particular act is to be performed--how each particular end is to be attained.
Each of these separately is the object of some special knowledge.
But the whole of a man's life is passed in a series of such particular acts, each of which is the object of some special knowledge: what then remains as the object of Regal or political intelligence, upon which our happiness is said to depend?
Or how can it have any object at all?
[Side-note: Comparison with other dialogues--Republic, Philêbus, Protagoras.
The only distinct answer is found in the Protagoras.]
The question here raised is present to Plato's mind in other dialogues, and occurs under other words, as for example, What is good?
Good is the object of the Regal or political intelligence; but what is Good?
In the Republic he raises this question, but declines to answer it, confessing that he could not make it intelligible to his hearers:[39] in the Gorgias, he takes pains to tell us what it _is not_: in the Philêbus, he does indeed tell us what it is, but in terms which need explanation quite as much as the term which they are brought to explain.
There is only one dialogue in which the question is answered affirmatively, in clear and unmistakable language, and with considerable development--and that is, the Protagoras: where Sokrates asserts and proves at length, that Good is at the bottom identical with pleasure, and Evil with pain: that the measuring or calculating intelligence is the truly regal art of life, upon which the attainment of Good depends: and that the object of that intelligence--the items which we are to measure, calculate, and compare--is pleasures and pains, so as to secure to ourselves as much as possible of the former, and escape as much as possible of the latter.
[Footnote 39: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
505-506.]
In my remarks on the Protagoras, I shall state the view which I take of the doctrine laid down in that dialogue by Sokrates.
Persons may think the answer insufficient: most of the Platonic critics declare it to be absolutely wrong.
But at any rate it is the only distinct answer which Plato ever gives, to the question raised by Sokrates in the Euthydêmus and elsewhere.
[Side-note: The talk of the two Sophists, though ironically admired while it is going on, is shown at the end to produce no real admiration, but the contrary.]
From the abstract just given of the argument of Sokrates in the Euthydêmus, it will be seen to be serious and pertinent, though ending with a confession of failure.
The observations placed in contrast with it and ascribed to the two Sophists, are distinguished by being neither serious nor pertinent; but parodies of debate for the most part, put together for the express purpose of appearing obviously silly to the reader.
Plato keeps up the dramatic or ironical appearance, that they are admired and welcomed not only by the hearers, but even by Sokrates himself.
Nevertheless, it is made clear at the end that all this is nothing but irony, and that the talk which Plato ascribes to Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus produced, according to his own showing, no sentiment of esteem for their abilities among the by-standers, but quite the reverse.
Whether there were individual Sophists at Athens who talked in that style, we can neither affirm nor deny: but that there were an established class of persons who did so, and made both money and reputation by it, we can securely deny.
It is the more surprising that the Platonic commentators should desire us to regard Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus as representative samples of a special class named Sophists, since one of the most eminent of those commentators (Stallbaum),[40] both admits that Sokrates himself was generally numbered in the class and called by the name and affirms also (incorrectly, in my opinion) that the interrogations of Sokrates, which in this dialogue stand contrasted with those of the two Sophists, do not enunciate the opinions either of Sokrates or of Plato himself, but the opinions of these very Sophists, which Plato adopts and utters for the occasion.
[41] [Footnote 40: Stallbaum, Proleg.
in Platon.
Euthydem.
p. 50.
"Illud quidem ex Aristophane pariter atque ipso Platone evidenter apparet, Socratem non tantum ab orationum scriptoribus, sed etiam ab aliis in vanissimorum sophistarum numero habitum fuisse."
Ib.
p. 49 (cited in a previous note).
"Videtur pervulgata fuisse hominum opinio, quâ Socratem inter vanos sophistas numerandum esse existimabant."
Again p. 44, where Stallbaum tells us that Sokrates was considered by many to belong "misellorum Sophistarum gregi".]
[Footnote 41: Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Plat.
Euthydem.
p. 30.
"Cavendum est magnopere, ne quæ hic à Socrate disputantur, pro ipsius decretis habeamus: _sunt enim omnia ad mentem Sophistarum disputata_, quos ille, reprehensis eorum opinionibus, sperat eo adductum iri, ut gravem prudentemque earum defensionem suscipiant."
Compare p. 66.
Stallbaum says that Plato often reasons, adopting for the occasion the doctrine of the Sophists.
See his Prolegg.
to the Lachês and Charmidês, and still more his Proleg.
to the Protagoras, where he tells us that Plato introduces his spokesman Sokrates not only as arguing _ex mente Sophistarum_, but also as employing captious and delusive artifice, such as in this dialogue is ascribed to Euthydemus and Dionysodorus.--pp.
23-24.
"Itaque Socrates, missâ hujus rei disputatione, repentè ad alia progreditur, scilicet _similibus loqueis_ hominem denuo irretiturus.
Nemini facilé obscurum erit, hoc quoque loco Protagoram _argutis conclusiunculis deludi_" (_i.e._ by Sokrates) "atque _callidé eo permoveri,_" &c. "Quanquam nemo erit, quin videat, _callidé deludi Protagoram_, ubi ex eo, quod qui injusté faciat, is neutiquam agat [Greek: sôphro/nôs], protinus colligitur justitiam et [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] unum idemque esse."--p.
25.
"Disputat enim Socrates pleraque omnia ad mentem ipsius Protagoræ."--p.
30.
"Platonem ipsum hæc non probâsse, sed e vulgi opinione et mente explicasse, vel illud non obscuré significat," &c.--p.
33.]
[Side-note: Mistaken representations about the Sophists--Aristotle's definition--no distinguishable line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician.]
The received supposition that there were at Athens a class of men called Sophists who made money and reputation by obvious fallacies employed to bring about contradictions in dialogue--appears to me to pervert the representations given of ancient philosophy.
Aristotle defines a Sophist to be "one who seeks to make money by apparent wisdom which is not real wisdom":--the Sophist (he says) is an Eristic who, besides money-making, seeks for nothing but victory in debate and humiliation of his opponent:--Distinguishing the Dialectician from the Sophist (he says), the Dialectician impugns or defends, by probable arguments, probable tenets--that is, tenets which are believed by a numerous public or by a few wise and eminent individuals:--while the Sophist deals with tenets which are probable only in appearance and not in reality--that is to say, tenets which almost every one by the slightest attention recognises as false.
[42] This definition is founded, partly on the personal character and purpose ascribed to the Sophist: partly upon the distinction between apparent and real wisdom, assumed to be known and permanent.
Now such pseudo-wisdom was declared by Sokrates to be the natural state of all mankind, even the most eminent, which it was his mission to expose: moreover, the determination, what is to be comprised in this description, must depend upon the judges to whom it is submitted, since much of the works of Aristotle and Plato would come under the category, in the judgment of modern readers both vulgar and instructed.
But apart from this relative and variable character of the definition, when applied to philosophy generally--we may confidently assert, that there never was any real class of intellectual men, in a given time or place, to whom it could possibly apply.
Of individuals, the varieties are innumerable: but no professional body of men ever acquired gain or celebrity by maintaining theses, and employing arguments, which every one could easily detect as false.
Every man employs sophisms more or less; every man does so inadvertently, some do it by design also; moreover, almost every reasoner does it largely, in the estimation of his opponents.
No distinct line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician: the definition given by Aristotle applies to an ideal in his own mind, but to no reality without: Protagoras and Prodikus no more correspond to it than Sokrates and Plato.
Aristotle observes, with great truth, that all men are dialecticians and testers of reasoning, up to a certain point: he might have added that they are all Sophists also, up to a certain point.
[43] Moreover, when he attempts to found a scientific classification of intellectual processes upon a difference in the purposes of different practitioners--whether they employ the same process for money or display, or beneficence, or mental satisfaction to themselves--this is altogether unphilosophical.
The medical art is the same, whether employed to advise gratis, or in exchange for a fee.
[44] [Footnote 42: Aristotel.
Topic, i.
1, p. 100, b.
21.
[Greek: e)/ndoxa de\ ta\ dokou=nta pa=sin ê)\ toi=s plei/stois ê)\ toi=s sophoi=s, kai\ tou/tois ê)\ pa=sin ê)\ toi=s plei/stois ê)\ toi=s ma/lista gnôri/mois kai\ e)ndo/xois.
E)ristiko\s de\ e)/sti sullogismo\s o( e)k phainome/nôn e)ndo/xôn, mê\ o)/ntôn de\--kai\ o( e)x e)ndo/xôn ê)\ phainome/nôn e)ndo/xôn phaino/menos.
Ou)the\n ga\r tô=n legome/nôn e)ndo/xôn e)pipolai/on e)/chei pantelô=s tê\n phantasi/an, katha/per peri\ ta\s tô=n e)ristikô=n lo/gôn a)rcha\s sumbe/bêken e)/chein.
Parachrê=ma ga\r kai\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu\ toi=s kai\ mikra\ sunora=|n duname/nois, kata/dêlos e)n au)toi=s ê( tou= pseu/dous e)/sti phu/sis.]
De Sophisticis Elenchis, i. p. 165, a.
21.
[Greek: e)/sti ga\r ê( sophistikê\ phainome/nê sophi/a, ou)=sa d' ou)/; kai\ o( sophistê\s chrêmatistê\s a)po\ phainome/nês sophi/as, a)ll' ou)k ou)/sês], p. 165, b.
10, p. 171, b.
8-27.
[Greek: Oi( phile/rides, e)ristikoi\, a)gônistikoi\], are persons who break the rules of dialectic ([Greek: a)dikomachi/a]) for the purpose of gaining victory; [Greek: oi( sophistai\] are those who do the same thing for the purpose of getting money.
See also Metaphys.
iii.
1004, b.
17.]
[Footnote 43: Aristot.
Sophist.
Elench.
p. 172, a.
30.]
[Footnote 44: Aristot.
Rhetor, i.
1, 1355, b.
18.
He here admits that the only difference between the Dialectician and the Sophist lies in their purposes--that the mental activity employed by both is the same.
[Greek: o( ga\r sophistiko\s ou)k e)n tê=| duna/mei a)ll' e)n tê=| proaire/sei; plê\n e)ntau=tha me\n] (in Rhetoric) [Greek: e)/stai o( me\n kata\ tê\n e)pistê/mên o( de\ kata\ tê\n proai/resin, r(ê/tôr, e)kei= de\] (in Dialectic) [Greek: sophistê\s me\n kata\ tê\n proai/resin, dialektiko\s de\ ou) kata\ tê\n proai/resin, a)lla\ kata\ tê\n du/namin.]]
[Side-note: Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus--exposure of fallacies, in Plato's dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples.]
Though I maintain that no class of professional Sophists (in the meaning given to that term by the Platonic critics after Plato and Aristotle) ever existed--and though the distinction between the paid and the gratuitous discourser is altogether unworthy to enter into the history of philosophy--yet I am not the less persuaded that the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, and the treatise of Aristotle De Sophisticis Elenchis, are very striking and useful compositions.
This last-mentioned treatise was composed by Aristotle very much under the stimulus of the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, to which it refers several times--and for the purpose of distributing the variety of possible fallacies under a limited number of general heads, each described by its appropriate characteristic, and represented by its illustrative type.
Such attempt at arrangement--one of the many valuable contributions of Aristotle to the theory of reasoning--is expressly claimed by him as his own.
He takes a just pride in having been the first to introduce system where none had introduced it before.
[45] No such system was known to Plato, who (in the Euthydêmus) enumerates a string of fallacies one after another without any project of classifying them, and who presents them as it were in concrete, as applied by certain disputants in an imaginary dialogue.
The purpose is, to make these fallacies appear conspicuously in their character of fallacies: a purpose which is assisted by presenting the propounders of them as ridiculous and contemptible.
The lively fancy of Plato attaches suitable accessories to Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus.
They are old men, who have been all their lives engaged in teaching rhetoric and tactics, but have recently taken to dialectic, and acquired perfect mastery thereof without any trouble--who make extravagant promises--and who as talkers play into each other's hands, making a shuttlecock of the respondent, a modest novice every way unsuitable for such treatment.
[Footnote 45: See the last chapter of the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis.]
[Side-note: Aristotle (Soph.
Elench.)
attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato enumerates them without classification.]
Thus different is the Platonic manner, from the Aristotelian manner, of exposing fallacies.
But those exhibited in the former appear as members of one or more among the classes framed by the latter.
The fallacies which we read in the Euthydêmus are chiefly verbal: but some are verbal, and something beyond.
[Side-note: Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the Euthydêmus.]
Thus, for example, if we take the first sophism introduced by the two exhibitors, upon which they bring the youth Kleinias, by suitable questions, to declare successively both sides of the alternative--"Which of the two is it that learns, the wise or the ignorant?"
--Sokrates himself elucidates it by pointing out that the terms used are equivocal:[46] You might answer it by using the language ascribed to Dionysodorus in another part of this dialogue--"Neither and Both".
[47] The like may be said about the fallacy in page 284 D--"Are there persons who speak of things as they are?
Good men speak of things as they are: they speak of good men well, of bad men badly: therefore, of course, they speak of stout men stoutly, and of hot men hotly.
Ay!
rejoins the respondent Ktesippus, angrily--they speak of cold men coldly, and say that they talk coldly.
"[48] These are fallacies of double meaning of words--or double construction of phrases: as we read also in page 287 D, where the same Greek verb ([Greek: noei=n]) may be construed either to _think_ or to _mean_: so that when Sokrates talks about what a predication _means_--the Sophists ask him--"Does anything _think_, except things having a soul?
Did you ever know any predication that had a soul?"
[Footnote 46: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
275 D--278 D. Aristotle also adverts to this fallacy, but without naming the Euthydêmus.
See Soph.
El.
4, 165, b.
30.]
[Footnote 47: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 300 D. [Greek: Ou)de/tera kai\ a)mpho/tera]] [Footnote 48: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 284 E. [Greek: tou\s gou=n psuchrou\s psuchrô=s le/gousi/ te kai\ phasi\ diale/gesthai.]
The metaphorical sense of [Greek: psuchro\s] is _pointless_, _stupid_, _out of taste_, _out of place_, _&c._] [Side-note: Fallacies--_à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter_--in the Euthydêmus.]
Again, the two Sophists undertake to prove that Sokrates, as well as the youth Kleinias and indeed every one else, knows everything.
"Can any existing thing _be_ that which it is, and at the same time _not be_ that which it is?--No.--You know some things?--Yes.--Then if you know, _you are knowing_?--Certainly.
I am knowing of those particular things.--That makes no difference: if you are knowing, you necessarily know everything.--Oh!
no: for there are many things which I do not know.--Then if there be anything which you do not know, _you are not knowing_?--Yes, doubtless--of that particular thing.--Still you are _not knowing_: and just now you said that you were _knowing_: and thus, at one and the same time, you are what you are, and you are not what you are.
[49] [Footnote 49: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 293 C. Aristotle considers _know_ to be an equivocal word; he admits that in certain senses you may both _know_ and _not know_ the same thing.
Anal.
Prior.
ii.
67, b.
8.
Anal.
Post.
i.
71, a.
25.]
"But _you_ also" (retorts Sokrates upon the couple), "do not you also know some things, not know others?--By no means.--What!
do you know nothing?--Far from it.--Then you know all things?--Certainly we do,--and you too: if you know one thing, you know all things.--What!
do you know the art of the carpenter, the currier, the cobbler--the number of stars in the heaven, and of grains of sand in the desert, &c.?--Yes: we know all these things."
[Side-note: Obstinacy shown by the two Sophists in their replies--determination not to contradict themselves.]
The two Sophists maintain their consistency by making reply in the affirmative to each of these successive questions: though Ktesippus pushes them hard by enquiries as to a string of mean and diverse specialties.
[50] This is one of the purposes of the dialogue: to represent the two Sophists as willing to answer any thing, however obviously wrong and false, for the purpose of avoiding defeat in the dispute--as using their best efforts to preserve themselves in the position of questioners, and to evade the position of respondents--and as exacting a categorical answer--Yes or No--to every question which they put without any qualifying words, and without any assurance that the meaning of the question was understood.
[51] [Footnote 50: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
293-294.]
[Footnote 51: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
295-296.]
The base of these fallacious inferences is, That respecting the same subject, you cannot both affirm and deny the same predicate: you cannot say, A is knowing--A is not knowing ([Greek: e)pistê/môn]).
This is a fallacy more than verbal: it is recognised by Aristotle (and by all subsequent logicians) under the name--_à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter_.
It is very certain that this fallacy is often inadvertently committed by very competent reasoners, including both Plato and Aristotle.
[Side-note: Farther verbal equivocations.]
Again--Sophroniskus was my father--Chæredemus was the father of Patrokles.--Then Sophroniskus was different from a father: therefore he was not a father.
You are different from a stone, therefore you are not a stone: you are different from gold, therefore you are not gold.
By parity of reasoning, Sophroniskus is different from a father--therefore he is not a father.
Accordingly, you, Sokrates, have no father.
[52] [Footnote 52: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
297-298.]
But (retorts Ktesippus upon the couple) your father is different from my father.--Not at all.--How can that be?--What!
is your father, then, the father of all men and of all animals?--Certainly he is.
A man cannot be at the same time a father, and not a father.
He cannot be at the same time a man, and not a man--gold, and not gold.
[53] [Footnote 53: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 298.
Some of the fallacies in the dialogue ([Greek: Po/teron o(rô=sin oi( a)/nthrôpoi ta\ dunata\ o(ra=|n ê)\ ta\ a)du/nata?
.
.
.
Ê)= ou)ch oi(=o/n te sigô=nta le/gein?]
p. 300 A) are hardly translatable into English, since they depend upon equivocal constructions peculiar to the Greek language.
Aristotle refers them to the general head [Greek: par' a)mphiboli/an].
The same about [Greek: prosê/kei to\n ma/geiron katako/ptein], p. 301 D.] You have got a dog (Euthydêmus says to Ktesippus).--Yes.--The dog is the father of puppies?--Yes.--The dog, being a father, is yours?--Certainly.--Then your father is a dog, and you are brother of the puppies.
You beat your dog sometimes?
Then you beat your father.
[54] [Footnote 54: Plat.
Euthyd.
p.
298.]
Those animals, and those alone are _yours_ (sheep, oxen, &c.), which you can give away, or sell, or sacrifice at pleasure.
But Zeus, Apollo, and Athênê are _your_ Gods.
The Gods have a soul and are animals.
Therefore your Gods are your animals.
Now you told us that those alone were your animals, which you could give away, or sell, or sacrifice at pleasure.
Therefore you can give away, or sell, or sacrifice at pleasure, Zeus, Apollo, and Athênê.
[55] [Footnote 55: Plat.
Euthydêm.
p. 302.
This same fallacy, in substance, is given by Aristotle, De Sophist.
El.
17, 176 a.
3, 179, a.
5, but with different exemplifying names and persons.]
This fallacy depends upon the double and equivocal meaning of _yours_--one of its different explanations being treated as if it were the only one.
[Side-note: Fallacies involving deeper logical principles--contradiction is impossible.--To speak falsely is impossible.]
Other puzzles cited in this dialogue go deeper:--Contradiction is impossible--To speak falsely is impossible.
[56] These paradoxes were maintained by Antisthenes and others, and appear to have been matters of dialectic debate throughout the fourth and third centuries.
I shall say more of them when I speak about the Megarics and Antisthenes.
Here I only note, that in this dialogue, Ktesippus is represented as put to silence by them, and Sokrates as making an answer which is no answer at all.
[57] We see how much trouble these paradoxes gave to Plato, when we read the Sophistês, in which he handles the last of the two in a manner elaborate, but (to my judgment) unsatisfactory.
[Footnote 56: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
285-286.]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
286 B--287 A.]
[Side-note: Plato's Euthydêmus is the earliest known attempt to set out and expose fallacies--the only way of exposing fallacies is to exemplify the fallacy by particular cases, in which the conclusion proved is known _aliunde_ to be false and absurd.]
The Euthydêmus of Plato is memorable in the history of philosophy as the earliest known attempt to set out, and exhibit to attention, a string of fallacious modes of reasoning.
Plato makes them all absurd and ridiculous.
He gives a caricature of a dialectic debate, not unworthy of his namesake Plato Comicus--or of Aristophanes, Swift, or Voltaire.
The sophisms appear for the most part so silly, as he puts them, that the reader asks himself how any one could have been ever imposed upon by such a palpable delusion?
Yet such confidence is by no means justified.
A sophism, perfectly analogous in character to those which Plato here exposes to ridicule, may, in another case, easily escape detection from the hearer, and even from the reasoner himself.
People are constantly misled by fallacies arising from the same word bearing two senses, from double construction of the same phrase, from unconscious application of a _dictum secundum quid_, as if it were a _dictum simpliciter_; from Petitio Principii, &c., Ignoratio Elenchi, &c. Neither Plato himself, nor Aristotle, can boast of escaping them.
[58] If these fallacies appear, in the examples chosen by Plato for the Euthydêmus, so obviously inconclusive that they can deceive no one--the reason lies not in the premisses themselves, but in the particular conclusions to which they lead: which conclusions are known on other grounds to be false, and never to be seriously maintainable by any person.
Such conclusions as--"Sokrates had no father: Sophroniskus, if father of Sokrates, was father of all men and all animals: In beating your dog, you beat your father: If you know one thing, you know everything," &c., being known _aliunde_ to be false, prove that there has been some fallacy in the premisses whereby they have been established.
Such cases serve as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the antecedent process.
They make us aware of one mode of liability to error, and put us on our guard against it in analogous cases.
This is a valuable service, and all the more valuable, because the liability to error is real and widespread, even from fallacies perfectly analogous to those which seem so silly under the particular exemplifications which Plato selects and exposes.
Many of the illustrations of the Platonic Euthydêmus are reproduced by Aristotle in the Treatise de Sophisticis Elenchis, together with other fallacies, discriminated with a certain method and system.
[59] [Footnote 58: See a passage in Plato's Charmidês, where Heindorf remarks with propriety upon his equivocal use of the words [Greek: eu)= zê=|n] and [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein]--also the Gorgias, p. 507 D, with the notes of Routh and Heindorf.
I have noticed both passages in discussing these two dialogues.]
[Footnote 59: Aristotle, De Sophist.
Elench.
; also Arist.
Rhet.
ii.
p. 1401, a-b.]
[Side-note: Mistake of supposing fallacies to have been invented and propagated by Athenian Sophists--they are inherent inadvertencies and liabilities to error, in the ordinary process of thinking.
Formal debate affords the best means of correcting them.]
The true character of these fallacies is very generally overlooked by the Platonic critics, in their appreciation of the Euthydêmus; when they point our attention to the supposed tricks and frauds of the persons whom they called Sophists, as well as to mischievous corruptions alleged to arise from Eristic or formal contentious debate.
These critics speak as if they thought that such fallacies were the special inventions of Athenian Sophists for the purposes of Athenian Eristic: as if such causes of error were inoperative on persons of ordinary honesty or intelligence, who never consulted or heard the Sophists.
It has been the practice of writers on logic, from Aristotle down to Whately, to represent logical fallacies as frauds devised and maintained by dishonest practitioners, whose art Whately assimilates to that of jugglers.
This view of the case appears to me incomplete and misleading.
It substitutes the rare and accidental in place of the constant and essential.
The various sophisms, of which Plato in the Euthydêmus gives the _reductio ad absurdum_, are not the inventions of Sophists.
They are erroneous tendencies of the reasoning process, frequently incident to human thought and speech: specimens of those ever-renewed "inadvertencies of ordinary thinking" (to recur to a phrase cited in my preface), which it is the peculiar mission of philosophy or "reasoned truth" to rectify.
Moreover the practice of formal debate, which is usually denounced with so much asperity--if it affords on some occasions opportunity to produce such fallacies, presents not merely equal opportunity, but the only effective means, for exposing and confuting them.
Whately in his Logic,[60] like Plato in the Euthydêmus, when bringing these fallacies into open daylight in order that every one may detect them, may enliven the theme by presenting them as the deliberate tricks of a Sophist.
Doubtless they are so by accident: yet their essential character is that of infirmities incident to the _intellectus sibi permissus_: operative at Athens before Athenian Sophists existed, and in other regions also, where these persons never penetrated.]
[Footnote 60: Whately's Logic, ch.
v. sect.
5.
Though Whately, like other logicians, keeps the Sophists in the foreground, as the fraudulent enemy who sow tares among that which would otherwise come up as a clean crop of wheat--yet he intimates also incidentally how widespread and frequent such fallacies are, quite apart from dishonest design.
He says--"It seems by most persons to be taken for granted, that a Fallacy is to be dreaded merely as a weapon fashioned and wielded by a skilful Sophist: or, if they allow that a man may with honest intentions slide into one, unconsciously, in the heat of _argument_--still they seem to suppose, that where there is no _dispute_, there is no cause to dread Fallacy.
Whereas there is much danger, even in what may be called _solitary reasoning_, of sliding unawares into some Fallacy, by which one may be so far deceived as even to act upon the conclusion so obtained.
By _solitary reasoning_, is meant the case in which we are not seeking for arguments to prove a given question, but labouring to elicit from our previous stock of knowledge some useful inference."
"To speak of all the Fallacies that have ever been enumerated, as too glaring and obvious to need even being mentioned--because the simple instances given in books, and there stated in the plainest and consequently most easily detected form, are such as (in that form) would deceive no one--this, surely, shows either extreme weakness or extreme unfairness."
--Aristotle himself makes the same remark as Whately--That the man who is easily taken in by a Fallacy advanced by another, will be easily misled by the like Fallacy in his own solitary reasoning.
Sophist.
Elench.
16, 175, a.
10.]
[Side-note: Wide-spread prevalence of erroneous belief, misguided by one or other of these fallacies, attested by Sokrates, Plato, Bacon, &c.,--complete enumeration of heads of fallacies by Mill.]
The wide diffusion and constant prevalence of such infirmities is attested not less by Sokrates in his last speech, wherein he declares real want of knowledge and false persuasion of knowledge, to be universal, the mission of his life being to expose them, though he could not correct them--than by Bacon in his reformatory projects, where he enumerates the various Idola worshipped by the human intellect, and the false tendencies acquired "_in primâ digestione mentis_".
The psychological analysis of the sentiment of belief with its different sources, given in Mr. Alexander Bain's work on the Emotions and the Will, shows how this takes place; and exhibits true or sound belief, in so far as it ever is acquired, as an acquisition only attained after expulsion of earlier antecedent error.
[61] Of such error, and of the different ways in which apparent evidence is mistaken for real evidence, a comprehensive philosophical exposition is farther given by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the fifth book of his System of Logic, devoted to the subject of Fallacies.
Every variety of erroneous procedure is referable to some one or more of the general heads of Fallacy there enumerated.
It is the Fallacies of Ratiocination, of which the two Sophists, in the Platonic Euthydêmus, are made to exhibit specimens: and when we regard such Fallacies, as one branch among several in a complete logical scheme, we shall see at once that they are not inventions of the Athenian Sophists--still less inventions for the purpose of Eristic or formal debate.
For every one of these Fallacies is of a nature to ensnare men, and even to ensnare them more easily, in the common, informal, conversation of life--or in their separate thoughts.
Besides mistakes on matters of fact, the two main causes which promote the success and encourage the multiplication of Fallacies generally, are first, the emotional bias towards particular conclusions, which disposes persons to accept any apparent evidence, favourable to such conclusion, as if it, were real evidence: next, the careless and elliptical character of common speech, in which some parts of the evidence are merely insinuated, and other parts altogether left out.
It is this last circumstance which gives occasion to the very extensive class of Fallacies called by Mr. Mill Fallacies of Confusion: a class so large, that the greater number of Fallacies might plausibly be brought under it.
[62] [Footnote 61: See the instructive and original chapter on the generation, sources, and growth of Belief, in Mr. Bain's work, 'Emotions and Will,' p. 568 seq.
After laying down the fundamental characteristic of Belief, as referable altogether to intended action, either certain to come, or contingent under supposed circumstances, and after enumerating the different Sources of Belief.--1.
Intuitive or Instinctive.
2.
Experience.
3.
The Influence of the Emotions (sect.
x. p. 579)--Mr. Bain says: "Having in our constitution primordial fountains of activity in the spontaneous and voluntary impulses, we follow the first clue that experience gives us, and accept the indication with the whole force of these natural promptings.
Being under the strongest impulses to act somehow, an animal accepts any lead that is presented, and if successful, abides by that lead with unshaken confidence.
This is that instinct of credulity so commonly attributed to the infant mind.
It is not the single instance, or the repetition of two or three, that makes up the strong tone of confidence; it is the mind's own active determination, finding some definite vent in the gratification of its ends, and abiding by the discovery with the whole energy of the character, until the occurrence of some check, failure, or contradiction.
The force of belief, therefore, is not one rising from zero to a full development by slow degrees, according to the length of the experience.
We must treat it rather as a strong primitive manifestation, derived from the natural activity of the system, and taking its direction and rectification from experience (p. 583).
The anticipation of nature, so strenuously repudiated by Bacon, is the offspring of this characteristic of the mental system.
With the active tendency at its maximum, and the exercise of intelligence and acquired knowledge at the minimum, there can issue nothing but a quantity of rash enterprises.
The respectable name _generalisation_, implying the best products of enlightened scientific research, has also a different meaning, expressing one of the most erroneous impulses and crudest determinations of untutored human nature.
To extend some familiar and narrow experience, so as to comprehend cases the most distant, is a piece of mere reckless instinct, demanding severe discipline for its correction.
I have mentioned the case of our supposing all other minds constituted like our own.
The veriest infant has got this length in the career of fallacy.
Sound belief, instead of being a pacific and gentle growth, is in reality the battering of a series of strongholds, the conquering of a country in hostile occupation.
This is a fact common both to the individual and to the race.
Observation is unanimous on the point.
It will probably be long ere the last of the delusions attributable to this method of believing first and proving afterwards can be eradicated from humanity."
[3rd ed., p. 505 seq.]]
[Footnote 62: Mill, 'System of Logic,' Book V., to which is prefixed the following citation from Hobbes's 'Logica'.
"Errare non modo affirmando et negando, sed etiam in sentiendo, et in tacitâ hominum cogitatione, contingit."
Mr. Mill points out forcibly both the operation of moral or emotional bias in perverting the intellect, and causing sophisms or fallacies to produce conviction; and the increased chance afforded for the success of a sophism by the suppression of part of the premisses, which is unavoidable in informal discussions.
"Bias is not a direct source of wrong conclusions (v. 1-3).
We cannot believe a proposition only by wishing, or only by dreading, to believe it.
Bias acts indirectly by placing the intellectual grounds of belief in an incomplete or distorted shape before a man's eyes.
It makes him shrink from the irksome labour of a rigorous induction.
It operates too by making him look out eagerly for reasons, or apparent reasons, to support opinions which are conformable, or resist those which are repugnant, to his interests or feelings; and when the interests or feelings are common to great numbers of persons, reasons are accepted or pass current which would not for a moment be listened to in that character, if the conclusion had nothing more powerful than its reasons to speak in its behalf.
The natural or acquired prejudices of mankind are perpetually throwing up philosophical theories, the sole recommendation of which consists in the premisses which they afford for proving cherished doctrines, or justifying favourite feelings; and when any one of these theories has become so thoroughly discredited as no longer to serve the purpose, another is always ready to take its place."
--"Though the opinions of the generality of mankind, when not dependent upon mere habit and inculcation, have their root much more in the inclinations than in the intellect, it is a necessary condition to the triumph of the moral bias that it should first pervert the understanding."
Again in v. 2, 3.
"It is not in the nature of bad reasoning to express itself unambiguously.
When a sophist, whether he is imposing upon himself or attempting to impose upon others, can be constrained to throw his argument into so distinct a form, it needs, in a large number of cases, no farther exposure.
In all arguments, everywhere but in the schools, some of the links are suppressed: _à fortiori_, when the arguer either intends to deceive, or is a lame and inexpert thinker, little accustomed to bring his reasoning processes to any test; and it is in those steps of the reasoning which are made in this tacit and half-conscious, or even wholly unconscious, manner, that the error oftenest lurks.
In order to detect the fallacy the proposition thus silently assumed must be supplied, but the reasoner, most likely, has never really asked himself what he was assuming; his confuter, unless permitted to extort it from him by the Socratic mode of interrogation, must himself judge what the suppressed premiss ought to be, in order to support the conclusion."
Mr. Mill proceeds to illustrate this confusion by an excellent passage cited from Whately's 'Logic'.
I may add, that Aristotle himself makes a remark substantially the same--That the same fallacy may be referred to one general head or to another, according to circumstances.
Sophist.
Elench.
33, 182, b.
10.]
[Side-note: Value of formal debate as a means for testing and confuting fallacies.]
We thus see not only that the fallacious agencies are self-operative, generating their own weeds in the common soil of human thought and speech, without being planted by Athenian Sophists or watered by Eristic--but that this very Eristic affords the best means of restraining their diffusion.
It is only in formal debate that the disputant can be forced to make clear to himself and declare explicitly to others, without reserve or omission, all the premisses upon which his conclusion rests--that every part of these premisses becomes liable to immediate challenge by an opponent--that the question comes distinctly under consideration, what is or is not sufficient evidence--that the premisses of one argument can be compared with the premisses of another, so that if in the former you are tempted to acquiesce in them as sufficient because you have a bias favourable to the conclusion, in the latter you may be made to feel that they are _insufficient_, because the conclusion which they prove is one which you know to be untrue (_reductio ad absurdum_).
The habit of formal debate (called by those who do not like it, Eristic[63]) is thus an indispensable condition both for the exposure and confutation of fallacies, which exist quite independent of that habit--owing their rise and prevalence to deep-seated psychological causes.
[Footnote 63: The Platonic critics talk about the Eristics (as they do about the Sophists) as if that name designated a known and definite class of persons.
This is altogether misleading.
The term is vituperative, and was applied by different persons according to their own tastes.
Ueberweg remarks with great justice, that Isokrates called all speculators on philosophy by the name of Eristics.
"Als ob jener Rhetor nicht (wie ja doch Spengel selbst gut nachgewiesen hat) alle und jede Spekulation mit dem Nahmen der Eristik bezeichnete."
(Untersuchungen über die Zeitfolge der Plat.
Schriften, p.
257.)
In reference to the distinction which Aristotle attempts to draw between Dialectic and Eristic--the former legitimate, the latter illegitimate--we must remark that even in the legitimate Dialectic the purpose prominent in his mind is that of victory over an opponent.
He enjoins that you are not only to guard against your opponent, lest he should out-manoeuvre you, but you are to conceal and disguise the sequence of your questions so as to out-manoeuvre him.
[Greek: Chrê\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\s e)picheirou=ntas peira=sthai lantha/nein.]
Anal.
Prior.
ii.
66, a.
32.
Compare Topic.
108, a.
25, 156, a.
23, 164, b.
35.]
[Side-note: Without the habit of formal debate, Plato could not have composed his Euthydêmus, nor Aristotle the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis.]
Without the experience acquired by this habit of dialectic debate at Athens, Plato could not have composed his Euthydêmus, exhibiting a _reductio ad absurdum_ of several verbal fallacies--nor could we have had the logical theories of Aristotle, embodied in the Analytica and Topica with its annexed treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, in which various fallacies are discriminated and classified.
These theories, and the corollaries connected with them, do infinite honour to the comprehensive intellect of Aristotle: but he could not have conceived them without previous study of the ratiocinative process.
He, as the first theorizer, must have had before him abundant arguments explicitly laid out, and contested, or open to be contested, at every step by an opponent.
[64] Towards such habit of formal argumentation, a strong repugnance was felt by many of the Athenian public, as there is among modern readers generally: but those who felt thus, had probably little interest in the speculations either of Plato or of Aristotle.
That the Platonic critics should themselves feel this same repugnance, seems to me not consistent with their admiration for the great dialectician and logician of antiquity: nor can I at all subscribe to their view, when they present to us the inherent infirmities of the human intellect as factitious distempers generated by the habit of formal debate, and by the rapacity of Protagoras, Prodikus, and others.
[Footnote 64: Mill, 'System of Logic.'
Book VI.
1, 1.
"Principles of Evidence and Theories of Method, are not to be constructed _à priori_.
The laws of our rational faculty, like those of every other natural agency, are only got by seeing the agent at work."]
[Side-note: Probable popularity of the Euthydêmus at Athens--welcomed by all the enemies of Dialectic.]
I think it probable that the dialogue of Euthydêmus, as far as the point to which I have brought it (_i.e._, where Sokrates finishes his recital to Kriton of the conversation which he had had with the two Sophists), was among the most popular of all the Platonic dialogues: not merely because of its dramatic vivacity and charm of expression, but because it would be heartily welcomed by the numerous enemies of Dialectic at Athens.
We must remember that in the estimation of most persons at Athens, Dialectic included Sokrates and all the _viri Sokratici_ (Plato among them), just as much as the persons called Sophists.
The discreditable picture here given of Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, would be considered as telling against Dialectic and the Sokratic Elenchus generally: while the rhetors, and others who dealt in long continuous discourse, would treat it as a blow inflicted upon the rival art of dialogue, by the professor of the dialogue himself.
In Plato's view, the dialogue was the special and appropriate manifestation of philosophy.
[Side-note: Epilogue of Plato to the Dialogue, trying to obviate this inference by opponents--Conversation between Sokrates and Kriton.]
That the natural effect of the picture here drawn by Plato, was, to justify the antipathy of those who hated philosophy--we may see by the epilogue which Plato has thought fit to annex: an epilogue so little in harmony with what has preceded, that we might almost imagine it to be an afterthought--yet obviously intended to protect philosophy against imputations.
Sokrates having concluded the recital, in his ironical way, by saying that he intended to become a pupil under the two Sophists, and by inviting Kriton to be a pupil along with him--Kriton replies by saying that he is anxious to obtain instruction from any one who can give it, but that he has no sympathy with Euthydêmus, and would rather be refuted by him, than learn from him to refute in such a manner.
Kriton proceeds to report to Sokrates the remarks of a by-stander (an able writer of discourses for the Dikastery) who had heard all that passed; and who expressed his surprise that Sokrates could have remained so long listening to such nonsense, and manifesting so much deference for a couple of foolish men.
Nevertheless (continued the by-stander) this couple are among the most powerful talkers of the day upon philosophy.
This shows you how worthless a thing philosophy is: prodigious fuss, with contemptible result--men careless what they say, and carping at every word that they hear.
[65] [Footnote 65: Plat.
Euthyd.
pp.
304-305.]
Now, Sokrates (concludes Kriton), this man is wrong for depreciating philosophy, and all others who depreciate it are wrong also.
But he was right in blaming you, for disputing with such a couple before a large crowd.
_Sokr._--What kind of person is this censor of philosophy?
Is he a powerful speaker himself in the Dikastery?
Or is he only a composer of discourses to be spoken by others?
_Krit._--The latter.
I do not think that he has ever spoken in court: but every one says that he knows judicial practice well, and that he composes admirable speeches.
[66] [Footnote 66: Plat.
Euthyd.
p.
305.]
[Side-note: Altered tone in speaking of Euthydêmus--Disparagement of persons half-philosophers, half-politicians.]
_Sokr._--I understand the man.
He belongs to that class whom Prodikus describes as the border-men between philosophy and politics.
Persons of this class account themselves the wisest of mankind, and think farther that besides being such in reality, they are also admired as such by many: insomuch that the admiration for them would be universal, if it were not for the professors of philosophy.
Accordingly they fancy, that if they could once discredit these philosophers, the prize of glory would be awarded to themselves, without controversy, by every one: they being in truth the wisest men in society, though liable, if ever they are caught in dialectic debate, to be overpowered and humbled by men like Euthydêmus.
[67] They have very plausible grounds for believing in their own wisdom, since they pursue both philosophy and politics to a moderate extent, as far as propriety enjoins; and thus pluck the fruit of wisdom without encountering either dangers or contests.
_Krit._--What do you say to their reasoning, Sokrates?
It seems to me specious.
_Sokr._--Yes, it is specious, but not well founded.
You cannot easily persuade them, though nevertheless it is true, that men who take a line mid-way between two pursuits, are _better_ than either, if both pursuits be bad--_worse_ than either, if both pursuits be good, but tending to different ends--_better_ than one and _worse_ than the other, if one of the pursuits be bad and the other good--_better_ than both, if both be bad, but tending to different ends.
Such being the case, if the pursuit of philosophy and that of active politics be both of them good, but tending to different objects, these men are inferior to the pursuers of one as well as of the other: if one be good, the other bad, they are worse than the pursuers of the former, better than the pursuers of the latter: if both be bad, they are better than either.
Now I am sure that these men themselves account both philosophy and politics to be good.
Accordingly, they are inferior both to philosophers and politicians:[68] they occupy only the third rank, though they pretend to be in the first.
While we pardon such a pretension, and refrain from judging these men severely, we must nevertheless recognise them for such as they really are.
We must be content with every one, who announces any scheme of life, whatever it be, coming within the limits of intelligence, and who pursues his work with persevering resolution.
[69] [Footnote 67: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 305 D. [Greek: ei)=nai me\n ga\r tê=| a)lêthei/a| spha=s sophôta/tous, e)n de\ toi=s i)di/ois lo/gois o(/tan a)polêphthô=sin, u(po\ tô=n a)mphi\ Eu)thu/dêmon kolou/esthai.]
[Greek: Oi( a)mphi\ Eu)thu/dêmon] may mean Euthydêmus himself and alone; yet I incline to think that it here means Euthydêmus and his like.]
[Footnote 68: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 306 B.]
[Footnote 69: Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 306 C. [Greek: suggignô/skein me\n ou)=n au)toi=s chrê\ tê=s e)pithumi/as kai\ mê\ chalepai/nein, ê(gei=sthai me/ntoi toiou/tous ei)=nai oi(=oi/ ei)si; pa/nta ga\r a)/ndra chrê\ a)gapa=|n, o(/stis kai\ o(tiou=n le/gei e)cho/menon phronê/seôs pra=gma, kai\ a)ndrei/ôs diaponei=tai.]]
[Side-note: Kriton asks Sokrates for advice about the education of his sons--Sokrates cannot recommend a teacher--tells him to search for himself.]
_Krit._ I am always telling you, Sokrates, that I too am embarrassed where to seek instructors for my sons.
Conversation with you has satisfied me, that it is madness to bestow so much care upon the fortune and position of sons, and so little upon their instruction.
Yet when I turn my eyes to the men who make profession of instructing, I am really astonished.
To tell you the truth, every one of them appears to me extravagantly absurd,[70] so that I know not how to help forward my son towards philosophy.
_Sokr._--Don't you know, Kriton, that in every different pursuit, most of the professors are foolish and worthless, and that a few only are excellent and above price?
Is not this the case with gymnastic, commercial business, rhetoric, military command?
Are not most of those who undertake these pursuits ridiculously silly?
[71] _Krit._--Unquestionably: nothing can be more true.
_Sokr._--Do you think _that_ a sufficient reason for avoiding all these pursuits yourself, and keeping your son out of them also?
_Krit._ No: it would be wrong to do so.
_Sokr._--Well then, don't do so.
Take no heed about the professors of philosophy, whether they are good or bad; but test philosophy itself, well and carefully.
If it shall appear to you worthless, dissuade not merely your sons, but every one else also, from following it.
[72] But if it shall appear to you as valuable as I consider it to be, then take courage to pursue and practise it, you and your children both, according to the proverb.-[Footnote 70: Plato, Euthyd.
p. 306 E. [Greek: kai/ moi dokei= ei)=s e(/kastos au)tô=n skopou=nti pa/nu a)llo/kotos ei)=nai], &c.] [Footnote 71: Plato, Euthyd.
p. 307 B.
[Greek: e)n e(ka/stê| tou/tôn tou\s pollou\s pro\s e(/kaston to\ e)/rgon ou) katagela/stous o(ra=|s?]]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Euthyd.
p. 307 B.
[Greek: e)a/sas chai/rein tou\s e)pitêdeu/ontas philosophi/an, ei)/te chrêstoi/ ei)sin ei)/te ponêroi/, au)to\ to\ pra=gma basani/sas kalô=s te kai\ eu)=, e)a\n me/n soi phai/nêtai phaulo\n o)/n], &c.] [Side-note: Euthydêmus is here cited as representative of Dialectic and philosophy.]
The first part of this epilogue, which I have here given in abridgment, has a bearing very different from the rest of the dialogue, and different also from most of the other Platonic dialogues.
In the epilogue, Euthydêmus is cited as the representative of true dialectic and philosophy: the opponents of philosophy are represented as afraid of being put down by Euthydêmus: whereas, previously, he had been depicted as contemptible,--as a man whose manner of refuting opponents was more discreditable to himself than to the opponent refuted; and who had no chance of success except among hearers like himself.
We are not here told that Euthydêmus was a bad specimen of philosophers, and that there were others better, by the standard of whom philosophy ought to be judged.
On the contrary, we find him here announced by Sokrates as among those dreaded by men adverse to philosophy,--and as not undeserving of that epithet which the semi-philosopher cited by Kriton applies to "one of the most powerful champions of the day".
Plato, therefore, after having applied his great dramatic talent to make dialectic debate ridiculous, and thus said much to gratify its enemies--changes his battery, and says something against these enemies, without reflecting whether it is consistent or no with what had preceded.
Before the close, however, he comes again into consistency with the tone of the earlier part, in the observation which he assigns to Kriton, that most of the professors of philosophy are worthless; to which Sokrates rejoins that this is not less true of all other professions.
The concluding inference is, that philosophy is to be judged, not by its professors but by itself; and that Kriton must examine it for himself, and either pursue it or leave it alone, according as his own convictions dictated.
This is a valuable admonition, and worthy of Sokrates, laying full stress as it does upon the conscientious conviction which the person examining may form for himself.
But it is no answer to the question of Kriton; who says that he had already heard from Sokrates, and was himself convinced, that philosophy was of first-rate importance--and that he only desired to learn where he could find teachers to forward the progress of his son in it.
As in so many other dialogues, Plato leaves the problem started, but unsolved.
The impulse towards philosophy being assured, those who feel it ask Plato in what direction they are to move towards it.
He gives no answer.
He can neither perform the service himself, nor recommend any one else, as competent.
We shall find such silence made matter of pointed animadversion, in the fragment called Kleitophon.
[Side-note: Who is the person here intended by Plato, half-philosopher, half-politician?
Is it Isokrates?]
The person, whom Kriton here brings forward as the censor of Sokrates and the enemy of philosophy, is peculiarly marked.
In general, the persons whom Plato ranks as enemies of philosophy are the rhetors and politicians: but the example here chosen is not comprised in either of these classes: it is a semi-philosopher, yet a writer of discourses for others.
Schleiermacher, Heindorf, and Spengel, suppose that Isokrates is the person intended: Winckelmann thinks it is Thrasymachus: others refer it to Lysias, or Theodorus of Byzantium:[73] Socher and Stallbaum doubt whether any special person is intended, or any thing beyond some supposed representative of a class described by attributes.
I rather agree with those who refer the passage to Isokrates.
He might naturally be described as one steering a middle course between philosophy and rhetoric: which in fact he himself proclaims in the Oration De Permutatione, and which agrees with the language of Plato in the dialogue Phædrus, where Isokrates is mentioned by name along with Lysias.
In the Phædrus, moreover, Plato speaks of Isokrates with unusual esteem, especially as a favourable contrast with Lysias, and as a person who, though not yet a philosopher, may be expected to improve, so as in no long time to deserve that appellation.
[74] We must remember that Plato in the Phædrus attacks by name, and with considerable asperity, first Lysias, next Theodorus and Thrasymachus the rhetors--all three persons living and of note.
Being sure to offend all these, Plato might well feel disposed to avoid making an enemy of Isokrates at the same time, and to except him honourably by name from the vulgar professors of rhetoric.
In the Euthydêmus (where the satire is directed not against the rhetors, but against their competitors the dialecticians or pseudo-dialecticians) he had no similar motive to address compliments to Isokrates: respecting whom he speaks in a manner probably more conformable to his real sentiments, as the unnamed representative of a certain type of character--a semi-philosopher, fancying himself among the first men in Athens, and assuming unwarrantable superiority over the genuine philosopher; but entitled to nothing more than a decent measure of esteem, such as belonged to sincere mediocrity of intelligence.
[Footnote 73: Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Euthyd.
p. 47; Winckelmann.
Proleg.
p. xxxv.
Heindorf, in endeavouring to explain the difference between Plato's language in the Phædrus and in the Euthydêmus respecting Isokrates, assumes as a matter beyond question the theory of Schleiermacher, that the Phædrus was composed during Plato's early years.
I have already intimated my may dissent from this theory.]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Phædrus, p. 278 E. I have already observed that I do not agree with Schleiermacher and the other critics who rank the Phædrus as the earliest or even among the earliest compositions of Plato.
That it is of much later composition I am persuaded, but of what particular date can only be conjectured.
The opinion of K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, and others, that it was composed about the time when Plato began his school at Athens (387-386 B.C.)
is sufficiently probable.
The Euthydêmus may be earlier or may be later than the Phædrus.
I incline to think it later.
The opinion of Stallbaum (resting upon the mention of Alkibiadês, p. 275 A), that it was composed in or before 404 B.C., appears to me untenable (Stallbaum, Proleg.
p. 64).
Plato would not be likely to introduce Sokrates speaking of Alkibiadês as a deceased person, whatever time the dialogue was composed.
Nor can I agree with Steinhart, who refers it to 402 B.C.
(Einleitung, p. 26).
Ueberweg (Untersuch.
über die Zeitfolge der Plat.
Schr.
pp.
265-267) considers the Euthydêmus later (but not much later) than the Phædrus, subsequent to the establishment of the Platonic school at Athens (387-386 B.C.)
This seems to me more probable than the contrary.
Schleiermacher, in arranging the Platonic dialogues, ranks the Euthydêmus as an immediate sequel to the Menon, and as presupposing both Gorgias and Theætêtus (Einl.
pp.
400-401).
Socher agrees in this opinion, but Steinhart rejects it (Einleit.
p. 26), placing the Euthydêmus immediately after the Protagoras, and immediately before the Menon and the Gorgias; according to him, Euthydêmus, Menon, and Gorgias, form a well marked Trilogy.
Neither of these arrangements rests upon any sufficient reasons.
The chronological order cannot be determined.]
[Side-note: Variable feeling at different times, between Plato and Isokrates.]
That there prevailed at different times different sentiments, more or less of reciprocal esteem or reciprocal jealousy, between Plato and Isokrates, ought not to be matter of surprise.
Both of them were celebrated teachers of Athens, each in his own manner, during the last forty years of Plato's life: both of them enjoyed the favour of foreign princes, and received pupils from outlying, sometimes distant, cities--from Bosphorus and Cyprus in the East, and from Sicily in the West.
We know moreover that during the years immediately preceding Plato's death (347 B.C.
), his pupil Aristotle, then rising into importance as a teacher of rhetoric, was engaged in acrimonious literary warfare, seemingly of his own seeking, with Isokrates (then advanced in years) and some of the Isokratean pupils.
The little which we learn concerning the literary and philosophical world of Athens, represents it as much distracted by feuds and jealousies.
Isokrates on his part has in his compositions various passages which appear to allude (no name being mentioned) to Plato among others, in a tone of depreciation.
[75] [Footnote 75: Isokrates, ad Philipp.
Or.
v. s. 14, p. 84; contra Sophistas, Or.
xiii.
; Or.
xiii.
s. 2-24, pp.
291-295; Encom.
Helenæ, Or.
x.
init.
; Panathenaic.
Or.
xii.
s. 126, p. 257; Or.
xv.
De Permutatione, s. 90, p. 440, Bekk.]
Isokrates seems, as far as we can make out, to have been in early life, like Lysias, a composer of speeches to be spoken by clients in the Dikastery.
This lucrative profession was tempting, since his family had been nearly ruined during the misfortunes of Athens at the close of the Peloponnesian war.
Having gained reputation by such means, Isokrates became in his mature age a teacher of Rhetoric, and a composer of discourses, not for private use by clients, but for the general reader, on political or educational topics.
In this character, he corresponded to the description given by Plato in the Euthydêmus: being partly a public adviser, partly a philosopher.
But the general principle under which Plato here attacks him, though conforming to the doctrine of the Platonic Republic, is contrary to that of Plato in other dialogues, "You must devote yourself either wholly to philosophy, or wholly to politics: a mixture of the two is worse than either"--this agrees with the Republic, wherein Plato enjoins upon each man one special and exclusive pursuit, as well as with the doctrine maintained against Kalliklês in the Gorgias--but it differs from the Phædrus, where he ascribes the excellence of Perikles as a statesmen and rhetor, to the fact of his having acquired a large tincture of philosophy.
[76] Cicero quotes this last passage as applicable to his own distinguished career, a combination of philosophy with politics.
[77] He dissented altogether from the doctrine here laid down by Plato in the Euthydêmus, and many other eminent men would have dissented from it also.
[Footnote 76: See the facts about Isokrates in a good Dissertation by H. P. Schröder, Utrecht, 1859, Quæstiones Isocrateæ, p. 51, seq.
Plato, Phædrus, p. 270; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 23; Plato, Republic, iii.
p.
397.]
[Footnote 77: Cicero, De Orator.
iii.
34, 138; Orator.
iv.
14; Brutus, 11, 44.]
As a doctrine of universal application, in fact, it cannot be defended.
The opposite scheme of life (which is maintained by Isokrates in De Permutatione and by Kalliklês in the Platonic Gorgias)[78]--that philosophy is to be attentively studied in the earlier years of life as an intellectual training, to arm the mind with knowledge and capacities which may afterwards be applied to the active duties of life--is at least equally defensible, and suits better for other minds of a very high order.
Not only Xenophon and other distinguished Greeks, but also most of the best Roman citizens, held the opinion which Plato in the Gorgias ascribes to Kalliklês and reprobates through the organ of Sokrates--That philosophical study, if prolonged beyond what was necessary for this purpose of adequate intellectual training, and if made the permanent occupation of life, was more hurtful than beneficial.
[79] Certainly, a man may often fail in the attempt to combine philosophy with active politics.
No one failed in such a career more lamentably than Dion, the friend of Plato--and Plato himself, when he visited Sicily to second Dion.
Moreover Alkibiadês and Kritias were cited by Anytus and the other accusers of Sokrates as examples of the like mischievous conjunction.
But on the other hand, Archytas at Tarentum (another friend of Plato and philosopher) administered his native city with success, as long (seemingly) as Periklês administered Athens.
Such men as these two are nowise inferior either to the special philosopher or to the special politician.
Plato has laid down an untenable generality, in this passage of the Euthydêmus, in order to suit a particular point which he wished to make against Isokrates, or against the semi-philosopher indicated, whoever else he may have been.
[Footnote 78: Isokrates, De Permutatione, Or.
xv.
sect.
278-288, pp.
485-480, Bekk.
; Plato, Gorgias, pp.
484-485.]
[Footnote 79: The half-philosophers and half-politicians to whom Sokrates here alludes, are characterised by one of the Platonic critics as "jene oberflächlichen und schwächlichen Naturen die sich zwischen beiden Richtungen stellen, und zur Erreichung selbstsüchtiger und beschränkter Zwecke von beiden aufnehmen was sie verstehen und was ihnen gefällt" (Steinhart, Einleit.
p. 25).
On the other hand we find in Tacitus a striking passage respecting the studies of Agricola in his youth at Massilia.
"Memoriâ teneo, solitum ipsum narrare, se in primâ juventâ studium philosophiæ acrius, ultra quam concessum Romano ac senatori, hausisse--ni prudentia matris incensum ac flagrantem animum exercuisset: Scilicet sublime et erectum ingenium, pulchritudinem ac speciem excelsæ magnæque gloriæ vehementius quam lauté appetebat: retinuitque, quod est difficillimum, ex sapientiâ modum" (Vit.
Agr.
c. 4).
Tacitus expresses himself in the same manner about the purpose with which Helvidius Priscus applied himself to philosophy (Hist.
iv.
6): "non, ut plerique, ut nomine magnifico segne otium velaret, sed quo constantior adversus fortuita rempublicam capesseret".
Compare also the memorable passage in the Funeral Oration pronounced by Periklês (Thuc.
ii.
40)--[Greek: philosophou=men a)/neu malaki/as], &c., which exhibits the like views.
Aulus Gellius (x.
22), who cites the doctrine which Plato ascribes to Kalliklês in the Gorgias (about the propriety of confining philosophy to the function of training and preparation for active pursuits), tries to make out that this was Plato's own opinion.]
CHAPTER XXII.
MENON.
[Side-note: Persons of the Dialogue.]
This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Menon, a man of noble family, wealth, and political influence, in the Thessalian city of Larissa.
He is supposed to have previously frequented, in his native city, the lectures and society of the rhetor Gorgias.
[1] The name and general features of Menon are probably borrowed from the Thessalian military officer, who commanded a division of the Ten Thousand Greeks, and whose character Xenophon depicts in the Anabasis: but there is nothing in the Platonic dialogue to mark that meanness and perfidy which the Xenophontic picture indicates.
The conversation between Sokrates and Menon is interrupted by two episodes: in the first of these, Sokrates questions an unlettered youth, the slave of Menon: in the second, he is brought into conflict with Anytus, the historical accuser of the historical Sokrates.
[Footnote 1: Cicero notices Isokrates as having heard Gorgias in Thessaly (Orator.
53, 176).]
The dialogue is begun by Menon, in a manner quite as abrupt as the Hipparchus and Minos: [Side-note: Question put by Menon--Is virtue teachable?
Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is.
Surprise of Menon.]
_Menon._--Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is teachable--or acquirable by exercise--or whether it comes by nature--or in what other manner it comes?
_Sokr._--I cannot answer your question.
I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is: and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing about its attributes or accessories?
A man who does not know, Menon, cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary.
_Menon._--Certainly not.
But is it really true, Sokrates, that you do not know what virtue is?
Am I to proclaim this respecting you, when I go home?
[2] _Sokr._--Yes--undoubtedly: and proclaim besides that I have never yet met with any one who _did_ know.
_Menon._--What!
have you not seen Gorgias at Athens, and did not he appear to you to know?
_Sokr._--I have met him, but I do not quite recollect what he said.
We need not consider what he said, since he is not here to answer for himself.
[3] But you doubtless recollect, and can tell me, both from yourself, and from him, what virtue is?
_Menon._--There is _no difficulty_ in telling you.
[4] [Footnote 2: Plato, Menon, p. 71 B-C. [Greek: A)lla\ su/, ô)= Sô/krates, ou)d' o(/ ti a)retê/ e)stin oi)=stha, a)lla\ tau=ta peri\ sou= kai\ oi)/kade a)pagge/llômen?]]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Menon, p. 71 D. [Greek: a)kei=non me/ntoi nu=n e)ô=men, e)peidê\ kai\ a)/pestin.]
Sokrates sets little value upon opinions unless where the person giving them is present to explain and defend: compare what he says about the uselessness of citation from poets, from whom you can ask no questions, Plato, Protagor.
p. 347 E.] [Footnote 4: Plato, Menon, p. 71 E. [Greek: A)ll' ou) chalepo/n, ô)= Sô/krates, ei)pei=n], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates stands alone in this confession.
Unpopularity entailed by it.]
Many commentators here speak as if such disclaimer on the part of Sokrates had reference merely to certain impudent pretensions to universal knowledge on the part of the Sophists.
But this (as I have before remarked) is a misconception of the Sokratic or Platonic point of view.
The matter which Sokrates proclaims that _he_ does not know, is, what, not Sophists alone, but every one else also, professes to know well.
Sokrates stands alone in avowing that he does not know it, and that he can find no one else who knows.
Menon treats the question as one of no difficulty--one on which confessed ignorance was discreditable.
"What!"
says Menon, "am I really to state respecting you, that you do not know what virtue is?"
The man who makes such a confession will be looked upon by his neighbours with surprise and displeasure--not to speak of probable consequences yet worse.
He is one whom the multifarious agencies employed by King Nomos (which we shall find described more at length in the Protagoras) have failed to mould into perfect and uninquiring conformity, and he is still in process of examination to form a judgment for himself.
[Side-note: Answer of Menon--plurality of virtues, one belonging to each different class and condition.
Sokrates enquires for the property common to all of them.]
Menon proceeds to answer that there are many virtues: the virtue of a man--competence to transact the business of the city, and in such business to benefit his friends and injure his enemies: the virtue of a woman--to administer the house well, preserving every thing within it and obeying her husband: the virtue of a child, of an old man, a slave, &c. There is in short a virtue--and its contrary, a vice--belonging to each of us in every work, profession, and age.
[5] [Footnote 5: Plato, Menon, p. 72 A.
[Greek: kath' e(ka/stên ga\r tô=n pra/xeôn kai\ tô=n ê(likô=n pro\s e(/kaston e)/rgon e(ka/stô| ê(mô=n ê( a)retê/ e)stin.
ô(sau/tôs de\ kai\ ê( kaki/a.]
Though Sokrates disapproves this method of answering--[Greek: to\ e)xarithmei=n ta\s a)reta/s] (to use the expression of Aristotle)--yet Aristotle seems to think it better than searching for one general definition.
See Politica, i.
13, p. 1260, a.
15-30, where he has the Platonic Menon in his mind.]
But (replies Sokrates) are they not all the same, _quatenus_ virtue?
Health, _quatenus_ Health, is the same in a man or a woman: is not the case similar with virtue?
_Menon._--Not exactly similar.
_Sokr._--How so?
Though there are many diverse virtues, have not all of them one and the same form in common, through the communion of which they _are_ virtues?
In answer to my question, you ought to declare what this common form is.
Thus, both the man who administers the city, and the woman who administers the house, must act both of them with justice and moderation.
Through the same qualities, both the one and the other are good.
There is thus some common constituent: tell me what it is, according to you and Gorgias?
_Menon._--It is to be competent to exercise command over men.
[6] _Sokr._--But that will not suit for the virtue of a child or a slave.
Moreover, must we not superadd the condition, to command justly, and not unjustly?
_Menon._--I think so: justice is virtue.
_Sokr._--Is it virtue--or is it one particular variety of virtue?
[7] _Menon._--How do you mean?
_Sokr._--Just as if I were to say about roundness, that it is not figure, but a particular variety of figure: because there are other figures besides roundness.
_Menon._--Very true: I say too, that there are other virtues besides justice--namely, courage, moderation, wisdom, magnanimity, and several others also.
_Sokr._--We are thus still in the same predicament.
In looking for one virtue, we have found many; but we cannot find that one form which runs through them all.
_Menon._--I cannot at present tell what that one is.
[8] [Footnote 6: Plato, Menon, p. 73 D.] [Footnote 7: Plato, Menon, p. 73 E. [Greek: Po/teron a)retê/, ô)= Me/nôn, ê)\ a)retê/ tis?]]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Menon, p. 74 A.
[Greek: ou) ga\r du/namai/ pô, ô)= Sô/krates, ô(s su\ zêtei=s, mi/an a)retê\n labei=n kata\ pa/ntôn.]]
[Side-note: Analogous cases cited--definitions of figure and colour.]
Sokrates proceeds to illustrate his meaning by the analogies of figure and colour.
You call _round_ a figure, and _square_ a figure: you call _white_ and _black_ both colour, the one as much as the other, though they are unlike and even opposite.
[9] Tell me, What is this same common figure and property in both, which makes you call both of them figure--both of them colour?
Take this as a preliminary exercise, in order to help you in answering my enquiry about virtue.
[10] Menon cannot answer, and Sokrates answers his own question.
He gives a general definition, first of figure, next of colour.
He first defines figure in a way which implies colour to be known.
This is pointed out; and he then admits that in a good definition, suitable to genuine dialectical investigation, nothing should be implied as known, except what the respondent admits himself to know.
Figure and colour are both defined suitably to this condition.
[11] [Footnote 9: Plato, Menon, p. 74 D.] [Footnote 10: Plato, Menon, c. 7, pp.
74-75.
[Greek: Peirô= ei)pei=n, i(/na kai\ ge/nêtai/ soi mele/tê pro\s tê\n peri\ tê=s a)retê=s a)po/krisin] (75 A).
The purpose of practising the respondent is here distinctly announced.]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Menon, p. 75 C-E.] [Side-note: Importance at that time of bringing into conscious view, logical subordination and distinctions--Neither logic nor grammar had then been cast into system.]
All this preliminary matter seems to be intended for the purpose of getting the question clearly conceived as a general question--of exhibiting and eliminating the narrow and partial conceptions which unconsciously substitute themselves in the mind, in place of that which ought to be conceived as a generic whole--and of clearing up what is required in a good definition.
A generic whole, including various specific portions distinguishable from each other, was at that time little understood by any one.
There existed no grammar, nor any rules of logic founded on analysis of the intellectual processes.
To predicate of the genus what was true only of the species--to predicate as distinctively characterizing the species, what is true of the whole genus in which it is contained--to lose the integrity of the genus in its separate parcels or fragments[12]--these were errors which men had never yet been expressly taught to avoid.
To assign the one common meaning, constituent of or connoted by a generic term, had never yet been put before them as a problem.
Such preliminary clearing of the ground is instructive even now, when formal and systematic logic has become more or less familiar: but in the time of Plato, it must have been indispensably required, to arrive at a full conception of any general question.
[13] [Footnote 12: Plato, Menon, p. 79 A.
[Greek: e)mou= deêthe/ntos sou mê\ katagnu/mai mêde\ kermati/zein tê\n a)retên], &c. 79 B: [Greek: e)mou= deêthe/ntos o(/lên ei)pei=n tê\n a)retê/n], &c.] [Footnote 13: These examples of trial, error, and exposure, have great value and reflect high credit on Plato, when we regard them as an intellectual or propædeutic discipline, forcing upon hearers an attention to useful logical distinctions at a time when there existed no systematic grammar or logic.
But surely they must appear degraded, as they are presented in the Prolegomena of Stallbaum, and by some other critics.
We are there told that Plato's main purpose in this dialogue was to mock and jeer the Sophists and their pupil, and that for this purpose Sokrates is made to employ not his own arguments but arguments borrowed from the Sophists themselves--"ut callidé suam ipsius rationem occultare existimandus sit, quo magis illudat Sophistarum alumnum" (p. 15).
"Quæ quidem argumentatio" (that of Sokrates) "admodum cavendum est ne pro Socraticâ vel Platonicâ accipiatur.
Est enim prorsus ad mentem Sophistarum aliorumque id genus hominum comparata," &c. (p. 16).
Compare pp.
12-13 seq.
The Sophists undoubtedly had no distinct consciousness, any more than other persons, of these logical distinctions, which were then for the first pressed forcibly upon attention.]
[Side-note: Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces.]
Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some lyric poet--"To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine, honourable--and to have the power of getting them".
But Sokrates remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one without exception desires good.
No one desires evil except when he mistakes it for good.
On this point all men are alike; the distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of the definition--in the power of acquiring good things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c.[14] But the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them.
It appears then that every agent who acts with justice and moderation is virtuous.
But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be themselves defined.
No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless he knows what virtue itself is.
[15] Menon must look for a better definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted.
[Footnote 14: Plato, Menon, p. 77 B.
[Greek: dokei= toi/nun moi a)retê\ ei)=nai, katha/per o( poiêtê\s le/gei, chai/rein te kaloi=si kai\ du/nasthai.
Kai\ e)gô\ tou=to le/gô a)retê\n e)pithumou=nta tô=n kalô=n dunato\n ei)=nai pori/zesthai.]
Whoever this lyric poet was, his real meaning is somewhat twisted by Sokrates in order to furnish a basis for ethical criticism, as the song of Simonides is in the Protagoras.
A person having power, and taking delight in honourable or beautiful things--is a very intelligible Hellenic idéal, as an object of envy and admiration.
Compare Protagoras, p. 351 C: [Greek: ei)/per toi=s kaloi=s zô/|ê ê(do/menos.]
A poor man may be [Greek: philo/kalos] as well as a rich man: [Greek: philokalou=men met' eu)telei/as], is the boast of Periklês in the name of the Athenians, Thucyd.
ii.
40.
Plato, Menon, p. 78 C. _Sokr._ [Greek: A)gatha\ de\ kalei=s ou)chi oi(=on u(gi/eia/n te kai\ plou=ton?
kai\ chrusi/on le/gô kai\ a)rgu/rion kta=sthai kai\ tima\s e)n po/lei kai\ a)rcha/s?
mê\ a)/ll' a)/tta le/geis ta)gatha\ ê)\ ta\ toiau=ta?]
_Menon._ [Greek: Ou)k; a)lla\ pa/nta le/gô ta\ toiau=ta.]]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Menon, p.
79.]
[Side-note: Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates confounds him like an electric shock--Sokrates replies that he is himself in the same state of confusion and ignorance.
He urges continuance of search by both.]
_Menon._--Your conversation, Sokrates, produces the effect of the shock of the torpedo: you stun and confound me: you throw me into inextricable perplexity, so that I can make no answer.
I have often discoursed copiously--and, as I thought, effectively--upon virtue; but now you have shown that I do not even know what virtue is.
_Sokr._--If I throw you into perplexity, it is only because I am myself in the like perplexity and ignorance.
I do not know what virtue is, any more than you: and I shall be glad to continue the search for finding it, if you will assist me.
[Side-note: But how is the process of search available to any purpose?
No man searches for what he already knows: and for what he does not know, it is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he has found it.]
_Menon._--But how are you to search for that of which you are altogether ignorant?
Even if you do find it, how can you ever know that you have found it?
_Sokr._--You are now introducing a troublesome doctrine, laid down by those who are averse to the labour of thought.
They tell us that a man cannot search either for what he knows, or for what he does not know.
For the former, research is superfluous: for the latter it is unprofitable and purposeless, since the searcher does not know what he is looking for.
[Side-note: Theory of reminiscence propounded by Sokrates--anterior immortality of the soul--what is called teaching is the revival and recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but forgotten.]
I do not believe this doctrine (continues Sokrates).
Priests, priestesses, and poets (Pindar among them) tell us, that the mind of man is immortal and has existed throughout all past time, in conjunction with successive bodies; alternately abandoning one body, or dying--and taking up new life or reviving in another body.
In this perpetual succession of existences, it has seen every thing,--both here and in Hades and everywhere else--and has learnt every thing.
But though thus omniscient, it has forgotten the larger portion of its knowledge.
Yet what has been thus forgotten may again be revived.
What we call learning, is such revival.
It is reminiscence of something which the mind had seen in a former state of existence, and knew, but had forgotten.
Since then all the parts of nature are analogous, or cognate--and since the mind has gone through and learnt them all--we cannot wonder that the revival of any one part should put it upon the track of recovering for itself all the rest, both about virtue and about every thing else, if a man will only persevere in intent meditation.
All research and all learning is thus nothing but reminiscence.
In our researches, we are not looking for what we do not know: we are looking for what we do know, but have forgotten.
There is therefore ample motive, and ample remuneration, for prosecuting enquiries: and your doctrine which pronounces them to be unprofitable, is incorrect.
[16] [Footnote 16: Plato, Menon, pp.
81 C-D. [Greek: A(=te ou)=n ê( psuchê\ a)tha/nato/s te ou)=sa kai\ polla/kis gegonui=a, kai\ e(ôrakui=a kai\ ta\ e)ntha/de kai\ ta\ e)n Ai)/dou kai\ pa/nta chrê/mata, ou)k e)/stin o(/ ti ou) mema/thêken; ô(/ste ou)de\n thaumasto\n kai\ peri\ a)retê=s kai\ peri\ a)/llôn oi(=o/n te ei)=nai au)tê\n a)namnêsthê=nai a(/ ge kai\ pro/teron ê)pi/stato.
A(=te ga\r tê=s phu/seôs a(pa/sês suggenou=s ou)/sês kai\ memathêkui/as tê=s psuchê=s a(/panta, ou)de\n kôlu/ei e(\n mo/non a)namnêsthe/nta, o(\ dê\ ma/thêsin kalou=sin a)/nthrôpoi, ta)/lla pa/nta au)to\n a)neurei=n, e)a/n tis a)ndrei=os ê)=| kai\ mê\ a)poka/mnê| zêtô=n.
To\ ga\r zêtei=n a)/ra kai\ to\ mantha/nein a)na/mnêsis o(/lon e)sti/n.]]
[Side-note: Illustration of this theory--knowledge may be revived by skilful questions in the mind of a man thoroughly untaught.
Sokrates questions the slave of Menon.]
Sokrates proceeds to illustrate the position, just laid down, by cross-examining Menon's youthful slave, who, though wholly untaught and having never heard any mention of geometry, is brought by a proper series of questions to give answers out of his own mind, furnishing the solution of a geometrical problem.
The first part of the examination brings him to a perception of the difficulty, and makes him feel a painful perplexity, from which he desires to obtain relief:[17] the second part guides his mind in the efforts necessary for fishing up a solution out of its own pre-existing, but forgotten, stores.
True opinions, which he had long had within him without knowing it, are awakened by interrogation, and become cognitions.
From the fact that the mind thus possesses the truth of things which it has not acquired in this life, Sokrates infers that it must have gone through a pre-existence of indefinite duration, or must be immortal.
[18] [Footnote 17: Plato, Menon, p. 84 C. [Greek: Oi)/ei ou)=n a)\n au)to\n pro/teron e)picheirê=sai zêtei=n ê)\ mantha/nein tou=to o(\ ô)=|eto ei)de/nai ou)k ei)dô/s, pri\n ei)s a)pori/an kate/pesen ê(gêsa/menos mê\ ei)de/nai, kai\ e)po/thêse to\ ei)de/nai?
Ou)/ moi dokei=.
Ô)/nêto a)/ra narkê/sas?]]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Menon, p. 86.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n ei) a)ei\ ê( a)lê/theia ê(mi=n tô=n o)/ntôn e)sti\n e)n tê=| psuchê=|, a)tha/natos a)\n ê( psuchê\ ei)/ê?]]
[Side-note: Enquiry taken up--Whether virtue is teachable?
without determining what virtue is.]
The former topic of enquiry is now resumed: but at the instance of Menon, the question taken up, is not--"What is virtue?"
but--"Is virtue teachable or not?"
Sokrates, after renewing his objection against the inversion of philosophical order by discussing the second question without having determined the first, enters upon the discussion hypothetically, assuming as a postulate, that nothing can be taught except knowledge.
The question then stands thus--"Is virtue knowledge?"
If it be, it can be taught: if not, it cannot be taught.
[19] [Footnote 19: Plato, Menon, p.
87.]
[Side-note: Virtue is knowledge--no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge.]
Sokrates proceeds to prove that virtue is knowledge, or a mode of knowledge.
Virtue is good: all good things are profitable.
But none of the things accounted good are profitable, unless they be rightly employed; that is, employed with knowledge or intelligence.
This is true not only of health, wealth, beauty, strength, power, &c., but also of the mental attributes justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, &c. All of these are profitable, and therefore good, if brought into action under knowledge or right intelligence; none of them are profitable or good, without this condition--which is therefore the distinctive constituent of virtue.
[20] [Footnote 20: Plato, Menon, p.
89.]
Virtue, therefore, being knowledge or a mode of knowledge, cannot come by nature, but must be teachable.
[Side-note: Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable.
Yet there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable.
No teachers of it can be found.]
Yet again there are other contrary reasons (he proceeds) which prove that it cannot be teachable.
For if it were so, there would be distinct and assignable teachers and learners of it, and the times and places could be pointed out where it is taught and learnt.
We see that this is the case with all arts and professions.
But in regard to virtue, there are neither recognised teachers, nor learners, nor years of learning.
The Sophists pretend to be teachers of it, but are not:[21] the leading and esteemed citizens of the community do not pretend to be teachers of it, and are indeed incompetent to teach it even to their own sons--as the character of those sons sufficiently proves.
[22] [Footnote 21: Plato, Menon, p.
92.]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Menon, p. 97.
Isokrates (adv.
Sophistas, s. 25, p. 401) expressly declares that he does not believe [Greek: ô(/s e)sti dikaiosu/nê didakto/n].
There is no [Greek: te/chnê] which can teach it, if a man be [Greek: kakô=s pephukô/s].
But if a man be well-disposed, then education in [Greek: lo/goi politikoi/] will serve [Greek: sumparakeleu/sasthai/ ge kai\ sunaskê=sai].
For a man to announce himself as a teacher of justice or virtue, was an unpopular and invidious pretension.
Isokrates is anxious to guard himself against such unpopularity.]
[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue.]
Here, a new speaker is introduced into the dialogue--Anytus, one of the accusers of Sokrates before the Dikastery.
The conversation is carried on for some time between Sokrates and him.
Anytus denies altogether that the Sophists are teachers of virtue, and even denounces them with bitter contempt and wrath.
But he maintains that the leading and esteemed citizens of the state do really teach it.
Anytus however presently breaks off in a tone of displeasure and menace towards Sokrates himself.
[23] The conversation is then renewed with Menon, and it is shown that the leading politicians cannot be considered as teachers of virtue, any more than the Sophists.
There exist no teachers of it; and therefore we must conclude that it is not teachable.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Menon, p. 94 E.] [Side-note: Confused state of the discussion.
No way of acquiring virtue is shown.]
The state of the discussion as it stands now, is represented by two hypothetical syllogisms, as follows: 1.
If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable: But virtue is knowledge: Therefore virtue is teachable.
2.
If virtue is knowledge, it is teachable: But virtue is not teachable: Therefore virtue is not knowledge.
The premisses of each of these two syllogisms contradict the conclusion of the other.
Both cannot be true.
If virtue is not acquired by teaching and does not come by nature, how are there any virtuous men?
[Side-note: Sokrates modifies his premisses--knowledge is not the only thing which guides to good results--right opinion will do the same.]
Sokrates continues his argument: The second premiss of the first syllogism--that virtue is knowledge--is true, but not the whole truth.
In proving it we assumed that there was nothing except knowledge which guided us to useful and profitable consequences.
But this assumption will not hold.
There is something else besides knowledge, which also guides us to the same useful results.
That something is _right opinion_, which is quite different from knowledge.
The man who holds right opinions is just as profitable to us, and guides us quite as well to right actions, as if he knew.
Right opinions, so long as they stay in the mind, are as good as knowledge, for the purpose of guidance in practice.
But the difference is, that they are evanescent and will not stay in the mind: while knowledge is permanent and ineffaceable.
They are exalted into knowledge, when bound in the mind by a chain of causal reasoning:[24] that is, by the process of reminiscence, before described.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Menon, pp.
97 E--98 A.
[Greek: kai\ ga\r ai( do/xai ai( a)lêthei=s, o(/son me\n a)\n chro/non parame/nôsin, kalo/n ti chrê=ma kai\ pa/nta ta)gatha\ e)rga/zontai; polu\n de\ chro/non ou)k e)the/lousi parame/nein, a)lla\ drapeteu/ousin e)k tê=s psuchê=s tou= a)nthrô/pou.
ô(/ste ou) pollou= a)/xiai/ ei)sin, _e(/ôs a)\n tis au)ta\s dê/sê| ai)ti/as logismô=|_; tou=to d' e)sti\n _a)na/mnêsis_, ô(s e)n toi=s pro/sthen ê(mi=n ô(molo/gêtai.]]
[Side-note: Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach others--good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods.]
Virtue then (continues Sokrates)--that which constitutes the virtuous character and the permanent, trustworthy, useful guide--consists in knowledge.
But there is also right opinion, a sort of _quasi-knowledge_, which produces in practice effects as good as knowledge, only that it is not deeply or permanently fixed in the mind.
[25] It is this right opinion, or _quasi-knowledge_, which esteemed and distinguished citizens possess, and by means of which they render useful service to the city.
That they do not possess knowledge, is certain; for if they did, they would be able to teach it to others, and especially to their own sons: and this it has been shown that they cannot do.
[26] They deliver true opinions and predictions, and excellent advice, like prophets and oracular ministers, by divine inspiration and possession, without knowledge or wisdom of their own.
They are divine and inspired persons, but not wise or knowing.
[27] [Footnote 25: Plato, Menon, p. 99 A.
[Greek: ô(=| de\ a)/nthrôpos ê(gemô/n e)stin e)pi\ to\ o)rtho/n, du/o tau=ta, do/xa a)lêthê\s kai\ e)pistê/mê.]]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Menon, p. 99 B.
[Greek: Ou)k a)/ra sophi/a tini\ ou)de\ sophoi\ o)/ntes oi( toiou=toi a)/ndres ê(gou=nto tai=s po/lesin, oi( a)mphi\ Themistokle/a.
.
.
.
dio\ kai\ ou)ch oi(=oi/ te a)/llous poiei=n toiou/tous oi(=oi au)toi/ ei)sin, a(/te ou) di' e)pistê/mên o)/ntes toiou=toi.]]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Menon, p. 99 D. [Greek: kai\ tou\s politikou\s ou)ch ê(/kista tou/tôn phai=men, a)\n thei/ous te ei)=nai kai\ e)nthousia/zein, e)pi/pnous o)/ntas kai\ katechome/nous e)k tou= theou=, o(/tan katorthô=si le/gontes polla\ kai\ mega/la pra/gmata, mêde\n ei)do/tes ô(=n le/gousin.]]
[Side-note: All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration from the Gods.]
And thus (concludes Sokrates) the answer to the question originally started by Menon--"Whether virtue is teachable?"
--is as follows.
Virtue in its highest sense, in which it is equivalent to or coincident with knowledge, is teachable: but no such virtue exists.
That which exists in the most distinguished citizens under the name of virtue,--or at least producing the results of virtue in practice--is not teachable.
Nor does it come by nature, but by special inspiration from the Gods.
The best statesmen now existing cannot make any other person like themselves: if any one of them could do this, he would be, in comparison with the rest, like a real thing compared with a shadow.
[28] [Footnote 28: Plato, Menon, p.
100.]
[Side-note: But what virtue itself is, remains unknown.]
Nevertheless the question which we have just discussed--"How virtue arises or is generated?"
--must be regarded as secondary and dependent, not capable of being clearly understood until the primary and principal question--"What is virtue?"
--has been investigated and brought to a solution.
[29] [Footnote 29: Plato, Menon, p. 100 B.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue.
Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates.]
This last observation is repeated by Sokrates at the end--as it had been stated at the beginning, and in more than one place during the continuance--of the dialogue.
In fact, Sokrates seems at first resolved to enforce the natural and necessary priority of the latter question: but is induced by the solicitation of Menon to invert the order.
[30] [Footnote 30: Plato, Menon, p.
86.]
[Side-note: Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled.]
The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates is indisputable.
Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is.
You must know the essence of the subject--or those predicates which the word connotes ( = the meaning of the term) before you investigate its accidents and antecedents.
[31] Menon begins by being satisfied that he knows what virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even understand the question.
Sokrates, on the other hand, not only confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never yet met with a man who did know.
One of the most important lessons in this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar ethical and social ideas.
Menon represents the common state of mind.
He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside to his original object of curiosity--"Whether virtue is teachable".
Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions--[Greek: to\ ga\r o)rthou=sthai gnô/man, o)duna=|].
[Footnote 31: To use the phrase of Plato himself in the Euthyphron, p. 11 A, the [Greek: ou)si/a] must be known before the [Greek: pa/thê] are sought--[Greek: kinduneu/eis, ô)= Eu)thu/phron, e)rôtô/menos to\ o(/sion, o(/, ti/ pot' e)sti, _tê\n me\n ou)si/an_ moi au)tou= ou) bou/lesthai dêlô=sai, _pa/thos de/ ti peri\ au)tou=_ le/gein, o(/, ti pe/ponthe tou=to to\ o(/sion, philei=sthai u(po\ pa/ntôn theô=n; _o(/ ti de\ o)/n, ou)/pô ei)=pes_.]
Compare Lachês, p. 190 B and Gorgias, pp.
448 E, 462 C.] [Side-note: Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon--desire of good alleged to be universally felt--in what sense this is true.]
The confession of Sokrates that neither he nor any other person in his experience knows what virtue is--that it must be made a subject of special and deliberate investigation--and that no man can know what justice, or any other part of virtue is, unless he first knows what virtue as a whole is[32]--are matters to be kept in mind also, as contrasting with other portions of the Platonic dialogues, wherein virtue, justice, &c., are tacitly assumed (according to the received habit) as matters known and understood.
The contributions which we obtain from the Menon towards finding out the Platonic notion of virtue, are negative rather than positive.
The comments of Sokrates upon Menon's first definition include the doctrine often announced in Plato--That no man by nature desires suffering or evil; every man desires good: if he seeks or pursues suffering or evil, he does so merely from error or ignorance, mistaking it for good.
[33] This is true, undoubtedly, if we mean what is good or evil for himself: and if by good or evil we mean (according to the doctrine enforced by Sokrates in the Protagoras) the result of items of pleasure and pain, rightly estimated and compared by the Measuring Reason.
Every man naturally desires pleasure, and the means of acquiring pleasure, for himself: every man naturally shrinks from pain, or the causes of pain, to himself: every one compares and measures the items of each with more or less wisdom and impartiality.
But the proposition is not true, if we mean what is good or evil for others: and if by good we mean (as Sokrates is made to declare in the Gorgias) something apart from pleasure, and by evil something apart from pain (understanding pleasure and pain in their largest sense).
A man sometimes desires what is good for others, sometimes what is evil for others, as the case may be.
Plato's observation therefore cannot be admitted--That as to the wish or desire, all men are alike: one man is no better than another.
[34] [Footnote 32: Plato, Menon, p. 79 B-C. [Greek: tê\n ga\r dikaiosu/nên mo/rion phê\| a)retê=s ei)=nai kai\ e(/kasta tou/tôn.
.
.
.
oi)/ei tina ei)de/nai mo/rion a)retê=s o(/ ti e)/stin, au)tê\n mê\ ei)do/ta?
Ou)k e)/moige dokei=.]]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Menon, p.
77.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Menon, p. 78 B.
[Greek: to\ me\n bou/lesthai pa=sin u(pa/rchei, kai\ tau/tê| ge ou)de\n o( e(/teros tou= e(te/rou belti/ôn.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what?]
The second portion of Plato's theory, advanced to explain what virtue is, presents nothing more satisfactory.
Virtue is useful or profitable: but neither health, strength, beauty, wealth, power, &c., are profitable, unless rightly used: nor are justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, good memory, &c., profitable, unless they are accompanied and guided by knowledge or prudence.
[35] Now if by _profitable_ we have reference not to the individual agent alone, but to other persons concerned also, the proposition is true, but not instructive or distinct.
For what is meant by _right use_?
To what ends are the gifts here enumerated to be turned, in order to constitute right use?
What again is meant by _knowledge_?
knowledge of what?
[36] This is a question put by Sokrates in many other dialogues, and necessary to be put here also.
Moreover, knowledge is a term which requires to be determined, not merely to some assignable object, but also in its general import, no less than virtue.
We shall come presently to an elaborate dialogue (Theætêtus) in which Plato makes many attempts to determine knowledge generally, but ends in a confessed failure.
Knowledge must be knowledge _possessed by some one_, and must be knowledge of _something_.
What is it, that a man must know, in order that his justice or courage may become profitable?
Is it pleasures and pains, with their causes, and the comparative magnitude of each (as Sokrates declares in the Protagoras), in order that he may contribute to diminish the sum of pains, increase that of pleasures, to himself or to the society?
If this be what he is required to know, Plato should have said so--or if not, what else--in order that the requirement of knowledge might be made an intelligible condition.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Menon, pp.
87-88.]
[Footnote 36: See Republic, vi.
p. 505 B, where this question is put, but not answered, respecting [Greek: phro/nêsis].]
[Side-note: Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras--diversity of handling--Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it.]
Though the subject of direct debate in the Menon is the same as that in the Protagoras (whether virtue be teachable?)
yet the manner of treating this subject is very different in the two.
One point of difference between the two has been just noticed.
Another difference is, that whereas in Menon the teachability of virtue is assumed to be disproved, because there are no recognised teachers or learners of it--in the Protagoras this argument is produced by Sokrates, but is combated at length (as we shall presently see) by a counter-argument on the part of the Sophists, without any rejoinder from Sokrates.
Of this counter-argument no notice is taken in the Menon: although, if it be well-founded, it would have served Anytus no less than Protagoras, as a solution of the difficulties raised by Sokrates.
Such diversity of handling and argumentative fertility, are characteristic of the Platonic procedure.
I have already remarked, that the establishment of positive conclusions, capable of being severed from their premisses, registered in the memory, and used as principles for deduction--is foreign to the spirit of these Dialogues of Search.
To settle a question and finish with it--to get rid of the debate, as if it were a troublesome temporary necessity--is not what Plato desires.
His purpose is, to provoke the spirit of enquiry--to stimulate responsive efforts of the mind by a painful shock of exposed ignorance--and to open before it a multiplicity of new roads with varied points of view.
[Side-note: Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research.]
Nowhere in the Platonic writings is this provocative shock more vividly illustrated than in the Menon, by the simile of the electrical fish: a simile as striking as that of the magnet in Ion.
[37] Nowhere, again, is the true character of the Sokratic intellect more clearly enunciated.
"You complain, Menon, that I plunge your mind into nothing but doubt, and puzzle, and conscious ignorance.
If I do this, it is only because my own mind is already in that same condition.
[38] The only way out of it is, through joint dialectical colloquy and search; in which I invite you to accompany me, though I do not know when or where it will end."
And then, for the purpose of justifying as well as encouraging such prolonged search, Sokrates proceeds to unfold his remarkable hypothesis--eternal pre-existence, boundless past experience, and omniscience, of the mind--identity of cognition with recognition, dependent on reminiscence.
"Research or enquiry (said some) is fruitless.
You must search either for that which you know, or for that which you do not know.
The first is superfluous--the second impossible: for if you do not know what a thing is, how are you to be satisfied that the answer which you find is that which you are looking for?
How can you distinguish a true solution from another which is untrue, but plausible?"
[Footnote 37: Plato, Menon, p. 80 A.
[Greek: na/rkê thalassi/a].
Compare what I have said above about the Ion, ch.
XVII., p.
128.]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Menon, p. 80 D.] [Side-note: Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers--criterion of truth--Wherein consists the process of verification?]
Here we find explicitly raised, for the first time, that difficulty which embarrassed the different philosophical schools in Greece for the subsequent three centuries--What is the criterion of truth?
Wherein consists the process called verification and proof, of that which is first presented as an hypothesis?
This was one of the great problems debated between the Academics, the Stoics, and the Sceptics, until the extinction of the schools of philosophy.
[39] [Footnote 39: Sokrates here calls this problem an [Greek: e)ristiko\s lo/gos].
Stallbaum (in his Prolegom.
to the Menon, p. 14) describes it as a "quæstiunculam, haud dubie e sophistarum disciplinâ arreptam".
If the Sophists were the first to raise this question, I think that by doing so they rendered service to the interests of philosophy.
The question is among the first which ought to be thoroughly debated and sifted, if we are to have a body of "reasoned truth" called philosophy.
I dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum (p. 20), though it is adopted both by Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 185) and by Steinhart (Einleitung zum Menon, p. 123), that the Menon was composed by Plato during the lifetime of Sokrates.
Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Gorgias, p. 22; Einleitung zum Menon, pp.
329-330), Ueberweg (Aechth.
Plat.
Schr.
p. 226), and K. F. Hermann, on the other hand, regard the Menon as composed after the death of Sokrates, and on this point I agree with them, though whether it was composed not long after that event (as K. F. Hermann thinks) or thirteen years after it (as Schleiermacher thinks), I see no sufficient grounds for deciding.
I incline to the belief that its composition is considerably later than Hermann supposes; the mention of the Theban Ismenias is one among the reasons rendering such later origin probable.
Plato probably borrowed from the Xenophontic Anabasis the name, country, and social position of Menon, who may have received teaching from Gorgias, as we know that Proxenus did, Xen.
Anab.
ii.
6, 16.
The reader can compare the Einleitung of Schleiermacher (in which he professes to prove that the Menon is a corollary to the Theætêtus and Gorgias, and an immediate antecedent to the Euthydêmus,--that it solves the riddle of the Protagoras--and that it presupposes and refers back to the Phædrus) with the Einleitung of Steinhart (p. 120 seq.
), who contests all these propositions, saying that the Menon is decidedly later than the Euthydêmus, and decidedly earlier than the Theætêtus, Gorgias, and Phædrus; with the opinions of Stallbaum and Hermann, who recognise an order different from that either of Steinhart or Schleiermacher; and with that of Ast, who rejects the Menon altogether as unworthy of Plato.
Every one of these dissentient critics has _something_ to say for his opinion, while none of them (in my judgment) can make out anything like a conclusive case.
The mistake consists in assuming that there must have been a peremptory order and intentional interdependence among the Platonic Dialogues, and next in trying to show by internal evidence what that order was.]
[Side-note: None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by Plato--that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience.]
Not one of these schools was satisfied with the very peculiar answer which the Platonic Sokrates here gives to the question.
When truth is presented to us (he intimates), we recognise it as an old friend after a long absence.
We know it by reason of its conformity to our antecedent, pre-natal, experience (in the Phædon, such pre-natal experience is restricted to commerce with the substantial, intelligible, Ideas, which are not mentioned in the Menon): the soul or mind is immortal, has gone through an indefinite succession of temporary lives prior to the present, and will go through an indefinite succession of temporary lives posterior to the present--"longæ, canitis si cognita, vitæ Mors media est".
The mind has thus become omniscient, having seen, heard, and learnt every thing, both on earth and in Hades: but such knowledge exists as a confused and unavailable mass, having been buried and forgotten on the commencement of its actual life.
Since all nature is in universal kindred, communion, or interdependence, that which we hear or see here, recalls to the memory, by association, portions of our prior forgotten omniscience.
[40] It is in this recall or reminiscence that search, learning, acquisition of knowledge, consists.
Teaching and learning are words without meaning: the only process really instructive is that of dialectic debate, which, if indefatigably prosecuted, will dig out the omniscience buried within.
[41] So vast is the theory generated in Plato's mind, by his worship of dialectic, respecting that process of search to which more than half of his dialogues are devoted.
[Footnote 40: The doctrine of communion or interdependence pervading all Nature, with one continuous cosmical soul penetrating everywhere, will be found set forth in the kosmology of the Timæus, pp.
37-42-43.
It was held, with various modifications, both by the Pythagoreans and the Stoics.
Compare Cicero, Divinat.
ii.
14-15; Virgil, Æneid vi.
715 seqq.
; Georgic.
iv.
220; Sextus Empir.
adv.
Mathem.
ix.
127; Ekphantus Pythagoreus ap.
Stobæum, Tit.
48, vol.
ii.
p. 320, Gaisford.
The view here taken by Plato, that all nature is cognate and interdependent--[Greek: a(/te ga\r tê=s phu/seôs a(pa/sês suggenou=s ou)/sês]--is very similar to the theory of Leibnitz:--"Ubique per materiam disseminata statuo principia vitalia seu percipientia.
Omnia in naturâ sunt analogica" (Leibnitz, Epist.
ad Wagnerum, p. 466; Leibn.
Opp.
Erdmann).
Farther, that the human mind by virtue of its interdependence or kindred with all nature, includes a confused omniscience, is also a Leibnitzian view.
"Car comme tout est plein (ce qui rend toute la matière liée) et comme dans le plein tout mouvement fait quelqu' effet sur les corps distans à mesure de la distance, de sorte que chaque corps est affecté non seulement par ceux qui le touchent, et se ressent en quelque façon de tout ce qui leur arrive--mais aussi par leur moyen se ressent de ceux qui touchent les premiers dont il est touché immédiatement.
Il s'ensuit que cette communication va à quelque distance que ce soit.
Et par consequent tout corps se ressent de tout ce qui se fait dans l'Univers: tellement que celui, qui voit tout, pourroit lire dans chacun ce qui se fait partout et même ce qui s'est fait et se fera, en remarquant dans le présent ce qui est éloigné tant selon les temps que selon les lieux: [Greek: su/mpnoia pa/nta], disoit Hippocrate.
Mais une âme ne peut lire en elle même que ce qui y est representé distinctement: elle ne sauroit developper tout d'un coup ses règles, car elles vont à l'infini.
Ainsi quoique chaque monade créée représente tout l'Univers, elle représente plus distinctement le corps qui lui est particulièrement affecté, et dont elle fait l'Entéléchie.
Et comme ce corps exprime tout l'Univers par la connexion de toute la matière dans le plein, l'âme représente aussi tout l'Univers en représentant ce corps qui lui appartient d'une manière particulière" (Leibnitz, Monadologie, sect.
61-62, No.
88, p. 710; Opp.
Leibn.
ed.
Erdmann).
Again, Leibnitz, in another Dissertation: "Comme à cause de la plénitude du monde tout est lié, et chaque corps agit sur chaque autre corps, plus ou moins, selon la distance, et en est affecté par la réaction--il s'ensuit que chaque monade est un miroir vivant, ou doué d'action interne, représentatif de l'Univers, suivant son point de vue, et aussi réglé que l'Univers même" (Principes de la Nature et de la Grace, p. 714, ed.
Erdmann; also Système Nouveau, p. 128, a.
36).
Leibnitz expresses more than once how much his own metaphysical views agreed with those of Plato.
Lettre à M. Bourguet, pp.
723-725.
He expresses his belief in the pre-existence of the soul: "Tout ce que je crois pouvoir assurer, est, que l'âme de tout animal a préexisté, et a été dans un corps organique: qui enfin, par beaucoup de changemens, involutions, et évolutions, est devenu l'animal présent" (Lettre à M. Bourguet, p. 731).
And in the Platonic doctrine of reminiscence to a certain point: "II y a quelque chose de solide dans ce que dit Platon de la réminiscence" (p. 137, b.
10).
Also Leibnitz's Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain, p. 196, b.
28; and Epistol.
ad Hanschium, p. 446, a.
12.
See the elaborate account of the philosophy of Leibnitz by Dr. Kuno Fischer--Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, vol.
ii.
pp.
226-232.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Menon, p. 81 D. [Greek: e)a/n tis a)ndrei=os ê)=|, kai\ mê\ a)poka/mnê| zêtô=n.]
Compare also p. 86 B.]
[Side-note: Plato's view of the immortality of the soul--difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon.]
In various other dialogues of Plato, the same hypothesis is found repeated.
His conception of the immortality of the soul or mind, includes pre-existence as well as post-existence: a perpetual succession of temporary lives, each in a distinct body, each terminated by death, and each followed by renewed life for a time in another body.
In fact, the pre-existence of the mind formed the most important part of Plato's theory about immortality: for he employed it as the means of explaining how the mind became possessed of general notions.
As the doctrine is stated in the Menon, it is made applicable to all minds (instead of being confined, as in Phædrus, Phædon, and elsewhere, to a few highly gifted minds, and to commerce with the intelligible substances called Ideas).
This appears from the person chosen to illustrate the alleged possibility of stimulating artificial reminiscence: that person is an unlettered youth, taken at hazard from among the numerous slaves of Menon.
[42] [Footnote 42: Plato, Menon, pp.
82 A, 85 E. [Greek: proska/leson tô=n pollô=n a)kolou/thôn toutôni\ tô=n sautou= e(/na, o(/ntina bou/lei, i(/na e)n tou/tô| soi e)pidei/xômai.]
Stallbaum says that this allusion to the numerous slaves in attendance is intended to illustrate conspicuously the wealth and nobility of Menon.
In my judgment, it is rather intended to illustrate the operation of pure accident--the perfectly ordinary character of the mind worked upon--"one among many, which you please".]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind--how far correct?]
It is true, indeed (as Schleiermacher observes), that the questions put by Sokrates to this youth are in great proportion leading questions, suggesting their own answers.
They would not have served their purpose unless they had been such.
The illustration here furnished, of the Sokratic interrogatory process, is highly interesting, and his theory is in a great degree true.
[43] Not all learning, but an important part of learning, consists in reminiscence--not indeed of acquisitions made in an antecedent life, but of past experience and judgments in this life.
Of such experience and judgments every one has travelled through a large course; which has disappeared from his memory, yet not irrevocably.
Portions of it may be revived, if new matter be presented to the mind, fitted to excite the recollection of them by the laws of association.
By suitable interrogations, a teacher may thus recall to the memory of his pupils many facts and judgments which have been hitherto forgotten: he may bring into juxtaposition those which have never before been put together in the mind: and he may thus make them elicit instructive comparisons and inferences.
He may provoke the pupils to strike out new results for themselves, or to follow, by means of their own stock of knowledge, in the path suggested by the questions.
He may farther lead them to perceive the fallacy of erroneous analogies which at first presented themselves as plausible; and to become painfully sensible of embarrassment and perplexing ignorance, before he puts those questions which indicate the way of escape from it.
Upon the necessity of producing such painful consciousness of ignorance Plato insists emphatically, as is his custom.
[44] [Footnote 43: Plutarch (Fragment.
[Greek: Peri\ psuchê=s]).
Ei) a)ph' e(te/rou e(/teron e)nnoou=men?
ou)k a)/n, ei) mê\ proe/gnôsto.
To\ e)pichei/rêma Platôniko/n.
Ei) prosti/themen to\ e)/lleipon toi=s ai)sthêtoi=s?--kai\ au)to\ Platôniko/n.]
Plutarch, in the same fragment, indicates some of the objections made by Bion and Straton against the doctrine of [Greek: a)na/mnêsis].
How (they asked) does it happen that this reminiscence brings up often what is false or absurd?
(asked Bion).
If such reminiscence exists (asked Straton) how comes it that we require demonstrations to conduct us to knowledge?
and how is it that no man can play on the flute or the harp without practice?
[Greek: O(/ti Bi/ôn ê)po/rei peri\ tou= pseu/dous, ei) kai\ au)to\ kat' a)na/mnêsin, ô(s to\ e)nanti/on ge, ê)\ ou)/?
kai\ ti/ ê( a)logi/a?
O(/ti Stra/tôn ê)po/rei, ei) e)/stin a)namnêsis, pô=s a)/neu a)podei/xeôn ou) gigno/metha e)pistê/mones?
pô=s de\ ou)dei\s au)lêtê\s ê)\ kitharistê\s ge/gonen a)/neu mele/tês?]]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Menon, p. 84.
The sixteenth Dissertation of Maximus Tyrius presents a rhetorical amplification of this doctrine--[Greek: pa=sa ma/thêsis, a)na/mnêsis]--in which he enters fully into the spirit of the Menon and the Phædon--[Greek: au)todi/dakto/n ti chrê=ma ê( psuchê/--ê( psuchê=s eu(/resis, au)togenê/s tis ou)=sa, kai\ au)tophuê\s, kai\ xu/mphutos, ti/ a)/llo e)/stin ê)\ do/xai a)lêthei=s e)geiro/menai, ô(=n tê=| e)pege/rsei te kai\ xunta/xei e)pistê/mê o)/noma?]
(c. 6).
Compare also Cicero, Tusc.
D. i.
24.
The doctrine has furnished a theme for very elegant poetry: both in the Consolatio Philosophiæ of Boethius--the piece which ends with "Ac si Platonis Musa personat verum, Quod quisque discit, immemor recordatur"-and in Wordsworth--"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting," &c. On the other hand Aristotle alludes also to the same doctrine and criticises it; but he does not seem (so far as I can understand this brief allusion) to seize exactly Plato's meaning.
This is the remark of the Scholiast on Aristotle: and I think it just.
It is curious to compare the way in which [Greek: a)na/mnêsis] is handled by Plato in the Menon and Phædon, and by Aristotle in the valuable little tract--[Greek: Peri\ mnê/nês kai\ a)namnê/seôs] (p. 451, b.).
Aristotle has his own way of replying to the difficulty raised in the question of Menon, and tries to show that sometimes we _know_ in one sense and _do not know_ in another.
See Aristotel.
Anal.
Prior., ii.
p. 67, a.
22; Anal.
Poster.
i. p. 71, a.
27; and the Scholia on the former passage, p. 193, b.
21, ed.
Brandis.
Sir William Hamilton, in one of the Appendixes to his edition of Reid's Works (Append.
D. p. 890 seq.
), has given a learned and valuable translation and illustration of the treatise of Aristotle [Greek: Peri\ A)namnê/seôs].
I note, however, with some surprise, that while collecting many interesting comments from writers who lived _after_ Aristotle, he has not adverted to what was said upon this same subject by Plato, _before_ Aristotle.
It was the more to be expected that he would do this, since he insists so emphatically upon the complete originality of Aristotle.]
[Side-note: Plato's doctrine about _à priori_ reasonings--Different from the modern doctrine.]
Plato does not intend here to distinguish (as many modern writers distinguish) geometry from other sciences, as if geometry were known _à priori_, and other sciences known _à posteriori_ or from experience.
He does not suppose that geometrical truths are such that no man can possibly believe the contrary of them; or that they are different in this respect from the truths of any other science.
He here maintains that all the sciences lie equally in the untaught mind,[45] but buried, forgotten, and confused: so as to require the skill of the questioner not merely to recall them into consciousness, but to disentangle truth from error.
Far from supposing that the untaught mind has a natural tendency to answer correctly geometrical questions, he treats erroneous answers as springing up more naturally than true answers, and as requiring a process of painful exposure before the mind can be put upon the right track.
The questioner, without possessing any knowledge himself, (so Plato thinks,) can nevertheless exercise an influence at once stimulating, corrective, and directive.
He stimulates the action of the associative process, to call up facts, comparisons, and analogies, bearing on the question: he arrests the respondent on a wrong answer, creating within him a painful sense of ignorance and embarrassment: he directs him by his subsequent questions into the path of right answers.
His obstetric aid (to use the simile in Plato's Theætetus), though presupposing the pregnancy of the respondent mind, is indispensable both to forward the childbirth, and to throw away any offspring which may happen to be deformed.
In the Theætetus, the main stress is laid on that part of the dialogue which is performed by the questioner: in the Menon, upon the latent competence and large dead stock of an untaught respondent.
[Footnote 45: Plato, Menon, p. 85 E. [Greek: ou(=tos ga\r] (the untaught slave) [Greek: poiê/sei peri\ pa/sês geômetri/as tau)ta\ tau=ta, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn mathêma/tôn a(pa/ntôn.]]
The mind of the slave questioned by Sokrates is discovered to be pregnant.
Though he has received no teaching from any professed geometer, he is nevertheless found competent, when subjected to a skilful interrogatory, to arrive at last, through a series of mistakes, at correct answers, determining certain simple problems of geometry.
He knows nothing about geometry: nevertheless there exist in his mind true opinions respecting that which he does not know.
These opinions are "called up like a dream" by the interrogatories: which, if repeated and diversified, convert the opinions into knowledge, taken up by the respondent out of himself.
[46] The opinions are inherited from an antecedent life and born with him, since they have never been taught to him during this life.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Menon, p. 85.
[Greek: tô=| ou)k eido/ti a)/ra peri\ ô(=n a)\n mê\ ei)dê=| e)/neisin a)lêthei=s do/xai.
.
.
.
kai\ nu=n me/n ge _au)tô=| ô(/sper o)/nar_ a)/rti a)nakeki/nêntai ai( do/xai au(=tai; ei) de\ au)to/n tis a)nerê/setai polla/kis ta\ au)ta\ tau=ta kai\ pollachê=, oi)=sth' o(/ti teleutô=n ou)deno\s ê(=tton a)kribô=s e)pistê/setai peri\ au)tôn.
.
.
.
Ou)kou=n ou)deno\s dida/xantos a)ll' e)rôtê/santos e)pistê/setai, a)nalabô\n au)to\s e)x au)tou= tê\n e)pistê/mên?]]
[Side-note: Plato's theory about pre-natal experience.
He took no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal experience.]
It is thus that Plato applies to philosophical theory the doctrine (borrowed from the Pythagoreans) of pre-natal experience and cognitions: which he considers, not as inherent appurtenances of the mind, but as acquisitions made by the mind during various antecedent lives.
These ideas (Plato argues) cannot have been acquired during the present life, because the youth has received no special teaching in geometry.
But Plato here takes no account of the multiplicity and diversity of experiences gone through, comparisons made, and acquirements lodged, in the mind of a youthful adult however unlettered.
He recognises no acquisition of knowledge except through special teaching.
So, too, in the Protagoras, we shall find him putting into the mouth of Sokrates the doctrine--That virtue is not taught and cannot be taught, because there were no special masters or times of teaching.
But in that dialogue we shall also see Plato furnishing an elaborate reply to this doctrine in the speech of Protagoras; who indicates the multifarious and powerful influences which are perpetually operative, even without special professors, in creating and enforcing ethical sentiment.
If Plato had taken pains to study the early life of the untaught slave, with its stock of facts, judgments, comparisons, and inferences suggested by analogy, &c., he might easily have found enough to explain the competence of the slave to answer the questions appearing in the dialogue.
And even if enough could not have been found, to afford a direct and specific explanation--we must remember that only a very small proportion of the long series of mental phenomena realised in the infant, the child, the youth, ever comes to be remembered or recorded.
To assume that the large unknown remainder would be insufficient, if known, to afford the explanation sought, is neither philosophical nor reasonable.
This is assumed in every form of the doctrine of innate ideas: and assumed by Plato here without even trying any explanation to dispense with the hypothesis: simply because the youth interrogated had never received any special instruction in geometry.
[Side-note: Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or Forms.]
I have already observed, that though great stress is laid in this dialogue upon the doctrine of opinions and knowledge inherited from an antecedent life--upon the distinction between true opinion and knowledge--and upon the identity of the process of learning with reminiscence--yet nothing is said about universal Ideas or Forms, so much dwelt upon in other dialogues.
In the Phædrus and Phædon, it is with these universal Ideas that the mind is affirmed to have had communion during its prior existence, as contrasted with the particulars of sense apprehended during the present life: while in the Menon, the difference pointed out between true opinions and knowledge is something much less marked and decisive.
Both the one and the other are said to be, not acquired during this life, but inherited from antecedent life: to be innate, yet unperceived--revived by way of reminiscence and interrogation.
True opinions are affirmed to render as much service as knowledge, in reference to practice.
There is only this distinction between them--that true opinions are transient, and will not remain in the mind until they are bound in it by causal reasoning, or become knowledge.
[Side-note: What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning--his distinction between knowledge and right opinion.]
What Plato meant by this "causal reasoning, or computation of cause," is not clearly explained.
But he affirms very unequivocally, first, that the distinction between true opinion and knowledge is one of the few things of which he feels assured[47]--next, with somewhat less confidence, that the distinction consists only in the greater security which knowledge affords for permanent in-dwelling in the mind.
This appears substantially the same distinction as what is laid down in other words towards the close of the dialogue--That those, who have only true opinions and not knowledge, judge rightly without knowing how or why; by an aptitude not their own but supplied to them from without for the occasion, in the nature of inspiration or prophetic _oestrus_.
Hence they are unable to teach others, or to transfer this occasional inspiration to any one else.
They cannot give account of what they affect to know, nor answer scrutinizing questions to test it.
This power of answering and administering cross-examination, is Plato's characteristic test of real knowledge--as I have already observed in my eighth** chapter.
[Footnote 47: Plato, Menon, p. 98 B.
[Greek: o(/ti de/ e)sti/ ti a)lloi=on o)rthê\ do/xa kai\ e)pistê/mê, ou) pa/nu moi dokô= tou=to ei)ka/zein; a)ll' ei)/per ti a)/llo phai/ên a)\n ei)de/nai, _o)li/ga d' a)\n phai/ên, e(\n d' ou)=n kai\ tou=to e)kei/nôn thei/ên a)\n ô(=n oi)=da_.]]
[Side-note: This distinction compared with modern philosophical views.]
To translate the views of Plato into analogous views of a modern philosopher, we may say--That right opinion, as contrasted with knowledge, is a discriminating and acute empirical judgment: inferring only from old particulars to new particulars (without the intermediate help and guarantee of general propositions distinctly enunciated and interpreted), but selecting for every new case the appropriate analogies out of the past, with which it ought to be compared.
Many persons judge in this manner fairly well, and some with extreme success.
But let them be ever so successful in practice, they proceed without any conscious method; they are unable to communicate the grounds of their inferences to others: and when they are right, it is only by haphazard--that is (to use Plato's language), through special inspiration vouchsafed to them by the Gods.
But when they ascend to knowledge, and come to judge scientifically, they then distribute these particular facts into classes--note the constant sequences as distinguished from the occasional--and draw their inferences in every new case according to such general laws or uniformities of antecedent and consequent.
Such uniform and unconditional antecedents are the only causes of which we have cognizance.
They admit of being described in the language which Plato here uses ([Greek: ai)ti/as logismô=|]), and they also serve as reasons for justifying or explaining our inferences to others.
[48] [Footnote 48: We have seen that in the Menon Plato denies all [Greek: didachê/], and recognises nothing but [Greek: a)na/mnêsis].
The doctrine of the Timæus (p. 51 D-E) is very different.
He there lays especial stress on the distinction between [Greek: didachê\] and [Greek: peithô/]--the first belonging to [Greek: e)pistê/mê], the second to [Greek: do/xa].
Also in Gorgias, 454, and in Republic, v. pp.
477-479, about [Greek: do/xa] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê].
In those dialogues the distinction between the two is presented as marked and fundamental, as if [Greek: do/xa] alone was fallible and [Greek: e)pistê/mê] infallible.
In the Menon the distinction appears as important, but not fundamental; the Platonic Ideas or Universals being _not_ recognised as constituting a substantive world by themselves.
In this respect the Menon is nearer to the truth in describing the difference between [Greek: o)rthê\ do/xa] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê].
Mr. John Stuart Mill (in the chapter of his System of Logic wherein the true theory of the Syllogism is for the first time expounded) has clearly explained what that difference amounts to.
All our inferences are _from_ particulars, sometimes _to_ new particulars directly and at once ([Greek: do/xa]), sometimes _to_ generals in the first instance, and through them _to_ new particulars; which latter, or scientific process, is highly valuable as a security for correctness ([Greek: e)pistê/mê]).
"Not only" (says Mr. Mill) "_may_ we reason from particulars to particulars without passing through generals, but we perpetually _do_ so reason.
All our earliest inferences are of this nature.
From the first dawn of intelligence we draw inferences, but years elapse before we learn the use of general language.
We are constantly reasoning from ourselves to other people, or from one person to another, without giving ourselves the trouble to erect our observations into general maxims of human or external nature.
If we have an extensive experience and retain its impressions strongly, we may acquire in this manner a very considerable power of accurate judgment, which we may be utterly incapable of justifying or of communicating to others.
Among the higher order of practical intellects, there have been many of whom it was remarked how admirably they suited their means to their ends, without being able to give any sufficient account of what they did; and applied, or seemed to apply, recondite principles which they were wholly unable to state.
This is a natural consequence of having a mind stored with appropriate particulars, and having been accustomed to reason at once from these to fresh particulars, without practising the habit of stating to one's self or others the corresponding general propositions.
The cases of men of talent performing wonderful things they know not how, are examples of the rudest and most spontaneous forms of the operations of superior minds.
It is a defect in them, and often a source of errors, not to have generalised as they went on; but generalisation, though a help, the most important indeed of all helps, is not an essential" (Mill, Syst.
of Logic, Book II.
ch.
iii.).
Compare the first chapter of the Metaphysica of Aristotle, p. 980, a.
15, b.
7.]
[Side-note: Manifestation of Anytus--intense antipathy to the Sophists and to philosophy generally.]
The manner in which Anytus, the accuser of Sokrates before the Dikastery, is introduced into this dialogue, deserves notice.
The questions are put to him by Sokrates--"Is virtue teachable?
How is Menon to learn virtue, and from whom?
Ought he not to do as he would do if he wished to learn medicine or music: to put himself under some paid professional man as teacher?"
Anytus answers these questions in the affirmative: but asks, where such professional teachers of virtue are to be found.
"There are the Sophists," replies Sokrates.
Upon this Anytus breaks out into a burst of angry invective against the Sophists; denouncing them as corruptors of youth, whom none but a madman would consult, and who ought to be banished by public authority.
Why are you so bitter against the Sophists?
asks Sokrates.
Have any of them ever injured you?
_Anyt._--No; never: I have never been in the company of any one of them, nor would I ever suffer any of my family to be so.
_Sokr._--Then you have no experience whatever about the Sophists?
_Anyt._--None: and I hope that I never may have.
_Sokr._--How then can you know about this matter, how far it is good or bad, if you have no experience whatever about it?
_Anyt._--Easily.
I know what sort of men the Sophists are, whether I have experience of them or not.
_Sokr._--Perhaps you are a prophet, Anytus: for how else you can know about them, I do not understand, even on your own statement.
[49] [Footnote 49: Plato, Menon, p.
92.]
Anytus then declares, that the persons from whom Menon ought to learn virtue are the leading practical politicians; and that any one of them can teach it.
But Sokrates puts a series of questions, showing that the leading Athenian politicians, Themistoklês, Periklês, &c., have not been able to teach virtue even to their own sons: _à fortiori_, therefore, they cannot teach it to any one else.
Anytus treats this series of questions as disparaging and calumnious towards the great men of Athens.
He breaks off the conversation abruptly, with an angry warning to Sokrates to be cautious about his language, and to take care of his own safety.
The dialogue is then prosecuted and finished between Sokrates and Menon: and at the close of it, Sokrates says--"Talk to Anytus, and communicate to him that persuasion which you have yourself contracted,[50] in order that he may be more mildly disposed: for, if you persuade him, you will do some good to the Athenians as well as to himself."
[Footnote 50: Plato, Menon, ad fin.
[Greek: su\ de\ tau=ta a(/per au)to\s pe/peisai, pei=the kai\ to\n xe/non to/nde A)/nuton, i(/na pra|o/teros ê)=|; ô(s e)a\n pei/sê|s tou=ton, e)/stin o(/, ti kai\ A)thênai/ous o)nê/seis.]]
[Side-note: The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists--Practical statesmen.]
The enemy and accuser of Sokrates is here depicted as the bitter enemy of the Sophists also.
And Plato takes pains to exhibit the enmity of Anytus to the Sophists as founded on no facts or experience.
Without having seen or ascertained anything about them, Anytus hates them as violently as if he had sustained from them some personal injury; a sentiment which many Platonic critics and many historians of philosophy have inherited from him.
[51] Whether the corruption which these Sophists were accused of bringing about in the minds of youth, was intentional or not intentional on their part--how such corruption could have been perpetually continued, while at the same time the eminent Sophists enjoyed long and unabated esteem from the youth themselves and from their relatives--are difficulties which Anytus does not attempt to explain, though they are started here by Sokrates.
Indeed we find the same topics employed by Sokrates himself, in his defence before the Dikasts against the same charge.
[52] Anytus has confidence in no one except the practical statesmen: and when a question is raised about _their_ power to impart their own excellence to others, he presently takes offence against Sokrates also.
The same causes which have determined his furious antipathy against the Sophists, make him ready to transfer the like antipathy to Sokrates.
He is a man of plain sense, practical habits, and conservative patriotism--who worships what he finds accredited as virtue, and dislikes the talkers and theorisers about virtue in general: whether they debated in subtle interrogation and dialectics, like Sokrates--or lectured in eloquent continuous discourse, like Protagoras.
He accuses the Sophists, in this dialogue, of corrupting the youth; just as he and Melêtus, before the Dikastery, accused Sokrates of the same offence.
He understands the use of words, to discuss actual business before the assembly or dikastery; but he hates discourse on the generalities of ethics or philosophy.
He is essentially [Greek: miso/logos].
The point which he condemns in the Sophists, is that which they have in common with Sokrates.
[Footnote 51: Upon the bitter antipathy here expressed by Anytus against the Sophists, whom nevertheless he admits that he does not at all know, Steinhart remarks as follows:--"Gerade so haben zu allen Zeiten Orthodoxe und Fanatiker aller Arten über ihre Gegner abgeurtheilt, ohne sie zu kennen oder auch nur kennen lernen zu wollen" (Einleit.
zum Menon, not.
15, p. 173).
Certainly orthodox and fanatical persons often do what is here imputed to them.
But Steinhart might have found a still closer parallel with Anytus, in his own criticisms, and in those of many other Platonic critics on the Sophists; the same expressions of bitterness and severity, with the same slender knowledge of the persons upon whom they bear.]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
26 A, 33 D, 34 B.]
[Side-note: The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen.]
In many of the Platonic dialogues we have the antithesis between Sokrates and the Sophists brought out, as to the different point of view from which the one and the other approached ethical questions.
But in this portion of the Menon, we find exhibited the feature of analogy between them, in which both one and the other stood upon ground obnoxious to the merely practical politicians.
Far from regarding hatred against the Sophists as a mark of virtue in Anytus, Sokrates deprecates it as unwarranted and as menacing to philosophy in all her manifestations.
The last declaration ascribed to Anytus, coupled with the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue, show us that Plato conceives the anti-Sophistic antipathy as being anti-Sokratic also, in its natural consequences.
That Sokrates was in common parlance a Sophist, disliked by a large portion of the general public, and ridiculed by Aristophanes, on the same grounds as those whom Plato calls Sophists--is a point which I have noticed elsewhere.
CHAPTER XXIII.
PROTAGORAS.
[Side-note: Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue.]
The dialogue called Protagoras presents a larger assemblage of varied and celebrated characters, with more of dramatic winding, and more frequent breaks and resumptions in the conversation, than any dialogue of Plato--not excepting even Symposion and Republic.
It exhibits Sokrates in controversy with the celebrated Sophist Protagoras, in the presence of a distinguished society, most of whom take occasional part in the dialogue.
This controversy is preceded by a striking conversation between Sokrates and Hippokrates--a youth of distinguished family, eager to profit by the instructions of Protagoras.
The two Sophists Prodikus and Hippias, together with Kallias, Kritias, Alkibiades, Eryximachus, Phædrus, Pausanias, Agathon, the two sons of Periklês (Paralus and Xanthippus), Charmides, son of Glaukon, Antimoerus of Mende, a promising pupil of Protagoras, who is in training for the profession of a Sophist--these and others are all present at the meeting, which is held in the house of Kallias.
[1] Sokrates himself recounts the whole--both his conversation with Hippokrates and that with Protagoras--to a nameless friend.
[Footnote 1: Plato, Protag.
p.
315.]
This dialogue enters upon a larger and more comprehensive ethical theory than anything in the others hitherto noticed.
But it contains also a great deal in which we hardly recognise, or at least cannot verify, any distinct purpose, either of search or exposition.
Much of it seems to be composed with a literary or poetical view, to enhance the charm or interest of the composition.
The personal characteristics of each speaker--the intellectual peculiarities of Prodikus and Hippias--the ardent partisanship of Alkibiades--are brought out as in a real drama.
But the great and marked antithesis is that between the Sophist Protagoras and Sokrates--the Hektor and Ajax of the piece: who stand forward in single combat, exchange some serious blows, yet ultimately part as friends.
[Side-note: Introduction.
Eagerness of the youthful Hippokrates to become acquainted with Protagoras.]
An introduction of some length impresses upon us forcibly the celebrity of the Great Sophist, and the earnest interest excited by his visit to Athens.
Hippokrates, a young man of noble family and eager aspirations for improvement, having just learnt the arrival of Protagoras, comes to the house of Sokrates and awakens him before daylight, entreating that Sokrates will introduce him to the new-comer.
He is ready to give all that he possesses in order that he may become wise like Protagoras.
[2] While they are awaiting a suitable hour for such introduction, Sokrates puts a series of questions to test the force of Hippokrates.
[3] [Footnote 2: Plato, Protag.
pp.
310-311 A.]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Protag.
p. 311 B.
[Greek: kai\ e)gô\ popeirô/menos tou= I(ppokra/tous tê=s r(ô/mês diesko/poun au)to\n kai\ ê)rô/tôn], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates questions Hippokrates as to his purpose and expectations from Protagoras.]
_Sokr._--You are now intending to visit Protagoras, and to pay him for something to be done for you--tell me what manner of man it is that you are going to visit--and what manner of man do you wish to become?
If you were going in like manner to pay a fee for instruction to your namesake Hippokrates of Kos, you would tell me that you were going to him as to a physician--and that you wished to qualify yourself for becoming a physician.
If you were addressing yourself with the like view to Pheidias or Polykleitus, you would go to them as to sculptors, and for the purpose of becoming yourself a sculptor.
Now then that we are to go in all this hurry to Protagoras, tell me who he is and what title he bears, as we called Pheidias a sculptor?
_Hipp._--They call him a Sophist.
[4] _Sokr._--We are going to pay him then as a Sophist?
_Hipp._--Certainly.
_Sokr._--And what are you to become by going to him?
_Hipp._--Why, judging from the preceding analogies, I am to become a Sophist.
_Sokr._--But would not you be ashamed of presenting yourself to the Grecian public as a Sophist?
_Hipp._--Yes: if I am to tell you my real opinion.
[5] _Sokr._--Perhaps however you only propose to visit Protagoras, as you visited your schoolmaster and your musical or gymnastical teacher: not for the purpose of entering that career as a professional man, but to acquire such instruction as is suitable for a private citizen and a freeman?
_Hipp._--That is more the instruction which I seek from Protagoras.
_Sokr._--Do you know then what you are going to do?
You are consigning your mind to be treated by one whom you call a Sophist: but I shall be surprised if you know what a Sophist is[6]--and if you do not know, neither do you know what it is--good or evil--to which you are consigning your mind.
_Hipp._--I think I _do_ know.
The Sophist is, as the name implies, one cognizant of matters wise and able.
[7] _Sokr._--That may be said also of painters and carpenters.
If we were asked in what special department are painters cognizant of matters wise and able, we should specify that it was in the workmanship of portraits.
Answer me the same question about the Sophist.
What sort of workmanship does he direct?
_Hipp._--That of forming able speakers.
[8] _Sokr._--Your answer may be correct, but it is not specific enough: for we must still ask, About _what_ is it that the Sophist forms able speakers?
just as the harp-master makes a man an able speaker about harping, at the same time that he teaches him harping.
About _what_ is it that the Sophist forms able speakers: of course about that which he himself knows?
[9] _Hipp._--Probably.
_Sokr._--What then is that, about which the Sophist is himself cognizant, and makes his pupil cognizant?
_Hipp._--By Zeus, I cannot give you any farther answer.
[10] [Footnote 4: Plato, Protagoras, p.
311.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Protag.
p. 312 A.
[Greek: su\ de/, ê)=n d' e)gô/, pro\s theô=n, ou)k a)\n ai)schu/noio ei)s tou\s E(/llênas sauto\n sophistê\n pare/chôn?
Nê\ to\n Di/', ô)= Sô/krates, ei)/per ge a)\ dianoou=mai chrê\ le/gein.]
Ast (Platon's Leben, p. 78) and other Platonic critics treat this _Sophistomanie_ (as they call it) of an Athenian youth as something ludicrous and contemptible: all the more ludicrous because (they say) none of them goes to qualify himself for becoming a Sophist, but would even be ashamed of the title.
Yet if we suppose the same question addressed to a young Englishman of rank and fortune (as Hippokrates was at Athens), "Why do you put yourself under the teaching of Dr. ---at Eton or Professor ---at Oxford?
Do you intend to qualify yourself for becoming a schoolmaster or a professor?"
He will laugh at you for the question; if he answers it seriously, he will probably answer as Hippokrates does.
But there is nothing at all in the question to imply that the schoolmaster or the professor is a worthless pretender--or the youth foolish, for being anxious to obtain instruction from him; which is the inference that Ast and other Platonic critics desire us to draw about the Athenian Sophists.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Protag.
p. 312 C. [Greek: o(/, ti de/ pote o( sophistê/s e)sti, thauma/zoim' a)\n ei) oi)=stha], &c.] [Footnote 7: Plato, Protag.
p. 312 C. [Greek: ô(/s per tou)/noma le/gei, to\n tô=n sophô=n e)pistê/mona.]
(Quasi sophistes sit--[Greek: o( tô=n sophô=n i)/stês], Heindorf.)
If this supposition of Heindorf be just, we may see in it an illustration of the etymological views of Plato, which I shall notice when I come to the Kratylus.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Protag.
p. 312 D. [Greek: poi/as e)rgasi/as e)pista/tês?
e)pista/tên tou= poiê=sai deino\n le/gein.]]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Protag.
p. 312 D-E. [Greek: e)rôtê/seôs ga\r e)/ti ê( a)po/krisis ê(mi=n dei=tai, peri\ o(/tou o( sophistê\s deino\n poiei= le/gein; ô(/sper o( kitharistê\s deino\n dê/pou poiei= le/gein peri\ ou(=per kai\ e)pistê/mona, peri\ kithari/seôs.]]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Protag.
p. 312 E.] [Side-note: Danger of going to imbibe the instruction of a Sophist without knowing beforehand what he is about to teach.]
_Sokr._--Do you see then to what danger you are going to submit your mind?
If the question were about going to trusting your body to any one, with the risk whether it should become sound or unsound, you would have thought long, and taken much advice, before you decided.
But now, when it is about your mind, which you value more than your body, and upon the good or evil of which all your affairs turn[11]--you are hastening without reflection and without advice, you are ready to pay all the money that you possess or can obtain, with a firm resolution already taken to put yourself at all hazard under Protagoras: whom you do not know--with whom you have never once talked--whom you call a Sophist, without knowing what a Sophist is?
_Hipp._--I must admit the case to be as you say.
[12] _Sokr._--Perhaps the Sophist is a man who brings for sale those transportable commodities, instruction or doctrine, which form the nourishment of the mind.
Now the traders in food for the body praise indiscriminately all that they have to sell, though neither they nor their purchasers know whether it is good for the body; unless by chance any one of them be a gymnastic trainer or a physician.
[13] So, too, these Sophists, who carry about food for the mind, praise all that they have to sell: but perhaps some of them are ignorant, and assuredly their purchasers are ignorant, whether it be good or bad for the mind: unless by accident any one possess medical knowledge about the mind.
Now if you, Hippokrates, happen to possess such knowledge of what is good or bad for the mind, you may safely purchase doctrine from Protagoras or from any one else:[14] but if not, you are hazarding and putting at stake your dearest interests.
The purchase of doctrines is far more dangerous than that of eatables or drinkables.
As to these latter, you may carry them away with you in separate vessels, and before you take them into your body you may invoke the _Expert_, to tell you what you may safely eat and drink, and when, and how much.
But this cannot be done with doctrines.
You cannot carry away _them_ in a separate vessel to be tested; you learn them and take them into the mind itself; so that you go away, after having paid your money, actually damaged or actually benefited, as the case may be.
[15] We will consider these matters in conjunction with our elders.
But first let us go and talk with Protagoras--we can consult the others afterwards.
[Footnote 11: Plato, Protag.
p. 313 A.
[Greek: o(\ de\ peri\ plei/onos tou= sô/matos ê(gei=, tê\n psuchê\n, kai\ e)n ô)=| pa/nt' e)sti\ ta\ sa\ ê)\ eu)= ê)\ kalô=s pra/ttein, chrêstou= ê)\ ponêrou= au)tou= genome/nou], &c.] [Footnote 12: Plato, Protag.
p. 313 C.] [Footnote 13: Plato, Protag.
p. 313 D.] [Footnote 14: Plato, Protag.
p. 313 E. [Greek: e)a\n mê/ tis tu/chê| peri\ tê\n psuchê\n au)= i)atriko\s ô)/n.
ei) me\n ou)=n su\ tugcha/neis e)pistê/môn tou/tôn ti/ chrêsto\n kai\ ponêro/n, a)sphale/s soi ô)nei=sthai mathê/mata kai\ para\ Prôtago/rou kai\ par' a)/llou o(tounou=n; ei) de\ mê/, o(/ra, ô)= phi/ltate, mê\ peri\ toi=s philta/tois kubeu/ê|s te kai\ kinduneu/ê|s.]]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Protag.
p. 314 A.
[Greek: siti/a me\n ga\r kai\ pota\ pria/menon e)/xestin e)n a)/llois a)ggei/ois a)pophe/rein, kai\ pri\n de/xasthai au)ta\ e)s to\ sô=ma pio/nta ê)\ phago/nta, katathe/menon oi)/kade e)/xesti sumbouleu/sasthai parakale/santa to\n e)pai+/onta, o(/, ti te e)deste/on ê)\ pote/on kai\ o(/, ti mê/, kai\ o(po/son, kai\ o(po/te; .
.
.
.
mathê/mata de\ ou)k e)/stin e)n a)/llô| a)ggei/ô| a)penegkei=n, a)ll' a)na/gkê katathe/nta tê\n timê\n to\ ma/thêma e)n au)tê=| tê=| psuchê=| labo/nta kai\ matho/nta a)pie/nai ê)\ beblamme/non ê)\ ô)phelême/non.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks on the Introduction.
False persuasion of knowledge brought to light.]
Such is the preliminary conversation of Sokrates with Hippokrates, before the interview with Protagoras.
I have given it (like the introduction to the Lysis) at considerable length, because it is a very characteristic specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic point of view.
It brings to light that false persuasion of knowledge, under which men unconsciously act, especially in what concerns the mind and its treatment.
Common fame and celebrity suffice to determine the most vehement aspirations towards a lecturer, in one who has never stopped to reflect or enquire what the lecturer does.
The pressure applied by Sokrates in his successive questions, to get beyond vague generalities into definite particulars--the insufficiency, thereby exposed, of the conceptions with which men usually rest satisfied--exhibit the working of his Elenchus in one of its most instructive ways.
The parallel drawn between the body and the mind--the constant precaution taken in the case of the former to consult the professional man and to follow his advice in respect both to discipline and nourishment--are in the same vein of sentiment which we have already followed in other dialogues.
Here too, as elsewhere, some similar _Expert_, in reference to the ethical and intellectual training of mind, is desiderated, as still more imperatively necessary.
Yet where is he to be found?
How is the business of mental training to be brought to a beneficial issue without him?
Or is Protagoras the man to supply such a demand?
We shall presently see.
* * * * * [Side-note: Sokrates and Hippokrates go to the house of Kallias.
Company therein.
Respect shown to Protagoras.]
Sokrates and Hippokrates proceed to the house of Kallias, and find him walking about in the fore-court with Protagoras, and some of the other company; all of whom are described as treating the Sophist with almost ostentatious respect.
Prodikus and Hippias have each their separate hearers, in or adjoining to the court.
Sokrates addresses Protagoras.
[Side-note: Questions of Sokrates to Protagoras.
Answer of the latter, declaring the antiquity of the sophistical profession, and his own openness in avowing himself a sophist.]
_Sokr._--Protagoras, I and Hippokrates here are come to talk to you about something.
_Prot._--Do you wish to ta]k to me alone, or in presence of the rest?
_Sokr._--To us it is indifferent: but I will tell you what we come about, and you may then determine for yourself.
This Hippokrates is a young man of noble family, and fully equal to his contemporaries in capacity.
He wishes to become distinguished in the city; and he thinks he shall best attain that object through your society.
Consider whether you would like better to talk with him alone, or in presence of the rest.
[16] _Prot._--Your consideration on my behalf, Sokrates, is reasonable.
A person of my profession must be cautious in his proceedings.
I, a foreigner, visit large cities, persuading the youth of best family to frequent my society in preference to that of their kinsmen and all others; in the conviction that I shall do them good.
I thus inevitably become exposed to much jealousy and even to hostile conspiracies.
[17] The sophistical art is an old one;[18] but its older professors, being afraid of enmity if they proclaimed what they really were, have always disguised themselves under other titles.
Some, like Homer, Hesiod, and Simonides, called themselves poets: others, Orpheus, Musæus, &c., professed to prescribe religious rites and mysteries: others announced themselves as gymnastic trainers or teachers of music.
But I have departed altogether from this policy; which indeed did not succeed in really deceiving any leading men--whom alone it was intended to deceive--and which, when found out, entailed upon its authors the additional disgrace of being considered deceivers.
The true caution consists in open dealing; and this is what I have always adopted.
I avow myself a Sophist, educating men.
I am now advanced in years, old enough to be the father of any of you, and have grown old in the profession: yet during all these years, thank God, I have suffered no harm either from my practice or my title.
[19] If therefore you desire to converse with me, it will be far more agreeable to me to converse in presence of all who are now in the house.
[20] [Footnote 16: Plat.
Prot.
p. 316.
The motive assigned by Hippokrates, for putting himself under the teaching of Protagoras, is just the same as that which Xenophon assigns to his friend Proxenus for taking lessons and paying fees to the Leontine Gorgias (Xen.
Anab.
ii.
6, 16).]
[Footnote 17: The jealousy felt by fathers, mothers, and relatives against a teacher or converser who acquired great influence over their youthful relatives, is alluded to by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology (p. 37 E), and is illustrated by a tragical incident in the Cyropædia of Xenophon, iii.
1.
14-38.
Compare also Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
2, 52.]
[Footnote 18: Plat.
Prot.
p. 316 D. [Greek: e)gô\ de\ tê\n sophistikê\n te/chnên phêmi\ me\n ei)=nai palaia/n.]]
[Footnote 19: Plat.
Prot.
p. 317 C. [Greek: ô(/ste su\n theô=| ei)pei=n mêde\n deino\n pa/schein dia\ to\ o(mologei=n sophistê\s ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 20: Plat.
Prot.
p. 317 D. In the Menon, the Platonic Sokrates is made to say that Protagoras died at the age of seventy; that he had practised forty years as a Sophist; and that during all that long time he had enjoyed the highest esteem and reputation, even after his death, "down to the present day" (Menon, p. 91 E).
It must be remembered that the speech, of which I have just given an abstract, is delivered not by the historical, real, Protagoras, but by the character named _Protagoras_, depicted by Plato in this dialogue: _i.e._ the speech is composed by Plato himself.
I read, therefore, with much surprise, a note of Heindorf (ad p. 316 D), wherein he says about Protagoras: "Callidé in postremis reticet, quod addere poterat, [Greek: chrê/mata dido/ntas]."
"Protagoras cunningly keeps back, what he might have here added, that people gave him money for his teaching."
Heindorf must surely have supposed that he was commenting upon a real speech, delivered by the historical person called Protagoras.
Otherwise what can be meant by this charge of "cunning reticence or keeping back?"
Protagoras here speaks what Plato puts into his mouth; neither more nor less.
What makes the remark of Heindorf the more preposterous is, that in page 328 B the very fact, which Protagoras is here said "cunningly to keep back," appears mentioned by Protagoras; and mentioned in the same spirit of honourable frankness and fair-dealing as that which pervades the discourse which I have just (freely) translated.
Indeed nothing can be more marked than the way in which Plato makes Protagoras dwell with emphasis on the frankness and openness of his dealing: nothing can be more at variance with the character which critics give us of the Sophists, as "cheats, who defrauded pupils of their money while teaching them nothing at all, or what they themselves knew to be false".]
[Side-note: Protagoras prefers to converse in presence of the assembled company.]
On hearing this, Sokrates--under the suspicion (he tells us) that Protagoras wanted to show off in the presence of Prodikus and Hippias--proposes to convene all the dispersed guests, and to talk in their hearing.
This is accordingly done, and the conversation recommences--Sokrates repeating the introductory request which he had preferred on behalf of Hippokrates.
[Side-note: Answers of Protagoras.
He intends to train young men as virtuous citizens.]
_Sokr._--Hippokrates is anxious to distinguish himself in the city, and thinks that he shall best attain this end by placing himself under your instruction.
He would gladly learn, Protagoras, what will happen to him, if he comes into intercourse with you.
_Prot._--Young man, if you come to me, on the day of your first visit, you will go home better than you came, and on the next day the like: each successive day you will make progress for the better.
[21] _Sokr._--Of course he will; there is nothing surprising in that: but towards _what_, and about _what_, will he make progress?
_Prot._--Your question is a reasonable one, and I am glad to reply to it.
I shall not throw him back--as other Sophists do, with mischievous effect--into the special sciences, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, &c., just after he has completed his course in them.
I shall teach him what he really comes to learn: wisdom and good counsel, both respecting his domestic affairs, that he may manage his own family well--and respecting the affairs of the city, that he may address himself to them most efficaciously, both in speech and act.
_Sokr._--You speak of political or social science.
You engage to make men good citizens.
_Prot._--Exactly so.
[22] [Footnote 21: Plato, Protag.
p. 318 A.
"Qui ad philosophorum scholas venit, quotidie secum aliquid boni ferat: aut sanior domum redeat, aut sanabilior."
Seneca, Epistol.
108, p.
530.]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Protag.
pp.
318-319.
The declaration made by Protagoras--that he will not throw back his pupils into the special arts--is represented by Plato as intended to be an indirect censure on Hippias, then sitting by.]
[Side-note: Sokrates doubts whether virtue is teachable.
Reasons for such doubt.
Protagoras is asked to explain whether it is or not.]
_Sokr._--That is a fine talent indeed, which you possess, if you _do_ possess it; for (to speak frankly) I thought that the thing had not been teachable, nor intentionally communicable, by man to man.
[23] I will tell you why I think so.
The Athenians are universally recognised as intelligent men.
Now when our public assembly is convened, if the subject of debate be fortification, ship-building, or any other specialty which they regard as learnable and teachable, they will listen to no one except a professional artist or craftsman.
[24] If any non-professional man presumes to advise them on the subject, they refuse to hear him, however rich and well-born he may be.
It is thus that they act in matters of any special art;[25] but when the debate turns upon the general administration of the city, they hear every man alike--the brass-worker, leather-cutter, merchant, navigator, rich, poor, well-born, low-born, &c. Against none of them is any exception taken, as in the former case--that he comes to give advice on that which he has not learnt, and on which he has had no master.
[26] It is plain that the public generally think it not teachable.
Moreover our best and wisest citizens, those who possess civic virtue in the highest measure, cannot communicate to their own children this same virtue, though they cause them to be taught all those accomplishments which paid masters can impart.
Periklês and others, excellent citizens themselves, have never been able to make any one else excellent, either in or out of their own family.
These reasons make me conclude that social or political virtue is not teachable.
I shall be glad if you can show me that it is so.
[27] [Footnote 23: Plato, Protag.
p. 319 B.
[Greek: ou) didakto\n ei)=nai, mêd' u(p' a)nthrô/pôn paraskeuasto\n a)nthrô/pois.]]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Protag.
p. 319 C. [Greek: kai\ ta)/lla pa/nta ou(/tôs, o(/sa ê(gou=ntai mathêta/ te kai\ didakta\ ei)=nai.
e)a/n de/ tis a)/llos e)picheirê=| au)toi=s sumbouleu/ein o(\n e)kei=noi mê\ oi)/ontai dêmiourgo\n ei)=nai], &c.] [Footnote 25: Plato, Protag.
p. 319 D. [Greek: Peri\ me\n ou)=n ô(=n _oi)/ontai e)n te/chnê| ei)=nai_, ou(/tô diapra/ttontai.]]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Protag.
p. 319 D. [Greek: kai\ tou/tois ou)dei\s tou=to e)piplê/ssei ô(sper toi=s pro/teron, o(/ti ou)damo/then mathô/n, ou)de\ o)/ntos didaska/lou ou)deno\s au)tô=|, e)/peita sumbouleu/ein e)picheirei=; dê=lon ga\r o(/ti ou)ch ê(gou=ntai didakto\n ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Protag.
pp.
319-320.]
[Side-note: Explanation of Protagoras.
He begins with a mythe.]
_Prot._--I will readily show you.
But shall I, like an old man addressing his juniors, recount to you an illustrative mythe?
[28] or shall I go through an expository discourse?
The mythe perhaps will be the more acceptable of the two.
[Footnote 28: Plato, Protag.
p. 320 C. [Greek: po/teron u(mi=n, ô(s presbu/teros neôte/rois, mu=thon le/gôn e)pidei/xô, ê)\ lo/gô| diexelthô/n?]
It is probable that the Sophists often delivered illustrative mythes or fables as a more interesting way of handling social matters before an audience.
Such was the memorable fable called the choice of Hêraklês by Prodikus.]
[Side-note: Mythe.
First fabrication of men by the Gods.
Prometheus and Epimetheus.
Bad distribution of endowments to man by the latter.
It is partly amended by Prometheus.]
There was once a time when Gods existed, but neither men nor animals had yet come into existence.
At the epoch prescribed by Fate, the Gods fabricated men and animals in the interior of the earth, out of earth, fire, and other ingredients: directing the brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus to fit them out with suitable endowments.
Epimetheus, having been allowed by his brother to undertake the task of distributing these endowments, did his work very improvidently, wasted all his gifts upon the inferior animals, and left nothing for man.
When Prometheus came to inspect what had been done, he found that other animals were adequately equipped, but that man had no natural provision for clothing, shoeing, bedding, or defence.
The only way whereby Prometheus could supply the defect was, by breaking into the common workshop of Athênê and Hephæstus, and stealing from thence their artistic skill, together with fire.
[29] Both of these he presented to man, who was thus enabled to construct for himself, by art, all that other animals received from nature and more besides.
[Footnote 29: Plato, Protag.
pp.
321-322.
[Greek: a)pori/a| ou)=n e)cho/menos o( Promêtheu\s ê(/ntina sôtêri/an tô=| a)nthrô/pô| eu(/roi, kle/ptei Ê(phai/stou kai\ A)thêna=s tê\n e(/ntechnon sophi/an su\n puri/.
.
.
.
Tê\n me\n ou)=n peri\ to\n bi/on sophi/an a)/nthrôpos tau/tê| e)/sche, tê\n de\ politikê\n ou)k ei)=chen; ê)=n ga\r para\ tô=| Di/i+], &c. If the reader will compare this with the doctrine delivered in the Platonic Timæus--that the inferior animals spring from degenerate men--he will perceive the entire variance between the two (Timæus, pp.
91-92).]
[Side-note: Prometheus gave to mankind skill for the supply of individual wants, but could not give them the social art.
Mankind are on the point of perishing, when Zeus sends to them the dispositions essential for society.]
Still however, mankind did not possess the political or social art; which Zeus kept in his own custody, where Prometheus could not reach it.
Accordingly, though mankind could provide for themselves as individuals, yet when they attempted to form themselves into communities, they wronged each other so much, from being destitute of the political or social art, that they were presently forced again into dispersion.
[30] The art of war, too, being a part of the political art, which mankind did not possess--they could not get up a common defence against hostile animals: so that the human race would have been presently destroyed, had not Zeus interposed to avert such a consummation.
He sent Hermês to mankind, bearing with him Justice and the sense of Shame (or Moderation), as the bonds and ornaments of civic society, coupling men in friendship.
[31] Hermês asked Zeus--Upon what principle shall I distribute these gifts among mankind?
Shall I distribute them in the same way as artistic skill is distributed, only to a small number--a few accomplished physicians, navigators, &c., being adequate to supply the wants of the entire community?
Or are they to be apportioned in a certain dose to every man?
Undoubtedly, to every man (was the command of Zeus).
All without exception must be partakers in them.
If they are confined exclusively to a few, like artistic or professional skill, no community can exist.
[32] Ordain, by my authority, that every man, who cannot take a share of his own in justice and the sense of shame, shall be slain, as a nuisance to the community.
[Footnote 30: Plato, Protag.
p. 322 B.
[Greek: e)zê/toun dê\ a)throi/zesthai kai\ sô/zesthai kti/zontes po/leis; o(/t' ou)=n a)throisthei=en, ê)di/koun a)llê/lous, a(/te ou)k e)/chontes tê\n politikê\n te/chnên, ô(/ste pa/lin skedannu/menoi diephthei/ronto.]
Compare Plato, Republic, i. p. 351 C, p. 352 B, where Sokrates sets forth a similar argument.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Protagor.
p. 322 C. [Greek: E(rmê=n pe/mpei a)/gonta ei)s a)nthrô/pous ai)dô= te kai\ di/kên, i(/n' ei)=en po/leôn ko/smoi te kai\ desmoi\ phili/as sunagôgoi/.]]
[Footnote 32: Plato, Protag.
p. 322 C-D. [Greek: ei)=s e)/chôn i)atrikê\n polloi=s i(kano\s i)diô/tais, kai\ oi( a)/lloi dêmiourgoi/.
kai\ di/kên dê\ kai\ ai)dô= ou(/tô thô= e)n toi=s a)nthrô/pois, ê)\ e)pi\ pa/ntas nei/mô?
E)pi\ pa/ntas, e)/phê o( Zeu/s, kai\ pa/ntes metecho/ntôn; ou) ga\r a)\n ge/nointo po/leis, ei) o)li/goi au)tô=n mete/choien ô(/sper a)/llôn technô=n.
kai\ no/mon ge the\s par' e)mou=, to\n mê\ duna/menon ai)doou=s kai\ di/kês mete/chein, ktei/nein ô(s no/son po/leôs.]
We see by p. 323 A that [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] is employed as substitute or equivalent for [Greek: ai)dô/s]: yet still [Greek: ai)dô\s] is the proper word to express Plato's meaning, as it denotes a distinct and positive regard to the feelings of others--a feeling of pain in each man's mind, when he discovers or believes that he is disapproved by his comrades.
Hom.
Il.
O.
561--[Greek: ai)dô= the/sth' e)ni\ thumô=| A)llê/lous t' ai)dei=sthe kata\ kratera\s u(smi/nas.]]
[Side-note: Protagoras follows up his mythe by a discourse.
Justice and the sense of shame are not professional attributes, but are possessed by all citizens and taught by all to all.]
This fable will show you, therefore, Sokrates (continues Protagoras), that the Athenians have good reason for making the distinction to which you advert.
When they are discussing matters of special art, they will hear only the few to whom such matters are known.
But when they are taking counsel about social or political virtue, which consists altogether in justice and moderation, they naturally hear every one; since every one is presumed, as a condition of the existence of the commonwealth, to be a partaker therein.
[33] Moreover, even though they know a man not to have these virtues in reality, they treat him as insane if he does not proclaim himself to have them, and make profession of virtue: whereas, in the case of the special arts, if a man makes proclamation of his own skill as a physician or musician, they censure or ridicule him.
[34] [Footnote 33: Plat.
Prot.
pp.
322-323.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Protag.
p. 323 C.] [Side-note: Constant teaching of virtue.
Theory of punishment.]
Nevertheless, though they account this political or social virtue an universal endowment, they are far from thinking that it comes spontaneously or by nature.
They conceive it to be generated by care and teaching.
For in respect of all those qualities which come by nature or by accident, no one is ever angry with another or blames another for being found wanting.
An ugly, dwarfish, or sickly man is looked upon simply with pity, because his defects are such as he cannot help.
But when any one manifests injustice or other qualities the opposite of political virtue, then all his neighbours visit him with indignation, censure, and perhaps punishment: implying clearly their belief that this virtue is an acquirement obtained by care and learning.
[35] Indeed the whole institution of punishment has no other meaning.
It is in itself a proof that men think social virtue to be acquirable and acquired.
For no rational man ever punishes malefactors because they _have_ done wrong, or simply with a view to the past:--since what is already done cannot be undone.
He punishes with a view to the future, in order that neither the same man, nor others who see him punished, may be again guilty of similar wrong.
This opinion plainly implies the belief, that virtue is producible by training, since men punish for the purpose of prevention.
[36] [Footnote 35: Plato, Protag.
pp.
323-324.]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Protag.
p. 324 A-B.
[Greek: ou)dei\s ga\r kola/zei tou\s a)dikou=ntas pro\s tou/tô| to\n nou=n e)/chôn kai\ tou/tou e(/neka o(/ti ê)di/kêsen, o(/stis mê\ ô(/sper thêri/on a)logi/stôs timôrei=tai; o( de\ meta\ lo/gou e)picheirô=n kola/zein ou) tou= parelêlutho/tos e(/neka a)dikê/matos timôrei=tai--ou) ga\r a)\n to/ ge prachthe\n a)ge/nêton thei/ê--a)lla\ tou= me/llontos cha/rin, i(/na mê\ au)=this a)dikê/sê| mê/te au)to\s ou(=tos mê/te a)/llos o( tou=ton i)dô\n kolasthe/nta.
kai\ toiau/tên ei)=nai a)retê/n; _a)potropê=s gou=n e(/neka kola/zei_.]
This clear and striking exposition of the theory of punishment is one of the most memorable passages in Plato, or in any ancient author.
And if we are to believe the words which immediately follow, it was the theory universally accepted at that time--[Greek: tau/tên ou)=n tê\n do/xan pa/ntes e)/chousin, o(/soi per timôrou=ntai kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|.]
Compare Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 933, where the same doctrine is announced: Seneca, De Irâ, i.
16.
"Nam, ut Plato ait, nemo prudens punit, quia peccatum est, sed ne peccetur.
Revocari enim præterita non possunt: futura prohibentur."
Steinhart (Einleit.
zum Protag.
p. 423) pronounces a just encomium upon this theory of punishment, which, as he truly observes, combines together the purposes declared in the two modern theories--Reforming and Deterring.
He says further, however, that the same theory of punishment reappears in the Gorgias, which I do not think exact.
The purpose of punishment, as given in the Gorgias, is simply to cure a distempered patient of a terrible distemper, and thus to confer great benefit on him--but without any allusion to tutelary results as regards society.]
[Side-note: Why eminent men cannot make their sons eminent.]
I come now to your remaining argument, Sokrates.
You urge that citizens of eminent civil virtue cannot communicate that virtue to their own sons, to whom nevertheless they secure all the accomplishments which masters can teach.
Now I have already shown you that civil virtue is the one accomplishment needful,[37] which every man without exception must possess, on pain of punishment or final expulsion, if he be without it.
I have shown you, moreover that every one believes it to be communicable by teaching and attention.
How can you believe then that these excellent fathers teach their sons other things, but do not teach them this, the want of which entails such terrible penalties?
[Footnote 37: Plato, Protag.
p. 324 E. [Greek: Po/teron e)/sti ti e(/n, ê)\ ou)k e)/stin, ou)= a)nagkai=on pa/ntas tou\s poli/tas mete/chein, ei)/per me/llei po/lis ei)=nai?
e)n tou/tô| ga\r au(/tê lu/etai ê( a)pori/a ê(\n su\ a)porei=s.]]
[Side-note: Teaching by parents, schoolmaster, harpist, laws, dikastery, &c.] The fact is, they _do_ teach it: and that too with great pains.
[38] They begin to admonish and lecture their children, from the earliest years.
Father, mother, tutor, nurse, all vie with each other to make the child as good as possible: by constantly telling him on every occasion which arises, This is right--That is wrong--This is honourable--That is mean--This is holy--That is unholy--Do these things, abstain from those.
[39] If the child obeys them, it is well: if he do not, they straighten or rectify him, like a crooked piece of wood, by reproof and flogging.
Next, they send him to a schoolmaster, who teaches him letters and the harp; but who is enjoined to take still greater pains in watching over his orderly behaviour.
Here the youth is put to read, learn by heart, and recite, the compositions of able poets; full of exhortations to excellence and of stirring examples from the good men of past times.
[40] On the harp also, he learns the best songs, his conduct is strictly watched, and his emotions are disciplined by the influence of rhythmical and regular measure.
While his mind is thus trained to good, he is sent besides to the gymnastic trainer, to render his body a suitable instrument for it,[41] and to guard against failure of energy under the obligations of military service.
If he be the son of a wealthy man, he is sent to such training sooner, and remains in it longer.
As soon as he is released from his masters, the city publicly takes him in hand, compelling him to learn the laws prescribed by old and good lawgivers,[42] to live according to their prescriptions, and to learn both command and obedience, on pain of being punished.
Such then being the care bestowed, both publicly and privately, to foster virtue, can you really doubt, Sokrates, whether it be teachable?
You might much rather wonder if it were not so.
[43] [Footnote 38: Plato, Protag.
p. 325 B.]
[Footnote 39: Plato, Protag.
p. 325 D. [Greek: par' e(/kaston kai\ e)/rgon kai\ lo/gon dida/skontes kai\ e)ndeiknu/menoi o(/ti to\ me\n di/kaion, to\ de\ a)/dikon, kai\ to/de me\n kalo/n, to/de de\ ai)schro/n], &c.] [Footnote 40: Plato, Protag.
p. 325 E--326 A.
[Greek: paratithe/asin au)toi=s e)pi\ tô=n ba/thrôn a)naginô/skein poiêtô=n a)gathô=n poiê/mata kai\ e)kmantha/nein a)nagka/zousin, e)n oi(=s pollai\ me\n nouthetê/seis e)/neisi, pollai\ de\ die/xodoi kai\ e)/painoi kai\ e)gkô/mia palaiô=n a)ndrô=n a)gathô=n, i(/na o( pai=s zêlô=n mimê=tai kai\ o)re/gêtai toiou=tos gene/sthai.]]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Protag.
p. 326 B.
[Greek: i(/na ta\ sô/mata belti/ô e)/chontes u(pêretô=si tê=| dianoi/a| chrêstê=| ou)/sê|], &c.] [Footnote 42: Plato, Protag.
p. 326 D. [Greek: no/mous u(pogra/psasa, a)gathô=n kai\ palaiô=n nomothetô=n eu(rê/mata], &c.] [Footnote 43: Plato, Protag.
p. 326 E.] [Side-note: All learn virtue from the same teaching by all.
Whether a learner shall acquire more or less of it, depends upon his own individual aptitude.]
How does it happen, then, you ask, that excellent men so frequently have worthless sons, to whom, even with all virtue from these precautions, they cannot teach their own virtue?
This is not surprising, when you recollect what I have just said--That in regard to social virtue, every man must be a craftsman and producer; there must be no non-professional consumers.
[44] All of us are interested in rendering our neighbours just and virtuous, as well as in keeping them so.
Accordingly, every one, instead of being jealous, like a professional artist, of seeing his own accomplishments diffused, stands forward zealously in teaching justice and virtue to every one else, and in reproving all short-comers.
[45] Every man is a teacher of virtue to others: every man learns his virtue from such general teaching, public and private.
The sons of the best men learn it in this way, as well as others.
The instruction of their fathers counts for comparatively little, amidst such universal and paramount extraneous influence; so that it depends upon the aptitude and predispositions of the sons themselves, whether they turn out better or worse than others.
The son of a superior man will often turn out ill; while the son of a worthless man will prove meritorious.
So the case would be, if playing on the flute were the one thing needful for all citizens; if every one taught and enforced flute-playing upon all others, and every one learnt it from the teaching of all others.
[46] You would find that the sons of good or bad flute-players would turn out good or bad, not in proportion to the skill of their fathers, but according to their own natural aptitudes.
You would find however also, that all of them, even the most unskilful, would be accomplished flute-players, if compared with men absolutely untaught, who had gone through no such social training.
So too, in regard to justice and virtue.
[47] The very worst man brought up in your society and its public and private training, would appear to you a craftsman in these endowments, if you compared him with men who had been brought up without education, without laws, without dikasteries, without any general social pressure bearing on them, to enforce virtue: such men as the savages exhibited last year in the comedy of Pherekrates at the Lenæan festival.
If you were thrown among such men, you, like the chorus of misanthropes in that play, would look back with regret even upon the worst criminals of the society which you had left, such as Eurybatus and Phrynondas.
[48] [Footnote 44: Plato, Protag.
p. 326 E. [Greek: o(/ti tou/tou tou= pra/gmatos, tê=s a)retê=s, ei) me/llei po/lis ei)=nai, ou)de/na dei= _i)diôteu/ein_.]
It is to be regretted that there is no precise word to translate exactly the useful antithesis between [Greek: i)diô/tês] and [Greek: techni/tês] or [Greek: dêmiourgo/s].]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Protag.
p. 327 A.
[Greek: ei) kai\ tou=to kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a| pa=s pa/nta kai\ e)di/daske kai\ e)pe/plêtte to\n mê\ kalô=s au)lou=nta, kai\ mê\ e)phtho/nei tou/tou, ô(/sper nu=n tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ tô=n nomi/môn ou)dei\s phthonei= ou)d' a)pokru/ptetai, ô(/sper tô=n a)/llôn technêma/tôn--lusitelei= ga\r, oi)=mai, ê(mi=n ê( a)llê/lôn dikaiosu/nê kai\ a)retê\; dia\ tau=ta pa=s panti\ prothu/môs le/gei kai\ dida/skei kai\ ta\ di/kaia kai\ ta\ no/mima.]]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Protag.
p. 327 C.] [Footnote 47: Plato, Protag.
p. 327 C-D. [Greek: O(/stis soi a)dikô/tatos phai/netai a)/nthrôpos tô=n e)n no/mois kai\ a)nthrô/pois tethramme/nôn, di/kaion au)to\n ei)=nai kai\ _dêmiourgo\n tou/tou tou= pra/gmatos_, ei) de/oi au)to\n kri/nesthai pro\s a)nthrô/pous, oi(=s mê/te paidei/a e)sti\ mê/te dikastê/ria mê/te no/moi mê/te a)na/gkê mêdemi/a dia\ panto\s a)nagka/zoousa a)retê=s e)pimelei=sthai.]]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Protag.
p. 327 D.] [Side-note: Analogy of learning vernacular Greek.
No special teacher thereof.
Protagoras teaches virtue somewhat better than others.]
But now, Sokrates, you are over-nice, because all of us are teachers of virtue, to the best of every man's power; while no particular individual appears to teach it specially and _ex professo_[49] By the same analogy, if you asked who was the teacher for speaking our vernacular Greek, no one special person could be pointed out:[50] nor would you find out who was the finishing teacher for those sons of craftsmen who learnt the rudiments of their art from their own fathers--while if the son of any non-professional person learns a craft, it is easy to assign the person by whom he was taught.
[51] So it is in respect to virtue.
All of us teach and enforce virtue to the best of our power; and we ought to be satisfied if there be any one of us ever so little superior to the rest, in the power of teaching it.
Of such men I believe myself to be one.
[52] I can train a man into an excellent citizen, better than others, and in a manner worthy not only of the fee which I ask, but even of a still greater remuneration, in the judgment of the pupil himself.
This is the stipulation which I make with him: when he has completed his course, he is either to pay me the fee which I shall demand--or if he prefers, he may go into a temple, make oath as to his own estimate of the instruction imparted to him, and pay me according to that estimate.
[53] [Footnote 49: Plato, Protag.
p. 327 E. [Greek: nu=n de\ trupha=|s, ô)= Sô/krates, dio/ti pa/ntes dida/skaloi/ ei)sin a)retê=s, kath' o(/son du/natai e(/kastos, kai\ ou)dei/s soi phai/netai.]]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Protag.
p. 327 E. [Greek: ei)=th' ô(/s per a)\n ei) zêtoi=s ti/s dida/skalos tou= e(llêni/zein, ou)d' a)\n ei(=s phanei/ê.]]
[Footnote 51: Plato, Protag.
p. 328 A.]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Protag.
p. 328 B.
[Greek: A)lla\ ka)\n ei) o)li/gon e)/sti tis o(/stis diaphe/rei ê(mô=n probiba/sai ei)s a)retê/n, a)gapêto/n.
Ô(=n dê\ e)gô\ oi)=mai ei(=s ei)=nai], &c.] [Footnote 53: Plato, Protag.
p. 328 B.]
[Side-note: The sons of great artists do not themselves become great artists.]
I have thus proved to you, Sokrates--That virtue is teachable--That the Athenians account it to be teachable--That there is nothing wonderful in finding the sons of good men worthless, and the sons of worthless men good.
Indeed this is true no less about the special professions, than about the common accomplishment, virtue.
The sons of Polyklêtus the statuary, and of many other artists, are nothing as compared with their fathers.
[54] [Footnote 54: Plato, Protag.
p. 328 C.] * * * * * [Side-note: Remarks upon the mythe and discourse.
They explain the manner in which the established sentiment of a community propagates and perpetuates itself.]
Such is the discourse composed by Plato and attributed to the Platonic Protagoras--showing that virtue is teachable, and intended to remove the difficulties proposed by Sokrates.
It is an exposition of some length: and because it is put into the mouth of a Sophist, many commentators presume, as a matter of course, that it must be a manifestation of some worthless quality:[55] that it is either empty verbiage, or ostentatious self-praise, or low-minded immorality.
I am unable to perceive in the discourse any of these demerits.
I think it one of the best parts of the Platonic writings, as an exposition of the growth and propagation of common sense--the common, established, ethical and social sentiment, among a community: sentiment neither dictated in the beginning, by any scientific or artistic lawgiver, nor personified in any special guild of craftsmen apart from the remaining community--nor inculcated by any formal professional teachers--nor tested by analysis--nor verified by comparison with any objective standard: but self-sown and self-asserting, stamped, multiplied, and kept in circulation, by the unpremeditated conspiracy of the general[56] public--the omnipresent agency of King Nomos and his numerous volunteers.
[Footnote 55: So Serranus (ad 326 E), who has been followed by many later critics.
"Quæstio est, Virtusne doceri possit?
Quod instituit demonstrare Sophista, sed ineptissimis argumentis et quæ contra seipsum faciant."
To me this appears the reverse of the truth.
But even if it were true, no blame could fall on Protagoras.
We should only be warranted in concluding that it suited the scheme of Plato here to make him talk nonsense.]
[Footnote 56: This is what the Platonic Sokrates alludes to in the Phædon and elsewhere.
[Greek: oi( tê\n dêmotikê\n te kai\ politikê\n a)retê\n e)pitetêdeuko/tes, ê(\n dê\ kalou=si sôphrosu/nên te kai\ dikaiosu/nêv, e)x e)/thous te kai\ mele/tês gegonui=an, a)/neu philosophi/as te kai\ nou=.]
Phædon, p. 82 B; compare the same dialogue, p. 68 C; also Republic, x. p. 619 C--[Greek: e)/thei a)/neu philosophi/as a)retê=s meteilêpho/ta].]
The account given by Mr. James Mill (Fragment on Mackintosh, p. 259-260) of the manner in which the established morality of a society is transmitted and perpetuated, coincides completely with the discourse of the Platonic Protagoras.
The passage is too long to be cited: I give here only the concluding words, which describe the [Greek: dêmotikê\ a)retê\ a)/neu philosophi/as]-"In this manner it is that men, in the social state, acquire the habits of moral acting, and certain affections connected with it, before they are capable of reflecting upon the grounds which recommend the acts either to praise or blame.
Nearly at this point the greater part of them remain: continuing to perform moral acts and to abstain from the contrary, chiefly from the habits which they have acquired, and the authority upon which they originally acted: though it is not possible that any man should come to the years and blessing of reason, without perceiving at least in an indistinct and general way, the advantage which mankind derive from their acting towards one another in one way rather than another."]
[Side-note: Antithesis of Protagoras and Sokrates.
Whether virtue is to be assimilated to a special art.]
In many of the Platonic dialogues, Sokrates is made to dwell upon the fact that there are no recognised professional teachers of virtue; and to ground upon this fact a doubt, whether virtue be really teachable.
But the present dialogue is the only one in which the fact is accounted for, and the doubt formally answered.
There are neither special teachers, nor professed pupils, nor determinate periods of study, nor definite lessons or stadia, for the acquirement of virtue, as there are for a particular art or craft: the reason being, that in that department every man must of necessity be a practitioner, more or less perfectly: every man has an interest in communicating it to his neighbour: hence every man is constantly both teacher and learner.
Herein consists one main and real distinction between virtue and the special arts; an answer to the view most frequently espoused by the Platonic Sokrates, assimilating virtue to a professional craft, which ought to have special teachers, and a special season of apprenticeship, if it is to be acquired at all.
The speech is censured by some critics as prolix.
But to me it seems full of matter and argument, exceedingly free from superfluous rhetoric.
The fable with which it opens presents of course the poetical ornament which belongs to that manner of handling.
It is however fully equal, in point of perspicuity as well as charm--in my judgment, it is even superior to any other fable in Plato.
[Side-note: Procedure of Sokrates in regard to the discourse of Protagoras--he compliments it as an exposition, and analyses some of the fundamental assumptions.]
When the harangue, lecture, or sermon, of Protagoras is concluded, Sokrates both expresses his profound admiration of it, and admits the conclusion--That virtue is teachable--to be made out, as well as it can be made out by any continuous exposition.
[57] In fact, the speaker has done all that could be done by Perikles or the best orator of the assembly.
He has given a long series of reasonings in support of his own case, without stopping to hear the doubts of opponents.
He has sailed along triumphantly upon the stream of public sentiment, accepting all the established beliefs--appealing to his hearers with all those familiar phrases, round which the most powerful associations are grouped--and taking for granted that justice, virtue, good, evil, &c., are known, indisputable, determinate data, fully understood, and unanimously interpreted.
He has shown that the community take great pains, both publicly and privately, to inculcate and enforce virtue: that is, what _they_ believe in and esteem as virtue.
But is their belief well founded?
Is that which they esteem, really virtue?
Do they and their elegant spokesman Protagoras, know what virtue is?
If so, _how_ do they know it, and can they explain it?
[Footnote 57: Plato, Protag.
pp.
328-329.
Very different indeed is the sentiment of the principal Platonic commentators.
Schleiermacher will not allow the mythus of Protagoras to be counted among the Platonic mythes: he says that it is composed in the style of Protagoras, and perhaps copied from some real composition of that Sophist.
He finds in it nothing but a "grobmaterialistiche Denkungsart, die über die sinnliche Erfahrung nicht hinaus philosophirt" (Einleitung zum Protagoras, vol.
i. pp.
233-234).
To the like purpose Ast (Plat.
Leb.
p. 71)--who tells us that what is expressed in the mythus is, "the vulgar and mean sentiment and manner of thought of the Sophist: for it deduces every thing, both arts and the social union itself, from human wants and necessity".
Apparently these critics, when they treat this as a proof of meanness and vulgarity, have forgotten that the Platonic Sokrates himself does exactly the same thing in the Republic--deriving the entire social union from human necessities (Republ.
ii.
369 C).
K. F. Hermann is hardly less severe upon the Protagorean discourse (Gesch.
und Syst.
der Plat.
Phil.
p. 460).
For my part, I take a view altogether opposed to these learned persons.
I think the discourse one of the most striking and instructive portions of the Platonic writings: and if I could believe that it was the composition of Protagoras himself, my estimation of him would be considerably raised.
Steinhart pronounces a much more rational and equitable judgment than Ast and Schleiermacher, upon the discourse of Protagoras (Einleitung zum Prot.
pp.
422-423).]
[Side-note: One purpose of the dialogue.
To contrast continuous discourse with short cross-examining question and answer.]
This is the point upon which Sokrates now brings his Elenchus to bear: his method of short question and answer.
We have seen what long continuous speaking can do: we have now to see what short cross-questioning can do.
The antithesis between the two is at least one main purpose of Plato--if it be not even _the_ purpose (as Schleiermacher supposes it to be) in this memorable dialogue.
[Side-note: Questions by Sokrates--Whether virtue is one and indivisible, or composed of different parts?
Whether the parts are homogeneous or heterogeneous?]
After your copious exposition, Protagoras (says Sokrates), I have only one little doubt remaining, which you will easily explain.
[58] You have several times spoken of justice, moderation, holiness, &c., as if they all, taken collectively, made up virtue.
Do you mean that virtue is a Whole, and that these three names denote distinct parts of it?
Or are the three names all equivalent to virtue, different names for one and are the same thing?
_Prot._--They are names signifying distinct parts of virtue.
_Sokr._--Are these parts like the parts of the face,--eyes, nose, mouth, ears--each part not only distinct from the rest, but having its own peculiar properties?
Or are they like the parts of gold, homogeneous with each other and with the whole, differing only in magnitude?
_Prot._--The former.
_Sokr._--Then some men may possess one part, some another.
Or is it necessary that he who possesses one part, should possess all?
_Prot._--By no means necessary.
Some men are courageous, but unjust: others are just, but not intelligent.
_Sokr._--Wisdom and courage then, both of them, are parts of virtue?
_Prot._--They are so.
Wisdom is the greatest of the parts: but no one of the parts is the exact likeness of another: each of them has its own peculiar property.
[59] [Footnote 58: Plato, Protag.
pp.
328 E--329 B.
[Greek: plê\n smikro/n ti/ moi e)mpodô/n, o(\ dê=lon o(/ti Prôtago/ras r(a|di/ôs e)pekdida/xei.
.
.
.
smikrou= tinos e)ndeê/s ei)mi pa/nt' e)/chein], &c.] [Footnote 59: Plato, Protag, pp.
329-330.]
[Side-note: Whether justice is just, and holiness holy?
How far justice is like to holiness?
Sokrates protests against an answer, "If you please".]
_Sokr._--Now let us examine what sort of thing each of these parts is.
Tell me--is justice some thing, or no thing?
I think it is some thing: are you of the same opinion?
[60] _Prot._--Yes.
_Sokr._--Now this thing which you call _justice_: is it itself just or unjust?
I should say that it was just: what do you say?
[61] _Prot._--I think so too.
_Sokr._--Holiness also is some thing: is the thing called _holiness_, itself holy or unholy?
As for me, if any one were to ask me the question, I should reply--Of course it is: nothing else can well be holy, if holiness itself be not holy.
Would you say the same?
_Prot._--Unquestionably.
_Sokr._--Justice being admitted to be just, and holiness to be holy--do not you think that justice also is holy, and that holiness is just?
If so, how can you reconcile that with your former declaration, that no one of the parts of virtue is like any other part?
_Prot._--I do not altogether admit that justice is holy, and that holiness is just.
But the matter is of little moment: if you please, let both of them stand as admitted.
_Sokr._--Not so:[62] I do not want the debate to turn upon an "If you please": You and I are the debaters, and we shall determine the debate best without "Ifs".
_Prot._--I say then that justice and holiness are indeed, in a certain way, like each other; so also there is a point of analogy between white and black,[63] hard and soft, and between many other things which no one would pronounce to be like generally.
_Sokr._--Do you think then that justice and holiness have only a small point of analogy between them?
_Prot._--Not exactly so: but I do not concur with you when you declare that one is like the other.
_Sokr._--Well then!
since you seem to follow with some repugnance this line of argument, let us enter upon another.
[64] [Footnote 60: Plato, Protag.
p. 330 B.
[Greek: koinê=| skepsô/metha _poi=o/n ti au)tô=n e)stin e(/kaston_.
prô=ton me\n to\ toio/nde; ê( dikaiosu/nê pra=gma/ ti/ e)stin?
ê)\ ou)de\n pra=gma?
e)moi\ me\n ga\r dokei=; ti/ de\ soi/?]]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Protag.
p. 330 C. [Greek: tou=to to\ pra=gma o(/ ô)noma/sate a)/rti, ê( dikaiosu/nê, au)to\ tou=to di/kaio/n e)stin ê)\ a)/dikon?]]
[Footnote 62: Plato, Protag.
p. 331 C. [Greek: ei) ga\r bou/lei, e)/stô ê(mi=n kai\ dikaiosu/nê o(/sion kai\ o(sio/tês di/kaion.
Mê/ moi, ê(=n d' e)gô/; ou)de\n ga\r de/omai to\ "ei/ bou/lei" tou=to kai\ "_ei) soi dokei=_" e)le/gchesthai, a)ll' e)me/ te kai\ se/.]
This passage seems intended to illustrate the indifference of Protagoras for dialectic forms and strict accuracy of discussion.
The [Greek: a)kribologi/a] of Sokrates and Plato was not merely unfamiliar but even distasteful to rhetorical and practical men.
Protagoras is made to exhibit himself as thinking the distinctions drawn by Sokrates too nice, not worth attending to.
Many of the contemporaries of both shared this opinion.
One purpose of our dialogue is to bring such antitheses into view.]
[Footnote 63: Plat.
Prot.
p. 331 D.] [Footnote 64: Plat.
Prot.
p. 332 A.]
[Side-note: Intelligence and moderation are identical, because they have the same contrary.]
Sokrates then attempts to show that intelligence and moderation are identical with each other ([Greek: sophi/a] and [Greek: sôphrosu/nê]).
The proof which he produces, elicited by several questions, is--that both the one and the other are contrary to folly ([Greek: a)phrosu/nê]), and, that as a general rule, nothing can have more than one single contrary.
[65] [Footnote 65: Plat.
Protag.
p.
332.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Insufficient reasons given by Sokrates.
He seldom cares to distinguish different meanings of the same term.]
Sokrates thus seems to himself to have made much progress in proving all the names of different virtues to be names of one and the same thing.
Moderation and intelligence are shown to be the same: justice and holiness had before been shown to be nearly the same:[66] though we must recollect that this last point had not been admitted by Protagoras.
It must be confessed however that neither the one nor the other is proved by any conclusive reasons.
In laying down the maxim--that nothing can have more than one single contrary--Plato seems to have forgotten that the same term may be used in two different senses.
Because the term folly ([Greek: a)phrosu/nê]), is used sometimes to denote the opposite of moderation ([Greek: sôphrosu/nê]), sometimes the opposite of intelligence ([Greek: sophi/a]), it does not follow that moderation and intelligence are the same thing.
[67] Nor does he furnish more satisfactory proof of the other point, _viz._: That holiness and justice are the same, or as much alike as possible.
The intermediate position which is assumed to form the proof, _viz._: That holiness is holy, and that justice is just--is either tautological, or unmeaning; and cannot serve as a real proof of any thing.
It is indeed so futile, that if it were found in the mouth of Protagoras and not in that of Sokrates, commentators would probably have cited it as an illustration of the futilities of the Sophists.
As yet therefore little has been done to elucidate the important question to which Sokrates addresses himself--What is the extent of analogy between the different virtues?
Are they at bottom one and the same thing under different names?
In what does the analogy or the sameness consist?
[Footnote 66: Plato, Protag.
p. 338 B.
[Greek: sche/don ti tau)to\n o)/n.]]
[Footnote 67: Aristotle would probably have avoided such a mistake as this.
One important point (as I have already remarked, vol.
ii.
p. 170) in which he is superior to Plato is, in being far more careful to distinguish the different meanings of the same word--[Greek: ta\ pollachô=s lego/mena].
Plato rarely troubles himself to notice such distinction, and seems indeed generally unaware of it.
He constantly ridicules Prodikus, who tried to distinguish words apparently synonymous.]
[Side-note: Protagoras is puzzled, and becomes irritated.]
But though little progress has been made in determining the question mooted by Sokrates, enough has been done to discompose and mortify Protagoras.
The general tenor of the dialogue is, to depict this man, so eloquent in popular and continuous exposition, as destitute of the analytical acumen requisite to meet cross-examination, and of promptitude for dealing with new aspects of the case, on the very subjects which form the theme of his eloquence.
He finds himself brought round, by a series of short questions, to a conclusion which--whether conclusively proved or not--is proved in a manner binding upon him, since he has admitted all the antecedent premisses.
He becomes dissatisfied with himself, answers with increasing reluctance,[68] and is at last so provoked as to break out of the limits imposed upon a respondent.
[Footnote 68: Plato, Protag.
pp.
333 B, 335 A.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Sokrates presses Protagoras farther.
His purpose is, to test opinions and not persons.
Protagoras answers with angry prolixity.]
Meanwhile Sokrates pursues his examination, with intent to prove that justice ([Greek: dikaiosu/nê]) and moderation ([Greek: sôphrosu/nê]) are identical.
Does a man who acts unjustly conduct himself with moderation?
I should be ashamed (replies Protagoras) to answer in the affirmative, though many people say so.
_Sokr._--It is indifferent to me whether you yourself think so or not, provided only you consent to make answer.
What I principally examine is the opinion itself: though it follows perhaps as a consequence, that I the questioner, and the respondent along with me, undergo examination at the same time.
[69] You answer then (though without adopting the opinion) that men who act unjustly sometimes behave with moderation, or with intelligence: that is, that they follow a wise policy in committing injustice.
_Prot._--Be it so.
_Sokr._--You admit too that there exist certain things called good things.
Are those things good, which are profitable to mankind?
_Prot._--By Zeus, I call some things good, even though they be not profitable to men (replies Protagoras, with increasing acrimony).
[70] _Sokr._--Do you mean those things which are not profitable to any _man_, or those which are not profitable to any creature whatever?
Do you call these latter _good_ also?
_Prot._--Not at all: but there are many things profitable to men, yet unprofitable or hurtful to different animals.
Good is of a character exceedingly diversified and heterogeneous.
[71] [Footnote 69: Plato, Protag.
p. 333 C. [Greek: to\n ga\r lo/gon e)/gôge ma/lista e)xeta/zô, sumbai/nei me/ntoi i)/sôs kai\ e)me\ to\n e)rôtô=nta kai\ to\n e)rôtô/menon e)xeta/zesthai.]
Here again we find Plato drawing special attention to the conditions of dialectic debate.]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Protag.
p. 333 E.] [Footnote 71: Plato, Protag.
p. 334 B.
[Greek: Ou(/tô de\ poiki/lon ti/ e)sti to\ a)gatho\n kai\ pantodapo/n], &c. The explanation here given by Protagoras of _good_ is the same as that which is given by the historical Sokrates himself in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iii.
8).
Things called good are diverse in the highest degree; but they are all called _good_ because they all contribute in some way to human security, relief, comfort, or prosperity.
To one or other of these ends _good_, in all its multifarious forms, is relative.]
[Side-note: Remonstrance of Sokrates against long answers as inconsistent with the laws of dialogue.
Protagoras persists.
Sokrates rises to depart.]
Protagoras is represented as giving this answer at considerable length, and in a rhetorical manner, so as to elicit applause from the hearers.
[72] Upon this Sokrates replies, "I am a man of short memory, and if any one speaks at length, I forget what he has said.
If you wish me to follow you, I must entreat you to make shorter answers."
_Prot._--What do you mean by asking me to make shorter answers?
Do you mean shorter than the case requires?
_Sokr._--No, certainly not.
_Prot._--But who is to be judge of the brevity necessary, you or I?
_Sokr._--I have understood that you profess to be master and teacher both of long speech and of short speech: what I beg is, that you will employ only short speech, if you expect me to follow you.
_Prot._--Why, Sokrates, I have carried on many debates in my time; and if, as you ask me now, I had always talked just as my opponent wished, I should never have acquired any reputation at all.
_Sokr._--Be it so: in that case I must retire; for as to long speaking, I am incompetent: I can neither make long speeches, nor follow them.
[73] [Footnote 72: Plato, Protag.
p. 334 D.] [Footnote 73: Plato, Prot.
pp.
334 E, 335 A-C.] [Side-note: Interference of Kallias to get the debate continued.
Promiscuous conversation.
Alkibiades declares that Protagoras ought to acknowledge superiority of Sokrates in dialogue.]
Here Sokrates rises to depart; but Kallias, the master of the house, detains him, and expresses an earnest wish that the debate may be continued.
A promiscuous conversation ensues, in which most persons present take part.
Alkibiades, as the champion of Sokrates, gives, what seems really to be the key of the dialogue, when he says--"Sokrates admits that he has no capacity for long speaking, and that he is no match therein for Protagoras.
But as to dialectic debate, or administering and resisting cross-examination, I should be surprised if any one were a match for him.
If Protagoras admits that on this point he is inferior, Sokrates requires no more: if he does not, let him continue the debate: but he must not lengthen his answers so that hearers lose the thread of the subject."
[Side-note: Claim of a special _locus standi_ and professorship for Dialectic, apart from Rhetoric.]
This remark of Alkibiades, speaking altogether as a vehement partisan of Sokrates, brings to view at least one purpose--if not the main purpose--of Plato in the dialogue.
"Sokrates acknowledges the superiority of Protagoras in rhetoric: if Protagoras acknowledges the superiority of Sokrates in dialectic, Sokrates is satisfied.
"[74] An express _locus standi_ is here claimed for dialectic, and a recognised superiority for its professors on their own ground.
Protagoras professes to be master both of long speech and of short speech: but in the last he must recognise a superior.
[Footnote 74: Plat.
Prot.
p. 336 C-D.] [Side-note: Sokrates is prevailed upon to continue, and invites Protagoras to question him.]
Kritias, Prodikus, and Hippias all speak (each in a manner of his own) deprecating marked partisanship on either side, exhorting both parties to moderation, and insisting that the conversation shall be continued.
At length Sokrates consents to remain, yet on condition that Protagoras shall confine himself within the limits of the dialectic procedure.
Protagoras (he says) shall first question me as long as he pleases: when he has finished, I will question him.
The Sophist, though at first reluctant, is constrained, by the instance of those around, to accede to this proposition.
[75] [Footnote 75: Plat.
Prot.
pp.
337-338.]
[Side-note: Protagoras extols the importance of knowing the works of the poets, and questions about parts of a song of Simonides.
Dissenting opinions about the interpretation of the song.]
For the purpose of questioning, Protagoras selects a song of Simonides: prefacing it with a remark, that the most important accomplishment of a cultivated man consists in being thorough master of the works of the poets, so as to understand and appreciate them correctly, and answer all questions respecting them.
[76] Sokrates intimates that he knows and admires the song: upon which Protagoras proceeds to point out two passages in it which contradict each other, and asks how Sokrates can explain or justify such contradiction.
[77] The latter is at first embarrassed, and invokes the aid of Prodikus; who interferes to uphold the consistency of his fellow-citizen Simonides, but is made to speak (as elsewhere by Plato) in a stupid and ridiculous manner.
After a desultory string of remarks,[78] with disputed interpretation of particular phrases and passages of the song, but without promise of any result--Sokrates offers to give an exposition of the general purpose of the whole song, in order that the company may see how far he has advanced in that accomplishment which Protagoras had so emphatically extolled--complete mastery of the works of the poets.
[79] [Footnote 76: Plat.
Prot.
p. 339 A.
[Greek: ê(gou=mai e)gô\ a)ndri\ paidei/as me/giston me/ros ei)=nai, peri\ e)pô=n deino\n ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 77: Plat.
Prot.
p. 339 C-D.] [Footnote 78: Plat.
Prot.
pp.
340-341.]
[Footnote 79: Plat.
Prot.
p. 342 A.
[Greek: ei) bou/lei labei=n mou pei=ran o(/pôs e)/chô, o(\ su\ le/geis tou=to, peri\ e)pô=n.]]
[Side-note: Long speech of Sokrates, expounding the purpose of the song, and laying down an ironical theory about the numerous concealed sophists at Krete and Sparta, masters of short speech.]
He then proceeds to deliver a long harangue, the commencement of which appears to be a sort of counter-part and parody of the first speech delivered by Protagoras in this dialogue.
That Sophist had represented that the sophistical art was ancient:[80] and that the poets, from Homer downward, were Sophists, but dreaded the odium of the name, and professed a different avocation with another title.
Sokrates here tells us that philosophy was more ancient still in Krete and Sparta, and that there were more Sophists (he does not distinguish between the Sophist and the philosopher), female as well as male, in those regions, than anywhere else: but that they concealed their name and profession, for fear that others should copy them and acquire the like eminence:[81] that they pretended to devote themselves altogether to arms and gymnastic--a pretence whereby (he says) all the other Greeks were really deluded.
The special characteristic of these philosophers or Sophists was, short and emphatic speech--epigram shot in at the seasonable moment, and thoroughly prostrating an opponent.
[82] The Seven Wise Men, among whom Pittakus was one, were philosophers on this type, of supreme excellence: which they showed by inscribing their memorable brief aphorisms at Delphi.
So great was the celebrity which Pittakus acquired by his aphorism, that Simonides the poet became jealous, and composed this song altogether for the purpose of discrediting him.
Having stated this general view, Sokrates illustrates it by going through the song, with exposition and criticism of several different passages.
[83] As soon as Sokrates has concluded, Hippias[84] compliments him, and says that he too has a lecture ready prepared on the same song: which he would willingly deliver: but Alkibiades and the rest beg him to postpone it.
[Footnote 80: Plat.
Prot.
pp.
316-317.]
[Footnote 81: Plat.
Prot.
p.
342.]
[Footnote 82: Plat.
Prot.
p. 342 E, 343 B-C. [Greek: O(/ti ou(=tos o( tro/pos ê)=n tô=n palaiô=n tê=s philosophi/as, brachulogi/a tis Lakônikê/.]]
[Footnote 83: Plat.
Prot.
pp.
344-347.]
[Footnote 84: Plat.
Prot.
p.
347.]
[Side-note: Character of this speech--its connection with the dialogue, and its general purpose.
Sokrates inferior to Protagoras in continuous speech.]
No remark is made by any one present, either upon the circumstance that Sokrates, after protesting against long speeches, has here delivered one longer by far than the first speech of Protagoras, and more than half as long as the second, which contains a large theory--nor upon the sort of interpretation that he bestows upon the Simonidean song.
That interpretation is so strange and forced--so violent in distorting the meaning of the poet--so evidently predetermined by the resolution to find Platonic metaphysics in a lyric effusion addressed to a Thessalian prince[85]--that if such an exposition had been found under the name of Protagoras, critics would have dwelt upon it as an additional proof of dishonest perversions by the Sophists.
[86] It appears as if Plato, intending in this dialogue to set out the contrast between long or continuous speech (sophistical, rhetorical, poetical) represented by Protagoras, and short, interrogatory speech (dialectical) represented by Sokrates--having moreover composed for Protagoras in the earlier part of the dialogue, an harangue claiming venerable antiquity for his own accomplishment--has thought it right to compose for Sokrates a pleading with like purpose, to put the two accomplishments on a par.
And if that pleading includes both pointless irony and misplaced comparisons (especially what is said about the Spartans)--we must remember that Sokrates has expressly renounced all competition with Protagoras in continuous speech, and that he is here handling the weapon in which he is confessedly inferior.
Plato secures a decisive triumph to dialectic, and to Sokrates as representing it: but he seems content here to leave Sokrates on the lower ground as a rhetorician.
[Footnote 85: Especially his explanation of [Greek: e(kô\n e)rdê=|] (p. 345 D.).
Heyne (Opuscula, i. p. 160) remarks upon the strange interpretation given by Sokrates of the Simonidean song.
Compare Plato in Lysis, p. 212 E, and in Alkib.
ii.
p. 147 D. In both these cases, Sokrates cites passages of poetry, assigning to them a sense which their authors plainly did not intend them to bear.
Heindorf in his note on the Lysis (l. c.) observes--"Videlicet, ut exeat sententia, quam Solon ne somniavit quidem, versuum horum structuram, neglecto plané sermonis usu, hanc statuit.--Cujusmodi interpretationis aliud est luculentum exemplum in Alcib.
ii.
p. 147 D." See also Heindorf's notes on the Charmidês, p. 163 B; Lachês, p. 191 B; and Lysis, p. 214 D. M. Boeckh observes (ad Pindar.
Isthm.
v. p. 528) respecting an allusion made by Pindar to Hesiod-"Num malé intellexit poeta intelligentissimus perspicua verba Hesiodi?
Non credo: sed bene sciens, consulto alium sensum intulit, suo consilio accommodatum!
Simile exemplum offert gravissimus auctor Plato Theætet.
p. 155 D." Stallbaum in his note on the Theætêtus adopts this remark of Boeckh.
Groen van Prinsterer gives a similar opinion.
(Prosopographia Platonica, p.
17.)]
[Footnote 86: K. F. Hermann observes (Gesch.
der Plat.
Philos, p. 460) that Sokrates, in his interpretation of the Simonidean song, shows that he can play the Sophist as well as other people can.]
[Side-note: Sokrates depreciates the value of debates on the poets.
Their meaning is always disputed, and you can never ask from themselves what it is.
Protagoras consents reluctantly to resume the task of answering.]
Moreover, when Sokrates intends to show himself off as a master of poetical lore ([Greek: peri\ e)pô=n deino\s]), he at the same time claims a right of interpreting the poets in his own way.
He considers the poets either as persons divinely inspired, who speak fine things without rational understanding (we have seen this in the Apology and the Ion)--or as men of superior wisdom, who deliver valuable truth lying beneath the surface, and not discernible by vulgar eyes.
Both these views differ from that of literal interpretation, which is here represented by Protagoras and Prodikus.
And these two Sophists are here contrasted with Sokrates as interpreters of the poets.
Protagoras and Prodikus look upon poetical compositions as sources of instruction: and seek to interpret them literally, as an intelligent hearer would have understood them when they were sung or recited for the first time.
Towards that end, discrimination of the usual or grammatical meaning of words was indispensable.
Sokrates, on the contrary, disregards the literal interpretation, derides verbal distinctions as useless, or twists them into harmony with his own purpose: Simonides and other poets are considered as superior men, and even as inspired men in whose verses wisdom and virtue must be embodied and discoverable[87]--only that they are given in an obscure and enigmatical manner: requiring to be extracted by the divination of the philosopher, who alone knows what wisdom and virtue are.
It is for the philosopher to show his ingenuity by detecting the traces of them.
This is what Sokrates does with the song of Simonides.
He discovers in it supposed underlying thoughts ([Greek: u(ponoi/as]):[88] distinctions of Platonic Metaphysics (between [Greek: ei)=nai] and [Greek: gene/sthai]), and principles of Platonic Ethics ([Greek: ou)dei\s e(/kô kako/s])--he proceeds to point out passages in which they are to be found, and explains the song conformably to them, in spite of much violence to the obvious meaning and verbal structure.
[89] But though Sokrates accepts, when required, the task of discussing what is said by the poets, and deals with them according to his own point of view--yet he presently lets us see that they are witnesses called into court by his opponent and not by himself.
Alkibiades urges that the debate which had been interrupted shall be resumed and Sokrates himself requests Protagoras to consent.
"To debate about the compositions of poets" (says Sokrates), "is to proceed as silly and common-place men do at their banquets: where they cannot pass the time without hiring musical or dancing girls.
Noble and well-educated guests, on the contrary, can find enough to interest them in their own conversation, even if they drink ever so much wine.
[90] Men such as we are, do not require to be amused by singers nor to talk about the poets, whom no one can ask what they mean; and who, when cited by different speakers, are affirmed by one to mean one thing, and by another to mean something else, without any decisive authority to appeal to.
Such men as you and I ought to lay aside the poets, and test each other by colloquy of our own.
If you wish to persist in questioning, I am ready to answer: if not, consent to answer me, and let us bring the interrupted debate to a close.
"[91] [Footnote 87: See Plato, Phædrus, p. 245 A-B; Apol.
p. 22 B-C; Ion, pp.
533-534.
Compare the distinction drawn in Timæus, p. 72 A-B, between the [Greek: ma/ntis] and the [Greek: prophê/tês].]
[Footnote 88: About the [Greek: u(po/noiai] ascribed to the poets, see Repub.
ii.
p. 378 D.; Xen.
Sympos.
iii.
6; and F. A. Wolf, Prolegom.
Homer.
p. clxii.-clxiv.
F. A. Wolf remarks, respecting the various allegorical interpretations of Homer and other Greek poets-"Sed nec prioribus illis, sive allegorica et anagogica somnia sua ipsi crediderunt, sive ab aliis duntaxat credi voluerunt, idonea deest excusatio.
Ita enim ratio comparata est, ut libris, quos a teneris statim annis cognoscimus, omnes propé nostras nostræque ætatis opiniones subjiciamus: ac si illi jampridem populari usu consecrati sunt, ipsa obstat veneratio, quominus in iis absurda et ridicula inesse credamus.
Lenimus ergo atque adeo ornamus interpretando, quicquid proprio sensu non ferendum videtur.
Atque ita factum est omni tempore in libris iis, qui pro sacris habiti sunt."
The distinction was similar in character, and even more marked in respect of earnest reciprocal antipathy, between the different schools of the Jews in Alexandria and Palestine about the interpretation of the Pentateuch.
1.
Those who interpreted literally, [Greek: kata\ tê\n r(êtê\n dia/noian].
2.
Those who set aside the literal interpretation, and explained the text upon a philosophy of their own, above the reach of the vulgar (Eusebius, Præp.
Ev.
viii.
10).
Some admitted both the two interpretations, side by side.
Respecting these allegorising schools of the Hellenistic Jews, from Aristobulus (150 B.C.)
down to Philo, see the learned and valuable work of Gfrörer--_Philo und die Jüdisch.-Alexandr.
Theosophie_, vol.
i. pp.
84-86, ii.
p. 356 seq.]
[Footnote 89: Plat.
Prot.
p.
345.]
[Footnote 90: Plato, Prot.
p. 347 D. [Greek: ka)\n ma/nu polu\n oi)=non pi/ôsin]--a phrase which will be found suitably illustrated by the persistent dialectic of Sokrates, even at the close of the Platonic Symposion, after he has swallowed an incredible quantity of wine.]
[Footnote 91: Plat.
Prot.
pp.
347-348.
This remark--that the poet may be interpreted in many different ways, and that you cannot produce him in court to declare or defend his own meaning--is highly significant, in regard to the value set by Sokrates on living conversation and dialectic.]
[Side-note: Purpose of Sokrates to sift difficulties which he really feels in his own mind.
Importance of a colloquial companion for this purpose.]
In spite of this appeal, Protagoras is still unwilling to resume, and is only forced to do so by a stinging taunt from Alkibiades, enforced by requests from Kallias and others.
He is depicted as afraid of Sokrates, who, as soon as consent is given, recommences the discussion by saying--"Do not think, Protagoras, that I have any other purpose in debating, except to sift through and through, in conjunction with you, difficulties which puzzle my own mind.
Two of us together can do more in this way than any one singly.
[92] [Footnote 92: Plat.
Prot.
p. 348 C. [Greek: mê\ oi)/ou diale/gesthai me/ soi a)/llo ti boulo/menon ê)\ a)\ au)to\s a)porô=, e(ka/stote tau=ta diaske/psasthai.]
The remark here given should be carefully noted in appreciating the Sokratic frame of mind.
The cross-examination which he bestows, is not that of one who himself knows--and who only gets up artificial difficulties to ascertain whether others know as much as he does.
On the contrary, it proceeds from one who is himself puzzled; and that which puzzles him he states to others, and debates with others, as affording the best chance of clearing up his own ideas and obtaining a solution.
The grand purpose with Sokrates is to bring into clear daylight the difficulties which impede the construction of philosophy or "reasoned truth," and to sift them thoroughly, instead of slurring them over or hiding them.]
"We are all more fertile and suggestive, with regard to thought, word, and deed, when we act in couples.
If a man strikes out anything new by himself, he immediately goes about looking for a companion to whom he can communicate it, and with whom he can jointly review it.
Moreover, you are the best man that I know for this purpose, especially on the subject of virtue: for you are not only virtuous yourself, but you can make others so likewise, and you proclaim yourself a teacher of virtue more publicly than any one has ever done before.
Whom can I find so competent as you, for questioning and communication on these very subjects?
"[93] [Footnote 93: Plato, Protag.
pp.
348-349.]
[Side-note: The interrupted debate is resumed.
Protagoras says that courage differs materially from the other branches of virtue.]
After this eulogy on dialectic conversation (illustrating still farther the main purpose of the dialogue), Sokrates resumes the argument as it stood when interrupted.
_Sokr._--You, Protagoras, said that intelligence, moderation, justice, holiness, courage, were all parts of virtue; but each different from the others, and each having a separate essence and properties of its own.
Do you still adhere to that opinion?
_Prot._--I now think that the first four are tolerably like and akin to each other, but that courage is very greatly different from all the four.
The proof is, that you will find many men pre-eminent for courage, but thoroughly unjust, unholy, intemperate, and stupid.
[94] _Sokr._--Do you consider that all virtue, and each separate part of it, is fine and honourable?
_Prot._--I consider it in the highest degree fine and honourable: I must be mad to think otherwise.
[95] [Footnote 94: Plato, Protag.
p, 349 D. [Greek: ta\ me\n te/ttara au)tô=n e)pieikô=s paraplê/sia a)llê/lois e)sti/n, ê( de\ a)ndrei/a pa/nu polu\ diaphe/ron pa/ntôn tou/tôn.]]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Protag.
p. 349 E. [Greek: ka/lliston me\n ou)=n, ei) mê\ mai/nomai/ ge.
o(/lon pou kalo\n ô(s oi(=o/n te ma/lista.]
It is not unimportant to notice such declarations as this, put by Plato into the mouth of Protagoras.
They tend to show that Plato did not seek (as many of his commentators do) to depict Protagoras as a corruptor of the public mind.]
[Side-note: Sokrates argues to prove that courage consists in knowledge or intelligence.
Protagoras does not admit this.
Sokrates changes his attack.]
Sokrates then shows that the courageous men are confident men, forward in dashing at dangers, which people in general will not affront: that men who dive with confidence into the water, are those who know how to swim; men who go into battle with confidence as horse-soldiers or light infantry, are those who understand their profession as such.
If any men embark in these dangers, without such preliminary knowledge, do you consider them men of courage?
Not at all (says Protagoras), they are madmen: courage would be a dishonourable thing, if _they_ were reckoned courageous.
[96] Then (replies Sokrates) upon this reasoning, those who face dangers confidently, with preliminary knowledge, are courageous: those who do so without it, are madmen.
Courage therefore must consist in knowledge or intelligence?
[97] Protagoras declines to admit this, drawing a distinction somewhat confused:[98] upon which Sokrates approaches the same argument from a different point.
[Footnote 96: Plato, Protag.
p. 350 B.
[Greek: Ai)schro\n me/nt' a)\n, e)/phê, ei)/ê, ê( a)ndrei/a; e)pei\ ou(=toi/ ge maino/menoi/ ei)sin.]]
[Footnote 97: Plato, Protag.
p. 350 C.] [Footnote 98: Plato, Protag.
pp.
350-351.]
[Side-note: Identity of the pleasurable with the good--of the painful with the evil.
Sokrates maintains it.
Protagoras denies.
Debate.]
_Sokr._--You say that some men live well, others badly.
Do you think that a man lives well if he lives in pain and distress?
_Prot._--No.
_Sokr._--But if he passes his life pleasurably until its close, does he not then appear to you to have lived well?
_Prot._--I think so.
_Sokr._--To live pleasurably therefore is good: to live disagreeably is evil.
_Prot._--Yes: at least provided he lives taking pleasure in fine or honourable things.
[99] _Sokr._--What!
do you concur with the generality of people in calling some pleasurable things evil, and some painful things good?
_Prot._--That is my opinion.
_Sokr._--But are not all pleasurable things, so far forth as pleasurable, to that extent good, unless some consequences of a different sort result from them?
And again, subject to the like limitation, are not all painful things evil, so far forth as they are painful?
_Prot._--To that question, absolutely as you put it, I do not know whether I can reply affirmatively--that all pleasurable things are good, and all painful things evil.
I think it safer--with reference not merely to the present answer, but to my manner of life generally--to say, that there are some pleasurable things which are good, others which are not good--some painful things which are evil, others which are not evil: again, some which are neither, neither good nor evil.
[100] _Sokr._--You call those things pleasurable, which either partake of the nature of pleasure, or cause pleasure?
_ Prot._--Unquestionably.
_Sokr._--When I ask whether pleasurable things are not good, in so far forth as pleasurable--I ask in other words, whether pleasure itself be not good?
_Prot._--As you observed before, Sokrates,[101] let us examine the question on each side, to see whether the pleasurable and the good be really the same.
[Footnote 99: Plat.
Prot.
p. 351 C. [Greek: To\ me\n a)/ra ê(de/ôs zê=n, a)gatho/n, to\ d' a)êdô=s, kako/n?
Ei)/per toi=s kaloi=s g', e)/phê, zô/|ê ê(do/menos.]]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Protag.
p. 351 D. [Greek: a)lla/ moi dokei= ou) mo/non pro\s tê\n nu=n a)po/krisin e)moi\ a)sphale/steron ei)=nai a)pokri/nasthtai, _a)lla\ kai\ pro\s pa/nta to\n a)/llon bi/on to\n e)mo/n_, o(/ti e)/sti me\n a)\ tô=n ê(de/ôn ou)k e)/stin a)gatha/, e)/sti d' au)= kai\ a(\ tô=n a)niarô=n ou)k e)sti kaka/, e)/sti d' a(\ e)/sti, kai\ tri/ton a(\ ou)de/tera, ou)/te kaka\ ou)/t' a)gatha/.]
These words strengthen farther what I remarked in a recent note, about the character which Plato wished to depict in Protagoras, so different from what is imputed to that Sophist by the Platonic commentators.]
[Footnote 101: Plato, Protag.
p. 351 E. [Greek: ô(/sper su\ le/geis, e(ka/stote, ô)= Sô/krates, skopô/metha au)to/.]
This is an allusion to the words used by Sokrates not long before,--[Greek: a(\ au)to\s a)porô= e(ka/stote tau=ta diaske/psasthai], p. 348 C.] [Side-note: Enquiry about knowledge.
Is it the dominant agency in the mind?
Or is it overcome frequently by other agencies, pleasure or pain?
Both agree that knowledge is dominant.]
_Sokr._--Let us penetrate from the surface to the interior of the question.
[102] What is your opinion about knowledge?
Do you share the opinion of mankind generally about it, as you do about pleasure and pain?
Mankind regard knowledge as something neither strong nor directive nor dominant.
Often (they say), when knowledge is in a man, it is not knowledge which governs him, but something else--passion, pleasure, pain, love, fear--all or any of which overpower knowledge, and drag it round about in their train like a slave.
Are you of the common opinion on this point also?
[103] Or do you believe that knowledge is an honourable thing, and made to govern man: and that when once a man knows what good and evil things are, he will not be over-ruled by any other motive whatever, so as to do other things than what are enjoined by such knowledge--his own intelligence being a sufficient defence to him?
[104] _Prot._--The last opinion is what I hold.
To me, above all others, it would be disgraceful not to proclaim that knowledge or intelligence was the governing element of human affairs.
[Footnote 102: Plato, Protag.
p. 352 A.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Protag.
p. 352 B-C. [Greek: po/teron kai\ tou=to/ soi dokei= ô(/sper toi=s polloi=s a)nthrô/pois ê)\ a)/llôs?
.
.
.
dianoou/menoi peri\ tê=s e)pistê/mês ô(/sper peri\ a)ndrapo/don, perielkome/nês u(po\ tô=n a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn.]
Aristotle in the Nikomachean Ethics cites and criticises the opinion of Sokrates, wherein the latter affirmed the irresistible supremacy of knowledge, when really possessed, over all passions and desires.
Aristotle cites it with the express phraseology and illustration contained in this passage of the Protagoras.
[Greek: E)pista/menon me\n ou)=n ou)/ phasi/ tines oi(=o/n te ei)=nai [a)krateu/esthai].
deino\n ga/r, e)pistê/mês e)nou/sês, ô(s ô)/|eto Sôkra/tês, a)/llo ti kratei=n, kai\ perie/lkein au)tê\n ô(/sper a)ndra/podon.
Sôkra/tês me\n ga\r o(/lôs e)ma/cheto pro\s to\n lo/gon, ô(s ou)k ou)/sês a)krasi/as; ou)the/na ga\r u(polamba/nonta, pra/ttein para\ to\ be/ltiston, a)lla\ di' a)/gnoian] (Ethic.
N. vii.
2, vii.
3, p. 1145, b.
24).
The same metaphor [Greek: perie/lketai e)pistê/mê] is again ascribed to Sokrates by Aristotle, a little farther on in the same treatise, p. 1147, b.
15.
We see from hence that when Aristotle comments upon _the doctrine of Sokrates_, what he here means is, the doctrine of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras; the citation of this particular metaphor establishes the identity.
In another passage of the Nikom.
Eth., Aristotle also cites a fact respecting the Sophist Protagoras, which fact is mentioned in the Platonic dialogue Protagoras--respecting the manner in which that Sophist allowed his pupils to assess their own fee for his teaching (Ethic.
Nik.
ix.
1, 1164, a.
25).]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Protag.
p. 352 C. [Greek: a)ll' i(kanê\n ei)=nai tê\n phro/nêsin boêthei=n tô=| a)nthrô/pô|.]]
[Side-note: Mistake of supposing that men act contrary to knowledge.
We never call pleasures evils, except when they entail a preponderance of pain, or a disappointment of greater pleasures.]
_Sokr._--You speak well and truly.
But you are aware that most men are of a different opinion.
They affirm that many who know what is best, act against their own knowledge, overcome by pleasure or by pain.
_Prot._--Most men think so: incorrectly, in my judgment, as they say many other things besides.
[105] _Sokr._--When they say that a man, being overcome by food or drink or other temptations, will do things which he knows to be evil, we must ask them, On what ground do you call these things evil?
Is it because they impart pleasure at the moment, or because they prepare disease, poverty, and other such things, for the future?
[106] Most men would reply, I think, that they called these things evil not on account of the present pleasure which the things produced, but on account of their ulterior consequences--poverty and disease being both of them distressing?
_Prot._--Most men would say this.
_Sokr._--It would be admitted then that these things were evil for no other reason, than because they ended in pain and in privation of pleasure.
[107] _Prot._--Certainly.
_Sokr._--Again, when it is said that some good things are painful, such things are meant as gymnastic exercises, military expeditions, medical treatment.
Now no one will say that these things are good because of the immediate suffering which they occasion, but because of the ulterior results of health, wealth, and security, which we obtain by them.
Thus, these also are good for no other reason, than because they end in pleasures, or in relief or prevention of pain.
[108] Or can you indicate any other end, to which men look when they call these matters evil?
_Prot._--No other end can be indicated.
[Footnote 105: Plato, Protag.
pp.
352-353.]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Protag.
p. 353 D. [Greek: ponêra\ de\ au)ta\ pê=| phate ei)=nai?
po/teron o(/ti tê\n ê(donê\n tau/tên e)n tô=| parachrê=ma pare/chei kai\ ê(du/ e)stin e(/kaston au)tô=n, ê)\ o(/ti ei)s to\n u(/steron chro/non no/sous te poiei= kai\ peni/as kai\ a)/lla toiau=ta polla\ paraskeua/zei?]]
[Footnote 107: Plato, Protag.
p. 353 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n phai/netai.
.
.
.
di' ou)de\n a)/llo tau=ta kaka\ o)/nta, ê)\ dio/ti ei)s a)ni/as te a)poteleuta=| kai\ a)/llôn ê(donô=n a)posterei=?]]
[Footnote 108: Plato, Protag.
p. 354 B-C. [Greek: Tau=ta de\ a)gatha/ e)sti di' a)/llo ti ê)\ o(/ti ei)s ê(dona\s a)poteleuta=| kai\ lupô=n a)pallaga\s kai\ a)potropa/s?
ê)\ e)/chete/ ti a)/llo te/los le/gein, ei)s o(\ a)poble/psantes au)ta\ a)gatha\ kalei=te, a)ll' ê)\ ê(dona/s te kai\ lu/pas?
ou)k a)\n phai=en, ô(s e)gô)=|mai.
.
.
.
Ou)kou=n tê\n me\n ê(donê\n diô/kete ô(s a)gatho\n o)/n, tê\n de\ lu/pên pheu/gete ô(s kako/n?]]
[Side-note: Pleasure is the only good--pain the only evil.
No man does evil voluntarily, knowing it to be evil.
Difference between pleasures present and future--resolves itself into pleasure and pain.]
_Sokr._--It thus appears that you pursue pleasure as good, and avoid pain as evil.
Pleasure is what you think good: pain is what you think evil: for even pleasure itself appears to you evil, when it either deprives you of pleasures greater than itself, or entails upon you pains outweighing itself.
Is there any other reason, or any other ulterior end, to which you look when you pronounce pleasure to be evil?
If there be any other between reason, or any other end, tell us what it is.
[109] _Prot._--There is none whatever.
_Sokr._--The case is similar about pains: you call pain good, when it preserves you from greater pains, or procures for you a future balance of pleasure.
If there be any other end to which you look when you call pain good, tell us what it is.
_Prot._--You speak truly.
_Sokr._--If I am asked why I insist so much on the topic now before us, I shall reply, that it is no easy matter to explain what is meant by being overcome by pleasure; and that the whole proof hinges upon this point--whether there is any other good than pleasure, or any other evil than pain; and whether it be not sufficient, that we should go through life pleasurably and without pains.
[110] If this be sufficient, and if no other good or evil can be pointed out, which does not end in pleasures and pains, mark the consequences.
Good and evil being identical with pleasurable and painful, it is ridiculous to say that a man does evil voluntarily, knowing it to be evil, under the overpowering influence of pleasure: that is, under the overpowering influence of good.
[111] How can it be wrong, that a man should yield to the influence of good?
It never can be wrong, except in this case--when the good obtained is of smaller amount than the consequent good forfeited or the consequent evil entailed.
What other exchangeable value can there be between pleasures and pains, except in the ratio of quantity--greater or less, more or fewer?
[112] If an objector tells me that there is a material difference between pleasures and pains of the moment, and pleasures and pains postponed to a future time, I ask him in reply, Is there any other difference, except in pleasure and pain?
An intelligent man ought to put them both in the scale, the pleasures and the pains, the present and the future, so as to determine the balance.
Weighing pleasures against pleasures, he ought to prefer the more and the greater: weighing pains against pains, the fewer and the less.
If pleasures against pains, then when the latter outweigh the former, reckoning distant as well as near, he ought to abstain from the act: when the pleasures outweigh, he ought to do it.
_Prot._--The objectors could have nothing to say against this.
[113] [Footnote 109: Plato, Protag, p. 354 D. [Greek: e)pei\ ei) kat' a)/llo ti au)to\ to\ chai/rein kako\n kalei=te kai\ ei)s a)/llo ti te/los a)poble/psantes, e)/choite a)\n kai\ ê(mi=n ei)pei=n; a)ll' ou)ch e(/xete.
Ou)d' e)moi\ dokou=sin, e)/phê o( Prôtago/ras.]]
[Footnote 110: Plato, Protag.
p. 354 E. [Greek: e)/peita e)n tou/tô| ei)si\ pa=sai ai( a)podei/xeis; a)ll' e)/ti kai\ nu=n a)nathe/sthai e)/xestin, ei) pê| e)/chete a)/llo ti pha/nai ei)=nai to\ a)gatho\n ê)\ tê\n ê(donê/n, ê)\ to\ kako\n a)/llo ti ê)\ tê\n a)ni/an, ê)\ a)rkei= u(mi=n to\ ê(de/ôs katabiô=nai to\n bi/on a)/neu lupô=n?]]
[Footnote 111: Plato, Protag.
p. 355 C.] [Footnote 112: Plato, Protag.
p. 356 A.
[Greek: kai\ ti/s a)/llê a)xi/a ê(donê=| pro\s lu/pôn e)sti\n a)ll' ê)\ u(perbolê\ a)llê/lôn kai\ e)/lleipsis?
tau=ta d' e)sti\ mei/zô te kai\ smikro/tera gigno/mena a)llê/lôn, kai\ plei/ô kai\ e)la/ttô, kai\ ma=llon kai\ ê(=tton.]]
[Footnote 113: Plato, Protag.
p. 356 C.] [Side-note: Necessary resort to the measuring art for choosing pleasures rightly--all the security of our lives depend upon it.]
_Sokr._--Well then--I shall tell them farther--you know that the same magnitude, and the same voice, appears to you greater when near than when distant.
Now, if all our well-doing depended upon our choosing the magnitudes really greater and avoiding those really less, where would the security of our life be found?
In the art of mensuration, or in the apparent impression?
[114] Would not the latter lead us astray, causing us to vacillate and judge badly in our choice between great and little, with frequent repentance afterwards?
Would not the art of mensuration set aside these false appearances, and by revealing to us the truth, impart tranquillity to our minds and security to our lives?
Would not the objectors themselves acknowledge that there was no other safety, except in the art of mensuration?
_Prot._--They would acknowledge it.
_Sokr._--Again, If the good conduct of our lives depended on the choice of odd and even, and in distinguishing rightly the greater from the less, whether far or near, would not our safety reside in knowledge, and in a certain knowledge of mensuration too, in Arithmetic?
_Prot._--They would concede to you that also.
_Sokr._--Well then, my friends, since the security of our lives has been found to depend on the right choice of pleasure and pain--between the more and fewer, greater and less, nearer and farther--does it not come to a simple estimate of excess, deficiency, and equality between them?
in other words, to mensuration, art, or science?
[115] What kind of art or science it is, we will enquire another time: for the purpose of our argument, enough has been done when we have shown that it _is_ science.
[Footnote 114: Plato, Protag.
p. 356 D. [Greek: ei) ou)=n e)n tou/tô| ê(mi=n ê)=n to\ eu)= pra/ttein, e)n tô=| ta\ me\n mega/la mê/kê kai\ pra/ttein kai\ lamba/nein, ta\ de\ smikra\ kai\ pheu/gein kai\ mê\ pra/ttein, ti/s a)\n ê(mi=n sôtêri/a e)pha/nê tou= bi/ou?
a)=ra ê( metrêtikê\ te/chnê, ê)\ ê( tou= phainome/nou du/namis?
.
.
.
A)=r' a)\n o(mologoi=en oi( a)/nthrôpoi pro\s tau=ta ê(ma=s tê\n metrêtikê\n sô/zein a)\n te/chnên, ê)\ a)/llên?]]
[Footnote 115: Plato, Protag.
p. 357 A-v. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\ ê(donê=s te kai\ lu/pês e)n o)rthê=| tê=| ai(re/sei e)pha/nê _ê(mi=n ê( sôtêri/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa, tou= te ple/onos_ kai\ e(la/ttonos kai\ mei/zonos kai\ smikrote/ron kai\ por)r(ôte/rô kai\ e)ggute/rô, a)=ra prô=ton me\n ou) metrêtikê\ phai/netai, u(perbolê=s te kai\ e)ndei/as ou)=sa kai\ i)so/têtos pro\s a)llê/las ske/psis?
A)ll' a)na/gkê.
E)pei\ de\ metrêtikê/, a)na/gkê| dê/pou te/chnê kai\ e)pistê/mê.]]
[Side-note: To do wrong, overcome by pleasure, is only a bad phrase for describing what is really a case of grave ignorance.]
For when _we_ (Protagoras and Sokrates) affirmed, that nothing was more powerful than science or knowledge, and that this, in whatsoever minds it existed, prevailed over pleasure and every thing else--_you_ (the supposed objectors) maintained, on the contrary, that pleasure often prevailed over knowledge even in the instructed man: and you called upon us to explain, upon our principles, what that mental affection was, which people called, being overcome by the seduction of pleasure.
We have now shown you that this mental affection is nothing else but ignorance, and the gravest ignorance.
You have admitted that those who go wrong in the choice of pleasures and pains--that is, in the choice of good and evil things--go wrong from want of knowledge, of the knowledge or science of mensuration.
The wrong deed done from want of knowledge, is done through ignorance.
What you call being overcome by pleasure is thus, the gravest ignorance; which these Sophists, Protagoras, Prodikus, and Hippias, engage to cure: but you (the objectors whom we now address) not believing it to be ignorance, or perhaps unwilling to pay them their fees, refuse to visit them, and therefore go on doing ill, both privately and publicly.
[116] [Footnote 116: Plato, Protag.
p. 357 E.] [Side-note: Reasoning of Sokrates assented to by all.
Actions which conduct to pleasures or freedom from pain, are honourable.]
Now then, Protagoras, Prodikus, and Hippias (continues Sokrates), I turn to you, and ask, whether you account my reasoning true or false?
(All of them pronounced it to be surpassingly true.)
_Sokr._--You all agree, then, all three, that the pleasurable is good, and that the painful is evil:[117] for I take no account at present of the verbal distinctions of Prodikus, discriminating between the _pleasurable_, the _delightful_, and the _enjoyable_.
If this be so, are not all those actions, which conduct to a life of pleasure or to a life free from pain, honourable?
and is not the honourable deed, good and profitable?
[118] (In this, all persons present concurred.)
If then the pleasurable is good, no one ever does anything, when he either knows or believes other things in his power to be better.
To be inferior to yourself is nothing else than ignorance: to be superior to yourself, is nothing else than wisdom.
Ignorance consists in holding false opinions, and in being deceived respecting matters of high importance.
(Agreed by all.)
Accordingly, no one willingly enters upon courses which are evil, or which he believes to be evil; nor is it in the nature of man to enter upon what he thinks evil courses, in preference to good.
When a man is compelled to make choice between two evils, no one will take the greater when he might take the less.
[119] (Agreed to by all three.)
Farther, no one will affront things of which he is afraid, when other things are open to him, of which he is not afraid: for fear is an expectation of evil, so that what a man fears, he of course thinks to be an evil,--and will not approach it willingly.
(Agreed.
)[120] [Footnote 117: Plato, Protag.
p. 358 A.
[Greek: u(perphuô=s e)do/kei a(/pasin a)lêthê= ei)=nai ta\ ei)rême/na.
O(mologei=te a)/ra, ê)=n d' e)gô/, to\ me\n ê(du\ a)gatho\n ei)=nai, to\ de\ a)niaro\n kako/n.]]
[Footnote 118: Plato, Protag.
p. 358 B.
[Greek: ai( e)pi\ tou/tou pra/xeis a(/pasai e)pi\ tou= a)lu/pôs zê=n kai\ ê)de/ôs, a)=r' ou) kalai/?
kai\ to\ kalo\n e)/rgon, a)gatho/n te kai\ ô)phe/limon?]]
[Footnote 119: Plato, Protag.
p. 358 C-D. [Greek: e)pi/ ge ta\ kaka\ ou)dei\s e(kô\n e)/rchetai, ou)de\ e)pi\ a(\ oi)/etai kaka\ ei)=nai, ou)d' e)sti\ tou=to, ô(s e)/oiken, e)n a)nthrô/pou phu/sei, e)pi\ a(\ oi)/etai kaka\ ei)=nai e)the/lein i)e/nai a)nti\ tô=n a)gathô=n; o(/tan te a)nagka/sthê| duoi=n kakoi=n to\ e(/teron ai)rei=sthai, ou)dei\s to\ mei=zon ai(rê/setai, e)xo\n to\ e)/latton.]]
[Footnote 120: Plato, Protag.
p. 358 E.] [Side-note: Explanation of courage.
It consists in a wise estimate of things terrible and not terrible.]
_Sokr._--Let us now revert to the explanation of courage, given by Protagoras.
He said that four out of the five parts of virtue were tolerably similar; but that courage differed greatly from all of them.
And he affirmed that there were men distinguished for courage; yet at the same time eminently unjust, immoderate, unholy, and stupid.
He said, too, that the courageous men were men to attempt things which timid men would not approach.
Now, Protagoras, what are these things which the courageous men alone are prepared to attempt?
Will they attempt terrible things, believing them to be terrible?
_Prot._--That is impossible, as you have shown just now.
_Sokr._--No one will enter upon that which he believes to be terrible,--or, in other words, will go into evil knowing it to be evil: a man who does so is inferior to himself--and this, as we have agreed, is ignorance, or the contrary of knowledge.
All men, both timid and brave, attempt things upon which they have a good heart: in this respect, the things which the timid and the brave go at, are the same.
[121] _Prot._--How can this be?
The things which the timid and the brave go at or affront, are quite contrary: for example, the latter are willing to go to war, which the former are not.
_Sokr._--Is it honourable to go to war, or dishonourable?
_Prot._--Honourable.
_Sokr._--If it be honourable, it must also be good:[122] for we have agreed, in the preceding debate, that all honourable things were good.
_Prot._--You speak truly.
[123] I at least always persist in thinking so.
_Sokr._--Which of the two is it, who (you say) are unwilling to go into war; it being an honourable and good thing?
_Prot._--The cowards.
_Sokr._--But if going to war be an honourable and good thing, it is also pleasurable?
_Prot._--Certainly that has been admitted.
[124] _Sokr._--Is it then knowingly that cowards refuse to go into war, which is both more honourable, better, and more pleasurable?
_Prot._--We cannot say so, without contradicting our preceding admissions.
_Sokr._--What about the courageous man?
does not he affront or go at what is more honourable, better, and more pleasurable?
_Prot._--It cannot be denied.
_Sokr._--Courageous men then, generally, are those whose fears, when they are afraid, are honourable and good--not dishonourable or bad: and whose confidence, when they feel confident, is also honourable and good?
[125] On the contrary, cowards, impudent men, and madmen, both fear, and feel confidence, on dishonourable occasions?
_Prot._--Agreed.
_Sokr._--When they thus view with confidence things dishonourable and evil, is it from any other reason than from ignorance and stupidity?
Are they not cowards from stupidity, or a stupid estimate of things terrible?
And is it not in this ignorance, or stupid estimate of things terrible, and things not terrible--that cowardice consists?
Lastly,[126]--courage being the opposite of cowardice--is it not in the knowledge, or wise estimate, of things terrible and things not terrible, that courage consists?
[Footnote 121: Plato, Protag.
p. 359 D. [Greek: e)pi\ me\n a(\ deina\ ê(gei=tai ei)=nai ou)dei\s e)/rchetai, e)peidê\ to\ ê(/ttô ei)=nai e(autou= eu(re/thê a)mathi/a ou)=sa.
Ô(molo/gei.
A)lla\ mê\n e)pi\ a(/ ge thar)r(ou=si pa/ntes au)= e)/rchontai, kai\ deiloi\ kai\ a)ndrei=oi, kai\ tau/tê| ge e)pi\ ta\ au)ta\ e)/rchontai oi( deiloi/ te kai\ oi( a)ndrei=oi.]]
[Footnote 122: Plato, Protag.
p. 359 E. [Greek: po/teron kalo\n o(\n i)e/nai (ei)s to\n po/lemon) ê)\ ai)schro/n?
Kalo/n, e)/phê.
Ou)kou=n, ei)/per kalo/n, kai\ a)gatho\n ô(mologê/samen e)n toi=s e)/mprosthen; ta\s ga\r kala\s pra/xeis a(pa/sas a)gatha\s ô(mologê/samen?]]
[Footnote 123: Plato, Protag.
p. 359 E. [Greek: A)lêthê= le/geis, kai\ a)ei\ e)/moige dokei= ou(/tôs.]
This answer, put into the mouth of Protagoras, affords another proof that Plato did not intend to impute to him the character which many commentators impute.]
[Footnote 124: Plato, Protag.
p. 360 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n, ê)\n d' e)gô/, ei)/per kalo\n kai\ a)gatho/n, kai\ ê(du/?
Ô(molo/gêtai gou=n, e)/phê.]]
[Footnote 125: Plato, Protag.
p. 360 B.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n o(/lôs oi( a)ndrei=oi ou)k ai)schrou\s pho/bous phobou=ntai, o(/tav phobô=ntai, ou)de\ ai)schra\ tha/r)r(ê tha/r)r(ou=sin?
.
.
.
Ei) de\ mê\ ai)schra/, a)=r' ou) kala/?
.
.
.
Ei) de\ kala/, kai\ a)gatha/?]]
[Footnote 126: Plato, Protag.
p. 360 D. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ê( tô=n deinôn kai\ mê\ deinô=n a)mathi/a deili/a a)\n ei)/ê?
.
.
.
Ê( sophi/a a)/ra tô=n deinô=n kai\ mê\ deinô=n, a)ndrei/a e)sti/n, e)nanti/a ou)=sa tê=| tou/tôn a)mathi/a|?]]
[Side-note: Reluctance of Protagoras to continue answering.
Close of the discussion.
Sokrates declares that the subject is still in confusion, and that he wishes to debate it again with Protagoras.
Amicable reply of Protagoras.]
Protagoras is described as answering the last few questions with increasing reluctance.
But at this final question, he declines altogether to answer, or even to imply assent by a gesture.
[127] _Sokr._--Why will you not answer my question, either affirmatively or negatively?
_Prot._--Finish the exposition by yourself.
_Sokr._--I will only ask you one more question.
Do you still think, as you said before, that there are some men extremely stupid, but extremely courageous?
_Prot._--You seem to be obstinately bent on making me answer: I will therefore comply with your wish: I say that according to our previous admissions, it appears to me impossible.
_Sokr._--I have no other motive for questioning you thus, except the wish to investigate how the truth stands respecting virtue and what virtue is in itself.
[128] To determine this, is the way to elucidate the question which you and I first debated at length:--I, affirming that virtue was not teachable--you, that it was teachable.
The issue of our conversation renders both of us ridiculous.
For I, who denied virtue to be teachable, have shown that it consists altogether in knowledge, which is the most teachable of all things: while Protagoras, who affirmed that it was teachable, has tried to show that it consisted in every thing rather than knowledge: on which supposition it would be hardly teachable at all.
I therefore, seeing all these questions sadly confused and turned upside down, am beyond measure anxious to clear them up;[129] and should be glad, conjointly with you, to go through the whole investigation--First, what Virtue is,--Next, whether it is teachable or not.
It is with a provident anxiety for the conduct of my own life that I undertake this research, and I should be delighted to have you as a coadjutor.
[130] _Prot._--I commend your earnestness, Sokrates, and your manner of conducting discussion.
I think myself not a bad man in other respects: and as to jealousy, I have as little of it as any one.
For I have always said of you, that I admire you much more than any man of my acquaintance--decidedly more than any man of your own age.
It would not surprise me, if you became one day illustrious for wisdom.
[Footnote 127: Plato, Protag.
p. 360 D. [Greek: ou)ke/ti e)ntau=tha ou)/t' e)pineu=sai ê)the/lêsen, e)si/ga te.]]
[Footnote 128: Plato, Protag.
p. 360-361.
[Greek: Ou)/toi a)/llou e(/neka e)rôtô= pa/nta tau=ta, ê)\ ske/psasthai boulo/menos pô=s pot' e)/chei ta\ peri\ tê=s a)retê=s, kai\ _ti/ pot' e)sti\n au)to\ ê( a)retê/_.
Oi)=da ga\r o(/ti tou/tou phanerou= genome/nou ma/list' a)\n kata/dêlon ge/noito e)kei=no, peri\ ou)= e)gô/ te kai\ su\ makro\n lo/gon e(ka/teros a)petei/namen, e)gô\ me\n le/gôn, ô(s ou) didakto\n a)retê/, su\ d', ô(s didakto/n.]]
[Footnote 129: Plato, Protag.
p. 361 C. [Greek: e)gô\ ou)=n pa/nta tau=ta kathorô=n a)/nô ka/tô taratto/mena deinô=s, pa=san prothumi/an e)/chô kataphanê= au)ta\ gene/sthai, kai\ bouloi/mên a)\n _tau=ta diexeltho/ntas ê(ma=s e)xelthei=n kai\ e)pi\ tê\n a)retê\n o(/ ti e)/stin_.]]
[Footnote 130: Plato, Protag.
p. 361 D. [Greek: promêthou/menos u(pe\r tou= bi/ou tou= e)mautou= panto/s.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue.
It closes without the least allusion to Hippokrates.]
Such is the end of this long and interesting dialogue.
[131] We remark with some surprise that it closes without any mention of Hippokrates, and without a word addressed to him respecting his anxious request for admission to the society of Protagoras: though such request had been presented at the beginning, with much emphasis, as the sole motive for the intervention of Sokrates.
Upon this point[132] the dialogue is open to the same criticism as that which Plato (in the Phædrus) bestows on the discourse of Lysias: requiring that every discourse shall be like a living organism, neither headless nor footless, but having extremities and a middle piece adapted to each other.
[Footnote 131: Most critics treat the Protagoras as a composition of Plato's younger years--what they call his _first period_--before the death of Sokrates.
They fix different years, from 407 B.C.
(Ast) down to 402 B.C.
I do not agree with this view.
I can admit no dialogue earlier than 399 B.C.
: and I consider the Protagoras to belong to Plato's full maturity.]
[Footnote 132: Plato, Phædrus, p. 264 C. [Greek: dei=n pa/nta lo/gon ô(/sper zô=on sunesta/nai, sô=ma/ ti e)/chonta au)to\n au(tou=, ô/ste mê/te a)ke/phalon ei)=nai mê/te a)/poun], &c.] [Side-note: Two distinct aspects of ethics and politics exhibited: one under the name of Protagoras; the other, under that of Sokrates.]
In our review of this dialogue, we have found first, towards the beginning, an expository discourse from Protagoras, describing the maintenance and propagation of virtue in an established community: next, towards the close, an expository string of interrogatories by Sokrates, destined to establish the identity of Good with Pleasurable, Evil with Painful; and the indispensable supremacy of the calculating or measuring science, as the tutelary guide of human life.
Of the first, I speak (like other critics) as the discourse of Protagoras: of the second, as the theory of Sokrates.
But I must again remind the reader, that both the one and the other are compositions of Plato; both alike are offspring of his ingenious and productive imagination.
Protagoras is not the author of that which appears here under his name: and when we read the disparaging epithets which many critics affix to his discourse, we must recollect that these epithets, if they were well-founded, would have no real application to the historical Protagoras, but only to Plato himself.
He has set forth two aspects, distinct and in part opposing, of ethics and politics: and he has provided a worthy champion for each.
Philosophy, or "reasoned truth," if it be attainable at all, cannot most certainly be attained without such many-sided handling: still less can that which Plato calls knowledge be attained--or such command of philosophy as will enable a man to stand a Sokratic cross-examination in it.
[Side-note: Order of ethical problems, as conceived by Sokrates.]
In the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue,[133] we find him proclaiming, that the first of all problems to be solved was, What virtue really is?
upon which there prevails serious confusion of opinions.
It was a second question--important, yet still second and presupposing the solution of the first--Whether virtue is teachable?
We noticed the same judgment as to the order of the two questions delivered by Sokrates in the Menon.
[134] [Footnote 133: Plato, Protag.
p. 361 C.] [Footnote 134: See the last preceding chapter of this volume, p.
242.
** Upon this order, necessarily required, of the two questions, Schleiermacher has a pertinent remark in his general Einleitung to the works of Plato, p. 26.
Eberhard (he says) affirms that the end proposed by Plato in his dialogues was to form the minds of the noble Athenian youth, so as to make them virtuous citizens.
Schleiermacher controverts the position of Eberhard; maintaining "that this is far too subordinate a standing-point for philosophy,--besides that it is reasoning in a circle, since philosophy has first to determine what the virtue of a citizen is".]
[Side-note: Difference of method between him and Protagoras flows from this difference of order.
Protagoras assumes what virtue is, without enquiry.]
Now the conception of ethical questions in this order--the reluctance to deal with the second until the first has been fully debated and settled--is one fundamental characteristic of Sokrates.
The difference of method, between him and Protagoras, flows from this prior difference between them in fundamental conception.
What virtue is, Protagoras neither defines nor analyses, nor submits to debate.
He manifests no consciousness of the necessity of analysis: he accepts the ground already prepared for him by King Nomos: he thus proceeds as if the first step had been made sure, and takes his departure from hypotheses of which he renders no account--as the Platonic Sokrates complains of the geometers for doing.
[135] To Protagoras, social or political virtue is a known and familiar datum, about which no one can mistake: which must be possessed, in greater or less measure, by every man, as a condition of the existence of society: which every individual has an interest in promoting in all his neighbours: and which every one therefore teaches and enforces upon every one else.
It is a matter of common sense or common sentiment, and thus stands in contrast with the special professional accomplishments; which are confined only to a few--and the possessors, teachers, and learners of which are each an assignable section of the society.
The parts or branches of virtue are, in like manner, assumed by him as known, in their relations to each other and to the whole.
This persuasion of knowledge, without preliminary investigation, he adopts from the general public, with whom he is in communion of sentiment.
What they accept and enforce as virtue, he accepts and enforces also.
[Footnote 135: See suprà, vol.
i. ch.
viii.
p. 358 and ch.
xvii.
** p. 136, respecting these remarks of Plato on the geometers.]
[Side-note: Method of Protagoras.
Continuous lectures addressed to established public sentiments with which he is in harmony.]
Again, the method pursued by Protagoras, is one suitable to a teacher who has jumped over this first step; who assumes virtue, as something fixed in the public sentiments--and addresses himself to those sentiments, ready-made as he finds them.
He expands and illustrates them in continuous lectures of some length, which fill both the ears and minds of the listener--"Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna": he describes their growth, propagation, and working in the community: he gives interesting comments on the poets, eulogising the admired heroes who form the theme of their verses, and enlarging on their admonitions.
Moreover, while resting altogether upon the authority of King Nomos, he points out the best jewel in the crown of that potentate; the great social fact of punishment prospective, rationally apportioned, and employed altogether for preventing and deterring--instead of being a mere retrospective impulse, vindictive or retributive for the past.
He describes instructively the machinery operative in the community for ensuring obedience to what they think right: he teaches, in his eloquent expositions and interpretations, the same morality, public and private, that every one else teaches: while he can perform the work of teaching, somewhat more effectively than they.
Lastly, his method is essentially showy and popular; intended for numerous assemblies, reproducing the established creeds and sentiments of those assemblies, to their satisfaction and admiration.
He is prepared to be met and answered in his own way, by opposing speakers; and he conceives himself more than a match for such rivals.
He professes also to possess the art of short conversation or discussion.
But in the exercise of this art, he runs almost involuntarily into his more characteristic endowment of continuous speech: besides that the points which he raises for discussion assume all the fundamental principles, and turn only upon such applications of those principles as are admitted by most persons to be open questions, not foreclosed by a peremptory orthodoxy.
[Side-note: Method of Sokrates.
Dwells upon that part of the problem which Protagoras had left out.]
Upon all these points, Sokrates is the formal antithesis of Protagoras.
He disclaims altogether the capacities to which that Sophist lays claim.
Not only he cannot teach virtue, but he professes not to know what it is, nor whether it be teachable at all, He starts from a different point of view: not considering virtue as a known datum, or as an universal postulate, but assimilating it to a special craft or accomplishment, in which a few practitioners suffice for the entire public: requiring that in this capacity it shall be defined, and its practitioners and teachers pointed out.
He has no common ground with Protagoras; for the difficulties which he moots are just such as the common consciousness (and Protagoras along with it) overleaps or supposes to be settled.
His first requirement, advanced under the modest guise of a small doubt[136] which Protagoras must certainly be competent to remove, is, to know--What virtue is?
What are the separate parts of virtue--justice, moderation, holiness, &c.?
What is the relation which they bear to each other and to the whole--virtue?
Are they homogeneous, differing only in quantity or has each of them its own specific essence and peculiarity?
[137] Respecting virtue as a whole, we must recollect, Protagoras had discoursed eloquently and confidently, as of a matter perfectly known.
He is now called back as it were to meet an attack in the rear: to answer questions which he had never considered, and which had never even presented themselves to him as questions.
At first he replies as if the questions offered no difficulty;[138] sometimes he does not feel their importance, so that it seems to him a matter of indifference whether he replies in the affirmative or negative.
[139] But he finds himself brought round, by a series of questions, to assent to conclusions which he nevertheless thinks untrue, and which are certainly unwelcome.
Accordingly, he becomes more and more disgusted with the process of analytical interrogation: and at length answers with such impatience and prolixity, that the interrogation can no longer be prosecuted.
Here comes in the break--the remonstrance of Sokrates--and the mediation of the by-standers.
[Footnote 136: Plato, Protag.
p. 328 E. [Greek: plê\n smikro/n ti/ moi e)mpodô/n, o(/ dê=lon o(/ti Prôtago/ras r(a|di/ôs e)pekdida/xei], &c.] [Footnote 137: Respecting Ariston of Chios, Diogenes Laertius tells us--[Greek: A)reta\s d' ou)/te polla\s ei)sê=gen, ô(s o( Zê/nôn, ou)/te mi/an polloi=s o)no/masin kaloume/nên--a)lla\ kai\ to\ pro\s ti/ pôs e)/chein] (Diog.
Laert.
vii.
161).]
[Footnote 138: Plato, Protag.
p. 329 D. [Greek: A)lla\ r(a/|dion tou=to/ g', e)/phê, a)pokri/nasthai], &c.] [Footnote 139: Plato, Protag.
p. 321 D. [Greek: ei) ga\r bou/lei, e)/stô ê(mi=n kai\ dikaiosu/nê o(/sion kai\ o(sio/tês di/kaion.
Mê/ moi, ê)=n d' e)gô/; ou)de\n ga\r de/omai to\ "_ei) bou/lei_" tou=to kai\ "_ei) soi dokei=_" e)le/gchesthai, a)ll' e)me/ te kai\ se/.]]
[Side-note: Antithesis between the eloquent lecturer and the analytical cross-examiner.]
It is this antithesis between the eloquent popular lecturer, and the analytical enquirer and cross-examiner, which the dialogue seems mainly intended to set forth.
Protagoras professes to know that which he neither knows, nor has ever tried to probe to the bottom.
Upon this false persuasion of knowledge, the Sokratic Elenchus is brought to bear.
We are made to see how strange, repugnant, and perplexing, is the process of analysis to this eloquent expositor: how incompetent he is to go through it without confusion: how little he can define his own terms, or determine the limits of those notions on which he is perpetually descanting.
[Side-note: Protagoras not intended to be always in the wrong, though he is described as brought to a contradiction.]
It is not that Protagoras is proved to be wrong (I speak now of this early part of the conversation, between chapters 51-62--pp.
329-335) in the substantive ground which he takes.
I do not at all believe (as many critics either affirm or imply) that Plato intended all which he in the composed under the name of Protagoras to be vile perversion of truth, with nothing but empty words and exorbitant pretensions.
I do not even believe that Plato intended all those observations, to which the name of Protagoras is prefixed, to be accounted silly--while all that is assigned to Sokrates,[140] is admirable sense and acuteness.
It is by no means certain that Plato intended to be understood as himself endorsing the opinions which he ascribes everywhere to Sokrates: and it is quite certain that he does not always make the Sokrates of one dialogue consistent with the Sokrates of another.
For the purpose of showing the incapacity of the respondent to satisfy the exigencies of analysis, we need not necessarily suppose that the conclusion to which the questions conduct should be a true one.
If the respondent be brought, through his own admissions, to a contradiction, this is enough to prove that he did not know the subject deeply enough to make the proper answers and distinctions.
[Footnote 140: Schöne, in his Commentary on the Protagoras, is of opinion that a good part of Plato's own doctrine is given under the name of Protagoras (Ueber den Protag.
von Platon, p. 180 seq.).]
[Side-note: Affirmation of Protagoras about courage is affirmed by Plato himself elsewhere.]
But whatever may have been the intention of Plato, if we look at the fact, we shall find that what he has assigned to Sokrates is not always true, nor what he has given to Protagoras, always false.
The positions laid down by the latter--That many men are courageous, but unjust: that various persons are just, without being wise and intelligent: that he who possesses one virtue, does not of necessity possess all:[141]--are not only in conformity with the common opinion, but are quite true, though Sokrates is made to dispute them.
Moreover, the arguments employed by Sokrates (including in those arguments the strange propositions that justice is just, and that holiness is holy) are certainly noway conclusive.
[142] Though Protagoras, becoming entangled in difficulties, and incapable of maintaining his consistency against an embarrassing cross-examination, is of course exhibited as ignorant of that which he professes to know--the doctrine which he maintains is neither untrue in itself, nor even shown to be apparently untrue.
[Footnote 141: Plato, Protag.
p. 329 E. Protagoras is here made to affirm that many men are courageous who are neither just, nor temperate, nor virtuous in other respects.
Sokrates contradicts the position.
But in the Treatise De Legibus (i. p. 630 B), Plato himself says same thing as Protagoras is here made to say: at least assuming that the Athenian speaker in De Legg.
represents the sentiment of Plato himself at the time when he composed that treatise.]
[Footnote 142: Plato, Protag.
p. 330 C, p. 333 B.
To say "Justice is just," or "Holiness is holy," is indeed either mere tautology, or else an impropriety of speech.
Dr. Hutcheson observes on an analogous case: "None can apply moral attributes to the very faculty of perceiving moral qualities: or call his moral Sense morally Good or Evil, any more than he calls the power of tasting, sweet or bitter--or the power of seeing, straight or crooked, white or black" (Hutcheson on the Passions, sect.
i. p.
234).]
[Side-note: The harsh epithets applied by critics to Protagoras are not borne out by the dialogue.
He stands on the same ground as the common consciousness.]
As to the arrogant and exorbitant pretensions which the Platonic commentators ascribe to Protagoras, more is said than the reality justifies.
He pretends to know what virtue, justice, moderation, courage, &c., are, and he is proved not to know.
But this is what every one else pretends to know also, and what every body else teaches as well as he--"_Hæc Janus summus ab imo Perdocet: hæc recinunt juvenes dictata senesque_".
What he pretends to do, beyond the general public, he really can do.
He can discourse, learnedly and eloquently, upon these received doctrines and sentiments: he can enlist the feelings and sympathies of the public in favour of that which he, in common with the public, believes to be good--and against that which he and they believe to be bad: he can thus teach virtue more effectively than others.
But whether that which is received as virtue, be really such--he has never analysed or verified: nor does he willingly submit to the process of analysis.
Here again he is in harmony with the general public; for they hate, as much as he does, to be dragged back to fundamentals, and forced to explain, defend, revise, or modify, their established sentiments and maxims: which they apply as _principia_ for deduction to particular cases, and which they recognise as axioms whereby other things are to be tried, not as liable to be tried themselves.
Protagoras is one of the general public, in dislike of, and inaptitude for, analysis and dialectic discussion: while he stands above them in his eloquence and his power of combining, illustrating, and adorning, received doctrines.
These are points of superiority, not pretended, but real.
[Side-note: Aversion of Protagoras for dialectic.
Interlude about the song of Simonides.]
The aversion of Protagoras for dialectic discussion--after causing an interruption of the ethical argument, and an interlude of comment on the poet Simonides--is at length with difficulty overcome, and the argument is then resumed.
The question still continues, What is virtue?
What are the five different parts of virtue?
Yet it is so far altered that Protagoras now admits that the four parts of virtue which Sokrates professed to have shown to be nearly identical, really are tolerably alike: but he nevertheless contends that courage is very different from all of them, repeating his declaration that many men are courageous, but unjust and stupid at the same time.
This position Sokrates undertakes to refute.
In doing so, he lays out one of the largest, most distinct, and most positive theories of virtue, which can be found in the Platonic writings.
[Side-note: Ethical view given by Sokrates worked out at length clearly.
Good and evil consist in right or wrong calculation of pleasures and pains of the agent.]
Virtue, according to this theory, consists in a right measurement and choice of pleasures and pains: in deciding correctly, wherever we have an alternative, on which side lies the largest pleasure or the least pain--and choosing the side which presents this balance.
To live pleasurably, is pronounced to be good: to live without pleasure or in pain, is evil.
Moreover, nothing but pleasure, or comparative mitigation of pain, is good: nothing but pain is evil.
[143] Good, is identical with the greatest pleasure or least pain: evil, with greatest pain: meaning thereby each pleasure and each pain when looked at along with its consequences and concomitants.
The grand determining cause and condition of virtue is knowledge: the knowledge, science, or art, of correctly measuring the comparative value of different pleasures and pains.
Such knowledge (the theory affirms), wherever it is possessed, will be sure to command the whole man, to dictate all his conduct, and to prevail over every temptation of special appetite or aversion.
To say that a man who knows on which side the greatest pleasure or the least pain lies, will act against his knowledge--is a mistake.
If he acts in this way, it is plain that he does not possess the knowledge, and that he sins through ignorance.
[Footnote 143: The substantial identity of Good with Pleasure, of Evil with Pain, was the doctrine of the historical Sokrates as declared in Xenophon's Memorabilia.
See, among other passages, i.
6, 8.
[Greek: Tou= de\ mê\ douleu/ein gastri\ mêde\ u(/pnô| kai\ lagnei/a|, oi)/ei ti a)/llo ai)tiô/teron ei)=nai, ê)\ to\ e(/tera e)/chein tou/tôn ê(di/ô, a(\ ou) mo/non e)n chrei/a| o)/nta eu)phrai/nei, a)lla\ kai\ e)lpi/das pare/chonta ô)phelê/sein a)ei/?
Kai\ mê\n tou=to/ ge oi)=stha, o(/ti oi( me\n oi)o/menoi mêde\n eu)= pra/ttein ou)k eu)phrai/nontai, oi( de\ ê(gou/menoi kalô=s prochôrei=n e(autoi=s, ê)\ geôrgi/an ê)\ nauklêri/an ê)\ a)/ll' o(/, ti a)\n tugcha/nôsin e)rgazo/menoi, ô(s eu)= pra/ttontes eu)phrai/nontai.
Oi)/ei ou)=n a)po\ pa/ntôn tou/tôn tosau/tên ê(donê\n ei)=nai, o(/sên a)po\ tou= e(auto/n te ê(gei=sthai belti/ô gi/gnesthai kai\ phi/lous a)mei/nous kta=sthai?
E)gô\ toi/nun diatelô= tau=ta nomi/zôn.]
Locke says, 'Essay on Human Understanding,' Book ii.
ch.
28, "Good or Evil is nothing but pleasure or pain to us--or that which procures pleasure or pain to us.
Moral good or evil then is only the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn on us by the will and power of the law-maker; which good or evil, pleasure or pain, attending our observance or breach of the law, is that we call reward or punishment."
The formal distinction here taken by Locke between pleasure and that which procures pleasure--both the one and the other being called Good--(the like in regard to pain and evil) is not distinctly stated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, though he says nothing inconsistent with it: but it is distinctly stated in the Republic, ii.
p. 357, where Good is distributed under three heads.
1.
That which we desire immediately and for itself--such as Enjoyment, Innocuous pleasure.
2.
That which we desire both for itself and for its consequences--health, intelligence, good sight or hearing, &c. 3.
That which we do not desire (perhaps even shun) for itself, but which we accept by reason of its consequences in averting greater pains or procuring greater pleasures.
This discrimination of the varieties of Good, given in the Republic, is quite consistent with what is stated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, though it is more full and precise.
But it is not consistent with what Sokrates says in the Gorgias, where he asserts a radical dissimilarity of nature between [Greek: ê(du\] and [Greek: a)gatho/n].]
[Side-note: Protagoras is at first opposed to this theory.]
Protagoras agrees with Sokrates in the encomiums bestowed on the paramount importance and ascendancy of knowledge: but does not at first agree with him in identifying good with pleasure, and evil with pain.
Upon this point, too, he is represented as agreeing in opinion with the Many.
He does not admit that to live pleasurably is good, unless where a man takes his pleasure in honourable things.
He thinks it safer, and more consistent with his own whole life, to maintain--That pleasurable things, or painful things, may be either good, or evil, or indifferent, according to the particular case.
[Side-note: Reasoning of Sokrates.]
This doctrine Sokrates takes much pains to refute.
He contends that pleasurable things, so far forth as pleasurable, are always good--and painful things, so far forth as painful, always evil.
When some pleasures are called evil, that is not on account of any thing belonging to the pleasure itself, but because of its ulterior consequences and concomitants, which are painful or distressing in a degree more than countervailing the pleasure.
So too, when some pains are pronounced to be good, this is not from any peculiarity in the pain itself, but because of its consequences and concomitants: such pain being required as a condition to the attainment of health, security, wealth, and other pleasures or satisfactions more than counter-balancing.
Sokrates challenges opponents to name any other end, with reference to which things are called _good_, except their tendency to prevent or relieve pains and to ensure a balance of pleasure: he challenges them to name any other end, with reference to which things are called _evil_, except their tendency to produce pains and to intercept or destroy pleasures.
In measuring pleasures and pains against each other, there is no other difference to be reckoned except that of greater or less, more or fewer.
The difference between near and distant, does indeed obtrude itself upon us as a misleading element.
But it is the special task of the "measuring science" to correct this illusion--and to compare pleasures or pains, whether near or distant, according to their real worth: just as we learn to rectify the illusions of the sight in regard to near and distant objects.
[Side-note: Application of that reasoning to the case of courage.]
Sokrates proceeds to apply this general principle in correcting the explanation of courage given by Protagoras.
He shows, or tries to show, that courage, like all the other branches of virtue, consists in acting on a just estimate of comparative pleasures and pains.
No man affronts evil, or the alternative of greater pain, knowing it to be such: no man therefore adventures himself in any terrible enterprise, knowing it to be so: neither the brave nor the timid do this.
Both the brave and the timid affront that which they think not terrible, or the least terrible of two alternatives: but they estimate differently what is such.
The former go readily to war when required, the latter evade it.
Now to go into war when required, is honourable: being honourable, it is good: being honourable and good, it is pleasurable.
The brave know this, and enter upon it willingly: the timid not only do not know it, but entertain the contrary opinion, looking upon war as painful and terrible, and therefore keeping aloof.
The brave men fear what it is honourable to fear, the cowards what it is dishonourable to fear: the former act upon the knowledge of what is really terrible, the latter are misled by their ignorance of it.
Courage is thus, like the other virtues, a case of accurate knowledge of comparative pleasures and pains, or of good and evil.
[144] [Footnote 144: Compare, respecting Courage, a passage in the Republic, iv.
pp.
429 C, 430 B, which is better stated there (though substantially the same opinion) than here in the Protagoras.
The opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be illustrated by a sentence from the funeral oration delivered by Periklês, Thucyd.
ii.
43, fin.
[Greek: A)lgeinote/ra ga\r a)ndri/ ge phro/nêma e)/chonti ê( e)n tô=| meta\ tou= malakisthê=nai ka/kôsis, ê)\ o( meta\ r(ô/mês kai\ koinê=s e)lpi/dos a(/ma gigno/menos a)nai/sthêtos tha/natos]--which Dr. Arnold thus translates in his note: "For more grievous to a man of noble mind is the misery which comes together with cowardice, than the unfelt death which befalls him in the midst of his strength and hopes for the common welfare."
So again in the Phædon (p. 68) Sokrates describes the courage of the ordinary unphilosophical citizen to consist in braving death from fear of greater evils (which is the same view as that of Sokrates in the Protagoras), while the philosopher is courageous on a different principle; aspiring only to reason and intelligence, with the pleasures attending it, he welcomes death as releasing his mind from the obstructive companionship of the body.
The fear of disgrace and dishonour, in his own eyes and in those of others, is more intolerable to the brave man than the fear of wounds and death in the service of his country.
See Plato, Leg.
i. pp.
646-647.
He is [Greek: phobero\s meta\ no/mou, meta\ di/kês], p. 647 E. Such is the way in which both Plato and Thucydides conceive the character of the brave citizen as compared with the coward.
It is plain that this resolves itself ultimately into a different estimate of prospective pains; the case being one in which pleasure is not concerned.
That the pains of self-reproach and infamy in the eyes of others are among the most agonising in the human bosom, need hardly be remarked.
At the same time the sentiments here conceived embrace a wide field of sympathy, comprising the interests, honour, and security, of others as well as of the individual agent.]
[Side-note: The theory which Plato here lays down is more distinct and specific than any theory laid down in other dialogues.]
Such is the ethical theory which the Platonic Sokrates enunciates in this dialogue, and which Protagoras and others accept.
It is positive and distinct, to a degree very unusual with Plato.
We shall find that he theorises differently in other dialogues; whether for the better or the worse, will be hereafter seen.
He declares here explicitly that pleasure, or happiness, is the end to be pursued; and pain, or misery, the end to be avoided: and that there is no other end, in reference to which things can be called good or evil, except as they tend to promote pleasure or mitigate suffering, on the one side--to entail pain or suffering on the other.
He challenges objectors to assign any other end.
And thus much is certain--that in those other dialogues where he himself departs from the present doctrine, he has not complied with his own challenge.
Nowhere has he specified a different end.
In other dialogues, as well as in the Protagoras, Plato has insisted on the necessity of a science or art of calculation: but in no other dialogue has he told us distinctly what are the items to be calculated.
[Side-note: Remarks on the theory here laid down by Sokrates.
It is too narrow, and exclusively prudential.]
I perfectly agree with the doctrine laid down by Sokrates in the Protagoras, that pain or suffering is the End to be avoided or lessened as far as possible--and pleasure or happiness the End to be pursued as far as attainable--by intelligent forethought and comparison: that there is no other intelligible standard of reference, for application of the terms Good and Evil, except the tendency to produce happiness or misery: and that if this standard be rejected, ethical debate loses all standard for rational discussion, and becomes only an enunciation of the different sentiments, authoritative and self-justifying, prevalent in each community.
But the End just mentioned is highly complex, and care must be taken to conceive it in its full comprehension.
Herein I conceive the argument of Sokrates (in the Protagoras) to be incomplete.
It carries attention only to a part of the truth, keeping out of sight, though not excluding, the remainder.
It considers each man as an individual, determining good or evil for himself by calculating his own pleasures and pains: as a prudent, temperate, and courageous agent, but neither as just nor beneficent.
It omits to take account of him as a member of a society, composed of many others akin or co-ordinate with himself.
Now it is the purpose of an ethical or political reasoner (such as Plato both professes to be and really is) to study the means of happiness, not simply for the agent himself, but for that agent together with others around him--for the members of the community generally.
[145] The Platonic Sokrates says this himself in the Republic: and accordingly, he there treats of other points which are not touched upon by Sokrates in the Protagoras.
He proclaims that the happiness of each citizen must be sought only by means consistent with the security, and to a certain extent with the happiness, of others: he provides as far as practicable that all shall derive their pleasures and pains from the same causes: common pleasures, and common pains, to all.
[146] The doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras requires to be enlarged so as to comprehend these other important elements.
Since the conduct of every agent affects the happiness of others, he must be called upon to take account of its consequences under both aspects, especially where it goes to inflict hurt or privation upon others.
Good and evil depend upon that scientific computation and comparison of pleasures and pains which Sokrates in the Protagoras prescribes: but the computation must include, to a certain extent, the pleasures and pains (security and rightful expectations) of others besides the agent himself, implicated in the consequences of his acts.
[147] [Footnote 145: Plato, Republ.
iv.
pp.
420-421, v. p. 466 A.]
[Footnote 146: Plato, Republ.
v. pp.
462 A-B-D, 464 A-D.
Throughout the first of these passages we see [Greek: a)gatho\n] used as the equivalent of [Greek: ê(donê/], [Greek: kako\n] as the equivalent of [Greek: lu/pê].]
[Footnote 147: See, especially on this point, the brief but valuable Tract on Utilitarianism by Mr. John Stuart Mill.
In page 16 of that work attention is called to the fact, that in Utilitarianism the standard is not the greatest happiness of the agent himself alone, but the greatest amount of happiness altogether.
So that we cannot with exactness call the doctrine of Sokrates, in his conversation with Protagoras, "the theory of Utilitarianism," as Mr. Mill calls it in page 1.]
[Side-note: Comparison with the Republic.]
As to this point, we shall find the Platonic Sokrates not always correct, nor even consistent with himself.
This will appear especially when we come to see the account which he gives of Justice in the Republic.
In that branch of the Ethical End, a direct regard to the security of others comes into the foreground.
For in an act of injustice, the prominent characteristic is that of harm, done to others--though that is not the whole, since the security of the agent himself is implicated with that of others in the general fulfilment of these obligations.
It is this primary regard to others, and secondary regard to self, implicated in one complex feeling--which distinguishes justice from prudence.
The Platonic Sokrates in the Republic (though his language is not always clear) does not admit this; but considers justice as a branch of prudence, necessary to ensure the happiness of the individual agent himself.
[Side-note: The discourse of Protagoras brings out an important part of the whole case, which is omitted in the analysis by Sokrates.]
Now in the Protagoras, what the Platonic Sokrates dwells upon (in the argument which I have been considering) is prudence, temperance, courage: little or nothing is said about justice: there was therefore the less necessity for insisting on that prominent reference to the security of others (besides the agent himself) which justice involves.
If, however, we turn back to the earlier part of the dialogue, to the speech delivered by Protagoras, we see justice brought into the foreground.
It is not indeed handled analytically (which is not the manner of that Sophist), nor is it resolved into regard to pleasure and pain, happiness and misery: but it is announced as a social sentiment indispensably and reciprocally necessary from every man towards every other ([Greek: di/kê--ai)dô\s]), distinguishable from those endowments which supply the wants and multiply the comforts of the individual himself.
The very existence of the social union requires, that each man should feel a sentiment of duties on his part towards others, and duties on their parts towards him: or (in other words) of rights on his part to have his interests considered by others, and rights on their parts to have their interests considered by him.
Unless this sentiment of reciprocity--reciprocal duty and right--exist in the bosom of each individual citizen, or at least in the large majority--no social union could subsist.
There are doubtless different degrees of the sentiment: moreover the rights and duties may be apportioned better or worse, more or less fairly, among the individuals of a society; thus rendering the society more or less estimable and comfortable.
But without a certain minimum of the sentiment in each individual bosom, even the worst constituted society could not hold together.
And it is this sentiment of reciprocity which Protagoras (in the dialogue before us) is introduced as postulating in his declaration, that justice and the sense of shame (unlike to professional aptitudes) must be distributed universally and without exception among all the members of a community.
Each man must feel them, in his conduct towards others: each man must also be able to reckon that others will feel the like, in their behaviour towards him.
[148] [Footnote 148: Professor Bain (in his work on the Emotions and the Will, ch.
xv.
On the Ethical Emotions, pp.
271-3) has given remarks extremely pertinent to the illustration of that doctrine which Plato has here placed under the name of Protagoras.
"The supposed uniformity of moral distinctions resolves itself into the two following particulars.
First, the common end of _public security_, which is also individual preservation, demands certain precautions that are everywhere very much alike, and can in no case be dispensed with.
Some sort of constituted authority to control the individual impulses and to protect each man's person and property, must exist wherever a number of human beings live together.
The duties springing out of this necessary arrangement are essentially the same in all societies.
.
.
They have a pretty uniform character all over the globe.
If the sense of the common safety were not sufficiently strong to constitute the social tie of obedience to some common regulations, society could not exist.
.
.
.
It is no proof of the universal spread of a special innate faculty of moral distinctions, but of a certain rational appreciation of what is necessary for the very existence of every human being living in the company of others: Doubtless, if the sad history of the human race had been preserved in all its details, we _should have many examples of tribes that perished from being unequal to the conception of a social system, or to the restraints imposed by it_.
We know enough of the records of anarchy, to see how difficult it is for human nature to comply in full with the social conditions of security; but if this were not complied with at all, the result would be mutual and swift destruction.
.
.
.
In the second place, mankind have been singularly unanimous in the practice of imposing upon individual members of societies some observances or restraints of purely _sentimental_ origin, having no reference, direct or indirect, to the maintenance of the social tie, with all the safeguards implied in it.
Certain maxims founded in taste, liking, aversion, or fancy, have, in every community known to us, been raised to the dignity of authoritative morality; being rendered (so to speak) 'terms of communion,' and have been enforced by punishment.
.
.
.
In the rules, founded on men's sentiments, likings, aversions, and antipathies, there is nothing common but the fact that some one or other of these are carried to the length of public requirement, and mixed up in one code with the imperative duties that hold society together."
The postulate of the Platonic Protagoras--that [Greek: di/kê] and [Greek: ai)dô\s] must be felt to a certain extent in each man's bosom, as a condition to the very existence of society--agrees with the first of the two elements here distinguished by Mr. Bain, and does not necessarily go beyond it.
But the unsystematic teaching and universal propagandism, which Protagoras describes as the agency whereby virtue is communicated, applies alike to both the two elements distinguished by Mr. Bain: to the factitious exigencies of King Nomos, as well as to his tutelary control.
It is this mixed mass that the Sokratic analysis is brought to examine.]
[Side-note: The Ethical End, as implied in the discourse of Protagoras, involves a direct regard to the pleasures and pains of other persons besides the agent himself.]
If we thus compare the Ethical End, as implied, though not explicitly laid down, by Protagoras in the earlier part of the dialogue,--and as laid down by Sokrates in the later part--we shall see that while Sokrates restricts it to a true comparative estimate of the pains and pleasures of the agent himself, Protagoras enlarges it so as to include a direct reference to those of others also, coupled with an expectation of the like reference on the part of others.
[149] Sokrates is satisfied with requiring from each person calculating prudence for his own pleasures and pains: while Protagoras proclaims that after this attribute had been obtained by man, and individual wants supplied, still there was a farther element necessary in the calculation--the social sentiment or reciprocity of regard implanted in every one's bosom: without this the human race would have perished.
Prudence and skill will suffice for an isolated existence; but if men are to live and act in social communion, the services as well as the requirements of each man must be shaped, in a certain measure, with a direct view to the security of others as well as to his own.
[Footnote 149: Plato, Protag.
pp.
321-322.]
In my judgment, the Ethical End, exclusively self-regarding, here laid down by Sokrates, is too narrow.
And if we turn to other Platonic dialogues, we shall find Sokrates still represented as proclaiming a self-regarding Ethical End, though not the same as what we read in the Protagoras.
In the Gorgias, Republic, Phædon, &c., we shall find him discountenancing the calculation (recommended in the Protagoras) of pleasures and pains against each other, as greater, more certain, durable, &c., and insisting that all shall be estimated according as they bear on the general condition or health of the mind, which he assimilates to the general condition or health of the body.
The health of the body, considered as an End to be pursued, is essentially self-regarding: so also is the health of the mind.
I shall touch upon this farther when I consider the above-mentioned dialogues: at present, I only remark that they agree with the Sokrates of the Protagoras in assuming a self-regarding Ethical End, though they do not agree with him in describing what that End should be.
[Side-note: Plato's reasoning in the dialogue is not clear or satisfactory, especially about courage.]
The application which Sokrates makes (in the Protagoras) of his own assumed Ethical End to the explanation of courage, is certainly confused and unsatisfactory.
And indeed, we may farther remark that the general result at which Plato seems to be aiming in this dialogue, viz.
: That all the different virtues are at the bottom one and the same, and that he who possesses one of them must also possess the remainder--cannot be made out even upon his own assumptions.
Though it be true that all the virtues depend upon correct calculation, yet as each of them applies to a different set of circumstances and different disturbing and misleading causes, the same man who calculates well under one set of circumstances, may calculate badly under others.
The position laid down by Protagoras, that men are often courageous but unjust--just, but not wise--is noway refuted by Plato.
Nor is it even inconsistent with Plato's own theory, though he seems to think it so.
[Side-note: Doctrine of Stallbaum and other critics is not correct.
That the analysis here ascribed to Sokrates is not intended by Plato as serious, but as a mockery of the sophists.]
Some of the Platonic commentators maintain,[150] that the doctrine here explicitly laid down and illustrated by Sokrates, _viz._: the essential identity of the pleasurable with the good, of the painful with the evil--is to be regarded as not serious, but as taken up in jest for the purpose of mocking and humiliating Protagoras.
Such an hypothesis appears to me untenable; contradicted by the whole tenor of the dialogue.
Throughout all the Platonic compositions, there is nowhere to be found any train of argument more direct, more serious, and more elaborate, than that by which Sokrates here proves the identity of good with pleasure, of pain with evil (p. 351 to end).
Protagoras begins by denying it, and is only compelled to accept the conclusion against his own will, by the series of questions which he cannot otherwise answer.
[151] Sokrates admits that the bulk of mankind are also opposed to it: but he establishes it with an ingenuity which is pronounced to be triumphant by all the hearers around.
[152] The commentators are at liberty to impeach the reasoning as unsound; but to set it aside as mere banter and mockery, is preposterous.
Assume it even to be intended as mockery--assume that Sokrates is mystifying the hearers, by a string of delusive queries, to make out a thesis which he knows to be untrue and silly--how can the mockery fall upon Protagoras, who denies the thesis from the beginning?
[153] The irony, if it were irony, would be misplaced and absurd.
[Footnote 150: See Brandis, Gesch.
d.
Griech.-Röm., Phil.
Part ii.
sect.
114, note 3 p. 458; Stallbaum, Prolegom.
ad Protag.
pp.
15-33-34.
So too Ficinus says in his Argumentum to the Protagoras: (p. 765) "Tum vero de bono et malo multa tractantur.
Siquidem prudentia est scientia eligendi boni, malique vitandi.
Ambigitur autem utrum bonum malumque idem sit penitus quod et voluptas et dolor.
_Neque affirmatur id quidem omnino, neque manifesté omnino negatur._ De hoc enim in Gorgiâ Phileboque et alibi," &c. When a critic composes an Argument to the Protagoras, he is surely under obligation to report faithfully and exactly what is declared by Sokrates _in the Protagoras_, whether it be consistent or not with the Gorgias and Philêbus.
Yet here we find Ficinus misrepresenting the Protagoras, in order to force it into harmony with the other two.]
[Footnote 151: This is so directly stated that I am surprised to find Zeller (among many other critics) announcing that Plato here accepts for the occasion the _Standpunkt_ of his enemies (Philos.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 380, ed.
2nd).]
[Footnote 152: Plato, Protag.
p. 358 A.
[Greek: u(perphuô=s e)do/kei a(/pasin a)lêthê= ei)=nai ta\ ei)rême/na.]]
[Footnote 153: When Stallbaum asserts that the thesis is taken up by Sokrates as one which was maintained by Protagoras and the other Sophists (Proleg.
p. 33), he says what is distinctly at variance with the dialogue, p. 351.
Schleiermacher maintains that this same thesis (the fundamental identity of good with pleasure, evil with pain) is altogether "unsokratic and unplatonic"; that it is handled here by Sokrates in a manner visibly ironical (sichtbar ironisch); that the purpose of the argument is to show the stupidity of Protagoras, who is puzzled and imposed upon by such obvious fallacies (Einleitung zum Protag.
230, bottom of p. 232), and who is made to exhibit (so Schleiermacher says, Einl.
zum Gorgias, p. 14) a string of ludicrous absurdities.
Upon this I have to remark first, that if the stupidity of Protagoras is intended to be shown up, that of all the other persons present must be equally manifested; for all of them assent emphatically, at the close, to the thesis as having been proved (Prot.
p. 358 A): next, that I am unable to see either the absurdities of Protagoras or the irony of Sokrates, which Schleiermacher asserts to be so visible.
The argument of Sokrates is as serious and elaborate as any thing which we read in Plato.
Schleiermacher seems to me to misconceive altogether (not only here but also in his Einleitung zum Gorgias, p. 10) the concluding argument of Sokrates in the Protagoras.
To describe the identity between [Greek: ê(du\] and [Greek: a)gatho\n] as a "scheinbare Voraussetzung" is to depart from the plain meaning of words.
Again, Steinhart contends that Sokrates assumes this doctrine (identity of pleasure with good, pain with evil), "not as his own opinion, but only hypothetically, with a sarcastic side-glance at the absurd consequences which many deduced from it--only as the received world-morality, as the opinion of the majority" (Einleit.
zum Protag.
p. 419).
How Steinhart can find proof of this in the dialogue, I am at a loss to understand.
The dialogue presents to us Sokrates introducing the opinion as his own, against that of Protagoras and against that of the multitude (p. 351 C).
On hearing this opposition from Protagoras, Sokrates invites him to an investigation, whether the opinion be just; Sokrates then conducts the investigation himself, along with Protagoras, at considerable length, and ultimately brings out the doctrine as proved, with the assent of all present.
These forced interpretations are resorted to, because the critics cannot bear to see the Platonic Sokrates maintaining a thesis substantially the same as that of Eudoxus and Epikurus.
Upon this point, K. F. Hermann is more moderate than the others; he admits the thesis to be seriously maintained in the dialogue--states that it was really the opinion of the historical Sokrates--and adds that it was also the opinion of Plato himself during his early Sokratic stadium, when the Protagoras (as he thinks) was composed (Gesch.
und Syst.
der Plat.
Phil.
pp.
462-463).
Most of the critics agree in considering the Protagoras to be one of Plato's earlier dialogues, about 403 B.C.
Ast even refers it to 407 B.C.
when Plato was about twenty-one years of age.
I have already given my reasons for believing that none of the Platonic dialogues were composed before 399 B.C.
The Protagoras belongs, in my opinion, to Plato's most perfect and mature period.]
[Side-note: Grounds of that doctrine.
Their insufficiency.]
The commentators resort to this hypothesis, partly because the doctrine in question is one which they disapprove--partly because doctrines inconsistent with it are maintained in other Platonic dialogues.
These are the same two reasons upon which, in other cases, various dialogues have been rejected as not genuine works of Plato.
The first of the two reasons is plainly irrelevant: we must accept what Plato gives us, whether we assent to it or not.
The second reason also, I think, proves little.
The dialogues are distinct compositions, written each with its own circumstances and purpose: we have no right to require that they shall be all consistent with each other in doctrine, especially when we look to the long philosophical career of Plato.
To suppose that the elaborate reasoning of Sokrates in the latter portion of the Protagoras is mere irony, intended to mystify both Protagoras himself and all the by-standers, who accept it as earnest and convincing--appears to me far less reasonable than the admission, that the dialectic pleading ascribed to Sokrates in one dialogue is inconsistent with that assigned to him in another.
[Side-note: Subject is professedly still left unsettled at the close of the dialogue.]
Though there is every mark of seriousness, and no mark of irony, in this reasoning of Sokrates, yet we must remember that he does not profess to leave the subject settled at the close of the dialogue.
On the contrary, he declares himself to be in a state of puzzle and perplexity.
The question, proposed at the outset, Whether virtue is teachable?
remains undecided.
CHAPTER XXIV.
GORGIAS.
[Side-note: Persons who debate in the Gorgias.
Celebrity of the historical Gorgias.]
Aristotle, in one of his lost dialogues, made honourable mention of a Corinthian cultivator, who, on reading the Platonic Gorgias, was smitten with such vehement admiration, that he abandoned his fields and his vines, came to Athens forthwith, and committed himself to the tuition of Plato.
[1] How much of reality there may be in this anecdote, we cannot say: but the Gorgias itself is well calculated to justify such warm admiration.
It opens with a discussion on the nature and purpose of Rhetoric, but is gradually enlarged so as to include a comparison of the various schemes of life, and an outline of positive ethical theory.
It is carried on by Sokrates with three distinct interlocutors--Gorgias, Polus, and Kalliklês; but I must again remind the reader that all the four are only spokesmen prompted by Plato himself.
[2] It may indeed be considered almost as three distinct dialogues, connected by a loose thread.
The historical Gorgias, a native of Leontini in Sicily, was the most celebrated of the Grecian rhetors; an elderly man during Plato's youth.
He paid visits to different cities in all parts of Greece, and gave lessons in rhetoric to numerous pupils, chiefly young men of ambitious aspirations.
[3] [Footnote 1: Themistius, Or.
xxiii.
p. 356, Dindorf.
[Greek: O( de\ geôrgo\s o( Kori/nthios tô=| Gorgi/a| xuggeno/menos--ou)k au)tô=| e)kei/nô| Gorgi/a|, a)lla\ tô=| lo/gô| o(\n Pla/tôn e)/grapsen e)p' e)le/gchô| tou= sophistou=--au)ti/ka a)phei\s to\n a)/gron kai\ tou\s a)mpe/lous, Pla/tôni u(pe/thêke tê\n psuchê\n kai\ ta\ e)kei/nou e)spei/reto kai\ e)phuteu/eto; kai\ ou(=to/s e)stin o(\n tima=| A)ristote/lês e)n tô=| dialo/gô| tô=| Korinthi/ô|.]]
[Footnote 2: Aristeides, Orat.
xlvi.
p. 387, Dindorf.
[Greek: Ti/s ga\r ou)k oi)=den, o(/ti kai\ o( Sôkra/tês kai\ o( Kalliklê=s kai\ o( Gorgi/as kai\ o( Pô=los, pa/nta tau=t' e)sti\ Pla/tôn, pro\s to\ dokou=n au)tô=| tre/pôn tou\s lo/gous?]
Though Aristeides asks reasonably enough, Who is ignorant of this?--the remarks of Stallbaum and others often imply forgetfulness of it.]
[Footnote 3: Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Gorgias, vol.
iii.
p. 22) is of opinion that Plato composed the Gorgias shortly after returning from his first voyage to Sicily, 387 B.C.
I shall not contradict this: but I see nothing to prove it.
At the same time, Schleiermacher assumes as certain that Aristophanes in the Ekklesiazusæ alludes to the doctrines published by Plato in his Republic (Einleitung zum Gorgias, p. 20).
Putting these two statements together, the Gorgias would be later in date of composition than the Republic, which I hardly think probable.
However, I do not at all believe that Aristophanes in the Ekklesiazusæ makes any allusion to the Republic of Plato.
Nor shall I believe, until some evidence is produced, that the Republic was composed at so early a date as 390 B.C.]
[Side-note: Introductory circumstances of the dialogue.
Polus and Kalliklês.]
Sokrates and Chærephon are described as intending to come to a rhetorical lecture of Gorgias, but as having been accidentally detained so as not to arrive until just after it has been finished, with brilliant success.
Kalliklês, however, the host and friend of Gorgias, promises that the rhetor will readily answer any questions put by Sokrates; which Gorgias himself confirms, observing at the same time that no one had asked him any new question for many years past.
[4] Sokrates accordingly asks Gorgias what his profession is?
what it is that he teaches?
what is the definition of rhetoric?
Not receiving a satisfactory answer, Sokrates furnishes a definition of his own: out of which grow two arguments of wide ethical bearing: carried on by Sokrates, the first against Polus, the second against Kalliklês.
Both these two are represented as voluble speakers, of confident temper, regarding the acquisition of political power and oratorical celebrity as the grand objects of life.
Polus had even composed a work on Rhetoric, of which we know nothing: but the tone of this dialogue would seem to indicate (as far as we can judge from such evidence) that the style of the work was affected, and the temper of the author flippant.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Gorg.
pp.
447-448 A.
The dialogue is supposed to be carried on in the presence of many persons, seemingly belonging to the auditory of the lecture which Gorgias has just finished, p. 455 C.] [Side-note: Purpose of Sokrates in questioning.
Conditions of a good definition.]
Here, as in the other dialogues above noticed, the avowed aim of Sokrates is--first, to exclude long speaking--next, to get the question accurately conceived, and answered in an appropriate manner.
Specimens are given of unsuitable and inaccurate answers, which Sokrates corrects.
The conditions of a good definition are made plain by contrast with bad ones; which either include much more than the thing defined, or set forth what is accessory and occasional in place of what is essential and constant.
These tentatives and gropings to find a definition are always instructive, and must have been especially so in the Platonic age, when logical distinctions had never yet been made a subject of separate attention or analysis.
[Side-note: Questions about the definition of Rhetoric.
It is the artisan of persuasion.]
About what is Rhetoric as a cognition concerned, Gorgias?
_Gorg._--About words or discourses.
_Sokr._--About what discourses?
such as inform sick men how they are to get well?
_Gorg._--No.
_Sokr._--It is not about all discourses?
_Gorg._--It makes men competent to speak: of course therefore also to think, upon the matters on which they speak.
[5] _Sokr._--But the medical and gymnastic arts do this likewise, each with reference to its respective subject: what then is the difference between them and Rhetoric?
_Gorg._--The difference is, that each of these other arts tends mainly towards some actual work or performance, to which the discourses, when required at all, are subsidiary: but Rhetoric accomplishes every thing by discourses alone.
[6] _Sokr._--But the same may be said about arithmetic, geometry, and other sciences.
How are they distinguished from Rhetoric?
You must tell me upon what matters the discourses with which Rhetoric is conversant turn; just as you would tell me, if I asked the like question about arithmetic or astronomy.
_Gorg._--The discourses, with which Rhetoric is conversant, turn upon the greatest of all human affairs.
_Sokr._--But this too, Gorgias, is indistinct and equivocal.
Every man, the physician, the gymnast, the money-maker, thinks his own object and his own affairs the greatest of all.
[7] _Gorg._--The function of Rhetoric, is to persuade assembled multitudes, and thus to secure what are in truth the greatest benefits: freedom to the city, political command to the speaker.
[8] _Sokr._--Rhetoric is then the artisan of persuasion.
Its single purpose is to produce persuasion in the minds of hearers?
_Gorg._--It is so.
[Footnote 5: Plato, Gorgias, p. 449 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n peri\ ô(=nper le/gein, kai\ phronei=n?
Pô=s ga\r ou)/?]]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Gorgias, p. 450 B-C. [Greek: tê=s r(êtorikê=s .
.
.
.
pa=sa ê( pra=xis kai\ ê( ku/rôsis dia\ lo/gôn e)sti/n .
.
.
.]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
451-452.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Gorgias, p. 452 D. [Greek: O(/per e)/sti tê=| a)lêthei/a| me/giston a)gatho/n, kai\ ai)/tion, a)/ma me\n e)leutheri/as au)toi=s toi=s a)nthrô/pois, a)/ma de\ tou= a)/llôn a)/rchein e)n tê=| au(tou= po/lei e(ka/stô|.]]
[Side-note: The Rhetor produces belief without knowledge.
Upon what matters is he competent to advise?]
_Sokr._--But are there not other persons besides the Rhetor, who produce persuasion?
Does not the arithmetical teacher, and every other teacher, produce persuasion?
How does the Rhetor differ from them?
What mode of persuasion does he bring about?
Persuasion about what?
_Gorg._--I reply--it is that persuasion which is brought about in Dikasteries, and other assembled multitudes--and which relates to just and unjust.
[9] _Sokr._--You recognise that to have learnt and to know any matter, is one thing--to believe it, is another: that knowledge and belief are different--knowledge being always true, belief sometimes false?
_Gorg._--Yes.
_Sokr._--We must then distinguish two sorts of persuasion: one carrying with it knowledge--the other belief without knowledge.
Which of the two does the Rhetor bring about?
_Gorg._--That which produces belief without knowledge.
He can teach nothing.
_Sokr._--Well, then, Gorgias, on what matters will the Rhetor be competent to advise?
When the people are deliberating about the choice of generals or physicians, about the construction of docks, about practical questions of any kind--there will be in each case a special man informed and competent to teach or give counsel, while the Rhetor is not competent.
Upon what then can the Rhetor advise--upon just and unjust--nothing else?
[10] [Footnote 9: Plato, Gorgias, p. 454 B.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Gorgias, p. 455 D.] [Side-note: The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the opinion of the special expert.
He appears to know, among the ignorant.]
The Rhetor (says Gorgias) or accomplished public speaker, will give advice about all the matters that you name, and others besides.
He will persuade the people and carry them along with him, even against the opinion of the special _Expert_.
He will talk more persuasively than the craftsman about matters of the craftsman's own business.
The power of the Rhetor is thus very great: but he ought to use it, like all other powers, for just and honest purposes; not to abuse it for wrong and oppression.
If he does the latter, the misdeed is his own, and not the fault of his teacher, who gave his lessons with a view that they should be turned to proper use.
If a man, who has learnt the use of arms, employs them to commit murder, this abuse ought not to be imputed to his master of arms.
[11] [Footnote 11: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
456-457.]
You mean (replies Sokrates) that he, who has learnt Rhetoric from you, will become competent not to teach, but to persuade the multitude:--that is, competent among the ignorant.
He has acquired an engine of persuasion; so that he will appear, when addressing the ignorant, to know more than those who really do know.
[12] [Footnote 12: Plato, Gorgias, p. 459 B.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\ peri\ ta\s a)/llas a(pa/sas te/chnas ô(sau/tôs e)/chei o( r(ê/tôr kai\ ê( r(êtorikê/; au)ta\ me\n ta\ pra/gmata ou)de\n dei= au)tê\n ei)de/nai o(/pôs e)/chei, mêchanê\n de/ tina peithou=s eu(rêke/nai, ô(/ste phai/nesthai toi=s ou)k ei)do/si ma=llon ei)de/nai tô=n ei)do/tôn.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Gorgias is now made to contradict himself.
Polus takes up the debate with Sokrates.]
Thus far, the conversation is carried on between Sokrates and Gorgias.
But the latter is now made to contradict himself--apparently rather than really--for the argument whereby Sokrates reduces him to a contradiction, is not tenable, unless we admit the Platonic doctrine that the man who has learnt just and unjust, may be relied on to act as a just man;[13] in other words, that virtue consists in knowledge.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Gorgias, p. 460 B.
[Greek: o( ta\ di/kaia memathêkô/s, di/kaios].
Aristotle notices this confusion of Sokrates, who falls into it also in the conversation with Euthydemus, Xenoph.
Memorab.
iv.
2, 20, iii.
9, 5.]
[Side-note: Polemical tone of Sokrates.
At the instance of Polus he gives his own definition of rhetoric.
It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery.
It is a branch under the general head flattery.]
Polus now interferes and takes up the conversation: challenging Sokrates to furnish what _he_ thinks the proper definition of Rhetoric.
Sokrates obeys, in a tone of pungent polemic.
Rhetoric (he says) is no art at all, but an empirical knack of catering for the pleasure and favour of hearers; analogous to cookery.
[14] It is a talent falling under the general aptitude called Flattery; possessed by some bold spirits, who are forward in divining and adapting themselves to the temper of the public.
[15] It is not honourable, but a mean pursuit, like cookery.
It is the shadow or false imitation of a branch of the political art.
[16] In reference both to the body and the mind, there are two different conditions: one, a condition really and truly good--the other, good only in fallacious appearance, and not so in reality.
To produce, and to verify, the really good condition of the body, there are two specially qualified professions, the gymnast or trainer and the physician: in regard to the mind, the function of the trainer is performed by the law-giving power, that of the physician by the judicial power.
Law-making, and adjudicating, are both branches of the political art, and when put together make up the whole of it.
Gymnastic and medicine train and doctor the body towards its really best condition: law-making and adjudicating do the same in regard to the mind.
To each of the four, there corresponds a sham counterpart or mimic, a branch under the general head _flattery_--taking no account of what is really best, but only of that which is most agreeable for the moment, and by this trick recommending itself to a fallacious esteem.
[17] Thus Cosmetic, or Ornamental Trickery, is the counterfeit of Gymnastic; and Cookery the counterfeit of Medicine.
Cookery studies only what is immediately agreeable to the body, without considering whether it be good or wholesome: and does this moreover, without any truly scientific process of observation or inference, but simply by an empirical process of memory or analogy.
But Medicine examines, and that too by scientific method, only what is good and wholesome for the body, whether agreeable or not.
Amidst ignorant men, Cookery slips in as the counterfeit of medicine; pretending to know what food is _good_ for the body, while it really knows only what food is _agreeable_.
In like manner, the artifices of ornament dress up the body to a false appearance of that vigour and symmetry, which Gymnastics impart to it really and intrinsically.
[Footnote 14: Plato, Gorgias, p. 462 C. [Greek: e)mpeiri/a .
.
.
.
cha/rito/s tinos kai\ ê(donê=s a)pergasi/as].
In the Philêbus (pp.
55-56) Sokrates treats [Greek: i)atrikê\] differently, as falling short of the idea of [Greek: te/chnê], and coming much nearer to what is here called [Greek: e)mpeiri/a] or [Greek: stochastikê/].
Asklepiades was displeased with the Thracian Dionysius for calling [Greek: grammatikê\] by the name of [Greek: e)mpeiri/a] instead of [Greek: te/chnê]: see Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Grammat.
s. 57-72, p. 615, Bekk.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Gorgias, p. 463 A.
[Greek: dokei= moi ei)=nai/ ti e)pitê/deuma, techniko\n me\n ou)/, psuchê=s de\ stochastikê=s kai\ a)ndrei/as kai\ phu/sei deinê=s prosomilei=n toi=s a)nthrô/pois; kalô= de\ au)tou= e)gô\ to\ kepha/laion _kolakei/an_.]]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Gorgias, p. 463 D. [Greek: politikê=s mori/ou ei)/dôlon].]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Gorgias, p. 464 C. [Greek: tetta/rôn dê\ tou/tôn ou)sô=n, kai\ a)ei\ pro\s to\ be/ltiston therapeuousô=n, tô=n me\n to\ sô=ma, tô=n de\ tê\n psuchê/n, ê( kolakeutikê\ ai)sthome/nê, ou) gnou=sa le/gô a)lla\ stochasame/nê, te/tracha e(autê\n dianei/masa, u(podu=sa u(po\ e(/kaston tô=n mori/ôn, prospoiei=tai ei)=nai tou=to o(/per u(pe/du; kai\ tou= me\n belti/stou ou)de\n phronti/zei, tô=| de\ a)ei\ ê(di/stô| thêreu/etai tê\n a)/noian kai\ e)xapata=|, ô(/ste dokei= plei/stou a)xi/a ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body and mind--and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in reality aim at immediate pleasure.]
The same analogies hold in regard to the mind.
Sophistic is the shadow or counterfeit of law-giving: Rhetoric, of judging or adjudicating.
The lawgiver and the judge aim at what is good for the mind: the Sophist and the Rhetor aim at what is agreeable to it.
This distinction between them (continues Sokrates) is true and real: though it often happens that the Sophist is, both by himself and by others, confounded with and mistaken for the lawgiver, because he deals with the same topics and occurrences: and the Rhetor, in the same manner, is confounded with the judge.
[18] The Sophist and the Rhetor, addressing themselves to the present relish of an undiscerning public, are enabled to usurp the functions and the credit of their more severe and far-sighted rivals.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Gorgias, p. 465 C. [Greek: die/stêke me\n ou(/tô phu/sei; a(/te de\ e)ggu\s o)/ntôn, phu/rontai e)n tô=| au)tô=| kai\ peri\ tau)ta\ sophistai\ kai\ r(ê/tores, kai\ ou)k e)/chousin o(/, ti chrê/sôntai ou)/te au)toi\ e(autoi=s ou)/te oi( a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi tou/tois.]
It seems to me that the persons whom Plato here designates as being confounded together are, the Sophist with the lawgiver, the Rhetor with the judge or dikast; which is shown by the allusion, three lines farther on, to the confusion between the cook and the physician.
Heindorf supposes that the persons designated as being confounded are, the Sophist with the Rhetor; which I cannot think to be the meaning of Plato.]
[Side-note: Questions of Polus.
Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real power, because they do nothing which they really wish.]
This is the definition given by Sokrates of Rhetoric and of the Rhetor.
Polus then asks him: You say that Rhetoric is a branch of Flattery: Do you think that good Rhetors are considered as flatterers in their respective cities?
_Sokr._--I do not think that[19] they are considered at all.
_Polus._--How!
not considered?
Do not good Rhetors possess great power in their respective cities?
_Sokr._--No: if you understand the possession of power as a good thing for the possessor.
_Polus._--I do understand it so.
_Sokr._--Then I say that the Rhetors possess nothing beyond the very minimum of power.
_Polus._--How can that be?
Do not they, like despots, kill, impoverish, and expel any one whom they please?
_Sokr._--I admit that both Rhetors and Despots can do what seems good to themselves, and can bring penalties of death, poverty, or exile upon others: but I say that nevertheless they have no power, because they can do nothing which they really wish.
[20] [Footnote 19: Plat.
Gorg.
p. 466 B.
_Polus._ [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n dokou=si/ soi ô(s ko/lakes e)n tai=s po/lesi phau=loi nomi/zesthai oi( a)gathoi\ r(ê/tores?
.
.
.
. ]
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ou)de\ nomi/zesthai e)/moige dokou=sin.]
The play on words here--for I see nothing else in it--can be expressed in English as well as in Greek.
It has very little pertinence; because, as a matter of fact, the Rhetors certainly had considerable importance, whether they deserved it or not.
How little Plato cared to make his comparisons harmonise with the fact, may be seen by what immediately follows--where he compares the Rhetors to Despots?
and puts in the mouth of Polus the assertion that they kill or banish any one whom they choose.]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Gorgias, p. 466 E. [Greek: ou)de\n ga\r poiei=n ô(=n bou/lontai, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n; poiei=n me/ntoi o(\, ti a)\n au)toi=s do/xê| be/ltiston ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: All men wish for what is good for them.
Despots and Rhetors, when they kill any one, do so because they think it good for them.
If it be really not good, they do not do what they will, and therefore have no real power.]
That which men wish (Sokrates lays down as a general proposition) is to obtain good, and to escape evil.
Each separate act which they perform, is performed not with a view to its own special result, but with a view to these constant and paramount ends.
Good things, or profitable things (for Sokrates alternates the phrases as equivalent), are wisdom, health, wealth, and other such things.
Evil things are the contraries of these.
[21] Many things are in themselves neither good nor evil, but may become one or the other, according to circumstances--such as stones, wood, the acts of sitting still or moving, &c. When we do any of these indifferent acts, it is with a view to the pursuit of good, or to the avoidance of evil: we do not wish for the act, we wish for its good or profitable results.
We do every thing for the sake of good: and if the results are really good or profitable, we accomplish what we wish: if the contrary, not.
Now, Despots and Rhetors, when they kill or banish or impoverish any one, do so because they think it will be better for them, or profitable.
[22] If it be good for them, they do what they wish: if evil for them, they do the contrary of what they wish and therefore have no power.
[Footnote 21: Plato, Gorgias, p. 467 E. [Greek: Ou)kou=n le/geis ei)=nai a)gatho\n me\n sophi/an te kai\ u(gi/eian kai\ plou=ton kai\ ta)/lla ta\ toiau=ta, kaka\ de\ ta)nanti/a tou/tôn?
E)/gôge.]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Gorgias, p. 468 B-C. [Greek: ou)kou=n kai\ a)pokti/nnumen, ei)/ tin' a)pokti/nnumen, .
.
.
.
oi)o/menoi a)/meinon ei)=nai ê(mi=n tau=ta ê)\ mê/?
.
.
.
e(/nek' a)/ra tou= a)gathou= a(/panta tau=ta poiou=sin oi( poiou=ntes .
.
.
.
e)a\n me\n ô)phe/lima ê)=| tau=ta, boulo/metha pra/ttein au)ta/; blabera\ de\ o)/nta, ou) boulo/metha.
.
.
.
.
ta\ ga\r a)gatha\ boulo/metha, ô(=s phê\|s su/], &c.] To do evil (continues Sokrates), is the worst thing that can happen to any one; the evil-doer is the most miserable and pitiable of men.
The person who suffers evil is unfortunate, and is to be pitied; but much less unfortunate and less to be pitied than the evil-doer.
If I have a concealed dagger in the public market-place, I can kill any one whom I choose: but this is no good to me, nor is it a proof of great power, because I shall be forthwith taken up and punished.
The result is not profitable, but hurtful: therefore the act is not good, nor is the power to do it either good or desirable.
[23] It is sometimes good to kill, banish, or impoverish--sometimes bad.
It is good when you do it justly: bad, when you do it unjustly.
[24] [Footnote 23: Plato, Gorgias, p.
469-470.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Gorgias, p. 470 C.] [Side-note: Comparison of Archelaus, usurping despot of Macedonia--Polus affirms that Archelaus is happy, and that every one thinks so--Sokrates admits that every one thinks so, but nevertheless denies it.]
_Polus._--A child can refute such doctrine.
You have heard of Archelaus King of Macedonia.
Is he, in your opinion, happy or miserable?
_Sokr._--I do not know: I have never been in his society.
_Polus._--Cannot you tell without that, whether he is happy or not?
_Sokr._--No, certainly not.
_Polus._--Then you will not call even the Great King happy?
_Sokr._--No: I do not know how he stands in respect to education and justice.
_Polus._--What!
does all happiness consist in that?
_Sokr._--I say that it does.
I maintain that the good and honourable man or woman is happy: the unjust and wicked, miserable.
[25] _Polus._--Then Archelaus is miserable, according to your doctrine?
_Sokr._--Assuredly, if he is wicked.
_Polus._--Wicked, of course; since he has committed enormous crimes: but he has obtained complete kingly power in Macedonia.
Is there any Athenian, yourself included, who would not rather be Archelaus than any other man in Macedonia?
[26] _Sokr._--All the public, with Nikias, Perikles, and the most eminent men among them, will agree with you in declaring Archelaus to be happy.
I alone do not agree with you.
You, like a Rhetor, intend to overwhelm me and gain your cause, by calling a multitude of witnesses: I shall prove my case without calling any other witness than yourself.
[27] Do you think that Archelaus would have been a happy man, if he had been defeated in his conspiracy and punished?
_Polus._--Certainly not: he would then have been very miserable.
_Sokr._--Here again I differ from you: I think that Archelaus, or any other wicked man, is under all circumstances miserable; but he is less miserable, if afterwards punished, than he would be if unpunished and successful.
[28] _Polus._--How say you?
If a man, unjustly conspiring to become despot, be captured, subjected to torture, mutilated, with his eyes burnt out and with many other outrages inflicted, not only upon himself but upon his wife and children--do you say that he will be more happy than if he succeeded in his enterprise, and passed his life in possession of undisputed authority over his city--envied and extolled as happy, by citizens and strangers alike?
[29] _Sokr._--More happy, I shall not say: for in both cases he will be miserable; but he will be less miserable on the former supposition.
[Footnote 25: Plato, Gorgias, p. 470 E.] [Footnote 26: Plato, Gorgias, p. 471 B-C.] [Footnote 27: Plato, Gorgias, p. 472 B.
[Greek: A)ll' e)gô/ soi ei)=s ô)\n ou)ch o(mologô=.
.
.
.
e)gô\ de\ a)\n mê\ se\ au)to\n e(/na o)/nta ma/rtura para/schômai o(mologou=nta peri\ ô(=n le/gô, ou)de\n oi)=mai a)/xion lo/gou pepera/nthai peri\ ô(=n a)\n ê(mi=n o( lo/gos ê)=|; oi)=mai de\ ou)de\ soi/, e)a\n mê\ e)gô/ soi marturô= ei(=s ô)\n mo/nos, tou\s d' a)/llous pa/ntas tou/tous chai/rein e)a=|s.]]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Gorgias, p. 473 C.] [Footnote 29: Plato, Gorgias, p. 473 D.] [Side-note: Sokrates maintains--1.
That it is a greater evil to do wrong, than to suffer wrong.
2.
That if a man has done wrong, it is better for him to be punished than to remain unpunished.]
_Sokr._--Which of the two is worst: to do wrong, or to suffer wrong?
_Polus._--To suffer wrong.
_Sokr._--Which of the two is the most disgraceful?
_Polus._--To do wrong.
_Sokr._--If more ugly and disgraceful, is it not then worse?
_Polus._--By no means.
_Sokr._--You do not think then that the good--and the fine or honourable--are one and the same; nor the bad--and the ugly or disgraceful?
_Polus._--No: certainly not.
_Sokr._--How is this?
Are not all fine or honourable things, such as bodies, colours, figures, voices, pursuits, &c., so denominated from some common property?
Are not fine bodies said to be fine, either from rendering some useful service, or from affording some pleasure to the spectator who contemplates them?
[30] And are not figures, colours, voices, laws, sciences, &c., called fine or honourable for the same reason, either for their agreeableness or their usefulness, or both?
_Polus._--Certainly: your definition of the fine or honourable, by reference to pleasure, or to good, is satisfactory.
_Sokr._--Of course therefore the ugly or disgraceful must be defined by the contrary, by reference to pain or to evil?
_Polus._--Doubtless.
[31] _Sokr._--If therefore one thing be finer or more honourable than another, this is because it surpasses the other either in pleasure, or in profit: if one thing be more ugly or disgraceful than another, it must surpass that other either in pain, or in evil?
_Polus._--Yes.
[Footnote 30: Plat.
Gorg.
p. 474 D. [Greek: e)a\n e)n tô=| theôrei=sthai chai/rein poiê=| tou\s theôrou=ntas?]]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Gorgias, p. 474 E. _Sokr._ [Greek: Kai\ mê\n ta/ ge kata\ tou\s no/mous kai\ ta\ e)pitêdeu/mata, ou) dê/pou e)kto\s tou/tôn e)sti\ ta\ kala/, tou= ê)\ _ô)phe/lima ei)=nai ê)\ ê(de/a ê)\_ a)mpho/tera.]
_Pol._ [Greek: Ou)k e)/moige dokei=.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\ tô=n mathêma/tôn ka/llos ô(sau/tôs?]
_Pol._ [Greek: Pa/nu ge; kai\ kalô=s ge nu=n o(rizei, _ê(donê=| te kai\ a)gathô=|_ o(rizo/menos to\ kalo/n.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ou)kou=n to\ ai)schro\n tô=| e)nanti/ô|, _lu/pê| te kai\ kakô=|_?]
_Pol._ [Greek: A)na/gkê.]
A little farther on [Greek: blabê\] is used as equivalent to [Greek: kako/n].
These words--[Greek: kalo/n, ai)schro/n]--(very difficult to translate properly) introduce a reference to the feeling or judgment of spectators, or of an undefined public, not concerned either as agents or sufferers.]
[Side-note: Sokrates offers proof--Definition of Pulchrum and Turpe--Proof of the first point.]
_Sokr._--Well, then!
what did you say about doing wrong and suffering wrong?
You said that to suffer wrong was the worst of the two, but to do wrong was the most ugly or disgraceful.
Now, if to do wrong be more disgraceful than to suffer wrong, this must be because it has a preponderance either of pain or of evil?
_Polus._--Undoubtedly.
_Sokr._--Has it a preponderance of pain?
Does the doer of wrong endure more pain than the sufferer?
_Polus._--Certainly not.
_Sokr._--Then it must have a preponderance of evil?
_Polus._--Yes.
_Sokr._--To do wrong therefore is worse than to suffer wrong, as well as more disgraceful?
_Polus._--It appears so.
_Sokr._--Since therefore it is both worse and more disgraceful, I was right in affirming that neither you, nor I, nor any one else, would choose to do wrong in preference to suffering wrong.
_Polus._--So it seems.
[32] [Footnote 32: Plato, Gorgias, p. 475 C-D.] [Side-note: Proof of the second point.]
_Sokr._--Now let us take the second point--Whether it be the greatest evil for the wrong-doer to be punished, or whether it be not a still greater evil for him to remain unpunished.
If punished, the wrong-doer is of course punished justly; and are not all just things fine or honourable, in so far as they are just?
_Polus._--I think so.
_Sokr._--When a man does anything, must there not be some correlate which suffers; and must it not suffer in a way corresponding to what the doer does?
Thus if any one strikes, there must also be something stricken: and if he strikes quickly or violently, there must be something which is stricken quickly or violently.
And so, if any one burns or cuts, there must be something burnt or cut.
As the agent acts, so the patient suffers.
_Polus._--Yes.
_Sokr._--Now if a man be punished for wrong doing, he suffers what is just, and the punisher does what is just?
_Polus._--He does.
_Sokr._--You admitted that all just things were honourable: therefore the agent does what is honourable, the patient suffers what is honourable.
[33] But if honourable, it must be either agreeable--or good and profitable.
In this case, it is certainly not agreeable: it must therefore be good and profitable.
The wrong-doer therefore, when punished, suffers what is good and is profited.
_Polus._--Yes.
[34] _Sokr._--In what manner is he profited?
It is, as I presume, by becoming better in his mind--by being relieved from badness of mind.
_Polus._--Probably.
_Sokr._--Is not this badness of mind the greatest evil?
In regard to wealth, the special badness is poverty: in regard to the body, it is weakness, sickness, deformity, &c.: in regard to the mind, it is ignorance, injustice, cowardice, &c. Is not injustice, and other badness of mind, the most disgraceful of the three?
_Polus._--Decidedly.
_Sokr._--If it be most disgraceful, it must therefore be the worst.
_Polus._--How?
_Sokr._--It must (as we before agreed) have the greatest preponderance either of pain, or of hurt and evil.
But the preponderance is not in pain: for no one will say that the being unjust and intemperate and ignorant, is more painful than being poor and sick.
The preponderance must therefore be great in hurt and evil.
Mental badness is therefore a greater evil than either poverty, or disease and bodily deformity.
It is the greatest of human evils.
_Polus._--It appears so.
[35] [Footnote 33: See Aristotle, Rhet.
i.
9, p. 1366, b.
30, where the contrary of this opinion is maintained, and maintained with truth.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Gorgias, p. 476 D-E.] [Footnote 35: Plato, Gorgias, p. 477 E.] [Side-note: The criminal labours under a mental distemper, which though not painful, is a capital evil.
Punishment is the only cure for him.
To be punished is best for him.]
_Sokr._--The money-making art is, that which relieves us from poverty: the medical art, from sickness and weakness: the judicial or punitory, from injustice and wickedness of mind.
Of these three relieving forces, which is the most honourable?
_Polus._--The last, by far.
_Sokr._--If most honourable, it confers either most pleasure or most profit?
_Polus._--Yes.
_Sokr._--Now, to go through medical treatment is not agreeable; but it answers to a man to undergo the pain, in order to get rid of a great evil, and to become well.
He would be a happier man, if he were never sick: he is less miserable by undergoing the painful treatment and becoming well, than if he underwent no treatment and remained sick.
Just so the man who is mentally bad: the happiest man is he who never becomes so; but if a man has become so, the next best course for him is, to undergo punishment and to get rid of the evil.
The worst lot of all is, that of him who remains mentally bad, without ever getting rid of badness.
[36] [Footnote 36: Plato, Gorgias, p. 478 D-E.] [Side-note: Misery of the Despot who is never punished.
If our friend has done wrong, we ought to get him punished: if our enemy, we ought to keep him unpunished.]
This last, Polus (continues Sokrates), is the condition of Archelaus, and of despots and Rhetors generally.
They possess power which enables them, after they have committed injustice, to guard themselves against being punished: which is just as if a sick man were to pride himself upon having taken precautions against being cured.
They see the pain of the cure, but they are blind to the profit of it; they are ignorant how much more miserable it is to have an unhealthy and unjust mind than an unhealthy body.
[37] There is therefore little use in Rhetoric: for our first object ought to be, to avoid doing wrong: our next object, if we have done wrong, not to resist or elude punishment by skilful defence, but to present ourselves voluntarily and invite it: and if our friends or relatives have done wrong, far from helping to defend them, we ought ourselves to accuse them, and to invoke punishment upon them also.
[38] On the other hand, as to our enemy, we ought undoubtedly to take precautions against suffering any wrong from him ourselves: but if he has done wrong to others, we ought to do all we can, by word or deed, not to bring him to punishment, but to prevent him from suffering punishment or making compensation: so that he may live as long as possible in impunity.
[39] These are the purposes towards which rhetoric is serviceable.
For one who intends to do no wrong, it seems of no great use.
[40] [Footnote 37: Plato, Gorgias, p. 479 B.
[Greek: to\ a)lgeino\n au)tou= kathora=|n, pro\s de\ to\ ô)phe/limon tuphlô=s e)/chein, kai\ a)gnoei=n o(/sô| a)thliô/tero/n e)sti mê\ u(giou=s sô/matos mê\ u(giei= psuchê=| sunoikei=n, a)lla\ sathra=| kai\ a)di/kô| kai\ a)nosi/ô|.]]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
480 C, 508 B.
[Greek: katêgorête/on ei)/ê kai\ au(tou= kai\ ui(e/os kai\ e(tai/ron, e)a/n ti a)dikê=|], &c. Plato might have put this argument into the mouth of Euthyphron as a reason for indicting his own father on the charge of murder: as I have already observed in reviewing the Euthyphron, which see above, vol.
i. ch.
xi., p.
442.]
[Footnote 39: Plato, Gorgias, p. 481 A.
[Greek: e)a\n de\ a)/llon a)dikê=| o( e)chthro/s, panti\ tro/pô| paraskeuaste/on kai\ pra/ttonta kai\ le/gonta, o(/pôs mê\ dô=| di/kên.
.
.
.
e)a/n te chrusi/on ê(rpakô\s ê)=| polu/, mê\ a)podidô=| tou=to, a)ll' e)/chôn a)nali/skêtai .
.
.
a)di/kôs kai\ a)the/ôs], &c.] [Footnote 40: Plato, Gorgias, p.
481.]
* * * * * This dialogue between Sokrates and Polus exhibits a representation of Platonic Ethics longer and more continuous than is usual in the dialogues.
I have therefore given a tolerably copious abridgment of it, and shall now proceed to comment upon its reasoning.
[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates paradoxical--Doubt expressed by Kallikles whether he means it seriously.]
The whole tenor of its assumptions, as well as the conclusions in which it ends, are so repugnant to received opinions, that Polus, even while compelled to assent, treats it as a paradox: while Kallikles, who now takes up the argument, begins by asking from Chærephon--"Is Sokrates really in earnest, or is he only jesting?
"[41] Sokrates himself admits that he stands almost alone.
He has nothing to rely upon, except the consistency of his dialectics--and the verdict of philosophy.
[42] This however is a matter of little moment, in discussing the truth and value of the reasoning, except in so far as it involves an appeal to the judgment of the public as a matter of fact.
Plato follows out the train of reasoning--which at the time presents itself to his mind as conclusive, or at least as plausible--whether he may agree or disagree with others.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Gorgias, p.
481.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Gorgias, p.
482.]
[Side-note: Principle laid down by Sokrates--That every one acts with a view to the attainment of happiness and avoidance of misery.]
Plato has ranked the Rhetor in the same category as the Despot: a classification upon which I shall say something presently.
But throughout the part of the dialogue just extracted, he treats the original question about Rhetoric as part of a much larger ethical question.
[43] Every one (argues Sokrates) wishes for the attainment of good and for the avoidance of evil.
Every one performs each separate act with a view not to its own immediate end, but to one or other of these permanent ends.
In so far as he attains them, he is happy: in so far as he either fails in attaining the good, or incurs the evil, he is unhappy or miserable.
The good and honourable man or woman is happy, the unjust and wicked is miserable.
Power acquired or employed unjustly, is no boon to the possessor: for he does not thereby obtain what he really wishes, good or happiness; but incurs the contrary, evil and misery.
The man who does wrong is more miserable than he who suffers wrong: but the most miserable of all is he who does wrong and then remains unpunished for it.
[44] [Footnote 43: I may be told that this comparison is first made by Polus (p. 466 C), and that Sokrates only takes it up from him to comment upon.
True, but the speech of Polus is just as much the composition of Plato as that of Sokrates.
Many readers of Plato are apt to forget this.]
[Footnote 44: Isokrates, in his Panathenaic Oration (Or.
xii.
sect.
126, pp.
257-347), alludes to the same thesis as this here advanced by Plato, treating it as one which all men of sense would reject, and which none but a few men pretending to be wise would proclaim--[Greek: a(/per a(/pantes me\n a)\n oi( nou=n e)/chontes e)/lointo kai\ boulêthei=en, o)li/goi de/ tines tô=n prospoioume/nôn ei)=nai sophô=n, e)rôtêthe/ntes ou)k a)\n phê/saien.]
In this last phrase Isokrates probably has Plato in his mind, though without pronouncing the name.]
Polus, on the other hand, contends, that Archelaus, who has "waded through slaughter" to the throne of Macedonia, is a happy man both in his own feelings and in those of every one else, envied and admired by the world generally: That to say--Archelaus would have been more happy, or less miserable, if he had failed in his enterprise and had been put to death under cruel torture--is an untenable paradox.
[Side-note: Peculiar view taken by Plato of Good--Evil--Happiness.]
The issue here turns, and the force of Plato's argument rests (assuming Sokrates to speak the real sentiments of Plato), upon the peculiar sense which he gives to the words Good--Evil--Happiness:--different from the sense in which they are conceived by mankind generally, and which is here followed by Polus.
It is possible that to minds like Sokrates and Plato, the idea of themselves committing enormous crimes for ambitious purposes might be the most intolerable of all ideas, worse to contemplate than any amount of suffering: moreover, that if they could conceive themselves as having been thus guilty, the sequel the least intolerable for them to imagine would be one of expiatory pain.
This, taken as the personal sentiment of Plato, admits of no reply.
But when he attempts to convert this subjective judgment into an objective conclusion binding on all, he fails of success, and misleads himself by equivocal language.
[Side-note: Contrast of the usual meaning of these words, with the Platonic meaning.]
Plato distinguishes two general objects of human desire, and two of human aversion.
1.
The immediate, and generally transient, object--Pleasure or the Pleasurable--Pain or the Painful.
2.
The distant, ulterior, and more permanent object--Good or the profitable--Evil or the hurtful.--In the attainment of Good and avoidance of Evil consists happiness.
But now comes the important question--In what sense are we to understand the words Good and Evil?
What did Plato mean by them?
Did he mean the same as mankind generally?
Have mankind generally one uniform meaning?
In answer to this question, we must say, that neither Plato, nor mankind generally, are consistent or unanimous in their use of the words: and that Plato sometimes approximates to, sometimes diverges from, the more usual meaning.
Plato does not here tell us clearly what he himself means by Good and Evil: he specifies no objective or external mark by which we may know it: we learn only, that Good is a mental perfection--Evil a mental taint--answering to indescribable but characteristic sentiments in Plato's own mind, and only negatively determined by this circumstance--That they have no reference either to pleasure or pain.
In the vulgar sense, Good stands distinguished from pleasure (or relief from pain), and Evil from pain (or loss of pleasure), as the remote, the causal, the lasting from the present, the product, the transient.
Good and Evil are explained by enumerating all the things so called, of which enumeration Plato gives a partial specimen in this dialogue: elsewhere he dwells upon what he calls the Idea of Good, of which I shall speak more fully hereafter.
Having said that all men aim at good, he gives, as examples of good things--Wisdom, Health, Wealth, and other such things: while the contrary of these, Stupidity, Sickness, Poverty, are evil things: the list of course might be much enlarged.
Taking Good and Evil generally to denote the common property of each of these lists, it is true that men perform a large portion of their acts with a view to attain the former and avoid the latter:--that the approach which they make to happiness depends, speaking generally, upon the success which attends their exertions for the attainment of and avoidance of these permanent ends: and moreover that these ends have their ultimate reference to each man's own feelings.
But this meaning of Good is no longer preserved, when Sokrates proceeds to prove that the triumphant usurper Archelaus is the most miserable of men, and that to do wrong with impunity is the greatest of all evils.
[Side-note: Examination of the proof given by Sokrates--Inconsistency between the general answer of Polus and his previous declarations--Law and Nature.]
Sokrates provides a basis for his intended proof by asking Polus,[45] which of the two is most disgraceful--To do wrong--or to suffer wrong?
Polus answers--To do wrong: and this answer is inconsistent with what he had previously said about Archelaus.
That prince, though a wrong-doer on the largest scale, has been declared by Polus to be an object of his supreme envy and admiration: while Sokrates also admits that this is the sentiment of almost all mankind, except himself.
To be consistent with such an assertion, Polus ought to have answered the contrary of what he does answer, when the general question is afterwards put to him: or at least he ought to have said--"Sometimes the one, sometimes the other".
But this he is ashamed to do, as we shall find Kallikles intimating at a subsequent stage of the dialogue:[46] because of King Nomos, or the established habit of the community--who feel that society rests upon a sentiment of reciprocal right and obligation animating every one, and require that violations of that sentiment shall be marked with censure in general words, however widely the critical feeling may depart from such censure in particular cases.
[47] Polus is forced to make profession of a faith, which neither he nor others (except Sokrates with a few companions) universally or consistently apply.
To bring such a force to bear upon the opponent, was one of the known artifices of dialecticians:[48] and Sokrates makes it his point of departure, to prove the unparalleled misery of Archelaus.
[Footnote 45: Plat.
Gorg.
p. 474 C.] [Footnote 46: Plat.
Gorg.
p. 482 C. To maintain that [Greek: to\ a)dikei=n be/ltion tou= a)dikei=sthai] was an [Greek: a)/doxos u(po/thesis]--one which it was [Greek: chei/ronos ê)/thous e(le/sthai]: which therefore Aristotle advises the dialectician not to defend (Aristot.
Topic.
viii.
156, 6-15).]
[Footnote 47: This portion of the Gorgias may receive illustration from the third chapter (pp.
99-101) of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, entitled, "Of the corruption of our moral sentiments, which is occasioned by the disposition to admire the rich and great, and to neglect or despise persons of poor and mean condition".
He says--"The disposition to admire and almost to worship the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or at least to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.
.
.
.
They are the wise and the virtuous chiefly--a select, though I am afraid, a small party--who are the real and steady admirers of wisdom and virtue.
The great mob of mankind are the admirers and worshippers--and what may seem more extraordinary, most frequently the disinterested admirers and worshippers--of wealth and greatness.
.
.
.
.
It is scarce _agreeable to good morals_, or even to good language, perhaps, to say that mere wealth and greatness, abstracted from merit and virtue, deserve our respect.
We must acknowledge, however, that they _almost constantly obtain it_: and _that they may therefore in a certain sense be considered as the natural objects of it_."
Now Archelaus is a most conspicuous example of this disposition of the mass of mankind to worship and admire, disinterestedly, power and greatness: and the language used by Adam Smith in the last sentence illustrates the conversation of Sokrates, Polus, and Kalliklês.
Adam Smith admits that energetic proceedings, ending in great power, such as those of Archelaus, obtain honour and worship from the vast majority of disinterested spectators: and that, therefore they are in a certain sense the _natural objects_ of such a sentiment ([Greek: kata\ phu/sin]).
But if the question be put to him, Whether such proceedings, with such a position, are _worthy of honour_, he is constrained by good morals ([Greek: kata\ no/mon]) to reply in the negative.
It is true that Adam Smith numbers himself with the small minority, while Polus shares the opinion of the large majority.
But what is required by King Nomos must be professed even by dissentients, unless they possess the unbending resolution of Sokrates.]
[Footnote 48: Aristot.
De Soph.
Elench.
pp.
172-173, where he contrasts the opinions which men must make a show of holding, with those which they really do--[Greek: ai( phanerai\ do/xai--ai( a)phanei=s, a)pokekrumme/nai, do/xai.]]
[Side-note: The definition of Pulchrum and Turpe, given by Sokrates, will not hold.]
He proceeds to define Pulchrum and Turpe ([Greek: kalo\n-ai)schro/n]).
When we recollect the Hippias Major, in which dialogue many definitions of Pulchrum were canvassed and all rejected, so that the search ended in total disappointment--we are surprised to see that Sokrates hits off at once a definition satisfactory both to himself and Polus: and we are the more surprised, because the definition here admitted without a remark, is in substance one of those shown to be untenable in the Hippias Major.
[49] It depends upon the actual argumentative purpose which Plato has in hand, whether he chooses to multiply objections and give them effect--or to ignore them altogether.
But the definition which he here proposes, even if assumed as incontestable, fails altogether to sustain the conclusion that he draws from it.
He defines Pulchrum to be that which either confers pleasure upon the spectator when he contemplates it, or produces ulterior profit or good--we must presume profit to the spectator, or to him along with others--at any rate it is not said _to whom_.
He next defines the ugly and disgraceful ([Greek: to\ ai)schro\n]) as comprehending both the painful and the hurtful or evil.
If then (he argues) to do wrong is more ugly and disgraceful than to suffer wrong, this must be either because it is more painful--or because it is more hurtful, more evil (worse).
It certainly is not more painful: therefore it must be worse.
[Footnote 49: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. pp.
45-46.
See above, vol.
ii.
ch.
xiii.]
[Side-note: Worse or better--for whom?
The argument of Sokrates does not specify.
If understood in the sense necessary for his inference, the definition would be inadmissible.]
But worse, for whom?
For the spectators, who declare the proceedings of Archelaus to be disgraceful?
For the persons who suffer by his proceedings?
Or for Archelaus himself?
It is the last of the three which Sokrates undertakes to prove: but his definition does not help him to the proof.
Turpe is defined to be either what causes immediate pain to the spectator, or ulterior hurt--to whom?
If we say to the spectator--the definition will not serve as a ground of inference to the condition of the agent contemplated.
If on the other hand, we say--to the agent--the definition so understood becomes inadmissible: as well for other reasons, as because there are a great many Turpia which are not agents at all, and which the definition therefore would not include.
Either therefore the definition given by Sokrates is a bad one--or it will not sustain his conclusion.
And thus, on this very important argument, where Sokrates admits that he stands alone, and where therefore the proof would need to be doubly cogent--an argument too where the great cause (so Adam Smith terms it) of the corruption of men's moral sentiments has to be combated--Sokrates has nothing to produce except premisses alike far-fetched and irrelevant.
What increases our regret is, that the real arguments establishing the turpitude of Archelaus and his acts are obvious enough, if you look for them in the right direction.
You discover nothing while your eye is fixed on Archelaus himself: far from presenting any indications of misery, which Sokrates professes to discover, he has gained much of what men admire as good wherever they see it.
But when you turn to the persons whom he has killed, banished, or ruined--to the mass of suffering which he has inflicted--and to the widespread insecurity which such acts of successful iniquity spread through all societies where they become known--there is no lack of argument to justify that sentiment which prompts a reflecting spectator to brand him as a disgraceful man.
This argument however is here altogether neglected by Plato.
Here, as elsewhere, he looks only at the self-regarding side of Ethics.
[Side-note: Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar to himself.
His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does not give the true reasons for it.]
Sokrates proceeds next to prove--That the wrong-doer who remains unpunished is more miserable than if he were punished.
The wrong-doer (he argues) when punished suffers what is just: but all just things are honourable: therefore he suffers what is honourable.
But all honourable things are so called because they are either agreeable, or profitable, or both together.
Punishment is certainly not agreeable: it must therefore be profitable or good.
Accordingly the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good.
He is benefited, by being relieved of mental evil or wickedness, which is a worse evil than either bodily sickness or poverty.
In proportion to the magnitude of this evil, is the value of the relief which removes it, and the superior misery of the unpunished wrong-doer who continues to live under it.
[50] [Footnote 50: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
477-478.]
Upon this argument, I make the same remark as upon that immediately preceding.
We are not expressly told, whether good, evil, happiness, misery, &c., refer to the agent alone or to others also: but the general tenor implies that the agent alone is meant.
And in this sense, Plato does not make out his case.
He establishes an arbitrary standard of his own, recognised only by a few followers, and altogether differing from the ordinary standard, to test and compare happiness and misery.
The successful criminal, Archelaus himself, far from feeling any such intense misery as Plato describes, is satisfied and proud of his position, which most others also account an object of envy.
This is not disputed by Plato himself.
And in the face of this fact, it is fruitless as well as illogical to attempt to prove, by an elaborate process of deductive reasoning, that Archelaus _must_ be miserable.
That step of Plato's reasoning, in which he asserts, that the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good--is only true if you take in (what Plato omits to mention) the interests of society as well as those of the agent.
His punishment is certainly profitable to (conducive to the security and well being of) society: it may possibly be also profitable to himself, but very frequently it is not so.
The conclusion brought out by Plato, therefore, while contradicted by the fact, involves also a fallacy in the reasoning process.
[Side-note: If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which punishment is considered would be reversed.]
Throughout the whole of this dialogue, Plato intimates decidedly how great a paradox the doctrine maintained by Sokrates must appear: how diametrically it was opposed to the opinion not merely of the less informed multitude, but of the wiser and more reflecting citizen--even such a man as Nikias.
Indeed it is literally exact--what Plato here puts into the mouth of Kallikles--that if the doctrine here advocated by Sokrates were true, the whole of social life would be turned upside down.
[51] If, for example, it were true, as Plato contends,--That every man who commits a crime, takes upon him thereby a terrible and lasting distemper, incurable except by the application of punishment, which is the specific remedy in the case--every theory of punishment would, literally speaking, be turned upside down.
The great discouragement from crime would then consist in the fear of that formidable distemper with which the criminal was sure to inoculate himself: and punishment, instead of being (as it is now considered, and as Plato himself represents it in the Protagoras) the great discouragement to the commission of crime, would operate in the contrary direction.
It would be the means of removing or impairing the great real discouragement to crime: and a wise legislator would hesitate to inflict it.
This would be nothing less than a reversal of the most universally accepted political or social precepts (as Kallikles is made to express himself).
[Footnote 51: Plato, Gorg.
p. 481 C. _Kall._--[Greek: ei) me\n ga\r spouda/zeis te kai\ tugcha/nei tau=ta a)lêthê= o)/nta a(\ le/geis, a)/llo ti ê)\ ê(mô=n o( bi/os a)natetramme/nos a)\n ei)/ê tô=n a)nthrô/pôn, kai\ pa/nta ta\ e)nanti/a pra/ttomen, ê)\ a(\ dei=?]]
[Side-note: Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily distemper--Material difference between the two--Distemper must be felt by the distempered persons.]
It will indeed be at once seen, that the taint or distemper with which Archelaus is supposed to inoculate himself, when he commits signal crime--is a pure fancy or poetical metaphor on the part of Plato himself.
[52] A distemper must imply something painful, enfeebling, disabling, to the individual who feels it: there is no other meaning: we cannot recognise a distemper, which does not make itself felt in any way by the distempered person.
Plato is misled by his ever-repeated analogy between bodily health and mental health: real, on some points--not real on others.
When a man is in bad bodily health, his sensations warn him of it at once.
He suffers pain, discomfort, or disabilities, which leave no doubt as to the fact: though he may not know either the precise cause, or the appropriate remedy.
Conversely, in the absence of any such warnings, and in the presence of certain positive sensations, he knows himself to be in tolerable or good health.
If Sokrates and Archelaus were both in good bodily health, or both in bad bodily health, each would be made aware of the fact by analogous evidences.
But by what measure are we to determine _when_ a man is in a good or bad mental state?
By his own feelings?
In that case, Archelaus and Sokrates are in a mental state equally good: each is satisfied with his own.
By the judgment of by-standers?
Archelaus will then be the better of the two: at least his admirers and enviers will outnumber those of Sokrates.
By my judgment?
If my opinion is asked, I agree with Sokrates: though not on the grounds which he here urges, but on other grounds.
Who is to be the ultimate referee--the interests or security of other persons, who have suffered or are likely to suffer by Archelaus, being by the supposition left out of view?
[Footnote 52: The disposition of Plato to build argument on a metaphor is often shown.
Aristotle remarks it of him in respect to his theory of Ideas; and Aristotle in his Topica gives several precepts in regard to the general tendency--precepts enjoining disputants to be on their guard against it in dialectic discussion (Topica, iv.
123, a.
33, vi.
139-140)--[Greek: pa=n ga\r a)saphe\s to\ kata\ metaphora\n lego/menon], &c.] Polus is now dismissed as vanquished, after having been forced, against his will, to concede--That the doer of wrong is more miserable than the sufferer: That he is more miserable, if unpunished,--less so, if punished: That a triumphant criminal on a great scale, like Archelaus, is the most miserable of men.
[Side-note: Kallikles begins to argue against Sokrates--he takes a distinction between Just by Law and Just by nature--Reply of Sokrates, that there is no variance between the two, properly understood.]
Here, then, we commence with Kallikles: who interposes, to take up the debate with Sokrates.
Polus (says Kallikles), from deference to the opinions of mankind, has erroneously conceded the point--That it is more disgraceful to do wrong, than to suffer wrong.
This is indeed true (continues Kallikles), according to what is just by law or convention, that is, according to the general sentiment of mankind: but it is not true, according to justice by nature, or natural justice.
Nature and Law are here opposed.
[53] The justice of Nature is, that among men (as among other animals) the strong individual should govern and strip the weak, taking and keeping as much as he can grasp.
But this justice will not suit the weak, who are the many, and who defeat it by establishing a different justice--justice according to law--to curb the strong man, and prevent him from having more than his fair share.
[54] The many, feeling their own weakness, and thankful if they can only secure a fair and equal division, make laws and turn the current of praise and blame for their own protection, in order to deter the strong man from that encroachment and oppression to which he is disposed.
_The just according to law_ is thus a tutelary institution, established by the weak to defend themselves against _the just according to nature_.
Nature measures right by might, and by nothing else: so that according to the right of nature, suffering wrong is more disgraceful than doing wrong.
Hêraklês takes from Geryon his cattle, by the right of nature or of the strongest, without either sale or gift.
[55] [Footnote 53: Plato, Gorgias, p. 482 E. [Greek: ô(s ta\ polla\ de\ tau=ta e)nanti/a a)llê/lois e)sti/n, ê(/ te phu/sis kai\ o( no/mos.]]
[Footnote 54: Plato, Gorgias, p. 483 B.
[Greek: a)ll', oi)=mai, oi( tithe/menoi tou\s no/mous oi( a)sthenei=s a)/nthrôpoi/ ei)si kai\ oi( polloi\.
Pro\s au(tou\s ou)=n kai\ to\ au)toi=s sumphe/ron tou/s te no/mous ti/thentai kai\ tou\s e)pai/nous e)painou=si kai\ tou\s pso/gous pse/gousin, e)kphobou=nte/s te tou\s e)r)r(ômeneste/rous tô=n a)nthrô/pôn kai\ dunatou\s o)/ntas ple/on e)/chein, i(/na mê\ au)tô=n ple/on e)/chôsin, le/gousin ô(s ai)schro\n kai\ a)/dikon to\ pleonektei=n, kai\ tou=to e)sti to\ a)dikei=n, to\ zêtei=n tô=n a)/llôn ple/on e)/chein; a)gapô=si ga/r, oi)=mai, au)toi\ a)\n to\ i)/son e)/chôsi phaulo/teroi o)/ntes.]]
[Footnote 55: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
484-488.]
But (rejoins Sokrates) the many are by nature stronger than the one; since, as you yourself say, they make and enforce laws to restrain him and defeat his projects.
Therefore, since the many are the strongest, the right which they establish is the right of (or by) nature.
And the many, as you admit, declare themselves in favour of the answer given by Polus--That to do wrong is more disgraceful than to suffer wrong.
[56] Right by nature, and right by institution, sanction it alike.
[Footnote 56: Plato, Gorgias, p. 488 D-E.] * * * * * [Side-note: What Kalliklês says is not to be taken as a sample of the teachings of Athenian sophists.
Kalliklês--rhetor and politician.]
Several commentators have contended, that the doctrine which Plato here puts into the mouth of Kalliklês was taught by the Sophists at Athens: who are said to have inculcated on their hearers that true wisdom and morality consisted in acting upon the right of the strongest and taking whatever they could get, without any regard to law or justice.
I have already endeavoured to show, in my History of Greece, that the Sophists cannot be shown to have taught either this doctrine, or any other common doctrine: that one at least among them (Prodikus) taught a doctrine inconsistent with it: and that while all of them agreed in trying to impart rhetorical accomplishments, or the power of handling political, ethical, judicial, matters in a manner suitable for the Athenian public--each had his own way of doing this.
Kalliklês is not presented by Plato as a Sophist, but as a Rhetor aspiring to active political influence; and taking a small dose of philosophy, among the preparations for that end.
[57] He depreciates the Sophists as much as the philosophers, and in fact rather more.
[58] Moreover Plato represents him as adapting himself, with accommodating subservience, to the Athenian public assembly, and saying or unsaying exactly as they manifested their opinion.
[59] Now the Athenian public assembly would repudiate indignantly all this pretended right of the strongest, if any orator thought fit to put it forward as over-ruling established right and law.
Any aspiring or subservient orator, such as Kalliklês is described, would know better than to address them in this strain.
The language which Plato puts into the mouth of Kalliklês is noway consistent with the attribute which he also ascribes to him--slavish deference to the judgments of the Athenian Dêmos.
[Footnote 57: Plato, Gorgias, p. 487 C, 485.]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Gorgias, p. 520 A.]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Gorgias, p.
481-482.]
[Side-note: Uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority.
It may be pleaded in favour of opposite theories.
The theory of Kalliklês is made to appear repulsive by the language in which he expresses it.]
Kalliklês is made to speak like one who sympathises with the right of the strongest, and who decorates such iniquity with the name and authority of that which he calls Nature.
But this only shows the uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority.
[60] It may be pleaded in favour of different and opposite theories.
Nature prompts the strong man to take from weaker men what will gratify his desires: Nature also prompts these weaker men to defeat him and protect themselves by the best means in their power.
The many are weaker, taken individually--stronger taken collectively: hence they resort to defensive combination, established rules, and collective authority.
[61] The right created on one side, and the opposite right created on the other, flow alike from Nature: that is, from propensities and principles natural, and deeply seated, in the human mind.
The authority of Nature, considered as an enunciation of actual and wide-spread facts, may be pleaded for both alike.
But a man's sympathy and approbation may go either with the one or the other; and he may choose to stamp that which he approves, with the name of Nature as a personified law-maker.
This is what is here done by Kalliklês as Plato exhibits him.
[62] He sympathises with, and approves, the powerful individual.
Now the greater portion of mankind are, and always have been, governed upon this despotic principle, and brought up to respect it: while many, even of those who dislike Kalliklês because they regard him as the representative of Athenian democracy (to which however his proclaimed sentiments stand pointedly opposed), when they come across a great man or so-called hero, such as Alexander or Napoleon, applaud the most exorbitant ambition if successful, and if accompanied by military genius and energy--regarding communities as made for little else except to serve as his instruments, subjects, and worshippers.
Such are represented as the sympathies of Kalliklês: but those of the Athenians went with the second of the two rights--and mine go with it also.
And though the language which Plato puts into the mouth of Kalliklês, in describing this second right, abounds in contemptuous rhetoric, proclaiming offensively the individual weakness of the multitude[63]--yet this very fact is at once the most solid and most respectable foundation on which rights and obligations can be based.
The establishment of them is indispensable, and is felt as indispensable, to procure security for the community: whereby the strong man whom Kalliklês extols as the favourite of Nature, may be tamed by discipline and censure, so as to accommodate his own behaviour to this equitable arrangement.
[64] Plato himself, in his Republic,[65] traces the generation of a city to the fact that each man individually taken is not self-sufficing, but stands in need of many things: it is no less true, that each man stands also in fear of many things, especially of depredations from animals, and depredations from powerful individuals of his own species.
In the mythe of Protagoras,[66] we have fears from hostile animals--in the speech here ascribed to Kalliklês, we have fears from hostile strong men--assigned as the generating cause, both of political communion and of established rights and obligations to protect it.
[Footnote 60: Aristotle (Sophist.
Elench.
12, p. 173, a.
10) makes allusion to this argument of Kalliklês in the Gorgias, and notices it as a frequent point made by disputants in Dialectics--to insist on the contradiction between the Just according to Nature and the Just according to Law: which contradiction (Aristotle says) all the ancients recognised as a real one ([Greek: oi( a)rchai=oi pa/ntes ô)/|onto sumbai/nein]).
It was doubtless a point on which the Dialectician might find much to say on either side.]
[Footnote 61: In the conversation between Sokrates and Kritobulus, one of the best in Xenophon's Memorabilia (ii.
6, 21), respecting the conditions on which friendship depends, we find Sokrates clearly stating that the causes of friendship and the causes of enmity, though different and opposite, nevertheless both exist _by nature_.
[Greek: A)ll' e)/chei me/n, e)/phê o( Sôkra/tês, poiki/lôs pôs tau=ta: Phu/sei ga\r e)/chousin oi( a)/nthrôpoi ta\ me\n philika/--de/ontai/ te ga\r a)llê/lôn, kai\ e)leou=si, kai\ sunergou=ntes ô)phelou=ntai, kai\ tou=to sunie/ntes cha/rin e)/chousin a)llê/lois--ta\ de\ polemika/--ta/ te ga\r au)ta\ kala\ kai\ ê(de/a nomi/zontes u(pe\r tou/tôn ma/chontai kai\ dichognômonou=ntes e)nantiou=ntai; polemiko\n de\ kai\ e)/ris kai\ o)rgê/, kai\ dusmene\s me\n o( tou= pleonektei=n e)/rôs, misêto\n de\ o( phtho/nos.
A)ll' o(/môs dia\ tou/tôn pa/ntôn ê( phili/a diaduome/nê suna/ptei tou\s kalou/s te ka)gathou/s], &c. We read in the speech of Hermokrates the Syracusan, at the congress of Gela in Sicily, when exhorting the Sicilians to unite for the purpose of repelling the ambitious schemes of Athens, Thucyd.
iv.
61: [Greek: kai\ tou\s me\n A)thênai/ous tau=ta pleonektei=n te kai\ pronoei=sthai pollê\ xuggnô/mê, kai\ ou) toi=s a)/rchein boulome/nois me/mphomai a)lla\ toi=s u(pakou/ein e(toimote/rois ou)=si; _ pe/phuke ga\r to\ a)nthrô/peion dia\ panto\s a)/rchein me\n tou= ei)/kontos, phula/ssesthai de\ to\ e)pio/n_.
o(/soi de\ gignô/skontes au)ta\ mê\ o)rthô=s proskopou=men, mêde\ tou=to/ tis presbu/taton ê(/kei kri/nas, to\ koinô=s phobero\n a(/pantas eu)= the/sthai, a(marta/nomen.]
A like sentiment is pronounced by the Athenian envoys in their debate with the Melians, Thuc.
v. 105: [Greek: ê(gou/metha ga\r to/ te thei=on do/xê|, to\ a)nthrô/peio/n te saphô=s dia\ panto/s, u(po\ _phu/seôs a)nagkai/as_, ou)= a)\n kratê=|, a)/rchein.]
Some of the Platonic critics would have us believe that this last-cited sentiment emanates from the corrupt teaching of Athenian Sophists: but Hermokrates the Syracusan had nothing to do with Athenian Sophists.]
[Footnote 62: Respecting the vague and indeterminate phrases--Natural Justice, Natural Right, Law of Nature--see Mr. Austin's Province of Jurisprudence Determined, p. 160, ed.
2nd.
[Jurisp., 4th ed, pp.
179, 591-2], and Sir H. S. Maine's Ancient Law, chapters iii.
and iv.
Among the assertions made about the Athenian Sophists, it is said by some commentators that they denied altogether any Just or Unjust by _nature_--that they recognised no Just or Unjust, except by _law or convention_.
To say that the _Sophists_ (speaking of them collectively) either affirmed or denied anything, is, in my judgment, incorrect.
Certain persons are alluded to by Plato (Theætêt.
172 B) as adopting partially the doctrine of Protagoras (_Homo Mensura_) and as denying altogether the Just by _nature_.
In another Platonic passage (Protagor.
337) which is also cited as contributing to prove that the Sophists denied [Greek: to\ di/kaion phu/sei]--nothing at all is said about [Greek: to\ di/kaion].
Hippias the Sophist is there introduced as endeavouring to appease the angry feeling between Protagoras and Sokrates by reminding them, "I am of opinion that we all (_i.e._ men of literature and study) are kinsmen, friends, and fellow-citizens by _nature_ though not by _law_: for law, the despot of mankind, carries many things by force, contrary to nature".
The remark is very appropriate from one who is trying to restore good feeling between literary disputants: and the cosmopolitan character of literature is now so familiar a theme, that I am surprised to find Heindorf (in his note) making it an occasion for throwing the usual censure upon the Sophist, because some of them distinguished Nature from the Laws, and despised the latter in comparison with the former.
Kalliklês here, in the Gorgias, maintains an opinion not only different from, but inconsistent with, the opinion alluded to above in the Theætêtus, 172 B.
The persons noticed in the Theætêtus said--There is no Natural Justice: no Justice, except Justice by Law.
Kalliklês says--There is a Natural Justice quite distinct from (and which he esteems more than) Justice by Law: he then explains what he believes Natural Justice to be--That the strong man should take what he pleases from the weak.
Though these two opinions are really inconsistent with each other, yet we see Plato in the Leges (x.
889 E, 890 A) alluding to them both as the same creed, held and defended by the same men; whom he denounces with extreme acrimony.
Who they were, he does not name; he does not mention [Greek: sophistai/], but calls them [Greek: a)ndrô=n sophô=n, i)diôtô=n te kai\ poiêtô=n].
We see, in the third chapter of Sir H. S. Maine's excellent work on Ancient Law, the meaning of these phrases--Natural Justice, Law of Nature.
It designated or included "a set of legal principles entitled to supersede the existing laws, on the ground of intrinsic superiority".
It denoted an ideal condition of society, supposed to be much better than what actually prevailed.
This at least seems to have been the meaning which began to attach to it in the time of Plato and Aristotle.
What this ideal perfection of human society was, varied in the minds of different speakers.
In each speaker's mind the word and sentiment was much the same, though the objects to which it attached were often different.
Empedokles proclaims in solemn and emphatic language that the Law of Nature peremptorily forbids us to kill any animal.
(Aristot.
Rhetor.
i.
13, 1373 b.
15.)
Plato makes out to his own satisfaction, that his Republic is thoroughly in harmony with the Law of Nature: and he insists especially on this harmony, in the very point which even the Platonic critics admit to be wrong--that is, in regard to the training of women and the relations of the sexes (Republic, v. 456 C, 466 D).
We learn from Plato himself that the propositions of the Republic were thoroughly adverse to what other persons reverenced as the Law of Nature.
In the notes of Beck and Heindorf on Protagor.
p. 337 we read, "Hippias præ cæteris Sophistis contempsit leges, iisque opposuit Naturam.
Naturam legibus plures certé Sophistarum opposuisse, easque præ illâ contempsisse, multis veterum locis constat."
Now this allegation is more applicable to Plato than to the Sophists.
Plato speaks with the most unmeasured contempt of existing communities and their laws: the scheme of his Republic, radically departing from them as it does, shows what he considered as required by the exigencies of human nature.
Both the Stoics and the Epikureans extolled what they called the Law of Nature above any laws actually existing.
The other charge made against the Sophists (quite opposite, yet sometimes advanced by the same critics) is, that they recognised no Just by Nature, but only Just by Law: _i.e._ all the actual laws and customs considered as binding in each different community.
This is what Plato ascribes to some persons (Sophists or not) in the Theætêtus, p. 172.
But in this sense it is not exact to call Kalliklês (as Heindorf does, Protagor.
p. 337) "germanus ille Sophistarum alumnus in Gorgià Callicles," nor to affirm (with Schleiermacher, Einleit.
zum Theætêt.
p. 183) that Plato meant to refute Aristippus under the name of Kallikles, Aristippus maintaining that there was no Just by Nature, but only Just by Law or Convention.]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Gorgias, p. 483 B, p. 492 A.
[Greek: oi( polloi\, a)pokrupto/menoi tê\n e(autô=n a)dunami/an], &c.] [Footnote 64: Plato, Gorgias, p. 483 E.] [Footnote 65: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 369 B.
[Greek: o(/ti tugcha/nei ê(mô=n e(/kastos ou)k au)tarkê\s ô)/n, a)lla\ pollô=n e)ndeê/s.]]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Protag.
p. 322 B.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Sokrates maintains that self-command and moderation is requisite for the strong man as well as for others.
Kalliklês defends the negative.]
Kalliklês now explains, that by _stronger_ men, he means better, wiser, braver men.
It is they (he says) who ought, according to right by nature, to rule over others and to have larger shares than others.
_Sokr._--Ought they not to rule themselves as well as others:[67] to control their own pleasures and desires: to be sober and temperate?
_Kall._--No, they would be foolish if they did.
The weak multitude must do so; and there grows up accordingly among _them_ a sentiment which requires such self-restraint from all.
But it is the privilege of the superior few to be exempt from this necessity.
The right of nature authorises them to have the largest desires, since their courage and ability furnish means to satisfy the desires.
It would be silly if a king's son or a despot were to limit himself to the same measure of enjoyment with which a poor citizen must be content; and worse than silly if he did not enrich his friends in preference to his enemies.
He need not care for that public law and censure which must reign paramount over each man among the many.
A full swing of enjoyment, if a man has power to procure and maintain it, is virtue as well as happiness.
[68] [Footnote 67: Plato, Gorgias, p. 491 D.] [Footnote 68: Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 A-C.] [Side-note: Whether the largest measure of desires is good for a man, provided he has the means of satisfying them?
Whether all varieties of desire are good?
Whether the pleasurable and the good are identical?]
_Sokr._--I think on the contrary that a sober and moderate life, regulated according to present means and circumstances, is better than a life of immoderate indulgence.
[69] _Kall._--The man who has no desires will have no pleasure, and will live like a stone.
The more the desires, provided they can all be satisfied, the happier a man will be.
_Sokr._--You mean that a man shall be continually hungry, and continually satisfying his hunger: continually thirsty, and satisfying his thirst; and so forth.
_Kall._--By having and by satisfying those and all other desires, a man will enjoy happiness.
_Sokr._--Do you mean to include all varieties of desire and satisfaction of desire: such for example as itching and scratching yourself:[70] and other bodily appetites which might be named?
_Kall._--Such things are not fit for discussion.
_Sokr._--It is you who drive me to mention them, by laying down the principle, that men who enjoy, be the enjoyment of what sort it may, are happy; and by not distinguishing what pleasures are good and what are evil.
Tell me again, do you think that the pleasurable and the good are identical?
Or are there any pleasurable things which are not good?
[71] _Kall._--I think that the pleasurable and the good are the same.
[Footnote 69: Plato, Gorgias, p. 493 C. [Greek: e)a/n pôs oi(=o/s t' ô)= pei=sai metathe/sthai kai\ a)nti\ tou= a)plê/stôs kai\ a)kola/stôs e)/chontos bi/ou to\n kosmi/ôs kai\ toi=s a)ei\ parou=sin i(kanô=s kai\ e)xarkou/ntôs e)/chonta bi/on e(le/sthai.]]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Gorg.
p. 494 E.] [Footnote 71: Plato, Gorg.
pp.
494-495.
[Greek: ê)= ga\r e)gô\ a)/gô e)ntau=tha, ê)\ e)kei=nos o(\s a)\n phê=| a)ne/dên ou(/tô tou\s chai/rontas, o(/pôs a)\n chairôsin, eu)dai/monas ei)=nai, kai\ mê\ diori/zêtai tô=n ê(donô=n o(poi=ai a)gathai\ kai\ kakai/?
a)ll' e)/ti kai\ nu=n le/ge, po/teron phê\| ei)=nai to\ au)to\ ê(du\ kai\ a)gatho/n, ê)\ ei)=nai ti tô=n ê(de/ôn o(\ ou)k e)/stin a)gatho/n?]]
[Side-note: Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical.
Sokrates refutes him.
Some pleasures are good, others bad.
A scientific adviser is required to discriminate them.]
Upon this question the discussion now turns: whether pleasure and good are the same, or whether there are not some pleasures good, others bad.
By a string of questions much protracted, but subtle rather than conclusive, Sokrates proves that pleasure is not the same as good--that there are such things as bad pleasures and good pains.
And Kalliklês admits that some pleasures are better, others worse.
[72] Profitable pleasures are good: hurtful pleasures are bad.
Thus the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, if they impart to us health and strength--bad, if they produce sickness and weakness.
We ought to choose the good pleasures and pains, and avoid the bad ones.
It is not every man who is competent to distinguish what pleasures are good, and what are bad.
A scientific and skilful adviser, judging upon general principles, is required to make this distinction.
[73] [Footnote 72: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
496-499.]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
499-500.
[Greek: A)=r' ou)=n panto\s a)ndro/s e)stin e)kle/xasthai poi=a a)gatha\ tô=n ê(de/ôn e)sti\ kai\ o(poi=a kaka/, ê)= technikou= dei= ei)s e(/kaston?
Technikou=.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the Protagoras.]
This debate between Sokrates and Kalliklês, respecting the "Quomodo vivendum est,"[74] deserves attention on more than one account.
In the first place, the relation which Sokrates is here made to declare between the two pairs of general terms, Pleasurable--Good: Painful--Evil: is the direct reverse of that which he both declares and demonstrates in the Protagoras.
In that dialogue, the Sophist Protagoras is represented as holding an opinion very like that which is maintained by Sokrates in the Gorgias.
But Sokrates (in the Protagoras) refutes him by an elaborate argument; and demonstrates that pleasure and good (also pain and evil) are names for the same fundamental ideas under different circumstances: pleasurable and painful referring only to the sensation of the present moment--while good and evil include, besides, an estimate of its future consequences and accompaniments, both pleasurable and painful, and represent the result of such calculation.
In the Gorgias, Sokrates demonstrates the contrary, by an argument equally elaborate but not equally convincing.
He impugns a doctrine advocated by Kalliklês, and in impugning it, proclaims a marked antithesis and even repugnance between the pleasurable and the good, the painful and the evil: rejecting the fundamental identity of the two, which he advocates in the Protagoras, as if it were a disgraceful heresy.
[Footnote 74: Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 D. [Greek: i(/na tô=| o)/nti kata/dêlon ge/nêtai, pô=s biôte/on], &c. 500 C: [Greek: o(/ntina chrê\ tro/pon zê=|n.]]
[Side-note: Views of critics about this contradiction.]
The subject evidently presented itself to Plato in two different ways at different times.
Which of the two is earliest, we have no means of deciding.
The commentators, who favour generally the view taken in the Gorgias, treat the Protagoras as a juvenile and erroneous production: sometimes, with still less reason, they represent Sokrates as arguing in that dialogue, from the principles of his opponents, not from his own.
For my part, without knowing whether the Protagoras or the Gorgias is the earliest, I think the Protagoras an equally finished composition, and I consider that the views which Sokrates is made to propound in it, respecting pleasure and good, are decidedly nearer to the truth.
[Side-note: Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of Sokrates in both dialogues.]
That in the list of pleasures there are some which it is proper to avoid,--and in the list of pains, some which it is proper to accept or invite--is a doctrine maintained by Sokrates alike in both the dialogues.
Why?
Because some pleasures are good, others bad: some pains bad, others good--says Sokrates in the Gorgias.
The same too is said by Sokrates in the Protagoras; but then, he there explains what he means by the appellation.
All pleasure (he there says), so far as it goes, is good--all pain is bad.
But there are some pleasures which cannot be enjoyed without debarring us from greater pleasures or entailing upon us greater pains: on that ground therefore, such pleasures are bad.
So again, there are some pains, the suffering of which is a condition indispensable to our escaping greater pains, or to our enjoying greater pleasures: such pains therefore are good.
Thus this apparent exception does not really contradict, but confirms, the general doctrine--That there is no good but the pleasurable, and the elimination of pain--and no evil except the painful, or the privation of pleasure.
Good and evil have no reference except to pleasures and pains; but the terms imply, in each particular case, an estimate and comparison of future pleasurable and painful consequences, and express the result of such comparison.
"You call enjoyment itself evil" (says Sokrates in the Protagoras),[75] "when it deprives us of greater pleasures or entails upon us greater pains.
If you have any other ground, or look to any other end, in calling it evil, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not be able to tell us.
So too, you say that pain is a good, when it relieves us from greater pains, or when it is necessary as the antecedent cause of greater pleasures.
If you have any other end in view, when you call pain good, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not be able to tell us.
"[76] [Footnote 75: Plato, Protagoras,** p. 354 D. [Greek: e)pei/, ei) kat' a)/llo ti au)to\ to\ chai/rein kako\n kalei=te kai\ ei)s a)/llo ti te/los a)poble/psantes, e)/choite a)\n kai\ ê(mi=n ei)pei=n; a)ll' ou)ch e(/xete.
.
.
.
e)pei\ ei) pro\s a)/llo ti te/los a)poble/pete, o(/tan kalê=te au)to\ to\ lupei=sthai a)gatho/n, ê)\ pro\s o(\ e)gô\ le/gô, e)/chete ê(mi=n ei)pein; a)ll' ou)ch e(/xete.]]
[Footnote 76: In a remarkable passage of the De Legibus, Plato denies all essential distinction between Good and Pleasure, and all reality of Good apart from Pleasure (Legg.
ii.
pp.
662-663).
[Greek: ei) d' au)= to\n dikaio/taton eu)daimone/staton a)pophai/noito bi/on ei)=nai, zêtoi= pou pa=s a)\n o( a)kou/ôn, oi)=mai, ti/ pot' e)n au)tô=| to\ tê=s ê(donê=s krei=tton a)gatho/n te kai\ kalo\n o( no/mos e)no\n e)painei=?
ti/ ga\r dê\ dikai/ô| chôrizo/menon ê(donê=s a)gatho\n a)\n ge/noito?]
Plato goes on to argue as follows: Even though it were not true, as I affirm it to be, that the life of justice is a life of pleasure, and the life of injustice a life of pain--still the law-giver must proclaim this proposition as a useful falsehood, and compel every one to chime in with it.
Otherwise the youth will have no motive to just conduct.
For no one will willingly consent to obey any recommendation from which he does not expect more pleasure than pain; [Greek: ou)dei\s ga\r a)\n e(/kôn e)/theloi pei/thesthai pra/ttein tou=to o(/, tô| mê\ to\ chai/rein tou= lupei=sthai ple/on e(/petai] (663 B).]
[Side-note: Distinct statement in the Protagoras.
What are good and evil, and upon what principles the scientific adviser is to proceed in discriminating them.
No such distinct statement in the Gorgias.]
In the Gorgias, too, Sokrates declares that some pleasures are good, others bad--some pains bad, others good.
But here he stops.
He does not fulfil the reasonable demand urged by Sokrates in the Protagoras--"If you make such a distinction, explain the ground on which you make it, and the end to which you look".
The distinction in the Gorgias stands without any assigned ground or end to rest upon.
And this want is the more sensibly felt, when we read in the same dialogue, that--"It is not every man who can distinguish the good pleasures from the bad: a scientific man, proceeding on principle, is needed for the purpose".
[77] But upon what criterion is the scientific man to proceed?
Of what properties is he to take account, in pronouncing one pleasure to be bad, another good--or one pain to be bad and another good--the estimate of consequences, measured in future pleasures and pains, being by the supposition excluded?
No information is given.
The problem set to the scientific man is one of which all the quantities are unknown.
Now Sokrates in the Protagoras[78] also lays it down, that a scientific or rational calculation must be had, and a mind competent to such calculation must be postulated, to decide which pleasures are bad or fit to be rejected--which pains are good, or proper to be endured.
But then he clearly specifies the elements which alone are to be taken into the calculation--_viz._, the future pleasures and pains accompanying or dependent upon each with the estimate of their comparative magnitude and durability.
The theory of this calculation is clear and intelligible: though in many particular cases, the data necessary for making it, and the means of comparing them, may be very imperfectly accessible.
[Footnote 77: Plato, Gorgias, p. 500 A.
[Greek: A)=r' ou)=n panto\s a)ndro/s** e)stin e)kle/xasthai poi=a a)/gatha\ tô=n ê(de/ôn e)sti\ kai\ o(poi=a kaka/?
ê)\ technikou= dei= ei)s e(/kaston?
Technikou=.]]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Protagoras, pp.
357 B, 356 E.] [Side-note: Modern ethical theories.
Intuition.
Moral sense--not recognised by Plato in either of the dialogues.]
According to various ethical theories, which have chiefly obtained currency in modern times, the distinction--between pleasures good or fit to be enjoyed, and pleasures bad or unfit to be enjoyed--is determined for us by a moral sense or intuition: by a simple, peculiar, sentiment of right and wrong, or a conscience, which springs up within us ready-made, and decides on such matters without appeal; so that a man has only to look into his own heart for a solution.
We need not take account of this hypothesis, in reviewing Plato's philosophy: for he evidently does not proceed upon it.
He expressly affirms, in the Gorgias as well as in the Protagoras, that the question is one requiring science or knowledge to determine it, and upon which none but the man of science or _expert_ ([Greek: techniko\s]) is a competent judge.
[Side-note: In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is self-regarding as respects the agent: not considering the pleasures and pains of other persons, so far as affected by the agent.]
Moreover, there is another point common to both the two dialogues, deserving of notice.
I have already remarked when reviewing the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras, that it appears to me seriously defective, inasmuch as it takes into account the pleasures and pains of the agent only, and omits the pleasures and pains of other persons affected by his conduct.
But this is not less true respecting the doctrine of Sokrates in the Gorgias: for whatever criterion he may there have in his mind to determine which among our pleasures are bad, it is certainly not this--that the agent in procuring them is obliged to hurt others.
For the example which Sokrates cites as specially illustrating the class of bad pleasures--_viz._, the pleasure of scratching an itching part of the body[79]--is one in which no others besides the agent are concerned.
As in the Protagoras, so in the Gorgias--Plato in laying down his rule of life, admits into the theory only what concerns the agent himself, and makes no direct reference to the happiness of others as affected by the agent's behaviour.
[Footnote 79: The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have reckoned this among the bad pleasures, because the discomfort and distress of body out of which it arises more than countervail the pleasure.]
[Side-note: Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues is in substance the same, but differing in classification.]
There are however various points of analogy between the Protagoras and the Gorgias, which will enable us, after tracing them out, to measure the amount of substantial difference between them; I speak of the reasoning of Sokrates in each.
Thus, in the Protagoras,[80] Sokrates ranks health, strength, preservation of the community, wealth, command, &c., under the general head of Good things, but expressly on the ground that they are the producing causes and conditions of pleasures and of exemption from pains: he also ranks sickness and poverty under the head of Evil things, as productive causes of pain and suffering.
In the Gorgias also, he numbers wisdom, health, strength, perfection of body, riches, &c., among Good things or profitable things[81]--(which two words he treats as equivalent)--and their contraries as Evil things.
Now he does not expressly say here (as in the Protagoras) that these things are _good_, because they are productive causes of pleasure or exemption from pain: but such assumption must evidently be supplied in order to make the reasoning valid.
For upon what pretence can any one pronounce strength, health, riches, to be _good_--and helplessness, sickness, poverty, to be _evil_--if no reference be admitted to pleasures and pains?
Sokrates in the Gorgias[82] declares that the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, in so far as they impart health and strength to the body--evil, in so far as they produce a contrary effect.
Sokrates in the Protagoras reasons in the same way--but with this difference--that he would count the pleasure of the repast itself as one item of good: enhancing the amount of good where the future consequences are beneficial, diminishing the amount of evil where the future consequences are Unfavourable: while Sokrates in the Gorgias excludes immediate pleasure from the list of good things, and immediate pain from the list of evil things.
[Footnote 80: Plato, Protagor.
pp.
353 D, 354 A.]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
467-468-499.]
[Footnote 82: Plato, Gorgias, p. 499 D.] This last exclusion renders the theory in the Gorgias untenable and inconsistent.
If present pleasure be not admitted as an item of good so far as it goes--then neither can the future and consequent aggregates of pleasure, nor the causes of them, be admitted as good.
So likewise, if present pain be no evil, future pain cannot be allowed to rank as an evil.
[83] [Footnote 83: Compare a passage in the Republic (ii.
p. 357) where Sokrates gives (or accepts, as given by Glaukon) a description of Good much more coincident with the Protagoras than with the Gorgias.
The common property of all Good is to be desired or loved; and there are three varieties of it--1.
That which we desire for itself, and for its own sake, apart from all ulterior consequences, such as innocuous pleasures or enjoyments.
2.
That which we desire both for itself and for its ulterior consequences, such as good health, good vision, good sense, &c. 3.
That which we do not desire--nay, which we perhaps hate or shun, _per se_: but which we nevertheless desire and invite, in connection with and for the sake of ulterior consequences: such as gymnastic training, medical treatment when we are sick, labour in our trade or profession.
Here Plato admits the immediately pleasurable _per se_ as one variety of good, always assuming that it is not countervailed by consequences or accompaniments of a painful character.
This is the doctrine of the Protagoras, as distinguished from the Gorgias, where Sokrates sets pleasure in marked opposition to good.]
[Side-note: Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias, maintains a different argument from that which Sokrates combats in the Protagoras.]
Each of the two dialogues, which I am now comparing, is in truth an independent composition: in each, Sokrates has a distinct argument to combat; and in the latest of the two (whichever that was), no heed is taken of the argumentation in the earlier.
In the Protagoras, he exalts the dignity and paramount force of knowledge or prudence: if a man knows how to calculate pleasures and pains, he will be sure to choose the result which involves the greater pleasure or the less pain, on the whole: to say that he is overpowered by immediate pleasure or pain into making a bad choice, is a wrong description--the real fact being, that he is deficient in the proper knowledge how to choose.
In the Gorgias, the doctrine assigned to Kalliklês and impugned by Sokrates is something very different.
That justice, temperance, self-restraint, are indeed indispensable to the happiness of ordinary men; but if there be any one individual, so immensely superior in force as to trample down and make slaves of the rest, this one man would be a fool if he restrained himself: having the means of gratifying all his appetites, the more appetites he has, the more enjoyments will he have and the greater happiness.
[84] Observe--that Kalliklês applies this doctrine only to the one omnipotent despot: to all other members of society, he maintains that self-restraint is essential.
This is the doctrine which Sokrates in the Gorgias undertakes to refute, by denying community of nature between the pleasurable and the good--between the painful and the evil.
[Footnote 84: Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 B.]
[Side-note: The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful--it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras.]
To me his refutation appears altogether unsuccessful, and the position upon which he rests it incorrect.
The only parts of the refutation really forcible, are those in which he unconsciously relinquishes this position, and slides into the doctrine of the Protagoras.
Upon this latter doctrine, a refutation might be grounded: you may show that even an omnipotent despot (regard for the comfort of others being excluded by the hypothesis) will gain by limiting the gratification of his appetites to-day so as not to spoil his appetites of tomorrow.
Even in his case, prudential restraint is required, though his motives for it would be much less than in the case of ordinary social men.
But Good, as laid down by Plato in the Gorgias, entirely disconnected from pleasure--and Evil, entirely disconnected from pain--have no application to this supposed despot.
He has no desire for such Platonic Good--no aversion for such Platonic Evil.
His happiness is not diminished by missing the former or incurring the latter.
In fact, one of the cardinal principles of Plato's ethical philosophy, which he frequently asserts both in this dialogue and elsewhere,[85]--That every man desires Good, and acts for the sake of obtaining Good, and avoiding Evil--becomes untrue, if you conceive Good and Evil according to the Gorgias, as having no reference to pleasure or the avoidance of pain: untrue, not merely in regard to a despot under these exceptional conditions, but in regard to the large majority of social men.
They desire to obtain Good and avoid Evil, in the sense of the Protagoras: but not in the sense of the Gorgias.
[86] Sokrates himself proclaims in this dialogue: "I and philosophy stand opposed to Kalliklês and the Athenian public.
What I desire is, to reason consistently with myself."
That is, to speak the language of Sokrates in the Protagoras--"To me, Sokrates, the consciousness of inconsistency with myself and of an unworthy character, the loss of my own self-esteem and the pungency of my own self-reproach, are the greatest of all pains: greater than those which you, Kalliklês, and the Athenians generally, seek to avoid at all price and urge me also to avoid at all price--poverty, political nullity, exposure to false accusation, &c."[87] The noble scheme of life, here recommended by Sokrates, may be correctly described according to the theory of the Protagoras: without any resort to the paradox of the Gorgias, that Good has no kindred or reference to Pleasure, nor Evil to Pain.
[Footnote 85: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
467 C, 499 E.] [Footnote 86: The reasoning of Plato in the Gorgias, respecting this matter, rests upon an equivocal phrase.
The Greek phrase [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein] has two meanings; it means _recté agere_, to act rightly; and it also means _felicem esse_, to be happy.
There is a corresponding double sense in [Greek: kakô=s pra/ttein].
Heindorf has well noticed the fallacious reasoning founded by Plato on this double sense.
We read in the Gorgias, p. 507 C: [Greek: a)na/gkê to\n sô/phrona, di/kaion o)/nta kai\ a)ndrei=on kai\ o(/sion, a)gatho\n a)/ndra ei)=nai tele/ôs, to\n de\ a)gatho\n ei)= te kai\ kalô=s pra/ttein a)\ a)\n pra/ttê|, to\n d' eu)= pra/ttonta maka/rio/n te kai\ eu)dai/mona ei)=nai, to\n de\ ponêro\n kai\ kakô=s pra/ttonta a)/thlion.]
Upon which Heindorf remarks, citing a note of Routh, who says, "Vix enim potest credi, Platonem duplici sensu verborum [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein] ad argumentum probandum abuti voluisse, quæ fallacia esset amphiboliæ".
"Non meminerat" (says Heindorf) "vir doctus ceteros in Platone locos, ubi eodem modo ex duplici illâ potestate argumentatio ducitur, cujusmodi plura attulimus ad Charmidem, 42, p. 172 A."
Heindorf observes, on the Charmidês l. c.: "Argumenti hujus vim positam apparet in duplici dictionis [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein] significatu: quum vulgo sit _felicem esse_, non _recté facere_.
Hoc aliaque ejusdem generis sæpius sic ansam præbuerunt sophismatis magis quam justi syllogismi."
Heindorf then refers to analogous passages in Plato, Repub.
i. p. 354 A: Alkib.
i. p. 116 B, p. 134 A.
A similar fallacy is found in Aristotle, Politic.
vii.
i. p. 1323, a.
17, b.
32--[Greek: a)/rista ga\r pra/ttein prosê/kei tou\s a)/rista politeuome/nous--a)du/naton de\ kalô=s pra/ttein toi=s mê\ ta\ kala\ pra/ttousin.]
This fallacy is recognised and properly commented on as a "logisches Wortspiel," by Bernays, in his instructive volume, _Die** Dialoge des Aristoteles_, pp.
80-81 (Berlin, 1863).]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
481 D, 482 B.]
[Side-note: Permanent elements--and transient elements--of human agency--how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues.]
Lastly I will compare the Protagoras and the Gorgias (meaning always, the reasoning of Sokrates in each of them) under one more point of view.
How does each of them describe and distinguish the permanent elements, and the transient elements, involved in human agency?
What function does each of them assign to the permanent element?
The distinction of these two is important in its ethical bearing.
The whole life both of the individual and of society consists of successive moments of action or feeling.
But each individual (and the society as an aggregate of individuals) has within him embodied and realised an element more or less permanent--an established character, habits, dispositions, intellectual acquirements, &c.--a sort of capital accumulated from the past.
This permanent element is of extreme importance.
It stands to the transient element in the same relation as the fixed capital of a trader or manufacturer to his annual produce.
The whole use and value of the fixed capital, of which the skill and energy of the trader himself make an important part, consists in the amount of produce which it will yield: but at the same time the trader must keep it up in its condition of fixed capital, in order to obtain such amount: he must set apart, and abstain from devoting to immediate enjoyment, as much of the annual produce as will suffice to maintain the fixed capital unimpaired--and more, if he desires to improve his condition.
The capital cannot be commuted into interest; yet nevertheless its whole value depends upon, and is measured by, the interest which it yields.
Doubtless the mere idea of possessing the capital is pleasurable to the possessor, because he knows that it can and will be profitably employed, so long as he chooses.
[Side-note: In the Protagoras.]
Now in the Protagoras, the permanent element is very pointedly distinguished from the transient, and is called Knowledge--the Science or Art of Calculation.
Its function also is clearly announced--to take comparative estimate and measurement of the transient elements; which are stated to consist of pleasures and pains, present and future--near and distant--certain and uncertain--faint and strong.
To these elements, manifold yet commensurable, the calculation is to apply.
"The safety of life" (says Sokrates[88]) "resides in our keeping up this science or art of calculation."
No present enjoyment must be admitted, which would impair it; no present pain must be shunned, which is essential to uphold it.
Yet the whole of its value resides in its application to the comparison of the pleasures and pains.
[Footnote 88: Plato, Protag.
p. 357 A.
[Greek: e)peidê\ de\ ê(donê=s te kai\ lu/pês e)n o)rthê=| tê=| ai(re/sei e)pha/nê ê(mi=n ê( sôtêri/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa, tou= te ple/onos kai\ e)lattonos kai\ mei/zonos kai\ smikrote/rou kai\ por)r(ôte/rô kai\ e)ggute/rô], &c.] [Side-note: In the Gorgias.]
In the Gorgias the same two elements are differently described, and less clearly explained.
The permanent is termed, Order, arrangement, discipline, a lawful, just, and temperate, cast of mind (opposed to the doctrine ascribed to Kalliklês, which negatived this element altogether, in the mind of the despot), parallel to health and strength of body: the unordered mind is again the parallel of the corrupt, distempered, helpless, body; life is not worth having until this is cured.
[89] This corresponds to the knowledge or Calculating Science in the Protagoras; but we cannot understand what its function is, in the Gorgias, because the calculable elements are incompletely enumerated.
[Footnote 89: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
504 B-C, 506 D-E. [Greek: Ta/xis--ko/smos--psuchê\ kosmi/a a)mei/nôn tou= a)kosmê/tou.]]
In the Protagoras, these calculable elements are two-fold--immediate pleasures and pains--and future or distant pleasures and pains.
Between these two there is intercommunity of nature, so that they are quite commensurable; and the function of the calculating reason is, to make a right estimate of the one against the other.
[90] But in the Gorgias, no mention is made of future or distant pleasures and pains: the calculable element is represented only by immediate pleasure or pain--and from thence we pass at once to the permanent calculator--the mind, sound or corrupt.
You must abstain from a particular enjoyment, because it will taint the soundness of your mind: this is a pertinent reason (and would be admitted as such by Sokrates in the Protagoras, who instead of sound mind would say, calculating intelligence), but it is neither the ultimate reason (since this soundness of mind is itself valuable with a view to future calculations), nor the only reason: for you must also abstain, if it will bring upon yourself (or upon others) preponderating pains in the particular case--if the future pains would preponderate over the present pleasure.
Of this last calculation no notice is taken in the Gorgias: which exhibits only the antithesis (not merely marked but even over-done[91]) between the immediate pleasure or pain and the calculating efficacy of mind, but leaves out the true function which gives value to the sound mind as distinguished from the unsound and corrupt.
That function consists in its application to particular cases: in right dealing with actual life, as regards the agent himself and others: in [Greek: e)nergei/a], as distinguished from [Greek: e(/xis], to use Aristotelian language.
[92] I am far from supposing that this part of the case was absent from Plato's mind.
But the theory laid out in the Gorgias (as compared with that in the Protagoras) leaves no room for it; giving exclusive prominence to the other elements, and acknowledging only the present pleasure or pain, to be set against the permanent condition of mind, bad or good as it may be.
[Footnote 90: There would be also the like intercommunity of nature, if along with the pains and pleasures of the agent himself (which alone are regarded in the calculation of Sokrates in the Protagoras) you admit into the calculation the pleasures and pains of others concerned, and the rules established with a view to both the two together with a view to the joint interest both of the agent and of others.]
[Footnote 91: Epikurus and his followers assigned the greatest value, in their ethical theory, to the permanent element, or established character of the agent, intellectual and emotional.
But great as they reckoned this value to be, they resolved it all into the diminution or mitigation of pains, and, in a certain though inferior degree, the multiplication of pleasures.
They did not put it in a separate category of its own, altogether disparate and foreign to pleasures and pains.
See the letter of Epikurus to Menoekeus, Diog.
L. x.
128-132; Lucretius, v. 18-45, vi.
12-25; Horat.
Epist.
i.
2, 48-60.]
[Footnote 92: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
7.
The remark of Aristotle in the same treatise, i.
5--[Greek: dokei= ga\r e)nde/chesthai kai\ katheu/dein e)/chonta tê\n a)retê/n, ê)\ a)praktei=n dia\ bi/ou]--might be applied to the theory of the Gorgias.
Compare also Ethic.
Nik.
vii.
3 (vii.
4, p. 1146, b.
31, p. 1147, a.
12).]
[Side-note: Character of the Gorgias generally--discrediting all the actualities of life.]
Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the manner in which Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of life--all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic--all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular sufferings and dangers, even all service rendered to another person in the way of relief or of rescue[93]--all the effective maintenance of public organised force, such as ships, docks, walls, arms, &c. Immediate satisfaction or relief, and those who confer it, are treated with contempt, and presented as in hostility to the perfection of the mental structure.
And it is in this point of view that various Platonic commentators extol in an especial manner the Gorgias: as recognising an Idea of Good superhuman and supernatural, radically disparate from pleasures and pains of any human being, and incommensurable with them: an Universal Idea, which, though it is supposed to cast a distant light upon its particulars, is separated from them by an incalculable space, and is discernible only by the Platonic telescope.
[Footnote 93: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
501-502-511-512-517-519.
[Greek: a)/neu ga\r dikaiosu/nês kai\ sôphrosu/nês lime/nôn kai\ neôri/ôn kai\ teichô=n kai\ pho/rôn kai\ toiou/tôn phluariô=n e)mpeplê/kasi tê\n po/lin.]
This is applied to the provision of food, drink, clothing, bedding, for the hunger, thirst, &c., of the community (p. 517 D), to the saving of life (p. 511 D).
The boatman between Ægina and Peiræus (says Plato) brings over his passengers in safety, together with their families and property, preserving them from all the dangers of the sea.
The engineer, who constructs good fortifications, preserves from danger and destruction all the citizens with their families and their property (p. 512 B).
But neither of these persons takes credit for this service: because both of them know that it is doubtful whether they have done any real service to the persons preserved, since they have not rendered them any better; and that it is even doubtful whether they may not have done them an actual mischief.
Perhaps these persons may be wicked and corrupt; in that case it is a misfortune to them that their lives should be prolonged; it would be better for them to die.
It is under this conviction (says Plato) that the boatman and the engineer, though they do preserve our lives, take to themselves no credit for it.
We shall hardly find any greater rhetorical exaggeration than this, among all the compositions of the rhetors against whom Plato declares war in the Gorgias.
Moreover, it is a specimen of the way in which Plato colours and misinterprets the facts of social life, in order to serve the purpose of the argument of the moment.
He says truly that when the passage boat from Ægina to Peiræus has reached its destination, the steersman receives his fare and walks about on the shore, without taking any great credit to himself, as if he had performed a brilliant deed or conferred an important service.
But how does Plato explain this?
By supposing in the steersman's mind feelings which never enter into the mind of a real agent; feelings which are put into words only when a moralist or a satirist is anxious to enforce a sentiment.
The service which the steersman performs is not only adequately remunerated, but is, on most days, a regular and easy one, such as every man who has gone through a decent apprenticeship can perform.
But suppose an exceptional day--suppose a sudden and terrible storm to supervene on the passage--suppose the boat full of passengers, with every prospect of all on board being drowned--suppose she is only saved by the extraordinary skill, vigilance, and efforts of the steersman.
In that case he will, on reaching the land, walk about full of elate self-congratulation and pride: the passengers will encourage this sentiment by expressions of the deepest gratitude; while friends as well as competitors will praise his successful exploit.
How many of the passengers there are for whom the preservation of life may be a curse rather than a blessing--is a question which neither they themselves, nor the steersman, nor the public, will ever dream of asking.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Argument of Sokrates resumed--multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure.]
We have now established (continues Sokrates) that pleasure is essentially different from good, and pain from evil: also, that to obtain good and avoid evil, a scientific choice is required--while to obtain pleasure and avoid pain, is nothing more than blind imitation or irrational knack.
There are some arts and pursuits which aim only at procuring immediate pleasure--others which aim at attaining good or the best;[94] some arts, for a single person,--others for a multitude.
Arts and pursuits which aim only at immediate pleasure, either of one or of a multitude, belong to the general head of Flattery.
Among them are all the musical, choric, and dithyrambic representations at the festivals--tragedy as well as comedy--also political and judicial rhetoric.
None of these arts aim at any thing except to gratify the public to whom they are addressed: none of them aim at the permanent good: none seek to better the character of the public.
They adapt themselves to the prevalent desires: but whether those desires are such as, if realised, will make the public worse or better, they never enquire.
[95] [Footnote 94: The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have admitted a twofold distinction of aims, but would have stated the distinction otherwise.
Two things (he would say) may be looked at in regard to any course of conduct: first, the immediate pleasure or pain which it yields; secondly, this item, not alone, but combined with all the other pleasures and pains which can be foreseen as its conditions, consequences, or concomitants.
To obey the desire of immediate pleasure, or the fear of immediate pain, requires no science; to foresee, estimate, and compare the consequences, requires a scientific calculation often very difficult and complicated--a [Greek: te/chnê] or [Greek: e)pistê/mê metrêtikê/].
Thus we are told not only in what cases the calculation is required, but what are the elements to be taken into the calculation.
In the Gorgias, we are not told on what elements the calculation of good and evil is to be based: we are told that there _must be science_, but we learn nothing more.]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
502-503.]
[Side-note: The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public--even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else--citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles.]
_Sokr._--Do you know any public speakers who aim at anything more than gratifying the public, or who care to make the public better?
_Kall._--There are some who do, and others who do not.
_Sokr._--Which are those who do?
and which of them has ever made the public better?
[96] _Kall._--At any rate, former statesmen did so; such as Miltiades, Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles.
_Sokr._--None of them.
If they had, you would have seen them devoting themselves systematically and obviously to their one end.
As a builder labours to construct a ship or a house, by putting together its various parts with order and symmetry--so these statesmen would have laboured to implant order and symmetry in the minds and bodies of the citizens: that is, justice and temperance in their minds, health and strength in their bodies.
[97] Unless the statesman can do this, it is fruitless to supply the wants, to fulfil the desires and requirements, to uphold or enlarge the power, of the citizens.
This is like supplying ample nourishment to a distempered body: the more such a body takes in, the worse it becomes.
The citizens must be treated with refusal of their wishes and with punishment, until their vices are healed, and they become good.
[98] [Footnote 96: Plato, Gorgias, p. 503 C.] [Footnote 97: Plato, Gorgias, p. 504 D.] [Footnote 98: Plato, Gorgias, p. 505 B.]
[Side-note: Necessity for temperance, regulation, order.
This is the condition of virtue and happiness.]
We ought to do (continues Sokrates) what is pleasing for the sake of what is good: not _vice versà_.
But every thing becomes good by possessing its appropriate virtue or regulation.
The regulation appropriate to the mind is to be temperate.
The temperate man will do what is just--his duty towards men: and what is holy--his duty towards the Gods.
He will be just and holy.
He will therefore also be courageous: for he will seek only such pleasures as duty permits, and he will endure all such pains as duty requires.
Being thus temperate, just, brave, holy, he will be a perfectly good man, doing well and honourably throughout.
The man who does well, will be happy: the man who does ill and is wicked, will be miserable.
[99] It ought to be our principal aim, both for ourselves individually and for the city, to attain temperance and to keep clear of intemperance: not to let our desires run immoderately (as you, Kallikles, advise), and then seek repletion for them: which is an endless mischief, the life of a pirate.
He who pursues this plan can neither be the friend of any other man, nor of the Gods: for he is incapable of communion, and therefore of friendship.
[100] [Footnote 99: Plato, Gorgias, p, 507 D (with Routh and Heindorf's notes).]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Gorgias, p. 507 E. [Greek: koinônei=n ga\r a)du/natos; o(/tô| de\ mê\ e(/ni koinôni/a, phili/a ou)k a)\n ei)/ê.]]
[Side-note: Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force.]
Now, Kallikles (pursues Sokrates), you have reproached me with standing aloof from public life in order to pursue philosophy.
You tell me that by not cultivating public speaking and public action, I am at the mercy of any one who chooses to accuse me unjustly and to bring upon me severe penalties.
But I tell you, that it is a greater evil to do wrong than to suffer wrong; and that my first business is, to provide for myself such power and such skill as shall guard me against doing wrong.
[101] Next, as to suffering wrong, there is only one way of taking precautions against it.
You must yourself rule in the city: or you must be a friend of the ruling power.
Like is the friend of like:[102] a cruel despot on the throne will hate and destroy any one who is better than himself, and will despise any one worse than himself.
The only person who will have influence is, one of the same dispositions as the despot: not only submitting to him with good will, but praising and blaming the same things as he does--accustomed from youth upwards to share in his preferences and aversions, and assimilated to him as much as possible.
[103] Now if the despot be a wrong-doer, he who likens himself to the despot will become a wrong-doer also.
And thus, in taking precautions against suffering wrong, he will incur the still greater mischief and corruption of doing wrong, and will be worse off instead of better.
[Footnote 101: Plato, Gorgias, p. 509 C. Compare Leges, viii.
829 A, where [Greek: to\ mê\ a)dikei=n] is described as easy of attainment; [Greek: to\ mê\ a)dikei=sthai], as being [Greek: pagcha/lepon]: and both equally necessary [Greek: pro\s to\ eu)daimo/nôs zê=|n].]
[Footnote 102: Plat.
Gorg.
510 B.
[Greek: phi/los--o( o(/moios tô=| o(moi/ô|].
We have already seen this principle discussed and rejected in the Lysis, p. 214.
See above, ch.
xx., p.
179.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C. [Greek: lei/petai dê\ e)kei=nos mo/nos a)/xios lo/gou phi/los tô=| toiou/tô|, o(\s a)\n, o(moê/thês ô)/n, tau)ta\ pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n, e)the/lê| a)/rchesthai kai\ u(pokei=sthai tô=| a)/rchonti.
Ou(=tos me/ga e)n tau/tê| tê=| po/lei dunê/setai, tou=ton ou)dei\s chai/rôn a)dikê/sei.
.
.
.
Au(/tê o(do/s e)stin, eu)thu\s e)k ve/ou e)thi/zein au)to\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthtai tô=| despo/tê|, kai\ paraskeua/zein o(/pôs o(/ ti ma/lista o(/moios e)/stai e)kei/nô|.]]
[Side-note: Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse.]
_Kall._--But if he does not liken himself to the despot, the despot may put him to death, if he chooses?
_Sokr._--Perhaps he may: but it will be death inflicted by a bad man upon a good man.
[104] To prolong life is not the foremost consideration, but to decide by rational thought what is the best way of passing that length of life which the Fates allot.
[105] Is it my best plan to do as you recommend, and to liken myself as much as possible to the Athenian people--in order that I may become popular and may acquire power in the city?
For it will be impossible for you to acquire power in the city, if you dissent from the prevalent political character and practice, be it for the better or for the worse.
Even imitation will not be sufficient: you must be, by natural disposition, homogeneous with the Athenians, if you intend to acquire much favour with them.
Whoever makes you most like to them, will help you forward most towards becoming an effective statesman and speaker: for every assembly delight in speeches suited to their own dispositions, and reject speeches of an opposite tenor.
[106] [Footnote 104: Plato, Gorgias, p. 511 B.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
511 B, 512 E.] [Footnote 106: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 A.
[Greek: kai\ nu=n de\ a)/ra dei= se ô(s o(moio/taton gi/gnesthai tô=| dêmô| tô=| A)thênai/ôn, ei) me/lleis tou/tô| prosphilê\s ei)=nai kai\ me/ga du/nasthai e)n tê=| po/lei.
.
.
.
ei) de/ soi oi)/ei o(ntinou=n a)nthrô/pôn paradô/sein te/chnên tina\ toiau/tên, ê(/ ti/s se poiê/sei me/ga du/nasthai e)n tê=| po/lei tê=|de, _a)no/moion o)/nta tê=| politei/a| ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ be/ltion ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ chei=ron_, ou)k o)rthô=s bouleu/ei; ou) ga\r mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai, a)ll' au)tophuô=s o(/moion toou/tois, ei) me/lleis ti gnê/sion a)perga/zesthai ei)s phili/an tô=| A)thênai/ôn dê/mô|.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself--to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction.]
Such are the essential conditions of political success and popularity.
But I, Kalliklês, have already distinguished two schemes of life; one aiming at pleasure, the other aiming at good: one, that of the statesman who studies the felt wants, wishes, and impulses of the people, displaying his genius in providing for them effective satisfaction--the other, the statesman who makes it his chief or sole object to amend the character and disposition of the people.
The last scheme is the only one which I approve: and if it be that to which you invite me, we must examine whether either you, Kallikles, or I, have ever yet succeeded in amending or improving the character of any individuals privately, before we undertake the task of amending the citizens collectively.
[107] None of the past statesmen whom you extol, Miltiades, Kimon, Themistokles, Perikles, has produced any such amendment.
[108] Considered as ministers, indeed, they were skilful and effective; better than the present statesmen.
They were successful in furnishing satisfaction to the prevalent wants and desires of the citizens: they provided docks, walls, ships, tribute, and other such follies, abundantly:[109] but they did nothing to amend the character of the people--to transfer the desires of the people from worse things to better things--or to create in them justice and temperance.
They thus did no real good by feeding the desires of the people: no more good than would be done by a skilful cook for a sick man, in cooking for him a sumptuous meal before the physician had cured him.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorgias, p. 515 A.]
[Footnote 108: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
516, 517.]
[Footnote 109: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
517, 519.
[Greek: a)/neu ga\r sôphrosu/nês kai\ dikaiosu/nês lime/nôn kai\ neôri/ôn kai\ teichô=n kai\ pho/rôn kai\ toiou/tôn phluariô=n e)mpeplê/kasi tê\n po/lin.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art.
Danger of doing this.]
I believe myself (continues Sokrates) to be the only man in Athens,--or certainly one among a very few,--who am a true statesman, following out the genuine purposes of the political art.
[110] I aim at what is best for the people, not at what is most agreeable.
I do not value those captivating accomplishments which tell in the Dikastery.
If I am tried, I shall be like a physician arraigned by the confectioner before a jury of children.
I shall not be able to refer to any pleasures provided for them by me: pleasures which _they_ call benefits, but which I regard as worthless.
If any one accuses me of corrupting the youth by making them sceptical, or of libelling the older men in my private and public talk--it will be in vain for me to justify myself by saying the real truth.--Dikasts, I do and say all these things justly, for your real benefit.
I shall not be believed when I say this, and I have nothing else to say: so that I do not know what sentence may be passed on me.
[111] My only refuge and defence will be, the innocence of my life.
As for death, no one except a fool or a coward fears _that_: the real evil, and the greatest of all evils, is to pass into Hades with a corrupt and polluted mind.
[112] [Footnote 110: Plato, Gorgias, p. 521 D.] [Footnote 111: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
521-522.]
[Footnote 112: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 E. [Greek: au)to\ me\n ga\r to\ a)pothnê/skein ou)dei\s phobei=tai, o(/stis mê\ panta/pasin a)lo/gisto/s te kai\ a)/nandro/s e)sti, to\ de\ a)dikei=n phobei=tai], &c. ] [Side-note: Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life--the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded.]
Sokrates then winds up the dialogue, by reciting a [Greek: Ne/kuia], a mythe or hypothesis about judgment in Hades after death, and rewards and punishments to be apportioned to deceased men, according to their merits during life, by Rhadamanthus and Minos.
The greatest sufferers by these judgments (he says) will be the kings, despots, and men politically powerful, who have during their lives committed the greatest injustices,--which indeed few of them avoid.
[113] The man most likely to fare well and to be rewarded, will be the philosopher, "who has passed through life minding his own business, and not meddling with the affairs of others".
[114] [Footnote 113: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
525-526.]
[Footnote 114: Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C. [Greek: philoso/phou ta\ au)tou= pra/xantos, kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n tô=| bi/ô|.]
It must be confessed that these terms do not correspond to the life of Sokrates, as he himself describes it in the Platonic Apology.
He seems to have fancied that no one was [Greek: polupra/gmôn] except those who spoke habitually in the Ekklesia and the Dikastery.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates--Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias.]
"Dicuntur ista magnifice,"[115]--we may exclaim, in Ciceronian words, on reaching the close of the Gorgias.
It is pre-eminently solemn and impressive; all the more so, from the emphasis of Sokrates, when proclaiming the isolation in which he stands at Athens, and the contradiction between his ethico-political views and those of his fellow-citizens.
In this respect it harmonises with the Apology, the Kriton, Republic, and Leges: in all which, the peculiarity of his ethical points of view stands proclaimed--especially in the Kriton, where he declares that his difference with his opponents is fundamental, and that there can be between them no common ground for debate--nothing but reciprocal contempt.
[116] [Footnote 115: Cicero, De Finib.
iii.
3, 11.]
[Footnote 116: Plato, Kriton, p. 49 D.] [Side-note: He merges politics in Ethics--he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.]
The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is, merging politics in ethics.
The proper and paramount function of statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad dispositions to good.
We are admonished that until this is effected, more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state of a sick man, who would receive harm and not benefit from a sumptuous banquet.
[Side-note: _Idéal_ of Plato--a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own.]
This is the conception of Plato in the Gorgias, speaking through the person of Sokrates, respecting the ends for which the political magistrate ought to employ his power.
The magistrate, as administering law and justice, is to the minds of the community what the trainer and the physician are to their bodies: he produces goodness of mind, as the two latter produce health and strength of body.
The Platonic _idéal_ is that of a despotic law-giver and man-trainer, wielding the compulsory force of the secular arm for what he believes to be spiritual improvement.
However instructive it is to study the manner in which a mind like that of Plato works out such a purpose in theory, there is no reason for regret that he never had an opportunity of carrying it into practice.
The manner in which he always keeps in view the standing mental character, as an object of capital importance to be attended to, and as the analogon of health in the body--deserves all esteem.
But when he assumes the sceptre of King Nomos (as in Republic and Leges) to fix by unchangeable authority what shall be the orthodox type of character, and to suppress all the varieties of emotion and intellect, except such as will run into a few predetermined moulds--he oversteps all the reasonable aims and boundaries of the political office.
[Side-note: Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health--incomplete analogy--circumstances of difference.]
Plato forgets two important points of difference, in that favourite and very instructive analogy which he perpetually reproduces, between mental goodness and bodily health.
First, good health and strength of the body (as I have observed already) are states which every man knows when he has got them.
Though there is much doubt and dispute about causes, preservative, destructive, and restorative, there is none about the present fact.
Every sick man derives from his own sensations an anxiety to get well.
But virtue is not a point thus fixed, undisputed, indubitable: it is differently conceived by different persons, and must first be discovered and settled by a process of enquiry; the Platonic Sokrates himself, in many of the dialogues--after declaring that neither he nor any one else within his knowledge, knows what it is--tries to find it out without success.
Next, the physician, who is the person actively concerned in imparting health and strength, exercises no coercive power over any one: those who consult him have the option whether they will follow the advice given, or not.
To put himself upon the same footing with the physician, the political magistrate ought to confine himself to the function of advice; a function highly useful, but in which he will be called upon to meet argumentative opposition, and frequent failure, together with the mortification of leaving those whom he cannot convince, to follow their own mode of life.
Here are two material differences, modifying the applicability of that very analogy on which Plato so frequently rests his proof.
[Side-note: Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits.
Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence.]
In Plato's two imaginary commonwealths, where he is himself despotic law-giver, there would have been no tolerable existence possible for any one not shaped upon the Platonic spiritual model.
But in the Gorgias, Plato (speaking in the person of Sokrates) is called upon to define his plan of life in a free state, where he was merely a private citizen.
Sokrates receives from Kallikles the advice, to forego philosophy and to aspire to the influence and celebrity of an active public speaker.
His reply is instructive, as revealing the interior workings of every political society.
No man (he says) can find favour as an adviser--either of a despot, where there is one, or of a people where there is free government--unless he be in harmony with the sentiments and ideas prevalent, either with the ruling Many or the ruling One.
He must be moulded, from youth upwards, on the same spiritual pattern as they are:[117] his love and hate, his praise and blame, must turn towards the same things: he must have the same tastes, the same morality, the same _idéal_, as theirs: he must be no imitator, but a chip of the same block.
If he be either better than they or worse than they,[118] he will fail in acquiring popularity, and his efforts as a competitor for public influence will be not only abortive, but perhaps dangerous to himself.
[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C-D. [Greek: o(moê/thês ô)/n, tau)ta\ pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n tô=| a)/rchonti.
.
.
.
eu)thu\s e)k ne/ou e)thi/zein au(to\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthai tô=| despo/tê|, kai\ paraskeua/zein o(/pôs o(/ ti ma/lista o(/moios e)/stai e)kei/nô|.]
513 B: [Greek: ou) mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai a)ll' au)tophuô=s o(/moion tou/tois.]]
[Footnote 118: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 A.
[Greek: ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ be/ltion ei)/t' e)pi\ to\ chei=ron.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen.
He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic.]
The reasons which Sokrates gives here (as well as in the Apology, and partly also in the Republic) for not embarking in the competition of political aspirants, are of very general application.
He is an innovator in religion; and a dissenter from the received ethics, politics, social sentiment, and estimate of life and conduct.
[119] Whoever dissents upon these matters from the governing force (in whatever hands that may happen to reside) has no chance of being listened to as a political counsellor, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes without personal hurt or loss.
Whether his dissent be for the better or for the worse, is a matter of little moment: the ruling body always think it worse, and the consequences to the dissenter are the same.
[Footnote 119: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 B; Theætêtus, p. 179; Menon, p.
79.]
[Side-note: Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric.]
Herein consists the real antithesis between Sokrates, Plato, and philosophy, on the one side--Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Demosthenes, and rhetoric, on the other.
"You," (says Sokrates to Kalliklês),[120] "are in love with the Athenian people, and take up or renounce such opinions as they approve or discountenance: I am in love with philosophy, and follow her guidance.
You and other active politicians do not wish to have more than a smattering of philosophy; you are afraid of becoming unconsciously corrupted, if you carry it beyond such elementary stage.
"[121] Each of these orators, discussing political measures before the public assembly, appealed to general maxims borrowed from the received creed of morality, religion, taste, politics, &c. His success depended mainly on the emphasis which his eloquence could lend to such maxims, and on the skill with which he could apply them to the case in hand.
But Sokrates could not follow such an example.
Anxious in his research after truth, he applied the test of analysis to the prevalent opinions--found them, in his judgment, neither consistent nor rational--constrained many persons to feel this, by an humiliating cross-examination--but became disqualified from addressing, with any chance of assent, the assembled public.
[Footnote 120: Plato, Gorgias, p, 481 E.] [Footnote 121: Plato, Gorgias, p. 487 C. [Greek: e)ni/ka e)s u(mi=n toia/de tis do/xa, mê\ prothumei=sthai ei)s tê\n a)kribei/an philosophei=n, a)lla\ eu)labei=sthai.
.
.
.
o(/pôs mê\ pe/ra tou= de/ontos sophô/teroi geno/menoi lê/sete diaphthare/ntes.]
The view here advocated by Kallikles:--That philosophy is good and useful, to be studied up to a point in the earlier years of life, in order to qualify persons for effective discharge of the duties of active citizenship, but that it ought not to be made the main occupation of mature life, nor be prosecuted up to the pitch of accurate theorising: this view, since Plato here assigns it to Kallikles, is denounced by most of the Platonic critics as if it were low and worthless.
Yet it was held by many of the most respectable citizens of antiquity; and the question is, in point of fact, that which has always been in debate between the life of theoretical speculation and the life of action.
Isokrates urges the same view both in Orat.
xv.
De Permutatione, sect.
282-287, pp.
485-486, Bekker; and Orat.
xii.
Panathenaic.
sect.
29-32, p. 321, Bekker.
[Greek: diatri/psai me\n ou)=n peri\ ta\s paidei/as tau/tas chro/non tina\ sumbouleu/saim' a)\n toi=s neôte/rois, mê\ me/ntoi perii+dei=n tê\n phu/sin tê\n au)tô=n kataskeleteuthei=san e)pi\ tou/tois], &c. Cicero quotes a similar opinion put by Ennius the poet into the mouth of Neoptolemus, Tusc.
D. ii.
1, 1; Aulus Gell.
v. 16--"degustandum ex philosophiâ censet, non in eam ingurgitandum".
Tacitus, in describing the education of Agricola, who was taken by his mother in his earlier years to study at Massilia, says, c. 4:--"Memoriâ teneo, solitum ipsum narrare, se in primâ juventâ studium philosophiæ, _ultra quam concessum Romano et senatori_, hausisse; ni prudentia matris incensum ac flagrantem animum coercuisset".
I have already cited this last passage, and commented upon the same point, in my notes at the end of the Euthydêmus, p.
230.]
[Side-note: Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen.]
That in order to succeed politically, a man must be a genuine believer in the creed of King Nomos or the ruling force--cast in the same spiritual mould--(I here take the word _creed_ not as confined to religion, but as embracing the whole of a man's critical _idéal_, on moral or social practice, politics, or taste--the ends which he deems worthy of being aspired to, or proper to be shunned, by himself or others) is laid down by Sokrates as a general position: and with perfect truth.
In disposing of the force or influence of government, whoever possesses that force will use it conformably to his own maxims.
A man who dissents from these maxims will find no favour in the public assembly; nor, probably, if his dissent be grave and wide, will he ever be able to speak out his convictions aloud in it, without incurring dangerous antipathy.
But what is to become of such a dissenter[122]--the man who frequents the same porticos with the people, but does not hold the same creed, nor share their judgments respecting social _expetenda_ and _fugienda_?
How is he to be treated by the government, or by the orthodox majority of society in their individual capacity?
Debarred, by the necessity of the case, from influence over the public councils--what latitude of pursuit, profession, or conduct, is to be left to him as a citizen?
How far is he to question, or expose, or require to be proved, that which the majority believe without proof?
Shall he be required to profess, or to obey, or to refrain from contradicting, religious or ethical doctrines which he has examined and rejected?
Shall such requirement be enforced by threat of legal penalties, or of ill-treatment from individuals, which is not less intolerable than legal penalties?
What is likely to be his character, if compelled to suppress all declaration of his own creed, and to act and speak as if he were believer in another?
[Footnote 122: Horat.
Epist.
i.
1, 70-"Quod si me populus Romanus forté roget, cur Non ut porticibus, sic judiciis fruar iisdem, Nec sequar aut fugiam quæ diligit ipse vel odit: Olim quod vulpes ægroto cauta leoni Respondit, referam: Quia me vestigia terrent Omnia te adversum spectantia, nulla retrorsum."]
[Side-note: Probable feelings of Plato on this subject.
Claim put forward in the Gorgias of an independent _locus standi_ for philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates.]
The questions here suggested must have impressed themselves forcibly on the mind of Plato when he recollected the fate of Sokrates.
In spite of a blameless life, Sokrates had been judicially condemned and executed for publicly questioning received opinions, innovating upon the established religion, and instilling into young persons habits of doubt.
To dissent only for the better, afforded no assurance of safety: and Plato knew well that his own dissent from the Athenian public was even wider and more systematic than that of his master.
The position and plan of life for an active-minded reasoner, dissenting from the established opinions of the public, could not but be an object of interesting reflection to him.
[123] The Gorgias (written, in my judgment, long after the death of Sokrates, probably after the Platonic school was established) announces the vocation of the philosopher, and claims an open field for speculation, apart from the actualities of politics--for the self-acting reason of the individual doubter and investigator, against the authority of numbers and the pressure of inherited tradition.
A formal assertion to this effect was worthy of the founder of the Academy--the earliest philosophical school at Athens.
Yet we may observe that while the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias adopts the life of philosophy, he does not renew that farther demand with which the historical Sokrates had coupled it in his Apology--the liberty of oral and aggressive cross-examination, addressed to individuals personally and indiscriminately[124]--to the _primores populi_ as well as to the _populum tributim_.
The fate of Sokrates rendered Plato more cautious, and induced him to utter his ethical interrogations and novelties of opinion in no other way except that of lectures to chosen hearers and written dialogue: borrowing the name of Sokrates or some other speaker, and refraining upon system (as his letters[125] tell us that he did) from publishing any doctrines in his own name.
[Footnote 123: I have already referred to the treatise of Mr. John Stuart Mill "On Liberty," where this important topic is discussed in a manner equally profound and enlightened.
The co-existence of individual reasoners enquiring and philosophising for themselves, with the fixed opinions of the majority, is one of the main conditions which distinguish a progressive from a stationary community.]
[Footnote 124: Plat.
Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
21-22-23-28 E. [Greek: tou= de\ theou= ta/ttontos, ô(s e)gô\ ô)|ê/thên te kai\ u(pe/labon, philophou=nta me dei=n zê=|n kai\ _e)xeta/zonta e)mauto/n te kai\ tou\s a)/llous_], &c.] [Footnote 125: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
314 B. K. F. Hermann (Ueber Platon's Schriftstellerische Motive, p. 290) treats any such prudential discretion, in respect to the form and mode of putting forward unpopular opinions, as unworthy of Plato, and worthy only of Protagoras and other Sophists.
I dissent from this opinion altogether.
We know that Protagoras was very circumspect as to form (Timon ap.
Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathemat.
ix.
s. 57); but the passage of Plato cited by Hermann does not prove it.]
[Side-note: Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion.
Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance.]
As a man dissenting from received opinions, Sokrates had his path marked out in the field of philosophy or individual speculation.
To such a mind as his, the fullest liberty ought to be left, of professing and defending his own opinions, as well as of combating other opinions, accredited or not, which he may consider false or uncertified.
[126] The public guidance of the state thus falls to one class of minds, the activity of speculative discussion to another; though accident may produce, here and there, a superior individual, comprehensive or dexterous enough to suffice for both.
But the main desideratum is that this freedom of discussion should exist: that room shall be made, and encouragement held out, to the claims of individual reason, and to the full publication of all doubts or opinions, be they what they may: that the natural tendency of all ruling force, whether in few or in many hands, to perpetuate their own dogmas by proscribing or silencing all heretics and questioners, may be neutralised as far as possible.
The great expansive vigour of the Greek mind--the sympathy felt among the best varieties of Greeks for intellectual superiority in all its forms--and the privilege of free speech ([Greek: par)r(êsi/a]), on which the democratical citizens of Athens prided themselves--did in fact neutralise very considerably these tendencies in Athens.
A greater and more durable liberty of philosophising was procured for Athens, and through Athens for Greece generally, than had ever been known before in the history of mankind.
[Footnote 126: So Sokrates also says in the Platonic Apology, pp.
31-32.
[Greek: Ou) ga\r e)/stin o(/stis a)nthrô/pôn sôthê/setai ou)/te u(mi=n ou)/te a)/llô| plê/thei ou)deni\ gnêsi/ôs e)nantiou/menos, kai\ diakôlu/ôn polla\ a)/dika kai\ para/noma e)n tê=| po/lei gi/gnesthai; a)ll' a)nagkai=o/n e)sti to\n tô=| o)/nti machou/menon u(pe\r tou= dikai/ou, kai\ ei) me/llei o)li/gon chro/non sôthê/sesthai, _i)diôteu/ein a)lla\ mê\ dêmosieu/ein_.]
The reader will find the speculative individuality of Sokrates illustrated in the sixty-eighth chapter of my History of Greece.
The antithesis of the philosophising or speculative life, against the rhetorical, political, forensic life--which is put so much to the advantage of the former by Plato in the Gorgias, Theætêtus (p. 173, seq.
), and elsewhere was the theme of Cicero's lost dialogue called Hortensius: wherein Hortensius was introduced pleading the cause against philosophy, (see Orelli, Fragm.
Ciceron.
pp.
479-480), while the other speakers were provided by Cicero with arguments mainly in defence of philosophy, partly also against rhetoric.
The competition between the teachers of rhetoric and the teachers of philosophy continued to be not merely animated but bitter, from Plato downward throughout the Ciceronian age.
(Cicero, De Orat.
i.
45-46-47-75, &c.) We read in the treatise of Plutarch against the Epikurean Kolôtes, an acrimonious invective against Epikurus and his followers, for recommending a scheme of life such as to withdraw men from active political functions (Plutarch, adv.
Kolôt.
pp.
1125 C, 1127-1128); the like also in his other treatise, Non Posse Suaviter Vivi secundum Epicurum.
But Plutarch at the same time speaks as if Epikurus were the only philosopher who had recommended this, and as if all the other philosophers had recommended an active life; nay, he talks of Plato among the philosophers actively engaged in practical reformatory legislation, through Dion and the pupils of the Academy (p. 1126, B, C).
Here Plutarch mistakes: the Platonic tendencies were quite different from what he supposes.
The Gorgias and Theætêtus enforce upon the philosopher a life quite apart from politics, pursuing his own course, and not meddling with others--[Greek: philoso/phou ta\ au(tou= pra/xantos kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n tô=| bi/ô|] (Gorg.
526 C); which is the same advice as Epikurus gave.
It is set forth eloquently in the poetry of Lucretius, but it had been set forth previously, not less eloquently, in the rhetoric of Plato.]
[Side-note: Issue between philosophy and rhetoric--not satisfactorily handled by Plato.
Injustice done to rhetoric.
Ignoble manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês.]
This antithesis of the philosophical life to the rhetorical or political, constitutes one of the most interesting features of the Platonic Gorgias.
But when we follow the pleadings upon which Plato rests this grand issue, and the line which he draws between the two functions, we find much that is unsatisfactory.
Since Plato himself pleads both sides of the case, he is bound in fairness to set forth the case which he attacks (that of rhetoric), as it would be put by competent and honourable advocates--by Perikles, for example, or Demosthenes, or Isokrates, or Quintilian.
He does this, to a certain extent, in the first part of the dialogue, carried on by Sokrates with Gorgias.
But in the succeeding portions--carried on with Pôlus and Kalliklês, and occupying three-fourths of the whole--he alters the character of the defence, and merges it in ethical theories which Perikles, had he been the defender, would not only have put aside as misplaced, but disavowed as untrue.
Perikles would have listened with mixed surprise and anger, if he had heard any one utter the monstrous assertion which Plato puts into the mouth of Polus--That rhetors, like despots, kill, impoverish, or expel any citizen at their pleasure.
Though Perikles was the most powerful of all Athenian rhetors, yet he had to contend all his life against fierce opposition from others, and was even fined during his last years.
He would hardly have understood how an Athenian citizen could have made any assertion so completely falsified by all the history of Athens, respecting the omnipotence of the rhetors.
Again, if he had heard Kalliklês proclaiming that the strong giant had a natural right to satiate all his desires at the cost of the weaker Many--and that these latter sinned against Nature when they took precautions to prevent him--Perikles would have protested against the proclamation as emphatically as Plato.
[127] [Footnote 127: Perikles might indeed have referred to his own panegyrical oration in Thucydides, ii.
37.]
[Side-note: Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias.]
If we suppose Perikles to have undertaken the defence of the rhetorical element at Athens, against the dialectic element represented by Sokrates, he would have accepted it, though not a position of his own choosing, on the footing on which Plato places it in the mouth of Gorgias: "Rhetoric is an engine of persuasion addressed to numerous assembled auditors: it ensures freedom to the city (through the free exercise of such a gift by many competing orators) and political ascendency or command to the ablest rhetor.
It thus confers great power on him who possesses it in the highest measure: but he ought by no means to employ that power for unjust purposes."
It is very probable that Perikles might have recommended rhetorical study to Sokrates, as a means of defending himself against unjust accusations, and of acquiring a certain measure of influence on public affairs.
[128] But he would have distinguished carefully (as Horace does) between defending yourself against unjust attacks, and making unjust attacks upon others: though the same weapon may suit for both.
[Footnote 128: Horat.
Satir.
ii.
1, 39-"Hic stilus haud petet ultro Quemquam animantem; et me veluti custodiet ensis Vaginâ tectus; quem cur destringere coner, Tutus ab infestis latronibus?
Oh pater et rex Jupiter!
ut pereat positum rubigine telum, Nec quisquam noceat cupido mihi pacis!
At ille Qui me commôrit (melius non tangere!
clamo) Flebit, et insignis totâ cantabitur urbe."
We need only read the Memorabilia of Xenophon (ii.
9), to see that the historical Sokrates judged of these matters differently from the Platonic Sokrates of the Gorgias.
Kriton complained to Sokrates that life was difficult at Athens for a quiet man who wished only to mind his own business ([Greek: ta\ e(autou= pra/ttein]); because there were persons who brought unjust actions at law against him, for the purpose of extorting money to buy them off.
The Platonic Sokrates of the Gorgias would have replied to him: "Never mind: you are just, and these assailants are unjust: they are by their own conduct entailing upon themselves a terrible distemper, from which, if you leave them unpunished, they will suffer all their lives: they injure themselves more than they injure you".
But the historical Sokrates in Xenophon replies in quite another spirit.
He advises Kriton to look out for a clever and active friend, to attach this person to his interest by attention and favours, and to trust to him for keeping off the assailants.
Accordingly, a poor but energetic man named Archedemus is found, who takes Kriton's part against the assailants, and even brings counterattacks against them, which force them to leave Kriton alone, and to give money to Archedemus himself.
The advice given by the Xenophontic Sokrates to Kriton is the same in principle as the advice given by Kallikles to the Platonic Sokrates.]
[Side-note: The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived.]
Farther, neither Perikles, nor any defender of free speech, would assent to the definition of rhetoric--That it is a branch of the art of flattery, studying the immediately pleasurable, and disregarding the good.
[129] This indeed represents Plato's own sentiment, and was true in the sense which the Platonic Sokrates assigns (in the Gorgias, though not in the Protagoras) to the words _good_ and _evil_.
But it is not true in the sense which the Athenian people and the Athenian public men assigned to those words.
Both the one and the other used the words _pleasurable_ and _good_ as familiarly as Plato, and had sentiments corresponding to both of them.
The pleasurable and painful referred to present and temporary causes: the Good and Evil to prospective causes and permanent situations, involving security against indefinite future suffering, combined with love of national dignity and repugnance to degradation, as well as with a strong sense of common interests and common obligations to each other.
To provide satisfaction for these common patriotic feelings--to sustain the dignity of the city by effective and even imposing public establishments, against foreign enemies--to protect the individual rights of citizens by an equitable administration of justice--counted in the view of the Athenians as objects _good_ and _honourable_: while the efforts and sacrifices necessary for these permanent ends, were, so far as they went, a renunciation of what they would call the _pleasurable_.
When, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, acting on the advice of Perikles, allowed all Attica to be ravaged, and submitted to the distress of cooping the whole population within the long walls, rather than purchase peace by abnegating their Hellenic dignity, independence, and security--they not only renounced much that was pleasurable, but endured great immediate distress, for the sake of what they regarded as a permanent good.
[130] Eighty years afterwards, when Demosthenes pointed out to them the growing power and encroachments of the Macedonian Philip, and exhorted them to the efforts requisite for keeping back that formidable enemy, while there was yet time--they could not be wound up to the pitch requisite for affronting so serious an amount of danger and suffering.
They had lost that sense of Hellenic dignity, and that association of self-respect with active personal soldiership and sailorship, which rendered submission to an enemy the most intolerable of all pains, at the time when Perikles had addressed them.
They shut their eyes to an impending danger, which ultimately proved their ruin.
On both these occasions, we have the _pleasurable_ and the _good_ brought into contrast in the Athenian mind; in both we have the two most eminent orators of Grecian antiquity enforcing the _good_ in opposition to the _pleasurable_: the first successfully, the last vainly, in opposition to other orators.
[Footnote 129: The reply composed by the rhetor Aristeides to the Gorgias of Plato is well deserving of perusal, though (like all his compositions) it is very prolix and wordy.
See Aristeides, Orationes xlv.
and xlvi.--[Greek: Perei\ R(êtorikê=s], and [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn].
In the last of the two orations he defends the four eminent Athenians (Miltiades, Themistoklês, Periklês, Kimon) whom Plato disparages in the Gorgias.
Aristeides insists forcibly on the partial and narrow view here taken by Plato of persuasion, as a working force both for establishing laws and carrying on government.
He remarks truly that there are only two forces between which the choice must be made, intimidation and persuasion: that the substitution of persuasion in place of force is the great improvement which has made public and private life worth having ([Greek: mo/nê biôto\n ê(mi=n pepoi/êke to\n bi/on], Orat.
xlv.
p. 64, Dindorf); that neither laws could be discussed and passed, nor judicial trial held under them, without [Greek: r(êtorikê\] as the engine of persuasion (pp.
66-67-136); that Plato in attacking Rhetoric had no right to single out despots and violent conspirators as illustrations of it--[Greek: ei)=t' e)le/gchein me\n bou/letai tê\n r(êtorikê/n, katêgorei= de\ tô=n tura/nnôn kai\ dunastô=n, _ta\ a)/mikta mignu/s--ti/s_ ga\r ou)k oi)=den, o(/ti r(êtorikê\ kai\ turanni\s tosou=ton a)llê/lôn kechôri/stai, o(/son to\ pei/thein tou= bia/zesthai] (p. 99).
He impugns the distinction which Plato has drawn between [Greek: i)atrikê/, gumnastikê/, kubernêtikê/, nomothetikê/], &c., on the one side, which Plato calls [Greek: te/chnai], arts or sciences, and affirms to rest on scientific principles--and [Greek: r(êtorikê/, mageirikê/], &c., on the other side, which Plato affirms to be only guess work or groping, resting on empirical analogies.
Aristeides says that [Greek: i)atrikê\] and [Greek: r(êtorikê\] are in this respect both on a par; that both are partly reducible to rule, but partly also driven by necessity to conjectures and analogies, and the physician not less than the rhetor (pp.
45-48-49); which the Platonic Sokrates himself affirms in another dialogue, Philêbus, p. 56 A.
The most curious part of the argument of Aristeides is where he disputes the prerogative which Plato had claimed for [Greek: i)atrikê/, gumnastikê/] &c., on the ground of their being arts or reducible to rules.
The effects of human art (says Aristeides) are much inferior to those of [Greek: thei/a moi=ra] or divine inspiration.
Many patients are cured of disease by human art; but many more are cured by the responses and directions of the Delphian oracle, by the suggestion of dreams, and by other varieties of the divine prompting, delivered through the Pythian priestess, a woman altogether ignorant (p. 11).
[Greek: kai/toi mikra\ me\n ê( pa/ntas ei)dui=a lo/gous i)atrikê\ pro\s ta\s e)k Delphô=n du/natai lu/seis, o(/sai kai\ i)di/a| kai\ koinê=| kai\ no/sôn kai\ pathêma/tôn a(pantôn a)nthrôpi/nôn e)pha/nthêsan.]
Patients who are cured in this way by the Gods without medical art, acquire a natural impulse which leads them to the appropriate remedy--[Greek: e)pithumi/a au)tou\s a)/gei e)pi\ to\ o)/nêson] (p. 20).
Aristeides says that he can himself depose--from his own personal experience as a sick man seeking cure, and from personal knowledge of many other such--how much more efficacious in healing is aid from the Gods, given in dreams and other ways, than advice from physicians; who might well shudder when they heard the stories which he could tell (pp.
21-22).
To undervalue science and art (he says) is the principle from which men start, when they flee to the Gods for help--[Greek: tou= kataphugei=n e)pi\ tou\s theou\s schedo\n a)rchê/, to\ tê=s te/chnês u(peridei=n e)/stin.]]
[Footnote 130: Nothing can be more at variance with the doctrine which Plato assigns to Kalliklês in the Gorgias, than the three memorable speeches of Perikles in Thucydides, i.
144, ii.
35, ii.
60, seq.
All these speeches are penetrated with the deepest sense of that [Greek: koinôni/a] and [Greek: phili/a] which the Platonic Sokrates extols: not one of them countenances [Greek: pleonexi/an], which the Platonic Sokrates forbids (Gorg.
508 E).
[Greek: To\ prostalaipôrei=n tô=| do/xanti kalô=|] (to use the expressive phrase of Thucydides, ii.
53) was a remarkable feature in the character of the Athenians of that day: it was subdued for the moment by the overwhelming misery of pestilence and war combined.]
[Side-note: Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various established sentiments and opinions.
Erroneous inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato.]
Lastly, it is not merely the political power of the Athenians that Perikles employs his eloquence to uphold.
He dwells also with emphasis on the elegance of taste, on the intellectual force and activity, which warranted him in decorating the city with the title of Preceptress of Hellas.
[131] All this belongs, not to the pleasurable as distinguished from the good, but to good (whether immediately pleasurable or not) in its most comprehensive sense, embracing the improvement and refinement of the collective mind.
If Perikles, in this remarkable funeral harangue, flattered the sentiments of the people--as he doubtless did--he flattered them by kindling their aspirations towards good.
And Plato himself does the same (though less nobly and powerfully), adopting the received framework of Athenian sentiment, in his dialogue called Menexenus, which we shall come to in a future chapter.
[Footnote 131: Thucyd.
ii.
41-42.
[Greek: xunelô/n te le/gô tê/n te pa=san po/lin tê=s E(lla/dos pai/deusin ei)=nai], &c.] [Side-note: The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline.
But order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good.
Divergent ideas about virtue.]
The issue, therefore, which Plato here takes against Rhetoric, must stand or fall with the Platonic Idéal of Good and Evil.
But when he thus denounces both the general public and the most patriotic rhetors, to ensure exclusive worship for his own Idéal of Good--we may at least require that he shall explain, wherein consists that Good--by what mark it is distinguishable--and on what authority pre-eminence is claimed for it.
So far, indeed, we advance by the help of Plato's similes[132]--order, discipline, health and strength of body--that we are called upon to recognise, apart from all particular moments of enjoyment or suffering, of action or quiescence, a certain permanent mental condition and habit--a certain order, regulation, discipline--as an object of high importance to be attained.
This (as I have before remarked) is a valuable idea which pervades, in one form or another, all the Hellenic social views, from Sokrates downward, and even before Sokrates; an idea, moreover, which was common to Peripatetics, Stoics, Epikureans.
But mental order and discipline is not in itself an end: it may be differently cast, and may subserve many different purposes.
The Pythagorean brotherhood was intensely restrictive in its canons.
The Spartan system exhibited the strictest order and discipline--an assemblage of principles and habits predetermined by authority and enforced upon all--yet neither Plato nor Aristotle approve of its results.
Order and discipline attained full perfection in the armies of Julius Caesar and the French Emperor Napoleon; in the middle ages, also, several of the monastic orders stood high in respect to finished discipline pervading the whole character: and the Jesuits stood higher than any.
Each of these systems has included terms equivalent to justice, temperance, virtue, vice, &c., with sentiments associated therewith, yet very different from what Plato would have approved.
The question--What is Virtue?--_Vir bonus est quis?_--will be answered differently in each.
The Spartans--when they entrapped (by a delusive pretence of liberation and military decoration) two thousand of their bravest Helot warriors, and took them off by private assassinations,[133]--did not offend against their own idea of virtue, or against the Platonic exigency of Order--Measure--System.
[Footnote 132: Plat.
Gorg.
p.
504.]
[Footnote 133: Thucydid.
iv.
80.]
[Side-note: How to discriminate the right order from the wrong.
Plato does not advise us.]
It is therefore altogether unsatisfactory, when Plato--professing to teach us how to determine scientifically, which pleasures are bad, and which pains are good--refers to a durable mental order and discipline.
Of such order there existed historically many varieties; and many more are conceivable, as Plato himself has shown in the Republic and Leges.
By what tests is the right order to be distinguished from the wrong?
If by its results, by _what_ results?--calculations for minimising pains, and maximising pleasures, being excluded by the supposition?
Here the Sokrates of the Gorgias is at fault.
He has not told us by what scientific test the intelligent Expert proceeds in determining what pleasures are bad, and what pains are good.
He leaves such determination to the unscientific sentiment of each society and each individual.
He has not, in fact, responded to the clear and pertinent challenge thrown out by the Sokrates of the Protagoras.
[Side-note: The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity of the dissenting philosopher.]
I think, for these reasons, that the logic of the Gorgias is not at all on a par with its eloquence.
But there is one peculiar feature which distinguishes it among all the Platonic dialogues.
Nowhere in ancient literature is the title, position, and dignity of individual dissenting opinion, ethical and political--against established ethical and political orthodoxy--so clearly marked out and so boldly asserted.
"The Athenians will judge as they think right: none but those speakers who are in harmony with them, have any chance of addressing their public assemblies with effect, and acquiring political influence.
I, Sokrates, dissent from them, and have no chance of political influence: but I claim the right of following out, proclaiming, and defending, the conclusions of my own individual reason, until debate satisfies me that I am wrong."
CHAPTER XXV.
PHÆDON.
[Side-note: The Phædon is affirmative and expository.]
The Phædon is characterised by Proklus as a dialogue wherein Sokrates unfolds fully his own mental history, and communicates to his admirers the complete range of philosophical cognition.
[1] This criticism is partly well founded.
The dialogue generally is among the most affirmative and expository in the Platonic list.
Sokrates undertakes to prove the immortality of the soul, delivers the various reasons which establish the doctrine to his satisfaction, and confutes some dissentient opinions entertained by others.
In regard to the exposition, however, we must consider ourselves as listening to Plato under the name of Sokrates: and we find it so conducted as to specify both certain stages through which the mind of Plato had passed, and the logical process which (at that time) appeared to him to carry conviction.
[Footnote 1: Proklus, in Platon.
Republ.
p. 392.
[Greek: e)n Phai/dôni me\n ga\r o(/pou diaphero/ntôs o( Sôkra/tês tê\n e(autou= zôê\n a)naploi=, kai\ pa=n to\ tê=s e)pistê/mês plê=thos a)noi/gei toi=s e(autou= zêlôtai=s], &c. Wyttenbach thinks (note, ad p. 108 E) that Plato was young when he composed the Phædon.
But no sufficient grounds are given for this: and the concluding sentence of the dialogue affords good presumption that it was composed many years after the death of Sokrates--[Greek: ê)/de ê( teleutê/, ô)= E)che/krates, tou= e(tai/rou ê(mi=n e)ge/neto, a)ndro/s, ô(s ê(mei=s phai=men a)/n, _tô=n to/te_ ô(=n e)peira/thêmen a)ri/stou, kai\ a)/llôs phronimôta/tou kai\ dikaiota/tou.]
The phrase [Greek: tô=n to/te] which may probably have slipped unconsciously from Plato, implies that Sokrates belonged to the past generation.
The beginning of the dialogue undoubtedly shows that Plato intended to place it shortly after the death of Sokrates; but the word [Greek: to/te] at the end is inconsistent with this supposition, and comes out unconsciously as a mark of the real time.]
[Side-note: Situation and circumstances assumed in the Phædon.
Pathetic interest which they inspire.]
The interest felt by most readers in the Phædon, however, depends, not so much on the argumentative exposition (which Wyttenbach[2] justly pronounces to be obscure and difficult as well as unsatisfactory) as on the personality of the expounding speaker, and the irresistible pathos of the situation.
Sokrates had been condemned to death by the Dikastery on the day after the sacred ship, memorable in connection with the legendary voyage of Theseus to Krete, had been dispatched on her annual mission of religious sacrifice at the island of Delos.
The Athenian magistrates considered themselves as precluded from putting any one to death by public authority, during the absence of the ship on this mission.
Thirty days elapsed between her departure and her return: during all which interval, Sokrates remained in the prison, yet with full permission to his friends to visit him.
They passed most of every day in the enjoyment of his conversation.
[3] In the Phædon, we read the last of these conversations, after the sacred vessel had returned, and after the Eleven magistrates had announced to Sokrates that the draught of hemlock would be administered to him before sunset.
On communicating this intelligence, the magistrates released Sokrates from the fetters with which he had hitherto been bound.
It is shortly after such release that the friends enter the prison to see him for the last time.
One of the number, Phædon, recounts to Echekratês not only the conduct and discourse of Sokrates during the closing hours of his life, but also the swallowing of the poison, and the manner of his death.
[Footnote 2: See the Prolegomena prefixed to Wyttenbach's edition of the Phædon, p. xxi.
p.
10.]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Phædon, pp.
58-50.
It appears that Kriton became bail before the Dikasts, in a certain sum of money, that Sokrates should remain in prison and not escape (Plat.
Phædon, p. 115 D; Kriton, 45 B).
Kriton would have been obliged to pay this money if Sokrates had accepted his proposition to escape, noticed already in chap.
x.]
[Side-note: Simmias and Kebês, the two collocutors with Sokrates.
Their feelings and those of Sokrates.]
More than fifteen friends of the philosopher are noted as present at this last scene: but the only two who take an active part in the debate, are, two young Thebans named Kebês and Simmias.
[4] These friends, though deeply attached to Sokrates, and full of sorrow at the irreparable loss impending over them, are represented as overawed and fascinated by his perfect fearlessness, serenity and dignity.
[5] They are ashamed to give vent to their grief, when their master is seen to maintain his ordinary frame of mind, neither disquieted nor dissatisfied.
The fundamental conception of the dialogue is, to represent Sokrates as the same man that he was before his trial; unmoved by the situation--not feeling that any misfortune is about to happen to him--equally delighting in intellectual debate--equally fertile in dialectic invention.
So much does he care for debate, and so little for the impending catastrophe, that he persists in a great argumentative effort, notwithstanding the intimation conveyed by Kriton from the gaoler, that if he heated himself with talking, the poison might perhaps be languid in its operation, so that two or three draughts of it would be necessary instead of one.
[6] Sokrates even advances the position that death appears to him as a benefit rather than a misfortune, and that every true philosopher ought to prefer death to life, assuming it to supervene without his own act--suicide being forbidden by the Gods.
He is represented as "placidus ore, intrepidus verbis; intempestivas suorum lacrimas coercens"--to borrow a phrase from Tacitus's striking picture of the last hours of the Emperor Otho.
[7] To see him thus undisturbed, and even welcoming his approaching end, somewhat hurts the feelings of his assembled friends, who are in the deepest affliction at the certainty of so soon losing him.
Sokrates undertakes to defend himself before them as he had done before the Dikasts; and to show good grounds for his belief, that death is not a misfortune, but a benefit, to the philosopher.
[8] Simmias and Kebês, though at first not satisfied with the reasonings, are nevertheless reluctant to produce their doubts, from fear of mortifying him in his last moments: but Sokrates protests against such reluctance as founded on a misconception of his existing frame of mind.
[9] He is now the same man as he was before, and he calls upon them to keep up the freedom of debate unimpaired.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Phædon, pp.
59 B, 89 A.
[Greek: tô=n neani/skôn to\n lo/gon], &c. (p. 89 A).]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Phædon, pp.
58-59.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Phædon, p. 63 D.] [Footnote 7: Tacitus, Hist.
ii.
48.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Phædon, p.
63.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Phædon, p. 84 D-E.] [Side-note: Emphasis of Sokrates in insisting on freedom of debate, active exercise of reason, and independent judgment for each reasoner.]
Indeed this freedom of debate and fulness of search--the paramount value of "reasoned truth"--the necessity of keeping up the force of individual reason by constant argumentative exercise--and the right of independent judgment for hearer as well as speaker--stand emphatically proclaimed in these last words of the dying philosopher.
He does not announce the immortality of the soul as a dogma of imperative orthodoxy; which men, whether satisfied with the proofs or not, must believe, or must make profession of believing, on pain of being shunned as a moral pestilence, and disqualified from giving testimony in a court of justice.
He sets forth his own conviction, with the grounds on which he adopts it.
But he expressly recognises the existence of dissentient opinions: he invites his companions to bring forward every objection: he disclaims all special purpose of impressing his own conclusions upon their minds: nay, he expressly warns them not to be biassed by their personal sympathies, then wound up to the highest pitch, towards himself.
He entreats them to preserve themselves from becoming tinged with _misology_, or the hatred of free argumentative discussion: and he ascribes this mental vice to the early habit of easy, uninquiring, implicit, belief: since a man thus ready of faith, embracing opinions without any discriminative test, presently finds himself driven to abandon one opinion after another, until at last he mistrusts all opinions, and hates the process of discussing them, laying the blame upon philosophy instead of upon his own intellect.
[10] [Footnote 10: Plato, Phædon, pp.
89 C-D, 90.
[Greek: Prô=ton eu)labêthô=me/n ti pa/thos mê\ pa/thômen.
To\ poi=on, ê)=n d' e)gô/?
Mê\ genô/metha, ê)=| d' o(/s, miso/logoi, ô(/sper oi( misa/nthrôpoi gigno/menoi; ô(s ou)k e)/stin, e)/phê, o(/, ti a)/n tis mei=zon tou/tou kako\n pa/thoi ê)\ lo/gous misê/sas.]
p. 90 B.
[Greek: e)peida/n tis pisteu/sê| lo/gô| tini\ a)lêthei= ei)=nai, a)/neu tê=s peri\ tou\s lo/gous te/chnês, ka)/peita o)li/gon u(/steron au)tô=| do/xê| pseudê\s ei)=nai, e)ni/ote me\n ô)/n, e)ni/ote d' ou)k ô)/n, kai\ au)=this e(/teros kai\ e(/teros], &c.] [Side-note: Anxiety of Sokrates that his friends shall be on their guard against being influenced by his authority--that they shall follow only the convictions of their own reason.]
"For myself" (says Sokrates) "I fear that in these my last hours I depart from the true spirit of philosophy--like unschooled men, who, when in debate, think scarcely at all how the real question stands, but care only to make their own views triumphant in the minds of the auditors.
Between them and me there is only thus much of difference.
I regard it as a matter of secondary consequence, whether my conclusions appear true to my hearers; but I shall do my best to make them appear as much as possible true to myself.
[11] My calculation is as follows: mark how selfish it is.
If my conclusion as to the immortality of the soul is true, I am better off by believing it: if I am in error, and death be the end of me, even then I shall avoid importuning my friends with grief, during these few remaining hours: moreover my error will not continue with me--which would have been a real misfortune--but will be extinguished very shortly.
Such is the frame of mind, Simmias and Kebês, with which I approach the debate.
Do you follow my advice: take little thought of Sokrates, but take much more thought of the truth.
If I appear to you to affirm any thing truly, assent to me: but if not, oppose me with all your powers of reasoning: Be on your guard lest, through earnest zeal, I should deceive alike myself and you, and should leave the sting in you, like a bee, at this hour of departure."
[Footnote 11: Plato, Phædon, p. 91 A-C. [Greek: Ou) ga\r o(/pôs toi=s parou=sin a)\ e)gô\ le/gô do/xei a)lêthê= ei)=nai, prothumê/somai, ei) mê\ ei)/ê pa/rergon, a)/ll' o(/pôs au)tô=| e)moi\ o(/ ti ma/lista do/zei ou(/tôs e)/chein.
logi/zomai ga/r, ô)= phi/le e(/taire--kai\ the/asai ô(s pleonektikô=s--ei) me\n tugcha/nei a)lêthê= o)/nta a(\ le/gô, kalô=s dê\ e)/chei to\ peisthê=nai; ei) de\ mêde/n e)sti teleutê/santi, a)ll' ou)=n tou=to/n ge to\n chro/non au)to\n to\n pro\ tou= thana/tou ê(=tton toi=s parou=sin a)êdê\s e)/somai o)duro/menos .
.
.
u(mei=s me/ntoi, a)\n e)moi\ pei/thêsthe, _smikro\n phronti/santes Sôkra/tous, tê=s de\ a)lêthei/as polu\ ma=llon, e)a\n me/n ti u(mi=n dokô= a)lêthe\s le/gein, xunomologê/sate; ei) de\ mê/, panti\ lo/gô| a)ntitei/nete_, eu)labou/menoi o(/pôs mê\ e)gô\ u(po\ prothumi/as a(/ma e)mauto/n te kai\ u(ma=s e)xapatê/sas, ô(/sper me/litta to\ ke/ntron e)gkatalipô\n oi)chê/somai.]]
[Side-note: Remarkable manifestation of earnest interest for reasoned truth and the liberty of individual dissent.]
This is a remarkable passage, as illustrating the spirit and purpose of Platonic dialogues.
In my preceding Chapters, I have already shown, that it is no part of the aim of Sokrates to thrust dogmas of his own into other men's minds as articles of faith.
But then, most of these Chapters have dwelt upon Dialogues of Search, in which Sokrates has appeared as an interrogator, or enquirer jointly with others: scrutinising their opinions, but disclaiming knowledge or opinions of his own.
Here, however, in the Phædon, the case is altogether different.
Sokrates is depicted as having not only an affirmative opinion, but even strong conviction, on a subject of great moment: which conviction, moreover, he is especially desirous of preserving unimpaired, during his few remaining hours of life.
Yet even here, he manifests no anxiety to get that conviction into the minds of his friends, except as a result of their own independent scrutiny and self-working reason.
Not only he does not attempt to terrify them into believing, by menace of evil consequences if they do not--but he repudiates pointedly even the gentler machinery of conversion, which might work upon their minds through attachment to himself and reverence for his authority.
His devotion is to "reasoned truth": he challenges his friends to the fullest scrutiny by their own independent reason: he recognises the sentence which they pronounce afterwards as valid _for them_, whether concurrent with himself or adverse.
Their reason is for them, what his reason is for him: requiring, both alike (as Sokrates here proclaims), to be stimulated as well as controlled by all-searching debate--but postulating equal liberty of final decision for each one of the debaters.
The stress laid by Plato upon the full liberty of dissenting reason, essential to philosophical debate--is one of the most memorable characteristics of the Phædon.
When we come to the treatise De Legibus (where Sokrates does not appear), we shall find a totally opposite view of sentiment.
In the tenth book of that treatise Plato enforces the rigid censorship of an orthodox persecutor, who makes his own reason binding and compulsory on all.
[Side-note: Phædon and Symposion--points of analogy and contrast.]
The natural counterpart and antithesis to the Phædon, is found in the Symposion.
[12] In both, the personality of Sokrates stands out with peculiar force: in the one, he is in the fulness of life and enjoyment, along with festive comrades--in the other, he is on the verge of approaching death, surrounded by companions in deep affliction.
The point common to both, is, the perfect self-command of Sokrates under a diversity of trying circumstances.
In the Symposion, we read of him as triumphing over heat, cold, fatigue, danger, amorous temptation, unmeasured potations of wine, &c.:[13] in the Phædon, we discover him rising superior to the fear of death, and to the contagion of an afflicted company around him.
Still, his resolute volition is occasionally overpowered by fits of absorbing meditation, which seize him at moments sudden and unaccountable, and chain him to the spot for a long time.
There is moreover, in both dialogues, a streak of eccentricity in his character, which belongs to what Plato calls the philosophical inspiration and madness, rising above the measure of human temperance and prudence.
[14] The Phædon depicts in Sokrates the same intense love of philosophy and dialectic debate, as the Symposion and Phædrus: but it makes no allusion to that personal attachment, and passionate admiration of youthful beauty, with which, according to those two dialogues, the mental fermentation of the philosophical aspirant is asserted to begin.
[15] Sokrates in the Phædon describes the initial steps whereby he had been led to philosophical study:[16] but the process is one purely intellectual, without reference to personal converse with beloved companions, as a necessity of the case.
His discourse is that of a man on the point of death--"abruptis vitæ blandimentis"[17]--and he already looks upon his body, not as furnishing the means of action and as requiring only to be trained by gymnastic discipline (as it appears in the Republic), but as an importunate and depraving companion, of which he is glad to get rid: so that the ethereal substance of the soul may be left to its free expansion and fellowship with the intelligible world, apart from sense and its solicitations.
[Footnote 12: Thus far I agree with Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Phædon, p. 9, &c.); though I do not think that he has shown sufficient ground for his theory regarding the Symposion and the Phædon, as jointly intended to depict the character of the philosopher, promised by Plato as a sequel to the Sophist and the Statesman.
(Plato, Sophist.
p. 217; Politic.
p.
257.)]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Symposion, pp.
214 A, 219 D, 220-221-223 D: compare Phædon, p. 116, c. 117.
Marcus Antoninus (i.
16) compares on this point his father Antoninus Pius to Sokrates: both were capable of enjoyment as well as of abstinence, without ever losing their self-command.
[Greek: E)pharmo/seie d' a)\n au)tô=|] (Antoninus P.) [Greek: to\ peri\ tou= Sôkra/tous mnêmoneuo/menon, o(/ti kai\ a)pe/chesthai kai\ a)polau/ein e)du/nato tou/tôn, ô(=n polloi\ pro/s te ta\s a)pocha\s a)sthenô=s, kai\ pro\s ta\s a)polau/seis e)ndotikô=s, e)/chousin.
To\ de\ i)schu/ein, kai\ e)/ti karterei=n kai\ e)nnê/phein e(kate/rô|, a)ndro\s e)/stin a)/rtion kai\ a)êttêton psuchê\n e)/chontos.]]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Symposion, pp.
174-175-220 C-D.
Compare Phædon, pp.
84 C, 95 E.] [Footnote 15: Plato, Sympos.
p. 215 A, p. 221 D. [Greek: oi(=os de\ ou(tosi\ ge/gone tê\n _a)topi/an_ a)/nthrôpos, kai\ au)to\s kai\ oi( lo/goi au)tou=, ou)d' e)ggu\s a)\n eu(/roi tis zêtô=n], &c. p. 218 B: [Greek: pa/ntes ga\r kekoinônê/kate tê=s philoso/phou mani/as te kai\ bakchei/as], &c. About the [Greek: philo/sophos mani/a], compare Plato, Phædrus, pp.
245-250.
Plato, Phædrus, pp.
251-253.
Symposion, pp.
210-211.
[Greek: o(/tan tis a)po\ tô=nde dia\ to\ o)rthô=s paiderastei=n e)paniô\n e)kei=no to\ kalo\n a)/rchêtai kathora=|n], &c. (211 B).]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Phædon, p. 96 A.
[Greek: e)gô\ ou)=n soi\ di/eimi peri\ au)tô=n ta/ g' e)ma\ pa/thê], &c.] [Footnote 17: Tacitus, Hist.
ii.
53.
"Othonis libertus, habere se suprema ejus mandata respondit: ipsum viventem quidem relictum, sed solâ posteritatis curâ, et abruptis vitæ blandimentis."]
[Side-note: Phædon--compared with Republic and Timæus.
No recognition of the triple or lower souls.
Antithesis between soul and body.]
We have here one peculiarity of the Phædon, whereby it stands distinguished both from the Republic and the Timæus.
The antithesis on which it dwells is that of the soul or mind, on one hand--the body on the other.
The soul or mind is spoken of as one and indivisible: as if it were an inmate unworthily lodged or imprisoned in the body.
It is not distributed into distinct parts, kinds, or varieties: no mention is made of that tripartite distribution which is so much insisted on in the Republic and Timæus:--the rational or intellectual (encephalic) soul, located in the head--the courageous or passionate (thoracic), between the neck and the diaphragm--the appetitive (abdominal), between the diaphragm and the navel.
In the Phædon, the soul is noted as the seat of reason, intellect, the love of wisdom or knowledge, exclusively: all that belongs to passion and appetite, is put to account of the body:[18] this is distinctly contrary to the Philêbus, in which dialogue Sokrates affirms that desire or appetite cannot belong to the body, but belongs only to the soul.
In Phædon, nothing is said about the location of the rational soul, in the head,--nor about the analogy between its rotations in the cranium and the celestial rotations (a doctrine which we read both in the Timæus and in the Republic): on the contrary, the soul is affirmed to have lost, through its conjunction with the body, that wisdom or knowledge which it possessed during its state of pre-existence, while completely apart from the body, and while in commerce with those invisible Ideas to which its own separate nature was cognate.
[19] That controul which in the Republic is exercised by the rational soul over the passionate and appetitive souls, is in the Phædon exercised (though imperfectly) by the one and only soul over the body.
[20] In the Republic and Timæus, the soul is a tripartite aggregate, a community of parts, a compound: in the Phædon, Sokrates asserts it to be uncompounded, making this fact a point in his argument.
[21] Again, in the Phædon, the soul is pronounced to be essentially uniform and incapable of change: as such, it is placed in antithesis with the body, which is perpetually changing: while we read, on the contrary, in the Symposion, that soul and body alike are in a constant and unremitting variation, neither one nor the other ever continuing in the same condition.
[22] [Footnote 18: Plato, Phædon, p. 66.
Compare Plato, Philêbus, p. 35, C-D.] [Footnote 19: Plato, Phædon, p.
76.]
[Footnote 20: Compare Phædon, p. 94 C-E, with Republic, iv.
pp.
439 C, 440 A, 441 E, 442 C.] [Footnote 21: Plato, Phædon, p. 78.
[Greek: a)xu/ntheton, monoeide\s] (p. 80 B), contrasted with the [Greek: tri/a ei)dê tê=s psuchê=s] (Republic, p. 439).
In the abstract given by Alkinous of the Platonic doctrine, we read in cap.
24 [Greek: o(/ti trimerê/s e)stin ê( psuchê\ kata\ ta\s duna/meis, kai\ kata\ lo/gon ta\ me/rê au)tê=s to/pois i)di/ois dianene/mêtai]: in cap.
25 that the [Greek: psuchê\] is [Greek: a)su/nthetos, a)dia/lutos, a)ske/dastos].]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Phædon, pp.
79-80; Symposion, pp.
207-208.]
[Side-note: Different doctrines of Plato about the soul.
Whether all the three souls are immortal, or the rational soul alone.]
The difference which I have here noted shows how Plato modified his doctrine to suit the purpose of each dialogue.
The tripartite soul would have been found inconvenient in the Phædon, where the argument required that soul and body should be as sharply distinguished as possible.
Assuming passion and appetite to be attributes belonging to the soul, as well as reason--Sokrates will not shake them off when he becomes divorced from the body.
He believes and expects that the post-existence of the soul will be, as its pre-existence has been, a rational existence--a life of intellectual contemplation and commerce with the eternal Ideas: in this there is no place for passion and appetite, which grow out of its conjunction with the body.
The soul here represents Reason and Intellect, in commerce with their correlates, the objective Entia Rationis: the body represents passion and appetite as well as sense, in implication with their correlates, the objects of sensible perception.
[23] Such is the doctrine of the Phædon; but Plato is not always consistent with himself on the point.
His ancient as well as his modern commentators are not agreed, whether, when he vindicated the immortality of the soul, he meant to speak of the rational soul only, or of the aggregate soul with its three parts as above described.
There are passages which countenance both suppositions.
[24] Plato seems to have leaned sometimes to the one view, sometimes to the other: besides which, the view taken in the Phædon is a third, different from both--_viz._: That the two non-rational souls, the passionate and appetitive, are not recognised as existing.
[Footnote 23: This is the same antithesis as we read in Xenophon, ascribed to Cyrus in his dying address to his sons--[Greek: o( a)/kratos kai\ katharo\s nou=s--to\ a)/phron sô=ma], Cyropæd.
viii.
7, 20.]
[Footnote 24: Alkinous, Introduct.
c. 25.
[Greek: o(/ti me\n ou)=n ai( logikai\ psuchai\ a)tha/natoi u(pa/rchousi kata\ to\n a)/ndra tou=ton, bebaiô/sait' a)/n tis; ei) de\ kai\ ai( a)/logoi, tou=to tô=n a)mphisbêtoume/nôn u(pa/rchei.]
Galen considers Plato as affirming that the two inferior souls are mortal--[Greek: Peri\ tô=n tê=s psuchê=s ê)thô=n], T. iv.
p. 773, Kühn.
This subject is handled in an instructive Dissertation of K. F. Hermann--De Partibus Animæ Immortalibus secundum Platonem--delivered at Göttingen in the winter Session, 1850-1851.
He inclines to the belief that Plato intended to represent only the rational soul as immortal, and the other two souls as mortal (p. 9).
But the passages which he produces are quite sufficient to show, that Plato sometimes held one language, sometimes the other; and that Galen, who wrote an express treatise (now lost) to prove that Plato was inconsistent with himself in respect to the soul, might have produced good reasons for his opinion.
The "inconstantia Platonis" (Cicero, Nat.
Deor.
i.
12) must be admitted here as on other matters.
We must take the different arguments and doctrines of Plato as we find them in their respective places.
Hermann (p. 4) says about the commentators--"De irrationali animâ, alii ancipites hæserunt, alii claris verbis mortalem prædicarunt: quumque Neoplatonicæ sectæ principes, Numenius et Plotinus, non modo brutorum, sed ne plantarum quidem, animas immortalitate privare ausi sunt,--mox insequentes in alia omnia digressi aut plane perire irrationales partes affirmarunt, aut mediâ quâdam viâ ingressi, quamvis corporum fato exemptis, mortalitatem tamen et ipsi tribuerunt."
It appears that the divergence of opinion on this subject began as early as Xenokrates and Speusippus--see Olympiodorus, Scholia in Phædonem, § 175.
The large construction adopted by Numenius and Plotinus is completely borne out by a passage in the Phædon, p. 70 E. I must here remark that Hermann does not note the full extent of discrepancy between the Phædon and Plato's other dialogues, consisting in this--That in the Phædon, Plato suppresses all mention of the two non-rational souls, the passionate and appetitive: insomuch that if we had only the Phædon remaining, we should not have known that he had ever affirmed the triple partition of the soul, or the co-existence of the three souls.
I transcribe an interesting passage from M. Degérando, respecting the belief in different varieties of soul, and partial immortality.
Degérando--Histoire Comparée des Systèmes de Philosophie, vol.
i. p. 213.
"Les habitans du Thibet, du Gröenland, du nord de l'Amérique admettent deux âmes: les Caräibes en admettent trois, dont une, disent-ils, celle qui habite dans la tête, remonte seule au pays des âmes.
Les habitans du Gröenland croient d'ailleurs les âmes des hommes semblables au principe de la vie des animaux: ils supposent que les divers individus peuvent changer d'âmes entre eux pendant la vie, et qu'après la vie ces âmes exécutent de grands voyages, avec toutes sortes de fatigues et de périls.
Les peuples du Canada se représentent les âmes sous la forme d'ombres errantes: les Patagons, les habitans du Sud de l'Asie, croient entendre leurs voix dans l'écho: et les anciens Romains eux-mêmes n'étaient pas étrangers à cette opinion.
Les Négres s'imaginent que la destinée de l'âme après la vie est encore liée à celle du corps, et fondent sur cette idée une foule de pratiques."]
[Side-note: The life and character of a philosopher is a constant struggle to emancipate his soul from his body.
Death alone enables him to do this completely.]
The philosopher (contends Sokrates) ought to rejoice when death comes to sever his soul altogether from his body: because he is, throughout all his life, struggling to sever himself from the passions, appetites, impulses and aspirations, which grow out of the body; and to withdraw himself from the perceptions of the corporeal senses, which teach no truth, and lead only to deceit or confusion: He is constantly attempting to do what the body hinders him from doing completely--to prosecute pure mental contemplation, as the only way of arriving at truth: to look at essences or things in themselves, by means of his mind or soul in itself apart from the body.
[25] Until his mind be purified from all association with the body, it cannot be brought into contact with pure essence, nor can his aspirations for knowledge be satisfied.
[26] Hence his whole life is really a training or approximative practice for death, which alone will enable him to realise such aspirations.
[27] Knowledge or wisdom is the only money in which he computes, and which he seeks to receive in payment.
[28] He is not courageous or temperate in the ordinary sense: for the courageous man, while holding death to be a great evil, braves it from fear of greater evils--and the temperate man abstains from various pleasures, because they either shut him out from greater pleasures, or entail upon him disease and poverty.
The philosopher is courageous and temperate, but from a different motive: his philosophy purifies him from all these sensibilities, and makes him indifferent to all the pleasures and pains arising from the body: each of which, in proportion to its intensity, corrupts his perception of truth and falsehood, and misguides him in the search for wisdom or knowledge.
[29] While in the body, he feels imprisoned, unable to look for knowledge except through a narrow grating and by the deceptive media of sense.
From this durance philosophy partially liberates him,--purifying his mind, like the Orphic or Dionysiac religious mysteries, from the contagion of body[30] and sense: disengaging it, as far as may be during life, from sympathy with the body: and translating it out of the world of sense, uncertainty, and mere opinion, into the invisible region of truth and knowledge.
If such purification has been fully achieved, the mind of the philosopher is at the moment of death thoroughly severed from the body, and passes clean away by itself, into commerce with the intelligible Entities or realities.
[Footnote 25: Plato, Phædon, p. 66 E. [Greek: ei) me/llome/n pote katharô=s ti ei)/sesthai, a)pallakte/on au)tou= (tou= sô/matos) kai\ au)tê=| tê=| psuchê=| theate/on au)ta\ ta\ pra/gmata.]]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Phædon, p. 67 B.
[Greek: mê\ katharô=| ga\r katharou= e)pha/ptesthai mê\ ou) themito\n ê)=|.]]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Phædon, p. 64 A.
[Greek: kinduneu/ousi ga\r o(/soi tugcha/nousin o)rthô=s a)pto/menoi philosophi/as lelêthe/nai tou\s a)/llous o(/ti ou)de\n a)/llo au)toi\ e)pitêdeu/ousin ê)\ a)pothnê/skein te kai\ tethna/nai.]
P. 67 E [Greek: oi( o)rthô=s philosophou=ntes a)pothnê/skein meletô=sin.]]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Phædon, p. 69 A.
[Greek: a)ll' ê)=| e)kei=no mo/non to\ no/misma o)rtho/n, a)nth' ou(= dei= a(/panta tau=ta katalla/ttesthai, phro/nêsis.]]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Phædon, p.
69-83-84.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Phædon, p. 82 E.] [Side-note: Souls of the ordinary or unphilosophical men pass after death into the bodies of different animals.
The philosopher alone is relieved from all communion with body.]
On the contrary, the soul or mind of the ordinary man, which has undergone no purification and remains in close implication with the body, cannot get completely separated even at the moment of death, but remains encrusted and weighed down by bodily accompaniments, so as to be unfit for those regions to which mind itself naturally belongs.
Such impure minds or souls are the ghosts or shadows which haunt tombs; and which become visible, because they cling to the visible world, and hate the invisible.
[31] Not being fit for separate existence, they return in process of time into conjunction with fresh bodies, of different species of men or animals, according to the particular temperament which they carry away with them.
[32] The souls of despots, or of violent and rapacious men, will pass into the bodies of wolves or kites: those of the gluttonous and drunkards, into asses and such-like animals.
A better fate will be reserved for the just and temperate men, who have been socially and politically virtuous, but simply by habit and disposition, without any philosophy or pure intellect: for their souls will pass into the bodies of other gentle and social animals, such as bees, ants, wasps,[33] &c., or perhaps they may again return into the human form, and may become moderate men.
It is the privilege only of him who has undergone the purifying influence of philosophy, and who has spent his life in trying to detach himself as much as possible from communion with the body--to be relieved after death from the obligation of fresh embodiment, that his soul may dwell by itself in a region akin to its own separate nature: passing out of the world of sense, of transient phenomena, and of mere opinion, into a distinct world where it will be in full presence of the eternal Ideas, essences, and truth; in companionship with the Gods, and far away from the miseries of humanity.
[34] [Footnote 31: Plato, Phædon, p. 81 C-D. [Greek: o(\ dê\ kai\ e)/chousa ê( toiau/tê psuchê\ baru/netai/ te kai\ e(/lketai pa/lin ei)s to\n o(rato\n to/pon, pho/bô| tou= a)eidou=s te kai\ A(/idou, ô(/sper le/getai, peri\ ta\ mnê/mata/ te kai\ tou\s ta/phous kulindoume/nê, peri\ a(\ dê\ kai\ ô)/phthê a)/tta psuchô=n skotoeidê= pha/smata] [al.
[Greek: skioeodê= phanta/smata]], [Greek: oi(=a pare/chontai ai( toiau=tai psuchai\ ei)/dôla, ai( mê\ katharô=s a)poluthei=sai a)lla\ tou= o(ratou= mete/chousai, dio\ kai\ o(rô=ntai.]]
[Footnote 32: Plato, Phædon, pp.
82-84.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Phædon, pp.
82 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n eu)daimone/statoi kai\ tou/tôn ei)si\ kai\ ei)s be/ltiston to/pon i)o/ntes oi( tê\n dêmotikê\n te kai\ politikê\n a)retê\n e)pitetêdeuko/tes, ê(\n dê\ kalou=si sôphrosu/nên te kai\ dikaiosu/nên, e)x e)/thous te kai\ mele/tês gegonui=an a)/neu philosophi/as te kai\ nou=?
.
.
.
O(/ti tou/tous ei)ko/s e)stin ei)s toiou=ton pa/lin a)phiknei=sthai politiko/n te kai\ ê(/meron ge/nos, ê)/pou melittô=n ê)\ sphêkô=n ê)\ murmê/kôn], &c.] [Footnote 34: Plato, Phædon, pp.
82 B, 83 B, 84 B.
Compare p. 114 C: [Greek: tou/tôn de\ au)tô=n oi( philosophi/a| i(kanô=s kathêra/menoi a)/neu te sôma/tôn zô=si to\ para/pan ei)s to\n e)/peita chro/non], &c. Also p. 115 D.] [Side-note: Special privilege claimed for philosophers in the Phædon apart from the virtuous men who are not philosophers.]
Such is the creed which Sokrates announces to his friends in the Phædon, as supplying good reason for the readiness and satisfaction with which he welcomes death.
It is upon the antithesis between soul (or mind) and body, that the main stress is laid.
The partnership between the two is represented as the radical cause of mischief: and the only true relief to the soul consists in breaking up the partnership altogether, so as to attain a distinct, disembodied, existence.
Conformably to this doctrine, the line is chiefly drawn between the philosopher, and the multitude who are not philosophers--not between good and bad agents, when the good agents are not philosophers.
This last distinction is indeed noticed, but is kept subordinate.
The unphilosophical man of social goodness is allowed to pass after death into the body of a bee, or an ant, instead of that of a kite or ass;[35] but he does not attain the privilege of dissolving connection altogether with body.
Moreover the distinction is one not easily traceable: since Sokrates[36] expressly remarks that the large majority of mankind are middling persons, neither good nor bad in any marked degree.
Philosophers stand in a category by themselves: apart from the virtuous citizens, as well as from the middling and the vicious.
Their appetites and ambition are indeed deadened, so that they agree with the virtuous in abstaining from injustice: but this is not their characteristic feature.
Philosophy is asserted to impart to them a special purification, like that of the Orphic mysteries to the initiated: detaching the soul from both the body and the world of sense, except in so far as is indispensable for purposes of life: replunging the soul, as much as possible, in the other world of intelligible essences, real forms or Ideas, which are its own natural kindred and antecedent companions.
The process whereby this is accomplished is intellectual rather than ethical.
It is the process of learning, or (in the sense of Sokrates) the revival in the mind of those essences or Ideas with which it had been familiar during its anterior and separate life: accompanied by the total abstinence from all other pleasures and temptations.
[37] Only by such love of learning, which is identical with philosophy ([Greek: philo/sophon, philomathe\s]), is the mind rescued from the ignorance and illusions unavoidable in the world of sense.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Phædon, pp.
81-82.]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Phædon, p. 90 A.]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Phædon, pp.
82-115.--[Greek: ta\s de\ (ê(dona\s) peri\ to\ mantha/nein e)spou/dase], &c. (p. 114 E).
These doctrines, laid down by Plato in the Phædon, bear great analogy to the Sanskrit philosophy called _Sankhyâ_, founded by Kapila, as expounded and criticised in the treatise of M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (Mémoire sur le Sankhyâ, Paris, 1852, pp.
273-278)--and the other work, Du Bouddhisme, by the same author (Paris, 1855), pp.
116-137, 187-194, &c.] [Side-note: Simmias and Kebês do not admit readily the immortality of the soul, but are unwilling to trouble Sokrates by asking for proof.
Unabated interest of Sokrates in rational debate.]
In thus explaining his own creed, Sokrates announces a full conviction that the soul or mind is immortal, but he has not yet offered any proof of it: and Simmias as well as Kebês declare themselves to stand in need of proof.
Both of them however are reluctant to obtrude upon him any doubts.
An opportunity is thus provided, that Sokrates may exhibit his undisturbed equanimity--his unimpaired argumentative readiness--his keen anxiety not to relax the grasp of a subject until he has brought it to a satisfactory close--without the least reference to his speedily approaching death.
This last-mentioned anxiety is made manifest in a turn of the dialogue, remarkable both for dramatic pathos and for originality.
[38] We are thus brought to the more explicit statement of those reasons upon which Sokrates relies.
[Footnote 38: Plato, Phædon, p. 89 B-C,--the remark made by Sokrates, when stroking down the head and handling the abundant hair of Phædon, in allusion to the cutting off of all this hair, which would be among the acts of mourning performed by Phædon on the morrow, after the death of Sokrates: and the impressive turn given to this remark, in reference to the solution of the problem then in debate.]
[Side-note: Simmias and Kebês believe fully in the pre-existence of the soul, but not in its post-existence.
Doctrine--That the soul is a sort of harmony--refuted by Sokrates.]
If the arguments whereby Sokrates proves the immortality of the soul are neither forcible nor conclusive, not fully satisfying even Simmias[39] to whom they are addressed--the adverse arguments, upon the faith of which the doctrine was denied (as we know it to have been by many philosophers of antiquity), cannot be said to be produced at all.
Simmias and Kebês are represented as Sokratic companions, partly Pythagoreans; desirous to find the doctrine true, yet ignorant of the proofs.
Both of them are earnest believers in the pre-existence of the soul, and in the objective reality of Ideas or intelligible essences.
Simmias however adopts in part the opinion, not very clearly explained, "That the soul is a harmony or mixture": which opinion Sokrates refutes, partly by some other arguments, partly by pointing out that it is inconsistent with the supposition of the soul as pre-existent to the body, and that Simmias must make his election between the two.
Simmias elects without hesitation, in favour of the pre-existence: which he affirms to be demonstrable upon premisses or assumptions perfectly worthy of trust: while the alleged harmony is at best only a probable analogy, not certified by conclusive reasons.
[40] Kebês again, while admitting that the soul existed before its conjunction with the present body, and that it is sufficiently durable to last through conjunction with many different bodies--still expresses his apprehension that though durable, it is not eternal.
Accordingly, no man can be sure that his present body is not the last with which his soul is destined to be linked; so that immediately on his death, it will pass away into nothing.
The opinion of Kebês is remarkable, inasmuch as it shows how constantly the metempsychosis, or transition of the soul from one body to another, was included in all the varieties of ancient speculation on this subject.
[41] [Footnote 39: Plato, Phædon, p. 107 B.]
[Footnote 40: Plato, Phædon, p.
92.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Phædon, pp.
86-95.
[Greek: kra=sin kai\ a(rmoni/an], &c. "Animam esse harmoniam complures quidem statuerant, sed aliam alii, et diversâ ratione," says Wyttenbach ad Phædon.
p. 86.
Lucretius as well as Plato impugns the doctrine, iii.
97.
Galen, a great admirer of Plato, though not pretending to determine positively wherein the essence of the soul consists, maintains a doctrine substantially the same as what is here impugned--that it depends upon a certain [Greek: kra=sis] of the elements and properties in the bodily organism--[Greek: Peri\ tô=n tê=s psuchê=s ê)thô=n], vol.
iv.
pp.
774-775, 779-782, ed.
Kühn.
He complains much of the unsatisfactory explanations of Plato on this point.]
[Side-note: Sokrates unfolds the intellectual changes or wanderings through which his mind had passed.]
Before replying to Simmias and Kebês, Sokrates is described as hesitating and reflecting for a long time.
He then enters into a sketch of[42] his own intellectual history.
How far the sketch as it stands depicts the real Sokrates, or Plato himself, or a supposed mind not exactly coincident with either--we cannot be certain: the final stage however must belong to Plato himself.
[Footnote 42: Plato, Phædon, pp.
96-102.
The following abstract is intended only to exhibit the train of thought and argument pursued by Sokrates; not adhering to the exact words, nor even preserving the interlocutory form.
I could not have provided room for a literal translation.]
[Side-note: First doctrine of Sokrates as to cause.
Reasons why he rejected it.]
"You compel me (says Sokrates) to discuss thoroughly the cause of generation and destruction.
[43] I will tell you, if you like, my own successive impressions on these subjects.
When young, I was amazingly eager for that kind of knowledge which people call the investigation of Nature.
I thought it matter of pride to know the causes of every thing--through what every thing is either generated, or destroyed, or continues to exist.
I puzzled myself much to discover first of all such matters as these--Is it a certain putrefaction of the Hot and the Cold in the system (as some say), which brings about the nourishment of animals?
Is it the blood through which we think--or air, or fire?
Or is it neither one nor the other, but the brain, which affords to us sensations of sight, hearing, and smell, out of which memory and opinion are generated: then, by a like process, knowledge is generated out of opinion and memory when permanently fixed?
[44] I tried to understand destructions as well as generations, celestial as well as terrestrial phenomena.
But I accomplished nothing, and ended by fancying myself utterly unfit for the enquiry.
Nay--I even lost all the knowledge of that which I had before believed myself to understand.
For example--From what cause does a man grow?
At first, I had looked upon this as evident--that it was through eating and drinking: flesh being thereby added to his flesh, bone to his bone, &c. So too, when a tall and a short man were standing together, it appeared to me that the former was taller than the latter by the head--that ten were more than eight because two were added to them[45]--that a rod of two cubits was greater than a rod of one cubit, because it projected beyond it by a half.
Now--I am satisfied that I do not know the cause of any of these matters.
I cannot explain why, when one is added to one, such addition makes them two; since in their separated state each was one.
In this case, it is approximation or conjunction which is said to make the two: in another case, the opposite cause, _disjunction_, is said also to make two--when one body is bisected.
[46] How two opposite causes can produce the same effect--and how either conjunction or disjunction can produce two, where there were not two before--I do not understand.
In fact, I could not explain to myself, by this method of research, the generation, or destruction, or existence, of any thing; and I looked out for some other method.
[Footnote 43: Plato, Phædon, pp.
95 E--96.
[Greek: Ou) phau=lon pra=gma zêtei=s; o(/lôs ga\r dei= peri\ gene/seôs kai\ phthora=s tê\n ai)ti/an diapragmateu/sasthai.
e)gô\ ou)=n soi\ di/eimi, e)a\n bou/lê|, ta/ g' e)ma\ pa/thê], &c.] [Footnote 44: Phædon, p. 96 B.
[Greek: e)k de\ mnê/mês kai\ do/xês, labou/sês to\ ê)remei=n, kata\ tau=ta gi/gnesthai e)pistê/mên.]
This is the same distinction between [Greek: do/xa] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê], as that which Sokrates gives in the Menon, though not with full confidence (Menon, pp.
97-98).
See suprà, chap.
xxii.
p.
241.]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Phædon, p. 96 E. [Greek: kai\ e)/ti ge tou/tôn e)narge/stera, ta\ de/ka moi e)do/kei tô=n o)ktô\ plei/ona ei)=nai, dia\ to\ du/o au)toi=s prosei=nai, kai\ to\ di/pêchu tou= pêchuai/ou mei=zon ei)=nai dia\ to\ ê(mi/sei au)tou= u(pere/chein.]]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Phædon, p. 97 B.]
[Side-note: Second doctrine.
Hopes raised by the treatise of Anaxagoras.]
"It was at this time that I heard a man reading out of a book, which he told me was the work of Anaxagoras, the affirmation that Nous (Reason, Intelligence) was the regulator and cause of all things.
I felt great satisfaction in this cause; and I was convinced, that if such were the fact, Reason would ordain every thing for the best: so that if I wanted to find out the cause of any generation, or destruction, or existence, I had only to enquire in what manner it was best that such generation or destruction should take place.
Thus a man was only required to know, both respecting himself and respecting other things, what was the best: which knowledge, however, implied that he must also know what was worse--the knowledge of the one and of the other going together.
[47] I thought I had thus found a master quite to my taste, who would tell me, first whether the earth was a disk or a sphere, and would proceed to explain the cause and the necessity why it must be so, by showing me how such arrangement was the best: next, if he said that the earth was in the centre, would proceed to show that it was best that the earth should be in the centre.
Respecting the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I expected to hear the like explanation of their movements, rotations, and other phenomena: that is, how it was better that each should do and suffer exactly what the facts show.
I never imagined that Anaxagoras, while affirming that they were regulated by Reason, would put upon them any other cause than this--that it was best for them to be exactly as they are.
I presumed that, when giving account of the cause, both of each severally and all collectively, he would do it by setting forth what was best for each severally and for all in common.
Such was my hope, and I would not have sold it for a large price.
[48] I took up eagerly the book of Anaxagoras, and read it as quickly as I could, that I might at once come to the knowledge of the better and worse.
[Footnote 47: Plato, Phædon, p. 97 C-D. [Greek: ei) ou)=n tis bou/loito tê\n ai)ti/an eu(rei=n peri\ e(ka/stou, o(/pê| gi/gnetai ê)\ a)po/llutai ê)\ e)/sti, tou=to dei=n peri\ au)tou= eu(rei=n, o(/pê| be/ltiston au)tô=| e)stin ê)\ ei)=nai ê)\ a)/llo o(tiou=n pa/schein ê)\ poiei=n; e)k de\ dê\ tou= lo/gou tou/tou ou)de\n a)/llo skopei=n prosê/kein a)nthrô/pô| kai\ peri\ au(tou= kai\ peri\ tô=n a)/llôn, a)ll' ê)\ to\ a)/riston kai\ to\ be/ltiston; a)nagkai=on de\ ei)=nai to\n au)to\n tou=ton kai\ to\ chei=ron ei)de/nai; tê\n au)tê\n ga\r ei)=nai e)pistê/mên peri\ au)tô=n.]]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Phædon, p. 98 B.
[Greek: kai\ ou)k a)\n a)pedo/mên pollou= ta\s e)lpi/das, a)lla\ pa/nu spoudê=| labô\n ta\s bi/blous ô(s ta/chista oi(=o/s t' ê)=n a)negi/gnôskon, i(/n' ô(s ta/chista ei)dei/ên to\ be/ltiston kai\ to\ chei=ron.]]
[Side-note: Disappointment because Anaxagoras did not follow out the optimistic principle into detail.
Distinction between causes efficient and causes co-efficient.]
"Great indeed was my disappointment when, as I proceeded with the perusal, I discovered that the author never employed Reason at all, nor assigned any causes calculated to regulate things generally: that the causes which he indicated were, air, æther, water, and many other strange agencies.
The case seemed to me the same as if any one, while announcing that Sokrates acts in all circumstances by reason, should next attempt to assign the causes of each of my proceedings severally:[49] As if he affirmed, for example, that the cause why I am now sitting here is, that my body is composed of bones and ligaments--that my bones are hard, and are held apart by commissures, and my ligaments such as to contract and relax, clothing the bones along with the flesh and the skin which keeps them together--that when the bones are lifted up at their points of junction, the contraction and relaxation of the ligaments makes me able to bend my limbs--and that this is the reason why I am now seated here in my present crumpled attitude: or again--as if, concerning the fact of my present conversation with you, he were to point to other causes of a like character--varieties of speech, air, and hearing, with numerous other similar facts--omitting all the while to notice the true causes, _viz._[50]--That inasmuch as the Athenians have deemed it best to condemn me, for that reason I too have deemed it best and most righteous to remain sitting here and to undergo the sentence which they impose.
For, by the Dog, these bones and ligaments would have been long ago carried away to Thebes or Megara, by my judgment of what is best--if I had not deemed it more righteous and honourable to stay and affront my imposed sentence, rather than to run away.
It is altogether absurd to call such agencies by the name of _causes_.
Certainly, if a man affirms that unless I possessed such joints and ligaments and other members as now belong to me, I should not be able to execute what I have determined on, he will state no more than the truth.
But to say that these are the causes why I, a rational agent, do what I am now doing, instead of saying that I do it from my choice of what is best--this would be great carelessness of speech: implying that a man cannot see the distinction between that which is the cause in reality, and that without which the cause can never be a cause.
[51] It is this last which most men, groping as it were in the dark, call by a wrong name, as if it were itself the cause.
Thus one man affirms that the earth is kept stationary in its place by the rotation of the heaven around it: another contends that the air underneath supports the earth, like a pedestal sustaining a broad kneading-trough: but none of them ever look out for a force such as this--That all these things now occupy that position which it is best that they should occupy.
These enquirers set no great value upon this last-mentioned force, believing that they can find some other Atlas stronger, more everlasting, and more capable of holding all things together: they think that the Good and the Becoming have no power of binding or holding together any thing.
[Footnote 49: Plato, Phædon, p. 98 C. [Greek: kai\ moi\ e)/doxen o(moio/taton peponthe/nai ô(/sper a)\n ei)/ tis le/gôn o(/ti Sôkra/tês pa/nta o(/sa pra/ttei nô=| pra/ttei, ka)/peita e)picheirê/sas le/gein ta\s ai)ti/as e(ka/stôn ô(=n pra/ttô, le/goi prô=ton me\n o(/ti dia\ tau=ta nu=n e)ntha/de ka/thêmai, o(/ti xugkeitai/ mou to\ sô=ma e)x o)stô=n kai\ neu/rôn, kai\ ta\ me\n o)sta= e)sti sterea\ kai\ diaphua\s e)/chei chôri\s a)p' a)llê/lôn], &c.] [Footnote 50: Plato, Phædon, p. 98 E. [Greek: a)melê/sas ta\s ô(s a)lêthô=s ai)ti/as le/gein, o(/ti e)pei/dê A)thênai/ois e)/doxe be/ltion ei)=nai e)mou= katapsêphi/sasthai, dia\ tau=ta dê\ kai\ e)moi\ be/ltion au)= de/doktai e)ntha/de kathê=sthai], &c.] [Footnote 51: Plato, Phædon, p. 99 A.
[Greek: a)ll' ai)/tia me\n ta\ toiau=ta kalei=n li/an a)/topon; ei) de/ tis le/goi, o(/ti a)/neu tou= ta\ toiau=ta e)/chein kai\ o(sta= kai\ neu=ra kai\ o(/sa a)/lla e)/chô, ou)k a)\n oi(=o/s t' ê)=n poiei=n ta\ do/xanta/ moi, a)lêthê= a)\n le/goi; ô(s me/ntoi dia\ tau=ta poiô=, kai\ tau/tê| nô=| pra/ttô, a)ll' ou) tê=| tou= belti/stou ai(re/sei, pollê\ a)\n kai\ makra\ r(athumi/a ei)/ê tou= lo/gou.
to\ ga\r mê\ diele/sthai oi(=o/n t' ei)=nai, o(/ti a)/llo me/n ti/ e)sti to\ ai)/tion tô=| o)/nti, a)/llo d' e)kei=no a)/neu ou)= to\ ai)/tion ou)k a)/n pot' ei)/ê ai)/tion], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates could neither trace out the optimistic principle for himself, nor find any teacher thereof.
He renounced it, and embraced a third doctrine about cause.]
"Now, it is this sort of cause which I would gladly put myself under any one's teaching to learn.
But I could neither find any teacher, nor make any way by myself.
Having failed in this quarter, I took the second best course, and struck into a new path in search of causes.
[52] Fatigued with studying objects through my eyes and perceptions of sense, I looked out for images or reflections of them, and turned my attention to words or discourses.
[53] This comparison is indeed not altogether suitable: for I do not admit that he who investigates things through general words, has recourse to images, more than he who investigates sensible facts: but such, at all events, was the turn which my mind took.
Laying down such general assumption or hypothesis as I considered to be the strongest, I accepted as truth whatever squared with it, respecting cause as well as all other matters.
In this way I came upon the investigation of another sort of cause.
[54] [Footnote 52: Plato, Phædon, p. 99 C-D. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\ tau/tês e)sterê/thên, kai\ ou)/t' au)to\s eu(rei=n ou)/te par' a)/llou mathei=n oi(=o/s te e)geno/mên, to\n deu/teron plou=n e)pi\ tê\n tê=s ai)ti/as zê/têsin ê(=| pepragma/teumai, bou/lei soi\ e)pi/deixin poiê/sômai?]]
[Footnote 53: Plato, Phædon, p. 99 E. [Greek: i)/sôs me\n ou)=n ô(=| ei)ka/zô, tro/pon tina\ ou)k e)/oiken; ou) ga\r pa/nu xugchôrô= to\n e)n toi=s lo/gois skopou/menon ta\ o)/nta e)n ei)ko/si ma=llon skopei=n ê)\ to\n e)n toi=s e)/rgois.]]
[Footnote 54: Plato, Phædon, p. 100 B.
[Greek: e)/rchomai ga\r dê\ e)picheirô=n soi\ e)pidei/xasthai tê=s ai)ti/as to\ ei)=dos o(\ pepragma/teumai], &c.] [Side-note: He now assumes the separate existence of ideas.
These ideas are the causes why particular objects manifest certain attributes.]
"I now assumed the separate and real existence of Ideas by themselves--The Good in itself or the Self-Good, Self-Beautiful, Great, and all such others.
Look what follows next upon this assumption.
If any thing else be beautiful, besides the Self-Beautiful, that other thing can only be beautiful because it partakes of the Self-Beautiful: and the same with regard to other similar Ideas.
This is the only cause that I can accept: I do not understand those other ingenious causes which I hear mentioned.
[55] When any one tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a showy colour or figure, I pay no attention to him, but adhere simply to my own affirmation, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, except the presence or participation of the Self-Beautiful.
In what way such participation may take place, I cannot positively determine.
But I feel confident in affirming that it does take place: that things which are beautiful, become so by partaking in the Self-Beautiful; things which are great or little, by partaking in Greatness or Littleness.
If I am told that one man is taller than another by the head, and that this other is shorter than the first by the very same (by the head), I should not admit the proposition, but should repeat emphatically my own creed,--That whatever is greater than another is greater by nothing else except by Greatness and through Greatness--whatever is less than another is less only by Littleness and through Littleness.
For I should fear to be entangled in a contradiction, if I affirmed that the greater man was greater and the lesser man less by the head--First, in saying that the greater was greater and that the lesser was less, by the very same--Next, in saying that the greater man was greater by the head, which is itself small: it being absurd to maintain that a man is great by something small.
[56] Again, I should not say that ten is more than eight by two, and that this was the cause of its excess;[57] my doctrine is, that ten is more than eight by Multitude and through Multitude: so the rod of two cubits is greater than that of one, not by half, but by Greatness.
Again, when One is placed alongside of One,--or when one is bisected--I should take care not to affirm, that in the first case the juxtaposition, in the last case the bisection, was the cause why it became two.
[58] I proclaim loudly that I know no other cause for its becoming two except participation in the essence of the Dyad.
What is to become two, must partake of the Dyad: what is to become one, of the Monad.
I leave to wiser men than me these juxtapositions and bisections and other such refinements: I remain entrenched within the safe ground of my own assumption or hypothesis (the reality of these intelligible** and eternal Ideas).
[Footnote 55: Plato, Phædon, p. 100 C. [Greek: ou) toi/nun e)/ti mantha/nô, ou)de\ du/namai ta\s a)/llas ai)ti/as ta\s sopha\s tau/tas gignô/skein.]]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 A.
[Greek: phobou/menos mê/ ti/s soi e)nanti/os lo/gos a)pantê/sê|, e)a\n tê=| kephalê=| mei/zona/ tina phê=|s ei)=nai kai\ e)la/ttô, prô=ton me\n tô=| au)tô=| to\ mei=zon mei=zon ei)=nai kai\ to\ e)/latton e)/latton, e)/peita tê=| kephalê=| smikra=| ou)/sê| to\n mei/zô mei/zô ei)=nai, kai\ tou=to dê\ te/ras ei)=nai, to\ smikrô=| tini\ me/gan tina\ ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 B.
[Greek: Ou)/koun ta\ de/ka tô=n o)ktô\ duoi=n plei/ô ei)=nai, kai\ dia\ tau/tên tê\n ai)ti/an u(perba/llein, phoboi=o a)\n le/gein, a)lla\ mê\ plê/thei kai\ dia\ to\ plê=thos?
kai\ to\ di/pêchu tou= pêchuai/ou ê(mi/sei mei=zon ei)=nai, a)ll' ou) mege/thei?]]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 B-C. [Greek: ti/ de/?
e(ni\ e(no\s prostethe/ntos, tê\n pro/sthesin ai)ti/an ei)=nai tou= du/o gene/sthai, ê)\ diaschisthe/ntos tê\n schi/sin, ou)k eu)laboi=o a)\n le/gein, kai\ me/ga a)\n boô/|ês o(/ti ou)k oi)=stha a)/llôs pôs e(/kaston gigno/menon ê)\ metascho\n tê=s i)di/as ou)si/as e(kastou ou)= a)\n meta/schê|; kai\ e)n tou/tois ou)k e)/cheis a)/llên tina\ ai)ti/an tou= du/o gene/sthai a)ll' ê)\ tê\n tê=s dua/dos meta/schesin], &c.] [Side-note: Procedure of Sokrates if his hypothesis were impugned.
He insists upon keeping apart the discussion of the hypothesis and the discussion of its consequences.]
"Suppose however that any one impugned this hypothesis itself?
I should make no reply to him until I had followed out fully the consequences of it: in order to ascertain whether they were consistent with, or contradictory to, each other.
I should, when the proper time came, defend the hypothesis by itself, assuming some other hypothesis yet more universal, such as appeared to me best, until I came to some thing fully sufficient.
But I would not permit myself to confound together the discussion of the hypothesis itself, and the discussion of its consequences.
[59] This is a method which cannot lead to truth: though it is much practised by litigious disputants, who care little about truth, and pride themselves upon their ingenuity when they throw all things into confusion."
-[Footnote 59: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 E. [Greek: e)peidê\ de\ e)kei/nês au)tê=s (tê=s u(pothe/seôs) de/oi se dido/nai lo/gon, ô(sau/tôs a)\n didoi/ês, a)/llên au)= u(po/thesin u(pothe/menos, ê(/tis tô=n a)/nôthen belti/stê phai/noito .
.
.
.
a)/ma de\ ou)k a)\n phu/roio, ô(/sper oi( a)ntilogikoi/, peri/ te tê=s a)rchê=s dialego/menos kai\ tô=n e)x e)kei/nês ô(rmême/nôn, ei)/per bou/loio/ ti tô=n o)/ntôn eu(rei=n.]]
[Side-note: Exposition of Sokrates welcomed by the hearers.
Remarks upon it.]
The exposition here given by Sokrates of successive intellectual tentatives (whether of Sokrates or Plato, or partly one, partly the other), and the reasoning embodied therein, is represented as welcomed with emphatic assent and approbation by all his fellow-dialogists.
[60] It deserves attention on many grounds.
It illustrates instructively some of the speculative points of view, and speculative transitions, suggesting themselves to an inquisitive intellect of that day.
[Footnote 60: Plato, Phædon, p. 102 A.
Such approbation is peculiarly signified by the intervention of Echekrates.]
[Side-note: The philosophical changes in Sokrates all turned upon different views as to a true cause.]
If we are to take that which precedes as a description of the philosophical changes of Plato himself, it differs materially from Aristotle: for no allusion is here made to the intercourse of Plato with Kratylus and other advocates of the doctrines of Herakleitus: which intercourse is mentioned by Aristotle[61] as having greatly influenced the early speculations of Plato.
Sokrates describes three different phases of his (or Plato's) speculative point of view: all turning upon different conceptions of what constituted a true Cause.
His first belief on the subject was, that which he entertained before he entered on physical and physiological investigations.
It seemed natural to him that eating and drinking should be the cause why a young man grew taller: new bone and new flesh was added out of the food.
So again, when a tall man appeared standing near to a short man, the former was tall by the head, or because of the head: ten were more than eight, because two were added on: the measure of two cubits was greater than that of one cubit, because it stretched beyond by one half.
When one object was added on to another, the addition was the cause why they became two: when one object was bisected, this bisection was the cause why the one became two.
[Footnote 61: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
987, a.
32.]
This was his first conception of a true Cause, which for the time thoroughly satisfied him.
But when he came to investigate physiology, he could not follow out the same conception of Cause, so as to apply it to more novel and complicated problems; and he became dissatisfied with it altogether, even in regard to questions on which he had before been convinced.
New difficulties suggested themselves to him.
How can the two objects, which when separate were each one, be made _two_, by the fact that they are brought together?
What alteration has happened in their nature?
Then again, how can the very same fact, the change from one to two, be produced by two causes perfectly contrary to each other--in the first case, by juxtaposition--in the last case, by bisection?
[62] [Footnote 62: Sextus Empiricus embodies this argument of Plato among the difficulties which he starts against the Dogmatists, adv.
Mathematicos, x. s.
302-308.]
[Side-note: Problems and difficulties of which Sokrates first sought solution.]
That which is interesting here to note, is the sort of Cause which first gave satisfaction to the speculative mind of Sokrates.
In the instance of the growing youth, he notes two distinct facts, the earliest of which is (assuming certain other facts as accompanying conditions) the cause of the latest.
But in most of the other instances, the fact is one which does not admit of explanation.
Comparisons of eight men with ten men, of a yard with half a yard, of a tall man with a short man, are mental appreciations, beliefs, affirmations, not capable of being farther explained or accounted for: if any one disputes your affirmation, you prove it to him, by placing him in a situation to make the comparison for himself, or to go through the computation which establishes the truth of what you affirm.
It is not the juxtaposition of eight men which makes them to be eight (they were so just as much when separated by ever so wide an interval): though it may dispose or enable the spectator to count them as eight.
We may count the yard measure (whether actually bisected or not), either as one yard, or as two half yards, or as three feet, or thirty-six inches.
Whether it be one, or two, or three, depends upon the substantive which we choose to attach to the numeral, or upon the comparison which we make (the unit which we select) on the particular occasion.
[Side-note: Expectations entertained by Sokrates from the treatise of Anaxagoras.
His disappointment.
His distinction between causes and co-efficients.]
With this description of Cause Sokrates grew dissatisfied when he extended his enquiries into physical and physiological problems.
Is it the blood, or air, or fire, whereby we think?
and such like questions.
Such enquiries--into the physical conditions of mental phenomena--did really admit of some answer, affirmative, or negative.
But Sokrates does not tell us how he proceeded in seeking for an answer: he only says that he failed so completely, as even to be disabused of his supposed antecedent knowledge.
He was in this perplexity when he first heard of the doctrine of Anaxagoras.
"_Nous_ or Reason is the regulator and the cause of all things."
Sokrates interpreted this to mean (what it does not appear that Anaxagoras intended to assert)[63] that the Kosmos was an animal or person[64] having mind or Reason analogous to his own: that this Reason was an agent invested with full power and perpetually operative, so as to regulate in the best manner all the phenomena of the Kosmos; and that the general cause to be assigned for every thing was one and the same--"It is best thus"; requiring that in each particular case you should show _how_ it was for the best.
Sokrates took the type of Reason from his own volition and movements; supposing that all the agencies in the Kosmos were stimulated or checked by cosmical Reason for her purposes, as he himself put in motion his own bodily members.
This conception of Cause, borrowed from the analogy of his own rational volition, appeared to Sokrates very captivating, though it had not been his own first conception.
But he found that Anaxagoras, though proclaiming the doctrine as a principium or initiatory influence, did not make applications of it in detail; but assigned as causes, in most of the particular cases, those agencies which Sokrates considered to be subordinate and instrumental, as his own muscles were to his own volition.
Sokrates will not allow such agencies to be called Causes: he says that they are only co-efficients indispensable to the efficacy of the single and exclusive Cause--Reason.
But he tells us himself that most enquirers considered them as Causes; and that Anaxagoras himself produced them as such.
Moreover we shall see Plato himself in the Timæus, while he repeats this same distinction between Causes Efficient and Causes Co-efficient--yet treats these latter as Causes also, though inferior in regularity and precision to the Demiurgic Nous.
[65] [Footnote 63: I have given (in chap.
i. p. 48 seq.)
an abridgment and explanation of what seems to have been the doctrine of Anaxagoras.]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Timæus, p. 30 D. [Greek: to/nde to\n ko/smon, zô=on e)/mpsuchon e)/nnoun te], &c.] [Footnote 65: Plato, Timæus, p. 46 C-D. [Greek: ai)/tia--xunai/tia--xummetai/tia].
He says that most persons considered the [Greek: xunai/tia] as [Greek: ai)/tia].
And he himself registers them as such (Timæus, p. 68 E).
He there distinguishes the [Greek: ai)/tia] and [Greek: xunai/tia] as two different sorts of [Greek: ai)/tia], the _divine_ and the _necessary_, in a remarkable passage: where he tells us that we ought to study the divine causes, with a view to the happiness of life, as far as our nature permits--and the necessary causes for the sake of the divine: for that we cannot in any way apprehend, or understand, or get sight of the divine causes alone, without the necessary causes along with them (69 A).
In Timæus, pp.
47-48, we find again [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: a)na/gkê] noted as two distinct sorts of causes co-operating to produce the four elements.
It is farther remarkable that Necessity is described as "the wandering or irregular description of Cause"--[Greek: to\ tê=s planôme/nês ei)=dos ai)ti/as].
Eros and [Greek: A)na/gkê] are joined as co-operating--in Symposion, pp.
195 C, 197 B.]
[Side-note: Sokrates imputes to Anaxagoras the mistake of substituting physical agencies in place of mental.
This is the same which Aristophanes and others imputed to Sokrates.]
In truth, the complaint which Sokrates here raises against Anaxagoras--that he assigned celestial Rotation as the cause of phenomena, in place of a quasi-human Reason--is just the same as that which Aristophanes in the Clouds advances against Sokrates himself.
[66] The comic poet accuses Sokrates of displacing Zeus to make room for Dinos or Rotation.
According to the popular religious belief, all or most of the agencies in Nature were personified, or supposed to be carried on by persons--Gods, Goddesses, Dæmons, Nymphs, &c., which army of independent agents were conceived, by some thinkers, as more or less systematised and consolidated under the central authority of the Kosmos itself.
The causes of natural phenomena, especially of the grand and terrible phenomena, were supposed agents, conceived after the model of man, and assumed to be endowed with volition, force, affections, antipathies, &c.: some of them visible, such as Helios, Selênê, the Stars; others generally invisible, though showing themselves whenever it specially pleased them.
[67] Sokrates, as we see by the Platonic Apology, was believed by his countrymen to deny these animated agencies, and to substitute instead of them inanimate forces, not put in motion by the quasi-human attributes of reason, feeling and volition.
The Sokrates in the Platonic Phædon, taken at this second stage of his speculative wanderings, not only disclaims such a doctrine, but protests against it.
He recognises no cause except a Nous or Reason borrowed by analogy from that of which he was conscious within himself, choosing what was best for himself in every special situation.
[68] He tells us however that most of the contemporary philosophers dissented from this point of view.
To them, such inanimate agencies were the sole and real causes, in one or other of which they found what they thought a satisfactory explanation.
[Footnote 66: Aristophan.
Nubes, 379-815.
[Greek: Di=nos basileu/ei, to\n Di/' e)xelêlakô/s].
We find Proklus making this same complaint against Aristotle, "that he deserted theological _principia_, and indulged too much in physical reasonings"--[Greek: tô=n me\n theologikô=n a)rchô=n a)phista/menos, toi=s de\ phusikoi=s lo/gois pe/ra tou= de/ontos e)ndiatri/bôn] (Proklus ad Timæum, ii.
90 E, p. 212, Schneider).
Pascal also expresses the like displeasure against the Cartesian theory of the vortices.
Descartes recognised God as having originally established rotatory motion among the atoms, together with an equal, unvarying quantity of motion: these two points being granted, Descartes considered that all cosmical facts and phenomena might be deduced from them.
"Sur la philosophie de Descartes, Pascal était de son sentiment sur l'automate; et n'en était point sur la matière subtile, dont il se moquait fort.
Mais il ne pouvait souffrir sa manière d'expliquer la formation de toutes choses; et il disait très souvent,--Je ne puis pardonner à Descartes: il voudrait bien, dans toute sa philosophie, pouvoir se passer de Dieu: mais il n'a pu s'empêcher de lui accorder une chiquenaude pour mettre le monde en mouvement: après cela, il n'a que faire de Dieu."
(Pascal, Pensées, ch.
xi.
p. 237, edition de Louandre, citation from Mademoiselle Périer, Paris, 1854.)
Again, Lord Monboddo, in his Ancient Metaphysics (bk.
ii.
ch.
19, p. 276), cites these remarks of Plato and Aristotle on the deficiencies of Anaxagoras, and expresses the like censure himself against the cosmical theories of Newton:--"Sir Isaac puts me in mind of an ancient philosopher Anaxagoras, who maintained, as Sir Isaac does, that mind was the cause of all things; but when he came to explain the particular phænomena of nature, instead of having recourse to mind, employed airs and æthers, subtle spirits and fluids, and I know not what--in short, any thing rather than mind: a cause which he admitted to exist in the universe; but rather than employ it, had recourse to imaginary causes, of the existence of which he could give no proof.
The Tragic poets of old, when they could not otherwise untie the knot of their fable, brought down a god in a machine, who solved all difficulties: but such philosophers as Anaxagoras will not, even when they cannot do better, employ _mind_ or divinity.
Our philosophers, since Sir Isaac's time, have gone on in the same track, and still, I think, farther."
Lord Monboddo speaks with still greater asperity about the Cartesian theory, making a remark on it similar to what has been above cited from Pascal.
(See his Dissertation on the Newtonian Philosophy, Appendix to Ancient Metaphysics, pp.
498-499.)]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Timæus, p. 41 A.
[Greek: pa/ntes o(/soi te peripolou=si phanerô=s kai\ o(/soi phai/nontai kath' o(/son a)\n e)the/lôsi theoi\], &c.] [Footnote 68: What Sokrates understands by the theory of Anaxagoras, is evident from his language--Phædon, pp.
98-99.
He understands an indwelling cosmical Reason or Intelligence, deliberating and choosing, in each particular conjuncture, what was best for the Kosmos; just as his own (Sokrates) Reason deliberated and chose what was best for him ([Greek: tê=| tou= belti/stou ai(re/sei]), in consequence of the previous determination of the Athenians to condemn and punish him.
This point deserves attention, because it is altogether different from Aristotle's conception of Nous or Reason in the Kosmos: in which he recognises no consciousness, no deliberation, no choice, no reference to any special situation: but a constant, instinctive, undeliberating, movement towards Good as a determining End--_i.e._ towards the reproduction and perpetuation of regular Forms.
Hegel, in his Geschichte der Philosophie (Part i. pp.
355, 368-369, 2nd edit.
), has given very instructive remarks, in the spirit of the Aristotelian Realism, both upon the principle announced by Anaxagoras, and upon the manner in which Anaxagoras is criticised by Sokrates in the Platonic Phædon.
Hegel observes:-"Along with this principle (that of Anaxagoras) there comes in the recognition of an Intelligence, or of a self-determining agency which was wanting before.
Herein we are not to imagine thought, subjectively considered: when thought is spoken of, we are apt to revert to thought as it passes in our consciousness: but here, on the contrary, what is meant is, the Idea, considered altogether objectively, or Intelligence as an effective agent: (N.B.
_Intellectum_, or _Cogitatum_--not _Intellectio_, or _Cogitatio_, which would mean the conscious process--see this distinction illustrated by Trendelenburg ad Aristot.
De Animâ, i.
2, 5, p. 219: also Marbach, Gesch.
der Phil.
s. 54, 99 not.
2): as we say, that there is reason in the world, or as we speak of Genera in nature, which are the Universal.
The Genus Animal is the Essential of the Dog--it is the Dog himself: the laws of nature are her immanent Essence.
Nature is not formed from without, as men construct a table: the table is indeed constructed intelligently, but by an Intelligence extraneous to this wooden material.
It is this extraneous form which we are apt to think of as representing Intelligence, when we hear it talked of: but what is really meant is, the Universal--the immanent nature of the object itself.
The [Greek: Nou=s] is not a thinking Being without, which has arranged the world: by such an interpretation the Idea of Anaxagoras would be quite perverted and deprived of all philosophical value.
For to suppose an individual, particular, Something without, is to descend into the region of phantasms and its dualism: what is called, a thinking Being, is not an Idea, but a Subject.
Nevertheless, what is really and truly Universal is not for that reason Abstract: its characteristic property, quâ Universal, is to determine in itself, by itself, and for itself, the particular accompaniments.
While it carries on this process of change, it maintains itself at the same time as the Universal, always the same; this is a portion of its self-determining efficiency."
--What Hegel here adverts to seems identical with that which Dr. Henry More calls an Emanative Cause (Immortality of the Soul, ch.
vi.
p. 18), "the notion of a thing possible.
An Emanative Effect is co-existent with the very substance of that which is said to be the Cause thereof.
That which _emanes_, if I may so speak, is the same in reality with its Emanative Cause."
Respecting the criticism of Sokrates upon Anaxagoras, Hegel has further acute remarks which are too long to cite (p. 368 seq.)]
[Side-note: The supposed theory of Anaxagoras cannot be carried out, either by Sokrates himself or any one else.
Sokrates turns to general words, and adopts the theory of ideas.]
It is however singular, that Sokrates, after he has extolled Anaxagoras for enunciating a grand general cause, and has blamed him only for not making application of it in detail, proceeds to state that neither he himself, nor any one else within his knowledge, could find the way of applying it, any more than Anaxagoras had done.
If Anaxagoras had failed, no one else could do better.
The facts before Sokrates could not be reconciled, by any way that he could devise, with his assumed principle of rational directing force, or constant optimistic purpose, inherent in the Kosmos.
Accordingly he abandoned this track, and entered upon another: seeking a different sort of cause ([Greek: tê=s ai)ti/as to\ ei)=dos]), not by contemplation of things, but by propositions and ratiocinative discourse.
He now assumed as a principle an universal axiom or proposition, from which he proceeds to deduce consequences.
The principle thus laid down is, That there exist substantial Ideas--universal Entia.
Each of these Ideas communicates or imparts its own nature to the particulars which bear the same name: and such communion or participation is the cause why they are what they are.
The cause why various objects are beautiful or great, is, because they partake of the Self-Beautiful or the Self-Great: the cause why they are two or three is, because they partake of the Dyad or the Triad.
[Side-note: Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the word Cause.
That is a cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to his inquisitive feelings.]
Here then we have a third stage or variety of belief, in the speculative mind of Sokrates, respecting Causes.
The self-existent Ideas ("propria Platonis supellex," to use the words of Seneca[69]) are postulated as Causes: and in this belief Sokrates at last finds satisfaction.
But these Causative Ideas, or Ideal Causes, though satisfactory to Plato, were accepted by scarcely any one else.
They were transformed--seemingly even by Plato himself before his death, into Ideal Numbers, products of the One implicated with Great and Little or the undefined Dyad--and still farther transformed by his successors Speusippus and Xenokrates: they were impugned in every way, and emphatically rejected, by Aristotle.
[Footnote 69: Seneca, Epistol.
About this disposition, manifested by many philosophers, and in a particular manner by Plato, to "embrace logical phantoms as real causes," I transcribe a good passage from Malebranche.
"Je me sens encore extrêmement porté à dire que cette colonne est dure _par sa nature_; ou bien que les petits liens dont sont composés les corps durs, sont des atômes, dont les parties ne se peuvent diviser, comme étant les parties _essentieles_ et dernières des corps--et qui sont _essentiellement_ crochues ou branchues.
Mais je reconnois franchement, que ce n'est point expliquer la difficulté; et que, quittant les préoccupations et les illusions de mes sens, j'aurais tort de recourir à une forme abstraite, et d'_embrasser un fantôme de logique_ pour la cause que je cherche.
Je veux dire, que j'aurois tort de conçevoir, comme quelque chose de réel et de distinct, l'idée vague de _nature_ et d'_essence_, qui n'exprime que ce que l'on sait: et de prendre ainsi une forme abstraite et universelle, comme une cause physique d'un effet très réel.
Car il y a deux choses dont je ne saurais trop défier.
La première est, l'impression de mes sens: et l'autre est, la facilité que j'ai de prendre les natures abstraites et les idées générales de logique, pour celles qui sont réelles et particulières: et je me souviens d'avoir été plusieurs fois séduit par ces deux principes d'erreur."
(Malebranche--Recherche de la Vérité, vol.
iii., liv.
vi., ch.
8, p. 245, ed.
1772.)]
The foregoing picture given by Sokrates of the wanderings of his mind ([Greek: ta\s e)ma\s pla/nas]) in search of Causes, is interesting, not only in reference to the Platonic age, but also to the process of speculation generally.
Almost every one talks of a Cause as a word of the clearest meaning, familiar and understood by all hearers.
There are many who represent the Idea of Cause as simple, intuitive, self-originated, universal; one and the same in all minds.
These philosophers consider the maxim that every phenomenon must have a Cause--as self-evident, known _à priori_ apart from experience: as something which no one can help believing as soon as it is stated to him.
[70] The gropings of Sokrates are among the numerous facts which go to refute such a theory: or at least to show in what sense alone it can be partially admitted.
There is no fixed, positive, universal Idea, corresponding to the word Cause.
There is a wide divergence, as to the question what a Cause really is, between different ages of the same man (exemplified in the case of Sokrates): much more between different philosophers at one time and another.
Plato complains of Anaxagoras and other philosophers for assigning as Causes that which did not truly deserve the name: Aristotle also blames the defective conceptions of his predecessors (Plato included) on the same subject.
If there be an intuitive idea corresponding to the word Cause, it must be a different intuition in Plato and Aristotle--in Plato himself at one age and at another age: in other philosophers, different from both and from each other.
The word is equivocal--[Greek: pollachô=s lego/menon], in Aristotelian phrase--men use it familiarly, but vary much in the thing signified.
_That_ is a Cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to the inquisitive feelings--curiosity, anxious perplexity, speculative embarrassment of his own mind.
Now doubtless these inquisitive feelings are natural and widespread: they are emotions of our nature, which men seek (in some cases) to appease by some satisfactory hypothesis.
That answer which affords satisfaction, looked at in one of its aspects, is called Cause; Beginning or Principle--Element--represent other aspects of the same Quæsitum:-"Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, Atque metus omnes et inexorabile Fatum Subjecit pedibus strepitumque Acherontis avari," is the exclamation of that sentiment of wonder and uneasiness out of which, according to Plato and Aristotle, philosophy springs.
[71] But though the appetite or craving is common, in greater or less degree, to most persons--the nourishment calculated to allay it is by no means the same to all.
Good (says Aristotle) is that which all men desire:[72] but all men do not agree in their judgment, what Good is.
The point of communion between mankind is here emotional rather than intellectual: in the painful feeling of difficulty to be solved, not in the manner of conceiving what the difficulty is, nor in the direction where solution is to be sought, nor in the solution itself when suggested.
[73] [Footnote 70: Dugald Stewart, Elem.
Philos.
Hum.
Mind, vol.
i. ch.
1, sect.
2, pp.
98-99, ed.
Hamilton, also note c same volume.
"Several modern philosophers (especially Dr. Reid, On the Intell.
Powers) have been at pains to illustrate that law of our nature which leads us to refer every change we perceive in the universe to the operation of an efficient cause.
This reference is not the result of reasoning, but necessarily accompanies the perception, so as to render it impossible for us to see the change, without feeling a conviction of the operation of some cause by which it is produced; much in the same manner in which we find it impossible to conceive a sensation, without being impressed with a belief of the existence of a sentient being.
Hence I conceive it is that when we see two events constantly conjoined, we are led to associate the idea of causation or efficiency with the former, and to refer to it that power or energy by which the change is produced; in consequence of which association we come to consider philosophy as the knowledge of efficient causes, and lose sight of the operation of mind in producing the phenomena of nature.
It is by an association somewhat similar that we connect our sensations of colour with the primary qualities of body.
A moment's reflection must satisfy any one that the sensation of colour can only reside in a mind.
.
.
.
In the same way we are led to associate with inanimate matter the ideas of power, force, energy, causation, which are all attributes of mind, and can exist in a mind only."]
[Footnote 71: Virgil, Georg.
ii.
490-92.
Compare Lucretius, vi.
50-65, and the letter of Epikurus to Herodotus, p. 25, ed.
Orelli.
Plato, Theætêt.
p. 155 D. [Greek: ma/la ga\r philoso/phou tou=to to\ pa/thos, to\ thauma/zein; ou) ga\r a)rchê\ a)/llê philosophi/as, ê)\ au(/tê]:--Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A. p. 982, b.
10-20.
[Greek: dia\ ga\r to\ thauma/zein oi( a)/nthrôpoi kai\ nu=n kai\ to\ prô=ton ê)rxanto philosophei=n, o( de\ a)porô=n kai\ thauma/zôn oi)/etai a)gnoei=n.]]
[Footnote 72: Aristotel.
Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
1.
[Greek: dio\ kalô=s a)pephê/|nanto ta)gatho/n, ou)= pa/ntes e)phi/entai.]
Plato, Republ.
vi.
p. 505 E. [Greek: O(/ dê\ diô/kei me\n a(pa=sa psuchê\ kai\ tou/tou e(/neka pa/nta pra/ttei, a)pomanteuome/nê ti ei)=nai, a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot' e)sti/n], &c. Seneca, Epistol.
118.
"Bonum est, quod ad se impetum animi secundum naturam movet."]
[Footnote 73: Aristotle recognises the different nature of the difficulties and problems which present themselves to the speculative mind: he looks back upon the embarrassments of his predecessors as antiquated and even silly, Metaphysic.
N. 1089, a.
2.
[Greek: Polla\ me\n ou)=n ta\ ai)/tia tê=s e)pi\ tau/tas ta\s ai)ti/as e)ktropê=s, ma/lista de\ to\ a)porê=sai a)rchai+kô=s], which Alexander of Aphrodisias paraphrases by [Greek: a)rchai+kô=s kai\ eu)êthô=s].
Compare A 993, a.
15.
In another passage of the same book, Aristotle notes and characterises the emotion experienced by the mind in possessing what is regarded as truth--the mental satisfaction obtained when a difficulty is solved, 1090, a.
38.
[Greek: Oi( de\ chôristo\n poiou=ntes (to\n a)rithmo/n), o(/ti e)pi\ tô=n ai)sthêtô=n ou)k e)/stai ta\ a)xiô/mata, a)lêthê= de\ ta\ lego/mena _kai\ sai/nei tê\n psuchê/n_, ei)=nai/ te u(polamba/nousi kai\ chôrista\ ei)=nai; o(moi/ôs de\ ta\ mege/thê ta\ mathêmatika/.]
The subjective origin of philosophy--the feelings which prompt to the theorising process, striking out different hypotheses and analogies--are well stated by Adam Smith, 'History of Astronomy,' sect.
ii.
and iii.]
[Side-note: Dissension and perplexity on the question.--What is a cause?
revealed by the picture of Sokrates--no intuition to guide him.]
When Sokrates here tells us that as a young man he felt anxious curiosity to know what the cause of every phenomenon was, it is plain that at this time he did not know what he was looking for: that he proceeded only by successive steps of trial, doubt, discovered error, rejection: and that each trial was adapted to the then existing state of his own mind.
The views of Anaxagoras he affirms to have presented themselves to him as a new revelation: he then came to believe that the only true Cause was, a cosmical reason and volition like to that of which he was conscious in himself.
Yet he farther tells us, that others did not admit this Cause, but found other causes to satisfy them: that even Anaxagoras did not follow out his own general conception, but recognised Causes quite unconnected with it: lastly, that neither could he (Sokrates) trace out the conception for himself.
[74] He was driven to renounce it, and to turn to another sort of Cause--the hypothesis of self-existent Ideas, in which he then acquiesced.
And this last hypothesis, again, was ultimately much modified in the mind of Plato himself, as we know from Aristotle.
All this shows that the Idea of Cause--far from being one and the same to all, like the feeling of uneasiness which prompts the search for it--is complicated, diverse, relative, and modifiable.
[Footnote 74: The view of Cause, which Sokrates here declares himself to renounce from inability to pursue it, is substantially the same as what he lays down in the Philêbus, pp.
23 D, 27 A, 30 E. In the Timæus Plato assigns to Timæus the task (to which Sokrates in the Phædon had confessed himself incompetent) of following into detail the schemes and proceedings of the Demiurgic or optimising [Greek: Nou=s].
But he also assumes the [Greek: ei)/dê] or Ideas as co-ordinate and essential conditions.]
[Side-note: Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about causation, causes regular and irregular.
Inductive theory of causation, elaborated in modern times.]
The last among the various revolutions which Sokrates represents himself to have undergone--the transition from designing and volitional agency of the Kosmos conceived as an animated system, to the sovereignty of universal Ideas--is analogous to that transition which Auguste Comte considers to be the natural progress of the human mind: to explain phenomena at first by reference to some personal agency, and to pass from this mode of explanation to that by metaphysical abstractions.
It is true that these are two distinct modes of conceiving Causation; and that in each of them the human mind, under different states of social and individual instruction, finds satisfaction.
But each of the two theories admits of much diversity in the mode of conception.
Plato seems to have first given prominence to these metaphysical causes; and Aristotle in this respect follows his example: though he greatly censures the incomplete and erroneous theories of Plato.
It is remarkable that both these two philosophers recognised Causes irregular and unpredictable, as well as Causes regular and predictable.
Neither of them included even the idea of regularity, as an essential part of the meaning of Cause.
[75] Lastly, there has been elaborated in modern times, owing to the great extension of inductive science, another theory of Causation, in which unconditional regularity is the essential constituent: recognising no true Causes except the phenomenal causes certified by experience, as interpreted inductively and deductively--the assemblage of phenomenal antecedents, uniform and unconditional, so far as they can be discovered and verified.
Certain it is that these are the only causes obtainable by induction and experience: though many persons are not satisfied without looking elsewhere for transcendental or ontological causes of a totally different nature.
All these theories imply--what Sokrates announces in the passage just cited--the deep-seated influence of speculative curiosity, or the thirst for finding the Why of things and events, as a feeling of the human mind: but all of them indicate the discrepant answers with which, in different enquirers, this feeling is satisfied, though under the same equivocal name _Cause_.
And it would have been a proceeding worthy of Plato's dialectic, if he had applied to the word Cause the same cross-examining analysis which we have seen him applying to the equally familiar words--Virtue--Courage--Temperance--Friendship, &c. "First, let us settle what a Cause really is: then, and not till then, can we succeed in ulterior enquiries respecting it.
"[76] [Footnote 75: Monboddo, Ancient Metaphysics, B.
1. ch.
iv.
p. 32.
"Plato appears to have been the first of the Ionic School that introduced _formal causes_ into natural philosophy.
These he called _Ideas_, and made the principles of all things.
And the reason why he insists so much upon this kind of cause, and so little upon the other three, is given us by Aristotle in the end of his first book of Metaphysics, _viz._, that he studied mathematics too much, and instead of using them as the handmaid of philosophy, made them philosophy itself.
.
.
.
Plato, however, in the Phædon says a good deal about final causes; but in the system of natural philosophy which is in the Timæus, he says very little of it."
I have already observed that Plato in the Timæus (48 A) recognises erratic or irregular Causation--[Greek: ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a].
Aristotle recognises [Greek: Ai)ti/a] among the equivocal words [Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena]; and he enumerates [Greek: Tu/chê] and [Greek: Au)to/maton]--irregular causes or causes by accident--among them (Physic.
ii.
195-198; Metaphys.
K. 1065, a.)
Schwegler, ad Aristot.
Metaphys.
vi.
4, 3, "Das Zufällige ist ein nothwendiges Element alles Geschehens".
Alexander of Aphrodisias, the best of the Aristotelian commentators, is at pains to defend this view of [Greek: Tu/chê]--Causation by accident, or irregular.
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (ii.
80-81, p. 188, Schneider), notices the labour and prolixity with which the commentators before him set out the different varieties of Cause; distinguishing sixty-four according to Plato, and forty-eight according to Aristotle.
Proklus adverts also (ad Timæum, iii.
p. 176) to an animated controversy raised by Theophrastus against Plato, about Causes and the speculations thereupon.
An enumeration, though very incomplete, of the different meanings assigned to the word Cause, may be seen in Professor Fleming's Vocabulary of Philosophy.]
[Footnote 76: See Sir William Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy, Appendix, p. 585.
The debates about what was meant in philosophy by the word Cause are certainly older than Plato.
We read that it was discussed among the philosophers who frequented the house of Perikles; and that that eminent statesman was ridiculed by his dissolute son Xanthippus for taking part in such useless refinements (Plutarch, Perikles, c. 36).
But the Platonic dialogues are the oldest compositions in which any attempts to analyse the meaning of the word are preserved to us.
[Greek: Ai)/tiai, A)rchai/, Stoichei=a] (Aristot.
Metaph.
[Greek: D].
), were the main objects of search with the ancient speculative philosophers.
While all of them set to themselves the same problem, each of them hit upon a different solution.
That which gave mental satisfaction to one, appeared unsatisfactory and even inadmissible to the rest.
The first book of Aristotle's Metaphysica gives an instructive view of this discrepancy.
His own analysis of Cause will come before us hereafter.
Compare the long discussions on the subject in Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhon.
Hypo.
iii.
13-30; and adv.
Mathemat.
ix.
195-250.
The discrepancy was so great among the dogmatical philosophers, that he pronounces the reality of the causal sequence to be indeterminable--[Greek: o(/son me\n ou)=n e)pi\ toi=s legome/nois u(po\ tô=n dogmatikô=n, ou)d' a)\n e)nnoê=sai/ tis to\ ai)/tion du/naito, ei)/ ge pro\s tô=| diaphô/nous kai\ a)lloko/tous (a)podido/nai) e)nnoi/as tou= ai)ti/ou e)/ti kai\ tê\n u(po/stasin au)tou= pepoiê/kasin a)neu/reton dia\ tê\n peri\ au)to\ diaphôni/an.]
Seneca (Epist.
65) blends together the Platonic and the Aristotelian views, when he ascribes to Plato a quintuple variety of Causa.
The quadruple variety of Causation established by Aristotle governed the speculations of philosophers during the middle ages.
But since the decline of the Aristotelian philosophy, there are few subjects which have been more keenly debated among metaphysicians than the Idea of Cause.
It is one of the principal points of divergence among the different schools of philosophy now existing.
A volume, and a very instructive volume, might be filled with the enumeration and contrast of the different theories on the subject.
Upon the view which a man takes on this point will depend mainly the scope or purpose which he sets before him in philosophy.
Many seek the solution of their problem in transcendental, ontological, extra-phenomenal causes, lying apart from and above the world of fact and experience; Reid and Stewart, while acknowledging the existence of such causes as the true efficient causes, consider them as being out of the reach of human knowledge; others recognise no true cause except personal, quasi-human, voluntary, agency, grounded on the type of human volition.
Others, again, with whom my own opinion coincides, following out the analysis of Hume and Brown, understand by causes nothing more than phenomenal antecedents constant and unconditional, ascertainable by experience and induction.
See the copious and elaborate chapter on this subject in Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' Book iii.
ch.
5, especially as enlarged in the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of that work, including the criticism on the opposite or volitional theory of Causation; also the work of Professor Bain, 'The Emotions and the Will,' pp.
472-584.
The opposite view, in which Causes are treated as something essentially distinct from Laws, and as ultra-phenomenal, is set forth by Dr. Whewell, 'Novum Organon Renovatum,' ch.
vii.
p. 118 seq.]
[Side-note: Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from things to words--to the adoption of the theory of ideas.
Great multitude of ideas assumed, each fitting a certain number of particulars.]
There is yet another point which deserves attention in this history given by Sokrates of the transitions of his own mind.
His last transition is represented as one from things to words, that is, to general propositions:[77] to the assumption in each case of an universal proposition or hypothesis calculated to fit that case.
He does not seem to consider the optimistic doctrine, which he had before vainly endeavoured to follow out, as having been an hypothesis, or universal proposition assumed as true and as a principle from which to deduce consequences.
Even if it were so, however, it was one and the same assumption intended to suit all cases: whereas the new doctrine to which he passed included many distinct assumptions, each adapted to a certain number of cases and not to the rest.
[78] He assumed an untold multitude of self-existent Ideas--The Self-Beautiful, Self-Just, Self-Great, Self-Equal, Self-Unequal, &c.--each of them adapted to a certain number of particular cases: the Self-Beautiful was assumed as the cause why all particular things were beautiful--as that, of which all and each of them partakes--and so of the rest.
[79] Plato then explains his procedure.
He first deduced various consequences from this assumed hypothesis, and examined whether all of them were consistent or inconsistent with each other.
If he detected inconsistencies (as _e.g._ in the last half of the Parmenidês), we must suppose (though Plato does not expressly say so) that he would reject or modify his fundamental assumption: if he found none, he would retain it.
The point would have to be tried by dialectic debate with an opponent: the logical process of inference and counter-inference is here assumed to be trustworthy.
But during this debate Plato would require his opponent to admit the truth of the fundamental hypothesis provisionally.
If the opponent chose to impugn the latter, he must open a distinct debate on that express subject.
Plato insists that the discussion of the consequences flowing from the hypothesis, shall be kept quite apart from the discussion on the credibility of the hypothesis itself.
From the language employed, he seems to have had in view certain disputants known to him, by whom the two were so blended together as to produce much confusion in the reasoning.
[Footnote 77: Aristotle (Metaphysic.
A.
987, b.
31, [Greek: Th].
1050, b.
35) calls the Platonici [Greek: oi( e)n toi=s lo/gois]: see the note of Bonitz.]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Phædon, p. 100 A.
[Greek: a)ll' ou)=n dê\ tau/tê| ge ô(/rmêsa, kai\ u(pothe/menos e(ka/stote lo/gon o(\n a)\n kri/nô e)r)r(ômene/staton ei)=nai, a(\ me\n a)\n moi dokê=| tou/tô| xumphônei=n, ti/thêmi ô(s a)lêthê= o)/nta, kai\ peri\ ai)ti/as kai\ peri\ tô=n a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn; a(\ d' a)\n mê/, ô(s ou)k a)lêthê=.]]
[Footnote 79: Aristotle controverts this doctrine of Plato in a pointed manner, De Gen. et Corrupt.
ii.
9, p. 335, b.
10, also Metaphys.
A.
991, b.
3.
The former passage is the most animated in point of expression, where Aristotle says--[Greek: ô(/sper o( e)n tô=| Phai/dôni Sôkra/tês; kai\ ga\r e)kei=nos, e)pitimê/sas toi=s a)/llois ô(s ou)de\n ei)rêko/sin, u(poti/thetai]--which is very true about the Platonic dialogue _Phædon_, &c. But in both the two passages, Aristotle distinctly maintains that the Ideas cannot be _Causes_ of any thing.
This is another illustration of what I have observed above, that the meaning of the word _Cause_ has been always fluctuating and undetermined.
We see that, while Aristotle affirmed that the Ideas could not be Causes of anything, Plato here maintains that they are the only true Causes.]
[Side-note: Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme generality.]
But if your opponent impugns the hypothesis itself, how are you to defend it?
Plato here tells us: by means of some other hypothesis or assumption, yet more universal than itself.
You must ascend upwards in the scale of generality, until you find an assumption suitable and sufficient.
[80] [Footnote 80: Plato, Phædon, p. 101 E.] We here see where it was that Plato looked for full, indisputable, self-recommending and self-assuring, certainty and truth.
Among the most universal propositions.
He states the matter here as if we were to provide defence for an hypothesis less universal by ascending to another hypothesis more universal.
This is illustrated by what he says in the Timæus--Propositions are cognate with the matter which they affirm: those whose affirmation is purely intellectual, comprising only matter of the intelligible world, or of genuine Essence, are solid and inexpugnable: those which take in more or less of the sensible world, which is a mere copy of the intelligible exemplar, become less and less trustworthy--mere probabilities.
Here we have the Platonic worship of the most universal propositions, as the only primary and evident truths.
[81] But in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic, he delivers a precept somewhat different, requiring the philosopher not to rest in any hypothesis as an ultimatum, but to consider them all as stepping-stones for enabling him to ascend into a higher region, above all hypothesis--to the first principle of every thing: and he considers geometrical reasoning as defective because it takes its departure from hypothesis or assumptions of which no account is rendered.
[82] In the Republic he thus contemplates an intuition by the mind of some primary, clear, self-evident truth, above all hypotheses or assumptions even the most universal, and transmitting its own certainty to every thing which could be logically deduced from it: while in the Phædon, he does not recognise any thing higher or more certain than the most universal hypothesis--and he even presents the theory of self-existent Ideas as nothing more than an hypothesis, though a very satisfactory one.
In the Republic, Plato has come to imagine the Idea of Good as distinguished from and illuminating all the other Ideas: in the Timæus, it seems personified in the Demiurgus; in the Phædon, that Idea of Good appears to be represented by the Nous or Reason of Anaxagoras.
But Sokrates is unable to follow it out, so that it becomes included, without any pre-eminence, among the Ideas generally: all of them transcendental, co-ordinate, and primary sources of truth to the intelligent mind--yet each of them exercising a causative influence in its own department, and bestowing its own special character on various particulars.
[Footnote 81: Plato, Timæus, p. 29 B.
[Greek: ô(=de ou)=n peri/ te ei)ko/nos kai\ tou= paradei/gmatos dioriste/on, ô(s a)/ra tou\s lo/gous, ô(=npe/r ei)sin e)xêgêtai/, tou/tôn au)tô=n kai\ xuggenei=s o)/ntas.
tou= me\n ou)=n moni/mou kai\ bebai/ou kai\ meta\ nou= kataphanou=s, moni/mous kai\ a)metaptô/tous .
.
.
tou\s de\ tou= pro\s me\n e)kei=no a)peikasthe/ntos, o)/ntos de\ ei)ko/nos, ei)ko/tas a)na\ lo/gon te e)kei/nôn o)/ntas; o(/, tiper pro\s ge/nesin ou)si/a, tou=to pro\s pi/stin a)lêthei/a.]]
[Footnote 82: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 511.
[Greek: _tô=n u(pothe/seôn a)nôte/rô e)kbai/nein_ .
.
.
.
to\ e(/teron tmê=ma tou= noêtou=, ou)= au)to\s o( lo/gos a)/ptetai tê=| tou= diale/gesthai duna/mei, ta\s u(pothe/seis poiou/menos ou)k a)rcha\s a)lla\ tô=| o)/nti u(pothe/seis, oi(=on e)piba/seis te kai\ o(rma/s, i(/na _me/chri tou= a)nupothe/tou e)pi\ tê\n tou= panto\s a)rchê\n i)ô/n_, a(psa/menos au)tê=s, pa/lin au)= e)cho/menos tô=n e)kei/nês e)chome/nôn, ou(/tôs e)pi\ teleutê\n katabai/nê|, ai)sthêtô=| panta/pasin ou)deni\ proschrô/menos, a)ll' ei)/desin au)toi=s di' au)tô=n ei)s au)ta/, kai\ teleuta=| ei)s ei)/dê.]
Compare vii.
p.
533.]
[Side-note: Plato's demonstration of the immortality of the soul rests upon the assumption of the Platonic ideas.
Reasoning to prove this.]
It is from the assumption of these Ideas as eternal Essences, that Plato undertakes to demonstrate the immortality of the soul.
One Idea or Form will not admit, but peremptorily excludes, the approach of that other Form which is opposite to it.
Greatness will not receive the form of littleness: nor will the greatness which is in any particular subject receive the form of littleness.
If the form of littleness be brought to bear, greatness will not stay to receive it, but will either retire or be destroyed.
The same is true likewise respecting that which essentially has the form: thus fire has essentially the form of heat, and snow has essentially the form of cold.
Accordingly fire, as it will not receive the form of cold, so neither will it receive snow: and snow, as it will not receive the form of heat, so neither will it receive fire.
If fire comes, snow will either retire or will be destroyed.
The Triad has always the Form of Oddness, and will never receive that of Evenness: the Dyad has always the Form of Evenness, and will never receive that of Oddness--upon the approach of this latter it will either disappear or will be destroyed: moreover the Dyad, while refusing to receive the Form of Oddness, will refuse also to receive that of the Triad, which always embodies that Form--although three is not in direct contrariety with two.
If then we are asked, What is that, the presence of which makes a body hot?
we need not confine ourselves to the answer--It is the Form of Heat--which, though correct, gives no new information: but we may farther say--It is Fire, which involves the Form of Heat.
If we are asked, What is that, the presence of which makes a number odd, we shall not say--It is Oddness: but we shall say--It is the Triad or the Pentad--both of which involve Oddness.
[Side-note: The soul always brings life, and is essentially living.
It cannot receive death: in other words, it is immortal.]
In like manner, the question being asked, What is that, which, being in the body, will give it life?
we must answer--It is the soul.
The soul, when it lays hold of any body, always arrives bringing with it life.
Now death is the contrary of life.
Accordingly the soul, which always brings with it life, will never receive the contrary of life.
In other words, it is deathless or immortal.
[83] [Footnote 83: Plato, Phædon, p. 105 C-E. [Greek: A)pokri/nou dê/, ô(=| a)\n ti/ e)gge/nêtai sô/mati, zô=n e)/stai?
Ô(=i a)\n psuchê/, e)/phê.
Ou)kou=n a)ei\ tou=to ou(/tôs e)/chei?
Pô=s ga\r ou)chi/?
ê)= d' o(/s.
Ê( psuchê\ a)/ra o(/, ti a)\n au)tê\ kata/schê|, a)ei\ ê(/kei e)p' e)kei=no phe/rousa zôê/n?
Ê(/kei me/ntoi, e)/phê.
Po/teron d' e)/sti ti zôê=| e)nanti/on, ê)\ ou)de/n?
E)/stin, e)/phê.
Ti/?
Tha/natos.
ou)kou=n ê( psuchê\ to\ e)nanti/on ô(=| au)tê\ e)piphe/rei a)ei\ ou) mê/ pote de/xêtai, ô(s e)k tô=n pro/sthen ô(molo/gêtai?
Kai\ ma/la spho/dra, e)/phê o( Ke/bês.
.
.
.
O(\ d' a)\n tha/naton mê\ de/chêtai, ti/ kalou=men?
A)tha/naton, e)/phê.
A)tha/naton a)/ra ê( psuchê/?
A)tha/naton.]
Nemesius, the Christian bishop of Emesa, declares that the proofs given by Plato of the immortality of the soul are knotty and difficult to understand, such as even adepts in philosophical study can hardly follow.
His own belief in it he rests upon the inspiration of the Christian Scriptures (Nemesius de Nat.
Homin.
c. 2. p. 55, ed.
1565).]
[Side-note: The proof of immortality includes pre-existence as well as post-existence--animals as well as man--also the metempsychosis or translation of the soul from one body to another.]
Such is the ground upon which Sokrates rests his belief in the immortality of the soul.
The doctrine reposes, in Plato's view, upon the assumption of eternal, self-existent, unchangeable, Ideas or Forms:[84] upon the congeniality of nature, and inherent correlation, between these Ideas and the Soul: upon the fact, that the soul knows these Ideas, which knowledge must have been acquired in a prior state of existence: and upon the essential participation of the soul in the Idea of life, so that it cannot be conceived as without life, or as dead.
[85] The immortality of the soul is conceived as necessary and entire, including not merely post-existence, but also pre-existence.
In fact the reference to an anterior time is more essential to Plato's theory than that to a posterior time; because it is employed to explain the cognitions of the mind, and the identity of learning with reminiscence: while Simmias, who even at the close is not without reserve on the subject of the post-existence, proclaims an emphatic adhesion on that of the pre-existence.
[86] The proof, moreover, being founded in great part on the Idea of Life, embraces every thing living, and is common to animals[87] (if not to plants) as well as to men: and the metempsychosis--or transition of souls not merely from one human body to another, but also from the human to the animal body, and _vice versâ_--is a portion of the Platonic creed.
[Footnote 84: Plato, Phædon, pp.
76 D-E, 100 B-C.
It is remarkable that in the Republic also, Sokrates undertakes to demonstrate the immortality of the soul: and that in doing so he does not make any reference or allusion to the arguments used in the Phædon, but produces another argument totally distinct and novel: an argument which Meiners remarks truly to be quite peculiar to Plato, Republic, x. pp.
609 E, 611 C; Meiners, Geschichte der Wissenschaften, vol.
ii.
p.
780.]
[Footnote 85: Zeller, Philosophie der Griech.
Part ii.
p. 267.
"Die Seele ist ihrem Begriffe nach dasjenige, zu dessen Wesen es gehört zu leben--sie kann also in keinem Augenblicke als nicht lebend gedacht werden: In diesem ontologischen Beweis für die Unsterblichkeit, laufen nicht bloss alle die einzelnen Beweise des Phædon zusammen, sondern derselbe wird auch schon im Phaedrus vorgetragen," &c. Compare Phædrus, p. 245.
Hegel, in his Geschichte der Philosophie (Part ii.
pp.
186-187-189, ed.
2), maintains that Plato did not conceive the soul as a separate thing or reality--that he did not mean to affirm, in the literal sense of the words, its separate existence either before or after the present life--that he did not descend to so crude a conception (zu dieser Rohheit herabzusinken) as to represent to himself the soul as a thing, or to enquire into its duration or continuance after the manner of a thing--that Plato understood the soul to exist essentially as the Universal Notion or Idea, the comprehensive aggregate of all other Ideas, in which sense he affirmed it to be immortal--that the descriptions which Plato gives of its condition, either before life or after death, are to be treated only as poetical metaphors.
There is ingenuity in this view of Hegel, and many separate expressions of Plato receive light from it: but it appears to me to refine away too much.
Plato had in his own mind and belief both the soul as a particular thing--and the soul as an universal.
His language implies sometimes the one sometimes the other.]
[Footnote 86: Plato, Phædon, pp.
92, 107 B.]
[Footnote 87: See what Sokrates says about the swans, Phædon, p. 85 A-B.]
[Side-note: After finishing his proof that the soul is immortal, Sokrates enters into a description, what will become of it after the death of the body.
He describes a [Greek: Nekui/a].]
Having completed his demonstration of the immortality of the soul, Sokrates proceeds to give a sketch of the condition and treatment which it experiences after death.
The [Greek: Nekui/a] here following is analogous, in general doctrinal scope, to those others which we read in the Republic and in the Gorgias: but all of them are different in particular incidents, illustrative circumstances, and scenery.
The sentiment of belief in Plato's mind attaches itself to general doctrines, which appear to him to possess an evidence independent of particulars.
When he applies these doctrines to particulars, he makes little distinction between such as are true, or problematical, or fictitious: he varies his mythes at pleasure, provided that they serve the purpose of illustrating his general view.
The mythe which we read in the Phædon includes a description of the Earth which to us appears altogether imaginative and poetical: yet it is hardly more so than several other current theories, proposed by various philosophers antecedent and contemporary, respecting Earth and Sea.
Aristotle criticises the views expressed in the Phædon, as he criticises those of Demokritus and Empedokles.
[88] Each soul of a deceased person is conducted by his Genius to the proper place, and there receives sentence of condemnation to suffering, greater or less according to his conduct in life, in the deep chasm called Tartarus, and in the rivers of mud and fire, Styx, Kokytus, Pyriphlegethon.
[89] To those who have passed their lives in learning, and who have detached themselves as much as they possibly could from all pleasures and all pursuits connected with the body--in order to pursue wisdom and virtue--a full reward is given.
They are emancipated from the obligation of entering another body, and are allowed to live ever afterwards disembodied in the pure regions of Ideas.
[90] [Footnote 88: Plato, Phædon, pp.
107-111.
Olympiodorus pronounces the mythe to be a good imitation of the truth, Republ.
x.
620 seq.
; Gorgias, p. 520; Aristotle, Meteorol.
ii.
pp.
355-356.
Compare also 356, b.
10, 357, a.
25, where he states and canvasses the doctrines of Demokritus and Empedokles; also 352, a.
35, about the [Greek: a)rchai=oi theo/logoi].
He is rather more severe upon these others than upon Plato.
He too considers, like Plato, that the amount of evidence which you ought to require for your belief depends upon the nature of the subject; and that there are various subjects on which you ought to believe on slighter evidence: see Metaphysic.
A.
995, a.
2-16: Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
1, 1094, b.
12-14.]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Phædon, pp.
111-112.
Compare Eusebius, Præp.
Ev.
xiii.
13, and Arnobius adv.
Gentes, ii.
14.
Arnobius blames Plato for inconsistency in saying that the soul is immortal in its own nature, and yet that it suffers pain after death--"Rem inenodabilem suscipit (Plato) ut cum animas dicat immortales, perpetuas, et ex corporali soliditate privatas, puniri eas dicat tamen et doloris afficiat sensu.
Quis autem hominum non videt quod sit immortale, quod simplex, nullum posse dolorem admittere; quod autem sentiat dolorem, immortalitatem habere non posse?"]
[Footnote 90: Plato, Phædon, p. 114 C-E. [Greek: tou=tôn de\ au)tô=n oi( philosophi/a| i(kanô=s kathêra/menoi a)/neu te sôma/tôn zô=si to\ para/pan ei)s to\n e)/peita chro/non], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates expects that his soul is going to the islands of the blest.
Reply to Kriton about burying his body.]
Such, or something like it, Sokrates confidently expects will be the fate awaiting himself.
[91] When asked by Kriton, among other questions, how he desired to be buried, he replies with a smile--"You may bury me as you choose, if you can only catch me.
But you will not understand me when I tell you, that I, Sokrates, who am now speaking, shall not remain with you after having drunk the poison, but shall depart to some of the enjoyments of the blest.
You must not talk about burying or burning Sokrates, as if I were suffering some terrible operation.
Such language is inauspicious and depressing to our minds.
Keep up your courage, and talk only of burying the body of Sokrates: conduct the burial as you think best and most decent.
"[92] [Footnote 91: Plato, Phædon, p. 115 A.]
[Footnote 92: Plato, Phædon, p. 115 D. [Greek: ô(s e)peida\n pi/ô to\ pha/rmakon ou)ke/ti u(mi=n paramenô=, a)ll' oi)chê/somai a)piô\n ei)s maka/rôn dê/ tinas eu)daimoni/as.]]
[Side-note: Preparations for administering the hemlock.
Sympathy of the gaoler.
Equanimity of Sokrates.]
Sokrates then retires with Kriton into an interior chamber to bathe, desiring that the women may be spared the task of washing his body after his decease.
Having taken final leave of his wife and children, he returns to his friends as sunset is approaching.
We are here made to see the contrast between him and other prisoners under like circumstances.
The attendant of the Eleven Magistrates comes to warn him that the hour has come for swallowing the poison; expressing sympathy and regret for the necessity of delivering so painful a message, together with admiration for the equanimity and rational judgment of Sokrates, which he contrasts forcibly with the discontent and wrath of other prisoners under similar circumstances.
As he turned away with tears in his eyes, Sokrates exclaimed--"How courteous the man is to me and has been from the beginning!
how generously he now weeps for me!
Let us obey him, and let the poison be brought forthwith, if it be prepared: if not, let him prepare it."
"Do not hurry" (interposed Kriton): "there is still time, for the sun is not quite set.
I have known others who, even after receiving the order, deferred drinking the poison until they had had a good supper and other enjoyments."
"It is natural that they should do so" (replied Sokrates).
"They think that they are gainers by it: for me, it is natural that I should not do so--for I shall gain nothing but contempt in my own eyes, by thus clinging to life, and saving up when there is nothing left.
"[93] [Footnote 93: Plato, Phædon, p. 117 A.
[Greek: glicho/menos tou= zê=|n, kai\ pheido/menos ou)deno\s e)/ti e)no/ntos.]
Hesiod.
Opp.
et Dies, 367.
[Greek: deilê\ d' e)ni\ puthme/ni pheidô/.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates swallows the poison.
Conversation with the gaoler.]
Kriton accordingly gave orders, and the poison, after a certain interval, was brought in.
Sokrates, on asking for directions, was informed, that after having swallowed it, he must walk about until his legs felt heavy: he must then lie down and cover himself up: the poison would do its work.
He took the cup without any symptom of alarm or change of countenance: then looking at the attendant with his usual full and fixed gaze, he asked whether there was enough to allow of a libation.
"We prepare as much as is sufficient" (was the answer), "but no more."
"I understand" (said Sokrates): "but at least I may pray, and I must pray, to the Gods, that my change of abode from here to there may be fortunate."
He then put the cup to his lips, and drank it off with perfect ease and tranquillity.
[94] [Footnote 94: Plato, Phædon, p. 117 C.] [Side-note: Ungovernable sorrow of the friends present.
Self-command of Sokrates.
Last words to Kriton, and death.]
His friends, who had hitherto maintained their self-control, were overpowered by emotion on seeing the cup swallowed, and broke out into violent tears and lamentation.
No one was unmoved, except Sokrates himself: who gently remonstrated with them, and exhorted them to tranquil resignation: reminding them that nothing but good words was admissible at the hour of death.
The friends, ashamed of themselves, found means to repress their tears.
Sokrates walked about until he felt heavy in the legs, and then lay down in bed.
After some interval, the attendant of the prison came to examine his feet and legs, pinched his foot with force, and enquired whether he felt it.
Sokrates replied in the negative.
Presently the man pinched his legs with similar result, and showed to the friends in that way that his body was gradually becoming chill and benumbed: adding that as soon as this should get to the heart, he would die.
[95] The chill had already reached his belly, when Sokrates uncovered his face, which had been hitherto concealed by the bed-clothes, and spoke his last words:[96] "Kriton, we owe a cock to Æsculapius: pay the debt without fail."
"It shall be done" (answered Kriton); "have you any other injunctions?"
Sokrates made no reply, but again covered himself up.
[97] After a short interval, he made some movement: the attendant presently uncovered him, and found him dead, with his eyes stiff and fixed.
Kriton performed the last duty of closing both his eyes and his mouth.
[Footnote 95: Plato, Phædon, p. 118.
These details receive interesting confirmation from the remarkable scene described by Valerius Maximus, as witnessed by himself at Julis in the island of Keos, when he accompanied Sextus Pompeius into Asia (Val.
M. ii.
6, 8).
A Keian lady of rank, ninety years of age, well in health, comfortable, and in full possession of her intelligence, but deeming it prudent (according to the custom in Keos, Strabo, x. p. 486) to retire from life while she had as yet nothing to complain of--took poison, by her own deliberate act, in the presence of her relatives and of Sextus Pompeius, who vainly endeavoured to dissuade her.
"Cupido haustu mortiferam traxit potionem, ac sermone significans quasnam subindè partes corporis sui rigor occupâret, cum jam visceribus eum et cordi imminere esset elocuta, filiarum manus ad supremum opprimendorum oculorum officium advocavit.
Nostros autem, tametsi novo spectaculo obstupefacti erant, suffusos tamen lacrimis dimisit."]
[Footnote 96: Plato, Phædon, p. 118.
[Greek: ê)/dê ou)=n schedo/n ti au)tou= ê)=n ta\ peri\ to\ ê)=tron psucho/mena, kai\ e)kkalupsa/menos (e)nekeka/lupto ga\r) ei)=pen, o(\ dê\ teleutai=on e)phthe/gxato, Ô)= Kri/tôn, e)/phê, tô=| A)sklêpiô=| o)phei/lomen a)lektru/ona; a)ll' a)po/dote kai\ mê\ a)melê/sête.]
Cicero, after recovering from a bilious attack, writes to his wife Terentia (Epist.
Famil.
xiv.
7): "Omnes molestias et solicitudines deposui et ejeci.
Quid causæ autem fuerit, postridié intellexi quam à vobis discessi.
[Greek: Cholê\n a)/kraton] noctu ejeci: statim ita sum levatus, ut mihi Deus aliquis medicinam fecisse videatur.
Cui quidem Deo, quemadmodum tu soles, pié et casté satisfacies: id est, Apollini et Æsculapio."
Compare the rhetor Aristeides, Orat.
xlv.
pp.
22-23-155, ed.
Dindorf.
About the habit of sacrificing a cock to Æsculapius, see also a passage in the [Greek: I(erô=n Lo/goi] of the rhetor Aristeides (Orat.
xxvii.
p. 545, ed.
Dindorf, at the top of the page).
I will add that the five [Greek: I(erô=n Lo/goi] of that Rhetor (Oratt.
xxiii.-xxvii.)
are curious as testifying the multitude of dreams and revelations vouchsafed to him by Æsculapius; also the implicit faith with which he acted upon them in his maladies, and the success which attended the curative prescriptions thus made known to him.
Aristeides declares himself to place more confidence in these revelations than in the advice of physicians, and to have often acted on them in preference to such advice (Orat.
xlv.
pp.
20-22, Dind.).
The direction here given by Sokrates to Kriton (though some critics, even the most recent, see Krische, Lehren der Griechischen Denker, p. 227, interpret it in a mystical sense) is to be understood simply and literally, in my judgment.
On what occasion, or for what, he had made the vow of the cock, we are not told.
Sokrates was a very religious man, much influenced by prophecies, oracles, dreams, and special revelations (Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
21-29-33; also Phædon, p.
60).]
[Footnote 97: Euripid.
Hippol.
1455 [Greek: Kekarte/rêtai ta)/m'; o)/lêla ga/r, pate/r.
Kru=pson de/ mou pro/sôpon ô(s ta/chos pe/plois.]]
[Side-note: Extreme pathos, and probable trustworthiness of these personal details.]
The pathetic details of this scene--arranged with so much dramatic beauty, and lending imperishable interest to the Phædon of Plato--may be regarded as real facts, described from the recollection of an eye-witness, though many years after their occurrence.
They present to us the personality of Sokrates in full harmony with that which we read in the Platonic Apology.
The tranquil ascendancy of resolute and rational conviction, satisfied with the past, and welcoming instead of fearing the close of life--is exhibited as triumphing in the one case over adverse accusers and judges, in the other case over the unnerving manifestations of afflicted friends.
[Side-note: Contrast between the Platonic Apology and the Phædon.]
But though the personal incidents of this dialogue are truly Sokratic--the dogmatic emphasis, and the apparatus of argument and hypothesis, are essentially Platonic.
In these respects, the dialogue contrasts remarkably with the Apology.
When addressing the Dikasts, Sokrates not only makes no profession of dogmatic certainty, but expressly disclaims it.
Nay more--he considers that the false persuasion of such dogmatic certainty, universally prevalent among his countrymen, is as pernicious as it is illusory: and that his own superiority over others consists merely in consciousness of his own ignorance, while they are unconscious of theirs.
[98] To dissipate such false persuasion of knowledge, by perpetual cross-examination of every one around, is the special mission imposed upon him by the Gods: in which mission, indeed, he has the firmest belief--but it is a belief, like that in his Dæmon or divine sign, depending upon oracles, dreams, and other revelations peculiar to himself, which he does not expect that the Dikasts will admit as genuine evidence.
[99] One peculiar example, whereby Sokrates exemplifies the false persuasion of knowledge where men have no real knowledge, is borrowed from the fear of death.
No man knows (he says) what death is, not even whether it may not be a signal benefit: yet every man fears it as if he well knew that it was the greatest evil.
[100] Death must be one of two things: either a final extinction--a perpetual and dreamless sleep--or else a transference of the soul to some other place.
Sokrates is persuaded that it will be in either case a benefit to him, and that the Gods will take care that he, a good man, shall suffer no evil, either living or dead: the proof of which is, to him, that the divine sign has never interposed any obstruction in regard to his trial and sentence.
If (says he) I am transferred to some other abode, among those who have died before me, how delightful will it be to see Homer and Hesiod, Orpheus and Musæus, Agamemnon, Ajax or Palamêdes--and to pass my time in cross-examining each as to his true or false knowledge!
[101] Lastly, so far as he professes to aim at any positive end, it is the diffusion of political, social, human virtue, as distinguished from acquisitions above the measure of humanity.
He tells men that it is not wealth which produces virtue, but virtue which produces wealth and other advantages, both public and private.
[102] [Footnote 98: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
21-29.
[Greek: kai\ tou=to pô=s ou)k a)mathi/a e)sti\n au(/tê ê( e)ponei/distos, ê( tou= oi)/esthai ei)de/nai a(\ ou)k oi)=den?]
(29 A-B).]
[Footnote 99: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
21-23, 31 D; 33 C: [Greek: e)moi\ de\ tou=to, ô(s e)gô/ phêmi, proste/taktai u(po\ tou= theou= pra/ttein kai\ e)k manteiô=n kai\ e)x e)nupni/ôn kai\ panti\ tro/pô|, ô(=|pe/r ti/s pote kai\ a)/llê thei/a moi=ra a)nthrô/pô| kai\ o(tiou=n prose/taxe pra/ttein.]
p. 37 E: [Greek: e)a/n te ga\r le/gô o(/ti tô=| theô=| a)peithei=n tou=t' e)sti\ kai\ dia\ tou=t' a)du/naton ê(suchi/an a)/gein, ou) pei/sesthe/ moi ô(s ei)rôneuome/nô|.]]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Apol.
S. p. 29 B.
In the Xenophontic Apology of Sokrates, no allusion is made to the immortality of the soul.
Sokrates is there described as having shaped his defence under a belief that he had arrived at a term when it was better for him to die than to live, and that prolonged life would only expose him to the unavoidable weaknesses and disabilities of senility.
It is a proof of the benevolence of the Gods that he is withdrawn from life at so opportune a moment.
This is the explanation which Xenophon gives of the haughty tone of the defence (sects.
6-15-23-27).
In the Xenophontic Cyropædia, Cyrus, on his death-bed, addresses earnest exhortations to his two sons: and to give greater force to such exhortations, reminds them that his own soul will still survive and will still exercise a certain authority after his death.
He expresses his own belief not only that the soul survives the body, but also that it becomes more rational when disembodied; because--1.
Murderers are disturbed by the souls of murdered men.
2.
Honours are paid to deceased persons, which practice would not continue, unless the souls of the deceased had efficacy to enforce it.
3.
The souls of living men are more rational during sleep than when awake, and sleep affords the nearest analogy to death (viii.
7, 17-21).
(Much the same arguments were urged in the dialogues of Aristotle.
Bernays, Dialog.
Aristot.
pp.
23-105.)
He however adds, that even if he be mistaken in this point, and if his soul perish with his body, still he conjures his sons, in the name of the gods, to obey his dying injunctions (s. 22).
Again, he says (s. 27), "Invite all the Persians to my tomb, to join with me in satisfaction that I shall now be in safety, so as to suffer no farther harm, whether I am united to the divine element, or perish altogether" ([Greek: sunêsthêsome/nous e)moi/, o(/ti e)n tô=| a)sphalei= ê)/dê e)/somai, ô(s mêde\n a)\n e)/ti kako\n pathei=n, mê/te ê)\n meta\ tou= thei/ou ge/nômai, mê/te ê)\n mêde\n e)/ti ô)=|]).
The view taken here by Cyrus, of death in its analogy with sleep ([Greek: u(/pnô| kai\ thana/tô| diduma/osin], Iliad, xvi.
672) as a refuge against impending evil for the future, is much the same as that taken by Sokrates in his Apology.
Sokrates is not less proud of his past life, spent in dialectic debate, than Cyrus of his glorious exploits.
[Greek: O( tha/natos, limê\n kakô=n toi=s dusdaimonou=sin], Longinus, de Subl.
c. 9, p. 23.
Compare also the Oration of Julius Cæsar in Sallust, Bell.
Catilin.
c. 51--"in luctu atque miseriis, mortem ærumnarum requiem, non cruciatum esse: illam cuncta mortalium mala dissolvere: ultra neque curæ neque gaudio locum esse".]
[Footnote 101: Plato, Apol.
S. pp.
40-41.]
[Footnote 102: Plato, Apol.
S. pp.
20 C, 29-30.
[Greek: le/gôn o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata, kai\ ta)=lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta, kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|] (30 B).
Compare Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
2, 8-9.]
[Side-note: Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the Phædon compared with the profession of ignorance which we read in the Apology.]
If from the Apology we turn to the Phædon, we seem to pass, not merely to the same speaker after the interval of one month (the ostensible interval indicated) but to a different speaker and over a long period.
We have Plato speaking through the mouth of Sokrates, and Plato too at a much later time.
[103] Though the moral character ([Greek: ê)=thos]) of Sokrates is fully maintained and even strikingly dramatised--the intellectual personality is altogether transformed.
Instead of a speaker who avows his own ignorance, and blames others only for believing themselves to know when they are equally ignorant--we have one who indulges in the widest range of theory and the boldest employment of hypothesis.
Plato introduces his own dogmatical and mystical views, leaning in part on the Orphic and Pythagorean creeds.
[104] He declares the distinctness of nature, the incompatibility, the forced temporary union and active conflict, between the soul and the body.
He includes this in the still wider and more general declaration, which recognises antithesis between the two worlds: the world of Ideas, Forms, Essences, not perceivable but only cogitable, eternal, and unchangeable, with which the soul or mind was in kindred and communion--the world of sense, or of transient and ever-changing appearances or phenomena, never arriving at permanent existence, but always coming and going, with which the body was in commerce and harmony.
The philosopher, who thirsts only after knowledge and desires to look at things[105] as they are in themselves, with his mind by itself--is represented as desiring, throughout all his life, to loosen as much as possible the implication of his soul with his body, and as rejoicing when the hour of death arrives to divorce them altogether.
[Footnote 103: In reviewing the Apology (supra, vol.
i. ch.
ix.
p. 410) I have already noticed this very material discrepancy, which is insisted upon by Ast as an argument for disallowing the genuineness of the Apology.]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Phædon, pp.
69 C, 70 C, 81 C, 62 B.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Phædon, p. 66 E. [Greek: a)pallakte/on au)tou= (tou= sô/matos) kai\ au)tê=| tê=| psuchê=| theate/on au)ta\ ta\ pra/gmata.]]
[Side-note: Total renunciation and discredit of the body in the Phædon.
Different feeling about the body in other Platonic dialogues.]
Such total renunciation of the body is put, with dramatic propriety, into the mouth of Sokrates during the last hour of his life.
But it would not have been in harmony with the character of Sokrates as other Platonic dialogues present him--in the plenitude of life--manifesting distinguished bodily strength and soldierly efficiency, proclaiming gymnastic training for the body to be co-ordinate with musical training for the mind, and impressed with the most intense admiration for the personal beauty of youth.
The human body, which in the Phædon is discredited as a morbid incumbrance corrupting the purity of the soul, is presented to us by Sokrates in the Phædrus as the only sensible object which serves as a mirror and reflection of the beauty of the ideal world:[106] while the Platonic Timæus proclaims (in language not unsuitable to Locke) that sight, hearing, and speech are the sources of our abstract Ideas, and the generating causes of speculative intellect and philosophy.
[107] Of these, and of the world of sense generally, an opposite view was appropriate in the Phædon; where the purpose of Sokrates is to console his distressed friends by showing that death was no misfortune, but relief from a burthen.
And Plato has availed himself of this impressive situation,[108] to recommend, with every charm of poetical expression, various characteristic dogmas respecting the essential distinction between Ideas and the intelligible world on one side--Perceptions and the sensible world on the other: respecting the soul, its nature akin to the intelligible world, its pre-existence anterior to its present body, and its continued existence after the death of the latter: respecting the condition of the soul before birth and after death, its transition, in the case of most men, into other bodies, either human or animal, with the condition of suffering penalties commensurate to the wrongs committed in this life: finally, respecting the privilege accorded to the souls of such as have passed their lives in intellectual and philosophical occupation, that they shall after death remain for ever disembodied, in direct communion with the world of Ideas.
[Footnote 106: Plato, Charmidês, p. 155 D. Protagoras, init.
Phædrus, p. 250 D. Symposion, pp.
177 C, 210 A. Æschines, one of the Socratici viri or fellow disciples of Sokrates along with Plato, composed dialogues (of the same general nature as those of Plato) wherein Sokrates was introduced conversing or arguing.
Æschines placed in the mouth of Sokrates the most intense expressions of passionate admiration towards the person of Alkibiades.
See the Fragments cited by the Rhetor Aristeides, Orat.
xlv.
pp.
20-23, ed.
Dindorf.
Aristeides mentions (p. 24) that various persons in his time mistook these expressions ascribed to Sokrates for the real talk of Sokrates himself.
Compare also the Symposion of Xenophon, iv.
27.]
[Footnote 107: Plato, Timæus, p. 47, A-D.
Consult also the same dialogue, pp.
87-88, where Plato insists on the necessity of co-ordinate attention both to mind and to body, and on the mischiefs of highly developed force in the mind unless it be accompanied by a corresponding development of force in the body.]
[Footnote 108: Compare the description of the last discourse of Pætus Thrasea.
Tacitus, Annal.
xvi.
34.]
[Side-note: Plato's argument does not prove the immortality of the soul.
Even if it did prove that, yet the mode of pre-existence and the mode of post-existence, of the soul, would be quite undetermined.]
The main part of Plato's argumentation, drawn from the general assumptions of his philosophy, is directed to prove the separate and perpetual existence of the soul, before as well as after the body.
These arguments, interesting as specimens of the reasoning which satisfied Plato, do not prove his conclusion.
[109] But even if that conclusion were admitted to be proved, the condition of the soul, during such anterior and posterior existence, would be altogether undetermined, and would be left to the free play of sentiment and imagination.
There is no subject upon which the poetical genius of Plato has been more abundantly exercised.
[110] He has given us two different descriptions of the state of the soul before its junction with the body (Timæus, and Phædrus), and three different descriptions of its destiny after separation from the body (Republic, Gorgias, Phædon).
In all the three, he supposes an adjudication and classification of the departed souls, and a better or worse fate allotted** to each according to the estimate which he forms of their merits or demerits during life: but in each of the three, this general idea is carried out by a different machinery.
The Hades of Plato is not announced even by himself as anything more than approximation to the truth: but it embodies his own ethical and judicial sentence on the classes of men around him--as the Divina Commedia embodies that of Dante on antecedent individual persons.
Plato distributes rewards and penalties in the measure which he conceives to be deserved: he erects his own approbation and disapprobation, his own sympathy and antipathy, into laws of the unknown future state: the Gods, whom he postulates, are imaginary agents introduced to execute the sentences which he dictates.
While others, in their conceptions of posthumous existence, assured the happiest fate, sometimes even divinity itself, to great warriors and law-givers--to devoted friends and patriots like Harmodius and Aristogeiton--to the exquisite beauty of Helen--or to favourites of the Gods like Ganymêdes or Pelops[111]--Plato claims that supreme distinction for the departed philosopher.
[Footnote 109: Wyttenbach has annexed to his edition of the Phædon an instructive review of the argumentation contained in it respecting the Immortality of the soul.
He observes justly--"Videamus jam de Phædone, qui ab omni antiquitate is habitus est liber, in quo rationes immortalitatis animarum gravissimé luculentissiméque exposita essent.
Quæ quidem libro laus et auctoritas conciliata est, non tam firmitate argumentorum, quam eloquentiâ Platonis," &c. (Disputat.
De Placit.
Immort.
Anim.
p. 10).
The same feeling, substantially, is expressed by one of the disputants in Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, who states that he assented to the reasoning while he was reading the dialogue, but that as soon as he had laid down the book, his assent all slipped away from him.
I have already mentioned that Panætius, an extreme admirer of Plato on most points, dissented from him about the immortality of the soul (Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
i.
11, 24--i.
32, 79), and declared the Phædon to be spurious.
Galen also mentions (De Format.
Foetûs, vol.
iv.
pp.
700-702.
Kühn) that he had written a special treatise (now lost) to prove that the reasonings in the Phædon were self-contradictory, and that he could not satisfy himself, either about the essence of the soul, or whether it was mortal or immortal.
Compare his treatise [Greek: Peri\ Ou)si/as tô=n phusikô=n duna/meôn]--iv.
pp.
762-763--and [Greek: Peri\ tô=n tê=s Psuchê=s ê)thô=n], iv.
773.
In this last passage, he represents the opinion of Plato to be--That the two inferior souls, the courageous and the appetitive, are mortal, in which he (Galen) agrees, and that the rational soul alone is immortal, of which he (Galen) is not persuaded.
Now this view of Plato's opinion is derived from the Republic and Timæus, not from the Phædon, in which last the triple soul is not acknowledged.
We may thus partly understand the inconsistencies, which Galen pointed out in his lost Treatise, in the argumentation of the Phædon: wherein one of the proofs presented to establish the immortality of the soul is--That the soul is inseparably and essentially identified with life, and cannot admit death (p. 105 D).
This argument, if good at all, is just as good to prove the immortality of the two inferior souls, as of the superior and rational soul.
Galen might therefore remark that it did not consist with the conclusion which he drew from the Timæus and the Republic.]
[Footnote 110: Wyttenbach, l. c. p. 19.
"Vidimus de philosophâ hujus loci parte, quâ demonstratur, Animos esse immortales.
Altera pars, quâ ostenditur, qualis sit ille post hanc vitam status, fabulosé et poeticé à Platone tractata est."
&c.] [Footnote 111: Skolion of Kallistratus, Antholog.
Græc.
p. 155.
Isokrates, Encomium Helenæ, Or.
x. s. 70-72.
Compare the [Greek: Ne/kuia] of the Odyssey and that of the Æneid, respecting the heroes-"Quæ gratia currûm Armorumque fuit vivis, quæ cura nitentes Pascere equos, eadem sequitur tellure repostos."
(Æn.
vi.
653-5.)]
[Side-note: The philosopher will enjoy an existence of pure soul unattached to any body.]
The Philosopher, as a recompense for having detached himself during life as much as possible from the body and all its functions, will be admitted after death to existence as a soul pure and simple, unattached to any body.
The souls of all other persons, dying with more or less of the taint of the body attached to each of them,[112] and for that reason haunting the tombs in which the bodies are buried, so as to become visible there as ghosts--are made subject, in the Platonic Hades, to penalty and purification suitable to the respective condition of each; after which they become attached to new bodies, sometimes of men, sometimes of other animals.
Of this distributive scheme it is not possible to frame any clear idea, nor is Plato consistent with himself except in a few material features.
But one feature there is in it which stands conspicuous--the belief in the metempsychosis, or transfer of the same soul from one animal body to another: a belief very widely diffused throughout the ancient world, associated with the immortality of the soul, pervading the Orphic and Pythagorean creeds, and having its root in the Egyptian and Oriental religions.
[113] [Footnote 112: Plato, Phædon, p. 81 C-D. [Greek: o(\ dê\ kai\ e)/chousa ê( toiau/tê psuchê\ baru/netai te kai\ e(/lketai pa/lin ei)s to\n o(rato\n to/pon, pho/bô| tou= a)eidou=s te kai\ A(/idou, ô(/sper le/getai, peri\ ta\ mnê/mata/ te kai\ tou\s ta/phous kalindoume/nê; peri\ a(\ dê\ kai\ ô)/phthê a(/tta psuchô=n skioeidê= phanta/smata oi(=a pare/chontai ai( toiau=tai psuchai\ ei)/dôla, ai( mê\ katharô=s a)poluthei=sai, a)lla\ _tou= o(ratou= mete/chousai, dio\ kai\ o(rô=ntai_.]
Lactantius--in replying to the arguments of Demokritus, Epikurus, and Dikæarchus against the immortality of the soul--reminded them that any _Magus_ would produce visible evidence to refute them; by calling up before them the soul of any deceased person to give information and predict the future--"qui profecto non auderent de animarum interitu mago praesente disserere, qui sciret certis carminibus cieri ab infernis animas et adesse et præbere se videndas et loqui et futura prædicere: et si auderent, re ipsâ et documentis præsentibus vincerentur" (Lactant.
Inst.
vii.
13).
See Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
i.
31.]
[Footnote 113: Compare the closing paragraph of the Platonic Timæus: Virgil, Æneid vi.
713, Herodot.
ii.
123, Pausanias, iv.
32, 4, Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Math.
ix.
127, with the citation from Empedokles:-"Tum pater Anchises: 'Animæ quibus altera fato Corpora debentur, Lethæi ad fluminis undam Securos latices et longa oblivia potant'."
The general doctrine, upon which the Metempsychosis rests, is set forth by Virgil in the fine lines which follow, 723-751; compare Georgic iv.
218.
The souls of men, beasts, birds, and fishes, are all of them detached fragments or portions from the universal soul, mind, or life, ætherial or igneous, which pervades the whole Kosmos.
The soul of each individual thus detached to be conjoined with a distinct body, becomes tainted by such communion; after death it is purified by penalties, measured according to the greater or less taint, and becomes then fit to be attached to a new body, yet not until it has drunk the water of Lêthê (Plato, Philêbus, p. 30 A; Timæus, p. 30 B).
The statement of Nemesius is remarkable, that all Greeks who believed the immortality of the soul, believed also in the metempsychosis--[Greek: Koinê=| me\n ou)=n pa/ntes E)/llênes, oi( tê\n psuchê\n a)tha/naton a)pophê|na/menoi, tê\n metensôma/tôsin dogmati/zousin] (De Naturâ Hominis, cap.
ii.
p. 50, ed.
1565).
Plato accepted the Egyptian and Pythagorean doctrine, continued in the Orphic mysteries (Arnob.
adv.
Gentes, ii.
16), making no essential distinction between the souls of men and those of animals, and recognising reciprocal interchange from the one to the other.
The Platonists adhered to this doctrine fully, down to the third century A.D., including Plotinus, Numenius, and others.
But Porphyry, followed by Jamblichus, introduced a modification of this creed, denying the possibility of transition of a human soul into the body of another animal, or of the soul of any other animal into the body of a man,--yet still recognising the transition from one human body to another, and from one animal body to another.
(See Alkinous, Introd.
in Platon.
c.
25.)
This subject is well handled in a learned work published in 1712 by a Jesuit of Toulouse, Michel Mourgues.
He shows (in opposition to Dacier and others, who interpreted the doctrine in a sense merely spiritual and figurative) that the metempsychosis was a literal belief of the Platonists down to the time of Proklus.
"Les quatre Platoniciens qui ont tenu la Transmigration bornée" (_i.e._ from one human body into another human body) "n'ont pas laissé d'admettre la pluralité d'animations ou de vies d'une même âme: et cela sans figure et sans métaphore.
Cet article, qui est l'essentiel, n'a jamais trouvé un seul contradicteur dans les sectes qui ont cru l'âme immortelle: ni Porphyre, ni Hiérocle, ni Procle, ni Salluste, n'ont jamais touché à ce point que pour l'approuver.
D'où il suit que la réalité de la Métempsychose est indubitable; c'est à dire, qu'il est indubitable que tous les sectateurs de Pythagore et de Platon l'ont soutenue dans un sens très réel quant à la pluralité des vies et d'animations" (Tom.
i. p. 525: also Tom.
ii.
p. 432) M. Cousin and M. Barthélemy St Hilaire are of the same opinion.
M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire observes in his Premier Mémoire sur le Sankhyâ p. 416, Paris, 1852.
"Voilà donc la transmigration dans les plus grands dialogues de Platon--le Timée, la République, le Phèdre, le Phédon.
On peut en retrouver la trace manifeste dans d'autres dialogues moins considérables, le Menon et le Politique, par exemple.
La transmigration est même positivement indiquée dans le dixième Livre des Lois, où Platon traite avec tant de force et de solennité de la providence et de la justice divines.
"En présence de témoignages si sérieux, et de tant de persistance à revenir sur des opinions qui ne varient pas, je crois que tout esprit sensé ne peut que partager l'avis de M. Cousin.
Il est impossible que Platon ne se fasse de l'exposition de ces opinions qu'un pur badinage.
Il les a répetées, sans les modifier en rien, au milieu des discussions les plus graves et les plus étendues.
Ajoutez que ces doctrines tiennent intimément à toutes celles qui sont le fond même du platonisme, et qu'elles s'y entrelacent si étroitement, que les en détacher, c'est le mutiler et l'amoindrir.
Le système des Idées ne se comprend pas tout entier sans la réminiscence: et la réminiscence elle même implique necessairement l'existence antérieure de l'âme."
Dr. Henry More, in his 'Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul,' argues at considerable length in defence of pre-existence of each soul, as a part of the doctrine.
He considers himself to have clearly proved--"That the pre-existence of the soul is an opinion both in itself the most rational that can be maintained, and has had the suffrage of the most renowned philosophers in all ages of the world".
Of these last-mentioned philosophers he gives a list, as follows--Moses, on the authority of the Jewish Cabbala--Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Empedocles, Cebês, Euripides, Plato, Euclid, Philo, Virgil, Marcus Cicero, Plotinus, Jamblichus, Proclus, Boethius, &c. See chapters xii.
and xiii.
pages 116, 117, 121 of his Treatise.
Compare also what he says in Sect.
18 of his Preface General, page xx.-xxiv.]
[Side-note: Plato's demonstration of the immortality of the soul did not appear satisfactory to subsequent philosophers.
The question remained debated and problematical.]
We are told that one vehement admirer of Plato--the Ambrakiot Kleombrotus--was so profoundly affected and convinced by reading the Phædon, that he immediately terminated his existence by leaping from a high wall; though in other respects well satisfied with life.
But the number of persons who derived from it such settled conviction, was certainly not considerable.
Neither the doctrine nor the reasonings of Plato were adopted even by the immediate successors in his school: still less by Aristotle and the Peripatetics--or by the Stoics--or by the Epikureans.
The Epikureans denied altogether the survivorship of soul over body: Aristotle gives a definition of the soul which involves this same negation, though he admits as credible the separate existence of the rational soul, without individuality or personality.
The Stoics, while affirming the soul to be material as well as the body, considered it as a detached fragment of the all-pervading cosmical or mundane soul, which was re-absorbed after the death of the individual into the great whole to which it belonged.
None of these philosophers were persuaded by the arguments of Plato.
The popular orthodoxy, which he often censures harshly, recognised some sort of posthumous existence as a part of its creed; and the uninquiring multitude continued in the teaching and traditions of their youth.
But literary and philosophical men, who sought to form some opinion for themselves without altogether rejecting (as the Epikureans rejected) the basis of the current traditions--were in no better condition for deciding the question with the assistance of Plato, than they would have been without him.
While the knowledge of the bodily organism, and of mind or soul as embodied therein, received important additions, from Aristotle down to Galen--no new facts either were known or could become known, respecting soul _per se_, considered as pre-existent or post-existent to body.
Galen expressly records his dissatisfaction with Plato on this point, though generally among his warmest admirers.
Questions of this kind remained always problematical, standing themes for rhetoric or dialectic.
[114] Every man could do, though not with the same exuberant eloquence, what Plato had done--and no man could do more.
Every man could coin his own hopes and fears, his own æsthetical preferences and repugnances, his own ethical aspiration to distribute rewards and punishments among the characters around him--into affirmative prophecies respecting an unknowable future, where neither verification nor Elenchus were accessible.
The state of this discussion throughout the Pagan world bears out the following remark of Lord Macaulay, with which I conclude the present chapter:--"There are branches of knowledge with respect to which the law of the human mind is progress.
.
.
.
But with theology, the case is very different.
As respects natural religion--revelation being for the present altogether left out of the question--it is not easy to see that a philosopher of the present day is more favourably situated than Thales or Simonides.
.
.
.
As to the other great question--the question, what becomes of man after death--we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian.
Not a single one of the many sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians, throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal life is extinct.
In truth, all the philosophers, ancient and modern, who have attempted, without the help of revelation, to prove the immortality of man--from Plato down to Franklin--appear to us to have failed deplorably.
Then again, all the great enigmas which perplex the natural theologian are the same in all ages.
The ingenuity of a people just emerging from barbarism, is quite sufficient to propound them.
The genius of Locke or Clarke is quite unable to solve them.
.
.
.
Natural Theology, then, is not a progressive science.
"[115] [Footnote 114: Seneca says, Epist.
88.
"Innumerabiles sunt quæstiones de animo: unde sit, qualis sit, quando esse incipiat, quamdiu sit; an aliunde aliò transeat, et domicilium mutet, ad alias animalium formas aliasque conjectus, an non amplius quam semel serviat, et emissus evagetur in toto; utrum corpus sit, an non sit: quid sit facturus, quum per nos aliquid facere desierit: quomodo libertate usurus, cum ex hâc exierit caveâ: an obliviscatur priorum et illic nosse incipiat, postquam de corpore abductus in sublime secessit."
Compare Lucretius, i.
113.]
[Footnote 115: Macaulay, Ranke's History of the Popes (Crit.
and Hist.
Essays, vol.
iii.
p. 210).
Sir Wm.
Hamilton observes (Lectures on Logic, Lect.
26, p. 55): "Thus Plato, in the Phædon, demonstrates the immortality of the soul from its simplicity: in the Republic, he demonstrates its simplicity from its immortality."]
END OF VOL.
II.
************************************* Transcriber's Note The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.
For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used: ) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.
ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta; ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.
Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **: Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction ToC, Ch.
13 s-n 3 Minor Major ToC, Ch.
14 s-n 24 _pain_ _gain_ Ch.
13 fn.
40 iv.
4, 5; iv.
4, 5, p. 220 seq.
); Ch.
13 near fn.
46 he was even fit he was not even fit Ch.
17 near fn.
3 fulfiling fulfilling Ch.
19 after fn.
32 sixth eighth Ch.
19 fn.
44 p. .
p. 31.
Ch.
20 after fn.
13 aud and Ch.
22 after fn.
47 sixth eighth Ch.
23 fn.
134 p. 240 p. 242 Ch.
23 fn.
135 ch.
xviii ch.
xvii Ch.
24 fn.
75 Pratagoras Protagoras Ch.
24 fn.
77 a)nro/s a)ndro/s Ch.
24 fn.
86 Die _Dialoge..._ _Die Dialoge..._ Ch.
25 after fn.
58 intellegible intelligible Ch.
25 after fn.
110 alloted allotted
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
BY GEORGE GROTE AUTHOR OF THE 'HISTORY OF GREECE'.
_A NEW EDITION._ IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL.
III.
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1888.
_The right of Translation is reserved._ CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PHÆDRUS--SYMPOSION.
These two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato.
Phædrus is the originator of both 1 Eros as conceived by Plato.
Different sentiment prevalent in Hellenic antiquity and in modern times.
Position of women in Greece _ib._ Eros, considered as the great stimulus to improving philosophical communion.
Personal Beauty, the great point of approximation between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.
Gradual generalisation of the sentiment 4 All men love Good, as the means of Happiness, but they pursue it by various means.
The name _Eros_ is confined to one special case of this large variety 5 Desire of mental copulation and procreation, as the only attainable likeness of immortality, requires the sight of personal beauty as an originating stimulus 6 Highest exaltation of the erotic impulse in a few privileged minds, when it ascends gradually to the love of Beauty in general.
This is the most absorbing sentiment of all 7 Purpose of the Symposion, to contrast this Platonic view of Eros with several different views of it previously enunciated by the other speakers; closing with a panegyric on Sokrates, by the drunken Alkibiades 8 Views of Eros presented by Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon 9 Discourse of Sokrates from revelation of Diotima.
He describes Eros as not a God, but an intermediate Dæmon between Gods and men, constantly aspiring to divinity, but not attaining it 9 Analogy of the erotic aspiration with that of the philosopher, who knows his own ignorance and thirsts for knowledge 10 Eros as presented in the Phædrus--Discourse of Lysias, and counter-discourse of Sokrates, adverse to Eros--Sokrates is seized with remorse, and recants in a high-flown panegyric on Eros 11 Panegyric--Sokrates admits that the influence of Eros is a variety of madness, but distinguishes good and bad varieties of madness, both coming from the Gods.
Good madness is far better than sobriety _ib._ Poetical mythe delivered by Sokrates, describing the immortality and pre-existence of the soul, and its pre-natal condition of partial companionship with Gods and eternal Ideas 12 Operation of such pre-natal experience upon the Intellectual faculties of man--Comparison and combination of particular sensations indispensable--Reminiscence 13 Reminiscence is kindled up in the soul of the philosopher by the aspect of visible Beauty, which is the great link between the world of sense and the world of Ideas 14 Elevating influence ascribed, both in Phædrus and Symposion, to Eros Philosophus.
Mixture in the mind of Plato, of poetical fancy and religious mysticism, with dialectic theory 15 Differences between Symposion and Phædrus.
In-dwelling conceptions assumed by the former, pre-natal experiences by the latter 17 Nothing but metaphorical immortality recognised in Symposion _ib._ Form or Idea of Beauty presented singly and exclusively in Symposion 18 Eros recognised, both in Phædrus and Symposion, as affording the initiatory stimulus to philosophy--Not so recognised in Phædon, Theætêtus, and elsewhere _ib._ Concluding scene and speech of Alkibiades in the Symposion--Behaviour of Sokrates to Alkibiades and other handsome youths 19 Perfect self-command of Sokrates--proof against every sort of trial 20 Drunkenness of others at the close of the Symposion--Sokrates is not affected by it, but continues his dialectic process 21 Symposion and Phædon--each is the antithesis and complement of the other 22 Symposion of Plato compared with that of Xenophon _ib._ Small proportion of the serious, in the Xenophontic Symposion 24 Platonic Symposion more ideal and transcendental than the Xenophontic 25 Second half of the Phædrus--passes into a debate on Rhetoric.
Eros is considered as a subject for rhetorical exercise 26 Lysias is called a logographer by active politicians.
Contempt conveyed by the word.
Sokrates declares that the only question is, Whether a man writes well or ill 27 Question about teaching the art of writing well or speaking well.
Can it be taught upon system or principle?
Or does the successful Rhetor succeed only by unsystematic knack?
28 Theory of Sokrates--that all art of persuasion must be founded upon a knowledge of the truth, and of gradations of resemblance to the truth _ib._ Comparison made by Sokrates between the discourse of Lysias and his own.
Eros is differently understood: Sokrates defined what he meant by it: Lysias did not define 29 Logical processes--Definition and Division--both of them exemplified in the two discourses of Sokrates _ib._ View of Sokrates--that there is no real Art of Rhetoric, except what is already comprised in Dialectic--The rhetorical teaching is empty and useless 30 What the Art of Rhetoric ought to be--Analogy of Hippokrates and the medical Art 31 Art of Rhetoric ought to include a systematic classification of minds with all their varieties, and of discourses with all their varieties.
The Rhetor must know how to apply the one to the other, suitably to each particular case 32 The Rhetorical Artist must farther become possessed of real truth, as well as that which his auditors believe to be truth.
He is not sufficiently rewarded for this labour 33 Question about Writing--As an Art, for the purpose of instruction, it can do little--Reasons why.
Writing may remind the reader of what he already knows _ib._ Neither written words, nor continuous speech, will produce any serious effect in teaching.
Dialectic and cross-examination are necessary 34 The Dialectician and Cross-Examiner is the only man who can really teach.
If the writer can do this, he is more than a writer 37 Lysias is only a logographer: Isokrates promises to become a philosopher 38 Date of the Phædrus--not an early dialogue _ib._ Criticism given by Plato on the three discourses--His theory of Rhetoric is more Platonic than Sokratic _ib._ His theory postulates, in the Rhetor, knowledge already assured--it assumes that all the doubts have been already removed 39 The Expositor, with knowledge and logical process, teaches minds unoccupied and willing to learn _ib._ The Rhetor does not teach, but persuades persons with minds pre-occupied--guiding them methodically from error to truth 40 He must then classify the minds to be persuaded, and the means of persuasion or varieties of discourse.
He must know how to fit on the one to the other in each particular case 41 Plato's _Idéal_ of the Rhetorical Art--involves in part incompatible conditions--the Wise man or philosopher will never be listened to by the public _ib._ The other part of the Platonic _Idéal_ is grand but unattainable--breadth of psychological data and classified modes of discourse 42 Plato's ideal grandeur compared with the rhetorical teachers--Usefulness of these teachers for the wants of an accomplished man 44 The Rhetorical teachers conceived the Art too narrowly: Plato conceived it too widely.
The principles of an Art are not required to be explained to all learners 45 Plato includes in his conception of Art, the application thereof to new particular cases.
This can never be taught by rule 46 Plato's charge against the Rhetorical teachers is not made out 47 Plato has not treated Lysias fairly, in neglecting his greater works, and selecting for criticism an erotic exercise for a private circle 47 No fair comparison can be taken between this exercise of Lysias and the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the Phædrus 48 Continuous discourse, either written or spoken, inefficacious as a means of instruction to the ignorant 49 Written matter is useful as a memorandum for persons who know--or as an elegant pastime 50 Plato's didactic theories are pitched too high to be realised 51 No one has ever been found competent to solve the difficulties raised by Sokrates, Arkesilaus, Karneades, and the negative vein of philosophy _ib._ Plato's _idéal_ philosopher can only be realised under the hypothesis of a pre-existent and omniscient soul, stimulated into full reminiscence here 52 Different proceeding of Plato in the Timæus 53 Opposite tendencies co-existent in Plato's mind--Extreme of the Transcendental or Absolute--Extreme of specialising adaptation to individuals and occasions 54 CHAPTER XXVII.
PARMENIDES.
Character of dialogues immediately preceding--much transcendental assertion.
Opposite character of the Parmenides 56 Sokrates is the juvenile defendant--Parmenides the veteran censor and cross-examiner.
Parmenides gives a specimen of exercises to be performed by the philosophical aspirant _ib._ Circumstances and persons of the Parmenides 57 Manner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was impugned.
Manner in which his partisan Zeno defended him 58 Sokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno.
He affirms the Platonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet participable by them 60 Parmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of Sokrates.
Parmenides advances objections against the Platonic theory of Ideas 60 What Ideas does Sokrates recognise?
Of the Just and Good?
Yes.
Of Man, Horse, &c.?
Doubtful.
Of Hair, Mud, &c.?
No _ib._ Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to the philosopher 61 Remarks upon this--Contrast between emotional and scientific classification _ib._ Objections of Parmenides--How can objects participate in the Ideas.
Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part thereof 62 Comparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking in the Idea, there is a likeness between them which must be represented by a higher Idea--and so on _ad infinitum_ 63 Are the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing more?
Impossible 64 The Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake of them by being likened to them.
Impossible 65 If Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us.
We can know only what is relative to ourselves.
Individuals are relative to individuals: Ideas relative to Ideas _ib._ Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which we do not possess 66 Form of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs to the Gods.
We cannot know them, nor can they know us _ib._ Sum total of objections against the Ideas is grave.
But if we do not admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable, there can be no dialectic discussion 67 Dilemma put by Parmenides--Acuteness of his objections 68 The doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine Platonic theory of Ideas.
His objections are never answered in any part of the Platonic dialogues _ib._ Views of Stallbaum and Socher.
The latter maintains that Plato would never make such objections against his own theory, and denies the authenticity of the Parmenidês 69 Philosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive system of his own 70 Different spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search _ib._ The Parmenidês is the extreme manifestation of the negative element.
That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting forth the negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not unnatural 71 Force of the negative case in the Parmenidês.
Difficulties about participation of sensible objects in the world of Ideas _ib._ Difficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas.
If Ideas are absolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable, they must be relative.
Doctrine of Homo Mensura 72 Answer of Sokrates--That Ideas are mere conceptions of the mind.
Objection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped 73 Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from ancient times to the present day--Different views of Plato and Aristotle upon it 76 Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the facts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded 78 Continuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes Sokrates that he has been premature in delivering a doctrine, without sufficient preliminary exercise 79 What sort of exercise?
Parmenides describes: To assume provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the consequences of each _ib._ Impossible to do this before a numerous audience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much solicitation he agrees 80 Parmenides elects his own theory of the _Unum_, as the topic for exhibition--Aristoteles becomes respondent _ib._ Exhibition of Parmenides--Nine distinct deductions or Demonstrations, first from _Unum Est_--next from _Unum non Est_ 81 The Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or Antinomies.
Perplexing entanglement of conclusions given without any explanation _ib._ Different judgments of Platonic critics respecting the Antinomies and the dialogue generally 82 No dogmatical solution or purpose is wrapped up in the dialogue.
The purpose is negative, to make a theorist keenly feel all the difficulties of theorising 85 This negative purpose is expressly announced by Plato himself.
All dogmatical purpose, extending farther, is purely hypothetical, and even inconsistent with what is declared 87 The Demonstrations or Antinomies considered.
They include much unwarranted assumption and subtlety.
Collection of unexplained perplexities or [Greek: a)pori/ai] 88 Even if Plato himself saw through these subtleties, he might still choose to impose and to heap up difficulties in the way of a forward affirmative aspirant 89 The exercises exhibited by Parmenides are exhibited only as illustrative specimens of a method enjoined to be applied to many other Antinomies 91 These Platonic Antinomies are more formidable than any of the sophisms or subtleties broached by the Megaric philosophers _ib._ In order to understand fully the Platonic Antinomies, we ought to have before us the problems of the Megarics and others.
Uselessness of searching for a positive result 93 Assumptions of Parmenides in his Demonstrations convey the minimum of determinate meaning.
Views of Aristotle upon these indeterminate predicates, Ens, Unum, &c. 94 In the Platonic Demonstrations the same proposition in words is made to bear very different meanings 95 First demonstration ends in an assemblage of negative conclusions.
_Reductio ad Absurdum_, of the assumption--Unum non Multa 96 Second Demonstration 97 It ends in demonstrating _Both_, of that which the first Demonstration had demonstrated _Neither_ 98 Startling paradox--Open offence against logical canon--No logical canon had then been laid down 99 Demonstration third--Attempt to reconcile the contradiction of Demonstrations I. and II.
100 Plato's imagination of the Sudden or Instantaneous--Breaches or momentary stoppages in the course of time _ib._ Review of the successive pairs of Demonstrations or Antinomies in each, the first proves the Neither, the second proves the Both 101 The third Demonstration is mediatorial but not satisfactory--The hypothesis of the Sudden or Instantaneous found no favour 102 Review of the two last Antinomies.
Demonstrations VI.
and VII.
103 Demonstration VII.
is founded upon the genuine doctrine of Parmenides 104 Demonstrations VI.
and VII.
considered--Unwarrantable steps in the reasoning--The fundamental premiss differently interpreted, though the same in words 105 Demonstrations VIII.
and IX.--Analysis of Demonstration VIII.
106 Demonstration VIII.
is very subtle and Zenonian 107 Demonstration IX.
_Neither_ following _Both_ _ib._ Concluding words of the Parmenides--Declaration that he has demonstrated the Both and the Neither of many different propositions 108 Comparison of the conclusion of the Parmenides to an enigma of the Republic.
Difference.
The constructor of the enigma adapted its conditions to a foreknown solution.
Plato did not _ib._ CHAPTER XXVIII.
THEÆTETUS.
Subjects and personages in the Theætêtus 110 Question raised by Sokrates--What is knowledge or Cognition?
First answer of Theætêtus, enumerating many different cognitions.
Corrected by Sokrates 111 Preliminary conversation before the second answer is given.
Sokrates describes his own peculiar efficacy--mental obstetric--He cannot teach, but he can evolve knowledge out of pregnant minds 112 Ethical basis of the cross-examination of Sokrates--He is forbidden to pass by falsehood without challenge 113 Answer of Theætêtus--Cognition is sensible perception: Sokrates says that this is the same doctrine as the _Homo Mensura_ laid down by Protagoras, and that both are in close affinity with the doctrines of Homer, Herakleitus, Empedoklês, &c., all except Parmenides _ib._ Plato here blends together three distinct theories for the purpose of confuting them; yet he also professes to urge what can be said in favour of them.
Difficulty of following his exposition 114 The doctrine of Protagoras is completely distinct from the other doctrines.
The identification of them as one and the same is only constructive--the interpretation of Plato himself 115 Explanation of the doctrine of Protagoras--_Homo Mensura_ 116 Perpetual implication of Subject with Object--Relate and Correlate 118 Such relativity is no less true in regard to the ratiocinative combinations of each individual, than in regard to his percipient capacities _ib._ Evidence from Plato proving implication of Subject and Object, in regard to the intelligible world 121 The Protagorean measure is even more easily shown in reference to the intelligible world than in reference to sense 122 Object always relative to Subject--Either without the other, impossible.
Plato admits this in Sophistes 126 Plato's representation of the Protagorean doctrine in intimate conjunction with the Herakleitean 126 Relativity of sensible facts, as described by him _ib._ Relations are nothing in the object purely and simply without a comparing subject 127 Relativity twofold--to the comparing Subject--to another object, besides the one directly described _ib._ Statement of the doctrine of Herakleitus--yet so as to implicate it with that of Protagoras 128 Agent and Patient--No absolute Ens 129 Arguments derived from dreams, fevers, &c., may be answered 130 Exposition of the Protagorean doctrine, as given here by Sokrates is to a great degree just.
You cannot explain the facts of consciousness by independent Subject and Object 131 Plato's attempt to get behind the phenomena.
Reference to a double potentiality--Subjective and Objective 133 Arguments advanced by the Platonic Sokrates against the Protagorean doctrine.
He says that it puts the wise and foolish on a par--that it contradicts the common consciousness.
Not every one, but the wise man only, is a measure 135 In matters of present sentiment every man can judge for himself.
Where future consequences are involved special knowledge is required 136 Plato, when he impugns the doctrine of Protagoras, states that doctrine without the qualification properly belonging to it.
All belief relative to the condition of the believing mind 137 All exposition and discussion is an assemblage of individual judgments and affirmations.
This fact is disguised by elliptical forms of language 139 Argument--That the Protagorean doctrine equalises all men and animals.
How far true.
Not true in the sense requisite to sustain Plato's objection 141 Belief on authority is true to the believer himself--The efficacy of authority resides in the believer's own mind 142 Protagorean formula--is false, to those who dissent from it 143 Plato's argument that the wise man alone is a measure--Reply to it _ib._ Plato's argument as to the distinction between present sensation and anticipation of the future 145 The formula of Relativity does not imply that every man believes himself to be infallible _ib._ Plato's argument is untenable--That if the Protagorean formula be admitted, dialectic discussion would be annulled--The reverse is true--Dialectic recognises the autonomy of the Individual mind 146 Contrast with the Treatise De Legibus--Plato assumes infallible authority--sets aside dialectic 148 Plato in denying the Protagorean formula, constitutes himself the measure for all.
Counter proposition to the formula _ib._ Import of the Protagorean formula is best seen when we state explicitly the counter-proposition 150 Unpopularity of the Protagorean formula--Most believers insist upon making themselves a measure for others, as well as for themselves.
Appeal to Abstractions 150 Aristotle failed in his attempts to refute the Protagorean formula--Every reader of Aristotle will claim the right of examining for himself Aristotle's canons of truth 152 Plato's examination of the other doctrine--That knowledge is Sensible Perception.
He adverts to sensible facts which are different with different Percipients 153 Such is not the case with all the facts of sense.
The conditions of unanimity are best found among select facts of sense--weighing, measuring, &c. 154 Arguments of Sokrates in examining this question.
Divergence between one man and another arises, not merely from different sensual impressibility, but from mental and associative difference 155 Argument--That sensible Perception does not include memory--Probability that those who held the doctrine meant to include memory 157 Argument from the analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same time _ib._ Sokrates maintains that we do not see _with_ our eyes, but that the mind sees _through_ the eyes: that the mind often conceives and judges by itself without the aid of any bodily organ 159 Indication of several judgments which the mind makes by itself--It perceives Existence, Difference, &c. 160 Sokrates maintains that knowledge is to be found, not in the Sensible Perceptions themselves, but in the comparisons add computations of the mind respecting them 161 Examination of this view--Distinction from the views of modern philosophers 162 Different views given by Plato in other dialogues 163 Plato's discussion of this question here exhibits a remarkable advance in analytical psychology.
The mind rises from Sensation, first to Opinion, then to Cognition 164 Plato did not recognise Verification from experience, or from facts of sense, as either necessary or possible 168 Second definition given by Theætêtus--That Cognition consists in right or true opinion _ib._ Objection by Sokrates--This definition assumes that there are false opinions.
But how can false opinions be possible?
How can we conceive Non-Ens: or confound together two distinct realities?
_ib._ Waxen memorial tablet in the mind, on which past impressions are engraved.
False opinion consists in wrongly identifying present sensations with past impressions 169 Sokrates refutes this assumption.
Dilemma.
Either false opinion is impossible, or else a man may know what he does not know 170 He draws distinction between possessing knowledge, and having it actually in hand.
Simile of the pigeon-cage with caught pigeons turned into it and flying about _ib._ Sokrates refutes this.
Suggestion of Theætêtus--That there may be non-cognitions in the mind as well as cognitions, and that false opinion may consist in confounding one with the other.
Sokrates rejects this 171 He brings another argument to prove that Cognition is not the same as true opinion.
Rhetors persuade or communicate true opinion; but they do not teach or communicate knowledge 172 New answer of Theætêtus--Cognition is true opinion, coupled with rational explanation 173 Criticism on the answer by Sokrates.
Analogy of letters and words, primordial elements and compounds.
Elements cannot be explained: compounds alone can be explained _ib._ Sokrates refutes this criticism.
If the elements are unknowable, the compound must be unknowable also 174 Rational explanation may have one of three different meanings.
1.
Description in appropriate language.
2.
Enumeration of all the component elements in the compound.
In neither of these meanings will the definition of Cognition hold _ib._ Third meaning.
To assign some mark, whereby the thing to be explained differs from everything else.
The definition will not hold.
For rational explanation, in this sense, is already included in true opinion 175 Conclusion of the dialogue--Summing up by Sokrates--Value of the result, although purely negative 176 Remarks on the dialogue.
View of Plato.
False persuasion of knowledge removed.
Importance of such removal _ib._ Formation of the testing or verifying power in men's minds, value of the Theætêtus, as it exhibits Sokrates demolishing his own suggestions 177 Comparison of the Philosopher with the Rhetor.
The Rhetor is enslaved to the opinions of auditors 178 The Philosopher is master of his own debates 179 Purpose of dialogue to qualify for a life of philosophical Search _ib._ Difficulties of the Theætêtus are not solved in any other Dialogue 180 Plato considered that the search for Truth was the noblest occupation of life 182 Contrast between the philosopher and the practical statesman--between Knowledge and Opinion 183 CHAPTER XXIX.
SOPHISTES--POLITIKUS.
Persons and circumstances of the two dialogues 185 Relation of the two dialogues to the Theætêtus 187 Plato declares that his first purpose is to administer a lesson in logical method: the special question chosen, being subordinate to that purpose 188 Method of logical Definition and Division _ib._ Sokrates tries the application of this method, first, upon a vulgar subject.
To find the logical place and deduction of the Angler.
Superior classes above him.
Bisecting division 189 Such a lesson in logical classification was at that time both novel and instructive.
No logical manuals then existed 190 Plato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler.
He traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the acquisitive genus of art 191 The Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and different descending subdivision 192 Also, by a third 193 The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of separating or discriminating art 194 In a logical classification, low and vulgar items deserve as much attention as grand ones.
Conflict between emotional and scientific classification 195 The purifier--a species under the genus discriminator--separates good from evil.
Evil is of two sorts; the worst sort is, Ignorance, mistaking itself for knowledge 197 Exhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil.
Cross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to bear upon it.
This is the sovereign purifier _ib._ The application of this Elenchus is the work of the Sophist, looked at on its best side.
But looked at as he really is, he is a juggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every thing--who palms off falsehood for truth 198 Doubt started by the Eleate.
How can it be possible either to think or to speak falsely?
199 He pursues the investigation of this problem by a series of questions _ib._ The Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by affirming that to speak falsely is impossible.
He will require us to make out a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens 200 The Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens.
Theories of various philosophers about Ens _ib._ Difficulties about Ens are as great as those about Non-Ens 201 Whether Ens is Many or One?
If Many, how Many?
Difficulties about One and the Whole.
Theorists about Ens cannot solve them 201 Theories of those who do not recognise a definite number of Entia or elements.
Two classes thereof 202 1.
The Materialist Philosophers.
2.
The Friends of Forms or Idealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real Entia _ib._ Argument against the Materialists--Justice must be something, since it may be either present or absent, making sensible difference--But Justice is not a body 203 At least many of them will concede this point, though not all Ens is common to the corporeal and the incorporeal.
Ens is equivalent to potentiality 204 Argument against the Idealists--who distinguish Ens from the generated, and say that we hold communion with the former through our minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses _ib._ Holding communion--What?
Implies Relativity.
Ens is known by the mind.
It therefore suffers or undergoes change.
Ens includes both the unchangeable and the changeable 205 Motion and rest are both of them Entia or realities.
Both agree in Ens.
Ens is a _tertium quid_--distinct from both.
But how can anything be distinct from both?
206 Here the Eleate breaks off without solution.
He declares his purpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as Non-Ens _ib._ Argument against those who admit no predication to be legitimate, except identical.
How far Forms admit of intercommunion with each other _ib._ No intercommunion between any distinct forms.
Refuted.
Common speech is inconsistent with this hypothesis 207 Reciprocal intercommunion of all Forms--inadmissible _ib._ Some Forms admit of intercommunion, others not.
This is the only admissible doctrine.
Analogy of letters and syllables _ib._ Art and skill are required to distinguish what Forms admit of intercommunion, and what Forms do not.
This is the special intelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright region of Ens: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens 208 He comes to enquire what Non-Ens is.
He takes for examination five principal Forms--Motion--Rest--Ens--Same--Different _ib._ Form of Diversum pervades all the others 209 Motion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum.
Motion is different from Ens--in other words, it is Non-Ens.
Each of these Forms is both Ens and Non-Ens 210 By Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens--we mean only something different from Ens.
Non-Ens is a real Form, as well as Ens _ib._ The Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to have shown both that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is 211 The theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which justifies predication as a legitimate process, with a predicate different from the subject 212 Enquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into intercommunion with the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment 213 Analysis of a Proposition.
Every Proposition must have a noun and a verb--it must be proposition of _Something_.
False propositions, involve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the particular subject _ib._ Opinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition, and may be also false, by coming into partnership with the Form Non-Ens 214 It thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is theoretically possible, and that there may be a profession, like that of the Sophist, engaged in producing it _ib._ Logical distribution of Imitators--those who imitate what they know, or what they do not know--of these last, some sincerely believe themselves to know, others are conscious that they do not know, and designedly impose upon others 215 Last class divided--Those who impose on numerous auditors by long discourse, the Rhetor--Those who impose on select auditors, by short question and answer, making the respondent contradict himself--the Sophist 215 Dialogue closed.
Remarks upon it.
Characteristics ascribed to a Sophist 216 These characteristics may have belonged to other persons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates himself _ib._ The conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the taking of a fee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person 217 The art which Plato calls "the thoroughbred and noble Sophistical Art" belongs to Sokrates and to no one else.
The Elenchus was peculiar to him.
Protagoras and Prodikus were not Sophists in this sense 218 Universal knowledge--was professed at that time by all Philosophers--Plato, Aristotle, &c. 219 Inconsistency of Plato's argument in the Sophistês.
He says that the Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every one for speaking falsehood.
He says also that the Sophist is one who maintains false propositions to be impossible 220 Reasoning of Plato about Non-Ens--No predications except identical 221 Misconception of the function of the copula in predication _ib._ No formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time.
No analysis or classification of propositions before the works of Aristotle 222 Plato's declared purpose in the Sophistês--To confute the various schools of thinkers--Antisthenes, Parmenides, the Materialists, &c. 223 Plato's refutation throws light upon the doctrine of Antisthenes _ib._ Plato's argument against the Materialists 224 Reply open to the Materialists _ib._ Plato's argument against the Idealists or Friends of Forms.
Their point of view against him 225 Plato argues--That to know, and be known, is action and passion, a mode of relativity 226 Plato's reasoning--compared with the points of view of both _ib._ The argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the Absolute, and a full establishment of the Relative 227 Coincidence of his argument with the doctrine of Protagoras in the Theætêtus _ib._ The Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were entirely unchangeable and eternal.
Plato here denies this, and maintains that ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable 228 Plato's reasoning against the Materialists _ib._ Difference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made conspicuous.
Large meaning here given by Plato to Ens--comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of Conception besides 229 Narrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens--they included only Objects of Perception.
Their reasoning as opposed to Plato _ib._ Different definitions of Ens--by Plato--the Materialists, the Idealists 231 Plato's views about Non-Ens examined _ib._ His review of the select Five Forms 233 Plato's doctrine--That Non-Ens is nothing more than different from Ens _ib._ Communion of Non-Ens with proposition--possible and explicable 235 Imperfect analysis of a proposition--Plato does not recognise the predicate _ib._ Plato's explanation of Non-Ens is not satisfactory--Objections to it 236 Plato's view of the negative is erroneous.
Logical maxim of contradiction 239 Examination of the illustrative propositions chosen by Plato--How do we know that one is true, the other false?
_ib._ Necessity of accepting the evidence of sense 240 Errors of Antisthenes--depended partly on the imperfect formal logic of that day 241 Doctrine of the Sophistês--contradicts that of other Platonic dialogues 242 The persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms are those who held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in Phædon, Republic, &c. 246 The Sophistês recedes from the Platonic point of view, and approaches the Aristotelian 247 Aristotle assumes without proof, that there are some propositions true, others false 249 Plato in the Sophistês has undertaken an impossible task--He could not have proved, against his supposed adversary, that there _are_ false propositions _ib._ What must be assumed in all dialectic discussion 251 Discussion and theorising presuppose belief and disbelief, expressed in set forms of words.
They imply predication, which Antisthenes discarded 252 Precepts and examples of logical partition, illustrated in the Sophistês 253 Recommendation of logical bipartition 254 Precepts illustrated by the Philêbus _ib._ Importance of founding logical Partition on resemblances perceived by sense 255 Province of sensible perception--is not so much narrowed by Plato here as it is in the Theætêtus 256 Comparison of the Sophistês with the Phædrus 257 Comparison of the Politikus with the Parmenidês 258 Variety of method in dialectic research--Diversity of Plato 259 CHAPTER XXX.
POLITIKUS.
The Politikus by itself, apart from the Sophistês 260 Views of Plato on mensuration.
Objects measured against each other.
Objects compared with a common standard.
In each Art, the purpose to be attained is the standard _ib._ Purpose in the Sophistês and Politikus is--To attain dialectic aptitude.
This is the standard of comparison whereby to judge whether the means employed are suitable 261 Plato's defence of the Politikus against critics.
Necessity that the critic shall declare explicitly what his standard of comparison is 262 Comparison of Politikus with Protagoras, Phædon, Philêbus, &c. _ib._ Definition of the statesman, or Governor.
Scientific competence.
Sokratic point of departure.
Procedure of Plato in subdividing 263 King during the Saturnian period, was of a breed superior to the people--not so any longer 264 Distinction of causes Principal and Causes Auxiliary.
The King is the only Principal Cause, but his auxiliaries pretend to be principal also 266 Plato does not admit the received classification of government.
It does not touch the point upon which all true distinction ought to be founded--Scientific or Unscientific 267 Unscientific governments are counterfeits.
Government by any numerous body must be counterfeit.
Government by the one scientific man is the true government 268 Fixed laws, limiting the scientific Governor, are mischievous, as they would be for the physician and the steersman.
Absurdity of determining medical practice by laws, and presuming every one to know it 269 Government by fixed laws is better than lawless government by unscientific men, but worse than lawless government by scientific men.
It is a second-best _ib._ Comparison of unscientific governments.
The one despot is the worse.
Democracy is the least bad, because it is least of a government 270 The true governor distinguished from the General, the Rhetor, &c. They are all properly his subordinates and auxiliaries 271 What the scientific Governor will do.
He will aim at the formation of virtuous citizens.
He will weave together the energetic virtues with the gentle virtues.
Natural dissidence between them 272 If a man sins by excess of the energetic element, he is to be killed or banished: if of the gentle, he is to be made a slave.
The Governor must keep up in the minds of the citizens an unanimous standard of ethical orthodoxy 272 Remarks--Sokratic Ideal--Title to govern mankind derived exclusively from scientific superiority in an individual person 273 Different ways in which this ideal is worked out by Plato and Xenophon.
The man of speculation and the man of action _ib._ The theory in the Politikus is the contradiction to that theory which is assigned to Protagoras in the Protagoras 274 Points of the Protagorean theory--rests upon common sentiment 275 Counter-Theory in the Politikus.
The exigencies of the Eleate in the Politikus go much farther than those of Protagoras 276 The Eleate complains that under the Protagorean theory no adverse criticism is allowed.
The dissenter is either condemned to silence or punished _ib._ Intolerance at Athens, not so great as elsewhere.
Plato complains of the assumption of infallibility in existing societies, but exacts it severely in that which he himself constructs 277 Theory of the Politikus--distinguished three gradations of polity.
Gigantic individual force the worst 278 Comparison of the Politikus with the Republic.
Points of analogy and difference 279 Comparison of the Politikus with the Kratylus.
Dictatorial, constructive, science or art, common to both: applied in the former to social administration--in the latter to the formation and modification of names 281 Courage and Temperance are assumed in the Politikus.
No notice taken of the doubts and difficulties raised in Lachês and Charmidês 282 Purpose of the difficulties in Plato's Dialogues of Search--To stimulate the intellect of the hearer.
His exposition does not give solutions 284 CHAPTER XXXI.
KRATYLUS.
Persons and subjects of the dialogue Kratylus--Sokrates has no formed opinion, but is only a Searcher with the others 285 Argument of Sokrates against Hermogenes--all proceedings of nature are conducted according to fixed laws--speaking and naming among the rest 286 The name is a didactic instrument; fabricated by the law-giver upon the type of the Name-Form, and employed as well as appreciated, by the philosopher 287 Names have an intrinsic aptitude for signifying one thing and not another 289 Forms of Names, as well as Forms of things nameable--essence of the Nomen, to signify the Essence of its Nominatum _ib._ Exclusive competence of a privileged lawgiver, to discern these essences, and to apportion names rightly 290 Counter-Theory, which Sokrates here sets forth and impugns--the Protagorean doctrine--Homo Mensura 291 Objection by Sokrates--That Protagoras puts all men on a level as to wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance 292 Objection unfounded--What the Protagorean theory really affirms--Belief always relative to the believer's mind _ib._ Each man believes others to be wiser on various points than himself--Belief on authority--not inconsistent with the affirmation of Protagoras 293 Analogy of physical processes (cutting and burning) appealed to by Sokrates--does not sustain his inference against Protagoras 294 Reply of Protagoras to the Platonic objections 295 Sentiments of Belief and Disbelief, common to all men--Grounds of belief and disbelief, different with different men and different ages 295 Protagoras did not affirm, that Belief depended upon the will or inclination of each individual but that it was relative to the circumstances of each individual mind 297 Facts of sense--some are the same to all sentient subjects, others are different to different subjects.
Grounds of unanimity 298 Sokrates exemplifies his theory of the Absolute Name or the Name-Form.
He attempts to show the inherent rectitude of many existing names.
His etymological transitions 299 These transitions appear violent to a modern reader.
They did not appear so to readers of Plato until this century.
Modern discovery, that they are intended as caricatures to deride the Sophists 302 Dissent from this theory--No proof that the Sophists ever proposed etymologies 304 Plato did not intend to propose mock-etymologies, or to deride any one.
Protagoras could not be ridiculed here.
Neither Hermogenes nor Kratylus understand the etymologies as caricature 306 Plato intended his theory as serious, but his exemplifications as admissible** guesses.
He does not cite particular cases as proofs of a theory, but only as illustrating what he means 308 Sokrates announces himself as Searcher.
Other etymologists of ancient times admitted etymologies as rash as those of Plato 310 Continuance of the dialogue--Sokrates endeavours to explain how it is that the Names originally right have become so disguised and spoiled 312 Letters, as well as things, must be distinguished with their essential properties, each must be adapted to each 313 Essential significant aptitude consists in resemblance _ib._ Sokrates assumes that the Name-giving Lawgiver was a believer in the Herakleitean theory 314 But the Name-Giver may be mistaken or incompetent--the rectitude of the name depends upon his knowledge 315 Changes and transpositions introduced in the name--hard to follow 315 Sokrates qualifies and attenuates his original thesis 316 Conversation of Sokrates with Kratylus; who upholds that original thesis without any qualification _ib._ Sokrates goes still farther towards retracting it 317 There are names better and worse--more like, or less like to the things named: Natural Names are the best, but they cannot always be had.
Names may be significant by habit, though in an inferior way 318 All names are not consistent with the theory of Herakleitus: some are opposed to it 319 It is not true to say, That Things can only be known through their names 320 Unchangeable Platonic Forms--opposed to the Herakleitean flux, which is true only respecting sensible particulars _ib._ Herakleitean theory must not be assumed as certain.
We must not put implicit faith in names 321 Remarks upon the dialogue.
Dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum and others, that it is intended to deride Protagoras and other Sophists _ib._ Theory laid down by Sokrates _à priori_, in the first part--Great difficulty, and ingenuity necessary, to bring it into harmony with facts 322 Opposite tendencies of Sokrates in the last half of the dialogue--he disconnects his theory of Naming from the Herakleitean doctrine 324 Ideal of the best system of naming--the Name-Giver ought to be familiar with the Platonic Ideas or Essences, and apportion his names according to resemblances among them 325 Comparison of Plato's views about naming with those upon social institutions.
Artistic, systematic construction--contrasted with unpremeditated unsystematic growth 327 Politikus compared with Kratylus 328 Ideal of Plato--Postulate of the One Wise Man--Badness of all reality 329 Comparison of Kratylus, Theætêtus, and Sophistês, in treatment of the question respecting Non-Ens, and the possibility of false propositions 331 Discrepancies and inconsistencies of Plato, in his manner of handling the same subject 332 No common didactic purpose pervading the Dialogues--each is a distinct composition, working out its own peculiar argument _ib._ CHAPTER XXXII.
PHILEBUS.
Character, Personages, and Subject of the Philêbus 334 Protest against the Sokratic Elenchus, and the purely negative procedure 335 Enquiry--What mental condition will ensure to all men a happy life?
Good and Happiness--correlative and co-extensive.
Philêbus declares for Pleasure, Sokrates for Intelligence _ib._ Good--object of universal choice and attachment by men, animals, and plants--all-sufficient--satisfies all desires _ib._ Pleasures are unlike to each other, and even opposite cognitions are so likewise 336 Whether Pleasure, or Wisdom, corresponds to this description?
Appeal to individual choice 337 First Question submitted to Protarchus--Intense Pleasure, without any intelligence--He declines to accept it 338 Second Question--Whether he will accept a life of Intelligence purely without any pleasure or pain?
Answer--_No_ _ib._ It is agreed on both sides, That the Good must be a Tertium Quid.
But Sokrates undertakes to show, That Intelligence is more cognate with it than Pleasure 339 Difficulties about Unum et Multa.
How can the One be Many?
How can the Many be One?
The difficulties are greatest about Generic Unity--how it is distributed among species and individuals _ib._ Active disputes upon this question at the time 340 Order of Nature--Coalescence of the Finite with the Infinite.
The One--The Finite Many--The Infinite Many _ib._ Mistake commonly made--To look only for the One, and the Infinite Many, without looking for the intermediate subdivisions 341 Illustration from Speech and Music 342 Plato's explanation does not touch the difficulties which he had himself recognised as existing 343 It is nevertheless instructive, in regard to logical division and classification 344 At that time little thought had been bestowed upon classification as a logical process _ib._ Classification--unconscious and conscious 345 Plato's doctrine about classification is not necessarily connected with his Theory of Ideas _ib._ Quadruple distribution of Existences.
1.
The Infinite.
2.
The Finient 3.
Product of the two former.
4.
Combining Cause or Agency 346 Pleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four Classes--Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth 347 In the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence with Pleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two constituents _ib._ Intelligence is the regulating principle--Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring to be regulated 348 Pleasure and Pain must be explained together--Pain arises from the disturbance of the fundamental harmony of the system--Pleasure from the restoration of it _ib._ Pleasure presupposes Pain 349 Derivative pleasures of memory and expectation belonging to mind alone.
Here you may find pleasure without pain _ib._ A life of Intelligence alone, without pain and without pleasure, is conceivable.
Some may prefer it: at any rate it is second-best _ib._ Desire belongs to the mind, presupposes both a bodily want, and the memory of satisfaction previously had for it.
The mind and body are here opposed.
No true or pure pleasure therein 350 Can pleasures be true or false?
Sokrates maintains that they are so 351 Reasons given by Sokrates.
Pleasures attached to true opinions, are true pleasures.
The just man is favoured by the Gods, and will have true visions sent to him _ib._ Protarchus disputes this--He thinks that there are some pleasures bad, but none false--Sokrates does not admit this, but reserves the question 352 No means of truly estimating pleasures and pains--False estimate habitual--These are the false pleasures _ib._ Much of what is called pleasure is false.
Gentle and gradual changes do not force themselves upon our notice either as pleasure or pain.
Absence of pain not the same as pleasure 353 Opinion of the pleasure-hating philosophers--That pleasure is no reality, but a mere juggle.
There is no reality except pain, and the relief from pain 354 Sokrates agrees with them in part, but not wholly _ib._ Theory of the pleasure-haters--We must learn what pleasure is by looking at the intense pleasures--These are connected with distempered body and mind 355 The intense pleasures belong to a state of sickness; but there is more pleasure, on the whole, enjoyed in a state of health 356 Sokrates acknowledges some pleasures to be true.
Pleasures of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, smells, &c. Pleasures of acquiring knowledge _ib._ Pure and moderate pleasures admit of measure and proportion 357 Pleasure is generation, not substance or essence: it cannot therefore be an End, because all generation is only a means towards substance--Pleasure therefore cannot be the Good _ib._ Other reasons why pleasure is not the Good 358 Distinction and classification of the varieties of Knowledge or Intelligence.
Some are more true and exact than others, according as they admit more or less of measuring and computation _ib._ Arithmetic and Geometry are twofold: As studied by the philosopher and teacher: As applied by the artisan 359 Dialectic is the truest and purest of all Cognitions.
Analogy between Cognition and Pleasure: in each, there are gradations of truth and purity 360 Difference with Gorgias, who claims superiority for Rhetoric.
Sokrates admits that Rhetoric is superior in usefulness and celebrity: but he claims superiority for Dialectic, as satisfying the lover of truth _ib._ Most men look to opinions only, or study the phenomenal manifestations of the Kosmos.
They neglect the unchangeable essences, respecting which alone pure truth can be obtained 361 Application.
Neither Intelligence nor Pleasure separately, is the Good, but a mixture of the two--Intelligence being the most important.
How are they to be mixed?
_ib._ We must include all Cognitions--not merely the truest, but the others also.
Life cannot be carried on without both 362 But we must include no pleasures except the true, pure, and necessary.
The others are not compatible with Cognition or Intelligence--especially the intense sexual pleasures _ib._ What causes the excellence of this mixture?
It is Measure, Proportion, Symmetry.
To these Reason is more akin than Pleasure 363 Quintuple gradation in the Constituents of the Good.
1.
Measure.
2.
Symmetry.
3.
Intelligence.
4.
Practical Arts and Right Opinions.
5.
True and Pure Pleasures 364 Remarks.
Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of an Idea, but a quasi-unity of analogy 365 Discussions of the time about Bonum.
Extreme absolute view, maintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic Sokrates.
Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic doctrine _ib._ Inconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with Ethics 366 Comparison of Man to the Kosmos (which has reason, but no emotion) is unnecessary and confusing 367 Plato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their doctrine.
Importance of his views in dwelling upon systematic classification 368 Classification broadly enunciated, and strongly recommended--yet feebly applied--in this dialogue 369 What is the Good?
Discussed both in Philêbus and in Republic.
Comparison 370 Mistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it were known, while it is subject of constant dispute.
Plato himself wavers about it; gives different explanations, and sometimes professes ignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently _ib._ Plato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined: but the answer in the Philêbus does not satisfy those tests 371 Inconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the question--The alternative which he tenders has no fair application 372 Intelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly compared--Pleasure is an End, Intelligence a Means.
Nothing can be compared with Pleasure, except some other End 373 The Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of pleasure and diminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the governing agency 374 Pleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are compared by Plato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of more value.
This is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis 375 Marked antithesis in the Philêbus between pleasure and avoidance of pain 377 The Hedonists did not recognise this distinction--They included both in their acknowledged End _ib._ Arguments of Plato against the intense pleasures--The Hedonists enforced the same reasonable view 378 Different points of view worked out by Plato in different dialogues--Gorgias, Protagoras, Philêbus--True and False Pleasures 379 Opposition between the Gorgias and Philêbus, about Gorgias and Rhetoric 380 Peculiarity of the Philêbus--Plato applies the same principle of classification--true and false--to Cognitions and Pleasures 382 Distinction of true and false--not applicable to pleasures _ib._ Plato acknowledges no truth and reality except in the Absolute--Pleasures which he admits to be true--and why 385 Plato could not have defended this small list of Pleasures, upon his own admission, against his opponents--the Pleasure-haters, who disallowed pleasures altogether 387 Sokrates in this dialogue differs little from these Pleasure-haters 389 Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of the Philêbus 391 Directive sovereignty of Measure--how explained and applied in the Protagoras _ib._ How explained in Philêbus--no statement to what items it is applied 393 Classification of true and false--how Plato applies it to Cognitions 394 Valuable principles of this classification--difference with other dialogues 395 Close of the Philêbus--Graduated elements of Good 397 Contrast between the Philêbus and the Phædrus, and Symposion, in respect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions generally 398 CHAPTER XXXIII.
MENEXENUS.
Persons and situation of the dialogue 401 Funeral harangue at Athens--Choice of a public orator--Sokrates declares the task of the public orator to be easy--Comic exaggeration of the effects of the harangue 401 Sokrates professes to have learnt a funeral harangue from Aspasia, and to be competent to recite it himself.
Menexenus entreats him to do so 402 Harangue recited by Sokrates 403 Compliments of Menexenus after Sokrates has finished, both to the harangue itself and to Aspasia _ib._ Supposed period--shortly after the peace of Antalkidas _ib._ Custom of Athens about funeral harangues.
Many such harangues existed at Athens, composed by distinguished orators or logographers--Established type of the harangue 404 Plato in this harangue conforms to the established type--Topics on which he insists 405 Consolation and exhortation to surviving relatives 407 Admiration felt for this harangue, both at the time and afterwards 407 Probable motives of Plato in composing it, shortly after he established himself at Athens as a teacher--His competition with Lysias--Desire for celebrity both as rhetor and as dialectician _ib._ Menexenus compared with the view of rhetoric presented in the Gorgias--Necessity for an orator to conform to established sentiments 409 Colloquial portion of the Menexenus is probably intended as ridicule and sneer at Rhetoric--The harangue itself is serious, and intended as an evidence of Plato's ability 410 Anachronism of the Menexenus--Plato careless on this point 411 CHAPTER XXXIV.
KLEITOPHON.
Persons and circumstances of Kleitophon 413 Conversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he alludes to observations of an unfavourable character recently made by Kleitophon, who asks permission to explain _ib._ Explanation given.
Kleitophon expresses gratitude and admiration for the benefit which he has derived from long companionship with Sokrates 414 The observations made by Sokrates have been most salutary and stimulating in awakening ardour for virtue.
Arguments and analogies commonly used by Sokrates _ib._ But Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how it is to be attained.
Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and now wants information how he is to act 415 Questions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both to the companions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself 416 Replies made by the friends of Sokrates unsatisfactory _ib._ None of them could explain what the special work of justice or virtue was 417 Kleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates himself.
But Sokrates did not answer clearly.
Kleitophon believes that Sokrates knows, but will not tell 417 Kleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and going to Thrasymachus.
But before leaving he addresses one last entreaty, that Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly 418 Remarks on the Kleitophon.
Why Thrasyllus placed it in the eighth Tetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along with Kritias, the other fragment 419 Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a just theory of Plato 420 It could not have been published until after Plato's death _ib._ Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished.
It points out the defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses them in the Apology 421 The same defects also confessed in many of the Platonic and Xenophontic dialogues 422 Forcible, yet respectful, manner in which these defects are set forth in the Kleitophon.
Impossible to answer them in such a way as to hold out against the negative Elenchus of a Sokratic pupil 423 The Kleitophon represents a point of view which many objectors must have insisted on against Sokrates and Plato 424 The Kleitophon was originally intended as a first book of the Republic, but was found too hard to answer.
Reasons why the existing first book was substituted _ib._ CHAPTER XXVI.
PLATO.
CHAPTER XXVI.
PHÆDRUS--SYMPOSION.
[Side-note: These two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato.
Phædrus is the originator of both.]
I put together these two dialogues, as distinguished by a marked peculiarity.
They are the two erotic dialogues of Plato.
They have one great and interesting subject common to both: though in the Phædrus, this subject is blended with, and made contributory to, another.
They agree also in the circumstance, that Phædrus is, in both, the person who originates the conversation.
But they differ materially in the manner of handling, in the comparisons and illustrations, and in the apparent purpose.
[Side-note: Eros as conceived by Plato.
Different sentiment prevalent in Hellenic antiquity and in modern times.
Position of women in Greece.]
The subject common to both is, Love or Eros in its largest sense, and with its manifold varieties.
Under the totally different vein of sentiment which prevails in modern times, and which recognises passionate love as prevailing only between persons of different sex--it is difficult for us to enter into Plato's eloquent exposition of the feeling as he conceives it.
In the Hellenic point of view,[1] upon which Plato builds, the attachment of man to woman was regarded as a natural impulse, and as a domestic, social, sentiment; yet as belonging to a common-place rather than to an exalted mind, and seldom or never rising to that pitch of enthusiasm which overpowers all other emotions, absorbs the whole man, and aims either at the joint performance of great exploits or the joint prosecution of intellectual improvement by continued colloquy.
We must remember that the wives and daughters of citizens were seldom seen abroad: that the wife was married very young: that she had learnt nothing except spinning and weaving: that the fact of her having seen as little and heard as little as possible, was considered as rendering her more acceptable to her husband:[2] that her sphere of duty and exertion was confined to the interior of the family.
The beauty of women yielded satisfaction to the senses, but little beyond.
It was the masculine beauty of youth that fired the Hellenic imagination with glowing and impassioned sentiment.
The finest youths, and those too of the best families and education, were seen habitually uncovered in the Palæstra and at the public festival-matches; engaged in active contention and graceful exercise, under the direction of professional trainers.
The sight of the living form, in such perfection, movement, and variety, awakened a powerful emotional sympathy, blended with aesthetic sentiment, which in the more susceptible natures was exalted into intense and passionate devotion.
The terms in which this feeling is described, both by Plato and Xenophon, are among the strongest which the language affords--and are predicated even of Sokrates himself.
Far from being ashamed of the feeling, they consider it admirable and beneficial; though very liable to abuse, which they emphatically denounce and forbid.
[3] In their view, it was an idealising passion, which tended to raise a man above the vulgar and selfish pursuits of life, and even above the fear of death.
The devoted attachments which it inspired were dreaded by the despots, who forbade the assemblage of youths for exercise in the palæstra.
[4] [Footnote 1: Schleiermacher (Einleit.
zum Symp.
p. 367) describes this view of Eros as Hellenic, and as "gerade den anti-modernen and anti-christlichen Pol der Platonischen Denkungsart".
Aristotle composed [Greek: The/seis E)rôtikai\] or [Greek: E)rôtika/s], Diogenes Laert.
v. 22-24.
See Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 133, Berlin, 1863.
Compare the dialogue called [Greek: E)rôtiko/s], among the works of Plutarch, p. 750 seq., where some of the speakers, especially Protogenes, illustrate and enlarge upon this Platonic construction of Eros--[Greek: a)lêthinou= de\ E)/rôtos ou)d' o(tiou=n tê=| gunaikôni/tidi me/testin], &c. (750 C, 761 B, &c.) In the Treatise De Educatione Puerorum (c. 15, p. 11 D-F) Plutarch hesitates to give a decided opinion on the amount of restriction proper to be imposed on youth: he is much impressed with the authority of Sokrates, Plato, Xenophon, Æschines, Kebês, [Greek: kai\ to\n pa/nta cho/ron e)kei/nôn tô=n a)ndrô=n, oi( tou\s a)/r)r(enas e)doki/masan e)/rôtas], &c. See the anecdote about Episthenes, an officer among the Ten Thousand Greeks under Xenophon, in Xenophon, Anabasis, vii.
4, 7, and a remarkable passage about Zeno the Stoic, Diog.
Laert.
vii.
13.
Respecting the general subject of [Greek: paiderasti/a] in Greece, there is a valuable Excursus in Bekker's Charikles, vol.
i. pp.
347-377, Excurs.
ii.
I agree generally with his belief about the practice in Greece, see Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
iv.
33, 70.
Bekker quotes abundant authorities, which might be farther multiplied if necessary.
In appreciating the evidence upon this point, we cannot be too careful to keep in mind what Sokrates says (in the Xenophontic Symposion, viii.
34) when comparing the Thebans and Eleians on one side with the Athenians and Spartans on the other--[Greek: E)kei/nois me\n ga\r tau=ta no/mima, ê(mi=n de\ e)ponei/dista.]
We must interpret passages of the classical authors according to their fair and real meanings, not according to the conclusions which we might wish to find proved.
If we read the oration of Demosthenes against Neæra (which is full of information about Athenian manners), we find the speaker Apollodôrus distributing the relations of men with women in the following manner (p. 1386)--[Greek: to\ ga\r sunoikei=n tou=t' e)sti/n, o(\s a)\n paidopoiê=tai kai\ ei)sa/gê| ei)/s te tou\s dêmo/tas kai\ tou\s phra/toras tou\s ui(ei=s, kai\ ta\s thugate/ras e)kdidô=| ô(s au)tou= ou)/sas toi=s a)ndra/si.
Ta\s me\n ga\r e(tai/ras, ê(donê=s e(/neka e)/chomen--ta\s de\ pallaka/s, tê=s kath' ê(me/ran therapei/as tou= sô/matos--ta\s de\ gunai=kas, tou= paidopoiei=sthai gnêsi/ôs, kai\ tô=n e(/ndon phu/laka pi/stên e)/chein.]
To the same purpose, the speaker in Lysias ([Greek: U(pe\r tou= E)ratosthe/nous pho/nou]--sect.
7), describing his wife, says--[Greek: e)n me\n ou)=n tô=| prô/tô| chro/nô| pasô=n ê)=n belti/stê; kai\ ga\r oi)kono/mos deinê\ kai\ pheidôlo\s a)gathê\ kai\ a)kribô=s pa/nta dioikou=sa.]
Neither of these three relations lent itself readily to the Platonic vein of sentiment and ideality: neither of them led to any grand results either in war--or political ambition--or philosophical speculation; the three great roads, in one or other of which the Grecian ideality travelled.
We know from the Republic that Plato did not appreciate the value of the family life, or the purposes for which men marry, according to the above passage cited from Demosthenes.
In this point, Plato differs from Xenophon, who, in his Oeconomicus, enlarges much (in the discourse of Ischomachus) upon the value of the conjugal union, with a view to prudential results and good management of the household; while he illustrates the sentimental and affectionate side of it, in the story of Pantheia and Abradates (Cyropædia).]
[Footnote 2: See the Oeconomicus of Xenophon, cap.
iii.
12, vii.
5.]
[Footnote 3: The beginning of the Platonic Charmidês illustrates what is here said, pp.
154-155; also that of the Protagoras and Lysis, pp.
205-206.
Xenophon, Sympos.
i.
8-11; iv.
11, 15.
Memorab.
i.
3, 8-14 (what Sokrates observes to Xenophon about Kritobulus).
Dikæarchus (companion of Aristotle) disapproved the important influence which Plato assigned to Eros (Cicero, Tusc.
D. iv.
34-71).
If we pass to the second century after the Christian Era, we find some speakers in Athenæus blaming severely the amorous sentiments of Sokrates and the narrative of Alkibiades, as recited in the Platonic Symposium (v. 180-187; xi.
506-508 C).
Athenæus remarks farther, that Plato, writing in this strain, had little right to complain (as we read in the Republic) of the licentious compositions of Homer and other poets, and to exclude them from his model city.
Maximus Tyrius, in one of his four discourses (23-5) on the [Greek: e)rôtikê\] of Sokrates, makes the same remark as Athenæus about the inconsistency of Plato in banishing Homer from the model city, and composing what we read in the Symposion; he farther observes that the erotic dispositions of Sokrates provoked no censure from his numerous enemies at the time (though they assailed him upon so many other points), but had incurred great censure from contemporaries of Maximus himself, to whom he replies--[Greek: tou\s nuni\ katêgo/rous] (23, 6-7).
The comparisons which he institutes (23, 9) between the sentiments and phrases of Sokrates, and those of Sappho and Anakreon, are very curious.
Dionysius of Halikarnassus speaks of the [Greek: e)gkô/mia] on Eros in the Symposion, as "unworthy of serious handling or of Sokrates".
(De Admir.
Vi Dic.
Demosth.
p.
1027.)
But the most bitter among all the critics of Plato, is Herakleitus--author of the Allegoriæ Homericæ.
Herakleitus repels, as unjust and calumnious, the sentence of banishment pronounced by Plato against Homer, from whom all mental cultivation had been derived.
He affirms, and tries to show, that the poems of Homer--which he admits to be full of immorality if literally understood--had an allegorical meaning.
He blames Plato for not having perceived this; and denounces him still more severely for the character of his own writings--[Greek: e)r)r(i/phthô de\ kai\ Pla/tôn o( ko/lax, O(mê/rou sukopha/ntês--Tou\s de\ Pla/tônos dialo/gous, a)/nô kai\ ka/tô paidikoi\ kathubri/zousin e)/rôtes, ou)damou= de ou)chi tê=s a)r)r(e/nos e)pithumi/as mesto/s e)stin o( a)nê/r] (Herakl.
All.
Hom., c. 4-74, ed.
Mehler, Leiden, 1851).]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Sympos.
182 C. The proceedings of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, which illustrate this feeling, are recounted by Thucydides, vi.
54-57.
These two citizens were gratefully recollected and extensively admired by the Athenian public.]
[Side-note: Eros, considered as the great stimulus to improving philosophical communion.
Personal Beauty, the great point of approximation between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.
Gradual generalisation of the sentiment.]
Especially to Plato, who combined erotic and poetical imagination with Sokratic dialectics and generalising theory--this passion presented itself in the light of a stimulus introductory to the work of philosophy--an impulse at first impetuous and undistinguishing, but afterwards regulated towards improving communion and colloquy with an improvable youth.
Personal beauty (this is[5] the remarkable doctrine of Plato in the Phædrus) is the main point of visible resemblance between the world of sense and the world of Ideas: the Idea of Beauty has a brilliant representative of itself among concrete objects--the Ideas of Justice and Temperance have none.
The contemplation of a beautiful youth, and the vehement emotion accompanying it, was the only way of reviving in the soul the Idea of Beauty which it had seen in its antecedent stage of existence.
This was the first stage through which every philosopher must pass; but the emotion of love thus raised, became gradually in the better minds both expanded and purified.
The lover did not merely admire the person, but also contracted the strongest sympathy with the feelings and character, of the beloved youth: delighting to recognise and promote in him all manifestations of mental beauty which were in harmony with the physical, so as to raise him to the greatest attainable perfection of human nature.
The original sentiment of admiration, having been thus first transferred by association from beauty in the person to beauty in the mind and character, became gradually still farther generalised; so that beauty was perceived not as exclusively specialised in any one individual, but as invested in all beautiful objects, bodies as well as minds.
The view would presently be farther enlarged.
The like sentiment would be inspired, so as to worship beauty in public institutions, in administrative arrangements, in arts and sciences.
And the mind would at last be exalted to the contemplation of that which pervades and gives common character to all these particulars--Beauty in the abstract--or the Self-Beautiful--the Idea or Form of the Beautiful.
To reach this highest summit, after mounting all the previous stages, and to live absorbed in the contemplation of "the great ocean of the beautiful," was the most glorious privilege attainable by any human being.
It was indeed attainable only by a few highly gifted minds.
But others might make more or less approach to it: and the nearer any one approached, the greater measure would he ensure to himself of real good and happiness.
[6] [Footnote 5: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
249 E, 250 B-E.] [Footnote 6: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
210-211.
Respecting the Beautiful, I transcribe here a passage from Ficinus, in his Argument prefixed to the Hippias Major, p. 757.
"Unumquodque è singulis pulchris, _pulchrum hoc_ Plato vocat: formam in omnibus, pulchritudinem; speciem et ideam supra omnia, ipsum pulchrum.
Primum sensus attingit opinioque.
Secundum ratio cogitat.
Tertium mens intuetur.
"Quid ipsum Bonum?
Ipsum rerum omnium principium, actus purus, actus sequentia cuncta vivificans.
Quid ipsum Pulchrum?
Vivificus actus e primo fonte bonorum effluens, Mentem primo divinam idearum ordine infinité decorans, Numina deinde sequentia mentesque rationum serie complens, Animas tertio numerosis discursibus ornans, Naturas quarto seminibus, formis quinto materiam."]
[Side-note: All men love Good, as the means of Happiness, but they pursue it by various means.
The name _Eros_ is confined to one special case of this large variety.]
Such is Plato's conception of Eros or Love and its object.
He represents it as one special form or variety of the universal law of gravitation pervading all mankind.
Every one loves, desires, or aspires to _happiness_: this is the fundamental or primordial law of human nature, beyond which we cannot push enquiry.
Good, or good things, are nothing else but the means to happiness:[7] accordingly, every man, loving happiness, loves good also, and desires not only full acquisition, but perpetual possession of good.
In this wide sense, love belongs to all human beings: every man loves good and happiness, with perpetual possession of them--and nothing else.
[8] But different men have different ways of pursuing this same object.
One man aspires to good or happiness by way of money-getting, another by way of ambition, a third by gymnastics--or music--or philosophy.
Still no one of these is said to love, or to be under the influence of Eros.
That name is reserved exclusively for one special variety of it--the impulse towards copulation, generation, and self-perpetuation, which agitates both bodies and minds throughout animal nature.
Desiring perpetual possession of good, all men desire to perpetuate themselves, and to become immortal.
But an individual man or animal cannot be immortal: he can only attain a quasi-immortality by generating a new individual to replace himself.
[9] In fact even mortal life admits no continuity, but is only a succession of distinct states or phenomena: one always disappearing and another always appearing, each generated by its antecedent and generating its consequent.
Though a man from infancy to old age is called the same, yet he never continues the same for two moments together, either in body or mind.
As his blood, flesh, bones, &c., are in perpetual disappearance and renovation, always coming and going--so likewise are his sensations, thoughts, emotions, dispositions, cognitions, &c. Neither mentally nor physically does he ever continue the same during successive instants.
The old man of this instant perishes and is replaced by a new man during the next.
[10] As this is true of the individual, so it is still more true of the species: continuance or immortality is secured only by perpetual generation of new individuals.
[Footnote 7: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
204-205.
[Greek: Phe/re, o( e)rô=n tô=n a)gathô=n, ti/ e)ra=|?
Gene/sthai, ê)=n d' e)gô/, au)tô=|.
Kai\ ti/ e)/stai e)kei/nô| ô(=| a)\n ge/nêtai ta)gatha/?
Tou=t' eu)porô/teron, ê)=n d' e)gô/, e)/chô a)pokri/nasthai, o(/ti eu)dai/môn e)/stai.
Ktê/sei ga/r, e)/phê, a)gathô=n, oi( eu)dai/mones eu)dai/mones; Kai\ ou)ke/ti prosdei= e)re/sthai, i(/na ti/ de\ bou/letai eu)dai/môn ei)=nai o( boulo/menos, a)lla\ te/los dokei= e)/chein ê( a)po/krisis.
.
.
.
Tau/tên dê\ tê\n bou/lêsin kai\ to\n e)/rôta tou=ton, po/tera koino\n ei)=nai pa/ntôn a)nthrô/pôn, kai\ pa/ntas ta)gatha\ bou/lesthai au)toi=s ei)=nai a)ei/, ê)\ pô=s le/geis?
Ou(/tôs, ê)=n d' e)gô/, koino\n ei)=nai pa/ntôn.]]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Sympos.
p. 206 A.
[Greek: ô(s ou)de/n ge a)/llo e)sti\n ou)= e)rô=sin a)/nthrôpoi ê)\ tou= a)gathou=.]]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Sympos.
p. 207 C.] [Footnote 10: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
207-208.]
[Side-note: Desire of mental copulation and procreation, as the only attainable likeness of immortality, requires the sight of personal beauty as an originating stimulus.]
The love of immortality thus manifests itself in living beings through the copulative and procreative impulse, which so powerfully instigates living man in mind as well as in body.
Beauty in another person exercises an attractive force which enables this impulse to be gratified: ugliness on the contrary repels and stifles it.
Hence springs the love of beauty--or rather, of procreation in the beautiful--whereby satisfaction is obtained for this restless and impatient agitation.
[11] With some, this erotic impulse stimulates the body, attracting them towards women, and inducing them to immortalise themselves by begetting children: with others, it acts far more powerfully on the mind, and determines them to conjunction with another mind for the purpose of generating appropriate mental offspring and products.
In this case as well as in the preceding, the first stroke of attraction arises from the charm of physical, visible, and youthful beauty: but when, along with this beauty of person, there is found the additional charm of a susceptible, generous, intelligent mind, the effect produced by the two together is overwhelming; the bodily sympathy becoming spiritualised and absorbed by the mental.
With the inventive and aspiring intelligences--poets like Homer and Hesiod, or legislators like Lykurgus and Solon--the erotic impulse takes this turn.
They look about for some youth, at once handsome and improvable, in conversation with whom they may procreate new reasonings respecting virtue and goodness--new excellences of disposition--and new force of intellectual combination, in both the communicants.
The attachment between the two becomes so strong that they can hardly live apart: so anxious are both of them to foster and confirm the newly acquired mental force of which each is respectively conscious in himself.
[12] [Footnote 11: Plato, Sympos.
p. 206 E. [Greek: o(/then dê\ tô=| kuou=nti/ te kai\ ê)/dê spargô=nti pollê\ ê( pto/êsis ge/gone peri\ to\ kalo\n dia\ to\ mega/lês ô)di=nos a)polu/ein to\n e)/chonta.
E)sti\ ga\r ou) tou= kalou= o( e)/rôs, a)lla\--tê=s gennê/seôs kai\ tou= to/kou e)n tô=| kalô=|.]]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Sympos.
p.
209.]
[Side-note: Highest exaltation of the erotic impulse in a few privileged minds, when it ascends gradually to the love of Beauty _in genere_.
This is the most absorbing sentiment of all.]
Occasionally, and in a few privileged natures, this erotic impulse rises to a still higher exaltation, losing its separate and exclusive attachment to one individual person, and fastening upon beauty in general, or that which all beautiful persons and beautiful minds have in common.
The visible charm of beautiful body, though it was indispensable as an initial step, comes to be still farther sunk and undervalued, when the mind has ascended to the contemplation of beauty _in genere_, not merely in bodies and minds, but in laws, institutions, and sciences.
This is the highest pitch of philosophical love, to which a few minds only are competent, and that too by successive steps of ascent: but which, when attained, is thoroughly soul-satisfying.
If any man's vision be once sharpened so that he can see beauty pure and absolute, he will have no eyes for the individual manifestations of it in gold, fine raiment, brilliant colours, or beautiful youths.
[13] Herein we have the climax or consummation of that erotic aspiration which first shows itself in the form of virtuous attachment to youth.
[14] [Footnote 13: Plato, Symposion, p.
211.]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Symposion, p. 211 B.
[Greek: o(/tan dê/ tis a)po\ tô=nde dia\ to\ o)rthô=s paiderastei=n e)paniô\n e)kei=no to\ kalo\n a)/rchêtai kathora=|n, schedo\n a)/n ti a(/ptoito tou= te/lous], &c.] [Side-note: Purpose of the Symposion, to contrast this Platonic view of Eros with several different views of it previously enunciated by the other speakers; closing with a panegyric on Sokrates, by the drunken Alkibiades.]
It is thus that Plato, in the Symposion, presents Love, or erotic impulse: a passion taking its origin in the physical and mental attributes common to most men, and concentrated at first upon some individual person--but gradually becoming both more intense and more refined, as it ascends in the scale of logical generalisation and comes into intimate view of the pure idea of Beauty.
The main purpose of the Symposion is to contrast this Platonic view of Eros or Love--which is assigned to Sokrates in the dialogue, and is repeated by him from the communication of a prophetic woman named Diotima[15]--with different views assigned to other speakers.
Each of the guests at the Banquet--Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Sokrates--engages to deliver a panegyric on Eros: while Alkibiades, entering intoxicated after the speeches are finished, delivers a panegyric on Sokrates, in regard to energy and self-denial generally, but mainly and specially in the character of Erastes.
The pure and devoted attachment of Sokrates towards Alkibiades himself--his inflexible self-command under the extreme of trial and temptation--the unbounded ascendancy which he had acquired over that insolent youth, who seeks in every conceivable manner to render himself acceptable to Sokrates--are emphatically extolled, and illustrated by singular details.
[Footnote 15: Plat.
Sympos.
p. 201 D. [Greek: gunaiko\s mantikê=s Dioti/mas, ê( tau=ta/ te sophê\ ê)=n kai\ a)/lla polla/, kai\ A)thênai/ois pote\ thusame/nois pro\ tou= loimou= de/ka e)/tê a)nabolê\n e)poi/êse tê=s no/sou, ê)\ dê\ kai\ e)me\ ta\ e)rôtika\ e)di/daxen.]
Instead of [Greek: gunaiko\s mantikê=s], which was the old reading, Stallbaum and other editors prefer to write [Greek: gunaiko\s Mantinikê=s], also 211 D. I cannot but think that [Greek: mantikê=s] is right.
There is no pertinence or fit meaning in [Greek: Mantinikê=s], whereas the word [Greek: mantikê=s] is in full keeping with what is said about the special religious privileges and revelations of Diotima--that she procured for the Athenians an adjournment of the plague for ten years.
The Delphian oracle assured the Lydian king Kroesus that Apollo had obtained from the [Greek: Moi=rai] a postponement of the ruin of the Lydian kingdom for three years, but that he could obtain from them no more (Herodot.
i.
91).]
[Side-note: Views of Eros presented by Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon.]
Both Phædrus[16] and Pausanias, in their respective encomiums upon Eros, dwell upon that God as creating within the human bosom by his inspirations the noblest self-denial and the most devoted heroism, together with the strongest incentives to virtuous behaviour.
Pausanias however makes distinctions: recognising and condemning various erotic manifestations as abusive, violent, sensual--and supposing for these a separate inspiring Deity--Eros Pandêmus, contrasted with the good and honourable Eros Uranius[17] or Coelestis.
In regard to the different views taken of Eros by Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon--the first is medical, physiological, cosmical[18]--the second is comic and imaginative, even to exuberance--the third is poetical or dithyrambic: immediately upon which follows the analytical and philosophical exposition ascribed to Sokrates, opened in his dialectic manner by a cross-examination of his predecessor, and proceeding to enunciate the opinions communicated to him by the prophetess Diotima.
[Footnote 16: Sydenham conceives and Boeckh (ad Plat.
Legg.
iii.
694) concurs with him, that this discourse, assigned to Phædrus, is intended by Plato as an imitation of the style of Lysias.
This is sufficiently probable.
The encomium on Eros delivered by Agathon, especially the concluding part of it (p. 197), mimics the style of florid effeminate poetry, overcharged with balanced phrases ([Greek: i)so/kôla, a)nti/theta]), which Aristophanes parodies in Agathon's name at the beginning of the Thesmophoriazusæ, Athenæus, v. 187 C.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
180-181.]
[Footnote 18: Respecting this view of Eros or Aphrodite, as a cosmical, all-pervading, procreative impulse, compare Euripides, Frag.
Incert.
3, 6, assigned by Welcker (Griech.
Trag.
p. 737) to the lost drama--the first Hippolytus; also the beautiful invocation with which the poem of Lucretius opens, and the fragmentary exordium remaining from the poem of Parmenides.]
[Side-note: Discourse of Sokrates from revelation of Diotima.
He describes Eros as not a God, but an intermediate Dæmon between Gods and men, constantly aspiring to divinity, but not attaining it.]
Sokrates treats most of the preceding panegyrics as pleasing fancies not founded in truth.
In his representation (cited from Diotima) Eros is neither beautiful, nor good, nor happy; nor is he indeed a God at all.
He is one of the numerous intermediate body of Dæmons, inferior to Gods yet superior to men, and serving as interpreting agents of communication between the two.
[19] Eros is the offspring of Poverty and Resource (Porus).
[20] He represents the state of aspiration and striving, with ability and energy, after goodness and beauty, but never actually possessing them: a middle condition, preferable to that of the person who neither knows that he is deficient in them, nor cares to possess them: but inferior to the condition of him who is actually in possession.
Eros is always Love of something--in relation to something yet unattained, but desired: Eros is to be distinguished carefully from the object desired.
[21] He is the parallel of the philosopher, who is neither ignorant nor wise: not ignorant, because genuine ignorance is unconscious of itself and fancies itself to be knowledge: not wise, because he does not possess wisdom, and is well aware that he does not possess it.
He is in the intermediate stage, knowing that he does not possess wisdom, but constantly desiring it and struggling after it.
Eros, like philosophy, represents this continual aspiration and advance towards a goal never attained.
[22] [Footnote 19: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
202-203.]
[Footnote 20: What Sokrates says here in the Symposion about Eros is altogether at variance with what Sokrates says about Eros in Phædrus, wherein we find him speaking with the greatest reverence and awe about Eros as a powerful God, son of Aphroditê (Phædrus, pp.
242 D, 243 D, 257 A).]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Symposion, pp.
199-200.
[Greek: O( E)/rôs e)/rôs e)sti\n ou)deno\s ê(\ tino/s?
Pa/nu me\n ou)=n e)/stin.
.
.
.
Po/teron o( E)/rôs e)kei/nou ou(= e)/stin e)/rôs, e)pithumei= au)tou= ê)\ ou)/?
Pa/nu ge.
.
.
.
A)na/gkê to\ e)pithumou=n e)pithumei=n ou)= e)ndee/s e)stin, ê)\ mê\ e)pithumei=n, e)a\n mê\ e)ndee\s ê)=|.]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Sympos.
p. 204 A.
[Greek: Ti/nes ou)=n oi( philosophou=ntes, ei) mê/te oi( sophoi\ mê/te oi( a)mathei=s?
.
.
.
Oi( metaxu\ tou/tôn a)mphote/rôn, ô(=n au)= kai\ o( E)/rôs.
E)sti\ ga\r dê\ tô=n kalli/stôn ê( sophi/a, E)/rôs d' e)sti\n e)/rôs peri\ to\ kalo/n; ô(/ste a)nagkai=on E)/rôta philo/sophon ei)=nai, philo/sophon de\ o)/nta metaxu\ ei)=nai sophou= kai\ a)mathou=s.]]
[Side-note: Analogy of the erotic aspiration with that of the philosopher, who knows his own ignorance and thirsts for knowledge.]
It is thus that the truly Platonic conception of Love is brought out, materially different from that of the preceding speakers--Love, as a state of conscious want, and of aspiration or endeavour to satisfy that want, by striving after good or happiness--Philosophy as the like intermediate state, in regard to wisdom.
And Plato follows out this coalescence of love and philosophy in the manner which has been briefly sketched above: a vehement impulse towards mental communion with some favoured youth, in the view of producing mental improvement, good, and happiness to both persons concerned: the same impulse afterwards expanding, so as to grasp the good and beautiful in a larger sense, and ultimately to fasten on goodness and beauty in the pure Idea: which is absolute--independent of time, place, circumstances, and all variable elements--moreover the object of the one and supreme science.
[23] [Footnote 23: Plato, Symposion, pp.
210-211.]
[Side-note: Eros as presented in the Phædrus--Discourse of Lysias, and counter-discourse of Sokrates, adverse to Eros--Sokrates is seized with remorse, and recants in a high-flown panegyric on Eros.]
I will now compare the Symposion with the Phædrus.
In the first half of the Phædrus also, Eros, and the Self-Beautiful or the pure Idea of the Beautiful, are brought into close coalescence with philosophy and dialectic--but they are presented in a different manner.
Plato begins by setting forth the case against Eros in two competing discourses (one cited from Lysias,[24] the other pronounced by Sokrates himself as competitor with Lysias in eloquence) supposed to be addressed to a youth, and intended to convince him that the persuasions of a calm and intelligent friend are more worthy of being listened to than the exaggerated promises and protestations of an impassioned lover, from whom he will receive more injury than benefit: that the inspirations of Eros are a sort of madness, irrational and misguiding as well as capricious and transitory: while the calm and steady friend, unmoved by any passionate inspiration, will show himself worthy of permanent esteem and gratitude.
[25] By a sudden revulsion of feeling, Sokrates becomes ashamed of having thus slandered the divine Eros, and proceeds to deliver a counter-panegyric or palinode upon that God.
[26] [Footnote 24: Plato, Phædrus, p. 230 seq.]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Phædrus, p. 237 seq.]
[Footnote 26: Eros, in the Phædrus, is pronounced to be a God, son of Aphroditê (p. 242 E); in the Symposion he is not a God but a Dæmon, offspring of Porus and Penia, and attendant on Aphroditê, according to Diotima and Sokrates (p.
203).]
[Side-note: Panegyric--Sokrates admits that the influence of Eros is a variety of madness, but distinguishes good and bad varieties of madness, both coming from the Gods.
Good madness is far better than sobriety.]
Eros (he says) is, mad, irrational, superseding reason and prudence in the individual mind.
[27] This is true: yet still Eros exercises a beneficent and improving influence.
Not all madness is bad.
Some varieties of it are bad, but others are good.
Some arise from human malady, others from the inspirations of the Gods: both of them supersede human reason and the orthodoxy of established custom[28]--but the former substitute what is worse, the latter what is better.
The greatest blessings enjoyed by man arise from madness, when it is imparted by divine inspiration.
And it is so imparted in four different phases and by four different Gods: Apollo infuses the prophetic madness--Dionysus, the ritual or religious--The Muses, the poetical--and Eros, the erotic.
[29] This last sort of madness greatly transcends the sober reason and concentration upon narrow objects which is so much praised by mankind generally.
[30] The inspired and exalted lover deserves every preference over the unimpassioned friend.
[Footnote 27: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
265-266.
[Greek: to\ a)/phron tê=s dianoi/as e(/n ti koinê=| ei)=dos.
.
.
.
to\ tê=s paranoi/as ô(s e(\n e)n ê(mi=n pephuko\s ei)=dos.]
Compare p. 236 A.]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Phædrus, p. 265 A.
[Greek: Mani/as de/ ge ei)/dê du/o; tê\n me/n, u(po\ nosêma/tôn a)nthrôpi/nôn, tê\n de/, u(po\ thei/as e)xallagê=s tô=n ei)ôtho/tôn nomi/môn gignome/nên.]
Compare 249 D.] [Footnote 29: Plato, Phædrus, p. 244 A.
[Greek: ei) me\n ga\r ê)=n a(plou=n to\ mani/an kako\n ei)=nai, kalô=s a)\n e)le/geto; nu=n de\ ta\ me/gista tô=n a)gathô=n ê(mi=n gi/gnetai dia\ mani/as, thei/a| me/ntoi do/sei didome/nês.]
Compare Plutarch, [Greek: E)rôtiko/s], c. 16. pp.
758-759, &c.] [Footnote 30: Plato, Phædrus, p. 245 B.
[Greek: mêde/ tis ê(ma=s lo/gos thorubei/tô deditto/menos ô(s pro\ tou= kekinême/nou to\n sô/phrona dei= proairei=sthai phi/lon.]
P. 256 E; [Greek: ê( de\ a)po\ tou= mê\ e)rô=ntos oi)keio/tês, sôphrosu/nê| thnêtê=| kekrame/nê, thnêta/ te kai\ pheidôla\ oi)konomou=sa, a)neleutheri/an u(po\ plê/thous e)panoume/nên ô(s a)retê\n tê=| phi/lê|** psuchê=| e)ntekou=sa], &c.] [Side-note: Poetical mythe delivered by Sokrates, describing the immortality and pre-existence of the soul, and its pre-natal condition of partial companionship with Gods and eternal Ideas.]
Plato then illustrates, by a highly poetical and imaginative mythe, the growth and working of love in the soul.
All soul or mind is essentially self-moving, and the cause of motion to other things.
It is therefore immortal, without beginning or end: the universal or cosmic soul, as well as the individual souls of Gods and men.
[31] Each soul may be compared to a chariot with a winged pair of horses.
In the divine soul, both the horses are excellent, with perfect wings: in the human soul, one only of them is good, the other is violent and rebellious, often disobedient to the charioteer, and with feeble or half-grown wings.
[32] The Gods, by means of their wings, are enabled to ascend up to the summit of the celestial firmament--to place themselves upon the outer circumference or back of the heaven--and thus to be carried round along with the rotation of the celestial sphere round the Earth.
In the course of this rotation they contemplate the pure essences and Ideas, truth and reality without either form or figure or colour: they enjoy the vision of the Absolute--Justice, Temperance, Beauty, Science.
The human souls, with their defective wings, try to accompany the Gods; some attaching themselves to one God, some to another, in this ascent.
But many of them fail in the object, being thrown back upon earth in consequence of their defective equipment, and the unruly character of one of the horses: some however succeed partially, obtaining glimpses of Truth and of the general Ideas, though in a manner transient and incomplete.
[Footnote 31: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
245-246.
Compare Krische, De Platonis Phædro, pp.
49-50 (Göttingen, 1848).
Plato himself calls this panegyric in the mouth of Sokrates a [Greek: muthiko/s tis u(/mnos] (Phædr.
p. 265 D).]
[Footnote 32: The reader will recollect Homer, Iliad, xvi.
152, where the chariot and horses of Patroklus are described, when he is about to attack the Trojans; the mortal horse Pedasus is harnessed to it alongside of the two immortal horses Xanthus and Balius.]
[Side-note: Operation of such pre-natal experience upon the Intellectual faculties of man--Comparison and combination of particular sensations indispensable--Reminiscence.]
Those souls which have not seen Truth or general Ideas at all, can never be joined with the body of a man, but only with that of some inferior animal.
It is essential that some glimpse of truth should have been obtained, in order to qualify the soul for the condition of man:[33] for the mind of man must possess within itself the capacity of comparing and combining particular sensations, so as to rise to one general conception brought together by reason.
[34] This is brought about by the process of reminiscence; whereby it recalls those pure, true, and beautiful Ideas which it had partially seen during its prior extra-corporeal existence in companionship with the Gods.
The rudimentary faculty of thus reviving these general Conceptions--the visions of a prior state of existence--belongs to all men, distinguishing them from other animals: but in most men the visions have been transient, and the power of reviving them is faint and dormant.
It is only some few philosophers, whose minds, having been effectively winged in their primitive state for ascent to the super-celestial regions, have enjoyed such a full contemplation of the divine Ideas as to be able to recall them with facility and success, during the subsequent corporeal existence.
To the reminiscence of the philosopher, these Ideas present themselves with such brilliancy and fascination, that he forgets all other pursuits and interests.
Hence he is set down as a madman by the generality of mankind, whose minds have not ascended beyond particular and present phenomena to the revival of the anterior Ideas.
[Footnote 33: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
249-250.
[Greek: pa=sa me\n a)nthrô/pou psuchê\ phu/sei tethe/atai ta\ o)/nta--ê)\ ou)k a)\n ê)=lthen ei)s to/de** to\ zô=on; a)namimnê/skesthai d' e)k tô=nde e)kei=na ou) r(a/|dion a(pa/sê|], &c.] [Footnote 34: Plato, Phædrus, p. 249 B.
[Greek: Ou) ga\r ê(/ ge mê/ pote i)dou=sa tê\n a)lê/theian ei)s to/de ê(/xei to\ schê=ma.
Dei= ga\r a)/nthrôpon xunie/nai kat' ei)=dos lego/menon, e)k pollô=n i)o\n ai)sthê/seôn ei)s e(\n logismô=| xunairou/menon.
Tou=to de/ e)stin a)na/mnêsis e)kei/nôn, a(/ pot' ei)=den ê(mô=n ê( psuchê\ sumporeuthei=sa theô=| kai\ u(peridou=sa a(\ nu=n ei)=nai/ phamen, kai\ a)naku/psasa ei)s to\ o)\n o)/ntôs.]]
[Side-note: Reminiscence is kindled up in the soul of the philosopher by the aspect of visible Beauty, which is the great link between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.]
It is by the aspect of visible beauty, as embodied in distinguished youth, that this faculty of reminiscence is first kindled in minds capable of the effort.
It is only the embodiment of beauty, acting as it does powerfully upon the most intellectual of our senses, which has sufficient force to kindle up the first act or stage of reminiscence in the mind, leading ultimately to the revival of the Idea of Beauty.
The embodiments of justice, wisdom, temperance, &c., in particular men, do not strike forcibly on the senses, nor approximate sufficiently to the original Idea, to effect the first stroke of reminiscence in an unprepared mind.
It is only the visible manifestation of beauty, which strikes with sufficient shock at once on the senses and the intellect, to recall in the mind an adumbration of the primitive Idea of Beauty.
The shock thus received first develops the reminiscent faculty in minds apt and predisposed to it, and causes the undeveloped wings of the soul to begin growing.
It is a passion of violent and absorbing character; which may indeed take a sensual turn, by the misconduct of the unruly horse in the team, producing in that case nothing but corruption and mischief--but which may also take a virtuous, sentimental, imaginative turn, and becomes in that case the most powerful stimulus towards mental improvement in both the two attached friends.
When thus refined and spiritualised, it can find its satisfaction only in philosophical communion, in the generation of wisdom and virtue; as well as in the complete cultivation of that reminiscent power, which vivifies in the mind remembrance of Forms or Ideas seen in a prior existence.
To attain such perfection, is given to few; but a greater or less approximation may be made to it.
And it is the only way of developing the highest powers and virtues of the mind; which must spring, not from human prudence and sobriety, but from divine madness or erotic inspiration.
[35] [Footnote 35: Plato, Phædrus, p. 256 B.
[Greek: ou(= mei=zon a)gatho\n ou)/te sôphrosu/nê a)nthrôpi/nê ou)/te thei/a mani/a dunatê\ pori/sai a)nthrô/pô|.]
--245 B: [Greek: e)p' eu)tuchi/a tê=| megi/stê| para\ theô=n ê( toiau/tê mani/a di/dotai.]
The long and highly poetical mythe, of which I have given some of the leading points, occupies from c. 51 to c. 83 (pp.
244-257) of the dialogue.
It is adapted to the Hellenic imagination, and requires the reader to keep before him the palæstræ of Athens, as described in the Lysis, Erastæ, and Charmidês of Plato--visited both by men like Sokrates and by men like Kritias (Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 29).]
Such is the general tenor of the dialogue Phædrus, in its first half: which presents to us the Platonic love, conceived as the source and mainspring of exalted virtue--as the only avenue to philosophy--as contrasted, not merely with sensual love, but also with the sobriety of the decent citizen who fully conforms to the teaching of Law and Custom.
In the Symposion, the first of these contrasts appears prominently, while the second is less noticed.
In the Phædrus, Sokrates declares emphatically that madness, of a certain sort, is greatly preferable to sobriety: that the temperate, respectable, orthodox citizen, is on the middle line, some madmen being worse than he, but others better: that madness springing from human distemper is worse, but that when it springs from divine inspiration, it is in an equal degree better, than sobriety: that the philosophical _oestrus_, and the reminiscence of the eternal Ideas (considered by Plato as the only true and real Entia), is inconsistent with that which is esteemed as sobriety: and is generated only by special inoculation from Eros or some other God.
This last contrast, as I have just observed, is little marked in the Symposion.
But on the other hand, the Symposion (especially the discourse of Sokrates and his repetition of the lessons of Diotima), insists much more upon the generalisation of the erotic impulse.
In the Phædrus, we still remain on the ground of fervent attachment between two individuals--an attachment sentimental and virtuous, displaying itself in an intercourse which elicits from both of them active intelligence and exalted modes of conduct: in the Symposion, such intercourse is assimilated explicitly to copulation with procreative consequences, but it is represented as the first stage of a passion which becomes more and more expanded and comprehensive: dropping all restriction to any single individual, and enlarging itself not merely to embrace pursuits, and institutions, but also to the plenitude and great ocean of Beauty in its largest sense.
[Side-note: Elevating influence ascribed, both in Phædrus and Symposion, to Eros Philosophus.
Mixture in the mind of Plato, of poetical fancy and religious mysticism, with dialectic theory.]
The picture here presented by Plato, of the beneficent and elevating influence of Eros Philosophus, is repeated by Sokrates as a revelation made to him by the prophetess Diotima.
It was much taken to heart by the Neo-Platonists.
[36] It is a striking manifestation of the Platonic characteristics: transition from amorous impulse to religious and philosophical mysticism--implication of poetical fancy with the conception of the philosophising process--surrender of the mind to metaphor and analogy, which is real up to a certain point, but is forcibly stretched and exaggerated to serve the theorising purpose of the moment.
Now we may observe, that the worship of youthful masculine beauty, and the belief that contemplation of such a face and form was an operative cause, not only raising the admiration but also quickening the intelligence of the adult spectator, and serving as a provocative to instructive dialogue--together with a decided attempt to exalt the spiritual side of this influence and depreciate the sensual--both these are common to Plato with Sokrates and Xenophon.
But what is peculiar to Plato is, that he treats this merely as an initial point to spring from, and soars at once into the region of abstractions, until he gets clear of all particulars and concomitants, leaving nothing except Beauty Absolute--[Greek: to\ Kalo\n--to\ au)to\-kalo\n]--the "full sea of the beautiful".
Not without reason does Diotima express a doubt whether Sokrates (if we mean thereby the historical Sokrates) could have followed so bold a flight.
His wings might probably have failed and dropped him: as we read in the Phædrus respecting the unprepared souls who try to rise aloft in company with the Gods.
Plato alone is the true Dædalus equal to this flight, borne up by wings not inferior to those of Pindar[37]--according to the comparison of Dionysius of Halikarnassus.
[Footnote 36: Porphyry, Vit.
Plotini, 23.
Plato's way of combining, in these two dialogues--so as to pass by an easy thread of association from one to the other--subjects which appear to us unconnected and even discordant, is certainly remarkable.
We have to recognise material differences in the turn of imagination, as between different persons and ages.
The following remark of Professor Mohl, respecting the Persian lyric poet Hafiz, illustrates this point.
"Au reste, quand même nous serions mieux renseignés sur sa vie, il resterait toujours pour nous le singulier spectacle d'un homme qui tantôt célèbre l'absorption de l'âme dans l'essence de Dieu, tantôt chante le vin et l'amour, sans grossièreté, il est vrai, mais avec un laisser aller et un naturel qui exclut toute idée de symbolisme--et qui généralement glisse de l'une dans l'autre de ces deux manières de sentir, qui nous paraissent si différentes, sans s'apercevoir lui-même qu'il change de sujet.
Les Orientaux ont cherché la solution de cette difficulté dans une interprétation mystique de toutes ses poésies; mais les textes s'y refusent.
Des critiques modernes ont voulu l'expliquer en supposant une hypocrisie de l'auteur, qui lui aurait fait mêler une certaine dose de piété mystique, à ses vers plus légers, pour les faire passer: mais ce calcul parait étranger à la nature de l'homme.
Je crois qu'il faut trouver le mot de l'énigme dans l'état général des esprits et de la culture de son temps: et la difficulté pour nous est seulement de nous réprésenter assez vivement l'état des esprits en Perse à cette époque, et la nature de l'influence que le Soufisme y exerçait depuis des siècles sur toutes les classes cultivées de la nation."
--Mohl (Rapport Annuel à la Société Asiatique, 1861, p.
89.)]
[Footnote 37: Dionys.
Hal.
De Adm. Vi Dic.
in Demosth., p. 972, Reiske.]
Various remarks may be made, in comparing this exposition of Diotima in the Symposion with that which we read in the Phædrus and Phædon.
[Side-note: Differences between Symposion and Phædrus.
In-dwelling conceptions assumed by the former, pre-natal experiences by the latter.]
First, in the Phædrus and Phædon (also in the Timæus and elsewhere), the pre-existence of the soul, and its antecedent familiarity, greater or less, with the world of Ideas,--are brought into the foreground; so as to furnish a basis for that doctrine of reminiscence, which is one of the peculiar characteristics of Plato.
The Form or Idea, when once disengaged from the appendages by which it has been overgrown, is said to be recognised by the mind and welcomed as an old acquaintance.
But in the Symposion, no such doctrine is found.
The mind is described as rising by gradual steps from the concrete and particular to the abstract and general, by recognising the sameness of one attribute as pervading many particulars, and by extending its comparisons from smaller groups of particulars to larger; until at length one and the same attribute is perceived to belong to all.
The mind is supposed to evolve out of itself, and to generate in some companion mind, certain abstract or general conceptions, correlating with the Forms or Concepta without.
The fundamental postulate here is, not that of pre-existence, but that of in-dwelling conceptions.
[Side-note: Nothing but metaphorical immortality recognised in Symposion.]
Secondly, in the Phædrus and Phædon, the soul is declared to be immortal, _à parte post_ as well as _à parte ante_.
But in the Symposion, this is affirmed to be impossible.
[38] The soul yearns for, but is forbidden to reach, immortality: or at least can only reach immortality in a metaphorical sense, by its prolific operation--by generating in itself as long as it lasts, and in other minds who will survive it, a self-renewing series of noble thoughts and feelings--by leaving a name and reputation to survive in the memory of others.
[Footnote 38: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
207-208.]
[Side-note: Form or Idea of Beauty presented singly and exclusively in Symposion.]
Thirdly, in Phædrus, Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere, Plato recognises many distinct Forms or Ideas--a world or aggregate of such Entia Rationis[39]--among which Beauty is one, but only one.
It is the exalted privilege of the philosophic mind to come into contemplation and cognition of these Forms generally.
But in the Symposion, the Form of Beauty ([Greek: to\ kalo\n]) is presented singly and exclusively--as if the communion with this one Form were the sole occupation of the most exalted philosophy.
[Footnote 39: Plat.
Repub.
v. 476.
He recognises Forms of [Greek: a)/dikon, kako/n, ai)schro/n], as well as Forms of [Greek: di/kaion, a)gatho/n, kalo/n], &c.] [Side-note: Eros recognised, both in Phædrus and Symposion, as affording the initiatory stimulus to philosophy--Not so recognised in Phædon, Theætêtus, and elsewhere.]
Fourthly, The Phædrus and Symposion have, both of them in common, the theory of Eros as the indispensable, initiatory, stimulus to philosophy.
The spectacle of a beautiful youth is considered necessary to set light to various elements in the mind, which would otherwise remain dormant and never burn: it enables the pregnant and capable mind to bring forth what it has within and to put out its hidden strength.
But if we look to the Phædon, Theætêtus, Sophistês, or Republic, we shall not find Eros invoked for any such function.
The Republic describes an elaborate scheme for generating and developing the philosophic capacity: but Eros plays no part in it.
In the Theætêtus, the young man so named is announced as having a pregnant mind requiring to be disburthened, and great capacity which needs foreign aid to develop it: the service needed is rendered by Sokrates, who possesses an obstetric patent, and a marvellous faculty of cross-examination.
Yet instead of any auxiliary stimulus arising from personal beauty, the personal ugliness of both persons in the dialogue is emphatically signified.
I note these peculiarities, partly of the Symposion, partly of the Phædrus along with it--to illustrate the varying points of view which the reader must expect to meet in travelling through the numerous Platonic dialogues.
[Side-note: Concluding scene and speech of Alkibiades in the Symposion--Behaviour of Sokrates to Alkibiades and other handsome youths.]
In the strange scene with which the Symposion is wound up, the main purpose of the dialogue is still farther worked out.
The spirit and ethical character of Eros Philosophus, after having been depicted in general terms by Diotima, are specially exemplified in the personal history of Sokrates, as recounted and appreciated by Alkibiades.
That handsome, high-born, and insolent youth, being in a complete state of intoxication, breaks in unexpectedly upon the company, all of whom are as yet sober: he enacts the part of a drunken man both in speech and action, which is described with a vivacity that would do credit to any dramatist.
His presence is the signal for beginning to drink hard, and he especially challenges Sokrates to drink off, after him, as much wine as will fill the large water-vessel serving as cooler; which challenge Sokrates forthwith accepts and executes, without being the least affected by it.
Alkibiades instead of following the example of the others by delivering an encomium on Eros, undertakes to deliver one upon Sokrates.
He proceeds to depict Sokrates as the votary of Eros Philosophus, wrapped up in the contemplation of beautiful youths, and employing his whole time in colloquy with them--yet as never losing his own self-command, even while acquiring a magical ascendency over these companions.
[40] The abnormal exterior of Sokrates, resembling that of a Satyr, though concealing the image of a God within--the eccentric pungency of his conversation, blending banter with seriousness, homely illustrations with impressive principles--has exercised an influence at once fascinating, subjugating, humiliating.
The impudent Alkibiades has been made to feel painfully his own unworthiness, even while receiving every mark of admiration from others.
He has become enthusiastically devoted to Sokrates, whom he has sought to attach to himself, and to lay under obligation, by tempting offers of every kind.
The details of these offers are given with a fulness which cannot be translated to modern readers, and which even then required to be excused as the revelations of a drunken man.
They present one of the boldest fictions in the Greek language--if we look at them in conjunction with the real character of Alkibiades as an historical person.
[41] Sokrates is found proof against every variety of temptation, however seductive to Grecian feeling.
In his case, Eros Philosophus maintains his dignity as exclusively pure, sentimental, and spiritual: while Alkibiades retires more humiliated than ever.
We are given to understand that the like offers had been made to Sokrates by many other handsome youths also--especially by Charmides and Euthydemus--all of them being treated with the same quiet and repellent indifference.
[42] Sokrates had kept on the vantage-ground as regards all:--and was regarded by all with the same mixture of humble veneration and earnest attachment.
[Footnote 40: Plato, Sympos.
p. 216 C-D.] [Footnote 41: Plato, Sympos.
p. 219.
See also, respecting the historical Alkibiades and his characte, Thucyd.
vi.
15; Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1; Antisthenes, apud Athenæum, xii.
534.
The invention of Plato goes beyond that of those ingenious men who recounted how Phrynê and Lais had failed in attempts to overcome the continence of Xenokrates, Diog.
L. iv.
7: and the saying of Lais, [Greek: ô(s ou)k a)p' a)ndro/s, a)ll' a)p' a)ndri/antos, a)nastai/ê.]
Quintilian (viii.
4, 22-23) aptly enough compares the description given by Alkibiades--as the maximum of testimony to the "invicta continentia" of Sokrates--with the testimony to the surpassing beauty of Helen, borne by such witnesses as the Trojan [Greek: dêmoge/rontes] and Priam himself (Hom.
Iliad iii.
156).
One of the speakers in Athenæus censures severely this portion of the Platonic Symposion, xi.
506 C, 508 D, v. 187 D. Porphyry (in his life of Plotinus, 15) tells us that the rhetor Diophanes delivered an apology for Alkibiades, in the presence of Plotinus; who was much displeased, and directed Porphyry to compose a reply.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Symp.
p. 222 B.
In the Hieron of Xenophon (xi.
11)--a conversation between the despot Hieron and the poet Simonides--the poet, exhorting Hieron to govern his subjects in a mild, beneficent, and careful spirit, expatiates upon the popularity and warm affection which he will thereby attract to himself from them.
Of this affection one manifestation will be (he says) as follows:--[Greek: ô(/ste ou) mo/non philoi=o a)/n, a)lla\ kai\ e)rô=|o, u(p' a)nthrô/pôn; _kai\ tou\s kalou\s ou) peira=|n, a)lla\ peirô/menon u(p' au)tô=n a)ne/chesthai a)/n se de/oi_], &c. These words illustrate the adventure described by Alkibiades in the Platonic Symposion.
Herakleides of Pontus, Dikæarchus, and the Peripatetic Hieronymus, all composed treatises [Greek: Peri\ E)rôtos], especially [Greek: peri\ paidikô=n e)rô/tôn] (Athenæ.
xiii.
602-603).]
[Side-note: Perfect self-command of Sokrates--proof against every sort of trial.]
Not merely upon this point but upon others also, Alkibiades recounts anecdotes of the perfect self-mastery of Sokrates: in endurance of cold, heat, hunger, and fatigue--in contempt of the dangers of war, in bravery on the day of battle--even in the power of bearing more wine than any one else, without being intoxicated, whenever the occasion was such as to require him to drink: though he never drank much willingly.
While all his emotions are thus described as under the full control of Reason and Eros Philosophus--his special gift and privilege was that of conversation--not less eccentric in manner, than potent, soul-subduing,[43] and provocative in its effects.
[Footnote 43: Plato, Sympos.
pp.
221-222.
Alkibiades recites acts of distinguished courage performed by Sokrates, at the siege of Potidæa as well as at the battle of Delium.
About the potent effect produced by the conversation of Sokrates upon his companions, compare Sympos.
p. 173 C-D.
In the Xenophontic Apology (s. 18), Sokrates adverts to the undisturbed equanimity which he had shown during the long blockade of Athens after the battle of Ægospotami, while others were bewailing the famine and other miseries.]
[Side-note: Drunkenness of others at the close of the Symposion--Sokrates is not affected by it, but continues his dialectic process.]
After the speech of Alkibiades is concluded, the close of the banquet is described by the primary narrator.
He himself, with Agathon and Aristophanes, and several other fresh revellers, continue to drink wine until all of them become dead drunk.
While Phædrus, Eryximachus, and others retire, Sokrates remains.
His competency to bear the maximum of wine without being disturbed by it, is tested to the full.
Although he had before, in acceptance of the challenge of Alkibiades, swallowed the contents of the wine cooler, he nevertheless continues all the night to drink wine in large bowls, along with the rest.
All the while, however, he goes on debating his ordinary topics, even though no one is sufficiently sober to attend to him.
His companions successively fall asleep, and at day-break, he finds himself the only person sober,[44] except Aristodemus (the narrator of the whole scene), who has recently waked after a long sleep.
Sokrates quits the house of Agathon, with unclouded senses and undiminished activity--bathes--and then visits the gymnasium at the Lykeion; where he passes all the day in his usual abundant colloquy.
[45] [Footnote 44: In Sympos.
p. 176 B, Sokrates is recognised as [Greek: dunatô/tatos pi/nein], above all the rest: no one can be compared with him.
In the two first books of the Treatise De Legibus, we shall find much to illustrate what is here said (in the Symposion) about the power ascribed to him of drinking more wine than any one else, without being at all affected by it.
Plato discusses the subject of strong potations ([Greek: me/thê]) at great length; indeed he seems to fear that his readers will think he says too much upon it (i.
642 A).
He considers it of great advantage to have a test to apply, such as wine, for the purpose of measuring the reason and self-command of different men, and of determining how much wine is sufficient to overthrow it, in each different case (i.
649 C-E).
You can make this trial (he argues) in each case, without any danger or harm; and you can thus escape the necessity of making the trial in a real case of emergency.
Plato insists upon the [Greek: chrei/a tê=s me/thês], as a genuine test, to be seriously employed for the purpose of testing men's reason and force of character (ii.
p. 673).
In the Republic, too (iii.
p. 413 E), the [Greek: phu/lakes] are required to be tested, in regard to their capacity of resisting pleasurable temptation, as well as pain and danger.
Among the titles of the lost treatises of Theophrastus, we find one [Greek: Peri\ Me/thês] (Diog.
L. v. 44).
It is one of the compliments that the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (i.
16) pays to his father--That he was, like Sokrates, equally competent both to partake of, and to abstain from, the most seductive enjoyments, without ever losing his calmness and self-mastery.]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Sympos.
p.
223.]
[Side-note: Symposion and Phædon--each is the antithesis and complement of the other.]
The picture of Sokrates, in the Symposion, forms a natural contrast and complement to the picture of him in the Phædon; though the conjecture of Schleiermacher[46]--that the two together are intended to make up the Philosophus, or third member of the trilogy promised in the Sophistês--is ingenious rather than convincing.
The Phædon depicts Sokrates in his last conversation with his friends, immediately before his death; the Symposion presents him in the exuberance of life, health, and cheerfulness: in both situations, we find the same attributes manifested--perfect equanimity and self-command, proof against every variety of disturbing agency--whether tempting or terrible--absorbing interest in philosophical dialectic.
The first of these two elements, if it stood alone, would be virtuous sobriety, yet not passing beyond the limit of mortal virtue: the last of the two superadds a higher element, which Plato conceives to transcend the limit of mortal virtue, and to depend upon divine inspiration or madness.
[47] [Footnote 46: Einleitung zum Gastmahl, p. 359 seq.]
[Footnote 47: Plato, Phædrus, p. 256 C-E. [Greek: sôphrosu/nê thnêtê/--e)rôtikê\ mani/a: sôphrosu/nê a)nthrôpi/nê--thei/a mani/a.]
Compare p. 244 B.]
[Side-note: Symposion of Plato compared with that of Xenophon.]
The Symposion of Plato affords also an interesting subject of comparison with that of his contemporary Xenophon, as to points of agreement as well as of difference.
[48] Xenophon states in the beginning that he intends to describe what passed in a scene where he himself was present; because he is of opinion that the proceedings of excellent men, in hours of amusement, are not less worthy of being recorded than those of their serious hours.
Both Plato and Xenophon take for their main subject a festive banquet, destined to celebrate the success of a young man in a competitive struggle.
In Plato, the success is one of mind and genius--Agathon has gained the prize of tragedy: in Xenophon, it is one of bodily force and skill--Autolykus victor in the pankration.
The Symposion of Xenophon differs from that of Plato, in the same manner as the Memorabilia of Xenophon generally differ from the Sokratic dialogues of Plato--that is, by approaching much nearer to common life and reality.
It describes a banquet such as was likely enough to take place, with the usual accompaniments--a professional jester, and a Syracusan ballet-master who brings with him a dancing-girl, a girl to play on the flute and harp, and a handsome youth.
These artists contribute to the amusement of the company by music, dancing, throwing up balls and catching them again, jumping into and out of a circle of swords.
All this would have occurred at an ordinary banquet: here, it is accompanied and followed by remarks of pleasantry, buffoonery and taunt, interchanged between the guests.
Nearly all the guests take part, more or less: but Sokrates is made the prominent figure throughout.
He repudiates the offer of scented unguents: but he recommends the drinking of wine, though moderately, and in small cups.
The whole company are understood to be somewhat elevated with wine, but not one of them becomes intoxicated.
Sokrates not only talks as much fun as the rest, but even sings, and speaks of learning to dance, jesting on his own corpulence.
[49] Most part of the scene is broad farce, in the manner, though not with all the humour, of Aristophanes.
[50] The number and variety of the persons present is considerable, greater than in most of the Aristophanic plays.
[51] Kallias, Lykon, Autolykus, Sokrates, Antisthenes, Hermogenes, Nikeratus, Kritobulus, have each his own peculiarity: and a certain amount of vivacity and amusement arises from the way in which each of them is required, at the challenge of Sokrates, to declare on what it is that he most prides himself.
Sokrates himself carries the burlesque farther than any of them; pretending to be equal in personal beauty to Kritobulus, and priding himself upon the function of a pander, which he professes to exercise.
Antisthenes, however, is offended, when Sokrates fastens upon him a similar function: but the latter softens the meaning of the term so as to appease him.
In general, each guest is made to take pride in something the direct reverse of that which really belongs to him; and to defend his thesis in a strain of humorous parody.
Antisthenes, for example, boasts of his wealth.
The Syracusan ballet-master is described as jealous of Sokrates, and as addressing to him some remarks of offensive rudeness; which Sokrates turns off, and even begins to sing, for the purpose of preventing confusion and ill-temper from spreading among the company:[52] while he at the same time gives prudent advice to the Syracusan about the exhibitions likely to be acceptable.
[Footnote 48: Pontianus, one of the speakers in Athenæus (xi.
504), touches upon some points of this comparison, with a view of illustrating the real or supposed enmity between Plato and Xenophon; an enmity not in itself improbable, yet not sufficiently proved.
Athenæus had before him the Symposion of Epikurus (not preserved) as well as those of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle (xv.
674); and we learn from him some of its distinctive points.
Masurius (the speaker in Athenæus, v.
init.)
while he recognises in the Symposia of Xenophon and Plato a dramatic variety of characters and smartness--finds fault with both, but especially with Plato, for levity, rudeness, indecency, vulgarity, sneering, &c. The talk was almost entirety upon love and joviality.
In the Symposion of Epikurus, on the contrary, nothing was said about these topics; the guests were fewer, the conversation was grave and dull, upon dry topics of science, such as the atomic theory ([Greek: prophê/tas a)to/môn], v. 3, 187 B, 177 B.
[Greek: E)pi/kouros de\ sumpo/sion philoso/phôn mo/non pepoi/êtai]), and even upon bodily ailments, such as indigestion or fever (187 C).
The philosophers present were made by Epikurus to carry on their debate in so friendly a spirit, that the critic calls them "flatterers praising each other"; while he terms the Platonic guests "sneerers insulting each other" ([Greek: muktêristô=n a)llê/lous tôthazo/ntôn], 182 A), though this is much more true about the Xenophontic Symposion than about the Platonic.
He remarks farther that the Symposion of Epikurus included no libation or offering to the Gods (179 D).
It is curious to note these peculiarities in the compositions (now lost) of a philosopher like Epikurus, whom many historians of philosophy represent as thinking about nothing but convivial and sexual pleasure.]
[Footnote 49: Xenophon, Sympos.
vii.
1; ii.
18-19.
[Greek: proga/stôr], &c.] [Footnote 50: The taunt ascribed to the jester Philippus, about the cowardice of the demagogue Peisander, is completely Aristophanic, ii.
14; also that of Antisthenes respecting the bad temper of Xanthippê, ii.
10; and the caricature of the movements of the [Greek: o)rchêstri\s] by Philippus, ii.
21.
Compare also iii.
11.]
[Footnote 51: Xen.
Symp.
c.
4-5.]
[Footnote 52: Xen.
Symp.
vi.
[Greek: Au)tê\ me\n ê( paroini/a ou(/tô katesbe/sthê], vii.
1-5.
Epiktêtus insists upon this feature in the character of Sokrates--his patience and power of soothing angry men (ii.
12-14).]
[Side-note: Small proportion of the serious, in the Xenophontic Symposion.]
Though the Xenophontic Symposion is declared to be an alternate mixture of banter and seriousness,[53] yet the only long serious argument or lecture delivered is by Sokrates; in which he pronounces a professed panegyric upon Eros, but at the same time pointedly distinguishes the sentimental from the sensual.
He denounces the latter, and confines his panegyric to the former--selecting Kallias and Autolykus as honourable examples of it.
[54] [Footnote 53: Xen.
Symp.
iv.
28.
[Greek: a)nami\x e)skôpsa/n te kai\ e)spou/dasan], viii.
41.]
[Footnote 54: Xen.
Symp.
viii.
24.
The argument against the sensual is enforced with so much warmth that Sokrates is made to advert to the fact of his being elate with wine--[Greek: o(/ te ga\r oi)=nos sunepai/rei, kai\ o( a)ei\ su/noikos e)moi\ e)/rôs kentri/zei ei)s to\n a)nti/palon e)/rôta au)tou= par)r(êsia/zesthai.]
The contrast between the customs of the Thebans and Eleians, and those of the Lacedæmonians, is again noted by Xenophon, Rep.
Laced.
ii.
13.
Plato puts (Symp.
182) a like contrast into the mouth of Pausanias, assimilating the customs of Athens in this respect to those of Sparta.
The comparison between Plato and Xenophon is here curious; we see how much more copious and inventive is the reasoning of Plato.]
The Xenophontic Symposion closes with a pantomimic scene of Dionysus and Ariadnê as lovers represented (at the instance of Sokrates) by the Syracusan ballet-master and his staff.
This is described as an exciting spectacle to most of the hearers, married as well as unmarried, who retire with agreeable emotions.
Sokrates himself departs with Lykon and Kallias, to be present at the exercise of Autolykus.
[55] [Footnote 55: Xen.
Symp.
viii.
5, ix.
7.
The close of the Xenophontic Symposion is, to a great degree, in harmony with modern sentiment, though what is there expressed would probably be left to be understood.
The Platonic Symposion departs altogether from that sentiment.]
[Side-note: Platonic Symposion more ideal and transcendental than the Xenophontic.]
We see thus that the Platonic Symposion is much more ideal, and departs farther from common practice and sentiment, than the Xenophontic.
It discards all the common accessories of a banquet (musical or dancing artists), and throws the guests altogether upon their own powers of rhetoric and dialectic, for amusement.
If we go through the different encomiums upon Eros, by Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Diotima--we shall appreciate the many-coloured forms and exuberance of the Platonic imagination, as compared with the more restricted range and common-place practical sense of Xenophon.
[56] All the Platonic speakers are accomplished persons--a man of letters, a physician, two successful poets, a prophetess: the Xenophontic personages, except Sokrates and Antisthenes, are persons of ordinary capacity.
The Platonic Symposion, after presenting Eros in five different points of view, gives pre-eminence and emphasis to a sixth, in which Eros is regarded as the privileged minister and conductor to the mysteries of philosophy, both the lowest and the highest: the Xenophontic Symposion dwells upon one view only of Eros (developed by Sokrates) and cites Kallias as example of it, making no mention of philosophy.
The Platonic Symposion exalts Sokrates, as the representative of Eros Philosophus, to a pinnacle of elevation which places him above human fears and weaknesses[57]--coupled however with that eccentricity which makes the vulgar regard a philosopher as out of his mind: the Xenophontic Symposion presents him only as a cheerful, amiable companion, advising temperance, yet enjoying a convivial hour, and contributing more than any one else to the general hilarity.
[Footnote 56: The difference between the two coincides very much with that which is drawn by Plato himself in the Phædrus--[Greek: thei/a mani/a] as contrasted with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê thnêtê\] (p. 256 E).
Compare Athenæus, v. 187 B.]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Phædrus, p. 249 D. [Greek: nouthetei=tai me\n u(po\ tô=n pollô=n ô(s parakinô=n, e)nthousia/zôn de\ le/lêthe tou\s pollou\s.
.
.
.
ai)ti/an e)/chei ô(s manikô=s diakei/menos.]]
Such are the points of comparison which present themselves between the same subject as handled by these two eminent contemporaries, both of them companions, and admirers of Sokrates: and each handling it in his own manner.
[58] [Footnote 58: Which of these two Symposia was the latest in date of composition we cannot determine with certainty: though it seems certain that the latest of the two was not composed in imitation of the earliest.
From the allusion to the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia (p. 193 A) we know that the Platonic Symposion must have been composed after 385 B.C.
: there is great probability also, though not full certainty, that it was composed during the time when Mantineia was still an aggregate of separate villages and not a town--that is, between 385-370 B.C., in which latter year Mantineia was re-established as a city.
The Xenophontic Symposion affords no mark of date of composition: Xenophon reports it as having been himself present.
It does indeed contain, in the speech delivered by Sokrates (viii.
32), an allusion to, and a criticism upon, an opinion supported by Pausanias [Greek: o( A)ga/thônos tou= poiêtou= e)rastê/s], who discourses in the Platonic Symposion: and several critics think that this is an allusion by Xenophon to the Platonic Symposion.
I think this opinion improbable.
It would require us to suppose that Xenophon is inaccurate, since the opinion which he ascribes to Pausanias is not delivered by Pausanias in the Platonic Symposion, but by Phædrus.
Athenæus (v. 216) remarks that the opinion is not delivered by Pausanias, but he does not mention that it _is_ delivered by Phædrus.
He remarks that there was no known written composition of Pausanias himself: and he seems to suppose that Xenophon must have alluded to the Platonic Symposion, but that he quoted it inaccurately or out of another version of it, different from what we now read.
Athenæus wastes reasoning in proving that the conversation described in the Platonic Symposion cannot have really occurred at the time to which Plato assigns it.
This is unimportant: the speeches are doubtless all composed by Plato.
If Athenæus was anxious to prove anachronism against Plato, I am surprised that he did not notice that of the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia mentioned in a conversation supposed to have taken place in the presence of Sokrates, who died in 399 B.C.
I incline to believe that the allusion of Xenophon is not intended to apply to the Symposion of Plato.
Xenophon ascribes one opinion to Pausanias, Plato ascribes another; this is noway inconceivable.
I therefore remain in doubt whether the Xenophontic or the Platonic Symposion is earliest.
Compare the Præf.
of Schneider to the former, pp.
140-143.]
[Side-note: Second half of the Phædrus--passes into a debate on Rhetoric.
Eros is considered as a subject for rhetorical exercise.]
I have already stated that the first half of the Phædrus differs materially from the second; and that its three discourses on the subject of Eros (the first two depreciating Eros, the third being an effusion of high-flown and poetical panegyric on the same theme) may be better understood by being looked at in conjunction with the Symposion.
The second half of the Phædrus passes into a different discussion, criticising the discourse of Lysias as a rhetorical composition: examining the principles upon which the teaching of Rhetoric as an Art either is founded, or ought to be founded: and estimating the efficacy of written discourse generally, as a means of working upon or instructing other minds.
[Side-note: Lysias is called a logographer by active politicians.
Contempt conveyed by the word.
Sokrates declares that the only question is, Whether a man writes well or ill.] I heard one of our active political citizens (says Phædrus) severely denounce Lysias, and fasten upon him with contempt, many times over, the title of a logographer.
Active politicians will not consent to compose and leave behind them written discourses, for fear of being called Sophists.
[59] To write discourses (replies Sokrates) is noway discreditable: the real question is, whether he writes them well.
[60] And the same question is the only one proper to be asked about other writers on all subjects--public or private, in prose or in verse.
How to speak _well_, and how to write _well_--is the problem.
[61] Is there any art or systematic method, capable of being laid down beforehand and defended upon principle, for accomplishing the object _well_?
Or does a man succeed only by unsystematic knack or practice, such as he can neither realise distinctly to his own consciousness, nor describe to others?
[Footnote 59: Plato, Phædrus, p. 257 C.] [Footnote 60: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
257 E, 258 D. The two appellations--[Greek: logogra/phos] and [Greek: sophistê/s]--are here coupled together as terms of reproach, just as they stand coupled in Demosthenes, Fals.
Leg.
p. 417.
It is plain that both appellations acquired their discreditable import mainly from the collateral circumstance that the persons so denominated took money for their compositions or teaching.
The [Greek: logogra/phos] wrote for pay, and on behalf of any client who could pay him.
In the strict etymological sense, neither of the two terms would imply any reproach.
Yet Plato, in this dialogue, when he is discussing the worth of the reproachful imputation fastened on Lysias, takes the term [Greek: logogra/phos] only in this etymological, literal sense, omitting to notice the collateral association which really gave point to it and made it serve the purpose of a hostile speaker.
This is the more remarkable, because we find Plato multiplying opportunities, even on unsuitable occasions, of taunting the Sophists with the fact that they took money.
Here in the Phædrus, we should have expected that if he noticed the imputation at all, he would notice it in the sense intended by the speaker.
In this sense, indeed, it would not have suited the purpose of his argument, since he wishes to make it an introduction to a philosophical estimate of the value of writing as a means of instruction.
Heindorf observes, that Plato has used a similar liberty in comparing the [Greek: logogra/phos] to the proposer of a law or decree.
"Igitur, quum solemne legum initium ejusmodi esset, [Greek: e)/doxe tê=| boulê=|], &c., Plato aliter longé quam vulgo acciperetur, neque sine calumniâ quâdam, interpretatus est" (ad p.
258).]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Phædrus, p. 259 E. [Greek: o(/pê| kalô=s e)/chei le/gein te kai\ gra/phein, kai\ o(/pê| mê/, skepte/on.]--p.
258 D. [Greek: ti/s o( tro/pos tou= kalô=s te kai\ mê\ gra/phein.]]
[Side-note: Question about teaching the art of writing well or speaking well.
Can it be taught upon system or principle?
Or does the successful Rhetor succeed only by unsystematic knack?.]
First let us ask--When an orator addresses himself to a listening crowd upon the common themes--Good and Evil, Just and Unjust--is it necessary that he should know what is really and truly good and evil, just and unjust?
Most rhetorical teachers affirm, that it is enough if he knows what the audience or the people generally believe to be so: and that to that standard he must accommodate himself, if he wishes to persuade.
[62] [Footnote 62: Plato, Phædrus, p. 260 A.]
[Side-note: Theory of Sokrates--that all art of persuasion must be founded upon a knowledge of the truth, and of gradations of resemblance to the truth.]
He may persuade the people under these circumstances (replies Sokrates), but if he does so, it will be to their misfortune and to his own.
He ought to know the real truth--not merely what the public whom he addresses believe to be the truth--respecting just and unjust, good and evil, &c. There can be no genuine art of speaking, which is not founded upon knowledge of the truth, and upon adequate philosophical comprehension of the subject-matter.
[63] The rhetorical teachers take too narrow a view of rhetoric, when they confine it to public harangues addressed to the assembly or to the Dikastery.
Rhetoric embraces all guidance of the mind through words, whether in public harangue or private conversation, on matters important or trivial.
Whether it be a controversy between two litigants in a Dikastery, causing the Dikasts to regard the same matters now as being just and good, presently as being unjust and evil: or between two dialecticians like Zeno, who could make his hearers view the same subjects as being both like and unlike--both one and many--both in motion and at rest: in either case the art (if there be any art) and its principles are the same.
You ought to assimilate every thing to every thing, in all cases where assimilation is possible: if your adversary assimilates in like manner, concealing the process from his hearers, you must convict and expose his proceedings.
Now the possibility or facility of deception in this way will depend upon the extent of likeness between things.
If there be much real likeness, deception is easy, and one of them may easily be passed off as the other: if there be little likeness, deception will be difficult.
An extensive acquaintance with the real resemblances of things, or in other words with truth, constitutes the necessary basis on which all oratorical art must proceed.
[64] [Footnote 63: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
260-261.]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Phædrus, p.
262.]
[Side-note: Comparison made by Sokrates between the discourse of Lysias and his own.
Eros is differently understood: Sokrates defined what he meant by it: Lysias did not define.]
Sokrates then compares the oration of Lysias with his own two orations (the first depreciating, the second extolling, Eros) in the point of view of art; to see how far they are artistically constructed.
Among the matters of discourse, there are some on which all men are agreed, and on which therefore the speaker may assume established unanimity in his audience: there are others on which great dissension and discord prevail.
Among the latter (the topics of dissension), questions about just and unjust, good and evil, stand foremost:[65] it is upon these that deception is most easy, and rhetorical skill most efficacious.
Accordingly, an orator should begin by understanding to which of these two categories the topic which he handles belongs: If it belongs to the second category (those liable to dissension) he ought, at the outset, to define what he himself means by it, and what he intends the audience to understand.
Now Eros is a topic on which great dissension prevails.
It ought therefore to have been defined at the commencement of the discourse.
This Sokrates in his discourse has done: but Lysias has omitted to do it, and has assumed Eros to be obviously and unanimously apprehended by every one.
Besides, the successive points in the discourse of Lysias do not hang together by any thread of necessary connection, as they ought to do, if the discourse were put together according to rule.
[66] [Footnote 65: Plato, Phædrus, p. 263 B.
Compare Plato, Alkibiad.
i. p.
109.]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
263-265.]
[Side-note: Logical processes--Definition and Division--both of them exemplified in the two discourses of Sokrates.]
Farthermore, in the two discourses of Sokrates, not merely was the process of _logical definition_ exemplified in the case of Eros--but also the process of _logical division_, in the case of Madness or Irrationality.
This last extensive genus was divided first into two species--Madness, from human distemper--Madness, from divine inspiration, carrying a man out of the customary orthodoxy.
[67] Next, this last species was again divided into four branches or sub-species, according to the God from whom the inspiration proceeded, and according to the character of the inspiration--the prophetic, emanating from Apollo--the ritual or mystic, from Dionysus--the poetic, from the Muses--the amatory, from Eros and Aphroditê.
[68] Now both these processes, definition and division, are familiar to the true dialectician or philosopher: but they are not less essential in rhetoric also, if the process is performed with genuine art.
The speaker ought to embrace in his view many particular cases, to gather together what is common to all, and to combine them into one generic concept, which is to be embodied in words as the definition.
He ought also to perform the counter-process: to divide the genus not into parts arbitrary and incoherent (like a bad cook cutting up an animal without regard to the joints) but into legitimate species;[69] each founded on some positive and assignable characteristic.
"It is these divisions and combinations (says Sokrates) to which I am devotedly attached, in order that I may become competent for thought and discourse: and if there be any one else whom I consider capable of thus contemplating the One and the Many as they stand in nature--I follow in the footsteps of that man as in those of a God.
I call such a man, rightly or wrongly, a Dialectician.
"[70] [Footnote 67: Plato, Phædrus, p. 265 A.
[Greek: u(po\ thei/as e)xallagê=s tô=n ei)ôtho/tôn nomi/môn.]]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Phædrus, p.
265.]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
265-266.
265 D: [Greek: ei)s mi/an te i)de/an sunorô=nta a)/gein ta\ pollachê= diesparme/na, i(/n' e(/kaston o(rizo/menos dê=lon poi=ê| peri\ ou(= a)\n a)ei\ dida/skein e)the/lê|.]
265 E: [Greek: to\ pa/lin kat' ei)/dê du/nasthai te/mnein kat' a)/rthra, ê(=| pe/phuke, kai\ mê\ e)picheirei=n katagnu/nai me/ros mêde/n, kakou= magei/rou tro/pô| chrô/menon.]
Seneca, Epist.
89, p. 395, ed.
Gronov.
"Faciam ergo quod exigis, et philosophiam in partes, non in frusta, dividam.
Dividi enim illam, non concidi, utile est."]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Phædrus, p. 266 B.
[Greek: Tou/tôn dê\ e)/gôge au)to/s te e)rastê/s, ô)= Phai=dre, tô=n diaire/seôn kai\ sunagôgô=n, i(/n' oi(=o/s te ô)= le/gein te kai\ phronei=n; e)a/n te/ tin' a)/llon ê(gê/sômai dunato\n ei)s e(\n kai\ e)pi\ polla\ pephuko\s o(ra=|n, tou=ton diô/kô kato/pisthe met' i)/chnion ô(/ste theoi=o.
kai\ me/ntoi kai\ tou\s duname/nous au)to\ dra=|n ei) me\n o)rthô=s ê)\ mê\ prosagoreu/ô, theo\s oi)=de; kalô= de\ ou)=n me/chri tou=de dialektikou/s.]]
This is Dialectic (replies Phædrus); but it is not Rhetoric, as Thrasymachus and other professors teach the art.
[Side-note: View of Sokrates--that there is no real Art of Rhetoric, except what is already comprised in Dialectic--The rhetorical teaching is empty and useless.]
What else is there worth having (says Sokrates), which these professors teach?
The order and distribution of a discourse: first, the exordium, then recital, proof, second proof, refutation, recapitulation at the close: advice how to introduce maxims or similes: receipts for moving the anger or compassion of the dikasts.
Such teaching doubtless enables a speaker to produce considerable effect upon popular assemblies:[71] but it is not the art of rhetoric.
It is an assemblage of preliminary accomplishments, necessary before a man can acquire the art: but it is not the art itself.
You must know when, how far, in what cases, and towards what persons, to employ these accomplishments:[72] otherwise you have not learnt the art of rhetoric.
You may just as well consider yourself a physician because you know how to bring about vomit and purging--or a musician, because you know how to wind up or unwind the chords of your lyre.
These teachers mistake the preliminaries or antecedents of the art, for the art itself.
It is in the right, measured, seasonable, combination and application of these preliminaries, in different doses adapted to each special matter and audience--that the art of rhetoric consists.
And this is precisely the thing which the teacher does not teach, but supposes the learner to acquire for himself.
[73] [Footnote 71: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
267-268.]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Phædrus, p. 268 B.
[Greek: e)re/sthai ei) prosepi/statai kai\ ou(sti/nas dei= kai\ o(po/te e(/kasta tou/tôn poiei=n, kai\ me/chri o(po/sou?]]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Phædrus, p.
269.]
[Side-note: What the Art of Rhetoric ought to be--Analogy of Hippokrates and the medical Art.]
The true art of rhetoric (continues Sokrates) embraces a larger range than these teachers imagine.
It deals with mind, as the medical researches of Hippokrates deal with body--as a generic total with all its species and varieties, and as essentially relative to the totality of external circumstances.
First, Hippokrates investigates how far the body is, in every particular man, simple, homogeneous, uniform: and how far it is complex, heterogeneous, multiform, in the diversity of individuals.
If it be one and the same, or in so far as it is one and the same, he examines what are its properties in relation to each particular substance acting upon it or acted upon by it.
In so far as it is multiform and various, he examines and compares each of the different varieties, in the same manner, to ascertain its properties in relation to every substance.
[74] It is in this way that Hippokrates discovers the nature or essence of the human body, distinguishing its varieties, and bringing the medical art to bear upon each, according to its different properties.
This is the only scientific or artistic way of proceeding.
[Footnote 74: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270 D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)ch ô(=de dei= dianoei=sthai peri\ o(touou=n phu/seôs?
Prô=ton me\n, a(plou=n ê)\ polueide/s e)stin, ou(= peri\ boulêso/metha ei)=nai au)toi\ technikoi\ kai\ a)/llon dunatoi\ poiei=n?
e)/peita de/, e)a\n me\n a(plou=n ê)=|, skopei=n tê\n du/namin au)tou=, ti/na pro\s ti/ pe/phuken ei)s to\ dra=|n e)/chon ê)\ ti/na ei)s to\ pathei=n u(po\ tou=?
e)a\n de\ plei/ô ei)/dê e)/chê|, tau=ta a)rithmêsa/menos, o(/per e)ph' e(no/s, tou=t' i)dei=n e)ph' e(ka/stou, tô=| ti/ poiei=n au)to\ pe/phuken ê)\ tô=| ti/ pathei=n u(po\ tou=?]]
[Side-note: Art of Rhetoric ought to include a systematic classification of minds with all their varieties, and of discourses with all their varieties.
The Rhetor must know how to apply the one to the other, suitably to each particular case.]
Now the true rhetor ought to deal with the human mind in like manner.
His task is to work persuasion in the minds of certain men by means of discourse.
He has therefore, first, to ascertain how far all mind is one and the same, and what are the affections belonging to it universally in relation to other things: next, to distinguish the different varieties of minds, together with the properties, susceptibilities, and active aptitudes, of each: carrying the subdivision down until he comes to a variety no longer admitting division.
[75] He must then proceed to distinguish the different varieties of discourse, noting the effects which each is calculated to produce or to hinder, and the different ways in which it is likely to impress different minds.
[76] Such and such men are persuadable by such and such discourses--or the contrary.
Having framed these two general classifications, the rhetor must on each particular occasion acquire a rapid tact in discerning to which class of minds the persons whom he is about to address belong: and therefore what class of discourses will be likely to operate on them persuasively.
[77] He must farther know those subordinate artifices of speech on which the professors insist; and he must also be aware of the proper season and limit within which each can be safely employed.
[78] [Footnote 75: Plato, Phædrus, p. 277 B.
[Greek: o(risa/meno/s te pa/lin kat' ei)/dê me/chri tou= a)tmê/tou te/mnein e)pistêthê=|.]]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 A.
[Greek: _Prô=ton_, pa/sê| a)kribei/a| gra/psei te kai\ poiê/sei psuchê\n i)dei=n, po/teron e(\n kai\ o(/moion pe/phuken ê)\ kata\ sô/matos morphê\n polueide/s; tou=to ga/r phamen _phu/sin_ ei)=nai deiknu/nai.
_Deu/teron_ de/ ge, o(/tô| ti/ poiei=n ê)\ pathei=n u(po\ tou= pe/phuken.
_Tri/ton_ de\ dê\ diataxa/menos ta\ lo/gôn te kai\ psuchê=s ge/nê kai\ ta\ tou/tôn pathê/mata, di/eisi ta\s ai)ti/as, prosarmo/ttôn e(/kaston e(ka/stô|, kai\ dida/skôn oi(/a ou)=sa u(ph' oi(/ôn lo/gôn di' ê(\n ai)ti/an e)x a)na/gkês ê( me\n pei/thetai, ê( de\ a)peithei=.]]
[Footnote 77: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D. [Greek: dei= mê\ tau=ta i(kanô=s noê/santa, meta\ tau=ta theô/menon au)ta\ e)n tai=s pra/xesin o)/nta te kai\ pratto/mena, _o)xe/ôs_ tê=| ai)sthê/sei du/nasthai e)pakolouthei=n], &c.] [Footnote 78: Plato, Phædrus, p. 272 A.
[Greek: tau=ta de\ ê)/dê pa/nt' e)/chonti, _proslabo/nti kairou\s tou= po/te lekte/on kai\ e)pischete/on_, brachulogi/as te au)= kai\ e)leeinologi/as kai\ deinô/seôs, e(ka/stôn te o(/s' a)\n ei)/dê ma/thê| lo/gôn, tou/tôn _tê\n eu)kairi/an te kai\ a)kairi/an diagno/nti_, kalô=s te kai\ tele/ôs e)sti\n ê( te/chnê a)peirgasme/nê, _pro/teron d' ou)/_.]]
[Side-note: The Rhetorical Artist must farther become possessed of real truth, as well as that which his auditors believe to be truth.
He is not sufficiently rewarded for this labour.]
Nothing less than this assemblage of acquirements (says Sokrates) will suffice to constitute a real artist, either in speaking or writing.
Arduous and fatiguing indeed the acquisition is: but there is no easier road.
And those who tell us that the rhetor need not know what is really true, but only what his audience will believe to be true--must be reminded that this belief, on the part of the audience, arises from the likeness of that which they believe, to the real truth.
Accordingly, he who knows the real truth will be cleverest in suggesting apparent or quasi-truth adapted to their feelings.
If a man is bent on becoming an artist in rhetoric, he must go through the process here marked out: yet undoubtedly the process is so laborious, that rhetoric, when he has acquired it, is no adequate reward.
We ought to learn how to speak and act in a way agreeable to the Gods, and this is worth all the trouble necessary for acquiring it.
But the power of speaking agreeably and effectively to men, is not of sufficient moment to justify the expenditure of so much time and labour.
[79] [Footnote 79: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
273-274.]
[Side-note: Question about Writing--As an Art, for the purpose of instruction, it can do little--Reasons why.
Writing may remind the reader of what he already knows.]
We have now determined what goes to constitute genuine art, in speaking or in writing.
But how far is writing, even when art is applied to it, capable of producing real and permanent effect?
or indeed of having art applied to it at all?
Sokrates answers himself--Only to a small degree.
Writing will impart amusement and satisfaction for the moment: it will remind the reader of something which he knew before, if he really did know.
But in respect to any thing which he did not know before, it will neither teach nor persuade him: it may produce in him an impression or fancy that he is wiser than he was before, but such impression is illusory, and at best only transient.
Writing is like painting--one and the same to all readers, whether young or old, well or ill informed.
It cannot adapt itself to the different state of mind of different persons, as we have declared that every finished speaker ought to do.
It cannot answer questions, supply deficiencies, reply to objections, rectify misunderstanding.
It is defenceless against all assailants.
It supersedes and enfeebles the memory, implanting only a false persuasion of knowledge without the reality.
[80] [Footnote 80: Plato, Phædrus, p. 275 D-E. [Greek: tau)to\n de\ kai\ oi( lo/goi (oi( gegramme/noi); do/xais me\n a)\n ô(/s ti phronou=ntas au)tou\s le/gein e)a\n de/ ti e(/rê| tô=n legome/nôn boulo/menos mathei=n, e(/n ti sêmai/nei mo/non tau)to\n a)ei/.
O(/tan de\ a(/pax graphê=|, kulindei=tai me\n pantachou= pa=s lo/gos o(moi/ôs para\ toi=s e)pai+/ousin, ô(s d' au)tô=s par' oi(=s ou)de\n prosê/kei, kai\ ou)k e)pi/statai le/gein oi(=s dei= ge kai\ mê/.]]
[Side-note: Neither written words, nor continuous speech, will produce any serious effect in teaching.
Dialectic and cross-examination are necessary.]
Any writer therefore, in prose or verse--Homer, Solon, or Lysias--who imagines that he can by a ready-made composition, however carefully turned,[81] _if simply heard or read without cross-examination or oral comment_, produce any serious and permanent effect in persuading or teaching, beyond a temporary gratification--falls into a disgraceful error.
If he intends to accomplish any thing serious, he must be competent to originate spoken discourse more effective than the written.
The written word is but a mere phantom or ghost of the spoken word: which latter is the only legitimate offspring of the teacher, springing fresh and living out of his mind, and engraving itself profoundly on the mind of the hearer.
[82] The speaker must know, with discriminative comprehension, and in logical subdivision, both the matter on which he discourses, and the minds of the particular hearers to whom he addresses himself.
He will thus be able to adapt the order, the distribution, the manner of presenting his subject, to the apprehension of the particular hearers and the exigencies of the particular moment.
He will submit to cross-examination,[83] remove difficulties, and furnish all additional explanations which the case requires.
By this process he will not indeed produce that immediate, though flashy and evanescent, impression of suddenly acquired knowledge, which arises from the perusal of what is written.
He will sow seed which for a long time appears buried under ground; but which, after such interval, springs up and ripens into complete and lasting fruit.
[84] By repeated dialectic debate, he will both familiarise to his own mind and propagate in his fellow-dialogists, full knowledge; together with all the manifold reasonings bearing on the subject, and with the power also of turning it on many different sides, of repelling objections and clearing up obscurities.
It is not from writing, but from dialectic debate, artistically diversified and adequately prolonged, that full and deep teaching proceeds; prolific in its own nature, communicable indefinitely from every new disciple to others, and forming a source of intelligence and happiness to all.
[85] [Footnote 81: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
277-278.
[Greek: ô(s oi( r(apsô|dou/menoi (lo/goi) a)/neu a)nakri/seôs kai\ didachê=s peithou=s e(/neka e)le/chthêsan], &c.] [Footnote 82: Plato, Phædrus, p. 276 A.
[Greek: a)/llon o(rô=men lo/gon tou/tou a)delpho\n gnê/sion tô=| tro/pô| te gi/gnetai, kai\ o(/sô| a)mei/nôn kai\ dunatô/teros tou/tou phu/etai?
.
.
.
.
O(/s met' e)pistê/mês gra/phetai e)n tê=| tou= mantha/nontos psuchê=|, dunato\s me\n a)mu=nai e(autô=|, e)pistê/môn de\ le/gein te kai\ siga=|n pro\s ou(\s dei=.
To\n tou= ei)do/tos lo/gon le/geis zô=nta kai\ e)/mpsuchon, ou(= o( gegramme/nos ei)/dôlon a)/n ti le/goito dikai/ôs], &c. 278 A.]
[Footnote 83: Plato, Phædrus, p. 278 C. [Greek: ei) me\n ei)dô\s ê(=| ta)lêthe\s e)/chei sune/thêke tau=ta (ta\ suggra/mmata) kai\ e)/chôn boêthei=n, ei)s e)/legchon i)ô\n peri\ ô(=n e)/grapse, kai\ le/gôn au)to\s dunato\s ta\ gegramme/na phau=la a)podei=xai], &c.] [Footnote 84: Plato, Phædrus, p. 276 A.]
[Footnote 85: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
276-277.]
This blending of philosophy with rhetoric, which pervades the criticisms on Lysias in the Phædrus, is farther illustrated by the praise bestowed upon Isokrates in contrast with Lysias.
Isokrates occupied that which Plato in Euthydêmus calls "the border country between philosophy and politics".
Many critics declare (and I think with probable reason[86]) that Isokrates is the person intended (without being named) in the passage just cited from the Euthydêmus.
In the Phædrus, Isokrates is described as the intimate friend of Sokrates, still young; and is pronounced already superior in every way to Lysias--likely to become superior in future to all the rhetors that have ever flourished--and destined probably to arrive even at the divine mysteries of philosophy.
[87] [Footnote 86: See above, vol.
ii.
ch.
xxi.
p.
227.]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Phædrus, p. 279 A.]
When we consider that the Phædrus was pretty sure to bring upon Plato a good deal of enmity--since it attacked, by name, both Lysias, a resident at Athens of great influence and ability, and several other contemporary rhetors more or less celebrated--we can understand how Plato became disposed to lighten this amount of enmity by a compliment paid to Isokrates.
This latter rhetor, a few years older than Plato, was the son of opulent parents at Athens, and received a good education; but when his family became impoverished by the disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian war, he established himself as a teacher of rhetoric at Chios: after some time, however, he returned to Athens, and followed the same profession there.
He engaged himself also, like Lysias, in composing discourses for pleaders before the dikastery[88] and for speakers in the assembly; by which practice he acquired both fortune and reputation.
Later in life, he relinquished these harangues destined for real persons on real occasions, and confined himself to the composition of discourses (intended, not for contentious debate, but for the pleasure and instruction of hearers) on general questions--social, political, and philosophical: at the same time receiving numerous pupils from different cities of Greece.
Through such change, he came into a sort of middle position between the rhetoric of Lysias and the dialectic of Plato: insomuch that the latter, at the time when he composed the Phædrus, had satisfaction in contrasting him favourably with Lysias, and in prophesying that he would make yet greater progress towards philosophy.
But at the time when Plato composed the Euthydêmus, his feeling was different.
[89] In the Phædrus, Isokrates is compared with Lysias and other rhetors, and in that comparison Plato presents him as greatly superior: in the Euthydêmus, he is compared with philosophers as well as with rhetors, and is even announced as disparaging philosophy generally: Plato then declares him to be a presumptuous half-bred, and extols against him even the very philosopher whom he himself had just been caricaturing.
To apply a Platonic simile, the most beautiful ape is ugly compared with man--the most beautiful man is an ape compared with the Gods:[90] the same intermediate position between rhetoric and philosophy is assigned by Plato to Isokrates.
[Footnote 88: Dion.
Hal.
De Isocrate Judicium, p. 576.
[Greek: desma\s pa/nu polla\s dikanikô=n lo/gôn periphe/resthai/ phêsin u(po\ tô=n bibliopôlô=n A)ristote/lês], &c. Plutarch, Vit.
x. Oratt.
pp.
837-838.
The Athenian Polykrates had been forced, by loss of property, to quit Athens and undertake the work of a Sophist in Cyprus.
Isokrates expresses much sympathy for him: it was a misfortune like what had happened to himself (Orat.
xi.
Busiris 1).
Compare De Permutation.
Or.
xv.
s. 172.
The assertion made by Isokrates--that he did not compose political and judicial orations, to be spoken by individuals for real causes and public discussions--may be true comparatively, and with reference to a certain period of his life.
But it is only to be received subject to much reserve and qualification.
Even out of the twenty-one orations of Isokrates which we possess, the last five are composed to be spoken by pleaders before the dikastery.
They are such discourses as the logographers, Lysias among the rest, were called upon to furnish, and paid for furnishing.]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 306.
I am inclined to agree with Ueberweg in thinking that the Euthydêmus is later than the Phædrus.
Ueberweg, Aechtheit der Platon.
Schriften, pp.
256-259-265.]
[Footnote 90: Plato, Hipp.
Major, p.
289.]
From the pen of Isokrates also, we find various passages apparently directed against the viri Socratici including Plato (though without his name): depreciating,[91] as idle and worthless, new political theories, analytical discussions on the principles of ethics, and dialectic subtleties; maintaining that the word philosophy was erroneously interpreted and defined by many contemporaries, in a sense too much withdrawn from practical results: and affirming that his own teaching was calculated to impart genuine philosophy.
During the last half of Plato's life, his school and that of Isokrates were the most celebrated among all that existed at Athens.
There was competition between them, gradually kindling into rivalry.
Such rivalry became vehement during the last ten years of Plato's life, when his scholar Aristotle, then an aspiring young man of twenty-five, proclaimed a very contemptuous opinion of Isokrates, and commenced a new school of rhetoric in opposition to him.
[92] Kephisodôrus, a pupil of Isokrates, retaliated; publishing against Aristotle, as well as against Plato, an acrimonious work which was still read some centuries afterwards.
Theopompus, another eminent pupil of Isokrates, commented unfavourably upon Plato in his writings: and other writers who did the same may probably have belonged to the Isokratean school.
[93] [Footnote 91: Isokrates, Orat.
x.
1 (Hel.
Enc.
); Orat.
v.
(Philipp.)
12; Or.
xiii.
(Sophist.)
9-24; Orat.
xv.
(Permut.)
sect.
285-290.
[Greek: philosophi/an me\n ou)=n ou)k oi)=mai dei=n prosagoreu/ein tê\n mêde\n e)n tô=| paro/nti mê/te pro\s to\ le/gein mê/te pro\s to\ pra/ttein ô(/phelou=san--tê\n kaloume/nên u(po/ tinôn philosophi/an ou)k ei)=nai phêmi/], &c.] [Footnote 92: Cicero, De Oratore, iii.
35, 141; Orator.
19, 62; Numenius, ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Evang.
xiv.
6, 9.
See Stahr, Aristotelia, i. p. 63 seq., ii.
p. 44 seq.
Schroeder's Quæstiones Isocrateæ (Utrecht, 1859), and Spengel's work, Isokrates und Plato, are instructive in regard to these two contemporary luminaries of the intellectual world at Athens.
But, unfortunately, we can make out few ascertainable facts.
When I read the Oration De Permut., Or.
xv.
(composed by Isokrates about fifteen years before his own death, and about five years before the death of Plato, near 353 B.C.
), I am impressed with the belief that many of his complaints about unfriendly and bitter criticism refer to the Platonic School of that day, Aristotle being one of its members.
See sections 48-90-276, and seq.
He certainly means the Sokratic men, and Plato as the most celebrated of them, when he talks of [Greek: oi( peri\ ta\s e)rôtê/seis kai\ a)pokri/seis, ou(\s a)ntilogikou\s kalou=sin--oi( peri\ ta\s e)/ridas spouda/zontes]--those who are powerful in contentious dialectic, and at the same time cultivate geometry and astronomy, which others call [Greek: a)doleschi/a] and [Greek: mikrologi/a] (280)--those who exhorted hearers to virtue about which others knew nothing, and about which they themselves were in dispute.
When he complains of the [Greek: perittolo/giai] of the ancient Sophists, Empedokles, Ion, Parmenides, Melissus, &c., we cannot but suppose that he had in his mind the Timæus of Plato also, though he avoids mention of the name.]
[Footnote 93: Athenæus, iii.
p. 122, ii.
60; Dionys.
Hal.
Epistol.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
p.
757.]
[Side-note: The Dialectician and Cross-Examiner is the only man who can really teach.
If the writer can do this, he is more than a writer.]
This is the true philosopher (continues Sokrates)--the man who alone is competent to teach truth about the just, good, and honourable.
[94] He who merely writes, must not delude himself with the belief that upon these important topics his composition can impart any clear or lasting instruction.
To mistake fancy for reality hereupon, is equally disgraceful, whether the mistake be made by few or by many persons.
If indeed the writer can explain to others orally the matters written--if he can answer all questions, solve difficulties, and supply the deficiencies, of each several reader--in that case he is something far more and better than a writer, and ought to be called a philosopher.
But if he can do no more than write, he is no philosopher: he is only a poet, or nomographer, or logographer.
[95] [Footnote 94: Plato, Phædrus, p. 277 D-E.] [Footnote 95: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
278-279.]
[Side-note: Lysias is only a logographer: Isokrates promises to become a philosopher.]
In this latter class stands Lysias.
I expect (concludes Sokrates) something better from Isokrates, who gives promise of aspiring one day to genuine philosophy.
[96] [Footnote 96: Respecting the manner in which Plato speaks of Isokrates in the Phædrus, see what I have already observed upon the Euthydêmus, vol.
ii.
ch.
xxi.
pp.
227-229.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Date of the Phædrus--not an early dialogue.]
I have already observed that I dissent from the hypothesis of Schleiermacher, Ast, and others, who regard the Phædrus either as positively the earliest, or at least among the earliest, of the Platonic dialogues, composed several years before the death of Sokrates.
I agree with Hermann, Stallbaum, and those other critics, who refer it to a much later period of Plato's life: though I see no sufficient evidence to determine more exactly either its date or its place in the chronological series of dialogues.
The views opened in the second half of the dialogue, on the theory of rhetoric and on the efficacy of written compositions as a means of instruction, are very interesting and remarkable.
[Side-note: Criticism given by Plato on the three discourses--His theory of Rhetoric is more Platonic than Sokratic.]
The written discourse of Lysias (presented to us as one greatly admired at the time by his friends, Phædrus among them) is contrasted first with a pleading on the same subject (though not directed towards the attainment of the same end) by Sokrates (supposed to be improvised on the occasion); next with a second pleading of Sokrates directly opposed to the former, and intended as a recantation.
These three discourses are criticised from the rhetorical point of view,[97] and are made the handle for introducing to us a theory of rhetoric.
The second discourse of Sokrates, far from being Sokratic in tenor, is the most exuberant effusion of mingled philosophy, poetry, and mystic theology, that ever emanated from Plato.
[Footnote 97: Plato, Phædrus, p. 235 A.]
[Side-note: His theory postulates, in the Rhetor, knowledge already assured--it assumes that all the doubts have been already removed.]
The theory of rhetoric too is far more Platonic than Sokratic.
The peculiar vein of Sokrates is that of confessed ignorance, ardour in enquiry, and testing cross-examination of all who answer his questions.
But in the Phædrus we find Plato (under the name of Sokrates) assuming, as the basis of his theory, that an expositor shall be found who _knows_ what is really and truly just and unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable--distinct from, and independent of, the established beliefs on these subjects, traditional among his neighbours and fellow-citizens:[98] assuming (to express the same thing in other words) that all the doubts and difficulties, suggested by the Sokratic cross-examination, have been already considered, elucidated, and removed.
[Footnote 98: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
259 E, 260 E, and 262 B.]
[Side-note: The Expositor, with knowledge and logical process, teaches minds unoccupied and willing to learn.]
The expositor, master of such perfect knowledge, must farther be master (so Plato tells us) of the arts of logical definition and division: that is, he must be able to gather up many separate fragmentary particulars into one general notion, clearly identified and embodied in a definition: and he must be farther able to subdivide such a general notion into its constituent specific notions, each marked by some distinct characteristic feature.
[99] This is the only way to follow out truth in a manner clear and consistent with itself: and truth is equally honourable in matters small or great.
[100] [Footnote 99: Plato, Phædrus, p.
266.]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 A.
That truth upon matters small and contemptible deserves to be sought out and proved as much as upon matters great and sublime, is a doctrine affirmed in the Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês: Sophist.
pp.
218 E, 227 A; Politik.
266 D; Parmenid.
130 E.] Thus far we are in dialectic: logical exposition proceeding by way of classifying and declassifying: in which it is assumed that the expositor will find minds unoccupied and unprejudiced, ready to welcome the truth when he lays it before them.
But there are many topics on which men's minds are, in the common and natural course of things, both pre-occupied and dissentient with each other.
This is especially the case with Justice, Goodness, the Honourable, &c.[101] It is one of the first requisites for the expositor to be able to discriminate this class of topics, where error and discordance grow up naturally among those whom he addresses.
It is here that men are liable to be deceived, and require to be undeceived--contradict each other, and argue on opposite sides: such disputes belong to the province of Rhetoric.
[Footnote 101: Plato, Phædrus, p. 263 A.]
[Side-note: The Rhetor does not teach, but persuades persons with minds pre-occupied--guiding them methodically from error to truth.]
The Rhetor is one who does not teach (according to the logical process previously described), but persuades; guiding the mind by discourse to or from various opinions or sentiments.
[102] Now if this is to be done _by art_ and methodically--that is, upon principle or system explicable and defensible--it pre-supposes (according to Plato) a knowledge of truth, and can only be performed by the logical expositor.
For when men are deceived, it is only because they mistake what is like truth for truth itself: when they are undeceived, it is because they are made to perceive that what they believe to be truth is only an apparent likeness thereof.
Such resemblances are strong or faint, differing by many gradations.
Now no one can detect, or bring into account, or compare, these shades of resemblance, except he who knows the truth to which they all ultimately refer.
It is through the slight differences that deception is operated.
To deceive a man, you must carry him gradually away from the truth by transitional stages, each resembling that which immediately precedes, though the last in the series will hardly at all resemble the first: to undeceive him (or to avoid being deceived yourself), you must conduct him back by the counter-process from error to truth, by a series of transitional resemblances tending in that direction.
You cannot do this like an artist (on system and by pre-determination), unless you know what the truth is.
[103] By anyone who does not know, the process will be performed without art, or at haphazard.
[Footnote 102: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 A.
[Greek: ê( r(êtorikê\ te/chnê psuchagôgi/a tis dia\ lo/gôn], &c.] [Footnote 103: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
262 A-D, 273 D.] [Side-note: He must then classify the minds to be persuaded, and the means of persuasion or varieties of discourse.
He must know how to fit on the one to the other in each particular case.]
The Rhetor--being assumed as already knowing the truth--if he wishes to make persuasion an art, must proceed in the following manner:--He must distribute the multiplicity of individual minds into distinct classes, each marked by its characteristic features of differences, emotional and intellectual.
He must also distribute the manifold modes of discourse into distinct classes, each marked in like manner.
Each of these modes of discourse is well adapted to persuade some classes of mind--badly adapted to persuade other classes: for such adaptation or non-adaptation there exists a rational necessity,[104] which the Rhetor must examine and ascertain, informing himself which modes of discourse are adapted to each different class of mind.
Having mastered this general question, he must, whenever he is about to speak, be able to distinguish, by rapid perception,[105] to which class of minds the hearer or hearers whom he is addressing belong: and accordingly, which mode of discourse is adapted to their particular case.
Moreover, he must also seize, in the case before him, the seasonable moment and the appropriate limit, for the use of each mode of discourse.
Unless the Rhetor is capable of fulfilling all these exigencies, without failing in any one point, his Rhetoric is not entitled to be called an Art.
He requires, in order to be an artist in persuading the mind, as great an assemblage of varied capacities as Hippokrates declares to be necessary for a physician, the artist for curing or preserving the body.
[106] [Footnote 104: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
270 E, 271 A-D. [Greek: Tri/ton de\ dê\ diataxa/menos ta\ lo/gôn te kai\ psuchê=s ge/nê, kai\ ta\ tou/tôn pathê/mata, di/eisi ta\s ai)ti/as, prosarmo/ttôn e(/kaston e(ka/stô|, kai\ dida/skôn oi(/a ou)=sa u(ph' oi(/ôn lo/gôn di' ê(\n ai)ti/an e)x a)na/gkês ê( me\n pei/thetai, ê( de\ a)peithei=.]]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D-E. [Greek: dei= dê\ tau=ta i(kanô=s noê/santa, meta\ tau=ta theô/menon au)ta\ e)n tai=s pra/xesin o)/nta te kai\ pratto/mena, _o)xe/ôs tê=| ai)sthê/sei du/nasthai e)pakolouthei=n_, ê)\ mêde\ ei)de/nai pô ple/on au)tô=n ô(=n to/te ê)/koue lo/gôn xunô/n.]]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270 C.] [Side-note: Plato's _Idéal_ of the Rhetorical Art--involves in part incompatible conditions--the Wise man or philosopher will never be listened to by the public.]
The total, thus summed up by Plato, of what is necessary to constitute an Art of Rhetoric, is striking and comprehensive.
It is indeed an _idéal_, not merely unattainable by reason of its magnitude, but also including impracticable conditions.
He begins by postulating a perfectly wise man, who knows all truth on the most important social subjects; on which his country-men hold erroneous beliefs, just as sincerely as _he_ holds his true beliefs.
But Plato has already told us, in the Gorgias, that such a person will not be listened to: that in order to address auditors with effect, the rhetor must be in genuine harmony of belief and character with them, not dissenting from them either for the better or the worse: nay, that the true philosopher (so we read in one of the most impressive portions of the Republic) not only has no chance of guiding the public mind, but incurs public obloquy, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes persecution.
[107] The dissenter will never be allowed to be the guide of a body of orthodox believers; and is even likely enough, unless he be prudent, to become their victim.
He may be permitted to lecture or discuss, in the gardens of the Academy, with a few chosen friends, and to write eloquent dialogues: but if he embodies his views in motions before the public assembly, he will find only strenuous opposition, or something worse.
This view, which is powerfully set forth by Sokrates both in the Gorgias and Republic, is founded on a just appreciation of human societies: and it is moreover the basis of the Sokratic procedure--That the first step to be taken is to disabuse men's minds of their false persuasion of knowledge--to make them conscious of ignorance--and thus to open their minds for the reception of truth.
But if this be the fact, we must set aside as impracticable the postulate advanced by Sokrates here in the Phædrus--of a perfectly wise man as the employer of rhetorical artifices.
Moreover I do not agree with what Sokrates is here made to lay down as the philosophy of Error:--that it derives its power of misleading from resemblance to truth.
This is the case to a certain extent: but it is very incomplete as an account of the generating causes of error.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorg.
p. 513 B, see supra, ch.
xxiv.
; Republic, vi.
pp.
495-496.]
[Side-note: The other part of the Platonic _Idéal_ is grand but unattainable--breadth of psychological data and classified modes of discourse.]
But the other portion of Plato's sum total of what is necessary to an Art of Rhetoric, is not open to the same objection.
It involves no incompatible conditions: and we can say nothing against it, except that it requires a breadth and logical command of scientific data, far greater than there is the smallest chance of attaining.
That Art is an assemblage of processes, directed to a definite end, and prescribed by rules which themselves rest upon scientific data--we find first announced in the works of Plato.
[108] A vast amount of scientific research, both inductive and deductive, is here assumed as an indispensable foundation--and even as a portion--of what he calls the Art of Rhetoric: first, a science of psychology, complete both in its principles and details: next, an exhaustive catalogue and classification of the various modes of operative speech, with their respective impression upon each different class of minds.
So prodigious a measure of scientific requirement has never yet been filled up: of course, therefore, no one has ever put together a body of precepts commensurate with it.
Aristotle, following partially the large conceptions of his master, has given a comprehensive view of many among the theoretical postulates of Rhetoric; and has partially enumerated the varieties both of persuadable auditors, and of persuasive means available to the speaker for guiding them.
Cicero, Dionysius of Halikarnassus, Quintilian, have furnished valuable contributions towards this last category of data, but not much towards the first: being all of them defective in breadth of psychological theory.
Nor has Plato himself done anything to work out his conception in detail or to provide suitable rules for it.
We read it only as an impressive sketch--a grand but unattainable _idéal_--"qualem nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum".
[Footnote 108: I repeat the citation from the Phædrus, one of the most striking passages in Plato, p. 271 D. [Greek: e)/peidê\ lo/gou du/namis tugcha/nei psuchagôgi/a ou)=sa, to\n me/llonta r(êtoriko\n e)/sesthai a)na/gkê ei)de/nai psuchê\ o(/sa ei)/dê e)/chei.
e)/stin ou)=n to/sa kai\ to/sa, kai\ toi=a kai\ toi=a; o(/then oi( me\n toioi/de, oi( de\ toioi/de gi/gnontai.
tou/tôn de\ dê\ diê|rême/nôn, lo/gôn au)= to/sa kai\ to/sa e)/stin ei)/dê, toio/nde e(/kaston.
oi( me\n ou)=n toioi/de u(po\ tô=n toiô=nde logôn dia\ tê/nde tê\n aiti/an e)s ta\ toia/de eu)peithei=s, oi( de\ toioi/de dia\ ta/de duspeithei=s], &c. Comp.
p. 261 A.
The relation of Art to Science is thus perspicuously stated by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the concluding chapter of his System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Book vi.
ch.
xii.
§ 2): "The relation in which rules of Art stand to doctrines of Science may be thus characterised.
The Art proposes to itself an end to be attained, defines the end, and hands it over to the Science.
The Science receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be studied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends it back to Art with a theorem of the combinations of circumstances by which it could be produced.
Art then examines these combinations of circumstances, and according as any of them are or are not in human power, pronounces the end attainable or not.
The only one of the premisses, therefore, which Art supplies, is the original major premiss, which asserts that the attainment of the given end is desirable.
Science then lends to Art the proposition (obtained by a series of inductions or of deductions) that the performance of certain actions will attain the end.
From these premisses Art concludes that the performance of these actions is desirable; and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem into a rule or precept."]
[Side-note: Plato's ideal grandeur compared with the rhetorical teachers--Usefulness of these teachers for the wants of an accomplished man.]
Indeed it seems that Plato himself regarded it as unattainable--and as only worth aiming at for the purpose of pleasing the Gods, not with any view to practical benefit, arising from either speech or action among mankind.
[109] This is a point to be considered, when we compare his views on Rhetoric with those of Lysias and the other rhetors, whom he here judges unfavourably and even contemptuously.
The work of speech and action among mankind, which Plato sets aside as unworthy of attention, was the express object of solicitude to Lysias, Isokrates, and rhetors generally: that which they practised efficaciously themselves, and which they desired to assist, cultivate, and improve in others: that which Perikles, in his funeral oration preserved by Thucydides, represents as the pride of the Athenian people collectively[110]--combination of full freedom of preliminary contentious debate, with energy in executing the resolution which might be ultimately adopted.
These rhetors, by the example of their composed speeches as well as by their teaching, did much to impart to young men the power of expressing themselves with fluency and effect before auditors, either in the assembly or in the dikastery: as Sokrates here fully admits.
[111] Towards this purpose it was useful to analyse the constituent parts of a discourse, and to give an appropriate name to each part.
Accordingly, all the rhetorical teachers (Quintilian included) continued such analysis, though differing more or less in their way of performing it, until the extinction of Pagan civilisation.
Young men were taught to learn by heart regular discourses,[112]--to compose the like for themselves--to understand the difference between such as were well or ill composed--and to acquire a command of oratorical means for moving or convincing the hearer.
All this instruction had a practical value: though Plato, both here and elsewhere, treats it as worthless.
A citizen who stood mute and embarrassed, unable to argue a case with some propriety before an audience, felt himself helpless and defective in one of the characteristic privileges of a Greek and a freeman: while one who could perform the process well, acquired much esteem and influence.
[113] The Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias consoles the speechless men by saying--What does this signify, provided you are just and virtuous?
Such consolation failed to satisfy: as it would fail to satisfy the sick, the lame, or the blind.
[Footnote 109: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
273-274.
[Greek: ê(\n ou)ch e(/neka tou= le/gein kai\ pra/ttein pro\s a)nthrô/pous dei= diaponei=sthai to\n sô/phrona, a)lla\ tou= theoi=s kecharisme/na me\n le/gein du/nasthai], &c. (273 E).]
[Footnote 110: Thucyd.
ii.
39-40-41.]
[Footnote 111: Plato, Phædrus, p. 288 A.]
[Footnote 112: See what is said by Aristotle about [Greek: ê( Gorgi/ou pragmatei/a] in the last chapter of De Sophisticis Elenchis.]
[Footnote 113: I have illustrated this point in my History of Greece, by the example of Xenophon in his command of the Cyreian army during its retreat.
His democratical education, and his powers of public speaking, were of the greatest service not only in procuring influence to himself, but also in conducting the army through its many perils and difficulties.
See Aristot.
Rhet.
i.
1, 3, p. 1355, b.
1.]
[Side-note: The Rhetorical teachers conceived the Art too narrowly: Plato conceived it too widely.
The principles of an Art are not required to be explained to all learners.]
The teaching of these rhetors thus contributed to the security, dignity, and usefulness of the citizens, by arming them for public speech and action.
But it was essentially practical, or empirical: it had little system, and was founded upon a narrow theory.
Upon these points Plato in the Phædrus attacks them.
He sets little value upon the accomplishments arming men for speech and action ([Greek: lektikou\s kai\ praktikou\s ei)=nai])--and he will not allow such teaching to be called an Art.
He explains, in opposition to them, what he himself conceived the Art of Rhetoric to be, in the comprehensive way which I have above described.
But if the conception of the Art, as entertained by the Rhetors, is too narrow--that of Plato, on the other hand, is too wide.
First, it includes the whole basis of science or theory on which the Art rests: it is a Philosophy of Rhetoric, expounded by a theorist--rather than an Art of Rhetoric, taught to learners by a master.
To teach the observance of certain rules or precepts is one thing: to set forth the reasons upon which those rules are founded, is another--highly important indeed, and proper to be known by the teacher; yet not necessarily communicated, or even communicable, to all learners.
Quintilian, in his Institutio Rhetorica, gives both:--an ample theory, as well as an ample development of rules, of his professional teaching.
But he would not have thought himself obliged to give this ample theory to all learners.
With many, he would have been satisfied to make them understand the rules, and to exercise them in the ready observance thereof.
[Side-note: Plato includes in his conception of Art, the application thereof to new particular cases.--This can never be taught by rule.]
Secondly, Plato, in defining the Art of Rhetoric, includes not only its foundation of science (which, though intimately connected with it, ought not to be considered as a constituent part), but also the application of it to particular cases; which application lies beyond the province both of science and of art, and cannot be reduced to any rule.
"The Rhetor" (says Plato) "must teach his pupils, not merely to observe the rules whereby persuasion is operated, but also to know the particular persons to whom those rules are to be applied--on what occasions--within what limits--at what peculiar moments, &c.[114] Unless the Rhetor can teach thus much, his pretended art is no art at all: all his other teaching is of no value."
Now this is an amount of exigence which can never be realised.
Neither art nor science can communicate that which Plato here requires.
The rules of art, together with many different hypothetical applications thereof, may be learnt: when the scientific explanation of the rules is superadded, the learner will be assisted farther towards fresh applications: but after both these have been learnt, the new cases which will arise can never be specially foreseen.
The proper way of applying the general precepts to each case must be suggested by conjecture adapted to the circumstances, under the corrections of past experience.
[115] It is inconsistent in Plato, after affirming that nothing deserves the name of art[116] except what is general--capable of being rationally anticipated and prescribed beforehand--then to include in art the special treatment required for the multiplicity of particular cases; the analogy of the medical art, which he here instructively invokes, would be against him on this point.
[Footnote 114: Plato, Phædr.
pp.
268 B, 272 A.]
[Footnote 115: What Longinus says about critical skill is applicable here also--[Greek: pollê=s e)/sti pei/ras teleutai=on e)pige/nnêma.]
Isokrates (De Permut.
Or.
xv.
sect.
290-312-316) has some good remarks about the impossibility of [Greek: e)pistê/mê] respecting particulars.
Plato, in the Gorgias, puts [Greek: te/chnê], which he states to depend upon reason and foreknowledge, in opposition to [Greek: e)mpeiri/a] and [Greek: tribê/], which he considers as dependant on the [Greek: phu/sis stochastikê/].
But in applying the knowledge or skill called Art to particular cases, the [Greek: phu/sis stochastikê\] is the best that can be had (p. 463 A-B).
The conception of [Greek: te/chnê] given in the Gorgias is open to the same remark as that which we find in the Phædrus.
Plato, in another passage of the Phædrus, speaks of the necessity that [Greek: phu/sis, e)pistê/mê], and [Greek: mele/tê], shall concur to make an accomplished orator.
This is very true; and Lysias, Isokrates, and all the other rhetors whom Plato satirises, would have concurred in it.
In his description of [Greek: te/chnê] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê], and in the estimate which he gives of all that it comprises, he leaves no outlying ground for [Greek: mele/tê].
Compare Xenophon, Memor.
iii.
1, 11; also Isokrates contra Sophistas, a.
16; and a good passage of Dionysius Halik.
De Compos.
Verborum, in which that rhetor remarks that [Greek: kairo\s] or opportunity neither has been nor can be reduced to art and rule.]
[Footnote 116: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
464-465.]
[Side-note: Plato's charge against the Rhetorical teachers is not made out.]
While therefore Plato's view of the science or theory of Rhetoric is far more comprehensive and philosophical than any thing given by the rhetorical teachers--he has not made good his charge against them, that what they taught as an art of Rhetoric was useless and illusory.
The charge can only be sustained if we grant--what appears to have been Plato's own feeling--that the social and political life of the Athenians was a dirty and corrupt business, unworthy of a virtuous man to meddle with.
This is the argument of Sokrates (in the Gorgias,[117] the other great anti-rhetorical dialogue), proclaiming himself to stand alone and aloof, an isolated, free-thinking dissenter.
As representing his sincere conviction, and interpreting Plato's plan of life, this argument deserves honourable recognition.
But we must remember that Lysias and the rhetorical teachers repudiated such a point of view.
They aimed at assisting and strengthening others to perform their parts, not in speculative debate on philosophy, but in active citizenship; and they succeeded in this object to a great degree.
The rhetorical ability of Lysias personally is attested not merely by the superlative encomium on him assigned to Phædrus,[118] but also by his great celebrity--by the frequent demand for his services as a logographer or composer of discourses for others--by the number of his discourses preserved and studied after his death.
He, and a fair proportion of the other rhetors named in the Phædrus, performed well the useful work which they undertook.
[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorg.
521 D.] [Footnote 118: Plato, Phædr.
p. 228 A.]
[Side-note: Plato has not treated Lysias fairly, in neglecting his greater works, and selecting for criticism an erotic exercise for a private circle.]
When Plato selects, out of the very numerous discourses before him composed by Lysias, one hardly intended for any real auditors--neither deliberative, nor judicial, nor panegyrical, but an ingenious erotic paradox for a private circle of friends--this is no fair specimen of the author.
Moreover Plato criticises it as if it were a philosophic exposition instead of an oratorical pleading.
He complains that Lysias does not begin his discourse by defining--but neither do Demosthenes and other great orators proceed in that manner.
He affirms that there is no organic structure, or necessary sequence, in the discourse, and that the sentences of it might be read in an inverted order:[119]--and this remark is to a certain extent well-founded.
In respect to the skilful marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, so as to give best effect to the whole, Dionysius of Halikarnassus[120] declares Lysias to be inferior to some other orators--while ascribing to him marked oratorical superiority on various other points.
Yet Plato, in specifying his objections against the erotic discourses of Lysias, does not show that it offends against the sound general principle which he himself lays down respecting the art of persuasion--That the topics insisted on by the persuader shall be adapted to the feelings and dispositions of the persuadend.
Far from violating this principle, Lysias kept it in view, and employed it to the best of his power--as we may see, not merely by his remaining orations, but also by the testimonies of the critics:[121] though he did not go through the large preliminary work of scientific classification, both of different minds and different persuasive apparatus, which Plato considers essential to a thorough comprehension and mastery of the principle.
[Footnote 119: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
263-264.]
[Footnote 120: Dionysius (Judicium De Lysiâ, pp.
487-493) gives an elaborate criticism on the [Greek: pragmatiko\s charaktê\r] of Lysias.
The special excellence of Lysias (according to this critic) lay in his judicial orations, which were highly persuasive and plausible: the manner of presenting thoughts was ingenious and adapted to the auditors: the narration of facts and details, especially, was performed with unrivalled skill.
But as to the marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, Dionysius considers Lysias as inferior to some other orators--and still more inferior in respect to [Greek: deinotê\s] and to strong emotional effects.]
[Footnote 121: Dionys.
Hal.
(Ars Rhetorica, p. 381) notices the severe exigencies which Plato here imposes upon the Rhetor, remarking that scarcely any rhetorical discourse could be produced which came up to them.
The defect did not belong to Lysias alone, but to all other rhetors also--[Greek: o(po/te ga\r _kai\ Lusi/an_ e)le/gchei, pa=san tê\n ê(mete/ran r(êtorikê\n e)/oiken e)le/gchein.]
Demosthenes almost alone (in the opinion of Dionysius) contrived to avoid the fault, because he imitated Plato.]
[Side-note: No fair comparison can be taken between this exercise of Lysias and the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the Phædrus.]
The first discourse assigned by Plato to Sokrates professes to be placed in competition with the discourse of Lysias, and to aim at the same object.
But in reality it aims at a different object: it gives the dissuasive arguments, but omits the persuasive--as Phædrus is made to point out: so that it cannot be fairly compared with the discourse of Lysias.
Still more may this be said respecting the second discourse of Sokrates: which is of a character and purpose so totally disparate, that no fair comparison can be taken between it and the ostensible competitor.
The mixture of philosophy, mysticism, and dithyrambic poetry, which the second discourse of Sokrates presents, was considered by a rhetorical judge like Dionysius as altogether inconsistent with the scope and purpose of reasonable discourse.
[122] In the Menexenus, Plato has brought himself again into competition with Lysias, and there the competition is fairer:[123] for Plato has there entirely neglected the exigencies enforced in the Phædrus, and has composed a funeral discourse upon the received type; which Lysias and other orators before him had followed, from Perikles downward.
But in the Phædrus, Plato criticises Lysias upon principles which are a medley between philosophy and rhetoric.
Lysias, in defending himself, might have taken the same ground as we find Sokrates himself taking in the Euthydêmus.
"Philosophy and politics are two distinct walks, requiring different aptitudes, and having each its own practitioners.
A man may take whichever he pleases; but he must not arrogate to himself superiority by an untoward attempt to join the two together.
"[124] [Footnote 122: See the Epistol.
of Dion.
Halikarn.
to Cneius Pompey--De Platone--pp.
755-765.]
[Footnote 123: Plato, Menexen.
p. 237 seq.
Stallbaum, Comm.
in Menexenum, pp.
10-11.]
[Footnote 124: Plato, Euthydêm.
p. 306 A-C.] [Side-note: Continuous discourse, either written or spoken, inefficacious as a means of instruction to the ignorant.]
Another important subject is also treated in the Phædrus.
Sokrates delivers views both original and characteristic, respecting the efficacy of continuous discourse--either written to be read, or spoken to be heard without cross-examination--as a means of instruction.
They are re-stated--in a manner substantially the same, though with some variety and fulness of illustration--in Plato's seventh Epistle[125] to the surviving friends of Dion.
I have already touched upon these views in my eighth** Chapter, on the Platonic Dialogues generally, and have pointed out how much Plato understood to be involved in what he termed _knowledge_.
No man (in his view) could be said to know, who was not competent to sustain successfully, and to apply successfully, a Sokratic cross-examination.
Now knowledge, involving such a competency, certainly cannot be communicated by any writing, or by any fixed and unchangeable array of words, whether written or spoken.
You must familiarise learners with the subject on many different sides, and in relation to many different points of view, each presenting more or less chance of error or confusion.
Moreover, you must apply a different treatment to each mind, and to the same mind at different stages: no two are exactly alike, and the treatment adapted for one will be unsuitable for the other.
While it is impossible, for these reasons, to employ any set forms of words, it will be found that the process of reading or listening leaves the reader or listener comparatively passive: there is nothing to stir the depths of the mind, or to evolve the inherent forces and dormant capacities.
Dialectic conversation is the only process which can adapt itself with infinite variety to each particular case and moment--and which stimulates fresh mental efforts ever renewed on the part of each respondent and each questioner.
Knowledge--being a slow result generated by this stimulating operation, when skilfully conducted, long continued, and much diversified--is not infused into, but evolved out of, the mind.
It consists in a revival of those unchangeable Ideas or Forms, with which the mind during its state of eternal pre-existence had had communion.
There are only a few privileged minds, however, that have had sufficient communion therewith to render such revival possible: accordingly, none but these few can ever rise to knowledge.
[126] [Footnote 125: Plato, Epistol.
vii.
pp.
341-344.]
[Footnote 126: Schleiermacher, in his Introduction to the Phædrus, justly characterises this doctrine as genuine Sokratism--"die ächt Sokratische erhabene Verachtung alles Schreibens and alles rednerischen Redens," p.
70.]
[Side-note: Written matter is useful as a memorandum for persons who know--or as an elegant pastime.]
Though knowledge cannot be first communicated by written matters, yet if it has been once communicated and subsequently forgotten, it may be revived by written matters.
Writing has thus a real, though secondary, usefulness, as a memorandum.
And Plato doubtless accounted written dialogues the most useful of all written compositions, because they imitated portions of that long oral process whereby alone knowledge had been originally generated.
His dialogues were reports of the conversations purporting to have been held by Sokrates with others.
[Side-note: Plato's didactic theories are pitched too high to be realised.]
It is an excellent feature in the didactic theories of Plato, that they distinguish so pointedly between the passive and active conditions of the intellect; and that they postulate as indispensable, an habitual and cultivated mental activity, worked up by slow, long-continued, colloquy.
To read or hear, and then to commit to memory, are in his view elegant recreations, but nothing more.
But while, on this point, Plato's didactic theories deserve admiration, we must remark on the other hand that they are pitched so high as to exceed human force, and to overpass all possibility of being realised.
[127] They mark out an _idéal_, which no person ever attained, either then or since--like the Platonic theory of rhetoric.
To be master of any subject, in the extent and perfection required for sustaining and administering a Sokratic cross-examination--is a condition which scarce any one can ever fulfil: certainly no one, except upon a small range of subjects.
Assuredly, Plato himself never fulfilled it.
[Footnote 127: A remark made by Sextus Empiricus (upon another doctrine which he is discussing) may be applied to this view of Plato--[Greek: to\ de\ le/gein o(/ti tê=| diomalismô=| tô=n pra/xeôn katalamba/nomen to\n e)/chonta tê\n peri\ to\n bi/on te/chnên, _u(perphtheggome/nôn e)/sti tê\n a)nthrô/pôn phu/sin_, kai\ eu)chome/nôn ma=llon ê)\ a)lêthê= lego/ntôn] (Pyrrh.
Hyp.
iii.
244).]
[Side-note: No one has ever been found competent to solve the difficulties raised by Sokrates, Arkesilaus, Karneades, and the negative vein of philosophy.]
Such a cross-examination involved the mastery of all the openings for doubt, difficulty, deception, or refutation, bearing on the subject: openings which a man is to profit by, if assailant--to keep guarded, if defendant.
Now when we survey the Greek negative philosophy, as it appears in Plato, Aristotle, and Sextus Empiricus--and when we recollect that between the second and the third of these names, there appeared three other philosophers equally or more formidable in the same vein, all whose arguments have perished (Arkesilaus, Karneades, Ænesidêmus)--we shall see that no man has ever been known competent both to strike and parry with these weapons, in a manner so skilful and ready as to amount to knowledge in the Platonic sense.
But in so far as such knowledge is attainable or approachable, Plato is right in saying that it cannot be attained except by long dialectic practice.
Reading books, and hearing lectures, are undoubtedly valuable aids, but insufficient by themselves.
Modern times recede from it even more than ancient.
Regulated oral dialectic has become unknown; the logical and metaphysical difficulties--which negative philosophy required to be solved before it would allow any farther progress--are now little heeded, amidst the multiplicity of observed facts, and theories adapted to and commensurate with those facts.
This change in the character of philosophy is doubtless a great improvement.
It is found that by acquiescing provisionally in the _axiomata media_, and by applying at every step the control of verification, now rendered possible by the multitude of ascertained facts--the sciences may march safely onward: notwithstanding that the logical and metaphysical difficulties, the puzzles ([Greek: a)pori/ai]) involved in _philosophia prima_ and its very high abstractions, are left behind unsolved and indeterminate.
But though the modern course of philosophy is preferable to the ancient, it is not for that reason to be considered as satisfactory.
These metaphysical difficulties are not diminished either in force or relevancy, because modern writers choose to leave them unnoticed.
Plato and Aristotle were quite right in propounding them as problems, the solution of which was indispensable to the exigencies and consistent schematism of the theorising intelligence, as well as to any complete discrimination between sufficient and insufficient evidence.
Such they still remain, overlooked yet not defunct.
[Side-note: Plato's _idéal_ philosopher can only be realised under the hypothesis of a pre-existent and omniscient soul, stimulated into full reminiscence here.]
Now all these questions would be solved by the _idéal_ philosopher whom Plato in the Phædrus conceives as possessing knowledge: a person who shall be at once a negative Sokrates in excogitating and enforcing all the difficulties--and an affirmative match for Sokrates, as respondent in solving them: a person competent to apply this process to all the indefinite variety of individual minds, under the inspirations of the moment.
This is a magnificent _idéal_.
Plato affirms truly, that those teachers who taught rhetoric and philosophy by writing, could never produce such a pupil: and that even the Sokratic dialectic training, though indispensable and far more efficacious, would fail in doing so, unless in those few cases where it was favoured by very superior capacity--understood by him as superhuman, and as a remnant from the pre-existing commerce of the soul with the world of Forms or Ideas.
The foundation therefore of the whole scheme rests upon Plato's hypothesis of an antecedent life of the soul, proclaimed by Sokrates here in his second or panegyrical discourse on Eros.
The rhetorical teachers, with whom he here compares himself and whom he despises as aiming at low practical ends--might at any rate reply that they avoided losing themselves in such unmeasured and unwarranted hypotheses.
[Side-note: Different proceeding of Plato in the Timæus.]
One remark yet remains to be made upon the doctrine here set forth by Plato: that no teaching is possible by means of continuous discourse spoken or written--none, except through prolonged and varied oral dialectic.
[128] To this doctrine Plato does not constantly conform in his practice: he departs from it on various important occasions.
In the Timæus, Sokrates calls upon the philosopher so named for an exposition on the deepest and most mysterious cosmical subjects.
Timæus delivers the exposition in a continuous harangue, without a word of remark or question addressed by any of the auditors: while at the beginning of the Kritias (the next succeeding dialogue) Sokrates greatly commends what Timæus had spoken.
The Kritias itself too (though unfinished) is given in the form of continuous exposition.
Now, as the Timæus is more abstruse than any other Platonic writing, we cannot imagine that Plato, at the time when he composed it, thought so meanly about continuous exposition, as a vehicle of instruction, as we find him declaring in the Phædrus.
I point this out, because it illustrates my opinion that the different dialogues of Plato represent very different, sometimes even opposite, points of view: and that it is a mistake to treat them as parts of one preconceived and methodical system.
[Footnote 128: The historical Sokrates would not allow his oral dialectic process to be called teaching.
He expressly says "I have never been the teacher of any one" (Plat.
Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
33 A, 19 E): and he disclaimed the possession of knowledge.
Aristotle too considers teaching as a presentation of truths, ready made and supposed to be known, by the teacher to learners, who are bound to believe them, [Greek: dei= ga\r pisteu/ein to\n mantha/nonta].
The Platonic Sokrates, in the Phædrus and Symposion, differs from both; he recognises no teaching except the perpetual generation of new thoughts and feelings, by means of stimulating dialectic colloquy, and the revival in the mind thereby of the experience of an antecedent life, during which some communion has been enjoyed with the world of Ideas or Forms.]
[Side-note: Opposite tendencies co-existent in Plato's mind--Extreme of the Transcendental or Absolute--Extreme of specialising adaptation to individuals and occasions.]
Plato is usually extolled by his admirers, as the champion of the Absolute--of unchangeable forms, immutable truth, objective necessity cogent and binding on every one.
He is praised for having refuted Protagoras; who can find no standard beyond the individual recognition and belief, of his own mind or that of some one else.
There is no doubt that Plato often talks in that strain: but the method followed in his dialogues, and the general principles of method which he lays down, here as well as elsewhere, point to a directly opposite conclusion.
Of this the Phædrus is a signal instance.
Instead of the extreme of generality, it proclaims the extreme of specialty.
The objection which the Sokrates of the Phædrus advances against the didactic efficacy of written discourse, is founded on the fact, that it is the same to all readers--that it takes no cognizance of the differences of individual minds nor of the same mind at different times.
Sokrates claims for dialectic debate the valuable privilege, that it is constant action and re-action between two individual minds--an appeal by the inherent force and actual condition of each, to the like elements in the other--an ever shifting presentation of the same topics, accommodated to the measure of intelligence and cast of emotion in the talkers and at the moment.
The individuality of each mind--both questioner and respondent--is here kept in view as the governing condition of the process.
No two minds can be approached by the same road or by the same interrogation.
The questioner cannot advance a step except by the admission of the respondent.
Every respondent is the measure to himself.
He answers suitably to his own belief; he defends by his own suggestions; he yields to the pressure of contradiction and inconsistency, _when he feels them_, and not before.
Each dialogist is (to use the Protagorean phrase) the measure to himself of truth and falsehood, according as he himself believes it.
Assent or dissent, whichever it may be, springs only from the free working of the individual mind, in its actual condition then and there.
It is to the individual mind alone, that appeal is made, and this is what Protagoras asks for.
We thus find, in Plato's philosophical character, two extreme opposite tendencies and opposite poles co-existent.
We must recognise them both: but they can never be reconciled: sometimes he obeys and follows the one, sometimes the other.
If it had been Plato's purpose to proclaim and impose upon every one something which he called "Absolute Truth," one and the same alike imperative upon all--he would best proclaim it by preaching or writing.
To modify this "Absolute," according to the varieties of the persons addressed, would divest it of its intrinsic attribute and excellence.
If you pretend to deal with an Absolute, you must turn away your eyes from all diversity of apprehending intellects and believing subjects.
CHAPTER XXVII.
PARMENIDES.
[Side-note: Character of dialogues immediately preceding--much transcendental assertion.
Opposite character of the Parmenides.]
In the dialogues immediately preceding--Phædon, Phædrus, Symposion--we have seen Sokrates manifesting his usual dialectic, which never fails him: but we have also seen him indulging in a very unusual vein of positive affirmation and declaration.
He has unfolded many novelties about the states of pre-existence and post-existence: he has familiarised us with Ideas, Forms, Essences, eternal and unchangeable, as the causes of all the facts and particularities of nature: he has recognised the inspired variety of madness, as being more worthy of trust than sober, uninspired, intelligence: he has recounted, with the faith of a communicant fresh from the mysteries, revelations made to him by the prophetess Diotima,--respecting the successive stages of exaltation whereby gifted intelligences, under the stimulus of Eros Philosophus, ascend into communion with the great sea of Beauty.
All this is set forth with as much charm as Plato's eloquence can bestow.
But after all, it is not the true character of Sokrates:--I mean, the Sokrates of the Apology, whose mission it is to make war against the chronic malady of the human mind--false persuasion of knowledge, without the reality.
It is, on the contrary, Sokrates himself infected with the same chronic malady which he combats in others, and requiring medicine against it as much as others.
Such is the exact character in which Sokrates appears in the Parmenides: which dialogue I shall now proceed to review.
[Side-note: Sokrates is the juvenile defendant--Parmenides the veteran censor and cross-examiner.
Parmenides gives a specimen of exercises to be performed by the philosophical aspirant.]
The Parmenides announces its own purpose as intended to repress premature forwardness of affirmation, in a young philosophical aspirant: who, with meritorious eagerness in the search for truth, and with his eyes turned in the right direction to look for it--has nevertheless not fully estimated the obstructions besetting his path, nor exercised himself in the efforts necessary to overcome them.
By a curious transposition, or perhaps from deference on Plato's part to the Hellenic sentiment of Nemesis,--Sokrates, who in most Platonic dialogues stands forward as the privileged censor and victorious opponent, is here the juvenile defendant under censorship by a superior.
It is the veteran Parmenides of Elea who, while commending the speculative impulse and promise of Sokrates, impresses upon him at the same time that the theory which he had advanced--the self-existence, the separate and substantive nature, of Ideas--stands exposed to many grave objections, which he (Sokrates) has not considered and cannot meet.
So far, Parmenides performs towards Sokrates the same process of cross-examining refutation as Sokrates himself applies to Theætêtus and other young men elsewhere.
But we find in this dialogue something ulterior and even peculiar.
Having warned Sokrates that his intellectual training has not yet been carried to a point commensurate with the earnestness of his aspirations--Parmenides proceeds to describe to him what exercises he ought to go through, in order to guard himself against premature assertion or hasty partiality.
Moreover, Parmenides not only indicates in general terms what ought to be done, but illustrates it by giving a specimen of such exercise, on a topic chosen by himself.
[Side-note: Circumstances and persons of the Parmenides.]
Passing over the dramatic introduction[1] whereby the personages discoursing are brought together, we find Sokrates, Parmenides, and the Eleatic Zeno (the disciple of Parmenides), engaged in the main dialogue.
When Parmenides begins his illustrative exercise, a person named Aristotle (afterwards one of the Thirty oligarchs at Athens), still younger than Sokrates, is made to serve as respondent.
[Footnote 1: This dramatic introduction is extremely complicated.
The whole dialogue, from beginning to end, is recounted by Kephalus of Klazomenæ; who heard it from the Athenian Antiphon--who himself had heard it from Pythodôrus, a friend of Zeno, present when the conversation was held.
A string of circumstances are narrated by Kephalus, to explain how he came to wish to hear it, and to find out Antiphon.
Plato appears anxious to throw the event back as far as possible into the past, in order to justify the bringing Sokrates into personal communication with Parmenides: for some unfriendly critics tried to make out that the two could not possibly have conversed on philosophy (Athenæus, xi.
505).
Plato declares the ages of the persons with remarkable exactness: Parmenides was 65, completely grey-headed, but of noble mien: Zeno about 40, tall and graceful: Sokrates very young.
(Plat.
Parmen.
p. 127 B-C.) It required some invention in Plato to provide a narrator, suitable for recounting events so long antecedent as the young period of Sokrates.]
Sokrates is one among various auditors, who are assembled to hear Zeno reading aloud a treatise of his own composition, intended to answer and retort upon the opponents of his preceptor Parmenides.
[Side-note: Manner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was impugned.
Manner in which his partisan Zeno defended him.]
The main doctrine of the real Parmenides was, "That Ens, the absolute, real, self-existent, was One and not many": which doctrine was impugned and derided by various opponents, deducing from it absurd conclusions.
Zeno defended his master by showing that the opposite doctrine (--"That Ens, the absolute, self-existent universe, is Many--") led to conclusions absurd in an equal or greater degree.
If the Absolute were Many, the many would be both like and unlike: but they cannot have incompatible and contradictory attributes: therefore Absolute Ens is not Many.
Ens, as Parmenides conceived it, was essentially homogeneous and unchangeable: even assuming it to be Many, all its parts must be homogeneous, so that what was predicable of one must be predicable of all; it might be all alike, or all unlike: but it could not be both.
Those who maintained the plurality of Ens, did so on the ground of apparent severalty, likeness, and unlikeness, in the sensible world.
But Zeno, while admitting these phenomena in the sensible world, as _relative to us_, apparent, and subject to the varieties of individual estimation--denied their applicability to absolute and self-existent Ens.
[2] Since absolute Ens or Entia are Many (said the opponents of Parmenides), they will be both like and unlike: and thus we can explain the phenomena of the sensible world.
The absolute (replied Zeno) cannot be both like and unlike; therefore it cannot be many.
We must recollect that both Parmenides and Zeno renounced all attempt to explain the sensible world by the absolute and purely intelligible Ens.
They treated the two as radically distinct and unconnected.
The one was absolute, eternal, unchangeable, homogeneous, apprehended only by reason.
The other was relative, temporary, variable, heterogeneous; a world of individual and subjective opinion, upon which no absolute truth, no pure objectivity, could be reached.
[Footnote 2: I have already given a short account of the Zenonian Dialectic, ch.
ii.
p. 93 seq.]
[Side-note: Sokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno.
He affirms the Platonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet participable by them.]
Sokrates, depicted here as a young man, impugns this doctrine of Zeno: and maintains that the two worlds, though naturally disjoined, were not incommunicable.
He advances the Platonic theory of Ideas: that is, an intelligible world of many separate self-existent Forms or Ideas, apprehended by reason only--and a sensible world of particular objects, each participating in one or more of these Forms or Ideas.
"What you say (he remarks to Zeno), is true of the world of Forms or Ideas: the Form of Likeness _per se_ can never be unlike, nor can the Form of Unlikeness be ever like.
But in regard to the sensible world, there is nothing to hinder you and me, and other objects which rank and are numbered as separate individuals, from participating both in the Form of likeness and in the Form of unlikeness.
[3] In so far as I, an individual object, participate in the Form of Likeness, I am properly called like; in so far as I participate in the Form of Unlikeness, I am called unlike.
So about One and Many, Great and Little, and so forth: I, the same individual, may participate in many different and opposite Forms, and may derive from them different and opposite denominations.
I am one and many--like and unlike--great and little--all at the same time.
But no such combination is possible between the Forms themselves, self-existent and opposite: the Form of Likeness cannot become unlike, nor _vice versâ_.
The Forms themselves stand permanently apart, incapable of fusion or coalescence with each other: but different and even opposite Forms may lend themselves to participation and partnership in the same sensible individual object.
"[4] [Footnote 3: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 129 A.
[Greek: ou) nomi/zeis ei)=nai au)to\ kath' au)to\ ei)=do/s ti o(moio/têtos, kai\ tô=| toiou/tô| ai)= a)/llo ti e)nanti/on, o(\ e)/stin a)no/moion?
tou/toin de\ duoi=n o)/ntoin kai\ e)me\ kai\ se\ kai\ ta\ a)/lla a(\ dê\ polla\ kalou=men, metalamba/nein?]]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
129-130.]
[Side-note: Parmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of Sokrates.
Parmenides advances objections against the Platonic theory of Ideas.]
Parmenides and Zeno are represented as listening with surprise and interest to this language of Sokrates, recognising two distinct worlds: one, of invisible but intelligible Forms,--the other that of sensible objects, participating in these Forms.
"Your ardour for philosophy" (observes Parmenides to Sokrates), "is admirable.
Is this distinction your own?
"[5] [Footnote 5: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 130 A.
[Greek: Ô)= Sô/krates, ô(s a)/xios ei)= a)/gasthai tê=s o(rmê=s tê=s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous; kai/ moi ei)pe/, _au)to\s su\ ou(/tô diê/|rêsai_ ô(s le/geis, chôri\s me\n ei)/dê au)ta\ a)/tta, chôri\s de\ ta\ tou/tôn au)= mete/chonta?]]
Plato now puts into the mouth of Parmenides--the advocate of One absolute and unchangeable Ens, separated by an impassable gulf from the sensible world of transitory and variable appearances or phenomena--objections against what is called the Platonic theory of Ideas: that is, the theory of an intelligible world, comprising an indefinite number of distinct intelligible and unchangeable Forms--in partial relation and communication with another world of sensible objects, each of which participates in one or more of these Forms.
We thus have the Absolute One pitted against the Absolute Many.
[Side-note: What Ideas does Sokrates recognise?
Of the Just and Good?
Yes.
Of Man, Horse, &c.?
Doubtful.
Of Hair, Mud, &c.?
No.]
What number and variety of these intelligible Forms do you recognise--(asks Parmenides)?
Likeness and Unlikeness--One and Many--Just, Beautiful, Good, &c.--are all these Forms absolute and existent _per se_?
_Sokr._--Certainly they are.
_Parm._--Do you farther recognise an absolute and self-existent Form of Man, apart from us and all other individuals?--or a Form of fire, water, and the like?
_Sokr._--I do not well know how to answer:--I have often been embarrassed with the question.
_Parm._--Farther, do there exist distinct intelligible Forms of hair, mud, dirt, and all the other mean and contemptible objects of sense which we see around?
_Sokr._--No--certainly--no such Forms as these exist.
Such objects are as we see them, and nothing beyond: it would be too absurd to suppose Forms of such like things.
[6] Nevertheless there are times when I have misgivings on the point; and when I suspect that there must be Forms of them as well as of the others.
When such reflections cross my mind, I shrink from the absurdity of the doctrine, and try to confine my attention to Forms like those which you mentioned first.
[Footnote 6: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 130 D. [Greek: Ou)damô=s, pha/nai to\n Sôkra/tên, a)lla\ tau=ta me/n ge, a(/per o(rô=men, tau=ta kai\ ei)=nai; ei)=dos de/ ti au)tô=n oi)êthê=nai ei)=nai mê\ li/an ê)=| a)/topon.]
Alexander, who opposes the doctrine of the Platonists about Ideas, treats it as understood that they did not recognise Ideas of worms, gnats, and such like animals.
Schol.
ad Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
991 a. p. 575, a.
30 Brandis.]
[Side-note: Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to the philosopher.]
_Parm._--You are still young, Sokrates:--you still defer to the common sentiments of mankind.
But the time will come when philosophy will take stronger hold of you, and will teach you that no object in nature is mean or contemptible in her view.
[7] [Footnote 7: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 130 E. [Greek: Ne/os ga\r ei)= e)/ti, kai\ ou(/pô sou a)ntei/lêptai philosophi/a ô(s e(/ti a)ntilê/psetai, kat' e)mê\n do/xan, o(/te _ou)de\n au)tô=n_ a)tima/seis; nu=n de\ e)/ti _pro\s a)nthrô/pôn a)poble/peis do/xas_ dia\ tê\n ê(liki/an.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks upon this--Contrast between emotional and scientific classification.]
This remark deserves attention.
Plato points out the radical distinction, and frequent antipathy between classifications constructed by science, and those which grow up spontaneously under the associating influence of a common emotion.
What he calls "the opinions of men,"--in other words, the associations naturally working in an untaught and unlettered mind--bring together the ideas of objects according as they suggest a like emotion--veneration, love, fear, antipathy, contempt, laughter, &c.[8] As things which inspire like emotions are thrown into the same category and receive the same denomination, so the opposite proceeding inspires great repugnance, when things creating antipathetic emotions are forced into the same category.
A large proportion of objects in nature come to be regarded as unworthy of any serious attention, and fit only to serve for discharging on them our laughter, contempt, or antipathy.
The investigation of the structure and manifestations of insects is one of the marked features which Aristophanes ridicules in Sokrates: moreover the same poet also brings odium on the philosopher for alleged study of astronomy and meteorology--the heavenly bodies being as it were at the opposite emotional pole, objects of such reverential admiration and worship, that it was impious to watch or investigate them, or calculate their proceedings beforehand.
[9] The extent to which anatomy and physiology were shut out from study in antiquity, and have continued to be partially so even in modern times, is well known.
And the proportion of phenomena is both great and important, connected with the social relations, which are excluded both from formal registration and from scientific review; kept away from all rational analysis either of causes or remedies, because of the strong repugnances connected with them.
This emotional view of nature is here noted by Plato as conflicting with the scientific.
No object (he says) is mean in the eyes of philosophy.
He remarks to the same effect in the Sophistês and Politikus, and the remark is illustrated by the classifying processes there exhibited:[10] mean objects and esteemed objects being placed side by side.
[Footnote 8: Plato, himself, however, occasionally appeals [Greek: pro\s a)nthrô/pôn do/xas], and becomes [Greek: a)technô=s dêmê/goros], when it suits his argument; see Gorgias, 494 C.] [Footnote 9: Aristophan.
Nubes, 145-170-1490.
[Greek: ti/ ga\r matho/nt' e)s tou\s theou\s u(bri/zeton, kai\ tê=s selê/nês e)skopei=sthe tê\n e)/dran?]
Compare Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1, 11-13, iv.
7, 6-7; Plutarch, Perikles, 23; also the second chapter of the first Book of Macrobius, about the discredit which is supposed to be thrown upon grand and solemn subjects by a plain and naked exposition.
"Inimicam esse naturæ nudam expositionem sui."]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist.
p. 227 B; Politik.
p. 266 D; also Theætêt.
p. 174 D. Both the Platonic Sokrates, and the Xenophontic Sokrates, frequently illustrate the education of men by comparison with the bringing up of young animals as well as with the training of horses: they also compare the educator of young men with the trainer of young horses.
Indeed this comparison occurs so frequently, that it excites much displeasure among various modern critics (Forchhammer, Köchly, Socher, &c.), who seem to consider it as unseemly and inconsistent with "the dignity of human nature".
The frequent allusions made by Plato to the homely arts and professions are noted by his interlocutors as tiresome.
See Plato, Apolog.
Sokr.
p. 20 A.
[Greek: ô)= Kalli/a, ei) me/n sou tô\ ui(e/e pô/lô ê)\ mo/schô e)gene/sthên], &c. The Zoological works of Aristotle exhibit a memorable example of scientific intelligence, overcoming all the contempt and disgust usually associated with minute and repulsive organisms.
To Plato, it would be repugnant to arrange in the same class the wolf and the dog.
See Sophist.
p. 231 A.]
* * * * * Parmenides now produces various objections against the Platonic variety of dualism: the two distinct but partially inter-communicating worlds--one, of separate, permanent, unchangeable, Forms or Ideas--the other, of individual objects, transient and variable; participating in, and receiving denomination from, these Forms.
[Side-note: Objections of Parmenides--How can objects participate in the Ideas.
Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part thereof.]
1.
How (asks Parmenides) can such participation take place?
Is the entire Form in each individual object?
No: for one and the same Form cannot be at the same time in many distant objects.
A part of it therefore must be in one object; another part in another.
But this assumes that the Form is divisible--or is not essentially One.
Equality is in all equal objects: but how can a part of the Form equality, less than the whole, make objects equal?
Again, littleness is in all little objects: that is, a part of the Form littleness is in each.
But the Form littleness cannot have parts; because, if it had, the entire Form would be greater than any of its parts,--and the Form littleness cannot be greater than any thing.
Moreover, if one part of littleness were added to other parts, the sum of the two would be less, and not greater, than either of the factors.
It is plain that none of these Forms can be divisible, or can have parts.
Objects therefore cannot participate in the Form by parts or piecemeal.
But neither can each object possess the entire Form.
Accordingly, since there remains no third possibility, objects cannot participate in the Forms at all.
[11] [Footnote 11: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 131.
A similar argument, showing the impossibility of such [Greek: me/thexis], appears in Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Arithmeticos, sect.
11-20, p. 334 Fab., p. 724 Bek.]
[Side-note: Comparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking in the Idea, there is a likeness between them which must be represented by a higher Idea--and so on _ad infinitum_.]
2.
Parmenides now passes to a second argument.
The reason why you assume that each one of these Forms exists, is--That when you contemplate many similar objects, one and the same ideal phantom or Concept is suggested by all.
[12] Thus, when you see many _great_ objects, one common impression of _greatness_ arises from all.
Hence you conclude that The Great, or the Form of Greatness, exists as One.
But if you take this Form of Greatness, and consider it in comparison with each or all the great individual objects, it will have in common with them something that makes it great.
You must therefore search for some higher Form, which represents what belongs in common both to the Form of Greatness and to individual great objects.
And this higher Form again, when compared with the rest, will have something in common which must be represented by a Form yet higher: so that there will be an infinite series of Forms, ascending higher and higher, of which you will never reach the topmost.
[13] [Footnote 12: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 132.
[Greek: Oi)=mai se e)k tou= toiou=de e(\n e(/kaston ei)=dos oi)/esthai ei)=nai.
O(/tan _po/ll' a)/tta mega/la soi do/xê|_ ei)=nai, _mi/a tis i)/sôs dokei= i)de/a_ ê( au)tê\ ei)=nai _e)pi\ pa/nta i)do/nti_, o(/then _e(\n to\ me/ga ê(gei= ei)=nai_.]]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 132 A.
See this process, of comparing the Form with particular objects denominated after the Form, described in a different metaphysical language by Mr. John Stuart Mill, System of Logic, book iv.
ch.
2, sect.
3.
"As the general conception is itself obtained by a comparison of particular phenomena, so, when obtained, the mode in which we apply it to other phenomena is again by comparison.
We compare phenomena with each other to get the conception; and we then compare those and other phenomena _with_ the conception.
We get the conception of an animal by comparing different animals, and when we afterwards see a creature resembling an animal, we compare it with our general conception of an animal: and if it agrees with our general conception, we include it in the class.
The conception becomes the type of comparison.
We may perhaps find that no considerable number of other objects agree with this first general conception: and that we must drop the conception, and beginning again with a different individual case, proceed by fresh comparisons to a different general conception."
The comparison, which the argument of the Platonic Parmenides assumes to be instituted, between [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] and [Greek: ta\ mete/chonta au)tou=], is denied by Proklus; who says that there can be no comparison, nor any [Greek: koino/tês], except between [Greek: ta\ o(motagê=]: and that the Form is not [Greek: o(motage\s] with its participant particulars.
(Proklus ad Parmenidem, p. 125, p. 684 ed.
Stallbaum.)
This argument of Parmenides is the memorable argument known under the name of [Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos].
Against the Platonic [Greek: ei)/dê] considered as [Greek: chôrista/], it is a forcible argument.
See Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
990, b.
15 seq., where it is numbered among [Greek: oi( a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn].
We find from the Scholion of Alexander (p. 566 Brandis), that it was advanced in several different ways by Aristotle, in his work [Greek: Peri\ I)deô=n]: by his scholar Eudemus [Greek: e)n toi=s peri\ Le/xeôs]: and by a contemporary [Greek: sophistê\s] named Polyxenus, as well as by other Sophists.]
[Side-note: Are the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing more?
Impossible.]
3.
Perhaps (suggests Sokrates) each of these Forms is a Conception of the mind and nothing beyond: the Form is not competent to exist out of the mind.
[14] How?
(replies Parmenides.)
There cannot be in the mind any Conception, which is a Conception of nothing.
Every Conception must be of something really existing: in this case, it is a Conception of some one thing, which you conceive as belonging in common to each and all the objects considered.
The Something thus conceived as perpetually One and the same in all, is, the Form.
Besides, if you think that individual objects participate in the Forms, and that these Forms are Conceptions of the mind,--you must suppose, either that all objects are made up of Conceptions, and are therefore themselves Concipients: or else that these Forms, though Conceptions, are incapable of conceiving.
Neither one nor the other is admissible.
[15] [Footnote 14: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 132 B.
[Greek: mê\ _tô=n ei)dô=n_ e(/kaston ê)=| _tou/tôn noê/ma_, kai\ _ou)damou= au)tô=| prosê/kê e)ggi/gnesthai a)/llothi ê)\ e)n psuchai=s_.
.
.
.
Ti/ ou)=n?
pha/nai, e(\n e(/kasto/n e)sti tô=n noêma/tôn, no/êma de\ ou)deno/s?
A)ll' a)du/naton, ei)pei=n.
A)lla\ tino/s?
Nai/.
O)/ntos ê)\ ou)k o)/ntos?
O)/ntos.
Ou)ch e(no/s tinos, o(\ e)pi\ pa=sin e)kei=no to\ no/êma e)po\n noei=, mi/an tina\ ou)=san i)de/an?
Nai/.]
Aristotle (Topic.
ii.
113, a.
25) indicates one way of meeting this argument, if advanced by an adversary in dialectic debate--[Greek: ei) ta\s i)de/as _e)n ê(mi=n_ e)/phêsen ei)=nai].]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 132 D. [Greek: ou)k a)na/gkê, ei) ta)/lla phê\| tô=n ei)dô=n mete/chein, ê)\ dokei=n soi e)k noê/mata o)/nta a)no/êta ei)=nai?
A)ll' ou)de\ tou=to, pha/nai, e)/chei lo/gon.]
The word [Greek: a)no/êta] here is used in its ordinary sense, in which it is the negation, not of [Greek: noêto/s] but of [Greek: noêtiko/s].
There is a similar confusion, Plato, Phædon, p. 80 B. Proklus (pp.
699-701, Stall.)
is prolix but very obscure.]
[Side-note: The Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake of them by being likened to them.
Impossible.]
4.
Probably the case stands thus (says Sokrates).
These Forms are constants and fixtures in nature, as models or patterns.
Particular objects are copies or likenesses of them: and the participation of such objects in the Form consists in being made like to it.
[16] In that case (replies Parmenides), the Form must itself be like to the objects which have been made like to it.
Comparing the Form with the objects, that in which they resemble must itself be a Form: and thus you will have a higher Form above the first Form--and so upwards in the ascending line.
This follows necessarily from the hypothesis that the Form is like the objects.
The participation of objects in the Form, therefore, cannot consist in being likened to it.
[17] [Footnote 16: Aristotle (Metaphys.
A.
991, a.
20) characterises this way of presenting the Platonic Ideas as mere [Greek: kenologi/a] and poetical metaphor.
See also the remarkable Scholion of Alexander, pp.
574-575, Brandis.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
132-133.
This is again a repetition, though differently presented, of the same argument--[Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos]--enunciated p. 132 A.]
[Side-note: If Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us.
We can know only what is relative to ourselves.
Individuals are relative to individuals: Ideas relative to Ideas.]
5.
Here are grave difficulties (continues Parmenides) opposed to this doctrine of yours, affirming the existence of self-existent, substantive, unchangeable, yet participated, Forms.
But difficulties still graver remain behind.
Such Forms as you describe cannot be cognizable by us: at least it is hard to show how they can be cognizable.
Being self-existent and substantive, they are not _in us_: such of them as are relative, have their relation with each other, not with those particular objects among us, which are called _great_, _little_, and so forth, from being supposed to be similar to or participant in the forms, and bearing names the same as those of the Forms.
Thus, for example, if I, an individual man, am in the relation of master, I bear that relation to another individual man who is my servant, not to servantship in general (_i.e._ the Form of servantship, the _Servus per se_).
My servant, again, bears the relation of servant to me, an individual man as master,--not to mastership in general (_i.e._ to the Form of mastership, the _Dominus per se_).
Both terms of the relation are individual objects.
On the other hand, the Forms also bear relation to each other.
The Form of servantship (_Servus per se_) stands in relation to the Form of mastership (_Dominus per se_).
Neither of them correlates with an individual object.
The two terms of the relation must be homogeneous, each of them a Form.
[18] [Footnote 18: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 133 E.] [Side-note: Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which we do not possess.]
Now apply this to the case of cognition.
The Form of Cognition correlates exclusively with the Form of Truth: the Form of each special Cognition, geometrical or medical, or other, correlates with the Form of Geometry or Medicine.
But Cognition as we possess it, correlates only with Truth relatively to us: also, each special Cognition of ours has its special correlating Truth, relatively to us.
[19] Now the Forms are not in or with us, but apart from us: the Form of Cognition is not our Cognition, the Form of Truth is not our Truth.
Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which _we_ do not possess: we cannot therefore know Forms.
We have our own cognition, whereby we know what is relative to us; but we know nothing more.
Forms, which are not relative to us, lie out of our knowledge.
_Bonum per se, Pulchrum per se_, and the other self-existent Forms or Ideas, are to us altogether unknowable.
[20] [Footnote 19: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 134 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\ e)pistê/mê, au)tê\ me\n o(\ e)/stin e)pistê/mê, tê=s o(\ e)/stin a)lê/theia, au)tê=s a)\n e)kei/nês ei)/ê e)pistê/mê?
.
.
.
Ê( de\ par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê ou) tê=s par' ê(mi=n a)\n a)lêthei/as ei)/ê?
kai\ au)= e(ka/stê ê( par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê tô=n par' ê(mi=n o)/ntôn e(ka/stou a)\n e)pistê/mê su/mbainoi ei)=nai?]
Aristotle (Topica, vi.
p. 147, a.
6) adverts to this as an argument against the theory of Ideas, but without alluding to the Parmenides; indeed he puts the argument in a different way--[Greek: to\ d' ei)=dos pro\s to\ ei)=dos dokei= le/gesthai, oi(=on au)tê\ e)pithumi/a au)tou= ê(de/os, kai\ au)tê\ bou/lêsis au)tou= a)gathou=.]
Aristotle argues that there is no place in this doctrine for the [Greek: phaino/menon a)gatho/n], which nevertheless men often wish for, and he remarks, in the Nikom.
Ethica, i.
4, 1096 b.
33--that the [Greek: au)to\-a)gatho\n] is neither [Greek: prakto\n] nor [Greek: ktêto\n a)nthrô/pô|].]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 134 C. [Greek: A)/gnôston a)/ra ê(mi=n kai\ au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(\ e)/sti, kai\ to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ pa/nta a(\ dê\ ô(s i)de/as au)ta\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]
[Side-note: Form of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs to the Gods.
We cannot know them, nor can they know us.]
6.
Again, if there be a real self-existent Form of Cognition, apart from that which we or others possess--it must doubtless be far superior in accuracy and perfection to that which we possess.
[21] The Form of Beauty and the other Forms, must be in like manner superior to that which is found under the same name in individual objects.
This perfect Form of Cognition must therefore belong to the Gods, if it belong to any one.
But if so, the Gods must have a Form of Truth, the proper object of their Form of Cognition.
They cannot know the truth relatively to us, which belongs to _our_ cognition--any more than we can know the more perfect truth belonging to them.
So too about other Forms.
The perfect Form of mastership belongs to the Gods, correlating with its proper Form of servantship.
_Their_ mastership does not correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they are not our masters, nor are we their servants.
_Their_ cognition, again, does not correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they do not know us, nor do we know them.
In like manner, we in our capacity of masters are not masters of them--we as cognizant beings know nothing of them or of that which they know.
They can in no way correlate with us, nor can we correlate with them.
[22] [Footnote 21: An argument very similar is urged by Aristotle (Metaph.
[Greek: Th].
1050, b.
34) [Greek: ei) a)/ra tine/s ei)si phu/seis toiau=tai ê)\ ou)si/ai oi(/as le/gousin oi( e)n toi=s lo/gois ta\s i)de/as, polu\ ma=llon e)pistê=mon a)/n ti ei)/ê ê( au)toepistê/mê kai\ kinou/menon ê( ki/nêsis.]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 135 A.
[Greek: Tau=ta me\ntoi, ô)= Sô/krates, e)/phê o( Parmeni/dês, _kai\ e)/ti a)/lla pro\s tou/tois pa/nu polla\ a)nagkai=on e)/chein ta\ ei)/dê_, ei) ei)si\n au)tai ai( i)de/ai tô=n o)/ntôn], &c.] [Side-note: Sum total of objections against the Ideas is grave.
But if we do not admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable, there can be no dialectic discussion.]
Here are some of the objections, Sokrates (concludes Parmenides), which beset your doctrine, that there exist substantive, self-standing, Forms of Ideas, each respectively definable.
Many farther objections might also be urged.
[23] So that a man may reasonably maintain, either that none such exist--or that, granting their existence, they are essentially unknowable by us.
He must put forth great ingenuity to satisfy himself of the affirmative; and still more wonderful ingenuity to find arguments for the satisfaction of others, respecting this question.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 134 D-E. [Greek: Ou)/koun ei) para\ tô=| theô=| au(/tê e)/stin ê( a)kribesta/tê despotei/a kai\ au(/tê ê( a)kribesta/tê e)pistê/mê, ou)/t' a)\n ê( despotei/a ê( e)kei/nôn] (i.e.
[Greek: tô=n theô=n]) [Greek: ê(mô=n pote\ a)\n despo/seien, _ou)/t' a)\n ê( e)pistê/mê ê(ma=s gnoi/ê ou)de/ ti a)/llo tô=n par' ê(mi=n_; a)lla\ o(moi/ôs ê(mei=s t' e)kei/nôn ou)k a)/rchomen tê=| par' ê(mi=n a)rchê=|, ou)de gignô/skomen tou= thei/ou ou)de\n tê=| ê(mete/ra| e)pistê/mê, _e)kei=noi/ te au)=_] (sc.
[Greek: oi( theoi/]) [Greek: kata\ to\n au)to\n lo/gon ou)/te despo/tai ê(mô=n ei)si\n _ou)/te gignô/skousi ta\ a)nthrô/peia pra/gmata theoi\ o)/ntes_.
A)lla\ mê\ li/an, e)/phê] (Sokrates), [Greek: ê)=| thaumasto\s o( lo/gos, ei)/ tis theo\n a)posterê/seis tou= ei)de/nai.]
The inference here drawn by Parmenides supplies the first mention of a doctrine revived by (if not transmitted to) Averroes and various scholastic doctors of the middle ages, so as to be formally condemned by theological councils.
M. Renan tells us--"En 1269, Étienne Tempier, évêque de Paris, ayant rassemblé le conseil des maîtres en théologie .
.
.
condamna, de concert avec eux, treize propositions qui ne sont presque toutes que les axiomes familiers de l'averroïsme: Quod intellectus hominum est unus et idem numero.
Quod mundus est æternus.
Quod nunquam fuit primus homo.
_Quod Deus non cognoscit singularia_," &c. (Renan, Averroès, p. 213, 2nd ed., p.
268.)]
Nevertheless, on the other side (continues Parmenides), unless we admit the existence of such Forms or Ideas--substantive, eternal, unchangeable, definable--philosophy and dialectic discussion are impossible.
[24] [Footnote 24: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 135 B.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Dilemma put by Parmenides--Acuteness of his objections.]
Here then, Parmenides entangles himself and his auditors in the perplexing dilemma, that philosophical and dialectic speculation is impossible, unless these Forms or Ideas, together with the participation of sensible objects in them, be granted; while at the same time this cannot be granted, until objections, which appear at first sight unanswerable, have been disposed of.
The acuteness with which these objections are enforced, is remarkable.
I know nothing superior to it in all the Platonic writings.
Moreover the objections point directly against that doctrine which Plato in other dialogues most emphatically insists upon, and which Aristotle both announces and combats as characteristic of Plato--the doctrine of separate, self-existent, absolute, Forms or Ideas.
They are addressed moreover to Sokrates, the chief exponent of that doctrine here as well as in other dialogues.
And he is depicted as unable to meet them.
[Side-note: The doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine Platonic theory of Ideas.
His objections are never answered in any part of the Platonic dialogues.]
It is true that Sokrates is here introduced as juvenile and untrained; or at least as imperfectly trained.
And accordingly, Stallbaum with others think, that this is the reason of his inability to meet the objections: which (they tell us), though ingenious and plausible, yet having no application to the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, might easily have been answered if Plato had thought fit, and are answered in other dialogues.
[25] But to me it appears, that the doctrine which is challenged in the Parmenidês is the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, as enunciated by Plato in the Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, Timæus, and elsewhere--though a very different doctrine is announced in the Sophistês.
Objections are here made against it in the Parmenidês.
In what other dialogue has Plato answered them?
and what proof can be furnished that he was able to answer them?
There are indeed many other dialogues in which a real world of Ideas absolute and unchangeable, is affirmed strenuously and eloquently, with various consequences and accompaniments traced to it: but there are none in which the Parmenidean objections are elucidated, or even recited.
In the Phædon, Phædrus, Timæus, Symposion, &c., and elsewhere, Sokrates is made to talk confidently about the existence and even about the cognoscibility of these Ideas; just as if no such objections as those which we read in the Parmenidês could be produced.
[26] In these other dialogues, Plato accepts implicitly one horn of the Parmenidean dilemma; but without explaining to us upon what grounds he allows himself to neglect the other.
[Footnote 25: Stallbaum, Prolegom.
pp.
52-286-332.]
[Footnote 26: According to Stallbaum (Prolegg.
pp.
277-337) the Parmenidês is the only dialogue in which Plato has discussed, with philosophical exactness, the theory of Ideas; in all the other dialogues he handles it in a popular and superficial manner.
There is truth in this--indeed more truth (I think) than Stallbaum himself supposed: otherwise he would hardly have said that the objections in the Parmenides could easily have been answered, if Plato had chosen.
Stallbaum tells us, not only respecting Socher but respecting Schleiermacher (pp.
324-332), "Parmenidem omnino non intellexit".
In my judgment, Socher understands the dialogue better than Stallbaum, when he (Socher) says, that the objections in the first half bear against the genuine Platonic Ideas; though I do not agree with his inference about the spuriousness of the dialogue.]
[Side-note: Views of Stallbaum and Socher.
The latter maintains that Plato would never make such objections against his own theory, and denies the authenticity of the Parmenidês.]
Socher has so much difficulty in conceiving that Plato can have advanced such forcible objections against a doctrine, which nevertheless in other Platonic dialogues is proclaimed as true and important,--that he declares the Parmenidês (together with the Sophistês and Politikus) not to be genuine, but to have been composed by some unknown Megaric contemporary.
To pass over the improbability that any unknown author should have been capable of composing works of so much ability as these--Socher's decision about spuriousness is founded upon an estimate of Plato's philosophical character, which I think incorrect.
Socher expects (or at least reasons as if he expected) to find in Plato a preconceived system and a scheme of conclusions to which every thing is made subservient.
[Side-note: Philosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive system of his own.]
In most philosophers, doubtless, this is what we do find.
Each starts with some favourite conclusions, which he believes to be true, and which he supports by all the arguments in their favour, as far as his power goes.
If he mentions the arguments against them, he usually answers the weak, slurs over or sneers at the strong: at any rate, he takes every precaution that these counter arguments shall appear unimportant in the eyes of his readers.
His purpose is, like that of a speaker in the public assembly, to obtain assent and belief: whether the hearers understand the question or not, is a matter of comparative indifference: at any rate, they must be induced to embrace his conclusion.
Unless he thus foregoes the character of an impartial judge, to take up that of an earnest advocate; unless he bends the whole force of his mind to the establishment of the given conclusion--he becomes suspected as deficient in faith or sincerity, and loses much in persuasive power.
For an earnest belief, expressed with eloquence and feeling, is commonly more persuasive than any logic.
[Side-note: Different spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search.]
Now whether this exclusive devotion to the affirmative side of certain questions be the true spirit of philosophy or not, it is certainly not the spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search; wherein he conceives the work of philosophy in a totally different manner.
He does not begin by stating, even to himself a certain conclusion at which he has arrived, and then proceed to prove that conclusion to others.
The search or debate (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) has greater importance in his eyes than the conclusion: nay, in a large proportion of his dialogues, there is no conclusion at all: we see something disproved, but nothing proved.
The negative element has with him a value and importance of its own, apart from the affirmative.
He is anxious to set forth what can be said against a given conclusion; even though not prepared to establish any thing in its place.
[Side-note: The Parmenidês is the extreme manifestation of the negative element.
That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting forth the negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not unnatural.]
Such negative element, manifested as it is in so many of the Platonic dialogues, has its extreme manifestation in the Parmenidês.
When we see it here applied to a doctrine which Plato in other dialogues insists upon as truth, we must call to mind (what sincere believers are apt to forget) that a case may always be made out against truth as well as in its favour: and that its privilege as a certified portion of "reasoned truth," rests upon no better title than the superiority of the latter case over the former.
It is for testing the two cases--for determining where the superiority lies--and for graduating its amount--that the process of philosophising is called for, and that improvements in the method thereof become desirable.
That Plato should, in one of his many diversified dialogues, apply this test to a doctrine which, in other dialogues, he holds out as true--is noway inconsistent with the general spirit of these compositions.
Each of his dialogues has its own point of view, worked out on that particular occasion; what is common to them all, is the process of philosophising applied in various ways to the same general topics.
Those who, like Socher, deny Plato's authorship of the Parmenidês, on the ground of what is urged therein against the theory of Ideas, must suppose, either that he did not know that a negative case could be made out against that theory; or that knowing it, he refrained from undertaking the duty.
[27] Neither supposition is consistent with what we know both of his negative ingenuity, and of his multifarious manner of handling.
[Footnote 27: Plato, Philêbus, p. 14, where the distinction taken coincides accurately enough with that which we read in Plato, Parmenid.
p. 129 A-D. Strümpell thinks that the Parmenidês was composed at a time of Plato's life when he had become sensible of the difficulties and contradictions attaching to his doctrine of self-existent Forms or Ideas, and when he was looking about for some way of extrication from them: which way he afterwards thought that he found in that approximation to Pythagorism--that exchange of Ideas for Ideal numbers, &c.--which we find imputed to him by Aristotle (Gesch.
der Griech.
Phil.
sect.
96, 3).
This is not impossible; but I find no sufficient ground for affirming it.
Nor can I see how the doctrine which Aristotle ascribes to Plato about the Ideas (that they are generated by two [Greek: stoichei=a] or elements, [Greek: to\ e(/n] along with [Greek: to\ me/ga kai\ to\ mikro/n]) affords any escape from the difficulties started in the Parmenidês.
Strümpell considers the dialogue Parmenidês to have been composed "ganz ausdrücklich zur dialektischen Uebung," ib.
s. 96, 2, p.
128.]
[Side-note: Force of the negative case in the Parmenidês.
Difficulties about participation of sensible objects in the world of Ideas.]
The negative case, made out in the Parmenidês against the theory of Ideas, is indeed most powerful.
The hypothesis of the Ideal World is unequivocally affirmed by Sokrates, with its four principal characteristics.
1.
Complete essential separation from the world of sense.
2.
Absolute self-existence.
3.
Plurality of constituent items, several contrary to each other.
4.
Unchangeable sameness and unity of each and all of them.--Here we have full satisfaction given to the Platonic sentiment, which often delights in soaring above the world of sense, and sometimes (see Phædon) in heaping contemptuous metaphors upon it.
But unfortunately Sokrates cannot disengage himself from this world of sense: he is obliged to maintain that it partakes of, or is determined by, these extra-sensible Forms or Ideas.
Here commence the series of difficulties and contradictions brought out by the Elenchus of Parmenides.
Are all sensible objects, even such as are vulgar, repulsive, and contemptible, represented in this higher world?
The Platonic sentiment shrinks from the admission: the Platonic sense of analogy hesitates to deny it.
Then again, how can both assertions be true--first that the two worlds are essentially separate, next, that the one participates in, and derives its essence from, the other?
How (to use Aristotelian language[28]) can the essence be separated from that of which it is the essence?
How can the Form, essentially One, belong at once to a multitude of particulars?
[Footnote 28: Arist.
Met.
A.
991, b.
1.
[Greek: a)du/naton, chôri\s ei)=nai tê\n ou)si/an kai\ ou)= ê( ou)si/a.]]
Two points deserve notice in this debate respecting the doctrine of Ideas:-[Side-note: Difficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas.
If Ideas are absolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable, they must be relative.
Doctrine of Homo Mensura.]
1.
Parmenides shows, and Sokrates does not deny, that these Forms or Ideas described as absolute, self-existent, unchangeable, must of necessity be unknown and unknowable to us.
[29] Whatever we do know, or can know, is relative to us;--to our actual cognition, or to our cognitive power.
If you declare an object to be absolute, you declare it to be neither known nor knowable by us: if it be announced as known or knowable by us, it is thereby implied at the same time not to be absolute.
If these Forms or Objects called absolute are known, they can be known only by an absolute Subject, or the Form of a cognizant Subject: that is, by God or the Gods.
Even thus, to call them _absolute_ is a misnomer: they are relative to the Subject, and the Subject is relative to them.
[Footnote 29: Plato, Parmenid.
133 B.
[Greek: ei)/ tis phai/ê mêde\ prosê/kein au)ta\ gignô/skesthai o)/nta toiau=ta oi(=a/ phamen dei=n ei)=nai ta\ ei)/dê.
.
.
.
a)pi/thanos a)\n ei)/ê o( a)/gnôsta au)ta\ a)nagka/zôn ei)=nai.]
134 A.
[Greek: ê( de\ par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê ou) tê=s par' ê(mi=n a)\n a)lêthei/as ei)/ê?
kai\ au)= e(ka/stê ê( par' ê(mi=n e(pistê/mê tô=n par' ê(mi=n o)/ntôn e(ka/stou a)\n e)pistê/mê xu/mbainoi ei)=nai?]
134 C. [Greek: a)/gnôston a)/ra ê(mi=n e)/sti kai\ au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(\ e)/sti, kai\ to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ pa/nta a(\ dê\ ô(s i)de/as au)ta\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]
The opinion here advanced by the Platonic Parmenides asserts, in other words, what is equivalent to the memorable dictum of Protagoras--"Man is the measure of all things--of things existent, that they do exist--and of things non-existent, that they do not exist".
This dictum affirms universal relativity, and nothing else: though Plato, as we shall see in the elaborate argument against it delivered by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, mixed it up with another doctrine altogether distinct and independent--the doctrine that knowledge is sensible perception.
[30] Parmenides here argues that if these Forms or Ideas are known by us, they can be known only as relative to us: and that if they be not relative to us, they cannot be known by us at all.
Such relativity belongs as much to the world of Conception, as to the world of Perception.
And it is remarkable that Plato admits this essential relativity not merely here, but also in the Sophistês: in which latter dialogue he denies the Forms or Ideas to be absolute existences, on the special ground that they are known:--and on the farther ground that what is known must act upon the knowing mind, and must be acted upon thereby, _i.e._, must be relative.
He there defines the existent to be, that which has power to act upon something else, or to be acted upon by something else.
Such relativeness he declares to constitute _existence_:[31] defining existence to mean potentiality.
[Footnote 30: I shall discuss this in the coming chapter upon the Theætêtus.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophistês, pp.
248-249.
This reasoning is put into the mouth of the Eleatic Stranger, the principal person in that dialogue.]
[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates--That Ideas are mere conceptions of the mind.
Objection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped.]
2.
The second point which deserves notice in this portion of the Parmenidês, is the answer of Sokrates (when embarrassed by some of the questions of the Eleatic veteran)--"That these Forms or Ideas are conceptions of the mind, and have no existence out of the mind".
This answer gives us the purely Subjective, or negation of Object: instead of the purely Objective (Absolute), or negation of Subject.
[32] Here we have what Porphyry calls the deepest question of philosophy[33] explicitly raised: and, as far as we know, for the first time.
Are the Forms or Ideas mere conceptions of the mind and nothing more?
Or are they external, separate, self-existent realities?
The opinion which Sokrates had first given declared the latter: that which he now gives declares the former.
He passes from the pure Objective (_i.e._, without Subject) to the pure Subjective (_i.e._, without Object).
Parmenides, in his reply, points out that there cannot be a conception of nothing: that if there be Conceptio, there must be _Conceptum aliquid_:[34] and that this Conceptum or Concept is what is common to a great many distinct similar Percepta.
[Footnote 32: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 132 A-B.
The doctrine, that [Greek: poio/têtes] were [Greek: philai\ e)/nnoiai], having no existence without the mind, was held by Antisthenes as well as by the Eretrian sect of philosophers, contemporary with Plato and shortly after him.
Simplikius, Schol.
ad Aristot.
Categ.
p. 68, a.
30, Brandis.
See, respecting Antisthenes, the first volume of the present work, p.
165.]
[Footnote 33: See the beginning of Porphyry's Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle.
[Greek: bathuta/tê ou)/sês tê=s toiau/tês pragmatei/as], &c. Simplikius (in Schol.
ad Aristot.
Categ.
p. 68, a.
28, ed.
Brandis) alludes to the Eretrian philosophers and Theopompus, who considered [Greek: ta\s poio/têtas] as [Greek: phila\s mo/nas e)nnoi/as diakenô=s legome/nas kat' ou)demi/as u(posta/seôs, oi(=on a)nthrôpo/têta ê)\ i(ppo/têta], &c.] [Footnote 34: Compare Republic, v. p. 476 B.
[Greek: o( gignô/skôn gignô/skei ti\ ê)\ ou)de\n?
Gignô/skei ti/], &c. The following passage in the learned work of Cudworth bears on the portion of the Parmenidês which we are now considering.
Cudworth, Treatise of Immutable Morality, pp.
243-245.
"But if any one demand here, where this [Greek: a)ki/nêtos ou)si/a], these immutable Entities do exist?
I answer, first, that as they are considered formally, they do not properly exist in the Individuals without us, as if they were from them imprinted upon the Understanding, which some have taken to be Aristotle's opinion; because no Individual Material thing is either Universal or Immutable.
.
.
.
Because they perish not together with them, it is a certain argument that they exist independently upon them.
Neither, in the next place, do they exist somewhere else apart from the Individual Sensibles, and without the Mind, which is that opinion that Aristotle justly condemns, but either unjustly or unskilfully attributes to Plato.
.
.
.
Wherefore these Intelligible Ideas or Essences of Things, those Forms by which we understand all Things, exist nowhere but in the mind itself; for it was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato's Parmenidês, that these things are nothing else but Noemata: 'These Species or Ideas are all of them nothing but Noemata or Notions that exist nowhere but in the Soul itself'.
.
.
.
"And yet notwithstanding, though these Things exist only in the Mind, they are not therefore mere Figments of the Understanding.
.
.
.
"It is evident that though the Mind thinks of these Things at pleasure, yet they are not arbitrarily framed by the Mind, but have certain, determinate, and immutable Natures of their own, which are independent upon the Mind, and which are blown (quære _not blown_) away into Nothing at the pleasure of the same Being that arbitrarily made them."
It is an inadvertence on the part of Cudworth to cite this passage of the Parmenidês as authenticating Plato's opinion that Forms or Ideas existed only in the mind.
Certainly Sokrates is here made to express that opinion, among others; but the opinion is refuted by Parmenidês and dropped by Sokrates.
But the very different opinion, which Cudworth accuses Aristotle of _wrongly_ attributing to Plato, is repeated by Sokrates in the Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere, and never refuted.]
This reply, though scanty and undeveloped, is in my judgment both valid, as it negatives the Subject pure and simple, and affirms that to every conception in the mind, there must correspond a Concept out of (or rather along with) the mind (the one correlating with or implying the other)--and correct as far as it goes, in declaring what that Concept is.
Such Concept is, or may be, the Form.
Parmenides does not show that it is not so.
He proceeds to impugn, by a second argument, the assertion of Sokrates--that the form is a Conception _wholly within_ the mind: he goes on to argue that individual things (which are _out_ of the mind) cannot participate in these Forms (which are asserted to be altogether _in_ the mind): because, if that were admitted, either every such thing must be a Concipient, or must run into the contradiction of being a _Conceptio non concipiens_.
[35] Now this argument may refute the affirmation of Sokrates literally taken, that the Form is a Conception entirely belonging to the mind, and having nothing Objective corresponding to it--but does not refute the doctrine that the Form is a Concept correlating with the mind--or out of the mind as well as in it.
In this as in other Concepts, the subjective point of view preponderates over the objective, though Object is not altogether eliminated: just as, in the particular external things, the objective point of view predominates, though Subject cannot be altogether dismissed.
Neither Subject nor Object can ever entirely disappear: the one is the inseparable correlative and complement of the other: but sometimes the subjective point of view may preponderate, sometimes the objective.
Such preponderance (or logical priority), either of the one or the other, may be implied or connoted by the denomination given.
Though the special connotation of the name creates an illusion which makes the preponderant point of view seem to be all, and magnifies the Relatum so as to eclipse and extinguish the Correlatum--yet such preponderance, or logical priority, is all that is really meant when the Concepts are said to be "_in the mind_"--and the Percepts (Percepta, things perceived) to be "_out of the mind_": for both Concepts and Percepts are "_of the mind_, or _relative to the mind_".
[36] [Footnote 35: On this point the argument in the dialogue itself, as stated by Parmenides, is not clear to follow.
Strümpell remarks on the terms employed by Plato.
"Der Umstand, dass die Ausdrücke [Greek: ei)=dos] und [Greek: i)de/a] nicht sowie [Greek: lo/gos] den Unterschied, zwischen Begriff und dem durch diesen begriffenen Realen, hervortreten lassen--sondern, weil dieselben bald im subjektiven Sinne den Begriff, bald im objektiven Sinne das Reale bezeichnen--bald in der einen bald in der andern Bedeutung zu nehmen sind--kann leicht eine Verwechselung und Unklarheit in der Auffassung veranlassen," &c. (Gesch.
der Gr.
Philos.
s. 90, p.
115).]
[Footnote 36: This preponderance of the Objective point of view, though without altogether eliminating the Subjective, includes all that is true in the assertion of Aristotle, that the _Perceptum_ is prior to the _Percipient_--the _Percipiendum_ prior to the _Perceptionis Capax_.
He assimilates the former to a _Movens_, the latter to a _Motum_.
But he declares that he means not a priority in time or real existence, but simply a _priority in nature_ or _logical priority_; and he also declares the two to be relatives or reciproca.
The Prius is relative to the Posterius, as the Posterius is relative to the Prius.--Metaphys.
[Greek: G].
1010, b.
36 seq.
[Greek: a)ll' e)/sti ti kai\ e(/teron para\ tê\n ai)/sthêsin, o(\ a)nagkê pro/teron ei)=nai tê=s ai)sthê/seô=s; to\ ga\r kinou=n tou= kinoume/nou _phu/sei pro/tero/n_ e)sti; ka)\n ei) le/getai pro\s a)/llêla tau=ta, ou)de\n ê(=tton.]
See respecting the [Greek: pro/teron phu/sei], Aristot.
Categor.
p. 12, b.
5-15, and Metaphys.
[Greek: D].
1018, b.
12--[Greek: a(plô=s kai\ tê=| phu/sei pro/teron].]
[Side-note: Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from ancient times to the present day--Different views of Plato and Aristotle upon it.]
The question--What is the real and precise meaning attached to abstract and general words?--has been debated down to this day, and is still under debate.
It seems to have first derived its importance, if not its origin, from Sokrates, who began the practice of inviting persons to define the familiar generalities of ethics and politics, and then tested by cross-examination the definitions given by men who thought that common sense would enable any one to define.
[37] But I see no ground for believing that Sokrates ever put to himself the question--Whether that which an abstract term denotes is a mental conception, or a separate and self-existent reality.
That question was raised by Plato, and first stands clearly brought to view here in the Parmenidês.
[Footnote 37: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
987, b.
3.
M. 1078, b.
18-32.]
If we follow up the opinion here delivered by the Platonic Sokrates, together with the first correction added to it by Parmenides, amounting to this--That the Form is a Conception of the mind with its corresponding Concept: if, besides, we dismiss the doctrine held by Plato, that the Form is a separate self-existent unchangeable Ens ([Greek: e(\n para\ ta\ polla\]): there will then be no greater difficulty in understanding how it can be partaken by, or be at once in, many distinct particulars, than in understanding (what is at bottom the same question) how one and the same attribute can belong at once to many different objects: how hardness or smoothness can be at once in an indefinite number of hard and smooth bodies dispersed everywhere.
[38] The object and the attribute are both of them relative to the same percipient and concipient mind: we may perceive or conceive many objects as distinct individuals--we may also conceive them all as resembling in a particular manner, making abstraction of the individuality of each: both these are psychological facts, and the latter of the two is what we mean when we say, that all of them possess or participate in one and the same attribute.
The concrete term, and its corresponding abstract, stand for the same facts of sense differently conceived.
Now the word _one_, when applied to the attribute, has a different meaning from _one_ when applied to an individual object.
Plato speaks sometimes elsewhere as if he felt this diversity of meaning: not however in the Parmenidês, though there is great demand for it.
But Aristotle (in this respect far superior) takes much pains to point out that _Unum Ens_--and the preposition _In_ (to be _in_ any thing)--are among the [Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena], having several different meanings derived from one primary or radical by diverse and distant ramifications.
[39] The important logical distinction between _Unum numero_ and _Unum specie_ (or _genere_, &c.) belongs first to Aristotle.
[40] [Footnote 38: That "the attribute is in its subject," is explained by Aristotle only by saying That it is _in_ its subject, not as a part in the whole, yet as that which cannot exist apart from its subject (Categor.
1, a.
30-3, a.
30).
Compare Hobbes, Comput.
or Logic.
iii.
3, viii.
3.
Respecting the number of different modes [Greek: tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai], see Aristot.
Physic.
iii.
p. 210, a.
18 seq., with the Scholia, p. 373 Brandis, and p. 446, 10 Brand.
The commentators made out, variously, nine, eleven, sixteen distinct [Greek: tro/pous tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai].
In the language of Aristotle, _genus_, _species_, [Greek: ei)=dos], and even _differentia_ are not [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], but are predicated [Greek: kath' u(pokeime/nou] (see Cat.
p. 3, a.
20).
The _proprium_ and _accidens_ alone are [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|].
Here is a difference between his language and that of Plato, according to whom [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] is [Greek: e)n e(ka/stô| tô=n pollô=n] (Parmenid.
131 A).
But we remark in that same dialogue, that when Parmenides questions Sokrates whether he recognises [Greek: ei)/dê au)ta\ kath' au)ta/] he first asks whether Sokrates admits [Greek: dikai/ou ti ei)=dos au)to\ kath' au(to/, kai\ kalou=, kai\ a)gathou=, kai\ pa/ntôn tô=n toiou/tôn].
Sokrates answers without hesitation, _Yes_.
Then Parmenides proceeds to ask, Do you recognise an [Greek: ei)=dos] of man, separate and apart from all of us individual men?--or an [Greek: ei)=dos] of fire, water, and such like?
Here Sokrates hesitates: he will neither admit nor deny it (130 D).
The first list, which Sokrates at once accepts, is of what Aristotle would call _accidents_: the second, which Sokrates doubts about, is of what Aristotle would call _second substances_.
We thus see that the conception of a self-existent [Greek: ei)=dos] realised itself most easily and distinctly to the mind of Plato in the case of _accidents_.
He would, therefore, naturally conceive [Greek: ta\ ei)/dê] as being [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], agreeing substantially, though not in terms, with Aristotle.
It is in the case of accidents or attributes that abstract names are most usually invented; and it is the abstract name, or the neuter adjective used as its equivalent, which suggests the belief in an [Greek: ei)=dos].]
[Footnote 39: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
[Greek: D].
1015-1016, I.
1052, a.
29 seq.
[Greek: ta\ me\n dê\ ou(/tôs e(\n ê)\ suneche\s ê)\ o(/lon; ta\ de\ ô(=n a)\n o( lo/gos ei(=s ê)=|; toiau=ta de\ ô(=n ê( no/êsis mi/a], &c. About abstract names, or the names of attributes, see Mr. John Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' i.
2, 4, p. 30, edit.
5th.
"When only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in kind, is designated by the name--as visibleness, tangibleness, equality, &c.--though it denotes an attribute of many different objects, the attribute itself is always considered as _one_, not as _many_."
Compare, also, on this point, p. 153, and a note added by Mr. Mill to the fifth edition, p. 203, in reply to Mr. Herbert Spencer.
The _oneness_ of the attribute, in different subjects, is not conceded by every one.
Mr. Spencer thinks that the same abstract word denotes one attribute in Subject A, and another attribute, though exactly like it, in Subject B (Principles of Psychology, p. 126 seq.)
Mr. Mill's view appears the correct one; but the distinction (pointed out by Archbishop Whately) between _undistinguishable likeness_ and _positive identity_, becomes in these cases imperceptible or forgotten.
Aristotle, however, in the beginning of the Categories ranks [Greek: ê( ti/s grammatikê\] as [Greek: a)/tomon kai\ _e(\n a)rithmô=|_] (pp.
1, 6, 8), which I do not understand; and it seems opposed to another passage, pp.
3, 6, 15.
The argument between two such able thinkers as Mr. Mill and Mr. Spencer, illustrates forcibly the extreme nicety of this question respecting the One and the Many, under certain supposable circumstances.
We cannot be surprised that it puzzled the dialecticians of the Platonic Aristotelian age, who fastened by preference on points of metaphysical difficulty.]
[Footnote 40: See interesting remarks on the application of this logical distinction in Galen, De Methodo Medendi, Book iii.
vol.
x. p. 130 seq.
Aristotle and Theophrastus both dwelt upon it.]
[Side-note: Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the facts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded.]
Plato has not followed out the hint which he has here put into the mouth of Sokrates in the Parmenidês--That the Ideas or Forms are conceptions existing only in the mind.
Though the opinion thus stated is not strictly correct (and is so pointed out by himself), as falling back too exclusively on the subjective--yet if followed out, it might have served to modify the too objective and absolute character which in most dialogues (though not in the Sophistês) he ascribes to his Forms or Ideas: laying stress upon them as objects--and as objects not of sensible perception--but overlooking or disallowing the fact of their being relative to the concipient mind.
The bent of Plato's philosophy was to dwell upon these Forms, and to bring them into harmonious conjunction with each other: he neither took pains, nor expected, to make them fit on to the world of sense.
With Aristotle, on the contrary, this last-mentioned purpose is kept very generally in view.
Amidst all the extreme abstractions which he handles, he reverts often to the comparison of them with sensible particulars: indeed Substantia Prima was by him, for the first time in the history of philosophy, brought down to designate the concrete particular object of sense: in Plato's Phædon, Republic, &c, the only Substances are the Forms or Ideas.
[Side-note: Continuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes Sokrates that be has been premature in delivering a doctrine, without sufficient preliminary exercise.]
Parmenides now continues the debate.
He has already fastened upon Sokrates several difficult problems: he now proposes a new one, different and worse.
Which way are we to turn then, if these Forms be beyond our knowledge?
I do not see my way (says Sokrates) out of the perplexity.
The fact is, Sokrates (replies Parmenides), you have been too forward in producing your doctrine of Ideas, without a sufficient preliminary exercise and enquiry.
Your love of philosophical research is highly praiseworthy: but you must employ your youth in exercising and improving yourself, through that continued philosophical discourse which the vulgar call _useless prosing_: otherwise you will never attain truth.
[41] You are however right in bestowing your attention, not on the objects of sense, but on those objects which we can best grasp in discussion, and which we presume to exist as Forms.
[42] [Footnote 41: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 135 C. [Greek: Prô\| ga/r, pri\n gumnasthê=nai, ô)= Sô/krates, o(ri/zesthai e)picheirei=s kalo/n te/ ti kai\ di/kaion kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n ei)dô=n .
.
.
kalê\ me\n ou)=n kai\ thei/a, ei)= i)/sthi, ê( o(rmê\ ê(\n o(rma=|s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous; e(/lkuson de\ sauto\n kai\ gumna/sai, ma=llon dia\ tê=s dokou/sês a)chrê/stou ei)=nai kai\ kaloume/nês u(po\ tô=n pollô=n a)doleschi/as, e(/ôs e)/ti ne/os ei)=; ei) de\ mê\, se\ diapheu/xetai ê( a)lê/theia.]]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 135 E.] [Side-note: What sort of exercise?
Parmenides describes: To assume provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the consequences of each.]
What sort of exercise must I go through?
asks Sokrates.
Zeno (replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it in his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing from the assumption--"That the self-existent and absolute Ens is plural".
When you are trying to find out the truth on any question, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and then the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the consequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the other.
If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it exists or does not exist, you must assume successively both one and the other;[43] marking the deductions which follow, both with reference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to other things also.
You must do the like if you are investigating other Forms--Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and Non-Existence.
But you must not be content with following out only one side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal care and impartiality.
This is the only sort of preparatory exercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the truth.
[44] [Footnote 43: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 A.
[Greek: kai\ au)=this au)= e)a\n u(pothê=|, ei) e)/stin o(moio/tês ê)\ ei) mê/ e)sti, ti/ e)ph' e(kate/ras tê=s u(pothe/seôs sumbê/setai, kai\ au)toi=s toi=s u(potethei=si kai\ toi=s a)/llois kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla.]]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 B.]
[Side-note: Impossible to do this before a numerous audience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much solicitation he agrees.]
You propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful magnitude.
At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I may know better how to begin.--Parmenides at first declines, on the ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so that he at length consents.--The process will be tedious (observes Zeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an audience small and select as we are here.
Before any numerous audience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like him.
For most people are not aware that, without such discursive survey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly attain truth or acquire intelligence.
[45] [Footnote 45: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 D. [Greek: ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê)=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai; _a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein_, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)/neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou kai\ pla/nês, a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.]
Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica, i.
3, 12): "Learners ought to go through logical exercises silently and by themselves: for it will be thought both ridiculous and absurd, for a man to use such language publicly".
Proklus tells us, that the difficulty of the [Greek: gumnasi/a], here set out by the Platonic Parmenides, is so prodigious, that no one after Plato employed it.
(Prok.
ad Parmen.
p. 801, Stallb.)]
[Side-note: Parmenides elects his own theory of the _Unum_, as the topic for exhibition--Aristoteles becomes respondent.]
It is especially on this ground--the small number and select character of the auditors--that Parmenides suffers himself to be persuaded to undertake what he calls "amusing ourselves with a laborious pastime".
[46] He selects, as the subject of his dialectical exhibition, his own doctrine respecting the One.
He proceeds to trace out the consequences which flow, first, from assuming the affirmative thesis, _Unum Est_: next, from assuming the negative thesis, or the Antithesis, _Unum non Est_.
The consequences are to be deduced from each hypothesis, not only as regards _Unum_ itself, but as regards _Cætera_, or other things besides _Unum_.
The youngest man of the party, Aristoteles, undertakes the duty of respondent.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 137 A.
[Greek: dei= ga\r chari/zesthai, _e)peidê\_ kai\ o(\ Zê/nôn le/gei, _au)toi/ e)smen_ .
.
.
ê)\ bou/lesthe _e)peidê/per dokei= pragmateiô/dê paidia\n pai/zein_,] &c.] [Side-note: Exhibition of Parmenides--Nine distinct deductions or Demonstrations, first from _Unum Est_--next from _Unum non Est_.]
The remaining portion of the dialogue, half of the whole, is occupied with nine distinct deductions or demonstrations given by Parmenides.
The first five start from the assumption, _Unum Est_: the last four from the assumption, _Unum non Est_.
The three first draw out the deductions from _Unum Est_, in reference to _Unum_: the fourth and fifth draw out the consequences from the same premiss, in reference to _Cætera_.
Again, the sixth and seventh start from _Unum non Est_, to trace what follows in regard to _Unum_: the eighth and ninth adopt the same hypothesis, and reason it out in reference to _Cætera_.
[Side-note: The Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or Antinomies.
Perplexing entanglement of conclusions given without any explanation.]
Of these demonstrations, one characteristic feature is, that they are presented in antagonising pairs or Antinomies: except the third, which professes to mediate between the first and second, though only by introducing new difficulties.
We have four distinct Antinomies: the first and second, the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, stand respectively in emphatic contradiction with each other.
Moreover, to take the demonstrations separately--the first, fifth, seventh, ninth, end in conclusions purely negative: the other four end in double and contradictory conclusions.
The purpose is formally proclaimed, of showing that the same premisses, ingeniously handled, can be made to yield these contradictory results.
[47] No attempt is made to reconcile the contradictions, except partially by means of the third, in reference to the two preceding.
In regard to the fourth and fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth and ninth, no hint is given that they can be, or afterwards will be, reconciled.
The dialogue concludes abruptly at the end of the ninth demonstration, with these words: "We thus see that--whether Unum exists or does not exist--Unum and Cætera both are, and are not, all things in every way--both appear, and do not appear, all things in every way--each in relation to itself, and each in relation to the other".
[48] Here is an unqualified and even startling announcement of double and contradictory conclusions, obtained from the same premisses both affirmative and negative: an announcement delivered too as the fulfilment of the purpose of Parmenides.
Nothing is said at the end to intimate how the demonstrations are received by Sokrates, nor what lesson they are expected to administer to him: not a word of assent, or dissent, or surprise, or acknowledgment in any way, from the assembled company, though all of them had joined in entreating Parmenides, and had expressed the greatest anxiety to hear his dialectic exhibition.
Those who think that an abrupt close, or an abrupt exordium, is sufficient reason for declaring a dialogue not to be the work of Plato (as Platonic critics often argue), are of course consistent in disallowing the Parmenides.
For my part, I do not agree in the opinion.
I take Plato as I find him, and I perceive both here and in the Protagoras and elsewhere, that he did not always think it incumbent upon him to adapt the end of his dialogues to the beginning.
This may be called a defect, but I do not feel called upon to make out that Plato's writings are free from defects; and to acknowledge nothing as his work unless I can show it to be faultless.
[Footnote 47: See the connecting words between the first and second demonstration, pp.
142 A, 159.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n tau=ta me\n ê)/dê e)ô=men ô(s phanera/, e)piskopô=men de\ pa/lin, e(\n ei) e)/stin, _a)=ra kai\ ou)ch ou(/tôs e)/chei ta)/lla tou= e(no\s ê)\ ou(/tô mo/non?_] Also p. 163 B.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Parmenid.
ad fin.
[Greek: Ei)rê/sthô toi/nun tou=to/ te kai\ o(/ti, ô(s e)/oiken, e(\n ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te mê\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\ ta)/lla kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla pa/nta pa/ntôs e)sti/ te kai\ ou)k e)sti kai\ phai/netai/ te kai\ ou) phai/netai.]]
[Side-note: Different judgments of Platonic critics respecting the Antinomies and the dialogue generally.]
The demonstrations or Antinomies in the last half of the Parmenides are characterised by K. F. Hermann and others as a masterpiece of speculative acuteness.
Yet if these same demonstrations, constructed with care and labour for the purpose of proving that the same premisses will conduct to double and contradictory conclusions, had come down to us from antiquity under the name either of the Megaric Eukleides, or Protagoras, or Gorgias--many of the Platonic critics would probably have said of them (what is now said of the sceptical treatise remaining to us under the name of Gorgias) that they were poor productions worthy of such Sophists, who are declared to have made a trade of perverting truth.
Certainly the conclusions of the demonstrations are specimens of that "Both and Neither," which Plato (in the Euthydemus[49]) puts into the mouth of the Sophist Dionysodorus as an answer of slashing defiance--and of that intentional evolution of contradictions which Plato occasionally discountenances, both in the Euthydemus and elsewhere.
[50] And we know from Proklus[51] that there were critics in ancient times, who depreciated various parts of the Parmenides as sophistical.
Proklus himself denies the charge with some warmth.
He as well as the principal Neo-Platonists between 200-530 A.D. (especially his predecessors and instructors at Athens, Jamblichus, Syrianus, and Plutarchus) admired the Parmenides as a splendid effort of philosophical genius in its most exalted range, inspired so as to become cognizant of superhuman persons and agencies.
They all agreed so far as to discover in the dialogue a sublime vein of mystic theology and symbolism: but along with this general agreement, there was much discrepancy in their interpretation of particular parts and passages.
The commentary of Proklus attests the existence of such debates, reporting his own dissent from the interpretations sanctioned by his venerated masters, Plutarchus and Syrianus.
That commentary, in spite of its prolixity, is curious to read as a specimen of the fifth century, A.D., in one of its most eminent representatives.
Proklus discovers a string of theological symbols and a mystical meaning throughout the whole dialogue: not merely in the acute argumentation which characterises its middle part, but also in the perplexing antinomies of its close, and even in the dramatic details of places, persons, and incidents, with which it begins.
[52] [Footnote 49: Plato, Euthydem.
p. 300 C. [Greek: A)ll' ou) tou=to e)rôtô=, a)lla\ ta\ pa/nta siga=| ê)\ le/gei?
_Ou)de/tera kai\ a)mpho/tera_, e)/phê u(pharpa/sas o( Dionuso/dôros; eu)= ga\r oi)=da o(/ti tê=| a)pokri/sei ou)ch e(/xeis o(/, ti chrê=|.]]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Sophist.
p. 259 B.
[Greek: ei)/te ô(s ti chalepo\n katanenoêkô\s chai/rei, tote\ me\n e)pi\ tha/tera tote\ d' e)pi\ tha/tera tou\s lo/gous e(/lkôn, ou)k a)/xia pollê=s spoudê=s e)spou/daken, ô(s oi( nu=n lo/goi phasi/n.]
--Also p. 259 D. [Greek: To\ de\ tau)to\n e(/teron a)pophai/nein a(mê=| ge/ pê|, kai\ to\ tha/teron tau)to/n, kai\ to\ me/ga smikro/n, kai\ to\ o(/moion a)no/moion, kai\ chai/rein ou(/tô ta)nanti/a a)ei\ prophe/ronta e)n toi=s lo/gois, ou)/ te/ tis e)/legchos ou(=tos a)lêthino/s, a)/rti te tô=n o)/ntôn tino\s e)phaptome/nou dê=los neogenê\s ô)/n.]]
[Footnote 51: Proklus, ad Platon.
Parmen.
p. 953, ed.
Stallb.
; compare p. 976 in the last book of the commentary, probably composed by Damaskius.
K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platon.
Philos.
p.
507.]
[Footnote 52: This commentary is annexed to Stallbaum's edition of the Parmenides.
Compare also the opinion of Marinus (disciple and biographer of Proklus) about the Parmenidês--Suidas v. [Greek: Mari=nos].
Jamblichus declared that Plato's entire theory of philosophy was embodied in the two dialogues, Parmenides and Timæus: in the Parmenides, all the intelligible or universal Entia were deduced from [Greek: to\ e(/n]: in the Timæus, all cosmical realities were deduced from the Demiurgus.
Proklus ad Timæeum, p. 5 A, p. 10 Schneider.
Alkinous, in his Introduction to the Platonic Dialogues (c. 6, p. 159, in the Appendix Platonica attached to K. F. Hermann's edition of Plato) quotes several examples of syllogistic reasoning from the Parmenides, and affirms that the ten categories of Aristotle are exhibited therein.
Plotinus (Ennead.
v. 1, 8) gives a brief summary of what he understood to be contained in the Antinomies of the Platonic Parmenides; but the interpretation departs widely from the original.
I transcribe a few sentences from the argument of Ficinus, to show what different meanings may be discovered in the same words by different critics.
(Ficini Argum.
in Plat.
Parmen.
p.
756.)
"Cum Plato per omnes ejus dialogos totius sapientiæ semina sparserit, in libris De Republicâ cuncta moralis philosophiæ instituta collegit, omnem naturalium rerum scientiam in Timæo, universam in Parmenide complexus est Theologiam.
Cumque in aliis longo intervallo cæteros philosophos antecesserit, in hoc tandem seipsum superasse videtur.
Hic enim divus Plato de ipso Uno subtilissimé disputat: quemadmodum Ipsum Unum rerum omnium principium est, super omnia, omniaque ab illo: quo pacto ipsum extra omnia sit et in omnibus: omniaque ex illo, per illud, atque ad illud.
Ad hujus, quod super essentiam est, Unius intelligentiam gradatim ascendit.
In iis quæ fluunt et sensibus subjiciuntur et sensibilia nominantur: In iis etiam quas semper eadem sunt et sensibilia nuncupantur, non sensibus amplius sed solâ mente percipienda: Nec in iis tantum, verum etiam supra sensum et sensibilia, intellectumque et intelligibilia:--ipsum Unum existit.--Illud insuper advertendum est, quod in hoc dialogo cum dicitur _Unum_, Pythagoreorum more quæque substantia a materiâ penitus absoluta significari potest: ut Deus, Mens, Anima.
Cum vero dicitur Aliud et Alia, tam materia, quam illa quæ in materiâ fiunt, intelligere licet."
The Prolegomena, prefixed by Thomson to his edition of the Parmenides, interpret the dialogue in the same general way as Proklus and Ficinus: they suppose that by Unum is understood Summus Deus, and they discover in the concluding Antinomies theological demonstrations of the unity, simplicity, and other attributes of God.
Thomson observes, very justly, that the Parmenides is one of the most difficult dialogues in Plato (Prolegom.
iv.-x.)
But in my judgment, his mode of exposition, far from smoothing the difficulties, adds new ones greater than those in the text.]
The various explanations of it given by more recent commentators may be seen enumerated in the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum,[53] who has also set forth his own views at considerable length.
And the prodigious opposition between the views of Proklus (followed by Ficinus in the fifteenth century), who extols the Parmenides as including in mystic phraseology sublime religious truths--and those of the modern Tiedemann, who despises them as foolish subtleties and cannot read them with patience--is quite sufficient to inspire a reasonable Platonic critic with genuine diffidence.
[Footnote 53: Stallbaum, Prolegg.
in Parmen.
ii.
1, pp.
244-265.
Compare K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
und Syst.
der Platon.
Phil.
pp.
507-668-670.
To the works which he has there enumerated, may be added the Dissertation by Dr. Kuno Fischer, Stuttgart, 1851, De Parmenide Platonico, and that of Zeller, Platonische Studien, p. 169 seqq.
Kuno Fischer (pp.
102-103) after Hegel (Gesch.
der Griech.
Phil.
I. p. 202), and some of the followers of Hegel, extol the Parmenides as a masterpiece of dialectics, though they complain that "der philosophirende Pöbel" misunderstand it, and treat it as obscure.
Werder, Logik, pp.
92-176, Berlin, 1841.
Carl Beck, Platon's Philosophie im Abriss ihrer genetischen Entwickelung, p. 75, Reutlingen, 1852.
Marbach, Gesch.
der Griech.
Phil.
sect.
96, pp.
210-211.]
[Side-note: No dogmatical solution or purpose is wrapped up in the dialogue.
The purpose is negative, to make a theorist keenly feel all the difficulties of theorising.]
In so far as these different expositions profess, each in its own way, to detect a positive dogmatical result or purpose in the Parmenides,[54] none of them carry conviction to my mind, any more than the mystical interpretations which we read in Proklus.
If Plato had any such purpose, he makes no intimation of it, directly or indirectly.
On the contrary, he announces another purpose not only different, but contrary.
The veteran Parmenides, while praising the ardour of speculative research displayed by Sokrates, at the same time reproves gently, but distinctly, the confident forwardness of two such immature youths as Sokrates and Aristotle in laying down positive doctrines without the preliminary exercise indispensable for testing them.
[55] Parmenides appears from the beginning to the end of the dialogue as a propounder of doubts and objections, not as a doctrinal teacher.
He seeks to restrain the haste of Sokrates--to make him ashamed of premature affirmation and the false persuasion of knowledge--to force upon him a keen sense of real difficulties which have escaped his notice.
To this end, a specimen is given of the exercise required.
It is certainly well calculated to produce the effect intended--of hampering, perplexing, and putting to shame, the affirmative rashness of a novice in philosophy.
It exhibits a tangled skein of ingenious contradiction which the novice must somehow bring into order, before he is in condition to proclaim any positive dogma.
If it answers this purpose, it does all that Parmenides promises.
Sokrates is warned against attaching himself exclusively to one side of an hypothesis, and neglecting the opposite: against surrendering himself to some pre-conception, traditional, or self-originated, and familiarising his mind with its consequences, while no pains are taken to study the consequences of the negative side, and bring them into comparison.
It is this one-sided mental activity, and premature finality of assertion, which Parmenides seeks to correct.
Whether the corrective exercises which he prescribes are the best for the purpose, may be contested: but assuredly the malady which he seeks to correct is deeply rooted in our human nature, and is combated by Sokrates himself, though by other means, in several of the Platonic dialogues.
It is a rare mental endowment to study both sides of a question, and suspend decision until the consequences of each are fully known.
[Footnote 54: I agree with Schleiermacher, in considering that the purpose of the Parmenides is nothing beyond [Greek: gumnasi/a], or exercise in the method and perplexities of philosophising (Einl.
p. 83): but I do not agree with him, when he says (pp.
90-105) that the objections urged by Parmenides (in the middle of the dialogue) against the separate substantiality of Forms or Ideas, though noway answered in the dialogue itself, are sufficiently answered in other dialogues (which he considers later in time), especially in the Sophistes (though, according to Brandis, Handb.
Gr.-Röm.
Phil.
p. 241, the Sophistes is earlier than the Parmenides).
Zeller, on the other hand, denies that these objections are at all answered in the Sophistes; but he maintains that the second part of the Parmenides itself clears up the difficulties propounded in the first part.
After an elaborate analysis (in the Platon.
Studien, pp.
168-178) of the Antinomies or contradictory Demonstrations in the concluding part of the dialogue, Zeller affirms the purpose of them to be "die richtige Ansicht von den Ideen als der Einheit in dem Mannichfaltigen der Erscheinung dialektisch zu begründen, die Ideenlehre möglichen Einwürfen und Missverständnissen gegenüber dialektisch zu begründen" (pp.
180-182).
This solution has found favour with some subsequent commentators.
See Susemihl, Die genetische Entwickelung der Platon.
Philosophie, pp.
341-353; Heinrich Stein, Vorgeschichte und System des Platonismus, pp.
217-220.
To me it appears (what Zeller himself remarks in p. 188, upon the discovery of Schleiermacher that the objections started in the Parmenides are answered in the Sophistes) that it requires all the acuteness of so able a writer as Zeller to detect any such result as that which he here extracts from the Parmenidean Antinomies--from what Aristeides calls (Or.
xlvii.
p. 430) "the One and Many, the multiplied twists and doublings, of this divine dialogue".
I confess that I am unable to perceive therein what Zeller has either found or elicited.
Objections and misunderstandings (Einwürfe und Missverständnisse), far from being obviated or corrected, are accumulated from the beginning to the end of these Antinomies, and are summed up in a formidable total by the final sentence of the dialogue.
Moreover, none of these objections which Parmenides had advanced in the earlier part of the dialogue are at all noticed, much less answered, in the concluding Antinomies.
The general view taken by Zeller of the Platonic Parmenides, is repeated by him in his Phil.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
pp.
394-415-429, ed.
2nd.
In the first place, I do not think that he sets forth exactly (see p. 415) the reasoning as we read it in Plato; but even if that were exactly set forth, still what we read in Plato is nothing but an assemblage of difficulties and contradictions.
These are indeed suggestive, and such as a profound critic may meditate with care, until he finds himself put upon a train of thought conducting him to conclusions sound and tenable in his judgment.
But the explanations, sufficient or not, belong after all not to Plato but to the critic himself.
Other critics may attach, and have attached, totally different explanations to the same difficulties.
I see no adequate evidence to bring home any one of them to Plato; or to prove (what is the main point to be determined) that any one of them was present to his mind when he composed the dialogue.
Schwegler also gives an account of what he affirms to be the purpose and meaning of the Parmenides--"The positive meaning of the antinomies contained in it can only be obtained by inferences which Plato does not himself expressly enunciate, but leaves to the reader to draw" (Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss, sect.
14, 4 c. pp.
52-53, ed.
5).
A learned man like Schwegler, who both knows the views of other philosophers, and has himself reflected on philosophy, may perhaps find affirmative meaning in the Parmenides; just as Sokrates, in the Platonic Protagoras, finds his own ethical doctrine in the song of the poet Simonides.
But I venture to say that no contemporary reader of Plato could have found such a meaning in the Parmenides; and that if Plato intended to communicate such a meaning, the whole structure of the dialogue would be only an elaborate puzzle calculated to prevent nearly all readers from reaching it.
By assigning the leadership of the dialogue to Parmenides (Schwegler says) Plato intends to signify that the Platonic doctrine of Ideas is coincident with the doctrine of Parmenides, and is only a farther development thereof.
How can this be signified, when the discourse assigned to Parmenides consists of a string of objections against the doctrine of Ideas, concluding with an intimation that there are other objections, yet stronger, remaining behind?
The fundamental thought of the Parmenides (says Schwegler) is, that the One is not conceivable in complete abstraction from the Many, nor the Many in complete abstraction from the One,--that each reciprocally supposes and serves as condition to the other.
Not so: for if we follow the argumentation of Parmenides (p. 131 E), we shall see that what he principally insists upon, is the entire impossibility of any connection or participation between the One and the Many--there is an impassable gulf between them.
Is the discussion of [Greek: to\ e(\n] (in the closing Antinomies) intended as an example of dialectic investigation--or is it _per se_ the special object of the dialogue?
This last is clearly the truth (says Schwegler).
"otherwise the dialogue would end without result, and its two portions would be without any internal connection".
Not so; for if we read the dialogue, we find Parmenides clearly proclaiming and singling out [Greek: to\ e(\n] as only one among a great many different notions, each of which must be made the subject of a bilateral hypothesis, to be followed out into its consequences on both sides (p. 136 A).
Moreover, I think that the "internal connection" between the first and the last half of the dialogue, consists in the application of this dialectic method, and in nothing else.
If the dialogue ends without result, this is true of many other Platonic dialogues.
The student is brought face to face with logical difficulties, and has to find out the solution for himself; or perhaps to find out that no solution can be obtained.]
[Footnote 55: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 135 C.] [Side-note: This negative purpose is expressly announced by Plato himself.
All dogmatical purpose, extending farther, is purely hypothetical, and even inconsistent with what is declared.]
Such, in my judgment, is the drift of the contradictory demonstrations here put into the mouth of Parmenides respecting Unum and Cætera.
Thus far at least, we are perfectly safe: for we are conforming strictly to the language of Plato himself in the dialogue: we have no proof that he meant anything more.
Those who presume that he must have had some ulterior dogmatical purpose, place themselves upon hypothetical ground: but when they go farther and attempt to set forth what this purpose was, they show their ingenuity only by bringing out what they themselves have dropped in.
The number of discordant hypotheses attests[56] the difficulty of the problem.
I agree with those early Platonic commentators (mentioned and opposed by Proklus) who could see no other purpose in these demonstrations than that of dialectical exercise.
In this view Schleiermacher, Ast, Strümpell, and others mainly concur: the two former however annexing to it a farther hypothesis--which I think improbable--that the dialogue has come to us incomplete; having once contained at the end (or having been originally destined to contain, though the intention may never have been realised) an appendix elucidating the perplexities of the demonstrations.
[57] This would have been inconsistent with the purpose declared by Parmenides: who, far from desiring to facilitate the onward march of Sokrates by clearing up difficulties, admonishes him that he is advancing too rapidly, and seeks to keep him back by giving him a heap of manifest contradictions to disentangle.
Plato conceives the training for philosophy or for the highest exercise of intellectual force, to be not less laborious than that which was required for the bodily perfections of an Olympic athlete.
The student must not be helped out of difficulties at once: he must work his own way slowly out of them.
[Footnote 56: Proklus ad Platon.
Parmen.
I. pp.
482-485, ed.
Stallb.
; compare pp.
497-498-788-791, where Proklus is himself copious upon the subject of exercise in dialectic method.
Stallbaum, after reciting many different hypothetical interpretations from those interpreters who had preceded him, says (Prolegg.
p. 265), "En lustravimus tandem varias interpretum de hoc libro opiniones.
Quid igitur?
verusne fui, quum suprà dicerem, tantam fuisse hominum eruditorum in eo explicando fluctuationem atque dissensionem, ut quamvis plurimi de eo disputaverint, tamen ferè alius aliter judicaverit?
Nimirum his omnibus cognitis, facilè alicui in mentem veniat Terentianum illud--_Fecisti propé, multo sim quam dudum incertior_."
Brandis (Handbuch Gr.-Röm.
Phil.
s. 105, pp.
257-258) cannot bring himself to believe that dialectical exercise was the only purpose with which Plato composed the Parmenides.
He then proceeds to state what Plato's ulterior purpose was, but in such very vague language, that I hardly understand what he means, much less can I find it in the Antinomies themselves.
He has some clearer language, p. 241, where he treats these Antinomies as preparatory [Greek: a)pori/ai].]
[Footnote 57: Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp.
239-244; Schleiermacher, Einleit.
zum Parmen.
pp.
94-99; Strümpell, Geschichte der Theoretischen Philosophie der Griechen, sect.
96, pp.
128-129.
I do not agree with Socher's conclusion, that the Parmenides is not a Platonic composition.
But I think he is quite right in saying that the dialogue as it now stands performs all that Parmenides promises, and leaves no ground for contending that it is an unfinished fragment (Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 286), so far as philosophical speculation is concerned.
The dialogue as a dramatic or literary composition undoubtedly lacks a proper close; it is [Greek: a)/pous] or [Greek: kolobo\s] (Aristot.
Rhetor.
iii.
8), sinning against the strict exigence which Plato in the Phædrus applies to the discourse of Lysias.]
[Side-note: The Demonstrations or Antinomies considered.
They include much unwarranted assumption and subtlety.
Collection of unexplained perplexities or [Greek: a)pori/ai].]
That the demonstrations include assumption both unwarranted and contradictory, mingled with sophistical subtlety (in the modern sense of the words), is admitted by most of the commentators: and I think that the real amount of it is greater than they admit.
How far Plato was himself aware of this, I will not undertake to say.
Perhaps he was not.
The reasonings which have passed for sublime and profound in the estimation of so many readers, may well have appeared the same to their author.
I have already remarked that Plato's ratiocinative force is much greater on the negative side than on the positive: more ingenious in suggesting logical difficulties than sagacious in solving them.
Impressed, as Sokrates had been before him, with the duty of combating the false persuasion of knowledge, or premature and untested belief,--he undertook to set forth the pleadings of negation in the most forcible manner.
Many of his dialogues manifest this tendency, but the Parmenides more than any other.
That dialogue is a collection of unexplained [Greek: a)pori/ai] (such as those enumerated in the second book of Aristotle's Metaphysica) brought against a doctrine which yet Plato declares to be the indispensable condition of all reasoning.
It concludes with a string of demonstrations by which contradictory conclusions (Both and Neither) are successively proved, and which appear like a _reductio ad absurdum_ of all demonstration.
But at the time when Plato composed the dialogue, I think it not improbable that these difficulties and contradictions appeared even to himself unanswerable: in other words, that he did not himself see any answers and explanations of them.
He had tied a knot so complicated, that he could not himself untie it.
I speak of the state of Plato's mind when he wrote the Parmenides.
At the dates of other dialogues (whether earlier or later), he wrote under different points of view; but no key to the Parmenides does he ever furnish.
[Side-note: Even if Plato himself saw through these subtleties, he might still choose to impose and to heap up difficulties in the way of a forward affirmative aspirant.]
If however we suppose that Plato must have had the key present to his own mind, he might still think it right to employ, in such a dialogue, reasonings recognised by himself as defective.
It is the task imposed upon Sokrates to find out and expose these defective links.
There is no better way of illustrating how universal is the malady of human intelligence--unexamined belief and over-confident affirmation--as it stands proclaimed to be in the Platonic Apology.
Sokrates is exhibited in the Parmenides as placed under the screw of the Elenchus, and no more able than others to extricate himself from it, when it is applied by Parmenides: though he bears up successfully against Zeno, and attracts to himself respectful compliments, even from the aged dialectician who tests him.
After the Elenchus applied to himself, Sokrates receives a farther lesson from the "Neither and Both" demonstrations addressed by Parmenides to the still younger Aristotle.
Sokrates will thus be driven, with his indefatigable ardour for speculative research, to work at the problem--to devote to it those seasons of concentrated meditation, which sometimes exhibited him fixed for hours in the same place and almost in the same attitude[58]--until he can extricate himself from such difficulties and contradictions.
But that he shall not extricate himself without arduous mental effort, is the express intention of Parmenides: just as the Xenophontic Sokrates proceeds with the youthful Euthydemus and the Platonic Sokrates with Lysis, Theætetus, and others.
Plausible subtlety was not unsuitable for such a lesson.
[59] Moreover, in the Parmenides, Plato proclaims explicitly that the essential condition of the lesson is to be strictly private: that a process so roundabout and tortuous cannot be appreciated by ordinary persons, and would be unseemly before an audience.
[60] He selects as respondent the youngest person in the company, one still younger than Sokrates: because (he says) such a person will reply with artless simplicity, to each question as the question may strike him--not carrying his mind forward to the ulterior questions for which his reply may furnish the handle--not afraid of being entangled in puzzling inconsistencies--not solicitous to baffle the purpose of the interrogator.
[61] All this betokens the plan of the dialogue--to bring to light all those difficulties which do not present themselves except to a keen-sighted enquirer.
[Footnote 58: Plato, Symposion, p. 220 C-D: compare pp.
174-175.
In the dialogue Parmenides (p. 130 E), Parmenides himself is introduced as predicting that the youthful Sokrates will become more and more absorbed in philosophy as he advances in years.
Proklus observes in his commentary on the dialogue--[Greek: o( ga\r Sôkra/tês a)/gatai ta\s a)pori/as], &c. (L. v. p.
252).]
[Footnote 59: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
2, ad fin.]
[Footnote 60: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
136 C, 137 A. Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica, Part I, ch.
iii.
s. 12), "Learners ought to go through logical exercises silently and by themselves: for it will be thought both ridiculous and absurd, for a man to use such language publicly".
Proklus tells us, that the difficulty of the [Greek: gumnasi/a] here enjoined by the Platonic Parmenides is so prodigious, that no one after Plato employed it (Prokl.
ad Parmenid.
p. 306, p. 801, Stallb.).
[Greek: ei) me\n ou)=n plei/ous ê)=men, ou)k a)\n a)/xion ê)=n dei=sthai.
a)prepê= ga\r ta\ toiau=ta pollô=n e)nanti/on le/gein, a)/llôs te kai\ têlikou/tô|; a)gnoou=si ga\r oi( polloi\ o(/ti a)neu tau/tês tê=s dia\ pa/ntôn diexo/dou kai\ pla/nês a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta tô=| a)lêthei= nou=n schei=n.]]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Parmenides, p. 137 B; compare Sophistes, p. 217 D. To understand the force of this remark of Parmenides, we should contrast it with the precepts given by Aristotle in the Topica for dialectic debate: precepts teaching the questioner how to puzzle, and the respondent how to avoid being puzzled.
Such precautions are advised to the respondent by Aristotle, not merely in the Topica but also in the Analytica--[Greek: chrê\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\s e)picheirou=ntas peira=sthai lantha/nein] (Anal.
Priora, ii.
p. 66, a.
33).]
[Side-note: The exercises exhibited by Parmenides are exhibited only as illustrative specimens of a method enjoined to be applied to many other Antinomies.]
We must remark farther, that the two hypotheses here handled at length by Parmenides are presented by him only as examples of a dialectical process which he enjoins the lover of truth to apply equally to many other hypotheses.
[62] As he shows that in the case of Unum, each of the two assumptions (Unum est--Unum non est) can be traced through different threads of deductive reasoning so as to bring out double and contradictory results--Both and Neither: so also in the case of those other assumptions which remain to be tested afterwards in like manner, antinomies of the same character may be expected: antinomies apparent at least, if not real--which must be formally propounded and dealt with, before we can trust ourselves as having attained reasoned truth.
Hence we see that, negative and puzzling as the dialogue called Parmenides is, even now--it would be far more puzzling if all that it prescribes in general terms had been executed in detail.
While it holds out, in the face of an aspirant in philosophy, the necessity of giving equal presumptive value to the affirmative and negative sides of each hypothesis, and deducing with equal care, the consequences of both--it warns him at the same time of the contradictions in which he will thereby become involved.
These contradictions are presented in the most glaring manner: but we must recollect a striking passage in the Republic, where Plato declares that to confront the aspirant with manifest contradictions, is the best way of provoking him to intellectual effort in the higher regions of speculation.
[63] [Footnote 62: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 B.]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Repub.
vii.
p. 524 E, and indeed the whole passage, pp.
523-524.]
[Side-note: These Platonic Antinomies are more formidable than any of the sophisms or subtleties broached by the Megaric philosophers.]
I have already had occasion, when I touched upon the other _viri Socratici_, contemporaneous with or subsequent to Plato, to give some account of the Zenonian and Megaric dialecticians, and of their sophisms or logical puzzles, which attracted so much attention from speculative men, in the fourth and third centuries B.C.
These Megarics, like the Sophists, generally receive very harsh epithets from the historian of philosophy.
They took the negative side, impugned affirmative dogmas, insisted on doubts and difficulties, and started problems troublesome to solve.
I have tried to show, that such disputants, far from deserving all the censure which has been poured upon them, presented one indispensable condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory.
[64] Their sophisms were challenges to the logician, indicating various forms of error and confusion, against which a theory of reasoning, in order to be sufficient, was required to guard.
And the demonstrations given by Plato in the latter half of the Parmenides are challenges of the same kind: only more ingenious, elaborate, and effective, than any of those (so far as we know them) proposed by the Megarics--by Zeno, or Eukleides, or Diodorus Kronus.
The Platonic Parmenides here shows, that in regard to a particular question, those who believe the affirmative, those who believe the negative, and those who believe neither--can all furnish good reasons for their respective conclusions.
In each case he gives the proof confidently as being good: and whether unimpeachable or not, it is certainly very ingenious and subtle.
Such demonstrations are in the spirit of Sextus Empiricus, who rests his theory of scepticism upon the general fact, that there are opposite and contradictory conclusions, both of them supported by evidence equally good: the affirmative no more worthy of belief than the negative.
[65] Zeno (or, as Plato calls him, the Eleatic Palamêdes[66]) did not profess any systematic theory of scepticism; but he could prove by ingenious and varied dialectic, both the thesis and the antithesis on several points of philosophy, by reasons which few, if any, among his hearers could answer.
In like manner the Platonic Parmenides enunciates his contradictory demonstrations as real logical problems, which must exercise the sagacity and hold back the forward impulse of an eager philosophical aspirant.
Even if this dilemma respecting Unum Est and Unum non Est, be solved, Parmenides intimates that he has others in reserve: so that either no tenable positive result will ever be attained--or at least it will not be attained until after such an amount of sagacity and patient exercise as Sokrates himself declares to be hardly practicable.
[67] Herein we may see the germ and premisses of that theory which was afterwards formally proclaimed by Ænesidemus and the professed Sceptics: the same holding back ([Greek: e)pochê\]), and protest against precipitation in dogmatising,[68] which these latter converted into a formula and vindicated as a system.
[Footnote 64: Among the commentators on the Categories of Aristotle, there were several whose principal object it was to propound all the most grave and troublesome difficulties which they could think of.
Simplikius does not commend the style of these men, but he expresses his gratitude to them for the pains which they had taken in the exposition of the negative case, and for the stimulus and opportunity which they had thus administered to the work of affirmative exposition (Simplikius, Schol.
ad Categ.
Aristot.
p. 40, a.
22-30; Schol.
Brandis).
David the Armenian, in his Scholia on the Categories (p. 27, b.
41, Brandis), defends the Topica of Aristotle as having been composed [Greek: gumnasi/as cha/rin, i(/na thlibome/nê ê( psuchê\ e)k tô=n e)ph' e(ka/tera e)picheirêma/tôn a)pogennê/sê| to\ tê=s a)lêthei/as phô=s.]]
[Footnote 65: Sext.
Emp.
Pyrrh.
Hypot.
i.
8-12.
[Greek: E)/sti de\ ê( skeptikê\ du/namis a)ntithetikê\ phainome/nôn te kai\ nooume/nôn kath' oi(ondê/pote tro/pon, a)ph' ê(=s e)rcho/metha, dia\ tê\n e)n toi=s a)ntikeime/nois pra/gmasi kai\ lo/gois i)sosthe/neian, to\ me\n prô=ton ei)s e)pochê\n to\ de\ meta\ tou=to ei)s a)taraxi/an .
.
.
_i)sosthe/neian_ de\ le/gomen tê\n kata\ pi/stin kai\ a)pisti/an i)so/têta, ô(s mêde/na mêdeno\s prokei=sthai tô=n machome/nôn lo/gôn ô(s pisto/teron .
.
.
susta/seôs de\ tê=s skeptikê=s e)stin a)rchê\ ma/lista _to\ panti\ lo/gô| lo/gon i)/son a)ntikei=sthai_.]]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 D.] [Footnote 67: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 C-D.] [Footnote 68: Sext.
Emp.
Pyrrh.
Hyp.
i.
20-212.
[Greek: tê\n tô=n dogmatikô=n prope/teian--tê\n dogmatikê\n prope/teian.]]
[Side-note: In order to understand fully the Platonic Antinomies, we ought to have before us the problems of the Megarics and others.
Uselessness of searching for a positive result.]
Schleiermacher has justly observed,[69] that in order to understand properly the dialectic manoeuvres of the Parmenides, we ought to have had before us the works of that philosopher himself, of Zeno, Melissus, Gorgias, and other sceptical reasoners of the age immediately preceding--which have unfortunately perished.
Some reference to these must probably have been present to Plato in the composition of this dialogue.
[70] At the same time, if we accept the dialogue as being (what it declares itself to be) a string of objections and dialectical problems, we shall take care not to look for any other sort of merit than what such a composition requires and admits.
If the objections are forcible, the problems ingenious and perplexing, the purpose of the author is satisfied.
To search in the dialogue for some positive result, not indeed directly enunciated but discoverable by groping and diving--would be to expect a species of fruit inconsistent with the nature of the tree.
[Greek: Zêtô=n eu(rê/seis ou) r(o/don a)lla\ ba/ton.]
[Footnote 69: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Parmen.
pp.
97-99.]
[Footnote 70: Indeed, the second demonstration, among the nine given by Parmenides (pp.
143 A, 155 C), coincides to a great degree with the conclusion which Zeno is represented as having maintained in his published dissertation (p. 127 E); and shows that the difficulties and contradictions belong to the world of invisible Ideas, as well as to that of sensible particulars, which Sokrates had called in question (p. 129 C-E).
The Aristotelian treatise (whether by Aristotle, Theophrastus, or any other author) De Zenone, Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgiâ--affords some curious comparisons with the Parmenides of Plato.
Aristotel.
p. 974 seq.
Bekk.
; also Fragmenta Philosophorum Græcorum, ed.
Didot, pp.
278-309.]
[Side-note: Assumptions of Parmenides in his Demonstrations convey the minimum of determinate meaning.
Views of Aristotle upon these indeterminate predicates, Ens, Unum, &c.] It may indeed be useful for the critic to perform for himself the process which Parmenides intended Sokrates to perform; and to analyse these subtleties with a view to measure their bearing upon the work of dogmatic theorising.
We see double and contradictory conclusions elicited, in four separate Antinomies, from the same hypothesis, by distinct chains of interrogatory deduction; each question being sufficiently plausible to obtain the acquiescence of the respondent.
The two assumptions successively laid down by Parmenides as _principia_ for deduction--_Si Unum est_--_Si Unum non est_--convey the very minimum of determinate meaning.
Indeed both words are essentially indeterminate.
Both Unum and Ens are declared by Aristotle to be not univocal or generic words,[71] though at the same time not absolutely equivocal: but words bearing several distinct transitional meanings, derived either from each other, or from some common root, by an analogy more or less remote.
Aristotle characterises in like manner all the most indeterminate predicates, which are not included in any one distinct category among the ten, but are made available to predication sometimes in one category, sometimes in another: such as Ens, Unum, Idem, Diversum, Contrarium, &c. Now in the Platonic Parmenides, the two first among these words are taken to form the proposition assumed as fundamental datum, and the remaining three are much employed in the demonstration: yet Plato neither notices nor discriminates their multifarious and fluctuating significations.
Such contrast will be understood when we recollect that the purpose of the Platonic Parmenides is, to propound difficulties; while that of Aristotle is, not merely to propound, but also to assist in clearing them up.
[Footnote 71: Aristot.
Metaphys.
iv.
1015-1017, ix.
1052, a.
15; Anal.
Poster.
ii.
p. 92, b.
14.
[Greek: to\ d' ei)=nai ou)k ou)si/a ou)deni/.
ou) ga\r ge/nos to\ o)/n.]
--Topica, iv.
p. 127, a.
28.
[Greek: plei/ô ga\r ta\ pa=sin e(po/mena; oi(=on to\ o)\n kai\ to\ e(\n tô=n pa=sin e(pome/nôn e)/stin], Physica, i. p. 185, b.
6.
Simplikius noted it as one among the differences between Plato and Aristotle--That Plato admitted Unum as having only one meaning, not being aware of the diversity of meanings which it bore; while Aristotle expressly pointed it out as a [Greek: pollakô=s lego/menon] (Schol.
ad Aristot.
Sophist.
Elench.
p. 320, b.
3, Brandis).
Aristotle farther remarks that Plato considered [Greek: to\ ge/nos] as [Greek: e(\n a)rithmô=|], and that this was an error; we ought rather to say that Plato did not clearly discriminate [Greek: e(\n a)rithmô=|] from [Greek: e(\n ei)/dei] (Aristot.
Topic.
vi.
143, b.
30).
Simplikius farther remarks, that it was Aristotle who first rendered to Logic the important service of bringing out clearly and emphatically the idea of [Greek: to\ o(mô/numon]--the same word with several meanings either totally distinct and disparate, or ramifying in different directions from the same root, so that there came to be little or no affinity between many of them.
It was Aristotle who first classified and named these distinctions ([Greek: sunô/numon--o(mô/numon], and the intermediate [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an]), though they had been partially noticed by Plato and even by Sokrates.
[Greek: e(/ôs A)ristote/lous ou) pa/mpan e)/kdêlon ê)=n to\ o(mô/numon; a)lla\ Pla/tôn te ê)/rxato peri\ tou/tou ê)\ ma=llon e)kei/nou Sôkra/tês], Schol.
ad Aristot.
Physic.
p. 323, b.
24, Brandis.]
[Side-note: In the Platonic Demonstrations the same proposition in words is made to bear very different meanings.]
Certainly, in Demonstrations 1 and 2 (as well as 4 and 5), the foundation assumed is in words the same proposition--_Si Unum est_: but we shall find this same proposition used in two very different senses.
In the first Demonstration, the proposition is equivalent to _Si Unum est Unum_:[72] in the second, to _Si Unum est Ens_, or _Si Unum existit_.
In the first the proposition is identical and the verb _est_ serves only as copula: in the second, the verb _est_ is not merely a copula but implies Ens as a predicate, and affirms existence.
We might have imagined that the identical proposition--_Unum est Unum_--since it really affirms nothing--would have been barren of all consequences: and so indeed it is barren of all affirmative consequences.
But Plato obtains for it one first step in the way of negative predicates--_Si Unum est Unum, Unum non est Multa_: and from hence he proceeds, by a series of gentle transitions ingeniously managed, to many other negative predications respecting the subject _Unum_.
Since it is not Multa, it can have no parts, nor can it be a whole: it has neither beginning, middle, nor end: it has no boundary, or it is boundless: it has no figure, it is neither straight nor circular: it has therefore no place, being neither in itself, nor in anything else: it is neither in motion nor at rest: it is neither the same with anything else, nor the same with itself:[73] it is neither different from any thing else, nor different from itself: it is neither like, nor unlike, to itself, nor to anything else: it is neither equal, nor unequal, to itself nor to any thing else: it is neither older nor younger, nor of equal age, either with itself or with anything else: it exists therefore not in time, nor has it any participation with time: it neither has been nor will be, nor is: it does not exist in any way: it does not even exist so as to be Unum: you can neither name it, nor reason upon it, nor know it, nor perceive it, nor opine about it.
[Footnote 72: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
137 C, 142 B.]
[Footnote 73: This part of the argument is the extreme of dialectic subtlety, p. 139 C-D-E.] [Side-note: First demonstration ends in an assemblage of negative conclusions.
_Reductio ad Absurdum_, of the assumption--Unum non Multa.]
All these are impossibilities (concludes Plato).
We must therefore go back upon the fundamental principle from which we took our departure, in order to see whether we shall not obtain, on a second trial, any different result.
[74] [Footnote 74: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 142 A.]
Here then is a piece of dialectic, put together with ingenuity, showing that everything can be denied, and that nothing can be affirmed of the subject--Unum.
All this follows, if you concede the first step, that Unum is not Multa.
If Unum be said to have any other attribute except that of being Unum, it would become at once Multa.
It cannot even be declared to be either the same with itself, or different from any thing else; because Idem and Diversum are distinct natures from Unum, and if added to it would convert it into Multa.
[75] Nay it cannot even be affirmed to be itself: it cannot be named or enunciated: if all predicates are denied, the subject is denied along with them: the subject is nothing but the sum total of its predicates--and when they are all withdrawn, no subject remains.
As far as I can understand the bearing of this self-contradictory demonstration, it appears a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the proposition--_Unum is not Multa_.
Now _Unum which is not Multa_ designates the [Greek: Au)to\-E(\n] or Unum Ideale; which Plato himself affirmed, and which Aristotle impugned.
[76] If this be what is meant, the dialogue Parmenides would present here, as in other places, a statement of difficulties understood by Plato as attaching to his own doctrines.
[Footnote 75: This is the main point of Demonstration 1, and is stated pp.
139 D, 140 A, compared with p. 137 C.] [Footnote 76: Aristot.
Metaph.
A.
987, b.
20; A.
992, a.
8; B.
1001, a.
27; I.
1053, b.
18.
Some ancient expositors thought that the purpose of Plato in the Parmenides was to demonstrate this [Greek: Au)to\-E(\n]; see Schol.
ad Aristot.
Metaph.
p. 786, a.
10, Brandis.
It is not easy to find any common bearing between the demonstrations given in this dialogue respecting [Greek: E(\n] and [Greek: Polla\]--and the observations which Plato makes in the Philêbus upon [Greek: E(\n] and [Greek: Polla/].
Would he mean to include the demonstrations which we read in the Parmenides, in the category of what he calls in Philêbus "childish, easy, and irrational debates on that vexed question?"
(Plato, Philêbus, p. 14 D).
Hardly: for they are at any rate most elaborate as well as ingenious and suggestive.
Yet neither do they suit the description which he gives in Philêbus of the genuine, serious, and difficult debates on the same question.]
[Side-note: Second Demonstration.]
Parmenides now proceeds to his second demonstration: professing to take up again the same hypothesis--_Si Unum est_--from which he had started in the first[77]--but in reality taking up a different hypothesis under the same words.
In the first hypothesis, _Si Unum est_, was equivalent to, _Si Unum est Unum_: nothing besides _Unum_ being taken into the reasoning, and _est_ serving merely as copula.
In the second, _Si Unum est_, is equivalent to, _Si Unum est Ens_, or exists: so that instead of the isolated _Unum_, we have now _Unum Ens_.
[78] Here is a duality consisting of _Unum and Ens_: which two are considered as separate or separable factors, coalescing to form the whole _Unum Ens_, each of them being a part thereof.
But each of these parts is again dual, containing both _Unum and Ens_: so that each part may be again divided into lesser parts, each of them alike dual: and so on ad infinitum.
_Unum Ens_ thus contains an infinite number of parts, or is _Multa_.
[79] But even _Unum_ itself (Parmenides argues), if we consider it separately from _Ens_ in which it participates, is not _Unum_ alone, but _Multa_ also.
For it is different from _Ens_, and _Ens_ is different from it.
_Unum_ therefore is not merely _Unum_ but also _Diversum_: _Ens_ also is not merely _Ens_ but _Diversum_.
Now when we speak of _Unum_ and _Ens_--of _Unum_ and _Diversum_--or of _Ens_ and _Diversum_--we in each case speak of two distinct things, each of which is _Unum_.
Since each is _Unum_, the two things become three--_Ens_, _Diversum_, _Unum_--_Unum_, _Diversum_, _Unum_--_Unum_ being here taken twice.
We thus arrive at two and three--twice and thrice--odd and even--in short, number, with its full extension and properties.
Unum therefore is both Unum and Multa--both Totum and Partes--both finite and infinite in multitude.
[80] [Footnote 77: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 142 A.
[Greek: Bou/lei ou)=n e)pi\ tê\n u(po/thesin pa/lin e)x a)rchê=s e)pane/lthômen, e)a/n ti ê(mi=n e)paniou=sin a)lloi=on phanê=|?]]
[Footnote 78: This shifting of the real hypothesis, though the terms remain unchanged, is admitted by implication a little afterwards, p. 142 B.
[Greek: _nu=n de\_ ou)ch au(/tê e)/stin ê( u(po/thesis, _ei) e(\n e(\n_, ti/ chrê\ sumbai/nein, a)ll' _ei) e(\n e)/stin_.]]
[Footnote 79: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
142-143.
This is exactly what Sokrates in the early part of the dialogue (p. 129 B-D) had pronounced to be utterly inadmissible, _viz._: That [Greek: o(\ e)/stin e(\n] should be [Greek: polla\]--that [Greek: o(\ e)/stin o(/moion] should be [Greek: a)no/moion].
The essential characteristic of the Platonic Ideas is here denied.
However, it appears to me that Plato here reasons upon two contradictory assumptions; first, that _Unum Ens_ is a total composed of two parts separately assignable--_Unum_ and _Ens_; next, that _Unum_ is not assignable separately from _Ens_, nor _Ens_ from _Unum_.
Proceeding upon the first, he declares that the division must be carried on ad infinitum, because you can never reach either the separate _Ens_ or the separate _Unum_.
But these two assumptions cannot be admitted both together.
Plato must make his election; either he takes the first, in which case the total Unum Ens is divisible, and its two factors, Unum and Ens, can be assigned separately; or he takes the second, in which case _Unum_ and _Ens_ cannot be assigned separately--are not distinguishable factors,--so that _Unum Ens_ instead of being infinitely divisible, is not divisible at all.
The reasoning as it now stands is, in my judgment, fallacious.]
[Footnote 80: Plato, Parmen.
pp.
144 A-E, 145 A.]
[Side-note: It ends in demonstrating _Both_, of that which the first Demonstration had demonstrated _Neither_.]
Parmenides proceeds to show that Unum has beginning, middle, and end--together with some figure, straight or curved: and that it is both in itself, and in other things: that it is always both in motion and at rest:[81] that it is both the same with itself and different from itself--both the same with Cætera, and different from Cætera:[82] both like to itself, and unlike to itself--both like to Cætera, and unlike to Cætera:[83] that it both touches, and does not touch, both itself and Cætera:[84] that it is both equal, greater, and less, in number, as compared with itself and as compared with Cætera:[85] that it is both older than itself, younger than itself, and of the same age with itself--both older than Cætera, younger than Cætera, and of the same age as Cætera--also that it is not older nor younger either than itself or than Cætera:[86] that it grows both older and younger than itself, and than Cætera.
[87] Lastly, Unum was, is, and will be; it has been, is, and will be generated: it has had, has now, and will have, attributes and predicates: it can be named, and can be the object of perception, conception, opinion, reasoning, and cognition.
[88] [Footnote 81: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 146 A-B.]
[Footnote 82: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
146-147 C.] [Footnote 83: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 148 A-D.] [Footnote 84: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 149 A-D.] [Footnote 85: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
150-151 D.] [Footnote 86: Plato, Parmen.
pp.
152-153-154 A.]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
154 B, 155 C. [Greek: kata\ dê\ pa/nta tau=ta, to\ e(\n au)to/ te au(tou= kai\ tô=n a)/llôn presbu/teron kai\ neô/teron e)/sti te kai\ gi/gnetai, kai\ ou(/te presbu/teron ou(/te neô/teron ou(/t' e)/stin ou(/te gi/gnetai ou(/te au(tou= ou(/te tô=n a)/llôn.]]
[Footnote 88: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 155 C-D.] Here Parmenides finishes the long Demonstratio Secunda, which completes the first Antinomy.
The last conclusion of all, with which it winds up, is the antithesis of that with which the first Demonstration wound up: affirming (what the conclusion of the first had denied) that Unum is thinkable, perceivable, nameable, knowable.
Comparing the second Demonstration with the first, we see--That the first, taking its initial step, with a negative proposition, carries us through a series of conclusions every one of which is negative (like those of the second figure of the Aristotelian syllogism):--That whereas the conclusions professedly established in the first Demonstration are all in _Neither_ (Unum is neither in itself nor in any thing else--neither at rest nor in motion--neither the same with itself nor different from itself, &c.), the conclusions of the second Demonstration are all in _Both_ (Unum is both in motion and at rest, both in itself and in other things, both the same with itself and different from itself):--That in this manner, while the first Demonstration denies both of two opposite propositions, the second affirms them both.
[Side-note: Startling paradox--Open offence against logical canon--No logical canon had then been laid down.]
Such a result has an air of startling paradox.
We find it shown, respecting various pairs of contradictory propositions, first, that both are false--next, that both are true.
This offends doubly against the logical canon, which declares, that of two contradictory propositions, one must be true, the other must be false.
We must remember, that in the Platonic age, there existed no systematic logic--no analysis or classification of propositions--no recognised distinction between such as were contrary, and such as were contradictory.
The Platonic Parmenides deals with propositions which are, to appearance at least, contradictory: and we are brought, by two different roads, first to the rejection of both, next to the admission of both.
[89] [Footnote 89: Prantl (in his Geschichte der Logik, vol.
i. s. 3, pp.
70-71-73) maintains, if I rightly understand him, not only that Plato did not adopt the _principium identitatis et contradictionis_ as the basis of his reasonings, but that one of Plato's express objects was to demonstrate the contrary of it, partly in the Philêbus, but especially in the Parmenides:-"Eine arge Täuschung ist es, zu glauben, dass das principium identitatis et contradictionis oberstes logisches Princip des Plato sei .
.
Es ist gerade eine Hauptaufgabe, welche sich Plato stellen musste, die Coexistenz der Gegensätze nachzuweisen, wie diess bekanntlich im Philebus und _besonders im Parmenides_ geschieht."
According to this view, the Antinomies in the Parmenides are all of them good proofs, and the conclusions of all of them, summed up as they are in the final sentence of the dialogue, constitute an addition to the positive knowledge of Sokrates.
I confess that this to me is unintelligible.
I understand these Antinomies as [Greek: a)pori/ai] to be cleared up, but in no other character.
Prantl speaks (p. 73) of "die antinomische Begründung der Ideenlehre im Parmenides," &c. This is the same language as that used by Zeller, upon which I have already remarked.]
[Side-note: Demonstration third--Attempt to reconcile the contradiction of Demonstrations I. and II.]
How can this be possible?
How can these four propositions all be true--_Unum est Unum_--_Unum est Multa_--_Unum non est Unum_--_Unum non est Multa_?
Plato suggests a way out of the difficulty, in that which he gives as Demonstration 3.
It has been shown that Unum "partakes of time"--was, is, and will be.
The propositions are all true, but true at different times: one at this time, another at that time.
[90] Unum acquires and loses existence, essence, and other attributes: _now_, it exists and is Unum--_before_, it did not exist and was not Unum: so too it is alternately like and unlike, in motion and at rest.
But how is such alternation or change intelligible?
At each time, whether present or past, it must be either in motion or at rest: at no time, neither present nor past, can it be _neither_ in motion _nor_ at rest.
It cannot, while in motion, change to rest--nor, while at rest, change to motion.
No time can be assigned for the change: neither the present, nor the past, nor the future: how then can the change occur at all?
[91] [Footnote 90: This is a distinction analogous to that which Plato points out in the Sophistes (pp.
242-243) between the theories of Herakleitus and Empedoklês.]
[Footnote 91: Plato, Parmenid.
p.
156.]
[Side-note: Plato's imagination of the Sudden or Instantaneous--Breaches or momentary stoppages in the course of time.]
To this question the Platonic Parmenides finds an answer in what he calls the _Sudden_ or the _Instantaneous_: an anomalous nature which lies out of, or apart from, the course of time, being neither past, present, nor future.
That which changes, changes at once and suddenly: at an instant when it is neither in motion nor at rest.
This _Suddenly_ is a halt or break in the flow of time:[92] an extra-temporal condition, in which the subject has no existence, no attributes--though it revives again forthwith clothed with its new attributes: a point of total negation or annihilation, during which the subject with all its attributes disappears.
At this interval (the _Suddenly_) all predicates may be truly denied, but none can be truly affirmed.
[93] Unum is neither at rest, nor in motion--neither like nor unlike--neither the same with itself nor different from itself--neither Unum nor Multa.
Both predicates and Subject vanish.
Thus all the negations of the first Demonstration are justified.
Immediately before the _Suddenly_, or point of change, Unum was in motion--immediately after the change, it is at rest: immediately before, it was like--equal--the same with itself--Unum, &c.--immediately after, it is unlike--unequal--different from itself--Multa, &c. And thus the double and contradictory affirmative predications, of which the second Demonstration is composed, are in their turn made good, as successive in time.
This discovery of the extra-temporal point _Suddenly_, enables Parmenides to uphold both the double negative of the first Demonstration, and the double affirmative of the second.
[Footnote 92: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 156 E. [Greek: a)ll' ê( _e)xai/phnês au(/tê phu/sis a)/topo/s tis e)gka/thêtai metaxu\ tê=s kinê/seô/s te kai\ sta/seôs_, e)n chro/nô| ou)deni\ ou)=sa, kai\ ei)s tau/tên dê\ kai\ e)k tau/tês to/ te kinou/menon metaba/llei e)pi\ to\ e(sta/nai, kai\ to\ e(sto\s e)pi\ to\ kinei=sthai.
.
.
.
kai\ to\ e(\n dê/, ei)/per e(/stêke/ te kai\ kinei=tai, metaba/lloi a)\n e)ph' e(ka/tera; mo/nôs ga\r a)\n ou(/tôs a)mpho/tera poioi=; metaba/llon d' e)xai/phnês metaba/llei, kai\ o(/te metaba/llei, e)n ou)deni\ chro/nô| a)\n ei)/ê, ou)de\ kinoi=t' a)\n to/te, ou)d' a)\n stai/ê.]
[Greek: To\ e)xai/phnês--ê( e)xai/phnês phu/sis a)/topo/s tis]--may be compared to an infinitesimal; analogous to what is recognised in the theory of the differential calculus.]
[Footnote 93: This appears to be an illustration of the doctrine which Lassalle ascribes to Herakleitus; perpetual implication of negativity and positivity--des Nichtseins mit dem Sein: perpetual absorption of each particular into the universal; and perpetual reappearance as an opposite particular.
See the two elaborate volumes of Lassalle upon Herakleitus, especially i. p. 358, ii.
p. 258.
He scarcely however takes notice of the Platonic Parmenides.
Some of the Stoics considered [Greek: to\ nu=n] as [Greek: mêde/n]--and nothing in time to be real except [Greek: to\ parô|chêko\s] and [Greek: to\ me/llon] (Plutarch, De Commun.
Notitiis contra Stoicos, p. 1081 D).]
[Side-note: Review of the successive pairs of Demonstrations or Antinomies in each, the first proves the Neither, the second proves the Both.]
The theory here laid down in the third Demonstration respecting this extra-temporal point--the _Suddenly_--deserves all the more attention, because it applies not merely to the first and second Demonstration which precede it, but also to the fourth and fifth, the sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, which follow it.
I have already observed, that the first and second Demonstration form a corresponding pair, branching off from the same root or hypothetical proposition (at least the same in terms), respecting the subject _Unum_; and destined to prove, one the Neither, the other the Both, of several different predicates.
So also the fourth and fifth form a pair applying to the subject Cætera; and destined to prove, that from the same hypothetical root--_Si Unum est_--we can deduce the Neither as well as the Both, of various predicates of Cætera.
When we pass on to the four last Demonstrations, we find that in all four, the hypothesis _Si Unum non est_ is substituted for that of _Si Unum est_: but the parallel couples, with the corresponding purpose, are still kept up.
The sixth and seventh apply to the subject _Unum_, and demonstrate respecting that subject (proceeding from the hypothesis _Si Unum non est_) first the _Both_, then the _Neither_, of various predicates: the eighth and ninth arrive at the same result, respecting the subject _Cætera_.
And a sentence at the close sums up in few words the result of all the four pairs (1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, that is, of all the Demonstrations excepting the third)--the Neither and the Both respecting all of them.
[Side-note: The third Demonstration is mediatorial but not satisfactory--The hypothesis of the Sudden or Instantaneous found no favour.]
To understand these nine Demonstrations properly, therefore, we ought to consider eight among them (1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9) as four Antinomies, or couples establishing dialectic contradictions: and the third as a mediator satisfactory between the couples--announced as if it reconciled the contradictions of the first Antinomy, and capable of being adapted, in the same character with certain modifications, to the second, third, and fourth Antinomy.
Whether it reconciles them successfully--in other words, whether the third Demonstration will itself hold good--is a different question.
It will be found to involve the singular and paradoxical (Plato's own phrase) doctrine of the extra-temporal _Suddenly_--conceiving Time as a Discretum and not a Continuum.
This doctrine is intended by Plato here as a means of rendering the fact of change logically conceivable and explicable.
He first states briefly the difficulty (which we know to have been largely insisted on by Diodorus Kronus and other Megarics) of logically explaining the fact of change--and then enunciates this doctrine as the solution.
We plainly see that it did not satisfy others--for the puzzle continued to be a puzzle long after--and that it did not even satisfy Plato, except at the time when he composed the Parmenides--since neither the doctrine itself (the extra-temporal break or transition) nor the very peculiar phrase in which it is embodied ([Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês, a)/topo/s tis phu/sis]) occur in any of his other dialogues.
If the doctrine were really tenable, it would have been of use in dialectic, and as such, would have been called in to remove the theoretical difficulties raised among dialectical disputants, respecting time and motion.
Yet Plato does not again advert to it, either in Sophistes or Timæus, in both of which there is special demand for it.
[94] Aristotle, while he adopts a doctrine like it (yet without employing the peculiar phrase [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês]) to explain qualitative change, does not admit the same either as to quantitative change, or as to local motion, or as to generation and destruction.
[95] The doctrine served the purpose of the Platonic Parmenides, as ingenious, original, and provocative to intellectual effort: but it did not acquire any permanent footing in Grecian dialectics.
[Footnote 94: Steinhart represents this idea of [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês]--the extra-temporal break or zero of transition--as an important progress made by Plato, compared with the Theætêtus, because it breaks down the absoluten Gegensatz between Sein and Werden, Ruhe and Bewegung (Einleitung zum Parmen.
p. 309).
Surely, if Plato had considered it a progress, we should have seen the same idea repeated in various other dialogues--which is not the case.]
[Footnote 95: Aristotel.
Physic.
p. 235, b.
32, with the Scholion of Simplikius, p. 410, b.
20, Brandis.
The discussion occupies two or three pages of Aristotle's Physica.
In regard to [Greek: a)lloi/ôsis] or qualitative change, he recognised what he called [Greek: a)thro/an metabolê/n]--a change _all at once_, which occupied no portion of time.
It is plain, however, that even his own scholars Theophrastus and Eudemus had great difficulty in accepting the doctrine; see Scholia, pp.
409-410-411, Brandis.]
The two last Antinomies, or four last Demonstrations, have, in common, for their point of departure, the negative proposition, _Si Unum non est_: and are likewise put together in parallel couples (6-7, 8-9), a Demonstration and a Counter-Demonstration--a Both and a Neither: first with reference to the subject _Unum_--next with reference to the subject _Cætera_.
[Side-note: Review of the two last Antinomies.
Demonstrations VI.
and VII.]
_Si Unum est_--_Si Unum non est_.
Even from such a proposition as the first of these, we might have thought it difficult to deduce any string of consequences--which Plato has already done: from such a proposition as the second, not merely difficult, but impossible.
Nevertheless the ingenious dialectic of Plato accomplishes the task, and elicits from each proposition a Both, and a Neither, respecting several predicates of Unum as well as of Cætera.
When you say _Unum non est_ (so argues the Platonic Parmenides in Demonstration 6), you deny existence respecting Unum: but the proposition _Unum non est_, is distinguishable from _Magnitudo non est_--_Parvitudo non est_--and such like: propositions wherein the subject is different, though the predicate is the same: so that _Unum non Ens_ is still a Something knowable, and distinguishable from other things--a logical subject of which various other predicates may be affirmed, though the predicate of existence cannot be affirmed.
[96] It is both like and unlike, equal and unequal--like and equal to itself unlike and unequal to other things.
[97] These its predicates being all true, are also real existences: so that Unum partakes _quodam modo_ in existence: though _Unum_ be _non-Ens_, nevertheless, _Unum non-Ens est_.
Partaking thus both of non-existence and of existence, it changes: it both moves and is at rest: it is generated and destroyed, yet is also neither generated nor destroyed.
[98] [Footnote 96: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
160-161 A.
[Greek: ei)=nai me\n dê\ tô=| e(ni\ ou)ch oi(=o/n te, ei)/per ge mê\ e)/sti, mete/chein de\ pollô=n ou)de\n kôlu/ei, a)lla\ kai\ a)na/gkê, ei)/per to/ ge e(\n e)kei=no kai\ mê\ a)/llo mê\ e)/stin.
ei) me/ntoi mê/te to\ e(\n mê/t' _e)kei=no_ mê\ e)/stai, a)lla\ peri\ a)/llou tou o( lo/gos, ou)de\ phthe/ggesthai dei= ou)de/n; ei) de\ to\ e(\n e)kei=no kai\ mê\ a)/llo u(pokei=tai mê\ ei)=nai, kai\ tou= _e)kei/nou_ kai\ a)/llôn pollô=n a)na/gkê au)tô=| metei=nai.]]
[Footnote 97: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 161 C-D.] [Footnote 98: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
162-163 A.
The steps by which these conclusions are made out are extremely subtle, and hardly intelligible to me.]
Having thus deduced from the fundamental principle this string of Both opposite predicates, the Platonic Parmenides reverts (in Demonstration 7) to the same principium (_Si Unum non est_) to deduce by another train of reasoning the Neither of these predicates.
When you say that _Unum non est_, you must mean that it does not partake of existence in any way--absolutely and without reserve.
It therefore neither acquires nor loses existence: it is neither generated nor destroyed: it is neither in motion nor at rest: it partakes of nothing existent: it is neither equal nor unequal--neither like nor unlike--neither great nor little--neither this, nor that: neither the object of perception, nor of knowledge, nor of opinion, nor of naming, nor of debate.
[99] [Footnote 99: Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
163-164 A.]
[Side-note: Demonstration VII.
is founded upon the genuine doctrine of Parmenides.]
These two last counter-demonstrations (6 and 7), forming the third Antinomy, deserve attention in this respect--That the seventh is founded upon the genuine Parmenidean or Eleatic doctrine about Non-Ens, as not merely having no attributes, but as being unknowable, unperceivable, unnameable: while the sixth is founded upon a different apprehension of Non-Ens, which is explained and defended by Plato in the Sophistes, as a substitute for, and refutation of, the Eleatic doctrine.
[100] According to Number 7, when you deny, of Unum, the predicate existence, you deny of it also all other predicates: and the name Unum is left without any subject to apply to.
This is the Eleatic dogma.
Unum having been declared to be Non-Ens, is (like Non-Ens) neither knowable nor nameable.
According to Number 6, the proposition _Unum est non-Ens_, does not carry with it any such consequences.
Existence is only one predicate, which may be denied of the subject Unum, but which, when denied, does not lead to the denial of all other predicates--nor, therefore, to the loss of the subject itself.
Unum still remains Unum, knowable, and different from other things.
Upon this first premiss are built up several other affirmations; so that we thus arrive circuitously at the affirmation of existence, in a certain way: _Unum_, though non-existent, does nevertheless exist _quodam modo_.
This coincides with that which the Eleatic stranger seeks to prove in the Sophistes, against Parmenides.
[Footnote 100: Plato, Sophistes, pp.
258-259.]
[Side-note: Demonstrations VI.
and VII.
considered--Unwarrantable steps in the reasoning--The fundamental premiss differently interpreted, though the same in words.]
If we compare the two foregoing counter-demonstrations (7 and 6), we shall see that the negative results of the seventh follow properly enough from the assumed premisses: but that the affirmative results of the sixth are not obtained without very unwarrantable jumps in the reasoning, besides its extreme subtlety.
But apart from this defect, we farther remark that here also (as in Numbers 1 and 2) the fundamental principle assumed is in terms the same, in signification materially different.
The signification of _Unum non est_, as it is construed in Number 7, is the natural one, belonging to the words: but as construed in Number 6, the meaning of the predicate is altogether effaced (as it had been before in Number 1): we cannot tell what it is which is really denied about Unum.
As, in Number 1, the proposition _Unum est_ is so construed as to affirm nothing except _Unum est Unum_--so in Number 7, the proposition _Unum non est_ is so construed as to deny nothing except _Unum non est Unum_, yet conveying along with such denial a farther affirmation--_Unum non est Unum, sed tamen est aliquid scibile, differens ab aliis_.
[101] Here this _aliquid scibile_ is assumed as a substratum underlying _Unum_, and remaining even when Unum is taken away: contrary to the opinion--that Unum was a separate nature and the fundamental Subject of all--which Aristotle announces as having been held by Plato.
[102] There must be always some meaning (the Platonic Parmenides argues) attached to the word Unum, even when you talk of _Unum non Ens_: and that meaning is equivalent to _Aliquid scibile, differens ab aliis_.
From this he proceeds to evolve, step by step, though often in a manner obscure and inconclusive, his series of contradictory affirmations respecting Unum.
[Footnote 101: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 160 C.] [Footnote 102: Aristot.
Metaph.
B.
1001, a.
6-20.]
The last couple of Demonstrations--8 and 9--composing the fourth Antinomy, are in some respects the most ingenious and singular of all the nine.
Si _Unum non est_, what is true about Cætera?
The eighth demonstrates the _Both_ of the affirmative predicates, the ninth proves the _Neither_.
[Side-note: Demonstrations VIII.
and IX.--Analysis of Demonstration VIII.]
Si _Unum non est_ (is the argument of the eighth), Cætera must nevertheless somehow still be Cætera: otherwise you could not talk about Cætera.
[103] (This is an argument like that in Demonstration 6: What is talked about must exist, somehow.)
But if Cætera can be named and talked about, they must be different from something,--and from something, which is also different from them.
What can this Something be?
Not certainly Unum: for Unum, by the Hypothesis, does not exist, and cannot therefore be the term of comparison.
_Cætera_ therefore must be different among themselves and from each other.
But they cannot be compared with each other by units: for Unum does not exist.
They must therefore be compared with each other by heaps or multitudes: each of which will appear at first sight to be an unit, though it be not an unit in reality.
There will be numbers of such heaps, each in appearance one, though not in reality:[104] numbers odd and even, great and little, in appearance: heaps appearing to be greater and less than each other, and equal to each other, though not being really so.
Each of these heaps will appear to have a beginning, middle, and end, yet will not really have any such: for whenever you grasp any one of them in your thoughts, there will appear another beginning before the beginning,[105] another end after the end, another centre more centrical than the centre,--minima ever decreasing because you cannot reach any stable unit.
Each will be a heap without any unity; looking like one, at a distance,--but when you come near, each a boundless and countless multitude.
They will thus appear one and many, like and unlike, equal and unequal, at rest and moving, separate and coalescing: in short, invested with an indefinite number of opposite attributes.
[106] [Footnote 103: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 164 B.
[Greek: A)/lla me/n pou dei= au)ta\ ei)=nai; ei) ga\r mêde\ a)/lla e)sti/n, ou)k a)\n peri\ tô=n a)/llôn le/goito.]]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 164 D. [Greek: Ou)kou=n polloi\ o)/gkoi e)/santai, ei)=s e(/kastos phaino/menos, ô)\n de\ ou)/, ei)/per e(\n mê\ e)/stai.
Ou(/tôs.]]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 165 A.
[Greek: O(/ti a)ei\ au)tô=n o(/tan ti/s ti la/bê| tê=| dianoi/a| ô(/s ti tou/tôn o(/n, pro/ te tê=s a)rchê=s a)/llê a)ei\ phai/netai a)rchê/, meta/ te tê\n teleutê\n e(te/ra u(poleipome/nê teleutê/, e(/n te tô=| me/sô| a)/lla mesai/tera tou= me/sou, smikro/tera de\ dia\ to\ mê\ du/nasthai e(no\s au)tô=n e(ka/stou lamba/nesthai, a)/te ou)k o)/ntos tou= e(no/s.]]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 165 E. Compare p. 158 E. [Greek: toi=s a)/llois dê\ tou= e(no\s.
.
.
.
ê( de\ au)tô=n phu/sis kath' e(auta\ a)peiri/an (pa/resche).]]
[Side-note: Demonstration VIII.
is very subtle and Zenonian.]
This Demonstration 8, with its strange and subtle chain of inferences, purporting to rest upon the admission of Cætera without Unum, brings out the antithesis of the Apparent and the Real, which had not been noticed in the preceding demonstrations.
Demonstration 8 is in its character Zenonian.
It probably coincides with the proof which Zeno is reported (in the earlier half of this dialogue) to have given against the existence of any real Multa.
If you assume Multa (Zeno argued), they must be both like and unlike, and invested with many other opposite attributes; but this is impossible; therefore the assumption is untrue.
[107] Those against whom Zeno reasoned, contended for real Multa, and against a real Unum.
Zeno probably showed, and our eighth Demonstration here shows also,--that Multa under this supposition are nothing real, but an assemblage of indefinite, ever-variable, contradictory appearances: an [Greek: A)/peiron], Infinite, or Chaos: an object not real and absolute, but relative and variable according to the point of view of the subject.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 127 E; compare this with the close of the eighth Demonstration, p. 165 E--[Greek: ei) e(no\s mê\ o)/ntos polla\ e)/stin].]
[Side-note: Demonstration IX.
_Neither_ following _Both_.]
To the eighth Demonstration, ingenious as it is, succeeds a countervailing reversal in the ninth: the Neither following the Both.
The fundamental supposition is in terms the same.
_Si Unum non est_, what is to become of _Cætera_?
_Cætera_ are not _Unum_: yet neither are they _Multa_: for if there were any Multa, Unum would be included in them.
If none of the Multa were Unum, all of them would be nothing at all, and there would be no Multa.
If therefore Unum be not included in Cætera, Cætera would be neither Unum nor Multa: nor would they appear to be either Unum or Multa: for Cætera can have no possible communion with Non-Entia: nor can any of the Non-Entia be present along with any of Cætera--since Non-Entia have no parts.
We cannot therefore conceive or represent to ourselves Non-Ens as along with or belonging to Cætera.
Therefore, _Si Unum non est_, nothing among _Cætera_ is conceived either as Unum or as Multa: for to conceive Multa without Unum is impossible.
It thus appears, _Si Unum non est_, that Cætera neither are Unum nor Multa.
Nor are they conceived either as Unum or Multa--either as like or as unlike--either as the same or as different--either as in contact or as apart.--In short, all those attributes which in the last preceding Demonstration were shown _to belong to them_ in appearance, are now shown _not to belong_ to them either in appearance or in reality.
[108] [Footnote 108: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 166 A-B.
[Greek: E(\n a)/ra ei) mê\ e)/sti, ta)/lla ou)/te e)/stin ou)/te doxa/zetai e(\n ou)/te polla/.
.
.
.
Ou)/d' a)/ra o(/moia ou)de\ a)no/moia.
.
.
.
Ou)de\ mê\n ta\ au)ta/ ge ou)d' e(/tera, ou)de\ a(pto/mena ou)de\ chôri/s, _ou)de\ a)/ll' o(/sa e)n toi=s pro/sthen diê/lthomen_] (compare [Greek: dielthei=n], p. 165 E) [Greek: _ô(s phaino/mena au)ta/, tou/tôn ou)/te ti e)/stin ou)/te phai/netai ta)/lla, e(\n ei) mê\ e)/stin_.]]
[Side-note: Concluding words of the Parmenides--Declaration that he has demonstrated the Both and the Neither of many different propositions.]
Here we find ourselves at the close of the Parmenides.
Plato announces his purpose to be, to elicit contradictory conclusions, by different trains of reasoning, out of the same fundamental assumption.
[109] He declares, in the concluding words, that--on the hypothesis of _Unum est_, as well as on that of _Unum non est_--he has succeeded in demonstrating the Both and the Neither of many distinct propositions, respecting Unum and respecting Cætera.
[Footnote 109: Compare, with the passage cited in the last note, another passage, p. 159 B, at the beginning of Demonstration 5.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n tau=ta me\n ê)/dê e)ô=men ô(s phanera/, e)piskopô=men de\ pa/lin, e(\n ei) e)/stin, a)=ra _kai\ ou)ch ou(/tôs e)/chei ta)/lla tou= e(no\s ê)\ ou(/tô mo/non_?]
Here the purpose to prove [Greek: _ou)ch ou(/tôs_], immediately on the heels of [Greek: _ou(/tôs_], is plainly enunciated.]
[Side-note: Comparison of the conclusion of the Parmenides to an enigma of the Republic.
Difference.
The constructor of the enigma adapted its conditions to a foreknown solution.
Plato did not.]
The close of the Parmenides, as it stands here, may be fairly compared to the enigma announced by Plato in his Republic--"A man and no man, struck and did not strike, with a stone and no stone, a bird and no bird, sitting upon wood and no wood".
[110] This is an enigma, propounded for youthful auditors to guess: stimulating their curiosity, and tasking their intelligence to find it out.
As far as I can see, the puzzling antinomies in the Parmenides have no other purpose.
They drag back the forward and youthful Sokrates from affirmative dogmatism to negative doubt and embarrassment.
There is however this difference between the enigma in the Republic, and the Antinomies in the Parmenides.
The constructor of the enigma had certainly a preconceived solution to which he adapted the conditions of his problem: whereas we have no sufficient ground for asserting that the author of the Antinomies had any such solution present or operative in his mind.
How much of truth Plato may himself have recognised, or may have wished others to recognise, in them, we have no means of determining.
We find in them many equivocal propositions and unwarranted inferences--much blending of truth with error, intentionally or unintentionally.
The veteran Parmenides imposes the severance of the two, as a lesson, upon his youthful hearers Sokrates and Aristoteles.
[Footnote 110: Plato, Republ.
v. 479 C. The allusion was to an eunuch knocking down a bat seated upon a reed.
[Greek: Ai)no/s tis e)/stin ô(s a)nê/r te kou)k a)nê/r, O)/rnitha/ te kou)k o)/rnith' i)dô/n te kou)k i)dô/n, E)pi\ xu/lou te kou) xu/lou kathême/nên Li/thô| te kou) li/thô| ba/loi te kou) ba/loi.]
I read with astonishment the amount of positive philosophy which a commentator like Steinhart extracts from the concluding enigma of the Parmenides, and which he even affirms that no attentive reader of the dialogue can possibly miss (Einleitung zum Parmenides, pp.
302-303).]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THEÆTETUS.
[Side-note: Subjects and personages in the Theætêtus.]
In this dialogue, as in the Parmenides immediately preceding, Plato dwells upon the intellectual operations of mind: introducing the ethical and emotional only in a partial and subordinate way.
The main question canvassed is, What is Knowledge--Cognition--Science?
After a long debate, turning the question over in many distinct points of view, and examining three or four different answers to the question--all these answers are successively rejected, and the problem remains unsolved.
The two persons who converse with Sokrates are, Theodôrus, an elderly man, eminent as a geometrician, astronomer, &c., and teaching those sciences--and Theætêtus, a young man of great merit and still greater promise: acute, intelligent, and inquisitive--high-principled and courageous in the field, yet gentle and conciliatory to all: lastly, resembling Sokrates in physiognomy and in the flatness of his nose.
The dialogue is supposed to have taken place during the last weeks of the life of Sokrates, when his legal appearance as defendant is required to answer the indictment of Melêtus, already entered in the official record.
[1] The dialogue is here read aloud to Eukleides of Megara and his fellow-citizen Terpsion, by a slave of Eukleides: this last person had recorded it in writing from narrative previously made to him by Sokrates.
[2] It is prefaced by a short discourse between Eukleides and Terpsion, intended to attract our sympathy and admiration towards the youthful Theætêtus.
[Footnote 1: Plato, Theætêt.
ad fin.
p.
210.]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Theætêt.
i. pp.
142 E, 143 A. Plato hardly keeps up the fiction about the time of this dialogue with perfect consistency.
When it took place, the indictment of Melêtus had already been recorded: Sokrates breaks off the conversation for the purpose of going to answer it: Eukleides hears the dialogue from the mouth of Sokrates afterwards.
"Immediately on getting home to Megara" (says Eukleides) "I wrote down memoranda (of what I had heard): then afterwards I called it back to my mind at leisure, and as often as I visited Athens I questioned Sokrates about such portions as I did not remember, and made corrections on my return here, so that now nearly all the dialogue has been written out."
Such a process would require longer time than is consistent with the short remainder of the life of Sokrates.
Socher indeed tries to explain this by assuming a long interval between the indictment and the trial, but this is noway satisfactory.
(Ueber Platon's Schriften, p.
251.)
Mr. Lewis Campbell, in the Preface to his very useful edition of this dialogue (p. lxxi.
Oxford, 1861), considers that the battle in which Theætêtus is represented as having been wounded, is probably meant for that battle in which Iphikrates and his peltasts destroyed the Spartan Mora, B.C.
390: if not that, then the battle at the Isthmus of Corinth against Epaminondas.
B.C.
369.
Schleiermacher in his Einleitung to the dialogue (p. 185) seems to prefer the supposition of some earlier battle or skirmish under Iphikrates.
The point can hardly be determined.
Still less can we fix the date at which the dialogue was written, though the mention of the battle of Corinth certifies that it was later than 394 B.C.
Ast affirms confidently that it was the first dialogue composed by Plato after the Phædon, which last was composed immediately after the death of Sokrates (Ast, Platon's Leben, &c., p. 192).
I see no ground for this affirmation.
Most of the commentators rank it among the dialectical dialogues, which they consider to belong to a later period of Plato's life than the ethical, but to an earlier period than the constructive, such as Republic, Timæus, &c. Most of them place the Theætêtus in one or other of the years between 393-383 B.C., though they differ much among themselves whether it is to be considered as later or earlier than other dialogues--Kratylus, Euthydemus, Menon, Gorgias, &c. (Stallbaum, Proleg.
Theæt.
pp.
6-10; Steinhart, Einleit.
zum Theæt.
pp.
100-213.)
Munk and Ueberweg, on the contrary, place the Theætêtus at a date considerably later, subsequent to 368 B.C.
Munk assigns it to 358 or 357 B.C.
after Plato's last return from Sicily (Munk, Die natürliche Ordnung der Platon.
Schr.
pp.
357-597: Ueberweg, Ueber die Aechtheit der Platon.
Schr.
pp.
228-236).]
[Side-note: Question raised by Sokrates--What is knowledge or Cognition?
First answer of Theætêtus, enumerating many different cognitions.
Corrected by Sokrates.]
In answer to the question put by Sokrates--What is Knowledge or Cognition?
Theætêtus at first replies--That there are many and diverse cognitions:--of geometry, of arithmetic, of arts and trades, such as shoemaking, joinery, &c. Sokrates points out (as in the Menon, Hippias Major, and other dialogues) that such an answer involves a misconception of the question: which was general, and required a general answer, setting forth the characteristic common to all cognitions.
No one can know what cognition is in shoemaking or any particular case--unless he first knows what is cognition generally.
[3] Specimens of suitable answers to general questions are then given (or of definition of a general term), in the case of clay--and of numbers square and oblong.
[4] I have already observed more than once how important an object it was with Plato to impress upon his readers an exact and adequate conception of the meaning of general terms, and the proper way of defining them.
For this purpose he brings into contrast the misconceptions likely to arise in the minds of persons not accustomed to dialectic.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 147 A.
[Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra e)pistê/mên u(podêma/tôn suni/êsin, o( e)pistê/mên mê\ ei)dio/s?
Ou) ga/r.]]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 148.
Oblong ([Greek: promê/keis]) numbers are such as can be produced only from two unequal factors.
The explanation of this difficult passage, requiring us to keep in mind the geometrical conception of numbers usual among the Greek mathematicians, will be found clearly given in Mr. Campbell's edition of this dialogue, pp.
20-22.]
[Side-note: Preliminary conversation before the second answer is given.
Sokrates describes his own peculiar efficacy--mental obstetric--He cannot teach, but he can evolve knowledge out of pregnant minds.]
Theætêtus, before he attempts a second answer, complains how much the subject had embarrassed him.
Impressed with what he had heard about the interrogatories of Sokrates, he had tried to solve this problem: but he had not been able to satisfy himself with any attempted solution--nor yet to relinquish the search altogether.
"You are in distress, Theætêtus" (observes Sokrates), "because you are not empty, but pregnant.
[5] You have that within you, of which you need to be relieved; and you cannot be relieved without obstetric aid.
It is my peculiar gift from the Gods to afford such aid, and to stimulate the parturition of pregnant minds which cannot of themselves bring forth what is within them.
[6] I can produce no truth myself: but I can, by my art inherited from my mother the midwife Phænaretê, extract truth from others, and test the answers given by others: so as to determine whether such answers are true and valuable, or false and worthless.
I can teach nothing: I only bring out what is already struggling in the minds of youth: and if there be nothing within them, my procedure is unavailing.
My most important function is, to test the answers given, how far they are true or false.
But most people, not comprehending my drift, complain of me as a most eccentric person, who only makes others sceptical.
They reproach me, and that truly enough, with always asking questions, and never saying any thing of my own: because I have nothing to say worth hearing.
[7] The young companions who frequent my society, often suffer long-continued pains of parturition night and day, before they can be delivered of what is within them.
Some, though apparently stupid when they first come to me, make great progress, if my divine coadjutor is favourable to them: others again become tired of me, and go away too soon, so that the little good which I have done them becomes effaced.
Occasionally, some of these impatient companions wish to return to me afterwards--but my divine sign forbids me to receive them: where such obstacle does not intervene, they begin again to make progress.
"[8] [Footnote 5: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 148 E. [Greek: ô)di/neis, dia\ to\ mê\ keno\s a)ll' e)gku/môn ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 149 A, p. 150 A.]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 149 A.
[Greek: oi( de/, a)/te ou)k ei)do/tes, tou=to me\n ou) le/gousi peri\ e)mou=, o(/ti de\ a)topô/tato/s ei)mi, kai\ poiô= tou\s a)nthrô/pous a)porei=n.]
150 B-C [Greek: me/giston de\ tou=t' e(/ni tê=| ê(mete/ra| te/chnê|, basani/zein dunato\n ei)=nai panti\ tro/pô|, po/teron ei)/dôlon ê)\ pseu=dos a)poti/ktei tou= ne/ou ê( dianoi/a, ê)\ go/nimo/n te kai\ a)lêthe/s; e)pei\ to/de ge kai\ e)moi\ u(pa/rchei o(/per tai=s mai/ais; a)/gono/s ei)mi sophi/as], &c.] [Footnote 8: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
150 E, 151 A.
[Greek: e)ni/ois me\n to\ gigno/meno/n moi daimo/nion a)pokôlu/ei xunei=nai, e)ni/ois de\ e)a=|; kai\ pa/lin ou(=toi e)pidido/asin.]
We here see (what I have already adverted to in reviewing the Theagês, vol.
ii.
ch.
xv.
pp.
105-7) the character of mystery, unaccountable and unpredictable in its working on individuals, with which Plato invests the colloquy of Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Ethical basis of the cross-examination of Sokrates--He is forbidden to pass by falsehood without challenge.]
This passage, while it forcibly depicts the peculiar intellectual gift of Sokrates, illustrates at the same time the Platonic manner of describing, full of poetry and metaphor.
Cross-examination by Sokrates communicated nothing new, but brought out what lay buried in the mind of the respondent, and tested the value of his answers.
It was applicable only to minds endowed and productive: but for them it was indispensable, in order to extract what they were capable of producing, and to test its value when extracted.
"Do not think me unkind," (says Sokrates,) "or my procedure useless, if my scrutiny exposes your answers as fallacious.
Many respondents have been violently angry with me for doing so: but I feel myself strictly forbidden either to admit falsehood, or to put aside truth.
"[9] Here we have a suitable prelude to a dialogue in which four successive answers are sifted and rejected, without reaching, even at last, any satisfactory solution.
[Footnote 9: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 151 D.] [Side-note: Answer of Theætêtus--Cognition is sensible perception: Sokrates says that this is the same doctrine as the _Homo Mensura_ laid down by Protagoras, and that both are in close affinity with the doctrines of Homer, Herakleitus, Empedoklês, &c., all except Parmenides.]
The first answer given by Theætêtus is--"Cognition is sensation (or sensible perception)".
Upon this answer Sokrates remarks, that it is the same doctrine, though in other words, as what was laid down by Protagoras--"Man is the measure of all things: of things existent, that they exist: of things non-existent, that they do not exist.
As things appear to me, so they are to me: as they appear to you, so they are to you.
"[10] Sokrates then proceeds to say, that these two opinions are akin to, or identical with, the general view of nature entertained by Herakleitus, Empedoklês, and other philosophers, countenanced moreover by poets like Homer and Epicharmus.
The philosophers here noticed (he continues), though differing much in other respects, all held the doctrine that nature consisted in a perpetual motion, change, or flux: that there was no real Ens or permanent substratum, but perpetual genesis or transition.
[11] These philosophers were opposed to Parmenides, who maintained (as I have already stated in a previous chapter) that there was nothing real except Ens--One, permanent, and unchangeable: that all change was unreal, apparent, illusory, not capable of being certainly known, but only matter of uncertain opinion or estimation.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
151 E--152 A.
_Theætêt._ [Greek: ou)k a)/llo ti/ e)stin e)pistê/mê ê)\ ai)/sthêsis.
.
.
.]
_Sokrat._ [Greek: Kinduneu/eis me/ntoi lo/gon ou) phau=lon ei)rêke/nai peri\ e)pistê/mês, a)ll' o(/n e)/lege kai\ Prôtago/ras; _tro/pon de/ tina a)/llon ei)/rêke ta\ au)ta\ tau=ta.
Phêsi\ ga/r pou--Pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn me/tron a)/nthrôpon ei)=nai, tô=n me\n o)/ntôn, ô(s e)/sti--tô=n de\ mê\ o)/ntôn, ô(s ou)k e)/stin._ A)ne/gnôkas ga/r pou?]
_Theætêt._ [Greek: A)ne/gnôka kai\ polla/kis.]
_Sokrat._ [Greek: Ou)kou=n ou(/tô pôs le/gei, ôs oi(=a me\n e(/kasta e)moi\ phai/netai, toiau=ta me/n e)stin e)moi\--oi(=a de\ soi/, toiau=ta de\ au)= soi/; a)nthrôpos de\ su/ te ka)gô/.]
_Theætêt._ [Greek: Le/gei ga\r ou)=n ou(/tôs.]
Here Plato appears to transcribe the words of Protagoras (compare p. 161 B, and the Kratylus, p. 386 A) which distinctly affirm the doctrine of _Homo Mensura_--Man is the measure of all things,--but do not affirm the doctrine, that knowledge is sensible perception.
The identification between the two doctrines is asserted by Plato himself.
It is Plato who asserts "that Protagoras affirmed the same doctrine in another manner," citing afterwards the manner in which he supposed Protagoras to affirm it.
If there had been in the treatise of Protagoras any more express or peremptory affirmation of the doctrine "that knowledge is sensible perception," Plato would probably have given it here.]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 152 E. [Greek: kai\ peri\ tou/tou _pa/ntes e(xê=s oi( sophoi\ plê\n Parmeni/dou xumphere/sthôn_, Prôtago/ras te kai\ Ê(ra/kleitos kai\ E)mpedoklê=s, kai\ tô=n poiêtô=n oi( a)/kroi tê=s poiê/seôs e(kate/ras, kômô|di/as me\n E)pi/charmos, tragô|di/as de\ O(/mêros.]]
[Side-note: Plato here blends together three distinct theories for the purpose of confuting them; yet he also professes to urge what can be said in favour of them.
Difficulty of following his exposition.]
The one main theme intended for examination here (as Sokrates[12] expressly declares) is the doctrine--That Cognition is sensible perception.
Nevertheless upon all the three opinions, thus represented as cognate or identical,[13] Sokrates bestows a lengthened comment (occupying a half of the dialogue) in conversation, principally with Theætêtus, but partly also with Theodôrus.
His strictures are not always easy to follow with assurance, because he often passes with little notice from one to the other of the three doctrines which he is examining: because he himself, though really opposed to them, affects in part to take them up and to suggest arguments in their favour: and further because, disclaiming all positive opinion of his own, he sometimes leaves us in doubt what is his real purpose--whether to expound, or to deride, the opinions of others--whether to enlighten Theætêtus, or to test his power of detecting fallacies.
[14] We cannot always distinguish between the ironical and the serious.
Lastly, it is a still greater difficulty, that we have not before us either of the three opinions as set forth by their proper supporters.
There remains no work either of Protagoras or of Herakleitus: so that we do not clearly know the subject matter upon which Plato is commenting--nor whether these authors would have admitted as just the view which he takes of their opinions.
[15] [Footnote 12: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 163 A.]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 160 D. _Sokrat._ [Greek: Pagka/lôs a)/ra soi ei)/rêtai o(/ti e)pistê/mê ou)k a)/llo ti/ e)stin ê)\ ai)/sthêsis; kai\ _ei)s tau)to\n sumpe/ptôke_, kata\ me\n O(/mêron kai\ Ê(ra/kleiton kai\ pa=n to\ toiou=ton phu=lon, oi(=on r(eu/mata kinei=sthai ta\ pa/nta--kata\ de\ Prôtago/ran to\n sophô/taton, pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn a)/nthrôpon me/tron ei)=nai--kata\ de\ Theai/têton, tou/tôn ou(=tôs e)cho/ntôn, ai)/sthêsin e)pistê/mên gi/gnesthai.]]
[Footnote 14: See the answer of Theætêtus and the words of Sokrates following, p. 157 C.] [Footnote 15: It would be hardly necessary to remark, that when Plato professes to put a pleading into the mouth of Protagoras (pp.
165-166) we have no other real speaker than Plato himself, if commentators did not often forget this.
Steinhart indeed tells us (Einleit.
zum Theætêt.
pp.
36-47) positively--that Plato in this pleading keeps in the most accurate manner (auf das genaueste) to the thoughts of Protagoras, perhaps even to his words.
How Steinhart can know this I am at a loss to understand.
To me it seems very improbable.
The mere circumstance that Plato forces into partnership three distinct theories, makes it probable that he did not adhere to the thoughts or language of any one of them.]
[Side-note: The doctrine of Protagoras is completely distinct from the other doctrines.
The identification of them as one and the same is only constructive--the interpretation of Plato himself.]
It is not improbable that the three doctrines, here put together by Plato and subjected to a common scrutiny, may have been sometimes held by the same philosophers.
Nevertheless, the language[16] of Plato himself shows us that Protagoras never expressly affirmed knowledge to be sensible Perception: and that the substantial identity between this doctrine, and the different doctrine maintained by Protagoras, is to be regarded as a construction put upon the two by Plato.
That the theories of Herakleitus and Empedokles differed materially from each other, we know certainly: the theory of each, moreover, differed from the doctrine of Protagoras--"Man is the measure of all things".
How this last doctrine was defended by its promulgator, we cannot say.
But the defence of it noway required him to maintain--That knowledge is sensible perception.
It might be consistently held by one who rejected that definition of knowledge.
[17] And though Plato tries to refute both, yet the reasonings which he brings against one do not at all tell against the other.
[Footnote 16: See Theætêt.
p. 152 A.
This is admitted (to be a construction put by Plato himself) by Steinhart in his note 7, p. 214, Einleitung zum Theætêtus, though he says that Plato's construction is the right one.]
[Footnote 17: Dr. Routh, in a note upon his edition of the Euthydêmus of Plato (p. 286 C) observes:--"Protagoras docebat, [Greek: Pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn me/tron a)/nthrôpon ei)=nai, tô=n me\n o)/ntôn, ô(s e)/sti; tô=n de\ mê\ o)/ntôn, ô(s ou)k e)/sti.]
Quâ quidem opinione qualitatum sensilium sine animi perceptione existentiam sustulisse videtur."
The definition here given by Routh is correct as far as it goes, though too narrow.
But it is sufficient to exhibit the Protagorean doctrine as quite distinct from the other doctrine, [Greek: o(/ti e)pistê/mê ou)k a)/llo ti/ e)stin ê)\ ai)/sthêsis.]]
[Side-note: Explanation of the doctrine of Protagoras--_Homo Mensura_.]
The Protagorean doctrine--Man is the measure of all things--is simply the presentation in complete view of a common fact--uncovering an aspect of it which the received phraseology hides.
Truth and Falsehood have reference to some believing subject--and the words have no meaning except in that relation.
Protagoras brings to view this subjective side of the same complex fact, of which Truth and Falsehood denote the objective side.
He refuses to admit the object absolute--the pretended _thing in itself_--Truth without a believer.
His doctrine maintains the indefeasible and necessary involution of the percipient mind in every perception--of the concipient mind in every conception--of the cognizant mind in every cognition.
Farther, Protagoras acknowledges many distinct believing or knowing Subjects: and affirms that every object known must be relative to (or in his language, _measured by_) the knowing Subject: that every _cognitum_ must have its _cognoscens_, and every _cognoscibile_ its _cognitionis capax_: that the words have no meaning unless this be supposed: that these two names designate two opposite poles or aspects of the indivisible fact of cognition--actual or potential--not two factors, which are in themselves separate or separable, and which come together to make a compound product.
A man cannot in any case get clear of or discard his own mind as a Subject.
Self is necessarily omnipresent; concerned in every moment of consciousness, and equally concerned in all, though more distinctly attended to in some than in others.
[18] The Subject, self, or Ego, is that which all our moments of consciousness have in common and alike: Object is that in which they do or may differ--although some object or other there always must be.
The position laid down by Descartes--_Cogito, ergo sum_--might have been stated with equal truth--_Cogito, ergo est (cogitatum aliquid)_: _sum cogitans--est cogitatum_--are two opposite aspects of the same indivisible mental fact--_cogitatio_.
In some cases, doubtless, the objective aspect may absorb our attention, eclipsing the subjective: in other cases, the subjective attracts exclusive notice: but in all cases and in every act of consciousness, both are involved as co-existent and correlative.
That alone exists, to every man, which stands, or is believed by him to be capable of standing, in some mode of his consciousness as an Object correlative with himself as a Subject.
If he believes in its existence, his own believing mind is part and parcel of such fact of belief, not less than the object believed in: if he disbelieves it, his own disbelieving mind is the like.
Consciousness in all varieties has for its two poles Subject and Object: there cannot be one of these poles without the opposite pole--north without south--any more than there can be concave without convex (to use a comparison familiar with Aristotle), or front without back: which are not two things originally different and coming into conjunction, but two different aspects of the same indivisible fact.
[Footnote 18: In regard to the impossibility of carrying abstraction so far as to discard the thinking subject, see Hobbes, Computation or Logic, ch.
vii.
1.
"In the teaching of natural philosophy I cannot begin better than from _privation_; that is, from feigning the world to be annihilated.
But if such annihilation of all things be supposed, it may perhaps be asked what would remain for any man (_whom only I except from this universal annihilation of things_) to consider as the subject of philosophy, or at all to reason upon; or what to give names unto for ratiocination's sake.
"I say, therefore, there would remain to that man ideas of the world, and of all such bodies as he had, before their annihilation, seen with his eyes, or perceived by any other sense; that is to say, the memory and imagination of magnitudes, motions, sounds, colours, &c., as also of their order and parts.
All which things, though they be nothing but ideas and phantasms, happening internally to him that imagineth, yet they will appear as if they were external and not at all depending upon any power of the mind.
And these are the things to which he would give names and subtract them from, and compound them with one another.
For seeing that after the destruction of all other things I suppose man still remaining, and namely that he thinks, imagines, and remembers, there can be nothing for him to think of but what is past.
.
.
.
Now things may be considered, that is, be brought into account, _either as internal accidents of our mind_, in which manner we consider them when the question is about _some faculty of the mind_: or, as _species of external things, not as really existing, but appearing only to exist, or to have a being without us_.
And in this manner we are now to consider them."]
[Side-note: Perpetual implication of Subject with Object--Relate and Correlate.]
In declaring that "Man is the measure of all things"--Protagoras affirms that Subject is the measure of Object, or that every object is relative to a correlative Subject.
When a man affirms, believes, or conceives, an object as existing, his own believing or concipient mind is one side of the entire fact.
It may be the dark side, and what is called _the Object_ may be the light side, of the entire fact: this is what happens in the case of tangible and resisting substances, where Object, being the light side of the fact, is apt to appear all in all:[19] a man thinks of the Something which resists, without attending to the other aspect of the fact of resistance, _viz._: his own energy or pressure, to which resistance is made.
On the other hand, when we speak of enjoying any pleasure or suffering any pain, the enjoying or suffering Subject appears all in all, distinguished plainly from other Subjects, supposed to be not enjoying or suffering in the same way: yet it is no more than the light side of the fact, of which Object is the dark side.
Each particular pain which we suffer has its objective or differential peculiarity, distinguishing it from other sensations, correlating with the same sentient Subject.
[Footnote 19: "Nobiscum semper est ipsa quam quærimus (anima); adest, tractat, loquitur--et, si fas est dicere, inter ista nescitur."
(Cassiodorus, De Animâ, c. 1, p. 594, in the edition of his Opera Omnia, Venet.
1729).
"In the primitive dualism of consciousness, the Subject and Object being inseparable, either of them apart from the other must be an unknown quantity: the separation of either must be the annihilation of both."
(F. W. Farrar, Chapters on Language, c. 23, p. 292: which chapter contains more on the same topic, well deserving of perusal.)]
[Side-note: Such relativity is no less true in regard to the ratiocinative combinations of each individual, than in regard to his percipient capacities.]
The Protagorean dictum will thus be seen, when interpreted correctly, to be quite distinct from that other doctrine with which Plato identifies it: that Cognition is nothing else but sensible Perception.
If, rejecting this last doctrine, we hold that cognition includes mental elements distinct from, though co-operating with, sensible perception--the principle of relativity laid down by Protagoras will not be the less true.
My intellectual activity--my powers of remembering, imagining, ratiocinating, combining, &c., are a part of my mental nature, no less than my powers of sensible perception: my cognitions and beliefs must all be determined by, or relative to, this mental nature: to the turn and development which all these various powers have taken in my individual case.
However multifarious the mental activities may be, each man has his own peculiar allotment and manifestations thereof, to which his cognitions must be relative.
Let us grant (with Plato) that the Nous or intelligent Mind apprehends intelligible Entia or Ideas distinct from the world of sense: or let us assume that Kant and Reid in the eighteenth century, and M. Cousin with other French writers in the nineteenth, have destroyed the Lockian philosophy, which took account (they say) of nothing but the _à posteriori_ element of cognition--and have established the existence of other elements of cognition _à priori_: intuitive beliefs, first principles, primary or inexplicable Concepts of Reason.
[20] Still we must recollect that all such _à priori_ Concepts, Intuitions, Beliefs, &c., are summed up in the mind: and that thus each man's mind, with its peculiar endowments, natural or supernatural, is still the measure or limit of his cognitions, acquired and acquirable.
The Entia Rationis exist relatively to Ratio, as the Entia Perceptionis exist relatively to Sense.
This is a point upon which Plato himself insists, in this very dialogue.
You do not, by producing this fact of innate mental intuitions, eliminate the intuent mind; which must be done in order to establish a negative to the Protagorean principle.
[21] Each intuitive belief whether correct or erroneous--whether held unanimously by every one _semper et ubique_, or only held by a proportion of mankind--is (or would be, if proved to exist) a fact of our nature; capable of being looked at either on the side of the believing Subject, which is its point of community with all other parts of our nature--or on the side of the Object believed, which is its point of difference or peculiarity.
The fact with its two opposite aspects is indivisible.
Without Subject, Object vanishes: without Object (some object or other, for this side of the fact is essentially variable), Subject vanishes.
[Footnote 20: See M. Jouffroy, Préface à sa Traduction des OEuvres de Reid, pp.
xcvii.-ccxiv.
M. Jouffroy, following in the steps of Kant, declares these _à priori_ beliefs or intuitions to be altogether relative to the human mind.
"Kant, considérant que les conceptions de la raison sont des croyances aveugles auxquelles notre esprit se sent fatalement déterminé par sa nature, en conclut qu'elles sont rélatives à cette nature: que si notre nature était autre, elles pourraient être différentes: que par conséquent, elles n'ont aucune valeur absolue: et qu'ainsi notre vérité, notre science, notre certitude, sont une vérité, une science, une certitude, purement _subjective_, purement humaine--à laquelle nous sommes déterminés à nous fier par notre nature, mais qui ne supporte pas l'examen et n'a aucune valeur _objective_" (p.
clxvii.)
.
.
.
"C'est ce que répéte Kant quand il soutient que l'on ne peut _objectiver le subjectif_: c'est à dire, faire que la vérité humaine cesse d'être humaine, puisque la raison qui la trouve est humaine.
On peut exprimer de vingt manières différentes cette impossibilité: elle reste toujours la même, et demeure toujours insurmontable," p. cxc.
Compare p. xcvii.
of the same Preface.
M. Pascal Galuppi (in his Lettres Philosophiques sur les Vicissitudes de la Philosophie, translated from the Italian by M. Peisse, Paris, 1844) though not agreeing in this variety of _à priori_ philosophy, agrees with Kant in declaring the _à priori_ element of cognition to be purely subjective, and the objective element to be _à posteriori_ (Lett.
xiv.
pp.
337-338), or the facts of sense and experience.
"L'ordre _à priori_, que Kant appelle _transcendental_, est purement idéal, et dépourvu de toute réalité.
Je vis, qu'en fondant la connaissance sur l'ordre _à priori_, on arrive nécessairement au scepticisme: et je reconnus que la doctrine Écossaise est la mère légitime du Criticisme Kantien, et par conséquent, du scepticisme, qui est la conséquence de la philosophie critique.
Je considérai comme de haute importance ce problème de Kant.
Il convient de déterminer ce qu'il y a d'objectif, et ce qu'il y a de subjectif, dans la connaissance.
Les Empiriques n'admettent dans la connaissance d'autres élémens que les objectifs," &c.] [Footnote 21: See this point handled in Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
viii.
355-362.
We may here cite a remark of Simplikius in his Commentary on the Categories of Aristotle (p. 64, a. in Schol.
Brandis).
Aristotle (De Animâ, iii.
2, 426, a.
19; Categor.
p. 7, b.
23) lays down the doctrine that in most cases Relata or ([Greek: ta\ pro/s ti]) are "simul Naturâ, [Greek: kai\ sunanairei= a)/llêla]": but that in some Relata this is not true: for example, [Greek: to\ e)pistêto\n] is relative to [Greek: e)pistê/mê], yet still _it would seem prior_ to [Greek: e)pistê/mê (pro/teron a)\n do/xeie tê=s e)pistê/mês ei)=nai)].
There cannot be [Greek: e)pistê/mê] without some [Greek: e)pistêto/n]: but there may be [Greek: e)pistêto\n] without any [Greek: e)pistê/mê].
There are few things, if any (he says), in which the [Greek: e)pistêto\n] (cognoscibile) is _simul naturâ_ with [Greek: e)pistê/mê] (or cognitio) and cannot be without it.
Upon which Simplikius remarks, What are these few things?
[Greek: Ti/na de\ ta\ o)li/ga e)sti/n, e)ph' ô(=n a(/ma tô=| e)pistêtô=| ê( e)pistê/mê e)sti/n?
Ta\ a)/neu u(/lês, ta\ noêta/, a(/ma tô=| kat' e)nergei/an a)ei\ e)stô/sê| e)pistê/mê e)/stin, ei)/te kai\ e)n ê(mi=n e)sti/ tis toiau/tê a)ei\ a)/nô me/nousa, .
.
.
ei)/te kai\ e)n tô=| kat' e)nergei/an vô=| ei)/ tis kai\ tê\n no/êsin e)kei/nên e)pistê/mên e(/loito kalei=n.
du/natai de\ kai\ dia\ tê\n tô=n koinô=n u(po/stasin ei)rê=sthai, tê\n e)x a)phaire/seôs; a(/ma ga\r tê=| u(posta/sei tou/tôn kai\ ê( e)pistê/mê e)sti/n.
a)lêthe\s de\ kai\ e)pi\ tô=n a)naplasma/tôn tô=n te e)n tê=| phantasi/a| kai\ tô=n technitô=n; a(/ma ga\r chi/maira kai\ ê( e)pistê/mê chimai/ras.]
We see from hence that Simplikius recognises Concepts, Abstractions, and Fictions, to be dependent on the Conceiving, Abstracting, Imagining, Mind--as distinguished from objects of Sense, which he does not recognise as dependent in the like manner.
He agrees in the doctrine of Protagoras as to the former, but not as to the latter.
This illustrates what I have affirmed, That the Protagorean doctrine of "_Homo Mensura_" is not only unconnected with the other principle (that Knowledge is resolvable into sensible perception) to which Aristotle and Plato would trace it--but that there is rather a repugnance between the two.
The difficulty of proving the doctrine, and the reluctance to admit it, is greatest in the case of material objects, least in the case of Abstractions, and General Ideas.
Yet Aristotle, in reasoning against the Protagorean doctrine (Metaphysic.
[Greek: G].
pp.
1009-1010, &c.) treats it like Plato, as a sort of corollary from the theory that Cognition is Sensible Perception.
Simplikius farther observes (p. 65, b.
14) that Aristotle is not accurate in making [Greek: e)pistêto\n] correlate with [Greek: e)pistê/mê]: that in Relata, the potential correlates with the potential, and the actual with the actual.
The Cognoscible is correlative, not with actual cognition ([Greek: e)pistê/mê]) but with potential Cognition, or with a potential Cognoscens.
Aristotle therefore is right in saying that there may be [Greek: e)pistêto\n] without [Greek: e)pistê/mê], but this does not prove what he wishes to establish.
Themistius, in another passage of the Aristotelian Scholia, reasoning against Boethus, observes to the same effect as Simplikius, that in relatives, the actual correlates with the actual, and the potential with the potential:-[Greek: Kai/toi, phêsi/ ge o( Boêtho/s, ou)de\n kôlu/ei to\n a)rithmo\n ei)=nai kai\ di/cha tou= a)rithmou=ntos, ô(/sper oi)=mai to\ ai)sthêto\n kai\ di/cha tou= ai)sthanome/nou; spha/lletai de/, a(/ma ga\r ta\ pro\s ti/, kai\ ta\ duna/mei pro\s ta\ duna/mei; ô(/ste ei) mê\ kai\ a)rithmêtiko/n, ou)de\ to\ a)rithmêto/n] (Schol.
ad Aristot.
Physic.
iv.
p. 223, a. p. 393, Schol.
Brandis).
Compare Aristotel.
Metaphysic.
M. 1087, a.
15, about [Greek: to\ e)pi/stasthai duna/mei] and [Greek: to\ e)pi/stasthai e)nergei/a|].
About the essential co-existence of relatives--Sublato uno, tollitur alterum--see also Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathematicos, vii.
395, p. 449, Fabric.]
[Side-note: Evidence from Plato proving implication of Subject and Object, in regard to the intelligible world.]
That this general doctrine is true, not merely respecting the facts of sense, but also respecting the facts of mental conception, opinion, intellection, cognition--may be seen by the reasoning of Plato himself in other dialogues.
How, for example, does Plato prove, in his Timæus, the objective reality of Ideas or Forms?
He infers them from the subjective facts of his own mind.
The subjective fact called Cognition (he argues) is generically different from the subjective fact called True Opinion: therefore the Object correlating with the One must be distinct from the Object correlating with the other: there must be a Noumenon or [Greek: noêto/n ti] correlating with Nous, distinct from the [Greek: doxasto/n ti] which correlates with [Greek: do/xa].
[22] So again, in the Phædon,[23] Sokrates proves the pre-existence of the human soul from the fact that there were pre-existent cognizable Ideas: if there were knowable Objects, there must also have been a Subject Cognoscens or Cognitionis capax.
The two are different aspects of one and the same conception: upon which we may doubtless reason abstractedly under one aspect or under the other, though they cannot be separated in fact.
Now Both these two inferences of Plato rest on the assumed implication of Subject and Object.
[24] [Footnote 22: Plato, Timæus, p. 51 B-E, compare Republic, v. p. 477.
See this reasoning of Plato set forth in Zeller, Die Phil.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
pp.
412-416, ed.
2nd.
_Nous_, according to Plato (Tim.
51 E), belongs only to the Gods and to a select few among mankind.
It is therefore only _to_ the Gods and _to_ these few men that [Greek: Noêta\] exist.
To the rest of mankind [Greek: Noêta\] are non-apparent and non-existent.]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Phædon, pp.
76-77.
[Greek: i)/sê a)na/gkê tau=ta/ te] (Ideas or Forms) [Greek: ei)=nai, kai\ ta\s ê(mete/ras psucha\s pri\n kai\ ê(ma=s gegone/nai--kai\ ei) mê\ tau=ta, ou)de\ ta/de.
U(perphuô=s, e)/phê o( Simmi/as, dokei= moi ê( au)tê\ a)na/gkê ei)=nai, kai\ ei)s kalo/n ge katapheu/gei o( lo/gos ei)s to\ o(moi/ôs ei)=nai tê/n te psuchê\n ê(mô=n pri\n gene/sthai ê(ma=s kai\ tê\n ou)si/an ê(\n su\ nu=n le/geis.]
Compare p. 92 E of the same dialogue with the notes of Wyttenbach and Heindorf--"Haec autem [Greek: ou)si/a] Idearum, rerum intelligibilium, [Greek: au)tê=s e)sti\n] (_sc._ [Greek: tê=s psuchê=s]) ut hoc loco dicitur, est propria et possessio animæ nostræ," &c. About the essential implication of [Greek: Nou=s] with the [Greek: Noêta/], as well as of [Greek: to\ do/xazon] with [Greek: ta\ doxazo/mena], and of [Greek: to\ ai)sthano/menon] with [Greek: ta\ ai)sthêta/], see Plutarch, De Animæ Procreat.
in Timæo, pp.
1012-1024; and a curious passage from Joannes Philoponus ad Aristot.
Physica, cited by Karsten in his Commentatio De Empedoclis Philosophiâ, p. 372, and Olympiodorus ad Platon.
Phædon, p. 21.
[Greek: to\n nou=n phame\n a)kribô=s ginô/skein, dio/ti au)to/s e)sti to\ noêto/n.]
Sydenham observes, in a note upon his translation of the Philêbus (note 76, p. 118), "Being Intelligent and Being Intelligible are not only correlatives, but are so in their very essence: neither of them can be at all, without the Being of the other".]
[Footnote 24: I think that the inference in the Phædon is not necessary to prove that conclusion, nor in itself just.
For when I speak of Augustus and Antony as having once lived, and as having fought the battle of Actium, it is noway necessary that I should believe myself to have been then alive and to have seen them: nor when I speak of civil war as being now carried on in the United States of America, is it necessary that I should believe myself to be or to have been on the spot as a percipient witness.
I believe, on evidence which appears to me satisfactory, that both these are real facts: that is, if I had been at Actium on the day of the battle, or if I were now in the United States, I should see and witness the facts here affirmed.
These latter words describe the subjective side of the fact, without introducing any supposition that I have been myself present and percipient.]
[Side-note: The Protagorean measure is even more easily shown in reference to the intelligible world than in reference to sense.]
In truth, the Protagorean measure or limit is even more plainly applicable to our mental intuitions and mental processes (remembering, imagining, conceiving, comparing, abstracting, combining of hypotheses, transcendental or inductive) than to the matter of our sensible experience.
[25] In regard to the Entia Rationis, divergence between one theorist and another is quite as remarkable as the divergence between one percipient and another in the most disputable region of Entia Perceptionis.
Upon the separate facts of sense, there is a nearer approach to unanimity among mankind, than upon the theories whereby theorising men connect together those facts to their own satisfaction.
An opponent of Protagoras would draw his most plausible arguments from the undisputed facts of sense.
He would appeal to matter and what are called its primary qualities, as refuting the doctrine.
For in describing mental intuitions, Mind or Subject cannot well be overlaid or ignored: but in regard to the external world, or material substance with its primary qualities, the objective side is so lighted up and magnified in the ordinary conception and language--and the subjective side so darkened and put out of sight--that Object appears as if it stood single, apart, and independent.
[Footnote 25: Bacon remarks that the processes called mental or intellectual are quite as much relative to man as those called sensational or perceptive.
"Idola Tribûs sunt fundata in ipsâ naturâ humanâ.
Falso enim asseritur, Sensum humanum esse mensuram rerum: quin contra, omnes perceptiones, tam Sensûs quam Mentis, sunt ex analogiâ hominis, non ex analogiâ Universi."
Nemesius, the Christian Platonist, has a remark bearing upon this question.
He says that the lower animals have their intellectual movements all determined by Nature, which acts alike in all the individuals of the species, but that the human intellect is not wholly determined by Nature; it has a freer range, larger stores of ideas, and more varied combinations: hence its manifestations are not the same in all, but different in different individuals--[Greek: e)leu/theron ga/r ti kai\ au)texou/sion to\ logiko/n, o(/then ou)ch e(\n kai\ tau)to\n pa=sin e)/rgon a)nthrô/pois, ô(s e(ka/stô| ei)/dei tô=n a)lo/gôn zô/ôn; phu/sei ga\r mo/nê| ta\ toiau=ta kinei=tai, ta\ de\ phu/sei o(moi/ôs para\ pa=si/n e)stin; ai( de\ logikai\ pra/xeis a)/llai par' a)/llois kai\ ou)k e)x a)na/gkês ai( au(=tai para\ pa=sin] (De Nat.
Hom., c. ii.
p. 53. ed.
1565).]
A man conceives objects, like houses and trees, as existing when he does not actually see or touch them, just as much as when he does see or touch them.
He conceives them as existing independent of any actual sensations of his own: and he proceeds to describe them as independent altogether of himself as a Subject--or as absolute, not relative, existences.
But this distinction, though just as applied in ordinary usage, becomes inadmissable when brought to contradict the Protagorean doctrine; because the speaker professes to exclude, what cannot be excluded, himself as concipient Subject.
[26] It is he who conceives absent objects as real and existing, though he neither sees nor touches them: he believes fully, that if he were in a certain position near them, he would experience those appropriate sensations of sight and touch, whereby they are identified.
Though he eliminates himself as a _percipient_, he cannot eliminate himself as a _concipient_: _i.e._, as conceiving and believing.
He can conceive no object without being himself the Subject conceiving, nor believe in any future contingency without being himself the Subject believing.
He may part company with himself as percipient, but he cannot part company with himself altogether.
His conception of an absent external object, therefore, when fully and accurately described, does not contradict the Protagorean doctrine.
But it is far the most plausible objection which can be brought against that doctrine, and it is an objection deduced from the facts or cognitions of sense.
[Footnote 26: Bishop Berkeley observes:-"But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them.
I answer, you may so--there is no difficulty in it.
But what is all this, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call _books_ and _trees_, and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them?
_But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while?_ This therefore is nothing to the purpose.
It only shows you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind: but it doth not show that you can conceive it possible the objects of your thought may exist without the mind.
_To make out this, it is necessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy._ When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas.
_But the mind, taking no notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies existing unthought of or without the mind, though at the same time they are apprehended by or exist in itself._" Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, sect.
xxiii.
p. 34, ed.
of Berkeley's Works, 1820.
The same argument is enforced in Berkeley's First Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, pp.
145-146 of the same volume.
I subjoin a passage from the work of Professor Bain on Psychology, where this difficult subject is carefully analysed (The Senses and the Intellect, p. 370).
"There is no possible knowledge of the world except in reference to our minds.
Knowledge means a state of mind: the knowledge of material things is a mental thing.
We are incapable of discussing the existence of an independent material world: the very act is a contradiction.
We can speak only of a world presented to our own minds.
By an illusion of language we fancy that we are capable of contemplating a world which does not enter into our own mental existence: but the attempt belies itself, for this contemplation is an effort of mind."
"Solidity, extension, space--the foundation properties of the material world--mean, as has been said above, certain movements and energies of our own bodies, and exist in our minds in the shape of feelings of force, allied with visible and tactile, and other sensible impressions.
The sense of the external is the consciousness of particular energies and activities of our own."
(P. 376).
"We seem to have no better way of assuring ourselves and all mankind, that with the conscious movement of opening the eyes there will always be a consciousness of light, than by saying that the light exists as an independent fact, without any eyes to see it.
But if we consider the fact fairly we shall see that this assertion errs, not simply in being beyond any evidence that we can have, but also in being a self-contradiction.
We are affirming _that_ to have an existence out of our minds, which we cannot know but as in our minds.
In words we assert independent existence, while in the very act of doing so we contradict ourselves.
Even a possible world implies a possible mind to conceive it, just as much as an actual world implies an actual mind.
The mistake of the common modes of expression on this matter is the mistake of supposing the abstractions of the mind to have a separate and independent existence.
Instead of looking upon the doctrine of an external and independent world as a generalisation or abstraction grounded on our particular experiences, summing up the past and predicting the future, we have got into the way of maintaining the abstraction to be an independent reality, the foundation, or cause, or origin, of all these experiences."
To the same purpose Mr. Mansel remarks in his Bampton Lectures on "The Limits of Religious Thought," page 52: "A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is only possible in the form of a _relation_.
There must be a Subject or person conscious, and an Object or thing of which he is conscious.
There can be no consciousness without the union of these two factors; and in that union each exists only as it is related to the other.
The subject is a subject only in so far as it is conscious of an object: the object is an object only in so far as it is apprehended by a subject: and the destruction of either is the destruction of consciousness itself.
It is thus manifest that a consciousness of the Absolute is equally self-contradictory with that of the Infinite.
.
.
Our whole notion of Existence is necessarily relative, for it is existence as conceived by us.
But _Existence_, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several ways in which objects are presented to our consciousness--a general term embracing a variety of relations.
.
.
To assume Absolute Existence as an object of thought is thus to suppose a relation existing when the related terms exist no longer.
An object of thought exists, as such, in and through its relation to a thinker; while the Absolute, as such, is independent of all relation."
Dr. Henry More has also a passage asserting the essential correlation on which I am here insisting (Immortality of the Soul, ch.
ii.
p. 3).
And Professor Ferrier, in his Institutes of Metaphysic, has given much valuable elucidation respecting the essential relativity of cognition.
Though this note is already long, I shall venture to add from an eminent German critic--Trendelenburg--a passage which goes to the same point.
"Das Sein ist als die absolute Position erklärt worden.
Der Begriff des Seins drücke blos das aus: es werde bei dem einfachen Setzen eines _Was_ sein Bewenden haben.
Es hat sich hier die abstracte Vorstellung des Seins nur in eine verwandte Anschauung umgekleidet; denn das Gesetzte steht in dem Raum da; und insofern fordert die absolute Position schon den Begriff des seiendem Etwas, das gesetzt wird.
_Fragt man weiter, so ist in der absoluten Position schon derjenige mitgedacht, der da setzt._ Das Sein wird also _nicht unabhängig aus sich selbst bestimmt_, sondern zur Erklärung _ein Verhältniss zu der Thätigkeit des Gedankens herbeigezogen_.
"Aehnlich würde jede von vorn herein versuchte Bestimmung des Denkens ausfallen.
Man würde es nur durch einen Bezug zu den Dingen erläutern können, welche in dem Denken Grund und Mass finden.
Wir begeben uns daher jeder Erklärung, und setzen eine Vorstellung des Denkens und Seins voraus, in der Hoffnung dass beide mit jedem Schritt der Untersuchung sich in sich selbst bestimmen werden."
"Indem wir Denken und Sein unterscheiden, fragen wir, wie ist es möglich, dass sich im Erkennen Denken und Sein vereinigt?
_Diese Vereinigung sprechen wir vorläufig als eine Thatsache aus, die das Theoretische wie das Praktische beherrscht._" Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, sect.
3, pp.
103-104, Berlin, 1840.]
[Side-note: Object always relative to Subject--Either without the other, impossible.
Plato admits this in Sophistes.]
I cannot therefore agree with Plato in regarding the Protagorean doctrine--Homo Mensura--as having any dependance upon, or any necessary connection with, the other theory (canvassed in the Theætêtus) which pronounces cognition to be sensible perception.
Objects of thought exist in relation to a thinking Subject; as Objects of sight or touch exist in relation to a seeing or touching Subject.
And this we shall find Plato himself declaring in the Sophistes (where his Eleatic disputant is introduced as impugning a doctrine substantially the same as that of Plato himself in the Phædon, Timæus, and elsewhere) as well as here in the Theætêtus.
In the Sophistes, certain philosophers (called the Friends of Forms or Ideas) are noticed, who admitted that all sensible or perceivable existence ([Greek: ge/nesis]--Fientia) was relative to a (capable) sentient or percipient--but denied the relativity of Ideas, and maintained that Ideas, Concepts, Intelligible Entia, were not relative but absolute.
The Eleate combats these philosophers, and establishes against them--That the Cogitable or Intelligible existence, Ens Rationis, was just as much relative to an Intelligent or Cogitant subject, as perceivable existence was relative to a Subject capable of perceiving--That Existence, under both varieties, was nothing more than a potentiality, correlating with a counter-potentiality ([Greek: to\ gnôsto\n] with [Greek: to\ gnôstiko/n], [Greek: to\ ai)sthêto\n] with [Greek: to\ ai)sthêtiko/n], and never realised except in implication therewith.
[27] [Footnote 27: Plato, Sophistes, pp.
247-248.
The view taken of this matter by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the third chapter of the first Book of his System of Logic, is very instructive; see especially pp.
65-66 (ed.
4th).
Aristippus (one of the Sokratici viri, contemporary of Plato) and the Kyrenaic sect affirmed the doctrine--[Greek: o(/ti mo/na ta\ pa/thê katalêpta/].
Aristokles refutes them by saying that there can be no [Greek: pa/thos] without both Object and Subject--[Greek: poiou=n] and [Greek: pa/schon].
And he goes on to declare that these three are of necessary co-existence or consubstantiality.
[Greek: A)lla\ mê\n a)na/gkê ge tri/a tau=ta sunuphi/stasthai--to/ te pa/thos au)to/, kai\ to\ poiou=n, kai\ to\ pa/schon] (ap.
Eusebium, Præp.
Ev.
xiv.
19, 1).
I apprehend that Aristokles by these words does not really refute what Aristippus meant to affirm.
Aristippus meant to affirm the Relative, and to decline affirming anything beyond; and in this Aristokles agrees, making the doctrine even more comprehensive by showing that Object as well as Subject are relative also; implicated both with each other and in the [Greek: pa/thos].]
[Side-note: Plato's representation of the Protagorean doctrine in intimate conjunction with the Herakleitean.]
This doctrine of the Eleate in the Platonic Sophistes coincides with the Protagorean--_Homo Mensura_--construed in its true meaning: Object is implicated with, limited or measured by, Subject: a doctrine proclaiming the relativeness of all objects perceived, conceived, known, or felt--and the omnipresent involution of the perceiving, conceiving, knowing, or feeling, Subject: the object varying with the Subject.
"As things appear to me, so they are to me: as they appear to you, so they are to you."
This theory is just and important, if rightly understood and explained: but whether Protagoras did so explain or understand it, we cannot say; nor does the language of Plato enable us to make out.
Plato passes on from this theory to another, which he supposes Protagoras to have held without distinctly stating it: That there is no Ens distinguishable in itself or permanent, or stationary: that all existences are in perpetual flux, motion, change--acting and reacting upon each other, combining with or disjoining from each other.
[28] [Footnote 28: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 152 D. Though Plato states the grounds of this theory in his ironical way, as if it were an absurd fancy, yet it accidentally coincides with the largest views of modern physical science.
Absolute rest is unknown in nature: all matter is in perpetual movement, molecular as well as in masses.]
[Side-note: Relativity of sensible facts, as described by him.]
Turning to the special theory of Protagoras (Homo Mensura), and producing arguments, serious or ironical in its defence, Sokrates says--What you call colour has no definite place or existence either within you or without you.
It is the result of the passing collision between your eyes and the flux of things suited to act upon them.
It is neither in the agent nor in the patient, but is something special and momentary generated in passing between the two.
It will vary with the subject: it is not the same to you, to another man, to a dog or horse, or even to yourself at different times.
The object measured or touched cannot be in itself either great, or white, or hot: for if it were, it would not appear different to another Subject.
Nor can the Subject touching or measuring be in itself great, or white, or hot: for if so, it would always be so, and would not be differently modified when applied to a different object.
_Great_, _white_, _hot_, denote no positive and permanent attribute either in Object or Subject, but a passing result or impression generated between the two, relative to both and variable with either.
[29] [Footnote 29: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
153-154.
[Greek: o(\ dê\ e(/kaston ei)=nai/ phamen chrô=ma, ou)/te to\ prosba/llon ou)/te to\ prosballo/menon e)/stai, a)lla\ metaxu/ ti e(kastô| i)/dion gegono/s.]]
[Side-note: Relations are nothing in the object purely and simply without a comparing subject.]
To illustrate this farther (continues Sokrates)--suppose we have here six dice.
If I compare them with three other dice placed by the side of them, I shall call the six dice _more_ and _double_: if I put twelve other dice by the side of them, I shall call the six _fewer_ and _half_.
Or take an old man--and put a growing youth by his side.
Two years ago the old man was taller than the youth: now, the youth is grown, so that the old man is the shorter of the two.
But the old man, and the six dice, have remained all the time unaltered, and equal to themselves.
How then can either of them become either greater or less?
or how can either _really be_ so, when they were not so before?
[30] [Footnote 30: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
154-155.
Compare the reasoning in the Phædon, pp.
96-97-101.]
[Side-note: Relativity twofold--to the comparing Subject--to another object, besides the one directly described.]
The illustration here furnished by Sokrates brings out forcibly the negation of the absolute, and the affirmation of universal relativity in all conceptions, judgments, and predications, which he ascribes to Protagoras and Herakleitus.
The predication respecting the six dice denotes nothing real, independent, absolute, inhering in them: for they have undergone no change.
It is relative, and expresses a mental comparison made by me or some one else.
It is therefore relative in two different senses:--1.
To some other object with which the comparison of the dice is made:--2.
To me as comparing Subject, who determine the objects with which the comparison shall be made.
[31]--Though relativity in both senses is comprehended by the Protagorean affirmation--Homo Mensura--yet relativity in the latter sense is all which that affirmation essentially requires.
And this is true of all propositions, comparative or not--whether there be or be not reference to any other object beyond that which is directly denoted.
But Plato was here illustrating the larger doctrine which he ascribes to Protagoras in common with Herakleitus: and therefore the more complicated case of relativity might suit his purpose better.
[Footnote 31: The Aristotelian Category of Relation ([Greek: ta\ pro\s ti/], Categor.
p. 6, a.
36) designates one object apprehended and named relatively to some other object--as distinguished from object apprehended and named not thus relatively, which Aristotle considers as _per se_ [Greek: kath' au(to/] (Ethica Nikomach.
i. p. 1096, a.
21).
Aristotle omits or excludes relativity of the object apprehended to the percipient or concipient subject, which is the sort of relativity directly noted by the Protagorean doctrine.
Occasionally Aristotle passes from relativity in the former sense to relativity in the latter; as when he discusses [Greek: e)pistêto\n] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê], alluded to in one of my former notes on this dialogue.
But he seems unconscious of any transition.
In the Categories, Object, as implicated with Subject does not seem to have been distinctly present to his reflection.
In the third book of the Metaphysica, indeed, he discusses professedly the opinion of Protagoras; and among his objections against it, one is, that it makes everything relative or [Greek: pro\s ti/] (Metaph.
[Greek: G].
p. 1011, a.
20, b.
5).
This is hardly true in the sense which [Greek: pro\s ti/] bears as one of his Categories: but it is true in the other sense to which I have adverted.
A clear and full exposition of what is meant by the Relativity of Human Knowledge, will be found in Mr. John Stuart Mill's most recent work, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,' ch.
ii.
pp.
6-15.]
Sokrates now re-states that larger doctrine, in general terms, as follows.
[Side-note: Statement of the doctrine of Herakleitus--yet so as to implicate it with that of Protagoras.]
The universe is all flux or motion, divided into two immense concurrent streams of force, one active, the other passive; adapted one to the other, but each including many varieties.
One of these is Object: the other is, sentient, cognizant, concipient, Subject.
Object as well as Subject is, in itself and separately, indeterminate and unintelligible--a mere chaotic Agent or Patient.
It is only by copulation and friction with each other that they generate any definite or intelligible result.
Every such copulation, between parts adapted to each other, generates a twin offspring: two correlative and inseparable results infinitely diversified, but always born in appropriate pairs:[32] a definite perception or feeling, on the subjective side--a definite thing perceived or felt, on the objective.
There cannot be one of these without the other: there can be no objective manifestation without its subjective correlate, nor any subjective without its objective.
This is true not merely about the external senses--touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing--but also about the internal,--hot and cold, pleasure and pain, desire, fear, and all the countless variety of our feelings which have no separate names.
[33] Each of these varieties of feeling has its own object co-existent and correlating with it.
Sight, hearing, and smell, move and generate rapidly and from afar; touch and taste, slowly and only from immediate vicinity: but the principle is the same in all.
Thus, _e.g._, when the visual power of the eye comes into reciprocal action with its appropriate objective agent, the result between them is, that the visual power passes out of its abstract and indeterminate state into a concrete and particular act of vision--the seeing a white stone or wood: while the objective force also passes out of its abstract and indeterminate state into concrete--so that it is no longer whiteness, but a piece of white stone or wood actually seen.
[34] [Footnote 32: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 156 A.
[Greek: ô(s to\ pa=n ki/nêsis ê)=n, kai\ a)/llo para\ tou=to ou)de/n, tê=s de\ kinê/seôs du/o ei)/dê, plê/thei me\n a)/peiron e(ka/teron, du/namin de\ to\ me\n poiei=n e)/chon, to\ de\ pa/schein.
E)k de\ tê=s tou/tôn o(mili/as te kai\ tri/pseôs pro\s a)/llêla gi/gnetai e)/kgona] plê/thei me\n a)/peira, di/duma de/--to\ me\n ai)sthêto/n, to\ de\ ai)/sthêsis], a)ei\ sunekpi/ptousa kai\ gennôme/nê meta\ tou= ai)sthêtou=.]]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 156 B.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 156 E. [Greek: o( me\n o)phthalmo\s a)/ra o)/pseôs e)/mpleôs e)ge/neto kai\ o(ra=| dê\ to/te kai\ _e)ge/neto ou)/ ti o)/psis a)lla\ o)phthalmo\s o(rô=n_, to\ de\ xuggennê=san to\ chrô=ma leuko/têtos perieplê/sthê kai\ _e)ge/neto ou) leuko/tês au)=_ a)lla\ leuko/n, ei)/te xu/lon ei)/te li/thos ei)/te o(tiou=n xune/bê chrê=ma chrôsthê=nai tô=| toiou/tô| chrô/mati.]
Plato's conception of the act of vision was--That fire darted forth from the eyes of the percipient and came into confluence or coalescence with fire approaching from the perceived object (Plato, Timæus, pp.
45 C, 67 C).]
[Side-note: Agent and Patient--No absolute Ens.]
Accordingly, nothing can be affirmed to exist separately and by itself.
All existences, come only as twin and correlative manifestations of this double agency.
In fact neither of these agencies can be conceived independently and apart from the other: each of them is a nullity without the other.
[35] If either of them be varied, the result also will vary proportionally: each may be in its turn agent or patient, according to the different partners with which it comes into confluence.
[36] It is therefore improper to say--Such or such a thing _exists_.
Existence absolute, perpetual, and unchangeable is nowhere to be found: and all phrases which imply it are incorrect, though we are driven to use them by habit and for want of knowing better.
All that is real is, the perpetual series of changeful and transient conjunctions; each Object, with a certain Subject,--each Subject, with a certain Object.
[37] This is true not merely of individual objects, but also of those complex aggregates rationally apprehended which receive generic names, _man_, animal, stone, &c.[38] You must not therefore say that any thing _is_, absolutely and perpetually, good, honourable, hot, white, hard, great--but only that it is so felt or esteemed by certain subjects more or less numerous.
[39] [Footnote 35: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 157 A.
[Greek: e)pei\ kai\ to\ poiou=n ei)=nai ti kai\ to\ pa/schon au)= ti e)pi\ e(no\s noê=sai, ô(/s phasin, ou)k ei)=nai pagi/ôs.
Ou)/te ga\r poiou=n e)sti/ ti, pri\n a)\n tô=| pa/schonti xune/lthê|--ou)/te pa/schon, pri\n a)\n tô=| poiou=nti], &c.] [Footnote 36: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 157 A.
[Greek: to/ te/ tini xuneltho\n kai\ poiou=n a)/llô| au)= prospeso\n pa/schon a)nepha/nê.]]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 157 A.
[Greek: ou)de\n ei)=nai e(\n au)to\ kath' au(to/, a)lla/ tini a)ei\ gi/gnesthai, to\ d' ei)=nai panta/chothen e)xairete/on], &c.] [Footnote 38: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 157 B.
[Greek: dei= de\ kai\ kata\ me/ros ou(/tô le/gein kai\ peri\ pollô=n a)throisthe/ntôn, ô(=| dê\ a)throi/smati a)/nthrôpo/n te ti/thentai kai\ li/thon kai\ e(/kaston zô=o/n te kai\ ei)=dos.]
In this passage I follow Heindorf's explanation which seems dictated by the last word [Greek: ei)=dos].
Yet I am not sure that Plato does really mean here the _generic_ aggregates.
He had before talked about sights, sounds, hot, cold, hard, &c., the separate sensations.
He may perhaps here mean simply individual things as aggregates or [Greek: a)throi/smata]--a _man_, a _stone_, &c.] [Footnote 39: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 157 E.] [Side-note: Arguments derived from dreams, fevers, &c., may be answered.]
The arguments advanced against this doctrine from the phenomena of dreams, distempers, or insanity, admit (continues Sokrates) of a satisfactory answer.
A man who is dreaming, sick, or mad, believes in realities different from, and inconsistent with, those which he would believe in when healthy.
But this is because he is, under those peculiar circumstances, a different Subject, unlike what he was before.
One of the two factors of the result being thus changed, the result itself is changed.
[40] The cardinal principle of Protagoras--the essential correlation, and indefeasible fusion, of Subject and Object, exhibits itself in a perpetual series of definite manifestations.
To say that I (the Subject) perceive,--is to say that I perceive some Object: to perceive and perceive nothing, is a contradiction.
Again, if an Object be sweet, it must be sweet to some percipient Subject: sweet, but sweet to no one, is impossible.
[41] Necessity binds the essence of the percipient to that of something perceived: so that every name which you bestow upon either of them implies some reference to the other; and no name can be truly predicated of either, which implies existence (either perpetual or temporary) apart from the other.
[42] [Footnote 40: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
159.]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 160 A.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 160 B.
[Greek: e)/peiper ê(mô=n ê( a)na/gkê tê\n ou)si/an sundei= me/n, sundei= de ou)deni\ tô=n a)/llôn, ou)d' au)= ê(mi=n au)toi=s; a)llê/lois dê\ lei/petai sundede/sthai] (_i.
e._ [Greek: to\n ai)sthano/menon] and [Greek: to\ poiou=n ai)stha/nesthai]).
[Greek: Ô/ste ei)/te _tis ei)=nai ti/ o)noma/zei, tini\ ei)=nai, ê)\ tino/s, ê)\ pro/s ti, r(ête/on au)tô=|, ei)/te gi/gnesthai; au)to\ de\ e)ph' au(tou= ti ê)\ o)\n ê)\ gigno/menon ou)/te au)tô=| lekte/on, ou)/t' a)/llou le/gontos a)podekte/on_.]
Compare Aristot.
Metaphys.
[Greek: G].
6, p. 1011, a.
23.]
[Side-note: Exposition of the Protagorean doctrine, as given here by Sokrates is to a great degree just.
You cannot explain the facts of consciousness by independent Subject and Object.]
Such is the exposition which Sokrates is here made to give, of the Protagorean doctrine.
How far the arguments, urged by him in its behalf, are such as Protagoras himself either really urged, or would have adopted, we cannot say.
In so far as the doctrine asserts essential fusion and implication between Subject and Object, with actual multiplicity of distinct Subjects--denying the reality either of absolute and separate Subject, or of absolute and separate Object[43]--I think it true and instructive.
We are reminded that when we affirm any thing about an Object, there is always (either expressed or tacitly implied) a Subject or Subjects (one, many, or all), _to whom_ the Object _is_ what it is declared to be.
This is the fundamental characteristic of consciousness, feeling, and cognition, in all their actual varieties.
All of them are bi-polar or bi-lateral, admitting of being looked at either on the subjective or on the objective side.
Comparisons and contrasts, gradually multiplied, between one consciousness and another, lead us to distinguish the one of these points of view from the other.
In some cases, the objective view is brought into light and prominence, and the subjective thrown into the dark and put out of sight: in other cases, the converse operation takes place.
Sometimes the Ego or Subject is prominent, sometimes the Mecum or Object.
[44] Sometimes the Objective is as it were divorced from the Subject, and projected outwards, so as to have an illusory appearance of existing apart from and independently of any Subject.
In other cases, the subjective view is so exclusively lighted up and conspicuous, that Object disappears, and we talk of a mind conceiving, as if it had no correlative Concept.
It is possible, by abstraction, to indicate, to name, and to reason about, the one of these two points of view without including direct notice of the other: this is abstraction or logical separation--a mental process useful and largely applicable, yet often liable to be mistaken for real distinctness and duality.
In the present case, the two abstractions become separately so familiar to the mind, that this supposed duality is conceived as the primordial and fundamental fact: the actual, bilateral, consciousness being represented as a temporary derivative state, generated by the copulation of two factors essentially independent of each other.
Such a theory, however, while aiming at an impracticable result, amounts only to an inversion of the truth.
It aims at explaining our consciousness as a whole; whereas all that we can really accomplish, is to explain, up to a certain point, the conditions of conjunction and sequence between different portions of our consciousness.
It also puts the primordial in the place of the derivative, and transfers the derivative to the privilege of the primordial.
It attempts to find a generation for what is really primordial--the total series of our manifold acts of consciousness, each of a bilateral character, subjective on one side and objective on the other: and it assigns as the generating factors two concepts obtained by abstraction from these very acts,--resulting from multiplied comparisons,--and ultimately exaggerated into an illusion which treats the logical separation as if it were bisection in fact and reality.
[Footnote 43: Aristotle, in a passage of the treatise De Animâ (iii.
1, 2-4-7-8, ed.
Trendelenburg, p. 425, b.
25, p. 426, a.
15-25, Bekk.
), impugns an opinion of certain antecedent [Greek: phusio/logoi] whom he does not specify; which opinion seems identical with the doctrine of Protagoras.
These philosophers said, that "there was neither white nor black without vision, nor savour without the sense of taste".
Aristotle says that they were partly right, partly wrong.
They were right in regard to the actual, wrong in regard to the potential.
The actual manifestation of the perceived is one and the same with that of the percipient, though the two are not the same logically in the view of the reflecting mind ([Greek: ê( de\ tou= ai)sthêtou= e)ne/rgeia kai\ tê=s ai)sthê/seôs ê( au)tê\ me/n e)sti kai\ mi/a, to\ d' ei)=nai ou) tau)to\n au)tai=s]).
But this is not true when we speak of them potentially--[Greek: dichô=s ga\r legome/nês tê=s ai)sthê/seôs kai\ tou= ai)sthêtou=, tô=n me\n kata\ du/namin tô=n de\ kat' e)ne/rgeian, e)pi/ tou/tôn me\n sumbai/nei to\ lechthe/n, e)pi\ de\ tô=n e(te/rôn ou) sumbai/nei.
A)ll' e)kei=noi a(plô=s e)/legon peri\ tô=n legome/nôn ou)ch a(plô=s.]
I think that the distinction, which Aristotle insists upon as a confutation of these philosophers, is not well founded.
What he states, in very just language, about _actual perception_ is equally true about _potential perception_.
As the present fact of actual perception implicates essentially a determinate percipient subject with a determinate perceived object, and admits of being looked at either from the one point of view or from the other--so the concept of potential perception implicates in like manner an indeterminate perceivable with an indeterminate subject competent to perceive.
The perceivable or cogitable has no meaning except in relation to some Capax Percipiendi or Capax Cogitandi.]
[Footnote 44: The terms Ego and Mecum, to express the antithesis of these two [Greek: lo/gô| mo/non chôrista\], are used by Professor Ferrier in his very acute treatise, the Institutes of Metaphysic, pp.
93-96.
The same antithesis is otherwise expressed by various modern writers in the terms Ego and non-Ego--le moi et le non-moi.
I cannot think that this last is the proper way of expressing it.
You do not want to negative the Ego, but to declare its essential implication with a variable correlate; to point out the bilateral character of the act of consciousness.
The two are not merely _Relata secundum dici_ but _Relata secundum esse_, to use a distinction recognised in the scholastic logic.
The implication of Subject and Object is expressed in a peculiar manner (though still clearly) by Aristotle in the treatise De Animâ, iii.
8, 1, 431, b.
21.
[Greek: ê( psuchê\ ta\ o)/nta _pô/s_ e)sti pa/nta; ê)\ ga\r ai)sthêta\ ta\ o)/nta ê)\ noêta/.
e)sti\ d' ê( e)pistê/mê me\n ta\ e)pistêta/ _pôs_, ê( d' ai)/sthêsis ta\ ai)sthêta/.]
The adverb [Greek: pôs] ([Greek: tro/pon tina/], as Simplikius explains it, fol.
78, b.
1) here deserves attention.
"The soul is all existing things _in a certain way_ (or looked at under a certain aspect).
All things are either Percepta or Cogitata: now Cognition is in a certain sense the Cognita--Perception is the Percepta."
He goes on to say that the Percipient Mind is the Form of Percepta, while the matter of Percepta is without: but that the Cogitant Mind is identical with Cogitata, for they have no matter (iii.
4, 12, p. 430, a.
3, with the commentary of Simplikius p. 78, b.
17, f. 19, a.
12).
This is in other words the Protagorean doctrine--That the mind is the measure of all existences; and that this is even more true about [Greek: noêta\] than about [Greek: ai)sthêta/].
That doctrine is completely independent of the theory, that [Greek: e)pistê/mê] is [Greek: ai)/sthêsis].
It is in conformity with this affirmation of Aristotle (partially approved even by Cudworth--see Mosheim's Transl.
of Intell.
Syst.
Vol.
II.
ch.
viii.
pp.
27-28)--[Greek: ê( psuchê\ ta\ o)/nta pô/s e)sti pa/nta]--that Mr. John Stuart Mill makes the following striking remark about the number of ultimate Laws of Nature:-"It is useful to remark, that the ultimate Laws of Nature cannot possibly be less numerous than the distinguishable sensations or other feelings of our nature: those, I mean, which are distinguishable from one another in quality, and not merely in quantity or degree.
For example, since there is a phenomenon _sui generis_ called colour, which our consciousness testifies to be not a particular degree of some other phenomenon, as heat, or odour, or motion, but intrinsically unlike all others, it follows that there are ultimate laws of colour .
.
The ideal limit therefore of the explanation of natural phenomena would be to show that each distinguishable variety of our sensations or other states of consciousness has only one sort of cause."
(System of Logic, Book iii.
ch.
14, s.
2.)]
[Side-note: Plato's attempt to get behind the phenomena.
Reference to a double potentiality--Subjective and Objective.]
In Plato's exposition of the Protagorean theory, the true doctrine held by Protagoras,[45] and the illusory explanation (whether belonging to him or to Plato himself), are singularly blended together.
He denies expressly all separate existence either of Subject or Object--all possibility of conceiving or describing the one as a reality distinct from the other.
He thus acknowledges consciousness and cognition as essentially bilateral.
Nevertheless he also tries to explain the generation of these acts of consciousness, by the hypothesis of a _latens processus_ behind them and anterior to them--two continuous moving forces, agent and patient, originally distinct, conspiring as joint factors to a succession of compound results.
But when we examine the language in which Plato describes these forces, we see that he conceives them only as Abstractions and Potentialities;[46] though he ascribes to them a metaphorical copulation and generation.
"Every thing is motion (or change): of which there are two sorts, each infinitely manifold: one, having power to act--the other having power to suffer."
Here instead of a number of distinct facts of consciousness, each bilateral--we find ourselves translated by abstraction into a general potentiality of consciousness, also essentially bilateral and multiple.
But we ought to recollect, that the Potential is only a concept abstracted from the actual,--and differing from it in this respect, that it includes what has been and what may be, as well as what is.
But it is nothing new and distinct by itself: it cannot be produced as a substantive antecedent to the actual, and as if it afforded explanation thereof.
The general proposition about motion or change (above cited in the words of Plato), as far as it purports to get behind the fact of consciousness and to assign its cause or antecedent--is illusory.
But if considered as a general expression for that fact itself, in the most comprehensive terms--indicating the continuous thread of separate, ever-changing acts of consciousness, each essentially bilateral, or subjective as well as objective--in this point of view the proposition is just and defensible.
[47] [Footnote 45: The elaborate Dissertation of Sir William Hamilton, on the Philosophy of the Unconditioned (standing first in his 'Discussions on Philosophy'), is a valuable contribution to metaphysical philosophy.
He affirms and shows, "That the Unconditioned is incognisable and inconceivable: its notion being only a negation of the Conditioned, which last can alone be positively known and conceived" (p. 12); refuting the opposite doctrine as proclaimed, with different modifications, both by Schelling and Cousin.
In an Appendix to this Dissertation, contained in the same volume (p. 608), Sir W. Hamilton not only re-asserts the doctrine ("Our whole knowledge of mind and matter is relative, conditioned--relatively conditioned.
Of things absolutely or in themselves, be they external, be they internal, we know nothing, or know them only as incognisable," &c.)--but affirms farther that philosophers of every school, with the exception of a few late absolute theorisers in Germany, have always held and harmoniously re-echoed the same doctrine.
In proof of such unanimous agreement, he cites passages from seventeen different philosophers.
The first name on his list stands as follows:--"1.
Protagoras--(as reported by Plato, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius, &c.)--Man is (for himself) the measure of all things".
Sir William Hamilton understands the Protagorean doctrine as I understand it, and as I have endeavoured to represent it in the present chapter.
It has been very generally misconceived.
I cannot, however, agree with Sir William Hamilton, in thinking that this theory respecting the Unconditioned and the Absolute, has been the theory generally adopted by philosophers.
The passages which he cites from other authors are altogether insufficient to prove such an affirmation.]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 156 A.
[Greek: tê=s de\ kinê/seôs du/o ei)/dê, plê/thei me\n a)/peiron e(ka/teron, du/namin de\ to\ me\n poiei=n e)/chon, to\ de\ pa/schein.]]
[Footnote 47: In that distinction, upon which Aristotle lays so much stress, between Actus and Potentia, he declares Actus or actuality to be the Prius--Potentia or potentiality to be the Posterius.
See Metaphysica, [Greek: Th].
8, 1049, b.
5 seqq.
; De Animâ, ii.
4, 415, a.
17.
The Potential is a derivative from the Actual--derived by comparison, abstraction, and logical analysis: a Mental concept, helping us to describe, arrange, and reason about, the multifarious acts of sense or consciousness--but not an anterior generating reality.
Turgot observes (OEuvres, vol.
iii.
pp.
108-110; Article in the Encyclopédie, _Existence_):-"Le premier fondement de la notion de l'_existence_ est la conscience de notre propre sensation, et le sentiment du _moi_ qui résulte de cette conscience.
La relation nécessaire entre l'être appercevant, et l'être apperçu considéré hors du _moi_, suppose dans les deux termes la même réalité.
Il y a dans l'un et dans l'autre un fondement de cette relation, que l'homme, s'il avoit un langage, pourroit désigner par le nom commun d'_existence_ ou de _présence_: car ces deux notions ne seroient point encore distinguées l'une de l'autre.
.
.
.
"Mais il est très-important d'observer que ni la simple sensation des objets présens, ni la peinture que fait l'imagination des objets absens, ni le simple rapport de distance ou d'activité réciproque, commun aux uns et aux autres, ne sont précisément la chose que l'esprit voudroit désigner par le nom général d'_existence_; c'est le fondement même de ces rapports, supposé commun au _moi_, à l'objet vu et à l'objet simplement distant, sur lequel tombe véritablement et le nom d'_existence_ et notre affirmation, lorsque nous disons qu'une chose _existe_.
Ce fondement n'est ni ne peut être connu immédiatement, et ne nous est indiqué que par les rapports différents qui le supposent: nous nous en formons cependant une espèce d'idée que nous tirons par voie d'abstraction du témoignage que la conscience nous rend de nous-mêmes et de notre sensation actuelle: c'est-à-dire, que nous transportons en quelque sorte cette conscience du _moi_ sur les objets extérieurs, par une espèce d'assimilation vague, démentie aussitôt** par la séparation de tout ce qui caractérise le _moi_, mais qui ne suffit pas moins pour devenir le fondement _d'une abstraction ou d'un signe commun, et pour être l'objet de nos jugemens_."]
It is to be remembered, that the doctrine here criticised is brought forward by the Platonic Sokrates as a doctrine not his own, but held by others; among whom he ranks Protagoras as one.
Having thus set forth in his own language, and as an advocate, the doctrine of Protagoras, Sokrates proceeds to impugn it: in his usual rambling and desultory way, but with great dramatic charm and vivacity.
He directs his attacks alternately against the two doctrines: 1.
_Homo Mensura_: 2.
Cognition is sensible perception.
I shall first notice what he advances against _Homo Mensura_.
[Side-note: Arguments advanced by the Platonic Sokrates against the Protagorean doctrine.
He says that it puts the wise and foolish on a par--that it contradicts the common consciousness.
Not every one, but the wise man only, is a measure.]
It puts every man (he says) on a par as to wisdom and intelligence: and not only every man, but every horse, dog, frog, and other animal along with him.
Each man is a measure for himself: all his judgments and beliefs are true: he is therefore as wise as Protagoras and has no need to seek instruction from Protagoras.
[48] Reflection, study, and dialectic discussion, are superfluous and useless to him: he is a measure to himself on the subject of geometry, and need not therefore consult a professed geometrician like Theodôrus.
[49] [Footnote 48: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 161.
Compare Plato, Kratylus, p. 386 C, where the same argument is employed.]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 169 A.]
The doctrine is contradicted (continues Sokrates) by the common opinions of mankind: for no man esteems himself a measure on all things.
Every one believes that there are some things on which he is wiser than his neighbour--and others on which his neighbour is wiser than he.
People are constantly on the look out for teachers and guides.
[50] If Protagoras advances an opinion which others declare to be false, he must, since he admits their opinion to be true, admit his own opinion to be false.
[51] No animal, nor any common man, is a measure; but only those men, who have gone through special study and instruction in the matter upon which they pronounce.
[52] [Footnote 50: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
170.]
[Footnote 51: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 171 B.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n tê\n au(tou= a)\n pseudê= xugchôroi=, ei) tê\n tô=n ê(goume/nôn au)to\n pseu/desthai o(mologei= a)lêthê= ei)=nai?]]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 171 C.] [Side-note: In matters of present sentiment every man can judge for himself.
Where future consequences are involved special knowledge is required.]
In matters of present and immediate sensation, hot, cold, dry, moist, sweet, bitter, &c., Sokrates acknowledges that every man must judge _for himself_, and that what each pronounces is true _for himself_.
So too, about honourable or base, just or unjust, holy or unholy--whatever rules any city may lay down, are true _for itself_: no man, no city,--is wiser upon these matters than any other.
[53] But in regard to what is good, profitable, advantageous, healthy, &c., the like cannot be conceded.
Here (says Sokrates) one man, and one city, is decidedly wiser, and judges more truly, than another.
We cannot say that the judgment of each is true;[54] or that what every man or every city anticipates to promise good or profit, will necessarily realise such anticipations.
In such cases, not merely present sentiment, but future consequences are involved.
[Footnote 53: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
172 A, 177 E.] [Footnote 54: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
172.]
Here then we discover the distinction which Plato would draw.
[55] Where present sentiment alone is involved, as in hot and cold, sweet and bitter, just and unjust, honourable and base, &c., there each is a judge for himself, and one man is no better judge than another.
But where future consequences are to be predicted, the ignorant man is incapable: none but the professional Expert, or the prophet,[56] is competent to declare the truth.
When a dinner is on table, each man among the guests can judge whether it is good: but while it is being prepared, none but the cook can judge whether it _will be_ good.
[57] This is one Platonic objection against the opinion of Protagoras, when he says that every opinion of every man is true.
Another objection is, that opinions of different men are opposite and contradictory,[58] some of them contradicting the Protagorean dictum itself.
[Footnote 55: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
178.]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 179.
[Greek: ei)/ pê| tou\s suno/ntas e)/peithen, o(/ti kai\ to\ me/llon e)/sesthai/ te kai\ do/xein ou)/te ma/ntis ou)/te tis a)/llos a)/meinon kri/neien a)\n ê)\ au)to\s au(tô=|.]]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
178.]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 179 B.
_Theodor._ [Greek: E)kei/nê| moi dokei= ma/lista a(li/skesthai o( lo/gos, a(lisko/menos kai\ tau/tê|, ê)=| ta\s tô=n a)/llôn do/xas kuri/as poiei=, au(=tai de\ e)pha/nêsan tou\s e)kei/nou lo/gous ou)damê=| a)lêthei=s ê(gou/menai.]
_Sokrat._ [Greek: Pollachê=| kai\ a)/llê| a)\n to/ ge toiou=ton a(loi/ê, mê\ pa=san panto\s a)lêthê= do/xan ei)=nai; peri\ de\ to\ paro\n e(ka/stô| pa/thos, e)x ô(=n ai( ai)sthê/seis kai\ ai( kata\ tau/tas do/xai gi/gnontai .
.
.
I)/sôs de\ ou)de\n le/gô, a)na/lôtoi ga/r, ei) e)/tuchon, ei)si/n.]]
[Side-note: Plato, when he impugns the doctrine of Protagoras, states that doctrine without the qualification properly belonging to it.
All belief relative to the condition of the believing mind.]
Such are the objections urged by Sokrates against the Protagorean doctrine--_Homo Mensura_.
There may have been perhaps in the treatise of Protagoras, which unfortunately we do not possess, some reasonings or phrases countenancing the opinions against which Plato here directs his objections.
But so far as I can collect, even from the words of Plato himself when he professes to borrow the phraseology of his opponent, I cannot think that Protagoras ever delivered the opinion which Plato here refutes--_That every opinion of every man is true_.
The opinion really delivered by Protagoras appears to have been[59]--_That every opinion delivered by every man is true, to that man himself_.
But Plato, when he impugns it, leaves out the final qualification; falling unconsciously into the fallacy of passing (as logicians say) _a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_.
[60] The qualification thus omitted by Plato forms the characteristic feature of the Protagorean doctrine, and is essential to the phraseology founded upon it.
Protagoras would not declare any proposition to be true absolutely, or false absolutely.
The phraseology belonging to that doctrine is forced upon him by Plato.
Truth Absolute there is none, according to Protagoras.
All truth is and must be truth relative to some one or more persons, either actually accepting and believing in it, or conceived as potential believers under certain circumstances.
Moreover since these believers are a multitude of individuals, each with his own peculiarities--so no truth can be believed in, except under the peculiar measure of the believing individual mind.
What a man adopts as true, and what he rejects as false, are conditioned alike by this limit: a limit not merely different in different individuals, but variable and frequently varying in the same individual.
You cannot determine a dog, or a horse, or a child to believe in the Newtonian astronomy: you could not determine the author of the Principia in 1687 to believe what the child Newton had believed in 1647.
[61] To say that what is true to one man, is false to another--that what _was_ true to an individual as a child or as a youth, becomes false to him in his advanced years, is no real contradiction: though Plato, by omitting the qualifying words, presents it as if it were such.
In every man's mind, the beliefs of the past have been modified or reversed, and the beliefs of the present are liable to be modified or reversed, by subsequent operative causes: by new supervening sensations, emotions, intellectual comparisons, authoritative teaching, or society, and so forth.
[Footnote 59: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 152 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n ou(/tô pôs le/gei] (Protagoras) [Greek: ô(s oi(=a me\n e(/kasta e)moi\ phai/netai, toiau=ta me/n e)stin e)moi/--oi(=a de\ soi/, toiau=ta de\ au)= soi/.]
158 A.
[Greek: ta\ phaino/mena e(ka/stô| tau=ta kai\ ei)=nai tou/tô| ô(=| phai/netai.]
160 C. [Greek: A)lêthê\s a)/ra e)moi\ ê( e)mê\ ai)/sthêsis; tê=s ga\r e)mê=s ou)si/as a)ei/ e)sti; kai\ e)gô\ kritê\s kata\ to\n Prôtago/ran tô=n te o)/ntôn e)moi/, ô(s e)/sti, kai\ tô=n mê\ o)/ntôn, ô(s ou)k e)/stin.]
Comp.
also pp.
166 D, 170 A, 177 C. Instead of saying [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] (in the passage just cited, p. 160 D), we might with quite equal truth put [Greek: A)lêthê\s a)/ra e)moi\ ê( e)mê\ _no/êsis_; tê=s ga\r e)mê=s ou)si/as a)ei/ e)/stin].
In this respect [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] and [Greek: no/êsis] are on a par.
[Greek: No/êsis] is just as much relative to [Greek: o( noô=n] as [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] to [Greek: o( ai)sthano/menos].
Sextus Empiricus adverts to the doctrines of Protagoras (mainly to point out how they are distinguished from those of the Sceptical school, to which he himself belongs) in Pyrrhon.
Hypot.
i. sects.
215-219; adv.
Mathematicos, vii.
s. 60-64-388-400.
He too imputes to Protagoras both the two doctrines.
1.
That man is the measure of all things: that what appears to each person is, _to him_: that all truth is thus relative.
2.
That all phantasms, appearances, opinions, are _true_.
Sextus reasons at some length (390 seq.)
against this doctrine No.
2, and reasons very much as Protagoras himself would have reasoned, since he appeals to individual sentiment and movement of the individual mind ([Greek: ou)k ô(sau/tôs ga\r kinou/metha], 391-400).
It appears to me perfectly certain that Protagoras advanced the general thesis of Relativity: we see this as well from Plato as from Sextus--[Greek: kai\ ou(/tôs ei)sa/gei to\ pro/s ti--tô=n pro/s ti ei)=nai tê\n a)lêthei/an] (Steinhart is of opinion that these words [Greek: tô=n pro/s ti ei)=nai tê\n a)lêthei/an] are an addition of Sextus himself, and do not describe the doctrine of Protagoras; an opinion from which I dissent, and which is contradicted by Plato himself: Steinhart, Einleitung, note 8).
If Protagoras also advanced the doctrine--all opinions are true--this was not consistent with his cardinal principle of relativity.
Either he himself did not take care always to enunciate the qualifications and limitations which his theory requires, and which in common parlance are omitted--Or his opponents left out the limitations which he annexed, and impugned the opinion as if it stood without any.
This last supposition I think the most probable.
The doctrine of Protagoras is correctly given by Sextus in the Pyrrhon.
Hypot.]
[Footnote 60: Aristotle, in commenting on the Protagorean formula, falls into a similar inaccuracy in slurring over the restrictive qualification annexed by Protagoras.
Metaphysic.
[Greek: G].
p. 1009, a.
6.
Compare hereupon Bonitz's note upon the passage, p. 199 of his edition.
This transition without warning, _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_, is among the artifices ascribed by Plato to the Sophists Euthydêmus and Dionysodôrus (Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 297 D).]
[Footnote 61: The argument produced by Plato to discredit the Protagorean theory--that it puts the dog or the horse on a level with man--furnishes in reality a forcible illustration of the truth of the theory.
Mr. James Harris, the learned Aristotelian of the last century, remarks, in his Dialogue on Happiness (Works, ed.
1772, pp.
143-168):-"Every particular Species is, itself to itself, the Measure of all things in the Universe.
As things vary in their relations to it, they vary also in their value.
If their value be ever doubtful, it can noway be adjusted but by recurring with accuracy to the natural State of the Species, and to those several Relations which such a State of course creates."]
[Side-note: All exposition and discussion is an assemblage of individual judgments and affirmations.
This fact is disguised by elliptical forms of language.]
The fact, that all exposition and discussion is nothing more than an assemblage of individual judgments, depositions, affirmations, negations, &c, is disguised from us by the elliptical form in which it is conducted.
For example:--I, who write this book--can give nothing more than my own report, as a witness, of facts known to me, and of what has been said, thought, or done by others,--for all which I cite authorities:--and my own conviction, belief or disbelief, as to the true understanding thereof, and the conclusions deducible.
I produce the reasons which justify my opinion: I reply to those reasons which have been supposed by others to justify the opposite.
It is for the reader to judge how far my reasons appear satisfactory to his mind.
[62] To deliver my own convictions, is all that is in my power: and if I spoke with full correctness and amplitude, it would be incumbent on me to avoid pronouncing any opinion to be _true_ or _false_ simply: I ought to say, it is _true to me--or false to me_.
But to repeat this in every other sentence, would be a tiresome egotism.
It is understood once for all by the title-page of the book: an opponent will know what he has to deal with, and will treat the opinions accordingly.
If any man calls upon me to give him absolute truth, and to lay down the canon of evidence for identifying it--I cannot comply with the request, any farther than to deliver my own best judgment, what is truth--and to declare what is the canon of evidence which guides my own mind.
Each reader must determine for himself whether he accepts it or not.
I might indeed clothe my own judgments in oracular and vehement language: I might proclaim them as authoritative dicta: I might speak as representing the Platonic Ideal, Typical Man,--or as inspired by a [Greek: dai/môn] like Sokrates: I might denounce opponents as worthless men, deficient in all the sentiments which distinguish men from brutes, and meriting punishment as well as disgrace.
If I used all these harsh phrases, I should only imitate what many authors of repute think themselves entitled to say, about THEIR beliefs and convictions.
Yet in reality, I should still be proclaiming nothing beyond my own feelings:--the force of emotional association, and antipathy towards opponents, which had grown round these convictions in my own mind.
Whether I speak in accordance with others, or in opposition to others, in either case I proclaim my own reports, feelings and judgments--nothing farther.
I cannot escape from the Protagorean limit or measures.
[63] [Footnote 62: M. Destutt Tracy observes as follows:-"De même que toutes nos propositions peuvent être ramenées à la forme de propositions énonciatives, parce qu'au fond elles expriment toutes un jugement; de même, toutes nos propositions énonciatives peuvent ensuite être toujours réduites à n'être qu'une de celles-ci: 'je pense, je sens, ou je perçois, que telle chose est de telle manière, ou que tel être produit tel effet'--_propositions dont nous sommes nous-mêmes le sujet, parce qu'au fond nous sommes toujours le subjet de tous nos jugemens_, puisqu'ils n'expriment jamais qu'une impression que nous éprouvons."
(Idéologie: Supplément à la première Section, vol.
iv.
p. 165, ed.
1825 duodec.)
"On peut même dire que comme nous ne sentons, ne savons, et ne connaissons, rien que par rapport à nous, l'idée, sujet de la proposition, est toujours en définitif notre moi; car quand je dis _cet arbre est vert_, je dis réellement _je sens, je sais, je vois, que cet arbre est vert_.
Mais _précisément parce que ce préambule se trouve toujours et nécessairement compris dans toutes nos propositions, nous le supprimons quand nous voulons_; et toute idée peut être le sujet de la proposition."
(Principes Logiques, vol.
iv.
ch.
viii.
p.
231.)]
[Footnote 63: Sokrates himself states as much as this in the course of his reply to the doctrine of Protagoras, Theætêt.
171 D.: [Greek: a)ll' ê(mi=n a)na/gkê, oi)=mai, chrê=sthai ê(mi=n au)toi=s .
.
.
kai\ ta\ dokou=nta a)ei/, tau=ta le/gein.]
The necessity ([Greek: a)na/gkê]) to which Sokrates here adverts, is well expressed by M. Degérando.
"En jugeant ce que pensent les autres hommes, en comprenant ce qu'ils éprouvent, nous ne sortons point en effet de nous-mêmes, comme on seroit tenté de le croire.
C'est dans nos propres idées que nous voyons leurs idées, leurs manières d'être, leur existence même.
Le monde entier ne nous est connu que dans une sorte de chambre obscure: et lorsqu'au sortir d'une société nombreuse nous croyons avoir lu dans les esprits et dans les coeurs, avoir observé des caractères, et senti (si je puis dire ainsi) la vie d'un grand nombre d'hommes--nous ne faisons en effet que sortir d'une grande galerie dont notre imagination a fait tous les frais; dont elle a créé tous les personnages, et dessiné, avec plus ou moins de vérité, tous les tableaux."
(Degérando, Des Signes et de l'Art de Penser, vol.
i. ch.
v. p.
132.)]
[Side-note: Argument--That the Protagorean doctrine equalises all men and animals.
How far true.
Not true in the sense requisite to sustain Plato's objection.]
To this theory Plato imputes as a farther consequence, that it equalises all men and all animals.
No doubt, the measure or limit as generically described, bears alike upon all: but it does not mark the same degree in all.
Each man's bodily efforts are measured or limited by the amount of his physical force: this is alike true of all men: yet it does not follow that the physical force of all men is equal.
The dog, the horse, the new-born child, the lunatic, is each a measure of truth to himself: the philosopher is so also to himself: this is alike true, whatever may be the disparity of intelligence: and is rather more obviously true when the disparity is great, because the lower intelligence has then a very narrow stock of beliefs, and is little modifiable by the higher.
But though the Protagorean doctrine declares the dog or the child to be a measure of truth--each to himself--it does not declare either of them to be a measure of truth to me, to you, or to any ordinary by-stander.
How far any person is a measure of truth to others, depends upon the estimation in which he is held by others: upon the belief which they entertain respecting his character or competence.
Here is a new element let in, of which Plato, in his objection to the Protagorean doctrine, takes no account.
When he affirms that Protagoras by his equalising doctrine acknowledged himself to be no better in point of wisdom and judgment than a dog or a child, this inference must be denied.
[64] The Protagorean doctrine is perfectly consistent with great diversities of knowledge, intellect, emotion, and character, between one man and another.
Such diversities are recognised in individual belief and estimation, and are thus comprehended in the doctrine.
Nor does Protagoras deny that men are teachable and modifiable.
The scholar after being taught will hold beliefs different from those which he held before.
Protagoras professed to know more than others, and to teach them: others on their side also believed that he knew more than they, and came to learn it.
Such belief on both sides, noway contradicts the general doctrine here under discussion.
What the scholar believes to be true, is still true to him: among those things which he believes to be true, one is, that the master knows more than he: in coming to be taught, he acts upon his own conviction.
To say that a man is wise, is to say, that he is wise _in some one's estimation_: your own or that of some one else.
Such estimation is always implied, though often omitted in terms.
Plato remarks very truly, that every one believes some others to be on certain matters wiser than himself.
In other words, what is called authority--that predisposition to assent, with which we hear the statements and opinions delivered by some other persons--is one of the most operative causes in determining human belief.
The circumstances of life are such as to generate this predisposition in every one's mind to a greater or less degree, and towards some persons more than towards others.
[Footnote 64: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 161 D. [Greek: o( d' a)/ra e)tu/gchanen ô)\n ei)s phro/nêsin ou)de\n belti/ôn batra/chou guri/nou, mê\ o(/ti a)/llou tou a)nthrô/pôn.]
I substitute the dog or horse as illustrations.]
[Side-note: Belief on authority is true to the believer himself--The efficacy of authority resides in the believer's own mind.]
Belief on authority is true to the believer himself, like all his other beliefs, according to the Protagorean doctrine: and in acting upon it,--in following the guidance of A, and not following the guidance of B,--he is still a measure to himself.
It is not to be supposed that Protagoras ever admitted all men to be equally wise, though Plato puts such an admission into his mouth as an inference undeniable and obvious.
His doctrine affirms something altogether different:--that whether you believe yourself to be wise or unwise, in either case the belief is equally your own--equally the result of your own mental condition and predisposition,--equally true to yourself,--and equally an item among the determining conditions of your actions.
That the beliefs and convictions of one person might be modified by another, was a principle held by Protagoras not less than by Sokrates: the former employed as his modifying instrument, eloquent lecturing--the latter, dialectical cross-examination.
Both of them recognise the belief of the person to whom they address themselves as true to him, yet at the same time as something which may be modified and corrected, by appealing to what they thought the better parts of it against the worse.
[Side-note: Protagorean formula--is false, to those who dissent from it.]
Again--Sokrates imputes it as a contradiction to Protagoras--"Your doctrine is pronounced to be false by many persons: but you admit that the belief of all persons is true: therefore your doctrine is false".
[65] Here also Plato omits the qualification annexed by Protagoras to his general principle--Every man's belief is true--that is, true _to him_.
That a belief should be true, to one man, and false to another--is not only no contradiction to the formula of Protagoras, but is the very state of things which his formula contemplates.
He of course could only proclaim it as true to himself.
It is the express purpose of his doctrine to disallow the absolutely true and the absolutely false.
His own formula, like every other opinion, is false to those who dissent from it: but it is not false absolutely, any more than any other doctrine.
Plato therefore does not make out his charge of contradiction.
[Footnote 65: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 171 A. Sextus Empiric.
(adv.
Mathem.
vii.
61) gives a pertinent answer to this objection.]
[Side-note: Plato's argument--That the wise man alone is a measure--Reply to it.]
Some men (says Sokrates) have learnt,--have bestowed study on special matters,--have made themselves wise upon those matters.
Others have not done the like, but remain ignorant.
It is the wise man only who is a measure: the ignorant man neither is so, nor believes himself to be so, but seeks guidance from the wise.
[66] [Footnote 66: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
171 C, 179 B.]
Upon this we may remark--First, that even when the untaught men are all put aside, and the erudites or Experts remain alone--still these very erudites or Experts, the men of special study, are perpetually differing among themselves; so that we cannot recognise one as a measure, without repudiating the authority of the rest.
[67] If by a measure, Plato means an infallible measure, he will not find it in this way: he is as far from the absolute as before.
Next, it is perfectly correct that if any man be known to have studied or acquired experience on special matters, his opinion obtains an authority with others (more or fewer), such as the opinion of an ignorant man will not possess.
This is a real difference between the graduated man and the non-graduated.
But it is a difference not contradicting the theory of Protagoras; who did not affirm that every man's opinion was equally trustworthy in the estimation of others, but that every man's opinion was alike a measure to the man himself.
The authority of the guide resides in the belief and opinion of those who follow him, or who feel prepared to follow him if necessity arises.
A man gone astray on his journey, asks the way to his destination from residents whom he believes to know it, just as he might look at a compass, or at the stars, if no other persons were near.
In following their direction, he is acting on his own belief, that he himself is ignorant on the point in question and that they know.
He is a measure to himself, both of the extent of his own ignorance, and of the extent of his own knowledge.
And in this respect all are alike--every man, woman, child, and animal;[68] though they are by no means alike in the estimation of others, as trustworthy authorities.
[Footnote 67: "Nam, quod dicunt omnino, se credere ei quem judicent fuisse sapientem--probarem, si id ipsum rudes et indocti judicare potuissent (statuere enim, qui sit sapiens, vel maximé videtur esse sapientis).
_Sed, ut potuerint, potuerunt, omnibus rebus auditis, cognitis etiam reliquorum sententiis: judicaverunt autem re semel auditâ, atque ad unius se auctoritatem contulerunt._" (Cicero, Acad.
Priora, ii.
3, 9.)]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 171 E. I transcribe the following from the treatise of Fichte (Beruf des Menschen, Destination de l'Homme; Traduction de Barchou de Penhoën, ch.
i.
Le Doute, pp.
54-55):-"De la conscience de chaque individu, la nature se contemplant sous un point de vue différent, il en résulte que je m'appelle _moi_, et que tu t'appelles _toi_.
Pour toi, je suis hors de toi; et pour moi, tu es hors de moi.
Dans ce qui est hors de moi, je me saisis d'abord de ce qui m'avoisine le plus, de ce qui est le plus à ma portée: toi, tu fais de même.
Chacun de notre côté, nous allons ensuite au delà.
Puis, ayant commencé à cheminer ainsi dans le monde de deux points de départ différens, nous suivons, pendant le reste de notre vie, des routes qui se coupent çà et là, mais qui jamais ne suivent exactement la même direction, jamais ne courent parallèlement l'une à l'autre.
Tous les individus possibles peuvent être: par conséquent aussi, tous les points de vue de conscience possibles.
_La somme de ces consciences individuelles fait la conscience universelle: il n'y a pas d'autre._ Ce n'est en effet que dans l'individu que se trouve à la fois et la limitation et la réalité.
Dans l'individu la conscience est entièrement déterminée par la nature intime de l'individu.
Il n'est donné à personne de savoir autre chose que ce qu'il sait.
Il ne pourrait pas davantage savoir les mêmes choses d'une autre façon qu'il ne les sait."
The same doctrine is enforced with great originality and acuteness in a recent work of M. Eugène Véron, Du Progrès Intellectuel dans l'Humanité, Supériorité des Arts Modernes sur les Arts Anciens (Paris, 1862, Guillaumin).
M. Véron applies his general doctrine mainly to the theory of Art and Æsthetics: moreover he affirms more than I admit respecting human progress as a certain and constant matter of fact.
But he states clearly, as an universal truth, the relative point of view--the necessary measurement for itself, of each individual mind--and the consequent obligation, on each, to allow to other minds the like liberty.
We read, pp.
14-16-17:-"Cela revient à dire que dans quelque cas que nous supposions, nous ne pouvons sentir que dans la mesure de notre sensibilité, comprendre et juger que dans la mesure de notre intelligence; et que nos facultés étant en perpetuel developpement, les variations de notre personnalité entrainent nécessairement celles de nos jugemens, même quand nous n'en avons pas conscience.
.
.
Chaque homme a son esprit particulier.
Ce que l'un comprend sans peine, un autre ne le peut saisir; ce qui répugne à l'un, plait à l'autre: ce qui ce me parait odieux, mon voisin l'approuve.
Quelque bonne envie que nous semblions avoir de nous perdre dans la foule, de dépouiller notre individualité pour emprunter des jugemens tout faits et des opinions taillées à la mesure et à l'usage du public--il est facile de voir que, tout en ayant l'air de répéter la leçon apprise, nous jugeons à notre manière, quand nous jugeons: que notre jugement, tout en paraissant être celui de tout le monde, n'en reste pas moins personnel, et n'est pas une simple imitation: que cette ressemblance même est souvent plus apparente que réelle: que l'identité extérieure des formules et des expressions ne prouve pas absolument celle de la pensée.
Rien n'est élastique comme les mots, et comme les principes généraux dans lesquels on pense enfermer les intelligences.
C'est souvent quand le langage est le plus semblable qu'on est le plus loin de s'entendre.
"Du reste, quand même cette ressemblance serait aussi réelle qu'elle est fausse, en quoi prouverait-il l'identité nécessaire des intelligences?
Qu'y aurait-il d'étonnant qu'au milieu de ce communisme intellectual qui régit l'éducation de chaque classe, et détermine nos habitudes intellectuelles et morales, les distinctions natives disparussent ou s'atténuassent?
Ne faut-il pas plutôt admirer l'opiniâtre vitalité des différences originelles qui résistent à tant de causes de nivellement?
L'identité primitive des intelligences n'est qu'une fiction logique sans réalité--une simple abstraction de langage, _qui ne repose que sur l'identité du mot avec lui-même_.
Tout se reduit à la possibilité abstraite des mêmes développemens, dans les mêmes conditions d'hérédité et d'éducation--mais aussi de développemens différens dans des circonstances différentes: c'est à dire, que l'intelligence de chacun n'est identique à celle de tous, qu'au moment où elle n'est pas encore proprement une intelligence."]
[Side-note: Plato's argument as to the distinction between present sensation and anticipation of the future.]
A similar remark may be made as to Plato's distinction between the different matters to which belief may apply: present sensation or sentiment in one case--anticipation of future sensations or sentiments, in another.
Upon matters of present sensation and sentiment (he argues), such as hot or cold, sweet or bitter, just or unjust, honourable or base, &c., one man is as good a judge as another: but upon matters involving future contingency, such as what is healthy or unhealthy,--profitable and good, or hurtful and bad,--most men judge badly: only a few persons, possessed of special skill and knowledge, judge well, each in his respective province.
[Side-note: The formula of Relativity does not imply that every man believes himself to be infallible.]
I for my part admit this distinction to be real and important.
Most other persons admit the same.
[69] In acting upon it, I follow out my belief,--and so do they.
This is a general fact, respecting the circumstances which determine individual belief.
Like all other causes of belief, it operates relatively to the individual mind, and thus falls under that general canon of relativity, which it is the express purpose of the Protagorean formula to affirm.
Sokrates impugns the formula of relativity, as if it proclaimed every one to believe himself more competent to predict the future than any other person.
But no such assumption is implied in it.
To say that a man is a measure to himself, is not to say that he is, or, that he believes himself to be, omniscient or infallible.
A sick man may mistake the road towards future health, in many different directions.
One patient may over-estimate his own knowledge,--that is one way, but only one among several: another may be diffident, and may undervalue his own knowledge: a third may over-estimate the knowledge of his professional adviser, and thus follow an ignorant physician, believing him to be instructed and competent: a fourth, instead of consulting a physician, may consult a prophet, whom Plato[70] here reckons among the authoritative infallible measures in respect to future events: a fifth may (like the rhetor Ælius Aristeides[71]) disregard the advice of physicians, and follow prescriptions enjoined to him in his own dreams, believing them to be sent by Æsculapius the Preserving God.
Each of these persons judges differently about the road to future health: but each is alike a measure to himself: the belief of each is relative to his own mental condition and predispositions.
You, or I, may believe that one or other of them is mistaken: but here another measure is introduced--_your_ mind or _mine_.
[Footnote 69: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 179 A.
[Greek: pa=s a)\n o(mologoi=].]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 179 A, where Mr. Campbell observes in his note--"The [Greek: ma/ntis] is introduced as being [Greek: e)pistê/môn] of the future generally; just as the physician is of future health and disease, the musician of future harmony," &c.] [Footnote 71: See the five discourses of the rhetor Aristeides--[Greek: I(erô=n Lo/goi], Oratt.
xxiii.-xxvii.--containing curious details about his habits and condition, and illustrating his belief; especially Or.
xxiii.
p. 462 seqq.
The perfect faith which he reposed in his dreams, and the confidence with which he speaks of the benefits derived from acting upon them, are remarkable.]
[Side-note: Plato's argument is untenable--That if the Protagorean formula be admitted, dialectic discussion would be annulled--The reverse is true--Dialectic recognises the autonomy of the Individual mind.]
But the most unfounded among all Plato's objections to the Protagorean formula, is that in which Sokrates is made to allege, that if it be accepted, the work of dialectical discussion is at an end: that the Sokratic Elenchus, the reciprocal scrutiny of opinions between two dialogists, becomes nugatory--since every man's opinions are _right_.
[72] Instead of _right_, we must add the requisite qualification, here as elsewhere, by reading, _right to the man himself_.
Now, dealing with Plato's affirmation thus corrected, we must pronounce not only that it is not true, but that the direct reverse of it is true.
Dialectical discussion and the Sokratic procedure, far from implying the negation of the Protagorean formula, involve the unqualified recognition of it.
Without such recognition the procedure cannot even begin, much less advance onward to any result.
Dialectic operates altogether by question and answer: the questioner takes all his premisses from the answers of the respondent, and cannot proceed in any direction except that in which the respondent leads him.
Appeal is always directly made to the affirmative or negative of the individual mind, which is thus installed as measure of truth or falsehood _for itself_.
The peculiar and characteristic excellence of the Sokratic Elenchus consists in thus stimulating the interior mental activity of the individual hearer, in eliciting from him all the positive elements of the debate, and in making him feel a shock when one of his answers contradicts the others.
Sokrates not only does not profess to make himself a measure for the respondent, but expressly disclaims doing so: he protests against being considered as a teacher, and avows his own entire ignorance.
He undertakes only the obstetric process of evolving from the respondent mind what already exists in it without the means of escape--and of applying interrogatory tests to the answer when produced: if there be nothing in the respondent's mind, his art is inapplicable.
He repudiates all appeal to authority, except that of the respondent himself.
[73] Accordingly there is neither sense nor fitness in the Sokratic cross-examination, unless you assume that each person, to whom it is addressed, is a measure of truth and falsehood to himself.
Implicitly indeed, this is assumed in rhetoric as well as in dialectic: wherever the speaker aims at persuading, he adapts his mode of speech to the predispositions of the hearer's own mind; and he thus recognises that mind as a measure for itself.
But the Sokratic Dialectic embodies the same recognition, and the same essential relativity to the hearer's mind, more forcibly than any rhetoric.
And the Platonic Sokrates (in the Phædrus) makes it one of his objections against orators who addressed multitudes, that they did not discriminate either the specialties of different minds, or the specialties of discourse applicable to each.
[74] [Footnote 72: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 161 E.] [Footnote 73: Read the animated passage in the conversation with Pôlus: Plato, Gorg.
472, and Theætêt.
161 A, pp.
375, 376.
In this very argument of Sokrates (in the Theætêtus) against the Protagorean theory, we find him unconsciously adopting (as I have already remarked) the very language of that theory, as a description of his own procedure, p. 171 D. Compare with this a remarkable passage in the colloquy of Sokrates with Thrasymachus, in Republic, i.
337 C. Moreover, the long and striking contrast between the philosopher and the man of the world, which Plato embodies in this dialogue (the Theætêtus, from p. 172 to p. 177), is so far from assisting his argument against Protagoras, that it rather illustrates the Protagorean point of view.
The beliefs and judgments of the man of the world are presented as flowing from _his_ mental condition and predispositions: those of the philosopher, from _his_.
The two are radically dissentient: each appears to the other mistaken and misguided.
Here is nothing to refute Protagoras.
Each of the two is a measure for himself.
Yes, it will be said; but Plato's measure is right, and that of the man of the world is wrong.
Perhaps _I_ may think so.
As a measure for myself, I speak and act accordingly.
But the opponents have not agreed to accept _me_ any more than Plato as their judge.
The case remains unsettled as before.]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D-E; compare 258 A.]
[Side-note: Contrast with the Treatise De Legibus--Plato assumes infallible authority--sets aside Dialectic.]
Though Sokrates, and Plato so far forth as follower of Sokrates, employed a colloquial method based on the fundamental assumption of the Protagorean formula--autonomy of each individual mind--whether they accepted the formula in terms, or not; yet we shall find Plato at the end of his career, in his treatise De Legibus, constructing an imaginary city upon the attempted deliberate exclusion of this formula.
We shall find him there monopolising all teaching and culture of his citizens from infancy upwards, barring out all freedom of speech or writing by a strict censorship, and severely punishing dissent from the prescribed orthodoxy.
But then we shall also find that Plato in that last stage of his life--when he constitutes himself as lawgiver, the measure of truth or falsehood for all his citizens--has at the same time discontinued his early commerce with the Sokratic Dialectics.
[Side-note: Plato in denying the Protagorean formula, constitutes himself the measure for all.
Counter-proposition to the formula.]
On the whole then, looking at what Plato says about the Protagorean doctrine of Relativity--_Homo Mensura_--first, his statement what the doctrine really is, next his strictures upon it--we may see that he ascribes to it consequences which it will not fairly carry.
He impugns it as if it excluded philosophy and argumentative scrutiny: whereas, on the contrary, it is the only basis upon which philosophy or "reasoned truth" can stand.
Whoever denies the Protagorean autonomy of the individual judgment, must propound as his counter theory some heteronomy, such as he (the denier) approves.
If I am not allowed to judge of truth and falsehood for myself, who is to judge for me?
Plato, in the Treatise De Legibus, answers very unequivocally:--assuming to himself that infallibility which I have already characterised as the prerogative of King Nomos: "I, the lawgiver, am the judge for all my citizens: you must take my word for what is true or false: you shall hear nothing except what my censors approve--and if, nevertheless, any dissenters arise, there are stringent penalties in store for them".
Here is an explicit enunciation of the Counter-Proposition,[75] necessary to be maintained by those who deny the Protagorean doctrine.
If you pronounce a man unfit to be the measure of truth for himself, you constitute yourself the measure, in his place: either directly as lawgiver--or by nominating censors according to your own judgment.
As soon as he is declared a lunatic, some other person must be appointed to manage his property for him.
You can only exchange one individual judgment for another.
You cannot get out of the region of individual judgments, more or fewer in number: the King, the Pope, the Priest, the Judges or Censors, the author of some book, or the promulgator of such and such doctrine.
The infallible measure which you undertake to provide, must be found in some person or persons--if it can be found at all: in some person selected by yourself--that is, in the last result, _yourself_.
[76] [Footnote 75: Professor Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysic exhibit an excellent example of the advantages of setting forth explicitly the Counter-Proposition--that which an author intends to deny, as well as the Proposition which he intends to affirm and prove.]
[Footnote 76: Aristotle says (Ethic.
Nikomach.
x.
1176, a.
15) [Greek: dokei= d' e)n a(/pasi toi=s toiou/tois _ei)=nai to\ phaino/menon tô=| spoudai/ô|_.]
"That _is_, which _appears to be_ in the judgment of the wise or virtuous man."
The ultimate appeal is thus acknowledged to be, not to an abstraction, but to some one or more individual persons whom Aristotle recognises as wise.
_That_ is truth which this wise man declares to be truth.
You cannot escape from the Relative by any twist of reasoning.
What Platonic critics call "Der Gegensatz des Seins und des Scheins" (see Steinhart, Einleit.
zum Theætêt.
p. 37) is unattainable.
All that is attainable is the antithesis between that which appears to one person, and that which appears to one or more others, choose them as you will: between that which appears at a first glance, or at a distance, or on careless inspection--and that which appears after close and multiplied observations and comparisons, after full discussion, &c. _Das Sein_ is that which appears to the person or persons whom we judge to be wise, under these latter favourable circumstances.
Epiktetus, i.
28, 1.
[Greek: Ti/ e)/stin ai)/tion tou= sugkatati/thesthai/ tini?
To\ phai/nesthai o(/ti u(pa/rchei.
Tô=| ou)=n phainome/nô| o(/ti ou)ch u(pa/rchei, sugkatati/thesthai ou)ch oi(=o/n te.]]
[Side-note: Import of the Protagorean formula is best seen when we state explicitly the counter-proposition.]
It is only when the Counter-Proposition to the Protagorean formula is explicitly brought out, that the full meaning of that formula can be discerned.
If you deny it, the basis of all free discussion and scrutiny is withdrawn: philosophy, or what is properly called reasoned truth, disappears.
In itself it says little.
[Side-note: Unpopularity of the Protagorean formula--Most believers insist upon making themselves a measure for others, as well as for themselves.
Appeal to Abstractions.]
Yet little as its positive import may seem to be, it clashes with various illusions, omissions, and exigencies, incident to the ordinary dogmatising process.
It substitutes the concrete in place of the abstract--the complete in place of the elliptical.
Instead of Truth and Falsehood, which present to us the Abstract and impersonal as if it stood alone--the Objective divested of its Subject--we are translated into the real world of beliefs and disbeliefs, individual believers and disbelievers: matters affirmed or denied by some Subject actual or supposable--by you, by me, by him or them, perhaps by all persons within our knowledge.
All men agree in the subjective fact, or in the mental states called belief and disbelief; but all men do not agree in the matters believed and disbelieved, or in what they speak of as Truth and Falsehood.
No infallible objective mark, no common measure, no canon of evidence, recognised by all, has yet been found.
What is Truth to one man, is not truth, and is often Falsehood, to another: that which governs the mind as infallible authority in one part of the globe, is treated with indifference or contempt elsewhere.
[77] Each man's belief, though in part determined by the same causes as the belief of others, is in part also determined by causes peculiar to himself.
When a man speaks of Truth, he means what he himself (along with others, or singly, as the case may be) believes to be Truth; unless he expressly superadds the indication of some other persons believing in it.
This is the reality of the case, which the Protagorean formula brings into full view; but which most men dislike to recognise, and disguise from themselves as well as from others in the common elliptical forms of speech.
In most instances a believer entirely forgets that his own mind is the product of a given time and place, and of a conjunction of circumstances always peculiar, amidst the aggregate of mankind--for the most part narrow.
He cannot be content (like Protagoras) to be a measure for himself and for those whom his arguments may satisfy.
This would be to proclaim what some German critics denounce as Subjectivism.
[78] He insists upon constituting himself--or some authority worshipped by himself--or some abstraction interpreted by himself--a measure for all others besides, whether assentient or dissentient.
That which _he_ believes, all ought to believe.
[Footnote 77: Respecting the grounds and conditions of belief among the Hindoos, Sir William Sleeman (Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, ch.
xxvi.
vol.
i. pp.
226-228) observes as follows:-"Every word of this poem (the Ramaen, Ramayana) the people assured me was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least by his inspiration, which was the same thing, and it must consequently be true.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred, among the Hindoos, implicitly believe, not only every word of this poem, but every word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanscrit.
If you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious absurdity quoted from these books, he replies with the greatest _naïveté_ in the world, 'Is it not written in the book; and how should it be there written if not true?'
.
.
.
The greater the improbability, the more monstrous and preposterous the fiction, the greater is the charm that it has over their minds; and the greater their learning in the Sanscrit, the more are they under the influence of this charm.
Believing all to be written by the Deity, or by his inspirations, and the men and things of former days to have been very different from the men and things of the present day, and the heroes of these fables to have been demigods, or people endowed with powers far superior to those of the ordinary men of their own day, the analogies of nature are never for a moment considered; nor do questions of probability, or possibility, according to those analogies, ever obtrude to dispel the charm with which they are so pleasingly bound.
They go on through life reading and talking of these monstrous fictions, which shock the taste and understanding of other nations, without once questioning the truth of one single incident, or hearing it questioned.
There was a time, and that not very distant, when it was the same in England and in every other European nation; and there are, I am afraid, some parts of Europe where it is so still.
But the Hindoo faith, so far as religious questions are concerned, is not more capacious or absurd than that of the Greeks and Romans in the days of Sokrates and Cicero; the only difference is, that among the Hindoos a greater number of the questions which interest mankind are brought under the head of religion."]
[Footnote 78: This is the objection taken by Schwegler, Prantl, and other German thinkers, against the Protagorean doctrine (Prantl, Gesch.
der Logik, vol.
i. p. 12 seq.
; Schwegler, Gesch.
der Philos.
im Umriss.
s. 11, b. p. 26, ed.
5th).
I had transcribed from each of these works a passage of some length, but I cannot find room for them in this note.
These authors both say, that the Protagorean canon, properly understood, is right, but that Protagoras laid it down wrongly.
They admit the principle of Subjectivity, as an essential aspect of the case, in regard to truth; but they say that Protagoras was wrong in appealing to individual, empirical, accidental, subjectivity of each man at every varying moment, whereas he ought to have appealed to an ideal or universal subjectivity.
"What ought to be held true, right, good, &c.," (says Schwegler) "must be decided doubtless by _me_, but by _me_ so far forth as a rational, and thinking being.
Now _my_ thinking, _my_ reason, is not something specially belonging to me, but something common to all rational beings, something universal; so far therefore as I proceed as a rational and thinking person, my subjectivity is an universal subjectivity.
Every thinking person has the consciousness that what he regards as right, duty, good, evil, &c., presents itself not merely to him as such, but also to every rational person, and that, consequently, his judgment possesses the character of universality, universal validity: in one word, Objectivity."
Here it is explicitly asserted, that wherever a number of individual men employ their reason, the specialities of each disappear, and they arrive at the same conclusions--Reason being a guide impersonal as well as infallible.
And this same view is expressed by Prantl in other language, when he reforms the Protagorean doctrine by saying, "Das Denken ist der Mass der Dinge".
To me this assertion appears so distinctly at variance with notorious facts, that I am surprised when I find it advanced by learned historians of philosophy, who recount the very facts which contradict it.
Can it really be necessary to repeat that the reason of one man differs most materially from that of another--and the reason of the same person from itself, at different times--in respect of the arguments accepted, the authorities obeyed, the conclusions embraced?
The impersonal Reason is a mere fiction; the universal Reason is an abstraction, belonging alike to all particular reasoners, consentient or dissentient, sound or unsound, &c. Schwegler admits the Protagorean canon only under a reserve which nullifies its meaning.
To say that the Universal Reason is the measure of truth is to assign no measure at all.
The Universal Reason can only make itself known through an interpreter.
The interpreters are dissentient; and which of them is to hold the privilege of infallibility?
Neither Schwegler nor Prantl are forward to specify who the interpreter is, who is entitled to put dissentients to silence; both of them keep in the safe obscurity of an abstraction--"Das Denken"--the Universal Reason.
Protagoras recognises in each dissentient an equal right to exercise his own reason, and to judge for himself.
In order to show how thoroughly incorrect the language of Schwegler and Prantl is, when they talk about the Universal Reason as unanimous and unerring, I transcribe from another eminent historian of philosophy a description of what philosophy has been from ancient times down to the present.
Degérando, Histoire Comparée des Systèmes de Philosophie, vol.
i. p. 48:--"Une multitude d'hypothèses, élevées en quelque sorte au hasard, et rapidement détruites; une diversité d'opinions, d'autant plus sensible que la philosophie a été plus developpée; des sectes, des partis même, des disputes interminables, des spéculations stériles, des erreurs maintenues et transmises par une imitation aveugle; quelques découvertes obtenues avec lenteur, et mélangées d'idees fausses; des réformes annoncées à chaque siècle et jamais accomplies; une succession de doctrines qui se renversent les unes les autres sans pouvoir obtenir plus de solidité: la raison humaine ainsi promenée dans un triste cercle de vicissitudes, et ne s'élevant à quelques époques fortunées que pour retomber bientôt dans de nouveaux écarts, &c. .
.
.
les mêmes questions, enfin, qui partagèrent il y a plus de vingt siècles les premiers génies de la Grèce, agitées encore aujourd'hui** après tant de volumineux écrits consacrés à les discuter".]
This state of mind in reference to belief is usual with most men, not less at the present day than in the time of Plato and Protagoras.
It constitutes the natural intolerance prevalent among mankind; which each man (speaking generally), in the case of his own beliefs, commends and exults in, as a virtue.
It flows as a natural corollary from the sentiment of belief, though it may be corrected by reflection and social sympathy.
Hence the doctrine of Protagoras--equal right of private judgment to each man for himself--becomes inevitably unwelcome.
[Side-note: Aristotle failed in his attempts to refute the Protagorean formula--Every reader of Aristotle will claim the right of examining for himself Aristotle's canons of truth.]
We are told that Demokritus, as well as Plato and Aristotle, wrote against Protagoras.
The treatise of Demokritus is lost: but we possess what the two latter said against the Protagorean formula.
In my judgment both failed in refuting it.
Each of them professed to lay down objective, infallible, criteria of truth and falsehood: Democritus on his side, and the other dogmatical philosophers, professed to do the same, each in his own way--and each in a different way.
[79] Now the Protagorean formula neither allows nor disallows any one of these proposed objective criteria: but it enunciates the appeal to which all of them must be submitted--the subjective condition of satisfying the judgment of each hearer.
Its protest is entered only when that condition is overleaped, and when the dogmatist enacts his canon of belief as imperative, peremptory, binding upon all (allgemeingültig) both assentient and dissentient.
I am grateful to Aristotle for his efforts to lay down objective canons in the research of truth; but I claim the right of examining those canons for myself, and of judging whether that, which satisfied Aristotle, satisfies me also.
The same right which I claim for myself, I am bound to allow to all others.
The general expression of this compromise is, the Protagorean formula.
No one demands more emphatically to be a measure for himself, even when all authority is opposed to him, than Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias.
[80] [Footnote 79: Plutarch, adv.
Kolot.
p. 1108.
According to Demokritus all sensible perceptions were conventional, or varied according to circumstances, or according to the diversity of the percipient Subject; but there was an objective reality--minute, solid, invisible atoms, differing in figure, position, and movement, and vacuum along with them.
Such reality was intelligible only by Reason.
[Greek: No/mô| gluku/, no/mô| pikro/n, no/mô| thermo/n, no/mô| psuchro/n, no/mô| chroiê/; e)te/ê| de\ a)/toma kai\ keno/n.
A(/per nomi/zetai me\n ei)=nai kai\ doxa/zetai ta\ ai)sthêta/, ou)k e)/sti de\ kata\ a)lêthei/an tau=ta; a)lla\ ta\ a)/toma mo/non kai\ ke/non.]
Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
135-139; Diog.
Laert.
ix.
72.
See Mullach, Democriti Fragm.
pp.
204-208.
The discourse of Protagoras [Greek: Peri\ tou= o)/ntos], was read by Porphyry, who apparently cited from it a passage verbatim, which citation Eusebius unfortunately has not preserved (Eusebius, Præpar.
Evang.
x.
3, 17).
One of the speakers in Porphyry's dialogue (describing a repast at the house of Longinus at Athens to celebrate Plato's birthday) accused Plato of having copied largely from the arguments of Protagoras--[Greek: pro\s tou\s e(\n to\ o)\n ei)sa/gontas].
Allusion is probably made to the Platonic dialogues Parmenides and Sophistes.]
[Footnote 80: Plato, Gorgias, p.
472.]
[Side-note: Plato's examination of the other doctrine--That knowledge is Sensible Perception.
He adverts to sensible facts which are different with different Percipients.]
After thus criticising the formula--Homo Mensura--Plato proceeds to canvass the other doctrine, which he ascribes to Protagoras along with others, and which he puts into the mouth of Theætêtus--"That knowledge is sensible perception".
He connects that doctrine with the above-mentioned formula, by illustrations which exhibit great divergence between one percipient Subject and another.
He gives us, as examples of sensible perception, the case of the wind, cold to one man, not cold to another: that of the wine, sweet to a man in health, bitter if he be sickly.
[81] Perhaps Protagoras may have dwelt upon cases like these, as best calculated to illustrate the relativity of all affirmations: for though the judgments are in reality both equally relative, whether two judges pronounce alike, or whether they pronounce differently, under the same conditions--yet where they judge differently, each stands forth in his own individuality, and the relativity of the judgment is less likely to be disputed.
[Footnote 81: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
152 A, 159 C.] [Side-note: Such is not the case with all the facts of sense.
The conditions of unanimity are best found among select facts of sense--weighing, measuring, &c.] But though some facts of sense are thus equivocal, generating dissension rather than unanimity among different individuals--such is by no means true of the facts of sense taken generally.
[82] On the contrary, it is only these facts--the world of reality, experience, and particulars--which afford a groundwork and assurance of unanimity in human belief, under all varieties of teaching or locality.
Counting, measuring, weighing, are facts of sense simple and fundamental, and comparisons of those facts: capable of being so exhibited that no two persons shall either see them differently or mistrust them.
Of two persons exposed to the same wind, one may feel cold, and the other not: but both of them will see the barometer or thermometer alike.
[83] [Greek: Pa/nta me/trô| kai\ a)rithmô=| kai\ stathmô=|]--would be the perfection of science, if it could be obtained.
Plato himself recognises, in more than one place, the irresistible efficacy of weight and measure in producing unanimity; and in forestalling those disputes which are sure to arise where weight and measure cannot be applied.
[84] It is therefore among select facts of sense, carefully observed and properly compared, that the groundwork of unanimity is to be sought, so far as any rational and universal groundwork for it is attainable.
In other words, it is here that we must seek for the basis of knowledge or cognition.
[Footnote 82: Aristotle (Metaphysic.
[Greek: G].
p. 1010, a.
25 seq.)
in arguing against Herakleitus and his followers, who dwelt upon [Greek: ta\ ai)sthêta\] as ever fluctuating and undefinable, urges against them that this is not true of _all_ [Greek: ai)sthêta/], but only of those in the sublunary region of the Kosmos.
But this region is (he says) only an imperceptibly small part of the entire Kosmos; the objects in the vast superlunary or celestial region of the Kosmos were far more numerous, and were also eternal and unchangeable, in constant and uniform circular rotation.
Accordingly, if you predicate one or other about [Greek: ai)sthêta\] generally, you ought to predicate constancy and unchangeability, not flux and variation, since the former predicates are true of much the larger proportion of [Greek: ai)sthêta/].
See the Scholia on the above passage of Aristotle's Metaphysica, and also upon Book A.
991, a.
9.]
[Footnote 83: Mr. Campbell, in his Preface to the Theætêtus (p.
lxxxiii.
), while comparing the points in the dialogue with modern metaphysical views, observes.
"Modern Experimental Science is equally distrustful of individual impressions of sense, but has found means of measuring the motions by which they are caused, through _the effect of the same motions upon other things besides our senses_.
When the same wind is blowing one of us feels warm and another cold (Theætêt.
p. 152), but the mercury of the thermometer tells the same tale to all.
And though the individual consciousness remains the sole judge of the exact impression momentarily received by each person, yet we are certain that the sensation of heat and cold, like the expansion and contraction of the mercury, is in every case dependent on a universal law."
It might seem from Mr. Campbell's language (I do not imagine that he means it so) as if Modern Experimental Science had arrived at something more trustworthy than "individual impressions of sense".
But the expansion or contraction of the mercury are just as much facts of sense as the feeling of heat or cold; only they are facts of sense determinate and uniform to all, whereas the feeling of heat or cold is indeterminate and liable to differ with different persons.
The certainty about "universal law governing the sensations of heat and cold," was not at all felt in the days of Plato.]
[Footnote 84: Thus in the Philêbus (pp.
55-56) Plato declares that numbering, measuring, and weighing, are the characteristic marks of all the various processes which deserve the name of Arts; and that among the different Arts those of the carpenter, builder, &c., are superior to those of the physician, pilot, husbandman, military commander, musical composer, &c., because the two first-named employ more measurement and a greater number of measuring instruments, the rule, line, plummet, compass, &c. "When we talk about iron or silver" (says Sokrates in the Platonic Phædrus, p. 263 A-B) "we are all of one mind, but when we talk about the Just and the Good we are all at variance with each other, and each man is at variance with himself".
Compare an analogous passage, Alkibiad.
I. p. 109.
Here Plato himself recognises the verifications of sense as the main guarantee for accuracy: and the compared facts of sense, when select and simplified, as ensuring the nearest approach to unanimity among believers.]
[Side-note: Arguments of Sokrates in examining this question.
Divergence between one man and another arises, not merely from different sensual impressibility, but from mental and associative difference.]
A loose adumbration of this doctrine is here given by Plato as the doctrine of Protagoras, in the words--Knowledge is sensible perception.
To sift this doctrine is announced as his main purpose;[85] and we shall see how he performs the task.
_Sokr._--Shall we admit, that when we perceive things by sight or hearing, we at the same time _know_ them all?
When foreigners talk to us in a strange language, are we to say that we do not hear what they say, or that we both hear and know it?
When unlettered men look at an inscription, shall we contend that they do not see the writing, or that they both see and know it?
_Theætêt._--We shall say, under these supposed circumstances, that what we see and hear, we also know.
We hear and we know the pitch and intonation of the foreigner's voice.
The unlettered man sees, and also knows, the colour, size, forms, of the letters.
But that which the schoolmaster and the interpreter could tell us respecting their meaning, _that_ we neither see, nor hear, nor know.
_Sokr._--Excellent, Theætêtus.
I have nothing to say against your answer.
[86] [Footnote 85: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 163 A.
[Greek: ei)s ga\r tou=to/ pou pa=s o( lo/gos ê(mi=n e)/teine, kai\ tou/tou cha/rin ta\ polla\ kai\ a)/topa tau=ta e)kinê/samen.]]
[Footnote 86: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 163 C.] This is an important question and answer, which Plato unfortunately does not follow up.
It brings to view, though without fully unfolding, the distinction between what is really perceived by sense, and what is inferred from such perception: either through resemblance or through conjunctions of past experience treasured up in memory--or both together.
Without having regard to such distinction, no one can discuss satisfactorily the question under debate.
[87] Plato here abandons, moreover, the subjective variety of impression which he had before noticed as the characteristic of sense:--(the wind which blows cold, and the wine which tastes sweet, to one man, but not to another).
Here it is assumed that all men hear the sounds, and see the written letters alike: the divergence between one man and another arises from the different prior condition of percipient minds, differing from each other in associative and reminiscent power.
[Footnote 87: I borrow here a striking passage from Dugald Stewart, which illustrates both the passage in Plato's text, and the general question as to the relativity of Cognition.
Here, the fact of relative Cognition is brought out most conspicuously on its intellectual side, not on its perceptive side.
The fact of sense is the same to all, and therefore, though really relative, has more the look of an absolute; but the mental associations with that fact are different with different persons, and therefore are more obviously and palpably relative.--Dugald Stewart, First Preliminary Dissertation to Encyclopæd.
Britannica, pp.
66, 8th ed.
"To this reference of the sensation of colour to the external object, I can think of nothing so analogous as the feelings we experience in surveying a library of books.
We speak of the volumes piled up on its shelves as _treasures_ or _magazines_ of the knowledge of past ages; and contemplate them with gratitude and reverence as inexhaustible _sources_ of instruction and delight to the mind.
Even in looking at a page of print or manuscript, we are apt to say that the ideas we acquire are received by the sense of sight; and we are scarcely conscious of a metaphor when we apply this language.
On such occasions we seldom recollect that nothing is perceived by the eye but a multitude of _black strokes drawn upon white paper_, and that it is our own acquired habits which communicate to these _strokes_ the whole of that significancy whereby they are distinguished from the unmeaning scrawling of an infant.
The knowledge which we conceive to be preserved in books, like the fragrance of a rose, or the gilding of the clouds, depends, for its existence, on the _relation_ between the object and the percipient mind: and the only difference between the two cases is, that, in the one, this relation is the local and temporary effect of conventional habits: in the other, it is the universal and the unchangeable work of nature.
.
.
What has now been remarked with respect to _written characters_, may be extended very nearly to _oral language_.
When we listen to the discourse of a public speaker, eloquence and persuasion seem to issue from his lips; and we are little aware that we ourselves infuse the soul into every word that he utters.
The case is exactly the same when we enjoy the conversation of a friend.
We ascribe the charm entirely to his voice and accents; but without our co-operation, its potency would vanish.
How very small the comparative proportion is, which in such cases the words spoken contribute to the intellectual and moral effect, I have elsewhere endeavoured to show."]
[Side-note: Argument--That sensible Perception does not include memory--Probability that those who held the doctrine meant to include memory.]
Sokrates turns to another argument.
If knowledge be the same thing as sensible perception, then it follows, that so soon as a man ceases to see and hear, he also ceases to know.
The memory of what he has seen or heard, upon that supposition, is not knowledge.
But Theætêtus admits that a man who remembers what he has seen or heard does know it.
Accordingly, the answer that knowledge is sensible perception, cannot be maintained.
[88] [Footnote 88: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
163, 164.]
Here Sokrates makes out a good case against the answer in its present wording.
But we may fairly doubt whether those who affirmed the matter of knowledge to consist in the facts of sense, ever meant to exclude memory.
They meant probably the facts of sense both as perceived and as remembered; though the wording cited by Plato does not strictly include so much.
Besides, we must recollect, that Plato includes in the meaning of the word Knowledge or Cognition an idea of perfect infallibility: distinguishing it generically from the highest form of opinion.
But memory is a fallible process: sometimes quite trustworthy--under other circumstances, not so.
Accordingly, memory, in a general sense, cannot be put on a level with present perception, nor said to generate what Plato calls knowledge.
[Side-note: Argument from the analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same time .]
The next argument of Plato is as follows.
You can see, and not see, the same thing at the same time: for you may close one of your eyes, and look only with the other.
But it is impossible to know a thing, and not to know it at the same time.
Therefore _to know_ is not the same as _to see_.
[89] [Footnote 89: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 165 B.]
This argument is proclaimed by Plato as a terrible puzzle, leaving no escape.
[90] Perhaps he meant to speak ironically.
In reality, this puzzle is nothing but a false inference deduced from a false premiss.
The inference is false, because if we grant the premiss, that it is possible both to _see_ a thing, and _not to see_ it, at the same time--there is no reason why it should not also be possible to _know_ a thing, and _not to know_ it, at the same time.
Moreover, the premiss is also false in the ordinary sense which the words bear: and not merely false, but logically impossible, as a sin against the maxim of contradiction.
Plato procures it from a true premiss, by omitting an essential qualification.
I see an object with my open eye: I do not see it with my closed eye.
From this double proposition, alike intelligible and true, Plato thinks himself authorised to discard the qualification, and to tell me that I see a thing and do not see it--passing _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_.
This is the same liberty which he took with the Protagorean doctrine.
Protagoras having said--"Every thing which any man believes is true _to that man_"--Plato reasons against him as if he had said--"Every thing which any man believes is _true_".
[Footnote 90: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 165 B.
[Greek: to\ deino/taton e)rô/têma--a)phu/ktô| e)rôtê/mati], &c. Mr. Campbell observes upon this passage:--"Perhaps there is here a trace of the spirit which was afterwards developed in the sophisms of Eubulidês".
Stallbaum, while acknowledging the many subtleties of Sokrates in this dialogue, complains that other commentators make the ridiculous mistake ("errore perquam ridiculo") of accepting all the reasoning of Sokrates as seriously meant, whereas much of it (he says) is mere mockery and sarcasm, intended to retort upon the Sophists their own argumentative tricks and quibbles.--"Itaquè sæpe per petulantiam quandam argutiis indulget (Socrates), quibus isti haudquaquam abstinebant: sæpè ex adversariorum mente disputat, sed ita tamen disputat, ut eos suis ipsorum capiat laqueis; sæpè denique in disputando iisdem artificiis utitur, quibus illi uti consueverant, sicuti etiam in Menone, Cratylo, Euthydemo, fieri meminimus".
(Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Theæt.
pp.
12-13, 22-29).
Stallbaum pushes this general principle so far as to contend that the simile of the waxen tablet (p. 191 C), and that of the pigeon-house (p. 200 C), are doctrines of opponents, which Sokrates pretends to adopt with a view to hold them up to ridicule.
I do not concur in this opinion of Stallbaum, which he reproduces in commenting on many other dialogues, and especially on the Kratylus, for the purpose of exonerating Plato from the reproach of bad reasoning and bad etymology, at the cost of opponents "inauditi et indefensi".
I see no ground for believing that Plato meant to bring forward these arguments as paralogisms obviously and ridiculously silly.
He produced them, in my judgment, as suitable items in a dialogue of search: plausible to a certain extent, admitting both of being supported and opposed, and necessary to be presented to those who wish to know a question in all its bearings.]
Again, argues Plato,[91] you cannot say--I _know_ sharply, dimly, near, far, &c.--but you may properly say, I _see_ sharply, dimly, near, far, &c.: another reason to show that knowledge and sensible perception are not the same.
After a digression of some length directed against the disciples of Herakleitus--(partly to expose their fundamental doctrine that every thing was in flux and movement, partly to satirise their irrational procedure in evading argumentative debate, and in giving nothing but a tissue of mystical riddles one after another),[92] Sokrates returns back to the same debate, and produces more serious arguments, as follows:-[Footnote 91: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 165 D. The reasonings here given by Plato from the mouth of Sokrates, are compared by Steinhart to the Trug-schlüsse, which in the Euthydêmus he ascribes to that Sophist and Dionysodorus.
But Steinhart says that Plato is here reasoning in the style of Protagoras: an assertion thoroughly gratuitous, for which there is no evidence at all (Steinhart, Einleitung zum Theætêt.
p.
53).]
[Footnote 92: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
179-183.
The description which we read here (put into the mouth of the geometer Theodôrus) of the persons in Ephesus and other parts of Ionia, who speculated in the vein of Herakleitus--is full of vivid fancy and smartness, but is for that reason the less to be trusted as accurate.
The characteristic features ascribed to these Herakleiteans are quite unlike to the features of Protagoras, so far as we know them; though Protagoras, nevertheless, throughout this dialogue, is spoken of as if he were an Herakleitean.
These men are here depicted as half mad--incapable of continuous attention--hating all systematic speech and debate--answering, when addressed, only in brief, symbolical, enigmatic phrases, of which they had a quiver-full, but which they never condescended to explain ([Greek: ô(/sper e)k phare/tras r(êmati/skia ai)nigmatô/dê a)naspô=ntes a)potoxeu/ousin], see Lassalle, vol.
i. pp.
32-39--springing up by spontaneous inspiration, despising instruction, p. 180 A), and each looking down upon the others as ignorant.
If** we compare the picture thus given by Plato of the Herakleiteans, with the picture which he gives of Protagoras in the dialogue so called, we shall see that the two are as unlike as possible.
Lassalle, in his elaborate work on the philosophy of Herakleitus, attempts to establish the philosophical affinity between Herakleitus and Protagoras: but in my judgment unsuccessfully.
According to Lassalle's own representation of the doctrine of Herakleitus, it is altogether opposed to the most eminent Protagorean doctrine, [Greek: A)/nthrôpos e(autô=| me/tron]--and equally opposed to that which Plato seems to imply as Protagorean--[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê].
The elucidation given by Lassalle of Herakleitus, through the analogy of Hegel, is certainly curious and instructive.
The Absolute Process of Herakleitus is at variance with Protagoras, not less than the Absolute Object or Substratum of the Eleates, or the Absolute Ideas of Plato.
Lassalle admits that Herakleitus is the entire antithesis to Protagoras, yet still contends that he is the prior stage of transition towards Protagoras (vol.
i. p.
64).]
[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that we do not see _with_ our eyes, but that the mind sees _through_ the eyes: that the mind often conceives and judges by itself without the aid of any bodily organ.]
_Sokr._--If you are asked, With what does a man perceive white and black?
you will answer, with his eyes: shrill or grave sounds?
with his ears.
Does it not seem to you more correct to say, that we see _through_ our eyes rather than _with_ our eyes:--that we hear _through_ our ears, not _with_ our ears.
_Theætêt._--I think it is more correct.
_Sokr._--It would be strange if there were in each man many separate reservoirs, each for a distinct class of perceptions.
[93] All perceptions must surely converge towards one common form or centre, call it soul or by any other name, which perceives _through_ them, as organs or instruments, all perceptible objects.-[Footnote 93: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 184 D. [Greek: deino\n ga/r pou, ei) pollai/ tines e)n ê(mi=n, ô(/sper e)n dourei/ois i(/ppois, ai)sthê/sis e)gkathêntai, a)lla\ mê\ ei)s mi/an tina\ i)de/an, ei)/te psuchê\n ei)/te o(/, ti dei= kalei=n, pa/nta tau=ta xuntei/nei, ê(=| dia\ tou/tôn oi(=on o)rga/nôn ai)sthano/metha o(/sa ai)sthêta/.]]
We thus perceive objects of sense, according to Plato's language, _with_ the central form or soul, and _through_ various organs of the body.
The various Percepta or Percipienda of tact, vision, hearing--sweet, hot, hard, light--have each its special bodily organ.
But no one of these can be perceived through the organ affected to any other.
Whatever therefore we conceive or judge respecting any two of them, is not performed through the organ special to either.
If we conceive any thing common both to sound and colour, we cannot conceive it either through the auditory or through the visual organ.
[94] [Footnote 94: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
184-185.]
Now there are certain judgments (Sokrates argues) which we make common to both, and not exclusively belonging to either.
First, we judge that they are two: that each is one, different from the other, and the same with itself: that each _is_ something, or has existence, and that one _is not_ the other.
Here are predicates--existence, non-existence, likeness, unlikeness, unity, plurality, sameness, difference, &c., which we affirm, or deny, not respecting either of these sensations exclusively, but respecting all of them.
Through what bodily organ do we derive these judgments respecting what is common to all?
There is no special organ: the mind perceives, through itself these common properties.
[95] [Footnote 95: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 185 D. [Greek: dokei= tê\n a)rchê\n ou)d' ei)=nai toiou=ton ou)de\n tou/tois o)/rganon i)/dion, ô(/sper e)kei/nois, a)ll' au)tê\ di' au(tê=s ê( psuchê\ ta\ koina/ moi phai/netai peri\ pa/ntôn e)piskopei=n.]]
[Side-note: Indication of several judgments which the mind makes by itself--It perceives Existence, Difference, &c.] Some matters therefore there are, which the soul or mind apprehends through itself--others, which it perceives through the bodily organs.
To the latter class belong the sensible qualities, hardness, softness, heat, sweetness, &c., which it perceives through the bodily organs; and which animals, as well as men, are by nature competent to perceive immediately at birth.
To the former class belong existence (substance, essence), sameness, difference, likeness, unlikeness, honourable, base, good, evil, &c., which the mind apprehends through itself alone.
But the mind is not competent to apprehend this latter class, as it perceives the former, immediately at birth.
Nor does such competence belong to all men and animals; but only to a select fraction of men, who acquire it with difficulty and after a long time through laborious education.
The mind arrives at these purely mental apprehensions, only by going over, and comparing with each other, the simple impressions of sense; by looking at their relations with each other; and by computing the future from the present and past.
[96] Such comparisons and computations are a difficult and gradual attainment; accomplished only by a few, and out of the reach of most men.
But without them, no one can apprehend real existence (essence, or substance), or arrive at truth: and without truth, there can be no knowledge.
[Footnote 96: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 186 B.
[Greek: Tê\n de/ ge ou)si/an kai\ o(/ ti e)/ston kai\ tê\n e)nantio/têta pro\s a)llê/lô] (of hardness and softness) [Greek: kai\ tê\n ou)si/an au)= tê=s e)nantio/têtos, au)tê\ ê( psuchê\ _e)paniou=sa kai\ xumba/llousa pro\s a)/llêla kri/nein peira=tai ê(mi=n_ .
.
.
Ou)kou=n ta\ me\n eu)thu\s genome/nois pa/resti phu/sei ai)stha/nesthai a)nthrô/pois te kai\ thêri/ois, o(/sa dia\ tou= sô/matos pathê/mata e)pi\ tê\n psuchê\n tei/nei; _ ta\ de\ peri\ tou/tôn a)nalogi/smata_, pro/s te ou)si/an kai\ ô)phelei/an _mo/gis_ kai\ e)n pollô=| chro/nô| dia\ pollô=n _pragma/tôn kai\ paidei/as paragi/gnetai, oi(=s a)\n kai\ paragi/gnêtai.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that knowledge is to be found, not in the Sensible Perceptions themselves, but in the comparisons add computations of the mind respecting them.]
The result therefore is (concludes Sokrates), _That knowledge is not sensible perception_: that it is not to be found in the perceptions of sense themselves, which do not apprehend real essence, and therefore not truth--but in the comparisons and computations respecting them, and in the relations between them, made and apprehended by the mind itself.
[97] Plato declares good and evil, honourable and base, &c., to be among matters most especially relative, perceived by the mind computing past and present in reference to future.
[98] [Footnote 97: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 186 D.** [Greek: e)n me\n a)/ra toi=s pathê/masin ou)k e)/ni e)pistê/mê, _e)n de\ tô=| peri\ e)kei/nôn sullogismô=|_; ou)si/as ga\r kai\ a)lêthei/as e)ntau=tha me/n, ô(s e)/oike, dunato\n a(/psasthai, e)kei= de\ a)du/naton.]
The term [Greek: sullogismo\s] is here interesting, before it had received that technical sense which it has borne from Aristotle downwards.
Mr. Campbell explains it properly as "nearly equivalent to abstraction and generalisation" (Preface to Theætêtus, p.
lxxiv., also note, p.
144).]
[Footnote 98: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 186 A.
[Greek: kalo\n kai\ ai)schro/n, kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ kako/n.
Kai\ tou/tôn moi dokei= _e)n toi=s ma/lista pro\s a)/llêla skopei=sthai tê\n ou)si/an, a)nalogizome/nê_ (ê( psuchê\) _e)n e(autê=| ta\ gegono/ta kai\ ta\ paro/nta pro\s ta\ me/llonta_.]
Base and honourable, evil and good, are here pointed out by Sokrates as most evidently and emphatically _relative_.
In the train of reasoning here terminated, Plato had been combating the doctrine [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê].
In his sense of the word [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] he has refuted the doctrine.
But what about the other doctrine, which he declares to be a part of the same programme--_Homo Mensura_--the Protagorean formula?
That formula, so far from being refuted, is actually sustained and established by this train of reasoning.
Plato has declared [Greek: ou)si/a, a)lêthei/a, e)nantio/tês, a)gatho/n, kako/n], &c., to be a distinct class of Objects not perceived by Sense.
But he also tells us that they are apprehended by the Mind through its own working, and that they are apprehended always in relation to each other.
We thus see that they are just as much relative to the concipient mind, as the Objects of sense are to the percipient and sentient mind.
The Subject is the correlative limit or measure (to use Protagorean phrases) of one as well as of the other.
This confirms what I observed above, that the two doctrines, 1.
Homo Mensura, 2.
[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê],--are completely distinct and independent, though Plato has chosen to implicate or identify them.]
[Side-note: Examination of this view--Distinction from the views of modern philosophers.]
Such is the doctrine which Plato here lays down, respecting the difference between sensible perception, and knowledge or cognition.
From his time to the present day, the same topic has continued to be discussed, with different opinions on the part of philosophers.
Plato's views are interesting, as far as his language enables us to make them out.
He does not agree with those who treat sensation or sensible perception (in his language, the two are not distinguished) as a bodily phenomenon, and intelligence as a mental phenomenon.
He regards both as belonging to the mind or soul.
He considers that the mind is sentient as well as intelligent: and moreover, that the sentient mind is the essential basis and preliminary--universal among men and animals, as well as coæval with birth--furnishing all the matter, upon which the intelligent mind has to work.
He says nothing, in this dialogue, about the three distinct souls or minds (rational, courageous, and appetitive), in one and the same body, which form so capital a feature in his Timæus and Republic: nothing about eternal, self-existent, substantial Ideas, or about the pre-existence of the soul and its reminiscence as the process of acquiring knowledge.
Nor does he countenance the doctrine of innate ideas, instinctive beliefs, immediate mental intuitions, internal senses, &c., which have been recognised by many philosophers.
Plato supposes the intelligent mind to work altogether upon the facts of sense; to review and compare them with one another; and to compute facts present or past, with a view to the future.
All this is quite different from the mental intuitions and instincts, assumed by various modern philosophers as common to all mankind.
The operations, which Plato ascribes to the intelligent mind, are said to be out of the reach of the common man, and not to be attainable except by a few, with difficulty and labour.
The distinctive feature of the sentient mind, according to him, is, that it operates through a special bodily organ of sense: whereas the intelligent mind has no such special bodily organ.
[Side-note: Different views given by Plato in other dialogues.]
But this distinction, in the first place, is not consistent with Timæus--wherein Plato assigns to each of his three human souls a separate and special region of the bodily organism, as its physical basis.
Nor, in the second place, is it consistent with that larger range of observed facts which the farther development of physiology has brought to view.
To Plato and Aristotle the nerves and the nervous system were wholly unknown: but it is now ascertained that the optic, auditory, and other nerves of sense, are only branches of a complicated system of sensory and motory nerves, attached to the brain and spinal cord as a centre: each nerve of sense having its own special mode of excitability or manifestation.
Now the physical agency whereby sensation is carried on, is, not the organ of sense alone, but the cerebral centre acting along with that organ: whereas in the intellectual and memorial processes, the agency of the cerebral centre and other internal parts of the nervous system are sufficient, without any excitement beginning at the peripheral extremity of the special organ of sense, or even though that organ be disabled.
We know the intelligent mind only in an embodied condition: that is, as working along with and through its own physical agency.
When Plato, therefore, says that the mind thinks, computes, compares, &c., by itself--this is true only as signifying that it does so without the initiatory stimulus of a special organ of sense; not as signifying that it does so without the central nervous force or currents--an agency essential alike to thought, to sensation, to emotion, and to appetite.
[Side-note: Plato's discussion of this question here exhibits a remarkable advance in analytical psychology.
The mind rises from Sensation, first to Opinion, then to Cognition.]
Putting ourselves back to the Platonic period, we must recognise that the discussion of the theory [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis = E)pistê/mê], as it is conducted by Plato, exhibits a remarkable advance in psychological analysis.
In analysing the mental phenomena, Plato displayed much more subtlety and acuteness than his predecessors--as far at least as we have the means of appreciating the latter.
It is convenient to distinguish intellect from sensation (or sensible perception) and emotion, though both of them are essential and co-ordinate parts of our mental system, and are so recognised by Plato.
It is also true that the discrimination of our sensations from each other, comparisons of likeness or unlikeness between them, observation of co-existence or sequence, and apprehension of other relations between them, &c., are more properly classified as belonging to intellect than to sense.
But the language of psychology is, and always has been, so indeterminate, that it is difficult to say how much any writer means to include under the terms Sense[99]--Sensation--Sensible Perception--[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis].
The propositions in which our knowledge is embodied, affirm--not sensations detached and isolated, but--various relations of antecedence and consequence, likeness, difference, &c., between two or more sensations or facts of sense.
We rise thus to a state of mind more complicated than simple sensation: including (along with sensation), association, memory, discrimination, comparison of sensations, abstraction, and generalisation.
This is what Plato calls opinion[100] or belief; a mental process, which, though presupposing sensations and based upon them, he affirms to be carried on by the mind through itself, not through any special bodily organ.
In this respect it agrees with what he calls knowledge or cognition.
Opinion or belief is the lowest form, possessed in different grades by all men, of this exclusively mental process: knowledge or cognition is the highest form of the same, attained only by a select few.
Both opinion, and cognition, consist in comparisons and computations made by the mind about the facts of sense.
But cognition (in Plato's view) has special marks:-1.
That it is infallible, while opinion is fallible.
You have it[101] or you have it not--but there is no mistake possible.
2.
That it apprehends what Plato calls the real essence of things, and real truth, which, on the contrary, Opinion does not apprehend.
3.
That the person who possesses it can maintain his own consistency under cross-examination, and can test the consistency of others by cross-examining them ([Greek: lo/gon dou=nai kai\ de/xasthai]).
[Footnote 99: The discussion in pp.
184-186-186 of the Theætêtus is interesting as the earliest attempt remaining to classify psychological phenomena.
What Demokritus and others proposed with the same view--the analogy or discrepancy between [Greek: to\ ai)stha/nesthai] and [Greek: to\ noei=n]--we gather only from the brief notices of Aristotle and others.
Plato considers himself to have established, that "cognition is not to be sought at all in sensible perception, but in that function, whatever it be, which is predicated of the mind when it busies itself _per se_ (_i.e._ not through any special bodily organ) about existences" (p. 187 A).
We may here remark, as to the dispute between Plato and Protagoras, that Plato here does not at all escape from the region of the Relative, or from the Protagorean formula, _Homo Mensura_.
He passes from Mind Percipient to Mind Cogitant; but these new Entia cogitationis (as his language implies) are still relative, though relative to the Cogitant and not to the Percipient.
He reduces Mind Sentient to the narrowest functions, including only each isolated impression of one or other among the five senses.
When we see a clock on the wall and hear it strike twelve--we have a visual impression of black from the hands, of white from the face, and an audible impression from each stroke.
But this is all (according to Plato) which we have from sense, or which addresses itself to the sentient mind.
All beyond this (according to him) is apprehended by the cogitant mind: all discrimination, comparison, and relation--such as the succession, or one, two, three, &c., of the separate impressions, the likeness of one stroke to the preceding, the contrast or dissimilarity of the black with the white--even the simplest acts of discrimination or comparison belong (in Plato's view) to mental powers beyond and apart from sense; much more, of course, apprehension of the common properties of all, and of those extreme abstractions to which we apply the words Ens and Non-Ens ([Greek: to/ t' e)pi\ pa=si koino\n kai\ to\ e)pi\ tou/tois, ô(=| to\ e)/stin e)ponoma/zeis kai\ to\ ou)k e)/stin], p. 185 C).
When Plato thus narrows the sense of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], it is easy to prove that [Greek: e)pistê/mê] is not [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]; but I doubt whether those who affirmed this proposition intended what he here refutes.
Neither unreflecting men, nor early theorizers, would distinguish the impressions of sense from the feeling of such impressions being _successive, distinct from one another, resembling, &c._ Mr. John Stuart Mill observes (Logic, Book i. chap.
iii.
sects.
10-13)--"The simplest of all relations are those expressed by the words antecedent and consequent, and by the word simultaneous.
If we say dawn preceded sunrise, the fact in which the two things dawn and sunrise were jointly concerned, consisted only of the two things themselves.
No third thing entered into the fact or phenomenon at all, unless indeed we choose to call the succession of the two objects a third thing; _but their succession is not something added to the things themselves_, it is something _involved in them_.
To have two feelings at all, implies having them either successively or simultaneously.
The relations of succession and simultaneity, of likeness and unlikeness, not being grounded on any fact or phenomenon distinct from the related objects themselves, do not admit of the same kind of analysis.
But these relations, though not (like other relations) grounded on states of consciousness, are themselves states of consciousness.
Resemblance is nothing but our feeling of resemblance: succession is nothing but our feeling of succession."
By all ordinary (non-theorising) persons, these familiar relations, _involved_ in the facts of sense, are conceived as an essential part of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]: and are so conceived by those modern theorists who trace all our knowledge to sense--as well as (probably) by those ancient theorists who defined [Greek: e)pistê/mê] to be [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], and against whom Plato here reasons.
These theorists would have said (as ordinary language recognises)--"We _see_ the _dissimilarity_ of the black hands from the white face of the clock; we _hear_ the _likeness_ of one stroke of the clock to another, and the _succession_ of the strokes one, two, three, one after the other".
The reasoning of Plato against these opponents is thus open to many of the remarks made by Sir William Hamilton, in the notes to his edition of Reid's works, upon Reid's objections against Locke and Berkeley: Reid restricted the word Sensation to a much narrower meaning than that given to it by Locke and Berkeley.
"Berkeley's _Sensation_" (observes S. W. Hamilton) "was equivalent to Reid's _Sensation_ plus _Perception_.
This is manifest even by the passages adduced in the text" (note to p. 289).
But Reid in his remarks omits to notice this difference in the meaning of the same word.
The case is similar with Plato when he refutes those who held the doctrine [Greek: E)pistê/mê = Ai)/sthêsis].
The last-mentioned word, in his construction, includes only a part of the meaning which they attributed to it; but he takes no notice of this verbal difference.
Sir William Hamilton remarks, respecting M. Royer Collard's doctrine, which narrows prodigiously the province of Sense,--"_Sense_ he so limits that, if rigorously carried out, no sensible perception, as no consciousness, could be brought to bear".
This is exactly true about Plato's doctrine narrowing [Greek: ai)/sthêsis].
See Hamilton's edit.
of Reid, Appendix, p. 844.
Aristotle understands [Greek: ai)/sthêsis--ai)sthêtikê\ psuchê\] or [Greek: zôê/]--as occupying a larger sphere than that which Plato assigns to them in the Theætêtus.
Aristotle recognises the five separate [Greek: ai)sthê/seis], each correlating with and perceiving its [Greek: i)/dion ai)sthêto/n]: he also recognises [Greek: ê( koinê\ ai)/sthêsis]--common sensation or perception--correlating with (or perceiving) [Greek: ta\ koina\ ai)sthêta/], which are _motion_, _rest_, _magnitude_, _figure_, _number_.
The [Greek: koinê\ ai)/sthêsis] is not a distinct or sixth sense, apart from the five, but a general power inhering in all of them.
He farther recognises [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] as discriminating, judging, comparing, knowing: this characteristic, [Greek: to\ kritoko\n] and [Greek: gnôstiko/n], is common to [Greek: ai)/sthêsis, phantasi/a, no/êsis], and distinguishes them all from appetite--[Greek: to\ o)rektiko/n, kinêtiko/n], &c. See the first and second chapters of the third Book of the Treatise De Animâ, and the Commentary of Simplikius upon that Treatise, especially p. 56, b. Aristotle tells us that all animals [Greek: e)/chei du/namin su/mphuton kritikê/n, ê(\n kalou=sin ai)/sthêsin.]
Anal.
Poster.
ii.
p. 99, b.
35.
And Sir William Hamilton adopts a similar view, when he remarks, that Judgment is implied in every act of Consciousness.
Occasionally indeed Aristotle partitions the soul between [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: o)/rexis]--Intelligence and Appetite--recognising Sense as belonging to the head of Intelligence--see De Motu Animalium, 6, p. 700, b.
20.
[Greek: tau=ta de\ pa/nta a)na/getai ei)s nou=n kai\ o)/rexin; kai\ ga\r ê( phantasi/a kai\ ê( ai)/sthêsis tê\n au)tê\n tô=| nô=| chô/ran e)/chousi; _kritika\ ga\r pa/nta_.]
Compare also the Topica, ii.
4, p. 111, a.
18.
It will thus be seen that while Plato severs pointedly [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] from anything like discrimination, comparison, judgment, even in the most rudimentary form--Aristotle refuses to adopt this extreme abstraction as his basis for classifying the mental phenomena.
He recognises a certain measure of discrimination, comparison, and judgment, as implicated in sensible perceptions.
Moreover, that which he calls [Greek: koinê\ ai)/sthêsis] is unknown to Plato, who isolates each sense, and indeed each act of each sense, as much as possible.
Aristotle is opposed, as Plato is, to the doctrine [Greek: E)pistê/mê = Ai)/sthêsis], but he employs a different manner of reasoning against it.
See, _inter alia_, Anal.
Poster.
i.
31, p. 87, b.
28.
He confines [Greek: e)pistê/mê] to one branch of the [Greek: noêtikê/].
The Peripatetic Straton, the disciple of Theophrastus, denied that there was any distinct line of demarcation between [Greek: to\ ai)stha/nesthai] and [Greek: to\ noei=n]: maintaining that the former was impossible without a certain measure of the latter.
His observation is very worthy of note.
Plutarch, De Solertiâ Animalium, iii.
6, p. 961 A.
[Greek: Kai/toi Stra/tôno/s ge tou= phusikou= lo/gos e)sti/n, a)podeiknu/ôn ô(s ou)d' ai)stha/nesthai topara/pan a)/neu tou= noei=n u(pa/rchei; kai\ ga\r gra/mmata polla/kis e)piporeuo/mena tê=| o)/psei, kai\ lo/goi prospi/ptontes tê=| a)koiê=| _dialantha/nousin ê(ma=s_ kai\ _diapheu/gousi pro\s e(te/rois to\n nou=n e)/chontas_; ei)=t' _au)=this e)panê=lthe_ kai\ _metathei= kai\ metadiô/kei tô=n proïeme/nôn e(/kaston a)nalego/menos_; ê(=| kai\ le/lektai.
_Nou=s o(rê=|, kai\ nou=s a)kou/ei, ta\ de\ a)/lla kôpha\ kai\ tuphla/_;** ô(s tou= peri\ ta\ o)/mmata kai\ ô)=ta pa/thous, a)\n mê\ parê=| to\ phronou=n, ai)/sthêsin ou) poiou=ntos.]
Straton here notices that remarkable fact (unnoticed by Plato and even by Aristotle, so far as I know) in the process of association, that impressions of sense are sometimes unheeded when they occur, but force themselves upon the attention afterwards, and are recalled by the mind in the order in which they occurred at first.]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Theæt.
p. 187 A.
_Sokr._ [Greek: o(/môs de\ tosou=to/n ge probebê/kamen, ô(/ste mê\ zêtei=n au)tê\n (e)pistê/mên) e)n ai)sthê/sei topara/pan, a)ll' e)n e)kei/nô| tô=| o)no/mati, o(/, ti pot' e)/chei ê( psuchê/, o(/tan au)tê\ kath' au(tê\n pragmateu/êtai peri\ ta\ o)/nta.]
_Theæt._ [Greek: A)lla\ mê\n tou=to/ ge kalei=tai, ô(s e)gô)=|mai, _doxa/zein_.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: O)rthô=s ga\r oi)/ei.]
Plato is quite right in distinguishing between [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] and [Greek: do/xa], looking at the point as a question of psychological classification.
It appears to me, however, most probable that those who maintained the theory [Greek: E)pistê/mê = Ai)/sthêsis], made no such distinction, but included that which he calls [Greek: do/xa] in [Greek: ai)/sthêsis].
Unfortunately we do not possess their own exposition; but it cannot have included much of psychological analysis.]
[Footnote 101: Schleiermacher represents Plato as discriminating Knowledge (the region of infallibility, you either possess it or not) from Opinion (the region of fallibility, true or false, as the case may be) by a broad and impassable line-"Auch hieraus erwächst eine sehr entscheidende, nur ebenfalls nicht ausdrücklich gezogene, Folgerung, dass die reine Erkenntniss gar nicht auf demselben Gebiet liegen könne mit dem Irrthum--und es in Beziehung auf sie kein Wahr und Falsch gebe, sondern nur ein Haben oder Nicht Haben."
(Schleiermacher, Einleit.
zum Theæt.
p.
176.)
Steinhart (in his Einleit.
zum Theæt.
p. 94) contests this opinion of Schleiermacher (though he seems to give the same opinion himself, p. 92).
He thinks that Plato does not recognise so very marked a separation between Knowledge and Opinion: that he considers Knowledge as the last term of a series of mental processes, developed gradually according to constant laws, and ascending from Sensible Perception through Opinion to Knowledge: that the purpose of the Theætêtus is to illustrate this theory.
Ueberweg, on the contrary, defends the opinion of Schleiermacher and maintains that Steinhart is mistaken (Aechtheit und Zeit.
Platon.
Schriften, p. 279).
Passages may be produced from Plato's writings to support both these views: that of Schleiermacher, as well as that of Steinhart.
In Timæus, p. 51 E, the like infallibility is postulated for [Greek: Nou=s] (which there represents [Greek: E)pistê/mê]) as contrasted with [Greek: do/xa].
But I think that Steinhart ascribes to the Theætêtus more than can fairly be discovered in it.
That dialogue is purely negative.
It declares that [Greek: e)pistê/mê] is _not_ [Greek: ai)/sthêsis].
It then attempts to go a step farther towards the affirmative, by declaring also that [Greek: e)pistê/mê] is a mental process of computation, respecting the impressions of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]--that it is [Greek: to\ sullogi/zesthai], which is equivalent to [Greek: to\ doxa/zein]: compare Phædrus, 249 B.
But this affirmative attempt breaks down: for Sokrates cannot explain what [Greek: to\ doxa/zein] is, nor how [Greek: to\ doxa/zein pseudê=] is possible; in fact he says (p. 200 B) that this cannot be explained until we know what [Greek: e)pistê/mê] is.
The entire result of the dialogue is negative, as the closing words proclaim emphatically.
On this point many of the commentators agree--Ast, Socher, Stallbaum, Ueberweg, Zeller, &c. Whether it be true, as Schleiermacher, with several others, thinks (Einl.
pp.
184-185), that Plato intends to attack Aristippus in the first part of the dialogue, and Antisthenes in the latter part, we have no means of determining.]
This at least is the meaning which Plato assigns to the two words corresponding to Cognition and to Opinion, in the present dialogue, and often elsewhere.
But he also frequently employs the word Cognition in a lower and more general signification, not restricted, as it is here, to the highest philosophical reach, with infallibility--but comprehending much of what is here treated only as _opinion_.
Thus, for example, he often alludes to the various professional men as possessing _Cognition_, each in his respective department: the general, the physician, the gymnast, the steersman, the husbandman, &c.[102] But he certainly does not mean, that each of them has attained what he calls real essence and philosophical truths--or that any of them are infallible.
[Footnote 102: Compare Plato, Sophistes, pp.
232 E, 233 A.]
[Side-note: Plato did not recognise Verification from experience, or from facts of sense, as either necessary or possible.]
One farther remark must be made on Plato's doctrine.
His remark--That Cognition consists not in the affections of sense, but in computation or reasoning respecting those affections, (_i.
e._ abstraction, generalisation, &c.)--is both true and important.
But he has not added, nor would he have admitted, that if we are to decide whether our computation is true and right, or false and erroneous--our surest way is to recur to the simple facts of sense.
Theory must be verified by observation; wherever that cannot be done, the best guarantee is wanting.
The facts themselves are not cognition: yet they are the test by which all computations, pretending to be cognitions, must be tried.
[103] [Footnote 103: See the remarks on the necessity of Verification, as a guarantee for the Deductive Process, in Mr. John Stuart Mill's System of Logic, Book iii.
ch.
xi.
s. 8.
Newton puts aside his own computation or theory respecting gravity as the force which kept the moon in its orbit, because the facts reported by observers respecting the lunar motions were for some time not in harmony with it.
Plato certainly would not have surrendered any [Greek: sullogismo\s] under the same respect to observed facts.
Aristotle might probably have done so; but this is uncertain.]
[Side-note: Second definition given by Theætêtus--That Cognition consists in right or true opinion.]
We have thus, in enquiring--What is Knowledge or Cognition?
advanced so far as to discover--That it does not consist in sensible perception, but in some variety of that purely mental process which is called opining, believing, judging, conceiving, &c. And here Theætêtus, being called upon for a second definition, answers--_That Knowledge consists in right or true opinion_.
All opinion is not knowledge, because opinion is often false.
[104] [Footnote 104: Plato, Theæt.
p. 187 B.
It is scarcely possible to translate [Greek: doxa/zein] always by the same English word.]
[Side-note: Objection by Sokrates--This definition assumes that there are false opinions.
But how can false opinions be possible?
How can we conceive Non-Ens: or confound together two distinct realities?.]
_Sokr._--But you are here assuming that there _are_ false opinions?
How is this possible?
How can any man judge or opine falsely?
What mental condition is it which bears that name?
I confess that I cannot tell: though I have often thought of the matter myself, and debated it with others.
[105] Every thing comes under the head either of what a man knows, or of what he does not know.
If he conceives, it must be either the known, or the unknown.
He cannot mistake either one known thing for another known thing: or a known thing for an unknown: or an unknown for a known: or one unknown for another unknown.
But to form a false opinion, he must err in one or other of these four ways.
It is therefore impossible that he can form a false opinion.
[106] [Footnote 105: Plato, Theæt.
p. 187 C.] [Footnote 106: Plato, Theæt.
p.
188.]
If indeed a man ascribed to any subject a predicate which was non-existent, this would be evidently a false opinion.
But how can any one conceive the non-existent?
He who conceives must conceive _something_: just as he who sees or touches, must see or touch _something_.
He cannot see or touch the non-existent: for that would be to see or touch nothing: in other words, not to see or touch at all.
In the same manner, to conceive the non-existent, or _nothing_, is impossible.
[107] _Theæt._--Perhaps he conceives two realities, but confounds them together, mistaking the one for the other.
_Sokr._--Impossible.
If he conceives two distinct realities, he cannot suppose the one to be the other.
Suppose him to conceive, just and unjust, a horse and an ox--he can never believe just to be unjust, or the ox to be the horse.
[108] If, again, he conceives one of the two alone and singly, neither could he on that hypothesis suppose it to be the other: for that would imply that he conceived the other also.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Theæt.
p.
188-189.]
[Footnote 108: Plato, Theæt.
p.
190.]
[Side-note: Waxen memorial tablet in the mind, on which past impressions are engraved.
False opinion consists in wrongly identifying present sensations with past impressions.]
Let us look again in another direction (continues Sokrates).
We have been hasty in our concessions.
Is it really impossible for a man to conceive, that a thing, which he knows, is another thing which he does not know?
Let us see.
Grant me the hypothesis (for the sake of illustration), that each man has in his mind a waxen tablet--the wax of one tablet being larger, firmer, cleaner, and better in every way, than that of another: the gift of Mnemosynê, for inscribing and registering our sensible perceptions and thoughts.
Every man remembers and knows these, so long as the impressions of them remain upon his tablet: as soon as they are blotted out, he has forgotten them and no longer knows them.
[109] Now false opinion may occur thus.
A man having inscribed on his memorial tablet the impressions of two objects A and B, which he has seen before, may come to see one of these objects again; but he may by mistake identify the present sensation with the wrong past impression, or with that past impression to which it does not belong.
Thus on seeing A, he may erroneously identify it with the past impression B, instead of A: or _vice versâ_.
[110] False opinion will thus lie, not in the conjunction or identification of sensations with sensations--nor of thoughts (or past impressions) with thoughts--but in that of present sensations with past impressions or thoughts.
[111] [Footnote 109: Plato, Theæt.
p. 191 C. [Greek: kê/rinon e)kmogei=on].]
[Footnote 110: Plato, Theæt.
p.
193-194.]
[Footnote 111: Plato, Theæt.
p. 195 D.] [Side-note: Sokrates refutes this assumption.
Dilemma.
Either false opinion is impossible, or else a man may know what he does not know.]
Having laid this down, however, Sokrates immediately proceeds to refute it.
In point of fact, false conceptions are found to prevail, not only in the wrong identification of present sensations with past impressions or thoughts, but also in the wrong identification of one past impression or thought with another.
Thus a man, who has clearly engraved on his memorial tablet the conceptions of five, seven, eleven, twelve,--may nevertheless, when asked what is the sum of seven and five, commit error and answer eleven: thus mistaking eleven for twelve.
We are thus placed in this dilemma--Either false opinion is an impossibility:--Or else, it is possible that what a man knows, he may not know.
Which of the two do you choose?
[112] [Footnote 112: Plato, Theæt.
p. 196 C. [Greek: nu=n de\ ê)/toi ou)k e)/sti pseudê\s do/xa, ê)\ a(/ tis oi)=den, oi(=o/n te mê\ ei)de/nai; kai\ tou/tôn po/tera ai(rei=?]]
[Side-note: He draws distinction between possessing knowledge, and having it actually in hand.
Simile of the pigeon-cage with caught pigeons turned into it and flying about.]
To this question no answer is given.
But Sokrates,--after remarking on the confused and unphilosophical manner in which the debate has been conducted, both he and Theætêtus having perpetually employed the words _know_, _knowledge_, and their equivalents, as if the meaning of the words were ascertained, whereas the very problem debated is, to ascertain their meaning[113]--takes up another path of enquiry.
He distinguishes between possessing knowledge,--and having it actually in hand or on his person: which distinction he illustrates by comparing the mind to a pigeon-cage.
A man hunts and catches pigeons, then turns them into the cage, within the limits of which they fly about: when he wants to catch any one of them for use, he has to go through a second hunt, sometimes very troublesome: in which he may perhaps either fail altogether, or catch the wrong one instead of the right.
The first hunt Sokrates compares to the acquisition of knowledge: the second, to the getting it into his hand for use.
[114] A man may _know_, in the first sense, and _not know_, in the second: he may have to hunt about for the cognition which (in the first sense) he actually possesses.
In trying to catch one cognition, he may confound it with another: and this constitutes false opinion--the confusion of two _cognita_ one with another.
[115] [Footnote 113: Plato, Theæt.
p. 196 D.] [Footnote 114: Plato, Theæt.
p.
197-198.]
[Footnote 115: Plato, Theæt.
p. 199 C. [Greek: ê( tô=n e)pistêmô=n metallagê/].]
[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this.
Suggestion of Theætêtus--That there may be non-cognitions in the mind as well as cognitions, and that false opinion may consist in confounding one with the other.
Sokrates rejects this.]
Yet how can such a confusion be possible?
(Sokrates here again replies to himself.)
How can knowledge betray a man into such error?
If he knows A, and knows B--how can he mistake A for B?
Upon this supposition, knowledge produces the effect of ignorance: and we might just as reasonably imagine ignorance to produce the effects of knowledge.
[116]--Perhaps (suggests Theætêtus), he may have _non-cognitions_ in his mind, mingled with the cognitions: and in hunting for a cognition, he may catch a non-cognition.
Herein may lie false opinion.--That can hardly be (replies Sokrates).
If the man catches what is really a non-cognition, he will not suppose it to be such, but to be a cognition.
He will believe himself fully to _know_, that in which he is mistaken.
But how is it possible that he should confound a non-cognition with a cognition, or _vice versâ_?
Does not he know the one from the other?
We must then require him to have a separate cognition of his own cognitions or non-cognitions--and so on _ad infinitum_.
[117] The hypothesis cannot be admitted.
[Footnote 116: Plato, Theæt.
p. 199 E.] [Footnote 117: Plato, Theæt.
p. 200 B.]
We cannot find out (continues Sokrates) what false opinion is: and we have plainly done wrong to search for it, until we have first ascertained what knowledge is.
[118] [Footnote 118: Plato, Theæt.
p. 200 C.] [Side-note: He brings another argument to prove that Cognition is not the same as true opinion.
Rhetors persuade or communicate true opinion; but they do not teach or communicate knowledge.]
Moreover, as to the question, Whether knowledge is identical with true opinion, Sokrates produces another argument to prove that it is not so: and that the two are widely different.
You can communicate true opinion without communicating knowledge: and the powerful class of rhetors and litigants make it their special business to do so.
They persuade, without teaching, a numerous audience.
[119] During the hour allotted to them for discourse, they create, in the minds of the assembled dikasts, true opinions respecting complicated incidents of robbery or other unlawfulness, at which none of the dikasts have been personally present.
Upon this opinion the dikasts decide, and decide rightly.
But they cannot possibly _know_ the facts without having been personally present and looking on.
That is essential to knowledge or cognition.
[120] Accordingly, they have acquired true and right opinions; yet without acquiring knowledge.
Therefore the two are not the same.
[121] [Footnote 119: Plato, Theæt.
p. 201 A.
[Greek: ou(=toi ga/r pou tê=| e(autô=n te/chnê| pei/thousin, ou) dida/skontes, a)lla\ doxa/zein poiou=ntes a(\ a)\n bou/lôntai.]]
[Footnote 120: Plato, Theæt.
p. 201 B-C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n o(/tan dikai/ôs peisthô=si dikastai\ peri\ _ô(=n i)do/nti mo/non e)/stin ei)de/nai, a)/llôs de\ mê/_, tau=ta to/te _e)x a)koê=s kri/nontes_, a)lêthê= do/xan labo/ntes, a)/neu e)pistê/mês e)/krinan, o)rtha\ peisthe/ntes, ei)/per eu)= e)di/kasan?]]
[Footnote 121: The distinction between persuading and teaching--between creating opinion and imparting knowledge--has been brought to view in the Gorgias, and is noted also in the Timæus.
As it stands here, it deserves notice, because Plato not only professes to affirm what _knowledge_ is, but also identifies it with sensible perception.
The Dikasts (according to Sokrates) would have _known_ the case, had they been present when it occurred, so as to see and hear it: there is no other way of acquiring knowledge.
Hearing the case only by the narration of speakers, they can acquire nothing more than a _true opinion_.
Hence we learn wherein consists the difference between the two.
That which I see, hear, or apprehend by any sensible perception, I _know_: compare a passage in Sophistes, p. 267 A-B, where [Greek: to\ gignô/skein] is explained in the same way.
But that which I learn from the testimony of others amounts to nothing more than opinion; and at best to a true opinion.
Plato's reasoning here involves an admission of the very doctrine which he had before taken so much pains to confute--the doctrine that Cognition is Sensible Perception.
Yet he takes no notice of the inconsistency.
An occasion for sneering at the Rhetors and Dikasts is always tempting to him.
So, in the Menon (p. 97 B), the man who has been at Larissa is said to _know_ the road to Larissa; as distinguished from another man who, never having been there, opines correctly which the road is.
And in the Sophistes (p. 263) when Plato is illustrating the doctrine that false propositions, as well as true propositions, are possible, and really occur, he selects as his cases, [Greek: Theai/têtos ka/thêtai, Theai/têtos pe/tetai].
That one of these propositions is false and the other true, can be known only by [Greek: ai)/sthêsis]--in the sense of that word commonly understood.]
[Side-note: New answer of Theætêtus--Cognition is true opinion, coupled with rational explanation.]
Theætêtus now recollects another definition of knowledge, learnt from some one whose name he forgets.
Knowledge is (he says) true opinion, coupled with rational explanation.
True opinion without such rational explanation, is not knowledge.
Those things which do not admit of rational explanation, are not knowable.
[122] [Footnote 122: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 201 D. [Greek: tê\n me\n meta\ lo/gou a)lêthê= do/xan e)pistê/mên ei)=nai; tê\n de\ a)/logon, e)kto\s e)pistê/mês; kai\ ô(=n me\n mê/ e)sti lo/gos, ou)k e)pistêta\ ei)=nai, _ou(tôsi\ kai\ o)noma/zôn_, a)\ d' e)/chei, e)pistêta/.]
The words [Greek: ou(tôsi\ kai\ o)noma/zôn] are intended, according to Heindorf and Schleiermacher, to justify the use of the word [Greek: e)pistêta/], which was then a neologism.
Both this definition, and the elucidation of it which Sokrates proceeds to furnish, are announced as borrowed from other persons not named.]
[Side-note: Criticism on the answer by Sokrates.
Analogy of letters and words, primordial elements and compounds.
Elements cannot be explained: compounds alone can be explained.]
Taking up this definition, and elucidating it farther, Sokrates refers to the analogy of words and letters.
Letters answer to the primordial elements of things; which are not matters either of knowledge, or of true opinion, or of rational explanation--but simply of sensible perception.
A letter, or a primordial element, can only be perceived and called by its name.
You cannot affirm of it any predicate or any epithet: you cannot call it _existing_, or _this_, or _that_, or _each_, or _single_, or by any other name than its own:[123] for if you do, you attach to it something extraneous to itself, and then it ceases to be an element.
But syllables, words, propositions--_i.
e._, the compounds made up by putting together various letters or elements--admit of being known, explained, and described, by enumerating the component elements.
You may indeed conceive them correctly, without being able to explain them or to enumerate their component elements: but then you do not know them.
You can only be said to know them, when besides conceiving them correctly, you can also specify their component elements[124]--or give explanation.
[Footnote 123: Plato, Theæt.
pp.
201 E--202 A.
[Greek: au)to\ ga\r kath' au(to\ e(/kaston o)noma/sai mo/non ei)/ê, proseipei=n de\ ou)de\n a)/llo dunato/n, ou)/th' ô(s e)/stin, ou)/th' ô(s ou)k e)/stin' ê)/dê ga\r a)\n ou)si/an ê)\ mê\ ou)si/an au)tô=| prosti/thesthai, dei=n de\ ou)de\n prosphe/rein, ei)/per au)to\ e)kei=no mo/non tis e)rei=; e)pei\ ou)de\ to\ _au)to/_, ou)de/ to\ _e)kei=no_, ou)de\ to _e(/kaston_, ou)de\ to _mo/non_, ou)de\ to\ _tou=to_, prosoiste/on, ou)d' a)/lla polla\ toiau=ta; tau=ta me\n ga\r peritre/chonta pa=si prosphe/resthai, e(/tera o)/nta e(kei/nôn oi(=s prosti/thetai.]
Also p. 205 C.] [Footnote 124: Plato, Theæt.
p.
202.]
[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this criticism.
If the elements are unknowable, the compound must be unknowable also.]
Having enunciated this definition, as one learnt from another person not named, Sokrates proceeds to examine and confute it.
It rests on the assumption (he says), that the primordial elements are themselves unknowable; and that it is only the aggregates compounded of them which are knowable.
Such an assumption cannot be granted.
The result is either a real sum total, including both the two component elements: or it is a new form, indivisible and uncompounded, generated by the two elements, but not identical with them nor including them in itself.
If the former, it is not knowable, because if neither of the elements are knowable, both together are not knowable: when you know neither A nor B you cannot know either the sum or the product of A and B.
If the latter, then the result, being indivisible and uncompounded, is unknowable for the same reason as the elements are so: it can only be named by its own substantive name, but nothing can be predicated respecting it.
[125] [Footnote 125: Plato, Theæt.
pp.
203-206.]
Nor can it indeed be admitted as true--That the elements are unknowable, and the compound alone knowable.
On the contrary, the elements are more knowable than the compound.
[126] [Footnote 126: Plato, Theæt.
p.
206.]
[Side-note: Rational explanation may have one of three different meanings.
1.
Description in appropriate language.
2.
Enumeration of all the component elements in the compound.
In neither of these meanings will the definition of Cognition hold.]
When you say (continues Sokrates) that knowledge is true opinion coupled with rational explanation, you may mean by _rational explanation_ one of three things.
1.
The power of enunciating the opinion in clear and appropriate words.
This every one learns to do, who is not dumb or an idiot: so that in this sense true opinion will always carry with it rational explanation.--2.
The power of describing the thing in question by its component elements.
Thus Hesiod says that there are a hundred distinct wooden pieces in a waggon: you and I do not know nor can we describe them all: we can distinguish only the more obvious fractions--the wheels, the axle, the body, the yoke, &c. Accordingly, we cannot be said to know a waggon: we have only a true opinion about it.
Such is the second sense of [Greek: lo/gos] or rational explanation.
But neither in this sense will the proposition hold--That knowledge is right opinion coupled with rational explanation.
For suppose that a man can enumerate, spell, and write correctly, all the syllables of the name _Theætêtus_--which would fulfil the conditions of this definition: yet, if he mistakes and spells wrongly in any other name, such as _Theodôrus_, you will not give him credit for knowledge.
You will say that he writes _Theætêtus_ correctly, by virtue of right opinion simply.
It is therefore possible to have right opinion coupled with rational explanation, in this second sense also,--yet without possessing knowledge.
[127] [Footnote 127: Plato, Theæt.
p. 207-208 B.
[Greek: e)/stin a)/ra meta\ lo/gou o)rthê\ do/xa, ê(\n ou)/pô dei= _e)pistê/mên_ kalei=n.]]
[Side-note: Third meaning.
To assign some mark, whereby the thing to be explained differs from everything else.
The definition will not hold.
For rational explanation, in this sense, is already included in true opinion.]
3.
A third meaning of this same word [Greek: lo/gos] or rational explanation, is, that in which it is most commonly understood-To be able to assign some mark whereby the thing to be explained differs from every thing else--to differentiate the thing.
[128] Persons, who understand the word in this way, affirm, that so long as you only seize what the thing has in common with other things, you have only a _true opinion_ concerning it: but when you seize what it has peculiar and characteristic, you then possess _knowledge_ of it.
Such is their view: but though it seems plausible at first sight (says Sokrates), it will not bear close scrutiny.
For in order to have a true opinion about any thing, I must have in my mind not only what it possesses in common with other things, but what it possesses peculiar to itself also.
Thus if I have a true opinion about Theætêtus, I must have in my mind not only the attributes which belong to him in common with other men, but also those which belong to him specially and exclusively.
Rational explanation ([Greek: lo/gos]) in this sense is already comprehended in true opinion, and is an essential ingredient in it--not any new element superadded.
It will not serve therefore as a distinction between true opinion and knowledge.
[129] [Footnote 128: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 208 C. [Greek: O(/per a)\n oi( polloi\ ei)/poien, to\ e)/chein ti sêmei=on ei)pei=n ô(=| tô=n a(pa/ntôn diaphe/rei to\ e)rôtêthe/n.]]
[Footnote 129: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
209.]
[Side-note: Conclusion of the dialogue--Summing up by Sokrates--Value of the result, although purely negative.]
Such is the result (continues Sokrates) of our researches concerning knowledge.
We have found that it is neither sensible perception--nor true opinion--nor true opinion along with rational explanation.
But what it is, we have not found.
Are we still pregnant with any other answer, Theætêtus, or have we brought forth all that is to come?--_I_ have brought forth (replies Theætêtus) more than I had within me, through your furtherance.
Well (rejoins Sokrates)--and my obstetric science has pronounced all your offspring to be mere wind, unworthy of being preserved!
[130] If hereafter you should again become pregnant, your offspring will be all the better for our recent investigation.
If on the other hand you should always remain barren, you will be more amiable and less vexatious to your companions--by having a just estimate of yourself and by not believing yourself to know what you really do not know.
[131] [Footnote 130: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 210 B.
[Greek: ou)kou=n tau=ta me\n a(/panta ê( maieutikê\ ê(mi=n te/chnê a)nemiai=a/ phêsi gegenê=sthai kai\ ou)k a)/xia trophê=s?]]
[Footnote 131: Plato, Theæt.
p. 210 C. [Greek: e)a/n te gi/gnê| (e)gku/môn), beltio/nôn e)/sei plê/rês dia\ tê\n nu=n e)xe/tasin; e)a/n te keno\s ê)=s, ê(=tton e)/sei baru\s toi=s sunou=si kai\ ê(merô/teros, sôphro/nôs ou)k oi)o/menos ei)de/nai a(\ mê\ oi)=stha.]
Compare also an earlier passage in the dialogue, p. 187 B.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue.
View of Plato.
False persuasion of knowledge removed.
Importance of such removal.]
The concluding observations of this elaborate dialogue deserve particular attention as illustrating Plato's point of view, at the time when he composed the Theætêtus.
After a long debate, set forth with all the charm of Plato's style, no result is attained.
Three different explanations of knowledge have been rejected as untenable.
[132] No other can be found; nor is any suggestion offered, showing in what quarter we are to look for the true one.
What then is the purpose or value of the dialogue?
Many persons would pronounce it to be a mere piece of useless ingenuity and elegance: but such is not the opinion of Plato himself.
Sufficient gain (in his view) will have been ensured, if Theætêtus has acquired a greater power of testing any fresh explanation which he may attempt of this difficult subject: or even if he should attempt none such, by his being disabused, at all events, of the false persuasion of knowing where he is really ignorant.
Such false persuasion of knowledge (Plato here intimates) renders a man vexatious to associates; while a right estimate of his own knowledge and ignorance fosters gentleness and moderation of character.
In this view, false persuasion of knowledge is an ethical defect, productive of positive mischief in a man's intercourse with others: the removal of it improves his character, even though no ulterior step towards real and positive knowledge be made.
The important thing is, that he should acquire the power of testing and verifying all opinions, old as well as new.
This, which is the only guarantee against the delusive self-satisfaction of sham knowledge, must be firmly established in the mind before it is possible to aspire effectively to positive and assured knowledge.
The negative arm of philosophy is in its application prior to the positive, and indispensable, as the single protection against error and false persuasion of knowledge.
Sokrates is here depicted as one in whom the negative vein is spontaneous and abundant, even to a pitch of discomfort--as one complaining bitterly, that objections thrust themselves upon him, unsought and unwelcome, against conclusions which he had himself just previously taken pains to prove at length.
[133] [Footnote 132: I have already observed, however, that in one passage of the interrogation carried on by Sokrates (p. 201 A-B, where he is distinguishing between persuasion and teaching) he unconsciously admits the identity between knowledge and sensible perception.]
[Footnote 133: See the emphatic passage, p. 195 B-C.] [Side-note: Formation of the testing or verifying power in men's minds, value of the Theætêtus, as it exhibits Sokrates demolishing his own suggestions.]
To form in men's minds this testing or verifying power, is one main purpose in Plato's dialogues of Search--and in some of them the predominant purpose; as he himself announces it to be in the Theætêtus.
I have already made the same remark before, and I repeat it here; since it is absolutely necessary for appreciating these dialogues of Search in their true bearing and value.
To one who does not take account of the negative arm of philosophy, as an auxiliary without which the positive arm will strike at random--half of the Platonic dialogues will teach nothing, and will even appear as enigmas--the Theætêtus among the foremost.
Plato excites and strengthens the interior mental wakefulness of the hearer, to judge respecting all affirmative theories, whether coming from himself or from others.
This purpose is well served by the manner in which Sokrates more than once in this dialogue first announces, proves, and builds up a theory--then unexpectedly changes his front, disproves, and demolishes it.
We are taught that it is not difficult to find a certain stock of affirmative argument which makes the theory look well from a distance: we must inspect closely, and make sure that there are no counter-arguments in the background.
[134] The way in which Sokrates pulls to pieces his own theories, is farther instructive, as it illustrates the exhortation previously addressed by him to Theætêtus--not to take offence when his answers were canvassed and shown to be inadmissible.
[135] [Footnote 134: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 208 E.] [Footnote 135: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 151 C.] [Side-note: Comparison of the Philosopher with the Rhetor.
The Rhetor is enslaved to the opinions of auditors.]
A portion of the dialogue to which I have not yet adverted, illustrates this anxiety for the preliminary training of the ratiocinative power, as an indispensable qualification for any special research.
"We have plenty of leisure for investigation[136] (says Sokrates).
We are not tied to time, nor compelled to march briefly and directly towards some positive result.
Engaged as we are in investigating philosophical truth, we stand in pointed contrast with politicians and rhetors in the public assembly or dikastery.
We are like freemen; they, like slaves.
They have before them the Dikasts, as their masters, to whose temper and approbation they are constrained to adapt themselves.
They are also in presence of antagonists, ready to entrap and confute them.
The personal interests, sometimes even the life, of an individual are at stake; so that every thing must be sacrificed to the purpose of obtaining a verdict.
Men brought up in these habits become sharp in observation and emphatic in expression; but merely with a view to win the assent and approbation of the master before them, as to the case in hand.
No free aspirations or spontaneous enlargement can have place in their minds.
They become careless of true and sound reasoning--slaves to the sentiment of those whom they address--and adepts in crooked artifice which they take for wisdom.
[137] [Footnote 136: Plato, Theæt.
p. 155.
[Greek: ô(s pa/nu pollê\n scholê\n a)/gontes, pa/lin e)panaskepso/metha], &c.; also p.
172.]
[Footnote 137: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 172-173.
I give only an abstract of this eloquent passage, not an exact translation.
Steinhart (Einleitung zum Theætêt.
p. 37) calls it "a sublime Hymn" (einen erhabenen Hymnus).
It is a fine piece of poetry or rhetoric, and shows that Plato was by nature quite as rhetorical as the rhetors whom he depreciates--though he had also, besides, other lofty intellectual peculiarities of his own, beyond these rivals.]
[Side-note: The Philosopher is master of his own debates.]
Of all this (continues Sokrates) the genuine philosopher is the reverse.
He neither possesses, nor cares to possess, the accomplishments of the lawyer and politician.
He takes no interest in the current talk of the city; nor in the scandals afloat against individual persons.
He does not share in the common ardour for acquiring power or money; nor does he account potentates either happier or more estimable for possessing them.
Being ignorant and incompetent in the affairs of citizenship as well as of common life, he has no taste for club-meetings or joviality.
His mind, despising the particular and the practical, is absorbed in constant theoretical research respecting universals.
He spares no labour in investigating--What is man in general?
and what are the attributes, active and passive, which distinguish man from other things?
He will be overthrown and humiliated before the Dikastery by a clever rhetor.
But if this opponent chooses to ascend out of the region of speciality, and the particular ground of injustice alleged by A against B--into the general question, What is justice or injustice?
Wherein do they differ from each other or from other things?
What constitutes happiness and misery?
How is the one to be attained and the other avoided?--If the rhetor will meet the philosopher on this elevated ground, then he will find himself put to shame and proved to be incompetent, in spite of all the acute stratagems of his petty mind.
[138] He will look like a child and become ashamed of himself:[139] but the philosopher is noway ashamed of his incompetence for slavish pursuits, while he is passing a life of freedom and leisure among his own dialectics.
[140] [Footnote 138: Plato, Theæt.
pp.
175-176.]
[Footnote 139: Plato, Theæt.
p. 177 B.]
[Footnote 140: Plato, Theæt.
p. 175 E.] [Side-note: Purpose of dialogue to qualify for a life of philosophical Search.]
In these words of Sokrates we read a contrast between practice and theory--one of the most eloquent passages in the dialogues--wherein Plato throws overboard the ordinary concerns and purposes both of public and private life, admitting that true philosophers are unfit for them.
The passage, while it teaches us caution in receiving his criticisms on the defects of actual statesmen and men of action, informs us at the same time that he regarded philosophy as the only true business of life--the single pursuit worthy to occupy a freeman.
[141] This throws light on the purpose of many of his dialogues.
He intends to qualify the mind for a life of philosophical research, and with this view to bestow preliminary systematic training on the ratiocinative power.
To announce at once his own positive conclusions with their reasons, (as I remarked before) is not his main purpose.
A pupil who, having got all these by heart, supposed himself to have completed his course of philosophy, so that nothing farther remained to be done, would fall very short of the Platonic exigency.
The life of the philosopher--as Plato here conceives it--is a perpetual search after truth, by dialectic debate and mutual cross-examination between two minds, aiding each other to disembroil that confusion and inconsistency which grows up naturally in the ordinary mind.
For such a life a man becomes rather disqualified than prepared, by swallowing an early dose of authoritative dogmas and proofs dictated by his teacher.
The two essential requisites for it are, that he should acquire a self-acting ratiocinative power, and an earnest, untiring, interest in the dialectic process.
Both these aids Plato's negative dialogues are well calculated to afford: and when we thus look at his purpose, we shall see clearly that it did not require the presentation of any positive result.
[Footnote 141: Plato, Sophistês, p. 253 C: [Greek: ê( tô=n e)leuthe/rôn e)pistê/mê].]
[Side-note: Difficulties of the Theætêtus are not solved in any other Dialogue.]
The course of this dialogue--the Theætêtus--has been already described as an assemblage of successive perplexities without any solution.
But what deserves farther notice is--That the perplexities, as they are not solved in this dialogue, so they are not solved in any other dialogue.
The view taken by Schleiermacher and other critics--that Plato lays out the difficulties in one anterior dialogue, in order to furnish the solution in another posterior--is not borne out by the facts.
In the Theætêtus, many objections are propounded against the doctrine, That Opinion is sometimes true, sometimes false.
Sokrates shows that false opinion is an impossibility: either therefore all opinions are true, or no opinion is either true or false.
If we turn to the Sophistês, we shall find this same question discussed by the Eleatic Stranger who conducts the debate.
He there treats the doctrine--That false opinion is an impossibility and that no opinion could be false--as one which had long embarrassed himself, and which formed the favourite subterfuge of the impostors whom he calls Sophists.
He then states that this doctrine of the Sophists was founded on the Parmenidean dictum--That Non-Ens was an impossible supposition.
Refuting the dictum of Parmenides (by a course of reasoning which I shall examine elsewhere), he arrives at the conclusion--That Non-Ens exists in a certain fashion, as well as Ens: That false opinions are possible: That there may be false opinions as well as true.
But what deserves most notice here, in illustration of Plato's manner, is--that though the Sophistês[142] is announced as a continuation of the Theætêtus (carried on by the same speakers, with the addition of the Eleate), yet the objections taken by Sokrates in the Theætêtus against the possibility of false opinion, are not even noticed in the Sophistês--much less removed.
Other objections to it are propounded and dealt with: but not those objections which had arrested the march of Sokrates in the Theætêtus.
[143] Sokrates and Theætêtus hear the Eleatic Stranger discussing this same matter in the Sophistês, yet neither of them allude to those objections against his conclusion which had appeared to both of them irresistible in the preceding dialogue known as Theætêtus.
Nor are the objections refuted in any other of the Platonic dialogues.
[Footnote 142: See the end of the Theætêtus and the opening of the Sophistês.
Note, moreover, that the Politikus makes reference not only to the Sophistês, but also to the Theætêtus (pp.
258 A, 266 D, 284 B, 286 B).]
[Footnote 143: In the Sophistês, the Eleate establishes (to his own satisfaction) that [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n] is not [Greek: e)nanti/on tou= o)/ntos], but [Greek: e(/teron tou= o)/ntos] (p. 257 B), that it is one [Greek: ge/nos] among the various [Greek: ge/nê] (p. 260 B), and that it ([Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n koinônei=]) enters into communion or combination with [Greek: do/xa, lo/gos, phantasi/a], &c. It is therefore possible that there may be [Greek: pseudê\s do/xa] or [Greek: pseudê\s lo/gos], when you affirm, respecting any given subject, [Greek: e(/tera tô=n o)/ntôn] or [Greek: ta\ mê\ o)/nta ô(s o)/nta] (p. 263 B-C).
Plato considers that the case is thus made out against the Sophist, as the impostor and dealer in falsehoods; false opinion being proved to be possible and explicable.
But if we turn to the Theætêtus (p. 189 seq.
), we shall see that this very explication of [Greek: pseudê\s do/xa] is there enunciated and impugned by Sokrates in a long argument.
He calls it there [Greek: a)llodoxi/a, e(terodoxi/a, to\ e(terodoxei=n] (pp.
189 A, 190 E, 193 D).
No man (he says) can mistake one thing for another; if this were so, he must be supposed both to know and not to know the same thing, which is impossible (pp.
196 A, 200 A).
Therefore [Greek: pseudê\s do/xa] is impossible.
Of these objections, urged by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, against the possibility of [Greek: a)llodoxi/a], no notice is taken in the Sophistês either by Sokrates, or by Theætêtus, or by the Eleate in the Sophistês.
Indeed the Eleate congratulates himself upon the explanation as more satisfactory than he had expected to find (p. 264 B): and speaks with displeasure of the troublesome persons who stir up doubts and contradictions (p. 259 C): very different from the tone of Sokrates in the Theætêtus (p. 195, B-C).
I may farther remark that Plato, in the Republic, reasons about [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n] in the Parmenidean sense, and not in the sense which he ascribed to it in the Sophistês, and which he recognises in the Politikus, p. 284 B.
(Republic, v. pp.
477 A, 478 C.) Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
260-270) points out the discrepancy between the doctrines of the Eleate in the Sophistês, and those maintained by Sokrates in other Platonic dialogues; inferring from thence that the Sophistês and Politikus are not compositions of Plato.
As between the Theætêtus and the Sophistês, I think a stronger case of discrepancy might be set forth than he has stated; though the end of the former is tied to the beginning of the latter plainly, directly, and intentionally.
But I do not agree in his inference.
He concludes that the Sophistês is not Plato's composition: I conclude, that the scope for dissident views and doctrine, within the long philosophical career and numerous dialogues of Plato, is larger than his commentators admit.]
[Side-note: Plato considered that the search for Truth was the noblest occupation of life.]
Such a string of objections never answered, and of difficulties without solution, may appear to many persons nugatory as well as tiresome.
To Plato they did not appear so.
At the time when most of his dialogues were composed, he considered that the Search after truth was at once the noblest occupation, and the highest pleasure, of life.
Whoever has no sympathy with such a pursuit--whoever cares only for results, and finds the chase in itself fatiguing rather than attractive--is likely to take little interest in the Platonic dialogues.
To repeat what I said in Chapter VIII.
**--Those who expect from Plato a coherent system in which affirmative dogmas are first to be laid down, with the evidence in their favour--next, the difficulties and objections against them enumerated--lastly, these difficulties solved--will be disappointed.
Plato is, occasionally, abundant in his affirmations: he has also great negative fertility in starting objections: but the affirmative current does not come into conflict with the negative.
His belief is enforced by rhetorical fervour, poetical illustration, and a vivid emotional fancy.
These elements stand to him in the place of positive proof; and when his mind is full of them, the unsolved objections, which he himself had stated elsewhere, vanish out of sight.
Towards the close of his life (as we shall see in the Treatise De Legibus), the love of dialectic, and the taste for enunciating difficulties even when he could not clear them up, died out within him.
He becomes ultra-dogmatical, losing even the poetical richness and fervour which had once marked his affirmations, and substituting in their place a strict and compulsory orthodoxy.
[Side-note: Contrast between the philosopher and the practical statesman--between Knowledge and Opinion.]
The contrast between the philosopher and the man engaged in active life--which is so emphatically set forth in the Theætêtus[144]--falls in with the distinction between Knowledge and Opinion--The Infallible and the Fallible.
It helps the purpose of the dialogue, to show what knowledge is _not_: and it presents the distinction between the two on the ethical and emotional side, upon which Plato laid great stress.
The philosopher (or man of Knowledge, _i.e._ Knowledge viewed on its subjective side) stands opposed to the men of sensible perception and opinion, not merely in regard to intellect, but in regard to disposition, feeling, character, and appreciation of objects.
He neither knows nor cares about particular things or particular persons: all his intellectual force, and all his emotional interests, are engaged in the contemplation of Universals or Real Entia, and of the great pervading cosmical forces.
He despises the occupations of those around him, and the actualities of life, like the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias:[145] assimilating himself as much as possible to the Gods; who have no other occupation (according to the Aristotelian[146] Ethics), except that of contemplating and theorising.
He pursues these objects not with a view to any ulterior result, but because the pursuit is in itself a life both of virtue and happiness; neither of which are to be found in the region of opinion.
Intense interest in speculation is his prominent characteristic.
To dwell amidst these contemplations is a self-sufficing life; even without any of the aptitudes or accomplishments admired by the practical men.
If the philosopher meddles with their pursuits, he is not merely found incompetent, but also incurs general derision; because his incompetence becomes manifest even to the common-place citizens.
But if _they_ meddle with his speculations, they fail not less disgracefully; though their failure is not appreciated by the unphilosophical spectator.
[Footnote 144: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
173-176.
Compare Republic, v. pp.
476-477, vii.
p.
517.]
[Footnote 145: See above, chap.
xxiv.
p.
355.]
[Footnote 146: Ethic.
Nikomach.
x.
8, p. 1178, b.
9-25.]
The professors of Knowledge are thus divided by the strongest lines from the professors of Opinion.
And opinion itself--The Fallible--is, in this dialogue, presented as an inexplicable puzzle.
You talk about true and false opinions: but how can false opinions be possible?
and if they are not possible, what is the meaning of _true_, as applied to opinions?
Not only, therefore, opinion can never be screwed up to the dignity of knowledge--but the world of opinion itself defies philosophical scrutiny.
It is a chaos in which there is neither true nor false; in perpetual oscillation (to use the phrase of the Republic) between Ens and Non-Ens.
[147] [Footnote 147: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
478-479.
The Theætêtus is more in harmony (in reference to [Greek: do/xa] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê]) with the Republic, than with the Sophistês and Politikus.
In the Politikus (p. 309 C) [Greek: a)lêthê\s do/xa meta\ bebaiô/seôs] is placed very nearly on a par with knowledge: in the Menon also, the difference between the two, though clearly declared, is softened in degree, pp.
97-98.
The Alexandrine physician Herophilus attempted to draw, between [Greek: pro/r)r(êsis] and [Greek: pro/gnôsis], the same distinction as that which Plato draws between [Greek: do/xa] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê]--The Fallible as contrasted with the Infallible.
Galen shows that the distinction is untenable (Prim.
Commentat.
in Hippokratis Prorrhetica, Tom.
xvi.
p. 487. ed.
Kühn).
Bonitz, in his Platonische Studien (pp.
41-78), has given an instructive analysis and discussion of the Theætêtus.
I find more to concur with in his views, than in those of Schleiermacher or Steinhart.
He disputes altogether the assumption of other Platonic critics, that a purely negative result is unworthy of Plato; and that the negative apparatus is an artifice to recommend, and a veil to conceal, some great affirmative truth, which acute expositors can detect and enunciate plainly (Schleiermacher, Einleit.
zum Theætêt.
p. 124 seq.)
Bonitz recognises the result of the Theætêtus as purely negative, and vindicates the worth of it as such.
Moreover, instead of denouncing the opinions which Plato combats, as if they were perverse heresies of dishonest pretenders, he adverts to the great difficulty of those problems which both Plato and Plato's opponents undertook to elucidate: and he remarks that, in those early days, the first attempts to explain psychological phenomena were even more liable to error than the first attempts to explain physical phenomena (pp.
75-77).
Such recognition, of the real difficulty of a problem, is rare among the Platonic critics.]
CHAPTER XXIX.
SOPHISTES--POLITIKUS.
[Side-note: Persons and circumstances of the two dialogues.]
These two dialogues are both of them announced by Plato as forming sequel to the Theætêtus.
The beginning of the Sophistês fits on to the end of the Theætêtus: and the Politikus is even presented as a second part or continuation of the Sophistês.
[1] In all the three, the same interlocutors are partially maintained.
Thus Sokrates, Theodôrus, and Theætêtus are present in all three: and Theætêtus makes the responses, not only in the dialogue which bears his name, but also in the Sophistês.
Both in the Sophistês and Politikus, however, Sokrates himself descends from the part of principal speaker to that of listener: it is he, indeed, who by his question elicits the exposition, but he makes no comment either during the progress of it or at the close.
In both the dialogues, the leading and expository function is confided to a new personage introduced by Theodôrus:--a stranger not named, but announced as coming from Elea--the friend and companion of Parmenides and Zeno.
Perhaps (remarks Sokrates) your friend may, without your knowledge, be a God under human shape; as Homer tells us that the Gods often go about, in the company of virtuous men, to inspect the good and bad behaviour of mankind.
Perhaps your friend may be a sort of cross-examining God, coming to test and expose our feebleness in argument.
No (replies Theodôrus) that is not his character.
He is less given to dispute than his companions.
He is far from being a God, but he is a divine man: for I call all true philosophers divine.
[2] [Footnote 1: At the beginning of the Politikus, Plato makes Sokrates refer both to the Theætêtus and to the Sophistês (p. 258 A).
In more than one passage of the Politikus (pp.
266 D, 284 B, 286 B), he even refers to the Sophistês directly and by name, noticing certain points touched in it--a thing very unusual with him.
In the Sophistês also (p. 233 B), express reference is made to a passage in the Theætêtus.
See also the allusion in Sophistês (to the appearance of the younger Sokrates as respondent), p. 218 B. Socher (in his work, Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
258-294) maintains that neither the Sophistês, nor the Politikus, nor the Parmenidês, are genuine works of Plato.
He conceives the two dialogues to be contemporary with the Theætêtus (which he holds to have been written by Plato), but to have been composed by some acute philosopher of the Megaric school, conversant with the teachings of Sokrates and with the views of Plato, after the visit of the latter to Megara in the period succeeding the death of Sokrates (p. 268).
Even if we grant the exclusion of Plato's authorship, the hypothesis of an author belonging to the Megaric school is highly improbable: the rather, since many critics suppose (I think erroneously) that the Megarici are among those attacked in the dialogue.
The suspicion that Plato is not the author of Sophistês and Politikus has undoubtedly more appearance of reason than the same suspicion as applied to other dialogues--though I think the reasons altogether insufficient.
Socher observes, justly: 1.
That the two dialogues are peculiar, distinguished from other Platonic dialogues by the profusion of logical classification, in practice as well as in theory.
2.
That both, and especially the Sophistês, advance propositions and conclusions discrepant from what we read in other Platonic dialogues.--But these two reasons are not sufficient to make me disallow them.
I do not agree with those who require so much uniformity, either of matter or of manner, in the numerous distinct dialogues of Plato.
I recognise a much wider area of admissible divergence.
The plain announcement contained in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and Politikus themselves, that the two last are intended as sequel to the first, is in my mind a proof of sameness of authorship, not counterbalanced by Socher's objections.
Why should a Megaric author embody in his two dialogues a false pretence and assurance, that they are sequel of the Platonic Theætêtus?
Why should so acute a writer (as Socher admits him to be) go out of his way to suppress his own personality, and merge his fame in that of Plato?
I make the same remark on the views of Suckow (Form der Platonischen Schriften, p. 87, seq., Breslau, 1855), who admits the Sophistes to be a genuine work of Plato, but declares the Politikus to be spurious; composed by some fraudulent author, who wished to give to his dialogue the false appearance of being a continuation of the Sophistes: he admits (p. 93) that it must be a deliberate deceit, if the Politikus be really the work of a different author from the Sophistês; for identity of authorship is distinctly affirmed in it.
Suckow gives two reasons for believing that the Politikus is not by Plato:--1.
That the doctrines respecting government are different from those of the Republic, and the cosmology of the long mythe which it includes different from the cosmology of the Timæus.
These are reasons similar to those advanced by Socher, and (in my judgment) insufficient reasons.
2.
That Aristotle, in a passage of the Politica (iv.
2, p. 1289, b.
5), alludes to an opinion, which is found in the Politikus in the following terms: [Greek: ê)/dê me\n ou)=n tis a)pephê/nato kai\ tô=n pro/teron ou(/tôs], &c. Suckow maintains that Aristotle could never have alluded to Plato in these terms, and that he must have believed the Politikus to be composed by some one else.
But I think this inference is not justified by the premisses.
It is noway impossible that Aristotle might allude to Plato sometimes in this vague and general way: and I think that he has done so in other passages of the same treatise (vii.
2, 1324, a.
29--vii.
7, p. 1327, b.
37).
Ueberweg (Aechtheit der Platon.
Schrift.
p. 162, seq.)
combats with much force the views of Suckow.
It would be rash to build so much negative inference upon a loose phrase of Aristotle.
That he should have spoken of Plato in this vague manner is much more probable, or much less improbable, than the counter-supposition, that the author of a striking and comprehensive dialogue, such as the Politikus, should have committed a fraud for the purpose of fastening his composition on Plato, and thus abnegating all fame for himself.
The explicit affirmation of the Politikus itself ought to be believed, in my judgment, unless it can be refuted by greater negative probabilities than any which Socher and Suckow produce.
I do not here repeat, what I have endeavoured to justify in an earlier chapter of this work, the confidence which I feel in the canon of Thrasyllus; a confidence which it requires stronger arguments than those of these two critics to overthrow.]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Sophist.
p. 216 B-C.] This Eleate performs the whole task of exposition, by putting questions to Theætêtus, in the Sophistês--to the younger Sokrates in the Politikus.
Since the true Sokrates is merely listener in both dialogues, Plato provides for him an additional thread of connection with both; by remarking that the youthful Sokrates is his namesake, and that Theætêtus resembles him in flat nose and physiognomy.
[3] [Footnote 3: Plato, Politik.
p. 257 E.] [Side-note: Relation of the two dialogues to the Theætêtus.]
Though Plato himself plainly designates the Sophistês as an intended sequel to the Theætêtus, yet the method of the two is altogether different, and in a certain sense even opposite.
In the Theætêtus, Sokrates extracts answers from the full and pregnant mind of that youthful respondent: he himself professes to teach nothing, but only to canvass every successive hypothesis elicited from his companion.
But the Eleate is presented to us in the most imposing terms, as a thoroughly accomplished philosopher: coming with doctrines established in his mind,[4] and already practised in the task of exposition which Sokrates entreats him to undertake.
He is, from beginning to end, affirmative and dogmatical: and if he declines to proceed by continuous lecture, this is only because he is somewhat ashamed to appropriate all the talk to himself.
[5] He therefore prefers to accept Theætêtus as respondent.
But Theætêtus is no longer pregnant, as in the preceding dialogue.
He can do no more than give answers signifying assent and dissent, which merely serve to break and diversify the exposition.
In fact, the dialogue in the Sophistês and Politikus is assimilated by Plato himself,[6] not to that in the Theætêtus, but to that in the last half of the Parmenides; wherein Aristotelês the respondent answers little more than Ay or No, to leading questions from the interrogator.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Sophist.
p. 217 B.
[Greek: e)pei\ diakêkoe/nai ge/ phêsin i(kanô=s kai\ ou)k a)mnêmonei=n.]]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
216-217.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Sophist.
p. 217 C. The words of Sokrates show that he alludes to the last half of the Parmenidês, in which he is only present as a listener--not to the first half, in which he takes an active part.
Compare the Parmenidês, p. 137 C. In this last-mentioned dialogue, Sokrates (then a youth) and Aristotelês are the parallel of Theætêtus and the younger Sokrates in the Sophistês and Politikus.
(See p. 135 D.)] [Side-note: Plato declares that his first purpose is to administer a lesson in logical method: the special question chosen, being subordinate to that purpose.]
In noticing the circumlocutory character, and multiplied negative criticism, of the Theætêtus, without any ultimate profit realised in the form of positive result--I remarked, that Plato appreciated dialogues, not merely as the road to a conclusion, but for the mental discipline and suggestive influence of the tentative and verifying process.
It was his purpose to create in his hearers a disposition to prosecute philosophical research of their own, and at the same time to strengthen their ability of doing so with effect.
This remark is confirmed by the two dialogues now before us, wherein Plato defends himself against reproaches seemingly made to him at the time.
[7] "To what does all this tend?
Why do you stray so widely from your professed topic?
Could you not have reached this point by a shorter road?"
He replies by distinctly proclaiming--That the process, with its improving influence on the mind, stands first in his thoughts--the direct conclusion of the enquiry, only second: That the special topic which he discusses, though in itself important, is nevertheless chosen principally with a view to its effect in communicating general method and dialectic aptitude: just as a schoolmaster, when he gives out to his pupils a word to be spelt, looks mainly, not to their exactness in spelling that particular word, but to their command of good spelling generally.
[8] To form inquisitive, testing minds, fond of philosophical debate as a pursuit, and looking at opinions on the negative as well as on the positive side, is the first object in most of Plato's dialogues: to teach positive truth, is only a secondary object.
[Footnote 7: Plato, Politikus, pp.
283 B, 286-287.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Politikus, p. 285 D. [Greek: _Xen_.--Ti/ d' au)=?
nu=n ê(mi=n ê( peri\ tou= politikou= zê/têsis e(/neka au)tou= tou/tou probe/blêtai ma=llon ê)\ tou= peri\ pa/nta dialektikôte/rois gi/gnesthai?
_Ne/os Sôkr_.--Kai\ tou=to dê=lon o(/ti tou= peri\ pa/nta.]
Again, p. 288 D. [Greek: to/ te au)= pro\s tê\n tou= problêthe/ntos zê/têsin, ô(s a)\n r(a=|sta kai\ ta/chista eu)/roimen, deu/teron a)ll' ou) prô=ton o( lo/gos a)gapa=|n paragge/lei, polu\ de\ ma/lista kai\ prô=ton tê\n me/thodon au)tê\n tima=|n, tou= kat' ei)/dê dunato\n ei)=nai diairei=n], &c.] [Side-note: Method of logical Definition and Division.]
Both the Sophistes and the Politikus are lessons and specimens of that process which the logical manuals recognise under the names--Definition and Division.
What is a Sophist?
What is a politician or statesman?
What is a philosopher?
In the first place--Are the three really distinct characters?
for this may seem doubtful: since the true philosopher, in his visits of inspection from city to city, is constantly misconceived by an ignorant public, and confounded with the other two.
[9] The Eleate replies that the three are distinct.
Then what is the characteristic function of each?
How is he distinguished from other persons or other things?
To what class or classes does each belong: and what is the specific character belonging to the class, so as to mark its place in the scheme descending by successive logical subdivision from the highest genus down to particulars?
What other professions or occupations are there analogous to those of Sophist and Statesman, so as to afford an illustrative comparison?
What is there in like manner capable of serving as illustrative contrast?
[Footnote 9: Plato, Sophist.
p. 216 E.] [Side-note: Sokrates tries the application of this method, first, upon a vulgar subject.
To find the logical place and deduction of the Angler.
Superior classes above him.
Bisecting division.]
Such are the problems which it is the direct purpose of the two dialogues before us to solve.
But a large proportion of both is occupied by matters bearing only indirectly upon the solution.
The process of logical subdivision, or the formation of classes in subordination to each other, can be exhibited just as plainly in application to an ordinary craft or profession, as to one of grave importance.
The Eleate Stranger even affirms that the former case will be simpler, and will serve as explanatory introduction to the latter.
[10] He therefore selects the craft of an angler, for which to find a place in logical classification.
Does not an angler belong to the general class--men of art or craft?
He is not a mere artless, non-professional, private man.
This being so, we must distribute the class Arts--Artists, into two subordinate classes: Artists who construct or put together some new substance or compound--Artists who construct nothing new, but are employed in getting, or keeping, or employing, substances already made.
Thus the class Artists is bisected into Constructive--Acquisitive.
The angler constructs nothing: he belongs to the acquisitive branch.
We now bisect this latter branch.
Acquirers either obtain by consent, or appropriate without consent.
Now the angler is one of the last-mentioned class: which is again bisected into two sub-classes, according as the appropriation is by force or stratagem--Fighters and Hunters.
The angler is a hunter: but many other persons are hunters also, from whom he must be distinguished.
Hunters are therefore divided into, Those who hunt inanimate things (such as divers for sponges, &c.), and Those who hunt living things or animals, including of course the angler among them.
The hunters of animals are distinguished into hunters of walking animals, and hunters of swimming animals.
Of the swimming animals some are in air, others in water:[11] hence we get two classes, Bird-Hunters and Fish-Hunters; to the last of whom the angler belongs.
The fish-hunters (or fishermen) again are bisected into two classes, according as they employ nets, or striking instruments of one kind or another, such as tridents, &c. Of the striking fishermen there are two sorts: those who do their work at night by torch-light, and those who work by day.
All these day-fishermen, including among them the angler, use instruments with hooks at the end.
But we must still make one bisection more.
Some of them employ tridents, with which they strike from above downwards at the fishes, upon any part of the body which may present itself: others use hooks, rods, and lines, which they contrive to attach to the jaws of the fish, and thereby draw him from below upward.
[12] This is the special characteristic of the angler.
We have now a class comprehending the anglers alone, so that no farther sub-division is required.
We have obtained not merely the name of the angler, but also the rational explanation of the function to which the name is attached.
[13] [Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist.
p. 218 E.] [Footnote 11: Plato, Sophist.
p. 220 B.
[Greek: Neustikou= mê\n to\ me\n ptêno\n phu=lon o(rô=men, to\ de\ e)/nudron.]
It deserves notice that Plato here considers the air as a fluid in which birds swim.]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
219-221.]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Sophist.
p. 221 A-B.
[Greek: Nu=n a)/ra tê=s a)spalieutikê=s--ou) mo/non tou)/noma, a)lla\ kai\ to\n lo/gon peri\ au)to\ tou)/rgon, ei)lê/phamen i(kanô=s.]]
[Side-note: Such a lesson in logical classification was at that time both novel and instructive.
No logical manuals then existed.]
This is the first specimen which Plato gives of a systematic classification descending, by successive steps of bifurcation, through many subordinations of genera and species, each founded on a real and proclaimed distinction--and ending at last in an _infima species_.
He repeats the like process in regard to the Sophist, the Statesman, and other professions to which he compares the one or the other: but it will suffice to have given one specimen of his method.
If we transport ourselves back to his time, I think that such a view of the principles of classification implies a new and valuable turn of thought.
There existed then no treatises on logic; no idea of logic as a scheme of mental procedure; no sciences out of which it was possible to abstract the conception of a regular method more or less diversified.
On no subject was there any mass of facts or details collected, large enough to demand some regular system for the purpose of arranging and rendering them intelligible.
Classification to a certain extent is of necessity involved, consciously or unconsciously, in the use of general terms.
But the process itself had never been made a subject of distinct consciousness or reflection to any one (as far as our knowledge reaches), in the time of Plato.
No one had yet looked at it as a process natural indeed to the human intellect, up to a certain point and in a loose manner,--but capable both of great extension and great improvement, and requiring especial study, with an end deliberately set before the mind, in order that it might be employed with advantage to regularise and render intelligible even common and well-known facts.
To determine a series of descending classes, with class-names, each connoting some assignable characteristic--to distribute the whole of each class between two correlative sub-classes, to compare the different ways in which this could be done, and to select such _membra condividentia_ as were most suitable for the purpose--this was in the time of Plato an important novelty.
We know from Xenophon[14] that Sokrates considered Dialectic to be founded, both etymologically and really, upon the distribution of particular things into genera or classes.
But we find little or no intentional illustration of this process in any of the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates: and we are farther struck by the fact that Plato, in the two dialogues which we are here considering, assigns all the remarks on the process of classification, not to Sokrates himself, but to the nameless Eleatic Stranger.
[Footnote 14: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
5, 12.]
[Side-note: Plato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler.
He traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the acquisitive genus of art.]
After giving the generic deduction of the angler from the comprehensive idea of Art, distributed into two sections, constructive and acquisitive, Plato proceeds to notice the analogy between the Sophist and an angler: after which he deduces the Sophist also from the acquisitive section of Art.
The Sophist is an angler for rich young men.
[15] To find his place in the preceding descending series, we must take our departure from the bisection--hunters of walking animals, hunters of swimming animals.
The Sophist is a hunter of walking animals: which may be divided into two classes, wild and tame.
The Sophist hunts a species of tame animals--men.
Hunters of tame animals are bisected into such as hunt by violent means (robbers, enslavers, despots, &c.),[16] and such as hunt by persuasive means.
Of the hunters by means of persuasion there are two kinds: those who hunt the public, and those who hunt individuals.
The latter again may be divided into two classes: those who hunt to their own loss, by means of presents, such as lovers, &c., and those who hunt with a view to their own profit.
To this latter class belongs the Sophist: pretending to associate with others for the sake of virtue, but really looking to his own profit.
[17] [Footnote 15: Plato, Sophist.
p. 222 A.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Sophist.
p. 222 C. It illustrates the sentiment of Plato's age respecting classification, when we see the great diversity of particulars which he himself, here as well as elsewhere, ranks under the general name [Greek: thê/ra], _hunting_--[Greek: thê/ra ga\r pampolu/ ti pra=gma/ e)sti, perieilêmme/non o)no/mati nu=n schedo\n e(ni/] (Plato, Legg.
viii.
822-823-824, and Euthyd.
p. 290 B).
He includes both [Greek: stratêgikê\] and [Greek: phtheiristikê\] as varieties of [Greek: thêreutikê/], Sophist.
p. 227 B.
Compare also the interesting conversation about [Greek: thê/ra a)nthrô/pôn] between Sokrates and Theodotê, Xenophon, Memorab.
iii.
11, 7; and between Sokrates and Kritobulus, ii.
6, 29.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Sophist.
p. 223 A.]
[Side-note: The Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and different descending subdivision.]
Again, we may find the Sophist by descending through a different string of subordinate classes from the genus--_Acquisitive Art_.
The professors of this latter may be bisected into two sorts--hunters and exchangers.
Exchangers are of two sorts--givers and sellers.
Sellers again sell either their own productions, or the productions of others.
Those who sell the productions of others are either fixed residents in one city, or hawkers travelling about from city to city.
Hawkers again carry about for sale either merchandise for the body, or merchandise for the mind, such as music, poetry, painting, exhibitions of jugglery, learning, and intellectual accomplishments, and so forth.
These latter (hawkers for the mind) may be divided into two sorts: those who go about teaching; for money, arts and literary accomplishments--and those who go about teaching virtue for money.
They who go about teaching virtue for money are the Sophists.
[18] Or indeed if they sell virtue and knowledge for money, they are not the less Sophists--whether they buy what they sell from others, or prepare it for themselves--whether they remain in one city or become itinerant.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Sophist.
p. 224 B.]
[Side-note: Also, by a third.]
A third series of subordinate classes will also bring us down from the genus--_Acquisitive Art_--down to the _infima species_--_Sophist_.
In determining the class-place of the angler, we recognised a bisection of acquisitive art into acquirers by exchange, or mutual consent--and acquirers by appropriation, or without consent.
[19] These latter we divided according as they employed either force or stratagem: contenders and hunters.
We then proceeded to bisect the class hunters, leaving the contenders without farther notice.
Now let us take up the class contenders.
It may be divided into two: competitors for a set prize (pecuniary or honorary), and fighters.
The fighters go to work either body against body, violently--or tongue against tongue, as arguers.
These arguers again fall into two classes: the pleaders, who make long speeches, about just or unjust, before the public assembly and dikastery: and the dialogists, who meet each other in short question and answer.
The dialogists again are divided into two: the private, untrained antagonists, quarrelling with each other about the particular affairs of life (who form a species by themselves, since characteristic attributes may be assigned to them; though these attributes are too petty and too indefinite to have ever received a name in common language, or to deserve a name from us[20])--and the trained practitioners or wranglers, who dispute not about particular incidents, but about just and unjust in general, and other general matters.
[21] Of wranglers again there are two sorts: the prosers, who follow the pursuit from spontaneous taste and attachment, not only without hope of gain, but to the detriment of their private affairs, incurring loss themselves, and wearying or bothering their hearers: and those who make money by such private dialogues.
This last sort of wrangler is the Sophist.
[22] [Footnote 19: Plato, Sophist.
p. 219 E.] [Footnote 20: Plato, Sophist.
p. 225 C. [Greek: _Xe/nos_.--Tou= de\ a)ntilogikou=, to\ me\n o(/son peri\ ta\ xumbolai=a a)mphisbêtei=tai me/n, ei)kê= de\ kai\ a)technô=s peri\ au)to\ pra/ttetai, tau=ta _thete/on me\n ei)=dos_, e)pei/per au)to\ die/gnôken ô(s e(/teron o)\n o( lo/gos; a)ta\r e)pônumi/as ou)/th' u(po\ tô=n e)/mprosthen e)/tuchen, ou)/te nu=n u(ph' ê(mô=n tuchei=n a)/xion.
_Theaitêt_.--A)lêthê=; kata\ _smikra\_ ga\r li/an kai\ _pantodapa\_ diê/|rêtai.]
These words illustrate Plato's view of an [Greek: ei)=dos] or species.
Any distinguishable attributes, however petty, and however multifarious, might be taken to form a species upon; but if they were petty and multifarious, there was no advantage in bestowing a specific name.]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Sophist.
p. 225 C. [Greek: to\ de/ ge e)/ntechnon, kai\ peri\ _dikai/ôn au)tô=n_ kai\ a)di/kôn kai\ peri\ tô=n _a)/llôn o(/lôs_ a)mphisbêtou=n, a)=r' ou)k e)ristiko\n au)= le/gein ei)thi/smetha?]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Sophist.
p. 225 E.] [Side-note: The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of separating or discriminating art.]
There is yet another road of class-distribution which will bring us down to the Sophist.
A great number of common arts (carding wool, straining through a sieve, &c.) have, in common, the general attribute of separating matters confounded in a heap.
Of separation there are two sorts: you may separate like from like (this has no established name)--or better from worse, which is called _purification_.
Purification is of two sorts: either of body or of mind.
In regard to body, the purifying agents are very multifarious, comprising not only men and animals, but also inanimate things: and thus including many varieties which in common estimation are mean, trivial, repulsive, or ludicrous.
But all these various sentiments (observes Plato) we must disregard.
We must follow out a real analogy wherever it leads us, and recognise a logical affinity wherever we find one; whether the circumstances brought together be vile or venerable, or some of them vile and some venerable, in the eyes of mankind.
Our sole purpose is to improve our intelligence.
With that view, all particulars are of equal value in our eyes, provided only they exhibit that real likeness which legitimates them as members of the same class--purifiers of body: the correlate of that other class which we now proceed to study--purifiers of mind.
[23] [Footnote 23: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
226-227.
227 A: [Greek: tê=| tô=n lo/gôn metho/dô| spoggistikê=s ê)\ pharmakoposi/as ou)de\n ê(=tton ou)de/ ti ma=llon tugcha/nei me/lon, ei) to\ me\n smikra/, to\ de\ mega/la ê(ma=s ô)phelei= kathai=ron.
_Tou= ktê/sasthai ga\r e(/neken nou=n pasô=n technô=n to\ xuggene\s kai\ to\ mê\ xuggene\s katanoei=n peirôme/nê, tima=| pro\s tou=to, e)x i)/sou pa/sas_, kai\ tha/tera tô=n e(te/rôn kata\ tê\n o(moio/têta ou)de\n ê(gei=tai geloio/tera, _semno/teron de/ ti to\n dia\ stratêmikê=s ê)\ phtheiristikê=s dêlou=nta thêreutikê\n ou)de\n neno/miken_, a)ll' _ô(s to\ polu\ chauno/teron_.
Kai\ dê\ kai\ nu=n, o(/per ê)/rou, ti/ proserou=men o)/noma xumpa/sas duna/meis, o(/sai sô=ma ei)/te e)/mpsuchon ei)/te a)/psuchon ei)lê/chasi kathai/rein, ou)de\n au)tê=| dioi/sei, poi=on ti lechthe\n eu)prepe/staton ei)=nai do/xei; _mo/non e)che/tô chôri\s_ tô=n tê=s psuchê=s katha/rseôn pa/nta xundê=san o(/sa a)/llo ti kathai/rei.]
To maintain the equal scientific position of [Greek: phtheiristikê/], as two different species under the genus [Greek: thêreutikê/], is a strong illustration.
Compare also Plato, Politikus, p. 266 D. A similar admonition is addressed (in the Parmenidês, p. 130 E**) by the old Parmenides to the youthful Sokrates, when the latter cannot bring himself to admit that there exist [Greek: ei)=dê] or Forms of vulgar and repulsive objects, such as [Greek: thri\x] and [Greek: pê=los].
[Greek: Neos ga\r ei)= e)/ti, kai\ ou)/pô sou= a)ntei/lêptai philosophi/a ô(s e)/ti a)ntilê/psetai kat' e)mê\n do/xan, o(/te ou)de\n au)tô=n a)tima/seis; nu=n d' e)/ti pro\s a)nthrô/pôn a)poble/peis do/xas dia\ tê\n ê(liki/an.]
See above, ch.
xxvii.
p. 60, in my review of the Parmenidês.]
[Side-note: In a logical classification, low and vulgar items deserve as much attention as grand ones.
Conflict between emotional and scientific classification.]
This precept (repeated by Plato also in the Politikus) respecting the principles of classification, deserves notice.
It protests against, and seeks to modify, one of the ordinary turns in the associating principles of the human mind.
With unreflecting men, classification is often emotional rather than intellectual.
The groups of objects thrown together in such minds, and conceived in immediate association, are such as suggest the same or kindred emotions: pleasure or pain, love or hatred, hope or fear, admiration, contempt, disgust, jealousy, ridicule.
Community of emotion is a stronger bond of association between different objects, than community in any attribute not immediately interesting to the emotions, and appreciable only intellectually.
Thus objects which have nothing else in common, except appeal to the same earnest emotion, will often be called by the same general name, and will be constituted members of the same class.
To attend to attributes in any other point of view than in reference to the amount and kind of emotion which they excite, is a process uncongenial to ordinary taste: moreover, if any one brings together, in the same wording, objects really similar, but exciting opposite and contradictory emotions, he usually provokes either disgust or ridicule.
All generalizations, and all general terms connoting them, are results brought together by association and comparison of particulars somehow resembling.
But if we look at the process of association in an unreflecting person, the resemblances which it fastens upon will be often emotional, not intellectual: and the generalizations founded upon such resemblances will be emotional also.
It is against this natural propensity that Plato here enters his protest, in the name of intellect and science.
For the purpose of obtaining a classification founded on real, intrinsic affinities, we must exclude all reference to the emotions: we must take no account whether a thing be pleasing or hateful, sublime or mean:[24] we must bring ourselves to rank objects useful or grand in the same logical compartment with objects hurtful or ludicrous.
We must examine only whether the resemblance is true and real, justifying itself to the comparing intellect: and whether the class-term chosen be such as to comprise all these resemblances, holding them apart ([Greek: mo/non e)che/tô chôri\s]) from the correlative and opposing class.
[25] [Footnote 24: Compare Politikus, p. 266 D; Parmenidês, p. 130 E. We see that Plato has thus both anticipated and replied to the objection of Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
260-262), who is displeased with the minuteness of this classification, and with the vulgar objects to which it is applied.
Socher contends that this is unworthy of Plato, and that it was peculiar to the subtle Megaric philosophers.
I think, on the contrary, that the purpose of illustrating the process of classification was not unworthy of Plato; that it was not unnatural to do this by allusion to vulgar trades or handicraft, at a time when no scientific survey of physical facts had been attempted; that the allusion to such vulgar trades is quite in the manner of Plato, and of Sokrates before him.
Stallbaum, in his elaborate Prolegomena both to the Sophistês and to the Politikus, rejects the conclusion of Socher, and maintains that both dialogues are the work of Plato.
Yet he agrees to a certain extent in Socher's premisses.
He thinks that minuteness and over-refinement in classification were peculiarities of the Megaric philosophers, and that Plato intentionally pushes the classification into an extreme subtlety and minuteness, in order to parody their proceedings and turn them into ridicule.
(Proleg.
ad Sophist.
pp.
32-36, ad Politic.
pp.
54-55.)
But how do Socher and Stallbaum know that this extreme minuteness of subdivision into classes _was_ a characteristic of the Megaric philosophers?
Neither of them produce any proof of it.
Indeed Stallbaum himself says, most truly (Proleg.
ad Politic.
p. 55) "Quæ de Megaricorum arte dialecticâ accepimus, sane quam sunt paucissima".
He might have added, that the little which we do hear about their dialectic, is rather adverse to this supposed minuteness of positive classification, than consonant with it.
What we hear is, that they were extremely acute and subtle in contentious disputations--able assailants of the position of a logical opponent.
But this talent has nothing to do with minuteness of positive classification: and is even indicative of a different turn of mind.
Moreover, we hear about Eukleides, the chief of the Megaric school, that he enlarged the signification of the Summum Genus of Parmenides--the [Greek: E(\n kai\ Pa=n].
Eukleides called it Unum, Bonum, Simile et Idem Semper, Deus, &c. But we do not hear that Eukleides acknowledged a series of subordinate Genera or Species, expanding by logical procession below this primary Unum.
As far as we can judge, this seems to have been wanting in his philosophy.
Yet it is exactly these subordinate Genera or Species, which the Platonic Sophistês and Politikus supply in abundance, and even excess, conformably to the precept laid down by Plato in the Philêbus (p. 14).
The words of the Sophistês (p. 216 D) rather indicate that the Eleatic Stranger is declared _not_ to possess the character and attributes of Megaric disputation.]
[Footnote 25: Though the advice here given by Plato about the principles of classification is very judicious, yet he has himself in this same dialogue set an example of repugnance to act upon it (Sophist.
p. 231 A-B.)
In following out his own descending series of partitions, he finds that the Sophist corresponds with the great mental purifier--the person who applies the Elenchus or cross-examining test, to youthful minds, so as to clear out that false persuasion of knowledge which is the great bar to all improvement.
But though brought by his own process to this point, Plato shrinks from admitting it.
His dislike towards the Sophist will not allow him.
"The Sophist is indeed" (he says) "very like to this grand educator: but so also a wolf is very like to a dog--the most savage of animals to the most gentle.
We must always be extremely careful about these likenesses: the whole body of them are most slippery.
Still we cannot help admitting the Sophist to represent this improving process--that is, the high and true bred Sophist."
It will be seen that Plato's remark here about [Greek: o(moio/têtes] contradicts what he had himself said before (p. 227 B).
The reluctance to rank _dog_ and _wolf_ together, in the same class, is an exact specimen of that very mistake which he had been just pointing out for correction.
The scientific resemblance between the two animals is very close; but the antithesis of sentiment, felt by men towards the one and the other, is extreme.]
[Side-note: The purifier--a species under the genus discriminator--separates good from evil.
Evil is of two sorts; the worst sort is, Ignorance, mistaking itself for knowledge.]
After these just remarks on classification generally, the Eleate pursues the subdivision of his own theme.
To purify the mind is to get rid of the evil, and retain or improve the good.
Now evil is of two sorts--disease (injustice, intemperance, cowardice, &c.) and ignorance.
Disease, which in the body is dealt with by the physician, is in the mind dealt with by the judicial tribunal: ignorance (corresponding to ugliness, awkwardness, disability, in the body, which it is the business of the gymnastic trainer to correct) falls under the treatment of the teacher or instructor.
[26] Ignorance again may be distributed into two heads: one, though special, being so grave as to counterbalance all the rest, and requiring to be set apart by itself--that is--ignorance accompanied with the false persuasion of knowledge.
[27] [Footnote 26: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
228-229.]
[Footnote 27: Plat.
Soph.
p. 229 C. [Greek: A)gnoi/as d' ou)=n me/ga ti/ moi dokô= kai\ chalepo\n a)phôrisme/non o(ra=|n ei)=dos, pa=si toi=s a)/llois au)tê=s a)nti/stathmon me/resi .
.
.
To\ mê\ kateido/ta ti, dokei=n ei)de/nai.]]
[Side-note: Exhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil.
Cross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to bear upon it.
This is the sovereign purifier.]
To meet this special and gravest case of ignorance, we must recognise a special division of the art of instruction or education.
Exhortation, which is the common mode of instruction, and which was employed by our forefathers universally, is of no avail against this false persuasion of knowledge: which can only be approached and cured by the Elenchus, or philosophical cross-examination.
So long as a man believes himself to be wise, you may lecture for ever without making impression upon him: you do no good by supplying food when the stomach is sick.
But the examiner, questioning him upon those subjects which he professes to know, soon entangles him in contradictions with himself, making him feel with shame and humiliation his own real ignorance.
After having been thus disabused--a painful but indispensable process, not to be accomplished except by the Elenchus--his mind becomes open and teachable, so that positive instruction may be communicated to him with profit.
The Elenchus is the grand and sovereign purification: whoever has not been subjected to it, were he even the Great King, is impure, unschooled, and incompetent for genuine happiness.
[28] [Footnote 28: Plato, Sophist.
p. 230 D-E.] [Side-note: The application of this Elenchus is the work of the Sophist, looked at on its best side.
But looked at as he really is, he is a juggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every thing--who palms off falsehood for truth.]
This cross-examining and disabusing process, brought to bear upon the false persuasion of knowledge and forming the only antidote to it, is the business of the Sophist looked at on its best side.
[29] But Plato will not allow the Elenchus, the great Sokratic accomplishment and mission, to be shared by the Sophists: and he finds or makes a subtle distinction to keep them off.
The Sophist (so the Eleate proceeds) is a disputant, and teaches all his youthful pupils to dispute about everything as if they knew it--about religion, astronomy, philosophy, arts, laws, politics, and everything else.
He teaches them to argue in each department against the men of special science: he creates a belief in the minds of others that he really knows all those different subjects, respecting which he is able to argue and cross-examine successfully: he thus both possesses, and imparts to his pupils, a seeming knowledge, an imitation and pretence of reality.
[30] He is a sort of juggler: an imitator who palms off upon persons what appears like reality when seen from a distance, but what is seen to be not like reality when contemplated closely.
[31] [Footnote 29: Plato, Sophist.
p. 231 B.
[Greek: tê=s de\ paideutikê=s a( peri\ tê\n ma/taion doxosophi/an gigno/menos e)/legchos e)n tô=| nu=n lo/gô| paraphane/nti mêde\n a)/ll' ê(mi=n ei)=nai lege/sthô plê\n ê( ge/nei gennai/a sophistikê/.]]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
232-233 C, 235 A. Sokrates tells us in the Platonic Apology (p. 23 A) that this was the exact effect which his own cross-examination produced upon the hearers: they supposed him to be wise on those topics on which he exposed ignorance in others.
The Memorabilia of Xenophon exhibit the same impression as made by the conversation of Sokrates, even when he talked with artisans on their own arts.
Sokrates indeed professed not to teach anyone--and he certainly took no fee for teaching.
But we see plainly that this disclaimer imposed upon no one; that he did teach, though gratuitously; and that what he taught was, the art of cross-examination and dispute.
We learn this not merely from his enemy, Aristophanes, and from the proceedings of his opponents, Kritias and Charikles (Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2), but also from his own statement in the Platonic Apology (pp.
23 C. 37 E. 39 B), and from the language of Plato and Xenophon throughout.
Plato is here puzzled to make out a clear line of distinction between the Elenchus of Sokrates, and the disputatious arguments of those Sophists whom he calls Eristic--name deserved quite as much by Sokrates as by any of them.
Plato here accuses the Sophists of talking upon a great many subjects which they did not know, and teaching their pupils to do the same.
This is exactly what Sokrates passed his life in doing, and what he did better than any one--on the negative side.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
235-236.]
[Side-note: Doubt started by the Eleate.
How can it be possible either to think or to speak falsely?]
Here however (continues Plato) we are involved in a difficulty.
How can a thing appear to be what it is not?
How can a man who opines or affirms, opine or affirm falsely--that is, opine or affirm the thing that is not?
To admit this, we must assume the thing that is not (or Non-Ens, Nothing) to have a real existence.
Such an assumption involves great and often debated difficulties.
It has been pronounced by Parmenides altogether inadmissible.
[32] [Footnote 32: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
236 E--237 A.
[Greek: pa/nta tau=ta e)sti mesta\ a)pori/as a)ei\ e)n tô=| pro/sthen chro/nô| kai\ nu=n.
O(/pôs ga\r ei)po/nta chrê\ pseudê= le/gein ê)\ doxa/zein o)/ntôs ei)=nai, kai\ tou=to phthegxa/menon e)nantiologi/a| mê\ xune/chesthai, panta/pasi chalepo/n .
.
.
Teto/lmêken o( lo/gos ou(=tos u(pothe/sthai to\ mê\ o)\n ei)=nai; pseu=dos ga\r ou)k a)\n a)/llôs e)gi/gneto o)/n.]]
We have already seen that Plato discussed this same question in the Theætêtus, and that after trying and rejecting many successive hypotheses to show how false supposition, or false affirmation, might be explained as possible, by a theory involving no contradiction, he left the question unsolved.
He now resumes it at great length.
It occupies more than half[33] the dialogue.
Near the close, but only then, he reverts to the definition of the Sophist.
[Footnote 33: From p. 236 D to p. 264 D.] [Side-note: He pursues the investigation of this problem by a series of questions.]
First, the Eleate states the opinion which perplexes him, and which he is anxious either to refute or to explain away.
(Unfortunately, we have no statement of the opinion, nor of the grounds on which it was held, from those who actually held it.)
Non-Ens, or Nothing, is not the name of any existing thing, or of any Something.
But every one who speaks must speak something: therefore if you try to speak of Non-Ens, you are trying to speak nothing--which is equivalent to not speaking at all.
[34] Moreover, to every Something, you can add something farther: but to Non-Ens, or Nothing, you cannot add any thing.
(Non-Entis nulla sunt prædicata.)
Now Number is something, or included among the Entia: you cannot therefore apply number, either singular or plural, to Non-Ens: and inasmuch as every thing conceived or described must be either one or many, it is impossible either to conceive or describe Non-Ens.
You cannot speak of it without falling into a contradiction.
[35] [Footnote 34: Plato, Sophist.
p. 237 E. The Eleate here recites this opinion, not as his own but as entertained by others, and as one which he did not clearly see through: in Republic (v. p. 478 B-C) we find Sokrates advancing a similar doctrine as his own.
So in the Kratylus, where this same topic is brought under discussion (pp.
429 D, 430 A), Kratylus is represented as contending that false propositions were impossible: that propositions, improperly called false, were in reality combinations of sounds without any meaning, like the strokes on a bell.]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Sophist.
p.
238-239.]
[Side-note: The Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by affirming that to speak falsely is impossible.
He will require us to make out a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens.]
When therefore we characterise the Sophist as one who builds up phantasms for realities--who presents to us what is not, as being like to what _is_, and as a false substitute for what _is_--he will ask us what we mean?
If, to illustrate our meaning, we point to images of things in mirrors or clear water, he will pretend to be blind, and will refuse the evidence of sense: he will require us to make out a rational theory explaining Non-Ens or Nothing.
[36] But when we try to do this, we contradict ourselves.
A phantasm is that which, not being a true counterpart of reality, is yet so like it as to be mistaken for reality.
_Quatenus_ phantasm, it is Ens: _quatenus_ reality, it is Non-Ens: thus the same thing is both Ens, and Non-Ens: which we declared before to be impossible.
[37] When therefore we accuse the Sophist of passing off phantasms for realities, we suppose falsely: we suppose matters not existing, or contrary to those which exist: we suppose the existent not to exist, or the non-existent to exist But this assumes as done what cannot be done: since we have admitted more than once that Non-Ens can neither be described in language by itself, nor joined on in any manner to Ens.
[38] [Footnote 36: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
239-240.
[Greek: katagela/setai/ sou tô=n lo/gôn, o(/tan ô(s ble/ponti le/gê|s au)tô=|, prospoiou/menos ou)/te ka/toptra ou)/te u(/data gignô/skein, ou)/te to\ para/pan o)/psin; to\ d' e)k tô=n lo/gôn e)rôtê/sei se mo/non.]]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Sophist.
p. 240 B.]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Sophist.
p. 241 B.
[Greek: tô=| ga\r mê\ o)/nti to\ o)\n prosa/ptein ê(ma=s polla/kis a)nagka/zesthai, diomologêsame/nous nu=n dê/ pou tou=to ei)=nai pa/ntôn a)dunatô/taton.]]
Stating the case in this manner, we find that to suppose falsely, or affirm falsely, is a contradiction.
But there is yet another possible way out of the difficulty (the Eleate continues).
[Side-note: The Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens.
Theories of various philosophers about Ens.]
Let us turn for a moment (he says) from Non-Ens to Ens.
The various physical philosophers tell us a good deal about Ens.
They differ greatly among themselves.
Some philosophers represent Ens as triple, comprising three distinct elements, sometimes in harmony, sometimes at variance with each other.
Others tell us that it is double--wet and dry--or hot and cold.
A third sect, especially Xenophanes and Parmenides, pronounce it to be essentially One.
Herakleitus blends together the different theories, affirming that Ens is both many and one, always in process of disjunction and conjunction: Empedokles adopts a similar view, only dropping the _always_, and declaring the process of disjunction to alternate with that of conjunction, so that Ens is sometimes Many, sometimes One.
[39] [Footnote 39: Plato, Sophist.
p. 242 D-E.] [Side-note: Difficulties about Ens are as great as those about Non-Ens.]
Now when I look at these various theories (continues the Eleate), I find that I do not follow or understand them; and that I know nothing more or better about Ens than about Non-Ens.
I thought, as a young man, that I understood both: but I now find that I understand neither.
[39] The difficulties about Ens are just as great as those about Non-Ens.
What do these philosophers mean by saying that Ens is double or triple?
that there are two distinct existing elements--Hot and Cold--or three?
What do you mean by saying that Hot and Cold _exist_?
Is existence any thing distinct from Hot and Cold?
If so, then there are three elements in all, not two.
Do you mean that existence is something belonging to both and affirmed of both?
Then you pronounce both to be One: and Ens, instead of being double, will be at the bottom only One.
[Footnote 40: Plato, Sophist.
p. 243 B.]
[Side-note: Whether Ens is Many or One?
If Many, how Many?
Difficulties about One and the Whole.
Theorists about Ens cannot solve them.]
Such are the questions which the Eleatic spokesman of Plato puts to those philosophers who affirm Ens to be plural: He turns next to those who affirm Ens to be singular, or Unum.
Do you mean that Unum is identical with Ens--and are they only two names for the same One and only thing?
There cannot be two distinct names belonging to one and the same thing: and yet, if this be not so, one of the names must be the name of nothing.
At any rate, if there be only one name and one thing, still the name itself is different from the thing--so that duality must still be recognised.
Or if you take the name as identical with the One thing, it will either be the name of nothing, or the name of a name.
[41] [Footnote 41: Plato, Sophist.
p. 244 D.] Again, as to the Whole:--is the Whole the same with the Ens Unum, or different from it.
We shall be told that it is the same: but according to the description given by Parmenides, the whole is spherical, thus having a centre and circumference, and of course having parts.
Now a whole divisible into parts may have unity predicable of it, as an affection or accident in respect to the sum of its parts: but it cannot be the genuine, essential, self-existent, One, which does not admit of parts or division.
If Ens be One by accident, it is not identical with One, and we thus have two existent things: and if Ens be not really and essentially the Whole, while nevertheless the Whole exists--Ens must fall short of or be less than itself, and must to this extent be Non-Ens: besides that Ens, and Totum, being by nature distinct, we have more things than One existing.
On the other hand, if we assume Totum not to be Ens, the same result will ensue.
Ens will still be something less than itself;--Ens can never have any quantity, for each quantum is necessarily a whole in itself--and Ens can never be generated, since everything generated is also necessarily a whole.
[42] [Footnote 42: Plato, Sophist.
p. 245 A-C.] [Side-note: Theories of those who do not recognise a definite number of Entia or elements.
Two classes thereof.]
Such is the examination which the Eleate bestows on the theories of theories of those philosophers who held one, two, or a definite number of self-existent Entia or elements.
His purpose is to show, that even on their schemes, Ens is just as unintelligible, and involves as many contradictions, as Non-Ens.
And to complete the same demonstration, he proceeds to dissect the theories of those who do not recognise any definite or specific number of elements or Entia.
[43] Of these he distinguishes two classes; in direct and strenuous opposition to each other, respecting what constituted Essentia.
[44] [Footnote 43: Plato, Sophist.
p. 245 E.] [Footnote 44: Plato, Sophist.
p. 246 A.
[Greek: e)/oike/ ge e)n au)toi=s oi(=on gigantomachi/a tis ei)=nai dia\ tê\n a)mphisbê/têsin peri\ tê=s ou)si/as pro\s allê/lous.]]
[Side-note: 1.
The Materialist Philosophers.
2.
The Friends of Forms or Idealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real Entia.]
First, the Materialist Philosophers, who recognise nothing as existing except what is tangible; defining Essence as identical with Body, and denying all incorporeal essence.
Plato mentions no names: but he means (according to some commentators) Leukippus and Demokritus--perhaps Aristippus also.
Secondly, other philosophers who, diametrically opposed to the Materialists, affirmed that there were no real Entia except certain Forms, Ideas, genera or species, incorporeal and conceivable only by intellect: that true and real essence was not to be found in those bodies wherein the Materialists sought it: that bodies were in constant generation and disappearance, affording nothing more than a transitory semblance of reality, not tenable[45] when sifted by reason.
By these last are understood (so Schleiermacher and others think, though in my judgment erroneously) Eukleides and the Megaric school of philosophers.
[Footnote 45: Plato, Sophist.
p. 246 B-C. [Greek: noêta\ a)/tta kai\ a)sô/mata ei)/dê biazo/menoi tê\n a)lêthinê\n ou)si/an ei)=nai; ta\ de\ e)kei/nôn sô/mata kai\ tê\n legome/nên u(p' au)tô=n] (_i.
e._ the Materialists) [Greek: a)lê/theian kata\ smikra\ diathrau/ontes e)n toi=s lo/gois, ge/nesin a)nt' ou)si/as pherome/nên tina\ prosagoreu/ousin.]]
[Side-note: Argument against the Materialists--Justice must be something, since it may be either present or absent, making sensible difference--But Justice is not a body.]
The Eleate proceeds to comment upon the doctrines held by these opposing schools of thinkers respecting Essence or Reality.
It is easier (he says) to deal with the last-mentioned, for they are more gentle.
With the Materialists it is difficult, and all but impossible, to deal at all.
Indeed, before we can deal with them, we must assume them to be for this occasion better than they show themselves in reality, and ready to answer in a more becoming manner than they actually do.
[46] These Materialists will admit (Plato continues) that man exists--an animated body, or a compound of mind and body: they will farther allow that the mind of one man differs from that of another:--one is just, prudent, &c., another is unjust and imprudent.
One man is just, through the habit and presence of justice: another is unjust, through the habit and presence of injustice.
But justice must surely be _something_--injustice also must be _something_--if each may be present to, or absent from, any thing; and if their presence or absence makes so sensible a difference.
[47] And justice or injustice, prudence or imprudence, as well as the mind in which the one or the other inheres, are neither visible or tangible, nor have they any body: they are all invisible.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Sophist.
p. 246 C. [Greek: para\ me\n tô=n e)n ei)/desin au)tê\n (tê\n ou)si/an) titheme/nôn r(a=|on; ê(merô/teroi ga/r; para\ de\ tô=n ei)s sô=ma pa/nta e(lko/ntôn bi/a|, chalepô/teron; _i)/sôs de\ kai\ schedo\n a)du/naton_.
A)ll' ô(=de/ moi dokei= peri\ au)tô=n dra=|n .
.
.
Ma/lista me/n, ei)/ pê| dunato\n ê)=n, _e)/rgô| belti/ous_ au)tou\s poiei=n; ei) de\ tou=to mê\ e)gchôrei=, _lo/gô| poiô=men_, u(potithe/menoi _nomimô/teron_ au)tou\s ê)\ _nu=n e)the/lontas a)\n a)pokri/nasthai_.]]
[Footnote 47: Plato, Sophist.
p. 247 A.
[Greek: A)lla\ mê\n to/ ge dunato/n tô| paragi/gnesthai kai\ a)pogi/gnesthai, pa/ntôs ei)=nai/ ti phê/sousin.]]
[Side-note: At least many of them will concede this point, though not all Ens is common to the corporeal and the incorporeal.
Ens is equivalent to potentiality.]
Probably (replies Theætêtus) these philosophers would contend that the soul or mind had a body; but they would be ashamed either to deny that justice, prudence, &c., existed as realities--or to affirm that justice, prudence, &c. were all bodies.
[48] These philosophers must then have become better (rejoins the Eleate): for the primitive and genuine leaders of them will not concede even so much as that.
But let us accept the concession.
If they will admit any incorporeal reality at all, however small, our case is made out.
For we shall next call upon them to say, what there is in common between these latter, and those other realities which have bodies connate with and essential to them--to justify the names _real_--_essence_--bestowed upon both.
[49] Perhaps they would accept the following definition of Ens or the Real--of Essence or Reality.
Every thing which possesses any sort of power, either to act upon any thing else or to be acted upon by any thing else, be it only for once or to the smallest degree--every such thing is true and real Ens.
The characteristic mark or definition of Ens or the Real is, power or potentiality.
[50] [Footnote 48: Plato, Sophist.
p. 247 B.
[Greek: A)pokri/nontai .
.
.
tê\n me\n psuchê\n au)tê\n dokei=n sphi/si sô=ma/ ti kektê=sthai, phro/nêsin de\ kai\ tô=n a)/llôn e(/kaston ô(=n ê)rô/têkas, ai)schu/nontai to\ tolma=|n ê)\ mêde\n tô=n o)/ntôn au)ta\ o(mologei=n, ê)\ pa/nt' ei)=nai sô/mata dii+schuri/zesthai.]]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Sophist.
p. 247 C-D. [Greek: ei) ga/r ti kai\ smikro\n e)the/lousi tô=n o)/ntôn sugchôrei=n a)sô/maton, e)xarkei=.
to\ ga\r e)pi/ te tou/tois a(/ma kai\ e)p' e)kei/nois o(/sa e)/chei sô=ma xumphue\s gegono/s, ei)s o(\ ble/pontes a)mpho/tera _ei)=nai_ le/gousi, tou=to au)toi=s r(ête/on.]]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Sophist.
p. 247 D-E. [Greek: le/gô dê\ to\ kai\ o(poianou=n kektême/non _du/namin_, ei)/t' ei)s to\ poiei=n e(/teron o(tiou=n pephuko\s ei)/t' ei)s to\ pathei=n kai\ smikro/taton u(po\ tou= phaulota/tou, ka)\n ei) mo/non ei)sa/pax, pa=n tou=to o)/ntôs ei)=nai; ti/themai ga\r o(/ron o(ri/zein ta\ o)/nta, ô(s e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti plê\n _du/namis_.]]
[Side-note: Argument against the Idealists--who distinguish Ens from the generated, and say that we hold communion with the former through our minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses.]
The Eleate now turns to the philosophers of the opposite school--the Mentalists or Idealists,--whom he terms the friends of Forms, Ideas, or species.
[51] These men (he says) distinguish the generated, transitory and changeable--from Ens or the Real, which is eternal, unchanged, always the same: they distinguish generation from essence.
With the generated (according to their doctrine) we hold communion through our bodies and our bodily perceptions: with Ens, we hold communion through our mind and our intellectual apprehension.
But what do they mean (continues the Eleate) by this "holding of communion"?
Is it not an action or a passion produced by a certain power of agent and patient coming into co-operation with each other?
and is not this the definition which we just now laid down, of Ens or the Real.
[Footnote 51: Plato, Sophist.
p. 248 A.
[Greek: tou\s tô=n ei)dô=n phi/lous].]
[Side-note: Holding communion--What?
Implies Relativity.
Ens is known by the mind.
It therefore suffers or undergoes change.
Ens includes both the unchangeable and the changeable.]
_No_--these philosophers will reply--we do not admit your definition as a definition of Ens: it applies only to the generated.
Generation does involve, or emanate from, a reciprocity of agent and patient: but neither power nor action, nor suffering, have any application to Ens or the Real.
But you admit (says the Eleate) that the mind knows Ens:--and that Ens is known by the mind.
Now this _knowing_, is it not an action--and is not the _being known_, a passion?
If _to know_ is an action, then Ens, being known, is acted upon, suffers something, or undergoes some change,--which would be impossible if we assume Ens to be eternally unchanged.
These philosophers might reply, that they do not admit _to know_ as an action, nor _to be known_ as a passion.
They affirm Ens to be eternally unchanged, and they hold to their other affirmation that Ens is known by the mind.
But (urges the Eleate) can they really believe that Ens is eternally the same and unchanged,--that it has neither life, nor mind, nor intelligence, nor change, nor movement?
This is incredible.
They must concede that Change, and the Changeable, are to be reckoned as Entia or Realities: for if these be not so reckoned, and if all Entia are unchangeable, no Ens can be an object of knowledge to any mind.
But though the changeable belongs to Ens, we must not affirm that _all_ Ens is changeable.
There cannot be either intellect or knowledge, without something constant and unchangeable.
It is equally necessary to recognise something as constant and unchangeable--something else as moving and changeable: Ens or reality includes alike one and the other.
The true philosopher therefore cannot agree with those "Friends of Forms" who affirm all Ens or Reality to be at rest and unchangeable, either under one form or under many:--still less can he agree with those opposite reasoners, who maintain all reality to be in perpetual change and movement.
He will acknowledge both and each--rest and motion--the constant and the changeable--as making up together total reality or Ens Totum.
[Side-note: Motion and rest are both of them Entia or realities.
Both agree in Ens.
Ens is a _tertium quid_--distinct from both.
But how can anything be distinct from both?]
Still, however, we have not got over our difficulties.
Motion and Rest are contraries; yet we say that each and both are Realities or Entia.
In what is it that they both agree?
Not in moving, nor in being at rest, but simply in existence or reality.
Existence or reality therefore must be a _tertium quid_, apart from motion and rest, not the sum total of those two items.
Ens or the Real is not, in its own proper nature, either in motion or at rest, but is distinct from both.
Yet how can this be?
Surely, whatever is not in motion, must be at rest--whatever is not at rest, must be in motion.
How can any thing be neither in motion nor at rest; standing apart from both?
[52] [Footnote 52: Plato, Sophist.
p. 250 C.] [Side-note: Here the Eleate breaks off without solution.
He declares his purpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as Non-Ens,] Here the Eleate breaks off his enquiry, without solving the problems which he has accumulated.
My purpose was (he says[53]) to show that Ens was just as full of difficulties and embarrassments as Non-Ens.
Enough has been said to prove this clearly.
When we can once get clear of obscurity about Ens, we may hope to be equally successful with Non-Ens.
[Footnote 53: Plato, Sophist.
p. 250 D.] [Side-note: Argument against those who admit no predication to be legitimate, except identical.
How far Forms admit of intercommunion with each other.]
Let us try (he proceeds) another path.
We know that it is a common practice in our daily speech to apply many different predicates to one and the same subject.
We say of the same man, that he is fair, tall, just, brave, &c., and several other epithets.
Some persons deny our right to do this.
They say that the predicate ought always to be identical with the subject: that we can only employ with propriety such propositions as the following--man is man--good is good, &c.: that to apply many predicates to one and the same subject is to make one thing into many things.
[54] But in reply to these opponents, as well as to those whom we have before combated, we shall put before them three alternatives, of which they must choose one.
1.
Either all Forms admit of intercommunion one with the other.
2.
Or no Forms admit of such intercommunion.
3.
Or some Forms do admit of it, and others not.
Between these three an option must be made.
[55] [Footnote 54: Plato, Sophist.
p. 251 B.
[Greek: ô(s a)du/naton ta/ te polla\ e(\n kai\ to\ e(\n polla\ ei)=nai], &c.] [Footnote 55: Plato, Sophist.
p. 251 E.] [Side-note: No intercommunion between any distinct forms.
Refuted.
Common speech is inconsistent with this hypothesis.]
If we take the first alternative--that there is no intercommunion of Forms--then the Forms _motion_ and _rest_ can have no intercommunion with the Forms, _essence_ or _reality_.
In other words, neither motion nor rest exist: and thus the theory both of those who say that all things are in perpetual movement, and of those who say that all things are in perpetual rest, becomes unfounded and impossible.
Besides, these very men, who deny all intercommunion of Forms, are obliged to admit it implicitly and involuntarily in their common forms of speech.
They cannot carry on a conversation without it, and they thus serve as a perpetual refutation of their own doctrine.
[56] [Footnote 56: Plato, Sophist.
p. 252 D.] [Side-note: Reciprocal intercommunion of all Forms--inadmissible.]
The second alternative--that all Forms may enter into communion with each other--is also easily refuted.
If this were true, motion and rest might be put together: motion would be at rest, and rest would be in motion--which is absurd.
These and other forms are contrary to each other.
They reciprocally exclude and repudiate all intercommunion.
[57] [Footnote 56: Plato, Sophist.
p. 252 E.] [Side-note: Some Forms admit of intercommunion, others not.
This is the only admissible doctrine.
Analogy of letters and syllables.]
Remains only the third alternative--that some forms admit of intercommunion--others not.
This is the real truth (says the Eleate).
So it stands in regard to letters and words in language: some letters come together in words frequently and conveniently--others rarely and awkwardly--others never do nor ever can come together.
The same with the combination of sounds to obtain music.
It requires skill and art to determine which of these combinations are admissible.
[Side-note: Art and skill are required to distinguish what Forms admit of intercommunion, and what Forms do not.
This is the special intelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright region of Ens: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens.]
So also, in regard to the intercommunion of Forms, skill and art are required to decide which of them will come together, and which will not.
In every special art and profession the case is similar: the ignorant man will fail in deciding this question--the man of special skill alone will succeed.--So in regard to the intercommunion of Forms or Genera universally with each other, the comprehensive science of the true philosopher is required to decide.
[58] To note and study these Forms, is the purpose of the philosopher in his dialectics or ratiocinative debate.
He can trace the one Form or Idea, stretching through a great many separate particulars; he can distinguish it from all different Forms: he knows which Forms are not merely distinct from each other, but incapable of alliance and reciprocally repulsive--which of them are capable of complete conjunction, the one circumscribing and comprehending the other--and which of them admit conjunction partial and occasional with each other.
[59] The philosopher thus keeps close to the Form of eternal and unchangeable Ens or Reality--a region of such bright light that the eyes of the vulgar cannot clearly see him: while the Sophist on the other hand is also difficult to be seen, but for an opposite reason--from the darkness of that region of Non-Ens or Non-Reality wherein he carries on his routine-work.
[60] [Footnote 58: Plato, Sophist.
p. 253 B.
[Greek: a)=r' ou) met' e)pistê/mês tino\s a)nagkai=on dia\ tô=n lo/gôn poreu/esthai to\n o)rthô=s me/llonta dei/xein poi=a poi/ois sumphônei= tô=n genô=n kai\ poi=a a)/llêla ou) de/chetai?]]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Sophist.
p. 253 D-E.] [Footnote 60: Plato, Sophist.
p. 254 A.
[Greek: O( de/ ge philo/sophos, tê=| tou= o)/ntos a)ei\ dia\ logismô=n proskei/menos i)de/a|, dia\ to\ lampro\n au)= tê=s chô/ras ou)damô=s eu)pe/tês o)phthê=nai; ta\ ga\r tê=s tô=n pollô=n psuchê=s o)/mmata karterei=n pro\s to\ thei=on a)phorô=nta a)du/nata.]]
[Side-note: He comes to enquire what Non-Ens is.
He takes for examination five principal Forms--Motion--Rest--Ens--Same--Different.]
We have still to determine, however (continues Plato), what this Non-Ens or Non-Reality is.
For this purpose we will take a survey, not of all Forms or Genera, but of some few the most important.
We will begin with the two before noticed--Motion and Rest ( = Change and Permanence), which are confessedly irreconcileable and reciprocally exclusive.
Ens however enters into partnership with both: for both of them _are_, or exist.
[61] This makes up three Forms or Genera--Motion, Rest, Ens: each of the three being the same with itself, and different from the other two.
Here we have pronounced two new words--Same--Different.
[62] Do these words designate two other Forms, over and above the three before-named, yet necessarily always intermingling in partnership with those three, so as to make five Forms in all?
Or are these two--Same and Different--essential appendages of the three before-named?
This last question must be answered in the negative.
Same and Different are not essential appendages, or attached as parts, to Motion, Rest, Ens.
Same and Different may be predicated both of Motion and of Rest: and whatever can be predicated alike of two contraries, cannot be an essential portion or appendage of either.
Neither Motion nor Rest therefore _are_ essentially either Same or Different: though both of them partake of Same or Different--_i.e._, come into accidental co-partnership with one as well as the other.
[63] Neither can we say that Ens is identical with either Idem or Diversum.
Not with Idem--for we speak of both Motion and Rest as Entia or Existences: but we cannot speak of them as the same.
Not with Diversum--for _different_ is a name relative to something else from which it is different, but Ens is not thus relative.
Motion and Rest _are_ or exist, each in itself: but each is _different_, relatively to the other, and to other things generally.
Accordingly we have here five Forms or Genera--Ens, Motion, Rest, Idem, Diversum: each distinct from and independent of all the rest.
[64] [Footnote 61: Plato, Sophist.
p. 254 D. [Greek: to\ de/ ge o)\n mikto\n a)mphoi=n; _e)sto\n_ ga\r a)/mphô pou.]]
[Footnote 62: Plato, Sophist.
p. 254 E. [Greek: ti/ pot' au)= nu=n ou(/tôs ei)rê/kamen to/ te tau)to\n kai\ tha/teron?
po/tera du/o ge/nê tine\ au)tô/, tô=n me\n triô=n a)/llô], &c.] [Footnote 63: Plato, Sophist.
p. 255 B.
[Greek: mete/cheton mê\n a)/mphô tau)tou= kai\ thate/rou .
.
.
Mê\ toi/nun le/gômen ki/nêsi/n _g' ei)=nai_ tau)to\n ê)\ tha/teron, mêd' au)= sta/sin.]]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Sophist.
p. 255 D.] [Side-note: Form of Diversum pervades all the others.]
This Form of Diversum or Different pervades all the others: for each one of them is different from the others, not through any thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form of Difference.
[65] Each of the five is different from others: or, to express the same fact in other words, each of them _is not_ any one of the others.
Thus motion is different from rest, or _is not_ rest: but nevertheless motion _is_ or exists, because it partakes of the Form--Ens.
Again, Motion is different from Idem: it _is not_ the Same: yet nevertheless it _is_ the same, because it partakes of the nature of Idem, or is the same with itself.
Thus then both predications are true respecting motion: it _is_ the same: it _is not_ the same, because it partakes of or enters into partnership with both Idem and Diversum.
[66] If motion in any way partook of Rest, we should be able to talk of stationary motion: but this is impossible: for we have already said that some Forms cannot come into intercommunion--that they absolutely exclude each other.
[Footnote 65: Plato, Sophist.
p. 255 E. [Greek: kai\ dia\ pa/ntôn ge au)tê\n phê/somen ei)=nai dielêluthui=an (tê\n thate/rou phu/sin) e(\n e(/kaston ga\r e(/teron ei)=nai tô=n a)/llôn, _ou) dia\ tê\n au)tou= phu/sin_, a)lla\ dia\ to\ mete/chein tê=s i)de/as tê=s thate/rou.]]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Sophist.
p. 256 A.
[Greek: tê\n ki/nêsin dê\ tau)to/n t' ei)=nai kai\ mê\ tau)to\n o(mologête/on kai\ ou) duscherante/on], &c.] [Side-note: Motion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum.
Motion is different from Ens--in other words, it is Non-Ens.
Each of these Forms is both Ens and Non-Ens.]
Again, Motion is different not only from Rest, and from Idem, but also from Diversum itself.
In other words, it is both Diversum in a certain way, and also not Diversum: different and not different.
[67] As it is different from Rest, from Idem, from Diversum--so also it is different from Ens, the remaining one of the five forms or genera.
In other words Motion is not Ens,--or is Non-Ens.
It is both Ens, and Non-Ens: Ens, so far as it partakes of Entity or Reality--Non-Ens, so far as it partakes of Difference, and is thus different from Ens as well as from the other Forms.
[68] The same may be said of the other Forms,--Rest, Idem, Diversum: each of them is Ens, because it partakes of entity or reality: each of them is also Non-Ens, or different from Ens, because it partakes of Difference.
Moreover, Ens itself is different from the other four, and so far as these others go, it is Non-Ens.
[69] [Footnote 67: Plato, Sophist.
p. 256 C. [Greek: ou)ch e(/teron a)]r' e)sti/ pê| kai\ e(/teron kata\ to\n nu=n dê\ lo/gon.]]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Sophist.
p. 256 D. [Greek: ou)kou=n dê\ saphô=s ê( ki/nêsis o)/ntôs ou)k o)/n e)sti kai\ o)\n, e)pei/per tou= o)/ntos mete/chei?]]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Sophist.
p. 257 A.
[Greek: kai\ to\ o)/n a)/r' ê(mi=n, o(/sa per e)/sti ta\ a)/lla, kata\ tosau=ta ou)k e)/stin; e)kei=na ga\r ou)k o)\n e(\n me\n au)to/ e)stin, a)pe/ranta de\ to\n a)rithmo\n ta)/lla ou)k e)/stin au)=.]]
[Side-note: By Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens--we mean only something different from Ens.
Non-Ens is a real Form, as well as Ens.]
Now note the consequence (continues the Eleate).
When we speak of Non-Ens, we do not mean any thing contrary to Ens, but only something different from Ens.
When we call any thing _not great_, we do not affirm it to be the contrary of great, or to be _little_: for it may perhaps be simply equal: we only mean that it is different from great.
[70] A negative proposition, generally, does not signify anything contrary to the predicate, but merely something else distinct or different from the predicate.
[71] The Form of Different, though of one and the same general nature throughout, is distributed into many separate parts or specialties, according as it is attached to different things.
Thus _not beautiful_ is a special mode of the general Form or Genus Different, placed in antithesis with another Form or Genus, _the beautiful_.
The antithesis is that of one Ens or Real thing against another Ens or Real thing: _not beautiful_, _not great_, _not just_, exist just as much and are quite as real, as _beautiful_, _great_, _just_.
If the Different be a real Form or Genus, all its varieties must be real also.
Accordingly Different from Ens is just as much a real Form as Ens itself:[72] and this is what we mean by Non-Ens:--not any thing contrary to Ens.
[Footnote 70: Plato, Sophist.
p. 257 B.
[Greek: O(po/tan to\ mê\ o)\n le/gômen, ô(s e)/oiken, ou)k e)nanti/on ti le/gomen tou= o)/ntos, a)ll' e(/teron mo/non .
.
.
Oi(=on o(/tan ei)pôme/n _ti mê\ me/ga_, to/te ma=llo/n ti/ soi phaino/metha to\ smikro\n ê)\ to\ i)/son dêlou=n tô=| r(ê/mati.]
Plato here means to imply that [Greek: to\ smikro\n] is the real contrary of [Greek: to\ me/ga].
When we say [Greek: mê\ me/ga], we do not necessarily mean [Greek: smikro/n]--we may mean [Greek: i)/son].
Therefore [Greek: to\ mê\ me/ga] does not (in his view) imply the contrary of [Greek: me/ga].]
[Footnote 71: Plato, Sophist.
p. 257 B.
[Greek: Ou)k a)/r' e)nanti/on, o(/tan a)po/phasis le/gêtai, sêmai/nein sugchôrêso/metha, tosou=ton de\ mo/non, o(/ti tô=n a)/llôn ti mênu/ei to\ mê\ kai\ to\ ou) protithe/mena tô=n e)pio/ntôn o)noma/tôn, ma=llon de\ tô=n pragma/tôn peri\ a)/tt' a)\n ke/êtai ta\ e)piphtheggo/mena u(/steron tê=s a)popha/seôs o)no/mata.]]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Sophist.
p. 258 B.
[Greek: ê( tê=s thate/rou mori/ou phu/seôs kai\ tê=s tou= o)/ntos pro\s a)/llêla a)ntikeime/nôn a)ntithesis ou)de\n ê)=tton, ei) the/mis ei)pei=n au)tou= tou= o)/ntos ou)si/a e)sti/n; ou)k e)nanti/on e)kei/nô| sêmai/nousa, a)lla\ tosou=ton mo/non, e(/teron e)kei/nou.]]
[Side-note: The Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to have shown both that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is.]
Here then the Eleate professes to have found what Non-Ens is: that it is a real substantive Form, numerable among the other Forms, and having a separate constant nature of its own, like _not beautiful_, _not great_:[73] that it is real and existent, just as much as _Ens_, _beautiful_, _great_, &c. Disregarding the prohibition of Parmenides, we have shown (says he) not only that Non-Ens exists, but also what it is.
Many Forms or Genera enter into partnership or communion with each other; and Non-Ens is the partnership between Ens and Diversum.
Diversum, in partnership with Ens, _is_ (exists), in consequence of such partnership:--yet _it is not_ that with which it is in partnership, but different therefrom--and being thus different from Ens, it is clearly and necessarily Non-Ens: while Ens also, by virtue of its partnership with Diversum, is different from all the other Forms, or _is not_ any one of them, and to this extent therefore Ens is Non-Ens.
We drop altogether the idea of contrariety, without enquiring whether it be reasonably justifiable or not: we attach ourselves entirely to the Form--_Different_.
[74] [Footnote 73: Plato, Sophist.
p. 258 B-C. [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n bebai/ôs e)sti\ tê\n au)tou= phu/sin e)/chon .
.
.
e)na/rithmon tô=n pollô=n o)/ntô=n ei)=dos e(/n.]]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
258 E--259 A.
[Greek: ê(mei=s ga\r peri\ me\n e)nanti/ou tino\s au)tô=| chai/rein pa/lai le/gomen, ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te mê\ lo/gon e)/chon ê)\ kai\ panta/pasin a)/logon], &c. [Greek: to\ me\n e(/teron metascho\n tou= o)/ntos _e)/sti_ me\n dia\ tau/tên tê\n me/thexin, ou) mê\n e)kei=no ge ou)= me/teschen, a)ll' e(/teron, e(/teron de\ tou= o)/ntos o)/n e)sti saphe/stata e)x a)na/gkês ei)=nai mê\ o)/n], &c.] [Side-note: The theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which justifies predication as a legitimate process, with a predicate different from the subject.]
Let those refute this explanation, who can do so (continues the Eleate), or let them propose a better of their own, if they can: if not, let them allow the foregoing as possible.
[75] Let them not content themselves with multiplying apparent contradictions, by saying that the same may be in some particular respect different, and that the different may be in some particular respect the same, through this or the other accidental attribute.
[76] All these sophisms lead but to make us believe--That no one thing can be predicated of any other--That there is no intercommunion of the distinct Forms one with another, no right to predicate of any subject a second name and the possession of a new attribute--That therefore there can be no dialectic debate or philosophy, which is all founded upon such intercommunion of Forms.
[77] We have shown that Forms do really come into conjunction, so as to enable us to conjoin, truly and properly, predicate with subject, and to constitute proposition and judgment as taking place among the true Forms or Genera.
Among these true Forms or Genera, Non-Ens is included as one.
[78] [Footnote 75: Plato, Sophist.
p. 259 A-C. [Greek: o(\ de\ nu=n ei)rê/kamen ei)=nai to\ mê\ o)/n, ê)\ peisa/tô tis ô(s ou) kalô=s le/gomen e)le/gxas, ê)\ me/chri per a)\n a)dunatê=|, lekte/on kai\ e)kei=nô| katha/per ê(mei=s le/gomen .
.
.
to\ tau=ta _e)a/santa ô(s dunata/_.
.
.
.]
The language of the Eleate here is altogether at variance with the spirit of Plato in his negative or Searching Dialogues.
To say, as he does, "Either accept the explanation which I give, or propose a better of your own"--is a dilemma which the Sokrates of the Theætêtus, and other dialogues, would have declined altogether.
The complaint here made by the Eleate, against disputants who did nothing but propound difficulties--is the same as that which the hearers of Sokrates made against _him_ (see Plato, Philêbus, p. 20 A, where the remark is put into the mouth, not of an opponent, but of a respectful young listener); and many a reader of the Platonic Parmenidês has indulged in the complaint.]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Sophist.
p. 259 D. [Greek: e)kei/nê| kai\ kat' e)kei=no o(/ phêsi tou/tôn peponthe/nai po/teron.]]
[Footnote 77: Plato, Sophist.
p. 259 B, E. [Greek: dia\ ga\r tê\n a)llê/lôn tô=n ei)dô=n sumplokê\n o( lo/gos ge/gonen ê(mi=n.]
252 B: [Greek: oi( mêde\n e)ô=ntes koinôni/a| pathê/matos e(te/rou tha/teron prosagoreu/ein.]]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Sophist.
p. 260 A.
[Greek: pro\s to\ to\n lo/gon ê(mi=n tô=n o)/ntôn e(/n ti genô=n ei)=nai.]
258 B: [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n bebai/ôs e)sti\ tê\n au(tou= phu/sin e)/chon.]]
[Side-note: Enquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into intercommunion with the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment.]
The Eleate next proceeds to consider, whether these two Genera or Forms--Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, on the one hand, and Non-Ens on the other--are among those which may or do enter into partnership and conjunction with each other.
For we have admitted that there are some Forms which cannot come into partnership; and the Sophist against whom we are reasoning, though we have driven him to concede that Non-Ens is a real Form, may still contend that it is one of those which cannot come into partnership with Proposition, Judgment, Opinion--and he may allege that we can neither embody in language, nor in mental judgment, that which _is not_.
[79] [Footnote 79: Plato, Sophist.
p. 260 C-D-E.] [Side-note: Analysis of a Proposition.
Every Proposition must have a noun and a verb--it must be proposition of _Something_.
False propositions, involve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the particular subject.]
Let us look attentively what Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, are.
As we said about Forms and letters, so about words: it is not every combination of words which is possible, so as to make up a significant proposition.
A string of nouns alone will not make one, nor a string of verbs alone.
To compose the simplest proposition, you must put together at least one noun and one verb, in order to signify something respecting things existing, or events past, present, and future.
[80] Now every proposition must be a proposition about something, or belonging to a certain subject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality.
[81] _Theætêtus is sitting down_--_Theætêtus is flying._ Here are two propositions, both belonging to the same subject, but with opposite qualities: the former true, the latter false.
The true proposition affirms respecting Theætêtus real things as they are; the false proposition affirms respecting him things different from real, or non-real, as being real.
The attribute of _flying_ is just as real in itself as the attribute of _sitting_: but as respects Theætêtus, or as predicated concerning him, it is different from the reality, or non-real.
[82] But still Theætêtus is the subject of the proposition, though the predicate _flying_ does not really belong to him: for there is no other subject than he, and without a subject the proposition would be no proposition at all.
When therefore different things are affirmed as the same, or non-realities as realities, respecting you or any given subject, the proposition so affirming is false.
[83] [Footnote 80: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
261-262.]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Sophist.
p. 262 E. [Greek: lo/gon a)nagkai=on, o(/tan per ê)=|, tino\s ei)=nai lo/gon; mê\ de/ tinos a)du/naton .
.
.
Ou)kou=n kai\ _poi=o/n tina_ au)to\n ei)=nai dei=?]]
[Footnote 82: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 B [Greek: O)/ntôn de/ ge o)/nta e(/tera peri\ sou=.]
That is, [Greek: e(/tera tô=n o)/ntôn],--being the explanation given by Plato of [Greek: ta\ mê\ o)/nta].]
[Footnote 83: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 D.] [Side-note: Opinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition, and may be also false, by coming into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.]
As propositions may be true or false, so also opinion or judgment or conception, may be true or false: for opinion or judgment is only the concluding result of deliberation or reflection--and reflection is the silent dialogue of the mind with itself: while conception or phantasy is the coalescence or conjunction of opinion with present perception.
[84] Both opinion and conception are akin to proposition.
It has thus been shown that false propositions, and false opinions or judgments, are perfectly real, and involve no contradiction: and that the Form or Genus--Proposition, Judgment, Opinion--comes properly and naturally into partnership with the Form Non-Ens.
[Footnote 84: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
263-264.
264 A-B: [Greek: Ou)kou=n e)/peiper lo/gos a)lêthê\s ê)=n kai\ pseudê/s, tou/tôn d' e)pha/nê dia/noia me\n au)tê=s pro\s e(autê\n psuchê=s dia/logos, do/xa de\ dianoi/as a)poteleu/têsis, phai/netai de\ o(\ le/gomen (phantasi/a) su/mmixis ai)sthê/seôs kai\ do/xês, a)na/gkê dê\ kai\ tou/tôn tô=| lo/gô| xuggenô=n o)/ntôn pseudê= te au)tô=n e)/nia kai\ e)ni/ote ei)=nai?]]
This was the point which Plato's Eleate undertook to prove against Parmenides, and against the plea of the Sophist founded on the Parmenidean doctrine.
* * * * * [Side-note: It thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is theoretically possible, and that there may be a profession, like that of the Sophist, engaged in producing it.]
Here Plato closes his general philosophical discussion, and reverts to the process of logical division from which he had deviated.
In descending the predicamental steps, to find the logical place of the Sophist, Plato had reached a point where he assumed Non-Ens, together with false propositions and judgments affirming Non-Ens.
To which the Sophist is conceived as replying, that Non-Ens was contradictory and impossible, and that no proposition could be false.
On these points Plato has produced an elaborate argument intended to refute him, and to show that there was such a thing as falsehood imitating truth, or passing itself off as truth: accordingly, that there might be an art or profession engaged in producing such falsehood.
[Side-note: Logical distribution of Imitators--those who imitate what they know, or what they do not know--of these last, some sincerely believe themselves to know, others are conscious that they do not know, and designedly impose upon others.]
Now the imitative profession may be distributed into those who know what they imitate--and those who imitate without knowing.
[85] The man who mimics your figure or voice, knows what he imitates: those who imitate the figure of justice and virtue often pass themselves off as knowing it, yet do not really know it, having nothing better than fancy or opinion concerning it.
Of these latter again--(_i.e._ the imitators with mere opinion, but no knowledge, respecting that which sincerely they imitate)--there are two classes: one, those who sincerely mistake their own mere opinions for knowledge, and are falsely persuaded that they really know: the other class, those who by their perpetual occupation in talking, lead us to suspect and apprehend that they are conscious of not knowing things, which nevertheless they discuss before others as if they did know.
[86] [Footnote 85: Plato, Sophist.
p. 267 A-D.] [Footnote 86: Plato, Sophist.
p. 268 A.
[Greek: to\ de\ thate/rou schê=ma, dia\ tê\n e)n toi=s lo/gois kuli/ndêsin, e)/chei pollê\n u(popsi/an kai\ pho/bon ô(s a)gnoei= tau=ta a(\ pro\s tou\s a)/llous ô(s ei)dô\s e)schêma/tistai.]]
[Side-note: Last class divided--Those who impose on numerous auditors by long discourse, the Rhetor--Those who impose on select auditors, by short question and answer, making the respondent contradict himself--the Sophist.]
Of this latter class, again, we may recognise two sections: those who impose upon a numerous audience by long discourses on public matters: and those who in private, by short question and answer, compel the person conversing with them to contradict himself.
[87] The man of long discourse is not the true statesman, but the popular orator: the man of short discourse, but without any real knowledge, is not the truly wise man, since he has no real knowledge--but the imitator of the wise man, or Sophist.
[Footnote 87: Plato, Sophist.
p. 268 B.
[Greek: to\n me\n dêmosi/a| te kai\ makroi=s lo/gois pro\s plê/thê dunato\n _ei)rôneu/esthai_ kathorô=; to\n de\ i)di/a| te kai\ brache/si lo/gois a)nagka/zonta to\n prosdialego/menon e)nantiologei=n au)to\n au)tô=|.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Dialogue closed.
Remarks upon it.
Characteristics ascribed to a Sophist.]
We have here the conclusion of this abstruse and complicated dialogue, called Sophistês.
It ends by setting forth, as the leading characteristics of the Sophist--that he deals in short question and answer so as to make the respondent contradict himself: That he talks with small circles of listeners, upon a large variety of subjects, on which he possesses no real knowledge: That he mystifies or imposes upon his auditors; not giving his own sincere convictions, but talking for the production of a special effect.
He is [Greek: e)nantiopoiologiko\s] and [Greek: ei)/rôn], to employ the two original Platonic words, neither of which is easy to translate.
[Side-note: These characteristics may have belonged to other persons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates himself.]
I dare say that there were some acute and subtle disputants in Athens to whom these characteristics belonged, though we do not know them by name.
But we know one to whom they certainly belonged: and that was, Sokrates himself.
They stand manifest and prominent both in the Platonic and in the Xenophontic dialogues.
The attribute which Xenophon directly predicates about him, that "in conversation he dealt with his interlocutors just as he pleased,"[88] is amply exemplified by Plato in the Protagoras, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Lachês, Charmides, Lysias, Alkibiadês I. and II., Hippias I. and II., &c. That he cross-examined and puzzled every one else without knowing the subjects on which he talked, better than they did--is his own declaration in the Apology.
That the Athenians regarded him as a clever man mystifying them--talking without sincere persuasion, or in a manner so strange that you could not tell whether he was in jest or in earnest--overthrowing men's established convictions by subtleties which led to no positive truth--is also attested both by what he himself says in the Apology, and by other passages of Plato and Xenophon.
[89] [Footnote 88: Xen.
Memor.
i.
2, 14, [Greek: toi=s de\ dialegome/nois au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs bou/loito.]
Compare, to the same purpose, i.
4, 1, where we are told that Sokrates employed his colloquial Elenchus as a means of chastising ([Greek: kolastêri/ou e(/neka]) those who thought that they knew every thing: and the conversation of Sokrates with the youthful Euthydêmus, especially what is said by Xenophon at the close of it (iv.
4, 39-40).
The power of Sokrates to vanquish in dialogue the persons called Sophists, and to make them contradict themselves in answering--is clearly brought out, and doubtless intentionally brought out, in some of Plato's most consummate dialogues.
Alkibiades says, in the Platonic Protagoras (p. 336), "Sokrates confesses himself no match for Protagoras in long speaking.
If Protagoras on his side confesses himself inferior to Sokrates in dialogue, Sokrates is satisfied."]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Apolog.
p. 37 E. [Greek: e)a/n te ga\r le/gô, o(/ti tô=| theô=| a)peithei=n tou=t' e)/stin, kai\ dia\ tou=t' a)du/naton ê(suchi/an a)/gein, ou) pei/sesthe/ moi ô(s ei)rôneuome/nô|.]
Xen.
Memor.
iv.
4, 9.
[Greek: a)rkei= ga\r] (says Hippias to Sokrates), [Greek: o(/ti tô=n a)/llôn katagela=|s, e)rôtô=n kai\ e)le/gchôn pa/ntas, au)to\s de\ ou)deni\ the/lôn u(pe/chein lo/gon, ou)de\ gnô/mên a)pophai/nesthai peri\ ou)deno/s.]
See also Memorab.
iii.
5, 24.
Compare a striking passage in Plato's Menon, p. 80 A; also Theætêt.
p. 149; and Plutarch, Quæst.
Platonic.
p. 1000.
The attribute [Greek: ei)rônei/a], which Plato here declares as one of the main characteristics of the Sophists, is applied to Sokrates in a very special manner, not merely in the Platonic dialogues, but also by Timon in the fragments of his Silli remaining--[Greek: Au)tê\ e)kei/nê ê( eiôthui=a _ei)rônei/a Sôkra/tous_] (Plato, Repub.
i. p. 337 A); and again--[Greek: prou)/legon o(/ti su\ a)pokri/nasthai me\n ou)k e)thelêsois, _ei)rôneu/soio_ de\ kai\ pa/nta ma=llon poiê/sois ê)\ a)pokri/noio, ei)/ tis ti/ se e)rôta=|.]
So also in the Symposion, p. 216 E, Alkibiades says about Sokrates [Greek: _ei)rôneuo/menos_ de\ kai\ pai/zôn pa/nta to\n bi/on pro\s tou\s a)nthrô/pous diatelei=.]
And Gorgias, p. 489 E. In another part of the Gorgias (p. 481 B), Kallikles says, "Tell me, Chærephon, does Sokrates mean seriously what he says, or is he bantering?"
[Greek: spouda/zei tau=ta Sôkra/tês ê)\ pai/zei?]
Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias, &c., do not seem to have been [Greek: ei)/rônes] at all, as far as our scanty knowledge goes.
The words [Greek: ei)/rôn, ei)rôniko/s, ei)rônei/a] seem to include more than is implied in our words _irony_, _ironical_.
Schleiermacher translates the words [Greek: a(plou=n mimê/tên, ei)rôniko\n mimê/tên], at the end of the Sophistês, by "den ehrlichen, den Schlauen, Nachahmer"; which seems to me near the truth,--meaning one who either speaks what he does not think, or evades speaking what he does think, in order to serve some special purpose.]
[Side-note: The conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the taking of a fee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person.]
Moreover, if we examine not merely the special features assigned to the Sophist in the conclusion of the dialogue, but also those indicated in the earlier part of it, we shall find that many of them fit Sokrates as well as they could have fitted any one else.
If the Sophists hunted after rich young men,[90] Sokrates did the same; seeking opportunities for conversation with them by assiduous frequentation of the palæstræ, as well as in other ways.
We see this amply attested by Plato and Xenophon:[91] we see farther that Sokrates announces it as a propensity natural to him, and meritorious rather than otherwise.
Again, the argumentative dialogue--disputation or eristic reduced to an art, and debating on the general theses of just and unjust, which Plato notes as characterising the Sophists[92]--belonged in still higher perfection to Sokrates.
It not only formed the business of his life, but is extolled by Plato elsewhere,[93] as the true walk of virtuous philosophy.
But there was undoubtedly this difference between Sokrates and the Sophists, that he conversed and argued gratuitously, delighting in the process itself: while they both asked and received money for it.
Upon this point, brought forward by Plato both directly and with his remarkable fertility in multiplying indirect allusions, the peculiarity of the Sophist is made mainly to turn.
To ask or receive a fee for communicating knowledge, virtue, aptitude in debate, was in the view of Sokrates and Plato a grave enormity: a kind of simoniacal practice.
[94] [Footnote 90: Plato, Sophist.
p. 223.
[Greek: ne/ôn plousi/ôn kai\ e)ndo/xôn thê/ra].]
[Footnote 91: In the opening words of the Platonic Protagoras, we read as a question from the friend or companion of Sokrates, [Greek: Po/then, ô)= Sô/krates, phai/nei?
ê)\ _a)po\ kunêgesi/ou tou=_ peri\ tê\n A)lkibia/dou ô(/ran?]
See also the opening of the Charmides, Lysis, Alkibiadês I., and the speech of Alkibiades in the Symposion.
Compare also Xenophon, Memorab.
iv.
2, 1-2-6, with the commencement of the Platonic Protagoras; in which the youth Hippokrates, far from being run after by the Sophist Protagoras, is described as an enthusiastic admirer of that Sophist from reputation alone, and as eagerly soliciting Sokrates to present him to Protagoras (Protag.
pp.
310-311).]
[Footnote 92: Plato, Sophist.
p. 225 C. [Greek: To\ de/ ge e)/ntechnon kai\ peri\ dikai/ôn au)tôn kai\ a)di/kôn kai\ peri\ tô=n a)/llôn o(/lôs a)mphisbêtou=n.]
Spengel says truly--in his [Greek: Sunagôgê\ Technô=n] p. 40--"Quod si sermo et locus hic esset de Sophistarum doctrinâ et philosophiâ, odium quod nunc vulgo in eos vertunt, majore ex parte sine causâ et ratione esse conceptum, eosque laude magis quam vituperatione dignos esse censendos--haud multâ cum operâ exponi posset.
Sic, quo proscinduntur convicio, juvenes non nisi magno pretio eruditos esse, levissimum est: immo hoc sophistas suæ ipsorum scientiæ satis confisos esse neque eam despexisse, docet: et vitium, si modo vitium dicendum, commune est vel potius ortum optimis lyricæ poeseos asseclis, Simonide, Pindaro, aliis."]
[Footnote 93: Plato, Theætet.
p. 175 C.] [Footnote 94: It is to be remembered, however, that Plato, though doubtless exacting no fee, received presents from rich admirers like Dion and Dionysius: and there were various teachers who found presents more lucrative than fees.
"M. Antonius Guipho, fuisse dicitur ingenii magni, memoriæ singularis, nec minus Graicé, quam Latino, doctus: præterea comi fucilique naturâ, _nec unquam de mercedibus pactus--eoque plura ex liberalitate discentium consecutus._" (Sueton.
De Illustr.
Grammat.
7.)]
[Side-note: The art which Plato calls "the thoroughbred and noble Sophistical Art" belongs to Sokrates and to no one else.
The Elenchus was peculiar to him.
Protagoras and Prodikus were not Sophists in this sense.]
We have seen also that Plato assigns to what he terms "the thoroughbred and noble Sophistic Art" ([Greek: ê( ge/nei gennai/a sophistikê\]), the employment of the Elenchus, for the purpose of destroying, in the minds of others, that false persuasion of existing knowledge which was the radical impediment to their imbibing acquisitions of real knowledge from the teacher.
[95] Here Plato draws a portrait not only strikingly resembling Sokrates, but resembling no one else.
As far as we can make out, Sokrates stood alone in this original conception of the purpose of the Elenchus, and in his no less original manner of working it out.
To prove to others that they knew nothing, is what he himself represents to be his mission from the Delphian oracle.
Sokrates is a Sophist of the most genuine and noble stamp: others are Sophists, but of a more degenerate variety.
Plato admits the analogy with reluctance, and seeks to attenuate it.
[96] We may remark, however, that according to the characteristic of the true Sophist here given by Plato, Protagoras and Prodikus were less of Sophists than Sokrates.
For though we know little of the two former, yet there is good reason to believe, That the method which they generally employed was, that of continuous and eloquent discourse, lecture, exhortation: that disputation by short question and answer was less usual with them, and was not their strong point: and that the Elenchus, in the Sokratic meaning, can hardly be said to have been used by them at all.
Now Plato, in this dialogue, tells us that the true and genuine Sophist renounces the method of exhortation as unprofitable; or at least employs it only subject to the condition of having previously administered the Elenchus with success, as his own patent medicine.
[97] Upon this definition, Sokrates is more truly a Sophist than either Protagoras or Prodikus: neither of whom, so far as we know, made it their business to drive the respondent to contradictions.
[Footnote 95: Plato, Sophist.
p. 230 D. [Greek: pri\n a)\n e)le/gchôn tis to\n e)legcho/menon ei)s ai)schu/nên katastê/sas, ta\s toi=s mathê/masin e)mpodi/ous do/xas e)xelô/n, katharo\n a)pophê/nê| kai\ tau=ta ê(gou/menon, a(/per oi)=den ei)de/nai mo/na, plei/ô de\ mê/.]]
[Footnote 96: Plato, Sophist.
p. 231 C.] [Footnote 97: Plato, Sophist.
p. 230 E.] [Side-note: Universal knowledge--was professed at that time by all Philosophers--Plato, Aristotle, &c.] Again, Plato tells us that the Sophist is a person who disputes about all matters, and pretends to know all matters: respecting the invisible Gods, respecting the visible Gods, Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, &c., respecting transcendental philosophy, generation and essence--and respecting all civil, social, and political questions--and respecting special arts.
On all these miscellaneous topics, according to Plato, the Sophists pretended to be themselves instructed, and to qualify their disciples for arguing on all of them.
Now it is possible that the Sophists of that day may have pretended to this species of universal knowledge; but most certainly Plato and Aristotle did the same.
The dialogues of Plato embrace all that wide range of topics which he tells us that the Sophists argued about, and pretended to teach.
In an age when the amount of positive knowledge was so slender, it was natural for a clever talker or writer to fancy that he knew every thing.
In reference to every subject then discussed, an ingenious mind could readily supply deductions from both hypotheses--generalities ratiocinative or imaginative--strung together into an apparent order sufficient for the exigencies of hearers.
There was no large range of books to be studied; no stock of facts or experience to be mastered.
Every philosopher wove his own tissue of theory for himself, without any restraint upon his intellectual impulse, in regard to all the problems then afloat.
What the theories of the Sophists were, we do not know: but Plato, author of the Timæus, Republic, Leges, Kratylus, Menon--who affirmed the pre-existence as well as post-existence of the mind, and the eternal self-existence of Ideas--has no fair ground for reproaching them with blamable rashness in the extent and diversity of topics which they presumed to discuss.
They obtained indeed (he says justly) no truth or knowledge, but merely a fanciful semblance of knowledge--an equivocal show or imitation of reality.
[98] But Plato himself obtains nothing more in the Timæus: and we shall find Aristotle pronouncing the like condemnation on the Platonic self-existent Ideas.
If the Sophists professed to be encyclopedists, this was an error natural to the age; and was the character of Grecian philosophy generally, even in its most illustrious manifestations.
[Footnote 98: Plato, Sophistês, p. 233 C. [Greek: doxastikê\n a)/ra tina\ peri\ pa/ntôn e)pistê/mên o( sophistê\s ê(mi=n, a)ll' ou)k a)lêthei/an e)/chôn a)nape/phantai.]
234 B: [Greek: mimê/mata kai\ o(mô/numa tô=n o)/ntôn.]
When the Eleate here says about the Sophists (p. 233 B), [Greek: dokou=si pro\s tau=ta e)pistêmo/nôs e)/chein au)toi\ pro\s a(/per a)ntile/gousin], this is exactly what Sokrates, in the Platonic Apology, tells us about the impression made by his own dialectics or refutative conversation, Plato, Apolog.
p. 23 A.
[Greek: e)k tau/têsi dê\ tê=s e)xeta/seôs pollai\ me\n a)pe/chtheiai/ moi gego/nasi kai\ oi(=ai chalepô/tatai kai\ baru/tatai, ô(/ste polla\s diabola\s a)p' au)tô=n gegone/nai, o)/noma/ te tou=to le/gesthai, sopho\s ei)=nai; oi)=ontai ga/r me e(ka/stoth' oi( paro/ntes tau=t' ei)=nai sopho\n a(\ a)\n a)/llon e)xele/gxô.]]
[Side-note: Inconsistency of Plato's argument in the Sophistês.
He says that the Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every one for speaking falsehood.
He says also that the Sophist is one who maintains false propositions to be impossible.]
Having traced the Sophist down to the character of a man of delusion and imposture, passing off appearance as if it were reality, and falsehood as if it were truth--Plato (as we have seen) suddenly turns round upon himself, and asks how such a character is possible.
He represents the Sophist as maintaining that no man could speak falsely[99]--that a false proposition was self-contradictory, inasmuch as Non-Ens was inconceivable and unutterable.
I do not see how the argument which Plato here ascribes to the Sophist, can be reconciled with the character which he had before given of the Sophist--as a man who passed his life in disputation and controversy; which involves the perpetual arraigning of other men's opinions as false.
A professed disputant may perhaps be accused of admitting nothing to be true: but he cannot well be charged with maintaining that nothing is false.
[Footnote 99: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
240-241.
Compare 260 E.] [Side-note: Reasoning of Plato about Non-Ens--No predications except identical.]
To pass over this inconsistency, however--the reasoning of Plato himself on the subject of Non-Ens is an interesting relic of ancient speculation.
He has made for himself an opportunity of canvassing, not only the doctrine of Parmenides, who emphatically denied Non-Ens--but also the opposite doctrine of other schools.
He farther comments upon a different opinion, advanced by other philosophers--That no proposition can be admitted, in which the predicate is different from the subject: That no proposition is true or valid, except an identical proposition.
You cannot say, Man is good: you can only say, Man is Man, or Good is good.
You cannot say--Sokrates is good, brave, old, stout, flat-nosed, &c., because you thereby multiply the one Sokrates into many.
One thing cannot be many, nor many things one.
[100] [Footnote 100: Plato, Sophist.
p. 251 B-C.
Compare Plato, Philêbus, p. 14 C.] [Side-note: Misconception of the function of the copula in predication.]
This last opinion is said to have been held by Antisthenes, one of the disciples of Sokrates.
We do not know how he explained or defended it, nor what reserves he may have admitted to qualify it.
Plato takes no pains to inform us on this point.
He treats the opinion with derision, as an absurdity.
We may conceive it as one of the many errors arising from a misconception of the purpose and function of the copula in predication.
Antisthenes probably considered that the copula implied identity between the predicate and the subject.
Now the explanation or definition of _man_ is different from the explanation or definition of _good_: accordingly, if you say, Man is good, you predicate identity between two different things: as if you were to say Two is Three, or Three is Four.
And if the predicates were multiplied, the contradiction became aggravated, because then you predicated identity not merely between one thing and another different thing, but between one thing and many different things.
The opinion of Antisthenes depends upon two assumptions--That each separate word, whether used as subject or as predicate, denotes a Something separate and existent by itself: That the copula implies identity.
Now the first of these two assumptions is not unfrequently admitted, even in the reasonings of Plato, Aristotle, and many others: while the latter is not more remarkable than various other erroneous conceptions which have been entertained, as to the function of the copula.
[Side-note: No formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time.
No analysis or classification of propositions before the works of Aristotle.]
What is most important to observe is--That at the time which we are here discussing, there existed no such sciences either grammar or formal logic.
There was a copious and flexible language--a large body of literature, chiefly poetical--and great facility as well as felicity in the use of speech for the purposes of communication and persuasion.
But no attempt had yet been made to analyse or theorise on speech: to distinguish between the different functions of words, and to throw them into suitable classes: to generalise the conditions of good or bad use of speech for proving a conclusion: or to draw up rules for grammar, syntax, and logic.
Both Protagoras and Prodikus appear to have contributed something towards this object, and Plato gives various scattered remarks going still farther.
But there was no regular body either of grammar or of formal logic: no established rules or principles to appeal to, no recognised teaching, on either topic.
It was Aristotle who rendered the important service of filling up this gap.
I shall touch hereafter upon the manner in which he proceeded: but the necessity of laying down a good theory of predication, and precepts respecting the employment of propositions in reasoning, is best shown by such misconceptions as this of Antisthenes; which naturally arise among argumentative men yet untrained in the generalities of grammar and logic.
[Side-note: Plato's declared purpose in the Sophistês--To confute the various schools of thinkers--Antisthenes, Parmenides, the Materialists, &c.] Plato announces his intention, in this portion of the Sophistês, to confute all these different schools of thinkers, to whom he has made allusion.
[101] His first purpose, in reasoning against those who maintained Non-Ens to be an incogitable absurdity, is, to show that there are equal difficulties respecting Ens: that the Existent is just as equivocal and unintelligible as the Non-Existent.
Those who recognise two co-ordinate and elementary principles (such as Hot and Cold) maintain that both are really existent, and call them both, Entia.
Here (argues Plato) they contradict themselves: they call their two elementary principles _one_.
What do they mean by existence, if this be not so?
[Footnote 101: Plato, Sophist.
p. 251 C-D. [Greek: I(/na toi/nun pro\s a(/pantas ê(mi=n o( lo/gos ê)=| tou\s pô/pote peri\ ou)si/as kai\ o(tiou=n dialechthe/ntas, e)/stô kai\ pro\s tou/tous kai\ pro\s tou\s a)/llous, o(/sois e)/mprosthen dieile/gmetha, ta\ nu=n ô(s e)n e)rôtê/sei lechthêso/mena.]]
Then again, Parmenides--and those who affirm that Ens Totum was essentially Unum, denying all plurality--had difficulties on their side to surmount.
Ens could not be identical with Unum, nor was the name _Ens_, identical with the thing named Ens.
Moreover, though Ens Unum was _Totum_, yet Totum was not identical with Ens or with Unum.
_Totum_ necessarily implied _partes_: but the _Unum per se_ was indivisible or implied absence of parts.
Though it was true therefore that Ens was both Unum and Totum, these two were both of them essentially different from Ens, and belonged to it only by way of adjunct accident.
Parmenides was therefore wrong in saying that Unum alone existed.
[Side-note: Plato's refutation throws light upon the doctrine of Antisthenes.]
The reasoning here given from Plato throws some light upon the doctrine just now cited from Antisthenes.
You cannot say (argues Plato against the advocates of duality) that _two_ elements (Hot and Cold) are both of them Entia or Existent, because by so doing you call them _one_.
You cannot say (argues Antisthenes) that Sokrates is good, brave, old, &c., because by such speech you call one thing three.
Again, in controverting the doctrine of Parmenides, Plato urges, That Ens cannot _be_ Unum, because it is Totum (Unum having no parts, while Totum has parts): but it may carry with it the accident Unum, or may have Unum applied to it as a predicate by accident.
Here again, we have difficulties similar to those which perplexed Antisthenes.
For the same reason that Plato will not admit, That Ens _is_ Unum--Antisthenes will not admit, That Man _is_ good.
It appeared to him to imply essential identity between the predicate and the subject.
All these difficulties and others to which we shall come presently, noway peculiar to Antisthenes--attest the incomplete formal logic of the time: the want of a good theory respecting predication and the function of the copula.
[Side-note: Plato's argument against the Materialists.]
Pursuing the purpose of establishing his conclusion (_viz._ That Ens involved as many perplexities as Non-Ens), Plato comes to the two opposite sects:--1.
Those (the Materialists) who recognised bodies and nothing else, as the real Entia or Existences.
2.
Those (the Friends of Forms, the Idealists) who maintained that incorporeal and intelligible Forms or Species were the only real existences; and that bodies had no existence, but were in perpetual generation and destruction.
[102] [Footnote 102: Plato, Sophist.
p. 246 B.]
Respecting the first, Plato says that they must after all be ashamed not to admit, that justice, intelligence, &c., are something real, which may be present or absent in different individual men, and therefore must exist apart from all individuals.
Yet justice and intelligence are not bodies.
Existence therefore is something common to body and not-body.
The characteristic mark of existence is, power or potentiality.
Whatever has power to act upon any thing else, or to be acted on by any thing else, is a real Ens or existent something.
[103] [Footnote 103: Plato, Sophist.
p. 247 D-E. [Greek: le/gô dê\ to\ kai\ o(poianou=n kektême/non _du/namin_, ei)/t' ei)s to\ poiei=n e(/teron o(tiou=n pephuko\s ei)/t' ei)s to\ pathei=n** kai\ smikro/taton u(po\ tou= phaulota/tou, ka)\n ei) mo/non ei)sa/pax, pa=n tou=to o)/ntôs ei)=nai; ti/themai ga\r o(/ron o(ri/zein ta\ o)/nta, ô(s e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti plê\n _du/namis_.]]
[Side-note: Reply open to the Materialists.]
Unfortunately we never know any thing about the opponents of Plato, nor how they would have answered his objection--except so much as he chooses to tell us.
But it appears to me that the opponents whom he is here confuting would have accepted his definition, and employed it for the support of their own opinion.
"We recognise (they would say) just men, or hard bodies, as existent, because they conform to your definition: they have power to act and be acted upon.
But justice, apart from just men--hardness, apart from hard bodies--has no such power: they neither act upon any thing, nor are acted on by any thing: therefore we do not recognise them as existent."
According to their view, objects of perception acted on the mind, and therefore were to be recognised as existent: objects of mere conception did not act on the mind, and therefore had not the same claim to be ranked as existent: or at any rate they acted on the mind in a different way, which constitutes the difference between the real and unreal.
Of this difference Plato's definition takes no account.
[104] [Footnote 104: Plato, Sophist.
p. 247 E. [Greek: to\ kai\ o(poianou=n kektême/non du/namin], &c.] [Side-note: Plato's argument against the Idealists or Friends of Forms.
Their point of view against him.]
Plato now presents this same definition to the opposite class of philosophers: to the Idealists, or partisans of the incorporeal--or of self-existent and separate Forms.
These thinkers drew a marked distinction between the Existent and the Generated--between Ens and Fiens--[Greek: to\ o)\n] and [Greek: to\ gigno/menon].
Ens or the Existent was eternal and unchangeable: Fiens or the Generated was always in change or transit, coming or going.
We hold communion (they said) with the generated or transitory, through our bodies and sensible perceptions: we hold communion with unchangeable Ens through our mind and by intellection.
They did not admit the definition of existence just given by Plato.
They contended that that definition applied only to Fiens or to the sensible world--not to Ens or the intelligible world.
[105] Fiens had power to act and be acted upon, and existed only under the condition of being so: that is, its existence was only temporary, conditional, relative: it had no permanent or absolute existence at all.
Ens was the real existent, absolute and independent--neither acting upon any thing nor being acted upon.
They considered that Plato's definition was not a definition of Existence, or the Absolute: but rather of Non-Existence, or the Relative.
[Footnote 105: Plato, Sophist.
p. 248 C.] [Side-note: Plato argues--That to know, and be known, is action and passion, a mode of relativity.]
But (asks Plato in reply) what do you mean by "the mind holding communion" with the intelligible world?
You mean that the mind knows, comprehends, conceives, the intelligible world: or in other words, that the intelligible world (Ens) is known, is comprehended, is conceived, by the mind.
To be known or conceived, is to be acted on by the mind.
[106] Ens, or the intelligible world, is thus acted upon by the mind, and has a power to be so acted upon: which power is, in Plato's definition here given, the characteristic mark of existence.
Plato thus makes good his definition as applying to Ens, the world of intelligible Forms--not less than to Fiens, the world of sensible phenomena.
[Footnote 106: Plato, Sophist.
p. 248 D. [Greek: ei) prosomologou=si tê\n me\n psuchê\n ginô/skein, tê\n d' ou)si/an gignô/skesthai .
.
.
Ti/ de/?
to\ ginô/skein ê)\ gignô/skesthai phate\ poi/êma ê)\ pa/thos ê)\ a)mpho/teron?]]
The definition of _existence_, here given by Plato, and the way in which he employs it against the two different sects of philosophers--Materialists and Idealists--deserves some remark.
[Side-note: Plato's reasoning--compared with the points of view of both.]
According to the Idealists or Immaterialists, Plato's definition of existence would be supposed to establish the case of their opponents the Materialists, who recognised nothing as existing except the sensible world: for Plato's definition (as the Idealists thought) fitted the sensible world, but fitted nothing else.
Now these Idealists did not recognise the sensible world as existent at all.
They considered it merely as Fiens, ever appearing and vanishing.
The only Existent, in their view, was the intelligible world--Form or Forms, absolute, eternal, unchangeable, but neither visible nor perceivable by any of the other senses.
This is the opinion against which Plato _here_ reasons, though in various other dialogues he gives it as his own opinion, or at least, as the opinion of his representative spokesman.
In this portion of the present dialogue (Sophistês) the point which he makes is, to show to the Idealists, or Absolutists, that their Forms are not really absolute, or independent of the mind: that the existence of these forms is relative, just as much as that of the sensible world.
The sensible world exists relatively to our senses, really or potentially exercised: the intelligible world exists relatively to our intelligence, really or potentially exercised.
In both cases alike, we hold communion with the two worlds: the communion cannot be left out of sight, either in the one case or in the other.
The communion is the entire and fundamental fact, of which the Subject conceiving and the Object conceived, form the two opposite but inseparable faces--the concave and convex, to employ a favourite illustration of Aristotle.
Subject conceiving, in communion with Object conceived, are one and the same indivisible fact, looked at on different sides.
This is, in substance, what Plato urges against those philosophers who asserted the absolute and independent existence of intelligible Forms.
Such forms (he says) exist only in communion with, or relatively to, an intelligent mind: they are not absolute, not independent: they are Objects of intelligence to an intelligent Subject, but they are nothing without the Subject, just as the Subject is nothing without them or some other Object.
Object of intelligence implies an intelligent Subject: Object of sense implies a sentient Subject.
Thus Objects of intelligence, and Objects of sense, exist alike relatively to a Subject--not absolutely or independently.
[Side-note: The argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the Absolute, and a full establishment of the Relative.]
This argument, then, of Plato against the Idealists is an argument against the Absolute--showing that there can be no Object of intelligence or conception without its obverse side, the intelligent or concipient Subject.
The Idealists held, that by soaring above the sensible world into the intelligible world, they got out of the region of the Relative into that of the Absolute.
But Plato reminds them that this is not the fact.
Their intelligible world is relative, not less than the sensible; that is, it exists only in communion with a mind or Subject, but with a Cogitant or intelligent Subject, not a percipient Subject.
[Side-note: Coincidence of his argument with the doctrine of Protagoras in the Theætêtus.]
The argument here urged by Plato coincides in its drift and result with the dictum of Protagoras--Man is the measure of all things.
In my remarks on the Theætêtus,[107] I endeavoured to make it appear that the Protagorean dictum was really a negation of the Absolute, of the Thing in itself, of the Object without a Subject:--and an affirmation of the Relative, of the Thing in communion with a percipient or concipient mind, of Object implicated with Subject--as two aspects or sides of one and the same conception or cognition.
Though Plato in the Theætêtus argued at length against Protagoras, yet his reasoning here in the Sophistês establishes by implication the conclusion of Protagoras.
Here Plato impugns the doctrine of those who (like Sokrates in his own Theætêtus) held that the sensible world alone was relative, but that the intelligible world or Forms were absolute.
He shows that the latter were no less relative to a mind than the former; and that mind, either percipient or cogitant, could never be eliminated from "communion" with them.
[Footnote 107: See my notice of the Theætêtus, in the chapter immediately preceding, where I have adverted to Plato's reasoning in the Sophistês.]
[Side-note: The Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were entirely unchangeable and eternal.
Plato here denies this, and maintains that ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable.]
These same Idealist philosophers also maintained--That Forms, or the intelligible world, were eternally the same and unchangeable.
Plato here affirms that this ideas or opinion is not true: he contends that the intelligible world includes both change and unchangeableness, motion and rest, difference and sameness, life, mind, intelligence, &c. He argues that the intelligible world, whether assumed as consisting of one Form or of many Forms, could not be regarded either as wholly changeable or wholly unchangeable: it must comprise both constituents alike.
If all were changeable, or if all were unchangeable, there could be no Object of knowledge; and, by consequence, no knowledge.
[108] But the fact that there _is_ knowledge (cognition, conception), is the fundamental fact from which we must reason; and any conclusion which contradicts this must be untrue.
Therefore the intelligible world is not all homogeneous, but contains different and even opposite Forms--change and unchangeableness--motion and rest--different and same.
[109] [Footnote 108: Plato, Sophist.
p. 249 B.
[Greek: xumbai/nei d' ou)=n a)kinê/tôn te o)/ntôn nou=n mêdeni\ peri\ mêdeno\s ei)=nai mêdamou=.]]
[Footnote 109: Plato, Sophist.
p. 249 C.] [Side-note: Plato's reasoning against the Materialists.]
Let us now look at Plato's argument, and his definition of existence, as they bear upon the doctrine of the opposing Materialist philosophers, whom he states to have held that bodies alone existed, and that the Incorporeal did not exist:--in other words that all real existence was concrete and particular: that the abstract (universals, forms, attributes) had no real existence, certainly no separate existence.
As I before remarked, it is not quite clear what or how much these philosophers denied.
But as far as we can gather from Plato's language, what they denied was, the existence of attributes _apart from_ a substance.
They did not deny the existence of just and wise men, but the existence of justice and wisdom, apart from men real or supposable.
[Side-note: Difference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made conspicuous.
Large meaning here given by Plato to Ens--comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of Conception besides.]
In the time of Plato, distinction between the two classes of words, Concrete and Abstract, had not become so clearly matter of reflection as to be noted by two appropriate terms: in fact, logical terminology was yet in its first rudiments.
It is therefore the less matter of wonder that Plato should not here advert to the relation between the two, or to the different sense in which existence might properly be predicable of both.
He agrees with the materialists or friends of the Concrete, in affirming that sensible objects, Man, Horse, Tree, exist (which the Idealists or friends of the Abstract denied): but he differs from them by saying that other Objects, super-sensible and merely intelligible, exist also--namely, Justice, Virtue, Whiteness, Hardness, and other Forms or Attributes.
He admits that these last-mentioned objects do not make themselves manifest to the senses; but they do make themselves manifest to the intelligence or the conception: and that is sufficient, in his opinion, to authenticate them as existent.
The word _existent_, according to his definition (as given in this dialogue), includes not only all that is or may be perceived, but also all that is or may be known by the mind; _i.e._, understood, conceived, imagined, talked or reasoned about.
Existent, or Ens, is thus made purely relative: having its root in a Subject, but ramifying by its branches in every direction.
It bears the widest possible sense, co-extensive with _Object_ universally, either of perception or conception.
It includes all fictions, as well as all (commonly called) realities.
The conceivable and the existent become equivalent.
[Side-note: Narrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens--they included only Objects of Perception.
Their reasoning as opposed to Plato.]
Now the friends of the Concrete, against whom Plato reasons, used the word _existent_ in a narrower sense, as comprising only the concretes of the sensible world.
They probably admitted the existence of the abstract, along with and particularised in the concrete: but they certainly denied the _separate_ existence of the Abstract--_i.e._, of Forms, Attributes, or classes, apart from particulars.
They would not deny that many things were conceivable, more or less dissimilar from the realities of the sensible world: but they did not admit that all those conceivable things ought to be termed existent or realities, and put upon the same footing as the sensible world.
They used the word _existent_ to distinguish between Men, Horses, Trees, on the one hand--and Cyclopes, Centaurs, [Greek: Trage/laphoi], &c., on the other.
A Centaur is just as intelligible and conceivable as either a man or a horse; and according to this definition of Plato, would be as much entitled to be called really existent.
The attributes of _man_ and _horse_ are real, because the objects themselves are real and perceivable: the class _man_ and the class _horse_ is real, for the same reason: but the attributes of a Centaur, and the class Centaurs, are not real, because no individuals possessing the attributes, or belonging to the class, have ever been perceived, or authenticated by induction.
Plato's Materialist opponents would here have urged, that if he used the word _existent_ or Ens in so wide a sense, comprehending all that is conceivable or nameable, fiction as well as reality--they would require some other words to distinguish fiction from reality--Centaur from Man: which is what most men mean when they speak of one thing as non-existent, another thing as existent.
At any rate, here is an equivocal sense of the word Ens--a wider and a narrower sense--which, we shall find frequently perplexing us in the ancient metaphysics; and which, when sifted, will often prove, that what appears to be a difference of doctrine, is in reality little more than a difference of phraseology.
[110] [Footnote 110: Plato here aspires to deliver one definition of Ens, applying to all cases.
The contrast between him and Aristotle is shown in the more cautious procedure of the latter, who entirely renounces the possibility of giving any one definition fitting all cases.
Aristotle declares Ens to be an equivocal word ([Greek: o(mô/numon]), and discriminates several different significations which it bears: all these significations having nevertheless an analogical affinity, more or less remote, with each other.
See Aristot.
Metaphys.
[Greek: D].
1017, a.
7, seq.
; vi.
1028, a.
10.
It is declared by Aristotle to be the question first and most disputed in Philosophia Prima, Quid est Ens?
[Greek: kai\ dê\ kai\ to\ pa/lai te kai\ nu=n kai\ a)ei\ zêtou/menon kai\ a)ei\ a)porou/menon, tou=to e)sti, ti/s ê( ou)si/a] (p. 1028, b.
2).
Compare, B.
1001, a.
6, 31.
This subject is well treated by Brentano, in his Dissertation Ueber die Bedeutung des Seienden im Aristoteles.
See pp.
49-50 seq., of that work.
Aristotle observes truly, that these most general terms are the most convenient hiding-places for equivocal meaning (Anal.
Post.
ii.
97, b.
29).
The analogical varieties of Ens or Essence are graduated, according to Aristotle: Complete, Proper, typical, [Greek: ou)si/a], stands at the head: there are then other varieties more or less approaching to this proper type: some of them which [Greek: mikro\n ê)\ ou)the\n e)/chei tou= o)/ntos.]
(Metaphys.
vi.
1029, b.
9.)]
[Side-note: Different definitions of Ens--by Plato--the Materialists, the Idealists.]
This enquiry respecting Ens is left by Plato professedly unsettled; according to his very frequent practice.
He pretends only to have brought it to this point: that Ens or the Existent is shown to present as many difficulties and perplexities as Non-Ens or the non-existent.
[111] I do not think that he has shown thus much; for, according to his definition, Non-Ens is an impossibility: the term is absolutely unmeaning: it is equivalent to the Unknowable or Inconceivable--as Parmenides affirmed it to be.
But he has undoubtedly shown that Ens is in itself perplexing: which, instead of lightening the difficulties about Non-Ens, aggravates them: for all the difficulties about Ens must be solved, before you can pretend to understand Non-Ens.
Plato has shown that Ens is used in three different meanings:-1.
According to the Materialists, it means only the concrete and particular, including all the attributes thereof, essential and accidental.
2.
According to the Idealists or friends of Forms, it means only Universals, Forms, and Attributes.
3.
According to Plato's own definition here given, it means both the one and the other: whatever the mind can either perceive or conceive: whatever can act upon the mind in any way, or for any time however short.
It is therefore wholly relative to the mind: yet not exclusively to the _perceiving_ mind (as the Materialists said), nor exclusively to the _conceiving_ mind (as the friends of Forms said): but to both alike.
[Footnote 111: Plato, Sophist.
p. 250 E.] [Side-note: Plato's views about Non-Ens examined.]
Here is much confusion, partly real but principally verbal, about Ens.
Plato proceeds to affirm, that the difficulty about Non-Ens is no greater, and that it admits of being elucidated.
The higher Genera or Forms (he says) are such that some of them will combine or enter into communion with each other, wholly or partially, others will not, but are reciprocally exclusive.
Motion and Rest will not enter into communion, but mutually exclude each other: neither of them can be predicated of the other.
But each or both of them will enter into communion with Existence, which latter may be predicated of both.
Here are three Genera or Forms: motion, rest, and existence.
Each of them is the _same_ with itself, and _different_ from the other two.
Thus we have two new distinct Forms or Genera--_Same_ and _Different_--which enter into communion with the preceding three, but are in themselves distinct from them.
[112] Accordingly you may say, motion _partakes_ of (or enters into communion with) Diversum, because motion differs from rest: also you may say, motion _partakes_ of Idem, as being identical with itself: but you cannot say, motion _is_ different, motion _is_ the same; because the subject and the predicate are essentially distinct and not identical.
[113] [Footnote 112: In the Timæus (pp.
35-36-37), Plato declares these three elements--[Greek: Tau)to/n, Tha/teron, Ou)si/a]--to be the three constituent elements of the cosmical soul, and of the human rational soul.]
[Footnote 113: Plato, Sophist.
p. 255 B.
[Greek: Mete/cheton mê\n a)/mphô (ki/nêsis kai\ sta/sis) tau)tou= kai\ thate/rou.
.
.
.]
[Greek: Mê\ toi/nun le/gômen ki/nêsin g' _ei)=nai_ tau)to\n ê)\ tha/teron, mêd' au)= sta/sin.]
He had before said--[Greek: A)ll' ou)/ ti mê\n ki/nêsi/s ge kai\ sta/sis ou)th' e(/teron ou)/te tau)to/n _e)stin_] (p. 255 A).
Plato here says, It is true that [Greek: ki/nêsis _mete/chei_ tau)tou=], but it is not true that [Greek: ki/nêsi/s e)sti tau)to/n].
Again, p. 259 A.
[Greek: to\ me\n e(/teron metascho\n tou= o)/ntos _e)/sti_ me\n dia\ tau/tên tê\n me/thexin, ou) mê\n e)kei=no/ ge ou)= mete/schen a)ll' e(/teron.]
He understands, therefore, that [Greek: e)sti], when used as copula, implies identity between the predicate and the subject.
This is the same point of view from which Antisthenes looked, when he denied the propriety of saying [Greek: A)/nthrôpo/s _e)stin_ a)gatho/s--A)/nthrôpo/s _e)sti_ kako/s]: and when he admitted only identical propositions, such as [Greek: A)/nthrôpo/s _e)stin_ a)/nthrôpos--A)/gatho/s _e)stin_ a)gatho/s.]
He assumed that [Greek: e)sti], when intervening between the subject and the predicate, implies identity between them; and the same assumption is made by Plato in the passage now before us.
Whether Antisthenes would have allowed the proposition--[Greek: A)/nthrôpos _mete/chei_ kaki/as], or other propositions in which [Greek: e)sti] does not appear as copula, we do not know enough of his opinions to say.
Compare Aristotel.
Physic.
i.
2, 185, b.
27, with the Scholia of Simplikius, p. 330, a.
331, b.
18-28, ed.
Brandis.]
Some things are always named or spoken of _per se_, others with reference to something else.
Thus, Diversum is always different from something else: it is relative, implying a correlate.
[114] In this, as well as in other points, Diversum (or Different) is a distinct Form, Genus, or Idea, which runs through all other things whatever.
Each thing is different from every other thing: but it differs from them, not through any thing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form or Idea of Diversum or the Different.
[115] So, in like manner, the Form or Idea of Idem (or Same) runs through all other things: since each thing is both different from all others, and is also the same with itself.
[Footnote 114: Plato, Sophist.
p. 255 C-D. [Greek: tô=n o)/ntôn ta\ me\n au)ta\ kath' au(ta/, ta/ de\ pro\s a)/llêla a)ei\ _le/gesthai_ .
.
.
To\ d' e(/teron a)ei\ pro\s e(/teron .
.
.
Nu=n de\ a)technô=s ê(mi=n o(/, ti per a)\n e(/teron ê)=|, sumbe/bêken e)x a)na/gkês _e(te/rou tou=to o(/per e)sti\n ei)=nai_.]
These last words partly anticipate Aristotle's explanation of [Greek: ta\ pro/s ti] (Categor.
p. 6, a.
38).
Here we have, for the first time so far as I know (certainly anterior to Aristotle), names _relative_ and _non-relative_, distinguished as classes, and contrasted with each other.
It is to be observed that Plato here uses [Greek: le/gesthai] and [Greek: ei)=nai] as equivalent; which is not very consistent with the sense which he assigns to [Greek: e)stin] in predication: see the note immediately preceding.]
[Footnote 115: Plato, Sophist.
p. 255 E. [Greek: pe/mpton dê\ tê\n thate/rou phu/sin lekte/on e)n toi=s ei)/desin ou)=san, e)n oi(=s proairou/metha .
.
.
kai\ dia\ pa/ntôn ge au)tê\n au)tô=n phê/somen ei)=nai dielêluthui=an; e(\n e(/kaston ga\r e(/teron ei)=nai tô=n a)/llôn ou) dia\ tê\n au(tou= phu/sin, a)lla\ dia\ to\ _mete/chein tê=s i)de/as tê=s thate/rou_.]]
[Side-note: His review of the select Five Forms.]
Now motion is altogether different from rest Motion therefore _is not_ rest.
Yet still motion _is_, because it partakes of existence or Ens.
Accordingly, motion both _is_ and _is not_.
Again, motion is different from Idem or the Same.
It is therefore _not the same_.
Yet still motion _is the same_; because every thing partakes of identity, or is the same with itself.
Motion therefore both _is_ the same and _is not_ the same.
We must not scruple to advance both these propositions.
Each of them stands on its own separate ground.
[116] So also motion is different from Diversum or The Different; in other words, it _is not_ different, yet still it _is_ different.
And, lastly, motion is different from Ens, in other words, _it is not Ens_, or is non-Ens: yet still _it is Ens_, because it partakes of existence.
Hence motion is both Ens, and Non-Ens.
[Footnote 116: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
255-256.]
Here we arrive at Plato's explanation of Non-Ens, [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n]: the main problem which he is now setting to himself.
Non-Ens is equivalent to, _different from Ens_.
It is the Form or Idea of Diversum, considered in reference to Ens.
Every thing is Ens, or partakes of entity, or existence.
Every thing also is different from Ens, or partakes of difference in relation to Ens: it is thus Non-Ens.
Every thing therefore is at the same time both Ens, and Non-Ens.
Nay, Ens itself, inasmuch as it is different from all other things, is Non-Ens in reference to them.
It is Ens only as one, in reference to itself: but it is Non-Ens an infinite number of times, in reference to all other things.
[117] [Footnote 117: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
256-257.]
[Side-note: Plato's doctrine--That Non-Ens is nothing more than different from Ens.]
When we say Non-Ens, therefore (continues Plato), we do not mean any thing _contrary_ to Ens, but merely something _different from_ Ens.
When we say _Not-great_, we nothing do not mean any thing contrary to Great, but only something different from great.
The negative generally, when annexed to any name, does not designate any thing contrary to what is meant by that name, but something different from it.
The general nature or Form of difference is disseminated into a multitude of different parts or varieties according to the number of different things with which it is brought into communion: _Not-great_, _Not-just_, &c., are specific varieties of this general nature, and are just as much realities as _great_, _just_.
And thus Non-Ens is just as much a reality as Ens being not contrary, but only that variety of the general nature of difference which corresponds to Ens.
_Non-Ens_, _Not-great_, _Not-just_, &c., are each of them permanent Forms, among the many other Forms or Entia, having each a true and distinct nature of its own.
[118] [Footnote 118: Plato, Sophist.
p. 258 C. [Greek: o(/ti to\ mê\ o)\n bebai/ôs e)sti\ tê\n au)tou= phu/sin e)/chon .
.
.
ou(/tô de\ kai\ to\ mê\ o)\n kata\ tau)to\n ê)=n te kai\ e)/stin mê\ o)/n, e)na/rithmon tô=n pollô=n o)/ntôn ei)=dos e(/n.]]
I say nothing about contrariety (concludes Plato), or about any thing contrary to Ens; nor will I determine whether Non-Ens in this sense be rationally possible or not.
What I mean by Non-Ens is a particular case under the general doctrine of the communion or combination of Forms: the combination of Ens with Diversum, composing that which is different from Ens, and which is therefore Non-Ens.
Thus Ens itself, being different from all other Forms, is Non-Ens in reference to them all, or an indefinite number of times[119] (_i.e._ an indefinite number of negative predications may be made concerning it).
[Footnote 119: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
258 E-259 A.
[Greek: ê(mei=s ga\r peri\ me\n e)nanti/ou tino\s au)tô=| (tô=| o)/nti) chai/rein pa/lai le/gomen, ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te mê\ lo/gon e)/chon ê)\ kai\ panta/pasin a)/logon; o(\ de\ nu=n ei)rê/kamen ei)=nai to\ mê\ o)/n], &c.] Non-Ens being thus shown to be one among the many other Forms, disseminated among all the others, and entering into communion with Ens among the rest--we have next to enquire whether it enters into communion with the Form of Opinion and Discourse.
It is the communion of the two which constitutes false opinion and false proposition: if therefore such communion be possible, false opinion and false proposition are possible, which is the point that Plato is trying to prove.
[120] [Footnote 120: Plato, Sophist.
p. 260 B.]
[Side-note: Communion of Non-Ens with proposition--possible and explicable.]
Now it has been already stated (continues Plato) that some Forms or Genera admit of communion with each other, others do not.
In like manner some words admit of communion with each other--not others.
Those alone admit of communion, which, when put together, make up a proposition significant or giving information respecting Essence or Existence.
The smallest proposition must have a noun and a verb put together: the noun indicating the agent, the verb indicating the act.
Every proposition must be a proposition concerning something, or must have a logical subject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality.
Let us take (he proceeds) two simple propositions: _Theætêtus is sitting down_--_Theætêtus is flying._[121] Of both these two, the subject is the same: but the first is true, the second is false.
The first gives things existing as they are, respecting the subject: the second gives respecting the subject, things different from those existing, or in other words things non-existent, as if they did exist.
[122] A false proposition is that which gives things different as if they were the same, and things non-existent as if they were existent, respecting the subject.
[123] [Footnote 121: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 A.
[Greek: Theai/têtos ka/thêtai .
.
.
Theai/têtos pe/tetai.]]
[Footnote 122: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 B.
[Greek: le/gei de\ au)tô=n] ([Greek: tô=n lo/gôn] of the two propositions) [Greek: o( me\n a)lêthê\s ta\ o)/nta, ô(s e)sti peri\ sou= .
.
.
O( de\ dê\ pseudê\s e(/tera tô=n o)/ntôn .
.
.
Ta\ mê\ o)/nt' a)/ra ô(s o)/nta le/gei .
.
.
O)/ntôn de/ ge o)/nta e(/tera peri\ sou=.
Polla\ me\n ga\r e)/phamen o)/nta peri\ e(/kaston ei)=nai/ pou, polla\ de\ ou)k o)/nta.]]
[Footnote 123: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 D. [Greek: Peri\ dê\ sou= lego/mena me/ntoi tha/tera ô(s ta\ au)ta/, kai\ mê\ o)/nta ô(s o)/nta, panta/pasin, ô(s e)/oiken, ê( toiau/tê su/nthesis e)/k te r(êma/tôn gignome/nê kai\ o)noma/tôn o)/ntôs te kai\ a)lêthô=s gi/gnesthai lo/gos pseudê/s.]
It is plain that this explanation takes no account of negative propositions: it applies only to affirmative propositions.]
[Side-note: Imperfect analysis of a proposition--Plato does not recognise the predicate.]
The foregoing is Plato's explanation of Non-Ens.
Before we remark upon it, let us examine his mode of analysing a proposition.
He conceives the proposition as consisting of a noun and a verb.
The noun marks the logical _subject_, but he has no technical word equivalent to _subject_: his phrase is, that a proposition must be _of something_ or _concerning something_.
Then again, he not only has no word to designate the predicate, but he does not even seem to conceive the predicate as distinct and separable: it stands along with the copula embodied in the verb.
The two essentials of a proposition, as he states them, are--That it should have a certain subject--That it should be of a certain quality, true or false.
[124] This conception is just, as far as it goes: but it does not state all which ought to be known about proposition, and it marks an undeveloped logical analysis.
It indicates moreover that Plato, not yet conceiving the predicate as a distinct constituent, had not yet conceived the copula as such: and therefore that the substantive verb [Greek: e)/stin] had not yet been understood by him in its function of pure and simple copula.
The idea that the substantive verb when used in a proposition must mark _existence_ or _essence_, is sufficiently apparent in several of his reasonings.
[Footnote 124: Since the time of Aristotle, the _quality_ of a proposition has been understood to designate its being either affirmative or negative: that being _formal_, or belonging to its form only.
Whether affirmative or negative, it may be true or false: and this is doubtless a _quality_, but belonging to its matter, not to its form.
Plato seems to have taken no account of the formal distinction, _negative_ or _affirmative_.]
I shall now say a few words on Plato's explanation of Non-Ens.
It is given at considerable length, and was, in the judgment of Schleiermacher, eminently satisfactory to Plato himself.
Some of Plato's expressions[125] lead me to suspect that his satisfaction was not thus unqualified: but whether he was himself satisfied or not, I cannot think that the explanation ought to satisfy others.
[Footnote 125: Plato, Sophistês, p. 259 A-B.
Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Sophistes, vol.
iv.
p. 134, of his translation of Plato.]
[Side-note: Plato's explanation of Non-Ens is not satisfactory--Objections to it.]
Plato here lays down the position--That the word _Not_ signifies nothing more than difference, with respect to that other word to which it is attached.
It does not signify (he says) what is contrary; but simply what is different.
_Not-great_, _Not-beautiful_--mean what is different from great or beautiful: Non-Ens means, not what is contrary to Ens, but simply what is different from Ens.
First, then, even if we admit that Non-Ens has this latter meaning and nothing beyond--yet when we turn to Plato's own definition of Ens, we shall find it so all-comprehensive, that there can be absolutely nothing different from Ens:--these last words can have no place and no meaning.
Plato defines Ens so as to include all that is knowable, conceivable, thinkable.
[126] One portion of this total differs from another: but there can be nothing which differs from it all.
The Form or nature of Diversum (to use Plato's phrase) as it is among the knowable or conceivable, is already included in the total of Ens, and comes into communion (according to the Platonic phraseology) with one portion of that total as against another portion.
But with Ens as a whole, it cannot come into communion, for there is nothing apart from Ens.
Whenever we try to think of any thing apart from Ens, we do by the act of thought include it in Ens, as defined by Plato.
_Different from great_--_different from white_ (_i.e._ not great, not white, sensu Platonico) is very intelligible: but _Different from Ens_, is not intelligible: there is nothing except the inconceivable and incomprehensible: the words professing to describe it, are mere unmeaning sound.
Now this is just[127] what Parmenides said about Non-Ens.
Plato's definition of Ens appears to me to make out the case of Parmenides about Non-Ens; and to render the Platonic explanation--_different from Ens_--open to quite as many difficulties, as those which attach to Non-Ens in the ordinary sense.
[Footnote 126: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
247-248.]
[Footnote 127: Compare Kratylus, 430 A.]
Secondly, there is an objection still graver against Plato's explanation.
When he resolves negation into an affirmation of something different from what is denied, he effaces or puts out of sight one of the capital distinctions of logic.
What he says is indeed perfectly true: _Not-great_, _Not-beautiful_, _Non-Ens_, are respectively different from _great_, _beautiful_, _Ens_.
But this, though true, is only a part of the truth; leaving unsaid another portion of the truth which, while equally essential, is at the same time special and characteristic.
The negative not only differs from the affirmative, but has such peculiar meaning of its own, as to exclude the affirmative: both cannot be true together.
_Not-great_ is certainly different from _great_: so also, _white_, _hard_, _rough_, _just_, _valiant_, &c, are all different from _great_.
But there is nothing in these latter epithets to exclude the co-existence of great.
_Theætêtus is great_--_Theætêtus is white_; in the second of these two propositions I affirm something respecting Theætêtus quite different from what I affirm in the first, yet nevertheless noway excluding what is affirmed in the first.
[128] The two propositions may both be true.
But when I say--_Theætêtus is dead_--_Theætêtus is not dead_: here are two propositions which cannot both be true, from the very form of the words.
To explain _not-great_, as Plato does, by saying that it means _only_ something different from great,[129] is to suppress this peculiar meaning and virtue of the negative, whereby it simply excludes the affirmative, without affirming any thing in its place.
Plato is right in saying that _not-great_ does not affirm the _contrary_ of great, by which he means _little_.
[130] The negative does not affirm any thing: it simply denies.
Plato seems to consider the negative as a species of affirmative:[131] only affirming something different from what is affirmed by the term which it accompanies.
Not-Great, Not-Beautiful, Not-Just--he declares to be Forms just as real and distinct as Great, Beautiful, Just: only different from these latter.
This, in my opinion, is a conception logically erroneous.
Negative stands opposed to affirmative, as one of the modes of distributing both terms and propositions.
A purely negative term cannot stand alone in the subject of a proposition: _Non-Entis nulla sunt prædicata_--was the scholastic maxim.
The apparent exceptions to this rule arise only from the fact, that many terms negative in their form have taken on an affirmative signification.
[Footnote 128: Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês (p. 281, p. 785, Stallbaum), says, with reference to the doctrine laid down by Plato in the Sophistês, [Greek: o(/lôs ga\r ai( a)potha/seis e)ggonoi/ ei)si tê=s e(tero/têtos tê=s noera=s; dia\ tou=to ga\r _ou)ch i(/ppos_, o(/ti e(/teron--kai\ dia\ tou=to _ou)k a)/nthrôpos_, o(/ti a)/llo.]
Proklus here adopts and repeats Plato's erroneous idea of the negative proposition and its function.
When I deny that Caius is just, wise, &c., my denial does not intimate simply that I know him to be something _different_ from just, wise; for he may have fifty _different_ attributes, co-existent and consistent with justice and wisdom.
To employ the language of Aristotle (see a pertinent example, Physic.
i.
8, 191, b.
15, where he distinguishes [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n kath' au(to\] from [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n kata\ sumbebêko/s]), we may say that it is not of the essence of the Different to deny or exclude that from which it is different: the Different may deny or exclude, but that is only by _accident_--[Greek: kata\ sumbebêko/s].
Plato includes, in the essence of the Different, that which belongs to it only by accident.
Aristotle in more than one place distinguishes [Greek: diaphora\] from [Greek: e)nanti/ôsis]--not always in the same language.
In Metaphysic.
I. p. 1055 a.
33, he considers that the root of all [Greek: e)nanti/ôsis] is [Greek: e(/xis] and [Greek: ste/rêsis], understood in the widest sense, _i.e._ affirmative and negative.
See Bonitz, not.
ad loc., and Waitz, ad Categor.
p. 12, a.
26.
The last portion of the treatise [Greek: Peri\ E(rmênei/as] was interpreted by Syrianus with a view to uphold Plato's opinion here given in the Sophistes (Schol.
ad Aristot.
p. 136, a.
15 Brandis).]
[Footnote 129: Plato, Sophist.
p. 258 B.
[Greek: ou)k e)nanti/on e)kei/nô| sêmai/nousa, a)lla\ _tosou=ton mo/non_, e(/teron e)kei/nou.]
If we look to the Euthydêmus we shall see that this confusion between what is different from A, and what is incompatible with or exclusive of A, is one of the fallacies which Plato puts into the mouth of the two Sophists Euthydêmus and Dionysodôrus, whom he exhibits and exposes in that dialogue.
[Greek: A)/llo ti ou)=n e(/teros, ê)= d' o(/s] (Dionysodorus), [Greek: ô)\n li/thou, ou) li/thos ei)=?
kai\ e(/teros ô)\n chrusou=, ou) chruso\s ei)=?
E)/sti tau=ta.
Ou)kou=n kai\ o( Chaire/dêmos, e)/phê, e(/teros ô)\n patro/s, ou)k a)\n patê\r ei)/ê?]
(Plat.
Euthydem.
p. 298 A).]
[Footnote 130: Plato, Sophist.
p. 257 B.]
[Footnote 131: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
257 E, 258 A.
[Greek: O)/ntos dê\ pro\s o)\n a)nti/thesis, ô(s e)/oik', ei)=nai xumbai/nei to\ _mê\ kalo/n_.
.
.
.
O(moi/ôs a)/ra to\ mê\ me/ga, kai\ to\ me/ga au)to\ _ei)=nai_ lekte/on.]
Plato distinctly recognises here Forms or Ideas [Greek: tô=n a)popha/seôn], which the Platonists professed not to do, according to Aristotle, Metaphys.
A.
990, b.
13--see the instructive Scholia of Alexander, p. 565, a.
Brandis.]
[Side-note: Plato's view of the negative is erroneous.
Logical maxim of contradiction.]
The view which Plato here takes of the negative deserves the greater notice, because, if it were adopted, what is called the maxim of contradiction would be divested of its universality.
Given a significant proposition with the same subject and the same predicate, each taken in one and the same signification--its affirmative and its negative cannot both be true.
But if by the negative, you mean to make a new affirmation, different from that contained in the affirmative--the maxim just stated cannot be broadly maintained as of universal application: it may or may not be valid, as the case happens to stand.
The second affirmation may be, as a matter of fact, incompatible with the first: but this is not to be presumed, from the mere fact that it is different from the first: proof must be given of such incompatibility.
[Side-note: Examination of the illustrative propositions chosen by Plato--How do we know that one is true, the other false?]
We may illustrate this remark by looking at the two propositions which Plato gives as examples of true and false.
_Theætêtus is sitting down_--_Theætêtus is flying_.
Both the examples are of affirmative propositions: and it seems clear that Plato, in all this reasoning, took no account of negative propositions: those which simply deny, affirming nothing.
The second of these propositions (says Plato) affirms _what is not_, as if it were, respecting the subject But how do we know this to be so?
In the form of the second proposition there is nothing to show it: there is no negation of any thing, but simply affirmation of a different positive attribute.
Although it happens, in this particular case, that the two attributes are incompatible, and that the affirmation of the one includes the negation of the other--yet there is nothing in the form of either proposition to deny the other:--no formal incompatibility between them.
Both are alike affirmative, with the same subject, but different predicates.
These two propositions therefore do not serve to illustrate the real nature of the negative, which consists precisely in this formal incompatibility.
The proper negative belonging to the proposition--_Theætêtus is sitting down_--would be, _Theætêtus is not sitting down_.
Plato ought to maintain, if he followed out his previous argument, that Not-Sitting down is as good a Form as Sitting-down, and that it meant merely--Different from Sitting down.
But instead of doing this Plato gives us a new affirmative proposition, which, besides what it affirms, conceals an implied negation of the first proposition.
This does not serve to illustrate the purpose of his reasoning--which was to set up the formal negative as a new substantive attribute, different from its corresponding affirmative.
As between the two, the maxim of contradiction applies: both cannot be true.
But as between the two propositions given in Plato, that maxim has no application: they are two propositions with the same subject, but different predicates; which happen in this case to be, the one true, the other false--but which are not formally incompatible.
The second is not false because it differs from the first; it has no essential connection with the first, and would be equally false, even if the first were false also.
The function of the negative is to deny.
Now denial is not a species of affirmation, but the reversal or antithesis of affirmation: it nullifies a belief previously entertained, or excludes one which might otherwise be entertained,--but it affirms nothing.
In particular cases, indeed, the denial of one thing may be tantamount to the affirmation of another: for a man may know that there are only two suppositions possible, and that to shut out the one is to admit the other.
But this is an inference drawn in virtue of previous knowledge possessed and contributed by himself: another man without such knowledge would not draw the same inference, nor could he learn it from the negative proposition _per se_.
Such then is the genuine meaning of the negative; from which Plato departs, when he tells us that the negative is a kind of affirmation, only affirming something different--and when he illustrates it by producing two affirmative propositions respecting the same subject, affirming different attributes, the one as matter of fact incompatible with the other.
[Side-note: Necessity of accepting the evidence of sense.]
But how do we know that the first proposition--_Theætêtus is sitting down_--affirms what is:--and that the second proposition--_Theætêtus is flying_--affirms what is not?
If present, our senses testify to us the truth of the first, and the falsehood of the second: if absent, we have the testimony of a witness, combined with our own past experience attesting the frequency of facts analogous to the one, and the non-occurrence of facts analogous to the other.
When we make the distinction, then,--we assume that what is attested by sense or by comparisons and inductions from the facts of sense, is real, or _is_: and that what is merely conceived or imagined, without the attestation of sense (either directly or by way of induction), is not real, or _is not_.
Upon this assumption Plato himself must proceed, when he takes it for granted, as a matter of course, that the first proposition is true, and the second false.
But he forgets that this assumption contradicts the definition which, in this same dialogue,[132] he had himself given of Ens--of the real or _the thing that is_.
His definition was so comprehensive, as to include not only all that could be seen or felt, but also all that had capacity to be known or conceived by the mind: and he speaks very harshly of those who admit the reality of things perceived, but refuse to admit equal reality to things only conceived.
Proceeding then upon this definition, we can allow no distinction as to truth or falsehood between the two propositions--_Theætêtus is sitting down_--_Theætêtus is flying_: the predicate of the second affirms what is, just as much as the predicate of the first: for it affirms something which, though neither perceived nor perceivable by sense, is distinctly conceivable and conceived by the mind.
When Plato takes for granted the distinction between the two, that the first affirms _what is_, and the second _what is not_--he unconsciously slides into that very recognition of the testimony of sense (in other words, of fact and experience), as the certificate of reality, which he had so severely denounced in the opposing materialist philosophers: and upon the ground of which he thought himself entitled, not merely to correct them as mistaken, but to reprove them as wicked and impudent.
[133] [Footnote 132: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
247 D-E, 248 D-E.] [Footnote 133: Plato, Sophist.
p. 246 D.] [Side-note: Errors of Antisthenes--depended partly on the imperfect formal logic of that day.]
I have thus reviewed a long discussion--terminating in a conclusion which appears to me unsatisfactory--of the meaning and function of the negative.
I hardly think that Plato would have given such an explanation of it, if he had had the opportunity of studying the Organon of Aristotle.
Prior to Aristotle, the principles and distinctions of formal logic were hardly at all developed; nor can we wonder that others at that time fell into various errors which Plato scornfully derides, but very imperfectly rectifies.
For example, Antisthenes did not admit the propriety of any predication, except identical, or at most essential, predication: the word [Greek: e)/stin] appeared to him incompatible with any other.
But we perceive in this dialogue, that Plato also did not conceive the substantive verb as performing the simple function of copula in predication: on the contrary he distinguishes [Greek: e)/stin], as marking identity between subject and predicate--from [Greek: mete/chei], as marking accidental communion between the two.
Again, there were men in Plato's day who maintained that Non-Ens ([Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n]) was inconceivable and impossible.
Plato, in refuting these philosophers, gives a definition of Ens ([Greek: to\ o)\n]), which puts them in the right--fails in stating what the true negative is--and substitutes, in place of simple denial, a second affirmation to overlay and supplant the first.
[Side-note: Doctrine of the Sophistês--contradicts that of other Platonic dialogues.]
To complete the examination of this doctrine of the Sophistês, respecting Non-Ens, we must compare it with the doctrine on the same subject laid down in other Platonic dialogues.
It will be found to contradict, very distinctly, the opinion assigned by Plato to Sokrates both in the Theætêtus and in the fifth Book of the Republic:[134] where Sokrates deals with Non-Ens in its usual sense as the negation of Ens: laying down the position that Non-Ens can be neither the object of the cognizing Mind, nor the object of the opining ([Greek: doxa/zôn]) or cogitant Mind: that it is uncognizable and incogitable, correlating only with Non-Cognition or Ignorance.
Now we find that this doctrine (of Sokrates, in Theætêtus and Republic) is the very same as that which is affirmed, in the Sophistês, to be taken up by the delusive Sophist: the same as that which the Eleate spends much ingenuity in trying to refute, by proving that Non-Ens is not the negation of Ens, but only that which differs from Ens, being itself a particular variety of Ens.
It is also the same doctrine as is declared, both by the Eleate in the Sophistês and by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, to imply as an undeniable consequence, that the falsehood of any proposition is impossible.
"A false proposition is that which speaks the thing that is not ([Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n]).
But this is an impossibility.
You can neither know, nor think, nor speak, the thing that is not.
You cannot know without knowing something: you cannot speak without speaking something (_i.
e._ something that is)."
Of this consequence--which is expressly announced as included in the doctrine, both by the Eleate in the Sophistês and by the Platonic Sokrates in the Theætêtus--no notice is taken in the Republic.
[135] [Footnote 134: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
477-478.
Theætêt.
pp.
188-189.
Parmenidês, pp.
160 C, 163 C. Euthydêmus, p. 284 B-C. Aristotle (De Interpretat.
p. 21, a.
22) briefly expresses his dissent from an opinion, the same as what is given in the Platonic Sophistês--that [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n] is [Greek: o)/n ti].
He makes no mention of Plato, but Ammonius in the Scholia alludes to Plato (p. 129, b.
20, Schol.
Bekk.).
We must note that the Eleate in the Sophistês states both opinions respecting [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n]: first that which he refutes--next that which he advances.
The Scholiast may, therefore, refer to both opinions, as _stated_ in the Sophistês, though one of them is stated only for the purpose of being refuted.
We may contrast with these views of Plato (in the Sophistês) respecting [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n], as not being a negation [Greek: tou= o)/ntos], but simply a something [Greek: e(/teron tou= o)/ntos], the different views of Aristotle about [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n], set forth in the instructive Commentary of M. Ravaisson, Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote, p. 360.
"Le non-être s'oppose à l'être, comme sa négation: ce n'est donc pas, non plus que l'être, une chose simple; et autant il y a de genres de l'être, autant il faut que le non-être ait de genres.
Cependant l'opposition de l'être et du non-être, différente, en realité, dans chacune des catégories, est la même dans toutes par sa forme.
Dans cette forme, le second terme n'exprime pas autre chose que l'absence du premier.
Le rapport de l'être et du non-être consiste donc dans une pure contradiction: dernière forme à laquelle toute opposition doit se ramener."
Aristotle seems to allude to the Sophistês, though not mentioning it by its title, in three passages of the Metaphysica--E. 1026, b.
14; K. 1064, b.
29; N. 1089, a.
5 (see the note of Bonitz on the latter passage)--perhaps also elsewhere (see Ueberweg, pp.
153-154).
Plato replied in one way, Leukippus and Demokritus in another, to the doctrine of Parmenides, who banished Non-Ens as incogitable.
Leukippus maintained that Non-Ens equivalent to [Greek: to\ keno/n], and that the two elements of things were [Greek: to\ plê=res] and [Greek: to\ keno/n], for which he used the expressions [Greek: de\n] and [Greek: ou)de/n].
Plato replied as we read in the Sophistês: thus both he and Leukippus tried in different ways to demonstrate a positive nature and existence for Non-Ens.
See Aristot.
Metaph.
A.
985, b.
4, with the Scholia, p. 538, Brandis.
The Scholiast cites Plato [Greek: e)n tê=| Politei/a|], which seems a mistake for [Greek: e)n tô=| Sophi/stê|].]
[Footnote 135: Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
264-265) is upon this point more satisfactory than the other Platonic commentators.
He points out--not only without disguise, but even with emphasis--the discrepancies and contradictions between the doctrines ascribed to the Eleate in the Sophistês, and those ascribed to Sokrates in the Republic, Phædon, and other Platonic dialogues.
These are the main premisses upon which Socher rests his inference, that the Sophistês is not the composition of Plato.
I do not admit his inference: but the premisses, as matters of fact, appear to me undeniable.
Stallbaum, in his Proleg.
to the Sophistês, p. 40 seq., attempts to explain away these discrepancies--in my opinion his remarks are obscure and unsatisfactory.
Various other commentators, also holding the Sophistês to be a genuine work of Plato, overlook or extenuate these premisses, which they consider unfavourable to that conclusion.
Thus Alkinous, in his [Greek: Ei)sagôgê/], sets down the explanation of [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n] which is given in the Sophistês, as if it were the true and Platonic explanation, not adverting to what is said in the Republic and elsewhere (Alkin.
c. 35, p. 189 in the Appendix Platonica annexed to the edition of Plato by K. F. Hermann).
The like appears in the [Greek: Prolego/mena tê=s Pla/tônos philosophi/as]: c. 21, p. 215 of the same edition.
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês, speaks in much the same manner about [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n]--considering the doctrine advanced and defended by the Eleate in the Sophistês, to represent the opinion of Plato (p. 785 ed.
Stallbaum; see also the Commentary of Proklus on the Timæus, b. iii.
p. 188 E, 448 ed.
Schneid.).
So likewise Simplikius and the commentators on Aristotle, appear to consider it--see Schol.
ad Aristotel.
Physica, p. 332, a.
8, p. 333, b., 334, a., 343, a.
5.
It is plain from these Scholia that the commentators were much embarrassed in explaining [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n].
They take the Sophistês as if it delivered Plato's decisive opinion upon that point (Porphyry compares what Plato says in the Timæus, but not what he says in the Republic or in Theætêtus, p. 333, b.
25); and I think that they accommodate Plato to Aristotle, in such manner as to obscure the real antithesis which Plato insists upon in the Sophistês--I mean the antithesis according to which Plato excludes what is [Greek: e)nanti/on tou= o)/ntos] and admits only what is [Greek: e(/teron tou= o)/ntos].
Ritter gives an account (Gesch.
der Philos.
part ii.
pp.
288-289) of Plato's doctrine in the Sophistês respecting Non-Ens; but by no means an adequate account.
K. F. Hermann also omits (Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philos.
pp.
504-505-507) to notice the discrepancy between the doctrine of the Sophistês, and the doctrine of the Republic, and Theætêtus, respecting [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n]--though he pronounces elsewhere that the Republic is among the most indisputably positive of all Plato's compositions (p.
536).]
Again, the doctrine maintained by the Eleate in the Sophistês respecting Ens, as well as respecting Ideas or Forms, is in other ways inconsistent with what is laid down in other Platonic dialogues.
The Eleate in the Sophistês undertakes to refute two different classes of opponents; first, the Materialists, of whom he speaks with derision and antipathy--secondly, others of very opposite doctrines, whom he denominates the Friends of Ideas or Forms, speaking of them in terms of great respect.
Now by these Friends of Forms or Ideas, Schleiermacher conjectures that Plato intends to denote the Megaric philosophers.
M. Cousin, and most other critics (except Ritter), have taken up this opinion.
But to me it seems that Socher is right in declaring the doctrine, ascribed to these Friends of Ideas, to be the very same as that which is laid down by Plato himself in other important dialogues--Republic, Timæus, Phædon, Phædrus, Kratylus, &c.--and which is generally understood as that of the Platonic Ideas.
[136] In all these dialogues, the capital contrast and antithesis is that between Ens or Entia on one side, and Fientia (the transient, ever generated and ever perishing), on the other: between the eternal, unchangeable, archetypal Forms or Ideas--and the ever-changing flux of particulars, wherein approximative likeness of these archetypes is imperfectly manifested.
Now it is exactly this antithesis which the Friends of Forms in the Sophistês are represented as upholding, and which the Eleate undertakes to refute.
[137] We shall find Aristotle, over and over again, impugning the total separation or demarcation between Ens and Fientia ([Greek: ei)/dê--ge/nesis--chôrista/]), both as the characteristic dogma, and the untenable dogma, of the Platonic philosophy: it is exactly the same issue which the Eleate in the Sophistês takes with the Friends of Forms.
He proves that Ens is just as full of perplexity, and just as difficult to understand, as Non-Ens:[138] whereas, in the other Platonic dialogues, Ens is constantly spoken of as if it were plain and intelligible.
In fact, he breaks down the barrier between Ens and Fientia, by including motion, change, the moving or variable, among the world of Entia.
[139] Motion or Change belongs to Fieri; and if it be held to belong to Esse also (by recognising a Form or Idea of Motion or Change, as in the Sophistês), the antithesis between the two, which is so distinctly declared in other Platonic dialogues, disappears.
[140] [Footnote 136: Socher, p. 266; Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Sophistes, p. 134; Cousin, Oeuvres de Platon, vol.
xi.
517, notes.
Schleiermacher gives this as little more than a conjecture; and distinctly admits that any man may easily suppose the doctrine ascribed to these Friends of Forms to be Plato's own doctrine--"Nicht zu verwundern wäre es, wenn Mancher auf den Gedanken käme, Platon meinte hier sich selbst und seine eigene Lehre," &c. But most of the subsequent critics have taken up Schleiermacher's conjecture (that the Megarici are intended), as if it were something proved and indubitable.
It is curious that while Schleiermacher thinks that the opinions of the Megaric philosophers are impugned and refuted in the Sophistês, Socher fancies that the dialogue was composed by a Megaric philosopher, not by Plato.
Ueberweg (Aechtheit der Platon.
Schr.
pp.
275-277) points out as explicitly as Socher, the discrepancy between the Sophistês and several other Platonic dialogues, in respect to what is said about Forms or Ideas.
But he draws a different inference: he infers from it a great change in Plato's own opinion, and he considers that the Sophistês is later in its date of composition than those other dialogues which it contradicts.
I think this opinion about the late composition of the Sophistês, is not improbable; but the premisses are not sufficient to prove it.
My view of the Platonic Sophistês differs from the elaborate criticism on it given by Steinhart (Einleitung zum Soph.
p. 417 seq.)
Moreover, there is one assertion in that Einleitung which I read with great surprise.
Steinhart not only holds it for certain that the Sophistes was composed after the Parmenidês, but also affirms that it solves the difficulties propounded in the Parmenidês--discusses the points of difficulty "in the best possible way" ("in der wünschenwerthesten Weise" (pp.
470-471).
I confess I cannot find that the difficulties started in the Parmenidês are even noticed, much less solved, in the Sophistês.
And Steinhart himself tells that the Parmenidês places us in a circle both of persons and doctrines entirely different from those of the Sophistês (p. 472).
It is plain also that the other Platonic commentators do not agree with Steinhart in finding the Sophistês a key to the Parmenidês: for most of them (Ast, Hermann, Zeller, Stallbaum, Brandis, &c.) consider the Parmenidês to have been composed at a later date than the Sophistês (as Steinhart himself intimates; compare his Einleitung zum Parmenides, p. 312 seq.).
Ueberweg, the most recent enquirer (posterior to Steinhart), regards the Parmenidês as the latest of all Plato's compositions--if indeed it be genuine, of which he rather doubts.
(Aechtheit der Platon.
Schrift.
pp.
182-183.)
M. Mallet (Histoire de l'École de Megare, Introd.
pp.
xl.-lviii., Paris, 1845) differs from all the three opinions of Schleiermacher, Ritter, and Socher.
He thinks that the philosophers, designated as Friends of Forms, are intended for the Pythagoreans.
His reasons do not satisfy me.]
[Footnote 137: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
246 B, 248 B.
The same opinion is advanced by Sokrates in the Republic, v. p. 479 B-C. Phædon, pp.
78-79.
Compare Sophist, p. 248 C with Symposion, p. 211 B.
In the former passage, [Greek: to\ pa/schein] is affirmed of the Ideas: in the latter passage, [Greek: to\ pa/schein mêde/n].]
[Footnote 138: Plato, Sophist p. 245 E. Yet he afterwards talks of [Greek: to\ lampro\n tou= o)/ntos a)ei\] as contrasted with [Greek: to\ skoteino\n tou= mê\ o)/ntos], p. 254 A, which seems not consistent.]
[Footnote 139: Plato, Sophist.
p. 249 B.
"Ipsæ ideæ per se simplices sunt et immutabiles: sunt æternæ, ac semper fuerunt ab omni liberæ mutatione," says Stallbaum ad Platon.
Republ.
v. p. 476; see also his Prolegg.
to the Parmenidês, pp.
39-40.
This is the way in which the Platonic Ideas are presented in the Timæus, Republic, Phædon, &c., and the way in which they are conceived by the [Greek: ei)dô=n phi/loi] in the Sophistês, whom the Eleate seeks to confute.
Zeller's chapter on Plato seems to me to represent not so much what we read in the separate dialogues, as the attempt of an able and ingenious man to bring out something like a consistent and intelligible doctrine which will do credit to Plato, and to soften down all the inconsistencies (see Philos.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
pp.
394-415-429 ed.
2nd).]
[Footnote 140: See a striking passage about the unchangeableness of Forms or Ideas in the Kratylus, p. 439 D-E; also Philêbus, p. 15.
In the Parmenidês (p. 132 D) the supposition [Greek: ta\ ei)/dê e)sta/nai e)n tê=| phu/sei] is one of those set up by Sokrates and impugned by Parmenides.
Nevertheless in an earlier passage of that dialogue Sokrates is made to include [Greek: ki/nêsis] and [Greek: sta/sis] among the [Greek: ei)/dê] (p. 129 E).
It will be found, however, that when Parmenides comes to question Sokrates, What [Greek: ei)/dê] do you recognise?
attributes and subjects only (the latter with hesitation) are included: no such thing as actions, processes, events--[Greek: to\ poiei=n kai\ pa/schein] (p. 130).
In Republic vii.
529 D, we find mention made of [Greek: to\ o)\n ta/chos] and [Greek: ê( ou)=sa bradu/tês], which implies [Greek: ki/nêsis] as among the [Greek: ei)/dê].
In Theætêt.
pp.
152 D, 156 A, [Greek: ki/nêsis] is noted as the constituent and characteristic of Fieri--[Greek: to\ gigno/menon]--which belongs to the domain of sensible perception, as distinguished from permanent and unchangeable Ens.]
[Side-note: The persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms are those who held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in Phædon, Republic, &c.] If we examine the reasoning of the Eleate, in the Sophistês, against the persons whom he calls the Friends of Forms, we shall see that these latter are not Parmenideans only, but also Plato himself in the Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere.
We shall also see that the ground, taken up by the Eleate, is much the same as that which was afterwards taken up by Aristotle against the Platonic Ideas.
Plato, in most of his dialogues, declares Ideas, Forms, Entia, to be eternal substances distinct and apart from the flux and movement of particulars: yet he also declares, nevertheless, that particulars have a certain communion or participation with the Ideas, and are discriminated and denominated according to such participation.
Aristotle controverts both these doctrines: first, the essential separation of the two, which he declares to be untrue: next, the participation or coming together of the two separate elements--which he declares to be an unmeaning fiction or poetical metaphor, introduced in order to elude the consequences of the original fallacy.
[141] He maintains that the two (Entia and Fientia--Universals and Particulars) have no reality except in conjunction and implication together; though they are separable by reason ([Greek: lo/gô| chôrista\--tô=| ei)nai, chôrista/]) or abstraction, and though we may reason about them apart, and must often reason about them apart.
[142] Now it is this implication and conjunction of the Universal with its particulars, which is the doctrine of the Sophistês, and which distinguishes it from other Platonic dialogues, wherein the Universal is transcendentalized--lodged in a separate world from particulars.
No science or intelligence is possible (says the Eleate in the Sophistês) either upon the theory of those who pronounce all Ens to be constant and unchangeable, or upon that of those who declare all Ens to be fluent and variable.
We must recognise both together, the constant and the variable, as equally real and as making up the totality of Ens.
[143] This result, though not stated in the language which Aristotle would have employed, coincides very nearly with the Aristotelian doctrine, in one of the main points on which Aristotle distinguishes his own teaching from that of his master.
[Footnote 141: Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
991-992.]
[Footnote 142: Aristot.
Metaph.
vi.
1038, a-b.
The Scholion of Alexander here (p. 763, b.
36, Brandis) is clearer than Aristotle himself.
[Greek: To\ prokei/meno/n e)sti dei=xai ô(s ou)de\n tô=n katho/lou ou)si/a e)/stin; ou)/te ga\r o( katho/lou a)/nthrôpos ê)\ o( katho/lou i(/ppos, ou)/te a)/llo ou)de/n; a)ll' e(/kaston au)tôn _dianoi/as a)po/maxi/s_ e)stin _a)po\ tô=n kath' e(/kasta_ kai\ prô/tôs kai\ ma/lista legome/nôn ou)siô=n kai\ o(moi/ôma.]]
[Footnote 143: Plato, Sophist.
p. 249 C-D. [Greek: Tô=| dê\ philoso/phô| kai\ tau=ta ma/lista timô=nti pa=sa a)na/gkê dia\ tau=ta mê/te tô=n e(\n ê)\ kai\ ta\ polla\ ei)/dê lego/ntôn to\ pa=n e(stêko\s a)pode/chesthai, tô=n te au)= pantachê=| to\ o)\n kinou=ntôn mêde\ to\ para/pan a)kou/ein; a)lla\ kata\ tê\n tô=n pai/dôn eu)chê/n, o(/sa a)ki/nêta/ te kai\ kekinême/na, to\ o)/n te kai\ to\ pa=n, xunampho/tera le/gein.]
Ritter states the result of this portion of the Sophistês correctly.
"Es bleibt uns als Ergebniss aller dieser Untersuchungen über das Seyn, dass die Wahrheit sowohl des Werdens, als auch des beharrlichen Seyns, anerkannt werden müsse" (Geschichte der Philos.
ii.
p.
281).]
[Side-note: The Sophistês recedes from the Platonic point of view, and approaches the Aristotelian.]
That the Eleate in the Sophistes recedes from the Platonic point of view and approaches towards the Aristotelian, will be seen also if we look at the lesson of logic which he gives to Theætêtus.
In his analysis of a proposition--and in discriminating such conjunctions of words as are significant, from such as are insignificant--he places himself on the same ground as that which is travelled over by Aristotle in the Categories and the treatise De Interpretatione.
That the handling of the topic by Aristotle is much superior, is what we might naturally expect from the fact that he is posterior in time.
But there is another difference between the two which is important to notice.
Aristotle deals with this topic, as he does with every other, in the way of methodical and systematic exposition.
To expound it as a whole, to distribute it into convenient portions each illustrating the others, to furnish suitable examples for the general principles laid down--are announced as his distinct purposes.
Now Plato's manner is quite different.
Systematic exposition is not his primary purpose: he employs it up to a certain point, but as means towards another and an independent purpose--towards the solution of a particular difficulty, which has presented itself in the course of the dialogue.--"_Nosti morem dialogorum._" Aristotle is demonstrative: Plato is dialectical.
In our present dialogue (the Sophistês), the Eleate has been giving a long explanation of Non-Ens; an explanation intended to prove that Non-Ens was a particular sort of Ens, and that there was therefore no absurdity (though Parmenides had said that this was absurdity) in assuming it as a passable object of Cognition, Opination, Affirmation.
He now goes a step further, and seeks to show that it is, actually and in fact, an object of Opination and Affirmation.
[144] It is for this purpose, and for this purpose only, that he analyses a proposition, specifies the constituent elements requisite to form it, and distinguishes one proposition from another.
[Footnote 144: Plato, Sophist.
p. 261 D.] Accordingly, the Eleate,--after pointing out that neither a string of nouns repeated one after the other, nor a string of verbs so repeated, would form a significant proposition,--declares that the conjunction of a noun with a verb is required to form one; and that opination is nothing but that internal mental process which the words of the proposition express.
The smallest proposition must combine a noun with a verb:--the former signifying the agent, the latter, the action or thing done.
[145] Moreover, the proposition must be a proposition _of something_; and it must be of a certain quality.
By a proposition _of something_, Plato means, that what is called technically the subject of the proposition (in his time there were no technical terms of logic) must be something positive, and cannot be negative: by the quality of the proposition, he means that it must be either true or false.
[146] [Footnote 145: Plato, Sophist.
p. 262 C.] [Footnote 146: Plato, Sophist.
p. 262 E. [Greek: Lo/gon a)nagkai=on, o(/tan per ê)=|, tino\s ei)=nai lo/gon, _mê\ de/ tinos_, a)du/naton .
.
.
Ou)kou=n kai\ poio/n tina au)to\n ei)=nai dei=?]
Compare p. 237 E. In the words here cited Plato unconsciously slides back into the ordinary acceptation of [Greek: mê/ ti]: that is, to [Greek: mê\] in the sense of negation.
If we adopt that peculiar sense of [Greek: mê/], which the Eleate has taken so much pains to prove just before in the case of [Greek: to\ mê\ o)\n] (that is, if we take [Greek: mê\] as signifying not negation but simply difference), the above argument will not hold.
If [Greek: ti/s] signifies one subject (A), and [Greek: mê/ tis] signifies simply another subject (B) different from A ([Greek: e(/teron]), the predicate [Greek: a)du/naton] cannot be affirmed.
But if we take [Greek: mê/ tis] in its proper sense of negation, the [Greek: a)du/naton] will be so far true that [Greek: ou)k a)/nthrôpos, ou) Theai/têtos], cannot be the subject of a proposition.
Aristotle says the same in the beginning of the Treatise De Interpretatione (p. 16, a.
30).]
[Side-note: Aristotle assumes without proof, that there are some propositions true, others false.]
This early example of rudimentary grammatical or logical analysis, recognising only the two main and principal parts of speech, is interesting as occurring prior to Aristotle; by whom it is repeated in a manner more enlarged, systematic,[147] and instructive.
But Aristotle assumes, without proof and without supposing that any one will dispute the assumption--that there are some propositions true, other propositions false: that a name or noun, taken separately, is neither true nor false:[148] that propositions (enunciations) only can be true or false.
[Footnote 147: Aristotel.
De Interpr.
init.
with Scholia of Ammonius, p. 98, Bekk.]
[Footnote 148: In the Kratylus of Plato Sokrates maintains that names may be true or false as well as propositions, pp.
385 D, 431 B.]
[Side-note: Plato in the Sophistês has undertaken an impossible task--He could not have proved, against his supposed adversary, that there _are_ false propositions.]
The proceeding of Plato in the Sophistês is different.
He supposes a Sophist who maintains that no proposition either is false or can be false, and undertakes to prove against him that there are false propositions: he farther supposes this antagonist to reject the evidence of sense and visible analogies, and to acknowledge no proof except what is furnished by reason and philosophical deduction.
[149] Attempting, under these restrictions, to prove his point, Plato's Eleatic disputant rests entirely upon the peculiar meaning which he professes to have shown to attach to Non-Ens.
He applies this to prove that Non-Ens may be predicated as well as Ens: assuming that such predication of Non-Ens constitutes a false proposition.
But the proof fails.
It serves only to show that the peculiar meaning ascribed by the Eleate to Non-Ens is inadmissible.
The Eleate compares two distinct propositions--_Theætêtus is sitting down_--_Theætêtus is flying_.
The first is true: the second is false.
Why?
Because (says the Eleate) the first predicates Ens, the second predicates Non-Ens, or (to substitute his definition of Non-Ens) another Ens different from the Ens predicated in the first.
[150] But here the reason assigned, why the second proposition is false, is not the real reason.
Many propositions may be assigned, which predicate attributes different from the first, but which are nevertheless quite as much true as the first.
I have already observed, that the reason why the second proposition is false is, because it contradicts the direct testimony of sense, if the persons debating are spectators: if they are not spectators, then because it contradicts the sum total of their previous sensible experience, remembered, compared, and generalised, which has established in them the conviction that no man does or can fly.
If you discard the testimony of sense as unworthy of credit (which Plato assumes the Sophist to do), you cannot prove that the second proposition is false--nor indeed that the first proposition is true.
Plato has therefore failed in giving that dialectic proof which he promised.
The Eleate is forced to rely (without formally confessing it), on the testimony of sense, which he had forbidden Theætêtus to invoke, twenty pages before.
[151] The long intervening piece of dialectic about Ens and Non-Ens is inconclusive for his purpose, and might have been omitted.
The proposition--_Theætêtus is flying_--does undoubtedly predicate attributes _which are not_ as if they were,[152] and is thus false.
But then we must consult and trust the evidence of our perception: we must farther accept _are not_ in the ordinary sense of the words, and not in the sense given to them by the Eleate in the Platonic Sophistês.
His attempt to banish the specific meaning of the negative particle, and to treat it as signifying nothing more than difference, appears to me fallacious.
[153] [Footnote 149: Plato, Sophist.
p. 240 A.
It deserves note that here Plato presents to us the Sophist as rejecting the evidence of sense: in the Theætêtus he presents to us the Sophist as holding the doctrine [Greek: e)pistê/mê = ai)/sthêsis].
How these propositions can both be true respecting the Sophists as a class I do not understand.
The first may be true respecting some of them; the second may be true respecting others; respecting a third class of them, neither may be true.
About the Sophists in a body there is hardly a single proposition which can be safely affirmed.]
[Footnote 150: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 C.] [Footnote 151: Theætêtus makes this attempt and is checked by the Eleate, pp.
239-240.
It is in p. 261 A that the Eleate begins his proof in refutation of the supposed Sophist--that [Greek: do/xa] and [Greek: lo/gos] may be false.
The long interval between the two is occupied with the reasoning about Ens and Non-Ens.]
[Footnote 152: Plato, Sophist.
p. 263 E. [Greek: ta\ mê\ o)/nta ô(s o)/nta lego/mena], &c. The distinction between these two propositions, the first as true, the second as false (Theætêtus is sitting down, Theætêtus is flying), is in noway connected with the distinction which Plato had so much insisted upon before respecting the intercommunion of Forms, Ideas, General Notions, &c., that some Forms will come into communion with each other, while others will not (pp.
252-253).
There is here no question of repugnancy or intercommunion of Forms: the question turns upon the evidence of vision, which informs us that Theætêtus is sitting down and not standing up or flying.
If any predicate be affirmed of a subject, contrary to what is included in the definition of that subject, then indeed repugnancy of Forms might be urged.]
[Footnote 153: Plato, Sophist.
p. 257 B.]
[Side-note: What must be assumed in all dialectic discussion.]
In all reasoning, nay in all communication by speech, you must assume that your hearer understands the meaning of what is spoken: that he has the feelings of belief and disbelief, and is familiar with those forms of the language whereby such feelings are expressed: that there are certain propositions which he believes--in other words, which he regards as true: that there are certain other propositions which he disbelieves, or regards as false: that he has had experience of the transition from belief to disbelief, and _vice versâ_--in other words, of having fallen into error and afterwards come to perceive that it was error.
These are the mental facts realised in each man and assumed by him to be also realised in his neighbours, when communication takes place by speech.
If a man could be supposed to believe nothing, and to disbelieve nothing;--if he had no forms of speech to express his belief, disbelief, affirmation, and denial--no information could be given, no discussion would be possible.
Every child has to learn this lesson in infancy; and a tedious lesson it undoubtedly is.
[154] Antisthenes (who composed several dialogues) and the other disputants of whom we are now speaking, must have learnt the lesson as other men have: but they find or make some general theory which forbids them to trust the lesson when learnt.
It was in obedience to some such theory that Antisthenes discarded all predication except essential predication, and discarded also the form suited for expressing disbelief--the negative proposition: maintaining, That to contradict was impossible.
I know no mode of refuting him, except by showing that his fundamental theory is erroneous.
[Footnote 154: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
vii.
1043, b.
25.
[Greek: ô(/ste ê( a)pori/a ê(\n oi( A)ntisthe/neioi kai\ oi( ou(/tôs _a)pai/deutoi_ ê)po/roun, e)/chei tina\ kairo/n], &c. Compare respecting this paradox or [Greek: the/sis] of Antisthenes, the scholia of Alexander on the passage of Aristotle's Topica above cited, p. 259, b.
15, in Schol.
Bekk.
If Antisthenes admitted only identical predications, of course [Greek: to\ a)ntilo/gein] became impossible.
I have endeavoured to show, in a previous note on this dialogue, that a misconception (occasionally shared even by Plato) of the function of the copula, lay at the bottom of the Antisthenean theory respecting identical predication.
Compare Aristotel.
Physic.
i. p. 185, b.
28, together with the Scholia of Simplikius, pp.
329-330, ed.
Bekk., and Plato, Sophistês, p.
245.]
[Side-note: Discussion and theorising presuppose belief and disbelief, expressed in set forms of words.
They imply predication, which Antisthenes discarded.]
Discussion and theorising can only begin when these processes, partly intellectual, partly emotional, have become established and reproducible portions of the train of mental association.
As processes, they are common to all men.
But though two persons agree in having expressed the feeling of belief, and in expressing that feeling by one form of proposition--also in having the feeling of disbelief, and in expressing it by another form of proposition--yet it does not follow that the propositions which these two believe or disbelieve are the same.
How far such is the case must be ascertained by comparison--by appeal to sense, memory, inference from analogy, induction, feeling, consciousness, &c. The ground is now prepared for fruitful debate: for analysing the meaning, often confused and complicated, of propositions: for discriminating the causes, intellectual and emotional, of belief and disbelief, and for determining how far they harmonise in one mind and another: for setting out general rules as to sequence, or inconsistency, or independence, of one belief as compared with another.
To a certain extent, the grounds of belief and disbelief in all men, and the grounds of consistency or inconsistency between some beliefs and others, will be found to harmonise: they can be embodied in methodical forms of language, and general rules can be laid down preventing in many cases inadvertence or erroneous combination.
It is at this point that Aristotle takes up rational grammar and logic, with most profitable effect.
But he is obliged to postulate (what Antisthenes professed to discard) predication, not merely identical, but also accidental as well as essential--together with names and propositions both negative and affirmative.
[155] He cannot avoid postulating thus much: though he likewise postulates a great deal more, which ought not to be granted.
[Footnote 155: See the remarks in Aristotel.
Metaphys.
[Greek: G].
1005, b.
2, 1006, a.
6.
He calls it [Greek: a)paideusi/a--a)paideusi/a tô=n a)nalutikô=n]--not to be able to distinguish those matters which can be proved and require to be proved, from those matters which are true, but require no proof and are incapable of being proved.
But this distinction has been one of the grand subjects of controversy from his day down to the present day; and between different schools of philosophers, none of whom would allow themselves to deserve the epithet of [Greek: a)pai/deutoi].
Aristotle calls Antisthenes and his followers [Greek: a)pai/deutoi], in the passage cited in the preceding note.]
[Side-note: Precepts and examples of logical partition, illustrated in the Sophistês.]
The long and varied predicamental series, given in the Sophistês, illustrates the process of logical partition, as Plato conceived it, and the definition of a class-name founded thereupon.
You take a logical whole, and you subtract from it part after part until you find the _quæsitum_ isolated from every thing else.
[156] But you must always divide into two parts (he says) wherever it can be done: dichotomy or bipartition is the true logical partition: should this be impracticable, trichotomy, or division into the smallest attainable number of parts, must be sought for.
[157] Moreover, the bipartition must be made according to Forms (Ideas, Kinds): the parts which you recognise must be not merely parts, but Forms: every form is a part, but every part is not a form.
[158] Next, you must draw the line of division as nearly as you can through the middle of the _dividendum_, so that the parts on both sides may be nearly equal: it is in this way that your partition is most likely to coincide with forms on both sides of the line.
[159] This is the longest way of proceeding, but the safest.
It is a logical mistake to divide into two parts very unequal: you may find a form on one side of the line, but you obtain none on the other side.
Thus, it is bad classification to distribute the human race into Hellênes + Barbari: the _Barbari_ are of infinite number and diversity, having no one common form to which the name can apply.
It is also improper to distribute Number into the myriad on side, and all other numbers on the other--for a similar reason.
You ought to distribute the human race into the two forms, Male--Female: and number into the two, Odd--Even.
[160] So also, you must not divide gregarious creatures into human beings on one side, and animals on the other; because this last term would comprise numerous particulars utterly disparate.
Such a classification is suggested only by the personal feeling of man, who prides himself upon his intelligence.
But if the classification were framed by any other intelligent species, such as Cranes,[161] they would distinguish Cranes on the one side from animals on the other, including Man as one among many disparate particulars under _animal_.
[Footnote 156: Plato, Politikus, p. 268 D. [Greek: me/ros a)ei\ me/rous a)phairoume/nous e)p' a)/kron e)phiknei=sthai to\ zêtou/menon.]
Ueberweg thinks that Aristotle, when he talks of [Greek: ai( gegramme/nai diaire/seis] alludes to these logical distributions in the Sophistês and Politikus (Aechtheit der Platon.
Schr.
pp.
153-154).]
[Footnote 157: Politik.
p. 287 C.] [Footnote 158: Politik.
p. 263 C.] [Footnote 159: Politik.
pp.
262 B, 265 A.
[Greek: dei= mesotomei=n ô(s ma/lista], &c.] [Footnote 160: Politikus, p. 262 D-E.] [Footnote 161: Politikus, p. 262 D. [Greek: semnu=non au(to\ e(auto/], &c.] [Side-note: Recommendation of logical bipartition.]
The above-mentioned principle--dichotomy or bipartition into two equal or nearly equal halves, each resting upon a characteristic form--is to be applied as far as it will go.
Many different schemes of partition upon this principle may be found, each including forms subordinated one to the other, descending from the more comprehensive to the less comprehensive.
It is only when you can find no more parts which are forms, that you must be content to divide into parts which are not forms.
Thus after all the characteristic forms, for dividing the human race, have been gone through, they may at last be partitioned into Hellênes and Barbari, Lydians and non-Lydians, Phrygians and non-Phrygians: in which divisions there is no guiding form at all, but only a capricious distribution into fractions with separate names[162]--meaning by _capricious_, a distribution founded on some feeling or circumstance peculiar to the distributor, or shared by him only with a few others; such as the fact, that he is himself a Lydian or a Phrygian, &c. [Footnote 162: Politikus, p. 262 E. [Greek: Ludou\s de\ ê)\ Phru/gas ê)/ tinas e(te/rous pro\s a(/pantas ta/ttôn a)po/schizoi to/te, ê(ni/ka a)poroi= ge/nos a)/ma kai\ me/ros eu(ri/skein e(ka/teron tô=n schisthe/ntôn.]]
[Side-note: Precepts illustrated by the Philêbus.]
These precepts in the Sophistês and Politikus, respecting the process of classification, are illustrated by an important passage of the Philêbus:[163] wherein Plato tells us that the constitution of things includes the Determinate and the Indeterminate implicated with each other, and requiring study to disengage them.
Between the highest One, Form, or Genus--and the lowest array of indefinite particulars--there exist a certain number of intermediate Ones or Forms, each including more or fewer of these particulars.
The process of study or acquired cognition is brought to bear upon these intermediate Forms: to learn how many there are, and to discriminate them in themselves as well as in their position relative to each other.
But many persons do not recognise this: they apprehend only the Highest One, and the Infinite Many, not looking for any thing between: they take up hastily with some extreme and vague generality, below which they know nothing but particulars.
With knowledge thus imperfect, you do not get beyond contentious debate.
Real, instructive, dialectic requires an understanding of all the intermediate forms.
But in descending from the Highest Form downwards, you must proceed as much as possible in the way of bipartition, or if not, then of tripartition, &c.: looking for the smallest number of forms which can be found to cover the whole field.
When no more forms can be found, then and not till then, you must be content with nothing better than the countless indeterminate particulars.
[Footnote 163: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
16-17.
The notes of Dr. Badham upon this passage in his edition of the Philêbus, p. 11, should be consulted as a just correction of Stallbaum in regard to [Greek: pe/ras] and [Greek: tô=n e(\n e)kei/nôn].]
This instructive passage of the Philêbus--while it brings to view a widespread tendency of the human mind, to pass from the largest and vaguest generalities at once into the region of particulars, and to omit the distinctive sub-classes which lie between--illustrates usefully the drift of the Sophistês and Politikus.
In these two last dialogues it is the method itself of good logical distribution which Plato wishes to impress upon his readers: the formal part of the process.
[164] With this view, he not only makes the process intentionally circuitous and diversified, but also selects by preference matters of common sensible experience, though in themselves indifferent, such as the art of weaving,[165] &c. [Footnote 164: He states this expressly, Politik.
p. 286 D.] [Footnote 165: Plato, Politik.
p. 285 D.] [Side-note: Importance of founding logical Partition on resemblances perceived by sense.]
The reasons given for this preference deserve attention.
In these common matters (he tells us) the resemblances upon which Forms are founded are perceived by sense, and can be exhibited to every one, so that the form is readily understood and easily discriminated.
The general terms can there be explained by reference to sense.
But in regard to incorporeal matters, the higher and grander topics of discussion, there is no corresponding sensible illustration to consult.
These objects can be apprehended only by reason, and described only by general terms.
By means of these general terms, we must learn to give and receive rational explanations, and to follow by process of reasoning from one form to another.
But this is more difficult, and requires a higher order of mind, where there are no resemblances or illustrations exposed to sense.
Accordingly, we select the common sensible objects as an easier preparatory mode of a process substantially the same in both.
[166] [Footnote 166: Plato, Politik.
pp.
285 E--286 A.
[Greek: tou\s plei/stous le/lêthen o(/ti toi=s me\n tô=n o)/ntôn r(a|di/ôs katamathei=n ai)sthêtai/ tines o(moio/têtes pephu/kasin, a(\s ou)de\n chalepo\n dêlou=n, o(/tan au)tô=n tis boulê/thê| tô=| lo/gon ai)tou=nti peri\ tou, mê\ meta\ pragma/tôn a)lla\ chôri\s lo/gou r(a|di/ôs e)ndei/xasthai; toi=s d' au)= megi/stois ou)=si kai\ timiôta/tois ou)k e)/stin ei)/dôlon ou)de\n pro\s tou\s a)nthrô/pous ei)rgasme/non e)nargô=s, ou(= deichthe/ntos], &c. About the [Greek: ei)/dôlon ei)rgasme/non e)nargô=s], which is affirmed in one of these two cases and denied in the other, compare a striking analogy in the Phædrus, p. 250 A-E.] [Side-note: Province of sensible perception--is not so much narrowed by Plato here as it is in the Theætêtus.]
This explanation given by Plato, in itself just, deserves to be compared with his view of sensible objects as knowable, and of sense as a source of knowledge.
I noticed in a preceding chapter the position which Sokrates is made to lay down in the Theætêtus,[167]--That ([Greek: ai)/sthêsis]) sensible perception reaches only to the separate impressions of sense, and does not apprehend the likeness and other relations between them.
I have also noticed the contrast which he establishes elsewhere between Esse and Fieri: _i.e._, between Ens which alone (according to him) is knowable, and the perpetual flux of Fientia which is not knowable at all, but is only matter of opinion or guess-work.
Now in the dialogue before us, the Politikus, there is no such marked antithesis between opinion and knowledge.
Nor is the province of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] so strictly confined: on the contrary, Plato here considers sensible perception as dealing with Entia, and as appreciating resemblances and other relations between them.
It is by an attentive study and comparison of these facts of sense that Forms are detected.
"When a man (he says) has first perceived by sense the points of communion between the Many, he must not desist from attentive observation until he has discerned in that communion all the differences which reside in Forms: and when he has looked at the multifarious differences which are visible among these Many, he must not rest contented until he has confined all such as are really cognate within one resemblance, tied together by the essence of one common Form.
"[168] [Footnote 167: Plato, Theæt.
pp.
185-186.
See above p.
161.]
[Footnote 168: Plato, Politikus, p. 285 B.
[Greek: de/on, o(/tan me\n tê\n tô=n pollô=n tis pro/teron ai)/sthêtai koinôni/an, mê\ proaphi/stasthai pri\n a)\n e)n au)tê=| ta\s diaphora\s i)/dê| pa/sas o(po/sai per e)n ei)/desi kei=ntai; ta\s de\ au)= pantodapa\s a)nomoio/têtas, o(/tan e)n plê/thesin o)phthô=si, mê\ dunato\n ei)=nai dusôpou/menon pau/esthai, pri\n a)\n xu/mpanta ta\ oi)kei=a e)nto\s mia=s o(moio/têtos e(/rxas ge/nous tino\s ou)si/a| periba/lêtai.]]
[Side-note: Comparison of the Sophistês with the Phædrus.]
These passages may be compared with others of similar import in the Phædrus.
[169] Plato here considers the Form, not as an Entity _per se_ separate from and independent of the particulars, but as implicated in and with the particulars: as a result reached by the mind through the attentive observation and comparison of particulars: as corresponding to what is termed in modern language abstraction and generalisation.
The self-existent Platonic Ideas do not appear in the Politikus:[170] which approximates rather to the Aristotelian doctrine:--that is, the doctrine of the universal, logically distinguishable from its particulars, but having no reality apart from them ([Greek: chôrista\ lo/gô| mo/non]).
But in other dialogues of Plato, the separation between the two is made as complete as possible, especially in the striking passages of the Republic: wherein we read that the facts of sense are a delusive juggle--that we must turn our back upon them and cease to study them--and that we must face about, away from the sensible world, to contemplate Ideas, the separate and unchangeable furniture of the intelligible world--and that the whole process of acquiring true Cognition, consists in passing from the higher to the lower Forms or Ideas, without any misleading illustrations of sense.
[171] Here, in the Sophistês and Politikus, instead of having the Universal behind our backs when the particulars are before our faces, we see it _in and amidst_ particulars: the illustrations of sense, instead of deluding us, being declared to conduce, wherever they can be had, to the clearness and facility of the process.
[172] Here, as well as in the Phædrus, we find the process of Dialectic emphatically recommended, but described as consisting mainly in logical classification of particulars, ascending and descending divisions and conjunctions, as Plato calls them[173]--analysis and synthesis.
We are enjoined to divide and analyse the larger genera into their component species until we come to the lowest species which can no longer be divided: also, conversely, to conjoin synthetically the subordinate species until the highest genus is attained, but taking care not to omit any of the intermediate species, in their successive gradations.
[174] Throughout all this process, as described both in the Phædrus and in the Politikus, the eye is kept fixed upon the constituent individuals.
The Form is studied in and among the particulars which it comprehends: the particulars are looked at in groups put together suitably to each comprehending Form.
And in both dialogues, marked stress is laid upon the necessity of making the division dichotomous; as well as according to Forms, and not according to fractions which are not legitimate Forms.
[175] Any other method, we are told, would be like the wandering of a blind man.
[Footnote 169: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
249 C, 265 D-E.] [Footnote 170: This remark is made by Stallbaum in his Prolegg.
ad Politicum, p. 81; and it is just, though I do not at all concur in his general view of the Politikus, wherein he represents the dialogue as intended to deride the Megaric philosophers.]
[Footnote 171: See the Republic, v. pp.
476-479, vi.
pp.
508-510-511, and especially the memorable simile about the cave and the shadows within it, in Book vii.
pp.
518-519, together with the [Greek: periagôgê\] which he there prescribes--[Greek: a)po\ tou= gignome/nou ei)s to\ o)/n]--and the remarks respecting observations in astronomy and acoustics, p.
529.]
[Footnote 172: Compare the passage of the Phædrus (p. 263 A-C) where Plato distinguishes the sensible particulars on which men mostly agree, from the abstractions (Just and Unjust, &c., corresponding with the [Greek: a)sô/mata, ka/llista, me/gista, timiô/tata], Politikus, p. 286 A) on which they are perpetually dissenting.]
[Footnote 173: Plato, Phædrus, p. 266 B.
[Greek: tou/tôn dê\ e)/gôge au)to/s te e)rastê\s tô=n diaire/seôn kai\ sunagôgô=n .
.
.
tou\s duname/nous au)to\ dra=|n .
.
.
kalô= dialektikou/s.]
The reason which Sokrates gives in the Phædrus for his attachment to dialectics, that he may become competent in discourse and in wisdom ([Greek: i(/n' oi(=o/s te ô)= le/gein kai\ phronei=n]), is the same as that which the Eleate assigns in recommendation of the logical exercises in the Politikus.]
[Footnote 174: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
271 D, 277 B.
[Greek: o(risa/meno/s te pa/lin kat' ei)/dê me/chri tou= a)tmê/tou te/mnein e)pistê/thê|.]]
[Footnote 175: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
265 E, 270 E. [Greek: e)oi/koi a)\n ô(/sper tuphlou= porei/a|.]]
What distinguishes the Sophistês and Politikus from most other dialogues of Plato, is, that the method of logical classification is illustrated by setting the classifier to work upon one or a few given subjects, some in themselves trivial, some important.
Though the principles of the method are enunciated in general terms, yet their application to the special example is kept constantly before us; so that we are never permitted, much less required, to divorce the Universal from its Particulars.
[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Parmenidês.]
As a dialogue illustrative of this method, the Politikus (as I have already pointed out) may be compared to the Phædrus: in another point of view, we shall find instruction in comparing it to the Parmenidês.
This last too is a dialogue illustrative of method, but of a different variety of method.
[Side-note: Variety of method in dialectic research--Diversity of Plato.]
What the Sophistês and Politikus are for the enforcement of logical classification, the Parmenidês is for another part of the philosophising process--laborious evolution of all the consequences deducible from the affirmative as well as from the negative of every hypothesis bearing upon the problem.
And we note the fact, that both in the Politikus and Parmenidês, Plato manifests the consciousness that readers will complain of him as prolix, tiresome, and wasting ingenuity upon unprofitable matters.
[176] In the Parmenidês, he even goes the length of saying that the method ought only to be applied before a small and select audience; to most people it would be repulsive, since they cannot be made to comprehend the necessity for such circuitous preparation in order to reach truth.
[177] [Footnote 176: Plato, Politikus, p. 283 B.
[Greek: pro\s dê\ to\ no/sêma to\ toiou=ton], and the long series of questions and answers which follows to show that the prolixity is unavoidable, pp.
285 C, 286 B-E.] [Footnote 177: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 D-E.] CHAPTER XXX.
POLITIKUS.
[Side-note: The Politikus by itself, apart from the Sophistês.]
I have examined in the preceding sections both that which the Sophistês and Politikus present in common--(_viz._ a lesson, as well as a partial theory, of the logical processes called Definition and Division)--and that which Sophistês presents apart from the Politikus.
I now advert to two matters which we find in the Politikus, but not in the Sophistês.
Both of them will be found to illustrate the Platonic mode of philosophising.
[Side-note: Views of Plato on mensuration.
Objects measured against each other.
Objects compared with a common standard.
In each Art, the purpose to be attained is the standard.]
I. Plato assumes, that there will be critics who blame the two dialogues as too long and circuitous; excessive in respect of prolixity.
In replying to those objectors,[1] he enquires, What is meant by long or short--excessive or deficient--great or little?
Such expressions denote mensuration or comparison.
But there are two varieties of mensuration.
We may measure two objects one against the other: the first will be called great or greater, in relation to the second--the second will be called little or less in relation to the first.
But we may also proceed in a different way.
We may assume some third object as a standard, and then measure both the two against it: declaring the first to be great, greater, excessive, &c., because it exceeds the standard--and the second to be little, less, deficient, &c., because it falls short of the standard.
Here then are two judgments or estimations altogether different from each other, and yet both denoted by the same words _great_ and _little_: two distinct _essences_ (in Platonic phrase) of great and little, or of greatness and littleness.
[2] The art of mensuration has thus two varieties.
One includes arithmetic and geometry, where we simply compare numbers and magnitudes with each other, determining the proportions between them: the other assumes some independent standard; above which is excess, and below which is deficiency.
This standard passes by different names according to circumstances: the Moderate, Becoming, Seasonable, Proper, Obligatory, &c.[3] Such a standard is assumed in every art--in every artistic or scientific course of procedure.
Every art has an end to be attained, a result to be produced; which serves as the standard whereby each preparatory step of the artist is measured, and pronounced to be either excessive or deficient, as the case may be.
[4] Unless such a standard be assumed, you cannot have regular art or science of any kind; neither in grave matters, nor in vulgar matters--neither in the government of society, nor in the weaving of cloth.
[5] [Footnote 1: The treatment of this subject begins, Politik.
p. 283 C, where Plato intimates that the coming remarks are of wide application.]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Politik.
p. 283 E. [Greek: _di/ttas_ a)/ra _tau/tas ou)si/as_ kai\ kri/seis tou= mega/lou kai\ tou= smikrou= thete/on.]]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Politik.
p. 284 E. [Greek: to\ me/trion, to\ pre/pon, to\n kairo/n, to\ de/on], &c. The reader will find these two varieties of mensuration, here distinguished by Plato, illustrated in the "two distinct modes of appreciating weight" (the Absolute and the Relative), described and explained by Professor Alexander Bain in his work on The Senses and The Intellect, 3rd edition, p. 93.
This explanation forms an item in the copious enumeration given by Mr. Bain of the fundamental sensations of our nature.]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Politik.
p. 283 D. [Greek: kata\ tê\n tê=s gene/seôs a)nagkai/an ou)si/an].--284 A-C. [Greek: pro\s tê\n tou= metri/ou ge/nesin].]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Politik.
p. 284 C.] [Side-note: Purpose in the Sophistês and Politikus is--To attain dialectic aptitude.
This is the standard of comparison whereby to judge whether the means employed are suitable.]
Now what is the end to be attained, by this our enquiry into the definition of a Statesman?
It is not so much to solve the particular question started, as to create in ourselves dialectic talent and aptitude, applicable to every thing.
This is the standard with reference to which our enquiry must be criticised--not by regard to the easy solution of the particular problem, or to the immediate pleasure of the hearer.
And if an objector complains, that our exposition is too long or our subject-matters too vulgar--we shall require him to show that the proposed end might have been attained with fewer words and with more solemn illustrations.
If he cannot show this, we shall disregard his censure as inapplicable.
[6] [Footnote 6: Plato, Politik.
pp.
286 D, 287 A.
Compare Plato, Philêbus, p. 36 D.] [Side-note: Plato's defence of the Politikus against critics.
Necessity that the critic shall declare explicitly what his standard of comparison is.]
The above-mentioned distinction between the two varieties of mensuration or comparison, is here given by Plato, simply to serve as a defence against critics who censured the peculiarities of the Politikus.
It is not pursued into farther applications.
But it deserves notice, not merely as being in itself just and useful, but as illustrating one of the many phases of Plato's philosophy.
It is an exhibition of the relative side of Plato's character, as contra-distinguished from the absolute or dogmatical: for both the two, opposed as they are to each other, co-exist in him and manifest themselves alternately.
It conveys a valuable lesson as to the apportionment of praise and blame.
"When you blame me" (he says to his critics), "you must have in your mind some standard of comparison upon which the blame turns.
Declare what that standard is:--what you mean by the Proper, Becoming, Moderate, &c. There is such a standard, and a different one, in every different Art.
What is it here?
You must choose this standard, explain what it is, and adhere to it when you undertake to praise or blame."
Such an enunciation (thoroughly Sokratic[7]) of the principle of relativity, brings before critics the fact--which is very apt to be forgotten--that there must exist in the mind of each some standard of comparison, varying or unvarying, well or ill understood: while at the same time it enforces upon them the necessity of determining clearly for themselves, and announcing explicitly to others, what that standard is.
Otherwise the propositions, affirming comparison, can have no uniform meaning with any two debaters, nor even with the same man at different times.
[Footnote 7: Xenophon, Memorab.
iii.
8, 7, iii.
10, 12.]
[Side-note: Comparison of Politikus with Protagoras, Phædon, Philêbus, &c.] To this relative side of Plato's mind belong his frequent commendations of measurement, numbering, computation, comparison, &c. In the Protagoras,[8] he describes the art of measurement as the main guide and protector of human life: it is there treated as applicable to the correct estimation of pleasures and pains.
In the Phædon,[9] it is again extolled: though the elements to be calculated are there specified differently.
In the Philêbus, the antithesis of [Greek: Pe/ras] and [Greek: A)/peiron] (the Determinant or Limit, and the Indeterminate or Infinite) is one of the leading points of the dialogue.
We read in it moreover a bipartite division of Mensuration or Arithmetic,[10] which is quite different from the bipartite division just cited out of the Politikus.
Plato divides it there (in the Philêbus) into arithmetic for theorists, and arithmetic for practical life: besides which, he distinguishes the various practical arts as being more or less accurate, according as they have more or less of measurement and sensible comparison in them.
Thus the art of the carpenter, who employs measuring instruments such as the line and rule--is more accurate than that of the physician, general, pilot, husbandman, &c., who have no similar means of measuring.
This is a classification quite different from what we find in the Politikus; yet tending in like manner to illustrate the relative point of view, and its frequent manifestation in Plato.
In the Politikus, he seeks to refer praise and blame to a standard of measurement, instead of suffering them to be mere outbursts of sentiment unsystematic and unanalysed.
[Footnote 8: Plato, Protagor.
p. 357 B.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Phædon, p. 69 B.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
25 C, 27 D, 57.
[Greek: du/o a)rithmêtikai\ kai\ du/o metrêtikai/ .
.
.
tê\n didumo/têta e)/chousai tau/tên, o)no/matos de\ e(no\s kekoinôme/nai.]
This same bipartition, however, is noticed in another passage of the Politikus, p. 258 D-E.] [Side-note: Definition of the statesman, or Governor.
Scientific competence.
Sokratic point of departure.
Procedure of Plato in subdividing.]
II.
The second peculiarity to which I call attention in the Politikus, is the definition or description there furnished of the character so-called: that is, the Statesman, the King, Governor, Director, or Manager, of human society.
At the outset of the dialogue, this person is declared to belong to the Genus--Men of Science or of Art (the two words are faintly distinguished in Plato).
It is possession of the proper amount of scientific competence which constitutes a man a Governor: and which entitles him to be so named, whether he actually governs any society or not.
[11] (This point of departure is purely Sokratic: for in the Memorabilia of Xenophon,[12] Sokrates makes the same express declaration.)
The King knows, but does not act: yet he is not a simple critic or spectator--he gives orders: and those orders are not suggested to him by any one else (as in the case of the Herald, the Keleustês, and others),[13] but spring from his own bosom and his own knowledge.
From thence Plato carries us through a series of descending logical subdivisions, until we come to define the King as the shepherd and feeder of the flock of human beings.
[14] But many other persons, besides the King, are concerned in feeding the human flock, and will therefore be included in this definition: which is thus proved to be too large, and to require farther qualification and restriction.
[15] Moreover the feeding of the human flock belongs to others rather than to the King.
He tends and takes care of the flock, but does not feed it: hence the definition is, in this way also, unsuitable.
[16] [Footnote 11: Plato, Politikus, pp.
258 B, 259 B.]
[Footnote 12: Xenophon, Memorab.
iii.
9, 10.]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Politik.
p. 260 C-E. [Greek: to\ me\n tô=n basile/ôn ge/nos ei)s tê\n au)tepitaktikê\n the/ntes], &c.] [Footnote 14: Plato, Politik.
pp.
267 B, 268 C.] [Footnote 15: Plato, Politik.
p.
268.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Politik.
p. 275 D-E.] [Side-note: King during the Saturnian period, was of a breed superior to the people--not so any longer.]
Our mistake (says Plato) was of this kind.
In describing the King or Governor, we have unconsciously fallen upon the description of the King, such as he was in the Saturnian period or under the presidency of Kronus; and not such as he is in the present period.
Under the presidency of Kronus, each human flock was tended and governed by a divine King or God, who managed every thing for it, keeping it happy and comfortable by his own unassisted agency: the entire Kosmos too, with its revolutions, was at that time under the immediate guidance of a divine mover.
But in the present period this divine superintendance is withdrawn: both the entire Kosmos, and each separate portion of it, is left to its own movement, full of imperfection and irregularity.
Each human flock is now tended not by a divine King, as it was then; but by a human King, much less perfect, less effective, less exalted above the constituent members.
Now the definition which we fell upon (says Plato) suited the King of the Saturnian period; but does not suit the King of the present or human period.
[17] At the first commencement of the present period, the human flock, left to themselves without superintendance from the Gods, suffered great misery: but various presents from some Gods (fire from Prometheus, arts from Hephæstus and Athênê, plants and seeds from Dêmêtêr) rendered their condition more endurable, though still full of difficulty and hardship.
[18] [Footnote 17: Plato, Politik.
pp.
274-275 B.]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Politik.
p. 274 C. Plato embodies these last-mentioned comparisons in an elaborate and remarkable mythe--theological, cosmical, zoological, social--which occupies six pages of the Politikus (268 D--274 E).
Meiners and Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
273-275) point out that the theology of Plato in this fable differs much from what we read in the Phædon, Republic, &c.: and Socher insists upon such discrepancy as one of his arguments against the genuineness of the Politikus.
I have already observed that I do not concur in his inference.
I do not expect uniformity of doctrine in the various Platonic dialogues: more especially on a subject so much beyond experience, and so completely open to the conjectures of a rich imagination, as theology and cosmogony.
In the Sophistês, pp.
242-243, Plato had talked in a sort of contemptuous tone about those who dealt with philosophical doctrine in the way of mythe, as a proceeding fit only for boys: (not unlike the manner of Aristotle, when he speaks of [Greek: oi( muthikô=s sophizo/menoi--ta\ u(pe\r ê(ma=s], Metaphys.
B.
1000, a.
15-18, [Greek: L].
1071, b.
27): while here, in the Politikus, he dilates upon what he admits to be a boyish mythe, partly because a certain portion of it may be made available in illustration of his philosophical purpose, partly because he wishes to enliven the monotony of a long-continued classification.
Again, in the Phædrus (**p. 229 C), the Platonic Sokrates is made to censure as futile any attempt to find rational explanations for the popular legends ([Greek: sophi/zesthai]): but here, in the Politikus, the Eleate expressly adapts his theory about the backward and forward rotation of the Kosmos to the explanation of the popular legends--about earthborn men, and about Helios turning back his chariot, in order to escape the shocking spectacle of the Thyestean banquet: which legends, when so explained, Plato declares that people would be wrong to disbelieve ([Greek: oi( nu=n u(po\ pollô=n ou)k o)rthô=s a)pistou=ntai], pp.
271 B, 268 A, B, C).
The differences of doctrine and handling, between the various Platonic dialogues, are facts not less worthy to be noted than the similarities.
Here, in the mythe of the Politikus, we find a peculiar theological view, and a very remarkable cosmical doctrine--the rotation and counter-rotation of the Kosmos.
The Kosmos is here declared (as in the Timæus) to be a living and intelligent Subject; having received these mental gifts from its Demiurgus.
But the Kosmos is also Body as well as Mind; so that it is incapable of that constant sameness or uniformity which belongs to the Divine: Body having in itself an incurable principle of disorder (p. 269 D).
The Kosmos is perpetually in movement; but its movement is only rotatory or circular in the same place: which is the nearest approximation to uniformity of movement.
It does not always revolve by itself; nor is it always made to revolve by the Divine Steersman ([Greek: kubernê/tês], p. 272 E), but alternately the one and the other.
This Divine Steersman presides over its rotation for a certain time, and along with him many subordinate Deities or Dæmons; until an epoch fixed by some unassigned destiny has been reached (p. 272 E).
Then the Steersman withdraws from the process to his own watch-tower ([Greek: ei)s tê\n au)tou= periôpê\n]), and the other Deities along with him.
The Kosmos, being left to itself, ceases to revolve in the same direction, and begins its counter rotation; revolving by itself backwards, or in the contrary direction.
By such violent revulsion many of the living inhabitants of the Kosmos are destroyed.
The past phenomena are successively reproduced, but in an inverse direction--the old men go back to maturity, boyhood, infancy, death: the dead are born again, and pass through their lives backwards from age to infancy.
Yet the counter-rotation brings about not simply an inverted reproduction of past phenomena, but new phenomena also: for we are told that the Kosmos, when left to itself, did tolerably well as long as it remembered the Steersman's direction, but after a certain interval became forgetful and went wrong, generating mischief and evil: so that the Steersman was at last forced to put his hand again to the work, and to impart to it a fresh rotation in his own direction (p. 273 B-D).
The Kosmos never goes satisfactorily, except when the hand of the Steersman is upon it.
But we are informed that there are varieties of this divine administration: one named the period of Kronus or Saturn; another that of Zeus, &c. The _present_ is the period of Zeus (p. 272 B).
The period of Kronus was one of spontaneous and universal abundance, under the immediate superintendence of the Deity.
This Divine Ruler was infinitely superior to the subjects whom he ruled, and left nothing to be desired.
But _now_, in the present period of Zeus, men are under human rule, and not divine: there is no such marked superiority of the Ruler to his subjects.
The human race has been on the point of becoming extinct; and has only been saved by beneficent presents from various Gods--fire from Prometheus, handicraft from Hephæstus and Athênê (pp.
272 C, 274 C).
All this prodigious bulk of mythical invention ([Greek: thaumasto\s o)/gkos], p. 277 B) seems to be introduced here for the purpose of illustrating the comparative ratio between the Ruler and his subjects; and the material difference in this respect between King and Shepherd--between the government of mankind by kings, and that of flocks and herds by the herdsman.
In attempting to define the True and Genuine Ruler (he lays it down), we can expect nothing better than a man among other men; but distinguished above his fellows, so far as wisdom, dialectic, and artistic accomplishment, can confer superiority.
There is much in this copious mythe which I cannot clearly understand or put together: nor do I derive much profit from the long exposition of it given by Stallbaum (Proleg.
ad Polit.
pp.
100-128).
We cannot fairly demand either harmonious consistency or profound meaning in the different features of an ingenious fiction.
The hypothesis of a counter-rotation of the Kosmos (spinning like a top, [Greek: e)pi\ smikrota/tou bai=non podo\s i)e/nai], p. 270 A), with an inverted reproduction of past phenomena, appears to me one of the most singular fancies in the Greek mythology.
I cannot tell how far it may have been suggested by any such statement as that of the Egyptian priests (Herodot.
ii.
142).
I can only repeat the observation made by Phædrus to the Platonic Sokrates, in the dialogue Phædrus (p. 275 A): "You, Sokrates, construct easily enough Egyptian tales, or any other tales that you please".]
[Side-note: Distinction of causes Principal and Causes Auxiliary.
The King is the only Principal Cause, but his auxiliaries pretend to be principal also.]
The human King, whom we shall now attempt to define, tends the human flock; but there are other persons also who assist in doing so, and without whose concurrent agency he could not attain his purpose.
We may illustrate this by comparing with him the weaver of woollen garments: who requires many subsidiary and preparatory processes, performed by agents different from himself (such as the carder of wool, the spinner, and the manufacturer of the instruments for working the loom) to enable him to finish his work.
In all matters, important as well as vulgar, two separate processes or arts, or contributory persons, are to be distinguished: Causes and Co-Causes, _i.e._, Principal Causes, and Concurrent, Auxiliary, Co-efficient, Subordinate, Causes.
[19] The King, like the Weaver, is distinguishable, from other agents helping towards the same end, as a Principal Cause from Auxiliary Causes.
[20] The Causes auxiliary to the King, in so far as they are inanimate, may be distributed roughly under seven heads (bipartition being here impracticable)--Implements, Vessels, Vehicles, Protections surrounding the Body, Recreative Objects, Raw Material of every variety, Nutritive Substances, &c.[21] Other auxiliary Causes are, the domestic cattle, bought slaves, and all descriptions of serving persons; being often freemen who undertake, for hire, servile occupations and low trades.
There are moreover ministerial officers of a higher grade: heralds, scribes, interpreters, prophets, priests, Sophists, rhetors; and a great diversity of other functionaries, military, judicial, forensic, dramatic, &c., who manage different departments of public affairs, often changing from one post to another.
[22] But these higher ministerial functionaries differ from the lower in this--That they pretend to be themselves the directors and managers of the government, not recognising the genuine King: whereas the truth is, that they are only ministerial and subordinate to him:--they are Concurrent Causes, while he is the only real or principal Cause.
[23] [Footnote 19: Plato, Politik.
p. 281 D-E.] [Footnote 20: Plato, Politik.
p. 287 D.] [Footnote 21: Plato, Politik.
pp.
288-289.]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Politik.
pp.
290-291 B. Plato describes these men by comparing them to lions, centaurs, satyrs, wild beasts, feeble and crafty.
This is not very intelligible, but I presume that it alludes to the variety of functions, and the frequent alternation of functions.
I cannot think that such an obscure jest deserves Stallbaum's compliment:--"Ceterum lepidissima hæc est istorum hominum irrisio, qui cum leonibus, Centauris, Satyris, aliisque monstris comparantur".
Plato repeats it p. 303 C.] [Footnote 23: Plato, Politik.
p. 291 C.] [Side-note: Plato does not admit the received classification of government.
It does not touch the point upon which all true distinction ought to be founded--Scientific or Unscientific.]
Our main object now (says the Eleate) is to distinguish this Real Cause from the subordinate Causes which are mistaken for its partners and equals:--the genuine and intelligent Governor, from those who pretend falsely to be governors, and are supposed often to be such.
[24] We cannot admit the lines of distinction, which are commonly drawn between different governments, as truly logical: at least they are only subordinate to ours.
Most men distinguish the government of one, or a few, or the many: government of the poor or of the rich: government according to law, or without law:--by consent, or by force.
The different names current, monarchy or despotism, aristocracy, or oligarchy, &c., correspond to these definitions.
But we hold that these definitions do not touch the true characteristic: which is to be found in Science, Knowledge, Intelligence, Art or scientific procedure, &c., and in nothing else.
The true government of mankind is, the scientific or artistic: whether it be carried on by one, or a few, or many--whether by poor or rich, by force or consent--whether according to law, or without law.
[25] This is the right and essential characteristic of genuine government:--it is government conducted according to science or art.
All governments not conforming to this type are only spurious counterfeits and approaches to it, more or less defective or objectionable.
[26] [Footnote 24: Plato, Politik.
p. 292 D.] [Footnote 25: Plato, Politik.
pp.
292 C, 293 B.]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Politik.
p. 293 E. [Greek: tau/tên to/te kai\ kata\ tou\s toiou/tous o(/rous ê(mi=n mo/nên o)rthê\n politei/an ei)=nai r(ête/on, o(/sas de\ a)/llas le/gomen, ou) gnêsi/as ou)d' o)/ntôs ou)/sas lekte/on.]]
[Side-note: Unscientific governments are counterfeits.
Government by any numerous body must be counterfeit.
Government by the one scientific man is the true government.]
Looking to the characteristic here suggested, the Eleate pronounces that all numerous and popular governments must be counterfeits.
There can be no genuine government except by One man, or by a very small number at most.
True science or art is not attainable by many persons, whether rich or poor: scarcely even by a few, and probably by One alone; since the science or art of governing men is more difficult than any other science or art.
[27] But the government of this One is the only true and right government, whether he proclaims laws or governs without law, whether he employs severity or mildness--provided only he adheres to his art, and achieves its purpose, the good and improvement of the governed.
[28] He is like the true physician, who cuts and burns patients, when his art commands, for the purpose of curing them.
He will not be disposed to fetter himself by fixed general laws: for the variety of situations and the fluctuation of circumstances, is so perpetual, that no law can possibly fit all cases.
He will recognise no other law but his art.
[29] If he lays down any general formula or law, it will only be from necessity, because he cannot be always at hand to watch and direct each individual case: but he will not hesitate to depart from his own formula whenever Art enjoins it.
[30] That alone is base, evil, unjust, which he with his political Science or Art declares to be so.
If in any particular case he departs from his own declaration, and orders such a thing to be done--the public have no right to complain that he does injustice.
No patient can complain of his physician, if the latter, acting upon the counsels of his art, disregards a therapeutic formula.
[31] All the acts of the true Governor are right, whether according or contrary to law, so long as he conducts himself with Art and Intelligence--aiming exclusively to preserve the people, and to render them better instead of worse.
[32] [Footnote 27: Plato, Politik.
pp.
292 D-E, 297 B, 300 E.] [Footnote 28: Plato, Politik.
p. 293 B-E.] [Footnote 29: Plato, Politik.
p. 297 A.
[Greek: ou) gra/mmata tithei\s a)lla\ tê\n te/chnên no/mon parecho/menos.]]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Politik.
pp.
300 C, 295 B-C.] [Footnote 31: Plato, Politik.
p. 296 C-D.] [Footnote 32: Plato, Politik.
p. 297 A.]
[Side-note: Fixed laws, limiting the scientific Governor, are mischievous, as they would be for the physician and the steersman.
Absurdity of determining medical practice by laws, and presuming every one to know it.]
How mischievous would it be (continues the Eleate) if we prescribed by fixed laws how the physician or the steersman should practise their respective arts: if we held them bound to peremptory rules, punishing them whenever they departed from those rules, and making them accountable before the Dikastery, when any one accused them of doing so: if we consecrated these rules and dogmas, forbidding all criticism or censure upon them, and putting to death the free enquirer as a dreaming, prosy, Sophist, corrupting the youth and inciting lawless discontent!
[33] How absurd, if we pretended that every citizen did know, or might or ought to know, these two arts; because the matters concerning them were enrolled in the laws, and because no one ought to be wiser than the laws?
[34] Who would think of imposing any such fetters on other arts, such as those of the general, the painter, the husbandman, the carpenter, the prophet, the cattle-dealer?
To impose them would be to render life, hard as it is even now, altogether intolerable.
Yet these are the trammels under which in actual cities the political Art is exercised.
[35] [Footnote 33: Plato, Politik.
pp.
298-299.
299 B: [Greek: Kai\ toi/nun e)/ti deê/sei the/sthai no/mon e)pi\ pa=si tou/tois, a)/n tis kubernêtikê\n kai\ to\ nautiko\n ê)\ to\ u(gieino\n kai\ i)atrikê=s a)lêthei/an .
.
.
zêtô=n phai/nêtai para\ ta\ gra/mmata kai\ sophizo/menos o(tiou=n peri\ ta\ toiau=ta, prô=ton me\n mê/te i)atriko\n au)to\n mê/te kubernêtiko\n o)noma/zein, a)lla\ meteôro/logon a)dole/schên tina\ sophistê\n ei)=th' ô(s diaphthei/ronta a)/llous neôte/rous kai\ a)napei/thonta e)piti/thesthai kubernêtikê=|], &c.] [Footnote 34: Plato, Polit.
p. 299 C. [Greek: a)\n de\ para\ tou\s no/mous kai\ ta\ gegramme/na do/xê| pei/thein ei)/te ne/ous ei)/te presbu/tas, kola/zein toi=s e)scha/tois.
Ou)de\n ga\r dei=n tô=n no/môn, ei)=nai sophô/teron; ou)de/na ga\r a)gnoei=n to/ te i)atriko\n kai\ to\ u(gieino\n ou)de\ to\ kubernêtiko\n kai\ nautiko/n; e)xei=nai ga\r tô=| boulome/nô| mantha/nein gegramme/na kai\ pa/tria e)/thê kei/mena.]]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Polit.
p. 299 D-E. [Greek: ô(/ste o( bi/os, ô(n kai\ nu=n chalepo/s, ei)s to\n chro/non e)kei=non a)bi/ôtos gi/gnoit' a)\n to\ para/pan.]]
[Side-note: Government by fixed laws is better than lawless government by unscientific men, but worse than lawless government by scientific men.
It is a second-best.]
Such are the mischiefs inseparable, in greater or less degree, from fixed and peremptory laws.
Yet grave as these mischiefs are, there are others yet graver, which such laws tend to obviate.
If the magistrate appointed to guard and enforce the laws, ventures to break or contravene them, simulating, but not really possessing, the Art or Science of the genuine Ruler--he will make matters far worse.
The laws at any rate are such as the citizens have been accustomed to, and such as give a certain measure of satisfaction.
But the arbitrary rule of this violent and unscientific Governor is a tyranny:[36] which is greatly worse than the laws.
Fixed laws are thus a second-best:[37] assuming that you cannot obtain a true scientific, artistic, Governor.
If such a man could be obtained, men would be delighted to live under him.
But they despair of ever seeing such a character, and they therefore cling to fixed laws, in spite of the numerous concomitant mischiefs.
[38] These mischiefs are indeed so serious, that when we look at actual cities, we are astonished how they get on under such a system; and we cannot but feel how firm and deeply rooted a city naturally is.
[39] [Footnote 36: Plato, Politik.
p. 300 A-B, 301 B-C.] [Footnote 37: Plato, Politik.
p. 300 C. [Greek: deu/teros plou=s].]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Politik.
p. 301 D.] [Footnote 39: Plato, Polit.
p. 302 A.
[Greek: ê)\ e)kei=no ê(mi=n thaumaste/on ma=llon, ô(s i)schuro/n ti po/lis e)sti\ phu/sei?]]
[Side-note: Comparison of unscientific governments.
The one despot is the worse.
Democracy is the least bad, because it is least of a government.]
We see therefore (the Eleate goes on) that there is no true polity--nothing which deserves the name of a genuine political society--except the government of one chief, scientific or artistic.
With him laws are superfluous and even inconvenient.
All other polities are counterfeits: factions and cabals, rather than governments:[40] delusions carried on by tricksters and conjurers.
But among these other polities or sham polities, there is a material difference as to greater or less badness: and the difference turns upon the presence or absence of good laws.
Thus, the single-headed government, called monarchy (assuming the Prince not to be a man of science or art) is the best of all the sham-polities, if the Prince rules along with and in observance of known good laws: but it is the worst of them all, if he rules without such laws, as a despot or tyrant.
Oligarchy, or the government of a few--if under good laws, is less good than that of the Prince under the same circumstances--if without such laws, is less bad than that of the despot.
Lastly, the government of the many is less good under the one supposition--and less bad under the other.
It is less effective, either for good or for evil.
It is in fact less of a government: the administrative force being lost by dissipation among many hands for short intervals; and more free play being thus left to individuals.
Accordingly, assuming the absence of laws, democracy is the least bad or most tolerable of the six varieties of sham-polity.
Assuming the presence of laws, it is the worst of them.
[41] [Footnote 40: Plato, Polit.
pp.
302-303 B-C. [Greek: tou\s koinônou\s tou/tôn tô=n politeiô=n pasô=n, plê\n tê=s e)pistê/monos, a)phairete/on ô(s ou)k o)/ntas politikou\s a)lla\ stasiastikou/s, kai\ ei)dô/lôn megi/stôn prosta/tas o)/ntas kai\ au)tou\s ei)=nai toiou/tous, megi/stous de\ o)/ntas mimêta\s kai\ go/êtas megi/stous gi/gnesthai tô=n sophistô=n sophista/s.]]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Polit.
p. 302 B.
[Greek: ti/s dê\ tô=n ou)k o)rthô=n politeiô=n tou/tôn ê(/kista chalepê\ suzê=n, pasô=n chalepô=n ou)sô=n, kai\ ti/s baruta/tê?]
Also p. 303 A-B.]
[Side-note: The true governor distinguished from the General, the Rhetor, &c. They are all properly his subordinates and auxiliaries.]
We have thus severed the genuine scientific Governor from the unworthy counterfeits by whom his agency is mimicked in actual society.
But we have still to sever him from other worthier functionaries, analogous and cognate, with whom he co-operates; and to show by what characteristic he is distinguished from persons such as the General, the Judge, the Rhetor or Persuader to good and just objects.
The distinction is, that all these functions, however honourable functions, are still nevertheless essentially subordinate and ministerial, assuming a sovereign guidance from some other quarter to direct them.
Thus the General may, by his strategic art, carry on war effectively; but he must be directed when, and against whom, war is to be carried on.
The Judge may decide quarrels without fear, antipathy, or favour: but the general rules for deciding them must be prescribed to him by a higher authority.
So too the Rhetor may apply his art well, to persuade people, or to work upon their emotions, without teaching them: but he must be told by some one else, when and on what occasions persuasion is suitable, and when force must be employed instead of it.
[42] Each of these functionaries must learn, what his own art will not teach him, the proper seasons, persons, and limitations, among and under which his art is to be applied.
To furnish such guidance is the characteristic privilege and duty of the scientific chief, for which he alone is competent.
He does not act himself, but he originates, directs, and controls, all the real agents and agencies.
Without him, none of them are available or beneficial towards their special ends.
He alone can judge of their comparative value, and of the proper reasons for invoking or restraining their interference.
[43] [Footnote 42: Plato, Polit.
pp.
304-305.]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Polit.
p. 305 D. [Greek: tê\n ga\r o)/ntôs ou)=san basilikê\n ou)k au)tê\n dei= pra/ttein, a)ll' a)/rchein tô=n duname/nôn pra/ttein, gignô/skousan tê\n a)rchê/n te kai\ o(rmê\n tô=n megi/stôn e)n tai=s po/lesin e)gkairi/as te pe/ri kai\ a)kairi/as, ta\s d' a)/llas ta\ prostachthe/nta dra=|n.]]
[Side-note: What the scientific Governor will do.
He will aim at the formation of virtuous citizens.
He will weave together the energetic virtues with the gentle virtues.
Natural dissidence between them.]
The great scientific Governor being thus defined, and logically distinguished from all others liable to be confounded with him, Plato concludes by a brief statement what his principal functions are.
He will aim at ensuring among his citizens the most virtuous characters and the best ethical combinations.
Like the weaver (to whom he has been already assimilated) he will put together the great political web or tissue of improved citizenship, intertwining the strong and energetic virtues (the warp) with the yielding and gentler virtues (the woof).
[44] Both these dispositions are parts or branches of virtue; but there is a natural variance or repulsion between them.
[45] Each of them is good, in proper measure and season: each of them is bad, out of measure and season.
The combination of both, in due proportion, is indispensable to form the virtuous citizen: and that combination it is the business of the scientific Governor to form and uphold.
It is with a view to this end that he must set at work all the agents of teaching and education, and must even interfere to arrange the intermarriages of the citizens; not allowing the strong and courageous families to form alliance with each other, lest the breed should in time become too violent--nor the gentle and quiet families to do the like, lest the offspring should degenerate into stupidity.
[46] [Footnote 44: Plato, Polit.
pp.
306-307.
[Greek: tê\n basilikê\n sumplokê/n].]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Polit.
pp.
306 A-B, 307 C, 308 B.]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Polit.
pp.
308-309-310.]
[Side-note: If a man sins by excess of the energetic element, he is to be killed or banished: if of the gentle, he is to be made a slave.
The Governor must keep up in the minds of the citizens an unanimous standard of ethical orthodoxy.]
All persons, who, unable to take on this conjunction, sin by an excess of the strong element, manifesting injustice or irreligion--must be banished or put to death:[47] all who sin by excess of the feebler element, exhibiting stupidity and meanness, must be degraded into slavery.
Above all things, the scientific Governor must himself dictate, and must implant and maintain, in the minds of all his citizens, an authoritative standard of orthodox sentiment respecting what is just, honourable, good--and the contrary.
[48] If this be ensured, and if the virtues naturally discordant be attempered with proper care, he will make sure of a friendly and harmonious community, enjoying as much happiness as human affairs admit.
[49] [Footnote 47: Plato, Polit.
p. 309 A.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Polit.
pp.
309 C, 310 E.] [Footnote 49: Plato, Polit.
p. 311 B-C.] * * * * * [Side-note: Remarks--Sokratic Ideal--Title to govern mankind derived exclusively from scientific superiority in an individual person.]
I have thus given a brief abridgment of the main purpose of the Politikus, and of the definition which Plato gives of the True Governor and his function.
I proceed to make a few remarks upon it.
Plato's theory of government is founded upon the supposition of perfect knowledge--scientific or artistic intelligence--in the person of the Governor: a partial approach, through teaching and acquired knowledge, to that immense superiority of the Governor over the Governed, which existed in the Saturnian period.
It is this, and this alone, which constitutes, in his estimation, the title to govern mankind.
The Governor does not himself act: he directs the agency of others: and the directions are dictated by his knowledge.
I have already observed that Sokrates had himself enunciated the doctrine--Superior scientific competence (the special privilege of a professor or an artist) is the only legitimate title to govern.
[Side-note: Different ways in which this ideal is worked out by Plato and Xenophon.
The man of speculation and the man of action.]
From Sokrates the idea passed both to Plato and to Xenophon: and the contrast between the two is shown forcibly by the different way in which they deal with it.
Xenophon has worked it out on a large scale, in the Cyropædia--on a small scale, in the OEconomicus.
Cyrus in the former, Ischomachus in the latter, knows better than any one else what is to be done, and gives orders accordingly.
But both the one and the other are also foremost in action, setting example as well as giving orders to others.
Now Plato, while developing the same idea, draws a marked line of distinction between Science and Practice:--between direction and execution.
[50] His scientific Governor does not act at all, but he gives orders to all the different men of action, and he is the only person who knows on what occasions and within what limits each agent should put forth his own special aptitude.
Herein we discern one of the distinctions between these two _viri Socratici_: Xenophon, the soldier and man of action--Plato, the speculative philosopher.
Xenophon conceives the conditions of the True Governor in a larger way than Plato, for he includes among them the forward and energetic qualities requisite for acting on the feelings of the subject Many, and for disposing them to follow orders with cheerfulness and zeal:[51] whereas Plato makes abstraction of this part of the conditions, and postulates obedience on the part of the many as an item in his fundamental hypothesis.
Indeed he perpetually presents us with the comparison of the physician, who cuts and burns for the purpose of ultimate cure.
Plato either neglects, or assumes as a matter of course, the sentiments of the persons commanded, or the conditions of willing obedience; while Xenophon dwells upon the maintenance of such sentiments as one of the capital difficulties in the problem of government.
And we perceive a marked contrast between the unskilful proceedings of Plato, when he visited Dionysius II.
at Syracuse, illustrating his (Plato's) inaptitude for dealing with a real situation--and the judicious management of Xenophon, when acting as one of the leaders of the Cyreian army under circumstances alike unexpected and perilous.
[Footnote 50: Plato, Polit.
pp.
259 C-D, 305 D.] [Footnote 51: See the preface to Xenophon's Cyropædia; also Cyropæd.
i.
6, 20; and his Oecon.
c. 21, and c. 13, 4, where we see the difference between the Xenophontic idea, and the Platonic idea, of [Greek: o( a)rchiko\s a)nthrô/pôn, oi( thei=oi kai\ a)gathoi\ kai\ e)pistê/mones a)/rchontes].]
[Side-note: The theory in the Politikus is the contradiction to that theory which is assigned to Protagoras in the Protagoras.]
Plato here sets forth the business of governing as a special art, analogous to the special art of the weaver, the steersman, the physician.
Now in each special art, the requisite knowledge and competence is possessed only by the one or few artists who practise them.
The knowledge possessed by such one or few, suffices for all the remaining community; who benefit by it, but are altogether ignorant on the matter, and follow orders blindfold.
As this one Artist is the only competent person for the task, so he is assumed _quâ_ Artist, to be infallible in the performance of the task--never to go wrong, nor to abuse his power, nor to aim at any collateral end.
[52] Such is Plato's theory of government in the Politikus.
But if we turn to the Protagoras, we shall find this very theory of government explicitly denied, and a counter-theory affirmed, in the discourse put into the mouth of Protagoras.
That Sophist is made to distinguish the political or social art, upon which the possibility of constituting or keeping up human society depends, from all other arts (manual, useful, linguistic), by this express characteristic: All other arts were distributed among mankind in such manner, that knowledge and skill were confined to an exclusive few, whose knowledge, each in his own special department, sufficed for the service of all the rest, not favoured with the like knowledge--but the political or social art was distributed (by order of Zeus to Hermes) on a principle quite opposite.
It was imparted to every member of society without exception.
If it had been granted only to a few, and not to all, society could not have held together.
Justice and the sense of shame (Temperance or Moderation), which are the bonds of the city and the fruits of the political art, must be instilled into every man.
Whoever cannot take on and appropriate them (Zeus proclaims it as his law), must be slain as a nuisance or distemper of the city.
[53] [Footnote 52: Compare Plato, Republic, i. pp.
340-341.]
[Footnote 53: Plato, Protag.
pp.
322, 325 A.]
[Side-note: Points of the Protagorean theory--rests upon common sentiment.]
Such we have seen to be the theory enunciated by the Platonic Protagoras (in the dialogue so-called) respecting the political or social art.
It pervades all the members of society, as a common and universal attribute, though each man has his own specialty besides.
It was thus distributed at the outset by Zeus.
It stands embodied in the laws and in the unwritten customs, so that one man may know it as well as another.
Every man makes open profession of knowing and possessing it:--which he cannot do with any special art.
Fathers enforce it on their children by rewards and punishments, schoolmasters and musicians impart it by extracts from the poets: the old teach it to the young: nay every man, far from desiring to monopolise it for himself, is forward in teaching it to others: for it is the interest of every one that his neighbour should learn it.
Since every one thus teaches it, there are no professed or special teachers: yet there are still some few who can teach it a little better than others--and among those few I (says Protagoras) am one.
[54] [Footnote 54: Plato, Protag.
pp.
327-328.]
[Side-note: Counter-Theory in the Politikus.
The exigencies of the Eleate in the Politikus go much farther than those of Protagoras.]
Whoever compares the doctrine of the Politikus[55] with the portion of the Protagoras[56] to which I have just referred, will see that they stand to each other as theory and counter-theory.
The theory in the Politikus sets aside (intentionally or not) that in the Protagoras.
The Platonic Protagoras, spokesman of King Nomos, represents common sense, sentiment, sympathies and antipathies, written laws, and traditional customs known to all as well as reverenced by the majority: the Platonic Politikus repudiates all these, as preposterous fetters to the single Governor who monopolises all political science and art.
Let us add too, that the Platonic Protagoras (whom many commentators teach us to regard as a person of exorbitant arrogance and pretensions) is a very modest man compared to the Eleate in the Platonic Politikus.
For the former accepts all the written laws and respected customs around him,--admits that most others know them, in the main, as well as he,--and only professes to have acquired a certain amount of superior skill in impressing them upon others: whereas the latter sets them all aside, claims for himself an uncontradicted monopoly of social science and art, and postulates an extent of blind submission from society such as has never yet been yielded in history.
[Footnote 55: Plato, Politik.
p. 301 E. The portion of this dialogue, from p. 296 to p. 302, enunciates the doctrine of which I have given a brief abstract in the text.]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Protag.
pp.
321-328.]
[Side-note: The Eleate complains that under the Protagorean theory no adverse criticism is allowed.
The dissenter is either condemned to silence or punished.]
The Eleate here complains of it as a hardship, that amidst a community actually established and existing, directed by written laws, traditional customs and common sentiment (the Protagorean model),--he, the political artist, is interdicted from adverse criticism and outspoken censure of the legal and consecrated doctrines.
If he talks as one wiser than the laws, or impugns them as he thinks that they deserve, or theorises in his own way respecting the doctrines which they sanction--he is either laughed to scorn as a visionary, prosing, Sophist--or hated, and perhaps punished, as a corrupter of youth; as a person who brings the institutions of society into contempt, and encourages violators of the law.
[57] [Footnote 57: Plato, Politik.
p. 299 B.
[Greek: a)\n tis .
.
.
zêtô=n phai/nêtai para\ ta\ gra/mmata kai\ sophizo/menos o(tiou=n peri\ ta\ toiau=ta.]
In the seventh book of Republic (p. 520 B), Plato describes the position of the philosopher in an established society, springing up by his own internal force, against the opposition of all the social influences--[Greek: au)to/matoi ga\r e)mphu/ontai a)kou/sês tê=s e)n e(ka/stê| (po/lei) politei/as], &c.] [Side-note: Intolerance at Athens, not so great as elsewhere.
Plato complains of the assumption of infallibility in existing societies, but exacts it severely in that which he himself constructs.]
The reproach implied in these phrases of Plato is doubtless intended as an allusion to the condemnation of Sokrates.
It is a reproach well-founded against that proceeding of the government of Athens:--and would have been still better founded against other contemporary governments.
That the Athenians were intolerant, is not to be denied: but they were less intolerant than any of their contemporaries.
Nowhere else except at Athens could Sokrates have gone on until seventy years of age talking freely in the market-place against the received political and religious orthodoxy.
There was more free speech ([Greek: par)r(êsi/a])[58] at Athens than in any part of the contemporary world.
Plato, Xenophon, and the other companions of Sokrates, proclaimed by lectures and writings that they thought themselves wiser than the laws of Athens: yet though the Gorgias was intended as well as adapted to bring into hatred and contempt both those laws and the persons who administered them, the Athenian Rhetors never indicted Plato for libel.
Upon this point, we can only speak comparatively: for perfect liberty of proclaiming opinions neither does now exist, nor ever has existed, any where.
Most men have no genuine respect for the right of another to form and express an opinion dissentient from theirs: if they happen to hate the opinion, they account it a virtue to employ as much ill-usage or menace as will frighten the holder thereof into silence.
Plato here points out in emphatic language,[59] the deplorable consequences of assuming infallibility and perfection for the legal and customary orthodoxy of the country, and prohibiting free censure by dissentient individuals.
But this is on the supposition that the laws and customs are founded only on common sense and traditional reverence:--and that the scientific Governor is among the dissenters.
Plato's judgment is radically different when he supposes the case reversed:--when King Nomos is superseded by the scientific Professor of whom Plato dreams, or by a lawgiver who represents him.
We shall observe this when we come to the Treatise de Legibus, in which Plato constitutes an orthodoxy of his own, prohibiting free dissent by restrictions and penalties stricter than any which were known to antiquity.
He cannot recognise an infallible common sense: but he has no scruple in postulating an infallible scientific dictator, and in enthroning himself as such.
Though well aware that reasoned truth presents itself to different philosophers in different versions, he does not hesitate to condemn those philosophers who differ from him, to silence or to something worse.
[Footnote 58: See Euripides, Ion, 671.
[Greek: e)k tô=n A)thênô=n m' ê( tekou=s' ei)/ê gunê/, ô(/s moi ge/noito mêtro/then par)r(êsi/a.]
Also Euripid.
Hippolyt.
424, and Plato, Gorgias, p. 461 E, where Sokrates says to Polus--[Greek: deina\ me/nt' a)\n pa/thois, ei) A)thê/naze a)phiko/menos, ou)= tê=s E(lla/dos, plei/stê e)sti\n e)xousi/a tou= le/gein, e)/peita su\ e)ntau=tha tou/tou mo/nos a)tuchê/sais], &c.] [Footnote 59: Plato, Polit.
p. 299 E.] [Side-note: Theory of the Politikus--distinguished three gradations of polity.
Gigantic individual force the worst.]
It will appear then that the Platonic Politikus distinguishes three varieties and gradations of social constitution.
1.
_Science or Art.
Systematic Construction from the beginning, based upon Theory._--That which is directed by the constant supervision of a scientific or artistic Ruler.
This is the only true or legitimate polity.
Represented by Plato in Republic.
Illustrated by the systematic scheme of weights, measures, apportionment of years, months, and days, in calendar--put together on scientific principles by the French Convention in 1793--as contrasted with the various local, incoherent, growths, which had obtained recognition through custom or arbitrary preference of unscientific superiors.
2.
_Common Sense.
Unsystematic Aggregate of Customs, accepted in an Actual Society._--That which is directed by written laws and fixed traditional customs, known to every one, approved by the common sense of the community, and communicated as well as upheld by the spontaneous teaching of the majority.
King Nomos.
This stands for the second best scheme: the least objectionable form of degeneracy--yet still a degeneracy.
It is the scheme set forth by the Platonic Protagoras, in the dialogue so called.
Represented with improvements by Plato in Treatise De Legibus.
3.
_Gigantic Individual Force._--That in which some violent individual--not being really scientific or artistic, but perhaps falsely pretending to be so--violates and tramples under foot the established laws and customs, under the stimulus of his own exorbitant ambition and unmeasured desires.
This is put forward as the worst scheme of all: as the greatest depravation of society, and the greatest forfeiture of public as well as private happiness.
We have here the proposition which Pôlus and Kalliklês are introduced as defending in the Gorgias, and Thrasymachus in the Republic.
In both dialogues, Sokrates undertakes to expose it.
The great benefit conferred by King Nomos, is, that he protects society against the maximum of evil.
[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Republic.
Points of analogy and difference.]
Another interesting comparison may be made: that between the Politikus and the Republic.
We must remember that the Politikus is announced by Plato as having two purposes.
1.
To give a lesson in the method of definition and division.
2.
To define the characteristic of the person bearing the name of Politikus, distinguishing him from all others, analogous or disparate.--The method is here more prominent than the doctrine.
But in the Republic, no lesson of method is attempted; the doctrine stands alone and independent of it.
We shall find however that the doctrine is essentially the same.
That which the Politikus lays down in brief outline, is in the Republic amplified and enlarged; presented with many variations and under different points of view, yet, still at the bottom, the same doctrine, both as to affirmation and negation.
The Republic affirms (as the Politikus does) the exclusive legitimacy of science, art, intelligence, &c., as the initiatory and omnipotent authority over all the constituent members of society: and farther, that such intelligence can have no place except in one or a few privileged persons.
The Republic (like the Politikus) presents to us the march of society with its Principal Cause--its concurrent or Auxiliary Causes--and its inferior governable mass or matter, the human flock, indispensable and co-essential as a part of the whole scheme.
In the Republic, the Cause is represented by the small council of philosophical Elders: the concurrent causes, by the Guardians or trained soldiers: the inferior matter, by the remaining society, which is distributed among various trades, providing for the subsistence and wants of all.
The explanation of Justice (which is the ostensible purpose of the Republic) is made to consist in the fact--That each one of these several parts does its own special work--nothing more--nothing less.
Throughout all the Republic, a constant parallelism is carried on (often indeed overstrained) between the community and the individual man.
In the one as well as in the other, Plato recognises the three constituent elements, all essential as co-operators, but each with its own special function: in the individual, he recognises three souls (encephalic, thoracic, and abdominal) as corresponding to Elders, Guardians, and Producers, in the community.
Here are the same features as those given in outline in the Politikus: but the two higher features of the three appear greatly expanded in the Republic: the training and conditions proper for the philosophic Artist or Governor, and for his auxiliaries the Guardians, being described and vindicated at great length.
Moreover, in the Republic, Plato not only repeats the doctrine[60] that the right of command belongs to every art in its own province and over its own subject-matter (which is the cardinal point in the Politikus)--but he farther proclaims that each individual neither can exercise, nor ought to exercise, more than one art.
He allows no double men or triple men[61]--"Quam quisque novit artem, in eâ se exerceat".
He would not have respected the Xenophontic Cyrus or Ischomachus.
He carries the principle of specialization to its extreme point.
His Republic is an aggregate of special artists and professional aptitudes: among whom the Governor is only one, though the first and rarest.
He sets aside the common basis of social endowments essential to every man: upon which each man's specialty is superinduced in the theory of the Platonic Protagoras.
The only common quality which Plato admits is,--That each man, and each of the three souls composing each man, shall do his own business and his own business only: this is his definition of Justice, in the Republic.
[62] [Footnote 60: Plato, Republ.
i. p. 342 C. [Greek: A)lla\ mê\n a)/rchousi ge ai( te/chnai kai\ kratou=sin e)kei/nou ou)= per ei)si\ te/chnai.]]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Republ.
ii.
pp.
370 B, 374 B--395-397 E. [Greek: ou)k e)/sti diplou=s a)nê\r par' ê(mi=n ou)de\ pollaplou=s, e)peidê\ e(/kastos e(\n pra/ttei] (p. 397 E).]
[Footnote 62: Plato, Republ.
iv.
p.
433.]
[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Kratylus.
Dictatorial, constructive, science or art, common to both: applied in the former to social administration--in the latter to the formation and modification of names.]
Lastly, I will illustrate the Politikus by comparison with the Kratylus, which will be treated in the next chapter.
The conception of dictatorial science or art, which I have stated as the principal point in the Politikus, appears again in the Kratylus applied to a different subject--naming, or the imposition of names.
Right and legitimate name-giving is declared to be an affair of science or art, like right and legitimate polity: it can only be performed by the competent scientific or artistic name-giver, or by the lawgiver considered in that special capacity.
The second title of the dialogue Kratylus is [Greek: Peri\ O)noma/tôn O)rtho/têtos]--On the Rectitude or legitimacy of names.
What constitutes right and legitimate Name-giving?
In like manner, we might provide a second title for the Politikus--[Greek: Peri\ Politei/as O)rtho/têtos]--On the rectitude or legitimacy of polity or sociality.
What constitutes right or legitimate sociality?
[63] Plato answers--It is the constant dictation and supervision of art or science--or of the scientific, artistic, dictator, who alone knows both the End and the means.
This alone is right and true sociality--or sociality as it ought to be.
So, if we read the Kratylus, we find Plato defining in the same way right Name-giving--or name-giving as it ought to be.
It is when each name is given by an artistic name-constructor, who discerns the Form of the name naturally suitable in each particular case, and can embody it in appropriate letters and syllables.
[64] A true or right name signifies by likeness to the thing signified.
[65] The good lawgiver discerns this likeness: but all lawgivers are not good: the bad lawgiver fancies that he discerns it, but is often mistaken.
[66] It would be the ideal perfection of language, if every name could be made to signify by likeness to the thing named.
But this cannot be realised: sufficient likenesses cannot be found to furnish an adequate stock of names.
In the absence of such best standard, we are driven to eke out language by appealing to a _second-best_, an inferior and vulgar principle approximating more or less, to rectitude--that is, custom and convention.
[67] [Footnote 63: The exact expression occurs in Politikus, pp.
293 E, 294 A.
[Greek: nu=n de\ ê)/dê phanero\n o(/ti tou=to boulêso/metha, to\ peri\ tê=s tô=n a)/neu no/môn a)rcho/ntôn o)rtho/têtos dielthei=n ê(ma=s.]
The [Greek: o)rthê/, a)lêthinê/, gnêsi/a, politei/a] are phrases employed several times--pp.
292 A-C, 293 B-E, 296 E, 297 B-D. 300 D-E: [Greek: o( a)lêthino/s, o( e)/ntechnos].
300 E: [Greek: tê\n a)lêthinê\n e)kei/nên, tê\n tou= e(no\s meta\ te/chnês a)/rchontos politei/an].
302 A-E. Plato sometimes speaks as if a bad [Greek: politei/a] were no [Greek: politei/a] at all--as if a bad [Greek: no/mos] were no [Greek: no/mos] at all.
See above, vol.
ii.
ch.
xiv.
pp.
88, where I have touched on this point in reviewing the Minos.
This is a frequent and perplexing confusion, but purely verbal.
Compare Aristotel.
Polit.
iii.
2. p. 1276, a.
1, where he deals with the like confusion--[Greek: a)=r' ei) mê\ dikai/ôs poli/tês, ou) poli/tês?]]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Kratylus, p. 388 E. [Greek: Ou)/k a)/ra panto\s a)ndro\s o)/noma the/sthai e)/stin, a)lla/ tinos o)nomatourgou/; ou(=tos d' e)/stin, ô(s e)/oiken, o( nomothe/tês, o(\s dê\ tô=n dêmiourgô=n spaniô/tatos e)n a)nthrô/pois gi/gnetai.]
Compare Politik.
p. 292 D.] [Footnote 65: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
430, 431 D, 430 C.] [Footnote 66: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
431 E, 436 B.]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 435 B-C.
So in the Protagoras (p. 328 A) we find the Platonic Protagoras comparing the self-originated and self-sustaining traditional ethics, to the traditional language--[Greek: ti/s dida/skalo/s e)sti tou= E(llêni/zein?]]
We see thus that in the Kratylus also, as well as in the Politikus, the systematic dictation of the Man of Science or Art is pronounced to be the only basis of complete rectitude.
Below this, and far short of it, yet still indispensable as a supplement in real life--is, the authority of unsystematic custom or convention; not emanating from any systematic constructive Artist, but actually established (often, no one knows how) among the community, and resting upon their common sentiment, memory, and tradition.
[Side-note: Courage and Temperance are assumed in the Politikus.
No notice taken of the doubts and difficulties raised in Lachês and Charmidês.]
This is the true Platonic point of view, considering human affairs in every department, the highest as well as the lowest, as subjects of Art and Science: specialization of attributes and subdivision of function, so that the business of governing falls to the lot of one or a few highly qualified Governors: while the social edifice is assumed to have been constructed from the beginning by one of these Governors, with a view to consistent, systematic, predetermined ends--instead of that incoherent aggregate[68] which is consecrated under the empire of law and custom.
Here in the Politikus, we read that the great purpose of the philosophical Governor is to train all the citizens into virtuous characters: by a proper combination of Courage and Temperance, two endowments naturally discordant, yet each alike essential in its proper season and measure.
The interweaving of these two forms the true Regal Web of social life.
[69] [Footnote 68:The want of coherence, or of reference to any common and distinct End, among the bundle of established [Greek: No/mima] is noted by Aristotle, Polit.
vii.
2, 1324, b.
5: [Greek: dio\ kai\ tô=n plei/stôn nomi/môn chu/dên, ô(s ei)pei=n _keime/nôn_ para\ toi=s plei/stois, o(/môs, ei)/ pou/ ti pro\s e(\n oi( no/moi ble/pousi, tou= kratei=n stocha/zontai Krê/tê| pro\s tou\s pole/mous sunte/taktai schedo\n ê)\ te paidei/a kai\ to\ tô=n no/môn plê=thos.]
Custom and education surround all prohibitions with the like sanctity--both those most essential to the common security, and those which emanate from capricious or local antipathy--in the minds of docile citizens.
[Greek: I)=so/n toi kua/mous te phagei=n, kephala/s te tokê/ôn.]
Aristotle dissents from Plato on the point of always vesting the governing functions in the same hands.
He considers such a provision dangerous and intolerable to the governed.
Aristot.
Polit.
ii.
5, 1264, b.
6.]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Polit.
p. 306 A.
[Greek: basilikê\ sumplokê/], &c. Schleiermacher in his Introduction to the Politikus (pp.
254-256) treats this [Greek: basilikê\ sumplokê\] as a poor and insignificant function, for the political Artist determined and installed by so elaborate a method and classification.
But the dialogue was already so long that Plato could not well lengthen it by going into fuller details.
Socher points out (Ueber Platon's Schrift.
p. 274) discrepancies between the Politikus on one side, and Protagoras and Gorgias on the other--which I think are really discoverable, though I do not admit the inference which he draws from them.]
Such is the concluding declaration of the accomplished Eleatic expositor, to Sokrates and the other auditors.
But this suggests to us another question, when we revert to some of the Platonic dialogues handled in the preceding pages.
What _are_ Virtue, Courage, Temperance?
In the Menon, the Platonic Sokrates had proclaimed, that he did not himself know what virtue was: that he had never seen any one else who did know: that it was impossible to say how virtue could be communicated, until you knew what virtue was--and impossible to determine any one of the parts of virtue, until virtue had been determined as a whole.
In the Charmidês, Sokrates had affirmed that he did not know what Temperance was; he then tested several explanations thereof, propounded by Charmides and Kritias: but ending only in universal puzzle and confessed ignorance.
In the Lachês, he had done the same with Courage: not without various expressions of regret for his own ignorance, and of surprise at those who talked freely about generalities which they had never probed to the bottom.
Perplexed by these doubts and difficulties--which perplexed yet more all his previous hearers, the modest beauty of Charmides and the mature dignity of Nikias and Laches--Sokrates now finds himself in presence of the Eleate, who talks about Virtue, Temperance, Courage, &c., as matters determinate and familiar.
Here then would have been the opportunity for Sokrates to reproduce all his unsolved perplexities, and to get them cleared up by the divine Stranger who is travelling on a mission of philosophy.
The third dialogue, to be called the Philosophus, which Plato promises as sequel to the Sophistês and Politikus, would have been well employed in such a work of elucidation.
[Side-note: Purpose of the difficulties in Plato's Dialogues of Search--To stimulate the intellect of the hearer.
His exposition does not give solutions.]
This, I say, is what we might have expected, if Plato had corresponded to the picture drawn by admiring commentators: if he had merely tied knots in one dialogue, in order to untie them in another.
But we find nothing of the kind, nor is such a picture of Plato correct.
The dialogue Philosophus does not exist, and probably was never written.
Respecting the embarrassments of the Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Alkibiadês I., Protagoras, Euthyphron--Sokrates says not a word--[Greek: ou)de\ gru/]--to urge them upon the attention of the Eleate: who even alludes with displeasure to contentious disputants as unfair enemies.
For the right understanding of these mysterious but familiar words--Virtue, Courage, Temperance--we are thrown back upon the common passive, unscientific, unreasoning, consciousness: or upon such measure and variety of it as each of us may have chanced to imbibe from the local atmosphere, unassisted by any special revelation from philosophy.
At any rate, the Eleate furnishes no interpretative aid.
He employs the words, as if the hearers understood them of course, without the slightest intimation that any difficulty attaches to them.
Plato himself ignores all the difficulties, when he is putting positive exposition into the mouth of the Eleate.
Puzzles and perplexities belong to the Dialogues of Search; in which they serve their purpose, if they provoke the intellect of the hearer to active meditation and effort, for the purpose of obtaining a solution.
CHAPTER XXXI.
KRATYLUS.
The dialogue entitled Kratylus presents numerous difficulties to the commentators: who differ greatly in their manner of explaining, First, What is its main or leading purpose?
Next, How much of it is intended as serious reasoning, how much as mere caricature or parody, for the purpose of exposing and reducing to absurdity the doctrines of opponents?
Lastly, who, if any, are the opponents thus intended to be ridiculed?
[Side-note: Persons and subjects of the dialogue Kratylus--Sokrates has no formed opinion, but is only a Searcher with the others.]
The subject proposed for discussion is, the rectitude or inherent propriety of names.
How far is there any natural adaptation, or special fitness, of each name to the thing named?
Two disputants are introduced who invoke Sokrates as umpire.
Hermogenes asserts the negative of the question; contending that each name is destitute of natural significance, and acquires its meaning only from the mutual agreement and habitual usage of society.
[1] Kratylus on the contrary maintains the doctrine that each name has a natural rectitude or fitness for its own significant function:--that there is an inherent bond of connection, a fundamental analogy or resemblance between each name and the thing signified.
Sokrates carries on the first part of the dialogue with Hermogenes, the last part with Kratylus.
[2] He declares more than once, that the subject is one on which he is ignorant, and has formed no conclusion: he professes only to prosecute the search for a good conclusion, conjointly with his two companions.
[3] [Footnote 1: In the arguments put into the mouth of Hermogenes, he is made to maintain two opinions which are not identical, but opposed.
1.
That names are significant by habit and convention, and not by nature.
2.
That each man may and can give any name which he pleases to any object (pp.
384-385).
The first of these two opinions is that which is really discussed here: impugned in the first half of the dialogue, conceded in the second.
It is implied that names are to serve the purpose of mutual communication and information among persons living in society; which purpose they would not serve if each individual gave a different name to the same object.
The second opinion is therefore not a consequence of the first, but an implied contradiction of the first.
He who says that the names Horse and Dog are significant by convention, will admit that at the outset they might have been inverted in point of signification; but he will not say that any individual may invert them at pleasure, now that they are established.
The purposes of naming would no longer be answered, if this were done.]
[Footnote 2: The question between Hermogenes and Kratylus was much debated among the philosophers and literary men throughout antiquity (Aul.
Gell.
x.
4).
Origen says (contra Celsum, i. c. 24)--[Greek: lo/gos bathu\s kai\ a)po/r)r(êtos o( peri\ phu/seôs o)noma/tôn, po/teron, ô(s oi)/etai A)ristote/lês, the/sei ei)=nai ta\ o)no/mata, ê)\, ô(s nomi/zousin oi( a)po\ tê=s Stoa=s, phu/sei.]
Aristotle assumes the question in favour of [Greek: the/sei], in his treatise De Interpretatione, without any reasoning, against the Platonic Kratylus; but his commentators, Ammonius and Boethius, note the controversy as one upon which eminent men in antiquity were much divided.
Plato connects his opinion, that names have a natural rectitude of signification, with his general doctrine of self-existent, archetypal, Forms or Ideas.
The Stoics, and others who defended the same opinion afterwards, seem to have disconnected it from this latter doctrine.]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
384 C, 391 A.]
[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates against Hermogenes--all proceedings of nature are conducted according to fixed laws--speaking and naming among the rest.]
Sokrates, refuting Hermogenes, lays down the following doctrines.
[4] If propositions are either true or false, names, which are parts of propositions, must be true or false also.
[5] Every thing has its own fixed and determinate essence, not relative to us nor varying according to our fancy or pleasure, but existing _per se_ as nature has arranged.
[6] All agencies either by one thing upon other things, or by other things upon it, are in like manner determined by nature, independent of our will and choice.
If we intend to cut or burn any substance, we must go to work, not according to our own pleasure, but in the manner that nature prescribes: by attempting to do it contrary to nature, we shall do it badly or fail altogether.
[7] Now _speaking_ is one of these agencies, and _naming_ is a branch of _speaking_: what is true of other agencies is true of these also--we must name things, not according to our own will and pleasure, but in the way that nature prescribes that they shall be named.
[8] Farther, each agency must be performed by its appropriate instrument: cutting by the axe, boring by the gimlet, weaving by the bodkin.
The name is the instrument of naming, whereby we communicate information and distinguish things from each other.
It is a didactic instrument: to be employed well, it must be in the hands of a properly qualified person for the purpose of teaching.
[9] Not every man, but only the professional craftsman, is competent to fabricate the instruments of cutting and weaving.
In like manner, not every man is competent to make a name: no one is competent except the lawgiver or the gifted name-maker, the rarest of all existing artists.
[10] [Footnote 4: Aristot.
De Interpretat.
ii.
1-2: [Greek: O)/noma me\n ou)=n e)sti\ phônê\ sêmantikê\ kata\ sunthê/kên a)/neu chro/nou .
.
.
to\ de\ kata\ sunthê/kên, o(/ti phu/sei tô=n o)noma/tôn ou)de/n e)stin], &c. This is the same doctrine which Plato puts into the mouth of Hermogenes (Kratylus, p. 384 E), and which Sokrates himself, in the latter half of the dialogue, admits as true to a large extent: that is, he admits that names are significant [Greek: kata\ sunthê/kên], though he does not deny that they are or may be significant [Greek: phu/sei].
[Greek: To\ a)po\ tau)toma/tou] (p. 397 A) is another phrase for expressing the opinion opposed to [Greek: o)noma/tôn o)rtho/tês].]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 385.
Here too, Aristotle affirms the contrary: he says (with far more exactness than Plato) that propositions alone are true or false; and that a name taken by itself is neither.
(De Interpret.
i.
2.)
The mistake of Plato in affirming Names to be true or false, is analogous to that which we read in the Philêbus, where Pleasures are distinguished as true and false.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 386 D. [Greek: dê=lon dê\ o(/ti au)ta\ au(tô=n ou)si/an e)/chonta/ tina be/baio/n e)sti ta\ pra/gmata, ou) pro\s ê(ma=s ou)de\ u(ph' ê(mô=n, e)lko/mena a)/nô kai\ ka/tô tô=| ê(mete/rô| phanta/smati, a)lla\ kath' au(ta\ pro\s tê\n au(tôn ou)si/an e)/chonta ê(=|per pe/phuken.]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 387 A.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 387 C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\ to\ o)noma/zein pra=xis ti/s e)stin, ei)/per kai\ to\ le/gein pra=xis tis ê)=n peri\ ta\ pra/gmata?
.
.
.
Ai( de\ pra/xeis e)pha/nêsan ê(mi=n ou) pro\s ê(ma=s ou)=sai, a)ll' au(tô=n tina i)di/an phu/sin e)/chousai?
.
.
.
Ou)kou=n kai\ o)nomaste/on ê(=| pe/phuke ta\ pra/gmata o)noma/zein te kai\ o)noma/zesthai, kai\ ô(=|, a)ll' ou)ch ê(=| a)\n ê(mei=s boulêthô=men, ei)/per ti toi=s e)/mprosthen me/llei o(mologou/menon ei)=nai?
kai\ ou(/tô me\n a)\n ple/on ti poioi=men kai\ o)noma/zoimen, a)/llôs de\ ou)/?]
Speaking and naming are regarded by Plato as acts whereby the thing (spoken of or) named is acted upon or suffers.
So in the Sophistês (p. 248) he considers Knowing as an act performed, whereby the thing known suffers.
Deuschle (Die Platonische Sprach-philosophie, p. 59, Marpurg.
1859) treats this comparison made by Plato between naming and material agencies, as if it were mere banter--and even indifferent banter.
Schleiermacher in his note thinks it seriously meant and Platonic; and I fully agree with him (Schl.
p.
456).]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 388 C. [Greek: O)/noma a)/ra didaskaliko/n ti/ e)stin o)/rganon, kai\ diakritiko\n tê=s ou)si/as, ô(/sper kerki\s u(pha/smatos.]
See Boethius ap.
Schol.
ad Aristot.
Interp.
p. 108, a.
40.
Aristotle (De Interpr.
iv.
3) says: [Greek: e)/sti de\ lo/gos a(/pas me\n sêmantiko/s, ou)ch ô(s o)/rganon de/, a)lla\ kata\ sunthê/kên.]
Several even of the Platonic critics consider Plato's choice of the metaphor [Greek: o)/rganon] as inappropriate: but modern writers on logic and psychology often speak of names as "_instruments_ of thought".]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 389 A.
[Greek: o( nomothe/tês, o(\s dê\ tô=n dêmiourgô=n spaniô/tatos e)n a)nthrô=pois gi/gnetai.]]
[Side-note: The name is a didactic instrument; fabricated by the law-giver upon the type of the Name-Form, and employed as well as appreciated, by the philosopher.]
To what does the lawgiver look when he frames a name?
Compare the analogy of other instruments.
The artisan who constructs a bodkin or shuttle for weaving, has present to his mind as a model, the Idea or Form of the bodkin--the self-existent bodkin of Nature herself.
If a broken shuttle is to be replaced, it is this Idea or type, not the actual broken instrument, which he seeks to copy.
Whatever may be the variety of web for which the shuttle is destined, he modifies the new instrument accordingly: but all of them must embody the Form or Idea of the shuttle.
He cannot choose another type according to his own pleasure: he must embody the type, prescribed by nature, in the iron, wood, or other material of which the instrument is made.
[11] [Footnote 11: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 389 B-C. [Greek: au)to\ o( e)/sti kerki/s .
.
.
pa/sas me\n dei= to\ tê=s kerki/dos e)/chein ei)=dos .
.
.
ou)ch oi(=on a)\n au)to\s boulê/thê, a)ll' oi(=on e)pephu/kei.]]
So about names: the lawgiver, in distributing names, must look to the Idea, Form, or type--the self-existent name of Nature--and must embody this type, as it stands for each different thing, in appropriate syllables.
The syllables indeed may admit of great variety, just as the material of which the shuttle is made may be diversified: but each aggregate of syllables, whether Hellenic or barbaric, must embody the essential Name-Idea or Type.
[12] The lawgiver[13] ought to know, enumerate, and classify all the sorts of things on the one hand, and all the varieties of letters or elements of language on the other; distinguishing the special significative power belonging to each letter.
He ought then to construct his words, and adapt each to signify that with which it is naturally connected.
Who is to judge whether this process has been well or ill performed?
Upon that point, the judge is, the professional man who uses the instrument.
It is for the working weaver to decide whether the shuttle given to him is well or ill made.
To have a good ship and rudder, it must be made by a professional builder, and appreciated by a professional pilot or steersman.
In like manner, the names constructed by the lawgiver must be appreciated by the man who is qualified by training or study to use names skilfully: that is, by the dialectician or philosopher, competent to ask and answer questions.
[14] [Footnote 12: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
389 D, 390 A.
[Greek: to\ e(ka/stô| phu/sei pephuko\s o)/noma to\n nomothe/tên e)kei=non ei)s tou\s phtho/ggous kai\ ta\s sullaba\s dei= e)pi/stasthai tithe/nai, kai\ ble/ponta _pro\s au)to\ e)kei=no o(\ e)/stin o)/noma_, pa/nta ta\ o)no/mata poiei=n te kai\ ti/thesthai, _ei) me/llei ku/rios ei)=nai o)noma/tôn the/tês_.
.
.
.
Ou(/tôs a)xiô/seis kai\ to\n nomothe/tên to/n te e)ntha/de kai\ to\n e)n toi=s barba/rois, e(/ôs a)\n to\ _tou= o)no/matos ei)=dos_ a)podidô=| _to\ prosê=kon e(ka/stô| e)n o(poiaisou=n sullabai=s_, ou)de\n chei/rô nomothe/tên ei)=nai to\n e)ntha/de ê)\ to\n o(pouou=n a)/llothi?]]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 424 D-E.] [Footnote 14: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 390 C.] [Side-note: Names have an intrinsic aptitude for signifying one thing and not another.]
It is the fact then, though many persons may think it ridiculous, that names--or the elementary constituents and letters, of which names are composed--have each an intrinsic and distinctive aptitude, fitting them to signify particular things.
[15] Names have thus a standard with reference to which they are correct or incorrect.
If they are to be correct, they cannot be given either by the freewill of an ordinary individual, or even by the convention of all society.
They can be affixed only by the skilled lawgiver, and appreciated only by the skilled dialectician.
[Footnote 15: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
425-426.]
[Side-note: Forms of Names, as well as Forms of things nameable--essence of the Nomen, to signify the Essence of its Nominatum.]
Such is the theory here laid down by Sokrates respecting Names.
It is curious as illustrating the Platonic vein of speculation.
It enlarges to an extreme point Plato's region of the absolute and objective.
Not merely each thing named, but each name also, is in his view an Ens absolutum; not dependent upon human choice--not even relative (so he alleges) to human apprehension.
Each name has its own self-existent Idea, Form, or Type, the reproduction or copy of which is imperative.
The Platonic intelligible world included Ideas of things, and of names correlative to them: just as it included Ideas of master and slave correlative to each other.
It contained Noumena of names, as well as Noumena of things.
[16] The essence of the name was, to be significant of the essence of the thing named: though such significance admitted of diversity, multiplication, or curtailment, in the letters or syllables wherein it was embodied.
[17] The name became significant, by imitation or resemblance: that name was right, the essence of which imitated the essence of the thing named.
[18] The vocal mimic imitates sounds, the painter imitates the colours: the name-giver imitates in letters or syllables, the essence of colours, sounds, and every thing else which is nameable.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 133 E.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
393 D, 432.]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 422 D. [Greek: tô=n o)noma/tôn ê( o)rtho/tês toiau/tê tis e)bou/leto ei)=nai, oi(=a dêlou=n oi(=on e(/kasto/n e)sti tô=n o)/ntôn.]
--423 D: [Greek: ou) kai\ _ou)si/a dokei=_ soi ei)=nai e(ka/stô|, ô(/sper kai\ chrô=ma kai\ a(\ nu=n dê\ e)le/gomen?
prô=ton au)tô=| tô=| chrô/mati kai\ tê=| phônê=| ou)k e)/stin ou)si/a tis e(kate/rô| au)tô=n kai\ toi=s a)/llois pa=sin, _o(/sa êxi/ôtai tau/tês tê=s prosrê/seôs tou= ei)=nai?_ .
.
.
Ti/ ou)=n?
** ei)/ tis au)to\ tou=to mimei=sthai du/naito, e(ka/stou** tê\n ou)si/an, gra/mmasi/ te kai\ sullabai=s, a)=r' ou)k a)\n dêloi= e(/kaston o(\ e)/stin?]
Compare p. 433.
The story given by Herodotus (ii.
2) about the experiment made by the Egyptian king Psammetichus, is curious.
He wished to find out whether the Egyptians or the Phrygians were the oldest or first of mankind: he accordingly caused two children to be brought up without having a word spoken to them, with a view to ascertain what language they would come to by nature.
At the age of two years they uttered the Phrygian word signifying _bread_.
Psammetichus was then satisfied that the Phrygians were the first of mankind.
This story undoubtedly proceeds upon the assumption that there is one name which naturally suggests itself for each object.
But when M. Renan says that the assumption is the same "as Plato has developed with so much subtlety in the Kratylus," I do not agree with him.
The Absolute Name-Form or Essence, discernible only by the technical Lawgiver, is something very different.
See M. Renan, De l'Origine du Langage, ch.
vi.
p. 146, 2nd ed.]
Another point here is peculiar to Plato.
The Name-Giver must provide names such as can be used with effect by the dialectician or philosopher: who is the sole competent judge whether the names have genuine rectitude or not.
[19] We see from hence that the aspirations of Plato went towards a philosophical language fit for those who conversed with forms or essences: something like (to use modern illustrations) a technical nomenclature systematically constructed for the expositions of men of science: such as that of Chemistry, Botany, Mineralogy, &c. Assuredly no language actually spoken among men, has ever been found suitable for this purpose without much artificial help.
[20] [Footnote 19: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 390 D. Respecting the person called [Greek: o( dialektiko/s], whom Plato describes as grasping Ideas, or Forms, Essences, and employing nothing else in his reasoning--[Greek: lo/gon didou\s kai\ lamba/nôn tê=s ou)si/as]--see Republic, vi.
p. 511 B, vii.
pp.
533-534-537 C.] [Footnote 20: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 426 A.
[Greek: o( peri\ o)noma/tôn techniko/s], &c.] [Side-note: Exclusive competence of a privileged lawgiver, to discern these essences, and to apportion names rightly.]
As this theory of naming is a deduction from Plato's main doctrine of absolute or self-existing Ideas, so it also illustrates (to repeat what was said in the last chapter) his recognition of professional skill and of competence vested exclusively in a gifted One or Few: which he ranks as the sole producing cause of Good or the Best, setting it in contrast with those two causes which he considers as productive of Evil, or at any rate of the Inferior or Second-Best: 1.
The One or Few, who are ungifted and unphilosophical: perhaps ambitious pretenders.
2.
The spontaneous, unbespoken inspirations, conventions, customs, or habits, which grow up without formal mandate among the community.
To find the right name of each thing, is no light matter, nor within the competence of any one or many ordinary men.
It can only be done by one of the few privileged lawgivers.
Plato even glances at the necessity of a superhuman name-giver: though he deprecates the supposition generally, as a mere evasion or subterfuge, introduced to escape the confession of real ignorance.
[21] [Footnote 21: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
397, 425, 438.]
[Side-note: Counter-Theory, which Sokrates here sets forth and impugns--the Protagorean doctrine--Homo Mensura.]
In laying down the basis of his theory respecting names, Plato states another doctrine as opposed to it: _viz._, the Protagorean doctrine--Man is the Measure of all things.
I have already said something about this doctrine, in reviewing the Theætêtus, where Plato impugns it: but as he here impugns it again, by arguments in part different--a few words more will not be misplaced.
The doctrine of Protagoras maintains that all things are relative to the percipient, cogitant, concipient, mind: that all Object is implicated with a Subject: that as things appear to me, so they are to me--as they appear to you, so they are to you.
Plato denies this, and says: "All things have a fixed essence of their own, absolutely and in themselves, not relative to any percipient or cogitant--nor dependent upon any one's appreciative understanding, or emotional susceptibility, or will.
Things are so and so, without reference to us as sentient or cogitant beings: and not only the things are thus independent and absolute, but all their agencies are so likewise--agencies either by them or upon them.
Cutting, burning, speaking, naming, &c., must be performed in a certain determinate way, whether we prefer it or not.
A certain Name belongs, by Nature or absolutely, to a certain thing, whether we choose it or not: it is not relative to any adoption by us, either individually or collectively."
This Protagorean theory is here set forth by the Platonic Sokrates as the antithesis or counter-theory, to that which he is himself advancing, _viz._--That Names are significant by nature and not by agreement of men:--That each Nomen is tied to its Nominatum by a natural and indissoluble bond.
His remarks imply, that those who do not accept this last-mentioned theory must agree with Protagoras.
But such an antithesis is noway necessary: since (not to speak of Hermogenes himself in this very dialogue) we find also that Aristotle--who maintains that Names are significant by convention and not by nature--dissents also from the theory of Protagoras: and would have rested his dissent from it on very different grounds.
[Side-note: Objection by Sokrates--That Protagoras puts all men on a level as to wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance.]
This will show us--what I have already remarked in commenting on the Theætêtus--that Plato has not been very careful in appreciating the real bearing of the Protagorean doctrine.
He impugns it here by the same argument which we also read in the Theætêtus.
"Everyone admits" (he says) "that there are some men wise and good--others foolish and wicked.
Now if you admit this, you disallow the Protagorean doctrine.
If I contend that as things appear to me, so they truly are to me--as things appear to you or to him, so they truly are to you or to him--I cannot consistently allow that any one man is wiser than any other.
Upon such a theory, all men are put upon the same level of knowledge or ignorance."
But the premisses of Plato here do not sustain his inference.
[Side-note: Objection unfounded--What the Protagorean theory really affirms--Belief always relative to the believer's mind.]
The Protagorean doctrine is, when stated in its most general terms,--That every man is and must be his own measure of truth or falsehood--That what appears to him true, _is true to him_, however it may appear to others--That he cannot by any effort step out of or beyond his own individual belief conviction, knowledge--That all his Cognita, Credita, Percepta, Cogitata, &c., imply himself as Cognoscens, Credens, Percipiens, Cogitans, inseparably and indivisibly--That in affirming an object, he himself is necessarily present as affirming subject, and that Object and Subject are only two sides of the same indivisible fact[22]--That though there are some matters which all men agree in believing, there is no criterion at once infallible and universally recognised, in matters where they dissent: moreover, the matters believed are just as much relative where all agree, as where some disagree.
[Footnote 22: M. Destutt Tracy observes, Logique, ch.
ix.
p. 347, ed.
1825: "En effet, on ne saurait trop le redire, chacun de nous, et même tout être animé quelconque, est pour lui-même le centre de tout.
Il ne perçoit par un sentiment direct et une conscience intime, que ce qui affecte et émeut sa sensibilité.
Il ne conçoit et ne connaît son existence que par ce qu'il sent, et celle des autres êtres que parce qu'ils lui font sentir.
Il n'y a de réel pour lui que ses perceptions, ses affections, ses idées: et tout ce qu'il peut jamais savoir, n'est toujours que des consequences et des combinaisons de ces premières perceptions ou idees."
The doctrine of the Sceptical philosophers, is explicitly announced by Sextus Empiricus as his personal belief: that which appears true to him, as far as his enquiry had reached.
The passage deserves to be cited.
Sextus Empir.
Pyrrh.
Hypotyp.
i. Sect.
197-199.
[Greek: O(/tan ou)=n ei)/pê| o( skeptiko\s "_ou)de\n o(ri/zô_" .
.
.
tou=to/ phêsi le/gôn to\ _e(autô=| phaino/menon peri\ tô=n prokeime/nôn_, ou)k a)paggeltikô=s, meta\ pepoithê/seôs a)pophaino/menos, a)ll' o(\ pa/schei, diêgou/menos.
.
.
.
Kai\ ô(/sper o(le/gôn "_peripatô=_," ou(/tôs o( le/gôn "_pa/nta e)sti\n a)o/rista_" sussêmai/nei kath' ê(ma=s to\ ô(s _pro\s e)me ê)\ ô(s e)moi\ phai/netai_; ô(s ei)=nai to\ lego/menon toiou=ton "o(/sa e)pêlthon tô=n dogmatikô=s zêtoume/nôn, toiau=ta/ moi phai/netai_, ô(s mêde\n au)tô=n tou= machome/nou prou)/chein moi\ dokei=n kata\ pi/stin ê)\ a)pisti/an".]]
[Side-note: Each man believes others to be wiser on various points than himself--Belief on authority--not inconsistent with the affirmation of Protagoras.]
This doctrine is not refuted by the fact, that every man believes others to be wiser than himself on various points.
A man is just as much a measure to himself when he acts upon the advice of others, or believes a fact upon the affirmation of others, as when he judges upon his own unassisted sense or reasoning.
He is a measure to himself when he agrees with others, as much as when he disagrees with them.
Opinions of others, or facts attested by others, may count as materials determining his judgment; but the judgment is and must be his own.
The larger portion of every man's knowledge rests upon the testimony of others; nevertheless the facts thus reported become portions of _his_ knowledge, generating conclusions _in him_ and relatively _to him_.
I believe the narrative of travellers, respecting parts of the globe which I have never seen: I adopt the opinion of A a lawyer, and of B a physician, on matters which I have not studied: I understand facts which I did not witness, from the description of those who did witness them.
In all these cases the act of adoption is my own, and the grounds of belief are relative to my state of mind.
Another man may mistrust completely the authorities which I follow: just as I mistrust the authority of Mahomet or Confucius, or various others, regarded as infallible by a large portion of mankind.
The grounds of belief are to a certain extent similar, to a certain extent dissimilar, in different men's minds.
Authority is doubtless a frequent ground of belief; but it is essentially variable and essentially relative to the believer.
Plato himself, in many passages, insists emphatically upon the dissensions in mankind respecting the question--"_Who are_ the good and wise men?"
He tells us that the true philosopher is accounted by the bulk of mankind foolish and worthless.
[Side-note: Analogy of physical processes (cutting and burning) appealed to by Sokrates--does not sustain his inference against Protagoras.]
In the Kratylus, Sokrates says (and I agree with him) that there are laws of nature respecting the processes of cutting and burning: and that any one who attempts to cut or burn in a way unconformable to those laws, will fail in his purpose.
This is true, but it proves nothing against Protagoras.
It is an appeal to a generalization from physical facts, resting upon experience and induction--upon sensation and inference which we and others, Protagoras as well as Plato, have had, and which we believe to be common to all.
We know this fact, or have a full and certain conviction of it; but we are not brought at all nearer to the Absolute (_i.e._, to the Object without Subject) which Plato's argument requires.
The analogy rather carries us away from the Absolute: for cutting and burning, with their antecedent conditions, are facts of sense: and Plato himself admits, to a great extent, that the facts of sense are relative.
All experience and induction, and all belief founded thereupon, are essentially relative.
The experience may be one common to all mankind, and upon which all are unanimous:[23] but it is not the less relative to each individual of the multitude.
What is relative to all, continues to be relative to each: the fact that all sentient individuals are in this respect alike, does not make it cease to be relative, and become absolute.
What I see and hear in the theatre is relative to me, though it may at the same time be relative to ten thousand other spectators, who are experiencing like sensations.
Where all men think or believe alike, it may not be necessary for common purposes to distinguish the multiplicity of individual thinking subjects: yet the subjects are nevertheless multiple, and the belief, knowledge, or fact, is relative to each of them, whether all agree, or whether beliefs are many and divergent.
We cannot suppress ourselves as sentient or cogitant subjects, nor find any _locus standi_ for Object pure and simple, apart from the ground of relativity.
And the Protagorean dictum brings to view these subjective conditions, as being essential, no less than the objective, to belief and disbelief.
[Footnote 23: Proklus, in his Scholia on the Kratylus, p. 32, ed.
Boisson, cites the argument used by Aristotle against Plato on this very subject of names--[Greek: _ta\ me\n phu/sei, para\ pa=si ta\ au)ta/_; ta\ de\ o)no/mata ou) para\ pa=si ta\ au)ta/; ô/ste ta\ phu/sei o)/nta ou)/k e)stin o)no/mata, kai\ ta\ o)no/mata ou)k ei)si phu/sei.]
Ammonius ad Aristot.
De Interpretat.
p. 100, a.
28, Schol.
Bekk.
Sextus Empiricus adv.
Mathemat.
i.
145-147, p. 247, Fab.
Plato had assimilated naming to cutting and burning.
Aristotle denies the analogy: he says that cutting and burning are the same to all, or _are by nature_: naming is not the same to all, and is therefore not by nature.
We find here the test pointed out to distinguish what _is by nature_ (that which Plato calls the [Greek: ou)si/an be/baion tô=n pragma/tôn]--p. 386 E),--_viz._ That it is the same to all or among all.
What it is to one individual, it is to another also.
There are a multitude of different judging subjects, but no dissentient subjects: myself, and in my belief all other subjects, are affected alike.
This is the true and real Objective: a particular fact of sense, where Subject is not eliminated altogether, but becomes a constant quantity, and therefore escapes separate notice.
An Objective _absolute_ (_i.e._, without Subject altogether) is an impossibility.
In the Aristotelian sense of [Greek: phu/sei], it would be correct to say that Language, or Naming _in genere_, is natural to man.
No human society has yet been found without some language--some names--some speech employed and understood by each individual member.
But many different varieties of speech will serve the purpose, not indeed with equal perfection, yet tolerably: enough to enable a society to get on.
The uniformity ([Greek: to\ phu/sei]) here ceases.
To a certain extent, the objects and agencies which are named, are the same in all societies: to a certain extent different.
If we were acquainted with all the past facts respecting the different languages which have existed or do exist on the globe, we should be able to assign the reason which brought each particular _Nomen_ into association with its _Nominatum_.
But this past history is lost.]
[Side-note: Reply of Protagoras to the Platonic objections.]
Protagoras would have agreed with Plato as to combustion--that there were certain antecedent conditions under which he fully expected it, and certain other conditions under which he expected with confidence that it would not occur.
Only he would have declared this (assuming him to speak conformably to his own theory) to be his own full belief and conviction, derived from certain facts and comparisons of sense, which he also _knew_ to be shared by most other persons.
He would have pronounced farther, that those who held opposite opinions were in his judgment wrong: but he would have recognised that their opinion was true to themselves, and that their belief must be relative to causes operating upon _their_ minds.
Farthermore, he would have pointed out, that combustion itself, with its antecedents, were facts of sense, relative to individual sentients and observers, remembering and comparing what they had observed.
This would have been the testimony of Protagoras (always assuming him to speak in conformity with his own theory), but it would not have satisfied Plato: who would have required a peremptory, absolute affirmation, discarding all relation to observers or observed facts, and leaving no scope for error or fallibility.
[Side-note: Sentiments of Belief and Disbelief, common to all men--Grounds of belief and disbelief, different with different men and different ages.]
Those who agree with Plato on this question, impugn the doctrine of Protagoras as effacing all real, intrinsic, distinction between truth and falsehood.
Such objectors make it a charge against Protagoras, that he does not erect his own mind into a peremptory and infallible measure for all other minds.
[24] He expressly recognises the distinction, so far as his own mind is concerned: he admits that other men recognise it also, each for himself.
Nevertheless, to say that all men recognise one and the same objective distinction between truth and falsehood, would be to contradict palpable facts.
Each man has a standard, an ideal of truth in his own mind: but different men have different standards.
The grounds of belief, though in part similar with all men, are to a great extent dissimilar also: they are dissimilar even with the same man, at different periods of his life and circumstances.
What all men have in common is the feeling of belief and the feeling of disbelief: the matters believed or disbelieved, as well as the ideal standard to which any new matter presented for belief or disbelief is referred, differ considerably.
By rational discussion--by facts and reasonings set forth on both sides, as in the Platonic dialogues--opinions may be overthrown or modified: dissentients may be brought into agreement, or at least each may be rendered more fully master of the case on both sides.
But this dialectic, the Platonic question and answer, is itself an appeal to the free action of the individual mind.
The questioner starts from premisses conceded by the respondent.
He depends upon the acquiescence of the respondent for every step taken in advance.
Such a proceeding is relative, not absolute: coinciding with the Protagorean formula rather than with the Platonic negation of it.
[25] No man ever claimed the right of individual judgment more emphatically than Sokrates: no man was ever more special in adapting his persuasions to the individual persons with whom he conversed.
[Footnote 24: To illustrate the impossibility of obtaining any standard absolute and purely objective, without reference to any judging Subject, I had transcribed a passage from Steinthal's work on the Classification of Human languages; but I find it too long for a note.
Steinthal, Charakteristik der Hauptsächlichen Typen des Sprachbaues, 2nd ed.
Berlin, 1860, pp.
313-314-315.]
[Footnote 25: See the striking passages in the Gorgias, pp.
472 B, 474 B, 482 B; Theætêtus, p. 171 D. Also in proclaiming the necessity of specialty of adaptation to individual minds--Plat.
Phædr.
pp.
271-272, 277 B.]
[Side-note: Protagoras did not affirm, that Belief depended upon the will or inclination of each individual but that it was relative to the circumstances of each individual mind.]
The grounds of belief, according to Protagoras, relative to the individual, are not the same with all men at all times.
But it does not follow (nor does Protagoras appear to have asserted) that they vary according to the _will_ or _inclination_ of the individual.
Plato, in impugning this doctrine, reasons as if these two things were one and the same--as if, according to Protagoras, a man believed whatever he chose.
[26] This, however, is not an exact representation of the doctrine "Homo Mensura": which does not assert the voluntary or the arbitrary, but simply the relative as against the absolute.
What a man believes does not depend upon his own will or choice: it depends upon an aggregate of circumstances, partly peculiar to himself, partly common to him with other persons more or fewer in number:[27] upon his age, organisation, and temperament--his experience, education, historical and social position--his intellectual powers and acquirements--his passions and sentiments of every kind, &c. These and other ingredients--analogous, yet neither the same nor combined in the same manner, even in different individuals of the same time and country, much less in those of different times and countries--compose the aggregate determining grounds of belief or disbelief in every one.
Each man has in his mind an ideal standard of truth and falsehood: but that ideal standard, never exactly the same in any two men, nor in the same man at all times, often varies in different men to a prodigious extent.
Now it is to this standard in the man's own mind that those reasoners refer who maintain that belief is relative.
They do not maintain, that it is relative simply to his wishes, or that he believes and disbelieves what he chooses.
[Footnote 26: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
387-389, where [Greek: pro\s ê(ma=s] is considered as equivalent to [Greek: ô(s a)\n ê(mei=s boulô/metha--ê(=| a)\n ê(mei=s boulê/thômen]--both of them being opposed to [Greek: oi(=on e)pephu/kei--to\ kata\ phu/sin--i)di/an au)tô=n phu/sin e)/chousai.]
The error here noted is enumerated by by Mr. John Stuart Mill, among the specimens of Fallacies of Confusion, in his System of Logic, Book v. ch.
vii.
§ 1: "The following is an argument of Descartes to prove, in his _à priori_ manner, the being of a God.
The conception, says he, of an infinite Being proves the real existence of such a Being.
For if there is not really any such Being, _I_ must have made the conception: but if I could make it, I can also unmake it--which evidently is not true: therefore there must be, externally to myself, an archetype from which the conception was derived.
In this argument (which, it may be observed, would equally prove the real existence of ghosts and of witches) the ambiguity is in the pronoun _I_; by which, in one place, is to be understood _my will_--in another, the _laws of my nature_.
If the conception, existing as it does in my mind, had no original without, the conclusion would unquestionably follow that _I_ made it--that is, the laws of my nature must have somehow evolved it: but that _my will_ made it, would not follow.
Now when Descartes afterwards adds that I cannot unmake the conception, he means that I cannot get rid of it by an act of my will--which is true, but is not the proposition required.
I can as much unmake this conception as I can any other: no conception which I have once had, can I ever dismiss by mere volition: but what some of the laws of my nature have produced, other laws, or those same laws in other circumstances, may, and often do, subsequently efface."]
[Footnote 27: To show how constantly this Protagorean dictum is misconceived, as if Protagoras had said that things were to each individual what he was pleased or chose to represent them as being, I transcribe the following passage from Lassalle's elaborate work on Herakleitus (vol.
ii.
p. 381):--"Des Protagoras Prinzip ist es, dass überhaupt Nichts Objektives ist; dass vielmehr alles Beliebige was Einem scheint, auch für ihn sei.
Dies Selbstsetzen des Subjekts ist die einzige Wahrheit der Dinge, welche an sich selbst Nichts Objektives haben, sondern zur gleichgültigen Fläche geworden sind, auf die das Subjekt willkührlich und beliebig seine Charaktere schreibt."
Protagoras does not (as is here asserted) deny the Objective: he only insists on looking at it in conjunction with, or measured by, some Subject; and that Subject, not simply as desiring or preferring, but clothed in all its attributes.]
[Side-note: Facts of sense--some are the same to all sentient subjects, others are different to different subjects.
Grounds of unanimity.]
When Plato says that combustibility and secability of objects are properties fixed and determinate,[28] this is perfectly true, as meaning that a certain proportion of the facts of sense affect in the same way the sentient and appreciative powers of each individual, determining the like belief in every man who has ever experienced them.
Measuring and weighing are sensible facts of this character: seen alike by all, and conclusive proofs to all.
But this implies, to a certain point, fundamental uniformity in the individual sentients and judges.
Where such condition is wanting--where there is a fundamental difference in the sensible apprehension manifested by different individuals--the unanimity is wanting also.
Such is the case in regard to colours and other sensations: witness the peculiar vision of Dalton and many others.
The unanimity in the first case, the discrepancy in the second, is alike an aggregate of judgments, each individual, distinct, and relative.
You pronounce an opponent to be in error: but if you cannot support your opinion by evidence or authority which satisfies _his_ senses or _his_ reason, he remains unconvinced.
Your individual opinion stands good _to you_; his opinion stands good _to him_.
You think that he ought to believe as you do, and in certain cases you feel persuaded that he will be brought to that result by future experience, which of course must be relative to him and to his appreciative powers.
He entertains the like persuasion in regard to you.
[Footnote 28: When Plato asserts not only that Objects are absolute and not relative to any Subject--but that the agencies or properties of Objects are also absolute--he carries the doctrine farther than modern defenders of the absolute.
M. Cousin, in the eighth and ninth Lectures of his Cours d'Hist.
de la Philosophie Morale au 18me Siècle, lays down the contrary, maintaining that objects and essences alone are absolute, though unknowable; but that their agencies are relative and knowable.
"Nous savons qu'il exists quelque chose hors de nous, parceque nous ne pouvons expliquer nos perceptions sans les rattacher à des causes distinctes de nous mêmes: nous savons de plus que ces causes, dont nous ne connaissons pas d'ailleurs l'essence, _produisent les effets les plus variables, les plus divers, et même les plus contraires, selon qu'elles rencontrent telle nature ou telle disposition du sujet._ Mais savons-nous quelque chose de plus?
et même, vu le caractère indéterminé des causes que nous concevons dans les corps, y-a-t-il quelque chose de plus à savoir?
Y-a-t-il lieu de nous enquérir si nous percevons _les choses telles qu'elles sont?
Non, évidemment.
.
.
Je ne dis pas que le problème est insoluble: je dis qu'il est absurde, et renferme une contradiction._ Nous ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en elles-mêmes, et la raison nous défend de chercher à les connaître: mais il est bien évident _à priori_ qu'elles ne sont pas en elles-mêmes ce qu'elles sont par rapport à nous, _puisque la présence du sujet modifie nécessairement leur action_.
Supprimez tout sujet sentant, il est certain que ces causes agiraient encore, puisqu'elles continueraient d'exister: mais elles agiraient autrement; elles seraient encore des qualités et des propriétés, mais qui ne ressembleraient à rien de ce que nous connaissons.
Le feu ne manifesterait plus aucune des propriétés que nous lui connaissons: que serait-il?
C'est ce que nous ne saurons jamais.
C'est d'ailleurs peut-être un problème qui ne répugne pas seulement à la nature de notre esprit mais à l'essence même des choses.
Quand même en effet on supprimerait par la pensée tous les sujets sentants, il faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne manifesterait ses propriétés autrement qu'en relation avec un sujet quelconque, et dans ce cas _ses propriétés ne seraient encore que relatives_: en sorte qu'il me paraît fort raisonnable d'admettre que les propriétés déterminées des corps _n'existent pas indépendamment d'un sujet quelconque_."
(2de Partie, 8me Leçon, pp.
216-218, ed.
Danton et Vacherot, Bruxelles, 1841.)]
* * * * * [Side-note: Sokrates exemplifies his theory of the Absolute Name or the Name-Form.
He attempts to show the inherent rectitude of many existing names.
His etymological transitions.]
It is thus that Sokrates, in the first half of the Kratylus, lays down his general theory that names have a natural and inherent propriety: and that naming is a process which cannot be performed except in one way.
He at the same time announces that his theory rests upon a principle opposed to the "Homo Mensura" of Protagoras.
He then proceeds to illustrate his doctrine by exemplification of many particular names, which are alleged to manifest a propriety of signification in reference to the persons or matters to which they are applied.
Many of these are proper names, but some are common names or appellatives.
Plato regards the proper names as illustrating, even better than the common, the doctrine of inherent rectitude in naming: especially the names of the Gods, with respect to the use of which Plato was himself timidly scrupulous--and the names reported by Homer as employed by the Gods themselves.
We must remember that nearly all Grecian proper names had some meaning: being compounds or derivatives from appellative nouns.
The proper names are mostly names of Gods or Heroes: then follow the names of the celestial bodies (conceived as Gods), of the elements, of virtues and vices, &c. All of them, however, both the proper and the common names, are declared to be compound, or derivative; presupposing other simple and primitive names from which they are formed.
[29] Sokrates declares the fundamental theory on which the primitive roots rest; and indicates the transforming processes, whereby many of the names are deduced or combined from their roots.
But these processes, though sometimes reasonable enough, are in a far greater number of instances forced, arbitrary, and fanciful.
The transitions of meaning imagined, and the structural transformations of words, are alike strange and violent.
[30] [Footnote 29: See the Introduction to Pape's Wörterbuch der Griechischen Eigennamen.
Thus Proklus observes:--"The recklessness about proper names, is shown in the case of the man who gave to his son the name of Athanasius" (Proklus, Schol.
ad Kratyl.
p. 5, ed.
Boiss.)
Proklus adopts the distinction between divine and human names, citing the authority of Plato in Kratylus.
The words of Proklus are remarkable, ad Timæum, ii.
p. 197.
Schneid.
[Greek: Oi)kei=a ga/r e)stin o)no/mata pa/sê| ta/xei tô=n pragma/tôn, thei=a me\n toi=s thei/ois, dianoêta\ de\ toi=s dianoêtoi=s, doxasta\ de\ toi=s doxastoi=s.]
See Timæus, p. 29 B.
Compare also Kratylus, p. 400 E, and Philêbus, p. 12 C. When Plato (Kratylus, pp.
391-392; compare Phædrus, p. 252 A) cites the lines of Homer mentioning appellations bestowed by the Gods, I do not understand him, as Gräfenhahn and others do, to speak in mockery, but _bonâ fide_.
The affirmation of Clemens Alexandrinus (Stromat.
i.
104) gives a probable account of Plato's belief:--[Greek: O( Pla/tôn kai\ toi=s theoi=s dialekto\n a)pone/mei tina/, ma/lista me\n a)po\ tô=n o)neira/tôn tekmairo/menos kai\ tô=n chrêsmô=n.]
See Gräfenhahn, Gesch.
der Klassischen Philologie, vol.
i. p. 176.
When we read the views of some learned modern philologists, such as Godfrey Hermann, we cannot be surprised that many Greeks in the Platonic age should believe in an [Greek: o)rtho/tês o)noma/tôn] applicable to their Gods and Heroes:--"Unde intelligitur, ex nominibus naturam et munia esse cognoscenda Deorum: Nec Deorum tantum, sed etiam heroum, omninoque rerum omnium, nominibus quæ propria vocantur appellatarum" (De Mythologia Græcorum Antiquissimâ--in Opuscula, vol.
ii.
p. 167).
"Bei euch, Ihr Herrn, kann man das Wesen Gewöhnlich aus dem Namen lesen," &c. _Goethe_, Faust.
See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, adv.
Kolôten, c. 22, p. 1119 E, respecting the essential rectitude and indispensable employment of the surnames and appellations of the Gods.
The supposition of a mysterious inherent relation, between Names and the things named, has found acceptance among expositors of many different countries.
M. Jacob Salvador (Histoire des Institutions de Moïse, Liv.
x., ch.
ii.
; vol.
iii.
p. 136) says respecting the Jewish Cabbala:--"Que dirai-je de leur _Cabale_?
mot signifiant aussi _tradition_.
Elle se composait originairement de tous les principes abstraits qui ne se répandent pas chez le vulgaire: elle tomba bientôt dans la folie.
Cacher quelques idées metaphysiques sous les figures les plus bizarres, et prendre ensuite une peine infinie pour retrouver ces idées premières: s'imaginer qu'il existe entre les noms et les choses une corrélation inévitable, et que la contexture littérale des livres sacrés par exemple, doit éclairer sur l'essence même et sur tous les secrets du Dieu qui les a dictés: tourmenter dès-lors chaque phrase, chaque mot, chaque lettre, avec la même ardeur qu'on en met de nos jours à décomposer et à recomposer tous les corps de la nature: enfin, après avoir établi la corrélation entre les mots et les choses, croire qu'en changeant, disposant, combinant, ces mots, on traverse de prétendus _canaux_ d'influence qui les unissent à ces choses, et qu'on agit sur elles: voilà, ce me semble, les principales prétentions de cette espèce de science occulte, échappée de l'Égypte, qui a dévoré beaucoup de bons esprits, et qui, d'une part, donne la main à la théologie, d'autre part, à l'astrologie et aux combinaisons magiques."]
[Footnote 30: I cite various specimens of the etymologies given by Plato:-1.
[Greek: A)game/mnôn--o( a)gasto\s kata\ tê\n e)pimonê/n]--in consequence of his patience in remaining ([Greek: monê\]) with his army before Troy (p. 395 A).
2.
[Greek: A)treu\s--kata\ to\ a)teire/s, kai\ kata\ to\ a)/treston, kai\ kata\ to\ a)têro/n] (p. 395 C).
3.
[Greek: Pe/lops--o( to\ e)ggu\s (pe/las) mo/non o(rô=n kai\ to\ parachrê=ma] (p. 395 D).
4.
[Greek: Ta/ntalos--tala/ntatos] (p. 395 E).
5.
[Greek: Zeu\s--Di/a--Zê=na--di' o(\n _zê=n_ a)ei\ pa=si toi=s zô=sin u(pa/rchei]--ut proprie unum debuerit esse vocabulum [Greek: Diazê=na].
Stallbaum, ad.
p. 396 A. Proklus admired these etymologies (ad Timæum, ii.
p. 226, ed.
Schneid.).
6.
[Greek: Oi( theoi\]--Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, Uranus--[Greek: a(/te au)ta\ o(rôntes pa/nta a)ei\ i)o/nta dro/mô| kai\ the/onta, a)po\ tau/tês tê=s phu/seôs tê=s tou= thei=n _theou\s_ au)tou\s e)ponoma/sai] (p. 397 D).
7.
[Greek: Dai/mones--o(/ti phro/nimoi kai\ daê/mones ê)=san, dai/monas au)tou\s ôno/masen] (Hesiod) (p. 398 B).
8.
[Greek: Ê)/rôs]--either from [Greek: e)/rôs], as one sprung from the union of Gods with human females: or from [Greek: e)rôta=|n] or [Greek: ei)/rein],--from oral or rhetorical attributes, as being [Greek: r(ê/tores kai\ e)rôtêtikoi/] (p. 398 D).
9.
[Greek: Di/philos--Dii+\ phi/los] (p. 399 B).
10.
[Greek: A)/nthrôpos--o( a)nathrô=n a(\ o)/pôpen] (p. 399 C).
11.
[Greek: Psuchê\]--a double derivation is proposed: first, [Greek: to\ a)na/psuchon], next, a second, _i.e._ [Greek: psuchê\ = phuse/chê, ê)\ phu/sin o)chei= kai\ e)/chei], which second is declared to be [Greek: technikô/teron], and the former to be ridiculous (pp.
399 E, 400 A-B).
12.
[Greek: Sô=ma = to\ sê=ma tê=s phuchê=s], because the soul is buried in the body.
Or [Greek: sô=ma], that is, preserved or guarded, by the body as by an exterior wall, in order that it may expiate wrongs of a preceding life (p. 400 C).
13.
The first imposer of names was a philosopher who followed the theory of Herakleitus--perpetual flux of everything.
Pursuant to this theory he gave to various Gods the names Kronos, Rhea, Tethys, &c., all signifying flux (p. 402 A-D).
14.
Various derivations of the names Poseidon, Hades or Pluto, Persephonê or Pherrephatta, &c., are given (pp.
404-405); also of Apollo, so as to fit on to the four functions of the last-named God, [Greek: mousikê/, mantikê/, i)atrikê/, toxikê/] (p. 405).
15.
[Greek: Mou=sa--mousikê\], from [Greek: mô=sthai] (recognised in Liddell and Scott from [Greek: ma/ô] p. 406 A).
[Greek: A)phrodi/tê] from [Greek: a)phrou= ge/nesin], the Hesiodic derivation (p. 406 B-D).
16.
[Greek: A)ê\r--o(/ti ai)/rei ta\ a)po\ tê=s gê=s--ê)\ o(/ti a)ei\ r(ei=--ê)\ o(/ti pneu=ma e)x au)tou= gi/gnetai r(e/ontos]--quasi [Greek: a)êto/r)r(oun.
Ai)thê\r--o(/ti a)ei\ thei= peri\ to\n a)e/ra r(e/ôn] (p. 410 B).
17.
[Greek: Phro/nêsis--phora=s kai\ r(ou= no/êsis u(polabei=n phora=s].
This and the following are put as derivatives from the Herakleitean theory (p. 411 D-E).
[Greek: No/êsis = tou= ne/ou e)/sis.
Sôphrosu/nê--sôtêri/a phronê/seôs].
This is recognised by Aristotle in the Nikom.
Ethica, vi.
5.
18.
[Greek: E)pistê/mê = e)pistême/nê--ô(s pherome/nois toi=s pra/gmasin e(pome/nês tê=s psuchê=s] (p. 412 A).
19.
[Greek: Dikaiosu/nê--e)pi\ tê=| tou= dikai/ou sune/sei] (p. 412 C).
20.
[Greek: Kaki/a = to\ kakô=s i)o/n.
Deili/a--tê=s psuchê=s desmo\s i)schuro/s--o(\ dei= li/an.
A)retê\ = a)eirei/tê]--that which has an easy and constant flux, or perhaps [Greek: ai(retê/] (p. 415 B-D).
[Greek: Ai)schro\n = to\ a)eischorou=n--to\ a)ei\ i)/schon to\n r(ou=n] (p. 416 B).
[Greek: Su/mphero\n = tê\ a(/ma phora\n tê=s psuchê=s meta\ tô=n pragma/tôn] (p. 417 A).
[Greek: Lusite/loun = to\ tê=s phora=s lu/on to\ te/los] (p. 417 C-E).
[Greek: Blabero\n = to\ bla/pton to\n r(ou=n].
The names of favourable import are such as designate facility of the universal flux, according to the Herakleitean theory.
The names of unfavourable import designate obstruction of the flux.
21.
[Greek: Zugo\n = duogo/n] (p. 418 D).
22.
[Greek: Eu)phrosu/nê--a)po\ tou= eu)= pra/gmasi tê\n psuchê\n xumphe/resthai = eu)pherosu/nê] (p. 419 D).
23.
[Greek: Thumo\s--a)po\ tê=s thu/seôs kai\ ze/seôs tê=s psuchê=s.
E)pithumi/a--ê( e)pi\ to\n thumo\n i)ou=sa du/namis] (p. 419 E).
24.
[Greek: To\ o)/n = to\ ou)= tugcha/nei zê/têma, to\ o)/noma.
O)nomasto\n = o)/n, ou)= ma/sma e)sti/n.
(Ma/sma = zê/têma: mai/esthai = zêtei=n)] (p. 421 A).
25.
[Greek: A)lêthei/a--thei/a a)/lê], or [Greek: ê( thei/a tou= o)/ntos phora/.
Pseu=dos] from [Greek: eu(/dein], with [Greek: psi=] prefixed, as being the opposite of movement and flux (p. 421 B-C).
26.
Several derivations of names are given by Sokrates, as founded upon the theory opposed to Herakleitus--_i.e._, the theory that things were not in perpetual flux, but stationary:-[Greek: E)pistê/mê--o(/ti i(/stêsin ê(mô=n e)pi\ toi=s pra/gmasi tê\n psuchê/n.
I(stori/a--o(/ti i(/stêsi to\n r(ou=n.
Pisto\n--i(sta=|n panta/pasi sêmai/nei.
Mnê/mê--monê\ e)n tê=| psuchê=|] (437 A-C).
27.
We found before that some names of _good_ attributes were founded on the Herakleitean theory.
But there are also names of _bad_ attributes founded on it.
[Greek: A)mathi/a = ê( tou= a(/ma theô=| i)o/ntos porei/a.
A)kolasi/a = ê( a)kolouthi/a toi=s pra/gmasin] (p. 437 C).
Sokrates contrasts the two theories of [Greek: sta/sis] and [Greek: ki/nêsis], and says that he believes the first Name-Givers to have apportioned names in conformity to the theory of [Greek: ki/nêsis], but that he thinks they were mistaken in adopting that theory (p. 439 C).]
[Side-note: These transitions appear violent to a modern reader.
They did not appear so to readers of Plato until this century.
Modern discovery, that they are intended as caricatures to deride the Sophists.]
Such is the light in which these Platonic etymologies appear to a modern critic.
But such was not the light in which they appeared either to the ancient Platonists, or to critics earlier than the last century.
The Platonists even thought them full of mysterious and recondite wisdom.
Dionysius of Halikarnassus highly commends Plato for his speculations on etymology, especially in the Kratylus.
[31] Plutarch cites some of the most singular etymologies in the Kratylus as serious and instructive.
The modesty of the Protagorean formula becomes here especially applicable: for so complete has been the revolution of opinion, that the Platonic etymologies are _now_ treated by _most_ critics as too absurd to have been seriously intended by Plato, even as conjectures.
It is called "a valuable discovery of modern times" (so Schleiermacher[32] terms it) that Plato meant all or most of them as mere parody and caricature.
We are now told that it was not Plato who misconceived the analogies, conditions, and limits, of etymological transition, but others; whom Plato has here set himself to expose and ridicule, by mock etymologies intended to parody those which they had proposed as serious.
If we ask who the persons thus ridiculed were, we learn that they were the Sophists, Protagoras, or Prodikus, with others; according to Schleiermacher, Antisthenes among them.
[33] [Footnote 31: Dionys.
Hal.
De Comp.
Verb.
a.
16, p. 196, Schaefer.
[Greek: ta\ kra/tista de\ ne/mô, ô(s prô/tô| to\n u(pe\r e)tumologi/as ei)sa/gonti lo/gon, Pla/tôni tô=| Sôkratikô=|, pollachê=| me\n kai\ a)/llothi, ma/lista de\ e)n tô=| Kratu/lô|.]
About Plato's etymologies, as seriously intended, see Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, p. 375 C-D-E, with the note of Wyttenbach.
Harris, in his Hermes (pp.
369-370-407), alludes to the etymologies of Plato in the Kratylus as being ingenious, though disputable, but not at all as being derisory caricatures.
Indeed the etymology of _Scientia_, which he cites from Scaliger, p. 370, is quite as singular as any in the Kratylus.
Sydenham (Notes to the translation of Plato's Philêbus, p. 35) calls the Kratylus "a dialogue, in which is taught the nature of things, as well the permanent as the transient, from a supposed etymology of names and words.
I find, in the very instructive comments of Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch (Part iv.
ch.
24, p. 250), a citation from St. Augustine, illustrating the view which I believe Plato to have taken of these etymologies: "Quo loco prorsus non arbitror prætereundum, quod pater Valerius animadvertit admirans, in quorundam rusticanorum (_i.e._, Africans, near Carthage) collocutione.
Cum enim alter alteri dixisset _Salus_--quæsivit ab eo, qui et Latiné nosset et Punicé, quid esset _Salus_: responsum est, _Tria_.
Tum ille agnoscens cum gaudio, salutem nostram esse Trinitatem, convenientiam linguarum non fortuitu sic sonuisse arbitratus est, sed occultissimâ dispensatione divinæ providentiæ--ut cum Latiné nominatur _Salus_, à Punicis intelligantur _Tria_--et cum Punici linguâ suâ _Tria_ nominant, Latiné intelligatur _Salus_ .
.
.
Sed _hæc verborum consonantia_, sive provenerit sive provisa sit, _non pugnaciter agendum est ut ei quisque consentiat, sed quantum interpretantis elegantiam hilaritas audientis admittit._" So in the etymologies of the Kratylus: Plato follows out threads of analogy, which, with indulgent hearers, he reckons will be sufficient for proof: and which, even when not accepted as proof, will be pleasing to the fancy of unbelieving hearers, as they are to his own.
There is no intention to caricature: no obvious absurdities piled up with a view to caricature.]
[Footnote 32: Schleiermacher, Introduction to Kratylus, vol.
iv.
p. 6: "Dagegen ist viel gewonnen durch die Entdeckung neuerer Zeiten," &c. To the same purpose, Zeller, Phil.
d.
Griech., part ii.
p. 402, edit.
2nd, and Brandis, Gesch.
Gr.
Röm.
Phil., part ii.
sect.
cvii.
p. 285.
Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Platon.
Cratylum, p. 4, says: "Quod mirum est non esse ab iis animadversum, qui Platonem putaverunt de linguæ et vocabulorum origine hoc libro suam sententiam explicare voluisse.
Isti enim adeo nihil senserunt irrisionis, ut omnia atque singula pro philosophi decretis venditarint, ideoque ei absurdissima quæque commenta affinxerint.
Ita Menagius.
.
.
.
Nec Tiedemannus Argum, Dial.
Plat.
multo rectius judicat.
Irrisionem primi senserunt Garnierius et Tennemann."
&c. Stallbaum, moreover, is perpetually complaining in his notes, that the Etymological Lexicons adopt Plato's derivations as genuine.
Ménage (ad Diogen.
Laert.
iii.
25) declares most of the etymologies of Plato in the Kratylus to be [Greek: pseude/tuma], but never hints at the supposition that they are intended as caricatures.
During the centuries between Plato and Ménage, men had become more critical on the subject of etymology: in the century after Ménage, they had become more critical still, as we may see by the remarks of Turgot on the etymologies of Ménage himself.
The following are the remarks of Turgot, in the article 'Etymologie' (Encycl.
Franc.
in Turgot's collected works, vol.
iii.
p. 33): "Ménage est un exemple frappant des absurdités dans lesquelles on tombe, en adoptant sans choix ce que suggère la malheureuse facilité de supposer tout ce qui est possible: car il est très vrai qu'il ne fait aucune supposition dont la possibilité ne soit justifiée par des exemples.
Mais nous avons prouvé qu'en multipliant à volonté les altérations intermédiaires, soit dans le son, soit dans la signification, il est aisé de dériver un mot quelconque de tout autre mot donné: c'est le moyen _d'expliquer tout, et dès-lors de ne rien expliquer_; c'est le moyen aussi de justifier tous les mépris de l'ignorance."
Steinhart (Einleitung zum Kratylus, pp.
551-552) agrees with Stallbaum to a certain extent, that Plato in the Kratylus intended to mock and caricature the bad etymologists of his own day; yet also that parts of the Kratylus are seriously intended.
And he declares it almost impossible to draw a line between the serious matter and the caricature.
It appears to me that the Platonic critics here exculpate Plato from the charge of being a bad etymologist, only by fastening upon him another intellectual defect quite as serious.
Dittrich, in his Dissertation De Cratylo Platonis, Leipsic, 1841, adopts the opinion of Schleiermacher and the other critics, that the etymological examples given in this dialogue, though Sokrates announces them as proving and illustrating his own theory seriously laid down, are really bitter jests and mockery, intended to destroy it--"hanc sententiam facetissimis et irrisione plenis exemplis, dum comprobare videtur, reverâ infringit" (p. 12).
Dittrich admits that Kratylus, who holds the theory derided, understands nothing of this _acerbissima irrisio_ (p. 18).
He thinks that Protagoras, not Prodikus nor Antisthenes, is the person principally caricatured (pp.
32-34-38).]
[Footnote 33: Schleiermacher, Introd.
to Kratyl.
pp.
8-16; Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Krat.
p. 17.
Winckelmann suspects that Hermogenes in the Kratylus is intended to represent Antisthenes (Antisth.
Fragment.
p. 49).
Lobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 866) says that the Pythagoreans were among the earliest etymologising philosophers, proposing such etymologies as now appear very absurd.]
[Side-note: Dissent from this theory--No proof that the Sophists ever proposed etymologies.]
To me this modern discovery or hypothesis appears inadmissible.
It rests upon assumptions at best gratuitous, and in part incorrect: it introduces difficulties greater than those which it removes.
We find no proof that the Sophists ever proposed such etymologies as those which are here supposed to be ridiculed--or that they devoted themselves to etymology at all.
If they etymologised, they would doubtless do so in the manner (to our judgment loose and fantastic) of their own time and of times long after them.
But what ground have we for presuming that Plato's views on the subject were more correct?
and that etymologies which to them appeared admissible, would be regarded by him as absurd and ridiculous?
Now if the persons concerned were other than the Sophists, scarcely any critic would have thought himself entitled to fasten upon them a discreditable imputation without some evidence.
Of Prodikus we know (and that too chiefly from some sarcasms of Plato) that he took pains to distinguish words apparently, but not really, equivalent: and that such accurate distinction was what he meant by "rectitude of names" (Plato, Euthydêm.
277 E.) Of Protagoras we know that he taught, by precept or example, correct speaking or writing: but we have no information that either of them pursued etymological researches, successfully or unsuccessfully.
[34] Moreover this very dialogue (Kratylus) contains strong presumptive evidence that the Platonic etymologies could never have been intended to ridicule Protagoras.
For these etymologies are announced by Sokrates as exemplifying and illustrating a theory of his own respecting names: which theory (Sokrates himself expressly tells us) is founded upon the direct negation of the cardinal doctrine of Protagoras.
[35] That Sophist, therefore, could not have been ridiculed by any applications, however extravagant, of a theory directly opposed to him.
[36] [Footnote 34: See a good passage of Winckelmann, Prolegg.
ad Platon.
Euthydemum, p.
xlvii., respecting Protagoras and Prodikus, as writers and critics on language.
Stallbaum says, Proleg.
ad Krat.
p. 11:--"Quibus verbis _haud dubié_ notantur Sophistæ; qui, neglectis linguæ elementis, derivatorum et compositorum verborum originationem temeré ad suum arbitrium tractabant".
Ibid.
p. 4:--"In Cratylo ineptæ etymologiæ specimina exhibentur, ita quidem ut _haudquaquam dubitari liceat_, quin ista omnia ad mentem sophistarum maximeque Protagoreorum _joculari imitatione_ explicata sint".
In spite of these confident assertions,--first, that the Sophists are the persons _intended_ to be ridiculed, next, that they _deserved_ to be so ridiculed--Stallbaum has another passage, p. 15, wherein he says, "Jam vero quinam fuerint philosophi isti atque etymologi, qui in Cratylo ridentur et exploduntur, _vulgo parum exploratum habetur_".
He goes on to say that neither Prodikus nor Antisthenes is meant, but Protagoras and the Protagoreans.
To prove this he infers, from a passage in this dialogue (c. 11, p. 391 C), that Protagoras had written a book [Greek: peri\ o)rtho/têtos tô=n o)noma/tôn] (Heindorf and Schleiermacher, with better reason, infer from the passage nothing more than the circumstance that Protagoras taught [Greek: o)rthoepei/an] or correct speaking and writing).
The passage does not prove this; but if it did, what did Protagoras teach in the book?
Stallbaum tells us (p. 16):--"Jam si quæras, quid tandem Protagoras ipse de nominum ortu censuerit, _fateor unâ conjecturâ nitendum esse, ut de hâc re aliquid eruatur_".
He then proceeds to _conjecture_, from the little which we know respecting Protagoras, what that Sophist must have laid down upon the origin of names; and he finishes by assuming the very point which he ought to have proved (p. 17):--"_ex ipso Cratylo intelligimus et cognoscimus_, mox inter Protagoræ amicos exstitisse qui inepté hæc studia persequentes, non e verbis et nominibus mentis humanæ notiones elicere et illustrare, sed in verba et nomina sua ipsi decreta transferre et sic ea probare et confirmare niterentur.
Quid quidem homines à Platone hoc libro _facetissimâ irrisione_ exagitantur," &c. I repeat, that in spite of Stallbaum's confident assertions, he fails in giving the smallest proof that Protagoras or the Sophists proposed etymologies such as to make them a suitable butt for Plato on this occasion.
Ast also talks with equal confidence and equal absence of proof about the silly and arbitrary etymological proceedings of the Sophists, which (he says) this dialogue is intended throughout to ridicule (Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp.
253-254-264, &c.).]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Kratylus, c. 4-5, pp.
386-387.]
[Footnote 36: Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol.
ii.
pp.
379-384) asserts and shows very truly that Protagoras cannot be the person intended to be represented by Plato under the name of Kratylus, or as holding the opinion of Kratylus about names.
Lassalle affirms that Plato intends Kratylus in the dialogue to represent Herakleitus himself (p. 385); moreover he greatly extols the sagacity of Herakleitos for having laid down the principle, that "Names are the essence of things," in which principle Lassalle (so far as I understand him) himself concurs.
Assuming this to be the case, we should naturally suppose that if Plato intends to ridicule any one, by presenting caricatured etymologies as flowing from this principle, the person intended as butt must be Herakleitus himself.
Not so Lassalle.
He asserts as broadly as Stallbaum that it was Protagoras and the other Sophists who grossly abused the doctrine of Herakleitus, for the purpose of confusing and perverting truth by arbitrary etymologies.
His language is even more monstrous and extravagant than that of Stallbaum; yet he does not produce (any more than Stallbaum) the least fragment of proof that the Sophists or Protagoras did what he imputes to them (pp.
400-401-403-422).
M. Lenormant, in his recent edition of the Kratylus (Comm.
p. 7-9), maintains also that neither the Sophists nor the Rhetors pretended to etymologise, nor are here ridiculed.
But he ascribes to Plato in the Kratylus a mystical and theological purpose which I find it difficult to follow.]
[Side-note: Plato did not intend to propose mock-etymologies, or to deride any one.
Protagoras could not be ridiculed here.
Neither Hermogenes nor Kratylus understand the etymologies as caricature.]
Suppose it then ascertained that Plato intended to ridicule and humiliate some rash etymologists, there would still be no propriety in singling out the Sophists as his victims--except that they are obnoxious names, against whom every unattested accusation is readily believed.
But it is neither ascertained, nor (in my judgment) probable, that Plato here intended to ridicule or humiliate any one.
The ridicule, if any was intended, would tell against himself more than against others.
For he first begins by laying down a general theory respecting names: a theory unquestionably propounded as serious, and understood to be so by the critics:[37] moreover, involving some of his favourite and peculiar doctrines.
It is this theory that his particular etymologies are announced as intended to carry out, in the way of illustration or exemplification.
Moreover, he undertakes to prove this theory against Hermogenes, who declares himself strongly opposed to it: and he proves it by a string of arguments which (whether valid or not) are obviously given with a serious and sincere purpose of establishing the conclusion.
Immediately after having established that there was a real rectitude of names, and after announcing that he would proceed to enquire wherein such rectitude consisted,[38] what sense or consistency would there be in his inventing a string of intentional caricatures announced as real etymologies?
By doing this, he would be only discrediting and degrading the very theory which he had taken so much pains to inculcate upon Hermogenes.
Instead of ridiculing Protagoras, he would ridicule himself and his own theory for the benefit of opponents generally, one among them being Protagoras: who (if we imagine his life prolonged) would have had the satisfaction of seeing a theory, framed in direct opposition to his doctrine, discredited and parodied by his own advocate.
Hermogenes, too (himself an opponent of the theory, though not concurring with Protagoras), if these etymologies were intended as caricatures, ought to be made to receive them as such, and to join in the joke at the expense of the persons derided.
But Hermogenes is not made to manifest any sense of their being so intended: he accepts them all as serious, though some as novel and surprising, in the same passive way which is usual with the interlocutors of Sokrates in other dialogues.
Farther, there are some among these etymologies plain and plausible enough, accepted as serious by all the critics.
[39] Yet these are presented in the series, without being parted off by any definite line, along with those which we are called upon to regard as deliberate specimens of mock-etymology.
Again, there are also some, which, looking at their etymological character, are as strange and surprising as any in the whole dialogue: but which yet, from the place which they occupy in the argument, and from the plain language in which they are presented, almost exclude the supposition that they can be intended as jest or caricature.
[40] Lastly, Kratylus, whose theory all these etymologies are supposed to be intended to caricature, is so far from being aware of this, that he cordially approves every thing which Sokrates had said.
[41] [Footnote 37: Schleiermacher, Introd.
to Krat.
pp.
7-10; Lassalle, Herakleit.
ii.
p.
387.]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Kratylus, p. 391 B.]
[Footnote 39: See, as an example, his derivation of [Greek: _Di/philos_] from [Greek: Dii+/ phi/los], p. 399: [Greek: _Mou=sa_], p. 406: [Greek: dai/môn] from [Greek: daê/môn], p. 398: for [Greek: _A)phrodi/tê_] he takes the Hesiodic etymology, p. 406.
[Greek: _A)/rês_] and [Greek: _a)/r)r(ên_] (p. 407).
His derivation of [Greek: _ai)thê/r_--a)po\ tou= a)ei\ the/ein] (p. 410) is given twice by Aristotle (De Coelo, i.
3, p. 270, b.
22; Meteorol.
i.
3, p. 339, b.
25) as well as in the Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mundo, p. 392, a.
8.
None of the Platonic etymologies is more strange than that of [Greek: psuchê/], quasi [Greek: phuse/chê, a)po\ tou= tê\n phu/sin o)chei=n kai\ e)/chein] (Kratyl.
p. 400).
Yet Proklus cites this as serious, Scholia in Kratylum, p. 4, ed.
Boissonnade.
Plato, in the Treatise De Legibus, derives [Greek: cho/ros] from [Greek: chara/] and [Greek: no/mos] from [Greek: nou=s] or [Greek: no/os] (ii.
1, p. 654 A, xii.
8, p. 957 D).]
[Footnote 40: See Plato, Kratyl.
p. 437 A-B.
This occurs in the latter portion of the dialogue carried on by Sokrates with Kratylus, and is admitted by Lassalle to be seriously meant by Plato: though Lassalle maintains that the etymologies in the first part of the dialogue (between Sokrates and Hermogenes) are mere mockery and parody.
(Lassalle, Herakleitos der Dunkle, vol.
ii., pp.
402-403).
I venture to say that none of those Platonic etymologies, which Lassalle regards as caricatures, are more absurd than those which he here accepts as serious.
Liddell and Scott in their Lexicon say about [Greek: thumo/s], "probably rightly derived from [Greek: thu/ô] by Plat.
Crat.
419 E, [Greek: a)po\ tê=s thu/seôs kai\ ze/seôs tê=s psuchê=s.]"
The manner in which Schleiermacher and Steinhart also (Einleit.
zum Kratylos, pp.
552-554), analysing this dialogue, represent Plato as passing backwards and forwards from mockery to earnest and from earnest to mockery, appears to me very singular: as well as the principle which Schleiermacher lays down (Introduct.
p. 10), that Plato intended the general doctrines to be seriously understood, and the particular etymological applications to be mere mockery and extravagance (um wer weiss welche Komödie aufzuführen).
What other philosopher has ever propounded serious doctrines, and then followed them up by illustrations knowingly and intentionally caricatured so as to disparage the doctrines instead of recommending them?
It** is surely less difficult to believe that Plato conceived as plausible and admissible those etymologies which appear to us absurd.
As a specimen of the view entertained by able men of the seventeenth century respecting the Platonic and Aristotelian etymologies, see the Institutiones Logicæ of Burgersdicius, Lib.
i. c. 25, not.
1.
Lehrsch (Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten, Part i. p. 34-35) agrees with the other commentators, that the Platonic etymologies in the Kratylus are caricatured to deride the boastful and arbitrary etymologies of the Sophists about language.
But he too produces no evidence of such etymologies on the part of the Sophists; nay, what is remarkable, he supposes that _both_ Protagoras and Prodikus agreed in the Platonic doctrine that names were [Greek: phu/sei] (see pp.
17-19).]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Kratylus, p. 429 C. Steinhart (Einleit.
zum Krat.
pp.
549-550) observes that both Kratylus and Hermogenes are represented as understanding seriously these etymologies which are now affirmed to be meant as caricatures.
As specimens of Plato's view respecting admissible etymologies, we find him in Timæus, p. 43 C, deriving [Greek: ai)/sthêsis] from [Greek: a)i+/ssô]: again in the same dialogue, p. 62 A, [Greek: thermo\s] from [Greek: kermati/zein].
In Legg.
iv.
714, we have [Greek: tê\n tou= nou= dianomê\n e)ponoma/zontas no/mon].
In Phædrus, p. 238 C, we find [Greek: e)/rôs] derived from [Greek: e)r)r(ôme/nôs r(ôsthei=sa].
Aristotle derives [Greek: o)/sphus] from [Greek: i)sophue/s], Histor.
Animal.
i.
13, p. 493, a.
22: also [Greek: di/kaion] from [Greek: di/cha], Ethic.
Nikom.
v. 7, 1132, a.
31; [Greek: methu/ein--meta\ to\ thu/ein], Athenæus, ii.
40.
The Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise [Greek: Peri\ Ko/smou] (p. 401, a.
15) adopts the Platonic etymology of [Greek: Di/a-Zê=na] as [Greek: di' o(\n zô=men] Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, c. 9, p. 948, derives [Greek: kne/phas] from [Greek: keno\n pha/ous].
The Emperor Marcus Antoninus derives [Greek: a)kti/s], the ray of the Sun, [Greek: a)po\ tou= e)ktei/nesthai], Meditat.
viii.
57.
The Stoics, who were fond of etymologising, borrowed many etymologies from the Platonic Kratylus (Villoison, de Theologiâ Physicâ Stoicorum, in Osann's edition of Cornutus De Naturâ Deorum, p. 512).
Specimens of the Stoic etymologies are given by the Stoic Balbus in Cicero, De Nat.
Deorum, ii.
25-29 (64-73).
Dähne (in his Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen Religions-Philosophie, i. p. 73 seq.)
remarks on the numerous etymologies not merely propounded, but assumed as grounds of reasoning by Philo Judæus in commenting upon the Pentateuch, etymologies totally inadmissible and often ridiculous.]
[Side-note: Plato intended his theory as serious, but his exemplifications as admissible guesses.
He does not cite particular cases as proofs of a theory, but only as illustrating what he means.]
I cannot therefore accept as well-founded this "discovery of modern times," which represents the Platonic etymologies in the Kratylus as intentionally extravagant and knowingly caricatured, for the purpose of ridiculing the Sophists or others.
In my judgment, Plato did not put them forward as extravagant, nor for the purpose of ridiculing any one, but as genuine illustrations of a theory of his own respecting names.
It cannot be said indeed that he advanced them as proof of his theory: for Plato seldom appeals to particulars, except when he has a theory to attack.
When he has a theory to lay down, he does not generally recognise the necessity of either proving or verifying it by application to particular cases.
His proof is usually deductive or derived from some more general principle asserted _à priori_--some internal sentiment enunciated as a self-justifying maxim.
Particular examples serve to illustrate what the principle is, but are not required to establish its validity.
[42] But I believe that he intended his particular etymologies as _bonâ fide_ guesses, more or less probable (like the developments in the Timæus, which he[43] repeatedly designates as [Greek: ei)ko/ta], and nothing beyond): some certain, some doubtful, some merely novel and ingenious: such as would naturally spring from the originating _afflatus_ of diviners (like Euthyphron, to whom he alludes more than once[44]) who stepped beyond the ordinary regions of human affirmation.
Occasionally he proposes alternative and distinct etymologies: feeling assured that there was some way of making out the conclusion--but not feeling equally certain about his own way of making it out.
The sentiment of belief attaches itself in Plato's mind to general views and theorems: when he gives particular consequences as flowing from them, his belief graduates down through all the stages between full certainty and the lowest probability, until in some cases it becomes little more than a fanciful illustration--like the mythes which he so often invents to expand and enliven these same general views.
[45] [Footnote 42: See some passages in this very dialogue, Krat.
pp.
436 E, 437 C, 438 C. Lassalle remarks that neither Herakleitus nor Plato were disposed to rest the proof of a general principle upon an induction of particulars (Herakleitos, p.
406).]
[Footnote 43: Spengel justly remarks (Art.
Scr.
p. 52) respecting the hypotheses of the Platonic commentators:--"Platonem quidem liberare gestiunt, falsâ, ironiâ, non ex animi sententiâ omnia in Cratylo prolata esse dicentes.
Sed præter alia multa et hoc neglexerunt viri docti, easdem verborum originationes, quas in Cratylo, in cæteris quoque dialogis, ubi nullus est facetiis locus, et seria omnia aguntur, recurrere."
This passage is cited by K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
und Syst.
d. Platon.
Phil.
Not.
474, p. 656.
Hermann's own remarks on the dialogue (pp.
494-497) are very indistinct, but he seems to agree with Schleiermacher in singling out Antisthenes as the object of attack.
The third portion of Lehrsch's work, _Ueber die Sprachphilosophie der Alten_, cites numerous examples of the etymologies attempted by the ancients, from Homer downwards, many of them collected from the Etymologicon Magnum.
When we read the etymologies propounded seriously by Greek and Latin philosophers (especially the Stoic Chrysippus), literary men, jurists, and poets, we shall not be astonished at those found in the Platonic Kratylus.
The etymology of [Greek: Theo\s a)po\ tou= thei=n], given in the Kratylus (p. 397 D), as well as in the Pythagorean Philolaus (see Boeckh, Philolaus, pp.
168-175), and repeated by Clemens Alexandrinus, is not more absurd than that of [Greek: theo\s a)po\ tou= thei=nai], given by Herodot.
ii.
52, and also repeated by Clemens, see Wesseling's note.
None of the etymologies of the Kratylus is more strange than that of [Greek: Zeu\s-Di/a-Zê=na] (p. 396 B).
Yet this is reproduced in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Treatise, [Greek: Peri\ Ko/smou] (p. 401, a.
15), as well as by the Stoic Zeno (Diogen.
Laert.
vii.
147).
The treatise of Cornutus, De Nat.
Deor.
with Osann's Commentary, is instructive in enabling us to appreciate the taste of ancient times as to what was probable or admissible in etymology.
There are few of the etymologies in the Kratylus more singular than that of [Greek: a)/nthrôpos] from [Greek: a)nathrô=n a)\ o(/pôpen].
Yet this is cited by Ammonius as a perfectly good derivation, ad Aristot.
De Interpret.
p. 103, b.
8, Schol.
Bekk., and also in the Etymologicon Magnum.]
[Footnote 44: Compare Plato, Euthyphron, p. 6 D. Origination and invention often pass in Plato as the workings of an ordinary mind (sometimes even a feeble mind) worked upon from without by divine inspiration, quite distinct from the internal force, reasoning, judging, testing, which belongs to a powerful mind.
See Phædrus, pp.
235 C, 238 D, 244 A; Timæus, p. 72 A; Menon, p. 81 A.]
[Footnote 45: I have made some remarks to this effect upon the Platonic mythes in my notice of the Phædon, see ch.
xxv.
p. 415, ad Phædon, p.
114.]
[Side-note: Sokrates announces himself as Searcher.
Other etymologists of ancient times admitted etymologies as rash as those of Plato.]
We must remember that Sokrates in the Kratylus explicitly announces himself as having no formed opinion on the subject, and as competent only to the prosecution of the enquiry, jointly with the others.
What he says must therefore be received as conjectures proposed for discussion.
I see no ground for believing that he regarded any of them, even those which appear to us the strangest, as being absurd or extravagant--or that he proposed any of them in mockery and caricature, for the purpose of deriding other Etymologists.
Because these etymologies, or many of them at least, appear to us obviously absurd, we are not warranted in believing that they must have appeared so to Plato.
They did not appear so (as I have already observed) to Dionysius of Halikarnassus--nor to Diogenes, nor to the Platonists of antiquity nor to any critics earlier than the seventeenth century.
[46] By many of these critics they were deemed not merely serious, but valuable.
Nor are they more absurd than many of the etymologies proposed by Aristotle, by the Stoics, by the Alexandrine critics, by Varro, and by the _grammatici_ or literary men of antiquity generally; moreover, even by Plato himself in other dialogues occasionally.
[47] In determining what etymologies would appear to Plato reasonable or admissible, Dionysius, Plutarch, Proklus, and Alkinous, are more likely to judge rightly than we: partly because they had a larger knowledge of the etymologies proposed by Greek philosophers and _grammatici_ than we possess--partly because they had no acquaintance with the enlarged views of modern etymologists--which, on the point here in question, are misleading rather than otherwise.
Plato held the general theory that names, in so far as they were framed with perfect rectitude, held embodied in words and syllables a likeness or imitation of the essence of things.
And if he tried to follow out such a theory into detail, without any knowledge of grammatical systems, without any large and well-chosen collection of analogies within his own language, or any comparison of different languages with each other--he could scarcely fail to lose himself in wonderful and violent transmutations of letters and syllables.
[48] [Footnote 46: Dionys.
Hal.
De Comp.
Verbor.
c. 16, p. 96, Reiske; Plutarch, De Isid.
et Osir.
c. 60, p. 375.
Proklus advises that those who wish to become dialecticians should begin with the study of the Kratylus (Schol.
ad Kratyl.
p. 3, ed.
Boiss.).
We read in the Phædrus of Plato (p. 244 B) in the second speech ascribed to Sokrates, two etymologies:--1.
[Greek: mantikê\] derived from [Greek: manikê\] by the insertion of [Greek: t], which Sokrates declares to be done in bad taste, [Greek: oi( de\ nu=n a)peiroka/lôs to\ _tau=_ e)pemba/llontes mantikê\n e)ka/lasan.]
2.
[Greek: oi)ônistikê\], quasi [Greek: oi)onoi+stikê\], from [Greek: oi)/êsis, nou=s, i(stori/a].
Compare the etymology of [Greek: E)/rôs], p. 238 C. That these are real word-changes, which Plato believes to have taken place, is the natural and reasonable interpretation of the passage.
Cicero (Divinat.
i.
1) alludes to the first of the two as Plato's real opinion; and Heindorf as well as Schleiermacher accept it in the same sense, while expressing their surprise at the want of etymological perspicacity in Plato.
Ast and Stallbaum, on the contrary, declare that these two etymologies are mere irony and mockery, spoken by Plato, _ex mente Sophistarum_, and intended as a sneer at the perverse and silly Sophists.
No reason is produced by Ast and Stallbaum to justify this hypothesis, except that you cannot imagine "_Platonem tam cæcum fuisse_," &c. To me this reason is utterly insufficient; and I contend, moreover, that sneers at the Sophists would be quite out of place in a speech, such as the palinode of Sokrates about Eros.]
[Footnote 47: See what Aristotle says about [Greek: Pa/ntê] in the first chapter of the treatise De Coelo; also about [Greek: au)to/maton] from [Greek: au)to\ ma/tên], Physic.
ii.
5, p. 197, b.
30.
Stallbaum, after having complimented Plato for his talent in caricaturing the etymologies of others, expresses his surprise to find Aristotle reproducing some of these very caricatures as serious, see Stallbaum's note on Kratyl.
p. 411 E. Respecting the etymologies proposed by learned and able Romans in and before the Ciceronian and Augustan age, Ælius Stilo, Varro, Labeo, Nigidius, &c., see Aulus Gellius, xiii.
10; Quintilian, Inst.
Or.
i.
5; Varro, de Linguâ Latinâ.
Even to Quintilian, the etymologies of Varro appeared preposterous; and he observes, in reference to those proposed by Ælius Stilo and by others afterwards, "Cui non post Varronem sit venia?"
(i.
6, 37).
This critical remark, alike good tempered and reasonable, might be applied with still greater pertinence to the Kratylus of Plato.
In regard to etymology, more might have been expected from Varro than from Plato; for in the days of Plato, etymological guesses were almost a novelty; while during the three centuries which elapsed between him and Varro, many such conjectures had been hazarded by various scholars, and more or less of improvement might be hoped from the conflict of opposite opinions and thinkers.
M. Gaston Boissier (in his interesting Étude sur la vie et les Ouvrages de M. Terentius Varron, p. 152, Paris, 1861) observes respecting Varro, what is still more applicable to Plato:--"Gardons nous bien d'ailleurs de demander à Varron ce qu'exige la science moderne: pour n'être pas trop sévères, remettons-le dans son époque et jugeons-le avec l'esprit de son temps.
** Il ne semble pas qu'alors on réclamât, de ceux qui recherchaient les étymologies, beaucoup d'exactitude et de sévérité.
_On se piquait moins d'arriver à l'origine réelle du mot, que de le décomposer d'une manière ingénieuse et qui en gravât le sens dans la mémoire._ Les jurisconsultes eux-mêmes, malgré la gravité de leur profession et l'importance pratique de leurs recherches, ne suivaient pas une autre méthode.
Trebatius trouvait dans _sacellum_ les deux mots _sacra cella_: et Labéon faisait venir _soror_ de _seorsum_, parce que la jeune fille se sépare de le maison paternelle pours suivre son époux: tout comme Nigidius trouvoit dans _frater ferè alter_--c'est à dire, un autre soi-même," &c. Lobeck has similar remarks in his Aglaophamus (pp.
867-869):--"Sané ita J. Capellus veteres juris consultos excusat, _mutuum_ interpretantes _quod ex meo tuum fiat, testamentum_ autem _testationem mentis_, non quod eam verborum originem esse putarent, sed ut significationem eorum altius in legentium animis defigerent.
Similiterque ecclesiastici quidam auctores, quum nomen Pascha a græco verbo [Greek: pa/schein] repetunt, non per ignorantiam lapsi, sed allusionis quandam gratiam aucupati videntur."]
[Footnote 48: Gräfenhahn (Gesch.
d. classichen Philologie, vol.
i. sect.
36, pp.
151-164) points out how common was the hypothesis of fanciful derivation of names or supposed etymologies among the Greek poets, and how it passed from them to the prose writers.
He declares that the etymologies in Plato not only in the Kratylus but in other dialogues are "etymologische monstra," but he professes inability to distinguish which of them are serious (pp.
163-164).
Lobeck remarks that the playing and quibbling with words, widely diffused among the ancient literati generally, was especially likely to belong to those who held the Platonic theory about language:--"Is intelligat necesse est, hoc universum genus ab antiquitatis** ingenio non alienum, ei vero, qui imagines rerum in vocabulis sic ut in cerâ expressas putaret, convenientissimum fuisse" (Aglaophamus, p.
870).]
[Side-note: Continuance of the dialogue--Sokrates endeavours to explain how it is that the Names originally right have become so disguised and spoiled.]
Having expressed my opinion that the etymologies propounded by Sokrates in the Kratylus are not intended as caricatures, but as _bonâ fide_ specimens of admissible etymological conjecture, or, at the least, of discoverable analogy--I resume the thread of the dialogue.
These etymologies are the hypothetical links whereby Sokrates reconciles his first theory of the essential rectitude of Names (that is, of Naming, as a process which can only be performed in one way, and by an Artist who discerns and uses the Name-Form), with the names actually received and current.
The contrast between the sameness and perfection postulated in the theory, and the confusion of actual practice, is not less manifest than the contrast between the benevolent purposes ascribed to the Demiurgus (in the Timæus) and the realities of man and society:--requiring intermediate assumptions, more or less ingenious, to explain or attenuate the glaring inconsistencies.
Respecting the Name-Form, Sokrates intimates that it may often be so disguised by difference of letters and syllables, as not to be discernible by an ordinary man, or by any one except an artist or philosopher.
Two names, if compound, may have the same Name-Form, though few or none of the letters in them be the same.
A physician may so disguise his complex mixtures, by apparent differences of colour or smell, that they shall be supposed by others to be different, though essentially the same.
_Beta_ is the name of the letter B: you may substitute, in place of the three last letters, any others which you prefer, and the name will still be appropriate to designate the letter B.
[49] [Footnote 49: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
393-394.]
[Side-note: Letters, as well as things, must be distinguished with their essential properties, each must be adapted to each.]
To explain the foundations of the onomastic (name-giving or speaking) art,[50] we must analyse words into their primordial constituent letters.
The name-giving Artists have begun from this point, and we must follow in their synthetical track.
We must distinguish letters with their essential forms--we must also distinguish things with their essential forms--we must then assign to each essence of things that essence of letters which has a natural aptitude to signify it, either one letter singly or several conjoined.
The rectitude of the compound names will depend upon that of the simple and primordial.
[51] This is the only way in which we can track out the rectitude of names: for it is no account of the matter to say that the Gods bestowed them, and that therefore they are right: such recourse to a _Deus ex machinâ_ is only one among the pretexts for evading the necessity of explanation.
[52] [Footnote 50: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 425 A.
[Greek: tê=| o)nomastikê=|, ê)\ r(êtorikê=|, ê)\ ê(/tis e)sti\n ê( te/chnê.]]
[Footnote 51: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
424 B-E, 426 A, 434 A.]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 425 E.] This extreme postulate of analysis and adaptation may be compared with that which Sokrates lays down, in the Phædrus, in regard to the art of Rhetoric.
You must first distinguish all the different forms of mind--then all the different forms of speech; you must assign the sort of speech which is apt for persuading each particular sort of mind.
Phædrus, pp.
271-272.]
[Side-note: Essential significant aptitude consists in resemblance.]
Essential aptitude for signification consists in resemblance between the essence of the letter and that of the thing signified.
Thus the letter _Rho_, according to Sokrates, is naturally apt for the signification of rush or vehement motion, because in pronouncing it the tongue is briskly agitated and rolled about.
Several words are cited, illustrating this position.
[53] _Iota_ naturally designates thin and subtle things, which insinuate themselves everywhere.
_Phi_, _Chi_, _Psi_, _Sigma_, the sibilants, imitate blowing.
_Delta_ and _Tau_, from the compression of the tongue, imitate stoppage of motion, or stationary condition.
_Lambda_ imitates smooth and slippery things.
_Nu_ serves, as confining the voice in the mouth, to form the words signifying in-doors and interior.
_Alpha_ and _Eta_ are both of them large letters: the first is assigned to signify size, the last to signify length.
_Omicron_ is suited to what is round or circular.
[54] [Footnote 53: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 426 D-E. [Greek: krou/ein, thrau/ein, e(rei/kein], &c. Leibnitz (Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement Humain, Book iii.
ch.
2, p. 300 Erdm.
); and Jacob Grimm (in his Dissertation Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache, Berlin, 1858, ed.
4) give views very similar to those of Plato, respecting the primordial growth of language, and the original significant or symbolising power supposed to be inherent in each letter (Kein Buchstabe, "ursprünglich steht bedeutungslos oder ueberflüssig," pp.
39-40).
Leibnitz and Grimm say (as Plato here also affirms) that Rho designates the Rough--Lambda, the Smooth: see also what he says about Alpha, Iota, Hypsilon.
Compare, besides, M. Renan, Orig.
du Langage, vi.
p. 137.
The comparison of the Platonic speculations on the primordial powers of letters, with those of a modern linguistic scholar so illustrious as Grimm (the earliest speculations with the latest) are exceedingly curious--and honourable to Plato.
They serve as farther reasons for believing that this dialogue was not intended to caricature Protagoras.]
[Footnote 54: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
426-427.]
It is from these fundamental aptitudes, and some others analogous, that the name-giving Artist, or Lawgiver, first put together letters to compound and construct his names.
Herein consists their rectitude, according to Sokrates.
Though in laying down the position Sokrates gives it only as the best which _he_ could discover, and intimates that some persons may turn it into derision--yet he evidently means to be understood seriously.
[55] [Footnote 55: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
426 B, 427 D.] [Side-note: Sokrates assumes that the Name-giving Lawgiver was a believer in the Herakleitean theory.]
In applying this theory--about the fundamental significant aptitudes of the letters of the alphabet--to show the rectitude of the existing words compounded from them--Sokrates assumes that the name-giving Artists were believers in the Herakleitean theory: that is, in the perpetual process of flux, movement, and transition into contraries.
He cites a large variety of names, showing by their composition that they were adapted to denote this all-pervading fact, as constituting the essence of things.
[56] The names given by these theorists to that which is good, virtuous, agreeable, &c., were compounded in such a manner as to denote what facilitates, or falls in with, the law of universal movement: the names of things bad or hurtful, denote what obstructs or retards movement.
[57] [Footnote 56: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
401 C--402 B.
436 E: [Greek: ô(s tou= panto\s i)o/ntos te kai\ pherome/non kai\ r(e/ontos phame\n sêmai/nein ê(mi=n tê\n ou)si/an ta\ o)no/mata.]
Also p. 439 B.]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
415-416-417, &c.] [Side-note: But the Name-Giver may be mistaken or incompetent--the rectitude of the name depends upon his knowledge.]
Many names (pursues Sokrates), having been given by artistic lawgivers who believed in the Herakleitean theory, will possess intrinsic rectitude, if we assume that theory to be true.
But how if the theory be not true?
and if the name-givers were mistaken on this fundamental point?
The names will then not be right.
Now we must not assume the theory to be true, although the Name-givers believed it to be so.
Perhaps they themselves (Sokrates intimates) having become giddy by often turning round to survey the nature of things, mistook this _vertige_ of their own for a perpetual revolution and movement of the things which they saw, and gave names accordingly.
[58] A Name-Giver who is real and artistic is rare and hard to find: there are more among them incompetent than competent: and the name originally bestowed represents only the opinion or conviction of him by whom it is bestowed.
[59] Yet the names bestowed will be consistent with themselves, founded on the same theory.
[Footnote 58: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
409**-411 C. [Greek: Ai)tiô=ntai dê\ ou) to\ e)/ndon to\ para\ sphi/si pa/thos ai)/tion ei)=nai tau/tês tê=s do/xês, a)ll' au)ta\ ta\ pra/gmata ou(/tô pephuke/nai], &c. "He that is giddy thinks the world turns round," &c.] [Footnote 59: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 418 C. [Greek: Oi)=stha ou)=n o(/ti mo/non tou=to dêloi= to\ a)rchai=on o)/noma tê\n dia/noian tou= theme/nou?]
Also p. 419 A.]
[Side-note: Changes and transpositions introduced in the name--hard to follow.]
Again, the names originally bestowed differ much from those in use now.
Many of them have undergone serious changes: there have been numerous omissions, additions, interpolations, and transpositions of letters, from regard to euphony or other fancies: insomuch that the primitive root becomes hardly traceable, except by great penetration and sagacity.
[60] Then there are some names which have never been issued at all from the mint of the name-giver, but have either been borrowed from foreigners, or perhaps have been suggested by super-human powers.
[61] [Footnote 60: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
394 B, 399 B, 414 C, 418 A.]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
397 B, 409 B.]
* * * * * [Side-note: Sokrates qualifies and attenuates his original thesis.]
To this point Sokrates brings the question during his conversation with Hermogenes: against whom he maintains--That there is a natural intrinsic rectitude in Names, or a true Name-Form--that naming is a process which must be performed in the natural way, and by an Artist who knows that way.
But when, after laying down this general theory, he has gone a certain length in applying it to actual names, he proceeds to introduce qualifications which attenuate and explain it away.
Existing names were bestowed by artistic law-givers, but under a belief in the Herakleitean theory--which theory is at best doubtful: moreover the original names have, in course of time, undergone such multiplied changes, that the original point of significant resemblance can hardly be now recognised except by very penetrating intellects.
[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Kratylus: who upholds that original thesis without any qualification.]
It is here that Sokrates comes into conversation with Kratylus: who appears as the unreserved advocate of the same general theory which Sokrates had enforced upon Hermogenes.
He admits all the consequences of the theory, taking no account of qualifications.
Moreover he announces himself as having already bestowed reflection on the subject, and as espousing the doctrine of Herakleitus.
[62] [Footnote 62: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
428 B, 440 E. It appears that on this point the opinion of Herakleitus coincided with that of the Pythagoreans, who held that names were [Greek: phu/sei kai\ ou) the/sei] and maintained as a corollary that there could be only one name for each thing and only one thing signified by each name (Simplikius ad Aristot.
Categ.
p. 43, b.
32, Schol.
Bekk.).
In general Herakleitus differed from Pythagoras, and is described as speaking of him with bitter antipathy.]
If names are significant by natural rectitude, or by partaking of the Name-Form, it follows that all names must be right or true, one as well as another.
If a name be not right, it cannot be significant: that is, it is no name at all: it is a mere unmeaning sound.
A name, in order to be significant, must imitate the essence of the thing named.
If you add any thing to a number, or subtract any thing from it, it becomes thereby a new number: it is not the same number badly rendered.
So with a letter: so too with a name.
There is no such thing as a bad name.
Every name must be either significant, and therefore, right--or else it is not a name.
So also there is no such thing as a false proposition: you cannot say the thing that is not: your words in that case have no meaning; they are only an empty sound.
The hypothesis that the law-giver may have distributed names erroneously is therefore not admissible.
[63] Moreover, you see that he must have known well, for otherwise he would not have given names so consistent with each other, and with the general Herakleitean theory.
[64] And since the name is by necessity a representation or copy of the thing, whoever knows the name, must also know the thing named.
There is in fact no other way of knowing or seeking or finding out things, except through their names.
[65] [Footnote 63: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 429 B-C. _Sokr._ [Greek: Pa/nta a)/ra ta\ o)no/mata o)rthôs kei=tai?]
_Krat._ [Greek: O(/sa ge o)no/mata e)/sti.]
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ ou)=n?
E(rmoge/nei tô=|de po/teron mêde\ o)/noma tou=to kei=sthai phô=men, ei) mê/ ti au)tô=| E(rmou= gene/seôs prosê/kei, ê)\ kei=sthai me/n, ou) me/ntoi o)rthô=s ge?]
_Krat._ [Greek: Ou)de\ kei=sthai e)/moige dokei=, _a)lla\ dokei=n kei=sthai_.
ei)=nai de\ e(te/rou tou=to tou)/noma, ou(=per kai\ ê( phu/sis ê( to\ o)/noma dêlou=sa.]
The critics say that these last words ought to be read [Greek: ê)\n to\ o)/noma dêloi=], as Ficinus has translated, and Schleiermacher after him.
They are probably in the right; at the same time, reasoning upon the theory of Kratylus, we say without impropriety, that "the thing indicates the name".
That which is erroneously called a bad name is no name at all (so Kratylus argues), but only seems to be a name to ignorant persons.
Thus also in the Platonic Minos (c. 9, p. 317): a bad law is no law in reality, but only seems to be a law to ignorant men, see above, ch.
xiv.
p.
88.
** Compare the like argument about [Greek: no/mos] in Xenoph.
Memorab.
i.
2, 42-47, and Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol.
ii.
p.
392.]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Krat.
p. 436 C. [Greek: A)lla\ mê ou)ch ou(/tôs e)/chê|, a)ll' a)nagkai=on ê)=|, ei)do/ta ti/thesthai to\n tithe/menon ta\ o)no/mata; ei) de\ mê/, o(/per pa/lai e)gô\ e)/legon, ou)d' a)\n o)no/mata ei)/ê.
Me/giston de/ soi e)/stô tekmê/rion o(/ti ou)k e)/sphaltai tê=s a)lêthei/as o( tithe/menos; ou) ga\r a)\n pote ou(/tô xu/mphôna ê)=n au)tô=| a(/panta.
ê)\ _ou)k e)neno/eis au)to\s le/gôn ô(s pa/nta kat' au)to\ kai\ e)pi\ tau)to\n e)gi/gneto ta\ o)no/mata?_] These last words allude to the various particular etymologies which had been enumerated by Sokrates as illustrations of the Herakleitean theory.
They confirm the opinion above expressed, that Plato intended his etymologies seriously, not as mockery or caricature.
That Plato should have intended them as caricatures of Protagoras and Prodikus, and yet that he should introduce Kratylus as welcoming them in support of _his_ argument, is a much greater absurdity than the supposition that Plato mistook them for admissible guesses.]
[Footnote 65: Plato, Krat.
c. 111, pp.
435-436.]
[Side-note: Sokrates goes still farther towards retracting it,] These consequences are fairly deduced by Kratylus from the hypothesis, of the natural rectitude of names, as laid down in the beginning of the dialogue, by Sokrates: who had expressly affirmed (in his anti-Protagorean opening of the dialogue) that unless the process of naming was performed according to the peremptory dictates of nature and by one of the few privileged name-givers, it would be a failure and would accomplish nothing;[66] in other words, that a non-natural name would be no name at all.
Accordingly, in replying to Kratylus, Sokrates goes yet farther in retracting his own previous reasoning at the beginning of the dialogue--though still without openly professing to do so.
He proposes a compromise.
[67] He withdraws the pretensions of his theory, as peremptory or exclusive; he acknowledges the theory of Hermogenes as true, and valid in conjunction with it.
He admits that non-natural names also, significant only by convention, are available as a make-shift--and that such names are in frequent use.
Still however he contends, that natural names, significant by likeness, are the best, so far as they can be obtained: but inasmuch as that principle will not afford sufficiently extensive holding-ground, recourse must be had by way of supplement to the less perfect rectitude (of names) presented by customary or conventional significance.
[68] [Footnote 66: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 387 C. [Greek: e)a\n de\ mê/, e)xamartê/setai/ te kai\ ou)de\n poiê/sei.]
Compare p. 389 A.]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 430 A.
[Greek: phe/re dê/, e)a/n pê| diallachthô=men, ô= Kra/tule], &c.] [Footnote 68: Plato, Krat.
p. 435 C. [Greek: e)moi\ me\n ou)=n kai\ au)tô=| a)re/skei me\n kata\ to\ dunato\n o(/moia ei)=nai ta\ o)no/mata toi=s pra/gmasin; a)lla\ mê\ ô(s a)lêthô=s glischra\ ê)=| ê( o)lkê\ au)tê\ tê=s o(moio/têtos, a)nagkai=on de\ ê)=| kai\ tô=| phortikô=| tou/tô| proschrê=sthai, tê=| xunthê/kê|, ei)s o)noma/tôn o)rtho/têta; e)pei\ i)/sôs kata/ ge to\ dunato\n ka/llist' a)\n le/goito, o(/tan ê)\ pa=sin ê)\ ô(s plei/stois o(moi/ois le/gêtai, tou=to d' e)sti\ prosêkousin, ai)/schista de\ tou)nanti/on.]]
[Side-note: There are names better--more like, or less like to the things named: Natural Names are the best, but they cannot always be had.
Names may be significant by habit, though in an inferior way.]
You say (reasons Sokrates with Kratylus) that names must be significant by way of likeness.
But there are degrees of likeness.
A portrait is more or less like its original, but it is never exactly like: it is never a duplicate, nor does it need to be so.
Or a portrait, which really belongs to and resembles one person, may be erroneously assigned to another.
The same thing happens with names.
There are names more or less like the thing named--good or bad: there are names good with reference to their own object, but erroneously fitted on to objects not their own.
The name does not cease to be a name, so long as the type or form of the thing named is preserved in it: but it is worse or better, according as the accompanying features are more or less in harmony with the form.
[69] If names are like things, the letters which are put together to form names, must have a natural resemblance to things--as we remarked above respecting the letters Rho, Lambda, &c. But the natural, inherent, powers of resemblance and significance, which we pronounced to belong to these letters, are not found to pervade all the actual names, in which they are employed.
There are words containing the letters _Rho_ and _Lambda_, in a sense opposite to that which is natural to them--yet nevertheless at the same time significant; as is evident from the fact, that you and I and others understand them alike.
Here then are words significant, without resembling: significant altogether through habit and convention.
We must admit the principle of convention as an inferior ground and manner of significance.
Resemblance, though the best ground as far as it can be had, is not the only one.
[70] [Footnote 69: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
432-434.]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
434-435.]
[Side-note: All names are not consistent with the theory of Herakleitus: some are opposed to it.]
All names are not like the things named: some names are bad, others good: the law-giver sometimes gave names under an erroneous belief.
Hence you are not warranted in saying that things must be known and investigated through names, and that whoever knows the name, knows also the thing named.
You say that the names given are all coherent and grounded upon the Herakleitean theory of perpetual flux.
You take this as a proof that that theory is true in itself, and that the law-giver adopted and proceeded upon it as true.
I agree with you that the law-giver or name-giver believed in the Herakleitean theory, and adapted many of his names to it: but you cannot infer from hence that the theory is true--for he may have been mistaken.
[71] Moreover, though many of the existing names consist with, and are based upon, that theory, the same cannot be said of all names.
Many names can be enumerated which are based on the opposite principle of permanence and stand-still.
It is unsafe to strike a balance of mere numbers between the two: besides which, even among the various names founded on the Herakleitean theory, you will find jumbled together the names of virtues and vices, benefits and misfortunes.
That theory lends itself to good and evil alike; it cannot therefore be received as true--whether the name-giver believed in it or not.
[72] [Footnote 71: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 439 B-C. [Greek: E)/ti toi/nun to/de skepsômetha, o(/pôs mê\ ê(ma=s ta\ polla\ tau=ta o)no/mata e)s tauto\n tei/nonta e)xapata=|, kai\ tô=| o)/nti me\n oi( the/menoi au(ta\ _dianoêthe/ntes te e)/thento_ ô(s i)o/ntôn a)pa/ntôn a)ei\ kai\ r(eo/ntôn--_phai/nontai ga\r e)/moige kai\ au)toi\ ou)/tô dianoêthê=nai_--to\ d', ei) e)/tuchen, ou)ch ou)/tôs e)/chei], &c. These words appear to me to imply that Sokrates is perfectly serious, and not ironical, in delivering his opinion, that the original imposers of names were believers in the Herakleitean theory.]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Krat.
pp.
437-438 C. Sokrates here enumerates the particular names illustrating his judgment.
However strange the verbal transitions and approximations may appear to us, I think it clear that he intends to be understood seriously.]
[Side-note: It is not true to say, That Things can only be known through their names.]
Lastly, even if we granted that things may be known and studied through their names, it is certain that there must be some other way of knowing them; since the first name-givers (as you yourself affirm) knew things, at a time when no names existed.
[73] Things may be known and ought to be studied, not through names, but by themselves and through their own affinities.
[74] [Footnote 73: Plato, Krat.
p. 438 A-B.
Kratylus here suggests that the first names may perhaps have been imposed by a super-human power.
But Sokrates replies, that upon that supposition all the names must have been imposed upon the same theory: there could not have been any contradiction between one name and another.]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Krat.
pp.
438-439.
438 E:--[Greek: di' a)llê/lôn ge, ei)/ pê| xuggenê= e)sti/, kai\ au)ta\ di' au(tô=n.]]
[Side-note: Unchangeable Platonic Forms--opposed to the Herakleitean flux, which is true only respecting sensible particulars.]
Sokrates then concludes the dialogue by opposing the Platonic ideas to the Herakleitean theory.
I often dream or imagine the Beautiful _per se_, the Good _per se_, and such like existences or Entia.
[75] Are not such existences real?
Are they not eternal, unchangeable and stationary?
Particular beautiful things--particular good things--are in perpetual change or flux: but The Beautiful, The Good--The Ideas or Forms of these and such like--remain always what they are, always the same.
[Footnote 75: Plato, Krat.
p. 439 C-D. [Greek: ske/psai o( e)/gôge polla/kis o)neirô/ttô, po/teron phô=me/n ti ei)=nai au)to\ kalo\n kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n o)/ntôn ou(/tôs, ê)\ mê/?
.
.
.
mê\ ei) pro/sôpo/n ti/ e)sti kalo\n ê)/ ti tô=n toiou=tôn, kai\ dokei= tau=ta pa/nta r(ei=n; a)ll' au)to\ to\ kalo\n ou) toiou=ton a)ei/ e)stin oi(=o/n e)stin?]]
The Herakleitean theory of constant and universal flux is true respecting particular things, but not true respecting these Ideas or Forms.
It is the latter alone which know or are known: it is they alone which admit of being rightly named.
For that which is in perpetual flux and change can neither know, nor be known, nor be rightly named.
[76] Being an ever-changing subject, it is never in any determinate condition: and nothing can be known which is not in a determinate condition.
The Form of the knowing subject, as well as the Form of the known object, must both remain fixed and eternal, otherwise there can be no knowledge at all.
[Footnote 76: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 439 D--440 A.
[Greek: A)=r' ou)=n oi(=o/n te _proseipei=n au)to\ o)rthôs_, ei) a)ei\ u(pexe/rchetai, prô=ton me\n o(/ti, e)keino/ e)stin, e)/peita o(/ti toiou=tôn?
ê)\ a)na/gkê a)/ma ê(mô=n lego/ntôn a)/llo au)to\ eu)thu\s gi/gnesthai kai\ u(pexie/nai, kai\ mêke/ti ou(/tôs e)/chein?
.
.
.
A)lla\ mê\n ou)d' a)\n gnôsthei/ê ge u(p' ou)deno/s.
.
.
.
A)ll' ou)de\ gnôsin ei)=nai pha/nai ei)ko/s, ei) metapi/ptei pa/nta chrê/mata kai\ mêde\n me/nei.]]
[Side-note: Herakleitean theory must not be assumed as certain.
We must not put implicit faith in names.]
To admit these permanent and unchangeable Forms is to deny the Herakleitean theory, which proclaims constant and universal flux.
This is a debate still open and not easy to decide.
But while it is yet undecided, no wise man ought to put such implicit faith in names and in the bestowers of names, as to feel himself warranted in asserting confidently the certainty of the Herakleitean theory.
[77] Perhaps that theory is true, perhaps not.
Consider the point strenuously, Kratylus.
Be not too easy in acquiescence--for you are still young, and have time enough before you.
If you find it out, give to me also the benefit of your solution.
[78] [Footnote 77: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 440 C. [Greek: Tau=t' ou)=n po/tero/n pote ou(/tôs e)/chei, ê)\ e)kei/nôs ô(s oi( peri\ Ê(ra/kleito/n te le/gousi kai\ a)/lloi polloi/, mê\ ou) r(a=|dion ê)=| e)piske/psasthai, ou)de\ pa/nu nou=n e)/chontos _a)nthrô/pou e)pitre/psanta o)no/masin au(to\n kai\ tê\ au(tou= psuchê\n therapeu/ein_, pepisteuko/ta e)kei/nois kai\ toi=s theme/nois _au)ta/_, dii+schuri/zesthai ô(s ti ei)do/ta, kai\ au)tou= te kai\ tô=n o)/ntôn katagignô/skein, ô(s ou)de\n u(gie\s ou)deno/s, a(lla\ pa/nta ô/sper kera/mia r(ei=], &c.] [Footnote 78: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 440 D.] Kratylus replies that he will follow the advice given, but that he has already meditated on the matter, and still adheres to Herakleitus.
Such is the close of the dialogue.
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks upon the dialogue.
Dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum and others, that it is intended to deride Protagoras and other Sophists.]
One of the most learned among the modern Platonic commentators informs us that the purpose of Plato in this dialogue was, "to rub over Protagoras and other Sophists with the bitterest salt of sarcasm".
[79] I have already expressed my dissent from this theory, which is opposed to all the ancient views of the dialogue, and which has arisen, in my judgment, only from the anxiety of the moderns to exonerate Plato from the reproach of having suggested as admissible, etymologies which now appear to us fantastic.
I see no derision of the Sophists, except one or two sneers against Protagoras and Prodikus, upon the ever-recurring theme that they took money for their lectures.
[80] The argument against Protagoras at the opening of the dialogue--whether conclusive or not--is serious and not derisory.
The discourse of Sokrates is neither that of an anti-sophistical caricaturist, on the one hand--nor that of a confirmed dogmatist who has studied the subject and made up his mind on the other (this is the part which he ascribes to Kratylus)[81]--but the tentative march of an enquirer groping after truth, who follows the suggestive promptings of his own invention, without knowing whither it will conduct him: who, having in his mind different and even opposite points of view, unfolds first arguments on behalf of one, and next those on behalf of the other, without pledging himself either to the one or to the other, or to any definite scheme of compromise between them.
[82] Those who take no interest in such circuitous gropings and guesses of an inquisitive and yet unsatisfied mind--those who ask for nothing but a conclusion clearly enunciated along with one or two affirmative reasons--may find the dialogue tiresome.
However this may be--it is a manner found in many Platonic dialogues.
[Footnote 79: Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Kratyl.
p. 18--"quos Plato hoc libro acerbissimo sale perfricandos statuit."
Schleiermacher also tells us (Einleitung, pp.
17-21) that "Plato had much delight in heaping a full measure of ridicule upon his enemy Antisthenes; and that he at last became tired with the exuberance of his own philological jests".
Lassalle shows, with much force, that the persons ridiculed (even if we grant the derisory purpose to be established) cannot be Protagoras and the Protagoreans (Herakleitos, vol.
ii.
pp.
376-384).]
[Footnote 80: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
384 B, 391 B.]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
428 A, 440 D.] [Footnote 82: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
384 C. 391 A.
[Greek: suzêtei=n e(/toimo/s ei)mi kai\ soi\ kai\ Kratu/lô| koinê=| .
.
.
o(/ti ou)k ei)dei/ên a)lla\ skepsoi/mên meta\ sou=.]]
[Side-note: Theory laid down by Sokrates _à priori_, in the first part--Great difficulty, and ingenuity necessary, to bring it into harmony with facts.]
Sokrates opens his case by declaring the thesis of the Absolute (Object _sine_ Subject), against the Protagorean thesis of the Relative (Object _cum_ Subject).
Things have an absolute essence: names have an absolute essence:[83] each name belongs to its own thing, and to no other: this is its rectitude: none but that rare person, the artistic name-giver, can detect the essence of each thing, and the essence of each name, so as to apply the name rightly.
Here we have a theory truly Platonic: impressed upon Plato's mind by a sentiment _à priori_, and not from any survey or comparison of particulars.
Accordingly when Sokrates is called upon to apply his theory to existing current words, and to make out how any such rectitude can be shown to belong to them--he finds the greatest divergence and incongruity between the two.
His ingenuity is hardly tasked to reconcile them: and he is obliged to have recourse to bold and multiplied hypotheses.
That the first Name-Givers were artists proceeding upon system, but incompetent artists proceeding on a bad system--they were Herakleiteans who believed in the universality of movement, and gave names having reference to movement:[84] That the various letters of the alphabet, or rather the different actions of the vocal organism by which they are pronounced, have each an inherent, essential, adaptation, or analogy to the phenomena of movement or arrest of movement:[85] That the names originally bestowed have become disguised by a variety of metamorphoses, but may be brought back to their original by probable suppositions, and shown to possess the rectitude sought.
All these hypotheses are only violent efforts to reconcile the Platonic _à priori_ theory, in some way or other, with existing facts of language.
To regard them as intentional caricatures, would be to suppose that Plato is seeking intentionally to discredit and deride his own theory of the Absolute: for the discredit could fall nowhere else.
We see that Plato considered many of his own guesses as strange and novel, some even as laying him open to ridicule.
[86] But they were indispensable to bring his theory into something like coherence, however inadequate, with real language.
[Footnote 83: One cannot but notice how Plato, shortly after having declared war against the Relativity affirmed by Protagoras, falls himself into that very track of Relativity when he comes to speak about actual language, telling us that names are imposed on grounds dependant on or relative to the knowledge or belief of the Name-givers.
Kratylus, pp.
397 B, 399 A, 401 A-B, 411 B, 436 B.
The like doctrine is affirmed in the Republic, vi.
p. 515 B.
[Greek: dê=lon o(/ti o( the/menos prô=tos ta\ o)no/mata, oi(=a ê(gei=to ei)=nai ta\ pra/gmata, toiau=ta e)ti/theto kai\ ta\ o)no/mata.]
Leibnitz conceived an idea of a "Lingua Characterica Universalis, quæ simul sit ars inveniendi et judicandi" (see Leibnitz Opp.
Erdmann, pp.
162-163), and he alludes to a conception of Jacob Böhme, that there once existed a Lingua Adamica or Natur-Sprache, through which the essences of things might be contemplated and understood.
"Lingua Adamica vel certé vis ejus, quam quidam se nosse, et in nominibus ab Adamo impositis essentias rerum intueri posse contendunt--nobis certé ignota est" (Opp.
p. 93).
Leibnitz seems to have thought that it was possible to construct a philosophical language, based upon an Alphabetum Cogitationum Humanarum, through which problems on all subjects might be resolved, by a _calculus_ like that which is employed for the solution of arithmetical or geometrical problems (Opp.
p. 83; compare also p. 356).
This is very analogous to the affirmations of Sokrates, in the first part of the Kratylus, about the essentiality of Names discovered and declared by the [Greek: nomothe/tês techniko/s]] [Footnote 84: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 436 D.] [Footnote 85: Plato, Krat.
pp.
424-425.
Schleiermacher declares this to be among the greatest and most profound truths which have ever been enunciated about language (Introduction to Kratylus, p. 11).
Stallbaum, on the contrary, regards it as not even seriously meant, but mere derision of others (Prolegg.
ad Krat.
p. 12).
Another commentator on Plato calls it "eine Lehre der Sophistischen Sprachforscher" (August Arnold, Einleitung in die Philosophie--durch die Lehre Platons vermittelt--p. 178, Berlin, 1841).
Proklus, in his Commentary, says that the scope of this dialogue is to exhibit the imitative or generative faculty which essentially belongs to the mind, and whereby the mind (aided by the vocal or pronunciative imagination--[Greek: lektikê\ phantasi/a]) constructs names which are natural transcripts of the essences of things (Proklus, Schol.
ad Kratyl.
pp.
1-21 ed.
Boissonnade; Alkinous, Introd.
ad Platon.
c. 6).
Ficinus, too, in his argument to the Kratylus (p. 768), speaks much about the mystic sanctity of names, recognised not merely by Pythagoras and Plato, but also by the Jews and Orientals.
He treats the etymologies in the Kratylus as seriously intended.
He says not a word about any intention on the part of Plato to deride the Sophists or any other Etymologists.
So also Sydenham, in his translation of Plato's Philêbus (p. 33), designates the Kratylus as "a dialogue in which is taught the nature of things, as well the permanent as the transient, by a supposed etymology of Names and Words".]
[Footnote 86: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
425 D, 426 B.
Because Sokrates says that these etymologies may appear ridiculous, we are not to infer that he proposed them as caricatures; see what Plato says in the Republic, v. p. 452, about his own propositions respecting the training of women, which others (he says) will think ludicrous, but which he proposes with the most thorough and serious conviction.]
[Side-note: Opposite tendencies of Sokrates in the last half of the dialogue--he disconnects his theory of Naming from the Herakleitean doctrine.]
In the second part of the dialogue, where Kratylus is introduced as uncompromising champion of this same theory, Sokrates changes his line of argument, and impugns the peremptory or exclusive pretensions of the theory: first denying some legitimate corollaries from it--next establishing by the side of it the counter-theory of Hermogenes, as being an inferior though indispensable auxiliary--yet still continuing to uphold it as an ideal of what is Best.
He concludes by disconnecting the theory pointedly from the doctrine of Herakleitus, with which Kratylus connected it, and by maintaining that there can be no right naming, and no sound knowledge, if that doctrine be admitted.
[87] The Platonic Ideas, eternal and unchangeable, are finally opposed to Kratylus as the only objects truly knowable and nameable--and therefore as the only conditions under which right naming can be realised.
The Name-givers of actual society have failed in their task by proceeding on a wrong doctrine: neither they nor the names which they have given can be trusted.
[88] The doctrine of perpetual change or movement is true respecting the sensible world and particulars, but it is false respecting the intelligible world or universals--Ideas and Forms.
These latter are the only things knowable: but we cannot know them through names: we must study them by themselves and by their own affinities.
[Footnote 87: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 439 D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n oi(=on te proseipei=n au)to\ o)rthôs, ei) a)ei\ u(pexe/chetai?]]
[Footnote 88: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 440 C. Compare pp.
436 D, 439 B. Lassalle contends that Herakleitus and his followers considered the knowledge of names to be not only indispensable to the knowledge of things, but equivalent to and essentially embodying that knowledge.
(Herakleitos, vol.
ii.
pp.
363-368-387.)
See also a passage of Proklus, in his Commentary on the Platonic Parmenidês, p. 476, ed.
Stallbaum.
The remarkable passage in the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysica, wherein he speaks of Plato and Plato's early familiarity with Kratylus and the Herakleitean opinions, coincides very much with the course of the Platonic dialogue Kratylus, from its beginning to its end (Aristot.
Metaphys.
A. p. 987 a-b).]
How this is to be done, Sokrates professes himself unable to say.
We may presume him to mean, that a true Artistic Name-giver must set the example, knowing these Forms or essences beforehand, and providing for each its appropriate Name, or Name-Form, significant by essential analogy.
[Side-note: Ideal of the best system of naming--the Name-Giver ought to be familiar with the Platonic Ideas or Essences, and apportion his names according to resemblances among them.]
Herein, so far as I can understand, consists the amount of positive inference which Plato enables us to draw from the Kratylus.
Sokrates began by saying that names having natural rectitude were the only materials out of which a language could be formed: he ends by affirming merely that this is the best and most perfect mode of formation: he admits that names may become significant, though loosely and imperfectly, by convention alone--yet the best scheme would be, that in which they are significant by inherent resemblance to the thing named.
But this cannot be done until the Name-giver, instead of proceeding upon the false theory of Herakleitus, starts from the true theory recognising the reality of eternal, unchangeable, Ideas or Forms.
He will distinguish, and embody in appropriate syllables, those Forms of Names which truly resemble, and have natural connection with, the Forms of Things.
Such is the ideal of perfect or philosophical Naming, as Plato conceives it--disengaged from those divinations of the origin and metamorphoses of existing names, which occupy so much of the dialogue.
[89] He does not indeed attempt to construct a body of true names _à priori_, but he sets forth the real nameable permanent essences, to which these names might be assimilated: the principles upon which the construction ought to be founded, by the philosophic lawgiver following out a good theory:[90] and he contrasts this process with two rival processes, each defective in its own way.
This same contrast, pervading Plato's views on other subjects, deserves a few words of illustration.
[Footnote 89: Deuschle (Die Platonische Sprachphilosophie, p. 57) tells us that in this dialogue "Plato _intentionally_ presented many of his thoughts in a covert or contradictory and unintelligible manner".
(Vieles absichtlich verhüllt oder widersprechend und missverständlich dargestellt wird.)
I see no probability in such an hypothesis.
Respecting the origin and primordial signification of language, a great variety of different opinions have been started.
William von Humboldt (Werke, vi.
80) assumes that there must have been some primitive and natural bond between each sound and its meaning (_i.e._ that names were originally significant [Greek: phu/sei]), though there are very few particular cases in which such connexion can be brought to evidence or even divined.
(Here we see that the larger knowledge of etymology possessed at present deters the modern philologer from that which Plato undertakes in the Kratylus.)
He distinguishes a threefold relation between the name and the thing signified.
1.
Directly imitative.
2.
Indirectly imitative or symbolical.
3.
Imitative by one remove, or analogical: where a name becomes transferred from one object to another, by virtue of likeness between the two objects.
(Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss auf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechtes, p. 78, Berlin, 1880.)
Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, in his Etymology of the English Language (see Prelim.
Disc.
p. 10 seq.
), recognises the same imitative origin, and tries to apply the principle to particular English words.
Mr. F. W. Farrar, in his recent interesting work (Chapters on Language) has explained and enforced copiously the like thesis--onomatopoeic origin for language generally.
He has combated the objections of Professor Max Müller, who considers the principle to be of little applicability or avail.
But M. Renan assigns to it not less importance than Mr. Wedgwood and Mr. Farrar.
(See sixth chapter of his ingenious dissertation De l'Origine du Langage, pp.
135-146-148.)
"L'imitation, ou l'onomatopée, paraît avoir été le procédé ordinaire d'après lequel les premiers nomenclateurs formèrent les appellations.
.
.
D'ailleurs, comme le choix de l'appellation n'est point arbitraire, et que jamais l'homme ne se décide à assembler des sons au hasard pour en faire les signes de la pensée, on peut affirmer que de tous les mots actuellement usités, il n'en est pas un seul qui _n'ait eu sa raison suffisante_, et ne se rattache, à travers mille transformations, à _une élection primitive_.
Or, le motif déterminant pour le choix des mots a dû être, dans la plupart des cas, le désir d'imiter l'objet qu'on voulait exprimer.
L'instinct de certains animaux suffit pour les porter à ce genre d'imitation, qui, faute de principes rationnels, reste chez eux infécond.
.
.
"En résumé, _le caprice_ n'a eu aucune part dans la formation du langage.
Sans doute, on ne peut admettre qu'il y ait une relation intrinsèque entre le nom et la chose.
Le système que Platon a si subtilement développé dans le Cratyle--cette thèse qu'il y a des dénominations naturelles, et que la propriété des mots se reconnaîlt à l'imitation plus ou moins exacte de l'objet,--pourrait tout au plus s'appliquer aux noms formés par onomatopée, et pour ceux-ci mêmes, la loi dont nous parlous n'établit qu'une convenance.
_Les appellations n'ont pas uniquement leur cause dans l'objet appelé_ (sans quoi, elles seraient les mêmes dans toutes les langues), _mais dans l'objet appelé, vu à travers les dispositions personnelles du sujet appelant_.
.
.
La raison qui a déterminé le choix des premiers hommes peut nous échapper; mais elle a existé.
La liaison du sens et du mot n'est jamais _nécessaire_, jamais _arbitraire_; toujours elle est motivée."
When M. Renan maintains the Protagorean doctrine, that it is not the Object which is cause of the denomination given, but the Object seen through the personal dispositions of the denominating Subject--he contradicts the reasoning of the Platonic Sokrates in the conversation with Hermogenes (pp.
386-387; compare 424 A).
But he adopts the reasoning of the same in the subsequent conversation with Kratylus; wherein the relative point of view is introduced for the first time (pp.
429 A-B, 431 E), and brought more and more into the foreground (pp.
436 B-D--437 C--439 C).
The distinction drawn by M. Renan between _l'arbitraire_ and _le motivé_ appears to me unfounded: at least, it requires a peculiar explanation of the two words--for if by _le caprice_ and _l'arbitraire_ be meant the exclusion of _all_ motive, such a state of mind could not be a preliminary to any proceeding at all.
M. Renan can only mean that the motive which led to the original choice of the name, was peculiar to the occasion, and has since been forgotten.
And this is what he himself says in a note to his Preface (pp.
18-19), replying to M. Littré: "L'Arien primitif a eu un motif pour appeler le frère _bhratr_ ou _fratr_, et le Sémite pour l'appeler _ah_: peut on dire que cette différence résulte ou des aptitudes différentes de leur esprit, ou du spectacle extérieur?
Chaque objet, les circonstances restant les mêmes, a été susceptible d'une foule de dénominations: le choix qui a été fait de l'une d'elles tient à des causes impossibles à saisir."]
[Footnote 90: Plato (in Timæus, p. 29 B) recognises an essential affinity between the eternal Forms and the words or propositions in which they become subjects of discourse.]
[Side-note: Comparison of Plato's views about naming with those upon social institutions.
Artistic, systematic construction--contrasted with unpremeditated unsystematic growth.]
Respecting social institutions and government, there is one well-known theory to which Sir James Mackintosh gave expression in the phrase--"Governments are not made, but grow".
The like phrase has been applied by an eminent modern author on Logic, to language--"Languages are not made, but grow".
[91] One might suppose, in reading the second and third books of the Republic of Plato, that Plato also had adopted this theory: for the growth of a society, without any initiative or predetermined construction by a special individual, is there strikingly depicted.
[92] But in truth it is this theory which stands in most of the Platonic works, as the antithesis depreciated and discredited by Plato.
The view most satisfactory to him contemplates the analogy of a human artist or professional man; which he enlarges into the idea of an originating, intelligent, artistic, Constructor, as the source of all good.
This view is exhibited to us in the Timæus, where we find the Demiurgus, building up by his own fiat all that is good in the Kosmos: in the Politikus, where we find the individual dictator producing by his uncontrolled ordinance all that is really good in the social system;--lastly, here also in the Kratylus, where we have the scientific or artistic Name-giver, and him alone, set forth as competent to construct an assemblage of names, each possessing full and perfect rectitude.
To this theory there is presented a counter-theory, which Plato disapproves--a Kosmos which grows by itself and keeps up its own agencies, without any extra-kosmic constructor or superintendent: in like manner, an aggregate of social customs, and an aggregate of names, which have grown up no one knows how; and which sustain and perpetuate themselves by traditional force--by movement already acquired in a given direction.
The idea of growth, by regular assignable steps and by regularising tendencies instinctive and inherent in Nature, belongs rather to Aristotle; Plato conceives Nature as herself irregular, and as persuaded or constrained into some sort of regularity by a supernatural or extranatural artist.
[93] [Footnote 91: See Mr. John Stuart Mill's Logic, Book i. ch.
viii.]
[Footnote 92: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 369 seq., where the [Greek: ge/nesis] of a social community, out of common necessity and desire acting upon all and each of the individual citizens, is depicted in a striking way.
The [Greek: a)rchê] of the City (p. 369 B) as Plato there presents it, is Aristotelian rather than Platonic.]
[Footnote 93: M. Destutt de Tracy insists upon the emotional initiative force, as deeper and more efficacious than the intellectual, in the first formation of language.
"Dans l'origine du langage d'action, un seul geste dit--je veux cela, ou je vous montre cela, ou je vous demande secours; un seul cri dit, je vous appelle, ou je souffre, ou je suis content, &c.; mais sans distinguer aucune des idées qui composent ses propositions.
Ce n'est point par le détail, mais par les masses, que, commencent toutes nos expressions, ainsi que toutes nos connaissances.
Si quelques langages possèdent des signes propres à exprimer des idées isolées, ce n'est donc que par l'effet de la décomposition qui s'est opérée dans ces langages; et ces signes, ou noms propres d'idées, ne sont, pour ainsi dire, que des débris, des fragmens, ou du moins des émanations de ceux qui d'abord exprimaient, bien ou mal, les propositions tout entières."
(Destutt de Tracy, Grammaire, ch.
i. p. 23, ed.
1825; see also the Idéologie of the same author, ch.
xvi.
p.
215.)
M. Renan enunciates in the most explicit terms this comparison of the formation of language to the growth and development of a germ:--"Les langues doivent êtres comparées, non au cristal qui se forme par agglomération autour d'un noyau, mais au germe qui se développe par sa force intime, et par l'appel nécessaire de ses parties".
(De l'Origine du Langage, ch.
iii.
p. 101; also ch.
iv.
pp.
115-117.)
The theory of M. Renan, in this ingenious treatise, is, that language is the product of "la raison spontanée, la raison populaire," without reflexion.
"La reflexion n'y peut rien: les langues sont sorties toutes faites du moule même de l'esprit humain, comme Minerve du cerveau de Jupiter."
"Maintenant que la raison réfléchie a remplacé l'instinct créateur, à peine le génie suffit-il pour analyser ce que les l'esprit des premiers hommes enfanta de toutes pièces, et sans y songer" (pp.
98-99).
This theory appears to me very doubtful; as much as there is proved in it, is stated in a good passage cited by M. Renan from Will.
von Humboldt (pp.
106-107).
But there are two remarks to be made, in comparing it with the Kratylus of Plato.
1.
That the hypothesis of a philosopher "qui compose un langage de sang-froid," which appears absurd to Turgot and M. Renan (p. 92), did not appear absurd to Plato, but on the contrary as the only sure source of what is good and right in language.
2.
That Plato, in the Kratylus, takes account only of _naming_, and not of the grammatical structure of language, which M. Renan considers the essential part (p. 106: compare also pp.
208-209).
Grammar, with its established analogies, does not seem to have been present to Plato's mind as an object of reflexion; there existed none in his day.]
[Side-note: Politikus compared with Kratylus.]
Looking back to the Politikus (reviewed in the last chapter), we find Plato declaring to us wherein consists the rectitude of a social Form: it resides in the presiding and uncontrolled authority of a scientific or artistic Ruler, always present and directing every one: or of a few such Rulers, if there be a few--though this is more than can be hoped.
But such rectitude is seldom or never realised.
Existing social systems are bad copies of this type, degenerating more or less widely from its perfection.
One or a Few persons arrogate to themselves uncontrolled power, without possessing that science or art which justifies the exercise of it in the Right Ruler.
These are, or may become, extreme depravations.
The least bad, among all the imperfect systems, is an aggregate of fixed laws and magistrates with known functions, agreed to by convention of all and faithfully obeyed by all.
But such a system of fixed laws, though second-best, falls greatly short of rectitude.
It is much inferior in every way to the uncontrolled authority of the scientific Ruler.
[94] [Footnote 94: See Plato, Politik.
pp.
300-301.]
That which Plato does for social systems in the Politikus, he does for names in the Kratylus.
The full rectitude of names is when they are bestowed by the scientific Ruler, considered in the capacity of Name-giver.
He it is who discerns, and embodies in syllables, the true Name-Form in each particular case.
But such an artist is seldom realised: and there are others who, attempting to do his work without his knowledge, perform it ignorantly or under false theories.
[95] The names thus given are imperfect names: moreover, after being given, they become corrupted and transformed in passing from man to man.
Lastly, the mere fact of convention among the individuals composing the society, without any deliberate authorship or origination from any Ruler, bad or good--suffices to impart to Names a sort of significance, vulgar and imperfect, yet adequate to a certain extent.
[96] The Name-giving Artist or Lawgiver is here superseded by King Nomos.
[Footnote 95: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 432 E.] [Footnote 96: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
434 E, 435 A-B.
This unsystematic, spontaneous, origin and growth of language is set forth by Lucretius, who declares himself opposed to the theory of an originating Name-giver (v. pp.
1021-1060).
Jacob Grimm and M. Renan espouse a theory, in the main, similar.]
[Side-note: Ideal of Plato--Postulate of the One Wise Man--Badness of all reality.]
It will be seen that in both these cases the Platonic point of view comes out--deliberate authorship from the scientific or artistic individual mind, as the only source of rectitude and perfection.
But when Plato looks at the reality of life, either in social system or in names, he finds no such perfection anywhere: he discovers a divine agency originating what is good; but there is an independent agency necessary in the way of co-operation, though it sometimes counteracts and always debases the good.
[97] We find either an incompetent dictator who badly imitates the true Artist--or else we have fixed, peremptory, laws; depending on the unsystematic, unauthorised, convention among individuals, which has grown up no one knows how--which is transmitted by tradition, being taught by every one and learnt by every one without any privileged caste of teachers--and which in the Platonic Protagoras is illustrated in the mythe and discourse ascribed to that Sophist;[98] being in truth, common sense, as contrasted with professional specialty.
In regard to social systems, Plato pronounces fixed laws to be the second-best--enjoining strict obedience to them, wherever the first-best cannot be obtained.
In the Republic he enumerates what are the conditions of rectitude in a city: but he admits at the same time that this Right Civic Constitution is an ideal, nowhere to be found existing: and he points out the successive stages of corruption by which it degenerates more and more into conformity with the realities of human society.
As with Right Civic Constitution, so with Right Naming: Plato shows what constitutes rectitude of Names, but he admits that this is an ideal seen nowhere, and he notes the various causes which deprave the Right Names into that imperfect and semi-significant condition, which is the best that existing languages present.
[99] [Footnote 97: Plato, Timæus, p. 68 E.] [Footnote 98: See my remarks on the Politikus, in the last chapter: also Protagoras, p. 320 seq.
Compare Plato, Kriton, p. 48 A.
[Greek: o( e)pai+/ôn peri\ tô dikai/ôn, o( ei(=s.]
In the Menon also the same question is broached as in the Protagoras, whether virtue is teachable or not?
and how any virtue can exist, when there are no special teachers, and no special learners of virtue?
Here we have, though differently handled, the same antithesis between the ethical sentiment which grows and propagates itself unconsciously, without special initiative--and that which is deliberately prescribed and imparted by the wise individual: common sense versus professional specialty.]
[Footnote 99: See the conditions of the [Greek: o)rthê\ politei/a], and its gradual depravation and degeneracy into the state of actual governments, in Republic, v. init.
p. 449 B, vii.
544 A-B.]
[Side-note: Comparison of Kratylus, Theætêtus, and Sophistês, in treatment of the question respecting Non-Ens, and the possibility of false propositions.]
One more remark, in reference to the general spirit and reciprocal bearing of Plato's dialogues.
In three comparison distinct dialogues--Kratylus, Theætêtus, Sophistês--one and the same question is introduced into the discussion: a question keenly debated among the contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle.
How is a false proposition possible?
Many held that a false proposition and a false name were impossible: that you could not speak the thing that _is not_, or Non-Ens ([Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n]): that such a proposition would be an empty sound, without meaning or signification: that speech may be significant or insignificant, but could not be false, except in the sense of being unmeaning.
[100] [Footnote 100: Plato, Kratyl.
p. 429.
Ammonius, Scholia [Greek: ei)s ta\s Katêgori/as] of Aristotle (Schol.
Brandis, p. 60, a.
10).
[Greek: Tine/s phasi mêde\n ei)=nai tô=n pro/s ti phu/sei, a)lla\ a)na/plasma ei)=nai tau=ta tê=s ê(mete/ras dianoi/as, le/gontes o(/ti ou(/tôs ou)k e)sti\ phu/sei ta\ pro/s ti a)lla\ the/sei .
.
.
Tine\s de/, e)k diame/trou tou/tois e)/chontes, pa/nta ta\ o)/nta pro/s ti e)/legon.
Ô(=n ei)=s ê)=n Prôtago/ras o( sophistê/s; .
.
.
dio\ kai\ e)/legen o(/ti ou)k e)/sti tina\ pseudê= le/gein; e(/kastos ga\r kata\ to\ phaino/menon au)tô=| kai\ dokou=n a)pophai/netai peri\ tô=n pragma/tôn, ou)k e)cho/ntôn ô(risme/nên phu/sin a)ll' e)n tê=| pro\s ê(ma=s sche/sei to\ ei)=nai e)cho/ntôn.]]
Now this doctrine is dealt with in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and Kratylus.
In the Theætêtus,[101] Sokrates examines it at great length, and proposes several different hypotheses to explain how a false proposition might be possible: but ends in pronouncing them all inadmissible.
He declares himself incompetent, and passes on to something else.
Again, in the Sophistês, the same point is taken up, and discussed there also very copiously.
[102] The Eleate in that dialogue ends by finding a solution which satisfies him (_viz._: that [Greek: to\ mê o)\n = to\ e(/teron o)/ntos]).
But what is remarkable is, that the solution does not meet any of the difficulties propounded in the Theætêtus; nor are those difficulties at all adverted to in the Sophistês.
Finally, in the Kratylus, we have the very same doctrine, that false affirmations are impossible--which both in the Theætêtus and in the Sophistês is enunciated, not as the decided opinion of the speaker, but as a problem which embarrasses him--we have this same doctrine averred unequivocally by Kratylus as his own full conviction.
And Sokrates finds that a very short argument, and a very simple comparison, suffice to refute him.
[103] The supposed "aggressive cross-examiner," who presses Sokrates so hard in the Theætêtus, is not allowed to put his puzzling questions in the Kratylus.
[104] [Footnote 101: Plato, Theætêt.
pp.
187 D to 201 D. The discussion of the point is continued through thirteen pages of Stephan.
Edit.]
[Footnote 102: Plato, Sophistês, pp.
237 A, 264 B, through twenty-seven pages of Steph.
edit.--though there are some digressions included herein.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Kratyl.
pp.
430-431 A-B.]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Theætêt.
p. 200 A.
[Greek: o( ga\r e)legktiko\s e)kei=nos gela/sas phê/sei.]]
[Side-note: Discrepancies and inconsistencies of Plato, in his manner of handling the same subject.]
How are we to explain these three different modes of handling the same question by the same philosopher?
If the question about Non-Ens can be disposed of in the summary way which we read in the Kratylus, what is gained by the string of unsolved puzzles in the Theætêtus--or by the long discursive argument in the Sophistês, ushering in a new solution noway satisfactory?
If, on the contrary, the difficulties which are unsolved in the Theætêtus, and imperfectly solved in the Sophistês, are real and pertinent--how are we to explain the proceeding of Plato in the Kratylus, when he puts into the mouth of Kratylus a distinct averment of the opinion, about Non-Ens, yet without allowing him, when it is impugned by Sokrates, to urge any of these pertinent arguments in defence of it?
If the peculiar solution given in the Sophistês be the really genuine and triumphant solution, why is it left unnoticed both in the Kratylus and the Theætêtus, and why is it contradicted in other dialogues?
Which of the three dialogues represents Plato's real opinion on the question?
[Side-note: No common didactic purpose pervading the Dialogues--each is a distinct composition, working out its own peculiar argument.]
To these questions, and to many others of like bearing, connected with the Platonic writings, I see no satisfactory reply, if we are to consider Plato as a positive philosopher, with a scheme and edifice of methodised opinions in his mind: and as composing all his dialogues with a set purpose, either of inculcating these opinions on the reader, or of refuting the opinions opposed to them.
This supposition is what most Platonic critics have in their minds, even when professedly modifying it.
Their admiration for Plato is not satisfied unless they conceive him in the professorial chair as a teacher, surrounded by a crowd of learners, all under the obligation (incumbent on learners generally) to believe what they hear.
Reasoning upon such a basis, the Platonic dialogues present themselves to me as a mystery.
They exhibit neither identity of the teacher, nor identity of the matter taught: the composer (to use various Platonic comparisons) is Many, and not One--he is more complex than Typhos.
[105] [Footnote 105: Plato, Phædrus, p. 230 A.]
If we are to find any common purpose pervading and binding together all the dialogues, it must not be a didactic purpose, in the sense above defined.
The value of them consists, not in the result, but in the discussion--not in the conclusion, but in the premisses for and against it.
In this sense all the dialogues have value, and all the same sort of value--though not all equal in amount.
In different dialogues, the same subject is set before you in different ways: with remarks and illustrations sometimes tending towards one theory, sometimes towards another.
It is for you to compare and balance them, and to elicit such result as your reason approves.
The Platonic dialogues require, in order to produce their effect, a supplementary responsive force, and a strong effective reaction, from the individual reason of the reader: they require moreover that he shall have a genuine interest in the process of dialectic scrutiny ([Greek: to\ philomathe/s, philo/logon])[106] which will enable him to perceive beauties in what would appear tiresome to others.
[Footnote 106: Plato, Republic, v. p. 475; compare Phædon, pp.
89-90.
Phædrus, p. 230 E.] Such manner of proceeding may be judicious or not, according to the sentiment of the critic.
But it is at any rate Platonic.
And we have to recall this point of view when dismissing the Kratylus, which presents much interest in the premisses and conflicting theories, with little or no result.
It embodies the oldest speculations known to us respecting the origin, the mode of signification, and the functions of words as an instrument: and not the least interesting part of it, in my judgment, consists in its etymological conjectures, affording evidence of a rude etymological sense which has now passed away.
CHAPTER XXXII PHILEBUS.
The Philêbus, which we are now about to examine, is not merely a Dialogue of Search, but a Dialogue of Exposition, accompanied with more or less of search made subservient to the exposition.
It represents Sokrates from the first as advancing an affirmative opinion--maintaining it against Philêbus and Protarchus--and closing with a result assumed to be positively established.
[1] [Footnote 1: Schleiermacher says, about the Philêbus (Einleit.
p. 136)--"Das Ganze liegt fertig in dem Haupte des Sokrates, und tritt mit der ganzen Persönlichkeit und Willkühr einer zusammenhängenden Rede heraus," &c.] [Side-note: Character, Personages, and Subject of the Philêbus.]
The question is, Wherein consists the Good--The Supreme Good--Summum Bonum.
Three persons stand before us: the youthful Philêbus: Protarchus, somewhat older, yet still a young man: and Sokrates.
Philêbus declares that The Good consists in pleasure or enjoyment; and Protarchus his friend advocates the same thesis, though in a less peremptory manner.
On the contrary, Sokrates begins by proclaiming that it consists in wisdom or intelligence.
He presently however recedes from this doctrine, so far as to admit that wisdom, alone and _per se_, is not sufficient to constitute the Supreme Good: and that a certain combination of pleasure along with it is required.
Though the compound total thus formed is superior both to wisdom and to pleasure taken separately, yet comparing the two elements of which it is compounded, wisdom (Sokrates contends) is the most important of the two, and pleasure the least important.
Neither wisdom nor pleasure can pretend to claim the first prize; but wisdom is fully entitled to the second, as being far more cognate than pleasure is, with the nature of Good.
[Side-note: Protest against the Sokratic Elenchus, and the purely negative procedure.]
Such is the general purpose of the dialogue.
As to the method of enquiry, Plato not only assigns to Sokrates a distinct affirmative opinion from the beginning, instead of that profession of ignorance which is his more usual characteristic--but he also places in the mouth of Protarchus an explicit protest against the negative cross-examination and Elenchus.
"We shall not let you off" (says Protarchus to Sokrates) "until the two sides of this question shall have been so discriminated as to elicit a sufficient conclusion.
In meeting us on the present question, pray desist from that ordinary manner of yours--desist from throwing us into embarrassment, and putting interrogations to which we cannot at the moment give suitable answers.
We must not be content to close the discussion by finding ourselves in one common puzzle and confusion.
If _we_ cannot solve the difficulty, you must solve it for us.
"[2] [Footnote 2: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
19 E--20 A.
[Greek: pau=sai dê\ to\n tro/pon ê(mi=n a)pantô=n tou=ton e)pi\ ta\ nu=n lego/mena .
.
.
ei)s a)pori/an e)mba/llôn kai\ a)nerôtô=n ô(=n mê\ dunai/meth' a)\n i(kanê\n a)po/krisin e)n tô=| paro/nti dido/nai soi.
mê\ ga\r oi)ô/metha te/los ê(mi=n ei)=nai tô=n nu=n tê\n pa/ntôn ê(mô=n a)pori/an, a)ll' ei) dra=|n tou=th' ê(mei=s a)dunatou=men, soi\ draste/on.]
There is a remarkable contrast between the method here proclaimed and that followed in the Theætêtus, though some eminent commentators have represented the Philêbus as a sequel of the Theætêtus.]
[Side-note: Enquiry--What mental condition will ensure to all men a happy life?
Good and Happiness--correlative and co-extensive.
Philêbus declares for Pleasure, Sokrates for Intelligence.]
Conformably to this requisition, Sokrates, while applying his cross-examining negative test to the doctrine of Philêbus, sets against it a counter-doctrine of his own, and prescribes, farther, a positive method of enquiry.
"You and I" (he says) "will each try to assign what permanent habit of mind, and what particular mental condition, is calculated to ensure to all men a happy life.
"[3] Good and Happiness are used in this dialogue as correlative and co-extensive terms.
Happiness is that which a man feels when he possesses Good: Good is that which a man must possess in order to feel Happiness.
The same fact or condition, looked at objectively, is denominated Good: looked at subjectively, is denominated Happiness.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Philêbus, p. 11 D.] [Side-note: Good--object of universal choice and attachment by men, animals, and plants--all-sufficient--satisfies all desires.]
Is Good identical with pleasure, or with intelligence, or is it a Tertium Quid, distinct from both?
Good, or The Good must be perfect and all-sufficient in itself: the object of desire, aspiration, choice, and attachment, by all men, and even by all animals and plants, who are capable of attaining it.
Every man who has it, is satisfied, desiring nothing else.
If he neglects it, and chooses any thing else, this is contrary to nature: he does so involuntarily, either from ignorance or some other untoward constraint.
[4] Thus, the characteristic mark of Good or Happiness is, That it is desired, loved, and sought by all, and that, if attained, it satisfies all the wishes and aspirations of human nature.
[Footnote 4: Plato, Philêbus, p. 11 C. 20 C-D: [Greek: Tê\n ta)gathou= moi=ran po/teron a)na/gkê te/leon ê)\ mê\ te/leon ei)=nai?
Pa/ntôn dê/pou teleô/taton.
Ti/ de/; i(kano\n ta)gatho/n?
Pô=s ga\r ou)/?
kai\ pa/ntôn ge ei)s tou=to diaphe/rein tô=n o)/ntô=n.
To/de ge mê\n, ô(s oi)=mai, peri\ au)tou= a)nagkaio/taton ei)=nai le/gein, ô(s pa=n to\ gignô=skon au)to\ thêreu/ei kai\ e)phi/etai boulo/menon e(lei=n kai\ peri\ au(to\ ktê/sasthai, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn ou)de\n phronti/zei plê\n tô=n a)poteloume/nôn a)/ma a)gathoi=s.]
22 B: [Greek: i(kano\s kai\ te/leos kai\ pa=si phutoi=s kai\ zô/ois ai(reto/s, oi(=sper dunato\n ê)=n ou(/tôs a)ei\ dia\ bi/ou zê=n; ei) de/ tis a)/lla ê(|rei=th' ê(mô=n, para\ phu/sin a)\n tê\n tou= a)lêthou=s ai(retou= e)la/mbanen a)/kôn e)x a)gnoi/as ê)/ tinos a)na/gkês ou)k eu)dai/monos.]
60 C, 61 A.
61 E: [Greek: to\n a)gapêto/taton bi/on].
64 C: [Greek: tou= pa=si gegone/nai prosphilê= tê\n toiau/tên dia/thesin.]
67 A.
"Omnibus naturæ humanæ desideriis prorsus satisfacere" (Stallbaum ad Philêb.
p. 18 D-E, page 139).]
[Side-note: Pleasures are unlike to each other, and even opposite cognitions are so likewise.]
Sokrates then remarks that pleasure is very multifarious and diverse: and that under that same word, different forms and varieties are signified, very unlike to each other, and sometimes even opposite to each other.
Thus the intemperate man has his pleasures, while the temperate man enjoys his pleasures also, attached to his own mode of life: so too the simpleton has pleasure in his foolish dreams and hopes, the intelligent man in the exercise of intellectual force.
These and many others are varieties of pleasure not resembling, but highly dissimilar, even opposite.--Protarchus replies--That they proceed from dissimilar and opposite circumstances, but that in themselves they are not dissimilar or opposite.
Pleasure must be completely similar to pleasure--itself to itself.--So too (rejoins Sokrates) colour is like to colour: in that respect there is no difference between them.
But black colour is different from, and even opposite to, white colour.
[5] You will go wrong if you make things altogether opposite, into one.
You may call all pleasures by the name _pleasures_: but you must not affirm between them any other point of resemblance, nor call them all _good_.
I maintain that some are bad, others good.
What common property in all of them, is it, that you signify by the name _good_?
As different pleasures are unlike to each other, so also different cognitions (or modes of intelligence) are unlike to each other; though all of them agree in being _cognitions_.
To this Protarchus accedes.
[6]--We must enter upon our enquiry after The Good with this mutual concession: That Pleasure, which you affirm to be The Good--and Intelligence, which I declare to be so--is at once both Unum, and Multa et Diversa.
[7] [Footnote 5: Plat.
Philêb.
p. 12 D-E.] [Footnote 6: Plat.
Philêb.
pp.
13 D-E, 14 A.]
[Footnote 7: Plat.
Philêb.
p. 14 B.]
[Side-note: Whether Pleasure, or Wisdom, corresponds to this description?
Appeal to individual choice.]
In determining between the two competing doctrines--pleasure on one side and intelligence on the other--Sokrates makes appeal to individual choice.
"Would _you_ be satisfied (he asks Protarchus) to live your life through in the enjoyment of the greatest pleasures?
Would _any one of us_ be satisfied to live, possessing the fullest measure and variety of intelligence, reason, knowledge, and memory--but having no sense, great or small, either of pleasure or pain?"
And Protarchus replies, in reference to the joint life of intelligence and pleasure combined, "Every man will choose this joint life in preference to either of them separately.
It is not one man who will choose it, and another who will reject it: but every man will choose it alike.
"[8] [Footnote 8: Plato, Philêbus, p. 21 A.
[Greek: de/xai' a)\n su/, Prô/tarche, zê=n to\n bi/on a(/panta ê(do/menos ê(dona\s ta\s megi/stas?]
21 D-E: [Greek: ei)/ tis de/xait' a)\n au)= zê=n ê(mô=n], &c. 22 A: [Greek: Pa=s dê/pou tou=to/n ge ai(rê/setai pro/teron ê)\ e)kei/nôn o(poteronou=n, kai\ pro\s tou/tois ge ou)ch o( me/n, o( d' ou)/.]
60 D: [Greek: ei)/ tis a)/neu tou/tôn de/xait' a)/n], &c. Here again in appealing to the individual choice and judgment, the Platonic Sokrates indirectly recognises what, in the Theætêtus and other dialogues, we have seen him formally rejecting and endeavouring to confute--the Protagorean canon or measure.
Protarchus is the measure of truth or falsehood, of belief or disbelief, to Protarchus himself: every other man is so _to himself_.
Sokrates may be a wiser man, in the estimation of the public, than Protarchus; and if Protarchus believes him to be such, that very belief may amount to an authority, determining Protarchus to accept or reject various opinions propounded by Sokrates: but the ultimate verdict must emanate from the bosom of the acceptor or rejector.
I have already observed elsewhere, that a large part of the conversation which the Platonic dialogues put into the mouth of Sokrates, is addressed to individualities and specialties of the other interlocutors: that this very power of discriminating between one mind and another, forms the great superiority of dialectic colloquy as compared with written treatise or rhetorical discourse--both of which address the same terms to a multitude of hearers or readers differing among themselves, without possibility of separate adaptation to each.
(See above, ch.
xxvi.
pp.
50-54, on Phædrus.)]
[Side-note: First Question submitted to Protarchus--Intense Pleasure, without any intelligence--He declines to accept it.]
The point, which Sokrates submits to the individual judgment of Protarchus, is--"Would _you_ be satisfied to pass your life in the enjoyment of the most intense pleasures, and would you desire nothing farther?"
The reply is in the affirmative.
"But recollect (adds Sokrates) that you are to have nothing else.
The question assumes that you are to be without thought, intelligence, reason, sight, and memory: you are neither to have opinion of present enjoyment, nor remembrance of past, nor anticipation of future: you are to live the life of an oyster, with great present pleasure?"
The question being put with these additions, Protarchus alters his view, and replies in the negative: at the same time expressing his surprise at the strangeness of the hypothesis.
[9] [Footnote 9: Plato, Philêbus, p. 21.
Such an hypothesis does indeed depart so totally from the conditions of human life, that it cannot be considered as a fair test of any doctrine.
A perpetuity of delicious sensations cannot be enjoyed, consistent with the conditions of animal organization.
A man cannot realise to himself that which the hypothesis promises; much less can he realise it without those accompaniments which it assumes him to renounce.
The loss stands out far more palpably than the gain.
It is no refutation of the theory of Philêbus; who, announcing pleasure as the Summum Bonum, is entitled to call for pleasure in all its varieties, and for exemption from all pains.
Sokrates himself had previously insisted on the great variety as well as on the great dissimilarity of the modes of pleasure and pain.
To each variety of pleasure there corresponds a desire: to each variety of pain, an aversion.
If the Summum Bonum is to fulfil the conditions postulated--that is, if it be such as to satisfy all human desires, it ought to comprise all these varieties of pleasure.
It ought, _e.g._, to comprise the pleasures of self-esteem, and conscious self-protecting power, affording security for the future; it ought to comprise exemption from the pains of self-reproach, self-contempt, and conscious helplessness.
These are among the greatest pleasures and pains of the mature man, though they are aggregates formed by association.
Now the alternative tendered by Sokrates neither includes these pleasures nor eliminates these pains.
It includes only the pleasures of sense; and it is tendered to one who has rooted in his mind desires for other pleasures, and aversions for other pains, besides those of sense.
It does not therefore come up to the requirements fairly implied in the theory of Philêbus.]
[Side-note: Second Question--Whether he will accept a life of Intelligence purely without any pleasure or pain?
Answer--_No_.]
Sokrates now proceeds to ask Protarchus, whether he will accept a life of full and all-comprehensive intelligence purely and simply, without any taste either of pleasure or pain.
To which Protarchus answers, that neither he nor any one else would accept such a life.
[10] Both of them agree that the Summum Bonum ought to be sought neither in pleasure singly, nor in intelligence singly, but in both combined.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
21-22.
It is to be remarked, however, that there was more than one Grecian philosopher who described the Summum Bonum as consisting in absence of pain ([Greek: a)lupi/a]); even without the large measure of intelligence which Sokrates here promises, and without any positive pleasure.
These men would of course have accepted the second alternative put by Sokrates, which Protarchus here refuses.
They took their standard of comparison from the actualities of human life around them, which exhibited pain and suffering universal, frequent, and unavoidable.
They conceived that if painlessness could be obtained, it was as much as could reasonably be demanded, and that pleasure might be dispensed with.
In laying down any theory about the Summum Bonum, the preliminary question ought always to be settled--What are the conditions of human life which are to be assumed as peremptory and unalterable?
What circumstances are we at liberty to suppose to be suppressed, modified, or reversed?
According as these fundamental postulates are given in a larger or narrower sense, the ideal Summum Bonum will be shaped differently.
This preliminary requisite to the investigation was little considered by the ancient philosophers.]
[Side-note: It is agreed on both sides, That the Good must be a Tertium Quid.
But Sokrates undertakes to show, That Intelligence is more cognate with it than Pleasure.]
[Side-note: Difficulties about Unum et Multa.
How can the One be Many?
How can the Many be One?
The difficulties are greatest about Generic Unity--how it is distributed among species and individuals.]
Sokrates then undertakes to show, that of these two elements, intelligence is the most efficacious and the most contributory to the Summum Bonum--pleasure the least so.
But as a preparation for this enquiry, he adverts to that which has just been agreed between them respecting both Pleasure and Intelligence--That each of them is Unum, and each of them at the same time Multa et Diversa.
Here (argues Sokrates) we find opened before us the embarrassing question respecting the One and the Many.
Enquirers often ask--"How can the One be Many?
How can the Many be One?
How can the same thing be both One and Many?"
They find it difficult to understand how you, Protarchus, being One person, are called by different names--tall, heavy, white, just, &c.: or how you are affirmed to consist of many different parts and members.
To this difficulty, however (says Sokrates), the reply is easy.
You, and other particular men, belong to the generated and the perishable.
You partake of many different Ideas or Essences, and your partaking of one among them does not exclude you from partaking also of another distinct and even opposite.
You partake of the Idea or Essence of Unity--also of Multitude--of tallness, heaviness, whiteness, humanity, greatness, littleness, &c. You are both great and little, heavy and light, &c. In regard to generated and perishable things, we may understand this.
But in regard to the ungenerated, imperishable, absolute Essences, the difficulty is more serious.
The Self-existent or Universal Man, Bull, Animal--the Self-existent Beautiful, Good--in regard to these Unities or Monads there is room for great controversy.
First, Do such unities or monads really and truly exist?
Next, assuming that they do exist, how do they come into communion with generated and perishable particulars, infinite in number?
Is each of them dispersed and parcelled out among countless individuals?
or is it found, whole and entire, in each individual, maintaining itself as one and the same, and yet being parted from itself?
Is the Universal Man distributed among all individual men, or is he one and entire in each of them?
How is the Universal Beautiful (The Self-Beautiful--Beauty) in all and each beautiful thing?
How does this one monad, unchangeable and imperishable, become embodied in a multitude of transitory individuals, each successively generated and perishing?
How does this One become Many, or how do these Many become One?
[11] [Footnote 11: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15 B.]
[Side-note: Active disputes upon this question at the time.]
These (says Sokrates) are the really grave difficulties respecting the identity of the One and the Many: difficulties which have occasioned numerous controversies, and are likely to occasion many more.
Youthful speculators, especially, are fond of trying their first efforts of dialectical ingenuity in arguing upon this paradox--How the One can be Many, and the Many One.
[12] [Footnote 12: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
15-16.
In reading the difficulties thus started by Sokrates, we perceive them to be the same as those which we have seen set forth in the dialogue called Parmenidês, where they are put into the mouth of the philosopher so-called; as objections requiring to be removed by Sokrates, before the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas, universal, eternal and unchangeable, can be admitted.
We might expect that Plato having so emphatically and repeatedly announced his own sense of the difficulty, would proceed to suggest some mode of replying to it.
But this he never does.
In the Parmenidês, he does not even promise any explanation; in the Philêbus, he seems to promise one, but all the explanation which he gives ignores or jumps over the difficulty, enjoining us to proceed as if no such difficulty existed.]
[Side-note: Order of Nature--Coalescence of the Finite with the Infinite.
The One--The Finite Many--The Infinite Many.]
It is a primæval inspiration (he says) granted by the Gods to man along with the fire of Prometheus, and handed down to us as a tradition from that heroic race who were in nearer kindred with the Gods--That all things said to exist are composed of Unity and Multitude, and include in them a natural coalescence of Finiteness and Infinity.
[13] This is the fundamental order of Nature, which we must assume and proceed upon in our investigations.
We shall find everywhere the Form of Unity conjoined with the Form of Infinity.
But we must not be satisfied simply to find these two forms.
We must look farther for those intermediate Forms which lie between the two.
Having found the Form of One, we must next search for the Form of Two, Three, Four, or some definite number: and we must not permit ourselves to acquiesce in the Form of Infinite, until no farther definite number can be detected.
In other words, we must not be satisfied with knowing only one comprehensive Genus, and individuals comprised under it.
We must distribute the Genus into two, three, or more Species: and each of those Species again into two or more sub-species, each characterised by some specific mark: until no more characteristic marks can be discovered upon which to found the establishment of a distinct species.
When we reach this limit, and when we have determined the number of subordinate species which the case presents, nothing remains except the indefinite mass and variety of individuals.
[14] The whole scheme will thus comprise--The One, the Summum Genus, or Highest Form: The Many, a definite number of Species or sub-Species or subordinate Forms: The Infinite, a countless heap of Individuals.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Philêbus, p. 16 C. [Greek: ô(s e)x e(no\s me\n kai\ e)k pollô=n o)/ntôn tô=n a)ei\ legome/nôn ei)=nai, pe/ras de\ kai\ a)peiri/an e(n au(toi=s xu/mphuton e)cho/ntôn.]]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Philêbus, p. 16 D. [Greek: dei=n ou)=n ê(ma=s _tou/tôn ou(/tô diakerosmême/nôn_, a)ei\ _mi/an i)de/an_ peri\ panto\s e(ka/stote _theme/nous zêtei=n; eu(rê/sein ga\r e)nou=san_; e)a\n ou)=n metala/bômen, meta\ mi/an du/o, ei)/ pôs ei)si/, skopei=n, ei) de\ mê/, trei=s ê)/ tina a)/llon a)rithmo/n, kai\ to\ e(\n e)kei/nôn e(/kaston pa/lin ô(sau/tôs, me/chri per a)\n to\ kat' a)rcha\s e(\n mê\ o(/ti e(\n kai\ polla\ kai\ a)/peira/ e)sti mo/non i)/dê| tis a)lla\ kai\ o(/posa; _tê\n de\ tou= a)pei/rou i)de/an_ pro\s to\ plê=thos mê\ prosphe/rein, pri\n a)/n tis to\n a)rithmo\n au)tou= pa/nta kati/dê| to\n metaxu\ tou= a)pei/rou te kai\ tou= e(no/s; to/te d' ê)/dê to\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n pa/ntôn ei)s to\ a)/peiron methe/nta chai/rein e)a=|n.]
Plato here recognises a Form of the Infinite, [Greek: a)pei/rou i)de/an]; again, p. 18 A, [Greek: a)pei/rou phu/sin].]
[Side-note: Mistake commonly made--To look only for the One, and the Infinite Many, without looking for the intermediate subdivisions.]
The mistake commonly made (continues Sokrates) by clever men of the present day, is, that they look for nothing beyond the One and the Infinite Many: one comprehensive class, and countless individuals included in it.
They take up carelessly any class which strikes them,[15] and are satisfied to have got an indefinite number of individuals under one name.
But they never seek for intermediate sub-divisions between the two, so as to be able to discriminate one portion of the class from other by some definite mark, and thus to constitute a sub-class.
They do not feel the want of such intermediate sub-divisions, nor the necessity of distinguishing one portion of this immense group of individuals from another.
Yet it is exactly upon these discriminating marks that the difference turns, between genuine dialectical argument and controversy without result.
[16] [Footnote 15: Plato, Philêbus, p. 17 A.
[Greek: oi( de\ nu=n tô=n a)nthrô/pôn sophoi\ _e(\n me/n, o(/pôs a)\n tu/chôsi_, kai\ polla\ tha=tton kai\ bradu/teron poiou=si tou= de/ontos, _meta\ de\ to\ e(\n a)/peira eu)thu/s_, ta\ de\ me/sa au)tou\s e)kpheu/gei], &c. Stallbaum conjectures that the words [Greek: kai\ polla\] after [Greek: tu/chôsi] ought not to be in the text.
He proposes to expunge them.
The meaning of the passage certainly seems clearer without them.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Philêbus, p. 17 A.
[Greek: oi(=s diakechô/ristai to/ te dialektikô=s pa/lin kai\ to\ e)ristikô=s ê(ma=s poiei=sthai pro\s a)llê/lous tou\s lo/gous.]]
[Side-note: Illustration from Speech and Music.]
This general doctrine is illustrated by two particular cases--Speech and Music.
The voice (or Vocal Utterance) is One--the voice is also Infinite: to know only thus much is to know very little.
Even when you know, in addition to this, the general distinction of sounds into acute and grave, you are still far short of the knowledge of music.
You must learn farthermore to distinguish all the intermediate gradations, and specific varieties of sound, into which the infinity of separate sounds admits of being distributed: what and how many these gradations are?
what are the numerical ratios upon which they depend--the rhythmical and harmonic systems?
When you have learnt to know the One Genus, the infinite diversity of individual sounds, and the number of subordinate specific varieties by which these two extremes are connected with each other--then you know the science of music.
So too, in speech: when you can distinguish the infinite diversity of articulate utterance into vowels, semi-vowels, and consonants, each in definite number and with known properties--you are master of grammatical science.
You must neither descend at once from the One to the Infinite Multitude, nor ascend at once from the Infinite Multitude to the One: you must pass through the intermediate stages of subordinate Forms, in determinate number.
All three together make up scientific knowledge.
You cannot know one portion separately, without knowing the remainder: all of them being connected into one by the common bond of the highest Genus.
[17] [Footnote 17: Plato, Philêbus, p. 18 C-D. [Greek: kathorô=n de\ ô(s ou)dei\s ê(mô=n ou)d' a)\n e(\n au)to\ kath' au(to\ a)/neu pa/ntôn au)tô=n ma/thoi, tou=ton to\n desmo\n au)= logisa/menos ô(s o)/nta e(/na kai\ pa/nta tau=ta e(\n pôs poiou=nta, mi/an e)p' au)toi=s ô(s ou)=san grammatikê\n te/chnên e)pephthe/gxato proseipô/n.]]
[Side-note: Plato's explanation does not touch the difficulties which he had himself recognised as existing.]
Such is the explanation which Plato gives as to the identity of One and Many.
Considered as a reply to his own previous doubts and difficulties, it is altogether insufficient.
It leaves all those doubts unsolved.
The first point of enquiry which he had started, was, Whether any Universal or Generic Monads really existed: the second point was, assuming that they did exist, how each of them, being essentially eternal and unchangeable, could so multiply itself or divide itself as to be at the same time in an infinite variety of particulars.
[18] Both points are left untouched by the explanation.
No proof is furnished that Universal Monads exist--still less that they multiply or divide their one and unchangeable essence among infinite particulars--least of all is it shown, how such multiplication or division can take place, consistently with the fundamental and eternal sameness of the Universal Monad.
The explanation assumes these difficulties to be eliminated, but does not suggest the means of eliminating them.
The Philêbus, like the Parmenidês, recognises the difficulties as existing, but leaves them unsolved, though the dogmas to which they attach are the cardinal and peculiar tenets of Platonic speculation.
Plato shows that he is aware of the embarrassments: yet he is content to theorize as if they did not exist.
In a remarkable passage of this very dialogue, he intimates pretty clearly that he considered the difficulty of these questions to be insuperable, and never likely to be set at rest.
This identification of the One with the Many, in verbal propositions (he says) has begun with the beginning of dialectic debate, and will continue to the end of it, as a stimulating puzzle which especially captivates the imagination of youth.
[19] [Footnote 18: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15 B-C.] [Footnote 19: Plato, Philêbus, p. 15 D. [Greek: phame/n pou tau)to\n e(\n kai\ polla\ u(po\ lo/gôn gigno/mena peritre/chein pa/ntê| kath' e(/kaston tô=n legome/nôn a)ei\ kai\ pa/lai kai\ nu=n.
kai\ tou=to ou)/te mê\ pau/sêtai/ pote ou)/te ê)/rxato nu=n, a)ll' e)/sti to\ toiou=ton, ô(s e)moi\ phai/netai, tô=n lo/gôn au)tô=n a)tha/nato/n ti kai\ a)gê/rôn pa/thos e)n ê(mi=n.]
The sequel (too long to transcribe) of this passage (setting forth the manner in which this apparent paradox worked upon the imagination of youthful students) is very interesting to read, and shows (in my opinion) that Stallbaum's interpretation of it in his note is not the right one.
Plato is here talking (in my judgment) about the puzzle and paradox itself: Stallbaum represents Plato as talking about his pretended solution of it, which has not as yet been at all alluded to.
Plato seems to give his own explanation without full certainty or confidence: see p. 16 B.
And when we turn to pp.
18-19, we shall see that he forgets the original difficulty which had been proposed (compare p. 15 B), introducing in place of it another totally distinct difficulty, as if _that_ had been in contemplation.]
[Side-note: It is nevertheless instructive, in regard to logical division and classification.]
But though the difficulties started by Plato remain unexplained, still his manner of stating them is in itself valuable and instructive.
It proclaims--1.
The necessity of a systematic classification, or subordinate scale of species and sub-species, between the highest Genus and the group of individuals beneath.
2.
That each of these subordinate grades in the scale must be founded upon some characteristic mark.
3.
That the number of sub-divisions is definite and assignable, there being a limit beyond which it cannot be carried.
4.
That full knowledge is not attainable until we know all three--The highest Genus--The intermediate species and sub-species; both what they are, how many there are, and how each is characterised--The infinite group of individuals.
These three elements must all be known in conjunction: we are not to pass either from the first to the third, or from the third to the first, except through the second.
[Side-note: At that time little thought had been bestowed upon classification as a logical process.]
The general necessity of systematic classification--of generalisation and specification, or subordination of species and sub-species, as a condition of knowing any extensive group of individuals--requires no advocate at the present day.
But it was otherwise in the time of Plato.
There existed then no body of knowledge, distributed and classified, to which he could appeal as an example.
The illustrations to which he himself refers here, of language and music as systematic arrangements of vocal sounds, were both of them the product of empirical analogy and unconscious growth, involving little of predetermined principle or theory.
All the classification then employed was merely that which is included in the structure of language: in the framing of general names, each designating a multitude of individuals.
All that men knew of classification was, that which is involved in calling many individuals by the same common name.
This is the defect pointed out by Plato, when he remarks that the clever men of his time took no heed except of the One and the Infinite (Genus and Individuals): neglecting all the intermediate distinctions.
Upon the knowledge of these _media_ (he says) rests the difference between true dialectic debate, and mere polemic.
[20] That is--when you have only an infinite multitude of individuals, called by the same generic name, it is not even certain that they have a single property in common: and even if they have, it is not safe to reason from one to another as to the possession of any other property beyond the one generic property--so that the debate ends in mere perplexity.
All pleasures agree in being pleasures (Sokrates had before observed to Protarchus), and all cognitions agree in being cognitions.
But you cannot from hence infer that there is any other property belonging in common to all.
[21] That is a point which you cannot determine without farther observation of individuals, and discrimination of the great multitude into appropriate subdivisions.
You will thus bring the whole under that triple point of view which Plato requires:--the highest Genus,--the definite number of species and sub-species,--the undefined number of individuals.
[Footnote 20: Plato, Philêbus, p. 17 A.
[Greek: oi( de\ nu=n tô=n a)nthrô/pôn sophoi\ e(\n me/n, o(/pôs a)\n tu/chôsi, kai\ polla\ tha=tton kai\ bradu/teron poiou=si tou= de/ontos, meta\ de\ to\ e(\n a)/peira eu)thu/s, ta\ de\ me/sa au)tou\s e)kpheu/gei, oi(=s diakechôristai to/ te dialektikô=s pa/lon kai\ to\ e)ristikô=s ê(ma=s poiei=sthai pro\s a)llê/lous tou\s lo/gous.]]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
13 B, 14 A.]
[Side-note: Classification--unconscious and conscious.]
Here we have set before us one important branch of logical method--the necessity of classification, not simply arising as an incidental and unconscious effect of the transitive employment of a common name, but undertaken consciously and intentionally as a deliberate process, and framed upon principles predetermined as essential to the accomplishment of a scientific end.
This was a conception new in the Sokratic age.
Plato seized upon it with ardour.
He has not only emphatically insisted upon it in the Philêbus and elsewhere, but he has also given (in the Sophistês and Politikus) elaborate examples of systematic logical subdivision applied to given subjects.
[Side-note: Plato's doctrine about classification is not necessarily connected with his Theory of Ideas.]
We may here remark that Plato's views as to the necessity of systematic classification, or of connecting the Summum Genus with individuals by intermediate stages of gradually decreasing generality--are not necessarily connected with his peculiar theory of Ideas as Self-existent objects, eternal and unchangeable.
The two are indeed blended together in his own mind and language: but the one is quite separable from the other; and his remarks on classification are more perspicuous without his theory of Ideas than with it.
Classification does not depend upon his hypothesis--That Ideas are not simply Concepts of the Reason, but absolute existences apart from the Reason (Entia Rationis apart from the Ratio)--and that these Ideas correspond to the words _Unum_, _Multa definité_, _Multa indefinité_, which are put together to compose the totality of what we see and feel in the Kosmos.
Applying this general doctrine (about the necessity of establishing subordinate classes as intermediate between the Genus and Individuals) to the particular subject debated between Sokrates and Protarchus--the next step in the procedure would naturally be, to distinguish the subordinate classes comprised first under the Genus Pleasure--next, under the Genus Intelligence (or Cognition).
And so indeed the dialogue seems to promise[22] in tolerably explicit terms.
[Footnote 22: Plato, Philêbus, p. 19 B, p. 20 A.]
[Side-note: Quadruple distribution of Existences.
1.
The Infinite.
2.
The Finient 3.
Product of the two former.
4.
Combining Cause or Agency.]
But such promise is not realised.
The dialogue takes a different turn, and recurs to the general distinction already brought to view between the Finient (Determinans) and the Infinite (Indeterminatum).
We have it laid down that all existences in the universe are divided into four Genera: 1.
The Infinite or Indeterminate.
2.
The Finient or the Determinans.
3.
The product of these two, mixed or compounded together Determinatum.
4.
The Cause or Agency whereby they become mixed together.--Of these four, the first is a Genus, or is both One and Many, having numerous varieties, all agreeing in the possession of a perpetual More and Less (without any limit or positive quantity): that which is perpetually increasing or diminishing, more or less hot, cold, moist, great, &c., than any given positive standard.
The second, or the Determinans, is also a Genus, or One and Many: including equal, double, triple, and all fixed ratios.
[23] [Footnote 23: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
24-25.]
The third Genus is laid down by Plato as generated by a mixture or combination of these two first--the Infinite and the Determinans.
The varieties of this third or compound Genus comprise all that is good and desirable in nature--health, strength, beauty, virtue, fine weather, good temperature:[24] all agreeing, each in its respective sphere, in presenting a right measure or proportion as opposed to excess or deficiency.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Philêbus, p. 26 A-B.]
Fourthly, Plato assumes a distinct element of causal agency which operates such mixture of the Determinans with the Infinite, or banishment and supersession of the latter by the former.
[Side-note: Pleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four Classes--Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth.]
We now approach the application of these generalities to the question in hand--the comparative estimate of pleasure and intelligence in reference to Good.
It has been granted that neither of them separately is sufficient, and that both must be combined to compose the result Good: but the question remains, which of the two elements is the most important in the compound?
To which of the four above-mentioned Genera (says Sokrates) does Pleasure belong?
It belongs to the Infinite or Indeterminate: so also does Pain.
To which of the four does Intelligence or Cognition belong?
It belongs to the fourth, or to the nature of Cause, the productive agency whereby definite combinations are brought about.
[25] [Footnote 25: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
27-28, p. 31 A.]
[Side-note: In the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence with Pleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two constituents.]
Hence we see (Sokrates argues) that pleasure is a less important element than Intelligence, in the compound called Good.
For pleasure belongs to the Infinite: but pain belongs to the Infinite also: the Infinite therefore, being common to both, cannot be the circumstance which imparts to pleasures their affinity with Good: they must derive that affinity from some one of the other elements.
[26] It is Intelligence which imparts to pleasures their affinity with Good: for Intelligence belongs to the more efficacious Genus called Cause.
In the combination of Intelligence with Pleasure, indispensable to constitute Good, Intelligence is the primary element, Pleasure only the secondary element.
Intelligence or Reason is the ruling cause which pervades and directs both the smaller body called Man, and the greater body called the Kosmos.
The body of man consists of a combination of the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire: deriving its supply of all these elements from the vast stock of them which constitutes the Kosmos.
So too the mind of man, with its limited reason and intelligence, is derived from the vast stock of mind, reason, and intelligence, diffused throughout the Kosmos, and governing its great elemental body.
The Kosmos is animated and intelligent, having body and mind like man, but in far higher measure and perfection.
It is from this source alone that man can derive his supply of mind and intelligence.
[27] [Footnote 26: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
27-28.
The argument of Plato is here very obscure and difficult to follow.
Stallbaum in his note even intimates that Plato uses the word [Greek: a)/peiron] in a sense different from that in which he had used it before: which I think doubtful.]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Philêbus, p. 29 C. 30 A: [Greek: To\ par' ê(mi=n sô=ma a)=r' ou) psuchê\n phê/somen e)/chein?
.
.
.
Po/then labo/n, ei)/per mê\ to/ ge tou= panto\s sô=ma e)/mpsuchon o)\n e)tu/gchane, tau)ta/ ge e)/chon tou/tô| kai\ e)/ti pa/ntê kalli/ona?]]
[Side-note: Intelligence is the regulating principle--Pleasure is the Indeterminate, requiring to be regulated.]
Sokrates thus arrives at the conclusion, that in the combination constituting Good, Reason or Intelligence is the regulating principle: and that Pleasure is the Infinite or Indeterminate which requires regulation from without, having no fixed measure or regulating power in itself.
[28] He now proceeds to investigate pleasure and intelligence as phenomena: to enquire in what each of them resides, and through what affection they are generated.
[29] [Footnote 28: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 A.]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 B.
[Greek: dei= dê\ to\ meta\ tou=to, e)n ô(=| te/ e)stin e(ka/teron au)toi=n kai\ dia\ ti/ pa/thos gi/gnesthon, o(po/tan gi/gnêsthon, i)dei=n ê(ma=s.]]
[Side-note: Pleasure and Pain must be explained together--Pain arises from the disturbance of the fundamental harmony of the system--Pleasure from the restoration.]
We cannot investigate pleasure (Sokrates continues) apart from pain: both must be studied together.
Both pleasure and pain reside in the third out of the four above-mentioned Genera:[30] that is, in the compound Genus formed out of that union (of the Infinite with the Determinans or Finient) which includes all animated bodies.
Health and Harmony reside in these animated bodies: and pleasure as well as pain proceed from modifications of such fundamental harmony.
When the fundamental harmony is disturbed or dissolved, pain is the consequence: when the disturbance is rectified and the harmony restored, pleasure ensues.
[31] Thus hunger, thirst, extreme heat and cold, are painful, because they break up the fundamental harmony of animal nature: while eating, drinking, cooling under extreme heat, or warming under extreme cold, are pleasurable, because they restore the disturbed harmony.
[Footnote 30: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 C. [Greek: _e)n tô=| koinô=| moi ge/nei_ a(/ma phai/nesthon lu/pê te kai\ ê(donê\ _gi/gnesthai_ kata\ phu/sin .
.
.
koino\n toi/nun u(pakou/ômen o(\ dê\ tô=n tetta/rôn tri/ton e)le/gomen.]
Compare p. 32 A-B: [Greek: to\ e)k tou= a)pei/rou kai\ pe/ratos kata\ phu/sin e)/mpsuchon gegono\s ei)=dos.]
Plato had before said that [Greek: ê(donê\] belonged to the Infinite (compare p. 41 D), or to the _first_ of the four above-mentioned genera, not to the third.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Philêbus, p. 31 D.] [Side-note: Pleasure presupposes Pain.]
This is the primary conception, or original class, of pleasures and pains, embracing body and mind in one and the same fact.
Pleasure cannot be had without antecedent pain: it is in fact a mere reaction against pain, or a restoration from pain.
[Side-note: Derivative pleasures of memory and expectation belonging to mind alone.
Here you may find pleasure without pain.]
But there is another class of pleasures, secondary and derivative from these, and belonging to the mind alone without the body.
The expectation of future pleasures is itself pleasurable,[32] the expectation of future pains is itself painful.
In this secondary class we find pleasure without pain, and pain without pleasure: so that we shall be better able to study pleasure by itself, and to decide whether the whole class, in all its varieties, be good, welcome and desirable,--or whether pleasure and pain be not, like heat and cold, desirable or undesirable according to circumstances--_i.e._ not good in their own nature, but sometimes good and sometimes not.
[33] [Footnote 32: Plato, Philêbus, p. 32 C. [Greek: ê(donê=s kai\ lu/pês e(/teron ei)=dos, to\ chôri\s tou= sô/matos au)tê=s tê=s psuchê=s dia\ prosdoki/as gigno/menon.]]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Philêbus, p. 32 D.] [Side-note: A life of Intelligence alone, without pain and without pleasure, is conceivable.
Some may prefer it: at any rate it is second-best.]
In the definition above given of the conditions of pleasure, as a re-action from antecedent pain, it is implied that if there be no pain, there can be no pleasure: and that a state of life is therefore conceivable which shall be without both--without pain and without pleasure.
The man who embraces wisdom may prefer this third mode of life.
It would be the most divine and the most akin to the nature of the Gods, who cannot be supposed without indecency to feel either joy or sorrow.
[34] At any rate, if not the best life of all, it will be the second-best.
[Footnote 34: Plato, Philêbus, p. 33 B.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n ei)ko/s ge ou)/te chai/rein theou\s ou)/te to\ e)nanti/on?
Pa/nu me\n ou)=n ou)k ei)ko/s; a)/schêmon gou=n au)tôn e(ka/teron gigno/meno/n e)stin.]]
[Side-note: Desire belongs to the mind, presupposes both a bodily want, and the memory of satisfaction previously had for it.
The mind and body are here opposed.
No true or pure pleasure therein.]
Those pleasures, which reside in the mind alone without the body, arise through memory and by means of reminiscence.
When the body receives a shock which does not go through to the mind, we call the fact insensibility.
In sensation, the body and mind are both affected:[35] such sensation is treasured up in the memory, and the mental part of it is recalled (without the bodily part) by reminiscence.
[36] Memory and reminiscence are the foundations of desire or appetite.
When the body suffers the pain of hunger or thirst, the mind recollects previous moments of satisfaction, desires a repetition of that satisfaction by means of food or drink.
Here the body and the mind are not moved in the same way, but in two opposite ways: the desire belongs to the mind alone, and is turned towards something directly opposed to the affection of the body.
That which the body feels is emptiness: that which the mind feels is desire of replenishment, or of the condition opposed to emptiness.
But it is only after experience of replenishment that the mind will feel such desire.
On the first occasion of emptiness, it will not desire replenishment, because it will have nothing, neither sensation nor memory, through which to touch replenishment: it can only do so after replenishment has been previously enjoyed, and through the memory.
Desire therefore is a state of the mind apart from the body, resting upon memory.
[37] Here then the man is in a double state: the pain of emptiness, which affects the mind through the body, and the memory of past replenishment, or expectation of future replenishment, which resides in the mind.
Such expectation, if certain and immediate, will be a state of pleasure: if doubtful and distant, it will be a state of pain.
The state of emptiness and consequent appetite must be, at the very best, a state of mixed pain and pleasure: and it may perhaps be a state of pain only, under two distinct forms.
[38] Life composed of a succession of these states can afford no true or pure pleasure.
[Footnote 35: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
33 E--34 A.
[Greek: a)naisthêsi/an e)pono/mason .
.
.
to\ de\ e)n e(ni\ pa/thei tê\n psuchê\n kai\ to\ sô=ma koinê=| gigno/menon koinê=| kai\ kinei=sthai, tau/tên d' au)= tê\n ki/nêsin o)noma/zôn _ai)/sthêsin_ ou)k a)po\ tro/pou phthe/ggoi' a)/n.]]
[Footnote 36: Plato, Philêbus, p. 34 A-B.
[Greek: sôtêri/an ai)sthê/seôs tê\n mnê/mên.]
[Greek: Mnê/mê] and [Greek: a)na/mnêsis] are pronounced to be different.]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Philêbus, p. 35 C. [Greek: tê\n psuchê\n a)/ra tê=s plêrô/seôs e)pha/ptesthai loipo/n, tê=| mnê/mê| dê=lon o(/ti; tô=| ga\r a)\n e)/t' a)/llô| e)pha/psaito?]
35 D. [Greek: tê\n a)/r' e)pa/gousan e)pi\ ta\ e)pithumou/mena a)podei/xas mnê/mên, o( lo/gos psuchê=s xu/mpasan tê/n te o(rmê\n kai\ e)pithumi/an kai\ tê\n a)rchê\n tou= zô/ou panto\s a)pe/phê|nen.]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Philêbus, p. 36 A-B.
This analysis of desire is in the main just: antecedent to all gratification, it is simple uneasiness: gratification having been supplied, the memory thereof remains, and goes along with the uneasiness to form the complex mental state called _desire_.
But there is another case of desire.
While tasting a pleasure, we desire the continuance of it: and if the expectation of its continuance be assured, this is an additional pleasure: two sources of pleasure instead of one.
In this last case, there is no such conjunction of opposite states, pain and pleasure, as Plato pointed out in the former case.]
[Side-note: Can pleasures be true or false?
Sokrates maintains that they are so.]
What do you mean (asks Protarchus) by true pleasures or pains?
How can pleasures or pains be either true or false?
Opinions and expectations may be true or false; but not pleasures, nor pains.
That is an important question (replies Sokrates), which we must carefully examine.
If opinions may be false or true, surely pleasures may be so likewise.
When a man holds an opinion, there is always some Object of his opinion, whether he thinks truly or falsely: so also when a man takes delight, there must always be some Object in which he takes delight, truly or falsely.
Pleasure and pain, as well as opinion, are susceptible of various attributes; vehement or moderate, right or wrong, bad or good.
Delight sometimes comes to us along with a false opinion, sometimes along with a true one.
Yes (replies Protarchus), but we then call _the opinion_ true or false--not _the pleasure_.
[39] [Footnote 39: Plato, Philêbus, p.
37.]
[Side-note: Reasons given by Sokrates.
Pleasures attached to true opinions, are true pleasures.
The just man is favoured by the Gods, and will have true visions sent to him.]
You will not deny (says Sokrates) that there is a difference between the pleasure accompanying a true opinion, and that which accompanies a false opinion.
Wherein does the difference consist?
Our opinions, and our comparisons of opinion, arise from sensation and memory:[40] which write words and impress images upon our mind (as upon a book or canvas), sometimes truly, sometimes falsely,[41] not only respecting the past and present, but also respecting the future.
To these opinions respecting the future are attached the pleasures and pains of expectation, which we have already recognised as belonging to the mind alone,--anticipations of bodily pleasures or pains to come--hopes and fears.
As our opinions respecting the future are sometimes true, sometimes false, so also are our hopes and fears: but throughout our lives we are always full of hopes and fears.
[42] Now the just and good man, being a favourite of the Gods, will have these visions or anticipations of the future presented to him truly and accurately: the bad man on the contrary will have them presented to him falsely.
The pleasures of anticipation will be true to the former, and false to the latter:[43] his false pleasures will be a ludicrous parody on the true ones.
[44] Good or bad opinions are identical with true or false opinions: so also are good or bad pleasures, identical with true or false pleasures: there is no other ground for their being good or bad.
[Footnote 40: Plato, Philêbus, p. 38 C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n e)k mnê/mês te kai\ ai)sthê/seôs do/xa ê(mi=n kai\ to\ diadoxa/zein e)gcheirei=n gi/gneth' e(ka/stote?]]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
38 E, 39.
[Greek: dokei= moi to/te ê(mô=n ê( psuchê\ bibli/ô| tini\ proseoike/nai .
.
.
ê( mnê/mê tai=s ai)sthê/sesi xumpi/ptousa ei)s tau)to/n, ka)kei=na a)\ peri\ tau=ta/ e)sti ta\ pathê/mata, phai/nontai/ moi schedo\n oi(=on gra/phein ê(mô=n e)n tai=s psuchai=s to/te lo/gous.
.
.
A)pode/chou dê\ kai\ e(/teron dêmiourgo\n ê(mô=n e)n tai=s psuchai=s e)n tô=| to/te chro/nô| gigno/menon .
.
.
Zôgra/phon, o(\s meta\ to\n grammatistê\n tô=n legome/nôn ei)ko/nas e)n tê=| psuchê=| tou/tôn gra/phei.]
It seems odd that Plato here puts the painter _after_ the scribe, and not _before_ him.
The images or phantasm of sense must be painted on the mind before any words are written upon it if we are to adopt both these metaphors).
The comparison of the mind to a sheet of paper or a book begins with the poets (Æschyl.
Prometh.
790), and passes into philosophy with Plato.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Philêbus, p. 39 E. [Greek: ê(mei=s d' au)= dia\ panto\s tou= bi/ou a)ei\ ge/momen e)lpi/dôn.]
40 E. [Greek: ou)kou=n o( au)to\s lo/gos a)\n ei)/ê peri\ pho/bôn** te kai\ thumô=n], &c. Also 40 D.] [Footnote 43: Plato, Philêbus, p. 40 A-B.
Prophets and prophecies, inspired by the Gods, were phenomena received as frequently occurring in the days of Plato.]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Philêbus, p. 40 C. [Greek: memimême/nai me/ntoi ta\s a)lêthei=s e)pi\ ta\ geloio/tera.]]
[Side-note: Protarchus disputes this--He thinks that there are some pleasures bad, but none false--Sokrates does not admit this, but reserves the question.]
I admit this identity (remarks Protarchus) in regard to opinions, but not in regard to pleasures.
I think there are other grounds, and stronger grounds, for pronouncing pleasures to be bad--independently of their being false.
We will reserve that question (says Sokrates) for the present--whether there are or are not pleasures bad on other grounds.
[45] I am now endeavouring to show that there are some pleasures which are _false_: and I proceed to another way of viewing the subject.
[Footnote 45: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
40 E-41 A.
_Sokr._ [Greek: Ou)d' ê(dona/s g', oi)=mai, katanoou=men ô(s a)/llon tina\ tro/pon ei)si\ ponêrai\ plê\n tô=| pseudei=s ei)=nai.]
_Protarch._ [Greek: Pa/nu me\n ou)=n tou)nanti/on ei)/rêkas], &c.] [Side-note: No means of truly estimating pleasures and pains--False estimate habitual--These are the false pleasures.]
We agreed before that the state, called Appetite or Desire, was a mixed state comprehending body and mind: the state of body affecting the mind with a pain of emptiness,--the state of mind apart from body being either a pleasure of expected replenishment, or a pain arising from our regarding replenishment as distant or unattainable.
Appetite or Desire, therefore, is sometimes mixed pleasure and pain; both, of the genus Infinite, Indeterminate.
We desire to compare these pleasures and pains, and to value their magnitude in relation to each other, but we have no means of performing the process.
We not only cannot perform it well, but we are sure to perform it wrongly.
For future pleasure or pain counts for more or less in our comparison, according to its proximity or distance.
Here then is a constant source of false computation: pleasures and pains counted as greater or less than they really are: in other words, false pleasures and pains.
We thus see that pleasures may be true or false, no less than opinions.
[46] [Footnote 46: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
41-42.]
[Side-note: Much of what is called pleasure is false.
Gentle and gradual changes do not force themselves upon our notice either as pleasure or pain.
Absence of pain not the same as pleasure.]
We have also other ways of proving the point that much of what is called pleasure is false and unreal[47]--either no pleasure at all, or pleasure mingled and alloyed with pain and relief from pain.
According to our previous definition of pain and pleasure--that pain arises from derangement of the harmony of our nature, and pleasure from the correction of such derangement, or from the re-establishment of harmony--there may be and are states which are neither painful nor pleasurable.
Doubtless the body never remains the same: it is always undergoing change: but the gentle and gradual changes (such as growth, &c.) escape our consciousness, producing neither pain nor pleasure: none but the marked, sudden changes force themselves upon our consciousness, thus producing pain and pleasure.
[48] A life of gentle changes would be a life without pain as well as without pleasure.
There are thus three states of life[49]--painful--pleasurable--neither painful nor pleasurable.
But _no pain_ (absence of pain) is not identical with pleasure: it is a third and distinct state.
[50] [Footnote 47: Plato, Philêbus, p. 42 C. [Greek: Tou/tôn toi/nun e(xê=s o)pso/metha, e)a\n tê=|de a)pantô=men ê(dona\s kai\ lu/pas pseudei=s e(/ti ma=llon ê)\ tau/tas phainome/nas te kai\ ou)/sas e)n toi=s zô/ois.]
This argument is continued, though in a manner desultory and difficult to follow, down to p. 51 A: [Greek: pro\s to\ tina\s ê(dona\s ei)=nai dokou/sas, ou)sas d' ou)damô=s; kai\ mega/las e(te/ras tina\s a)/ma kai\ polla\s phantasthei/sas, ei)=nai d' au)ta\s sumpephurme/nas o(mou= lu/pais te kai\ a)napau/sesin o)dunô=n tô=n megi/stôn peri/ te sô/matos kai\ psuchê=s a)pori/as.]]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
42-43.]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Philêbus, p. 43 D. [Greek: trittou\s bi/ous, e(/na me\n ê(du/n, to\n d' au)= lupêro/n, to\n d' e(/na mêde/tera.]]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Philêbus, p. 43 D. [Greek: ou)k a)\n ei)/ê to\ mê\ lupei=sthai/ pote tau)to\n tô=| chai/rein.]]
[Side-note: Opinion of the pleasure-hating philosophers--That pleasure is no reality, but a mere juggle--no reality except pain, and the relief from pain.]
Now there are some philosophers who confound this distinction:[51] Philosophers respectable, but stern, who hate the very name of pleasure, deny its existence as a separate state _per se_, and maintain it to be nothing more than relief from pain: implying therefore, perpetually and inevitably, the conjunction or antecedence of pain.
They consider the seduction of pleasure in prospect to be a mere juggle--a promise never realised.
Often the expected moment brings no pleasure at all: and even when it does, there are constant accompaniments of pain, which always greatly impair, often countervail, sometimes far more than countervail, its effect.
Pain is regarded by them as the evil--removal or mitigation of pain as the good--of human life.
[Footnote 51: Plato, Philêbus, p. 44 B-C. [Greek: kai\ ma/la deinou\s legome/nous ta\ peri\ phu/sin, oi( to\ para/pan ê(dona\s ou)/ phasin ei)=nai .
.
.
lupô=n tau/tas ei)=nai pa/sas a)pothuga/s, a(\s nu=n oi( peri\ Phi/lêbon ê(dona\s e)ponoma/zousin.]]
[Side-note: Sokrates agrees with them in part, but not wholly.]
These philosophers (continues Sokrates) are like prophets who speak truth from the stimulus of internal temperament, without any rational comprehension of it.
Their theory is partially true, but not universally.
[52] It is true of a large portion of what are called pleasures, but it is not true of all pleasures.
Most pleasures (indeed all the more vehement and coveted pleasures), correspond to the description given in the theory.
The moment when the supposed intense pleasure arrives, is a disappointment of the antecedent hopes, either by not bringing the pleasure promised, or by bringing it along with a preponderant dose of pain.
But there are some pleasures of which this cannot be said--which are really true and unmixed with pain.
Which these are (continues Sokrates), I will presently explain: but I shall first state the case of the pleasure-hating philosophers, so far as I go along with it.
[Footnote 52: Plato, Philêbus, p. 44 C. [Greek: ô(/sper ma/ntesi proschrê=sthai/ tisi, manteuome/nois ou) te/chnê|, a)lla/ tini duscherei/a phu/seôs ou)k a)gennou=s], &c. Also p. 51 A.]
[Side-note: Theory of the pleasure-haters--We must learn what pleasure is by looking at the intense pleasures--These are connected with distempered body and mind.]
When we are studying any property (they say), we ought to examine especially those cases in which it appears most fully and prominently developed: thus, if we are enquiring into hardness, we must take for our first objects of investigation the hardest things, in preference to those which are less hard or scarcely hard at all.
[53] So in enquiring into pleasure generally, we must investigate first the pleasures of extreme intensity and vehemence.
Now the most intense pleasures are enjoyed not in a healthy state of body, but on the contrary under circumstances of distemper and disorder: because they are then preceded by the most violent wants and desires.
The sick man under fever suffers greater thirst and cold than when he is in health, but in the satisfaction of those wants, his pleasure is proportionally more intense.
Again when he suffers from the itch or an inflamed state of body, the pleasure of rubbing or scratching is more intense than if he had no such disorder.
[54] The most vehement bodily pleasures can only be enjoyed under condition of being preceded or attended by pains greater or less as the case may be.
The condition is not one of pure pleasure, but mixed between pain and pleasure.
Sometimes the pain preponderates, sometimes the pleasure: if the latter, then most men, forgetting the accompanying pain, look upon these transient moments as the summit of happiness.
[55] In like manner the violent and insane man, under the stimulus of furious passions and desires, experiences more intense gratifications than persons of sober disposition: his condition is a mixed one, of great pains and great pleasures.
The like is true of all the vehement passions--love, hatred, revenge, anger, jealousy, envy, fear, sorrow, &c.: all of them embody pleasures mixed with pain, and the magnitude of the pleasure is proportioned to that of the accompanying pain.
[56] [Footnote 53: Plato, Philêbus, p. 44 E. [Greek: ô(s ei) boulê/theimen o(touou=n ei)=dous tê\n phu/sin i)dei=n, oi(=on tê\n tou= sklêrou=, po/teron ei)s ta\ sklêro/tta a)poble/pontes ou(/tôs a)\n ma=llon sunnoê/saimen ê)\ pro\s ta\ pollosta\ sklêro/têti?]
Answer: [Greek: pro\s ta\ prô=ta mege/thei.]]
[Footnote 54: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
45-46.]
[Footnote 55: Plato, Philêbus, p. 47 A.]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
49-50 D. Plato here introduces, at some length, an analysis of the mixed sentiment of pleasure and pain with which we regard scenic representations, tragedy and comedy--especially the latter.
The explanation which he gives of the sentiment of the ludicrous is curious, and is intended to elucidate an obscure psychological phenomenon ([Greek: o(/sô| skoteino/tero/n e)sti], p. 48 B).
But his explanation is not clear, and the sense which he gives to the word [Greek: phtho/nos] is a forced one.
He states truly that the natural object (at least one among the objects) which a man laughs at, is the intellectual and moral infirmities of persons with whom he is in friendly intercourse, when such persons are not placed in a situation of power, so as to make their defects or displeasure pregnant with dangerous consequences.
The laugher is amused with exaggerated self-estimation or foolish vanity displayed by friends, [Greek: doxosophi/a, doxokali/a] &c. (49 E).
But how the laugher can be said to experience a mixture of pain and pleasure here, or how he can be said to feel [Greek: phtho/nos], I do not clearly see.
At least [Greek: phtho/nos] is here used in the very unusual sense (to use Stallbaum's words, note p. 48 B, page 278) of "injusta lætitia de malis eorum, quibus bene cupere debemus": a sense altogether contrary to that which the word bears in Xen.
Memor.
iii.
9, 8; which Stallbaum himself cites, as if the definition of [Greek: phtho/nos] were the same in both.]
[Side-note: The intense pleasures belong to a state of sickness; but there is more pleasure, on the whole, enjoyed in a state of health.]
Recollect (observes Sokrates) that the question here is not whether _more pleasure_ is enjoyed, _on the whole_, in a state of health than in a state of sickness--by violent rather than by sober men.
The question is, about the intense modes of pleasure.
Respecting these, I have endeavoured to show that they belong to a distempered, rather than to a healthy, state both of state of body and mind:--and that they cannot be enjoyed pure, without a countervailing or preponderant accompaniment of pain.
[57] This is equally true, whether they be pleasures of body alone, of mind alone, or of body and mind together.
They are false and delusive pleasures: in fact, they are pleasures only in seeming, but not in truth and reality.
To-morrow I will give you fuller proofs on the subject.
[58] [Footnote 57: Plato, Philêbus, p. 45 C-E. [Greek: mê/ me ê(gê=| dianoou/menon e)rôta=|n se, ei) _plei/ô chai/rousin_ oi( spho/dra nosou=ntes tô=n u(giaino/ntôn, a)ll' oi)/ou _me/getho/s_ me zêtei=n ê(donê=s, kai\ _to\ spho/dra_ peri\ tou= toiou/tou pou= pote\ gi/gnetai e(ka/stote], &c.] [Footnote 58: Plato, Philêbus, p. 50 E. [Greek: tou/tôn ga\r a(pa/ntôn au(/rion e)thelê/sô soi lo/gon dou=nai], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates acknowledges some pleasures to be true.
Pleasures of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, smells, &c. Pleasures of acquiring knowledge.]
Thus far (continues Sokrates) I have set forth the case on behalf of the pleasure-haters.
Though I deny their full doctrine,--that there is no pleasure except cessation from pain--I nevertheless agree with them and cite them as witnesses on my behalf, to the extent of affirming that a large proportion of our so-called pleasures, and those precisely the most intense, are false and unreal: being poisoned and drenched in accompaniments of pain.
[59] But there are some pleasures, true, genuine, and untainted.
Such are those produced by beautiful colours and figures--by many odours--by various sounds: none of which are preceded by any painful want requiring to be satisfied.
The sensation when it comes is therefore one of pure and unmixed pleasure.
The figures here meant are the perfect triangle, cube, circle, &c.: the colours and sounds are such as are clear and simple.
All these are beautiful and pleasurable absolutely and in themselves--not simply in relation to (or relatively to) some special antecedent condition.
Smells too, though less divine than the others, are in common with them unalloyed by accompanying pain.
[60] To these must be added the pleasure of acquiring knowledge, which supposes neither any painful want before it, nor any subsequent pain even if the knowledge acquired be lost.
This too is one of the unmixed or pure pleasures; though it is not attainable by most men, but only by a select few.
[61] [Footnote 59: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 A.]
[Footnote 60: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 E. [Greek: to\ de\ peri\ ta\s o)sma\s ê(=tton me\n tou/tôn thei=on ge/nos ê(donô=n; to\ de\ mê\ summemi/chthai e)n au)tai=s a)nagkai/ous lu/pas], &c.] [Footnote 61: Plato, Philêbus, p. 52 B.
[Greek: tau/tas toi/nun ta\s tô=n mathêma/tôn ê(dona\s a)mi/ktous te ei)=nai lu/pais r(ête/on, kai\ ou)damô=s tô=n spho/dra o)li/gôn.]]
[Side-note: Pure and moderate pleasures admit of measure and proportion.]
Having thus distinguished the pure and moderate class of pleasures, from the mixed and vehement--we may remark that the former class admit of measure and proportion, while the latter belong to the immeasurable and the infinite.
Moreover, look where we will, we shall find truth on the side of the select, small, unmixed specimens--rather than among the large and mixed masses.
A small patch of white colour, free from all trace of any other colour, is truer, purer, and more beautiful, than a large mass of clouded and troubled white.
In like manner, gentle pleasure, free from all pain, is more pleasurable, truer, and more beautiful, than intense pleasure coupled with pain.
[62] [Footnote 62: Plato, Philêbus, p. 53 B-C.] [Side-note: Pleasure is generation, not substance or essence: it cannot therefore be an End, because all generation is only a means towards substance--Pleasure therefore cannot be the Good.]
There are yet other arguments remaining (continues Sokrates) which show that pleasure cannot be the Summum Bonum.
If it be so, it must be an End, not a Means: it must be something for the sake of which other things exist or are done--not something which itself exists or is done for the sake of something else.
But pleasure is not an End: it is essentially a means, as we may infer from the reasonings of its own advocates.
They themselves tell us that it is generation, not substance:--essentially a process of transition or change, never attaining essence or permanence.
[63] But generation or transition is always for the sake of the thing to be generated, or for Substance--not substance for the sake of generation: the transitory serves as a road to the permanent, not _vice versà_.
Pleasure is thus a means, not an End.
It cannot therefore partake of the essential nature and dignity of Good: it belongs to a subordinate and imperfect category.
[64] [Footnote 63: Plato, Philêbus, p. 53 C. [Greek: a)=ra peri\ ê(donê=s ou)k a)kêko/amen ô(s a)ei\ ge/nesi/s e)stin, ou)si/a de\ ou)k e)/sti to\ para/pan ê(dona=s; kompsoi\ ga\r dê/ tines au)= tou=ton to\n lo/gon e)picheirou=si mênu/ein ê(mi=n, oi(=s dei= cha/rin e)/chein.
.
.
.]
53 D: [Greek: e)sto\n dê/ tine du/o, to\ me\n au)to\ kath' au(to/, to\ de\ a)ei\ e)phie/menon a)/llou .
.
.
to\ me\n semno/taton a)ei\ pephuko/s, to\ de\ e)llipe\s e)kei/nou.]]
[Footnote 64: Plato, Philêbus, p. 54 D. [Greek: ê(donê\ ei)/per ge/nesi/s e)stin, ei)s a)/llên ê)\ tê\n tou= a)gathou= moi=ran au)tê\n tithe/ntes o)rthô=s thê/somen.]]
[Side-note: Other reasons why pleasure is not the Good.]
Indeed we cannot reasonably admit that there is no Good in bodies and in the universe generally, nor anywhere except in the mind:--nor that, within the mind, pleasure alone is good, while courage, temperance, &c., are not good:--nor that a man is good only while he is enjoying pleasure, and bad while suffering pain, whatever may be his character and merits.
[65] [Footnote 65: Plato, Philêbus, p. 55 B.]
[Side-note: Distinction and classification of the varieties of Knowledge or Intelligence.
Some are more true and exact than others, according as they admit more or less of measuring and computation.]
Having thus (continues Sokrates) gone through the analysis of pleasures, distinguishing such as are true and pure, from such as are false and troubled--we must apply the like distinctive analysis to the various modes of knowledge and intelligence.
Which varieties of knowledge, science, or art, are the purest from heterogeneous elements, and bear most closely upon truth?
Some sciences and arts (we know) are intended for special professional practice: others are taught as subjects for improving the intellect of youth.
As specimens of the former variety, we may notice music, medicine, husbandry, navigation, generalship, joinery, ship-building, &c. Now in all these, the guiding and directing elements are computation, mensuration, and statics--the sciences or arts of computing, measuring, weighing.
Take away these three--and little would be left worth having, in any of the sciences or arts before named.
There would be no exact assignable rules, no definite proportions: everything would be left to vague conjecture, depending upon each artisan's knack and practice which some erroneously call Art.
In proportion as each of these professional occupations has in it more or less of computation and mensuration, in the same proportion is it exact and true.
There is little of computation or mensuration in music, medicine, husbandry, &c.: there is more of them in joinery and ship-building, which employ the line, plummet, and other instruments: accordingly these latter are more true and exact, less dependent upon knack and conjecture, than the three former.
[66] They approach nearer to the purity of science, and include less of the non-scientific, variable, conjectural, elements.
[Footnote 66: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
55-56.]
[Side-note: Arithmetic and Geometry are twofold: As studied by the philosopher and teacher: As applied by the artisan.]
But a farther distinction must here be taken (Sokrates goes on).
Even in such practical arts as ship-building, which include most of computation and mensuration--these two latter do not appear pure, but diversified and embodied in a multitude of variable particulars.
Arithmetic and geometry, as applied by the ship-builder and other practical men, are very different from arithmetic and geometry as studied and taught by the philosopher.
[67] Though called by the same name, they are very different; and the latter alone are pure and true.
The philosopher assumes in his arithmetic the exact equality of all units, and in his geometry the exact ratios of lines and spaces: the practical man adds together units very unlike each other--two armies, two bulls, things little or great as the case may be: his measurement too, always falls short of accuracy.
[68] There are in short two arithmetics and two geometries[69]--very different from each other, though bearing a common name.
[Footnote 67: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 D-E. [Greek: A)rithmêtikê\n prô=ton a)=r' ou)k a)/llên me/n tina tê\n tô=n pollô=n phate/on, a)/llên d' au)= tê\n tô=n philosophou/ntôn?
.
.
.
logistikê\ kai\ metrêtikê\ ê( kata\ tektonikê\n kai\ kat' e)mporikê\n tê=s kata\ philosophi/an geômetri/as te kai\ logismô=n katameletôme/nôn--po/teron ô(s mi/a e(kate/ra lekte/on, ê)\ du/o tithô=men?]
Compare Aristotel.
Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
7, p. 1098, a.
30.]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 D-E. [Greek: oi( me\n ga/r pou mona/das a)ni/sous katarithmou=ntai tô=n peri\ a)rithmo/n, oi(=on strato/peda du/o kai\ bou=s du/o kai\ du/o ta\ smikro/tata ê)\ kai\ ta\ pa/ntôn me/gista; oi( d' ou)k a)/n pote au)toi=s sunakolouthê/seian, ei) mê\ mona/da mona/dos e(ka/stês tô=n muri/ôn mêdemi/an a)/llên a)/llês diaphe/rousa/n tis thê/sei.]]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Philêbus, p. 57 D.] [Side-note: Dialectic is the truest and purest of all Cognitions.
Analogy between Cognition and Pleasure: in each, there are gradations of truth and purity.]
We thus make out (continues Sokrates) that there is a difference between one variety and another variety of science or knowledge, analogous to that which we have traced between the varieties of pleasure.
One pleasure is true and pure; another is not so, or is inseparably connected with pain and non-pleasurable elements--there being in each case a difference in degree.
So too one variety of science, cognition, or art, is more true and pure than another: that is, it is less intermingled with fluctuating particulars and indefinite accompaniments.
A science, bearing one and the same name, is different according as it is handled by the practical man or by the philosopher.
Only as handled by the philosopher, does science attain purity: dealing with eternal and invariable essences.
Among all sciences, Dialectic is the truest and purest, because it takes comprehensive cognizance of the eternal and invariable--_Ens semper Idem_--presiding over those subordinate sciences which bear upon the like matter in partial and separate departments.
[70] [Footnote 70: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
57-58.]
[Side-note: Difference with Gorgias, who claims superiority for Rhetoric.
Sokrates admits that Rhetoric is superior in usefulness and celebrity: but he claims superiority for Dialectic, as satisfying the lover of truth.]
Your opinion (remarks Protarchus) does not agree with that of Gorgias.
He affirms, that the power of persuasion (Rhetoric) is the greatest and best of all arts: inasmuch as it enables us to carry all our points, not by force, but with the free will and consent of others.
I should be glad to avoid contradicting either him or you.
There is no real contradiction between us (replies Sokrates).
You may concede to Gorgias that his art or cognition is the greatest and best of all--the most in repute, as well as the most useful to mankind.
I do not claim any superiority of _that_ kind, on behalf of my cognition.
[71] I claim for it superiority in truth and purity.
I remarked before, that a small patch of unmixed white colour was superior in truth and purity to a large mass of white tarnished with other colours--a gentle and unmixed pleasure, in like manner, to one that is more intense but alloyed with pains.
It is this superiority that I assert for Dialectic and the other sister cognitions.
They are of little positive advantage to mankind: yet they, and only they, will satisfy both the demands of intelligence, and the impulse within us, in so far as we have an impulse to love and strain after truth.
[72] [Footnote 71: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B.
[Greek: Ou) tou=t' e)/gôge e)zê/toun pô, ti/s te/chnê ê)\ ti/s e)pistê/mê pasô=n diaphe/rei tô=| megi/stê kai\ a)ri/stê kai\ plei=sta ô)phelou=sa ê(ma=s.
a)lla\ ti/s pote to\ saphe\s kai\ ta)kribe\s kai\ to\ a)lêthe/staton e)piskopei=, ka)\n ê)=| smikra\ kai\ smikra\ o)ni/nasa.
Tou=t' e)sti\n o(\ nu=n dê\ zêtou=men.]]
[Footnote 72: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 D. [Greek: a)ll' ei)/ tis pe/phuke tê=s psuchê=s ê(mô=n du/namis e)ra=|n te tou= a)lêthou=s kai\ pa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein, tau/tên ei)/pômen], &c.] As far as straining after truth is concerned (says Protarchus), Dialectic and the kindred sciences have an incontestable superiority.
[Side-note: Most men look to opinions only, or study the phenomenal manifestations of the Kosmos.
They neglect the unchangeable essences, respecting which alone pure truth can be obtained.]
You must see (rejoins Sokrates) that Rhetoric, and most other arts or sciences, employ all their study, and seek all their standard, in opinions alone: while of those who study Nature, the greater number confine their investigations to this Kosmos, to its generation and its phenomenal operations--its manifestations past, present, and future.
[73] Now all these manifestations are in perpetual flux, admitting of no true or certain cognition.
Pure truth, corresponding to those highest mental endowments, Reason and Intelligence--can be found only in essences, eternal and unchangeable, or in matters most akin to them.
[74] [Footnote 73: Plato, Philêbus, p. 59.
[Greek: ei) de\ kai\ peri\ phu/seôs ê(gei=tai/ tis zêtei=n, oi)=sth' o(/ti ta\ peri\ to\n ko/smon to/nde, o(/pê| te ge/gone kai\ o(/pê| pa/schei ti kai\ o(/pê| poiei=, tau=ta zêtei= dia\ bi/ou?]]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Philêbus, p.
59.]
[Side-note: Application.
Neither Intelligence nor Pleasure separately, is the Good, but a mixture of the two--Intelligence being the most important.
How are they to be mixed?]
We have now (continues Sokrates) examined pleasure separately and intelligence separately.
We have agreed that neither of them, apart and by itself, comes up to the conception of Good; the attribute of which is, to be all sufficient, and to give plenary satisfaction, so that any animal possessing it desires nothing besides.
[75] We must therefore seek Good in a certain mixture or combination of the two--Pleasure and Intelligence: and we must determine, what sort of combination of these two contains the Good we seek.
Now, to mix all pleasures, with all cognitions, at once and indiscriminately, will hardly be safe.
We will first mix the truest and purest pleasures (those which include pleasure in its purest form), with the truest or purest cognitions (those which deal altogether with eternal and unchangeable essence, not with fluctuating particulars).
Will such a combination suffice to constitute Good, or an all-sufficient and all-satisfactory existence?
Or do we want anything more besides?
[76] Suppose a man cognizant of the Form or Idea of Justice, and of all other essential Ideas: and able to render account of his cognition, in proper words: Will this be sufficient?
[77] Suppose him to be cognizant of the divine Ideas of Circle, Sphere, and other figures; and to employ them in architecture, not knowing anything of human circles and figures as they exist in practical life?
[78] [Footnote 75: Plato, Philêbus, p. 60 C. [Greek: tê\n ta)gathou= diaphe/rein phu/sin tô=|de tô=n a)/llôn .
.
.
ô(=| parei/ê tou=t' a)ei\ tô=n zô/ôn dia\ te/lous pa/ntôs kai\ pa/ntê|, mêdeno\s e(te/rou pote\ e)/ti prosdei=sthai, to\ de\ i(kano\n teleô/taton e)/chein.]]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Philêbus, p. 61 E.] [Footnote 77: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 A.
[Greek: E)/stô dê/ tis ê(mi=n phronô=n a)/nthrôpos au)tê=s peri\ dikaiosu/nês, o(/, ti e)/sti, kai\ lo/gon e)/chôn e(po/menon tô=| noei=n, kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tô=n a)/llôn a(pa/ntôn tô=n o)/ntôn ô(sau/tôs dianoou/menos?]]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 A.
[Greek: A)=r' ou)=n ou(=tos i(kanô=s e)pistê/mês e(/xei ku/klou me\n kai\ sphai/ras au)tê=s tê=s thei/as to\n lo/gon e)/chôn, tê\n de\ a)nthrôpi/nên tau/tên sphai=ran kai\ tou\s ku/klous tou/tous a)gnoô=n], &c.] [Side-note: We must include all Cognitions, not merely the truest, but the others also.
Life cannot be carried on without both.]
That would be a ludicrous position indeed (remarks Protarchus), to have his mind full of the divine Ideas or cognitions only.
What!
(replies Sokrates) must he have cognition not only of the true line and circle, but also of the false, the variable, the uncertain?
Certainly (says Protarchus), we all must have this farther cognition, if we are to find our way from hence to our own homes.
[79] [Footnote 79: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 B.
[Greek: A)nagkai=on ga/r, ei) me/llei tis ê(mô=n kai\ tê\n o(do\n e(ka/stote e)xeurê/sein oi)/kade.]]
Must we then admit (says Sokrates) those cognitions also in music, which we declared to be full of conjecture and imitation, without any pure truth or certainty?
We must admit them (says Protarchus), if life is to be worth anything at all.
No harm can come from admitting all the other cognitions, provided a man possesses the first and most perfect.
[Side-note: But we must include no pleasures except the true, pure, and necessary.
The others are not compatible with Cognition or Intelligence--especially the intense sexual pleasures.]
Well then (continues Sokrates), we will admit them all.
We have now to consider whether we can in like manner admit all pleasures without distinction.
The true and pure must first be let in: next, such as are necessary and indispensable: and all the rest also, if any one can show that there is advantage without mischief in our enjoying every variety of pleasure.
[80] We must put the question first to pleasures, next to cognitions--whether they can consent respectively to live in company with each other.
Now pleasures will readily consent to the companionship of cognitions: but cognitions (or Reason, upon whom they depend) will not tolerate the companionship of all pleasures indiscriminately.
Reason will welcome the true and pure pleasures: she will also accept such as are indispensable, and such as consist with health, and with a sober and virtuous disposition.
But Reason will not tolerate those most intense, violent, insane, pleasures, which extinguish correct memory, disturb sound reflection, and consist only with folly and bad conduct.
Excluding these violent pleasures, but retaining the others in company with Reason and Truth--we shall secure that perfect and harmonious mixture which makes the nearest approximation to Good.
[81] [Footnote 80: Plato, Philêbus, p. 63 A.
[Greek: ei)/per pa/sas ê(dona\s ê(/desthai dia\ bi/ou sumphe/ron te ê(mi=n e)sti\ kai\ a)blabe\s a(/pasi, pa/sas xugkrate/on.]]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
63-64.]
[Side-note: What causes the excellence of this mixture?
It is Measure, Proportion, Symmetry.
To these Reason is more akin than Pleasure.]
This mixture as Good (continues Sokrates) will be acceptable to all.
[82] But what is the cause that it is so?
and is that cause more akin to Reason or to Pleasure?
The answer is, that this mixture and combination, like every other that is excellent, derives its excellence from Measure and Proportion.
Thus the Good becomes merged in the Beautiful: for measure and proportion (Moderation and Symmetry) constitute in every case beauty and excellence.
[83] In this case, Truth has been recognised as a third element of the mixture: the three together coalesce into Good, forming a Quasi-Unum, which serves instead of a Real Unum or Idea of Good.
[84] We must examine these three elements separately--Truth--Moderation--Symmetry (Measure--Proportion) to find whether each of them is most akin to Reason or to Pleasure.
There can be no doubt that to all the three, Reason is more akin than Pleasure: and that the intense pleasures are in strong repugnance and antipathy to all the three.
[85] [Footnote 82: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 C. [Greek: Ti/ dê=ta e)n tê=| xummi/xei timiô/taton a(/ma kai\ ma/list' ai)/tion ei)=nai do/xeien a)\n ê(mi=n, _tou= pa=si gegone/nai prosphilê=_ tê\n toiau/tên dia/thesin?]]
[Footnote 83: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 E. [Greek: nu=n dê\ katape/pheugen ê(mi=n ê( ta)gathou= du/namis ei)s tê\n tou= kalou= phu/sin; metrio/tês ga\r kai\ xummetri/a ka/llos dê/pou kai\ a)retê\ pantachou= xumbai/nei gi/gnesthai.]]
[Footnote 84: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 E-65 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n ei) mê\ mia=| duna/metha i)de/a| to\ a)gatho\n thêreu=sai, su\n trisi\ labo/ntes, ka/llei kai\ xummetri/a| kai\ a)lêthei/a|, le/gômen ô(s tou=to oi(=on e(\n o)rtho/tat' a)\n ai)tiasai/meth' a)\n tô=n e)n tê=| xummi/xei, kai\ dia\ tou=to ô(s a)gatho\n o)\n toiau/tên au)tê\n gegone/nai.]]
[Footnote 85: Plato, Philêbus, p. 65 C.] [Side-note: Quintuple gradation in the Constituents of the Good.
1.
Measure.
2.
Symmetry.
3.
Intelligence.
4.
Practical Arts and Right Opinions.
5.
True and Pure Pleasures.]
We thus see (says Sokrates in conclusion), in reference to the debate with Philêbus, that Pleasure stands neither first nor second in the scale of approximation to Good.
First comes Measure--the Moderate--the Seasonable--and all those eternal Forms and Ideas which are analogous to these.
[86] Secondly, come the Symmetrical--the Beautiful--the Perfect--the Sufficient--and other such like Forms and Ideas.
[87] Thirdly, come Reason and Intelligence.
Fourthly, the various sciences, cognitions, arts, and right opinions--acquirements embodied in the mind itself.
Fifthly, those pleasures which we have discriminated as pure pleasures without admixture of pain; belonging to the mind itself but consequent on the sensations of sight, hearing, smell.
[88] [Footnote 86: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A.
[Greek: ô(s ê(donê\ ktê=ma ou)k e)/sti prô=ton ou)d' au)= deu/teron, a)lla\ prô=ton me/n pê| peri\ me/tron kai\ to\ me/trion kai\ kai/rion kai\ pa/nta o(po/sa chrê\ toiau=ta nomi/zein tê\n a)i+/dion ê(|rê=sthai phu/sin.]]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 B.
[Greek: deu/teron mê\n peri\ to\ su/mmetron kai\ kalo\n kai\ to\ te/leon kai\ i(kano\n, kai\ pa/nth' o(po/sa tê=s genea=s au)= tau/tês e)sti/n.]]
[Footnote 88: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 C.] It is not necessary to trace the descending scale farther.
It has been shown, against Philêbus--That though neither Intelligence separately, nor Pleasure separately, is an adequate embodiment of Good, which requires both of them conjointly--yet Intelligence is more akin to Good, and stands nearer to it in nature, than Pleasure.
* * * * * Dionysius of Halikarnassus, while blaming the highflown metaphor and poetry of the Phædrus and other Platonic dialogues, speaks with great admiration of Plato in his appropriate walk of the Sokratic dialogues; and selects specially the Philêbus, as his example of these latter.
I confess that this selection surprises me: for the Philêbus, while it explicitly renounces the peculiar Sokratic vein, and becomes didactic--cannot be said to possess high merit as a didactic composition.
It is neither clear, nor orderly, nor comparable in animation to the expository books of the Republic.
[89] Every commentator of Plato, from Galen downwards, has complained of the obscurity of the Philêbus.
[Footnote 89: Dionys.
Hal.
De Adm. Vi Dic.
ap.
Demosth.
p. 1025.
Schleiermacher (Einleit.
p. 136) admits the comparatively tiresome character and negligent execution of the Philêbus.
Galen had composed a special treatise, [Greek: Peri\ tô=n e)n Philê/bô| metaba/seôn], now lost (Galen, De Libris Propriis, 13, vol.
xix.
46, ed.
Kühn).
We have the advantage of two recent editions of the Philêbus by excellent English scholars, Dr. Badham and Mr. Poste; both are valuable, and that of Dr. Badham is distinguished by sagacious critical remarks and conjectures, but the obscurity of the original remains incorrigible.]
[Side-note: Remarks.
Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of an Idea, but a quasi-unity of analogy.]
Sokrates concludes his task, in the debate with Protarchus, by describing Bonum or the Supreme Good as a complex aggregate of five distinct elements, in a graduated scale of affinity to it and contributing to its composition in a greater or less degree according to the order in which they are placed.
Plato does not intimate that these five complete the catalogue; but that after the fifth degree, the affinity becomes too feeble to deserve notice.
[90] According to this view, no Idea of Good, in the strict Platonic sense, is affirmed.
Good has not the complete unity of an Idea, but only the quasi-unity of analogy between its diverse elements; which are attached by different threads to the same root, with an order of priority and posteriority.
[91] [Footnote 90: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 C.] [Footnote 91: Plato, Philêbus, p. 65 A.
The passage is cited in note 5, p. 363.
About the difference, recognised partly by Plato but still more insisted on by Aristotle, between [Greek: ta\ lego/mena kath' e(\n (kata\ mi/an i)de/an)] and [Greek: ta\ lego/mena pro\s e(\n (pro\s mi/an tina\ phu/sin)], see my note towards the close of the Lysis, vol.
ii.
ch.
xx.
Aristotle says about Plato (Eth.
Nikom.
i.
6): [Greek: Oi( de\ komi/santes tê\n do/xan tau/tên, ou)k e)poi/oun i)de/as e)n oi(=s to\ pro/teron kai\ to\ u(/steron e)/legon], &c.] [Side-note: Discussions of the time about Bonum.
Extreme absolute view, maintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic Sokrates.
Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic doctrine.]
In the discussions about Bonum, there existed among the contemporaries of Plato a great divergence of opinions.
Eukleides of Megara represents the extreme absolute, ontological, or objective view: Sokrates (I mean the historical Sokrates, as reported by Xenophon) enunciated very distinctly the relative or subjective view.
"Good (said Eukleides) is the One: the only real, eternal, omnipresent Ens--always the same or like itself--called sometimes Good, sometimes Intelligence, and by various other names: the opposite of Good has no real existence, but only a temporary, phenomenal, relative, existence."
On the other hand, the Xenophontic Sokrates affirmed--"The Good and The Beautiful have no objective unity at all; they include a variety of items altogether dissimilar to each other, yet each having reference to some human want or desire: sometimes relieving or preventing pain, sometimes conferring pleasure.
That which neither contributes to relieve any pain or want, nor to confer pleasure, is not Good at all.
"[92] In the Philêbus, Plato borrows in part from both of these points of view, though inclining much more to the first than to the last.
He produces a new eclectic doctrine, comprising something from both, and intended to harmonise both; announced as applying at once to Man, to Animals, to Plants, and to the Universe.
[93] [Footnote 92: Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
106; Cicero, Academic.
ii.
42; Xenophon, Memorab.
iii.
8, 3-5.]
[Footnote 93: Plato, Philêbus, p. 64 A.
[Greek: e)n tau/tê| mathei=n peira=sthai, ti/ _pote e(\n te a)nthrô/pô| kai\ tô=| panti\ pe/phuken a)gatho/n_, kai\ ti/na i)de/an au)tê\n ei)=nai/ pote manteute/on.]
Schleiermacher observes about the Philêbus:--"Dieses also lag ihm (Plato) am Herzen, das Gute zu bestimmen nicht nur für das Leben des Menschen, sondern auch zumal für das ganze Gebiet des gewordenen Seins," &c. The partial affinity between the Kosmos and the human soul is set forth in the Timæus, pp.
37-43-44.]
[Side-note: Inconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with Ethics.]
Unfortunately, the result has not corresponded to his intentions.
If we turn to the close of the dialogue, we find that the principal elements which he assigns as explanatory of Good, and the relation in which they stand to each other, stand as much in need of explanation as Good itself.
If we follow the course of the dialogue, we are frequently embarrassed by the language, because he is seeking for phrases applicable at once to the Kosmos and to Man: or because he passes from one to the other, under the assumption of real analogy between them.
The extreme generalities of Logic or Ontology, upon which Sokrates here dwells--the Determinant and Indeterminate, the Cause, &c.--do not conduct us to the attainment of Good as he himself defines it--That which is desired by, and will give full satisfaction to, all men, animals, and plants.
The fault appears to me to lie in the very scheme of the dialogue.
Attempts to discuss Ontology and Ethics in one and the same piece of reasoning, instead of elucidating both, only serve to darken both.
Aristotle has already made a similar remark: and it is after reading the Philêbus that we feel most distinctly the value of his comments on Plato in the first book of the Nikomachean Ethics.
Aristotle has discussed Ontology in the Metaphysica and in other treatises: but he proclaims explicitly the necessity of discussing Ethics upon their own principles: looking at what is good for man, and what is attainable by man.
[94] We find in the Philêbus many just reflections upon pleasure and its varieties: but these might have been better and more clearly established, without any appeal to the cosmical dogmas.
The parallelism between Man and the Kosmos is overstrained and inconclusive, like the parallelism in the Republic between the collective commonwealth and the individual citizen.
[Footnote 94: See especially Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
4, 1096-1097.
Aristotle reasons there directly against the Platonic [Greek: i)de/a a)gathou=], but his arguments have full application to the exposition in the Philêbus.
He distinguishes pointedly the ethical from the physical point of view.
In his discussion of friendship, after touching upon various comparisons of the physiological poets, and of Plato himself repeating them, he says:--[Greek: ta\ me\n ou)=n phusika\ tô=n a)porêma/tôn paraphei/sthô; ou) ga\r oi)kei=a tê=s parou/sês ske/pseôs; o(/sa d' e)sti\n a)nthrôpika/ kai\ a)nê/kei ei)s ta\ ê)/thê kai\ ta\ pa/thê, tau=t' e)piskepsô/metha], Ethic.
Nikom.
viii.
1, 1155, b.
10.
The like contrast is brought out (though less clearly) in the Eudemian Ethics, viii.
1.
1235, a.
30.
He animadverts upon Plato on the same ground in the Ethica Magna, i.
1, 1182, a.
23-30.
[Greek: u(pe\r ga\r tô=n o)/ntôn kai\ a)lêthei/as le/gonta, ou)k e)/dei u(pe\r a)retê=s phra/zein; ou)de\n ga\r tou/tô| ka)kei/nô| koino/n.]]
[Side-note: Comparison of Man to the Kosmos, which has reason, but no emotion, is unnecessary and confusing.]
Moreover, when Plato, to prove the conclusion that Intelligence and Reason are the governing attributes of man's mind, enunciates as his premiss that Intelligence and Reason are the governing attributes in the Kosmos[95]--the premiss introduced is more debateable than the conclusion; and would (as he himself intimates) be contested by those against whose opposition he was arguing.
In fact, the same proposition (That Reason and Intelligence are the dominant and controlling attributes of man, Passion and Appetite the subordinate) is assumed without any proof by Sokrates, both in the Protagoras and in the Republic.
The Kosmos (in Plato's view) has reason and intelligence, but experiences no emotion either painful or pleasurable: the rational nature of man is thus common to him with the Kosmos, his emotional nature is not so.
That the mind of each individual man was an emanation from the all-pervading mind of the Kosmos or universe, and his body a fragmentary portion of the four elements composing the cosmical body--these are propositions which had been laid down by Sokrates, as well as by Philolaus and other Pythagoreans (perhaps by Pythagoras himself) before the time of Plato.
[96] Not only that doctrine, but also the analysis of the Kosmos into certain abstract constituent _principia_--(the Finient or Determinant--and the Infinite or Indeterminate)--this too seems to have been borrowed by Plato from Philolaus.
[97] [Footnote 95: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
20-30.]
[Footnote 96: Cicero, De Nat.
Deor.
i.
11, 27: De Senectute, 21, 78; Xenophon, Memor.
i.
4, 7-8; Cicero, Nat.
Deor.
ii.
6, 18; Plato, Timæus, pp.
37-38, &c. In the Xenophontic dialogue here referred to, Sokrates inverts the premiss and the conclusion: he infers that Mind and Reason govern the Kosmos, because the mind and reason of man govern the body of man.]
[Footnote 97: See Stallbaum, Prolegg.
in Philêb.
pp.
41-42.]
[Side-note: Plato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their doctrine.
Importance of his views in dwelling upon systematic classification.]
But here in the Philêbus, that analysis appears expanded into a larger scheme going beyond Philolaus or the Pythagoreans: _viz._ the recognition of a graduated scale of limits, or a definite number of species and sub-species--intermediate between the One or Highest Genus, and the Infinite Many or Individuals--and descending by successive stages of limitation from the Highest to the Lowest.
What is thus described, is the general framework of systematic logical classification, deliberately contrived, and founded upon known attributes, common as well as differential.
It is prescribed as essential to all real cognition; if we conceive only the highest Genus or generic name as comprehending an infinity of diverse particulars, we have no real cognition, until we can assign the intermediate stages of specification by which we descend from one to the other.
[98] The step here made by Plato, under the stimulus of the Sokratic dialectic, from the Pythagorean doctrine of Finient and Infinite to the idea of gradual, systematic, logical division and subdivision, is one very important in the history of science.
He lays as much stress upon the searching out of the intermediate species, as Bacon does upon the Axiomata Media of scientific enquiry.
[99] [Footnote 98: Ueberweg (Æchtheit und Zeitf.
Platon.
Schriften, pp.
204-207) considers the Philêbus, as well as the Sophistês and Timæus, to be compositions of Plato's very late age--partly on the ground of their didactic and expository style, the dialogue serving only as form to the exponent Sokrates--partly because he thinks that the nearest approach is made in them to that manner of conceiving the doctrine of Ideas which Aristotle ascribes to Plato in his old age--that is, the two [Greek: stoichei=a] or factors of the Ideas.
1.
[Greek: To\ e(\n].
2.
[Greek: To\ me/ga kai\ mikro/n].
This last argument seems to me far-fetched.
I see no real and sensible approach in the Philêbus to this Platonic doctrine of the [Greek: stoichei=a] of the Ideas: at least, the approach is so vague, that one can hardly make it a basis of reasoning.
But the didactic tone is undoubtedly a characteristic of the Philêbus, and seems to indicate that the dialogue was composed after Plato had been so long established in his school, as to have acquired a pedagogic ostentation.]
[Footnote 99: Bacon, Augment.
Scient.
v. 2.
Nov.
Organ.
Aph.
105.
"At Plato non semel innuit particularia infinita esse maximé: rursus generalia minus certa documenta exhibere.
Medullam igitur scientiarum, quâ artifex ab imperito distinguitur, in mediis propositionibus consistere, quas per singulas scientias tradidit et docuit experientia."]
[Side-note: Classification broadly enunciated, and strongly recommended--yet feebly applied--in this dialogue.]
Though there are several other passages of the Platonic dialogues in which the method of logical division is inculcated, there is none (I think) in which it is prescribed so formally, or enunciated with such comprehensive generality, as this before us in the Philêbus.
Yet the method, after being emphatically announced, is but feebly and partially applied, in the distinction of different species, both of pleasure and of cognition.
[100] The announcement would come more suitably, as a preface to the Sophistês and Politikus: wherein the process is applied to given subjects in great detail, and at a length which some critics consider excessive: and wherein moreover the particular enquiry is expressly proclaimed as intended to teach as well as to exemplify the general method.
[101] [Footnote 100: The purpose of discriminating the different sorts of pleasure is intimated, yet seemingly not considered as indispensable, by Sokrates; and it is executed certainly in a very unsystematic and perfunctory manner, compared with what we read in the Sophistês and Politikus.
(Philêbus, pp.
19 B, 20 C, 32 B-C.) Mr. Poste, in his note on p. 55 A, expresses surprise at this point; and notices it as one among other grounds for suspecting that the Philêbus is a composition of two distinct fragments, rather carelessly soldered together:--"Again after Division and Generalization have been propounded as the only satisfactory method, it is somewhat strange that both the original problems are solved by ordinary Dialectic without any recourse to classification.
All this becomes intelligible if we assume the Philêbus to have arisen from a boldly executed junction of two originally separate dialogues."
Acknowledging the want of coherence in the dialogue, I have difficulty in conceiving what the two fragments could have been, out of which it was compounded.
Schleiermacher (Einleit.
pp.
136-137) also points out the negligent execution and heavy march of the dialogue.]
[Footnote 101: See Politikus, pp.
285-286; Phædrus, p. 265; Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
5, 12.
I have already observed that Socher (Ueber Platon.
pp.
260-270) and Stallbaum (Proleg.
ad Politik.
pp.
52-54-65-67, &c.) agree in condemning the extreme minuteness, the tiresome monotony, the useless and petty comparisons, which Plato brings together in the multiplied bifurcate divisions of the Sophistês and Politikus.
Socher adduces this as one among his reasons for rejecting the dialogue as spurious.]
[Side-note: What is the Good?
Discussed both in Philêbus and in Republic.
Comparison.]
The same question as that which is here discussed in the Philêbus, is also started in the sixth book of the Republic.
It is worth while to compare the different handling, here and there.
"Whatever else we possess (says Sokrates in the Republic), and whatever else we may know is of no value, unless we also possess and know Good.
In the opinion of most persons, Pleasure is The Good: in the opinion of accomplished and philosophical men, intelligence ([Greek: phro/nêsis]) is the Good.
But when we ask Intelligence, _of what_?
these philosophers cannot inform us: they end by telling us, ridiculously enough, Intelligence of _The Good_.
Thus, while blaming us for not knowing what The Good is, they make an answer which implies that we do already know it: in saying, Intelligence of the Good, they of course presume that we know what they mean by the word.
Then again, those who pronounce Pleasure to be the Good, are not less involved in error; since they are forced to admit that some Pleasures are Evil; thus making Good and Evil to be the same.
It is plain therefore that there are many and grave disputes what The Good is.
"[102] [Footnote 102: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 B-C. [Greek: oi( tou=to ê(gu/menoi ou)k e)/chousi dei=xai ê(/ _tis phro/nêsis, a)ll'_ a)nagka/zontai teleutô=ntes tê\n tou= a)gathou= pha/nai .
.
.
o)neidi/zonte/s ge o(/ti ou)k i)/smen to\ a)gatho/n, le/gousi pa/lin ô(s ei)do/si; phro/nêsin ga\r au)to/ phasin ei)=nai a)gathou=, ô(s au)= sunie/ntôn ê(mô=n o(/, ti le/gousin, e)peida\n to\ tou= a)gathou= phthe/gxôntai o)/noma.]
In the Symposion, there is a like tenor of questions about Eros or Love.
Love must be Love of something: the term is relative.
You confound Love with the object loved.
See Plato, Symposion, pp.
199 C, 204 C. When we read the objection here advanced by Plato (in the above passage of the Republic) as conclusive against the appeal to [Greek: phro/nêsis] absolutely (without specifying [Greek: phro/nêsis] _of what_), we are surprised to see that it is not even mentioned in the Philêbus.]
[Side-note: Mistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it were known, while it is subject of constant dispute.
Plato himself wavers about it; gives different explanations, and sometimes professes ignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently.]
In this passage of the Republic Plato points out that Intelligence cannot be understood, except as determined by or referring to some Object or End: and that those who tendered Intelligence _per se_ for an explanation of The Good (as Sokrates does in the Philêbus), assumed as known the very point in dispute which they professed to explain.
This is an important remark in regard to ethical discussions: and it were to be wished that Plato had himself avoided the mistake which he here blames in others.
The Platonic Sokrates frequently tells us that he does not know what Good is.
In the sixth Book of the Republic, having come to a point where his argument required him to furnish a positive explanation of it, he expressly declines the obligation and makes his escape amidst the clouds of metaphor.
[103] In the Protagoras, he pronounces Good to be identical with pleasure and avoidance of pain, in the largest sense and under the supervision of calculating Intelligence.
[104] In the second Book of the Republic, we find what is substantially the same explanation as that of the Protagoras, given (though in a more enlarged and analytical manner) by Glaukon and assented to by Sokrates; to the effect that Good is tripartite,[105] _viz._: 1.
That which we desire for itself, without any reference to consequences--_e.
g._, enjoyment and the innocuous pleasures.
2.
That which we desire on a double account, both for itself and by reason of its consequences--_e.
g._, good health, eyesight, intelligence, &c. 3.
That which we do not desire, perhaps even shun, for itself: but which we desire, or at least accept, by reason of its consequences--such as gymnastics, medical treatment, discipline, &c. Again, in the Gorgias and elsewhere, Plato seems to confine the definition of Good to the two last of these three heads, rejecting the first: for he distinguishes pointedly the Good from the Pleasurable.
Yet while thus wavering in his conception of the term, Plato often admits it into the discussions as if it were not merely familiar, but clear and well-understood by every one.
[Footnote 103: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 506 E. Compare also Republic, vii.
p. 533 C. [Greek: ô)=| ga\r a)rchê\ me\n o(\ mê\ oi)=de, teleutê\ de\ kai\ ta\ metaxu\ e)x ou)= mê\ oi)=de sumpe/plektai, ti/s mêchanê\ tê\n toiau=tên o(mologi/an pote\ e)pistê/mên gi/gnesthai?]]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Protagoras, pp.
356-7.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 357 B.]
[Side-note: Plato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined: but the answer in the Philêbus does not satisfy those tests.]
In the present dialogue, Plato lays down certain characteristic marks whereby The Supreme Good may be known.
These marks are subjective--relative to the feelings and appreciation of sentient beings--to all mankind, and even to animals and plants.
Good is explicitly defined by the property of conferring happiness.
The Good is declared to be "that habit and disposition of mind which has power to confer on all men a happy life":[106] it is perfect and all sufficient: every creature that knows Good, desires and hunts after it, demanding nothing farther when it is attained, and caring for nothing else except what is attained along with it:[107] it is the object of choice for all plants and animals, and if any one prefers any thing else, he only does so through ignorance or from some untoward necessity:[108] it is most delightful and agreeable to all.
[109] This is what Plato tells us as to the characteristic attributes of Good.
And the test which Sokrates applies, to determine whether Pleasure does or does not correspond with these attributes, is an appeal to individual choice or judgment.
"Would you choose?
Would _any one_ be satisfied?"
Though this appeal ought by the conditions of the problem to be made to mankind generally, and is actually made to Protarchus as one specimen of them--yet Sokrates says at the end of the dialogue that all except philosophers choose wrong, being too ignorant or misguided to choose aright.
Now it is certain that what these philosophers choose, will not satisfy the aspirations of all other persons besides.
It may be Good, in reference to the philosophers themselves: but it will fail to answer those larger conditions which Plato has just laid down.
[Footnote 106: Plato, Philêbus, p. 11 E.] [Footnote 107: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
20 D-E, 61 C, 67 A.
[Greek: au)tarkei/a], &c. Sydenham, Translation of Philêbus, note, p. 48, observes--"Whether Happiness be to be found in Speculative Wisdom or in Pleasure, or in some other possession or enjoyment, it can be seated nowhere but in the soul.
For Happiness has no existence anywhere but where it is felt and known.
Now, it is no less certain, that only the soul is sensible of pain and pleasure, than it is, that only the soul is capable of knowledge, and of thinking either foolishly or wisely."]
[Footnote 108: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
22 B, 61 A.]
[Footnote 109: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
61 E, 64 C. [Greek: to\n a)gapêto/taton bi/on pa=si prosphilê=].
Aristotle, Ethic.
Nikomach.
i. init.
[Greek: ta)gatho/n, ou)= pa/nta e)phi/etai].
Seneca, Epistol.
118.
"Bonum est quod ad se impetum animi secundum naturam movet."]
[Side-note: Inconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the question--The alternative which he tenders has no fair application.]
In submitting the question to individual choice, Plato does not keep clear either of confusion or of contradiction.
If this Summum Bonum be understood as the End comprising the full satisfaction of human wishes and imaginations, without limitation by certain given actualities--and if the option be tendered to a man already furnished with his share of the various desires generated in actual life--such a man will naturally demand entire absence of all pains, with pleasures such as to satisfy all his various desires: not merely the most intense pleasures (which Plato intends to prove, not to be pleasures at all), but other pleasures also.
He will wish (if you thus suppose him master of Fortunatus's wishing-cap) to include in his enjoyments pleasures which do not usually go together, and which may even, in the real conditions of life, exclude one another: no boundary being prescribed to his wishing power.
He will wish for the pleasures of knowledge or intelligence, of self-esteem, esteem from others, sympathy, &c., as well as for those of sense.
He will put in his claim for pleasures, without any of those antecedent means and conditions which, in real life, are necessary to procure them.
Such being the state of the question, the alternative tendered by Plato--Pleasure, versus Intelligence or Knowledge--has no fair application.
Plato himself expressly states that pleasure, though generically One, is specifically multiform, and has many varieties different from, even opposite to, each other: among which varieties one is, the pleasure of knowledge or intelligence itself.
[110] The person to whom the question is submitted, has a right to claim these pleasures of knowledge among the rest, as portions of his Summum Bonum.
And when Plato proceeds to ask--Will you be satisfied to possess pleasure only, without the least spark of intelligence, without memory, without eyesight?--he departs from the import of his previous question, and withdraws from the sum total of pleasure many of its most important items: since we must of course understand that the pleasures of intelligence will disappear along with intelligence itself,[111] and that the pains of conscious want of intelligence will be felt instead of them.
[Footnote 110: Plato, Philêbus, p. 12 D.] [Footnote 111: Plato, Philêbus, p. 21 C.] [Side-note: Intelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly compared--Pleasure is an End, Intelligence a Means.
Nothing can be compared with Pleasure, except some other End.]
That the antithesis here enunciated by Plato is not legitimate or logical, we may see on other grounds also.
Pleasure and Intelligence cannot be placed in competition with each other for recognition as Summum Bonum: which, as described by Plato himself, is of the nature of an End, while Intelligence is of the nature of a means or agency--indispensable indeed, yet of no value unless it be exercised, and rightly exercised towards its appropriate end, which end must be separately declared.
[112] Intelligence is a durable acquisition stored up, like the good health, moral character, or established habits, of each individual person: it is a capital engaged in the production of interest, and its value is measured by the interest produced.
You cannot with propriety put the means--the Capital--in one scale, and the End--the Interest--in the other, so as to ascertain which of the two weighs most.
A prudent man will refrain from any present enjoyment which trenches on his capital: but this is because the maintenance of the capital is essential to all future acquisitions and even future maintenance.
So too, Intelligence is essential as a means or condition to the attainment of pleasure in its largest sense--that is, including avoidance or alleviation of pain or suffering: if therefore you choose to understand pleasure in a narrower sense, not including therein avoidance of pain (as Plato understands it in this portion of the Philêbus), the comprehensive end to which Intelligence corresponds may be compared with Pleasure and declared more valuable--but Intelligence itself cannot with propriety be so compared.
Such a comparison can only be properly instituted when you consider the exercise of Intelligence as involving (which it undoubtedly does[113]) pleasures of its own; which pleasures form part of the End, and may fairly be measured against other pleasures and pains.
But nothing can be properly compared with Pleasure, except some other supposed End: and those theorists who reject Pleasure must specify some other _Terminus ad quem_--otherwise intelligence has no clear meaning.
[Footnote 112: Compare Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 D (referred to in a previous note); also Aristotel.
Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
3, 1095, b.
30; i.
8, 1099, a.
1.
Respecting the value of Intelligence or Cognition, when the end towards which it is to be exercised is undetermined, see the dialogue between Sokrates and Kleinias--Plato, Euthydêm.
pp.
289-292 B-E. Aristotle, in the Nikomach.
Ethic.
(i.
4, 1096, b.
10), makes a distinction between--1.
[Greek: ta\ kath' au(ta\ diôko/mena kai\ a)gapô/mena]--2.
[Greek: ta\ poiêtika\ tou/tôn ê)\ phulaktika\ ê)\ tô=n e)nanti/ôn kôlutika/]: and Plato himself makes the same distinction at the beginning of the second book of the Republic.
But though it is convenient to draw attention to this distinction, for the clear understanding of the subject, you cannot ask with propriety which of the two lots is most valuable.
The value of the two is equal: the one cannot be had without the other.]
[Footnote 113: Plato, Philêb.
p. 12 D.] [Side-note: The Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of pleasure and diminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the governing agency.]
Now the Hedonists in Plato's age, when they declared Pleasure to be the supreme Good, understood Pleasure in its widest sense, as including not merely all varieties of pleasure, mental and bodily alike, but also avoidance of pain (in fact Epikurus dwelt especially upon this last point).
Moreover, they did not intend to depreciate Intelligence, but on the contrary postulated it as a governing agency, indispensable to right choice and comparative estimation between different pleasures and pains.
That Eudoxus,[114] the geometer and astronomer, did this, we may be sure: but besides, this is the way in which the Hedonistic doctrine is expounded by Plato himself.
In his Protagoras, Sokrates advocates that doctrine, against the Sophist who is unwilling to admit it.
In the exposition there given by Sokrates, Pleasure is announced as The Good to be sought, Pain as The Evil to be avoided or reduced to a minimum.
But precisely because the End, to be pursued through constant diversity of complicated situations, is thus defined--for that very reason he declares that the dominant or sovereign element in man must be, the measuring and calculating Intelligence; since such is the sole condition under which the End can be attained or approached.
In the theory of the Hedonists, there was no antithesis, but indispensable conjunction and implication, between Pleasure and Intelligence.
[115] And if it be said, that by declaring Pleasure (and avoidance of Pain) to be the End, Intelligence the means,--they lowered the dignity of the latter as compared with the former:--we may reply that the dignity of Intelligence is exalted to the maximum when it is enthroned as the ruling and controuling agent over the human mind.
[Footnote 114: Eudoxus is cited by Aristotle (Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
2) as the great champion of the Hedonistic theory.
He is characterised by Aristotle as [Greek: diaphero/ntôs sô/phrôn].]
[Footnote 115: The implication of the intelligent and emotional is well stated by Aristotle (Eth.
Nikom.
x.
8, 1178, a.
16).
[Greek: sune/zeuktai de\ kai\ ê( phro/nêsis tê=| tou= ê)/thous a)retê=|, kai\ au)/tê tê=| phronê/sei, ei)/per ai( me\n tê=s phronê/seôs a)rchai\ kata\ ta\s ê)thika/s ei)sin a)reta/s, to\ d' o)rtho\n tô=n ê=thikô=n kata\ tê\n phro/nêsin.
sunêrtême/nai d' au)=tai kai\ toi=s pa/thesi peri\ to\ su/ntheton a)\n ei)=en; ai( de\ tou= sunthe/tou a)retai\ a)nthrôpikai/.
kai\ o( bi/os dê\ o( kat' au)ta\s kai\ ê( eu)daimoni/a.
ê( de\ tou= nou= kechôrisme/nê], &c. Compare also the first two or three sentences of the tenth Book of Eth.
Nik.]
[Side-note: Pleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are compared by Plato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of more value.
This is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.]
In a scheme of mental philosophy, Emotion and Intellect are properly treated as distinct phenomena requiring to be explained separately, though perpetually co-existent and interfering with each other.
But in an ethical discourse about Summum Bonum, the antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, on which the Philêbus turns, is from the outset illogical.
What gives to it an apparent plausibility, is, That the exercise of Intelligence has pleasures and pains of its own, and includes therefore in itself a part of the End, besides being the constant and indispensable directing force or Means.
Now, though pleasure _in genere_ cannot be weighed in the scale against Intelligence, yet the pleasures and pains of Intelligence may be fairly and instructively compared with other pleasures and pains.
You may contend that the pleasures of Intelligence are superior in quality, as well as less alloyed by accompanying pains.
This comparison is really instituted by Plato in other dialogues;[116] and we find the two questions apparently running together in his mind as if they were one and the same.
Yet the fact is, that those who affirm the pleasures attending the exercise of Intelligence to be better and greater, and the pains less, than those which attend other occupations, are really arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.
[117] Far from establishing any antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, they bring the two into closer conjunction than was done by Epikurus himself.
[Footnote 116: See Republic, ix.
pp.
581-582, where he compares the pleasures of the three different lives.
1.
[Greek: O( philo/sophos] or [Greek: philomathê/s].
2.
[Greek: O( philu/timos].
3.
[Greek: O( philokerdê/s].
Again in the Phædon, he tells us that we are not to weigh pleasures against pleasures, or pains against pains, but all of them against [Greek: phro/nêsis] or Intelligence (p. 69 A-B).
This appears distinctly to contradict what Sokrates affirms in the Protagoras.
But when we turn to another passage of the Phædon (p. 114 E), we find Sokrates recognising a class of pleasures attached to the exercise of Intelligence, and declaring them to be more valuable than the pleasures of sense, or any others.
This is a very different proposition: but in both passages Plato had probably the same comparison in his mind.
Sydenham, in a note to his translation of the Philêbus (pp.
42-43), observes--"if Protarchus, when he took on himself to be an advocate for pleasure, had included, in his meaning of the word, all such pleasures as are purely mental, his opinion, fairly and rightly understood, could not have been different in the main, from what Sokrates here professes--That in every particular case, to discern what is best in action, and to perceive what is true in speculation, is the chief good of man; unless, indeed, it should afterwards come into question which of the two kinds of pleasure, the sensual or the mental, was to be preferred.
For if it should appear that in this point they were both of the same mind, the controversy between them would be found a mere logomachy, or contention about words (as between Epicureans and Stoics), of the same kind as that would be between two persons, one of whom asserted that to a musical ear the proper and true good was Harmony, while the other contended that the good lay not in the Harmony itself, but in the pleasure which the musical ear felt from hearing it: or like a controversy among three persons, one of whom having asserted that to all animals living under the northern frigid zone, the Sun in Cancer was the greatest blessing; and another having asserted that not the Sun was that chief blessing to those northern animals, but the warmth which he afforded them; the third should imagine that he corrected or amended the two former by saying--That those animals were thus highly blest neither by the Sun, nor by the warmth which his rays afforded them, but by the joy or pleasure which they felt from the return of the Sun and warmth."]
[Footnote 117: Plato, in Philêbus, p. 63 C-D, denounces and discards the vehement pleasures because they disturb the right exercise of Reason and Intelligence.
Aristotle, after alluding to this doctrine, presents the same fact under a different point of view, as one case of a general law.
Each variety of pleasure belongs to, and is consequent on, a certain [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] of the system.
Each variety of pleasure promotes and consummates its own [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], but impedes or arrests other different [Greek: e)nergei/as].
Thus the pleasures of hunting, of gymnastic contest, of hearing or playing music--cause each of these [Greek: e)nergei=ai], upon which each pleasure respectively depends, to be more completely developed; but are unfavourable to different [Greek: e)nergei=ai], such as learning by heart, or solving a geometrical problem.
The pleasure belonging to these latter, again, is unfavourable to the performance of the former [Greek: e)nergei=ai].
Study often hurts health or good management of property; but if a man has pleasure in study, he will perform that work with better fruit and result.
This is a juster view of [Greek: ê(donê\] than what we read in the Philêbus.
The illogical antithesis of Pleasure _in genere_, against Intelligence, finds no countenance from Aristotle.
See Ethic.
Nikom.
vii.
13, 1153, a.
20; x.
5, p. 1175; also Ethic.
Magna, ii.
p. 1206, a.
3.]
[Side-note: Marked antithesis in the Philêbus between pleasure and avoidance of pain.]
Another remark may be made on the way in which Plato argues the question in the Philêbus against the Hedonists.
He draws a marked line of separation between Pleasure--and avoidance, relief, or mitigation, of Pain.
He does not merely distinguish the two, but sets them in opposing antithesis.
Wherever there is pain to be relieved, he will not allow the title of _pleasurable_ to be bestowed on the situation.
That is not _true_ pleasure: in other words, it is no pleasure at all.
He does not go quite so far as some contemporary theorists, the Fastidious Pleasure-Haters, who repudiated all pleasures without exception.
[118] He allows a few rare exceptions; the sensual pleasures of sight, hearing, and smell--and the pleasures of exercising Intelligence, which (these latter most erroneously) he affirms to be not disentitled by any accompanying pains.
His catalogue of pleasures is thus reduced to a chosen few, and these too enjoyable only by a chosen few among mankind.
[Footnote 118: Plato, Philêbus, p. 44 B.]
[Side-note: The Hedonists did not recognise this distinction--They included both in their acknowledged End.]
Now this very restricted sense of the word Pleasure is peculiar to Plato, and peculiar even to some of the Platonic dialogues.
Those who affirmed Pleasure to be the Good, did not understand the word in the same restricted sense.
When Sokrates in the Protagoras affirms, and when Sokrates in the Philêbus denies, that Pleasure is identical with Good,--the affirmation and the denial do not bear upon the same substantial meaning.
[119] [Footnote 119: Among the arguments employed by Sokrates in the Philêbus to disprove the identity between [Greek: ê(donê\] and [Greek: a)gatho/n], one is, that [Greek: ê(donê\] is a [Greek: ge/nesis], and is therefore essentially a process of imperfection or transition into some ulterior [Greek: ou)si/a], for the sake of which alone it existed (Philêbus, pp.
53-55); whereas Good is essentially an [Greek: ou)si/a]--perfect, complete, all-sufficient--and must not be confounded with the process whereby it is brought about.
He illustrates this by telling us that the species of [Greek: ge/nesis] called ship-building exists only for the sake of the ship--the [Greek: ou)si/a] in which it terminates; but that the fabricating process, and the result in which it ends, are not to be confounded together.
The doctrine that pleasure is a [Greek: ge/nesis], Plato cites as laid down by others: certain [Greek: kompsoi/], whom he does not name, but whom the critics suppose to be Aristippus and the Kyrenaici.
Aristotle (in the seventh and tenth books of Ethic.
Nik.)
also criticises and impugns the doctrine that pleasure is a [Greek: ge/nesis]: but he too omits to name the persons by whom it was propounded.
Possibly Aristippus may have been the author of it: but we can hardly tell what he meant, or how he defended it.
Plato derides him for his inconsistency in calling pleasure a [Greek: ge/nesis], while he at the same time maintained it to be the Good: but the derision is founded upon an assumption which Aristippus would have denied.
Aristippus would not have admitted that all [Greek: ge/nesis] existed only for the sake of [Greek: ou)si/a]: and he would have replied to Plato's argument, illustrated by the example of ship-building, by saying that the [Greek: ou)si/a] called a _ship_ existed only for the sake of the services which it was destined to render in transporting persons and goods: that if [Greek: ge/nesis] existed for the sake of [Greek: ou)si/a], it was no less true that [Greek: ou)si/a] existed for the sake of [Greek: ge/nesis].
Plato therefore had no good foundation for the sarcasm which he throws out against Aristippus.
The reasoning of Aristotle (E. N. x.
3-4; compare Eth.
Magn.
ii.
1204-1205) against the doctrine, that pleasure is [Greek: ge/nesis] or [Greek: ki/nêsis], is drawn from a different point of view, and is quite as unfavourable to the opinions of Plato as to those of Aristippus.
His language however in the Rhetoric is somewhat different (i. p. 1370, b.
33).
Aristippus is said to have defined pleasure as [Greek: lei/a ki/nêsis], and pain as [Greek: trachei=a ki/nêsis] (Diog.
L. ii.
86-89).
The word [Greek: ki/nêsis] is so vague, that one can hardly say what it means, without some words of context: but I doubt whether he meant anything more than "_a marked change of consciousness_".
The word [Greek: ge/nesis] is also very obscure: and we are not sure that Aristippus employed it.]
[Side-note: Arguments of Plato against the intense pleasures--The Hedonists enforced the same reasonable view.]
Again, in the arguments of Sokrates against pleasure _in genere_, we find him also singling out as examples the intense pleasures, which he takes much pains to discredit.
The remarks which he makes here upon the intense pleasures, considered as elements of happiness, have much truth taken generally.
Though he exaggerates the matter when he says that many persons would rejoice to have itch and irritation, in order that they might have the pleasure of scratching[120]--and that persons in a fever have greater pleasure as well as greater pain than persons in health--yet he is correct to this extent, that the disposition to hanker after intense pleasures, to forget their painful sequel in many cases, and to pay for them a greater price than they are worth, is widely disseminated among mankind.
But this is no valid objection against the Hedonistic theory, as it was enunciated and defended by its principal advocates--by the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras), by Aristippus, Eudoxus,[121] Epikurus.
All of them took account of this frequent wrong tendency, and arranged their warnings accordingly.
All of them discouraged, not less than Plato, such intense enjoyments as produced greater mischief in the way of future pain and disappointment, or as obstructed the exercise of calm reason.
[122] All of them, when they talked of pleasure as the Supreme Good, understood thereby a rational estimate and comparison of pleasures and pains, present and future, so as to ensure the maximum of the former and the minimum of the latter.
All of them postulated a calculating and governing Reason.
Epikurus undoubtedly, and I believe the other two also, recommended a life of moderation, tranquillity, and meditative reason: they deprecated the violent emotions, whether sensual, ambitious, or money-getting.
[123] The objections therefore here stated by Sokrates, in so far as they are derived from the mischievous consequences of indulgence in the intense pleasures, do not avail against the Hedonistic theory, as explained either by Plato himself (Protagoras) or by any theorists of the Platonic century.
[Footnote 120: Plato, Philêbus, p. 47 B.]
[Footnote 121: I have already remarked that Eudoxus is characterised by Aristotle as being [Greek: diaphero/ntôs sô/phrôn] (Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
2).
The strong interest which he felt in scientific pursuits is marked by a story in Plutarch (Non Posse Suaviter Vivi; see Epicur.
p. 1094 A).]
[Footnote 122: The equivocal sense of the word Pleasure is the same as that which Plato notes in the Symposion to attach to Eros or Love (p. 205).
When employed in philosophical discussion, it sometimes _is_ used (and always _ought_ to be used) in its full extent of generic comprehension: sometimes in a narrower sense, so as to include only a few of the more intense pleasures, chiefly the physical, and especially the sexual; sometimes in a sense still more peculiar, partly as opposed to _duty_, partly as opposed to _business_, _work_, _utility_, &c. Opponents of the Hedonists took advantage of the unfavourable associations attached to the word in these narrower and special senses, to make objections tell against the theory which employed the word in its widest generic sense.]
[Footnote 123: See the beautiful lines of Lucretius, Book ii.
init.
When we read the three acrimonious treatises in which Plutarch attacks the Epikureans (Non Posse Suaviter Vivi, adv.
Koloten, De Latenter Vivendo), we find him complaining, not that Epikurus thought too much about pleasures, or that he thought too much about the intense pleasures, but quite the reverse.
Epikurus (he says) made out too poor a catalogue of pleasures: he was too easily satisfied with a small amount and variety of pleasures: he dwelt too much upon the absence of pain, as being, when combined with a very little pleasure, as much as man ought to look for: he renounced all the most vehement and delicious pleasures, those of political activity and contemplative study, which constitute the great charms of life (1097 F-1098 E-1092 E-1093-1094).
Plutarch attacks Epikurus upon grounds really Hedonistic.]
[Side-note: Different points of view worked out by Plato in different dialogues--Gorgias, Protagoras, Philêbus--True and False Pleasures.]
We find Plato in his various dialogues working out different points of view, partly harmonious, partly conflicting, upon ethical theory.
Thus in the Gorgias, Sokrates insists eloquently upon the antithesis between the Immediate and Transient on the one hand, which he calls Pleasure or Pain--and the Distant and Permanent on the other, which he calls Good or Profit, Hurt or Evil.
In the Protagoras, Sokrates acknowledges the same antithesis: but he points out that the Good or Profit, Hurt or Evil, resolve themselves into elements generically the same as those of the Immediate and Transient--Pleasure and Pain: so that all which we require is, a calculating Intelligence to assess and balance correctly the pleasures and pains in every given case.
In the Philêbus, Sokrates takes a third line, distinct from both the other two dialogues: he insists upon a new antithesis, between True Pleasures--and False Pleasures.
If a Pleasure be associated with any proportion, however small, of Pain or Uneasiness--or with any false belief or impression--he denounces it as false and impostrous, and strikes it out of the list of pleasures.
The small residue which is left after such deduction, consists of pleasures recommended altogether by what Plato calls their truth, and addressing themselves to the love of truth in a few chosen minds.
The attainment of Good--the object of the practical aspirations--is presented as a secondary appendage of the attainment of Truth--the object of the speculative or intellectual energies.
[Side-note: Opposition between the Gorgias and Philêbus, about Gorgias and Rhetoric.]
How much the Philêbus differs in its point of view from the Gorgias,[124] is indicated by Plato himself in a remarkable passage.
"I have often heard Gorgias affirm" (says Protarchus) "that among all arts, the art of persuasion stands greatly pre-eminent: since, it ensures subservience from all, not by force, but with their own free consent."
To which Sokrates replies--"I was not then enquiring what art or science stands pre-eminent as the greatest, or as the best, or as conferring most benefit upon us--but what art or science investigates clear, exact, and full truth, though it be in itself small, and may afford small benefit.
You need not quarrel with Gorgias, for you may admit to him the superiority of his art in respect of usefulness to mankind, while my art (dialectic philosophy) is superior in respect of accuracy.
I observed just now, that a small piece of white colour which is pure, surpasses in truth a large area which is not pure.
We must not look to the comparative profitable consequences or good repute of the various sciences or arts, but to any natural aspiration which may exist in our minds to love truth, and to do every thing for the sake of truth.
It will then appear that no other science or art strives after truth so earnestly as Dialectic.
"[125] [Footnote 124: Sokrates in the Gorgias insists upon the constant intermixture of pleasure with pain, as an argument to prove that pleasure cannot be identical with good: pleasure and pain (he says) go together but good and evil cannot go together: therefore pleasure cannot be good, pain cannot be evil (Gorgias, pp.
496-497).
But he distinguishes pleasures into the good and the bad; not into the true and the false, as they are distinguished in the Philêbus and the Republic (ix.
pp.
583-585).]
[Footnote 125: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B-D-E. [Greek: Ou) tou=to e(/gôge e)zê/toun pô, ti/s te/chnê ê)\ ti/s e)pistê/mê pasô=n diaphe/rei tô=| megi/stê kai\ a)ri/stê kai\ plei=sta ô)phelou=sa ê(ma=s, a)lla\ ti/s pote to\ saphe\s kai\ ta)kribe\s kai\ to\ a)lêthe/staton e)piskopei=, ka)\n ei) smikra\ kai\ smikra\ o)ni/nasa .
.
.
A)ll' o(/ra; ou)de\ ga\r a)pechthê/sei Gorgi/a|, tê=| me\n e)kei/nou u(pere/chein te/chnê| didou\s pro\s chrei/an toi=s a)nthrô/pois, pro\s a)kribei/an de\ ê)=| ei)=pon e)gô\ nu=n pragmatei/a| .
.
.
mê/t' ei)/s tinas ô)phelei/as e)pistêmô=n ble/psantes mê/te tina\s eu)dokimi/as, a)ll' ei)/ tis pe/phuke tê=s psuchê=s ê(mô=n du/namis e)ra=|n te tou= a)lêthou=s kai\ pa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein.]
Here, as elsewhere, I translate the substance of the passage, adopting the amendments of Dr. Badham and Mr. Poste (see Mr. Poste's note), which appear to me valuable improvements of a confused text.
It seems probable enough that what is here said, conceding so large a measure of credit to Gorgias and his art, may be intended expressly as a mitigation of the bitter polemic assigned to Sokrates in the Gorgias.
This is, however, altogether conjecture.]
If we turn to the Gorgias, we find the very same claim advanced by Gorgias on behalf of his own art, as that which Protarchus here advances: but while Sokrates here admits it, in the Gorgias he repudiates it with emphasis, and even with contumely: ranking rhetoric among those employments which minister only to present pleasure, but which are neither intended to yield, nor ever do yield, any profitable result.
Here in the Philêbus, the antithesis between immediate pleasure and distant profit is scarcely noticed.
Sokrates resigns to Gorgias and to others of the like stamp, a superiority not merely in the art of flattering and tricking the immediate sensibilities of mankind, but in that of contributing to their permanent profit and advantage.
It is in a spirit contrary to the Gorgias, and contrary also to the Republic (in which latter we read the memorable declaration--That the miseries of society will have no respite until government is in the hands of philosophers[126]), that Sokrates here abnegates on behalf of philosophy all efficacious pretension of conferring profit or happiness on mankind generally, and claims for it only the pure delight of satisfying the truth-seeking aspirations.
Now these aspirations have little force except in a few chosen minds; in the bulk of mankind the love of truth is feeble, and the active search for truth almost unknown.
We thus see that in the Philêbus it is the speculative few who are present to the imagination of Plato, more than the ordinary working, suffering, enjoying Many.
[Footnote 126: Plato, Republ.
v. 473 D.] [Side-note: Peculiarity of the Philêbus--Plato applies the same principle of classification--true and false--to Cognitions and Pleasures.]
Aristotle, in the commencement of his Metaphysica, recommends Metaphysics or First Philosophy to the reader, by affirming that, though other studies are more useful or more necessary to man, none is equal to it in respect of truth and exactness,[127] because it teaches us to understand First Causes and Principles.
The like pretension is put forward by Plato in the Philêbus[128] on behalf of dialectic; which he designates as the science of all real, permanent, unchangeable, Entia.
Taking Dialectic as the maximum or Verissimum, Plato classifies other sciences or cognitions according as they approach closer to it in truth or exactness--according as they contain more of precise measurement and less of conjecture.
Sciences or cognitions are thus classified according as they are more or less true and pure.
But because this principle of classification is fairly applicable to cognitions, Plato conceives that it may be made applicable to Pleasures also.
One characteristic feature of the Philêbus is the attempt to apply the predicates, _true_ or _false_, to pleasures and pains, as they are applicable to cognitions or opinions: an attempt against which Protarchus is made to protest, and which Sokrates altogether fails in justifying,[129] though he employs a train of argument both long and diversified.
[Footnote 127: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A. p. 983, a.
25, b.
10.]
[Footnote 128: Plato, Philêb.
pp.
57-58.
Compare Republic, vii.
pp.
531-532.]
[Footnote 129: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
36 C. 38 A.
The various arguments, intended to prove this conclusion, are continued from p. 36 to p. 51.
The same doctrine is advocated by Sokrates in the Republic, ix.
pp.
583-584.
The doctrine is briefly stated by the Platonist Nemesius, De Natur.
Hominis, p. 223.
[Greek: kai\ ga\r kata\ Pla/tôna tô=n ê(donô=n ai( me/n ei)si pseudei=s, ai( de\ a)lêthei=s.
Pseudei=s me/n, o(/sai met' ai)sthê/seôs gi/gnontai kai\ do/xês ou)k a)lêthou=s, kai\ lu/pas e)/chousi sumpeplegme/nas; a)lêthei=s de/, o(/sai tê=s psuchê=s ei)si mo/nês au)tê=s kath' e(autê\n met' e)pistê/mês kai\ nou= kai\ phronê/seôs, katharai\ kai\ a)nepi/miktoi lu/pês, ai)=s ou)demi/a meta/noia parakolouthei= pote/.]
A brief but clear abstract of the argument will be found in Dr. Badham's Preface to the Philêbus (pp.
viii.-xi.).
Compare also Stallbaum's Prolegg.
ch.
v. p. 50, seq.]
[Side-note: Distinction of true and false--not applicable to pleasures.]
In this train of argument we find a good deal of just and instructive psychological remark: but nothing at all which proves the conclusion that there are or can be _false pleasures_ or _false pains_.
We have (as Sokrates shows) false remembrances of past pleasures and pains--false expectations, hopes, and fears of future: we have pleasures alloyed by accompanying pains, and pains qualified by accompanying pleasures: we have pleasures and pains dependent upon false beliefs: but false pleasures we neither have nor can have.
The predicate is altogether inapplicable to the subject.
It is applicable to the intellectual side of our nature, not to the emotional.
A pleasure (or a pain) is what it seems, neither more nor less; its essence consists in being felt.
[130] There are false beliefs, disbeliefs, judgments, opinions--but not false pleasures or pains.
The pleasure of the dreamer or madman is not false, though it may be founded on illusory belief: the joy of a man informed that he has just been appointed to a lucrative and honourable post, the grief of a father on hearing that his son has been killed in battle, are neither of them false, though the news which both persons are made to believe may be totally false, and though the feelings will thus be of short duration.
Plato observes that the state which he calls neutrality or indifference appears pleasurable when it follows pain, and painful when it results from an interruption of pleasure: here is a state which appears alternately to be both, though it is in reality neither: the pleasure or pain, therefore, whichever it be, he infers to be _false_[131] But there is no falsehood in the case: the state described is what it appears to be--pleasurable or painful: Plato describes it erroneously when he calls it the same state, or one of neutrality.
Pleasure and Pain are both of them phenomena of present consciousness.
They are what they seem: none of them can be properly called (as Plato calls them) "apparent pleasures which have no reality".
[132] [Footnote 130: This is what Aristotle means when he says:--[Greek: tê=s ê(donê=s d' e)n o(tô|ou=n chro/nô| te/leion to\ ei)=dos .
.
.
tô=n o(/lôn ti kai\ telei/ôn ê( ê(donê/] (Eth.
Nik.
x.
3, 1174, b.
4).]
[Footnote 131: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
43-44; Republic, ix.
p. 583.
I copy the following passage from Professor Bain's work on "The Emotions and the Will," the fullest and most philosophical account of the emotions that I know (pp.
615-616; 3rd ed., pp.
550 seq.
):-"It is a general law of the mental constitution, more or less recognised by inquirers into the human mind, that change of impression is essential to consciousness in every form.
.
.
There are notable examples to show, that one unvarying action upon the senses fails to give any perception whatever.
Take the motion of the earth about its axis and through space, whereby we are whirled with immense velocity, but at a uniform pace, being utterly insensible of the circumstance.
.
.
It is the change from rest to motion that wakens our sensibility, and, conversely, from motion to rest.
A uniform condition, as respects either state, is devoid of any quickening influence on the mind.
.
.
.
We have repeatedly seen pleasures depending for their existence on previous pains, and pains on pleasures experienced or conceived.
Such are the contrasting states of Liberty and Restraint, Power and Impotence.
Many pleasures owe their effect as such to mere cessation.
For example, the pleasures of exercise do not need to be preceded by pain: it is enough that there has been a certain intermission, coupled with the nourishment of the exhausted parts.
These are of course our best pleasures.
By means of this class, we might have a life of enjoyment without pain: although, in fact, the other is more or less mixed up in every one's experience.
Exercise, Repose, the pleasures of the different Senses and Emotions, might be made to alternate, so as to give a constant succession of pleasure: each being sufficiently dormant during the exercise of the others, to reanimate the consciousness when its turn comes.
It also happens that some of those modes of delight are increased, by being preceded by a certain amount of a painful opposite.
Thus, confinement adds to the pleasure of exercise, and protracted exertion to that of repose.
Fasting increases the enjoyment of meals; and being much chilled prepares us for a higher zest in the accession of warmth.
It is not necessary, however, in those cases, that the privation should amount to positive pain, in order to the existence of the pleasure.
The enjoyment of food may be experienced, although the previous hunger may not be in any way painful: at all events, with no more pain than the certainty of the coming meal can effectually appease.
There is still another class of our delights depending entirely upon previous suffering, as in the sudden cessation of acute pains, or the sudden relief from great depression.
Here the rebound from one nervous condition to another is a stimulant of positive pleasure: constituting a small, but altogether inadequate, compensation for the prior misery.
The pleasurable sensation of good health presupposes the opposite experience in a still larger measure.
Uninterrupted health, though an instrumentality for working out many enjoyments, of itself gives no sensation."
It appears to me that this passage of Mr. Bain's work discriminates and sets out what there is of truth in Plato's doctrine about the pure and painless pleasures.
In his first volume (The Senses and the Intellect) Mr. Bain has laid down and explained the great fundamental fact of the system, that it includes spontaneous sources of activity; which, after repose and nourishment, require to be exerted, and afford a certain pleasure in the course of being exerted.
There is no antecedent pain to be relieved: but privation (which is only a grade and variety of pain, and sometimes considerable pain) is felt if the exertion be hindered.
This doctrine of spontaneous activity, employed by Mr. Bain successfully to explain a large variety of mental phenomena, is an important and valuable extension of that which Aristotle lays down in the Ethics, that pleasure is an accessory or adjunct of [Greek: e)ne/rgeia a)nempo/distos (e)ne/rgeia tê=s kata\ phu/sin e(/xeôs] Eth.
N. vii.
13, 1153, a.
15), without any view to obtain any separate extraneous pleasure or to relieve any separate extraneous pain ([Greek: kath' au(ta\s d' ei)si\n ai(retai/, a)ph' ô)=n mêde\n e)pizêtei=tai para\ tê\n e)ne/rgeian], E. N. x.
6, 1176, b.
6).]
[Footnote 132: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 A.
[Greek: pro\s to\ tina\s ê(dona\s ei)=nai dokou/sas, ou)/sas d' ou)damô=s], &c. [Greek: to\ phaino/menon a)ll' ou)k o)/n], p. 42 C, which last sentence is better explained (I think) in the note of Dr. Badham than in that of Mr. Poste.
Mr. Poste observes justly, in his note on p. 40 C:--"The falsely anticipated pleasure in mistaken Hope may be called, as it is here called, False Pleasure.
This is, however, an inaccurate expression.
It is not the Pleasure, but the Imagination of it (_i.e._ the Imagination or Opinion) that is false.
Sokrates therefore does not dwell upon this point, though Protarchus allows the expression to pass."
The last phrase of the passage which I have thus transcribed ("Sokrates _therefore_ does not dwell upon this point") is less accurate than that which precedes: for it seems to imply that the Sokrates of Philêbus _admits_ the inaccuracy of the expression, which seems to me not borne out by the text of the dialogue.
Both here and elsewhere in the dialogue, the doctrine, that many pleasures are false, is maintained by Sokrates distinctly--[Greek: to\ ê(/desthai] is put upon the same footing as [Greek: to\ doxa/zein], which may be either [Greek: a)lêthô=s] or [Greek: pseudô=s].
When Sokrates (p. 37 B) puts the question, "You admit that [Greek: do/xa] may be either [Greek: a)lêthê\s] or [Greek: pseudê/s]: how then can you argue that [Greek: ê(donê/] must be always [Greek: a)lêthê/s]?"
the answer is, that pleasure is not, if we speak correctly, either true or false: neither one predicate nor the other is properly applicable to it: we can only so apply them by a metaphor, altogether misleading in philosophical reasoning.
When Sokrates further argues (37 D), "You admit that some qualifying predicates may be applied to pleasures and pain, great or small, durable or transient, &c. You admit that an opinion may be correct or mistaken in its object, and when it is the latter you call it _false_: why is not the pleasure which accompanies a false opinion to be called false also?"
Protarchus refuses distinctly to admit this, saying, "I have already affirmed that on that supposition the _opinion_ is false: but no man will call the _pleasure_ false" (p. 38 A).]
[Side-note: Plato acknowledges no truth and reality except in the Absolute--Pleasures which he admits to be true--and why.]
What seems present to the mind of Plato in this doctrine is the antithesis between the absolute and the relative.
He will allow reality only to the absolute: the relative he considers (herein agreeing with the Eleates) to be all seeming and illusion.
Thus when he comes to describe the character of those few pleasures which he admits to be true, we find him dwelling upon their absolute nature.
1.
The pleasures derived from perfect geometrical figures: the exact straight line, square, cube, circle, &c.: which figures are always beautiful _per se_, not by comparison or in relation with any thing else:[133] and "which have pleasures of their own, noway analogous to those of scratching" (_i.
e._, not requiring to be preceded by the discomfort of an itching surface).
2.
The pleasures derived from certain colours beautiful in themselves: which are beautiful always, not merely when seen in contrast with some other colours.
3.
The pleasures of hearing simple sounds, beautiful in and by themselves, with whatever other sounds they may be connected.
4.
The pleasures of sweet smells, which are pleasurable though not preceded by uneasiness.
5.
The pleasures of mathematical studies: these studies do not derive their pleasurable character from satisfying any previous uneasy appetite, nor do they leave behind them any pain if they happen to be forgotten.
[134] [Footnote 133: Plato, Philêbus, p. 51 C. [Greek: tau=ta ga\r ou)k ei)=nai pro/s ti kala\ le/gô, katha/per a)/lla, a)ll' a)ei\ kala\ kath' au(ta\ pephuke/nai, kai/ tinas ê(dona\s oi)kei/as e)/chein, ou)de\n tai=s tô=n knê/seôn prospherei=s.]
51 D: [Greek: ta\s tô=n phônô=n ta\s lei/as kai\ lampra/s, ta\s e(/n ti katharo\n i(ei/sas me/los, ou) pro\s e(/teron kala\s a)ll' au)ta\s kath' au(ta\s ei)=nai, kai\ tou/tôn xumphu/tous ê(dona\s e(pome/nas.]]
[Footnote 134: Plato, Philêbus, p. 62 B.
We may illustrate the doctrine of the Philêbus about pleasures and pains, by reference to a dictum of Sokrates quoted in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iii.
13).
Some person complained to Sokrates that he had lost his appetite--that he no longer ate with any pleasure ([Greek: o(/ti a)êdô=s e)/sthioi])--"The physician Akumenus (so replied Sokrates) teaches us a good remedy in such a case.
Leave off eating: after you have left off, you will come back into a more pleasurable, easy, and healthful condition."
Now let us suppose the like complaint to be addressed to the Platonic Sokrates.
What would have been _his_ answer?
The Sokrates of the Protagoras would have regarded the complainant as suffering under a misfortune, and would have tried to suggest some remedy: either the prescription of Akumenus, or any other more promising that he could think of.
The Sokrates of the Phædon, on the contrary, would have congratulated him on the improvement in his condition, inasmuch as the misguiding and degrading ascendancy, exercised by his body over his mind, was suppressed in one of its most influential channels: just as Kephalus, in the Republic (i.
329), is made to announce it as one of the blessings of old age, that the sexual appetite has left him.
The Sokrates of the Philêbus, also, would have treated the case as one for congratulation, but he would have assigned a different reason.
He would have replied: "The pleasures of eating are altogether false.
You never really had any pleasure in eating.
If you believed yourself to have any, you were under an illusion.
You have reason to rejoice that this illusion has now passed away: and to rejoice the more, because you have come a step nearer to the most divine scheme of life."
Speusippus (the nephew and successor of Plato), if he had been present, would have re-assured the complainant in a manner equally decided.
He would have said nothing, however, about the difference between true and false pleasures: he would have acknowledged them all as true, and denounced them all as mischievous.
He would have said (see Aul.
Gell.
ix.
5): "The condition which you describe is one which I greatly envy.
Pleasure and Pain are both, alike and equally, forms of Evil.
I eat, to relieve the pain of hunger: but unfortunately, I cannot do so without experiencing some pleasure; and I thus incur evil in the other and opposite form.
I am ashamed of this, because I am still kept far off from Good, or the point of neutrality: but I cannot help myself.
_You_ are more fortunate: you avert one evil, _pain_, without the least alloy of the other evil, _pleasure_: what you attain is thus pure Good.
I hope your condition may long continue, and I should be glad to come into it myself."
Not only the sincere pleasure-haters, but also other theorists indicated by Aristotle, would have warmly applauded this pure ethical doctrine of Speusippus; not from real agreement with it, but in order to edify the audience.
They would say to one another aside: "This is not true; but we must do all we can to make people believe it.
Since every one is too fond of pleasures, and suffers himself to be enslaved by them, we must pull in the contrary direction, in order that we may thereby bring people into the middle line."
(Aristot.
Eth.
Nikom.
x.
1, 1172, a.
30.)
It deserves to be remarked that Aristotle, in alluding to these last theorists, disapproves their scheme of Ethical Fictions, or of falsifying theory in order to work upon men's minds by edifying imposture; while Plato approves and employs this scheme in the Republic.
Aristotle even recognises it as a fault in various persons, that they take too little delight in bodily pleasures--that a man is [Greek: toiou=tos oi(=os ê(=tton ê)\ dei= toi=s sômatikoi=s chai/rôn] (Ethic.
Nikom.
vii.
11, 1151, b.
24).]
These few are all the varieties of pleasure which Plato admits as true: they are alleged as cases of the absolutely pleasurable ([Greek: Au)to-ê(du/])--that which is pleasurable _per se_, and always, without relation to any thing else, without dependence on occasion or circumstance, and without any antecedent or concomitant pain.
All other pleasures are pleasurable relatively to some antecedent pain, or to some contrasting condition, with which they are compared: accordingly Plato considers them as false, unreal, illusory: pleasures and not pleasures at once, and not more one than the other.
[135] Herein he conforms to the Eleatic or Parmenidean view, according to which the relative is altogether falsehood and illusion: an intermediate stage between Ens and Non-Ens, belonging as much to the first as to the last.
[Footnote 135: Compare, respecting this Platonic view, Republic, v. pp.
478-479, and pp.
583-585, where Plato contrasts the [Greek: panalêthê\s] or [Greek: gnêsi/a ê(donê/], which arises from the acquisition of knowledge (when the mind nourishes itself with real essence), with the [Greek: no/thê] (p. 587 B) or [Greek: e)skiagraphême/nê ê(donê/, ei)/dôlon tê=s a)lêthou=s ê(donê=s], arising from the pursuits of wealth, power, and other objects of desire.
The comic poet Alexis adverts to this Platonic doctrine of the absolutely pleasurable, here, there, and everywhere,--[Greek: to\ d' ê(du\ pa/ntôs ê(du/, ka)kei= ka)ntha/de], Athenæ.
viii.
354; Meineke, Com.
Frag.
p. 453.
In the Phædrus (258 E), we find this same class of pleasures, those which cannot be enjoyed unless preceded by some pain, asserted to be called _for that reason slavish_ ([Greek: a)ndrapodô/deis]), and depreciated as worthless.
Nearly all the pleasures connected with the body are said to belong to this class; but those of rhetoric and dialectic are exempted from it, and declared to be of superior order.
The pleasure of gaining a victory in the stadium at Olympia was ranked by Greeks generally as the maximum of pleasure: and we find the Platonic Sokrates (Republ.
v. 465 D) speaks in concurrence with this opinion.
But this pleasure ought in Plato's view to pass for a false pleasure; since it was invariably preceded by the most painful, long-continued training.
The reasoning of Sokrates in the Philêbus (see especially pp.
46-47) against the intense and extatic pleasures, as being never pure, but always adulterated by accompanying pain, misfortune, disappointment, &c., is much the same as that of Epikurus and his followers afterwards.
The case is nowhere more forcibly put than in the fourth book of Lucretius (1074 seq.
): where that poet deprecates passionate love, and points out that pure or unmixed pleasure belongs only to the man of sound and healthy reason.]
[Side-note: Plato could not have defended this small list of Pleasures, upon his own admission, against his opponents--the Pleasure-haters, who disallowed pleasures altogether.]
The catalogue of pleasures recognised by Plato being so narrow (and much of them attainable only by a few persons), the amount of difference is really very small between him and his pleasure-hating opponents, who disallowed pleasure altogether.
But small as the catalogue is, he could not consistently have defended it against them, upon his own principles.
His opponents could have shown him that a considerable portion of it must be discarded, if we are to disallow all pleasures which are preceded by or intermingled with pain--or which are sometimes stronger, sometimes feebler, according to the relations of contrast or similarity with other concomitant sensations.
Mathematical study certainly, far from being all pleasure and no pain, demands an irksome preparatory training (which is numbered among the miseries of life in the Axiochus[136]), succeeded by long laborious application, together with a fair share of vexatious puzzle and disappointment.
The love of knowledge grows up by association (like the thirst for money or power), and includes an uncomfortable consciousness of ignorance: nay, it is precisely this painful consciousness which the Sokratic method was expressly intended to plant forcibly in the student's mind, as an indispensable antecedent condition.
Requital doubtless comes in time; but the outlay is not the less real, and is quite sufficient to disentitle the study from being counted as a true pleasure, in the Platonic sense.
Nor could Plato, upon his own principles, defend the pleasures of sight, sound, and smell.
For though he might justly contend that there were some objects originally agreeable to these senses, yet all these objects will appear more or less agreeable, according to the accompanying contrasts under which they are presented, while, in particular states of the organ, they will not appear agreeable at all.
Now such variability of estimate is among the grounds alleged by Plato for declaring pleasures to be false.
[137] [Footnote 136: See the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus, pp.
366-367.
Compare Republic, vii.
526 C, vi.
504 C. The Sokratic method, in creating consciousness of ignorance, is exhibited not less in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iv.
2, 40) than in various Platonic dialogues, Alkibiades I., Theætêtus, &c. We read it formally proclaimed by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology.
Aristotle repeats the assertion contained in the Philêbus about the list of painless pleasures--[Greek: a)/lupoi ga/r ei)sin ai(/ te mathêmatikai\], &c. (Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
2, 1173, b.
16; 7, 1177, a.
25.)
He himself says in another place (vii.
13, 1153, a.
20) that [Greek: to\ theôrei=n] sometimes hurts the health, and if he had examined the lives of mathematicians, especially that of Kepler, he would hardly have imagined that mathematical investigations have no pains attached to them.
He probably means that they are not preceded by painful appetites such as hunger and thirst.
But they are preceded by acquired impulses or desires, which in reference to the present question are upon same footing as the natural appetites.
A healthy and temperate man, leading a regular life and in easy circumstances, knows little of hunger and thirst as pains: he knows them only as appetites which give relish to his periodical meals.
It is only when this periodical satisfaction is withheld that his appetite grows to a painful and distressing height.
So too the [Greek: philomathê/s]; his appetite for study, when regularly gratified to an extent consistent with health and other considerations, is not painful; but it will rise to the height of a most distressing privation if he be debarred from gratifying it, excluded from books and papers, disturbed by noises and intrusions.
Kepler, if interdicted from pursuing his calculations, would have been miserable.
Jason of Pheræ was heard to say that he felt hungry so long as he was not in possession of supreme power--[Greek: peinê=|n, o(/te mê\ turannoi=], Aristot.
Politic.
iii.
4, 1277, a.
24; thus intimating that the acquired appetite of ambition had in his mind reached the same intensity as the natural appetite of hunger.]
[Footnote 137: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
41-42.
In the Phædon (p. 60 B) Sokrates makes a striking remark on the inseparable conjunction of pleasure with pain generally.]
[Side-note: Sokrates in this dialogue differs little from these Pleasure-haters.]
How little the Sokrates of this dialogue differs, at the bottom, from the fastidious pleasure-haters, may be seen by the passage in which he proclaims that the life of intelligence alone, without the smallest intermixture of pleasure or pain, is the really perfect life: that the Gods and the divine Kosmos have no enjoyment and no suffering.
[138] The emotional department of human nature is here regarded as a degenerate and obstructive appendage: so that it was an inauspicious act of the sons of the Demiurgus (in the Timæus[139]) when they attached the spherical head (the miniature parallel of the Kosmos, with the rotatory movements of the immortal soul in the brain within) at the summit of a bodily trunk and limbs, containing the thoracic and abdominal cavities: the thoracic cavity embodying a second and inferior soul with the energetic emotions and passions--the abdominal region serving as lodgment to a third yet baser soul with the appetites.
From this conjunction sprang the corrupting influence of emotional impulse, depriving man of his close parallelism with the Kosmos, and poisoning the life of pure exclusive Intelligence--regular, unfeeling, undisturbed.
The Pleasure-haters, together with Speusippus and others, declared that pleasure and pain were both alike enemies to be repelled, and that neutrality was the condition to be aimed at.
[140] And such appears to me to be the drift of Plato's reasonings in the Philêbus: though he relaxes somewhat the severity of his requirements in favour of a few pleasures, towards which he feels the same indulgence as towards Homer in the Republic.
[141] When Ethics are discussed, not upon principles of their own ([Greek: oi)kei=ai a)rchai\]), but upon principles of Kosmology or Ontology, no emotion of any kind can find consistent place.
[Footnote 138: Plato, Philêbus, p. 33 B.]
[Footnote 139: Plato, Timæus, pp.
43 A, 44 D, 69 D, 70-71.
The same fundamental idea though embodied in a different illustration, appears also in the Phædon; where Sokrates depicts life as a period of imprisonment, to which the immortal rational soul is condemned, in a corrupt and defective body, with perpetual stream of disturbing sensations and emotions (Phædon, pp.
64-65).
Aristotle observes, De Animâ, i. p. 407, b.
2:--[Greek: e)pi/ponon de\ kai\ to\ memi/chthai tô=| sô/mati mê\ duna/menon a)poluthê=nai, kai\ prose/ti pheukto/n, ei)/per be/ltion tô=| nô=| mê\ meta\ sô/matos ei)=nai, katha/per ei)/ôthe/ te le/gesthai kai\ polloi=s sundokei=.]
We find in one of the Fragments of Cicero, quoted by Augustin from the lost work Hortensius (p. 485, ed.
Orelli):--"An vero, inquit, voluptates corporis expetendæ, quæ veré et graviter dictæ sunt à Platone illecebræ et escæ malorum?
Quis autem bonâ mente præditus, non mallet nullas omnino nobis à naturâ voluptates esse datas?"
This is the same doctrine as what is ascribed to Speusippus.]
[Footnote 140: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
vii.
14, p. 1153, b.
5; x.
2, p. 1173, a.
8; Aulus Gellius, ix.
5.
"Speusippus vetusque omnis Academia voluptatem et dolorem duo mala esse dicunt opposita inter se: bonum autem esse quod utriusque medium foret."
Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp.
43 D-E, 33 B.
To whom does Plato here make allusion, under the general title of the Fastidious ([Greek: oi( duscherei=s]) Pleasure-haters?
Schleiermacher (note to his translation, p. 487), Stallbaum, and most critics down to Dr. Badham inclusive, are of opinion, that he alludes to Antisthenes--among whose _dicta_ we certainly read declarations expressing positive aversion to pleasure--[Greek: manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê(sthei/ên] Diog.
L. vi.
3; compare ix.
101, and Winckelmann, Frag.
Antisthen.
xii.
Mr. Poste, on the contrary, thinks it improbable that Antisthenes is alluded to (see p. 80 of his Philêbus).
I confess that I think so too.
Mr. Poste points out that these [Greek: duscherei=s] are characterised by Plato (p. 44 B), as [Greek: ma/la deinou\s legome/nous peri\ phu/sin]:--whereas we are informed that speculations on [Greek: phu/sis] were neglected by Antisthenes, who confined his attention to [Greek: ta\ ê)thika/].
This is a strong reason for believing that Antisthenes cannot be here meant; and there are some other reasons also.
First, in describing the [Greek: duscherei=s], Plato notes it as one among their attributes, that they _hold in thorough detestation the indecorous pleasures_ ([Greek: ta\s tô=n a)schêmo/nôn ê(dona/s, a(\s ou(\s ei)/pomen duscherei=s misou=si pantelô=s], p. 46 A).
Now this is surely not likely to have been affirmed about Antisthenes.
It was the conspicuous characteristic of the Cynic sect, begun by Antisthenes, and carried still farther by his pupil Diogenes, that they reduced to its minimum the distinction between the decorous and the indecorous.
Next, we may observe that these [Greek: duscherei=s], whoever they were, are spoken of with much respect by Plato, even while he combats their doctrine (p. 44 C).
I think it not likely that he would have spoken thus of Antisthenes.
We are told that there prevailed between the two a great and reciprocal acrimony.
And this sentiment is manifested in the Sophistês (p. 251 B), where the opponents whom Plato is refuting are described with the most contemptuous bitterness--and where Schleiermacher, and the critics generally, declare that he alludes to Antisthenes.
The passage in the Sophistês represents, in my judgment, the probable sentiment of Plato towards Antisthenes: the passage in the Philêbus is at variance with it.
I imagine that the [Greek: duscherei=s] to whom Plato makes allusion in the Philêbus, are the persons from whom his nephew and successor Speusippus derived the doctrine declared in the first portion of this note.
The "vetus omnia Academia" of Aulus Gellius is an exaggerated phrase; but many of the old Academy, or companions of Plato, probably held the theory that pleasure was only one form of evil,--especially the pythagorising _Platonici_, adopting the tendencies of Plato himself in his old age.
That Speusippus was among the borrowers from the Pythagoreans, we know from Aristotle (Eth.
Nikom.
i.
4, 1096, b.
8).
Now the Pythagorean canon of life, like the Orphic (both of them supposed by Herodotus to be derived in great part from Egypt--ii.
81), was distinguished by a multiplicity of abstinences, disgusts, antipathies, in respect to alimentation and other physical circumstances of life--which were held to be of the most imperative force and necessity; so that offences against them were of all others the most intolerable.
A remarkable fragment of the [Greek: Krê=tes] of Euripides (ed.
Dind., vol.
ii.
p. 912) describes a variety of this _purism_ analogous to the Orphic and Pythagorean:--[Greek: Pa/lleuka d' e)/chôn ei)/mata, pheu/gô ge/nesi/n te bro/tôn, kai\ nekrothê/kês ou) chrimpto/menos; tê\n t' e)mpsu/chôn brô=sin e)destô=n pephu/lagmai.]
Compare Eurip.
Hippol.
957; Alexis Comicus, ap.
Athenæ, iv.
p. 161.
See the work of M. Alfred Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Grèce Antique, vol.
iii.
pp.
368-384.
It appears to me that the [Greek: duscherei=s], to whom Plato alludes in the Philêbus, were most probably pythagorising friends of his own; who, adopting a ritual of extreme rigour, distinguished themselves by the violence of their antipathies towards [Greek: ta\s ê(dona\s ta\s tô=n a)schêmo/nôn].
Plato speaks of them with respect; partly because ethical theorists, who denounce _pleasure_, are usually characterised in reverential terms, as persons of exalted principle, even by those who think their reasonings inconclusive; partly because these men only pushed the consequences of Plato's own reasonings, rather farther than Plato himself did.
In fact they were more consistent than Plato was: for the principles laid down in the Philêbus, if carried out strictly, would go to the exclusion of all pleasures--not less of the few which he tolerates, than of the many which he banishes.
These pythagorising _Platonici_ might well be termed [Greek: deinoi\ peri\ phu/sin].
They paid much attention to the interpretation of nature, though they did so according to a numerical and geometrical symbolism.]
[Footnote 141: Plato, Republic, x. p.
607.]
[Side-note: Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of the Philêbus.]
In my judgment, this is one main defect pervading the Platonic Philêbus--the forced conjunction between Kosmology and Ethics--the violent pressure employed to force Pleasures and Pains into the same classifying framework as cognitive Beliefs--the true and the false.
In respect to the various pleasures, the dialogue contains many excellent remarks, the value of which is diminished by the purpose to which they are turned.
[142] One of Plato's main batteries is directed against the intense, extatic, momentary enjoyments, which he sets in contrast against the gentle, serene, often renewable.
[143] That the former are often purchasable only at the cost of a distempered condition of body and mind, which ought to render them objects shunned rather than desired by a reasonable man--this is a doctrine important to inculcate: but nothing is gained by applying the metaphorical predicate _false_, either to them, or to the other classes of mixed pleasures, &c., which Plato discountenances under the same epithet.
By thus condemning pleasures in wholesale and in large groups, we not only set aside the innocuous as well as others, but we also leave unapplied, or only half applied, that principle of Measure or Calculation which Plato so often extols as the main item in Summum Bonum.
[Footnote 142: We read in Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (Book i. ch.
7, pp.
168-170) some very good remarks on the erroneous and equivocal assertions which identify Truth and Good--a thesis on which various Platonists have expended much eloquence.
Dr. Campbell maintains the just distinction between the Emotions and Will on one side, and the Understanding on the other.
"Passion" (he says) "is the mover to action, Reason is the guide.
Good is the object of the Will; Truth the object of the Understanding."]
[Footnote 143: Plato, Philêbus, p. 45 D. [Greek: e)n u(/brei mei/zous ê(dona/s, ou) plei/ous le/gô], &c. So in the Republic, also, [Greek: ê(donê\ u(perba/llousa] is declared to be inconsistent with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê] (iii.
402 E).]
[Side-note: Directive sovereignty of Measure--how explained and applied in the Protagoras.]
In this dialogue as well as others, Measure is thus exalted, and exalted with emphasis, at the final conclusion: but it is far less clearly and systematically applied, as far as human beings are concerned, than in the Protagoras.
The Sokrates of the Protagoras does not recognise any pleasures as false--nor any class of pleasures as absolutely unmixed with pain: he does not set pleasure in pointed opposition to the avoidance of pain, nor the intense momentary pleasures to the gentle and more durable.
He considers that the whole course of life is a perpetual intermixture of pleasures and pains, in proportions variable and to a certain extent modifiable: that each item in both lists has its proper value, commensurable with the others; that the purpose of a well-ordered life consists, in rendering the total sum of pleasure as great, and the total sum of pain as small, as each man's case admits: that avoidance of pain and attainment of pleasure are co-ordinate branches of this one comprehensive End.
He farther declares that men are constantly liable to err by false remembrances, estimates, and comparisons, of pleasures and pains past--by false expectations of pleasures and pains to come: that the whole security of life lies in keeping clear of such error--in right comparison of these items and right choice between them: that therefore the full sovereign controul of each man's life must be vested in the Measuring Science or Calculating Intelligence.
[144] Not only all comprehensive sovereignty, but also ever-active guidance, is postulated for this Measuring Science: while at the same time its special function, and the items to which it applies, are more clearly defined than in any other Platonic dialogue.
If a man be so absorbed by the idea of an intense momentary pleasure or pain, as to forget or disregard accompaniments or consequences of an opposite nature, greatly overbalancing it--this is an error committed from default of the Measuring Science: but it is only one among many errors arising from the like deficiency.
Nothing is required but the Measuring Science or Intelligence, to enable a man to make the best of those circumstances in which he may be placed: this is true of all men, under every variety of place and circumstances.
Measure is not the Good, but the one condition which is constant as well as indispensable to any tolerable approach towards Good.
[Footnote 144: This argument is carried on by Sokrates from p. 351 until the close of the Protagoras, p. 357 A.
[Greek: e)peidê\ de\ ê(donê=s te kai\ lu/pês e)n o)rthê=| _tê=| ai(re/sei e)pha/nê ê(mi=n ê( sôtêri/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa_, tou= te ple/onos kai\ e)la/ttonos kai\ mei/zonos kai\ smikroterou= kai\ por)r(ôte/rô kai\ e)ggute/rô, a)=ra prô=ton me\n _ou) metrêtikê\ phai/netai_, u(perbolê=s te kai\ e)ndei/as ou)=sa kai\ i)so/têtos pro\s a)llê/las ske/psis?
.
.
.
E)pei\ de\ metrêtikê/, a)na/gkê| dê/pou te/chnê kai\ e)pistê/mê.]
Yet Plato in the Philêbus, imputing to the Hedonistic theory that it sets aside all idea of measure, regulation, limit, advances as an argument in the case, that Pleasure and Pain in their own nature have no limit (Philêbus, pp.
25-26 B, 27 E. Compare Dr. Badham's note, p. 30 of his edition).
The imputation is unfounded, and the argument without application, in regard to the same theory as expounded by Sokrates in the Protagoras.
At the end of the Philêbus (p. 67 B) Plato makes Sokrates exclaim, "We cannot put Pleasure first among the items of Good, even though all oxen, horses, and other beasts affirm it".
This rhetorical flourish is altogether misplaced in the Philêbus: for Plato had already specified it as one of the conditions of the Good, That it must be acceptable and must give satisfaction to all animals, and even to all plants (pp.
22 B, 60 C), as well as to men.]
[Side-note: How explained in Philêbus--no statement to what items it is applied.]
In the Philêbus, too, Measure--The Exact Quantum--The Exact Moment--are proclaimed as the chief item in the complex called--The Good.
[145] But to what Items does Sokrates intend the measure to be applied?
Not certainly to pleasures: the comparison of quantity between one pleasure and another is discarded as useless or misleading, and the comparison of quality alone is admitted--_i.
e._, true and false: the large majority of human pleasures being repudiated in the lump as false, and a small remnant only being tolerated, on the allegation that they are true.
Nor, again, is the measure applied to pains: for though Plato affirms that a life altogether without pains (as without pleasures) would be the truly divine Ideal, yet he never tells us that the Measuring Intelligence is to be made available in the comparison and choice of pains, and in avoidance of the greater by submitting to the less.
Lastly, when we look at the concession made in this dialogue to Gorgias and his art, we find that Plato no longer claims for his Good or Measure any directive function, or any paramount influence, as to utility, profit, reputation, or the greater ends which men usually pursue in life:[146] he claims for it only the privilege of satisfying the aspiration for truth, in minds wherein such aspiration is preponderant over all others.
[Footnote 145: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A.
[Greek: me/tron--to\ me/trion--to\ kai/rion].]
[Footnote 146: Plato, Philêbus, p. 58 B-D.] Comparing the Philêbus with the Protagoras, therefore, we see that though, in both, Measuring Science or Intelligence is proclaimed as supreme, the province assigned to it in the Philêbus is comparatively narrow.
Moreover the practical side or activities of life (which are prominent in the Protagoras) appear in the Philêbus thrust into a corner; where scanty room is found for them on ground nearly covered by the speculative, or theorising, truth-seeking, pursuits.
Practical reason is forced into the same categories as theoretical.
The classification of _true_ and _false_ is (as I have already remarked) unsuitable for pleasures and pains.
We have now to see how Plato applies it to cognitions, to which it really belongs.
[Side-note: Classification of true and false--how Plato applies it to Cognitions.]
The highest of these Cognitions is set apart as Dialectic or Ontology: the Object of which is, Ens or Entia, eternal, ever the same and unchangeable, ever unmixed with each other: while the corresponding Subject is, Reason, Intelligence, Wisdom, by which it is apprehended and felt.
In this Science alone reside perfect Truth and Purity.
Where the Objects are shifting, variable, mixed or confounded together, there Reason cannot apply herself; no pure or exact truth can be attained.
[147] These unchangeable Entities are what in other dialogues Plato terms Ideas or Forms--a term scarcely used in the Philêbus.
[Footnote 147: Plato, Philêbus, p. 59 C. [Greek: ô(s ê)\ peri\ e)kei=na e)/sth' ê(mi=n to/ te be/baion kai\ to\ katharo\n kai\ to\ a)lêthe\s kai\ o(\ dê\ le/gomen ei)likrine/s, peri\ ta\ a)ei\ kata\ ta\ au)ta\ ô(sau/tôs a)mikto/tata e)/chonta--ê)\ deute/rôs e)kei/nôn o(/ ti ma/lista/ e)sti xuggene/s; ta\ d' a)/lla pa/nta deu/tera/ te kai\ u(/stera lekte/on.]
62 A: [Greek: phronô=n a)/nthrôpos _au(tê=s peri\ dikaiosu/nês_, o(/, ti e)/sti, kai\ lo/gon e)/chôn e(po/menon tô=| noei=n .
.
.
ku/klou me\n kai\ sphai/ras au)tê=s tê=s thei/as to\n lo/gon e)/chôn.]]
Though pure truth belongs exclusively to Dialectic and to the Objects thereof, there are other Sciences which, having more or less of affinity to Dialectic, may thus be classified according to the degree of such affinity.
Mathematics approach most nearly to Dialectic.
Under Mathematics are included the Sciences or Arts of numbering, measuring, weighing--Arithmetic, Metrêtic, Static--which are applied to various subordinate arts, and impart to these latter all the scientific guidance and certainty which is found in them.
Without Arithmetic, the subordinate arts would be little better than vague guesswork or knack.
But Plato distinguishes two varieties of Arithmetic and Metrêtic: one purely theoretical, prosecuted by philosophers, and adapted to satisfy the love of abstract truth--the other applied to some department of practice, and employed by the artist as a guide to the execution of his work.
Theoretical Arithmetic is characterised by this feature, that it assumes each unit to be equal, like, and interchangeable with every other unit: while practical Arithmetic adds together concrete realities, whether like and equal to each other or not.
[148] [Footnote 148: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 E.] It is thus that the theoretical geometer and arithmetician, though not coming up to the full and pure truth of Dialectic, is nevertheless nearer to it than the carpenter or the ship-builder, who apply the measure to material objects.
But the carpenter, ship-builder, architect, &c., do really apply measure, line, rule, &c.: they are therefore nearer to truth than other artists, who apply no measure at all.
To this last category belong the musical composer, the physician, the husbandman, the pilot, the military commander, neither of whom can apply to their processes either numeration or measurement: all of them are forced to be contented with vague estimate, conjecture, a practised eye and ear.
[149] [Footnote 149: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 A-B.]
[Side-note: Valuable principles of this classification--difference with other dialogues.]
The foregoing classification of Sciences and Arts is among the most interesting points in the Philêbus.
It coincides to a great degree with that which we read in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic, though it is also partially different: it differs too in some respects from doctrines advanced in other dialogues.
Thus we find here (in the Philêbus) that the science or art of the physician, the pilot, the general, &c., is treated as destitute of measure and as an aggregate of unscientific guesses: whereas in the Gorgias[150] and elsewhere, these are extolled as genuine arts, and are employed to discredit Rhetoric by contrast.
Again, all these arts are here placed lower in the scientific scale than the occupations of the carpenter or the ship-builder, who possess and use some material measures.
But these latter, in the Republic,[151] are dismissed with the disparaging epithet of snobbish ([Greek: ba/nausoi]) and deemed unworthy of consideration.
[Footnote 150: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
501 A, 518 A.
Compare Republic, i. pp.
341-342.]
[Footnote 151: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 522 B.]
Dialectic appears here exalted to the same pre-eminence which is assigned to it in the Republic--as the energy of the pure Intellect, dealing with those permanent real Essences which are the objects of Intellect alone, intelligible only and not visible.
The distinction here drawn by Plato between the theoretical and practical arithmetic and geometry, compared with numeration or mensuration of actual objects of sense--is also remarkable in two ways: first, as it marks his departure from the historical Sokrates, who recognised the difference between the two, but discountenanced the theoretical as worthless:[152] next as it brings clearly to view, the fundamental assumption or hypothesis upon which abstract arithmetic proceeds--the concept of units all perfectly like and equal.
That this _is_ an assumption (always departing more or less from the facts of sense)--and that upon its being conceded depends the peculiar certainty and accuracy of arithmetical calculation--was an observation probably then made for the first time; and not unnecessary to be made even now, since it is apt to escape attention.
It is enunciated clearly both here and in the Republic.
[153] [Footnote 152: Xenophon, Memorab.
iv.
7, 2-8.
The contrast drawn in this chapter of the Memorabilia appears to me to coincide pretty exactly with that which is taken in the Philêbus, though the preference is reversed.
Dr. Badham (p. 78) and Mr. Poste (pp.
106-113) consider Plato as pointing to a contrast between pure and applied Mathematics: which I do not understand to be his meaning.
The distinction taken by Aristotle in the passage cited by Mr. Poste is different, and does really designate Pure and Applied Mathematics.
Mr. Poste would have found a better comparison in Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
7, 1098, a.
29.]
[Footnote 153: Plato, Philêbus, p. 56 E. [Greek: oi( d' ou)k a)/n pote au)toi=s sunakolouthê/seian, ei) mê\ mona/da mona/dos e(ka/stês tô=n muri/ôn mêdemi/an a)/llên a)/llês diaphe/rousa/n tis thê/sei]--where it is formally proclaimed as an assumption or postulate.
See Republic, vii.
pp.
525-526, vi.
p. 510 C. Mr. John Stuart Mill thus calls attention to the same remark in his instructive chapters on Demonstration and Necessary Truth (System of Logic, Book ii.
ch.
vi.
sect.
3).
"The inductions of Arithmetic are of two sorts: first, those that we have just expounded, such as One and One are Two, Two and One are Three, &c., which may be called the definitions of the various numbers, in the improper or geometrical sense of the word Definition; and, secondly, the two following Axioms.
The sums of Equals are equal, the differences of Equals are equal.
"These axioms, and likewise the so-called Definitions, are (as already shown) results of induction: true of all objects whatsoever, and as it may seem, exactly true, without the hypothetical assumption of unqualified truth where an approximation to it is all that exists.
On more accurate investigation, however, it will be found that even in this case, there is one hypothetical element in the ratiocination.
In all propositions concerning numbers a condition is implied without which none of them would be true, and that condition is an assumption which may be false.
The condition is that 1 = 1: that all the numbers are numbers of the same or of equal units.
Let this be doubtful, and not one of the propositions in arithmetic will hold true.
How can we know that one pound and one pound make two pounds, if one of the pounds may be troy and the other avoirdupois?
They may not make two pounds of either or of any weight.
How can we know that a forty-horse power is always equal to itself, unless we assume that all horses are of equal strength?
One actual pound weight is not exactly equal to another, nor one mile's length to another; a nicer balance or more exact measuring instruments would always detect some difference."]
The long preliminary discussion of the Philêbus thus brings us to the conclusion--That a descending scale of value, relatively to truth and falsehood, must be recognised in cognitions as well as in pleasures: many cognitions are not entirely true, but tainted in different degrees by error and falsehood: most pleasures also, instead of being true and pure, are alloyed by concomitant pains or delusions or both: moreover, all the intense pleasures are incompatible with Measure, or a fixed standard,[154] and must therefore be excluded from the category of Good.
[Footnote 154: Plato, Philêbus, pp.
52 D--57 B.]
[Side-note: Close of the Philêbus--Graduated elements of Good.]
In arranging the quintuple scale of elements or conditions of the Good, Plato adopts the following descending order: I report them as well as I can, for I confess that I understand them very imperfectly.
1.
Measure; that which conforms to Measure and to proper season: with everything else analogous, which we can believe to be of eternal nature.--These seem to be unchangeable Forms or Ideas, which are here considered objectively, apart from any percipient Subject affected by them.
[155] 2.
The Symmetrical, Beautiful, Perfect, Sufficient, &c.--These words seem to denote the successive manifestations of the same afore-mentioned attributes; but considered both objectively and subjectively, as affecting and appreciated by some percipient.
3.
Intelligent or Rational Mind--Here the Subject is brought in by itself.
4.
Sciences, Cognitions, Arts, Right Opinions, &c.--Here we have the intellectual manifestations of the Subject, but of a character inferior to No.
3, descending in the scale of value relatively to truth.
5.
Lastly come the small list of true and painless pleasures.--These, being not intellectual at all, but merely emotional (some as accompaniments of intellectual, others of sensible, processes), are farther removed from Good and Measure than even No.
4--the opining or uncertain phases of the intellect.
[156] The four first elements belong to the Kosmos as well as to man: for the Kosmos has an intelligent soul.
The fifth marks the emotional nature of man.
[Footnote 155: Plato, Philêbus, p. 66 A.
The Appendix B, subjoined by Mr. Poste to his edition of the Philêbus (pp.
149-165), is a very valuable Dissertation, comparing and explaining the abstract theories of Plato and Aristotle.
He remarks, justly contrasting the Philêbus with the Timæus, as to the doctrine of Limit: "In the Philêbus the limit is always quantitative.
Quality, including all the elementary forces, is the substratum that has to receive the quantitative determination.
Just, however, as Quality underlies quantity, we can conceive a substratum underlying quality.
This Plato in the Timæus calls the Vehicle or Receptacle ([Greek: to\ dektiko/n]), and Aristotle in his writings the primary Matter ([Greek: prô/tê u(/lê]).
The Philêbus, however, does not carry the analysis so far.
It regards quality as the ultimate matter, the substratum to be moulded and measured out in due quantity by the quantitative limit" (p. 160).
I doubt whether the Platonic idea of [Greek: to\ me/trion] is rightly expressed by Mr. Poste's translation--a _mean_ (p. 158).
It rather implies, even in Politikus, p. 306, to which he refers, something adjusted according to a positive standard or conformable to an assumed measure or perfection: there being undoubtedly error in excess above it and error in defect below it--but the standard being not necessarily mid-way between the two.
The Pythagoreans used [Greek: kairo\s] in a very large sense, describing it as the First Cause of Good.
Proklus ad Plat.
Alkib.
i. p. 270-272, Cousin.]
[Footnote 156: Neither the Introduction of Schleiermacher (p. 134 seq.
), nor the elucidation of Trendelenburg (De Philebi Consilio, pp.
16-23), nor the Prolegomena of Stallbaum (pp.
76-77 seq.
), succeed in making this obscure close of the Philêbus clearly intelligible.
Stallbaum, after indicating many commentators who have preceded him, observes respecting the explanations which they have given: "Ea sunt adeo varia atque inter se diversa, ut tanquam adversâ fronte inter ipsa pugnare dicenda sint" (p.
72).]
I see no sufficient ground for the hypothesis of Stallbaum and some other critics, who, considering the last result abrupt and unsatisfactory, suspect that Plato either intended to add more, or did add more which has not come down to us.
[157] Certainly the result (as in many other Platonic dialogues) is inconsiderable, and the instruction derivable from the dialogue must be picked out by the reader himself from the long train of antecedent reasoning.
The special point emphatically brought out at the end is the discredit thrown upon the intense pleasures, and the exclusion of them from the list of constituents of Good.
If among Plato's contemporaries who advocated the Hedonistic doctrine, there were any who laid their main stress upon these intense pleasures, he may be considered to have replied to them under the name of Philêbus.
But certainly this result might have been attained with a smaller array of preliminaries.
[Footnote 157: Stallbaum, Proleg.
p.
10.]
[Side-note: Contrast between the Philêbus and the Phædrus, and Symposion, in respect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions generally.]
Moreover, in regard to these same intense emotions we have to remark that Plato in other dialogues holds a very different opinion respecting them--or at least respecting some of them.
We have seen that at the close of the Philêbus he connects Bonum and Pulchrum principally, and almost exclusively, with the Reason; but we find him, in the Phædrus and Symposion, taking a different, indeed an opposite, view of the matter; and presenting Bonum and Pulchrum as objects, not of the unimpassioned and calculating Reason, but of ardent aspiration and even of extatic love.
Reason is pronounced to be insufficient for attaining them, and a peculiar vein of inspiration a species of madness, _eo nomine_--is postulated in its place.
The life of the philosophical aspirant is compared to that of the passionate lover, beginning at first with attachment to some beautiful youth, and rising by a gradual process of association, so as to transfer the same fervent attachment to his mental companionship, as a stimulus for generating intellectual sympathies and recollections of the world of Ideas.
He is represented as experiencing in the fullest measure those intense excitements and disturbances which Eros alone can provoke.
[158] It is true that Plato here repudiates sensual excitements.
In this respect the Phædrus and Symposion agree with the Philêbus.
But as between Reason and Emotion, they disagree with it altogether: for they dwell upon ideal excitements of the most vehement character.
They describe the highest perfection of human nature as growing out of the better variety of madness--out of the glowing inspirations of Eros: a state replete with the most intense alternating emotions of pain and pleasure.
How opposite is the tone of Sokrates in the Philêbus, where he denounces all the intense pleasures as belonging to a distempered condition--as adulterated with pain, and as impeding the tranquil process of Reason--and where he tolerates only such gentle pleasures as are at once unmixed with pain and easily controuled by Reason!
In the Phædrus and Symposion, we are told that Bonum and Pulchrum are attainable only under the stimulus of Eros, through a process of emotion, feverish and extatic, with mingled pleasure and pain: and that they crown such aspirations, if successfully prosecuted, with an emotional recompense, or with pleasure so intense as to surpass all other pleasures.
In the Philêbus, Bonum and Pulchrum come before us as measure, proportion, seasonableness: as approachable only through tranquil Reason--addressing their ultimate recompense to Reason alone--excluding both vehement agitations and intense pleasures--and leaving only a corner of the mind for gentle and unmixed pleasures.
[159] [Footnote 158: See in the Symposion the doctrines of the prophetess Diotima, as recited by Sokrates, pp.
204-212: also the Phædrus, the second [Greek: e)gkô/mion] delivered by Sokrates upon Eros, pp.
36-60, repeated briefly and confirmed by Sokrates, pp.
77-78.
Compare these with the latter portion of the Philêbus; the difference of spirit and doctrine will appear very manifest.
To illustrate the contrast between the Phædrus and the Philêbus, we may observe that the former compares the excitement and irritation of the inspired soul when its wings are growing to ascend to Bonum and Pulchrum, with the [Greek: knê=sis] or irritation of the gums when a child is cutting teeth--[Greek: zei= ou)=n e)n tou/tô| o(/lê kai\ a)nakêki/ei, kai\ o(/per to\ tô=n o)dontophuou/ntôn pa/thos peri\ tou\s o)do/ntas gi/gnetai o(/tan a)/rti phuô=si knê=si/s te kai\ a)gana/ktêsis peri\ ta\ ou)=la, tau)to\n dê\ pe/ponthen ê( tou= pterophuei=n a)rchome/nou psuchê/; zei= te kai\ a)ganaktei= kai\ gargali/zetai phu/ousa ta\ ptera/] (Phædrus, p. 251).
These are specimens of the strong metaphors used by Plato to describe the emotional condition of the mind during its fervour of aspiration towards Bonum and Pulchrum.
On the other hand, in the Philêbus, [Greek: knê=sis] and [Greek: gargalismo\s] are noted as manifestations of that distempered condition which produces indeed moments of intense pleasure, but is quite inconsistent with Reason and the attainment of Good.
See Philêbus, pp.
46 E, 51 D, and Gorgias, p.
494.]
[Footnote 159: Plato, Philêbus, p.
66.]
The comparison, here made, of the Philêbus with the Phædrus and Symposion, is one among many proofs of the different points of view with which Plato, in his different dialogues,[160] handled the same topics of ethical and psychological discussion.
And upon this point of dissent, Eudoxus and Epikurus, would have agreed with the Sokrates of the Philêbus, in deprecating that extatic vein of emotion which is so greatly extolled in the Phædrus and Symposion.
[Footnote 160: Maximus Tyrius remarks this difference (between the erotic dialogues of Plato and many of the others) in one of his discourses about the [Greek: e)rôtikê\] of Sokrates.
[Greek: Ou)de\n ga\r au)to\s au(tô=| o(/moios o( Sôkra/tês e)rô=n tô=| sôphronou=nti, kai\ o( e)kplêtto/menos tou\s kalou\s tô=| e)le/gchonti tou\s a)/phronas], &c. (Diss.
xxiv.
5, p. 466 ed.
Reiske).]
CHAPTER XXXIII.
MENEXENUS.
[Side-note: Persons and situation of the dialogue.]
In this dialogue the only personages are, Sokrates as an elderly man, and Menexenus, a young Athenian of noble family, whom we have already seen as the intimate friend of Lysis, in the dialogue known under the name of Lysis.
[Side-note: Funeral harangue at Athens--Choice of a public orator--Sokrates declares the task of the public orator to be easy--Comic exaggeration of the effects of the harangue.]
_Sokr._--What have you been doing at the Senate-house, Menexenus?
You probably think that your course of education and philosophy is finished, and that you are qualified for high political functions.
Young as you are, you aim at exercising command over us elders, as your family have always done before you.
[1] _Menex._--I shall do so, if you advise and allow me, Sokrates: but not otherwise.
Now, however, I came to learn who was the person chosen by the Senate to deliver the customary oration at the approaching public funeral of the citizens who have fallen in battle.
The Senate, however, have adjourned the election until to-morrow: but I think either Archinus or Dion will be chosen.
_Sokr._--To die in battle is a fine thing in many ways.
[2] He who dies thus may be poor, but he receives a splendid funeral: he may be of little worth, yet he is still praised in prepared speeches by able orators, who decorate his name with brilliant encomiums, whether deserved or not, fascinating all the hearers: extolling us all--not merely the slain warrior, but the city collectively, our ancestors, and us the living--so admirably that I stand bewitched when I hear them, and fancy myself a greater, nobler, and finer man than I was before.
I am usually accompanied by some strangers, who admire as much as I do, and who conceive a lofty estimation both of me and of the city.
The voice of the orator resounds in my ear, and the feeling of pride dwells in my mind, for more than three days; during which interval I fancy myself almost in the islands of the blest.
I hardly come to myself or recollect where I am, until the fourth or fifth day.
Such is the force of these orators.
[Footnote 1: Plat.
Menex.
p. 234 B-C.] [Footnote 2: Plat.
Menex.
p. 235 A-B.]
[Side-note: Sokrates professes to have learnt a funeral harangue from Aspasia, and to be competent to recite it himself.
Menexenus entreats him to do so.]
_Menex._--You are always deriding the orators, Sokrates.
[3] However, on this occasion I think the orator chosen will have little chance of success: he will have no time for preparation, and will be obliged to speak _impromptu_.
_Sokr._--Never fear: each of these orators has harangues ready prepared.
Besides, there is no difficulty here in speaking _impromptu_.
If indeed the purpose were to praise the Athenians in Peloponnesus, or the Peloponnesians at Athens, an excellent orator would be required to persuade or to give satisfaction.
But when he exhibits before the very hearers whom he praises, there is no great difficulty in appearing to be a good speaker.
[4] _Menex._--Indeed!
What!
do you think you would be competent to deliver the harangue yourself, if the Senate were to elect you?
_Sokr._--Certainly: and it is no wonder that I should be competent to speak, because I have learnt rhetoric from Aspasia (an excellent mistress, who has taught many eminent speakers, and among them Perikles, the most illustrious of all), and the harp from Konnus.
But any one else, even less well-trained than me--instructed in music by Lamprus, and in rhetoric by Antiphon--would still be fully competent to succeed in praising Athenians among Athenians.
_Menex._--What would you have to say, if the duty were imposed upon you?
[5] _Sokr._--Probably little or nothing of my own.
But it was only yesterday that I heard Aspasia going through a funeral harangue for this very occasion: partly suggestions of the present moment, partly recollections of past matters which had occurred to her when she composed the funeral harangue delivered by Perikles.
_Menex._--Could you recollect what Aspasia said?
_Sokr._--I should be much to blame if I could not.
I learnt it from herself, and was near being beaten because I partly forgot it.
_Menex._--Why do you not proceed with it then?
_Sokr._--I fear that my instructress would be displeased, if I were to publish her discourse.
_Menex._--Do not fear that, but proceed to speak.
You will confer the greatest pleasure upon me, whether what you say comes from Aspasia or from any one else.
Only proceed.
_Sokr._--But perhaps you will laugh me to scorn, if I, an elderly man, continue still such work of pastime.
[6] _Menex._--Not at all: I beseech you to speak.
_Sokr._--Well, I cannot refuse you.
Indeed, I could hardly refuse, if you requested me to strip naked and dance--since we are here alone.
[7] [Footnote 3: Plat.
Menex.
p. 235 C. [Greek: A)ei\ su\ prospai/zeis, ô)= Sô/krates, tou\s r(ê/toras.]]
[Footnote 4: Plat.
Menex.
p. 235 D. Aristotle refers twice to this dictum as being a true remark made by [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|], Rhetoric, i.
9, p. 1367, b.
8, iii.
14, p. 1415, b.
30.]
[Footnote 5: Plat.
Menex.
p. 236 A.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Menex.
p. 236 C. [Greek: A)ll' i)/sôs mou katagela/sei, a)/n soi do/xô presbu/tês ô)\n e)/ti pai/zein.]]
[Footnote 7: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
234 C, 236 C.] [Side-note: Harangue recited by Sokrates.]
Sokrates then proceeds to recite a funeral harangue of some length which continues almost to the end.
[8] When he concludes--repeating his declaration that the harangue comes from Aspasia--Menexenus observes, By Zeus, Sokrates, Aspasia is truly enviable, if she, a woman, is competent to compose such discourses as that.
[Footnote 8: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
236 C, 249 C.] [Side-note: Compliments of Menexenus after Sokrates has finished, both to the harangue itself and to Aspasia.]
_Sokr._--If you do not believe me, come along with me, and you will hear it from her own lips.
_Menex._--I have often been in company with Aspasia, and I know what sort of person she is.
_Sokr._--Well then, don't you admire her?
and are you not grateful to her for the harangue?
_Menex._--I am truly grateful for the harangue, to her, or to him, whoever it was that prompted you: and most of all, I am grateful to you for having recited it.
_Sokr._--Very good.
Take care then that you do not betray me.
I may perhaps be able, on future occasions, to recite to you many other fine political harangues from her.
_Menex._--Be assured that I will not betray you.
Only let me hear them.
_Sokr._--I certainly will.
[Side-note: Supposed period--shortly after the peace of Antalkidas.]
The interval between these two fragments of dialogue is filled up by the recitation of Sokrates: a long funeral harangue in honour of deceased warriors, whom the city directs to be thus commemorated.
The period is supposed to be not long after the peace concluded by Antalkidas in 387 B.C.
That peace was imposed upon Sparta, Athens, and the other Grecian cities, by the imperative rescript of the Persian king: the condition of it being an enforcement of universal autonomy, or free separate government to each city, small as well as great.
[9] [Footnote 9: See respecting the character of the peace of Antalkidas, and the manner in which its conditions were executed, my History of Greece, chap.
76.]
[Side-note: Custom of Athens about funeral harangues.
Many such harangues existed at Athens, composed by distinguished orators or logographers--Established type of the harangue.]
It had been long the received practice among the Athenians to honour their fallen warriors from time to time by this sort of public funeral, celebrated with every demonstration of mournful respect: and to appoint one of the ablest and most dignified citizens as public orator on the occasion.
[10] The discourse delivered by Perikles, as appointed orator, at the end of the first Peloponnesian war, has been immortalised by Thucydides, and stands as one of the most impressive remnants of Hellenic antiquity.
Since the occasion recurred pretty often, and since the orator chosen was always a man already conspicuous,[11] we may be sure that there existed in the time of Plato many funeral harangues which are now lost: indeed he himself says in this dialogue, that distinguished politicians prepared such harangues beforehand, in case the choice of the citizens should fall upon them.
And we may farther be sure, amidst the active cultivation of rhetoric at Athens--that the rhetorical teachers as well as their pupils, and the logographers or paid composers of speeches, were practised in this variety of oratorical compositions not less than in others.
We have one of them among the remaining discourses of the logographer Lysias: who could not actually have delivered it himself (since he was not even a citizen)--nor could ever probably have been called upon to prepare one for delivery (since the citizens chosen were always eminent speakers and politicians themselves, not requiring the aid of a logographer)--but who composed it as a rhetorical exercise to extend his own celebrity.
In like manner we find one among the discourses of Demosthenes, though of very doubtful authenticity.
The funeral discourse had thus come to acquire an established type.
Rhetorical teachers had collected and generalised, out of the published harangues before them, certain _loci communes_, religious, patriotic, social, historical or pseudo-historical, &c., suitable to be employed by any new orator.
[12] All such _loci_ were of course framed upon the actual sentiments prevalent among the majority of Athenians; furnishing eloquent expression for sympathies and antipathies deeply lodged in every one's bosom.
[Footnote 10: Thucyd.
ii.
34.]
[Footnote 11: Thucyd.
ii.
34.
[Greek: o(\s a)\n gnô/mê| te dokê=| mê\ a)xu/netos ei)=nai, kai\ a)xiô/mati proê/kê|.]]
[Footnote 12: Aristotel.
Rhetoric.
i.
5, p. 1360, b.
31, i.
9, p. 1367.
Dionys.
Hal.
Ars Rhetoric.
c. 6, pp.
260-267.
"Nec enim artibus inventis factum est, ut argumenta inveniremus; sed dicta sunt omnia, antequam præciperentur: mox ea scriptores observata et collecta ediderunt" (Quintilian, Inst.
Or.
v.
10).]
[Side-note: Plato in this harangue conforms to the established type--Topics on which he insists.]
The funeral discourse which we read in the Menexenus is framed upon this classical model.
It dwells, with emphasis and elegance, upon the patriotic common-places which formed the theme of rhetors generally.
Plato begins by extolling the indigenous character of the Athenian population; not immigrants from abroad (like the Peloponnesians), but born from the very soil of Attica:[13] which, at a time when other parts of the earth produced nothing but strange animals and plants, gave birth to an admirable breed of men, as well as to wheat and barley for their nourishment, and to the olive for assisting their bodily exercises.
[14] Attica was from the beginning favoured by the Gods; and the acropolis had been an object of competition between Athênê and Poseidon.
[15] She was the common and equal mother of all the citizens, who, from such community of birth and purity of Hellenic origin, had derived the attributes which they had ever since manifested--attachment to equal laws among themselves, Panhellenic patriotism, and hatred of barbarians.
[16] The free and equal political constitution of Athens--called an aristocracy, or presidency of the best men, under the choice and approval of the multitude--as it was and as it always had been, is here extolled by Plato, as a result of the common origin.
[Footnote 13: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
237-245.
245 D: [Greek: ou) ga/r Pe/lopes ou)de\ Ka/dmoi ou)de\ Ai)/guptoi/ te kai\ Danaoi\ ou)de\ a)/lloi polloi/, phu/sei me\n ba/rbaroi o)/ntes, no/mô| de\ E(/llênes, sunoikou=sin ê(mi=n, a)ll' au)toi\ E(/llênes, ou) mixoba/rbaroi oi)kou=men], &c.] [Footnote 14: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
237 D, 238 A.]
[Footnote 15: Plat.
Menex.
p. 237 C.] [Footnote 16: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
238 D, 239 A, 245 C-D. 239 A: [Greek: ê( i)sogoni/a ê(ma=s ê( kata\ phu/sin i)sonomi/an a)nagka/zei zêtei=n kata\ no/mon, kai\ mêdeni\ a)/llô| u(pei/kein a)llê/lois ê)\ a)retê=s do/xê| kai\ phronê/seôs.]
245 D: [Greek: o(/then katharo\n to\ mi=sos e)nte/têke tê=| po/lei tê=s a)llotri/as phu/seôs] (_i.e._ of the [Greek: ba/rbaroi]).]
Alluding briefly to the victories over Eumolpus and the Amazons, the orator passes on to the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, which he celebrates with the warmth of an Hellenic patriot.
[17] He eulogizes the generous behaviour of Athens towards the Greeks, during the interval between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, contrasting it with the unworthy requital which she received from Sparta and others.
He then glances at the events of the Peloponnesian wars, though colouring them in a manner so fanciful and delusive, that any one familiar with Thucydides can scarcely recognise their identity--especially in regard to the Athenian expedition against Syracuse.
[18] He protests against the faithlessness of Sparta, towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, in allying herself with the common anti-Hellenic enemy--the Great King--against Athens: and he ascribes mainly to this unholy alliance the conquest of Athens at the end of the war.
[19] The moderation of political parties in Athens, when the Thirty were put down and the democracy restored, receives its due meed of praise: but the peculiar merit claimed for Athens, in reference to the public events between 403 B.C.
and 387 B.C., is--That she stood alone among Greeks in refusing to fraternise with the Persian King, or to betray to him the Asiatic Greeks.
Athens had always been prompted by generous feeling, even in spite of political interests, to compassionate and befriend the weak.
[20] The orator dwells with satisfaction on the years preceding the peace concluded by Antalkidas; during which years Athens had recovered her walls and her ships--had put down the Spartan superiority at sea--and had rescued even the Great King from Spartan force.
[21] He laments the disasters of Athenian soldiers at Corinth, through difficulties of the ground--and at Lechæum, through treachery.
These are the latest political events to which he alludes.
[22] [Footnote 17: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
240-241.]
[Footnote 18: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
242-243.]
[Footnote 19: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
243-244.]
[Footnote 20: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
244-245.
244 E: [Greek: ei)/ tis bou/loito tê=s po/leôs katêgorê=sai dikai/ôs, tou=t' a)\n mo/non le/gôn o)rthô=s a)\n katêgoroi/ê, ô(s a)ei\ li/an philoikti/rmôn e)sti/, kai\ tou= ê(/ttonos therapi/s.]
Isokrates also, in the Oratio Panegyrica (Or.
iv.
), dwells upon this point, as well as on the pronounced hatred towards [Greek: ba/rbaroi], as standing features in the Athenian character (sect.
59-184).
The points touched upon in reference to Athens by Isokrates are in the main the same as those brought out by Plato in the Menexenus, only that Isokrates makes them subservient to a special purpose, that of bringing about an expedition against Persia under the joint headship of Sparta and Athens.]
[Footnote 21: Plat.
Menex.
p.
245.]
[Footnote 22: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
245 E, 246 A.]
[Side-note: Consolation and exhortation to surviving relatives.]
Having thus touched upon the political history of Athens, he turns to the surviving relatives--fathers, mothers, children, &c.--of the fallen warriors: addressing to them words of mingled consolation and exhortation.
He adopts the fiction of supposing these exhortations to have been suggested to him by the warriors themselves, immediately before entering upon their last battle.
[23] This is the most eloquent and impressive portion of the harangue.
The orator concludes by a few words from himself, inculcating on the elders the duty of resignation, and on the youth that of forward and devoted patriotism.
[24] [Footnote 23: Plat.
Menex.
pp.
247-248.]
[Footnote 24: Plat.
Menex.
p. 249 A-C.] [Side-note: Admiration felt for this harangue, both at the time and afterwards.]
That this oration was much admired, not merely during the lifetime of Plato, but also long after his death, we know from the testimony of Cicero; who informs us that it was publicly recited every year on the day when the annual funeral rites were celebrated, in honour of those citizens collectively who had been slain in the service of their country.
[25] The rhetor Dionysius[26] recognises the fact of such warm admiration, and concurs generally therein, yet not without reserves.
He points out what he considers defects of thought and expression--ostentatious contrasts and balancing of antithetical clauses, after the manner of Gorgias.
Yet we may easily believe that the harangue found much favour, and greatly extended the reputation of its author.
It would please many readers who took little interest in the Sokratic dialectics.
[Footnote 25: Cicero, Orator.
c. 44, 151.
"At non Thucydides: ne ille quidem, haud paullo major scriptor, Plato: nec solum in his sermonibus, qui dialogi dicuntur, ubi etiam de industriâ id faciendum fuit, sed in populari oratione, quâ est Athenis laudari in concione eos, qui sint in præliis interfecti: quæ sic probata est, ut eam quotannis, ut scis, illo die recitari necesse sit."
See Plato, Menex.
p. 249 B, about these yearly funereal rites, and Lysias, Epitaph.
s.
80.]
[Footnote 26: Dionys.
Hal.
De Adm. Vi Dic.
in Demosth.
p. 1027, compared with Ars Rhetoric.
c. 6, pp.
260-267.]
[Side-note: Probable motives of Plato in composing it, shortly after he established himself at Athens as a teacher--His competition with Lysias--Desire for celebrity both as rhetor and as dialectician.]
When Plato first established himself at Athens as a lecturer (about 386 B.C., shortly after the peace made by Antalkidas), he was probably known only by Sokratic dialogues, properly so called: which Dionysius specifies both as his earliest works and as his proper department, wherein he stood unrivalled.
[27] In these, his opposition to the Rhetors and Sophists was proclaimed: and if, as is probable, the Gorgias had been published before that time, he had already declared war, openly as well as bitterly, against the whole art of Rhetoric.
But it would be a double triumph for his genius, if, after standing forward as the representative of Dialectic, and in that character heaping scornful derision on the rival art of Rhetoric, as being nothing better than a mere knack of juggling and flattery[28]--he were able to show that this did not proceed from want of rhetorical competence, but that he could rival or surpass the Rhetors in their own department.
Herein lies the purpose of the Menexenus.
I agree with Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and some other critics,[29] in thinking that it was probably composed not long after the peace of Antalkidas, in competition with the harangue of Lysias now remaining on the same subject.
Though the name of Lysias is not mentioned in the Menexenus, yet the rivalry between him and Plato is clearly proclaimed in the Platonic Phædrus: and the two funeral harangues go so completely over the same ground, that intentional competition on the part of the latest, is the most natural of all hypotheses.
[Footnote 27: Dionys.
Hal.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
De Platon.
p. 762.
[Greek: traphei\s me\n e)n toi=s Sôkratikoi=s dialo/gois i)schnota/tois ou)=si kai\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n au)toi=s, a)lla\ tê=s Gorgi/ou kai\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeuê=s e)rasthei/s.]
Compare p. 761, the passage immediately preceding, and De Adm. Vi Dicendi in Demosthene, pp.
1025-1031.
To many critics Plato appeared successful in the figurative and metaphorical style--[Greek: deino\s peri\ to\ tropiko/n].
But Dionysius thinks him very inferior to Demosthenes even on this point, though it was not the strongest point of Demosthenes, whose main purpose was [Greek: o( a)lêthino\s a)gô/n] (Dionys.
ibid.
p.
1057).]
[Footnote 28: Isokrates, in his last composition (Panathen.
Or.
xii.)
written in very old age, shows how keenly he felt the aspersions of jealous rivals--Sophists less successful than himself--who publicly complained that he despised the lessons of the poets, and thought no teaching worth having except his own--[Greek: a)podexame/nôn de\ tô=n periestô/tôn tê\n diatribê\n au)tô=n, e(/na to\n tolmêro/teron e)picheirê=sai e)me\ diaba/llein, le/gonth' ô(s e)gô\ pa/ntôn kataphronô= ô=n toiou/tôn, kai\ ta/s te philosophi/as ta\s tô=n a)/llôn kai\ ta\s paidei/as a(pa/sas a)nairô=, kai\ phêmi\ pa/ntas lêrei=n plê\n tou\s meteschêko/tas tê=s e)mê=s diatribê=s] (sect.
22).
That which Isokrates complains of these teachers for saying in their talk with each other, the rhetorical teachers would vehemently complain of in Plato, when he expressed forcibly his contempt for rhetoric in the Gorgias and the Phædrus.
One way of expressing their resentment would be to affirm that Plato could not compose a regular rhetorical discourse; which affirmation Plato would best contradict by composing one in the received manner.]
[Footnote 29: See the Einleitung of Schleiermacher to his translation of the Menexenus; also Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Menex.
p. 10, and Westermann, Gesch.
der Beredtsamkeit, sect.
66, p.
134.]
[Side-note: Menexenus compared with the view of rhetoric presented in the Gorgias--Necessity for an orator to conform to established sentiments.]
Here then we have Plato exchanging philosophy for "the knack of flattery"--to use the phrase of the Gorgias.
Stallbaum is so unwilling to admit this as possible, that he represents the Platonic harangue as a mere caricature, intended to make the rhetorical process ridiculous.
I dissent from this supposition; as I have already dissented from the like supposition of the same critic, in regard to the etymologies of the Kratylus.
That Plato might in one dialogue scornfully denounce Rhetoric--and in another, compose an elaborate discourse upon the received rhetorical type--is noway inconsistent with the general theory which I frame to myself, about the intellectual character and distinct occasional manifestations of Plato.
[30] The funeral harangue in the Menexenus proves that, whatever he thought about Rhetoric generally, he was anxious to establish his title as a competent rhetorical composer: it proves farther that he was equal to Lysias in the epideiktic department, though inferior to Perikles.
It affords a valuable illustration of that general doctrine which the Platonic Sokrates lays down in the Gorgias--That no man can succeed as a rhetor, unless he is in full harmony of spirit and cast of mind with his auditors; or unless he dwells upon and enforces sympathies, antipathies, and convictions, already established in their minds.
[31] A first-rate orator like Perikles, touching the chords of cherished national sentiment, might hope, by such a discourse as that which we read in Thucydides, "adjecisse aliquid receptæ religioni".
[32] No public orator ever appointed by the Senate to pronounce the funeral harangue, could have expatiated more warmly than Plato has here done, upon the excellence of the Athenian constitution, and upon the admirable spirit which had animated Athenian politics, both foreign and domestic.
Plato falls far short, indeed, of the weight and grandeur, the impressive distinctness of specification, the large sympathies, intellectual as well as popular--with which these topics are handled by Perikles in Thucydides: but his eulogy is quite as highflown and unreserved.
[Footnote 30: Compare also the majestic picture which Plato presents of the ancient character and exploits of the early Athenians, in the mythe commenced in the Timæus (pp.
23-24), prosecuted in the Kritias (pp.
113-114 seq.
), but left by the author incomplete.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C; see above, ch.
xxiv.
p.
359.
** This appears to me the real truth, subject to very rare exceptions.
But I do not think it true to say, as the Platonic Sokrates is made to declare in the Menexenus, that it is an easy matter to obtain admiration when you praise Athens among Athenians--though Aristotle commends the observation.
Assuredly Perikles did not think so (Thucyd.
ii.
35).
You have a popular theme, but unless you have oratorical talent to do justice to it you are likely to disappoint and offend, especially among auditors like the Athenians, accustomed to good speaking.
Compare Plat.
Kritias, p. 107 E.] [Footnote 32: To employ the striking expression of Quintilian (xii.
10) respecting the great statue of Zeus at Olympia by Pheidias.]
[Side-note: Colloquial portion of the Menexenus is probably intended as ridicule and sneer at Rhetoric--The harangue itself is serious, and intended as an evidence of Plato's ability.]
In understanding fully the Menexenus, however, we have to take account, not merely of the harangue which forms the bulk of it, but also of the conversation whereby it is commenced and concluded.
Plato, speaking always through the mouth of Sokrates, has to invent some fiction excusing the employment of his master in the unprecedented capacity of public orator.
What Stallbaum says (in my judgment, erroneously) about the harangue--appears to me perfectly true about the conversation before and after it.
The introductory observations, interchanged between Sokrates and Menexenus, certainly tend to caricature (as Aristophanes[33] does in the Acharneis and the Equites) the strong effects produced by this panegyrical oratory on the feelings of hearers; and to depreciate the task of the orator as nothing better than an easy and amusing pastime.
To praise Athens among Athenian auditors (we are told) is a matter in which few speakers can fail to succeed, however poor their abilities.
Moreover, the great funeral harangue of Perikles is represented as having been composed for him by Aspasia[34]--a female, though remarkable among her sex--who is extolled as holding the highest place among rhetorical teachers, and is introduced here, as Aristophanes introduces her in the Acharneis, when he is putting a construction of discreditable ridicule on the origin of the Peloponnesian war.
[35] To make a good funeral harangue (Sokrates says) requires little or no preliminary preparation: besides, the Rhetors have harangues ready prepared at home.
All this _persiflage_, in harmony with the polemics of the Gorgias, derides and degrades the Rhetors collectively.
But when Plato takes the field against them as a competitor, in his own rhetorical discourse, he drops the ironical vein, and takes pains to deliver one really good and excellent in its kind.
His triumph is thus doubled.
He tells the Rhetors that their business is a trifling and despicable one: at the same time showing them that, despicable as it is, he can surpass them in it, as he professes to surpass Lysias in the Phædrus.
[36] [Footnote 33: Aristoph.
Acharn.
615, Equit.
640-887.
The comic exaggeration of Sokrates, in the colloquial portion of the Menexenus (235 B-C) goes as far as that of Aristophanes.]
[Footnote 34: By the language of Plato here, he seems plainly to bring his own harangue into competition not merely with that of Lysias but also with that of Perikles.
But we must not suppose for that reason, that he necessarily has in view the Periklean harangue which we now read in Thucydides, ii.
35-43: which is the real speech, reported and drest up by Thucydides in his own language and manner.
Probably the Periklean harangue was preserved separately and in other reports, so that Plato may have known it without knowing the history of Thucydides.
When I see the extreme liberty which Plato takes throughout his harangue in regard to the history of the past, I can hardly believe that he ever read Thucydides; if he ever read the history, he certainly disregarded it altogether, and threw himself [Greek: e)pi\ to\ prosagôgo/teron tê=| a)kroa/sei ê)\ a)lêthe/steron]: like the [Greek: logogra/phoi] of whom Thucydides speaks, i.
21, Lysias among them, though in a less degree than Plato.
Æschines Sokraticus had composed among his dialogues one entitled [Greek: A)spasi/a].
See Xenophon, Oeconom.
i.
14; Cicero de Inventione, i.
31: Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32: also Bergk, De Reliquiis Comoed.
Attic.
Antiq.
p.
237.]
[Footnote 35: Aristoph.
Acharn.
501.]
[Footnote 36: The remarks of Dionysius of Halikarnassus (in the Epistle to Cn.
Pompey about Plato, pp.
754-758) are well deserving of attention: especially as he had before him many writers now lost, either contemporary with Plato or of the succeeding generation.
He notices not only Plato's asperity in ridiculing most of his distinguished contemporaries, but also his marked rivalry against Lysias.
[Greek: ê)=n ga/r, ê)=n me\n tê=| Pla/tônos phu/sei polla\s a)reta\s e)chou/sê| to\ philo/timon], &c. (p. 756).
See this subject well handled in an instructive Dissertation by M. Lebeau (Stuttgart, 1863, Lysias' Epitaphios als ächt erwiesen, pp.
42-46 seq.).]
[Side-note: Anachronism of the Menexenus--Plato careless on this point.]
Such I conceive to be the scope of the dialogue, looked at from Plato's point of view.
In order to find a person suitable in point of age to be described as the teacher of Sokrates, he is forced to go back to the past generation--that of Perikles and Aspasia.
But though he avoids anachronism on this point, he cannot avoid the anachronism of making Sokrates allude to events long posterior to his own death.
This anachronism is real, though it has been magnified by some critics into a graver defect than it is in truth.
Plato was resolved not to speak in his own person, but through that of Sokrates.
But he is not always careful to keep within the limits which consistent adherence to such a plan imposes.
[37] [Footnote 37: Groen van Prinsterer (Prosopographia Platonica, p. 211 seq.)
adverts to the carelessness of Plato about exact chronology.
Most of the Platonic critics recognise the Menexenus as a genuine Platonic dialogue.
Ast, however, includes it among the numerous dialogues which he disallows as spurious; and Suckow, Steinhart, and Ueberweg, are also inclined to disallow it.
See Ueberweg, Die Aechtheit der Platonischen Schriften, pp.
143-148.
These critics make light of the allusion of Aristotle in the Rhetoric--[Greek: Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|]--which appears to me, I confess, of more weight than all the grounds of suspicion adduced by them to prove the dialogue spurious.
The presumption in favour of the catalogue of Thrasyllus counts with them, here as elsewhere, for nothing.]
CHAPTER XXXIV.
KLEITOPHON.
[Side-note: Persons and circumstances of Kleitophon.]
The Kleitophon is an unfinished fragment, beginning with a short introductory conversation between Sokrates and Kleitophon, and finishing with a discourse of some length, a sort of remonstrance or appeal, addressed by Kleitophon to Sokrates; who makes no reply.
Some one was lately telling me (says Sokrates) that Kleitophon, in conversation with Lysias, depreciated the conversation of Sokrates, and extolled prodigiously that of Thrasymachus.
[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he alludes to observations of an unfavourable character recently made by Kleitophon, who asks permission to explain.]
Whoever told you so (replies Kleitophon), did not report accurately what I said.
On some points, indeed, I did not praise you; but on other points I did praise you.
Since, however, you are evidently displeased with me, though you affect indifference--and since we are here alone--I should be glad to repeat the same observations to yourself, in order that you may not believe me to think meanly of you.
These incorrect reports seem to have made you displeased with me, more than is reasonable.
I am anxious to speak to you with full freedom, if you will allow it.
[1] [Footnote 1: Plato, Kleitoph.
p.
406.]
It would be a shame indeed (rejoined Sokrates), if, when you were anxious to do me good, I could not endure to receive it.
When I have learnt which are my worst and which are my best points, I shall evidently be in a condition to cultivate and pursue the latter and resolutely to avoid the former.
Hear me then (says Kleitophon).
[Side-note: Explanation given.
Kleitophon expresses gratitude and admiration for the benefit which he has derived from long companionship with Sokrates.]
As your frequent companion, Sokrates, I have often listened to you with profound admiration.
I thought you superior to all other speakers when you proclaimed your usual strain of reproof, like the God from a dramatic machine, against mankind.
[2] You asked them, "Whither are you drifting, my friends?
You do not seem aware that you are doing wrong when you place all your affections on the gain of money, and neglect to teach your sons and heirs the right use of money.
You do not provide for them teachers of justice, if justice be teachable; nor trainers of it, if it be acquirable by training and habit; nor indeed have you studied the acquisition of it, even for yourselves.
Since the fact is obvious that, while you, as well as your sons, have learnt what passes for a finished education in virtue (letters, music, gymnastic), you nevertheless yield to the corruptions of gain--how comes it that you do not despise your actual education, and look out for teachers to correct such disorder?
It is this disorder, not the want of accomplishment in the use of the lyre, which occasions such terrible discord, and such calamitous war, between brother and brother--between city and city.
[3] You affirm that men do wrong wilfully, not from ignorance or want of training: yet nevertheless you are bold enough to say, that wrong-doing is dishonourable and offensive to the Gods.
How can any one, then, choose such an evil willingly?
You tell us it is because he is overcome by pleasures: well then, that again comes to unwillingness--if victory be the thing which every man wishes: so that, whichever way you turn it, reason shows you that wrong-doing is taken up unwillingly, and that greater precautions ought to be taken upon the subject, both by individuals and by cities.
"[4] [Footnote 2: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 407 A.
[Greek: e)gô\ ga/r, ô)= Sô/krates, soi\ suggigno/menos, polla/kis e)xeplêtto/mên a)kou/ôn; kai/ moi e)do/keis para\ tou\s a)/llous a)nthrô/pous ka/llista le/gein, o(po/te e)pitimô=n toi=s a)nthrô/pois, ô(/sper e)pi\ mêchanê=s tragikê=s theo/s, u(mei=s, le/gôn, poi= pheresthe, a)/nthrôpoi?]
&c.] [Footnote 3: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 407 B-C.] [Footnote 4: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 407 D-E. [Greek: ô(/ste e)k panto\s tro/pou to/ ge a)dikei=n a)kou/sion o( lo/gos ai(rei=, kai\ dei=n e)pime/leian tê=s nu=n plei/ô poiei=sthai pa/nt' a)/ndra i)di/a| th' a(/ma kai\ dêmosi/a| xumpa/sas ta\s po/leis.]]
[Side-note: The observations made by Sokrates have been most salutary and stimulating in awakening ardour for virtue.
Arguments and analogies commonly used by Sokrates.]
Such, Sokrates (continues Kleitophon), is the language which I often hear from you; and which I always hear with the strongest and most respectful admiration.
You follow it up by observing, that those who train their bodies and neglect their minds, commit the mistake of busying themselves about the subordinate and neglecting the superior.
You farther remark, that if a man does not know how to use any object rightly, he had better abstain from using it altogether: if he does not know how to use his eyes, his ears, or his body--it will be better for him neither to see, nor to hear, nor to use his body at all: the like with any instrument or article of property--for whoever cannot use his own lyre well, cannot use his neighbour's lyre better.
Out of these premisses you bring out forcibly the conclusion--That if a man does not know how to use his mind rightly, it is better for him to make no use of it:--better for him not to live, than to live under his own direction.
If he must live, he had better live as a slave than a freeman, surrendering the guidance of his understanding to some one else who knows the art of piloting men: which art you, Sokrates, denominate often the political art, sometimes the judicial art or justice.
[5] [Footnote 5: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 408 B.
[Greek: ê)=n dê\ su\ politikê/n, ô)= Sô/krates, o)noma/zeis polla/kis, tê\n au)tê\n dê\ tau/tên dikastikê/n te kai\ dikaiosu/nên ô(s e)/sti le/gôn.]]
[Side-note: But Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how it is to be attained.
Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and now wants information how he is to act.]
These discourses of yours, alike numerous and admirable--showing that virtue is teachable, and that a man should attend to himself before he attends to other objects--I never have contradicted, and never shall contradict.
I account them most profitable and stimulating, calculated to wake men as it were out of sleep.
I expected anxiously what was to come afterwards.
I began by copying your style and asking, not yourself, but those among your companions whom you esteemed the most[6]--How are we now to understand this stimulus imparted by Sokrates towards virtue?
Is this to be all?
Cannot we make advance towards virtue and get full possession of it?
Are we to pass our whole lives in stimulating those who have not yet been stimulated, in order that they in their turn may stimulate others?
Is it not rather incumbent upon us, now that we have agreed thus far, to entreat both from Sokrates and from each other, an answer to the ulterior question, What next?
How are we to set to work in regard to the learning of justice?
[7] If any trainer, seeing us careless of our bodily condition, should exhort us strenuously to take care of it, and convince us that we ought to do so--we should next ask him, which were the arts prescribing how we should proceed?
He would reply--The gymnastic and medical arts.
How will Sokrates or his friends answer the corresponding question in their case?
[Footnote 6: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 408 C. [Greek: tou/tôn ga\r tou/s ti ma/lista ei)=nai doxazome/nous u(po\ sou= prô/tous e)panêrô/tôn, punthano/menos ti/s o( meta\ tau=t' ei)/ê lo/gos, _kai\ kata\ se\ tro/pon tina\ u(potei/nôn au)toi=s_], &c.] [Footnote 7: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 408 D-E. [Greek: ê)\ dei= to\n Sôkra/tên kai\ a)llê/lous ê(ma=s to\ meta\ tou=t' e)panerôta=|n, o(mologê/santas tou=t' au)to\ a)nthrô/pô| prakte/on ei)=nai.
_Ti/ tou)nteu=then_?
pô=s a)/rchesthai dei=n phame\n dikaiosu/nês peri\ mathê/seôs?]]
[Side-note: Questions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both to the companions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself.]
The ablest of your companions answered me (continues Kleitophon), that the art to which you were wont to allude was no other than Justice itself.
I told him in reply--Do not give me the mere name, but tell me what Justice is.
[8] In the medical art there are two distinct results contemplated and achieved: one, that of keeping up the succession of competent physicians--another that of conferring or preserving health: this last, _Health_, is not the art itself, but the work accomplished by the art.
Just so, the builder's art, has for its object the _house_, which is its work--and the keeping up the continuity of builders, which is its teaching.
Tell me in the same manner respecting the art called Justice.
Its teaching province is plain enough--to maintain the succession of just men: but what is its working province?
what is the work which the just man does for us?
[Footnote 8: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 409 A.
[Greek: ei)po/ntos de\ mou=, Mê/ moi to\ o)/noma mo/non ei)pê=|s, a)lla\ ô)=de--I)atrikê/ pou/ tis le/getai te/chnê], &c,] [Side-note: Replies made by the friends of Sokrates unsatisfactory.]
To this question your friend replied (explaining Justice)--it is The Advantageous.
Another man near him said, The Proper: a third said, The Profitable: a fourth, The Gainful.
[9] I pursued the inquiry by observing, that these were general names equally applicable in other arts, and to something different in each.
Every art aims at what is proper, advantageous, profitable, gainful, in its own separate department: but each can farther describe to you what that department is.
Thus the art of the carpenter is, to perform well, properly, advantageously, profitably, &c., in the construction of wooden implements, &c. That is the special work of the carpenter's art: now tell me, what is the special work, corresponding thereunto, of the art called Justice?
[Footnote 9: Plato, Kleitoph.
409 B.
[Greek: to\ d' e(/teron, o(\ du/natai poiei=n ê(mi=n e)/rgon o( di/kaios, ti/ tou=to/ phamen?
ei)=pe.
Ou(=tos me/n, ô(s oi)=mai, _to\ sumphe/ron_ a)pekri/nato; a)/llos de/, _to\ de/on_; e(/teros de/, to\ _ô)phe/limon_; o( de/, to\ _lusitelou=n_.
e)panê/|ein dê\ e)gô\ le/gôn o(/ti ka)kei=na/ ge o)no/mata tau=t' e)sti\n e)n e(ka/stê| tô=n technô=n, o)rthô=s pra/ttein, lusitelou=nta, ô)phe/lima, kai\ ta)/lla ta\ toiau=ta; a)lla\ pro\s o(/, ti tau=ta pa/nta tei/nei, e)rei= to\ i)/dion e(ka/stê| te/chnê|], &c.] [Side-note: None of them could explain what the special work of justice or virtue was.]
At length one of your most accomplished companions, Sokrates, answered me--That the special work peculiar to Justice was, to bring about friendship in the community.
[10] Being farther interrogated, he said--That friendship was always a good, never an evil: That the so-called friendships between children, and between animals, mischievous rather than otherwise, were not real friendships, and ought not to bear the name: That the only genuine friendship was, sameness of reason and intelligence: not sameness of opinion, which was often hurtful--but knowledge and reason agreeing, in different persons.
[11] [Footnote 10: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 409 D. [Greek: Teleutô=n a)pekri/nato/ tis, ô)= Sô/krates, moi\ tô=n sô=n e(tai/rôn, o(\s dê\ kompso/tata e)/doxen ei)pei=n, o(/ti tou=t' ei)/ê to\ tê=s dikaiosu/nês i)/dion e)/rgon, o(\ tô=n a)/llôn ou)demia=s, phili/an e)n tai=s po/lesi poiei=n.]]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 409 E.] At this stage of our conversation the hearers themselves felt perplexed, and interfered to remonstrate with him; observing, that the debate had come round to the same point again.
They declared that the medical art also was harmony of reason and intelligence: that the like was true besides of every other art: that each of them could define the special end to which it tended: but that as to that art, or that harmony of reason and intelligence, which had been called Justice, no one could see to what purpose it tended, nor what was its special work.
[12] [Footnote 12: Plato, Kleitoph.
p. 410 A.
[Greek: kai\ e)/legon] (_i.e._ the hearers said) [Greek: o(/ti kai\ ê( i)atrikê\ o(mo/noia/ ti/s e)sti, kai\ a(/pasai ai( te/chnai, kai\ peri\ o(/tou ei)si/n, e)/chousi le/gein; tê\n de\ u(po\ sou= legome/nên dikaiosu/nên ê)\ o(mo/noian, o(/poi tei/nousa/ e)sti, diape/pheuge, kai\ a)/dêlon au)tê=s o(/, ti po/t e)sti\ to\ e)/rgon.]]
[Side-note: Kleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates himself.
But Sokrates did not answer clearly.
Kleitophon believes that Sokrates knows, but will not tell.]
After all this debate (continues Kleitophon) I addressed the same question to yourself, Sokrates--What is Justice?
You answered--To do good to friends, hurt to enemies.
But presently it appeared, that the just man would never, on any occasion, do hurt to any one:--that he would act towards every one with a view to good.
It is not once, nor twice, but often and often, that I have endured these perplexities, and have importuned you to clear them up.
[13] At last I am wearied out, and have come to the conviction that you are doubtless a consummate proficient in the art of stimulating men to seek virtue; but that as to the ulterior question, how they are to find it--you either do not know, or you will not tell.
In regard to any art (such as steersmanship or others), there may be persons who can extol and recommend the art to esteem, but cannot direct the hearers how to acquire it: and in like manner a man might remark about you, that you do not know any better what Justice is, because you are a proficient in commending it.
For my part, such is not my opinion.
I think that you know, but have declined to tell me.
I am resolved, in my present embarrassment, to go to Thrasymachus, or any one else that I can find to help me; unless you will consent to give me something more than these merely stimulating discourses.
[14] Consider me as one upon whom your stimulus has already told.
If the question were about gymnastic, as soon as I had become fully stimulated to attend to my bodily condition, you would have given me, as a sequel to your stimulating discourse, some positive direction, what my body was by nature, and what treatment it required.
Deal in like manner with the case before us: reckon Kleitophon as one fully agreeing with you, that it is contemptible to spend so much energy upon other objects, and to neglect our minds, with a view to which all other objects are treasured up.
Put me down as having already given my adhesion to all these views of yours.
[Footnote 13: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 B.
[Greek: Tau=ta de\ ou)ch a(/pax ou)de\ di\s a)lla\ polu\n dê\ u(pomei/nas chro/non kai\ liparô=n a)pei/rêka], &c.] [Footnote 14: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 C. [Greek: dia\ tau=ta dê\ kai\ pro\s Thrasu/machon, oi)=mai, poreu/somai, kai\ a)/llose o(/poi du/namai, a)porô=n--e)pei\ ei)/ g' e)the/lois su\ tou/tôn me\n ê)/dê pau/sasthai pro\s e)me\ tô=n lo/gôn tô=n protreptikô=n], &c.] [Side-note: Kleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and going to Thrasymachus.
But before leaving he addresses one last entreaty, that Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly.]
Proceed, Sokrates--I supplicate you--to deal with me as I have described; in order that I may never more have occasion, when I talk with Lysias, to blame you on some points while praising you on others.
I will repeat, that to one who has not yet received the necessary stimulus, your conversation is of inestimable value: but to one who has already been stimulated, it is rather a hindrance than a help, to his realising the full acquisition of virtue, and thus becoming happy.
[15] [Footnote 15: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 E. [Greek: mê\ me\n ga\r protetramme/nô| se\ a)nthrô/pô|, ô)= Sô/krates, a)/xion ei)=nai tou= panto\s phê/sô, protetramme/nô| de/, schedo\n kai\ e)mpo/dion tou= pro\s te/los a)retê=s e)ltho/nta eu)dai/mona gene/sthai.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Remarks on the Kleitophon.
Why Thrasyllus placed it in the eighth Tetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along with Kritias, the other fragment.]
The fragment called Kleitophon (of which I have given an abstract comparatively long), is in several ways remarkable.
The Thrasyllean catalogue places it first in the eighth Tetralogy; the three other members of the same Tetralogy being, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.
[16] Though it is both short, and abrupt in its close, we know that it was so likewise in antiquity: the ancient Platonic commentators observing, that Sokrates disdained to make any reply to the appeal of Kleitophon.
[17] There were therefore in this Tetralogy two fragments, unfinished works from the beginning--Kleitophon and Kritias.
[Footnote 16: Diog.
L. iii.
59.
The Kleitophon also was one of the dialogues selected by some students of Plato as proper to be studied first of all (Diog.
L. iii.
61).]
[Footnote 17: M. Boeckh observes (ad Platonis Minoem, p. 11):--"Nec minus falsum est, quod _spurium_ Clitophontem plerique omnes mutilatum putant; quem ex auctoris manibus truncum excidisse inde intelligitur, quod ne vetusti quidem Platonici philosophi, quibus antiquissima exemplaria ad manum erant, habuerunt integriorem.
Proclus in Timæ, i. p. 7.
[Greek: Ptolemai=os de\ o( Platôniko\s Kleitophô=nta au)to\n oi)/etai ei)=nai.
tou=ton ga\r e)n tô=| o(mônu/mô| dialo/gô| mêd' a)pokri/seôs ê)xiô=sthai para\ Sôkra/tous.]
Plané ut in Critiâ, quem ab ipso Platone non absolutum docet Plutarchus in Solone."
M. Boeckh here characterises the Kleitophon as _spurious_, in which opinion I do not concur.
Yxem, in his Dissertation, Ueber Platon's Kleitophon, Berlin, 1846, has vindicated the genuineness of this dialogue, though many of his arguments are such as I cannot subscribe to.
He shows farther, that the first idea of distrusting the genuineness of the Kleitophon arose from the fact that the dialogue was printed in the Aldine edition of 1513, along with the spurious dialogues; although in that very Aldine edition the editors expressly announce that this was a mistake, and that the dialogue ought to have been printed as first of the eighth tetralogy.
See Yxem, pp.
32-33.
Subsequent editors followed the Aldine in printing the dialogue among the spurious, though still declaring that they did not consider it spurious.]
We may explain why Thrasyllus placed the Kleitophon in immediate antecedence to the Republic: because 1.
It complains bitterly of the want of a good explanation of Justice, which Sokrates in the latter books of the Republic professes to furnish.
2.
It brings before us Kleitophon, who announces an inclination to consult Thrasymachus: now both these personages appear in the first book of the Republic, in which too Thrasymachus is introduced as disputing in a brutal and insulting way, and as humiliated by Sokrates: so that the Republic might be considered both as an answer to the challenge of the Kleitophon, and as a reproof to Kleitophon himself for having threatened to quit Sokrates and go to Thrasymachus.
[Side-note: Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a just theory of Plato.]
Like so many other pieces in the Thrasyllean catalogue, the Kleitophon has been declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher and other critics of the present century.
I see no ground for this opinion, and I believe the dialogue to be genuine.
If it be asked, how can we imagine Plato to have composed a polemic argument, both powerful and unanswered, against Sokrates,--I reply, that this is not so surprising as the Parmenidês: in which Plato has introduced the veteran so named as the successful assailant not only of Sokrates, but of the Platonic theory of Ideas defended by Sokrates.
I have already declared, that the character of Plato is, in my judgment, essentially many-sided.
It comprehends the whole process of searching for truth, and testing all that is propounded as such: it does not shrink from broaching and developing speculative views not merely various and distinct, but sometimes even opposite.
[Side-note: It could not have been published until after Plato's death.]
Yet though the Kleitophon is Plato's work, it is a sketch or fragment never worked out.
In its present condition, it can hardly have been published (any more than the Kritias) either by his direction or during his life.
I conceive it to have remained among his papers, to have been made known by his school after his death, and to have passed from thence among the other Platonic manuscripts into the Alexandrian library at its first foundation.
Possibly it may have been originally intended as a preparation for the solution of that problem, which Sokrates afterwards undertakes in the Republic: for it is a challenge to Sokrates to explain what he means by Justice.
It may have been intended as such, but never prosecuted:--the preparation for that solution being provided in another way, such as we now read in the first and second books of the Republic.
That the great works of Plato--Republic, Protagoras, Symposion, &c.--could not have been completed without preliminary sketches and tentatives--we may regard as certain.
That some of these sketches, though never worked up, and never published by Plato himself, should have been good enough to be preserved by him and published by those who succeeded him--is at the very least highly probable.
One such is the Kleitophon.
[Side-note: Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished.
It points out the defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses them in the Apology.]
When I read the Kleitophon, I am not at all surprised that Plato never brought it to a conclusion, nor ever provided Sokrates with an answer to the respectful, yet emphatic, requisition of Kleitophon.
The case against Sokrates has been made so strong, that I doubt whether Plato himself could have answered it to his own satisfaction.
It resembles the objections which he advances in the Parmenidês against the theory of Ideas: objections which he has nowhere answered, and which I do not believe that he could answer.
The characteristic attribute of which Kleitophon complains in Sokrates is, that of a one-sided and incomplete efficiency--([Greek: phu/sis mono/kôlos])--"You are perpetually stirring us up and instigating us: you do this most admirably: but when we have become full of fervour, you do not teach us how we are to act, nor point out the goal towards which we are to move".
[18] Now this is precisely the description which Sokrates gives of his own efficiency, in the Platonic Apology addressed to the Dikasts.
He lays especial stress on the mission imposed upon him by the Gods, to apply his Elenchus in testing and convicting the false persuasion of knowledge universally prevalent:--to make sure by repeated cross-examination, whether the citizens pursued money and worldly advancement more energetically than virtue:--and to worry the Athenians with perpetual stimulus, like the gadfly exciting a high-bred but lethargic horse.
Sokrates describes this not only as the mission of his life, but as a signal benefit and privilege conferred upon Athens by the Gods.
[19] But here his services end.
He declares explicitly that he shares in the universal ignorance, and that he is no wiser than any one else, except in being aware of his own ignorance.
He disclaims all power of teaching:[20] and he deprecates the supposition,--that he himself knew what he convicted others of not knowing,--as a mistake which had brought upon him alike unmerited reputation and great unpopularity.
[21] We find thus that the description given by Sokrates of himself in the Apology, and the reproach addressed to Sokrates by Kleitophon, fully coincide.
"My mission from the Gods" (says Sokrates), "is to dispel the false persuasion of knowledge, to cross-examine men into a painful conviction of their own ignorance, and to create in them a lively impulse towards knowledge and virtue: but I am no wiser than they: I can teach them nothing, nor can I direct them what to do."
--That is exactly what I complain of (remarks Kleitophon): I have gone through your course,--have been electrified by your Elenchus,--and am full of the impulse which you so admirably communicate.
In this condition, what I require is, to find out how, or in which direction I am to employ that impulse.
If you cannot tell me, I must ask Thrasymachus or some one else.
[Footnote 18: I have in an earlier chapter (ch.
viii.
vol.
i. p. 406) cited the passage--"Philosophiam multis locis inchoasti: ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum".
This is the language addressed by Cicero to Varro, and coinciding substantially with that of Kleitophon here.]
[Footnote 19: Plat.
Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
28 E, 29 D-E, 30 A-E. 30 E: [Greek: proskei/menon tê=| po/lei u(po\ tou= theou= ô(/sper i(/ppô| mega/lô| me\n kai\ gennai/ô|, u(po\ mege/thous de\ nôtheste/rô| kai\ deome/nô| e)gei/resthai u(po\ mu/ôpo/s tinos; oi(=on dê/ moi dokei= o( theo\s e)me\ tê=| po/lei prostetheike/nai toiou=to/n tina, o(\s u(ma=s e)gei/rôn kai\ pei/thôn kai\ o)neidi/zôn e(/na e(/kaston ou)de\n pau/omai tê\n ê(me/ran o(/lên pantachou= proskathi/zôn.]
Also pp.
36 D, 41 E.] [Footnote 20: Plat.
Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
21 D-22 D, 33 A: [Greek: e)gô\ de\ dida/skalos ou)deno\s pô/pot' e)geno/mên.]]
[Footnote 21: Plat.
Apol.
Sokr.
pp.
23 A, 28 A.]
[Side-note: The same defects also confessed in many of the Platonic and Xenophontic dialogues.]
Moreover, it is not merely in the declarations of Sokrates himself before the Athenian Dikasts, but also in the Platonic Sokrates as exhibited by Plato in very many of his dialogues, that the same efficiency, and the same deficiency, stand conspicuous.
The hearer is convicted of ignorance, on some familiar subject which he believed himself to know: the protreptic stimulus is powerful, stinging his mind into uneasiness which he cannot appease except by finding some tenable result: but the didactic supplement is not forthcoming.
Sokrates ends by creating a painful feeling of perplexity in the hearers, but he himself shares the feeling along with them.--It is this which the youth Protarchus deprecates, at the beginning of the Platonic Philêbus;[22] and with which Hippias taunts Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic conversations[23]--insomuch that Sokrates replies to the taunt by giving a definition of the Just ([Greek: to\ di/kaion]), upon which Hippias comments.
But if the observations ascribed by Xenophon to Hippias are a report of what that Sophist really said, we only see how inferior he was to Sokrates in the art of cross-questioning: for the definition given by Sokrates would have been found altogether untenable, if there had been any second Sokrates to apply the Elenchus to it.
[24] Lastly, Xenophon expressly tells us, that there were others also, who, both in speech and writing, imputed to Sokrates the same deficiency on the affirmative side.
[25] [Footnote 22: Plato, Philêbus, p. 20 A.]
[Footnote 23: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
4, 9-11.]
[Footnote 24: We need only compare the observations made by Hippias in that dialogue, to the objections raised by Sokrates himself in his conversation with Euthydêmus, Xen.
Mem.
iv.
4, 2, and to the dialogue of the youthful Alkibiades (evidently borrowed from Sokrates) with Perikles, ib.
i.
2, 40-47.]
[Footnote 25: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
4, 1.
[Greek: ei) de/ tines Sôkra/tên nomi/zousin, ô(s e(/nioi gra/phousi/ te kai\ le/gousi peri\ au)tou= tekmairo/menoi, protre/psasthai me\n a)nthrô/pous e)p' a)retê\n kra/tiston gegone/nai, proagagei=n de\ e)p' au)tê\n ou)ch i(kano/n--skepsa/menoi mê\ mo/non], &c. See also Cicero, De Oratore, i.
47, 204, in which Sokrates is represented as saying that _concitatio_ ([Greek: protropê\]) was all that people required: they did not need guidance: they would find out the way for themselves: and Yxem, Ueber Platon's Kleitophon, pp.
5-12.]
[Side-note: Forcible, yet respectful, manner in which these defects are set forth in the Kleitophon.
Impossible to answer them in such a way as to hold out against the negative Elenchus of a Sokratic pupil.]
The Platonic Kleitophon corresponds, in a great degree, to these complaints of Protarchus and others, as well as to the taunt of Hippias.
The case is put, however, with much greater force and emphasis: as looked at, not by an opponent and outsider, like Hippias--nor by a mere novice, unarmed though eager, like Protarchus--but by a companion of long standing, who has gone through the full course of negative gymnastic, is grateful for the benefit derived, and feels that it is time to pass from the lesser mysteries to the greater.
He is sick of perpetual negation and stimulus: he demands doctrines and explanations, which will hold good against the negative Elenchus of Sokrates himself.
But this is exactly what Sokrates cannot give.
His mission from the Delphian God finishes with the negative: inspiration fails him when he deals with the affirmative.
He is like the gadfly (his own simile) in stimulating the horse--and also in furnishing no direction how the stimulus is to be expended.
His affirmative dicta,--as given in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, are for the most part plain, home-bred, good sense,--in which all the philosophical questions are slurred over, and the undefined words, Justice, Temperance, Holiness, Courage, Law, &c., are assumed to have a settled meaning agreed to by every one: while as given by Plato, in the Republic and elsewhere, they are more speculative, highflown, and poetical,[26] but not the less exposed to certain demolition, if the batteries of the Sokratic Elenchus were brought to bear upon them.
The challenge of Kleitophon is thus unanswerable.
It brings out in the most forcible, yet respectful, manner the contrast between the two attributes of the Sokratic mind: in the negative, irresistible force and originality: in the affirmative, confessed barrenness alternating with honest, acute, practical sense, but not philosophy.
Instead of this, Plato gives us transcendental hypotheses, and a religious and poetical ideal; impressive indeed to the feelings, but equally inadmissible to a mind trained in the use of the Sokratic tests.
[Footnote 26: The explanation of Justice given by Plato in the Republic deserves to be described much in the same words as Sokrates employs (Repub.
i. p. 332 C) in characterising the definition of Justice furnished by (or ascribed to) the poet Simonides:-[Greek: ê)|ni/xato, ô(s e)/oiken, o( Simôni/dês poiêtikô=s to\ di/kaion o(\ ei)/ê.]]
[Side-note: The Kleitophon represents a point of view which many objectors must have insisted on against Sokrates and Plato.]
We may thus see sufficient reason why Plato, after having drawn up the Kleitophon as preparatory basis for a dialogue, became unwilling to work it out, and left it as an unfinished sketch.
He had, probably without intending it, made out too strong a case against Sokrates and against himself.
If he continued it, he would have been obliged to put some sufficient reason into the mouth of Sokrates, why Kleitophon should abandon his intention of frequenting some other teacher: and this was a hard task.
He would have been obliged to lay before Kleitophon, a pupil thoroughly inoculated with his own negative _oestrus_, affirmative solutions proof against such subtle cross-examination: and this, we may fairly assume, was not merely a hard task, but impossible.
Hence it is that we possess the Kleitophon only as a fragment.
[Side-note: The Kleitophon was originally intended as a first book of the Republic, but was found too hard to answer.
Reasons why the existing first book was substituted.]
Yet I think it a very ingenious and instructive fragment: setting forth powerfully, in respect to the negative philosophy of Sokrates and Plato, a point of view which must have been held by many intelligent contemporaries.
Among all the objections urged against Sokrates and Plato, probably none was more frequent than this protest against the continued negative procedure.
This same point of view--that Sokrates puzzled every one, but taught no one any thing--is reproduced by Thrasymachus against Sokrates in the first book of the Republic:[27] in which first book there are various other marks of analogy with the Kleitophon.
[28] It might seem as if Plato had in the first instance projected a dialogue in which Sokrates was to discuss the subject of justice, and had drawn up the Kleitophon as the sketch of a sort of forcing process to be applied to Sokrates: then, finding that he placed Sokrates under too severe pressure, had abandoned the project, and taken up the same subject anew, in the manner which we now read in the Republic.
The task which he assigns to Sokrates, in this last-mentioned dialogue, is far easier.
Instead of the appeal made to Sokrates by Kleitophon, with truly Sokratic point--we have an assault made upon him by Thrasymachus, alike angry, impudent and feeble; which just elicits the peculiar aptitude of Sokrates for humbling the boastful affirmer.
Again in the second book, Glaukon and Adeimantus are introduced as stating the difficulties which they feel in respect to the theory of Justice: but in a manner totally different from Kleitophon, and without any reference to previous Sokratic requirements.
Each of them delivers an eloquent and forcible pleading, in the manner of an Aristotelian or Ciceronian dialogue: and to this Sokrates makes his reply.
In that reply, Sokrates explains what he means by Justice: and though his exposition is given in the form of short questions, each followed by an answer of acquiescence, yet no real or serious objections are made to him throughout the whole.
The case must have been very different if Plato had continued the dialogue Kleitophon; so as to make Sokrates explain the theory of Justice, in the face of all the objections raised by a Sokratic cross-examiner.
[29] [Footnote 27: Plat.
Repub.
pp.
336 D, 337 A, 338 A.]
[Footnote 28: For example, That it is not the province of the just man to hurt any one, either friend or foe, Repub.
p. 335 D. Thrasymachus derides any such definitions of [Greek: to\ di/kaion] as the following--[Greek: to\ de/on--to\ ô)phe/limon--to\ lusitelou=n--to\ xumphe/ron--to\ kerda/leon], Repub.
i. p. 336, C-D.
These are exactly the unsatisfactory definitions which Kleitophon describes himself (p. 409 C) as having received from the partisans of Sokrates.]
[Footnote 29: Schleiermacher (Einleitung, v. pp.
453-455) considers the Kleitophon not to be the work of Plato.
But this only shows that he, like many other critics, attaches scarcely the smallest importance to the presumption arising from the Canon of Thrasyllus.
For the grounds by which he justifies his disallowance of the dialogue are to the last degree trivial.
I note with surprise one of his assertions: "How" (he asks) "or from what motive can Plato have introduced an attack upon Sokrates, which is thoroughly repelled, both seriously and ironically, in almost all the Platonic dialogues?"
As I read Plato, on the contrary: the Truth is, That it is repelled in none, confirmed in many, and thoroughly ratified by Sokrates himself in the Platonic Apology.
Schleiermacher thinks that the Kleitophon is an attack upon Sokrates and the Sokratic men, Plato included, made by some opponent out of the best rhetorical schools.
He calls it "a parody and caricature" of the Sokratic manner.
To me it seems no caricature at all.
It is a very fair application of the Sokratic or Platonic manner.
Nor is it conceived by any means in the spirit of an enemy, but in that of an established companion, respectful and grateful, yet dissatisfied at finding that he makes no progress.]
END OF VOL.
III.
************************************* Transcriber's Note The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.
For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used: ) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.
ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta; ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.
Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **: Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction ToC, Ch.
31 admissable admissible Ch.
26 fn.
30 phi/lê=| phi/lê| Ch.
26 fn.
33 to/de\ to/de Ch.
26 after fn.
125 fourth eighth Ch.
28 fn.
47 aussitot aussitôt Ch.
28 fn.
78 ajourd'hui aujourd'hui Ch.
28 fn.
92 It we compare If we compare Ch.
28 fn.
97 Theætêt.
p. 186 C. Theætêt.
p. 186 D. Ch.
28 fn.
99 tuphra/ tuphla/ Ch.
28 after fn.
143 Chapter VI Chapter VIII Ch.
29 fn.
23 p. 130 D p. 130 E Ch.
29 fn.
102 paphei=n pathei=n Ch.
30 fn.
18 Phædrus p. 229 C), Phædrus (p. 229 C), Ch.
31 fn.
18 e(u)=n ou)=n Ch.
31 fn.
18 oka/stou e(ka/stou Ch.
31 fn.
40 Is is It is Ch.
31 fn.
47 tems temps Ch.
31 fn.
48 ab-antiquitatis ab antiquitatis Ch.
31 fn.
58 429-411 C. 409-411 C. Ch.
31 fn.
63 p. .
p. 88 Ch.
32 fn.
42 pho/bpn pho/bôn Ch.
33 fn.
31 p. 373 p. 359
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
BY GEORGE GROTE _A NEW EDITION._ IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL.
I. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1885.
_The right of Translation is reserved._ ADVERTISEMENT.
In the present Edition, with a view to the distribution into four volumes, there is a slight transposition of the author's arrangement.
His concluding chapters (XXXVIII., XXXIX.
), entitled "Other Companions of Sokrates," and "Xenophon," are placed in the First Volume, as chapters III.
and IV.
By this means each volume is made up of nearly related subjects, so as to possess a certain amount of unity.
Volume First contains the following subjects:--Speculative Philosophy in Greece before Sokrates; Growth of Dialectic; Other Companions of Sokrates; Xenophon; Life of Plato; Platonic Canon; Platonic Compositions generally; Apology of Sokrates; Kriton; Euthyphron.
Volume Second comprises:--Alkibiades I. and II.
; Hippias Major--Hippias Minor; Hipparchus--Minos; Theages; Erastæ or Anterastæ--Rivales; Ion; Laches; Charmides; Lysis; Euthydemus; Menon; Protagoras; Gorgias; Phædon.
Volume Third:--Phædrus--Symposion; Parmenides; Theætetus; Sophistes; Politikus; Kratylus; Philebus; Menexenus; Kleitophon.
Volume Fourth:--Republic; Timæus and Kritias; Leges and Epinomis; General Index.
The Volumes may be obtained separately.
PREFACE.
The present work is intended as a sequel and supplement to my History of Greece.
It describes a portion of Hellenic philosophy: it dwells upon eminent individuals, enquiring, theorising, reasoning, confuting, &c., as contrasted with those collective political and social manifestations which form the matter of history, and which the modern writer gathers from Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.
Both Sokrates and Plato, indeed, are interesting characters in history as well as in philosophy.
Under the former aspect, they were described by me in my former work as copiously as its general purpose would allow.
But it is impossible to do justice to either of them--above all, to Plato, with his extreme variety and abundance--except in a book of which philosophy is the principal subject, and history only the accessory.
The names of Plato and Aristotle tower above all others in Grecian philosophy.
Many compositions from both have been preserved, though only a small proportion of the total number left by Aristotle.
Such preservation must be accounted highly fortunate, when we read in Diogenes Laertius and others, the long list of works on various topics of philosophy, now irrecoverably lost, and known by little except their titles.
Respecting a few of them, indeed, we obtain some partial indications from fragmentary extracts and comments of later critics.
But none of these once celebrated philosophers, except Plato and Aristotle, can be fairly appreciated upon evidence furnished by themselves.
The Platonic dialogues, besides the extraordinary genius which they display as compositions, bear thus an increased price (like the Sibylline books) as the scanty remnants of a lost philosophical literature, once immense and diversified.
Under these two points of view, I trust that the copious analysis and commentary bestowed upon them in the present work will not be considered as unnecessarily lengthened.
I maintain, full and undiminished, the catalogue of Plato's works as it was inherited from antiquity and recognised by all critics before the commencement of the present century.
Yet since several subsequent critics have contested the canon, and set aside as spurious many of the dialogues contained in it,--I have devoted a chapter to this question, and to the vindication of the views on which I have proceeded.
The title of these volumes will sufficiently indicate that I intend to describe, as far as evidence permits, the condition of Hellenic philosophy at Athens during the half century immediately following the death of Sokrates in 399 B.C.
My first two chapters do indeed furnish a brief sketch of Pre-Sokratic philosophy: but I profess to take my departure from Sokrates himself, and these chapters are inserted mainly in order that the theories by which he found himself surrounded may not be altogether unknown.
Both here, and in the sixty-ninth chapter of my History, I have done my best to throw light on the impressive and eccentric personality of Sokrates: a character original and unique, to whose peculiar mode of working on other minds I scarcely know a parallel in history.
He was the generator, indirectly and through others, of a new and abundant crop of compositions--the "Sokratic dialogues": composed by many different authors, among whom Plato stands out as unquestionable coryphæus, yet amidst other names well deserving respectful mention as seconds, companions, or opponents.
It is these Sokratic dialogues, and the various companions of Sokrates from whom they proceeded, that the present work is intended to exhibit.
They form the dramatic manifestation of Hellenic philosophy--as contrasted with the formal and systematising, afterwards prominent in Aristotle.
But the dialogue is a process containing commonly a large intermixture, often a preponderance, of the negative vein: which was more abundant and powerful in Sokrates than in any one.
In discussing the Platonic dialogues, I have brought this negative vein into the foreground.
It reposes upon a view of the function and value of philosophy which is less dwelt upon than it ought to be, and for which I here briefly prepare the reader.
Philosophy is, or aims at becoming, reasoned truth: an aggregate of matters believed or disbelieved after conscious process of examination gone through by the mind, and capable of being explained to others: the beliefs being either primary, knowingly assumed as self-evident--or conclusions resting upon them, after comparison of all relevant reasons favourable and unfavourable.
"Philosophia" (in the words of Cicero), "ex rationum collatione consistit."
This is not the form in which beliefs or disbeliefs exist with ordinary minds: there has been no conscious examination--there is no capacity of explaining to others--there is no distinct setting out of primary truths assumed--nor have any pains been taken to look out for the relevant reasons on both sides, and weigh them impartially.
Yet the beliefs nevertheless exist as established facts generated by traditional or other authority.
They are sincere and often earnest, governing men's declarations and conduct.
They represent a cause in which sentence has been pronounced, or a rule made absolute, without having previously heard the pleadings.
[1] [Footnote 1: Napoléon, qui de temps en temps, au milieu de sa fortune et de sa puissance, songeait à Robespierre et à sa triste fin--interrogeait un jour son archi-chancelier Cambacérès sur le neuf Thermidor.
"_C'est un procès jugé et non plaidé_," répondait Cambacérès, avec la finesse d'un jurisconsulte courtisan.--(Hippolyte Carnot--Notice sur Barère, p. 109; Paris, 1842.)]
Now it is the purpose of the philosopher, first to bring this omission of the pleadings into conscious notice--next to discover, evolve, and bring under hearing the matters omitted, as far as they suggest themselves to his individual reason.
He claims for himself, and he ought to claim for all others alike, the right of calling for proof where others believe without proof--of rejecting the received doctrines, if upon examination the proof given appears to his mind unsound or insufficient--and of enforcing instead of them any others which impress themselves upon his mind as true.
But the truth which he tenders for acceptance must of necessity be _reasoned truth_; supported by proofs, defended by adequate replies against preconsidered objections from others.
Only hereby does it properly belong to the history of philosophy: hardly even hereby has any such novelty a chance of being fairly weighed and appreciated.
When we thus advert to the vocation of philosophy, we see that (to use the phrase of an acute modern author[2]) it is by necessity polemical: the assertion of independent reason by individual reasoners, who dissent from the unreasoning belief which reigns authoritative in the social atmosphere around them, and who recognise no correction or refutation except from the counter-reason of others.
We see besides, that these dissenters from the public will also be, probably, more or less dissenters from each other.
The process of philosophy may be differently performed by two enquirers equally free and sincere, even of the same age and country: and it is sure to be differently performed, if they belong to ages and countries widely apart.
It is essentially relative to the individual reasoning mind, and to the medium by which the reasoner is surrounded.
Philosophy herself has every thing to gain by such dissent; for it is only thereby that the weak and defective points of each point of view are likely to be exposed.
If unanimity is not attained, at least each of the dissentients will better understand what he rejects as well as what he adopts.
[Footnote 2: Professor Ferrier, in his instructive volume, 'The Institutes of Metaphysic,' has some valuable remarks on the scope and purpose of Philosophy.
I transcribe some of them, in abridgment.
(Sections 1-8) "A system of philosophy is bound by two main requisitions: it ought to be true--and it ought to be reasoned.
Philosophy, in its ideal perfection, is a body of reasoned truth.
Of these obligations, the latter is the more stringent.
It is more proper that philosophy should be reasoned, than that it should be true: because, while truth may perhaps be unattainable by man, to reason is certainly his province and within his power.
.
.
.
A system is of the highest value only when it embraces both these requisitions--that is, when it is both true, and reasoned.
But a system which is reasoned without being true, is always of higher value than a system which is true without being reasoned.
The latter kind of system is of no value: because philosophy is the attainment of truth _by the way of reason_.
That is its definition.
A system, therefore, which reaches the truth but not by the way of reason, is not philosophy at all, and has therefore no scientific worth.
Again, an unreasoned philosophy, even though true, carries no guarantee of its truth.
It may be true, but it cannot be certain.
On the other hand, a system, which is reasoned without being true, has always some value.
It creates reason by exercising it.
It is employing the proper means to reach truth, though it may fail to reach it."
(Sections 38-41)--"The student will find that the system here submitted to his attention is of a very polemical character.
Why!
Because philosophy exists only to correct the inadvertencies of man's ordinary thinking.
She has no other mission to fulfil.
If man naturally thinks aright, he need not be taught to think aright.
If he is already in possession of the truth, he does not require to be put in possession of it.
The occupation of philosophy is gone: her office is superfluous.
Therefore philosophy assumes and must assume that man does not naturally think aright, but must be taught to do so: that truth does not come to him spontaneously, but must be brought to him by his own exertions.
If man does not naturally think aright, he must think, we shall not say wrongly (for that implies malice prepense) but inadvertently: the native occupant of his mind must be, we shall not say falsehood (for that too implies malice prepense) but error.
The original dowry then of universal man is inadvertency and error.
This assumption is the ground and only justification of the existence of philosophy.
The circumstance that philosophy exists only to put right the oversights of common thinking--renders her polemical not by choice, but by necessity.
She is controversial as the very tenure and condition of her existence: for how can she correct the slips of common opinion, the oversights of natural thinking, except by controverting them?"
Professor Ferrier deserves high commendation for the care taken in this volume to set out clearly Proposition and Counter-Proposition: the thesis which he impugns, as well as that which he sustains.]
The number of individual intellects, independent, inquisitive, and acute, is always rare everywhere; but was comparatively less rare in these ages of Greece.
The first topic, on which such intellects broke loose from the common consciousness of the world around them, and struck out new points of view for themselves, was in reference to the Kosmos or the Universe.
The received belief, of a multitude of unseen divine persons bringing about by volitions all the different phenomena of nature, became unsatisfactory to men like Thales, Anaximander, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras.
Each of these volunteers, following his own independent inspirations, struck out a new hypothesis, and endeavoured to commend it to others with more or less of sustaining reason.
There appears to have been little of negation or refutation in their procedure.
None of them tried to disprove the received point of view, or to throw its supporters upon their defence.
Each of them unfolded his own hypothesis, or his own version of affirmative reasoned truth, for the adoption of those with whom it might find favour.
The dialectic age had not yet arrived.
When it did arrive, with Sokrates as its principal champion, the topics of philosophy were altered, and its process revolutionised.
We have often heard repeated the Ciceronian dictum--that Sokrates brought philosophy down from the heavens to the earth: from the distant, abstruse, and complicated phenomena of the Kosmos--in respect to which he adhered to the vulgar point of view, and even disapproved any enquiries tending to rationalise it--to the familiar business of man, and the common generalities of ethics and politics.
But what has been less observed about Sokrates, though not less true, is, that along with this change of topics he introduced a complete revolution in method.
He placed the negative in the front of his procedure; giving to it a point, an emphasis, a substantive value, which no one had done before.
His peculiar gift was that of cross-examination, or the application of his Elenchus to discriminate pretended from real knowledge.
He found men full of confident beliefs on these ethical and political topics--affirming with words which they had never troubled themselves to define--and persuaded that they required no farther teaching: yet at the same time unable to give clear or consistent answers to his questions, and shown by this convincing test to be destitute of real knowledge.
Declaring this false persuasion of knowledge, or confident unreasoned belief, to be universal, he undertook, as the mission of his life, to expose it: and he proclaimed that until the mind was disabused thereof and made painfully conscious of ignorance, no affirmative reasoned truth could be presented with any chance of success.
Such are the peculiar features of the Sokratic dialogue, exemplified in the compositions here reviewed.
I do not mean that Sokrates always talked so; but that such was the marked peculiarity which distinguished his talking from that of others.
It is philosophy, or reasoned truth, approached in the most polemical manner; operative at first only to discredit the natural, unreasoned intellectual growths of the ordinary mind, and to generate a painful consciousness of ignorance.
I say this here, and I shall often say it again throughout these volumes.
It is absolutely indispensable to the understanding of the Platonic dialogues; one half of which must appear unmeaning, unless construed with reference to this separate function and value of negative dialectic.
Whether readers may themselves agree in such estimation of negative dialectic, is another question: but they must keep it in mind as the governing sentiment of Plato during much of his life, and of Sokrates throughout the whole of life: as being moreover one main cause of that antipathy which Sokrates inspired to many respectable orthodox contemporaries.
I have thought it right to take constant account of this orthodox sentiment among the ordinary public, as the perpetual drag-chain, even when its force is not absolutely repressive, upon free speculation.
Proceeding upon this general view, I have interpreted the numerous negative dialogues in Plato as being really negative and nothing beyond.
I have not presumed, still less tried to divine, an ulterior Affirmative beyond what the text reveals--neither _arcana coelestia_, like Proklus and Ficinus,[3] nor any other _arcanum_ of terrestrial character.
While giving such an analysis of each dialogue as my space permitted and as will enable the reader to comprehend its general scope and peculiarities--I have studied each as it stands written, and have rarely ascribed to Plato any purpose exceeding what he himself intimates.
Where I find difficulties forcibly dwelt upon without any solution, I imagine, not that he had a good solution kept back in his closet, but that he had failed in finding one: that he thought it useful, as a portion of the total process necessary for finding and authenticating reasoned truth, both to work out these unsolved difficulties for himself, and to force them impressively upon the attention of others.
[4] [Footnote 3: F. A. Wolf, Vorrede, Plato, Sympos.
p. vi.
"Ficinus suchte, wie er sich in der Zueignungsschrift seiner Vision ausdrückt, im Platon allenthalben _arcana coelestia_: und da er sie in seinem Kopfe mitbrachte, so konnte es ihm nicht sauer werden, etwas zu finden, was freilich jedem andern verborgen bleiben muss."]
[Footnote 4: A striking passage from Bentham illustrates very well both the Sokratic and the Platonic point of view.
(Principles of Morals and Legislation, vol.
ii.
ch.
xvi.
p. 57, ed.
1823.)
"Gross ignorance descries no difficulties.
Imperfect knowledge finds them out and struggles with them.
It must be perfect knowledge that overcomes them."
Of the three different mental conditions here described, the first is that against which Sokrates made war, _i.e._ real ignorance, and false persuasion of knowledge, which therefore descries no difficulties.
The second, or imperfect knowledge struggling with difficulties, is represented by the Platonic negative dialogues.
The third--or perfect knowledge victorious over difficulties--will be found in the following pages marked by the character [Greek: to\ du/nasthai lo/gon dido/nai kai\ de/chesthai].
You do not possess "perfect knowledge," until you are able to answer, with unfaltering promptitude and consistency, all the questions of a Sokratic cross-examiner--and to administer effectively the like cross-examination yourself, for the purpose of testing others.
[Greek: O(\lôs de\ sêmei=on tou= ei)do/tos to\ du/nasthai dida/skein e)/stin.]
(Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
981, b.
8.)
Perfect knowledge, corresponding to this definition, will not be found manifested in Plato.
Instead of it, we note in his latter years the lawgiver's assumed infallibility.]
Moreover, I deal with each dialogue as a separate composition.
Each represents the intellectual scope and impulse of a peculiar moment, which may or may not be in harmony with the rest.
Plato would have protested not less earnestly than Cicero,[5] against those who sought to foreclose debate, in the grave and arduous struggles for searching out reasoned truth--and to bind down the free inspirations of his intellect in one dialogue, by appealing to sentence already pronounced in another preceding.
Of two inconsistent trains of reasoning, both cannot indeed be true--but both are often useful to be known and studied: and the philosopher, who professes to master the theory of his subject, ought not to be a stranger to either.
All minds athirst for reasoned truth will be greatly aided in forming their opinions by the number of points which Plato suggests, though they find little which he himself settles for them finally.
[Footnote 5: Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
v. 11, 38.
The collocutor remarks that what Cicero says is inconsistent with what he (Cicero) had written in the fourth book De Finibus.
To which Cicero replies:-"Tu quidem tabellis obsignatis agis mecum, et testificaris, quid dixerim aliquando aut scripserim.
Cum aliis isto modo, qui legibus impositis disputant.
Nos in diem vivimus: quodcunque nostros animos probabilitate percussit, id dicimus: itaque soli sumus liberi."]
There have been various critics, who, on perceiving inconsistencies in Plato, either force them into harmony by a subtle exegêsis, or discard one of them as spurious.
[6] I have not followed either course.
I recognise such inconsistencies, when found, as facts--and even as very interesting facts--in his philosophical character.
To the marked contradiction in the spirit of the Leges, as compared with the earlier Platonic compositions, I have called special attention.
Plato has been called by Plutarch a mixture of Sokrates with Lykurgus.
The two elements are in reality opposite, predominant at different times: Plato begins his career with the confessed ignorance and philosophical negative of Sokrates: he closes it with the peremptory, dictatorial, affirmative of Lykurgus.
[Footnote 6: Since the publication of the first edition of this work, there have appeared valuable commentaries on the philosophy of the late Sir William Hamilton, by Mr. John Stuart Mill, and Mr. Stirling and others.
They have exposed inconsistencies, both grave and numerous, in some parts of Sir William Hamilton's writings as compared with others.
But no one has dreamt of drawing an inference from this fact, that one or other of the inconsistent trains of reasoning must be spurious, falsely ascribed to Sir William Hamilton.
Now in the case of Plato, this same fact of inconsistency is accepted by nearly all his commentators as a sound basis for the inference that both the inconsistent treatises cannot be genuine: though the dramatic character of Plato's writings makes inconsistencies much more easily supposable than in dogmatic treatises such as those of Hamilton.]
To Xenophon, who belongs only in part to my present work, and whose character presents an interesting contrast with Plato, I have devoted a separate chapter.
To the other less celebrated Sokratic Companions also, I have endeavoured to do justice, as far as the scanty means of knowledge permit: to them, especially, because they have generally been misconceived and unduly depreciated.
The present volumes, however, contain only one half of the speculative activity of Hellas during the fourth century B.C.
The second half, in which Aristotle is the hero, remains still wanting.
If my health and energies continue, I hope one day to be able to supply this want: and thus to complete from my own point of view, the history, speculative as well as active, of the Hellenic race, down to the date which I prescribed to myself in the Preface of my History near twenty years ago.
The philosophy of the fourth century B.C.
is peculiarly valuable and interesting, not merely from its intrinsic speculative worth--from the originality and grandeur of its two principal heroes--from its coincidence with the full display of dramatic, rhetorical, artistic genius--but also from a fourth reason not unimportant--because it is purely Hellenic; preceding the development of Alexandria, and the amalgamation of Oriental veins of thought with the inspirations of the Academy or the Lyceum.
The Orontes[7] and the Jordan had not yet begun to flow westward, and to impart their own colour to the waters of Attica and Latium.
Not merely the real world, but also the ideal world, present to the minds of Plato and Aristotle, were purely Hellenic.
Even during the century immediately following, this had ceased to be fully true in respect to the philosophers of Athens: and it became less and less true with each succeeding century.
New foreign centres of rhetoric and literature--Asiatic and Alexandrian Hellenism--were fostered into importance by regal encouragement.
Plato and Aristotle are thus the special representatives of genuine Hellenic philosophy.
The remarkable intellectual ascendancy acquired by them in their own day, and maintained over succeeding centuries, was one main reason why the Hellenic vein was enabled so long to maintain itself, though in impoverished condition, against adverse influences from the East, ever increasing in force.
Plato and Aristotle outlasted all their Pagan successors--successors at once less purely Hellenic and less highly gifted.
And when Saint Jerome, near 750 years after the decease of Plato, commemorated with triumph the victory of unlettered Christians over the accomplishments and genius of Paganism--he illustrated the magnitude of the victory, by singling out Plato and Aristotle as the representatives of vanquished philosophy.
[8] [Footnote 7: Juvenal iii.
62:-"Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes," &c.] [Footnote 8: The passage is a remarkable one, as marking both the effect produced on a Latin scholar by Hebrew studies, and the neglect into which even the greatest writers of classical antiquity had then fallen (about 400 A.D.).
Hieronymus--Comment.
in Epist.
ad Galatas, iii.
5, p. 486-487, ed.
Venet.
1769:-"Sed omnem sermonis elegantiam, et Latini sermonis venustatem, stridor lectionis Hebraicæ sordidavit.
Nostis enim et ipsæ" (_i.e._ Paula and Eustochium, to whom his letter is addressed) "quod plus quam quindecim anni sunt, ex quo in manus meas nunquam Tullius, nunquam Maro, nunquam Gentilium literarum quilibet Auctor ascendit: et si quid forte inde, dum loquimur, obrepit, quasi antiqua per nebulam somnii recordamur.
Quod autem profecerim ex linguæ illius infatigabili studio, aliorum judicio derelinquo: _ego quid in meâ amiserim, scio_ .
.
.
Si quis eloquentiam quærit vel declamationibus delectatur, habet in utrâque linguâ Demosthenem et Tullium, Polemonem et Quintilianum.
Ecclesia Christi non de Academiâ et Lyceo, sed de vili plebeculâ congregata est.
.
.
.
Quotusquisque nunc Aristotelem legit?
Quanti Platonis vel libros novêre vel nomen?
Vix in angulis otiosi eos senes recolunt.
Rusticanos vero et piscatores nostros totus orbis loquitur, universus mundus sonat."]
CONTENTS.
PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
Speculative Philosophy in Greece, before and in the time of Sokrates.
Change in the political condition of Greece during the life of Plato 1 Early Greek mind, satisfied with the belief in polytheistic personal agents, as the real producing causes of phenomena 2 Belief in such agency continued among the general public, even after the various sects of philosophy had arisen 3 Thales, the first Greek who propounded the hypothesis of physical agency in place of personal.
Water, the primordial substance, or [Greek: a)rchê/] 4 Anaximander--laid down as [Greek: a)rchê/] the Infinite or Indeterminate--generation of the elements out of it, by evolution of latent, fundamental contraries--astronomical and geological doctrines _ib._ Anaximenes--adopted Air as [Greek: a)rchê/]--rise of substances out of it, by condensation and rarefaction 7 Pythagoras--his life and career--Pythagorean brotherhood--great political influence which it acquired among the Greco-Italian cities--incurred great enmity, and was violently put down 8 The Pythagoreans continue as a recluse sect, without political power 9 Doctrine of the Pythagoreans--Number the Essence of Things _ib._ The Monas--[Greek: a)rchê/], or principle of Number--geometrical conception of number--symbolical attributes of the first ten numbers, especially of the Dekad 11 Pythagorean Kosmos and Astronomy--geometrical and harmonic laws guiding the movements of the cosmical bodies 12 Music of the Spheres 14 Pythagorean list of fundamental Contraries--Ten opposing pairs _ib._ Eleatic philosophy--Xenophanes 16 His censures upon the received Theogony and religious rites _ib._ His doctrine of Pankosmism; or Pantheism--the whole Kosmos is Ens Unum or God--[Greek: E(\n kai\ Pan].
Non-Ens inadmissible 17 Scepticism of Xenophanes--complaint of philosophy as unsatisfactory 18 His conjectures on physics and astronomy _ib._ Parmenides continues the doctrine of Xenophanes--Ens Parmenideum, self-existent, eternal, unchangeable, extended--Non-Ens, an unmeaning phrase 19 He recognises a region of opinion, phenomenal and relative, apart from Ens 20 Parmenidean ontology--stands completely apart from phenomenology 21 Parmenidean phenomenology--relative and variable 23 Parmenides recognises no truth, but more or less of probability, in phenomenal explanations.--His physical and astronomical conjectures 24 Herakleitus--his obscure style, impressive metaphors, confident and contemptuous dogmatism 26 Doctrine of Herakleitus--perpetual process of generation and destruction--everything flows, nothing stands--transition of the elements into each other backwards and forwards 27 Variety of metaphors employed by Herakleitus, signifying the same general doctrine 28 Nothing permanent except the law of process and implication of contraries--the transmutative force.
Fixity of particulars is an illusion for the most part: so far as it exists, it is a sin against the order of Nature 29 Illustrations by which Herakleitus symbolized his perpetual force, destroying and generating 30 Water--Intermediate between Fire (Air) and Earth 31 Sun and Stars--not solid bodies, but meteoric aggregations dissipated and renewed--Eclipses--[Greek: e)kpu/rôsis], or destruction of the Kosmos by fire 32 His doctrines respecting the human soul and human knowledge.
All wisdom resided in the Universal Reason--individual Reason is worthless 34 By Universal Reason, he did not mean the Reason of most men as it is, but as it ought to be 35 Herakleitus at the opposite pole from Parmenides 37 Empedokles--his doctrine of the four elements and two moving or restraining forces _ib._ Construction of the Kosmos from these elements and forces--action and counteraction of love and enmity.
The Kosmos alternately made and unmade 38 Empedoklean predestined cycle of things--complete empire of Love Sphærus--Empire of Enmity--disengagement or separation of the elements--astronomy and meteorology 39 Formation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and plants 41 Physiology of Empedokles--Procreation--Respiration--movement of the blood 43 Doctrine of effluvia and pores--explanation of perceptions--intercommunication of the elements with the sentient subject--like acting upon like 44 Sense of vision 45 Senses of hearing, smell, taste 46 Empedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the killing of anything that had life.
His belief in the metempsychosis.
Sufferings of life, are an expiation for wrong done during an antecedent life.
Pretensions to magical power 46 Complaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding out truth 47 Theory of Anaxagoras denied--generation and destruction--recognised only mixture and severance of pre-existing kinds of matter 48 Homoeomeries--small particles of diverse kinds of matter, all mixed together _ib._ First condition of things all--the primordial varieties of matter were huddled together in confusion.
[Greek: Nou=s] or reason, distinct from all of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass, setting the constituent particles in movement 49 Movement of rotation in the mass, originated by [Greek: Nou=s] on a small scale, but gradually extending itself.
Like particles congregate together--distinguishable aggregates are formed 50 Nothing (except [Greek: Nou=s]) can be entirely pure or unmixed; but other things may be comparatively pure.
Flesh, Bone, &c., are purer than Air or Earth 51 Theory of Anaxagoras, compared with that of Empedokles 52 Suggested partly by the phenomena of of animal nutrition 53 Chaos common to both Empedokles and Anaxagoras: moving agency, different in one from the other theory 54 [Greek: Nou=s], or mind, postulated by Anaxagoras--how understood by later writers--how intended by Anaxagoras himself _ib._ Plato and Aristotle blame Anaxagoras for deserting his own theory 56 Astronomy and physics of Anaxagoras 57 His geology, meteorology, physiology 58 The doctrines of Anaxagoras were regarded as offensive and impious 59 Diogenes of Apollonia recognises one primordial element 60 Air was the primordial, universal element 61 Air possessed numerous and diverse properties; was eminently modifiable _ib._ Physiology of Diogenes--his description of the veins in the human body 62 Kosmology and Meteorology 64 Leukippus and Demokritus--Atomic theory 65 Long life, varied travels, and numerous compositions, of Demokritus _ib._ Relation between the theory of Demokritus and that of Parmenides 66 Demokritean theory--Atoms Plena and Vacua--Ens and Non-Ens 67 Primordial atoms differed only in magnitude, figure, position, and arrangement--they had no qualities, but their movements and combinations generated qualities 69 Combination of atoms--generating different qualities in the compound 70 All atoms essentially separate from each other 71 All properties of objects, except weight and hardness, were phenomenal and relative to the observer.
Sensation could give no knowledge of the real and absolute _ib._ Reason alone gave true and real knowledge, but very little of it was attainable 72 No separate force required to set the atoms in motion--they moved by an inherent force of their own.
Like atoms naturally tend towards like.
Rotatory motion, the capital fact of the Kosmos 72 Researches of Demokritus on zoology and animal generation 75 His account of mind--he identified it with heat or fire, diffused throughout animals, plants, and nature generally.
Mental particles intermingled throughout all frame with corporeal particles _ib._ Different mental aptitudes attached to different parts of the body 76 Explanation of different sensations and perceptions.
Colours 77 Vision caused by the outflow of effluvia or images from objects.
Hearing 78 Difference of tastes--how explained _ib._ Thought or intelligence--was produced by influx of atoms from without 79 Sensation, obscure knowledge relative to the sentient: Thought, genuine knowledge--absolute, or object _per se_ 80 Idola or images were thrown off from objects, which determined the tone of thoughts, feelings, dreams, divinations, &c. 81 Universality of Demokritus--his ethical views 82 CHAPTER II.
General Remarks on the Earlier Philosophers--Growth of Dialectic--Zeno and Gorgias.
Variety of sects and theories--multiplicity of individual authorities is the characteristic of Greek philosophy 84 These early theorists are not known from their own writings, which have been lost.
Importance of the information of Aristotle about them 85 Abundance of speculative genius and invention--a memorable fact in the Hellenic mind 86 Difficulties which a Grecian philosopher had to overcome--prevalent view of Nature, established, impressive, and misleading _ib._ Views of the Ionic philosophers--compared with the more recent abstractions of Plato and Aristotle 87 Parmenides and Pythagoras--more nearly akin to Plato and Aristotle 89 Advantage derived from this variety of constructive imagination among the Greeks 90 All these theories were found in circulation by Sokrates, Zeno, Plato, and the dialecticians.
Importance of the scrutiny of negative Dialectic 91 The early theorists were studied, along with Plato and Aristotle, in the third and second centuries B.C.
92 Negative attribute common to all the early theorists--little or no dialectic 93 Zeno of Elea--Melissus _ib._ Zeno's Dialectic--he refuted the opponents of Parmenides, by showing that their assumptions led to contradictions and absurdities 93 Consequences of their assumption of Entia Plura Discontinua.
Reductiones ad absurdum 94 Each thing must exist in its own place--Grain of millet not sonorous 95 Zenonian arguments in regard to motion 97 General purpose and result of the Zenonian Dialectic.
Nothing is knowable except the relative 98 Mistake of supposing Zeno's _reductiones ad absurdum_ of an opponent's doctrine, to be contradictions of data generalized from experience 99 Zenonian Dialectic--Platonic Parmenides 100 Views of historians of philosophy, respecting Zeno 101 Absolute and relative--the first, unknowable _ib._ Zeno did not deny motion, as a fact, phenomenal and relative 102 Gorgias the Leontine--did not admit the Absolute, even as conceived by Parmenides 103 His reasonings against the Absolute, either as Ens or Entia _ib._ Ens, incogitable and unknowable 104 Ens, even if granted to be knowable, is still incommunicable to others _ib._ Zeno and Gorgias--contrasted with the earlier Grecian philosophers 105 New character of Grecian philosophy--antithesis of affirmative and negative--proof and disproof _ib._ CHAPTER III.
Other Companions of Sokrates.
Influence exercised by Sokrates over his companions 110 Names of those companions 111 Æschines--Oration of Lysias against him 112 Written Sokratic Dialogues--their general character 114 Relations between the companions of Sokrates--Their proceedings after the death of Sokrates 116 No Sokratic school--each of the companions took a line of his own 117 Eukleides of Megara--he blended Parmenides with Sokrates 118 Doctrine of Eukleides about _Bonum_ 119 The doctrine compared to that of Plato--changes in Plato _ib._ Last doctrine of Plato nearly the same as Eukleides 120 Megaric succession of philosophers.
Eleian or Eretrian succession 121 Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus--Ethical, not transcendental 122 Preponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age 123 Harsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the negative vein _ib._ Negative method in philosophy essential to the controul of the affirmative _ib._ Sokrates--the most persevering and acute Eristic of his age 124 Platonic Parmenides--its extreme negative character 125 The Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and Plato 126 Eubulides--his logical problems or puzzles--difficulty of solving them--many solutions attempted 128 Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to deceive, but to guard against deception 129 If the process of theorising be admissible, it must include negative as well as affirmative 130 Logical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously described by historians of philosophy.
Necessity of a complete collection of difficulties 131 Sophisms propounded by Eubulides.
1.
Mentiens.
2.
The Veiled Man.
3.
Sorites.
4.
Cornutus 133 Causes of error constant--The Megarics were sentinels against them 135 Controversy of the Megarics with Aristotle about Power.
Arguments of Aristotle _ib._ These arguments not valid against the Megarici 136 His argument cited and criticised 137 Potential as distinguished from the Actual--What it is 139 Diodôrus Kronus--his doctrine about [Greek: to\ dunato/n] 140 Sophism of Diodôrus [Greek: O( Kurieu/ôn] 141 Question between Aristotle and Diodôrus, depends upon whether universal regularity of sequence be admitted or denied _ib._ Conclusion of Diodôrus defended by Hobbes--Explanation given by Hobbes 143 Reasonings of Diodôrus--respecting Hypothetical Propositions--respecting Motion.
His difficulties about the _Now_ of time 145 Motion is always present, past, and future 146 Stilpon of Megara--His great celebrity 147 Menedêmus and the Eretriacs 148 Open speech and licence of censure assumed by Menedêmus 149 Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative Logic intermingled _ib._ He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and rigour 150 Doctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic.
He despised music, literature, and physics 151 Constant friendship of Antisthenes with Sokrates--Xenophontic Symposion 152 Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes--His Cynical perfection--striking effect which he produced _ib._ Doctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes--Contempt of pleasure--training and labour required--indifference to literature and geometry 154 Admiration of Epiktêtus for Diogenes, especially for his consistency in acting out his own ethical creed 157 Admiration excited by the asceticism of the Cynics--Asceticism extreme in the East.
Comparison of the Indian Gymnosophists with Diogenes _ib._ The precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were carried into fullest execution by the Cynics 160 Antithesis between Nature and Law or Convention insisted on by the Indian Gymnosophists 162 The Greek Cynics--an order of ascetic or mendicant friars 163 Logical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes--they opposed the Platonic Ideas _ib._ First protest of Nominalism against Realism 164 Doctrine of Antisthenes about predication--He admits no other predication but identical 165 The same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of Aristotle 166 Nominalism of Stilpon.
His reasons against accidental predication 167 Difficulty of understanding how the same predicate could belong to more than one subject 169 Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenides _ib._ Menedêmus disallowed all negative predications 170 Distinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and complex objects.
Simple objects undefinable 171 Remarks of Plato on this doctrine 172 Remarks of Aristotle upon the same _ib._ Later Grecian Cynics--Monimus--Krates--Hipparchia 173 Zeno of Kitium in Cyprus 174 Aristippus--life, character, and doctrine 175 Discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus _ib._ Choice of Hêraklês 177 Illustration afforded of the views of Sokrates respecting Good and Evil _ib._ Comparison of the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic Sokrates 178 Xenophontic Sokrates talking to Aristippus--Kalliklês in Platonic Gorgias 179 Language held by Aristippus--his scheme of life 181 Diversified conversations of Sokrates, according to the character of the hearer 182 Conversation between Sokrates and Aristippus about the Good and Beautiful 184 Remarks on the conversation--Theory of Good 185 Good is relative to human beings and wants in the view of Sokrates _ib._ Aristippus adhered to the doctrine of Sokrates 186 Life and dicta of Aristippus--His type of character _ib._ Aristippus acted conformably to the advice of Sokrates 187 Self mastery and independence--the great aspiration of Aristippus 188 Aristippus compared with Antisthenes and Diogenes--Points of agreement and disagreement between them 190 Attachment of Aristippus to ethics and philosophy--contempt for other studies 192 Aristippus taught as a Sophist.
His reputation thus acquired procured for him the attentions of Dionysius and others 193 Ethical theory of Aristippus and the Kyrenaic philosophers 195 Prudence--good, by reason of the pleasure which it ensured, and of the pains which it was necessary to avoid.
Just and honourable, by law or custom--not by nature 197 Their logical theory--nothing knowable except the phenomenal, our own sensations and feelings--no knowledge of the absolute 197 Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus passed to the Stoics and Epikureans 198 Ethical theory of Aristippus is identical with that of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras 199 Difference in the manner of stating the theory by the two 200 Distinction to be made between a general theory--and the particular application of it made by the theorist to his own tastes and circumstances 201 Kyrenaic theorists after Aristippus 202 Theodôrus--Annikeris--Hegesias _ib._ Hegesias--Low estimation of life--renunciation of pleasure--coincidence with the Cynics 203 Doctrine of Relativity affirmed by the Kyrenaics, as well as by Protagoras 204 CHAPTER IV.
Xenophon.
Xenophon--his character--essentially a man of action and not a theorist--the Sokratic element is in him an accessory 206 Date of Xenophon--probable year of his birth 207 His personal history--He consults Sokrates--takes the opinion of the Delphian oracle 208 His service and command with the Ten Thousand Greeks, afterwards under Agesilaus and the Spartans.--He is banished from Athens 209 His residence at Skillus near Olympia 210 Family of Xenophon--his son Gryllus killed at Mantineia _ib._ Death of Xenophon at Corinth--Story of the Eleian Exegetæ 211 Xenophon different from Plato and the other Sokratic brethren 212 His various works--Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, &c. 213 Ischomachus, hero of the Oekonomikus--ideal of an active citizen, cultivator, husband, house-master, &c. 214 Text upon which Xenophon insists--capital difference between command over subordinates willing and subordinates unwilling 215 Probable circumstances generating these reflections in Xenophon's mind 215 This text affords subjects for the Hieron and Cyropædia--Name of Sokrates not suitable 216 Hieron--Persons of the dialogue--Simonides and Hieron _ib._ Questions put to Hieron, view taken by Simonides.
Answer of Hieron 217 Misery of governing unwilling subjects declared by Hieron 218 Advice to Hieron by Simonides--that he should govern well, and thus make himself beloved by his subjects 219 Probable experience had by Xenophon of the feelings at Olympia against Dionysius 220 Xenophon could not have chosen a Grecian despot to illustrate his theory of the happiness of governing willing subjects 222 Cyropædia--blending of Spartan and Persian customs--Xenophon's experience of Cyrus the Younger _ib._ Portrait of Cyrus the Great--his education--Preface to the Cyropædia 223 Xenophon does not solve his own problem--The governing aptitude and popularity of Cyrus come from nature, not from education 225 Views of Xenophon about public and official training of all citizens 226 Details of (so called) Persian education--Severe discipline--Distribution of four ages 227 Evidence of the good effect of this discipline--Hard and dry condition of the body 228 Exemplary obedience of Cyrus to the public discipline--He had learnt justice well--His award about the two coats--Lesson inculcated upon him by the Justice-Master 229 Xenophon's conception of the Sokratic problems--He does not recognise the Sokratic order of solution of those problems 230 Definition given by Sokrates of Justice--Insufficient to satisfy the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus 231 Biography of Cyrus--constant military success earned by suitable qualities--Variety of characters and situations 232 Generous and amiable qualities of Cyrus.
Abradates and Pantheia 233 Scheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests are completed--Oriental despotism, wisely arranged 234 Persian present reality--is described by Xenophon as thoroughly depraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of Cyrus 236 Xenophon has good experience of military and equestrian proceedings--No experience of finance and commerce 236 Discourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the condition of Athens.
His admiration of active commerce and variety of pursuits _ib._ Recognised poverty among the citizens.
Plan for improvement 238 Advantage of a large number of Metics.
How these may be encouraged _ib._ Proposal to raise by voluntary contributions a large sum to be employed as capital by the city.
Distribution of three oboli per head per day to all the citizens _ib._ Purpose and principle of this distribution 240 Visionary anticipations of Xenophon, financial and commercial 241 Xenophon exhorts his countrymen to maintain peace 243 Difference of the latest compositions of Xenophon and Plato, from their point of view in the earlier 244 CHAPTER V. Life of Plato.
Scanty information about Plato's life 246 His birth, parentage, and early education 247 Early relations of Plato with Sokrates 248 Plato's youth--service as a citizen and soldier 249 Period of political ambition 251 He becomes disgusted with politics 252 He retires from Athens after the death of Sokrates--his travels 253 His permanent establishment at Athens--386 B.C.
_ib._ He commences his teaching at the Academy 254 Plato as a teacher--pupils numerous and wealthy, from different cities 255 Visit of Plato to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse, 367 B.C.
Second visit to the same--mortifying failure 258 Expedition of Dion against Dionysius--sympathies of Plato and the Academy 259 Success, misconduct, and death of Dion _ib._ Death of Plato, aged 80, 347 B.C.
260 Scholars of Plato--Aristotle _ib._ Little known about Plato's personal history 262 CHAPTER VI.
Platonic Canon, as Recognised by Thrasyllus.
Platonic Canon--Ancient and modern discussions 264 Canon established by Thrasyllus.
Presumption in its favour 265 Fixed residence and school at Athens--founded by Plato and transmitted to successors _ib._ Importance of this foundation.
Preservation of Plato's manuscripts.
School library 266 Security provided by the school for distinguishing what were Plato's genuine writings 267 Unfinished fragments and preparatory sketches, preserved and published after Plato's death 268 Peripatetic school at the Lykeum--its composition and arrangement 269 Peripatetic school library, its removal from Athens to Skêpsis--its ultimate restitution in a damaged state to Athens, then to Rome 270 Inconvenience to the Peripatetic school from the loss of its library _ib._ Advantage to the Platonic school from having preserved its MSS.
272 Conditions favourable, for preserving the genuine works of Plato _ib._ Historical facts as to their preservation _ib._ Arrangement of them into Trilogies, by Aristophanes 273 Aristophanes, librarian at the Alexandrine library _ib._ Plato's works in the Alexandrine library, before the time of Aristophanes 274 Kallimachus--predecessor of Aristophanes--his published Tables of authors whose works were in the library 275 Large and rapid accumulation of the Alexandrine Library _ib._ Plato's works--in the library at the time of Kallimachus 276 First formation of the library--intended as a copy of the Platonic and Aristotelian [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens 277 Favour of Ptolemy Soter towards the philosophers at Athens 279 Demetrius Phalereus--his history and character _ib._ He was chief agent in the first establishment of the Alexandrine Library 280 Proceedings of Demetrius in beginning to collect the library 282 Certainty that the works of Plato and Aristotle were among the earliest acquisitions made by him for the library 283 Large expenses incurred by the Ptolemies for procuring good MSS.
285 Catalogue of Platonic works, prepared by Aristophanes, is trustworthy _ib._ No canonical or exclusive order of the Platonic dialogues, when arranged by Aristophanes 286 Other libraries and literary centres, besides Alexandria, in which spurious Platonic works might get footing _ib._ Other critics, besides Aristophanes, proposed different arrangements of the Platonic dialogues 287 Panætius, the Stoic--considered the Phædon to be spurious--earliest known example of a Platonic dialogue disallowed upon internal grounds 288 Classification of Platonic works by the rhetor Thrasyllus--dramatic--philosophical 289 Dramatic principle--Tetralogies _ib._ Philosophical principle--Dialogues of Search--Dialogues of Exposition 291 Incongruity and repugnance of the two classifications 294 Dramatic principle of classification--was inherited by Thrasyllus from Aristophanes 295 Authority of the Alexandrine library--editions of Plato published, with the Alexandrine critical marks _ib._ Thrasyllus followed the Alexandrine library and Aristophanes, as to genuine Platonic works 296 Ten spurious dialogues, rejected by all other critics as well as by Thrasyllus--evidence that these critics followed the common authority of the Alexandrine library 297 Thrasyllus did not follow an internal sentiment of his own in rejecting dialogues as spurious 298 Results as to the trustworthiness of the Thrasyllean Canon 299 CHAPTER VII.
Platonic Canon, as Appreciated and Modified by Modern Critics.
The Canon of Thrasyllus continued to be generally acknowledged, by the Neo-Platonists, as well as by Ficinus and the succeeding critics after the revival of learning 301 Serranus--his six Syzygies--left the aggregate Canon unchanged, Tennemann--importance assigned to the Phædrus 302 Schleiermacher--new theory about the purposes of Plato.
One philosophical scheme, conceived by Plato from the beginning--essential order and interdependence of the dialogues, as contributing to the full execution of this scheme.
Some dialogues not constituent items in the series, but lying alongside of it.
Order of arrangement 303 Theory of Ast--he denies the reality of any preconceived scheme--considers the dialogues as distinct philosophical dramas 304 His order of arrangement.
He admits only fourteen dialogues as genuine, rejecting all the rest 305 Socher agrees with Ast in denying preconceived scheme--his arrangement of the dialogues, differing from both Ast and Schleiermacher--he rejects as spurious Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias, with many others 306 Schleiermacher and Ast both consider Phædrus and Protagoras as early compositions--Socher puts Protagoras into the second period, Phædrus into the third 307 K. F. Hermann--Stallbaum--both of them consider the Phædrus as a late dialogue--both of them deny preconceived order and system--their arrangements of the dialogues--they admit new and varying philosophical points of view _ib._ They reject several dialogues 309 Steinhart--agrees in rejecting Schleiermacher's fundamental postulate--his arrangement of the dialogues--considers the Phædrus as late in order--rejects several _ib._ Susemihl--coincides to a great degree with K. F. Hermann--his order of arrangement 310 Edward Munk--adopts a different principle of arrangement, founded upon the different period which each dialogue exhibits of the life, philosophical growth, and old age, of Sokrates--his arrangement, founded on this principle.
He distinguishes the chronological order of composition from the place allotted to each dialogue in the systematic plan 311 Views of Ueberweg--attempt to reconcile Schleiermacher and Hermann--admits the preconceived purpose for the later dialogues, composed after the foundation of the school, but not for the earlier 313 His opinions as to authenticity and chronology of the dialogues, He rejects Hippias Major, Erastæ, Theagês, Kleitophon, Parmenidês: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron and Menexenus 314 Other Platonic critics--great dissensions about scheme and order of the dialogues 316 Contrast of different points of view instructive--but no solution has been obtained _ib._ The problem incapable of solution.
Extent and novelty of the theory propounded by Schleiermacher--slenderness of his proofs 317 Schleiermacher's hypothesis includes a preconceived scheme, and a peremptory order of interdependence among the dialogues 318 Assumptions of Schleiermacher respecting the Phædrus inadmissible 319 Neither Schleiermacher, nor any other critic, has as yet produced any tolerable proof for an internal theory of the Platonic dialogues _ib._ Munk's theory is the most ambitious, and the most gratuitous, next to Schleiermacher's 320 The age assigned to Sokrates in any dialogue is a circumstance of little moment _ib._ No intentional sequence or interdependence of the dialogues can be made out 322 Principle of arrangement adopted by Hermann is reasonable--successive changes in Plato's point of view: but we cannot explain either the order or the causes of these changes _ib._ Hermann's view more tenable than Schleiermacher's 323 Small number of certainties, or even reasonable presumptions, as to date or order of the dialogues 324 Trilogies indicated by Plato himself 325 Positive dates of all the dialogues--unknown 326 When did Plato begin to compose?
Not till after the death of Sokrates _ib._ Reasons for this opinion.
Labour of the composition--does not consist with youth of the author 327 Reasons founded on the personality of Sokrates, and his relations with Plato 328 Reasons, founded on the early life, character, and position of Plato 330 Plato's early life--active by necessity, and to some extent ambitious 331 Plato did not retire from political life until after the restoration of the democracy, nor devote himself to philosophy until after the death of Sokrates 333 All Plato's dialogues were composed during the fifty-one years after the death of Sokrates 334 The Thrasyllean Canon is more worthy of trust than the modern critical theories by which it has been condemned 335 Unsafe grounds upon which those theories proceed 336 Opinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this 337 Any true theory of Plato must recognise all his varieties, and must be based upon all the works in the Canon, not upon some to the exclusion of the rest 339 CHAPTER VIII.
Platonic Compositions Generally.
Variety and abundance visible in Plato's writings 342 Plato both sceptical and dogmatical _ib._ Poetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in all 343 Form of dialogue--universal to this extent, that Plato never speaks in his own name 344 No one common characteristic pervading all Plato's works _ib._ The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but also lecturer and president of a school.
In this last important function he is scarcely at all known to us.
Notes of his lectures taken by Aristotle 346 Plato's lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental.
Effect which they produced on the auditors 347 They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors.
They coincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas 348 The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more transcendental than Plato's other lectures 349 Plato's Epistles--in them only he speaks in his own person _ib._ Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to philosophical doctrine 350 Letters of Plato to Dionysius II.
about philosophy.
His anxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared minds 351 He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative exposition of his own philosophical doctrine 352 He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of geometrical teaching.
Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at each of these stages 353 No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of error 355 Relations of Plato with Dionysius II.
and the friends of the deceased Dion.
Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound Plato's doctrines _ib._ Impossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by Plato; the assumption intelligible in his day 357 Standard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the expository process.--Power of sustaining a Sokratic cross-examination 358 Plato never published any of the lectures which he delivered at the Academy _ib._ Plato would never publish his philosophical opinions in his own name; but he may have published them in the dialogues under the name of others 360 Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown 361 Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still useful--Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition _ib._ Dialogues of Exposition--present affirmative result.
Dialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute 362 The distribution coincides mainly with that of Aristotle--Dialectic, Demonstrative 363 Classification of Thrasyllus in its details.
He applies his own principles erroneously 364 The classification, as it would stand, if his principles were applied correctly 365 Preponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over the expository and dogmatical 366 Dialogues of Search--sub-classes among them recognised by Thrasyllus--Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c. _ib._ Philosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative teaching, positive results, direct proofs _ib._ The Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and teaching--assume truth to be unknown to all alike--follow a process devious as well as fruitless 367 The questioner has no predetermined course, but follows the lead given by the respondent in his answers _ib._ Relation of teacher and learner.
Appeal to authority is suppressed 368 In the modern world the search for truth is put out of sight.
Every writer or talker professes to have already found it, and to proclaim it to others 369 The search for truth by various interlocutors was a recognised process in the Sokratic age.
Acute negative Dialectic of Sokrates 370 Negative procedure supposed to be represented by the Sophists and the Megarici; discouraged and censured by historians of philosophy 371 Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure: absolute necessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth.
Parmenidês of Plato 372 Sokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable by itself, and separately.
His theory of the natural state of the human mind; not ignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge 373 Declaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant mission to make war against the false persuasion of knowledge 374 Opposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts 375 The Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves.
Mistake of supposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior affirmative end, not declared _ib._ False persuasion of knowledge--had reference to topics social, political, ethical 376 To those topics, on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, consecrated and traditional, peculiar to itself.
The local creed, which is never formally proclaimed or taught, but is enforced unconsciously by every one upon every one else.
Omnipotence of King Nomos 377 Small minority of exceptional individual minds, who do not yield to the established orthodoxy, but insist on exercising their own judgment 382 Early appearance of a few free-judging individuals, or free-thinkers in Greece 384 Rise of Dialectic--Effect of the Drama and the Dikastery 386 Application of Negative scrutiny to ethical and social topics by Sokrates _ib._ Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the right of satisfaction for his own individual reason 386 Aversion of the Athenian public to the negative procedure of Sokrates.
Mistake of supposing that that negative procedure belongs peculiarly to the Sophists and the Megarici 387 The same charges which the historians of philosophy bring against the Sophists were brought by contemporary Athenians against Sokrates.
They represent the standing dislike of free inquiry, usual with an orthodox public 388 Aversion towards Sokrates aggravated by his extreme publicity of speech.
His declaration, that false persuasion of knowledge is universal; must be understood as a basis in appreciating Plato's Dialogues of Search 393 Result called _Knowledge_, which Plato aspires to.
Power of going through a Sokratic cross-examination; not attainable except through the Platonic process and method 396 Platonic process adapted to Platonic topics--man and society 397 Plato does not provide solutions for the difficulties which he has raised.
The affirmative and negative veins are in him completely distinct.
His dogmas are enunciations _à priori_ of some impressive sentiment 399 Hypothesis--that Plato had solved all his own difficulties for himself; but that he communicated the solution only to a few select auditors in oral lectures--Untenable 401 Characteristic of the oral lectures--that they were delivered in Plato's own name.
In what other respects they departed from the dialogues, we cannot say 402 Apart from any result, Plato has an interest in the process of search and debate _per se_.
Protracted enquiry is a valuable privilege, not a tiresome obligation 403 Plato has done more than any one else to make the process of enquiry interesting to others, as it was to himself 405 Process of generalisation always kept in view and illustrated throughout the Platonic Dialogues of Search--general terms and propositions made subjects of conscious analysis 406 The Dialogues must be reviewed as distinct compositions by the same author, illustrating each other, but without assignable inter-dependence 407 Order of the Dialogues, chosen for bringing them under separate review.
Apology will come first; Timæus, Kritias, Leges, Epinomis last _ib._ Kriton and Euthyphron come immediately after Apology.
The intermediate dialogues present no convincing grounds for any determinate order 408 CHAPTER IX.
Apology of Sokrates.
The Apology is the real defence delivered by Sokrates before the Dikasts, reported by Plato, without intentional transformation 410 Even if it be Plato's own composition, it comes naturally first in the review of his dialogues 411 General character of the Apology--Sentiments entertained towards Sokrates at Athens 412 Declaration from the Delphian oracle respecting the wisdom of Sokrates, interpreted by him as a mission to cross-examine the citizens generally--The oracle is proved to be true 413 False persuasion of wisdom is universal--the God alone is wise 414 Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the cross-examining mission imposed upon him by the God _ib._ He had devoted his life to the execution of this mission, and he intended to persevere in spite of obloquy or danger 416 He disclaims the function of a teacher--he cannot teach, for he is not wiser than others.
He differs from others by being conscious of his own ignorance _ib._ He does not know where competent teachers can be found.
He is perpetually seeking for them, but in vain 417 Impression made by the Platonic Apology on Zeno the Stoic 418 Extent of efficacious influence claimed by Sokrates for himself--exemplified by Plato throughout the Dialogues of Search--Xenophon and Plato enlarge it _ib._ Assumption by modern critics, that Sokrates is a positive teacher, employing indirect methods for the inculcation of theories of his own 419 Incorrectness of such assumption--the Sokratic Elenchus does not furnish a solution, but works upon the mind of the respondent, stimulating him to seek for a solution of his own 420 Value and importance of this process--stimulating active individual minds to theorise each for itself 421 View taken by Sokrates about death.
Other men profess to know what it is, and think it a great misfortune: he does not know 422 Reliance of Sokrates on his own individual reason, whether agreeing or disagreeing with others 423 Formidable efficacy of established public beliefs, generated without any ostensible author 424 CHAPTER X. Kriton.
General purpose of the Kriton 425 Subject of the dialogue--interlocutors _ib._ Answer of Sokrates to the appeal made by Kriton 426 He declares that the judgment of the general public is not worthy of trust: he appeals to the judgment of the one Expert, who is wise on the matter in debate _ib._ Principles laid down by Sokrates for determining the question with Kriton.
Is the proceeding recommended just or unjust?
Never in any case to act unjustly 427 Sokrates admits that few will agree with him, and that most persons hold the opposite opinion: but he affirms that the point is cardinal _ib._ Pleading supposed to be addressed by the Laws of Athens to Sokrates, demanding from him implicit obedience 428 Purpose of Plato in this pleading--to present the dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which the Apology had presented--unqualified submission instead of defiance _ib._ Harangue of Sokrates delivered in the name of the Laws, would have been applauded by all the democratical patriots of Athens 430 The harangue insists upon topics common to Sokrates with other citizens, overlooking the specialties of his character 431 Still Sokrates is represented as adopting the resolution to obey, from his own conviction; by a reason which weighs with him, but which would not weigh with others _ib._ The harangue is not a corollary from this Sokratic reason, but represents feelings common among Athenian citizens 432 Emphatic declaration of the authority of individual reason and conscience, for the individual himself _ib._ The Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical.
Difference between Rhetoric and Dialectic 433 The Kriton makes powerful appeal to the emotions, but overlooks the ratiocinative difficulties, or supposes them to be solved _ib._ Incompetence of the general public or [Greek: i)diô=tai]--appeal to the professional Expert 435 Procedure of Sokrates after this comparison has been declared--he does not name who the trustworthy Expert is _ib._ Sokrates acts as the Expert himself: he finds authority in his own reason and conscience 436 CHAPTER XI Euthyphron.
Situation supposed in the dialogue--interlocutors 437 Indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates--Antipathy of the Athenians towards those who spread heretical opinions 437 Euthyphron recounts that he is prosecuting an indictment for murder against his own father--Displeasure of his friends at the proceeding 438 Euthyphron expresses full confidence that this step of his is both required and warranted by piety or holiness.
Sokrates asks him--What is Holiness?
439 Euthyphron alludes to the punishment of Uranus by his son Kronus and of Kronus by his son Zeus 440 Sokrates intimates his own hesitation in believing these stories of discord among the Gods.
Euthyphron declares his full belief in them, as well as in many similar narratives, not in so much circulation _ib._ Bearing of this dialogue on the relative position of Sokrates and the Athenian public 441 Dramatic moral set forth by Aristophanes against Sokrates and the freethinkers, is here retorted by Plato against the orthodox champion 442 Sequel of the dialogue--Euthyphron gives a particular example as the reply to a general question 444 Such mistake frequent in dialectic discussion _ib._ First general answer given by Euthyphron--that which is pleasing to the Gods is holy.
Comments of Sokrates thereon 445 To be loved by the Gods is not the essence of the Holy--they love it because it is holy.
In what then does its essence consist?
Perplexity of Euthyphron 446 Sokrates suggests a new answer.
The Holy is one branch or variety of the Just.
It is that branch which concerns ministration by men to the Gods 447 Ministration to the Gods?
How?
To what purpose?
_ib._ Holiness--rectitude in sacrifice and prayer--right traffic between men and the Gods 448 This will not stand--the Gods gain nothing--they receive from men marks of honour and gratitude--they are pleased therewith--the Holy, therefore, must be that which is pleasing to the Gods 448 This is the same explanation which was before declared insufficient.
A fresh explanation is required from Euthyphron.
He breaks off the dialogue _ib._ Sokratic spirit of the dialogue--confessed ignorance applying the Elenchus to false persuasion of knowledge 449 The questions always difficult, often impossible to answer.
Sokrates is unable to answer them, though he exposes the bad answers of others _ib._ Objections of Theopompus to the Platonic procedure 450 Objective view of Ethics, distinguished by Sokrates from the subjective 451 Subjective unanimity coincident with objective dissent _ib._ Cross-examination brought to bear upon this mental condition by Sokrates--position of Sokrates and Plato in regard to it 452 The Holy--it has an essential characteristic--what is this?--not the fact that it is loved by the Gods--this is true, but is not its constituent essence 454 Views of the Xenophontic Sokrates respecting the Holy--different from those of the Platonic Sokrates--he disallows any common absolute general type of the Holy--he recognises an indefinite variety of types, discordant and relative _ib._ The Holy a branch of the Just--not tenable as a definition, but useful as bringing to view the subordination of logical terms 455 The Euthyphron represents Plato's way of replying to the charge of impiety, preferred by Melêtus against Sokrates--comparison with Xenophon's way of replying _ib._ CHAPTER I. PLATO.
PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.
[Side-note: Change in the political condition of Greece during the life of Plato.]
The life of Plato extends from 427-347 B.C.
He was born in the fourth year of the Peloponnesian war, and he died at the age of 80, about the time when Olynthus was taken by the Macedonian Philip.
The last years of his life thus witnessed a melancholy breach in the integrity of the Hellenic world, and even exhibited data from which a far-sighted Hellenic politician might have anticipated something like the coming subjugation, realised afterwards by the victory of Philip at Chæroneia.
But during the first half of Plato's life, no such anticipations seemed even within the limits of possibility.
The forces of Hellas, though discordant among themselves, were superabundant as to defensive efficacy, and were disposed rather to aggression against foreign enemies, especially against a country then so little formidable as Macedonia.
It was under this contemplation of Hellas self-acting and self-sufficing--an aggregate of cities, each a political unit, yet held together by strong ties of race, language, religion, and common feelings of various kinds--that the mind of Plato was both formed and matured.
In appreciating, as far as our scanty evidence allows, the circumstances which determined his intellectual and speculative character, I shall be compelled to touch briefly upon the various philosophical theories which were propounded anterior to Sokrates--as well as to repeat some matters already brought to view in the sixteenth, sixty-seventh, and sixty-eighth chapters of my History of Greece.
[Side-note: Early Greek mind, satisfied with the belief in polytheistic personal agents as the real producing causes of phenomena.]
To us, as to Herodotus, in his day, the philosophical speculation of the Greeks begins with the theology and cosmology of Homer and Hesiod.
The series of divine persons and attributes, and generations presented by these poets, and especially the Theogony of Hesiod, supplied at one time full satisfaction to the curiosity of the Greeks respecting the past history and present agencies of the world around them.
In the emphatic censure bestowed by Herakleitus on the poets and philosophers who preceded him, as having much knowledge but no sense--he includes Hesiod, as well as Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hekatæus: upon Homer and Archilochus he is still more severe, declaring that they ought to be banished from the public festivals and scourged.
[1] The sentiment of curiosity as it then existed was only secondary and derivative, arising out of some of the strong primary or personal sentiments--fear or hope, antipathy or sympathy,--impression of present weakness,--unsatisfied appetites and longings,--wonder and awe under the presence of the terror-striking phenomena of nature, &c. Under this state of the mind, when problems suggested themselves for solution, the answers afforded by Polytheism gave more satisfaction than could have been afforded by any other hypothesis.
Among the indefinite multitude of invisible, personal, quasi-human agents, with different attributes and dispositions, some one could be found to account for every perplexing phenomenon.
The question asked was, not What are the antecedent conditions or causes of rain, thunder, or earthquakes, but Who rains and thunders?
Who produces earthquakes?
[2] The Hesiodic Greek was satisfied when informed that it was Zeus or Poseidon.
To be told of physical agencies would have appeared to him not merely unsatisfactory, but absurd, ridiculous, and impious.
It was the task of a poet like Hesiod to clothe this general polytheistic sentiment in suitable details: to describe the various Gods, Goddesses, Demigods, and other quasi-human agents, with their characteristic attributes, with illustrative adventures, and with sufficient relations of sympathy and subordination among each other, to connect them in men's imaginations as members of the same brotherhood.
Okeanus, Gæa, Uranus, Helios, Selênê,--Zeus, Poseidon, Hades--Apollo and Artemis, Dionysus and Aphroditê--these and many other divine personal agents, were invoked as the producing and sustaining forces in nature, the past history of which was contained in their filiations or contests.
Anterior to all of them, the primordial matter or person, was Chaos.
[Footnote 1: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
1.
[Greek: Polumathi/ê no/on ou) dida/skei;] ([Greek: ou) phu/ei,] ap.
Proclum in Platon.
Timæ.
p. 31 F., p. 72, ed.
Schneider), [Greek: Ê(si/odon ga\r a)\n e)di/daxe kai\ Puthago/rên, auti/s te Xenopha/nea/ te kai\ E(katai=on; to/n th' O(/mêron e)/phasken a)/xion ei)=nai e)k tô=n agô/nôn e)kba/llesthai kai\ rhapi/zesthai, kai\ A)rchi/lochon o(moi/ôs.]
[Footnote 2: Aristophanes, Nubes, 368, [Greek: A)lla\ ti/s u(/ei?]
Herodot.
vii.
129.]
[Side-note: Belief in such agency continued among the general public, even after the various sects of philosophy had arisen.]
Hesiod represents the point of view ancient and popular (to use Aristotle's expression[3]) among the Greeks, from whence all their philosophical speculation took its departure; and which continued throughout their history, to underlie all the philosophical speculations, as the faith of the ordinary public who neither frequented the schools nor conversed with philosophers.
While Aristophanes, speaking in the name of this popular faith, denounces and derides Sokrates as a searcher, alike foolish and irreligious, after astronomical and physical causes--Sokrates himself not only denies the truth of the allegation, but adopts as his own the sentiment which dictated it; proclaiming Anaxagoras and others to be culpable for prying into mysteries which the Gods intentionally kept hidden.
[4] The repugnance felt by a numerous public, against scientific explanation--as eliminating the divine agents and substituting in their place irrational causes,[5]--was a permanent fact of which philosophers were always obliged to take account, and which modified the tone of their speculations without being powerful enough to repress them.
[Footnote 3: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
8, p. 989, a.
10.
[Greek: Phêsi\ de/ kai\ Ê(si/odos tê\n gê=n prô/tên gene/sthai tô=n sôma/tôn; ou(/tôs a)rchai/an kai\ dêmotikê\n sumbe/bêken ei)=nai tê\n u(po/lêpsin.]
Again in the beginning of the second book of the Meteorologica, Aristotle contrasts the ancient and primitive theology with the "human wisdom" which grew up subsequently: [Greek: Oi( a)rchai=oi kai\ diatri/bontes peri\ ta\s theologi/as--oi( sophô/teroi tê\n a)nthrôpi/nên sophi/an] (Meteor, ii.
i. p. 353, a.)]
[Footnote 4: Xenophon, Memor.
iv.
7, 5; i.
1, 11-15.
Plato, Apolog.
p. 26 E.] [Footnote 5: Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23.
[Greek: Ou) ga\r ê)neichonto tou\s phusikou\s kai\ meteôrole/schas to/te kaloume/nous, ô(s ei)s ai)ti/as a)lo/gous kai\ duna/meis a)pronoê/tous kai\ katênagkasme/na pa/thê diatri/bontas to\ thei=on.]]
[Side-note: Thales, the first Greek who propounded the hypothesis of physical agency in place of personal.
Water, the primordial substance, or [Greek: a)rchê/].]
Even in the sixth century B.C., when the habit of composing in prose was first introduced, Pherekydes and Akusilaus still continued in their prose the theogony, or the mythical cosmogony, of Hesiod and the other old Poets: while Epimenides and the Orphic poets put forth different theogonies, blended with mystical dogmas.
It was, however, in the same century, and in the first half of it, that Thales of Miletus (620-560 B.C.
), set the example of a new vein of thought.
Instead of the Homeric Okeanus, father of all things, Thales assumed the material substance, Water, as the primordial matter and the universal substratum of everything in nature.
By various transmutations, all other substances were generated from water; all of them, when destroyed, returned into water.
Like the old poets, Thales conceived the surface of the earth to be flat and round; but he did not, like them, regard it as stretching down to the depths of Tartarus: he supposed it to be flat and shallow, floating on the immensity of the watery expanse or Ocean.
[6] This is the main feature of the Thaletian hypothesis, about which, however, its author seems to have left no writing.
Aristotle says little about Thales, and that little in a tone of so much doubt,[7] that we can hardly confide in the opinions and discoveries ascribed to him by others.
[8] [Footnote 6: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
3, p. 983, b.
21.
De Coelo, ii.
13, p. 294, a.
29.
[Greek: Thalê=s, o( tê=s toiau/tês a)rchêgo\s philosophi/as], &c. Seneca, Natural.
Quæst.
vi.
6.
Pherekydes, Epimenides, &c., were contemporary with the earliest Ionic philosophers (Brandis, Handbuch der Gesch.
der Gr.-Röm.
Phil., s. 23).
According to Plutarch (Aquæ et Ignis Comparatio, p. 955, init.
), most persons believed that Hesiod, by the word Chaos, meant Water.
Zeno the Stoic adopted this interpretation (Schol.
Apollon.
Rhod.
i.
498).
On the other hand, Bacchylides the poet, and after him Zenodotus, called Air by the name Chaos (Schol.
Hesiod.
Theogon.
p. 392, Gaisf.).
Hermann considers that the Hesiodic Chaos means empty space (see note, Brandis, Handb.
d. Gesch.
d. Gr.-Röm.
Phil., vol.
i., p.
71).]
[Footnote 7: See two passages in Aristotle De Animâ, i.
2, and i.
5.]
[Footnote 8: Cicero says (De Naturâ Deorum, i.
10), "Thales--aquam dixit esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem, quæ ex aquâ cuncta fingeret."
That the latter half of this Ciceronian statement, respecting the doctrines of Thales, is at least unfounded, and probably erroneous, is recognised by Preller, Brandis, and Zeller.
Preller, Histor.
Philos.
Græc.
ex Fontium Locis Contexta, sect.
15; Brandis, Handbuch der Gr.-R. Philos.
sect.
31, p. 118; Zeller, Die Philos.
der Griechen, vol.
i., p. 151, ed.
2.
It is stated by Herodotus that Thales foretold the year of the memorable solar eclipse which happened during the battle between the Medes and the Lydians (Herod.
i.
74).
This eclipse seems to have occurred in B.C.
585, according to the best recent astronomical enquiries by Professor Airy.]
[Side-note: Anaximander--laid down as [Greek: a)rchê/] the Infinite or indeterminate--generation of the elements out of it, by evolution of latent fundamental contraries--astronomical and geological doctrines.]
The next of the Ionic philosophers, and the first who published his opinions in writing, was Anaximander, of Miletus, the countryman and younger contemporary of Thales (570-520 B.C.).
He too searched for an [Greek: A)rchê/], a primordial Something or principle, self-existent and comprehending in its own nature a generative, motive, or transmutative force.
Not thinking that water, or any other known and definite substance fulfilled these conditions, he adopted as the foundation of his hypothesis a substance which he called the Infinite or Indeterminate.
Under this name he conceived Body simply, without any positive or determinate properties, yet including the fundamental contraries, Hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, &c., in a potential or latent state, including farther a self-changing and self-developing force,[9] and being moreover immortal and indestructible.
[10] By this inherent force, and by the evolution of one or more of these dormant contrary qualities, were generated the various definite substances of nature--Air, Fire, Water, &c. But every determinate substance thus generated was, after a certain time, destroyed and resolved again into the Indeterminate mass.
"From thence all substances proceed, and into this they relapse: each in its turn thus making atonement to the others, and suffering the penalty of injustice.
"[11] Anaximander conceived separate existence (determinate and particular existence, apart from the indeterminate and universal) as an unjust privilege, not to be tolerated except for a time, and requiring atonement even for that.
As this process of alternate generation and destruction was unceasing, so nothing less than an Infinite could supply material for it.
Earth, Water, Air, Fire, having been generated, the two former, being cold and heavy, remained at the bottom, while the two latter ascended.
Fire formed the exterior circle, encompassing the air like bark round a tree: this peripheral fire was broken up and aggregated into separate masses, composing the sun, moon, and stars.
The sphere of the fixed stars was nearest to the earth: that of the moon next above it: that of the sun highest of all.
The sun and moon were circular bodies twenty-eight times larger than the earth: but the visible part of them was only an opening in the centre, through which[12] the fire or light behind was seen.
All these spheres revolved round the earth, which was at first semi-fluid or mud, but became dry and solid through the heat of the sun.
It was in shape like the section of a cylinder, with a depth equal to one-third of its breadth or horizontal surface, on which men and animals live.
It was in the centre of the Kosmos; it remained stationary because of its equal distance from all parts of the outer revolving spheres; there was no cause determining it to move upward rather than downward or sideways, therefore it remained still.
[13] Its exhalations nourished the fire in the peripheral regions of the Kosmos.
Animals were produced from the primitive muddy fluid of the earth: first, fishes and other lower animals--next, in process of time man, when circumstances permitted his development.
[14] We learn farther respecting the doctrines of Anaximander, that he proposed physical explanations of thunder, lightning, and other meteorological phenomena:[15] memorable as the earliest attempt of speculation in that department, at a time when such events inspired the strongest religious awe, and were regarded as the most especial manifestations of purposes of the Gods.
He is said also to have been the first who tried to represent the surface and divisions of the earth on a brazen plate, the earliest rudiment of a map or chart.
[16] [Footnote 9: See Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, vol.
i. p. 157, seq., ed.
2nd.
Anaximander conceived [Greek: to\ a)peiron] as _infinite matter_; the Pythagoreans and Plato conceived it as a distinct nature by itself--as a subject, not as a predicate (Aristotel.
Physic.
iii.
4, p. 203, a.
2).
About these fundamental contraries, Aristotle says (Physic.
i.
4, init.
): [Greek: oi( d' e)k tou e(no\s e)nou/sas ta\s e)nantio/têtas e)kkri/nesthai, ô(/sper A)naxi/mandro/s phêsi].
Which Simplikius explains, [Greek: e)nantio/tête/s ei)si, thermo\n, psuchro\n, xêro\n, u(gro\n, kai\ ai( a)/llai], &c. Compare also Schleiermacher, "Ueber Anaximandros," in his Vermischte Schriften, vol.
ii.
p. 178, seq.
Deutinger (Gesch.
der Philos.
vol.
i. p. 165, Regensb.
1852) maintains that this [Greek: e)/krisis] of contraries is at variance with the hypothesis of Anaximander, and has been erroneously ascribed to him.
But the testimony is sufficiently good to outweigh this suspicion.]
[Footnote 10: Anaximander spoke of his [Greek: a)/peiron] as [Greek: a)tha/naton kai\ a)nô/lethron] (Aristotel.
Physic.
iii.
4, 7, p. 203, b.
15).]
[Footnote 11: Simplikius ad Aristotel.
Physic.
fol.
6 a. apud Preller, Histor.
Philos.
Græco-Rom.
§ 57, [Greek: e)x ô(=n de\ ê( ge/nesi/s e)sti toi=s ou)=si, kai\ tê\n phthora\n ei)s tau)ta\ gi/nesthai kata\ to\ chreô/n; dido/nai ga\r au)ta\ ti/sin kai\ di/kên a)llê/lois tê=s a)diki/as kata\ tê\n tou= chro/nou ta/xin.]
Simplikius remarks upon the poetical character of this phraseology, [Greek: poiêtikôte/rois o)no/masin au)ta\ le/gôn].]
[Footnote 12: Origen.
Philosophumen.
p. 11, ed.
Miller; Plutarch ap.
Eusebium Præp.
Evang.
i.
8, xv.
23-46-47; Stobæus Eclog.
i. p. 510.
Anaximander supposed that eclipses of the sun and moon were caused by the occasional closing of these apertures (Euseb.
xv.
50-61).
The part of the sun visible to us was, in his opinion, not smaller than the earth, and of the purest fire (Diog.
Laert.
ii.
1).
Eudêmus, in his history of astronomy, mentioned Anaximander as the first who had discussed the magnitudes and distances of the celestial bodies (Simplikius ad Aristot.
De Coelo, ap.
Schol.
Brand, p. 497, a.
12).]
[Footnote 13: Aristotel.
Meteorol.
ii.
2, p. 355, a.
21, which is referred by Alexander of Aphrodisias to Anaximander; also De Coelo, ii.
13, p. 295, b.
12.
A doctrine somewhat like it is ascribed even to Thales.
See Alexander's Commentary on Aristotel.
Metaphys.
i. p. 983, b.
17.
The reason here assigned by Anaximander why the Earth remained still, is the earliest example in Greek philosophy of that fallacy called the principle of the Sufficient Reason, so well analysed and elucidated by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his System of Logic, book v., ch.
3, sect.
5.
The remarks which Aristotle himself makes upon it are also very interesting, when he cites the opinion of Anaximander.
Compare Plato, Phædon, p. 109, c. 132, with the citations in Wyttenbach's note.]
[Footnote 14: Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
v.
19.]
[Footnote 15: Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
iii.
3; Seneca, Quæst.
Nat.
ii.
18-19.]
[Footnote 16: Strabo, i. p. 7.
Diogenes Laertius (ii.
1) states that Anaximander affirmed the figure of the earth to be spherical; and Dr. Whewell, in his History of the Inductive Sciences, follows his statement.
But Schleiermacher (Ueber Anaximandros, vol.
ii.
p. 204 of his Sämmtliche Werke) and Gruppe (Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, p. 38) contest this assertion, and prefer that of Plutarch (ap.
Eusebium Præp.
Evang.
i.
8, Placit.
Philos.
iii.
10), which I have adopted in the text.
It is to be remembered that Diogenes himself, in another place (ix.
3, 21), affirms Parmenides to have been the first who propounded the spherical figure of the earth.
See the facts upon this subject collected and discussed in the instructive dissertation of L. Oettinger, Die Vorstellungen der Griechen und Römer ueber die Erde als Himmelskörper, p. 38; Freiburg, 1850.]
[Side-note: Anaximenes--adopted Air as [Greek: a)rchê/]--rise of substances out of it, by condensation and rarefaction.]
The third physical philosopher produced by Miletus, seemingly before the time of her terrible disasters suffered from the Persians after the Ionic revolt between 500-494 B.C., was Anaximenes, who struck out a third hypothesis.
He assumed, as the primordial substance, and as the source of all generation or transmutation, Air, eternal in duration, infinite in extent.
He thus returned to the principle of the Thaletian theory, selecting for his beginning a known substance, though not the same substance as Thales.
To explain how generation of new products was possible (as Anaximander had tried to explain by his theory of evolution of latent contraries), Anaximenes adverted to the facts of condensation and rarefaction, which he connected respectively with cold and heat.
[17] The Infinite Air, possessing and exercising an inherent generative and developing power, perpetually in motion, passing from dense to rare or from rare to dense, became in its utmost rarefaction, Fire and Æther; when passing through successive stages of increased condensation it became first cloud, next water, then earth, and, lastly, in its utmost density, stone.
[18] Surrounding, embracing, and pervading the Kosmos, it also embodied and carried with it a vital principle, which animals obtained from it by inspiration, and which they lost as soon as they ceased to breathe.
[19] Anaximenes included in his treatise (which was written in a clear Ionic dialect) many speculations on astronomy and meteorology, differing widely from those of Anaximander.
He conceived the Earth as a broad, flat, round plate, resting on the air.
[20] Earth, Sun, and Moon were in his view condensed air, the Sun acquiring heat by the extreme and incessant velocity with which he moved.
The Heaven was not an entire hollow sphere encompassing the Earth below as well as above, but a hemisphere covering the Earth above, and revolving laterally round it like a cap round the head.
[21] [Footnote 17: Origen.
Philosophumen.
c. 7; Simplikius in Aristot.
Physic.
f. 32; Brandis, Handb.
d. Gesch.
d. Gr.-R. Phil.
p. 144.
Cicero, Academic.
ii.
37, 118.
"Anaximenes infinitum aera, sed ea, quæ ex eo orirentur, definita."
The comic poet Philemon introduced in one of his dramas, of which a short fragment is preserved (Frag.
2, Meineke, p. 840), the omnipresent and omniscient Air, to deliver the prologue: [Greek: ----ou(to/s ei)m' e)gô\ A)ê/r, o(\n a)/n tis o)noma/seie kai\ Di/a.
e)gô\ d', o(\ theou=' stin e)/rgon, ei)mi\ pantachou=-pa/nt' e)x a)na/gkês oi)=da, pantachou= parô/n.]]
[Footnote 18: Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, p. 917; Plutarch, ap.
Euseb.
P. E. i.
8.]
[Footnote 19: Plutarch, Placit.
Philosophor, i.
3, p.
878.]
[Footnote 20: Aristotel.
De Coelo, ii.
13; Plutarch, Placit.
Philosoph.
iii.
10, p.
895.]
[Footnote 21: Origen.
Philosophum.
p. 12, ed.
Miller: [Greek: ô(sperei\ peri\ tê\n ê(mete/ran kephalê\n stre/phetai to\ pili/on.]]
The general principle of cosmogony, involved in the hypothesis of these three Milesians--one primordial substance or Something endued with motive and transmutative force, so as to generate all the variety of products, each successive and transient, which our senses witness--was taken up with more or less modification by others, especially by Diogenes of Apollonia, of whom I shall speak presently.
But there were three other men who struck out different veins of thought--Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Herakleitus: the two former seemingly contemporary with Anaximenes (550-490 B.C.
), the latter somewhat later.
[Side-note: Pythagoras--his life and career--Pythagorean brotherhood, great political influence which it acquired among the Greco-Italian cities--incurred great enmity and was violently put down.]
Of Pythagoras I have spoken at some length in the thirty-seventh chapter of my History of Greece.
Speculative originality was only one among many remarkable features in his character.
He was an inquisitive traveller, a religious reformer or innovator, and the founder of a powerful and active brotherhood, partly ascetic, partly political, which stands without parallel in Grecian history.
The immortality of the soul, with its transmigration (metempsychosis) after death into other bodies, either of men or of other animals--the universal kindred thus recognised between men and other animals, and the prohibition which he founded thereupon against the use of animals for food or sacrifice--are among his most remarkable doctrines: said to have been borrowed (together with various ceremonial observances) from the Egyptians.
[22] After acquiring much celebrity in his native island of Samos and throughout Ionia, Pythagoras emigrated (seemingly about 530 B.C.)
to Kroton and Metapontum in Lower Italy, where the Pythagorean brotherhood gradually acquired great political ascendancy: and from whence it even extended itself in like manner over the neighbouring Greco-Italian cities.
At length it excited so much political antipathy among the body of the citizens,[23] that its rule was violently put down, and its members dispersed about 509 B.C.
Pythagoras died at Metapontum.
[Footnote 22: Herodot.
ii.
81; Isokrates, Busirid.
Encom.
s.
28.]
[Footnote 23: Polybius, ii.
39; Porphyry, Vit.
Pythag.
54, seq.]
[Side-note: The Pythagoreans continue as a recluse sect, without political power.]
Though thus stripped of power, however, the Pythagoreans still maintained themselves for several generations as a social, religious, and philosophical brotherhood.
They continued and extended the vein of speculation first opened by the founder himself.
So little of proclaimed individuality was there among them, that Aristotle, in criticising their doctrine, alludes to them usually under the collective name Pythagoreans.
Epicharmus, in his comedies at Syracuse (470 B.C.)
gave occasional utterance to various doctrines of the sect; but the earliest of them who is known to have composed a book, was Philolaus,[24] the contemporary of Sokrates.
Most of the opinions ascribed to the Pythagoreans originated probably among the successors of Pythagoras; but the basis and principle upon which they proceed seems undoubtedly his.
[Footnote 24: Diogen.
Laert.
viii.
7-15-78-85.
Some passages of Aristotle, however, indicate divergences of doctrine among the Pythagoreans themselves (Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 986, a.
22).
He probably speaks of the Pythagoreans of his own time when dialectical discussion had modified the original orthodoxy of the order.
Compare Gruppe, Ueber die Fragmente des Archytas, cap.
5, p. 61-63.
About the gradual development of the Pythagorean doctrine, see Brandis, Handbuch der Gr.-R. Philos.
s. 74, 75.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of the Pythagoreans--Number the Essence of Things.]
The problem of physical philosophy, as then conceived, was to find some primordial and fundamental nature, by and out of which the sensible universe was built up and produced; something which co-existed always underlying it, supplying fresh matter and force for generation of successive products.
The hypotheses of Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, to solve this problem, have been already noticed: Pythagoras solved it by saying, That the essence of things consisted in Number.
By this he did not mean simply that all things were numerable, or that number belonged to them as a predicate.
Numbers were not merely predicates inseparable from subjects, but subjects in themselves: substances or magnitudes, endowed with active force, and establishing the fundamental essences or types according to which things were constituted.
About water,[25] air, or fire, Pythagoras said nothing.
[26] He conceived that sensible phenomena had greater resemblance to numbers than to any one of these substrata assigned by the Ionic philosophers.
Number was (in his doctrine) the self-existent reality--the fundamental material and in-dwelling force pervading the universe.
Numbers were not separate from things[27] (like the Platonic Ideas), but _fundamenta_ of things--their essences or determining principles: they were moreover conceived as having magnitude and active force.
[28] In the movements of the celestial bodies, in works of human art, in musical harmony--measure and number are the producing and directing agencies.
According to the Pythagorean Philolaus, "the Dekad, the full and perfect number, was of supreme and universal efficacy as the guide and principle of life, both to the Kosmos and to man.
The nature of number was imperative and lawgiving, affording the only solution of all that was perplexing or unknown; without number all would be indeterminate and unknowable.
"[29] [Footnote 25: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 985, b.
27.
[Greek: E)n de\ toi=s a)rithmoi=s, e)ndo/koun theôrei=n o(moiô/mata polla\ toi=s ou)=si kai\ gignome/nois, ma=llon ê)\ e)n puri\ kai\ gê=| kai\ u(/dati], &c. Cf.
N. 3, p. 1090, a.
21.]
[Footnote 26: Aristotel.
Metaph.
A.
9, p. 990, a.
16.
[Greek: Dio\ peri\ puro\s ê)\ gê=s ê)\ tô=n a)/llôn tô=n toiou/tôn sôma/tôn ou)d' o(tiou=n ei)rê/kasin], &c. (the Pythagoreans); also N.
3.]
[Footnote 27: Physic.
iii.
4, p. 203, a.
6.
[Greek: Ou) ga\r chôristo\n poiou=si] (the Pythagoreans) [Greek: to\n a)rithmo/n], &c. Metaphys.
M. 6, p. 1080, b.
19: [Greek: ta\s mona/das u(polamba/nousin e)/chein me/gethos].
M. 8, p. 1083, b.
17: [Greek: e)kei=noi] (the Pythagoreans) [Greek: to\n a)rithmo\n ta\ o)/nta le/gousin; ta\ gou=n theôrê/mata prosa/ptousi toi=s sô/masin ô(s e)x e)kei/nôn o)/ntôn tô=n a)rithmô=n.]]
[Footnote 28: An analogous application of this principle (Number as the fundamental substance and universal primary agent) may be seen in an eminent physical philosopher of the nineteenth century, Oken's Elements of Physio-Philosophy, translated by Tulk.
Aphorism 57:--"While numbers in a mathematical sense are positions and negations of nothing, in the philosophical sense they are positions and negations of the Eternal.
Every thing which is real, posited, finite, has become this, out of numbers; or more strictly speaking, every Real is absolutely nothing else than a number.
This must be the sense entertained of numbers in the Pythagorean doctrine--namely, that every thing, or the whole universe, had arisen from numbers.
This is not to be taken in a merely quantitative sense, as it has hitherto been erroneously; but in an intrinsic sense, as implying that all things are numbers themselves, or the acts of the Eternal.
The essence in numbers is nought else than the Eternal.
The Eternal only is or exists, and nothing else is when a number exists.
There is therefore nothing real but the Eternal itself; for every Real, or every thing that is, is only a number and only exists by virtue of a number."
Ibid., Aphorism 105-107:--"Arithmetic is the science of the second idea, or that of time or motion, or life.
It is therefore the first science.
Mathematics not only begin with it, but creation also, with the becoming of time and of life.
Arithmetic is, accordingly, the truly absolute or divine science; and therefore every thing in it is also directly certain, because every thing in it resembles the Divine.
Theology is arithmetic personified."
--"A natural thing is nothing but a self-moving number.
An organic or living thing is a number moving itself out of itself or spontaneously: an inorganic thing, however, is a number moved by another thing: now as this other thing is also a real number, so then is every inorganic thing a number moved by another number, and so on _ad infinitum_.
The movements in nature are only movements of numbers by numbers: even as arithmetical computation is none other than a movement of numbers by numbers; but with this difference--that in the latter, this operates in an ideal manner, in the former after a real."]
[Footnote 29: Philolaus, ed.
Boeckh, p. 139. seqq.
[Greek: Theôrei=n dei= ta\ e)/rga kai\ ta\n e)ssi/an (ou)si/an) tô= a)rithmô= katta\n du/namin, a(/tis e)nti\ e)n ta=| deka/di; mega/la ga\r kai\ pantelê\s kai\ pantoergo\s kai\ thei/ô kai\ ou)rani/ô bi/ô kai\ a)nthrôpi/nô a)rcha\ kai\ a(gemô\n .
.
.
a)/neu de\ tau/tas pa/nta a)/peira kai\ a)/dêla kai\ a)phanê=; nomika\ ga\r a( phu/sis tô= a)rithmô= kai\ a(gemonika\ kai\ didaskalika\ tô= a)poroume/nô panto\s kai\ a)gnooume/nô panti/].
Compare the Fr.
p. 58, of the same work.
According to Plato, as well as the Pythagoreans, number extended to ten, and not higher: all above ten were multiples and increments of ten.
(Aristot.
Physic.
iii.
6, p. 203, b.
30).]
[Side-note: The Monas--[Greek: a)rchê/], or principle of Number--geometrical conception of number--symbolical attributes of the first ten numbers, especially of the Dekad.]
The first principle or beginning of Number, was the One or Monas--which the Pythagoreans conceived as including both the two fundamental contraries--the Determining and the Indeterminate.
[30] All particular numbers, and through them all things, were compounded from the harmonious junction and admixture of these two fundamental contraries.
[31] All numbers being either odd or even, the odd numbers were considered as analogous to the Determining, the even numbers to the Indeterminate.
In One or the Monad, the Odd and Even were supposed to be both contained, not yet separated: Two was the first indeterminate even number; Three, the first odd and the first determinate number, because it included beginning, middle, and end.
The sum of the first four numbers--One, Two, Three, Four = Ten (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) was the most perfect number of all.
[32] To these numbers, one, two, three, four, were understood as corresponding the fundamental conceptions of Geometry--Point, Line, Plane, Solid.
_Five_ represented colour and visible appearance: _Six_, the phenomenon of Life: _Seven_, Health, Light, Intelligence, &c.: _Eight_, Love or Friendship.
[33] Man, Horse, Justice and Injustice, had their representative numbers: that corresponding to Justice was a square number, as giving equal for equal.
[34] [Footnote 30: See the instructive explanations of Boeckh, in his work on the Fragments of Philolaus, p. 54 seq.]
[Footnote 31: Philolaus, Fr., p. 62, Boeckh.--Diogen.
L. viii.
7, 85.
By [Greek: a(rmoni/a], Philolaus meant the musical octave: and his work included many explanations and comparisons respecting the intervals of the musical scale.
(Boeckh, p. 65 seq.)]
[Footnote 32: Aristotel.
De Coelo, i.
1, p. 268, a.
10.
[Greek: katha/per ga/r phasin oi( Puthago/reioi, to\ pa=n kai\ ta\ pa/nta toi=s tri/sin ô(/ristai; teleutê\ ga\r kai\ me/son kai\ a)rchê\ to\n a)rithmo\n e)/chei to\n tou= panto\s, tau=ta de\ to\n tê=s tria/dos.
Dio\ para\ tê=s phu/seôs ei)lêpho/tes ô(/sper no/mous e)kei/nês, kai\ pro\s ta\s a(gistei/as chrô/metha tô=n theô=n tô=| a)rithmô=| tou/tô|] (i. e. three).
It is remarkable that Aristotle here adopts and sanctions, in regard to the number Three, the mystic and fanciful attributes ascribed by the Pythagoreans.]
[Footnote 33: Strümpell, Geschichte der theoretischen Philosophie der Griechen, s. 78.
Brandis, Handbuch der Gr.-Röm.
Phil., sect.
80, p. 467 seq.
The number Five also signified marriage, because it was a junction of the first masculine number Three with the first feminine Two.
Seven signified also [Greek: kairo\s] or Right Season.
See Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 985, b.
26, and M. 4, p. 1078, b.
23, compared with the commentary of Alexander on the former passage.]
[Footnote 34: Aristotel.
Ethica Magna, i.
1.]
[Side-note: Pythagorean Kosmos and Astronomy--geometrical and harmonic laws guiding the movements of the cosmical bodies.]
The Pythagoreans conceived the Kosmos, or the universe, as one single system, generated out of numbers.
[35] Of this system the central point--the determining or limiting One--was first in order of time, and in order of philosophical conception.
By the determining influence of this central constituted One, portions of the surrounding Infinite were successively attracted and brought into system: numbers, geometrical figures, solid substances, were generated.
But as the Kosmos thus constituted was composed of numbers, there could be no continuum: each numerical unit was distinct and separated from the rest by a portion of vacant space, which was imbibed, by a sort of inhalation, from the infinite space or spirit without.
[36] The central point was fire, called by the Pythagoreans the Hearth of the Universe (like the public hearth or perpetual fire maintained in the prytaneum of a Grecian city), or the watch-tower of Zeus.
Around it revolved, from West to East, ten divine bodies, with unequal velocities, but in symmetrical movement or regular dance.
[37] Outermost was the circle of the fixed stars, called by the Pythagoreans Olympus, and composed of fire like the centre.
Within this came successively,--with orbits more and more approximating to the centre,--the five planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury: next, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth.
Lastly, between the Earth and the central fire, an hypothetical body, called the Antichthon or Counter-Earth, was imagined for the purpose of making up a total represented by the sacred number Ten, the symbol of perfection and totality.
The Antichthon was analogous to a separated half of the Earth; simultaneous with the Earth in its revolutions, and corresponding with it on the opposite side of the central fire.
[Footnote 35: Aristot.
Metaph.
M. 6, p. 1080, b.
18.
[Greek: to\n ga\r o(/lon ou)/ranon kataskeua/zousin e)x a)rithmô=n].
Compare p. 1075, b.
37, with the Scholia.
A poet calls the tetraktys (consecrated as the sum total of the first four numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) [Greek: pêgê\n a)ena/ou phu/seôs rhizô/mat' e)/chousan].
Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
94.]
[Footnote 36: Philolaus, ed.
Boeckh, p. 91-95.
[Greek: to\ pra=ton a(rmosthe\n, to\ e(/n e)n tô=| me/sô| tê=s sphai/ras e(sti/a kalei=tai--bômo/n te kai\ sunochê\n kai\ me/tron phu/seôs--prô=ton ei)=nai phu/sei to\ me/son].
Aristot.
Metaph.
N. 3, p. 1091, a.
15.
[Greek: phanerô=s ga\r le/gousin] (the Pythagoreans) [Greek: ô(s tou= e(no\s sustathe/ntos--eu)thu\s to\ e)/ggista tou= a)pei/rou o(/ti ei(lketo kai\ e)perai/neto u(po\ tou= pe/ratos].
Aristot.
Physic.
iv.
6, p. 213, b.
21.
[Greek: Ei)=nai d' e)/phasan kai\ oi( Puthago/reioi keno/n, kai\ e)peisie/nai au)to\ tô=| ou)ra/nô| e)k tou= a)pei/rou pneu/matos, ô(s a)napne/onti; kai\ to\ keno/n, o(\ diori/zei ta\s phu/seis, ô(s o)/ntos tou= kenou= chôrismou= tinos tô=n e)phexê=s kai\ tê=s diori/seôs, kai\ tou=t' ei)=nai prô=ton e)n toi=s a)rithmoi=s; to\ ga\r keno\n diori/zein tê\n phu/sin au)tô=n].
Stobæus (Eclog.
Phys.
i.
18, p. 381, Heer.)
states the same, referring to the lost work of Aristotle on the Pythagorean philosophy.
Compare Preller, Histor.
Philos.
Gr.
ex Font.
Loc.
Context., sect.
114-115.]
[Footnote 37: Philolaus, p. 94.
Boeckh.
[Greek: peri\ de\ tou=to de/ka sô/mata thei=a choreu/ein], &c. Aristot.
De Coelo, ii.
13.
Metaphys.
A.
5.]
The inhabited portion of the Earth was supposed to be that which was turned away from the central fire and towards the Sun, from which it received light.
But the Sun itself was not self-luminous: it was conceived as a glassy disk, receiving and concentrating light from the central fire, and reflecting it upon the Earth, so long as the two were on the same side of the central fire.
The Earth revolved, in an orbit obliquely intersecting that of the Sun, and in twenty-four hours, round the central fire, always turning the same side towards that fire.
The alternation of day and night was occasioned by the Earth being during a part of such revolution on the same side of the central fire with the Sun, and thus receiving light reflected from him: and during the remaining part of her revolution on the side opposite to him, so that she received no light at all from him.
The Earth, with the Antichthon, made this revolution in one day: the Moon, in one month:[38] the Sun, with the planets, Mercury and Venus, in one year: the planets, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in longer periods respectively, according to their distances from the centre: lastly, the outermost circle of the fixed stars (the Olympus, or the Aplanes), in some unknown period of very long duration.
[39] [Footnote 38: The Pythagoreans supposed that eclipses of the moon took place, sometimes by the interposition of the earth, sometimes by that of the Antichthon, to intercept from the moon the light of the sun (Stobæus, Eclog.
Phys.
i.
27, p. 560.
Heeren).
Stobæus here cites the history ([Greek: i(stori/an]) of the Pythagorean philosophy by Aristotle, and the statement of Philippus of Opus, the friend of Plato.]
[Footnote 39: Aristot.
de Coelo, ii.
13.
Respecting this Pythagorean cosmical system, the elucidations of Boeckh are clear and valuable.
Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, Berlin, 1852, p. 99-102; completing those which he had before given in his edition of the fragments of Philolaus.
Martin (in his Études sur le Timée de Platon, vol.
ii.
p. 107) and Gruppe (Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, ch.
iv.)
maintain that the original system proposed by Pythagoras was a geocentric system, afterwards transformed by Philolaus and other Pythagoreans into that which stands in the text.
But I agree with Boeckh (Ueber das Kosmische System des Platon, p. 89 seqq.
), and with Zeller (Phil.
d.
Griech., vol.
i. p. 308, ed.
2), that this point is not made out.
That which Martin and Gruppe (on the authority of Alexander Polyhistor, Diog.
viii.
25, and others) consider to be a description of the original Pythagorean system as it stood before Philolaus, is more probably a subsequent transformation of it; introduced after the time of Aristotle, in order to suit later astronomical views.]
[Side-note: Music of the Spheres.]
The revolutions of such grand bodies could not take place, in the opinion of the' Pythagoreans, without producing a loud and powerful sound; and as their distances from the central fire were supposed to be arranged in musical ratios,[40] so the result of all these separate sounds was full and perfect harmony.
To the objection--Why were not these sounds heard by us?--they replied, that we had heard them constantly and without intermission from the hour of our birth; hence they had become imperceptible by habit.
[41] [Footnote 40: Playfair observes (in his dissertation on the Progress of Natural Philosophy, p. 87) respecting Kepler--"Kepler was perhaps the first person who conceived that there must be always a law capable of being expressed by arithmetic or geometry, which connects such phenomena as have a physical dependence on each other".
But this seems to be exactly the fundamental conception of the Pythagoreans: or rather a part of their fundamental conception, for they also considered their numbers as active forces bringing such law into reality.
To illustrate the determination of the Pythagoreans to make up the number of Ten celestial bodies, I transcribe another passage from Playfair (p. 98).
Huygens, having discovered one satellite of Saturn, "believed that there were no more, and that the number of the planets was now complete.
The planets, primary and secondary, thus made up twelve--the double of six, the first of the perfect numbers."]
[Footnote 41: Aristot.
De Coelo, ii.
9; Pliny, H.N.
ii.
20.
See the Pythagorean system fully set forth by Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen, vol.
i. p. 302-310, ed.
2nd.]
[Side-note: Pythagorean list of fundamental Contraries--Ten opposing pairs.]
Ten was, in the opinion of the Pythagoreans, the perfection and consummation of number.
The numbers from One to Ten were all that they recognised as primary, original, generative.
Numbers greater than ten were compounds and derivatives from the decad.
They employed this perfect number not only as a basis on which to erect a bold astronomical hypothesis, but also as a sum total for their list of contraries.
Many Hellenic philosophers[42] recognised pairs of opposing attributes as pervading nature, and as the fundamental categories to which the actual varieties of the sensible world might be reduced.
While others laid down Hot and Cold, Wet and Dry, as the fundamental contraries, the Pythagoreans adopted a list of ten pairs.
1.
Limit and Unlimited; 2.
Odd and Even; 3.
One and Many; 4.
Right and Left; 5.
Male and Female; 6.
Rest and Motion; 7.
Straight and Curve; 8.
Light and Darkness; 9.
Good and Evil; 10.
Square and Oblong.
[43] Of these ten pairs, five belong to arithmetic or to geometry, one to mechanics, one to physics, and three to anthropology or ethics.
Good and Evil, Regularity and Irregularity, were recognised as alike primordial and indestructible.
[44] [Footnote 42: Aristot.
Metaphys.
[Greek: G].
2, p. 1004, b.
30.
[Greek: ta\ d' o)/nta kai\ tê\n ou)sian o(mologou=sin e)x e)nanti/ôn schedo\n a(/pantes sugkei=sthai.]]
[Footnote 43: Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 986, a.
22.
He goes on to say that Alkmæon, a semi-Pythagorean and a younger contemporary of Pythagoras himself, while agreeing in the general principle that "human affairs were generally in pairs," ([Greek: ei)=nai du/o ta\ polla\ tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn]), laid down pairs of fundamental contraries at random ([Greek: ta\s e)nantio/têtas ta\s tuchou/sas])--black and white, sweet and bitter, good and evil, great and little.
All that you can extract from these philosophers is (continues Aristotle) the general axiom, that "contraries are the principia of existing things"--[Greek: o(/ti ta)na/ntia a)rchai\ tô=n o)/ntôn].
This axiom is to be noted as occupying a great place in the minds of the Greek philosophers.]
[Footnote 44: Theophrast.
Metaphys.
9.
Probably the recognition of one dominant antithesis--[Greek: To\ E(/n--ê( a)o/ristos Dua\s]--is the form given by Plato to the Pythagorean doctrine.
Eudorus (in Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
fol.
39) seems to blend the two together.]
The arithmetical and geometrical view of nature, to which such exclusive supremacy is here given by the Pythagoreans, is one of the most interesting features of Grecian philosophy.
They were the earliest cultivators of mathematical science,[45] and are to be recognised as having paved the way for Euclid and Archimedes, notwithstanding the symbolical and mystical fancies with which they so largely perverted what are now regarded as the clearest and most rigorous processes of the human intellect.
The important theorem which forms the forty-seventh Proposition of Euclid's first book, is affirmed to have been discovered by Pythagoras himself: but how much progress was made by him and his followers in the legitimate province of arithmetic and geometry, as well as in the applications of these sciences to harmonics,[46] which they seem to have diligently cultivated, we have not sufficient information to determine with certainty.
[Footnote 45: Aristot.
Metaph.
A.
5, p. 985, b.
23.
[Greek: oi( Puthagorei=oi tô=n mathêma/tôn a)psa/menoi _prô=toi tau=ta proê/gagon_, kai\ e)ntraphe/ntes e)n au)toi=s ta\s tou/tôn a)rcha\s tô=n o)/ntôn a)rcha\s ô)|ê/thêsan ei)=nai pa/ntôn.]]
[Footnote 46: Concerning the Pythagorean doctrines on Harmonics, see Boeckh's Philolaus, p. 60-84, with his copious and learned comments.]
[Side-note: Eleatic philosophy--Xenophanes.]
Contemporary with Pythagoras, and like him an emigrant from Ionia to Italy, was Xenophanes of Kolophon.
He settled at the Phokæan colony of Elea, on the Gulf of Poseidonia; his life was very long, but his period of eminence appears to belong (as far as we can make out amidst conflicting testimony) to the last thirty years of the sixth century B.C.
(530-500 B.C.).
He was thus contemporary with Anaximander and Anaximenes, as well as with Pythagoras, the last of whom he may have personally known.
[47] He composed, and recited in person, poems--epic, elegiac, and iambic--of which a very few fragments remain.
[Footnote 47: Karsten.
Xenophanis Fragm., s. 4, p. 9, 10.]
[Side-note: His censures upon the received Theogony and religious rites.]
Xenophanes takes his point of departure, not from Thales or Anaximander, but from the same ancient theogonies which they had forsaken.
But he follows a very different road.
The most prominent feature in his poems (so far as they remain), is the directness and asperity with which he attacks the received opinions respecting the Gods--and the poets Hesiod and Homer, the popular exponents of those opinions.
Xenophanes not only condemns these poets for having ascribed to the Gods discreditable exploits, but even calls in question the existence of the Gods, and ridicules the anthropomorphic conception which pervaded the Hellenic faith.
"If horses or lions could paint, they would delineate their Gods in form like themselves.
The Ethiopians conceive their Gods as black, the Thracians conceive theirs as fair and with reddish hair.
"[48] Dissatisfied with much of the customary worship and festivals, Xenophanes repudiated divination** altogether, and condemned the extravagant respect shown to victors in Olympic contests,[49] not less than the lugubrious ceremonies in honour of Leukothea.
He discountenanced all Theogony, or assertion of the birth of Gods, as impious, and as inconsistent with the prominent attribute of immortality ascribed to them.
[50] He maintained that there was but one God, identical with, or a personification of, the whole Uranus.
"The whole Kosmos, or the whole God, sees, hears, and thinks."
The divine nature (he said) did not admit of the conception of separate persons one governing the other, or of want and imperfection in any way.
[51] [Footnote 48: Xenophanis Fragm.
5-6-7, p. 39 seq.
ed.
Karsten; Clemens Alexandr.
Strom.
v. p. 601; vii.
p.
711.]
[Footnote 49: Xenophan.
Fragm.
19, p. 60, ed.
Karsten; Cicero, Divinat.
i.
3, 5.]
[Footnote 50: Xenophanis Fragment.
34-35, p. 85, ed.
Karsten; Aristotel.
Rhetoric.
ii.
23; Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 986, b.
19.]
[Footnote 51: Xenoph.
Frag.
1-2, p. 35.
[Greek: Ou)=los o(ra=|, ou)=los de\ noei=, ou)=los de t' a)kou/ei.]
Plutarch ap.
Eusebium, Præp.
Evang.
i.
8; Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
19.]
[Side-note: His doctrine of Pankosmism, or Pantheism--The whole Kosmos is Ens Unum or God--[Greek: E(\n kai\ Pa=n].
Non-Ens inadmissible.]
Though Xenophanes thus appears (like Pythagoras) mainly as a religious dogmatist, yet theogony and cosmogony were so intimately connected in the sixth century B.C., that he at the same time struck out a new philosophical theory.
His negation of theogony was tantamount to a negation of cosmogony.
In substituting Ens Unum--one God for many, he set aside all distinct agencies in the universe, to recognise only one agent, single, all-pervading, indivisible.
He repudiated all genesis of a new reality, all actual existence of parts, succession, change, beginning, end, etc., in reference to the universe, as well as in reference to God.
"Wherever I turned my mind (he exclaimed) everything resolved itself into One and the same: all things existing came back always and everywhere into one similar and permanent nature.
"[52] The fundamental tenet of Xenophanes was partly religious, partly philosophical, Pantheism, or Pankosmism: looking upon the universe as one real all-comprehensive Ens, which he would not call either finite or infinite, either in motion or at rest.
[53] Non-Ens he pronounced to be an absurdity--an inadmissible and unmeaning phrase.
[Footnote 52: Timon, fragment of the Silli ap.
Sext.
Empiric.
Hypot.
Pyrrh.
i.
33, sect.
224.
[Greek: o)/ppê ga\r e)mo\n no/on ei)ru/saimi, ei)s e(\n tau)to/ te pa=n a)nelu/eto, pa=n de o)\n ai)ei\ pa/ntê a)nelko/menon mi/an ei)s phu/sin i)/stath' o(moi/an].
[Greek: Ai)ei\] here appears to be more conveniently construed with [Greek: i)/stath'] not (as Karsten construes it, p. 118) with [Greek: o)/n].
It is fair to presume that these lines are a reproduction of the sentiments of Xenophanes, if not a literal transcript of his words.]
[Footnote 53: Theophrastus ap.
Simplikium in Aristotel.
Physic.
f. 6, Karsten, p. 106; Arist.
Met.
A.
5, p. 986, b.
21: [Greek: Xenopha/nês de\ prô=tos tou/tôn e(ni/sas, o( ga\r Parmeni/dês tou/ton le/getai mathêtê/s,--eis to\n o(/lon ou)/ranon a)poble/psas to\ e(\n ei)=nai/ phêsi to\n theo/n.]]
[Side-note: Scepticism of Xenophanes--complaint of philosophy as unsatisfactory.]
It was thus from Xenophanes that the doctrine of Pankosmism obtained introduction into Greek philosophy, recognising nothing real except the universe as an indivisible and unchangeable whole.
Such a creed was altogether at variance with common perception, which apprehends the universe as a plurality of substances, distinguishable, divisible, changeable, &c. And Xenophanes could not represent his One and All, which excluded all change, to be the substratum out of which phenomenal variety was generated--as Water, Air, the Infinite, had been represented by the Ionic philosophers.
The sense of this contradiction, without knowing how to resolve it, appears to have occasioned the mournful complaints of irremediable doubt and uncertainty, preserved as fragments from his poems.
"No man (he exclaims) knows clearly about the Gods or the universe: even if he speak what is perfectly true, he himself does not know it to be true: all is matter of opinion.
"[54] [Footnote 54: Xenophan.
Fragm.
14, p. 51, ed.
Karsten.
[Greek: kai\ to\ me\n ou)=n saphe\s ou)/tis a)nê\r ge/net' ou)/de tis e)/stai ei)dô\s, a)mphi\ theô=n te kai\ a)/ssa le/gô peri\ pa/ntôn; ei) ga\r kai\ ta\ ma/lista tu/choi tetelesme/non ei)pô\n, au)to\s o(mô=s ou)k oi)=de; do/kos d' e)pi\ pa=si te/tuktai].
Compare the extract from the Silli of Timon in Sextus Empiricus--Pyrrhon.
Hypot.
i.
224; and the same author, adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
48-52.]
Nevertheless while denying all real variety or division in the universe, Xenophanes did not deny the variety of human perceptions and beliefs.
But he allowed them as facts belonging to man, not to the universe--as subjective or relative, not as objective or absolute.
He even promulgated opinions of his own respecting many of the physical and cosmological subjects treated by the Ionic philosophers.
[Side-note: His conjectures on physics and astronomy.]
Without attempting to define the figure of the Earth, he considered it to be of vast extent and of infinite depth;[55] including, in its interior cavities, prodigious reservoirs both of fire and water.
He thought that it had at one time been covered with water, in proof of which he noticed the numerous shells found inland and on mountain tops, together with the prints of various fish which he had observed in the quarries of Syracuse, in the island of Paros, and elsewhere.
From these facts he inferred that the earth had once been covered with water, and even that it would again be so covered at some future time, to the destruction of animal and human life.
[56] He supposed that the sun, moon, and stars were condensations of vapours exhaled from the Earth, collected into clouds, and alternately inflamed and extinguished.
[57] [Footnote 55: Aristot.
De Coelo, ii.
13.]
[Footnote 56: Xenophan.
Fragm.
p. 178, ed.
Karsten; Achilles Tatius, [Greek: Ei)sagôgê\] in Arat.
Phænom.
p. 128, [Greek: ta\ ka/tô d' e)s a)/peiron i(ka/nei].
This inference from the shells and prints of fishes is very remarkable for so early a period.
Compare Herodotus (ii.
12) who notices the fact, and draws the same inference, as to Lower Egypt; also Plutarch, De Isid.
et Osirid.
c. 40, p. 367; and Strabo, i. p. 49-50, from whom we learn that the Lydian historian Xanthus had made the like observation, and also the like inference, for himself.
Straton of Lampsakus, Eratosthenes, and Strabo himself, approved what Xanthus said.]
[Footnote 57: Xenophanes Frag.
p. 161 seq., ed.
Karsten.
Compare Lucretius, v. 458.
"per rara foramina, terræ Partibus erumpens primus se sustulit æther Ignifer et multos secum levis abstulit ignis .
.
.
.
Sic igitur tum se levis ac diffusilis æther Corpore concreto circumdatus undique flexit: .
.
.
.
Hunc exordia sunt solis lunæque secuta."]
[Side-note: Parmenides continues the doctrine of Xenophanes--Ens Parmenideum, self-existent, eternal, unchangeable, extended,--Non-Ens, an unmeaning phrase.]
Parmenides, of Elea, followed up and gave celebrity to the Xenophanean hypothesis in a poem, of which the striking exordium is yet preserved.
The two veins of thought, which Xenophanes had recognised and lamented his inability to reconcile, were proclaimed by Parmenides as a sort of inherent contradiction in the human mind--Reason or Cogitation declaring one way, Sense (together with the remembrances and comparisons of sense) suggesting a faith altogether opposite.
Dropping that controversy with the popular religion which had been raised by Xenophanes, Parmenides spoke of many different Gods or Goddesses, and insisted on the universe as one, without regarding it as one God.
He distinguished Truth from matter of Opinion.
[58] Truth was knowable only by pure mental contemplation or cogitation, the object of which was Ens or Being, the Real or Absolute: here the Cogitans and the Cogitatum were identical, one and the same.
[59] Parmenides conceived Ens not simply as existent, but as self-existent, without beginning or end,[60] as extended, continuous, indivisible, and unchangeable.
The Ens Parmenideum comprised the two notions of Extension and Duration:[61] it was something Enduring and Extended; Extension including both space, and matter so far forth as filling space.
Neither the contrary of Ens (Non-Ens), nor anything intermediate between Ens and Non-Ens, could be conceived, or named, or reasoned about.
Ens comprehended all that was Real, without beginning or end, without parts or difference, without motion or change, perfect and uniform like a well-turned sphere.
[62] [Footnote 58: Parmenid.
Fr.
v.
29.]
[Footnote 59: Parm.
Frag.
v. 40, 52-56.
[Greek: to\ ga\r au)to\ noei=n e)sti/n te kai\ ei)=nai.
A)lla\ su\ tê=s d' a)ph' o(dou= dizê/sios ei)=rge no/êma, mêde/ s' e)/thos polu/peiron o(do\n kata\ tê/nde bia/sthô, nôma=|n a)/skopon o)/mma kai\ ê)chê/essan a)kouê\n kai\ glô=ssan; kri=nai de\ lo/gô| polu/dênin e)/legchon e)x e)me/then rhêthe/nta.]]
[Footnote 60: Parm.
Frag.
v. 81.
[Greek: au)ta\r a)ki/nêton mega/lôn e)n pei/rasi desmô=n e)sti\n, a)/narchon, a)/pauston], &c.] [Footnote 61: Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griech., i. p. 403, ed.
2) maintains, in my opinion justly, that the Ens Parmenideum is conceived by its author as extended.
Strümpell (Geschichte der theor.
Phil.
der Griech., s. 44) represents it as unextended: but this view seems not reconcilable with the remaining fragments.]
[Footnote 62: Parm.
Frag.
v.
102.]
[Side-note: He recognises a region of opinion, phenomenal and relative, apart from Ens.]
In this subject Ens, with its few predicates, chiefly negative, consisted all that Parmenides called Truth.
Everything else belonged to the region of Opinion, which embraced all that was phenomenal, relative, and transient: all that involved a reference to man's senses, apprehension, and appreciation, all the indefinite diversity of observed facts and inferences.
Plurality, succession, change, motion, generation, destruction, division of parts, &c., belonged to this category.
Parmenides did not deny that he and other men had perceptions and beliefs corresponding to these terms, but he denied their application to the Ens or the self-existent.
We are conscious of succession, but the self-existent has no succession: we perceive change of colour and other sensible qualities, and change of place or motion, but Ens neither changes nor moves.
We talk of things generated or destroyed--things coming into being or going out of being--but this phrase can have no application to the self-existent Ens, which _is_ always and cannot properly be called either past or future.
[63] Nothing is really generated or destroyed, but only in appearance to us, or relatively to our apprehension.
[64] In like manner we perceive plurality of objects, and divide objects into parts.
But Ens is essentially One, and cannot be divided.
[65] Though you may divide a piece of matter you cannot divide the extension of which that matter forms part: you cannot (to use the expression of Hobbes[66]) pull asunder the first mile from the second, or the first hour from the second.
The milestone, or the striking of the clock, serve as marks to assist you in making a mental division, and in considering or describing one hour and one mile apart from the next.
This, however, is your own act, relative to yourself: there is no real division of extension into miles, or of duration into hours.
You may consider the same space or time as one or as many, according to your convenience: as one hour or as sixty minutes, as one mile or eight furlongs.
But all this is a process of your own mind and thoughts; another man may divide the same total in a way different from you.
Your division noway modifies the reality without you, whatever that may be--the Extended and Enduring Ens--which remains still a continuous one, undivided and unchanged.
[Footnote 63: Parm.
Frag.
v. 96.
[Greek: ----e)pei\ to/ ge moi=r' e)pe/dêsen Oi)=on a)ki/nêton tele/thein tô=| pa/nt' o)/nom' _ei)=nai_, O)/ssa brotoi\ kate/thento, pepoitho/tes ei)=nai a)lêthê=, gi/gnesthai/ te kai\ o)/llusthai, ei)=nai/ te kai\ ou)ki\, kai\ to/pon a)lla/ssein, dia/ te chro/a phano\n a)mei/bein; v. 75:-ei)/ ge ge/noit', ou)k e)/st'; ou)d' ei)/ po/te me/llei e)/sesthai; tô=s ge/nesis me\n a)pe/sbestai, kai\ a)/pistos o)/lethros.]]
[Footnote 64: Aristotel.
De Coelo, iii.
1.
[Greek: Oi( me\n ga\r au)tô=n o(/lôs a)nei=lon ge/nesin kai\ phthora/n; ou)the\n ga\r ou)/te gi/gnesthai/ phasin ou)/te phthei/resthai tô=n o)/ntôn, _a)lla\ mo/non dokei=n ê(mi=n_; oi)=on oi( peri\ Me/lisson kai\ Parmeni/dên], &c.] [Footnote 65: Parm.
Frag.
v. 77.
[Greek: Ou)de\ diai/reto/n e)stin, e)pei\ pa=n e)sti\n o(/moion, ou)de/ ti tê=| ma=llon to/ ken ei)/rgoi min xune/chesthai, ou)de/ ti cheiro/teron; pa=n de\ ple/on e)sti\n e)o/ntos; tô=| xuneche\s pa=n e)sti/n; e)o\n ga\r e)o/nti pela/zei].
Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 986, b.
29, with the Scholia, and Physic.
i.
2, 3.
Simplikius Comm.
in Physic.
Aristot.
(apud Tennemann Geschichte der Philos.
b. i. s. 4, vol.
i. p. 170) [Greek: pa/nta ga/r phêsi (Parmeni/dês) ta\ o)/nta, katho\ o)/nta, e(n e)sti/n].
This chapter, in which Tennemann gives an account of the Eleatic philosophy, appears to me one of the best and most instructive in his work.]
[Footnote 66: "To make parts,--or to part or divide, Space or Time,--is nothing else but to consider one and another within the same: so that if any man divide space or time, the diverse conceptions he has are more, by one, than the parts which he makes.
For his first conception is of that which is to be divided--then, of some part of it--and again of some other part of it: and so forwards, as long as he goes in dividing.
But it is to be noted, that here, by _division_, I do not mean the severing or pulling asunder of one space or time from another (for does any man think that one hemisphere may be separated from the other hemisphere, or the first hour from the second?
), but _diversity of consideration_: so that division is not made by the operation of the hands, but of the mind."
--Hobbes, First Grounds of Philosophy, chap.
vii.
5, vol.
i. p. 96, ed.
Molesworth.
"Expansion and duration have this farther agreement, that though they are both considered by us as having parts, yet their parts are not separable one from another, not even in thought; though the parts of bodies from which we take our measure of the one--and the parts of motion, from which we may take the measure of the other--may be interrupted or separated."
--Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding, book ii.
ch.
15. s. 11.
In the Platonic Parmenides, p. 156 D., we find the remarkable conception of what he calls [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês, a)/topo/s tis phu/sis]--a break in the continuity of duration, an extra-temporal moment.]
[Side-note: Parmenidean ontology stands completely apart from phenomenology.]
The Ens of Parmenides thus coincided mainly with that which (since Kant) has been called the Noumenon--the Thing in itself--the Absolute; or rather with that which, by a frequent illusion, passes for the absolute--no notice being taken of the cogitant and believing apart from mind, as if cogitation and belief, _cogitata_ and _credita_, would be had without it.
By Ens was understood the remnant in his mind, after leaving out all that abstraction, as far as it had then been carried, could leave out.
It was the minimum indispensable to the continuance of thought; you cannot think (Parmenides says) without thinking of Something, and that Something Extended and Enduring.
Though he and others talk of this Something as an Absolute (_i.e._ apart from or independent of his own thinking mind), yet he also uses some juster language ([Greek: to\ ga\r au)to\ noei=n e)/stin te kai\ ei)=nai]), showing that it is really relative: that if the Cogitans implies a Cogitatum, the Cogitatum also implies no less its correlative Cogitans: and that though we may divide the two in words, we cannot divide them in fact.
It is to be remarked that Parmenides distinguishes the Enduring or Continuous from the Transient or Successive, Duration from Succession (both of which are included in the meaning of the word Time), and that he considers Duration alone as belonging to Ens or the Absolute--to the region of Truth--setting it in opposition or antithesis to Succession, which he treats as relative and phenomenal.
We have thus (with the Eleates) the first appearance of Ontology, the science of Being or Ens, in Grecian philosophy.
Ens is everything, and everything is Ens.
In the view of Parmenides, Ontology is not merely narrow, but incapable of enlargement or application; we shall find Plato and others trying to expand it into numerous imposing generalities.
[67] [Footnote 67: Leibnitz says, Réponse à M. Foucher, p. 117, ed.
Erdmann, "Comment seroit il possible qu'aucune chose existât, si l'être même, ipsum Esse, n'avoit l'existence?
Mais bien au contraire ne pourrait on pas dire avec beaucoup plus de raison, qu'il n'y a que lui qui existe véritablement, les êtres particuliers n'ayant rien de permanent?
Semper generantur, et nunquam sunt."]
[Side-note: Parmenidean phenomenology--relative and variable.]
Apart from Ontology, Parmenides reckons all as belonging to human opinions.
These were derived from the observations of sense (which he especially excludes from Ontology) with the comparisons, inferences, hypothesis, &c., founded thereupon: the phenomena of Nature generally.
[68] He does not attempt (as Plato and Aristotle do after him) to make Ontology serve as a principle or beginning for anything beyond itself,[69] or as a premiss from which the knowledge of nature is to be deduced.
He treats the two--Ontology and Phenomenology, to employ an Hegelian word--as radically disparate, and incapable of any legitimate union.
Ens was essentially one and enduring: Nature was essentially multiform, successive, ever changing and moving relative to the observer, and different to observers at different times and places.
Parmenides approached the study of Nature from its own starting point, the same as had been adopted by the Ionic philosophers--the data of sense, or certain agencies selected among them, and vaguely applied to explain the rest.
Here he felt that he relinquished the full conviction, inseparable from his intellectual consciousness, with which he announced his few absolute truths respecting Ens and Non-Ens, and that he entered upon a process of mingled observation and conjecture, where there was great room for diversity of views between man and man.
[Footnote 68: Karsten observes that the Parmenidean region of opinion comprised not merely the data of sense, but also the comparisons, generalisations, and notions, derived from sense.
"[Greek: Doxasto\n] et [Greek: noêto\n] vocantur duo genera inter se diversa, quorum alterum complectitur res externas et fluxas, _notionesque quæ ex his ducuntur_--alterum res æternas et à conspectu remotas," &c. (Parm.
Fragm.
p.
148-149).]
[Footnote 69: Marbach (Lehrbuch der Gesch.
der Philos., s. 71, not.
3) after pointing out the rude philosophical expression of the Parmenidean verses, has some just remarks upon the double aspect of philosophy as there proclaimed, and upon the recognition by Parmenides of that which he calls the "illegitimate" vein of enquiry along with the "legitimate."
"Learn from me (says Parmenides) the opinions of mortals, brought to your ears in the deceitful arrangement of my words.
This is not philosophy (Marbach says): it is Physics.
We recognise in modern times two perfectly distinct ways of contemplating Nature: the philosophical and the physical.
Of these two, the second dwells in plurality, the first in unity: the first teaches everything as infallible truth, the second as multiplicity of different opinions.
We ought not to ask why Parmenides, while recognising the fallibility of this second road of enquiry, nevertheless undertook to march in it,--any more than we can ask, Why does not modern philosophy render physics superfluous?"
The observation of Marbach is just and important, that the line of research which Parmenides treated as illegitimate and deceitful, but which he nevertheless entered upon, is the analogon of modern Physics.
Parmenides (he says) indicated most truly the contrast and divergence between Ontology and Physics; but he ought to have gone farther, and shown how they could be reconciled and brought into harmony.
This (Marbach affirms) was not even attempted, much less achieved, by Parmenides: but it was afterwards attempted by Plato, and achieved by Aristotle.
Marbach is right in saying that the reconciliation was attempted by Plato; but he is not right (I think) in saying that it was achieved by Aristotle--nor by any one since Aristotle.
It is the merit of Parmenides to have brought out the two points of view as radically distinct, and to have seen that the phenomenal world, if explained at all, must be explained upon general principles of its own, raised out of its own data of facts--not by means of an illusory Absolute and Real.
The subsequent philosophers, in so far as they hid and slurred over this distinction, appear to me to have receded rather than advanced.]
[Side-note: Parmenides recognises no truth, but more or less probability, in phenomenal explanations.--His physical and astronomical conjectures.]
Yet though thus passing from Truth to Opinions, from full certainty to comparative and irremediable uncertainty,[70] Parmenides does not consider all opinions as equally true or equally untrue.
He announces an opinion of his own--what he thinks most probable or least improbable--respecting the structure and constitution of the Kosmos, and he announces it without the least reference to his own doctrines about Ens.
He promises information respecting Earth, Water, Air, and the heavenly bodies, and how they work, and how they came to be what they are.
[71] He recognises two elementary principles or beginnings, one contrary to the other, but both of them positive--Light, comprehending the Hot, the Light, and the Rare--Darkness, comprehending the Cold, the Heavy, and the Dense.
[72] These two elements, each endued with active and vital properties, were brought into junction and commixture by the influence of a Dea Genitalis analogous to Aphroditê,[73] with her first-born son Eros, a personage borrowed from the Hesiodic Theogony.
From hence sprang the other active forces of nature, personified under various names, and the various concentric circles or spheres of the Kosmos.
Of those spheres, the outer-most was a solid wall of fire--"flammantia moenia mundi"--next under this the Æther, distributed into several circles of fire unequally bright and pure--then the circle called the Milky Way, which he regarded as composed of light or fire combined with denser materials--then the Sun and Moon, which were condensations of fire from the Milky Way--lastly, the Earth, which he placed in the centre of the Kosmos.
[74] He is said to have been the first who pronounced the earth to be spherical, and even distributed it into two or five zones.
[75] He regarded it as immovable, in consequence of its exact position in the centre.
He considered the stars to be fed by exhalation from the Earth.
Midway between the Earth and the outer flaming circle, he supposed that there dwelt a Goddess--Justice or Necessity--who regulated all the movements of the Kosmos, and maintained harmony between its different parts.
He represented the human race as having been brought into existence by the power of the sun,[76] and he seems to have gone into some detail respecting animal procreation, especially in reference to the birth of male and female offspring.
He supposed that the human mind, as well as the human body, was compounded of a mixture of the two elemental influences, diffused throughout all Nature: that like was perceived and known by like: that thought and sensation were alike dependent upon the body, and upon the proportions of its elemental composition: that a certain limited knowledge was possessed by every object in Nature, animate or inanimate.
[77] [Footnote 70: Parmen.
Fr.
v. 109.
[Greek: e)n tô=| soi\ pau/ô pisto\n lo/gon ê)de\ no/êma a)mphi\s a)lêthei/ês; do/xas d' a)po\ tou=de brotei/as ma/nthane, ko/smon e)mô=n e)pe/ôn a)patêlo\n a)kou/ôn.]]
[Footnote 71: Parm.
Frag.
v.
132-142.]
[Footnote 72: Aristotle (Metaphys.
A.
5, p. 987, a.
1) represents Parmenides as assimilating one of his phenomenal principles (Heat) to Ens, and the other (Cold) to Non-Ens.
There is nothing in the fragments of Parmenides to justify this supposed analogy.
Heat as well as Cold belongs to Non-Ens, not to Ens, in the Parmenidean doctrine.
Moreover Cold or Dense is just as much a positive principle as Hot or Rare, in the view of Parmenides; it is the female to the male (Parm.
Fragm.
v. 129; comp.
Karsten, p. 270).
Aristotle conceives Ontology as a substratum for Phenomenology; and his criticisms on Parmenides imply (erroneously in my judgment) that Parmenides did the same.
The remarks which Brucker makes both on Aristotle's criticism and on the Eleatic doctrine are in the main just, though the language is not very suitable.
Brucker, Hist.
Philosoph., part ii.
lib.
ii.
ch.
xi.
tom.
1, p. 1152-3, about Xenophanes:--"Ex iis enim quæ apud Aristotelem ex ejus mente contra motum disputantur, patet Xenophanem motûs notionem aliam quam quæ in physicis obtinet, sibi concepisse; et ad verum motum progressum a nonente ad ens ejusque existentiam requisivisse.
Quo sensu notionis hujus semel admisso, sequebatur (cum illud impossibile sit, ut ex nihilo fiat aliquid) universum esse immobile, adeoque et partes ejus non ita moveri, ut ex statu nihili procederent ad statum existentiæ.
Quibus admissis, de rerum tamen mutationibus disserere poterat, quas non alterationes, generationes, et extinctiones, rerum naturalium, sed modificationes, esse putabat: hoc nomine indignas, eo quod rerum universi natura semper maneret immutabilis, soliusque materiæ æternum fluentis particulæ varie inter se modificarentur.
Hâc ratione si Eleaticos priores explicemus de motu disserentes, rationem facile dabimus, quî de rebus physicis disserere et phenomena naturalia explicare, salvâ istâ hypothesi, potuerint.
Quod tamen de iis negat Aristoteles, _conceptum motûs metaphysicum ad physicum transferens_: ut, more suo, Eleatico systemate corrupto, eò vehementius illud premeret."]
[Footnote 73: Parmenides, ap.
Simplik.
ad Aristot.
Physic.
fol.
9 a.
[Greek: e)n de\ me/sô| tou/tôn Daimôn, ê(\ pa/nta kuberna=|], &c. Plutarch, Amator, 13.]
[Footnote 74: See especially the remarkable passage from Stobæus, Eclog.
Phys.
i.
23, p. 482, cited in Karsten, Frag.
Parm.
p. 241, and Cicero, De Natur.
Deor, i.
11, s. 28, with the Commentary of Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie, viii.
p. 98, seqq.
It is impossible to make out with any clearness the Kosmos and its generation as conceived by Parmenides.
We cannot attain more than a general approximation to it.]
[Footnote 75: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
21, viii.
48; Strabo, ii.
p. 93 (on the authority of Poseidonius).
Plutarch (Placit.
Philos.
iii.
11) and others ascribe to Parmenides the recognition not of five zones, but only of two.
If it be true that Parmenides held this opinion about the figure of the earth, the fact is honourable to his acuteness; for Leukippus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes the Apolloniate, and Demokritus, all thought the earth to be a flat, round surface, like a dish or a drum: Plato speaks about it in so confused a manner that his opinion cannot be made out: and Aristotle was the first who both affirmed and proved it to be spherical.
The opinion had been propounded by some philosophers earlier than Anaxagoras, who controverted it.
See the dissertation of L. Oettinger.
Die Vorstellungen der Griechen über die Erde als Himmelskörper, Freiburg, 1850, p.
42-46.]
[Footnote 76: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
22.]
[Footnote 77: Parmen.
Frag.
v. 145; Theophrastus, De Sensu, Karsten.
pp.
268, 270.
Parmenides (according to Theophrastus) thought that the dead body, having lost its fiery element, had no perception of light, or heat, or sound; but that it had perception of darkness, cold, and silence--[Greek: kai\ o(/lôs de\ pa=n to\ o)\n e)/chein tina gnô=sin].]
Before we pass from Parmenides to his pupil and successor Zeno, who developed the negative and dialectic side of the Eleatic doctrine, it will be convenient to notice various other theories of the same century: first among them that of Herakleitus, who forms as it were the contrast and antithesis to Xenophanes and Parmenides.
[Side-note: Herakleitus--his obscure style, impressive metaphors, confident and contemptuous dogmatism.]
Herakleitus of Ephesus, known throughout antiquity by the denomination of the Obscure, comes certainly after Pythagoras and Xenophanes and apparently before Parmenides.
Of the two first he made special mention, in one of the sentences, alike brief and contemptuous which have been preserved from his lost treatise:--"Much learning does not teach reason: otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, Xenophanes and Hekatæus."
In another passage Herakleitus spoke of the "extensive knowledge, cleverness, and wicked arts" of Pythagoras.
He declared that Homer as well as Archilochus deserved to be scourged and expelled from the public festivals.
[78] His thoughts were all embodied in one single treatise, which he is said to have deposited in the temple of the Ephesian Artemis.
It was composed in a style most perplexing and difficult to understand, full of metaphor, symbolical illustration, and antithesis: but this very circumstance imparted to it an air of poetical impressiveness and oracular profundity.
[79] It exercised a powerful influence on the speculative minds of Greece, both in the Platonic age, and subsequently: the Stoics especially both commented on it largely (though with many dissentient opinions among the commentators), and borrowed with partial modifications much of its doctrine.
[80] [Footnote 78: Diogen.
L. ix.
1.
[Greek: Polumathi/ê no/on ou) dida/skei; Ê(si/odon ga\r a)\n e)di/daxe kai\ Puthago/rên, au)=tis te Xenopha/nea kai\ E(katai=on], &c. Ib.
viii.
1, 6.
[Greek: Puthago/rês Mnêsa/rchou i(stori/ên ê)/skêsen a)nthrô/pôn ma/lista pa/ntôn, kai\ e)klexa/menos tau/tas ta\s suggrapha\s e)poi/êsen e(ôu+tou= sophi/ên, polumathi/ên, kakotechni/ên.]]
[Footnote 79: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
1-6.
Theophrastus conceived that Herakleitus had left the work unfinished, from eccentricity of temperament ([Greek: u(po\ melagcholi/as]).
Of him, as of various others, it was imagined by some that his obscurity was intentional (Cicero, Nat.
Deor.
i.
26, 74, De Finib.
2, 5).
The words of Lucretius about Herakleitus are remarkable (i.
641):-Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanes Quamde graves inter Græcos qui vera requirunt: Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque Inversis quæ sub verbis latitantia cernunt.
Even Aristotle complains of the difficulty of understanding Herakleitus, and even of determining the proper punctuation (Rhetoric.
iii.
5).]
[Footnote 80: Cicero, Nat.
Deor., iii.
14, 35.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Herakleitus--perpetual process of generation and destruction--everything flows, nothing stands--transition of the elements into each other, backwards and forwards.]
The expositors followed by Lucretius and Cicero conceived Herakleitus as having proclaimed Fire to be the universal and all-pervading element of nature;[81] as Thales had recognised water, and Anaximenes air.
This interpretation was countenanced by some striking passages of Herakleitus: but when we put together all that remains from him, it appears that his main doctrine was not physical, but metaphysical or ontological: that the want of adequate general terms induced him to clothe it in a multitude of symbolical illustrations, among which fire was only one, though the most prominent and most significant.
[82] Xenophanes and the Eleates had recognised, as the only objective reality, One extended Substance or absolute Ens, perpetual, infinite, indeterminate, incapable of change or modification.
They denied the objective reality of motion, change, generation, and destruction--considering all these to be purely relative and phenomenal.
Herakleitus on the contrary denied everything in the nature of a permanent and perpetual substratum: he laid down nothing as permanent and perpetual except the process of change--the alternate sequence of generation and destruction, without beginning or end--generation and destruction being in fact coincident or identical, two sides of the same process, since the generation of one particular state was the destruction of its antecedent contrary.
All reality consisted in the succession and transition, the coming and going, of these finite and particular states: what he conceived as the infinite and universal, was the continuous process of transition from one finite state to the next--the perpetual work of destruction and generation combined, which terminated one finite state in order to make room for a new and contrary state.
[Footnote 81: To some it appeared that Herakleitus hardly distinguished Fire from Air.
Aristotel.
De Animâ, i.
2; Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
127-129, ix.
360.]
[Footnote 82: Zeller's account of the philosophy of Herakleitus in the second edition of his Philosophie der Griechen, vol.
i. p. 450-496, is instructive.
Marbach also is useful (Gesch.
der Phil.
s. 46-49); and his (Hegelian) exposition of Herakleitus is further developed by Ferdinand Lassalle (Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen, published 1858).
This last work is very copious and elaborate, throwing great light upon a subject essentially obscure and difficult.]
[Side-note: Variety of metaphors employed by Herakleitus, signifying the same general doctrine.]
This endless process of transition, or ever-repeated act of generation and destruction in one, was represented by Herakleitus under a variety of metaphors and symbols--fire consuming its own fuel--a stream of water always flowing--opposite currents meeting and combating each other--the way from above downwards, and the way from below upwards, one and the same--war, contest, penal destiny or retributive justice, the law or decree of Zeus realising each finite condition of things and then destroying its own reality to make place for its contrary and successor.
Particulars are successively generated and destroyed, none of them ever arriving at permanent existence:[83] the universal process of generation and destruction alone continues.
There is no Esse, but a perpetual Fieri: a transition from Esse to Non-Esse, from Non-Esse to Esse, with an intermediate temporary halt between them: a ceaseless meeting and confluence of the stream of generation with the opposite stream of destruction: a rapid and instant succession, or rather coincidence and coalescence, of contraries.
Living and dead, waking and sleeping, light and dark, come into one or come round into each other: everything twists round into its contrary: everything both is and is not.
[84] [Footnote 83: Plato, Kratylus, p. 402, and Theætet.
p. 152, 153.
Plutarch, De [Greek: Ei] apud Delphos, c. 18, p. 392.
[Greek: Potamô=| ga\r ou)/k e)stin e)mbê=nai di\s tô=| au)tô=| kath' Ê(ra/kleiton, ou)de\ thnêtê=s ou)si/as di\s a(/psasthai kata\ e(/xin; a)ll' o)xu/têti kai\ tachei metabolês skidnêsi kai\ pa/lin suna/gei, _ma=llon de\ ou)de\ pa/lin ou)de\ u(/steron, a)ll' a(/ma suni/statai kai\ a)polei/pei, pro/seisi kai\ a)/peisi.
O(/then ou)d' ei)s to\ ei)=nai perai/nei to\ gigno/menon au)tê=s_, tô=| mêde/pote lê/gein mêd' i(/stasthai tê\n ge/nesin, a)ll' a)po\ spe/rmatos a)ei\ metaba/llousan--ta\s prô/tas phthei/rousan gene/seis kai\ ê(liki/as tai=s e)pigignome/nais].
Clemens Alex.
Strom.
v. 14, p. 711.
[Greek: Ko/smon to\n au)to\n a(pa/ntôn ou)/te tis theô=n ou)/t' a)nthrô/pôn e)poi/êsen; a)ll' ê=n a)ei\ kai\ e)/stai pu=r a)ei/zôon, a(pto/menon me/tra kai\ a)posbennu/menon me/tra].
Compare also Eusebius, Præpar.
Evang.
xiv.
3, 8; Diogen.
L. ix.
8.]
[Footnote 84: Plato, Sophist.
p. 242 E. [Greek: Diaphero/menon ga\r a)ei\ xumphe/retai].
Plutarch, Consolat.
ad Apollonium c. 10, p. 106.
[Greek: Po/te ga\r e)n ê(mi=n au)toi=s ou)k e)/stin o( tha/natos?
kai\ ê(=| phêsin Ê(ra/kleitos, tau)to/ t' e)/ni zô=n kai\ tethnêko/s, kai\ to\ e)grêgoro\s kai\ to\ katheu=don, kai\ ne/on kai\ gêraio/n; ta/de ga\r metapeso/nta e)kei=na e)sti, ka)kei=na pa/lin metapeso/nta tau=ta].
Pseudo-Origenes, Refut.
Hær.
ix.
10, [Greek: O( theo\s ê(me/rê, eu)phro/nê--chei/môn, the/ros--po/lemos, ei)rê/nê--ko/ros, li/mos], &c.] [Side-note: Nothing permanent except the law of process and implication of contraries--the transmutative force.
Fixity of particulars is an illusion for most part, so far as it exists, it is a sin against the order of Nature.]
The universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to Herakleitus), consists in this incessant process of generation and destruction, this alternation of contraries.
To carry out such law fully, each of the particular manifestations ought to appear and pass away instantaneously--to have no duration of its own, but to be supplanted by its contrary at once.
And this happens to a great degree, even in cases where it does not appear to happen: the river appears unchanged, though the water which we touched a short time ago has flowed away:[85] we and all around us are in rapid movement, though we appear stationary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus a delusion.
But Herakleitus does not seem to have thought that his absolute universal force was omnipotent, or accurately carried out in respect to all particulars.
Some positive and particular manifestations, when once brought to pass, had a certain measure of fixity, maintaining themselves for more or less time before they were destroyed.
There was a difference between one particular and another, in this respect of comparative durability: one was more durable, another less.
[86] But according to the universal law or destiny, each particular ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted and re-absorbed; so that the time during which it continued on the scene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by encroaching on the equal right of the next comer, and by suspending the negative agency of the universal.
Hence arises an antithesis or hostility between the universal law or process on one side, and the persistence of particular states on the other.
The universal law or process is generative and destructive, positive and negative, both in one: but the particular realities in which it manifests itself are all positive, each succeeding to its antecedent, and each striving to maintain itself against the negativity or destructive interference of the universal process.
Each particular reality represented rest and fixity: each held ground as long as it could against the pressure of the cosmical force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating.
Herakleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate stability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the universal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.
[Footnote 85: Aristot.
De Coelo, iii.
1, p. 298, b.
30; Physic.
viii.
3, p. 253, b.
9.
[Greek: Phasi/ tines kinei=sthai tô=n o)/ntôn ou) ta\ me\n ta\ d' ou)/, a)lla\ pa/nta kai\ a)ei\, a)lla\ lantha/nein tou=to tê\n ê(mete/ran ai)/sthêsin]--which words doubtless refer to Herakleitus.
See Preller, Hist.
Phil.
Græc.
Rom.
s.
47.]
[Footnote 86: Lassalle, Philosophie des Herakleitos, vol.
i. pp.
54, 55.
"Andrerseits bieten die sinnlichen Existenzen _graduelle_ oder _Mass-Unterschiede_ dar, je nachdem in ihnen das Moment des festen Seins über die Unruhe des Werdens vorwiegt oder nicht; und diese Graduation wird also zugleich den Leitfaden zur Classification der verschiedenen Existenz-formen bilden."]
[Side-note: Illustrations by which Herakleitus symbolized his perpetual force, destroying and generating.]
The theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent substratum, or Ens, either material or immaterial--no category either of substance or quality--but only a ceaseless principle of movement or change, generation and destruction, position and negation, immediately succeeding, or coinciding with each other.
[87] It is this principle or everlasting force which he denotes under so many illustrative phrases--"the common ([Greek: to\ xuno\n]), the universal, the all-comprehensive ([Greek: to\ perie/chon]), the governing, the divine, the name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of opposites, strife or war, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or the Succeeding," &c. The most emphatic way in which this theory could be presented was, as embodied, in the coincidence or co-affirmation of contraries.
Many of the dicta cited and preserved out of Herakleitus are of this paradoxical tenor.
[88] Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow, change, or transition, without express allusion to contraries: which latter, however, though not expressed, must be understood, since change was conceived as a change from one contrary to the other.
[89] In the Herakleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into action: destruction and generation always take effect together: there is no negative without a positive, nor positive without a negative.
[90] [Footnote 87: Aristot.
De Coelo, iii.
1, p. 298, b.
30.
[Greek: Oi( de\ ta\ me\n a)/lla pa/nta gi/nesthai/ te/ phasi kai\ rhei=n, ei)=nai de\ pagi/ôs ou)de/n, e(\n de/ ti mo/non u(pome/nein, e)x ou(= tau=ta pa/nta metaschêmati/zesthai pe/phuken; o(/per e)oi/kasin bou/lesthai le/gein a)/lloi te polloi\ kai\ Ê(ra/kleitos o( E)phe/sios].
See the explanation given of this passage by Lassalle, vol.
ii.
p. 21, 39, 40, founded on the comment of Simplikius.
He explains it as an universal law or ideal force--die reine Idee des Werdens selbst (p. 24), and "eine unsinnliche Potenz" (p. 25).
Yet, in i. p. 55 of his elaborate exposition, he does indeed say, about the theory of Herakleitus, "Hier sind zum erstenmale die sinnlichen Bestimmtheiten zu bloss verschiedenen und absolut in einander übergehenden Formen eines identischen, ihnen zu Grunde liegenden, _Substrats_ herabgesetzt".
But this last expression appears to me to contradict the whole tenor and peculiarity of Lassalle's own explanation of the Herakleitean theory.
He insists almost in every page (compare ii.
p. 156) that "das Allgemeine" of Herakleitus is "reines Werden; reiner, steter, erzeugender, Prozess".
This process cannot with any propriety be called a _substratum_, and Herakleitus admitted no other.
In thus rejecting any substratum he stood alone.
Lassalle has been careful in showing that Fire was not understood by Herakleitus as a substratum (as water by Thales), but as a symbol for the universal force or law.
In the theory of Herakleitus no substratum was recognised--no [Greek: to/de ti] or [Greek: ou)si/a]--in the same way as Aristotle observes about [Greek: to\ a)/peiron] (Physic.
iii.
6, a.
22-31) [Greek: ô(/ste to\ a)/peiron ou) dei= lamba/nein ô(s to/de ti, oi(=on a)/nthrôpon ê)\ oi)ki/an, a)ll' ô(s ê( ê(me/ra le/getai kai\ o( a)gô\n, oi(=s to\ ei)=nai _ou)ch' ô(s ou)si/a tis ge/gonen, a)ll' a)ei\ e)n gene/sei ê(\ phthora=|_, ei) kai\ peperasme/non, _a)ll' a)ei/ ge e(/teron kai\ e(/teron_.]]
[Footnote 88: Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mundo, c. 5, p. 396, b.
20.
[Greek: Tau)to\ de\ tou=to ê)=n kai\ to\ para\ tô=| skoteinô=| lego/menon Ê(rakleitô=|: "suna/pseias ou)=la kai\ ou)chi\ ou)=la, sumphero/menon kai\ diaphero/menon, suna=|don kai\ dia=|don, kai\ e)k pa/ntôn e(\n kai\ e)x e(no\s pa/nta."]
Heraclid.
Allegor.
ap.
Schleiermacher (Herakleitos, p. 529), [Greek: potamoi=s toi=s au)toi=s e)mbai/nome/n te kai\ ou)k e)mbai/nomen, ei)me/n te kai\ ou)k ei)me/n]: Plato, Sophist, p. 242, E., [Greek: diaphero/menon a)ei\ xumphe/retai]: Aristotle, Metaphys.
iii.
7, p. 1012, b.
24, [Greek: e)/oike d' o( me\n Ê(raklei/tou lo/gos, le/gôn pa/nta ei)=nai kai\ mê\ ei)=nai, a(/panta a)lêthê= poei=n]: Aristot.
Topic.
viii.
5, p. 155, b., [Greek: oi(=on a)gatho\n kai\ kako\n ei)=nai tau)to\n, katha/per Ê(ra/kleito/s phêsin]: also Aristot.
Physic.
i.
2, p. 185, b.
Compare the various Herakleitean phrases cited in Pseudo-Origen.
Refut.
Hæres.
Fragm.
ix.
10; also Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie, vol.
i. p. 370-468.
Bernays and Lassalle (vol.
i. p. 81) contend, on reasonable grounds (though in opposition to Zeller, p. 495), that the following verses in the Fragments of Parmenides refer to Herakleitus: [Greek: oi(=s to\ pe/lein te kai\ ou)k ei)=nai tau)to\n neno/mistai kou) tau)to\n, pa/ntôn de\ pali/ntropo/s e)sti ke/leuthos].
The commentary of Alexander Aphrodis.
on the Metaphysica says, "Heraclitus ergo cum diceret omnem rem esse et non esse et opposita simul consistere, contradictionem veram simul esse statuebat, et omnia dicebat esse vera" (Lassalle, p. 83).
One of the metaphors by which Herakleitus illustrated his theory of opposite and co-existent forces, was the pulling and pushing of two sawyers with the same saw.
See Bernays, Heraclitea, part i. p. 16; Bonn, 1848.]
[Footnote 89: Aristot.
Physic.
viii.
3, p. 253, b.
30, [Greek: ei)s tou)nanti/on ga\r ê( a)lloi/ôsis]: also iii.
5, p. 205, a.
6, [Greek: pa/nta ga\r metaba/llei e)x e)nanti/ou ei)s e)nanti/on, oi(=on e)k thermou= ei)s psuchro/n.]]
[Footnote 90: Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol.
i. p.
323.]
[Side-note: Water--intermediate between Fire (Air) and Earth.]
Such was the metaphysical or logical foundation of the philosophy of Herakleitus: the idea of an eternal process of change, manifesting itself in the perpetual destruction and renovation of particular realities, but having itself no reality apart from these particulars, and existing only in them as an immanent principle or condition.
This principle, from the want of appropriate abstract terms, he expressed in a variety of symbolical and metaphorical phrases, among which Fire stood prominent.
[91] But though Fire was thus often used to denote the principle or ideal process itself, the same word was also employed to denote that one of the elements which formed the most immediate manifestation of the principle.
In this latter sense, Fire was the first stage of incipient reality: the second stage was water, the third earth.
This progression, fire, water, earth, was in Herakleitean language "the road downwards," which was the same as "the road upwards," from earth to water and again to fire.
The death of fire was its transition into water: that of water was its transition partly into earth, partly into flame.
As fire was the type of extreme mobility, perpetual generation and destruction--so earth was the type of fixed and stationary existence, resisting movement or change as much as possible.
[92] Water was intermediate between the two.
[Footnote 91: See a striking passage cited from Gregory of Nyssa by Lassalle (vol.
i. p. 287), illustrating this characteristic of fire; the flame of a lamp appears to continue the same, but it is only a succession of flaming particles, each of which takes fire and is extinguished in the same instant: [Greek: ô(/sper to\ e)pi\ tê=s thrualli/dos pu=r tô=| me\n dokei=n a)ei\ to\ au)to\ phai/netai--to\ ga\r suneche\s a)ei\ tê=s kinê/seôs a)dia/spaston au)to\ kai\ ê(nôme/non pro\s e(auto\ dei/knusi--tê=| de\ a)lêthei/a| pa/ntote au)to\ e(auto\ diadecho/menon, ou)de/pote to\ au)to\ me/nei--ê( ga\r e)xelkusthei=sa dia\ tê=s thermo/têtos i)kma\s _o(mou= te e)xephlogô/thê kai\ ei)s lignu\n e)kkauthei=sa metapoiê/thê_], &c.] [Footnote 92: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
9; Clemens Alexand.
Strom.
v. 14, p. 599, vi.
2, p. 624.
[Greek: Puro\s tropai\ prô=ton tha/lassa, thala/ttês de\ to\ me\n ê(/misu gê=, to\ d' ê(/misu prêstê/r].
A full explanation of the curious expression [Greek: prêstê/r] is given by Lassalle (Herakl.
vol.
ii.
p. 87-90).
See Brandis (Handbuch der Gr.
Philos.
sect, xliii.
p. 164), and Plutarch (De Primo Frigido, c. 17, p. 952, F.).
The distinction made by Herakleitus, but not clearly marked out or preserved, between the _ideal fire_ or universal process, and the _elementary fire_ or first stage towards realisation, is brought out by Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol.
ii.
p.
25-29).]
[Side-note: Sun and stars--not solid bodies but meteoric aggregations dissipated and renewed--Eclipses--[Greek: e)kpu/rôsis], or destructions of the Kosmos by fire.]
Herakleitus conceived the sun and stars, not as solid bodies, but as meteoric aggregations perpetually dissipated and perpetually renewed or fed, by exhalation upward from the water and earth.
The sun became extinguished and rekindled in suitable measure and proportion, under the watch of the Erinnyes, the satellites of Justice.
These celestial lights were contained in troughs, the open side of which was turned towards our vision.
In case of eclipses the trough was for the time reversed, so that the dark side was turned towards us; and the different phases of the moon were occasioned by the gradual turning round of the trough in which her light was contained.
Of the phenomena of thunder and lightning also, Herakleitus offered some explanation, referring them to aggregations and conflagrations of the clouds, and violent currents of winds.
[93] Another hypothesis was often ascribed to Herakleitus, and was really embraced by several of the Stoics in later times--that there would come a time when all existing things would be destroyed by fire ([Greek: e)kpu/rôsis]), and afterwards again brought into reality in a fresh series of changes.
But this hypothesis appears to have been conceived by him metaphysically rather than physically.
Fire was not intended to designate the physical process of combustion, but was a symbolical phrase for the universal process; the perpetual agency of conjoint destruction and renovation, manifesting itself in the putting forth and re-absorption of particulars, and having no other reality except as immanent in these particulars.
[94] The determinate Kosmos of the present moment is perpetually destroyed, passing into fire or the indeterminate: it is perpetually renovated or passes out of fire into water, earth--out of the indeterminate, into the various determinate modifications.
At the same time, though Herakleitus seems to have mainly employed these symbols for the purpose of signifying or typifying a metaphysical conception, yet there was no clear apprehension, even in his own mind, of this generality, apart from all symbols: so that the illustration came to count as a physical fact by itself, and has been so understood by many.
[95] The line between what he meant as the ideal or metaphysical process, and the elementary or physical process, is not easy to draw, in the fragments which now remain.
[Footnote 93: Aristot.
Meteorol.
ii.
e. p. 355, a. Plato, Republ.
vi.
p. 498, c. 11; Plutarch, De Exilio, c. 11, p. 604 A.; Plutarch.
De Isid.
et Osirid.
c. 48, p. 370, E.; Diogen.
L. ix.
10; Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
ii.
17-22-24-28, p. 889-891; Stobæus, Eclog.
Phys.
i. p. 594.
About the doctrine of the Stoics, built in part upon this of Herakleitus, see Cicero, Natur.
Deor.
ii.
46; Seneca, Quæst.
Natur.
ii.
5, vi.
16.]
[Footnote 94: Aristot.
or Pseudo-Aristot., De Mundo, [Greek: e)k pa/ntôn e(\n kai\ e)x e(no\s pa/nta].]
[Footnote 95: See Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol.
ii.
s. 26-27, p. 182-258.
Compare about the obscure and debated meaning of the Herakleitean [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis], Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 103; Zeller, Philos.
der Griech.
vol.
i. p. 477-479.
The word [Greek: diako/smêsis] stands as the antithesis (in the language of Herakleitus) to [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis].
A passage from Philo Judæus is cited by Lassalle illustrating the Herakleitean movement from ideal unity into totality of sensible particulars, forwards and backwards--[Greek: o( de\ gonorrhuê\s (lo/gos) e)k ko/smou pa/nta kai\ ei)s ko/smon a)na/gôn, u(po\ theou= de\ mêde\n oi)o/menos, Ê(rakleitei/ou do/xês e(tai=ros, ko/ron kai\ chrêsmosu/nên, kai\ e(\n to\ pa=n kai\ pa/nta a)moibê=| ei)sa/gôn]--where [Greek: ko/ros] and [Greek: chrêsmosu/nê] are used to illustrate the same ideal antithesis as [Greek: diako/smêsis] and [Greek: e)kpu/rôsis] (Lassalle, vol.
i. p.
232).]
[Side-note: His doctrines respecting the human soul and human knowledge.
All wisdom resided in the Universal Wisdom--individual Reason is worthless.]
The like blending of metaphysics and physics--of the abstract and the concrete and sensible--is to be found in the statements remaining from Herakleitus respecting the human soul and human knowledge.
The human soul, according to him, was an effluence or outlying portion of the Universal[96]--the fire--the perpetual movement or life of things.
As such, its nature was to be ever in movement: but it was imprisoned and obstructed by the body, which represented the stationary, the fixed, the particular--that which resisted the universal force of change.
So long as a man lived, his soul or mind, though thus confined, participated more or less in the universal movement: but when he died, his body ceased to participate in it, and became therefore vile, "fit only to be cast out like dung".
Every man, individually considered, was irrational;[97] reason belonged only to the universal or the whole, with which the mind of each living man was in conjunction, renewing itself by perpetual absorption, inspiration or inhalation, vaporous transition, impressions through the senses and the pores, &c. During sleep, since all the media of communication, except only those through respiration, were suspended, the mind became stupefied and destitute of memory.
Like coals when the fire is withdrawn, it lost its heat and tended towards extinction.
[98] On waking, it recovered its full communication with the great source of intelligence without--the universal all-comprehensive process of life and movement.
Still, though this was the one and only source of intelligence open to all waking men, the greater number of men could neither discern it for themselves, nor understand it without difficulty even when pointed out to them.
Though awake, they were not less unconscious or forgetful of the process going on around them, than if they had been asleep.
[99] The eyes and ears of men with barbarous or stupid souls, gave them false information.
[100] They went wrong by following their own individual impression or judgment: they lived as if reason or intelligence belonged to each man individually.
But the only way to attain truth was, to abjure all separate reason, and to follow the common or universal reason.
Each man's mind must become identified and familiar with that common process which directed and transformed the whole: in so far as he did this, he attained truth: whenever he followed any private or separate judgment of his own, he fell into error.
[101] The highest pitch of this severance of the individual judgment was seen during sleep, at which time each man left the common world to retire into a world of his own.
[102] [Footnote 96: Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
130.
[Greek: ê( e)pixenôthei=sa toi=s ê(mete/rois sô/masin a)po\ tou= perie/chontos moi=ra].
Plutarch, Sympos., p. 644.
[Greek: neku/es kopri/ôn e)kblêto/teroi].
Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
i.
23, p. 884.
[Greek: Ê(ra/kleitos ê)remi/an kai\ sta/sin e)k tô=n o(/lôn a)nê/|rei; e)sti\ ga\r tou=to tô=n nekrô=n.]]
[Footnote 97: See Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 522; Sext.
Empir.
adv.
Mathem.
viii.
286.]
[Footnote 98: The passage of Sextus Empiricus (adv.
Mathem.
vii.
127-134) is curious and instructive about Herakleitus.
[Greek: A)re/skei ga\r tô=| phusikô=|] (Herakleitus) [Greek: to perie/chon ê(ma=s logiko/n te o)\n kai\ phrenê=res--tou=ton dê\ to\n thei=on lo/gon, kath' Ê(ra/kleiton, di' a)napnoê=s spa/santes noeroi\ gino/metha, kai\ e)n me\n u(/pnois lêthai=oi, kata\ de\ e)/gersin pa/lin e)/mphrones.
e)n ga\r toi=s u(/pnois musa/ntôn tô=n ai)sthêtikô=n po/rôn chôri/zetai tê=s pro\s to\ perie/chon sumphui+/as o( e)n ê(mi=n nou=s, monê=s tê=s kata\ a)napnoê\n prosphu/seôs sôzome/nês oi(onei/ tinos rhi/zês, chôristhei/s te a)poba/llei ê)\n pro/teron ei)=che mnêmonikê\n du/namin.
e)n de\ e)grêgoro/si pa/lin dia\ tô=n ai)sthêtikô=n po/rôn ô(/sper dia\ tinô=n thuri/dôn proku/psas kai\ tô=| perie/chonti sumba/llôn logikê\n e)ndu/etai du/namin.]
Then follows the simile about coals brought near to, or removed away from, the fire.
The Stoic version of this Herakleitean doctrine, is to be seen in Marcus Antoninus, viii.
54.
[Greek: Mêke/ti mo/non _sumpnei=n tô=| perie/chonti a)e/ri, a)ll' ê)/dê kai\ sumphronei=n tô=| perie/chonti pa/nta noerô=|_.
Ou) ga\r ê(=tton ê( noera\ du/namis pa/ntê ke/chutai kai\ diapephoi/têke tô=| spa=sai boulome/nô|, ê(/per ê( a)erô/dês tô=| a)napneu=sai duname/nô|].
The Stoics, who took up the doctrine of Herakleitus with farther abstraction and analysis, distinguished and named separately matters which he conceived in one and named together--the physical inhalation of air--the metaphysical supposed influx of intelligence--_inspiration_ in its literal and metaphorical senses.
The word [Greek: to\ perie/chon], as he conceives it, seems to denote, not any distinct or fixed local region, but the rotatory movement or circulation of the elements, fire, water, earth, reverting back into each other.
Lassalle, vol.
ii.
p. 119-120; which transition also is denoted by the word [Greek: a)nathumi/asis] in the Herakleitean sense--cited from Herakleitus by Aristotle.
De Animâ, i.
2, 16.]
[Footnote 99: Sextus Empiricus (adv.
Math.
vii.
132) here cites the first words of the treatise of Herakleitus (compare also Aristotle, Rhet.
iii.
5).
[Greek: lo/gou tou=de e)o/ntos a)xu/netoi gi/gnontai a)/nthrôpoi kai\ pro/sthen ê)\ a)kou=sai kai\ a)kou/santes to\ prô=ton;--tou\s de\ a)/llous a)nthrô/pous lantha/nei o(ko/sa e)gerthe/ntes poiou=sin o(/kôsper o(ko/sa eu(/dontes e)pilantha/nontai.]]
[Footnote 100: Sext.
Empiric.
ib.
vii.
126, a citation from Herakleitus.]
[Footnote 101: Sext.
Emp.
ib.
vii.
133 (the words of Herakleitus) [Greek: dio\ dei= _e(/pesthai tô=| xunô=|_;--tou= lo/gou de\ e)o/ntos xunou=, zô/ousin oi( polloi\ ô(s i)di/an e)/chontes phro/nêsin; ê( d' e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti _a)ll' e)xê/gêsis tou= tro/pou tê=s tou= pa/ntos dioikê/seôs_; dio\ kath' o(/ ti a)\n au)tou= tê=s mnê/mês koinônê/sômen, a)lêtheu/omen, a(\ de\ a)\n i)dia/sômen, pseudo/metha.]]
[Footnote 102: Plutarch, De Superstit.
c. 3, p. 166, C. See also the passage in Clemens Alexandr.
Strom.
iv.
22, about the comparison of sleep to death by Herakleitus.]
[Side-note: By Universal Reason he did not mean the Reason of most men as it is, but as it ought to be.]
By this denunciation of the mischief of private judgment, Herakleitus did not mean to say that a man ought to think like his neighbours or like the public.
In his view the public were wrong, collectively as well as individually.
The universal reason to which he made appeal, was not the reason of most men as it actually is but that which, in his theory, ought to be their reason:[103] that which formed the perpetual and governing process throughout all nature, though most men neither recognised nor attended to it, but turned away from it in different directions equally wrong.
No man was truly possessed of reason, unless his individual mind understood the general scheme of the universe, and moved in full sympathy with its perpetual movement and alternation or unity of contraries.
[104] The universal process contained in itself a sum-total of particular contraries which were successively produced and destroyed: to know the universal was to know these contraries in one, and to recognise them as transient, but correlative and inseparable, manifestations, each implying the other--not as having each a separate reality and each excluding its contrary.
[105] In so far as a man's mind maintained its kindred nature and perpetual conjoint movement with the universal, he acquired true knowledge; but the individualising influences arising from the body usually overpowered this kindred with the universal, and obstructed the continuity of this movement, so that most persons became plunged in error and illusion.
[Footnote 103: Sextus Empiricus misinterprets the Herakleitean theory when he represents it (vii.
134) as laying down--[Greek: ta\ koinê=| phaino/mena, pista\, ô(s a)\n tô=| koinô=| krino/mena lo/gô|, ta\ de\ kat' i)di/an e(ka/stô|, pseudê=].
Herakleitus denounces mankind generally as in error.
Origen.
Philosophum.
i.
4; Diog.
Laert.
ix.
1.]
[Footnote 104: The analogy and sympathy between the individual mind and the Kosmical process--between the knowing and the known--was reproduced in many forms among the ancient philosophers.
It appears in the Platonic Timæus, c. 20, p. 47 C. [Greek: To\ kinou/menon tô=| kinoume/nô| gignô/skesthai] was the doctrine of several philosophers.
Aristot.
De Animâ, i.
2.
Plato, Kratylus, p. 412 A: [Greek: kai\ mê\n ê)/ ge e)pistê/mê mênu/ei ô(s pherome/nois toi=s pra/gmasin e)pome/nês tê=s psuchê=s tê=s a)xi/as lo/gou, kai\ ou)/te a)poleipome/nês ou)/te protheou/sês].
A remarkable passage from the comment of Philoponus (on the treatise of Aristotle De Animâ) is cited by Lassalle, ii.
p. 339, describing the Herakleitean doctrine, [Greek: dia\ tou=to e)k tê=s a)nathumia/seôs au)tê\n e)/legen] (Herakleitus); [Greek: tô=n ga\r pragma/tôn e)n kinê/sei o)/ntôn dei=n kai\ to\ gi/nôskon ta\ pra/gmata e)n kinê/sei ei)=nai, i(/na _sumpara/theon au)toi=s e)pha/ptêtai kai\ e)pharmo/zê|_ au)toi=s].
Also Simplikius ap.
Lassalle, p. 341: [Greek: e)n metabolê=| ga\r sunechei= ta\ o)/nta u(potithe/menos o( Ê(ra/kleitos, kai\ to\ gnôso/menon au)ta\ tê=| e)paphê=| gi/nôskon, sune/pesthai e)bou/leto ô(s a)ei\ ei)=nai kata\ to\ gnôstiko\n e)n kinê/sei.]]
[Footnote 105: Stobæus, Eclog.
Phys.
p. 58; and the passage of Philo Judæus, cited by Schleiermacher, p. 437; as well as more fully by Lassalle, vol.
ii.
p. 265-267 (Quis rerum divinar.
hæres, p. 503, Mangey): [Greek: e(\n ga\r to\ e)x a)mphoi=n tô=n e)nanti/ôn, ou(= tmêthe/ntos gnô/rima ta\ e)nanti/a.
Ou) tou=t' e)sti\n o(/ phasin E(/llênes to\n me/gan kai\ a)oi/dimon par' au)toi=s Ê(ra/kleiton, kephalai=on tê=s au)tou= prostêsa/menon philosophi/as, au)chei=n ô(s eu(re/sei kainê=|?
palaio\n ga\r eu(/rêma Môu/seô/s e)stin.]]
[Side-note: Herakleitus at the opposite pole from Parmenides] The absolute of Herakleitus stands thus at the opposite pole as compared with that of Parmenides: it is absolute movement, change, generation and destruction--negation of all substance and stability,[106] temporary and unbecoming resistance of each successive particular to the destroying and renewing current of the universal.
The Real, on this theory, was a generalisation, not of substances, but of facts, events, changes, revolutions, destructions, generations, &c., determined by a law of justice or necessity which endured, and which alone endured, for ever.
Herakleitus had many followers, who adopted his doctrine wholly or partially, and who gave to it developments which he had not adverted to, perhaps might not have acknowledged.
[107] It was found an apt theme by those who, taking a religious or poetical view of the universe, dwelt upon the transitory and contemptible value of particular existences, and extolled the grandeur or power of the universal.
It suggested many doubts and debates respecting the foundations of logical evidence, and the distinction of truth from falsehood; which debates will come to be noticed hereafter, when we deal with the dialectical age of Plato and Aristotle.
[Footnote 106: The great principle of Herakleitus, which Aristotle states in order to reject (Physic.
viii.
3, p. 253, b.
10, [Greek: phasi/ tines kinei=sthai tô=n o)/ntôn ou) ta\ me\n ta\ d' ou), a)lla\ pa/nta kai\ a)ei\; a)lla\ lantha/nein tou=to tê\n ê(mete/ran ai)/sthêsin]) now stands averred in modern physical philosophy.
Mr. Grove observes, in his instructive Treatise on the Correlation of Physical Forces, p. 22: "Of absolute rest, Nature gives us no evidence.
All matter, as far as we can discern, is ever in movement: not merely in masses, as in the planetary spheres, but also molecularly, or throughout its intimate structure.
Thus every alteration of temperature produces a molecular change throughout the whole substance heated or cooled: slow chemical or electrical forces, actions of light or invisible radiant forces, are always at play; so that, as a fact, we cannot predicate of any portion of matter, that it is absolutely at rest."]
[Footnote 107: Many references to Herakleitus are found in the recently published books of the Refutatio Hæresium by Pseudo-Origen or Hippolytus--especially Book ix.
p. 279-283, ed.
Miller.
To judge by various specimens there given, it would appear that his juxta-positions of contradictory predicates, with the same subject, would be recognised as paradoxes merely in appearance, and not in reality, if we had his own explanation.
Thus he says (p. 282) "the pure and the corrupt, the drinkable and the undrinkable, are one and the same."
Which is explained as follows: "The sea is most pure and most corrupt: to fish, it is drinkable and nutritive; to men, it is undrinkable and destructive."
This explanation appears to have been given by Herakleitus himself, [Greek: tha/lassa, _phêsi\n_], &c. These are only paradoxes in appearance--the relative predicate being affirmed without mention of its correlate.
When you supply the correlate to each predicate, there remains no contradiction at all.]
[Side-note: Empedokles--his doctrine of the four elements, and two moving or restraining forces.]
After Herakleitus, and seemingly at the same time with Parmenides, we arrive at Empedokles (about 500-430 B. C.) and his memorable doctrine of the Four Elements.
This philosopher, a Sicilian of Agrigentum, and a distinguished as well as popular-minded citizen, expounded his views in poems, of which Lucretius[108] speaks with high admiration, but of which few fragments are preserved.
He agreed with Parmenides, and dissented from Herakleitus and the Ionic philosophers, in rejecting all real generation and destruction.
[109] That which existed had not been generated and could not be destroyed.
Empedokles explained what that was, which men mistook for generation and destruction.
There existed four distinct elements--Earth, Water, Air, and Fire--eternal, inexhaustible, simple, homogeneous, equal, and co-ordinate with each other.
Besides these four substances, there also existed two moving forces, one contrary to the other--Love or Friendship, which brought the elements into conjunction--Enmity or Contest, which separated them.
Here were alternate and conflicting agencies, either bringing together different portions of the elements to form a new product, or breaking up the product thus formed and separating the constituent elements.
Sometimes the Many were combined into One; sometimes the One was decomposed into Many.
Generation was simply this combination of elements already existing separately--not the calling into existence of anything new: destruction was in like manner the dissolution of some compound, not the termination of any existent simple substance.
The four simple substances or elements (which Empedokles sometimes calls by names of the popular Deities--Zeus, Hêrê, Aidoneus, &c.), were the roots or foundations of everything.
[110] [Footnote 108: Lucretius, i.
731.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus Vociferantur, et exponunt præclara reperta: Ut vix humanâ videatur stirpe creatus.]
[Footnote 109: Empedokles, Frag.
v. 77-83, ed.
Karsten, p. 96: [Greek: phu/sis ou)deno/s e)stin a(pa/ntôn thnêtô=n, ou)de/ tis ou)lome/nou thanatoi=o teleutê\, a)lla\ mo/non mi/xis te dia/llaxi/s te mige/ntôn e)sti, phu/sis d' e)pi\ toi=s o)noma/zetai a)nthrô/poisin.
.
.
. ]
[Greek: Phu/sis] here is remarkable, in its primary sense, as derivative from [Greek: phu/omai], equivalent to [Greek: ge/nesis].
Compare Plutarch adv.
Koloten, p. 1111, 1112.]
[Footnote 110: Emp.
Fr.
v. 55.
[Greek: Te/ssara tô=n pa/ntôn rhizô/mata].]
[Side-note: Construction of the Kosmos from these elements and forces--action and counter action of love and enmity.
The Kosmos alternately made and unmade.]
From the four elements--acted upon by these two forces, abstractions or mythical personifications--Empedokles showed how the Kosmos was constructed.
He supposed both forces to be perpetually operative, but not always with equal efficacy: sometimes the one was predominant, sometimes the other, sometimes there was equilibrium between them.
Things accordingly pass through a perpetual and ever-renewed cycle.
The complete preponderance of Love brings alternately all the elements into close and compact unity, Enmity being for the time eliminated.
Presently the action of the latter recommences, and a period ensues in which Love and Enmity are simultaneously operative; until at length Enmity becomes the temporary master, and all union is for the time dissolved.
But this condition of things does not last.
Love again becomes active, so that partial and increasing combination of the elements is produced, and another period commences--the simultaneous action of the two forces, which ends in renewed empire of Love, compact union of the elements, and temporary exclusion of Enmity.
[111] [Footnote 111: Zeller, Philos.
der Griech., vol.
i. p. 525-528, ed.
2nd.]
[Side-note: Empedoklean predestined cycle of things--complete empire of Love--Sphærus--Empire of Enmity--disengagement or separation of the elements--astronomy and meteorology.]
This is the Empedoklean cycle of things,[112] divine or predestined, without beginning or end: perpetual substitution of new for old compounds--constancy only in the general principle of combination and dissolution.
The Kosmos which Empedokles undertakes to explain, takes its commencement from the period of complete empire of Love, or compact and undisturbed union of all the elements.
This he conceives and divinises under the name of Sphærus--as One sphere, harmonious, uniform, and universal, having no motion, admitting no parts or separate existences within it, exhibiting no one of the four elements distinctly, "instabilis tellus, innabilis unda"--a sort of chaos.
[113] At the time prescribed by Fate or Necessity, the action of Enmity recommenced, penetrating gradually through the interior of Sphærus, "agitating the members of the God one after another,"[114] disjoining the parts from each other, and distending the compact ball into a vast porous mass.
This mass, under the simultaneous and conflicting influences of Love and Enmity, became distributed partly into homogeneous portions, where each of the four elements was accumulated by itself--partly into compounds or individual substances, where two or more elements were found in conjunction.
Like had an appetite for Like--Air for Air, Fire for Fire, and so forth: and a farther extension of this appetite brought about the mixture of different elements in harmonious compounds.
First, the Air disengaged itself, and occupied a position surrounding the central mass of Earth and Water: next, the Fire also broke forth, and placed itself externally to the Air, immediately in contact with the outermost crystalline sphere, formed of condensed and frozen air, which formed the wall encompassing the Kosmos.
A remnant of Fire and Air still remained embodied in the Earth, but the great mass of both so distributed themselves, that the former occupied most part of one hemisphere, the latter most part of the other.
[115] The rapid and uniform rotation of the Kosmos, caused by the exterior Fire, compressed the interior elements, squeezed the water out of the earth like perspiration from the living body, and thus formed the sea.
The same rotation caused the earth to remain unmoved, by counterbalancing and resisting its downward pressure or gravity.
[116] In the course of the rotation, the light hemisphere of Fire, and the comparatively dark hemisphere of Air, alternately came above the horizon: hence the interchange of day and night.
Empedokles (like the Pythagoreans) supposed the sun to be not self-luminous, but to be a glassy or crystalline body which collected and reflected the light from the hemisphere of Fire.
He regarded the fixed stars as fastened to the exterior crystalline sphere, and revolving along with it, but the planets as moving free and detached from any sphere.
[117] He supposed the alternations of winter and summer to arise from a change in the proportions of Air and Fire in the atmospheric regions: winter was caused by an increase of the Air, both in volume and density, so as to drive back the exterior Fire to a greater distance from the Earth, and thus to produce a diminution of heat and light: summer was restored when the Fire, in its turn increasing, extruded a portion of the Air, approached nearer to the Earth, and imparted to the latter more heat and light.
[118] Empedokles farther supposed (and his contemporaries, Anaxagoras and Diogenes, held the same opinion) that the Earth was round and flat at top and bottom, like a drum or tambourine: that its surface had been originally horizontal, in reference to the rotation of the Kosmos around it, but that it had afterwards tilted down to the south and upward towards the north, so as to lie aslant instead of horizontal.
Hence he explained the fact that the north pole of the heavens now appeared obliquely elevated above the horizon.
[119] [Footnote 112: Emp.
Frag.
v. 96, Karst., p. 98: [Greek: Ou(/tôs ê)=| me\n e(\n e)k pleo/nôn mema/thêke phu/esthai, ê)de\ pa/lin diaphunto\s e(no\s ple/on e)ktele/thousi, tê=| me\n gi/gnontai/ te kai\ ou)/ sphisin e)/mpedos ai)ô/n; ê(=| de\ ta/d' a)lla/ssonta diampere\s ou)dama\ lê/gei, tau/tê| d' ai)e\n e)/asin a)ki/nêta kata\ ku/klon.]
Also:-[Greek: kai\ ga\r kai\ paro\s ê(=n te kai\ e)/ssetai ou)de/ pot', oi)/ô, tou/tôn a)mphote/rôn] (Love and Discord) [Greek: keinô/setai a)/spetos ai)ô/n].
These are new Empedoklean verses, derived from the recently published fragments of Hippolytus (Hær.
Refut.)
printed by Stein, v. 110, in his collection of the Fragments of Empedokles, p. 43.
Compare another passage in the same treatise of Hippolytus, p.
251.]
[Footnote 113: Emped.
Fr.
v. 59, Karsten: [Greek: Ou(/tôs a(rmoni/ês pukinô=| kruphô=| e)stê/riktai sphai/ros kuklote/rês, moniê=| periêge/i+ gai/ôn].
Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lunæ, c. 12.
About the divinity ascribed by Empedokles to Sphærus, see Aristot.
Metaphys.
B.
4, p. 1000, a.
29.
[Greek: a(/panta ga\r e)k tou/tou (nei/kous) ta)/lla/ e)sti plê\n o( theo/s] (i.e.
Sphærus).--[Greek: Ei) ga\r mê\ ê)=n to\ nei=kos e)n toi=s pra/gmasi, e(\n a)\n ê)=n a(/panta, ô(s phêsi/n] (Empedokles).
See Preller, Hist.
Philos.
ex Font.
Loc.
Contexta, sect.
171, 172, ed.
3.
The condition of things which Empedokles calls Sphærus may be illustrated (translating his Love and Enmity into the modern phraseology of _attraction_ and _repulsion_) from an eminent modern work on Physics:--"Were there only atoms and attraction, as now explained, the whole material of creation would rush into close contact, and the universe would be one huge solid mass of stillness and death.
There is heat or caloric, however, which directly counteracts attraction and singularly modifies the results.
It has been described by some as a most subtile fluid pervading things, as water does a sponge: others have accounted it merely a vibration among the atoms.
The truth is, that we know little more of heat as a cause of repulsion, than of gravity as a cause of attraction: but we can study and classify the phenomena of both most accurately."
(Dr. Arnott, Elements of Physics, vol.
i. p.
26.)]
[Footnote 114: Emp.
Fr.
v. 66-70, Karsten: [Greek: pa/nta ga\r e)xei/ês pelemi/zeto gui=a theoi=o.]]
[Footnote 115: Plutarch ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Evang.
i.
8, 10; Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
ii.
6, p. 887; Aristot.
Ethic.
Nic.
viii.
2.]
[Footnote 116: Emped.
Fr.
185, Karsten.
[Greek: ai)thê\r sphi/ggôn peri\ ku/klon a(/panta].
Aristot.
De Coelo, ii.
13, 14; iii.
2, 2.
[Greek: tê\n gê=n u(po\ tê=s di/nês ê)remei=n], &c. Empedokles called the sea [Greek: i(/drôta tê=s gê=s].
Emp.
Fr.
451, Karsten; Aristot.
Meteor.
ii.
3.]
[Footnote 117: Plutarch, Placit.
Phil.
ii.
20, p.
890.]
[Footnote 118: Zeller, Phil.
d.
Griech., i. p. 532-535, 2nd ed.
: Karsten--De Emped.
Philos.
p. 424-431.
The very imperfect notices which remain, of the astronomical and meteorological doctrines of Empedokles, are collected and explained by these two authors.]
[Footnote 119: Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
ii.
8; Schaubach, Anaxag.
Fragm.
p. 175.
Compare the remarks of Gruppe (Ueber die Kosmischen** Systeme der Griechen, p. 98) upon the obscure Welt-Gebäude of Empedokles.]
[Side-note: Formation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and plants.]
From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles[120] proceeded to describe the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first produced, and how put together.
All were produced by the Earth: being thrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it.
In its earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being as yet incompetent to produce animals.
[121] After a certain time she gradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next, discordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as creatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to each other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which continued and propagated.
[122] Among these productions were not only plants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the "long-lived Gods".
[123] All compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in different proportions, more or less harmonious.
[124] These elements remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another.
But the small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and the combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure of these pores was more or less adapted to receive them.
So intimate did the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of one and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent ingredients, like colours compounded together by the painter,[125] could not be discerned or handled separately.
Empedokles rarely assigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to enter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth, one-fourth water, and the other half fire.
He insisted merely on the general fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for generation of new substances without pointing out any reason to determine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own.
This omission in his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.
[Footnote 120: Hippokrates--[Greek: Peri\ a)rchai/ês i)êtrikê=s]--c. 20, p. 620, vol.
i. ed.
Littré.
[Greek: katha/per E)mpedoklê=s ê)\ a)/lloi oi(\ peri\ phu/sios gegra/phasin e)x a)rchê=s o(/ ti/ e)stin a)/nthrôpos, kai\ o(/pôs e)geneto prô/ton, kai\ o(/pôs xunepa/gê].
This is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently printed by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS.
in the Parisian library.]
[Footnote 121: Emp.
Fr.
v. 253, Kar.
[Greek: tou\s me\n pu=r a)nepemp' e)/thelon pro\s o(/moion i(ke/sthai], &c.
Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot.
De Plantis, i.
2.
[Greek: ei)=pe pa/lin o( E)mpedoklê=s, o(/ti ta\ phuta\ e)/chousi ge/nesin e)n ko/smô| ê)lattôme/nô|, kai\ ou) telei/ô| kata\ tê\n sumplê/rôsin au)tou=; tau/tês de\ sumplêroume/nês] (while it is in course of being completed), [Greek: ou) genna=tai zô=on.]]
[Footnote 122: Emp.
Frag.
v. 132, 150, 233, 240, ed.
Karst.
Ver.
238:-[Greek: polla\ me\n a)mphipro/sôpa kai\ a)mphi/stern' e)phu/onto, bougenê= a)ndro/prôra], &c. Ver.
251:-[Greek: Ou)lophuei=s me\n prô=ta tu/poi chthono\s e(xane/tellon], &c. Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel.
Gen.
Animal.
i.
18, p. 722, b.
20; Physic.
ii.
8, 2, p. 198, b.
32; De Coelo, iii.
2, 5, p. 300, b.
29; with the commentary of Simplikius ap.
Schol.
Brand.
b.
512.]
[Footnote 123: Emp.
Frag.
v. 135, Kar.]
[Footnote 124: Plato, Menon.
p. 76 A.; Aristot.
Gen. et Corr.
i.
8, p. 324, b.
30 seq.]
[Footnote 125: [Greek: E)mpedoklê=s e)x a)metablê/tôn tô=n tetta/rôn stoichei/ôn ê(gei=to gi/gnesthai tê\n tô=n sunthe/tôn sôma/tôn phu/sin, ou(/tôs a)namemigme/nôn a)llê/lois tô=n prô/tôn, ô(s ei)/ tis leiô/sas a)kribô=s kai\ chnoô/dê poiê/sas i)o\n kai\ chalki=tin kai\ kadmei/an kai\ mi/su mi/xeien, ô(s mêde\n e)x au)tou= metacheiri/sasthai chôri\s e(te/rou].
Galen, Comm.
in Hippokrat.
De Homin.
Nat.
t. iii.
p. 101.
See Karsten, De Emped.
Phil.
p. 407, and Emp.
Fr.
v. 155.
Galen says, however (after Aristot.
Gen. et Corr.
ii.
7, p. 334, a.
30), that this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, is not mixture properly speaking, but merely close proximity.
Hippokrates (he says) was the first who propounded the doctrine of real mixture.
But Empedokles seems to have intended a real mixture, in all cases where the structure of the pores was in symmetry with the inflowing particles.
Oil and water (he said) would not mix together, because there was no such symmetry between them--[Greek: o(/lôs ga\r poiei=] (Empedokles) [Greek: tê\n mi/xin tê=| summetri/a| tô=n po/rôn; dio/per e)/laion me\n kai\ u(/dôr ou) mi/gnusthai, ta\ de\ a)/lla u(gra\ kai\ peri\ o(/sôn dê\ katarithmei=tai ta\s i)di/as kra/seis] (Theophrastus, De Sensu et Sensili, s. 12, vol.
i. p. 651, ed.
Schneider).]
[Side-note: Physiology of Empedokles--Procreation--Respiration--movement of the blood.]
Empedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting physiology.
He dwelt on the procreation of men and animals, entered upon many details respecting gestation and the foetus, and even tried to explain what it was that determined the birth of male or female offspring.
About respiration, alimentation, and sensation, he also proposed theories: his explanation of respiration remains in one of the fragments.
He supposed that man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs, but partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores wherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected with those pores.
Those internal vessels were connected with the blood vessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alternately filled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow outwards from the centre or the ebb inwards towards the centre.
Such was the movement which Empedokles considered as constantly belonging to the blood: alternately a projection outwards from the centre and a recession backwards towards the centre.
When the blood thus receded, the extremities of the vessels were left empty, and the air from without entered: when the outward tide of blood returned, the air which had thus entered was expelled.
[126] Empedokles conceived this outward tide of blood to be occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape and join its analogous element without.
[127] [Footnote 126: Emp.
Fr.
v. 275, seqq.
Karst.
The comments of Aristotle on this theory of Empedokles are hardly pertinent: they refer to respiration by the nostrils, which was not what Empedokles had in view (Aristot.
De Respirat.
c.
3).]
[Footnote 127: Karsten, De Emp.
Philosoph.
p. 480.
Emp.
Fr.
v. 307--[Greek: to/ t' e)n mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion pu=r--pu=r d' e)/xô diathrô=skon], &c. Empedokles illustrates this influx and efflux of air in respiration by the klepsydra, a vessel with one high and narrow neck, but with a broad bottom pierced with many small holes.
When the neck was kept closed by the finger or otherwise, the vessel might be plunged into water, but no water would ascend into it through the holes in the bottom, because of the resistance of the air within.
As soon as the neck was freed from pressure, and the air within allowed to escape, the water would immediately rush up through the holes in the bottom.
This illustration is interesting.
It shows that Empedokles was distinctly aware of the pressure of the air as countervailing the ascending movement of the water, and the removal of that pressure as allowing such movement.
Vers.
286:-[Greek: ou)de/ t' e)s a)/ggos d' o)/mbros e)se/rchetai, a)lla/ min ei)/rgei a)e/ros o)/gkos e)/sôthe pesô\n e)pi\ trê/mata pukna/], &c. This dealing with the klepsydra seems to have been a favourite amusement with children.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of effluvia and pores--explanation of perceptions--Intercommunication of the elements with the sentient subject--like acting upon like.]
The doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous an item in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by him to explain sensation.
He maintained the general doctrine (which Parmenides had advanced before him, and which Plato retained after him), that sensation was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus before him, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it was produced by unlike acting upon unlike.
Empedokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried) to apply his doctrine to the various senses separately.
[128] Man was composed of the same four elements as the universe around him: and since like always tended towards like, so by each of the four elements within himself, he perceived and knew the like element without.
Effluvia from all bodies entered his pores, wherever they found a suitable channel: hence he perceived and knew earth by earth, water by water, and so forth.
[129] Empedokles, assuming perception and knowledge to be produced by such intercommunication of the four elements, believed that not man and animals only, but plants and other substances besides, perceived and knew in the same way.
Everything possessed a certain measure of knowledge, though less in degree, than man, who was a more compound structure.
[130] Perception and knowledge was more developed in different animals in proportion as their elementary composition was more mixed and varied.
The blood, as the most compound portion of the whole body, was the principal seat of intelligence.
[131] [Footnote 128: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 2, p. 647, Schneid.]
[Footnote 129: Emp.
Frag.
Karst.
v. 267, seq.
[Greek: gnô=th', o(/ti pa/ntôn ei)si\n a)por)r(oai\ o(/ss' e)ge/nonto], &c. ib.
v. 321: [Greek: gai/ê| me\n ga\r gai=an o)pô/pamen, u(/dati d' u(/dôr, ai)the/ri d' ai)the/ra di=on, a)ta\r puri\ pu=r a)i+\dêlon, storgê=| de\ storgê/n, nei=kos de/ te nei/kei+ lugrô=|].
Theophrastus, De Sensu, c. 10, p. 650, Schneid.
Aristotle says that Empedokles regarded each of these six as a [Greek: psuchê\] (_soul_, _vital principle_) by itself.
Sextus Empiricus treats Empedokles as considering each of the six to be a [Greek: kritê/rion a)lêthei/as] (Aristot.
De Animâ, i.
2; Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
116).]
[Footnote 130: Emp.
Fr.
v. 313, Karst.
ap.
Sext.
Empir.
adv.
Mathem.
viii.
286; also apud Diogen.
L. viii.
77.
[Greek: pa/nta ga\r i)/sth' phro/nêsin e)/chein kai\ nô/matos ai)=san].
Stein gives (Emp.
Fr.
v. 222-231) several lines immediately preceding this from the treatise of Hippolytus; but they are sadly corrupt.
Parmenides had held the same opinion before--[Greek: kai\ o(/lôs pa=n to\ o)\n e)/chein tina\ gnô=sin]--ap.
Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 4.
Theophrastus, in commenting upon the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as one of his grounds of objection--That Empedokles, in maintaining sensation and knowledge to be produced by influx of the elements into pores, made no difference between animated and inanimate substances (Theophr.
De Sens.
s. 12-23).
Theophrastus puts this as if it were an inconsistency or oversight of Empedokles: but it cannot be so considered, for Empedokles (as well as Parmenides) appears to have accepted the consequence, and to have denied all such difference, except one of degree, as to perception and knowledge.]
[Footnote 131: Emp.
Frag.
316, Karst.
[Greek: ai(=ma ga\r a)nthrô/pois perika/rdio/n e)sti no/êma.]
Comp.
Theophrast.
De Sensu, s.
11.]
[Side-note: Sense of vision.]
In regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated mainly by the fire or light within the eye, though aided by the light without.
The interior of the eye was of fire and water, the exterior coat was a thin layer of earth and air.
Colours were brought to the eye as effluvia from objects, and became apprehended as sensations by passing into the alternate pores or ducts of fire and water: white colour was fitted to (or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black colour with those of water.
[132] Some animals had the proportions of fire and water in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently located, than others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on the outside, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others, water was in excess, and fire in defect.
The latter were the animals which saw better by day than by night, a great force of external light being required to help out the deficiency of light within: the former class of animals saw better by night, because, when there was little light without, the watery ducts were less completely obstructed--or left more free to receive the influx of black colour suited to them.
[133] [Footnote 132: Emp.
Frag.
v. 301-310, Karst.
[Greek: to/ t' e)n mê/nigxin e)ergme/non ô)gu/gion pu=r], &c. Theophr.
De Sensu, s. 7, 8; Aristot.
De Sensu, c. 3; Aristot.
De Gen. et Corrupt.
i.
8.]
[Footnote 133: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 7, 8.]
[Side-note: Senses of hearing, smell, taste.]
In regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a bell or trumpet set in motion by the air without; through which motion the solid parts were brought into shock against the air flowing in, and caused the sensation of sound within.
[134] Smell was, in his view, an adjunct of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those who had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from many bodies, and especially from such as were light and thin.
Respecting taste and touch, he gave no further explanation than his general doctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have thought that such interpenetration was intelligible by itself, since here was immediate and actual contact.
Generally, in respect to all the senses, he laid it down that pleasure ensued when the matter which flows in was not merely fitted in point of structure to penetrate the interior pores or ducts (which was the condition of all sensation), but also harmonious with them in respect to elementary mixture.
[135] [Footnote 134: Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 9-21.
Empedokles described the ear under the metaphor of [Greek: sa/rkinon o)/zon], "the fleshy branch."]
[Footnote 135: Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 9, 10.
The criticisms of Theophrastus upon this theory of Empedokles are extremely interesting, as illustrating the change in the Grecian physiological point of view during a century and a half, but I reserve them until I come to the Aristotelian age.
I may remark, however, that Theophrastus, disputing the doctrine of sensory effluvia generally, disputes the existence of the olfactory effluvia not less than the rest (s.
20).]
[Side-note: Empedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the killing of anything that had life.
His belief in the metempsychosis.
Sufferings of life are an expiation for wrong done during an antecedent life.
Pretensions to magic power.]
Empedokles held various opinions in common with the Pythagoreans and the brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries--especially that of the metempsychosis.
He represented himself as having passed through prior states of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish.
He proclaims it as an obligation of justice, absolute and universal, not to kill anything that had life: he denounces as an abomination the sacrificing of or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell the soul of a deceased friend or brother.
[136] His religious faith, however, and his opinions about Gods, Dæmons, and the human soul, stood apart (mostly in a different poem) from his doctrines on kosmology and physiology.
In common with many Pythagoreans, he laid great stress on the existence of Dæmons (of intermediate order and power between Gods and men), some of whom had been expelled from the Gods in consequence of their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long period of exile, as souls embodied in various men or animals.
He laments the misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others, condemned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they could regain the society of the Gods.
[137] In one of his remaining fragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth, and professes his willingness as well as ability to impart to a favoured pupil the most wonderful gifts--powers to excite or abate the winds, to bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men from the dead.
[138] He was in fact a man of universal pretensions; not merely an expositor of nature, but a rhetorician, poet, physician, prophet, and conjurer.
Gorgias the rhetor had been personally present at his magical ceremonies.
[139] [Footnote 136: Emp.
Frag.
v. 380-410, Karsten; Plutarch, De Esu Carnium, p. 997-8.
Aristot.
Rhetoric.
i.
13, 2: [Greek: e)sti\ ga\r, o(\ manteu/ontai/ ti pa/ntes, phu/sei koino\n di/kaion kai\ a)/dikon, ka)\n mêdemi/a koinôni/a pro\s a)llê/lous ê)=|, mêde\ sunthê/kê--ô(s E)mpedoklê=s le/gei peri\ tou= mê\ ktei/nein to\ e)/mpsuchon; tou=to ga\r ou) tisi\ me\n di/kaion, tisi\ d' ou) di/kaion, A)lla\ to\ me\n pa/ntôn no/mimon dia/ t' eu)rume/dontos Ai)the/ros ê)neke/ôs te/tatai dia/ t' a)ple/tou au)gê=s].
Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathem.
ix.
127.]
[Footnote 137: Emp.
Frag.
v. 5-18, Karst.
; compare Herod.
ii.
123; Plato, Phædrus, 55, p. 246 C.; Plutarch, De Isid.
et Osirid.
c. 26.
Plutarch observes in another place on the large proportion of religious mysticism blended with the philosophy of Empedokles--[Greek: Sôkra/tês, phasma/tôn kai\ deisidaimoni/as a)naple/ô philosophi/an a)po\ Puthago/rou kai\ E)mpedokle/ous dexa/menos, eu)= ma/la bebakcheume/nên], &c. (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 580, C.) See Fr.
Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemonen, Heroen, und Genien, p.
151.]
[Footnote 138: Emp.
Fr.
v. 390-425, Karst.]
[Footnote 139: Diog.
Laert.
viii.
59.]
[Side-note: Complaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding out truth.]
None of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more remarkable than a few in which he deplores the impossibility of finding out any great or comprehensive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings of our short life.
Every man took a different road, confiding only in his own accidental experience or particular impressions; but no man could obtain or communicate satisfaction about the whole.
[140] [Footnote 140: Emp.
Fr.
v. 34, ed.
Karst., p. 88.
[Greek: pau=ron de\ zô/ês a)bi/ou me/ros a)thlê/santes ô)ku/moroi, ka/pnoio di/kên a)rthe/ntes, a)pe/ptan, au)to\ mo/non peisthe/ntes o(/tô| prose/kursen e(/kastos, pa/ntos' e)launo/menoi; to\ de\ ou)=lon e)peu/chetai eu(rei=n au)/tôs.
ou)/t' e)piderkta\ ta/d' a)ndra/sin ou)/t' e)pakousta\ ou)/te no/ô| perilêpta/.]]
[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras--denied generation and destruction--recognises only mixture and severance of pre-existing kinds of matter.]
Anaxagoras of Klazomenæ, a friend of the Athenian Perikles, and contemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and less ambitious character: devoted to physical contemplation and geometry, without any of those mystical pretentions common among the Pythagoreans.
His doctrines were set forth in prose, and in the Ionic dialect.
[141] His theory, like all those of his age, was all-comprehensive in its purpose, starting from a supposed beginning, and shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of earth, had come into those appearances which were exhibited to sense.
He agreed with Empedokles in departing from the point of view of Thales and other Ionic theorists, who had supposed one primordial matter, out of which, by various transformations, other sensible things were generated--and into which, when destroyed, they were again resolved.
Like Empedokles, and like Parmenides previously, he declared that generation, understood in this sense, was a false and impossible notion: that no existing thing could have been generated, or could be destroyed, or could undergo real transformation into any other thing different from what it was.
[142] Existing things were what they were, possessing their several inherent properties: there could be no generation except the putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any destruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any transformation except the substitution of one compound for another.
[Footnote 141: Aristotel.
Ethic.
Eudem.
i.
4, 5; Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
10.]
[Footnote 142: Anaxagor.
Fr.
22, p. 135, ed.
Schaubach.
[Greek: to\ de\ gi/nesthai kai\ a)po/llusthai ou)k o)rthô=s nomi/zousin oi( E(/llênes.
Ou)de\n ga\r chrê=ma gi/netai, ou)de\ a)po/llutai, a)ll' a)p' e)o/ntôn chrêma/tôn summi/sgetai/ te kai\ diakri/netai; kai\ ou(/tôs a)\n o)rthô=s kaloi=en to/ te gi/nesthai summi/sgesthai kai\ to\ a)po/llusthai diakri/nesthai.]]
[Side-note: Homoeomeries--small particles of diverse kinds of matter, all mixed together.]
But Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements as the sum total of first substances.
He reckoned all the different sorts of matter as original and primæval existences: he supposed them all to lie ready made, in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no greatest and no least.
[143] Particles of the same sort he called Homoeomeries: the aggregates of which formed bodies of like parts; wherein the parts were like each other and like the whole.
Flesh, bone, blood, fire,[144] earth, water, gold, &c., were aggregations of particles mostly similar, in which each particle was not less flesh, bone, and blood, than the whole mass.
[Footnote 143: Anaxag.
Fr.
5, ed.
Schaub, p. 94.
[Greek: Ta\ o(moiomerê=] are the primordial particles themselves: [Greek: o(moiome/reia] is the abstract word formed from this concrete--existence in the form or condition of [Greek: o(moiomerê=].
Each distinct substance has its own [Greek: o(moiomerê=], little particles like each other, and each possessing the characteristics of the substance.
But the state called [Greek: o(moiome/reia] pervades all substances (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, s. 53, note 3.)]
[Footnote 144: Lucretius, i.
830: Nunc et Anaxagoræ scrutemur Homoeomerian, Quam Grai memorant, nec nostrâ dicere linguâ Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.
Lucretius calls this theory Homoeomeria, and it appears to me that this name must have been bestowed upon it by its author.
Zeller and several others, after Schleiermacher, conceive the name to date first from Aristotle and his physiological classification.
But what other name was so natural or likely for Anaxagoras himself to choose?]
But while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homoeomeries[145] was a special sort of matter with its own properties, and each of them unlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine, that no one of them could have an existence apart from the rest.
Everything was mixed with everything: each included in itself all the others: not one of them could be obtained pure and unmixed.
This was true of any portion however small.
The visible and tangible bodies around us affected our senses, and received their denominations according to that one peculiar matter of which they possessed a decided preponderance and prominence.
But each of them included in itself all the other matters, real and inseparable, although latent.
[146] [Footnote 145: Anaxag.
Fr.
8; Schaub.
p. 101; compare p. 113.
[Greek: e(/teron de\ ou)de/n e)stin o(/moion ou)deni\ a)/llô|.
A)ll' o(/teô| plei=sta e)/ni, tau=ta e)ndêlo/tata e(\n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\ ê)=n.]]
[Footnote 146: Lucretius, i.
876: Id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnes Res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud Apparere unum cujus sint plurima mixta,** Et magis in promptu primâque in fronte** locata.
Aristotel.
Physic.
i.
4, 3.
[Greek: Dio/ phasi pa=n e)n panti\ memi=chthai, dio/ti pa=n e)k panto\s e(ô/rôn gigno/menon; phai/nesthai de\ diaphe/ronta kai/ prosagoreu/esthai e(/tera a)llê/lôn, e)k tou= ma/lista u(pere/chontos, dia\ to\ plê=thos e)n tê=| mi/xei tô=n a)pei/rôn; ei)likrinô=s me\n ga\r o(/lon leuko\n ê)\ me/lan ê)\ sa/rka ê)\ o)stou=n, ou)k ei)=nai; o(/tou de\ plei=ston e(/kaston e)/chei, tou=to dokei=n ei)=nai tê\n phu/sin tou= pra/gmatos.]
Also Aristot.
De Coelo, iii.
3; Gen. et Corr.
i.
1.]
[Side-note: First condition of things--all the primordial varieties of matter were huddled together in confusion.
Nous, or Reason, distinct from all of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass, setting the constituent particles in movement.]
In the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of matter) were together, in one mass or mixture.
Infinitely numerous and infinite in diversity of magnitude, they were so packed and confounded together that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no definite figure, or colour, or other property, could manifest itself.
Nothing was distinguishable except the infinite mass of Air and Æther (Fire), which surrounded the mixed mass and kept it together.
[147] Thus all things continued for an infinite time in a state of rest and nullity.
The fundamental contraries--wet, dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense, rare,--in their intimate contact neutralised each other.
[148] Upon this inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind.
The characteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone was completely distinct, peculiar, pure in itself, unmixed with anything else: thus marked out from all other things which were indissolubly mingled with each other.
Having no communion of nature with other things, it was noway acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and was of very great force.
It was moreover the thinnest and purest of all things; possessing complete knowledge respecting all other things.
It was like to itself throughout--the greater manifestations of mind similar to the less.
[149] [Footnote 147: Anaxag.
Frag.
1; Schaub.
p. 65; [Greek: O(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata ê)=n, a)/peira kai\ plê=thos kai\ smikro/têta.
Kai\ ga\r to\ smikro\n a)/peiron ê)=n.
Kai\ pa/ntôn o(mou= e)o/ntôn ou)de\n eu)/dêlon ê)=n u(po\ smikro/têtos.
Pa/nta ga\r a)ê/r te kai\ ai)thê\r katei=chen, a)mpho/tera a)/peira e)o/nta.
Tau=ta ga\r me/gista e)/nestin e)n toi=s sumpa=si kai\ plê/thei kai\ mege/thei].
The first three words--[Greek: o(mou= pa/nta chrê/mata]--were the commencement of the Anaxagorean treatise, and were more recollected and cited than any other words in it.
See Fragm.
16, 17, Schaubach, and p. 66-68.
Aristotle calls this primeval chaos [Greek: to\ mi/gma].]
[Footnote 148: Anax.
Frag.
6, Schaub.
p. 97; Aristotel.
Physic.
i.
4, p. 187, a, with the commentary of Simplikius ap.
Scholia, p. 335; Brandis also, iii.
203, a.
25; and De Coelo, iii.
301, a.
12, [Greek: e)x a)kinê/tôn ga\r a)/rchetai] (Anaxagoras) [Greek: kosmopoiei=n.]]
[Footnote 149: Anaxag.
Fr.
8, p. 100, Schaub.
[Greek: Ta\ me\n a)/lla panto\s moi=ran e)/chei, nou=s de/ e)stin a)/peiron kai\ au)tokrate\s kai\ me/miktai ou)deni\ chrê/mati, a)lla\ mo/nos au)to\s e)ph' e(ôu+tou= e)stin.
Ei) mê\ ga\r e)ph' e(ôu+tou= ê)=n, a)lla/ teô| e)me/mikto a)/llô|, metei=chen a)\n a(pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn ei)/ e)me/mikto teô| .
.
.
.
Kai\ a)nekô/luen au)to\n ta\ summemigme/na, ô(/ste mêdeno\s chrê/matos kratei=n o(moi/ôs, ô(s kai\ mo/non e)o/nta e)ph' e(ôu+tou=.
E)sti\ ga\r lepto/tato/n te pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn kai\ katharô/taton, kai\ gnô/mên ge peri\ panto\s pa=san i)/schei, kai\ i)schu/ei me/giston.]
Compare Plato, Kratylus, c. 65, p. 413, c. [Greek: nou=n au)tokra/tora kai\ ou)deni\ memigme/non (o(\ le/gei A)naxago/ras).]]
[Side-note: Movement of rotation in the mass initiated by Nous on a small scale, but gradually extending itself.
Like particles congregate together--distinguishable aggregates are formed.]
But though other things could not act upon mind, mind could act upon them.
It first originated movement in the quiescent mass.
The movement impressed was that of rotation, which first began on a small scale, then gradually extended itself around, becoming more efficacious as it extended, and still continuing to extend itself around more and more.
Through the prodigious velocity of this rotation, a separation was effected of those things which had been hitherto undistinguishably huddled together.
[150] Dense was detached from rare, cold from hot, dark from light, dry from wet.
[151] The Homoeomeric particles congregated together, each to its like; so that bodies were formed--definite and distinguishable aggregates, possessing such a preponderance of some one ingredient as to bring it into clear manifestation.
[152] But while the decomposition of the multifarious mass was thus carried far enough to produce distinct bodies, each of them specialised, knowable, and regular--still the separation can never be complete, nor can any one thing be "cut away as with a hatchet" from the rest.
Each thing, great or small, must always contain in itself a proportion or trace, latent if not manifest, of everything else.
[153] Nothing except mind can be thoroughly pure and unmixed.
[Footnote 150: Anaxag.
Fr.
8, p. 100, Sch.
[Greek: kai\ tê=s perichôrê/sios tê=s sumpa/sês nou=s e)kra/têsen, ô(/ste perichôrê=sai tê\n a)rchê/n.
Kai\ prô=ton a)po\ tou= smikrou= ê)/rxato perichôrê=sai, e)/peiten plei=on perichôre/ei, kai\ perichôrê/sei e)pi\ ple/on.
Kai\ ta\ summisgo/mena/ te kai\ a)pokrino/mena kai\ diakrino/mena, pa/nta e)/gnô nou=s].
Also Fr.
18, p. 129; Fr.
21, p. 134, Schau.]
[Footnote 151: Anaxag.
Fr.
8-19, Schaubach.]
[Footnote 152: Anaxag.
Fr.
8, p. 101, Schaub.
[Greek: o(/teô| plei=sta e)/ni, tau=ta e)ndêlo/tata e(/n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\ ê)=n].
Pseudo-Origen.
Philosophumen.
8.
[Greek: kinê/seôs de mete/chein ta\ pa/nta u(po\ tou= nou= kinou/mena, sunelthei=n te ta\ o(/moia], &c. Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
i. p. 188, a.
13 (p. 337, Schol.
Brandis).]
[Footnote 153: Aristotel.
Physic.
iii.
4, 5, p. 203, a.
23, [Greek: o(tiou=n tô=n mori/ôn ei)=nai mi=gma o(moi/ôs tô=| pa/nti], &c. Anaxag.
Fr.
16, p. 126, Schaub.
Anaxag.
Fr.
11, p. 119, Schaub.
[Greek: ou) kechô/ristai ta\ e(n e(ni\ ko/smô|, ou)de\ _a)poke/koptai pele/kei_], &c. Frag.
12, p. 122.
[Greek: e)n panti\ pa/nta, ou)de\ chôri\s e)/stin ei)=nai].--Frag.
15, p.
125.]
[Side-note: Nothing (except [Greek: Nou=s]) can be entirely pure or unmixed, but other things may be comparatively pure.
Flesh, Bone, &c. are purer than Air or Earth.]
Nevertheless other things approximate in different degrees to purity, according as they possess a more or less decided preponderance of some few ingredients over the remaining multitude.
Thus flesh, bone, and other similar portions of the animal organism, were (according to Anaxagoras) more nearly pure (with one constituent more thoroughly preponderant and all other coexistent natures more thoroughly subordinate and latent) than the four Empedoklean elements, Air, Fire, Earth, &c.; which were compounds wherein many of the numerous ingredients present were equally effective, so that the manifestations were more confused and complicated.
In this way the four Empedoklean elements formed a vast seed-magazine, out of which many distinct developments might take place, of ingredients all pre-existing within it.
Air and Fire appeared to generate many new products, while flesh and bone did not.
[154] Amidst all these changes, however, the infinite total mass remained the same, neither increased nor diminished.
[155] [Footnote 154: Aristotle, in two places (De Coelo, iii.
3, p. 302, a.
28, and Gen. et Corr.
i.
1, p. 314, a.
18) appears to state that Anaxagoras regarded flesh and bone as simple and elementary: air, fire, and earth, as compounds from these and other Homoeomeries.
So Zeller (Philos.
d.
Griech., v. i. p. 670, ed.
2), with Ritter, and others, understand him.
Schaubach (Anax.
Fr.
p. 81, 82) dissents from this opinion, but does not give a clear explanation.
Another passage of Aristotle (Metaphys.
A.
3, p. 984, a.
11) appears to contradict the above two passages, and to put fire and water, in the Anaxagorean theory, in the same general category as flesh and bone: the explanatory note of Bonitz, who tries to show that the passage in the Metaphysica is in harmony with the other two above named passages, seems to me not satisfactory.
Lucretius (i.
835, referred to in a previous note) numbers flesh, bone, fire, and water, all among the Anaxagorean Homoeomeries; and I cannot but think that Aristotle, in contrasting Anaxagoras with Empedokles, has ascribed to the former language which could only have been used by the latter.
[Greek: E)nanti/ôs de\ phai/nontai le/gontes oi( peri\ A)naxago/ran toi=s peri\ E)mpedokle/a.
O( me\n ga/r] (Emp.)
[Greek: phêsi pu=r kai\ u(/dôr kai\ a)e/ra kai\ gê=n stoichei=a te/ssara kai\ a(pla= ei)=nai, ma=llon ê)\ sa/rka kai\ o)stou=n kai\ ta\ toiau=ta tô=n o(moiomerô=n.
Oi( de\] (Anaxag.)
[Greek: tau=ta me\n a(pla= kai\ stoichei=a, gê=n de\ kai\ pu=r kai\ a)e/ra su/ntheta; panspermi/an ga\r ei)=nai tou/tôn.]
(Gen. et Corr.
i.
1.)
The last words ([Greek: panspermi/an]) are fully illustrated by a portion of the other passage, De Coelo, iii.
3, [Greek: a)e/ra de\ kai\ pu=r mi=gma tou/tôn] (the Homoeomeries, such as flesh and blood) [Greek: kai\ tô=n a)/llôn sperma/tôn pa/ntôn; ei)=nai ga\r e(ka/teron au)tô=n e)x a)ora/tôn o(moiomerô=n pa/ntôn ê)throisme/nôn; dio\ kai\ gi/gnesthai pa/nta e)k tou/tôn].
Now it can hardly be said that Anaxagoras recognised one set of bodies as simple and elementary, and that Empedokles recognised another set of bodies as such.
Anaxagoras expressly denied _all simple bodies_.
In his theory, all bodies were compound: _Nous_ alone formed an exception.
Everything existed in everything.
But they were compounds in which particles of one sort, or of a definite number of sorts, had come together into such positive and marked action, as practically to nullify the remainder.
The generation of the Homoeomeric aggregate was by disengaging these like particles from the confused mixture in which their agency had before lain buried ([Greek: ge/nesis, e)/kphansis mo/non kai\ e)/kkrisis tou= pri\n kruptome/nou].
Simplikius ap.
Schaub.
Anax.
Fr.
p. 115).
The Homoeomeric aggregates or bodies were infinite in number: for ingredients might be disengaged and recombined in countless ways, so that the result should always be some positive and definite manifestations.
Considered in reference to the Homoeomeric body, the constituent particles might in a certain sense be called elements.]
[Footnote 155: Anaxag.
Fr.
14, p. 125, Schaub.]
[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras compared with that of Empedokles.]
In comparing the theory of Anaxagoras with that of Empedokles, we perceive that both of them denied not only the generation of new matter out of nothing (in which denial all the ancient physical philosophers concurred), but also the transformation of one form of matter into others, which had been affirmed by Thales and others.
Both of them laid down as a basis the existence of matter in a variety of primordial forms.
They maintained that what others called generation or transformation, was only a combination or separation of these pre-existing materials, in great diversity of ratios.
Of such primordial forms of matter Empedokles recognised only four, the so-called Elements; each simple and radically distinct from the others, and capable of existing apart from them, though capable also of being combined with them.
Anaxagoras recognised primordial forms of matter in indefinite number, with an infinite or indefinite stock of particles of each; but no one form of matter (except Nous) capable of being entirely severed from the remainder.
In the constitution of every individual body in nature, particles of all the different forms were combined; but some one or a few forms were preponderant and manifest, all the others overlaid and latent.
Herein consisted the difference between one body and another.
The Homoeomeric body was one in which a confluence of like particles had taken place so numerous and powerful, as to submerge all the coexistent particles of other sorts.
The majority thus passed for the whole, the various minorities not being allowed to manifest themselves, yet not for that reason ceasing to exist: a type of human society as usually constituted, wherein some one vein of sentiment, ethical, æsthetical, religious, political, &c., acquires such omnipotence as to impose silence on dissentients, who are supposed not to exist because they cannot proclaim themselves without ruin.
[Side-note: Suggested partly by the phenomena of animal nutrition.]
The hypothesis of multifarious forms of matter, latent yet still real and recoverable, appears to have been suggested to Anaxagoras mainly by the phenomena of animal nutrition.
[156] The bread and meat on which we feed nourishes all the different parts of our body--blood, flesh, bones, ligaments, veins, trachea, hair, &c. The nutriment must contain in itself different matters homogeneous with all these tissues and organs; though we cannot see such matters, our reason tells us that they must be there.
This physiological divination is interesting from its general approximation towards the results of modern analysis.
[Footnote 156: See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, Placit.
Philosoph.
i.
3.]
[Side-note: Chaos common to both Empedokles and Anaxagoras: moving agency, different in one from the other theory.]
Both Empedokles and Anaxagoras begin their constructive process from a state of stagnation and confusion both tantamount to Chaos; which is not so much active discord (as Ovid paints it), as rest and nullity arising from the equilibrium of opposite forces.
The chaos is in fact almost a reproduction of the Infinite of Anaximander.
[157] But Anaxagoras as well as Empedokles enlarged his hypothesis by introducing (what had not occurred or did not seem necessary to Anaximander) a special and separate agency for eliciting positive movement and development out of the negative and stationary Chaos.
The Nous or Mind is the Agency selected for this purpose by Anaxagoras: Love and Enmity by Empedokles.
Both the one and the other initiate the rotatory cosmical motion; upon which follows as well the partial disgregation of the chaotic mass, as the congregation of like particles of it towards each other.
[Footnote 157: This is a just comparison of Theophrastus.
See the passage from his [Greek: phusikê\ i(stori/a], referred to by Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
i. p. 187, a.
21 (p. 335, Schol.
Brand.).]
[Side-note: Nous, or mind, postulated by Anaxagoras--how understood by later writers--how intended by Anaxagoras himself.]
The Nous of Anaxagoras was understood by later writers as a God;[158] but there is nothing in the fragments now remaining to justify the belief that the author himself conceived it in that manner--or that he proposed it (according to Aristotle's expression[159]) as the cause of all that was good in the world, assigning other agencies as the causes of all evil.
It is not characterised by him as a person--not so much as the Love and Enmity of Empedokles.
It is not one but multitudinous, and all its separate manifestations are alike, differing only as greater or less.
It is in fact identical with the soul, the vital principle, or vitality, belonging not only to all men and to all plants also.
[160] It is one substance, or form of matter among the rest, but thinner than all of them (thinner than even fire or air), and distinguished by the peculiar characteristic of being absolutely unmixed.
It has moving power and knowledge, like the air of Diogenes the Apolloniate: it initiates movement; and it knows about all the things which either pass into or pass out of combination.
It disposes or puts in order all things that were, are, or will be; but it effects this only by acting as a fermenting principle, to break up the huddled mass, and to initiate rotatory motion, at first only on a small scale, then gradually increasing.
Rotation having once begun, and the mass having been as it were unpacked and liberated the component Homoeomeries are represented as coming together by their own inherent attraction.
[161] The Anaxagorean Nous introduces order and symmetry into Nature, simply by stirring up rotatory motion in the inert mass, so as to release the Homoeomeries from prison.
It originates and maintains the great cosmical fact of rotatory motion; which variety of motion, from its perfect regularity and sameness, is declared by Plato also to be the one most consonant to Reason and Intelligence.
[162] Such rotation being once set on foot, the other phenomena of the universe are supposed to be determined by its influence, and by their own tendencies and properties besides: but there is no farther agency of Nous, which only _knows_ these phenomena as and when they occur.
Anaxagoras tried to explain them as well as he could; not by reference to final causes, nor by assuming good purposes of Nous which each combination was intended to answer--but by physical analogies, well or ill chosen, and especially by the working of the grand cosmical rotation.
[163] [Footnote 158: Cicero, Academ.
iv.
37; Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathematicos, ix.
6, [Greek: to\n me\n nou=n, o(/s e)sti kat' au)to\n theo\s], &c. Compare Schaubach, Anax.
Frag.
p.
153.]
[Footnote 159: Aristot.
Metaphys.
A. p. 984, b.
17.
He praises Anaxagoras for this, [Greek: oi(=on nê/phôn par' ei)kê= le/gontas tou\s pro/teron], &c.] [Footnote 160: Aristoteles (or Pseudo-Aristot.)
De Plantis, i.
1.
Aristot.
De Animâ, i.
2, 65-6-13.
Aristotle says that the language of Anaxagoras about [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuchê\] was not perfectly clear or consistent.
But it seems also from Plato De Legg.
xii.
p. 967, B, that Anaxagoras made no distinction between [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuchê/].
Compare Plato, Kratylus, p. 400 A.]
[Footnote 161: Anaxag.
Fr.
8, and Schaubach's Comm.
p. 112-116.
"Mens erat id, quod movebat molem homoeomeriarum: hâc ratione, per hunc motum à mente excitatum, secretio facta est .
.
.
.
Materiæ autem propriæ insunt vires: proprio suo pondere hæc, quæ mentis vi mota et secreta sunt, feruntur in eum locum, quo nunc sunt."
Compare Alexand.
Aphrod.
ap.
Scholia ad Aristot.
Physic.
ii.
p. 194, a.
(Schol.
p. 348 a. Brandis); Marbach, Lehrbuch der Gesch.
Philos.
s. 54, note 2, p. 82; Preller, Hist.
Phil.
ex Font.
Loc.
Contexta, s. 53, with his comment.]
[Footnote 162: Plato, Phædo, c. 107, 108, p. 98; Plato, De Legg.
xii.
p. 967 B; Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
4, p. 985, b.
18; Plato, Timæus, 34 A.
88 E.] [Footnote 163: Aristoph.
Nub.
380, 828.
[Greek: ai)the/rios Di=nos--Di=nos basileu/ei, to\n Di/' e)xelêlakô/s]--the sting of which applies to Anaxagoras and his doctrines.
Anaxagoras [Greek: di/nous tina\s a)noê/tous a)nazôgraphô=n, su\n tê=| tou= nou= a)praxi/a| kai\ a)noi/a|] (Clemens.
Alexandrin.
Stromat.
ii.
p. 365).
To _move_ (in the active sense, _i.e._ to cause movement in) and to _know_, are the two attributes of the Anaxagorean [Greek: Nou=s] (Aristotel.
De Animâ, i.
2, p. 405, a.
18).]
[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle blame Anaxagoras for deserting his own theory.]
This we learn from Plato and Aristotle, who blame Anaxagoras for inconsistency in deserting his own hypothesis, and in invoking explanations from physical agencies, to the neglect of Nous and its supposed optimising purposes.
But Anaxagoras, as far as we can judge by his remaining fragments, seems not to have committed any such inconsistency.
He did not proclaim his Nous to be a powerful extra-cosmical Architect, like the Demiurgus of Plato--nor an intra-cosmical, immanent, undeliberating instinct (such as Aristotle calls Nature), tending towards the production and renewal of regular forms and conjunctions, yet operating along with other agencies which produced concomitants irregular, unpredictable, often even obstructive and monstrous.
Anaxagoras appears to conceive his Nous as one among numerous other real agents in Nature, material like the rest, yet differing from the rest as being powerful, simple, and pure from all mixture,[164] as being endued with universal cognizance, as being the earliest to act in point of time, and as furnishing the primary condition to the activity of the rest by setting on foot the cosmical rotation.
The Homoeomeries are coeternal with, if not anterior to, Nous.
They have laws and properties of their own, which they follow, when once liberated, without waiting for the dictation of Nous.
What they do is known by, but not ordered by, Nous.
[165] It is therefore no inconsistency in Anaxagoras that he assigns to mind one distinct and peculiar agency, but nothing more; and that when trying to explain the variety of phenomena he makes reference to other physical agencies, as the case seems to require.
[166] [Footnote 164: Anaxagoras, Fr.
8,** p. 100, Schaub.
[Greek: e)sti\ ga\r lepto/tato/n te pa/ntôn chrêma/tôn], &c. This means, not that [Greek: nou=s] was unextended or immaterial, but that it was thinner or more subtle than either fire or air.
Herakleitus regarded [Greek: to\ perie/chon] as [Greek: logiko\n kai\ phrenê=res].
Diogenes of Apollonia considered air as endued with cognition, and as imparting cognition by being inhaled.
Compare Plutarch, De Placit.
Philos.
iv.
3.
I cannot think, with Brücker (Hist.
Philosop.
part ii.
b. ii.
De Sectâ Ionicâ, p. 504, ed.
2nd), and with Tennemann, Ges.
Ph.
i.
8, p. 312, that Anaxagoras was "primus qui Dei ideam inter Græcos à materialitate quasi purificavit," &c. I agree rather with Zeller (Philos.
der Griech.
i. p. 680-683, ed.
2nd), that the Anaxagorean Nous is not conceived as having either immateriality or personality.]
[Footnote 165: Simplikius, in Physic.
Aristot.
p. 73.
[Greek: kai\ A)naxago/ras de\ to\n nou=n e)a/sas, ô(/s phêsin Eu)/dêmos, kai\ au)tomati/zôn ta\ polla\ suni/stêsin.]]
[Footnote 166: Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
8.
[Greek: Nou=n .
.
.
a)rchê\n kinê/seôs].
Brücker, Hist.
Philos.
ut supra.
"Scilicet, semel inducto in materiam à mente motu, sufficere putavit Anaxagoras, juxta leges naturæ motûsque, rerum ortum describere."]
[Side-note: Astronomy and physics of Anaxagoras.]
In describing the formation of the Kosmos, Anaxagoras supposed that, as a consequence of the rotation initiated by mind, the primitive chaos broke up.
"The Dense, Wet, Cold, Dark, Heavy, came together into the place where now Earth is: Hot, Dry, Bare, Light, Bright, departed to the exterior region of the revolving Æther.
"[167] In such separation each followed its spontaneous and inherent tendency.
Water was disengaged from air and clouds, earth from water: earth was still farther consolidated into stones by cold.
[168] Earth remained stationary in the centre, while fire and air were borne round it by the force and violence of the rotatory movement.
The celestial bodies--Sun, Moon, and Stars--were solid bodies analogous to the earth, either caught originally in the whirl of the rotatory movement, or torn from the substance of the earth and carried away into the outer region of rotation.
[169] They were rendered hot and luminous by the fiery fluid in the rapid whirl of which they were hurried along.
The Sun was a stone thus made red-hot, larger than Peloponnesus: the Moon was of earthy matter, nearer to the Earth, deriving its light from the Sun, and including not merely plains and mountains, but also cities and inhabitants.
[170] Of the planetary movements, apart from the diurnal rotation of the celestial sphere, Anaxagoras took no notice.
[171] He explained the periodical changes in the apparent course of the sun and moon by resistances which they encountered, the former from accumulated and condensed air, the latter from the cold.
[172] Like Anaximenes and Demokritus, Anaxagoras conceived the Earth as flat, round in the surface, and not deep, resting on and supported by the air beneath it.
Originally (he thought) the earth was horizontal, with the axis of celestial rotation perpendicular, and the north pole at the zenith, so that this rotation was then lateral, like that of a dome or roof; it was moreover equable and unchanging with reference to every part of the plane of the earth's upper surface, and distributed light and heat equally to every part.
But after a certain time the Earth tilted over of its own accord to the south, thus lowering its southern half, raising the northern half, and causing the celestial rotation to appear oblique.
[173] [Footnote 167: Anaxag.
Fr.
19, p. 131, Schaub.
; compare Fr.
6, p. 97; Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
8.]
[Footnote 168: Anaxag.
Fr.
20, p. 133, Schau.]
[Footnote 169: See the curious passage in Plutarch, Lysander 12, and Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 967 B; Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
12; Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
ii.
13.]
[Footnote 170: Plato, Kratylus, p. 409 A; Plato, Apol.
Sok.
c. 14; Xenophon, Memorab.
iv.
7.]
[Footnote 171: Schaubach, ad Anax.
Fr.
p.
165.]
[Footnote 172: Plutarch, Placit.
Philosoph.
ii.
23.]
[Footnote 173: Diogenes Laert.
ii.
9.
[Greek: ta\ d' a)/stra kat' a)rcha\s tholoeidô=s e)nechthê=nai, ô(/ste kata\ koruphê\n tê=s gê=s to\n a)ei\ phaino/menon ei)=nai po/lon, u(/steron de\ tê\n (gê=n) e)/gklisin labei=n.]
Plutarch, Placit.
Phil.
ii.
8.]
[Side-note: His geology, meteorology, physiology.]
Besides these doctrines respecting the great cosmical bodies, Anaxagoras gave explanations of many among the striking phenomena in geology and meteorology--the sea, rivers, earthquakes, hurricanes, hail, snow, &c.[174] He treated also of animals and plants--their primary origin, and the manner of their propagation.
[175] He thought that animals were originally produced by the hot and moist earth; but that being once produced, the breeds were continued by propagation.
The seeds of plants he supposed to have been originally contained in the air, from whence they fell down to the warm and moist earth, where they took root and sprung up.
[176] He believed that all plants, as well as all animals, had a certain measure of intelligence and sentiment, differing not in kind but only in degree from the intelligence and sentiment of men; whose superiority of intelligence was determined, to a great extent, by their possession of hands.
[177] He explained sensation by the action of unlike upon unlike (contrary to Empedokles, who referred it to the action of like upon like),[178] applying this doctrine to the explanation of the five senses separately.
But he pronounced the senses to be sadly obscure and insufficient as means of knowledge.
Apparently, however, he did not discard their testimony, nor assume any other means of knowledge independent of it, but supposed a concomitant and controlling effect of intelligence as indispensable to compare and judge between the facts of sense when they appeared contradictory.
[179] On this point, however, it is difficult to make out his opinions.
[Footnote 174: See Schaubach, ad Anax.
Fr.
p. 174-181.
Among the points to which Anaxagoras addressed himself was the annual inundation of the Nile, which he ascribed to the melting of the snows in Æthiopia, in the higher regions of the river's course.--Diodor.
i.
38.
Herodotus notices this opinion (ii.
22), calling it plausible, but false, yet without naming any one as its author.
Compare Euripides, Helen.
3.]
[Footnote 175: Aristotel.
De Generat.
Animal.
iii.
6, iv.
1.]
[Footnote 176: Theophrastus, Hist.
Plant.
iii.
2; Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
9; Aristot.
De Plantis, i.
2.]
[Footnote 177: Aristot.
De Plantis, i.
1; Aristot.
Part.
Animal.
iv.
10.]
[Footnote 178: Theophrastus, De Sensu, sect.
1--sect.
27-30.
This difference followed naturally from the opinions of the two philosophers on the nature of the soul or mind.
Anaxagoras supposed it peculiar in itself, and dissimilar to the Homoeomeries without.
Empedokles conceived it as a compound of the four elements, analogous to all that was without: hence man knew each exterior element by its like within himself--earth by earth, water by water, &c.] [Footnote 179: Anaxag.
Fr.
19, Schaub.
; Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
91-140; Cicero, Academ.
i.
12.
Anaxagoras remarked that the contrast between black and white might be made imperceptible to sense by a succession of numerous intermediate colours very finely graduated.
He is said to have affirmed that snow was really black, notwithstanding that it appeared white to our senses: since water was black, and snow was only frozen water (Cicero, Academ.
iv.
31; Sext.
Empir.
Pyrrhon.
Hypotyp.
i.
33).
"Anaxagoras non modo id ita esse (_sc._ albam nivem esse) negabat, sed sibi, quia sciret aquam nigram esse, unde illa concreta esset, albam ipsam esse _ne videri quidem_."
Whether Anaxagoras ever affirmed that snow did not _appear to him_ white, may reasonably be doubted: his real affirmation probably was, that snow, though it appeared white, was not really white.
And this affirmation depended upon the line which he drew between the fact of sense, the phenomenal, the relative, on one side--and the substratum, the real, the absolute, on the other.
Most philosophers recognise a distinction between the two; but the line between the two has been drawn in very different directions.
Anaxagoras assumed as his substratum, real, or absolute, the Homoeomeries--numerous primordial varieties of matter, each with its inherent qualities.
Among these varieties he reckoned _water_, but he did not reckon _snow_.
He also considered that water was really and absolutely black or dark (the Homeric [Greek: me/lan u(/dôr])--that blackness was among its primary qualities.
Water, when consolidated into snow, was so disguised as to produce upon the spectator the appearance of whiteness; but it did not really lose, nor could it lose, its inherent colour.
A negro covered with white paint, and therefore looking white, is still really black: a wheel painted with the seven prismatic colours, and made to revolve rapidly, will look white, but it is still really septi-coloured: _i.e._ the state of rapid revolution would be considered as an exceptional state, not natural to it.
Compare Plato, Lysis, c. 32, p. 217 D.] [Side-note: The doctrines of Anaxagoras were regarded as offensive and impious.]
Anaxagoras, residing at Athens and intimately connected with Perikles, incurred not only unpopularity, but even legal prosecution, by the tenor of his philosophical opinions, especially those on astronomy.
To Greeks who believed in Helios and Selênê as not merely living beings but Deities, his declaration that the Sun was a luminous and fiery stone, and the Moon an earthy mass, appeared alike absurd and impious.
Such was the judgment of Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon, as well as of Aristophanes and the general Athenian public.
[180] Anaxagoras was threatened with indictment for blasphemy, so that Perikles was compelled to send him away from Athens.
[Footnote 180: Plato, Apol.
So.
c. 14; Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
7.]
That physical enquiries into the nature of things, and attempts to substitute scientific theories in place of the personal agency of the Gods, were repugnant to the religious feelings of the Greeks, has been already remarked.
[181] Yet most of the other contemporary philosophers must have been open to this reproach, not less than Anaxagoras; and we learn that the Apolloniate Diogenes left Athens from the same cause.
If others escaped the like prosecution which fell upon Anaxagoras, we may probably ascribe this fact to the state of political party at Athens, and to the intimacy of the latter with Perikles.
The numerous political enemies of that great man might fairly hope to discredit him in the public mind--at the very least to vex and embarrass him--by procuring the trial and condemnation of Anaxagoras.
Against other philosophers, even when propounding doctrines not less obnoxious respecting the celestial bodies, there was not the same collateral motive to stimulate the aggressive hostility of individuals.
[Footnote 181: Plutarch, Nikias, 23.]
[Side-note: Diogenes of Apollonia recognises one primordial element.]
Contemporary with Anaxagoras--yet somewhat younger, as far as we can judge, upon doubtful evidence--lived the philosopher Diogenes, a native of Apollonia in Krete.
Of his life we know nothing except that he taught during some time at Athens, which city he was forced to quit on the same ground as Anaxagoras.
Accusations of impiety were either brought or threatened against him:[182] physical philosophy being offensive generally to the received religious sentiment, which was specially awakened and appealed to by the political opponents of Perikles.
[Footnote 182: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
52.
The danger incurred by Diogenes the Apolloniate at Athens is well authenticated, on the evidence of Demetrius the Phalerean, who had good means of knowing.
And the fact may probably be referred to some time after the year B.C.
440, when Athens was at the height of her power and of her attraction for foreign visitors--when the visits of philosophers to the city had been multiplied by the countenance of Perikles--and when the political rivals of that great man had set the fashion of assailing them in order to injure him.
This seems to me one probable reason for determining the chronology of the Apolloniate Diogenes: another is, that his description of the veins in the human body is so minute and detailed as to betoken an advanced period of philosophy between B.C.
440-410.
See the point discussed in Panzerbieter, Fragment.
Diogen.
Apoll.
c. 12-18 (Leipsic, 1830).
Simplikius (ad Aristot.
Phys.
fol.
6 A) describes Diogenes as having been [Greek: schedo\n neô/tatos] in the series of physical theorists.]
Diogenes the Apolloniate, the latest in the series of Ionic philosophers or physiologists, adopted, with modifications and enlargements, the fundamental tenet of Anaximenes.
There was but one primordial element--and that element was air.
He laid it down as indisputable that all the different objects in this Kosmos must be at the bottom one and the same thing: unless this were the fact, they would not act upon each other, nor mix together, nor do good and harm to each other, as we see that they do.
Plants would not grow out of the earth, nor would animals live and grow by nutrition, unless there existed as a basis this universal sameness of nature.
No one thing therefore has a peculiar nature of its own: there is in all the same nature, but very changeable and diversified.
[183] [Footnote 183: Diogen.
Ap.
Fragm.
ii.
c. 29 Panzerb.
; Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 39.
[Greek: ei) ga\r ta\ e)n tô=|de tô=| ko/smô| e)o/nta nu=n gê= kai\ u(/dôr kai\ ta)/lla, o(/sa phainetai e)n tô=|de tô=| ko/smô| e)o/nta, ei) toute/ôn ti ê)=n to\ e(/teron tou= e(te/rou e(/teron e)o\n tê=| i)di/ê| phu/sei, kai\ mê\ to\ au)to\ e)o\n mete/pipte pollachô=s kai\ ê(teroiou=to; ou)damê= ou)/te mi/sgesthai a)llê/lois ê)du/nato ou)/te ô)phe/lêsis tô=| e(te/rô| ou)/te bla/bê], &c. Aristotle approves this fundamental tenet of Diogenes, the conclusion that there must be one common Something out of which all things came--[Greek: e)x e(no\s a(/panta] (Gen. et Corrupt.
i.
6-7, p. 322, a.
14), inferred from the fact that they acted upon each other.]
[Side-note: Air was the primordial, universal element.]
Now the fundamental substance, common to all, was air.
Air was infinite, eternal, powerful; it was, besides, full of intelligence and knowledge.
This latter property Diogenes proved by the succession of climatic and atmospheric phenomena of winter and summer, night and day, rain, wind, and fine weather.
All these successions were disposed in the best possible manner by the air: which could not have laid out things in such regular order and measure, unless it had been endowed with intelligence.
Moreover, air was the source of life, soul, and intelligence, to men and animals: who inhaled all these by respiration, and lost all of them as soon as they ceased to respire.
[184] [Footnote 184: Diog.
Apoll.
Fr.
iv.-vi.
c. 36-42, Panz.--[Greek: Ou) ga\r a)\n ou(/tô de/dasthai oi(=o/n te ê)=n a)/neu noê/sios, ô(/ste pa/ntôn me/tra e)/chein, cheimô=no/s te kai\ the/reos kai nukto\s kai\ ê(me/rês kai\ u(etô=n kai\ a)ne/môn kai\ eu)diô=n.
kai\ ta\ a)/lla ei)/ tis bou/letai e)nnoe/esthai, eu(/riskoi a)\n ou(/tô diakei/mena, ô(s a)nusto\n ka/llista.
E)/ti de pro\s tou/tois kai\ ta/de mega/la sêmei=a; a)/nthrôpos ga\r kai\ ta\ a)/lla zô=a a)napne/onta zô/ei tô=| a)e/ri.
Kai\ tou=to au)toi=s kai\ psuchê/ e)sti kai\ no/êsis-----Kai\ moi\ doke/ei to\ tê\n no/êsin e)/chon ei)=nai o( a)ê\r kaleo/menos u(po\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn], &c. Schleiermacher has an instructive commentary upon these fragments of the Apolloniate Diogenes (Vermischte Schriften, vol.
ii.
p. 157-162; Ueber Diogenes von Apollonia).]
[Side-note: Air possessed numerous and diverse properties; was eminently modifiable.]
Air, life-giving and intelligent, existed everywhere, formed the essence of everything, comprehended and governed everything.
Nothing in nature could be without it: yet at the same time all things in nature partook of it in a different manner.
[185] For it was distinguished by great diversity of properties and by many gradations of intelligence.
It was hotter or colder--moister or drier--denser or rarer--more or less active and movable--exhibiting differences of colour and taste.
All these diversities were found in objects, though all at the bottom were air.
Reason and intelligence resided in the warm air.
So also to all animals as well as to men, the common source of vitality, whereby they lived, saw, heard, and understood, was air; hotter than the atmosphere generally, though much colder than that near the sun.
[186] Nevertheless, in spite of this common characteristic, the air was in other respects so indefinitely modifiable, that animals were of all degrees of diversity, in form, habits, and intelligence.
Men were doubtless more alike among themselves: yet no two of them could be found exactly alike, furnished with the same dose of aerial heat or vitality.
All other things, animate and inanimate, were generated and perished, beginning from air and ending in air: which alone continued immortal and indestructible.
[187] [Footnote 185: Diog.
Ap.
Fr.
vi.
[Greek: kai\ e)sti mêde\ e(\n o(/, ti mê\ mete/chei tou/tou] (air).
[Greek: Mete/chei de\ ou)de\ e(\n o(moi/ôs to\ e(/teron tô=| e(te/rô|; a)lla\ polloi\ tro/poi\ kai\ au)tou\ tou= a)e/ros kai\ tê=s noê/sio/s ei)sin.]
Aristotel.
De Animâ, i.
2, p. 405, a.
21.
[Greek: Dioge/nês d', ô(/sper kai\ e(teroi/ tines, a)e/ra [u(pe/labe tê\n psuchê/n]], &c.] [Footnote 186: Diog.
Ap.
Fr.
vi.
[Greek: kai\ pa/ntôn zô/ôn dê\ ê( psuchê\ to\ au)to/ e)stin, a)ê\r thermo/teros me\n tou= e)/xô e)n ô(=| e)sme/n, tou= me/ntoi para\ tô=| ê(eli/ô| pollo\n psuchro/teros.]]
[Footnote 187: Diogen.
Apoll.
Fr.
v. ch.
38, Panz.]
[Side-note: Physiology of Diogenes--his description of the veins in the human body.]
The intelligence of men and animals, very unequal in character and degree, was imbibed by respiration, the inspired air passing by means of the veins and along the blood into all parts of the body.
Of the veins Diogenes gave a description remarkable for its minuteness of detail, in an age when philosophers dwelt almost exclusively in loose general analogies.
[188] He conceived the principal seat of intelligence in man to be in the thoracic cavity, or in the ventricle of the heart, where a quantity of air was accumulated ready for distribution.
[189] The warm and dry air concentrated round the brain, and reached by veins from the organs of sense, was the centre of sensation.
Taste was explained by the soft and porous nature of the tongue, and by the number of veins communicating with it.
The juices of sapid bodies were sucked up by it as by a sponge: the odorous stream of air penetrated from without through the nostrils: both were thus brought into conjunction with the sympathising cerebral air.
To this air also the image impressed upon the eye was transmitted, thereby causing vision:[190] while pulsations and vibrations of the air without, entering through the ears and impinging upon the same centre, generated the sensation of sound.
If the veins connecting the eye with the brain were inflamed, no visual sensation could take place;[191] moreover if our minds or attention were absorbed in other things, we were often altogether insensible to sensations either of sight or of sound: which proved that the central air within us was the real seat of sensation.
[192] Thought and intelligence, as well as sensation, was an attribute of the same central air within us, depending especially upon its purity, dryness, and heat, and impeded or deadened by moisture or cold.
Both children and animals had less intelligence than men: because they had more moisture in their bodies, so that the veins were choked up, and the air could not get along them freely to all parts.
Plants had no intelligence; having no apertures or ducts whereby the air could pervade their internal structure.
Our sensations were pleasurable when there was much air mingled with the blood, so as to lighten the flow of it, and to carry it easily to all parts: they were painful when there was little air, and when the blood was torpid and thick.
[193] [Footnote 188: Diogen.
Apoll.
Fr.
vii.
ch.
48, Panz.
The description of the veins given by Diogenes is preserved in Aristotel.
Hist.
Animal, iii.
2: yet seemingly only in a defective abstract, for Theophrastus alludes to various opinions of Diogenes on the veins, which are not contained in Aristotle.
See Philippson, [Greek: U(/lê a)nthrôpi/nê], p.
203.]
[Footnote 189: Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
iv.
5.
[Greek: E)n tê=| a)rtêriakê=| koili/a| tê=s kardi/as, ê(/tis e)sti\ kai\ pneumatikê/].
See Panzerbieter's commentary upon these words, which are not very clear (c. 50), nor easy to reconcile with the description given by Diogenes himself of the veins.]
[Footnote 190: Plutarch, Placit.
Philosoph.
iv.
18.
Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 39-41-43.
[Greek: Kritikô/taton de\ ê(donê=s tê\n glô=ttan; a(palô/taton ga\r ei)=nai kai\ mano\n kai\ ta\s phle/bas a(pa/sas a)nê/kein ei)s au)tê/n.]]
[Footnote 191: Plutarch, Placit.
Philosoph.
iv.
16; Theophrastus, De Sensu, s.
40.]
[Footnote 192: Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 42.
[Greek: O(/ti de\ o( e)nto\s a)ê\r ai)stha/netai, mikro\n ô)\n mo/rion tou= theou=, sêmei=on ei)=nai, o(/ti polla/kis pro\s a)/lla to\n nou=n e)/chontes ou)/th' o(rô=men ou)/t' a)kou/omen].
The same opinion--that sensation, like thought, is a mental process, depending on physical conditions--is ascribed to Strato (the disciple and successor of Theophrastus) by Porphyry, De Abstinentiâ, iii.
21.
[Greek: Stra/tônos tou= phusikou= lo/gos e)sti\n a)podeiknu/ôn, ô(s ou)de\ ai)stha/nesthai to para/pan a)/neu tou= noei=n u(pa/rchei.
kai\ ga\r gra/mmata polla/kis e)piporeuome/nous tê=| o)/psei kai\ lo/goi prospi/ptontes tê=| a)koê=| dialantha/nousin ê(ma=s kai\ diapheu/gousi pro\s e(te/rous to\n nou=n e)/chontas--ê(=| kai\ le/lektai, nou=s o(rê= kai\ nou=s a)kou/ei, ta)/lla kôpha\ kai\ tuphla/.]
The expression ascribed to Diogenes by Theophrastus--[Greek: o( e)nto\s a)ê\r, mikro\n ô)\n mo/rion _tou= theou=_]--is so printed by Philippson; but the word [Greek: theou=] seems not well avouched as to the text, and Schneider prints [Greek: thumou=].
It is not impossible that Diogenes may have called the air God, without departing from his physical theory; but this requires proof.]
[Footnote 193: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 43-46; Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
v. 20.
That moisture is the cause of dulness, and that the dry soul is the best and most intelligent--is cited among the doctrines of Herakleitus, with whom Diogenes of Apollonia is often in harmony.
[Greek: Au)/ê psuchê\ sophôta/tê kai\ a)ri/stê.]
See Schleiermach.
Herakleitos, sect.
59-64.]
[Side-note: Kosmology and meteorology.]
The structure of the Kosmos Diogenes supposed to have been effected by portions of the infinite air, taking upon them new qualities and undergoing various transformations.
Some air, becoming cold, dense, and heavy, sunk down to the centre, and there remained stationary as earth and water: while the hotter, rarer, and lighter air ascended and formed the heavens, assuming through the intelligence included in it a rapid rotatory movement round the earth, and shaping itself into sun, moon, and stars, which were light and porous bodies like pumice stone.
The heat of this celestial matter acted continually upon the earth and water beneath, so that the earth became comparatively drier, and the water was more and more drawn up as vapour, to serve for nourishment to the heavenly bodies.
The stars also acted as breathing-holes to the Kosmos, supplying the heated celestial mass with fresh air from the infinite mass without.
[194] Like Anaxagoras, Diogenes conceived the figure of the earth as flat and round, like a drum; and the rotation of the heavens as lateral, with the axis perpendicular to the surface of the earth, and the north pole always at the zenith.
This he supposed to have been the original arrangement; but after a certain time, the earth tilted over spontaneously towards the south--the northern half was elevated and the southern half depressed--so that the north pole was no longer at the zenith, and the axis of rotation of the heavens became apparently oblique.
[195] He thought, moreover, that the existing Kosmos was only of temporary duration; that it would perish and be succeeded by future analogous systems, generated from the same common substance of the infinite and indestructible air.
[196] Respecting animal generation--and to some extent respecting meteorological phenomena[197]--Diogenes also propounded several opinions, which are imperfectly known, but which appear to have resembled those of Anaxagoras.
[Footnote 194: Plutarch ap.
Eusebium Præp.
Evang.
i.
8; Aristotel.
De Animâ, i.
2; Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
53.
[Greek: Dioge/nês kissêroeidê= ta\ a)/stra, diapnoi/as de\ au)ta\ nomi/zei tou= ko/smou, ei)=nai de\ dia/pura; sumperiphe/resthai de\ toi=s phaneroi=s a)/strois a)phanei=s li/thous kai\ par' au)to\ tou=t' a)nônu/mous; pi/ptonta de\ polla/kis e)pi\ tê=s gê=s sbe/nnusthai; katha/per to\n e)n Ai)go\s potamoi=s purôdô=s katenechthe/nta _a)ste/ra_ pe/trinon.]
This remarkable anticipation of modern astronomy--the recognition of aerolithes as a class of non-luminous earthy bodies revolving round the sun, but occasionally coming within the sphere of the earth's attraction, becoming luminous in our atmosphere, falling on the earth, and there being extinguished--is noticed by Alex.
von Humboldt in his Kosmos, vol.
i. p. 98-104, Eng.
trans.
He says--"The opinion of Diogenes of Apollonia entirely accords with that of the present day," p. 110.
The charm and value of that interesting book is greatly enhanced by his frequent reference to the ancient points of view on astronomical subjects.]
[Footnote 195: Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
ii.
8; Panzerbieter ad Diog.
Ap.
c. 76-78; Schaubach ad Anaxagor.
Fr.
p.
175.]
[Footnote 196: Plut.
Ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Evang.
i.
8.]
[Footnote 197: Preller, Hist.
Philosoph.
Græc.-Rom.
ex Font.
Loc.
Contexta, sect.
68.
Preller thinks that Diogenes employed his chief attention "in animantium naturâ ex aeris principio repetendâ"; and that he was less full "in cognitione [Greek: tô=n meteô/rôn]".
But the fragments scarcely justify this.]
[Side-note: Leukippus and Demokritus--Atomic theory.]
Nearly contemporary with Anaxagoras and Empedokles, two other enquirers propounded a new physical theory very different from those already noticed--usually known under the name of the atomic theory.
This Atomic theory, though originating with the Eleate Leukippus, obtained celebrity chiefly from his pupil Demokritus of Abdera, its expositor and improver.
Demokritus (born seemingly in B.C.
460, and reported to have reached extreme old age) was nine years younger than Sokrates, thirty-three years older than Plato, and forty years younger than Anaxagoras.
[198] The age of Leukippus is not known, but he can hardly have been much younger than Anaxagoras.
[Footnote 198: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
41.
See the chronology of Demokritus discussed in Mullach, Frag.
Dem.
p. 12-25; and in Zeller, Phil.
der Griech., vol.
i. p. 576-681, 2nd edit.
The statement of Apollodorus as to the date of his birth, appears more trustworthy than the earlier date assigned by Thrasyllus (B.C.
470).
Demokritus declared himself to be forty years younger than Anaxagoras.]
[Side-note: Long life, varied travels, and numerous compositions of Demokritus.]
Of Leukippus we know nothing: of Demokritus, very little--yet enough to exhibit a life, like that of Anaxagoras, consecrated to philosophical investigation, and neglectful not merely of politics, but even of inherited patrimony.
[199] His attention was chiefly turned towards the study of Nature, with conceptions less vague, and a more enlarged observation of facts, than any of his contemporaries had ever bestowed.
He was enabled to boast that no one had surpassed him in extent of travelling over foreign lands, in intelligent research and converse with enlightened natives, or in following out the geometrical relations of lines.
[200] He spent several years in visiting Egypt, Asia Minor, and Persia.
His writings were numerous, and on many different subjects, including ethics, as well as physics, astronomy, and anthropology.
None of them have been preserved.
But we read, even from critics like Dionysius of Halikarnassus and Cicero, that they were composed in an impressive and semi-poetical style, not unworthy to be mentioned in analogy with Plato; while in range and diversity of subjects they are hardly inferior to Aristotle.
[201] [Footnote 199: Dionys.
ix.
36-39.]
[Footnote 200: Demokrit.
Fragm.
6, p. 238, ed.
Mullach.
Compare ib.
p. 41; Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
35; Strabo, xv.
p. 703.
Pliny, Hist.
Natur.
"Democritus--vitam inter experimenta consumpsit," &c.] [Footnote 201: Cicero, Orat.
c. 20; Dionys.
De Comp.
Verbor.
c. 24; Sextus Empir.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
265.
[Greek: Dêmo/kritos, o( tê=| Dio\s phô/nê| pareikazo/menos], &c. Diogenes (ix.
46-48) enumerates the titles of the treatises of Demokritus, as edited in the days of Tiberius by the rhetor Thrasyllus: who distributed them into tetralogies, as he also distributed the dialogues of Plato.
It was probably the charm of style, common to Demokritus with Plato, which induced the rhetor thus to edit them both.
In regard to scope and spirit of philosophy, the difference between the two was so marked, that Plato is said to have had a positive antipathy to the works of Demokritus, and a desire to burn them (Aristoxenus ap.
Diog.
Laert.
ix.
40).
It could hardly be from congeniality of doctrine that the same editor attached himself to both.
It has been remarked that Plato never once names Demokritus, while Aristotle cites him very frequently, sometimes with marked praise.]
[Side-note: Relation between the theory of Demokritus and that of Parmenides.]
The theory of Leukippus and Demokritus (we have no means of distinguishing the two) appears to have grown out the Eleatic theory.
[202] Parmenides the Eleate (as I have already stated) in distinguishing Ens, the self-existent, real, or absolute, on one side--from the phenomenal and relative on the other--conceived the former in such a way that its connection with the latter was dissolved.
The real and absolute, according to him, was One, extended, enduring, continuous, unchangeable, immovable: the conception of Ens included these affirmations, and at the same time excluded peremptorily Non-Ens, or the contrary of Ens.
Now the plural, unextended, transient, discontinuous, changeable, and moving, implied a mixture of Ens and Non-Ens, or a partial transition from one to the other.
Hence (since Non-Ens was inadmissible) such plurality, &c., could not belong to the real or absolute (ultra-phenomenal), and could only be affirmed as phenomenal or relative.
In the latter sense, Parmenides _did_ affirm it, and even tried to explain it: he explained the phenomenal facts from phenomenal assumptions, apart from and independent of the absolute.
While thus breaking down the bridge between the phenomenal on one side and the absolute on the other, he nevertheless recognised each in a sphere of its own.
[Footnote 202: Simplikius, in Aristotel.
Physic.
fol.
7 A.
[Greek: Leu/kippos .
.
.
.
koinônê/sas Parmeni/dê| tê=s philosophi/as, ou) tê\n au)tê\n e)ba/dise Parmeni/dê| kai\ Xenopha/nei peri\ tô=n o)/ntôn do/xan, a)ll', ô(s dokei=, tê\n e)nanti/an].
Aristotel.
De Gener.
et Corr.
i.
8, p. 251, a.
31.
Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
30.]
[Side-note: Demokritean theory--Atoms--Plena and Vacua--Ens and Non-Ens.]
This bridge the atomists undertook to re-establish.
They admitted that Ens could not really change--that there could be no real generation, or destruction--no transformation of qualities--no transition of many into one, or of one into many.
But they denied the unity and continuity and immobility of Ens: they affirmed that it was essentially discontinuous, plural, and moving.
They distinguished the extended, which Parmenides had treated as an _Unum continuum_, into extension with body, and extension without body: into _plenum_ and _vacuum_, matter and space.
They conceived themselves to have thus found positive meanings both for Ens and Non-Ens.
That which Parmenides called Non-Ens or nothing, was in their judgment the _vacuum_; not less self-existent than that which he called Something.
They established their point by showing that Ens, thus interpreted, would become reconcilable to the phenomena of sense: which latter they assumed as their basis to start from.
Assuming motion as a phenomenal fact, obvious and incontestable, they asserted that it could not even appear to be a fact, without supposing _vacuum_ as well as body to be real: and the proof that both of them were real was, that only in this manner could sense and reason be reconciled.
Farther, they proved the existence of a _vacuum_ by appeal to direct physical observation, which showed that bodies were porous, compressible, and capable of receiving into themselves new matter in the way of nutrition.
Instead of the Parmenidean Ens, one and continuous, we have a Demokritean Ens, essentially many and discontinuous: _plena_ and _vacua_, spaces full and spaces empty, being infinitely intermingled.
[203] There existed atoms innumerable, each one in itself essentially a plenum, admitting no vacant space within it, and therefore indivisible as well as indestructible: but each severed from the rest by surrounding vacant space.
The atom could undergo no change: but by means of the empty space around, it could freely move.
Each atom was too small to be visible: yet all atoms were not equally small; there were fundamental differences between them in figure and magnitude: and they had no other qualities except figure and magnitude.
As no atom could be divided into two, so no two atoms could merge into one.
Yet though two or more atoms could not so merge together as to lose their real separate individuality, they might nevertheless come into such close approximation as to appear one, and to act on our senses as a phenomenal combination manifesting itself by new sensible properties.
[204] [Footnote 203: It is chiefly in the eighth chapter of the treatise De Gener.
et Corr.
(i.
8) that Aristotle traces the doctrine of Leukippus as having grown out of that of the Eleates.
[Greek: Leu/kippos d' e)/chein ô)|ê/thê lo/gous, oi(/tines pro\s tê\n ai)/sthêsin o(mologou/mena le/gontes ou)k a)nairê/sousin ou)/te ge/nesin ou)/te phthora\n ou)/te ki/nêsin kai\ to\ plê=thos tô=n o)/ntôn], &c. Compare also Aristotel.
De Coelo, iii.
4, p. 303, a.
6; Metaphys.
A.
4, p. 985, b.
5; Physic.
iv.
6: [Greek: le/gousi de\] (Demokritus, &c., in proving a vacuum) [Greek: e(\n me\n o(/ti ê( ki/nêsis ê( kata\ to/pon ou)k a)\n ei)/ê, _ou) ga\r a)\n dokei=n_ ei)=nai ki/nêsin ei) mê\ ei)/ê keno/n; to\ ga\r plê=res a)du/naton ei)=nai de/xasthai/ ti], &c. Plutarch adv.
Kolot.
p. 1108.
[Greek: Oi(=s ou)d' o)/nar e)ntuchô\n o( Kolô/tês, e)spha/lê peri\ le/xin tou= a)ndro\s] (Demokritus) [Greek: e)n ê)=| diori/zetai, mê\ ma=llon to\ de\n, ê)\ to\ mêde\n ei)=nai; de\n me\n o)noma/zôn to\ sô=ma mêde\n de\ to\ keno/n, ô(s kai\ tou/tou phu/sin tina\ kai\ u(po/stasin i)di/an e)/chontos.]
The affirmation of Demokritus--That Nothing existed, just as much as Something--appears a paradox which we must probably understand as implying that he here adopted, for the sake of argument, the language of the Eleates, his opponents.
They called the vacuum _Nothing_, but Demokritus did not so call it.
If (said Demokritus) you call vacuum _Nothing_, then I say that Nothing exists as well as Something.
The direct observations by which Demokritus showed the existence of a vacuum were--1.
A vessel with ashes in it will hold as much water as if it were empty: hence we know that there are pores in the ashes, into which the water is received.
2.
Wine can be compressed in skins.
3.
The growth of organised bodies proves that they have pores, through which new matter in the form of nourishment is admitted.
(Aristot.
Physic.
iv.
6, p. 213, b.)
Besides this, Demokritus set forth motion as an indisputable fact, ascertained by the evidence of sense: and affirmed that motion was impossible, except on the assumption that vacuum existed.
Melissus, the disciple of Parmenides, inverted the reasoning, in arguing against the reality of motion.
If it be real (he said), then there must exist a vacuum: but no vacuum does or can exist: therefore there is no real motion.
(Aristot.
Physic.
iv.
6.)
Since Demokritus started from these facts of sense, as the base of his hypothesis of atoms and vacua, so Aristotle (Gen. et Corr.
i.
2; De Animâ, i.
2) might reasonably say that he took sensible appearances as truth.
But we find Demokritus also describing reason as an improvement and enlightenment of sense, and complaining how little of truth was discoverable by man.
See Mullach, Demokritus (pp.
414, 415).
Compare Philippson--[Greek: U(=lê a)nthrôpi/nê]--Berlin, 1831.]
[Footnote 204: Aristotel.
Gen. et Corr.
i.
8, p. 325, a.
25, [Greek: ta\ prô=ta mege/thê ta\ a)diai/reta sterea/].
Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
44; Plutarch, adv.
Koloten, p. 1110 seq.
Zeller, Philos.
der Griech., vol.
i. p. 583-588, ed.
2nd; Aristotel.
Metaphys.
Z.
13, p. 1039, a.
10, [Greek: a)du/naton ei)=nai/ phêsi Dêmo/kritos e)k du/o e(\n ê)\| e)x e(no\s du/o gene/sthai; ta\ ga\r mege/thê ta\ a)/toma ta\s ou)si/as poiei=.]]
[Side-note: Primordial atoms differed only in magnitude, figure, position, and arrangement--they had no qualities, but their movements and combinations generated qualities.]
The bridge, broken down by Parmenides, between the real and the phenomenal world, was thus in theory re-established.
For the real world, as described by Demokritus, differed entirely from the sameness and barrenness of the Parmenidean Ens, and presented sufficient movement and variety to supply a basis of explanatory hypothesis, accommodated to more or less of the varieties in the phenomenal world.
In respect of quality, indeed, all the atoms were alike, not less than all the vacua: such likeness was (according to Demokritus) the condition of their being able to act upon each other, or to combine as phenomenal aggregates.
[205] But in respect to quantity or magnitude as well as in respect to figure, they differed very greatly: moreover, besides all these diversities, the ordination and position of each atom with regard to the rest were variable in every way.
As all objects of sense were atomic compounds, so, from such fundamental differences--partly in the constituent atoms themselves, partly in the manner of their arrangement when thrown into combination--arose all the diverse qualities and manifestations of the compounds.
When atoms passed into new combination, then there was generation of a new substance: when they passed out of an old combination there was destruction: when the atoms remained the same, but were merely arranged anew in order and relative position, then the phenomenon was simply change.
Hence all qualities and manifestations of such compounds were not original, but derivative: they had no "nature of their own," or law peculiar to them, but followed from the atomic composition of the body to which they belonged.
They were not real and absolute, like the magnitude and figure of the constituent atoms, but phenomenal and relative--_i.e._ they were powers of acting upon correlative organs of sentient beings, and nullities in the absence of such organs.
[206] Such were the colour, sonorousness, taste, smell, heat, cold, &c., of the bodies around us: they were relative, implying correlative percipients.
Moreover they were not merely relative, but perpetually fluctuating; since the compounds were frequently changing either in arrangement or in diversity of atoms, and every such atomic change, even to a small extent, caused it to work differently upon our organs.
[207] [Footnote 205: Aristotel.
Gener.
et Corr.
i.
7, p. 323, b.
12.
It was the opinion of Demokritus, that there could be no action except where agent and patient were alike.
[Greek: Phêsi\ ga\r to\ au)to\ kai\ o(/moion ei)=nai to/ te poiou=n kai\ to\ pa/schon; ou) ga\r e)gchôrei=n ta\ e(/tera kai\ diaphe/ronta pa/schein u(p' a)llê/lôn; a)lla\ ka)\n e(/tera o)/nta poiê=| ti ei)s a)/llêla, ou)ch ê(=| e(/tera, a)ll' ê(=| tau)to/n ti u(pa/rchei, tau/tê| tou=to sumbai/nein au)toi=s].
Many contemporary philosophers affirmed distinctly the opposite.
[Greek: To\ o(/moion u(po\ tou= o(moi/ou pa=n a)pathe/s], &c. Diogenes the Apolloniate agreed on this point generally with Demokritus; see above, p. 61, note 1 [*Footnote 185*].
The facility with which these philosophers laid down general maxims is constantly observable.]
[Footnote 206: Aristot.
Gen. et Corr.
i.
2, p. 316, a.
1; Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 63, 64.
[Greek: Peri\ me\n ou)=n bare/os kai\ kou/phou kai\ sklêrou= kai\ malakou= e)n tou/tois a)phori/zei; tô=n de\ a)/llôn ai)sthêtô=n ou)deno\s ei)=nai phu/sin, a)lla\ pa/nta pa/thê tê=s ai)sthê/seôs a)lloioume/nês, e)x ê(=s gi/nesthai tê\n phantasi/an], &c. Stobæus, Eclog.
Physic.
i. c. 16.
[Greek: Phu/sin me\n mêde\n ei)=nai chrô=ma, ta\ me\n ga\r stoichei=a a)/poia, ta/ te mesta\ kai\ to\ keno/n; ta\ d' e)x au)tô=n sugkri/mata ke/chrô=sthai diatagê=| te kai\ r(uthmô=| kai\ protropê=|], &c. Demokritus restricted the term [Greek: Phu/sis]--Nature--to the primordial atoms and vacua (Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
p. 310 A.).]
[Footnote 207: Aristotel.
Gener.
et Corr.
i.
2, p. 315, b.
10.
[Greek: Ô(/ste tai=s metabolai=s tou= sugkeime/nou to\ au)to\ e)nanti/on dokei=n a)/llô| kai\ a)/llô|, kai\ metakinei=sthai mikrou= e)mmignume/nou, _kai\ o(/lôs e(/teron phai/nesthai e(no\s metakinêthe/ntos_.]]
[Side-note: Combinations of atoms--generating different qualities in the compounds.]
Among the various properties of bodies, however, there were two which Demokritus recognised as not merely relative to the observer, but also as absolute and belonging to the body in itself.
These were weight and hardness--primary qualities (to use the phraseology of Locke and Reid), as contrasted with the secondary qualities of colour, taste, and the like.
Weight, or tendency downward, belonged (according to Demokritus) to each individual atom separately, in proportion to its magnitude: the specific gravity of all atoms was supposed to be equal.
In compound bodies one body was heavier than another, in proportion as its bulk was more filled with atoms and less with vacant space.
[208] The hardness and softness of bodies Demokritus explained by the peculiar size and peculiar junction of their component atoms.
Thus, comparing lead with iron, the former is heavier and softer, the latter is lighter and harder.
Bulk for bulk, the lead contained a larger proportion of solid, and a smaller proportion of interstices, than the iron: hence it was heavier.
But its structure was equable throughout; it had a greater multitude of minute atoms diffused through its bulk, equally close to and coherent with each other on every side, but not more close and coherent on one side than on another.
The structure of the iron, on the contrary, was unequal and irregular, including larger spaces of vacuum in one part, and closer approach of its atoms in other parts: moreover these atoms were in themselves larger, hence there was a greater force of cohesion between them on one particular side, rendering the whole mass harder and more unyielding than the lead.
[209] [Footnote 208: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 61.
[Greek: Baru\ me\n ou)=n kai\ kou=phon tô=| mege/thei diairei= Dêmo/kritos], &c. Aristotel.
De Coelo, iv.
2, 7, p. 309, a.
10; Gen. et Corr.
i.
8, p. 326, a.
9.
[Greek: Kai/toi baru/teron ge kata\ tê\n u(perochê/n phêsin ei)=nai Dêmo/kritos e(/kaston tô=n a)diaire/tôn], &c.] [Footnote 209: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s.
62.]
[Side-note: All atoms essentially separate from each other.]
We thus see that Demokritus, though he supposed single atoms to be all of the same specific gravity, yet recognised a different specific gravity in the various compounds of atoms or material masses.
It is to be remembered that, when we speak of contact or combination of atoms, this is not to be understood literally and absolutely, but only in a phenomenal and relative sense; as an approximation, more or less close, but always sufficiently close to form an atomic combination which our senses apprehended as one object.
Still every atom was essentially separate from every other, and surrounded by a margin of vacant space: no two atoms could merge into one, any more than one atom could be divided into two.
[Side-note: All properties of objects, except weight and hardness, were phenomenal and relative to the observer.
Sensation could give no knowledge of the real and absolute.]
Pursuant to this theory, Demokritus proclaimed that all the properties of objects, except weight, hardness, and softness, were not inherent in the objects themselves, but simply phenomenal and relative to the observer--"modifications of our sensibility".
Colour, taste, smell, sweet and bitter, hot and cold, &c., were of this description.
In respect to all of them, man differed from other animals, one man from another, and even the same man from himself at different times and ages.
There was no sameness of impression, no unanimity or constancy of judgment, because there was no real or objective "nature" corresponding to the impression.
From none of these senses could we at all learn what the external thing was in itself.
"Sweet and bitter, hot and cold (he said) are by law or convention (_i.e._ these names designate the impressions of most men on most occasions, taking no account of dissentients): what really exists is, atoms and vacuum.
The sensible objects which we suppose and believe to exist do not exist in truth; there exist only atoms and vacuum.
We know nothing really and truly about an object, either what it is or what it is not: our opinions depend upon influences from without, upon the position of our body, upon the contact and resistances of external objects.
There are two phases of knowledge, the obscure and the genuine.
To the obscure belong all our senses--sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
The genuine is distinct from these.
When the obscure phase fails, when we can no longer see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch--from minuteness and subtlety of particles--then the genuine phase, or reason and intelligence, comes into operation.
"[210] [Footnote 210: Demokritus, Fr.
p. 205, Mullach; Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
p. 135; Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
72.]
[Side-note: Reason alone gave true and real knowledge, but very little of it was attainable.]
True knowledge (in the opinion of Demokritus) was hardly at all attainable; but in so far as it could be attained, we must seek it, not merely through the obscure and insufficient avenues of sense, but by reason or intelligence penetrating to the ultimatum of corpuscular structure, farther than sense could go.
His atoms were not pure Abstracta (like Plato's Ideas and geometrical plane figures, and Aristotle's materia prima), but concrete bodies, each with its own[211] magnitude, figure, and movement; too small to be seen or felt by us, yet not too small to be seen or felt by beings endowed with finer sensitive power.
They were abstractions mainly in so far as all other qualities were supposed absent.
Demokritus professed to show how the movements, approximations, and collisions of these atoms, brought them into such combinations as to form the existing Kosmos; and not that system alone, but also many other cosmical systems, independent of and different from each other, which he supposed to exist.
[Footnote 211: Aristotel.
Gen. et Corr.
i.
8, p. 325, a.
29.
[Greek: A)/peira to\ plê=thos kai\ a)o/rata dia\ smikro/têta tô=n o)/gkôn], &c. Marbach observes justly that the Demokritean atoms, though not really objects of sense in consequence of their smallness (of their disproportion to our visual power), are yet spoken of as objects of sense: they are as it were microscopic objects, and the [Greek: gnêsi/ê gnô/mê], or intelligence, is conceived as supplying something of a microscopic power.
(Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, sect.
58, vol.
i. p.
94.)]
[Side-note: No separate force required to set the atoms in motion--they moved by an inherent force of their own.
Like atoms naturally tend towards like.
Rotatory motion, the capital fact of the Kosmos.]
How this was done we cannot clearly make out, not having before us the original treatise of Demokritus, called the Great Diakosmos.
It is certain, however, that he did not invoke any separate agency to set the atoms in motion--such as the Love and Discord of Empedokles--the Nous or Intelligence of Anaxagoras.
Demokritus supposed that the atoms moved by an inherent force of their own: that this motion was as much without beginning as the atoms themselves:[212] that eternal motion was no less natural, no more required any special cause to account for it, than eternal rest.
"Such is the course of nature--such is and always has been the fact," was his ultimatum.
[213] He farther maintained that all the motions of the atoms were necessary--that is, that they followed each other in a determinate order, each depending upon some one or more antecedents, according to fixed laws, which he could not explain.
[214] Fixed laws, known or unknown, he recognised always.
Fortune or chance was only a fiction imagined by men to cover their own want of knowledge and foresight.
[215] Demokritus seems to have supposed that like atoms had a spontaneous tendency towards like; that all, when uncombined, tended naturally downwards, yet with unequal force, owing to their different size, and weight proportional to size; that this unequal force brought them into impact and collision one with another, out of which was generated a rotatory motion, gradually extending itself, and comprehending a larger and larger number of them, up to a certain point, when an exterior membrane or shell was formed around them.
[216] This rotatory motion was the capital fact which both constituted the Kosmos, and maintained the severance of its central and peripheral masses--Earth and Water in the centre--Air, Fire, and the celestial bodies, near the circumference.
Demokritus, Anaxagoras, and Empedokles, imagined different preliminary hypotheses to get at the fact of rotation; but all employed the fact, when arrived at, as a basis from which to deduce the formation of the various cosmical bodies and their known manifestations.
[217] In respect to these bodies--Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, &c.--Demokritus seems to have held several opinions like those of Anaxagoras.
Both of them conceived the Sun as a redhot mass, and the Earth as a flat surface above and below, round horizontally like a drum, stationary in the centre of the revolving celestial bodies, and supported by the resistance of air beneath.
[218] [Footnote 212: Aristotel.
De Coelo, iii.
2, 3, p. 300, b.
9.
[Greek: Leuki/ppô| kai\ Dê/mokritô|, toi=s le/gousin a)ei\ kinei=sthai, ta\ prô=ta sô/mata], &c. (Physic.
viii.
3, 3, p. 253, b.
12, viii.
9, p. 265, b.
23; Cicero, De Finib.
i.
6, 17.)]
[Footnote 213: Aristot.
Generat.
Animal.
ii.
6, p. 742, b.
20; Physic.
viii.
1, p. 252, b.
32.
Aristotle blames Demokritus for thus acquiescing in the general course of nature as an ultimatum, and for omitting all reference to final causes.
M. Lafaist, in a good dissertation, Sur la Philosophie Atomistique (Paris, 1833, p. 78), shows that this is exactly the ultimatum of natural philosophers at the present day.
"Un phénomène se passait-il, si on lui en demandait la raison, il (Demokritus) répondait, 'La chose se passe ainsi, parcequ'elle s'est toujours passée ainsi.'
C'est, en d'autres termes, la seule réponse que font encore aujourd'hui les naturalistes.
Suivant eux, une pierre, quand elle n'est pas soutenue, tombe en vertu de la loi de la pesanteur.
Qu'est-ce que la loi de la pesanteur?
La généralisation de ce fait plusieurs fois observé, qu'une pierre tombe quand elle n'est pas soutenue.
Le phénomène dans un cas particulier arrive ainsi, parceque toujours il est arrivé ainsi.
Le principe qu'implique l'explication des naturalistes modernes est celle de Démokrite, c'est que la nature demeure constante à elle-même.
La proposition de Démokrite--'Tel phénomène a lieu de cette façon, parceque toujours il a eu lieu de cette même façon'--est la première forme qu' ait revêtue le principe de la stabilité des lois naturelles."]
[Footnote 214: Aristotle (Physic.
ii.
4, p. 196, a.
25) says that Demokritus (he seems to mean Demokritus) described the motion of the atoms to form the cosmical system, as having taken place [Greek: a)po\ tou= au)toma/tou].
Upon which Mullach (Dem.
Frag.
p. 382) justly remarks--"Casu ([Greek: a)po\ tau)toma/tou]) videntur fieri, quæ naturali quâdam necessitate cujus leges ignoramus evenire dicuntur.
Sed quamvis Aristoteles naturalem Abderitani philosophi necessitatem, vitato [Greek: a)na/gkês] vocabulo, quod alii aliter usurpabant, casum et fortunam vocaret--ipse tamen Democritus, abhorrens ab iis omnibus quæ destinatam causarum seriem tollerent rerumque naturam perturbarent, nihil juris fortunæ et casui in singulis rebus concessit."
Zeller has a like remark upon the phrase of Aristotle, which is calculated to mislead as to the doctrine of Demokritus (Phil.
d.
Griech., i. p. 600, 2nd.
** ed.).
Dugald Stewart, in one of the Dissertations prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica, has the like comment respecting the fundamental principle of the Epicurean (identical _quoad hoc_ with the Demokritean) philosophy.
"I cannot conclude this note without recurring to an observation ascribed by Laplace to Leibnitz--'that the _blind chance_ of the Epicureans involves the supposition of an effect taking place without a cause'.
This is a very incorrect statement of the philosophy taught by Lucretius, which nowhere gives countenance to such a supposition.
The distinguishing tenet of this sect was, that the order of the universe does not imply the existence of _intelligent_ causes, but may be accounted for by the active powers belonging to the atoms of matter: which active powers, being exerted through an indefinitely long period of time, might have produced, nay must have produced, exactly such a combination of things as that with which we are surrounded.
This does not call in question the necessity of a cause to produce every effect, but, on the contrary, virtually assumes the truth of that axiom.
It only excludes from these causes the attribute of intelligence.
In the same way, when I apply the words _blind chance_ to the throw of a die, I do not mean to deny that I am ultimately the cause of the particular event that is to take place: but only to intimate that I do not here act as a _designing_ cause, in consequence of my ignorance of the various accidents to which the die is subjected while shaken in the box.
If I am not mistaken, this Epicurean theory approaches very nearly to the scheme which it is the main object of the Essay on Probabilities (by Laplace) to inculcate."
(Stewart--First Dissertation, part ii.
p. 139, note.)]
[Footnote 215: Demokrit.
Frag.
p. 167, ed.
Mullach; Eusebius, Præp.
Evang.
xiv.
27.
[Greek: a)/nthrôpoi tu/chês ei)/dôlon e)pla/santo pro/phasin i)di/ês a)bouli/ês.]]
[Footnote 216: Zeller, Phil.
d.
Griech., i. p. 604 seq.
; Demokrit.
Fragm.
p. 207, Mull.
; Sext.
Empiricus adv.
Mathem.
vii.
117.]
[Footnote 217: Demokrit.
Fragm.
p. 208, Mullach.
[Greek: Dêmo/kritos e)n oi(=s phêsi di/nê a)po\ panto\s a)pokri/nesthai pantoi/ôn ei)de/ôn], &c. Diog.
Laert.
ix.
31-44.]
[Footnote 218: Zeller, Phil.
d.
Griech., i. p. 612, ed.
2nd.]
[Side-note: Researches of Demokritus on zoology and animal generation.]
Among the researches of Demokritus there were some relating to animal generation, and zoology; but we cannot find that his opinions on these subjects were in peculiar connection with his atomic theory.
[219] Nor do we know how far he carried out that theory into detail by tracing the various phenomenal manifestations to their basis in atomic reality, and by showing what particular magnitude, figure, and arrangement of atoms belonged to each.
It was only in some special cases that he thus connected determinate atoms with compounds of determinate quality; for example, in regard to the four Empedoklean elements.
The atoms constituting heat or fire he affirmed to be small and globular, the most mobile, rapid, and penetrating of all; those constituting air, water, and earth, were an assemblage of all varieties of figures, but differed from each other in magnitude--the atoms of air being apparently smallest, those of earth largest.
[220] [Footnote 219: Mullach, Demokr.
Fragm.
p. 395 seqq.]
[Footnote 220: Aristotle, Gen. et Corr.
i.
8, p. 326, a.
5; De Coelo, iii.
8, p. 306, b.
35; Theophrastus, De Sensu, s.
64.]
[Side-note: His account of mind--he identified it with heat or fire diffused throughout animals, plants, and nature generally.
Mental particles intermingled throughout all the frame with corporeal particles.]
In regard to mind or soul generally, he identified it with heat or fire, conceiving it to consist in the same very small, globular, rapidly movable atoms, penetrating everywhere: which he illustrated by comparison with the fine dust seen in sunbeams when shining through a doorway.
That these were the constituent atoms of mind, he proved by the fact, that its first and most essential property was to move the body, and to be itself moved.
[221] Mind, soul, the vital principle, fire, heat, &c., were, in the opinion of Demokritus, substantially identical--not confined to man or even to animals, but diffused, in unequal proportions, throughout plants, the air, and nature generally.
Sensation, thought, knowledge, were all motions of mind or of these restless mental particles, which Demokritus supposed to be distributed over every part of the living body, mingling and alternating with the corporeal particles.
[222] It was the essential condition of life, that the mental particles should be maintained in proper number and distribution throughout the body; but by their subtle nature they were constantly tending to escape, being squeezed or thrust out at all apertures by the pressure of air on all the external parts.
Such tendency was counteracted by the process of respiration, whereby mental or vital particles, being abundantly distributed throughout the air, were inhaled along with air, and formed an inward current which either prevented the escape, or compensated the loss, of those which were tending outwards.
When breathing ceased, such inward current being no longer kept up, the vital particles in the interior were speedily forced out, and death ensued.
[223] [Footnote 221: Aristotel.
De Animâ, i.
2, 2-3, p. 403, b.
28; i.
3, p. 406, b.
20; Cicero, Tuscul.
Disput.
i.
11; Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
44.]
[Footnote 222: Aristotel.
De Respirat.
(c. 4, p. 472, a.
5), [Greek: le/gei] (Demokritus) [Greek: ô(s ê( psuchê\ kai\ to\ thermo\n tau)to\n, ta\ prô=ta schê/mata tô=n sphairoeidô=n].
Lucretius, iii.
370.
Illud in his rebus nequaquam sumere possis, Democriti quod sancta viri sententia ponit; Corporis atque animi primordia singula privis Adposita alternis variare ac nectere membra.]
[Footnote 223: Aristotel.
De Respiratione, c. 4, p. 472, a.
10; De Animâ, i.
2, p. 404, a.
12.]
[Side-note: Different mental aptitudes attached to different parts of the body.]
Though Demokritus conceived those mental particles as distributed all over the body, yet he recognised different mental aptitudes attached to different parts of the body.
Besides the special organs of sense, he considered intelligence as attached to the brain, passion to the heart, and appetite to the liver:[224] the same tripartite division afterwards adopted by Plato.
He gave an explanation of perception or sensation in its different varieties, as well as of intelligence or thought.
Sensation and thought were, in his opinion, alike material, and alike mental.
Both were affections of the same peculiar particles, vital or mental, within us: both were changes operated in these particles by effluvia or images from without; nevertheless the one change was different from the other.
[225] [Footnote 224: Zeller, Phil.
d.
Griech., i. p. 618, ed.
2nd.
Plutarch (Placit.
Philos.
iv.
4), ascribes a bipartite division of the soul to Demokritus: [Greek: to\ logiko\n], in the thorax: [Greek: to\ a)/logon], distributed over all the body.
But in the next section (iv.
6), he departs from this statement, affirming that both Demokritus and Plato supposed [Greek: to\ ê(gemoniko\n] of the soul to be in the head.]
[Footnote 225: Plutarch, Placit.
Philos.
iv.
8.
Demokritus and Leukippus affirm [Greek: tê\n ai)/sthêsin kai\ tê\n no/êsin gi/nesthai, ei)dô/lôn e)/xôthen prosio/ntôn; mêdeni\ ga\r e)piba/llein mêdete/ran chôri\s tou= prospi/ptontos ei)dô/lou].
Cicero, De Finibus, i.
6, 21, "imagines, quæ idola nominant, quorum incursione non solum videamus, sed etiam cogitemus," &c.] In regard to sensations, Demokritus said little about those of touch, smell, and hearing; but he entered at some length into those of sight and taste.
[226] [Footnote 226: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s.
64.]
[Side-note: Explanation of different sensations and perceptions.
Colours.]
Proceeding upon his hypothesis of atoms and vacua as the only objective existences, he tried to show what particular modifications of atoms, in figure, size, and position, produced upon the sentient the impressions of different colours.
He recognised four fundamental or simple colours--white, black, red, and green--of which all other colours were mixtures and combinations.
[227] White colour (he said) was caused by smooth surfaces, which presented straight pores and a transparent structure, such as the interior surface of shells: where these smooth substances were brittle or friable, this arose from the constituent atoms being at once spherical and loosely connected together, whereby they presented the clearest passage through their pores, the least amount of shadow, and the purest white colour.
From substances thus constituted, the effluvia flowed out easily, and passed through the intermediate air without becoming entangled or confused with it.
Black colour was caused by rough, irregular, unequal substances, which had their pores crooked and obstructed, casting much shadow, and sending forth slowly their effluvia, which became hampered and entangled with the intervening medium of air.
Red colour arose from the effluvia of spherical atoms, like those of fire, though of larger size: the connection between red colour and fire was proved by the fact that heated substances, man as well as the metals, became red.
Green was produced by atoms of large size and wide vacua, not restricted to any determinate shape, but arranged in peculiar order and position.
These four were given by Demokritus as the simple colours.
But he recognised an infinite diversity of compound colours, arising from mixture of them in different proportions, several of which he explained--gold-colour, purple, blue, violet, leek-green, nut-brown, &c.[228] [Footnote 227: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 73 seq.
; Aristotel.
De Sensu, c. iv.
p. 442, b.
10.
The opinions of Demokritus on colour are illustrated at length by Prantl in his Uebersicht der Farbenlehre der Alten (p. 49 seq.
), appended to his edition of the Aristotelian or Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, [Greek: Peri\ Chrôma/tôn] (Munich, 1849).
Demokritus seems also to have attempted to show, that the sensation of cold and shivering was produced by the irruption of jagged and acute atoms.
See Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, p. 947, 948, c.
8.]
[Footnote 228: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 76-78.
[Greek: a)/peira ta\ chrô/mata kai\ tou\s chulou\s kata\ ta\s mi/xeis--ou)de\n ga\r o(/moion e)/sesthai tha)/teron tha)te/rou.]]
[Side-note: Vision caused by the outflow of effluvia or images from objects.
Hearing.]
Besides thus setting forth those varieties of atoms and atomic motions which produced corresponding varieties of colour, Demokritus also brought to view the intermediate stages whereby they realised the act of vision.
All objects, compounds of the atoms, gave out effluvia or images resembling themselves.
These effluvia stamped their impression, first upon the intervening air, next upon the eye beyond: which, being covered by a fine membrane, and consisting partly of water, partly of vacuum, was well calculated to admit the image.
Such an image, the like of which any one might plainly see by looking into another person's eye, was the immediate cause of vision.
[229] The air, however, was no way necessary as an intervening medium, but rather obstructive: the image proceeding from the object would be more clearly impressed upon the eye through a vacuum: if the air did not exist, vision would be so distinct, even at the farthest distance, that an object not larger than an ant might be seen in the heavens.
[230] Demokritus believed that the visual image, after having been impressed upon the eye, was distributed or multiplied over the remaining body.
[231] In like manner, he believed that, in hearing, the condensed air carrying the sound entered with some violence through the ears, passed through the veins to the brain, and was from thence dispersed over the body.
[232] Both sight and hearing were thus not simply acts of the organ of sense, but concurrent operations of the entire frame: over all which (as has been already stated) the mental or vital particles were assumed to be disseminated.
[Footnote 229: Theophrast.
De Sensu, s. 50.
[Greek: to\n a)e/ra to\n metaxu\ tê=s o)/pseôs kai\ tou= o(rôme/nou tupou=sthai], &c. Aristotel.
De Sensu, c. 2, p. 438, a.
6.
Theophrastus notices this intermediate [Greek: a)potu/pôsis e)n tô=| a)e/ri] as a doctrine peculiar ([Greek: i)di/ôs]) to Demokritus: he himself proceeds to combat it (51, 52).]
[Footnote 230: Aristotel.
De Animâ, ii.
7-9, p. 419, a.
16.]
[Footnote 231: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s.
54.]
[Footnote 232: Theophrastus, De Sensu, 55, 56.
[Greek: tê\n ga\r phônê\n ei)=nai puknoume/nou tou= a)e/ros kai\ meta\ bi/as ei)sio/ntos], &c. Demokritus thought that air entered into the system not only through the ears, but also through pores in other parts of the body, though so gently as to be imperceptible to our consciousness: the ears afforded a large aperture, and admitted a considerable mass.]
[Side-note: Differences of taste--how explained.]
Farther, Demokritus conceived that the diversities of taste were generated by corresponding diversities of atoms, or compounds of atoms, of particular figure, magnitude and position.
Acid taste was caused by atoms rough, angular, twisted, small, and subtle, which forced their way through all the body, produced large interior vacant spaces, and thereby generated great heat: for heat was always proportional to the amount of vacuum within.
[233] Sweet taste was produced by spherical atoms of considerable bulk, which slid gently along and diffused themselves equably over the body, modifying and softening the atoms of an opposite character.
Astringent taste was caused by large atoms with many angles, which got into the vessels, obstructing the movement of fluids both in the veins and intestines.
Salt taste was produced by large atoms, much entangled with each other, and irregular.
In like manner Demokritus assigned to other tastes particular varieties of generating atoms: adding, however, that in every actual substance, atoms of different figures were intermingled, so that the effect of each on the whole was only realised in the ratio of the preponderating figure.
[234] Lastly, the working of all atoms, in the way of taste, was greatly modified by the particular system upon which they were brought to act: effects totally opposite being sometimes produced by like atoms upon different individuals.
[235] [Footnote 233: Theophrast.
De Sensu, 65-68.]
[Footnote 234: Theophrast.
De Sensu, 67.
[Greek: a(pa/ntôn de\ tô=n schêma/tôn ou)de\n a)ke/raion ei)=nai kai\ a)mige\s toi=s a)/llois, a)ll' e)n e(ka/stô| polla\ ei)=nai .
.
.
.
ou)= d' a)\n e)nê=| plei=ston, tou=to ma/lista e)nischu/ein pro/s te tê\n ai)/sthêsin kai\ tê\n du/namin].
This essential intermixture, in each distinct substance, of atoms of all different shapes, is very analogous to the essential intermixture of all sorts of Homoeomeries in the theory of Anaxagoras.]
[Footnote 235: Theophrast.
De Sensu, 67.
[Greek: ei)s o(poi/an e(/xin a)\n ei)se/lthê|, diaphe/rein ou)k o)li/gon; kai\ dia\ tou=to to\ au)to\ ta)nanti/a, kai\ ta)nanti/a to\ au)to\ pa/thos poiei=n e)ni/ote.]]
[Side-note: Thought or Intelligence--was produced by influx of atoms from without.]
As sensation, so also thought or intelligence, was produced by the working of atoms from without.
But in what manner the different figures and magnitudes of atoms were understood to act, in producing diverse modifications of thought, we do not find explained.
It was, however, requisite that there should be a symmetry, or correspondence of condition between the thinking mind within and the inflowing atoms from without, in order that these latter might work upon a man properly: if he were too hot, or too cold, his mind went astray.
[236] Though Demokritus identified the mental or vital particles with the spherical atoms constituting heat or fire, he nevertheless seems to have held that these particles might be in excess as well as in deficiency, and that they required, as a condition of sound mind, to be diluted or attempered with others.
The soundest mind, however, did not work by itself or spontaneously, but was put in action by atoms or effluvia from without: this was true of the intellectual mind, not less than of the sensational mind.
There was an objective something without, corresponding to and generating every different thought--just as there was an objective something corresponding to every different sensation.
But first, the object of sensation was an atomic compound having some appreciable bulk, while that of thought might be separate atoms or vacua so minute as to be invisible and intangible.
Next, the object of sensation did not reveal itself as it was in its own nature, but merely produced changes in the percipient, and different changes in different percipients (except as to heavy and light, hard and soft, which were not simply modifications of our sensibility, but were also primary qualities inherent in the objects themselves[237]): while the object of thought, though it worked a change in the thinking subject, yet also revealed itself as it was, and worked alike upon all.
[Footnote 236: Theophrast.
De Sensu, 58.
[Greek: Peri\ de\ tou= phronei=n e)pi\ tosou=ton ei)/rêken, o(/ti gi/netai summe/trôs e)chou/sês tê=s psuchê=s meta\ tê\n ki/nêsin; e)a\n de\ peri/thermo/s tis ê)\ peri/psuchros ge/nêtai, metalla/ttein phêsi/.]]
[Footnote 237: Theophrastus, De Sensu, 71.
[Greek: nu=n de\ sklêrou= me\n kai\ malakou= kai\ bare/os kai\ kou/phou poiei= tê\n ou)si/an, _o(/per (a(/per) ou)ch' ê(=tton e)/doxe le/gesthai pro\s ê(ma=s,_ thermou= de\ kai\ psuchrou= kai\ tô=n a)/llôn ou)deno/s].
This is a remarkable point to be noted in the criticisms of Theophrastus on the doctrine of Demokritus.
Demokritus maintains that _hot_ and _cold_ are relative to us: _hard_ and _soft_, _heavy_ and _light_, are not only relative to us, but also absolute, objective, things in their own nature,--though causing in us sensations which are like them.
Theophrastus denies this distinction altogether: and denies it with the best reason.
Not many of his criticisms on Demokritus are so just and pertinent as this one.]
[Side-note: Sensation, obscure knowledge relative to the sentient; Thought, genuine knowledge--absolute, or object per se.]
Hence Demokritus termed sensation, _obscure knowledge_--thought, _genuine knowledge_.
[238] It was only by thought (reason, intelligence) that the fundamental realities of nature, atoms and vacua, could be apprehended: even by thought, however, only imperfectly, since there was always more or less of subjective movements and conditions, which partially clouded the pure objective apprehension--and since the atoms themselves were in perpetual movement, as well as inseparably mingled one with another.
Under such obstructions, Demokritus proclaimed that no clear or certain knowledge was attainable: that the sensible objects, which men believed to be absolute realities, were only phenomenal and relative to us,--while the atoms and vacua, the true existences or things in themselves, could scarce ever be known as they were:[239] that truth was hidden in an abyss, and out of our reach.
[Footnote 238: Demokritus Fragm.
Mullach, p. 205, 206; ap.
Sext.
Empir.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
135-139, [Greek: gnô/mês du/o ei)si\n i)de/ai; ê( me\n gnêsi/ê, ê( de\ skoti/ê], &c.] [Footnote 239: Democr.
Frag., Mull., p. 204-5.
[Greek: A(/per nomi/zetai me\n ei)=nai kai\ doxa/zetai ta\ ai)sthêta/, _ou)k e)/sti de\ kata\ a)lê/theian tau=ta;_ a)lla\ ta\ a)/toma mo/non kai\ keno/n.
ê(me/es de\ tô=| me\n e)o/nti ou)de\n a)treke\s xuni/emen, meta/pipton de\ kata/ te sô/matos diathigê/n, kai\ tô=n e)peisio/ntôn, kai\ tô=n a)ntistêrizo/ntôn .
.
.
.
e)teê=| me/n nun, o(/ti oi(/on e(/kasto/n e)stin ê)\ ou)/k e)stin, ou) xuni/emen, pollachê= dedê/lôtai], &c. Compare Cicero, Acad.
Quæst.
i.
13, ii.
10; Diog.
Laert.
ix.
72; Aristotel.
Metaphys.
iii.
5, p. 1009, b.
10.]
[Side-note: Idola or images were thrown off from objects, which determined the tone of thoughts, feelings, dreams, divinations, &c.] As Demokritus supposed both sensations and thoughts to be determined by effluvia from without, so he assumed a similar cause to account for beliefs, comfortable or uncomfortable dispositions, fancies, dreams, presentiments, &c. He supposed that the air contained many effluences, spectres, images, cast off from persons and substances in nature--sometimes even from outlying very distant objects which lay beyond the bounds of the Kosmos.
Of these images, impregnated with the properties, bodily and mental, of the objects from whence they came, some were beneficent, others mischievous: they penetrated into the human body through the pores and spread their influence all through the system.
[240] Those thrown off by jealous and vindictive men were especially hurtful,[241] as they inflicted suffering corresponding to the tempers of those with whom they originated.
Trains of thought and feeling were thus excited in men's minds; in sleep,[242] dreams, divinations, prophetic warnings, and threats, were communicated: sometimes, pestilence and other misfortunes were thus begun.
Demokritus believed that men's happiness depended much upon the nature and character of the images which might approach them, expressing an anxious wish that he might himself meet with such as were propitious.
[243] It was from grand and terrific images of this nature, that he supposed the idea and belief of the Gods to have arisen: a supposition countenanced by the numerous tales, respecting appearances of the Gods both to dreaming and to waking men, current among the poets and in the familiar talk of Greece.
[Footnote 240: Demokriti Frag.
p. 207, Mullach; Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
ix.
19; Plutarch, Symposiac.
viii.
10, p. 735 A.]
[Footnote 241: Plutarch, Symposiac.
v. 7, p. 683 A.]
[Footnote 242: Aristotel.
De Divinat.
per Somnum, p. 464, a.
5; Plutarch, Symposiac.
viii.
9, p. 733 E. [Greek: o(/ti kai\ ko/smôn e)kto\s phthare/ntôn kai\ sôma/tôn a)llophu/lôn e)k tê=s a)por)r(oi/as e)pir)r(eo/ntôn, e)ntau=tha polla/kis a)rchai\ parempi/ptousi loimô=n kai\ pathô=n ou) sunê/thôn.]]
[Footnote 243: Plutarch, De Oraculor.
Defectu, p. 419.
[Greek: au)to\s eu)/chetai eu)lo/gchôn ei)dôlôn tugcha/nein.]]
[Side-note: Universality of Demokritus--his ethical views.]
Among the lost treasures of Hellenic intellect, there are few which are more to be regretted than the works of Demokritus.
Little is known of them except the titles: but these are instructive as well as multifarious.
The number of different subjects which they embrace is astonishing.
Besides his atomic theory, and its application to cosmogony and physics, whereby he is chiefly known, and from whence his title of _physicus_ was derived--we find mention of works on geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, optics, geography or geology, zoology, botany, medicine, music, and poetry, grammar, history, ethics, &c.[244] In such universality he is the predecessor, perhaps the model, of Aristotle.
It is not likely that this wide range of subjects should have been handled in a spirit of empty generality, without facts or particulars: for we know that his life was long, his curiosity insatiable, and his personal travel and observation greater than that of any contemporary.
We know too that he entered more or less upon the field of dialectics, discussing those questions of evidence which became so rife in the Platonic age.
He criticised, and is said to have combated, the doctrine laid down by Protagoras, "Man is the measure of all things".
It would have been interesting to know from what point of view he approached it: but we learn only the fact that he criticised it adversely.
[245] The numerous treatises of Demokritus, together with the proportion of them which relate to ethical and social subjects, rank him with the philosophers of the Platonic and Aristotelian age.
His Summum Bonum, as far as we can make out, appears to have been the maintenance of mental serenity and contentment: in which view he recommended a life of tranquil contemplation, apart from money-making, or ambition, or the exciting pleasures of life.
[246] [Footnote 244: See the list of the works of Demokritus in Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
46, and in Mullach's edition of the Fragments, p. 105-107.
Mullach mentions here (note 18) that Demokritus is cited seventy-eight times in the extant works of Aristotle, and sometimes with honourable mention.
He is never mentioned by Plato.
In the fragment of Philodemus de Musica, Demokritus is called [Greek: a)nê\r ou) phusiologô/tatos mo/non tô=n a)rchai/ôn, a)lla\ kai\ peri\ ta\ i(storou/mena ou)deno\s ê)=tton polupra/gmôn] (Mullach, p. 237).
Seneca calls him "Democritus, subtilissimus antiquorum omnium".--Quæstion.
Natural.
vii.
2.
And Dionysius of Hal.
(De Comp.
Verb.
p. 187, R.) characterises Demokritus, Plato, and Aristotle (he arranges them in that order) as first among all the philosophers, in respect of [Greek: su/nthesis tô=n o)noma/tôn].]
[Footnote 245: Plutarch, adv.
Kolôten, p. 1108.
Among the Demokritean treatises, was one entitled Pythagoras, which contained probably a comment on the life and doctrines of that eminent man, written in an admiring spirit.
(Diog.
Laert.
ix.
38.)]
[Footnote 246: Seneca, De Tranquill.
Animæ, cap.
2.
"Hanc stabilem animi sedem Græci [Greek: Eu)thumi/an] vocant, de quo Democriti volumen egregium est."
Compare Cicero De Finib.
v. 29; Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
45.
For [Greek: eu)thumi/a] Demokritus used as synonyms [Greek: eu)estô/, a)thambi/ê, a)taraxi/ê], &c. See Mullach, p.
416.]
CHAPTER II.
GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHERS --GROWTH OF DIALECTIC--ZENO AND GORGIAS.
[Side-note: Variety of sects and theories--multiplicity of individual authorities is the characteristic of Greek philosophy.]
The first feeling of any reader accustomed to the astronomy and physics of the present century, on considering the various theories noticed in the preceding chapter, is a sort of astonishment that such theories should have been ever propounded or accepted as true.
Yet there can be no doubt that they represent the best thoughts of sincere, contemplative, and ingenious men, furnished with as much knowledge of fact, and as good a method, as was then attainable.
The record of what such men have received as scientific truth or probability, in different ages, is instructive in many ways, but in none more than in showing how essentially relative and variable are the conditions of human belief; how unfounded is the assumption of those modern philosophers who proclaim certain first truths or first principles as universal, intuitive, self-evident; how little any theorist can appreciate _à priori_ the causes of belief in an age materially different from his own, or can lay down maxims as to what must be universally believed or universally disbelieved by all mankind.
We shall have farther illustration of this truth as we proceed: here I only note variety of belief, even on the most fundamental points, as being the essential feature of Grecian philosophy even from its outset, long before the age of those who are usually denounced as the active sowers of discord, the Sophists and the professed disputants.
Each philosopher followed his own individual reason, departing from traditional or established creeds, and incurring from the believing public more or less of obloquy; but no one among the philosophers acquired marked supremacy over the rest.
There is no established philosophical orthodoxy, but a collection of Dissenters--[Greek: a)/llê d' a)/llôn glô=ssa memigme/nê]--small sects, each with its own following, each springing from a special individual as authority, each knowing itself to be only one among many.
[Side-note: These early theorists are not known from their own writings, which have been lost.
Importance of the information of Aristotle about them.]
It is a misfortune that we do not possess a complete work, or even considerable fragments, from any one of these philosophers, so as to know what their views were when stated by themselves, and upon what reasons they insisted.
All that we know is derived from a few detached notices, in very many cases preserved by Aristotle; who, not content (like Plato) with simply following out his own vein of ideas, exhibits in his own writings much of that polymathy which he transmitted to the Peripatetics generally, and adverts often to the works of predecessors.
Being a critic as well as a witness, he sometimes blends together inconveniently the two functions, and is accused (probably with reason to a certain extent) of making unfair reports; but if it were not for him, we should really know nothing of the Hellenic philosophers before Plato.
It is curious to read the manner in which Aristotle speaks of these philosophical predecessors as "the ancients" ([Greek: oi( a)rchai=oi]), and takes credit to his own philosophy for having attained a higher and more commanding point of view.
[1] [Footnote 1: Bacon ascribes the extinction of these early Greek philosophers to Aristotle, who thought that he could not assure his own philosophical empire, except by putting to death all his brothers, like the Turkish Sultan.
This remark occurs more than once in Bacon (Nov. Org.
Aph.
67; Redargutio Philosoph.
vol.
xi.
p. 450, ed.
Montagu).
In so far as it is a reproach, I think it is not deserved.
Aristotle's works, indeed, have been preserved, and those of his predecessors have not: but Aristotle, far from seeking to destroy their works, has been the chief medium for preserving to us the little which we know about them.
His attention to the works of his predecessors is something very unusual among the theorists of the ancient world.
His friends Eudêmus and Theophrastus followed his example, in embodying the history of the earlier theories in distinct works of their own, now unfortunately lost.
It is much to be regretted that no scholar has yet employed himself in collecting and editing the fragments of the lost scientific histories of Eudêmus (the Rhodian) and Theophrastus.
A new edition of the Commentaries of Simplikius is also greatly wanted: those which exist are both rare and unreadable.
Zeller remarks that several of the statements contained in Proklus's commentary on Euclid, respecting the earliest Grecian mathematicians, are borrowed from the [Greek: geômetrikai\ i(stori/ai] of the Rhodian Eudêmus (Zeller--De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, p.
12).]
[Side-note: Abundance of speculative genius and invention--a memorable fact in the Hellenic mind.]
During the century and a half between Thales and the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, we have passed in review twelve distinct schemes of philosophy--Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Herakleitus, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, the Apolloniate Diogenes, Leukippus, and Demokritus.
Of most of these philosophers it may fairly be said that each speculated upon nature in an original vein of his own.
Anaximenes and Diogenes, Xenophanes and Parmenides, Leukippus and Demokritus, may indeed be coupled together as kindred pairs yet by no means in such manner that the second of the two is a mere disciple and copyist of the first.
Such abundance and variety of speculative genius and invention is one of the most memorable facts in the history of the Hellenic mind.
The prompting of intelligent curiosity, the thirst for some plausible hypothesis to explain the Kosmos and its generation, the belief that a basis or point of departure might be found in the Kosmos itself, apart from those mythical personifications which dwelt both in the popular mind and in the poetical Theogonies, the mental effort required to select some known agency and to connect it by a chain of reasoning with the result--all this is a new phenomenon in the history of the human mind.
[Side-note: Difficulties which a Grecian philosopher had to overcome--prevalent view of Nature, established, impressive, and misleading.]
An early Greek philosopher found nothing around him to stimulate or assist the effort, and much to obstruct it.
He found Nature disguised under a diversified and omnipresent Polytheistic agency, eminently captivating and impressive to the emotions--at once mysterious and familiar--embodied in the ancient Theogonies, and penetrating deeply all the abundant epic and lyric poetry, the only literature of the time.
It is perfectly true (as Aristotle remarks[2]) that Hesiod and the other theological poets, who referred everything to the generation and agency of the Gods, thought only of what was plausible to themselves, without enquiring whether it would appear equally plausible to their successors; a reproach which bears upon many subsequent philosophers also.
The contemporary public, to whom they addressed themselves, knew no other way of conceiving Nature than under this religious and poetical view, as an aggregate of manifestations by divine personal agents, upon whose volition--sometimes signified beforehand by obscure warnings intelligible to the privileged interpreters, but often inscrutable--the turn of events depended.
Thales and the other Ionic philosophers were the first who became dissatisfied with this point of view, and sought for some "causes and beginnings" more regular, knowable, and predictable.
They fixed upon the common, familiar, widely-extended, material substances, water, air, fire, &c.; and they could hardly fix upon any others.
Their attempt to find a scientific basis was unsuccessful; but the memorable fact consisted in their looking for one.
[Footnote 2: Aristot.
Metaphys.
B.
4, p. 1000, a.
10.
[Greek: Oi( me\n ou)=n peri\ Ê(si/odon, kai\ pa/ntes o(/soi theo/logoi, mo/non e)phro/ntisan tou= pithanou= tou= pro\s au)tou/s, ê(mô=n d' ô)ligô/rêsan; Theou\s ga\r poiou=ntes ta\s a)rcha\s kai\ e)k theô=n gegone/nai], &c. Aristotle mentions them a few lines afterwards as not worth serious notice, [Greek: peri\ tô=n muthikô=s sophizome/nôn ou)k a)/xion meta\ spoudê=s skopei=n.]]
[Side-note: Views of the Ionic philosophers--compared with the more recent abstractions of Plato and Aristotle.]
In the theories of these Ionic philosophers, the physical ideas of generation, transmutation, local motion, are found in the foreground: generation in the Kosmos to replace generation by the God.
Pythagoras and Empedokles blend with their speculations a good deal both of ethics and theology, which we shall find yet more preponderant when we come to the cosmical theories of Plato.
He brings us back to the mythical Prometheus, armed with the geometrical and arithmetical combinations of the Pythagoreans: he assumes a chaotic substratum, modified by the intentional and deliberate construction of the Demiurgus and his divine sons, who are described as building up and mixing like a human artisan or chemist.
In the theory of Aristotle we find Nature half personified, and assumed to be perpetually at work under the influence of an appetite for good or regularity, which determines her to aim instinctively and without deliberation (like bees or spiders) at constant ends, though these regular tendencies are always accompanied, and often thwarted, by accessories, irregular, undefinable, unpredictable.
Both Plato and Aristotle, in their dialectical age, carried abstraction farther than it had been carried by the Ionic philosophers.
[3] Aristotle imputes to the Ionic philosophers that they neglected three out of his four causes (the efficient, formal, and final), and that they attended only to the material.
This was a height of abstraction first attained by Plato and himself; in a way sometimes useful, sometimes misleading.
The earlier philosophers had not learnt to divide substance from its powers or properties; nor to conceive substance without power as one thing, and power without substance as another.
Their primordial substance, with its powers and properties, implicated together as one concrete and without any abstraction, was at once an efficient, a formal, and a material cause: a final cause they did not suppose themselves to want, inasmuch as they always conceived a fixed terminus towards which the agency was directed, though they did not conceive such fixed tendency under the symbol of an appetite and its end.
Water, Air, Fire, were in their view not simply inert and receptive patients, impotent until they were stimulated by the active force residing in the ever revolving celestial spheres--but positive agents themselves, productive of important effects.
So also a geologist of the present day, when he speculates upon the early condition[4] of the Kosmos, reasons upon gaseous, fluid, solid, varieties of matter, as manifesting those same laws and properties which experience attests, but manifesting them under different combinations and circumstances.
The defect of the Ionic philosophers, unavoidable at the time, was, that possessing nothing beyond a superficial experience, they either ascribed to these physical agents powers and properties not real, or exaggerated prodigiously such as were real; so that the primordial substance chosen, though bearing a familiar name, became little better than a fiction.
The Pythagoreans did the same in regard to numbers, ascribing to them properties altogether fanciful and imaginary.
[Footnote 3: Plato (Sophistes, 242-243) observes respecting these early theorists--what Aristotle says about Hesiod and the Theogonies--that they followed out their own subjective veins of thought without asking whether we, the many listeners, were able to follow them or were left behind in the dark.
I dare say that this was true (as indeed it is true respecting most writers on speculative matters), but I am sure that all of them would have made the same complaint if they had heard Plato read his Timæus.]
[Footnote 4: Bacon has some striking remarks on the contrast in this respect between the earlier philosophers and Aristotle.
Bacon, after commending the early Greek philosophers for having adopted as their first principle some known and positive matter, not a mere abstraction, goes on to say:-"Videntur antiqui illi, in inquisitione principiorum, rationem non admodum acutam instituisse, sed hoc solummodo egisse, ut ex corporibus apparentibus et manifestis, quod maximé excelleret, quærerent, et quod tale videbatur, principium rerum ponerent: tanquam per excellentiam, non veré aut realiter.
.
.
.
Quod si principium illud suum teneant non per excellentiam, sed simpliciter, videntur utique in duriorem tropum incidere: cum res plané deducatur ad æquivocum, neque de igne naturali, aut naturali ære, aut aquâ, quod asserunt, prædicari videatur, sed de igne aliquo phantastico et notionali (et sic de cæteris) qui nomen ignis retineat, definitionem abneget.
.
.
.
Principium statuerunt secundum sensum, aliquod ens verum: modum autem ejus dispensandi (liberius se gerentes) phantasticum."
(Bacon, Parmenidis, Telesii, et Democriti Philosophia, vol.
xi., p. 115-116, ed.
Montagu.)
"Materia illa spoliata et passiva prorsus humanæ mentis commentum quoddam videtur.
Materia prima ponenda est conjuncta cum principio motûs primo, ut invenitur.
Hæc tria (materia, forma, motus) nullo modo discerpenda, sed tantummodo distinguenda, atque asserenda materia (qualiscunque ea sit), ita ornata et apparata et formata, ut omnis virtus, essentia, actio, atque motus naturalis, ejus consecutio et emanatio esse possit.
Omnes ferè antiqui, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes.
Heraclitus, Democritus, de materiâ primâ in cæteris dissidentes, in hoc convenerunt, quod materiam activam formâ nonnullâ, et formam suam dispensantem, atque intra se principium motûs habentem, posuerunt."
(Bacon, De Parmenidis, Telesii, et Campanellæ, Philosoph., p. 653-654, t. v.) Compare Aphorism I.
50 of the Novum Organum.
Bacon, Parmenidis, Telesii, et Democriti Philosophia, vol.
xi.
ed.
Montagu, p. 106-107.
"Sed omnes ferè antiqui (anterior to Plato), Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Democritus, de materiâ primâ in cæteris dissidentes, in hoc convenerunt, quod materiam activam, formâ nonnullâ, et formam suam dispensantem, atque intra se principium motûs habentem, posuerunt.
Neque aliter cuiquam opinari licebit, qui non experientiæ plané desertor esse velit.
Itaque hi omnes mentem rebus submiserunt.
At Plato mundum cogitationibus, Aristoteles verò etiam cogitationes verbis, adjudicarunt."
.
.
.
.
"Omnino materia prima ponenda est conjuncta cum formâ primâ, ac etiam cum principio motûs primo, ut invenitur.
Nam et motûs quoque abstractio infinitas phantasias peperit, de animis, vitis, et similibus--ac si iis per materiam et formam non satisfieret, sed ex suis propriis penderent illa principiis.
Sed hæc tria nullo modo discerpenda, sed tantummodo distinguenda: atque asserenda materia (qualiscunque ea sit) ita ornata et apparata et formata, ut omnis virtus, essentia, actio, atque motus naturalis, ejus consecutio et emanatio esse possit.
Neque propterea metuendum, ne res torpeant, aut varietas ista, quam cernimus, explicari non possit--ut postea docebimus."
Playfair also observes, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Natural Philosophy, prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica, p. 31:-"Science was not merely stationary, but often retrograde; and the reasonings of Democritus and Anaxagoras were in many respects more solid than those of Plato and Aristotle."
See a good summary of Aristotle's cosmical views, in Ideler, Comm.
in Aristotel.
Meteorologica, i.
2, p.
328-329.]
[Side-note: Parmenides and Pythagoras--more nearly akin to Plato and Aristotle.]
Parmenides and Pythagoras, taking views of the Kosmos metaphysical and geometrical rather than physical, supplied the basis upon which Plato's speculations were built.
Aristotle recognises Empedokles and Anaxagoras as having approached to his own doctrine--force abstracted or considered apart from substance, yet not absolutely detached from it.
This is true about Empedokles to a certain extent, since his theory admits Love and Enmity as agents, the four elements as patients: but it is hardly true about Anaxagoras, in whose theory Noûs imparts nothing more than a momentary shock, exercising what modern chemists call a catalytic agency in originating movement among a stationary and stagnant mass of Homoeomeries, which, as soon as they are liberated from imprisonment, follow inherent tendencies of their own, not receiving any farther impulse or direction from Noûs.
[Side-note: Advantage derived from this variety of constructive imagination among the Greeks.]
In the number of cosmical theories proposed, from Thales to Demokritus, as well as in the diversity and even discordance of the principles on which they were founded--we note not merely the growth and development of scientific curiosity, but also the spontaneity and exuberance of constructive imagination.
[5] This last is a prominent attribute of the Hellenic mind, displayed to the greatest advantage in their poetical, oratorical, historical, artistic, productions, and transferred from thence to minister to their scientific curiosity.
None of their known contemporaries showed the like aptitudes, not even the Babylonians and Egyptians, who were diligent in the observation of the heavens.
Now the constructive imagination is not less indispensable to the formation of scientific theories than to the compositions of art, although in the two departments it is subject to different conditions, and appeals to different canons and tests in the human mind.
Each of these early Hellenic theories, though all were hypotheses and "anticipations of nature," yet as connecting together various facts upon intelligible principles, was a step in advance; while the very number and discordance of them (urged by Sokrates[6] as an argument for discrediting the purpose common to all), was on the whole advantageous.
It lessened the mischief arising from the imperfections of each, increased the chance of exposing such imperfections, and prevented the consecration of any one among them (with that inveterate and peremptory orthodoxy which Plato so much admires[7] in the Egyptians) as an infallible dogma and an exclusive mode of looking at facts.
All the theorists laboured under the common defect of a scanty and inaccurate experience: all of them were prompted by a vague but powerful emotion of curiosity to connect together the past and present of Nature by some threads intelligible and satisfactory to their own minds; each of them followed out some analogy of his own, such as seemed to carry with it a self-justifying plausibility; and each could find some phenomena which countenanced his own peculiar view.
As far as we can judge, Leukippus and Demokritus greatly surpassed the others, partly in the pains which they took to elaborate their theory, partly in the number of facts which they brought into consistency with it.
The loss of the voluminous writings of Demokritus is deeply to be regretted.
[8] [Footnote 5: Karsten observes, in his account of the philosophy of Parmenides (sect, 23, p. 241):-"Primum mundi descriptionem consideremus.
Argumentum illustre et magnificum, cujus quanto major erat veterum in contemplando admiratio, tanto minor ferè in observando diligentia fuit.
Quippe universi _ornatum et pulcritudinem admirati_, ejus _naturam partiumque ordinem non sensu assequi_ studuerunt, sed _mente informarunt ad eam pulcri perfectique speciem quæ in ipsorum animis_ insideret: sic ut Aristoteles ait, non sua cogitata suasque notiones ad mundi naturam, sed hanc illa accommodantes.
Hujusmodi quoque fuit Parmenidea ratio."]
[Footnote 6: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
1, 13-14.]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Legg.
ii.
656-657.]
[Footnote 8: About the style of Demokritus, see Cicero De Orat.
i.
11.
Orator.
c.
20.]
[Side-note: All these theories were found in circulation by Sokrates, Zeno, Plato, and the dialecticians.
Importance of the scrutiny of negative Dialectic.]
In studying the writings of Plato and Aristotle, we must recollect that they found all these theories pre-existent or contemporaneous.
We are not to imagine that they were the first who turned an enquiring eye on Nature.
So far is this from being the case that Aristotle is, as it were, oppressed both by the multitude and by the discordance of his predecessors, whom he cites, with a sort of indulgent consciousness of superiority, as "the ancients" ([Greek: oi( a)rchai=oi]).
[9] The dialectic activity, inaugurated by Sokrates and Zeno, lowered the estimation of these cosmical theories in more ways than one: first, by the new topics of man and society, which Sokrates put in the foreground for discussion, and treated as the only topics worthy of discussion: next, by the great acuteness which each of them displayed in the employment of the negative weapons, and in bringing to view the weak part of an opponent's case.
When we look at the number of these early theories, and the great need which all of them had to be sifted and scrutinised, we shall recognise the value of negative procedure under such circumstances, whether the negationist had or had not any better affirmative theory of his own.
Sokrates, moreover, not only turned the subject-matter of discussion from physics to ethics, but also brought into conscious review the _method_ of philosophising: which was afterwards still farther considered and illustrated by Plato.
General and abstract terms and their meaning, stood out as the capital problems of philosophical research, and as the governing agents of the human mind during the process: in Plato and Aristotle, and the Dialectics of their age, we find the meaning or concept corresponding to these terms invested with an objective character, and represented as a cause or beginning; by which, or out of which, real concrete things were produced.
Logical, metaphysical, ethical, entities, whose existence consists in being named and reasoned about, are presented to us (by Plato) as the real antecedents and producers of the sensible Kosmos and its contents, or (by Aristotle) as coeternal with the Kosmos, but as its underlying constituents--the [Greek: a)rchai\], primordia or ultimata--into which it was the purpose and duty of the philosopher to resolve sensible things.
The men of words and debate, the dialecticians or metaphysical speculators of the period since Zeno and Sokrates, who took little notice of the facts of Nature, stand contrasted in the language of Aristotle with the antecedent physical philosophers who meddled less with debate and more with facts.
The contrast is taken in his mind between Plato and Demokritus.
[10] [Footnote 9: Aristot.
Gen. et Corr.
i.
314, a.
6; 325, a.
2; Metaphys.
[Greek: L].
1069, a.
25.
See the sense of [Greek: a)rchai+kô=s], Met.
N. 1089, a.
2, with the note of Bonitz.
Adam Smith, in his very instructive examination of the ancient systems of Physics and Metaphysics, is too much inclined to criticise Plato and Aristotle as if they were the earliest theorizers, and as if they had no predecessors.]
[Footnote 10: Aristotel.
Gen. et Corr.
i.
316, a.
6.--[Greek: dio\ o(/soi e)nô|kê/kasi ma=llon e)n toi=s phusikoi=s, ma=llon du/nantai u(poti/thesthai toiau/tas a)rcha\s, ai(\ e)pi\ polu\ du/nantai sunei/rein; oi( d' e)k tô=n pollô=n lo/gôn a)theô/rêtoi tô=n u(parcho/ntôn o)/ntes, pro\s o)li/ga ble/psantes, a)pophai/nontai r(a=|on; i)/doi d' a)/n tis kai\ e)k tou/tôn o(/son diaphe/rousin oi( phusikô=s kai\ logikô=s skopou=ntes], &c. This remark is thoroughly Baconian.
[Greek: Oi( en toi=s lo/gois] is the phrase by which Aristotle characterises the Platonici.--Metaphys.
[Greek: Th].
1050, b.
35.]
[Side-note: The early theorists were studied along with Plato and Aristotle, in the third and second centuries B.C.]
Both by Stoics and by Epikureans, during the third and second centuries B.C., Demokritus, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Herakleitus were studied along with Plato and Aristotle--by some, even more.
Lucretius mentions and criticises all the four, though he never names Plato or Aristotle.
Cicero greatly admires the style of Demokritus, whose works were arranged in tetralogies by Thrasyllus, as those of Plato were.
[11] [Footnote 11: Epikurus is said to have especially admired Anaxagoras (Diog.
L. x.
12).]
[Side-note: Negative attribute common to all the early theorists--little or no dialectic.]
In considering the early theorists above enumerated, there is great difficulty in finding any positive characteristic applicable to all of them.
But a negative characteristic may be found, and has already been indicated by Aristotle.
"The earlier philosophers (says he) had no part in dialectics: Dialectical force did not yet exist.
"[12] And the period upon which we are now entering is distinguished mainly by the introduction and increasing preponderance of this new element--Dialectic--first made conspicuously manifest in the Eleatic Zeno and Sokrates; two memorable persons, very different from each other, but having this property in common.
[Footnote 12: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
987, b.
32.
[Greek: Oi( ga\r pro/teroi dialektikê=s ou) metei=chon].--M.
1078, b.
25; [Greek: dialektikê\ ga\r i)schu\s ou)/pô to/t' ê)=n, ô(/ste du/nasthai], &c.] [Side-note: Zeno of Elea--Melissus.]
It is Zeno who stands announced, on the authority of Aristotle, as the inventor of dialectic: that is, as the first person of whose skill in the art of cross-examination and refutation conspicuous illustrative specimens were preserved.
He was among the first who composed written dialogues on controversial matters of philosophy.
[13] Both he, and his contemporary the Samian Melissus, took up the defence of the Parmenidean doctrine.
It is remarkable that both one and the other were eminent as political men in their native cities.
Zeno is even said to have perished miserably, in generous but fruitless attempts to preserve Elea from being enslaved by the despot Nearchus.
[Footnote 13: Diogen.
Laert.
ix.
25-28.
The epithets applied to Zeno by Timon are remarkable.
[Greek: A)mphoteroglô/ssou te me/ga sthe/nos ou)k a)lapadno\n Zê/nônos pa/ntôn e)pilê/ptoros], &c.] [Side-note: Zeno's Dialectic--he refuted the opponents of Parmenides, by showing that their assumptions led to contradictions and absurdities.]
We know the reasonings of Zeno and Melissus only through scanty fragments, and those fragments transmitted by opponents.
But it is plain that both of them, especially Zeno, pressed their adversaries with grave difficulties, which it was more easy to deride than to elucidate.
Both took their departure from the ground occupied by Parmenides.
They agreed with him in recognising the phenomenal, apparent, or relative world, the world of sense and experience, as a subject of knowledge, though of uncertain and imperfect knowledge.
Each of them gave, as Parmenides had done, certain affirmative opinions, or at least probable conjectures, for the purpose of explaining it.
[14] But beyond this world of appearances, there lay the real, absolute, ontological, ultra-phenomenal, or Noumenal world, which Parmenides represented as _Ens unum continuum_, and which his opponents contended to be plural and discontinuous.
These opponents deduced absurd and ridiculous consequences from the theory of the One.
Herein both Zeno and Melissus defended Parmenides.
Zeno, the better dialectician of the two, retorted upon the advocates of absolute plurality and discontinuousness, showing that their doctrine led to consequences not less absurd and contradictory than the _Ens unum_ of Parmenides.
He advanced many distinct arguments; some of them antinomies, deducing from the same premisses both the affirmative and the negative of the same conclusion.
[15] [Footnote 14: Diog.
Laert.
ix.
24-29.
Zeller (Phil.
d. Griech.
i. p. 424, note 2) doubts the assertion that Zeno delivered probable opinions and hypotheses, as Parmenides had done before him, respecting phenomenal nature.
But I see no adequate ground for such doubt.]
[Footnote 15: Simplikius, in Aristotel.
Physic.
f. 30.
[Greek: e)n me/ntoi tô=| suggra/mmati au)tou=, polla\ e)/chonti e)picheirê/mata, kath' e(/kaston dei/knusin, o(/ti tô=| polla\ ei)=nai le/gonti sumbai/nei ta\ e)nanti/a le/gein], &c.] [Side-note: Consequences of their assumption of Entia Plura Discontinua.
Reductiones ad absurdum.]
If things in themselves were many (he said) they must be both infinitely small and infinitely great.
_Infinitely small_, because the many things must consist in a number of units, each essentially indivisible: but that which is indivisible has no magnitude, or is infinitely small if indeed it can be said to have any existence whatever:[16] _Infinitely great_, because each of the many things, if assumed to exist, must have magnitude.
Having magnitude, each thing has parts which also have magnitude: these parts are, by the hypothesis, essentially discontinuous, but this implies that they are kept apart from each other by other intervening parts--and these intervening parts must be again kept apart by others.
Each body will thus contain in itself an infinite number of parts, each having magnitude.
In other words, it will be infinitely great.
[17] [Footnote 16: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
B.
4, p. 1001, b.
7.
[Greek: e)/ti ei) a)diai/reton au)to\ to\ e(/n, kata\ me\n to\ Zê/nônos a)xi/ôma, ou)the\n a)\n ei)/ê.
o(\ ga\r mê/te prostithe/menon mête\ a)phairou/menon poiei= ti mei=zon mêde\ e(/latton, ou)/ phêsin ei)=nai tou=to tô=n o)/ntôn, ô(s dê=lon o(/ti o)/ntos mege/thous tou= o)/ntos].
Seneca (Epistol.
88) and Alexander of Aphrodisias (see the passages of Themistius and Simplikius cited by Brandis, Handbuch Philos.
i. p. 412-416) conceive Zeno as having dissented from Parmenides, and as having denied the existence, not only of [Greek: ta\ polla\], but also of [Greek: to\ e(/n].
But Zeno seems to have adhered to Parmenides; and to have denied the existence of [Greek: to\ e(/n], only upon the hypothesis opposed to Parmenides--namely, that [Greek: ta\ polla\] existed.
Zeno argued thus:--Assuming that the Real or Absolute is essentially divisible and discontinuous, divisibility must be pushed to infinity, so that you never arrive at any ultimatum, or any real unit ([Greek: a)kribô=s e(/n]).
If you admit [Greek: ta\ polla\], you renounce [Greek: to\ e(/n].
The reasoning of Zeno, as far as we know it, is nearly all directed against the hypothesis of _Entia plura discontinua_.
Tennemann (Gesch.
Philos.
i.
4, p. 205) thinks that the reasoning of Zeno is directed against the world of sense: in which I cannot agree with him.]
[Footnote 17: Scholia ad Aristotel.
Physic.
p. 334, a. ed.
Brandis.]
Again--If things in themselves were many, they would be both finite and infinite in number.
_Finite_, because they are as many as they are, neither more nor less: and every number is a finite number.
_Infinite_, because being essentially separate, discontinuous, units, each must be kept apart from the rest by an intervening unit; and this again by something else intervening.
Suppose a multitude A, B, C, D, &c. A and B would be continuous unless they were kept apart by some intervening unit Z.
But A and Z would then be continuous unless they were kept apart by something else--Y: and so on ad infinitum: otherwise the essential discontinuousness could not be maintained.
[18] [Footnote 18: See the argument cited by Simplikius in the words of the Zenonian treatise, in Preller, Hist.
Philos.
Græc.
ex font.
context.
p. 101, sect.
156.]
By these two arguments,[19] drawn from the hypothesis which affirmed perpetual divisibility and denied any Continuum, Zeno showed that such _Entia multa discontinua_ would have contradictory attributes: they would be both infinitely great and infinitely small--they would be both finite and infinite in number.
This he advanced as a _reductio ad absurdum_ against the hypothesis.
[Footnote 19: Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
f. 30.
[Greek: kai\ ou)/tô me\n to\ kata\ to\ plê=thos a)/peiron e)k tê=s dichotomi/as e)/deixe, to\ de\ kata\ to\ me/gethos pro/teron kata\ tê\n au)tê\n e)pichei/rêsin].
Compare Zeller, Phil.
d. Griech.
i. p.
427.]
[Side-note: Each thing must exist in its own place--Grain of millet not sonorous.]
Again--If existing things be many and discontinuous, each of these must exist in a place of its own.
Nothing can exist except in some place.
But the place is itself an existing something: each place must therefore have a place of its own to exist in: the second place must have a third place to exist in and so forth ad infinitum.
[20] We have here a farther _reductio ad impossibile_ of the original hypothesis: for that hypothesis denies the continuity of space, and represents space as a multitude of discontinuous portions or places.
[Footnote 20: Aristotel.
Physic.
iv.
1, p. 209, a.
22; iv.
3, p. 210, b.
23.
Aristotle here observes that the Zenonian argument respecting place is easy to be refuted; and he proceeds to give the refutation.
But his refutation is altogether unsatisfactory.
Those who despise these Zenonian arguments as _sophisms_, ought to look at the way in which they were answered, at or near the time.
Eudêmus ap.
Simplik.
ad Aristot.
Physic.
f. 131.
[Greek: a)/xion ga\r pa=n tô=n o)/ntôn pou= ei)=nai; ei) de\ o( to/pos tô=n o)/ntôn, pou= a)\n ei)/ê?]]
Another argument of Zeno is to the following effect:--"Does a grain of millet, when dropped upon the floor, make sound?
No.--Does a bushel of millet make sound under the same circumstances?
Yes.--Is there not a determinate proportion between the bushel and the grain?
There is.--There must therefore be the same proportion between the sonorousness of the two.
If one grain be not sonorous, neither can ten thousand grains be so.
"[21] [Footnote 21: Aristotel.
Physic.
vii.
5, p. 250, a.
20, with the Scholia of Simplikius on the passage, p. 423, ed.
Brandis.]
To appreciate the contradiction brought out by Zeno, we must recollect that he is not here reasoning about facts of sense, phenomenal and relative--but about things in themselves, absolute and ultra-phenomenal** realities.
He did not deny the fact of sense: to appeal to that fact in reply, would have been to concede his point.
The adversaries against whom he reasoned (Protagoras is mentioned, but he can hardly have been among them, if we have regard to his memorable dogma, of which more will be said presently) were those who maintained the plurality of absolute substances, each for itself, with absolute attributes, apart from the fact of sense, and independent of any sentient subject.
One grain of millet (Zeno argues) has no absolute sonorousness, neither can ten thousand such grains taken together have any.
Upon the hypothesis of absolute reality as a discontinuous multitude, you are here driven to a contradiction which Zeno intends as an argument against the hypothesis.
There is no absolute sonorousness in the ten thousand grains: the sound which they make is a phenomenal fact, relative to us as sentients of sound, and having no reality except in correlation with a hearer.
[22] [Footnote 22: It will be seen that Aristotle in explaining this [Greek: a)pori/a], takes into consideration the difference of force in the vibrations of air, and the different impressibility of the ear.
The explanation is pertinent and just, if applied to the fact of sense: but it is no reply to Zeno, who did not call in question the fact of sense.
Zeno is impugning the doctrine of absolute substances and absolute divisibility.
To say that ten thousand grains are sonorous, but that no one of them separately taken is so, appears to him a contradiction, similar to what is involved in saying that a real magnitude is made up of mathematical points.
Aristotle does not meet this difficulty.]
[Side-note: Zenonian arguments in regard to motion.]
Other memorable arguments of Zeno against the same hypothesis were those by which he proved that if it were admitted, motion would be impossible.
Upon the theory of absolute plurality and discontinuousness, every line or portion of distance was divisible into an infinite number of parts: before a moving body could get from the beginning to the end of this line, it must pass in succession over every one of these parts: but to do this in a finite time was impossible: therefore motion was impossible.
[23] [Footnote 23: Aristot.
Physic.
vi.
9, p. 239 b., with the Scholia, p. 412 seq.
ed.
Brandis; Aristotel.
De Lineis Insecabilibus, p. 968, a.
19.
These four arguments against absolute motion caused embarrassment to Aristotle and his contemporaries.
[Greek: te/ttares d' ei)si\ lo/goi Zê/nônos oi( pare/chontes ta\s duskoli/as toi=s lu/ousin], &c.] A second argument of the same tendency was advanced in the form of comparison between Achilles and the tortoise--the swiftest and slowest movers.
The two run a race, a certain start being given to the tortoise.
Zeno contends that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise.
It is plain indeed, according to the preceding argument, that motion both for the one and for the other is an impossibility.
Neither one nor the other can advance from the beginning to the end of any line, except by passing successively through all the parts of that line: but those parts are infinite in number, and cannot therefore be passed through in any finite time.
But suppose such impossibility to be got over: still Achilles will not overtake the tortoise.
For while Achilles advances one hundred yards, the tortoise has advanced ten: while Achilles passes over these additional ten yards, the tortoise will have passed over one more yard: while Achilles is passing over this remaining one yard, the tortoise will have got over one-tenth of another yard: and so on ad infinitum: the tortoise will always be in advance of him by a certain distance, which, though ever diminishing, will never vanish into nothing.
The third Zenonian argument derived its name from the flight of an arrow shot from a bow.
The arrow while thus carried forward (says Zeno) is nevertheless at rest.
[24] For the time from the beginning to the end of its course consists of a multitude of successive instants.
During each of these instants the arrow is in a given place of equal dimension with itself.
But that which is during any instant in a given place, is at rest.
Accordingly during each successive instant of its flight, the arrow is at rest.
Throughout its whole flight it is both in motion and at rest.
This argument is a deduction from the doctrine of discontinuous time, as the preceding is a deduction from that of discontinuous space.
[Footnote 24: Aristotel.
Physic.
vi.
9, p. 239, b.
30.
[Greek: tri/tos o( nu=n r(êthei/s, o(/ti ê( o)i+sto\s pherome/nê e(/stêken.]]
A fourth argument[25] was derived from the case of two equal bodies moved with equal velocity in opposite directions, and passing each other.
If the body A B were at rest, the other body C D would move along the whole length of C D in two minutes.
But if C D be itself moving with equal velocity in the opposite direction, A B will pass along the whole length of C D in half that time, or one minute.
Hence Zeno infers that the motion of A B is nothing absolute, or belonging to the thing in itself--for if that were so, it would not be varied according to the movement of C D. It is no more than a phenomenal fact, relative to us and our comparison.
[Footnote 25: See the illustration of this argument at some length by Simplikius, especially the citation from Eudêmus at the close of it--ap.
Scholia ad Aristotel.
p. 414, ed.
Brandis.]
This argument, so far as I can understand its bearing, is not deduced (as those preceding are) from the premisses of opponents: but rests upon premisses of its own, and is intended to prove that motion is only relative.
[Side-note: General result and purpose of the Zenonian Dialectic.
Nothing is knowable except the relative.]
These Zenonian reasonings are memorable as the earliest known manifestations of Grecian dialectic, and are probably equal in acuteness and ingenuity to anything which it ever produced.
Their bearing is not always accurately conceived.
Most of them are _argumenta ad hominem_: consequences contradictory and inadmissible, but shown to follow legitimately from a given hypothesis, and therefore serving to disprove the hypothesis itself.
[26] The hypothesis was one relating to the real, absolute, or ultra-phenomenal, which Parmenides maintained to be _Ens Unum Continuum_, while his opponents affirmed it to be essentially multiple and discontinuous.
Upon the hypothesis of Parmenides, the Real and Absolute, being a continuous One, was obviously inconsistent with the movement and variety of the phenomenal world: Parmenides himself recognised the contradiction of the two, and his opponents made it a ground for deriding his doctrine.
[27] The counter-hypothesis, of the discontinuous many, appeared at first sight not to be open to the same objection: it seemed to be more in harmony with the facts of the phenomenal and relative world, and to afford an absolute basis for them to rest upon.
Against this delusive appearance the dialectic of Zeno was directed.
He retorted upon the opponents, and showed that if the hypothesis of the _Unum Continuum_ led to absurd consequences, that of the discontinuous many was pregnant with deductions yet more absurd and contradictory.
He exhibits in detail several of these contradictory deductions, with a view to refute the hypothesis from whence they flow; and to prove that, far from performing what it promises, it is worse than useless, as entangling us in contradictory conclusions.
The result of his reasoning, implied rather than announced, is--That neither of the two hypotheses are of any avail to supply a real and absolute basis for the phenomenal and relative world: That the latter must rest upon its own evidence, and must be interpreted, in so far as it can be interpreted at all, by its own analogies.
[Footnote 26: The scope of the Zenonian dialectic, as I have here described it, is set forth clearly by Plato, in his Parmenides, c. 3-6, p. 127, 128.
[Greek: Pô=s ô)= Zê/nôn, tou=to le/geis?
_ei) polla/ e)sti ta\ o)/nta,_ ô(s a)/ra dei= au)ta\ o(/moia/ te ei)=nai kai\ a)no/moia, tou=to de\ dê\ a)du/naton.--Ou)kou=n ei) a)du/naton ta/ te a)no/moia o(/moia ei)=nai kai\ ta\ o(/moia a)no/moia, _a)du/naton dê\ kai\ polla\ ei)=nai?_ ei) ga\r polla\ ei)/ê, pa/schoi a)\n ta\ a)du/nata.
A)=ra _tou=to/ e)stin o(\ bou/lontai/ sou oi( lo/goi?_ ou)k _a)llo ti ê)\ diama/chesthai para\ pa/nta ta\ lego/mena, ô(s ou) polla/ e)stin?_] Again, p. 128 D. [Greek: A)ntile/gei ou)=n tou=to to\ gra/mma pro\s tou\s ta polla\ le/gontas, kai\ a)ntapodi/dôsi tau=ta kai\ plei/ô, tou=to boulo/menon dêlou=n, ô(s e)/ti geloio/tera pa/schoi a)\n _au)tô=n ê( u(po/thesis, ê( ei) polla/ e)stin--ê)\ ê( tou= e(\n ei)=nai--ei)/ tis i(kanô=s e)pexi/oi_].
Here Plato evidently represents Zeno as merely proving that contradictory conclusions followed, _if you assumed a given hypothesis_; which hypothesis was thereby shown to be inadmissible.
But Plato alludes to Zeno in another place (Phædrus, c. 97, p. 261) under the name of the Eleatic Palamedes, as "showing his art in speaking, by making the same things appear to the hearers like and unlike, one and many, at rest and in motion".
In this last passage, the impression produced by Zeno's argumentation is brought to view, apart from the scope and purpose with which he employed it: which scope and purpose are indicated in the passage above cited from the Parmenides.
So also Isokrates (Encom.
Helen.
init.)
[Greek: Zê/nôna, to\n tau)ta\ dunata\ kai\ pa/lin a)du/nata peirô/menon a)pophai/nein.]]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 D.] [Side-note: Mistake of supposing Zeno's _reductiones ad absurdum_ of an opponents doctrines to be generalisations of data gathered from experience.]
But the purport of Zeno's reasoning is mistaken, when he is conceived as one who wishes to delude his hearers by proving both sides of a contradictory proposition.
Zeno's contradictory conclusions are elicited with the express purpose of disproving the premisses from which they are derived.
For these premisses Zeno himself is not to be held responsible, since he borrows them from his opponents: a circumstance which Aristotle forgets, when he censures the Zenonian arguments as paralogisms, because they assume the Continua, Space, and Time, to be discontinuous or divided into many distinct parts.
[28] Now this absolute discontinuousness of matter, space, and time, was not advanced by Zeno as a doctrine of his own, but is the very doctrine of his opponents, taken up by him for the purpose of showing that it led to contradictory consequences, and thus of indirectly refuting it.
The sentence of Aristotle is thus really in Zeno's favour, though apparently adverse to him.
In respect to motion, a similar result followed from the Zenonian reasonings; namely, to show That motion, as an attribute of the Real and Absolute, was no less inconsistent with the hypothesis of those who opposed Parmenides, than with the hypothesis of Parmenides himself:--That absolute motion could no more be reconciled with the doctrine of the discontinuous Many, than with that of the Continuous One:--That motion therefore was only a phenomenal fact, relative to our sensations, conceptions, and comparisons; and having no application to the absolute.
In this phenomenal point of view, neither Zeno nor Parmenides nor Melissus disputed the fact of motion.
They recognised it as a portion of the world of sensation and experience; which world they tried to explain, well or ill, by analogies and conjectures derived from itself.
[Footnote 28: Aristotel.
Physic.
vi.
9, p. 239 b.
[Greek: Zê/nôn de\ paralogi/zetai; ou) ga\r su/gketai o( chro/nos e)k tô=n nu=n o)/ntôn tô=n a)diaire/tôn, ô(/sper ou)d' a)/llo me/gethos ou)de/n] &c. Aristotle, in the second and third chapters of his Physica, canvasses and refutes the doctrine of Parmenides and Zeno respecting Ens and Unum.
He maintains that Ens and Unum are equivocal--[Greek: pollachô=s lego/mena].
He farther maintained that no one before him had succeeded in refuting Zeno.
See the Scholia of Alexander ad Sophistic.
Elench.
p. 320 b.
6, ed.
Brandis.]
[Side-note: Zenonian Dialectic--Platonic Parmenides.]
Though we have not the advantage of seeing the Zenonian dialectics as they were put forth by their author, yet if we compare the substance of them as handed down to us, with those dialectics which form the latter half of the Platonic dialogue called Parmenides, we shall find them not inferior in ingenuity, and certainly more intelligible in their purpose.
Zeno furnishes no positive support to the Parmenidean doctrine, but he makes out a good negative case against the counter-doctrine.
[Side-note: Views of historians of philosophy respecting Zeno.]
Zeller and other able modern critics, while admitting the reasoning of Zeno to be good against this counter-doctrine, complain that he takes it up too exclusively; that One and Many did not exclude each other, and that the doctrines of Parmenides and his opponents were both true together, but neither of them true to the exclusion of the other.
But when we reflect that the subject of predication on both sides was the Real (Ens _per se_) it was not likely that either Parmenides or his opponents would affirm it to be both absolutely One and Continuous, and absolutely Many and Discontinuous.
[29] If the opponents of Parmenides had taken this ground, Zeno need not have imagined deductions for the purpose of showing that their hypothesis led to contradictory conclusions; for the contradictions would have stood avowedly registered in the hypothesis itself.
If a man affirms both at once, he divests the predication of its absolute character, as belonging unconditionally to Ens _per se_; and he restricts it to the phenomenal, the relative, the conditioned--dependent upon our sensations and our fluctuating point of view.
This was not intended either by Parmenides or by his opponents.
[Footnote 29: That both of them could not be true respecting Ens _per se_, seems to have been considered indisputable.
See the argument of Sokrates in the Parmenides of Plato, p. 129 B-E.] [Side-note: Absolute and relative--the first unknowable.]
If, indeed, we judge the question, not from their standing-point, but from our own, we shall solve the difficulty by adopting the last-mentioned answer.
We shall admit that One and Many are predicates which do not necessarily exclude each other; but we shall refrain from affirming or denying either of them respecting the Real, the Absolute, the Unconditioned.
Of an object absolutely one and continuous--or of objects absolutely many and discontinuous, apart from the facts of our own sense and consciousness, and independent of any sentient subject--we neither know nor can affirm anything.
Both these predicates (One--Many) are relative and phenomenal, grounded on the facts and comparisons of our own senses and consciousness, and serving only to describe, to record, and to classify, those facts.
Discrete quantity or number, or succession of distinct unities--continuous quantity, or motion and extension--are two conceptions derived from comparison, abstracted and generalised from separate particular phenomena of our consciousness; the continuous, from our movements and the consciousness of persistent energy involved therein--the discontinuous, from our movements, intermitted and renewed, as well as from our impressions of sense.
We compare one discrete quantity with another, or one continual quantity with another, and we thus ascertain many important truths: but we select our unit, or our standard of motion and extension, as we please, or according to convenience, subject only to the necessity of adapting our ulterior calculations consistently to this unit, when once selected.
The same object may thus be considered sometimes as one, sometimes as many; both being relative, and depending upon our point of view.
Motion, Space, Time, may be considered either as continuous or as discontinuous: we may reason upon them either as one or the other, but we must not confound the two points of view with each other.
When, however, we are called upon to travel out of the Relative, and to decide between Parmenides and his opponents--whether the Absolute be One or Multitudinous--we have only to abstain from affirming either, or (in other words) to confess our ignorance.
We know nothing of an absolute, continuous, self-existent One, or of an absolute, discontinuous Many.
[Side-note: Zeno did not deny motion as a fact, phenomenal and relative.]
Some critics understand Zeno to have denied motion as a fact--opposing sophistical reasoning to certain and familiar experience.
Upon this view is founded the well-known anecdote, that Diogenes the Cynic refuted the argument by getting up and walking.
But I do not so construe the scope of his argument.
He did not deny motion as a fact.
It rested with him on the evidence of sense, acknowledged by every one.
It was therefore only a phenomenal fact relative to our consciousness, sensation, movements, and comparisons.
As such, but as such only, did Zeno acknowledge it.
What he denied was, motion as a fact belonging to the Absolute, or as deducible from the Absolute.
He did not deny the Absolute or Thing in itself, as an existing object, but he struck out variety, divisibility, and motion, from the list of its predicates.
He admitted only the Parmenidean Ens, one, continuous, unchanged, and immovable, with none but negative predicates, and severed from the relative world of experience and sensation.
[Side-note: Gorgias the Leontine--did not admit the Absolute, even as conceived by Parmenides.]
Other reasoners, contemporary with Zeno, did not agree with him, in admitting the Absolute, even as an object with no predicates, except unity and continuity.
They denied it altogether, both as substratum and as predicate.
To establish this negation is the purpose of a short treatise ascribed to the rhetor or Sophist Gorgias, a contemporary of Zeno; but we are informed that all the reasonings, which Gorgias employed, were advanced, or had already been advanced, by others before him.
[30] Those reasonings are so imperfectly preserved, that we can make out little more than the general scope.
[Footnote 30: See the last words of the Aristotelian or Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, De Melisso, Xenophane et Gorgiâ, p. 980.
[Greek: A(/pasai de\ au)=tai kai\ e(te/rôn a)rchaiote/rôn ei)si\n a)po/riai, ô(/ste e)n tê=| peri\ e)kei/nôn ske/psei kai\ tau/tas e)xetaste/on].
[Greek: A(/pasai] is the reading of Mullach in his edition of this treatise (p. 79), in place of [Greek: a(/pantes] or [Greek: a(/panta].]
[Side-note: His reasonings against the Absolute, either as Ens or Entia.]
Ens, or Entity _per se_ (he contended), did not really exist.
Even granting that it existed, it was unknowable by any one.
And even granting that it both existed, and was known by any one, still such person could not communicate his knowledge of it to others.
[31] [Footnote 31: See the treatise of Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgiâ, in Aristot.
p. 979-980, Bekker, also in Mullach's edition, p. 62-78.
The argument of Gorgias is also abridged by Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
p. 384, sect.
65-86.
See also a copious commentary on the Aristotelian treatise in Foss, De Gorgiâ Leontino, p. 115 seq.
The text of the Aristotelian treatise is so corrupt as to be often unintelligible.]
As to the first point, Ens was no more real or existent than Non-Ens: the word Non-Ens must have an objective meaning, as well as the word Ens: it was Non-Ens, therefore it _was_, or existed.
Both of them existed alike, or rather neither of them existed.
Moreover, if Ens existed, it must exist either as One or as Many--either as eternal or as generated--either in itself, or in some other place.
But Melissus, Zeno, and other previous philosophers, had shown sufficient cause against each of these alternatives separately taken.
Each of the alternative essential predicates had been separately disproved; therefore the subject, Ens, could not exist under either of them, or could not exist at all.
[Side-note: Ens, incogitable and unknowable.]
As to the second point, let us grant that Ens or Entia exist; they would nevertheless (argued Gorgias) be incogitable and unknowable.
To be cogitated is no more an attribute of Ens than of Non-Ens.
The fact of cogitation does not require Ens as a condition, or attest Ens as an absolute or thing in itself.
If our cogitation required or attained Ens as an indispensable object, then there could be no fictitious _cogitata_ nor any false propositions.
We think of a man flying in the air, or of a chariot race on the surface of the sea.
If our _cogitata_ were realities, these must be so as well as the rest: if realities alone were the object of cogitation, then these could not be thought of.
As Non-Ens was thus undeniably the object of cogitation, so Ens could not be its object: for what was true respecting one of these contraries, could not be true respecting the other.
[Side-note: Ens, even if granted to be knowable, is still incommunicable to others.]
As to the third point: Assuming Ens both to exist and to be known by you, you cannot (said Gorgias) declare or explain it to any one else.
You profess to have learnt what Ens is in itself, by your sight or other perceptions but you declare to others by means of words, and these words are neither themselves the absolute Ens, nor do they bring Ens before the hearer.
Even though you yourself know Ens, you cannot, by your words, enable _him_ to know it.
If he is to know Ens, he must know it in the same way as you.
Moreover, neither your words, nor Ens itself, will convey to the hearer the same knowledge as to you; for the same cannot be at once in two distinct subjects; and even if it were, yet since you and the hearer are not completely alike, so the effect of the same object on both of you will not appear to be like.
[32] [Footnote 32: In this third branch of the argument, showing that Ens, even if known, cannot be communicable to others, Gorgias travels beyond the Absolute, and directs his reasoning against the communicability of the Relative or Phenomenal also.
Both of his arguments against such communicability have some foundation, and serve to prove that the communicability cannot be exact or entire, even in the case of sensible facts.
The sensations thoughts, emotions, &c., of one person are not _exactly_ like those of another.]
Such is the reasoning, as far as we can make it out, whereby Gorgias sought to prove that the absolute Ens was neither existent, nor knowable, nor communicable by words from one person to another.
[Side-note: Zeno and Gorgias--contrasted with the earlier Grecian philosophers.]
The arguments both of Zeno and of Gorgias (the latter presenting the thoughts of others earlier than himself), dating from a time coinciding with the younger half of the life of Sokrates, evince a new spirit and purpose in Grecian philosophy, as compared with the Ionians, the two first Eleates, and the Pythagoreans.
Zeno and Gorgias exhibit conspicuously the new element of dialectic: the force of the negative arm in Grecian philosophy, brought out into the arena, against those who dogmatized or propounded positive theories: the fertility of Grecian imagination in suggesting doubts and difficulties, for which the dogmatists, if they aspired to success and reputation, had to provide answers.
Zeno directed his attack against one scheme of philosophy--the doctrine of the Absolute Many: leaving by implication the rival doctrine--the Absolute One of Parmenides in exclusive possession of the field, yet not reinforcing it with any new defences against objectors.
Gorgias impugned the philosophy of the Absolute in either or both of its forms--as One or as Many: not with a view of leaving any third form as the only survivor, or of providing any substitute from his own invention, but of showing that Ens, the object of philosophical research, could neither be found nor known.
The negative purpose, disallowing altogether the philosophy of Nature (as then conceived, not as now conceived), was declared without reserve by Gorgias, as we shall presently find that it was by Sokrates also.
[Side-note: New character of Grecian philosophy--antithesis of affirmative and negative--proof and disproof.]
It is the opening of the negative vein which imparts from this time forward a new character to Grecian philosophy.
The positive and negative forces, emanating from different aptitudes in the human mind, are now both of them actively developed, and in strenuous antithesis to each other.
Philosophy is no longer exclusively confined to dogmatists, each searching in his imagination for the Absolute Ens of Nature, and each propounding what seems to him the only solution of the problem.
Such thinkers still continue their vocation, but under new conditions of success, and subject to the scrutiny of numerous dissentient critics.
It is no longer sufficient to propound a theory,[33] either in obscure, oracular metaphors and half-intelligible aphorisms, like Herakleitus--or in verse more or less impressive, like Parmenides or Empedokles.
The theory must be sustained by proofs, guarded against objections, defended against imputations of inconsistency: moreover, it must be put in comparison with other rival theories, the defects of which must accordingly be shown up along with it.
Here are new exigencies, to which dogmatic philosophers had not before been obnoxious.
They were now required to be masters of the art of dialectic attack and defence, not fearing the combat of question and answer--a combat in which, assuming tolerable equality between the duellists, the questioner had the advantage of the sun, or the preferable position,[34] and the farther advantage of choosing where to aim his blows.
To expose fallacy or inconsistency, was found to be both an easier process, and a more appreciable display of ingenuity, than the discovery and establishment of truth in such manner as to command assent.
The weapon of negation, refutation, cross-examination, was wielded for its own results, and was found hard to parry by the affirmative philosophers of the day.
[Footnote 33: The repugnance of the Herakleitean philosophers to the scrutiny of dialectical interrogation is described by Plato in strong language, it is indeed even caricatured.
(Theætêtus, 179-180.)]
[Footnote 34: Theokritus, Idyll, xxii.
83; the description of the pugilistic contest between Pollux and Amykus:-[Greek: e)/ntha polu/s sphisi mo/chthos e)peigome/noisin e)tu/chthê, o(ppo/teros kata\ nô=ta la/bê| pha/os ê)eli/oio; a)ll' i)dri/ê| me/gan a)/ndra parê/luthes ô)= Polu/deukes; ba/lleto d' a)kti/nessin a(/pan A)mu/koio pro/sôpon].
To toss up for the sun, was a practice not yet introduced between pugilists.]
APPENDIX.
To illustrate by comparison the form of Grecian philosophy, before Dialectic was brought to bear upon it, I transcribe from two eminent French scholars (M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire and Professor Robert Mohl) some account of the mode in which the Indian philosophy has always been kept on record and communicated.
M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (in his Premier Mémoire sur le Sânkhya, pp.
5-11) gives the following observations upon the Sânkhya or philosophy of Kapila, one of the principal systems of Sanskrit philosophy: date (as supposed) about 700 B.C.
There are two sources from whence the Sânkhya philosophy is known:-"1.
Les Soûtras ou aphorismes de Kapila.
"2.
Le traité déjà connu et traduit sous le nom de Sânkhya Kârikâ, c'est à dire Vers Mémoriaux du Sânkhya.
"Les Soûtras de Kapila sont en tout au nombre de 499, divisés en six lectures, et répartis inégalement entre chacune d'elles.
Les Soûtras sont accompagnés d'un commentaire qui les explique, et qui est d'un brahmane nommé le Mendiant.
Le commentateur explique avec des developpements plus ou moins longs les Soûtras de Kapila, qu'il cite un à un.
"Les Soûtras sont en général tres concis: parfois ils ne se composent que de deux ou trois mots, et jamais ils ne comprennent plus d'une phrase.
Cette forme aphoristique, sous laquelle se présente à nous la philosophie Indienne--est celle qu'a prise la science Indienne dans toutes ses branches, depuis la grammaire jusqu'à la philosophie.
Les Soûtras de Panini, qui a réduit toutes les régles de la grammaire sanscrite en 3996 aphorismes, ne sont pas moins concis que ceux de Kapila.
Ce mode étrange d'exposition tient dans l'Inde à la manière même dont la science s'est transmise d'âge en âge.
Un maître n'a généralement qu'un disciple: il lui suffit, pour la doctrine qu'il communique, d'avoir des points de repère, et le commentaire oral qu'il ajoute à ces sentences pour leur expliquer, met le disciple en état de les bien comprendre.
Le disciple lui-même, une fois qu'il en a pénétré le sens veritable, n'a pas besoin d'un symbole plus développé, et la concision même des aphorismes l'aide a les mieux retenir.
_C'est une initiation qu'il a reçue: et les sentences, dans lesquelles cette initiation se résume, restent toujours assez claires pour lui._ "Mais il n'en est pas de même pour les lecteurs étrangers, et il serait difficile de trouver rien de plus obscur que ces Soûtras.
Les commentaires mêmes ne suffisent pas toujours à les rendre parfaitement intelligibles.
"Le seul exemple d'une forme analogue dans l'histoire de l'esprit humain et de la science en Occident, nous est fourni par les Aphorismes d'Hippocrate: eux aussi s'adressaient à des adeptes, et ils réclamaient, comme les Soûtras Indiens, l'explication des maîtres pour être bien compris par les disciples.
Mais cet exemple unique n'a point tiré à conséquence dans le monde occidental, tandis que dans le monde Indien l'aphorisme est resté pendant de longs siècles la forme spéciale de la science: et les développements de pensée qui nous sont habituels, et qui nous semblent indispensables, ont été reservés aux commentaires.
"La Sânkhya Kârikâ est en vers: En Grèce, la poésie a été pendant quelque temps la langue de la philosophie; Empédocle, Parménide, ont écrit leurs systèmes en vers.
Ce n'est pas Kapila qui l'a écrite.
Entre Kapila, et l'auteur de la Kârikâ, Isvara Krishna, on doit compter quelques centaines d'années tout au moins: et le second n'a fait que rediger en vers, pour aider la mémoire des élèves, la doctrine que le maître avait laissée sous la forme axiomatique.
"On conçoit, du reste, sans peine, que l'usage des vers mémoriaux se soit introduit dans l'Inde pour l'enseignement et la transmission de la science: c'était une conséquence nécessaire de l'usage des aphorismes.
Les sciences les plus abstraites (mathematics, astronomy, algebra), emploient aussi ce procédé, quoiqu'il semble peu fait pour leur austérité et leur precision.
Ainsi, le rhythme est, avec les aphorismes, et par le même motif, la forme à peu pres générale de la science dans l'Inde."
(Kapila as a personage is almost legendary; nothing exact is known about him.
His doctrine passes among the Indians "comme une sorte de révélation divine".--Pp.
252, 253.)
M. Mohl observes as follows:-"Ceci m'amène aux Pouranas.
Nous n'avons plus rien du Pourana primitif, qui paraît avoir été une cosmogonie, suivie d'une histoire des Dieux et des families héroïques.
Les sectes ont fini par s'approprier ce cadre, après des transformations dont nous ne savons ni le nombre ni les époques: et s'en sont servies, pour exalter chacune son dieu, et y fondre, avec des débris de l'ancienne tradition, leur mythologie plus moderne.
Ce que les Pouranas sont pour le peuple, les six systèmes de philosophie le sont pour les savants.
Nous trouvons ces systèmes dans la forme abstruse que les Hindous aiment à donner à leur science: chaque école a ses aphorismes, qui, sous forme de vers mnémoniques, contiennent dans le moins grand nombre de mots possible tous les résultats d'une école.
Mais nous n'avons aucun renseignement sur les commencements de l'école, sur les discussions que l'élaboration du système a dû provoquer, sur les hommes qui y ont pris part, sur la marche et le développement des idées: nous avons le système dans sa dernière forme, et rien ne nous permet de remplir l'espace qui le sépare des théories plus vagues que l'on trouve dans les derniers écrits de l'époque védique, à laquelle pourtant tout prétend se rattacher.
À partir de ces aphorismes, nous avons des commentaires et des traités d'exposition et d'interprétation: mais les idées premières, les termes techniques, et le systeme en tier, sont fixés antérieurement.
Tous ces systèmes reposent sur une analyse psychologique très raffinée; et chacun a sa terminologie précise, et à laquelle la nôtre ne répond que fort imparfaitement: il faut donc, sous peine de se tromper et de tromper ses lecteurs, que les traducteurs créent une foule de termes techniques, ce qui n'est pas la moindre difficulté de ce travail."
R. Mohl, 'Rapport Annuel Fait à la Société Asïatique,' 1863, pp.
103-105; collected edition, 'Vingt-sept ans d'histoire des Études Orientales,' vol.
ii.
pp.
496, 498-9.
When the purpose simply is to imprint affirmations on the memory, and to associate them with strong emotions of reverential belief--mnemonic verses and aphorisms are suitable enough; Empedokles employed verse, Herakleitus and the Pythagoreans expressed themselves in aphorisms--brief, half-intelligible, impressive symbols.
But if philosophy is ever to be brought out of such twilight into the condition of "reasoned truth," this cannot be done without submitting all the affirmations to cross-examining opponents--to the scrutiny of a negative Dialectic.
It is the theory and application of this Dialectic which we are about to follow in Sokrates and Plato.
CHAPTER III.
* [Footnote *: As stated in the prefatory note to this edition, the present and the following chapter have been, for convenience, transferred from the place given to them by the author, to their present position.]
OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
Having dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of Plato, I now proceed to place in comparison with him some other members of the Sokratic philosophical family: less eminent, indeed, than the illustrious author of the Republic, yet still men of marked character, ability, and influence.
[1] Respecting one of the brethren, Xenophon, who stands next to Plato in celebrity, I shall say a few words separately in my next and concluding chapter.
[Footnote 1: Dionysius of Halikarnassus contrasts Plato with [Greek: to\ Sôkra/tous didaskalei=on pa=n] (De Adm. Vi Dic.
Demosthen.
p.
956.)
Compare also Epistol.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
p. 762, where he contrasts the style and phraseology of Plato with that of the [Greek: Sôkratikoi\ dia/logoi] generally.]
[Side-note: Influence exercised by Sokrates over his companions.]
The ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was powerfully exercised in more than one way.
He brought into vogue new subjects both of indefinite amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to every one.
On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or at least popularised, a new method of communication, whereby the relation of teacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of ready-made knowledge from the one to the other, was put aside.
He substituted an interrogatory process, at once destructive and suggestive, in which the teacher began by unteaching and the learner by unlearning what was supposed to be already known, for the purpose of provoking in the learner's mind a self-operative energy of thought, and an internal generation of new notions.
Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the minds of several friends, who were in the habit of attending him when he talked in the market-place or the palæstra.
Some tried to copy his wonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination: how far they did so with success or reputation we do not know: but Xenophon says that several of them would only discourse with those who paid them a fee, and that they thus sold for considerable sums what were only small fragments obtained gratuitously from the rich table of their master.
[2] There were moreover several who copied the general style of his colloquies by composing written dialogues.
And thus it happened that the great master,--he who passed his life in the oral application of his Elenchus, without writing anything,--though he left no worthy representative in his own special career, became the father of numerous written dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature.
[3] [Footnote 2: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
2, 60.
[Greek: ô(=n tine\s mikra\ me/rê par' e)kei/nou proi=ka labo/ntes pollou= toi=s a)/llois e)pô/loun, kai\ ou)k ê)=san ô(/sper e)kei=nos dêmotikoi/; toi=s ga\r mê\ e)/chousi chrê/mata dido/nai ou)k ê)/thelon diale/gesthai.]]
[Footnote 3: We find a remarkable proof how long the name and conception of Sokrates lasted in the memory of the Athenian public, as having been the great progenitor of the philosophy and philosophers of the fourth century B.C.
in Athens.
It was about 306 B.C., almost a century after the death of Sokrates, that Democharês (the nephew of the orator Demosthenes) delivered an oration before the Athenian judicature for the purpose of upholding the law proposed by Sophokles, forbidding philosophers or Sophists to lecture without a license obtained from the government; which law, passed a year before, had determined the secession of all the philosophers from Athens until the law was repealed.
In this oration Democharês expatiated on the demerits of many philosophers, their servility, profligate ambition, rapacity, want of patriotism, &c., from which Athenæus makes several extracts.
[Greek: Toiou=toi ei)sin oi( a)po\ philosophi/as stratêgoi/; peri\ ô(=n Dêmocha/rês e)/legen,--Ô(/sper e)k thu/mbras ou)dei\s a)\n du/naito kataskeua/sai lo/gchên, ou)/d' e)k _Sôkra/tous stratiô/tên a)/mempton_].
Demetrius Phalereus also, in or near that same time, composed a [Greek: Sôkra/tous a)pologi/an] (Diog.
La.
ix.
37-57).
This shows how long the interest in the personal fate and character of Sokrates endured at Athens.]
[Side-note: Names of those companions.]
Besides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us, we hear of Alexamenus, Antisthenes, Æschines, Aristippus, Bryson, Eukleides, Phædon, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, &c., as having composed dialogues of this sort.
All of them were companions of Sokrates; several among them either set down what they could partially recollect of his conversations, or employed his name as a dramatic speaker of their own thoughts.
Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to Æschines, twenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to Simmias, three to Kebês, six to Eukleides, four to Phædon.
The compositions of Antisthenes were far more numerous: ten volumes of them, under a variety of distinct titles (some of them probably not in the form of dialogues) being recorded by Diogenes.
[4] Aristippus was the first of the line of philosophers called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with various modifications) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and Stoics: Eukleides, of the Megaric school.
It seems that Aristippus, Antisthenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable reputation, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: Æschines, Antisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to have received money for their lectures; Aristippus being named as the first who thus departed from the Sokratic canon.
[5] [Footnote 4: Diogenes Laert.
1.
47-61-83, vi.
15; Athenæ.
xi.
p. 505 C. Bryson is mentioned by Theopompus ap.
Athenæum, xi.
p. 508 D. Theopompus, the contemporary of Aristotle and pupil of Isokrates, had composed an express treatise or discourse against Plato's dialogues, in which discourse he affirmed that most of them were not Plato's own, but borrowed in large proportion from the dialogues of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.
Ephippus also, the comic writer (of the fourth century B.C., contemporary with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier), spoke of Bryson as contemporary with Plato (Athenæ.
xi.
509 C).
This is good proof to authenticate Bryson as a composer of "Sokratic dialogues" belonging to the Platonic age, along with Antisthenes and Aristippus: whether Theopompus is correct when he asserts that Plato borrowed _much_, from the three, is very doubtful.
Many dialogues were published by various writers, and ascribed falsely to one or other of the _viri Sokratici_: Diogenes (ii.
64) reports the judgment delivered by Panætius, which among them were genuine and which not so.
Panætius considered that the dialogues ascribed to Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Æschines, were genuine; that those assigned to Phædon and Eukleides were doubtful; and that the rest were all spurious.
He thus regarded as spurious those of Alexamenus, Kriton, Simmias, Kebês, Simon, Bryson, &c., or he did not know them all.
It is possible that Panætius may not have known the dialogues of Bryson; if he did know them and believed them to be spurious, I should not accept his assertion, because I think that it is outweighed by the contrary testimony of Theopompus.
Moreover, though Panætius was a very able man, confidence in his critical estimate is much shaken when we learn that he declared the Platonic Phædon to be spurious.]
[Footnote 5: Diogen.
Laert.
i.
62-65; Athenæus, xi.
p. 507 C. Dion Chrysostom (Orat.
lv.
De Homero et Socrate, vol.
ii.
p. 289, Reiske) must have had in his view some of these other Sokratic dialogues, not those composed by Plato or Xenophon, when he alludes to conversations of Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and Anytus; what he says about Anytus can hardly refer to the Platonic Menon.]
[Side-note: Æschines--oration of Lysias against him.]
Æschines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a succession or sect of philosophers.
The few fragments remaining of his dialogues do not enable us to appreciate their merit.
He seems to have employed the name of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have esteemed her highly.
He also spoke with great admiration of Themistokles.
But in regard to present or recent characters, he stands charged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially we learn that he denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxaras, the first on the ground of having taught Theramenes, the second as the teacher of two worthless persons--Ariphrades and Arignôtus.
This accusation deserves greater notice, because it illustrates the odium raised by Melêtus against Sokrates as having instructed Kritias and Alkibiades.
[6] Moreover, we have Æschines presented to us in another character, very unexpected in a _vir Socraticus_.
An action for recovery of money alleged to be owing was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against Æschines, by a plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed by the rhetor Lysias.
In this speech it is alleged that Æschines, having engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed a sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that he counted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple of Sokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and virtue.
[7] But so far was this expectation from being realized, that Æschines had behaved most dishonestly.
He repaid neither principal nor interest; though a judgment of the Dikastery had been obtained against him, and a branded slave belonging to him had been seized under it.
Moreover, Æschines had been guilty of dishonesty equally scandalous in his dealings with many other creditors also.
Furthermore, he had made love to a rich woman seventy years old, and had got possession of her property; cheating and impoverishing her family.
His character as a profligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many witnesses.
Such are the allegations against Æschines, contained in the fragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open court by a real plaintiff.
How much of them could be fairly proved, we cannot say: but it seems plain at least that Æschines must have been a trader as well as a philosopher.
All these writers on philosophy must have had their root and dealings in real life, of which we know scarce anything.
[Footnote 6: Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32; Cicero, De Invent.
i.
31; Athenæus, v. 220.
Some other citations will be found in Fischer's collection of the few fragments of Æschines Sokraticus (Leipsic, 1788, p. 68 seq.
), though some of the allusions which he produces seem rather to belong to the orator Æschines.
The statements of Athenæus, from the dialogue of Æschines called Telaugês, are the most curious.
The dialogue contained, among other things, [Greek: tê\n Prodi/kou kai\ A)naxago/rous _tô=n sophistô=n_ diamô/kêsin], where we see Anaxagoras denominated a Sophist (see also Diodor.
xii.
39) as well as Prodikus.
Fischer considers the three Pseudo-Platonic dialogues--[Greek: Peri\ A)retê=s, Peri\ Plou/tou, Peri\ Thana/tou]--as the works of Æschines.
But this is noway established.]
[Footnote 7: Athenæus, xiii.
pp.
611-612.
[Greek: Peisthei\s d' u(p' au)tou= toiau=ta le/gontos, kai\ a(/ma oi)o/menos tou=ton Ai)schi/nên Sôkra/tous gegone/nai mathêtê/n, kai\ peri\ dikaiosu/nês kai\ a)retê=s pollou\s kai\ semnou\s le/gonta lo/gous, ou)k a)/n pote e)picheirê=sai ou)de\ tolmê=sai a(/per oi( ponêro/tatoi kai\ a)dikô/tatoi a)/nthrôpoi e)picheirou=si pra/ttein].
We read also about another oration of Lysias against Æschines--[Greek: peri\ sukophanti/as] (Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
63), unless indeed it be the same oration differently described.]
[Side-note: Written Sokratic Dialogues--their general character.]
The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,[8] were composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who were not companions.
Yet though thus composed by many different authors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the rhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied, dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from which general character Plato alone departed--and he too not in all of his dialogues.
By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to have been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed confession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which his cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like Alkibiades, was as keenly set forth by Æschines as by Plato: moreover the Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the Dæmon or divining prophecy of their master.
[9] Some dialogues circulating under the name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious, and the authorship was a point not easy to determine.
Simon, a currier at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have kept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have afterwards published them: Æschines also, and some other of the Sokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured reports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made much money after his death by delivering them before select audiences.
[10] Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as unschooled, vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with satisfaction the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute though not well-instructed.
[11] Other accounts describe his dialogues as composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of his having received lessons from Gorgias:[12] and Theopompus must have held in considerable estimation the dialogues of that same author, as well as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he accused Plato of having borrowed from them largely.
[13] [Footnote 8: Aristotel.
ap.
Athenæum, xi.
p. 505 C; Rhetoric.
iii.
16.
Dionys.
Halikarnass.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
de Platone, p. 762, Reiske.
[Greek: Traphei\s] (Plato) [Greek: e)n toi=s Sôkratikoi=s dialo/gois i)schnota/tois ou)=si kai\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n au)toi=s, a)lla\ tê=s Gorgi/ou kai\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeuê=s e)rasthei/s]: also, De Admir.
Vi Dicend.
in Demosthene, p. 968.
Again in the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth.
p. 956.
[Greek: ê( de\ e(te/ra le/xis, ê( litê\ kai\ a)phelê\s kai\ dokou=sa kataskeuê/n te kai\ i)schu\n tê\n pro\s i)diô/tên e)/chein lo/gon kai\ o(moio/têta, pollou\s me\n e)/sche kai\ a)gathou\s a)/ndras prosta/tas--kai\ oi( tô=n ê)thikô=n dialo/gôn poiêtai/, ô(=n ê)=n to\ Sôkratiko\n didaskalei=on pa=n, e)/xô Pla/tônos], &c. Dionysius calls this style [Greek: o( Sôkratiko\s charaktê\r] p. 1025.
I presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the words:-[Greek: A)sthenikê/ te lo/gôn duas ê)\ tria\s ê)\ e)/ti po/rsô, Oi)=os Xeinopho/ôn, ê)/t' Ai)schi/nou ou)k e)pipeithê\s gra/psai--] Diogen.
La.
ii.
55.
Lucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus, Longinus, and some later rhetorical critics of Greece judged more favourably than Timon about the style of Æschines as well as of Xenophon.
See Zeller, Phil.
d. Griech.
ii.
p. 171, sec.
ed.
And Demetrius Phalereus (or the author of the treatise which bears his name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides, considered Æschines and Plato as the best representatives of the [Greek: Sôkratiko\s charaktê/r], Demetr.
Phaler.
De Interpretat.
310; Aristeides, Orat.
Platon.
i. p. 35; Photius, Cods.
61 and 158; Longinus, ap.
Walz.
ix.
p. 559, c. 2.
Lucian says (De Parasito, 33) that Æschines passed some time with the elder Dionysius at Syracuse, to whom he read aloud his dialogue, entitled Miltiades, with great success.
An inedited discourse of Michæl Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his very careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS.
in the Bodleian Library, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of Æschines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him among and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as having his own peculiar merits of style--[Greek: para\ me\n Pla/tôni, tê\n dialogikê\n phra/sin, para\ de\ tou= Sôkratikou= Ai)schi/nou, tê\n e)mmelê= sunthê/kên tô=n le/xeôn, para\ de\ Thoukudi/dou], &c. See Mr. Cox's Catalogue, pp.
743-745.
Cicero speaks of the Sokratic philosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of style (De Officiis, i.
29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian's phrase--[Greek: Ai)schi/nês o( tou\s dialo/gous makrou\s kai\ a)stei/ous gra/psas], &c.] [Footnote 9: Cicero, Brutus, 85, s. 292; De Divinatione, i.
54-122; Aristeides, Orat.
xlv.
[Greek: peri\ R(êtorikê=s] Orat.
xlvi.
[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], vol.
ii.
pp.
295-369, ed.
Dindorf.
It appears by this that some of the dialogues composed by Æschines were mistaken by various persons for actual conversations held by Sokrates.
It was argued, that because Æschines was inferior to Plato in ability, he was more likely to have repeated accurately what he had heard Sokrates say.]
[Footnote 10: Diog.
L. ii.
122.
He mentions a collection of thirty-three dialogues in one volume, purporting to be reports of real colloquies of Sokrates, published by Simon.
But they can hardly be regarded as genuine.
The charge here mentioned is advanced by Xenophon (see a preceding note, Memorab.
i.
2, 60), against some persons ([Greek: tine\s]), but without specifying names.
About Æschines, see Athenæus, xiii.
p. 611 C; Diogen.
Laert.
ii.
62.]
[Footnote 11: Cicero, Epist.
ad Atticum, xii.
38:--"viri acuti magis quam eruditi," is the judgment of Cicero upon Antisthenes.
I presume that these words indicate the same defect as that which is intended by Aristotle when he says--[Greek: oi( A)nthisthe/neioi kai\ oi( ou(/tôs _a)pai/deutoi_], Metaphysic.
[Greek: Ê].
3, p. 1043, b.
24.
It is plain, too, that Lucian considered the compositions of Antisthenes as not unworthy companions to those of Plato (Lucian, adv.
Indoctum, c.
27).]
[Footnote 12: Diogen.
Laert.
vi.
1.
If it be true that Antisthenes received lessons from Gorgias, this proves that Gorgias must sometimes have given lessons _gratis_; for the poverty of Antisthenes is well known.
See the Symposion of Xenophon.]
[Footnote 13: Theopomp.
ap.
Athenæ.
xi.
p. 508.
See K. F. Hermann, Ueber Plato's Schriftsteller.
Motive, p. 300.
An extract of some length, of a dialogue composed by Æschines between Sokrates and Alkibiades, is given by Aristeides, Or.
xlvi.
[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], vol.
ii.
pp.
292-294, ed.
Dindorf.]
[Side-note: Relations between the companions of Sokrates--Their proceedings after the death of Sokrates.]
Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions and admirers of Sokrates, as was Plato.
But none of them were his disciples, in the strict sense of the word: none of them continued or enforced his doctrines, though each used his name as a spokesman.
During his lifetime the common attachment to his person formed a bond of union, which ceased at his death.
There is indeed some ground for believing that Plato then put himself forward in the character of leader, with a view to keep the body united.
[14] We must recollect that Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was the only one among them who combined the advantages of a noble Athenian descent, opulent circumstances, an excellent education, and great native genius.
Eukleides and Aristippus were neither of them Athenians: Antisthenes was very poor: Xenophon was absent on service in the Cyreian army.
Plato's proposition, however, found no favour with the others and was even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a man ardently attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all his feelings.
[15] The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves unfavourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city for a season and followed Eukleides to Megara.
How long they stayed there we do not know.
Plato is said, though I think on no sufficient authority, to have remained absent from Athens for several years continuously.
It seems certain (from an anecdote recounted by Aristotle)[16] that he talked with something like arrogance among the companions of Sokrates: and that Aristippus gently rebuked him by reminding him how very different had been the language of Sokrates himself.
Complaints too were made by contemporaries, about Plato's jealous, censorious, spiteful, temper.
The critical and disparaging tone of his dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they inspire, accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes are recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of ill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who were poorer than himself.
[17] Dissension or controversy on philosophical topics is rarely carried on without some invidious or hostile feeling.
Athens, and the _viri Sokratici_, Plato included, form no exception to this ordinary malady of human nature.
[Footnote 14: Athenæus, xi.
p. 507 A-B.
from the [Greek: u(pomnê/mata] of the Delphian Hegesander.
Who Hegesander was, I do not know: but there is nothing improbable in the anecdote which he recounts.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Phædon.
pp.
59 A.
117 D. Eukleides, however, though his school was probably at Megara, seems to have possessed property in Attica: for there existed, among the orations of Isæus, a pleading composed by that rhetor for some client--[Greek: Pro\s Eu)klei/dên to\n Sôkratiko\n a)mphisbê/têsis u(pe\r tê=s tou= chôri/ou lu/seôs] (Dion.
Hal., Isæ., c. 14, p. 612 Reiske) Harpokr.--[Greek: O(/ti ta\ e)pikêrutto/mena]: also under some other words by Harpokration and by Pollux, viii.
48.]
[Footnote 16: Aristot.
Rhet.
ii.
23, p. 1398, b.
30.
[Greek: ê)\ ô(s A)ri/stippos, pro\s Pla/tôna e)paggeltikô/tero/n ti ei)po/nta, ô(s ô(/|eto--a)lla\ mê\n o( g' e(tai=ros ê(mô=n, e)/phê, ou)the\n toiou=ton--le/gôn to\n Sôkra/tên].
This anecdote, mentioned by Aristotle, who had good means of knowing, appears quite worthy of belief.
The jealousy and love of supremacy inherent in Plato's temper ([Greek: to\ philo/timon]), were noticed by Dionysius Hal.
(Epist.
ad Cn.
Pompeium, p.
756).]
[Footnote 17: Athenæus, xi.
pp.
505-508.
Diog.
Laert.
ii.
60-65, iii.
36.
The statement made by Plato in the Phædon--That Aristippus and Kleombrotus were not present at the death of Sokrates, but were said to be in Ægina--is cited as an example of Plato's ill-will and censorious temper (Demetr.
Phaler.
s. 306).
But this is unfair.
The statement ought not to be so considered, if it were true: and if not true, it deserves a more severe epithet.
We read in Athenæus various other criticisms, citing or alluding to passages of Plato, which are alleged to indicate ill-nature; but many of the passages cited do not deserve the remark.]
[Side-note: No Sokratic school--each of the companions took a line of his own.]
It is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokratic school: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is only admissible in the largest and vaguest sense.
The effect produced by Sokrates upon his companions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate self-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects.
Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own, not less decidedly than Plato.
But unfortunately we have no compositions remaining from either of the three.
We possess only brief reports respecting some leading points of their doctrine, emanating altogether from those who disagreed with it: we have besides aphorisms, dicta, repartees, bons-mots, &c., which they are said to have uttered.
Of these many are evident inventions; some proceeding from opponents and probably coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all.
But if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very insufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher--much less to condemn him with asperity.
[18] Philosophy (as I have already observed) aspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth.
We ought to know not only what doctrines a philosopher maintained, but how he maintained them:--what objections others made against him, and how he replied:--what objections he made against dissentient doctrines, and what replies were made to him.
Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we possess such information to a considerable extent:--respecting Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, we are without it.
All their compositions (very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have perished.
[Footnote 18: Respecting these ancient philosophers, whose works are lost, I transcribe a striking passage from Descartes, who complains, in his own case, of the injustice of being judged from the statements of others, and not from his own writings:--"Quod adeo in hâc materiâ verum est, ut quamvis sæpe _aliquas ex meis opinionibus explicaverim viris acutissimis_, et qui _me loquente videbantur eas valdé distincté intelligere: attamen cum eas retulerunt, observavi_ ipsos fere _semper illas ita mutavisse, ut pro meis agnoscere amplius non possem._ Quâ occasione posteros hic oratos volo, ut nunquam credant, quidquam à me esse profectum, quod ipse in lucem non edidero.
_Et nullo modo miror absurda illa dogmata, quæ veteribus illis philosophis tribuuntur, quorum scripta non habemus_: nec propterea judico ipsorum cogitationes valdé à ratione fuisse alienas, cum habuerint præstantissima suorum sæculorum ingenia; sed tantum nobis perperam esse relatas."
(Descartes, Diss.
De Methodo, p.
43.)]
* * * * * EUKLEIDES.
[Side-note: Eukleides of Megara--he blended Parmenides with Sokrates.]
Eukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point of view of Sokrates with the ontology of Parmenides, and followed out that negative Dialectic which was common to Sokrates with Zeno.
Parmenides (I have with already said)[19] and Zeno after him, recognised no absolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indivisible: they denied all real plurality: they said that the plural was Non-Ens or Nothing, _i.e._ nothing real or absolute, but only apparent, perpetually transient and changing, relative, different as appreciated by one man and by another.
Now Sokrates laid it down that wisdom or knowledge of Good, was the sum total of ethical perfection, including within it all the different virtues: he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent in, or pervading the entire Kosmos or universe.
[20] Eukleides blended together the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that the two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes called Good, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names also, but always one and the same object named and meant.
He farther maintained that the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of Bonum (Non-Ens, Non-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-existent, unmeaning names, Nothing,[21] &c.: _i.e._ that they were nothing really, absolutely, permanently, but ever varying and dependent upon our ever varying conceptions.
The One--the All--the Good--was absolute, immoveable, invariable, indivisible.
But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or nothing: there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens--but a variable meaning, different with every man who used it.
[Footnote 19: See ch.
i. pp.
19-22.]
[Footnote 20: Xenophon.
Memor.
i.
4, 17.
[Greek: tê\n e)n tô=| panti\ phro/nêsin].
Compare Plato, Philêbus, pp.
29-30; Cicero, Nat.
Deor.
ii.
6, 6, iii.
11.]
[Footnote 21: Diog.
L. ii.
106.
[Greek: Ou)=tos e)\n to\ a)gatho\n a)pephê/|nato polloi=s o)no/masi kalou/menon; o(/te me\n ga\r phro/nêsin, o(/te de\ theo/n, kai\ a)/llote nou=n kai\ ta\ loipa/.
Ta\ de\ a)ntikei/mena tô=| a)gathô=| a)nê/|rei, mê\ ei)=nai pha/skôn].
Compare also vii.
2, 161, where the Megarici are represented as recognising only [Greek: mi/an a)retê\n polloi=s o)no/masi kaloume/nên].
Cicero, Academ.
ii.
42.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Eukleides about _Bonum_.]
It was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which Sokrates had brought into vogue--What is the Bonum--or (as afterwards phrased) the Summum Bonum?
Eukleides pronounced the Bonum to be coincident with the Ens Unum of Parmenides.
The Parmenidean thesis, originally belonging to Transcendental Physics or Ontology, became thus implicated with Transcendental Ethics.
[22] [Footnote 22: However, in the verse of Xenophanes, the predecessor of Parmenides--[Greek: Ou(=los o(ra=|, ou(=los de\ noei=, ou(=los de/ t' a)kou/ei]--the Universe is described as a thinking, seeing, hearing God--[Greek: E(\n kai\ Pa=n].
Sextus Empir.
adv.
Mathemat.
ix.
144; Xenophan.
Fragm.
p. 36, ed.
Karsten.]
[Side-note: The doctrine compared to that of Plato--changes in Plato.]
Plato departs from Sokrates on the same point.
He agrees with Eukleides in recognising a Transcendental Bonum.
But it appears that his doctrines on this head underwent some change.
He held for some time what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcendental Forms, Entia, Essences: he considered the Transcendental to be essentially multiple, or to be an aggregate--whereas Eukleides had regarded it as essentially One.
This is the doctrine which we find in some of the Platonic dialogues.
In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one of these, though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the most ascendant in efficacy.
[23] But in the later part of his life, and in his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to adopt a different view.
He resolved the Ideas into numbers.
He regarded them as made up by the combination of two distinct factors:--1.
The One--the Essentially One.
2.
The Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate Dyad: the Great and Little.--Of these two elements he considered the Ideas to be compounded.
And he identified the Idea of Good with the essentially One--[Greek: to\ a)gatho\n] with [Greek: to\ e(/n]: the principle of Good with the principle of Unity: also the principle of Evil with the Indeterminate.
But though Unity and Good were thus identical, he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the subject--Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.
[24] [Footnote 23: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 508 E, vii.
p. 517 A.]
[Footnote 24: The account given by Aristotle of Plato's doctrine of Ideas, as held by Plato in his later years, appears in various passages of the Metaphysica, and in the curious account repeated by Aristoxenus (who had often heard it from Aristotle--[Greek: A)ristote/lês a)ei\ diêgei=to]) of the [Greek: a)kro/asis] or lecture delivered by Plato, De Bono.
See Aristoxen.
Harmon.
ii.
p. 30, Meibom.
Compare the eighth chapter in this work,--Platonic Compositions Generally.
Metaphys.
N. 1091, b.
13.
[Greek: tô=n de\ ta\s a)kinê/tous ou)si/as ei)=nai lego/ntôn] (sc.
Platonici) [Greek: oi( me/n phasin au)to\ to\ e(\n to\ a)gatho\n au)to\ ei)=nai; ou)si/an me/ntoi to\ e(\n au)tou= ô)/|onto ei)=nai ma/lista], which words are very clearly explained by Bonitz in the note to his Commentary, p. 586: also Metaphys.
987, b.
20, and Scholia, p. 551, b.
20, p. 567, b.
34, where the work of Aristotle, [Greek: Peri\ Ta\gathou=], is referred to: probably the memoranda taken down by Aristotle from Plato's lecture on that subject, accompanied by notes of his own.
In Schol.
p. 573, a.
18, it is stated that the astronomer Eudoxus was a hearer both of Plato and of Eukleides.
The account given by Zeller (Phil.
der Griech.
ii.
p. 453, 2nd ed.)
of this latter phase of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, applies exactly to that which we hear about the main doctrine of Eukleides.
Zeller describes the Platonic doctrine as being "Eine Vermischung des ethischen Begriffes vom höchsten Gut, mit dem Metaphysischen des Absoluten: Der Begriff des Guten ist zunächst aus dem menschlichen Leben abstrahirt; er bezeichnet das, was dem Menschen zuträglich ist.
So noch bei Sokrates.
Plato verallgemeinert ihn nun zum Begriff des Absoluten; dabei spielt aber seine ursprüngliche Bedeutung noch fortwährend herein, und so entsteht die Unklarheit, dass weder der ethische noch der metaphysische Begriff des Guten rein gefasst wird."
This remark is not less applicable to Eukleides than to Plato, both of them agreeing in the doctrine here criticised.
Zeller says truly, that the attempt to identify Unum and Bonum produces perpetual confusion.
The two notions are thoroughly distinct and independent.
It ought not to be called (as he phrases it) "a generalization of Bonum".
There is no common property on which to found a generalization.
It is a forced conjunction between two disparates.]
[Side-note: Last doctrine of Plato nearly the same as that of Eukleides.]
This last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not appear in the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can make out, to have been delivered substantially in his oral lectures, and is ascribed to him by Aristotle) was nearly coincident with that of Eukleides.
Both held the identity of [Greek: to\ e(/n] with [Greek: to\ a)gatho/n].
This one doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what consequences he derived from it, or whether any, we do not know.
But Plato combined, with this transcendental Unum = Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate plurality: from which combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal Numbers to be derivatives.
[Side-note: Megaric succession of philosophers.
Eleian or Eritrean succession.]
Eukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of which alone remain.
The scanty information which we possess respecting him relates altogether to his negative logical procedure.
Whether he deduced any consequences from his positive doctrine of the Transcendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not know: but he, as Zeno had been before him,[25] was acute in exposing contradictions and difficulties in the positive doctrines of opponents.
He was a citizen of Megara, where he is said to have harboured Plato and the other companions of Sokrates, when they retired for a time from Athens after the death of Sokrates.
Living there as a teacher or debater on philosophy, he founded a school or succession of philosophers who were denominated _Megarici_.
The title is as old as Aristotle, who both names them and criticises their doctrines.
[26] None of their compositions are preserved.
The earliest who becomes known to us is Eubulides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next Ichthyas, Apollonius, Diodôrus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus, between 340-260 B.C.
[Footnote 25: Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 C, where Zeno represents himself as taking for his premisses the conclusions of opponents, to show that they led to absurd consequences.
This seems what is meant, when Diogenes says about Eukleides--[Greek: tai=s a)podei/xesin e)ni/stato ou) kata\ lê/mmata, a)lla\ kat' e)piphora/n] (ii.
107); Deycks, De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, p.
34.]
[Footnote 26: Aristot.
Metaph.
iv.
p. 1046, b.
29.
The sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic implies that Eukleides was really known as the founder of a _school_--[Greek: kai\ tê\n me\n Eu)klei/dou scholê\n e)/lege cholê/n] (Diog.
L. vi.
24)--the earliest mention (I apprehend) of the word [Greek: scholê\] in that sense.]
With the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded another succession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their origin to another Sokratic man--Phædon.
The chief Eretrians made known to us are Pleistanus, Menedêmus, Asklepiades.
The second of the three acquired some reputation.
[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus--Ethical, not transcendental.]
The Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned their speculative activity altogether in the logical or intellectual direction, paying little attention to the ethical and emotional field.
Both Antisthenes and Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical path.
To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum?
Eukleides had answered by a transcendental definition: Antisthenes and Aristippus each gave to it an ethical answer, having reference to human wants and emotions, and to the different views which they respectively took thereof.
Antisthenes declared it to consist in virtue, by which he meant an independent and self-sufficing character, confining all wants within the narrowest limits: Aristippus placed it in the moderate and easy pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the best of every different situation, yet always under the guidance of a wise calculation and self-command.
Both of them kept clear of the transcendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et Omne (the view of Eukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas or Forms, the Platonic view).
Their speculations had reference altogether to human life and feelings, though the one took a measure of this wide subject very different from the other: and in thus confining the range of their speculations, they followed Sokrates more closely than either Eukleides or Plato followed him.
They not only abstained from transcendental speculation, but put themselves in declared opposition to it.
And since the intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by Plato, became intimately blended with transcendental hypothesis--Antisthenes and Aristippus are both found on the negative side against its pretensions.
Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to be useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no account of what was better or what was worse.
[27] He declared that we could know nothing except in so far as we were affected by it, and as it was or might be in correlation with ourselves: that as to causes not relative to ourselves, or to our own capacities and affections, we could know nothing about them.
[28] [Footnote 27: Aristotel.
Metaph.
B.
906, a.
32.
[Greek: ô(/ste dia\ tau=ta tô=n _sophistô=n tines_ oi(=on A)ri/stippos proepêla/kizon au)ta\s (ta\s mathêmatika\s te/chnas);--e)n me\n ga\r tai=s a)/llais te/chnais, kai\ tai=s banau/sois, oi(=on e)n tektonikê=| kai\ skutikê=|, dio/ti be/ltion ê)\ chei=ron le/gesthai pa/nta, ta\s de\ mathêmatika\s ou)the/na poiei=sthai lo/gon peri\ a)gathô=n kai\ kakô=n.]
Aristotle here ranks Aristippus among the [Greek: sophistai/].
Aristippus, in discountenancing [Greek: phusiologi/an], cited the favourite saying of Sokrates that the proper study of mankind was [Greek: o(/tti toi e)n mega/roisi kako/n t' a)gatho/n te te/tuktai].
Plutarch, ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Evang.
i.
8.]
[Footnote 28: Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Math.
vii.
191; Diog.
L. ii.
92.]
[Side-note: Preponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age.]
Such were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with Plato, in the dialectical age immediately following on the death of Sokrates.
The negative vein greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the whole even in Plato--and as it was pretty sure to do, so long as the form of dialogue was employed.
Affirmative exposition and proof is indeed found in some of the later Platonic works, carried on by colloquy between two speakers.
But the colloquial form manifests itself evidently as unsuitable for the purpose: and we must remember that Plato was a lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines made their way, at least in part, through continuous exposition.
But it is Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous exposition first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy.
Though he composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though he appreciates dialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers it only as a discursive preparation; antecedent, though essential, to the more close and concentrated demonstrations of philosophy.
[Side-note: Harsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the negative vein.]
Most historians deal hardly with this negative vein.
They depreciate the Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, the Academics and Sceptics of the subsequent ages--under the title of Eristics, or lovers of contention for itself--as captious and perverse enemies of truth.
[Side-note: Negative method in philosophy essential to the controul of the affirmative.]
I have already said that my view of the importance and value of the negative vein of philosophy is altogether different.
It appears to me quite as essential as the affirmative.
It is required as an antecedent, a test, and a corrective.
Aristotle deserves all honour for his attempts to construct and defend various affirmative theories: but the value of these theories depends upon their being defensible against all objectors.
Affirmative philosophy, as a body not only of truth but of reasoned truth, holds the champion's belt, subject to the challenge not only of competing affirmants, but of all deniers and doubters.
And this is the more indispensable, because of the vast problems which these affirmative philosophers undertake to solve: problems especially vast during the age of Plato and Aristotle.
The question has to be determined, not only which of two proposed solutions is the best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even whether any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties: whether there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any conclusion, accompanied with adequate replies to the objections against it.
The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the proof produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.
[Side-note: Sokrates--the most persevering and acute Eristic of his age.]
Among these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates himself, during his life, stood prominent.
In his footsteps followed Eukleides and the Megarics: who, though they acquired the unenviable surname of Eristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have surpassed Sokrates, and probably did not equal him, in the refutative Elenchus.
Of no one among the Megarics, probably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring Xenophon says about Sokrates--"that he dealt with every one in colloquial debate just as he chose," _i.e._, that he baffled and puzzled his opponents whenever he chose.
No one of these Megarics probably ever enunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or declared so emphatically his own inability to communicate positive instruction, as Sokrates in the Platonic Apology.
A person more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never lived.
And we see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who nevertheless strives to bring out the opposite side of his character), that he was so esteemed among his contemporaries.
Plato, as well as Eukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and worked it with unrivalled power in many of his dialogues.
The Platonic Sokrates is compared, and compares himself, to Antæus, who compelled every new-comer, willing or unwilling, to wrestle with him.
[29] [Footnote 29: Plato, Theætet.
p. 169 A.
_Theodorus_.
[Greek: Ou) r(a/|dion, ô)= Sô/krates, soi\ parakathê/menon mê\ dido/nai lo/gon, a)ll' e)gô\ a)/rti parelê/rêsa pha/skôn se e)pitre/psein moi mê\ a)podu/esthai, kai\ ou)chi\ a)nagka/sein katha/per Lakedaimo/nioi; su\ de/ moi dokei=s pro\s to\n Ski/r)r(ôna ma=llon tei/nein.
Lakedaimo/nioi me\n ga\r a)pie/nai ê(\ a)podu/esthai keleu/ousi, su\ de\ kat' A)ntai=o/n ti/ moi ma=llon dokei=s to\ dra=ma dra=|n; to\n ga\r proseltho/nta ou)k a)ni/ês pri\n a)nagka/sê|s a)podu/sas e)n toi=s lo/gois prospalai=sai.]
_Sokrates_.
[Greek: _A)=rista ge_, ô)= Theo/dôre, _tê\n no/son mou a)pei/kasas_; i)schurikô/teros me/ntoi e)gô\ e)kei/nôn; muri/oi ga\r ê)/dê moi Ê(rakle/es te kai\ Thêse/es e)ntucho/ntes karteroi\ pro\s to\ le/gein ma/l' eu)= xugkeko/phasin, a)ll' e)gô\ ou)de/n ti ma=llon a)phi/stamai.
ou(/tô _tis e)rô\s deino\s e)nde/duke tê=s peri\ tau=ta gumnasi/as_; mê\ ou)=n mêde\ su\ phthonê/sê|s prosanatripsa/menos sauto/n te a(/ma kai\ e)me\ o)nê=sai].
How could the eristic appetite be manifested in stronger language either by Eukleides, or Eubulides, or Diodôrus Kronus, or any of those Sophists upon whom the Platonic commentators heap so many harsh epithets?
Among the compositions ascribed to Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius (ix.
55), one is entitled [Greek: Te/chnê E)ristikô=n].
But if we look at the last chapter of the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, we shall find Aristotle asserting explicitly that there existed no [Greek: Te/chnê E)ristikô=n] anterior to his own work the Topica.]
[Side-note: Platonic Parmenides--its extreme negative character.]
Of the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak positively, because they are not preserved.
But they cannot have been more refutative, and less affirmative, than most of the Platonic dialogues; and we can hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very inferior both in energy and attraction.
The Theætêtus and the Parmenides, two of the most negative among the Platonic dialogues, seem to connect themselves, by the _personnel_ of the drama, with the Megaric philosophers: the former dialogue is ushered in by Eukleides, and is, as it were, dedicated to him: the latter dialogue exhibits, as its _protagonistes_, the veteran Parmenides himself, who forms the one factor of the Megaric philosophy, while Sokrates forms the other.
Parmenides (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the negative method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate with the affirmative; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate argumentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here advocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the Parmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum.
Parmenides adduces unanswerable objections against the dogma of Transcendental Forms or Ideas; yet says at the same time that there can be no philosophy unless you admit it.
He reproves the youthful Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming the dogma, and contends that you are not justified in affirming any dogma until you have gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it--that is, first assuming the doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false, and following out the deductions arising from the one assumption as well as from the other.
[30] Parmenides then gives a string of successive deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the dialogue)--four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies--in which contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike proved.
He enunciates the final result as follows:--"Whether Unum exists, or does not exist, Unum itself and Cætera, both exist and do not exist, both appear and do not appear, all things and in all ways--both in relation to themselves and in relation to each other".
[31] [Footnote 30: Plato, Parmen.
p.
136.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Parmen.
p. 166.
[Greek: e(\n ei)/t' e)/stin, ei)/te mê\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\ ta)/lla kai\ pro\s au)ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla pa/nta pa/ntôs e)sti/ te kai\ ou)k e)/sti, kai\ phai/netai/ te kai\ ou) phai/netai.--A)lêthe/stata].
See below, vol.
iii.
chap.
xxvii.
Parmenides.]
If this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of elaborate antinomies, had come down to us under the name of Eukleides, historians would probably have denounced it as a perverse exhibition of ingenuity, worthy of "that litigious person, who first infused into the Megarians the fury of disputation "[32] But since it is of Platonic origin, we must recognise Plato not only as having divided with the Megaric philosophers the impulse of negative speculation which they had inherited from Sokrates, but as having carried that impulse to an extreme point of invention, combination, and dramatic handling, much beyond their powers.
Undoubtedly, if we pass from the Parmenidês to other dialogues, we find Plato very different.
He has various other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and of constructive fancy, in many distinct channels.
But negative philosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent items of the Platonic aggregate.
[Footnote 32: This is the phrase of the satirical sillographer Timon, who spoke with scorn of all the philosophers except Pyrrhon:-[Greek: A)ll' ou)/ moi tou/tôn phledo/nôn me/lei, ou)de\ me\n a)/llou Ou)deno/s, ou) Phai/dônos, o(/tis ge me\n--ou)/d' e)rida/nteô Eu)klei/dou, Megareu=sin o(\s e)/mbale lu/ssan e)rismou=.]]
[Side-note: The Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and Plato.]
While then we admit that the Megaric succession of philosophers exhibited negative subtlety and vehement love of contentious debate, we must recollect that these qualities were inherited from Sokrates and shared with Plato.
The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught nothing and cross-examined every one, was essentially more negative and controversial, both in him and his successors, than any which had preceded it.
In an age when dialectic colloquy was considered as appropriate for philosophical subjects, and when long continuous exposition was left to the rhetor--Eukleides established a succession or school[33] which was more distinguished for impugning dogmas of others than for defending dogmas of its own.
Schleiermacher and others suppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthydêmus intends to expose the sophistical fallacies of the Megaric school:[34] and that in the dialogue Sophistês, he refutes the same philosophers (under the vague designation of "the friends of Forms") in their speculations about Ens and Non-Ens.
The first of these two opinions is probably true to some extent, though we cannot tell how far: the second of the two is supported by some able critics--yet it appears to me untenable.
[35] [Footnote 33: If we may trust a sarcastic bon-mot ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic, the contemporary of the _viri Sokratici_ and the follower of Antisthenes, the term [Greek: scholê\] was applied to the visitors of Eukleides rather than to those of Plato--[Greek: kai\ tê\n me\n Eu)klei/dou scholê\n e)/lege _cholê/n_, tê\n de\ Pla/tônos diatribê/n, _katatribê/n_].
Diog.
L. vi.
24.]
[Footnote 34: Schleierm.
Einleitung to Plat.
Euthyd.
p. 403 seq.]
[Footnote 35: Schleierm.
Introduction to the Sophistês, pp.
134-135.
See Deycks, Megaricorum Doctrina, p. 41 seq.
Zeller, Phil.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 180 seq., with his instructive note.
Prantl, Gesch.
der Logik, vol.
i. p. 37, and others cited by Zeller.--Ritter dissents from this view, and I concur in his dissent.
To affirm that Eukleides admitted a plurality of Ideas or Forms, is to contradict the only one deposition, certain and unequivocal, which we have about his philosophy.
His doctrine is that of the Transcendental Unum, Ens, Bonum; while the doctrine of the Transcendental Plura (Ideas or Forms) belongs to Plato and others.
Both Deycks and Zeller (p. 185) recognise this as a difficulty.
But to me it seems fatal to their hypothesis; which, after all, is only an hypothesis--first originated by Schleiermacher.
If it be true that the Megarici are intended by Plato under the appellation [Greek: oi( tô=n ei)dô=n phi/loi], we must suppose that the school had been completely transformed before the time of Stilpon, who is presented as the great opponent of [Greek: ta\ ei)/dê].]
Of Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly controversial, no distinct points of controversy have been preserved: but his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various sophisms.
He was the contemporary and rival of Aristotle: who, without however expressly naming him, probably intends to speak of him when alluding to the Megaric philosophers generally.
[36] Another of the same school, Alexinus (rather later than Eubulides) is also said to have written against Aristotle.
[Footnote 36: Aristokles, ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Ev.
xv.
2.
Eubulides is said not merely to have controverted the philosophical theories of Aristotle, but also to have attacked his personal character with bitterness and slander: a practice not less common in ancient controversy than in modern.
About Alexinus, Diog.
L. ii.
109.
Among those who took lessons in rhetoric and pronunciation from Eubulides, we read the name of the orator Demosthenes, who is said to have improved his pronunciation thereby.
Diog.
Laert.
ii.
p. 108.
Plutarch, x. Orat.
21, p. 845 C.] [Side-note: Eubulides--his logical problems or puzzles--difficulty of solving them--many solutions attempted.]
Six sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides.
1.--[Greek: O( pseudo/menos]--Mentiens.
2.--[Greek: O( dialantha/nôn], or [Greek: e)gkekalumme/nos]--the person hidden under a veil.
3.--[Greek: Ê)le/ktra].
4.--[Greek: Sôrei/tês]--Sorites.
5.--[Greek: Kerati/nês]--Cornutus.
6.--[Greek: Pha/lakros]--Calvus.
Of these the second is substantially the same with the third; and the fourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.
[37] [Footnote 37: Diog.
L. ii.
pp.
108-109; vii.
82.
Lucian vit.
Auct.
22.
1.
Cicero, Academ.
ii.
pp.
30-96.
"Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis, mentiris.
Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur."
2, 3.
[Greek: O( e)gkekalumme/nos].
You know your father: you are placed before a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know him.
But this person is your father.
Therefore you both know your father and do not know him.
5.
[Greek: Kerati/nês].
That which you have not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you _have_ horns.
4, 6.
[Greek: Sôrei/tês--Pha/lakros].
What number of grains make a heap--or are many?
what number are few?
Are three grains few, and four _many_?--or, where will you draw the line between Few and Many?
The like question about the hairs on a man's head--How many must he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?]
These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the Megaric school both before and after him.
But it is plain both from the Euthydêmus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there were many others of similar character; frequently employed in the abundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the fourth and third centuries B.C.
Plato and Aristotle handle such questions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic: but it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they brought to view.
Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them--even philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus.
[38] How these two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say.
But the fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety to make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against objections.
[Footnote 38: Diog.
L. v. p. 49; vii.
pp.
192-198.
Seneca, Epistol.
p. 45.
Plutarch (De Stoicor.
Repugnantiis, p. 1087) has some curious extracts and remarks from Chrysippus; who (he says) spoke in the harshest terms against the [Greek: Megarika\ e)rôtê/mata], as having puzzled and unsettled men's convictions without ground--while he (Chrysippus) had himself proposed puzzles and difficulties still more formidable, in his treatise [Greek: kata\ Sunêthei/as].]
[Side-note: Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to deceive but to guard against deception.]
It is in this point of view--in reference to logical theory--that the Megaric philosophers have not been fairly appreciated.
They, or persons reasoning in their manner, formed one essential encouragement and condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory.
They administered, to minds capable and constructive, that painful sense of contradiction, and shock of perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as the stimulus to mental parturition--and which Plato extols as a lever for raising the student to general conceptions.
[39] Their sophisms were not intended to impose upon any one, but on the contrary, to guard against imposition.
[40] Whoever states a fallacy clearly and nakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it conducts to a conclusion known upon other evidence not to be true--contributes to divest it of its misleading effect.
The persons most liable to be deceived by the fallacy are those who are not forewarned:--in cases where the premisses are stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of words--and where the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand to be false by the hearer.
To use Mr. John Stuart Mill's phrase,[41] the fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence: you expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by giving a type of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is obviously false: and the more obviously false it is, the better suited for its tutelary purpose.
Aristotle recognises, as indispensable in philosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling into which he conducts his reader, by means of a long string of unsolved difficulties or puzzles--([Greek: a)po/riai]).
He declares distinctly and forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive theory, without having before his mind a full list of the difficulties with which he is to grapple, is like one who searches without knowing what he is looking for; without being competent to decide whether what he hits upon as a solution be really a solution or not.
[42] Now that enumeration of puzzles which Aristotle here postulates (and in part undertakes, in reference to Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the Megarics, and various other dialecticians (called by Plato and Aristotle Sophists) contributed to furnish for the use of those who theorised on Logic.
[Footnote 39: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
523 A, 524.
[Greek: ta\ me\n e)n tai=s ai)sthê/sesin ou) parakalou=nta tê\n no/êsin ei)s e)pi/skepsin, ô(s i(kanô=s u(po\ tê=s ai)sthê/seôs krino/mena--ta\ de\ panta/pasi diakeleuo/mena e)kei/nên e)piske/psasthai, ô(s tê=s ai)sthê/seôs ou)de\n u(gie\s poiou/sês .
.
.
Ta\ me\n ou) parakalou=nta, o(/sa mê\ e)kbai/nei ei)s e)nanti/an ai)/sthêsin a(/ma; ta\ d' e)kbai/nonta, ô(s parakalou=nta ti/thêmi, e)peida\n ê( ai)/sthêsis mêde\n ma=llon tou=to ê)\ to\ e)nanti/on dêloi=].
Compare p. 524 E: the whole passage is very interesting.]
[Footnote 40: The remarks of Ritter (Gesch.
der Philos.
ii.
p. 189.
2nd ed.)
upon these Megaric philosophers are more just and discerning than those made by most of the historians of philosophy "Doch darf man wohl annehmen, dass sie solche Trugschlüsse nicht zur Täuschung,** sondern zur Belehrung für unvorsichtige, oder zur Warnung vor der Seichtigkeit gewöhnlicher Vorstellungsweisen, gebrauchen wollten.
So viel ist gewiss, dass die Megariker sich viel mit den Formen des Denken beschäftigten, vielleicht mehr zu Aufsuchung einzelner Regeln, als zur Begründung eines wissenschaftlichen Zusammenhangs unter ihnen; obwohl auch besondere Theile der Logik unter ihren Schriften erwähnt werden."
This is much more reasonable than the language of Prantl, who denounces "the shamelessness of doctrinarism" (die Unverschämtheit des Doctrinarismus) belonging to these Megarici "the petulance and vanity which prompted them to seek celebrity by intentional offences against sound common sense," &c. (Gesch.
der Logik, pp.
39-40.--Sir Wm.
Hamilton has some good remarks on these sophisms, in his Lectures on Logic, Lect.
xxiii.
p. 452 seq.)]
[Footnote 41: See the first chapter of his book v. on Fallacies, System of Logic, vol.
ii.]
[Footnote 42: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
B.
1, p. 995, a.
33.
[Greek: dio\ dei= ta\s duscherei/as tetheôrêke/nai pa/sas pro/teron, tou/tôn de\ cha/rin kai\ dia\ to\ tou\s zêtou=ntas a)/neu tou= diaporê=sai prô=ton o(moi/ous ei)=nai toi=s poi= dei= badi/zein a)gnoou=si, kai\ pro\s tou/tois ou)d' ei) pote to\ zêtou/menon eu(/rêken ê)\ mê\ gignô/skein; to\ ga\r te/los tou/tô| me\n ou) dê=lon, tô=| de\ proêporêko/ti dê=lon].
Aristotle devotes the whole of this Book to an enumeration of [Greek: a)po/riai].]
[Side-note: If the process of theorising be admissible, it must include negative as well as affirmative.]
You may dislike philosophy: you may undervalue, or altogether proscribe, the process of theorising.
This is the standing-point usual with the bulk of mankind, ancient as well as modern: who generally dislike all accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of familiar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-splitting.
[43] But if you admit the business of theorising to be legitimate, useful, and even honourable, you must reckon on free working of independent, individual, minds as the operative force--and on the necessity of dissentient, conflicting, manifestations of this common force, as essential conditions to any successful result.
Upon no other conditions can you obtain any tolerable body of reasoned truth--or even reasoned _quasi-truth_.
[Footnote 43: See my account of the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major, vol.
ii.
chap.
xiii.
Aristot.
Metaphys.
A. minor, p. 995, a.
9.
[Greek: tou\s de\ lupei= to\ a)kribe\s, ê)\ dia\ to\ mê\ du/nasthai sunei/rein, ê)\ dia\ tê\n mikrologi/an; e)/chei ga/r ti to\ a)kribe\s toiou=ton, ô(/ste katha/per e)pi\ tô=n sumbolai/ôn, kai\ e)pi\ tô=n lo/gôn a)neleu/theron ei)=nai tisi dokei=].
Cicero (Paradoxa, c. 2) talks of the "minutæ interrogatiunculæ" of the Stoics as tedious and tiresome.]
[Side-note: Logical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously described by historians of philosophy.
Necessity of a complete collection of difficulties.]
Now the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of philosophy as a whole--as a field to which the free antithesis of affirmative and negative is indispensable.
They consider true philosophy as represented by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of them: while the contemporaries of these eminent men are discredited under the name of Sophists, Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares among the legitimate crop of wheat--or as devils whom the miraculous virtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling from the Athenian mind.
Even the companions of Sokrates, and the Megarics among them, whom we know only upon the imperfect testimony of opponents, have fallen under this unmerited sentence:[44] as if they were destructive agents breaking down an edifice of well-constituted philosophy--no such edifice in fact having ever existed in Greece, though there were several dissenting lecture rooms and conflicting veins of speculation promoted by eminent individuals.
[Footnote 44: The same charge is put by Cicero into the mouth of Lucullus against the Academics: "Similiter vos (Academici) quum perturbare, ut illi" (the Gracchi and others) "rempublicam, sic vos philosophiam, benè jam constitutam velitis.
.
.
.
Tum exortus est, ut in optimâ republicâ Tib.
Gracchus, qui otium perturbaret, sic Arcesilas, qui constitutam philosophiam everteret" (Acad.
Prior, ii.
5, 14-15).
Even in the liberal and comprehensive history of the Greek philosophy by Zeller (vol.
ii.
p. 187, ed.
2nd), respecting Eukleides' and the Megarians;--"Dagegen bot der _Streit gegen die geltenden Meinungen_ dem Scharfsinn, der Rechthaberei, und dem wissenschaftlichen Ehrgeiz, ein unerschöpfliches Feld dar, welches denn auch die Megarischen Philosophen rüstig ausbeuteten."
If by "die geltenden Meinungen" Zeller means the common sense of the day that is, the opinions and beliefs current among the [Greek: i)diô=tai], the working, enjoying, non-theorising public--it is very true that the Megaric philosophers contended against them: but Sokrates and Plato contended against them quite as much: we see this in the Platonic Apology, Gorgias, Republic, Timæus, Parmenidês, &c. If, on the other hand, by "die geltenden Meinungen" Zeller means any philosophical or logical theories generally or universally admitted by thinking men as valid, the answer is that there were none such in the fourth and third centuries B.C.
Various eminent speculative individuals were labouring to construct such theories, each in his own way, and each with a certain congregation of partisans; but established theory there was none.
Nor can any theory (whether accepted or not) be firm or trustworthy, unless it be exposed to the continued thrusts of the negative weapon, searching out its vulnerable points.
We know of the Megarics only what they furnished towards that negative testing; without which, however,--as we may learn from Plato and Aristotle themselves,--the true value of the affirmative defences can never be measured.]
Whoever undertakes, _bonâ fide_, to frame a complete and defensible logical theory, will desire to have before him a copious collection of such difficulties, and will consider those who propound them as useful auxiliaries.
[45] If he finds no one to propound them, he will have to imagine them for himself.
"The philosophy of reasoning" (observes Mr. John Stuart Mill) "must comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of good reasoning.
"[46] The one cannot be complete without the other.
To enumerate the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not real evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which are not real contradictions--referred as far as may be to classes, each illustrated by a suitable type--is among the duties of a logician.
He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen to exist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious men who really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a well-armed adversary, as well as of defending themselves against the like.
Such a habit did exist at Athens: and unless it had existed, the Aristotelian theories on logic would probably never have been framed.
Contemporary and antecedent dialecticians, the Megarici among them, supplied the stock of particular examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in the Topica:[47] which treatise (especially the last book, De Sophisticis Elenchis) is intended both to explain the theory, and to give suggestions on the practice, of logical controversy.
A man who takes lessons in fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry, but also how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the feints employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war must know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective cheating and treachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and how to avoid being cheated himself.
The Aristotelian Topica, in like manner, teach the arts both of dialectic attack and of dialectic defence.
[48] [Footnote 45: Marbach (Gesch.
der Philos.
s. 91), though he treats the Megarics as jesters (which I do not think they were), yet adds very justly: "Nevertheless these puzzles (propounded by the Megarics) have their serious and scientific side.
We are forced to inquire, how it happens that the contradictions shown up in them are not merely possible but even necessary."
Both Tiedemann and Winckelmann also remark that the debaters called Eristics contributed greatly to the formation of the theory and precepts of Logic, afterwards laid out by Aristotle.
Winckelmann, Prolegg.
ad Platon.
Euthydem.
pp.
xxiv.-xxxi.
Even Stallbaum, though full of harshness towards those Sophists whom he describes as belonging to the school of Protagoras, treats the Megaric philosophers with much greater respect.
Prolegom.
ad Platon.
Euthydem.
p.
9.]
[Footnote 46: System of Logic, Book v. 1, 1.]
[Footnote 47: Prantl (Gesch.
der Logik, vol.
i. pp.
43-50) ascribes to the Megarics all or nearly all the sophisms which Aristotle notices in the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis.
This is more than can be proved, and more than I think probable.
Several of them are taken from the Platonic Euthydêmus.]
[Footnote 48: See the remarkable passages in the discourses of Sokrates (Memorab.
iii.
1, 6; iv.
2, 15), and in that of Kambyses to Cyrus, which repeats the same opinion--Cyropæd.
i.
6, 27--respecting the amount of deceit, treachery, the thievish and rapacious qualities required for conducting war against an enemy--([Greek: ta\ pro\s tou\s polemi/ous no/mima], i.
6, 34).
Aristotle treats of Dialectic, as he does of Rhetoric, as an art having its theory, and precepts founded upon that theory.
I shall have occasion to observe in a future chapter (xxi.
), that logical Fallacies are not generated or invented by persons called Sophists, but are inherent liabilities to error in the human intellect; and that the habit of debate affords the only means of bringing them into clear daylight, and guarding against being deceived by them.
Aristotle gives precepts both how to thrust, and how to parry with the best effect: if he had taught only how to parry, he would have left out one-half of the art.
One of the most learned and candid of the Aristotelian commentators--M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire--observes as follows (Logique d'Aristote, p. 435, Paris, 1838) respecting De Sophist.
Elenchis:-"Aristote va donc s'occuper de la marche qu'il faut donner aux discussions sophistiques: et ici il serait difficile quelquefois de décider, à la manière dont les choses sont présentées par lui, si ce sont des conseils qu'il donne aux Sophistes, ou à ceux qui veulent éviter leurs ruses.
Tout ce qui précède, prouve, au reste, que c'est en ce dernier sens qu'il faut entendre la pensée du philosophe.
Ceci est d'ailleurs la seconde portion du traîté."
It appears to me that Aristotle intended to teach or to suggest both the two things which are here placed in Antithesis--though I do not agree with M. St. Hilaire's way of putting the alternative--as if there were one class of persons, professional Sophists, who fenced with poisoned weapons, while every one except them refrained from such weapons.
Aristotle intends to teach the art of Dialectic as a whole; he neither intends nor wishes that any learners shall make a bad use of his teaching; but if they do use it badly, the fault does not lie with him.
See the observations in the beginning of the Rhetorica, i. p. 1355, a.
26, and the observations put by Plato into the mouth of Gorgias (Gorg.
p. 456 E).
Even in the Analytica Priora (ii.
19, a.
34) (independent of the Topica) Aristotle says:--[Greek: chrê\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\s e)picheirou=ntas peira=sthtai lantha/nein].
Investigations of the double or triple senses of words (he says) are useful--[Greek: kai\ pro\s to\ mê\ paralogisthê=nai, kai\ pro\s to\ paralogi/sasthai], Topica, i.
18, p. 108, a.
26.
See also other passages of the Topica where artifices are indicated for the purpose of concealing your own plan of proceeding and inducing your opponent to make answer in the sense which you wish, Topica, i.
2, p. 101, a.
25; vi.
10, p. 148, a.
37; viii.
1, p. 151, b.
23; viii.
1, p. 153, a.
6; viii.
2, p. 154, a.
5; viii.
11, p. 161, a.
24 seq.
You must be provided with the means of meeting every sort and variety of objection--[Greek: pro\s ga\r to\n pa/ntôs e)nista/menon pa/ntôs a)ntitakte/on e)sti/n].
Topic.
v. 4, p. 134, a.
4.
I shall again have to touch on the Topica, in this point of view, as founded upon and illustrating the Megaric logical puzzles (ch.
viii.
of the present volume).]
[Side-note: Sophisms propounded by Eubulides.
1.
Mentiens.
2.
The Veiled Man.
3.
Sorites.
4.
Cornutus.]
The Sophisms ascribed to Eubulidês, looked at from the point of view of logical theory, deserve that attention which they seem to have received.
The logician lays down as a rule that no affirmative proposition can be at the same time true and false.
Now the first sophism (called _Mentiens_) exhibits the case of a proposition which is, or appears to be, at the same time true and false.
[49] It is for the logician to explain how this proposition can be brought under his rule--or else to admit it as an exception.
Again, the second sophism in the list (the Veiled or Hidden Man) is so contrived as to involve the respondent in a contradiction: he is made to say both that he knows his father, and that he does not know his father.
Both the one answer and the other follow naturally from the questions and circumstances supposed.
The contradiction points to the loose and equivocal way in which the word _to know_ is used in common speech.
Such equivocal meaning of words is not only one of the frequent sources of error and fallacy in reasoning, but also one of the least heeded by persons untrained in dialectics; who are apt to presume that the same word bears always the same meaning.
To guard against this cause of error, and to determine (or impel others to determine) the accurate meaning or various distinct meanings of each word, is among the duties of the logician: and I will add that the verb _to know_ stands high in the list of words requiring such determination--as the Platonic Theætêtus[50] alone would be sufficient to teach us.
Farthermore, when we examine what is called the Soritês of Eubulides, we perceive that it brings to view an inherent indeterminateness of various terms: indeterminateness which cannot be avoided, but which must be pointed out in order that it may not mislead.
You cannot say how many grains are _much_--or how many grains make _a heap_.
When this want of precision, pervading many words in the language, was first brought to notice in a suitable special case, it would naturally appear a striking novelty.
Lastly, the sophism called [Greek: Kerati/nês] or Cornutus, is one of great plausibility, which would probably impose upon most persons, if the question were asked for the first time without any forewarning.
It serves to administer a lesson, nowise unprofitable or superfluous, that before you answer a question, you should fully weigh its import and its collateral bearings.
[Footnote 49: Theophrastus wrote a treatise in three books on the solution of the puzzle called [Greek: O( pseudo/menos] (see the list of his lost works in Diogenes L. v. 49).
We find also other treatises entitled [Greek: Megariko\s a/] (which Diogenes cites, vi.
22),--[Greek: A)gônistiko\n tê=s peri\ tou\s e)ristikou\s lo/gous theôri/as--Sophisma/tôn a/, b]--besides several more titles relating to dialectics, and bearing upon the solution of syllogistic problems.
Chrysippus also, in the ensuing century, wrote a treatise in three books, [Greek: Peri\ tê=s tou= pseudome/non lu/seôs] (Diog.
vii.
107).
Such facts show the importance of these problems in their bearing upon logical theory, as conceived by the ancient world.
Epikurus also wrote against the [Greek: Megarikoi/] (Diog.
x.
27).
The discussion of sophisms, or logical difficulties ([Greek: lu/seis a)pori/ôn]), was a favourite occupation at the banquets of philosophers at Athens, on or about 100 B.C.
[Greek: A)nti/patros d' o( philo/sophos, sumpo/sio/n pote suna/gôn, sune/taxe toi=s e)rchome/nois ô(s peri\ sophisma/tôn e(rou=sin] (Athenæus, v. 186 C).
Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, p. 1096 C; De Sanitate Præcepta, c. 20, p. 133 B.]
[Footnote 50: Various portions of the Theætêtus illustrate this Megaric sophism (pp.
165-188).
The situation assumed in the question of Eubulidês--having before your eyes a person veiled--might form a suitable addition to the various contingencies specified in Theætêt.
pp.
192-193.
The manner in which the Platonic Sokrates proves (Theæt.
165) that you at the same time see, and do not see, an object before you, is quite as sophistical as the way in which Eubulidês proves that you both know, and do not know, your father.]
[Side-note: Causes of error constant--the Megarics were sentinals against them.]
The causes of error and fallacy are inherent in the complication of nature, the imperfection of language, the small range of facts which we know, the indefinite varieties of comparison possible among those facts, and the diverse or opposite predispositions, intellectual as well as emotional, of individual minds.
They are not fabricated by those who first draw attention to them.
[51] The Megarics, far from being themselves deceivers, served as sentinels against deceit.
They planted conspicuous beacons upon some of the sunken rocks whereon unwary reasoners were likely to be wrecked.
When the general type of a fallacy is illustrated by a particular case in which the conclusion is manifestly untrue, the like fallacy is rendered less operative for the future.
[Footnote 51: Cicero, in his Academ.
Prior, ii.
92-94, has very just remarks on the obscurities and difficulties in the reasoning process, which the Megarics and others brought to view--and were blamed for so doing, as unfair and captious reasoners--as if they had themselves created the difficulties--"(Dialectica) primo progressu festivé tradit elementa loquendi et ambiguorum intelligentiam concludendique rationem; tum paucis additis venit ad soritas, lubricum sané et periculosum locum, quod tu modo dicebas esse vitiosum interrogandi genus.
Quid ergo?
_istius vitii num nostra culpa est_?
Rerum natura nullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium, ut ullâ in re statuere possimus quatenus.
Nec hoc in acervo tritici solum, unde nomen est, sed nullâ omnino in re minutatim interroganti--dives, pauper--clarus, obscurus, sit--multa, pauca, magna, parva, longa, brevia, lata, angusta, quanto aut addito aut dempto certum respondeamus, non habemus.
At vitiosi sunt soritæ.
Frangite igitur eos, si potestis, ne molesti sint.
.
.
Sic me (inquit) sustineo, neque diutius captiosé interroganti respondes.
Si habes quod liqueat neque respondes, superbis: si non habes, ne tu quidem percipis."
The principle of the Sorites ([Greek: ê( sôritikê\ a)pori/a]--Sextus adv.
Gramm.
s. 68), though differently applied, is involved in the argument of Zeno the Eleate, addressed to Protagoras--see Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
250, p. 423, b.
42.
Sch.
Brand.
Compare chap.
ii.
of this volume.]
[Side-note: Controversy of the Megarics with Aristotle about Power.
Arguments of Aristotle.]
Of the positive doctrines of the Megarics we know little: but there is one upon which Aristotle enters into controversy with them, and upon which (as far as can be made out) I think they were in the right.
In the question about Power, they held that the power to do a thing did not exist, except when the thing was actually done: that an architect, for example, had no power to build a house, except when he actually did build one.
Aristotle controverts this opinion at some length; contending that there exists a sort of power or cause which is in itself irregular and indeterminate, sometimes turning to the affirmative, sometimes to the negative, to do or not to do;[52] that the architect _has_ the _power to build_ constantly, though he exerts it only on occasion: and that many absurdities would follow if we did not admit, That a given power or energy--and the exercise of that power--are things distinct and separable.
[53] [Footnote 52: Aristot.
De Interpret.
p. 19, a.
6-20.
[Greek: o(/lôs e)/stin e)n toi=s mê\ a)ei\ e)nergou=si to\ dunato\n ei)=nai kai\ mê\ o(moi/ôs; e)n oi(=s a)mphô e)nde/chetai, kai\ to\ ei)=nai kai\ to\ mê\ ei)=nai, ô(/ste kai\ to\ gene/sthai kai\ to\ mê\ gene/sthai.]]
[Footnote 53: Aristot.
Metaph.
[Greek: Th].
3, p. 1046, b.
29.
[Greek: Ei)si\ de/ tines, oi)/ phasin, oi(=on oi( Megarikoi/, o(/tan e)nergê=|, mo/non du/nasthai, o(/tan de\ mê\ e)nergê=|, mê\ du/nasthai--oi(=on to\n mê\ oi)kodomou=nta ou) du/nasthai oi)kodomei=n, a)lla\ to\n oi)kodomou=nta o(/tan oi)kodomê=|; o(moi/ôs de\ kai\ e)pi\ tô=n a)/llôn].
Deycks (De Megaricorum Doctrinâ, pp.
70-71) considers this opinion of the Megarics to be derived from their general Eleatic theory of the Ens Unum et Immotum.
But I see no logical connection between the two.]
[Side-note: These arguments not valid against the Megarici.]
Now these arguments of Aristotle are by no means valid against the Megarics, whose doctrine, though apparently paradoxical, will appear when explained to be no paradox at all, but perfectly true.
When we say that the architect has power to build, we do not mean that he has power to do so under all supposable circumstances, but only under certain conditions: we wish to distinguish him from non-professional men, who under those same conditions have no power to build.
The architect must be awake and sober: he must have the will or disposition to build:[54] he must be provided with tools and materials, and be secure against destroying enemies.
These and other conditions being generally understood, it is unnecessary to enunciate them in common speech.
But when we engage in dialectic analysis, the accurate discussion ([Greek: a)kribologi/a]) indispensable to philosophy requires us to bring under distinct notice, that which the elliptical character of common speech implies without enunciating.
Unless these favourable conditions be supposed, the architect is no more able to build than an ordinary non-professional man.
Now the Megarics did not deny the distinctive character of the architect, as compared with the non-architect: but they defined more accurately in what it consisted, by restoring the omitted conditions.
They went a step farther: they pointed out that whenever the architect finds himself in concert with these accompanying conditions (his own volition being one of the conditions) he goes to work--and the building is produced.
As the house is not built, unless he wills to build, and has tools and materials, &c.--so conversely, whenever he has the will to build and has tools and materials, &c., the house is actually built.
The effect is not produced, except when the full assemblage of antecedent conditions come together: but as soon as they do come together, the effect is assuredly produced.
The accomplishments of the architect, though an essential item, are yet only one item among several, of the conditions necessary to building the house.
He has no power to build, except when those other conditions are assumed along with him: in other words, he has no such power except when he actually does build.
[Footnote 54: About this condition implied in the predicate [Greek: dunato/s], see Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 366 D.] [Side-note: His arguments cited and criticised.]
Aristotle urges against the Megarics various arguments, as follows:--1.
Their doctrine implies that the architect is not an architect, and does not possess his professional skill,[55] except at the moment when he is actually building.--But the Megarics would have denied that their doctrine did imply this.
The architect possesses his art at all times: but his art does not constitute a power of building except under certain accompanying conditions.
[Footnote 55: Aristot.
Metaph.
[Greek: Th].
3, 1047, a.
3.
[Greek: o(/tan pau/sêtai (oi)kodomô=n) ou)ch e(/xei tê\n te/chnên.]]
2.
The Megaric doctrine is the same as that of Protagoras, implying that there exists no perceivable Object, and no Subject capable of perceiving, except at the moment when perception actually takes place.
[56] On this we may observe, that the Megarics coincide with Protagoras thus far, that they bring into open daylight the relative and conditional, which the received phraseology tends to hide.
But neither they nor he affirm what is here put upon them.
When we speak of a perceivable Object, we mean that which may and will be perceived, _if_ there be a proper Subject to perceive it: when we affirm a Subject capable of perception, we mean, one which will perceive, under those circumstances which we call the presence of an Object suitably placed.
The Subject and Object are correlates: but it is convenient to have a language in which one of them alone is introduced unconditionally, while the conditional sign is applied to the correlate: though the matter affirmed involves a condition common to both.
[Footnote 56: Aristot.
Metaph.
[Greek: Th].
3, 1047, a.
8-13.]
3.
According to the Megaric doctrine (Aristotle argues) every man when not actually seeing, is blind; every man when not actually speaking, is dumb.--Here the Megarics would have said that this is a misinterpretation of the terms dumb and blind; which denote a person who cannot speak or see, even though he wishes it.
One who is now silent, though not dumb, may speak if he wills it: but his own volition is an essential condition.
[57] [Footnote 57: The question between Aristotle and the Megarics has not passed out of debate with modern philosophers.
Dr. Thomas Brown observes, in his inquiry into Cause and Effect--"From the mere silence of any one, we cannot infer that he is dumb in consequence of organic imperfection.
He may be silent only because he has no desire of speaking, not because speech would not have followed his desire: and it is not with the mere _existence_ of any one, but _with his desire of speaking_, that we suppose utterance to be connected.
A man who has _no desire of speaking, has in truth_, and in strictness of language, _no power of speaking, when in that state of mind_: since he has not a circumstance which, as immediately prior, is essential to speech.
But since he has that power, as soon as the new circumstance of desire arises--and as the presence or absence of the desire cannot be perceived but in its effects--_there is no inconvenience in the common language_, which ascribes the power, _as if it were possessed at all times, and in all circumstances of mind_, though unquestionably, nothing more is meant than that the desire existing will be followed by utterance."
(Brown, Essay on the Relation of Cause and Effect, p.
200.)
This is the real sense of what Aristotle calls [Greek: to\ de\ (le/getai) dunato/n, oi(=on dunato\n ei)=nai badi/zein o(/ti badiseien a)\n], _i.e._ he will walk _if_ he desires to do so (De Interpret.
p. 23, a.
9-15).]
4.
According to the Megaric doctrine (says Aristotle) when you are now lying down, you have no power to rise: when you are standing up, you have no power to lie down: so that the present condition of affairs must continue for ever unchanged: nothing can come into existence which is not now in being.--Here again, the Megarics would have denied his inference.
The man who is now standing up, has power to lie down, _if he wills_ to do so--or he may be thrown down by a superior force: that is, he will lie down, _if_ some new fact of a certain character shall supervene.
The Megarics do not deny that he has power, _if_--so and so: they deny that he has power, without the _if_--that is, without the farther accompaniments essential to energy.
[Side-note: Potential as distinguished from the Actual--What it is.]
On the whole, it seems to me that Aristotle's refutation of the Megarics is unsuccessful.
A given assemblage of conditions is requisite for the production of any act: while there are other circumstances, which, if present at the same time, would defeat its production.
We often find it convenient to describe a state of things in which some of the antecedent conditions are present without the rest: in which therefore the act is not produced, yet would be produced, if the remaining circumstances were present, and if the opposing circumstances were absent.
[58] The state of things thus described is the _potential_ as distinguished from the _actual_: power, distinguished from act or energy: it represents an incomplete assemblage of the antecedent positive conditions--or perhaps a complete assemblage, but counteracted by some opposing circumstances.
As soon as the assemblage becomes complete, and the opposing circumstances removed, the potential passes into the actual.
The architect, when he is not building, possesses, not indeed the full or plenary power to build, but an important fraction of that power, which will become plenary when the other fractions supervene, but will then at the same time become operative, so as to produce the actual building.
[59] [Footnote 58: Hobbes, in his Computation or Logic (chaps.
ix.
and x.
Of Cause and Effect.
Of Power and Act) expounds this subject with his usual perspicuity.
"A Cause simply, or an Entire Cause, is the aggregate of all the accidents, both of the agents, how many soever they be, and of the patient, put together; which, when they are all supposed to be present, it cannot be understood but that the effect is produced at the same instant: and if any one of them be wanting, it cannot be understood but that the effect is not produced" (ix.
3).
"Correspondent to Cause and Effect are Power and Act: nay, those and these are the same things, though for divers considerations they have divers names.
For whensoever any agent has all those accidents which are necessarily requisite for the production of some effect in the patient, then we say that agent has power to produce that effect if it be applied to a patient.
In like manner, whensoever any patient has all those accidents which it is requisite it should have for the production of some effect in it, we say it is in the power of that patient to produce that effect if it be applied to a fitting agent.
Power, active and passive, are parts only of plenary and entire power: nor, except they be joined, can any effect proceed from them.
And therefore these powers are but conditional: namely, the agent has power if it be applied to a patient, and the patient has power if it be applied to an agent.
_Otherwise neither of them have power, nor can the accidents which are in them severally be properly called powers_: nor any action be said to be possible for the power of the agent alone or the patient alone."]
[Footnote 59: Aristotle does in fact grant all that is here said, in the same book and in the page next subsequent to that which contains his arguments against the Megaric doctrine, Metaphys.
[Greek: Th].
5, 1048, a.
1-24.
In this chapter Aristotle distinguishes powers belonging to things, from powers belonging to persons--powers irrational from powers rational--powers in which the agent acts without any will or choice, from those in which the will or choice of the agent is one item of the aggregate of conditions.
He here expressly recognises that the power of the agent, separately considered, is only _conditional_; that is, conditional on the presence and suitable state of the patient, as well as upon the absence of counteracting circumstances.
But he contends that such absence of counteracting circumstances is plainly implied, and need not be expressly mentioned in the definition.
[Greek: e)pei\ de\ to\ dunato\n ti\ dunato\n kai\ pote\ kai\ pô=s kai\ o(/sa a)/lla a)na/gkê prosei=nai e)n tô=| diorismô=|-to\ dunato\n kata\ lo/gon a(/pan a)na/gkê, o(/tan o)re/gêtai, ou)= t' e)/chei tê\n du/namin kai\ ô(s e)/chei, tou=to poiei=n; e)/chei de\ paro/ntos tou= pathêtikou= kai\ ô(di\ e)/chontos poiei=n; _ei) de\ mê/, poiei=n ou) dunê/setai_.
to\ ga\r mêtheno\s tô=n e(/xô kôlu/ontos prosdiori/zesthai, ou)the\n e)/ti dei=; tê\n ga\r du/namin e)/chei ô(/s e)/sti du/namis tou= poiei=n, _e)/sti d' ou) pa/ntôs_, a)ll' e)cho/ntôn pô=s, e)n oi(=s a)phoristhê/setai kai\ ta\ e(/xô kôlu/onta; a)phairei=tai ga\r tau=ta tô=n e)n tô=| diorismô=| proso/ntôn e)/nia].
The commentary of Alexander Aphr.
upon this chapter is well worth consulting (pp.
546-548 of the edition of his commentary by Bonitz, 1847).
Moreover Aristotle affirms in this chapter, that when [Greek: to\ poiêtiko\n] and [Greek: to\ pathêtiko\n] come together under suitable circumstances, the power will certainly pass into act.
Here then, it seems to me, Aristotle concedes the doctrine which the Megarics affirmed; or, if there be any difference between them, it is rather verbal than real.
In fact, Aristotle's reasoning in the third chapter (wherein he impugns the doctrine of the Megarics), and the definition of [Greek: dunato\n] which he gives in that chapter (1047, a.
25), are hardly to be reconciled with his reasoning in the fifth chapter.
Bonitz (Notes on the Metaphys.
pp.
393-395) complains of the _mira levitas_ of Aristotle in his reasoning against the Megarics, and of his omitting to distinguish between _Vermögen_ and _Möglichkeit_.
I will not use so uncourteous a phrase; but I think his refutation of the Megarics is both unsatisfactory and contradicted by himself.
I agree with the following remark of Bonitz:--"Nec mirum, quod Megarici, aliis illi quidem in rebus arguti, in hâc autem satis acuti, existentiam [Greek: tô=| duna/mei o)/nti] tribuere recusarint," &c.] [Side-note: Diodôrus Kronus--his doctrine about [Greek: to\ dunato/n].]
The doctrine which I have just been canvassing is expressly cited by Aristotle as a Megaric doctrine, and was therefore probably held by his contemporary Eubulidês.
From the pains which Aristotle takes (in the 'De Interpretatione' and elsewhere) to explain and vindicate his own doctrine about the Potential and the Actual, we may see that it was a theme much debated among the dialecticians of the day.
And we read of another Megaric, Diodorus[60] Kronus, perhaps contemporary (yet probably a little later than Aristotle), as advancing a position substantially the same as that of Eubulidês.
That alone is possible (Diodorus affirmed) which either is happening now, or will happen at some future time.
As in speaking about facts of an unrecorded past, we know well that a given fact either occurred or did not occur, yet without knowing which of the two is true--and therefore we affirm only that the fact _may_ have occurred: so also about the future, either the assertion that a given fact will at some time occur, is positively true, or the assertion that it will never occur, is positively true: the assertion that it may or may not occur some time or other, represents only our ignorance, which of the two is true.
That which will never at any time occur, is impossible.
[Footnote 60: The dialectic ingenuity of Diodorus is powerfully attested by the verse of Ariston, applied to describe Arkesilaus (Sextus Emp.
Pyrrh.
Hyp.
i. p. 234): [Greek: Pro/sthe Pla/tôn, o)/pithen Pu/r)r(ôn, me/ssos Dio/dôros.]]
[Side-note: Sophism of Diodorus--[Greek: O( Kurieu/ôn].]
The argument here recited must have been older than Diodorus, since Aristotle states and controverts it: but it seems to have been handled by him in a peculiar dialectic arrangement, which obtained the title of [Greek: O( Kurieu/ôn].
[61] The Stoics (especially Chrysippus), in times somewhat later, impugned the opinion of Diodorus, though seemingly upon grounds not quite the same as Aristotle.
This problem was one upon which speculative minds occupied themselves for several centuries.
Aristotle and Chrysippus maintained that affirmations respecting the past were _necessary_ (one necessarily true and the other necessarily false)--affirmations respecting the future, _contingent_ (one must be true and the other false, but either might be true).
Diodorus held that both varieties of affirmations were equally necessary--Kleanthes the Stoic thought that both were equally contingent.
[62] [Footnote 61: Aristot.
De Interpret.
p. 18, a. pp.
27-38.
Alexander ad Aristot.
Analyt.
Prior.
34, p. 163, b.
34, Schol.
Brandis.
See also Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Lect.
xxiii.
p.
464.]
[Footnote 62: Arrian ad Epiktet.
ii.
p. 19.
Upton, in his notes on this passage of Arrian (p. 151) has embodied a very valuable and elaborate commentary by Mr. James Harris (the great English Aristotelian scholar of the 18th century), explaining the nature of this controversy, and the argument called [Greek: o( Kurieu/ôn].
Compare Cicero, De Fato, c. 7-9.
Epistol.
Fam.
ix.
4.]
It was thus that the Megaric dialecticians, with that fertility of mind which belonged to the Platonic and Aristotelian century, stirred up many real problems and difficulties connected with logical evidence, and supplied matters for discussion which not only occupied the speculative minds of the next four or five centuries, but have continued in debate down to the present day.
[Side-note: Question between Aristotle and Diodôrus depends upon whether universal regularity of sequence be admitted or denied.]
The question about the Possible and Impossible, raised between Aristotle and Diodorus, depends upon the larger question, Whether there are universal laws of Nature or not?
whether the sequences are, universally and throughout, composed of assemblages of conditions regularly antecedent, and assemblages of events regularly consequent; though from the number and complication of causes, partly co-operating and partly conflicting with each other, we with our limited intelligence are often unable to predict the course of events in each particular situation.
Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all maintained that regular sequence of antecedent and consequent was not universal, but partial only:[63] that there were some agencies essentially regular, in which observation of the past afforded ground for predicting the future--other agencies (or the same agencies on different occasions) essentially irregular, in which the observation of the past afforded no such ground.
Aristotle admitted a graduation of causes from perfect regularity to perfect irregularity:--1.
The Celestial Spheres, with their included bodies or divine persons, which revolved and exercised a great and preponderant influence throughout the Kosmos, with perfect uniformity; having no power of contraries, _i.e._, having no power of doing anything else but what they actually did (having [Greek: e)nergei/a] without [Greek: du/namis]).
2.
The four Elements, in which the natural agencies were to a great degree necessary and uniform, but also in a certain degree otherwise--either always or for the most part uniform ([Greek: to\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu/])--tending by inherent appetency towards uniformity, but not always attaining it.
3.
Besides these there were two other varieties of Causes accidental, or perfectly irregular--Chance and Spontaneity: powers of contraries, or with equal chance of contrary manifestations--essentially capricious, undeterminable, unpredictable.
[64] This _Chance_ of Aristotle--with one of two contraries sure to turn up, though you could never tell beforehand which of the two--was a conception analogous to what logicians sometimes call an Indefinite Proposition, or to what some grammarians have reckoned as a special variety of genders called the _doubtful gender_.
There were thus positive causes of regularity, and positive causes of irregularity, the co-operation or conflict of which gave the total manifestations of the actual universe.
The principle of irregularity, or the Indeterminate, is sometimes described under the name of Matter,[65] as distinguishable from, yet co-operating with, the three determinate Causes--Formal, Efficient, Final.
The Potential--the Indeterminate--the _May or May not be_--is characterised by Aristotle as one of the inherent principles operative in the Kosmos.
[Footnote 63: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
1; Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A.
[Greek: ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a], &c.] [Footnote 64: [Greek: Ê( tu/chê--to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche--to\ au)to/maton] are in the conception of Aristotle independent [Greek: A)rchai/], attached to and blending with [Greek: a)na/gkê] and [Greek: to\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu/].
See Physic.
ii.
196, b.
11; Metaphys.
E. 1026-1027.
Sometimes [Greek: to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche] is spoken of as an [Greek: A)rchê/], but not as an [Greek: ai)/tion], or belonging to [Greek: u(/lê] as the [Greek: A)rchê/].
1027, b.
11.
[Greek: dê=lon a)/ra o(/ti me/chri tino\s badi/zei a)rchê=s, au)/tê d' ou)/keti ei)s a)/llo; e)/stai ou)=n ê( tou= o(po/ter' e)/tuchen au)/tê, kai\ ai)/tioi tê=s gene/seôs au)tê=s ou)the/n].
See, respecting the different notions of Cause held by ancient philosophers, my remarks on the Platonic Phædon infrà, vol.
iii.
** ch.
xxv.]
[Footnote 65: Aristot.
Metaph.
E. 1027, a.
13; A.
1071, a.
10.
[Greek: ô(/ste ê( u(/lê e)/stai ai)ti/a, ê( e)ndechome/n ê para\ to\ ô(s e)pi\ to polu\ a)/llôs tou= sumbebêko/tos].
Matter is represented as the principle of irregularity, of [Greek: to\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche]--as the [Greek: du/namis tô=n e)nanti/ôn].
In the explanation given by Alexander of Aphrodisias of the Peripatetic doctrine respecting chance--free-will, the principle of irregularity--[Greek: tu/chê] is no longer assigned to the material cause, but is treated as an [Greek: ai)ti/a kata\ sumbebêko/s], distinguished from [Greek: ai)ti/a proêgou/mena] or [Greek: kath' au(ta/].
The exposition given of the doctrine by Alexander is valuable and interesting.
See his treatise De Fato, addressed to the Emperor Severus, in the edition of Orelli, Zurich.
1824 (a very useful volume, containing treatises of Ammonius, Plotinus, Bardesanes, &c., on the same subject); also several sections of his Quæstiones Naturales et Morales, ed.
Spengel, Munich, 1842, pp.
22-61-65-123, &c. He gives, however, a different explanation of [Greek: to\ dunato\n] and [Greek: to\ a)du/naton] in pp.
62-63, which would not be at variance with the doctrine of Diodorus.
We may remark that Alexander puts the antithesis of the two doctrines differently from Aristotle,--in this way.
1.
Either all events happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/nên].
2.
Or all events do not happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/nên], but some events are [Greek: e)ph' ê(mi=n].
See De Fato, p. 14 seq.
This way of putting the question is directed more against the Stoics, who were the great advocates of [Greek: ei(marme/nê], than against the Megaric Diodorus.
The treatises of Chrysippus and the other Stoics alter both the wording and the putting of the thesis.
We know that Chrysippus impugned the doctrine of Diodorus, but I do not see how.
The Stoic antithesis of [Greek: ta kath' ei(marme/nên--ta\ e)ph' ê(mi=n] is different from the antithesis conceived by Aristotle and does not touch the question about the universality of regular sequence.
[Greek: Ta\ e)ph' ê(mi=n] describes those sequences in which human volition forms one among the appreciable conditions determining or modifying the result; [Greek: ta\ kath' ei(marme/nên] includes all the other sequences wherein human volition has no appreciable influence.
But the sequence [Greek: tô=n e)ph' ê(mi=n] is just as regular as the sequence [Greek: tô=n kath' ei(marme/nên]: both the one and the other are often imperfectly predictable, because our knowledge of facts and power of comparison is so imperfect.
Theophrastus discussed [Greek: to\ kath' ei(marme/nên], and explained it to mean the same as [Greek: to\ kata\ phu/sin.
phanerô/tata de\ Theo/phrastos dei/knusi tau)to\n o(\n to\ kath' ei(marme/nên tô=| kata\ phu/sin] (Alexander Aphrodisias ad Aristot.
De Animâ, ii.).]
[Side-note: Conclusion of Diodôrus--defended by Hobbes--Explanation given by Hobbes.]
In what manner Diodorus stated and defended his opinion upon this point, we have no information.
We know only that he placed affirmations respecting the future on the same footing as affirmations respecting the past: maintaining that our potential affirmation--_May or May not be_--respecting some future event, meant no more than it means respecting some past event, viz.
: no inherent indeterminateness in the future sequence, but our ignorance of the determining conditions, and our inability to calculate their combined working.
[66] In regard to scientific method generally, this problem is of the highest importance: for it is only so far as uniformity of sequence prevails, that facts become fit matter for scientific study.
[67] Consistently with the doctrine of all-pervading uniformity of sequence, the definition of Hobbes gives the only complete account of the Impossible and Possible: _i.e._ an account such as would appear to an omniscient calculator, where _May or May not_ merge in _Will or Will not_.
According as each person falls short of or approaches this ideal standard--according to his knowledge and mental resource, inductive and deductive--will be his appreciation of what may be or may not be--as of what may have been or may not have been during the past.
But such appreciation, being relative to each individual mind, is liable to vary indefinitely, and does not admit of being embodied in one general definition.
[Footnote 66: The same doctrine as that of the Megaric Diodorus is declared by Hobbes in clear and explicit language (First Grounds of Philosophy, ii.
10, 4-5):--"That is an impossible act, for the production of which there is no power plenary.
For seeing plenary power is that in which all things concur which are requisite for the production of an act,** if the power shall never be plenary, there will always be wanting some of those things, without which the act cannot be produced.
Wherefore that act shall never be produced: that is, that act is _impossible_.
And every act, which is not impossible, is _possible_.
Every act therefore which is possible, shall at some time or other be produced.
For if it shall never be produced, then those things shall never concur which are requisite for the production of it; wherefore the act is _impossible_, by the definition; which is contrary to what was supposed.
"A _necessary act_ is that, the production of which it is impossible to hinder: and therefore every act that shall be produced, shall necessarily be produced; for that it shall not be produced is impossible, because, as has already been demonstrated, every possible act shall at some time be produced.
Nay, this proposition--_What shall be shall be_--is as necessary a proposition as this--_A man is a man_.
"But here, perhaps, some man will ask whether those future things which are commonly called _contingents_, are necessary.
I say, then, that generally all contingents have their necessary causes, but are called _contingents_, in respect of other events on which they do not depend--as the rain which shall be to-morrow shall be necessary, that is, from necessary causes; but we think and say, it happens by chance, because we do not yet perceive the causes thereof, though they exist now.
For men commonly call that _casual_ or _contingent_, whereof they do not perceive the necessary cause: _and in the same manner they use to speak of things past, when not knowing whether a thing be done or not, they say, It is possible it never was done._ "Wherefore all propositions concerning future things, contingent or not contingent, as this--It will rain to-morrow, or To-morrow the sun will rise--are either necessarily true or necessarily false: but we call them contingent, because we do not yet know whether they be true or false; whereas their verity depends not upon our knowledge, but upon the foregoing of their causes.
But there are some, who, though they will confess this whole proposition--_ To-morrow it will either rain or not rain_--to be true, yet they will not acknowledge the parts of it, as, _To-morrow it will rain_, or _To-morrow it will not rain_, to be either of them true by itself; because (they say) neither this nor that is true _determinately_.
But what is this _true determinately_, but true _upon our knowledge_ or _evidently true_?
And therefore they say no more but that it is not yet known whether it be true or not; but they say it more obscurely, and darken the evidence of the truth with the same words by which they endeavour to hide their own ignorance."]
[Footnote 67: The reader will find this problem admirably handled in Mr. John Stuart Mill's System of Logic, Book iii.
ch.
21, and Book vi.
chs.
2 and 8; also in the volume of Professor Bain on the Emotions and the Will, Chapter on Belief.]
Besides the above doctrine respecting Possible and Impossible, there is also ascribed to Diodorus a doctrine respecting Hypothetical Propositions, which, as far as I comprehend it, appears to have been a correct one.
[68] He is also said to have reasoned against the reality of motion, renewing the arguments of Zeno the Eleate.
[Footnote 68: Sextus Emp.
Pyrrhon.
Hypotyp.
ii.
pp.
110-115.
[Greek: a)lêthe\s sunêmme/non].
Adv.
Mathemat.
viii.
112.
Philo maintained that an hypothetical proposition was true, if both the antecedent and consequent were true--"If it be day, I am conversing".
Diodorus denied that this proposition, as an Hypothetical proposition, was true: since the consequent might be false, though the antecedent were true.
An Hypothetical proposition was true only when, assuming the antecedent to be true, the consequent must be true also.]
[Side-note: Reasonings of Diodôrus--respecting Hypothetical Propositions--respecting Motion.
His difficulties about the _Now_ of time.]
But if he reproduced the arguments of Zeno, he also employed another, peculiar to himself.
He admitted the reality of _past_ motion: but he denied the reality of _present_ motion.
You may affirm truly (he said) that a thing _has been moved_: but you cannot truly affirm that any thing _is being moved_.
Since it was _here_ before, and is _there_ now, you may be sure that it has been moved: but actual present motion you cannot perceive or prove.
Affirmation in the perfect tense may be true, when affirmation in the present tense neither is nor ever was true: thus it is true to say--Helen _had_ three husbands (Menelaus, Paris, Deiphobus): but it was never true to say--Helen _has_ three husbands, since they became her husbands in succession.
[69] Diodorus supported this paradox by some ingenious arguments, and the opinion which he denied seems to have presented itself to him as involving the position of indivisible minima--atoms of body, points of space, instants of time.
He admitted such minima of atoms, but not of space or time: and without such admission he could not make intelligible to himself the fact of present or actual motion.
He could find no present _Now_ or Minimum of Time; without which neither could any present motion be found.
Plato in the Parmenidês[70] professes to have found this inexplicable moment of transition, but he describes it in terms not likely to satisfy a dialectical mind: and Aristotle denying that the Now is any portion or constituent part of time, considers it only as a boundary of the past and future.
[71] [Footnote 69: Sextus Empir.
adv.
Mathemat.
x. pp.
85-101.]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 156 D-E. [Greek: Po/t' ou)=n, metaba/llei?
ou)/te ga\r e(sto\s a)\n ou)/te kenou/menon meta/balloi, ou)/te e)n chro/nô| o)/n].
(Here Plato adverts to the difficulties attending the supposition of actual [Greek: metabolê/], as Diodorus to those of actual [Greek: ki/nêsis].
Next we have Plato's hypothesis for getting over the difficulties.)
[Greek: A)=r' ou)=n e)sti/ to\ a)/topon tou=to, e)n ô)=| to/t' a)\n ei)/ê o(/te metaba/llei?
To\ poi=on dê/?
_To\ e)xai/phnês; ê( e)xai/phnês au)/tê phu/sis a)/topos_ tis e)gka/thêtai metaxu\ tê=s kinê/seôs te kai\ sta/seôs, e)n chro/nô| ou)deni\ ou)=sa, kai\ ei)s tau/tên dê\ kai\ e)k tau/tês to/ te kinou/menon metaba/llei e)pi\ to\ e)sta/nai kai\ to\ e)sto\s e)pi\ to\ kinei=sthai].
Diodorus could not make out this [Greek: phu/sis a)/topos] which Plato calls [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês].]
[Footnote 71: To illustrate this apparent paradox of Diodorus, affirming past motion, but denying present motion, we may compare what is said by Aristotle about the Now or Point of Present Time--that it is not a part, but a boundary between Past and Future.
Aristot.
Physic.
iv.
p. 218, a.
4-10.
[Greek: tou= de\ chro/non ta\ me\n ge/gone, ta\ de\ me/llei, e)sti d' ou)de\n, o)/ntos meristou=; to\ de\ nu=n ou) me/ros--to\ de\ nu=n pe/ras e)/sti] (a.
24)--p. 222, a.
10-20-223, a.
20.
[Greek: o( de\ chro/nos kai\ ê( ki/nêsis a(/ma kata/ te du/namin kai\ kat' e)nergei/an].
Which doctrine is thus rendered by Harris in his Hermes, ch.
vii.
pp.
101-103-105:--"Both Points and Nows being taken as Bounds, and not as Parts, it will follow that in the same manner as the same point may be the end of one line and the beginning of another--so the same Now may be the End of one time, and the beginning of another.
.
.
I say of these two times, that with respect to the _Now_, or Instant which they include, the first of them is necessarily Past time, as being previous to it: the other is necessarily Future, as being subsequent.
.
.
From the above speculations, there follow some conclusions, which may be called paradoxes, till they have been attentively considered.
In the first place, there cannot (strictly speaking) be any such thing as Time Present.
For if all Time be transient, as well as continuous, it cannot like a line be present altogether, but part will necessarily be gone and part be coming.
If therefore any portion of its continuity were to be present at once, it would so far quit its transient nature, and be Time no longer.
But if no portion of its continuity can be thus present, how can Time possibly be present, to which such continuity is essential?"
--Compare Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy, p.
581.]
[Side-note: Motion is always present, past, and future.]
This opinion of Aristotle is in the main consonant with that of Diodorus; who, when he denied the reality of present motion, meant probably only to deny the reality of _present motion apart from past and future motion_.
Herein also we find him agreeing with Hobbes, who denies the same in clearer language.
[72] Sextus Empiricus declares Diodorus to have been inconsistent in admitting past motion while he denied present motion.
[73] But this seems not more inconsistent than the doctrine of Aristotle respecting the _Now_ of time.
I know, when I compare a child or a young tree with what they respectively were a year ago, that they have grown: but whether they actually are growing, at every moment of the intervening time, is not ascertainable by sense, and is a matter of probable inference only.
[74] Diodorus could not understand present motion, except in conjunction with past and future motion, as being the common limit of the two: but he could understand past motion, without reference to present or future.
He could not state to himself a satisfactory theory respecting the beginning of motion: as we may see by his reasonings distinguishing the motion of a body all at once in its integrity, from the motion of a body considered as proceeding from the separate motion of its constituent atoms--the moving atoms preponderating over the atoms at rest, and determining them to motion,[75] until gradually the whole body came to move.
The same argument re-appears in another example, when he argues--The wall does not fall while its component stones hold together, for then it is still standing: nor yet when they have come apart, for then it _has_ fallen.
[76] [Footnote 72: Hobbes, First Grounds of Philosophy, ii.
8, 11.
"That is said to be at rest which, during any time, is in one place; and that to be moved, or to have been moved, which whether it be now at rest or moved, was formerly in another place from that which it is now in.
From which definition it may be inferred, first, that whatsoever is moved _has been_ moved: for if it still be in the same place in which it was formerly, it is at rest: but if it be in another place, it _has been_ moved, by the definition of moved.
Secondly, that what _is_ moved, _will yet_ be moved: for that which is moved, leaveth the place where it is, and consequently will be moved still.
Thirdly, that whatsoever is moved, is not in one place during any time, how little soever that may be: for by the definition of rest, that which is in one place during any time, is at rest.
.
.
.
From what is above demonstrated--namely, that whatsoever _is_ moved, _has also been_ moved, and _will be_ moved: this also may be collected, That there can be no conception of motion without conceiving past and future time."]
[Footnote 73: Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
x. pp.
91-97-112-116.]
[Footnote 74: See this point touched by Plato in Philêbus, p. 43 B.]
[Footnote 75: Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
x.
113.
[Greek: ki/nêsis kat' ei)likri/neian .
.
.
ki/nêsis kat' e)pikra/teian].
Compare Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griech.
ii.
p. 191, ed.
2nd.]
[Footnote 76: Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
x. pp.
346-348.]
[Side-note: Stilpon of Megara--His great celebrity.]
That Diodorus was a person seriously anxious to solve logical difficulties, as well as to propose them, would be incontestably proved if we could believe the story recounted of him--that he hanged himself because he could not solve a problem proposed by Stilpon in the presence of Ptolemy Soter.
[77] But this story probably grew out of the fact, that Stilpon succeeded Diodorus at Megara, and eclipsed him in reputation.
The celebrity of Stilpon, both at Megara and at Athens (between 320-300 B.C., but his exact date can hardly be settled), was equal, if not superior, to that of any contemporary philosopher.
He was visited by listeners from all parts of Greece, and he drew away pupils from the most renowned teachers of the day; from Theophrastus as well as the others.
[78] He was no less remarkable for fertility of invention than for neatness of expression.
Two persons, who came for the purpose of refuting him, are said to have remained with him as admirers and scholars.
All Greece seemed as it were looking towards him, and inclining towards the Megaric doctrines.
[79] He was much esteemed both by Ptolemy Soter and by Demetrius Poliorkêtes, though he refused the presents and invitations of both: and there is reason to believe that his reputation in his own day must have equalled that of either Plato or Aristotle in theirs.
He was formidable in disputation; but the nine dialogues which he composed and published are characterised by Diogenes as cold.
[80] [Footnote 77: Diog.
L. ii.
112.]
[Footnote 78: This is asserted by Diogenes upon the authority of [Greek: Phi/lippos o( Megriko/s], whom he cites [Greek: kata\ le/xin].
We do not know anything about Philippus.
Menedêmus, who spoke with contempt of the other philosophers, even of Plato and Xenokrates, admired Stilpon (Diog.
L. ii.
134).]
[Footnote 79: The phrase of Diogenes is here singular, and must probably have been borrowed from a partisan--[Greek: ô(/ste mikrou= deê=sai pa=san tê\n E(lla/da a)phorô=san ei)s au)to\n megari/sai].
Stilpon [Greek: eu(resilogi/a| kai\ sophistei/a| proê=ge tou\s a)/llous--kompso/tatos] (Diog.
L. ii.
113-115).]
[Footnote 80: Diog.
L. ii.
119-120.
[Greek: psuchroi/].]
[Side-note: Menedêmus and the Eretriacs.]
Contemporary with Stilpon (or perhaps somewhat later) was Menedêmus of Eretria, whose philosophic parentage is traced to Phædon.
The name of Phædon has been immortalised, not by his own works, but by the splendid dialogue of which Plato has made him the reciter.
He is said (though I doubt the fact) to have been a native of Elis.
He was of good parentage, a youthful companion of Sokrates in the last years of his life.
[81] After the death of Sokrates, Phædon went to Elis, composed some dialogues, and established a succession or sect of philosophers--Pleistanus, Anchipylus, Moschus.
Of this sect Menedêmus,[82] contemporary and hearer of Stilpon, became the most eminent representative, and from him it was denominated Eretriac instead of Eleian.
The Eretriacs, as well as the Megarics, took up the negative arm of philosophy, and were eminent as puzzlers and controversialists.
[Footnote 81: The story given by Diogenes L. (ii.
31 and 106; compare Aulus Gellius, ii.
18) about Phædon's adventures antecedent to his friendship with Sokrates, is unintelligible to me.
"Phædon was made captive along with his country (Elis), sold at Athens, and employed in a degrading capacity; until Sokrates induced Alkibiades or Kriton to pay his ransom."
Now, no such event as the capture of Elis, and the sale of its Eupatrids as slaves, happened at that time: the war between Sparta and Elis (described by Xenophon, Hell.
iii.
2, 21 seq.)
led to no such result, and was finished, moreover, after the death of Sokrates.
Alkibiades had been long in exile.
If, in the text of Diogenes, where we now read [Greek: Phai/dôn, _Ê(/leios_, tô=n eu)patridô=n]--we were allowed to substitute [Greek: Phai/dôn, _Mê/lios_, tô=n eu)patridô=n]--the narrative would be rendered consistent with known historical facts.
The Athenians captured the island of Melos in 415 B.C., put to death the Melians of military age, and sold into slavery the younger males as well as the females (Thucyd.
v. 116).
If Phædon had been a Melian youth of good family, he would have been sold at Athens, and might have undergone the adventures narrated by Diogenes.
We know that Alkibiades purchased a female Melian as slave (Pseudo-Andokides cont.
Alkibiad.).]
[Footnote 82: Diog.
L. ii.
105, 126 seq.
There was a statue of Menedêmus in the ancient stadium of Eretria: Diogenes speaks as if it existed in his time, and as if he himself had seen it (ii.
132).]
[Side-note: Open speech and licence of censure assumed by Menedêmus.]
But though this was the common character of the two, in a logical point of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as Menedêmus, other elements became blended with the logical.
These persons combined, in part at least, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with the subtlety of Eukleides.
What we hear of Menedêmus is chiefly his bitter, stinging sarcasms, and clever repartees.
He did not, like the Cynic Diogenes, live in contented poverty, but occupied a prominent place (seemingly under the patronage of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of his native city Eretria.
Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated than Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness of giving offence to others.
[83] [Footnote 83: Diog.
L. ii.
129-142.]
* * * * * ANTISTHENES.
[Side-note: Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative Logic intermingled.]
Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers, was one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the Sokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly over.
He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have been on the negative side.
But respecting ethics, he laid down affirmative propositions,[84] and delivered peremptory precepts.
His aversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was declared in the most emphatic language.
He had therefore, in the negative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics: so that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and Menedêmus, is a fact not difficult to explain.
[Footnote 84: Clemens Alexandr.
Stromat.
ii.
20, p. 485, Potter.
[Greek: e)gô\ d' a)pode/chomai to\n A)phrodi/tên le/gonta ka)\|n katatoxeu/saimi, ei) la/boimi], &c. [Greek: Manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê)sthei/ên], Diog.
L. vi.
3.]
The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety of persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious, and his ethical influence operated in different ways.
His mode of life, too, exercised a certain influence of its own.
[Side-note: He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and rigour.]
Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer approximations to Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the Sokratic companions.
The extraordinary colloquial and cross-examining force was indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to none of them: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic purpose of inculcating practical ethics not merely by word of mouth, but also by manner of life.
He was not inferior to his master in contentment under poverty, in strength of will and endurance,[85] in acquired insensibility both to pain and pleasure, in disregard of opinion around him, and in fearless exercise of a self-imposed censorial mission.
He learnt from Sokrates indifference to conventional restraints and social superiority, together with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum, and stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity.
To this last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that the Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came nearest to the Gods.
[86] By Antisthenes, these qualities were exhibited in eminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes they were still farther exaggerated.
Epiktetus, a warm admirer of both, considers them as following up the mission from Zeus which Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) sets forth as his authority, to make men independent of the evils of life by purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good and evil in the mind of each individual.
[87] [Footnote 85: Cicero, de Orator.
iii.
17, 62; Diog.
L. vi.
2.
[Greek: par' ou)=] (Sokrates) [Greek: kai\ to\ karteriko\n labô\n kai\ to\ a)pathe\s zêlô/sas katê=rxe prô=tos tou= kunismou=]: also vi.
15.
The appellation of Cynics is said to have arisen from the practice of Antisthenes to frequent the gymnasium called [Greek: Kuno/sarges] (D. L. vi.
13), though other causes are also assigned for the denomination (Winckelmann, Antisth.
Frag.
pp.
8-10).]
[Footnote 86: Sokrates had said, [Greek: to\ mêdeno\s de/esthai, thei=on ei)=nai; to\ d' ô(s e)lachi/stôn, e)gguta/tô tou= thei/ou] (Xenophon, Memor.
i.
6, 10.
Compare Apuleius, Apol.
p. 25).
Plato, Gorgias, p. 492 E. The same dictum is ascribed to Diogenes (Diog.
L. vi.
105).]
[Footnote 87: Epiktetus, Dissert.
iii.
1, 19-22, iii.
21-19, iii.
24-40-60-69.
The whole of the twenty-second Dissertation, [Greek: Peri\ Kunismou=], is remarkable.
He couples Sokrates with Diogenes more closely than with any one else.]
[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic.
He despised music, literature, and physics.]
Antisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at--and to be sufficient _per se_ for conferring happiness; but he also declared that virtue must be manifested in acts and character, not by words.
Neither much discourse nor much learning was required for virtue; nothing else need be postulated except bodily strength like that of Sokrates.
[88] He undervalued theory even in regard to Ethics: much more in regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised literary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men's attention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment, and the adaptation of their own conduct to it.
He maintained strenuously (what several Platonic dialogues call in question) that virtue both could be taught and must be taught: when once learnt, it was permanent, and could not be eradicated.
He prescribed the simplest mode of life, the reduction of wants to a minimum, with perfect indifference to enjoyment, wealth, or power.
The reward was, exemption from fear, anxiety, disappointments, and wants: together with the pride of approximation to the Gods.
[89] Though Antisthenes thus despised both literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical education, and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias.
He composed a large number of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles (very multifarious) are preserved to us.
[90] One dialogue, entitled Sathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer and of other poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised.
Some of his dialogues are also declared by Athenæus to contain slanderous abuse of Alkibiades and other leading Athenians.
On the other hand, the dialogues are much commended by competent judges; and Theopompus even affirmed that much in the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from those of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.
[91] [Footnote 88: Diog.
L. vi.
11.]
[Footnote 89: Diog.
L. vi.
102-104.]
[Footnote 90: Diog.
L. vi.
1, 15-18.
The two remaining fragments--[Greek: Ai)/as, O)/dusseu\s] (Winckelmann, Antisth.
Fragm.
pp.
38-42)--cannot well be genuine, though Winckelmann seems to think them so.]
[Footnote 91: Athenæus, v. 220, xi.
508; Diog.
L. iii.
24-35; Phrynichus ap.
Photium, cod.
158; Epiktêtus, ii.
16-35.
Antisthenes is placed in the same line with Kritias and Xenophon, as a Sokratic writer, by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, De Thucyd.
Jud.
p. 941.
That there was standing reciprocal hostility between Antisthenes and Plato we can easily believe.
Plato never names Antisthenes: and if the latter attacked Plato, it was under the name of Sathon.
How far Plato in his dialogues intends to attack Antisthenes without naming him--is difficult to determine.
Probably he does intend to designate Antisthenes as [Greek: ge/rôn o)psimathê/s], in Sophist.
251.
Schleiermacher and other commentators think that he intends to attack Antisthenes in Philêbus, Theætêtus, Euthydêmus, &c. But this seems to me not certain.
In Philêbus, p. 44, he can hardly include Antisthenes among the [Greek: ma/la deinoi\ peri\ phu/sin].
Antisthenes neglected the study of [Greek: phu/sis].]
[Side-note: Constant friendship of Antisthenes with Sokrates--Xenophontic Symposion.]
Antisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers of Sokrates, both in his serious and in his playful colloquies.
[92] The Symposion of Xenophon describes both of them, in their hours of joviality.
The picture drawn by an author, himself a friend and companion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret caricature and jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying, austere, repulsive, and disputatious--yet bold and free-spoken, careless of giving offence, and forcible in colloquial repartee.
[93] [Footnote 92: Xenophon, Memor.
iii.
11, 17.]
[Footnote 93: Xenophon, Memorab.
iii.
11, 17; Symposion, ii.
10, iv.
2-3-44.
Plutarch (Quæst.
Symp.
ii.
1, 6, p. 632) and Diogenes Laertius (vi.
1, 15) appear to understand the description of Xenophon as ascribing to Antisthenes a winning and conciliatory manner.
To me it conveys the opposite impression.
We must recollect that the pleasantry of the Xenophontic Symposion (not very successful as pleasantry) is founded on the assumption, by each person, of qualities and pretensions the direct reverse of that which he has in reality--and on his professing to be proud of that which is a notorious disadvantage.
Thus Sokrates pretends to possess great personal beauty, and even puts himself in competition with the handsome youth Kritobulus; he also prides himself on the accomplishments of a good [Greek: mastropo/s].
Antisthenes, quite indigent, boasts of his wealth; the neglected Hermogenes boasts of being powerfully friended.
The passage, iv.
57, 61, which talks of the winning manners of Antisthenes, and his power of imparting popular accomplishments, is to be understood in this ironical and inverted sense.]
[Side-note: Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes--His Cynical perfection--striking effect which he produced.]
In all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by his pupil and successor Diogenes of Sinôpê; whose ostentatious austerity of life, eccentric and fearless character, indifference to what was considered as decency, great acuteness and still greater power of expression, freedom of speech towards all and against all--constituted him the perfect type of the Cynical sect.
Being the son of a money-agent at Sinôpê, he was banished with his father for fraudulently counterfeiting the coin of the city.
On coming to Athens as an exile, he was captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first unwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his invincible importunity.
Diogenes welcomed his banishment, with all its poverty and destitution, as having been the means of bringing him to Antisthenes,[94] and to a life of philosophy.
It was Antisthenes (he said) who emancipated him from slavery, and made him a freeman.
He was clothed in one coarse garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet (afterwards the symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to have been without any roof or lodging--dwelling sometimes in a tub near the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples: he is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day.
He here indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of speech, which he looked upon as the greatest blessing of life.
No man ever turned that blessing to greater account: the string of repartees, sarcasms, and stinging reproofs, which are attributed to him by Diogenes Laertius, is very long, but forms only a small proportion of those which that author had found recounted.
[95] Plato described Diogenes as Sokrates running mad:[96] and when Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian guests at his house and treading upon his best carpet, exclaimed "I am treading on Plato's empty vanity and conceit," Plato rejoined "Yes, with a different vanity of your own ".
The impression produced by Diogenes in conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by young and old.
Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his hearers.
[97] In crossing the sea to Ægina, Diogenes was captured by pirates, taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the herald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon Diogenes replied--To command men.
At his own instance, a rich Corinthian named Xeniades bought him and transported him to Corinth.
Diogenes is said to have assumed towards Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed him at the head of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons.
In both capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well.
[98] As a slave well treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of speech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as a freeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers of friends to purchase his liberation.
He died at Corinth in very old age: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.C.
323).
He was buried at the gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a monument being erected to his honour, with a column of Parian marble crowned by the statue of a dog.
[99] [Footnote 94: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 21-49; Plutarch Quæst.
Sympos.
ii.
1, 7; Epiktetus, iii.
22, 67, iv.
1, 114; Dion Chrysostom.
Orat.
viii.-ix.-x.
Plutarch quotes two lines from Diogenes respecting Antisthenes:-[Greek: O(/s me r(a/kê t' ê)/mpische ka\xêna/gkase Ptôcho\n gene/sthai kai\ do/môn a)na/staton-ou) ga\r a)\n o(moi/ôs pithano\s ê)=n le/gôn--O(/s me sopho\n kai\ au)ta/rkê kai\ maka/rion e)poi/êse].
The interpretation given of the passage by Plutarch is curious, but quite in the probable meaning of the author.
However, it is not easy to reconcile with the fact of this extreme poverty another fact mentioned about Diogenes, that he asked fees from listeners, in one case as much as a mina (Diog.
L. vi.
2, 67).]
[Footnote 95: Diog.
L. v. 18, vi.
2, 69.
[Greek: e)rôtêthei\s ti/ ka/lliston e)n a)nthrô/pois e)/phê--par)r(êsi/a].
Among the numerous lost works of Theophrastus (enumerated by Diogen.
Laert.
v. 43) one is [Greek: Tô=n Dioge/nous Sunagôgê\, a/], a remarkable evidence of the impression made by the sayings and proceedings of Diogenes upon his contemporaries.
Compare Dion Chrysostom.
Or.
ix.
(vol.
i.
288 seq.
Reiske) for the description of the conduct of Diogenes at the Isthmian festival, and the effect produced by it on spectators.
These smart sayings, of which so many are ascribed to Diogenes, and which he is said to have practised beforehand, and to have made occasions for--[Greek: o(/ti chrei/an ei)/ê memeletêkô/s] (Diog.
L. v. 18, vi.
91, vii.
26)--were called by the later rhetors [Greek: Chrei=ai].
See Hermogenes and Theon, apud Walz, Rhetor.
Græc.
i. pp.
19-201; Quintilian, i.
9, 4.
Such collections of _Ana_ were ascribed to all the philosophers in greater or less number.
Photius, in giving the list of books from which the Sophist Sopater collected extracts, indicates one as [Greek: Ta\ Dioge/nous tou= Kunikou= A)pophthe/gmata] (Codex 161).]
[Footnote 96: Diog.
L. vi.
54: [Greek: Sôkra/tês maino/ menos].
vi.
26: [Greek: Oi( de\ phasi to\n Dioge/nên ei)pei=n, Patô= to\n Pla/tônos tu=phon; to\n de\ pha/nai, E(te/rô| ge tu/phô|, Dio/genes].
The term [Greek: tu=phos] ("vanity, self-conceit, assumption of knowing better than others, being puffed up by the praise of vulgar minds") seems to have been mach interchanged among the ancient philosophers, each of them charging it upon his opponents; while the opponents of philosophy generally imputed it to all philosophers alike.
Pyrrho the Sceptic took credit for being the only [Greek: a)/tuphos]: and he is complimented as such by his panegyrist Timon in the Silli.
Aristokles affirmed that Pyrrho had just as much [Greek: tu=phon] as the rest.
Eusebius, Præp.
Evang.
xiv.
18.]
[Footnote 97: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 75-76.]
[Footnote 98: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 74.
Xeniades was mentioned by Democritus: he is said to have been a sceptic (Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
48-53), at least he did not recognise any [Greek: kritê/rion].]
[Footnote 99: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 77-78.
Diogenes seems to have been known by his contemporaries under the title of [Greek: o( Ku/ôn].
Aristotle cites from him a witty comparison under that designation, Rhetoric.
iii.
10, 1410, a.
24.
[Greek: kai\ o( Ku/ôn (e)ka/lei) ta\ kapêlei=a, ta\ A)ttika\ phidi/tia.]]
[Side-note: Doctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes--Contempt of pleasure--training and labour required--indifference to literature and geometry.]
In politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes adopted views of his own, and spoke them out freely.
He was a freethinker (like Antisthenes) as to the popular religion: and he disapproved of marriage laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes ought to be left to individual taste and preference.
[100] Though he respected the city and conformed to its laws, yet he had no reverence for existing superstitions, or for the received usages as to person, sex, or family.
He declared himself to be a citizen of the Kosmos and of Nature.
[101] His sole exigency was, independence of life, and freedom of speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully sufficient to himself for happiness, and proud of his own superiority to human weakness.
The main benefit which he derived from philosophy (he said) was, that he was prepared for any fortune that might befall him.
To be ready to accept death easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent life.
[102] He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or training ([Greek: a)/skêsis]) both as to the body and as to the mind.
Without this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything might be achieved.
But he required that the labours imposed should be directed to the acquisition of habits really useful; instead of being wasted, as they commonly were, upon objects frivolous and showy.
The truly wise man ought to set before him as a model the laborious life of Hêraklês: and he would find, after proper practice and training, that the contempt of pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than the pleasures themselves.
[103] [Footnote 100: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 72.
Cicero, De Nat.
Deor.
i.
13.]
[Footnote 101: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 63-71.
The like declaration is ascribed to Sokrates.
Epiktêtus, i.
9, 1.]
[Footnote 102: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 63, 72.
[Greek: mêde\n e)leutheri/as prokri/nôn].
Epiktêtus, iv.
1, 30.
[Greek: Ou(/tô kai\ Dioge/nês le/gei, mi/an ei)=nai mêchanê\n pro\s e)leutheri/an--to\ eu)ko/lôs a)pothnê/skein].
Compare iv.
7-28, i.
24, 6.]
[Footnote 103: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 70-71.
[Greek: kai\ ga\r au)tê\ tê=s ê(donê=s ê( kataphro/nêsis ê(duta/tê promeletêthei=sa, kai\ ô(/sper oi( sunethisthe/ntes ê(de/ôs zê=|n, a)êdô=s e)pi\ tou)nanti/on meti/asin, ou(/tô oi( tou)nanti/on a)skêthe/ntes ê(/dion au)tô=n tô=n ê(donô=n kataphronou=si].
See Lucian, Vitar.
Auct.
c. 9, about the hard life and the happiness of Diogenes.
Compare s. 26 about the [Greek: tu=phos] of Diogenes treading down the different [Greek: tu=phos] of Plato, and Epiktêtus iii.
22, 57.
Antisthenes, in his dialogue or discourse called [Greek: Ê(raklê=s], appears to have enforced the like appeal to that hero as an example to others.
See Winckelmann, Fragm.
Antisthen.
pp.
15-18.]
[Side-note: Admiration of Epiktêtus for Diogenes, especially for his consistency in acting out his own ethical creed.]
Diogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich.
But he despised much of what was commonly imparted as education--music, geometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with equal scorn Plato and Eukleides.
[104] He is said however to have conducted the education of the sons of his master Xeniades[105] without material departure from the received usage.
He caused them to undergo moderate exercise (not with a view to athletic success) in the palæstra, and afterwards to practise riding, shooting with the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging and hunting: he cultivated their memories assiduously, by recitations from poets and prose authors, and even from his own compositions: he kept them on bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing only such as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually silent, and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad.
These latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as described by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast with Athens as the apartments of the men with those of the women.
Diogenes is said to have composed several dialogues and even some tragedies.
[106] But his most impressive display (like that of Sokrates) was by way of colloquy--prompt and incisive interchange of remarks.
He was one of the few philosophers who copied Sokrates in living constantly before the public--in talking with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly, in putting home questions like a physician to his patient.
[107] Epiktêtus,--speaking of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to Sokrates--draws a distinction pertinent and accurate.
"To Sokrates" (says he) "Zeus assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function: to Diogenes, the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic) the didactic and dogmatical."
While thus describing Diogenes justly enough, Epiktetus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person and his extreme gentleness and good-nature:[108] qualities for which probably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received credit from his contemporaries.
Diogenes seems to have really possessed--that which his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable--the Sokratic physical strength and vigour.
His ethical creed, obtained from Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by Zeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century.
But the remarkable feature in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktêtus, is--that he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and resolutely, in his manner of life:[109] an example followed by some of his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined themselves to writing and preaching.
Contemporary both with Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits strength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach, and self-acting independence--in antithesis to their higher gifts and cultivation of intellect.
He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the most original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.
[Footnote 104: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 68-73-24-27.]
[Footnote 105: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 30-31.]
[Footnote 106: Diog.
L. vi.
2, 80.
Diogenes Laertius himself cites a fact from one of the dialogues--Pordalus (vi.
2, 20): and Epiktêtus alludes to the treatise on Ethics by Diogenes--[Greek: e)n tê=| Ê)thikê=|]--ii.
20, 14.
It appears however that the works ascribed to Diogenes were not admitted by all authors as genuine (Diog.
L.
c.).]
[Footnote 107: Dion Chrysost.
Or.
x.; De Servis, p. 295 E. Or.
ix.
; Isthmicus, p. 289 R. [Greek: ô(/sper i)atroi\ a)nakri/nousi tou\s a)sthenou=ntas, ou(/tôs Dioge/nês a)ne/krine to\n a)/nthrôpon], &c.] [Footnote 108: Epiktêtus, iii.
21, 19.
[Greek: ô(s Sôkra/tei sunebou/leue tê\n e)legktikê\n chô/ran e)/chein, ô(s Dioge/nei tê\n basilikê\n kai\ e)piplêktikê/n, ô(s Zê/nôni tê\n didaskalikê\n kai\ dogmatikê/n].
About [Greek: to\ ê(/meron kai\ phila/nthrôpon] of Diogenes, see Epiktêtus, iii.
24, 64; who also tells us (iv.
11, 19), professing to follow the statements of contemporaries, that the bodies both of Sokrates and Diogenes were by nature so sweet and agreeable ([Greek: e)pi/chari kai\ ê(du/]) as to dispense with the necessity of washing.
"Ego certé" (says Seneca, Epist.
108, 13-14, about the lectures of the eloquent Stoic Attalus) "cum Attalum audirem, in vitia, in errores, in mala vitæ perorantem, sæpé misertus sum generis humani, et illum sublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi.
Ipse regem se esse dicebat: sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram agere regnantium."
See also his treatises De Beneficiis, v. 4-6, and De Tranquillitate Animi (c. 8), where, after lofty encomium on Diogenes, he exclaims--"Si quis de felicitate Diogenis dubitat, potest idem dubitare et de Deorum immortalium statu, an parum beaté degant," &c.] [Footnote 109: Cicero, in his Oration in defence of Murena (30-61-62) compliments Cato (the accuser) as one of the few persons who adopted the Stoic tenets with a view of acting them out, and who did really act them out--"Hæc homo ingeniosissimus M. Cato, autoribus eruditissimis inductus, arripuit: neque disputandi causa, ut magna pars, sed ita vivendi".
Tacitus (Histor.
iv.
5) pays the like compliment to Helvidius Priscus.
M. Gaston Boissier (Étude sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Varron, pp.
113-114, Paris, 1861) expresses an amount of surprise which I should not have expected, on the fact that persons adopted a philosophical creed for the purpose only of debating it and defending it, and not of acting it out.
But he recognises the fact, in regard to Varro and his contemporaries, in terms not less applicable to the Athenian world: amidst such general practice, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates, &c., stood out as memorable exceptions.
"Il ne faut pas non plus oublier de quelle manière, et dans quel esprit, les Romains lettrés étudiaient la philosophie Grecque.
Ils venaient écouter les plus habiles maîtres, connaître les sectes les plus célèbres: mais ils les étudiaient plutôt en curieux, qu'ils ne s'y attachaient en adeptes.
On ne les voit guères approfondir un système et s'y tenir, adopter un ensemble de croyances, et y conformer leur conduite.
On étudiait le plus souvent la philosophie pour discuter.
C'était seulement une matière à des conversations savantes, un exercice et un aliment pour les esprits curieux.
Voilà pourquoi la secte Académique étoit alors mieux accueillie que les autres," &c.] [Side-note: Admiration excited by the asceticism of the Cynics--Asceticism extreme in the East--Comparison of the Indian Gymnosophists with Diogenes.]
Respecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers generally, we have to regard not merely their doctrines, but the effect produced by their severity of life.
In this point Diogenes surpassed his master Antisthenes, whose life he criticised as not fully realising the lofty spirit of his doctrine.
The spectacle of man not merely abstaining from enjoyment, but enduring with indifference hunger, thirst, heat, cold, poverty, privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises a powerful influence on the imagination of mankind.
It calls forth strong feelings of reverence and admiration in the beholders: while in the sufferer himself also, self-reverence and self-admiration, the sense of power and exaltation above the measure of humanity, is largely developed.
The extent to which self-inflicted hardships and pains have prevailed in various regions of the earth, the long-protracted and invincible resolution with which they have been endured, and the veneration which such practices have procured for the ascetics who submitted to them are among the most remarkable chapters in history.
[110] The East, especially India, has always been, and still is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have reached their extreme pitch of severity; even surpassing those of the Christian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth and fifth centuries of the Christian era.
[111] When Alexander the Great first opened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the novelties which most surprised him and his followers was, the sight of the Gymnosophists or naked philosophers.
These men were found lying on the ground, either totally uncovered or with nothing but a cloth round the loins; abstaining from all enjoyment, nourishing themselves upon a minimum of coarse vegetables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat of the plain, and the extreme cold of the mountain; and often superadding pain, fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of posture.
They passed their time either in silent meditation or in discourse on religion and philosophy: they were venerated as well as consulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in the land.
Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of endurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable necessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority.
They acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches under the name of Sokrates in the Phædon--That the whole life of the philosopher is a preparation for death: that life is worthless, and death an escape from it into a better state.
[112] It is an interesting fact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alexander's officers, who had known and frequented the society of Diogenes in Greece), being despatched during the Macedonian march through India for the purpose of communicating with these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life and conversed with them he immediately compared them with Diogenes, whom he had himself visited--as well as with Sokrates and Pythagoras, whom he knew by reputation.
Onesikritus described to the Gymnosophists the manner of life of Diogenes: but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle, and this appeared to them a mark of infirmity and imperfection.
They remarked that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent; but wrong for obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed of going naked, as they did.
[113] [Footnote 110: Dion Chrysostom, viii.
p. 275, Reiske.]
[Footnote 111: See the striking description in Gibbon, Decl.
and Fall, ch.
xxxvii.
pp.
253-265.]
[Footnote 112: Strabo, xv.
713 A (probably from Onesikritus, see Geier, Fragment.
Alexandr.
Magn.
Histor.
p. 379).
[Greek: Plei/stous d' au)toi=s ei)=nai lo/gous peri\ tou= thana/tou; nomi/zein ga\r dê\ to\n me\n e)ntha/de bi/on ô(s a)\n a)kmê\n kuome/nôn ei)=nai, to\n de\ tha/naton ge/nesin ei)s to\n o)/ntôs bi/on kai\ to\n eu)dai/mona toi=s philosophê/sasi; dio\ tê=| a)skê/sei plei/stê| chrê=sthai pro\s to\ e)toimotha/naton; a)gatho\n de\ ê)\ kako\n mêde\n ei)=nai tô=n sumbaino/ntôn a)nthrô/pois], &c. This is an application of the doctrines laid down by the Platonic Sokrates in the Phædon, p. 64 A: [Greek: Kinduneu/ousi ga\r o(/soi tugcha/nousin o)rthô=s a)pto/menoi philosophi/as lelêthe/nai tou\s a)/llous, o(/ti ou)de\n a)/llo au)toi\ e)pitêdeu/ousin ê)\ a)pothnê/skein te kai\ tethna/nai].
Compare p. 67 D.; Cicero.
Tusc.
D. i.
30.
Compare Epiktêtus, iv.
i.
30 (cited in a former note) about Diogenes the Cynic.
Also Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
v. 27; Valerius Maximus, iii.
3, 6; Diogen.
L. Prooem.
s. 6; Pliny, H. N. vii.
2.
Bohlen observes (Das Alte Indien, ch.
ii.
pp.
279-289), "It is a remarkable fact that Indian writings of the highest antiquity depict as already existing the same ascetic exercises as we see existing at present: they were even then known to the ancients, who were especially astonished at such fanaticism.]
[Footnote 113: Strabo gives a condensed summary of this report, made by Onesikritus respecting his conversation with the Indian Gymnosophist Mandanis, or Dandamis (Strabo, xv.
p. 716 B):--[Greek: Tau=t' ei)po/nta e)xere/sthai] (Dandamis asked Onesikritus), [Greek: ei) kai\ e)n toi=s E(/llêsi lo/goi toiou=toi le/gointo.
Ei)po/ntos d' (O)nêsikri/tou), o(/ti kai\ Puthago/ras toiau=ta le/goi, keleu/oi te e)mpsu/chôn a)pe/chesthai, kai\ Sôkra/tês, kai\ Dioge/nês, _ou(= kai\ au)to\s_] (Onesikritus) [Greek: _a)kroa/saito_, a)pokri/nasthai] (Dandamis), [Greek: o(/ti ta)/lla me\n nomi/zoi phroni/môs au)toi=s dokei=n, e(\n d' a(marta/nein--no/mon pro\ tê=s phu/seôs titheme/nous; ou) ga\r a)\n ai)schu/nesthai gumnou/s, ô(/sper au)to/n, dia/gein, a)po\ litô=n zô=ntas; kai\ ga\r oi)ki/an a)ri/stên ei)=nai, ê)/tis a)\n e)piskeuê=s e)lachi/stês de/êtai].
About Onesikritus, Diog.
Laert.
vi.
75-84; Plutarch, Alexand.
c. 65; Plutarch, De Fortuna Alexandri, p. 331.
The work of August Gladitsch (Einleitung in das Verständniss der Weltgeschichte, Posen, 1841) contains an instructive comparison between the Gymnosophists and the Cynics, as well as between the Pythagoreans and the Chinese philosophers--between the Eleatic sect and the Hindoo philosophers.
The points of analogy, both in doctrine and practice, are very numerous and strikingly brought out, pp.
356-377.
I cannot, however, agree in his conclusion, that the doctrines and practice of Antisthenes were borrowed, not from Sokrates with exaggeration, but from the Parmenidean theory, and the Vedanta theory of the Ens Unum, leading to negation and contempt of the phenomenal world.]
[Side-note: The precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were carried into fullest execution by the Cynics.]
These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and an application in practice[114] of the memorable declaration of principle enunciated by Sokrates--"That the Gods had no wants: and that the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the Gods".
This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by Sokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly approved by both.
In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle into effect, up to a certain point.
Both admirers and opponents attest his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and privation:[115] but he was a family man, with a wife and children to maintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him fall short of his own ascetic principle.
Plato and Xenophon--both of them well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy, the latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and horsemanship--contented themselves with preaching on the text, whenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than themselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice.
[116] Zeno the Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics did, and still more the Gymnosophists.
Antisthenes, on the other hand, took to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet even he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether constant in rigorous austerity.
His successors Diogenes and Krates attained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of free Greece.
They stood forth as examples of endurance, abnegation--insensibility to shame and fear--free-spoken censure of others.
Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian Gymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and their sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they called the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close approach to divinity.
[117] When Alexander the Great (in the first year of his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything which he wanted--Diogenes made the memorable reply--"Only that you and your guards should stand out of my sunshine".
This reply doubtless manifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher.
Yet it is far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian Gymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers, and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and acknowledged son of Zeus.
[118] [Footnote 114: Onesikritus observes, respecting the Indian Gymnosophists, that "they were more striking in act than in discourse" ([Greek: e)n e)/rgois ga\r au)tou\s krei/ttous ê)\ lo/gois ei)=nai], Strabo, xv.
713 B); and this is true about the Cynic succession of philosophers, in Greece as well as in Rome.
Diogenes Laertius (compare his prooem, s. 19, 20, and vi.
103) ranks the Cynic philosophy as a distinct [Greek: ai(/resis]: but he tells us that other writers (especially Hippobotus) would not reckon it as an [Greek: ai(/resis], but only as an [Greek: e)/nstasis bi/ou]--practice without theory.]
[Footnote 115: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
6, 2-5; Plato, Sympos.
219, 220.
The language of contemporary comic writers, Ameipsias, Eupolis, Aristophanes, &c., about Sokrates--is very much the same as that of Menander a century afterwards about Kratês.
Sokrates is depicted as a Cynic in mode of life (Diogen.
L. ii.
28; Aristophan.
Nubes, 104-362-415).]
[Footnote 116: Zeno, though he received instructions from Kratês, was [Greek: a)/llôs me\n eu)/tonos pro\s tê\n philosophi/an, ai)dê/môn de\ ô(s pro\s tê\n kunikê\n a)naischunti/an] (Diog.
L. vii.
3).
"Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicure quiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis vincere, cum Cynicis excedere," &c. This is the distinction which Seneca draws between Stoic and Cynic (De Brevitat.
Vitæ, 14, 5).
His admiration for the "seminudus" Cynic Demetrius, his contemporary and companion, was extreme (Epist.
62, 2, and Epist.
20, 18).]
[Footnote 117: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
6, 10 (the passage is cited in a previous note).
The Emperor Julian (Orat.
vi.
p. 192 Spanh.)
says about the Cynics--[Greek: a)pa/theian ga\r poiou=ntai to\ te/los, tou=to de\ i)/son e)sti\ tô=| theo\n gene/sthai].
Dion Chrysostom (Or.
vi.
p. 208) says also about Diogenes the Cynic--[Greek: kai\ ma/lista e)mimei=to tô=n theô=n to\n bi/on.]]
[Footnote 118: Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
v. 32, 92, and the Anabasis of Arrian, vii.
1-2-3, where both the reply of Diogenes and that of the Indian Gymnosophists are reported.
Dion Chrysostom (Orat.
iv.
p. 145 seq.
Reiske) gives a prolix dialogue between Alexander and Diogenes.
His picture of the effect produced by Diogenes upon the different spectators at the Isthmian festival, is striking and probable.
Kalanus, one of the Indian Gymnosophists, was persuaded, by the instances of Alexander, to abandon his Indian mode of life and to come away with the Macedonian army--very much to the disgust of his brethren, who scornfully denounced him as infirm and even as the slave of appetite ([Greek: a)ko/laston], Strabo, xv.
718).
He was treated with the greatest consideration and respect by Alexander and his officers; yet when the army came into Persis, he became sick of body and tired of life.
He obtained the reluctant consent of Alexander to allow him to die.
A funeral pile was erected, upon which he voluntarily burnt himself in presence of the whole army; who witnessed the scene with every demonstration of military honour.
See the remarkable description in Arrian, Anab.
vii.
3.
Cicero calls him "Indus indoctus ac barbarus" (Tusc.
Disp.
ii.
22, 52); but the impression which he made on Alexander himself, Onesikritus, Lysimachus, and generally upon all who saw him, was that of respectful admiration (Strabo, xv.
715; Arrian, l. c.).
One of these Indian sages, who had come into Syria along with the Indian envoys sent by an Indian king to the Roman Emperor Augustus, burnt himself publicly at Athens, with an exulting laugh when he leaped upon the funeral pile (Strabo, xv.
720 A)--[Greek: kata\ ta\ pa/tria tô=n I)ndô=n e)/thê].
The like act of self-immolation was performed by the Grecian Cynic Peregrinus Proteus, at the Olympic festival in the reign of Marcus Antoninus, 165 A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.)
Lucian, who was present and saw the proceeding, has left an animated description of it, but ridicules it as a piece of silly vanity.
Theagenes, the admiring disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics, who were present in considerable numbers--and also Lucian himself compare this act to that of the Indian Gymnosophists--[Greek: ou(=tos de\ ti/nos ai)ti/as e(/neken e)mba/llei phe/rôn e(auto\n ei)s to\ pu=r?
nê\ Di/', o(/pôs tê\n karteri/an e)pidei/xêtai, katha/per oi( Brachma=nes] (Lucian, De Morte Peregrini, 25-39, &c.).]
[Side-note: Antithesis between Nature--and Law or Convention--insisted on by the Indian Gymnosophists.]
Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or convention) and nature ([Greek: no/mos--phu/sis])--the supremacy which he asserts for Nature over law--and the way in which he understands Nature and her supposed ordinances.
This antithesis was often put forward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said, without any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them collectively) recognised only the authority of law--while Sokrates and Plato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority of Nature.
The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in the Gorgias, thus far--that he upholds the paramount authority of Nature.
But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the oracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many other dissenting interpreters besides.
[119] Which of them are we to follow?
And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon what grounds are we to justify our preference?
When the Gymnosophist points out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he farther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that the wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a departure from right--how are we to prove to him that his interpretation of nature is the wrong one?
These questions have received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between the two.
[Footnote 119: Though Seneca (De Brevitate Vit.
14) talks of the Stoics as "conquering Nature, and the Cynics as exceeding Nature," yet the Stoic Epiktêtus considers his morality as the only scheme conformable to Nature (Epiktêt.
Diss.
iv.
1, 121-128); while the Epikurean Lucretius claims the same conformity for the precepts of Epikurus.]
[Side-note: The Greek Cynics--an order of ascetic or mendicant friars.]
Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not merely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and teachings, of their own--but still more prominently a body of practical ascetics, a mendicant order[120] in philosophy, working up the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and apathy.
These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates--for there is no known prior example of it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus at Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet.
The discipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then it was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers.
The Cynics had no view to military action.
They exaggerated the peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.
[121] [Footnote 120: Respecting the historical connexion between the Grecian Cynics and the ascetic Christian monks, see Zeller, Philos.
der Griech.
ii.
p. 241, ed.
2nd.
Homer, Iliad xvi.
233-5:-[Greek: Zeu= a)/na, Dôdônai=e, Pelasgike/, têlo/thi nai/ôn, Dôdô/nês mede/ôn duscheime/rou, a)mphi\ de\ Se/lloi Soi\ nai/ous' u(pophê=tai a)nipto/podes, chamaieu=nai].
There is no analogy in Grecian history to illustrate this very curious passage: the Excursus of Heyne furnishes no information (see his edition of the Iliad, vol.
vii.
p. 289) except the general remark:--"Selli--vitæ genus et institutum affectarunt abhorrens à communi usu, vitæ monachorum mendicantium haud absimile, cum sine vitæ cultu viverent, nec corpus abluerent, et humi cubarent.
Ita inter barbaros non modo, sed inter ipsas feras gentes intellectum est, eos qui auctoritatem apud multitudinem consequi vellent, externâ specie, vitæ cultu austeriore, abstinentiâ et continentiâ, oculos hominum in se convertere et mirationem facere debere."]
[Footnote 121: Plato, Republic, x.
600 B; Legib.
vi.
782 C; Eurip.
Hippol.
955; Fragm.
[Greek: Krê=tes].
See also the citations in Athenæus (iv.
pp.
161-163) from the writers of the Attic middle comedy, respecting the asceticism of the Pythagoreans, analogous to that of the Cynics.]
[Side-note: Logical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes--they opposed the Platonic Ideas.]
Though Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical topics, yet they also delivered opinions on logic and evidence.
[122] Antisthenes especially was engaged in controversy, and seemingly in acrimonious controversy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in an express dialogue entitled Sathon.
Plato on his side attacked the opinions of Antisthenes, and spoke contemptuously of his intelligence, yet without formally naming him.
At least there are some criticisms in the Platonic dialogues (especially in the Sophistês, p. 251) which the commentators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes: who is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle.
We know but little of the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato and still less of the reasons which he urged in support of them.
Both he and Diogenes, however, are said to have declared express war against the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas.
The functions of general Concepts and general propositions, together with the importance of defining general terms, had been forcibly insisted on in the colloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato built upon this foundation the memorable hypothesis of an aggregate of eternal, substantive realities, called Ideas or Forms, existing separate from the objects of sense, yet affording a certain participation in themselves to those objects: not discernible by sense, but only by the Reason or understanding.
These bold creations of the Platonic fancy were repudiated by Antisthenes and Diogenes: who are both said to have declared "We see Man, and we see Horse; but Manness and Horseness we do not see".
Whereunto Plato replied "You possess that eye by which Horse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which Horseness is seen".
[123] [Footnote 122: Among the titles of the works of Antisthenes, preserved by Diogenes Laertius (vi.
15), several relate to dialectic or logic.
[Greek: A)lê/theia.
Peri\ tou= diale/gesthai, a)ntilogiko/s.
Sa/thôn, peri\ tou= a)ntile/gein, a, b, g. Peri\ Diale/kton.
Peri\ Paidei/as ê)\ o)noma/tôn, a, b, g, d, e. Peri\ o)noma/tôn chrêseôs, ê)\ e)ristiko/s.
Peri\ e)rôtê/seôs kai\ a)pokri/seôs], &c., &c. Diogenes Laertius refers to _ten_ [Greek: to/moi] of these treatises.]
[Footnote 123: Simplikius, ad Aristot.
Categ.
p. 66, b.
47, 67, b.
18, 68, b.
25, Schol.
Brand.
; Tzetzes, Chiliad.
vii.
606.
[Greek: tô=n de\ palaiô=n oi( me\n a)nê/|roun ta\s poio/têtas tele/ôs, to\ poio\n sugchôrou=ntos ei)=nai; ô(/sper A)ntisthe/nês, o(/s pote Pla/tôni diamphisbêtô=n--ô(= Pla/tôn, e)/phê, i(/ppon me\n o(rô=, i(ppo/têta d' ou)ch o(rô=; kai\ o(\s ei)=pen, e)/cheis me\n ô(=| i(/ppos o(ra=tai to/de to\ o)/mma, ô(=| de\ i(ppo/tês theôrei=tai, ou)de/pô ke/ktêsai.
kai\ a)/lloi de/ tines ê)=san tau/tês tê=s do/xês.
oi( de\ tina\s men a)nê/|roun poio/têtas, tina\s de\ kateli/mpanon].
[Greek: Anthrôpo/tês] occurs p. 58, a.
31.
Compare p. 20, a.
2.
The same conversation is reported as having taken place between Diogenes and Plato, except that instead of [Greek: i(ppo/tês] and [Greek: a)nthrôpo/tês], we have [Greek: trapezo/tês] and [Greek: kuatho/tês] (Diog.
L. vi, 53).
We have [Greek: zôo/tês--A)thênaio/tês]--in Galen's argument against the Stoics (vol.
xix.
p. 481, Kühn).]
[Side-note: First protest of Nominalism against Realism.]
This debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interesting point in the history of philosophy.
It is the first protest of Nominalism against the doctrine of an extreme Realism.
The Ideas or Forms of Plato (according to many of his phrases, for he is not always consistent with himself) are not only real existences distinct from particulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality of particulars.
The real universe in the Platonic theory was composed of Ideas or Forms such as Manness or Horseness[124] (called by Plato the [Greek: Au)to\-A)/nthrôpos] and [Greek: Au)to\-I(/ppos]), of which particular men and horses were only disfigured, transitory, and ever-varying photographs.
Antisthenes denied what Plato affirmed, and as Plato affirmed it.
Aristotle denied it also; maintaining that genera, species, and attributes, though distinguishable as separate predicates of, or inherencies in, individuals--yet had no existence apart from individuals.
Aristotle was no less wanting than Antisthenes, in the intellectual eye required for discerning the Platonic Ideas.
Antisthenes is said to have declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts or conceptions ([Greek: psila\s e)nnoi/as]): _i.e._, merely subjective or within the mind, without any object corresponding to them.
This is one of the various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted to even in the Platonic Parmenidês, not by one who opposes that theory, but by one seeking to defend it--_viz._, by Sokrates, when he is hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more extreme and literal version of the theory.
[125] It is remarkable, that the objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version which exhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind, are decidedly less forcible than those which he urges against the other versions.
[Footnote 124: We know from Plato himself (Theætêtus, p. 182 A) that even the word [Greek: poio/tês], if not actually first introduced by himself, was at any rate so recent as to be still repulsive, and to require an Apology, If [Greek: poio/tês] was strange, [Greek: a)nthrôpo/tês] and [Greek: i(ppo/tês] would be still more strange.
Antisthenes probably invented them, to present the doctrine which he impugned in a dress of greater seeming absurdity.]
[Footnote 125: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 132 B.
See, afterwards, chapter xxvii., Parmenides.]
[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes about predication--he admits no other predication but identical.]
There is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to Antisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; alluding to its author contemptuously, but not mentioning his name.
Every name (Antisthenes argued) has its own special reason or meaning ([Greek: oi)kei=os[126] lo/gos]), declaring the essence of the thing named, and differing from every other word: you cannot therefore truly predicate any one word of any other, because the reason or meaning of the two is different: there can be no true propositions except identical propositions, in which the predicate is the same with the subject--"man is man, good is good".
"Man is good" was an inadmissible proposition: affirming different things to be the same, or one thing to be many.
[127] Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers really to contradict each other.
There can be no contradiction between them if both declare the essence of the same thing--nor if neither of them declare the essence of it--nor if one speaker declares the essence of one thing, and another speaker that of another.
But one of these three cases must happen: therefore there can be no contradiction.
[128] [Footnote 126: Diogen.
L. vi.
3.
[Greek: Prôto/s te ô(ri/sato] (Antisthenes) [Greek: lo/gon, ei)pô/n, lo/gos e)sti\n o( to\ ti/ ê)=n ê)/ e)sti dêlô=n.]]
[Footnote 127: Aristotle, Metaphy.
[Greek: D].
1024, b.
32, attributes this doctrine to Antisthenes by name; which tends to prove that Plato meant Antisthenes, though not naming him, in Sophist, p. 251 B, where he notices the same doctrine.
Compare Philêbus, p. 14 D. It is to be observed that a doctrine exactly the same as that which Plato here censures in Antisthenes, will be found maintained by the Platonic Sokrates himself, in Plato, Hippias Major, p. 304 A.
See chap, xiii.
vol.
ii.
of the present work.]
[Footnote 128: Aristot.
Topic.
i. p. 104, b.
20.
[Greek: the/sis de/ e)stin u(po/lêpsis para/doxos tô=n gnôri/môn tino\s kata\ philosophi/an; oi(=on o(/ti ou)k e)/stin a)ntile/gein, katha/per e)/phê A)ntisthe/nês].
Plato puts this [Greek: the/sis] into the mouth of Dionysodorus, in the Euthydêmus--p. 286 B; but he says (or makes Sokrates say) that it was maintained by many persons, and that it had been maintained by Protagoras, and even by others yet more ancient.
Antisthenes had discussed it specially in a treatise of three sections polemical against Plato--[Greek: Sa/thôn, ê)\ peri\ tou= a)ntile/gein, a, b, g] (Diog.
L. vi.
16).]
[Side-note: The same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of Aristotle.]
The works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he himself stated his own doctrine, nor what he said on behalf of it, declaring contradiction to be impossible.
Plato sets aside the doctrine as absurd and silly; Aristotle--since he cites it as a paradox, apt for dialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher stood opposed to what was generally received--seems to imply that there were plausible arguments to be urged in its favour.
[129] And that the doctrine actually continued to be held and advocated, in the generation not only after Antisthenes but after Aristotle--we may see by the case of Stilpon: who maintained (as Antisthenes had done) that none but identical propositions, wherein the predicate was a repetition of the subject, were admissible: from whence it followed (as Aristotle observed) that there could be no propositions either false or contradictory.
Plutarch,[130] in reciting this doctrine of Stilpon (which had been vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kolôtês), declares it to have been intended only in jest.
There is no ground for believing that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes goes to prove the contrary.
[Footnote 129: Aristotle (Met.
[Greek: D].
1024) represents the doctrine of Antisthenes, That contradictory and false propositions are impossible--as a consequence deduced from the position laid down--That no propositions except identical propositions were admissible.
If you grant this last proposition, the consequences will be undeniable.
Possibly Antisthenes may have reasoned in this way:"There are many contradictory and false propositions now afloat; but this arises from the way in which predication is conducted.
So long as the predicate is different from the subject, there is nothing _in the form of a proposition_ to distinguish falsehood from truth (to distinguish _Theætêtus sedet_, from _Theætêtus volat_--to take the instance in the Platonic Sophistês--p. 263).
There ought to be no propositions except identical propositions: the form itself will then guarantee you against both falsehood and contradiction: you will be sure always to give [Greek: to\n oi)kei=on lo/gon tou= pra/gmatos]."
There would be nothing inconsistent in such a precept: but Aristotle might call it silly [Greek: eu)êthô=s]), because, while shutting out falsehood and contradiction, it would also shut out the great body of useful truth, and would divest language of its usefulness as a means of communication.
Brandis (Gesch.
der Gr.
Römisch.
Phil.
vol.
ii.
xciii.
1) gives something like this as the probable purpose of Antisthenes--"Nur Eins bezeichne die Wesenheit eines Dinges--die Wesenheit als einfachen Träger des mannichfaltigen der Eigenschaften"(this is rather too Aristotelian)--"zur Abwehr von Streitigkeiten auf dem Gebiete der Erscheinungen".
Compare also Ritter, Gesch.
Phil.
vol.
ii.
p. 130.
We read in the Kratylus, that there were persons who maintained the rectitude of all names: to say that a name was not right, was (in their view) tantamount to saying that it was no name at all, but only an unmeaning sound (Plato, Krat.
pp.
429-430).]
[Footnote 130: Plutarch, adv.
Kolôten, p. 1119 C-D.] [Side-note: Nominalism of Stilpon.
His reasons against accidental predication.]
Stilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes had done) the universal Ideas[131] or Forms, took a larger ground of objection.
He pronounced them to be inadmissible both as subject and as predicate.
If you speak of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you mean?
You do not mean A or B, or C or D, &c.: that is, you do not mean any one of these more than any other.
You have no determinate meaning at all: and beyond this indefinite multitude of individuals, there is nothing that the term can mean.
Again, as to predicates--when you say, _The man runs_, or _The man is good_, what do you mean by the predicate _runs_, or is _good_?
You do not mean any thing specially belonging to man: for you apply the same predicates to many other subjects: you say _runs_, about a horse, a dog, or a cat--you say _good_ in reference to food, medicine, and other things besides.
Your predicate, therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects, belongs not to one of them more than to another: in other words, it belongs to neither: the predication is not admissible.
[132] [Footnote 131: Hegel (Geschichte der Griech.
Philos.
i. p. 123) and Marbach (Geschichte der Philos.
s. 91) disallow the assertion of Diogenes, that Stilpon [Greek: a)nê/rei ta\ ei)/dê].
They maintain that Stilpon rejected the particular affirmations, and allowed only general or universal affirmations.
This construction appears to me erroneous.]
[Footnote 132: Diog.
L. ii.
113; Plutarch, adv.
Kolôten, 1119-1120.
[Greek: ei) peri\ i(/ppou to\ tre/chein katêgorou=men, ou)/ phêsi] (Stilpon) [Greek: tau)to\n ei)=nai tô=| peri\ ou)= katêgorei=tai to\ katêgorou/menon--e)kate/rou ga\r a)paitou/menoi to\n lo/gon, ou) to\n au)to\n a)podi/domen u(pe\r a)mphoi=n.
O(/then a(marta/nein tou\s e(/teron e(te/rou katêgorou=ntas.
Ei) me\n ga\r tau)ton e)sti tô=| a)nthrô/pô| to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ tô=| i(/ppô| to\ tre/chein, pô=s kai\ siti/ou kai\ pharma/kou to\ a)gatho/n?
kai\ nê\ Di/a pa/lin le/ontos kai\ kuno\s to\ tre/chein, katêgorou=men?
ei) d' e(/teron, ou)k o)rthô=s _a)/nthrôpon a)gatho\n kai\ i(/ppon tre/chein_ le/gomen].
Sextus Empiricus (adv.
Mathem.
vii.
p. 269-282) gives a different vein of reasoning respecting predication,--yet a view which illustrates this doctrine of Antisthenes.
Sextus does not require that all predication shall be restricted to identical predication: but he maintains that you cannot define any general word.
To define, he says, is to enunciate the essence of that which is defined.
But when you define Man--"a mortal, rational animal, capable of reason and knowledge"--you give only certain attributes of Man, which go along with the essence--you do not give the essence itself.
If you enumerate even all the accompaniments ([Greek: sumbebêko/ta]), you will still fail to tell me what the essence of Man is: which is what I desire to know, and what you profess to do by your definition.
It is useless to enumerate accompaniments, until you explain to me what the essence is which they accompany.
These are ingenious objections, which seem to me quite valid, if you assume the logical subject to be a real, absolute essence, apart from all or any of its predicates.
And this is a frequent illusion, favoured even by many logicians.
We enunciate the subject first, then the predicate; and because the subject can be conceived after abstraction of this, that, _or_ the other predicates--we are apt to imagine that it may be conceived without _all or any_ of the predicates.
But this is an illusion.
If you suppress all predicates, the subject or supposed substratum vanishes along with them: just as the Genus vanishes, if you suppress all the different species of it.
"Scais-tu au moins ce que c'est que la matière?
Très-bien.
.
.
Par exemple, cette pierre est grise, est d'une telle forme, a ses trois dimensions; elle est pésante et divisible.
Eh bien (dit le Sirien), cette chose qui te paroît être divisible, pésante, et grise, me dirois tu bien ce que c'est?
Tu vois quelques attributs: mais le fond de la chose, le connois tu?
Non, dit l'autre.
Tu ne scais donc point ce que c'est que la matière."
(Voltaire, Micromégas, c.
7.)
"Le fond de la chose"--the Ding an sich--is nothing but the name itself, divested of every fraction of meaning: it is _titulus sine re_.
But the name being familiar, and having been always used with a meaning, still appears invested with much of the old emotional associations, even though it has been stripped of all its meaning by successive acts of abstraction.
If you subtract from four, 1 + 1 + 1 + 1, there will remain zero.
But by abstracting, from the subject _man_, all its predicates, real and possible, you cannot reduce it to zero.
The _name_ man always remains, and appears by old association to carry with it some meaning--though the meaning can no longer be defined.
This illusion is well pointed out in a valuable passage of Cabanis (Du Degré de Certitude de la Médecine, p. 61):-"Je pourrois d'ailleurs demander ce qu'on entend par la nature et les causes premières des maladies.
Nous connoissons de leur nature, ce que les faits en manifestent.
Nous savons, par exemple, que la fièvre produit tels et tels changements: ou plutôt, c'est par ces changements qu'elle se montre à nos yeux: c'est _par eux seuls qu'elle existe pour nous_.
Quand un homme tousse, crache du sang, respire avec peine, ressent une douleur de côté, a le pouls plus vite et plus dur, la peau plus chaude que dans l'état naturel--l'on dit qu'il est attaqué d'une pleurésie.
Mais qu'est ce donc _qu'une pleurésie_?
On vous répliquera que c'est une maladie, dans laquelle tous, ou presque tous, ces accidents se trouvent combinés.
S'il en manque un ou plusieurs, ce n'est point la pleurésie, du moins la vraie pleurésie essentielle des écoles.
_C'est donc le concours de ces accidents qui la constitue._ Le mot _pleurésie ne fait que les retracer d'une manière plus courte.
Ce mot n'est pas un être par lui-même_: il exprime une abstraction de l'esprit, et réveille par un seul trait toutes les images d'un assez grand tableau.
"Ainsi lorsque, non content de connoître une maladie par ce qu'elle offre à nos sens, par ce qui seul la constitue, et sans quoi elle n'existeroit pas, _vous demandez encore quelle est sa nature en elle-même, quelle est son essence--c'est comme si vous demandiez quelle est la nature ou l'essence d'un mot, d'une pure abstraction._ Il n'y a donc pas beaucoup de justesse à dire, d'un air de triomphe, que les médecins ignorent même la nature de la fièvre, et que sans cesse ils agissent dans des circonstances, ou manient des instruments, dont l'essence leur est inconnue."]
[Side-note: Difficulty of understanding how the same predicate could belong to more than one subject.]
Stilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to have had in his mind a type of predication, similar to the type of reasoning which Aristotle laid down the syllogism: such that the form of the proposition should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was affirmed.
Throughout the ancient philosophy, especially in the more methodised debates between the Academics and Sceptics on one side, and the Stoics on the other--what the one party affirmed and the other party denied, was, the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some distinguishable mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry.
To find this infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none except identical.
While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate could belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new argument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject were also applied to many other subjects.
Now if the predicates belonged to one, they could not (in his view) belong to the others: and therefore they did not really belong to any.
He considered that predication involved either identity or special and exclusive implication of the predicate with the subject.
[Side-note: Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenidês.]
Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself how one and the same predicate could be applied to many different subjects.
The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic Parmenidês.
[133] How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present at one and the same time in many distinct individuals?
It cannot be present as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present partly in one, partly in another.
How therefore can it be present at all in any of them?
In other words, how can the One be Many, and how can the Many be One?
Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato presents no solution, either in the Parmenidês or anywhere else.
[134] Aristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt it.
Stilpon reproduces it in his own way.
It is a very real difficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory of predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of general propositions, and the meaning of general terms.
[Footnote 133: Plato, Parmenidês, p. 131.
Compare also Philêbus, p. 15, and Stallbaum's Proleg.
to the Parmenidês, pp.
46-47.
The long commentary of Proklus (v. 100-110. pp.
670-682 of the edition of Stallbaum) amply attests the [Greek: duskoli/an] of the problem.
The argument of Parmenidês (in the dialogue called Parmenidês) is applied to the Platonic [Greek: ei)/dê] and to [Greek: ta\ mete/chonta].
But the argument is just as much applicable to attributes, genera, species: to all general predicates.]
[Footnote 134: Aristot.
Physic.
i.
2, 185, b.
26-36.
Lykophron and some others anterior to Aristotle proposed to elude the difficulty, by ceasing to use the substantive verb as copula in predication: instead of saying [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)sti\ leuko/s], they said either [Greek: Sôkra/tês leuko/s], simply, or [Greek: Sôkra/tês leleu/kôtai].
This is a remarkable evidence of the difficulty arising, even in these early days of logic, about the logical function of the copula.]
[Side-note: Menedêmus disallowed all negative predication.]
Menedêmus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers of Stilpon, combined even more than Stilpon the attributes of the Cynic with those of the Megaric.
He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in speech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard to offence given: he was also a great master of ingenious dialectic and puzzling controversy.
[135] His robust frame, grave deportment, and simplicity of life, inspired great respect; especially as he occupied a conspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence at Eretria.
He is said to have thought meanly both of Plato and Xenokrates.
We are told that Menedêmus, like Antisthenes and Stilpon, had doctrines of his own on the subject of predication.
He disallowed all negative propositions, admitting none but affirmative: moreover even of the affirmative propositions, he disallowed all the hypothetical, approving only the simple and categorical.
[136] [Footnote 135: Diog.
L. ii.
127-134.
[Greek: ê)=n ga\r kai\ e)piko/ptês kai\ par)r(êsiastê/s.]]
[Footnote 136: Diog.
L. ii.
134.]
It is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doctrines, without knowing the reasons upon which they were grounded.
Unfortunately these last have not been transmitted to us.
But we may be very sure that there were reasons, sufficient or insufficient: and the knowledge of those reasons would have enabled us to appreciate more fully the state of the Greek mind, in respect to logical theory, in and before the year 300 B.C.
[Side-note: Distinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and complex objects.
Simple objects undefinable.]
Another doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is ascribed by Aristotle to "the disciples of Antisthenes and other such uninstructed persons": it is also canvassed by Plato in the Theætêtus,[137] without specifying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in view.
As far as we can make out a doctrine which both these authors recite as opponents, briefly and their own way, it is as follows:--"Objects must be distinguished into--1.
Simple or primary; and 2.
Compound or secondary combinations of these simple elements.
This last class, the compounds, may be explained or defined, because you can enumerate the component elements.
By such analysis, and by the definition founded thereupon, you really come to _know_ them--describe them--predicate about them.
But the first class, the simple or primary objects, can only be perceived by sense and named: they cannot be analysed, defined, or known.
You can only predicate about them that they are like such and such other things: _e.g., silver_, you cannot say what it is in itself, but only that it is like tin, or like something else.
There may thus be a _ratio_ and a definition of any compound object, whether it be an object of perception or of conception: because one of the component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the proposition, and the other as Form or Predicate.
But there can be no definition of any one of the component elements separately taken: because there is neither Matter nor Form to become the Subject and Predicate of a defining proposition."
[Footnote 137: Plato, Theætêt, pp.
201-202.
Aristotel.
Metaph.
[Greek: Ê].
1043, b.
22.]
This opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in harmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes himself (_viz._, That no propositions, except identical propositions, were admissible): and we are led to suspect that the first opinion must have been understood or qualified by its author in some manner not now determinable.
But the second opinion, drawing a marked logical distinction between simple and complex Objects, has some interest from the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle: both of whom select, for the example illustrating the opinion, the syllable as the compound made up of two or more letters which are its simple constituent elements.
[Remarks of Plato on this doctrine.]
Plato refutes the doctrine,[138] but in a manner not so much to prove its untruth, as to present it for a verbal incongruity.
How can you properly say (he argues) that you _know_ the compound AB, when you know neither A nor B separately?
Now it may be incongruous to restrict in this manner the use of the words _know--knowledge_: but the distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato.
Antisthenes said--"I feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can name it, but I do not _know_ it: I can affirm nothing about it in itself, or about its real essence.
But the compound AB I do know, for I know its essence: I can affirm about it that _it is_ compounded of A and B, and this is its essence."
Here is a real distinction: and Plato's argument amounts only to affirming that it is an incorrect use of words to call the compound _known_, when the component elements are not known.
Unfortunately the refutation of Plato is not connected with any declaration of his own counter-doctrine, for Theætêtus ends in a result purely negative.
[Footnote 138: Plato, Theætêt.
ut suprâ.]
[Side-note: Remarks of Aristotle upon the same.]
Aristotle, in his comment on the opinion of Antisthenes, makes us understand better what it really is:--"Respecting simple essences (A or B), I cannot tell what they really are: but I can tell what they are like or unlike, _i.e._, I can compare them with other essences, simple or compound.
But respecting the compound AB, I can tell what it really is: its essence is, to be compounded of A and B.
And this I call _knowing_ or _knowledge_.
"[139] The distinction here taken by Antisthenes (or by his followers) is both real and useful: Plato does not contest it: while Aristotle distinctly acknowledges it, only that among the simple items he ranks both Percepta and Concepta.
[Footnote 139: Aristot.
Metaphys.
[Greek: Ê].
1043, b.
24-32, with the Scholia, p. 774, b. Br.
Mr. J. S. Mill observes, Syst.
of Logic, i.
5, 6, p. 116, ed.
9:--"There is still another exceptional case, in which, though the predicate is the name of a class, yet in predicating it we affirm nothing but resemblance: the class being founded not on resemblance in any given particular, but on general unanalysable resemblance.
The classes in question are those into which our simple sensations, or other simple feelings, are divided.
Sensations of white, for instance, are classed together, not because we can take them to pieces, and say, they are alike in this, not alike in that but because we feel them to be alike altogether, though in different degrees.
When therefore I say--The colour I saw yesterday was a white colour, or, The sensation I feel is one of tightness--in both cases the attribute I affirm of the colour or of the other sensation is mere resemblance: simple likeness to sensations which I have had before, and which have had that name bestowed upon them.
The names of feelings, like other concrete general names, are connotative: but they connote a mere resemblance.
When predicated of any individual feelings, the information they convey is that of its likeness to the other feelings which we have been accustomed to call by the same name."]
[Side-note: Later Grecian Cynics--Monimus--Krates--Hipparchia.]
Monimus a Syracusan, and Krates a Theban, with his wife Hipparchia,[140] were successors of Diogenes in the Cynic vein of philosophy: together with several others of less note.
Both Monimus and Krates are said to have been persons of wealthy condition,[141] yet their minds were so powerfully affected by what they saw of Diogenes, that they followed his example, renounced their wealth, and threw themselves upon a life of poverty; with nothing beyond the wallet and the threadbare cloak, but with fearless independence of character, free censure of every one, and indifference to opinion.
"I choose as my country" (said Krates) "poverty and low esteem, which fortune cannot assail: I am the fellow-citizen of Diogenes, whom the snares of envy cannot reach.
"[142] Krates is said to have admonished every one, whether they invited it or not: and to have gone unbidden from house to house for the purpose of exhortation.
His persistence in this practice became so obtrusive that he obtained the title of "the Door-Opener".
[143] This feature, common to several other Cynics, exhibits an approximation to the missionary character of Sokrates, as described by himself in the Platonic Apology: a feature not found in any of the other eminent heads of philosophy--neither in Plato nor in Aristotle, Zeno, or Epikurus.
[Footnote 140: Hipparchia was a native of Maroneia in Thrace; born in a considerable station, and belonging to an opulent family.
She came to Athens with her brother Mêtroklês, and heard both Theophrastus and Kratês.
Both she and her brother became impressed with the strongest admiration for Kratês: for his mode of life, as well as for his discourses and doctrine.
Rejecting various wealthy suitors, she insisted upon becoming his wife, both against his will and against the will of her parents.
Her resolute enthusiasm overcame the reluctance of both.
She adopted fully his hard life, poor fare, and threadbare cloak.
She passed her days in the same discourses and controversies, indifferent to the taunts which were addressed to her for having relinquished the feminine occupations of spinning and weaving.
Diogenes Laertius found many striking dicta or replies ascribed to her ([Greek: a)/lla muri/a tê=s philoso/phou] vi.
96-98).
He gives an allusion made to her by the contemporary comic poet Menander, who (as I before observed) handled the Cynics of his time as Aristophanes, Eupolis, &c., had handled Sokrates-[Greek: Sumperipatê/seis ga\r tri/bôn' e)/chous e)moi\, ô(/sper Kra/têti tô=| Kunikô=| poth' ê( gunê\.
Kai\ thugate/r' e)xe/dôk' e)kei=nos, ô(s e)/phê au)to\s, e)pi\ peira=| dou\s tria/konth' ê(me/ras].
(vi.
93.)]
[Footnote 141: Diog, L. vi.
82-88.
[Greek: Mo/nimos o( Ku/ôn], Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
48-88.
About Krates, Plutarch, De Vit.
Aere Alieno, 7, p. 831 F.] [Footnote 142: Diog.
L. vi.
93.
[Greek: e)/chein de\ patri/da a)doxi/an te kai\ peni/an, a)na/lôta tê=| tu/chê|: kai\--Dioge/nous ei)=nai poli/tês a)nepibouleu/tou phtho/nô|].
The parody or verses of Krates, about his city of Pera (the Wallet), vi.
85, are very spirited-[Greek: Pê/rê tis po/lis e)sti\ me/sô| e)ni\ oi)/nopi tu/phô|], &c. Krates composed a collection of philosophical Epistles, which Diogenes pronounces to be excellent, and even to resemble greatly the style of Plato (vi.
98).]
[Footnote 143: Diog.
L. vi.
86, [Greek: e)kalei=to de\ _thurepanoi/ktês_, dia\ to\ ei)s pa=san ei)sie/nai oi)ki/an kai\ nouthetei=n].
Compare Seneca, Epist.
29.]
[Side-note: Zeno of Kitium in Cyprus.]
Among other hearers of Krates, who carried on, and at the same time modified, the Cynic discipline, we have to mention Zeno, of Kitium in Cyprus, who became celebrated as the founder of the Stoic sect.
In him the Cynic, Megaric, and Herakleitean tendencies may be said to have partially converged, though with considerable modifications:[144] the ascetic doctrines (without the ascetic practices or obtrusive forwardness) of the Cynics--and the logical subtleties of the others.
He blended them, however, with much of new positive theory, both physical and cosmological.
His compositions were voluminous; and those of the Stoic Chrysippus, after him, were still more numerous.
The negative and oppugning function, which in the fourth century B.C.
had been directed by the Megarics against Aristotle, was in the third century B.C.
transferred to the Platonists, or Academy represented by Arkesilaus: whose formidable dialectic was brought to bear upon the Stoic and Epikurean schools--both of them positive, though greatly opposed to each other.
[Footnote 144: Numenius ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Evang.
xiv.
5.]
* * * * * ARISTIPPUS.
Along with Antisthenes, among the hearers and companions of Sokrates, stood another Greek of very opposite dispositions, yet equally marked and original--Aristippus of Kyrênê.
The stimulus of the Sokratic method, and the novelty of the topics on which it was brought to bear, operated forcibly upon both, prompting each of them to theorise in his own way on the best plan of life.
[Side-note: Aristippus--life, character, and doctrine.]
Aristippus, a Kyrenean of easy circumstances, having heard of the powerful ascendancy exercised by Sokrates over youth, came to Athens for the express purpose of seeing him, and took warm interest in his conversation.
[145] He set great value upon mental cultivation and accomplishments; but his habits of life were inactive, easy, and luxurious.
Upon this last count, one of the most interesting chapters in the Xenophontic Memorabilia reports an interrogative lecture addressed to him by Sokrates, in the form of dialogue.
[146] [Footnote 145: Plutarch (De Curiositate, p. 516 A) says that Aristippus informed himself, at the Olympic games, from Ischomachus respecting the influence of Sokrates.]
[Footnote 146: See the first chapter of the Second Book of the Memorabilia.
I give an abstract of the principal points in the dialogue, not a literal translation.]
[Side-note: Discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus.]
Sokrates points out to Aristippus that mankind may be distributed into two classes: 1.
Those who have trained themselves to habits of courage, energy, bodily strength, and command over their desires and appetites, together with practice in the actual work of life:--these are the men who become qualified to rule, and who do actually rule.
2.
The rest of mankind, inferior in these points, who have no choice but to obey, and who do obey.
[147]--Men of the first or ruling class possess all the advantages of life: they perform great exploits, and enjoy a full measure of delight and happiness, so far as human circumstances admit.
Men of the second class are no better than slaves, always liable to suffer, and often actually suffering, ill-treatment and spoliation of the worst kind.
To which of these classes (Sokrates asks Aristippus) do you calculate on belonging--and for which do you seek to qualify yourself?--To neither of them (replies Aristippus).
I do not wish to share the lot of the subordinate multitude: but I have no relish for a life of command, with all the fatigues, hardships, perils, &c., which are inseparable from it.
I prefer a middle course: I wish neither to rule, nor to be ruled, but to be a freeman: and I consider freedom as the best guarantee for happiness.
[148] I desire only to pass through life as easily and pleasantly as possible.
[149]--Which of the two do you consider to live most pleasantly, the rulers or the ruled?
asks Sokrates.--I do not rank myself with either (says Aristippus): nor do I enter into active duties of citizenship anywhere: I pass from one city to another, but everywhere as a stranger or non-citizen.--Your scheme is impracticable (says Sokrates).
You cannot obtain security in the way that you propose.
You will find yourself suffering wrong and distress along with the subordinates[150]--and even worse than the subordinates: for a stranger, wherever he goes, is less befriended and more exposed to injury than the native citizens.
You will be sold into slavery, though you are fit for no sort of work: and your master will chastise you until you become fit for work.--But (replies Aristippus) this very art of ruling, which you consider to be happiness,[151] is itself a hard life, a toilsome slavery, not only stripped of enjoyment, but full of privation and suffering.
A man must be a fool to embrace such discomforts of his own accord.--It is that very circumstance (says Sokrates), that he does embrace them of his own accord--which renders them endurable, and associates them with feelings of pride and dignity.
They are the price paid beforehand, for a rich reward to come.
He who goes through labour and self-denial, for the purpose of gaining good friends or subduing enemies, and for the purpose of acquiring both mental and bodily power, so that he may manage his own concerns well and may benefit both his friends and his country--such a man will be sure to find his course of labour pleasurable.
He will pass his life in cheerful[152] satisfaction, not only enjoying his own esteem and admiration, but also extolled and envied by others.
On the contrary, whoever passes his earlier years in immediate pleasures and indolent ease, will acquire no lasting benefit either in mind or body.
He will have a soft lot at first, but his future will be hard and dreary.
[153] [Footnote 147: Xen.
Memor.
ii.
1, 1 seq.
[Greek: to\n me\n o(/pôs i(kano\s e)/stai a)/rchein, to\n de\ o(/pôs mê/d' a)ntipoiê/setai a)rchê=s--tou\s a)rchikou/s.]]
[Footnote 148: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 11.
[Greek: a)ll' ei)=nai ti/s moi dokei= me/sê tou/tôn o(do/s, ê)\n peirô=mai badi/zein, ou)/te di' a)rchê=s, ou)/te dia\ doulei/as, a)lla\ di' e)leutheri/as, ê)/per ma/lista pro\s eu)daimoni/an a)/gei.]]
[Footnote 149: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 9.
[Greek: e)mauton toi/nun ta/ttô ei)s tou\s boulome/nous ê)=| r(a=|sta kai\ ê(/dista bioteu/ein.]]
[Footnote 150: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 12.
[Greek: ei) me/ntoi e)n a)nthrô/pois ô)\n mê/te a)/rchein a)xiô/seis mê/te a)/rchesthai, mê/te tou\s a)/rchontas e(kô\n therapeu/seis, oi)=mai/ se o(ra=|n ô(s e)pi/stantai oi( krei/ttones tou\s ê(/ttonas kai\ koinê=| kai\ i)di/a| klai/ontas kathi/santes, ô(s dou/lois chrê=sthai].
What follows is yet more emphatic, about the unjust oppression of rulers, and the suffering on the part of subjects.]
[Footnote 151: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 17.
[Greek: A)lla\ ga\r, ô)= Sô/krates, oi( ei)s tê\n basilikê\n te/chnên paideuo/menoi, ê)\n dokei=s moi su\ nomi/zein eu)daimoni/an ei)=nai].
Compare Memor.
ii.
3, 4.]
[Footnote 152: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 19.
[Greek: pô=s ou)k oi)/esthai chrê\ tou/tous kai\ ponei=n ê(de/ôs ei)s ta\ toiau=ta, kai\ zê=n eu)phronome/nous, a)game/nous me\n e(autou\s, e)painoume/nous de\ kai\ zêloume/nous u(po\ tô=n a)/llôn?]
[Footnote 153: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 20, cited from Epicharmus:-[Greek: mê\ ta\ malaka\ mô/eo, mê\ ta\ sklê/r' e)/chê|s.]]
[Side-note: Choice of Hêraklês.]
Sokrates enforces his lecture by reciting to Aristippus the memorable lecture or apologue, which the Sophist Prodikus was then delivering in lofty diction to numerous auditors[154]--the fable still known as the Choice of Hêraklês.
Virtue and Pleasure (the latter of the two being here identified with Evil or Vice) are introduced as competing for the direction of the youthful Hêraklês.
Each sets forth her case, in dramatic antithesis.
Pleasure is introduced as representing altogether the gratification of the corporeal appetites and the love of repose: while Virtue replies by saying, that if youth be employed altogether in pursuing such delights, at the time when the appetites are most vigorous--the result will be nothing but fatal disappointment, accompanied with entire loss of the different and superior pleasures available in mature years and in old age.
Youth is the season of labour: the physical appetites must be indulged sparingly, and only at the call of actual want: accomplishments of body and mind must be acquired in that season, which will enable the mature man to perform in after life great and glorious exploits.
He will thus realise the highest of all human delights--the love of his friends and the admiration of his countrymen--the sound of his own praises and the reflexion upon his own deserts.
At the price of a youth passed in labour and self-denial, he will secure the fullest measure of mature and attainable happiness.
[Footnote 154: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 21-34.
[Greek: e)n tô=| suggra/mmati tô=| peri\ Ê(rakle/ous, o(/per dê\ kai\ plei/stois e)pidei/knutai--megaleiote/rois r(ê/masin.]]
"It is worth your while, Aristippus" (says Sokrates, in concluding this lecture), "to bestow some reflexion on what is to happen in the latter portions of your life."
[Side-note: Illustration afforded of the views of Sokrates respecting Good and Evil.]
This dialogue (one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, and probably reported by Xenophon from actual hearing) is valuable in reference not only to Aristippus, but also to Sokrates himself.
Many recent historians of philosophy describe Sokrates and Plato as setting up an idea of Virtue or Good Absolute (_i.e._ having no essential reference to the happiness or security of the agent or of any one else) which they enforce--and an idea of Vice or Evil Absolute (_i.e._ having no essential reference to suffering or peril, or disappointment, either of the agent or of any one else) which they denounce and discommend and as thereby refuting the Sophists, who are said to have enforced Virtue and denounced Vice only relatively--_i.e._ in consequence of the bearing of one and the other upon the security and happiness of the agent or of others.
Whether there be any one doctrine or style of preaching which can be fairly ascribed to the Sophists as a class, I will not again discuss here: but I believe that the most eminent among them, Protagoras and Prodikus, held the language here ascribed to them.
But it is a mistake to suppose that upon this point Sokrates was their opponent.
The Xenophontic Sokrates (a portrait more resembling reality than the Platonic) always holds this same language: the Platonic Sokrates not always, yet often.
In the dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, as well as in the apologue of Prodikus, we see that the devotion of the season of youth to indulgence and inactive gratification of appetite, is blamed as productive of ruinous consequences--as entailing loss of future pleasures, together with a state of weakness which leaves no protection against future suffering; while great care is taken to show, that though laborious exercise is demanded during youth, such labour will be fully requited by the increased pleasures and happiness of after life.
The pleasure of being praised, and the pleasure of seeing good deeds performed by one's self, are especially insisted on.
On this point both Sokrates and Prodikus concur.
[155] [Footnote 155: Xenoph.
Mem.
ii.
1, 31.
[Greek: tou= de\ pa/ntôn ê(di/stou a)kou/smatos, e)pai/nou seautê=s, a)nê/koos ei)=, kai\ tou= pa/ntôn ê(distou thea/matos a)the/atos; ou)de\n ga\r pô/pote seautê=s e)/rgon kalo\n tethe/asai.
.
.
.
ta\ me\n ê(de/a e)n tê=| veo/têti diadramo/ntes, ta\ de\ chalepa\ e)s to\ gê=ras a)pothe/menoi.]]
[Side-note: Comparison of the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic Sokrates.]
If again we compare the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic Sokrates, we shall find that the lecture of the former to Aristippus coincides sufficiently with the theory laid down by the latter in the dialogue Protagoras; to which theory the Sophist Protagoras is represented as yielding a reluctant adhesion.
But we shall find also that it differs materially from the doctrine maintained by Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias.
Nay, if we follow the argument addressed by the Xenophontic Sokrates to Aristippus, we perceive that it is in substance similar to that which the Platonic dialogue Gorgias puts in the mouth of the rhetor Pôlus and the politician Kalliklês.
The Xenophontic Sokrates distributes men into two classes--the rulers and the ruled: the former strong, well-armed, and well-trained, who enjoy life at the expense of the submission and suffering of the latter: the former committing injustice, the latter enduring injustice.
He impresses upon Aristippus the misery of being confounded with the suffering many, and exhorts him to qualify himself by a laborious apprenticeship for enrolment among the ruling few.
If we read the Platonic Gorgias, we shall see that this is the same strain in which Pôlus and Kalliklês address Sokrates, when they invite him to exchange philosophy for rhetoric, and to qualify himself for active political life.
"Unless you acquire these accomplishments, you will be helpless and defenceless against injury and insult from others: while, if you acquire them, you will raise yourself to political influence, and will exercise power over others, thus obtaining the fullest measure of enjoyment which life affords: see the splendid position to which the Macedonian usurper Archelaus has recently exalted himself.
[156] Philosophy is useful, when studied in youth for a short time as preface to professional and political apprenticeship: but if a man perseveres in it and makes it the occupation of life, he will not only be useless to others, but unable to protect himself; he will be exposed to suffer any injustice which the well-trained and powerful men may put upon him."
To these exhortations of Pôlus and Kalliklês Sokrates replies by admitting their case as true matter of fact.
"I know that I am exposed to such insults and injuries: but my life is just and innocent.
If I suffer, I shall suffer wrong: and those who do the wrong will thereby inflict upon themselves a greater mischief than they inflict upon me.
Doing wrong is worse for the agent than suffering wrong.
"[157] [Footnote 156: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
466-470-486.]
[Footnote 157: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
508-509-521-527 C. [Greek: kai\ e)/aso/n tina sou= kataphronê=sai ô(s a)noê/tou, kai\ propêlaki/sai e)a\n bou/lêtai, kai\ nai\ ma\ Di/a su/ ge thar)r(ô=n pata/xai tê\n a)/timon tau/tên plêgê/n; ou)de\n ga\r deino\n pei/sei, e)a\n tô=| o)/nti ê(=|s kalo\s ka)gatho/s, a)skô=n a)retê/n.]]
[Side-note: Xenophontic Sokrates talking to Aristippus--Kallikes in Platonic Gorgias.]
There is indeed this difference between the Xenophontic Sokrates in his address to Aristippus, and the Platonic Kalliklês in his exhortation to Sokrates: That whereas Kalliklês proclaims and even vindicates it as natural justice and right, that the strong should gratify their desires by oppressing and despoiling the weak--the Xenophontic Sokrates merely asserts such oppression as an actual fact, notorious and undeniable,[158] without either approving or blaming it.
Plato, constructing an imaginary conversation with the purpose that Sokrates shall be victorious, contrives intentionally and with dramatic consistency that the argument of Kalliklês shall be advanced in terms so invidious and revolting that no one else would be bold enough to speak it out:[159] which contrivance was the more necessary, as Sokrates is made not only to disparage the poets, rhetors, and most illustrious statesmen of historical Athens, but to sustain a thesis in which he admits himself to stand alone, opposed to aristocrats as well as democrats.
[160] Yet though there is this material difference in the manner of handling, the plan of life which the Xenophontic Sokrates urges upon Aristippus, and the grounds upon which he enforces it, are really the same as those which Kalliklês in the Platonic Gorgias urges upon Sokrates.
"Labour to qualify yourself for active political power"--is the lesson addressed in the one case to a wealthy man who passed his life in ease and indulgence, in the other case to a poor man who devoted himself to speculative debate on general questions, and to cross-examination of every one who would listen and answer.
The man of indulgence, and the man of speculation,[161] were both of them equally destitute of those active energies which were necessary to confer power over others, or even security against oppression by others.
[Footnote 158: If we read the conversation alleged by Thucydides (v. 94-105-112) to have taken place between the Athenian generals and the executive council of Melos, just before the siege of that island by the Athenians, we shall see that this same language is held by the Athenians.
"You, the Melians, being much weaker, must submit to us who are much stronger; this is the universal law and necessity of nature, which we are not the first to introduce, but only follow out, as others have done before us, and will do after us.
Submit--or it will be worse for you.
No middle course, or neutrality, is open to you."]
[Footnote 159: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
482-487-492.]
[Footnote 160: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
472-521.]
[Footnote 161: If we read the treatise of Plutarch, [Greek: Peri\ Stôi/kôn e)nantiôma/tôn] (c. 2-3, p. 1033 C-D), we shall see that the Stoic writers, Zeno, Kleanthes, Chrysippus, Diogenes, Antipater, all of them earnestly recommended a life of active citizenship and laborious political duty, as incumbent upon philosophers not less than upon others; and that they treated with contempt a life of literary leisure and speculation.
Chrysippus explicitly declared [Greek: ou)de\n diaphe/rein to\n scholastiko\n bi/on tou= ê(donikou=] _i.
e._ that the speculative philosopher who kept aloof from political activity, was in substance a follower of Epikurus.
Tacitus holds much the same language (Hist.
iv.
5) when he says about Helvidius Priscus:--"ingenium illustre altioribus studiis juvenis admodum dedit: non, ut plerique, ut nomine magnifico segne otium velaret, sed quo constantior adversus fortuita rempublicam capesseret," &c. The contradiction which Plutarch notes is, that these very Stoic philosophers (Chrysippus and the others) who affected to despise all modes of life except active civic duty--were themselves, all, men of literary leisure, spending their lives away from their native cities, in writing and talking philosophy.
The same might have been said about Sokrates and Plato (except as to leaving their native cities), both of whom incurred the same reproach for inactivity as Sokrates here addresses to Aristippus.]
[Side-note: Language held by Aristippus--his scheme of life.]
In the Xenophontic dialogue, Aristippus replies to Sokrates that the apprenticeship enjoined upon him is too laborious, and that the exercise of power, itself laborious, has no charm for him.
He desires a middle course, neither to oppress nor to be oppressed: neither to command, nor to be commanded--like Otanes among the seven Persian conspirators.
[162] He keeps clear of political obligation, and seeks to follow, as much as he can, his own individual judgment.
Though Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue, is made to declare this middle course impossible, yet it is substantially the same as what the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias aspires to:--moreover the same as what the real Sokrates at Athens both pursued as far as he could, and declared to be the only course consistent with his security.
[163] The Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias declares emphatically that no man can hope to take active part in the government of a country, unless he be heartily identified in spirit with the ethical and political system of the country: unless he not merely professes, but actually and sincerely shares, the creed, doctrines, tastes, and modes of appreciation prevalent among the citizens.
[164] Whoever is deficient in this indispensable condition, must be content "to mind his own business and to abstain from active meddling with public affairs".
This is the course which the Platonic Sokrates claims both for himself and for the philosopher generally:[165] it is also the course which Aristippus chooses for himself, under the different title of a middle way between the extortion of the ruler and the suffering of the subordinate.
And the argument of Sokrates that no middle way is possible--far from refuting Aristippus (as Xenophon says that it did)[166] is founded upon an incorrect assumption: had it been correct, neither literature nor philosophy could have been developed.
[Footnote 162: Herodot.
iii.
80-83.]
[Footnote 163: Plato, Apol.
So.
p. 32 A.
[Greek: i)diôteu/ein, a)lla\ mê\ dêmosieu/ein].]
[Footnote 164: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
510-513.
[Greek: Ti/s ou)=n pot' e)sti\ te/chnê tê=s paraskeuê=s tou= mêde\n a)dikei=sthai ê)\ ô(s o)li/gista?
ske/psai ei)/ soi dokei= ê(=|per e)moi/.
e)moi\ me\n ga\r dokei= ê(/de; ê)\ au)to\n a)/rchein dei=n e)n tê=| po/lei ê)\ kai\ turannei=n, ê)\ tê=s u(parchou/sês politei/as e(tai=ron ei)=nai].
(This is exactly the language which Sokrates holds to Aristippus, Xenoph.
Memor.
ii.
1, 12.)
[Greek: o(\s a)\n o(moê/thês ô)\n, tau)ta pse/gôn kai\ e)painô=n, e)the/lê| a)/rchesthai kai\ u(pokei=sthai tô=| a)/rchonti--eu)thu\s e)k ne/ou e)thi/zein au(to\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\ a)/chthesthai tô=| despo/tê|] (510 D).
[Greek: ou) ga\r mimêtê\n dei= ei)=nai a)ll' au)tophuô=s o(/moion tou/tois] (513 B).]
[Footnote 165: Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C-D. (Compare Republic, vi.
p. 496 D.) [Greek: a)ndro\s i)diô/tou ê)\ a)/llou tino/s, ma/lista me/n, e)/gôge/ phêmi, ô)= Kalli/kleis, philoso/phou ta\ au(tou= pra/xantos kai\ ou) polupragmonê/santos e)n tô=| bi/ô|--kai\ dê\ kai\ se\ a)ntiparakalô=] (Sokrates to Kalliklês) [Greek: e)pi\ tou=ton to\n bi/on].
Upon these words Routh remarks: "Respicitur inter hæc verba ad Calliclis orationem, quâ rerum civilium tractatio et [Greek: polupragmosu/nê] Socrati persuadentur,"--which is the same invitation as the Xenophontic Sokrates addresses to Aristippus.
Again, in Plat.
Republ.
viii.
pp.
549 C, 550 A, we read, that corruption of the virtuous character begins by invitations to the shy youth to depart from the quiet plan of life followed by a virtuous father (who is [Greek: ta\ e(autou= pra/ttei]) and to enter on a career of active political ambition.
The youth is induced, by instigation of his mother and relatives without, to pass from [Greek: a)pragmosu/nê] to [Greek: philopragmosu/nê], which is described as a change for the worse.
Even in Xenophon (Memor.
iii.
11, 16) Sokrates recognises and jests upon his own [Greek: a)pragmosu/nê].]
[Footnote 166: Xen.
Mem.
iii.
8, 1.
Diogenes L. says (and it is probable enough, from radical difference of character) that Xenophon was adversely disposed to Aristippus.
In respect to other persons also, Xenophon puts invidious constructions (for which at any rate no ground is shown) upon their purposes in questioning Sokrates: thus, in the dialogue (i.
6) with the Sophist Antiphon, he says that Antiphon questioned Sokrates in order to seduce him away from his companions (Mem.
i.
6, 1).]
[Side-note: Diversified conversations of Sokrates, according to the character of the hearer.]
The real Sokrates, since he talked incessantly and with every one, must of course have known how to diversify his conversation and adapt it to each listener.
Xenophon not only attests this generally,[167] but has preserved the proofs of it in his Memorabilia--real conversations, reported though doubtless dressed up by himself.
The conversations which he has preserved relate chiefly to piety and to the duties and proceedings of active life: and to the necessity of controuling the appetites: these he selected partly because they suited his proclaimed purpose of replying to the topics of indictment, partly because they were in harmony with his own _idéal_.
Xenophon was a man of action, resolute in mind and vigorous in body, performing with credit the duties of the general as well as of the soldier.
His heroes were men like Cyrus, Agesilaus, Ischomachus--warriors, horsemen, hunters, husbandmen, always engaged in active competition for power, glory, or profit, and never shrinking from danger, fatigue, or privation.
For a life of easy and unambitious indulgence, even though accompanied by mental and speculative activity--"homines ignavâ operâ et philosophiâ sententiâ"--he had no respect.
It was on this side that the character of Aristippus certainly seemed to be, and probably really was, the most defective.
Sokrates employed the arguments the most likely to call forth within him habits of action--to render him [Greek: praktikô/teron].
[168] In talking with the presumptuous youth Glaukon, and with the diffident Charmides,[169] Sokrates used language adapted to correct the respective infirmities of each.
In addressing Kritias and Alkibiades, he would consider it necessary not only to inculcate self-denial as to appetite, but to repress an exorbitance of ambition.
[170] But in dealing with Aristippus, while insisting upon command of appetite and acquirement of active energy, he at the same time endeavours to kindle ambition, and the love of command: he even goes so far as to deny the possibility of a middle course, and to maintain (what Kritias and Alkibiades[171] would have cordially approved) that there was no alternative open, except between the position of the oppressive governors and that of the suffering subjects.
Addressed to Aristippus, these topics were likely to thrust forcibly upon his attention the danger of continued indulgences during the earlier years of life, and the necessity, in view to his own future security, for training in habits of vigour, courage, self-command, endurance.
[Footnote 167: Xen.
Mem.
iv.
1, 2-3.]
[Footnote 168: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
5, 1.
[Greek: ô(s de\ kai\ praktikôte/rous e)poi/ei tou\s suno/ntas au)tô=|, nu=n au)= tou=to le/xô.]]
[Footnote 169: Xenoph.
Mem.
iii.
capp.
6 and 7.]
[Footnote 170: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 15-18-24.
Respecting the different tone and arguments employed by Sokrates, in his conversations with different persons, see a good passage in the Rhetor Aristeides, Orat.
xlvi.
[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n tetta/rôn], p. 161, Dindorf.]
[Footnote 171: We see from the first two chapters of the Memorabilia of Xenophon (as well as from the subsequent intimation of Æschines, in the oration against Timarchus, p. 173) how much stress was laid by the accusers of Sokrates on the fact that he had educated Kritias and Alkibiades; and how the accusers alleged that his teaching tended to encourage the like exorbitant aspirations in others, dangerous to established authority, traditional, legal, parental, divine.
I do not doubt (what Xenophon affirms) that Sokrates, when he conversed with Kritias and Alkibiades, held a very opposite language.
But it was otherwise when he talked with men of ease and indulgence without ambition, such as Aristippus.
If Melêtus and Anytus could have put in evidence the conversation of Sokrates with Aristippus, many points of it would have strengthened their case against Sokrates before the Dikasts.
We read in Xenophon (Mem.
i.
2, 58) how the point was made to tell, that Sokrates often cited and commented on the passage of the Iliad (ii.
188) in which the Grecian chiefs, retiring from the agora to their ships, are described as being respectfully addressed by Odysseus--while the common soldiers are scolded and beaten by him, for the very same conduct: the relation which Sokrates here dwells on as subsisting between [Greek: oi( a)rchikoi\] and [Greek: oi( a)rcho/menoi], would favour the like colouring.]
[Side-note: Conversations between Sokrates and Aristippus about the Good and Beautiful.]
Xenophon notices briefly two other colloquies between Sokrates and Aristippus.
The latter asked Sokrates, "Do you know anything good?"
in order (says Xenophon) that if Sokrates answered in the affirmative and gave as examples, health, wealth, strength, courage, bread, &c., he (Aristippus) might show circumstances in which this same particular was evil; and might thus catch Sokrates in a contradiction, as Sokrates had caught him before.
[172] But Sokrates (says Xenophon) far from seeking to fence with the question, retorted it in such a way as to baffle the questioner, and at the same time to improve and instruct the by-standers.
[173] "Do you ask me if I know anything good for a fever?--No.
Or for ophthalmic distemper?-No.
Or for hunger?--No.
Oh!
then, if you mean to ask me, whether I know anything good, which is good for nothing--I reply that I neither know any such thing, nor care to know it."
[Footnote 172: Xenoph.
Memor.
iii.
8, 1.
Both Xenophon and some of his commentators censure this as a captious string of questions put by Aristippus--'captiosas Aristippi quæstiunculas".
Such a criticism is preposterous, when we recollect that Sokrates was continually examining and questioning others in the same manner.
See in particular his cross-examination of Euthydêmus, reported by Xenophon, Memor.
iv.
2; and many others like it, both in Xenophon and in Plato.]
[Footnote 173: Xenoph.
Memor.
iii.
8, 1.
[Greek: boulo/menos tou\s suno/ntas ô(phelei=n.]]
Again, on another occasion Aristippus asked him "Do you know anything beautiful?--Yes; many things.--Are they all like to each other?--No; they are as unlike as possible to each other.--How then (continues Aristippus) can that which is unlike to the beautiful, be itself beautiful?--Easily enough (replies Sokrates); one man is beautiful for running; another man, altogether unlike him, is beautiful for wrestling.
A shield which is beautiful for protecting your body, is altogether unlike to a javelin, which is beautiful for being swiftly and forcibly hurled.--Your answer (rejoined Aristippus) is exactly the same as it was when I asked you whether you knew anything good.--Certainly (replies Sokrates).
Do you imagine, that the Good is one thing, and the Beautiful another?
Do you not know that all things are good and beautiful in relation to the same purpose?
Virtue is not good in relation to one purpose, and beautiful in relation to another.
Men are called both good and beautiful in reference to the same ends: the bodies of men, in like manner: and all things which men use, are considered both good and beautiful, in consideration of their serving their ends well.--Then (says Aristippus) a basket for carrying dung is beautiful?--To be sure (replied Sokrates), and a golden shield is ugly; if the former be well made for doing its work, and the latter badly.--Do you then assert (asked Aristippus) that the same things are beautiful and ugly?--Assuredly (replied Sokrates); and the same things are both good and evil.
That which is good for hunger, is often bad for a fever: that which is good for a fever, is often bad for hunger.
What is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrestling--and _vice versâ_.
All things are good and beautiful, in relation to the ends which they serve well: all things are evil and ugly, in relation to the ends which they serve badly.
"[174] [Footnote 174: Xenoph.
Memor.
iii.
8, 1-9.]
[Side-note: Remarks on the conversation--Theory of Good.]
These last cited colloquies also, between Sokrates and Aristippus, are among the most memorable remains of Grecian philosophy: belonging to one of the years preceding 399 B.C., in which last year Sokrates perished.
Here (as in the former dialogue) the doctrine is distinctly enunciated by Sokrates--That Good and Evil--Beautiful (or Honourable) and Ugly (or Dishonourable--Base)--have no intelligible meaning except in relation to human happiness and security.
Good or Evil Absolute (_i.e._, apart from such relation) is denied to exist.
The theory of Absolute Good (a theory traceable to the Parmenidean doctrines, and adopted from them by Eukleides) becomes first known to us as elaborated by Plato.
Even in his dialogues it is neither always nor exclusively advocated, but is often modified by, and sometimes even exchanged for, the eudæmonistic or relative theory.
[Side-note: Good is relative to human beings and wants, in the view of Sokrates.]
Sokrates declares very explicitly, in his conversation with Aristippus, what _he_ means by the Good and the Beautiful: and when therefore in the name of the Good and the Beautiful, he protests against an uncontrolled devotion to the pleasures of sense (as in one of the Xenophontic dialogues with Euthydemus[175]), what he means is, that a man by such intemperance ruins his prospects of future happiness, and his best means of being useful both to himself and others.
Whether Aristippus first learnt from Sokrates the relative theory of the Good and the Beautiful, or had already embraced it before, we cannot say.
Some of his questions, as reported in Xenophon, would lead us to suspect that it took him by surprise: just as we find, in the Protagoras of Plato that a theory substantially the same, though in different words, is proposed by the Platonic Sokrates to the Sophist Protagoras: who at first repudiates it, but is compelled ultimately to admit it by the elaborate dialectic of Sokrates.
[176] If Aristippus did not learn the theory from Sokrates, he was at any rate fortified in it by the authority of Sokrates; to whose doctrine, in this respect, he adhered more closely than Plato.
[Footnote 175: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
5.
Sokrates exhorts those with whom he converses to be sparing in indulgences, and to cultivate self-command and fortitude as well as bodily energy and activity.
The reason upon which these exhortations are founded is eudæmonistic: that a person will thereby escape or be able to confront serious dangers--and will obtain for himself ultimately greater pleasures than those which he foregoes (Memor.
i.
6, 8; ii.
1, 31-33; iii.
12, 2-5).
[Greek: Tou= de\ mê\ douleu/ein gastri\ mêde\ u(/pnô| kai\ lagnei/a| oi)/ei ti a)/llo ai)tiô/teron ei)=nai, ê)\ to\ e(/tera e)/chein tou/tôn ê(di/ô, a(\ ou) mo/non e)n chrei/a| o)/nta eu)phrai/nei, a)lla\ kai\ e)/lpidas pare/chonta ô)phelê/sein a)ei/?]
See also Memor.
ii.
4, ii.
10, 4, about the importance of acquiring and cultivating friends, because a good friend is the most useful and valuable of all possessions.
Sokrates, like Aristippus, adopts the prudential view of life, and not the transcendental; recommending sobriety and virtue on the ground of pleasures secured and pains averted.
We find Plutarch, in his very bitter attacks on Epikurus, reasoning on the Hedonistic basis, and professing to prove that Epikurus discarded pleasures more and greater for the sake of obtaining pleasures fewer and less.
See Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, pp.
1096-1099.]
[Footnote 176: Plato, Protagoras, pp.
351-361.]
[Side-note: Aristippus adhered to the doctrine of Sokrates.]
Aristippus is recognised by Aristotle[177] in two characters: both as a Sophist, and as a companion of Sokrates and Plato.
Moreover it is remarkable that the doctrine, in reference to which Aristotle cites him as one among the Sophists, is a doctrine unquestionably Sokratic--contempt of geometrical science as useless, and as having no bearing on the good or evil of life.
[178] Herein also Aristippus followed Sokrates, while Plato departed from him.
[Footnote 177: Aristot.
Rhetoric.
ii.
24; Metaphysic.
B.
996, a.
32.]
[Footnote 178: Xenophon.
Memor.
iv.
7, 2.]
[Side-note: Life and dicta of Aristippus--His type of character.]
In estimating the character of Aristippus, I have brought into particular notice the dialogues reported by Xenophon, because the Xenophontic statements, with those of Aristotle, are the only contemporary evidence (for Plato only names him once to say that he was not present at the death of Sokrates, and was reported to be in Ægina).
The other statements respecting Aristippus, preserved by Diogenes and others, not only come from later authorities, but give us hardly any facts; though they ascribe to him a great many sayings and repartees, adapted to a peculiar type of character.
That type of character, together with an imperfect notion of his doctrines, is all that we can make out.
Though Aristippus did not follow the recommendation of Sokrates, to labour and qualify himself for a ruler, yet both the advice of Sokrates, to reflect and prepare himself for the anxieties and perils of the future--and the spectacle of self-sufficing independence which the character of Sokrates afforded--were probably highly useful to him.
Such advice being adverse to the natural tendencies of his mind, impressed upon him forcibly those points of the case which he was most likely to forget: and contributed to form in him that habit of self-command which is a marked feature in his character.
He wished (such are the words ascribed to him by Xenophon) to pass through life as easily and agreeably as possible.
Ease comes before pleasure: but his plan of life was to obtain as much pleasure as he could, consistent with ease, or without difficulty and danger.
He actually realised, as far as our means of knowledge extend, that middle path of life which Sokrates declared to be impracticable.
[Side-note: Aristippus acted conformably to the advice of Sokrates.]
Much of the advice given by Sokrates, Aristippus appears to have followed, though not from the reasons which Sokrates puts forward for giving it.
When Sokrates reminds him that men liable to be tempted and ensnared by the love of good eating, were unfit to command--when he animadverts on the insanity of the passionate lover, who exposed himself to the extremity of danger for the purpose of possessing a married woman, while there were such abundant means of gratifying the sexual appetite without any difficulty or danger whatever[179]--to all this Aristippus assents: and what we read about his life is in perfect conformity therewith.
Reason and prudence supply ample motives for following such advice, whether a man be animated with the love of command or not.
So again, when Sokrates impresses upon Aristippus that the Good and the Beautiful were the same, being relative only to human wants or satisfaction--and that nothing was either good or beautiful, except in so far as it tended to confer relief, security, or enjoyment--this lesson too Aristippus laid to heart, and applied in a way suitable to his own peculiar dispositions and capacities.
[Footnote 179: Xen.
Mem.
ii.
1, 5.
[Greek: kai\ têlikou/tôn me\n e)pikeime/nôn tô=| moicheu/onti kakô=n te kai\ ai)schrô=n, o)/ntôn de\ pollô=n tô=n a)poluso/ntôn tê=s tô=n a)phrodisiô=n e)pithumi/as e)n a)dei/a|, o(/môs ei)s ta\ e)piki/nduna phe/resthai, a)=r' ou)k ê)/dê tou=to panta/pasi kakodaimonô=nto/s e)stin?
E)/moige dokei=, e)/phê (A)ri/stippos).]]
[Side-note: Self-mastery and independence--the great aspiration of Aristippus.]
The type of character represented by Aristippus is the man who enjoys what the present affords, so far as can be done without incurring future mischief, or provoking the enmity of others--but who will on no account enslave himself to any enjoyment; who always maintains his own self-mastery and independence and who has prudence and intelligence enabling him to regulate each separate enjoyment so as not to incur preponderant evil in future.
[180] This self-mastery and independence is in point of fact the capital aspiration of Aristippus, hardly less than of Antisthenes and Diogenes.
He is competent to deal suitably with all varieties of persons, places, and situations, and to make the best of each--[Greek: Ou(= ga\r toiou/tôn dei=, touou=tos ei)=m' e)gô/]:[181] but he accepts what the situation presents, without yearning or struggling for that which it cannot present.
[182] He enjoys the society both of the Syracusan despot Dionysius, and of the Hetæra Lais; but he will not make himself subservient either to one or to the other: he conceives himself able to afford, to both, as much satisfaction as he receives.
[183] His enjoyments are not enhanced by the idea that others are excluded from the like enjoyment, and that he is a superior, privileged man: he has no jealousy or antipathy, no passion for triumphing over rivals, no demand for envy or admiration from spectators.
Among the Hetæræ in Greece were included all the most engaging and accomplished women--for in Grecian matrimony, it was considered becoming and advantageous that the bride should be young and ignorant, and that as a wife she should neither see nor know any thing beyond the administration of her own feminine apartments and household.
[184] Aristippus attached himself to those Hetæræ who pleased him; declaring that the charm of their society was in no way lessened by the knowledge that others enjoyed it also, and that he could claim no exclusive privilege.
[185] His patience and mildness in argument is much commended.
The main lesson which he had learnt from philosophy (he said), was self-appreciation--to behave himself with confidence in every man's society: even if all laws were abrogated, the philosopher would still, without any law, live in the same way as he now did.
[186] His confidence remained unshaken, when seized as a captive in Asia by order of the Persian satrap Artaphernes: all that he desired was, to be taken before the satrap himself.
[187] Not to renounce pleasure, but to enjoy pleasure moderately and to keep desires under controul,--was in his judgment the true policy of life.
But he was not solicitous to grasp enjoyment beyond what was easily attainable, nor to accumulate wealth or power which did not yield positive result.
[188] While Sokrates recommended, and Antisthenes practised, the precaution of deadening the sexual appetite by approaching no women except such as were ugly and repulsive,[189]--while Xenophon in the Cyropædia,[190] working out the Sokratic idea of the dangerous fascination of beauty, represents Cyrus as refusing to see the captive Pantheia, and depicts the too confident Araspes (who treats such precaution as exaggerated timidity, and fully trusts his own self-possession), when appointed to the duty of guarding her, as absorbed against his will in a passion which makes him forget all reason and duty--Aristippus has sufficient self-mastery to visit the most seductive Hetæræ without being drawn into ruinous extravagance or humiliating subjugation.
We may doubt whether he ever felt, even for Lais, a more passionate sentiment than Plato in his Epigram expresses towards the Kolophonian Hetæra Archeanassa.
[Footnote 180: Diog.
L. ii.
67.
[Greek: ou)/tôs ê)=n kai\ e(le/sthai kai\ kataphronê=sai polu\s.]]
[Footnote 181: Diog.
L. ii.
66.
[Greek: ê)=n de\ i(kano\s a(rmo/sasthai kai\ to/pô| kai\ chro/nô| kai\ prosô/pô|, kai\ pa=san peri/stasin a(rmoni/ôs u(pokri/nasthai; dio\ kai\ para\ Dionusi/ô| tô=n a)/llôn êu)doki/mei ma=llon, a)ei\ to\ prospeso\n eu)= diatithe/menos; a)pe/laue me\n ga\r ê(donê=s tô=n paro/ntôn, ou)k e)thê/ra de\ po/nô| tê\n a)po/lausin tô=n ou) paro/ntôn].
Horat.
Epistol.
i.
17, 23-24:-"Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res, Tentantem majora, ferè præsentibus æquum."]
[Footnote 182: Sophokles, Philoktêtes, 1049 (the words of Odysseus).]
[Footnote 183: Diog.
L. ii.
75.
[Greek: e)/chrêto kai\ Lai+/di tê=| e(tai/ra|; pro\s ou)=n tou\s memphome/nous e)/phê, E)/chô Lai+/da, a)ll' ou)k e)/chomai; e)pei\ to\ kratei=n kai\ mê\ ê(tta=sthai ê(donô=n, a)/riston--ou) to\ mê\ chrê=sthai].
ii.
77, [Greek: Dionusi/ou pote\ e)rome/nou, e)pi\ ti/ ê(/koi, e)/phê, e)pi\ tô=| metadô/sein ô(=n e)/choi, kai\ metalê/psesthai ô(=n mê\ e)/choi].
Lucian introduces [Greek: A)retê\] and [Greek: Truphê\] as litigating before [Greek: Di/kê] for the possession of Aristippus: the litigation is left undecided (Bis Accusatus, c.
13-23).]
[Footnote 184 Xenophon, Oeconomic.
iii.
13, vii.
6, Ischomachus says to Sokrates about his wife, [Greek: Kai\ ti/ a)\n e)pistame/nên au)tê\n pare/labon, ê(\ e)/tê me\n ou)/pô pentekai/deka gegonui=a ê)=lthe pro\s e)me/, to\n d' e)mprosthen _chro/non e)/zê u(po\ pollê=s e)pimelei/as, o(/pôs ô(s e)/lachista me\n o)/psoito, e)la/chista d' a)kou/soito, e)la/chista de\ e)/roito?_]] [Footnote 185: Diog.
** L. ii.
74.
On this point his opinion coincided with that of Diogenes, and of the Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus (D. L. vii.
131), who maintained, that among the wise wives ought to be in common, and that all marital jealousy ought to be discarded.
[Greek: A)re/skei d' au)toi=s kai\ koina\s ei)=nai ta\s gunai=kas dei=n para\ toi=s sophoi=s ô(/ste to\n e)ntucho/nta tê=| e)ntuchou/sê| chrê=sthai, katha/ phêsi Zê/nôn e)n tê=| Politei/a| kai\ Chru/sippos e)n tô=| peri\ Politei/as, a)lla/ te Dioge/nês o( Kuniko\s kai\ Pla/tôn; pa/ntas te pai=das e)pi/sês ste/rxomen pate/rôn tro/pon, kai\ ê( e)pi\ moichei/a| zêlotupi/a periairethê/setai].
Compare Sextus Emp.
Pyrrh.
H. iii.
205.]
[Footnote 186: Diog.
L. ii.
68.
The like reply is ascribed to Aristotle.
Diog.
L. v. 20; Plutarch, De Profect.
in Virtut.
p. 80 D.] [Footnote 187: Diog.
L. ii.
79.]
[Footnote 188: Diog.
L. ii.
72-74.]
[Footnote 189: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
3, 11-14; Symposion, iv.
38; Diog.
L. vi.
3.
[Greek: (A)ntisthe/nês) e)/lege suneche\s--Manei/ên ma=llon ê)\ ê(sthei/ên--kai\--chrê\ toiau/tais plêsia/zein gunaixi/n, ai(\ cha/rin ei)/sontai.]]
[Footnote 190: Xenoph.
Cyropæd.
v. 1, 2-18.]
[Side-note: Aristippus compared with Antisthenes and Diogenes--Points of agreement and disagreement between them.]
Aristippus is thus remarkable, like the Cynics Antisthenes and Diogenes, not merely for certain theoretical doctrines, but also for acting out a certain plan of life.
[191] We know little or nothing of the real life of Aristippus, except what appears in Xenophon.
The biography of him (as of the Cynic Diogenes) given by Diogenes Laertius, consists of little more than a string of anecdotes, mostly sayings, calculated to illustrate a certain type of character.
[192] Some of these are set down by those who approved the type, and who therefore place it in a favourable point of view--others by those who disapprove it and give the opposite colour.
[Footnote 191: Sextus Empiricus and others describe this by the Greek word [Greek: a)gôgê/] (Pyrrhon.
Hypotyp.
i.
150).
Plato's beautiful epigram upon Archeanassa is given by Diogenes L. iii.
31.
Compare this with the remark of Aristippus--Plutarch, Amatorius, p. 750 E. That the society of these fascinating Hetæræ was dangerous, and exhaustive to the purses of those who sought it, may be seen from the expensive manner of life of Theodotê, described in Xenophon, Mem.
iii.
11, 4.
The amorous impulses or fancies of Plato were censured by Dikæarchus.
See Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
iv.
34, 71, with Davies's note.]
[Footnote 192: This is justly remarked by Wendt in his instructive Dissertation, De Philosophiâ Cyrenaicâ, p. 8 (Göttingen, 1841).]
We can understand and compare the different types of character represented by Antisthenes or Diogenes, and by Aristippus: but we have little knowledge of the real facts of their lives.
The two types, each manifesting that marked individuality which belongs to the Sokratic band, though in many respects strongly contrasted, have also some points of agreement.
Both Aristippus and Diogenes are bent on individual freedom and independence of character: both of them stand upon their own appreciation of life and its phenomena: both of them are impatient of that servitude to the opinions and antipathies of others, which induces a man to struggle for objects, not because they afford him satisfaction, but because others envy him for possessing them--and to keep off evils, not because he himself feels them as such, but because others pity or despise him for being subject to them; both of them are exempt from the competitive and ambitious feelings, from the thirst after privilege and power, from the sense of superiority arising out of monopolised possession and exclusion of others from partnership.
Diogenes kept aloof from political life and civil obligations as much as Aristippus; and would have pronounced (as Aristippus replies to Sokrates in the Xenophontic dialogue) that the task of ruling others, instead of being a prize to be coveted, was nothing better than an onerous and mortifying servitude,[193] not at all less onerous because a man took up the burthen of his own accord.
These points of agreement are real: but the points of disagreement are not less real.
Diogenes maintains his free individuality, and puts himself out of the reach of human enmity, by clothing himself in impenetrable armour: by attaining positive insensibility, as near as human life permits.
This is with him not merely the acting out of a scheme of life, but also a matter of pride.
He is proud of his ragged garment and coarse[194] fare, as exalting him above others, and as constituting him a pattern of endurance: and he indulges this sentiment by stinging and contemptuous censure of every one.
Aristippus has no similar vanity: he achieves his independence without so heavy a renunciation: he follows out his own plan of life, without setting himself up as a pattern for others.
But his plan is at the same time more delicate; requiring greater skill and intelligence, more of manifold sagacity, in the performer.
Horace, who compares the two and gives the preference to Aristippus, remarks that Diogenes, though professing to want nothing, was nevertheless as much dependent upon the bounty of those who supplied his wallet with provisions, as Aristippus upon the favour of princes: and that Diogenes had only one fixed mode of proceeding, while Aristippus could master and turn to account a great diversity of persons and situations--could endure hardship with patience and dignity, when it was inevitable, and enjoy the opportunities of pleasure when they occurred.
"To Aristippus alone it is given to wear both fine garments and rags" is a remark ascribed to Plato.
[195] In truth, Aristippus possesses in eminent measure that accomplishment, the want of which Plato proclaims to be so misleading and mischievous--artistic skill in handling human affairs, throughout his dealings with mankind.
[196] [Footnote 193: It is this servitude of political life, making the politician the slave of persons and circumstances around him, which Horace contrasts with the philosophical independence of Aristippus:-Ac ne forté roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter; Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.
Nunc agilis fio et mersor civilibus undis, Virtutis veræ custos rigidusque satelles: Nunc in Aristippi furtim præcepta relabor, Et mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.
(Epist.
i.
1, 15.)
So also the Platonic Sokrates (Theætêt.
pp.
172-175) depicts forcibly the cramped and fettered lives of rhetors and politicians; contrasting them with the self-judgment and independence of speculative and philosophical enquirers--[Greek: ô(s oi)ke/tai pro\s e)leuthe/rous tethra/phthai--o( me\n tô=| o)/nti e)n e)leutheri/a| te kai\ scholê=| tethramme/nos, o(\n dê\ philo/sophon kalei=s.]]
[Footnote 194: Diog.
L. ii.
36.
[Greek: stre/psantos A)ntisthe/nous to\ dier)r(ôgo\s tou= tri/bônos ei)s tou)mphane/s, O(rô= sou=, e)/phê (Sôkra/tês), dia\ tou= tri/bônos tê\n kenodoxi/an.]]
[Footnote 195: Horat.
Epistol.
i.
17, 13-24; Diog.
L. vi.
46-56-66.
"Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus uti Nollet Aristippus."
"Si sciret regibus uti, Fastidiret olus, qui me notat."
Utrius horum Verba probes et facta, doce: vel junior audi Cur sit Aristippi potior sententia.
Namque Mordacem Cynicum sic eludebat, ut aiunt: "Scurror ego ipse mihi, populo tu: rectius hoc et Splendidius multò est.
Equus ut me portet, alat rex, Officium facio: tu poscis vilia rerum, Dante minor, quamvis fers te nullius egentem."
Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res, Tentantem majora, ferè præsentibus æquum.
(Compare Diog.
L. ii.
102, vi.
58, where this anecdote is reported as of Plato instead of Aristippus.)
Horace's view and scheme of life are exceedingly analogous to those of Aristippus.
Plutarch, Fragm.
De Homero, p. 1190; De Fortunâ Alex.
p. 330 D. Diog.
Laert.
ii.
67.
[Greek: dio/ pote Stra/tôna, oi( de\ Pla/tôna, pro\s au)to\n ei)pei=n, Soi\ mo/nô| de/dotai kai\ chlani/da phorei=n kai\ r(a/kos].
The remark cannot have been made by Straton, who was not contemporary with Aristippus.
Even Sokrates lived by the bounty of his rich friends, and indeed could have had no other means of supporting his wife and children; though he accepted only a portion of what they tendered to him, declining the remainder.
See the remark of Aristippus, Diog.
L. ii.
74.]
[Footnote 196: Plato, Phædon, p. 89 E. [Greek: o(/ti a)/neu te/chnês tê=s peri\ ta)nthrô/peia o( toiou=tos chrê=sthai e)picheirei= toi=s a)nthrô/pois.]]
[Side-note: Attachment of Aristippus to ethics and philosophy--contempt for other studies.]
That the scheme of life projected by Aristippus was very difficult requiring great dexterity, prudence, and resolution, to execute it--we may see plainly by the Xenophontic dialogue; wherein Sokrates pronounces it to be all but impracticable.
As far as we can judge, he surmounted the difficulties of it: yet we do not know enough of his real life to determine with accuracy what varieties of difficulties he experienced.
He followed the profession of a Sophist, receiving fees for his teaching: and his attachment to philosophy (both as contrasted with ignorance and as contrasted with other studies not philosophy) was proclaimed in the most emphatic language.
It was better (he said) to be a beggar, than an uneducated man:[197] the former was destitute of money, but the latter was destitute of humanity.
He disapproved varied and indiscriminate instruction, maintaining that persons ought to learn in youth what they were to practise in manhood: and he compared those who, neglecting philosophy, employed themselves in literature or physical science, to the suitors in the Odyssey who obtained the favours of Melantho and the other female servants, but were rejected by the Queen Penelopê herself.
[198] He treated with contempt the study of geometry, because it took no account, and made no mention, of what was good and evil, beautiful and ugly.
In other arts (he said), even in the vulgar proceeding of the carpenter and the currier, perpetual reference was made to good, as the purpose intended to be served and to evil as that which was to be avoided: but in geometry no such purpose was ever noticed.
[199] [Footnote 197: Diog.
L. ii.
70; Plutarch, Fragm.
[Greek: U(pomnê/mat' ei)s Ê(si/odon], s. 9.
[Greek: A)ri/stippos de\ a)p' e)nanti/as o( Sôkratiko\s e)/lege, sumbou/lou dei=sthai chei=ron ei)=nai ê)\ prosaitei=n.]]
[Footnote 198: Diog.
L. ii.
79-80.
[Greek: tou\s tô=n e)gkukli/ôn paideuma/tôn metascho/ntas, philosophi/as de\ a)poleiphthe/ntas], &c. Plutarch, Fragm.
[Greek: Strômate/ôn], sect.
9.]
[Footnote 199: Aristot.
Metaph.
B.
996, a 32, M. 1078, a.
35.
[Greek: ô(/ste dia\ tau=ta kai\ tô=n sophistô=n tine\s oi(=on A)ri/stippos _proepêla/kizon_ au)ta\s], &c.] [Side-note: Aristippus taught as a Sophist.
His reputation thus acquired procured for him the attentions of Dionysius and others.]
This last opinion of Aristippus deserves particular attention, because it is attested by Aristotle.
And it confirms what we hear upon less certain testimony, that Aristippus discountenanced the department of physical study generally (astronomy and physics) as well as geometry; confining his attention to facts and reasonings which bore upon the regulation of life.
[200] In this restrictive view he followed the example and precepts of Sokrates--of Isokrates--seemingly also of Protagoras and Prodikus though not of the Eleian Hippias, whose course of study was larger and more varied.
[201] Aristippus taught as a Sophist, and appears to have acquired great reputation in that capacity both at Athens and elsewhere.
[202] Indeed, if he had not acquired such intellectual and literary reputation at Athens, he would have had little chance of being invited elsewhere, and still less chance of receiving favours and presents from Dionysius and other princes:[203] whose attentions did not confer celebrity, but waited upon it when obtained, and doubtless augmented it.
If Aristippus lived a life of indulgence at Athens, we may fairly presume that his main resources for sustaining it, like those of Isokrates, were derived from his own teaching: and that the presents which he received from Dionysius of Syracuse, like those which Isokrates received from Nikokles of Cyprus, were welcome additions, but not his main income.
Those who (like most of the historians of philosophy) adopt the opinion of Sokrates and Plato, that it is disgraceful for an instructor to receive payment from the persons taught will doubtless despise Aristippus for such a proceeding: for my part I dissent from this opinion, and I therefore do not concur in the disparaging epithets bestowed upon him.
And as for the costly indulgences, and subservience to foreign princes, of which Aristippus stands accused, we must recollect that the very same reproaches were advanced against Plato and Aristotle by their contemporaries: and as far as we know, with quite as much foundation.
[204] [Footnote 200: Diog.
L. ii.
92.
Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Math.
vii.
11.
Plutarch, apud Eusebium Præp.
Ev.
i.
8, 9.]
[Footnote 201: Plato, Protagor.
p. 318 E, where the different methods followed by Protagoras and Hippias are indicated.]
[Footnote 202: Diog.
Laert.
ii.
62.
Alexis Comicus ap.
Athenæ.
xii.
544.
Aristokles (ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Ev.
xiv.
18) treats the first Aristippus as a mere voluptuary, who said nothing generally [Greek: peri\ tou= te/lous].
All the doctrine (he says) came from the younger Aristippus.
I think this very improbable.
To what did the dialogues composed by the first Aristippus refer?
How did he get his reputation?]
[Footnote 203: Several anecdotes are recounted about sayings and doings of Aristippus in his intercourse with _Dionysius_.
_Which_ Dionysius is meant?--the elder or the younger?
Probably the elder.
It is to be remembered that Dionysius the Elder lived and reigned until the year 367 B.C., in which year his son Dionysius the Younger succeeded him.
The death of Sokrates took place in 399 B.C.
: between which, and the accession of Dionysius the Younger, an interval of 32 years occurred.
Plato was old, being sixty years of age, when he first visited the younger Dionysius, shortly after the accession of the latter.
Aristippus cannot well have been younger than Plato, and he is said to have been older than Æschines Sokraticus (D. L. ii.
83).
Compare D. L. ii.
41.
When, with these dates present to our minds, we read the anecdotes recounted by Diogenes L. respecting the sayings and doings of Aristippus with _Dionysius_, we find: that several of them relate to the contrast between the behaviour of Aristippus and that of Plato at Syracuse.
Now it is certain that Plato went _once_ to Syracuse when he was forty years of age (Epist.
vii.
init.
), in 387 B.C.--and according to one report (Lucian, De Parasito, 34), he went there _twice_--while the elder Dionysius was in the plenitude of power: but he made an unfavourable impression, and was speedily sent away in displeasure.
I think it very probable that Aristippus may have visited the elder Dionysius, and may have found greater favour with him than Plato found (see Lucian, l. c.), since Dionysius was an accomplished man and a composer of tragedies.
Moreover Aristippus was a Kyrenæan, and Aristippus wrote about Libya (D. L. ii.
83).]
[Footnote 204: See the epigram of the contemporary poet, Theokritus of Chios, in Diog.
L. v. 11; compare Athenæus, viii.
354, xiii.
566.
Aristokles, ap.
Eusebium Præp.
Ev.
xv.
2.]
Aristippus composed several dialogues, of which the titles alone are preserved.
[205] They must however have been compositions of considerable merit, since Theopompus accused Plato of borrowing largely from them.
[Footnote 205: Diog.
L. ii.
84-85.]
[Side-note: Ethical theory of Aristippus and the Kyrenaic philosophers.]
As all the works of Aristippus are lost, we cannot pretend to understand fully his theory from the meagre abstract given in Sextus Empiricus and Diogenes.
Yet the theory is of importance in the history of ancient speculation, since it passed with some modifications to Epikurus, and was adopted by a large proportion of instructed men.
The Kyrenaic doctrine was transmitted by Aristippus to his disciples Æthiops and Antipater: but his chief disciple appears to have been his daughter Arêtê: whom he instructed so well, that she was able to instruct her own son, the second Aristippus, called for that reason Metrodidactus.
The basis of his ethical theory was, pleasure and pain: pleasure being _smooth motion_, pain, _rough motion_:[206] pleasure being the object which all animals, by nature and without deliberation, loved, pursued, and felt satisfaction in obtaining pain being the object which they all by nature hated and tried to avoid.
Aristippus considered that no one pleasure was different from another, nor more pleasurable than another:[207] that the attainment of these special pleasurable moments, or as many of them as practicable, was The End to be pursued in life.
By _Happiness_, they understood the sum total of these special pleasures, past, present, and future: yet Happiness was desirable not on its own account, but on account of its constituent items, especially such of those items as were present and certainly future.
[208] Pleasures and pains of memory and expectation were considered to be of little importance.
Absence of pain or relief from pain, on the one hand--they did not consider as equivalent to positive pleasure--nor absence of pleasure or withdrawal of pleasure, on the other hand--as equivalent to positive pain.
Neither the one situation nor the other was a _motion_ ([Greek: ki/nêsis]), _i.e._ a positive situation, appreciable by the consciousness: each was a middle state--a mere negation of consciousness, like the phenomena of sleep.
[209] They recognised some mental pleasures and pains as derivative from bodily sensation and as exclusively individual--others as not so: for example, there were pleasures and pains of sympathy; and a man often felt joy at the prosperity of his friends and countrymen, quite as genuine as that which he felt for his own good fortune.
But they maintained that the bodily pleasures and pains were much more vehement than the mental which were not bodily: for which reason, the pains employed by the laws in punishing offenders were chiefly bodily.
The fear of pain was in their judgments more operative than the love of pleasure: and though pleasure was desirable for its own sake, yet the accompanying conditions of many pleasures were so painful as to deter the prudent man from aiming at them.
These obstructions rendered it impossible for any one to realise the sum total of pleasures constituting Happiness.
Even the wise man sometimes failed, and the foolish man sometimes did well, though in general the reverse was the truth: but under the difficult conditions of life, a man must be satisfied if he realised some particular pleasurable conjunctions, without aspiring to a continuance or totality of the like.
[210] [Footnote 206: Diog.
L. ii.
86-87.
[Greek: du/o pa/thê u(phi/stanto, po/non kai\ ê(donê/n; tê\n me\n lei/an ki/nêsin, tê\n ê(donê/n, to\n de\ po/non, trachei=an ki/nêsin; mê\ diaphe/rein te ê(donê\n ê(donê=s, mêde\ ê(/dion ti ei)=nai; kai\ tê\n me\n, eu)dokêtê\n** pa=si zô/ois, to\n de\ a)pokroustiko/n.]]
[Footnote 207: Diog.
L. ii.
p. 87.
[Greek: mê\ diaphe/rein te ê(donê\n ê(donê=s, mêde\ ê(/dion ti ei)=nai].
They did not mean by these words to deny that one pleasure was more vehement and attractive than another pleasure, or that one pain is more vehement and deterrent than another pain: for it is expressly said afterwards (s. 90) that they admitted this.
They meant to affirm that one pleasure did not differ from another _so far forth as pleasure_: that all pleasures must be ranked as a class, and compared with each other in respect of intensity, durability, and other properties possessed in greater or less degree.]
[Footnote 208: Diog.
L. ii.
pp.
88-89.
Athenæus, xii.
p.
544.]
[Footnote 209: Diog.
L. ii.
89-90.
[Greek: mê\ ou)/sês tê=s a)poni/as ê)\ tê=s a)êdoni/as kinê/seôs, e)pei\ ê( a)poni/a oi(onei\ katheu/donto/s e)sti kata/stasis--me/sas katasta/seis ô)no/mazon a)êdoni/an kai\ a)poni/an].
A doctrine very different from this is ascribed to Aristippus in Galen--Placit.
Philos.
(xix.
p. 230, Kühn).
It is there affirmed that by pleasure Aristippus understood, not the pleasure of sense, but that disposition of mind whereby a person becomes insensible to pain, and hard to be imposed upon ([Greek: a)na/lgêtos kai\ dusgoê/teutos]).]
[Footnote 210: Diog.
L. ii.
91.
It does not appear that the Kyrenaic sect followed out into detail the derivative pleasures and pains; nor the way in which, by force of association, these come to take precedence of the primary, exercising influence on the mind both more forcible and more constant.
We find this important fact remarkably stated in the doctrine of Kalliphon.
Clemens Alexandr.
Stromat.
ii.
p. 415, ed.
1629.
[Greek: Kata\ de\ tou\s peri\ Kalliphô=nta, e(/neka me\n tê=s ê(donê=s pareisê=lthen ê( a)retê/; chro/nô| de\ u(/steron, to\ peri\ au)tê\n ka/llos katidou=sa, i)so/timon e(autê\n tê=| a)rchê=|, toute/sti tê=| ê(donê=|, pare/schen.]]
[Side-note: Prudence--good, by reason of the pleasure which it ensured, and of the pains which it was necessary to avoid.
Just and honourable, by law or custom--not by nature.]
Aristippus regarded prudence or wisdom as good, yet not as good _per se_, but by reason of the pleasures which it enabled us to procure and the pains which it enabled us to avoid--and wealth as a good, for the same reason.
A friend also was valuable, for the use and necessities of life: just as each part of one's own body was precious, so long as it was present and could serve a useful purpose.
[211] Some branches of virtue might be possessed by persons who were not wise: and bodily training was a valuable auxiliary to virtue.
Even the wise man could never escape pain and fear, for both of these were natural: but he would keep clear of envy, passionate love, and superstition, which were not natural, but consequences of vain opinion.
A thorough acquaintance with the real nature of Good and Evil would relieve him from superstition as well as from the fear of death.
[212] [Footnote 211: Diog.
L. ii.
91.
[Greek: tê\n phro/nêsin a)gatho\n me\n ei)=nai le/gousin, ou) di' e(autê\n de\ ai(retê/n, a)lla\ dia\ ta\ e)x au)tê=s perigino/mena; to\n phi/lon tê=s chrei/as e(/neka; kai\ ga\r me/ros sô/matos, me/chris a)\n parê=|, a)spa/zesthai].
The like comparison is employed by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia (i.
2, 52-55), that men cast away portions of their own body, so soon as these portions cease to be useful.]
[Footnote 212: Diog.
L. ii.
p.
92.]
The Kyrenaics did not admit that there was anything just, or honourable, or base, by nature: but only by law and custom: nevertheless the wise man would be sufficiently restrained, by the fear of punishment and of discredit, from doing what was repugnant to the society in which he lived.
They maintained that wisdom was attainable; that the senses did not at first judge truly, but might be improved by study; that progress was realised in philosophy as in other arts, and that there were different gradations of it, as well as different gradations of pain and suffering, discernible in different men.
The wise man, as they conceived him, was a reality; not (like the wise man of the Stoics) a sublime but unattainable ideal.
[213] [Footnote 213: Diog.
L. ii.
p.
93.]
[Side-note: Their logical theory--nothing knowable except the phenomenal, our own sensations and feelings--no knowledge of the absolute.]
Such were (as far as our imperfect evidence goes) the ethical and emotional views of the Kyrenaic school: their theory and precepts respecting the plan and prospects of life.
In regard to truth and knowledge, they maintained that we could have no knowledge of anything but human sensations, affections, feelings, &c. ([Greek: pa/thê]): that respecting the extrinsic, extra-sensational, absolute, objects or causes from whence these feelings proceeded, we could know nothing at all.
Partly for this reason, they abstained from all attention to the study of nature--to astronomy and physics: partly also because they did not see any bearing of these subjects upon good and evil, or upon the conduct of life.
They turned their attention mainly to ethics, partly also to logic as subsidiary to ethical reasoning.
[214] [Footnote 214: Diog.
L. ii.
p. 92.
Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
vi.
53.]
Such low estimation of mathematics and physics and attention given almost exclusively to the feelings and conduct of human life--is a point common to the opposite schools of Aristippus and Antisthenes, derived by both of them from Sokrates.
Herein Plato stands apart from all the three.
The theory of Aristippus, as given above, is only derived from a meagre abstract and from a few detached hints.
We do not know how he himself stated it: still less how he enforced and vindicated it.--He, as well as Antisthenes, composed dialogues: which naturally implies diversity of handling.
Their main thesis, therefore--the text, as it were, upon which they debated or expatiated (which is all that the abstract gives)--affords very inadequate means, even if we could rely upon the accuracy of the statement, for appreciating their philosophical competence.
We should form but a poor idea of the acute, abundant, elastic and diversified dialectic of Plato, if all his dialogues had been lost--and if we had nothing to rely upon except the summary of Platonism prepared by Diogenes Laertius: which summary, nevertheless, is more copious and elaborate than the same author has furnished either of Aristippus or Antisthenes.
[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus passed to the Stoics and Epikureans.]
In the history of the Greek mind these two last-mentioned philosophers (though included by Cicero among the _plebeii philosophi_) are not less important than Plato and Aristotle.
The speculations and precepts of Antisthenes passed, with various enlargements and modifications, into the Stoic philosophy: those of Aristippus into the Epikurean: the two most widely extended ethical sects in the subsequent Pagan world.--The Cynic sect, as it stood before it embraced the enlarged physical, kosmical, and social theories of Zeno and his contemporaries, reducing to a minimum all the desires and appetites--cultivating insensibility to the pains of life, and even disdainful insensibility to its pleasures--required extraordinary force of will and obstinate resolution, but little beyond.
Where there was no selection or discrimination, the most ordinary prudence sufficed.
It was otherwise with the scheme of Aristippus and the Kyrenaics: which, if it tasked less severely the powers of endurance, demanded a far higher measure of intelligent prudence.
Selection of that which might safely be enjoyed, and determination of the limit within which enjoyment must be confined, were constantly indispensable.
Prudence, knowledge, the art of mensuration or calculation, were essential to Aristippus, and ought to be put in the foreground when his theory is stated.
[Side-note: Ethical theory of Aristippus is identical with that of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras.]
That theory is, in point of fact, identical with the theory expounded by the Platonic Sokrates in Plato's Protagoras.
The general features of both are the same.
Sokrates there lays it down explicitly, that pleasure _per se_ is always good, and pain _per se_ always evil: that there is no other good (_per se_) except pleasure and diminution of pain--no other evil (_per se_) except pain and diminution of pleasure: that there is no other object in life except to live through it as much as possible with pleasures and without pains;[215] but that many pleasures become evil, because they cannot be had without depriving us of greater pleasures or imposing upon us greater pains while many pains become good, because they prevent greater pains or ensure greater pleasures: that the safety of life thus lies in a correct comparison of the more or less in pleasures and pains, and in a selection founded thereupon.
In other words, the safety of life depends upon calculating knowledge or prudence, the art or science of measuring.
[Footnote 215: Plato, Protag.
p. 355 A.
[Greek: ê)\ a)rkei= u(mi=n to\ ê(de/ôs katabiô=nai to\n bi/on a)/neu lupô=n?
ei) de\ a)rkei=, kai\ mê\ e)/chete mêde\n a)/llo pha/nai ei)=nai a)gatho\n ê)\ kako/n, o(\ mê\ ei)s tau=ta teleuta=|, to\ meta\ tou=to a)kou/ete].
The exposition of this theory, by the Platonic Sokrates, occupies the latter portion of the Protagoras, from p. 351 to near the conclusion.
See below, ch.
xxiii.
of the present work.
The language held by Aristippus to Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue (Memor.
ii.
1.
9), is exactly similar to that of the Platonic Sokrates, as above cited--[Greek: e)mauto\n ta/ttô ei)s tou\s boulome/nous ê(=| r(a=|sta/ te kai\ ê(/dista bioteu/ein.]]
[Side-note: Difference in the manner of stating the theory by the two.]
The theory here laid down by the Platonic Sokrates is the same as that of Aristippus.
The purpose of life is stated almost in the same words by both: by the Platonic Sokrates, and by Aristippus in the Xenophontic dialogue--"to live through with enjoyment and without suffering."
The Platonic Sokrates denies, quite as emphatically as Aristippus, any good or evil, honourable or base, except as representing the result of an intelligent comparison of pleasures and pains.
Judicious calculation is postulated by both: pleasures and pains being assumed by both as the only ends of pursuit and avoidance, to which calculation is to be applied.
The main difference is, that the prudence, art, or science, required for making this calculation rightly, are put forward by the Platonic Sokrates as the prominent item in his provision for passing through life: whereas, in the scheme of Aristippus, as far as we know it, such accomplished intelligence, though equally recognised and implied, is not equally thrust into the foreground.
So it appears at least in the abstract which we possess of his theory; if we had his own exposition of it, perhaps we might find the case otherwise.
In that abstract, indeed, we find the writer replying to those who affirmed prudence or knowledge, to be good _per se_--and maintaining that it is only good by reason of its consequences:[216] that is, that it is not good as End, in the same sense in which pleasure or mitigation, of pain are good.
This point of the theory, however, coincides again with the doctrine of the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras: where the art of calculation is extolled simply as an indispensable condition to the most precious results of human happiness.
[Footnote 216: Diog.
L. ii.
p.
91.]
What I say here applies especially to the Protagoras: for I am well aware that in other dialogues the Platonic Sokrates is made to hold different language.
[217] But in the Protagoras he defends a theory the same as that of Aristippus, and defends it by an elaborate argument which silences the objections of the Sophist Protagoras; who at first will not admit the unqualified identity of the pleasurable, judiciously estimated and selected, with the good.
The general and comprehensive manner in which Plato conceives and expounds the theory, is probably one evidence of his superior philosophical aptitude as compared with Aristippus and his other contemporaries.
He enunciates, side by side, and with equal distinctness, the two conditions requisite for his theory of life.
1.
The calculating or measuring art.
2.
A description of the items to which alone such measurement must be applied--pleasures and pains.--These two together make the full theory.
In other dialogues Plato insists equally upon the necessity of knowledge or calculating prudence: but then he is not equally distinct in specifying the items to which such prudence or calculation is to be applied.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that Aristippus, in laying out the same theory, may have dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon the other element in the theory: _i.e._ that while expressly insisting upon pleasures and pains, as the only data to be compared, he may have tacitly assumed the comparing or calculating intelligence, as if it were understood by itself, and did not require to be formally proclaimed.
[Footnote 217: See chapters xxiii., xxiv.,** xxxii.
of the present work, in which I enter more fully into the differences between the Protagoras, Gorgias, and Philêbus, in respect to this point.
Aristippus agrees with the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras, as to the general theory of life respecting pleasure and pain.
He agrees with the Platonic Sokrates _in the Gorgias_ (see pp.
500-515), in keeping aloof from active political life.
[Greek: a\ au(tou= pra/ttein, kai\ ou) polupragmonei=n e)n tô=| bi/ô|]--which Sokrates, in the Gorgias (p. 526 C), proclaims as the conduct of the true philosopher, proclaimed with equal emphasis by Aristippus.
Compare the Platonic Apology, p. 31 D-E.] [Side-note: Distinction to be made between a general theory--and the particular application of it made by the theorist to his own tastes and circumstances.]
A distinction must here be made between the general theory of life laid down by Aristippus--and the particular application which he made of that theory to his own course of proceeding.
What we may observe is, that the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras) agrees in the first, or general theory: whether he would have agreed in the second (or application to the particular case) we are not informed, but we may probably assume the negative.
And we find Sokrates (in the Xenophontic dialogue) taking the same negative ground against Aristippus--upon the second point, not upon the first.
He seeks to prove that the course of conduct adopted by Aristippus, instead of carrying with it a preponderance of pleasure, will entail a preponderance of pain.
He does not dispute the general theory.
[Side-note: Kyrenaic theorists after Aristippus.]
Though Aristippus and the Kyrenaic sect are recognised as the first persons who laid down this general theory, yet various others apart from them adopted it likewise.
We may see this not merely from the Protagoras of Plato, but also from the fact that Aristotle, when commenting upon the theory in his Ethics,[218] cites Eudoxus (eminent both as mathematician and astronomer, besides being among the hearers of Plato) as its principal champion.
Still the school of Kyrênê are recorded as a continuous body, partly defending, partly modifying the theory of Aristippus.
[219] Hegesias, Annikeris, and Theodôrus are the principal Kyrenaics named: the last of them contemporary with Ptolemy Soter, Lysimachus, Epikurus, Theophrastus, and Stilpon.
[Footnote 218: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
2.]
[Footnote 219: Sydenham, in his notes on Philêbus (note 39, p. 76), accuses Aristippus and the Kyrenaics of prevarication and sophistry in the statement of their doctrine respecting Pleasure.
He says that they called it indiscriminately [Greek: a)gatho\n] and [Greek: ta)gatho/n]--(a good--The Good)--"they used the fallacy of changing a particular term for a term which is universal, or vice versâ, by the sly omission or insertion of the definite article _The_ before the word Good" (p. 78).
He contrasts with this prevarication the ingenuousness of Eudoxus, as the advocate of Pleasure (Aristot.
Eth.
N. x.
2).
I know no evidence for either of these allegations: either for the prevarication of Aristippus or the ingenuousness of Eudoxus.]
[Side-note: Theodôrus--Annikeris--Hegesias.]
Diogenes Laertius had read a powerfully written book of Theodôrus, controverting openly the received opinions respecting the Gods:--which few of the philosophers ventured to do.
Cicero also mentions a composition of Hegesias.
[220] Of Annikeris we know none; but he, too, probably, must have been an author.
The doctrines which we find ascribed to these Kyrenaics evince how much affinity there was, at bottom, between them and the Cynics, in spite of the great apparent opposition.
Hegesias received the surname of the Death-Persuader: he considered happiness to be quite unattainable, and death to be an object not of fear, but of welcome acceptance, in the eyes of a wise man.
He started from the same basis as Aristippus: pleasure as the _expetendum_, pain as the _fugiendum_, to which all our personal friendships and aversions were ultimately referable.
But he considered that the pains of life preponderated over the pleasures, even under the most favourable circumstances.
For conferring pleasure, or for securing continuance of pleasure--wealth, high birth, freedom, glory, were of no greater avail than their contraries poverty, low birth, slavery, ignominy.
There was nothing which was, by nature or universally, either pleasurable or painful.
Novelty, rarity, satiety, rendered one thing pleasurable, another painful, to different persons and at different times.
The wise man would show his wisdom, not in the fruitless struggle for pleasures, but in the avoidance or mitigation of pains: which he would accomplish more successfully by rendering himself indifferent to the causes of pleasure.
He would act always for his own account, and would value himself higher than other persons: but he would at the same time reflect that the mistakes of these others were involuntary, and he would give them indulgent counsel, instead of hating them.
He would not trust his senses as affording any real knowledge: but he would be satisfied to act upon the probable appearances of sense, or upon phenomenal knowledge.
[221] [Footnote 220: Diog.
L. ii.
97.
[Greek: Theo/dôros--panta/pasin a)nairô=n ta\s peri\ theô=n do/xas].
Diog.
L. ii.
86, 97.
Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
i.
34, 83-84.
[Greek: Ê(gêsi/as o( peisitha/natos].]
[Footnote 221: Diog.
L. ii.
93, 94.]
[Side-note: Hegesias--Low estimation of life--renunciation of pleasure--coincidence with the Cynics.]
Such is the summary which we read of the doctrines of Hegesias: who is said to have enforced his views,[222]--of the real character of life, as containing a great preponderance of misfortune and suffering--in a manner so persuasive, that several persons were induced to commit suicide.
Hence he was prohibited by the first Ptolemy from lecturing in such a strain.
His opinions respecting life coincide in the main with those set forth by Sokrates in the Phædon of Plato: which dialogue also is alleged to have operated so powerfully on the Platonic disciple Kleombrotus, that he was induced to terminate his own existence.
Hegesias, agreeing with Aristippus that pleasure would be the Good, if you could get it--maintains that the circumstances of life are such as to render pleasure unattainable: and therefore advises to renounce pleasure at once and systematically, in order that we may turn our attention to the only practicable end--that of lessening pain.
Such deliberate renunciation of pleasure brings him into harmony with the doctrine of the Cynics.
[Footnote 222: Compare the Pseudo-Platonic dialogue entitled Axiochus, pp.
366, 367, and the doctrine of Kleanthes in Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathemat.
ix.
88-92.
Lucretius, v.
196-234.]
[Side-note: Doctrine of Relativity affirmed by the Kyrenaics, as well as by Protagoras.]
On another point, however, Hegesias repeats just the same doctrine as Aristippus.
Both deny any thing like absolute knowledge: they maintain that all our knowledge is phenomenal, or relative to our own impressions or affections: that we neither do know, nor can know, anything about any real or supposed ultra-phenomenal object, _i.e._, things in themselves, as distinguished from our own impressions and apart from our senses and other capacities.
Having no writings of Aristippus left, we know this doctrine only as it is presented by others, and those too opponents.
We cannot tell whether Aristippus or his supporters stated their own doctrine in such a way as to be open to the objections which we read as urged by opponents.
But the doctrine itself is not, in my judgment, refuted by any of those objections.
"Our affections ([Greek: pa/thê]) alone are known to us, but not the supposed objects or causes from which they proceed."
The word rendered by _affections_ must here be taken in its most general and comprehensive sense--as including not merely sensations, but also remembrances, emotions, judgments, beliefs, doubts, volitions, conscious energies, &c. Whatever we know, we can know only as it appears to, or implicates itself somehow with, our own minds.
All the knowledge which I possess, is an aggregate of propositions affirming facts, and the order or conjunction of facts, as they are, or have been, or may be, relative to myself.
This doctrine of Aristippus is in substance the same as that which Protagoras announced in other words as--"Man is the measure of all things".
I have already explained and illustrated it, at considerable length, in my chapter on the Platonic Theætêtus, where it is announced by Theætetus and controverted by Sokrates.
[223] [Footnote 223: See below, vol.
iii.
ch.
xxviii.
Compare Aristokles ap.
Eusebium, Præp.
Ev.
xiv.
18, 19, and Sextus Emp.
adv.
Mathemat.
vii.
190-197, vi.
53.
Sextus gives a summary of this doctrine of the Kyrenaics, more fair and complete than that given by Aristokles--at least so far as the extract from the latter in Eusebius enables us to judge.
Aristokles impugns it vehemently, and tries to fasten upon it many absurd consequences--in my judgment without foundation.
It is probable that by the term [Greek: pa/thos] the Kyrenaics meant simply sensations internal and external: and that the question, as they handled it, was about the reality of the supposed Substratum or Object of sense, independent of any sentient Subject.
It is also probable that, in explaining their views, they did not take account of the memory of past sensations--and the expectation of future sensations, in successions or conjunctions more or less similar--associating in the mind with the sensation present and actual, to form what is called a permanent object of sense.
I think it likely that they set forth their own doctrine in a narrow and inadequate manner.
But this defect is noway corrected by Aristokles their opponent.
On the contrary, he attacks them on their strong side: he vindicates against them the hypothesis of the ultra phenomenal, absolute, transcendental Object, independent of and apart from any sensation, present, past, or future--and from any sentient Subject.
Besides that, he assumes them to deny, or ignore, many points which their theory noway requires them to deny.
He urges one argument which, when properly understood, goes not against them, but strongly in their favour.
"If these philosophers," says Aristokles (Eus.
xiv.
19, 1), "know that they experience sensation and perceive, they must know something beyond the sensation itself.
If I say [Greek: e)gô\ kai/omai], 'I am being burned,' this is a proposition, not a sensation.
These three things are of necessity co-essential--the sensation itself, the Object which causes it, the Subject which feels it ([Greek: a)na/gkê ge tri/a tau=ta sunuphi/stasthai--to/ te pa/thos au)to\ kai\ to\ poiou=n kai\ to\ pa/schon])."
In trying to make good his conclusion--That you cannot know the sensation without the Object of sense--Aristokles at the same time asserts that the Object cannot be known apart from the sensation, nor apart from the knowing Subject.
He asserts that the three are by necessity _co-essential--i.e._ implicated and indivisible in substance and existence: if distinguishable therefore, distinguishable only logically ([Greek: lo/gô| chôrista\]), admitting of being looked at in different points of view.
But this is exactly the case of his opponents, when properly stated.
They do not deny Object: they do not deny Subject: but they deny the independent and separate existence of the one as well as of the other: they admit the two only as relative to each other, or as reciprocally implicated in the indivisible fact of cognition.
The reasoning of Aristokles thus goes to prove the opinion which he is trying to refute.
Most of the arguments, which Sextus adduces in favour of the Kyrenaic doctrine, show forcibly that the Objective Something, apart from its Subjective correlate, is unknowable and a non-entity; but he does not include in the Subjective as much as ought to be included; he takes note only of the present sensation, and does not include sensations remembered or anticipated.
Another very forcible part of Sextus's reasoning may be found, vii.
sect.
269-272, where he shows that a logical Subject _per se_ is undefinable and inconceivable--that those who attempt to define Man (_e.g._) do so by specifying more or fewer of the predicates of Man--and that if you suppose all the predicates to vanish, the Subject vanishes along with them.]
CHAPTER IV.
XENOPHON.
[Side-note: Xenophon--his character--essentially a man of action and not a theorist--the Sokratic element in him an accessory.]
There remains one other companion of Sokrates, for whom a dignified place must be reserved in this volume--Xenophon the son of Gryllus.
It is to him that we owe, in great part, such knowledge as we possess of the real Sokrates.
For the Sokratic conversations related by Xenophon, though doubtless dressed up and expanded by him, appear to me reports in the main of what Sokrates actually said.
Xenophon was sparing in the introduction of his master as titular spokesman for opinions, theories, or controversial difficulties, generated in his own mind: a practice in which Plato indulged without any reserve, as we have seen by the numerous dialogues already passed in review.
I shall not however give any complete analysis of Xenophon's works: because both the greater part of them, and the leading features of his personal character, belong rather to active than to speculative Hellenic life.
As such, I have dealt with them largely in my History of Greece.
What I have here to illustrate is the Sokratic element in his character, which is important indeed as accessory and modifying--yet not fundamental.
Though he exemplifies and attests, as a witness, the theorising negative vein, the cross-examining Elenchus of Sokrates it is the preceptorial vein which he appropriates to himself and expands in its bearing on practical conduct.
He is the semi-philosophising general; undervalued indeed as a hybrid by Plato--but by high-minded Romans like Cato, Agricola, Helvidius Priscus, &c. likely to be esteemed higher than Plato himself.
[1] He is the military brother of the Sokratic family, distinguished for ability and energy in the responsible functions of command: a man of robust frame, courage, and presence of mind, who affronts cheerfully the danger and fatigues of soldiership, and who extracts philosophy from experience of the variable temper of armies, together with the multiplied difficulties and precarious authority of a Grecian general.
[2] For our knowledge, imperfect as it is, of real Grecian life, we are greatly indebted to his works.
All historians of Greece must draw largely from his Hellenica and Anabasis: and we learn much even from his other productions, not properly historical; for he never soars high in the region of ideality, nor grasps at etherial visions--"nubes et inania"--like Plato.
[Footnote 1: See below, my remarks on the Platonic Euthydêmus, vol.
ii.
chap, xxi.
**] [Footnote 2: We may apply to Plato and Xenophon the following comparison by Euripides, Supplices, 905.
(Tydeus and Meleager.)
[Greek: gnô/mê| d' a)delphou= Melea/grou leleimme/nos, i)son pare/schen o)/noma dia\ te/chnên doro/s, eu(rô\n a)kribê= mousikê\n e)n a)spi/di; philo/timon ê)=thos, plou/sion phro/nêma de\ e)n toi=sin e)/rgois, ou)chi\ toi=s lo/gois e)/chôn.]]
[Side-note: Date of Xenophon--probable year of his birth.]
Respecting the personal history of Xenophon himself, we possess but little information: nor do we know the year either of his birth or death.
His Hellenica concludes with the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.C.
But he makes incidental mention in that work of an event five years later--the assassination of Alexander, despot of Pheræ, which took place in 357 B.C.
[3]--and his language seems to imply that the event was described shortly after it took place.
His pamphlet De Vectigalibus appears to have been composed still later--not before 355 B.C.
In the year 400 B.C., when Xenophon joined the Grecian military force assembled at Sardis to accompany Cyrus the younger in his march to Babylon, he must have been still a young man: yet he had even then established an intimacy with Sokrates at Athens: and he was old enough to call himself the "ancient guest" of the Boeotian Proxenus, who engaged him to come and take service with Cyrus.
[4] We may suppose him to have been then about thirty years of age; and thus to have been born about 430 B.C.--two or three years earlier than Plato.
Respecting his early life, we have no facts before us: but we may confidently affirm (as I have already observed about[5] Plato), that as he became liable to military service in 412 B.C., the severe pressure of the war upon Athens must have occasioned him to be largely employed, among other citizens, for the defence of his native city, until its capture in 405 B.C.
He seems to have belonged to an equestrian family in the census, and therefore to have served on horseback.
More than one of his compositions evinces both intelligent interest in horsemanship, and great familiarity with horses.
[Footnote 3: Xenoph.
Hellen.
vi.
4, 37.
[Greek: tô=n de\ tau=ta praxa/ntôn] (_i.e._ of the brothers of Thêbê, which brothers had assassinated Alexander) [Greek: a)/chri ou)= o(de o( lo/gos e)gra/pheto, Tisi/phonos, presbu/tatos ô(=n tô=n a)delphô=n, tê\n a)rchê\n ei)=che.]]
[Footnote 4: That he was still a young man appears from his language, Anabas.
iii.
1, 25.
His intimacy with Sokrates, whose advice he asked about the propriety of accepting the invitation of Proxenus to go to Asia, is shown iii.
1, 5.
Proxenus was his [Greek: xe/nos a)rchai=os], iii.
1, 4.
The story mentioned by Strabo (ix.
403) that Xenophon served in the Athenian cavalry at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.
), and that his life was saved by Sokrates, I consider to be not less inconsistent with any reasonable chronology, than the analogous anecdote--that Plato distinguished himself at the battle of Delium.
See below, ch.
v.] [Footnote 5: See ch.
v.] [Side-note: His personal history--He consults Sokrates--takes the opinion of the Delphian oracle.]
Our knowledge of his personal history begins with what he himself recounts in the Anabasis.
His friend Proxenus, then at Sardis commanding a regiment of Hellenic mercenaries under Cyrus the younger, wrote recommending him earnestly to come over and take service, in the army prepared ostensibly against the Pisidians.
Upon this Xenophon asked the advice of Sokrates: who exhorted him to go and consult the Delphian oracle--being apprehensive that as Cyrus had proved himself the strenuous ally of Sparta, and had furnished to her the principal means for crushing Athens, an Athenian taking service under him would incur unpopularity at home.
Xenophon accordingly went to Delphi: but instead of asking the question broadly--"Shall I go, or shall I decline to go?"
--he put to Apollo the narrower question--"Having in contemplation a journey, to which of the Gods must I sacrifice and pray, in order to accomplish it best, and to come back with safety and success?"
Apollo indicated to him the Gods to whom he ought to address himself: but Sokrates was displeased with him for not having first asked, whether he ought to go at all.
Nevertheless (continued Sokrates), since you have chosen to put the question in your own way you must act as the God has prescribed.
[6] [Footnote 6: Xenoph.
Anab.
iii.
1, 4-6.]
[Side-note: His service and command with the Ten Thousand Greeks; afterwards under Agesilaus and the Spartans.--He is banished from Athens.]
The anecdote here recounted by Xenophon is interesting, as it illustrates his sincere faith, as well as that of Sokrates, in the Delphian oracle: though we might have expected that on this occasion, Sokrates would have been favoured with some manifestation of that divine sign, which he represents to have warned him afterwards so frequently and on such trifling matters.
Apollo however was perhaps displeased (as Sokrates was) with Xenophon, for not having submitted the question to him with full frankness: since the answer given was proved by subsequent experience to be incomplete.
[7] After fifteen months passed, first, in the hard upward march--next, in the still harder retreat--of the Ten Thousand, to the preservation of whom he largely contributed by his energy, presence of mind, resolute initiative, and ready Athenian eloquence, as one of their leaders--Xenophon returned to Athens.
It appears that he must have come back not long after the death of Sokrates.
But Athens was not at that time a pleasant residence for him.
The Sokratic companions shared in the unpopularity of their deceased master, and many of them were absent: moreover Xenophon himself was unpopular as the active partisan of Cyrus.
After a certain stay, we know not how long, at Athens, Xenophon appears to have gone back to Asia; and to have resumed his command of the remaining Cyreian soldiers, then serving under the Lacedæmonian generals against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus.
He served first under Derkyllidas, next under Agesilaus.
For the latter he conceived the warmest admiration, and contracted with him an intimate friendship.
At the time when Xenophon rejoined the Cyreians in Asia, Athens was not at war with the Lacedæmonians: but after some time, the hostile confederacy of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, against them was organised: and Agesilaus was summoned home by them from Asia, to fight their battles in Greece.
Xenophon and his Cyreians were still a portion of the army of Agesilaus, and accompanied him in his march into Boeotia; where they took part in his desperate battle and bloody victory at Koroneia.
[8] But he was now lending active aid to the enemies of Athens, and holding conspicuous command in their armies.
A sentence of banishment, on the ground of Laconism, was passed against him by the Athenians, on the proposition of Eubulus.
[9] [Footnote 7: Compare Anabas.
vi.
1, 22, and vii.
8, 1-6.
See also Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 33 C, and Plato, Theagês, p. 129; also below, vol.
ii.
ch.
xv.
Sokrates and Xenophon are among the most imposing witnesses cited by Quintus Cicero, in his long pleading to show the reality of divination (Cicero, De Divinatione, i.
25, 52, i.
54, 122).
Antipater the Stoic collected a large number of examples, illustrating the miraculous divining power of Sokrates.
Several of these examples appear much more trifling than this incident of Xenophon.]
[Footnote 8: Xenoph.
Anab.
v. 3, 6; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c.
18.]
[Footnote 9: Diog.
L. ii.
51-69.
[Greek: e)pi\ Lakônismô=| phugê\n u(p' A)thênai/ôn kategnô/sthê.]]
[Side-note: His residence at Skillus near Olympia.]
How long he served with Agesilaus, we are not told.
At the end of his service, the Lacedæmonians provided him with a house and land at the Triphylian town of Skillûs near Olympia, which they had seemingly taken from the Eleians and re-colonised.
Near this residence he also purchased, under the authority of the God (perhaps Olympian Zeus) a landed estate to be consecrated to the Goddess Artemis: employing therein a portion of the tithe of plunder devoted to Artemis by the Cyreian army, and deposited by him for the time in the care of Megabyzus, priest of Artemis at Ephesus.
The estate of the Goddess contained some cultivated ground, but consisted chiefly of pasture; with wild ground, wood and mountain, abounding in game and favourable for hunting.
Xenophon became Conservator of this property for Artemis: to whom he dedicated a shrine and a statue, in miniature copy of the great temple at Ephesus.
Every year he held a formal hunting-match, to which he invited all the neighbours, with abundant hospitality, at the expense of the Goddess.
The Conservator and his successors were bound by formal vow, on pain of her displeasure, to employ one tenth of the whole annual produce in sacrifices to her: and to keep the shrine and statue in good order, out of the remainder.
[10] [Footnote 10: Xenoph.
Anab.
v. 3, 8-12; Diog.
L. ii.
52: Pausanias, v. 6, 3.
[Greek: phêsi\ d' o( Dei/narchos o(/ti kai\ oi)ki/an kai\ a)/gron au)tô=| e(/dosan Lakedaimo/nioi].
Deinarchus appears to have composed for a client at Athens a judicial speech against Xenophon, the grandson of Xenophon Sokraticus.
He introduced into the speech some facts relating to the grandfather.]
[Side-note: Family of Xenophon--his son Gryllus killed at Mantinea.]
Xenophon seems to have passed many years of his life either at Skillus or in other parts of Peloponnesus, and is said to have died very old at Corinth.
The sentence of banishment passed against him by the Athenians was revoked after the battle of Leuktra, when Athens came into alliance with the Lacedæmonians against Thebes.
Some of Xenophon's later works indicate that he must have availed himself of this revocation to visit Athens: but whether he permanently resided there is uncertain.
He had brought over with him from Asia a wife named Philesia, by whom he had two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus.
[11] He sent these two youths to be trained at Sparta, under the countenance of Agesilaus:[12] afterwards the eldest of them, Gryllus, served with honour in the Athenian cavalry which assisted the Lacedæmonians and Mantineians against Epameinondas, B.C.
362.
In the important combat[13] of the Athenian and Theban cavalry, close to the gates of Mantineia--shortly preceding the general battle of Mantineia, in which Epameinondas was slain--Gryllus fell, fighting with great bravery.
The death of this gallant youth--himself seemingly of great promise, and the son of so eminent a father--was celebrated by Isokrates and several other rhetors, as well as by the painter Euphranor at Athens, and by sculptors at Mantineia itself.
[14] [Footnote 11: Æschines Sokraticus, in one of his dialogues, introduced Aspasia conversing with Xenophon and his (Xenophon's) wife.
Cicero, De Invent.
i.
31, 51-54; Quintil.
Inst.
Orat.
v. p.
312.]
[Footnote 12: Plutarch, Agesilaus, c.
20.]
[Footnote 13: Xenoph.
Hellen.
vii.
5, 15-16-17.
This combat of cavalry near the gates of Mantineia was very close and sharply contested; but at the great battle fought a few days afterwards the Athenian cavalry were hardly at all engaged, vii.
5, 25.]
[Footnote 14: Pausanias, i.
3, 3, viii.
11, 4, ix.
15, 3; Diogenes L. ii.
54.
Harpokration v. [Greek: Kêphiso/dôros].
It appears that Euphranor, in his picture represented Gryllus as engaged in personal conflict with Epameinondas and wounding him--a compliment not justified by the facts.
The Mantineians believed Antikrates, one of their own citizens, to have mortally wounded the great Theban general with his spear, and they awarded to him as recompense immunity from public burthens ([Greek: a)te/leian]), both for himself and his descendants.
One of his descendants, Kallikrates, continued even in Plutarch's time to enjoy this immunity.
Plutarch, Agesilaus, c.
35.]
[Side-note: Death of Xenophon at Corinth--Story of the Eleian Exegetæ.]
Skillus, the place in which the Lacedæmonians had established Xenophon, was retaken by the Eleians during the humiliation of Lacedæmonian power, not long before the battle of Mantineia.
Xenophon himself was absent at the time; but his family were constrained to retire to Lepreum.
It was after this, we are told, that he removed to Corinth, where he died in 355 B.C.
or in some year later.
The Eleian Exegetæ told the traveller Pausanias, when he visited the spot five centuries afterwards, that Xenophon had been condemned in the judicial Council of Olympia as wrongful occupant of the property at Skillus, through Lacedæmonian violence; but that the Eleians had granted him indulgence, and had allowed him to remain.
[15] As it seems clearly asserted that he died at Corinth, he can hardly have availed himself of the indulgence; and I incline to suspect that the statement is an invention of subsequent Eleian Exegetæ, after they had learnt to appreciate his literary eminence.
[Footnote 15: Pausan.
v. 6, 3; Diog.
L. ii.
53-56.]
[Side-note: Xenophon different from Plato and the other Sokratic brethren.]
From the brief outline thus presented of Xenophon's life, it will plainly appear that he was quite different in character and habits from Plato and the other Sokratic brethren.
He was not only a man of the world (as indeed Aristippus was also), but he was actively engaged in the most responsible and difficult functions of military command: he was moreover a landed proprietor and cultivator, fond of strong exercise with dogs and horses, and an intelligent equestrian.
His circumstances were sufficiently easy to dispense with the necessity of either composing discourses or taking pupils for money.
Being thus enabled to prosecute letters and philosophy in an independent way, he did not, like Plato and Aristotle, open a school.
[16] His relations, as active coadjutor and subordinate, with Agesilaus, form a striking contrast to those of Plato with Dionysius, as tutor and pedagogue.
In his mind, the Sokratic conversations, suggestive and stimulating to every one, fell upon the dispositions and aptitudes of a citizen-soldier, and fructified in a peculiar manner.
My present work deals with Xenophon, not as an historian of Grecian affairs or of the Cyreian expedition, but only on the intellectual and theorising side:--as author of the Memorabilia, the Cyropædia, Oekonomikus, Symposion, Hieron, De Vectigalibus, &c. [Footnote 16: See, in the account of Theopompus by Photius (Cod.
176, p. 120; compare also Photius, Cod.
159, p. 102, a.
41), the distinction taken by Theopompus: who said that the four most celebrated literary persons of his day were, his master Isokrates, Theodektês of Phasêlis, Naukrates of Erythræ, and himself (Theopompus).
He himself and Naukrates were in good circumstances, so that he passed his life in independent prosecution of philosophy and philomathy.
But Isokrates and Theodektês were compelled [Greek: di' a)pori/an bi/ou, misthou= lo/gous gra/phein kai\ sophisteu/ein, e)kpaideu/ontes tou\s ne/ous, ka)kei=then karpoume/nous ta\s u(phelei/as].
Theopompus does not here present the profession of a Sophist (as most Platonic commentators teach us to regard it) as a mean, unprincipled, and corrupting employment.]
[Side-note: His various works--Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, &c.] The Memorabilia were composed as records of the conversations of Sokrates, expressly intended to vindicate Sokrates against charges of impiety and of corrupting youthful minds, and to show that he inculcated, before every thing, self-denial, moderation of desires, reverence for parents, and worship of the Gods.
The Oekonomikus and the Symposion are expansions of the Memorabilia: the first[17] exhibiting Sokrates not only as an attentive observer of the facts of active life (in which character the Memorabilia present him also), but even as a learner of husbandry[18] and family management from Ischomachus--the last describing Sokrates and his behaviour amidst the fun and joviality of a convivial company.
Sokrates declares[19] that as to himself, though poor, he is quite as rich as he desires to be; that he desires no increase, and regards poverty as no disadvantage.
Yet since Kratobulus, though rich, is beset with temptations to expense quite sufficient to embarrass him, good proprietary management is to him a necessity.
Accordingly, Sokrates, announcing that he has always been careful to inform himself who were the best economists in the city,[20] now cites as authority Ischomachus, a citizen of wealth and high position, recognised by all as one of the "super-excellent".
[21] Ischomachus loves wealth, and is anxious to maintain and even enlarge his property: desiring to spend magnificently for the honour of the Gods, the assistance of friends, and the support of the city.
[22] His whole life is arranged, with intelligence and forethought, so as to attain this object, and at the same time to keep up the maximum of bodily health and vigour, especially among the horsemen of the city as an accomplished rider[23] and cavalry soldier.
He speaks with respect, and almost with enthusiasm, of husbandry, as an occupation not merely profitable, but improving to the character: though he treats with disrespect other branches of industry and craft.
[24] In regard to husbandry, too, as in regard to war or steersmanship, he affirms that the difference between one practitioner and another consists, not so much in unequal knowledge, as in unequal care to practise what both of them know.
[25] [Footnote 17: Galen calls the Oekonomicus the last book of the Memorabilia (ad Hippokrat.
De Articulis, t. xviii.
p. 301, Kühn).
It professes to be repeated by Xenophon from what he himself _heard_ Sokrates say--[Greek: ê)/kousa de/ pote au)tou= kai\ peri\ oi)konomi/as toia/de dialegome/nou], &c. Sokrates first instructs Kritobulus that economy, or management of property, is an art, governed by rules, and dependent upon principles; next, he recounts to him the lessons which he professes to have himself received from Ischomachus.
I have already adverted to the Xenophontic Symposion as containing jocular remarks which some erroneously cite as serious.]
[Footnote 18: To _learn_ in this way the actualities of life, and the way of extracting the greatest amount of wheat and barley from a given piece of land, is the sense which Xenophon puts on the word [Greek: philo/sophos] (Xen.
Oek.
xvi.
9; compare Cyropædia, vi.
1, 41).]
[Footnote 19: Xenoph.
Oekonom.
ii.
3; xi.
3, 4.
I have made some observations on the Xenophontic Symposion, comparing it with the Platonic Symposion, in a subsequent chapter of this work, ch.
xxvi.]
[Footnote 20: Xen.
Oekon.
ii.
16.]
[Footnote 21: Xen.
Oekon.
vi.
17, xi.
3.
[Greek: pro\s pa/ntôn kai\ a)ndrô=n kai\ gunaikô=n, kai\ xe/nôn kai\ a)stô=n, kalo/n te ka)gatho\n e)ponomazo/menon.]]
[Footnote 22: Xen.
Oekon.
xi.
9.]
[Footnote 23: Xen.
Oekon.
xi.
17-21.
[Greek: e)n toi=s i(ppokôta/tois te kai\ plousiôta/tois].]
[Footnote 24: Xen.
Oekon.
iv.
2-3, vi.
5-7.
Ischomachus asserts that his father had been more devoted to agriculture ([Greek: philogeôrgo/tatos]) than any man at Athens; that he had bought several pieces of land ([Greek: chô/rous]) when out of order, improved them, and then resold them with very large profit, xx.
26.]
[Footnote 25: Xen.
Oekon.
xx.
2-10.]
[Side-note: Ischomachus, hero of the Oekonomikus--ideal of an active citizen, cultivator, husband, house-master, &c.] Ischomachus describes to Sokrates, in reply to a string of successive questions, both his scheme of life and his scheme of husbandry.
He had married his wife before she was fifteen years of age: having first ascertained that she had been brought up carefully, so as to have seen and heard as little as possible, and to know nothing but spinning and weaving.
[26] He describes how he took this very young wife into training, so as to form her to the habits which he himself approved.
He declares that the duties and functions of women are confined to in-door work and superintendence, while the out-door proceedings, acquisition as well as defence, belong to men:[27] he insists upon such separation of functions emphatically, as an ordinance of nature--holding an opinion the direct reverse of that which we have seen expressed by Plato.
[28] He makes many remarks on the arrangements of the house, and of the stores within it: and he dwells particularly on the management of servants, male and female.
[Footnote 26: Xen.
Oekon.
vii.
3-7.
[Greek: to\n d' e)/mprosthen chro/non e)/zê u(po\ pollê=s e)pimelei/as, o(/pôs ô(s e)la/chista me\n o)/psoito, e)la/chista de\ a)kou/soito, e)la/chista de\ e)/roito].
The [Greek: didaskali/a] addressed to Sokrates by Ischomachus is in the form of [Greek: e)rô/têsis], xix.
15.
The Sokratic interrogation is here brought to bear _upon_ Sokrates, instead of by Sokrates: like the Elenchus in the Parmenidês of Plato.]
[Footnote 27: Xen.
Oekon.
vii.
22-32.]
[Footnote 28: See below, ch.
xxxvii.
Compare also Aristotel.
Politic.
iii.
4, 1277, b.
25, where Aristotle lays down the same principle as Xenophon.]
[Side-note: Text upon which Xenophon insists--capital difference between command over subordinates willing, and subordinates unwilling.]
It is upon this last point that he lays more stress than upon any other.
To know how to command men--is the first of all accomplishments in the mind of Xenophon.
Ischomachus proclaims it as essential that the superior shall not merely give orders to his subordinates, but also see them executed, and set the example of personal active watchfulness in every way.
Xenophon aims at securing not simply obedience, but cheerful and willing obedience--even attachment from those who obey.
"To exercise command over willing subjects"[29] (he says) "is a good more than human, granted only to men truly consummated in virtue of character essentially divine.
To exercise command over unwilling subjects, is a torment like that of Tantalus."
[Footnote 29: Xen.
Oekon.
xxi.
10-12.
[Greek: ê)/thous basilikou=--thei=on gene/sthai.
Ou) ga\r pa/nu moi\ dokei= touti\ to\ a)gatho\n a)nthrô/pinon ei)=nai, a)lla\ thei=on, to\ _e)thelo/ntôn a)/rchein_; saphô=s de\ di/dotai toi=s a)lêthinô=s sôphrosu/nê| tetelesme/nois.
To\ de\ a)ko/ntôn turannei=n dido/asin, ô(s e)moi\ dokei=, ou(\s a)\n ê(gô=ntai a)xi/ous ei)=nai bioteu/ein, ô(/sper o( Ta/ntalos e)n a(/|dou le/getai].
Compare also iv.
19, xiii.
3-7.]
[Side-note: Probable circumstances generating these reflections in Xenophon's mind.]
The sentence just transcribed (the last sentence in the Oekonomikus) brings to our notice a central focus in Xenophon's mind, from whence many of his most valuable speculations emanate.
"What are the conditions under which subordinates will cheerfully obey their commanders?"
--was a problem forced upon his thoughts by his own personal experience, as well as by contemporary phenomena in Hellas.
He had been elected one of the generals of the Ten Thousand: a large body of brave warriors from different cities, most of them unknown to him personally, and inviting his authority only because they were in extreme peril, and because no one else took the initiative.
[30] He discharged his duties admirably: and his ready eloquence was an invaluable accomplishment, distinguishing him from all his colleagues.
Nevertheless when the army arrived at the Euxine, out of the reach of urgent peril, he was made to feel sensibly the vexations of authority resting upon such precarious basis, and perpetually traversed by jealous rivals.
Moreover, Xenophon, besides his own personal experience, had witnessed violent political changes running extensively through the cities of the Grecian world: first, at the close of the Peloponnesian war--next, after the battle of Knidus--again, under Lacedæmonian supremacy, after the peace of Antalkidas, and the subsequent seizure of the citadel of Thebes--lastly, after the Thebans had regained their freedom and humbled the Lacedæmonians by the battle of Leuktra.
To Xenophon--partly actor, partly spectator--these political revolutions were matters of anxious interest; especially as he ardently sympathised with Agesilaus, a political partisan interested in most of them, either as conservative or revolutionary.
[Footnote 30: The reader will find in my 'History of Greece,' ch.
70, p. 103 seq., a narrative of the circumstances under which Xenophon was first chosen to command, as well as his conduct afterwards.]
[Side-note: This text affords subjects for the Hieron and Cyropædia--Name of Sokrates not suitable.]
We thus see, from the personal history of Xenophon, how his attention came to be peculiarly turned to the difficulty of ensuring steady obedience from subordinates, and to the conditions by which such difficulty might be overcome.
The sentence, above transcribed from the Oekonomikus, embodies two texts upon which he has discoursed in two of his most interesting compositions--Cyropædia and Hieron.
In Cyropædia he explains and exemplifies the divine gift of ruling over cheerful subordinates: in Hieron, the torment of governing the disaffected and refractory.
For neither of these purposes would the name and person of Sokrates have been suitable, exclusively connected as they were with Athens.
Accordingly Xenophon, having carried that respected name through the Oekonomikus and Symposion, now dismisses it, yet retaining still the familiar and colloquial manner which belonged to Sokrates.
The Epilogue, or concluding chapter, of the Cyropædia, must unquestionably have been composed after 364 B.C.--in the last ten years of Xenophon's life: the main body of it may perhaps have been composed earlier.
[Side-note: Hieron--Persons of the dialogue--Simonides and Hieron.]
The Hieron gives no indication of date: but as a picture purely Hellenic, it deserves precedence over the Cyropædia, and conveys to my mind the impression of having been written earlier.
It describes a supposed conversation (probably suggested by current traditional conversations, like that between Solon and Kroesus) between the poet Simonides and Hieron the despot of Syracuse; who, shortly after the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, had succeeded his brother Gelon the former despot.
[31] Both of them had been once private citizens, of no remarkable consequence: but Gelon, an energetic and ambitious military man, having raised himself to power in the service of Hippokrates despot of Gela, had seized the sceptre on the death of his master: after which he conquered Syracuse, and acquired a formidable dominion, enjoyed after his death by his brother Hieron.
This last was a great patron of eminent poets--Pindar, Simonides, Æschylus, Bacchylides: but he laboured under a painful internal complaint, and appears to have been of an irritable and oppressive temper.
[32] [Footnote 31: Plato, Epistol.
ii.
p. 311 A. Aristot.
Rhetor.
ii.
16, 1391, a.
9; Cicero, Nat.
Deo.
i.
22, 60.
How high was the opinion entertained about Simonides as a poet, may be seen illustrated in a passage of Aristophanes, Vespæ, 1362.]
[Footnote 32: See the first and second Pythian Odes of Pindar, addressed to Hieron, especially Pyth.
i.
55-61-90, with the Scholia and Boeckh's Commentary.
Pindar compliments Hieron upon having founded his new city of Ætna--[Greek: theodma/tô| su\n e)leutheria|].
This does not coincide with the view of Hieron's character taken by Xenophon; but Pindar agrees with Xenophon in exhorting Hieron to make himself popular by a liberal expenditure.]
[Side-note: Questions put to Hieron; view taken by Simonides.
Answer of Hieron.]
Simonides asks of Hieron, who had personally tried both the life of a private citizen and that of a despot, which of the two he considered preferable, in regard to pleasures and pains.
Upon this subject, a conversation of some length ensues, in which Hieron declares that the life of a despot has much more pain, and much less pleasure, than that of a private citizen under middling circumstances:[33] while Simonides takes the contrary side, and insists in detail upon the superior means of enjoyment, apparent at least, possessed by the despot.
As each of these means is successively brought forward, Hieron shews that however the matter may appear to the spectator, the despot feels no greater real happiness in his own bosom: while he suffers many pains and privations, of which the spectator takes no account.
As to the pleasures of sight, the despot forfeits altogether the first and greatest, because it is unsafe for him to visit the public festivals and matches.
In regard to hearing--many praises, and no reproach, reach his ears: but then he knows that the praises are insincere--and that reproach is unheard, only because speakers dare not express what they really feel.
The despot has finer cookery and richer unguents; but others enjoy a modest banquet as much or more--while the scent of the unguents pleases those who are near him more than himself.
[34] Then as to the pleasures of love, these do not exist, except where the beloved person manifests spontaneous sympathy and return of attachment.
Now the despot can never extort such return by his power; while even if it be granted freely, he cannot trust its sincerity and is compelled even to be more on his guard, since successful conspiracies against his life generally proceed from those who profess attachment to him.
[35] The private citizen on the contrary knows that those who profess to love him, may be trusted, as having no motive for falsehood.
[Footnote 33: Xenoph.
Hier.
i.
8.
[Greek: eu)= i)/sthi, ô)= Simôni/dê, o(/ti polu\ mei/ô eu)phrai/nontai oi( tu/rannoi tô=n metri/ôs diago/ntôn i)diôtô=n, polu\ de\ plei/ô kai\ mei/zô lupou=ntai.]]
[Footnote 34: Xen.
Hieron, i.
12-15-24.]
[Footnote 35: Xen.
Hier.
i.
26-38.
[Greek: Tô=| tura/nnô| ou)/ pot' e)sti\ pisteu=sai, ô(s philei=tai.
Ai( e)piboulai\ e)x ou)de/nôn ple/ones toi=s tura/nnois ei)si\n ê)\ a)po\ tô=n ma/lista philei=n au)tou\s prospoiêsame/nôn].
This chapter affords remarkable illustration of Grecian manners, especially in the-distinction drawn between [Greek: ta\ paidika\ a)phrodi/sia] and [Greek: ta\ teknopoia\ a)phrodi/sia].]
[Side-note: Misery of governing unwilling subjects declared by Hieron.]
Still (contends Simonides) there are other pleasures greater than those of sense.
You despots possess the greatest abundance and variety of possessions--the finest chariots and horses, the most splendid arms, the finest palaces, ornaments, and furniture--the most brilliant ornaments for your wives--the most intelligent and valuable servants.
You execute the greatest enterprises: you can do most to benefit your friends, and hurt your enemies: you have all the proud consciousness of superior might.
[36]--Such is the opinion of the multitude (replies Hieron), who are misled by appearances: but a wise man like you, Simonides, ought to see the reality in the background, and to recollect that happiness or unhappiness reside only in a man's internal feelings.
You cannot but know that a despot lives in perpetual insecurity, both at home and abroad: that he must always go armed himself, and have armed guards around him: that whether at war or at peace, he is always alike in danger: that, while suspecting every one as an enemy, he nevertheless knows that when he has put to death the persons suspected, he has only weakened the power of the city:[37] that he has no sincere friendship with any one: that he cannot count even upon good faith, and must cause all his food to be tasted by others, before he eats it: that whoever has slain a private citizen, is shunned in Grecian cities as an abomination--while the tyrannicide is everywhere honoured and recompensed: that there is no safety for the despot even in his own family, many having been killed by their nearest relatives:[38] that he is compelled to rely upon mercenary foreign soldiers and liberated slaves, against the free citizens who hate him: and that the hire of such inauspicious protectors compels him to raise money, by despoiling individuals and plundering temples:[39] that the best and most estimable citizens are incurably hostile to him, while none but the worst will serve him for pay: that he looks back with bitter sorrow to the pleasures and confidential friendships which he enjoyed as a private man, but from which he is altogether debarred as a despot.
[40] [Footnote 36: Xen.
Hier.
ii.
2.]
[Footnote 37: Xen.
Hieron, ii.
5-17.]
[Footnote 38: Xenoph.
Hieron, ii.
8, iii.
1, 5.
Compare Xenophon, Hellenic.
iii.
1, 14.]
[Footnote 39: Xen.
Hieron, iv.
7-11.]
[Footnote 40: Xen.
Hieron, vi.
1-12.]
Nothing brings a man so near to the Gods (rejoins Simonides) as the feeling of being honoured.
Power and a brilliant position must be of inestimable value, if they are worth purchasing at the price which you describe.
[41] Otherwise, why do you not throw up your sceptre?
How happens it that no despot has ever yet done this?
To be honoured (answers Hieron) is the greatest of earthly blessings, when a man obtains honour from the spontaneous voice of freemen.
But a despot enjoys no such satisfaction.
He lives like a criminal under sentence of death by every one: and it is impossible for him to lay down his power, because of the number of persons whom he has been obliged to make his enemies.
He can neither endure his present condition, nor yet escape from it.
The best thing he can do is to hang himself.
[42] [Footnote 41: Xen.
Hieron, vii.
1-5.]
[Footnote 42: Xen.
Hieron, vii.
5-13.
[Greek: O( de\ tu/rannos, ô(s u(po\ pa/ntôn a)nthrô/pôn katakekrime/nos di' a)diki/an a)pothnê/skein--kai\ nu/kta kai\ ê(me/ran dia/gei.
.
.
.
A)ll' ei)/per tô| a)/llô| lusitelei= a)pa/gxasthai, i)/sthi o(/ti tura/nnô| e)/gôge eu(ri/skô ma/lista tou=to lusitelou=n poiê=sai.
Mo/nô| ga\r au(tô=| ou)/te e)/chein, ou)/te katathe/sthai ta\ kaka\ lusitelei=].
Solon in his poems makes the remark, that for the man who once usurps the sceptre no retreat is possible.
See my 'History of Greece,' chap.
xi.
p. 132 seq.
The impressive contrast here drawn by Hieron (c.
vi.)
between his condition as a despot and the past enjoyments of private life and citizenship which he has lost, reminds one of the still more sorrowful contrast in the Atys of Catullus, v.
58-70.]
[Side-note: Advice to Hieron by Simonides--that he should govern well, and thus make himself beloved by his subjects.]
Simonides in reply, after sympathising with Hieron's despondency, undertakes to console him by showing that such consequences do not necessarily attend despotic rule.
The despot's power is an instrument available for good as well as for evil.
By a proper employment of it, he may not only avoid being hated, but may even make himself beloved, beyond the measure attainable by any private citizen.
Even kind words, and petty courtesies, are welcomed far more eagerly when they come from a powerful man than from an equal: moreover a showy and brilliant exterior seldom fails to fascinate the spectator.
[43] But besides this, the despot may render to his city the most substantial and important services.
He may punish criminals and reward meritorious men: the punishments he ought to inflict by the hands of others, while he will administer the rewards in person--giving prizes for superior excellence in every department, and thus endearing himself to all.
[44] Such prizes would provoke a salutary competition in the performance of military duties, in choric exhibitions, in husbandry, commerce, and public usefulness of every kind.
Even the foreign mercenaries, though usually odious, might be so handled and disciplined as to afford defence against foreign danger,--to ensure for the citizens undisturbed leisure in their own private affairs--to protect and befriend the honest man, and to use force only against criminals.
[45] If thus employed, such mercenaries, instead of being hated, would be welcome companions: and the despot himself may count, not only upon security against attack, but upon the warmest gratitude and attachment.
The citizens will readily furnish contributions to him when asked, and will regard him as their greatest benefactor.
"You will obtain in this way" (Simonides thus concludes his address to Hieron), "the finest and most enviable of all acquisitions.
You will have your subjects obeying you willingly, and caring for you of their own accord.
You may travel safely wherever you please, and will be a welcome visitor at all the crowded festivals.
You will be happy, without jealousy from any one.
"[46] [Footnote 43: Xen.
Hieron, viii.
2-7.]
[Footnote 44: Xen.
Hieron, ix.
1-4.]
[Footnote 45: Xen.
Hieron, x.
6-8.]
[Footnote 46: Xen.
Hieron, xi.
10-12-15.
[Greek: ka)\n tau=ta pa/nta poiê=s, eu)= i)/sthi pa/ntôn tô=n a)nthrô/pois ka/lliston kai\ makariô/taton ktê=ma kektême/nos; eu)daimonô=n ga\r ou) phthonêthê/sê|.]]
[Side-note: Probable experience had by Xenophon of the feelings at Olympia against Dionysius.]
The dialogue of which I have given this short abstract, illustrates what Xenophon calls the torment of Tantalus--the misery of a despot who has to extort obedience from unwilling subjects:--especially if the despot be one who has once known the comfort and security of private life, under tolerably favourable circumstances.
If we compare this dialogue with the Platonic Gorgias, where we have seen a thesis very analogous handled in respect to Archelaus,--we shall find Plato soaring into a sublime ethical region of his own, measuring the despot's happiness and misery by a standard peculiar to himself, and making good what he admits to be a paradox by abundant eloquence covering faulty dialectic: while Xenophon, herein following his master, applies to human life the measure of a rational common sense, talks about pleasures and pains which every one can feel to be such, and points out how many of these pleasures the despot forfeits, how many of these pains and privations he undergoes,--in spite of that great power of doing hurt, and less power, though still considerable, of doing good, which raises the envy of spectators.
The Hieron gives utterance to an interesting vein of sentiment, more common at Athens than elsewhere in Greece; enforced by the conversation of Sokrates, and serving as corrective protest against that unqualified worship of power which prevailed in the ancient world no less than in the modern.
That the Syrakusan Hieron should be selected as an exemplifying name, may be explained by the circumstance, that during thirty-eight years of Xenophon's mature life (405-367 B.C.
), Dionysius the elder was despot of Syrakuse; a man of energy and ability, who had extinguished the liberties of his native city, and acquired power and dominion greater than that of any living Greek.
Xenophon, resident at Skillus, within a short distance from Olympia, had probably[47] seen the splendid Thêory (or sacred legation of representative envoys) installed in rich and ornamented tents, and the fine running horses sent by Dionysius, at the ninety-ninth Olympic festival (384 B.C.
): but he probably also heard the execration with which the name of Dionysius himself had been received by the spectators, and he would feel that the despot could hardly shew himself there in person.
There were narratives in circulation about the interior life of Dionysius,[48] analogous to those statements which Xenophon puts into the mouth of Hieron.
A predecessor of Dionysius as despot of Syracuse[49] and also as patron of poets, was therefore a suitable person to choose for illustrating the first part of Xenophon's thesis--the countervailing pains and penalties which spoilt all the value of power, if exercised over unwilling and repugnant subjects.
[50] [Footnote 47: Xenoph.
Anab.
v. 3, 11.]
[Footnote 48: See chap.
83, vol.
xi.
pp.
40-50, of my 'History of Greece,' where this memorable scene at Olympia is described.]
[Footnote 49: Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
v. 20, 57-63; De Officiis, ii.
7, 24-25.
"Multos timebit ille, quem multi timent."]
[Footnote 50: An anecdote is told about a visit of Xenophon to Dionysius at Syracuse--whether the elder or the younger is not specified--but the tenor of the anecdote points to the younger; if so the visit must have been later than 367 B.C.
(Athenæus x.
427).]
[Side-note: Xenophon could not have chosen a Grecian despot to illustrate his theory of the happiness of governing willing subjects.]
But when Xenophon came to illustrate the second part of his thesis--the possibility of exercising power in such manner as to render the holder of it popular and beloved--it would have been scarcely possible for him to lay the scene in any Grecian city.
The repugnance of the citizens of a Grecian city towards a despot who usurped power over them, was incurable--however much the more ambitious individuals subjects among them might have wished to obtain such power for themselves: a repugnance as great among oligarchs as among democrats--perhaps even greater.
When we read the recommendations addressed by Simonides, teaching Hieron how he might render himself popular, we perceive at once that they are alike well intentioned and ineffectual.
Xenophon could neither find any real Grecian despot corresponding to this portion of his illustrative purpose--nor could he invent one with any shew of plausibility.
He was forced to resort to other countries and other habits different from those of Greece.
[Side-note: Cyropædia--blending of Spartan and Persian customs--Xenophon's experience of Cyrus the Younger.]
To this necessity probably we owe the Cyropædia: a romance in which Persian and Grecian experience are singularly blended, and both of them so transformed as to suit the philosophical purpose of the narrator.
Xenophon had personally served and communicated with Cyrus the younger: respecting whom also he had large means of information, from his intimate friend Proxenus, as well as from the other Grecian generals of the expedition.
In the first book of the Anabasis, we find this young prince depicted as an energetic and magnanimous character, faithful to his word and generous in his friendships--inspiring strong attachment in those around him, yet vigorous in administration and in punishing criminals--not only courting the Greeks as useful for his ambitious projects, but appreciating sincerely the superiority of Hellenic character and freedom over Oriental servitude.
[51] And in the Oekonomikus, Cyrus is quoted as illustrating in his character the true virtue of a commander; the test of which Xenophon declares to be--That his subordinates follow him willingly, and stand by him to the death.
[52] [Footnote 51: Xenoph.
Anab.
i.
9, also i.
7, 3, the address of Cyrus to the Greek soldiers--[Greek: O(/pôs ou)=n e)/sesthe a)/ndres a)/xioi tê=s e)leutheri/as ê(=s ke/ktêsthe, kai\ u(pe\r ê(=s u(ma=s eu)daimoni/zô.
Eu)= ga\r i)/ste, o(/ti te\n e)leutheri/an e(loi/mên a)\n, a)nti\ ô(=n e)/chô pa/ntôn kai\ a)/llôn pollaplasi/ôn], compared with i.
5, 16, where Cyrus gives his appreciation of the Oriental portion of his army, and the remarkable description of the trial of Orontes, i.
6.]
[Footnote 52: Xenoph.
Oeconom.
iv.
18-19.
[Greek: Ku=ros, ei) e)bi/ôsen, a)/ristos a)\n dokei= a)/rchôn gene/sthai--ê(gou=mai me/ga tekmê/rion a)/rchontos a)retê=s ei)=nai, ô(=| a)\n e(ko/ntes e(/pôntai, kai\ e)n toi=s deinoi=s parame/nein e)the/lôsin].
Compare Anab.
i.
9, 29-30.]
[Side-note: Portrait of Cyrus the Great--his education--Preface to the Cyropædia.]
It is this character Hellenised, Sokratised, idealised--that Xenophon paints into his glowing picture of Cyrus the founder of the Persian monarchy, or the Cyropædia.
He thus escapes the insuperable difficulty arising from the position of a Grecian despot; who never could acquire willing or loving obedience, because his possession of power was felt by a majority of his subjects to be wrongful, violent, tainted.
The Cyrus of the Cyropædia begins as son of Kambyses, king or chief of Persia, and grandson of Astyages, king of Media; recognised according to established custom by all, as the person to whom they look for orders.
Xenophon furnishes him with a splendid outfit of heroic qualities, suitable to this ascendant position: and represents the foundation of the vast Persian empire, with the unshaken fidelity of all the heterogeneous people composing it, as the reward of a laborious life spent in the active display of such qualities.
In his interesting Preface to the Cyropædia, he presents this as the solution of a problem which had greatly perplexed him.
He had witnessed many revolutions in the Grecian cities--subversions of democracies, oligarchies, and despotisms: he had seen also private establishments, some with numerous servants, some with few, yet scarcely any house-master able to obtain hearty or continued obedience.
But as to herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, on the contrary, he had seen them uniformly obedient; suffering the herdsman or shepherd to do what he pleased with, them, and never once conspiring against him.
The first inference of Xenophon from these facts was, that man was by nature the most difficult of all animals to govern.
[53] But he became satisfied that he was mistaken, when he reflected on the history of Cyrus; who had acquired and maintained dominion over more men than had ever been united under one empire, always obeying him cheerfully and affectionately.
This history proved to Xenophon that it was not impossible, nor even difficult,[54] to rule mankind, provided a man undertook it with scientific or artistic competence.
Accordingly, he proceeded to examine what Cyrus was in birth, disposition, and education--and how he came to be so admirably accomplished in the government of men.
[55] The result is the Cyropædia.
We must observe, however, that his solution of the problem is one which does not meet the full difficulties.
These difficulties, as he states them, had been suggested to him by his Hellenic experience: by the instability of government in Grecian cities.
But the solution which he provides departs from Hellenic experience, and implies what Aristotle and Hippokrates called the more yielding and servile disposition of Asiatics:[56] for it postulates an hereditary chief of heroic or divine lineage, such as was nowhere acknowledged in Greece, except at Sparta--and there, only under restrictions which would have rendered the case unfit for Xenophon's purpose.
The heroic and regal lineage of Cyrus was a condition not less essential to success than his disposition and education:[57] and not merely his lineage, but also the farther fact, that besides being constant in the duties of prayer and sacrifice to the Gods, he was peculiarly favoured by them with premonitory signs and warnings in all difficult emergencies.
[58] [Footnote 53: Xen.
Cyrop.
i.
1, 2.]
[Footnote 54: Xen.
Cyrop.
i.
1, 3.
[Greek: e)k tou/tou dê\ ê)nagkazo/metha metanoei=n, mê\ ou)/te tô=n a)duna/tôn ou)/te tô=n chalepô=n e)/rgôn ê(=| to\ a)nthrô/pôn a)/rchein, _ê)/n tis e)pistame/nôs_ tou=to pra/ttê|.]]
[Footnote 55: Xen.
Cyrop.
i.
1, 3-8.]
[Footnote 56: Aristot.
Politic.
vii.
7, 1327, b.
25.
[Greek: ta\ de\ peri\ tê\n A)si/an, dianoêtika\ me\n kai\ te\chnika\ tê\n psuchê/n, a)/thuma de/; dio/per a)rcho/mena kai\ douleu/onta diatelei=].
Hippokrates, De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, c.
19-23.]
[Footnote 57: So it is stated by Xenophon himself, in the speech addressed by Kroesus after his defeat and captivity to Cyrus, vii.
2, 24--[Greek: a)gnoô=n e)mauto\n o(/ti soi a)ntipolemei=n i(kano\s ô(=|mên ei)=nai, prô=ton me\n e)k theô=n gegono/ti, e)/peita de\ dia\ basile/ôn pephuko/ti, e)/peita de\ e)k paido\s a)retê\n a)skou=nti; tô=n d' e)mô=n progo/nôn a)kou/ô to\n prô=ton basileu/santa a)/ma te basile/a kai\ e)leu/theron gene/sthai].
Cyrop.
i.
2, 1: [Greek: tou= Perseidô=n ge/nous], &c.] [Footnote 58: See the remarkable words addressed by Cyrus, shortly before his death, in sacrificing on the hill-top to [Greek: Zeu\s Patrô=|os] and [Greek: Ê(/lios], Cyrop.
viii.
7, 3.
The special communications of the Gods to Cyrus are insisted on by Xenophon, like those made to Sokrates, and like the constant aid of Athênê to Odysseus in Homer, Odyss.
iii.
221:-[Greek: Ou) ga\r pô i)/don ô(=de theou\s a)naphanda\ phileu=ntas ô(s kei/nô| a)naphanda\ pari/stato Palla\s A)thê/nê.]]
[Side-note: Xenophon does not solve his own problem--The governing aptitude and popularity of Cyrus come from nature, not from education.]
The fundamental principle of Xenophon is, that to obtain hearty and unshaken obedience is not difficult for a ruler, provided he possesses the science or art of ruling.
This is a principle expressly laid down by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.
[59] We have seen Plato affirming in the Politikus[60] that this is the only true government, though very few individuals are competent to it: Plato gives to it a peculiar application in the Republic, and points out a philosophical or dialectic tuition whereby he supposes that his Elders will acquire the science or art of command.
The Cyropædia presents to us an illustrative example.
Cyrus is a young prince who, from twenty-six years of age to his dying day, is always ready with his initiative, provident in calculation of consequences, and personally active in enforcement: giving the right order at the right moment, with good assignable reasons.
As a military man, he is not only personally forward, but peculiarly dexterous in the marshalling and management of soldiers; like the Homeric Agamemnon[61]-[Greek: A)mpho/teron, basileu/s t' a)gatho/s, kratero/s t' ai)chmêtê/s].
But we must consider this aptitude for command as a spontaneous growth in Cyrus--a portion of his divine constitution or of the golden element in his nature (to speak in the phrase of the Platonic Republic): for no means are pointed out whereby he acquired it, and the Platonic Sokrates would have asked in vain, where teachers of it were to be found.
It is true that he is made to go through a rigorous and long-continued training: but this training is common to him with all the other Persian youths of good family, and is calculated to teach obedience, not to communicate aptitude for command; while the master of tactics, whose lessons he receives apart, is expressly declared to have known little about the duties of a commander.
[62] Kambyses indeed (father of Cyrus) gives to his son valuable general exhortations respecting the multiplicity of exigencies which press upon a commander, and the constant watchfulness, precautions, fertility of invention, required on his part to meet them.
We read the like in the conversations of Sokrates in the Memorabilia:[63] but neither Kambyses nor Sokrates are teachers of the art of commanding.
For this art, Cyrus is assumed to possess a natural aptitude; like the other elements of his dispositions--his warm sympathies, his frank and engaging manners, his ardent emulation combined with perfect freedom from jealousy, his courage, his love of learning, his willingness to endure any amount of labour for the purpose of obtaining praise, &c., all which Xenophon represents as belonging to him by nature, together with a very handsome person.
[64] [Footnote 59: Xenoph.
Mem.
iii.
9, 10-12.]
[Footnote 60: See what is said below about the Platonic Politikus, chap.
xxx.]
[Footnote 61: Cicero, when called upon in his province of Cilicia to conduct warlike operations against the Parthians, as well as against some refractory mountaineers, improved his military knowledge by studying and commenting on the Cyropædia.
Epist.
ad Famil.
ix.
25.
Compare the remarkable observation made by Cicero (Academic.
Prior.
ii.
init.)
about the way in which Lucullus made up his deficiency of military experience by reading military books.]
[Footnote 62: Xen.
Cyrop.
i.
6, 12-15.]
[Footnote 63: Compare Cyropæd.
i.
6, with Memorab.
iii.
1.]
[Footnote 64: Cyropæd.
i.
2, 1.
[Greek: _phu=nai_ de\ o( Ku=ros le/getai], &c. i.
3, 1-2.
[Greek: pa/ntôn tô=n ê(li/kôn diaphe/rôn e)phai/neto .
.
.
pai=s phu/sei philo/storgos], &c.] [Side-note: Views of Xenophon about public and official training of all citizens.]
The Cyropædia is a title not fairly representing the contents of the work, which contains a more copious biography of the hero than any which we read in Plutarch or Suetonius.
But the education of Cyrus[65] is the most remarkable part of it, in which the ethico-political theory of Xenophon, generated by Sokratic refining criticism brought to bear on the Spartan drill and discipline, is put forth.
Professing to describe the Persian polity, he in reality describes only the Persian education; which is public, and prescribed by law, intended to form the character of individuals so that they shall stand in no need of coercive laws or penalties.
Most cities leave the education of youth to be conducted at the discretion of their parents, and think it sufficient to enact and enforce laws forbidding, under penal sanction, theft, murder, and various other acts enumerated as criminal.
But Xenophon (like Plato and Aristotle) disapproves of this system.
[66] His Persian polity places the citizen even from infancy under official tuition, and aims at forming his first habits and character, as well as at upholding them when formed, so that instead of having any disposition of his own to commit such acts, he shall contract a repugnance to them.
He is kept under perpetual training, drill, and active official employment throughout life, but the supervision is most unremitting during boyhood and youth.
[Footnote 65: I have already observed that the phrase of Plato in Legg.
iii.
p. 694 C may be considered as conveying his denial of the assertion, that Cyrus had received a good education.]
[Footnote 66: Xenophon says the same about the scheme of Lykurgus at Sparta, De Lac.
Repub.
c.
2.]
[Side-note: Details of (so-called) Persian education--Severe discipline--Distribution of four ages.]
There are four categories of age:--boys, up to sixteen--young men or ephêbi, from sixteen to twenty-six--mature men, as far as fifty-one--above that age, elders.
To each of these four classes there is assigned a certain portion of the "free agora": _i.e._, the great square of the city, where no buying or selling or vulgar occupation is allowed--where the regal residence is situated, and none but dignified functions, civil or military, are carried on.
Here the boys and the mature men assemble every day at sunrise, continue under drill, and take their meals; while the young men even pass the night on guard near the government house.
Each of the four sections is commanded by superintendents or officers: those superintending the boys are Elders, who are employed in administering justice to the boys, and in teaching them what justice is.
They hold judicial trials of the boys for various sorts of misconduct: for violence, theft, abusive words, lying, and even for ingratitude.
In cases of proved guilt, beating or flogging is inflicted.
The boys go there to learn justice (says Xenophon), as boys in Hellas go to school to learn letters.
Under this discipline, and in learning the use of the bow and javelin besides, they spend the time until sixteen years of age.
They bring their food with them from home (wheaten bread, with a condiment of kardamon, or bruised seed of the nasturtium), together with a wooden cup to draw water from the river: and they dine at public tables under the eye of the teacher.
The young men perform all the military and police duty under the commands of the King and the Elders: moreover, they accompany the King when he goes on a hunting expedition--which accustoms them to fatigue and long abstinence, as well as to the encounter of dangerous wild animals.
The Elders do not take part in these hunts, nor in any foreign military march, nor are they bound, like the others, to daily attendance in the agora.
They appoint all officers, and try judicially the cases shown up by the superintendents, or other accusers, of all youths or mature men who have failed in the requirements of the public discipline.
The gravest derelictions they punish with death: where this is not called for, they put the offender out of his class, so that he remains degraded all his life.
[67] [Footnote 67: Xen.
Cyrop.
i.
2, 6-16.
[Greek: kai\ ê)/n tis ê)\ e)n e)phê/bois ê)\ e)n telei/ois a)ndra/sin e)lli/pê| ti tô=n nomi/môn, phai/nousi me\n oi( phu/larchoi e(/kaston, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn o( boulo/menos; oi( de\ gerai/teroi a)kou/santes e)kkri/nousin; o( de\ e)kkrithei\s a)/timos to\n loipo\n bi/on diatelei=.]]
[Side-note: Evidence of the good effect of this discipline--Hard and dry condition of the body.]
This severe discipline is by law open to all Persians who choose to attend and the honours of the state are attainable by all equally.
But in practice it is confined to a few: for neither boys nor men can attend it continuously, except such as possess an independent maintenance; nor is any one allowed to enter the regiment of youths or mature men, unless he has previously gone through the discipline of boyhood.
The elders, by whom the higher functions are exercised, must be persons who have passed without reproach through all the three preceding stages: so that these offices, though legally open to all, are in practice confined to a few--the small class of Homotimoi.
[68] [Footnote 68: Cyropæd.
i.
2, 14-15.]
Such is Xenophon's conception of a perfect Polity.
It consists in an effective public discipline and drill, begun in early boyhood and continued until old age.
The evidence on which he specially insists to prove its good results relates first to the body.
The bodies of the Persians become so dry and hard, that they neither spit, nor have occasion to wipe their noses, nor are full of wind, nor are ever seen to retire for the satisfaction of natural wants.
[69] Besides this, the discipline enforces complete habits of obedience, sobriety, justice, endurance of pain and privation.
[Footnote 69: Cyrop.
i.
2, 16.]
We may note here both the agreement, and the difference, between Xenophon and Plato, as to the tests applied for measuring the goodness of their respective disciplinarian schemes.
In regard to the ethical effects desirable (obedience, sobriety, &c.) both were agreed.
But while Plato (in Republic) dwells much besides upon the musical training necessary, Xenophon omits this, and substitutes in its place the working off of all the superfluous moisture of the body.
[70] [Footnote 70: See below, chap.
xxxvii.]
[Side-note: Exemplary obedience of Cyrus to the public discipline--He had learnt justice well--His award about the two coats--Lesson inculcated upon him by the Justice-Master.]
Through the two youthful stages of this discipline Cyrus is represented as having passed; undergoing all the fatigues as well as the punishment (he is beaten or flogged by the superintendent[71]) with as much rigour as the rest, and even surpassing all his comrades in endurance and exemplary obedience, not less than in the bow and the javelin.
In the lessons about justice he manifests such pre-eminence, that he is appointed by the superintendent to administer justice to other boys: and it is in this capacity that he is chastised for his well-known decision, awarding the large coat to the great boy and the little coat to the little boy, as being more convenient to both,[72] though the proprietorship was opposite: the master impressing upon him, as a general explanation, that the lawful or customary was the Just.
[73] Cyrus had been brought as a boy by his mother Mandanê to visit her father, the Median king Astyages.
The boy wins the affection of Astyages and all around by his child-like frankness and affectionate sympathy (admirably depicted in Xenophon): while he at the same time resists the corruptions of a luxurious court, and adheres to the simplicity of his Persian training.
When Mandanê is about to depart and to rejoin her husband Kambyses in Persis, she is entreated by Astyages to allow Cyrus to remain with him.
Cyrus himself also desires to remain: but Mandanê hesitates to allow it: putting to Cyrus, among other difficulties, the question--How will you learn justice here, when the teachers of it are in Persis?
To which Cyrus replies--I am already well taught in justice: as you may see by the fact, that my teacher made me a judge over other boys, and compelled me to render account to him of all my proceedings.
[74] Besides which, if I am found wanting, my grandfather Astyages will make up the deficient teaching.
But (says Mandanê) justice is not the same here under Astyages, as it is in Persis.
Astyages has made himself master of all the Medes: while among the Persians equality is accounted justice.
Your father Kambyses both performs all that the city directs, and receives nothing more than what the city allows: the measure for him is, not his own inclination, but the law.
You must therefore be cautious of staying here, lest you should bring back with you to Persia habits of despotism, and of grasping at more than any one else, contracted from your grandfather: for if you come back in this spirit, you will assuredly be flogged to death.
Never fear, mother (answered Cyrus): my grandfather teaches every one round him to claim less than his due--not more than his due: and he will teach me the same.
[75] [Footnote 71: Cyrop.
i.
3, 17; i.
5, 4.]
[Footnote 72: Cyrop.
i.
3, 17.
This is an ingenious and apposite illustration of the law of property.]
[Footnote 73: Cyrop.
i.
3, 17.
[Greek: e)/peita de\ e)/phê to\ me\n no/mimon di/kaion ei)=nai; to\ de\ a)/nomon, bi/aion.]]
[Footnote 74: Cyropæd.
i.
4, 2.]
[Footnote 75: Cyrop.
i.
3, 17-18.
[Greek: O(/pôs ou)=n mê\ a)polê=| mastigou/menos, e)peida\n oi)/koi ê)=|s, a)\n para\ tou/tou mathô\n ê(/kê|s a)nti\ tou= basilikou= to\ turanniko/n, e)n ô(=| e)sti to\ ple/on oi)/esthai chrê=nai pa/ntôn e)/chein.]]
[Side-note: Xenophon's conception of the Sokratic problems--He does not recognise the Sokratic order of solution of those problems.]
The portion of the Cyropædia just cited deserves especial attention, in reference to Xenophon as a companion and pupil of Sokrates.
The reader has been already familiarised throughout this work with the questions habitually propounded and canvassed by Sokrates--What is Justice, Temperance, Courage, &c.?
Are these virtues teachable?
If they are so, where are the teachers of them to be found?--for he professed to have looked in vain for any teachers.
[76] I have farther remarked that Sokrates required these questions to be debated in the order here stated.
That is--you must first know what Justice is, before you can determine whether it be teachable or not--nay, before you are in a position to affirm any thing at all about it, or to declare any particular acts to be either just or unjust.
[77] [Footnote 76: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
16, iv.
4, 5.]
[Footnote 77: See below, ch.
xiii., ch.
xxii, and ch.
xxiii.]
Now Xenophon, in his description of the Persian official discipline, provides a sufficient answer to the second question--Whether justice is teachable--and where are the teachers thereof?
It _is_ teachable: there are official teachers appointed: and every boy passes through a course of teaching prolonged for several years.--But Xenophon does not at all recognise the Sokratic requirement, that the first question shall be fully canvassed and satisfactorily answered, before the second is approached.
The first question is indeed answered in a certain way--though the answer appears here only as an _obiter dictum_, and is never submitted to any Elenchus at all.
The master explains--What is Justice?--by telling Cyrus, "That the lawful is just, and that the lawless is violent".
Now if we consider this as preceptorial--as an admonition to the youthful Cyrus how he ought to decide judicial cases--it is perfectly reasonable: "Let your decisions be conformable to the law or custom of the country".
But if we consider it as a portion of philosophy or reasoned truth--as a definition or rational explanation of Justice, advanced by a respondent who is bound to defend it against the Sokratic cross-examination--we shall find it altogether insufficient.
Xenophon himself tells us here, that Law or Custom is one thing among the Medes, and the reverse among the Persians: accordingly an action which is just in the one place will be unjust in the other.
It is by objections of this kind that Sokrates, both in Plato and Xenophon, refutes explanations propounded by his respondents.
[78] [Footnote 78: Plato, Republ.
v. p. 479 A.
[Greek: tou/tôn tô=n pollô=n kalô=n mô=n ti e)/stin, o( ou)k ai)schro\n phanê/setai?
kai\ tô=n dikai/ôn, o(\ ou)k a)/dikon?
kai\ tô=n o(si/ôn, o(\ ou)k a)no/sion?]
Compare Republ.
i. p. 331 C, and the conversation of So krates with Euthydêmus in the Xenophontic Memorab.
iv.
2, 18-19, and Cyropædia, i.
6, 27-34, about what is just and good morality towards enemies.
We read in Pascal, Pensées, i.
6, 8-9:-"On ne voit presque rien de juste et d'injuste, qui ne change de qualité en changeant de climat.
Trois degrés d'élévation du pôle renversent toute la jurisprudence.
Un méridien décide de la verité: en peu d'années de possession, les loix fondamentales changent: le droit a ses époques.
Plaisante justice, qu'une rivière ou une montagne borne!
Vérité au deçà des Pyrénées--erreur au delà!
"Ils confessent que la justice n'est pas dans les coutumes, mais qu'elle reside dans les loix naturelles, connues en tout pays.
Certainement ils la soutiendraient opiniâtrement, si la témérité du hasard qui a semé les loix humaines en avait rencontré au moins une qui fut universelle: mais la plaisanterie est telle, que le caprice des hommes s'est si bien diversifié, qu'il n'y en a point.
"Le larcin, l'inceste, le meurtre des enfans et des pères, tout a eu sa place entre les actions vertueuses.
Se peut-il rien de plus plaisant, qu'un homme ait droit de me tuer parcequ'il demeure au-delà de l'eau, et que son prince a querelle avec le mien, quoique je n'en aie aucune avec lui?
"L'un dit que l'essence de la justice est l'autorité du législateur: l'autre, la commodité du souverain: l'autre, la coutume présente--et c'est le plus sûr.
Rien, suivant la seule raison, n'est juste de soi: tout branle avec le temps.
La coutume fait toute l'équité, par cela seul qu'elle est reçue: c'est le fondement mystique de son autorité.
Qui la ramène à son principe, l'anéantit."]
[Side-note: Definition given by Sokrates of Justice--Insufficient to satisfy the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.]
Though the explanation of Justice here given is altogether untenable, yet we shall find it advanced by Sokrates himself as complete and conclusive, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where he is conversing with the Sophist Hippias.
That Sophist is represented as at first urging difficulties against it, but afterwards as concurring with Sokrates: who enlarges upon the definition, and extols it as perfectly satisfactory.
If Sokrates really delivered this answer to Hippias, as a general definition of Justice--we may learn from it how much greater was his negative acuteness in overthrowing the definitions of others, than his affirmative perspicacity in discovering unexceptionable definitions of his own.
This is the deficiency admitted by himself in the Platonic Apology--lamented by friends like Kleitophon--arraigned by opponents like Hippias and Thrasymachus.
Xenophon, whose intellect was practical rather than speculative, appears not to be aware of it.
He does not feel the depth and difficulty of the Sokratic problems, even while he himself enunciates them.
He does not appreciate all the conditions of a good definition, capable of being maintained against that formidable cross-examination (recounted by himself) whereby Sokrates humbled the youth Euthydêmus: still less does he enter into the spirit of that Sokratic order of precedence (declared in the negative Platonic dialogues), in the study of philosophical questions:--First define Justice, and find a definition of it such as you can maintain against a cross-examining adversary before you proceed either to affirm or deny any predicates concerning it.
The practical advice and reflexions of Xenophon are, for the most part, judicious and penetrating.
But he falls very short when he comes to deal with philosophical theory:--with reasoned truth, and with the Sokratic Elenchus as a test for discriminating such truth from the false, the doubtful, or the not-proven.
[Side-note: Biography of Cyrus--constant military success earned by suitable qualities--Variety of characters and situations.]
Cyrus is allowed by his mother to remain amidst the luxuries of the Median court.
It is a part of his admirable disposition that he resists all its temptations,[79] and goes back to the hard fare and discipline of the Persians with the same exemplary obedience as before.
He is appointed by the Elders to command the Persian contingent which is sent to assist Kyaxares (son of Astyages), king of Media; and he thus enters upon that active military career which is described as occupying his whole life, until his conquest of Babylon, and his subsequent organization of the great Persian empire.
His father Kambyses sends him forth with excellent exhortations, many of which are almost in the same words as those which we read ascribed to Sokrates in the Memorabilia.
In the details of Cyrus's biography which follow, the stamp of Sokratic influence is less marked, yet seldom altogether wanting.
The conversation of Sokrates had taught Xenophon how to make the most of his own large experience and observation.
His biography of Cyrus represents a string of successive situations, calling forth and displaying the aptitude of the hero for command.
The epical invention with which these situations are imagined--the variety of characters introduced, Araspes, Abradates, Pantheia, Chrysantas, Hystaspes, Gadatas, Gobryas, Tigranes, &c.--the dramatic propriety with which each of these persons is animated as speaker, and made to teach a lesson bearing on the predetermined conclusion--all these are highly honourable to the Xenophontic genius, but all of them likewise bespeak the Companion of Sokrates.
Xenophon dwells, with evident pleasure, on the details connected with the _rationale_ of military proceedings: the wants and liabilities of soldiers, the advantages or disadvantages of different weapons or different modes of marshalling, the duties of the general as compared with those of the soldier, &c. Cyrus is not merely always ready with his orders, but also competent as a speaker to explain the propriety of what he orders.
[80] We have the truly Athenian idea, that persuasive speech is the precursor of intelligent and energetic action: and that it is an attribute essentially necessary for a general, for the purpose of informing, appeasing, re-assuring, the minds of the soldiers.
[81] This, as well as other duties and functions of a military commander, we find laid down generally in the conversations of Sokrates,[82] who conceives these functions, in their most general aspect, as a branch of the comprehensive art of guiding or governing men.
What Sokrates thus enunciates generally, is exemplified in detail throughout the life of Cyrus.
[Footnote 79: Cyropæd.
i.
5, 1.]
[Footnote 80: Cyropæd.
v. 5, 46.
[Greek: lektikô/tatos kai\ praktikô/tatos].
Compare the Memorabilia, iv.
6, 1-15.]
[Footnote 81: Memorab.
iii.
3, 11; Hipparch.
viii.
22; Cyropæd.
vi.
2, 13.
Compare the impressive portion of the funeral oration delivered by Perikles in Thucydides, ii.
40.]
[Footnote 82: See the four first chapters of the third book of the Xenophontic Memorabilia.
The treatise of Xenophon called [Greek: I(pparchiko\s] enumerates also the general duties required from a commander of cavalry: among these, [Greek: pseudauto/moloi] are mentioned (iv.
7).
Now the employment, with effect, of a [Greek: pseudauto/molos], is described with much detail in the Cyropædia.
See the case of Araspes (vi.
1, 37, vi.
3, 16).]
[Side-note: Generous and amiable qualities of Cyrus, Abradates and Pantheia.]
Throughout all the Cyropædia, the heroic qualities and personal agency of Cyrus are always in the foreground, working with unerring success and determining every thing.
He is moreover recommended to our sympathies, not merely by the energy and judgment of a leader, but also by the amiable qualities of a generous man--by the remarkable combination of self-command with indulgence towards others--by considerate lenity towards subdued enemies like Kroesus and the Armenian prince--even by solicitude shown that the miseries of war should fall altogether on the fighting men, and that the cultivators of the land should be left unmolested by both parties.
[83] Respecting several other persons in the narrative, too--the Armenian Tigranes, Gadatas, Gobryas, &c.--the adventures and scenes described are touching: but the tale of Abradates and Pantheia transcends them all, and is perhaps the most pathetic recital embodied in the works of Hellenic antiquity.
[84] In all these narratives the vein of sentiment is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, but belongs to Xenophon himself.
[Footnote 83: Cyrop.
iii.
1, 10-38, vii.
2, 9-29, v. 4, 26, vi.
1, 37.
[Greek: A)lla\ su\ me\n, ô)= Ku=re, kai\ tau=ta o(/moios ei)=, pra=|o/s te kai\ suggnô/môn tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn a(martêma/tôn].\ [Footnote 84: Cyrop.
vii.
3.]
[Side-note: Scheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests are completed--Oriental despotism, wisely arranged.]
This last remark may also be made respecting the concluding proceedings of Cyrus, after he has thoroughly completed his conquests, and when he establishes arrangements for governing them permanently.
The scheme of government which Xenophon imagines and introduces him as organizing, is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, nor even Hellenic: it would probably have been as little acceptable to his friend Agesilaus, the marked "hater of Persia,"[85] as to any Athenian politician.
It is altogether an Oriental despotism, skilfully organized both for the security of the despot and for enabling him to keep a vigorous hold on subjects distant as well as near: such as the younger Cyrus might possibly have attempted, if his brother Artaxerxes had been slain at Kunaxa, instead of himself.
"Eam conditionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si uni reddatur"[86]--is a maxim repugnant to Hellenic ideas, and not likely to be rendered welcome even by the regulations of detail with which Xenophon surrounds it; judicious as these regulations are for their contemplated purpose.
The amiable and popular character which Cyrus has maintained from youth upwards, and by means of which he has gained an uninterrupted series of victories, is difficult to be reconciled with the insecurity, however imposing, in which he dwells as Great King.
When we find that he accounts it a necessary precaution to surround himself with eunuchs, on the express ground that they are despised by every one else and therefore likely to be more faithful to their master--when we read also that in consequence of the number of disaffected subjects, he is forced to keep a guard composed of twenty thousand soldiers taken from poor Persian mountaineers[87]--we find realised, in the case of the triumphant Cyrus, much of that peril and insecurity which the despot Hieron had so bitterly deplored in his conversation with Simonides.
However unsatisfactory the ideal of government may be, which Plato lays out either in the Republic or the Leges--that which Xenophon sets before us is not at all more acceptable, in spite of the splendid individual portrait whereby he dazzles our imagination.
Few Athenians would have exchanged Athens either for Babylon under Cyrus, or for Plato's Magnêtic colony in Krete.
[Footnote 85: Xenoph.
Agesilaus, vii.
7.
[Greek: ei) d' au)= kalo\n kai\ _misope/rsên_ ei)=nai--e)xe/pleusen, o(/, ti du/naito kako\n; poiê/sôn to\n ba/rbaron.]]
[Footnote 86: Tacit.
Annal.
i.
6.]
[Footnote 87: Xen.
Cyrop.
vii.
5, 58-70.]
[Side-note: Persian present reality--is described by Xenophon as thoroughly depraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of Cyrus.]
The Xenophontic government is thus noway admirable, even as an ideal.
But he himself presents it only as an ideal--or (which is the same thing in the eyes of a present companion of Sokrates) as a quasi-historical fact, belonging to the unknown and undetermined past.
When Xenophon talks of what the Persians _are now_, he presents us with nothing but a shocking contrast to this ideal; nothing but vice, corruption, degeneracy of every kind, exorbitant sensuality, faithlessness and cowardice.
[88] His picture of Persia is like that of the of Platonic Kosmos, which we can read in the Timæus:[89] a splendid Kosmos in its original plan and construction, but full of defects and evil as it actually exists.
The strength and excellence of the Xenophontic orderly despotism dies with its heroic beginner.
His two sons (as Plato remarked) do not receive the same elaborate training and discipline as himself: nor can they be restrained, even by the impressive appeal which he makes to them on his death-bed, from violent dissension among themselves, and misgovernment of every kind.
[90] [Footnote 88: Cyrop.
viii.
8.]
[Footnote 89: See below, ch.
xxxviii.]
[Footnote 90: Cyropæd.
viii.
7, 9-19: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 694 D.] [Side-note: Xenophon has good experience of military and equestrian proceedings--No experience of finance and commerce.]
Whatever we may think of the political ideal of Xenophon, his Cyropædia is among the glories of the Sokratic family; as an excellent specimen of the philosophical imagination, in carrying a general doctrine into illustrative details--and of the epical imagination in respect to varied characters and touching incident.
In stringing together instructive conversations, moreover, it displays the same art which we trace in the Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, Hieron, &c., and which is worthy of the attentive companion of Sokrates.
Whenever Xenophon talks about military affairs, horsemanship, agriculture, house-management, &c., he is within the range of personal experience of his own; and his recommendations, controlled as they thus are by known realities, are for the most part instructive and valuable.
Such is the case not merely with the Cyropædia and Oekonomikus, but also in his two short treatises, De Re Equestri and De Officio Magistri Equitum.
But we cannot say so much when he discusses plans of finance.
[Side-note: Discourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the condition of Athens.
His admiration of active commerce and variety of pursuits.]
We read among his works a discourse composed after his sentence of exile had been repealed, and when he was very old, seemingly not earlier than 355 B.C.
[91]--criticising the actual condition of Athens, and proposing various measures for the improvement of the finances, as well as for relief of the citizens from poverty.
He begins this discourse by a sentiment thoroughly Sokratic and Platonic, which would serve almost as a continuation of the Cyropædia.
The government of a city will be measured by the character and ability of its leaders.
[92] He closes it by another sentiment equally Sokratic and Platonic; advising that before his measures are adopted, special messengers shall be sent to Delphi and Dodona; to ascertain whether the Gods approve them--and if they approve, to which Gods they enjoin that the initiatory sacrifices shall be offered.
[93] But almost everything in the discourse, between the first and last sentences, is in a vein not at all Sokratic--in a vein, indeed, positively anti-Platonic and anti-Spartan.
We have already seen that wealth, gold and silver, commerce, influx of strangers, &c., are discouraged as much as possible by Plato, and by the theory (though evaded partially in practice) of Sparta.
Now it is precisely these objects which Xenophon, in the treatise before us, does his utmost to foster and extend at Athens.
Nothing is here said about the vulgarising influence of trade as compared with farming, which we read in the Oekonomikus: nor about the ethical and pædagogic dictation which pervades so much of the Cyropædia, and reigns paramount throughout the Platonic Republic and Leges.
Xenophon takes Athens as she stands, with great variety of tastes, active occupation, and condition among the inhabitants: her mild climate and productive territory, especially her veins of silver and her fine marble: her importing and exporting merchants, her central situation, as convenient entrepôt for commodities produced in the most distant lands:[94] her skilful artisans and craftsmen: her monied capitalists: and not these alone, but also the congregation and affluence of fine artists, intellectual men, philosophers, Sophists, poets, rhapsodes, actors, &c.: last, though not least, the temples adorning her akropolis, and the dramatic representations exhibited at her Dionysiac festivals, which afforded the highest captivation to eye as well as ear, and attracted strangers from all quarters as visitors.
[95] Xenophon extols these charms of Athens with a warmth which reminds us of the Periklean funeral oration in Thucydides.
[96] He no longer speaks like one whose heart and affections are with the Spartan drill: still less does he speak like Plato--to whom (as we see both by the Republic and the Leges) such artistic and poetical exhibitions were abominations calling for censorial repression--and in whose eyes gold, silver, commerce, abundant influx of strangers, &c., were dangerous enemies of all civic virtue.
[Footnote 91: Xenophon, [Greek: Po/roi--ê(\ peri\ Proso/dôn].
De Vectigalibus.
See Schneider's Proleg.
to this treatise, pp.
138-140.]
[Footnote 92: De Vectig.
i.
1.
[Greek: e)gô\ me\n tou=to a)ei/ pote nomi/zo, o(poi=oi/ tines a)\n oi( prosta/tai ô)=si, toiau/tas kai\ ta\s politei/as gi/gnesthai.]]
[Footnote 93: De Vect.
vi.
2.
Compare this with Anabas.
iii.
1, 5, where Sokrates reproves Xenophon for his evasive manner of putting a question to the Delphian God.
Xenophon here adopts the plenary manner enjoined by Sokrates.]
[Footnote 94: De Vectig.
c. i.
2-3.]
[Footnote 95: De Vect.
v. 3-4.
[Greek: Ti/ de\ oi( polue/laioi?
ti/ de\ oi( polupro/batoi?
ti/ de\ oi( gnô/mê| kai\ a)rguri/ô| duna/menoi chrêmati/zesthai?
Kai\ mê\n cheirote/chnai te kai\ sophistai\ kai\ philo/sophoi; oi( de\ poiêtai\, oi( de\ ta\ tou/tôn metacheirizo/menoi, oi( de\ a)xiothea/tôn ê)\ a)xiakou/stôn i(erô=n ê)\ o(si/ôn e)pithumou=ntes], &c.] [Footnote 96: Thucydid.
ii.
34-42; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 12.
Compare Xenophon, Republ.
Athen.
ii.
7, iii.
8.]
[Side-note: Recognised poverty among the citizens.
Plan for improvement.]
Yet while recognising all these charms and advantages, Xenophon finds himself compelled to lament great poverty among the citizens; which poverty (he says) is often urged by the leading men as an excuse for unjust proceedings.
Accordingly he comes forward with various financial suggestions, by means of which he confidently anticipates that every Athenian citizen may obtain a comfortable maintenance from the public.
[97] [Footnote 97: De Vectig.
iv.
33.
[Greek: kai\ e)moi\ me\n dê\ ei)/rêtai, ô(s a)\n ê(gou=mai kataskeuasthei/sês tê=s po/leôs i(kanê\n a)\n pa=sin A)thênai/ois trophê\n a)po\ koinou= gene/sthai.]]
[Side-note: Advantage of a large number of Metics.
How these may be encouraged.]
First, he dwells upon the great advantage of encouraging metics, or foreigners resident at Athens, each of whom paid an annual capitation tax to the treasury.
There were already many such, not merely Greeks, but Orientals also, Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians, &c.:[98] and by judicious encouragement all expatriated men everywhere might be made to prefer the agreeable residence at Athens, thus largely increasing the annual amount of the tax.
The metics ought (he says) to be exempted from military service (which the citizens ought to perform and might perform alone), but to be admitted to the honours of the equestrian duty, whenever they were rich enough to afford it: and farther, to be allowed the liberty of purchasing land and building houses in the city.
Moreover not merely resident metics, but also foreign merchants who came as visitors, conducting an extensive commerce--ought to be flattered by complimentary votes and occasional hospitalities: while the curators of the harbour, whose function it was to settle disputes among them, should receive prizes if they adjudicated equitably and speedily.
[99] [Footnote: 98: De Vect.
ii.
3-7.]
[Footnote: 99: De Vect.
iii.
2-6.]
[Side-note: Proposal to raise by voluntary contributions a large sum to be employed as capital by the city.
Distribution of three oboli per head per day to all the citizens.]
All this (Xenophon observes) will require only friendly and considerate demonstrations.
His farther schemes are more ambitious, not to be effected without a large outlay.
He proposes to raise an ample fund for the purposes of the city, by voluntary contributions; which he expects to obtain not merely from private Athenians and metics, rich and in easy circumstances--but also from other cities, and even from foreign despots, kings, satraps, &c. The tempting inducement will be, that the names of all contributors with their respecting contributions will be inscribed on public tablets, and permanently commemorated as benefactors of the city.
[100] Contributors (he says) are found, for the outfit of a fleet, where they expect no return: much more will they come forward here, where a good return will accrue.
The fund so raised will be employed under public authority with the most profitable result, in many different ways.
The city will build docks and warehouses for bonding goods--houses near the harbour to be let to merchants--merchant-vessels to be let out on freight.
But the largest profit will be obtained by working the silver mines at Laureion in Attica.
The city will purchase a number of foreign slaves, and will employ them under the superintendence of old free citizens who are past the age of labour, partly in working these mines for public account, each of the ten tribes employing one tenth part of the number--partly by letting them out to private mining undertakers, at so much per diem for each slave: the slaves being distinguished by a conspicuous public stamp, and the undertaker binding himself under penalty always to restore the same number of them as he received.
[101] Such competition between the city and the private mining undertakers will augment the total produce, and will be no loss to either, but wholesome for both.
The mines will absorb as many workmen as are put into them: for in the production of silver (Xenophon argues) there can never be any glut, as there is sometimes in corn, wine, or oil.
Silver is always in demand, and is not lessened in value by increase of quantity.
Every one is anxious to get it, and has as much pleasure in hoarding it under ground as in actively employing it.
[102] The scheme, thus described, may (if found necessary) be brought into operation by degrees, a certain number of slaves being purchased annually until the full total is made up.
From these various financial projects, and especially from the fund thus employed as capital under the management of the Senate, the largest returns are expected.
Amidst the general abundance which will ensue, the religious festivals will be celebrated with increased splendour--the temples will be repaired, the docks and walls will be put in complete order--the priests, the Senate, the magistrates, the horsemen, will receive the full stipends which the old custom of Athens destined for them.
[103] But besides all these, the object which Xenophon has most at heart will be accomplished: the poor citizens will be rescued from poverty.
There will be a regular distribution among all citizens, per head and equally.
Three oboli, or half a drachma, will be allotted daily to each, to poor and rich alike.
For the poor citizens, this will provide a comfortable subsistence, without any contribution on their part: the poverty now prevailing will thus be alleviated.
The rich, like the poor, receive the daily triobolon as a free gift: but if they even compute it as interest for their investments, they will find that the rate of interest is full and satisfactory, like the rate on bottomry.
Three oboli per day amount in the year of 360 days to 180 drachmæ: now if a rich man has contributed ten minæ ( = 1000 drachmæ), he will thus receive interest at the rate of 18 per cent.
per annum: if another less rich citizen has contributed one mina ( = 100 drachmæ), he will receive interest at the rate of 180 per cent.
per annum: more than he could realise in any other investment.
[104] [Footnote 100: De Vect.
iii.
11.]
[Footnote 101: De Vect.
iv.
13-19.]
[Footnote 102: De Vect.
iv.
4-7.]
[Footnote 103: De Vectig.
vi.
1-2.
[Greek: Kai\ o( me\n dê=mos trophê=s eu)porê/sei, oi( de\ plou/sioi tê=s ei)s to\n po/lemon dapa/nês a)pallagê/sontai, periousi/as de\ pollê=s genome/nês, megaloprepe/steron me\n e)/ti ê(\ nu=n ta\s e(orta\s a)/xomen, i(era\ d' e)piskeua/somen, tei/chê de\ kai\ neô/ria a)northô/somen, i(ereu=si de\ kai\ boulê=| kai\ a)rchai=s kai\ i(ppeu=si ta\ pa/tria a)podô/somen--pô=s ou)k a)/xion ô(s ta/chista tou/tois e)gcheirei=n, i(/na e)/ti e)ph' ê(mô=n e)pi/dômen tê\n po/lin met' a)sphalei/as eu)daimonou=san?]
[Footnote 104: De Vectig.
iii.
9-12.]
[Side-note: Purpose and principle of this distribution.]
Half a drachma, or three oboli, per day, was the highest rate of pay ever received (the rate varied at different times) by the citizens as Dikasts and Ekklesiasts, for attending in judicature or in assembly.
It is this amount of pay which Xenophon here proposes to ensure to every citizen, without exception, out of the public treasury; which (he calculates) would be enriched by his project so as easily to bear such a disbursement.
He relieves the poor citizens from poverty by making them all pensioners on the public treasury, with or without service rendered, or the pretence of service.
He strains yet farther the dangerous principle of the Theôrikon, without the same excuse as can be shown for the Theôrikon itself on religious grounds.
[105] If such a proposition had been made by Kleon, Hyperbolus, Kleophon, Agyrrhius, &c., it would have been dwelt upon by most historians of Greece as an illustration of the cacoethes of democracy--to extract money, somehow or other, from the rich, for the purpose of keeping the poor in comfort.
Not one of the democratical leaders, so far as we know, ever ventured to propose so sweeping a measure: we have it here from the pen of the oligarchical Xenophon.
[Footnote 105: Respecting the Theôrikon at Athens, see my 'History of Greece,' ch.
88, pp.
492-498.]
[Side-note: Visionary anticipations of Xenophon, financial and commercial.]
But we must of course discuss Xenophon's scheme as a whole: the aggregate enlargement of revenue, from his various visionary new ways and means, on one side--against the new mode and increased amount of expenditure, on the other side.
He would not have proposed such an expenditure, if he had not thoroughly believed in the correctness of his own anticipations, both as to the profits of the mining scheme, and as to the increase of receipts from other sources: such as the multiplication of tax-paying Metics, the rent paid by them for the new houses to be built by the city, the increase of the harbour dues from expanded foreign trade.
But of these anticipations, even the least unpromising are vague and uncertain: while the prospects of the mining scheme appear thoroughly chimerical.
Nothing is clear or certain except the disbursement.
We scarcely understand how Xenophon could seriously have imagined, either that voluntary contributors could have been found to subscribe the aggregate fund as he proposes--or that, if subscribed, it could have yielded the prodigious return upon which he reckons.
We must, however, recollect that he had no familiarity with finance, or with the conditions and liabilities of commerce, or with the raising of money from voluntary contributors for any collective purpose.
He would not have indulged in similar fancies if the question had been about getting together supplies for an army.
Practical Athenian financiers would probably say, in criticising his financial project--what Heraldus[106] observes upon some views of his opponent Salmasius, about the relations of capital and interest in Attica--"Somnium est hominis harum rerum, etiam cum vigilat, nihil scientis".
[107] The financial management of Athens was doubtless defective in many ways: but it would not have been improved in the hands of Xenophon--any more than the administrative and judiciary department of Athens would have become better under the severe regimen of Plato.
[108] The merits of the Sokratic companions--and great merits they were--lay in the region of instructive theory.
[Footnote 106: This passage of Heraldus is cited by M. Boeckh in his Public Economy of Athens, B. iv.
ch.
21, p. 606, Eng.
Trans.
In that chapter of M. Boeckh's work (pp.
600-610) some very instructive pages will be found about the Xenophontic scheme here noticed.
I will however mention one or two points on which my understanding of the scheme differs from his.
He says (p. 605):--"The author supposes that the profit upon this speculation would amount to three oboli per day, so that the subscribers would obtain a very high per centage on their shares.
Xenophon supposes unequal contributions, according to the different amounts of property, agreeable to the principles of a property-tax, but an equal distribution of the receipts for the purpose of favouring and aiding the poor.
What Xenophon is speaking of is an income annually arising upon each share, either equal to or exceeding the interest of the loans on bottomry.
Where, however, is the security that the undertaking would produce three oboli a day to each subscriber?"
I concur in most of what is here said; but M. Boeckh states the matter too much as if the three oboli per diem were a real return arising from the scheme, and payable to each shareholder upon each _share_ as he calls it.
This is an accident of the case, not the essential feature.
The poorest citizens--for whose benefit, more than for any other object, the scheme is contrived--would not be shareholders at all: they would be too poor to contribute anything, yet each of them would receive his triobolon like the rest.
Moreover, many citizens, even though able to pay, might hold back, and decline to pay: yet still each would receive as much.
And again, the foreigners, kings, satraps, &c., would be contributors, but would receive nothing at all.
The distribution of the triobolon would be made to citizens only.
Xenophon does indeed state the proportion of receipt to payments in the cases of some rich contributors, as an auxiliary motive to conciliate them.
Bat we ought not to treat this receipt as if it were a real return yielded by the public mining speculation, or as profit actually brought in.
As I conceive the scheme, the daily triobolon, and the respective contributions furnished, have no premeditated ratio, no essential connection with each other.
The daily payment of the triobolon to every citizen indiscriminately, is a new and heavy burden which Xenophon imposes upon the city.
But this is only one among many other burdens, as we may see by cap.
6.
In order to augment the wealth of the city, so as to defray these large expenses, he proposes several new financial measures.
Of these the most considerable was the public mining speculation; but it did not stand alone.
The financial scheme of Xenophon, both as to receipts and as to expenditure, is more general than M. Boeckh allows for.]
[Footnote 107: It is truly surprising to read in one of Hume's Essays the following sentence.
Essay XII.
on Civil Liberty, p. 107 ed.
of Hume's Philosophical Works, 1825.
"The Athenians, though governed by a Republic, paid near two hundred per cent for those sums of money which any emergence made it necessary for them to borrow, as we learn from Xenophon."
In the note Hume quotes the following passage from this discourse, De Vectigalibus:--[Greek: Ktê=sin de\ a)p' ou)deno\s a)\n ou(/tô kalê\n ktê/sainto, ô(/sper a)ph' ou)= a)\n protele/sôsin ei)s tê\n a)phormê/n.
Oi( de/ ge plei=stoi A)thênai/ôn plei/ona lê/psontai kat' e)niauto\n ê)\ o(/sa a)\n ei)sene/gkôsin.
Oi( ga\r mna=n protele/santes, e)ggu\s duoi=n mna=|n pro/sodon e)/xousi.
O(\ dokei= tô=n a)nthrôpi/nôn a)sphale/stato/n te kai\ poluchroniô/taton ei)=nai].
Hume has been misled by dwelling upon one or two separate sentences.
If he had taken into consideration the whole discourse and its declared scope, he would have seen that it affords no warrant for any inference as to the rate of interest paid by the Athenian public when they wanted to borrow.
In Xenophon's scheme there is no fixed proportion between what a contributor to the fund would pay and what he would receive.
The triobolon received is a fixed sum to each citizen, whereas the contributions of _each_ would be different.
Moreover the foreigners and metics would contribute without receiving anything, while the poor citizens would receive their triobolon per head, without having contributed anything.]
[Footnote 108: Aristeides the Rhetor has some forcible remarks in defending Rhetoric and the Athenian statesmen against the bitter criticisms of Plato in the Gorgias: pointing out that Plato himself had never made trial of the difficulty of governing any real community of men, or of the necessities under which a statesman in actual political life was placed (Orat.
xlv.
[Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s], pp.
109-110, Dindorf).]
[Side-note: Xenophon exhorts his countrymen to maintain peace.]
Xenophon accompanies his financial scheme with a strong recommendation to his countrymen that they should abstain from warlike enterprises and maintain peace with every one.
He expatiates on the manifest advantages, nay, even on the necessity, of continued peace, under the actual poverty of the city: for the purpose of recruiting the exhausted means of the citizens, as well as of favouring his own new projects for the improvement of finance and commerce.
While he especially deprecates any attempt on the part of Athens to regain by force her lost headship over the Greeks, he at the same time holds out hopes that this dignity would be spontaneously tendered to her, if, besides abstaining from all violence, she conducted herself with a liberal and conciliatory spirit towards all: if she did her best to adjust differences among other cities, and to uphold the autonomy of the Delphian temple.
[109] As far as we can judge, such pacific exhortations were at that time wise and politic.
Athens had just then concluded peace (355 B.C.)
after the three years of ruinous and unsuccessful war, called the Social War, carried on against her revolted allies Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium.
To attempt the recovery of empire by force was most mischievous.
There was indeed one purpose, for which she was called upon by a wise forecast to put forth her strength--to check the aggrandisement of Philip in Macedonia.
But this was a distant purpose: and the necessity, though it became every year more urgent, was not so prominently manifest[110] in 355 B.C.
as to affect the judgment of Xenophon.
At that early day, Demosthenes himself did not see the danger from Macedonia: his first Philippic was delivered in 351 B.C., and even then his remonstrances, highly creditable to his own forecast, made little impression on others.
But when we read the financial oration De Symmoriis we appreciate his sound administrative and practical judgment; compared with the benevolent dreams and ample public largess in which Xenophon here indulges.
[111] [Footnote 109: Xenoph.
De Vectig.
v.
3-8.]
[Footnote 110: See my 'History of Greece,' ch.
86, p. 325 seq.
I agree with Boeckh, Public Econ.
of Athens, ut suprà, p. 601, that this pamphlet of Xenophon is probably to be referred to the close of the Social War, about 355 B.C.]
[Footnote 111: Respecting the first Philippic, and the Oratio De Symmoriis of Demosthenes, see my 'History of Greece,' ch.
87, pp.
401-431.]
[Side-note: Difference of the latest compositions of Xenophon and Plato, from their point of view in the earlier.]
We have seen that Plato died in 347 B.C., having reached the full age of eighty: Xenophon must have attained the same age nearly, and may perhaps have attained it completely--though we do not know the exact year of his death.
With both these two illustrious companions of Sokrates, the point of view is considerably modified in their last compositions as compared to their earlier.
Xenophon shows the alteration not less clearly than Plato, though in an opposite direction.
His discourse on the Athenian revenues differs quite as much from the Anabasis, Cyropædia, and Oekonomikus--as the Leges and Epinomis differ from any of Plato's earlier works.
Whatever we may think of the financial and commercial anticipations of Xenophon, his pamphlet on the Athenian revenues betokens a warm sympathy for his native city--a genuine appreciation of her individual freedom and her many-sided intellectual activity--an earnest interest in her actual career, and even in the extension of her commercial and manufacturing wealth.
In these respects it recommends itself to our feelings more than the last Platonic production--Leges and Epinomis--composed nearly at the same time, between 356-347 B.C.
While Xenophon in old age, becoming reconciled to his country, forgets his early passion for the Spartan drill and discipline, perpetual, monotonous, unlettered--we find in the senility of Plato a more cramping limitation of the varieties of human agency--a stricter compression, even of individual thought and speech, under the infallible official orthodoxy--a more extensive use of the pædagogic rod and the censorial muzzle than he had ever proposed before.
In thus taking an unwilling leave of the Sokratic family, represented by these two venerable survivors--to both of whom the students of Athenian letters and philosophy are so deeply indebted--I feel some satisfaction in the belief, that both of them died, as they were born, citizens of free Athens and of unconquered Hellas: and that neither of them was preserved to an excessive old age, like their contemporary Isokrates, to witness the extinction of Hellenic autonomy by the battle of Chæroneia.
[112] [Footnote 112: Compare the touching passage in Tacitus's description of the death of Agricola, c. 44-45.
"Festinatæ mortis grande solatium tulit, evasisse postremum illud tempus," &c.] CHAPTER V. LIFE OF PLATO.
[Side-note: Scanty information about Plato's life.]
Of Plato's biography we can furnish nothing better than a faint outline.
We are not fortunate enough to possess the work on Plato's life,[1] composed by his companion and disciple Xenokrates, like the life of Plotinus by Porphyry, or that of Proklus by Marinus.
Though Plato lived eighty years, enjoying extensive celebrity--and though Diogenes Laertius employed peculiar care in collecting information about him--yet the number of facts recounted is very small, and of those facts a considerable proportion is poorly attested.
[2] [Footnote 1: This is cited by Simplikius, Schol.
ad Aristot.
De Coelo, 470, a.
27; 474, a.
12, ed.
Brandis.]
[Footnote 2: Diogen.
Laert.
iv.
1.
The person to whom Diogenes addressed his biography of Plato was a female: possibly the wife of the emperor Septimius Severus (see Philostr.
Vit.
Apoll.
i.
3), who greatly loved and valued the Platonic philosophy (Diog.
Laert.
iii.
47).
Ménage (in his commentary on the Prooemium) supposes the person signified to be Arria: this also is a mere conjecture, and in my judgment less probable.
We know that the empress gave positive encouragement to writers on philosophy.
The article devoted by Diogenes to Plato is of considerable length, including both biography and exposition of doctrine.
He makes reference to numerous witnesses--Speusippus, Aristotle, Hermodôrus, Aristippus, Dikæarchus, Aristoxenus, Klearchus, Herakleides, Theopompus, Timon in his Silli or satirical poem, Pamphila, Hermippus, Neanthes, Antileon, Favorinus, Athenodôrus.
Timotheus, Idomeneus, Alexander [Greek: e)n diadochai=s kath' Ê(ra/kleiton], Satyrus, Onêtor, Alkimus, Euphorion, Panætius, Myronianus, Polemon, Aristophanes of Byzantium, the Alexandrine critic, Antigonus of Karystus, Thrasyllus, &c. Of the other biographers of Plato, Olympiodorus and the Auctor Anonymus cite no authorities.
Apuleius, in his survey of the doctrine of Plato (De Habitudine doctrinarum Platonis, init.
p. 567, ed.
Paris), mentions only Speusippus, as having attested the early diligence and quick apprehension of Plato.
"Speusippus, domesticis instructus documentis, et pueri ejus acre in percipiendo ingenium, et admirandæ verecundiæ indolem laudat, et pubescentis primitias labore atque amore studendi imbutas refert," &c. Speusippus had composed a funeral Discourse or Encomium on Plato (Diogen.
iii.
1, 2; iv.
1, 11).
Unfortunately Diogenes refers to it only once in reference to Plato.
We can hardly make out whether any of the authors, whom he cites, had made the life of Plato a subject of attentive study.
Hermodôrus is cited by Simplikius as having written a treatise [Greek: peri\ Pla/tônos].
Aristoxenus, Dikæarchus, and Theopompus--perhaps also Hermippus, and Klearchus--had good means of information.
See K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 97, not.
45.]
[Side-note: His birth, parentage, and early education.]
Plato was born in Ægina (in which island his father enjoyed an estate as kleruch or out-settled citizen) in the month Thargelion (May) of the year B.C.
427.
[3] His family, belonging to the Dême Kollytus, was both ancient and noble, in the sense attached to that word at Athens.
He was son of Ariston (or, according to some admirers, of the God Apollo) and Periktionê: his maternal ancestors had been intimate friends or relatives of the law-giver Solon, while his father belonged to a Gens tracing its descent from Kodrus, and even from the God Poseidon.
He was also nearly related to Charmides and to Kritias--this last the well-known and violent leader among the oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants.
[4] Plato was first called Aristoklês, after his grandfather; but received when he grew up the name of Plato--on account of the breadth (we are told) either of his forehead or of his shoulders.
Endowed with a robust physical frame, and exercised in gymnastics, not merely in one of the palæstræ of Athens (which he describes graphically in the Charmides) but also under an Argeian trainer, he attained such force and skill as to contend (if we may credit Dikæarchus) for the prize of wrestling among boys at the Isthmian festival.
[5] His literary training was commenced under a schoolmaster named Dionysius, and pursued under Drakon, a celebrated teacher of music in the large sense then attached to that word.
He is said to have displayed both diligence and remarkable quickness of apprehension, combined too with the utmost gravity and modesty.
[6] He not only acquired great familiarity with the poets, but composed poetry of his own--dithyrambic, lyric, and tragic: and he is even reported to have prepared a tragic tetralogy, with the view of competing for victory at the Dionysian festival.
We are told that he burned these poems, when he attached himself to the society of Sokrates.
No compositions in verse remain under his name, except a few epigrams--amatory, affectionate, and of great poetical beauty.
But there is ample proof in his dialogues that the cast of his mind was essentially poetical.
Many of his philosophical speculations are nearly allied to poetry, and acquire their hold upon the mind rather through imagination and sentiment than through reason or evidence.
[Footnote 3: It was affirmed distinctly by Hermodôrus (according to the statement of Diogenes Laertius, iii.
6) that Plato was twenty-eight years old at the time of the death of Sokrates: that is, in May, 399 B.C.
(Zeller, Phil.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 39, ed.
2nd.)
This would place the birth of Plato in 427 B.C.
Other critics refer his birth to 428 or 429: but I agree with Zeller in thinking that the deposition of Hermodôrus is more trustworthy than any other evidence before us.
Hermodôrus was a friend and disciple of Plato, and is even said to have made money by publishing Plato's dialogues without permission (Cic., Epist.
ad Attic.
xiii.
21).
Suidas, [Greek: E(rmo/dôros].
He was also an author: he published a treatise [Greek: Peri\ Mathêma/tôn] (Diog.
L., Prooem.
2).
See the more recent Dissertation of Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, Marburg, 1859, p. 19 seq.
He cites two important passages (out of the commentary of Simplikius on Aristot.
Physic.)
referring to the work of Hermodôrus [Greek: o( Pla/tônos e(/tairos]--a work [Greek: Peri\ Pla/tônos], on Plato.]
[Footnote 4: The statements respecting Plato's relatives are obscure and perplexing: unfortunately the _domestica documenta_, which were within the knowledge of his nephew Speusippus, are no longer accessible to us.
It is certain that he had two brothers, Glaukon and Adeimantus: besides which, it would appear from the Parmenides (126 B) that he had a younger half-brother by the mother's side, named Antiphon, and son of Pyrilampes (compare Charmides, p. 158 A, and Plut., De Frat.
Amore, 12, p. 484 E).
But the age, which this would assign to Antiphon, does not harmonise well with the chronological postulates assumed in the exordium of the Parmenides.
Accordingly, K. F. Hermann and Stallbaum are led to believe, that besides the brothers of Plato named Glaukon and Adeimantus, there must also have been two uncles of Plato bearing these same names, and having Antiphon for their younger brother.
(See Stallbaum's Prolegg.
ad Charm.
pp.
84, 85, and Prolegg.
ad Parmen., Part iii.
pp.
304-307.)
This is not unlikely: but we cannot certainly determine the point--more especially as we do not know what amount of chronological inaccuracy Plato might hold to be admissible in the _personnel_ of his dialogues.
It is worth mentioning, that in the discourse of Andokides de Mysteriis, persons named Plato, Charmides, Antiphon, are named among those accused of concern in the sacrileges of 415 B.C.--the mutilation of the Hermæ and the mock celebration of the mysteries.
Speusippus is also named as among the Senators of the year (Andokides de Myst.
p. 13-27, seq.).
Whether these persons belonged to the same family as the philosopher Plato, we cannot say.
He himself was then only twelve years old.]
[Footnote 5: Diog.
L. iii.
4; Epiktêtus, i.
8-13, [Greek: ei) de\ kalo\s ê)=n Pla/tôn kai\ i)schuro/s], &c. The statement of Sextus Empiricus--that Plato in his boyhood had his ears bored and wore ear-rings--indicates the opulent family to which he belonged.
(Sex.
Emp.
adv.
Gramm.
s.
258.)
Probably some of the old habits of the great Athenian families, as to ornaments worn on the head or hair, were preserved with the children after they had been discontinued with adults.
See Thuc.
i.
6.]
[Footnote 6: Diog.
L. iii.
26.]
[Side-note: Early relations of Plato with Sokrates.]
According to Diogenes[7] (who on this point does not cite his authority), it was about the twentieth year of Plato's age (407 B.C.)
that his acquaintance with Sokrates began.
It may possibly have begun earlier, but certainly not later--since at the time of the conversation (related by Xenophon) between Sokrates and Plato's younger brother Glaukon, there was already a friendship established between Sokrates and Plato: and that time can hardly be later than 406 B.C., or the beginning of 405 B.C.
[8] From 406 B.C.
down to 399 B.C., when Sokrates was tried and condemned, Plato seems to have remained in friendly relation and society with him: a relation perhaps interrupted during the severe political struggles between 405 B.C.
and 403 B.C., but revived and strengthened after the restoration of the democracy in the last-mentioned year.
[Footnote 7: Ibid.
6.]
[Footnote 8: Xen.
Mem.
iii.
6, 1.
Sokrates was induced by his friendship for Plato and for Charmides the cousin of Plato, to admonish the forward youth Glaukon (Plato's younger brother), who thrust himself forward obtrusively to speak in the public assembly before he was twenty years of age.
The two discourses of Sokrates--one with the presumptuous Glaukon, the other with the diffident Charmides--are both reported by Xenophon.
These discourses must have taken place before the battle of Ægospotami: for Charmides was killed during the Anarchy, and Glaukon certainly would never have attempted such acts of presumption after the restoration of the democracy, at a time when the tide of public feeling had become vehemently hostile to Kritias, Charmides, and all the names and families connected with the oligarchical rule just overthrown.
I presume the conversation of Sokrates with Glaukon to have taken place in 406 B.C.
or 405 B.C.
: it was in 405 B.C.
that the disastrous battle of Ægospotami occurred.]
[Side-note: Plato's youth--service as a citizen and soldier.]
But though Plato may have commenced at the age of twenty his acquaintance with Sokrates, he cannot have been exclusively occupied in philosophical pursuits between the nineteenth and the twenty-fifth year of his age--that is, between 409-403 B.C.
He was carried, partly by his own dispositions, to other matters besides philosophy; and even if such dispositions had not existed, the exigencies of the time pressed upon him imperatively as an Athenian citizen.
Even under ordinary circumstances, a young Athenian of eighteen years of age, as soon as he was enrolled on the public register of citizens, was required to take the memorable military oath in the chapel of Aglaurus, and to serve on active duty, constant or nearly constant, for two years, in various posts throughout Attica, for the defence of the country.
[9] But the six years from 409-403 B.C.
were years of an extraordinary character.
They included the most strenuous public efforts, the severest suffering, and the gravest political revolution, that had ever occurred at Athens.
Every Athenian citizen was of necessity put upon constant (almost daily) military service; either abroad, or in Attica against the Lacedæmonian garrison established in the permanent fortified post of Dekeleia, within sight of the Athenian Akropolis.
So habitually were the citizens obliged to be on guard, that Athens, according to Thucydides,[10] became a military post rather than a city.
It is probable that Plato, by his family and its place on the census, belonged to the Athenian Hippeis or Horsemen, who were in constant employment for the defence of the territory.
But at any rate, either on horseback, or on foot, or on shipboard, a robust young citizen like Plato, whose military age commenced in 409, must have borne his fair share in this hard but indispensable duty.
In the desperate emergency, which preceded the battle of Arginusæ (406 B.C.
), the Athenians put to sea in thirty days a fleet of 110 triremes for the relief of Mitylenê; all the men of military age, freemen, and slaves, embarking.
[11] We can hardly imagine that at such a season Plato can have wished to decline service: even if he had wished it, the Strategi would not have permitted him.
Assuming that he remained at home, the garrison-duty at Athens must have been doubled on account of the number of departures.
After the crushing defeat of the Athenians at Ægospotami, came the terrible apprehension at Athens, then the long blockade and famine of the city (wherein many died of hunger); next the tyranny of the Thirty, who among their other oppressions made war upon all free speech, and silenced even the voice of Sokrates: then the gallant combat of Thrasybulus followed by the intervention of the Lacedæmonians--contingencies full of uncertainty and terror, but ending in the restoration of the democracy.
After such restoration, there followed all the anxieties, perils, of reaction, new enactments and provisions, required for the revived democracy, during the four years between the expulsion of the Thirty and the death of Sokrates.
[Footnote 9: Read the oath sworn by the Ephêbi in Pollux viii.
105.
Æschines tells us that he served his two ephebic years as [Greek: peri/polos tê=s chô/ras], when there no was remarkable danger or foreign pressure.
See Æsch.
De Fals.
Legat.
s. 178.
See the facts about the Athenian Ephêbi brought together in a Dissertation by W. Dittenberger, p.
9-12.]
[Footnote 10: Thuc.
vii.
27: [Greek: o(sême/rai e)xelauno/ntôn tô=n i(ppe/ôn], &c.
Cf., viii.
69.
Antiphon, who is described in the beginning of the Parmenides, as devoted to [Greek: i(ppikê\], must have been either brother or uncle of Plato.]
[Footnote 11: Xen.
Hell.
i.
6, 24.
[Greek: Oi( de\ A)thênai=oi, ta\ gegenême/na kai\ tê\n poliorki/an e)pei\ ê)/kousan, e)psêphi/santo boêthei=n nausi\n e(kato\n kai\ de/ka, ei)sbiba/zontes tou\s e)n ê(liki/a| o)/ntas a(/pantas, kai\ dou/lous kai\ e)leuthe/rous; kai\ plêrô/santes ta\s de/ka kai\ e(kato\n e)n tria/konta ê(me/rais, a)pê=ran; ei)se/bêsan de\ kai\ tô=n i(ppe/ôn polloi/].
In one of the anecdotes given by Diogenes (iii.
24) Plato alludes to his own military service.
Aristoxenus (Diog.
L. iii.
8) said that Plato had been engaged thrice in military expeditions out of Attica: once to Tanagra, a second time to Corinth, a third time to Delium, where he distinguished himself.
Aristoxenus must have had fair means of information, yet I do not know what to make of this statement.
All the three places named are notorious for battles fought by Athens; nevertheless chronology utterly forbids the supposition that Plato could have been present either at _the_ battle of Tanagra or at _the_ battle of Delium.
At the battle of Delium Sokrates was present, and is said to have distinguished himself: hence there is ground for suspecting some confusion between his name and that of Plato.
It is however possible that there may have been, during the interval between 410-405 B.C., partial invasions of the frontiers of Boeotia by Athenian detachments: both Tanagra and Delium were on the Boeotian frontier.
The great battle of Corinth took place in 394 B.C.
Plato left Athens immediately after the death of Sokrates in 399 B.C., and visited several foreign countries during the years immediately following; but he may have been at Athens in 394 B.C., and may have served in the Athenian force at Corinth.
See Mr. Clinton, Fast.
Hell.
ad ann.
395 B.C.
I do not see how Plato could have been engaged in any battle of Delium _after_ the battle of Corinth, for Athens was not then at war with the Boeotians.
At the same time I confess that the account given by or ascribed to Aristoxenus appears to me to have been founded on little positive information, when we compare it with the military duty which Plato must have done between 410-405 B.C.
It is curious that Antisthenes also is mentioned as having distinguished himself at the battle of Tanagra (Diog.
vi.
1).
The same remarks are applicable to him as have just been made upon Plato.]
[Side-note: Period of political ambition.]
From the dangers, fatigues, and sufferings of such an historical decad, no Athenian citizen could escape, whatever might be his feeling towards the existing democracy, or however averse he might be to public employment by natural temper.
But Plato was not thus averse, during the earlier years of his adult life.
We know, from his own letters, that he then felt strongly the impulse of political ambition usual with young Athenians of good family;[12] though probably not with any such premature vehemence as his younger brother Glaukon, whose impatience Sokrates is reported to have so judiciously moderated.
[13] Whether Plato ever spoke with success in the public assembly, we do not know: he is said to have been shy by nature, and his voice was thin and feeble, ill adapted for the Pnyx.
[14] However, when the oligarchy of Thirty was established, after the capture and subjugation of Athens, Plato was not only relieved from the necessity of addressing the assembled people, but also obtained additional facilities for rising into political influence, through Kritias (his near relative) and Charmides, leading men among the new oligarchy.
Plato affirms that he had always disapproved the antecedent democracy, and that he entered on the new scheme of government with full hope of seeing justice and wisdom predominant.
He was soon undeceived.
The government of the Thirty proved a sanguinary and rapacious tyranny,[15] filling him with disappointment and disgust.
He was especially revolted by their treatment of Sokrates, whom they not only interdicted from continuing his habitual colloquy with young men,[16] but even tried to implicate in nefarious murders, by ordering him along with others to arrest Leon the Salaminian, one of their intended victims: an order which Sokrates, at the peril of his life, disobeyed.
[Footnote 12: Plato, Epistol.
vii.
p.
324-325.]
[Footnote 13: Xen., Mem.
iii.
6.]
[Footnote 14: Diogen.
Laert.
iii.
5: [Greek: I)schno/phôno/s te ê)=n], &c. iii.
26: [Greek: ai)dê/môn kai\ ko/smios].]
[Footnote 15: History of Greece, vol.
viii.
ch.
65.]
[Footnote 16: Xen.
Mem.
i.
2, 36; Plato, Apol.
Sokrat.
c. 20, p.
32.]
[Side-note: He becomes disgusted with politics.]
Thus mortified and disappointed, Plato withdrew from public functions.
What part he took in the struggle between the oligarchy and its democratical assailants under Thrasybulus, we are not informed.
But when the democracy was re-established, his political ambition revived, and he again sought to acquire some active influence on public affairs.
Now however the circumstances had become highly unfavourable to him.
The name of his deceased relative Kritias was generally abhorred, and he had no powerful partisans among the popular leaders.
With such disadvantages, with anti-democratical sentiments, and with a thin voice, we cannot wonder that Plato soon found public life repulsive;[17] though he admits the remarkable moderation displayed by the restored Demos.
His repugnance was aggravated to the highest pitch of grief and indignation by the trial and condemnation of Sokrates (399 B.C.
), four years after the renewal of the democracy.
At that moment doubtless the Sokratic men or companions were unpopular in a body.
Plato, after having yielded his best sympathy and aid at the trial of Sokrates, retired along with several others of them to Megara.
He made up his mind that for a man of his views and opinions, it was not only unprofitable, but also unsafe, to embark in active public life, either at Athens or in any other Grecian city.
He resolved to devote himself to philosophical speculation, and to abstain from practical politics; unless fortune should present to him some exceptional case, of a city prepared to welcome and obey a renovator upon exalted principles.
[18] [Footnote 17: Ælian (V. H. iii.
27) had read a story to the effect, that Plato, in consequence of poverty, was about to seek military service abroad, and was buying arms for the purpose, when he was induced to stay by the exhortation of Sokrates, who prevailed upon him to devote himself to philosophy at home.
If there be any truth in this story, it must refer to some time in the interval between the restoration of the democracy (403 B.C.)
and the death of Sokrates (399 B.C.).
The military service of Plato, prior to the battle of Ægospotami (405 B.C.
), must have been obligatory, in defence of his country, not depending on his own free choice.
It is possible also that Plato may have been for the time impoverished, like many other citizens, by the intestine troubles in Attica, and may have contemplated military service abroad, like Xenophon.
But I am inclined to think that the story is unfounded, and that it arises from some confusion between Plato and Xenophon.]
[Footnote 18: The above account of Plato's proceedings, perfectly natural and interesting, but unfortunately brief, is to be found in his seventh Epistle, p.
325-326.]
[Side-note: He retires from Athens after the death of Sokrates--his travels.]
At Megara Plato passed some time with the Megarian Eukleides, his fellow-disciple in the society of Sokrates, and the founder of what is termed the Megaric school of philosophers.
He next visited Kyrênê, where he is said to have become acquainted with the geometrician Theodôrus, and to have studied geometry under him.
From Kyrênê he proceeded to Egypt, interesting himself much in the antiquities of the country as well as in the conversation of the priests.
In or about 394 B.C.--if we may trust the statement of Aristoxenus about the military service of Plato at Corinth, he was again at Athens.
He afterwards went to Italy and Sicily, seeking the society of the Pythagorean philosophers, Archytas, Echekrates, Timæus, &c., at Tarentum and Lokri, and visiting the volcanic manifestations of Ætna.
It appears that his first visit to Sicily was made when he was about forty years of age, which would be 387 B.C.
Here he made acquaintance with the youthful Dion, over whom he acquired great intellectual ascendancy.
By Dion Plato was prevailed upon to visit the elder Dionysius at Syracuse:[19] but that despot, offended by the free spirit of his conversation and admonitions, dismissed him with displeasure, and even caused him to be sold into slavery at Ægina in his voyage home.
Though really sold, however, Plato was speedily ransomed by friends.
After farther incurring some risk of his life as an Athenian citizen, in consequence of the hostile feelings of the Æginetans, he was conveyed away safely to Athens, about 386 B.C.
[20] [Footnote 19: Plato.
Epistol.
vii.
p. 324 A, 327 A.]
[Footnote 20: Plut.
Dion.
c. 5: Corn.
Nep., Dion, ii.
3; Diog.
Laert.
iii.
19-20; Aristides, Or.
xlvi., [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 305-306, ed.
Dindorf.
Cicero (De Fin.
v. 29; Tusc.
Disp.
i.
17), and others, had contracted a lofty idea of Plato's Travels, more than the reality seems to warrant.
Val.
Max.
viii.
7, 3; Plin.
Hist.
Nat.
xxx.
2.
The Sophist Himerius repeats the same general statements about Plato's early education, and extensive subsequent travels, but without adding any new particulars (Orat.
xiv.
21-25).
If we can trust a passage of Tzetzes, cited by Mr. Clinton (F. H. ad B.C.
366) and by Welcker (Trag.
Gr.
p. 1236), Dionysius the elder of Syracuse had composed (among his various dramas) a tragi-comedy directed against Plato.]
[Side-note: His permanent establishment at Athens--386 B.C.]
It was at this period, about 386 B.C., that the continuous and formal public teaching of Plato, constituting as it does so great an epoch in philosophy, commenced.
But I see no ground for believing, as many authors assume, that he was absent from Athens during the entire interval between 399-386 B.C.
I regard such long-continued absence as extremely improbable.
Plato had not been sentenced to banishment, nor was he under any compulsion to stay away from his native city.
He was not born "of an oak-tree or a rock" (to use an Homeric phrase, strikingly applied by Sokrates in his Apology to the Dikasts[21]), but of a noble family at Athens, where he had brothers and other connections.
A temporary retirement, immediately after the death of Sokrates, might be congenial to his feelings and interesting in many ways; but an absence of moderate length would suffice for such exigencies, and there were surely reasonable motives to induce him to revisit his friends at home.
I conceive Plato as having visited Kyrênê, Egypt, and Italy during these thirteen years, yet as having also spent part of this long time at Athens.
Had he been continuously absent from that city he would have been almost forgotten, and would scarcely have acquired reputation enough to set up with success as a teacher.
[22] [Footnote 21: Plato, Apol.
p. 34 D.] [Footnote 22: Stallbaum insists upon it as "certum et indubium" that Plato was absent from Athens continuously, without ever returning to it, for the thirteen years immediately succeeding the death of Sokrates.
But I see no good evidence of this, and I think it highly improbable.
See Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Platon.
Politicum, p. 38, 39.
The statement of Strabo (xvii.
806), that Plato and Eudoxus passed thirteen years in Egypt, is not admissible.
Ueberweg examines and criticises the statements about Plato's travels.
He considers it probable that Plato passed some part of these thirteen years at Athens (Ueber die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platon.
Schrift.
p. 126, 127).
Mr Fynes Clinton thinks the same.
F. H. B.C.
394; Append.
c. 21, p.
366.]
[Side-note: He commences his teaching at the Academy.]
The spot selected by Plato for his lectures or teaching was a garden adjoining the precinct sacred to the Hero Hekadêmus or Akadêmus, distant from the gate of Athens called Dipylon somewhat less than a mile, on the road to Eleusis, towards the north.
In this precinct there were both walks, shaded by trees, and a gymnasium for bodily exercise; close adjoining, Plato either inherited or acquired a small dwelling-house and garden, his own private property.
[23] Here, under the name of the Academy, was founded the earliest of those schools of philosophy, which continued for centuries forward to guide and stimulate the speculative minds of Greece and Rome.
[Footnote 23: Diog.
Laert.
iii.
7, 8; Cic.
De Fin.
v. 1; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 8 (Berlin, 1843).
The Academy was consecrated to Athênê; there was, however, a statue of Eros there, to whom sacrifice was offered, in conjunction with Athênê.
Athenæus, xiii.
561.
At the time when Aristophanes assailed Sokrates in the comedy of the Nubes (423 B.C.
), the Academy was known and familiar as a place for gymnastic exercise; and Aristophanes (Nub.
995) singles it out as the proper scene of action for the honest and muscular youth, who despises rhetoric and philosophy.
Aristophanes did not anticipate that within a short time after the representation of his last comedy, the most illustrious disciple of Sokrates would select the Academy as the spot for his residence and philosophical lectures, and would confer upon the name a permanent intellectual meaning, as designating the earliest and most memorable of the Hellenic schools.
In 369 B.C., when the school of Plato was in existence, the Athenian hoplites, marching to aid the Lacedæmonians in Peloponnesus, were ordered by Iphikrates to make their evening meal in the Academy (Xen.
Hell.
vi.
5, 49).
The garden, afterwards established by Epikurus, was situated between the gate of Athens and the Academy: so that a person passed by it, when he walked forth from Athens to the Academy (Cic.
De Fin.
i.
1).]
[Side-note: Plato as a teacher--pupils numerous and wealthy, from different cities.]
We have scarce any particulars respecting the growth of the Academy from this time to the death of Plato, in 347 B.C.
We only know generally that his fame as a lecturer became eminent and widely diffused: that among his numerous pupils were included Speusippus, Xenokrates, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lykurgus, &c.: that he was admired and consulted by Perdikkas in Macedonia and Dionysius at Syracuse: that he was also visited by listeners and pupils from all parts of Greece.
Among them was Eudoxus of Knidus, who afterwards became illustrious both in geometry and astronomy.
At the age of twenty-three, and in poor circumstances, Eudoxus was tempted by the reputation of the Sokratic men, and enabled by the aid of friends, to visit Athens: where, however, he was coldly received by Plato.
Besides preparing an octennial period or octaetêris, and a descriptive map of the Heavens, Eudoxus also devised the astronomical hypothesis of Concentric Spheres--the earliest theory proposed to show that the apparent irregularity in the motion of the Sun and the Planets might be explained, and proved to result from a multiplicity of co-operating spheres or agencies, each in itself regular.
[24] This theory of Eudoxus is said to have originated in a challenge of Plato, who propounded to astronomers, in his oral discourse, the problem which they ought to try to solve.
[25] [Footnote 24: For an account of Eudoxus himself, of his theory of concentric spheres, and the subsequent extensions of it, see the instructive volume of the late lamented Sir George Cornewall Lewis,--Historical Survey of the Ancient Astronomy, ch.
iii.
sect.
3, p. 146 seq.
M. Boeckh also (in his recent publication, Ueber die vierjährigen Sonnenkreise der Alten, vorzüglich den Eudoxischen, Berlin, 1863) has given an account of the life and career of Eudoxus, not with reference to his theory of concentric spheres, but to his Calendar and Lunisolar Cycles or Periods, quadrennial and octennial.
I think Boeckh is right in placing the voyage of Eudoxus to Egypt at an _earlier_ period of the life of Eudoxus; that is, about 378 B.C.
; and not in 362 B.C., where it is placed by Letronne and others.
Boeckh shows that the letters of recommendation from Agesilaus to Nektanebos, which Eudoxus took with him, do not necessarily coincide in time with the military expedition of Agesilaus to Egypt, but were more probably of earlier date.
(Boeckh, p.
140-148.)
Eudoxus lived 53 years (406-353 B.C., about); being born when Plato was 21, and dying when Plato was 75.
He was one of the most illustrious men of the age.
He was born in poor circumstances; but so marked was his early promise, that some of the medical school at Knidus assisted him to prosecute his studies--to visit Athens and hear the Sophists, Plato among them--to visit Egypt, Tarentum (where he studied geometry with Archytas), and Sicily (where he studied [Greek: ta\ i)atrika\] with Philistion).
These facts depend upon the [Greek: Pi/nakes] of Kallimachus, which are good authority.
(Diog.
L. viii.
86.)
After thus preparing himself by travelling and varied study, Eudoxus took up the profession of a Sophist, at Kyzikus and the neighbouring cities in the Propontis.
He obtained great celebrity, and a large number of pupils.
M. Boeckh says, "Dort lebte er als Sophist, sagt Sotion: das heisst, er lehrte, und hielt Vortrage.
Dasselbe bezeugt Philostratos."
I wish to call particular attention to the way in which M. Boeckh here describes** a Sophist of the fourth century B.C.
Nothing can be more correct.
Every man who taught and gave lectures to audiences more or less numerous, was so called.
The Platonic critics altogether darken the history of philosophy, by using the word _Sophist_ with its modern associations (and the unmeaning abstract _Sophistic_ which they derive from it), to represent a supposed school of speculative and deceptive corruptors.
Eudoxus, having been coldly received when young and poor by Plato, had satisfaction in revisiting Athens at the height of his reputation, accompanied by numerous pupils--and in showing himself again to Plato.
The two then became friends.
Menæchmus and Helikon, geometrical pupils of Eudoxus, received instruction from Plato also; and Helikon accompanied Plato on his third voyage to Sicily (Plato, Epist.
xiii.
p. 360 D; Plut.
Dion, c. 19).
Whether Eudoxus accompanied him there also, as Boeckh supposes, is doubtful: I think it improbable.
Eudoxus ultimately returned to his native city of Knidus, where he was received with every demonstration of honour: a public vote of esteem and recognition being passed to welcome him.
He is said to have been solicited to give laws to the city, and to have actually done so: how far this may be true, we cannot say.
He also visited the neighbouring prince Mausôlus of Karia, by whom he was much honoured.
We know from Aristotle, that Eudoxus was not only illustrious as an astronomer and geometer, but that he also proposed a theory of Ethics, similar in its general formula to that which was afterwards laid down by Epikurus.
Aristotle dissents from the theory, but he bears express testimony, in a manner very unusual with him, to the distinguished personal merit and virtue of Eudoxus (Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
3, p. 1172, b.
16).]
[Footnote 25: Respecting Eudoxus, see Diog.
L. viii.
86-91.
As the life of Eudoxus probably extended from about 406-353 B.C., his first visit to Athens would be about 383 B.C., some three years after Plato commenced his school.
Strabo (xvii.
806), when he visited Heliopolis in Egypt, was shown by the guides certain cells or chambers which were said to have been occupied by Plato and Eudoxus, and was assured that the two had passed thirteen years together in Egypt.
This account deserves no credit.
Plato and Eudoxus visited Egypt, but not together, and neither of them for so long as thirteen years.
Eudoxus stayed there sixteen months (Diog.
L. viii.
87).
Simplikius, Schol.
ad Aristot.
De Coelo, p. 497, 498, ed.
Brandis, 498, a.
45.
[Greek: Kai\ prô=tos tô=n E(llê/nôn Eu)/doxos o( Kni/dios.
ô(s Eu)/dêmo/s te e)n tô=| deute/rô| tê=s A)strologikê=s I)stori/as a)pemnêmo/neuse kai\ Sôsige/nês para\ _Eu)dê/mou tou=to labô\n_, a(/psasthai le/getai tô=n toiou/tôn u(pothe/seôn; Pla/tônos, _ô(s phêsi Sôsige/nês_, pro/blêma tou=to poiêsame/nou toi=s peri\ tau=ta e)spoudako/si--ti/nôn u(potethei/sôn o(malô=n kai\ tetagme/nôn kinê/seôn diasôthê=| ta\ peri\ ta\s kinê/seis tô=n planôme/nôn phaino/mena].
The Scholion of Simplikius, which follows at great length, is exceedingly interesting and valuable, in regard to the astronomical theory of Eudoxus, with the modifications introduced into it by Kallippus, Aristotle, and others.
All the share in it which is claimed for Plato, is, that he described in clear language the problem to be solved: and even _that_ share depends simply upon the statement of the Alexandrine Sosigenes (contemporary of Julius Cæsar), not upon the statement of Eudemus.
At least the language of Simplikius affirms, that Sosigenes copied from Eudemus the fact, that Eudoxus was the first Greek who proposed a systematic astronomical hypothesis to explain the motions of the planets--([Greek: par' Eu)dê/mou _tou=to_ labô/n]) not the circumstance, that Plato propounded the problem afterwards mentioned.
From whom Sosigenes derived this last information, is not indicated.
About his time, various fictions had gained credit in Egypt respecting the connection of Plato with Eudoxus, as we may see by the story of Strabo above cited.
If Plato impressed upon others that which is here ascribed to him, he must have done so in _conversation or oral discourse_--for there is nothing in his written dialogues to that effect.
Moreover, there is nothing in the dialogues to make us suppose that Plato adopted or approved the theory of Eudoxus.
When Plato speaks of astronomy, either in the Republic, or in Leges, or in Epinomis, it is in a totally different spirit--not manifesting any care to save the astronomical phenomena.
Both Aristotle himself (Metaphys.
A. p. 1073 b.)
and Simplikius, make it clear that Aristotle warmly espoused and enlarged the theory of Eudoxus.
Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, did the same.
But we do not hear that either Speusippus or Xenokrates (successor of Plato) took any interest in the theory.
This is one remarkable point of divergence between Plato and the Platonists on one side--Aristotle and the Aristotelians on the other--and much to the honour of the latter: for the theory of Eudoxus, though erroneous, was a great step towards improved scientific conceptions on astronomy, and a great provocative to farther observation of astronomical facts.]
Though Plato demanded no money as a fee for admission of pupils, yet neither did he scruple to receive presents from rich men such as Dionysius, Dion, and others.
[26] In the jests of Ephippus, Antiphanes, and other poets of the middle comedy, the pupils of Plato in the Academy are described as finely and delicately clad, nice in their persons even to affectation, with elegant caps and canes; which is the more to be noticed because the preceding comic poets derided Sokrates and his companions for qualities the very opposite--as prosing beggars, in mean attire and dirt.
[27] Such students must have belonged to opulent families; and we may be sure that they requited their master by some valuable present, though no fee may have been formally demanded from them.
Some conditions (though we do not know what) were doubtless required for admission.
Moreover the example of Eudoxus shows that in some cases even ardent and promising pupils were practically repelled.
At any rate, the teaching of Plato formed a marked contrast with that extreme and indiscriminate publicity which characterised the conversation of Sokrates, who passed his days in the market-place or in the public porticoes or palæstræ; while Plato both dwelt and discoursed in a quiet residence and garden a little way out of Athens.
The title of Athens to be considered the training-city of Hellas (as Perikles had called her fifty years before), was fully sustained by the Athenian writers and teachers between 390-347; especially by Plato and Isokrates, the most celebrated and largely frequented.
So many foreign pupils came to Isokrates that he affirms most of his pecuniary gains to have been derived from non-Athenians.
Several of his pupils stayed with him three or four years.
The like is doubtless true about the pupils of Plato.
[28] [Footnote 26: Plato, Epistol.
xiii.
p. 361, 362.
We learn from this epistle that Plato received pecuniary remittances not merely from Dionysius, but also from other friends ([Greek: a)/llôn e)pitêdei/ôn]--361 C); that he employed these not only for choregies and other costly functions of his own, but also to provide dowry for female relatives, and presents to friends (363 A).]
[Footnote 27: See Meineke, Hist.
Crit.
Comic.
Græc.
p. 288, 289--and the extracts there given from Ephippus and Antiphanes--apud Athenæum, xi.
509, xii.
544.
About the poverty and dirt which was reproached to Sokrates and his disciples, see the fragment of Ameipsias in Meineke, ibid.
p. 203.
Also Aristoph.
Aves, 1555; Nubes, 827; and the Fragm.
of Eupolis in Meineke, p. 552--[Greek: Misô= d' e)gô\ kai\ Sôkra/tên, to\n ptôcho\n a)dole/schên].
Meineke thinks that Aristophanes, in the Ekklesiazusæ, 646, and in the Plutus, 313, intends to ridicule Plato under the name of Aristyllus: Plato's name having been originally Aristokles.
But I see no sufficient ground for this opinion.]
[Footnote 28: Perikles in the Funeral Oration (Thuc.
ii.
41) calls Athens [Greek: tê=s E(lla/dos pai/deusin]: the same eulogium is repeated, with greater abundance of words, by Isokrates in his Panegyrical Oration (Or.
iv.
sect.
56, p. 51).
The declaration of Isokrates, that most of his money was acquired from foreign (non-Athenian) pupils, and the interesting fact that many of them not only stayed with him three or four years but were even then loth to depart, will be found in Orat.
xv.
De Permutatione, sect.
93-175.
Plutarch (Vit.
x. Orat.
838 E) goes so far as to say that Isokrates never required any pay from an Athenian pupil.
Nearly three centuries after Plato's decease, Cicero sent his son Marcus to Athens, where the son spent a considerable time, frequenting the lectures of the Peripatetic philosopher Kratippus.
Young Cicero, in an interesting letter addressed to Tiro (Cic.
Epist.
Fam.
xvi.
23), describes in animated terms both his admiration for the person and abilities, and his delight in the private society, of Kratippus.
Several of Plato's pupils probably felt as much or more towards him.]
[Side-note: Visit of Plato to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse, 367 B.C.
Second visit to the same--mortifying failure.]
It was in the year 367-366 that Plato was induced, by the earnest entreaties of Dion, to go from Athens to Syracuse, on a visit to the younger Dionysius, who had just become despot, succeeding to his father of the same name.
Dionysius II., then very young, had manifested some dispositions towards philosophy, and prodigious admiration for Plato: who was encouraged by Dion to hope that he would have influence enough to bring about an amendment or thorough reform of the government at Syracuse.
This ill-starred visit, with its momentous sequel, has been described in my 'History of Greece'.
It not only failed completely, but made matters worse rather than better: Dionysius became violently alienated from Dion, and sent him into exile.
Though turning a deaf ear to Plato's recommendations, he nevertheless liked his conversation, treated him with great respect, detained him for some time at Syracuse, and was prevailed upon, only by the philosopher's earnest entreaties, to send him home.
Yet in spite of such uncomfortable experience Plato was induced, after a certain interval, again to leave Athens and pay a second visit to Dionysius, mainly in hopes of procuring the restoration of Dion.
In this hope too he was disappointed, and was glad to return, after a longer stay than he wished, to Athens.
[Side-note: Expedition of Dion against Dionysius--sympathies of Plato and the Academy.]
[Side-note: Success, misconduct, and death of Dion.]
It was in 359 B.C.
that Dion, aided by friends in Peloponnesus, and encouraged by warm sympathy and co-operation from many of Plato's pupils in the Academy,[29] equipped an armament against Dionysius.
Notwithstanding the inadequacy of his force he had the good fortune to make himself master of Syracuse, being greatly favoured by the popular discontent of Syracusans against the reigning despot: but he did not know how to deal with the people, nor did he either satisfy their aspirations towards liberty, or realise his own engagements.
Retaining in his hands a despotic power, similar in the main to that of Dionysius, he speedily became odious, and was assassinated by the treachery of Kallippus, his companion in arms as well as fellow-pupil of the Platonic Academy.
The state of Syracuse, torn by the joint evils of anarchy and despotism, and partially recovered by Dionysius, became more unhappy than ever.
[Footnote 29: Plutarch, Dion, c. 22.
Xenokrates as well as Speusippus accompanied Plato to Sicily (Diog.
L. iv.
6).
To show the warm interest taken, not only by Plato himself but also by the Platonic pupils in the Academy in the conduct of Dion after he had become master of Syracuse, Plutarch quotes both from the letter of Plato to Dion (which now stands fourth among the Epistolæ Platonicæ, p. 320) and also from a letter which he had read, written by Speusippus to Dion; in which Speusippus exhorts Dion emphatically to bless Sicily with good laws and government, "in _order that he may glorify the Academy_"--[Greek: o(/pôs .
.
.
eu)klea= thê/sei tê\n A)kadêmi/an] (Plutarch, De Adulator.
et Amic.
c. 29, p. 70 A).]
[Side-note: Death of Plato, aged 80, 347 B.C.]
The visits of Plato to Dionysius were much censured, and his motives[30] misrepresented by unfriendly critics; and these reproaches were still further embittered by the entire failure of his hopes.
The closing years of his long life were saddened by the disastrous turn of events at Syracuse, aggravated by the discreditable abuse of power and violent death of his intimate friend Dion, which brought dishonour both upon himself and upon the Academy.
Nevertheless he lived to the age of eighty, and died in 348-347 B.C., leaving a competent property, which he bequeathed by a will still extant.
[31] But his foundation, the Academy, did not die with him.
It passed to his nephew Speusippus, who succeeded him as teacher, conductor of the school, or Scholarch: and was himself succeeded after eight years by Xenokrates of Chalkêdon: while another pupil of the Academy, Aristotle, after an absence of some years from Athens, returned thither and established a school of his own at the Lykeum, at another extremity of the city.
[Footnote 30: Themistius, Orat.
xxiii.
(Sophistes) p. 285 C; Aristeides, Orat.
xlvi., [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 234-235; Apuleius, De Habit.
Philos.
Platon.
p.
571.]
[Footnote 31: Diog.
Laert.
iii.
41-42.
Seneca (Epist.
58) says that Plato died on the anniversary of his birth, in the month Thargelion.]
[Side-note: Scholars of Plato--Aristotle.]
The latter half of Plato's life in his native city must have been one of dignity and consideration, though not of any of political activity.
He is said to have addressed the Dikastery as an advocate for the accused general Chabrias: and we are told that he discharged the expensive and showy functions of Chorêgus, with funds supplied by Dion.
[32] Out of Athens also his reputation was very great.
When he went to the Olympic festival of B.C.
360, he was an object of conspicuous attention and respect: he was visited by hearers, young men of rank and ambition, from the most distant Hellenic cities; and his advice was respectfully invoked both by Perdikkas in Macedonia and by Dionysius II.
at Syracuse.
During his last visit to Syracuse, it is said that some of the students in the Academy, among whom Aristotle is mentioned, became dissatisfied with his absence, and tried to set up a new school; but were prevented by Iphikrates and Chabrias, the powerful friends of Plato at Athens.
This story is connected with alleged ingratitude on the part of Aristotle towards Plato, and with alleged repugnance on the part of Plato towards Aristotle.
[33] The fact itself--that during Plato's absence in Sicily his students sought to provide for themselves instruction and discussion elsewhere--is neither surprising nor blameable.
And as to Aristotle, there is ground for believing that he passed for an intimate friend and disciple of Plato, even during the last ten years of Plato's life.
For we read that Aristotle, following speculations and principles of teaching of his own, on the subject of rhetoric, found himself at variance with Isokrates and the Isokratean school.
Aristotle attacked Isokrates and his mode of dealing with the subject: upon which Kephisodôrus (one of the disciples of Isokrates) retaliated by attacking Plato and the Platonic Ideas, considering Aristotle as one of Plato's scholars and adherents.
[34] [Footnote 32: Plut.
Aristeides, c. 1; Diog.
Laert.
iii.
23-24.
Diogenes says that no other Athenian except Plato dared to speak publicly in defence of Chabrias; but this can hardly be correct, since Aristotle mentions another [Greek: sunê/goraos] named Lykoleon (Rhet.
iii.
10, p. 1411, b.
6).
We may fairly presume that the trial of Chabrias alluded to by Aristotle is the same as that alluded to by Diogenes, that which arose out of the wrongful occupation of Orôpus by the Thebans.
If Plato appeared at the trial, I doubt whether it could have occurred in 366 B.C., as Clinton supposes; Plato must have been absent during that year in Sicily.
The anecdote given by Diogenes, in relation to Plato's appearance at this trial, deserves notice.
Krobylus, one of the accusers, said to him, "Are _you_ come to plead on behalf of another?
Are not you aware that the hemlock of Sokrates is in store for _you_ also?"
Plato replied: "I affronted dangers formerly, when I went on military expedition, for my country, and I am prepared to affront them now in discharge of my duty to a friend" (iii.
24).
This anecdote is instructive, as it exhibits the continuance of the anti-philosophical antipathies at Athens among a considerable portion of the citizens, and as it goes to attest the military service rendered personally by Plato.
Diogenes (iii.
46) gives a long list of hearers; and Athenæus (xi.
506-509) enumerates several from different cities in Greece: Euphræus of Oreus (in Euboea), who acquired through Plato's recommendation great influence with Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, and who is said to have excluded from the society of that king every one ignorant of philosophy and geometry; Euagon of Lampsakus, Timæus of Kyzikus, Chæron of Pellênê, all of whom tried, and the last with success, to usurp the sceptre in their respective cities; Eudêmus of Cyprus; Kallippus the Athenian, fellow-learner with Dion in the Academy, afterwards his companion in his expedition to Sicily, ultimately his murderer; Herakleides and Python from Ænus in Thrace, Chion and Leonides, also Klearchus the despot from the Pontic Herakleia (Justin, xvi.
5).
Several of these examples seem to have been cited by the orator Democharês (nephew of Demosthenes) in his speech at Athens vindicating the law proposed by Sophokles for the expulsion of the philosophers from Athens (Athenæ.
xi.
508 F), a speech delivered about 306 B.C.
Plutarch compliments Plato for the active political liberators and tyrannicides who came forth from the Academy: he considers Plato as the real author and planner of the expedition of Dion against Dionysius, and expatiates on the delight which Plato must have derived from it--a supposition very incorrect (Plutarch, Non Posse Suav.
p. 1097 B; adv.
Kolôten, p. 1126 B-C).]
[Footnote 33: Aristokles, ap.
Eusebium, Præp.
Evang.
xv.
2: Ælian, V. H. iii.
19: Aristeides, Or.
46, [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn] vol.
ii.
p. 324-325.
Dindorf.
The friendship and reciprocity of service between Plato and Chabrias is an interesting fact.
Compare Stahr, Aristotelia, vol.
i. p. 50 seqq.
Cicero affirms, on the authority of the Epistles of Demosthenes, that Demosthenes describes himself as an assiduous hearer as well as reader of Plato (Cic.
Brut.
31 121; Orat.
4, 15).
I think this fact highly probable, but the epistles which Cicero read no longer exist.
Among the five Epistles remaining, Plato is once mentioned with respect in the fifth (p. 1490), but this epistle is considered by most critics spurious.]
[Footnote 34: Numenius, ap.
Euseb.
Præp.
Ev.
xiv.
6, 9.
[Greek: oi)êthei\s] (Kephisodôrus) [Greek: kata\ Pla/tôna to\n A)ristote/lên philosophei=n, e)pole/mei me\n A)ristote/lei, e)/balle de\ Pla/tôna], &c. This must have happened in the latter years of Plato's life, for Aristotle must have been at least twenty-five or twenty-six years of age when he engaged in such polemics.
He was born in 384 B.C.]
[Side-note: Little known about Plato's personal history.]
Such is the sum of our information respecting Plato.
Scanty as it is, we have not even the advantage of contemporary authority for any portion of it.
We have no description of Plato from any contemporary author, friendly or adverse.
It will be seen that after the death of Sokrates we know nothing about Plato as a man and a citizen, except the little which can be learnt from his few Epistles, all written when he was very old, and relating almost entirely to his peculiar relations with Dion and Dionysius.
His dialogues, when we try to interpret them collectively, and gather from them general results as to the character and purposes of the author, suggest valuable arguments and perplexing doubts, but yield few solutions.
In no one of the dialogues does Plato address us in his own person.
In the Apology alone (which is not a dialogue) is he alluded to even as present: in the Phædon he is mentioned as absent from illness.
Each of the dialogues, direct or indirect, is conducted from beginning to end by the persons whom he introduces.
[35] Not one of the dialogues affords any positive internal evidence showing the date of its composition.
In a few there are allusions to prove that they must have been composed at a period later than others, or later than some given event of known date; but nothing more can be positively established.
Nor is there any good extraneous testimony to determine the date of any one among them.
For the remark ascribed to Sokrates about the dialogue called Lysis (which remark, if authentic, would prove the dialogue to have been composed during the life-time of Sokrates) appears altogether untrustworthy.
And the statement of some critics, that the Phædrus was Plato's earliest composition, is clearly nothing more than an inference (doubtful at best, and, in my judgment, erroneous) from its dithyrambic style and erotic subject.
[36] [Footnote 35: On this point Aristotle, in the dialogues which he composed, did not follow Plato's example.
Aristotle introduced two or more persons debating a question, but he appeared in his own person to give the solution, or at least to wind up the debate.
He sometimes also opened the debate by a prooem or prefatory address in his own person (Cic.
ad Attic.
iv.
16, 2, xiii.
19, 4).
Cicero followed the manner of Aristotle, not that of Plato.
His dialogues are rhetorical rather than dramatic.
All the dialogues of Aristotle are lost.]
[Footnote 36: Diog.
L. iii.
38.
Compare the Prolegomena [Greek: tê=s Pla/tônos Philosophi/as], c. 24, in the Appendix Platonica of K. F. Hermann's edition, p.
217.]
CHAPTER VI.
PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS.
As we know little about Plato except from his works, the first question to be decided is, Which _are_ his real works?
Where are we to find a trustworthy Platonic Canon?
[Side-note: Platonic Canon--Ancient and modern discussions.]
Down to the close of the last century this question was not much raised or discussed.
The catalogue recognised by the rhetor Thrasyllus (contemporary with the Emperor Tiberius) was generally accepted as including none but genuine works of Plato; and was followed as such by editors and critics, who were indeed not very numerous.
[1] But the discussions carried on during the present century have taken a different turn.
While editors, critics, and translators have been greatly multiplied, some of the most distinguished among them, Schleiermacher at the head, have either professedly set aside, or in practice disregarded, the Thrasyllean catalogue, as if it carried no authority and very faint presumption.
They have reasoned upon each dialogue as if its title to be considered genuine were now to be proved for the first time; either by external testimony (mentioned in Aristotle or others), or by internal evidences of style, handling, and thoughts:[2] as if, in other words, the _onus probandi_ lay upon any one who believed the printed works of Plato to be genuine--not upon an opponent who disputes the authenticity of any one or more among them, and rejects it as spurious.
Before I proceed to examine the conclusions, alike numerous and discordant, which these critics have proclaimed, I shall enquire how far the method which they have pursued is warrantable.
Is there any presumption at all--and if so, what amount of presumption--in favour of the catalogue transmitted from antiquity by Thrasyllus, as a canon containing genuine works of Plato and no others?
[Footnote 1: The following passage from Wyttenbach, written in 1776, will give an idea of the state of Platonic criticism down to the last quarter of the last century.
To provide a new Canon for Plato seems not to have entered his thoughts.
Wyttenbach, Bibliotheca Critica, vol.
i. p. 28. Review of Fischer's edition of Plato's Philêbus and Symposion.
"Quæ Ciceroni obtigit interpretum et editorum felicitas, eâ adeo caruit Plato, ut non solum paucos nactus sit qui ejus scripta typis ederent--sed qui ejus orationi nitorem restitueret, eamque a corruptelarum labe purgaret, et sensus obscuros atque abditos ex interiore doctrinâ patefaceret, omnino repererit neminem.
Et ex ipso hoc editionum parvo numero--nam sex omnino sunt--nulla est recentior anno superioris seculi secundo: ut mirandum sit, centum et septuaginta annorum spatio neminem ex tot viris doctis extitisse, qui ita suam crisin Platoni addiceret, ut intelligentiam ejus veræ eruditionis amantibus aperiret.
"Qui Platonem legant, pauci sunt: qui intelligant, paucissimi; qui vero, vel ex versionibus, vel ex jejuno historiæ philosophicæ compendio, de eo judicent et cum supercilio pronuncient, plurimi sunt."]
[Footnote 2: To see that this is the general method of proceeding, we have only to look at the work of Ueberweg, one of the most recent and certainly one of the ablest among the Platonic critics.
Untersuchungen über die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platonischen Schriften, Wien, 1861, p.
130-131.]
[Side-note: Canon established by Thrasyllus.
Presumption in its favour.]
Upon this question I hold an opinion opposite to that of the Platonic critics since Schleiermacher.
The presumption appears to me particularly strong, instead of particularly weak: comparing the Platonic writings with those of other eminent writers, dramatists, orators, historians, of the same age and country.
[Side-note: Fixed residence and school at Athens--founded by Plato and transmitted to successors.]
We have seen that Plato passed the last thirty-eight years of his life (except his two short visits to Syracuse) as a writer and lecturer at Athens; that he purchased and inhabited a fixed residence at the Academy, near the city.
We know, moreover, that his principal pupils, especially (his nephew) Speusippus and Xenokrates, were constantly with him in this residence during his life; that after his death the residence became permanently appropriated as a philosophical school for lectures, study, conversation, and friendly meetings of studious men, in which capacity it served for more than two centuries;[3] that his nephew Speusippus succeeded him there as teacher, and taught there for eight years, being succeeded after his death first by Xenokrates (for twenty-five years), afterwards by Polemon, Krantor, Krates, Arkesilaus, and others in uninterrupted series; that the school always continued to be frequented, though enjoying greater or less celebrity according to the reputation of the Scholarch.
[Footnote 3: The teaching and conversation of the Platonic School continued fixed in the spot known as the Academy until the siege of Athens by Sylla in 87 B.C.
The teacher was then forced to confine himself to the interior of the city, where he gave lectures in the gymnasium called Ptolemæum.
In that gymnasium Cicero heard the lectures of the Scholarch Antiochus, B.C.
79; walking out afterwards to visit the deserted but memorable site of the Academy (Cic.
De Fin.
v. 1; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der Philosophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 14, Berlin, 1843).
The ground of the Academy, when once deserted, speedily became unhealthy, and continues to be so now, as Zumpt mentions that he himself experienced in 1835.]
[Side-note: Importance of this foundation.
Preservation of Plato's manuscripts.
School library.]
By thus perpetuating the school which his own genius had originated, and by providing for it permanent support with a fixed domicile, Plato inaugurated a new epoch in the history of philosophy: this example was followed a few years afterwards by Aristotle, Zeno, and Epikurus.
Moreover the proceeding was important in another way also, as it affected the preservation and authentication of his own manuscripts and compositions.
It provided not only safe and lasting custody, such as no writer had ever enjoyed before, for Plato's original manuscripts, but also a guarantee of some efficacy against any fraud or error which might seek to introduce other compositions into the list.
That Plato himself was not indifferent on this head we may fairly believe, since we learn from Dionysius of Halikarnassus, that he was indefatigable in the work of correction: and his disciples, who took the great trouble of noting down themselves what he spoke in his lectures, would not be neglectful as to the simpler duty of preserving his manuscripts.
[4] Now Speusippus and Xenokrates (also Aristotle, Hestiæus, the Opuntian Philippus, and the other Platonic pupils) must have had personal knowledge of all that Plato had written, whether finished dialogues, unfinished fragments, or preparatory sketches.
They had perfect means of distinguishing his real compositions from forgeries passed off in his name: and they had every motive to expose such forgeries (if any were attempted) wherever they could, in order to uphold the reputation of their master.
If any one composed a dialogue and circulated it under the name of Plato, the school was a known place, and its occupants were at hand to give information to all who enquired about the authenticity of the composition.
The original MSS.
of Plato (either in his own handwriting or in that of his secretary, if he employed one[5]) were doubtless treasured up in the school as sacred memorials of the great founder, and served as originals from which copies of unquestionable fidelity might be made, whenever the Scholarch granted permission.
How long they continued to be so preserved we cannot say: nor do we know what was the condition of the MSS., or how long they were calculated to last.
But probably many of the students frequenting the school would come for the express purpose of reading various works of Plato (either in the original MSS., or in faithful copies taken from them) with the exposition of the Scholarch; just as we know that the Roman M. Crassus (mentioned by Cicero), during his residence at Athens, studied the Platonic Gorgias with the aid of the Scholarch Charmadas.
[6] The presidency of Speusippus and Xenokrates (taken jointly) lasted for thirty-three years; and even when they were replaced by successors who had enjoyed no personal intimacy with Plato, the motive to preserve the Platonic MSS.
would still be operative, and the means of verifying what was really Platonic would still be possessed in the school.
The original MSS.
would be preserved, along with the treatises or dialogues which each successive Scholarch himself composed; thus forming a permanent and increasing school-library, probably enriched more or less by works acquired or purchased from others.
[Footnote 4: Simplikius, Schol.
Aristotel.
Physic.
f. 32, p. 334, b.
28, Brandis: [Greek: la/boi d' a)/n tis kai\ para\ Speusi/ppou kai\ para\ Xenokra/tous, kai\ tô=n a)/llôn oi(\ parege/nonto e)n tê=| peri\ Ta)gathou= tou= Pla/tônos a)kroa/sei; pa/ntes ga\r sune/grapsan kai\ diesô/santo tê\n do/xan au)tou=].
In another passage of the same Scholia (p. 362, a.
12) Simplikius mentions Herakleides (of Pontus), Hestiæus, and even Aristotle himself, as having taken notes of the same lectures.
Hermodôrus appears to have carried some of Plato's dialogues to Sicily, and to have made money by selling them.
See Cicero ad Atticum, xiii.
21: Suidas et Zenobius--[Greek: lo/goisin E(rmo/dôros e)mporeu/etai].
See Zeller, Dissert.
De Hermodoro, p. 19.
In the above-mentioned epistle Cicero compares his own relations with Atticus, to those of Plato with Hermodôrus.
Hermodôrus had composed a treatise respecting Plato, from which some extracts were given by Derkyllides (the contemporary of Thrasyllus) as well as by Simplikius (Zeller, De Hermod.
p.
20-21).]
[Footnote 5: We read in Cicero, (Academic.
Priora, ii.
4, 11) that the handwriting of the Scholarch Philo, when his manuscript was brought from Athens to Alexandria, was recognised at once by his friends and pupils.]
[Footnote 6: Cicero, De Oratore, i.
11, 45-47: "florente Academiâ, quod eam Charmadas et Clitomachus et Æschines obtinebant.
.
.
Platoni, cujus tum Athenis cum Charmadâ diligentius legi Gorgiam," &c.] [Side-note: Security provided by the school for distinguishing what were Plato's genuine writings.]
It appears to me that the continuance of this school--founded by Plato himself at his own abode, permanently domiciliated, and including all the MSS.
which he left in it--gives us an amount of assurance for the authenticity of the so-called Platonic compositions, such as does not belong to the works of other eminent contemporary authors, Aristippus, Antisthenes, Isokrates, Lysias, Demosthenes, Euripides, Aristophanes.
After the decease of these last-mentioned authors, who can say what became of their MSS.?
Where was any certain permanent custody provided for them?
Isokrates had many pupils during his life, but left no school or [Greek: mousei=on] after his death.
If any one composed a discourse, and tried to circulate it as the composition of Isokrates, among the bundles of judicial orations which were sold by the booksellers[7] as his (according to the testimony of Aristotle)--where was the person to be found, notorious and accessible, who could say: "I possess all the MSS.
of Isokrates, and I can depose that this is not among them!"
The chances of success for forgery or mistake were decidedly greater, in regard to the works of these authors, than they could be for those of Plato.
[Footnote 7: Dionys.
Halik.
de Isocrate, p. 576 R. [Greek: desma\s pa/nu polla\s dikanikô=n lo/gôn I)sokratei/ôn periphe/resthai/ phêsin u(po\ tô=n bibliopôlô=n A)ristote/lês.]]
[Side-note: Unfinished fragments and preparatory sketches, preserved and published after Plato's death.]
Again, the existence of this school-library explains more easily how it is that unfinished, inferior, and fragmentary Platonic compositions have been preserved.
That there must have existed such compositions I hold to be certain.
How is it supposable that any author, even Plato could have brought to completion such masterpieces as Republic, Gorgias, Protagoras, Symposion, &c., without tentative and preparatory sketches, each of course in itself narrow, defective, perhaps of little value, but serving as material to be worked up or worked in?
Most of these would be destroyed, but probably not all.
If (as I believe) it be the fact, that all the Platonic MSS.
were preserved as their author left them, some would probably be published (and some indeed are said to have been published) after his death; and among them would be included more or fewer of these unfinished performances, and sketches projected but abandoned.
We can hardly suppose that Plato himself would have published fragments never finished, such as Kleitophon and Kritias[8]--the last ending in the middle of a sentence.
[Footnote 8: Straton, the Peripatetic Scholarch who succeeded Theophrastus, B.C.
287, bequeathed to Lykon by his will both the succession to his school ([Greek: diatribê\n]) and all his books, except what he had written himself ([Greek: plê\n ô(=n au)toi\ gegra/phamen]).
What is to be done with these latter he does not say.
Lykon, in his last will, says:--[Greek: kai\ du/o mna=s au)tô=|] (Chares, a manumitted slave) [Greek: di/dômi kai\ ta)ma\ bi/blia ta\ a)negnôsme/na; ta\ de\ a)ne/kdota Kalli/nô|, o(/pôs e)pimelô=s au)ta\ e)kdô=|].
See Diog.
L. v. 62, 73.
Here Lykon directs expressly that Kallinus shall edit with care his (Lykon's) unpublished works.
Probably Straton may have given similar directions during his life, so that it was unnecessary to provide in the will.
[Greek: Ta\ a)negnôsme/na] is equivalent to [Greek: ta\ e)kdedome/na].
Publication was constituted by reading the MSS.
aloud before a chosen audience of friends or critics; which readings often led to such remarks as induced the author to take his work back, and to correct it for a second recitation.
See the curious sentence extracted from the letter of Theophrastus to Phanias (Diog.
L. v. 37).
Boeckh and other critics agree that both the Kleitophon and the Kritias were transmitted from antiquity in the fragmentary state in which we now read them: that they were compositions never completed.
Boeckh affirms this with assurance respecting the Kleitophon, though he thinks that it is not a genuine work of Plato; on which last point I dissent from him.
He thinks that the Kritias is a real work of Plato, though uncompleted (Boeckh in Platonis Minoem, p. 11).
Compare the remarks of M. Littré respecting the unfinished sketches, treatises, and notes not intended for publication, included in the Collectio Hippocratica (Oeuvres d' Hippocrate, vol.
x. p. liv.
seq.)]
[Side-note: Peripatetic school at the Lykeum--its composition and arrangement.]
The second philosophical school, begun by Aristotle and perpetuated (after his death in 322 B.C.)
at the Lykeum on the eastern side of Athens, was established on the model of that of Plato.
That which formed the centre or consecrating point was a Museum or chapel of the Muses: with statues of those goddesses of place, and also a statue of the founder.
Attached to this Museum were a portico, a hall with seats (one seat especially for the lecturing professor), a garden, and a walk, together with a residence, all permanently appropriated to the teacher and the process of instruction.
[9] Theophrastus, the friend and immediate successor of Aristotle, presided over the school for thirty-five years; and his course, during part of that time at least, was prodigiously frequented by students.
[Footnote 9: Respecting the domicile of the Platonic School, and that of the Aristotelian or Peripatetic school which followed it, the particulars given by Diogenes are nearly coincident: we know more in detail about the Peripatetic, from what he cites out of the will of Theophrastus.
See iv.
1-6-19, v. 51-63.
The [Greek: mousei=on] at the Academy was established by Plato himself.
Speusippus placed in it statues of the Charities or Graces.
Theophrastus gives careful directions in his about repairing and putting in the best condition, the Peripatetic [Greek: mousei=on], with its altar, its statues of the Goddesses, and its statue of the founder Aristotle.
The [Greek: stoa\, e)xe/dra, kê=pos, peri/patos], attached to both schools, are mentioned: the most zealous students provided for themselves lodgings close adjoining.
Cicero, when he walked out from Athens to see the deserted Academy, was particularly affected by the sight of the _exedra_, in which Charmadas had lectured (De Fin.
v. 2, 4).
There were periodical meetings, convivial and conversational, among the members both of the Academic and Peripatetic schools; and [Greek: xumpotikoi\ no/moi] by Xenokrates and Aristotle to regulate them (Athenæus, v. 184).
Epikurus (in his interesting testament given by Diogen.
Laert.
x.
16-21) bequeaths to two Athenian citizens his garden and property, in trust for his principal disciple the Mitylenæan Hermarchus, [Greek: kai\ toi=s sumphilosophou=sin au)tô=|, kai\ oi(=s a)\n E(/rmarchos katali/pê| diado/chois tê=s philosophi/as, e)ndiatri/bein kata\ philosophi/an].
He at the same time directs all his books to be given to Hermarchus: they would form the school-library.]
[Side-note: Peripatetic school library, its removal from Athens to Skêpsis--its ultimate restitution in a damaged state to Athens, then to Rome.]
Moreover, the school-library at the Lykeum acquired large development and importance.
It not only included all the MS. compositions, published or unpublished, of Aristotle and Theophrastus, each of them a voluminous writer--but also a numerous collection (numerous for that day) of other works besides; since both of them were opulent and fond of collecting books.
The value of the school-library is shown by what happened after the decease of Theophrastus, when Straton succeeded him in the school (B.C.
287).
Theophrastus--thinking himself entitled to treat the library not as belonging to the school but as belonging to himself--bequeathed it at his death to Neleus, a favourite scholar, and a native of Skêpsis (in the Troad), by whom it was carried away to Asia, and permanently separated from the Aristotelian school at Athens.
The manuscripts composing it remained in the possession of Neleus and his heirs for more than a century and a half, long hidden in a damp cellar, neglected, and sustaining great damage--until about the year 100 B.C., when they were purchased by a rich Athenian named Apellikon, and brought back to Athens.
Sylla, after he had captured Athens (86 B.C.
), took for himself the library of Apellikon, and transported it to Rome, where it became open to learned men (Tyrannion, Andronikus, and others), but under deplorable disadvantage--in consequence of the illegible state of the MSS.
and the unskilful conjectures and restitutions which had been applied, in the new copies made since it passed into the hands of Apellikon.
[10] [Footnote 10: The will of Theophrastus, as given in Diogenes (v. 52), mentions the bequest of all his books to Neleus.
But it is in Strabo that we read the fullest account of this displacement of the Peripatetic school-library, and the consequences which ensued from it (xiii.
608, 609).
[Greek: Nêleu\s, a)nê\r kai\ A)ristote/lous ê)kroame/nos kai\ Theophra/stou, diadedegme/nos de\ tê\n bibliothê/kên tou= Theophra/stou, e)n ê(=| ê)=n kai\ ê( tou= A)ristote/lous.
o( gou=n A)ristote/lês tê\n e(autou= Theophra/stô| pare/dôken, ô(=|per kai\ tê\n scholê\n a)pe/lipe, _prô=tos, ô(=n i)/smen, sunagagô\n bi/blia, kai\ dida/xas tou\s e)n Ai)gu/ptô| basile/as bibliothê/kês su/ntaxin_].
The kings of Pergamus, a few years after the death of Theophrastus, acquired possession of the town and territory of Skêpsis; so that the heirs of Neleus became numbered among their subjects.
These kings (from about the year B.C.
280 downwards) manifested great eagerness to collect a library at Pergamus, in competition with that of the Ptolemies at Alexandria.
The heirs of Neleus were afraid that these kings would strip them of their Aristotelian MSS., either for nothing or for a small price.
They therefore concealed the MSS.
in a cellar, until they found an opportunity of selling them to a stranger out of the country.
(Strabo, l. c.) This narrative of Strabo is one of the most interesting pieces of information remaining to us about literary antiquity.
He had himself received instruction from Tyrannion (xii.
548): he had gone through a course of Aristotelian philosophy (xvi.
757), and he had good means of knowing the facts from the Aristotelian critics, including his master Tyrannion.
Plutarch (Vit.
Syllæ, c. 26) and Athenæus (i.
3) allude to the same story.
Athenæus says that Ptolemy Philadelphus purchased the MSS.
from the heirs of Neleus, which cannot be correct.
Some critics have understood the narrative of Strabo, as if he had meant to affirm, that the works of Aristotle had never got into circulation until the time of Apellikon.
It is against this supposition that Stahr contends (very successfully) in his work "Aristotelia".
But Strabo does not affirm so much as this.
He does not say anything to contradict the supposition that there were copies of various books of Aristotle in circulation, during the lives of Aristotle and Theophrastus.]
[Side-note: Inconvenience to the Peripatetic school from the loss of its library.]
If we knew the truth, it might probably appear that the transfer of the Aristotelian library, from the Peripatetic school at Athens to the distant and obscure town of Skêpsis, was the result of some jealousy on the part of Theophrastus; that he wished to secure to Neleus the honourable and lucrative post of becoming his successor in the school, and conceived that he was furthering that object by bequeathing the library to Neleus.
If he entertained any such wish, it was disappointed.
The succession devolved upon another pupil of the school, Straton of Lampsakus.
But Straton and his successors were forced to get on as well as they could without their library.
The Peripatetic school at Athens suffered severely by the loss.
Its professors possessed only a few of the manuscripts of Aristotle, and those too the commonest and best known.
If a student came with a view to read any of the other Aristotelian works (as Crassus went to read the Gorgias of Plato), the Scholarch was unable to assist him: as far as Aristotle was concerned, they could only expand and adorn, in the way of lecture, a few of his familiar doctrines.
[11] We hear that the character of the school was materially altered.
Straton deserted the track of Aristotle, and threw himself into speculations of his own (seemingly able and ingenious), chiefly on physical topics.
[12] The critical study, arrangement, and exposition of Aristotle was postponed until the first century before the Christian era--the Ciceronian age, immediately preceding Strabo.
[Footnote 11: Strabo, xiii.
609.
[Greek: sune/bê de\ toi=s e)k tô=n peripa/tôn toi=s me\n pa/lai, toi=s meta\ Theo/phraston, ou)k e)/chousin o(/lôs ta\ bi/blia plê\n o)li/gôn, kai\ ma/lista tô=n e)xôterikô=n, mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ _the/seis lêkuthi/zein_.]]
[Footnote 12: The change in the Peripatetic school, after the death of Theophrastus, is pointed out by Cicero, Fin.
v. 5, 18.
Compare Academ.
Poster.
i.
9.]
[Side-note: Advantage to the Platonic school from having preserved its MSS.]
This history of the Aristotelian library illustrates forcibly, by way of contrast, the importance to the Platonic school of having preserved its MSS.
from the beginning, without any similar interruption.
What Plato left in manuscript we may presume to have never been removed: those who came to study his works had the means of doing so: those who wanted to know whether any composition was written by him, what works he had written altogether, or what was the correct reading in a case of obscurity or dispute--had always the means of informing themselves.
Whereas the Peripatetic Scholarch, after the death of Theophrastus, could give no similar information as to the works of Aristotle.
[13] [Footnote 13: An interesting citation by Simplikius (in his commentary on the Physica of Aristotle, fol.
216, a.
7, p. 404, b.
11, Schol.
Brandis shows us that Theophrastus, while he was resident at Athens as Peripatetic Scholarch, had custody of the original MSS.
of the works of Aristotle and that he was applied to by those who wished to procure correct copies.
Eudêmus (of Rhodes) having only a defective copy of the Physica, wrote to request that Theophrastus would cause to be written out a certain portion of the fifth book, and send it to him, [Greek: marturou=ntos peri\ tô=n prô/tôn kai\ Theophra/stou, gra/psantos Eu)dê/mô|, peri/ tinos au)tou= tô=n diêmartême/nôn a)ntigra/phôn; u(pe\r ô(=n, phêsin] (_sc._ Theophrastus) [Greek: e)pe/steilas, keleu/ôn me gra/phein kai\ apostei=lai e)k tô=n Phusikô=n, ê(/toi e)gô\ ou) suni/êmi, ê)\ mikro/n ti pantelô=s e)/chei tou= a)na/meson tou= o(/per ê)remei=n kalô= tô=n a)kinê/tôn mo/non], &c.] [Side-note: Conditions favourable, for preserving the genuine works of Plato.]
We thus see that the circumstances, under which Plato left his compositions, were unusually favourable (speaking by comparison with ancient authors generally) in regard to the chance of preserving them all, and of keeping them apart from counterfeits.
We have now to enquire what information exists as to their subsequent diffusion.
[Side-note: Historical facts as to their preservation.]
The earliest event of which notice is preserved, is, the fact stated by Diogenes, that "Some persons, among whom is the _Grammaticus_ Aristophanes, distribute the dialogues of Plato into Trilogies; placing as the first Trilogy--Republic, Timæus, Kritias.
2.
Sophistes, Politicus, Kratylus.
3.
Leges, Minos, Epinomis.
4.
** Theætêtus, Euthyphron, Apology.
5.
Kriton, Phædon, Epistolæ.
The other dialogues they place one by one, without any regular grouping.
"[14] [Footnote 14: Diog.
L. iii.
61-62: [Greek: E)/nioi de/, ô(=n e)/sti kai\ A)ristopha/nês o( grammatiko/s, ei)s trilogi/as e(/lkousi tou\s dialo/gous; kai\ prô/tên me\n tithe/asin ê(=s ê(gei=tai Politei/a, Ti/maios, Kriti/as; deute/ran, Sophistê/s, Politiko/s, Kra/tulos; tri/tên, No/moi, Mi/nôs, E)pinomi/s; teta/rtên, Theai/têtos, Eu)thu/phrôn, A)pologi/a; pe/mptên, Kri/tôn, Phai/dôn, E)pistolai/; ta\ de\ a)/lla kath' e)\n kai\ a)ta/ktôs].
The word [Greek: grammatiko\s], unfortunately, has no single English word exactly corresponding to it.
Thrasyllus, when he afterwards applied the classification by Tetralogies to the works of Demokritus (as he did also to those of Plato) could only include a certain portion of the works in his Tetralogies, and was forced to enumerate the remainder as [Greek: a)su/ntakta] (Diog.
L. ix.
46, 47).
It appears that he included all Plato's works in his Platonic Tetralogies.]
[Side-note: Arrangement of them into Trilogies, by Aristophanes.]
The name of Aristophanes lends special interest to this arrangement of the Platonic compositions, and enables us to understand something of the date and the place to which it belongs.
The literary and critical students (_Grammatici_) among whom he stood eminent, could scarcely be said to exist as a class the time when Plato died.
Beginning with Aristotle, Herakleides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Demetrius Phalereus, &c., at Athens, during the half century immediately succeeding Plato's decease--these laborious and useful erudites were first called into full efficiency along with the large collection of books formed by the Ptolemies at Alexandria during a period beginning rather before 300 B.C.
: which collection served both as model and as stimulus to the libraries subsequently formed by the kings at Pergamus and elsewhere.
In those libraries alone could materials be found for their indefatigable application.
[Side-note: Aristophanes, librarian at the Alexandrine library.]
Of these learned men, who spent their lives in reading, criticising, arranging, and correcting, the MSS.
accumulated in a great library, Aristophanes of Byzantium was the most distinguished representative, in the eyes of men like Varro, Cicero, and Plutarch.
[15] His life was passed at Alexandria, and seems to have been comprised between 260-184 B.C.
; as far as can be made out.
During the latter portion of it he became chief librarian--an appointment which he had earned by long previous studies in the place, as well as by attested experience in the work of criticism and arrangement.
He began his studious career at Alexandria at an early age: and he received instruction, as a boy from Zenodotus, as a young man from Kallimachus--both of whom were, in succession, librarians of the Alexandrine library.
[16] We must observe that Diogenes does not expressly state the distribution of the Platonic works into trilogies to have been _first proposed_ or originated by Aristophanes (as he states that the tetralogies were afterwards proposed by the rhetor Thrasyllus, of which presently): his language is rather more consistent with the supposition, that it was first proposed by some one earlier, and adopted or sanctioned by the eminent authority of Aristophanes.
But at any rate, the distribution was proposed either by Aristophanes himself, or by some one before him and known to him.
[Footnote 15: Varro, De Linguâ Latinâ, v. 9, ed.
Müller.
"Non solum ad Aristophanis lucernam, sed etiam ad Cleanthis, lucubravi."
Cicero, De Fin.
v. 19, 50; Vitruvius, Præf.
Lib.
vii.
; Plutarch, "Non posse suaviter vivi sec.
Epicurum," p. 1095 E. Aristophanes composed Argumenta to many of the Attic tragedies and comedies: he also arranged in a certain order the songs of Alkæus and the odes of Pindar.
Boeckh (Præfat.
ad Scholia Pindari, p. x.
xi.)
remarks upon the mistake made by Quintilian as well as by others, in supposing that Pindar arranged his own odes.
Respecting the wide range of erudition embraced by Aristophanes, see F. A. Wolf, Prolegg.
in Homer, pp.
218-220, and Schneidewin, De Hypothes.
Traged.
Græc.
Aristophani vindicandis, pp.
26, 27.]
[Footnote 16: Suidas, vv.
[Greek: A)ristopha/nês, Kalli/machos].
Compare Clinton, Fast.
Hellen.
B.C.
256-200.]
[Side-note: Plato's works in the Alexandrine library, before the time of Aristophanes.]
This fact is of material importance, because it enables us to Plato's infer with confidence, that the Platonic works were included in the Alexandrine library, certainly during the lifetime of Aristophanes, and probably before it.
It is there only that Aristophanes could have known them; his whole life having been passed in Alexandria.
The first formal appointment of a librarian to the Alexandrine Museum was made by Ptolemy Philadelphus, at some time after the commencement of his reign in 285 B.C., in the person of Zenodotus; whose successors were Kallimachus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, comprising in all a period of a century.
[17] [Footnote 17: See Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Bibliotheken, pp.
16-17, &c.; Nauck, De Aristophanis Vitâ et Scriptis, cap.
i. p. 68 (Halle, 1848).
"Aristophanis et Aristarchi opera, cum opibus Bibliothecæ Alexandrinæ digerendis et ad tabulas revocandis arctè conjuncta, in eo substitisse censenda est, ut scriptores, in quovis dicendi genere conspicuos, aut breviori indice comprehenderent, aut uberiore enarratione describerent," &c. When Zenodotus was appointed, the library had already attained considerable magnitude, so that the post and title of librarian was then conspicuous and dignified.
But Demetrius Phalereus, who preceded Zenodotus, began his operations when there was no library at all, and gradually accumulated the number of books which Zenodotus found.
Heyne observes justly: "Primo loco Demetrius Phalereus præfuisse dicitur, _forte re verius quam nomine_, tum Zenodotus Ephesius, hic quidem sub Ptolemæo Philadelpho," &c. (Heyne, De Genio Sæculi Ptolemæorum in Opuscul.
i. p.
129).]
[Side-note: Kallimachus--predecessor of Aristophanes--his published Tables of authors whose works were in the library.]
Kallimachus, born at Kyrênê, was a teacher of letters at Alexandria before he was appointed to the service and superintendence of the Alexandrine library or museum.
His life seems to have terminated about 230 B.C.
: he acquired reputation as a poet, by his hymns, epigrams, elegies, but less celebrity as a _Grammaticus_ than Aristophanes: nevertheless the titles of his works still remaining indicate very great literary activity.
We read as titles of his works:-1.
The Museum (a general description of the Alexandrine establishment).
2.
Tables of the persons who have distinguished themselves in every branch of instruction, and of the works which they have composed--in 120 books.
3.
Table and specification of the (Didaskalies) recorded dramatic representations and competitions; with dates assigned, and from the beginning.
4.
Table of the peculiar phrases belonging to Demokritus, and of his works.
5.
Table and specification of the rhetorical authors.
[18] [Footnote 18: See Blomfleld's edition of the Fragm.
of Kallimachus, p. 220-221.
Suidas, v. [Greek: Kalli/machos], enumerates a large number of titles of poetical, literary, historical, compositions of Kallimachus; among them are-[Greek: Mousei=on.
Pi/nakes tô=n e)n pa/sê| paidei/a| dialampsa/ntôn, kai\ ô(=n sune/grapsan, e)n bibli/ois k' kai\ r'.
Pi/nax kai\ a)nagraphê\ tô=n kata\ chro/nous kai\ a)p' a)rchê=s genome/nôn didaskaliô=n.
Pi/nax tô=n Dêmokri/tou glôssô=n kai\ suntagma/tôn.
Pi/nax kai\ a)nagraphê\ tô=n r(êtorikô=n].
See also Athenæus, xv.
669.
It appears from Dionys.
Hal.
that besides the Tables of Kallimachus, enumerating and reviewing the authors whose works were contained in the Alexandrine library or museum, there existed also [Greek: Pergamênoi\ Pi/nakes], describing the contents of the library at Pergamus (Dion.
H. de Adm. Vi Dic.
in Demosthene, p. 994; De Dinarcho, pp.
630, 653, 661).
Compare Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griech.
Litt.
sect.
36, pp.
132-133 seq.]
[Side-note: Large and rapid accumulation of the Alexandrine Library.]
These tables of Kallimachus (of which one by itself, No.
2, reached to 120 books) must have been an encyclopædia, far more comprehensive than any previously compiled, of Greek authors and literature.
Such tables indeed could not have been compiled before the existence of the Alexandrine Museum.
They described what Kallimachus had before him in that museum, as we may see by the general title [Greek: Mousei=on] prefixed: moreover we may be sure that nowhere else could he have had access to the multitude of books required.
Lastly, the tables also show how large a compass the Alexandrine Museum and library had attained at the time when Kallimachus put together his compilation: that is, either in the reign of Ptolemy II.
Philadelphia (285-247 B.C.
), or in the earlier portion of the reign of Ptolemy III., called Euergetes (247-222 B.C.).
Nevertheless, large as the library then was, it continued to increase.
A few years afterwards, Aristophanes published a work commenting upon the tables of Kallimachus, with additions and enlargements: of which work the title alone remains.
[19] [Footnote 19: Athenæus, ix.
408.
[Greek: A)ristopha/nês o( grammatiko\s e)n toi=s pro\s tou\s Kallima/chou pi/nakas].
We see by another passage, Athenæ.
viii.
336, that this work included an addition or supplement to the Tables of Kallimachus.
Compare Etymol.
Magn.
v. [Greek: Pi/nax].]
[Side-note: Plato's works--in the library at the time of Kallimachus.]
Now, I have already observed, that the works of Plato were certainly in the Alexandrine library, at the time when Aristophanes either originated or sanctioned the distribution of them into Trilogies.
Were they not also in the library at the time when Kallimachus compiled his tables?
I cannot but conclude that they were in it at that time also.
When we are informed that the catalogue of enumerated authors filled so many books, we may be sure that it must have descended, and we know in fact that it did descend, to names far less important and distinguished than that of Plato.
[20] The name of Plato himself can hardly have been omitted.
Demokritus and his works, especially the peculiar and technical words ([Greek: glô=ssai]) in them, received special attention from Kallimachus: which proves that the latter was not disposed to pass over the philosophers.
But Demokritus, though an eminent philosopher, was decidedly less eminent than Plato: moreover he left behind him no permanent successors, school, or [Greek: mousei=on], at Athens, to preserve his MSS.
or foster his celebrity.
As the library was furnished at that time with a set of the works of Demokritus, so I infer that it could not have been without a set of the works of Plato.
That Kallimachus was acquainted with Plato's writings (if indeed such a fact requires proof), we know, not only from his epigram upon the Ambrakiot Kleombrotus (whom he affirms to have killed himself after reading the Phædon), but also from a curious intimation that he formally impugned Plato's competence to judge or appreciate poets--alluding to the severe criticisms which we read in the Platonic Republic.
[21] [Footnote 20: Thus the Tables of Kallimachus included a writer named Lysimachus, a disciple of Theodorus or Theophrastus, and his writings (Athenæ.
vi.
252)--a rhetor and poet named Dionysius with the epithet of [Greek: chalkou=s] (Athenæ.
xv.
669))--and even the treatises of several authors on cakes and cookery (Athenæ.
xiv.
643).
The names of authors absolutely unknown to us were mentioned by him (Athenæ.
ii.
70).
Compare Dionys.
Hal.
de Dinarcho, 630, 653, 661.]
[Footnote 21: Kallimachus, Epigram.
23.
Proklus in Timæum, p. 28 C. p. 64.
Schneid.
[Greek: ma/tên ou)=n phlênaphou=si Kalli/machos kai\ Dou=ris, ô(s Pla/tônos ou)k o)/ntos i(kanou= kri/nein poiêta/s].
Eratosthenes, successor of Kallimachus as librarian at Alexandria, composed a work (now lost) entitled [Greek: Platôniko\n], as well as various treatises on philosophy and philosophers (Eratosthenica, Bernhardy, p. 168, 187, 197; Suidas, v. [Greek: E)ratosthe/nês]).
He had passed some time at Athens, had enjoyed the lessons and conversation of Zeno the Stoic, but expressed still warmer admiration of Arkesilaus and Ariston.
He spoke in animated terms of Athens as the great centre of congregation for philosophers in his day.
He had composed a treatise, [Greek: Peri\ tô=n a)gathô=n]: but Strabo describes him as mixing up other subjects with philosophy (Strabo, i. p.
15).]
It would indeed be most extraordinary if, among the hundreds of authors whose works must have been specified in the Tables of Kallimachus as constituting the treasures of the Alexandrine Museum,[22] the name of Plato had not been included.
Moreover, the distribution of the Platonic compositions into Trilogies, pursuant to the analogy of the Didaskaliæ or dramatic records, may very probably have originated with Kallimachus; and may have been simply approved and continued, perhaps with some modifications, by Aristophanes.
At least this seems more consonant to the language of Diogenes Laertius, than the supposition that Aristophanes was the first originator of it.
[Footnote 22: About the number of books, or more properly of _rolls_ (_volumina_), in the Alexandrine library, see the enquiries of Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, p. 76-84.
Various statements are made by ancient authors, some of them with very large numbers; and no certainty is attainable.
Many rolls would go to form one book.
Parthey considers the statement made by Epiphanius not improbable--54,800 rolls in the library under Ptolemy Philadelphus (p. 83).
The magnitude of the library at Alexandria in the time of Eratosthenes, and the multitude of writings which he consulted in his valuable geographical works, was admitted by his opponent Hipparchus (Strabo, ii.
69).]
[Side-note: First formation of the library--intended as a copy of the Platonic and Aristotelian [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens.]
If we look back to the first commencement of the Alexandrine Museum and library, we shall be still farther convinced that the works of Plato, complete as well as genuine, must have been introduced into it before the days of Kallimachus.
Strabo expressly tells us that the first stimulus and example impelling the Ptolemies to found this museum and library, were furnished by the school of Aristotle and Theophrastus at Athens.
[23] I believe this to be perfectly true; and it is farther confirmed by the fact that the institution at Alexandria comprised the same constituent parts and arrangements, described by the same titles, as those which are applied to the Aristotelian and Platonic schools at Athens.
[24] Though the terms library, museum, and lecture-room, have now become familiar, both terms and meaning were at that time alike novel.
Nowhere, as far as we know, did there exist a known and fixed domicile, consecrated in perpetuity to these purposes, and to literary men who took interest therein.
A special stimulus was needed to suggest and enforce the project on Ptolemy Soter.
That stimulus was supplied by the Aristotelian school at Athens, which the Alexandrine institution was intended to copy: [Greek: Mousei=on] (with [Greek: e)xe/dra] and [Greek: peri/patos], a covered portico with recesses and seats, and a walk adjacent), on a far larger scale and with more extensive attributions.
[25] We must not however imagine that when this new museum was first begun, the founders entertained any idea of the vast magnitude to which it ultimately attained.
[Footnote 23: Strabo, xiii.
608.
[Greek: o( gou=n A)ristote/lês tê\n e(autou= (bibliothê/kên) Theophra/stô| pare/dôken, ô(=|per kai\ tê\n scholê\n a)pe/lipe; _prô=tos_, ô(=n i)/smen, _sunagagô\n bi/blia_, kai\ _dida/xas tou\s e)n Ai)gu/ptô| basile/as bibliothê/kês su/ntaxin_.]]
[Footnote 24: Strabo (xvii.
793-794) describes the Museum at Alexandria in the following terms--[Greek: tô=n de\ basilei/ôn me/ros e)sti\ kai\ _to\ Mousei=on, e)/chon peri/paton kai\ e)xe/dran_, kai\ oi)=kon me/gan e)n ô(=| to\ sussi/tion tô=n metecho/ntôn tou= Mousei/ou philolo/gôn a)ndrô=n], &c. Vitruvius, v. 11.
If we compare this with the language in Diogenes Laertius respecting the Academic and Peripatetic school residences at Athens, we shall find the same phrases employed--[Greek: mousei=on, e)xe/dra], &c. (D. L. iv.
19, v. 51-54).
Respecting Speusippus, Diogenes tells us (iv, 1)--[Greek: Chari/tôn t' a)ga/lmat' a)ne/thêken e)n tô=| mousei/ô| tô=| u(po\ Pla/tônos e)n A)kadêmi/a| i)druthe/nti.]]
[Footnote 25: We see from hence what there was peculiar in the Platonic and Aristotelian literary establishments.
They included something consecrated, permanent, and intended more or less for public use.
The collection of books was not like a private library, destined only for the proprietor and such friends as he might allow--nor was it like that of a bookseller, intended for sale and profit.
I make this remark in regard to the Excursus of Bekker, in his Charikles, i.
206, 216, a very interesting note on the book-trade and libraries of ancient Athens.
Bekker disputes the accuracy of Strabo's statement that Aristotle was the first person at Athens who collected a library, and who taught the kings of Egypt to do the like.
In the literal sense of the words Bekker is right.
Other persons before Aristotle had collected books (though I think Bekker makes more of the passages which he cites than they strictly deserve); one example is the youthful Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorab.
iv.
2; and Bekker alludes justly to the remarkable passage in the Anabasis of Xenophon, about books exported to the Hellenic cities in the Euxine (Anabas.
vii.
5, 14).
There clearly existed in Athens regular professional booksellers; we see that the bookseller read aloud to his visitors a part of the books which he had to sell, in order to tempt them to buy, a feeble foreshadowing of the advertisements and reviews of the present day (Diogen.
L. vii.
2).
But there existed as yet nothing of the nature of the Platonic and Aristotelian [Greek: mousei=on], whereof the collection of books, varied, permanent, and intended for the use of inmates and special visitors, was one important fraction.
In this sense it served as a model for Demetrius Phalereus and Ptolemy Soter in regard to Alexandria.
Vitruvius (v. 11) describes the _exhedræ_ as seats placed under a covered portico--"in quibus philosophi, rhetores, reliquique qui studiis delectantur, sedentes disputare possint".]
[Side-note: Favour of Ptolemy Soter towards the philosophers at Athens.]
Ptolemy Soter was himself an author,[26] and himself knew and respected Aristotle, not only as a philosopher but also as the preceptor of his friend and commander Alexander.
To Theophrastus also, the philosophical successor of Aristotle, Ptolemy showed peculiar honour; inviting him by special message to come and establish himself at Alexandria, which invitation however Theophrastus declined.
[27] Moreover Ptolemy appointed Straton (afterwards Scholarch in succession to Theophrastus) preceptor to his youthful son Ptolemy Philadelphus, from whom Straton subsequently received a large present of money:[28] he welcomed at Alexandria the Megaric philosophers, Diodorus Kronus, and Stilpon, and found pleasure in their conversation; he not only befriended, but often confidentially consulted, the Kyrenaic philosopher Theodôrus.
[29] Kolôtes, the friend of Epikurus, dedicated a work to Ptolemy Soter.
Menander, the eminent comic writer, also received an invitation from him to Egypt.
[30] [Footnote 26: Respecting Ptolemy as an author, and the fragments of his work on the exploits of Alexander, see R. Geier, Alexandri M. Histor.
Scriptores, p.
4-26.]
[Footnote 27: Diog.
L. v. 37.
Probably this invitation was sent about 306 B.C., during the year in which Theophrastus was in banishment from Athens, in consequence of the restrictive law proposed by Sophokles against the schools of the philosophers, which law was repealed in the ensuing year.]
[Footnote 28: Diog.
L. v. 58.
Straton became Scholarch at the death of Theophrastus in 287 B.C.
He must have been preceptor to Ptolemy Philadelphus before this time, during the youth of the latter; for he could not have been at the same time Scholarch at Athens, and preceptor of the king at Alexandria.]
[Footnote 29: Diog.
L. ii.
102, 111, 115.
Plutarch adv.
Kolôten, p. 1107.
The Ptolemy here mentioned by Plutarch may indeed be Philadelphus.]
[Footnote 30: Meineke, Menand.
et Philem.
Reliq.
Præf.
p.
xxxii.]
[Side-note: Demetrius Phalereus--his history and character.]
These favourable dispositions, on the part of the first Ptolemy, towards philosophy and the philosophers at Athens, Demetrius appear to have been mainly instigated and guided by the Phalerean Demetrius: an Athenian citizen of good station, who enjoyed for ten years at Athens (while that city was subject to Kassander) full political ascendancy, but who was expelled about 307 B.C., by the increased force of the popular party, seconded by the successful invasion of Demetrius Poliorkêtês.
By these political events Demetrius Phalereus was driven into exile: a portion of which exile was spent at Thebes, but a much larger portion of it at Alexandria, where he acquired the full confidence of Ptolemy Soter, and retained it until the death of that prince in 285 B.C.
While active in politics, and possessing rhetorical talent, elegant without being forcible--Demetrius Phalereus was yet more active in literature and philosophy.
He employed his influence, during the time of his political power, to befriend and protect both Xenokrates the chief of the Platonic school, and Theophrastus the chief of the Aristotelian.
In his literary and philosophical views he followed Theophrastus and the Peripatetic sect, and was himself among their most voluminous writers.
The latter portion of his life was spent at Alexandria, in the service of Ptolemy Soter; after whose death, however, he soon incurred the displeasure of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and died, intentionally or accidentally, from the bite of an asp.
[31] [Footnote 31: Diog.
L. iv.
14, v. 39, 75, 80; Strabo, ix.
398; Plut., De Exil.
p. 601; Apophth.
p. 189; Cic., De Fin.
v. 19; Pro Rab.
30.
Diogenes says about Demetrius Phalereus, (v. 80) [Greek: Plê/thei de\ bibli/ôn kai\ a)rithmô=| sti/chôn, schedo\n a(/pantas parelê/lake tou=s kat' au)to\n Peripatêtikou/s, eu)pai/deutos ô)\n kai\ polu/peiros par' o(ntinou=n.]]
[Side-note: He was chief agent in the first establishment of the Alexandrine Library.]
The Alexandrine Museum or library first acquired celebrity under the reign of Ptolemy (II.)
Philadelphus, by whom moreover it was greatly enlarged and its treasures multiplied.
Hence that prince is sometimes entitled the founder.
But there can be no doubt that its first initiation and establishment is due to Ptolemy (I.)
Soter.
[32] Demetrius Phalereus was his adviser and auxiliary, the link of connection between him and the literary or philosophical world of Greece.
We read that Julius Cæsar, when he conceived the scheme (which he did not live to execute) of establishing a large public library at Rome, fixed upon the learned Varro to regulate the selection and arrangement of the books.
[33] None but an eminent literary man could carry such an enterprise into effect, even at Rome, when there existed the precedent of the Alexandrine library: much more when Ptolemy commenced his operations at Alexandria, and when there were only the two [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens to serve as precedents.
Demetrius, who combined an organising head and political experience, with an erudition not inferior to Varro, regard being had to the stock of learning accessible--was eminently qualified for the task.
It procured for him great importance with Ptolemy, and compensated him for that loss of political ascendancy at Athens, which unfavourable fortune had brought about.
[Footnote 32: Mr. Clinton says, Fast.
Hell.
App.
5, p. 380, 381: "Athenæus distinctly ascribes the institution of the [Greek: Mousei=on] to Philadelphus in v. 203, where he is describing the acts of Philadelphus."
This is a mistake: the passage in Athenæus does not specify which of the two first Ptolemies was the founder: it is perfectly consistent with the supposition that Ptolemy Soter founded it.
The same may be said about the passage cited by Mr. Clinton from Plutarch; that too does not determine between the two Ptolemies, which was the founder.
Perizonius was in error (as Mr. Clinton points out) in affirming that the passage in Plutarch determined the foundation to the first Ptolemy: Mr. Clinton is in error by affirming that the passage in Athenæus determines it to the second.
Mr. Clinton has also been misled by Vitruvius and Scaliger (p. 389), when he affirms that the library at Alexandria was not formed until after the library at Pergamus.
Bernhardy (Grundriss der Griech.
Litt., Part i. p. 359, 367, 369) has followed Mr. Clinton too implicitly in recognising Philadelphus as the founder: nevertheless he too admits (p. 366) that the foundations were laid by Ptolemy Soter, under the advice and assistance of Demetrius Phalereus.
The earliest declared king of the Attalid family at Pergamus acquired the throne in 241 B.C.
The library at Pergamus could hardly have been commenced before his time: and it is his successor, Eumenes II.
(whose reign began in 197 B.C.
), who is mentioned as the great collector and adorner of the library at Pergamus.
See Strabo, xiii.
624; Clinton, Fast.
Hellen.
App.
6, p. 401-403.
It is plain that the library at Pergamus could hardly have been begun before the close of the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus in Egypt, by which time the library of Alexandria had already acquired great extension and renown.]
[Footnote 33: Sueton.
Jul.
Cæs.
c. 44.
Melissus, one of the Illustres Grammatici of Rome, undertook by order of Augustus, "curam ordinandarum bibliothecarum in Octaviæ porticu".
(Sueton.
De Illustr.
Grammat.
c.
21.)
Cicero replies in the following terms to his brother Quintus, who had written to him, requesting advice and aid in getting together for his own use a collection of Greek and Latin books.
"De bibliothecâ tuâ Græcâ supplendâ, libris commutandis, Latinis comparandis--valdé velim ista confici, præsertim cum ad meum quoque usum spectent.
Sed ego, mihi ipsi ista per quem agam, non habeo.
_Neque enim venalia sunt, quæ quidem placeant: et confici nisi per hominem et peritum et diligentem non possunt._ Chrysippo tamen imperabo, et cum Tyrannione loquar."
(Cic., Epist.
ad Q. Fratr.
iii.
4, 5.)
Now the circulation of books was greatly increased, and the book trade far more developed, at Rome when this letter was written (about three centuries after Plato's decease) than it was at Athens during the time of Demetrius Phalereus (320-300 B.C.).
Yet we see the difficulty which the two brothers Cicero had in collecting a mere private library for use of the owner simply.
_Good books, in a correct and satisfactory condition, were not to be had for money_: it was necessary to get access to the best MSS., and to have special copies made, neatly and correctly: and this could not be done, except under the superintendence of a laborious literary man like Tyrannion, by well taught slaves subordinate to him.
We may understand, from this analogy, the far greater obstacles which the collectors of the Alexandrine museum and library must have had to overcome, when _they_ began their work.
No one could do it, except a practised literary man such as Demetrius Phalereus: nor even he, except by finding out the best MSS., and causing special copies to be made for the use of the library.
Respecting the extent and facility of book-diffusion in the Roman world, information will be found in the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis's _Enquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History_, vol.
i. p. 196, seqq.
; also, in the fifth chapter of the work of Adolf Schmidt, _Geschichte der Denk-und Glaubens-Freiheit im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaiser-herrschaft_, Berlin, 1847; lastly in a valuable review of Adolf Schmidt's work by Sir George Lewis himself, in Fraser's Magazine for April, 1862, pp.
432-439.
Adolf Schmidt represents the multiplication and cheapness of books in that day as something hardly inferior to what it is now--citing many authorities for this opinion.
Sir G. Lewis has shown, in my judgment most satisfactorily, that these authorities are insufficient, and that the opinion is incorrect: this might have been shown even more fully, if the review had been lengthened.
I perfectly agree with Sir G. Lewis on the main question: yet I think he narrows the case on his own side too much, and that the number of copies of such authors as Virgil and Horace, in circulation at one time, cannot have been so small as he imagines.]
[Side-note: Proceedings of Demetrius in beginning to collect the library.]
We learn that the ardour of Demetrius Phalereus was unremitting, and that his researches were extended everywhere, to obtain for the new museum literary monuments from all countries within contemporary knowledge.
[34] This is highly probable: such universality of literary interest was adapted to the mixed and cosmopolitan character of the Alexandrine population.
But Demetrius was a Greek, born about the time of Plato's death (347 B.C.
), and identified with the political, rhetorical, dramatic, literary, and philosophical, activity of Athens, in which he had himself taken a prominent part.
To collect the memorials of Greek literature would be his first object, more especially such as Aristotle and Theophrastus possessed in their libraries.
Without doubt he would procure the works of Homer and the other distinguished poets, epic, lyric, and dramatic, as well as the rhetors, orators, &c. He probably would not leave out the works of the _viri Sokratici_ (Antisthenes, Aristippus, Æschines, &c.) and the other philosophers (Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, &c.).
But there are two authors, whose compositions he would most certainly take pains to obtain--Plato and Aristotle.
These were the two commanding names of Grecian philosophy in that day: the founders of the two schools existing in Athens, upon the model of which the Alexandrine Museum was to be constituted.
[Footnote 34: Josephus, Antiquit.
xii.
2, 1.
[Greek: Dêmê/trios o( Phalêreu/s, o(\s ê)=n e)pi\ tô=n bibliothêkô=n tou= basile/ôs, spouda/zôn ei) dunato\n ei)/ê pa/nta ta\ kata\ tê\n oi)koume/nên suna/gein bi/blia, kai\ sunônou/menos ei)/ ti/ pou mo/non a)kou/seie spoudê=s a)/xion ê)\ ê(du/, tê=| tou= basile/ôs proaire/sei (ma/lista ga\r peri\ tê\n sullogê\n tô=n bibli/ôn ei)=che philoka/lôs) sunêgôni/zeto].
What Josephus affirms here, I apprehend to be perfectly true; though he goes on to state much that is fabulous and apocryphal, respecting the incidents which preceded and accompanied the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Josephus is also mistaken in connecting Demetrius Phalereus with Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Demetrius Phalereus was disgraced, and died shortly after that prince's accession.
His time of influence was under Ptolemy Soter.
Respecting the part taken by Demetrius Phalereus in the first getting up of the Alexandrine Museum, see Valckenaer, Dissertat.
De Aristobulo Judaico, p. 52-57; Ritschl, Die Alexandrin.
Biblioth.
p. 17, 18; Parthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, p. 70, 71 seq.]
[Side-note: Certainty that the works of Plato and Aristotle were among the earliest acquisitions made by him for the library.]
Among all the books which would pass over to Alexandria as the earliest stock of the new library, I know nothing upon which we can reckon more certainly than upon the works of Plato.
[35] For they were acquisitions not only desirable, but also easily accessible.
The writings of Aristippus or Demokritus--of Lysias or Isokrates--might require to be procured (or good MSS.
thereof, fit to be specially copied) at different places and from different persons, without any security that the collection, when purchased, would be either complete or altogether genuine.
But the manuscripts of Plato and of Aristotle were preserved in their respective schools at Athens, the Academic and Peripatetic:[36] a collection complete as well as verifiable.
Demetrius could obtain permission, from Theophrastus in the Peripatetic school, from Polemon or Krantor in the Academic school, to have these MSS.
copied for him by careful and expert hands.
The cost of such copying must doubtless have been considerable; amounting to a sum which few private individuals would have been either able or willing to disburse.
But the treasures of Ptolemy were amply sufficient for the purpose:[37] and when he once conceived the project of founding a museum in his new capital, a large outlay, incurred for transcribing from the best MSS.
a complete and authentic collection of the works of illustrious authors, was not likely to deter him.
We know from other anecdotes,[38] what vast sums the third Ptolemy spent, for the mere purpose of securing better and more authoritative MSS.
of works which the Alexandrine library already possessed.
[Footnote 35: Stahr, in the second part of his work "Aristotelia," combats and refutes with much pains the erroneous supposition, that there was no sufficient publication of the works of Aristotle, until after the time when Apellikon purchased the MSS.
from the heirs of Neleus--_i.e._ B.C.
100.
Stahr shows evidence to prove, that the works, at least many of the works, of Aristotle were known and studied before the year 100 B.C.
: that they were in the library at Alexandria, and that they were procured for that library by Demetrius Phalereus.
Stahr says (Thl.
ii.
p. 59): "Is it indeed credible--is it even conceivable--that Demetrius, who recommended especially to his regal friend Ptolemy the study of the political works of the philosophers--that Demetrius, the friend both of the Aristotelian philosophy and of Theophrastus, should have left the works of the two greatest Peripatetic philosophers out of his consideration?
May we not rather be sure that he would take care to secure their works, before all others, for his nascent library--if indeed he did not bring them with him when he came to Alexandria?"
The question here put by Stahr (and farther insisted on by Ravaisson, Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote, Introd.
p. 14) is very pertinent: and I put the like question, with slight change of circumstances, respecting the works of Plato.
Demetrius Phalereus was the friend and patron of Xenokrates, as well as of Theophrastus.]
[Footnote 36: In respect to the Peripatetic school, this is true only during the lifetime of Theophrastus, who died 287 B.C.
I have already mentioned that after the death of Theophrastus, the MSS.
were withdrawn from Athens.
But all the operations of Demetrius Phalereus were carried on during the lifetime of Theophrastus; much of them, probably, in concert with Theophrastus, whose friend and pupil he was.
The death of Theophrastus, the death of Ptolemy Soter, and the discredit and subsequent death of Demetrius are separated only by an interval of two or three years.]
[Footnote 37: We find interesting information, in the letters of Cicero, respecting the _librarii_ or copyists whom he had in his service; and the still more numerous and effective band of _librarii_ and _anagnostæ_: (slaves, mostly home-born) whom his friend Atticus possessed and trained (Corn.
Nep., Vit.
Attici, c. 13).
See Epist.
ad Attic.
xii.
6; xiii.
21-44; v. 12 seq.
It appears that many of the compositions of Cicero were copied, prepared for publication, and published, by the _librarii_ of Atticus: who, in the case of the _Academica_, incurred a loss, because Cicero--after having given out the work to be copied and published, and after progress had been made in doing this--thought fit to alter materially both the form and the speakers introduced (xiii.
13).
In regard to the Oration pro Ligario, Atticus sold it well, and brought himself home ("Ligarianam præclaré vendidisti: posthac, quicquid scripsero, tibi præconium deferam," xiii.
12).
Cicero (xiii.
21) compares the relation of Atticus towards himself, with that of Hermodôrus towards Plato, as expressed in the Greek verse, [Greek: lo/goisin E(rmo/dôros [e)mporeu/etai]].
(Suidas, s, v. [Greek: lo/goisin E(rm.
e)mp].)
Private friends, such as Balbus and Cærellia (xiii.
21), considered it a privilege to be allowed to take copies of his compositions at their own cost, through _librarii_ employed for the purpose.
And we find Galen enumerating this among the noble and dignified ways for an opulent man to expend money, in a remarkable passage, [Greek: ble/pô ga\r se ou)de\ pro\s ta\ kala\ tô=n e)/rgôn dapanê=sai tolmô=nta, mêd' ei)s bibli/ôn ô)nê\n kai\ kataskeuê\n kai\ tô=n grapho/ntôn a)/skêsin, ê)/toi ge ei)s ta/chos dia\ sêmei/ôn, ê)\ ei)s kalô=n a)kri/beian, ô(/sper ou)de\ tô=n a)naginôsko/ntôn o)rthô=s].
(De Cognoscendis Curandisque Animi Morbis, t. v. p. 48, Kühn.)]
[Footnote 38: Galen, Comm.
ad Hippokrat.
[Greek: E)pidêmi/as], vol.
xvii.
p. 606, 607, ed.
Kühn.
Lykurgus, the contemporary of Demosthenes as an orator, conspicuous for many years in the civil and financial administration of Athens, caused a law to be passed, enacting that an official MS. should be made of the plays of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides.
No permission was granted to represent any of these dramas at the Dionysiac festival, except upon condition that the applicant and the actors whom he employed, should compare the MS. on which they intended to proceed, with the official MS. in the hands of the authorised secretary.
The purpose was to prevent arbitrary amendments or omissions in these plays, at the pleasure of [Greek: u(pokri/tai].
Ptolemy Euergetes borrowed from the Athenians these public and official MSS.
of Æschylus, Sophokles, and Euripides on the plea that he wished to have exact copies of them taken at Alexandria, and under engagement to restore them as soon as this was done.
He deposited with them the prodigious sum of fifteen talents, as a guarantee for the faithful restitution.
When he got the MSS.
at Alexandria, he caused copies of them to be taken on the finest paper.
He then sent these copies to Athens, keeping the originals for the Alexandrine library; desiring the Athenians to retain the deposit of fifteen talents for themselves.
Ptolemy Euergetes here pays, not merely the cost of the finest copying, but fifteen talents besides, for the possession of official MSS.
of the three great Athenian tragedians; whose works in other manuscripts must have been in the library long before.
Respecting these official MSS.
of the three great tragedians, prepared during the administration and under the auspices of the rhetor Lykurgus, see Plutarch, Vit.
X. Orator, p. 841, also Boeckh, Græcæ Tragoed.
Principia, pp.
13-15.
The time when Lykurgus caused this to be done, must have been nearly coincident with the decease of Plato, 347 B.C.
See Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol.
i. p. 468, ii.
p. 244; Welcker, Griech.
Trag.
iii.
p. 908; Korn, De Publico Æschyli, &c., Exemplari, Lykurgo Auctore Confecto, p. 6-9, Bonn, 1863.
In the passage cited above from Galen, we are farther informed, that Ptolemy Euergetes caused inquiries to be made, from the masters of all vessels which came to Alexandria, whether there were any MSS.
on board; if there were, the MSS.
were brought to the library, carefully copied out, and the copies given to the owners; the original MSS.
being retained in the library, and registered in a separate compartment, under the general head of [Greek: Ta\ e)k ploi/ôn], and with the name of the person from whom the acquisition had been made, annexed.
Compare Wolf, Prolegg.
ad Homerum, p. clxxv.
These statements tend to show the care taken by the Alexandrine librarians, not only to acquire the best MSS., but also to keep good MSS.
apart from bad, and to record the person and the quarter from which each acquisition had been made.]
[Side-note: Large expenses incurred by the Ptolemies for procuring good MSS.]
We cannot doubt that Demetrius could obtain permission, if he asked it, from the Scholarchs, to have such copies made.
To them the operation was at once complimentary and lucrative; while among the Athenian philosophers generally, the name of Demetrius was acceptable, from the favour which he had shown to them during his season of political power--and that of Ptolemy popular from his liberalities.
Or if we even suppose that Demetrius, instead of obtaining copies of the Platonic MSS.
from the school, purchased copies from private persons or book-sellers (as he must have purchased the works of Demokritus and others)--he could, at any rate, assure himself of the authenticity of what he purchased, by information from the Scholarch.
[Side-note: Catalogue of Platonic works, prepared by Aristophanes, is trustworthy.]
My purpose, in thus calling attention to the Platonic school and the Alexandrine Museum, is to show that the chance for preservation of Plato's works complete and genuine after his decease, was unusually favourable.
I think that they existed complete and genuine in the Alexandrine Museum before the time of Kallimachus, and, of course, during that of Aristophanes.
If there were in the Museum any other works obtained from private vendors and professing to be Platonic, Kallimachus and Aristophanes had the means of distinguishing these from such as the Platonic school had furnished and could authenticate, and motive enough for keeping them apart from the certified Platonic catalogue.
Whether there existed any spurious works of this sort in the Museum, Diogenes Laertius does not tell us; nor, unfortunately, does he set forth the full list of those which Aristophanes, recognising as Platonic, distributed either in triplets or in units.
Diogenes mentions only the principle of distribution adopted, and a select portion of the compositions distributed.
But as far as his positive information goes, I hold it to be perfectly worthy of trust.
I consider that all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes as works of Plato are unquestionably such; and that his testimony greatly strengthens our assurance for the received catalogue, in many of those items which have been most contested by critics, upon supposed internal grounds.
Aristophanes authenticates, among others, not merely the Leges, but also the Epinomis, the Minos, and the Epistolæ.
[Side-note: No canonical or exclusive order of the Platonic dialogues, when arranged by Aristophanes.]
There is another point also which I conceive to be proved by what we hear about Aristophanes.
He (or Kallimachus before him) introduced a new order or distribution of his own--the Trilogies--founded on the analogy of the dramatic Didaskalies.
This shows that the Platonic dialogues were not received into the library in any canonical or _exclusive order_ of their own, or in any interdependence as first, second, third, &c., essential to render them intelligible as a system.
Had there been any such order, Kallimachus and Aristophanes would no more have altered it, than they would have transposed the order of the books in the Republic and Leges.
The importance of what is here observed will appear presently, when we touch upon the theory of Schleiermacher.
[Side-note: Other libraries and literary centres, besides Alexandria, in which spurious Platonic works might get footing.]
The distributive arrangement, proposed or sanctioned by Aristophanes, applied (as I have already remarked) to the materials in the Alexandrine library only.
But this library, though it was the most conspicuous portion, was not the whole, of the Grecian literary aggregate.
There were other great regal libraries (such as those of the kings of Pergamus and the Seleukid kings[39]) commenced after the Alexandrine library had already attained importance, and intended to rival it: there was also an active literary and philosophising class, in various Grecian cities, of which Athens was the foremost, but in which Rhodes, Kyrênê, and several cities in Asia Minor, Kilikia, and Syria, were included: ultimately the cultivated classes at Rome, and the Western Hellenic city of Massalia, became comprised in the number.
Among this widespread literary public, there were persons who neither knew nor examined the Platonic school or the Alexandrine library, nor investigated what title either of them had to furnish a certificate authenticating the genuine works of Plato.
It is not certain that even the great library at Pergamus, begun nearly half a century after that of Alexandria, had any such initiatory agent as Demetrius Phalereus, able as well as willing to go to the fountain-head of Platonism at Athens: nor could the kings of Pergamus claim aid from Alexandria, with which they were in hostile rivalry, and from which they were even forbidden (so we hear) to purchase papyrus.
Under these circumstances, it is quite possible that spurious Platonic writings, though they obtained no recognition in the Alexandrine library, might obtain more or less recognition elsewhere, and pass under the name of Plato.
To a certain extent, such was the case.
There existed some spurious dialogues at the time when Thrasyllus afterwards formed his arrangement.
[Footnote 39: The library of Antiochus the Great or of his predecessor, is mentioned by Suidas, [Greek: Eu)phori/ôn].
Euphorion was librarian of it, seemingly about 230-220 B.C.
See Clinton, Fast.
Hell.
B.C.
221.
Galen states (Comm.
in Hippok.
De Nat.
Hom.
vol.
xv.
p. 105, Kühn) that the forgeries of books, and the practice of tendering books for sale under the false names of celebrated authors, did not commence until the time when the competition between the kings of Egypt and the kings of Pergamus for their respective libraries became vehement.
If this be admitted, there could have been no forgeries tendered at Alexandria until after the commencement of the reign of Euergetes (B.C.
247-222): for the competition from Pergamus could hardly have commenced earlier than 230 B.C.
In the times of Soter and Philadelphus, there would be no such forgeries tendered.
I do not doubt that such forgeries were sometimes successfully passed off:** but I think Galen does not take sufficient account of the practice (mentioned by himself) at the Alexandrine library, to keep faithful record of the person and quarter from whence each book had been acquired.]
[Side-note: Other critics, besides Aristophanes, proposed different arrangements of the Platonic dialogues.]
Moreover the distribution made by Aristophanes of the Platonic dialogues into Trilogies, and the order of priority which he established among them was by no means universally accepted.
Some rejected altogether the dramatic analogy of Trilogies as a principle of distribution.
They arranged the dialogues into three classes:[40] 1.
The Direct, or purely dramatic.
2.
The Indirect, or narrative (diegematic).
3.
The Mixed--partly one, partly the other.
Respecting the order of priority, we read that while Aristophanes placed the Republic first, there were eight other arrangements, each recognising a different dialogue as first in order; these eight were, Alkibiades I., Theagês, Euthyphron, Kleitophon, Timæus, Phædrus, Theætêtus, Apology.
More than one arrangement began with the Apology.
Some even selected the Epistolæ as the proper commencement for studying Plato's works.
[41] [Footnote 40: Diog.
L. iii.
49.
Schöne, in his commentary on the Protagoras (pp.
8-12), lays particular stress on this division into the direct or dramatic, and indirect or diegematic.
He thinks it probable, that Plato preferred one method to the other at different periods of life: that all of one sort, and all of the other sort, come near together in time.]
[Footnote 41: Diog.
L. iii.
62.
Albinus, [Greek: Ei)sagôgê\], c. 4, in K. F. Hermann's Appendix Platonica, p.
149.]
[Side-note: Panætius, the Stoic--considered the Phædon to be spurious--earliest known example of a Platonic dialogue disallowed upon internal grounds.]
We hear with surprise that the distinguished Stoic philosopher at Athens, Panætius, rejected the Phædon as not being the work of Plato.
[42] It appears that he did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and that he profoundly admired Plato; accordingly, he thought it unworthy of so great a philosopher to waste so much logical subtlety, poetical metaphor, and fable, in support of such a conclusion.
Probably he was also guided, in part, by one singularity in the Phædon: it is the only dialogue wherein Plato mentions himself in the third person.
[43] If Panætius was predisposed, on other grounds, to consider the dialogue as unworthy of Plato, he might be induced to lay stress upon such a singularity, as showing that the author of the dialogue must be some person other than Plato.
Panætius evidently took no pains to examine the external attestations of the dialogue, which he would have found to be attested both by Aristotle and by Kallimachus as the work of Plato.
Moreover, whatever any one may think of the cogency of the reasoning--the beauty of Platonic handling and expression is manifest throughout the dialogue.
This verdict of Panætius is the earliest example handed down to us of a Platonic dialogue disallowed on internal grounds that is, because it appeared to the critic unworthy of Plato: and it is certainly among the most unfortunate examples.
[Footnote 42: See the Epigram out of the Anthology, and the extract from the Scholia on the Categories of Aristotle, cited by Wyttenbach in his note on the beginning of the Phædon.
A more important passage (which he has not cited) from the Scholia on Aristotle, is, that of Asklepius on the Metaphysica, p. 991; Scholia, ed.
Brandis, p. 576, a.
38.
[Greek: O(/ti tou= Pla/tônos e)stin o( Phai/dôn, saphô=s o( A)ristote/lês dêloi=--Panai/tios ga\r tis e)to/lmêse notheu=sai to\n dia/logon.
e)peidê\ ga\r e)/legen ei)=nai thnêtê\n tê\n psuchê/n, e)bou/leto sugkataspa/sai to\n Pla/tôna; e)pei\ ou)=n e)n tô=| Phai/dôni saphô=s a)pathanati/zei] (Plato) [Greek: tê\n logikê\n psuchê/n, tou/tou cha/rin e)no/theuse to\n dia/logon].
Wyttenbach vainly endeavours to elude the force of the passages cited by himself, and to make out that the witnesses did not mean to assert that Panætius had declared the Phædon to be spurious.
One of the reasons urged by Wyttenbach is--"Nec illud negligendum, quod dicitur [Greek: u(po\ Panaiti/ou tino\s], à _Panætio quodam_ neque per contemptum dici potuisse neque a Syriano neque ab hoc anonymo; quorum neuter eâ fuit doctrinæ inopia, ut Panætii laudes et præstantiam ignoraret."
But in the Scholion of Asklepius on the Metaphysica (which passage was not before Wyttenbach), we find the very same expression [Greek: Panai/tio/s tis], and plainly used _per contemptum_: for Asklepius probably considered it a manifestation of virtuous feeling to describe, in contemptuous language, a philosopher who did not believe in the immortality of the soul.
We have only to read the still harsher and more contemptuous language which he employs towards the Manicheans, in another Scholion, p. 666, b.
5, Brandis.
Favorinus said (Diog.
iii.
37) that when Plato read aloud the Phædon, Aristotle was the only person present who remained to the end: all the other hearers went away in the middle.
I have no faith in this anecdote: I consider it, like so many others in Diogenes, as a myth: but the invention of it indicates, that there were many persons who had no sympathy with the Phædon, taking at the bottom the same view as Panætius.]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Phædon, p. 59.
Plato is named also in the Apology: but this is a report, more or less exact, of the real defence of Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Classification of Platonic works by the rhetor Thrasyllus--dramatic--philosophical.]
But the most elaborate classification of the Platonic works was that made by Thrasyllus, in the days of Augustus or Tiberius, near to, or shortly after, the Christian era: a rhetor of much reputation, consulted and selected as travelling companion by the Emperor Augustus.
[44] [Footnote 44: Diog.
L. iii.
56; Themistius, Orat.
viii.
([Greek: Pentetêriko\s]) p. 108 B.
It appears that this classification by Thrasyllus was approved, or jointly constructed, by his contemporary Derkyllides.
(Albinus, [Greek: Ei)sagôgê\], c. 4, p. 149, in K. F. Hermann's Appendix Platonica.)]
Thrasyllus adopted two different distributions of the Platonic works: one was dramatic, the other philosophical.
The two were founded on perfectly distinct principles, and had no inherent connection with each other; but Thrasyllus combined them together, and noted, in regard to each dialogue, its place in the one classification as well as in the other.
[Side-note: Dramatic principle--Tetralogies.]
One of these distributions was into Tetralogies, or groups of four each.
This was in substitution for the Trilogies introduced by Aristophanes or by Kallimachus, and was founded upon the same dramatic analogy: the dramas, which contended for the prize at the Dionysiac festivals, having been sometimes exhibited in batches of three, or Trilogies, sometimes in batches of four, or Tetralogies--three tragedies, along with a satirical piece as accompaniment.
Because the dramatic writer brought forth four pieces at a birth, it was assumed as likely that Plato would publish four dialogues all at once.
Without departing from this dramatic analogy, which seems to have been consecrated by the authority of the Alexandrine Grammatici, Thrasyllus gained two advantages.
First, he included ALL the Platonic compositions, whereas Aristophanes, in his Trilogies, had included only a part, and had left the rest not grouped.
Thrasyllus included all the Platonic compositions, thirty-six in number, reckoning the Republic, the Leges, and the Epistolæ in bulk, each as one--in nine Tetralogies or groups of four each.
Secondly, he constituted his first tetralogy in an impressive and appropriate manner--Euthyphron, Apology, Kriton, Phædon--four compositions really resembling a dramatic tetralogy, and bound together by their common bearing, on the last scenes of the life of a philosopher.
[45] In Euthyphron, Sokrates appears as having been just indicted and as thinking on his defence; in the Apology, he makes his defence; in the Kriton, he appears as sentenced by the legal tribunal, yet refusing to evade the sentence by escaping from his prison; in the Phædon, we have the last dying scene and conversation.
None of the other tetralogies present an equal bond of connection between their constituent items; but the first tetralogy was probably intended to recommend the rest, and to justify the system.
[Footnote 45: Diog.
L. iii.
57.
[Greek: prô/tên me\n ou)=n tetralogi/an ti/thêsi tê\n koinê\n u(po/thesin e)/chousan; paradei=xai ga\r bou/letai o(/poiois a)\n ei)/ê o( tou= philoso/phou bi/os].
Albinus, Introduct.
ad Plat.
c. 4, p. 149, in K. F. Hermann's Append.
Platon.
Thrasyllus appears to have considered the Republic as ten dialogues and the Leges as twelve, each book (of Republic and of Leges) constituting a separate dialogue, so that he made the Platonic works fifty-six in all.
But for the purpose of his tetralogies he reckoned them only as thirty-six--nine groups.
The author of the Prolegomena [Greek: tê=s Pla/tônos Philosophi/as] in Hermann's Append.
Platon.
pp.
218-219, gives the same account of the tetralogies, and of the connecting bond which united the four** members of the first tetralogical group: but he condemns altogether the principle of the tetralogical division.
He does not mention the name of Thrasyllus.
He lived after Proklus (p. 218), that is, after 480 A.D.
The argument urged by Wyttenbach and others--that Varro must have considered the Phædon as _fourth_ in the order of the Platonic compositions--an argument founded on a passage in Varro.
L. L. vii.
37, which refers to the Phædon under the words _Plato in quarto_--this argument becomes inapplicable in the text as given by O. Müller--not _Varro in quarto_ but _Varro in quattuor fluminibus_, &c. Mullach (Democriti Frag.
p. 98) has tried unsuccessfully to impugn Müller's text, and to uphold the word _quarto_ with the inference resting upon it.]
[Side-note: Philosophical principle--Dialogues of Search--Dialogues of Exposition.]
In the other distribution made by Thrasyllus,[46] Plato was regarded not as a quasi-dramatist, but as a philosopher.
The dialogues were classified with reference partly to their method and spirit, partly to their subject.
His highest generic distinction was into:--1.
Dialogues of Investigation or Search.
2.
Dialogues of Exposition or Construction.
The Dialogues of Investigation he subdivided into two classes:--1.
Gymnastic.
2.
Agonistic.
These were again subdivided, each into two sub-classes; the Gymnastic, into 1.
Obstetric.
2.
Peirastic.
The Agonistic, into 1.
Probative.
2.
Refutative.
Again, the Dialogues of Exposition were divided into two classes: 1.
Theoretical.
2.
Practical.
Each of these classes was divided into two sub-classes: the Theoretical into 1.
Physical.
2.
Logical.
The Practical into 1.
Ethical.
2.
Political.
[Footnote 46: The statement in Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Plato, is somewhat obscure and equivocal; but I think it certain that the classification which he gives in iii.
49, 50, 51, of the Platonic dialogues, was made by Thrasyllus.
It is a portion of the same systematic arrangement as that given somewhat farther on (iii.
56-61), which is ascribed by name to Thrasyllus, enumerating the Tetralogies.
Diogenes expressly states that Thrasyllus was the person who annexed to each dialogue its double denomination, which it has since borne in the published editions--[Greek: Eu)thu/phrôn--peri\ o(si/ou--peirastiko/s].
In the Dialogues of examination or Search, one of these names is derived from the subject, the other from the method, as in the instance of Euthyphron just cited: in the Dialogues of Exposition both names are derived from the subject, first the special, next the general.
[Greek: Phai/dôn, ê)\ peri\ psuchê=s, ê)thiko/s.
Parmeni/dês, ê)\ peri\ i)deô=n, logiko/s].
Schleiermacher (in the Einleitung prefixed to his translation of Plato, p. 24) speaks somewhat loosely about "the well-known dialectical distributions of the Platonic dialogues, which Diogenes has preserved without giving the name of the author".
Diogenes gives only _one_ such dialectical (or logical) distribution; and though he does not mention the name of Thrasyllus in direct or immediate connection with it, we may clearly see that he is copying Thrasyllus.
This is well pointed out in an acute commentary on Schleiermacher, by Yxem, Logos Protreptikos, Berlin, 1841, p. 12-13.
Diogenes remarks (iii.
50) that the distribution of the dialogues into narrative, dramatic, and mixed, is made [Greek: tragikô=s ma=llon ê)\ philoso/phôs].
This remark would seem to apply more precisely to the arrangement of the dialogues into trilogies and tetralogies.
His word [Greek: philoso/phôs] belongs very justly to the logical distribution of Thrasyllus, apart from the tetralogies.
Porphyry tells us that Plotinus did not bestow any titles upon his own discourses.
The titles were bestowed by his disciples; who did not always agree, but gave different titles to the same discourse (Porphyry, Vit.
Plotin.
4).]
The following table exhibits this philosophical classification of Thrasyllus:-Table I.
PHILOSOPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKS OF PLATO BY THRASYLLUS.
I. Dialogues of Investigation.
II.
Dialogues of Exposition.
_Searching Dialogues_.
_Guiding Dilogues_ [Greek: Zêtêtikoi/].
[Greek: U(phêgêtikoi/].
I. Dialogues of investigation.
Gymnastic.
Agonistic.
[Greek: Maieutikoi/.
Peirastikoi/.
E)ndeiktikoi/.
A)natreptikpoi/.]
Obstetric.
Peirastic.
Probative.
Refutative.
------------Alkibiades I. Charmidês.
Protagoras.
Euthydêmus.
Alkibiades II.
Menon.
Gorgias.
Theagês.
Ion.
Hippias I. Lachês.
Euthyphron.
Hippias II.
Lysis.
II.
Dialogues of Exposition.
Theoretical.
Practical [Greek: Phusikoi/.
Logikoi/.
Ê)thikoi/.
Politikoi/.]
Physical Logical.
Ethical.
Political.
------------Timæus.
Kratylus.
Apology.
Republic.
Sophistês.
Kriton.
Kritias.
Politikus.
Phædon.
Minos.
Parmenidês.
Phædrus.
Leges.
Theætêtus.
Symposion.
Epinomis.
Menexenus.
Kleitophon.
Epistolæ.
Philêbus.
Hipparchus.
Rivales.
I now subjoin a second Table, containing the Dramatic Distribution of the Platonic Dialogues, with the Philosophical Distribution combined or attached to it.
Table II.
DRAMATIC DISTRIBUTION.
PLATONIC DIALOGUES, AS ARRANGED IN TETRALOGIES BY THRASYLLUS.
Tetralogy 1.
1.
Euthyphron On Holiness Peirastic or Testing.
2.
Apology of Sokrates Ethical Ethical.
3.
Kriton On Duty in Action Ethical.
4.
Phædon On the Soul Ethical.
2.
1.
Kratylus On Rectitude in Naming Logical.
2.
Theætêtus On Knowledge Logical.
3.
Sophistês On Ens or the Existent Logical.
4.
Politikus On the Art of Governing Logical.
3.
1.
Parmenidês On Ideas Logical.
2.
Philêbus On Pleasure Ethical.
3.
Symposion On Good Ethical.
4.
Phædrus On Love Ethical.
4.
1.
Alkibiadês I On the Nature of Man Obstetric or Evolving.
2.
Alkibiadês II On Prayer Obstetric.
3.
Hipparchus On the Love of Gain.
Ethical.
4.
Erastæ On Philosophy Ethical.
5.
1.
Theagês On Philosophy Obstetric.
2.
Charmidês On Temperance Peirastic.
3.
Lachês On Courage Obstetric.
4.
Lysis On Friendship Obstetric.
6.
1.
Euthydêmus The Disputatious Man Refutative.
2.
Protagoras The Sophists Probative.
3.
Gorgias On Rhetoric Refutative.
4.
Menon On Virtue Peirastic.
7.
1.
Hippias I On the Beautiful Refutative.
2.
Hippias II On Falsehood Refutative.
3.
Ion On the Iliad Peirastic.
4.
Menexenus The Funeral Oration Ethical.
8.
1.
Kleitophon The Impulsive Ethical.
2.
Republic On Justice Political.
3.
Timæus On Nature Physical.
4.
Kritias The Atlantid Ethical.
9.
1.
Minos On Law Political.
2.
Leges On Legislation Political.
3.
Epinomis The Night-Assembly, Political or the Philosopher 4.
Epistolæ XIII Ethical.
The second Table, as it here stands, is given by Diogenes Laertius, and is extracted by him probably from the work of Thrasyllus, or from the edition of Plato as published by Thrasyllus.
The reader will see that each Platonic composition has a place assigned to it in two classifications--1.
The dramatic--2.
The philosophical--each in itself distinct and independent of the other, but here blended together.
[Side-note: Incongruity and repugnance of the two classifications.]
We may indeed say more.
The two classifications are not only independent, but incongruous and even repugnant.
The better of the two is only obscurely and imperfectly apprehended, because it is presented as an appendage to the worse.
The dramatic classification, which stands in the foreground, rests upon a purely fanciful analogy, determining preference for the number _four_.
If indeed this objection were urged against Thrasyllus, he might probably have replied that the group of four volumes together was in itself convenient, neither too large nor too small, for an elementary subdivision; and that the fanciful analogy was an artifice for recommending it to the feelings, better (after all) than selection of another number by haphazard.
Be that as it may, however, the fiction was one which Thrasyllus inherited from Aristophanes: and it does some honour to his ability, that he has built, upon so inconvenient a fiction, one tetralogy (the first), really plausible and impressive.
[47] But it does more honour to his ability that he should have originated the philosophical classification; distinguishing the dialogues by important attributes truly belonging to each, and conducting the Platonic student to points of view which ought to be made known to him.
This classification forms a marked improvement upon every thing (so far as we know) which preceded it.
[Footnote 47: It is probable that Aristophanes, in distributing Plato into trilogies, was really influenced by the dramatic form of the compositions to put them in a class with real dramas.
But Thrasyllus does not seem to have been influenced by such a consideration.
He took the number _four_ on its own merits, and adopted, as a way of recommending it, the traditional analogy sanctioned by the Alexandrine librarians.
That such was the case, we may infer pretty clearly when we learn, that Thrasyllus applied the same distribution (into tetralogies) to the works of Demokritus, which were _not_ dramatic in form.
(Diog.
L. ix.
45; Mullach, Democ.
Frag.
p. 100-107, who attempts to restore the Thrasyllean tetralogies.)
The compositions of Demokritus were not merely numerous, but related to the greatest diversity of subjects.
To them Thrasyllus could not apply the same logical or philosophical distribution which he applied to Plato.
He published, along with the works of Demokritus, a preface, which he entitled [Greek: Ta\ pro\ tê=s a)nagnô/seôs tô=n Dêmokri/tou bibli/ôn] (Diog.
L. ix.
41).
Porphyry tells us, that when he undertook, as literary executor, the arrangement and publication of the works of his deceased master Plotinus, he found fifty-four discourses: which he arranged into six Enneads or groups of nine each.
He was induced to prefer this distribution, by regard to the perfection of the number six ([Greek: teleio/têti]).
He placed in each Ennead discourses akin to each other, or on analogous subjects (Porphyry, Vit.
Plotin.
24).]
[Side-note: Dramatic principle of classification--was inherited by Thrasyllus from Aristophanes.]
[Side-note: Authority of the Alexandrine library--editions of Plato published, with the Alexandrine critical marks.]
That Thrasyllus followed Aristophanes in the principle of his classification, is manifest: that he adopted the dramatic ground and principle of classification (while amending its details), not because he was himself guided by it, but because he found it already in use and sanctioned by the high authority of the Alexandrines--is also manifest, because he himself constructed and tacked to it a better classification, founded upon principles new and incongruous with the dramatic.
In all this we trace the established ascendancy of the Alexandrine library and its eminent literati.
Of which ascendancy a farther illustration appears, when we read in Diogenes Laertius that editions of Plato were published, carrying along with the text the special marks of annotation applied by the Alexandrines to Homer and other poets: the obelus to indicate a spurious passage, the obelus with two dots to denote a passage which had been improperly declared spurious, the X to signify peculiar locutions, the double line or Diplê to mark important or characteristic opinions of Plato--and others in like manner.
A special price was paid for manuscripts of Plato with these illustrative appendages:[48] which must have been applied either by Alexandrines themselves, or by others trained in their school.
When Thrasyllus set himself to edit and re-distribute the Platonic works, we may be sure that he must have consulted one or more public libraries, either at Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Tarsus, or elsewhere.
Nowhere else could he find all the works together.
Now the proceedings ascribed to him show that he attached himself to the Alexandrine library, and to the authority of its most eminent critics.
[Footnote 48: Diog.
L. iii.
65, 66.
[Greek: E)pei\ de\ kai\ sêmei=a/ tina toi=s bibli/ois au)tou= parati/thetai, phe/re kai\ peri\ tou/tôn ti ei)/pômen], &c. He then proceeds to enumerate the [Greek: sêmei=a].
It is important to note that Diogenes cites this statement (respecting the peculiar critical marks appended to manuscripts of the Platonic works) from Antigonus of Karystus in his Life of Zeno the Stoic.
Now the date of Antigonus is placed by Mr. Fynes Clinton in B.C.
225, before the death of Ptolemy III.
Euergetes (see Fasti Hellen.
B.C.
225, also Appendix, 12, 80).
Antigonus must thus have been contemporary both with Kallimachus and with Aristophanes of Byzantium: he notices the marked manuscripts of Plato as something newly edited--[Greek: neôsti\ e)kdothe/nta]): and we may thus see that the work of critical marking must have been performed either by Kallimachus and Aristophanes themselves (one or both) or by some of their contemporaries.
Among the titles of the lost treatises of Kallimachus, one is--about the [Greek: glô=ssai] or peculiar phrases of Demokritus.
It is therefore noway improbable that Kallimachus should have bestowed attention upon the peculiarities of the Platonic text, and the inaccuracies of manuscripts.
The library had probably acquired several different manuscripts of the Platonic compositions, as it had of the Iliad and Odyssey, and of the Attic tragedies.]
[Side-note: Thrasyllus followed the Alexandrine library and Aristophanes, as to genuine Platonic works.]
Probably it was this same authority that Thrasyllus followed in determining which were the real works of Plato, and in setting aside pretended works.
He accepted the collection of Platonic compositions sanctioned by Aristophanes and recognised as such in the Alexandrine library.
As far as our positive knowledge goes, it fully bears out what is here stated: all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes (unfortunately Diogenes does not give a complete enumeration of those which he recognised) are to be found in the catalogue of Thrasyllus.
And the evidentiary value of this fact is so much the greater, because the most questionable compositions (I mean, those which modern critics reject or even despise) are expressly included in the recognition of Aristophanes, and passed from him to Thrasyllus--Leges, Epinomis, Minos, Epistolæ, Sophistês, Politikus.
Exactly on those points on which the authority of Thrasyllus requires to be fortified against modern objectors, it receives all the support which coincidence with Aristophanes can impart.
When we know that Thrasyllus adhered to Aristophanes on so many disputable points of the catalogue, we may infer pretty certainly that he adhered to him in the remainder.
In regard to the question, Which were Plato's genuine works?
it was perfectly natural that Thrasyllus should accept the recognition of the greatest library then existing: a library, the written records of which could be traced back to Demetrius Phalereus.
He followed this external authority: he did not take each dialogue to pieces, to try whether it conformed to a certain internal standard--a "platonisches Gefühl"--of his own.
[Side-note: Ten spurious dialogues, rejected by all other critics as well as by Thrasyllus--evidence that these critics followed the common authority of the Alexandrine library.]
That the question between genuine and spurious Platonic dialogues was tried in the days of Thrasyllus, by external authority and not by internal feeling--we may see farther by the way in which Diogenes Laertius speaks of the spurious dialogues.
"The following dialogues (he says) are declared to be spurious _by common consent_: 1.
Eryxias or Erasistratus.
2.
Akephali or Sisyphus.
3.
Demodokus.
4.
Axiochus.
5.
Halkyon.
6.
Midon or Hippotrophus.
7.
Phæakes.
8.
Chelidon.
9.
Hebdomê.
10.
Epimenides.
"[49] There was, then, unanimity, so far as the knowledge of Diogenes Laertius reached, as to genuine and spurious.
All the critics whom he valued, Thrasyllus among them, pronounced the above ten dialogues to be spurious: all of them agreed also in accepting the dialogues in the list of Thrasyllus as genuine.
[50] Of course the ten spurious dialogues must have been talked of by some persons, or must have got footing in some editions or libraries, as real works of Plato: otherwise there could have been no trial had or sentence passed upon them.
But what Diogenes affirms is, that Thrasyllus and all the critics whose opinion he esteemed, concurred in rejecting them.
We may surely presume that this unanimity among the critics, both as to all that they accepted and all that they rejected, arose from common acquiescence in the authority of the Alexandrine library.
[51] The ten rejected dialogues were not in the Alexandrine library--or at least not among the rolls therein recognised as Platonic.
[Footnote 49: Diog.
L. iii.
62: [Greek: notheu/ontai de\ tô=n dialo/gôn o(mologoume/nôs].
Compare Prolegomena [Greek: tê=s Pla/tônos Philosophi/as], in Hermann's Appendix Platonica, p.
219.]
[Footnote 50: It has been contended by some modern critics, that Thrasyllus himself doubted whether the Hipparchus was Plato's work.
When I consider that dialogue, I shall show that there is no adequate ground for believing that Thrasyllus doubted its genuineness.]
[Footnote 51: Diogenes (ix.
49) uses the same phrase in regard to the spurious works ascribed to Demokritus, [Greek: ta\ d' o(mologoume/nôs e)sti\n a)llo/tria].
And I believe that he means the same thing by it: that the works alluded to were not recognised in the Alexandrine library as belonging to Demokritus, and were accordingly excluded from the tetralogies (of Demokritus) prepared by Thrasyllus.]
[Side-note: Thrasyllus did not follow an internal sentiment of his own in rejecting dialogues as spurious.]
If Thrasyllus and the others did not proceed upon this evidence in rejecting the ten dialogues, and did not find in them any marks of time such as to exclude the supposition of Platonic authorship--they decided upon what is called internal evidence: a critical sentiment, which satisfied them that these dialogues did not possess the Platonic character, style, manner, doctrines, merits, &c. Now I think it highly improbable that Thrasyllus could have proceeded upon any such sentiment.
For when we survey the catalogue of works which he recognised as genuine, we see that it includes the widest diversity of style, manner, doctrine, purpose, and merits: that the disparate epithets, which he justly applies to discriminate the various dialogues, cannot be generalised so as to leave any intelligible "Platonic character" common to all.
Now since Thrasyllus reckoned among the genuine works of Plato, compositions so unlike, and so unequal in merit, as the Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Lysis, Parmenidês, Symposion, Philêbus, Menexenus, Leges, Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, Theagês, Epistolæ, &c., not to mention a composition obviously unfinished, such as the Kritias--he could have little scruple in believing that Plato also composed the Eryxias, Sisyphus, Demodokus, and Halkyon.
These last-mentioned dialogues still exist, and can be appreciated.
[52] Allowing, for the sake of argument, that we are entitled to assume our own sense of worth as a test of what is really Plato's composition, it is impossible to deny, that if these dialogues are not worthy of the author of Republic and Protagoras, they are at least worthy of the author of the Leges, Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Accordingly, if the internal sentiment of Thrasyllus did not lead him to reject these last four, neither would it lead him to reject the Eryxias, Sisyphus, and Halkyon.
I conclude therefore that if he, and all the other critics whom Diogenes esteemed, agreed in rejecting the ten dialogues as spurious--their verdict depended not upon any internal sentiment, but upon the authority of the Alexandrine library.
[53] [Footnote 52: The Axiochus, Eryxias, Sisyphus, and Demodokus, are printed as Apocrypha annexed to most editions of Plato, together with two other dialogues entitled De Justo and De Virtute.
The Halkyon has generally appeared among the works of Lucian, but K. F. Hermann has recently printed it in his edition of Plato among the Platonic Apocrypha.
The Axiochus contains a mark of time (the mention of [Greek: A)kadêmi/a] and [Greek: Lukei=on], p. 367), as F. A. Wolf has observed, proving that it was not composed until the Platonic and Peripatetic schools were both of them in full establishment at Athens--that is, certainly after the death of Plato, and probably after the death of Aristotle.
It is possible that Thrasyllus may have proceeded upon this evidence of time, at least as collateral proof, in pronouncing the dialogue not to be the work of Plato.
The other four dialogues contain no similar evidence of date.
Favorinus affirmed that Halkyon was the work of an author named Leon.
Some said (Diog.
L. iii.
37) that Philippus of Opus, one of the disciples of Plato, transcribed the Leges, which were on waxen tablets ([Greek: e)n kêrô=|]), and that the Epinomis was his work ([Greek: tou/tou de\ kai\ tê\n E)pinomi/da phasi\n ei)=nai]).
It was probably the work of Philippus only in the sense in which the Leges were his work--that he made a fair and durable copy of parts of it from the wax.
Thrasyllus admitted it with the rest as Platonic.]
[Footnote 53: Mullach (Democr.
Fragm.
p. 100) accuses Thrasyllus of an entire want of critical sentiment, and pronounces his catalogue to be altogether without value as an evidence of genuine Platonic works--because Thrasyllus admits many dialogues, "quos doctorum nostri sæculi virorum acumen è librorum Platonicorum numero exemit".
This observation exactly illustrates the conclusion which I desire to bring out.
I admit that Thrasyllus had a critical sentiment different from that of the modern Platonic commentators; but I believe that in the present case he proceeded upon other evidence--recognition by the Alexandrine library.
My difference with Mullach is, that I consider this recognition (in a question of genuine or spurious) as more trustworthy evidence than the critical sentiment of modern literati.]
[Side-note: Results as to the trustworthiness of the Thrasyllean Canon.]
On this question, then, of the Canon of Plato's works (as compared with the works of other contemporary authors) recognised by Thrasyllus--I consider that its claim to trustworthiness is very high, as including all the genuine works, and none but the genuine works, of Plato: the following facts being either proved, or fairly presumable.
1.
The Canon rests on the authority of the Alexandrine library and its erudite librarians;[54] whose written records went back to the days of Ptolemy Soter, and Demetrius Phalereus, within a generation after the death of Plato.
2.
The manuscripts of Plato at his death were preserved in the school which he founded; where they continued for more than thirty years under the care of Speusippus and Xenokrates, who possessed personal knowledge of all that Plato had really written.
After Xenokrates, they came under the care of Polemon and the succeeding Scholarchs, from whom Demetrius Phalereus probably obtained permission to take copies of them for the nascent museum or library at Alexandria or through whom at least (if he purchased from booksellers) he could easily ascertain which were Plato's works, and which, if any, were spurious.
3.
They were received into that library without any known canonical order, prescribed system, or interdependence essential to their being properly understood.
Kallimachus or Aristophanes devised an order of arrangement for themselves, such as they thought suitable.
[Footnote 54: Suckow adopts and defends the opinion here stated--that Thrasyllus, in determining which were the genuine works of Plato and which were not genuine, was guided mainly by the authority of the Alexandrine library and librarians (G. F. W. Suckow, Form der Platonischen Schriften, pp.
170-175).
Ueberweg admits this opinion as just (Untersuchungen, p. 195).
Suckow farther considers (p. 175) that the catalogue of works of esteemed authors, deposited in the Alexandrine library, may be regarded as dating from the [Greek: Pi/nakes] of Kallimachus.
This goes far to make out the presumption which I have endeavoured to establish in favour of the Canon recognised by Thrasyllus, which, however, these two authors do not fully admit.
K. F. Hermann, too (see Gesch.
und Syst.
der Platon.
Philos.
p. 44), argues sometimes strongly in favour of this presumption, though elsewhere he entirely departs from it.]
CHAPTER VII.
PLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MODERN CRITICS.
[Side-note: The Canon of Thrasyllus continued to be generally acknowledged, by the Neo-Platonists, as well as by Ficinus and the succeeding critics after the revival of learning.]
The Platonic Canon established by Thrasyllus maintained its authority until the close of the last century, in regard to the distinction between what was genuine and spurious.
The distribution indeed did not continue to be approved: the Tetralogies were neglected, and the order of the dialogues varied: moreover, doubts were intimated about Kleitophon and Epinomis.
But nothing was positively removed from, or positively added to, the total recognised by Thrasyllus.
The Neo-Platonists (from the close of the second century B.C., down to the beginning of the sixth A.D.) introduced a new, mystic, and theological interpretation, which often totally changed and falsified Plato's meaning.
Their principles of interpretation would have been strange and unintelligible to the rhetors Thrasyllus and Dionysius of Halikarnassus--or to the Platonic philosopher Charmadas, who expounded Plato to Marcus Crassus at Athens.
But they still continued to look for Plato in the nine Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, in each and all of them.
So also continued Ficinus, who, during the last half of the fifteenth century, did so much to revive in the modern world the study of Plato.
He revived along with it the neo-platonic interpretation.
The Argumenta, prefixed to the different dialogues by Ficinus, are remarkable, as showing what an ingenious student, interpreting in that spirit, discovered in them.
But the scholars of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, speaking generally--though not neglecting these neo-platonic refinements, were disposed to seek out, wherever they could find it, a more literal interpretation of the Platonic text, correctly presented and improved.
The next great edition of the works of Plato was published by Serranus and Stephens, in the latter portion of the sixteenth century.
[Side-note: Serranus--his six Syzygies--left the aggregate Canon unchanged, Tennemann--importance assigned to the Phædrus.]
Serranus distributed the dialogues of Plato into six groups which he called Syzygies.
In his first Syzygy were comprised Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Phædon (coinciding with the first Tetralogy of Thrasyllus), as setting forth the defence of Sokrates and of his doctrine.
The second Syzygy included the dialogues introductory to philosophy generally, and impugning the Sophists--Theagês, Erastæ, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Euthydêmus, Protagoras, Hippias II.
In the third Syzygy were three dialogues considered as bearing on Logic--Kratylus, Gorgias, Ion.
The fourth Syzygy contained the dialogues on Ethics generally--Philêbus, Menon, Alkibiadês I.; on special points of Ethics--Alkibiadês II., Charmidês, Lysis, Hipparchus; and on Politics--Menexenus, Politikus, Minos, Republic, Leges, Epinomis.
The fifth Syzygy included the dialogues on Physics, and Metaphysics (or Theology)--Timæus, Kritias, Parmenidês, Symposion, Phædrus, Hippias I.
** In the sixth Syzygy were ranged the thirteen Epistles, the various dialogues which Serranus considered spurious (Kleitophon among them, which he regarded as doubtful), and the Definitions.
Serranus, while modifying the distribution of the Platonic works, left the entire Canon very much as he found it.
So it remained throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the scholars who devoted themselves to Plato were content with improvement of the text, philological illustration, and citations from the ancient commentators.
But the powerful impulse, given by Kant to the speculative mind of Europe during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, materially affected the point of view from which Plato was regarded.
Tennemann, both in his System of the Platonic Philosophy, and in dealing with Plato as a portion of his general history of philosophy, applied the doctrines of Kant largely and even excessively to the exposition of ancient doctrines.
Much of his comment is instructive, greatly surpassing his predecessors.
Without altering the Platonic Canon, he took a new view of the general purposes of Plato, and especially he brought forward the dialogue Phædrus into a prominence which had never before belonged to it, as an index or key-note ([Greek: e)ndo/simon]) to the whole Platonic series.
Shortly after Tennemann, came Schleiermacher, who introduced a theory of his own, ingenious as well as original, which has given a new turn to all the subsequent Platonic criticism.
[Side-note: Schleiermacher--new theory about the purposes of Plato.
One philosophical scheme, conceived by Plato from the beginning--essential order and interdependence of the dialogues, as contributing to the full execution of this scheme.
Some dialogues not constituent items in the series, but lying alongside of it.
Order of arrangement.]
Schleiermacher begins by assuming two fundamental postulates, both altogether new.
1.
A systematic unity of philosophic theme and purpose, conceived by Plato in his youth, at first obscurely--afterwards worked out through successive dialogues; each dialogue disclosing the same purpose, but the later disclosing it more clearly and fully, until his old age.
2.
A peremptory, exclusive, and intentional order by Plato of the dialogues, composed by Plato with a view to the completion of this philosophical scheme.
Schleiermacher undertakes to demonstrate what this order was, and to point out the contribution brought by each successive dialogue to the accomplishment of Plato's premeditated scheme.
To those who understand Plato, the dialogues themselves reveal (so Schleiermacher affirms) their own essential order of sequence--their own mutual relations of antecedent and consequent.
Each presupposes those which go before: each prepares for those which follow.
Accordingly, Schleiermacher distributes the Platonic dialogues into three groups: the first, or elementary, beginning with Phædrus, followed by Lysis, Protagoras, Lachês, Charmidês, Euthyphron, Parmenidês: the second, or preparatory, comprising Gorgias, Theætêtus, Menon, Euthydêmus, Kratylus, Sophistês, Politikus, Symposion, Phædon, Philêbus: the third, or constructive, including Republic, Timæus, and Kritias.
These groups or files are all supposed to be marshalled under Platonic authority: both the entire files as first, second, third and the dialogues composing each file, carrying their own place in the order, imprinted in visible characters.
But to each file, there is attached what Schleiermacher terms an Appendix, containing one or more dialogues, each a composition by itself, and lying not in the series, but alongside of it (Nebenwerke).
The Appendix to the first file includes Apologia, Kriton, Ion, Hippias II., Hipparchus, Minos, Alkibiadês II.
The Appendix to the second file consists of Theagês, Erastæ, Alkibiadês I., Menexenus, Hippias I., Kleitophon.
That of the third file consists of the Leges.
The Appendix is not supposed to imply any common positive character in the dialogues which it includes, but simply the negative attribute of not belonging to the main philosophical column, besides a greater harmony with the file to which it is attached than with the other two files.
Some dialogues assigned to the Appendixes are considered by Schleiermacher as spurious; some however he treats as compositions on special occasions, or adjuncts to the regular series.
To this latter category belong the Apologia, Kriton, and Leges.
Schleiermacher considers the Charmidês to have been composed during the time of the Anarchy, B.C.
404: the Phædrus (earliest of all), in Olymp.
93 (B.C.
406), two years before:[1] the Lysis, Protagoras, and Lachês, to lie between them in respect of date.
[Footnote 1: Schleierm.
vol.
i. p. 72; vol.
ii.
p.
8.]
[Side-note: Theory of Ast--he denies the reality of any preconceived scheme--considers the dialogues as distinct philosophical dramas.]
Such is the general theory of Schleiermacher, which presents to us Plato in the character of a Demiurgus, contemplating from the first an Idea of philosophy, and constructing a series of dialogues (like a Kosmos of Schleiermacher), with the express purpose of giving embodiment to it as far as practicable.
We next come to Ast, who denies this theory altogether.
According to Ast, there never was any philosophical system, to the exposition and communication of which each successive dialogue was deliberately intended to contribute: there is no scientific or intentional connection between the dialogues,--no progressive arrangement of first and second, of foundation and superstructure: there is no other unity or connecting principle between them than that which they involve as all emanating from the same age, country, and author, and the same general view of the world (Welt-Ansicht) or critical estimate of man and nature.
[2] The dialogues are dramatic (Ast affirms), not merely in their external form, but in their internal character: each is in truth a philosophical drama.
[3] Their purpose is very diverse and many-sided: we mistake if we imagine the philosophical purpose to stand alone.
If that were so (Ast argues), how can we explain the fact, that in most of the dialogues there is no philosophical result at all?
Nothing but a discussion without definite end, which leaves every point unsettled.
[4] Plato is poet, artist, philosopher, blended in one.
He does not profess to lay down positive opinions.
Still less does he proclaim his own opinions as exclusive orthodoxy, to be poured ready-prepared into the minds of recipient pupils.
He seeks to urge the pupils to think and investigate for themselves.
He employs the form of dialogue, as indispensable to generate in their minds this impulse of active research, and to arm them with the power of pursuing it effectively.
[5] But each Platonic dialogue is a separate composition in itself, and each of the greater dialogues is a finished and symmetrical whole, like a living organism.
[6] [Footnote 2: Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon's, p.
40.]
[Footnote 3: Ast, ib.
p.
46.]
[Footnote 4: Ast, ibid.
p.
89.]
[Footnote 5: Ast, ib.
p.
42.]
[Footnote 6: The general view here taken by Ast--dwelling upon the separate individuality as well as upon the dramatic character of each dialogue--calling attention to the purpose of intellectual stimulation, and of reasoning out different aspects of ethical and dialectical questions, as distinguished from endoctrinating purpose--this general view coincides more nearly with my own than that of any other critic.
But Ast does not follow it out consistently.
If he were consistent with it, he ought to be more catholic than other critics, in admitting a large and undefinable diversity in the separate Platonic manifestations: instead of which, he is the most sweeping of all repudiators, on internal grounds.
He is not even satisfied with the Parmenides as it now stands; he insists that what is now the termination was not the real and original termination; but that Plato must have appended to the dialogue an explanation of its [Greek: a)pori/ai], puzzles, and antinomies; which explanation is now lost.]
[Side-note: His order of arrangement.
He admits only fourteen dialogues as genuine, rejecting all the rest.]
Though Ast differs thus pointedly from Schleiermacher in the enunciation of his general principle, yet he approximates to him more nearly when he comes to detail: for he recognises three classes of dialogues, succeeding each other in a chronological order verifiable (as he thinks) by the dialogues themselves.
His first class (in which he declares the poetical and dramatic element to be predominant) consists of Protagoras, Phædrus, Gorgias, Phædon.
His second class, distinguished by the dialectic element, includes Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês, Kratylus.
His third class, wherein the poetical and dialectic element are found both combined, embraces Philêbus, Symposion, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.
These fourteen dialogues, in Ast's view, constitute the whole of the genuine Platonic works.
All the rest he pronounces to be spurious.
He rejects Leges, Epinomis, Menon, Euthydêmus, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Alkibiades I. and II., Hippias I. and II., Ion, Erastæ, Theages, Kleitophon, Apologia, Kriton, Minos, Epistolæ--together with all the other dialogues which were rejected in antiquity by Thrasyllus.
Lastly, Ast considers the Protagoras to have been composed in 408 B.C., when Plato was not more than 21 years of age--the Phædrus in 407 B.C.--the Gorgias in 404 B.C.
[7] [Footnote 7: Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon's, p.
376.]
[Side-note: Socher agrees with Ast in denying preconceived scheme--his arrangement of the dialogues, differing from both Ast and Schleiermacher--he rejects as spurious Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias, with many others.]
Socher agrees with Ast in rejecting the fundamental hypothesis of Schleiermacher--that of a preconceived scheme systematically worked out by Plato.
But on many points he differs from Ast no less than from Schleiermacher.
He assigns the earliest Platonic composition (which he supposes to be Theagês), to a date preceding the battle of Arginusæ, in 406 B.C., when Plato was about 22-23 years of age.
[8] Assuming it is certain that Plato composed dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates, he conceives that the earliest of them would naturally be the most purely Sokratic in respect of theme, as well as the least copious, comprehensive, and ideal, in manner of handling.
During the six and a half years between the battle of Arginusæ and the death of Sokrates, Socher registers the following succession of Platonic compositions: Theagês, Lachês, Hippias II., Alkibiadês I., Dialogus de Virtute (usually printed with the spurious, but supposed by Socher to be a sort of preparatory sketch for the Menon), Menon, Kratylus, Euthyphron.
These three last he supposes to precede very shortly the death of Sokrates.
After that event, and very shortly after, were composed the Apologia, Kriton, and Phædon.
[Footnote 8: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 102.
These critics adopt 429** B.C.
as the year of Plato's birth: I think 427** B.C.
is the true year.]
These eleven dialogues fill up what Socher regards as the first period of Plato's life, ending when he was somewhat more than thirty years of age.
The second period extends to the commencement of his teaching at the Academy, when about 41 or 42 years old (B.C.
386).
In this second period were composed Ion, Euthydêmus, Hippias I, Protagoras, Theætêtus, Gorgias, Philêbus--in the order here set forth.
During the third period of Plato's life, continuing until he was 65 or more, he composed Phædrus, Menexenus, Symposion, Republic, Timæus.
To the fourth and last period, that of extreme old age, belongs the composition of the Leges.
[9] [Footnote 9: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
301-459-460.]
Socher rejects as spurious Hipparchus, Minos, Kleitophon, Alkibiadês II., Erastæ, Epinomis, Epistolæ, Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias: also Charmidês, and Lysis, these two last however not quite so decisively.
[Side-note: Schleiermacher and Ast both consider Phædrus and Protagoras as early compositions--Socher puts Protagoras into the second period, Phædrus into the third.]
Both Ast and Schleiermacher consider Phædrus and Protagoras as among the earliest compositions of Plato.
Herein Socher dissents from them.
He puts Protagoras into the second period, and Phædrus into the third.
But the most peculiar feature in his theory is, that he rejects as spurious Parmenidês, Sophistês, Politikus, Kritias.
[Side-note: K. F. Hermann--Stallbaum--both of them consider the Phædrus as a late dialogue--both of them deny preconceived order and system--their arrangements of the dialogues--they admit new and varying philosophical points of view.]
From Schleiermacher, Ast, and Socher, we pass to K. F. Hermann[10]--and to Stallbaum, who has prefixed Prolegomena to his edition of each dialogue.
Both these critics protest against Socher's rejection of the four dialogues last indicated: but they agree with Socher and Ast in denying the reality of any preconceived system, present to Plato's mind in his first dialogue, and advanced by regular steps throughout each of the succeeding dialogues.
The polemical tone of K. F. Hermann against this theory, and against Schleiermacher, its author, is strenuous and even unwarrantably bitter.
[11] Especially the position laid down by Schleiermacher--that Phædrus is the earliest of Plato's dialogues, written when he was 22 or 23 years of age, and that the general system presiding over all the future dialogues is indicated therein as even then present to his mind, afterwards to be worked out--is controverted by Hermann and Stallbaum no less than by Ast and Socher.
All three concur in the tripartite distribution of the life of Plato.
But Hermann thinks that Plato acquired gradually and successively, new points of view, with enlarged philosophical development: and that the dialogues as successively composed are expressions of these varying phases.
Moreover, Hermann thinks that such variations in Plato's philosophy may be accounted for by external circumstances.
He reckons Plato's first period as ending with the death of Sokrates, or rather at an epoch not long after the death of Sokrates: the second as ending with the commencement of Plato's teaching at the Academy, after his return from Sicily--about 385 B.C.
: the third, as extending from thence to his old age.
To the first, or Sokratic stadium, Hermann assigns the smaller dialogues: the earliest of which he declares to be--Hippias II., Ion, Alkibiadês I., Lysis, Charmidês, Lachês: after which come Protagoras and Euthydêmus, wherein the batteries are opened against the Sophists, shortly before the death of Sokrates.
Immediately after the last mentioned event, come a series of dialogues reflecting the strong and fresh impression left by it upon Plato's mind--Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Menon, Hippias I.--occupying a sort of transition stage between the first and the second period.
We now enter upon the second or dialectic period; passed by Plato greatly at Megara, and influenced by the philosophical intercourse which he there enjoyed, and characterised by the composition of Theætêtus, Kratylus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês.
[12] To the third, or constructive period, greatly determined by the influence of the Pythagorean philosophy, belong Phædrus, Menexenus, Symposion, Phædon, Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias: a series composed during Plato's teaching at the Academy, and commencing with Phædrus, which last Hermann considers to be a sort of (Antritts-Programme) inauguratory composition for the opening of his school of oral discourse or colloquy.
Lastly, during the final years of the philosopher, after all the three periods, come the Leges or treatise de Legibus: placed by itself as the composition of his old age.
[Footnote 10: K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 368, seq.
Stallbaum, Disputatio de Platonis Vitâ et Scriptis, prefixed to his edition of Plato's Works, p.
xxxii., seq.]
[Footnote 11: Ueberweg (Untersuchungen, pp.
50-52) has collected several citations from K. F. Hermann, in which the latter treats Schleiermacher "wie einen Sophisten, der sich in absichtlicher Unwahrhaftigkeit gefalle, mitunter fast als einen Mann der innerlich wohl wisse, wie die Sache stehe (nämlich, dass sie so sei, wie Hermann lehrt), der sich aber, etwa aus Lust, seine überlegene Dialektik zu beweisen, Mühe gebe, sie in einem anderen Lichte erscheinen zu lassen; also--[Greek: to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n]--recht in rhetorisch sophistischer Manier."
We know well, from other and independent evidence, what Schleiermacher really was, that he was not only one of the most accomplished scholars, but one of the most liberal and estimable men of his age.
But how different would be our appreciation if we had no other evidence to judge by except the dicta of opponents, and even distinguished opponents, like Hermann!
If there be any point clear in the history of philosophy, it is the uncertainty of all judgments, respecting writers and thinkers, founded upon the mere allegations of opponents.
Yet the Athenian Sophists, respecting whom we have no independent evidence (except the general fact that they had a number of approvers and admirers), are depicted confidently by the Platonic critics in the darkest colours, upon the evidence of their bitter opponent Plato--and in colours darker than even his evidence warrants.
The often-repeated calumny, charged against almost all debaters--[Greek: to\ to\n ê(/tto lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n]--by Hermann against Schleiermacher, by Melêtus against Sokrates, by Plato against the Sophists--is believed only against these last.]
[Footnote 12: K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
u. Syst.
d. Plat.
Phil., p. 496, seq.
Stallbaum (p.
xxxiii.)
places the Kratylus during the lifetime of Sokrates, a little earlier than Euthydêmus and Protagoras, all three of which he assigns to Olymp.
94, 402-400 B.C.
See also his Proleg.
to Kratylus, tom.
v. p. 26.
Moreover, Stallbaum places the Menon and Ion about the same time--a few months or weeks before the trial of Sokrates (Proleg.
ad Menonem, tom.
vi.
pp.
20, 21; Proleg.
ad Ionem, tom.
iv.
p. 289).
He considers the Euthyphron to have been actually composed at the moment to which it professes to refer (viz., after Melêtus had preferred indictment against Sokrates), and with a view of defending Sokrates against the charge of impiety (Proleg.
ad Euthyphron.
tom.
vi.
pp.
138-139-142).
He places the composition of the Charmidês about six years before the death of Sokrates (Proleg.
ad Charm.
p. 86).
He seems to consider, indeed, that the Menon and Euthydêmus were both written for the purpose of defending Sokrates: thus implying that they too were written _after_ the indictment was preferred (Proleg.
ad Euthyphron.
p. 145).
In regard to the date of the Euthyphron, Schleiermacher also had declared, prior to Stallbaum, that it was _unquestionably_ (unstreitig) composed at a period between the indictment and the trial of Sokrates (Einl.
zum Euthyphron, vol.
ii.
p. 53, of his transl.
of Plato).]
[Side-note: They reject several dialogues.]
Hermann and Stallbaum reject (besides the dialogues already rejected by Thrasyllus) Alkibiadês II., Theagês, Erastæ, Hipparchus, Minos, Epinomis: Stallbaum rejects the Kleitophon: Hermann hesitates, and is somewhat inclined to admit it, as he also admits, to a considerable extent, the Epistles.
[13] [Footnote 13: Stallbaum, p. xxxiv.
Hermann,** pp.
424, 425.]
[Side-note: Steinhart--agrees in rejecting Schleiermacher's fundamental postulate--his arrangement of the dialogues--considers the Phædrus as late in order--rejects several.]
Steinhart, in his notes and prefaces to H. Müller's translation of the Platonic dialogues, agrees in the main with K. F. Hermann, both in denying the fundamental postulate of Schleiermacher, and in settling the general order of the dialogues, though with some difference as to individual dialogues.
He considers Ion as the earliest, followed by Hippias I, Hippias II., Alkibiadês I., Lysis, Charmidês, Lachês, Protagoras.
These constitute what Steinhart calls the ethico-Sokratical series of Plato's compositions, having the common attributes--That they do not step materially beyond the philosophical range of Sokrates himself--That there is a preponderance of the mimic and plastic element--That they end, to all appearance, with unsolved doubts and unanswered questions.
[14] He supposes the Charmidês to have been composed during the time of the Thirty, the Lachês shortly afterwards, and the Protagoras about two years before the death of Sokrates.
He lays it down as incontestable that the Protagoras was not composed after the death of Sokrates.
[15] Immediately prior to this last-mentioned event, and posterior to the Protagoras, he places the Euthydêmus, Menon, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Kratylus: preparatory to the dialectic series consisting of Parmenidês, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, the result of Plato's stay at Megara, and contact with the Eleatic and Megaric philosophers.
The third series of dialogues, the mature and finished productions of Plato at the Academy, opens with Phædrus.
Steinhart rejects as spurious Alkibiadês II., Erastæ, Theagês, &c. [Footnote 14: See Steinhart's Proleg.
to the Protag.
vol.
i. p. 430. of Müller's transl.
of Plato.]
[Footnote 15: Steinhart, Prolegg.
to Charmidês, p.
295.]
[Side-note: Susemihl--coincides to a great degree with K. F. Hermann his order of arrangement.]
Another author, also, Susemihl, coincides in the main with the principles of arrangement adopted by K. F. Hermann for the Platonic dialogues.
First in the order of chronological composition he places the shorter dialogues--the exclusively ethical, least systematic; and he ranges them in a series, indicating the progressive development of Plato's mind, with approach towards his final systematic conceptions.
[16] Susemihl begins this early series with Hippias II., followed by Lysis, Charmidês, Lachês, Protagoras, Menon, Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Euthyphron.
The seven first, ending with the Menon, he conceives to have been published successively during the lifetime of Sokrates: the Menon itself, during the interval between his indictment and his death;[17] the Apologia and Kriton, very shortly after his death; followed, at no long interval, by Gorgias and Euthyphron.
[18] The Ion and Alkibiadês I. are placed by Susemihl among the earliest of the Platonic compositions, but as not belonging to the regular series.
He supposes them to have been called forth by some special situation, like Apologia and Kriton, if indeed they be Platonic at all, of which he does not feel assured.
[19] [Footnote 16: F. Susemihl, Die Genetische Entwickelung der Platonischen Philosophie, Leipsic, 1865, p.
9.]
[Footnote 17: Susemihl, ibid.
pp.
40-61-89.]
[Footnote 18: Susemihl, ib.
pp.
113-125.]
[Footnote 19: Susemihl, ib.
p.
9.]
Immediately after Euthyphron, Susemihl places Euthydêmus, which he treats as the commencement of a second series of dialogues: the first series, or ethical, being now followed by the dialectic, in which the principles, process, and certainty of cognition are discussed, though in an indirect and preparatory way.
This second series consists of Euthydêmus, Kratylus, Theætêtus, Phædrus, Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês, Symposion, Phædon.
Through all these dialogues Susemihl professes to trace a thread of connection, each successively unfolding and determining more of the general subject: but all in an indirect, negative, round-about manner.
Allowing for this manner, Susemihl contends that the dialectical counter-demonstrations or Antinomies, occupying the last half of the Parmenidês, include the solution of those difficulties, which have come forward in various forms from the Euthydêmus up to the Sophistês, against Plato's theory of Ideas.
[20] The Phædon closes the series of dialectic compositions, and opens the way to the constructive dialogues following, partly ethical, partly physical--Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.
[21] The Leges come last of all.
[Footnote 20: Susemihl, ib.
p. 355, seq.]
[Footnote 21: Susemihl, pp.
466-470.
The first volume of Susemihl's work ends with the Phædon.]
[Side-note Edward Munk--adopts a different principle of arrangement, founded upon the different period which each dialogue exhibits of the life, philosophical growth, and old age, of Sokrates--his arrangement, founded on this principle.
He distinguishes the chronological order of composition from the place allotted to each dialogue in the systematic plan.]
A more recent critic, Dr. Edward Munk, has broached a new and very different theory as to the natural order of the Platonic dialogues.
Upon his theory, they were intended by Plato[22] to depict the life and working of a philosopher, in successive dramatic exhibitions, from youth to old age.
The different moments in the life of Sokrates, indicated in each dialogue, mark the place which Plato intended it to occupy in the series.
The Parmenidês is the first, wherein Sokrates is introduced as a young man, initiated into philosophy by the ancient Parmenidês: the Phædon is last, describing as it does the closing scene of Sokrates.
Plato meant his dialogues to be looked at partly in artistic sequence, as a succession of historical dramas--partly in philosophical sequence, as a record of the progressive development of his own doctrine: the two principles are made to harmonize in the main, though sometimes the artistic sequence is obscured for the purpose of bringing out the philosophical, sometimes the latter is partially sacrificed to the former.
[23] Taken in the aggregate, the dialogues from Parmenidês to Phædon form a Sokratic cycle, analogous to the historical plays of Shakespeare, from King John to Henry VIII.
[24] But Munk at the same time contends that this natural order of the dialogues--or the order in which Plato intended them to be viewed--is not to be confounded with the chronological order of their composition.
[25] The Parmenidês, though constituting the opening Prologue of the whole cycle, was not composed first: nor the Phædon last.
All of them were probably composed after Plato had attained the full maturity of his philosophy: that is, probably after the opening of his school at the Academy in 386 B.C.
But in composing each, he had always two objects jointly in view: he adapted the tone of each to the age and situation in which he wished to depict Sokrates:[26] he commemorated, in each, one of the past phases of his own philosophising mind.
[Footnote 22: Dr. Edward Munk.
Die natürliche Ordnung der Platonischen Schriften, Berlin, 1857.
His scheme of arrangement is explained generally, pp.
25-48, &c.] [Footnote 23: Munk, ib.
p.
29.]
[Footnote 24: Munk, ib.
p.
27.]
[Footnote 25: Munk, ibid.
p.
27.]
[Footnote 26: Munk, ib.
p. 54; Preface, p.
viii.]
The Cycle taken in its intentional or natural order, is distributed by Munk into three groups, after the Parmenidês as general prologue.
[27] 1.
Sokratic or Indirect Dialogues.--Protagoras, Charmidês, Lachês, Gorgias, Ion, Hippias I., Kratylus, Euthydêmus, Symposion.
2.
Direct or Constructive Dialogues.--Phædrus, Philêbus, Republic, Timæus, Kritias.
3.
Dialectic and Apologetic Dialogues.--Menon, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Phædon.
The Leges and Menexenus stand apart from the Cycle, as compositions on special occasion.
Alkibiadês I., Hippias II., Lysis, are also placed apart from the Cycle, as compositions of Plato's earlier years, before he had conceived the general scheme of it.
[28] [Footnote 27: Munk, ib.
p.
50.]
[Footnote 28: Munk, ib.
pp.
25-34.]
The first of the three groups depicts Sokrates in the full vigour of life, about 35 years of age: the second represents him an elderly man, about 60: the third, immediately prior to his death.
[29] In the first group he is represented as a combatant for truth: in the second as a teacher of truth: in the third, as a martyr for truth.
[30] [Footnote 29: Munk, ib.
p.
26.]
[Footnote 30: Munk, ib.
p.
31.]
[Side-note: Views of Ueberweg--attempt to reconcile Schleiermacher and Hermann--admits the preconceived purpose for the later dialogues, composed after the foundation of the school, but not for the earlier.]
Lastly, we have another German author still more recent, Frederick Ueberweg, who has again investigated the order and authenticity of the Platonic dialogues, in a work of great care and ability: reviewing the theories of his predecessors, as well as proposing various modifications of his own.
[31] Ueberweg compares the different opinions of Schleiermacher and K. F. Hermann, and admits both of them to a certain extent, each concurrent with and limiting the other.
[32] The theory of a preconceived system and methodical series, proposed by Schleiermacher, takes its departure from the Phædrus, and postulates as an essential condition that that dialogue shall be recognised as the earliest composition.
[33] This condition Ueberweg does not admit.
He agrees with Hermann, Stallbaum, and others, in referring the Phædrus to a later date (about 386 B.C.
), shortly after Plato had established his school in Athens, when he was rather above forty years of age.
At this period (Ueberweg thinks) Plato may be considered as having acquired methodical views which had not been present to him before; and the dialogues composed after the Phædrus follow out, to a certain extent, these methodical views.
In the Phædrus, the Platonic Sokrates delivers the opinion that writing is unavailing as a means of imparting philosophy: that the only way in which philosophy can be imparted is, through oral colloquy adapted by the teacher to the mental necessities, and varying stages of progress, of each individual learner: and that writing can only serve, after such oral instruction has been imparted, to revive it if forgotten, in the memory both of the teacher and of the learner who has been orally taught.
For the dialogues composed after the opening of the school, and after the Phædrus, Ueberweg recognises the influence of a preconceived method and of a constant bearing on the oral teaching of the school: for those anterior to that date, he admits no such influence: he refers them (with Hermann) to successive enlargements, suggestions, inspirations, either arising in Plato's own mind, or communicated from without.
Ueberweg does not indeed altogether exclude the influence of this non-methodical cause, even for the later dialogues: he allows its operation to a certain extent, in conjunction with the methodical: what he excludes is, the influence of any methodical or preconceived scheme for the earlier dialogues.
[34] He thinks that Plato composed the later portion of his dialogues (_i.e._, those subsequent to the Phædrus and to the opening of his school), not for the instruction of the general reader, but as reminders to his disciples of that which they had already learnt from oral teaching: and he cites the analogy of Paul and the apostles, who wrote epistles not to convert the heathen, but to admonish or confirm converts already made by preaching.
[35] [Footnote 31: Ueberweg, Untersuchungen.]
[Footnote 32: Ueberweg, p.
111.]
[Footnote 33: Ueberweg, pp.
23-26.]
[Footnote 34: Ueberweg, pp.
107-110-111.
"Sind beide Gesichtspunkte, der einer methodischen Absicht und der einer Selbst-Entwicklung Platon's durchweg mit einander zu verbinden, so liegt es auch in der Natur der Sache und wird auch von einigen seiner Nachfolger (insbesondere nachdrücklich von Susemihl) anerkannt, dass der erste Gesichtspunkt vorzugsweise für die späteren Schriften von der Gründung der Schule an--der andere vorzugsweise für die früheren--gilt."]
[Footnote 35: Ueberweg, pp.
80-86, "Ist unsere obige Deutung richtig, wonach Platon nicht für Fremde zur Belehrung, sondern wesentlich für seine Schüler zur Erinnerung an den mündlichen Unterricht, schrieb (wie die Apostel nicht für Fremde zur Bekehrung, sondern für die christlichen Gemeinden zur Stärke und Läuterung, nachdem denselben der Glaube aus der Predigt gekommen war)--so folgt, dass jede Argumentation, die auf den Phaedrus gegründet wird, nur für die Zeit gelten kann, in welcher bereits die Platonische Schule bestand."]
[Side-note: His opinions as to authenticity and chronology of the dialogues, He rejects Hippias Major, Erastæ, Theagês, Kleitophon, Parmenidês: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron and Menexenus.]
Ueberweg investigates the means which we possess, either from external testimony (especially that of Aristotle) or from internal evidence, of determining the authenticity as well as the chronological order of the dialogues.
He remarks that though, in contrasting the expository dialogues with those which are simply enquiring and debating, we may presume the expository to belong to Plato's full maturity of life, and to have been preceded by some of the enquiring and debating--yet we cannot safely presume _all_ these latter to be of his early composition.
Plato may have continued to inclined to compose dialogues of mere search, even after the time when he began to compose expository dialogues.
[36] Ueberweg considers that the earliest of Plato's dialogues are, Lysis, Hippias Minor, Lachês, Charmidês, Protagoras, composed during the lifetime of Sokrates: next the Apologia, and Kriton, not long after his death.
All these (even the Protagoras) he reckons among the "lesser Platonic writings".
[37] None of them allude to the Platonic Ideas or Objective Concepts.
The Gorgias comes next, probably soon after the death of Sokrates, at least at some time earlier than the opening of the school in 386 B.C.
[38] The Menon and Ion may be placed about the same general period.
[39] The Phædrus (as has been already observed) is considered by Ueberweg to be nearly contemporary with the opening of the school: shortly afterwards Symposion and Euthydêmus:[40] at some subsequent time, Republic, Timæus, Kritias, and Leges.
In regard to the four last, Ueberweg does not materially differ from Schleiermacher, Hermann, and other critics: but on another point he differs from them materially, _viz._: that instead of placing the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and Politikus, in the Megaric period or prior to the opening of the school, he assigns them (as well as the Phædon and Philêbus) to the last twenty years of Plato's life.
He places Phædon later than Timæus, and Politikus later than Phædon: he considers that Sophistês, Politikus, and Philêbus are among the latest compositions of Plato.
[41] He rejects Hippias Major, Erastæ, Theagês, Kleitophon, and Parmenidês: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron.
He scarcely recognises Menexenus, in spite of the direct attestation of Aristotle, which attestation he tries (in my judgment very unsuccessfully) to invalidate.
[42] He recognises the Kratylus, but without determining its date.
He determines nothing about Alkibiadês I. and II.
[Footnote 36: Ueberweg, p.
81.]
[Footnote 37: Ueberweg, pp.
100-105-296.
"Eine Anzahl kleinerer Platonischer Schriften."]
[Footnote 38: Ueberweg, pp.
249-267-296.]
[Footnote 39: Ueberweg, pp.
226, 227.]
[Footnote 40: Ueberweg, p.
265.]
[Footnote 41: Ueberweg, pp.
204-292.]
[Footnote 42: Ueberweg, pp.
143-176-222-250.]
[Side-note: Other Platonic critics--great dissensions about scheme and order of the dialogues.]
The works above enumerated are those chiefly deserving of notice, though there are various others also useful, amidst the abundance of recent Platonic criticism.
All these writers, Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, Munk, Ueberweg, have not merely laid down general schemes of arrangement for the Platonic dialogues, but have gone through the dialogues seriatim, each endeavouring to show that his own scheme fits them well, and each raising objections against the schemes earlier than his own.
It is indeed truly remarkable to follow the differences of opinion among these learned men, all careful students of the Platonic writings.
And the number of dissents would be indefinitely multiplied, if we took into the account the various historians of philosophy during the last few years.
Ritter and Brandis accept, in the main, the theory of Schleiermacher: Zeller also, to a certain extent.
But each of these authors has had a point of view more or less belonging to himself respecting the general scheme and purpose of Plato, and respecting the authenticity, sequence, and reciprocal illustration of the dialogues.
[43] [Footnote 43: Socher remarks (Ueber, Platon.
p. 225) (after enumerating twenty-two dialogues of the Thrasyllean canon, which he considers the earliest) that of these twenty-two, there are _only two_ which have not been declared spurious by some one or more critics.
He then proceeds to examine the remainder, among which are Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês.
He (Socher) declares these three last to be spurious, which no critic had declared before.]
[Side-note: Contrast of different points of view instructive--but no solution has been obtained.]
By such criticisms much light has been thrown on the dialogues in detail.
It is always interesting to read the different views taken by many scholars, all careful students of Plato, respecting the order and relations of the dialogues: especially as the views are not merely different but contradictory, so that the weak points of each are put before us as well as the strong.
But as to the large problem which these critics have undertaken to solve--though several solutions have been proposed, in favour of which something may be urged, yet we look in vain for any solution at once sufficient as to proof and defensible against objectors.
[Side-note: The problem incapable of solution.
Extent and novelty of the theory propounded by Schleiermacher--slenderness of his proofs.]
It appears to me that the problem itself is one which admits of no solution.
Schleiermacher was the first who proposed it with the large pretensions which it has since embraced, and which have been present more or less to the minds of subsequent critics, even when they differ from him.
He tells us himself that he comes forward as _Restitutor Platonis_, in a character which no one had ever undertaken before.
[44] And he might fairly have claimed that title, if he had furnished proofs at all commensurate to his professions.
As his theory is confessedly novel as well as comprehensive, it required greater support in the way of evidence.
But when I read the Introductions (the general as well as the special) in which such evidence ought to be found, I am amazed to find that there is little else but easy and confident assumption.
His hypothesis is announced as if the simple announcement were sufficient to recommend it[45]--as if no other supposition were consistent with the recognised grandeur of Plato as a philosopher--as if any one, dissenting from it, only proved thereby that he did not understand Plato.
Yet so far from being of this self-recommending character, the hypothesis is really loaded with the heaviest antecedent improbability.
That in 406 B.C., and at the age of 23, in an age when schemes of philosophy elaborated in detail were unknown--Plato should conceive a vast scheme of philosophy, to be worked out underground without ever being proclaimed, through numerous Sokratic dialogues one after the other, each ushering in that which follows and each resting upon that which precedes: that he should have persisted throughout a long life in working out this scheme, adapting the sequence of his dialogues to the successive stages which he had attained, so that none of them could be properly understood unless when studied immediately after its predecessors and immediately before its successors--and yet that he should have taken no pains to impress this one peremptory arrangement on the minds of readers, and that Schleiermacher should be the first to detect it--all this appears to me as improbable as any of the mystic interpretations of Iamblichus or Proklus.
Like other improbabilities, it may be proved by evidence, if evidence can be produced: but here nothing of the kind is producible.
We are called upon to grant the general hypothesis without proof, and to follow Schleiermacher in applying it to the separate dialogues.
[Footnote 44: Schleiermacher, Einleitung, pp.
22-29.
"Diese natürliche Folge (der Platonischen Gespräche) wieder herzustellen, diess ist, wie jedermann sieht, eine Absicht, welche sich sehr weit entfernt von allen bisherigen Versuchen zur Anordnung der Platonischen Werke," &c.] [Footnote 45: What I say about Schleiermacher here will be assented to by any one who reads his Einleitung, pp.
10, 11, seq.]
[Side-note: Schleiermacher's hypothesis includes a preconceived scheme, and a peremptory order of interdependence among the dialogues.]
Schleiermacher's hypothesis includes two parts.
1.
A premeditated philosophical scheme, worked out continuously from the first dialogue to the last.
2.
A peremptory canonical order, essential to this scheme, and determined thereby.
Now as to the scheme, though on the one hand it cannot be proved, yet on the other hand it cannot be disproved.
But as to the canonical order, I think it may be disproved.
We know that no such order was recognised in the days of Aristophanes, and Schleiermacher himself admits that before those days it had been lost.
[46] But I contend that if it was lost within a century after the decease of Plato, we may fairly presume that it never existed at all, as peremptory and indispensable to the understanding of what Plato meant.
A great philosopher such as Plato (so Schleiermacher argues) must be supposed to have composed all his dialogues with some preconceived comprehensive scheme: but a great philosopher (we may add), if he does work upon a preconceived scheme, must surely be supposed to take some reasonable precautions to protect the order essential to that scheme from dropping out of sight.
Moreover, Schleiermacher himself admits that there are various dialogues which lie apart from the canonical order and form no part of the grand premeditated scheme.
The distinction here made between these outlying compositions (Nebenwerke) and the members of the regular series, is indeed altogether arbitrary: but the admission of it tends still farther to invalidate the fundamental postulate of a grand Demiurgic universe of dialogues, each dovetailed and fitted into its special place among the whole.
The universe is admitted to have breaks: so that the hypothesis does not possess the only merit which can belong to gratuitous hypothesis--that of introducing, if granted, complete symmetry throughout the phenomena.
[Footnote 46: Schleiermacher, Einleitung, p.
24.]
[Side-note: Assumptions of Schleiermacher respecting the Phædrus inadmissible.]
To these various improbabilities we may add another--that Schleiermacher's hypothesis requires us to admit that the Phædrus is Plato's earliest dialogue, composed about 406 B.C., when he was 21 years of age, on my computation, and certainly not more than 23: that it is the first outburst of the inspiration which Sokrates had imparted to him,[47] and that it embodies, though in a dim and poetical form, the lineaments of that philosophical system which he worked out during the ensuing half century.
That Plato at this early age should have conceived so vast a system--that he should have imbibed it from Sokrates, who enunciated no system, and abounded in the anti-systematic negative--that he should have been inspired to write the Phædrus (with its abundant veins, dithyrambic,[48] erotic, and transcendental) by the conversation of Sokrates, which exhibited acute dialectic combined with practical sagacity, but neither poetic fervour nor transcendental fancy,--in all this hypothesis of Schleiermacher, there is nothing but an aggravation of improbabilities.
[Footnote 47: See Schleiermacher's Einleitung to the Phædrus: "Der Phaidros, der erste Ausbruch seiner Begeisterung vom Sokrates".]
[Footnote 48: If we read Dionysius of Halikarnassus (De Admirab.
Vi Dic.
in Demosth.
pp.
968-971, Reiske), we shall find that rhetor pointing out the Phædrus as a signal example of Plato's departure from the manner and character of Sokrates, and as a specimen of misplaced poetical exaggeration.
Dikæarchus formed the same opinion about the Phædrus (Diog.
L. iii.
38).]
[Side-note: Neither Schleiermacher, nor any other critic, has as yet produced any tolerable proof for an internal theory of the Platonic dialogues.]
Against such improbabilities (partly external partly internal) Schleiermacher has nothing to set except internal reasons: that is, when he shall have arranged the dialogues and explained the interdependence as well as the special place of each, the arrangement will impress itself upon all as being the intentional work of Plato himself.
[49] But these "internal reasons" (innere Gründe), which are to serve as constructive evidence (in the absence of positive declarations) of Plato's purpose, fail to produce upon other minds the effect which Schleiermacher demands.
If we follow them as stated in his Introductions (prefixed to the successive Platonic dialogues), we find a number of approximations and comparisons, often just and ingenious, but always inconclusive for his point: proving, at the very best, what Plato's intention may possibly have been--yet subject to be countervailed by other "internal reasons" equally specious, tending to different conclusions.
And the various opponents of Schleiermacher prove just as much and no more, each on behalf of his own mode of arrangement, by the like constructive evidence--appeal to "internal reasons".
But the insufficient character of these "internal reasons" is more fatal to Schleiermacher than to any of his opponents: because his fundamental hypothesis--while it is the most ambitious of all and would be the most important, if it could be proved--is at the same time burdened with the strongest antecedent improbability, and requires the amplest proof to make it at all admissible.
[Footnote 49: See the general Einleitung, p.
11.]
[Side-note: Munk's theory is the most ambitious, and the most gratuitous, next to Schleiermacher's.]
Dr. Munk undertakes the same large problem as Schleiermacher.
He assumes the Platonic dialogues to have been composed upon a preconceived system, beginning when Plato opened his school, about 41 years of age.
This has somewhat less antecedent improbability than the supposition that Plato conceived his system at 21 or 23 years of age.
But it is just as much destitute of positive support.
That Plato intended his dialogues to form a fixed series, exhibiting the successive gradations of his philosophical system--that he farther intended this series to coincide with a string of artistic portraits, representing Sokrates in the ascending march from youth to old age, so that the characteristic feature which marks the place and time of each dialogue, is to be found in the age which it assigns to Sokrates--these are positions for the proof of which we are referred to "internal reasons"; but which the dialogues do not even suggest, much less sanction.
[Side-note: The age assigned to Sokrates in any dialogue is a circumstance of little moment.]
In many dialogues, the age assigned to Sokrates is a circumstance neither distinctly brought out, nor telling on the debate.
It is true that in the Parmenidês he is noted as young, and is made to conduct himself with the deference of youth, receiving hints and admonitions from the respected veteran of Elea.
So too in the Protagoras, he is characterised as young, but chiefly in contrast with the extreme and pronounced old age of the Sophist Protagoras: he does not conduct himself like a youth, nor exhibit any of that really youthful or deferential spirit which we find in the Parmenidês; on the contrary, he stands forward as the rival, cross-examiner, and conqueror of the ancient Sophist.
On the contrary, in the Euthydêmus,[50] Sokrates is announced as old; though that dialogue is indisputably very analogous to the Protagoras, both of them being placed by Munk in the earliest of his three groups.
Moreover in the Lysis also, Sokrates appears as old;--here Munk escapes from the difficulty by setting aside the dialogue as a youthful composition, not included in the consecutive Sokratic Cycle.
[51] What is there to justify the belief, that the Sokrates depicted in the Phædrus (which dialogue has been affirmed by Schieiermacher and Ast, besides some ancient critics, to exhibit decided marks of juvenility) is older than the Sokrates of the Symposion?
or that Sokrates in the Philêbus and Republic is older than in the Kratylus or Gorgias?
It is true that the dialogues Theætêtus and Euthyphron are both represented as held a little before the death of Sokrates, after the indictment of Melêtus against him had already been preferred.
This is a part of the hypothetical situation, in which the dialogists are brought into company.
But there is nothing in the two dialogues themselves (or in the Menon, which Munk places in the same category) to betoken that Sokrates is old.
Holiness, in the Euthyphron--Knowledge, in the Theætêtus--is canvassed and debated just as Temperance and Courage are debated in the Charmidês and Lachês.
Munk lays it down that Sokrates appears as a Martyr for Truth in the Euthyphron, Menon, and Theætêtus and as a Combatant for Truth in the Lachês, Charmidês, Euthydêmus, &c. But the two groups of dialogues, when compared with each other, will not be found to warrant this distinctive appellation.
In the Apologia, Kriton, and Phædon, it may be said with propriety that Sokrates is represented as a martyr for truth: in all three he appears not merely as a talker, but as a personal agent: but this is not true of the other dialogues which Munk places in his third group.
[Footnote 50: Euthydêmus, c. 4, p.
272.]
[Footnote 51: Lysis, p. 223, ad fin.
[Greek: Katage/lastoi gego/namen e)gô/ te, ge/rôn a)nê/r, kai\ u(mei=s].
See Munk, p.
25.]
[Side-note: No intentional sequence or interdependence of the dialogues can be made out.]
I cannot therefore accede to this "natural arrangement of the Platonic dialogues," assumed to have been intended by Plato, and founded upon the progress of Sokrates as he stands exhibited in each, from youth to age--which Munk has proposed in his recent ingenious volume.
It is interesting to be made acquainted with that order of the Platonic dialogues which any critical student conceives to be the "natural order".
But in respect to Munk as well as to Schleiermacher, I must remark that if Plato had conceived and predetermined the dialogues, so as to be read in one natural peremptory order, he would never have left that order so dubious and imperceptible, as to be first divined by critics of the nineteenth century, and understood by them too in several different ways.
If there were any peremptory and intentional sequence, we may reasonably presume that Plato would have made it as clearly understood as he has determined the sequence of the ten books of his Republic.
[Side-note: Principle of arrangement adopted by Hermann is reasonable--successive changes in Plato's point of view: but we cannot explain either the order or the causes of these changes.]
The principle of arrangement proposed by K. F. Hermann (approved also by Steinhart and Susemihl) is not open to the same antecedent objection.
Not admitting any preconceived, methodical, intentional, system, nor the maintenance of one and the same successive philosophical point of view throughout--Hermann supposes that the dialogues as successively composed represent successive phases of Plato's philosophical development and variations in his point of view.
Hermann farther considers that these variations may be assigned and accounted for: first pure Sokratism, next the modifications experienced from Plato's intercourse with the Megaric philosophers,--then the influence derived from Kyrênê and Egypt--subsequently that from the Pythagoreans in Italy--and so forth.
The first portion of this hypothesis, taken generally, is very reasonable and probable.
But when, after assuming that there must have been determining changes in Plato's own mind, we proceed to inquire what these were, and whence they arose, we find a sad lack of evidence for the answer to the question.
We neither know the order in which the dialogues were composed,--nor the date when Plato first began to compose,--nor the primitive philosophical mind which his earliest dialogues represented,--nor the order of those subsequent modifications which his views underwent.
We are informed, indeed, that Plato went from Athens to visit Megara, Kyrênê, Egypt, Italy; but the extent or kind of influence which he experienced in each, we do not know at all.
[52] I think it a reasonable presumption that the points which Plato had in common with Sokrates were most preponderant in the mind of Plato immediately after the death of his master: and that other trains of thought gradually became more and more intermingled as the recollection of his master became more distant.
There is also a presumption that the longer, more elaborate, and more transcendental dialogues (among which must be ranked the Phædrus), were composed in the full maturity of Plato's age and intellect: the shorter and less finished may have been composed either then or earlier in his life.
Here are two presumptions, plausible enough when stated generally, yet too vague to justify any special inferences: the rather, if we may believe the statement of Dionysius, that Plato continued to "comb and curl his dialogues until he was eighty years of age".
[53] [Footnote 52: Bonitz (in his instructive volume, Platonische Studien, Wien, 1858, p. 5) points out how little we know about the real circumstances of Plato's intellectual and philosophical development: a matter which most of the Platonic critics are apt to forget.
I confess that I agree with Strümpell, that it is impossible to determine chronologically, from Plato's writings, and from the other scanty evidence accessible to us, by what successive steps his mind departed from the original views and doctrines held and communicated by Sokrates (Strümpell, Gesch.
der Griechen, p. 294, Leipsic, 1861).]
[Footnote 53: Dionys.
Hal.
De Comp.
Verbor.
p. 208; Diog.
L. iii.
37; Quintilian, viii.
6.
F. A. Wolf, in a valuable note upon the [Greek: diaskeuastai\] (Proleg.
ad Homer.
p.
clii.)
declares, upon this ground, that it is impossible to determine the time when Plato composed his best dialogues.
"Ex his collatis apparet [Greek: diaskeua/zein] a veteribus magistris adscitum esse in potestatem verbi [Greek: e)pidiaskeua/zein]: ut in Scenicis propé idem esset quod [Greek: a)nadida/skein]--h. e. repetito committere fabulam, sed mutando, addendo, detrahendo, emendatam, refictam, et secundis curis elaboratam.
Id enim facere solebant illi poetæ sæpissimé: mox etiam alii, ut Apollonius Rhodius.
Neque aliter Plato fecit in optimis dialogis suis: _quam ob causam exquirere non licet, quando quisque compositus sit_; quum in scenicis fabulis saltem ex didascaliis plerumque notum sit tempus, quo editæ sunt."
Preller has a like remark (Hist.
Phil.
ex Font.
Loc.
Context., sect.
250).
In regard to the habit of correcting compositions, the contrast between Plato and Plotinus was remarkable.
Porphyry tells us that Plotinus, when once he had written any matter, could hardly bear even to read it over--much less to review and improve it (Porph.
Vit.
Plotini, 8).]
[Side-note: Hermann's view more tenable than Schleiermacher's.]
If we compare K. F. Hermann with Schleiermacher, we see that Hermann has amended his position by abandoning Schleiermacher's gratuitous hypothesis, of a preconceived Platonic system with a canonical order of the dialogues adapted to that system--and by admitting only a chronological order of composition, each dialogue being generated by the state of Plato's mind at the time when it was composed.
This, taken generally, is indisputable.
If we perfectly knew Plato's biography and the circumstances around him, we should be able to determine which dialogues were first, second, and third, &c., and what circumstances or mental dispositions occasioned the successive composition of those which followed.
But can we do this with our present scanty information?
I think not.
Hermann, while abandoning the hypothesis of Schleiermacher, has still accepted the large conditions of the problem first drawn up by Schleiermacher, and has undertaken to decide the real order of the dialogues, together with the special occasion and the phase of Platonic development corresponding to each.
Herein, I think, he has failed.
[Side-note: Small number of certainties, or even reasonable presumptions, as to date or order of the dialogues.]
It is, indeed, natural that critics should form some impression as to earlier and later in the dialogues.
But though there are some peculiar cases in which such impression acquires much force, I conceive that in almost all cases it is to a high degree uncertain.
Several dialogues proclaim themselves as subsequent to the death of Sokrates.
We know from internal allusions that the Theætêtus must have been composed after 394 B.C., the Menexenus after 387 B.C., and the Symposion after 385 B.C.
We are sure, by Aristotle's testimony, that the Leges were written at a later period than the Republic; Plutarch also states that the Leges were composed during the old age of Plato, and this statement, accepted by most modern critics, appears to me trustworthy.
[54] The Sophistês proclaims itself as a second meeting, by mutual agreement, of the same persons who had conversed in the Theætêtus, with the addition of a new companion, the Eleatic stranger.
But we must remark that the subject of the Theætêtus, though left unsettled at the close of that dialogue, is not resumed in the Sophistês: in which last, moreover, Sokrates acts only a subordinate part, while the Eleatic stranger, who did not appear in the Theætêtus, is here put forward as the prominent questioner or expositor.
So too, the Politikus offers itself as a third of the same triplet: with this difference, that while the Eleatic stranger continues as the questioner, a new respondent appears in the person of Sokrates Junior.
The Politikus is not a resumption of the same subject as the Sophistês, but a second application of the same method (the method of logical division and subdivision) to a different subject.
Plato speaks also as if he contemplated a third application of the same method--the Philosophus: which, so far as we know, was never realised.
Again, the Timæus presents itself as a sequel to the Republic, and the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus: a fourth, the Hermokrates, being apparently announced, as about to follow--but not having been composed.
[Footnote 54: Plutarch, Isid.
et Osirid.
c. 48, p.
370.]
[Side-note: Trilogies indicated by Plato himself.]
Here then are two groups of three each (we might call them Trilogies, and if the intended fourth had been realised, Tetralogies), indicated by Plato himself.
A certain relative chronological order is here doubtless evident: the Sophistês must have been composed after the Theætêtus and before the Politikus, the Timæus after the Republic and before the Kritias.
But this is all that we can infer: for it does not follow that the sequence must have been immediate in point of time: there may have been a considerable interval between the three forming the so-called Trilogy.
[55] We may add, that neither in the Theætêtus nor in the Republic, do we find indication that either of them is intended as the first of a Trilogy: the marks proving an intended Trilogy are only found in the second and third of the series.
[Footnote 55: It may seem singular that Schlelermacher is among those who adopt this opinion.
He maintains that the Sophistes does not follow _immediately_ upon the Theætêtus; that Plato, though intending when he finished the Theætêtus to proceed onward to the Sophistês, altered his intention, and took up other views instead: that the Menon (and the Euthydêmus) come in between them, in immediate sequel to the Theætêtus (Einleitung zum Menon, vol.
iii.
p. 326).
Here Schleiermacher introduces a new element of uncertainty, which invalidates yet more seriously the grounds for his hypothesis of a preconceived sequence throughout all the dialogues.
In a case where Plato directly intimates an intentional sequence, we are called upon to believe, on "internal grounds" alone, that he altered his intention, and introduced other dialogues.
He may have done this: but how are we to prove it?
How much does it attenuate the value of his intentions, as proofs of an internal philosophical sequence?
We become involved more and more in unsupported hypothesis.
I think that K. F. Hermann's objections against Schleiermacher, on the above ground, have much force; and that Ueberweg's reply to them is unsatisfactory.
(Hermann, Gesch.
und Syst.
der Platon.
Phil.
p. 350.
Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, p. 82, seq.)]
[Side-note: Positive dates of all the dialogues--unknown.]
While even the relative chronology of the dialogues is thus faintly marked in the case of a few, and left to fallible conjecture in the remainder--the positive chronology, or the exact year of composition, is not directly marked in the case of any one.
Moreover, at the very outset of the enquiry, we have to ask, At what period of life did Plato begin to publish his dialogues?
Did he publish any of them during the lifetime of Sokrates?
and if so, which?
Or does the earliest of them date from a time after the death of Sokrates?
[Side-note: When did Plato begin to compose?
Not till after the death of Sokrates.]
Amidst the many dissentient views of the Platonic critics, it is remarkable that they are nearly unanimous in their mode of answering this question.
[56] Most of them declare without hesitation, that Plato published several before the death of Sokrates--that is, before he was 28 years of age--though they do not all agree in determining which these dialogues were.
I do not perceive that they produce any external proofs of the least value.
Most of them disbelieve (though Stallbaum and Hermann believe) the anecdote about Sokrates and his criticism on the dialogue Lysis.
[57] In spite of their unanimity, I cannot but adopt the opposite conclusion.
It appears to me that Plato composed no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.
[Footnote 56: Valentine Rose (De Aristotelis Librorum ordine, p. 25, Berlin, 1854), Mullach (Democriti Fragm.
p. 99), and R. Schöne (in his Commentary on the Platonic Protagoras), are among the critics known to me, who intimate their belief that Plato published no Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.
In discussing the matter, Schöne adverts to two of the three lines of argument brought forward in my text:--1.
The too early and too copious "productivity" which the received supposition would imply in Plato.
2.
The improbability that the name of Sokrates would be employed in written dialogues, as spokesman, by any of his scholars during his lifetime.
Schöne does not touch upon the improbability of the hypothesis, arising out of the early position and aspirations of Plato himself (Schöne, Ueber Platon's Protagoras, p. 64, Leipsic, 1862).]
[Footnote 57: Diog.
Laert.
iii.
85; Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Plat.
Lys.
p. 90; K. F. Hermann, Gesch.
u. Syst.
der Plat.
Phil.
p. 370.
Schleiermacher (Einl.
zum Lysis, i. p. 175) treats the anecdote about the Lysis as unworthy of credence.
Diogenes (iii.
38) mentions that some considered the Phædrus as Plato's earliest dialogue; the reason being that the subject of it was something puerile: [Greek: lo/gos de\ prô=ton gra/psai au)to\n to\n Phai=dron; kai\ ga\r e)/chei meirakiô=des ti to\ pro/blêma.
Dikai/archos de\ kai\ to\n tro/pon tê=s graphê=s o(/lon e)pime/mphetai ô(s phortiko/n].
Olympiodorus also in his life of Plato mentions the same report, that the Phædrus was Plato's earliest composition, and gives the same ground of belief, "its dithyrambic character".
Even if the assertion were granted, that the Phædrus is the earliest Platonic composition, we could not infer that it was composed during the life-time of Sokrates.
But that assertion cannot be granted.
The two statements, above cited, give it only as a report, suggested to those who believed it by the character and subject-matter of the dialogue.
I am surprised that Dr. Volquardsen, who in a learned volume, recently published, has undertaken the defence of the theory of Schleiermacher about the Phædrus (Phädros, Erste Schrift Platon's, Kiel, 1862), can represent this as a "_feste historische Ueberlieferung_"--the rather as he admits that Schleiermacher himself placed no confidence in it, and relied upon other reasons (pp.
90-92-93).
Comp.
Schleiermacher, Einl.
zum Phaidros, p. 76.
Whoever will read the Epistle of Dionysius of Halikarnassus, addressed to Cneius Pompeius (pp.
751-765, Reiske), will be persuaded that Dionysius can neither have known, nor even believed, that the Phædrus was the first composition, and a youthful composition, of Plato.
If Dionysius had believed this, it would have furnished him with the precise excuse which his letter required.
For the purpose of his letter is to mollify the displeasure of Cn.
Pompey, who had written to blame him for some unfavourable criticisms on the style of Plato.
Dionysius justifies his criticisms by allusions to the Phædrus.
If he had been able to add, that the Phædrus was a first composition, and that Plato's later dialogues were comparatively free from the like faults--this would have been the most effective way of conciliating Cn.
Pompey.]
[Side-note: Reasons for this opinion.
Labour of the composition--does not consist with youth of the author.]
All the information (scanty as it is) which we obtain from the rhetor Dionysius and others respecting the composition of the Platonic dialogues, announces them to have cost much time and labour to their author: a statement illustrated by the great number of inversions of words which he is said to have introduced successively in the first sentence of the Republic, before he was satisfied to let the sentence stand.
This corresponds, too, with all that we read respecting the patient assiduity both of Isokrates and Demosthenes.
[58] A first-rate Greek composition was understood not to be purchasable at lower cost.
I confess therefore to great surprise, when I read in Ast the affirmation that the Protagoras was composed when Plato was only 22 years old--and when I find Schleiermacher asserting, as if it were a matter beyond dispute, that Protagoras, Phædrus, and Parmenidês, all bear evident marks of Plato's youthful age (Jugendlichkeit).
In regard to the Phædrus and Parmenidês, indeed, Hermann and other critics contest the view of Schleiermacher; and detect, in those two dialogues, not only no marks of "juvenility," but what they consider plain proofs of maturity and even of late age.
But in regard to the Protagoras, most of them agree with Schleiermacher and Ast, in declaring it to be a work of Plato's youth, some time before the death of Sokrates.
Now on this point I dissent from them: and since the decision turns upon "internal grounds," each must judge for himself.
The Protagoras appears to me one of the most finished and elaborate of all the dialogues: in complication of scenic arrangements, dramatic vivacity, and in the amount of theory worked out, it is surpassed by none--hardly even by the Republic.
[59] Its merits as a composition are indeed extolled by all the critics; who clap their hands, especially, at the humiliation which they believe to be brought upon the great Sophist by Sokrates.
But the more striking the composition is acknowledged to be, the stronger is the presumption that its author was more than 22 or 24 years of age.
Nothing short of good positive testimony would induce me to believe that such a dialogue as the Protagoras could have been composed, even by Plato, before he attained the plenitude of his powers.
No such testimony is produced or producible.
I extend a similar presumption, even to the Lysis, Lachês, Charmidês, and other dialogues: though with a less degree of confidence, because they are shorter and less artistic, not equal to the Protagoras.
All of them, in my judgment, exhibit a richness of ideas and a variety of expression, which suggest something very different from a young novice as the author.
[Footnote 58: Timæus said that Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire in less time than Isokrates required for the composition of his panegyrical oration (Longinus, De Sublim.
c.
4).]
[Footnote 59: "Als aesthetisches Kunstwerk ist der Dialog Protagoras das meisterhafteste unter den Werken Platon's.'
(Socher, Ueber Platon, p.
226.)]
But over and above this presumption, there are other reasons which induce me to believe, that none of the Platonic dialogues were published during the lifetime of Sokrates.
My reasons are partly connected with Sokrates, partly with Plato.
[Side-note: Reasons founded on the personality of Sokrates, and his relations with Plato.]
First, in reference to Sokrates--we may reasonably doubt whether any written reports of his actual conversations were published during his lifetime.
He was the most constant, public, and indiscriminate of all talkers: always in some frequented place, and desiring nothing so much as a respondent with an audience.
Every one who chose to hear him, might do so without payment and with the utmost facility.
Why then should any one wish to read written reports of his conversations?
especially when we know that the strong interest which they excited in the hearers depended much upon the spontaneity of his inspirations, and hardly less upon the singularity of his manner and physiognomy.
Any written report of what he said must appear comparatively tame.
Again, as to fictitious dialogues (like the Platonic) employing the name of Sokrates as spokesman--such might doubtless be published during his lifetime by derisory dramatists for the purpose of raising a laugh, but not surely by a respectful disciple and admirer for the purpose of giving utterance to doctrines of his own.
The greater was the respect felt by Plato for Sokrates, the less would he be likely to take the liberty of making Sokrates responsible before the public for what Sokrates had never said.
[60] There is a story in Diogenes--to the effect that Sokrates, when he first heard the Platonic dialogue called Lysis, exclaimed--"What a heap of falsehoods does the young man utter about me!
"[61] This story merits no credence as a fact: but it expresses the displeasure which Sokrates would be likely to feel, on hearing that one of his youthful companions had dramatised him as he appears in the Lysis.
Xenophon tells us, and it is very probable, that inaccurate oral reports of the real colloquies of Sokrates may have got into circulation.
But that the friends and disciples of Sokrates, during his lifetime, should deliberately publish fictitious dialogues, putting their own sentiments into his mouth, and thus contribute to mislead the public--is not easily credible.
Still less credible is it that Plato, during the lifetime of Sokrates, should have published such a dialogue as the Phædrus, wherein we find ascribed to Sokrates, poetical and dithyrambic effusions utterly at variance with the real manifestations which Athenians might hear every day from Sokrates in the market-place.
[62] Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, complains of the comic poet Aristophanes for misrepresenting him.
Had the Platonic Phædrus been then in circulation, or any other Platonic dialogues, he might with equally good reason have warned the Dikasts against judging of him, a real citizen on trial, from the titular Sokrates whom even disciples did not scruple to employ as spokesman for their own transcendental doctrine, and their own controversial sarcasms.
[Footnote 60: Valentine Rose observes, in regard to a dialogue composed by some one else, wherein Plato was introduced as one of the interlocutors, that it could not have been composed until after Plato's death, and that the dialogues of Plato were not composed until after the death of Sokrates.
"Platonis autem sermones antequam mortuus fuerit, scripto neminem tradidisse, neque magistri viventis personâ in dialogis abusos fuisse (non magis quam vivum Socratem induxerunt Xenophon, Plato, cæteri Socratici), hoc veterum mori et religioni quivis facile concedet," &c. (V. Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus, pp.
57, 74, Leipsic, 1863.)--Val.
Rose expresses the same opinion (that none of the Sokratic dialogues, either by Plato or the other companions of Sokrates, were written until after the death of Sokrates) in his earlier work, De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine et Auctoritate, p.
25.]
[Footnote 61: Diog.
L. iii.
35.]
[Footnote 62: In regard to the theory (elaborated by Schleiermacher, recently again defended by Volquardsen), that the Phædrus is the earliest among the Platonic dialogues, composed about 406 B.C., it appears to me inconsistent also with what we know about Lysias.
In the Platonic Phædrus, Lysias is presented as a [Greek: logogra/phos] of the highest reputation and eminence (p. 228 A, 257 C, and indeed throughout the whole dialogue).
Now this is quite inconsistent with what we read from Lysias himself in the indictment which he preferred against Eratosthenes, not long after the restoration of the democracy, 403 B.C.
He protests therein strenuously that he had never had judicial affairs of his own, nor meddled with those of others; and he expresses the greatest apprehension from his own [Greek: a)peiri/a] (sects.
4-6).
I cannot believe that this would be said by a person whom Phædrus terms [Greek: deino/tatos ô(\n tô=n nu=n gra/phein].
Moreover, Lysias, in that same discourse, describes his own position at Athens, anterior to the Thirty: he belonged to a rich metic family, and was engaged along with his brother Polemarchus in a large manufactory of shields, employing 120 slaves (s. 20).
A person thus rich and occupied was not likely to become a professed and notorious [Greek: logogra/phos], though he may have been a clever and accomplished man.
Lysias was plundered and impoverished by the Thirty; and he is said to have incurred much expense in aiding the efforts of Thrasybulus.
It was after this change of circumstances that he took to rhetoric as a profession; and it is to some one of these later years that the Platonic Phædrus refers.]
[Side-note: Reasons, founded on the early life, character, and position of Plato.]
Secondly, in regard to Plato, the reasons leading to the same conclusion are yet stronger.
Unfortunately, we know little of the life of Plato before he attained the age of 28, that is, before the death of Sokrates: but our best means of appreciating it are derived from three sources.
1.
Our knowledge of the history of Athens from 409-399 B.C., communicated by Thucydides, Xenophon, &c. 2.
The seventh Epistle of Plato himself, written four or five years before his death (about 352 B.C.).
3.
A few hints from the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
[Side-note: Plato's early life--active by necessity, and to some extent ambitious.]
To these evidences about the life of Plato, it has not been customary to pay much attention.
The Platonic critics seem to regard Plato so entirely as a spiritual person ("like a blessed spirit, visiting earth for a short time," to cite a poetical phrase applied to him by Göthe), that they disdain to take account of his relations with the material world, or with society around him.
Because his mature life was consecrated to philosophy, they presume that his youth must have been so likewise.
But this is a hasty assumption.
You cannot thus abstract _any_ man from the social medium by which, he is surrounded.
The historical circumstances of Athens from Plato's nineteenth year to his twenty-sixth (409-403 B.C.)
were something totally different from what they afterwards became.
They were so grave and absorbing, that had he been ever so much inclined to philosophy, he would have been compelled against his will to undertake active and heavy duty as a citizen.
Within those years (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) fell the closing struggles of the Peloponnesian war; in which (to repeat words already cited from Thucydides) Athens became more a military post than a city--every citizen being almost habitually under arms: then the long blockade, starvation, and capture of the city, followed by the violences of the Thirty, the armed struggle under Thrasybulus, and the perilous, though fortunately successful and equitable, renovation of the democracy.
These were not times for a young citizen, of good family and robust frame, to devote himself exclusively to philosophy and composition.
I confess myself surprised at the assertion of Schleiermacher and Steinhart, that Plato composed the Charmidês and other dialogues under the Anarchy.
[63] Amidst such disquietude and perils he could not have renounced active duty for philosophy, even if he had been disposed to do so.
[Footnote 63: Steinhart, Einl.
zum Laches, vol.
i. p. 358, where he says that Plato composed the Charmidês, Lachês, and Protagoras, all in 404 B.C.
under the Thirty.
Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Charmides, vol.
ii.
p. 8.
The lines of Lucretius (i.
41) bear emphatically upon this trying season: Nam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo Possumus æquo animo nec Memmi clara propago Talibus in rebus communi desse saluti.]
But, to make the case stronger, we learn from Plato's own testimony, in his seventh Epistle, that he was not at that time disposed to renounce active political life.
He tells us himself, that as a young man he was exceedingly eager, like others of the same age, to meddle and distinguish himself in active politics.
[64] How natural such eagerness was, to a young citizen of his family and condition, may be seen by the analogy of his younger brother Glaukon, who was prematurely impatient to come forward: as well as by that of his cousin Charmides, who had the same inclination, but was restrained by exaggerated diffidence of character.
Now we know that the real Sokrates (very different from the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias) did not seek to deter young men of rank from politics, and to consign them to inactive speculation.
Sokrates gives[65] earnest encouragement to Charmides; and he does not discourage Glaukon, but only presses him to adjourn his pretensions until the suitable stock of preliminary information has been acquired.
We may thus see that assuming the young Plato to be animated with political aspirations, he would certainly not be dissuaded,--nay, he would probably be encouraged--by Sokrates.
[Footnote 64: Plato, Epist.
vii.
p. 324 C. [Greek: Ne/os e)gô/ pote ô)\n polloi=s dê\ tau)to\n e)/pathon; ô)|ê/thên, ei) tha=tton e)mautou= genoi/mên ku/rios, e)pi\ ta\ koina\ tê=s po/leôs eu)thu\s i)e/nai].
Again, 325 E: [Greek: ô(/ste me, to\ prô=ton pollê=s mesto\n o)/nta o(rmê=s e)pi\ to\ pra/ttein ta\ koina/], &c.] [Footnote 65: See the two interesting colloquies of Sokrates, with Glaukon and Charmides (Xenoph.
Mem.
iii.
6, 7).
Charmides was killed along with Kritias during the eight months called The Anarchy, at the battle fought with Thrasybulus and the democrats (Xen.
Hell.
ii.
4, 19).
The colloquy of Sokrates with Charmides, recorded by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, must have taken place at some time before the battle of Ægospotami; perhaps about 407 or 406 B.C.]
Plato farther tells us that when (after the final capitulation of Athens) the democracy was put down and the government of the Thirty established, he embarked in it actively under the auspices of his relatives (Kritias, Charmides, &c., then in the ascendant), with the ardent hopes of youth[66] that he should witness and promote the accomplishment of valuable reforms.
Experience showed him that he was mistaken.
He became disgusted with the enormities of the Thirty, especially with their treatment of Sokrates; and he then ceased to co-operate with them.
Again, after the year called the Anarchy, the democracy was restored, and Plato's political aspirations revived along with it.
He again put himself forward for active public life, though with less ardent hopes.
[67] But he became dissatisfied with the march of affairs, and his relationship with the deceased Kritias was now a formidable obstacle to popularity.
At length, four years after the restoration of the democracy, came the trial and condemnation of Sokrates.
It was that event which finally shocked and disgusted Plato, converting his previous dissatisfaction into an utter despair of obtaining any good results from existing governments.
From thenceforward, he turned away from practice and threw himself into speculation.
[68] [Footnote 66: Plato, Epist.
vii.
324 D. [Greek: Kai\ e)gô\ thaumasto\n ou)de\n e)/pathon u(po\ neo/têtos], &c.] [Footnote 67: Plato, Epist.
vii.
325 A.
[Greek: Pa/lin de/, bradu/teron me\n, ei)=lke de/ me o(/môs ê( peri\ to\ pra/ttein ta\ koina\ kai\ politika\ e)pithumi/a.]]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Epist.
vii.
325 C: [Greek: Skopou=nti dê/ moi tau=ta te kai\ tou\s a)nthrô/pous tou\s pra/ttontas ta\ politika/], &c. 325 E: [Greek: Kai\ tou= me\n skopei=n mê\ a)postê=nai, pê= pote\ a)/meinon a)\n gi/gnoito peri/ te au)ta\ tau=ta kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tê\n pa=san politei/an, tou= de\ pra/ttein au)= perime/nein ai)ei\ kairou/s, teleutô=nta de\ noê=sai peri\ pasô=n tô=n nu=n po/leôn o(/ti kakô=s xu/mpasai politeu/ontai].
I have already stated in the 84th chapter of my History, describing the visit of Plato to Dionysius in Sicily, that I believe the Epistles of Plato to be genuine, and that the seventh Epistle especially contains valuable information.
Some critics undoubtedly are of a different opinion, and consider them as spurious.
But even among these critics, several consider that the author of the Epistles, though not Plato himself, was a contemporary and well informed: so that his evidence is trustworthy.
See K. F. Hermann, Gesammelte Abhandlungen, pp.
282-283.
The question has been again discussed recently by Ueberweg (Untersuch.
über d. Aechth.
u. Zeitf.
d. Plat.
Schriften, pp.
120-123-125-129), who gives his own opinion that the letters are not by Plato, and produces various arguments to the point.
His arguments are noway convincing to me: for the mysticism and pedantry of the Epistles appear to me in full harmony with the Timæus and Leges, and with the Pythagorean bias of Plato's later years, though not in harmony with the Protagoras, and various other dialogues.
Yet Ueberweg also declares his full belief that the seventh Epistle is the composition of a well-informed contemporary, and perfectly worthy of credit as to the facts and K. F. Hermann declares the same.
This is enough for my present purpose.
The statement, trusted by all the critics, that Plato's first visit to Syracuse was made when he was about 40 years of age, depends altogether on the assertion of the seventh Epistle.
How numerous are the assertions made by Platonic critics respecting Plato, upon evidence far slighter than that of these Epistles!
Boeckh considers the seventh Epistle as the genuine work of Plato.
Valentine Rose also pronounces it to be genuine, though he does not consider the other Epistles to be so (De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine, p. 25, p. 114, Berlin, 1854).
Tennemann admits the Epistles generally to be genuine (System der Platon.
Philos.
i. p. 106).
It is undeniable that these Epistles of Plato were recognised as genuine and trusted by all the critics of antiquity from Aristophanes downwards.
Cicero, Plutarch, Aristeides, &c., assert facts upon the authority of the Epistles.
Those who declare the Epistles to be spurious and worthless, ought in consistency to reject the statements which Plutarch makes on the authority of the Epistles: they will find themselves compelled to discredit some of the best parts of his life of Dion.
Compare Aristeides, [Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s] Or.
45, pp.
90-106, Dindorf.]
[Side-note: Plato did not retire from political life until after the restoration of the democracy, nor devote himself to philosophy until after the death of Sokrates.]
This very natural recital, wherein Plato (at the age of 75) describes his own youth between 21 and 28--taken in conjunction with the other reasons just enumerated--impresses upon me the persuasion, that Plato did not devote himself to philosophy, nor publish any of his dialogues, before the death of Sokrates: though he may probably have composed dramas, and the beautiful epigrams which Diogenes has preserved.
He at first frequented the society of Sokrates, as many other aspiring young men frequented it (likewise that of Kratylus, and perhaps that of various Sophists[69]), from love of ethical debate, admiration of dialectic power, and desire to acquire a facility of the same kind in his own speech: not with any view to take up philosophy as a profession, or to undertake the task either of demolishing or constructing in the region of speculation.
No such resolution was adopted until after he had tried political life and had been disappointed:--nor until such disappointment had been still more bitterly aggravated by the condemnation of Sokrates.
It was under this feeling that Plato first consecrated himself to that work of philosophical meditation and authorship,--of inquisitive travel and converse with philosophers abroad,--and ultimately of teaching in the Academy,--which filled up the remaining fifty years of his life.
The death of Sokrates left that venerated name open to be employed as spokesman in his dialogues: and there was nothing in the political condition of Athens after 399 B.C., analogous to the severe and perilous struggle which tasked all the energies of her citizens from 409 B.C.
down to the close of the war.
[Footnote 69: Compare Plat.
Protag.
312 A-B, 315 A, where the distinction is pointedly drawn between one who visited Protagoras [Greek: e)pi\ te/chnê|, ô(s dêmiourgo\s e)so/menos], and others who came simply [Greek: e)pi\ paidei/a|, ô(s to\n i)diô/tên kai\ to\n e)leu/theron pre/pei.]]
[Side-note: All Plato's dialogues were composed during the fifty-one years after the death of Sokrates.]
I believe, on these grounds, that Plato did not publish any dialogues during the life of Sokrates.
An interval of fifty-one years separates the death of Sokrates from that of Plato.
Such an interval is more than sufficient for all the existing dialogues of Plato, without the necessity of going back to a more youthful period of his age.
As to distribution of the dialogues, earlier or later, among these fifty-one years, we have little or no means of judging.
Plato has kept out of sight--with a degree of completeness which is really surprising--not merely his own personality, but also the marks of special date and the determining circumstances in which each dialogue was composed.
Twice only does he mention his own name, and that simply in passing, as if it were the name of a third person.
[70] As to the point of time to which he himself assigns each dialogue, much discussion has been held how far Plato has departed from chronological or historical possibility; how far he has brought persons together in Athens who never could have been there together, or has made them allude to events posterior to their own decease.
A speaker in Athenæus[71] dwells, with needless acrimony, on the anachronisms of Plato, as if they were gross faults.
Whether they are faults or not, may fairly be doubted: but the fact of such anachronisms cannot be doubted, when we have before us the Menexenus and the Symposion.
It cannot be supposed, in the face of such evidence, that Plato took much pains to keep clear of anachronisms: and whether they be rather more or rather less numerous, is a question of no great moment.
[Footnote 70: In the Apologia, c. 28, p. 38, Sokrates alludes to Plato as present in court, and as offering to become guarantee, along with others, for his fine.
In the Phædon, Plato is mentioned as being sick; to explain why he was not present at the last scene of Sokrates (Phædon, p. 59 B).
Diog.
L. iii.
37.
The pathos as well as the detail of the narrative in the Phædon makes one imagine that Plato really was present at the scene.
But being obliged, by the uniform scheme of his compositions, to provide another narrator, he could not suffer it to be supposed that he was himself present.
I have already remarked that this mention of Plato in the third person ([Greek: Pla/tôn de/, oi)=mai, ê)sthe/nei]) was probably one of the reasons which induced Panætius to declare the Phædon _not_ to be the work of Plato.]
[Footnote 71: Athenæus, v. pp.
220, 221.
Didymus also attacked Plato as departing from historical truth--[Greek: e)piphuo/menos tô=| Pla/tôni ô(s paristorou=nti]--against which the scholiast (ad Leges, i. p. 630) defends him.
Groen van Prinsterer, Prosopogr.
Plat.
p. 16.
The rhetor Aristeides has some remarks of the same kind, though less acrimonious (Orat.
xlvii.
p. 435, Dind.)
than the speaker in Athenæus.]
[Side-note: The Thrasyllean Canon is more worthy of trust than the modern critical theories by which it has been condemned.]
I now conclude my enquiry respecting the Platonic Canon.
The presumption in favour of that Canon, as laid down by Thrasyllus, is stronger (as I showed in the preceding chapter) than it is in regard to ancient authors generally of the same age: being traceable, in the last resort, through the Alexandrine Museum, to authenticating manuscripts in the Platonic school, and to members of that school who had known and cherished Plato himself.
[72] I have reviewed the doctrines of several recent critics who discard this Canon as unworthy of trust, and who set up for themselves a type of what Plato _must have_ been, derived from a certain number of items in the Canon--rejecting the remaining items as unconformable to their hypothetical type.
The different theories which they have laid down respecting general and systematic purposes of Plato (apart from the purpose of each separate composition), appear to me uncertified and gratuitous.
The "internal reasons," upon which they justify rejection of various dialogues, are only another phrase for expressing their own different theories respecting Plato as a philosopher and as a writer.
For my part I decline to discard any item of the Thrasyllean Canon, upon such evidence as they produce: I think it a safer and more philosophical proceeding to accept the entire Canon, and to accommodate my general theory of Plato (in so far as I am able to frame one) to each and all of its contents.
[Footnote 72: I find this position distinctly asserted, and the authority of the Thrasyllean catalogue, as certifying the genuine works of Plato, vindicated, by Yxem, in his able dissertation on the Kleitophon of Plato (pp.
1-3, Berlin, 1846).
But Yxem does not set forth the grounds of this opinion so fully as the present state of the question demands.
Moreover, he combines it with another opinion, upon which he insists even at greater length, and from which I altogether dissent--that the tetralogies of Thrasyllus exhibit the genuine order established by Plato himself among the Dialogues.]
[Side-note: Unsafe grounds upon which those theories proceed.]
Considering that Plato's period of philosophical composition extended over fifty years, and that the circumstances of his life are most imperfectly known to us--it is surely hazardous to limit the range of his varieties, on the faith of a critical repugnance, not merely subjective and fallible, but withal entirely of modern growth: to assume, as basis of reasoning, the admiration raised by a few of the finest dialogues--and then to argue that no composition inferior to this admired type, or unlike to it in doctrine or handling, can possibly be the work of Plato.
"The Minos, Theagês, Epistolæ, Epinomis, &c., are unworthy of Plato: nothing so inferior in excellence can have been composed by him.
No dialogue can be admitted as genuine which contradicts another dialogue, or which advocates any low or incorrect or un-Platonic doctrine.
No dialogue can pass which is adverse to the general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality, and a teacher of the doctrine of Ideas."
On such grounds as these we are called upon to reject various dialogues: and there is nothing upon which, generally speaking, so much stress is laid as upon inferior excellence.
For my part, I cannot recognise any of them as sufficient grounds of exception.
I have no difficulty in believing, not merely that Plato (like Aristophanes) produced many successive novelties, "not at all similar one to the other, and all clever"[73]--but also that among these novelties, there were inferior dialogues as well as superior: that in different dialogues he worked out different, even contradictory, points of view--and among them some which critics declare to be low and objectionable: that we have among his works unfinished fragments and abandoned sketches, published without order, and perhaps only after his death.
[Footnote 73: Aristophan.
Nubes, 547-8.
[Greek: A)ll' a)ei\ kaina\s i)de/as ei)sphe/rôn sophi/zomai, Ou)de\n a)llê/laisin o(moi/as, kai\ pa/sas dexia/s.]]
[Side-note: Opinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this.]
It may appear strange, but it is true, that Schleiermacher, the leading champion of Plato's central purpose and systematic unity from the beginning, lays down a doctrine to the same effect.
He says, "Truly, nothing can be more preposterous, than when people demand that all the works even of a great master shall be of equal perfection--or that such as are not equal, shall be regarded as not composed by him".
Zeller expresses himself in the same manner, and with as little reserve.
[74] These eminent critics here proclaim a general rule which neither they nor others follow out.
[Footnote 74: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Menon, vol.
iii.
p. 337.
"Und wahrlich, nichts ist wohl wunderlicher, als wenn man verlangt, dass alle Werke auch eines grossen Meisters von gleicher Volkommenheit seyn sollten--oder die es nicht sind, soll er nicht verfertigt haben."
Compare Zeller, Phil.
d.
Griech., vol.
ii.
p. 322, ed.
2nd.
It is to be remembered that this opinion of Schleiermacher refers only to _completed works_ of the same master.
You are not authorised in rejecting any completed work as spurious, on the ground that it is not equal in merit to some other.
Still less, then, are you authorised in rejecting, on the like ground, an uncompleted work--a professed fragment, or a preliminary sketch.
Of this nature are several of the minor items in the Thrasyllean canon.
M. Boeckh, in his Commentary on the dialogue called Minos, has assigned the reasons which induce him to throw out that dialogue, together with the Hipparchus, from the genuine works of Plato (and farther to consider both of them, and the pseudo-Platonic dialogues De Justo and De Virtute, as works of [Greek: Si/môn o( skuteu/s]: with this latter hypothesis I have here no concern).
He admits fully that the Minos is of the Platonic age and irreproachable in style--"veteris esse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores totus denique character, spondent" (p. 32).
Next, he not only admits that it is like Plato, but urges the _too great likeness_ to Plato as one of the points of his case.
He says that it is a bad, stupid, and unskilful imitation of different Platonic dialogues: "Pergamus ad alteram partem nostræ argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de _nimiâ similitudine_ Platonicorum aliquot locorum.
Nam de hoc quidem conveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse imitari: ni forté quis dubitet de sanâ ejus mente" (p. 23).
In the sense which Boeckh intends, I agree that Plato did not imitate himself: in another sense, I think that he did.
I mean that his consummate compositions were preceded by shorter, partial, incomplete sketches, which he afterwards worked up, improved, and re-modelled.
I do not understand how Plato could have composed such works as Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposion, Phædrus, Phædon, &c., without having before him many of these preparatory sketches.
That some of these sketches should have been preserved is what we might naturally expect; and I believe Minos and Hipparchus to be among them.
I do not wonder that they are of inferior merit.
One point on which Boeckh (pp.
7, 8) contends that Hipparchus and Minos are unlike to Plato is, that the _collocutor_ with Sokrates is anonymous.
But we find anonymous talkers in the Protagoras, Sophistês, Politikus, and Leges.]
I find elsewhere in Schleiermacher, another opinion, not less important, in reference to disallowance of dialogues, on purely internal grounds.
Take the Gorgias and the Protagoras: both these two dialogues are among the most renowned of the catalogue: both have escaped all suspicion as to legitimacy, even from Ast and Socher, the two boldest of all disfranchising critics.
In the Protagoras, Sokrates maintains an elaborate argument to prove, against the unwilling Protagoras, that the Good is identical with the Pleasurable, and the Evil identical with the Painful--in the Gorgias, Sokrates holds an argument equally elaborate, to show that Good is essentially different from Pleasurable, Evil from Painful.
What the one affirms, the other denies.
Moreover, Schleiermacher himself characterises the thesis vindicated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, as "entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic".
[75] If internal grounds of repudiation are held to be available against the Thrasyllean canon, how can such grounds exist in greater force than those which are here admitted to bear against the Protagoras--That it exhibits Sokrates as contradicting the Sokrates of the Gorgias--That it exhibits him farther as advancing and proving, at great length, a thesis "entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic"?
Since the critics all concur in disregarding these internal objections, as insufficient to raise even a suspicion against the Protagoras, I cannot concur with them when they urge the like objections as valid and irresistible against other dialogues.
[Footnote 75: Schleiermacher, Einl.
zum Protag.
vol.
i. p. 232.
"Jene ganz unsokratische und unplatonische Ansicht, dass das Gute nichts anderes ist als das Angenehme."
So also, in the Parmenides, we find a host of unsolved objections against the doctrine of Ideas; upon which in other dialogues Plato so emphatically insists.
Accordingly, Socher, resting upon this discrepancy as an "internal ground," declares the Parmenides not to be the work of Plato.
But the other critics refuse to go along with this inference.
I think they are right in so refusing.
But this only shows how little such internal grounds are to be trusted, as evidence to prove spuriousness.]
I may add, as farther illustrating this point, that there are few dialogues in the list against which stronger objections on internal grounds can be brought, than Leges and Menexenus.
Yet both of them stand authenticated, beyond all reasonable dispute, as genuine works of Plato, not merely by the Canon of Thrasyllus, but also by the testimony of Aristotle.
[76] [Footnote 76: See Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 384: and still more, Zeller, Plat.
Studien, pp.
1-131, Tübingen, 1839.
In that treatise, where Zeller has set forth powerfully the grounds for denying the genuineness of the Leges, he relied so much upon the strength of this negative case, as to discredit the direct testimony of Aristotle affirming the Leges to be genuine.
In his Phil.
d. Griech.
Zeller altered this opinion, and admitted the Leges to be genuine.
But Strümpell adheres to the earlier opinion given by Zeller, and maintains that the partial recantation is noway justified.
(Gesch.
d. Prakt.
Phil.
d. Griech.
p.
457.)
Suckow mentions (Form der Plat.
Schriften, 1855, p. 135) that Zeller has in a subsequent work reverted to his former opinion, denying the genuineness of the Leges.
Suckow himself denies it also; relying not merely on the internal objections against it, but also on a passage of Isokrates (ad Philippum, p. 84), which he considers to sanction his opinion, but which (in my judgment) entirely fails to bear him out.
Suckow attempts to show (p. 55), and Ueberweg partly countenances the same opinion, that the two passages in which Aristotle alludes to the Menexenus (Rhet.
i.
9, 30; iii.
14, 11) do not prove that he (Aristotle) considered it as a work of Plato, because he mentions the name of Sokrates only, and not that of Plato.
But this is to require from a witness such precise specification as we cannot reasonably expect.
Aristotle, alluding to the Menexenus, says, [Greek: Sôkra/tês e)n tô=| E)pitaphi/ô|]: just as, in alluding to the Gorgias in another place (Sophist.
Elench.
12, p. 173), he says, [Greek: Kalliklê=s e)n tô=| Gorgi/a|]: and again, in alluding to the Phædon, [Greek: o( e)n Phai/dôni Sôkra/tês] (De Gen. et Corrupt.
ii.
9, p. 335): not to mention his allusions in the Politica to the Platonic Republic, under the name of Sokrates.
No instance can be produced in which Aristotle cites any Sokratic dialogue, composed by Antisthenes, Æschines, &c., or any other of the Sokratic companions except Plato.
And when we read in Aristotle's Politica (ii.
3, 3) the striking compliment paid--[Greek: To\ me\n ou)=n peritto\n e)/chousi pa/ntes oi( tou= Sôkra/tous lo/goi, kai\ to\ kompso/n, kai\ to\ kaino/tomon, kai\ to\ zêtêtiko/n; kalô=s de\ pa/nta i)/sôs chalepo/n]--we cannot surely imagine that he intends to designate any other dialogues than those composed by Plato.]
[Side-note: Any true theory of Plato must recognise all his varieties, and must be based upon all the works in the Canon, not upon some to the exclusion of the rest.]
While adhering therefore to the Canon of Thrasyllus, I do not think myself obliged to make out that Plato is either like to himself, or equal to himself, or consistent with himself, throughout all the dialogues included therein, and throughout the period of fifty years during which these dialogues were composed.
Plato is to be found in all and each of the dialogues, not in an imaginary type abstracted from some to the exclusion of the rest.
The critics reverence so much this type of their own creation, that they insist on bringing out a result consistent with it, either by interpretation specially contrived, or by repudiating what will not harmonise.
Such sacrifice of the inherent diversity, and separate individuality, of the dialogues, to the maintenance of a supposed unity of type, style, or purpose, appears to me an error.
In fact,[77] there exists, for us, no personal Plato any more than there is a personal Shakespeare.
Plato (except in the Epistolæ) never appears before us, nor gives us any opinion as his own: he is the unseen prompter of different characters who converse aloud in a number of distinct dramas--each drama a separate work, manifesting its own point of view, affirmative or negative, consistent or inconsistent with the others, as the case may be.
In so far as I venture to present a general view of one who keeps constantly in the dark--who delights to dive, and hide himself, not less difficult to catch than the supposed Sophist in his own dialogue called Sophistês--I shall consider it as subordinate to the dialogues, each and all: and above all, it must be such as to include and acknowledge not merely diversities, but also inconsistencies and contradictions.
[78] [Footnote 77: The only manifestation of the personal Plato is in the Epistolæ.
I have already said that I accept these as genuine, though most critics do not.
I consider them valuable illustrations of his character, as far as they go.
They are all written after he was more than sixty years of age.
And most of them relate to his relations with Dionysius the younger, with Dion, and with Sicilian affairs generally.
This was a peculiar and outlying phase of Plato's life, during which (through the instigation of Dion, and at the sacrifice of his own peace of mind) he became involved in the world of political action: he had to deal with real persons, passions, and interests--with the feeble character, literary velleities, and jealous apprehensions of Dionysius--the reforming vehemence and unpopular harshness of Dion--the courtiers, the soldiers, and the people of Syracuse, all moved by different passions of which he had had no practical experience.
It could not be expected that, amidst such turbulent elements, Plato as an adviser could effect much: yet I do not think that he turned his chances, doubtful as they were, to the best account.
I have endeavoured to show this in the tenth volume of my History of Greece, c. 84.
But at all events, these operations lay apart from Plato's true world--the speculation, dialectic, and lectures of the Academy at Athens.
The Epistolæ, however, present some instructive points, bearing upon Plato's opinions about writing as a medium of philosophical communication and instruction to learners, which I shall notice in the suitable place.]
[Footnote 78: I transcribe from the instructive work of M. Ernest Renan, _Averroès et l'Averroïsme_, a passage in which he deprecates the proceeding of critics who presume uniform consistency throughout the works of Aristotle, and make out their theory partly by forcible exegesis, partly by setting aside as spurious all those compositions which oppose them.
The remark applies more forcibly to the dialogues or Plato, who is much less systematic than Aristotle:-"On a combattu l'interprétation d'Ibn-Rosehd (Averroès), et soutenu que l'intellect actif n'est pour Aristote qu'une faculté de l'ame.
L'intellect passif n'est alors que la faculté de recevoir les [Greek: phanta/smata]: l'intellect actif n'est que l'induction s'exerçant sur les [Greek: phanta/smata] et en tirant les idées générales.
Ainsi l'on fait concorder la théorie exposée dans le troisième livre du Traité de l'Ame, avec celle des Seconds Analytiques, où Aristote semble réduire le rôle de la raison à l'induction généralisant les faits de la sensation.
Certes, je ne me dissimule pas qu'Aristote paraît souvent envisager le [Greek: nou=s] comme personnel à l'homme.
Son attention constante à repéter que l'intellect est identique à l'intelligible, que l'intellect passe à l'acte quand il devient l'objet qu'il pense, est difficile à concilier avec l'hypothèse d'un intellect séparé de l'homme.
Mais il est dangereux de faire ainsi coincider de force les différents aperçus des anciens.
Les anciens philosophaient souvent sans se limiter dans un système, traitant le même sujet selon les points de vue qui s'offraient à eux, ou qui leur étaient offerts par les écoles antérieures, sans s'inquiéter des dissonances qui pouvaient exister entre ces divers tronçons de théorie.
Il est puéril de chercher à les mettre d'accord avec eux-mêmes, quand eux-mêmes s'en sont peu souciés.
Autant vaudrait, comme certains critiques Allemands, déclarer interpolés tous les passages que l'on ne peut concilier avec les autres.
Ainsi, la théorie des Seconds Analytiques et celles du troisième livre de l'Ame, sans se contredire expressément, représentent deux aperçus profondément distincts et d'origine différente, sur le fait de l'intelligence."
(Averroès et l'Averroïsme, p. 96-98, Paris, 1852.)
There is also in Strümpell (Gesch.
der Prakt.
Phil.
der Griech.
vor Aristot.
p. 200) a good passage to the same purpose as the above from M. Renan: disapproving this presumption,--that the doctrines of every ancient philosopher must of course be systematic and coherent with each other--as "a phantom of modern times": and pointing out that both Plato and Aristotle founded their philosophy, not upon any one governing [Greek: a)rchê\] alone, from which exclusively consequences are deduced, but upon several distinct, co-ordinate, independent, points of view: each of which is by turns followed out, not always consistently with the others.]
CHAPTER VIII.
PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.
[Side-note: Variety and abundance visible in Plato's writings.]
On looking through the collection of works enumerated in the Thrasyllean Canon, the first impression made upon us respecting the author is, that which is expressed in the epithets applied to him by Cicero--"varius et multiplex et copiosus".
Such epithets bring before us the variety in Plato's points of view and methods of handling--the multiplicity of the topics discussed--the abundance of the premisses and illustrations suggested:[1] comparison being taken with other literary productions of the same age.
It is scarcely possible to find any one predicate truly applicable to all of Plato's works.
Every predicate is probably true in regard to some:--none in regard to all.
[Footnote 1: The rhetor Aristeides, comparing Plato with Æschines (_i.e._ Æschines Socraticus, disciple of Sokrates also), remarks that Æschines was more likely to report what Sokrates really said, from being inferior in productive imagination.
Plato (as he truly says Orat.
xlvi.
[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 295, Dindorf) [Greek: tê=s phu/seôs chrê=tai periousi/a|], &c.] [Side-note: Plato both sceptical and dogmatical.]
Several critics of antiquity considered Plato as essentially a sceptic--that is, a Searcher or Enquirer, not reaching any assured or proved result.
They denied to him the character of a dogmatist: they maintained that he neither established nor enforced any affirmative doctrines.
[2] This latter statement is carried too far.
Plato is sceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others.
And the catalogue of Thrasyllus shows that the sceptical dialogues (Dialogues of Search or Investigation) are more numerous than the dogmatical (Dialogues of Exposition)--as they are also, speaking generally, more animated and interesting.
[Footnote 2: Diogen.
Laert.
iii.
52.
Prolegom.
Platon.
Philosoph.
c. 10, vol.
vi.
205, of K. F. Hermann's edition of Plato.]
[Side-note: Poetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in all.]
Again, Aristotle declared the writing of Plato to be something between poetry and prose, and even the philosophical doctrine of Plato respecting Ideas, to derive all its apparent plausibility from poetic metaphors.
The affirmation is true, up to a certain point.
Many of the dialogues display an exuberant vein of poetry, which was declared--not by Aristotle alone, but by many other critics contemporary with Plato--to be often misplaced and excessive--and which appeared the more striking because the dialogues composed by the other Sokratic companions were all of them plain and unadorned.
[3] The various mythes, in the Phædrus and elsewhere, are announced expressly as soaring above the conditions of truth and logical appreciation.
Moreover, we find occasionally an amount of dramatic vivacity, and of artistic antithesis between the speakers introduced, which might have enabled Plato, had he composed for the drama as a profession, to contend with success for the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals.
But here again, though this is true of several dialogues, it is not true of others.
In the Parmenidês, Timæus, and the Leges, such elements will be looked for in vain.
In the Timæus, they are exchanged for a professed cosmical system, including much mystic and oracular affirmation, without proof to support it, and without opponents to test it: in the Leges, for ethical sermons, and religious fulminations, proclaimed by a dictatorial authority.
[Footnote 3: See Dionys.
Hal.
Epist.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
756, De Adm. Vi Dic.
Dem.
956, where he recognises the contrast between Plato and [Greek: to\ Sôkratiko\n didaskalei=on pa=n].
His expression is remarkable: [Greek: Tau=ta ga\r oi(/ te kat' au)to\n geno/menoi pa/ntes e)pitimô=sin ô(=n ta\ o)no/mata ou)de\n dei= me le/gein].
Epistol.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
p. 761; also 757.
See also Diog.
L. iii.
37; Aristotel.
Metaph.
A.
991, a.
22.
Cicero and Quintilian say the same about Plato's style: "Multum supra prosam orationem, et quam pedestrem Græci vocant, surgit: ut mihi non hominis ingenio, sed quodam Delphico videatur oraculo instinctus".
Quintil.
x.
1, 81.
Cicero, Orator, c. 20.
Lucian, Piscator, c. 22.
Sextus Empiricus designates the same tendency under the words [Greek: tê\n Pla/tônos a)neidôlopoi/êsin].
Pyrrhon.
Hypotyp.
iii.
189.
The Greek rhetors of the Augustan age--Dionysius of Halikarnassus and Kækilius of Kalaktê--not only blamed the style of Plato for excessive, overstrained, and misplaced metaphor, but Kækilius goes so far as to declare a decided preference for Lysias over Plato.
(Dionys.
Hal.
De Vi Demosth.
pp.
1025-1037, De Comp.
Verb.
p. 196 R; Longinus, De Sublimitat.
c.
32.)
The number of critics who censured the manner and doctrine of Plato (critics both contemporary with him and subsequent) was considerable (Dionys.
H. Ep.
ad Pomp.
p. 757).
Dionysius and the critics of his age had before their eyes the contrast of the Asiatic style of rhetoric, prevalent in their time, with the Attic style represented by Demosthenes and Lysias.
They wished to uphold the force and simplicity of the Attic, against the tumid, wordy, pretensive Asiatic: and they considered the Phædrus, with other compositions of Plato, as falling under the same censure with the Asiatic.
See Theoph.
Burckhardt, Cæcili Rhet.
Frag., Berlin, 1863, p.
15.]
[Side-note: Form of dialogue--universal to this extent, that Plato never speaks in his own name.]
One feature there is, which is declared by Schleiermacher and others to be essential to all the works of Plato--the form of dialogue.
Here Schleiermacher's assertion, literally taken, is incontestable.
Plato always puts his thoughts into the mouth of some spokesman: he never speaks in his own name.
All the works of Plato which we possess (excepting the Epistles, and the Apology, which last I consider to be a report of what Sokrates himself said) are dialogues.
But under this same name, many different realities are found to be contained.
In the Timæus and Kritias the dialogue is simply introductory to a continuous exposition--in the Menexenus, to a rhetorical discourse: while in the Leges, and even in Sophistês, Politikus, and others, it includes no antithesis nor interchange between two independent minds, but is simply a didactic lecture, put into interrogatory form, and broken into fragments small enough for the listener to swallow at once: he by his answer acknowledging the receipt.
If therefore the affirmation of Schleiermacher is intended to apply to all the Platonic compositions, we must confine it to the form, without including the spirit, of dialogue.
[Side-note: No one common characteristic pervading all Plato's works.]
It is in truth scarcely possible to resolve all the diverse manifestations of the Platonic mind into one higher unity; or to predicate, about Plato as an intellectual person, anything which shall be applicable at once to the Protagoras, Gorgias, Parmenidês, Phædrus, Symposion, Philêbus, Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and Leges.
Plato was sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic and inquisitor, mathematician, philosopher, poet (erotic as well as satirical), rhetor, artist--all in one:[4] or at least, all in succession, throughout the fifty years of his philosophical life.
At one time his exuberant dialectical impulse claims satisfaction, manifesting itself in a string of ingenious doubts and unsolved contradictions: at another time, he is full of theological antipathy against those who libel Helios and Selênê, or who deny the universal providence of the Gods: here, we have unqualified confessions of ignorance, and protestations against the false persuasion of knowledge, as alike widespread and deplorable--there, we find a description of the process of building up the Kosmos from the beginning, as if the author had been privy to the inmost purposes of the Demiurgus.
In one dialogue the erotic fever is in the ascendant, distributed between beautiful youths and philosophical concepts, and confounded with a religious inspiration and _furor_ which supersedes and transcends human sobriety (Phædrus): in another, all vehement impulses of the soul are stigmatised and repudiated, no honourable scope being left for anything but the calm and passionless Nous (Philêbus, Phædon).
Satire is exchanged for dithyramb, and mythe, and one ethical point of view for another (Protagoras, Gorgias).
The all-sufficient dramatising power of the master gives full effect to each of these multifarious tendencies.
On the whole--to use a comparison of Plato himself[5]--the Platonic sum total somewhat resembles those fanciful combinations of animals imagined in the Hellenic mythology--an aggregate of distinct and disparate individualities, which look like one because they are packed in the same external wrapper.
[Footnote 4: Dikæarchus affirmed that Plato was a compound of Sokrates with Pythagoras.
Plutarch calls him also a compound of Sokrates with Lykurgus.
(Plutarch, Symposiac.
viii.
2, p. 718 B.)
Nemesius the Platonist (Eusebius, Præp.
Evang.
xiv.
5-7-8) repeats the saying of Dikæarchus, and describes Plato as midway between Pythagoras and Sokrates; [Greek: meseu/ôn Puthago/rou kai\ Sôkra/tous].
No three persons could be more disparate than Lykurgus, Pythagoras, and Sokrates.
But there are besides various other attributes of Plato, which are not included under either of the heads of this tripartite character.
The Stoic philosopher Sphærus composed a work in three books--[Greek: Peri\ Lukou/rgou kai\ Sôkra/tous]--(Diog.
La.
vii.
178).
He probably compared therein the Platonic Republic with the Spartan constitution and discipline.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Republ.
ix.
588 C. [Greek: Oi(=ai muthologou=ntai palaiai\ gene/sthai phu/seis, ê(/ te Chimai/ras kai\ ê( Sku/llês kai\ Kerbe/rou, kai\ a)/llai tine\s suchnai\ le/gontai xumpephukui=ai i)de/ai pollai\ ei)s e(\n gene/sthai .
.
.
.
Peri/plason dê\ au)toi=s e)/xôthen e(no\s ei)ko/na, tê\n tou= a)nthrô/pou, ô(/ste tô=| mê\ duname/nô| ta\ e)nto\s o(ra=|n, a)lla\ to\ e)/xô mo/non e)/lutron o(rô=nti, e(\n zô=on phai/nesthai--a)/nthrôpon.]]
[Side-note: The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but also lecturer and president of a school.
In this last important function he is scarcely at all known to us.
Notes of his lectures taken by Aristotle.]
Furthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato as a whole, there is another fact which ought to be taken into account.
[6] We know him only from his dialogues, and from a few scraps of information.
But Plato was not merely a composer of dialogues.
He was lecturer, and chief of a school, besides.
The presidency of that school, commencing about 386 B.C., and continued by him with great celebrity for the last half (nearly forty years) of his life, was his most important function.
Among his contemporaries he must have exercised greater influence through his school than through his writings.
[7] Yet in this character of school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to us: for the few incidental allusions which have descended to us, through the Aristotelian commentators, only raise curiosity without satisfying it.
The little information which we possess respecting Plato's lectures, relates altogether to those which he delivered upon the Ipsum Bonum or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his pupil--that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato's life.
Aristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle even composed an express work now lost (De Bono or De Philosophiâ), reporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines of Plato, together with the analogous doctrines of the Pythagoreans.
We learn that Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing with the highest and most transcendental concepts (with the constituent elements or factors of the Platonic Ideas or Ideal Numbers: the first of these factors being The One the second, The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little, the essentially indefinite), and that they were mystic and enigmatical, difficult to understand.
[8] [Footnote 6: Trendelenburg not only adopts Schleiermacher's theory of a preconceived and systematic purpose connecting together all Plato's dialogues, but even extends this purpose to Plato's oral lectures: "Id pro certo habendum est.
sicut prioribus dialogis quasi præeparat (Plato) posteriores, posterioribus evolvit priores--ita et in scholis continuasse dialogos; quæ reliquerit, absolvisse; atque omnibus ad summa principia perductis, intima quasi semina aperuisse".
(Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p.
6.)
This opinion is surely not borne out--it seems even contradicted--by all the information which we possess (very scanty indeed) about the Platonic lectures.
Plato delivered therein his Pythagorean doctrines, merging his Ideas in the Pythagorean numerical symbols: and Aristotle, far from considering this as a systematic and intended evolution of doctrine at first imperfectly unfolded, treats it as an additional perversion and confusion, introduced into a doctrine originally erroneous.
In regard to the transition of Plato from the doctrine of Ideas to that of Ideal Numbers, see Aristotel.
Metaphys.
M. 1078, b.
9, 1080, a.
12 (with the commentary of Bonitz, pp.
539-541), A.
987, b.
20.
M. Boeckh, too, accounts for the obscure and enigmatical speaking of Plato in various dialogues, by supposing that he cleared up all the difficulties in his oral lectures.
"Platon deutet nur an--spricht meinethalben räthselhaft (in den Gesetzen); aber gerade so räthselhaft spricht er von diesen Sachen im Timaeus: er pflegt mathematische Theoreme nur anzudeuten, nicht zu entwickeln: ich glaube, weil er sie in den Vorträgen ausführte," &c. (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, p.
50.)
This may be true about the mathematical theorems; but I confess that I see no proof of it.
Though Plato admits that his doctrine in the Timæus is [Greek: a)ê/thês lo/gos], yet he expressly intimates that the hearers are instructed persons, able to follow him (Timæus, p. 53 C.).]
[Footnote 7: M. Renan, in his work, 'Averroès et l'Averroïsme,' pp.
257-325, remarks that several of the Italian professors of philosophy, at Padua and other universities, exercised far greater influence through their lectures than through their published works.
He says (p. 325-6) respecting Cremonini (Professor at Padua, 1590-1620):--"Il a été jusqu'ici apprécié d'une manière fort incomplète par les historiens de la philosophie.
On ne l'a jugé que par ses écrits imprimés, qui ne sont que des dissertations de peu d'importance, et ne peuvent en aucune manière faire comprendre la renommée colossale à laquelle il parvint.
Cremonini n'est qu'un professeur: ses _cours_ sont sa véritable philosophie.
Aussi, tandis que ses écrits imprimés se vendaient fort mal, les rédactions de ses leçons se répandaient dans toute l'Italie et même au delà des monts.
On sait que les élèves préfèrent souvent aux textes imprimés, les cahiers qu'ils ont ainsi recueillis de la bouche de leurs professeurs.
.
.
En général, c'est dans les cahiers, beaucoup plus que dans les sources imprimées, qu'il faut étudier l'école de Padoue.
Pour Cremonini, cette tâche est facile; car les copies de ses cours sont innombrables dans le nord de l'Italie."]
[Footnote 8: Aristotle (Physic.
iv.
p. 209, b.
34) alludes to [Greek: ta\ lego/mena a)/grapha do/gmata] of Plato, and their discordance on one point with the Timæus.
Simplikius ad Aristot.
Physic.
f. 104 b. p. 362, a.
11, Brandis.
[Greek: A)rcha\s ga\r kai\ tô=n ai)sthêtô=n to\ e(\n kai\ tê\n a)o/risto/n phasi dua/da le/gein to\n Pla/tôna.
Tê\n de\ a)o/riston dua/da kai\ e)n toi=s noêtoi=s tithei\s a)/peiron ei)=nai e)/legen, kai\ to\ me/ga de\ kai\ to\ mikro\n a)rcha\s tithei\s a)/peira ei)=nai e)/legen e)n toi=s peri\ Ta)gathou= lo/gois, oi(=s o( A)ristote/lês kai\ Ê(raklei/dês kai\ E)stiai=os kai\ a)/lloi tou= Pla/tônos e(tai=roi _parageno/menoi a)negra/psanto ta\ r(êthe/nta, ai)nigmatôdô=s ô(s e)r)r(ê/thê_; Porphu/rios de\ diarthrou=n au)ta\ e)paggello/menos ta/de peri\ au)tô=n ge/graphen e)n tô| Philê/bô|].
Compare another passage of the same Scholia, p. 334, b.
28, p. 371, b.
26.
[Greek: Ta\s a)gra/phous sunousi/as tou= Pla/tônos au)to\s o( A)ristote/lês a)pegra/psato].
372, a.
[Greek: To\ methektiko\n e)n me\n tai=s peri\ Ta)gathou sunousi/ais me/ga kai\ mikro\n e)ka/lei, e)n de\ tô=| Timai/ô| u(/lên, ê)\n kai\ chô/ran kai\ to/pon ô)no/maze].
Comp 371, a.
5, and the two extracts from Simplikius, cited by Zeller, De Hermodoro, pp.
20, 21.
By [Greek: a)/grapha do/gmata], or [Greek: a)/graphoi sunou/siai], we are to understand opinions or colloquies not written down (or not communicated to others as writings) _by Plato himself_: thus distinguished from his written dialogues.
Aristotle, in the treatise, De Animâ, i.
2, p. 404, b.
18, refers to [Greek: e)n toi=s peri\ Philosophi/as]: which Simplikius thus explains [Greek: peri\ philosophi/as nu=n le/gei ta\ peri\ tou= A)gathou= au)tô=| e)k tê=s Pla/tônos a)nagegramme/na sunousi/as, e)n oi(=s i(storei= ta/s te Puthagorei/ous kai\ Platônika\s peri\ tô=n o)/ntôn do/xas].
Philoponus reports the same thing: see Trendelenburg's Comm.
on De Animâ, p. 226.
Compare Alexand.
ad Aristot.
Met.
A.
992, p. 581, a.
2, Schol.
Brandis.]
[Side-note: Plato's lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental.
Effect which they produced on the auditors.]
One remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle, has been transmitted to us.
[9] There were lectures announced to be, On the Supreme Good.
Most of those who came to hear, expected that Plato would enumerate and compare the various matters usually considered _good_--_i.e._ health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, &c. But these hearers were altogether astonished at what they really heard: for Plato omitting the topics expected, descanted only upon arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; and told them that The Good was identical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or Indeterminate which was Evil).
[Footnote 9: Aristoxenus, Harmon.
ii.
p. 30.
[Greek: Katha/per A)ristote/lês a)ei\ diêgei=to tou\s plei/stous tô=n a)kousa/ntôn para\ Pla/tônos tê\n peri\ tou= a)gathou= a)kro/asin pathei=n; prosei=nai ga\r e(/kaston u(polamba/nonta lê/psesthai/ ti tô=n nomizome/nôn a)nthrôpi/nôn a)gathô=n;--o(/te de\ phanei/êsan oi( lo/goi peri\ mathêma/tôn kai\ a)rithmô=n kai\ geômetri/as kai\ a)strologi/as, kai\ to\ pe/ras o(/ti a)gatho/n e)stin e(/n, pantelô=s oi)=mai para/doxon e)phai/neto au)toi=s].
Compare Themistius, Orat.
xxi.
p. 245 D. Proklus also alludes to this story, and to the fact that most of the [Greek: polu\s kai\ pantoi=os o)/chlos], who were attracted to Plato's [Greek: a)kro/asis peri\ Ta)gathou=], were disappointed or unable to understand him, and went away.
(Proklus ad Platon.
Parmen.
p. 92, Cousin.
528, Stallb.)]
[Side-note: They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors.
They coincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas.]
We see farther from this remark:--First, that Plato's lectures were often above what his auditors could appreciate--a fact which we learn from other allusions also: Next, that they were not confined to a select body of advanced pupils, who had been worked up by special training into a state fit for comprehending them.
[10] Had such been the case, the surprise which Aristotle mentions could never have been felt.
And we see farther, that the transcendental doctrine delivered in the lectures De Bono (though we find partial analogies to it in Philêbus, Epinomis, and parts of Republic) coincides more with what Aristotle states and comments upon as Platonic doctrine, than with any reasonings which we find in the Platonic dialogues.
It represents the latest phase of Platonism: when the Ideas originally conceived by him as Entities in themselves, had become merged or identified in his mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.
[Footnote 10: Respecting Plato's lectures, see Brandis (Gesch.
der Griech.-Röm.
Phil.
vol.
ii.
p. 180 seq., 306-319); also Trendelenburg, Platonis De Ideis et Numeris Doctrina, pp.
3, 4, seq.
Brandis, though he admits that Plato's lectures were continuous discourses, thinks that they were intermingled with discussion and debate: which may have been the case, though there is no proof of it.
But Schleiermacher goes further, and says (Einleitung.
p. 18), "Any one who can think that Plato in these oral _Vorträgen_ employed the Sophistical method of long speeches, shows such an ignorance as to forfeit all right of speaking about Plato".
Now the passage from Aristoxenus, given in the preceding note, is our only testimony; and it distinctly indicates a continuous lecture to an unprepared auditory, just as Protagoras or Prodikus might have given.
K. F. Hermann protests, with good reason, against Schleiermacher's opinion.
(Ueber Plato's schriftstellerische Motive, p.
289.)
The confident declaration just produced from Schleiermacher illustrates the unsound basis on which he and various other Platonic critics proceed.
They find, in some dialogues of Plato, a strong opinion proclaimed, that continuous discourse is useless for the purpose of instruction.
This was a point of view which, at the time when he composed these dialogues, he considered to be of importance, and desired to enforce.
But we are not warranted in concluding that he must always have held the same conviction throughout his long philosophical life, and in rejecting as un-platonic all statements and all compositions which imply an opposite belief.
We cannot with reason bind down Plato to a persistence in one and the same type of compositions.]
[Side-note: The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more transcendental than Plato's other lectures.]
This statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestionable, attests the mysticism and obscurity which pervaded Plato's doctrine in his later years.
But whether this lecture on _The Good_ is to be taken as a fair specimen of Plato's lecturing generally, and from the time when he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt:[11] since we know that as a lecturer and converser he acquired extraordinary ascendency over ardent youth.
We see this by the remarkable instance of Dion.
[12] [Footnote 11: Themistius says (Orat.
xxi.
p. 245 D) that Plato sometimes lectured in the Peiræus, and that a crowd then collected to hear him, not merely from the city, but also from the country around: if he lectured De Bono, however, the ordinary hearers became tired and dispersed, leaving only [Greek: tou\s sunê/theis o(milêta/s].
It appears that Plato in his lectures delivered theories on the principles of geometry.
He denied the reality of geometrical points--or at least admitted them only as hypotheses for geometrical reasoning.
He maintained that what others called _a point_ ought to be called "_an indivisible line_".
Xenokrates maintained the same doctrine after him.
Aristotle controverts it (see Metaphys.
A., 992, b.
20).
Aristotle's words citing Plato's opinion ([Greek: tou/tô| me\n ou)=n tô=| ge/nei kai\ diema/cheto Pla/tôn ô(s o)/nti geômetrikô=| do/gmati, a)ll' e)ka/lei a)rchê\n grammê=s; tou=to de\ polla/kis e)ti/thei ta\s a)to/mous gramma/s]) must be referred to Plato's oral lectures; no such opinion occurs in the dialogues.
This is the opinion both of Bonitz and Schwegler in their comments on the passage: also of Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 66.
That geometry and arithmetic were matters of study and reflection both to Plato himself and to many of his pupils in the Academy, appears certain; and perhaps Plato may have had an interior circle of pupils, to which he applied the well-known exclusion--[Greek: mêdei\s a)geôme/trêtos ei)si/tô].
But we cannot make out clearly what was Plato's own proficiency, or what improvements he may have introduced, in geometry, nor what there is to justify the comparison made by Montucla between Plato and Descartes.
In the narrative respecting the Delian problem--the duplication of the cube--Archytas, Menæchmus, and Eudoxus, appear as the inventors of solutions, Plato as the superior who prescribes and criticises (see the letter and epigram of Eratosthenes: Bernhardy, Eratosthenica, pp.
176-184).
The three are said to have been blamed by Plato for substituting instrumental measurement in place of geometrical proof (Plutarch, Problem.
Sympos.
viii.
2, pp.
718, 719; Plutarch, Vit.
Marcelli, c. 14).
The geometrical construction of the [Greek: Ko/smos], which Plato gives us in the Timæus, seems borrowed from the Pythagoreans, though applied probably in a way peculiar to himself (see Finger, De Primordiis Geometriæ ap.
Græcos, p. 38, Heidelb.
1831).]
[Footnote 12: See Epist.
vii.
pp.
327, 328.]
[Side-note: Plato's Epistles--in them only he speaks in his own person.]
The only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as speaking in his own person, and addressing himself to definite individuals, are presented by his few Epistles; all of them (as I have before remarked) written after he he was considerably above sixty years of age, and nearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians--Dionysius II., Dion, the friends of Dion after the death of the latter, and Archytas.
[13] In so far as these letters bear upon Plato's manner of lecturing or teaching, they go to attest, first, his opinion that direct written exposition was useless for conveying real instruction to the reader--next, his reluctance to publish any such exposition under his own name, and carrying with it his responsibility.
When asked for exposition, he writes intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary persons cannot understand.
[Footnote 13: Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles, Ep.
2, 3, 13, are addressed to the second or younger Dionysius; Ep.
4 to Dion; Ep.
7, 8, to the friends and relatives of Dion after Dion's death.
The 13th Epistle appears to be the earliest of all, being seemingly written after the first voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius II.
at Syracuse, in 367-366 B.C., and before his second visit to the same place and person, about 363-362 B.C.
Epistles 2 and 3 were written after his return from that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior to the expedition of Dion against Dionysius in 357 B.C.
Epistle 4 was written to Dion shortly after Dion's victorious career at Syracuse, about 355 B.C.
Epistles 7 and 8 were written not long after the murder of Dion in 354 B.C.
The first in order, among the Platonic Epistles, is not written by Plato, but by Dion, addressed to Dionysius, shortly after the latter had sent Dion away from Syracuse.
The fifth is addressed by Plato to the Macedonian prince Perdikkas.
The sixth, to Hermeias of Atarneus, Erastus, and Koriskus.
The ninth and twelfth, to Archytas of Tarentum.
The tenth, to Aristodôrus.
The eleventh, to Laodamas.
I confess that I see nothing in these letters which compels me to depart from the judgment of the ancient critics, who unanimously acknowledged them as genuine.
I do not think myself competent to determine _à priori_ what the style of Plato's letters _must_ have been; what topics he _must_ have touched upon, and what topics he _could not_ have touched upon.
I have no difficulty in believing that Plato, writing a letter on philosophy, may have expressed himself with as much mysticism and obscurity as we now read in Epist.
2 and 7.
Nor does it surprise me to find Plato (in Epist.
13) alluding to details which critics, who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person, disallow as mean and unworthy.
His recommendation of the geometer, Helikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and Archytas, is to me interesting: to make known the theorems of Eudoxus, through the medium of Helikon, to Archytas, was no small service to geometry in those days.
I have an interest in learning how Plato employed the money given to him by Dionysius and other friends: that he sent to Dionysius a statue of Apollo by a good Athenian sculptor named Leochares (this sculptor executed a bust of Isokrates also, Plut.
Vit.
x. Orat.
p. 838); and another statue by the same sculptor for the wife of Dionysius, in gratitude for the care which she had taken of him (Plato) when sick at Syracuse; that he spent the money of Dionysius partly in discharging his own public taxes and liturgies at Athens, partly in providing dowries for poor maidens among his friends; that he was so beset by applications, which he could not refuse, for letters of recommendation to Dionysius, as to compel him to signify, by a private mark, to Dionysius, which among the letters he wished to be most attended to.
"These latter" (he says) "I shall begin with [Greek: theo\s] (sing.
number), the others I shall begin with [Greek: theoi\] (plural)."
(Epist.
xiii.
361, 362, 363.)]
[Side-note: Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to philosophical doctrine.]
Knowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with the tenets of the Pythagoreans (who designedly adopted a symbolical manner of speaking--published no writings--for Philolaus is cited as an exception to their rule--and did not care to be understood, except by their own adepts after a long apprenticeship) we cannot be surprised to find Plato holding a language very similar.
He declares that the highest principles of his philosophy could not be set forth in writing so as to be intelligible to ordinary persons: that they could only be apprehended by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination kindled in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort: that such illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling of want, usually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly thirty years, and exchanged at length for relief at some unexpected moment.
[14] [Footnote 14: Plato, Epist.
ii.
pp.
313, 314.]
Plato during his second visit had had one conversation, and only one, with Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of philosophy.
He had impressed upon Dionysius the prodigious labour and difficulty of attaining truth upon these matters.
The despot professed to thirst ardently for philosophy, and the conversation turned upon the Natura Primi--upon the first and highest principles of Nature.
[15] Dionysius, after this conversation with Plato, intimated that he had already conceived in his own mind the solution of these difficulties, and the truth upon philosophy in its greatest mysteries.
Upon which Plato expressed his satisfaction that such was the case,[16] so as to relieve him from the necessity of farther explanations, though the like had never happened to him with any previous hearer.
[Footnote 15: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
312: [Greek: peri\ tê=s tou= prô/ton phu/seôs].
Epist.
vii.
344: [Greek: tô=n peri\ phu/seôs a)/krôn kai\ prô/tôn].--One conversation only--Epist.
vii.
345.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Epist.
ii.
313 B. Plato asserts the same about Dionysius in Epist.
vii.
341 B.]
[Side-note: Letters of Plato to Dionysius II.
about philosophy.
His anxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared minds.]
But Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the explanation in his mind, after Plato's departure--that difficulties again crowded upon him--and that it was necessary to send a confidential messenger to Athens to entreat farther elucidations.
In reply, Plato sends back by the messenger what is now numbered as the second of his Epistles.
He writes avowedly in enigmatical language, so that, if the letter be lost, the finder will not be able to understand it; and he enjoins Dionysius to burn it after frequent perusal.
[17] He expresses his hope that when Dionysius has debated the matter often with the best minds near him, the clouds will clear away of themselves, and the moment of illumination will supervene.
[18] He especially warns Dionysius against talking about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to laugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will be received with the most fervent welcome.
[19] He affirms that Dionysius is much superior in philosophical debate to his companions; who were overcome in debate with him, not because they suffered themselves designedly to be overcome (out of flattery towards the despot, as some ill-natured persons alleged), but because they could not defend themselves against the Elenchus as applied by Dionysius.
[20] Lastly, Plato advises Dionysius to write down nothing, since what has once been written will be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust altogether to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a guarantee for retention in his mind.
"It is for that reason" (Plato says)[21] "that I have never myself written anything upon these subjects.
There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of Plato.
The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Sokrates, in his days of youthful vigour and glory."
[Footnote 17: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
312 E: [Greek: phraste/on dê/ soi di' ai)nigmô=n i(/n a)/n ti ê( de/ltos ê)\ po/ntos ê)\ gê=s e)n ptuchai=s pa/thê|, o( a)nagnou\s mê\ gnô=|].
314 C: [Greek: e)/r)r(hôso kai\ pei/thou, kai\ tê\n e)pistolê\n tau/tên nu=n prô=ton polla/kis a)nagnou\s kata/kauson].
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (pp.
40, 41), remarks the fondness of Plato for [Greek: to\ ai)nigmatôde/s].]
[Footnote 18: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
313 D.] [Footnote 19: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
314 A.
[Greek: eu)labou= me/ntoi mê/ pote e)kpe/sê| tau=ta ei)s a)nthrô/pous a)paideu/tous.]]
[Footnote 20: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
314 D.] [Footnote 21: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
314 C. [Greek: megi/stê de\ phulakê\ to\ mê\ gra/phein a)ll' e)kmantha/nein; ou) ga\r e)sti ta\ graphe/nta mê\ ou)k e)kpesei=n.
dia\ tau=ta ou)de\n pô/pot' e)gô\ peri\ tou/tôn ge/grapha, ou)/d' e)/sti su/ggramma Pla/tônos ou)de\n ou)/d' e)/stai; ta\ de\ nu=n lego/mena, Sôkra/tous e)sti\ kalou= kai\ ne/ou gegono/tos].
"Addamus ad superiora" (says Wesseling, Epist.
ad Venemam, p. 41, Utrecht, 1748), "Platonem videri semper voluisse, dialogos, in quibus de Philosophiâ, deque Republicâ, atque ejus Legibus, inter confabulantes actum fuit, non sui ingenii sed Socratici, foetus esse".]
[Side-note: He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative exposition of his own philosophical doctrine.]
Such is the language addressed by Plato to the younger Dionysius, in a letter written seemingly between 362-357 B.C.
In another letter, written about ten years afterwards (353-352 B.C.)
to the friends of Dion (after Dion's death), he expresses the like repugnance to the idea of furnishing any written authoritative exposition of his principal doctrines.
"There never shall be any expository treatise of mine upon them" (he declares).
"Others have tried, Dionysius among the number, to write them down; but they do not know what they attempt.
I could myself do this better than any one, and I should consider it the proudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to mankind, to bring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.
[22] But I think the attempt would be nowise beneficial, except to a few, who require only slight direction to enable them to find it for themselves: to most persons it would do no good, but would only fill them with empty conceit of knowledge, and with contempt for others.
[23] These matters cannot be communicated in words as other sciences are.
Out of repeated debates on them, and much social intercourse, there is kindled suddenly a light in the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when once generated, keeps itself alive.
"[24] [Footnote 22: Plato, Epist.
vii.
341, B, C. [Greek: ti/ tou/tou ka/llion e)pe/prakt' a)\n ê(mi=n e)n tô=| bi/ô| ê)\ toi=s te a)nthrô/poisi me/ga o)/phelos gra/psai _kai\ tê\n phu/sin ei)s phô=s pa=si proagagei=n_?]]
[Footnote 23: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
341 E.] [Footnote 24: Plato, Epist.
vii.
341 C. [Greek: ou)/koun e)mo/n ge peri\ au)tô=n e)/sti su/ggramma ou)de mê/ pote ge/nêtai; r(êto\n ga\r ou)damô=s e)stin ô(s a)/lla mathê/mata, a)ll' e)k pollê=s sunousi/as gignome/nês peri\ to\ pra=gma au)to\ kai\ tou= suzê=|n, e)xai/phnês, oi(=on a)po\ puro\s pêdê/santos e)xaphthe\n phô=s, e)n tê=| psuchê=| geno/menon au)to\ e(auto\ ê)/dê tre/phei].
This sentence, as a remarkable one, I have translated literally in the text: that which precedes is given only in substance.
We see in the Republic that Sokrates, when questioned by Glaukon, and urged emphatically to give some solution respecting [Greek: ê( tou= a)gathou= i)de/a] and [Greek: ê( tou= diale/gesthai du/namis], answers only by an evasion or a metaphor (Republic, vi.
506 E, vii.
533 A).
Now these are much the same points as what are signified in the letter to Dionysius, under the terms [Greek: ta\ prô=ta kai\ a)/kra tê=s phu/seôs--ê( tou= prô/tou phu/sis] (312 E): as to which Plato, when questioned, replies in a mystic and unintelligible way.]
[Side-note: He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of geometrical teaching.
Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at each of these stages.]
Plato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illustrating the uselessness both of writing and of direct exposition.
In acquiring a knowledge of the circle, he distinguishes five successive stages.
1.
The Name.
2.
The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns and verbs.
3.
The Diagram.
4.
Knowledge, Intelligence, True Opinion, [Greek: Nou=s].
5.
The Noumenon--[Greek: Au)to\-Ku/klos]--ideal or intelligible circle, the only true object of knowledge.
[25] The fourth stage is a purely mental result, not capable of being exposed either in words or figure: it presupposes the three first, but is something distinct from them; and it is the only mental condition immediately cognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the self-existent idea.
[26] [Footnote 25: Plato, Epist.
vii.
342 A, B.
The geometrical illustration which follows is intended merely as an illustration, of general principles which Plato asserts to be true about all other enquiries, physical or ethical.]
[Footnote 26: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
342 C. [Greek: ô(s de\ e(\n tou=to au)= pa=n thete/on, ou)k e)n phônai=s ou)d' e)n sôma/tôn schê/masin a)ll' e)n psuchai=s e)no/n, ô(=| dê=lon e(/teron te o)\n au)tou= tou= ku/klou tê=s phu/seôs, tô=n te e)/mprosthen lechthe/ntôn triô=n.
tou/tôn de\ e)ggu/tata me\n xuggenei/a| kai\ o(moio/têti, tou= pe/mptou] (_i.
e._ [Greek: tou= Au)to\-ku/klou]) [Greek: nou=s] (the fourth stage) [Greek: peplêsi/ake, ta)/lla de\ ple/on a)pe/chei].
In Plato's reckoning, [Greek: o( nou=s] is counted as the fourth, in the ascending scale, from which we ascend to the fifth, [Greek: to\ noou/menon], or [Greek: noêto/n].
[Greek: O( nou=s] and [Greek: to\ noêto\n] are cognate or homogeneous--according to a principle often insisted on in ancient metaphysics--like must be known by like.
(Aristot.
De Animâ, i.
2, 404, b.
15.)]
Now in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability to error and confusion.
The name is unavoidably equivocal, uncertain, fluctuating: the definition is open to the same reproach, and often gives special and accidental properties along with the universal and essential, or instead of them: the diagram cannot exhibit the essential without some variety of the accidental, nor without some properties even contrary to reality, since any circle which you draw, instead of touching a straight line in one point alone, will be sure to touch it in several points.
[27] Accordingly no intelligent man will embody the pure concepts of his mind in fixed representation, either by words or by figures.
[28] If we do this, we have the _quid_ or essence, which we are searching for, inextricably perplexed by accompaniments of the _quale_ or accidents, which we are not searching for.
[29] We acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be puzzled, confuted, and humiliated, by an acute cross-examiner, when he questions us on the four stages which we have gone through to attain it.
[30] Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the mind, but from the defects inherent in each of the four stages of progress.
It is only by painful effort, when each of these is naturally good--when the mind itself also is naturally good, and when it has gone through all the stages up and down, dwelling upon each--that true knowledge can be acquired.
[31] Persons whose minds are naturally bad, or have become corrupt, morally or intellectually, cannot be taught to see even by Lynkeus himself.
In a word, if the mind itself be not cognate to the matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory will suffice.
He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not cognate or congenial with just or honourable things--he who, though cognate and congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful--will never effectually learn the truth about virtue or wickedness.
[32] These can only be learnt along with truth and falsehood as it concerns entity generally, by long practice and much time.
[33] It is only with difficulty,--after continued friction, one against another, of all the four intellectual helps, names and definitions, acts of sight and sense,--after application of the Elenchus by repeated question and answer, in a friendly temper and without spite--it is only after all these preliminaries, that cognition and intelligence shine out with as much intensity as human power admits.
[34] [Footnote 27: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
343 B.
This illustrates what is said in the Republic about the geometrical [Greek: u(pothe/seis] (vi.
510 E, 511 A; vii.
533 B.)]
[Footnote 28: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
343 A.
[Greek: ô(=n e(/neka nou=n e)/chôn ou)dei\s tolmê/sei pote\ ei)s au)to\ tithe/nai ta\ nenoême/na, kai\ tau=ta ei)s a)metaki/nêton, o(\ dê\ pa/schei ta\ gegramme/na tu/pois.]]
[Footnote 29: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
343 C.] [Footnote 30: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
343 D.] [Footnote 31: Plat.
Epistol.
vii.
343 E. [Greek: ê( de\ dia\ pa/ntôn au)tô=n diagôgê/, a)/nô kai\ ka/tô metabai/nousa e)ph' e(/kaston, mo/gis e)pistê/mên e)ne/teken eu)= pephuko/tos eu)= pephuko/ti.]]
[Footnote 32: Plato, Epistol.
vii.
344 A.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Epist.
vii.
344 B.
[Greek: a(/ma ga\r au)ta\ a)na/gkê mantha/nein, kai\ to\ pseu=dos a(/ma kai\ a)lêthe\s tê=s o(/lês ou)si/as.]]
[Footnote 34: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
344 B.
[Greek: mo/gis de\ tribo/mena pro\s a)/llêla au)tô=n e(/kasta, o)no/mata kai\ lo/goi, o)/pseis te kai\ ai)sthê/seis, e)n eu)mene/sin e)le/gchos e)legcho/mena kai\ a)/neu phtho/nôn e)rôtê/sesi kai\ a)pokri/sesi chrôme/nôn, e)xe/lampse phro/nêsis peri\ e(/kaston kai\ nou=s, suntei/nôn o(/ti ma/list' ei)s du/namin a)nthrôpi/nên.]]
[Side-note: No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of error.]
For this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and publish his views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite and puzzling contention.
In one word, when you see any published writings, either laws proclaimed by the law-giver or other compositions by others, you may be sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these were not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation.
If they really were so, and if he has published his views in writing, some evil influence must have destroyed his good sense.
[35] [Footnote 35: Plat.
Epist.
vii.
344 C-D.] [Side-note: Relations of Plato with Dionysius II.
and the friends of the deceased Dion.
Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound Plato's doctrines.]
We see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved the idea of publishing, for the benefit of readers generally, any written exposition of _philosophia prima_, carrying his own name, and making him responsible for it.
His writings are altogether dramatic.
All opinions on philosophy are enunciated through one or other of his spokesmen: that portion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in which the Chorus addressed the audience directly and avowedly in the name of the poet, found no favour with Plato.
We read indeed in several of his dialogues (Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and others) dogmas advanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philosophy: but then they are all advanced under the name of Sokrates, Timæus, &c.--[Greek: Ou)k e)mo\s o( mu=thos], &c. There never was any written programme issued by Plato himself, declaring the Symbolum Fidei to which he attached his own name.
[36] Even in the Leges, the most dogmatical of all his works, the dramatic character and the borrowed voice are kept up.
Probably at the time when Plato wrote his letter to the friends of the deceased Dion, from which I have just quoted--his aversion to written expositions was aggravated by the fact, that Dionysius II., or some friend in his name, had written and published a philosophical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of a Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built thereupon, from oral communication with Plato.
[37] We must remember that Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not) had complimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude in philosophical debate:[38] so that the pretension of the latter to come forward as an expositor of Plato appears the less preposterous.
On the other hand, such pretension was calculated to raise a belief that Dionysius had been among the most favoured and confidential companions of Plato: which belief Plato, writing as he was to the surviving friends of Dion the enemy of Dionysius, is most anxious to remove, while on the other hand he extols the dispositions and extenuates the faults of his friend Dion.
It is to vindicate himself from misconception of his own past proceedings, as well as to exhort with regard to the future, that Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh and eighth Epistles, wherein are embodied his objections against the usefulness of written exposition intended for readers generally.
[Footnote 36: The Platonic dialogue was in this respect different from the Aristotelian dialogue.
Aristotle, in his composed dialogues, introduced other speakers, but delivered the principal arguments in his own name.
Cicero followed his example, in the De Finibus and elsewhere: "Quæ his temporibus scripsi, [Greek: A)ristote/leion] morem habent: in quo sermo ita inducitur cæterorum, ut penes ipsum sit principatus".
(Cic.
ad Att.
xiii.
19.)
Herakleides of Pontus (Cicero, ibid.
), in his composed dialogues, introduced himself as a [Greek: kôpho\n pro/sôpon].
Plato does not even do thus much.]
[Footnote 37: We see this from Epist.
vii.
341 B, 344 D, 345 A. Plato speaks of the impression as then prevalent (when he wrote) in the mind of Dionysius:--[Greek: po/teron Dionu/sios a)kou/sas mo/non a(/pax ou(/tôs _ei)de/nai te oi)/etai_ kai\ i(kanôs oi)=den], &c.]] [Footnote 38: Plat.
Epist.
ii.
314 D.] [Side-note: Impossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by Plato; the assumption intelligible in his day.]
These objections (which Plato had often insisted on,[39] and which are also, in part, urged by Sokrates in the Phædrus) have considerable force, if we look to the way in which Plato conceives them.
In the first place, Plato conceives the exposition as not merely written but published: as being, therefore, presented to all minds, the large majority being ignorant, unprepared, and beset with that false persuasion of knowledge which Sokrates regarded as universal.
In so far as it comes before these latter, nothing is gained, and something is lost; for derision is brought upon the attempt to teach.
[40] In the next place, there probably existed, at that time, no elementary work whatever for beginners in any science: the Elements of Geometry by Euclid were published more than a century after Plato's death, at Alexandria.
Now, when Plato says that written expositions, then scarcely known, would be useless to the student--he compares them with the continued presence and conversation of a competent teacher; whom he supposes not to rely upon direct exposition, but to talk much "about and about" the subject, addressing the pupil with a large variety of illustrative interrogations, adapting all that was said to his peculiar difficulties and rate of progress, and thus evoking the inherent cognitive force of the pupil's own mind.
That any Elements of Geometry (to say nothing of more complicated inquiries) could be written and published, such that an [Greek: a)geôme/trêtos] might take up the work and learn geometry by means of it, without being misled by equivocal names, bad definitions, and diagrams exhibiting the definition as clothed with special accessories--this is a possibility which Plato contests, and which we cannot wonder at his contesting.
[41] The combination of a written treatise, with the oral exposition of a tutor, would have appeared to Plato not only useless but inconvenient, as restraining the full liberty of adaptive interrogation necessary to be exercised, different in the case of each different pupil.
[Footnote 39: Plato, Epist.
vii.
342.
[Greek: lo/gos a)lêthê/s, polla/kis me\n u(p' e)mou= kai\ pro/sthen r(êthei/s], &c.] [Footnote 40: Plato (Epist.
ii.
314 A) remarks this expressly: also in the Phædrus, 275 E, 276 A.
[Greek: A)/threi dê\ periskopô=n, mê/ tis tô=n a)muê/tôn e)pakou/sê|] is the language of the Platonic Sokrates as a speaker in the Theætêtus (155 E).]
[Footnote 41: Some just and pertinent remarks, bearing on this subject, are made by Condorcet, in one of his Academic Éloges: "Les livres ne peuvent remplacer les leçons des maîtres habiles, lorsque les sciences n'ont pas encore fait assez de progrès, pour que les vérités, qui en forment l'ensemble, puissent êtres distribuées et rapprochées entre elles suivant un ordre systématique: lorsque la méthode d'en chercher de nouvelles n'a pas été réduite à des procédés exacts et simples, à des règles sûres et précises.
Avant cette époque, il faut être déjà consommé dans une science pour lire avec utilité les ouvrages qui en traitent: et comme cette espèce d'enfance de l'art est le temps où les préjugés y regnent avec le plus d'empire, où les savants sont les plus exposés à donner leurs hypothèses pour de véritables principes, on risquerait encore de s'égarer si l'on se bornait aux leçons d'un seul maître, quand même on aurait choisi celui que la renommée place au premier rang; car ce temps est aussi celui des reputations usurpées.
Les voyages sont donc alors le seul moyen de s'instruire, comme ils l'étaient dans l'antiquité et avant la découverte de l'imprimerie."
(Condorcet, Éloge de M. Margraaf, p. 349, Oeuvres Complets, Paris, 1804.
Éloges, vol.
ii.
Or Ed.
Firmin Didot Frères, Paris, 1847, vol.
ii.
pp.
598-9.)]
[Side-note: Standard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the expository process.--Power of sustaining a Sokratic cross-examination.]
Lastly, when we see by what standard Plato tests the efficacy of any expository process, we shall see yet more clearly how he came to consider written exposition unavailing.
The standard which he applies is, that the learner shall be rendered able both to apply to others, and himself to endure from others, a Sokratic Elenchus or cross-examination as to the logical difficulties involved in all the steps and helps to learning.
Unless he can put to others and follow up the detective questions--unless he can also answer them, when put to himself, pertinently and consistently, so as to avoid being brought to confusion or contradiction--Plato will not allow that he has attained true knowledge.
[42] Now, if we try knowledge by a test so severe as this, we must admit that no reading of written expositions will enable the student to acquire it.
The impression made is too superficial, and the mind is too passive during such a process, to be equal to the task of meeting new points of view, and combating difficulties not expressly noticed in the treatise which has been studied.
The only way of permanently arming and strengthening the mind, is (according to Plato) by long-continued oral interchange and stimulus, multiplied comment and discussion from different points of view, and active exercise in dialectic debate: not aiming at victory over an opponent, but reasoning out each question in all its aspects, affirmative and negative.
It is only after a long course of such training--the living word of the competent teacher, applied to the mind of the pupil, and stimulating its productive and self-defensive force--that any such knowledge can be realised as will suffice for the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.
[43] [Footnote 42: Plato, Epist.
vii.
343 D. The difficulties which Plato had here in his eye, and which he required to be solved as conditions indispensable to real knowledge--are jumped over in geometrical and other scientific expositions, as belonging not to geometry, &c., but to logic.
M. Jouffroy remarks, in the Preface to his translation of Reid's works (p.
clxxiv.
):--"Toute science particulière qui, au lieu de prendre pour accordées les données _à priori_ qu'elle implique, discute l'autorité de ces données--ajoute à son objet propre celui de la logique, confond une autre mission avec la sienne, et par cela même compromet la sienne: car nous verrons tout à-l'heure, et l'histoire de la philosophic montre, quelles difficultés présentent ces problèmes qui sont l'objet propre de la logique; et nous demeurerons convaincus que, si les _différentes sciences avaient eu la prétention de les éclaircir avant de passer outre, toutes peut-être en seraient encore à cette préface_, et aucune n'aurait entamé sa véritable tâche."
Remarks of a similar bearing will be found in the second paragraph of Mr. John Stuart Mill's Essay on Utilitarianism.
It has been found convenient to distinguish the logic of a science from the expository march of the same science.
But Plato would not have acknowledged [Greek: e)pistê/mê], except as including both.
Hence his view about the uselessness of written expository treatises.
Aristotle, in a remarkable passage of the Metaphysica ([Greek: G].
p. 1005, a.
20 seqq.)
takes pains to distinguish the Logic of Mathematics from Mathematics themselves--as a separate province and matter of study.
He claims the former as belonging to Philosophia Prima or Ontology.
Those principles which mathematicians called Axioms were not peculiar to Mathematics (he says), but were affirmations respecting Ens quatenus Ens: the mathematician was entitled to assume them so far as concerned his own department, and his students must take them for granted: but if he attempted to explain or appreciate them in their full bearing, he overstepped his proper limits, through want of proper schooling in Analytica ([Greek: o(/sa d' e)gcheirou=si tô=n lego/ntôn tine\s peri\ tê=s a)lêthei/as, o(\n tro/pon dei= a)pode/chesthai, di' a)paideusi/an tô=n a)nalutikô=n tou=to drô=sin; dei= ga\r peri\ tou/tôn ê(/kein proepistame/nous, a)lla\ mê\ a)kou/ontas zêtei=n]--p. 1005, b.
2.)
We see from the words of Aristotle that many mathematical enquirers of his time did not recognise (any more than Plato recognised) the distinction upon which he here insists: we see also that the term _Axioms_ had become a technical one for the _principia_ of mathematical demonstration ([Greek: peri\ tô=n e)n toi=s mathê/masi kaloume/nôn a)xiôma/tôn]--p. 1005, a.
20); I do not concur in Sir William Hamilton's doubts on this point.
(Dissertations on Reid's Works, note A. p.
764.)
The distinction which Aristotle thus brings to notice, seemingly for the first time, is one of considerable importance.]
[Footnote 43: This is forcibly put by Plato, Epistol.
vii.
344 B.
Compare Plato, Republic, vi.
499 A. Phædrus, 276 A-E. [Greek: to\n tou= ei)do/tos lo/gon zô=nta kai\ e)/mpsuchon], &c. Though Plato, in the Phædrus, declares oral teaching to be the only effectual way of producing a permanent and deep-seated effect--as contrasted with the more superficial effect produced by reading a written exposition: yet even oral teaching, when addressed in the form of continuous lecture or sermon ([Greek: a)/neu a)nakri/seôs kai\ didachê=s], Phædrus, 277 E; [Greek: to\ nouthetêtiko\n ei)=dos], Sophistês, p. 230), is represented elsewhere as of little effect.
To produce any permanent result, you must diversify the point of view--you must test by circumlocutory interrogation--you must begin by dispelling established errors, &c. See the careful explanation of the passage in the Phædrus (277 E), given by Ueberweg, Aechtheit der Platon.
Schrift.
pp.
16-22.
Direct teaching, in many of the Platonic dialogues, is not counted as capable of producing serious improvement.
When we come to the Menon and the Phædon, we shall hear more of the Platonic doctrine--that knowledge was to be evolved out of the mind, not poured into it from without.]
[Side-note: Plato never published any of the lectures which he delivered at the Academy.]
Since we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to publication in his own name and with his own responsibility attached to the writing, on grave matters of philosophy--we cannot be surprised that, among the numerous lectures which he must have delivered to his pupils and auditors in the Academy, none were ever published.
Probably he may himself have destroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the Epistle which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently.
And we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle and Hestiæus[44] for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and making them known to the public: just as he was displeased with Dionysius for having published a work purporting to be derived from conversations with Plato.
[Footnote 44: Themistius mentions it as a fact recorded (I wish he had told us where or by whom) that Aristotle stoutly opposed the Platonic doctrine of Objective Ideas, even during the lifetime of Plato, [Greek: i(storei=tai de\ o(/ti kai\ zô=ntos tou= Pla/tônos karterô/tata peri\ tou/tou tou= do/gmatos e)ne/stê o( A)ristote/lês tô=| Pla/tôni].
(Scholia ad Aristotel.
Analyt.
Poster.
p. 228 b.
16 Brandis.)]
[Side-note: Plato would never publish his philosophical opinions in his own name; but he may have published them in the dialogues under the name of others.]
That Plato would never consent to write for the public in his own name, must be taken as a fact in his character; probably arising from early caution produced by the fate of Sokrates, combined with preference for the Sokratic mode of handling.
But to what extent he really kept back his opinions from the public, or whether he kept them back at all, by design--I do not undertake to say.
The borrowed names under which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave him greater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated, and were adopted for the express purpose of acquiring greater freedom.
How far the lectures which he delivered to his own special auditory differed from the opinions made known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far his conversation with a few advanced pupils differed from both--are questions which we have no sufficient means of answering.
There probably was a considerable difference.
Aristotle alludes to various doctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the Platonic writings: but these doctrines are not such as could have given peculiar offence, if published; they are, rather abstruse and hard to understand.
It may also be true (as Tennemann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of handling philosophy--a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true (as the same learned author[45] asserts) that his published dialogues contained the popular and not the scientific.
No one surely can regard the Timæus, Parmenidês, Philêbus, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus, &c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are kept out of sight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary reader.
Among the dialogues themselves (as I have before remarked) there exist the widest differences; some highly popular and attractive, others altogether the reverse, and many gradations between the two.
Though I do not doubt therefore that Plato produced powerful effect both as lecturer to a special audience, and as talker with chosen students--yet in what respect such lectures and conversation differed from what we read in his dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of knowing.
[Footnote 45: See Tennemann, Gesch.
d. Phil.
vol.
ii.
p. 205, 215, 221 seq.
This portion of Tennemann's History is valuable, as it takes due account of the seventh Platonic Epistle, compared with the remarkable passage in the Phædrus about the inefficacy of written exposition for the purpose of teaching.
But I cannot think that Tennemann rightly interprets the Epistol.
vii.
I see no proof that Plato had any secret or esoteric philosophy, reserved for a few chosen pupils, and not proclaimed to the public from apprehension of giving offence to established creeds: though I believe such apprehension to have operated as one motive, deterring him from publishing any philosophical exposition under his own name--any [Greek: Pla/tônos su/ggramma].]
[Side-note: Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown.]
In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding the testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views not declared in the dialogues.
Though little can be predicated respecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch upon them separately and _seriatim_.
[Side-note: Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still useful--Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition.]
The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective, partly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two leading classes is in several cases erroneous--partly because the discrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division of one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the sub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject.
But the scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real and important attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of dialogues.
It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical interpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists.
The Dialogues of Exposition--in which one who knows (or professes to know) some truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know it--are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting.
All the interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are jointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them stands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all that is found, whether it be really the thing looked for.
Among the expository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Timæus and Epinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate at all.
Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, exhibit exposition preceded or accompanied by a search.
Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the most elaborate specimen is the Theætêtus: Menon, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked out.
There are also several others.
In the Menon, indeed,[46] Sokrates goes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to contend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or forgotten knowledge.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Menon, p.
81-82.]
[Side-note: Dialogues of Exposition--present affirmative result.
Dialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute.]
Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which exhibit the distinct attribute--an affirmative result or doctrine, announced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in a manner more or less satisfactory.
The other class--the Searching or Investigative--have little else in common except the absence of this property.
We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view canvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative result established, or even announced as established, at the close.
Often there is even a confession of disappointment.
In other respects, the dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another: they have only the one common attribute--much debate, with absence of affirmative result.
[Side-note: The distribution coincides mainly with that of Aristotle--Dialectic, Demonstrative.]
Now the distribution made by Thrasyllus of the dialogues under two general heads (1.
Dialogues of Search or Investigation, 2.
Dialogues of Exposition) coincides, to a considerable extent, with the two distinct intellectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic and Demonstrative: Dialectic being handled by Aristotle in the Topica, and Demonstration in the Posterior Analytica.
"Dialectic" (says Aristotle) "is tentative, respecting those matters of which philosophy aims at cognizance."
Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all matters without exception, but in a tentative and searching way, recognising arguments _pro_ as well as _con_, and bringing to view the antithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption or predetermined direction, the questioner being bound to proceed only on the answers given by the respondent: while philosophy comes afterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate compartments, laying down authoritative _principia_ in regard to each, and deducing from them, by logical process, various positive results.
[47] Plato does not use the term Dialectic exactly in the same sense as Aristotle.
He implies by it two things: 1.
That the process shall be colloquial, two or more minds engaged in a joint research, each of them animating and stimulating the others.
2.
That the matter investigated shall be general--some general question or proposition: that the premisses shall all be general truths, and that the objects kept before the mind shall be Forms or Species, apart from particulars.
[48] Here it stands in contrast with Rhetoric, which aims at the determination of some particular case or debated course of conduct, judicial or political, and which is intended to end in some immediate practical verdict or vote.
Dialectic, in Plato's sense, comprises the whole process of philosophy.
His Dialogues of Search correspond to Aristotle's Dialectic, being machinery for generating arguments and for ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to the interrogation of an opponent: his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein some definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not), correspond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.
[Footnote 47: Aristot.
Metaphys.
[Greek: G].
1004, b.
25.
[Greek: e)/sti de\ ê( dialektikê\ peirastikê\, peri\ ô(=n ê( philosophi/a gnôristikê/].
Compare also Rhet.
i.
2, p. 1356, a.
33, i.
4, p. 1359, b.
12, where he treats Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) not as methods of acquiring instruction on any definite matter, but as inventive and argumentative aptitudes--powers of providing premisses and arguments--[Greek: duna/meis tine\s tou= pori/sai lo/gous].
If (he says) you try to convert Dialectic from a method of discussion into a method of cognition, you will insensibly eliminate its true nature and character:--[Greek: o(/sô| d' a)/n tis ê)\ tê\n dialektikê\n ê)\ tau/tên, mê\ katha/per a)\n duna/meis a)ll' e)pistê/mas peira=tai kataskeua/zein, lê/setai tê\n phu/sin au)tô=n a)phani/sas, tô=| metabai/nein e)piskeua/zôn ei)s e)pistê/mas u(pokeime/nôn tinô=n pragma/tôn, a)lla\ mê\ mo/non lo/gôn].
The Platonic Dialogues of Search are [Greek: duna/meis tou= pori/sai lo/gous].
Compare the Prooemium of Cicero to his Paradoxa.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Republ.
vi.
511, vii.
582.
Respecting the difference between Plato and Aristotle about Dialectic, see Ravaisson--Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote--iii.
1, 2, p.
248.]
[Side-note: Classification of Thrasyllus in its details.
He applies his own principles erroneously.]
If now we take the main scheme of distributing the Platonic Dialogues, proposed by Thrasyllus--1.
Dialogues of Exposition, with an affirmative result; 2.
Dialogues of Investigation or Search, without an affirmative result--and if we compare the number of Dialogues (out of the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as belonging to each--we shall find twenty-two specified under the former head, and fourteen under the latter.
Moreover, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic and Leges: each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other composition of Plato.
It would appear thus that there is a preponderance both in number and bulk on the side of the Expository.
But when we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly enlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted the other.
He has enrolled among the Expository--1.
The Apology, the Epistolæ, and the Menexenus, which ought not properly to be ranked under either head.
2.
The Theætêtus, Parmenidês, Hipparchus, Erastæ, Minos, Kleitophon--every one of which ought to be transferred to the other head.
3.
The Phædrus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by indulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition, but in small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the rhetorical and poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both classes, but more preponderantly to one.
4.
The Republic.
This he includes with perfect justice, for the eight last books of it are expository.
Yet the first book exhibits to us a specimen of negative and refutative dialectic which is not surpassed by anything in Plato.
On the other hand, Thrasyllus has placed among the Dialogues of Search one which might, with equal or greater propriety, be ranked among the Expository--the Protagoras.
It is true that this dialogue involves much of negation, refutation, and dramatic ornament: and that the question propounded in the beginning (Whether virtue be teachable?)
is not terminated.
But there are two portions of the dialogue which are, both of them, decided specimens of affirmative exposition--the speech of Protagoras in the earlier part (wherein the growth of virtue, without special teaching or professional masters, is elucidated)--and the argument of Sokrates at the close, wherein the identity of the Good and the Pleasurable is established.
[49] [Footnote 49: We may remark that Thrasyllus, though he enrols the Protagoras under the class Investigative, and the sub-class Agonistic, places it alone in a still lower class which he calls [Greek: E)ndeiktiko/s].
Now, if we turn to the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, p. 278 D, we shall see that Plato uses the words [Greek: e)ndei/xomai] and [Greek: u(phêgê/somai] as exact equivalents: so that [Greek: e)ndeiktiko\s] would have the same meaning as [Greek: u(phêgêtiko/s].]
[Side-note: The classification, as it would stand, if his principles were applied correctly.]
If then we rectify the lists of Thrasyllus, they will stand as follows, with the Expository Dialogues much diminished in number: _Dialogues of Investigation or Search._ [Greek: Zêtêtikoi/].
1.
Theætêtus.
2.
Parmenidês.
3.
Alkibiadês I.
4.
Alkibiadês II.
5.
Theagês.
6.
Lachês.
7.
Lysis.
8.
Charmidês.
9.
Menon.
10.
Ion.
11.
Euthyphron.
12.
Euthydêmus.
13.
Gorgias.
14.
Hippias I.
15.
Hippias II.
16.
Kleitophon.
17.
Hipparchus.
18.
Erastæ.
19.
Minos.
_Dialogues of Exposition_ [Greek: U(phêgêtikoi/].
1.
Timæus.
2.
Leges.
3.
Epinomis.
4.
Kritias.
5.
Republic.
6.
Sophistês.
7.
Politikus.
8.
Phædon.
9.
Philêbus.
10.
Protagoras.
11.
Phædrus.
12.
Symposion.
13.
Kratylus.
14.
Kriton.
The Apology, Menexenus, Epistolæ, do not properly belong to either head.
[Side-note: Preponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over the expository and dogmatical.]
It will thus appear, from a fair estimate and comparison of lists, that the relation which Plato bears to philosophy is more that of a searcher, tester, and impugner, than that of an expositor and dogmatist--though he undertakes both the two functions: more negative than affirmative--more ingenious in pointing out difficulties, than successful in solving them.
I must again repeat that though this classification is just, as far as it goes, and the best which can be applied to the dialogues, taken as a whole--yet the dialogues have much which will not enter into the classification, and each has its own peculiarities.
[Side-note: Dialogues of Search--sub-classes among them recognised by Thrasyllus--Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c.] The Dialogues of Search, thus comprising more than half the Platonic compositions, are again distributed by Thrasyllus into two sub-classes--Gymnastic and Agonistic: the Gymnastic, again, into Obstetric and Peirastic; the Agonistic, into Probative and Refutative.
Here, again, there is a pretence of symmetrical arrangement, which will not hold good if we examine it closely.
Nevertheless, the epithets point to real attributes of various dialogues, and deserve the more attention, inasmuch as they imply a view of philosophy foreign to the prevalent way of looking at it.
Obstetric and Tentative or Testing (Peirastic) are epithets which a reader may understand; but he will not easily see how they bear upon the process of philosophy.
[Side-note: Philosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative teaching, positive results, direct proofs.]
The term _philosopher_ is generally understood to mean something else.
In appreciating a philosopher, it is usual to ask, What authoritative creed has he proclaimed, for disciples to swear allegiance to?
What positive system, or positive truths previously unknown or unproved, has he established?
Next, by what arguments has he enforced or made them good?
This is the ordinary proceeding of an historian of philosophy, as he calls up the roll of successive names.
The philosopher is assumed to speak as one having authority; to have already made up his mind; and to be prepared to explain what his mind is.
Readers require positive results announced, and positive evidence set before them, in a clear and straightforward manner.
They are intolerant of all that is prolix, circuitous, not essential to the proof of the thesis in hand.
Above all, an affirmative result is indispensable.
When I come to the Timæus, and Republic, &c., I shall consider what reply Plato could make to these questions.
In the meantime, I may observe that if philosophers are to be estimated by such a scale, he will not stand high on the list.
Even in his expository dialogues, he cares little about clear proclamation of results, and still less about the shortest, straightest, and most certain road for attaining them.
[Side-note: The Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and teaching--assume truth to be unknown to all alike--follow a process devious as well as fruitless.]
But as to those numerous dialogues which are not expository, Plato could make no reply to the questions at all.
There are no affirmative results:--and there is a process of enquiry, not only fruitless, but devious, circuitous, and intentionally protracted.
The authoritative character of a philosopher is disclaimed.
Not only Plato never delivers sentence in his own name, but his principal spokesman, far from speaking with authority, declares that he has not made up his own mind, and that he is only a searcher along with others, more eager in the chase than they are.
[50] Philosophy is conceived as the search for truth still unknown; not as an explanation of truth by one who knows it, to others who do not know it.
The process of search is considered as being in itself profitable and invigorating, even though what is sought be not found.
The ingenuity of Sokrates is shown, not by what he himself produces, for he avows himself altogether barren--but by his obstetric aid: that is, by his being able to evolve, from a youthful mind, answers of which it is pregnant, and to test the soundness and trustworthiness of those answers when delivered: by his power, besides, of exposing or refuting unsound answers, and of convincing others of the fallacy of that which they confidently believed themselves to know.
[Footnote 50: In addition to the declarations of Sokrates to this effect in the Platonic Apology (pp.
21-23), we read the like in many Platonic dialogues.
Gorgias, 506 A.
[Greek: ou)de\ ga/r toi e)/gôge ei)dô\s le/gô a(\ le/gô, a)lla\ zêtô= koinê=| meth' u(mô=n] (see Routh's note): and even in the Republic, in many parts of which there is much dogmatism and affirmation: v. p. 450 E. [Greek: a)pistou=nta de\ kai\ zêtou=nta a(/ma tou\s lo/gous poiei=sthai, o(\ dê\ e)gô\ drô=], &c.] [Side-note: The questioner has no predetermined course, but follows the lead given by the respondent in his answers.]
To eliminate affirmative, authoritative exposition, which proceeds upon the assumption that truth is already known--and to consider philosophy as a search for unknown truth, carried on by several interlocutors all of them ignorant--this is the main idea which Plato inherited from Sokrates, and worked out in more than one half of his dialogues.
It is under this general head that the subdivisions of Thrasyllus fall--the Obstetric, the Testing or Verifying, the Refutative.
The process is one in which both the two concurrent minds are active, but each with an inherent activity peculiar to itself.
The questioner does not follow a predetermined course of his own, but proceeds altogether on the answer given to him.
He himself furnishes only an indispensable stimulus to the parturition of something with which the respondent is already pregnant, and applies testing questions to that which he hears, until the respondent is himself satisfied that the answer will not hold.
Throughout all this, there is a constant appeal to the free, self-determining judgment of the respondent's own mind, combined with a stimulus exciting the intellectual productiveness of that mind to the uttermost.
[Side-note: Relation of teacher and learner.
Appeal to authority is suppressed.]
What chiefly deserves attention here, as a peculiar phase in the history of philosophy, is, that the relation of teacher and learner is altogether suppressed.
Sokrates not only himself disclaims the province and title of a teacher, but treats with contemptuous banter those who assume it.
Now "the learner" (to use a memorable phrase of Aristotle[51]) "is under obligation to believe": he must be a passive recipient of that which is communicated to him by the teacher.
The relation between the two is that of authority on the one side, and of belief generated by authority on the other.
But Sokrates requires from no man implicit trust: nay he deprecates it as dangerous.
[52] It is one peculiarity in these Sokratic dialogues, that the sentiment of authority, instead of being invoked and worked up, as is generally done in philosophy, is formally disavowed and practically set aside.
"I have not made up my mind: I am not prepared to swear allegiance to any creed: I give you the reasons for and against each: you must decide for yourself.
"[53] [Footnote 51: Aristot.
De Sophist.
Elenchis, Top.
ix.
p. 165, b.
2.
[Greek: dei= ga\r pisteu/ein to\n mantha/nonta.]]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Protagor.
p. 314 B.]
[Footnote 53: The sentiment of the Academic sect--descending from Sokrates and Plato, not through Xenokrates and Polemon, but through Arkesilaus and Karneades--illustrates the same elimination of the idea of authority.
"Why are you so curious to know what _I myself_ have determined on the point?
Here are the reasons _pro_ and _con_: weigh the one against the other, and then judge for yourself."
See Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy--Appendix, p. 681--about mediæval disputations: also Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
iv.
4-7.
"Sed defendat quod quisque sentit: sunt enim judicia libera: nos institutum tenebimus, nulliusque unius disciplinæ legibus adstricti, quibus in philosophiâ necessario pareamus, quid sit in quâque re maximé probabile, semper requiremus."
Again, Cicero, De Nat.
Deor.
i.
5, 10-13.
"Qui autem requirunt, quid quâque de re ipsi sentiamus, curiosius id faciunt quam necesse est.
_Non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta quærenda sunt._ Quin etiam obest plorumque iis, qui discere volunt, auctoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur; desinunt enim suum judicium adhibere; id habent ratum, quod ab eo quem probant judicatum vident.
.
.
.
Si singulas disciplinas percipere magnum est, quanto majus omnes?
Quod facere iis necesse est, quibus propositum est, veri reperiendi causâ, et contra omnes philosophos et pro omnibus dicere.
.
.
Nec tamen fieri potest, ut qui hâc ratione philosophentur, ii nihil habeant quod sequantur.
.
.
Non enim sumus ii quibus nihil verum esse videatur, sed ii, qui omnibus veris falsa quædam adjuncta esse dicamus, tantâ similitudine ut in iis nulla insit certa judicandi et assentiendi nota.
Ex quo exsistit illud, multa esse probabilia, quæ quanquam non perciperentur, tamen quia visum haberent quendam insignem et illustrem, his sapientis vita regeretur."
Compare Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
ii.
sect.
2-3-5-9.
Quintilian, xii.
2-25.]
[Side-note: In the modern world the search for truth is put out of sight.
Every writer or talker professes to have already found it, and to proclaim it to others.]
This process--the search for truth as an unknown--is in the modern world put out of sight.
All discussion is conducted by persons who profess to have found it or learnt it, and to be in condition to proclaim it to others.
Even the philosophical works of Cicero are usually pleadings by two antagonists, each of whom professes to know the truth, though Cicero does not decide between them: and in this respect they differ from the groping and fumbling of the Platonic dialogues.
Of course the search for truth must go on in modern times, as it did in ancient: but it goes on silently and without notice.
The most satisfactory theories have been preceded by many infructuous guesses and tentatives.
The theorist may try many different hypotheses (we are told that Kepler tried nineteen) which he is forced successively to reject; and he may perhaps end without finding any better.
But all these tentatives, verifying tests, doubts, and rejections, are confined to his own bosom or his own study.
He looks back upon them without interest, sometimes even with disgust; least of all does he seek to describe them in detail as objects of interest to others.
They are probably known to none but himself: for it does not occur to him to follow the Platonic scheme of taking another mind into partnership, and entering upon that distribution of active intellectual work which we read in the Theætêtus.
There are cases in which two chemists have carried on joint researches, under many failures and disappointments, perhaps at last without success.
If a record were preserved of their parley during the investigation, the grounds for testing and rejecting one conjecture, and for selecting what should be tried after it--this would be in many points a parallel to the Platonic process.
[Side-note: The search for truth by various interlocutors was a recognised process in the Sokratic age.
Acute negative Dialectic of Sokrates.]
But at Athens in the fourth century, B.C., the search for truth by two or more minds in partnership was not so rare a phenomenon.
The active intellects of Athens were distributed between Rhetoric, which addressed itself to multitudes, accepted all established sentiments, and handled for the most part particular issues--and Dialectic, in which a select few debated among themselves general questions.
[54] Of this Dialectic, the real Sokrates was the greatest master that Athens ever saw: he could deal as he chose (says Xenophon[55]) with all disputants: he turned them round his finger.
In this process, one person set up a thesis, and the other cross-examined him upon it: the most irresistible of all cross-examiners was the real Sokrates.
The nine books of Aristotle's Topica (including the book De Sophisticis Elenchis) are composed with the object of furnishing suggestions, and indicating rules, both to the cross-examiner and to the respondent, in such Dialectic debates.
Plato does not lay down any rules: but he has given us, in his dialogues of search, specimens of dialectic procedure shaped in his own fashion.
Several of his contemporaries, companions of Sokrates, like him, did the same each in his own way: but their compositions have not survived.
[56] [Footnote 54: The habit of supposing a general question to be undecided, and of having it argued by competent advocates before auditors who have not made up their minds--is now so disused (everywhere except in a court of law), that one reads with surprise Galen's declaration that the different competing medical theories were so discussed in his day.
His master Pelops maintained a disputation of two days with a rival;--[Greek: ê(ni/ka Pe/lops meta\ Phili/ppou tou= e)mpeirikou= diele/chthê duoi=n ê(merô=n; tou= me\n Pe/lopos, ô(s mê\ duname/nês tê=s i)atrikê=s di' e)mpeiri/as mo/nês sustê=nai, tou= Phili/ppou de\ e)pideiknu/ntos du/nasthai].
(Galen, De Propriis Libris, c. 2, p. 16, Kühn.)
Galen notes (ib.
2, p. 21) the habit of literary men at Rome to assemble in the temple of Pax, for the purpose of discussing logical questions, prior to the conflagration which destroyed that temple.]
[Footnote 55: Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
2.]
[Footnote 56: The dialogues composed by Aristotle himself were in great measure dialogues of search, exercises of argumentation _pro_ and _con_ (Cicero, De Finib.
v. 4).
"Aristoteles, ut solet, quærendi gratiâ, quædam subtilitatis suæ argumenta excogitavit in Gryllo," &c. (Quintilian, Inst.
Orat.
ii.
17.)
Bernays indicates the probable titles of many among the lost Aristotelian Dialogues (Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp.
132, 133, Berlin, 1868), and gives in his book many general remarks upon them.
The observations of Aristotle in the Metaphys.
(A.
[Greek: e)la/ttôn] 993, b.
1-16) are conceived in a large and just spirit.
He says that among all the searchers for truth, none completely succeed, and none completely fail: those, from whose conclusions we dissent, do us service by exercising our intelligence--[Greek: tê\n ga\r e(/xin proê/skêsan ê(mô=n].
The enumeration of [Greek: a)pori/ai] in the following book B of the Metaphysica is a continuation of the same views.
Compare Scholia, p. 604, b.
29, Brandis.]
Such compositions give something like fair play to the negative arm of philosophy; in the employment of which the Eleate Zeno first became celebrated, and the real Sokrates yet more celebrated.
This negative arm is no less essential than the affirmative, to the validity of a body of reasoned truth, such as philosophy aspires to be.
To know how to disprove is quite as important as to know how to prove: the one is co-ordinate and complementary to the other.
And the man who disproves what is false, or guards mankind against assenting to it,[57] renders a service to philosophy, even though he may not be able to render the ulterior service of proving any truth in its place.
[Footnote 57: The Stoics had full conviction of this.
In Cicero's summary of the Stoic doctrine (De Finibus, iii.
21, 72) we read:--"Ad easque virtutes, de quibus disputatum est, Dialecticam etiam adjungunt (Stoici) et Physicam: easque ambas virtutum nomine appellant: alteram (_sc._ Dialecticam), quod habeat rationem, ne cui falso adsentiamur, neve unquam captiosâ probabilitate fallamur; eaque, quæ de bonis et malis didicerimus, ut tenere tuerique possimus."]
[Side-note: Negative procedure supposed to be represented by the Sophists and the Megarici; discouraged and censured by historians of philosophy.]
By historians of ancient philosophy, negative procedure is generally considered as represented by the Sophists and the Megarici, and is the main ground for those harsh epithets which are commonly applied to both of them.
The negative (they think) can only be tolerated in small doses, and even then merely as ancillary to the affirmative.
That is, if you have an affirmative theory to propose, you are allowed to urge such objections as you think applicable against rival theories, but only in order to make room for your own.
It seems to be assumed as requiring no proof that the confession of ignorance is an intolerable condition; which every man ought to be ashamed of in himself, and which no man is justified in inflicting on any one else.
If yon deprive the reader of one affirmative solution, you are required to furnish him with another which you are prepared to guarantee as the true one.
"Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi": the throne must never be vacant.
It is plain that under such a restricted application, the full force of the negative case is never brought out.
The pleadings are left in the hands of counsel, each of whom takes up only such fragments of the negative case as suit the interests of his client, and suppresses or slurs over all such other fragments of it as make against his client.
But to every theory (especially on the topics discussed by Sokrates and Plato) there are more or less of objections applicable--even the best theory being true only on the balance.
And if the purpose be to ensure a complete body of reasoned truth, all these objections ought to be faithfully exhibited, by one who stands forward as their express advocate, without being previously retained for any separate or inconsistent purpose.
[Side-note: Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure: absolute necessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth.
Parmenidês of Plato.]
How much Plato himself, in his dialogues of search, felt his own vocation as champion of the negative procedure, we see marked conspicuously in the dialogue called Parmenidês.
This dialogue is throughout a protest against forward affirmation, and an assertion of independent _locus standi_ for the negationist and objector.
The claims of the latter must first be satisfied, before the affirmant can be considered as solvent.
The advocacy of those claims is here confided to veteran Parmenides, who sums them up in a formidable total: Sokrates being opposed to him under the unusual disguise of a youthful and forward affirmant.
Parmenides makes no pretence of advancing any rival doctrine.
The theories which he selects for criticism are the Platonic theory of intelligible Concepts, and his own theory of the Unum: he indicates how many objections must be removed--how many contradictions must be solved--how many opposite hypotheses must be followed out to their results--before either of these theories can be affirmed with assurance.
The exigencies enumerated may and do appear insurmountable:[58] but of that Plato takes no account.
Such laborious exercises are inseparable from the process of searching for truth, and unless a man has strength to go through them, no truth, or at least no reasoned truth, can be found and maintained.
[59] [Footnote 58: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 136 B.
[Greek: dei= skopei=n--ei) me/lleis tele/ôs gumnasa/menos kuri/ôs dio/psesthai to\ a)lêthe/s.
A)mê/chanon, e)/phê, le/geis, ô)= Parmeni/dê, pragmatei/an], &c. Aristotle declares that no man can be properly master of any affirmative truth without having examined and solved all the objections and difficulties--the negative portion of the enquiry.
To go through all these [Greek: a)pori/as] is the indispensable first stage, and perhaps the enquirer may not be able to advance farther, see Metaphysic.
B.
995, a.
26, 996, a.
16--one of the most striking passages in his works.
Compare also what he says, De Coelo, ii.
294, b.
10, [Greek: dio\ dei= to\n me/llonta kalô=s zêtê/sein e)nstatiko\n ei)=nai dia\ tô=n oi)kei/ôn e)nsta/seôn tô=| ge/nei, tou=to de\ e)sti\n e)k tou= pa/sas tetheôrêke/nai ta\s diaphora/s.]]
[Footnote 59: That the only road to trustworthy affirmation lies through a string of negations, unfolded and appreciated by systematic procedure, is strongly insisted on by Bacon, Novum Organum, ii.
15, "Omnino Deo (formarum inditori et opifici), aut fortasse angelis et intelligentiis competit formas per affirmationem immediate nosse, atque ab initio contemplationis.
Sed certe supra hominem est: cui tantum conceditur, procedere primo per negativas, et postremo loco desinere in affirmativas, post omnimodam exclusionem."
Compare another Aphorism, i.
46.
The following passage, transcribed from the Lectures of a distinguished physical philosopher of the present day, is conceived in the spirit of the Platonic Dialogues of Search, though Plato would have been astonished at such patient multiplication of experiments:-"I should hardly sustain your interest in stating the difficulties which at first beset the investigation conducted with this apparatus, or the numberless precautions which the exact balancing of the two powerful sources of heat, here resorted to, rendered necessary.
I believe the experiments, made with atmospheric air alone, might be numbered by tens of thousands.
Sometimes for a week, or even for a fortnight, coincident and satisfactory results would be obtained: the strict conditions of accurate experimenting would appear to be found, when an additional day's experience would destroy this hope and necessitate a recommencement, under changed conditions, of the whole inquiry.
It is this which daunts the experimenter.
It is this preliminary fight with the entanglements of a subject so dark, so doubtful, so uncheering, without any knowledge whether the conflict is to lead to anything worth possessing, that renders discovery difficult and rare.
But the experimenter, and particularly the _young_ experimenter, ought to know that as regards his own moral manhood, he cannot but win, if he only contend aright.
_Even, with a negative result, his consciousness that he has gone fairly to the bottom of his subject, as far as his means allowed_--the feeling that he has not shunned labour, _though that labour may have resulted in laying bare the nakedness of his case_--re-acts upon his own mind, and gives it firmness for future work."
(Tyndall, Lectures on Heat, considered as a Mode of Motion, Lect x. p.
332.)]
[Side-note: Sokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable by itself, and separately.
His theory of the natural state of the human mind; not ignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge.]
It will thus appear that among the conditions requisite for philosophy, both Sokrates and Plato regarded the negative procedure as co-ordinate in value with the affirmative, and indispensable as a preliminary stage.
But Sokrates went a step farther.
He assigned to the negative an intrinsic importance by itself, apart from all implication with the affirmative; and he rested that opinion upon a psychological ground, formally avowed, and far larger than anything laid down by the Sophists.
He thought that the natural state of the human mind, among established communities, was not simply ignorance, but ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge--false or uncertified belief--false persuasion of knowledge.
The only way of dissipating such false persuasion was, the effective stimulus of the negative test, or cross-examining Elenchus; whereby a state of non-belief, or painful consciousness of ignorance, was substituted in its place.
Such second state was indeed not the best attainable.
It ought to be preliminary to a third, acquired by the struggles of the mind to escape from such painful consciousness; and to rise, under the continued stimulus of the tutelary Elenchus, to improved affirmative and defensible beliefs.
But even if this third state were never reached, Sokrates declared the second state to be a material amendment on the first, which he deprecated as alike pernicious and disgraceful.
[Side-note: Declaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant mission to make war against the false persuasion of knowledge.]
The psychological conviction here described stands proclaimed by Sokrates himself, with remarkable earnestness and emphasis, in his Apology before the Dikasts, only a month before his death.
So deeply did he take to heart the prevalent false persuasion of knowledge, alike universal among all classes, mischievous, and difficult to correct--that he declared himself to have made war against it throughout his life, under a mission imposed upon him by the Delphian God; and to have incurred thereby wide-spread hatred among his fellow-citizens.
To convict men, by cross-examination, of ignorance in respect to those matters which each man believed himself to know well and familiarly--this was the constant employment and the mission of Sokrates: not to teach--for he disclaimed the capacity of teaching--but to make men feel their own ignorance instead of believing themselves to know.
Such cross-examination, conducted usually before an audience, however it might be salutary and indispensable, was intended to humiliate the respondent, and could hardly fail to offend and exasperate him.
No one felt satisfaction except some youthful auditors, who admired the acuteness with which it was conducted.
"I (declared Sokrates) am distinguished from others, and superior to others, by this character only--that I am conscious of my own ignorance: the wisest of men would be he who had the like consciousness; but as yet I have looked for such a man in vain.
"[60] [Footnote 60: Plat.
Apol.
S. pp.
23-29.
It is not easy to select particular passages for reference; for the sentiments which I have indicated pervade nearly the whole discourse.]
[Side-note: Opposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts.]
In delivering this emphatic declaration, Sokrates himself intimates his apprehension that the Dikasts will treat his discourse as mockery; that they will not believe him to be in earnest: that they will scarcely have patience to hear him claim a divine mission for so strange a purpose.
[61] The declaration is indeed singular, and probably many of the Dikasts did so regard it; while those who thought it serious, heard it with repugnance.
The separate value of the negative procedure or Elenchus was never before so unequivocally asserted, or so highly estimated.
To disabuse men of those false beliefs which they mistook for knowledge, and to force on them the painful consciousness that they knew nothing--was extolled as the greatest service which could be rendered to them, and as rescuing them from a degraded and slavish state of mind.
[62] [Footnote 61: Plato, Apol.
S. pp.
20-38.]
[Footnote 62: Aristotle, in the first book of Metaphysica (982, b.
17), when repeating a statement made in the Theætêtus of Plato (155 D), that wonder is the beginning, or point of departure, of philosophy--explains the phrase by saying, that wonder is accompanied by a painful conviction of ignorance and sense of embarrassment.
[Greek: o( de\ a)porô=n kai\ thauma/zôn oi)/etai a)gnoei=n .
.
.
dia\ to\ pheu/gein tê\n a)/gnoian e)philoso/phêsan .
.
.
ou) chrê/seô/s tinos e(/neken].
This painful conviction of ignorance is what Sokrates sought to bring about.]
[Side-note: The Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves.
Mistake of supposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior affirmative end, not declared.]
To understand the full purpose of Plato's dialogues of search--testing, exercising, refuting, but not finding or providing--we must keep in mind the Sokratic Apology.
Whoever, after reading the Theætêtus, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Parmenidês, &c., is tempted to exclaim "But, after all, Plato _must_ have had in his mind some ulterior doctrine of conviction which he wished to impress, but which he has not clearly intimated," will see, by the Sokratic Apology, that such a presumption is noway justifiable.
Plato is a searcher, and has not yet made up his own mind: this is what he himself tells us, and what I literally believe, though few or none of his critics will admit it.
His purpose in the dialogues of search, is plainly and sufficiently enunciated in the words addressed by Sokrates to Theætêtus--"Answer without being daunted: for if we prosecute our search, one of two alternatives is certain--either we shall find what we are looking for, or we shall get clear of the persuasion that we know what in reality we do not yet know.
Now a recompense like this will leave no room for dissatisfaction.
"[63] [Footnote 63: Plato, Theætet.
187 C. [Greek: e)a\n ga\r ou(/tô drô=men, duoi=n tha/teron--ê)\ eu(rê/somen e)ph' o(\ e)rcho/metha, ê)\ ê(=tton oi)êso/metha ei)de/nai o(\ mêdamê=| i)/smen; kai/toi ou)k a)\n ei)/ê mempto\s o( toiou=tos].
Bonitz (in his Platonische Studien, pp.
8, 9, 74, 76, &c.) is one of the few critics who deprecate the confidence and boldness with which recent scholars have ascribed to Plato affirmative opinions and systematic purpose which he does not directly announce.
Bonitz vindicates the separate value and separate _locus standi_ of the negative process in Plato's estimation, particularly in the example of the Theætêtus.
Susemihl, in the preface to his second part, has controverted these views of Bonitz--in my judgment without any success.
The following observations of recent French scholars are just, though they imply too much the assumption that there is always some affirmative jewel wrapped up in Plato's complicated folds.
M. Egger observes (Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs, Paris, 1849, p. 84, ch.
ii.
sect.
4): "La philosophie de Platon n'offre pas, en général, un ensemble de parties très rigoureusement liées entre elles.
D'abord, il ne l'expose que sous forme dialoguée: et dans ses dialogues, où il ne prend jamais de rôle personnel, on ne voit pas clairement auquel des interlocuteurs il a confié la défense de ses propres opinions.
Parmi ces interlocuteurs, Socrate lui-même, le plus naturel et le plus ordinaire interprète de la pensée de son disciple, use fort souvent des libertés de cette forme toute dramatique, pour se jouer dans les distinctions subtiles, pour exagérer certains arguments, pour couper court à une discussion embarrassante, au moyen de quelque plaisanterie, et pour se retirer d'un débat sans conclure; en un mot, il a--ou, ce qui est plus vrai, Platon a, sous son nom--_des opinions de circonstance et des ruses de dialectique_, à travers lesquelles il est souvent difficile de retrouver le fond sérieux de sa doctrine.
Heureusement ces difficultés ne touchent pas aux principes généraux du Platonisme.
La critique Platonicienne en particulier dans ce qu'elle a de plus original, et de plus élevé, se rattache à la grande théorie des _idées_ et de la _réminiscence_.
On la retrouve exposée dans plusieurs dialogues avec une clarté qui ne permet ni le doute ni l'incertitude."
I may also cite the following remarks made by M. Vacherot (Histoire Critique de l'École d'Alexandrie, vol.
ii.
p. 1, Pt.
ii.
Bk.
ii.
ch.
i.)
after his instructive analysis of the doctrines of Plotinus.
I think the words are as much applicable to Plato as to Plotinus: the rather, as Plato never speaks in his own name, Plotinus always:--"Combien faut-il prendre garde d'ajouter à la pensée du philosophe, et de lui prêter un arrangement artificiel!
Ce génie, plein d'enthousiasme et de fougue, n'a jamais connu ni mesure ni plan: jamais il ne s'est astreint à developper régulièrement une théorie, ni à exposer avec suite un ensemble de théories, de manière à en former un système.
_Fort incertain dans sa marche, il prend, quitte, et reprend le même sujet, sans jamais paraître avoir dit son dernier mot_; toujours il répand de vives et abondantes clartés sur les questions qu'il traite, mais rarement il les conduit à leur dernière et définitive solution; sa rapide pensée n'effleure pas seulement le sujet sur lequel elle passe, elle le pénétre et le creuse toujours, sans toutefois l'épuiser.
Fort inégal dans ses allures, tantôt ce génie s'échappe en inspirations rapides et tumultueuses, tantôt il semble se traîner péniblement, et se perdre dans un dédale de subtiles abstractions, &c."] [Side-note: False persuasion of knowledge--had reference to topics social, political, ethical.]
What those topics were, in respect to which Sokrates found this universal belief of knowledge, without the reality of knowledge--we know, not merely from the dialogues of Plato, but also from the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
Sokrates did not touch upon recondite matters--upon the Kosmos, astronomy, meteorology.
Such studies he discountenanced as useless, and even as irreligious.
[64] The subjects on which he interrogated were those of common, familiar, every-day talk: those which every one believed himself to know, and on which every one had a confident opinion to give: the respondent being surprised that any one could put the questions, or that there could be any doubt requiring solution.
What is justice?
what is injustice?
what are temperance and courage?
what is law, lawlessness, democracy, aristocracy?
what is the government of mankind, and the attributes which qualify any one for exercising such government?
Here were matters upon which every one talked familiarly, and would have been ashamed to be thought incapable of delivering an opinion.
Yet it was upon these matters that Sokrates detected universal ignorance, coupled with a firm, but illusory, persuasion of knowledge.
The conversation of Sokrates with Euthydêmus, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia[65]--the first Alkibiadês, Lachês, Charmidês, Euthyphron, &c., of Plato--are among the most marked specimens of such cross-examination or Elenchus--a string of questions, to which there are responses in indefinite number successively given, tested, and exposed as unsatisfactory.
[Footnote 64: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1.]
[Footnote 65: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
2.
A passage from Paley's preface to his "Principles of Moral Philosophy," illustrates well this Sokratic process: "Concerning the principle of morals, it would be premature to speak: but concerning the manner of unfolding and explaining that principle, I have somewhat which I wish to be remarked.
An experience of nine years in the office of a public tutor in one of the Universities, and in that department of education to which these sections relate, afforded me frequent opportunity to observe, that in discoursing to young minds upon topics of morality, it _required much more pains to make them perceive the difficulty than to understand the solution_: that unless the subject was so drawn up to a point as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon--in other words, unless some curiosity was excited, before it was attempted to be satisfied--the teacher's labour was lost.
When information was not desired, it was seldom, I found, retained.
I have made this observation my guide in the following work: that is, I have endeavoured, before I suffered myself to proceed in the disquisition, to put the reader in complete possession of the question: _and to do it in a way that I thought most likely to stir up his own doubts and solicitude about it_."]
[Side-note: To those topics, on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, consecrated and traditional, peculiar to itself.
The local creed, which is never formally proclaimed or taught, but is enforced unconsciously by every one upon every one else.
Omnipotence of King Nomos.]
The answers which Sokrates elicited and exposed were simple expressions of the ordinary prevalent belief upon matters on which each community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, fashions, points of view, &c., belonging to itself.
When Herodotus passed over to Egypt, he was astonished to find the judgment, feelings, institutions, and practices of the Egyptians, contrasting most forcibly with those of all other countries.
He remarks the same (though less in degree) respecting Babylonians, Indians, Scythians, and others; and he is not less impressed with the veneration of each community for its own creed and habits, coupled with indifference or antipathy towards other creeds, disparate or discordant, prevailing elsewhere.
[66] [Footnote 66: Herodot.
ii.
35-36-64; iii.
38-94, seq.
i.
196; iv.
76-77-80.
The discordance between the various institutions established among the separate aggregations of mankind, often proceeding to the pitch of reciprocal antipathy--the imperative character of each in its own region, assuming the appearance of natural right and propriety--all this appears brought to view by the inquisitive and observant Herodotus, as well as by others (Xenophon, Cyropæd.
i.
3-18): but many new facts, illustrating the same thesis, were noticed by Aristotle and the Peripatetics, when a larger extent of the globe became opened to Hellenic survey.
Compare Aristotle, Ethic.
Nik.
i.
3, 1094, b.
15; Sextus Empiric.
Pyrr.
Hypotyp.
i. sect 145-156, iii.
sect 198-234; and the remarkable extract from Bardesanes Syrus, cited by Eusebius, Præp.
Evang.
vi., and published in Orelli's collection, pp.
202-219, Alexandri Aphrodis.
et Aliorum De Fato, Zurich, 1824.
Many interesting passages in illustration of the same thesis might be borrowed from Montaigne, Pascal, and others.
But the most forcible of all illustrations are those furnished by the Oriental world, when surveyed or studied by intelligent Europeans, as it has been more fully during the last century.
See especially Sir William Sleeman's Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official: two volumes which unfold with equal penetration and fidelity the manifestations of established sentiment among the Hindoos and Mahomedans.
Vol.
i. ch.
iv., describing a Suttee on the Nerbudda, is one of the most impressive chapters in the work: the rather as it describes the continuance of a hallowed custom, transmitted even from the days of Alexander.
I transcribe also some valuable matter from an eminent living scholar, whose extensive erudition comprises Oriental as well as Hellenic philosophy.
M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (Premier Mémoire sur le Sânkhya, Paris, 1852, pp.
392-396) observes as follows respecting the Sanscrit system of philosophy called _Sânkhya_, the doctrine expounded and enforced by the philosopher Kapila--and respecting Buddha and Buddhism which was built upon the Sânkhya, amending or modifying it.
Buddha is believed to have lived about 547 B.C.
Both the system of Buddha, and that of Kapila, are atheistic, as described by M. St. Hilaire.
"Le second point où Bouddha se sépare de Kapila concerne la doctrine.
L'homme ne peut rester dans l'incertitude que Kapila lui laisse encore.
L'âme délivrée, selon les doctrines de Kapila, peut toujours renaître.
Il n'y a qu'un moyen, un seul moyen, de le sauver,--c'est de l'anéantir.
Le néant seul est un sûr asile: on ne revient pas de celui là.--Bouddha lui promet le néant; et c'est avec cette promesse inouie qu'il a passionné les hommes et converti les peuples.
Que cette monstrueuse croyance, partagée aujourd'hui par trois cents millions de sectateurs, révolte en nous les instincts les plus énergiques de notre nature--qu'elle soulève toutes les répugnances et toutes les horreurs de notre âme--qu'elle nous paraisse aussi incompréhensible que hideuse--peu importe.
Une partie considérable de l'humanité l'a reçue,--prête même à la justifier par toutes les subtilités de la metaphysique la plus raffinée, et à la confesser dans les tortures des plus affreux supplices et les austérités homicides d'un fanatisme aveugle.
Si c'est une gloire que de dominer souverainement, à travers les âges, la foi des hommes,--jamais fondateur de religion n'en eut une plus grande que le Bouddha: car aucun n'eut de prosélytes plus fidèles ni plus nombreux.
Mais je me trompe: le Bouddha ne prétendait jamais fonder une réligion.
Il n'était que philosophe: et instruit dans toutes les sciences des Brahmans, il ne voulut personnellement que fonder, à leur exemple, un nouveau système.
Seulement, les moyens qu'il employait durent mener ses disciples plus loin qu'il ne comptait aller lui même.
En s'adressant à la foule, il faut bientôt la discipliner et la régler.
De là, cette ordination réligieuse que le Bouddha donnait à ses adeptes, la hiérarchie qu'il établissait entre eux, fondée uniquement, comme la science l'exigeait, sur le mérite divers des intelligences et des vertus--la douce et sainte morale qu'il prêchait,--le détachement de toutes choses en ce monde, si convenable à des ascètes qui ne pensent qu'au salut éternel--le voeu de pauvreté, qui est la première loi des Bouddhistes--et tout cet ensemble de dispositions qui constituent un gouvernement au lieu d'une école.
"Mais ce n'est là que l'extérieur du Bouddhisme: c'en est le développement matériel et nécessaire.
Au fond, son principe est celui du Sânkhya: seulement, il l'applique en grand.--C'est la science qui délivre l'homme: et le Bouddha ajoute--Pour que l'homme soit délivré à jamais, il faut qu'il arrive au Nirvâna, c'est à dire, qu'il soit absolument anéanti.
Le néant est donc le bout de la science: et le salut eternel, c'est l'anéantissement."
The same line of argument is insisted on by M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire in his other work--Bouddha et sa réligion, Paris, 1862, ed.
2nd: especially in his Chapter on the Nirvâna: wherein moreover he complains justly of the little notice which authors take of the established beliefs of those varieties of the human race which are found apart from Christian Europe.]
This aggregate of beliefs and predispositions to believe, ethical, religious, æsthetical, social, respecting what is true or false, probable or improbable, just or unjust, holy or unholy, honourable or base, respectable or contemptible, pure or impure, beautiful or ugly, decent or indecent, obligatory to do or obligatory to avoid, respecting the status and relations of each individual in the society, respecting even the admissible fashions of amusement and recreation--this is an established fact and condition of things, the real origin of which is for the most part unknown, but which each new member of the society is born to and finds subsisting.
It is transmitted by tradition from parents to children, and is imbibed by the latter almost unconsciously from what they see and hear around, without any special season of teaching, or special persons to teach.
It becomes a part of each person's nature--a standing habit of mind, or fixed set of mental tendencies, according to which, particular experience is interpreted and particular persons appreciated.
[67] It is not set forth in systematic proclamation, nor impugned, nor defended: it is enforced by a sanction of its own, the same real sanction or force in all countries, by fear of displeasure from the Gods, and by certainty of evil from neighbours and fellow-citizens.
The community hate, despise, or deride, any individual member who proclaims his dissent from their social creed, or even openly calls it in question.
Their hatred manifests itself in different ways at different times and occasions, sometimes by burning or excommunication, sometimes by banishment or interdiction[68] from fire and water; at the very least, by exclusion from that amount of forbearance, good-will, and estimation, without which the life of an individual becomes insupportable: for society, though its power to make an individual happy is but limited, has complete power, easily exercised, to make him miserable.
The orthodox public do not recognise in any individual citizen a right to scrutinise their creed, and to reject it if not approved by his own rational judgment.
They expect that he will embrace it in the natural course of things, by the mere force of authority and contagion--as they have adopted it themselves: as they have adopted also the current language, weights, measures, divisions of time, &c. If he dissents, he is guilty of an offence described in the terms of the indictment preferred against Sokrates--"Sokrates commits crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in the Gods, in whom the city believes, but introduces new religious beliefs," &c.[69] "Nomos (Law and Custom), King of All" (to borrow the phrase which Herodotus cites from Pindar[70]), exercises plenary power, spiritual as well as temporal, over individual minds; moulding the emotions as well as the intellect according to the local type--determining the sentiments, the belief, and the predisposition in regard to new matters tendered for belief, of every one--fashioning thought, speech, and points of view, no less than action--and reigning under the appearance of habitual, self-suggested tendencies.
Plato, when he assumes the function of Constructor, establishes special officers for enforcing in detail the authority of King Nomos in his Platonic variety.
But even where no such special officers exist, we find Plato himself describing forcibly (in the speech assigned to Protagoras)[71] the working of that spontaneous ever-present police by whom the authority of King Nomos is enforced in detail--a police not the less omnipotent because they wear no uniform, and carry no recognised title.
[Footnote 67: This general fact is powerfully set forth by Cicero, in the beginning of the third Tusculan Disputation.
Chrysippus the Stoic, "ut est in omni historiâ curiosus," had collected striking examples of these consecrated practices, cherished in one territory, abhorrent elsewhere.
(Cic.
Tusc.
Disp.
i.
45, 108.)]
[Footnote 68: See the description of the treatment of Aristodêmus, one of the two Spartans who survived the battle of Thermopylæ, after his return home, Herodot.
vii.
231, ix.
71.
The interdiction from communion of fire, water, eating, sacrifice, &c., is the strongest manifestation of repugnance: so insupportable to the person excommunicated, that it counted for a sentence of exile in the Roman law.
(Deinarchus cont.
Aristogeiton, s. 9.
Heineccius, Ant.
Rom.
i.
16, 9, 10.)]
[Footnote 69: Xenophon.
Memor.
i.
1, 1.
[Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou\s ou) nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn], &c. Plato (Leges, x.
909, 910) and Cicero (Legib.
ii.
19-25) forbid [Greek: kaina\ daimo/nia], "separatim nemo habessit Deos," &c.] [Footnote 70: [Greek: No/mos pa/ntôn basileu/s] (Herodot.
iii.
38).
It will be seen from Herodotus, as well as elsewhere, that the idea really intended to be expressed by the word [Greek: No/mos] is much larger than what is now commonly understood by _Law_.
It is equivalent to that which Epiktêtus calls [Greek: to\ do/gma--pantachou= a)ni/kêton to\ do/gma] (Epiktet.
iii.
16).
It includes what is meant by [Greek: to\ no/mimon] (Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
4, 13-24), [Greek: ta\ no/mima, ta\ nomizo/mena, ta pa/tria, ta\ no/maia], including both positive morality, and social æsthetical precepts, as well as civil or political, and even personal habits, such as that of abstinence from spitting or wiping the nose (Xenoph.
Cyrop.
viii.
8, 8-10).
The case which Herodotus quotes to illustrate his general thesis is the different treatment which, among different nations, is considered dutiful and respectful towards senior relatives and the corpses of deceased relatives; which matters come under [Greek: ta)/grapta ka)sphalê= Theô=n No/mima] (Soph.
Antig.
440)--of immemorial antiquity;-[Greek: Ou) ga/r ti nu=n ge ka)chthe\s a)ll' a)ei/ pote Zê=| tau=ta, kou)dei\s oi)=den e)x' o(/tou' pha/nê].
[Greek: No/mos] and [Greek: e)pitê/deuma] run together in Plato's mind, dictating every hour's proceeding of the citizen through life (Leges, vii.
807-808-823).
We find Plato, in the Leges, which represents the altered tone and compressive orthodoxy of his old age, extolling the simple goodness ([Greek: eu)ê/theia]) of our early forefathers, who believed implicitly all that was told them, and were not clever enough to raise doubts, [Greek: ô(/sper tanu=n] (Legg.
iii.
679, 680).
Plato dwells much upon the danger of permitting any innovation on the fixed modes of song and dance (Legg.
v. 727, vii.
797-800), and forbids it under heavy penalties.
He says that the lawgiver both _can_ consecrate common talk, and ought to consecrate it--[Greek: kathierô=sai tê\n phê/mên] (Legg.
838), the dicta of [Greek: No/mos Basileu/s].
Pascal describes, in forcible terms, the wide-spread authority of [Greek: No/mos Basileu/s]:--"Il ne faut pas se méconnaître, nous sommes automates autant qu'esprit: et delà vient que l'instrument, par lequel la persuasion se fait, n'est pas la seule démonstration.
Combien y a-t-il peu de choses démontrées!
Les preuves ne convainquent que l'esprit.
La coutume fait nos preuves les plus fortes et les plus crues: _elle incline l'automate, qui entraîne l'esprit sans qu'il y pense_.
Qui a démontré qu'il sera demain jour, et que nous mourrons--et qu'y a-t-il de plus cru?
C'est donc la coutume qui nous en persuade, c'est elle qui fait tant de Chrétiens, c'est elle qui fait les Turcs les Paiens, les métiers, les soldats, &c. Enfin, il faut avoir recours à elle quand une fois l'esprit a vu où est la vérité, afin de nous abreuver et nous teindre de cette créance, qui nous échappe à toute heure; car d'en avoir toujours les preuves présentes, c'est trop d'affaire.
Il faut acquérir une créance plus facile, qui est celle de l'habitude, qui, sans violence, sans art, sans argument, nous fait croire les choses, et incline toutes nos puissances à cette croyance, en sorte que notre âme y tombe naturellement.
Quand on ne croit que par la force de la conviction, et que l'automate est incliné à croire le contraire, ce n'est pas assez."
(Pascal, Pensées, ch.
xi.
p. 237, ed.
Louandre, Paris, 1854.)
Herein Pascal coincides with Montaigne, of whom he often speaks harshly enough: "Comme de vray nous n'avons aultre mire de la vérité et de la raison, que l'exemple et idée des opinions et usances du païs où nous sommes: là est tousiours la parfaicte religion, la parfaicte police, parfaict et accomply usage de toutes choses."
(Essais de Montaigne, liv.
i. ch.
30.)
Compare the same train of thought in Descartes (Discours sur la Méthode, pp.
132-139, ed.
Cousin).]
[Footnote 71: Plat.
Protag.
320-328.
The large sense of the word [Greek: No/mos], as conceived by Pindar and Herodotus, must be kept in mind, comprising positive morality, religious ritual, consecrated habits, the local turns of sympathy and antipathy, &c. M. Salvador observes, respecting the Mosaic Law: "Qu'on écrive tous les rapports publics et privés qui unissent les membres d'un peuple quelconque, et tous les principes sur lesquels ces rapports sont fondés--il en résultera un ensemble complet, un véritable système plus ou moins raisonnable, qui sera l'expression exacte de la manière d'exister de ce peuple.
Or, cet ensemble ou ce système est ce que les Hébreux appellent la _tora_, la loi ou la constitution publique--en prenant ce mot dans le sens le plus étendu."
(Salvador, Histoire des Institutions de Moise, liv.
i. ch.
ii.
p.
96.)
Compare also about the sense of the word _Lex_, as conceived by the Arabs, M. Renan, Averroès, p. 286, and Mr. Mill's chapter respecting the all-comprehensive character of the Hindoo law (Hist.
of India, ch.
iv., beginning): "In the law books of the Hindus, the details of jurisprudence and judicature occupy comparatively a very moderate space.
The doctrines and ceremonies of religion; the rules and practice of education; the institutions, duties, and customs of domestic life; the maxims of private morality, and even of domestic economy; the rules of government, of war, and of negotiation; all form essential parts of the Hindu code of law, and are treated in the same style, and laid down with the same authority, as the rules for the distribution of justice."
Mr. Maine, in his admirable work on Ancient Law, notes both the all-comprehensive and the irresistible ascendancy of what is called _Law_ in early societies.
He remarks emphatically that "the stationary condition of the human race is the rule--the progressive condition the exception--a rare exception in the history of the world".
(Chap.
i. pp.
16-18-19; chap.
ii.
pp.
22-24.)
Again, Mr. Maine observes:--"The other liability, to which the infancy of society is exposed, has prevented or arrested the progress of far the greater part of mankind.
The rigidity of ancient law, arising chiefly from its early association and identification with religion, has chained down the mass of the human race to those views of life and conduct which they entertained at the time when their institutions were first consolidated into a systematic form.
There were one or two races exempted by a marvellous fate from this calamity: and grafts from these stocks have fertilised a few modern societies.
But it is still true that over the larger part of the world, the perfection of law has always been considered as consisting in adherence to the ground-plan supposed to have been marked out by the legislator.
_If intellect has in such cases been exercised upon jurisprudence, it has uniformly prided itself on the subtle perversity of the conclusions it could build on ancient texts, without discoverable departure from their literal tenor._" (Maine, Ancient Law, ch.
iv.
pp.
77-78.)]
[Side-note: Small minority of exceptional individual minds, who do not yield to the established orthodoxy, but insist on exercising their own judgment.]
There are, however, generally a few exceptional minds to whom this omnipotent authority of King Nomos is repugnant, and who claim a right to investigate and judge for themselves on many points already settled and foreclosed by the prevalent orthodoxy.
In childhood and youth these minds must have gone through the ordinary influences,[72] but without the permanent stamp which such influences commonly leave behind.
Either the internal intellectual force of the individual is greater, or he contracts a reverence for some new authority, or (as in the case of Sokrates) he believes himself to have received a special mission from the Gods--in one way or other the imperative character of the orthodoxy around him is so far enfeebled, that he feels at liberty to scrutinise for himself the assemblage of beliefs and sentiments around him.
If he continues to adhere to them, this is because they approve themselves to his individual reason: unless this last condition be fulfilled, he becomes a dissenter, proclaiming his dissent more or less openly, according to circumstances.
Such disengagement from authority traditionally consecrated ([Greek: e)xallagê\ tô=n ei)ôtho/tôn nomi/môn]),[73] and assertion of the right of self-judgment, on the part of a small minority of [Greek: i)diognô/mones],[74] is the first condition of existence for philosophy or "reasoned truth".
[Footnote 72: Cicero, Tusc.
D. iii.
2; Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
10, 1179, b.
23.
[Greek: o( de\ lo/gos kai\ ê( didachê\ mê/ pot' ou)k e)n a(/pasin i)schu/ê|, a)lla\ de/ê| prodieirga/sthai toi=s e)/thesi tê\n tou= a)kroatou= psuchê\n pro\s to\ kalô=s chai/rein kai\ misei=n, ô(/sper gê=n tê\n thre/psousan to\ spe/rma].
To the same purpose Plato, Republ.
iii.
402 A, Legg.
ii.
653 B, 659 E, Plato and Aristotle (and even Xenophon, Cyrop.
i.
2, 3), aiming at the formation of a body of citizens, and a community very different from anything which they saw around them--require to have the means of shaping the early sentiments, love, hatred, &c., of children, in a manner favourable to their own ultimate views.
This is exactly what [Greek: No/mos Basileu\s] does effectively in existing societies, without need of special provision for the purpose.
See Plato, Protagor.
325, 326.]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Phædrus, 265 A.
See Sir Will.
Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Lect.
29, pp.
88-90.
In the Timæus (p. 40 E) Plato interrupts the thread of his own speculations on cosmogony, to take in all the current theogony on the authority of King Nomos.
[Greek: a)du/naton ou)=n theô=n paisi\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn kai\ a)nagkai/ôn a)podei/xeôn le/gousin, a)ll' ô(s oi)kei=a pha/skousin a)pagge/llein e(pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on].
Hegel adverts to this severance of the individual consciousness from the common consciousness of the community, as the point of departure for philosophical theory:--"On one hand we are now called upon to find some specific matter for the general form of Good; such closer determination of The Good is the criterion required.
On the other hand, the exigencies of the individual subject come prominently forward: this is the consequence of the revolution which Sokrates operated in the Greek mind.
So long as the religion, the laws, the political constitution, of any people, are in full force--so long as each individual citizen is in complete harmony with them all--no one raises the question, What has the Individual to do for himself?
In a moralised and religious social harmony, each individual finds his destination prescribed by the established routine; while this positive morality, religion, laws, form also the routine of _his own_ mind.
On the contrary, if the Individual no longer stands on the custom of his nation, nor feels himself in full agreement with the religion and laws--he then no longer finds what he desires, nor obtains satisfaction in the medium around him.
When once such discord has become confirmed, the Individual must fall back on his own reflections, and seek his destination there.
This is what gives rise to the question--What is the essential scheme for the Individual?
To what ought he to conform--what shall he aim at?
An _ideal_ is thus set up for the Individual.
This is, the Wise Man, or the Ideal of the Wise Man, which is, in truth, the separate working of individual self-consciousness, conceived as an universal or typical character."
(Hegel, Geschichte der Philosophie, Part ii.
pp.
132, 133.)]
[Footnote 74: This is an expression of the learned Huet, Bishop of Avranches:--"Si quelqu'un me demande maintenant, ce que nous sommes, puisque nous ne voulons être ni Académiciens, ni Sceptiques, ni Eclectiques, ni d'aucune autre Secte, je répondrai que _nous sommes nôtres_--c'est à dire libres: ne voulans soumettre notre esprit à aucune autorité, et n'approuvans que ce qui nous paroit s'approcher plus près de la vérité.
Que si quelqu'un, par mocquerie ou par flatterie, nous appelle [Greek: i)diognô/monas]--c'est à dire, attachés à nos propres sentimens, nous n'y répugnerons pas."
(Huet, Traité Philosophique de la Foiblesse de l'Esprit Humain, liv.
ii.
ch.
xi.
p. 224, ed.
1741.)]
[Side-note: Early appearance of a few free-judging individuals, or free-thinkers in Greece.]
Amidst the epic and lyric poets of Greece, with their varied productive impulse--as well as amidst the Gnomic philosophers, the best of whom were also poets--there are not a few manifestations of such freely judging individuality.
Xenophanes the philosopher, who wrote in poetry, censured severely several of the current narratives about the Gods and Pindar, though in more respectful terms, does the like.
So too, the theories about the Kosmos, propounded by various philosophers, Thales, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, &c., were each of them the free offspring of an individual mind.
But these were counter-affirmations: novel theories, departing from the common belief, yet accompanied by little or no debate, or attack, or defence: indeed the proverbial obscurity of Herakleitus, and the recluse mysticism of the Pythagoreans, almost excluded discussion.
These philosophers (to use the phrase of Aristotle[75]) had no concern with Dialectic: which last commenced in the fifth century B.C., with the Athenian drama and dikastery, and was enlisted in the service of philosophy by Zeno the Eleate and Sokrates.
[Footnote 75: Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
987, b.
32.
Eusebius, having set forth the dissentient and discordant opinions of the various Hellenic philosophers, triumphantly contrasts with them the steady adherence of Jews and Christians to one body of truth, handed down by an uniform tradition from father to son, from the first generation of man--[Greek: a)po\ prô/tês a)nthrôpogoni/as].
(Præp.
Ev.
xiv.
3.)
Cicero, in the treatise (not preserved) entitled _Hortensius_--set forth, at some length, an attack and a defence of philosophy; the former he assigned to Hortensius, the latter he undertook in his own name.
One of the arguments urged by Hortensius against philosophy, to prove that it was not "vera sapientia," was, that it was both a human invention and a recent novelty, not handed down by tradition _a principio_, therefore not natural to man.
"Quæ si secundum hominis naturam est, cum homine ipso coeperit necesse est; si vero non est, nec capere quidem illam posset humana natura.
Ubi apud antiquiores latuit amor iste investigandæ veritatis?"
(Lactantius, Inst.
Divin.
iii.
16.)
The loss of this Ciceronian pleading (Philosophy _versus_ Consecrated Tradition) is much to be deplored.
Lactantius and Augustin seem to have used it largely.
The Hermotimus of Lucian, manifesting all his lively Sokratic acuteness, is a dialogue intended to expose the worthlessness of all speculative philosophy.
The respondent Hermotimus happens to be a Stoic, but the assailant expressly declares (c. 85) that the arguments would be equally valid against Platonists or Aristotelians.
Hermotimus is advised to desist from philosophy, to renounce inquiry, to employ himself in some of the necessary affairs of life, and to acquiesce in the common received opinions, which would carry him smoothly along the remainder of his life ([Greek: a)xiô= pra/ttein ti tô=n a)nagkai/ôn, kai\ o(/ se parape/mpsei e)s to\ loipo\n tou= bi/ou, ta\ koina\ tau=ta phronou=nta], c. 72).
Among the worthless philosophical speculations Lucian ranks geometry: the geometrical definitions (point and line) he declares to be nonsensical and inadmissible (c.
74).]
[Side-note: Rise of Dialectic--Effect of the Drama and the Dikastery.]
Both the drama and the dikastery recognise two or more different ways of looking at a question, and require that no conclusion shall be pronounced until opposing disputants have been heard and compared.
The Eumenides plead against Apollo, Prometheus against the mandates and dispositions of Zeus, in spite of the superior dignity as well as power with which Zeus is invested: every Athenian citizen, in his character of dikast, took an oath to hear both the litigant parties alike, and to decide upon the pleadings and evidence according to law.
Zeno, in his debates with the anti-Parmenidean philosophers, did not trouble himself to parry their thrusts.
He assumed the aggressive, impugned the theories of his opponents, and exposed the contradictions in which they involved themselves.
The dialectic process, in which there are (at the least) two opposite points of view both represented--the negative and the affirmative--became both prevalent and interesting.
[Side-note: Application of Negative scrutiny to ethical and social topics by Sokrates.]
I have in a former chapter explained the dialectic of Zeno, as it bore upon the theories of the anti-Parmenidean philosophers.
Still more important was the proceeding of Sokrates, when he applied the like scrutiny to ethical, social, political, religious topics.
He did not come forward with any counter-theories: he declared expressly that he had none to propose, and that he was ignorant.
He put questions to those who on their side professed to know, and he invited answers from them.
His mission, as he himself described it, was, to scrutinise and expose false pretensions to knowledge.
Without such scrutiny, he declares life itself to be not worth having.
He impugned the common and traditional creed, not in the name of any competing doctrine, but by putting questions on the familiar terms in which it was confidently enunciated, and by making its defenders contradict themselves and feel the shame of their own contradictions.
The persons who held it were shown to be incapable of defending it, when tested by an acute cross-examiner; and their supposed knowledge, gathered up insensibly from the tradition around them, deserved the language which Bacon applies to the science of his day, conducting indirectly to the necessity of that remedial course which Bacon recommends.
"Nemo adhuc tantâ mentis constantiâ et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit et sibi proposuerit, theorias et notiones communes penitus abolere, et intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia rursus applicare.
Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multâ fide et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus quas primo hausimus notionibus, farrago quædam est et congeries.
"[76] [Footnote 76: Bacon, Nov. Org.
Aph.
97.
I have already cited this passage in a note on the 68th chapter of my 'History of Greece,' pp.
612-613; in which note I have also alluded to other striking passages of Bacon, indicating the confusion, inconsistencies, and misapprehensions of the "_intellectus sibi permissus_".
In that note, and in the text of the chapter, I have endeavoured to illustrate the same view of the Sokratic procedure as that which is here taken.]
[Side-note: Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the right of satisfaction for his own individual reason.]
Never before (so far as we know) had the authority of King Nomos been exposed to such an enemy as this dialectic or cross-examination by Sokrates: the prescriptive creed and unconsciously imbibed sentiment ("ratio ex fide, casu, et puerilibus notionibus") being thrown upon their defence against negative scrutiny brought to bear upon them by the inquisitive reason of an individual citizen.
In the Apology, Sokrates clothes his own strong intellectual _oestrus_ in the belief (doubtless sincerely entertained) of a divine mission.
In the Gorgias, the Platonic Sokrates asserts it in naked and simple, yet not less emphatic, language.
"You, Polus, bring against me the authority of the multitude, as well as that of the most eminent citizens, all of whom agree in upholding your view.
But I, one man standing here alone, do _not_ agree with you.
And I engage to compel you, my one respondent, to agree with _me_.
"[77] The autonomy or independence of individual reason against established authority, and the title of negative reason as one of the litigants in the process of philosophising, are first brought distinctly to view in the career of Sokrates.
[Footnote 77: Plato, Gorgias, p. 472 A.
[Greek: kai\ nu=n, peri\ ô(=n su\ le/geis, o)li/gou soi\ pa/ntes sumphê/sousi tau)ta A)thênai=oi kai\ oi( xe/noi, e)a\n bou/lê kat' e)mou= ma/rturas parasche/sthai ô(s ou)k a)lêthê= le/gô; marturê/sousi/ soi, e)a\n me\n bou/lê|, Niki/as o( Nikêra/tou kai\ oi( a)delphoi\ met' au)tou=--e)a\n de\ bou/lê|, A)ristokra/tês o( Skelli/ou--e)a\n de\ bou/lê|, ê( Perikle/ous o(/lê oi)ki/a ê)\ a)/llê sugge/neia, ê(/ntina a)\n bou/lê| tô=n e)/nthade e)kle/xasthai.
_A)ll' e)gô/ soi ei)=s ô(\n ou)ch o(mologô=_; ou) ga/r me su\ a)nagka/zeis], &c.] [Side-note: Aversion of the Athenian public to the negative procedure of Sokrates.
Mistake of supposing that that negative procedure belongs peculiarly to the Sophists and the Megarici.]
With such a career, we need not wonder that Sokrates, though esteemed and admired by a select band of adherents, incurred a large amount of general unpopularity.
The public (as I have before observed) do not admit the claim of independent exercise for individual reason.
In the natural process of growth in the human mind, belief does not follow proof, but springs up apart from and independent of it: an immature intelligence believes first, and proves (if indeed it ever seeks proof) afterwards.
[78] This mental tendency is farther confirmed by the pressure and authority of King Nomos; who is peremptory in exacting belief, but neither furnishes nor requires proof.
The community, themselves deeply persuaded, will not hear with calmness the voice of a solitary reasoner, adverse to opinions thus established; nor do they like to be required to explain, analyse, or reconcile those opinions.
[79] They disapprove especially that dialectic debate which gives free play and efficacious prominence to the negative arm.
The like disapprobation is felt even by most of the historians of philosophy; who nevertheless, having an interest in the philosophising process, might be supposed to perceive that nothing worthy of being called _reasoned truth_ can exist, without full and equal scope to negative as well as to affirmative.
[Footnote 78: See Professor Bain's Chapter on Belief; one of the most original and instructive chapters in his volume on the Emotions and the Will, pp.
578-584.
[Third Ed., pp.
505-538.]]
[Footnote 79: This antithesis and reciprocal repulsion--between the speculative reason of the philosopher who thinks for himself, and the established traditional convictions of the public--is nowhere more strikingly enforced than by Plato in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic; together with the corrupting influence exercised by King Nomos, at the head of his vehement and unanimous public, over those few gifted natures which are competent to philosophical speculation.
See Plato, Rep. vi.
492-493.
The unfavourable feelings with which the attempts to analyse morality (especially when quite novel, as such attempts were in the time of Sokrates) are received in a community--are noticed by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his tract on Utilitarianism, ch.
iii.
pp.
38-39:-"The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any supposed moral standard, What is its sanction?
What are the motives to obey it?
or more specifically, What is the source of its obligation?
Whence does it derive its binding force?
It is a necessary part of moral philosophy to provide the answer to this question: which though frequently assuming the shape of an objection to the utilitarian morality, as if it had some special applicability to that above others, really arises in _regard to all standards_.
It arises in fact whenever a person is called on to adopt a standard, or refer morality to any basis on which he has not been accustomed to rest it.
For the customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being _in itself_ obligatory: and when a person is asked to believe that this morality _derives_ its obligation from some general principle round which custom has not thrown the same halo, the assertion is to him a paradox.
The supposed corollaries seem to have a more binding force than the original theorem: the superstructure seems to stand better without than with what is represented as its foundation.
.
.
.
The difficulty has no peculiar application to the doctrine of utility, but is inherent in every attempt to analyse morality, and reduce it to principles: which, unless the principle is already in men's minds invested with as much sacredness as any of its applications, always seems to divest them of a part of their sanctity."
Epiktêtus observes that the refined doctrines acquired by the self-reasoning philosopher, often failed to attain that intense hold on his conviction, which the "rotten doctrines" inculcated from childhood possessed over the conviction of ordinary men.
[Greek: Dia\ ti/ ou)=n e)kei=noi (oi( polloi\, oi( i)diô=tai) u(mô=n (tôn philoso/phôn) i)schuro/teroi?
O(/ti e)kei=noi me\n ta\ sapra\ tau=ta a)po\ dogma/tôn lalou=sin?
u(mei=s de\ ta\ kompsa\ a)po\ tô=n cheilô=n .
.
.
.
.
Ou(/tôs u(ma=s oi( i)diô=tai nikô=si; Pantachou= ga\r i)schuro\n to\ do/gma; a)ni/kêton to\ do/gma].
(Epiktêtus, iii.
16.)]
[Side-note: The same charges which the historians of philosophy bring against the Sophists were brought by contemporary Athenians against Sokrates.
They represent the standing dislike of free inquiry, usual with an orthodox public.]
These historians usually speak in very harsh terms of the Sophists, as well as of Eukleides and the Megaric sect; who are taken as the great apostles of negation.
But the truth is, that the Megarics inherited it from Sokrates, and shared it with Plato.
Eukleides cannot have laid down a larger programme of negation than that which we read in the Apology of Sokrates,--nor composed a dialogue more ultra-negative than the Platonic Parmenidês: nor, again, did he depart so widely, in principle as well as in precept, from existing institutions, as Plato in his Republic.
The charges which historians of philosophy urge against the Megarics as well as against the persons whom they call the Sophists--such as corruption of youth--perversion of truth and morality, by making the worse appear the better reason--subversion of established beliefs--innovation as well as deception--all these were urged against Sokrates himself by his contemporaries,[80] and indeed against all the philosophers indiscriminately, as we learn from Sokrates himself in the Apology.
[81] They are outbursts of feeling natural to the practical, orthodox citizen, who represents the common sense of the time and place; declaring his antipathy to these speculative, freethinking innovations of theory, which challenges the prescriptive maxims of traditional custom and tests them by a standard approved by herself.
The orthodox citizen does not feel himself in need of philosophers to tell him what is truth or what is virtue, nor what is the difference between real and fancied knowledge.
On these matters he holds already settled persuasions, acquired from his fathers and his ancestors, and from the acknowledged civic authorities, spiritual and temporal;[82] who are to him exponents of the creed guaranteed by tradition:-"Quod sapio, satis est mihi: non ego curo Esse quod Arcesilas ærumnosique Solones."
[Footnote 80: Themistius, in defending himself against contemporary opponents, whom he represents to have calumniated him, consoles himself by saying, among other observations, that these arrows have been aimed at all the philosophers successively--Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus.
[Greek: O( ga\r sophistê\s kai\ a)lazô\n kai\ kaino/tomos prô=ton me\n Sôkra/tous o)nei/dê ê)=n, e)/peita Pla/tônos e)phexê=s, ei)=th' u(/steron A)ristote/lous kai\ Theophra/stou].
(Orat.
xxiii.
p. 346, Dindorf.)
We read in Zeller's account of the Platonic philosophy (Phil.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 368, ed.
2nd): "Die propädeutische Begründung der Platonischen Philosophie besteht im Allgemeinen darin, dass der unphilosophische Standpunkt aufgelöst, und die Erhebung zum philosophischen in ihrer Nothwendigkeit nachgewiesen wird.
Im Besondern können wir drey Stadien dieses Wegs unterscheiden.
Den Ausgangspunkt bildet das gewöhnliche Bewusstsein.
Indem die _Voraussetzungen, welche Diesem für ein Erstes und Festes gegolten hatten, dialektisch zersetzt werden, so erhalten wir zunächst das negative Resultat der Sophistik_.
Erst wenn auch diese überwunden ist, kann der philosophische Standpunkt positiv entwickelt werden."
Zeller here affirms that it was the Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias and others) who first applied negative analysis to the common consciousness; breaking up, by their dialectic scrutiny, those hypotheses which had before exercised authority therein, as first principles not to be disputed.
I dissent from this position.
I conceive that the Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias) did _not_ do what Zeller affirms, and that Sokrates (and Plato after him) _did_ do it.
The negative analysis was the weapon of Sokrates, and not of Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias, &c. It was he who declared (see Platonic Apology) that false persuasion of knowledge was at once universal and ruinous, and who devoted his life to the task of exposing it by cross-examination.
The conversation of the Xenophontic Sokrates with Euthydêmus (Memor.
iv.
2), exhibits a complete specimen of that aggressive analysis, brought to bear on the common consciousness, which Zeller ascribes to the Sophists: the Platonic dialogues, in which Sokrates cross-examines upon Justice, Temperance, Courage, Piety, Virtue, &c., are of the like character; and we know from Xenophon (Mem.
i.
1-16) that Sokrates passed much time in such examinations with pre-eminent success.
I notice this statement of Zeller, not because it is peculiar to him (for most of the modern historians of philosophy affirm the same; and his history, which is the best that I know, merely repeats the ordinary view), but because it illustrates clearly the view which I take of the Sophists and Sokrates.
Instead of the unmeaning abstract "_Sophistik_," given by Zeller and others, we ought properly to insert the word "_Sokratik_," if we are to have any abstract term at all.
Again--The negative analysis, which these authors call "Sophistik," they usually censure as discreditable and corrupting.
To me it appears, on the contrary, both original and valuable, as one essential condition for bringing social and ethical topics under the domain of philosophy or "reasoned truth".
Professor Charles Thurot (in his Études sur Aristote, Paris, 1860, p. 119) takes a juster view than Zeller of the difference between Plato and the Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias).
"Les Sophistes, comme tous ceux qui dissertent superficiellement sur des questions de philosophie, et en particulier sur la morale et la politique, s'appuyaient sur l'autorité et le témoignage; ils alléguaient les vers des poètes célèbres qui passaient aux yeux des Grecs pour des oracles de sagesse: ils invoquaient l'opinion du commun des hommes.
Platon récusait absolument ces deux espèces de témoignages.
Ni les poètes ni le commun des hommes ne savent ce qu'ils disent, puisqu'ils ne peuvent en rendre raison.
.
.
.
.
.
Aux yeux de Platon, il n'y a d'autre méthode, pour arriver au vrai et pour le communiquer, que la dialectique: qui est à la fois l'art d'interroger et de répondre, et l'art de définir et de diviser."
M. Thurot here declares (in my judgment very truly) that the Sophists appealed to the established ethical authorities, and dwelt upon or adorned the received common-places--that Plato denied these authorities, and brought his battery of negative cross-examination to bear upon them as well as upon their defenders.
M. Thurot thus gives a totally different version of the procedure of the Sophists from that which is given by Zeller.
Nevertheless he perfectly agrees with Zeller, and with Anytus, the accuser of Sokrates (Plat.
Menon, pp.
91-92), in describing the Sophists as a class who made money by deceiving and perverting the minds of hearers (p.
120).]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 23 D. [Greek: i(/na de\ mê\ dokô=sin a)porei=n, _ta\ kata\ pa/ntôn tô=n philosophou/ntôn pro/cheira tau=ta le/gousin_, o(/ti ta\ mete/ôra kai\ ta\ u(po\ gê=s _kai\ theou\s mê\ nomi/zein kai\ to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n_], &c. Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 31.
[Greek: to\ koinê=| toi=s philoso/phois u(po\ tô=n pollô=n epitimô/menon].
The rich families in Athens severely reproached their relatives who frequented the society of Sokrates.
Xenophon, Sympos.
iv.
32.]
[Footnote 82: See this point strikingly set forth by Plato, Politikus, 299: also Plutarch, [Greek: E)rôtiko/s], c. 13, 756 A.
This is the "auctoritas majorum," put forward by Cotta in his official character of _Pontifex_, as conclusive _per se_: when reasons are produced to sustain it, the reasons fail.
(Cic.
Nat.
Deor.
iii.
3, 5, 6, 9.)
The "auctoritas maiorum," proclaimed by the Pontifex Cotta, may be illustrated by what we read in Father Paul's History of the Council of Trent, respecting the proceedings of that Council when it imposed the duty of accepting the authoritative interpretation of Scripture:--"Lorsqu'on fut à opiner sur le quatrième Article, presque tous se rendirent à l'avis du Cardinal Pachèco, qui représenta: Que l'Écriture ayant été expliquée par tant de gens éminens en piété et en doctrine, l'on ne pouvoit pas espérer de rien ajouter de meilleur: Que les nouvelles Hérésies etant toutes nées des nouveaux sens qu'on avoit donnés à l'Écriture, il étoit nécessaire d'arrêter la licence des esprits modernes, et de les obliger de se laisser gouverner par les Anciens et par l'Église: Et que si quelqu'un naissoit avec un esprit singulier, on devoit le forcer à le renfermer au dedans de lui-même, et à ne pas troubler le monde en publiant tout ce qu'il pensoit."
(Fra Paolo, Histoire du Concile de Trente, traduction Françoise, par Le Courayer, Livre II.
p. 284, 285, in 1546, pontificate of Paul III.)
P. 289.
"Par le second Décret, il étoit ordonné en substance, de tenir l'Edition Vulgate pour authentique dans les leçons publiques, les disputes, les prédications, et les explications; et défendre à qui que ce fut de la rejeter.
On y défendoit aussi d'expliquer la Saint Écriture dans un sens contraire à celui que lui donne la Sainte Église notre Mère, et au consentement unanime des Pères, quand bien même on auroit intention de tenir ces explications secrètes; et on ordonnoit que ceux qui contreviendroient à cette défense fussent punis par les Ordinaires."]
* * * * * He will not listen to ingenious sophistry respecting these consecrated traditions; he does not approve the tribe of fools who despise what they are born to, and dream of distant, unattainable novelties:[83] he cannot tolerate the nice discoursers, ingenious hair-splitters, priests of subtleties and trifles--dissenters from the established opinions, who corrupt the youth, teaching their pupils to be wise above the laws, to despise or even beat their fathers and mothers,[84] and to cheat their creditors--mischievous instructors, whose appropriate audience are the thieves and malefactors, and who ought to be silenced if they display ability to pervert others.
[85] Such feeling of disapprobation and antipathy against speculative philosophy and dialectic--against the _libertas philosophandi_--counts as a branch of virtue among practical and orthodox citizens, rich or poor, oligarchical or democratical, military or civil, ancient or modern.
It is an antipathy common to men in other respects very different, to Nikias as well as Kleon, to Eupolis and Aristophanes as well as to Anytus and Demochares.
It was expressed forcibly by the Roman Cato (the Censor), when he censured Sokrates as a dangerous and violent citizen; aiming, in his own way, to subvert the institutions and customs of the country, and poisoning the minds of his fellow-citizens with opinions hostile to the laws.
[86] How much courage is required in any individual citizen, to proclaim conscientious dissent in the face of wide-spread and established convictions, is recognised by Plato himself, and that too in the most orthodox and intolerant of all his compositions.
[87] He (and Aristotle after him), far from recognising the infallibility of established King Nomos, were bold enough[88] to try and condemn him, and to imagine (each of them) a new [Greek: No/mos] of his own, representing the political Art or Theory of Politics--a notion which would not have been understood by Themistokles or Aristeides.
[Footnote 83: Pindar, Pyth.
iii.
21.
[Greek: E)/sti de\ phu=lon e)n a)nthrô/poisi mataiotaton, O(/stis ai)schu/nôn e)pichô/ria paptai/nei ta\ po/rsô, Metamô/nia thêreu/ôn a)kra/ntois e)lpi/sin.]]
[Footnote 84: [Greek: Ou)de\n sophizo/mestha toi=si dai/mosi; Patri/ous paradocha\s, a(\s th' o(mê/likas chro/nô| Kektê/meth', ou)dei\s au)ta\ katabalei= lo/gos, Ou)/d' ei) di' a)/krôn to\ sopho\n êu(/rêtai phrenô=n].
(Euripides, Bacchæ, 200.)
Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearis Impia te rationis inire elementa, viamque Endogredi sceleris.
(Lucretius, i.
85.)
Compare Valckenaer, Diatrib.
Eurip.
pp.
38, 39, cap.
5.
About the accusations against Sokrates, of leading the youth to contract doubts and to slight the authority of their fathers, see Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 52; Plato, Gorgias, 522 B, p. 79, Menon, p. 70.
A touching anecdote, illustrating this displeasure of the fathers against Sokrates, may be found in Xenophon, Cyropæd.
iii.
1, 89, where the father of Tigranes puts to death the [Greek: sophistê\s] who had taught his son, because that son had contracted a greater attachment to the [Greek: sophistê\s] than to his own father.
Xenophon, Memor.
i.
2, 9; i.
2, 49.
Apolog.
So.
s. 20; compare the speech of Kleon in Thucyd.
iii.
37.
Plato, Politikus, p. 299 E. Timon in the Silli bestows on Sokrates and his successors the title of [Greek: a)kribo/logoi].
Diog.
Laert.
ii.
19.
Sext.
Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
vii.
8.
Aristophan.
Nubes, 130, where Strepsiades says-[Greek: pôs ou)=n gerô\n ô)=n ka)pilê/smôn kai\ bradu\s lo/gôn a)kribô=n schindala/mous mathê/somai?]
Compare 320-359 of the same comedy--[Greek: su/ te leptota/tôn lê/rôn i(ereu=]--also Ranæ, 149, b.
When Euripides ([Greek: o( skêniko\s philo/sophos]) went down to Hades, he is described by Aristophanes as giving clever exhibitions among the malefactors there, with great success and applause.
Ranæ, 771-[Greek: O(/te dê\ katê=lth' Eu)ripi/dês, e)pedei/knuto toi=s lôpodu/tais kai\ toi=s balantiêto/mois .
.
.
o(/per e)/st' e)n A(/|dou plê=thos; oi( d' a)kroô/menoi tô=n a)ntilogiô=n kai\ lugismô=n kai strophô=n u(perema/nêsan, ka)no/misan sophô/taton].
These astute cavils and quibbles of Euripides are attributed by Aristophanes, and the other comic writers, to his frequent conversations with Sokrates.
Ranæ, 1490-1500.
Dionys.
Hal.
Ars Rhet.
p. 301-355.
Valckenaer, Diatribe in Euripid.
c. 4.
Aristophanes describes Sokrates as having stolen a garment from the palæstra (Nubes, 180); and Eupolis also introduces him as having stolen a wine-ladle (Schol.
ad loc.
Eupolis, Fragm.
Incert.
ix.
ed.
Meineke).
The fragment of Eupolis (xi.
p. 553, [Greek: A)doleschei=n au)to\n e)kdi/daxon, ô)= sophista/]) seems to apply to Sokrates.
About the sympathy of the people with the attacks of the comic writers on Sokrates, see Lucian, Piscat.
c. 25.
The rhetor Aristeides (Orat.
xlvi.
[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], pp.
406-407-408, Dindorf), after remarking on the very vague and general manner in which the title [Greek: Sophistê\s] was applied among the Greeks (Herodotus having so designated both Solon and Pythagoras), mentions that Androtion not only spoke of the seven wise men as [Greek: tou\s e(/pta sophista/s], but also called Sokrates [Greek: sophistê\n tou=ton to\n pa/nu]: that Lysias called Plato [Greek: sophistê\n], and called Æschines (the Sokratic) by the same title; that Isokrates represented himself, and rhetors and politicians like himself, as [Greek: philoso/phous], while he termed the dialecticians and critics [Greek: sophista/s].
Nothing could be more indeterminate than these names, [Greek: sophistê\s] and [Greek: philo/sophos].
It was Plato who applied himself chiefly to discredit the name [Greek: sophistê\s (o( ma/lista e)panasta\s tô=| o)no/mati)] but others had tried to discredit [Greek: philo/sophos] and [Greek: to\ philosophei=n] in like manner.
It deserves notice that in the restrictive or censorial law (proposed by Sophokles, and enacted by the Athenians in B.C.
307, but repealed in the following year) against the philosophers and their schools, the philosophers generally are designated as [Greek: sophistai/].
Pollux, Onomast.
ix.
42 [Greek: e)/sti de\ kai\ no/mos A)ttiko\s kata\ tô=n philosophou/ntôn graphei/s, o(\n Sophoklê=s A)mphiklei/dou Sounieu\s ei)=pen, e)n ô(=| tina kata\ au)tô=n proeipô\n, e)pê/gage, mê\ e)xei=nai mêdeni\ _tô=n sophistô=n_ diatribê\n kataskeua/sasthai.]]
[Footnote 85: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 3 C-D. [Greek: A)thênai/ois ga\r ou) spho/dra me/lei, a)\n tina deino\n oi)/ôntai ei)=nai, mê\ me/ntoi didaskaliko\n tê=s au(tou= sophi/as; o(\n d' a)\n kai\ a)/llous oi)/ôntai poiei=n toiou/tous, thumou=ntai, ei)=t' ou)=n phtho/nô|, ô(s su le/geis, ei)/te di' a)/llo ti.]]
[Footnote 86: Plato, Menon, pp.
90-92.
The antipathy manifested here by Anytus against the Sophists, is the same feeling which led him to indict Sokrates, and which induced also Cato the Censor to hate the character of Sokrates, and Greek letters generally.
Plutarch, Cato, 23: [Greek: o(/lôs philosophi/a| proskekroukô\s, kai\ pa=san E(llênikê\n mou=san kai\ paidei/an u(po\ philotimi/as propêlaki/zôn; o(\s ge kai\ Sôkra/tê phêsi\ la/lon kai\ bi/aion geno/menon e)picheirei=n, ô(=| tro/pô| dunato\n ê)=n, turannei=n tê=s patri/dos, katalu/onta ta\ e)/thê, kai\ pro\s e)nanti/as toi=s no/mois do/xas e(/lkonta kai\ methi/stanta tou\s poli/tas].
Comp.
Cato, Epist.
ap.
Plin.
H. N. xxix.
7.]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p. 835 C. [Greek: nu=n de a)nthrô/pou tolmêrou= kinduneu/ei dei=sthai/ tinos, o(\s par)r(êsi/an diaphero/ntôs timô=n e)rei= ta\ dokou=nta a)/rist' ei)=nai po/lei kai\ poli/tais, e)n psuchai=s diephtharme/nais to\ pre/pon kai\ e(po/menon pa/sê| tê=| politei/a| ta/ttôn, e)nanti/a le/gôn tai=s megi/staisin e)pithumi/ais kai\ ou)k e)/chôn boêtho\n a)nthrô/pôn ou)de/na, lo/gô| e(po/menos mo/nô| mo/nos].
Here the dissenter who proclaims his sincere convictions is spoken of with respect: compare the contrary feeling, Leges, ix.
881 A, and in the tenth book generally.
In the striking passage of the Republic, referred to in a previous note (vi.
492) Plato declares the lessons taught by the multitude--the contagion of established custom and tradition, communicated by the crowd of earnest assembled believers--to be of overwhelming and almost omnipotent force.
The individual philosopher (he says), who examines for himself and tries to stand against it, can hardly maintain himself without special divine aid.]
[Footnote 88: In the dialogue called Politikus, Plato announces formally and explicitly (what the historical Sokrates had asserted before him, Xen.
Mem.
iii.
9, 10) the exclusive pretensions of the [Greek: Basileu\s Techniko\s] (representing political science, art, or theory) to rule mankind--the illusory nature of all other titles to rule and the mischievous working of all existing governments.
The same view is developed in the Republic and the Leges.
Compare also Aristotel.
Ethic.
Nikom.
x. p. 1180, b.
27 ad fin.
In a remarkable passage of the Leges (i.
637 D, 638 C), Plato observes, in touching upon the discrepancy between different local institutions at Sparta, Krete, Keos.
Tarentum, &c.:--"If natives of different cities argue with each other about their respective institutions, each of them has a good and sufficient reason.
This is the custom _with us; with you perhaps it is different_.
But we, who are now conversing, do not apply our criticisms to the private citizen; we criticise the lawgiver himself, and try to determine whether his laws are good or bad."
[Greek: ê(mi=n d' e)sti\n ou) peri\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn tô=n a)/llôn o( lo/gos, a)lla\ peri\ tô=n nomothetô=n au)tô=n kaki/as te kai\ a)retê=s].
King Nomos was not at all pleased to be thus put upon his trial.]
[Side-note: Aversion towards Sokrates aggravated by his extreme publicity of speech.
His declaration, that false persuasion of knowledge is universal; must be understood as a basis in appreciating Plato's Dialogues of Search.]
The dislike so constantly felt by communities having established opinions, towards free speculation and dialectic, was aggravated in its application to Sokrates, because his dialectic was not only novel, but also public, obtrusive, and indiscriminate.
[89] The name of Sokrates, after his death, was employed not merely by Plato, but by all the Sokratic companions, to cover their own ethical speculations: moreover, all of them either composed works or gave lectures.
But in either case, readers or hearers were comparatively few in number, and were chiefly persons prompted by some special taste or interest: while Sokrates passed his day in the most public place, eager to interrogate every one, and sometimes forcing his interrogations even upon reluctant hearers.
[90] That he could have been allowed to persist in this course of life for thirty years, when we read his own account (in the Platonic Apology) of the antipathy which he provoked--and when we recollect that the Thirty, during their short dominion, put him under an interdict--is a remarkable proof of the comparative tolerance of Athenian practice.
[Footnote 89: Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
ii.
3.
"Est enim philosophia paucis contenta judicibus, multitudinem consulto ipsa fugiens, eique ipsi et suspecta et invisa," &c. The extreme publicity, and indiscriminate, aggressive conversation of Sokrates, is strongly insisted on by Themistius (Orat.
xxvi.
p. 384, [Greek: U(pe\r tou= le/gein]) as aggravating the displeasure of the public against him.]
[Footnote 90: Xenophon, Memor.
iv.
2, 3-5-40.]
However this may be, it is from the conversation of Sokrates that the Platonic Dialogues of Search take their rise, and we must read them under those same fundamental postulates which Sokrates enunciates to the Dikasts.
"False persuasion of knowledge is almost universal: the Elenchus, which eradicates this, is salutary and indispensable: the dialectic search for truth between two active, self-working minds, both of them ignorant, yet both feeling their own ignorance, is instructive, as well as fascinating, though it should end without finding any truth at all, and without any other result than that of discovering some proposed hypotheses to be untrue."
The modern reader must be invited to keep these postulates in mind, if he would fairly appreciate the Platonic Dialogues of Search.
He must learn to esteem the mental exercise of free debate as valuable in itself,[91] even though the goal recedes before him in proportion to the steps which he makes in advance.
He perceives a lively antithesis of opinions, several distinct and dissentient points of view opened, various tentatives of advance made and broken off.
He has the first half of the process of truth-seeking, without the last; and even without full certainty that the last half can be worked out, or that the problem as propounded is one which admits of an affirmative solution.
[92] But Plato presumes that the search will be renewed, either by the same interlocutors or by others.
He reckons upon responsive energy in the youthful subject; he addresses himself to men of earnest purpose and stirring intellect, who will be spurred on by the dialectic exercise itself to farther pursuit--men who, having listened to the working out of different points of view, will meditate on these points for themselves, and apply a judicial estimate conformable to the measure of their own minds.
Those respondents, who, after having been puzzled and put to shame by one cross-examination, became disgusted and never presented themselves again--were despised by Sokrates as lazy and stupid.
[93] For him, as well as for Plato, the search after truth counted as the main business of life.
[Footnote 91: Aristotel.
Topica, i. p. 101, a.
29, with the Scholion of Alexander of Aphrodisias, who remarks that the habit of colloquial debate had been very frequent in the days of Aristotle, and afterwards; but had comparatively ceased in his own time, haying been exchanged for written treatises.
P. 254, b. Schol.
Brandis, also Plato, Parmenid.
pp.
135, 136, and the Commentary of Proklus thereupon, p. 776 seqq., and p. 917, ed.
Stallbaum.]
[Footnote 92: A passage in one of the speeches composed by Lysias, addressed by a plaintiff in court to the Dikasts, shows how debate and free antithesis of opposite opinions were accounted as essential to the process [Greek: tou= philosophei=n--kai\ e)gô\ me\n ô)/|mên philosophou=ntas au)tou\s peri\ tou= pra/gmatos a)ntile/gein to\n e)nanti/on lo/gon; oi( d' a)/ra ou)k ante/legon, a)ll' a)nte/pratton].
(Lysias, Or.
viii.
[Greek: Kakologiô=n] s. 11,** p. 273; compare Plat.
Apolog.
p. 28 E.) Bacon describes his own intellectual cast of mind, in terms which illustrate the Platonic [Greek: dia/logoi zêtêtikoi/],--the character of the searcher, doubter, and tester, as contrasted with that of the confident affirmer and expositor:--"Me ipsum autem ad veritatis contemplationes quam ad alia magis fabrefactum deprehendi, ut qui mentem et ad rerum similitudinem (quod maximum est) agnoscendum satis mobilem, et ad differentiarum subtilitates observandas satis fixam et intentam haberem--qui et _quærendi desiderium_, et _dubitandi patientiam_, et _meditandi voluptatem_, et _asserendi cunctationem_, et _resipiscendi facilitatem_, et disponendi sollicitudinem tenerem--quique nec novitatem affectarem, nec antiquitatem admirarer, et omnem imposturam odissem.
Quare naturam meam cum veritate quandam familiaritatem et cognationem habere judicavi."
(Impetus Philosophici, De Interpretatione Naturæ Prooemium.)
[Greek: Sôkratikô=s ei)s e(ka/teron] is the phrase of Cicero, ad Atticum ii.
3.]
[Footnote 93: Xenoph.
Mem.
iv.
2, 40.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his Essay on Liberty, has the following remarks, illustrating Plato's Dialogues of Search.
I should have been glad if I could have transcribed here many other pages of that admirable Essay: which stands almost alone as an unreserved vindication of the rights of the searching individual intelligence, against the compression and repression of King Nomos (pp.
79-80-81):-"The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to or defending it against opponents, though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefits of its universal recognition.
Where this advantage cannot be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind endeavouring to provide a substitute for it: some contrivance for making the difficulties of the question as present to the learner's consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient champion eager for his conversion.
"But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost those they formerly had.
The Sokratic dialectics, so magnificently exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this description.
They were essentially a discussion of the great questions of life and philosophy, directed with consummate skill to the purpose of convincing any one, who had merely adopted the common-places of received opinion, that he did not understand the subject--that he as yet attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed: in order that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the meaning of doctrines and of their evidence.
The school-disputations of the middle ages had a similar object.
They were intended to make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary correlation) the opinion opposed to it--and could enforce the grounds of the one and confute those of the other.
These last-mentioned contests had indeed the incurable defect, that the premisses appealed to were taken from authority, not from reason; and as a discipline to the mind they were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which formed the intellects of the 'Socratici viri'.
But the modern mind owes far more to both than it is generally willing to admit; and the present modes of instruction contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies the place either of the one or of the other.
.
.
It is the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logic--that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice, without establishing positive truths.
Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result, but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical departments of speculation.
On any other subject no one's opinions deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either had forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active controversy with opponents."]
[Side-note: Result called _Knowledge_, which Plato aspires to.
Power of going through a Sokratic cross examination; not attainable except through the Platonic process and method.]
Another matter must here be noticed, in regard to these Dialogues of Search.
We must understand how Plato conceived the goal towards which they tend: that is the state of mind which he calls _knowledge_ or _cognition_.
Knowledge (in his view) is not attained until the mind is brought into clear view of the Universal Forms or Ideas, and intimate communion with them: but the test (as I have already observed) for determining whether a man has yet attained this end or not, is to ascertain whether he can give to others a full account of all that he professes to know, and can extract from them a full account of all that they profess to know: whether he can perform, in a manner exhaustive as well as unerring, the double and correlative function of asking and answering: in other words, whether he can administer the Sokratic cross-examination effectively to others, and reply to it without faltering or contradiction when administered to himself.
[94] Such being the way in which Plato conceives knowledge, we may easily see that it cannot be produced, or even approached, by direct, demonstrative, didactic communication: by simply announcing to the hearer, and lodging in his memory, a theorem to be proved, together with the steps whereby it is proved.
He must be made familiar with each subject on many sides, and under several different aspects and analogies: he must have had before him objections with their refutation, and the fallacious arguments which appear to prove the theorem, but do not really prove it:[95] he must be introduced to the principal counter-theorems, with the means whereby an opponent will enforce them: he must be practised in the use of equivocal terms and sophistry, either to be detected when the opponent is cross-examining him, or to be employed when he is cross-examining an opponent.
All these accomplishments must be acquired, together with full promptitude and flexibility, before he will be competent to perform those two difficult functions, which Plato considers to be the test of knowledge.
You may say that such a result is indefinitely distant and hopeless: Plato considers it attainable, though he admits the arduous efforts which it will cost.
But the point which I wish to show is, that if attainable at all, it can only be attained through a long and varied course of such dialectic discussion as that which we read in the Platonic Dialogues of Search.
The state and aptitude of mind called knowledge, can only be generated as a last result of this continued practice (to borrow an expression of Longinus).
[96] The Platonic method is thus in perfect harmony and co-ordination with the Platonic result, as described and pursued.
[Footnote 94: See Plato, Republic, vii.
518, B, C, about [Greek: paidei/a], as developing [Greek: tê\n e)nou=san e(ka/stou du/namin e0n tê=| psuchê=|]: and 534, about [Greek: e)pistê/mê], with its test, [Greek: to\ dou=nai kai\ de/xasthai lo/gon].
Compare also Republic, v. 477, 478, with Theætêt.
175, C, D; Phædon, 76, B, Phædrus, 276; and Sympos.
202 A.
[Greek: to\ o)rtha\ doxa/zein kai\ a)/neu tou= e)/chein lo/gon dou=nai, ou)k oi)=sth' o(/ti ou)/te e)pi/stasthai e)stin?
a)/logon ga\r pra=gma pô=s a)\n ei)/ê e)pistê/mê?]
[Footnote 95: On this point the scholastic manner of handling in the Middle Ages furnishes a good illustration for the Platonic dialectic.
I borrow a passage from the treatise of M Hauréau, De la Phil.
Scolastique, vol.
ii.
p. 190.
"Saint Thomas pouvait s'en tenir là: nous le comprenons, nous avons tout son système sur l'origine des idées, et nous pouvons croire qu'il n'a plus rien à nous apprendre à ce sujet: mais en scolastique, il ne suffit pas de démontrer, par deux ou trois arguments, réputés invincibles, ce que l'on suppose être la vérité, il faut, en outre, répondre aux objections première, seconde, troisième, &c., &c., de divers interlocuteurs, souvent imaginaires; il faut établir la parfaite concordance de la conclusion enoncée et des conclusions precédents ou subséquentes; il faut réproduire, à l'occasion de tout problème controversé, l'ensemble de la doctrine pour laquelle on s'est déclaré."]
[Footnote 96: Longinus De Sublim.
s. 6.
[Greek: kai/toi to\ pra=gma du/slêpton; ê( ga\r tô=n lo/gôn kri/sis pollê=s e)sti pei/ras teleutai=on e)pige/nnêma].
Compare what is said in a succeeding chapter about the Hippias Minor.
And see also Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Lect.
35, p.
224.]
[Side-note: Platonic process adapted to Platonic topics--man and society.]
Moreover, not merely method and result are in harmony, but also the topics discussed.
These topics were ethical, social, and political: matters especially human[97] (to use the phrase of Sokrates himself) familiar to every man,--handled, unphilosophically, by speakers in the assembly, pleaders in the dikastery, dramatists in the theatre.
Now it is exactly upon such topics that debate can be made most interesting, varied, and abundant.
The facts, multifarious in themselves, connected with man and society, depend upon a variety of causes, co-operating and conflicting.
Account must be taken of many different points of view, each of which has a certain range of application, and each of which serves to limit or modify the others: the generalities, even when true, are true only on the balance, and under ordinary circumstances; they are liable to exception, if those circumstances undergo important change.
There are always objections, real as well as apparent, which require to be rebutted or elucidated.
To such changeful and complicated states of fact, the Platonic dialectic was adapted: furnishing abundant premisses and comparisons, bringing into notice many distinct points of view, each of which must be looked at and appreciated, before any tenable principle can be arrived at.
Not only Platonic method and result, but also Platonic topics, are thus well suited to each other.
The general terms of ethics were familiar but undefined: the tentative definitions suggested, followed up by objections available against each, included a large and instructive survey of ethical phenomena in all their bearings.
[Footnote 97: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1, 12-15.
I transcribe the following passage from an article in the Edinburgh Review (April, 1866, pp.
325-326), on the first edition of the present work: an article not merely profound and striking as to thought, but indicating the most comprehensive study and appreciation of the Platonic writings:-"The enemy against whom Plato really fought, and the warfare against whom was the incessant occupation of his life and writings, was--not Sophistry, either in the ancient or modern sense of the term, but--_Commonplace_.
It was the acceptance of traditional opinions and current sentiments as an ultimate fact; and bandying of the abstract terms which express approbation and disapprobation, desire and aversion, admiration and disgust, as if they had a meaning thoroughly understood and universally assented to.
The men of his day (like those of ours) thought that they knew what Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, Honourable and Shameful, were--because they could use the words glibly, and affirm them of this or that, in agreement with existing custom.
But what the property was, which these several instances possessed in common, justifying the application of the term, nobody had considered; neither the Sophists, nor the rhetoricians, nor the statesmen, nor any of those who set themselves up, or were set up by others, as wise.
Yet whoever could not answer this question was wandering in darkness--had no standard by which his judgments were regulated, and which kept them consistent with one another--no rule which he knew and could stand by for the guidance of his life.
Not knowing what Justice and Virtue are, it was impossible to be just and virtuous: not knowing what Good is, we not only fail to reach it, but are certain to embrace evil instead.
Such a condition, to any one capable of thought, made life not worth having.
The grand business of human intellect ought to consist in subjecting these terms to the most rigorous scrutiny, and bringing to light the ideas that lie at the bottom of them.
Even if this cannot be done and real knowledge attained, it is already no small benefit to expel the false opinion of knowledge: to make men conscious of the things most needful to be known, fill them with shame and uneasiness at their own state, and rouse a pungent internal stimulus, summoning up all their energies to attack those greatest of all problems, and never rest until, as far as possible, the true solutions are reached.
This is Plato's notion of the condition of the human mind in his time, and of what philosophy could do to help it: and any one who does not think the description applicable, with slight modifications, to the majority of educated minds in our own time and in all times known to us, certainly has not brought either the teachers or the practical men of any time to the Platonic test."
The Reviewer farther illustrates this impressive description by a valuable citation from Max Müller to the same purpose (Lectures on the Science of Language, Second Series, pp.
520-527).
"Such terms as Nature, Law, Freedom, Necessity, Body, Substance, Matter, Church, State, Revelation, Inspiration, Knowledge, Belief, &c., are tossed about in the war of words as if every body knew what they meant, and as if every body used them exactly in the same sense; whereas most people, and particularly those who represent public opinion, pick up these complicated terms as children, beginning with the vaguest conceptions, adding to them from time to time--perhaps correcting likewise at haphazard some of their involuntary errors--but never taking stock, never either enquiring into the history of the terms which they handle so freely, or realising the fulness of their meaning according to the strict rules of logical definition."]
[Side-note: Plato does not provide solutions for the difficulties which he has raised.
The affirmative and negative veins are in him completely distinct.
His dogmas are enunciations _à priori_ of some impressive sentiment.]
The negative procedure is so conspicuous, and even so preponderant, in the Platonic dialogues, that no historian of philosophy can omit to notice it.
But many of them (like Xenophon in describing Sokrates) assign to it only a subordinate place and a qualified application: while some (and Schleiermacher especially) represent all the doubts and difficulties in the negative dialogues as exercises to call forth the intellectual efforts of the reader, preparatory to full and satisfactory solutions which Plato has given in the dogmatic dialogues at the end.
The first half of this hypothesis I accept: the last half I believe to be unfounded.
The doubts and difficulties were certainly exercises to the mind of Plato himself, and were intended as exercises to his readers; but he has nowhere provided a key to the solution of them.
Where he propounds positive dogmas, he does not bring them face to face with objections, nor verify their authority by showing that they afford satisfactory solution of the difficulties exhibited in his negative procedure.
The two currents of his speculation, the affirmative and the negative, are distinct and independent of each other.
Where the affirmative is especially present (as in Timæus), the negative altogether disappears.
Timæus is made to proclaim the most sweeping theories, not one of which the real Sokrates would have suffered to pass without abundant cross-examination: but the Platonic Sokrates hears them with respectful silence, and commends afterwards.
The declaration so often made by Sokrates that he is a searcher, not a teacher--that he feels doubts keenly himself, and can impress them upon others, but cannot discover any good solution of them--this declaration, which is usually considered mere irony, is literally true.
[98] The Platonic theory of Objective Ideas separate and absolute, which the commentators often announce as if it cleared up all difficulties--not only clears up none, but introduces fresh ones belonging to itself.
When Plato comes forward to affirm, his dogmas are altogether _à priori_: they enunciate preconceptions or hypotheses, which derive their hold upon his belief, not from any aptitude for solving the objections which he has raised, but from deep and solemn sentiment of some kind or other--religious, ethical, æsthetical, poetical, &c., the worship of numerical symmetry or exactness, &c. The dogmas are enunciations of some grand sentiment of the divine, good, just, beautiful, symmetrical, &c.,[99] which Plato follows out into corollaries.
But this is a process of itself; and while he is performing it, the doubts previously raised are not called up to be solved, but are forgotten or kept out of sight.
It is therefore a mistake to suppose[100] that Plato ties knots in one dialogue only with a view to untie them in another; and that the doubts which he propounds are already fully solved in his own mind, only that he defers the announcement of the solution until the embarrassed hearer has struggled to find it for himself.
[Footnote 98: See the conversation between Menippus and Sokrates.
(Lucian, Dialog.
Mortuor.
xx.)]
[Footnote 99: Dionysius of Halikarnassus remarks that the topics upon which Plato renounces the character of a searcher, and passes into that of a vehement affirmative dogmatist, are those which are above human investigation and evidence--the transcendental: [Greek: kai\ ga\r e)kei=nos] (Plato) [Greek: ta\ do/gmata ou)k au)to\s a)pophai/netai, ei)=ta peri\ au)tô=n diagôni/zetai; a)ll' e)n mesô| tê\n zê/têsin poiou/menos pro\s tou\s dialegome/nous, eu(ri/skôn ma=llon to\ de/on do/gma, ê)\ philoneikô=n u(pe\r au)tou= phai/netai; plê\n o(/sa peri\ tô=n kreitto/nôn, ê)\ kath' ê(ma=s, le/getai] (Dion.
Hal.
Ars Rhet.
c. 10, p. 376, Reiske.)
M. Arago, in the following passage, points to a style of theorising in the physical sciences, very analogous to that of Plato, generally:-Arago, Biographies, vol.
i. p. 149, Vie de Fresnel.
"De ces deux explications des phénomènes de la lumière, l'une s'appelle la théorie de l'émission; l'autre est connue sous le nom de système des ondes.
On trouve déjà des traces de la première dans les écrits d'Empédocle.
Chez les modernes, je pourrais citer parmi ses adhérents Képler, Newton, Laplace.
Le système des ondes ne compte pas des partisans moins illustres: Aristote, Descartes, Hooke, Huygens, Euler, l'avaient adopté .
.
"Au reste, si l'on s'étonnait de voir d'aussi grands génies ainsi divisés, je dirais que de leurs temps la question on litige ne pouvait être résolue; que les expériences nécessaires manquaient; qu'alors les divers systèmes sur la lumière étaient, non _des déductions logiques des faits_, mais, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, de _simples vérités de sentiment_, qu'enfin, le don de l'infaillibilité n'est pas accordé même aux plus habiles, des qu'en sortant du domaine des observations, et se jetant dans celui des conjectures, ils abandonnent la marche sévère et assurée dont les sciences se prévalent de nos jours avec raison, et qui leur a fait faire de si incontestables progrès."]
[Footnote 100: Several of the Platonic critics speak as if they thought that Plato would never suggest any difficulty which he had not, beforehand and ready-made, the means of solving; and Munk treats the idea which I have stated in the text as ridiculous.
"Plato (he observes) must have held preposterous doctrines on the subject of pædagogy.
He undertakes to instruct others by his writings, before he has yet cleared up his own ideas on the question, he proposes, in propædeutic writings, enigmas for his scholars to solve, while he has not yet solved them himself; and all this for the praiseworthy (_ironically said_) purpose of correcting in their minds the false persuasion of knowledge."
(Die natürliche Ordnung der Platon Schrift.
p.
515.)
That which Munk here derides, appears stated, again and again, by the Platonic Sokrates, as his real purpose.
Munk is at liberty to treat it as ridiculous, but the ridicule falls upon Plato himself.
The Platonic Sokrates disclaims the pædagogic function, describing himself as nothing more than a fellow searcher with the rest.
So too Munk declares (p. 79-80, and Zeller also, Philos.
der Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 472, ed.
2nd) that Plato could not have composed the Parmenidês, including, as it does, such an assemblage of difficulties and objections against the theory of Ideas, until he possessed the means of solving all of them himself.
This is a bold assertion, altogether conjectural; for there is no solution of them given in any of Plato's writings, and the solutions to which Munk alludes as given by Zeller and Steinhart (even assuming them to be satisfactory, which I do not admit) travel much beyond the limits of Plato.
Ueberweg maintains the same opinion (Ueber die Aechtheit der Platon.
Schriften, p. 103-104); that Sokrates, in the Platonic Dialogues, though he appears as a Searcher, must nevertheless be looked upon as a matured thinker, who has already gone through the investigation for himself, and solved all the difficulties, but who goes back upon the work of search over again, for the instruction of the interlocutors.
"The special talent and dexterity (Virtuosität) which Sokrates displays in conducting the dialogue, can only be explained by supposing that he has already acquired for himself a firm and certain conviction on the question discussed."
This opinion of Ueberweg appears to me quite untenable, as well as inconsistent with a previous opinion which he had given elsewhere (Platonische Welt-seele, p. 69-70)--That the Platonic Ideenlehre was altogether insufficient for explanation.
The impression which the Dialogues of Search make upon me is directly the reverse.
My difficulty is, to understand how the constructor of all these puzzles, if he has the answer ready drawn up in his pocket, can avoid letting it slip out.
At any rate, I stand upon the literal declarations, often repeated, of Sokrates; while Munk and Ueberweg contradict them.
For the doubt and hesitation which Plato puts into the mouth of Sokrates (even in the Republic, one of his most expository compositions) see a remarkable passage, Rep. v. p. 450 E. [Greek: a)pistou=nta de\ kai\ zêtou=nta a)/ma tou\s lo/gous poiei=sthai, o(\ dê\ e)gô\ drô=], &c.] [Side-note: Hypothesis--that Plato had solved all his own difficulties for himself; but that he communicated the solution only to a few select auditors in oral lectures--Untenable.]
Some critics, assuming confidently that Plato must have produced a full breadth of positive philosophy to countervail his own negative fertility, yet not finding enough of it in the written dialogues look for it elsewhere.
Tennemann thinks, and his opinion is partly shared by Boeckh and K. F. Hermann, that the direct, affirmative, and highest principles of Plato's philosophy were enunciated only in his lectures: that the core, the central points, the great principles of his system (der Kern) were revealed thus orally to a few select students in plain and broad terms, while the dialogues were intentionally written so as to convey only indirect hints, illustrations, applications of these great principles, together with refutation of various errors opposed to them: that Plato did not think it safe or prudent to make any full, direct, or systematic revelation to the general public.
[101] I have already said that I think this opinion untenable.
Among the few points which we know respecting the oral lectures, one is, that they were delivered not to a select and prepared few, but to a numerous and unprepared audience: while among the written dialogues, there are some which, far from being popular or adapted to an ordinary understanding, are highly perplexing and abstruse.
The Timæus does not confine itself to indirect hints, but delivers positive dogmas about the super-sensible world: though they are of a mystical cast, as we know that the oral lectures De Bono were also.
[Footnote 101: Tennemann, Gesch.
der Philos.
ii.
p. 205-220.
Hermann, Ueber Plato's Schriftsteller.
Motive, pp.
290-294.
Hermann considers this reserve and double doctrine to be unworthy of Plato, and ascribes it to Protagoras and other Sophists, on the authority of a passage in the Theætêtus (152 C), which does not at all sustain his allegation.
Hermann considers "die akroamatischen Lehren als Fortsetzung und Schlussstein der schriftlichen, die dort erst zur vollen Klarheit principieller Auffassung erhoben wurden, ohne jedoch über den nämlichen Gegenstand, soweit die Rede auf denselben kommen musste, etwas wesentlich Verschiedenes zu lehren" (p.
293).]]
[Side-note: Characteristic of the oral lectures--that they were delivered in Plato's own name.
In what other respects they departed from the dialogues, we cannot say.]
Towards filling up this gap, then, the oral lectures cannot be shown to lend any assistance.
The cardinal point of difference between them and the dialogues was, that they were delivered by Plato himself, in his own name; whereas he never published any written composition in his own name.
But we do not know enough to say, in what particular way this difference would manifest itself.
Besides the oral lectures, delivered to a numerous auditory, it is very probable that Plato held special communications upon philosophy with a few advanced pupils.
Here however we are completely in the dark.
Yet I see nothing, either in these supposed private communications or in the oral lectures, to controvert what was said in the last page--that Plato's affirmative philosophy is not fitted on to his negative philosophy, but grows out of other mental impulses, distinct and apart.
Plato (as Aristotle tells us[102]) felt it difficult to determine, whether the march of philosophy was an ascending one toward the _principia_ ([Greek: a)rcha\s]), or a descending one down from the _principia_.
A good philosophy ought to suffice for both, conjointly and alternately: in Plato's philosophy, there is no road explicable either upwards or downwards, between the two: no justifiable mode of participation ([Greek: me/thexis]) between the two disparate worlds--intellect and sense.
The _principia_ of Plato take an impressive hold on the imagination: but they remove few or none of the Platonic difficulties; and they only seem to do this because the Sokratic Elenchus, so effective whenever it is applied, is never seriously brought to bear against them.
[Footnote 102: Aristot.
Eth.
Nik.
i.
4, 5.
[Greek: eu)= ga\r kai\ Pla/tôn ê)po/rei tou=to kai\ e)zê/tei po/teron a)po\ tô=n archô=n ê)\ e)pi\ ta\s a)rcha/s e)stin ê( o(do/s.]]
[Side-note: Apart from any result, Plato has an interest in the process of search and debate _per se_.
Protracted enquiry is a valuable privilege, not a tiresome obligation.]
With persons who complain of prolixity in the dialogue--of threads which are taken up only to be broken off, devious turns and "passages which lead to nothing"--of much talk "about it and about it," without any peremptory decision from an authorised judge--with such complainants Plato has no sympathy.
He feels a strong interest in the process of enquiry, in the debate _per se_: and he presumes a like interest in his readers.
He has no wish to shorten the process, nor to reach the end and dismiss the question as settled.
[103] On the contrary, he claims it as the privilege of philosophical research, that persons engaged in such discussions are noway tied to time; they are not like judicial pleaders, who, with a klepsydra or water-clock to measure the length of each speech, are under slavish dependence on the feelings of the Dikasts, and are therefore obliged to keep strictly to the point.
[104] Whoever desires accurate training of mind must submit to go through a long and tiresome circuit.
[105] Plato regards the process of enquiry as being in itself, both a stimulus and a discipline, in which the minds both of questioner and respondent are implicated and improved, each being indispensable to the other: he also represents it as a process, carried on under the immediate inspiration of the moment, without reflection or foreknowledge of the result.
[106] Lastly, Plato has an interest in the dialogue, not merely as a mental discipline, but as an artistic piece of workmanship, whereby the taste and imagination are charmed.
The dialogue was to him what the tragedy was to Sophokles, and the rhetorical discourse to Isokrates.
He went on "combing and curling it" (to use the phrase of Dionysius) for as many years as Isokrates bestowed on the composition of the Panegyrical Oration.
He handles the dialectic drama so as to exhibit some one among the many diverse ethical points of view, and to show what it involves as well as what it excludes in the way of consequence.
We shall not find the ethical point of view always the same: there are material inconsistencies and differences in this respect between one dialogue and another.
[Footnote 103: As an illustration of that class of minds which take delight in the search for truth in different directions, I copy the following passage respecting Dr. Priestley, from an excellent modern scientific biography.
"Dr. Priestley had seen so much of the evil of obstinate adherence to opinions which time had rendered decrepit, not venerable--and had been so richly rewarded in his capacity of natural philosopher, by his adventurous explorations of new territories in science--that he unavoidably and unconsciously over-estimated the value of what was novel, and held himself free to change his opinions to an extent not easily sympathised with by minds of a different order.
Some men love to _rest_ in truth, or at least in settled opinions, and are uneasy till they find repose.
They alter their beliefs with great reluctance, and dread the charge of inconsistency, even in reference to trifling matters.
Priestley, on the other hand, was a _follower after truth, who delighted in the chase, and was all his life long pursuing, not resting in it_.
On all subjects which interested him he held by certain cardinal doctrines, but he left the outlines of his systems to be filled up as he gained experience, and to an extent very few men have done, disavowed any attempt to reconcile his changing views with each other, or to deprecate the charge of inconsistency.
.
.
I think it must be acknowledged by all who have studied his writings, that in his scientific researches at least he carried this feeling too far, and that often when he had reached a truth in which he might and should have rested, his dread of anything like a too hasty stereotyping of a supposed discovery, induced him to welcome whatever seemed to justify him in renewing the _pursuit_ of truth, and thus led him completely astray.
Priestley indeed missed many a discovery, the clue to which was in his hands and in his alone, by not knowing where to stop."
(Dr. Geo Wilson--Life of the Hon.
H. Cavendish, among the publications of the Cavendish Society, 1851, p.
110-111.)]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Theætêt.
p.
172.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, v. 450 B.
[Greek: me/tron de/ g', e)/phê, ô)= Sô/krates, o( Glau/kôn, toiou/tôn lo/gôn a)kou/ein, o(/los o( bi/os nou=n e)/chousin].
vi.
504 D. [Greek: Tê\n makrote/ran peri+ite/on tô=| toiou/tô|, kai\ ou)ch ê(=tton mantha/nonti ponête/on ê)\ gumnazome/nô|].
Also Phædrus, 274 A, Parmenid.
p. 135 D, 136 D, [Greek: a)mê/chanon pragmatei/an--a)doleschi/as], &c. Compare Politikus, 286, in respect to the charge of prolixity against him.
In the Hermotimus of Lucian, the assailant of philosophy draws one of his strongest arguments from the number of years required to examine the doctrines of all the philosophical sects--the whole of life would be insufficient (Lucian, Hermot.
c. 47-48).
The passages above cited, especially the first of them, show that Sokrates and Plato would not have been discouraged by this protracted work.]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Republic, iii.
394 D. [Greek: Manteu/omai] (says Glaukon) [Greek: skopei=sthai se, ei)/te paradexo/metha tragô|di/an te kai\ kômô|di/an ei)s tê\n po/lin, ei)/te kai\ ou)/.
I)/sôs] (says Sokrates) [Greek: kai\ plei/ô e)/ti tou/tôn; _ou) ga\r dê\ e)/gôge pô oi)=da, a)ll' o(/pê| a)\n o( lo/gos ô(/sper pneu=ma phe/rê|, tau/tê| i)teon_.
Kai\ kalô=s g', e)/phê, le/geis].
The Republic, from the second book to the close, is one of those Platonic compositions in which Sokrates is most expository.
We find a remarkable passage in Des Cartes, wherein that very self-working philosopher expresses his conviction that the longer he continued enquiring, the more his own mind would become armed for the better appreciation of truth--and in which he strongly protests against any barrier restraining the indefinite liberty of enquiry.
"Et encore qu'il y en ait peut-être d'aussi bien sensés parmi les Perses ou les Chinois que parmi nous, il me sembloit que le plus utile étoit, de me régler selon ceux avec lesquels j'aurois à vivre; et que, pour savoir quelles étoient véritablement leurs opinions, je devois plutôt prendre garde à ce qu'ils pratiquaient qu'à ce qu'ils disaient; non seulement à cause qu'en la corruption de nos moeurs, _il y a peu de gens qui veuillent dire tout ce qu'ils croient--mais aussi à cause que plusieurs l'ignorent eux mêmes; car l'action de la pensée, par laquelle on croit une chose étant différente de celle par laquelle on connoit qu'on la croit, elles sont souvent l'une sans l'autre._ Et entre plusieurs opinions également reçues, je ne choisissois que les plus modérées; tant à cause que ce sont toujours les plus commodes pour la pratique, et vraisemblablement les meilleures--tous excès ayans coutume d'être mauvais--comme aussi afin de me détourner moins du vrai chemin, en cas que je faillisse, que si, ayant choisi l'un des deux extrêmes, c'eût été l'autre qu'il eut fallu suivre.
"Et particulièrement, je _mettois entre les excès toutes les promesses par lesquelles on retranche quelque chose de sa liberté_; non que je désapprouvasse les lois, qui pour remédier à l'inconstance des esprits foibles, permettent, lorsqu'on a quelque bon dessein (ou même, pour la sureté du commerce, quelque dessein qui n'est qu'indifférent), qu'on fasse des voeux ou des contrats qui obligent à y persévérer: mais à cause que je ne voyois au monde aucune chose qui demeurât toujours en même état, et _que comme pour mon particulier, je me promettois de perfectionner de plus en plus en mes jugemens, et non point de les rendre pires, j'eusse pensé commettre une grande faute contre le bon sens, si, parceque j'approuvois alors quelque chose, je me fusse obligé de la prendre pour bonne encore après, lorsqu'elle auroit peut-être cessé de l'être, ou que j'aurois cessé de l'estimer telle_."
Discours de la Méthode, part iii.
p. 147-148, Cousin edit.
; p. 16, Simon edit.]
[Side-note: Plato has done more than any one else to make the process of enquiry interesting to others, as it was to himself.]
But amidst all these differences--and partly indeed by reason of these differences--Plato succeeds in inspiring his readers with much of the same interest in the process of dialectic enquiry which he evidently felt in his own bosom.
The charm, with which he invests the process of philosophising, is one main cause of the preservation of his writings from the terrible ship-wreck which has overtaken so much of the abundant contemporary literature.
It constitutes also one of his principle titles to the gratitude of intellectual men.
This is a merit which may be claimed for Cicero also, but hardly for Aristotle, in so far as we can judge from the preserved portion of the Aristotelian writings: whether for the other _viri Socratici_ his contemporaries, or in what proportion, we are unable to say.
Plato's works charmed and instructed all; so that they were read not merely by disciples and admirers (as the Stoic and Epikurean treatises were), but by those who dissented from him as well as by those who agreed with him.
[107] The process of philosophising is one not naturally attractive except to a few minds: the more therefore do we owe to the colloquy of Sokrates and the writing of Plato, who handled it so as to diffuse the appetite for enquiry, and for sifting dissentient opinions.
The stimulating and suggestive influence exercised by Plato--the variety of new roads pointed out to the free enquiring mind--are in themselves sufficiently valuable: whatever we may think of the positive results in which he himself acquiesced.
[108] [Footnote 107: Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
ii.
3, 8.
Cicero farther commends the Stoic Panætius for having relinquished the "tristitiam atque asperitatem" of his Stoic predecessors, Zeno, Chrysippus, &c., and for endeavouring to reproduce the style and graces of Plato and Aristotle, whom he was always commending to his students (De Fin.
iv.
28, 79).]
[Footnote 108: The observation which Cicero applies to Varro, is applicable to the Platonic writings also.
"Philosophiam multis locis _inchoasti_, ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum" (Academ.
Poster.
i.
3, 9).
I shall say more about this when I touch upon the Platonic Kleitophon; an unfinished dialogue, which takes up the point of view here indicated by Cicero.]
I have said thus much respecting what is common to the Dialogues of Search, because this is a species of composition now rare and strange.
Modern readers do not understand what is meant by publishing an enquiry without any result--a story without an end.
Respecting the Dialogues of Exposition, there is not the like difficulty.
This is a species of composition, the purpose of which is generally understood.
Whether the exposition be clear or obscure--orderly or confused--true or false--we shall see when we come to examine each separately.
But these Dialogues of Exposition exhibit Plato in a different character: as the counterpart, not of Sokrates, but of Lykurgus (Republic and Leges) or of Pythagoras (in Timæus).
[109] [Footnote 109: See the citation from Plutarch in an earlier note of this chapter.]
[Side-note: Process of generalisation always kept in view and illustrated throughout the Platonic Dialogues of Search--general terms and propositions made subjects of conscious analysis.]
A farther remark which may be made, bearing upon most of the dialogues, relates to matter and not to manner.
Everywhere (both in the Dialogues of Search and in those of exposition) the process of generalisation is kept in view and brought into conscious notice, directly or indirectly.
The relation of the universal to its particulars, the contrast of the constant and essential with the variable and accidental, are turned and returned in a thousand different ways.
The principles of classification, with the breaking down of an extensive genus into species and sub-species, form the special subject of illustration in two of the most elaborate Platonic dialogues, and are often partially applied in the rest.
To see the One in the Many, and the Many in the One, is represented as the great aim and characteristic attribute of the real philosopher.
The testing of general terms, and of abstractions already embodied in familiar language, by interrogations applying them to many concrete and particular cases--is one manifestation of the Sokratic cross-examining process, which Plato multiplies and diversifies without limit.
It is in his writings and in the conversation of Sokrates, that general terms and propositions first become the subject of conscious attention and analysis, and Plato was well aware that he was here opening the new road towards formal logic, unknown to his predecessors, unfamiliar even to his contemporaries.
This process is indeed often overlaid in his writings by exuberant poetical imagery and by transcendental hypothesis: but the important fact is, that it was constantly present to his own mind and is impressed upon the notice of his readers.
[Side-note: The Dialogues must be reviewed as distinct compositions by the same author, illustrating each other, but without assignable inter-dependence.]
After these various remarks, having a common bearing upon all, or nearly all, the Platonic dialogues, I shall proceed to give some account of each dialogue separately.
It is doubtless both practicable and useful to illustrate one of them by others, sometimes in the way of analogy, sometimes in that of contrast.
But I shall not affect to handle them as contributories to one positive doctrinal system--nor as occupying each an intentional place in the gradual unfolding of one preconceived scheme--nor as successive manifestations of change, knowable and determinable, in the views of the author.
For us they exist as distinct imaginary conversations, composed by the same author at unknown times and under unknown specialities of circumstance.
Of course it is necessary to prefer some one order for reviewing the Dialogues, and for that purpose more or less of hypothesis must be admitted; but I shall endeavour to assume as little as possible.
[Side-note: Order of the Dialogues, chosen for bringing them under separate review.
Apology will come first; Timæus, Kritias, Leges, Epinomis last.]
The order which I shall adopt for considering the dialogues coincides to a certain extent with that which some other expositors have adopted.
It begins with those dialogues which delineate Sokrates, and which confine themselves to the subjects and points of view belonging to him, known as he is upon the independent testimony of Xenophon.
First of all will come the Platonic Apology, containing the explicit negative programme of Sokrates, enunciated by himself a month before his death, when Plato was 28 years of age.
Last of all, I shall take those dialogues which depart most widely from Sokrates, and which are believed to be the products of Plato's most advanced age--Timæus, Kritias, and Leges, with the sequel, Epinomis.
These dialogues present a glaring contrast to the searching questions, the negative acuteness, the confessed ignorance, of Sokrates: Plato in his old age has not maintained consistency with his youth, as Sokrates did, but has passed round from the negative to the affirmative pole of philosophy.
[Side-note: Kriton and Euthyphron come immediately after Apology.
The intermediate dialogues present no convincing grounds for any determinate order.]
Between the Apology and the dialogues named as last--I shall examine the intermediate dialogues according as they seem to approximate or recede from Sokrates and the negative dialectic.
Here, however, the reasons for preference are noway satisfactory.
Of the many dissentient schemes, professing to determine the real order in which the Platonic dialogues were composed, I find a certain plausibility in some, but no conclusive reason in any.
Of course the reasons in favour of each one scheme, count against all the rest.
I believe (as I have already said) that none of Plato's dialogues were composed until after the death of Sokrates: but at what dates, or in what order, after that event, they were composed, it is impossible to determine.
The Republic and Philêbus rank among the constructive dialogues, and may suitably be taken immediately before Timæus: though the Republic belongs to the highest point of Plato's genius, and includes a large measure of his negative acuteness combined with his most elaborate positive combinations.
In the Sophistês and Politikus, Sokrates appears only in the character of a listener: in the Parmenidês also, the part assigned to him, instead of being aggressive and victorious, is subordinate to that of Parmenidês and confined to an unsuccessful defence.
These dialogues, then, occupy a place late in the series.
On the other hand, Kriton and Euthyphron have an immediate bearing upon the trial of Sokrates and the feelings connected with it.
I shall take them in immediate sequel to the Apology.
For the intermediate dialogues, the order is less marked and justifiable.
In so far as a reason can be given, for preference as to former and later, I shall give it when the case arises.
CHAPTER IX.
APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.
Adopting the order of precedence above described, for the review of the Platonic compositions, and taking the point of departure from Sokrates or the Sokratic point of view, I begin with the memorable composition called the Apology.
[Side-note: The Apology is the real defence delivered by Sokrates before the Dikasts, reported by Plato, without intentional transformation.]
I agree with Schleiermacher[1]--with the more recent investigations of Ueberweg--and with what (until recent times) seems to have been the common opinion,--that this is in substance the real defence pronounced by Sokrates; reported, and of course drest up, yet not intentionally transformed, by Plato.
[2] If such be the case, it is likely to have been put together shortly after the trial, and may thus be ranked among the earliest of the Platonic compositions: for I have already intimated my belief that Plato composed no dialogues under the name of Sokrates, during the lifetime of Sokrates.
[Footnote 1: Zeller is of opinion that the Apology, as well as the Kriton, were put together at Megara by Plato, shortly after the death of Sokrates.
(Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio, p.
19.)
Schleiermacher, Einl.
zur Apologie, vol.
ii.
pp.
182-185.
Ueberweg, Ueber die Aechtheit der Plat.
Schrift.
p. 246.
Steinhart thinks (Einleitung, pp.
236-238) that the Apology contains more of Plato, and less of Sokrates: but he does not make his view very clear to me.
Ast, on the contrary, treats the Apology as spurious and unworthy of Plato.
(Ueber Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 477, seq.)
His arguments are rather objections against the merits of the composition, than reasons for believing it not to be the work of Plato.
I dissent from them entirely: but they show that an acute critic can make out a plausible case, satisfactory to himself, against any dialogue.
If it be once conceded that the question of genuine or spurious is to be tried upon such purely internal grounds of critical admiration and complete harmony of sentiment, Ast might have made out a case even stronger against the genuineness of the Phædrus, Symposion, Philêbus, Parmenidês.]
[Footnote 2: See chapter lxviii.
of my History of Greece.
The reader will find in that chapter a full narrative of all the circumstances known to us respecting both the life and the condemnation of Sokrates.
A very admirable account may also be seen of the character of Sokrates, and his position with reference to the Athenian people, in the article entitled _Sokrates und Sein Volk_, Akademischer Vortrag, by Professor Hermann Köchly; a lecture delivered at Zurich in 1855, and published with enlargements in 1859.
Professor Köchly's article (contained in a volume entitled _Akademische Vorträge_, Zurich, 1859) is eminently deserving of perusal.
It not only contains a careful summary of the contemporary history, so far as Sokrates is concerned, but it has farther the great merit of fairly estimating that illustrious man in reference to the actual feeling of the time, and to the real public among whom he moved.
I feel much satisfaction in seeing that Professor Köchly's picture, composed without any knowledge of my History of Greece, presents substantially the same view of Sokrates and his contemporaries as that which is taken in my sixty-eighth chapter.
Köchly considers that the Platonic Apology preserves the Sokratic character more faithfully than any of Plato's writings; and that it represents what Sokrates said, as nearly as the "dichterische Natur" of Plato would permit (Köchly, pp.
302-364.)]
[Side-note: Even if it be Plato's own composition, it comes naturally first in the review of his dialogues.]
Such, in my judgment, is the most probable hypothesis respecting the Apology.
But even if we discard this hypothesis; if we treat the Apology as a pure product of the Platonic imagination (like the dialogues), and therefore not necessarily connected in point of time with the event to which it refers--still there are good reasons for putting it first in the order of review.
For it would then be Plato's own exposition, given more explicitly and solemnly than anywhere else, of the Sokratic point of view and life-purpose.
It would be an exposition embodying that union of generalising impulse, mistrust of established common-places, and aggressive cross-examining ardour--with eccentric religious persuasion, as well as with perpetual immersion in the crowd of the palæstra and the market-place: which immersion was not less indispensable to Sokrates than repugnant to the feelings of Plato himself.
An exposition, lastly, disavowing all that taste for cosmical speculation, and that transcendental dogmatism, which formed one among the leading features of Plato as distinguished from Sokrates.
In whichever way we look at the Apology, whether as a real or as an imaginary defence, it contains more of pure Sokratism than any other composition of Plato, and as such will occupy the first place in the arrangement which I adopt.
[3] [Footnote 3: Dionysius Hal.
regards the Apology, not as a report of what Sokrates really said, nor as approximating thereunto, but as a pure composition of Plato himself, for three purposes combined:--1.
To defend and extol Sokrates.
2.
To accuse the Athenian public and Dikasts.
3.
To furnish a picture of what a philosopher ought to be.--All these purposes are to a certain extent included and merged in a fourth, which I hold to be the true one,--to exhibit what Sokrates was and had been, in relation to the Athenian public.
The comparison drawn by Dionysius between the Apology and the oration De Coronâ of Demosthenes, appears to me unsuitable.
The two are altogether disparate, in spirit, in purpose, and in execution.
(See Dion.
H. Ars Rhet.
pp.
295-298: De Adm. Vi Dic.
Demosth.
p.
1026.)]
In my History of Greece, I have already spoken of this impressive discourse as it concerns the relations between Sokrates himself and the Dikasts to whom he addressed it.
I here regard it only as it concerns Plato; and as it forms a convenient point of departure for entering upon and appreciating the Platonic dialogues.
[Side-note: General character of the Apology--Sentiments entertained towards Sokrates at Athens.]
The Apology of Sokrates is not a dialogue but a continuous discourse addressed to the Dikasts, containing nevertheless a few questions and answers interchanged between him and the accuser Melêtus in open court.
It is occupied, partly, in rebutting the counts of the indictment (_viz._, 1.
That Sokrates did not believe in the Gods or in the Dæmons generally recognised by his countrymen: 2.
That he was a corruptor of youth[4])--partly in setting forth those proceedings of his life out of which such charges had grown, and by which he had become obnoxious to a wide-spread feeling of personal hatred.
By his companions, by those who best knew him, and by a considerable number of ardent young men, he was greatly esteemed and admired: by the general public, too, his acuteness as well as his self-sufficing and independent character, were appreciated with a certain respect.
Yet he was at the same time disliked, as an aggressive disputant who "tilted at all he met"--who raised questions novel as well as perplexing, who pretended to special intimations from the Gods--and whose views no one could distinctly make out.
[5] By the eminent citizens of all varieties--politicians, rhetors, Sophists, tragic and comic poets, artisans, &c.--he had made himself both hated and feared.
[6] He emphatically denies the accusation of general disbelief in the Gods, advanced by Melêtus: and he affirms generally (though less distinctly) that the Gods in whom he believed, were just the same as those in whom the whole city believed.
Especially does he repudiate the idea, that he could be so absurd as to doubt the divinity of Helios and Selênê, in which all the world believed;[7] and to adopt the heresy of Anaxagoras, who degraded these Divinities into physical masses.
Respecting his general creed, he thus puts himself within the pale of Athenian orthodoxy.
He even invokes that very sentiment (with some doubt whether the Dikasts will believe him[8]) for the justification of the obnoxious and obtrusive peculiarities of his life; representing himself as having acted under the mission of the Delphian God, expressly transmitted from the oracle.
[Footnote 4: Xenoph.
Mem.
i.
1, 1.
[Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n e( po/lis nomi/zei theou\s ou) nomi/zôn; e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn; a)dikei= de\ kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn].
Plato, Apolog.
c. 3, p. 19 B.
[Greek: Sôkra/tês a)dikei= kai\ perierga/zetai, zêtô=n ta/ te u(po\ gê=s kai\ ta\ e)poura/nia, kai\ to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiô=n, kai\ a)/llous tau)ta\ tau=ta dida/skôn].
The reading of Xenophon was conformable to the copy of the indictment preserved in the Metrôon at Athens in the time of Favorinus.
There were three distinct accusers--Melêtus, Anytus, and Lykon.
Plat.
Apol.
p. 23-24 B.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Apol.
c. 28, p. 38 A; c. 23, p. 35 A.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Apol.
c. 8-9, pp.
22-23.
[Greek: e)k tautêsi\ dê\ tê\s e)xeta/seôs pollai\ me\n a)pe/chtheiai/ moi gego/nasi kai\ oi)=ai chalepô/tatai kai\ baru/tatai, ô(/ste polla\s diabola\s a)p' au)tô=n gegone/nai, o)/noma de\ tou=to le/gesthai, sopho\s ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Apol.
c. 14, p. 26 D. [Greek: ô)= thauma/sie Me/lête, i(na ti/ tau=ta le/geis?
ou)de\ ê(/lion ou)de\ selê/nên a)/ra nomi/zô theou\s ei)=nai, ô(/sper oi( a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi?]]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Apol.
c. 5, p. 20 D.] [Side-note: Declaration from the Delphian oracle respecting the wisdom of Sokrates, interpreted by him as a mission to cross-examine the citizens generally--The oracle is proved to be true.]
According to his statement, his friend and earnest admirer Chærephon, had asked the question at the oracle of Delphi, whether any one was wiser than Sokrates?
The reply of the oracle declared, that no one was wiser.
On hearing this declaration from an infallible authority, Sokrates was greatly perplexed: for he was conscious to himself of not being wise upon any matter, great or small.
[9] He at length concluded that the declaration of the oracle could be proved true, only on the hypothesis that other persons were less wise than they seemed to be or fancied themselves.
To verify this hypothesis, he proceeded to cross-examine the most eminent persons in many different walks--political men, rhetors, Sophists, poets, artisans.
On applying his Elenchus, and putting to them testing interrogations, he found them all without exception destitute of any real wisdom, yet fully persuaded that they _were_ wise, and incapable of being shaken in that persuasion.
The artisans indeed did really know each his own special trade; but then, on account of this knowledge, they believed themselves to be wise on other great matters also.
So also the poets were great in their own compositions; but on being questioned respecting these very compositions, they were unable to give any rational or consistent explanations: so that they plainly appeared to have written beautiful verses, not from any wisdom of their own, but through inspiration from the Gods, or spontaneous promptings of nature.
The result was, that these men were all proved to possess no more real wisdom than Sokrates: but _he_ was aware of his own deficiency; while _they_ were fully convinced of their own wisdom, and could not be made sensible of the contrary.
In this way Sokrates justified the certificate of superiority vouchsafed to him by the oracle.
He, like all other persons, was destitute of wisdom; but he was the only one who knew, or could be made to feel, his own real mental condition.
With others, and most of all with the most conspicuous men, the false persuasion of their own wisdom was universal and inexpugnable.
[10] [Footnote 9: Plato, Apol.
c. 6, p. 21 B.
[Greek: tau=ta ga\r e)gô\ a)kou/sas e)nethumou/mên ou(tôsi/, Ti/ pote le/gei o( theo\s kai\ ti/ pote ai)ni/ttetai?
e)gô\ ga\r dê\ ou)/te me/ga ou)/te smikro\n xu/noida e)mautô=| sopho\s ô)/n; ti/ ou)=n pote le/gei pha/skôn e)me\ sophô/taton ei)=nai?
ou) ga\r dê/pou pseu/detai/ ge; ou) ga\r the/mis au)tô=|.
Kai\ polu\n me\n chro/non ê)po/roun], &c.] [Footnote 10: Plato, Apolog.
c. 8-9, pp.
22-23.]
[Side-note: False persuasion of wisdom is universal--the God alone is wise.]
This then was the philosophical mission of Sokrates, imposed upon him by the Delphian oracle, and in which he passed the mature portion of his life: to cross-examine every one, to expose that false persuasion of knowledge which every one felt, and to demonstrate the truth of that which the oracle really meant by declaring the superior wisdom of Sokrates.
"People suppose me to be wise myself (says Sokrates) on those matters on which I detect and prove the non-wisdom of others.
[11] But that is a mistake.
The God alone is wise: and his oracle declares human wisdom to be worth little or nothing, employing the name of Sokrates as an example.
He is the wisest of men, who, like Sokrates, knows well that he is in truth worthless so far as wisdom is concerned.
[12] The really disgraceful ignorance is--to think that you know what you do not really know.
"[13] [Footnote 11: Plato, Apol.
c. 9, p. 23 A.
[Greek: oi)/ontai ga/r me e(ka/stote oi( paro/ntes tau=ta au)to\n ei)=nai sopho/n, a(\ a)\n a)/llon e)xele/gxô.]]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Apol.
c. 9, p. 23 A; c. 17, p. 28 E.] [Footnote 13: Plato, Apol.
c. 17, p. 29 B.
[Greek: kai\ tou=to pô=s ou)k a)mathi/a e)sti\n au)tê\ ê( e)ponei/distos, ê( tou= oi)/esthai ei)de/nai a(\ ou)k oi)=den?]]
[Side-note: Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the cross-examining mission imposed upon him by the God.]
"The God has marked for me my post, to pass my life in the search for wisdom, cross-examining myself as well as others: I shall be disgraced, if I desert that post from fear either of death or of any other evil.
"[14] "Even if you Dikasts acquit me, I shall not alter my course: I shall continue, as long as I hold life and strength, to exhort and interrogate in my usual strain, telling every one whom I meet[15]--You, a citizen of the great and intelligent Athens, are you not ashamed of busying yourself to procure wealth, reputation, and glory, in the greatest possible quantity; while you take neither thought nor pains about truth, or wisdom, or the fullest measure of goodness for your mind?
If any one denies the charge, and professes that he _does_ take thought for these objects,--I shall not let him off without questioning, cross-examining, and exposing him.
[16] And if he appears to me to affirm that he is virtuous without being so in reality, I shall reproach him for caring least about the greater matter, and most about the smaller.
This course I shall pursue with every one whom I meet, young or old, citizen or non-citizen: most of all with you citizens, because you are most nearly connected with me.
For this, you know, is what the God commands, and I think that no greater blessing has ever happened to the city than this ministration of mine under orders from the God.
For I go about incessantly persuading you all, old as well as young, not to care about your bodies, or about riches, so much as about acquiring the largest measure of virtue for your minds.
I urge upon you that virtue is not the fruit of wealth, but that wealth, together with all the other things good for mankind publicly and privately, are the fruits of virtue.
[17] If I am a corruptor of youth, it is by these discourses that I corrupt them: and if any one gives a different version of my discourses, he talks idly.
Accordingly, men of Athens, I must tell you plainly: decide with Anytus, or not,--acquit me or not--I shall do nothing different from what I have done, even if I am to die many times over for it."
[Footnote 14: Plato, Apol.
c. 17, p. 28 E.] [Footnote 15: Plato, Apol.
c. 17, p. 29 D. [Greek: ou) mê\ pau/sômai philosophô=n kai\ u(mi=n parakeleuo/meno/s te kai\ e)ndeiknu/menos, o(/tô| a)\n a)ei\ e)ntugcha/nô u(mô=n, le/gôn oi(=a/per ei)/ôtha], &c.] [Footnote 16: Plato, Apol.
c. 17, p. 29 E. [Greek: kai\ e)a/n tis u(mô=n a)mphisbêtê/sê| kai\ phê=| e)pimelei=sthai, ou)k eu)thu\s a)phê/sô au)to\n ou)d' a)/peimi, a)ll' e)rê/somai au)to\n kai\ e)xeta/sô kai\ e)le/gxô, kai\ e)a/n moi mê\ dokê=| kektê=sthai a)retê/n, pha/nai de/, o)neidiô=], &c.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Apol.
c. 17, p. 30, B.
[Greek: le/gôn o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata kai\ ta)/lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|.]]
[Side-note: He had devoted his life to the execution of this mission, and he intended to persevere in spite of obloquy or danger.]
Such is the description given by Sokrates of his own profession and standing purpose, imposed upon him as a duty by the Delphian God.
He neglected all labour either for profit, or for political importance, or for the public service; he devoted himself, from morning till night, to the task of stirring up the Athenian public, as the gadfly worries a large and high-bred but over-sleek horse:[18] stimulating them by interrogation, persuasion, reproach, to render account of their lives and to seek with greater energy the path of virtue.
By continually persisting in such universal cross-examination, he had rendered himself obnoxious to the Athenians generally;[19] who were offended when called upon to render account, and when reproached that they did not live rightly.
Sokrates predicts that after his death, younger cross-examiners, hitherto kept down by his celebrity, would arise in numbers,[20] and would pursue the same process with greater keenness and acrimony than he had done.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Apol.
c. 18, p. 30 E. [Greek: a)technô=s, ei) kai\ geloio/teron ei)pei=n, proskei/menon tê=| po/lei u(po\ tou= theou= ô(/sper i(/ppô| mega/lô| me\n kai\ gennai/ô|, u(po\ mege/thous de\ nôtheste/rô| kai\ _deome/nô| e)gei/resthai u(po\ mu/ôpo/s tinos_; oi(=on dê/ moi dokei= o( theo\s e)me\ tê=| po/lei prostetheike/nai toiou=to/n tina, o(\s u(ma=s _e)gei/rôn kai\ pei/thôn kai\ o)neidi/zôn_ e(/na e(/kaston ou)de\n pau/omai tê\n ê(me/ran o(/lên pantachou= proskathi/zôn].
Also c. 26, p. 36 D.] [Footnote 19: Plato, Apol.
c. 6, p. 21 D; c. 16, p. 28 A; c. 30, p. 39 C.] [Footnote 20 Plato, Apol.
c. 30, p. 39 C. [Greek: nu=n ga\r tou=to ei)/rgasthe] (i.e.
[Greek: e)me\ a)pekto/nate]) [Greek: _oi)o/menoi a)palla/xesthai tou= dido/nai e)/legchon tou= bi/ou_.
to\ de\ u(mi=n polu\ e)nanti/on a)pobê/setai, ô(s e)go/ phêmi.
plei/ous e)/sontai u(ma=s oi( e)le/gchontes, ou(=s nu=n e)gô\ katei=chon, u(mei=s de\ ou)k ê)|stha/nesthe; kai\ chalepô/teroi e)/sontai o(/sô| neô/teroi/ ei)si, kai\ u(mei=s ma=llon a)ganaktê/sete], &c. I have already remarked (in chapter lxviii.
of my general History of Greece relating to Sokrates) that this prediction was not fulfilled.]
[Side-note: He disclaims the function of a teacher--he cannot teach, for he is not wiser than others.
He differs from others by being conscious of his own ignorance.]
While Sokrates thus extols, and sanctifies under the authority of the Delphian God, his habitual occupation of interrogating, cross-examining, and stimulating to virtue, the Athenians indiscriminately--he disclaims altogether the function of a teacher.
His disclaimer on this point is unequivocal and emphatic.
He cannot teach others, because he is not at all wiser than they.
He is fully aware that he is not wise on any point, great or small--that he knows nothing at all, so to speak.
[21] He can convict others, by their own answers, of real though unconscious ignorance, or (under another name) false persuasion of knowledge: and because he can do so, he is presumed to possess positive knowledge on the points to which the exposure refers.
But this presumption is altogether unfounded: he possesses no such positive knowledge.
Wisdom is not to be found in any man, even among the most distinguished: Sokrates is as ignorant as others; and his only point of superiority is, that he is fully conscious of his own ignorance, while others, far from having the like consciousness, confidently believe themselves to be in possession of wisdom and truth.
[22] In this consciousness of his own ignorance Sokrates stands alone; on which special ground he is proclaimed by the Delphian God as the wisest of mankind.
[Footnote 21: Plato, Apol.
c. 6, p. 21 B.
[Greek: e)gô\ ga\r dê\ ou)/te me/ga ou)/te smikro\n xu/noida e)mautô=| sopho\s ô)/n], &c. c. 8, p. 22 D. [Greek: e)mautô=| ga\r xunê/|dein ou)de\n e)pistame/nô|, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n.]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Apol.
c. 9, p. 23 A-B.
[Greek: Ou(=tos u(mô=n, ô)= a)/nthrôpoi, sophô/tato/s e)stin, o(/stis ô(/sper Sôkra/tês e)/gnôken o(/ti ou)deno\s a)/xio/s e)sti tê=| a)lêthei/a| pro\s sophi/an.]]
[Side-note: He does not know where competent teachers can be found.
He is perpetually seeking for them, but in vain.]
Being thus a partner in the common ignorance, Sokrates cannot of course teach others.
He utterly disclaims having ever taught, or professed to teach.
He would be proud indeed, if he possessed the knowledge of human and social virtue: but he does not know it himself, nor can he find out who else knows it.
[23] He is certain that there cannot be more than a few select individuals who possess the art of making mankind wiser or better--just as in the case of horses, none but a few practised trainers know how to make them better, while the handling of these or other animals, by ordinary men, certainly does not improve the animals, and generally even makes them worse.
[24] But where any such select few are to be found, who alone can train men--Sokrates is obliged to inquire from others; he cannot divine for himself.
[25] He is perpetually going about, with the lantern of cross-examination, in search of a wise man: but he can find only those who pretend to be wise, and whom his cross-examination exposes as pretenders.
[26] [Footnote 23: Plato, Apol.
c. 4, p. 20 B-C. [Greek: ti/s tê=s toiau/tês a)retê=s, tê=s a)nthrôpi/nês te kai\ politikê=s, e)pistê/môn e)sti/n?
.
.
.
e)gô\ gou=n kai\ au)to\s e)kalluno/mên te kai\ ê(bruno/mên a)\n, ei) ê)pista/mên tau=ta; a)ll' ou) ga\r e)pi/stamai, ô)= a)/ndres A)thênai=oi].
c. 21, p. 33 A.
[Greek: e)gô\ de\ dida/skalos me\n ou)deno\s pô/pot' e)geno/mên].
c. 4, p. 19 E.] [Footnote 24: Plato, Apol.
c. 12, p. 25 B.]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Apol.
c. 4, p.
20.]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Apol.
c. 9, p. 23 B.
[Greek: tau=t' ou)=n e)gô\ me\n e)/ti kai\ nu=n periiô\n zêtô= kai\ e)reunô= kata\ to\n theo/n, kai\ tô=n a)stôn kai\ tô=n xe/nôn a)\n tina oi)/ômai sopho\n ei)=nai; kai\ e)peida/n moi mê\ dokê=|, tô=| theô=| boêthô=n e)ndei/knumai o(/ti ou)k e)/sti sopho/s].
c. 32, p. 41 B.]
This _then_is the mission and vocation of Sokrates--1.
To cross-examine men, and to destroy that false persuasion of wisdom and virtue which is so widely diffused among them.
2.
To reproach them, and make them ashamed of pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom and virtue.
[27] [Footnote 27: Plato, Apol.
c. 33, p. 41 E.] But Sokrates is not empowered to do more for them.
He cannot impart any positive knowledge to heal their ignorance.
He cannot teach them what WISDOM OR VIRTUE is.
[Side-note: Impression made by the Platonic Apology on Zeno the Stoic.]
Such is the substance of the Platonic Apology of Sokrates.
How strong was the impression which it made, on many philosophical readers, we may judge from the fact, that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, being a native of Kition in Cyprus, derived from the perusal of the Apology his first inducement to come over to Athens, and devote himself to the study and teaching of philosophy in that city.
[28] Sokrates depicts, with fearless sincerity, what he regards as the intellectual and moral deficiencies of his countrymen, as well as the unpalatable medicine and treatment which he was enjoined to administer to them.
With equal sincerity does he declare the limits within which that treatment was confined.
[Footnote 28: Themistius, Orat.
xxiii.
(Sophistês) p. 357, Dindorf.
[Greek: Ta\ de\ a)mphi\ Zê/nônos a)ri/dêla/ te/ e)sti kai\ a)|do/mena u(po\ pollôn, o(/ti au)to\n ê( Sôkra/tous a)pologi/a e)k Phoini/kês ê)/gagen ei)s tê\n Poiki/lên].
This statement deserves full belief: it probably came from Zeno himself, a voluminous writer.
The father of Zeno was a merchant who traded with Athens, and brought back books for his son to read, Sokratic books among them.
Diogen.
Laert.
vii.
31.
Respecting another statement made by Themistius in the same page, I do not feel so certain.
He says that the accusatory discourse pronounced against Sokrates by Anytus was composed by Polykrates, as a [Greek: logogra/phos], and paid for.
This may be the fact but the words of Isokrates in the Busiris rather lead me to the belief that the [Greek: katêgori/a Sôkra/tous] composed by Polykrates was a sophistical exercise, composed to acquire reputation and pupils, not a discourse really delivered in the Dikastery.]
[Side-note: Extent of efficacious influence claimed by Sokrates for himself--exemplified by Plato throughout the Dialogues of Search--Xenophon and Plato enlarge it.]
But neither of his two most eminent companions can endure to restrict his competence within such narrow limits.
Xenophon[29] affirms that Sokrates was assiduous in communicating useful instruction and positive edification to his hearers.
Plato sometimes, though more rarely, intimates the same: but for the most part, and in the Dialogues of Search throughout, he keeps Sokrates within the circle of procedure which the Apology claims for him.
These dialogues exemplify in detail the aggressive operations, announced therein by Sokrates in general terms as his missionary life-purpose, against contemporaries of note, very different from each other--against aspiring youths, statesmen, generals, Rhetors, Sophists, orthodox pietists, poets, rhapsodes, &c. Sokrates cross-examines them all, and convicts them of humiliating ignorance: but he does not furnish, nor does he profess to be able to furnish, any solution of his own difficulties.
Many of the persons cross-examined bear historical names: but I think it necessary to warn the reader, that all of them speak both language and sentiments provided for them by Plato, and not their own.
[30] [Footnote 29: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
2, 64, i.
3.
1, i.
4, 2, iv.
2, 40; iv.
3, 4.]
[Footnote 30: It might seem superfluous to give such a warning; but many commentators speak as if they required it.
They denounce the Platonic speakers in harsh terms, which have no pertinence, unless supposed to be applied to a real man expressing his own thoughts and feelings.
It is useless to enjoin us, as Stallbaum and Steinhart do, to mark the aristocratical conceit of Menon!--the pompous ostentation and pretensive verbosity of Protagoras and Gorgias!--the exorbitant selfishness of Polus and Kalliklês!--the impudent brutality of Thrasymachus!--when all these persons speak entirely under the prompting of Plato himself.
You might just as well judge of Sokrates by what we read in the Nubes of Aristophanes, or of Meton by what we find in the Aves, as describe the historical characters of the above-named personages out of the Platonic dialogues.
They ought to be appreciated as dramatic pictures, drest up by the author for his own purpose, and delivering such opinions as he assigns to them--whether he intends them to be refuted by others, or not.]
[Side-note: Assumption by modern critics, that Sokrates is a positive teacher, employing indirect methods for the inculcation of theories of his own.]
The disclaimer, so often repeated by Sokrates,--that he possessed neither positive knowledge nor wisdom in his own person,--was frequently treated by his contemporaries as ironical.
He was not supposed to be in earnest when he made it.
Every one presumed that he must himself know that which he proved others not to know, whatever motive he might have for affecting ignorance.
[31] His personal manner and homely vein of illustration seemed to favour the supposition that he was bantering.
This interpretation of the character of Sokrates appears in the main to be preferred by modern critics.
Of course (they imagine) an able man who cross-questions others on the definitions of Law, Justice, Democracy, &c., has already meditated on the subject, and framed for himself unimpeachable definitions of these terms.
Sokrates (they suppose) is a positive teacher and theorist, employing a method, which, though indirect and circuitous, is nevertheless calculated deliberately beforehand for the purpose of introducing and inculcating premeditated doctrines of his own.
Pursuant to this hypothesis, it is presumed that the positive theory of Sokrates is to be found in his negative cross-examinations,--not indeed set down clearly in any one sentence, so that he who runs may read--yet disseminated in separate syllables or letters, which may be distinguished, picked out, and put together into propositions, by an acute detective examiner.
And the same presumption is usually applied to the Sokrates of the Platonic dialogues: that is, to Plato employing Sokrates as spokesman.
Interpreters sift with microscopic accuracy the negative dialogues of Plato, in hopes of detecting the ultimate elements of that positive solution which he is supposed to have lodged therein, and which, when found, may be put together so as to clear up all the antecedent difficulties.
[Footnote 31: Plato, Apol.
c. 5, p. 20 D; c. 9, p. 23 A. Aristeides the Rhetor furnishes a valuable confirmation of the truth of that picture of Sokrates, which we find in the Platonic Apology.
All the other companions of Sokrates who wrote dialogues about him (not preserved to us), presented the same general features.
1.
Avowed ignorance.
2.
The same declaration of the oracle concerning him.
3.
The feeling of frequent signs from [Greek: to\ daimo/nion].
[Greek: O(mologei=tai me/n ge le/gein au)to\n] (Sokrates) [Greek: ô(s a)/ra ou)de\n e)pi/staito, _kai\ pa/ntes tou=to/ phasin oi( suggeno/menoi_; o(mologei=tai d' au)= kai\ tou=to, sophô/taton ei)=nai Sôkra/tê tê\n Puthi/an ei)rêke/nai], &c. (Aristeides, Orat.
xlv.
[Greek: Peri\ R(êtorikê=s], pp.
23, 24, 25, Dindorf.)]
[Side-note: Incorrectness of such assumption--the Sokratic Elenchus does not furnish a solution, but works upon the mind of the respondent, stimulating him to seek for a solution of his own.]
I have already said (in the preceding chapter) that I cannot take this view either of Sokrates or of Plato.
Without doubt, each of them had affirmative doctrines and convictions, though not both the same.
But the affirmative vein, with both of them, runs in a channel completely distinct from the negative.
The affirmative theory has its roots _aliunde_, and is neither generated, nor adapted, with a view to reconcile the contradictions, or elucidate the obscurities, which the negative Elenchus has exposed.
That exposure does indeed render the embarrassed respondent painfully conscious of the want of some rational, consistent, and adequate theoretical explanation: it farther stimulates him to make efforts of his own for the supply of that want.
But such efforts must be really his own; the Elenchus gives no farther help: it furnishes problems, but no solutions, nor even any assurance that the problems as presented, admit of affirmative solutions.
Whoever expects that such consummate masters of the negative process as Sokrates and Plato, when they come to deliver affirmative dogmas of their own, will be kept under restraint by their own previous Elenchus, and will take care that their dogmas shall not be vulnerable by the same weapons as they had employed against others--will be disappointed.
They do not employ any negative test against themselves.
When Sokrates preaches in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, or the Athenian Stranger in the Platonic Leges, they jump over, or suppose to be already solved, the difficulties under the pressure of which other disputants had been previously discredited: they assume all the undefinable common-places to be clearly understood, and all the inconsistent generalities to be brought into harmony.
Thus it is that the negative cross-examination, and the affirmative dogmatism, are (both in Sokrates and in Plato) two unconnected operations of thought: the one does not lead to, or involve, or verify, the other.
[Side-note: Value and importance of this process--stimulating active individual minds to theorise each for itself.]
Those who depreciate the negative process simply, unless followed up by some new positive doctrine which shall be proof against all such attack--cannot be expected to admire Sokrates greatly, even as he stands rated by himself.
Even if I concurred in this opinion, I should still think myself obliged to exhibit him as he really was.
But I do not concur in the opinion.
I think that the creation and furtherance of individual, self-thinking minds, each instigated to form some rational and consistent theory for itself, is a material benefit, even though no farther aid be rendered to the process except in the way of negative suggestion.
That such minds should be made to feel the arbitrary and incoherent character of that which they have imbibed by passive association as ethics and æsthetics,--and that they should endeavour to test it by some rational and consistent standard--would be an improving process, though no one theory could be framed satisfactory to all.
The Sokratic Elenchus went directly to this result.
Plato followed in the same track, not of pouring new matter of knowledge into the pupil, but of eliciting new thoughts and beliefs out of him, by kindling the latent forces of his intellect.
A large proportion of Plato's dialogues have no other purpose or value.
And in entering upon the consideration of these dialogues, we cannot take a better point of departure than the Apology of Sokrates, wherein the speaker, alike honest and decided in his convictions, at the close of a long cross-examining career, re-asserts expressly his devoted allegiance to the negative process, and disclaims with equal emphasis all power over the affirmative.
[Side-note: View taken by Sokrates about death.
Other men profess to know what it is, and think it a great misfortune: he does not know.]
In that touching discourse, the Universal Cross-Examiner declares a thorough resolution to follow his own individual conviction and his own sense of duty--whether agreeing or disagreeing with the convictions of his countrymen, and whether leading to danger or to death for himself.
"Where a man may have posted himself either--under his own belief that it is best, or under orders from the magistrate--there he must stay and affront danger, not caring for death or anything else in comparison with disgrace.
"[32] As to death, Sokrates knows very little what it is, nor whether it is good or evil.
The fear of death, in his view, is only one case of the prevalent mental malady--men believing themselves to know that of which they really know nothing.
If death be an extinction of all sensation, like a perpetual and dreamless sleep, he will regard it as a prodigious benefit compared with life: even the Great King will not be a loser by the exchange.
[33] If on the contrary death be a transition into Hades, to keep company with those who have died before--Homer, Hesiod, the heroes of the Trojan war, &c.--Sokrates will consider it supreme happiness to converse with and cross-examine the potentates and clever men of the past--Agamemnon, Odysseus, Sisyphus; thus discriminating which of them are really wise, and which of them are only unconscious pretenders.
He is convinced that no evil can ever happen to the good man; that the protection, of the Gods can never be wanting to him, whether alive or dead.
[34] "It is not lawful for a better man to be injured by a worse.
He may indeed be killed, or banished, or disfranchised; and these may appear great evils, in the eye of others.
But I do not think them so.
It is a far greater evil to do what Melêtus is now doing--trying to kill a man unjustly.
"[35] [Footnote 32: Plato, Apol.
c. 16, p. 28 D.] [Footnote 33: Plato, Apol.
c. 17, p. 29 A. c. 32, p. 40 D. [Greek: kai\ ei)/te dê\ mêdemi/a ai)/sthêsi/s e)stin, a)ll' oi(=on u(/pnos, e)peida/n tis katheu/dôn mêd' o)/nar mêde\n o(ra=|, thauma/sion ke/rdos a)\n ei)/ê o( tha/natos].
Ast remarks (Plat.
Leb.
und Schrift.
p. 488) that the language of doubt and uncertainty in which Sokrates here speaks of the consequences of death, is greatly at variance with the language which he is made to hold in Phædon.
Ast adduces this as one of his arguments for disallowing the authenticity of the Apology.
I do not admit the inference.
I am prepared for divergence between the opinions of Sokrates in different dialogues; and I believe, moreover, that the Sokrates of the Phædon is spokesman chosen to argue in support of the main thesis of that dialogue.
But it is impossible to deny the variance which Ast points out, and which is also admitted by Stallbaum.
Steinhart indeed (Einleitung, p. 246) goes the length of denying it, in which I cannot follow him.
The sentiment of Sokrates in the Apology embodies the same alternative uncertainty, as what we read in Marcus Antoninus, v. 33.
[Greek: Ti/ ou)=n?
perime/neis i(/leôs tê\n ei)/te sbe/sin ei)/te meta/stasin], &c.] [Footnote 34: Plato, Apol.
c. 32, p. 41 A-B.]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Apol.
c. 18, p. 30 D.] [Side-note: Reliance of Sokrates on his own individual reason, whether agreeing or disagreeing with others.]
Sokrates here gives his own estimate of comparative good and evil.
Death, banishment, disfranchisement, &c., are no great evils: to put another man to death unjustly, is a great evil to the doer: the good man can suffer no evil at all.
These are given as the judgments of Sokrates, and as dissentient from most others.
Whether they are Sokratic or Platonic opinions, or common to both--we shall find them reappearing in various other Platonic dialogues, hereafter to be noticed.
We have also to notice that marked feature in the character of Sokrates[36]--the standing upon his own individual reason and measure of good and evil: nay, even pushing his confidence in it so far, as to believe in a divine voice informing and moving him.
This reliance on the individual reason is sometimes recognised, at other times rejected, in the Platonic dialogues.
Plato rejects it in his comments (contained in the dialogue Theætêtus) on the doctrine of Protagoras: he rejects it also in the constructive dialogues, Republic and Leges, where he constitutes himself despotic legislator, prescribing a standard of orthodox opinion; he proclaims it in the Gorgias, and implies it very generally throughout the negative dialogues.
[Footnote 36: Plat.
Apol.
c. 16, p. 28 D. [Greek: ou(= a)/n tis e(auto\n ta/xê| ê)\ ê(gêsa/menos be/ltion ei)=nai ê)\ u(p' a)/rchontos tachthê=|, e)ntau=tha dei=, ô(s e)moi\ dokei=, me/nonta kinduneu/ein], &c. Xenophon, Memorab.
iv.
8, 11 [Greek: phro/nimos de/, ô(/ste mê\ diamarta/nein kri/nôn ta\ belti/ô kai\ ta\ chei/rô, mêde\ a)/llou prosde/esthai, a)ll' au)ta/rchês ei)=nai pro\s tê\n tou/tôn gnô=sin], &c. Compare this with Memor.
i.
1, 3-4-5, and the Xenophontic Apology, 4, 5, 13, where this [Greek: au)tarkei/a] finds for itself a justification in the hypothesis of a divine monitor without.
The debaters in the treatise of Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, upon the question of the Sokratic [Greek: daimo/nion], insist upon this resolute persuasion and self-determination as the most indisputable fact in the case (c. 11, p. 581 C) [Greek: Ai( de\ Sôkra/tous o(rmai\ to\ be/baion e)/chousai kai\ sphodro/têta phai/nontai pro\s a(/pan, ô(s a)\n e)x o)rthê=s kai\ i)schura=s a)pheime/nai kri/eôs kai\ a)rchê=s].
Compare p. 589 E. The speculations of the speakers upon the [Greek: ou)si/a] and [Greek: du/namis tou= Sôkra/tous daimoni/ou], come to little result.
There is a curious passage in Plutarch's life of Coriolanus (c. 32), where he describes the way in which the Gods act upon the minds of particular men, under difficult and trying circumstances.
They do not inspire new resolutions or volitions, but they work upon the associative principle, suggesting new ideas which conduct to the appropriate volition--[Greek: ou)d' o(rma\s e)nergazo/menon, a)lla\ phantasi/as o(rmô=n a)gôgou/s], &c.] [Side-note: Formidable efficacy of established public beliefs, generated without any ostensible author.]
Lastly, we find also in the Apology distinct notice of the formidable efficacy of established public impressions, generated without any ostensible author, circulated in the common talk, and passing without examination from one man to another, as portions of accredited faith.
"My accusers Melêtus and Anytus (says Sokrates) are difficult enough to deal with: yet far less difficult than the prejudiced public, who have heard false reports concerning me for years past, and have contracted a settled belief about my character, from nameless authors whom I cannot summon here to be confuted.
"[37] [Footnote 37: Plato, Apol.
c. 2, p. 18 C-D.] It is against this ancient, established belief, passing for knowledge--communicated by unconscious contagion without any rational process--against the "procès jugé mais non plaidé", whereby King Nomos governs--that the general mission of Sokrates is directed.
It is against the like belief, in one of its countless manifestations, that he here defends himself before the Dikastery.
CHAPTER X. KRITON.
[Side-note: General purpose of the Kriton.]
The dialogue called Kriton is, in one point of view, a second part or sequel--in another point of view, an antithesis or corrective--of the Platonic Apology.
For that reason, I notice it immediately after the Apology: though I do not venture to affirm confidently that it was composed immediately after: it may possibly have been later, as I believe the Phædon also to have been later.
[1] [Footnote 1: Steinhart affirms with confidence that the Kriton was composed immediately after the Apology, and shortly after the death of Sokrates (Einleitung, p. 303).
The fact may be so, but I do not feel thus confident of it when I look to the analogy of the later Phædon.]
[Side-note: Subject of the dialogue--interlocutors.]
The Kriton describes a conversation between Sokrates and his friend Kriton in the prison, after condemnation, and two days before the cup of hemlock was administered.
Kriton entreats and urges Sokrates (as the sympathising friends had probably done frequently during the thirty days of imprisonment) to make his escape from the prison, informing him that arrangements have already been made for enabling him to escape with ease and safety, and that money as well as good recommendations will be provided, so that he may dwell comfortably either in Thessaly, or wherever else he pleases.
Sokrates ought not, in justice to his children and his friends, to refuse the opportunity offered, and thus to throw away his life.
Should he do so, it will appear to every one as if his friends had shamefully failed in their duty, when intervention on their part might easily have saved him.
He might have avoided the trial altogether: even when on trial, he might easily have escaped the capital sentence.
Here is now a third opportunity of rescue, which if he declines, it will turn this grave and painful affair into mockery, as if he and his friends were impotent simpletons.
[2] Besides the mournful character of the event, Sokrates and his friends will thus be disgraced in the opinion of every one.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Krito.
c. 5, p. 45 E. [Greek: ô(s e)/gôge kai\ u(pe\r sou= kai\ u(pe\r ê(mô=n tô=n sô=n e)pitêdei/ôn ai)schu/nomai, mê\ do/xê| a(/pan to\ pra=gma to\ peri\ se\ a)nandri/a| tini\ tê=| ê(mete/ra| pepra=chthai, kai\ ê( ei)/sodos tê=s di/kês ei)s to\ dikastê/rion, ô(s ei)sê=lthes, e)xo\n mê\ ei)selthei=n, kai\ au)to\s o( a)gô\n tê=s di/kês ô(s e)ge/neto, kai\ to\ teleutai=on dê\ touti/, ô(/sper katage/lôs tê=s pra/xeôs, kaki/a| tini\ kai\ a)nandri/a| tê=| ê(mete/ra| diapepheuge/nai ê(ma=s dokei=n, oi(tine/s se ou)chi\ e)sô/samen ou)de\ su\ sauto/n, oi(=o/n te o)\n kai\ dunato/n, ei)/ ti kai\ smikro\n ê(mô=n o)/phelos ê)=n].
This is a remarkable passage, as evincing both the trial and the death of Sokrates, even in the opinion of his own friends, might have been avoided without anything which they conceived dishonourable to his character.
Professor Köchly puts this point very forcibly in his _Vortrag_, referred to in my notes on the Platonic Apology, p. 410 seq.]
[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates to the appeal made by Kriton.]
"Disgraced in the opinion of every one," replies Sokrates?
That is not the proper test by which the propriety of your recommendation must be determined.
I am now, as I always have been, prepared to follow nothing but that voice of reason which approves itself to me in discussion as the best and soundest.
[3] We have often discussed this matter before, and the conclusions on which we agreed are not to be thrown aside because of my impending death.
We agreed that the opinions general among men ought not to be followed in all cases, but only in some: that the good opinions, those of the wise men, were to be followed--the bad opinions, those of the foolish men, to be disregarded.
In the treatment and exercise of the body, we must not attend to the praise, the blame, or the opinion of every man, but only to those of the one professional trainer or physician.
If we disregard this one skilful man, and conduct ourselves according to the praise or blame of the unskilful public, our body will become corrupted and disabled, so that life itself will not be worth having.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Krito.
c. 6, p. 46 B.
[Greek: ô(s e)gô\ ou) mo/non nu=n a)lla\ kai\ a)ei\ toiou=tos, oi(=os tô=n e)mô=n mêdeni\ a)/llô| pei/thesthai ê)\ tô=| lo/gô|, o(\s a)/n moi logizome/nô| be/ltistos phai/nêtai.]]
[Side-note: He declares that the judgment of the general public is not worthy of trust: he appeals to the judgment of the one Expert, who is wise on the matter in debate.]
In like manner, on the question what is just and unjust, honourable or base, good or evil, to which our present subject belongs--we must not yield to the praise and censure of the many, but only to that of the one, whoever he may be, who is wise on these matters.
[4] We must be afraid and ashamed of him more than of all the rest.
Not the verdict of the many, but that of the one man skilful about just and unjust, and that of truth itself, must be listened to.
Otherwise we shall suffer the like debasement and corruption of mind as of body in the former case.
Life will become yet more worthless.
True--the many may put us to death.
But what we ought to care for most, is, not simply to live, but to live well, justly, honourably.
[5] [Footnote 4: Plato, Krito.
c. 7, p. 47 C-D. [Greek: kai\ dê\ kai\ peri\ tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn, kai\ ai)schrô=n kai\ kalô=n, kai\ a)gathô=n kai\ kakô=n, peri\ ô(=n nu=n ê( boulê\ ê(mi=n e)stin, po/teron tê=| tô=n pollô=n do/xê| dei= ê(ma=s e(/pesthai kai\ phobei=sthai au)tê/n, ê)\ tê=| tou= e(no/s, ei)/ ti/s e)stin e)pai+/ôn, o(\n dei= kai\ ai)schu/nesthai kai\ phobei=sthai ma=llon ê)\ xu/mpantas tou\s a)/llous?]
c. 8, p. 48 A.
[Greek: Ou)k a)/ra pa/nu ê(mi=n ou(/tô phrontiste/on o(/, ti e)rou=sin oi( polloi\ ê(ma=s, a)ll' o(\, ti o( e)pai+/ôn peri\ tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn, o( ei)=s, kai\ au)tê\ ê( a)lê/theia.]]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Krito.
c. 7-8, pp.
47-48.]
Sokrates thus proceeds:-The point to be decided, therefore, with reference to your proposition, Kriton, is, not what will be generally said if I decline, but whether it will be just or unjust--right or wrong--if I comply; that is, if I consent to escape from prison against the will of the Athenians and against the sentence of law.
[Side-note: Principles laid down by Sokrates for determining the question with Kriton.
Is the proceeding recommended just or unjust?
Never in any case to act unjustly.]
To decide the point, I assume this principle, which we have often before agreed upon in our reasonings, and which must stand unshaken now.
[6] [Footnote 6: Plato, Krito.
c. 9, p. 48 E. [Greek: o(/ra de\ dê\ _tê=s ske/pseôs tê\n a)rchê/n_], &c.] We ought not in any case whatever to act wrong or unjustly.
To act so is in every case both bad for the agent and dishonourable to the agent, whatever may be its consequences.
Even though others act wrong to us, we ought not to act wrong to them in return.
Even though others do evil to us, we ought not to do evil to them in return.
[7] [Footnote 7: Plato, Krito.
c. 10, p. 49 B.
[Greek: Ou)de\ a)dikou/menon a)/ra a)ntadikei=n, _ô(s oi( polloi\ oi)/ontai_, e)peidê/ ge ou)damô=s dei = a)dikei=n], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates admits that few will agree with him, and that most persons hold the opposite opinion: but he affirms that the point is cardinal.]
This is the principle which I assume as true, though I know that very few persons hold it, or ever will hold it.
Most men say the contrary--that when other persons do wrong or harm to us, we may do wrong or harm to them in return.
This is a cardinal point.
Between those who affirm it, and those who deny it, there can be no common measure or reasoning.
Reciprocal contempt is the sentiment with which, by necessity, each contemplates the other's resolutions.
[8] [Footnote 8: Plato.
Krito.
c. 10, p. 49 D. [Greek: Oi)=da ga\r o(/ti o)li/gois tisi\ tau=ta kai\ dokei= kai\ do/xei; O(=is ou)=n ou(/tô de/doktai kai\ oi(=s mê/, _tou/tois ou)k e)/sti koinê\ boulê/, a)ll' a)na/gkê tou/tous a)llê/lôn kataphronei=n, o(rôntas ta\ a)llê/lôn bouleu/mata_.
Sko/pei dê\ ou)=n kai\ su\ eu)= ma/la, po/teron koinônei=s kai\ xundokei= soi; kai\ _a)rchô/metha e)nteu=then bouleuo/menoi_, ô(s ou)de/pote o)rthô=s e)/chontos ou)/te tou= a)dikei=n ou)/te tou= a)ntadikei=n, ou)/te kakô=s pa/schonta a)mu/nesthai a)ntidrô=nta kakô=s].
Compare the opposite impulse, to revenge yourself upon your country from which you believe yourself to have received wrong, set forth in the speech of Alkibiades at Sparta after he had been exiled by the Athenians.
Thucyd.
vi.
92.
[Greek: to/ te philo/poli ou)k e)n ô(=| a)dikou=mai e)/chô, a)ll' e)n ô(=| a)sphalô=s e)politeu/thên.]]
[Side-note: Pleading supposed to be addressed by the Laws of Athens to Sokrates, demanding from him implicit obedience.]
Sokrates then delivers a well-known and eloquent pleading, wherein he imagines the Laws of Athens to remonstrate with him on his purpose of secretly quitting the prison, in order to evade a sentence legally pronounced.
By his birth, and long residence in Athens, he has entered into a covenant to obey exactly and faithfully what the laws prescribe.
Though the laws should deal unjustly with him, he has no right of redress against them--neither by open disobedience, nor force, nor evasion.
Their rights over him are even more uncontrolled and indefeasible than those of his father and mother.
The laws allow to every citizen full liberty of trying to persuade the assembled public: but the citizen who fails in persuading, must obey the public when they enact a law adverse to his views.
Sokrates having been distinguished beyond all others for the constancy of his residence at Athens, has thus shown that he was well satisfied with the city, and with those laws without which it could not exist as a city.
If he now violates his covenants and his duty, by breaking prison like a runaway slave, he will forfeit all the reputation to which he has pretended during his long life, as a preacher of justice and virtue.
[9] [Footnote 9: Plato, Krito.
c. 11-17, pp.
50-54.]
[Side-note: Purpose of Plato in this pleading--to present the dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which the Apology had presented--unqualified submission instead of defiance.]
This striking discourse, the general drift of which I have briefly described, appears intended by Plato--as far as I can pretend to guess at his purpose--to set forth the personal character and dispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which they present in the Apology.
In defending himself before the Dikasts, Sokrates had exalted himself into a position which would undoubtedly be construed by his auditors as disobedience and defiance to the city and its institutions.
He professed to be acting under a divine mission, which was of higher authority than the enactments of his countrymen: he warned them against condemning him, because his condemnation would be a mischief, not to him, but to them and because by doing so they would repudiate and maltreat the missionary sent to them by the Delphian God as a valuable present.
[10] In the judgment of the Athenian Dikasts, Sokrates by using such language had put himself above the laws; thus confirming the charge which his accusers advanced, and which they justified by some of his public remarks.
He had manifested by unmistakable language the same contempt for the Athenian constitution as that which had been displayed in act by Kritias and Alkibiades,[11] with whom his own name was associated as teacher and companion.
[12] Xenophon in his Memorabilia recognises this impression as prevalent among his countrymen against Sokrates, and provides what he thinks a suitable answer to it.
Plato also has his way of answering it; and such I imagine to be the dramatic purpose of the Kriton.
[Footnote 10: Plato, Apol.
c. 17-18, p.
29-30.]
[Footnote 11: This was among the charges urged against Sokrates by Anytus and the other accusers (Xen.
Mem.
i.
2, 9.
[Greek: u(perora=|n e)poi/ei tô=n kathestô/tôn no/môn tou\s suno/ntas]).
It was also the judgment formed respecting Sokrates by the Roman censor, the elder Cato; a man very much like the Athenian Anytus, constitutional and patriotic as a citizen, devoted to the active duties of political life, but thoroughly averse to philosophy and speculative debate, as Anytus is depicted in the Menon of Plato.--Plutarch, Cato c. 23, a passage already cited in a note on the chapter next but one preceding.
The accusation of "putting himself above the laws," appears in the same way in the Nubes of Aristophanes, 1035-1400, &c.:-[Greek: ô(s ê(du\ kainoi=s pra/gmasin kai\ dexioi=s o(milei=n kai\ tô=n kathestô/tôn no/môn u(per phronei=n du/nasthai].
Compare the rhetor Aristeides--[Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 133; vol.
iii.
p. 480, Dindorf.]
[Footnote 12: The dramatic position of Sokrates has been compared by Köchly, p. 382, very suitably with that of Antigoné, who, in burying her deceased brother, acts upon her own sense of right and family affections, in defiance of an express interdict from sovereign authority.
This tragical conflict of obligations, indicated by Aristotle as an ethical question suited for dialectic debate (Topic.
i. p. 105, b.
22), was handled by all the three great tragedians; and has been ennobled by Sophokles in one of his best remaining tragedies.
The Platonic Apology presents many points of analogy with the Antigoné, while the Platonic Kriton carries us into an opposite vein of sentiment.
Sokrates after sentence, and Antigoné after sentence, are totally different persons.
The young maiden, though adhering with unshaken conviction to the rectitude of her past disobedience, cannot submit to the sentence of death without complaint and protestation.
Though above all fear she is clamorous in remonstrances against both the injustice of the sentence and the untimely close of her career: so that she is obliged to be dragged away by the officers (Soph.
Antig.
870-877; compare 497-508, with Plato, Krito.
p. 49 C; Apolog.
p. 28 D, 29 C).
All these points enhance the interest of the piece, and are suited to a destined bride in the flower of her age.
But an old philosopher of seventy years of age has no such attachment to life remaining.
He contemplates death with the eye of calm reason: he has not only silenced "the child within us who fears death" (to use the remarkable phrase of Plato, Phædon, p. 77 E), but he knows well that what remains to him of life must be short; that it will probably be of little value, with diminished powers, mental as well as bodily; and that if passed in exile, it will be of no value at all.
To close his life with dignity is the best thing which can happen to him.
While by escape from the prison he would have gained little or nothing; he is enabled, by refusing the means of escape, to manifest an ostentatious deference to the law, and to make peace with the Athenian authorities after the opposition which had been declared in his Apology.
Both in the Kriton and in the Phædon, Sokrates exhibits the specimen of a man adhering to previous conviction, unaffected by impending death, and by the apprehensions which that season brings upon ordinary minds; estimating all things then as before, with the same tranquil and independent reason.]
[Side-note: Harangue of Sokrates delivered in the name of the Laws, would have been applauded by all the democratical patriots of Athens.]
This dialogue puts into the mouth of Sokrates a rhetorical harangue forcible and impressive, which he supposes himself to hear from personified Nomos or Athens, claiming for herself and her laws plenary and unmeasured obedience from all her citizens, as a covenant due to her from each.
He declares his own heartfelt adhesion to the claim.
Sokrates is thus made to express the feelings and repeat the language of a devoted democratical patriot.
His doctrine is one which every Athenian audience would warmly applaud--whether heard from speakers in the assembly, from litigants in the Dikastery, or from dramatists in the theatre.
It is a doctrine which orators of all varieties (Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Lysis, Isokrates, Demosthenes, Æschines, Lykurgus) would be alike emphatic in upholding: upon which probably Sophists habitually displayed their own eloquence, and tested the talents of their pupils.
It may be considered as almost an Athenian common-place.
Hence it is all the better fitted for Plato's purpose of restoring Sokrates to harmony with his fellow-citizens.
It serves as his protestation of allegiance to Athens, in reply to the adverse impressions prevalent against him.
The only singularity which bestows special pertinence on that which is in substance a discourse of venerated common-place, is--that Sokrates proclaims and applies his doctrine of absolute submission, under the precise circumstances in which many others, generally patriotic, might be disposed to recede from it--where he is condemned (unjustly, in his own persuasion) to suffer death--yet has the opportunity to escape.
He is thus presented as a citizen not merely of ordinary loyalty but of extraordinary patriotism.
Moreover his remarkable constancy of residence at Athens is produced as evidence, showing that the city was eminently acceptable to him, and that he had no cause of complaint against it.
[13] [Footnote 13: Plato, Krito.
c. 14, p. 52 B.
[Greek: ou) ga\r a)/n pote tô=n a)/llôn A)thênai/ôn a(pa/ntôn diaphero/ntôs e)n au)tê=| e)pedê/meis, ei) mê/ soi diaphero/ntôs ê)/reske;] c. 12, p. 50 D. [Greek: phe/re ga/r, ti/ e)gkalô=n ê(li=n te kai\ tê=| po/lei e)picheirei=s ê(ma=s a)pollu/nai?]]
[Side-note: The harangue insists upon topics common to Sokrates with other citizens, overlooking the specialties of his character.]
Throughout all this eloquent appeal addressed by Athens to her citizen Sokrates, the points insisted on are those common to him with other citizens: the marked specialties of his character being left unnoticed.
Such are the points suitable to the purpose (rather Xenophontic than Platonic, herein) of the Kriton; when Sokrates is to be brought back within the pale of democratical citizenship, and exculpated from the charge of incivism.
But when we read the language of Sokrates both in the Apology and in the Gorgias, we find a very different picture given of the relations between him and Athens.
We find him there presented as an isolated and eccentric individual, a dissenter, not only departing altogether from the character and purposes general among his fellow-citizens, but also certain to incur dangerous antipathy, in so far as he publicly proclaimed what he was.
The Kriton takes him up as having become a victim to such antipathy: yet as reconciling himself with the laws by voluntarily accepting the sentence; and as persuaded to do so, moreover, by a piece of rhetoric imbued with the most genuine spirit of constitutional democracy.
It is the compromise of his long-standing dissent with the reigning orthodoxy, just before his death.
[Greek: E)n eu)phêmi/a| chrê\ teleuta=|n].
[14] [Footnote 14: Plato, Phædon, p. 117 D.] [Side-note: Still Sokrates is represented as adopting the resolution to obey, from his own conviction; by a reason which weighs with him, but which would not weigh with others.]
Still, however, though adopting the democratical vein of sentiment for this purpose, Sokrates is made to adopt it on a ground peculiar to himself.
His individuality is thus upheld.
He holds the sentence pronounced against him to have been unjust, but he renounces all use of that plea, because the sentence has been legally pronounced by the judicial authority of the city, and because he has entered into a covenant with the city.
He entertains the firm conviction that no one ought to act unjustly, or to do evil to others, in any case; not even in the case in which they have done injustice or evil to him.
"This (says Sokrates) is my conviction, and the principle of my reasoning.
Few persons do accept it, or ever will: yet between those who do accept it, and those who do not--there can be no common counsel: by necessity of the case, each looks upon the other, and upon the reasonings of the other, with contempt.
"[15] [Footnote 15: Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D.; see p. 428, note i.]
[Side-note: The harangue is not a corollary from this Sokratic reason, but represents feelings common among Athenian citizens.]
This general doctrine, peculiar to Sokrates, is decisive _per se_, in its application to the actual case, and might have been made to conclude the dialogue.
But Sokrates introduces it as a foundation to the arguments urged by the personified Athenian Nomos:--which, however, are not corollaries from it, nor at all peculiar to Sokrates, but represent sentiments held by the Athenian democrats more cordially than they were by Sokrates.
It is thus that the dialogue Kriton embodies, and tries to reconcile, both the two distinct elements--constitutional allegiance, and Sokratic individuality.
[Side-note: Emphatic declaration of the authority of individual reason and conscience, for the individual himself.]
Apart from the express purpose of this dialogue, however, the general doctrine here proclaimed by Sokrates deserves attention, in regard to the other Platonic dialogues which we shall soon review.
The doctrine involves an emphatic declaration of the paramount authority of individual reason and conscience; for the individual himself--but for him alone.
"This (says Sokrates) is, and has long been _my_ conviction.
It is the basis of the whole reasoning.
Look well whether you agree to it: for few persons do agree to it, or ever will: and between those who do and those who do not, there can be no common deliberation: they must of necessity despise each other.
"[16] Here we have the Protagorean dogma, _Homo Mensura_--which Sokrates will be found combating in the Theætêtus--proclaimed by Sokrates himself.
As things appear to me, so they are to me: as they appear to you, so they are to you.
My reason and conscience is the measure for me: yours for you.
It is for you to see whether yours agrees with mine.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D.; see p. 428, note i.]
I shall revert to this doctrine in handling other Platonic dialogues, particularly the Theætêtus.
[Side-note: The Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical.
Difference between Rhetoric and Dialectic.]
I have already observed that the tone of the Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical--especially the harangue ascribed to Athens.
The business of the rhetorician is to plant and establish some given point of persuasion, whether as to a general resolution or a particular fact, in the bosoms of certain auditors before him: hence he gives prominence and emphasis to some views of the question, suppressing or discrediting others, and especially keeping out of sight all the difficulties surrounding the conclusion at which he is aiming.
On the other hand, the business of the dialectician is, not to establish any foreknown conclusion, but to find out which among all supposable conclusions are untenable, and which is the most tenable or best.
Hence all the difficulties attending every one of them must be brought fully into view and discussed: until this has been done, the process is not terminated, nor can we tell whether any assured conclusion is attainable or not.
Now Plato, in some of his dialogues, especially the Gorgias, greatly depreciates rhetoric and its purpose of persuasion: elsewhere he employs it himself with ability and effect.
The discourse which we read in the Kriton is one of his best specimens: appealing to pre-established and widespread emotions, veneration for parents, love of country, respect for covenants--to justify the resolution of Sokrates in the actual case: working up these sentiments into fervour, but neglecting all difficulties, limits, and counter-considerations: assuming that the familiar phrases of ethics and politics are perfectly understood and indisputable.
[Side-note: The Kriton makes powerful appeal to the emotions, but overlooks the ratiocinative difficulties, or supposes them to be solved.]
But these last-mentioned elements--difficulties, qualifications, necessity for definitions even of the most hackneyed words--would have been brought into the foreground had Sokrates pursued the dialectical path, which (as we know both from Xenophon and Plato) was his real habit and genius.
He was perpetually engaged (says Xenophon[17]) in dialectic enquiry.
"Wheat is the Holy, what is the Unholy?
What is the Honourable and the Base?
What is the Just and the Unjust?
&c." Now in the rhetorical appeal embodied in the Kriton, the important question, What is the Just and the Unjust (_i.e._ Justice and Injustice in general), is assumed to be already determined and out of the reach of dispute.
We are called upon to determine what is just and unjust in a particular case, as if we already knew what justice and injustice meant generally: to inquire about modifications of justice, before we have ascertained its essence.
This is the fundamental assumption involved in the rhetorical process; which assumption we shall find Plato often deprecating as unphilosophical and preposterous.
[Footnote 17: Xenoph.
Mem.
i.
1, 16.
[Greek: Au)to\s de\ peri\ tô=n a)nthrôpei/ôn a)ei\ diele/geto, skopô=n, ti/ eu)sebe/s, ti/ a)sebe/s; ti/ kalo/n, ti/ ai)schro/n; ti/ di/kaion, ti/ a)/dikon; ti/ sôphrosu/nê, ti/ mani/a; ti/ a)ndrei/a, ti/ deili/a; ti/ po/lis, ti/ politiko/s; ti/ a)rchê\ a)nthrô/pôn, ti/ a)rchiko\s a)nthrô/pôn], &c. We see in Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 40-46, iv.
2, 37, in the Platonic dialogue Minos and elsewhere, the number of dialectic questions which Sokrates might have brought to bear upon the harangue in the Kriton, had it been delivered by any opponent whom he sought to perplex or confute.
What is a law?
what are the limits of obedience to the laws?
Are there no limits (as Hobbes is so much denounced for maintaining)?
While the oligarchy of Thirty were the constituted authority at Athens, they ordered Sokrates himself, together with four other citizens, to go and arrest a citizen whom they considered dangerous to the state, the Salaminian Leon.
The other four obeyed the order; Sokrates alone disobeyed, and takes credit for having done so, considering Leon to be innocent.
Which was in the right here?
the four obedient citizens, or the one disobedient?
Might not the four have used substantially the same arguments to justify their obedience, as those which Sokrates hears from personified Athens in the Kriton?
We must remember that the Thirty had come into authority by resolutions passed under constitutional forms, when fear of foreign enemies induced the people to sanction the resolutions proposed by a party among themselves.
The Thirty also ordered Sokrates to abstain from discourse with young men; he disobeyed (Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
4, 3).
Was he right in disobeying?
I have indicated briefly these questions, to show how completely the rhetorical manner of the Kriton submerges all those difficulties, which would form the special matter of genuine Sokratic dialectics.
Schleiermacher (Einleit.
zum Kriton, pp.
233, 234) considers the Kriton as a composition of special occasion--Gelegenheitsschrift--which I think is true; but which may be said also, in my judgment, of every Platonic dialogue.
The term, however, in Schleiermacher's writing, has a peculiar meaning, viz.
a composition for which there is no place in the regular rank and file of the Platonic dialogues, as he marshals them.
He remarks the absence of dialectic in the Kriton, and he adduces this as one reason for supposing it not to be genuine.
But it is no surprise to me to find Plato rhetorical in one dialogue, dialectical in others.
Variety, and want of system, seem to me among his most manifest attributes.
The view taken of the Kriton by Steinhart (Einleit.
pp.
291-302), in the first page of his very rhetorical Introduction, coincides pretty much with mine.]
So far indeed Sokrates goes in this dialogue, to affirm a positive analogy.
That Just and Honourable are, to the mind, what health and strength are to the body:--Unjust and Base, what distemper and weakness are to the body.
And he follows this up by saying, that the general public are incompetent to determine what is just or honourable--as they are incompetent to decide what is wholesome or unwholesome.
Respecting both one and the other, you must consult some one among the professional Experts, who alone are competent to advise.
[18] [Footnote 18: Plato, Kriton, c. 7, p. 47 D. [Greek: tou= e(no\s, ei)/ ti/s e)stin e)pai+/ôn], &c.] [Side-note: Incompetence of the general public or [Greek: i)diô=tai]--appeal to the professional Expert.]
Both these two doctrines will be found recurring often, in our survey of the dialogues.
The first of the two is an obscure and imperfect reply to the great Sokratic problem--What is Justice?
What is Injustice?
but it is an analogy useful to keep in mind, as a help to the exposition of many passages in which Plato is yet more obscure.
The second of the two will also recur frequently.
It sets out an antithesis of great moment in the Platonic dialogues--"The one specially instructed, professional, theorizing, Expert--_versus_ (the [Greek: i)diô=tai] of the time and place, or) common sense, common sentiment, intuition, instinct, prejudice," &c. (all these names meaning the same objective reality, but diversified according as the speaker may happen to regard the particular case to which he is alluding).
This antithesis appears as an answer when we put the question--What is the ultimate authority?
where does the right of final decision reside, on problems and disputes ethical, political, æsthetical?
It resides (Sokrates here answers) with some one among a few professional Experts.
They are the only persons competent.
[Side-note: Procedure of Sokrates after this comparison has been declared--he does not name who the trustworthy Expert is.]
I shall go more fully into this question elsewhere.
Here I shall merely notice the application which Sokrates makes (in the Kriton) of the general doctrine.
We might anticipate that after having declared that none was fit to pronounce upon the Just and the Unjust, except a professional Expert,--he would have proceeded to name some person corresponding to that designation--to justify the title of that person to confidence by such evidences as Plato requires in other dialogues--and then to cite the decision of the judge named, on the case in hand.
This is what Sokrates would have done, if the case had been one of health or sickness.
He would have said "I appeal to Hippokrates, Akumenus, &c., as professional Experts on medicine: they have given proof of competence by special study, successful practice, writing, teaching, &c.: they pronounce so and so".
He would not have considered himself competent to form a judgment or announce a decision of his own.
[Side-note: Sokrates acts as the Expert himself: he finds authority in his own reason and conscience.]
But here, when the case in hand is that of Just and Unjust, the conduct of Sokrates is altogether different.
He specifies no professional Expert, and he proceeds to lay down a dogma of his own; in which he tells us that few or none will agree, though it is fundamental, so that dissenters on the point must despise each other as heretics.
We thus see that it is he alone who steps in to act himself the part of professional Expert, though he does not openly assume the title.
The ultimate authority is proclaimed in words to reside with some unnamed Expert: in fact and reality, he finds it in his own reason and conscience.
You are not competent to judge for yourself: you must consult the professional Expert: but your own reason and conscience must signify to you who the Expert is.
The analogy here produced by Plato of questions about health and sickness--is followed out only in its negative operation; as it serves to scare away the multitude, and discredit the Vox Populi.
But when this has been done, no oracular man can be produced or authenticated.
In other dialogues, we shall find Sokrates regretting the absence of such an oracular man, but professing inability to proceed without him.
In the Kriton, he undertakes the duty himself; unmindful of the many emphatic speeches in which he had proclaimed his own ignorance, and taken credit for confessing it without reserve.
CHAPTER XI.
EUTHYPHRON.
The dialogue called Euthyphron, over and above its contribution to the ethical enquiries of Plato, has a certain bearing on the character and exculpation of Sokrates.
It will therefore come conveniently in immediate sequel to the Apology and the Kriton.
[Side-note: Situation supposed in the dialogue--interlocutors.]
The indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates is assumed to have been formally entered in the office of the King Archon.
Sokrates has come to plead to it.
In the portico before that office, he meets Euthyphron: a man of ultra-pious pretensions, possessing special religious knowledge (either from revelation directly to himself, or from having been initiated in the various mysteries consecrated throughout Greece), delivering authoritative opinions on doubtful theological points, and prophesying future events.
[1] [Footnote 1: Plato, Euthyphr.
c. 2, p. 3 D; compare Herodot.
ii.
51.]
What brings you here, Sokrates (asks Euthyphron), away from your usual haunts?
Is it possible that any one can have preferred an indictment against you?
[Side-note: Indictment by Melêtus against Sokrates--Antipathy of the Athenians towards those who spread heretical opinions.]
Yes (replies Sokrates), a young man named Melêtus.
He takes commendable interest in the training of youth, and has indicted me as a corruptor of youth.
He says that I corrupt them by teaching belief in new gods, and unbelief in the true and ancient Gods.
_Euthyph._--I understand: it is because you talk about the Dæmon or Genius often communicating with you, that Melêtus calls you an innovator in religion.
He knows that such calumnies find ready admission with most minds.
[2] So also, people laugh at me, when I talk about religion, and when I predict future events in the assembly.
It must be from jealousy; because all that I have predicted has come true.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Euthyph.
c. 2, p. 3 B: [Greek: phêsi\ ga/r me poiêtê\n ei)=nai theô=n kai\ ô(s kainou\s poiou=nta theou/s, tou\s d' a)rchai/ous ou) nomi/zonta, e)gra/psato tou/tôn au)tô=n e(/neka, ô(/s phêsin].
c. 5, p. 5 A: [Greek: au)toschedia/zonta kai\ kainotomou=nta peri\ tô=n thei/ôn e)xamarta/nein].]
_Sokr._--To be laughed at is no great matter.
The Athenians do not care much when they regard a man as overwise, but as not given to teach his wisdom to others: but when they regard him besides, as likely to make others such as he is himself, they become seriously angry with him--be it from jealousy, as you say, or from any other cause.
You keep yourself apart, and teach no one; for my part, I delight in nothing so much as in teaching all that I know.
If they take the matter thus seriously, the result may be very doubtful.
[3] [Footnote 3: Plato, Euthyphr.
c. 3, p. 3 C.-D. [Greek: A)thênai/ois ga\r ou) spho/dra me/lei, a)/n tina deino\n oi)/ôntai ei)=nai, mê\ me/ntoi didaskaliko\n tê=s au)tou= sophi/as; o(\n d' a)\n kai\ a)/llous oi)/ôntai poiei=n toiou/tous, thumou=ntai, ei)=t' ou)=n phtho/nô|, ô(s su\ le/geis, ei)/te di' a)/llo ti.]]
[Side-note: Euthyphron recounts that he is prosecuting an indictment for murder against his own father--Displeasure of his friends at the proceeding.]
Sokrates now learns what is Euthyphron's business at the archontic office.
Euthyphron is prosecuting an indictment before the King Archon, against his own father; as having caused the death of a dependent workman, who in a fit of intoxication had quarrelled with and killed a fellow-servant.
The father of Euthyphron, upon this occurrence, bound the homicide hand and foot, and threw him into a ditch: at the same time sending to the Exêgêtês (the canonical adviser, supposed to be conversant with the divine sanctions, whom it was customary to consult when doubts arose about sacred things) to ask what was to be done with him.
The incident occurred at Naxos, and the messenger was sent to the Exêgêtês at Athens: before he could return, the prisoner had perished, from hunger, cold, and bonds.
Euthyphron has indicted his father for homicide, as having caused the death of the prisoner: who (it would appear) had remained in the ditch, tied hand and foot, without food, and with no more than his ordinary clothing, during the time occupied in the voyage from Naxos to Athens, in obtaining the answer of the Exêgêtês, and in returning to Naxos.
My friends and relatives (says Euthyphron) cry out against me for this proceeding, as if I were mad.
They say that my father did not kill the man:[4] that even if he had, the man had committed murder: lastly, that however the case may have been, to indict my own father is monstrous and inexcusable.
Such reasoning is silly.
The only point to be considered is, whether my father killed the deceased justly or unjustly.
If justly there is nothing to be said; if unjustly, then my father becomes a man tainted with impiety and accursed.
I and every one else, who, knowing the facts, live under the same roof and at the same table with him, come under the like curse; unless I purify myself by bringing him to justice.
The course which I am now taking is prescribed by piety or holiness.
My friends indeed tell me that it is unholy for a son to indict his father.
But I know better than they, what holiness is and I should be ashamed of myself if I did not.
[5] [Footnote 4: According to the Attic law every citizen was bound, in case any one of his relatives ([Greek: me/chris a)nepsiadô=n]) or any member of his household ([Greek: oi)ke/tês]) had been put to death, to come forward as prosecutor and indict the murderer.
This was binding upon the citizen alike in law and in religion.
Demosthen.
cont.
Euerg.
et Mnesibul.
p. 1161.
Jul.
Pollux, viii.
118.
Euthyphron would thus have been considered as acting with propriety, if the person indicted had been a stranger.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 4.
Respecting the [Greek: mi/asma], which a person who had committed criminal homicide was supposed to carry about with him wherever he went, communicating it both to places and to companions, see Antiphon.
Tetralog.
i.
2, 5, 10; iii.
s. 7, p. 116; and De Herodis Cæde s. 81, p. 139.
The argument here employed by Euthyphron is used also by the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias, 480 C-D.
If a man has committed injustice, punishment is the only way of curing him.
That he should escape unpunished is the worst thing that can happen to him.
If you yourself, or your father, or your friend, have committed injustice, do not seek to avert the punishment either from yourself or them, but rather invoke it.
This is exactly what Euthyphron is doing, and what the Platonic Sokrates (in dialogue Euthyphron) calls in question.]
[Side-note: Euthyphron expresses full confidence that this step of his is both required and warranted by piety or holiness.
Sokrates asks him--What is Holiness?]
I confess myself (says Sokrates) ignorant respecting the question,[6] and I shall be grateful if you will teach me: the rather as I shall be able to defend myself better against Melêtus.
Tell me what is the general constituent feature of _Holiness_?
What is that common essence, or same character, which belongs to and distinguishes all holy or pious acts?
[7] [Footnote 6: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B.
[Greek: ti/ ga\r kai\ phê/somen, oi(/ ge kai\ au)toi\ o(mologou=men peri\ au)tô=n mêde\n ei)de/nai?]]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 D. Among the various reasons (none of them valid in my judgment) given by Ueberweg (Untersuch.
p. 251) for suspecting the authenticity of the Euthyphron, one is that [Greek: to\ a)no/sion] is reckoned as an [Greek: ei)=dos] as well as [Greek: to\ o(/sion].
Ueberweg seems to think this absurd, since he annexes to the word a note of admiration.
But Plato expressly gives [Greek: to\ a)/dikon] as an [Greek: ei)=dos], along with [Greek: to\ di/kaion] (Repub.
v. 476 A); and one of the objections taken against his theory by Aristotle was, that it would assume substantive Ideas corresponding to negative terms--[Greek: tô=n a)popha/seôn i)de/as].
See Aristot.
Metaphys.
A.
990, b.
13, with the Scholion of Alexander, p. 565, a.
81, r.] [Side-note: Euthyphron alludes to the punishment of Uranus by his son Kronus and of Kronus by his son Zeus.]
It is holy (replies Euthyphron) to do what I am now doing: to bring to justice the man who commits impiety, either by homicide or sacrilege or any other such crime, whoever he be--even though it be your own father.
The examples of the Gods teach us this.
Kronus punished his father Uranus for wrong-doing: Zeus, whom every one holds to be the best and justest of the Gods, did the like by _his_ father Kronus.
I only follow their example.
Those who blame my conduct contradict themselves when they talk about the Gods and about me.
[8] [Footnote 8: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5-6.
We see here that Euthyphron is made to follow out the precept delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in the Theætêtus and elsewhere--to make himself as like to the Gods as possible--([Greek: o(moi/ôsis theô=| kata\ to\ dunato/n].
Theætêt.
p. 176 B; compare Phædrus, 252 C)--only that he conceives the attributes and proceedings of the Gods differently from Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Sokrates intimates his own hesitation in believing these stories of discord among the Gods.
Euthyphron declares his full belief in them, as well as in many similar narratives, not in so much circulation.]
Do you really confidently believe these stories (asks Sokrates), as well as many others about the discord and conflicts among the Gods, which are circulated among the public by poets and painters?
For my part, I have some repugnance in believing them;[9] it is for reason probably, I am now to be indicted, and proclaimed as doing wrong.
If you tell me that you are persuaded of their truth, I must bow to your superior knowledge.
I cannot help doing so, since for my part I pretend to no knowledge whatever about them.
[Footnote 9: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 A.
[Greek: A)ra/ ge tou=t' e)/stin, ou)= e(/neka tê\n graphê\n pheu/gô, o(/ti ta\ toiau=ta e)peida/n tis peri\ tô=n theô=n le/gê|, duscherô=s pôs a)pode/chomai?
di' a(\ dê\, ô(s e)/oike, phê/sei ti/s me e)xamarta/nein.]]
I am persuaded that these narratives are true (says Euthyphron): and not only they, but many other narratives yet more surprising, of which most persons are ignorant.
I can tell you some of them, if you like to hear.
You shall tell me another time (replies Sokrates): now let me repeat my question to you respecting holiness.
[10] [Footnote 10: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 C.] [Side-note: Bearing of this dialogue on the relative position of Sokrates and the Athenian public.]
Before we pursue this enquiry respecting holiness, which is the portion of the dialogue bearing on the Platonic ethics, I will say one word on the portion which has preceded, and which appears to bear on the position and character of Sokrates.
He (Sokrates) has incurred odium from the Dikastery and the public, because he is heretical and incredulous.
"He does not believe in those Gods in whom the city believes, but introduces religious novelties"--to use the words of the indictment preferred against him by Melêtus.
The Athenian public felt the same displeasure and offence in hearing their divine legends, such as those of Zeus and Kronus,[11] called in question or criticised in an ethical spirit different from their own--as is felt by Jews or Christians when various narratives of the Old Testament are criticised in an adverse spirit, and when the proceedings ascribed to Jehovah are represented as unworthy of a just and beneficent god.
We read in Herodotus what was the sentiment of pious contemporaries respecting narratives of divine matters.
Herodotus keeps back many of them by design, and announces that he will never recite them except in case of necessity: while in one instance, where he has been betrayed into criticism upon a few of them, as inconsiderate and incredible, he is seized with misgivings, and prays that Gods and heroes will not be offended with him.
[12] The freethinkers, among whom Sokrates was numbered, were the persons from whom adverse criticism came.
It is these men who are depicted by orthodox opponents as committing lawless acts, and justifying themselves by precedents drawn from the proceedings or Zeus.
[13] They are, besides, especially accused of teaching children to despise or even to ill-use their parents.
[14] [Footnote 11: I shall say more about Plato's views on the theological legends generally believed by his countrymen, when I come to the language which he puts into the mouth of Sokrates in the second and third books of the Republic.
Eusebius considers it matter of praise when he says "that Plato rejected all the opinions of his country-men concerning the Gods and exposed their absurdity"--[Greek: o(/pôs te pa/sas ta\s patri/ous peri\ tô=n theô=n u(polê/pseis ê)the/tei, kai\ tê\n a)topi/an au)tô=n diê/legchen] (Præp.
Evan.
xiii.
1)--the very same thing which is averred in the indictment laid by Melêtus against Sokrates.]
[Footnote 12: Herodot.
ii.
65: [Greek: tô=n de\ ei(/neken a)nei=tai ta\ i(ra\, ei) le/goimi, katabai/ên a)\n tô=| lo/gô| e)s ta\ thei=a prê/gmata, ta\ e)gô\ pheu/gô ma/lista a)pêgee/sthai.
ta\ de\ kai\ ei)/rêka au)tô=n e)pipsau/sas, a)nagkai/ê katalambano/menos ei)=pon .
.
.
.]
45.
[Greek: Le/gousi de\ polla\ kai\ a)/lla a)nepiske/ptôs oi( E(/llênes; eu)ê/thês de\ au)tô=n kai\ o(/de o( mu=thos e)sti, to\n peri\ tou= Ê(rakle/os le/gousi .
.
.
.
e)/ti de\ e(/na e)o/nta to\n Ê(rakle/a, kai\ e)/ti a)/nthrôpon, ô(s dê/ phasi, kô=s phu/sin e)/chei polla\s muria/das phoneu=sai?
kai\ peri\ me\n tou/tôn tosau=ta ê(mi=n ei)pou=si, kai\ para\ tô=n theô=n kai\ para\ tô=n ê(rô/ôn eu)me/neia ei)/ê.]
About the [Greek: i(roi\ lo/goi] which he keeps back, see cap.
51, 61, 62, 81, 170, &c.] [Footnote 13: Aristoph.
Nubes, 905-1080.]
[Footnote 14: Aristoph.
Nubes, 994-1333-1444.
Xenophon, Mem.
i.
2, 49.
[Greek: Sôkra/tês--tou\s pate/ras propêlaki/zein e)di/daske] (accusation by Melêtus).]
[Side-note: Dramatic moral set forth by Aristophanes against Sokrates and the freethinkers, is here retorted by Plato against the orthodox champion.]
Now in the dialogue here before us, Plato retorts this attack.
Euthyphron possesses in the fullest measure the virtues of a believer.
He believes not only all that orthodox Athenians usually believed respecting the Gods, but more besides.
[15] His faith is so implicit, that he proclaims it as accurate knowledge, and carries it into practice with full confidence; reproaching other orthodox persons with inconsistency and short-coming, and disregarding the judgment of the multitude, as Sokrates does in the Kriton.
[16] Euthyphron stands forward as the champion of the Gods, determined not to leave unpunished the man who has committed impiety, let him be who he may.
[17] These lofty religious pretensions impel him, with full persuasion of right, to indict his own father for homicide, under the circumstances above described.
Now in the eyes of the Athenian public, there could hardly be any act more abhorrent, than that of a man thus invoking upon his father the severest penalties of law.
It would probably be not less abhorrent than that of a son beating his own father.
When therefore we read, in the Nubes of Aristophanes, the dramatic moral set forth against Sokrates, "See the consequences to which free-thinking and the new system of education lead[18]--the son Pheidippides beating his own father, and justifying the action as right, by citing the violence of Zeus towards his father Kronus"--we may take the Platonic Euthyphron as an antithesis to this moral, propounded by a defender of Sokrates, "See the consequences to which consistent orthodoxy and implicit faith conduct.
The son Euthyphron indicts his own father for homicide; he vindicates the step as conformable to the proceedings of the gods; he even prides himself on it as championship on their behalf, such as all religious men ought to approve.
"[19] [Footnote 15: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B.
[Greek: kai\ e)/ti ge tou/tôn thaumasiô/tera, a(\ oi( polloi\ ou)k i)/sasin].
Euthyphron belonged to the class described in Euripides, Hippol.
45:-[Greek: O(/soi men ou)=n grapha/s te tô=n palaite/rôn E)/choisin, au)toi/ t' ei)si\n e)n mou/sais a)ei/, I)/sasin], &c. Compare also Euripid.
Herakleidæ, 404.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 5 A; c. 6, p. 6 A.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 E. [Greek: mê\ e)pitre/pein tô=| a)sebou=nti mêd' a)\n o(stisou=n tugcha/nê| ô)=n.]]
[Footnote 18: Aristoph.
Nubes, 937.
[Greek: tê\n kainê\n pai/deusin], &c.] [Footnote 19: Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Euthyphron, vol.
ii.
pp.
51-54) has many remarks on the Euthyphron in which I do not concur; but his conception of its "unverkennbare apologetische Absicht" is very much the same as mine.
He describes Euthyphron as a man "der sich besonders auf das Göttliche zu verstehen vorgab, und die rechtglaubigen aus den alten theologischen Dichtern gezogenen Begriffe tapfer vertheidigte.
Diesen nun gerade bei der Anklage des Sokrates mit ihm in Berührung, und durch den unsittlichen Streich, den sein Eifer für die Frömmigkeit veranlasste, in Gegensatz zu bringen--war ein des Platon nicht unwürdiger Gedanke" (p. 54).
But when Schleiermacher affirms that the dialogue was indisputably composed (unstreitig) between the indictment and the trial of Sokrates,--and when he explains what he considers the defects of the dialogue, by the necessity of finishing it in a hurry (p. 53), I dissent from him altogether, though Steinhart adopts the same opinion.
Nor can I perceive in what way the Euthyphron is (as he affirms) either "a natural out-growth of the Protagoras," or "an approximation and preparation for the Parmenidês" (p. 52).
Still less do I feel the force of his reasons for hesitating in admitting it to be a genuine work of Plato.
I have given my reasons, in a preceding chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates.
But that he should publish such a dialogue while the trial of Sokrates was impending, is a supposition altogether inadmissible, in my judgment.
The effect of it would be to make the position of Sokrates much worse on his trial.
Herein I agree with Ueberweg (Untersuch.
p. 250), though I do not share his doubts of the authenticity of the dialogue.
The confident assertion of Stallbaum surprises me.
"Constat enim Platonem eo tempore, quo Socrati tantum erat odium conflatum, ut ei judicii immineret periculum, complures dialogos composuisse; in quibus id egit, ut viri sanctissimi adversarios in eo ipso genere, in quo sibi plurimum sapere videbantur, inscitiæ et ignorantiæ coargueret.
Nam Euthyphronem novimus, ad vates ignorantiæ rerum gravissimarum convincendos, esse compositum; ut in quo eos ne pietatis quidem notionem tenere ostenditur.
In Menone autem id agitur, ut sophistas et viros civiles non scientiâ atque arte, sed coeco quodam impetu mentis et sorte divinâ duci demonstretur: quod quidem ita fit, ut colloquium ex parte cum Anyto, Socratis accusatore, habeatur.
.
.
.
.
.
Nam Menonem quidem et Euthyphronem Plato eo confecit tempore, quo Socratis causa haud ita pridem in judicio versabatur, nec tamen jam tanta ei videbatur imminere calamitas, quanta postea consecuta est.
Ex quo sané verisimiliter colligere licet Ionem, cujus simile argumentum et consilium est, circa idem tempus literis consignatum esse."
Stallbaum, Prolegom.
ad Platonis Ionem, pp.
288-289, vol.
iv.
[Comp.
Stallb.
ibid., 2nd ed.
pp.
339-341].
"Imo uno exemplo Euthyphronis, boni quidem hominis ideoque ne Socrati quidem inimici, sed ejusdem _superstitiosi, vel ut hodie loquuntur, orthodoxi_, qualis Athenis vulgò esset religionis conditio, declarare instituit.
Ex quo nobis quidem clarissimé videtur apparere Platonem hoc unum spectavisse, ut judices admonerentur, ne populari superstitioni in sententiis ferendis plus justo tribuerent."
Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Euthyphron.
T. vi.
p. 146.
Steinhart also (in his Einleitung, p. 190) calls Euthyphron "ein rechtgläubiger von reinsten Wasser--ein ueberfrommer, fanatischer, Mann," &c. In the two preceding pages Stallbaum defends himself against objections made to his view, on the ground that Plato, by composing such dialogues at this critical moment, would increase the unpopularity and danger of Sokrates, instead of diminishing it.
Stallbaum contends (p. 145) that neither Sokrates nor Plato nor any of the other Sokratic men, believed that the trial would end in a verdict of guilty: which is probably true about Plato, and would have been borne out by the event if Sokrates had made a different defence.
But this does not assist the conclusion which Stallbaum wishes to bring out; for it is not the less true that the dialogues of Plato, if published at that moment, would increase the exasperation against Sokrates, and the chance, whatever it was, that he would be found guilty.
Stallbaum refers by mistake to a passage in the Platonic Apology (p. 36 A), as if Sokrates there expressed his surprise at the verdict of guilty, anticipating a verdict of acquittal.
The passage declares the contrary: Sokrates expresses his surprise that the verdict of guilty had passed by so small a majority as five; he had expected that it would pass by a larger majority.]
[Side-note: Sequel of the dialogue--Euthyphron gives a particular example as the reply to a general question.]
I proceed now with that which may be called the Platonic purpose in the dialogue--the enquiry into the general idea of Holiness.
When the question was first put to Euthyphron, What is the Holy?--he replied, "That which I am now doing."
_Sokr._ That may be: but many other things besides are also holy.--_Euthyph._ Certainly.--_Sokr._ Then your answer does not meet the question.
You have indicated one particular holy act, among many.
But the question asked was--What is Holiness generally?
What is that specific property, by the common possession of which all holy things are entitled to be called holy?
I want to know this general Idea, in order that I may keep it in view as a type wherewith to compare each particular case, thus determining whether the case deserves to be called holy or not.
[20] [Footnote 20: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 7, p. 6 E.] Here we have a genuine specimen of the dialectic interrogatory in which Xenophon affirms[21] Sokrates to have passed his life, and which Plato prosecutes under his master's name.
The question is generalised much more than in the Kriton.
[Footnote 21: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1, 16.]
[Side-note: Such mistake frequent in dialectic discussion.]
It is assumed that there is one specific Idea or essence--one objective characteristic or fact--common to all things called Holy.
The purpose of the questioner is: to determine what this Idea is: to provide a good definition of the word.
The first mistake made by the respondent is, that he names simply one particular case, coming under the general Idea.
This is a mistake often recurring, and often corrected in the Platonic dialogues.
Even now, such a mistake is not unfrequent: and in the time of Plato, when general ideas, and the definition of general terms, had been made so little the subject of direct attention, it was doubtless perpetually made.
When the question was first put, its bearing would not be properly conceived.
And even if the bearing were properly conceived, men would find it easier then, and do find it easier now, to make answer by giving one particular example than to go over many examples, and elicit what is common to all.
[Side-note: First general answer given by Euthyphron--that which is pleasing to the Gods is holy.
Comments of Sokrates thereon.]
Euthyphron next replies--That which is pleasing to the Gods is holy: that which is not pleasing, or which is displeasing to the Gods, is unholy.--_Sokr._ That is the sort of answer which I desired to have: now let us examine it.
We learn from the received theology, which you implicitly believe, that there has been much discord and quarrel among the Gods.
If the Gods quarrel, they quarrel about the same matters as men.
Now men do not quarrel about questions of quantity--for such questions can be determined by calculation and measurement: nor about questions of weight--for there the balance may be appealed to.
The questions about which you and I and other men quarrel are, What is just or unjust, honourable or base, good or evil?
Upon these there is no accessible standard.
Some men feel in one way, some in another; and each of us fights for his own opinions.
[22] We all indeed agree that the wrong-doer ought to be punished: but we do not agree who the wrong-doer is, nor what is wrong-doing.
The same action which some of us pronounce to be just, others stigmatise as unjust.
[23] [Footnote 22: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 8, p. 7 C-D. [Greek: Peri\ ti/nos de\ dê\ dienechthe/ntes kai\ e)pi\ ti/na kri/sin ou) duna/menoi a)phike/sthai e)chthroi/ ge a)\n a)llê/lois ei)=men kai\ o)rgizoi/metha?
i)/sôs ou) pro/cheiro/n soi/ e)stin, a)ll' e)mou= le/gontos sko/pei, ei) ta/d' e)sti\ to/ te di/kaion kai\ to\ a)/dikon, kai\ kalo\n kai\ ai)schro/n, kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ kako/n.
A)=r' ou) tau=ta e)sti peri\ ô(=n dienechthe/ntes kai\ ou) duna/menoi e)pi\ i)kanê\n kri/sin au)tô=n e)lthei=n e)chthroi\ a)llê/lois gigno/metha, o(/tan gignô/metha, kai\ e)gô\ kai\ su\ kai\ oi( a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi pa/ntes?]]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 9, p. 8 D. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra e)kei=no/ ge a)mphisbêtou=sin, ô(s ou) to\n a)dikou=nta dei= dido/nai di/kên; a)ll' e)kei=no i)/sôs a)mphisbêtou=si, to\ _ti/s e)stin o( a)dikôn_ kai\ _ti/ drô=n_, kai\ _po/te_?
Pra/xeô/s tinos peri\ diaphero/menoi, oi( me\n dikai/ôs phasi\n au)tê\n pepra=chthai, oi( de\ a)di/kôs.]]
So likewise the quarrels of the Gods must turn upon these same matters--just and unjust, right and wrong, good and evil.
What one God thinks right, another God thinks wrong.
What is pleasing to one God, is displeasing to another.
The same action will be both pleasing and displeasing to the Gods.
According to your definition of holy and unholy, therefore, the same action may be both holy and unholy.
Your definition will not hold, for it does not enable me to distinguish the one from the other.
[24] [Footnote 24: In regard to Plato's ethical enquiries generally, and to what we shall find in future dialogues, we must take note of what is here laid down, that mankind are in perpetual dispute, and have not yet any determinate standard for just and unjust, right and wrong, honourable and base, good and evil.
Plato had told us, somewhat differently, in the Kriton, that on these matters, though the judgment of the many was not to be trusted, yet there was another trustworthy judgment, that of the one wise man.
This point will recur for future comment.]
_Euthyph._--I am convinced that there are some things which _all_ the Gods love, and some things which _all_ the Gods hate.
That which I am doing, for example--indicting my father for homicide--belongs to the former category.
Now that which all the Gods love is the holy: that which they all hate, is the unholy.
[25] [Footnote 25: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 11, p.
9.]
[Side-note: To be loved by the Gods is not the essence of the Holy--they love it because it is holy.
In what then does its essence consist?
Perplexity of Euthyphron.]
_Sokr._--Do the Gods love the holy, because it _is_ holy?
Or is it holy for this reason, because they do love it?
_Euthyph._--They love it because it is holy.
[26] _Sokr._--Then the holiness is one thing; the fact of being loved by the Gods is another.
The latter fact is not of the essence of holiness: it is true, but only as an accident and an accessory.
You have yet to tell me what that essential character is, by virtue of which the holy comes to be loved by all the Gods, or to be the subject of various other attributes.
[27] [Footnote 26: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 12, p. 10 A-D.
The manner in which Sokrates conducts this argument is over-subtle.
[Greek: Ou)k a)/ra dio/ti o(rô/menon ge/ e)sti dia\ tou=to o(ra=tai, a)lla\ tou)nanti/on dio/ti o(ra=tai, dia\ tou=to o(rô/menon; ou)de\ dio/ti a)go/meno/n e)sti, dia\ tou=to a)/getai, a)lla\ dio/ti a)/getai, dia\ tou=to a)go/menon; ou)de\ dio/ti phero/menon, phe/retai, a)lla\ dio/ti phe/retai, phero/menon.]
The difference between the meaning of [Greek: phe/retai] and [Greek: phero/meno/n e)sti] is not easy to see.
The former may mean to affirm the beginning of an action, the latter the continuance: but in this case the inference would not necessarily follow.
Compare Aristotel.
Physica, p. 185, b.
25, with the Scholion of Simplikius, p. 330, a.
2nd ed.
Bekk.
where [Greek: badi/zôn e)/sti] is recognised as equivalent to [Greek: badi/zei].]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 A.
[Greek: kinduneu/eis, e)rôtô/menos to\ o(/sion, o(/, ti/ pot' e)/stin, tê\n _me\n ou)si/an_ moi au)tou= ou) bou/lesthai dêlô=sai, _pa/thos de/ ti peri\ au)tou= le/gein, o(/, ti pe/ponthe_ tou=to to\ o(/sion, philei=sthai u(po\ pa/ntôn tô=n theô=n; _o(/, ti de\ o)\n, ou)/pô ei)=pes_.
.
.
.
pa/lin ei)pe\ e)x a)rchê=s, ti/ pote o)\n to\ o(/sion ei)/te philei=tai u(po\ theô=n, ei)/te o(/ti dê\ pa/schei.]]
_Euthyph._--I hardly know how to tell you what I think.
None of my explanations will stand.
Your ingenuity turns and twists them in every way.
_Sokr._--If I am ingenious, it is against my own will;[28] for I am most anxious that some one of the answers should stand unshaken.
But I will now put you in the way of making a different answer.
You will admit that all which is holy is necessarily just.
But is all that is just necessarily holy?
[Footnote: 28: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 D. [Greek: a)/kôn ei)mi\ sopho/s], &c.] [Side-note: Sokrates suggests a new answer.
The Holy is one branch or variety of the Just.
It is that branch which concerns ministration by men to the Gods.]
Euthyphron does not at first understand the question.
He does not comprehend the relation between two words, generic and specific with reference to each other: the former embracing all that the latter embraces, and more besides (denoting more objects, connoting fewer attributes).
This is explained by analogies and particular examples, illustrating a logical distinction highly important to be brought out, at a time when there were no treatises on Logic.
[29] So much therefore is made out--That the Holy is a part, or branch, of the Just.
But what part?
or how is it to be distinguished from other parts or branches of the just?
Euthyphron answers.
The holy is that portion or branch of the Just which concerns ministration to the Gods: the remaining branch of the Just is, what concerns ministration to men.
[30] [Footnote 29: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13-14, p.
12.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 14, p. 12 E. [Greek: to\ me/ros tou= dikai/ou ei)=nai eu)sebe/s te kai\ o(/sion, to\ peri\ tê\n tô=n theô=n therapei/an; to\ de\ peri\ tê\n tô=n a)nthrô/pôn, to\ loipo\n ei)=nai tou= dikai/ou me/ros.]]
[Side-note: Ministration to the Gods?
How?
To what purpose?
]\ _Sokr._--What sort of ministration?
Other ministrations, to horses, dogs, working cattle, &c., are intended for the improvement or benefit of those to whom they are rendered:--besides, they can only be rendered by a few trained persons.
In what manner does ministration, called _holiness_, benefit or improve the Gods?
_Euthyph._--In no way: it is of the same nature as that which slaves render to their masters.
_Sokr._--You mean, that it is work done by us for the Gods.
Tell me--to what end does the work conduce?
What is that end which the Gods accomplish, through our agency as workmen?
Physicians employ their slaves for the purpose of restoring the sick to health: shipbuilders put their slaves to the completion of ships.
But what are those great works which the Gods bring about by our agency?
_Euthyph._--Their works are numerous and great.
_Sokr._--The like may be said of generals: but the summary and main purpose of all that generals do is--to assure victory in war.
So too we may say about the husbandman: but the summary of his many proceedings is, to raise corn from the earth.
State to me, in like manner, the summary of that which the Gods perform through our agency.
[31] [Footnote 31: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, pp.
13, 14.]
[Side-note: Holiness--rectitude in sacrifice and prayer--right traffic between men and the Gods.]
_Euthyph._--It would cost me some labour to go through the case fully.
But so much I tell you in plain terms.
If a man, when sacrificing and praying, knows what deeds and what words will be agreeable to the Gods, that is holiness: this it is which upholds the security both of private houses and public communities.
The contrary is unholiness, which subverts and ruins them.
[32] _Sokr._--Holiness, then, is the knowledge of rightly sacrificing and praying to the Gods; that is, of giving to them, and asking from them.
To ask rightly, is to ask what we want from them: to give rightly, is to give to them what they want from us.
Holiness will thus be an art of right traffic between Gods and men.
Still, you must tell me how the Gods are gainers by that which we give to them.
That we are gainers by what they give, is clear enough; but what do they gain on their side?
[Footnote 32: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, p. 14 B.
Compare this third unsuccessful answer of Euthyphron with the third answer assigned to Hippias (Hipp.
Maj. 291 C-E).
Both of them appear lengthened, emphatic, as if intended to settle a question which had become vexatious.]
[Side-note: This will not stand--the Gods gain nothing--they receive from men marks of honour and gratitude--they are pleased therewith--the Holy, therefore, must be that which is pleasing to the Gods.]
_Euthyph._--The Gods gain nothing.
The gifts which we present to them consist in honour, marks of respect, gratitude.
_Sokr._--The holy, then, is that which obtains favour from the Gods; not that which gainful to them, nor that which they love.
_Euthyph._--Nay: I think they love it especially.
_Sokr._--Then it appears that the holy is what the Gods love?
_Euthyph._--Unquestionably.
[Side-note: This is the same explanation which was before declared insufficient.
A fresh explanation is required from Euthyphron.
He breaks off the dialogue.]
_Sokr._--But this is the very same explanation which we rejected a short time ago as untenable.
[33] It was agreed between us, that to be loved by the Gods was not of the essence of holiness, and could not serve as an explanation of holiness: though it might be truly affirmed thereof as an accompanying predicate.
Let us therefore try again to discover what holiness is.
I rely upon you to help me, and I am sure that you must know, since under a confident persuasion that you know, you are indicting your own father for homicide.
[Footnote 33: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 19, p. 15 C. [Greek: me/mnêsai ga/r pou, o(/ti e)n tô=| e)mprosthen to/ te o(/sion kai\ to\ theophile\s ou) tau)to\n ê(mi=n e)pha/nê, a)ll' e(/tera a)llê/lôn.]]
_Euthyph._--"The investigation must stand over to another time, I have engagements now which call me elsewhere."
[Side-note: Sokratic spirit of the dialogue--confessed ignorance applying the Elenchus to false persuasion of knowledge.]
So Plato breaks off the dialogue.
It is conceived in the truly Sokratic spirit:--an Elenchus applied to implicit and unexamined faith, even though that faith be accredited among the public as orthodoxy: warfare against the confident persuasion of knowledge, upon topics familiar to every one, and on which deep sentiments and confused notions have grown up by association in every one's mind, without deliberate study, systematic teaching, or testing cross-examination.
Euthyphron is a man who feels unshaken confidence in his own knowledge, and still more in his own correct religious belief.
Sokrates appears in his received character as confessing ignorance, soliciting instruction, and exposing inconsistencies and contradiction in that which is given to him for instruction.
[Side-note: The questions always difficult, often impossible to answer.
Sokrates is unable to answer them, though he exposes the bad answers of others.]
We must (as I have before remarked) take this ignorance on the part of the Platonic Sokrates not as assumed, but as very real.
In no part of the Platonic writings do we find any tenable definition of the Holy and the Unholy, such as is here demanded from Euthyphron.
The talent of Sokrates consists in exposing bad definitions, not in providing good ones.
This negative function is all that he claims for himself--with deep regret that he can do no more.
"Sokrates" (says Aristotle[34]) "put questions, but gave no answers: for he professed not to know."
In those dialogues where Plato makes him attempt more (there also, against his own will and protest, as in the Philêbus and Republic), the affirmative Sokrates will be found only to stand his ground because no negative Sokrates is allowed to attack him.
I insist upon this the rather, because the Platonic commentators usually present the dialogues in a different light, as if such modesty on the part of Sokrates was altogether simulated: as if he was himself,[35] from the beginning, aware of the proper answer to his own questions, but refrained designedly from announcing it: nay, sometimes, as if the answers were in themselves easy, and as if the respondents who failed must be below par in respect of intelligence.
This is an erroneous conception.
The questions put by Sokrates, though relating to familiar topics, are always difficult: they are often even impossible to answer, because they postulate and require to be assigned a common objective concept which is not to be found.
They only appear easy to one who has never attempted the task of answering under the pressure of cross-examination.
Most persons indeed never make any such trial, but go on affirming confidently as if they knew, without trial.
It is exactly against such illusory confidence of knowledge that Sokrates directs his questions: the fact belongs to our days no less than to his.
[36] [Footnote 34: Aristotel.
Sophist.
Elench.
p. 183, b.
7.
[Greek: e)pei\ kai\ dia\ tou=to Sôkra/tês ê)rô/ta kai\ ou)k a)pekri/neto; ô(molo/gei ga\r ou)k ei)de/nai.]]
[Footnote 35: See Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Euthyphron.
p.
140.]
[Footnote 36: Adam Smith observes, in his Essay on the Formation of Languages (p. 20 of the fifth volume of his collected Works), "Ask a man what relation is expressed by the preposition _of_: and if he has not beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects, you may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer."
The Platonic problem assumes, not only that he shall give an answer, but that it shall be an answer which he can maintain against the Elenchus of Sokrates.]
[Side-note: Objections of Theopompus to the Platonic procedure.]
The assumptions of some Platonic commentators--that Sokrates and Plato of course knew the answers to their own questions--that an honest and pious man, of ordinary intelligence, has the answer to the question in his heart, though he cannot put it in words--these assumptions were also made by many of Plato's contemporaries, who depreciated his questions as frivolous and unprofitable.
The rhetor and historian Theopompus (one of the most eminent among the numerous pupils of Isokrates, and at the same time unfriendly to Plato, though younger in age), thus criticised Plato's requirement, that these familiar terms should be defined: "What!
(said he) have none of us before your time talked about the Good and the Just?
Or do you suppose that we cannot follow out what each of them is, and that we pronounce the words as empty and unmeaning sounds?
"[37] Theopompus was the scholar of Isokrates, and both of them probably took the same view, as to the uselessness of that colloquial analysis which aims at determining the definition of familiar ethical or political words.
[38] They considered that Plato and Sokrates, instead of clearing up what was confused, wasted their ingenuity in perplexing what was already clear.
They preferred the rhetorical handling (such as we noticed in the Kriton) which works upon ready-made pre-established sentiments, and impresses a strong emotional conviction, but presumes that all the intellectual problems have already been solved.
[Footnote 37: Epiktêtus, ii.
17, 5-10.
[Greek: To\ d' e)xapatô=n tou\s pollou\s tou=t' e)/stin, o(/per kai\ Theo/pompon to\n r(ê/tora o(/s pou kai\ Pla/tôni e)gkalei= e)pi\ tô=| bou/lesthai e(/kasta o(ri/zesthai.
Ti/ ga\r le/gei?
Ou)dei\s ê(mô=n pro\ sou= e)/legen a)gatho\n ê)\ di/kaion?
ê)\ mê\ parakolouthou=ntes ti/ e)sti tou/tôn e(/kaston, a)sê/môs kai\ kenô=s e)phtheggo/metha ta\s phôna/s?]
Respecting Theopompus, compare Dionys.
Hal.
Epistol.
ad Cn.
Pompeium de Platone, p. 757; also De Præcip.
Historicis, p.
782.]
[Footnote 38: Isokrates, Helen.
Encom.
Or.
x. init.
De Permut.
Or.
xv.
sect.
90.
These passages do not name Sokrates and Plato, but have every appearance of being intended to allude to them.]
[Side-note: Objective view of Ethics, distinguished by Sokrates from the subjective.]
All this shows the novelty of the Sokratic point of view: the distinction between the essential constituent and the objective accidental accompaniment,[39] and the search for a definition corresponding to the former: which search was first prosecuted by Sokrates (as Aristotle[40] points out) and was taken up from him by Plato.
It was Sokrates who first brought conspicuously into notice the objective intellectual, scientific view of ethics--as distinguished from the subjective, emotional, incoherent, and uninquiring.
I mean that he was the first who proclaimed himself as feeling the want of such an objective view, and who worked upon other minds so a to create the like want in them: I do not mean that he provided satisfaction for this requirement.
[Footnote 39: This distinction is pointedly noticed in the Euthyphron, p. 11 A.]
[Footnote 40: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A.
987, b.
2, M. 1078, b.
28.]
[Side-note: Subjective unanimity coincident with objective dissent.]
Undoubtedly (as Theopompus remarked) men had used these ethical terms long before the time of Sokrates, and had used them, not as empty and unmeaning, but with a full body of meaning (_i.e._ emotional meaning).
Strong and marked emotion had become associated with each term; and the same emotion, similar in character, though not equal in force--was felt by the greater number of different minds.
Subjectively and emotionally, there was no difference between one man and another, except as to degree.
But it was Sokrates who first called attention to the fact as a matter for philosophical recognition and criticism,--that such subjective and emotional unanimity does not exclude the widest objective and intellectual dissension.
[41] [Footnote 41: It is this distinction between the subjective and the objective which is implied in the language of Epiktêtus, when he proceeds to answer the objection cited from Theopompus (note 1 p. 451): [Greek: Ti/s ga\r soi le/gei, Theo/pompe, o(/ti e)nnoi/as ou)k ei)=chomen e(ka/stou tou/tôn phusika/s kai\ prolê/pseis?
A)ll' ou)ch oi(=on te e)pharmo/zein ta\s prolê/pseis tai=s katallê/lois ou)si/ais, mê\ diarthrô/santa au)ta/s, kai\ au)to\ tou=to skepsa/menon, poi/an tina\ e(ka/stê| au)tô=n ou)si/an u(potakte/on.]
To the same purpose Epiktêtus, in another passage, i.
22, 4-9: [Greek: Au)tê\ e)stin ê( tô=n I)oudai/ôn, kai\ Su/rôn, kai\ Ai)gupti/ôn, kai\ R(ômai/ôn ma/chê; ou) peri\ tou=, o(/ti to\ o(/sion pa/ntôn protimête/on, kai\ e)n panti\ metadiôkte/on--a)lla\ po/tero/n e)stin o(/sion tou=to, to\ choirei/ou phagei=n, ê)\ a)no/sion.]
Again, Origen also, in a striking passage of his reply to Celsus (v. p. 263, ed.
Spencer; i. p. 614 ed.
Delarue), observes that the name _Justice_ is the same among all Greeks (he means, the name with the emotional associations inseparable from it), but that the thing designated was very different, according to those who pronounced it:--[Greek: lekte/on, o(/ti to\ tê=s dikaiosu/nês o)/noma tau)ton me\n e)/stin para\ pa=sin E(/llêsin; ê)/dê de\ a)podei/knutai a)/llê me\n ê( kat' E)pi/kouron dikaiosu/nê, a)/llê de\ ê( kata\ tou\s a)po\ tê=s Stoa=s, a)rnoume/nôn to\ trimere\s tê=s psuchê=s, a)/llê de\ kata\ tou\s a)po\ Pla/tônos, i)diopragi/an tô=n merô=n tê=s psuchê=s pha/skontas ei)=nai tê\n dikaiosu/nên.
Ou(/tô de\ kai\ a)/llê me\n ê( E)pikou/rou a)ndri/a], &c. "Je n'aime point les mots nouveaux" (said Saint Just, in his Institutions, composed during the sitting of the French Convention, 1793), "je ne connais que le juste et l'injuste: ces mots sont entendus par toutes les consciences.
Il faut ramener toutes les définitions à la conscience: l'esprit est un sophiste qui conduit les vertus à l'échafaud."
(Histoire Parlementaire de la Révolution Française, t. xxxv.
p.
277.)
This is very much the language which honest and vehement [Greek: i)diô=tai] of Athens would hold towards Sokrates and Plato.]
[Side-note: Cross-examination brought to bear upon this mental condition by Sokrates--position of Sokrates and Plato in regard to it.]
As the Platonic Sokrates here puts it in the Euthyphron--all men agree that the person who acts unjustly must be punished; but they dispute very much _who it is_ that acts unjustly--_which_ of his actions are unjust--or under _what_ circumstances they are so.
The emotion in each man's mind, as well as the word by which it is expressed, is the same:[42] but the person, or the acts, to which it is applied by each, although partly the same, are often so different, and sometimes so opposite, as to occasion violent dispute.
There is subjective agreement, with objective disagreement.
It is upon this disconformity that the Sokratic cross-examination is brought to bear, making his hearers feel its existence, for the first time, and dispelling their fancy of supposed knowledge as well as of supposed unanimity.
Sokrates required them to define the general word--to assign some common objective characteristic, corresponding in all cases to the common subjective feeling represented by the word.
But no man could comply with his requirement, nor could he himself comply with it, any more than his respondents.
So far Sokrates proceeded, and no farther, according to Aristotle.
He never altogether lost his hold on particulars: he assumed that there must be something common to them all, if you could but find out what it was, constituting the objective meaning of the general term.
Plato made a step beyond him, though under the name of Sokrates as spokesman.
Not being able (any more than Sokrates) to discover or specify any real objective characteristic, common to all the particulars--he objectivised[43] the word itself: that is, he assumed or imagined a new objective Ens of his own, the Platonic Idea, corresponding to the general word: an idea not common to the particulars, but existing apart from them in a sphere of its own--yet nevertheless lending itself in some inexplicable way to be participated by all the particulars.
It was only in this way that Plato could explain to himself how knowledge was possible: this universal Ens being the only object of knowledge: particulars being an indefinite variety of fleeting appearances, and as such in themselves unknowable.
The imagination of Plato created a new world of Forms, Ideas, Concepts, or objects corresponding to general terms: which he represents as the only objects of knowledge, and as the only realities.
[Footnote 42: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 8, C-D, Euripides, Phoenissæ, 499-[Greek: ei) pa=si tau)to\ kalo\n e)/phu, sopho/n th' a)/ma, ou)k ê)=n a)\n a)mphilekto\s a)nthrô/pois e)/ris; nu=n d' ou)th' o(/moion ou)de\n ou)/t' i)/son bro/tois, plê\n o)noma/sai; to\ d' e)/rgon ou)k e)/stin to/de].
Hobbes expresses, in the following terms, this fact of subjective similarity co-existent with great objective dissimilarity among mankind.
"For the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the thoughts and passions of another, whoever looketh into himself and considereth what he does when he does _think_, _opine_, _reason_, _hope_, _fear_, &c., and upon what grounds, he shall thereby read and know what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like occasions.
I say the similitude of _passions_, which are the same in all men, _desire_, _fear_, _hope_, &c., not the similitude of the _objects_ of the passions, which are the things _desired_, _feared_, _hoped_, &c., for these the constitution individual, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our knowledge, that the characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded as they are with lying, dissembling, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts."
Introduction to Leviathan.]
[Footnote 43: Aristot.
Metaphys.
M. 1078, b.
30, 1086, b.
4.]
[Side-note: The Holy--it has an essential characteristic--what is this?--not the fact that it is loved by the Gods--this is true, but is not its constituent essence.]
In the Euthyphron, however, we have not yet passed into this Platonic world, of self-existent Forms--objects of conception--concepts detached from sensible particulars.
We are still with Sokrates and with ordinary men among the world of particulars, only that Sokrates introduced a new mode of looking at all the particulars, and searched among them for some common feature which he did not find.
The Holy (and the Unholy) is a word freely pronounced by every speaker, and familiarly understood by every hearer, as if it denoted something one and the same in all these particulars.
[44] What is that something--the common essence or idea?
Euthyphron cannot tell; though he agrees with Sokrates that there must be such essence.
His attempts to explain it prove failures.
[Footnote 44: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 D, 6 E.] The definition of the Holy--that it is what the Gods love--is suggested in this dialogue, but rejected.
The Holy is not Holy because the Gods love it: on the contrary, its holiness is an independent fact, and the Gods love it because it is Holy.
The Holy is thus an essence, _per se_, common to, or partaken by, all holy persons and things.
[Side-note: Views of the Xenophontic Sokrates respecting the Holy--different from those of the Platonic Sokrates--he disallows any common absolute general type of the Holy--he recognises an indefinite variety of types, discordant and relative.]
So at least the Platonic Sokrates here regards it.
But the Xenophontic Sokrates, if we can trust the Memorabilia, would not have concurred in this view: for we read that upon all points connected with piety or religious observance, he followed the precept which the Pythian priestess delivered as an answer to all who consulted the Delphian oracle on similar questions--You will act piously by conforming to the law of the city.
Sokrates (we are told) not only acted upon this precept himself, but advised his friends to do the like, and regarded those who acted otherwise as foolish and over-subtle triflers.
[45] It is plain that this doctrine disallows all supposition of any general essence, called the Holy, to be discovered and appealed to, as type in cases of doubt; and recognises the equal title of many separate local, discordant, and variable types, each under the sanction of King Nomos.
The procedure of Sokrates in the Euthyphron would not have been approved by the Xenophontic Sokrates.
It is in the spirit of Plato, and is an instance of that disposition which he manifests yet more strongly in the Republic and elsewhere, to look for his supreme authority in philosophical theory and not in the constituted societies around him: thus to innovate in matters religious as well as political--a reproach to him among his own contemporaries, an honour to him among various subsequent Christian writers.
Plato, not conforming to any one of the modes of religious belief actually prevalent in his contemporary world, postulates a canon, suitable to the exigencies of his own mind, of that which the Gods ought to love and must love.
In this respect, as in others, he is in marked contrast with Herodotus--a large observer of mankind, very pious in his own way, curious in comparing the actual practices consecrated among different nations, but not pretending to supersede them by any canon of his own.
[Footnote 45: Compare Xen.
Mem.
i.
3, 1.
[Greek: ê(/ te ga\r Puthi/a no/mô| po/leôs a)nairei= poiou=ntas eu)sebô=s a)\n poiei=n; Sôkra/tês te ou(/tôs kai\ au)to\s e)poi/ei kai\ toi=s a)/llois parê/|nei, tou\s de\ a)/llôs pôs poiou=ntas perie/rgous kai\ matai/ous e)no/mizen ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: The Holy a branch of the Just--not tenable as a definition, but useful as bringing to view the subordination of logical terms.]
Though the Holy, and the Unholy, are pronounced to be each an essence, partaken of by all the particulars so-called; yet what that essence is, the dialogue Euthyphron noway determines.
Even the suggestion of Sokrates--that the Holy is a branch of the Just, only requiring to be distinguished by some assignable mark from the other branches of the Just--is of no avail, since the Just itself had been previously declared to be one of the matters in perpetual dispute.
It procures for Sokrates however the opportunity of illustrating the logical subordination of terms; the less general comprehended in the more general, and requiring to be parted off by some _differentia_ from the rest of what this latter comprehends.
Plato illustrates the matter at some length;[46] and apparently with a marked purpose of drawing attention to it.
We must keep in mind, that logical distinctions had at that time received neither special attention nor special names--however they may have been unconsciously followed in practice.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Euthyphron, p.
12.]
[Side-note: The Euthyphron represents Plato's way of replying to the charge of impiety, preferred by Melêtus against Sokrates--comparison with Xenophon's way of replying.]
What I remarked about the Kriton, appears to me also true about the Euthyphron.
It represents Plato's manner of replying to the charge of impiety advanced by Melêtus and his friends against Sokrates, just as the four first chapters of the Memorabilia represent Xenophon's manner of repelling the same charge.
Xenophon joins issue with the accusers,--describes the language and proceedings of Sokrates, so as to show that he was orthodox and pious, above the measure of ordinary men, in conduct, in ritual, and in language; and expresses his surprise that against such a man the verdict of guilty could have been returned by the Dikasts.
[47] Plato handles the charge in the way in which Sokrates himself would have handled it, if he had been commenting on the same accusation against another person and as he does in fact deal with Melêtus, in the Platonic Apology.
Plato introduces Euthyphron, a very religious man, who prides himself upon being forward to prosecute impiety in whomsoever it is found, and who in this case, under the special promptings of piety, has entered a capital prosecution against his own father.
[48] The occasion is here favourable to the Sokratic interrogatories, applicable to Melêtus no less than to Euthyphron.
"Of course, before you took this grave step, you have assured yourself that you are right, and that you know what piety and impiety are.
Pray tell me, for I am ignorant on the subject: that I may know better and do better for the future.
[49] Tell me, what is the characteristic essence of piety as well as impiety?"
It turns out that the accuser can make no satisfactory answer: that he involves himself in confusion and contradiction:--that he has brought capital indictments against citizens, without having ever studied or appreciated the offence with which he charges them.
Such is the manner in which the Platonic Sokrates is made to deal with Euthyphron, and in which the real Sokrates deals with Melêtus:[50] rendering the questions instrumental to two larger purposes--first, to his habitual crusade against the false persuasion of knowledge--next, to the administering of a logical or dialectical lesson.
When we come to the Treatise De Legibus (where Sokrates does not appear) we shall find Plato adopting the dogmatic and sermonising manner of the first chapters of the Xenophontic Memorabilia.
Here, in the Euthyphron and in the Dialogues of Search generally, the Platonic Sokrates is something entirely different.
[51] [Footnote 47: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1, 4; also iv.
8, 11.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 E.] [Footnote 49: Compare, even in Xenophon, the conversation of Sokrates with Kritias and Chariklês--Memorab.
i.
2, 32-38: and his cross-examination of the presumptuous youth Glaukon, Plato's brother (Mem.
iii.
7).]
[Footnote 50: Plato, Apol.
c. 11, p. 24 C. [Greek: a)dikei=n phêmi\ Me/lêton, o(/ti spoudê=| charienti/zetai, r(a|di/ôs ei)s a)gô=nas kathista\s a)nthrô/pous], &c.] [Footnote 51: Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 199) agrees with the opinion of Schleiermacher and Stallbaum, that the Euthyphron was composed and published during the interval between the lodging of the indictment and the trial of Sokrates.
K. F. Hermann considers it as posterior to the death of Sokrates.
I concur on this point with Hermann.
Indeed I have already given my opinion, that not one of the Platonic dialogues was composed before the death of Sokrates.]
END OF VOL.
I.
************************************* Transcriber's Note The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.
For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used: ) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.
ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta; ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.
Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **: Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction Ch.
1, after fn.
47 devination divination Ch.
1, fn.
119 Kosmichen Kosmischen Ch.
1, fn.
146 mizta mixta Ch.
1, fn.
146 front fronte Ch.
1, fn.
164 & 8, Ch.
1, fn.
164 perie/chno perie/chon Ch.
1, fn.
214 2d 2nd.
Ch.
2, after fn.
21 ultra phenomenal ultra-phenomenal Ch.
3, fn.
40 Taüschung Täuschung Ch.
3, fn.
64 vol.
iii.
vol.
ii.
Ch.
3, fn.
66 art act Ch.
3, fn.
185 Dion.
Diog.
Ch.
3, fn.
206 okêtê\neu)d eu)dokêtê\n Ch.
3, fn.
217 xxix.
xxiv.
Ch.
4, fn.
1 chap.
xxii.
chap.
xxi.
Ch.
5, fn.
24 de-describes describes Ch.
6, before fn.
14 blank space 4.
Ch.
6, fn.
39 passed of : passed off: Ch.
6, fn.
45 the our the four Ch.
7, 3rd para.
Hippias II.
Hippias I. Ch.
7, fn.
8 409 429 Ch.
7, fn.
8 407 427 Ch.
7, fn.
13 Herman Hermann Ch.
8, fn.
92 s. 12, s. 11,
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
BY GEORGE GROTE AUTHOR OF THE 'HISTORY OF GREECE'.
_A NEW EDITION._ IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL.
IV.
LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1888.
_The right of Translation is reserved._ CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXV.
PLATONIC REPUBLIC--ABSTRACT.
Declared theme of the Republic--Expansion and multiplication of the topics connected with it 1 Personages of the dialogue 2 Views of Kephalus about old age _ib._ Definition of Justice by Simonides--It consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him _ib._ Objections to it by Sokrates--There are cases in which it is not right to restore what is owing, or to tell the truth 3 Explanation by Polemarchus--Farther interrogations by Sokrates--Justice renders what is proper and suitable: but how?
in what cases, proper?
Under what circumstances is Justice useful?
4 The just man, being good for keeping property guarded, must also be good for stealing property--Analogies cited 5 Justice consists in doing good to friends, evil to enemies--But how, if a man mistakes who his friends are, and makes friends of bad men?
6 Justice consists in doing good to your friend, if really a good man: hurt to your enemy, with the like proviso.
Sokrates affirms that the just man will do no hurt to any one.
Definition of Simonides rejected _ib._ Thrasymachus takes up the dialogue--Repulsive portrait drawn of him 7 Violence of Thrasymachus--Subdued manner of Sokrates--Conditions of useful colloquy _ib._ Definition given by Thrasymachus--Justice is that which is advantageous to the more powerful.
Comments by Sokrates.
What if the powerful man mistakes his own advantage?
8 Correction by Thrasymachus--if the Ruler mistakes, he is _pro tanto_ no Ruler--The Ruler, _quâ_ Ruler--_quâ_ Craftsman--is infallible 9 Reply by Sokrates--The Ruler, _quâ_ infallible Craftsman, studies the interest of those whom he governs, and not his own interest _ib._ Thrasymachus denies this--Justice is the good of another.
The just many are worse off than the unjust One, and are forced to submit to his superior strength 10 Position laid for the subsequent debate and exposition 11 Arguments of Sokrates--Injustice is a source of weakness--Every multitude must observe justice among themselves, in order to avoid perpetual quarrels.
The same about any single individual: if he is unjust, he will be at war with himself, and perpetually weak _ib._ Farther argument of Sokrates--The just man is happy, the unjust man miserable--Thrasymachus is confuted and silenced.
Sokrates complains that he does not yet know what Justice is _ib._ Glaukon intimates that he is not satisfied with the proof, though he agrees in the opinion expressed by Sokrates.
Tripartite distribution of Good--To which of the three heads does Justice belong?
12 Glaukon undertakes to set forth the case against Sokrates, though professing not to agree with it _ib._ Pleading of Glaukon.
Justice is in the nature of a compromise for all--a medium between what is best and what is worst 13 Comparison of the happiness of the just man derived from his justice alone, when others are unjust to him with that of the unjust man under parallel circumstances 14 Pleading of Adeimantus on the same side.
He cites advice given by fathers to their sons, recommending just behaviour by reason of its consequences 15 Nobody recommends Justice _per se_, but only by reason of its consequences 16 Adeimantus calls upon Sokrates to recommend and enforce Justice on its own grounds, and to explain how Justice in itself benefits the mind of the just man 17 Relation of Glaukon and Adeimantus to Thrasymachus 18 Statement of the question as it stands after the speeches of Glaukon and Adeimantus.
What Sokrates undertakes to prove _ib._ Position to be proved by Sokrates--Justice makes the just man happy _per se_, whatever be its results 20 Argument of Sokrates to show what Justice is--Assumed analogy between the city and the individual _ib._ Fundamental principle, to which communities of mankind owe their origin--Reciprocity of want and service between individuals--No individual can suffice to himself _ib._ Moderate equipment of a sound and healthy city--Few wants 22 Enlargement of the city--Multiplied wants and services.
First origin of war and strife with neighbours--It arises out of these multiplied wants _ib._ Separate class of soldiers or Guardians.
One man cannot do well more than one business.
Character required in the Guardians--Mildness at home with pugnacity against enemies 23 Peculiar education necessary, musical as well as gymnastical 23 Musical education, by fictions as well as by truth.
Fictions addressed to the young: the religious legends now circulating are often pernicious: censorship necessary 24 Orthodox type to be laid down: all poets are required to conform their legends to it.
The Gods are causes of nothing but good: therefore they are causes of few things.
Great preponderance of actual evil _ib._ The Guardians must not fear death.
No terrible descriptions of Hades must be presented to them: no intense sorrow, nor violent nor sensual passion, must be recounted either of Gods or Heroes 25 Type for all narratives respecting men 26 Style of narratives.
The poet must not practise variety of imitation: he must not speak in the name of bad characters _ib._ Rhythm and Melody regulated.
None but simple and grave music allowed: only the Dorian and Phrygian moods, with the lyre and harp _ib._ Effect of musical training of the mind--makes youth love the Beautiful and hate the Ugly 27 Training of the body--simple and sober.
No refined medical art allowed.
Wounds or temporary ailments treated; but sickly frames cannot be kept alive 28 Value of Gymnastic in imparting courage to the mind--Gymnastic and Music necessary to correct each other 29 Out of the Guardians a few of the very best must be chosen as Elders or Rulers--highly educated and severely tested _ib._ Fundamental creed required to be planted in the minds of all the citizens respecting their breed and relationship 30 How is such a fiction to be accredited in the first instance?
Difficulty extreme, of first beginning; but if once accredited, it will easily transmit itself by tradition 31 Guardians to reside in barracks and mess together; to have no private property or home; to be maintained by contribution from the people 32 If the Guardians fail in these precautions, and acquire private interests, the city will be ruined 32 Complete unity of the city, every man performing his own special function 33 The maintenance of the city depends upon that of the habits, character, and education of the Guardians 34 Religious legislation--Consult the Delphian Apollo _ib._ The city is now constituted as a good city--that is, wise, courageous, temperate, just.
Where is its Justice?
_ib._ First, where is the wisdom of the city?
It resides in the few elder Rulers _ib._ Where is the Courage?
In the body of Guardians or Soldiers 35 Where is the Temperance?
It resides in all and each, Rulers, Guardians, and People.
Superiors rule and Inferiors obey _ib._ Where is the Justice?
In all and each of them also.
It consists in each performing his own special function, and not meddling with the function of the others 36 Injustice arises when any one part of the city interferes with the functions of the other part, or undertakes double functions 37 Analogy of the city to the individual--Each man is tripartite, having in his mind Reason, Energy, Appetite.
These three elements are distinct, and often conflicting _ib._ Reason, Energy, Appetite, in the individual--analogous to Rulers, Guardians, Craftsmen in the city.
Reason is to rule Appetite.
Energy assists Reason in ruling it 39 A man is just when these different parts of his mind exercise their appropriate functions without hindrance _ib._ Justice and Injustice in the mind--what health and disease are in the body 40 Original question now resumed--Does Justice make a man happy, and Injustice make him miserable, apart from all consequences?
Answer--Yes _ib._ Glaukon requires farther explanation about the condition of the Guardians, in regard to sexual and family ties 41 Men and women will live together and perform the duties of Guardians alike--They will receive the same gymnastic and musical training 41 Nature does not prescribe any distribution of functions between men and women.
Women are inferior to men in every thing.
The best women are equal to second-best men 42 Community of life and relations between the male and female Guardians.
Temporary marriages arranged by contrivance of the Elders.
No separate families _ib._ Regulations about age, for procreation--Children brought up under public authority 44 Perfect communion of sentiment and interest among the Guardians--Causes of pleasure and pain the same to all, like parts of the same organism _ib._ Harmony--absence of conflicting interest--assured scale of equal comfort--consequent happiness--among the Guardians 45 In case of war both sexes will go together to battle--Rewards to distinguished warriors 46 War against Hellenic enemies to be carried on mildly--Hellens are all by nature kinsmen 47 Question--How is the scheme practicable?
It is difficult, yet practicable on one condition--That philosophy and political power should come into the same hands _ib._ Characteristic marks of the philosopher--He contemplates and knows Entia or unchangeable Forms, as distinguished from fluctuating particulars or Fientia 48 Ens alone can be known--Non-Ens is unknowable.
That which is midway between Ens and Non-Ens (particulars) is matter only of opinion.
Ordinary men attain nothing beyond opinion 49 Particulars fluctuate: they are sometimes just or beautiful, sometimes unjust or ugly.
Forms or Entia alone remain constant 50 The many cannot discern or admit the reality of Forms--Their minds are always fluctuating among particulars 51 The philosopher will be ardent for all varieties of knowledge--His excellent moral attributes--He will be trained to capacity for active life _ib._ Adeimantus does not dispute the conclusion, but remarks that it is at variance with actual facts--Existing philosophers are either worthless pretenders, or when they are good, useless 52 Sokrates admits the fact to be so--His simile of the able steersman on shipboard, among a disobedient crew 53 The uselessness of the true philosopher is the fault of the citizen, who will not invoke his guidance 54 The great qualities required to form a philosopher, become sources of perversion, under a misguiding public opinion _ib._ Mistake of supposing that such perversion arises from the Sophists.
Irresistible effect of the public opinion generally, in tempting or forcing a dissenter into orthodoxy 55 The Sophists and other private teachers accept the prevalent orthodoxy, and conform their teaching to it 56 The people generally hate philosophy--A youth who aspires to it will be hated by the people, and persecuted even by his own relatives 57 The really great minds are thus driven away from the path of philosophy--which is left to empty pretenders 58 Rare cases in which a highly qualified philosopher remains--Being at variance with public opinion, he can achieve nothing, and is lucky if he can obtain safety by silence _ib._ The philosopher must have a community suitable to him, and worthy of him 59 It must be such a community as Sokrates has been describing--But means must be taken to keep up a perpetual succession of philosophers as Rulers 60 Proper manner of teaching philosophy--Not to begin at a very early age _ib._ If the multitude could once see a real, perfect, philosopher, they could not fail to love him: but this never happens 61 Course of training in the Platonic city, for imparting philosophy to the Rulers.
They must be taught to ascend to the Idea of Good.
But what is Good?
_ib._ Ancient disputes upon this point, though every one yearns after Good.
Some say Intelligence; some say Pleasure.
Neither is satisfactory 62 Adeimantus asks what Sokrates says.
Sokrates says that he can not answer: but he compares it by a metaphor to the Sun 63 The Idea of Good rules the ideal or intelligible world, as the Sun rules the sensible or visible world 64 To the intelligible world there are applicable two distinct modes of procedure--the Geometrical--the Dialectic.
Geometrical procedure assumes diagrams 65 Dialectic procedure assumes nothing.
It departs from the highest Form, and steps gradually down to the lowest, without meddling with any thing except Forms 66 Two distinct grades of Cognition--Direct or Superior--Nous--Indirect or Inferior--Dianoia _ib._ Two distinct grades of Opinion also in the Sensible World--Faith or Belief--Conjecture 67 Distinction between the philosopher and the unphilosophical public, illustrated by the simile of the Cave, and the captives imprisoned therein _ib._ Daylight of philosophy contrasted with the firelight and shadows of the Cave 69 Purpose of a philosophical training, to turn a man round from facing the bad light of the Cave to face the daylight of philosophy, and to see the eternal Forms _ib._ Those who have emerged from the Cave into full daylight amidst eternal Forms, must be forced to come down again and undertake active duties--Their reluctance to do this 70 Studies serving as introduction to philosophy--Arithmetic, its awakening power--shock to the mind by felt contradiction _ib._ Perplexity arising from the One and Many, stimulates the mind to an intellectual effort for clearing it up 72 Geometry conducts the mind to wards Universal Ens _ib._ Astronomy--how useful--not useful as now taught--must be studied by ideal figures, not by observation 73 Acoustics, in like manner--The student will be thus conducted to the highest of all studies--Dialectic: and to the region of pure intelligible Forms 74 Question by Glaukon--What is the Dialectic Power?
Sokrates declares that he cannot answer with certainty, and that Glaukon could not follow him if he did 75 He answers partially--It is the consummation of all the sciences, raising the student to the contemplation of pure Forms, and especially to that of the highest Form--_Good_ _ib._ The Synoptic view peculiar to the Dialectician 76 Scale and duration of various studies for the Guardians, from youth upwards _ib._ All these studies, and this education, are common to females as well as males 77 First formation of the Platonic city--how brought about: difficult, but not impossible 78 The city thus formed will last long, but not for ever.
After a certain time, it will begin to degenerate.
Stages of its degeneracy _ib._ 1.
Timocracy and the timocratical individual.
2 Oligarchy, and the oligarchical individual 79 3.
Democracy, and the democratical individual 80 4.
Passage from democracy to despotism.
Character of the despotic city 81 Despotic individual corresponding to that city 82 The city has thus passed by four stages, from best to worse.
Question--How are Happiness and Misery apportioned among them?
_ib._ Misery of the despotised city 83 Supreme Misery of the despotising individual _ib._ Conclusion--The Model city and the individual corresponding to it, are the happiest of all--That which is farthest removed from it, is the most miserable of all 84 The Just Man is happy in and through his Justice, however he may be treated by others.
The Unjust Man, miserable 84 Other arguments proving the same conclusion--Pleasures of Intelligence are the best of all pleasures _ib._ They are the only pleasures completely true and pure.
Comparison of pleasure and pain with neutrality.
Prevalent illusions 86 Most men know nothing of true and pure pleasure.
Simile of the Kosmos--Absolute height and depth 87 Nourishment of the mind partakes more of real essence than nourishment of the body--Replenishment of the mind imparts fuller pleasure than replenishment of the body 88 Comparative worthlessness of the pleasures of Appetite and Ambition, when measured against those of Intelligence 89 The Just Man will be happy from his justice--He will look only to the good order of his own mind--He will stand aloof from public affairs, in cities as now constituted 90 Tenth Book--Censure of the poets is renewed--Mischiefs of imitation generally, as deceptive--Imitation from imitation 91 Censure of Homer--He is falsely extolled as educator of the Hellenic world.
He and other poets only deceive their hearers 92 The poet chiefly appeals to emotions--Mischiefs of such eloquent appeals, as disturbing the rational government of the mind _ib._ Ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry--Plato fights for philosophy, though his feelings are strongly enlisted for poetry 93 Immortality of the soul affirmed and sustained by argument--Total number of souls always the same _ib._ Recapitulation--The Just Man will be happy, both from his justice and from its consequences, both here and hereafter 94 CHAPTER XXXVI.
REPUBLIC--REMARKS ON ITS MAIN THESIS.
Summary of the preceding chapter 95 Title of the Republic, of ancient date, but only a partial indication of its contents 96 Parallelism between the Commonwealth and the Individual 96 Each of them a whole, composed of parts distinct in function and unequal in merit 97 End proposed by Plato.
Happiness of the Commonwealth.
Happiness of the individual.
Conditions of happiness 98 Peculiar view of Justice taken by Plato 99 Pleadings of Glaukon and Adeimantus _ib._ The arguments which they enforce were not invented by the Sophists, but were the received views anterior to Plato 100 Argument of Sokrates to refute them.
Sentiments in which it originates.
Panegyric on Justice 101 Different senses of justice--wider and narrower sense 102 Plato's sense of the word Justice or Virtue--self-regarding 104 He represents the motives to it, as arising from the internal happiness of the just agents 105 His theory departs more widely from the truth than that which he opposes.
Argument of Adeimantus discussed 106 A Reciprocity of rights and duties between men in social life--different feelings towards one and towards the other 109 Plato's own theory, respecting the genesis of society, is based on reciprocity 111 Antithesis and correlation of obligation and right.
Necessity of keeping the two ideas together, as the basis of any theory respecting society 112 Characteristic feature of the Platonic Commonwealth--specialization of services to that function for which each man is fit--will not apply to one individual separately 114 Plato has not made good his refutation--the thesis which he impugns is true 116 Statement of the real issue between him and his opponents 117 He himself misrepresents this issue--he describes his opponents as enemies of justice _ib._ Farther arguments of Plato in support of his thesis.
Comparison of three different characters of men 118 His arguments do not go to the point which he professes to aim at 120 Exaggerated parallelism between the Commonwealth and the individual man 121 Second Argument of Plato to prove the happiness of the just man--He now recalls his previous concession, and assumes that the just man will receive just treatment and esteem from others _ib._ Dependence of the happiness of the individual on the society in which he is placed 123 Inconsistency of affirming general positions respecting the happiness of the just man, in all societies without distinction 124 Qualified sense in which only this can be done 125 Question--Whether the just man is orthodox or dissenter in his society?--important in discussing whether he is happy 126 Comparison of the position of Sokrates at Athens, with that of his accusers _ib._ Imperfect ethical basis on which Plato has conducted the discussion in the Republic 127 Plato in Republic is preacher, inculcating useful beliefs--not philosopher, establishing scientific theory.
State of Just and Unjust Man in the Platonic Commonwealth 129 Comparative happiness of the two in actual communities.
Plato is dissatisfied with it--This is his motive for recasting society on his own principles 130 Confusion between the preacher and the philosopher in the Platonic Republic 131 Remarks on the contrast between ethical theory and ethical precepts _ib._ CHAPTER XXXVII.
REPUBLIC--REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH.
Double purpose of the Platonic Republic--ethical and political 133 Plato recognises the generating principle of human society--reciprocity of need and service.
Particular direction which he gives to this principle 133 The four cardinal virtues are assumed as constituting the whole of Good or Virtue, where each of these virtues resides 134 First mention of these, as an exhaustive classification, in ethical theory.
Plato effaces the distinction between Temperance and Justice 135 All the four are here assumed as certain and determinate, though in former dialogues they appear indeterminate and full of unsolved difficulties 137 Difficulties left unsolved, but overleaped by Plato 138 Ethical and political theory combined by Plato, treated apart by Aristotle _ib._ Platonic Commonwealth--only an outline--partially filled up 139 Absolute rule of a few philosophers--Careful and peculiar training of the Guardians _ib._ Comparison of Plato with Xenophon--Cyropædia--OEconomicus 141 Both of them combine polity with education--temporal with spiritual 142 Differences between them--Character of Cyrus _ib._ Xenophontic genius for command--Practical training--Sokratic principles applied in Persian training 144 Plato does not build upon an individual hero.
Platonic training compared with Xenophontic 146 Platonic type of character compared with Xenophontic, is like the Athenian compared with the Spartan 147 Professional soldiers are the proper modern standard of comparison with the regulations of Plato and Xenophon 148 Music and Gymnastic--multifarious and varied effects of music 149 Great influence of the poets and their works on education _ib._ Plato's idea of the purpose which poetry and music _ought_ to serve in education 151 He declares war against most of the traditional and consecrated poetry, as mischievous _ib._ Strict limits imposed by Plato on poets 153 His view of the purposes of fiction--little distinction between fiction and truth.
His censures upon Homer and the tragedians 154 Type of character prescribed by Plato, to which all poets must conform, in tales about Gods and Heroes 155 Position of Plato as an innovator on the received faith and traditions.
Fictions indispensable to the Platonic Commonwealth 156 Difficulty of procuring first admission for fictions.
Ease with which they perpetuate themselves after having been once admitted 158 Views entertained by Kritias and others, that the religious doctrines generally believed had originated with law-givers, for useful purposes 159 Main points of dissent between Plato and his countrymen, in respect to religious doctrine 161 Theology of Plato compared with that of Epikurus--Neither of them satisfied the exigencies of a believing religious mind of that day _ib._ Plato conceives the Gods according to the exigencies of his own mind--complete discord with those of the popular mind 163 Repugnance of ordinary Athenians in regard to the criticism of Sokrates on the religious legends 165 Aristophanes connects the idea of immorality with the freethinkers and their wicked misinterpretations _ib._ Heresies ascribed to Sokrates by his own friends--Unpopularity of his name from this circumstance 168 Restrictions imposed by Plato upon musical modes and reciters _ib._ All these restrictions intended for the emotional training of the Guardians 169 Regulations for the life of the Guardians, especially the prohibition of separate property and family _ib._ Purpose of Plato in these regulations _ib._ Common life, education, drill, collective life, and duties, for Guardians of both sexes.
Views of Plato respecting the female character and aptitudes 171 His arguments against the ordinary doctrine 172 Opponents appealed to nature as an authority against Plato.
He invokes Nature on his own side against them 173 Collective family relations and denominations among the Guardians 174 Restrictions upon sexual intercourse--Purposes of such restrictions 175 Regulations about marriages and family 176 Procreative powers of individual Guardians required to be held at the disposal of the rulers, for purity of breed 177 Purpose to create an intimate and equal sympathy among all the Guardians, but to prevent exclusive sympathy of particular members 178 Platonic scheme--partial communism 179 Soldiership as a separate profession has acquired greater development in modern times 180 Spartan institutions--great impression which they produced upon speculative Greek minds 181 Plans of these speculative minds compared with Spartan--Different types of character contemplated 182 Plato carries abstraction farther than Xenophon or Aristotle 183 Anxiety shown by Plato for the good treatment of the Demos, greater than that shown by Xenophon and Aristotle _ib._ In Aristotle's theory, the Demos are not considered as members of the Commonwealth, but as adjuncts 184 Objection urged by Aristotle against the Platonic Republic, that it will be two cities.
Spiritual pride of the Guardians, contempt for the Demos _ib._ Plato's scheme fails, mainly because he provides no training for the Demos 186 Principle of Aristotle--That every citizen belongs to the city, not to himself--applied by Plato to women 187 Aristotle declares the Platonic Commonwealth impossible--In what sense this is true 189 The real impossibility of the Platonic Commonwealth, arises from the fact that discordant sentiments are already established 191 Plato has strong feelings of right and wrong about sexual intercourse, but referring to different objects 192 Different sentiment which would grow up in the Platonic Commonwealth respecting the sexual relations 193 What Nature prescribes in regard to the relations of the two sexes--Direct contradiction between Plato and Aristotle 194 Opinion of Plato respecting the capacities of women, and the training proper for women, are maintained in the Leges, as well as in the Republic.
Ancient legends harmonising with this opinion 195 In a Commonwealth like the Platonic, the influence of Aphroditê would probably have been reduced to a minimum 197 Other purposes of Plato--limitation of number of Guardians--common to Aristotle also 198 Law of population expounded by Malthus--Three distinct checks to population--alternative open between preventive and positive _ib._ Plato and Aristotle saw the same law as Malthus, but arranged the facts under a different point of view 202 Regulations of Plato and Aristotle as to number of births and newborn children _ib._ Such regulations disapproved and forbidden by modern sentiment.
Variability of ethical sentiment as to objects approved or disapproved 203 Plato and Aristotle required subordination of impulse to reason and duty--they applied this to the procreative impulse, as to others 204 Training of the few select philosophers to act as chiefs 205 Comprehensive curriculum for aspirants to philosophy--consummation by means of Dialectic 206 Valuable remarks on the effects of these preparatory studies 207 Differences between the Republic and other dialogues--no mention of reminiscence nor of the Elenchus _ib._ Different view taken by Plato in the Republic about Dialectic--and different place assigned to it 208 Contradiction with the spirit of other dialogues Parmenidês, &c. 209 Contradiction with the character and declarations of Sokrates 210 The remarks here made upon the effect of Dialectic upon youth coincide with the accusation of Melêtus against Sokrates 211 Contrast between the real Sokrates, as a dissenter at Athens, and the Platonic Sokrates, framer and dictator of the Platonic Republic _ib._ Idea of Good--The Chiefs alone know what it is--If they did not they would be unfit for their functions 212 What is the Good?
Plato does not know; but he requires the Chiefs to know it.
Without this the Republic would be a failure 213 CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.
Persons and scheme of the Timæus and Kritias 215 The Timæus is the earliest ancient physical theory, which we possess in the words of its author 216 Position and character of the Pythagorean Timæus _ib._ Poetical imagination displayed by Plato.
He pretends to nothing more than probability.
Contrast with Sokrates, Isokrates, Xenophon 217 Fundamental distinction between Ens and Fientia 219 Postulates of Plato.
The Demiurgus--The Eternal Ideas--Chaotic Materia or Fundamentum.
The Kosmos is a living being and a God 220 The Demiurgus not a Creator--The Kosmos arises from his operating upon the random movements of Necessity.
He cannot controul necessity--he only persuades _ib._ Meaning of Necessity in Plato 221 Process of demiurgic construction--The total Kosmos comes logically first, constructed on the model of the [Greek: Au)tozô=on] 223 Body of the Kosmos, perfectly spherical--its rotations 225 Soul of the Kosmos--its component ingredients--stretched from centre to circumference _ib._ Regular or measured Time--began with the Kosmos 227 Divine tenants of the Kosmos.
Primary and Visible Gods--Stars and Heavenly Bodies 229 Secondary and generated Gods--Plato's dictum respecting them.
His acquiescence in tradition 230 Remarks on Plato's Canon of Belief 231 Address and order of the Demiurgus to the generated Gods 233 Preparations for the construction of man.
Conjunction of three souls and one body _ib._ Proceedings of the generated Gods--they fabricate the cranium, as miniature of the Kosmos, with the rational soul rotating within it 235 The cranium is mounted on a tall body--six varieties of motion--organs of sense.
Vision--Light 236 Principal advantages of sight and hearing.
Observations of the rotation of the Kosmos 237 The Kosmos is product of joint action of Reason and Necessity.
The four visible and tangible elements are not primitive 238 Forms or Ideas and Materia Prima--Forms of the Elements--Place, or Receptivity _ib._ Primordial Chaos--Effect of intervention by the Demiurgus 240 Geometrical theory of the elements--fundamental triangles--regular solids _ib._ Varieties of each element 242 Construction of man imposed by the Demiurgus upon the secondary Gods.
Triple Soul.
Distribution thereof in the body 243 Functions of the heart and lungs.
Thoracic soul 245 Abdominal Soul--difficulty of controuling it--functions of the liver _ib._ The liver is made the seat of the prophetic agency.
Function of the spleen 246 Length of the intestinal canal, in order that food might not be frequently needed 247 Bone--Flesh--Marrow _ib._ Nails--Mouth--Teeth.
Plants produced for nutrition of man 248 General view of Diseases and their Causes 249 Diseases of mind--wickedness is a disease--no man is voluntarily wicked _ib._ Badness of mind arises from body 250 Preservative and healing agencies against disease--well-regulated exercise, of mind and body proportionally 250 Treatment proper for mind alone, apart from body--supremacy of the rational soul must be cultivated 251 We must study and understand the rotations of the Kosmos--this is the way to amend the rotations of the rational soul 252 Construction of women, birds, quadrupeds, fishes, &c., all from the degradation of primitive man _ib._ Large range of topics introduced in the Timæus 254 The Demiurgus of the Platonic Timæus--how conceived by other philosophers of the same century _ib._ Adopted and welcomed by the Alexandrine Jews, as a parallel to the Mosaic Genesis 256 Physiology of the Platonic Timæus--subordinate to Plato's views of ethical teleology.
Triple soul--each soul at once material and mental 257 Triplicity of the soul--espoused afterwards by Galen 258 Admiration of Galen for Plato--his agreement with Plato, and his dissension from Plato--his improved physiology 259 Physiology and Pathology of Plato--compared with that of Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises 260 Contrast between the admiration of Plato for the constructors of the Kosmos, and the defective results which he describes 262 Degeneration of the real tenants of Earth from their primitive type 263 Close of the Timæus.
Plato turns away from the shameful results, and reverts to the glorification of the primitive types 264 Kritias: a fragment 265 Prooemium to Timæus.
Intended Tetralogy for the Republic.
The Kritias was third piece in that Tetralogy _ib._ Subject of the Kritias.
Solon and the Egyptian priests.
Citizens of Platonic Republic are identified with ancient Athenians 266 Plato professes that what he is about to recount is matter of history, recorded by Egyptian priests 268 Description of the vast island of Atlantis and its powerful kings _ib._ Corruption and wickedness of the Atlantid people 269 Conjectures as to what the Platonic Kritias would have been--an ethical epic in prose _ib._ Plato represents the epic Kritias as matter of recorded history 270 CHAPTER XXXIX.
** LEGES AND EPINOMIS.
** Leges, the longest of Plato's works--Persons of the dialogue 272 Abandonment of Plato's philosophical projects prior to the Leges 273 Untoward circumstances of Plato's later life--His altered tone in regard to philosophy _ib._ General comparison of Leges with Plato's earlier works 275 Scene of the Leges, not in Athens, but in Krete.
Persons Kretan and Spartan, comparatively illiterate 277 Gymnastic training, military drill, and public mess, in Krete and Sparta 279 Difference between Leges and Republic, illustrated by reference to the Politikus 280 Large proportion of preliminary discussions and didactic exhortation in the Leges 281 Scope of the discussion laid down by the Athenian speaker--The Spartan institutions are framed only for war--This is narrow and erroneous 282 Principles on which the institutions of a state ought to be defended--You must show that its ethical purpose and working is good 284 Religious and ethical character postulated by Plato for a community _ib._ Endurance of pain enforced as a part of the public discipline at Sparta 285 Why are not the citizens tested in like manner, in regard to resistance against the seductions of pleasure?
_ib._ Drunkenness forbidden at Sparta, and blamed by the Spartan converser.
The Athenian proceeds to inquire how far such unqualified prohibition is justifiable 286 Description of Sokrates in the Symposion--his self-command under abundant potations 287 Sokrates--an ideal of self-command, both as to pain and as to pleasure 288 Trials for testing the self-controul of the citizen, under the influence of wine.
Dionysiac banquets, under a sober president 289 The gifts of Dionysus may, by precautions, be rendered useful--Desultory manner of Plato _ib._ Theory of ethical and æsthetical education--Training of the emotions of youth through the influence of the Muses, Apollo, and Dionysus.
Choric practice and ceremonies 290 Music and dancing--imitation of the voice and movements of brave and virtuous men.
Youth must be taught to take delight in this 291 Bad musical exhibitions and poetry forbidden by the lawgiver.
Songs and dances must be consecrated by public authority.
Prizes at the musical festivals to be awarded by select judges 292 The Spartan and Kretan agree with the Athenian, that poets must be kept under a strict censorship.
But they do not agree as to what the poets are required to conform to _ib._ Ethical creed laid down by the Athenian--Poets required to conform to it 294 The Spartan and Kretan do not agree with him 296 Chorus of Elders are required to set an example in keeping up the purity of the music prescribed 297 The Elders require the stimulus of wine, in order to go through the choric duties with spirit _ib._ Peculiar views of Plato about intoxication 298 General ethical doctrine held by Plato in Leges 299 Pleasure--Good--Happiness--What is the relation between them?
_ib._ Comparison of the doctrine laid down in Leges 300 Doctrine in Leges about Pleasure and Good--approximates more nearly to the Protagoras than to Gorgias and Philêbus 301 Comparison of Leges with Republic and Gorgias 302 Plato here mistrusts the goodness of his own proof.
He falls back upon useful fiction 303 Deliberate ethical fiction employed as means of governing 304 Importance of music and chorus as an engine of teaching for Plato.
Views of Xenophon and Aristotle compared 305 Historical retrospect as to the growth of cities--Frequent destruction of established communities, with only a small remnant left 307 Historical or legendary retrospect--The Trojan war--The return of the Herakleids 308 Difficulties of government--Conflicts about command--Seven distinct titles to command exist among mankind, all equally natural, and liable to conflict 309 Imprudence of founding government upon any one of these titles separately--Governments of Argos and Messênê ruined by the single principle--Sparta avoided it 310 Plato casts Hellenic legend into accordance with his own political theories 311 Persia and Athens compared--Excess of despotism.
Excess of liberty 312 Cyrus and Darius--Bad training of sons of kings _ib._ Changes for the worse in government of Athens, after the Persian invasion of Greece 313 This change began in music, and the poets introduced new modes of composition--they appealed to the sentiment of the people, and corrupted them 314 Danger of changes in the national music--declared by Damon, the musical teacher 315 Plato's aversion to the tragic and comic poetry at Athens 316 This aversion peculiar to himself, not shared either by oligarchical politicians, or by other philosophers 317 Doctrines of Plato in this prefatory matter 318 Compared with those of the Republic and of the Xenophontic Cyropædia 319 Constructive scheme--Plato's new point of view 320 New Colony to be founded in Krete--its general conditions _ib._ The Athenian declares that he will not merely promulgate peremptory laws, but will recommend them to the citizens by prologues or hortatory discourses 321 General character of these prologues--didactic or rhetorical homilies 322 Great value set by Plato himself upon these prologues.
They are to serve as type for all poets.
No one is allowed to contradict them 323 Contrast of Leges with Gorgias and Phædrus 324 Regulations for the new colony--About religious worship, the oracles of Delphi and Dodona are to be consulted 325 Perpetuity of number of citizens, and of lots of land, one to each, inalienable and indivisible 326 Plato reasserts his adherence to the principle of the Republic, though the repugnance of others hinders him from realising it 327 Regulations about land, successions, marriages, &c. The number of citizens must not be allowed to increase 328 Position of the city and akropolis--Distribution of the territory and citizens into twelve equal sections or tribes 329 Movable property--Inequality therein reluctantly allowed, as far as four to one, but no farther 330 Census of the citizens--four classes, with graduated scale of property.
No citizen to possess gold or silver.
No loans or interest.
No debts enforced by law 331 Board of thirty-seven Nomophylakes--general supervisors of the laws and their execution--how elected 332 Military commanders--General council of 360--complicated mode of election _ib._ Character of the electoral scheme--Plato's views about wealth--he caters partly for the oligarchical sentiment, partly for the democratical 333 Meetings of council--other magistrates--Agoranomi--Astynomi, &c. 335 Defence of the territory--rural police--Agronomi, &c. _ib._ Comparison with the Lacedæmonian Kryptia 336 Priests--Exêgêtæ--Property belonging to temples 337 Superintendence of Music and Gymnastic.
Educational function _ib._ Grave duties of the Minister of Education--precautions in electing him 338 Judicial duties 339 Private Causes--how tried _ib._ Public Causes must be tried directly by the citizens--strong feeling among Greeks about this 340 Plato's way of meeting this feeling--intermediate inquiry and report by a special Commissioner 340 What laws the magistrates are to enforce--Many details must be left to the Nomophylakes 341 Marriage-Laws--Rich husbands to choose poor wives--No dowries--costly marriage festivals are forbidden 342 Laws about slavery.
Slaves to be well fed, and never treated with cruelty or insolence.
The master must not converse with them _ib._ Circular form for the city--Temples in the centre--No walls round it 344 Mode of life prescribed to new-married couples They are to take the best care about good procreation for the city _ib._ Board of superintending matrons 345 Age fixed for marriage.
During the first ten years the couple are under obligation to procreate for the city--Restrictions during these ten years _ib._ How infants are to be brought up--Nurses--Perpetual regulated movements useful for toning down violent emotions 346 Choric and orchestic movements, their effect in discharging strong emotions 347 Training of boys and girls 348 Musical and literary teaching for youth--Poetry, songs, music, dances, must all be fixed by authority, and never changed--Mischief done by poets aiming to please 349 Boys and girls to learn letters and the lyre, from ten to thirteen years of age.
Masters will teach the laws and homilies of the lawgiver, and licensed extracts from the poets 350 The teaching is to be simple, and common to both sexes 351 Rudiments of arithmetic and geometry to be taught 352 Astronomy must be taught, in order that the citizens may not assert libellous falsehoods respecting the heavenly bodies 354 Hunting--how far permitted or advised 355 Large general sense which Plato gives to the word hunting 356 Number of religious sacrifices to be determined by lawgiver 357 Military muster of the whole citizen population once in each month--men, women, and children 358 Gymnastic training must have reference to war, not to athletic prizes 358 Regulation of sexual intercourse.
Syssitia or public mess 359 Regulations about landed property--Boundaries--Limited power of fining by magistrates 360 Regulations about artisans--Distribution of the annual landed produce 361 Admission of resident Metics--conditions attached 362 Offences and penal judicature--Procedure of the Dikasts _ib._ Sacrilege, the gravest of all crimes.
High Treason 363 Theft punished by _poena dupli_.
General exhortation founded by Plato upon this enactment 364 All unjust men are unjust involuntarily.--No such thing as voluntary injustice.
Injustice depends upon the temper of the agent--Distinction between damage and injury 365 Damage may be voluntary or involuntary--Injustice is shown often by conferring corrupt profit upon another--Purpose of punishment, to heal the distemper of the criminal _ib._ Three distinct causes of misguided proceedings.
1.
Painful stimulus.
2.
Pleasurable stimulus.
3.
Ignorance 366 The unjust man is under the influence either of the first or second of these causes, without controul of Reason.
If he acts under controul of Reason, though the Reason be bad, he is not unjust 367 Reasoning of Plato to save his doctrine--That no man commits injustice voluntarily _ib._ Peculiar definition of injustice.
A man may do great voluntary hurt to others, and yet not be unjust, provided he does it under the influence of Reason, and not of Appetite 368 Plato's purpose in the Laws is to prevent or remedy not only injustice but misconduct 369 Varieties of homicide--modes of dealing with them penally 370 Homicide involuntary--Homicide under provocation _ib._ Homicide voluntary 371 Homicide between kinsmen 372 Homicide justifiable--in what cases _ib._ Infliction of wounds _ib._ Infliction of blows 373 Plato has borrowed much from Attic procedure, especially in regard to Homicide--Peculiar view of Homicide at Athens, as to procedure 374 Impiety or outrage offered to divine things or places 375 All impiety arises from one or other of three heresies.
1.
No belief in the Gods.
2.
Belief that the Gods interfere very little.
3.
Belief that they may be appeased by prayer and sacrifice 376 Punishment for these three heretical beliefs, with or without overt act _ib._ Heretic, whose conduct has been virtuous and faultless, to be imprisoned for five years, perhaps more _ib._ Heretic with bad conduct--punishment to be inflicted 377 No private worship or religious rites allowed.
Every citizen must worship at the public temples _ib._ Uncertain and mischievous action of the religious sentiment upon individuals, if not controuled by public authority 378 Intolerant spirit of Plato's legislation respecting uniformity of belief 379 The persons denounced by Plato as heretics, and punished as such, would have included a majority of the Grecian world 381 Proëm or prefatory discourse of Plato, for these severe laws against heretics 383 The third variety of heresy is declared to be the worst--the belief in Gods persuadable by prayer and sacrifice 384 Heretics censured by Plato--Sokrates censured before the Athenian Dikasts 385 Kosmological and Kosmogonical theory announced in Leges 386 Soul--older, more powerful in the universe than Body.
Different souls are at work in the universe--the good soul and the bad soul _ib._ Plato's argument is unsatisfactory and inconsistent 388 Reverence of Plato for uniform circular rotation 389 Argument of Plato to confute the second class of heretics _ib._ Contrary doctrine of Plato in Republic 390 Argument of Plato to refute the third class of heretics 391 General belief in Greece about the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice to appease the Gods 392 Incongruities of Plato's own doctrine 393 Both Herodotus and Sokrates dissented from Plato's doctrine 394 Great opposition which Plato's doctrine would have encountered in Greece 395 Local infallibility was claimed as a rule in each community, though rarely enforced with severity: Plato both claims it more emphatically, and enforces it more rigorously 396 Farther civil and political regulations for the Magnetic community.
No evidence that Plato had studied the working of different institutions in practice 397 Modes of acquiring property--legitimate and illegitimate _ib._ Plato's general regulations leave little room for disputes about ownership 398 Plato's principles of legislation, not consistent--comparison of them with the Attic law about Eranoi 399 Regulations about slaves, and about freedmen 400 Provisions in case a slave is sold, having a distemper upon him 401 Retailers.
Strict regulations about them.
No citizen can be a retailer _ib._ Frauds committed by sellers--severe punishments on them 402 Comparison with the lighter punishment inflicted by Attic law 403 Regulations about Orphans and Guardians: also about Testamentary powers 404 Plato's general coincidence with Attic law and its sentiment 406 Tutelage of Orphans--Disagreement of Married Couples--Divorce _ib._ Neglect of Parents 407 Poison--Magic--Incantations--Severe punishment _ib._ Punishment is inflicted with a view to future prevention or amendment 408 Penalty for abusive words--for libellous comedy.
Mendicity forbidden 409 Regulations about witnesses on judicial trials _ib._ Censure of forensic eloquence, and the teachers of it.
Penalties against contentious litigation 410 Many of Plato's laws are discharges of ethical antipathy.
The antipathy of Melêtus against Sokrates was of the same character 411 Penalty for abuse of public trust--wrongful appropriation of public money--evasion of military service 412 Oaths.
Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be sworn 413 Regulations about admission of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens 414 Suretyship--Length of prescription for ownership, &c. 415 Judicial trial--three stages.
1.
Arbitrators.
2.
Tribe-Dikasteries.
3.
Select Dikastery _ib._ Funerals--proceedings prescribed--expense limited _ib._ Conservative organ to keep up the original scheme of the lawgiver.
Nocturnal Council for this purpose--how constituted _ib._ This Council must keep steadily in view the one great end of the city--Mistakes made by existing cities about the right end 417 The one end of the city is the virtue of its citizens--that property which is common to the four varieties of Virtue--Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice _ib._ The Nocturnal** Council must comprehend this unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be carried out in detail 418 They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon the citizens, an orthodox religious creed.
Fundamental dogmas of such creed 419 Leges close, without describing the education proper for the Nocturnal Counsellors.
_Epinomis_ supplying this defect 420 The Athenian declares his plan of education--Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy _ib._ Theological view of Astronomy--Divine Kosmos--Soul more ancient and more sovereign than Body 421 Improving effects of the study of Astronomy in this spirit 422 Study of arithmetic and geometry: varieties of proportion 423 When the general forms of things have thus been learnt, particular individuals in nature must be brought under them _ib._ Question as to education of the Nocturnal Council is answered in the Epinomis 424 Problem which the Nocturnal Council are required to solve, What is the common property of Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, by reason of which each is called Virtue?
425 The only common property is that all of them are essential to the maintenance of society, and tend to promote human security and happiness _ib._ Tendency of the four opposite qualities to lessen human happiness 426 A certain measure of all the four virtues is required.
In judging of particular acts instigated by each, there is always a tacit reference to the hurt or benefit in the special case _ib._ Plato places these four virtues in the highest scale of Expetenda or Bona, on the ground that all the other Bona are sure to flow from them 428 In thus directing the attention of the Council to the common property of the four virtues, Plato enforces upon them the necessity of looking to the security and happiness of their community as the paramount end 429 But he enjoins also other objectionable ends _ib._ Intolerance of Plato--Comparison of the Platonic community with Athens _ib._ PLATO.
CHAPTER XXXV.
PLATONIC REPUBLIC--ABSTRACT.
The Republic is the longest of all the Platonic dialogues, except the dialogue De Legibus.
It consists of ten books, each of them as long as any one of the dialogues which we have passed in review.
Partly from its length--partly from its lofty pretensions as the great constructive work of Plato--I shall give little more than an abstract of it in the present chapter, and shall reserve remark and comment for the succeeding.
[Side-note: Declared theme of the Republic--Expansion and multiplication of the topics connected with it.]
The professed subject is--What is Justice?
Is the just man happy in or by reason of his justice?
whatever consequences may befall him?
Is the unjust man unhappy by reason of his injustice?
But the ground actually travelled over by Sokrates, from whose mouth the exposition proceeds, is far more extensive than could have been anticipated from this announced problem.
An immense variety of topics, belonging to man and society, is adverted to more or less fully.
A theory of psychology or phrenology generally, is laid down and advocated: likewise a theory of the Intellect, distributed into its two branches: 1.
Science, with the Platonic Forms or Ideas as Realities corresponding to it; 2.
Opinion, with the fluctuating semi-realities or pseudo-realities, which form its object.
A sovereign rule, exercised by philosophy, is asserted as indispensable to human happiness.
The fundamental conditions of a good society, as Plato conceived it, are set forth at considerable length, and contrasted with the social corruptions of various existing forms of government.
The outline of a perfect education, intellectual and emotional, is drawn up and prescribed for the ruling class: with many accompanying remarks on the objectionable tendencies of the popular and consecrated poems.
The post-existence, as well as the pre-existence of the soul, is affirmed in the concluding books.
As the result of the whole, Plato emphatically proclaims his conviction, that the just man is happy in and through his justice, quite apart from all consideration of consequences--yet that the consequences also will be such as to add to his happiness, both during life as well as after death: and the unjust man unhappy in and through his injustice.
[1] [Footnote 1: Plat.
Repub.
i. pp.
328 A, 350 D, 354 A.]
[Side-note: Personages of the dialogue.]
The dramatic introduction of the dialogue (which is described as held during the summer, immediately after the festival of the Bendideia in Peiræus), with the picture of the aged Kephalus and his views upon old age, is among the richest and most spirited in the Platonic works: but the discussion does not properly begin until Kephalus retires, leaving it to be carried on by Sokrates with Polemarchus, Glaukon, Adeimantus, and Thrasymachus.
[Side-note: Views of Kephalus about old age.]
"Old age has its advantages to reasonable men (says Kephalus).
If I have lost the pleasures of youth, I have at the same time lost the violent desires which then overmastered me.
I now enjoy tranquillity and peace.
Without doubt, this is in part owing to my wealth.
But the best that wealth does for me is, that it enables me to make compensation for deceptions and injustice, practised on other men in my younger days--and to fulfil all vows made to the Gods.
An old man who is too poor to render such atonement for past falsehood and injustice, becomes uneasy in his mind as death approaches; he begins to fear that the stories about Hades, which he has heard and ridiculed in his youth, may perhaps prove true.
"[2] [Footnote 2: Plato, Repub.
i. pp.
330-331.
Compare the language of Cato, more rhetorical and exaggerated than that of Kephalus, in Cic.
De Senect.
c.
13-14.]
[Side-note: Definition of Justice by Simonides--It consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him.]
"Is that your explanation of justice (asks Sokrates): that it consists in telling truth, and rendering to every one what you have had from him?"
The old man Kephalus here withdraws; Polemarchus and the others prosecute the discussion.
"The poet Simonides (says Polemarchus) gives an explanation like to that which you have stated--when he affirms, That just dealing consists in rendering to every man what is owing to him."
[Side-note: Objections to it by Sokrates--There are cases in which it is not right to restore what is owing, or to tell the truth.]
"I do not know what Simonides means," replies Sokrates.
"He cannot mean that it is always right to tell the truth, or always right to give back a deposit.
If my friend, having deposited arms with me, afterwards goes mad, and in that state demands them back, it would not be right in me either to restore the arms, or to tell the truth, to a man in that condition.
Therefore to say that justice consists in speaking truth and in giving back what we have received, cannot be a good definition.
"[3] [Footnote 3: Plato, Repub.
i. p. 331 C-D.
The historical Sokrates argues in the same manner (in the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
See his conversation with Euthydemus, iv.
2; and Cicero, De Offic.
iii.
25, 94-95).]
Polemarchus here gives a peculiar meaning to the phrase of Simonides: a man owes good to his friends--evil to his enemies: and he ought to pay back both.
Upon this Sokrates comments.
[4] [Footnote 4: Sokrates here remarks that the precepts--Speak truth; Restore what has been confided to you--ought not to be considered as universally binding.
Sometimes justice, or those higher grounds upon which the rules of justice are founded, prescribe that we should disobey the precepts.
Sokrates takes this for granted, as a matter which no one will dispute; and it is evident that what Plato had here in his mind was, the obvious consideration that to tell the truth or restore a weapon deposited, to one who had gone mad, would do no good to any one, and might do immense mischief: thus showing that general utility is both the foundation and the limiting principle of all precepts respecting just and unjust.
That this is present to the mind of Plato appears evident from his assuming the position as a matter of course; it is moreover Sokratic, as we see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon.
But Plato, in another passage of the Republic, clothes this Sokratic doctrine in a language and hypothesis of his own.
He sets up Forms or Ideas, _per se_.
The Just,--The Unjust,--The Honourable,--The Base, &c. He distinguishes each of these from the many separate manifestations in which it is specialised.
The Form, though one reality in itself, appears manifold when embodied and disguised in these diversified accompaniments.
It remains One and Unchanged, the object of Science and universal infallible truth; but each of its separate manifestations is peculiar to itself, appears differently to different minds, and admits of no higher certainty than fallible opinion.
Though the Form of Justice always remains the same, yet its subordinate embodiments ever fluctuate; there is no given act nor assemblage of acts which is always just.
Every just act (see Republic, v. pp.
476 A-479 A) is liable under certain circumstances to become unjust; or to be invaded and overclouded by the Form of Injustice.
The genuine philosopher will detect the Form of Justice wherever it is to be found, in the midst of accompaniments however discrepant and confused, over all which he will ascend to the region of universal truth and reality.
The unphilosophical mind cannot accomplish this ascent, nor detect the pure Form, nor even recognise its real existence: but sees nothing beyond the multiplicity of diverse particular cases in which it is or appears to be embodied.
Respecting these particular cases there is no constant or universal truth, no full science.
They cannot be thrown into classes to which the superior Form constantly and unconditionally adheres.
They are midway between reality and non-reality: they are matters of opinion more or less reasonable, but not of certain science or unconditional affirmation.
Among mankind generally, who see nothing of true and absolute Form, the received rules and dogmas respecting the Just, the Beautiful, &c., are of this intermediate and ambiguous kind: they can neither be affirmed universally, nor denied universally; they are partly true, partly false, determinable only by opinion in each separate case.
Plato, Repub.
v. p. 479 C-D: [Greek: ou)/t' ei)=nai ou)/te mê\ ei)=nai ou)de\n au)tô=n dunato\n pagi/ôs noê=sai, ou)/te a)mpho/tera ou)/te ou)de/teron .
.
.
Ta\ tô=n pollô=n polla\ no/mima, kalou= te pe/ri kai\ tô=n a)/llôn, metaxu/ pou kulindei=tai tou= te mê\ o)/ntos kai\ tou= o)/ntos ei)likrinô=s.]
Of the distinction here drawn in general terms by Plato, between the pure unchangeable Form, and the subordinate classes of particulars in which that Form is or appears to be embodied, the reasoning above cited respecting truth-telling and giving back a deposit is an example.]
[Side-note: Explanation by Polemarchus--Farther interrogations by Sokrates--Justice renders what is proper and suitable: but how?
in what cases, proper?
Under what circumstances is Justice useful?]
_S._--Simonides meant to say (you tell me) that Justice consists in rendering benefits to your friends, evil to your enemies: that is, in rendering to each what is proper and suitable.
But we must ask him farther--Proper and suitable--how?
in what cases?
to whom?
The medical art is that which renders what is proper and suitable, of nourishment and medicaments for the health of the body: the art of cookery is that which renders what is proper and suitable, of savoury ingredients for the satisfaction of the palate.
In like manner, the cases must be specified in which justice renders what is proper and suitable--to whom, how, or what?
[5] _P._--Justice consists in doing good to friends, evil to enemies.
_S._--Who is it that is most efficient in benefiting his friends and injuring his enemies, as to health or disease?
_P._--It is the physician.
_S._--Who, in reference to the dangers in navigation by sea?
_P._--The steersman.
_S._--In what matters is it that the just man shows his special efficiency, to benefit friends and hurt enemies?
[6] _P._--In war: as a combatant for the one and against the other.
_S._--To men who are not sick, the physician is of no use nor the steersman, to men on dry land: Do you mean in like manner, that the just man is useless to those who are not at war?
_P._--No: I do not mean that.
Justice is useful in peace also.
_S._--So also is husbandry, for raising food--shoemaking, for providing shoes.
Tell me for what want or acquisition justice is useful during peace?
_P._--It is useful for the common dealings and joint transactions between man and man.
_S._--When we are engaged in playing at draughts, the good player is our useful co-operator: when in laying bricks and stones, the skilful mason: much more than the just man.
Can you specify in what particular transactions the just man has any superior usefulness as a co-operator?
_P._--In affairs of money, I think.
_S._--Surely not in the employment of money.
When you want to buy a horse, you must take for your assistant, not the just man, but one who knows horses: so also, if you are purchasing a ship.
What are those modes of jointly employing money, in which the just man is more useful than others?
_P._--He is useful when you wish to have your money safely kept.
_S._--That is, when your money is not to be employed, but to lie idle: so that when your money is useless, then is the time when justice is useful for it.
_P._--So it seems.
_S._--In regard to other things also, a sickle, a shield, a lyre when you want to use them, the pruner, the hoplite, the musician, must be invoked as co-operators: justice is useful only when you are to keep them unused.
In a word, justice is useless for the use of any thing, and useful merely for things not in use.
Upon this showing, it is at least a matter of no great worth.
[7] [Footnote 5: Plato, Republic, i. p. 332 D. [Greek: ê( ou)=n dê\ ti/si ti/ a)podidou=sa te/chnê dikaiosu/nê a)\n kaloi=to?]]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Republic, i. p. 332 E. [Greek: o( di/kaios e)n ti/ni pra/xei kai\ pro\s ti/ e)/rgon dunatô/tatos phi/lous ô)phelei=n kai\ e)chthrou\s bla/ptein?]]
[Footnote 7: Plat.
Repub.
i. pp.
332-333.
333 E: [Greek: Ou)k a)\n ou)=n pa/nu ge/ ti spoudai=on ei)/ê ê( dikaiosu/nê, ei) pro\s ta\ a)/chrêsta chrê/simon o)\n tugcha/nei?]]
[Side-note: The just man, being good for keeping property guarded, must also be good for stealing property--Analogies cited.]
But let us pursue the investigation (continues Sokrates).
In boxing or in battle, is not he who is best in striking, best also in defending himself?
In regard to disease, is not he who can best guard himself against it, the most formidable for imparting it to others?
Is not the general who watches best over his own camp, also the most effective in surprising and over-reaching the enemy?
In a word, whenever a man is effective as a guard of any thing, is he not also effective as a thief of it?
_P._--Such seems the course of the discussion.
_S._--Well then, the just man turns out to be a sort of thief, like the Homeric Autolykus.
According to the explanation of Simonides, justice is a mode of thieving, for the profit of friends and damage of enemies.
[8] _P._--It cannot be so.
I am in utter confusion.
Yet I think still that justice is profitable to friends, and hurtful to enemies.
[Footnote 8: Plat.
Repub.
i. p. 334 B.
[Greek: e)/oiken ou)=n ê( dikaiosu/nê .
.
.
kleptikê/ tis ri)=nai, e)p' ô)phelei/a| me/ntoi tô=n phi/lôn, kai\ e)pi\ bla/bê| tô=n e)chthrô=n.]]
[Side-note: Justice consists in doing good to friends, evil to enemies--But how, if a man mistakes who his friends are, and makes friends of bad men?]
_S._--Whom do you call friends: those whom a man believes to be good,--or those who really are good, whether he believes them to be so or not: and the like, in reference to enemies?
_P._--I mean those whom he believes to be good.
It is natural that he should love _them_ and that he should hate those whom he believes to be evil.
_S._--But is not a man often mistaken in this belief?
_P._--Yes: often.
_S._--In so far as a man is mistaken, the good men are his enemies, and the evil men his friends.
Justice, therefore, on your showing, consists in doing good to the evil men, and evil to the good men.
_P._--So it appears.
_S._--Now good men are just, and do no wrong to any one.
It is therefore just, on your explanation, to hurt those who do no wrong.
_P._--Impossible!
that is a monstrous doctrine.
_S._--You mean, then, that it is just to hurt unjust men, and to benefit just men?
_P._--Yes; that is something better.
_S._--It will often happen, therefore, when a man misjudges about others, that justice will consist in hurting his friends, since they are in his estimation the evil men: and in benefiting his enemies, since they are in his estimation the good men.
Now this is the direct contrary of what Simonides defined to be justice.
[9] [Footnote 9: Plato, Republic, i. p. 334 D.] [Side-note: Justice consists in doing good to your friend, if really a good man: hurt to your enemy, with the like proviso.
Sokrates affirms that the just man will do no hurt to any one.
Definition of Simonides rejected.]
"We have misconceived the meaning of Simonides (replies Polemarchus).
He must have meant that justice consists in benefiting your friend, assuming him to be a good man: and in hurting your enemy, assuming him to be an evil man."
Sokrates proceeds to impugn the definition in this new sense.
He shows that justice does not admit of our hurting any man, either evil or good.
By hurting the evil man, we only make him more evil than he was before.
To do this belongs not to justice, but to injustice.
[10] The definition of justice--That it consists in rendering benefit to friends and hurt to enemies--is not suitable to a wise man like Simonides, but to some rich potentate like Periander or Xerxes, who thinks his own power irresistible.
[11] [Footnote 10: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
335-336.]
[Footnote 11: Here is a characteristic specimen of searching cross-examination in the Platonic or Sokratic style: citing multiplied analogies, and requiring the generalities of a definition to be clothed with particulars, that its sufficiency may be proved in each of many successive as well as different cases.]
[Side-note: Thrasymachus takes up the dialogue--Repulsive portrait drawn of him.]
At this turn of the dialogue, when the definition given by Simonides has just been refuted, Thrasymachus breaks in, and takes up the conversation with Sokrates.
He is depicted as angry, self-confident to excess, and coarse in his manners even to the length of insult.
The portrait given of him is memorable for its dramatic vivacity, and is calculated to present in an odious point of view the doctrines which he advances: like the personal deformities which Homer heaps upon Thersites in the Iliad.
[12] But how far it is a copy of the real man, we have no evidence to inform us.
[Footnote 12: Homer, Iliad B 216.
Respecting Thrasymachus the reader should compare Spengel--[Greek: Sunagôgê\ Technô=n]--pp.
94-98: which abates the odium inspired by this picture in the Republic.]
[Side-note: Violence of Thrasymachus--Subdued manner of Sokrates--Conditions of useful colloquy.]
In the contrast between Sokrates and Thrasymachus, Plato gives valuable hints as to the conditions of instructive colloquy.
"What nonsense is all this!"
(exclaims Thrasymachus).
"Do not content yourself with asking questions, Sokrates, which you know is much easier than answering: but tell us yourself what Justice is: give us a plain answer: do not tell us that it is what is right--or profitable--or for our interest--or gainful--or advantageous: for I will not listen to any trash like this."
"Be not so harsh with us, Thrasymachus" (replies Sokrates, in a subdued tone).
"If we have taken the wrong course of inquiry, it is against our own will.
You ought to feel pity for us rather than anger."
"I thought" (rejoined Thrasymachus, with a scornful laugh) "that you would have recourse to your usual pretence of ignorance, and would decline answering."
_S._--How can I possibly answer, when you prescribe beforehand what I am to say or not to say?
If you ask men--How much is twelve?
and at the same time say--Don't tell me that it is twice six, or three times four, or four times three--how can any man answer your question?
_T._--As if the two cases were similar!
_S._--Why not similar?
But even though they be not similar, yet if the respondent thinks them so, how can he help answering according as the matter appears to him, whether we forbid him or not?
_T._--Is that what you intend to do?
Are you going to give me one of those answers which I forbade?
_S._--Very likely I may, if on consideration it appears to me the proper answer.
[13] _T._--What will you say if I show you another answer better than all of them?
What penalty will you then impose upon yourself?
_S._--What penalty?--why, that which properly falls upon the ignorant.
It is their proper fate to learn from men wiser than themselves: that is the penalty which I am prepared for.
[14] [Footnote 13: Plato, Repub.
i. p. 337 C. [Greek: Ei) d' ou)=n _kai\ mê\ e)/stin o(/moion, phai/netai de\ tô=| e)rôtêthe/nti toiou=ton, ê(=tto/n ti au)to\n oi)/ei a)pokrinei=sthai to\ phaino/menon e(autô=|_, e)a/n te ê(mei=s a)pagoreu/ômen, e)a/n te mê/?
A)/llo ti ou)=n, e)/phê, kai\ su\ ou(/tô poiê/seis?
ô(=n e)gô\ a)pei=pon, tou/tôn ti a)pokrinei=?
Ou)k a)\n thauma/saimi, ê)=n d' e)gô/, _ei)/ moi skepsame/nô| ou(/tô_ do/xeien.]
This passage deserves notice, inasmuch as Plato here affirms, in very plain language, the Protagorean doctrine, which we have seen him trying to refute in the Theætêtus and Kratylus,--"Homo Mensura,--Every man is a measure to himself.
That is true or false to every man which appears to him so."
Most of Plato's dialogues indeed imply this truth; for no man makes more constant appeal to the internal assent or dissent of the individual interlocutor.
But it is seldom that he declares it in such express terms.]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Republic, i. p. 337 D.] [Side-note: Definition given by Thrasymachus--Justice is that which is advantageous to the more powerful.
Comments by Sokrates.
What if the powerful man mistakes his own advantage?]
After a few more words, in the same offensive and insolent tone ascribed to him from the beginning, Thrasymachus produces his definition of Justice:--"Justice is that which is advantageous to the more powerful".
Some comments from Sokrates bring out a fuller explanation, whereby the definition stands amended:--"Justice is that which is advantageous to the constituted authority, or to that which holds power, in each different community: monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy, as the case may be.
Each of these authorities makes laws and ordinances for its own interest: declares what is just and unjust: and punishes all citizens who infringe its commands.
Justice consists in obeying these commands.
In this sense, justice is everywhere that which is for the interest or advantage of the more powerful.
"[15] "I too believe" (says Sokrates) "that justice is something advantageous, in a certain sense.
But whether you are right in adding these words--'to the more powerful'--is a point for investigation.
[16] Assuming that the authorities in each state make ordinances for their own advantage, you will admit that they sometimes mistake, and enact ordinances tending to their own disadvantage.
In so far as they do this, justice is not that which is advantageous, but that which is disadvantageous, to the more powerful.
[17] Your definition therefore will not hold."
[Footnote 15: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
338-339.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Republic, i. p. 339 B.
[Greek: e)peidê\ ga\r xumphe/ron ge/ ti ei)=nai kai\ e)gô\ o(mologô= to\ di/kaion, su\ de\ prosti/thês kai\ au)to\ phê\s ei)=nai _to\ tou= krei/ttonos_, e)gô\ de\ a)gnoô=, skepte/on dê/.]]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Republic, i. p. 339 E.] [Side-note: Correction by Thrasymachus--if the Ruler mistakes, he is _pro tanto_ no Ruler--The Ruler, _quâ_ Ruler--_quâ_ Craftsman--is infallible.]
Thrasymachus might have replied to this objection by saying, that he meant what the superior power conceived to be for its own advantage, and enacted accordingly, whether such conception was correct or erroneous.
This interpretation, though indicated by a remark put into the mouth of Kleitophon, is not farther pursued.
[18] But in the reply really ascribed to Thrasymachus, he is made to retract what he had just before admitted--that the superior authority sometimes commits mistakes.
In so far as a superior or a ruler makes mistakes (Thrasymachus says), he is not a superior.
We say, indeed, speaking loosely, that the ruler falls into error, just as we say that the physician or the steersman falls into error.
The physician does not err _quâ_ physician, nor the steersman _quâ_ steersman.
No craftsman errs _quâ_ craftsman.
If he errs, it is not from his craft, but from want of knowledge: that is, from want of craft.
[19] What the ruler, as such, declares to be best for himself, and therefore enacts, is always really best for himself: this is justice for the persons under his rule.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Republic, i. p. 340 B.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Republic, i. p. 340 E. [Greek: e)pilipou/sês ga\r e)pistê/mês o( a(marta/nôn a(marta/nei, e)n ô(=| ou)/k e)sti dêmiourgo/s; ô(/ste dêmiourgo\s ê)\ sopho\s ê)\ a)/rchôn ou)dei\s a(marta/nei to/te o(/tan a)/rchôn ê)=|.]]
[Side-note: Reply by Sokrates--The Ruler, _quâ_ infallible Craftsman, studies the interest of those whom he governs, and not his own interest.]
To this subtle distinction, Sokrates replies by saying (in substance), "If you take the craftsman in this strict meaning, as representing the abstraction Craft, it is not true that his proceedings are directed towards his own interest or advantage.
What he studies is, the advantage of his subjects or clients, not his own.
The physician, as such, has it in view to cure his patients: the steersman, to bring his passengers safely to harbour: the ruler, so far forth as craftsman, makes laws for the benefit of his subjects, and not for his own.
If obedience to these laws constitutes justice, therefore, it is not true that justice consists in what is advantageous to the superior or governing power.
It would rather consist in what is advantageous to the governed.
"[20] [Footnote 20: Plato, Republic, i. p.
342.]
[Side-note: Thrasymachus denies this--Justice is the good of another.
The just many are worse off than the unjust One, and are forced to submit to his superior strength.]
Thrasymachus is now represented as renouncing the abstraction above noted,[21] and reverting to the actualities of life.
"Such talk is childish!"
(he exclaims, with the coarseness imputed to him in this dialogue).
"Shepherds and herdsmen tend and fatten their flocks and herds, not for the benefit of the sheep and oxen, but for the profit of themselves and the proprietors.
So too the genuine ruler in a city: he regards his subjects as so many sheep, looking only to the amount of profit which he can draw from them.
[22] Justice is, in real truth, the good of another; it is the profit of him who is more powerful and rules--the loss of those who are weaker and must obey.
It is the unjust man who rules over the multitude of just and well-meaning men.
They serve him because he is the stronger: they build up his happiness at the cost of their own.
Everywhere, both in private dealing and in public function, the just man is worse off than the unjust.
I mean by the unjust, one who has the power to commit wrongful seizure on a large scale.
You may see this if you look at the greatest injustice of all--the case of the despot, who makes himself happy while the juster men over whom he rules are miserable.
One who is detected in the commission of petty crimes is punished, and gets a bad name: but if a man has force enough to commit crime on the grand scale, to enslave the persons of the citizens, and to appropriate their goods--instead of being called by a bad name, he is envied and regarded as happy, not only by the citizens themselves, but by all who hear him named.
Those who blame injustice, do so from the fear of suffering it, not from the fear of doing it.
Thus then injustice, in its successful efficiency, is strong, free, and over-ruling, as compared with justice.
Injustice is profitable to a man's self: justice (as I said before) is what is profitable to some other man stronger than he.
"[23] [Footnote 21: Plato, Republic, p. 345 B-C.] [Footnote 22: Plato, Republic, p. 343 B.
A similar comparison is put into the mouth of Sokrates himself by Plato in the Theætêtus, p. 174 D.] [Footnote 23: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
343-344.]
[Side-note: Position laid for the subsequent debate and exposition.]
Thrasymachus is described as laying down this position in very peremptory language, and as anxious to depart immediately after it, if he had not been detained by the other persons present.
His position forms the pivot of the subsequent conversation.
The two opinions included in it--(That justice consists in obedience yielded by the weak to the orders of the strong, for the advantage of the strong--That injustice, if successful, is profitable and confers happiness: justice the contrary)--are disputed, both of them, by Sokrates as well as by Glaukon.
[24] [Footnote 24: Plato, Repub.
i. pp.
345 A-348 A.]
[Side-note: Arguments of Sokrates--Injustice is a source of weakness--Every multitude must observe justice among themselves, in order to avoid perpetual quarrels.
The same about any single individual: if he is unjust, he will be at war with himself, and perpetually weak.]
Sokrates is represented as confuting and humiliating Thrasymachus by various arguments, of which the two first at least are more subtle than cogent.
[25] He next proceeds to argue that injustice, far from being a source of strength, is a source of weakness--That any community of men, among whom injustice prevails, must be in continual dispute; and therefore incapable of combined action against others--That a camp of mercenary soldiers or robbers, who plunder every one else, must at least observe justice among themselves--That if they have force, this is because they are unjust only by halves: that if they were thoroughly unjust, they would also be thoroughly impotent--That the like is true also of an individual separately taken, who, so far as he is unjust, is in a perpetual state of hatred and conflict with himself, as well as with just men and with the Gods: and would thus be divested of all power to accomplish any purpose.
[26] [Footnote 25: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
346-350.]
[Footnote 26: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
351-352 D.] [Side-note: Farther argument of Sokrates--The just man is happy, the unjust man miserable--Thrasymachus is confuted and silenced.
Sokrates complains that he does not yet know what Justice is.]
Having thus shown that justice is stronger than injustice, Sokrates next offers an argument to prove that it is happier or confers more happiness than injustice.
The conclusion of this argument is--That the just man is happy, and the unjust miserable.
[27] Thrasymachus is confuted, and retires humiliated from the debate.
Yet Sokrates himself is represented as dissatisfied with the result.
"At the close of our debate" (he says) "I find that I know nothing about the matter.
For as I do not know what justice is, I can hardly expect to know whether it is a virtue or not; nor whether the man who possesses it is happy or not happy.
"[28] [Footnote 27: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
353-354 A.]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Republic, i. fin.
p. 354 C. [Greek: ô(/ste moi ge/gonen e)k tou= dialo/gou mêde\n ei)de/nai; o(po/te ga\r to\ di/kaion mê\ oi)=da o(\ e)sti, scholê=| ei)/somai ei)/te a)retê/ tis ou)=sa tugcha/nei ei)/te kai\ ou)/, kai\ po/teron o( e)/chôn au)to\ ou)k eu)dai/môn e)sti\n ê)\ eu)dai/môn.]]
[Side-note: Glaukon intimates that he is not satisfied with the proof, though he agrees in the opinion expressed by Sokrates.
Tripartite distribution of Good--To which of the three heads does Justice belong?]
Here Glaukon enters the lists, intimating that he too is dissatisfied with the proof given by Sokrates, that justice is every way better than injustice: though he adopts the conclusion, and desires much to hear it fully demonstrated.
"You know" (he says), "Sokrates, that there are three varieties of Good--1.
Good, _per se_, and for its own sake (apart from any regard to ulterior consequences): such as enjoyment and the innocuous pleasures.
2.
Good both in itself, and by reason of its ulterior consequences: such as full health, perfect vision, intelligence, &c. 3.
Good, not in itself, but altogether by reason of its consequences: such as gymnastic training, medical treatment, professional business, &c. Now in which of these branches do you rank Justice?"
_S._--I rank it in the noblest--that is--in the second branch: which is good both in itself, and by reason of its consequences.
_G._--Most persons put it in the third branch: as being in itself difficult and laborious, but deserving to be cultivated in consequence of the reward and good name which attaches to the man who is reputed just.
[29] _S._--I know that this is the view taken by Thrasymachus and many others: but it is not mine.
_G._--Neither is it mine.
[Footnote 29: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
357.]
[Side-note: Glaukon undertakes to set forth the case against Sokrates, though professing not to agree with it.]
Yet still I think that you have not made out your case against Thrasymachus, and that he has given up the game too readily.
I will therefore re-state his argument, not at all adopting his opinion as my own, but simply in order to provoke a full refutation of it from you, such as I have never yet heard from any one.
First, I shall show what his partisans say as to the nature and origin of justice.
Next, I shall show that all who practise justice, practise it unwillingly; not as good _per se_, but as a necessity.
Lastly, I shall prove that such conduct on their part is reasonable.
If these points can be made out, it will follow that the life of the unjust man is much better than that of the just.
[30] [Footnote 30: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
358.]
[Side-note: Pleading of Glaukon.
Justice is in the nature of a compromise for all--a medium between what is best and what is worst.]
The case, as set forth first by Glaukon, next by Adeimantus, making themselves advocates of Thrasymachus--is as follows.
"To do injustice, is by nature good: to suffer injustice is by nature evil: but the last is greater as an evil, than the first as a good: so that when men have tasted of both, they find it advantageous to agree with each other, that none shall either do or suffer injustice.
These agreements are embodied in laws; and what is prescribed by the law is called lawful and just.
Here you have the generation and essence of justice, which is intermediate between what is best and what is worst: that is, between the power of committing injustice with impunity, and the liability to suffer injustice without protection or redress.
Men acquiesce in such compromise, not as in itself good, but because they are too weak to commit injustice safely.
For if any man were strong enough to do so, and had the dispositions of a man, he would not make such a compromise with any one: it would be madness in him to do so.
[31] [Footnote 31: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
358-359.]
"That men are just, only because they are too weak to be unjust, will appear if we imagine any of them, either the just or the unjust, armed with full power and impunity, such as would be conferred by the ring of Gyges, which rendered the wearer invisible at pleasure.
If the just man could become thus privileged, he would act in the same manner as the unjust: his temper would never be adamantine enough to resist the temptations which naturally prompt every man to unlimited satisfaction of his desires.
Such temptations are now counteracted by the force of law and opinion; but if these sanctions were nullified, every man, just or unjust, would seize every thing that he desired, without regard to others.
When he is just, he is so not willingly, but by compulsion.
He chooses that course not as being the best for him absolutely, but as the best which his circumstances will permit.
[Side-note: Comparison of the happiness of the just man derived from his justice alone, when others are unjust to him with that of the unjust man under parallel circumstances.]
"To determine which of the two is happiest, the just man or the unjust, let us assume each to be perfect in his part, and then compare them.
The unjust man must be assumed to have at his command all means of force and fraud, so as to procure for himself the maximum of success; _i.e._, the reputation of being a just man, along with all the profitable enormities of injustice.
Against him we will set the just man, perfect in his own simplicity and righteousness; a man who cares only for being just in reality, and not for seeming to be so.
We shall suppose him, though really just, to be accounted by every one else thoroughly unjust.
It is only thus that we can test the true value of his justice: for if he be esteemed just by others, he will be honoured and recompensed, so that we cannot be sure that his justice is not dictated by regard to these adventitious consequences.
He must be assumed as just through life, yet accounted by every one else unjust, and treated accordingly: while the unjust man, with whom we compare him, is considered and esteemed by others as if he were perfectly just.
Which of the two will have the happiest life?
Unquestionably the unjust man.
He will have all the advantages derived from his unscrupulous use of means, together with all that extrinsic favour and support which proceeds from good estimation on the part of others: he will acquire superior wealth, which will enable him both to purchase partisans, and to offer costly sacrifices ensuring to him the patronage of the Gods.
The just man, on the contrary, will not only be destitute of all these advantages, but will be exposed to a life of extreme suffering and torture.
He will learn by painful experience that his happiness depends, not upon being really just, but upon being accounted just by others.
"[32] [Footnote 32: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
361-362.]
[Side-note: Pleading of Adeimantus on the same side.
He cites advice given by fathers to their sons, recommending just behaviour by reason of its consequences.]
Here Glaukon concludes.
Adeimantus now steps in as second counsel on the same side, to the following effect:[33] "Much yet remains to be added to the argument.
To make it clearer, we must advert to the topics insisted on by those who oppose Glaukon--those who panegyrise justice and denounce injustice.
A father, who exhorts his sons to be just, says nothing about the intrinsic advantages of justice _per se_: he dwells upon the beneficial consequences which will accrue to them from being just.
Through such reputation they will obtain from men favours, honours, commands, prosperous alliances--from the Gods, recompenses yet more varied and abundant.
If, on the contrary, they commit injustice, they will be disgraced and ill-treated among men, severely punished by the Gods.
Such are the arguments whereby a father recommends justice, and dissuades injustice, he talks about opinions and after consequences only, he says nothing about justice or injustice in themselves.
Such are the allegations even of those who wish to praise and enforce justice.
But there are others, and many among them, who hold an opposite language, proclaiming unreservedly that temperance and justice are difficult to practise--injustice and intemperance easy and agreeable, though law and opinion brand them as disgraceful.
These men affirm that the unjust life is for the most part more profitable than the just.
They are full of panegyrics towards the wealthy and powerful, however unprincipled; despising the poor and weak, whom nevertheless they admit to be better men.
[34] They even say that the Gods themselves entail misery upon many good men, and confer prosperity on the wicked.
Then there come the prophets and jugglers, who profess to instruct rich men, out of many books, composed by Orpheus and Musæus, how they may by appropriate presents and sacrifices atone for all their crimes and die happy.
[35] [Footnote 33: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
362-367.]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 364 A-B.]
[Footnote 35: Plato, Republic, p. 364 C-E.] "When we find that the case is thus stated respecting justice, both by its panegyrists and by its enemies--that the former extol it only from the reputation which it procures, and that the latter promise to the unjust man, if clever and energetic, a higher recompense than any such reputation can obtain for him--what effect can we expect to be produced on the minds of young men of ability, station, and ambition?
What course of life are they likely to choose?
Surely they will thus reason: A just life is admitted to be burdensome--and it will serve no purpose, unless I acquire, besides, the reputation of justice in the esteem of others.
Now the unjust man, who can establish such reputation, enjoys the perfection of existence.
My happiness turns not upon the reality, but upon the seeming: upon my reputation with others.
[36] Such reputation then it must be my aim to acquire.
I must combine the real profit of injustice with the outside show and reputation of justice.
Such combination is difficult: but all considerable enterprises are difficult: I must confederate with partisans to carry my point by force or fraud.
If I succeed, I attain the greatest prize to which man can aspire.
I may be told that the Gods will punish me; but the same poets, who declare the existence of the Gods, assure me also that they are placable by prayer and sacrifice: and the poets are as good authority on the one point as on the other.
[37] Such" (continues Adeimantus) "will be the natural reasoning of a powerful, energetic, aspiring, man.
How can we expect that such a man should prefer justice, when the rewards of injustice on its largest scale are within his reach?
[38] Unless he be averse to injustice, from some divine peculiarity of disposition--or unless he has been taught to abstain from it by the acquisition of knowledge,--he will treat the current encomiums on justice as ridiculous.
No man is just by his own impulse.
Weak men or old men censure injustice, because they have not force enough to commit it with success: which is proved by the fact than any one of them who acquires power, immediately becomes unjust as far as his power reaches.
[Footnote 36: Plat.
Rep. ii.
pp.
365 E, 366 A.]
[Footnote 37: Plat.
Rep. ii.
p. 365 B-D.] [Footnote 38: Plat.
Rep. ii.
p. 366 B-D.] [Side-note: Nobody recommends Justice _per se_, but only by reason of its consequences.]
"The case as I set it forth" (pursues Adeimantus) "admits of no answer on the ground commonly taken by those who extol justice and blame injustice, from the earliest poets down to the present day.
[39] What they praise is not justice _per se_, but the reputation which the just man obtains, and the consequences flowing from it.
What they blame is not injustice _per se_, but its results.
They never commend, nor even mention, justice as it exists in and moulds the internal mind and character of the just man; even though he be unknown, misconceived and detested, by Gods as well as by men.
Nor do they ever talk of the internal and intrinsic effects of injustice upon the mind of the unjust man, but merely of his ulterior prospects.
They never attempt to show that injustice itself, in the mind of the unjust man, is the gravest intrinsic evil: and justice in the mind of the just man, the highest intrinsic good: apart from consequences on either side.
If you had all held this language from the beginning, and had impressed upon us such persuasion from our childhood, there would have been no necessity for our keeping watch upon each other to prevent injustice.
Every man would have been the best watch upon himself, through fear lest by becoming unjust he might take into his own bosom the gravest evil.
[40] [Footnote 39: Plat.
Rep. ii.
p. 366 D-E. [Greek: pa/ntôn u(mô=n, o(/soi e)paine/tai phate\ dikaiosu/nês ei)=nai, a)po\ tô=n e)x a)rchê=s ê(rô/ôn a)rxa/menoi, o(/sôn lo/goi leleimme/noi, me/chri tô=n nu=n a)nthrô/pôn, ou)dei\s pô/pote e)/psexen a)diki/an ou)d' e)pê/|nese dikaiosu/nên a)/llôs ê)\ do/xas te kai\ tima\s kai\ dôrea\s ta\s a)p' au)tô=n duna/mei e)n tê=| tou= e)/chontos psuchê=| e)no\n kai\ lantha/non theou/s te kai\ a)nthrô/pous, ou)dei\s pô/pote ou)/t' e)n poiê/sei ou)/t' e)n i)di/ois lo/gois e)pexê=lthen i(kanô=s tô=| lo/gô|], &c. Compare p. 362 E. Whoever reads this, will see that Plato does not intend (as most of his commentators assert) that the arguments which Sokrates combats in the Republic were the invention of Protagoras, Prodikus, and other Sophists of the Platonic century.]
[Footnote 40: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 367 A.
[Greek: ei) ga\r ou)/tôs e)le/geto e)x a)rchê=s u(po\ pa/ntôn u(mô=n, kai\ e)k ne/ôn ê(ma=s e)pei/thete, ou)k a)n a)llê/lous e)phula/ttomen mê\ a)dikei=n, a)ll' au)to\s au(tou= ê)=n e(/kastos phu/lax, dediô\s mê\ a)dikô=n tô=| megi/stô| kakô=| xu/noikos ê)=|.]]
[Side-note: Adeimantus calls upon Sokrates to recommend and enforce Justice on its own grounds, and to explain how Justice in itself benefits the mind of the just man.]
"Here therefore is a deficiency in the argument on behalf of justice, which I call upon you,[41] Sokrates, who have employed all your life in these meditations, to supply.
You have declared justice to be good indeed for its consequences, but still more of a good from its own intrinsic nature.
Explain how it is good, and how injustice is evil, in its own intrinsic nature: what effect each produces on the mind, so as to deserve such an appellation.
Omit all notice of consequences accruing to the just or unjust man, from the opinion, favourable or otherwise, entertained towards him by others.
You must even go farther: you must suppose that both of them are misconceived, and that the just man is disgraced and punished as if he were unjust--the unjust man honoured and rewarded as if he were just.
This is the only way of testing the real intrinsic value of justice and injustice, considered in their effects upon the mind.
If you expatiate on the consequences--if you regard justice as in itself indifferent, but valuable on account of the profitable reputation which it procures, and injustice as in itself profitable, but dangerous to the unjust man from the hostile sentiment and damage which it brings upon him--the real drift of your exhortation will be, to make us aspire to be unjust in reality, but to aim at maintaining a reputation of justice along with it.
In that line of argument you will concede substantially the opinion of Thrasymachus--That justice is another man's good, the advantage of the more powerful: and injustice the good or profit of the agent, but detrimental to the weaker.
"[42] [Footnote 41: Plat.
Rep. ii.
p. 367 E. [Greek: dio/ti pa/nta to\n bi/on ou)de\n a)/llo skopô=n dielê/luthas ê)\ tou=to] (_you_, Sokrates).]
[Footnote 42: Plat.
Republic, ii.
p. 367 C-D.] [Side-note: Relation of Glaukon and Adeimantus to Thrasymachus.]
With the invocation here addressed to Sokrates, Adeimantus concludes his discourse.
Like Glaukon, he disclaims participation in the sentiments which the speech embodies.
Both of them, professing to be dissatisfied with the previous refutation of Thrasymachus by Sokrates, call for a deeper exposition of the subject.
Both of them then enunciate a doctrine, resembling partially, though not entirely, that of Thrasymachus--but without his offensive manner, and with superior force of argument.
They propose it as a difficult problem, which none but Sokrates can adequately solve.
He accepts the challenge, though with apparent diffidence: and we now enter upon his solution, which occupies the remaining eight books and a half of the Republic.
All these last books are in fact expository, though in the broken form of dialogue.
The other speakers advance scarce any opinions for Sokrates to confute, but simply intervene with expressions of assent, or doubt, or demand for farther information.
[Side-note: Statement of the question as it stands after the speeches of Glaukon and Adeimantus.
What Sokrates undertakes to prove.]
I here repeat the precise state of the question, which is very apt to be lost amidst the mæanderings of a Platonic dialogue.
First, What is Justice?
Sokrates had declared at the close of the first book, that he did not know what Justice was; and that therefore he could not possibly decide, whether it was a virtue or not:--nor whether the possessor of it was happy or not.
Secondly, To which of the three classes of good things does Justice belong?
To the second class--_i.
e._ things good _per se_, and good also in their consequences?
Or to the third class--_i.
e._ things not good _per se_, but good only in their consequences?
Sokrates replies (in the beginning of the second book) that it belongs to the second class.
Evidently, these two questions cannot stand together.
In answering the second, Sokrates presupposes a certain determination of the first; inconsistent with that unqualified ignorance, of which he had just made profession.
Sokrates now professes to know, not merely that Justice is a good, but to what class of good things it belongs.
The first question has thus been tacitly dropped without express solution, and has given place to the second.
Yet Sokrates, in providing his answer to the second, includes implicitly an answer to the first, so far as to assume that Justice is a good thing, and proceeds to show in what way it is good.
Some say that Justice is good (_i.e._ that it ensures, or at least contributes to, the happiness of the agent), but not _per se_: only in its ulterior consequences.
Taken _per se_, it imposes privation, loss, self-denial; diminishing instead of augmenting the agent's happiness.
But taken along with its results, this preliminary advance is more than adequately repaid; since without it the agent would not obtain from others that reciprocity of justice, forbearance, and good treatment without which his life would be intolerable.
If this last opinion be granted, Glaukon argues that Justice would indeed be good for weak and middling agents, but not for men of power and energy, who had a good chance of extorting the benefit without paying the antecedent price.
And Thrasymachus, carrying this view still farther, assumes that there are in every society men of power who despotise over the rest; and maintains that Justice consists, for the society generally, in obeying the orders of these despots.
It is all gain to the strong, all loss to the weak.
These latter profit by it in no other way than by saving themselves from farther punishment or ill usage on the part of the strong.
[Side-note: Position to be proved by Sokrates--Justice makes the just man happy _per se_, whatever be its results.]
Sokrates undertakes to maintain the opposite--That Justice is a good _per se_, ensuring the happiness of the agent by its direct and intrinsic effects on the mind: whatever its ulterior consequences may be.
He maintains indeed that these ulterior consequences are also good: but that they do not constitute the paramount benefit, or the main recommendation of Justice: that the good of Justice _per se_ is much greater.
In this point of view, Justice is not less valuable and necessary to the strong than to the weak.
He proceeds to show, what Justice is, and how it is beneficial _per se_ to the agent, apart from consequences: also, what Injustice is, and how it is injurious to the agent _per se_, apart from consequences.
[43] [Footnote 43: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
368 seq.]
[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates to show what Justice is--Assumed analogy between the city and the individual.]
He begins by affirming the analogy between an entire city or community, and each individual man or agent.
There is justice (he says) in the entire city--and justice in each individual man.
In the city, the characteristics of Justice are stamped in larger letters or magnified, so as to be more easily legible.
We will therefore first read them in the city, and then apply the lesson to explain what appears in smaller type in the individual man.
[44] We will trace the steps by which a city is generated, in order that we may see how justice and injustice spring up in it.
[Footnote 44: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
368-369.]
It is in this way that Plato first conducts us to the formation of a political community.
A parallel is assumed between the entire city and each individual man: the city is a man on a great scale--the man is a city on a small scale.
Justice belongs both to one and to the other.
The city is described and analysed, not merely as a problem for its own sake, but in order that the relation between its constituent parts may throw light on the analogous constituent parts, which are assumed to exist in each individual man.
[45] [Footnote 45: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 369 A.
[Greek: tê\n tou= mei/zonos o(moio/têta e)n tê=| tou= e)la/ttonos i)de/a| e)piskopou=ntes.]]
[Side-note: Fundamental principle, to which communities of mankind owe their origin--Reciprocity of want and service between individuals--No individual can suffice to himself.]
The fundamental principle (Sokrates affirms) to which cities or communities owe their origin, is, existence of wants and necessities in all men.
No single man is sufficient for himself: every one is in want of many things, and is therefore compelled to seek communion or partnership with neighbours and auxiliaries.
Reciprocal dealings begin: each man gives to others, and receives from others, under the persuasion that it is better for him to do so.
[46] Common needs, helplessness of individuals apart, reciprocity of service when they are brought together--are the generating causes of this nascent association.
The simplest association, comprising the mere necessaries of life, will consist only of four or five men: the husbandman, builder, weaver, shoemaker, &c. It is soon found advantageous to all, that each of these should confine himself to his own proper business: that the husbandman should not attempt to build his own house or make his own shoes, but should produce corn enough for all, and exchange his surplus for that of the rest in their respective departments.
Each man has his own distinct aptitudes and dispositions; so that he executes both more work and better work, by employing himself exclusively in the avocation for which he is suited.
The division of labour thus becomes established, as reciprocally advantageous to all.
This principle soon extends itself: new wants arise: the number of different employments is multiplied.
Smiths, carpenters, and other artisans, find a place: also shepherds and herdsmen, to provide oxen for the farmer, wool and hides for the weaver and the shoemaker.
Presently a farther sub-division of labour is introduced for carrying on exchange and distribution: markets are established: money is coined: foreign merchants will import and export commodities: dealers, men of weak body, and fit for sedentary work, will establish themselves to purchase wholesale the produce brought by the husbandman, and to sell it again by retail in quantities suitable for distribution.
Lastly, the complement of the city will be made up by a section of labouring men who do jobs for hire: men of great bodily strength, though not adding much to the intelligence of the community.
[47] [Footnote 46: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
369.]
[Footnote 47: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 371.
It is remarkable that in this first outline of the city Plato recognises only free labour, not slave labour.]
[Side-note: Moderate equipment of a sound and healthy city--Few wants.]
Such is the full equipment of the sound and healthy city, confined to what is simple and necessary.
Those who compose it will have sufficient provision of wheat and barley, for loaves and cakes--of wine to drink--of clothing and shoes--of houses for shelter, and of myrtle and yew twigs for beds.
They will enjoy their cheerful social festivals, with wine, garlands, and hymns to the Gods.
They will take care not to beget children in numbers greater than their means, knowing that the consequence thereof must be poverty or war.
[48] They will have, as condiment, salt and cheese, olives, figs, and chestnuts, peas, beans, and onions.
They will pass their lives in peace, and will die in a healthy old age, bequeathing a similar lot to their children.
Justice and injustice, which we are seeking for, will be founded on a certain mode of mutual want and dealing with each other.
[49] [Footnote 48: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 372 B-C. [Greek: ou)ch u(pe\r tê\n ou)si/an poiou/menoi tou\s pai=das, eu)labou/menoi peni/an ê)\ po/lemon.]]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Republ.
ii.
p. 372 A.
[Greek: e)n au)tô=n tou/tôn chrei/a| tini\ tê=| pro\s a)llê/lous.]]
You feed your citizens, Sokrates (observes Glaukon), as if you were feeding pigs.
You must at least supply them with as many sweets and condiments as are common at Athens: and with beds and tables besides.
[Side-note: Enlargement of the city--Multiplied wants and services.
First origin of war and strife with neighbours--It arises out of these multiplied wants.]
I understand you (replies Sokrates): you are not satisfied with a city of genuine simplicity: you want a city luxurious and inflated.
Well then--we will suppose it enlarged until it comprehends all the varieties of elegant and costly enjoyment: gold, silver, and ivory: musicians and painters in their various branches: physicians: and all the crowd of attendants required for a society thus enlarged.
Such extension of consumption will carry with it a numerous population, who cannot be maintained from the lands belonging to the city.
We shall be obliged to make war upon our neighbours and seize some of their lands.
They too will do the same by us, if they have acquired luxurious habits.
Here we see the first genesis of war, with all its consequent evils: springing from the acquisition of wealth, beyond the limit of necessity.
[50] Having war upon our hands, we need soldiers, and a considerable camp of them.
Now war is essentially a separate craft and function, requiring to be carried on by persons devoted to it, who have nothing else to do.
We laid down from the beginning, that every citizen ought to confine himself exclusively to that business for which he was naturally fit; and that no one could be allowed to engage in two distinct occupations.
This rule is above all things essential for the business of war.
The soldier must perform the duties of a soldier, and undertake no others.
[51] [Footnote 50: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
373.]
[Footnote 51: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
374.]
[Side-note: Separate class of soldiers or Guardians.
One man cannot do well more than one business.
Character required in the Guardians--Mildness at home with pugnacity against enemies.]
The functions of these soldiers are more important than those of any one else.
Upon them the security of the whole community depends.
They are the Guardians of the city: or rather, those few seniors among them, who are selected from superior merit and experience, and from a more perfect education to exercise command, are the proper Guardians: while the remaining soldiers are their Auxiliaries.
[52] These Guardians, or Guardians and their Auxiliaries, must be first chosen with the greatest care, to ensure that they have appropriate natural dispositions: next, their training and education must be continued as well as systematic.
Appropriate natural dispositions are difficult to find: for we require the coincidence of qualities which are rarely found together.
The Auxiliaries must be mild and gentle towards their fellow citizens, passionate and fierce towards enemies.
They must be like generous dogs, full of kindness towards those whom they know, angrily disposed towards those whom they do not know.
[53] [Footnote 52: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 414 B.]
[Footnote 53: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
376.]
[Side-note: Peculiar education necessary, musical as well as gymnastical.]
Assuming children of these dispositions to be found, we must provide for them the best training and education.
The training must be twofold: musical, addressed to the mind: gymnastical, addressed to the body--pursuant to the distribution dating from ancient times.
[54] Music includes all training by means of words or sounds: speech and song, recital and repetition, reading and writing, &c. [Footnote 54: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 376 E. [Greek: Ti/s ou)=n ê( paidei/a?
ê)\ chalepo\n eu(rei=n belti/ô tê=s u(po\ tou= pollou= chro/nou eu(rême/nês e)/sti de/ pou ê( me\n e)pi\ sô/masi gumnastikê/, ê( d' e)pi\ psuchê=| mousikê/.]
This appeal of Plato to antiquity and established custom deserves notice.]
[Side-note: Musical education, by fictions as well as by truth.
Fictions addressed to the young: the religious legends now circulating are often pernicious: censorship necessary.]
The earliest training of every child begins from the stories or fables which he hears recounted: most of which are false, though some among them are true.
We must train the child partly by means of falsehood, partly by means of truth: and we must begin first with the falsehood.
The tenor of these fictions, which the child first hears, has a powerful effect in determining his future temper and character.
But such fictions as are now currently repeated, will tend to corrupt his mind, and to form in him sentiments and opinions adverse to those which we wish him to entertain in after life.
We must not allow the invention and circulation of stories at the pleasure of the authors: we must establish a censorship over all authors; licensing only such of their productions as we approve, and excluding all the rest, together with most of those now in circulation.
[55] The fables told by Homer, Hesiod, and other poets, respecting the Gods and Heroes, are in very many cases pernicious, and ought to be suppressed.
They are not true; and even were they true, ought not to be mentioned before children.
Stories about battles between the Gods and the Giants, or quarrels among the Gods themselves, are mischievous, whether intended as allegories or not: for young hearers cannot discriminate the allegorical from the literal.
[56] [Footnote 55: Plato, Republ.
ii.
p. 377 C. [Greek: ô(=n de\ nu=n le/gousi tou\s pollou\s e)kblête/on.]
Compare the animadversions in Sextus Empiricus about the mischievous doctrines to be found in the poets, adv.
Mathematicos, i. s.
276-293.]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Republ.
p. 378 D.] [Side-note: Orthodox type to be laid down: all poets are required to conform their legends to it.
The Gods are causes of nothing but good: therefore they are causes of few things.
Great preponderance of actual evil.]
I am no poet (continues the Platonic Sokrates), nor can I pretend to compose legends myself: but I shall lay down a type of theological orthodoxy, to which all the divine legends in our city must conform.
Every poet must proclaim that the Gods are good, and therefore cannot be the cause of anything except good.
No poet can be allowed to describe the Gods (according to what we now read in Homer and elsewhere) as dispensing both good and evil to mankind.
The Gods must be announced as causes of all the good which exists, but other causes must be found for all the evil: the Gods therefore are causes of comparatively few things, since bad things are far more abundant among us than good.
[57] No poetical tale can be tolerated which represents the Gods as assuming the forms of different persons, and going about to deceive men into false beliefs.
[58] Falsehood is odious both to Gods and to men: though there are some cases in which it is necessary as a precaution against harm, towards enemies, or even towards friends during seasons of folly or derangement.
[59] But none of these exceptional circumstances can apply to the Gods.
[Footnote 57: Plato, Republ.
ii.
p. 379 C. [Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra o( theo/s, e)peidê\ a)gatho/s, pa/ntôn a)\n ei)/ê ai)/tios, ô(s oi( polloi\ le/gousin, a)ll' o)li/gôn me\n toi=s a)nthrô/pois ai)/tios, pollô=n de\ a)nai/tios; polu\ ga\r e)la/ttô ta)gatha\ tô=n kakô=n ê(mi=n.
Kai\ tô=n me\n a)gathô=n ou)de/na a)/llon ai)tiate/on, tô=n de\ kakô=n a)/ll' a)/tta dei= zêtei=n ta\ ai)/tia, a)ll' ou) to\n theo/n.]]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
380-381.
Dacier blames Plato for this as an error, saying, that God may appear, and has appeared to men, under the form of an Angel or of some man whom he has created after his own image (Traduction de Platon, tom.
i. p.
172).]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 382 C.] [Side-note: The Guardians must not fear death.
No terrible descriptions of Hades must be presented to them: no intense sorrow, nor violent nor sensual passion, must be recounted either of Gods or Heroes.]
It is indispensable to inspire these youthful minds with courage, and to make them fear death as little as possible.
But the terrific descriptions, given by the poets, of Hades and the underworld, are above all things likely to aggravate the fear of death.
Such descriptions must therefore be interdicted, as neither true nor useful.
Even if poetically striking, they are all the more pernicious to be listened to by youths whom we wish to train up as spirited free-men, fearing enslavement more than death.
[60] We must also prohibit the representations of intense grief and distress, imputed by Homer to Heroes or Gods, to Achilles, Priam, or Zeus, for the death of friends and relatives.
A perfectly reasonable man will account death no great evil, either for himself or for his friend: he will be, in a peculiar degree, sufficient to himself for his own happiness, and will therefore endure with comparative equanimity the loss of friends, relatives, or fortune.
[61] We must teach youth to be ashamed of indulging in immoderate grief or in violent laughter.
[62] We must teach them also veracity and temperance, striking out all those passages in Homer which represent the Gods or Heroes as incontinent, sensual, furiously vindictive, reckless of obligation, or money-loving.
[63] The poets must either not recount such proceedings at all, or must not ascribe them to Gods and Heroes.
[Footnote 60: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
386-387.]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 387 D-E.] [Footnote 62: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 388 B-E.] [Footnote 63: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
390-391.]
[Side-note: Type for all narratives respecting men.]
We have thus prescribed the model to which all poets must accommodate their narratives respecting Gods and Heroes.
We ought now to set out a similar model for their narratives respecting men.
But this is impossible, until our present investigation is brought to a close: because one of the worst misrepresentations which the poets give of human affairs, is, when they say that there are many men unjust, yet happy--just, yet still miserable:--that successful injustice is profitable, and that justice is a benefit to other persons, but a loss to the agent.
We affirm that this is a misrepresentation; but we cannot assume it as such at present, since the present enquiry is intended to prove that it is so.
[64] [Footnote 64: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 392 C.] [Side-note: Style of narratives.
The poet must not practise variety of imitation: he must not speak in the name of bad characters.]
From the substance of these stories we pass to the style and manner.
The poet will recount either in his own person, by simple narrative: or he will assume the characters and speak in the names of others, thus making his composition imitative.
He will imitate every diversity of character, good and bad, wise and foolish.
This however cannot be tolerated in our city.
We can permit no imitation except that of the reasonable and virtuous man.
Every man in our city exercises one simple function: we have no double-faced or many-faced citizens.
We shall respectfully dismiss the poet who captivates us by variety of characters, and shall be satisfied with the dry recital of simple stories useful in their tendency, expressing the feeling of the reasonable man and no other.
[65] [Footnote 65: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
396-398.]
[Side-note: Rhythm and Melody regulated.
None but simple and grave music allowed: only the Dorian and Phrygian moods, with the lyre and harp.]
We must farther regulate the style of the Odes and Songs, consistent with what has been already laid down.
Having prescribed what the sense of the words must be, we must now give directions about melody and rhythm.
We shall permit nothing but simple music, calculated less to please the ear, than to inspire grave, dignified, and resolute sentiment.
We shall not allow either the wailing Lydian, or the soft and convivial Ionic mood: but only the Phrygian and Dorian moods.
Nor shall we tolerate either the fife, or complicated stringed instruments: nothing except the lyre and harp, with the panspipe for rural abodes.
[66] The rhythm or measure must also be simple, suitable to the movements of a calm and moderate man.
Both good rhythm, graceful and elegant speaking, and excellence of sense, flow from good and virtuous dispositions, tending to inspire the same dispositions in others:[67] just as bad rhythm, ungraceful and indecorous demeanour, defective proportion, &c., are companions of bad speech and bad dispositions.
Contrasts of this kind pervade not only speech and song, but also every branch of visible art: painting, architecture, weaving, embroidery, pottery, and even the natural bodies of animals and plants.
In all of them we distinguish grace and beauty, the accompaniments of a good and sober disposition--from ungracefulness and deformity, visible signs of the contrary disposition.
Now our youthful Guardians, if they are ever to become qualified for their functions, must be trained to recognise and copy such grace and beauty.
[68] For this purpose our poets, painters, architects, and artisans, must be prohibited from embodying in their works any ungraceful or unseemly type.
None will be tolerated as artists, except such as can detect and embody the type of the beautiful.
Our youth will thus insensibly contract exclusive familiarity, both through the eye and through the ear, with beauty in its various manifestations: so that their minds will be brought into harmonious preparation for the subsequent influence of beautiful discourse.
[69] [Footnote 66: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
398-399.]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 400 A.]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
400-401.]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 401 C-D.] [Side-note: Effect of musical training of the mind--makes youth love the Beautiful and hate the Ugly.]
This indeed (continues Sokrates) is the principal benefit arising from musical tuition, that the internal mind of a youth becomes imbued with rhythm and harmony.
Hence he learns to commend and be delighted with the beautiful, and to hate and blame what is ugly; before he is able to render any reason for his sentiments: so that when mature age arrives, his sentiments are found in unison with what reason enjoins, and already predisposed to welcome it.
[70] He becomes qualified to recognise the Forms of Temperance, Courage, Liberality, Magnanimity, and their embodiments in particular persons.
To a man brought up in such sentiments, no spectacle can be so lovely as that of youths combining beauty of mental disposition with beauty of exterior form.
He may indeed tolerate some defects in the body, but none in the mind.
[71] His love, being genuine and growing out of musical and regulated contemplations, will attach itself to what is tempered and beautiful; not to the intense pleasures of sense, which are inconsistent with all temperance.
Such will be the attachments subsisting in our city, and such is the final purpose of musical training--To generate love of the Beautiful.
[72] [Footnote 70: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 402 A.]
[Footnote 71: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 402 D-E.] [Footnote 72: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 403 C. [Greek: dei= de/ pou teleuta=|n ta\ mousika\ ei)s ta\ tou= kalou= e)rôtika/.]]
[Side-note: Training of the body--simple and sober.
No refined medical art allowed.
Wounds or temporary ailments treated; but sickly frames cannot be kept alive.]
We next proceed to gymnastic training, which must be simple, for the body--just as our musical training was simple for the mind.
We cannot admit luxuries and refinements either in the one or in the other.
Our gymnastics must impart health and strength to the body, as our music imparts sobriety to the mind.
[73] We shall require few courts of justice and few physicians.
Where many of either are needed, this is a proof that ill-regulated minds and diseased bodies abound.
It would be a disgrace to our Guardians if they could not agree on what is right and proper among themselves, without appealing to the decision of others.
Physicians too are only needed for wounds or other temporary and special diseases.
We cannot admit those refinements of the medical art, and that elaborate nomenclature and classification of diseases, which the clever sons of Æsculapius have invented, in times more recent than Æsculapius himself.
[74] He knew, but despised, such artifices; which, having been devised chiefly by Herodikus, serve only to keep alive sickly and suffering men--who are disqualified for all active duty through the necessity of perpetual attention to health,--and whose lives are worthless both to themselves and to the city.
In our city, every man has his distinct and special function, which he is required to discharge.
If he be disqualified by some temporary ailment, the medical art will be well employed in relieving and restoring him to activity: but he has no leisure to pass his life as a patient under cure, and if he be permanently unfit to fill his place in the established cycle of duties, his life ought not to be prolonged by art, since it is useless to himself and useless to the city also.
[75] Our medical treatment for evils of the body, and our judicial treatment for evils of the mind, must be governed by analogous principles.
Where body and mind are sound at bottom, we must do our best to heal temporary derangements: but if a man has a body radically unsound, he must be suffered to die--and if he has a mind unsound and incurable, he must be put to death by ourselves.
[76] [Footnote 73: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 404 B.]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 405 D. [Greek: phu/sas te kai\ kata/r)r(ous nosê/masin o)no/mata ti/thesthai a)nagka/zein tou\s kompsou\s A)sklêpia/das, ou)k ai)schro\n dokei=?
Kai\ ma/l', e)/phê, ô(s a)lêthô=s kaina\ tau=ta kai\ a)/topa nosêma/tôn o)no/mata.
Oi(=a, ô(s oi)=mai, ou)k ê)=n e)p' A)sklêpiou=.]
Also 406 C.] [Footnote 75: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 406 C. [Greek: ou)deni\ scholê\ dia\ bi/ou ka/mnein i)atreuome/nô|.]
406 D: [Greek: ou) scholê\ ka/mnein ou)de\ lusitelei= ou(/tô zê=n, nosê/mati to\n nou=n prose/chonta, tê=s de\ prokeime/nês e)rgasi/as a)melou=nta.]
407 D-E: [Greek: a)lla\ to\n mê\ duna/menon e)n tê=| kathestêkui/a| perio/dô| zê\n, mê\ oi)/esthai dei=n therapeu/ein, ô(s ou)/te au(tô=| ou)/te po/lei lusitelê=.]
P. 408 A.]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
409-410.]
[Side-note: Value of Gymnastic in imparting courage to the mind--Gymnastic and Music necessary to correct each other.]
Gymnastic training does some good in strengthening the body, but it is still more serviceable in imparting force and courage to the mind.
As regards the mind, gymnastic and music form the indispensable supplement one to the other.
Gymnastic by itself makes a man's nature too savage and violent: he acquires no relish for knowledge, comes to hate discourse, and disdains verbal persuasion.
[77] On the other hand, music by itself makes him soft, cowardly, and sensitive, unfit for danger or hardship.
The judicious combination of the two is the only way to form a well-balanced mind and character.
[78] [Footnote 77: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 411 D. [Greek: Misolo/gos dê\ o( toiou=tos gi/gnetai kai\ a)/mousos, kai\ peithoi= me\n dia\ lo/gôn ou)de\n e)/ti chrê=tai], &c.] [Footnote 78: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
410-411.]
[Side-note: Out of the Guardians a few of the very best must be chosen as Elders or Rulers--highly educated and severely tested.]
Such must be the training, from childhood upwards, of these Guardians and Auxiliaries of our city.
We must now select from among these men themselves, a few to be Governors or chief Guardians; the rest serving as auxiliaries.
The oldest and best of them must be chosen for this purpose, those who possess in the greatest perfection the qualities requisite for Guardians.
They must be intelligent, capable, and solicitous for the welfare of the city.
Now a man is solicitous for the welfare of that which he loves.
He loves those whose interests he believes to be the same as his own; those whose well-being he believes to coincide with his own well-being[79]--the contrary, with the contrary.
The Guardians chosen for Chiefs must be those who are most thoroughly penetrated with such sympathy; who have preserved most tenaciously throughout all their lives the resolution to do every thing which they think best for the city, and nothing which they do not think to be best for it.
They must be watched and tested in temptations pleasurable as well as painful, to see whether they depart from this resolution.
The elders who have best stood such trial, must be named Governors.
[80] These few will be the chief Guardians or Rulers: the remaining Guardians will be their auxiliaries or soldiers, acting under their orders.
[Footnote 79: Plato, Republ.
iii.
p. 412 C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n phroni/mous te ei)s tou=to dei= u(pa/rchein kai\ dunatou\s kai\ e)/ti kêdemo/nas tê=s po/leôs?
E)/sti tau=ta.
Kê/doito de/ g' a)/n tis ma/lista tou/tou o(\ tugcha/noi philô=n.
A)na/gkê.
Kai\ mê\n tou=to/ g' a)\n ma/lista philoi=, ô(=| xumphe/rein ê(goi=to ta\ au)ta\ kai\ e(autô=| kai\ o(/tan ma/lista e)kei/nou me\n eu)= pra/ttontos oi)/oito xumbai/nein kai\ e(autô=| ei)= pra/ttein, mê\ de/, tou)nanti/on.]]
[Footnote 80: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
413-414.
Refer to De Leg.
(I. p. 633-636-637) about resisting pleasure as well as pain.]
[Side-note: Fundamental creed required to be planted in the minds of all the citizens respecting their breed and relationship.]
Here then our city will take its start; the body of Guardians marching in arms under the orders of their Chiefs, and encamping in a convenient acropolis, from whence they may best be able to keep order in the interior and to repel foreign attack.
[81] But it is indispensable that both they and the remaining citizens should be made to believe a certain tale,--which yet is altogether fictitious and of our own invention.
They must be told that they are all earthborn, sprung from the very soil which they inhabit: all therefore brethren, from the same mother Earth: the auxiliaries or soldiers, born with their arms and equipments.
But there was this difference (we shall tell them) between the different brethren.
Those fit for Chiefs or Rulers, were born with a certain mixture of gold in their constitution: those fit for soldiers or Guardians simply, with a like mixture of silver: the remainder, with brass or iron.
In most individual cases, each of these classes will beget an offspring like themselves.
But exceptions will sometimes happen, in which the golden man will have a child of silver, or brass,--or the brazen or iron man, a child of nobler metal than his own.
Now it is of the last importance that the Rulers should keep watch to preserve the purity of these breeds.
If any one of their own children should turn out to be of brass or iron, they must place him out among the husbandmen or artisans: if any of the brazen or iron men should chance to produce a child of gold, they must receive him among themselves, since he belongs to them by his natural constitution.
Upon the maintenance of these distinct breeds, each in its appropriate function, depends the entire fate of the city: for an oracle has declared that it will perish, if ever iron or brazen men shall become its Guardians.
[82] [Footnote 81: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 415 D.] [Footnote 82: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
414-415.]
[Side-note: How is such a fiction to be accredited in the first instance?
Difficulty extreme, of first beginning; but if once accredited, it will easily transmit itself by tradition.]
It is indispensable (continues Sokrates) that this fiction should be circulated and accredited, as the fundamental, consecrated, unquestioned, creed of the whole city, from which the feeling of harmony and brotherhood among the citizens springs.
But how can we implant such unanimous and unshaken belief, in a story altogether untrue?
Similar fables have often obtained implicit credence in past times: but no such case has happened of late, and I question whether it could happen now.
[83] The postulate seems extravagant: do _you_ see by what means it could be realised?--I see no means (replies Glaukon) by which the fiction could be first passed off and accredited, among these men themselves: but if it were once firmly implanted, in any one generation, I do not doubt that their children and descendants would inherit and perpetuate it.
[84] We must be satisfied with thus much (replies Sokrates): assuming the thing to be done, and leaving the process of implanting it to spontaneous and oracular inspiration.
[85] I now proceed with the description of the city.
[Footnote 83: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 414 B.
[Greek: Ti/s a)\n ou)=n ê(mi=n mêchanê\ ge/noito tô=n pseudô=n tô=n e)n de/onti gignome/nôn, ô(=n dê\ nu=n e)le/gomen, gennai=o/n ti e(\n pseudome/nous pei=sai ma/lista me\n kai\ au)tou\s tou\s a)/rchontas, ei) de\ mê/, tê\n a)/llên po/lin?
.
.
.
Mêde\n kaino/n, a)lla\ Phoinikiko/n ti, pro/teron me\n ê)/dê pollachou= gegono/s, ô(/s phasin oi( poiêtai\ kai\ pepei/kasin, e)ph' ê(mô=n de\ ou) gegono\s ou)d' oi)=da ei) geno/menon a)/n, pei=sai de\ suchnê=s peithou=s.]]
[Footnote 84: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 415 C-D [Greek: Tou=ton ou)=n to\n mu=thon o(/pôs a)\n peisthei=en, e)/cheis tina\ mêchanê/n?
Ou)damô=s, e)/phê, o(/pôs g' a)\n au)toi\ ou(=toi; o(/pôs me/nt' a)\n oi( tou/tôn ui(ei=s kai\ oi( e)/peita, oi(/ t' a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi oi( u(/steron.]]
[Footnote 85: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 415 D. [Greek: Kai\ tou=to me\n dê\ e(/xei o(/pê| a)\n au)to\ ê( phê/mê a)ga/gê|.]
[Side-note: Guardians to reside in barracks and mess together; to have no private property or home; to be maintained by contribution from the people.]
The Rulers and their auxiliaries the body of Guardians must be lodged in residences, sufficient for shelter and comfort, yet suitable for military men, and not for tradesmen.
Every arrangement must be made for rendering them faithful guardians of the remaining citizens.
It would be awful indeed, if they were to employ their superior strength in oppressing instead of protecting the flock entrusted to them.
To ensure their gentleness and fidelity, the most essential guarantee is to be found in the good musical and gymnastic training which they will have received.
But this alone will not suffice.
All the conditions of their lives must be so determined, that they shall have the least possible motive for committing injustice towards the other citizens.
None of them must have any separate property of his own, unless in special case of proved necessity: nor any house or store cupboard from which others are excluded.
They must receive, from the contributions of the remaining citizens, sufficient subsistence for the health and comfort of military men, but nothing beyond.
They must live together in their camp or barrack, and dine together at a public mess-table.
They must not be allowed either to possess gold and silver, or to drink in cups of those metals, or to wear them as appendages to clothing, or even to have them under the same roof.
They must be told, that these metals, though not forbidden to the other citizens, are forbidden to them, because they have permanently inherent in their mental constitution the divine gold and silver, which would be corrupted by intermixture with human.
[86] [Footnote 86: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
416-417.]
[Side-note: If the Guardians fail in these precautions, and acquire private interests, the city will be ruined.]
If these precautions be maintained, the Guardians may be secure themselves, and may uphold in security the entire city.
But if the precautions be relinquished--if the Guardians or Soldiers acquire separate property in lands, houses, and money--they will then become householders and husbandmen instead of Guardians or Soldiers: hostile masters, instead of allies and protectors to their fellow-citizens.
They will hate their fellow-citizens, and be hated by them in return: they will conspire against them, and will be themselves conspired against.
In this manner they will pass their lives, dreading their enemies within far more than their enemies without.
They, and the whole city along with them, will be perpetually on the brink of destruction.
[87] [Footnote 87: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 417 A-B.]
[Side-note: Complete unity of the city, every man performing his own special function.]
But surely (remarks Adeimantus), according to this picture, your Guardians or Soldiers, though masters of all the city, will be worse off than any of the other citizens.
They will be deprived of those means of happiness which the others are allowed to enjoy.
Perhaps they will (replies Sokrates): yet I should not be surprised if they were to be the happiest of all.
Be that as it may, however, my purpose is, not to make _them_ especially happy, but to make the whole city happy.
The Guardians can enjoy only such happiness as consists with the due performance of their functions as Guardians.
Every man in our city must perform his appropriate function, and must be content with such happiness as his disposition will admit, subject to this condition.
[88] In regard to all the citizens without exception, it must be the duty of the Guardians to keep out both riches and poverty, both of which spoil the character of every one.
No one must be rich, and no one must be poor.
[89] In case of war, the constant discipline of our soldiers will be of more avail than money, in making them efficient combatants against other cities.
[90] Moreover, other cities are divided against themselves: each is many cities, and not one: poor and rich are at variance with each other, and various fractions of each of these classes against other fractions.
Our city alone, constituted as I propose, will be really and truly One.
It will thus be the greatest of all cities, even though it have only one thousand fighting men.
It may be permitted to increase, so long as it will preserve its complete unity, but no farther.
[91] Farthermore, each of our citizens is one and not many: confined to that special function for which he is qualified by his nature.
[Footnote 88: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
420-421.]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 421 E.] [Footnote 90: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 422 B.]
[Footnote 91: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 423 A.]
[Side-note: The maintenance of the city depends upon that of the habits, character, and education of the Guardians.]
It will devolve upon our Guardians to keep up this form of communion unimpaired; and they will have no difficulty in doing so, as long as they maintain their own education and training unimpaired.
No change must be allowed either in the musical or gymnastic training: especially not in the former, where changes are apt to creep in, with pernicious effect.
[92] Upon this education depends the character and competence of the Guardians.
They will provide legislation in detail, which will be good, if their general character is good--bad, on the contrary supposition.
If their character and the constitution of the city be defective at the bottom, it is useless for us to prescribe regulations of detail, as we would do for sick men.
The laws in detail cannot be good, while the general constitution of the city is bad.
Those teachers are mistaken who exhort us to correct the former, but to leave the latter untouched.
[93] [Footnote 92: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 424 A.]
[Footnote 93: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
425-426.]
[Side-note: Religious legislation--Consult the Delphian Apollo.]
In regard to religious legislation--the raising of temples, arrangement of sacrifices, &c.--we must consult Apollo at Delphi, and obey what he directs.
We know nothing ourselves about these matters, nor is there any other authority equally trustworthy.
[94] [Footnote 94: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 427 B.
[Greek: ta\ ga\r dê\ toiau=ta ou)/t' e)pista/metha ê(mei=s], &c.] [Side-note: The city is now constituted as a good city--that is, wise, courageous, temperate, just.
Where is its Justice?]
Our city is now constituted and peopled (continues Sokrates).
We mast examine it, and see where we can find Justice and Injustice--reverting to our original problem, which was, to know what each of them was, and which of the two conferred happiness.
Now assuming our city to be rightly constituted, it will be perfectly good: that is, it will be wise, courageous, temperate, and just.
These four constituents cover the whole: accordingly, if we can discover and set out Wisdom, Courage, and Temperance--that which remains afterwards will be Justice.
[95] [Footnote 95: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
427-428.]
[Side-note: First, where is the wisdom of the city?
It resides in the few elder Rulers.]
First, we can easily see where Wisdom resides.
The city includes in itself a great variety of cognitions, corresponding to all the different functions in which its citizens are employed.
But it is not called _wise_, from its knowledge of husbandry, or of brazier's and carpenter's craft: since these are specialties which cover only a small fraction of its total proceedings.
It is called _wise_, or well-advised, from that variety of intelligence or cognition which directs it as a whole, in its entire affairs: that is, the intelligence possessed by the chief Guardians or Rulers.
Now the number of persons possessing this variety of intelligence is smaller than the number of those who possess any other variety.
The wisdom of the entire city resides in this very small presiding fraction, and in them alone.
[96] [Footnote 96: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
428-429.]
[Side-note: Where is the Courage?
In the body of Guardians or Soldiers.]
Next, we can also discern without difficulty in what fraction of the city Courage resides.
The city is called courageous from the valour of those Guardians or Soldiers upon whom its defence rests.
These men will have learnt, in the course of their training, what are really legitimate objects of fear, and what are not legitimate objects of fear.
To such convictions they will resolutely adhere, through the force of mind implanted by their training, in defiance of all disturbing impulses.
It is these right convictions, respecting the legitimate objects of fear, which I (says Sokrates) call true political courage, when they are designedly inculcated and worked in by regular educational authority: when they spring up without any rational foundation, as in animals or slaves, I do not call them Courage.
The Courage of the entire city thus resides in its Guardians or Soldiers.
[97] [Footnote 97: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
429-430.]
[Side-note: Where is the Temperance?
It resides in all and each, Rulers, Guardians, and People.
Superiors rule and Inferiors obey.]
Thirdly, wherein resides the Temperance of the city?
Temperance implies a due relation, proportion, or accord, between different elements.
The temperate man is called superior to himself: but this expression, on first hearing, seems unmeaning, since the man must also be inferior to himself.
But the expression acquires a definite meaning, when we recognise it as implying that there are in the same man's mind better and worse elements: and that when the better rules over the worse, he is called superior to himself, or temperate--when the worse rules over the better, he is called inferior to himself, or intemperate.
Our city will be temperate, because the better part of it, though smaller in number, rules over the worse and inferior part, numerically greater.
The pleasures, pains, and desires of our few Rulers, which are moderate and reasonable, are preponderant: controuling those of the Many, which are miscellaneous, irregular, and violent.
And this command is exercised with the perfect consent and good-will of the subordinates.
The Many are not less willing to obey than the Few to command.
There is perfect unanimity between them as to the point--Who ought to command, and who ought to obey?
It is this unanimity which constitutes the temperance of the city: which thus resides, not in any one section of the city, like Courage and Wisdom, but in all sections alike: each recognising and discharging its legitimate function.
[98] [Footnote 98: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
431-432.]
[Side-note: Where is the Justice?
In all and each of them also.
It consists in each performing his own special function, and not meddling with the function of the others.]
There remains only Justice for us to discover.
Wherein does the Justice of the city reside?
Not far off.
Its justice consists in that which we pointed out at first as the fundamental characteristic of the city, when we required each citizen to discharge one function, and one alone--that for which he was best fitted by nature.
That each citizen shall do his own work, and not meddle with others in their work--that each shall enjoy his own property, as well as do his own work--this is true Justice.
[99] It is the fundamental condition without which neither temperance, nor courage, nor wisdom could exist; and it fills up the good remaining after we have allowed for the effects of the preceding three.
[100] All the four are alike indispensable to make up the entire Good of the city: Justice, or each person (man, woman, freeman, slave, craftsman, guardian) doing his or her own work--Temperance, or unanimity as to command and obedience between Chiefs, Guardians, and the remaining citizens--Courage, or the adherence of the Guardians to right reason, respecting what is terrible and not terrible--Wisdom, or the tutelary superintendence of the Chiefs, who protect each person in the enjoyment of his own property.
[101] [Footnote 99: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
432-433.
433 A: [Greek: Kai\ mê\n o(/ti ge to\ ta\ au(tou= pra/ttein kai\ mê\ polupragmonei=n dikaiosu/nê e)sti/, kai\ tou=to a)/llôn te pollô=n a)kêko/amen, kai\ au)toi\ polla/kis ei)rê/kamen.]
433 E. [Greek: ê( tou= oi)kei/ou te kai\ e(autou= e(/xis te kai\ pra=xis dikaiosu/nê a)\n o(mologoi=to.]]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 433 B.
[Greek: dokei= moi to\ u(po/loipon e)n tê=| po/lei ô(=n e)ske/mmetha, sôphrosu/nês kai\ a)ndrei/as kai\ phronê/seôs, tou=to ei)=nai o(\ pa=sin e)kei/nois tê\n du/namin pa/reschen ô(/ste e)ggene/sthai, kai\ e)ggenome/nois ge sôtêri/an pare/chein, e(/ôs per a)\n e)nê=|.]]
[Footnote 101: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 433 D.] [Side-note: Injustice arises when any one part of the city interferes with the functions of the other part, or undertakes double functions.]
As justice consists in each person doing his own work, and not meddling with that of another--so injustice occurs, when a person undertakes the work of another instead of his own, or in addition to his own.
The mischief is not great, when such interference takes place only in the subordinate functions: when, for example, the carpenter pretends to do the work of the shoemaker, or _vice versâ_; or when either of them undertake both.
But the mischief becomes grave and deplorable, when a man from the subordinate functions meddles with the higher--when a craftsman, availing himself of some collateral support, wealth or party or strength, thrusts himself into the functions of a soldier or auxiliary--or when the Guardian, by similar artifice, usurps the functions of a Chief--or when any one person combines these several functions all at once in himself.
Herein consists the true injustice, ruinous to the city: when the line of demarcation is confounded between these three classes--men of business, Guardians, Chiefs.
That each of these classes should do its own work, is Justice: that either of them should meddle with the work of the rest, and especially that the subordinate should meddle with the business of the superior, is Injustice, with ruin following in its train.
[102] It is from these opposite characteristics that the titles Just or Unjust will be rightfully bestowed upon our city.
[Footnote 102: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 434 B-C. [Greek: ê( triô=n a)/ra o)/ntôn genô=n polupragmosu/nê kai\ metabolê\ ei)s a)/llêla, megi/stê te bla/bê tê=| po/lei kai\ o)rtho/tat' a)\n prosagoreu/oito ma/lista kakourgi/a .
.
.
Kakourgi/an de\ tê\n megi/stên tê=s e(autou= po/leôs ou)k a)diki/an phê/seis ei)=nai?
.
.
.
chrêmatistikou=, e)pikourikou=, phulakikou=, ge/nous oi)keiopragi/a, .
.
.
dikaiosu/nê t' a)\n ei)/ê, kai\ tê\n po/lin dikai/an pa/rechoi.]]
[Side-note: Analogy of the city to the individual--Each man is tripartite, having in his mind Reason, Energy, Appetite.
These three elements are distinct, and often conflicting.]
We must now apply, as we undertook to do, the analogy of the city to the individual.
The just man, so far forth as justice is concerned, cannot differ from the just city.
He must therefore have in his own individual mind three distinct parts, elements, or classes, corresponding to the three classes above distinguished in the city.
But is it the fact that there are in each man three such mental constituents--three different classes, sorts, or varieties, of mind?
To settle this point as it ought to be settled, would require a stricter investigation than our present dialogue will permit: but we may contribute something towards it.
[103] It is manifest that there exist different individuals in whom reason, energy (courage or passion), and appetite, are separately and unequally developed: thus in the Thracians there is a predominance of energy or courage--in the Phoenicians of appetite--in the Athenians, of intellect or reason.
The question is, whether we employ one and the same mind for all the three--reason, energy, and appetite; or whether we do not employ a different mind or portion of mind, when we exercise reason--another, when we are under the influence of energy--and a third, when we follow appetite.
[104] [Footnote 103: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 435 C. Schleiermacher (in the Introduction to his translation of the Republic, p. 71) considers that this passage of the Republic is intended to note as a desideratum the exposition in the Timæus; wherein the constituent elements of mind or soul are more fully laid down, and its connection with the fundamental elements of the Kosmos.]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 436 A.]
To determine this question, we must consider that the same thing cannot at the same time do or suffer opposites, in the same respect and with reference to the same thing.
The same thing or person cannot at the same time, and in the same respect, both stand still and move.
This may be laid down as an universal truth: but since some may not admit it to be so, we will at any rate assume it as an hypothesis.
[105] Now in reference to the mind, we experience at the same time various movements or affections contrary to each other: assent and dissent--desire and aversion--the attracting any thing to ourselves, and the repelling it from ourselves: each of these is different from and contrary to the other.
As a specimen of desires, we will take thirst.
When a man is in this condition, his mind desires nothing else but to drink; and strains entirely towards that object.
If there be any thing which drags back his mind when in this condition, it must be something different from that which pulls him forward and attracts him to drink.
That which attracts him, and that which repels him, cannot be the same: just as when the archer at the same time pulls his bow towards him and pushes it away from him, it is one of his hands that pulls and another that pushes.
[106] Now it often happens that a man athirst refuses to drink: there is something within him that prompts him to drink, and something still more powerful that forbids him.
These two cannot be the same: one of them is different from the other: that which prompts is appetite, that which forbids is reason.
The rational element of the mind is in like manner something different or distinguishable from all the appetites, which tend towards repletion and pleasure.
[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 437 A.]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 439 A-B.]
[Side-note: Reason, Energy, Appetite, in the individual--analogous to Rulers, Guardians, Craftsmen in the city.
Reason is to rule Appetite.
Energy assists Reason in ruling it.]
Here then we have two distinct species, forms, or kinds, existing in the mind.
[107] Besides these two, however, there is a third, distinct from both: Energy, Passion, Courage, which neither belongs to Appetite nor to individual Reason.
Each of these three acts apart from, and sometimes in contrariety to, each of the others.
[108] There are thus three distinct elements or varieties of mind in the individual--Reason, Energy, Appetite: corresponding to the three constituent portions of the city--The Chiefs or Rulers--The Guardians or Soldiers--The Craftsmen, or the remaining Community.
[109] The Wisdom of the city resides in its Elders: that of the individual in his Reason.
The Courage of the city resides in its Guardians or Soldiers: that of the individual in his Energy.
But in the city as well as in the individual, it is the right and privilege of the rational element to exercise command, because it alone looks to the welfare and advantage of the whole compound:[110] it is the duty of the two other elements--the energetic and the appetitive--to obey.
It is moreover the special function of the Guardians in the city to second the Chiefs in enforcing obedience upon the Craftsmen: so also in the individual, it is the special function of Energy or Courage to second Reason in controuling Appetite.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 439 E. [Greek: Tau=ta me\n toi/nun du/o ê(mi=n ô(ri/sthô ei)/dê e)n psuchê=| e)no/nta], &c.] [Footnote 108: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
440-441.]
[Footnote 109: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
441 C. [Greek: ta\ au)ta\ me\n e)n po/lei, ta\ au)ta\ d' e)n e(no\s e(ka/stou tê=| psuchê=| ge/nê e)nei=nai, kai\ i)/sa to\n a)rithmo/n.]
443 D: [Greek: ta\ e)n tê=| psuchê=| ge/nê], &c.] [Footnote 110: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
441 E, 442 C. [Greek: tô=| me\n logistikô=| a)/rchein prosê/kei, sophô=| o)/nti kai\ e)/chonti tê\n u(pe\r a(pa/sês tê=s psuchê=s promê/theian .
.
.
.
Sopho\n de/ ge (e(/na e(/kaston kalou=men) e)kei/nô| tô=| smikrô=| me/rei, tô=| o(\ ê)=rche/ t' e)n au)tô=| kai\ tau=ta parê/ggellen, e)/chon au)= ka)kei=no e)pistê/mên e)n au(tô=| tê\n tou= xumphe/rontos e(ka/stô| te kai\ o(/lô| tô=| koinô=| sphô=n au)tô=n triô=n o)/ntôn.]]
[Side-note: A man is just when these different parts of his mind exercise their appropriate functions without hindrance.]
These special functions of the separate parts being laid down, Justice as well as Temperance will appear analogous in the individual and in the city.
Both Justice and Temperance reside in all the parts equally: not in one of them exclusively, as Wisdom and Courage reside.
Justice and Temperance belong to the subordinate as well as to the dominant parts.
Justice exists when each of the parts performs its own function, without encroaching on the function of the others: Temperance exists when all the parts are of one opinion as to the title of the higher or rational element to exercise command.
[111] [Footnote 111: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
442 C, 443 B.]
A man as well as a city is just, when each of his three sorts or varieties of mind confines itself to its own legitimate function: when Reason reigns over and controuls the other two, and when Energy seconds Reason in controuling Appetite.
Such a man will not commit fraud, theft, treachery, perjury, or any like proceedings.
[112] On the contrary, injustice exists when the parts are in conflict with each other: when either of them encroaches on the function of the other: or when those parts which ought to be subordinate rise in insurrection against that which ought to be superior.
[Footnote 112: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
442-443.]
[Side-note: Justice and Injustice in the mind--what health and disease are in the body.]
Justice is in the mind what health is in the body, when the parts are so arranged as to controul and be controuled pursuant to the dictates of nature.
Injustice is in the mind what disease is in the body, when the parts are so arranged as to controul and be controuled contrary to the dictates of nature.
Virtue is thus the health, beauty, good condition of the mind: Vice is the disease, ugliness, weakness, of the mind.
[113] [Footnote 113: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 444 B-C.] [Side-note: Original question now resumed--Does Justice make a man happy, and Injustice make him miserable, apart from all consequences?
Answer--Yes.]
Having thus ascertained the nature of justice and injustice, we are now in a condition (continues Sokrates) to reply to the question proposed for investigation--Is it profitable to a man to be just and to do justice _per se_, even though he be not known as just either by Gods or men, and may thus be debarred from the consequences which would ensue if he were known?
Or is it profitable to him to be unjust, if he can contrive to escape detection and punishment?
We are enabled to answer the first question in the affirmative, and the second question in the negative.
As health is the greatest good, and sickness the greatest evil, of body: so Justice is the greatest good, and injustice the greatest evil, of mind.
No measure of luxury, wealth, or power, could render life tolerable, if we lost our bodily health: no amount of prosperity could make life tolerable, without mental health or justice.
As bodily health is good _per se_, and sickness evil _per se_, even apart from its consequences: so justice also is good in itself, and injustice evil in itself, apart from its consequences.
[114] [Footnote 114: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 445 A.]
[Side-note: Glaukon requires farther explanation about the condition of the Guardians, in regard to sexual and family ties.]
Sokrates now assumes the special question of the dialogue to be answered, and the picture of the just or perfect city, as well as of the just or perfect individual, to be completed.
He is next proceeding to set forth the contrasts to this picture--that is, the varieties of injustice, or the various modes of depravation and corruption--when he is arrested by Polemarchus and Adeimantus: who call upon him to explain more at large the position of the body of Guardians or Soldiers in the city, in regard to women, children, and the family.
[115] [Footnote 115: Plato, Republic, v. p. 449 C.] [Side-note: Men and women will live together and perform the duties of Guardians alike--They will receive the same gymnastic and musical training.]
In reply, Sokrates announces his intention to make such provision as will exclude separate family ties, as well as separate property, among these Guardians.
The Guardians will consist both of men and women.
The women will receive the same training, both musical and gymnastical, as the men.
[116] They will take part both in the bodily exercises of the palæstra, in the military drill, and in the combats of war.
Those who deride these naked exercises as preposterous for the female sex, should be reminded (Sokrates says) that not long ago it was considered unseemly among the Greeks (as it still is among many of the _barbari_) for men to expose their naked bodies in the palæstra: but such repugnance has been overpowered by the marked usefulness of the practice: the Kretans first setting the example, next the Lacedæmonians; lastly all other Greeks doing the same.
[117] We maintain the principle which we laid down in the beginning, that one person should perform only one duty--that for which he is best qualified.
But there is no one function, or class of functions, for which women as such are peculiarly qualified, or peculiarly disqualified.
Between women generally, and men generally, in reference to the discharge of duties, there is no other difference, except that men are superior to women in every thing:[118] the best women will be on a level only with the second-best men, but they will be superior to all men lower than the second best.
But among women, as among men, there are great individual differences: one woman is fit for one duty, another for another: and in our city, each must be employed for the duty suitable to her individual disposition.
Those who are best qualified by nature for the office of Guardians, must be allotted to that office: they must discharge it along with the men, and must be trained for it by the same education as the men, musical and gymnastical.
[Footnote 116: Plato, Republic, v. p. 452 A.]
[Footnote 117: Plato, Republic, v. p. 452 D.] [Footnote 118: Plato, Republic, v. p. 455 C-D.] [Side-note: Nature does not prescribe any distribution of functions between men and women.
Women are inferior to men in every thing.
The best women are equal to second-best men.]
If an objector accuses us of proposing arrangements contrary to nature, we not only deny the force of the objection, but we retort the charge.
We affirm that the arrangements now existing in society, which restrict all women to a limited number of domestic and family functions, are contrary to nature--and that ours are founded upon the genuine and real dictates of nature.
[119] The only difference admissible between men and women, in the joint discharge of the functions of Guardians, is, that the easier portion of such functions must in general be assigned to women, and the more difficult to men, in consequence of the inferiority of the feminine nature.
[120] [Footnote 119: Plato, Republic, v. p. 456 C. [Greek: kata\ phu/sin e)ti/themen to\n no/mon; a)lla\ ta\ nu=n para\ tau=ta gigno/mena para\ phu/sin ma=llon, ô(s e)/oike, gi/gnetai.]]
[Footnote 120: Plato, Republic, v. p. 457 B.]
[Side-note: Community of life and relations between the male and female Guardians.
Temporary marriages arranged by contrivance of the Elders.
No separate families.]
These intermingled male and female Guardians, in the discharge of their joint functions, will live together in common barracks and at common mess-tables.
There must be no separate houses or separate family-relations between them.
All are wives or husbands of all: no youth must know his own father, no mature man must know his own son: all the mature men and women are fathers or mothers of all the younger: all of the same age are brothers and sisters.
[121] We do not intend, however, that the copulation between them shall take place in a promiscuous and arbitrary manner: we shall establish laws to regulate the intermarriages and breeding.
[122] We must copy the example of those who regulate the copulation of horses, dogs, and other animals: we must bring together those who will give existence to the best offspring.
[123] We must couple, as often as we can, the men who are best, with the women who are best, both in mind and body; and the men who are least good, with the women who are least good.
We must bring up the offspring of the former couples--we must refuse to bring up the offspring of the latter.
[124] And such results must be accomplished by underhand arrangements of the Elder Chiefs; so as to be unknown to every one else, in order to prevent discontent and quarrel among the body of the Guardians.
These Elders will celebrate periodical festivals, in which they will bring together the fitting brides and bridegrooms, under solemn hymns and sacrifices.
They must regulate the number of marriages in such manner as to keep the total list of Guardians as much as possible without increase as well as without diminution.
[125] The Elders must make an artful use of the lot, so that these couplings shall appear to every one else the effect of chance.
Distinguished warriors must be rewarded with a larger licence of copulation with different women, which will produce the farther advantage of having as many children as possible born from their procreation.
[126] All the children as soon as born must be consigned to the Chiefs or Elders, male and female, who will conceal in some convenient manner those who are born either from the worst couples or with any bodily imperfection: while they place the offspring of the best couples in special outbuildings under the charge of nurses.
Those mothers who are full of milk will be brought here to give suck, but every precaution will be taken that none of them shall know her own child: wet-nurses will also be provided in addition, to ensure a full supply: but all the care of the children will devolve on the public nurses, not on the mothers.
[127] [Footnote 121: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
457-458.]
[Footnote 122: Plato, Republic, v. p. 458 E.] [Footnote 123: Plato, Republic, v. p. 459 A.]
[Footnote 124: Plato, Republic, v. p. 459 D-E. [Greek: dei= me\n e)k tô=n ô(mologême/nôn tou\s a)ri/stous tai=s a)ri/stais suggi/gnesthai ô(s pleista/kis, tou\s de\ phaulota/tous tai=s phaulota/tais tou)nanti/on, kai\ tô=n me\n ta\ e)/kgona tre/phein, tô=n de\ mê/, ei) me/llei to\ poi/mnion o(/, ti a)kro/taton ei)=nai; kai\ tau=ta pa/nta gigno/mena lantha/nein plê\n au)tou\s tou\s a)/rchontas, ei) au)= ê( a)ge/lê tô=n phula/kôn o(/, ti ma/lista a)stasi/astos e)/stai.]]
[Footnote 125: Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 A.]
[Footnote 126: Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 B.]
[Footnote 127: Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 C-D.] [Side-note: Regulations about age, for procreation--Children brought up under public authority.]
The age for such intermarriages, destined to be procreative for the benefit of the city, must be from thirty to fifty-five, for men--from twenty to forty, for women.
No man or woman, above or below these limits of age, will be allowed to meddle with the function of intermarriage and procreation for the public; which function must always be conducted under superintendence of the authorities, with proper sacrifice and prayers to the Gods.
Nor will any man, even within the licensed age, be allowed to approach any woman except by assignment from the authorities.
If any infringement of this law should occur, the offspring arising from it will be pronounced spurious and outcast.
[128] But when the above limits of age are passed, both men and women may have intercourse with whomsoever they please, except fathers with daughters or sons with mothers: under condition, however, that no offspring shall be born from such intercourse, or that if any offspring be born, it shall be exposed.
[129] [Footnote 128: Plato, Republic, v. p. 461 A-B.]
[Footnote 129: Plato, Republic, v. p. 461 C.] How is the father to know his own daughter (it is asked), or the son his own mother?
They cannot know (replies Sokrates): but each couple will consider every child born in the seventh month or tenth month after their marriage, as their child, and will address him or her by the appellation of son or daughter.
The fathers and mothers will be fathers and mothers of all the children born at that time: the sons and daughters will be in filial relation to all the couples brought together at the given antecedent period.
[130] [Footnote 130: Plato, Republic, v. p. 461 D.] [Side-note: Perfect communion of sentiment and interest among the Guardians--Causes of pleasure and pain the same to all, like parts of the same organism.]
The main purpose of such regulations, in respect to family as in respect to property, is to establish the fullest communion between all the Guardians, male and female--and to eliminate as much as possible the feeling of separate interest in any fraction of them.
The greatest evil to any city is, that which pulls it to pieces and makes it many instead of one: the greatest good to it is that which binds it together and makes it one.
Now what is most efficacious in binding it together, is, community of the causes of pleasure and pain: when each individual feels pleasure from the same causes and on the same occasions as all the rest, and pain in like manner.
On the other hand, when the causes of pleasure and pain are distinct, this tends to dissolution; and becomes fatal if the opposition is marked, so that some individuals are much delighted, and others much distressed, under the same circumstances.
That city is the best arranged, wherein all the citizens pronounce the words _Mine_ and _Not Mine_, with reference to the same things: when they coalesce into an unity like the organism of a single individual.
To him a blow in the finger is a blow to the whole man: so also in the city, pleasure or pain to any one citizen ought to communicate itself by sympathy as pleasure and pain to all.
[131] [Footnote 131: Plato, Republic, v. p. 462 D.] [Side-note: Harmony--absence of conflicting interest--assured scale of equal comfort--consequent happiness--among the Guardians.]
Now the Guardians under our regulations will present as much as possible this community of _Mine_ and _Not Mine_, as well as of pleasures and pains--and this exclusion of the separate individual _Mine_ and _Not Mine_, as well as of separate pleasures and pains.
No individual among them will have either separate property or separate family relationship: each will have both one and the other in common with the rest.
[132] No one will have property of his own to be increased, nor a family of his own to be benefited, apart from the rest: all will be as much as possible common recipients of pleasure and pain.
[133] All the ordinary causes of dispute and litigation will thus be excluded.
If two Guardians of the same age happen to quarrel, they must fight it out: this will discharge their wrath and prevent worse consequences--while at the same time it will encourage attention to gymnastic excellence.
[134] But no younger Guardian will raise his hand against an older Guardian, whom he is taught to reverence as his father, and whom every one else would protect if attacked.
If the Guardians maintain harmony among themselves, they will easily ensure it among the remaining inhabitants.
Assured of sufficient but modest comforts, the Guardians will be relieved from all struggles for the maintenance of a family, from the arts of trade, and from subservience to the rich.
[135] They will escape all these troubles, and will live a life happier than the envied Olympic victor: for they will gain the victory in an enterprise more illustrious than he undertakes, and they will receive from their fellow-citizens fuller maintenance and higher privilege than what is awarded to him, as well as honours after death.
[136] Their lives are not to be put in comparison with those of the farmer or the shoemaker.
They must not indeed aspire to any happiness incompatible with their condition and duty as Guardians.
But that condition will itself involve the highest happiness.
And if any silly ambition prompts them to depart from it, they will assuredly change for the worse.
[137] [Footnote 132: Plato, Republic, v. p. 464 B.]
[Footnote 133: Plato, Republic, v. p. 464 D. [Greek: pa/ntas ei)s to\ dunato\n o(mopathei=s lu/pês te kai\ ê(donê=s ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 134: Plato, Republic, v. p. 464 E.] [Footnote 135: Plato, Republic, v. p. 465 C. [Greek: tô=n kakô=n .
.
.
ô(=n a)pêllagme/noi a)\n ei)=en, kolakei/as te plousi/ôn pe/nêtes a)pori/as te kai\ a)lgêdo/nas], &c.] [Footnote 136: Plato, Republic, v. p. 465 D. [Greek: Pa/ntôn te dê\ tou/tôn a)palla/xontai, zê/sousi/ te tou= makaristou= bi/ou, o(\n oi( O)lumpioni=kai zô=si, makariô/teron.]]
[Footnote 137: Plato, Republic, v. p. 466 A-C.] [Side-note: In case of war both sexes will go together to battle--Rewards to distinguished warriors.]
Such is the communion of sexes which must be kept up for the duties of Guardians, and for the exigencies of military defence.
As in other races of animals, males and females must go out to fight, and each will inspire the other with bravery.
The children must be taken out on horseback to see the encounters from a distance, so that they may be kept clear of danger, yet may nevertheless be gradually accustomed to the sight of it.
[138] If any one runs away from the field, he must be degraded from the rank of Guardian to that of husbandman or craftsman.
If any man suffers himself to be taken prisoner, he is no loss: the enemy may do what they choose with him.
When any one distinguishes himself in battle, he shall be received on his return by garlands and by an affectionate welcome from the youth.
[139] Should he be slain in battle, he shall be recognised as having become a Dæmon or Demigod (according to the Hesiodic doctrine), and his sepulchre shall be honoured by appropriate solemnities.
[140] [Footnote 138: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
466-467.]
[Footnote 139: Plato, Republic, v. p. 468 B.]
[Footnote 140: Plato, Republic, v. p. 469 B.]
[Side-note: War against Hellenic enemies to be carried on mildly--Hellens are all by nature kinsmen.]
In carrying on war, our Guardians will observe a marked difference in their manner of treating Hellenic enemies and barbaric enemies.
They will never enslave any Hellenic city, nor hold any Hellenic person in slavery.
They will never even strip the body of an Hellenic enemy, except so far as to take his arms.
They will never pile up in their temples the arms, nor burn the houses and lands, of Hellenic enemies.
They will always keep in mind the members of the Hellenic race as naturally kindred with each other, and bound to aid each other in mutual defence, against Barbaric aliens who are the natural enemies of all of them.
[141] They will not think themselves authorised to carry on war as Hellens now do against each other, except when their enemies are Barbaric.
[Footnote 141: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
470-471.]
Enough of this, Sokrates, replies Glaukon.
I admit that your city will have all the excellencies and advantages of which you boast.
But you have yet to show me that it is practicable, and how.
[142] [Footnote 142: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
471-472.]
[Side-note: Question--How is the scheme practicable?
It is difficult, yet practicable on one condition--That philosophy and political power should come into the same hands.]
The task which you impose (says Sokrates) is one of great difficulty: even if you grant me, what must be granted, that every reality must fall short of its ideal type.
[143] One condition, and one only, is essential to render it practicable: a condition which you may ridicule as preposterous, but which, though not probable, is certainly supposable.
Either philosophers must acquire the ruling power, or else the present rulers of mankind must themselves become genuine philosophers.
In one or other of these two ways philosophy and political power must come into the into the same hands.
Unless such condition be fulfilled, our city can never be made a reality, nor can there ever be any respite of suffering to the human race.
[144] [Footnote 143: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
472-473.]
[Footnote 144: Plato, Republic, v. p. 473 D.] The supremacy which you claim for philosophers (replies Glaukon), will be listened to with repugnance and scorn.
But at least you must show who the philosophers are, on whose behalf you invoke such supremacy.
You must show that it belongs to them by nature both to pursue philosophy, and to rule in the various cities: and that by nature also, other men ought to obey them as well as to abstain from philosophy.
[145] [Footnote 145: Plato, Republic, v. p. 474 A-B.]
[Side-note: Characteristic marks of the philosopher--He contemplates and knows Entia or unchangeable Forms, as distinguished from fluctuating particulars or Fientia.]
The first requisite for a philosopher (replies Sokrates) is, that he shall love and pursue eagerly every sort of knowledge or wisdom, without shrinking from labour for such purpose.
But it is not sufficient that he should be eager about hearing tragedies or learning the minor arts.
Other men, accomplished and curious, are fond of hearing beautiful sounds and discourses, or of seeing beautiful forms and colours.
But the philosopher alone can see or distinguish truth.
[146] It is only he who can distinguish the genuine Form or Idea, in which truth consists, from the particular embodiments in which it occurs.
These Forms or Ideas exist, eternal and unchangeable.
Since Pulchrum is the opposite of Turpe, they must be two, and each of them must be One: the same about Just and Unjust, Good and Evil; each of these is a distinct Form or Idea, existing as One and Unchangeable by itself, but exhibiting itself in appearance as manifold, diverse, and frequently changing, through communion with different objects and events, and through communion of each Form with others.
[147] Now the accomplished, but unphilosophical, man cannot see or recognise this Form in itself.
He can see only the different particular cases and complications in which it appears embodied.
[148] None but the philosopher can contemplate each Form by itself, and discriminate it from the various particulars in conjunction with which it appears.
Such philosophers are few in number, but they are the only persons who can be said truly to live.
Ordinary and even accomplished men--who recognise beautiful things, but cannot recognise Beauty in itself, nor even follow an instructor who points it out to them--pass their lives in a sort of dream or reverie: for the dreamer, whether asleep or awake, is one who believes what is similar to another thing to be not merely similar, but to be the actual thing itself.
[149] The philosopher alone, who embraces in his mind the one and unchangeable Form or Idea, along with, yet distinguished from, its particular embodiments, possesses knowledge or science.
The unphilosophical man, whose mind embraces nothing higher than variable particulars, does not know--but only opines, or has opinions.
[150] [Footnote 146: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
474-475.
[Greek: tou\s tê=s a)lêthei/as philothea/monas] (p. 475 E).]
[Footnote 147: Plato, Republic, v. p. 476 A.
[Greek: E)peidê/ e)stin e)nanti/on kalo\n ai)schrô=|, du/o au)tô\ ei)=nai .
.
.
Ou)kou=n e)peidê\ du/o, kai\ e(\n e)ka/teron?
.
.
.
Kai\ peri\ dikai/ou kai\ a)di/kou kai\ a)gathou= kai\ kakou= kai\ pa/ntôn tô=n ei)dô=n pe/ri, o( au)to\s lo/gos, au)to\ me\n e(\n e(/kaston ei)=nai, tê=| de\ tô=n pra/xeôn kai\ sôma/tôn kai\ a)llê/lôn koinôni/a| pantachou= phantazo/mena polla\ phai/nesthai e(/kaston?]]
[Footnote 148: Plato, Republic, v. p. 476 B.]
[Footnote 149: Plato, Republic, v. p. 476 B.]
[Footnote 150: Plato, Republic, v. p. 476 D. [Greek: Ou)kou=n tou/tou me\n tê\n dia/noian ô(s gignô/skontos _gnô/mên_ a)\n o)rthô=s phai=men ei)=nai, tou= de\ _do/xan_, ô(s doxa/zontos.]]
[Side-note: Ens alone can be known--Non-Ens is unknowable.
That which is midway between Ens and Non-Ens (particulars) is matter only of opinion.
Ordinary men attain nothing beyond opinion.]
This latter, the unphilosophical man, will not admit what we say.
Accordingly, we must prove it to him.
You cannot know without knowing Something: that is, Some Ens: for Non-Ens cannot be known.
That which is completely and absolutely Ens, is completely and absolutely cognizable: that which is Non-Ens and nowhere, is in every way uncognizable.
If then there be anything which is at once Ens and Non-Ens, it will lie midway between these two: it will be something neither absolutely and completely cognizable, nor absolutely and completely uncognizable: it belongs to something between ignorance and science.
Now science or knowledge is one thing, its object is, complete Ens.
Opinion is another thing, its object also is different.
Knowing and Opining belong, like Sight and Hearing, to the class of Entia called Powers or Faculties, which we and others possess, and by means of which--that is, by means of one or other of them--we accomplish everything that we do accomplish.
Now no one of these powers or faculties has either colour or figure, whereby it may be recognised or distinguished from others.
Each is known and distinguished, not by what it is in itself, but by what it accomplishes, and by the object to which it has special relation.
That which has the same object and accomplishes the same result, I call the same power or faculty: that which has a different object, and accomplishes a different result, I call a different power or faculty.
Now Knowing, Cognition, Science, is one of our faculties or powers, and the strongest of all: Opining is another, and a different one.
A marked distinction between the two is, that Knowing or Cognition is infallible--Opining is fallible.
Since Cognition is one power or faculty, and Opining another--the object of one must be different from the object of the other.
But the object of Cognition is, the Complete Ens: the object of Opining must therefore be, not the Complete Ens, but something different from it.
What then is the object of Opining?
It is not Complete Ens, but it is still Something.
It is not Non-Ens, or Nothing; for Non-Ens or Nothing is not thinkable or opinable: you cannot think or opine, and yet think or opine nothing.
Whoever opines or thinks, must opine or think something.
Ens is the object of Cognition, Non-Ens is the object of non-Cognition or Ignorance: Opination or Opinion is midway between Cognition and Ignorance, darker than the former, but clearer than the latter.
The object of opination is therefore something midway between Ens and Non-Ens.
[Side-note: Particulars fluctuate: they are sometimes just or beautiful, sometimes unjust or ugly.
Forms or Entia alone remain constant.]
But what is this Something, midway between Ens and Particulars Non-Ens, and partaking of both--which is the object of Opination?
To make out this, we must revert to the case of the unphilosophical man.
We have described him, as not believing in the existence of the Form or Idea of Beauty, or Justice _per se_; not enduring to hear it spoken of as a real Ens and Unum; not knowing anything except of the many diverse particulars, beautiful and just.
We must remind him that every one of these particular beautiful things will appear repulsive also: every one of these just and holy particulars, will appear unjust and unholy also.
He cannot refuse to admit that each of them will appear under certain circumstances beautiful and ugly, just and unjust, holy and unholy.
In like manner, every particular double will appear also a half: every light thing will appear heavy: every little thing great.
Of each among these many particulars, if you can truly predicate any one quality about it, you may with equal truth predicate the opposite quality also.
Each of them both is, and is not, the substratum of all these different and opposite qualities.
You cannot pronounce them to be either one or the other, with fixity and permanence: they are at once both and neither.
[Side-note: The many cannot discern or admit the reality of Forms--Their minds are always fluctuating among particulars.]
Here then we find the appropriate object of Opination: that which is neither Ens nor Non-Ens, but something between both.
Particulars are the object of Opination, as distinguished from universal Entities, Forms, or Ideas, which are the object of Cognition.
The many, who disbelieve or ignore the existence of these Forms, and whose minds dwell exclusively among particulars--cannot know, but only opine.
Their usages and creeds, as to beautiful, just, honourable, float between positive Ens and Non-Ens.
It is these intermediate fluctuations which are caught up by their opining faculty, intermediate as it is between Cognition and Ignorance.
It is these also, the objects of Opination, which they love and delight in: they neither recognise nor love the objects of Cognition or Knowledge.
They are lovers of opinion and its objects, not lovers of Knowledge.
The philosopher alone recognises and loves Knowledge and the objects of Knowledge.
His mind dwells, not amidst the fluctuating, diverse, and numerous particulars, but in contemplation of the One, Universal, permanent, unchangeable, Form or Idea.
[Side-note: The philosopher will be ardent for all varieties of knowledge--His excellent moral attributes--He will be trained to capacity for active life.]
Here is the characteristic difference (continues Sokrates) which you required me to point out, between the philosopher and the unphilosophical man, however accomplished.
The philosopher sees, knows, and contemplates, the One, Real, unchangeable, Form or Idea: the unphilosophical man knows nothing of this Form _per se_, and sees only its multifarious manifestations, each perpetually variable and different from all the rest.
The philosopher, having present to his mind this type--and approximating to it, as far as may be, the real institutions and practices--will be the person most competent to rule our city: especially as his education will give him farthermore--besides such familiarity with the Form or Type--as large a measure of experience, and as much virtue, as can fall to the lot of the unphilosophical man.
[151] The nature and disposition of the true philosopher, if improved by education, will include all the virtue and competence of the practical man.
The philosopher is bent on learning everything which can make him familiar with Universal Forms and Essences in their pure state, not floating amidst the confusion of generated and destroyed realities: and with Forms and Essences little as well as great, mean as well as sublime.
[152] Devoted to knowledge and truth--hating falsehood--he has little room in his mind for the ordinary desires: he is temperate, indifferent to money, free from all meanness or shabbiness.
A man like him, whose contemplations stretch over all time and all essence, thinks human life a small affair, and has no fear of death.
He will be just, mild in his demeanour, quick in apprehension, retentive in memory, elegant in his tastes and movements.
All these excellences will be united in the philosophers to whom we confide the rule of our city.
[153] [Footnote 151: Plato, Republic, vi.
p.
484.]
[Footnote 152: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 485 A.]
[Footnote 153: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
485-486.]
[Side-note: Adeimantus does not dispute the conclusion, but remarks that it is at variance with actual facts--Existing philosophers are either worthless pretenders, or when they are good, useless.]
It is impossible, Sokrates (remarks Adeimantus), to answer in the negative to your questions.
Nevertheless we who hear and answer, are not convinced of the truth of your conclusion.
Unskilled as we are in the interrogatory process, we feel ourselves led astray little by little at each successive question; until at length, through the accumulated effect of such small deviations, we are driven up into a corner without the power of moving, like a bad player at draughts defeated by one superior to himself.
[154] Here in this particular case your conclusion has been reached by steps to which we cannot refuse assent.
Yet if we look at the facts, we see something quite the reverse as to the actual position of philosophers.
Those who study philosophy, not simply as a branch of juvenile education but as a continued occupation throughout life, are in most cases strange creatures, not to say thoroughly unprincipled: while the few of them who are most reasonable, derive nothing from this pursuit which you so much extol, except that they become useless in their respective cities.
[155] [Footnote 154: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 487 B.
[Greek: Pro\s me\n tau=ta soi ou)dei\s a)\n oi(=o/s t' ei)/ê a)nteipei=n; a)lla\ ga\r toio/nde ti pa/schousin oi( a)kou/ontes e(ka/stote a)\ nu=n le/geis; ê(gou=ntai di' a)peiri/an tou= e)rôta=|n te kai\ a)pokri/nesthai u(po\ tou= lo/gou par' e(/kaston to\ e)rô/têma smikro\n parago/menoi, a)throisthe/ntôn tô=n smikrô=n e)pi\ teleutê=s tô=n lo/gôn, me/ga to\ spha/lma kai\ e)nanti/on toi=s prô/tois a)naphai/nesthai], &c. This is an interesting remark on the effect produced upon many hearers by the Sokratic and Platonic dialogues,--puzzling, silencing, and ultimately stimulating the mind, but not satisfying or convincing, rather raising suspicions as to the trustworthiness of the process, which suspicions have to be turned over and scrutinised by subsequent meditation.]
[Footnote 155: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 487 D.] [Side-note: Sokrates admits the fact to be so--His simile of the able steersman on shipboard, among a disobedient crew.]
Yes (replies Sokrates), your picture is a correct one.
The position of true and reasonable philosophers, in their respective cities, is difficult and uncomfortable.
Conceive a ship on her voyage, under the management of a steersman distinguished for force of body as well as for skill in his craft, but not clever in dealing with, or acting upon other men.
Conceive the seamen all quarrelling with each other to get possession of the rudder; each man thinking himself qualified to steer, though he has never learnt it--nor had any master in it--nor even believes it to be teachable, but is ready to massacre all who affirm that it is teachable.
[156] Imagine, besides, these seamen importuning the qualified steersman to commit the rudder to them, each being ready to expel or kill any others whom he may prefer to them: and at last proceeding to stupify with wine or drugs the qualified steersman, and then to navigate the vessel themselves according to their own views; feasting plentifully on the stores.
These men know nothing of what constitutes true and able steersmanship.
They extol, as a perfect steersman, that leader who is most efficacious, either by persuasion or force, in seizing the rudder for them to manage: they despise as useless any one who does not possess this talent.
They never reflect that the genuine steersman has enough to do in surmounting the dangers of his own especial art, and in watching the stars and the winds: and that if he is to acquire technical skill and practice adequate to such a purpose, he cannot at the same time possess skill and practice in keeping his hold of the rudder whether the crew are pleased with him or not.
Such being the condition of the ship and the crew, you see plainly that they will despise and set aside the true steersman as an useless proser and star-gazer.
[157] [Footnote 156: Plato, Republic, vi.
p.
488.]
[Footnote 157: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 488 D-E.] [Side-note: The uselessness of the true philosopher is the fault of the citizen, who will not invoke his guidance.]
Now the crew of this ship represent the citizens and leaders of our actual cities: the steersman represents the true philosopher.
He is, and must be, useless in the ship: but his uselessness is the fault of the crew and not his own.
It is not for the true steersman to entreat permission from the seamen, that they will allow him to command; nor for the wise man to solicit employment at the doors of the rich.
It is for the sick man, whether he be poor or rich, to ask for the aid of the physician; and for every one who needs to be commanded, to invoke the authority of the person qualified to command.
No man really qualified will submit to ask command as a favour.
[158] [Footnote 158: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 489 B.
[Greek: tê=s me/ntoi a)chrêsti/as tou\s mê\ chrôme/nous ke/leue ai)tia=sthai, a)lla\ mê\ tou\s e)pieikei=s.
Ou) ga\r e)/chei phu/sin kubernê/tên nautô=n dei=sthai a)/rchesthai u(ph' au(tou=], &c.] Thus, Adeimantus (continues Sokrates), I have dealt with the first part of your remark, that the true philosopher is an useless man in cities as now constituted: I have shown you this is not his fault--that it could not be otherwise,--and that a man even of the highest aptitude, cannot enjoy reputation among those whose turn of mind is altogether at variance with his own.
[159] [Footnote 159: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 489 D. [Greek: e)/k te toi/nun tou/tôn kai\ e)n tou/tois ou) r(a/|dion eu)dokimei=n to\ be/ltiston e)pitê/deuma u(po\ tô=n ta)nanti/a e)pitêdeuo/ntôn.]]
I shall now deal with your second observation--That while even the best philosophers are useless, the majority of those who cultivate philosophy are worthless men, who bring upon her merited discredit.
I admit that this also is correct; but I shall prove that philosophy is not to be blamed for it.
[160] [Footnote 160: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 489 E. [Greek: o(/ti ou)de\ tou/tou philosophi/a ai)ti/a, peirathô=men dei=xai.]]
[Side-note: The great qualities required to form a philosopher, become sources of perversion, under a misguiding public opinion.]
You will remember the great combination of excellent dispositions, intellectual as well as moral, which I laid down as indispensable to form the fundamental character of the true philosopher.
Such a combination is always rare.
Even under the best circumstances philosophers must be very few.
But these few stand exposed, in our existing cities, to such powerful causes of corruption, that they are prevented from reaching maturity, except by some happy accident.
First, each one of those very qualities, which, when combined, constitute the true philosopher,--serves as a cause of corruption, if it exists by itself and apart from the rest.
Next, what are called good things, or external advantages, act in the same manner--such as beauty, strength, wealth, powerful connections, &c. Again, the stronger a man's natural aptitudes and the greater his external advantages,--the better will he become under favourable circumstances, the worse will he become, if circumstances are unfavourable.
Heinous iniquity always springs from a powerful nature perverted by bad training: not from a feeble nature, which will produce no great effects either for good or evil.
Thus the eminent predispositions,--which, if properly improved, would raise a man to the highest rank in virtue,--will, if planted in an unfavourable soil, produce a master-mind in deeds of iniquity, unless counteracted by some providential interposition.
[Side-note: Mistake of supposing that such perversion arises from the Sophists.
Irresistible effect of the public opinion generally, in tempting or forcing a dissenter into orthodoxy.]
The multitude treat these latter as men corrupted by the Sophists.
But this is a mistake.
Neither Sophists nor other private individuals produce mischief worth mentioning.
It is the multitude themselves, utterers of these complaints, who are the most active Sophists and teachers: it is they who educate and mould every individual, man and woman, young and old, into such a character as they please.
[161] When they are assembled in the public assembly or the dikastery, in the theatre or the camp--when they praise some things and blame others, with vociferation and vehemence echoed from the rocks around--how irresistible will be the impression produced upon the mind of a youth who hears them!
No private training which he may have previously received can hold out against it.
All will be washed away by this impetuous current of multitudinous praise or blame, which carries him along with it.
He will declare honourable or base the same things as they declare to be so: he will adopt the character, and follow the pursuits, which they enjoin.
Moreover, if he resists such persuasive influence, these multitudinous teachers and Sophists have stronger pressure in store for him.
[162] They punish the disobedient with disgrace, fine, and even death.
What other Sophist, or what private exhortation, can contend successfully against teachers such as these?
Surely none.
The attempt to do so is insane.
There neither is, nor has been, nor will be, any individual human disposition educated to virtue in opposition to the training of the multitude:[163] I say _human_, as distinguished from _divine_, of which I make exception: for in the existing state of society, any individual who is preserved from these ascendant influences to acquire philosophical excellence, owes his preservation to the divine favour.
[Footnote 161: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 492 A.
[Greek: ê)\ kai\ su\ ê(gei=, ô(/sper oi( polloi/, diaphtheirome/nous tina\s ei)=nai u(po\ sophistô=n ne/ous, diaphthei/rontas de/ tinas sophista\s i)diôtikou/s, o(/, ti kai\ a)/xion lo/gon, a)ll' ou)k au)tou\s tou\s tau=ta le/gontas megi/stous me\n ei)=nai sophista/s?
paideu/ein de\ teleô/tata kai\ a)perga/zesthai oi(/ous bou/lontai ei)=nai kai\ ne/ous kai\ presbute/rous kai\ a)/ndras kai\ gunai=kas?]]
[Footnote 162: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 492 C-D. [Greek: Kai\ phê/sein te ta\ au)ta\ tou/tois kala\ kai\ ai)schra\ ei)=nai, kai\ e)pitêdeu/sein a(/per a)\n ou(=toi, kai\ e)/sesthai toiou=ton .
.
.
Kai\ mê\n ou(/pô tê\n megi/stên a)na/gkên ei)rê/kamen.
Poi/an?
E(\n e)/rgô| prostithe/asi, lo/gô| mê\ pei/thontes, ou(=toi oi( paideutai/ te kai\ sophistai/.
Ê)\ ou)k oi)=stha o(/ti to\n mê\ peitho/menon a)timi/ais te kai\ chrê/masi kai\ thana/tois kola/zousin?
Kai\ ma/la, e)/phê, spho/dra.]]
[Footnote 163: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 492 D.] [Side-note: The Sophists and other private teachers accept the prevalent orthodoxy, and conform their teaching to it.]
Moreover, though the multitude complain of these professional teachers as rivals, and decry them as Sophists--yet we must recollect that such teachers inculcate only the opinions received among the multitude themselves, and extol these same opinions as wisdom.
[164] The teachers know nothing of what is really honourable and base,--good and evil,--just and unjust.
They distribute all these names only with reference to the opinions of the multitude:--pronouncing those things which please the multitude to be good, and those which displease to be evil,--without furnishing any other rational account.
They call things necessary by the name of just and honourable; not knowing the material difference between what is good and what is necessary, nor being able to point out that difference to others.
Thus preposterous are the teachers, who count it wisdom to suit the taste and feelings of the multitude, whether in painting or in music or in social affairs.
For whoever lives among them, publicly exhibiting either poetry or other performances private or official, thus making the multitude his masters beyond the strict limits of necessity--the consequence is infallible, that he must adapt his works to that which they praise.
But whether the works which he executes are really good and honourable, he will be unable to render any tolerable account.
[165] [Footnote 164: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 493 A.
[Greek: e(/kaston tô=n mistharnou/ntôn i)diôtô=n, ou(\s dê\ ou(=toi sophista\s kalou=si kai\ a)ntite/chnous ê(gou=ntai, mê\ a)/lla paideu/ein ê)\ tau=ta ta\ tô=n pollô=n do/gmata, a(\ doxa/zousin o(/tan a)throisthô=si, kai\ sophi/an tau/tên kalei=n.]]
[Footnote 165: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 493 C-D.] [Side-note: The people generally hate philosophy--A youth who aspires to it will be hated by the people, and persecuted even by his own relatives.]
It is therefore the multitude, or the general voice of society--not the Sophists or private teachers, mere echoes of that general voice--which works upon and moulds individuals.
Now the multitude cannot tolerate or believe in the existence of those Universals or Forms which the philosopher contemplates.
They know only the many particulars, not the One Universal.
Incapable of becoming philosophers themselves, they look upon the philosopher with hatred: and this sentiment is adopted by all those so-called philosophers who seek to please them.
[166] Under these circumstances, what chance is there that those eminent predispositions, which we pointed out as the foundation of the future philosopher, can ever be matured to their proper result?
A youth of such promise, especially if his body be on a par with his mind, will be at once foremost among all his fellows.
His relatives and fellow-citizens, eager to make use of him for their own purposes, and anxious to appropriate to themselves his growing force, will besiege him betimes with solicitations and flatteries.
[167] Under these influences, if we assume him to be rich, well born, and in a powerful city, he will naturally become intoxicated with unlimited hopes and ambition; fancying himself competent to manage the affairs of all governments, and giving himself the empty airs of a lofty potentate.
[168] If there be any one to give him a quiet hint that he has not yet acquired intelligence, nor can acquire it without labour--he will turn a deaf ear.
But suppose that such advice should by chance prevail, in one out of many cases, so that the youth alters his tendencies and devotes himself to philosophy--what will be the conduct of those who see, that they will thereby be deprived of his usefulness and party-service, towards their own views?
They will leave no means untried to prevent him from following the advice, and even to ruin the adviser, by private conspiracy and judicial prosecution.
[169] It is impossible that the young man can really turn to philosophy, against obstructions thus powerful.
You see that those very excellences and advantages, which form the initial point of the growing philosopher, become means and temptations for corrupting him.
The best natures, rare as they always are, become thus not only ruined, but turned into instruments of evil.
For the same men (as I have already said) who, under favourable training, would have done the greatest good, become perpetrators of the greatest evil, if they are badly placed.
Small men will do nothing important, either in the one way or the other.
[170] [Footnote 166: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 494 A.
[Greek: philo/sophon me\n a)/ra plê=thos a)du/naton ei)=nai .
.
.
Kai\ tou\s philsophou=ntas a)/ra a)na/gkê pse/gesthai u(p' au)tô=n .
.
.
kai\ u(po\ tou/tôn dê\ tô=n i)diôtô=n, o(/soi prosomilou=ntes o)/chlô| a)re/skein au)tô=| e)pithumou=sin.]]
[Footnote 167: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 494 B.]
[Footnote 168: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 494 C. [Greek: plêrôthê/sesthai a)mêcha/nou e)lpi/dos, ê(gou/menon kai\ ta\ tô=n E(llê/nôn kai\ ta\ tô=n barba/rôn i(kano\n ei)=nai pra/ttein.]]
[Footnote 169: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 494 D-E. [Greek: e)a\n d' ou)=n, dia\ to\ eu)= pephuke/nai kai\ to\ xuggene\s tô=n lo/gôn, ei)=s ai)stha/nêtai/ te/ pê| kai\ ka/mptêtai kai\ e(/lkêtai pro\s philosophi/an, ti/ oi)o/metha dra/sein e)kei/nous tou\s ê(goume/nous a)pollu/nai au)tou= tê\n chrei/an te kai\ e(tairei/an?
ou) pa=n me\n e)/rgon, pa=n d' e)/pos, le/gonta/s te kai\ pra/ttontas kai\ peri\ au)to/n, o(/pôs a)\n mê\ peisthê=|, kai\ peri\ to\n pei/thonta, o(/pôs a)\n mê\ oi(=o/s t' ê)=|, kai\ i)di/a| e)pibouleu/ontas kai\ dêmosi/a| ei)s a)gô=nas kathi/stantas?]]
[Footnote 170: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 495 A-B.]
[Side-note: The really great minds are thus driven away from the path of philosophy--which is left to empty pretenders.]
It is thus that the path of philosophy is deserted by those who ought to have trodden it, and who pervert their exalted powers to unworthy objects.
That path--being left vacant, yet still full of imposing titles and pretensions, and carrying a show of superior dignity as compared with the vulgar professions--becomes invaded by interlopers of inferior worth and ability, who quit their own small craft, and set up as philosophers.
[171] Such men, poorly endowed by nature, and debased by habits of trade, exhibit themselves, in their self-assumed exaltation as philosophers, like a slave recently manumitted, who has put on new clothes and married his master's daughter.
[172] Having intruded themselves into a career for which they are unfit, they cannot produce any grand or genuine philosophical thoughts, or any thing better than mere neat sophisms, pleasing to the ear.
[173] Through them arises the discredit which is now attached to philosophers.
[Footnote 171: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 495 C-D. [Greek: kathorô=ntes ga\r a)/lloi a)nthrôpi/skoi kenê\n tê\n chô/ran tau/tên gignome/nên, kalô=n de\ o)noma/tôn kai\ proschêma/tôn mestê/n, ô(/sper oi( e)k tô=n ei)rgmô=n ei)s ta\ i(era\ a)podidra/skontes, a)/smenoi kai\ ou(=toi e)k tô=n technô=n e)kpêdô=sin ei)s tê\n philosophi/an.]]
[Footnote 172: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 495 E.] [Footnote 173: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 496 A.]
[Side-note: Rare cases in which a highly qualified philosopher remains--Being at variance with public opinion, he can achieve nothing, and is lucky if he can obtain safety by silence.]
Amidst such general degradation of philosophy, some few and rare cases are left, in which the pre-eminent natures qualified for philosophy remain by some favourable accident uncorrupted.
One of these is Theagês, who would have been long ago drawn away from philosophy to active politics, had he not been disqualified by bad health.
The restraining Dæmon, peculiar to myself (says Sokrates), is another case.
[174] Such an exceptional man, having once tasted the sweetness and happiness of philosophy, embraces it as an exclusive profession.
He sees that the mass of society are wrongheaded--that scarce any one takes wholesome views on social matters--that he can find no partisans to aid him in upholding justice[175]--that while he will not take part in injustice, he is too weak to contend single-handed against the violence of all, and would only become a victim to it without doing any good either to the city or to his friends--like a man who has fallen among wild beasts.
On these grounds he stands aloof in his own separate pursuit, like one sheltering himself under a wall against a hurricane of wind and dust.
Witnessing the injustice committed by all around, he is content if he can keep himself clear and pure from it during his life here, so as to die with satisfaction and good hopes.
[Footnote 174: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 496 D.] [Footnote 175: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 496 C-D. [Greek: kai\ tou/tôn dê\ tô=n o)li/gôn oi( geuo/menoi kai\ geusa/menoi ô(s ê(du\ kai\ maka/rion to\ ktê=ma, kai\ tô=n pollô=n au)= i(kanô=s i)do/ntes tê\n mani/an, kai\ o(/ti ou)dei\s ou)de\n u(gie\s, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n, peri\ ta\ tô=n po/leôn pra/ttei, ou)d' e)/sti xu/mmachos meth' o(/tou tis i)ô\n e)pi\ tê\n tô=n dikai/ôn boê/theian sô/zoit' a)/n, a)ll' ô(/sper ei)s thêri/a a)/nthrôpos e)mpesô/n, ou)/te xunadikei=n e)the/lôn ou)/te i(kano\s ô)\n ei(=s pa=sin a)gri/ois a)nte/chein, pri/n ti tê\n po/lin ê)\ phi/lous o)nêsai proapolo/menos a)nôphelê\s au(tô=| te kai\ toi=s a)/llois a)\n ge/noito--tau=ta pa/nta logismô=| labô=n, ê(suchi/an e)/chôn kai\ ta\ au)tou= pra/ttôn .
.
.
o(rô=n tou\s a)/llous katapimplame/nous a)nomi/as, a)gapa=| ei)/ pê au)to\s katharo\s a)diki/as], &c.] He will perform no small achievement (remarks Adeimantus) if he keeps clear to the end.
[176] [Footnote 176: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 497 A.]
[Side-note: The philosopher must have a community suitable to him, and worthy of him.]
True (replies Sokrates)--yet nevertheless he can perform no great achievement, unless he meets with a community suited to him.
Amidst such a community he will himself rise to greatness, and will preserve the public happiness as well as his own.
But there exists no such community anywhere, at the present moment.
Not one of those now existing is worthy of a philosophical disposition:[177] which accordingly becomes perverted, and degenerates into a different type adapted to its actual abode, like exotic seed transported to a foreign soil.
But if this philosophical disposition were planted in a worthy community, so as to be able to assert its own superior excellence, it would then prove itself truly divine, leaving other dispositions and pursuits behind as merely human.
[Footnote 177: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 497 B-C.] [Side-note: It must be such a community as Sokrates has been describing--But means must be taken to keep up a perpetual succession of philosophers as Rulers.]
You mean by a worthy community (observes Adeimantus), such an one as that of which you have been drawing the outline?--I do (replies Sokrates): with this addition, already hinted but not explained, that there must always be maintained in it a perpetual supervising authority representing the scheme and purpose of the primitive lawgiver.
This authority must consist of philosophers: and the question now arises--difficult but indispensable--how such philosophers are to be trained up and made efficient for the good of the city.
[Side-note: Proper manner of teaching philosophy--Not to begin at a very early age.]
The plan now pursued for imparting philosophy is bad.
Some do not learn it at all: and even to those who learn it best, the most difficult part (that which relates to debate and discourse) is taught when they are youths just emerging from boyhood, in the intervals of practical business and money-getting.
[178] After that period, in their mature age, they abandon it altogether; they will scarcely so much as go to hear an occasional lecture on the subject, without any effort of their own: accordingly it has all died out within them, when they become mature in years.
This manner of teaching philosophy ought to be reversed.
In childhood and youth, instruction of an easy character and suitable to that age ought to be imparted; while the greatest care is taken to improve and strengthen the body during its period of growth, as a minister and instrument to philosophy.
As age proceeds, and the mind advances to perfection, the mental exercises ought to become more difficult and absorbing.
Lastly, when the age of bodily effort passes away, philosophy ought to become the main and principal pursuit.
[179] [Footnote 178: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 498 A.
[Greek: Nu=n me\n oi( kai\ a(pto/menoi meira/kia o)/nta a)/rti e)k paidô=n to\ metaxu\ oi)konomi/as kai\ chrêmatismou= plêsia/santes au)tou= tô=| chalepôta/tô| a)palla/ttontai, oi( philosophô/tatoi poiou/menoi; le/gô de\ chalepô/taton to\ peri\ tou\s lo/gous; e)n de\ tô=| e)/peita, e)a\n kai\ a)/llôn tou=to pratto/ntôn parakalou/menoi e)the/lôsin a)kroatai\ gi/gnesthai, mega/la ê(gou=ntai, pa/rergon oi)o/menoi au)to\ dei=n pra/ttein.]]
[Footnote 179: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 498 C.] [Side-note: If the multitude could once see a real, perfect, philosopher, they could not fail to love him: but this never happens.]
Most people will hear all this (continues Sokrates) with mingled incredulity and repugnance.
We cannot wonder that they do so: for they have had no experience of one or a few virtuously trained men ruling in a city suitably prepared.
[180] Such combination of philosophical rulers within a community adapted to them, we must assume to be realised.
[181] Though difficult, it is noway impracticable: and even the multitude will become reconciled to it, if you explain to them mildly what sort of persons we mean by philosophers.
We do not mean such persons as the multitude now call by that name; interlopers in the pursuit, violent in dispute and quarrel with each other, and perpetually talking personal scandal.
[182] The multitude cannot hate a philosophical temper such as we depict, when they once come to know it--a man who, indifferent to all party disputes, dwells in contemplation of the Universal Forms, and tries to mould himself and others into harmony with them.
[183] Such a philosopher will not pretend to make regulations, either for a city or for an individual, until he has purified it thoroughly.
He will then make regulations framed upon the type of the Eternal Forms--Justice, Temperance, Beauty--adapting them as well as he can to human exigencies.
[184] The multitude, when they know what is really meant, will become perfectly reconciled to it.
One single prince, if he rises so as to become a philosopher, and has a consenting community, will suffice to introduce the system which we have been describing.
So fortunate an accident can undoubtedly occur but seldom; yet it is not impossible, and one day or other it will really occur.
[185] [Footnote 180: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 498 E.] [Footnote 181: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 499 B-C.] [Footnote 182: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
499-500.]
[Footnote 183: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 500 C-D.] [Footnote 184: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 501 A.]
[Footnote 185: Plato, Republic, vi.
p.
502.]
[Side-note: Course of training in the Platonic city, for imparting philosophy to the Rulers.
They must be taught to ascend to the Idea of Good.
But what is Good?]
I must now (continues Sokrates) explain more in detail the studies and training through which these preservers Rulers of our city, the complete philosophers, must be created.
The most perfect among the Guardians, after having been tested by years of exercises and temptations of various kinds, will occupy that distinguished place.
Very few will be found uniting those distinct and almost incompatible excellences which qualify them for the post.
They must give proof of self-command against pleasures as well as pains, and of competence to deal with the highest studies.
[186] But what are the highest studies?
What is the supreme object of knowledge?
It is the Idea of Good--the Form of Good: to the acquisition of which our philosophers must be trained to ascend, however laborious and difficult the process may be.
[187] Neither justice nor any thing else can be useful or profitable, unless we superadd to them a knowledge of the Idea of Good: without this, it would profit us nothing to possess all other knowledge.
[188] [Footnote 186: Plato, Republic, vi.
p.
503.]
[Footnote 187: Plato, Republic, vi.
p.
504.]
[Footnote 188: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 A.
[Greek: o(/ti ge ê( tou= a)gathou= i)de/a me/giston ma/thêma polla/kis a)kê/koas, ê)=| di/kaia kai\ ta)/lla proschrêsa/mena chrê/sima kai\ ô)phe/lima gi/gnetai], &c.] [Side-note: Ancient disputes upon this point, though every one yearns after Good.
Some say Intelligence; some say Pleasure.
Neither is satisfactory.]
Now as to the question, What Good is?
there are great and long-standing disputes.
Every mind pursues Good, and does every thing for the sake of it--yet without either knowledge or firm assurance what Good is, and consequently with perpetual failure in deriving benefit from other acquisitions.
[189] Most people say that Pleasure is the Good: an ingenious few identify Intelligence with the Good.
But neither of these explanations is satisfactory.
For when a man says that Intelligence is the Good, our next question to him must be, What sort of Intelligence do you mean?--Intelligence of what?
To this he must reply, Intelligence of the Good: which is absurd, since it presumes us to know already what the Good is--the very point which he is pretending to elucidate.
Again, he who contends that Pleasure is the Good, is forced in discussion to admit that there are such things as bad pleasures: in other words, that pleasure is sometimes good, sometimes bad.
[190] From these doubts and disputes about the real nature of good, we shall require our philosophical Guardians to have emancipated themselves, and to have attained a clear vision.
They will be unfit for their post it they do not well know what the Good is, and in what manner just or honourable things come to be good.
[191] Our city will have received its final consummation, when it is placed under the superintendence of one who knows what the Good is.
[Footnote 189: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 E. [Greek: O(\ dê\ diô/kei me\n a(/pasa psuchê\ kai\ tou/tou e(/neka pa/nta pra/ttei, a)pomanteuome/nê ti\ ei)=nai, a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot' e)sti/n, ou)de\ pi/stei chrê/sasthai moni/mô|, oi(/a| kai\ peri\ ta)/lla, dia\ tou=to de\ a)potugcha/nei kai\ tô=n a)/llôn ei)/ ti o)/phelos ê)=n], &c.] [Footnote 190: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 C.] [Footnote 191: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 506 A.
[Greek: di/kaia/ te kai\ kala\ a)gnoou/mena o(/pê| pote\ a)gatha/ e)stin, ou) pollou= tino\s a)/xion phu/laka kektê=sthai a)\n e(autô=n to\n tou=to a)gnoou=nta.]]
[Side-note: Adeimantus asks what Sokrates says.
Sokrates says that he can not answer: but he compares it by a metaphor to the Sun.]
But tell me, Sokrates (asks Adeimantus), what do _you_ conceive the Good to be--Intelligence or Pleasure, or any other thing different from these?
I do not profess to know (replies Sokrates), and cannot tell you.
We must decline the problem, What Good itself is?
as more arduous than our present impetus will enable us to reach.
[192] Nevertheless I will partially supply the deficiency by describing to you the offspring of Good, very like its parent.
You will recollect that we have distinguished the Many from the One: the many just particulars, beautiful particulars, from the One Universal Idea or Form, Just _per se_, Beautiful _per se_.
The many particulars are seen but not conceived: the one Idea is conceived, but not seen.
[193] We see the many particulars through the auxiliary agency of light, which emanates from the Sun, the God of the visible world.
Our organ and sense of vision are not the Sun itself, but they are akin to the Sun in a greater degree than any of our other senses.
They imbibe their peculiar faculty from the influence of the Sun.
[194] The Sun furnishes to objects the power of being seen, and to our eyes the power of seeing: we can see no colour unless we turn to objects enlightened by its rays.
Moreover it is the Sun which also brings about the generation, the growth, and the nourishment, of these objects, though it is itself out of the limits of generation: it generates and keeps them in existence, besides rendering them visible.
[195] Now the Sun is the offspring and representative of the Idea of Good: what the Sun is in the sensible and visible world, the Idea of Good is in the intelligible or conceivable world.
[196] As the Sun not only brings into being the objects of sense, but imparts to them the power of being seen so the Idea of Good brings into being the objects of conception or cognition, imparts to them the power of being known, and to the mind the power of knowing them.
[197] It is from the Idea of Good that all knowledge, all truth, and all real essence spring.
Yet the Idea of Good is itself extra-essential; out of or beyond the limits of essence, and superior in beauty and dignity both to knowledge and to truth; which are not Good itself, but akin to Good, as vision is akin to the Sun.
[198] [Footnote 192: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 506 B-E. [Greek: Au)to\ me\n ti/ pot' e)sti\ ta)gatho\n e)a/sômen ta\ nu=n ei)=nai; ple/on ga/r moi phai/netai ê)\ kata\ tê\n parou=san o(rmê\n e)phike/sthai tou= ge dokou=ntos e)moi\ ta\ nu=n; o(/s de\ e)/kgono/s te tou= a)gathou= phai/netai kai\ o(moio/tatos e)kei/nô|, le/gein e)the/lô] (p. 506 E).]
[Footnote 193: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 507 B-C. [Greek: Kai\ ta\ me\n (polla\) dê\ o(ra=sthai/ phamen, noei=sthai de\ ou)/; ta\s d' au)= i)de/as noei=sthai me/n, o(ra=sthai de\ ou)/.]]
[Footnote 194: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 508 A.
[Greek: ê( o)/psis--ê(lioeide/staton tô=n peri\ ta\s ai)sthê/seis o)rga/nôn.]]
[Footnote 195: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 509 B.
[Greek: To\n ê(/lion toi=s o(rôme/nois ou) mo/non tê\n tou= o(ra=sthai du/namin pare/chein phê/seis, a)lla\ kai\ tê\n ge/nesin kai\ au)/xên kai\ trophê/n, ou) ge/nesin au)to\n o)/nta.]]
[Footnote 196: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 508 B-C. [Greek: Tou=ton (to\n ê(/lion) to\n tou= a)gathou= e)/kgonon, o(\n ta)gatho\n e)ge/nnêsen a)na/logon e(autô=|, o(/, ti per au)to\ e)n tô=| noêtô=| to/pô| pro/s te nou=n kai\ ta\ noou/mena, tou=to tou=ton e)n tô=| o(ratô=| pro/s te o)/psin kai\ ta\ o(rô/mena.]]
[Footnote 197: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 508 E. [Greek: Tou=to toi/nun to\ tê\n a)lê/theian pare/chon toi=s gignôskome/nois kai\ tô=| gignô/skonti tê\n du/namin a)podido\n tê\n tou= a)gathou= i)de/an pha/thi ei)=nai, ai)ti/an d' e)pistê/mês ou)=san kai\ a)lêthei/as ô(s gignôskome/nês], &c.] [Footnote 198: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 509 B.
[Greek: Kai\ toi=s gignôskome/nois toi/nun mê\ mo/non to\ gignô/skesthai pha/nai u(po\ tou= a)gathou= parei=nai, a)lla\ kai\ to\ ei)=nai te kai\ tê\n ou)si/an u(p' e)kei/nou au)tois prosei=nai, ou)k ou)si/as o)/ntos tou= a)gathou=, a)ll' e)/ti e)pe/keina tê=s ou)si/as presbei/a| kai\ duna/mei u(pere/chontos.
Kai\ o( Glau/kôn ma/la geloi/ôs, A)/pollon, e)/phê, daimoni/as u(perbolê=s!
Su\ ga/r, ê)=n d' e)gô/, ai)/tios, a)nagka/zôn ta\ e)moi\ dokou=nta peri\ au)tou= le/gein.]
--Also p. 509 A.]
[Side-note: The Idea of Good rules the ideal or intelligible world, as the Sun rules the sensible or visible world.]
Here then we have two distinct regions or genera; one, the conceivable or intelligible, ruled by the Idea of Good--the other the visible, ruled by the Sun, which is the offspring of Good.
Now let us subdivide each of these regions or genera, into two portions.
The two portions of the visible will be--first, real objects, visible such as animals, plants, works of art, &c.--second, the images or representations of these, such as shadows, reflexions in water or in mirrors, &c. The first of these two subdivisions will be greatly superior in clearness to the second: it will be distinguished from the second as truth is distinguished from not-truth.
[199] Matter of knowledge is in the same relation to matter of opinion, as an original to its copy.
Next, the conceivable or intelligible region must be subdivided into two portions, similarly related one to the other: the first of these portions will be analogous to the real objects of vision, the second to the images or representations of these objects: the first will thus be the Forms, Ideas, or Realities of Conception or Intellect--the second will be particular images or embodiments thereof.
[200] [Footnote 199: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
509-510.
510 A: [Greek: diê|rê=sthai a)lêthei/a| te kai\ mê/, ô(s to\ doxasto\n pro\s to\ gnôsto/n, ou)/tô to\ o(moiôthe\n pro\s to\ ô(=| ô(moiô/thê.]]
[Footnote 200: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 510 B.]
[Side-note: To the intelligible world there are applicable two distinct modes of procedure--the Geometrical--the Dialectic.
Geometrical procedure assumes diagrams.]
Now in regard to these two portions of the conceivable or intelligible region, two different procedures of the mind are employed: the pure Dialectic, and the Geometrical, procedure.
The Geometer or the Arithmetician begins with certain visible images, lines, figures, or numbered objects, of sense: he takes his departure from certain hypotheses or assumptions, such as given numbers, odd and even--given figures and angles, of three different sorts.
[201] He assumes these as data without rendering account of them, or allowing them to be called in question, as if they were self-evident to every one.
From these premisses he deduces his conclusions, carrying them down by uncontradicted steps to the solution of the problem which he is examining.
[202] But though he has before his eyes the visible parallelogram inscribed on the sand, with its visible diagonal, and though all his propositions are affirmed respecting these--yet what he has really in his mind is something quite different--the Parallelogram _per se_, or the Form of a Parallelogram--the Form of a Diagonal, &c. The visible figure before him is used only as an image or representative of this self-existent form; which last he can contemplate only in conception, though all his propositions are intended to apply to it.
[203] He is unable to take his departure directly from this Form, as from a first principle: he is forced to assume the visible figure as his point of departure, and cannot ascend above it: he treats it as something privileged and self-evident.
[204] [Footnote 201: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 510 B.
[Greek: ê(=| to me\n au)tou= (tmê=ma) toi=s to/te tmêthei=sin ô(s ei)ko/si chrôme/nê] (this is farther illustrated by p. 511 A--[Greek: ei)ko/si chrôme/nên au)toi=s toi=s u(po\ tô=n ka/tô a)peikasthei=si) psuchê\ zêtei=n a)nagka/zetai e)x u(pothe/seôn, ou)k e)p' a)rchê\n poreuome/nê a)ll' e)pi\ teleutê/n], &c.] [Footnote 202: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 510 C-D. [Greek: oi( peri\ ta\s geômetri/as te kai\ logismou\s kai\ ta\ toiau=ta pragmateuo/menoi, u(pothe/menoi to/ te peritto\n kai\ to\ a)/rtion kai\ ta\ schê/mata kai\ gôniô=n tritta\ ei)/dê kai\ a)/lla tou/tôn a)delpha\ kath' e(ka/stên me/thodon, tau=ta me\n ô(s ei)do/tes, poiêsa/menoi u(pothe/seis au)ta/, ou)de/na lo/gon ou)/te au(toi=s ou)/te toi=s a)/llois e)/ti a)xiou=si peri\ au)tô=n dido/nai, ô(s panti\ phanerô=n; e)k tou/tôn d' a)rcho/menoi ta\ loipa\ ê)/dê diexio/ntes teleutô=sin o(mologoume/nôs e)pi\ tou=to, ou)= a)\n e)pi\ ske/psin o(rmê/sôsin.]]
[Footnote 203: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 510 D-E. [Greek: toi=s o(rôme/nois ei)/desi proschrô=ntai, kai\ tou\s lo/gous peri\ au)tô=n poiou=ntai, ou) peri\ tou/tôn dianoou/menoi, a)ll' e)kei/nôn pe/ri oi(=s tau=ta e)/oike, tou= tetragô/nou au)tou= e(/neka tou\s lo/gous poiou/menoi kai\ diame/tron au)tê=s, a)ll' ou) tau/tês ê(\n gra/phousi, kai\ ta)/lla ou(/tôs; au)ta\ me\n tau=ta a(\ pla/ttousi/ te kai\ gra/phousin, ô(=n] kai\ skiai\ kai\ e)n u(/dasin ei)ko/nes ei)si/, tou/tois me\n ô(s ei)ko/sin au)= chrô/menoi, zêtou=nte/s te au)ta\ e)kei=na i)dei=n, a(\ ou)k a)\n a)/llôs i)/doi tis ê)\ tê=| dianoi/a|.]
[Footnote 204: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 511 A.
[Greek: ou)k e)p' a)rchê\n i)ou=san, ô(s ou) duname/nên tô=n u(pothe/seôn a)nôte/rô e)kbai/nein, ei)ko/si de\ chrôme/nên au)toi=s toi=s u(po\ tô=n ka/tô a)peikasthei=sin, kai\ e)kei/nois pro\s e)kei=na ô(s e)narge/si dedoxasme/nois te kai\ tetimême/nois.]]
[Side-note: Dialectic procedure assumes nothing.
It departs from the highest Form, and steps gradually down to the lowest, without meddling with any thing except Forms.]
From the geometrical procedure thus described, we must now distinguish the other section--the pure Dialectic.
Here the Intellect ascends to the absolute Form, and grasps it directly.
Particular assumptions or hypotheses are indeed employed, but only as intervening stepping-stones, by which the Intellect is to ascend to the Form: they are afterwards to be discarded: they are not used here for first principles of reasoning, as they are by the Geometer.
[205] The Dialectician uses for his first principle the highest absolute Form; he descends from this to the next highest, and so lower and lower through the orderly gradation of Forms, until he comes to the end or lowest: never employing throughout the whole descent any hypothesis or assumption, nor any illustrative aid from sense.
He contemplates and reasons upon the pure intelligible essence, directly and immediately: whereas the Geometer can only contemplate it indirectly and mediately, through the intervening aid of particular assumptions.
[206] [Footnote 205: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 511 B.
[Greek: to\ e(/teron tmê=ma tou= noêtou= .
.
.
ou)= au)to\s o( lo/gos a(/ptetai tê=| tou= diale/gesthai duna/mei, ta\s u(pothe/seis poiou/menos ou)k a)rcha\s a)lla\ tô=| o)/nti u(pothe/seis, oi(=on e)piba/seis te kai\ o(rma/s, i(/na me/chri tou= a)nupothe/tou, e)pi\ tê\n tou= panto\s a)rchê\n i)ô/n, a(psa/menos au)tê=s, pa/lin au)= e)cho/menos tô=n e)kei/nês e)chome/nôn, ou(/tôs e)pi\ teleutê\n katabai/nê|, ai)sthêtô=| panta/pasin ou)deni\ proschrô/menos, a)ll' ei)/desin au)toi=s di' au)tô=n ei)s au)ta/, kai\ teleuta=| ei)s ei)/dê.]]
[Footnote 206: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 511 C. [Greek: saphe/steron ei)=nai to\ u(po\ tê=s tou= diale/gesthai e)pistê/mês tou= o)/ntos te kai\ noêtou= theôrou/menon ê)\ to\ u(po\ tô=n technô=n kaloume/nôn, ai(=s ai( u(pothe/seis a)rchai/], &c.] [Side-note: Two distinct grades of Cognition--Direct or Superior--Noûs--Indirect or Inferior--Dianoia.]
The distinction here indicated between the two different sections of the Intelligible Region, and the two different sections of the Region of Sense--we shall mark (continues Sokrates) by appropriate terms.
The Dialectician alone has Noûs or Intellect, direct or the highest cognition: he alone grasps and comprehends directly the pure intelligible essence or absolute Form.
The Geometer does not ascend to this direct contemplation or intuition of the Form: he knows it only through the medium of particular assumptions, by indirect Cognition or Dianoia; which is a lower faculty than Noûs or Intellect, yet nevertheless higher than Opinion.
[Side-note: Two distinct grades of Opinion also in the Sensible World--Faith or Belief--Conjecture.]
As we assign two distinct grades of Cognition to the Intelligible Region, so we also assign two distinct grades of Opinion to the Region of Sense, and its two sections.
To the first of these two sections, or to real objects of sense, we assign the highest grade of Opinion, _viz._: Faith or Belief.
To the second of the two, or to the images of real objects of sense, we assign the lower grade, _viz._: Conjecture.
Here then are the four grades.
Two grades of Cognition--1.
Noûs, or Direct Cognition.
2.
Dianoia, or Indirect Cognition: both of them belonging to the Intelligible Region, and both of them higher than Opinion.
Next follow the two grades of Opinion.
3.
The higher grade, Faith or Belief.
4.
The lower grade, Conjecture.
Both the two last belong to the sensible world; the first to real objects, the last to images of those objects.
[207] [Footnote 207: Plato, Republic, p. 511 D-E.] [Side-note: Distinction between the philosopher and the unphilosophical public, illustrated by the simile of the Cave, and the captives imprisoned therein.]
Sokrates now proceeds to illustrate the contrast between the philosopher and the unphilosophical or ordinary man, by the memorable simile of the cave and its shadows.
Mankind live in a cave, with its aperture directed towards the light of the sun; but they are so chained, that their backs are constantly turned towards this aperture, so that they cannot see the sun and sunlight.
What they do see is by means of a fire which is always burning behind them.
Between them and this fire there is a wall; along the wall are posted men who carry backwards and forwards representations or images of all sorts of objects; so that the shadows of these objects by the firelight are projected from behind these chained men upon the ground in front of them, and pass to and fro before their vision.
All the experience which such chained men acquire, consists in what they observe of the appearance and disappearance, the transition, sequences, and co-existences, of these shadows, which they mistake for truth and realities, having no no acquaintance with any other phenomena.
[208] If now we suppose any one of them to be liberated from his chains, turned round, and brought up to the light of the sun and to real objects--his eyesight would be at first altogether dazzled, confounded, and distressed.
Distinguishing as yet nothing clearly, he would believe that the shadows which he had seen in his former state were true and distinct objects, and that the new mode of vision to which he had been suddenly introduced was illusory and unprofitable.
He would require a long time to accustom him to daylight: at first his eyes would bear nothing but shadows--next images in the water--then the stars at night--lastly, the full brightness of the Sun.
He would learn that it was the Sun which not only gave light, but was the cause of varying seasons, growth, and all the productions of the visible world.
And when his mind had been thus opened, he would consider himself much to be envied for the change, looking back with pity on his companions still in the cave.
[209] He would think them all miserably ignorant, as being conversant not with realities, but only with the shadows which passed before their eyes.
He would have no esteem even for the chosen few in the cave, who were honoured by their fellows as having best observed the co-existences and sequences among these shadows, so as to predict most exactly how the shadows would appear in future.
[210] Moreover if, after having become fully accustomed to daylight and the contemplation of realities, he were to descend again into the cave, his eyesight would be dim and confused in that comparative darkness; so that he would not well recognise the shadows, and would get into disputes about them with his companions.
They on their side would deride him as having spoilt his sight as well as his judgment, and would point him out as an example to deter others from emerging out of the cave into daylight.
[211] Far from wishing to emerge themselves, they would kill, if they could, any one who tried to unchain them and assist them in escaping.
[212] [Footnote 208: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
514-515.]
[Footnote 209: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
515-516.]
[Footnote 210: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 516 C. [Greek: Timai\ de\ kai\ e)/painoi ei)/ tines au)toi=s ê)=san to/te par' a)llê/lôn kai\ ge/ra tô=| o)xu/tata kathorô=nti ta\ pario/nta, kai\ mnêmoneu/onti ma/lista o(/sa te pro/tera au)tô=n kai\ u(/stera ei)ô/thei kai\ a(/ma poreu/esthai, kai\ e)k tou/tôn dê\ dunatô/tata a)pomanteuome/nô| to\ me/llon ê(/xein, dokei=s a)\n au)to\n e)pithumêtikô=s au)tô=n e)/chein kai\ zêlou=n tou\s par' e)kei/nois timôme/nous te kai\ e)ndunasteu/ontas?]]
[Footnote 211: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 517 A.
[Greek: a)=r' ou) ge/lôt' a)\n para/schoi kai\ le/goito a)\n peri\ au)tou= ô(s a)naba\s a)/nô diephtharme/nos ê(/kei ta\ o)/mmata, kai\ o(/ti ou)k a)/xion ou)de\ peira=sthai a)/nô i)e/nai?]]
[Footnote 212: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 517 A.
[Greek: kai\ to\n e)picheirou=nta lu/ein te kai\ a)na/gein, ei)/ pôs e)n tai=s chersi\ du/naito labei=n kai\ a)poktei=nai, a)poktinnu/nai a)\n?]]
[Side-note: Daylight of philosophy contrasted with the firelight and shadows of the Cave.]
By this simile (continues Sokrates) I intend to illustrate, as far as I can, yet without speaking confidently,[213] the relations of the sensible world to the intelligible world: the world of transitory shadows, dimly seen and admitting only opinion, contrasted with that of unchangeable realities steadily contemplated and known, illuminated by the Idea of Good, which is itself visible in the background, being the cause both of truth in speculation and of rectitude in action.
[214] No wonder that the few who can ascend into the intelligible region, amidst the clear contemplations of Truth and Justice _per se_, are averse to meddle again with the miseries of human affairs and to contend with the opinions formed by ordinary men respecting the shadows of Justice, the reality of which these ordinary men have never seen.
There are two causes of temporary confused vision: one, when a man moves out of darkness into light--the other when he moves from light into darkness.
It is from the latter cause that the philosopher suffers when he redescends into the obscure cave.
[215] [Footnote 213: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 517.
[Greek: tê=s g' e)mê=s e)lpi/dos, e)peidê\ tau/tês e)pithumei=s a)kou/ein; _theo\s de/ pou oi)=den ei) a)lêthê\s ou)=sa tugcha/nei_.]
This tone of uncertainty in Plato deserves notice.
It forms a striking contrast with the dogmatism of many among his commentators.]
[Footnote 214: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 517 C.] [Footnote 215: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
517-518.]
[Side-note: Purpose of a philosophical training, to turn a man round from facing the bad light of the Cave to face the daylight of philosophy, and to see the eternal Forms.]
The great purpose of education is to turn a man round from his natural position at the bottom of this dark cave, where he sees nothing but shadows: to fix his eyes in the other direction, and to induce him to ascend into clear daylight.
Education does not, as some suppose, either pour knowledge into an empty mind, or impart visual power to blind persons.
Men have good eyes, but these eyes are turned in the wrong direction.
The clever among them see sharply enough what is before them: but they have nothing before them except shadows, and the sharper their vision the more mischief they do.
[216] What is required is to turn them round and draw them up so as to face the real objects of daylight.
Their natural eyesight would then suffice to enable them to see these objects well.
[217] The task of our education must be, to turn round the men of superior natural aptitude, and to draw them up into the daylight of realities.
Next, when they shall have become sufficiently initiated in truth and philosophy, we must not allow them to bury themselves permanently in such studies--as they will themselves be but too eager to do.
We must compel them to come down again into the cave and exercise ascendancy among their companions, for whose benefit their superior mental condition will thus become available.
[218] [Footnote 216: Plato, Republic, p. 519 A-B.]
[Footnote 217: Plato, Republic, p. 519 B.
[Greek: ô(=n ei) a)pallage\n periestre/pheto ei)s ta)lêthê=, kai\ e)kei=na a)\n to\ au)to\ tou=to tô=n au)tô=n a)nthrô/pôn o)xu/tata e(ô/ra, ô(/sper kai\ e)ph' a)\ nu=n te/traptai.]]
[Footnote 218: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
519-520.]
[Side-note: Those who have emerged from the Cave into full daylight amidst eternal Forms, must be forced to come down again and undertake active duties--Their reluctance to do this.]
Coming as they do from the better light, they will, after a little temporary perplexity, be able to see the dim shadows better than those who have never looked at anything else.
Having contemplated the true and real Forms of the Just, Beautiful, Good--they will better appreciate the images of these Forms which come and go, pass by and repass in the cave.
[219] They will indeed be very reluctant to undertake the duties or exercise the powers of government: their genuine delight is in philosophy; and if left to themselves, they would cultivate nothing else.
But such reluctance is in itself one proof that they are the fittest persons to govern.
If government be placed in the hands of men eager to possess it, there will be others eager to dispossess them, so that competition and factions will arise.
Those who come forward to govern, having no good of their own, and seeking to extract their own good from the exercise of power, are both unworthy of trust and sure to be resisted by opponents of the like disposition.
The philosopher alone has his own good in himself.
He enjoys a life better than that of a ruler; which life he is compelled to forego when he accepts power and becomes a ruler.
[220] [Footnote 219: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 520 C.] [Footnote 220: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
520-521.]
[Side-note: Studies serving as introduction to philosophy--Arithmetic, its awakening power--shock to the mind by felt contradiction.]
The main purpose of education, I have said (continues Sokrates) is, to turn round the faces of the superior men, and to invite them upwards from darkness to light--from the region of perishable shadows to that of imperishable realities.
[221] Now what cognitions, calculated to aid such a purpose, can we find to teach?
[222] Gymnastic, music, the vulgar arts, are all useful to be taught: but they do not tend to that which we are here seeking.
Arithmetic does so to a certain extent, if properly taught which at present it is not.
[223] It furnishes a stimulus to awaken the dormant intellectual and reflective capacity.
Among the variety of sensible phenomena, there are some in which the senses yield a clear and satisfactory judgment, leaving no demand in the mind for anything beyond: there are others in which the senses land us in apparent equivocation, puzzle, and contradiction--so that the mind is stung by this apparent perplexity, and instigated to find a solution by some intellectual effort.
[224] Thus, if we see or feel the fingers of our hand, they always appear to the sense, fingers: in whatever order or manner they may be looked at, there is no contradiction or discrepancy in the judgment of sense.
But if we see or feel them as great or small, thick or thin, hard or soft, &c., they then appear differently according as they are seen or felt in different order or under different circumstances.
The same object which now appears great, will at another time appear small: it will seem to the sense hard or soft, light or heavy, according as it is seen under different comparisons and relations.
[225] Here then, sense is involved in an apparent contradiction, declaring the same object to be both hard and soft, great and small, light and heavy, &c. The mind, painfully confounded by such a contradiction, is obliged to invoke intellectual reflection to clear it up.
Great and small are presented by the sense as inhering in the same object.
Are they one thing, or two separate things?
Intellectual reflection informs us that they are two: enabling us to conceive separately two things, which to our sense appeared confounded together.
Intellectual (or abstract) conception is thus developed in our mind, as distinguished from sense, and as a refuge from the confusion and difficulties of sense, which furnish the stimulus whereby it is awakened.
[226] [Footnote 221: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 521 C. [Greek: psuchê=s periagôgê/, e)k nukterinê=s tino\s ê(me/ras ei)s a)lêthinê\n tou= o)/ntos i)ou/sês e)pa/nodon, ê(\n dê\ philosophi/an a)lêthê= phê/somen ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 222: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 521 C. [Greek: Ti/ a)\n ou)=n ei)/ê ma/thêma psuchê=s o(lko\n a)po\ tou= gignome/nou e)pi\ to\ o)/n?]]
[Footnote 223: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
522-523 A.]
[Footnote 224: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 523 C.] [Footnote 225: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
523-524.]
[Footnote 226: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 524 B-C.] [Side-note: Perplexity arising from the One and Many, stimulates the mind to an intellectual effort for clearing it up.]
Now arithmetic, besides its practical usefulness for arrangements of war, includes difficulties and furnishes a stimulus of this nature.
We see the same thing both as One and as infinite in multitude: as definite and indefinite in number.
[227] We can emerge from these difficulties only by intellectual and abstract reflection.
It is for this purpose, and not for purposes of traffic, that our intended philosophers must learn Arithmetic.
Their minds must be raised from the confusion of the sensible world to the clear daylight of the intelligible.
[228] In teaching Arithmetic, the master sets before his pupils numbers in the concrete, that is, embodied in visible and tangible objects--so many balls or pebbles.
[229] Each of these balls he enumerates as One, though they be unequal in magnitude, and whatever be the magnitude of each.
If you remark that the balls are unequal--and that each of them is Many as well as One, being divisible into as many parts as you please--he will laugh at the objection as irrelevant.
He will tell you that the units to which his numeration refers are each _Unum per se_, indivisible and without parts; and all equal among themselves without the least shade of difference.
He will add that such units cannot be exhibited to the senses, but can only be conceived by the intellect: that the balls before you are not such units in reality, but serve to suggest and facilitate the effort of abstract conception.
[230] In this manner arithmetical teaching conducts us to numbers in the abstract--to the real, intelligible, indivisible unit--the _Unum per se_.
[Footnote 227: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 525 A.
[Greek: a(/ma ga\r tau)to\n ô(s e(/n te o(rô=men kai\ ô(s a)/peira to\ plê=thos.]]
[Footnote 228: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 525 B.
[Greek: dia\ to\ tê=s ou)si/as a(pte/on ei)=nai gene/seôs e)xanadu/nti], &c.] [Footnote 229: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 525 D. [Greek: o(rata\ ê)\ a(pta\ sô/mata e)/chontas a)rithmou\s], &c.] [Footnote 230: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 526 A.
[Greek: ei)/ tis e)/roito au)tou/s, Ô)= thauma/sioi, peri\ poi/ôn a)rithmô=n diale/gesthe, e)n oi(=s to\ e(\n oi(=on u(mei=s a)xiou=te/ e)stin, i)/son te e(/kaston pa=n panti\ kai\ ou)de\ smikro\n diaphe/ron, mo/rio/n te e)/chon e)n e(autô=| ou)de/n?
ti/ a)\n oi)/ei au)tou\s a)pokri/nasthai?
Tou=to e)/gôge, o(/ti peri\ tou/tôn le/gousin ô(=n dianoêthê=nai mo/non e)gchôrei=, a)/llôs d' ou)damô=s metacheiri/zesthai dunato/n.]]
[Side-note: Geometry conducts the mind to wards Universal Ens.]
Geometrical teaching conducts the mind to the same order of contemplations; leading it away from variable particulars to unchangeable universal Essence.
Some persons extol Geometry chiefly on the ground of its usefulness in applications to practice.
But this is a mistake: its real value is in conducing to knowledge, and to elevated contemplations of the mind.
It does, however, like Arithmetic, yield useful results in practice: and both of them are farther valuable as auxiliaries to other studies.
[231] [Footnote 231: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
526-527.]
[Side-note: Astronomy--how useful--not useful as now taught--must be studied by ideal figures, not by observation.]
After Geometry--the measurement of lines and superficial areas--the proper immediate sequel is Stereometry, the measurement of solids.
But this latter is nowhere properly honoured and cultivated: though from its intrinsic excellence, it forces its way partially even against public neglect and discouragement.
[232] Most persons omit it, and treat Astronomy as if it were the immediate sequel to Geometry: which is a mistake, for Astronomy relates to solid bodies in a state of rotatory movement, and ought to be preceded by the treatment of solid bodies generally.
[233] Assuming Stereometry, therefore, as if it existed, we proceed to Astronomy.
[Footnote 232: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 528 A-C.] [Footnote 233: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 528 A-B.
[Greek: e)n periphora=| o)\n ê)/dê stereo\n labo/ntes, pri\n au)to\ kath' au(to\ labei=n.]
Also 528 E.] Certainly (remarks Glaukon) Astronomy, besides its usefulness in regard to the calendar, and the seasons, must be admitted by every one to carry the mind upwards, to the contemplation of things not below but on high.
I do not admit this at all (replies Sokrates), as Astronomy is now cultivated: at least in my sense of the words, _looking upwards and looking downwards_.
If a man lies on his back, contemplating the ornaments of the ceiling, he may carry his eyes upward, but not his mind.
[234] To look upwards, as I understand it, is to carry the mind away from the contemplation of sensible things, whereof no science is attainable--to the contemplation of intelligible things, entities invisible and unchangeable, which alone are the objects of science.
Observation of the stars, such as astronomers now teach, does not fulfil any such condition.
The heavenly bodies are the most beautiful of all visible bodies and the most regular of all visible movements, approximating most nearly, though still with a long interval of inferiority, to the ideal figures and movements of genuine and self-existent Forms--quickness, slowness, number, figure, &c., as they are in themselves, not visible to the eye, but conceivable only by reason and intellect.
[235] The movements of the heavenly bodies are exemplifications, approaching nearest to the perfection of these ideal movements, but still falling greatly short of them.
They are like visible circles or triangles drawn by some very exact artist; which, however beautiful as works of art, are far from answering to the conditions of the idea and its definition, and from exhibiting exact equality and proportion.
[236] So about the movements of the sun and stars: they are comparatively regular, but they are yet bodily and visible, never attaining the perfect sameness and unchangeableness of the intelligible world and its forms.
We cannot learn truth by observation of phenomena constantly fluctuating and varying.
We must study astronomy, as we do geometry, not by observation, but by mathematical theorems and hypotheses: which is a far more arduous task than astronomy as taught at present.
Only in this way can it be made available to improve and strengthen the intellectual organ of the mind.
[237] [Footnote 234: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 529 B.]
[Footnote 235: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 529 D.] [Footnote 236: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
529-530.]
[Footnote 237: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 530 B.
[Greek: Problê/masin a)/ra chrô/menoi ô(/sper geômetri/an, ou(/tô kai\ a)stronomi/an me/timen; ta\ d' e)n tô=| ou)ra/nô| e)a/somen], &c.] [Side-note: Acoustics, in like manner--The student will be thus conducted to the highest of all studies--Dialectic: and to the region of pure intelligible Forms.]
In like manner (continues Sokrates), Acoustics or Harmonics must be studied, not by the ear, listening to and comparing various sounds, but by the contemplative intellect, applying arithmetical relations and theories.
[238] [Footnote 238: Plato, Republic, vii.
p.
531.]
After going through all these different studies, the student will have his mind elevated so as to perceive the affinity of method[239] and principle which pervades them all.
In this state he will be prepared for entering on Dialectic, which is the final consummation of his intellectual career.
He will then have ascended from the cave into daylight.
He will have learnt to see real objects, and ultimately the Sun itself, instead of the dim and transitory shadows below.
He will become qualified to grasp the pure Intelligible Form with his pure Intellect alone, without either aid or disturbance from sense.
He will acquire that dialectical discursive power which deals exclusively with these Intelligible Forms, carrying on ratiocination by means of them only, with no reference to sensible objects.
He will attain at length the last goal of the Dialectician--the contemplation of Bonum _per se_ (the highest perfection and elevation of the Intelligible)[240] with Intellect _per se_ in its full purity: the best part of his mind will have been raised to the contemplation and knowledge of the best and purest entity.
[241] [Footnote 239: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 531 D.] [Footnote 240: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 532 A.
[Greek: ou(/tô kai\ o(/tan tis tô=| diale/gesthai e)picheirê=|, a)/neu pasô=n tô=n ai)sthê/seôn dia\ tou= lo/gou e)p' au)to\ o(\ e)/stin e(/kaston o(rma=|, kai\ mê\ a)postê=| pri\n a)\n au)to\ o(\ e)/stin a)gatho\n au)tê=| tê=| noê/sei la/bê|, e)p' au)tô=| gi/gnetai tô=| tou= noêtou= te/lei], &c.] [Footnote 241: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 532 D.] [Side-note: Question by Glaukon--What is the Dialectic Power?
Sokrates declares that he cannot answer with certainty, and that Glaukon could not follow him if he did.]
I know not whether I ought to admit your doctrine, Sokrates (observes Glaukon).
There are difficulties both in admitting and denying it.
However, let us assume it for the present.
Your next step must be to tell us what is the characteristic function of this Dialectic power--what are its different varieties and ways of proceeding?
I would willingly do so (replies Sokrates), but you would not be able to follow me.
[242] I would lay before you not merely an image of the truth but the very truth itself; as it appears to me at least, whether I am correct or not--for I ought not to be sure of my own correctness.
[Footnote 242: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 533 A.]
[Side-note: He answers partially--It is the consummation of all the sciences, raising the student to the contemplation of pure Forms, and especially to that of the highest Form--_Good_.]
But I am sure that the dialectic power is something of the nature which I have described.
It is the only force which can make plain the full truth to students who have gone through the preliminary studies that we have described.
It is the only study which investigates rationally real forms and essences[243]--what each thing is, truly in itself.
Other branches of study are directed either towards the opinions and preferences of men--or towards generation and combination of particular results--or towards upholding of combinations already produced or naturally springing up: while even as to geometry and the other kindred studies, we have seen that as to real essence, they have nothing better than dreams[244]--and that they cannot see it as it is, so long as they take for their principle or point of departure certain assumptions or hypotheses of which they can render no account.
The principle being thus unknown, and the conclusion as well as the intermediate items being spun together out of that unknown, how can such a convention deserve the name of Science?
[245] Pursuant to custom, indeed, we call these by the name of Sciences.
But they deserve no higher title than that of Intellectual Cognitions, lower than Science, yet higher than mere Opinion.
It is the Dialectician alone who discards all assumptions, ascending at once to real essence as his principle and point of departure:[246] defining, and discriminating by appropriate words, each variety of real essence--rendering account of it to others--and carrying it safely through the cross-examining process of question and answer.
[247] Whoever cannot discriminate in this way the Idea or Form of Good from every thing else, will have no proper cognition of Good itself, but only, at best, opinions respecting the various shadows of Good.
Dialectic--the capacity of discriminating real Forms and maintaining them in cross-examining dialogue is thus the coping-stone, completion, or consummation, of all the other sciences.
[248] [Footnote 243: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 533 B.
[Greek: ô(s au)tou= ge e(ka/stou pe/ri, o(\ e)/stin e(/kaston, ou)k a)/llê tis e)picheirei= me/thodos o(dô=| peri\ panto\s lamba/nein], &c.] [Footnote 244: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 533 C. [Greek: ô(s o)neirô/ttousi me\n peri\ to\ o)/n, u(/par de\ a)du/naton au)tai=s i)dei=n, e(/ôs a)\n u(pothe/sesi chrô/menai tau/tas a)kinê/tous e)ô=sin], &c.] [Footnote 245: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 533 D.] [Footnote 246: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 533 E.] [Footnote 247: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 534 B.
[Greek: ê)= kai\ dialektiko\n kalei=s to\n lo/gon e(/kastou lamba/nonta tê=s ou)si/as?]]
[Footnote 248: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 534 C-E. [Greek: ô(/sper thrigko\s toi=s mathê/masin ê( dialektikê\ ê(mi=n e)pa/nô kei=sthai], &c.] [Side-note: The Synoptic view peculiar to the Dialectician.]
[Side-note: Scale and duration of various studies for the Guardians, from youth upwards.]
The preliminary sciences must be imparted to our Guardians during the earlier years of life, together with such bodily and mental training as may test their energy and perseverance of character.
[249] After the age of twenty, those who have distinguished themselves in the juvenile studies and gymnastics, must be placed in a select class of honour above the rest, and must be initiated in a synoptic view of the affinity pervading all the separate cognitions which have been imparted to them.
They must also be introduced to the view of Real Essence and its nature.
This is the test of aptitude for Dialectics: it is the synoptic view only, which constitutes the Dialectician.
[250] [Footnote 249: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 535-536 D.] [Footnote 250: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
536-537 C. [Greek: kai\ megi/stê pei=ra dialektikê=s phu/seôs kai\ mê/; o( me\n ga\r sunoptiko\s dialektiko/s, o( de\ mê/, ou)/.]]
In these new studies they will continue until thirty years of age: after which a farther selection must be made, of those who have most distinguished themselves.
The men selected will be enrolled in a class of yet higher honour, and will be tested by dialectic cross-examination: so that we may discover who among them are competent to apprehend true, pure, and real Essence, renouncing all visual and sensible perceptions.
[251] It is important that such Dialectic exercises should be deferred until this advanced age--and not imparted, as they are among us at present, to immature youths: who abuse the license of interrogation, find all their homegrown opinions uncertain, and end by losing all positive convictions.
[252] Our students will remain under such dialectic tuition for five years, until they are thirty-five years of age: after which they must be brought again down into the cave, and constrained to acquire practical experience by undertaking military and administrative functions.
In such employments they will spend fifteen years: during which they will undergo still farther scrutiny, to ascertain whether they can act up to their previous training, in spite of all provocations and temptations.
[253] Those who well sustain all these trials will become, at fifty years of age, the finished Elders or Chiefs of the Republic.
They will pass their remaining years partly in philosophical contemplations, partly in application of philosophy to the regulation of the city.
It is these Elders whose mental eye will have been so trained as to contemplate the Real Essence of Good, and to copy it as an archetype in all their ordinances and administration.
They will be the Moderators of the city: but they will perform this function as a matter of duty and necessity--not being at all ambitious of it as a matter of honour.
[254] [Footnote 251: Plato, Republic, p. 537 D.] [Footnote 252: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
538-539.]
[Footnote 253: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 539 D-E.] [Footnote 254: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
539-540.]
[Side-note: All these studies, and this education, are common to females as well as males.]
What has here been said about the male guardians and philosophers must be understood to apply equally to the female.
We recognise no difference in this respect between the two sexes.
Those females who have gone through the same education and have shown themselves capable of enduring the same trials as males, will participate, after fifty years of age, in the like philosophical contemplations, and in superintendence of the city.
[255] [Footnote 255: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 540 C.] [Side-note: First formation of the Platonic city--how brought about: difficult, but not impossible.]
I have thus shown (Sokrates pursues) how the fundamental postulate for our city may be brought about.--That philosophers, a single man or a few, shall become possessed of supreme rule: being sufficiently exalted in character to despise the vulgar gratifications of ambition, and to carry out systematically the dictates of rectitude and justice.
The postulate is indeed hard to be realised--yet not impossible.
[256] Such philosophical rulers, as a means for first introducing their system into a new city, will send all the inhabitants above ten years old away into the country, reserving only the children, whom they will train up in their own peculiar manners and principles.
In this way the city, according to our scheme, will be first formed: when formed, it will itself be happy, and will confer inestimable benefit on the nation to which it belongs.
[257] [Footnote 256: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 540 E.] [Footnote 257: Plato, Republic, vii.
p. 541 A.]
Plato thus assumes his city, and the individual man forming a parallel to his city, to be perfectly well constituted.
Reason, the higher element, exercises steady controul: the lower elements, Energy and Appetite, both acquiesce contentedly in her right to controul, and obey her orders--the former constantly and forwardly--the latter sometimes requiring constraint by the strength of the former.]
[Side-note: The city thus formed will last long, but not for ever.
After a certain time, it will begin to degenerate.
Stages of its degeneracy.]
But even under the best possible administration, the city, though it will last long, will not last for ever.
Eternal continuance belongs only to Ens; every thing generated must one day or other be destroyed.
[258] The fatal period will at length arrive, when the breed of Guardians will degenerate.
A series of changes for the worse will then commence, whereby the Platonic city will pass successively into timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, despotism.
The first change will be, that the love of individual wealth and landed property will get possession of the Guardians: who, having in themselves the force of the city, will divide the territory among themselves, and reduce the other citizens to dependence and slavery.
[259] They will at the same time retain a part of their former mental training.
They will continue their warlike habits and drill: they will be ashamed of their wealth, and will enjoy it only in secret: they will repudiate money-getting occupations as disgraceful.
They will devote themselves to the contests of war and political ambition--the rational soul becoming subordinate to the energetic and courageous.
[260] The system which thus obtains footing will be analogous to the Spartan and Kretan, which have many admirers.
[261] The change in individual character will correspond to this change in the city.
Reason partially losing its ascendancy, while energy and appetite both gain ground--an intermediate character is formed in which energy or courage predominates.
We have the haughty, domineering, contentious, man.
[262] [Footnote 258: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 546 A.
[Greek: genome/nô| panti\ phthora/ e)stin], &c.] [Footnote 259: Plato, Republic, vii.
p.
547.]
[Footnote 260: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
547-548 D. [Greek: diaphane/staton d' e)n au)tê=| e)sti\n e(/n ti mo/non u(po\ tou= thumoeidou=s kratou=ntos--philonei/kiai kai\ philoti/miai.]]
[Footnote 261: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 544 C.] [Footnote 262: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
549-550.]
[Side-note: 1.
Timocracy and the timocratical individual.
2 Oligarchy, and the oligarchical individual.]
Out of this timocracy, or timarchy, the city will next pass into an oligarchy, or government of wealth.
The rich will here govern, to the exclusion of the poor.
Reason, in the timocracy, was under the dominion of energy or courage: in the oligarchy, it will be under the dominion of appetite.
The love of wealth will become predominant, instead of the love of force and aggrandisement.
Now the love of wealth is distinctly opposed to the love of virtue: virtue and wealth are like weights in opposite scales.
[263] The oligarchical city will lose all its unity, and will consist of a few rich with a multitude of discontented poor ready to rise against them.
[264] The character of the individual citizen will undergo a modification similar to that of the collective city.
He will be under the rule of appetite: his reason will be only invoked as the servant of appetite, to teach him how he may best enrich himself.
[265] He will be frugal,--will abstain from all unnecessary expenditure, even for generous and liberal purposes--and will keep up a fair show of honesty, from the fear of losing what he has already got.
[266] [Footnote 263: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
550 D-E-551 A.
550 E: [Greek: proi+o/ntes ei)s to\ pro/sthen tou= chrêmati/zesthai, o(/sô| a)\n tou=to timiô/teron ê(gô=ntai, tosou/tô| a)retê\n a)timote/ran.
ê)\ ou)ch ou(/tô plou/tou a)retê\ die/stêken, ô(/sper e)n pla/stiggi zugou= keime/nou e(kate/rou a)ei\ tou)nanti/on r(e/ponte?]
Also p. 555 D.] [Footnote 264: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 552 D-E.] [Footnote 265: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 553 C.] [Footnote 266: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 554 D.] [Side-note: 3.
Democracy, and the democratical individual.]
The oligarchical city will presently be transformed into a democracy, mainly through the abuse and exaggeration of its own ruling impulse--the love of wealth.
The rulers, anxious to enrich themselves, rather encourage than check the extravagance of young spendthrifts, to whom they lend money at high interest, or whose property they buy on advantageous terms.
In this manner there arises a class of energetic men, with ruined fortunes and habits of indulgence.
Such are the adventurers who put themselves at the head of the discontented poor, and overthrow the oligarchy.
[267] The ruling few being expelled or put down, a democracy is established with equal franchise, and generally with officers chosen by lot.
[268] [Footnote 267: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
555-556.]
[Footnote 268: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 557 A.]
The characteristic of the democracy is equal freedom and open speech to all, with liberty to each man to shape his own life as he chooses.
Hence there arises a great diversity of individual taste and character.
Uniformity of pursuit or conduct is scarcely enforced: there is little restraint upon any one.
A man offers himself for office whenever he chooses and not unless he chooses.
He is at war or at peace, not by obedience to any public authority, but according to his own individual preference.
If he be even condemned by a court of justice, he remains in the city careless of the sentence, which is never enforced against him.
This democracy is an equal, agreeable, diversified, society, with little or no government: equal in regard to all--to the good, bad, and indifferent.
[269] [Footnote 269: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
557-558.]
So too the democratical individual.
The son of one among these frugal and money-getting oligarchs, departing from the habits and disregarding the advice of his father, contracts a taste for expensive and varied indulgences.
He loses sight of the distinction between what is necessary, and what is not necessary, in respect to desires and pleasures.
If he be of a quiet temperament, not quite out of the reach of advice, he keeps clear of ruinous excess in any one direction; but he gives himself up to a great diversity of successive occupations and amusements, passing from one to the other without discrimination of good from bad, necessary from unnecessary.
[270] His life and character thus becomes an agreeable, unconstrained, changeful, comprehensive, miscellany, like the society to which he belongs.
[271] [Footnote 270: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
560-561 B.
[Greek: ei)s i)/son dê/ ti katastê/sas ta\s ê(dona\s dia/gei, tê=| parapiptou/sê| a)ei\ ô(/sper lachou/sê| tê\n e(autou= a)rchê\n paradidou/s, e(/ôs a)\n plêrôthê=|, kai\ au)=this a)/llê|, ou)demi/an a)tima/zôn, a)ll' e)x i)/sou tre/phôn.]]
[Footnote 271: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
561 D-E. [Greek: pantodapo/n te kai\ plei/stôn ê(thô=n mesto/n, kai\ to\n kalo/n te kai\ poiki/lon, ô(/sper e)kei/nên tê\n po/lin, tou=ton to\n a)/ndra ei)=nai.]]
[Side-note: 4.
Passage from democracy to despotism.
Character of the despotic city.]
Democracy, like oligarchy, becomes ultimately subverted by an abuse of its own characteristic principle.
Freedom is gradually pushed into extravagance and excess, while all other considerations are neglected.
No obedience is practised: no authority is recognised.
The son feels himself equal to his father, the disciple to his teacher, the metic to the citizen, the wife to her husband, the slave to his master.
Nay, even horses, asses, and dogs, go free about, so that they run against you in the road, if you do not make way for them.
[272] The laws are not obeyed: every man is his own master.
[Footnote 272: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
562-563 C.] The subversion of such a democracy arises from the men who rise to be popular leaders in it: violent, ambitious, extravagant, men, who gain the favour of the people by distributing among them confiscations from the property of the rich.
The rich, resisting these injustices, become enemies to the constitution: the people, in order to put them down, range themselves under the banners of the most energetic popular leader, who takes advantage of such a position to render himself a despot.
[273] He begins his rule by some acceptable measures, such as abolition of debts, and assignment of lands to the poorer citizens, until he has expelled or destroyed the parties opposed to him.
He seeks pretences for foreign war, in order that the people may stand in need of a leader, and may be kept poor by the contributions necessary to sustain war.
But presently he finds, or suspects, dissatisfaction among the more liberal spirits.
He kills or banishes them as enemies: and to ensure the continuance of his rule, he is under the necessity of dispatching in like manner every citizen prominent either for magnanimity, intelligence, or wealth.
[274] Becoming thus odious to all the better citizens, he is obliged to seek support by enlisting a guard of mercenary foreigners and manumitted slaves.
He cannot pay his guards, without plundering the temples, extorting perpetual contributions from the people, and grinding them down by severe oppression and suffering.
[275] Such is the government of the despot, which Euripides and other poets employ their genius in extolling.
[276] [Footnote 273: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
565-566.]
[Footnote 274: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 567 B.]
[Footnote 275: Plato, Republic, viii.
pp.
568-569.]
[Footnote 276: Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 568 B.]
[Side-note: Despotic individual corresponding to that city.]
We have now to describe the despotic individual, the parallel of the despotised city.
As the democratic individual arises from the son of an oligarchical citizen departing from the frugality of his father and contracting habits of costly indulgence: so the son of this democrat will contract desires still more immoderate and extravagant than his father, and will thus be put into training for the despotic character.
He becomes intoxicated by insane appetites, which serve as seconds and auxiliaries to one despotic passion or mania, swaying his whole soul.
[277] To gratify such desires, he spends all his possessions, and then begins to borrow money wherever he can.
That resource being exhausted, he procures additional funds by fraud or extortion; he cheats and ruins his father and mother; he resorts to plunder and violence.
If such men are only a small minority, amidst citizens of better character, they live by committing crimes on the smaller scale.
But if they are more numerous, they set up as a despot the most unprincipled and energetic of their number, and become his agents for the enslavement of their fellow-citizens.
[278] The despotic man passes his life always in the company of masters, or instruments, or flatterers: he knows neither freedom nor true friendship--nothing but the relation of master and slave.
The despot is the worst and most unjust of mankind: the longer he continues despot, the worse he becomes.
[279] [Footnote 277: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
572-573 D. [Greek: E)/rôs tu/rannos e)/ndon oi)kô=n diakuberna=| ta\ tê=s psuchê=s a(/panta.]
574 E-575 A: [Greek: turanneuthei\s u(po\ E)/rôtos--E)/rôs mo/narchos], &c.] [Footnote 278: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
574-575.]
[Footnote 279: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
575-576.]
[Side-note: The city has thus passed by four stages, from best to worse.
Question--How are Happiness and Misery apportioned among them?]
We have thus gone through the four successive depravations which our perfect city will undergo--timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, despotism.
Step by step we have passed from the best to the worst--from one extreme to the other.
As is the city, so is the individual citizen--good or bad: the despotic city is like the despotic individual,--and so about the rest.
Now it remains to decide whether in each case happiness and misery is proportioned to good and evil: whether the best is the happiest, the worst the most miserable,--and so proportionally about the intermediate.
[280] On this point there is much difference of opinion.
[281] [Footnote 280: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 576 D.] [Footnote 281: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 576 C. [Greek: toi=s de\ polloi=s polla\ kai\ dokei=.]]
[Side-note: Misery of the despotised city.]
If we look at the condition of the despotised city, it plainly exhibits the extreme of misery; while our model city presents the extreme of happiness.
Every one in the despotised city is miserable, according to universal admission, except the despot himself with his immediate favourites and guards.
To be sure, in the eyes of superficial observers, the despots with these few favourites will appear perfectly happy and enviable.
But if we penetrate beyond this false exterior show, and follow him into his interior, we shall find him too not less miserable than those over whom he tyrannises.
[282] [Footnote 282: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 577 A.]
[Side-note: Supreme Misery of the despotising individual.]
What is true of the despotised city, is true also of the despotising individual.
[283] The best parts of his mind are under subjection to the worst: the rational mind is trampled down by the appetitive mind, with its insane and unsatisfied cravings.
He is full of perpetual perturbation, anxiety, and fear; grief when he fails, repentance even after he has succeeded.
Speaking of his mind as a whole, he never does what he really wishes for the rational element, which alone can ensure satisfaction to the whole mind, and guide to the attainment of his real wishes, is enslaved by furious momentary impulses.
[284] The man of despotical mind is thus miserable; and most of all miserable, the more completely he succeeds in subjugating his fellow-citizens and becoming a despot in reality.
Knowing himself to be hated by everyone, he lives in constant fear of enemies within as well as enemies without, against whom he can obtain support only by courting the vilest of men as partisans.
[285] Though greedy of all sorts of enjoyment, he cannot venture to leave his city, or visit any of the frequented public festivals.
He lives indoors like a woman, envying those who can go abroad and enjoy these spectacles.
[286] He is in reality the poorest and most destitute of men, having the most vehement desires, which he can never satisfy.
[287] Such is the despot who, not being master even of himself, becomes master of others: in reality, the most wretched of men, though he may appear happy to superficial judges who look only at external show.
[288] [Footnote 283: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 577 C-D. [Greek: tê\n o(moio/têta a)namimnêsko/menos tê=s te po/leôs kai\ tou= a)ndro/s .
.
.
ei) ou)=n o(/moios a)nê\r tê=| po/lei, ou) kai\ e)n e)kei/nô| a)na/gkê tê\n au)tê\n ta/xin e)nei=nai?]
&c. Also 579 E.] [Footnote 284: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 577-578.
[Greek: Kai\ ê( turannoume/nê a)/ra psuchê\ ê(/kista poiê/sei a(\ a)\n boulê/thê|, ô(s peri\ o(/lês ei)pei=n psuchê=s; u(po\ de\ oi)/strou a)ei\ e(lkome/nê bi/a| tarachê=s kai\ metamelei/as mestê\ e)/stai] (557 E).]
[Footnote 285: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
578-579.]
[Footnote 286: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
579 C.] [Footnote 287: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 579 E.] [Footnote 288: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
579-580.]
[Side-note: Conclusion--The Model city and the individual corresponding to it, are the happiest of all--That which is farthest removed from it, is the most miserable of all.]
Thus then (concludes Sokrates) we may affirm with confidence, having reference to the five distinct cities above described--(1.
The Model-City, regal or aristocratical.
2.
Timocracy.
3.
Oligarchy.
4.
Democracy.
5.
Despotism)--that the first of these is happy, and the last miserable: the three intermediate cities being more or less happy in the order which they occupy from the first to the last.
[Side-note: The Just Man is happy in and through his Justice, however he may be treated by others.
The Unjust Man, miserable.]
Each of these cities has its parallel in an individual citizen.
The individual citizen corresponding to the first is happy--he who corresponds to the last is miserable: and so proportionally for the individual corresponding to the three intermediate cities.
He is happy or miserable, in and through himself, or essentially; whether he be known to Gods and men or not--whatever may be the sentiment entertained of him by others.
[289] [Footnote 289: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 580 D. [Greek: e)a/n te lantha/nôsi toiou=toi o)/ntes e)a/n te mê\ pa/ntas a)nthrô/pous te kai\ theou/s.]]
There are two other lines of argument (continues Sokrates) establishing the same conclusion.
[Side-note: Other arguments proving the same conclusion--Pleasures of Intelligence are the best of all pleasures.]
1.
We have seen that both the collective city and the individual mind are distributed into three portions: Reason, Energy, Appetite.
Each of these portions has its own peculiar pleasures and pains, desires and aversions, beginnings or principles of action: Love of Knowledge: Love of Honour: Love of Gain.
If you question men in whom these three varieties of temper respectively preponderate, each of them will extol the pleasures of his own department above those belonging to the other two.
The lover of wealth will declare the pleasures of acquisition and appetite to be far greater than those of honour or of knowledge: each of the other two will say the same for himself, and for the pleasures of his own department.
Here then the question is opened, Which of the three is in the right?
Which of the three varieties of pleasure and modes of life is the more honourable or base, the better or worse, the more pleasurable or painful?
[290] By what criterion, or by whose judgment, is this question to be decided?
It must be decided by experience, intelligence and rational discourse.
[291] Now it is certain that the lover of knowledge, or the philosopher, has greater experience of all the three varieties of pleasure than is possessed by either of the other two men.
He must in his younger days have tasted and tried the pleasures of both; but the other two have never tasted his.
[292] Moreover, each of the three acquires more or less of honour, if he succeeds in his own pursuits: accordingly the pleasures belonging to the love of honour are shared, and may be appreciated, by the philosopher; while the lover of honour as such, has no sense for the pleasures of philosophy.
In the range of personal experience, therefore, the philosopher surpasses the other two: he surpasses them no less in exercised intelligence, and in rational discourse, which is his own principal instrument.
[293] If wealth and profit furnished the proper means of judgment, the money-lover would have been the best judge of the three: if honour and victory furnished the proper means, we should consult the lover of honour: but experience, intelligence, and rational discourse, have been shown to be the means--and therefore it is plain that the philosopher is a better authority than either of the other two.
His verdict must be considered as final.
He will assuredly tell us, that the pleasures belonging to the love of knowledge are the greatest: those belonging to the love of honour and power, the next: those belonging to the love of money and to appetite, the least.
[294] [Footnote 290: Plato, Republic, ix.
p.
581.]
[Footnote 291: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 582 A.
[Greek: e)mpeiri/a| te kai\ phronê/sei kai\ lo/gô|.]]
[Footnote 292: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 582 B.]
[Footnote 293: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 582 C-D. [Greek: lo/goi de\ tou/tou ma/lista o)/rganon.]]
[Footnote 294: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
582-583.]
[Side-note: They are the only pleasures completely true and pure.
Comparison of pleasure and pain with neutrality.
Prevalent illusions.]
2.
The second argument, establishing the same conclusion, is as follows:--No pleasures, except those belonging to philosophy or the love of wisdom, are completely true and pure.
All the other pleasures are mere shadowy outlines, looking like pleasure at a distance, but not really pleasures when you contemplate them closely.
[295] Pleasure and pain are two conditions opposite to each other.
Between them both is another state, neither one nor the other, called neutrality or indifference.
Now a man who has been sick and is convalescent, will tell you that nothing is more pleasurable than being in health, but that he did not know what the pleasure of it was, until he became sick.
So too men in pain affirm that nothing is more pleasurable than relief from pain.
When a man is grieving, it is exemption or indifference, not enjoyment, which he extols as the greatest pleasure.
Again, when a man has been in a state of enjoyment, and the enjoyment ceases, this cessation is painful.
We thus see that the intermediate state--cessation, neutrality, indifference--will be some times pain, sometimes pleasure, according to circumstances.
Now that which is neither pleasure nor pain cannot possibly be both.
[296] Pleasure is a positive movement or mutation of the mind: so also is pain.
Neutrality or indifference is a negative condition, intermediate between the two: no movement, but absence of movement: non-pain, non-pleasure.
But non-pain is not really pleasure: non-pleasure is not really pain.
When therefore neutrality or non-pain, succeeding immediately after pain, appears to be a pleasure--this is a mere appearance or illusion, not a reality.
When neutrality or non-pleasure, succeeding immediately after pleasure, appears to be pain--this also is a mere appearance or illusion, not a reality.
There is nothing sound or trustworthy in such appearances.
Pleasure is not cessation of pain, but something essentially different: pain is not cessation of pleasure, but something essentially different.
[Footnote 295: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 583 B.
[Greek: ou)de\ panalêthê/s e)stin e( tô=n a)/llôn ê(donê\ plê\n tê=s tou= phroni/mou, ou)de\ kathara/, a)ll' e)skiagraphême/nê tis, ô(s e)gô\ dokô= moi tô=n sophô=n tino\s a)kêkoe/nai.]]
[Footnote 296: Plato, Republ.
ix.
pp.
583 E-584 A.
[Greek: O(\ metaxu\ a)/ra nu=n dê\ a)mphote/rôn e)/phamen ei)=nai, tê\n ê(suchi/an, tou=to/ pote a)mpho/tera e)/stai, lu/pê te kai\ ê(donê/ .
.
.
Ê)= kai\ dunato\n to\ mêde/tera o)\n a)mpho/tera gi/gnesthai?
Ou)/ moi dokei=.
Kai\ mê\n to/ ge ê(du\ e)n psuchê=| gigno/menon kai\ to\ lupêro\n ki/nêsi/s tis a)mphote/rô e)/ston?
ê)\ ou)/?
Nai/.
To\ de\ mê/te ê(du\ mê/te lupêro\n ou)chi\ ê(suchi/a me/ntoi kai\ e)n me/sô| tou/tôn e)pha/nê a)/rti?
E)pha/nê ga/r.
Pô=s ou)=n o)rthô=s e)/sti to\ mê\ a)lgei=n ê(du\ ê(gei=sthai, ê)\ to\ mê\ chai/rein a)niaro/n?
Ou)damô=s.
Ou)k e)/stin a)/ra tou=to, a)lla\ phai/netai, para\ to\ a)lgeino\n ê(du\ kai\ para\ to\ ê(du\ a)lgeino\n to/te ê( ê(suchi/a, kai\ ou)de\n u(gie\s tou/tôn tô=n phantasma/tôn pro\s ê(donê=s a)lê/theian, a)lla\ goêtei/a tis.]]
[Side-note: Most men know nothing of true and pure pleasure.
Simile of the Kosmos--Absolute height and depth.]
Take, for example, the pleasures of smell, which are true and genuine pleasures, of great intensity: they spring up instantaneously without presupposing any anterior pain--they depart without leaving any subsequent pain.
[297] These are true and pure pleasures, radically different from cessation of pain: so also true and pure pains are different from cessation of pleasure.
Most of the so-called pleasures, especially the more intense, which reach the mind through the body, are in reality not pleasures at all, but only cessations or reliefs from pain.
The same may be said about the pleasures and pains of anticipation belonging to these so-called bodily pleasures.
[298] They may be represented by the following simile:--There is in nature a real Absolute Up and uppermost point--a real Absolute Down and lowest point--and a centre between them.
[299] A man borne from the lowest point to the centre will think himself moving upwards, and will be moving upwards relatively.
If his course be stopped in the centre, he will think himself at the absolute summit--on looking to the point from which he came, and ignorant as he is of any thing higher.
If he be forced to return from the centre to the point from whence he came, he will think himself moving downwards, and will be really moving downwards, absolutely as well as relatively.
Such misapprehension arises from his not knowing the portion of the Kosmos above the centre--the true and absolute Up or summit.
Now the case of pleasure and pain is analogous to this.
Pain is the absolute lowest--Pleasure the absolute highest--non-pleasure, non-pain, the centre intermediate between them.
But most men know nothing of the region above the centre, or the absolute highest--the region of true and pure pleasure: they know only the centre and what is below it, or the region of pain.
When they fall from the centre to the point of pain, they conceive the situation truly, and they really are pained: but when they rise from the lowest point to the centre, they misconceive the change, and imagine themselves to be in a process of replenishment and acquisition of pleasure.
They mistake the painless condition for pleasure, not knowing what true pleasure is: just as a man who has seen only black and not white, will fancy, if dun be shown to him, that he is looking on white.
[300] [Footnote 297: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 584 B.]
[Footnote 298: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 584 C.] [Footnote 299: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 584 C. [Greek: Nomi/zeis ti e)n tê=| phu/sei ei)=nai to\ me\n a)/nô, to\ de\ ka/tô, to\ de\ me/son?
E)/gôge.]]
[Footnote 300: Plato, Republic, pp.
584 E-585 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n tau=ta pa/schoi a)\n pa/nta dia\ to\ mê\ e)/mpeiros ei)=nai tou= a)lêthinô=s a)/nô te o)/ntos kai\ e)n me/sô|?
.
.
.
o(/tan me\n e)pi\ to\ lupêro\n phe/rôntai, a)lêthê= te oi)/ontai kai\ tô=| o)/nti lupou=ntai, o(/tan de\ a)po\ lu/pês e)pi\ to\ metaxu/, spho/dra me\n oi)/ontai pro\s plêrô/sei te kai\ ê(donê=| gi/gnesthai, ô(/sper de\ pro\s me/lan phaio\n a)poskopou=ntes a)peiri/a| leukou=, kai\ pro\s to\ a)/lupon ou(/tô lu/pên a)phorô=ntes a)peiri/a| ê(donê=s a)patô=ntai?]]
[Side-note: Nourishment of the mind partakes more of real essence than nourishment of the body--Replenishment of the mind imparts fuller pleasure than replenishment of the body.]
Hunger and thirst are states of emptiness in the body: ignorance and folly are states of emptiness in the mind.
A hungry man in eating or drinking obtains replenishment: an ignorant man becoming instructed obtains replenishment also.
Now replenishment derived from that which exists more fully and perfectly is truer and more real than replenishment from that which exists less fully and perfectly.
[301] Let us then compare the food which serves for replenishment of the body, with that which serves for replenishment of the mind.
Which of the two is most existent?
Which of the two partakes most of pure essence?
Meat and drink--or true opinions, knowledge, intelligence, and virtue?
Which of the two exists most perfectly?
That which embraces the true, eternal, and unchangeable--and which is itself of similar nature?
Or that which embraces the mortal, the transient, and the ever variable--being itself of kindred nature?
Assuredly the former.
It is clear that what is necessary for the sustenance of the body partakes less of truth and real essence, than what is necessary for the sustenance of the mind.
The mind is replenished with nourishment more real and essential: the body with nourishment less so: the mind itself is also more real and essential than the body.
The mind therefore is more, and more thoroughly, replenished than the body.
Accordingly, if pleasure consists in being replenished with what suits its peculiar nature, the mind will enjoy more pleasure and truer pleasure than the body.
[302] Those who are destitute of intelligence and virtue, passing their lives in sensual pursuits, have never tasted any pure or lasting pleasure, nor ever carried their looks upwards to the higher region in which alone it resides.
Their pleasures, though seeming intense, and raising vehement desires in their uninstructed minds, are yet only phantoms deriving a semblance of pleasure from contrast with pains:[303] they are like the phantom of Helen, for which (as Stesichorus says) the Greeks and Trojans fought so many battles, knowing nothing about the true Helen, who was never in Troy.
[Footnote 301: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 585 B.
[Greek: Plê/rôsis de\ a)lêtheste/ra tou= ê(=tton ê)\ tou= ma=llon o)/ntos?
Dê=lon o(/ti tou= ma=llon.
Po/tera ou)=n ê(gei= ta\ ge/nê ma=llon kathara=s ou)si/as mete/chein, ta\ oi(=on si/tou kai\ potou= kai\ o)/psou kai\ xumpa/sês trophê=s, ê)\ to\ do/xês te a)lêthou=s ei)=dos kai\ e)pistê/mês kai\ nou= kai\ xullê/bdên xumpa/sês a)retê=s?]]
[Footnote 302: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 585 E.] [Footnote 303: Plato, Republic, ix.
p.
586.]
[Side-note: Comparative worthlessness of the pleasures of Appetite and Ambition, when measured against those of Intelligence.]
The pleasures belonging to the Love of Honour (Energy or Passion) are no better than those belonging to the Love of Money (Appetite).
In so far as the desires belonging to both these departments of mind are under the controul of the third or best department (Love of Wisdom, or Reason), the nearest approach to true pleasure, which it is in the nature of either of them to bestow, will be realised.
But in so far as either of them throws off the controul of Reason, it will neither obtain its own truest pleasures, nor allow the other departments of mind to obtain theirs.
[304] The desires connected with love, and with despotic power, stand out more than the others, as recusant to Reason.
Law, and Regulation.
The kingly and moderate desires are most obedient to this authority.
The lover and the despot, therefore, will enjoy the least pleasure: the kindly-minded man will enjoy the most.
Of the three sorts of pleasure, one true and legitimate, two bastard, the despot goes most away from the legitimate, and to the farthest limit of the bastard.
His condition is the most miserable, that of the kingly-minded man is the happiest: between the two come the oligarchical and the democratical man.
The difference between the two extremes** is as 1: 729.
[305] [Footnote 304: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
586-587.]
[Footnote 305: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 587 E.] [Side-note: The Just Man will be happy from his justice--He will look only to the good order of his own mind--He will stand aloof from public affairs, in cities as now constituted.]
I have thus refuted (continues Sokrates) the case of those who contend--That the unjust man is a gainer by his injustice, provided he could carry it on successfully, and with the reputation of being just.
I have shown that injustice is the greatest possible mischief, intrinsically and in itself, apart from consequences and apart from public reputation: inasmuch as it enslaves the better part of the mind to the worse.
Justice, on the other hand, is the greatest possible good, intrinsically and in itself, apart from consequences and reputation, because it keeps the worse parts of the mind under due controul and subordination to the better.
[306] Vice and infirmity of every kind is pernicious, because it puts the best parts of the mind under subjection to the worst.
[307] No success in the acquisition of wealth, aggrandisement, or any other undue object, can compensate a man for the internal disorder which he introduces into his own mind by becoming unjust.
A well-ordered mind, just and temperate, with the better part governing the worse, is the first of all objects: greater even than a healthy, strong, and beautiful body.
[308] To put his mind into this condition, and to acquire all the knowledge thereunto conducing, will be the purpose of a wise man's life.
Even in the management of his body, he will look not so much to the health and strength of his body, as to the harmony and fit regulation of his mind.
In the acquisition of money, he will keep the same end in view: he will not be tempted by the admiration and envy of people around him to seek great wealth, which will disturb the mental polity within him:[309] he will, on the other hand, avoid depressing poverty, which might produce the same effect.
He will take as little part as possible in public life, and will aspire to no political honours, in cities as at present constituted--nor in any other than the model-city which we have described.
[310] [Footnote 306: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
588-589.]
[Footnote 307: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 590 B-C.] [Footnote 308: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 591 B.]
[Footnote 309: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 591 D-E. [Greek: kai\ to\n o)/gkon tou= plê/thous ou)k, e)kplêtto/menos u(po\ tou= tô=n pollô=n makarismou=, a)/peiron au)xê/sei, a)pe/ranta kaka\ e)/chôn .
.
.
A)ll' a)poble/pôn ge, pro\s tê\n e)n au(tô=| politei/an, kai\ phula/ttôn mê/ ti parakinê=| au)tou= tô=n e)kei= dia\ plê=thos ou)si/as ê)\ di' o)ligo/têta, ou(/tô kubernô=n prosthê/sei kai\ a)nalô/sei tê=s ou)si/as, kath' o(/son a)\n oi(=o/s t' ê)=|.]]
[Footnote 310: Plato, Republic, ix.
p.
592.]
[Side-note: Tenth Book--Censure of the poets is renewed--Mischiefs of imitation generally, as deceptive--Imitation from imitation.]
The tenth and last book of the Republic commences with an argument of considerable length, repeating and confirming by farther reasons the sentence of expulsion which Plato had already pronounced against the poets in his second and third books.
[311] The Platonic Sokrates here not only animadverts upon poetry, but extends his disapprobation to other imitative arts, such as painting.
He attacks the process of imitation generally, as false and deceptive; pleasing to ignorant people, but perverting their minds by phantasms which they mistake for realities.
The work of the imitator is not merely not reality, but is removed from it by two degrees.
What is real is the Form or Idea: the one conceived object denoted by each appellative name common to many particulars.
There is one Form or Idea, and only one, known by the name of Bed; another by the name of Table.
[312] When the carpenter constructs a bed or a table, he fixes his contemplation on this Form or Idea, and tries to copy it.
What he constructs, however, is not the true, real, existent, table, which alone exists in nature, and may be presumed to be made by the Gods[313]--but a something like the real existent table: not true Ens, but only quasi-Ens:[314] dim and indistinct, as compared with the truth, and standing far off from the truth.
Next to the carpenter comes the painter, who copies not the real existent table, but the copy of that table made by the carpenter.
The painter fixes his contemplation upon it, not as it really exists, but simply as it appears: he copies an appearance or phantasm, not a reality.
Thus the table will have a different appearance, according as you look at it from near or far--from one side or the other: yet in reality it never differs from itself.
It is one of these appearances that the painter copies, not the reality itself.
He can in like manner paint any thing and every thing, since he hardly touches any thing at all--and nothing whatever except in appearance.
He can paint all sorts of craftsmen and their works--carpenters, shoemakers, &c. without knowledge of any one of their arts.
[315] [Footnote 311: Plato, Republic, x. p. 607 B.
The language here used by Plato seems to imply that his opinions adverse to poetry had been attacked and required defence.]
[Footnote 312: Plato, Republic, x. p. 596 A-B.
[Greek: Bou/lei ou)=n e)/nthende a)rxô/metha e)piskopou/ntes, e)k tê=s ei)ôthui/as metho/dou?
ei)=dos ga/r pou/ ti e(\n e(/kaston ei)ô/thamen ti/thesthai peri\ e(/kasta ta\ polla/, oi(=s tau)to\n o)/noma e)piphe/romen .
.
.
thô=men dê\ kai\ nu=n o(/ti bou/lei tô=n pollô=n; oi(=on, ei) the/leis pollai/ pou/ ei)si kli=nai kai\ tra/pezai .
.
.
A)ll' i)de/ai ge/ pou peri\ tau=ta ta\ skeu/ê du/o, mi/a me\n kli/nês, mi/a de\ trape/zês.]
[Footnote 313: Plato, Republic, x. p. 597 B-D. 597 B: [Greek: mi/a me\n ê( e)n tê=| phu/sei ou)=sa, ê(\n phai=men a)/n, ô(s e)gô=|mai, theo\n e)rga/sasthai.]]
[Footnote 314: Plato, Republic, x. p. 597 A.
[Greek: ou)k a)\n to\ o)\n poioi=, a)lla/ ti toiou=ton oi(=on to\ o)/n, o)\n de\ ou)/.]]
[Footnote 315: Plato, Republic, x. p. 598 B-C.] [Side-note: Censure of Homer--He is falsely extolled as educator of the Hellenic world.
He and other poets only deceive their hearers.]
The like is true also of the poets.
Homer and the tragedians give us talk and affirmations about everything: government, legislation, war, medicine, husbandry, the character and proceedings of the Gods, the habits and training of men, &c. Some persons even extol Homer as the great educator of the Hellenic world, whose poems we ought to learn by heart as guides for education and administration.
[316] But Homer, Hesiod, and the other poets, had no real knowledge of the multifarious matters which they profess to describe.
These poets know nothing except about appearances, and will describe only appearances, to the satisfaction of the ignorant multitude.
[317] The representations of the painter, reproducing only the appearances to sense, will be constantly fallacious and deceptive, requiring to be corrected by measuring, weighing, counting--which are processes belonging to Reason.
[318] The lower and the higher parts of the mind are here at variance; and the painter addresses himself to the lower, supplying falsehood as if it were truth.
The painter does this through the eye, the poet through the ear.
[319] [Footnote 316: Plato, Republic, p. 606 E.] [Footnote 317: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
600-601 C. 601 B: [Greek: tou= me\n o)/ntos ou)de\n e)pai+/ei, tou= de\ phainome/nou.]
602 B: [Greek: oi(=on phai/netai kalo\n ei)=nai toi=s polloi=s te kai\ mêde\n ei)do/si, tou=to mimê/setai.]]
[Footnote 318: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
602-603.]
[Footnote 319: Plato, Republic, x. p. 603 B.]
[Side-note: The poet chiefly appeals to emotions--Mischiefs of such eloquent appeals, as disturbing the rational government of the mind.]
In the various acts and situations of life a man is full of contradictions.
He is swayed by manifold impulses, often directly contradicting each other.
Hence we have affirmed that there are in his mind two distinct principles, one contradicting the other: the emotional and the rational.
[320] When a man suffers misfortune, emotion prompts him to indulge in extreme grief, and to abandon himself like a child to the momentary tide.
Reason, on the contrary, exhorts him to resist, and to exert himself immediately in counsel to rectify or alleviate what has happened, adapting his conduct as well as he can to the actual throw of the dice which has befallen him.
[321] Now it is these vehement bursts of emotion which lend themselves most effectively to the genius of the poet, and which he must work up to please the multitude in the theatre: the state of rational self-command can hardly be described so as to touch their feelings.
We see thus that the poet, like the painter, addresses himself to the lower department of the mind, exalting the emotional into preponderance over the rational--the foolish over the wise--the false over the true.
[322] He introduces bad government into the mind, giving to pleasure and pain the sceptre over reason.
Hence we cannot tolerate the poet, in spite of all his sweets and captivations.
We can only permit him to compose hymns for the Gods and encomiums for good men.
[323] [Footnote 320: Plato, Republic, x. p. 603 D. [Greek: muri/ôn toiou/tôn e)nantiôma/tôn a(/ma gignome/nôn ê( psuchê\ ge/mei ê(mô=n .
.
.]
604 B: [Greek: e)nanti/as de\ a)gôgê=s gignome/nês e)n tô=| a)nthrô/pô| peri\ to\ au)to\ a(/ma du/o tine/ phamen e)n au)tô=| a)nagkai=on ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 321: Plato, Republic, x. p. 604 C. [Greek: Tô=| bouleu/esthai peri\ to\ gegono\s kai\ ô(/sper e)n ptô/sei ku/bôn pro\s ta\ peptôko/ta ti/thesthai ta\ au)tou= pra/gmata, o(/pê| o( lo/gos ai(rei= be/ltist' a)\n e)/chein, a)lla\ mê\ prosptai/santas, katha/per pai=das, e)chome/nous tou= plêge/ntos e)n tô=| boa=n diatri/bein], &c.] [Footnote 322: Plato, Republic, x. p.
605.]
[Footnote 323: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
605-606-607.
605 B: [Greek: to\n mimêtiko\n poiêtê\n phê/somen kakê\n politei/an i)di/a| e(ka/stou tê=| psuchê=| e)mpoiei=n, tô=| a)noê/tô| au)tê/s charizo/menon .
.
.]
607 A: [Greek: ei) de\ tê\n ê(dusme/nên mou=san parade/xei e)n me/lesin ê)\ e)/pesin, ê(donê/ soi kai\ lu/pê basileu/seton a)nti\ no/mou te kai\ tou= koinê=| a)ei\ do/xantos ei)=nai belti/stou lo/gou.]]
[Side-note: Ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry--Plato fights for philosophy, though his feelings are strongly enlisted for poetry.]
This quarrel between philosophy and poetry (continues the Platonic Sokrates) is of ancient date.
[324] I myself am very sensible to the charms of poetry, especially that of Homer.
I should be delighted if a case could be made out to justify me in admitting it into our city.
But I cannot betray the cause of what seems to me truth.
We must resist our sympathies and preferences, when they are incompatible with the right government of the mind.
[325] [Footnote 324: Plato, Republic, x. p. 607 B.
[Greek: palaia/ tis diaphora\ philosophi/a| te kai\ poiêtikê=|].]
[Footnote 325: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
607-608.]
[Side-note: Immortality of the soul affirmed and sustained by argument--Total number of souls always the same.]
To maintain the right government and good condition of the soul or mind, is the first of all considerations: and will be seen yet farther to be such, when we consider that it is immortal and imperishable.
Of this Plato proceeds to give a proof,[326] concluding with a mythical sketch of the destiny of the soul after death.
The soul being immortal (he says), the total number of souls is and always has been the same--neither increasing nor diminishing.
[327] [Footnote 326: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
609-610.]
[Footnote 327: Plato, Republic, x. p. 611 A.]
[Side-note: Recapitulation--The Just Man will be happy, both from his justice and from its consequences, both here and hereafter.]
I have proved (the Platonic Sokrates concludes) in the preceding discourse, that Justice is better, in itself and intrinsically, than Injustice, quite apart from consequences in the way of reward and honour; that a man for the sake of his own happiness, ought to be just, whatever may be thought of him by Gods or men--even though he possessed the magic ring of Gyges.
Having proved this, and having made out the intrinsic superiority of justice to injustice, we may now take in the natural consequences and collateral bearings of both.
We have hitherto reasoned upon the hypothesis that the just man was mistaken for unjust, and treated accordingly--that the unjust man found means to pass himself off for just, and to attract to himself the esteem and the rewards of justice.
But this hypothesis concedes too much, and we must now take back the concession.
The just man will be happier than the unjust, not simply from the intrinsic working of justice on his own mind, but also from the exterior consequences of justice.
[328] He will be favoured and rewarded both by Gods and men.
Though he may be in poverty, sickness, or any other apparent state of evil, he may be assured that the Gods will compensate him for it by happiness either in life or after death.
[329] And men too, though they may for a time be mistaken about the just and the unjust character, will at last come to a right estimation of both.
The just man will finally receive honour, reward, and power, from his fellow-citizens: the unjust man will be finally degraded and punished by them.
[330] And after death, the reward of the just man, as well as the punishment of the unjust, will be far greater than even during life.
[Footnote 328: Plato, Republic, x. p. 612 B-C.] [Footnote 329: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
612-613.]
[Footnote 330: Plato, Republic, x. p. 613 C-D.] This latter position is illustrated at some length by the mythe with which the Republic concludes, describing the realm of Hades, with the posthumous condition and treatment of the departed souls.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
REPUBLIC--REMARKS ON ITS MAIN THESIS.
[Side-note: Summary of the preceding chapter.]
The preceding Chapter has described, in concise abstract, that splendid monument of Plato's genius, which passes under the name of the [Greek: Politei/a] or Republic.
It is undoubtedly the grandest of all his compositions; including in itself all his different points of excellence.
In the first Book, we have a subtle specimen of negative Dialectic,--of the Sokratic cross-examination or Elenchus.
In the second Book, we find two examples of continuous or Ciceronian pleading (like that ascribed to Protagoras in the dialogue called by his name), which are surpassed by nothing in ancient literature, for acuteness and ability in the statement of a case.
Next, we are introduced to Plato's most sublime effort of constructive ingenuity, in putting together both the individual man and the collective City: together with more information (imperfect as it is even here) about his Dialectic or Philosophy, than any other dialogue furnishes.
The ninth Book exhibits his attempts to make good his own thesis against the case set forth in his own antecedent counter-pleadings.
The last Book concludes with a highly poetical mythe, embodying a [Greek: Nekui/a] shaped after his own fancy,--and the outline of cosmical agencies afterwards developed, though with many differences, in the Timæus.
The brilliancy of the Republic will appear all the more conspicuous, when we come to compare it with Plato's two posterior compositions: with the Pythagorean mysticism and theology of the Timæus--or with the severe and dictatorial solemnity of the Treatise De Legibus.
[Side-note: Title of the Republic, of ancient date, but only a partial indication of its contents.]
The title borne by this dialogue--the Republic or Polity--whether affixed by Plato himself or not, dates at least from his immediate disciples, Aristotle among them.
[1] This title hardly presents a clear idea either of its proclaimed purpose or of its total contents.
[Footnote 1: See Schleiermacher, Einl.
zum Staat, p. 63 seq.
; Stallbaum, Proleg.
p. lviii.
seq.]
The larger portion of the treatise is doubtless employed in expounding the generation of a commonwealth generally: from whence the author passes insensibly to the delineation of a Model-Commonwealth--enumerating the conditions of aptitude for its governors and guardian-soldiers, estimating the obstacles which prevent it from appearing in the full type of goodness--and pointing out the steps whereby, even if fully realised, it is likely to be brought to perversion and degeneracy.
Nevertheless the avowed purpose of the treatise is, not to depict the ideal of a commonwealth, but to solve the questions, What is Justice?
What is Injustice?
Does Justice, in itself and by its own intrinsic working, make the just man happy, apart from all consequences, even though he is not known to be just, and is even treated as unjust, either by Gods or men?
Does Injustice, under the like hypothesis, (_i.e._ leaving out all consideration of consequences either from Gods or from men), make the unjust man miserable?
The reasonings respecting the best polity, are means to this end--intermediate steps to the settlement of this problem.
We must recollect that Plato insists strongly on the parallelism between the individual and the state: he talks of "the polity" or Republic in each man's mind, as of that in the entire city.
[2] [Footnote 2: Plato, Repub.
ix.
p. 591 E. [Greek: a)poble/pôn pro\s tê\n e)n au(tô=| politei/an.]
x. p. 608 B: [Greek: peri\ tê=s e)n au(tô=| politei/as dedio/ti], &c.] [Side-note: Parallelism between the Commonwealth and the Individual.]
The Republic, or Commonwealth, is introduced by Plato as being the individual man "writ large," and therefore more clearly discernible and legible to an observer.
[3] To illustrate the individual man, he begins by describing (to use Hobbes's language) the great Leviathan called a "Commonwealth or State, in Latin Civitas, which is but an artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended".
[4] He pursues in much detail this parallel between the individual and the commonwealth, as well as between the component parts and forces of the one, and those of the other.
The perfection of the commonwealth (he represents) consists in its being One:[5] an integer or unit, of which the constituent individuals are merely functions, each having only a fractional, dependent, relative existence.
As the commonwealth is an individual on a large scale, so the individual is a commonwealth on a small scale; in which the constituent fractions, Reason,--Energy or Courage,--and many-headed Appetite,--act each for itself and oppose each other.
It is the tendency of Plato's imagination to bestow vivid reality on abstractions, and to reason upon metaphorical analogy as if it were close parallelism.
His language exaggerates both the unity of the commonwealth, and the partibility of the individual, in illustrating the one by comparison with the other.
The commonwealth is treated as capable of happiness or misery as an entire Person, apart from its component individuals:[6] while on the other hand, Reason, Energy, Appetite, are described as distinct and conflicting Persons, packed up in the same wrapper and therefore looking like One from the outside, yet really distinct, each acting and suffering by and for itself: like the charioteer and his two horses, which form the conspicuous metaphor in the Phædrus.
[7] We are thus told, that though the man is apparently One, he is in reality Many or multipartite: though the perfect Commonwealth is apparently Many, it is in reality One.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Repub.
ii.
p. 368 D. "New presbyter is but old priest writ large."--(Milton.)]
[Footnote 4: This is the language of Hobbes.
Preface to the Leviathan.
In the same treatise (Part ii.
ch.
17, pp.
157-158, Molesworth's edition) Hobbes says:--"The only way to erect such a common power as may be able to defend men from the invasion of foreigners and the injury of one another, is to confer all their power and strength upon one man or one assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills by plurality of voices to one will: which is as much as to say, to appoint one man or assembly of men to bear their person.
This is more than consent or concord: _it is a real unity of them all in one and the same person_, made by covenant of every man with every man.
This done, the multitude so united in one person, is called a Commonwealth, in Latin Civitas.
This is the generation of that great Leviathan," &c.] [Footnote 5: Plato, Republic, iv.
p.
423.]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
420-421.]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 588, x. p. 604, iv.
pp.
436-441. ix.
p. 588 E: [Greek: ô(/ste tô=| mê\ duname/nô| ta\ e)nto\s o(ra=|n, a)lla\ to\ e)/xô mo/non e)/lutron o(rô=nti, e(\n zô=on phai/nesthai, a)/nthrôpon.]]
[Side-note: Each of them a whole, composed of parts distinct in function and unequal in merit.]
Of the parts composing a man, as well as of the parts composing a commonwealth, some are better, others worse.
A few are good and excellent; the greater number are low and bad; while there are intermediate gradations between the two.
The perfection of a commonwealth, and the perfection of an individual man, is attained when each part performs its own appropriate function and no more,--not interfering with the rest.
In the commonwealth there are a small number of wise Elders or philosophers, whose appropriate function it is to look out for the good or happiness of the whole; and to controul the ordinary commonplace multitude, with a view to that end.
Each of the multitude has his own special duty or aptitude, to which he confines himself, and which he executes in subordination to the wise or governing Few.
And to ensure such subordination, there are an intermediate number of trained, or disciplined Guardians; who employ their force under the orders of the ruling Few, to controul the multitude within, as well as to repel enemies without.
So too in the perfect man.
Reason is the small but excellent organ whose appropriate function is, to controul the multitude of desires and to watch over the good of the whole: the function of Energy or Courage is, while itself obeying the Reason, to assist Reason in maintaining this controul over the Desires: the function of each several desire is to obey, pursuing its own special end in due harmony with the rest.
[Side-note: End proposed by Plato.
Happiness of the Commonwealth.
Happiness of the individual.
Conditions of happiness.]
The End to be accomplished, and with reference to which Plato tests the perfection of the means, is, the happiness of the entire commonwealth,--the happiness of the entire individual man.
In order to be happy, a commonwealth or an individual man must be at once wise, brave, temperate, just.
There is however this difference between the four qualities.
Though all four are essential, yet wisdom and bravery belong only to separate fractions of the commonwealth and separate fractions of the individual: while justice and temperance belong equally to all the fractions of the commonwealth and all the fractions of the individual.
In the perfect commonwealth, Wisdom or Reason is found only in the One or Few Ruling Elders:--Energy or Courage only in the Soldiers or Guardians: but Elders, Guardians, and the working multitude, alike exhibit Justice and Temperance.
All are just, inasmuch as each performs his appropriate business: all are temperate, inasmuch as all agree in recognising what is the appropriate business of each fraction--that of the Elders is, to rule--that of the others is, to obey.
So too the individual: he is wise only in his Reason, brave only in his Energy or Courage: but he is just and temperate in his Reason, Courage, and Appetites alike--each of these Fractions acting in its own sphere under proper relations to the rest.
In fact, according to the definitions given by Plato in the Republic, justice and temperance are scarce at all distinguishable from each other--and must at any rate be inseparable.
[Side-note: Peculiar view of Justice taken by Plato.]
Now in regard to the definition here given by Plato of Justice, which is the avowed object of his Treatise, we may first remark that it is altogether peculiar to Plato; and that if we reason about Justice in the Platonic sense, we must take care not to affirm of it predicates which might be true in a more usual acceptation of the word.
Next, that even adopting Plato's own meaning of Justice, it does not answer the purpose for which he produces it--_viz._: to provide reply to the objections, and solution for the difficulties, which he had himself placed in the mouths of Glaukon and Adeimantus.
[Side-note: Pleadings of Glaukon and Adeimantus.]
These two speakers (in the second Book) have advanced the position (which they affirm to be held by every one, past and present)--That justice is a good thing or a cause of happiness to the just agent--not in itself or separately, since the performance of just acts is more or less onerous and sometimes painful, presenting itself in the aspect of an obligation, but--because of its consequences, as being indispensable to procure for him some ulterior good, such as esteem and just treatment from others.
Sokrates on the other hand declares justice to be good, or a cause of happiness, to the just agent, most of all in itself--but also, additionally, in its consequences: and injustice to be bad, or a cause of misery to the unjust agent, on both grounds also.
Suppose (we have seen it urged by Glaukon and Adeimantus) that a man is just, but is mis-esteemed by the society among whom he lives, and believed to be unjust.
He will certainly be hated and ill-used by others, and may be ill-used to the greatest possible extent--impoverishment, scourging, torture, crucifixion.
Again, suppose a man to be unjust, but to be in like manner misconceived, and treated as if he were just.
He will receive from others golden opinions, just dealing, and goodwill, producing to him comfortable consequences: and he will obtain, besides, the profits of injustice.
Evidently, under these supposed circumstances, the just man will be miserable, in spite of his justice: the unjust man will, to say the least, be the happier of the two.
Moreover (so argues Glaukon), all fathers exhort their sons to be just, and forbid them to be unjust, admitting that justice is a troublesome obligation, but insisting upon it as indispensable to avert evil consequences and procure good.
So also poets and teachers.
All of them assume that justice is not inviting for itself, but only by reason of its consequences: and that injustice is in itself easy and inviting, were it not for mischievous consequences and penalties more than countervailing the temptation.
All of them either anticipate, or seek to provide, penalties to be inflicted in case the agent commits injustice, and not to be inflicted if he continues just: so that the treatment which he receives afterwards shall be favourable, or severe, conditional upon his own conduct.
Such treatment may emanate either from Gods or from men: but in either case, it is assumed that the agent shall be known, or shall seem, to be what he really is: that the unjust agent shall seem, or be known, to be unjust--and that the just shall seem also to be what he is.
[Side-note: The arguments which they enforce were not invented by the Sophists, but were the received views anterior to Plato.]
It is against this doctrine that the Platonic Sokrates in the Republic professes to contend.
To refute it, he sets forth his own explanation, wherein justice consists.
How far, or with what qualifications, the Sophists inculcated the doctrine (as various commentators tell us) we do not know.
But Plato himself informs us that it was current and received in society, before Protagoras and Prodikus were born: taught by parents to their children, and by poets in their compositions generally circulated.
[8] Moreover, Sokrates himself (in the Platonic Apology) recommends virtue on the ground of its remunerative consequences to the agent in the shape of wealth and other good things.
[9] Again, the Xenophontic Sokrates, as well as Xenophon himself, agree in the same general doctrine: presenting virtue as laborious and troublesome in itself, but as being fully requited by its remunerative consequences in the form of esteem and honour, to the attainment of which it is indispensable.
In the memorable Choice of Heraklês, that youth is represented as choosing a life of toil and painful self-denial, crowned ultimately by the attainment of honourable and beneficial results--in preference to a life of easy and inactive enjoyment.
[10] [Footnote 8: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
363-364.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Apolog.
Sokrat.
p. 30 B.
[Greek: le/gôn o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata kai\ ta)/lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta kai\ i)di/a kai\ dêmosi/a|.]
Xenophon in the Cyropædia puts the following language into the mouth of the hero Cyrus, in addressing his officers (Cyrop.
i.
5, 9).
[Greek: Kai/toi e)/gôge oi)=mai, ou)demi/an a)retê\n a)skei=sthai u(p' a)nthrô/pôn, ô(s mêde\n ple/on e)/chôsin oi( e)sthloi\ geno/menoi tô=n ponêrô=n; a)ll' oi(/ te tô=n parauti/ka ê(donô=n a)pecho/menoi, ou)/ch i(/na mêde/pote eu)phranthô=si, tou=to pra/ttousin, a)ll' ô(s dia\ tau/tên tê\n e)gkra/teian pollapla/sia ei)s to\n e)/peita chro/non eu)phranou/menoi, ou(/tô paraskeua/zontai], &c. The love of praise is represented as the prominent motive of Cyrus to the practice of virtue (i.
5, 12, i.
2, 1).
Compare also Xenophon, Cyropæd.
ii.
3, 5-15, vii.
5, 82, and Xenophon, Economic.
xiv.
5-9; Xenophon, De Venatione, xii.
15-19.]
[Footnote 10: Xenophon, Memorab.
ii.
1, 19-20, &c. We read in the 'Works and Days' of Hesiod, 287:-[Greek: Tê\n me/n toi kako/têta kai\ i)lado\n e)/stin e)le/sthai R(êi+di/ôs; lei/ê me\n o(do/s, ma/la d' e)ggu/thi nai/ei.
Tê=s d' a)retê=s i(drô=ta theoi\ propa/roithen e)/thêkan A)tha/natoi; makro\s de\ kai\ o)/rthios oi)=mos e)p' au)tê/n, Kai\ trê=chus toprô=ton; e)pê\n d' ei)s a)/kron i(/kêai, R(êi+di/ê d' ê)peita pe/lei, chalepê/ per e)ou=sa.]
It is remarkable that while the Xenophontic Sokrates cites these verses from Hesiod as illustrating and enforcing the drift of his exhortation, the Platonic Sokrates cites them as misleading, and as a specimen of the hurtful errors instilled by the poets (Republic, ii.
p. 364 D).]
We see thus that the doctrine which the Platonic Sokrates impugns in the Republic, is countenanced elsewhere by Sokratic authority.
It is, in my judgment, more true than that which he opposes to it.
The exhortations and orders of parents to their children, which he condemns--were founded upon views of fact and reality more correct than those which the Sokrates of the Republic would substitute in place of them.
[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates to refute them.
Sentiments in which it originates.
Panegyric on Justice.]
Let us note the sentiment in which Plato's creed here originates.
He desires, above every thing, to stand forward as the champion and panegyrist of justice--as the enemy and denouncer of injustice.
To praise justice, not in itself, but for its consequences--and to blame injustice in like manner--appears to him disparaging and insulting to justice.
[11] He is not satisfied with showing that the just man benefits others by his justice, and that the unjust man hurts others by his injustice: he admits nothing into his calculation, except happiness or misery to the agent himself: and happiness, moreover, inherent in the process of just behaviour--misery inherent in the process of unjust behaviour--whatever be the treatment which the agent may receive from either Gods or men.
Justice _per se_ (affirms Plato) is the cause of happiness to the just agent, absolutely and unconditionally: injustice, in like manner, of misery to the unjust--_quand même_--whatever the consequences may be either from men or Gods.
This is the extreme strain of panegyric suggested by Plato's feeling, and announced as a conclusion substantiated by his reasons.
Nothing more thoroughgoing can be advanced in eulogy of justice.
"Neither the eastern star nor the western star is so admirable"--to borrow a phrase from Aristotle.
[12] [Footnote 11: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 368 B-C. [Greek: de/doika ga\r mê\ ou)d' o(/sion ê)=| parageno/menon dikaiosu/nê| kakêgoroume/nê| a)pagoreu/ein kai\ mê\ boêthei=n], &c.] [Footnote 12: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
v. 3 (1), 1129, b.
28.
[Greek: ou)/th' e(/speros ou)/th' e(ô=|os ou(/tô thaumasto/s.]]
Plato is here the first proclaimer of the doctrine afterwards so much insisted on by the Stoics--the all-sufficiency of virtue to the happiness of the virtuous agent, whatever may be his fate in other respects--without requiring any farther conditions or adjuncts.
It will be seen that Plato maintains this thesis with reference to the terms _justice_ and its opposite _injustice_; sometimes (though not often) using the general term _virtue_ or wisdom, which was the ordinary term with the Stoics afterwards.
[Side-note: Different senses of justice--wider and narrower sense.]
The ambiguous meaning of the word _justice_ is known to Plato himself (as it is also to Aristotle).
One professed purpose of the dialogue called the Republic is to remove such ambiguity.
Apart from the many other differences of meaning (arising from dissentient sentiments of different men and different ages), there is one duplicity of meaning which Aristotle particularly dwells upon.
[13] In the stricter and narrower sense, justice comprehends only those obligations which each individual agent owes to others, and for the omission of which he becomes punishable as unjust--though the performance of them, under ordinary circumstances, carries little positive merit: in another and a larger sense, justice comprehends these and a great deal more, becoming co-extensive with wise, virtuous, and meritorious character generally.
The narrower sense is that which is in more common use; and it is that which Plato assumes provisionally when he puts forward the case of opponents in the speeches of Glaukon and Adeimantus.
But when he comes to set forth his own explanation, and to draw up his own case, we see that he uses the term justice in its larger sense, as the condition of a mind perfectly well-balanced and well-regulated: as if a man could not be just, without being at the same time wise, courageous, and temperate.
The just man described in the counter-pleadings of Glaukon and Adeimantus, would be a person like the Athenian Aristeides: the unjust man whom they contrast with him, would be one who maltreats, plunders, or deceives others, or usurps power over them.
But the just man, when Sokrates replies to them and unfolds his own thesis, is made to include a great deal more: he is a person in whose mind each of the three constituent elements is in proper relation of controul or obedience to the others, so that the whole mind is perfect: a person whose Reason, being illuminated by contemplation of the Universals or self-existent Ideas of Goodness, Justice, Virtue, has become qualified to exercise controul over the two inferior elements: one of which (Energy) is its willing subordinate and auxiliary--while the lowest of the three (Appetite) is kept in regulation by the joint action of the two.
The just man, so described, becomes identical with the true philosopher: no man who is not a philosopher can be just.
[14] Aristeides would not at all correspond to the Platonic ideal of justice.
He would be a stranger to the pleasure extolled by Plato as the exclusive privilege of the just and virtuous--the pleasure of contemplating universal Ideas and acquiring extended knowledge.
[15] [Footnote 13: Aristotel.
Eth.
Nikom.
v. 2 (1), 1129, a.
25.
[Greek: e)/oike de\ pleonachô=s le/gesthai ê( dikaiosu/nê kai\ ê( a)diki/a.]
Also v. 3 (1), 1130, a.
3.
[Greek: dia\ de\ to\ au)to\ tou=to kai\ a)llo/trion a)gatho\n dokei= ei)=nai ê( dikaiosu/nê, mo/nê tô=n a)retô=n, o(/ti pro\s e(/teron e)stin; a)/llô| ga\r ta\ sumphe/ronta pra/ttei, ê)\ a)/rchonti ê)\ koinô=|.]
This proposition--that justice is [Greek: a)llo/trion a)gatho/n]--is the very proposition which Thrasymachus is introduced as affirming and Sokrates as combating, in the first book of the Republic.
Compare also Aristotle's Ethica Magna, i.
34, p. 1193, b.
19, where the same explanation of justice is given: also p. 1194, a.
7, where the Republic of Plato is cited, and the principle of reciprocity, as laid down at the end of the second book of the Republic, is repeated.
We read in a fragment of the lost treatise of Cicero, De Republicâ (iii.
6, 7):--"Justitia foras spectat, et projecta tota est atque eminet.--Quæ virtus, præter cæteras, tota se ad alienas porrigit utilitates atque explicat."]
[Footnote 14: This is the same distinction as that drawn by Epiktetus between the [Greek: philo/sophos] and the [Greek: i)diô/tês] (Arrian, Epiktet.
iii.
19).
An [Greek: i)diô/tês] may be just in the ordinary meaning of the word.
Aristeides was an [Greek: i)diô/tês].
The Greek word [Greek: i)diô/tês], designating the ordinary average citizen, as distinguished from any special or professional training, is highly convenient.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 582 C. [Greek: tê=s de\ tou= o)/ntos the/as, oi(/an ê(donê\n e)/chei, a)du/naton a)/llô| gegeu=sthai plê\n tô=| philoso/phô|.]]
[Side-note: Plato's sense of the word Justice or Virtue--self-regarding.]
The Platonic conception of justice or Virtue on the one side, and of Injustice or Vice on the other, is self-regarding and prudential.
Justice is in the mind a condition analogous to good health and strength in the body--(_mens sana in corpore sano_)--Injustice is a condition analogous to sickness, corruption, impotence, in the body.
[16] The body is healthy, when each of its constituent parts performs its appropriate function: it is unhealthy, when there is failure in this respect, either defective working of any part, or interference of one part with the rest.
So too in the just mind, each of its tripartite constituents performs its appropriate function--the rational mind directing and controuling, the energetic and appetitive minds obeying such controul.
In the unjust mind, the case is opposite: Reason exercises no supremacy: Passion and Appetite, acting each for itself, are disorderly, reckless, exorbitant.
To possess a healthy body is desirable for its consequences as a means towards other constituents of happiness; but it is still more desirable in itself, as an essential element of happiness _per se_, _i.e._, the negation of sickness, which would of itself make us miserable.
On the other hand, an unhealthy or corrupt body is miserable by reason of its consequences, but still more miserable _per se_, even apart from consequences.
In like manner, the just mind blesses the possessor twice: first and chiefly, as bringing to him happiness in itself--next also, as it leads to ulterior happy results:[17] the unjust mind is a curse to its possessor in itself, and apart from results--though it also leads to ulterior results which render it still more a curse to him.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 591 B, iv.
p. 444 E.] [Footnote 17: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 367 C. [Greek: e)peidê\ ou)=n ô(molo/gêsas tô=n megi/stôn a)gathô=n ei)=nai dikaiosu/nên, a(\ tô=n te a)pobaino/ntôn a)p' au)tô=n e(/neka a)/xia kektê=sthai, _polu\ de\ ma=llon au)ta\ au(tô=n_], &c.] This theory respecting justice and injustice was first introduced into ethical speculation by Plato.
He tells us himself (throughout the speeches ascribed to Glaukon and Adeimantus), that no one before him had announced it: that all with one accord[18]--both the poets in addressing an audience, and private citizens in exhorting their children--inculcated a different doctrine, enforcing justice as an onerous duty, and not as a self-recommending process: that he was the first who extolled justice in itself, as conferring happiness on the just agent, apart from all reciprocity or recognition either by men or Gods--and the first who condemned injustice in itself, as inflicting misery on the unjust agent, independent of any recognition by others.
Here then we have the first introduction of this theory into ethical speculation.
Injustice is an internal taint, corruption of mind, which (like bad bodily health) is in itself misery to the agent, however he may be judged or treated by men or Gods; and justice is (like good bodily health) a state of internal happiness to the agent, independent of all recognition and responsive treatment from others.
[Footnote 18: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 364 A.
[Greek: pa/ntes e)x e(no\s sto/matos u(mnou=sin], &c. Also p. 366 D.] [Side-note: He represents the motives to it, as arising from the internal happiness of the just agents.]
The Platonic theory, or something substantially equivalent to it under various forms of words, has been ever since upheld by various ethical theorists, from the time of Plato downward.
[19] Every one would be glad if it could be made out as true: Glaukon and Adeimantus are already enlisted in its favour, and only demand from Sokrates a decent justification for their belief.
Moreover, those who deny its truth incur the reproach of being deficient in love of virtue or in hatred of vice.
What is still more remarkable--Plato has been complimented as if his theory had been the first antithesis to what is called the "selfish theory of morals"--a compliment which is certainly noway merited: for Plato's theory is essentially self-regarding.
[20] He does not indeed lay his main stress on the retribution and punishments which follow injustice, because he represents injustice as being itself a state of misery to the unjust agent: nor upon the rewards attached to justice, because he represents justice itself as a state of intrinsic happiness to the just agent.
Nevertheless the motive to performance of justice, and to avoidance of injustice, is derived in his theory (as it is in what is called the selfish theory) entirely from the happiness or misery of the agent himself.
The just man is not called upon for any self-denial or self-sacrifice, since by the mere fact of being just, he acquires a large amount of happiness: it is the unjust man who, from ignorance or perversion, sacrifices that happiness which just behaviour would have ensured to him.
Thus the Platonic theory is entirely self-regarding; looking to the conduct of each separate agent as it affects his own happiness, not as it affects the happiness of others.
[Footnote 19: It will be found maintained by Shaftesbury and Hutcheson and impugned by Rutherford in his Essay on Virtue: also advocated by Sir James Mackintosh in his Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy, prefixed to the Encyclopædia Britannica; and controverted, or rather reduced to its proper limits, by Mr. James Mill, in his very acute and philosophical volume, Fragment on Mackintosh, published in 1835, see pp.
174-188 seq.
Sir James indeed uses the word Benevolence where Plato uses that of Justice: he speaks of "the inherent delights and intrinsic happiness of Benevolence," &c.] [Footnote 20: Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Plat.
Rep. p. lvii.
"Quo facto deinceps ad gravissimam totius sermonis partem ita transitur, ut inter colloquentes conveniat, justitiæ vim et naturam eo modo esse investigandam, ut emolumentorum atque commodorum ex eâ redundantium nulla plané ratio habeatur."
This is not strictly exact, for Plato claims on behalf of justice not only that the performance of it is happy in itself, but also that it entails an independent result of ulterior happiness.
But he dwells much less upon the second point; which indeed would be superfluous if the first could be thoroughly established.
Compare Cicero, Tusc.
Disput.
v. 12-34, and the notes on Mr. James Harris's Three Treatises, p. 351 seq., wherein the Stoical doctrine--[Greek: Pa/nta au(tou= e(/neka pra/ttein]--is explained.]
[Side-note: His theory departs more widely from the truth than that which he opposes.
Argument of Adeimantus discussed.]
So much to explain what the Platonic theory is.
But when we ask whether it consists with the main facts of society, or with the ordinary feelings of men living in society, the reply must be in the negative.
"If" (says Plato, putting the words into the counter-pleading of Adeimantus)--"If the Platonic theory were preached by all of you, and impressed upon our belief from childhood, we should not have watched each other to prevent injustice; since each man would have been the best watch upon himself, from fear lest by committing injustice he should take to his bosom the maximum of evil.
"[21] [Footnote 21: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 367 A.
[Greek: ei) ga\r ou(/tôs e)le/geto e)x a)rchê=s u(po\ pa/ntôn u(mô=n kai\ e)k ne/ôn ê(ma=s e)pei/thete, ou)k a)\n a)llê/lous e)phula/ttomen mê\ a)dikei=n, a)ll' au)to\s au(tou= ê)=n e(/kastos a)/ristos phu/lax, dediô\s mê\ a)dikô=n tô=| megi/stô| kakô=| xu/noikos ê)=|.]
These words are remarkable.
They admit of two constructions:--1.
If this Platonic theory were true.
2.
If the Platonic theory, though not true, were constantly preached and impressed upon every one's belief from childhood.
Understanding the words in the first of these two constructions, the hypothetical proposition put into the mouth of Adeimantus is a valid argument against the theory afterwards maintained by Sokrates.
If the theory were conformable to facts, no precautions would need to be taken by men against the injustice of each other.
But such precautions have been universally recognised as indispensable, and universally adopted.
Therefore the Sokratic theory is not conformable to facts.
It is not true that the performance of duty (considered apart from consequences) is self-inviting and self-remunerative--the contrary path self-deterring and self-punitory--to each individual agent.
Plato might perhaps argue that it would be true, if men were properly educated; and that the elaborate education which he provides for his Guardians in the Republic would suffice for this purpose.
But even if this were granted, we must recollect that the producing Many of his Republic would receive no such peculiar education.
Understanding the words in the second construction, they would then mean that the doctrine, though not true, ought to be preached and accredited by the lawgiver as an useful fiction: that if every one were told so from his childhood, without ever hearing either doubt or contradiction, it would become an established creed which each man would believe, and each agent would act upon: that the effect in reference to society would therefore be the same as if the doctrine were true.
This is in fact expressly affirmed by Plato in another place.
[22] Now undoubtedly the effect of preaching and teaching, assuming it to be constant and unanimous, is very great in accrediting all kinds of dogmas.
Plato believed it to be capable of almost unlimited extension--as we may see by the prescriptions which he gives for the training of the Guardians in his Republic.
But to persuade every one that the path of duty and justice was in itself inviting, would be a task overpassing the eloquence even of Plato, since every man's internal sentiment would refute it.
You might just as well expect to convince a child, through the declarations and encouragements of his nurse, that the medicine prescribed to him during sickness was very nice.
Every child has to learn obedience as a necessity, under the authority and sanction of his parents.
You may assure him that what is at first repulsive will become by habit comparatively easy: and that the self-reproach, connected with evasion of duty, will by association become a greater pain than that which is experienced in performing duty.
This is to a great degree true, but it is by no means true to the full extent: still less can it be made to appear true before it has been actually realised.
You cannot cause a fiction like this to be universally accredited.
A child is compelled to practise justice by the fear of displeasure and other painful consequences from those in authority over him: the reason for bringing this artificial motive to bear upon him, is, that it is essential in the first instance for the comfort and security of others: in the second instance for his own.
In Plato's theory, the first consideration is omitted, while not only the whole stress is laid upon the second, but more is promised in regard to the second than the reality warrants.
[Footnote 22: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
663-664.]
The opponents whom the Platonic Sokrates here seeks to confute held--That Justice is an obligation in itself onerous to the agent, but indispensable in order to ensure to him just dealing and estimation from others--That injustice is a path in itself easy and inviting to the agent, but necessary to be avoided, because he forfeits his chance of receiving justice from others, and draws upon himself hatred and other evil consequences.
This doctrine (argues Plato) represents the advantages of justice to the just agent as arising, not from his actually being just, but from his seeming to be so, and being reputed by others to be so: in like manner, it represents the misery of injustice to the unjust agent as arising not from his actually being unjust, but from his being reputed to be so by others.
The inference which a man will naturally draw from hence (adds Plato) is, That he must aim only at seeming to be just, not at being just in reality: that he must seek to avoid the reputation of injustice, not injustice in reality: that the mode of life most enviable is, to be unjust in reality, but just in seeming--to study the means either of deceiving others into a belief that you are just, or of coercing others into submission to your injustice.
[23] This indeed cannot be done unless you are strong or artful: it you are weak or simple-minded, the best thing which you can do is to be just.
The weak alone are gainers by justice: the strong are losers by it, and gainers by injustice.
[24] [Footnote 23: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
362-367.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 366 C.] These are legitimate corollaries (so Glaukon and Adeimantus are here made to argue) from the doctrine preached by most fathers to their children, that the obligations of justice are in themselves onerous to the just agent, and remunerative only so far as they determine just conduct on the part of others towards him.
Plato means, not that fathers, in exhorting their children, actually drew these corollaries: but that if they followed out their own doctrine consistently, they would have drawn them: and that there is no way of escaping them, except by adopting the doctrine of the Platonic Sokrates--That justice is in itself a source of happiness to the just agent, and injustice a source of misery to the unjust agent--however each of them may be esteemed or treated by others.
[Side-note: A Reciprocity of rights and duties between men in social life--different feelings towards one and towards the other.]
Now upon this we may observe, that Plato, from anxiety to escape corollaries which are only partially true, and which, in so far as they are true, may be obviated by precautions--has endeavoured to accredit a fiction misrepresenting the constant phenomena and standing conditions of social life.
Among those conditions, reciprocity of services is one of the most fundamental.
The difference of feeling which attaches to the services which a man renders, called duties or obligations--and the services which he receives from others, called his rights--is alike obvious and undeniable.
Each individual has both duties and rights: each is both an agent towards others, and a patient or sentient from others.
He is required to be just towards others, they are required to be just towards him: he in his actions must have regard, within certain limits, to their comfort and security--they in their actions must have regard to his.
If he has obligations towards them, he has also rights against them; or (which is the same thing) they have obligations towards him.
If punishment is requisite to deter him from doing wrong to them, it is equally requisite to deter them from doing wrong to him.
Whoever theorises upon society, contemplating it as a connected scheme or system including different individual agents, must accept this reciprocity as a fundamental condition.
The rights and obligations, of each towards the rest, must form inseparable and correlative parts of the theory.
Each agent must be dealt with by others according to his works, and must be able to reckon beforehand on being so dealt with:--on escaping injury or hurt, and receiving justice, from others, if he behaves justly towards them.
The theory supposes, that whether just or unjust, he will appear to others what he really is, and will be appreciated accordingly.
[25] [Footnote 25: Euripid.
Herakleid.
425.
[Greek: Ou) ga\r turanni/d', ô(/ste barba/rôn, e)/chô, A)ll', ê)\n di/kaia drô=, di/kaia pei/somai.]
In a remarkable passage of the Laws, Plato sets a far higher value upon correct estimation from others, which in the Republic he depicts under the contemptuous appellation of show or seeming.
Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 950 B.
[Greek: Chrê\ de\ ou)/pote peri\ smikrou= poiei=sthai to\ dokei=n a)gathou\s ei)=nai toi=s a)/llois ê)\ mê\ dokei=n; ou) ga\r o(/son ou)si/as a)retê=s a)pesphalme/noi tugcha/nousin oi( polloi/, tosou=ton kai\ tou= kri/nein tou\s a)/llous oi( ponêroi\ kai\ a)/chrêstoi, thei=on de/ ti kai\ eu)/stocho/n e)sti kai\ toi=s kakoi=s.
ô(/ste pa/mpolloi kai\ tô=n spho/dra kakô=n eu)= toi=s lo/gois kai\ tai=s do/xais diairou=ntai tou\s a)mei/nous tô=n a)nthrô/pôn kai\ tou\s chei/rous.
Dio\ kalo\n tai=s pollai=s po/lesi to\ parake/leusma/ e)sti, protima=|n tê\n eu)doxi/an pro\s tô=n pollô=n; to\ me\n ga\r o)rtho/taton kai\ me/giston, o)/nta a)gatho\n a)lêthô=s ou(/tô to\n eu)/doxon bi/on thêreu/ein--chôri\s de\ mêdamô=s, to/n ge te/leon a)/ndra e)so/menon.]]
The fathers of families, whose doctrine Plato censures, adopted this doctrine of reciprocity, and built upon it their exhortations to their children.
"Be just to others: without that condition, you cannot expect that they will be just to you."
Plato objects to their doctrine, on the ground, that it assumed justice to be onerous to the agent, and therefore indirectly encouraged the evading of the onerous preliminary condition, for the purpose of extorting or stealing the valuable consequent without earning it fairly.
Persons acting thus unjustly would efface reciprocity by taking away the antecedent.
Now Plato, in correcting them, sets up a counter-doctrine which effaces reciprocity by removing the consequent.
His counter-doctrine promises me that if I am just towards others, I shall be happy in and through that single circumstance; and that I ought not to care whether they behave justly or unjustly towards me.
Reciprocity thus disappears.
The authoritative terms _right_ and _obligation_ lose all their specific meaning.
[Side-note: Plato's own theory, respecting the genesis of society, is based on reciprocity.]
In thus eliminating reciprocity--in affirming that the performance of justice is not an onerous duty, but in itself happiness-giving, to the just agent--Plato contradicts his own theory respecting the genesis and foundation of society.
What is the explanation which he himself gives (in this very Republic) of the primary origin of a city?
It arises (he says) from the fact, that each individual among us is not self-sufficing, but full of wants.
All having many wants, each takes to himself others as partners and auxiliaries to supply them: thus grows up the aggregation called a city.
[26] Each man gives to another, and receives from another, in the belief that it will be better for him to do so.
It is found most advantageous to all, that each man shall devote himself exclusively to one mode of production, and shall exchange his produce with that of others.
Such interchange of productions and services is the generating motive which brings about civic communion.
[27] Justice and injustice will be found in certain modes of carrying on this useful interchange between each man and the rest.
[28] [Footnote 26: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 369 B-C. [Greek: gi/gnetai po/lis, e)peidê\ tugcha/nei ê(mô=n e(/kastos ou)k au)ta/rkês a)lla\ pollô=n e)ndeê/s .
.
.
metadi/dôsi dê\ a)/llos a)/llô|, ei)/ ti metadi/dôsin, ê)\ metalamba/nei, _oi)o/menos au(tô=| a)/meinon ei)=nai_ .
.
.
poiê/sei de\ au)tê\n (tê\n po/lin), ô(s e)/oiken, ê)\ _ê(mete/ra chrei/a_.]]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
371 B.
[Greek: Ti/ de\ dê/?
e)n au)tê=| tê=| po/lei pô=s a)llê/lois metadô/sousin ô(=n a)\n e(/kastoi e)rga/zôntai?
_ô(=n dê\_ e(/neka _kai\ koinôni/an poiêsa/menoi po/lin ô)|ki/samen_.]]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Republ.
ii.
pp.
371 E-372 A.
[Greek: Pou= ou)=n a)/n pote e)n au)tê=| (tê=| po/lei) ei)/ê ê(/ te dikaiosu/nê kai\ ê( a)diki/a?
.
.
.
E)gô\ ou)k e(nnoô=, ei) mê/ pou _e)n au)tô=n tou/tôn chrei/a| tini\ tê=| pro\s a)llê/lous_.]]
Here Plato expressly declares the principle of reciprocity to be the fundamental cause which generates and sustains the communion called the city.
No man suffices to himself: every man has wants which require supply from others: every man can contribute something to supply the wants of others.
Justice or injustice have place, according as this reciprocal service is carried out in one manner or another.
Each man labours to supply the wants of others as well as his own.
This is the primitive, constant, indispensable, bond whereby society is brought and held together.
Doubtless it is not the only bond, nor does Plato say that it is.
There are other auxiliary social principles besides, of great value and importance: but they presuppose and are built upon the fundamental principle--reciprocity of need and service--which remains when we reduce society to its lowest terms; and which is not the less real as underlying groundwork, though it is seldom enunciated separately, but appears overlaid, disguised, and adorned, by numerous additions and refinements.
Plato correctly announces the reciprocity of need and service as one indivisible, though complex fact, when looked at with reference to the social communion.
Neither of the two parts of that fact, without the other part, would serve as adequate groundwork.
Each man must act, not for himself alone, but for others also: he must keep in view the requirements of others, to a certain extent, as well as his own.
In his purposes and scheme of life, the two must be steadily combined.
[Side-note: Antithesis and correlation of obligation and right.
Necessity of keeping the two ideas together, as the basis of any theory respecting society.]
It is clear that Plato--in thus laying down the principle of reciprocity, or interchange of service, as the ground-work of the social union--recognises the antithesis, and at the same time the correlation, between obligation and right.
The service which each man renders to supply the wants of others is in the nature of an onerous duty; the requital for which is furnished to him in the services rendered by others to supply his wants.
It is payment against receipt, and is expressly so stated by Plato--which every man conforms to, "believing that he will be better off thereby".
Taking the two together, every man is better off; but no man would be so by the payment alone; nor could any one continue paying out, if he received nothing in return.
Justice consists in the proper carrying on of this interchange in its two correlative parts.
[29] [Footnote 29: We may remark that Plato, though he states the principle of reciprocity very justly, does not state it completely.
He brings out the reciprocity of need and service; he does not mention the reciprocal liability of injury.
Each man can do hurt to others: each man may receive hurt from others.
Abstinence on the part of each from hurting others, and security to each that he shall not be hurt by others, are necessities quite as fundamental as that of production and interchange.
The reciprocal feeling of security, or absence of all fear of ill-usage from others ([Greek: to\ kath' ê(me/ran a)dee\s kai\ a)nepibou/leuton pro\s a)llê/lous], to use the phrase of Thucydides iii.
37), is no less essential to social sentiment, than the reciprocal confidence that each man may obtain from others a supply of his wants, on condition of supplying theirs.]
We see therefore that Plato contradicts his own fundamental principle, when he denies the doing of justice to be an onerous duty, and when he maintains that it is in itself happiness-giving to the just agent, whether other men account him just and do justice to him in return--or not.
By this latter doctrine he sets aside that reciprocity of want and service, upon which he had affirmed the social union to rest.
The fathers, whom he blames, gave advice in full conformity with his own principle of reciprocity--when they exhorted their sons to the practice of justice, not as self-inviting, but as an onerous service towards others, to be requited by corresponding services and goodwill from others towards them.
If (as he urges) such advice operates as an encouragement to crime, because it admits that the successful tyrant or impostor, who gets the services of others for nothing, is better off than the just man who gets them only in exchange for an onerous equivalent--this inference equally flows from that proclaimed reciprocity of need and service, which he himself affirms to be the generating cause of human society.
If it be true (as Plato states) that each individual is full of wants, and stands in need of the services of others--then it cannot be true, that payment without receipt, as a systematic practice, is self-inviting and self-satisfying.
That there are temptations for strong or cunning men to evade obligation and to usurp wrongful power, is an undeniable fact.
We may wish that it were not a fact: but we gain nothing by denying or ignoring it.
The more clearly the fact is stated, the better; in order that society may take precaution against such dangers--a task which has always been found necessary and often difficult.
In reviewing the Gorgias,[30] we found Sokrates declaring, that Archelaus, the energetic and powerful king of Macedonia, who had usurped the throne by means of crime and bloodshed, was thoroughly miserable: far more miserable than he would have been, had he been defeated in his enterprise and suffered cruel punishment.
Such a declaration represents the genuine sentiment of Sokrates as to what he _himself_ would feel, and what ought to be (in his conviction) the feeling of every one, after having perpetrated such nefarious acts.
But it does not represent the feeling of Archelaus himself, nor that of the large majority of bystanders: both to these latter, and to himself, Archelaus appears an object of envy and admiration.
[31] And it would be a fatal mistake, if the peculiar sentiment of Sokrates were accepted as common to others besides, and as forming a sound presumption to act upon: that is, if, under the belief that no ambitious man will voluntarily bring upon himself so much misery, it were supposed that precautions against his designs were unnecessary.
The rational and tutelary purpose of punishment is, to make the proposition true and obvious to all--That the wrong-doer will draw upon himself a large preponderance of mischief by his wrong-doing.
But to proclaim the proposition by voice of herald (which Plato here proposes) as if it were already an established fact of human nature, independent of all such precautions--would be only an unhappy delusion.
[32] [Footnote 30: See above, ch.
xxiv., vol.
ii., pp.
325-29.]
[Footnote 31: Xenophon, Cyropæd.
iii.
3, 52-53.
Cyrus says:-[Greek: A)=r' ou)k, ei) me/llousi toiau=tai dia/noiai e)ggenê/sesthai a)nthrô/pois kai\ e)/mmonoi e)/sesthai, prô=ton me\n no/mous u(pa/rxai dei= toiou/tous, di' ô(=n _toi=s me\n a)gathoi=s e)/ntimos kai\ e)leuthe/rios o( bi/os paraskeuasthê/setai_, toi=s _de\ kakoi=s tapeino/s te kai\ a)lgeino\s_ kai\ a)bi/ôtos o( ai)ô\n e)panakei/setai?
E)/peita de\ didaska/lous, oi)/mai, dei= kai\ a)/rchontas e)pi\ tou/tois gene/sthai, oi(/tines dei/xousi/ te o)rthô=s kai\ dida/xousi kai\ e)thi/sousi tau=ta dra=|n, e)/st' a)\n e)gge/nêtai au)toi=s, tou\s me\n _a)gathou\s kai\ eu)kleei=s eu)daimonesta/tous_ tô=| o)/nti nomi/zein, tou\s de\ _kakou\s kai\ duskleei=s a)thliôta/tous_ a(pa/ntôn ê(gei=sthai.]
Xenophon here uses language at variance with that of Plato, and consonant to that of the fathers of families whom Plato censures.
To create habits of just action, and to repress habits of unjust action, society must meet both the one and the other by a suitable response.
Assuming such conditional reciprocity to be realised, you may then persuade each agent that the unjust man, whom society brands with dishonour, is miserable ([Greek: oi( kakoi\ _kai\_ duskleei=s]).]
[Footnote 32: Xenophon, Economic.
xiii.
11.
Ischomachus there declares:-[Greek: Pa/nu ga/r moi dokei=, ô)= Sô/krates, a)thumi/a e)ggi/gnesthai toi=s a)gathoi=s, o(/tan o(rô=si ta\ me\n e)/rga di' au)tô=n katapratto/mena, tô=n de\ o(moi/ôn tugcha/nontas e(autoi=s tou\s mê/te ponei=n mê/te kinduneu/ein e)the/lontas, o(/tan de/ê|.]
--Also xiv.
9-10.]
[Side-note: Characteristic feature of the Platonic Commonwealth--specialization of services to that function for which each man is fit--will not apply to one individual separately.]
The characteristic feature of the Platonic commonwealth is to specialize the service of each individual in that function for which he is most fit.
It is assumed, that each will render due service to the rest, and will receive from them due service in requital.
Upon this assumption, Plato pronounces that the community will be happy.
Let us grant for the present that this conclusion follows from his premisses.
He proceeds forthwith to apply it by analogy to another and a different case--the case of the individual man.
He presumes complete analogy between the community and an individual.
[33] To a certain extent, the analogy is real: but it fails on the main point which Plato's inference requires as a basis.
The community, composed of various and differently endowed members, suffices to itself and its own happiness: "the individual is not sufficient to himself, but stands in need of much aid from others"[34]--a grave fact which Plato himself proclaims as the generating cause and basis of society.
Though we should admit, therefore, that Plato's commonwealth is perfectly well-constituted, and that a well-constituted commonwealth will be happy--we cannot from thence infer that an individual, however well-constituted, will be happy.
His happiness depends upon others as well as upon himself.
He may have in him the three different mental varieties of souls, or three different persons--Reason, Energy, Appetite--well tempered and adjusted; so as to produce a full disposition to just behaviour on his part: but constant injustice on the part of others will nevertheless be effectual in rendering him miserable.
From the happiness of a community, all composed of just men--you cannot draw any fair inference to that of one just man in an unjust community.
[Footnote 33: The parallel between the Commonwealth and the individual is perpetually reproduced in Plato's reasoning.
Republic, ii.
pp.
368-369, vii.
p. 541 B, ix.
pp.
577 C-D, 579 E, &c.] [Footnote 34: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 369 B.]
Thus much to show that the parallel between the community and the individual, which Plato pursues through the larger portion of the Republic, is fallacious.
His affirmation--That the just man is happy in his justice, _quand même_--in his own mental perfection, whatever supposition may be made as to the community among whom he lives--implies that the just man is self-sufficing: and Plato himself expressly declares that no individual is self-sufficing.
Indeed, no author can set forth more powerfully than Plato himself in this very dialogue--the uncomfortable and perilous position of a philosophical individual, when standing singly as a dissenter among a community with fixed habits and sentiments--unphilosophical and anti-philosophical.
Such a person (Plato says) is like a man who has fallen into a den of wild beasts: he may think himself fortunate, if by careful retirement and absence from public manifestation, he can preserve himself secure and uncorrupted: but his characteristic and superior qualities can obtain no manifestation.
The philosopher requires a community suited to his character.
Nowhere does any such community (so Plato says) exist at present.
[35] [Footnote 35: Plato, Repub.
vi.
pp.
494 E, 496 D, 497 B.
[Greek: ô(/sper ei)s thêri/a a)/nthrôpos e)mpesô/n], &c. Compare also ix.
p. 592 A.]
[Side-note: Plato has not made good his refutation--the thesis which he impugns is true.]
I cannot think, therefore, that the main thesis which Sokrates professes to have established, against the difficulties raised by Glaukon, is either proved or provable.
Plato has fallen into error, partly by exaggerating the parallelism between the individual man and the commonwealth: partly by attempting to reason on justice and injustice in abstract isolation, without regard to the natural consequences of either--while yet those consequences cannot be really excluded from consideration, when we come to apply to these terms, predicates either favourable or unfavourable.
That justice, taken along with its ordinary and natural consequences, tends materially to the happiness of the just agent--that injustice, looked at in the same manner, tends to destroy or impair the happiness of the unjust--these are propositions true and valuable to be inculcated.
But this was the very case embodied in the exhortations of the ordinary moralists and counsellors, whom Plato intends to refute.
He is not satisfied to hear them praise justice taken along with its natural consequences: he stands forward to panegyrise justice abstractedly, and without its natural consequences: nay, even if followed by consequences the very reverse of those which are ordinary and natural.
[36] He insists that justice is eligible and pleasing _per se_, self-recommending: that among the three varieties of _Bona_ (1.
That which we choose for itself and from its own immediate attractions.
2.
That which is in itself indifferent or even painful, but which we choose from regard to its ulterior consequences.
3.
That which we choose on both grounds, both as immediately attractive and as ultimately beneficial), it belongs to the last variety: whereas the opponents whom he impugns referred it to the second.
[Footnote 36: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 367 B.
[Greek: ei) ga\r mê\ a)phairê/seis e(kate/rôthen] (_i.e._ both from justice and from injustice) [Greek: ta\s a)lêthei=s, ta\s de\ pseudei=s prosthê/seis, ou) to\ di/kaion phê/somen e)painei=n se, a)lla\ to\ dokei=n, ou)de\ to\ a)/dikon ei)=nai pse/gein, a)lla\ to\ dokei=n, kai\ parakeleu/esthai a)/dikon o)/nta lantha/nein], &c.] [Side-note: Statement of the real issue between him and his opponents.]
Here the point at issue between the two sides is expressly set forth.
Both admit that Justice is a Bonum--both of them looking at the case with reference only to the agent himself.
But the opponents contend, that it is Bonum (with reference to the agent) only through its secondary effects, and noway Bonum or attractive in its primary working: being thus analogous to medical treatment or gymnastic discipline, which men submit to only for the sake of ulterior benefits.
On the contrary, Plato maintained that it is good both in its primary and secondary effects: good by reason of the ulterior benefits which it confers, but still better and more attractive in its direct and primary effect: thus combining the pleasurable and the useful, like a healthy constitution and perfect senses.
Both parties agree in recognising justice as a good: but they differ in respect of the grounds on which, and the mode in which, it is good.
[Side-note: He himself misrepresents this issue--he describes his opponents as enemies of justice.]
Such is the issue as here announced by Plato himself: and the announcement deserves particular notice because the Platonic Sokrates afterwards, in the course of his argument, widens and misrepresents the issue: ascribing to his opponents the invidious post of enemies who defamed justice and recommended injustice, while he himself undertakes to counterwork the advocates of injustice, and to preserve justice from unfair calumny[37]--thus professing to be counsel for Justice _versus_ Injustice.
Now this is not a fair statement of the argument against which Sokrates is contending.
In that argument, justice was admitted to be a Good, but was declared to be a Good of that sort which is laborious and irksome to the agent in the primary proceedings required from him--though highly beneficial and indispensable to him by reason of its ulterior results: like medicine, gymnastic discipline, industry,[38] &c. Whether this doctrine be correct or not, those who hold it cannot be fairly described as advocates of injustice and enemies of Justice:[39] any more than they are enemies of medicine, gymnastic discipline, industry, &c., which they recommend as good and indispensable, on the same grounds as they recommend justice.
[Footnote 37: Plato, Repub.
ii.
p. 368 B-C. [Greek: de/doika ga\r mê\ ou)d' o(/sion ê)=| parageno/menon dikaiosu/nê| kakêgoroume/nê| a)pagoreu/ein kai\ mê\ boêthei=n, e)/ti e)mpne/onta kai\ duna/menon phthe/ggesthai.]]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
357-358.]
[Footnote 39: In the lost treatise De Republicâ of Cicero, Philus, one of the disputants, was introduced as spokesman of the memorable discourse delivered by Karneades at Rome, said to have been against Justice, and in favour of Injustice--"patrocinium injustitiæ".
Lælius replied to him, as "_Justitiæ defensor_".
The few fragments preserved do not enable us to appreciate the line of argument taken by Karneades: but as far as we can judge, it seems to have been very different from that which is assigned to Glaukon and Adeimantus in the Platonic Republic.
See the Fragments of the third book De Republicâ in Orelli's edition of Cicero, pp.
460-467.]
It may suit Plato's purpose, when drawing up an argument which he intends to refute, to give to it the colour of being a panegyric upon injustice: but this is no real or necessary part of the opponent's case.
Nevertheless the commentators on Plato bring it prominently forward.
The usual programme affixed to the Republic is--Plato, the defender of Justice, against Thrasymachus and the Sophists, advocates and panegyrists of Injustice.
How far the real Thrasymachus may have argued in the slashing and offensive style described in the first book of the Republic, we have no means of deciding.
But the Sophists are here brought in as assumed preachers of injustice, without any authority either from Plato or elsewhere: not to mention the impropriety of treating the Sophists as one school with common dogmas.
Glaukon (as I have already observed) announces the doctrine against which Sokrates contends, not as a recent corruption broached by the Sophists, but as the generally received view of Justice: held by most persons, repeated by the poets from ancient times downwards, and embodied by fathers in lessons to their children: Sokrates farther declares the doctrine which he himself propounds to be propounded for the first time.
[40] [Footnote 40: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 358 A.
[Greek: Ou) toi/nun dokei= _toi=s polloi=s_, a)lla\ tou= e)pipo/nou ei)/dous], &c. 358 C-D: [Greek: a)kou/ôn Thrasuma/chou kai\ muri/ôn a)/llôn.
to\n de\ u(pe\r tê=s dikaiosu/nês lo/gon ou)deno/s pô a)kê/koa ô(s bou/lomai.]
362 E-364: [Greek: le/gousi de/ pou kai\ parakeleu/ontai pate/res te ui(e/si kai\ pa/ntes oi(/ tinôn kêdo/menoi], &c.--[Greek: tou/tois de\ pa=si toi=s lo/gois ma/rturas poiêta\s e)pa/gontai] (p. 364 C).
Also p. 366 D.] [Side-note: Farther arguments of Plato in support of his thesis.
Comparison of three different characters of men.]
Over and above the analogy between the just commonwealth and the just individual, we find two additional and independent arguments, to confirm the proof of the Platonic thesis, respecting the happiness of the just man.
Plato distributes mankind into three varieties.
1.
He in whom Reason is preponderant--the philosopher.
2.
He in whom Energy or Courage is preponderant--the lover of dominion and superiority--the ambitious man.
3.
He in whom Appetite is preponderant--the lover of money.
Plato considers the two last as unjust men, contrasting them with the first, who alone is to be regarded as just.
The language of Plato in arguing this point is vague, and requires to be distinguished before we can appreciate the extent to which he has made out his point.
At one time, he states his conclusion to the effect--That the man who pursues and enjoys the pleasures of ambition or enrichment, but only under the conditions and limits which reason prescribes, is happier than he who pursues them without any such controul, and who is the slave of violent and ungovernable impulses.
[41] This is undoubtedly true.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
586-587.]
But elsewhere Plato puts his thesis in another way.
He compares the pleasures of the philosopher, arising from intellectual contemplation and the acquisition of knowledge--with the pleasures of the ambitious man and the money-lover, in compassing their respective ends, the attainment of power and wealth.
If you ask (says Plato) each of these three persons which is the best and most pleasurable mode of life, each will commend his own: each will tell you that the pleasures of his own mode of life are the greatest, and that those of the other two are comparatively worthless.
[42] But though each thus commends his own, the judgment of the philosopher is decidedly the most trustworthy of the three.
For the necessities of life constrain the philosopher to have some experience of the pleasures of the other two, while they two are altogether ignorant of his: moreover, the comparative estimate must be made by reason and intelligent discussion, which is his exclusive prerogative.
Therefore, the philosopher is to be taken as the best judge, when he affirms that his pleasures are the greatest, in preference to the other two.
[43] To establish this same conclusion, Plato even goes a step farther.
No pleasures, except those peculiar to the philosopher, are perfectly true and genuine, pure from any alloy or mixture of pain.
The pleasures of the ambitious man, and of the money-lover, are untrue, spurious, alloyed with pain and for the most part mere riddances from pain--appearing falsely to be pleasures by contrast with the antecedent pains to which they are consequent.
The pleasures of the philosophic life are not preceded by any pains.
They are mental pleasures, having in them closer affinity with truth and reality than the corporeal: the matter of knowledge, with which the philosophising mind is filled and satisfied, comes from the everlasting and unchangeable Ideas and is thus more akin to true essence and reality, than the perishable substances which relieve bodily hunger and thirst.
[44] [Footnote 42: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 581 C-D.] [Footnote 43: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
582-583.]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Republic, ix.
pp.
585-586.]
[Side-note: His arguments do not go to the point which he professes to aim at.]
It is by these two lines of reasoning, and especially by the last, that Plato intends to confirm and place beyond dispute the triumph of the just man over the unjust.
[45] He professes to have satisfied the requirement of Glaukon, by proving that the just man is happy by reason of his justice--_quand même_--however he may be esteemed or dealt with either by Gods or men.
But even if we grant the truth of his premisses, no such conclusion can be elicited from them.
He appears to be successful only because he changes the terminology, and the state of the question.
Assume it to be true, that the philosopher, whose pleasures are derived chiefly from the love of knowledge and of intellectual acquisitions, has a better chance of happiness than the ambitious or the money-loving man.
This I believe to be true in the main, subject to many interfering causes--though the manner in which Plato here makes it out is much less satisfactory than the handling of the same point by Aristotle after him.
[46] But when the point is granted, nothing is proved about the just and the unjust man, except in a sense of those terms peculiar to Plato himself.
[Footnote 45: Plato, Republic, ix.
p. 583 B.
[Greek: Tau=ta me\n toi/nun ou)/tô du/' e)phexê=s a)\n ei)/ê kai\ di\s nenikêkô\s o( di/kaios to\n a)/dikon; to\ de\ tri/ton .
.
.
tou=t' a)\n ei)/ê me/gisto/n te kai\ kuriô/taton tô=n ptôma/tôn.]]
[Footnote 46: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikom.
i.
5, p. 1095 b, 1096 a, x.
6-9, pp.
1176-1179.]
Nor indeed is Plato's conclusion proved, even in his own sense of the words.
He identifies the just man with the philosopher or man of reason--the unjust man with the pursuer of power or wealth.
Now, even in this Platonic meaning, the just man or philosopher cannot be called happy _quand même_: he requires, as one condition of his happiness, a certain amount of service, forbearance, and estimation, on the part of his fellows.
He is not completely self-sufficing, nor can any human being be so.
[Side-note: Exaggerated parallelism between the Commonwealth and the individual man.]
The confusion, into which Plato has here fallen, arises mainly from his exaggerated application of the analogy between the Commonwealth and the Individual: from his anxiety to find in the individual something like what he notes as justice in the Commonwealth: from his assimilating the mental attributes of each individual, divisible only in logical abstraction,--to the really distinct individual citizens whose association forms the Commonwealth.
[47] It is only by a poetical or rhetorical metaphor that you can speak of the several departments of a man's mind, as if they were distinct persons, capable of behaving well or ill towards each other.
A single man, considered without any reference to others, cannot be either just or unjust.
"The just man" (observes Aristotle, in another line of argument), "requires others, towards whom and with whom he may behave justly.
"[48] Even when we talk by metaphor of a man being just towards himself, reference to others is always implied, as a standard with which comparison is taken.
[Footnote 47: Plato, Republic, i. pp.
351 C, 352 C. [Greek: ou) ga\r a)\n a)pei/chonto a)llê/lôn komidê=| o)/ntes a)/dikoi, a)lla\ dê=lon o(/ti e)nê=n tis au)toi=s dikaiosu/nê, ê(\ au)tou\s e)poi/ei mê/ toi kai\ a)llê/lous ge kai\ e)ph' ou(\s ê)/|esan a(/ma a)dikei=n, di' ê(\n e)/praxan a(\ e)/praxan, ô(/rmêsan de\ e)pi\ ta\ a)/dika a)diki/a| ê(mimo/chthêroi o)/ntes], &c. We find the same sentiment in the Opera et Dies of Hesiod, 275, contrasting human society with animal life:-[Greek: i)/chthusi me\n kai\ thêrsi\ kai\ oi)ônoi=s peteê/nois e)/sthein a)llê/lous, e)pei\ ou) di/kê e)sti\n e)n au)toi=s; a)nthrô/poisi d' e)/dôke (Zeu\s) di/kên, ê(\ pollo\n a)ri/stê gi/netai.]]
[Footnote 48: Aristotel.
Ethic.
Nikomach.
x.
7.
[Greek: o( di/kaios dei=tai pro\s ou(\s dikaiopragê/sei, kai\ meth' ô(=n.]]
[Side-note: Second Argument of Plato to prove the happiness of the just man--He now recalls his previous concession, and assumes that the just man will receive just treatment and esteem from others.]
In the main purpose of the Republic, therefore--to prove that the just man is happy in his justice, and the unjust miserable in his injustice, whatever supposition may be made as to consequent esteem or treatment from Gods or men--we cannot pronounce Plato to have succeeded.
He himself indeed speaks with triumphant confidence of his own demonstration.
Yet we find him at the close of the dialogue admitting that he had undertaken the defence of a position unnecessarily difficult.
"I conceded to you" (he says) "for argument's sake that the just man should be accounted unjust, by Gods as well as men, and that the unjust man should be accounted just.
But this is a concession which I am not called upon to make; for the real fact will be otherwise.
I now compare the happiness of each, assuming that each has the reputation and the treatment which he merits from others.
Under this supposition, the superior happiness of the just man over the unjust, is still more manifest and undeniable.
"[49] [Footnote 49: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
612-613.]
Plato then proceeds to argue the case upon this hypothesis, which he affirms to be conformable to the reality.
The just man will be well-esteemed and well-treated by men: he will also be favoured and protected by the Gods, both in this life and after this life.
The unjust man, on the contrary, will be ill-esteemed and ill-treated by men: he will farther be disapproved and punished by the Gods, both while he lives and after his death.
Perhaps for a time the just man may seem to be hardly dealt with and miserable the unjust man to be prosperous and popular but in the end, all this will be reversed.
[50] [Footnote 50: Plato, Republic, x. p.
613.]
The second line of argument is essentially different from the first.
Plato dispatches it very succinctly, in two pages: while in trying to prove the first, and in working out the very peculiar comparison on which his proof rests, he had occupied the larger portion of this very long treatise.
In the first line of argument, justice was recommended as implicated with happiness _per se_ or absolutely--_quand même_--to the agent: injustice was discouraged, as implicated with misery.
In the second line, justice is recommended by reason of its happy ulterior consequences to the agent: injustice is dissuaded on corresponding grounds, by reason of its miserable ulterior consequences to the agent.
It will be recollected that this second line of argument is the same as that which Glaukon described as adopted by parents and by other monitors, in discourse with pupils.
Plato therefore here admits that their exhortations were founded on solid grounds; though he blames them for denying or omitting the announcement, that just behaviour conferred happiness upon the agent by its own efficacy, apart from all consequences.
He regards the happiness attained by the just man, through the consequent treatment by men and Gods, as real indeed,--but as only supplemental and secondary, inferior in value to the happiness involved in the just behaviour _per se_.
In this part of the argument, too, as well as in the former, we are forced to lament the equivocal meaning of the word _justice_: and to recollect the observation of Plato at the close of the first book, that those who do not know what justice is, can never determine what is to be truly predicated of it, and what is not.
[51] If by the just man he means the philosopher, and by the unjust man the person who is not a philosopher,--he has himself told us before, that in societies as actually constituted, the philosopher enjoys the minimum of social advantages, and is even condemned to a life of insecurity; while the unphilosophical men (at least a certain variety of them) obtain sympathy, esteem, and promotion.
[52] [Footnote 51: Plato, Republic, i. p. 354 B.]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
492-494-495-497.]
Now in this second line of argument, Plato holds a totally different language respecting the way in which the just man is treated by society.
He even exaggerates, beyond what can be reasonably expected, the rewards accruing to the just man: who (Plato tells us), when he has become advanced in life and thoroughly known, acquires command in his own city if he chooses it, and has his choice among the citizens for the best matrimonial alliances: while the unjust man ends in failure and ignominy, incurring the hatred of every one and suffering punishment.
[53] This is noway consistent with Plato's previous description of the position of the philosopher in actual society: yet nevertheless his argument identifies the just man with the philosopher.
[Footnote 53: Plato, Republic, x. p. 613 D-E.] [Side-note: Dependence of the happiness of the individual on the society in which he is placed.]
Plato appears so anxious to make out a triumphant case in favour of justice and against injustice, that he forgets not only the reality of things, but the main drift of his own previous reasonings.
Nothing can stand out more strikingly, throughout this long and eloquent treatise, than the difference between one society and another: the necessary dependence of every one's lot, partly indeed upon his own character, but also most materially upon the society to which he belongs: the impossibility of affirming any thing generally respecting the result of such and such dispositions in the individual, until you know the society of which he is a member, as well as his place therein.
Hence arises the motive for Plato's own elaborate construction--a new society upon philosophical principles.
This essentially relative point of view pervades the greater part of his premisses, and constitutes the most valuable part of them.
Whether the commonwealth as a whole, assuming it to be once erected, would work as he expects, we will not here enquire.
But it is certain that the commonwealth and the individuals are essential correlates of each other; and that the condition of each individual must be criticised in reference to the commonwealth in which he is embraced.
Take any member of the Platonic Commonwealth, and place him in any other form of government, at Athens, Syracuse, Sparta, &c.--immediately his condition, both active and passive, is changed.
Thus the philosophers, for whom Plato assumes unqualified ascendancy as the cardinal principle in his system, become, when transferred to other systems, divested of influence, hated by the people, and thankful if they can obtain even security.
"The philosopher (says Plato) must have a community suited to him and docile to his guidance: in communities such as now exist, he not only has no influence as philosopher, but generally becomes himself corrupted by the contagion and pressure of opinions around him: this is the natural course of events, and it would be wonderful if the fact were otherwise.
"[54] [Footnote 54: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
487-488-489 B, 497 B-C. 492 C: [Greek: kai\ phê/sein ta\ au)ta\ tou/tois kala\ kai\ ai)schra\ ei)=nai, kai\ e)pitêdeu/sein a(/per a)\n ou(=toi, kai\ e)/sesthai toiou=ton?]
Compare also ix.
pp.
592 A, 494 A: [Greek: tou\s philosophou=ntas a)/ra a)na/gkê pse/gesthai u(p' au)tô=n (tou= plê/thous).]
And vii.
p. 517 A.]
[Side-note: Inconsistency of affirming general positions respecting the happiness of the just man, in all societies without distinction.]
After thus forcibly insisting upon the necessary correlation between the individual and the society, as well as upon the variability and uncertainty of justice and injustice in different existing societies[55]--Plato is inconsistent with himself in affirming, as an universal position, that the just man receives the favour and good treatment of society, the unjust man, hatred and punishment.
[56] You cannot decide this until you know in what society the just man is placed.
In order to make him comfortable, Plato is obliged to construct an imaginary society suited to him: which would have been unnecessary, if you can affirm that he is sure to be well treated in every society.
[Footnote 55: Plato, Republic, v. p. 479, vi.
p. 493 C.] [Footnote 56: Plato, Republic, x. p.
613.]
[Side-note: Qualified sense in which only this can be done.]
There is a sense indeed (different from what Plato intended), in which the proposition is both true, and consistent with his own doctrine about the correlation between the individual and the society.
When Plato speaks of the just or the unjust man, to whose judgment does he make appeal?
To his own judgment?
or to which of the numerous other dissentient judgments?
For that there were numerous dissentient opinions on this point, Plato himself testifies: a person regarded as just or unjust in one community, would not be so regarded in another.
All this ethical and intellectual discord is fully recognised as a fact, by Plato himself: who moreover keenly felt it, when comparing his own judgment with that of the Athenians his countrymen.
Such being the ambiguity of the terms, we can affirm nothing respecting the just or the unjust man absolutely and generally--respecting justice or injustice in the abstract: We cannot affirm any thing respecting the happiness or misery of either, except with reference to the sentiments of the community wherein each is placed.
Assuming their sentiments to be known, we may pronounce that any individual citizen who is unjust _relatively to them_ (_i.e._, who behaves in a manner which they account unjust), will be punished by their superior force, and rendered miserable: while any one who abstains from such behaviour, and conducts himself in a manner which they account just, will receive from them just dealing, with a certain measure of trust, and esteem: Taken in this relative sense, we may truly say of the unjust man, that he will be unhappy; because displeasure, hatred, and punitory infliction from his countrymen will be quite sufficient to make him so, without any other causes of unhappiness.
Respecting the just man, we can only say that he will be happy, so far as exemption from this cause of misery is concerned: but we cannot make sure that he will be happy on the whole, because happiness is a product to which many different conditions, positive and negative, must concur--while the serious causes of misery are efficacious, each taken singly, in producing their result.
[Side-note: Question--Whether the just man is orthodox or dissenter in his society?--important in discussing whether he is happy.]
Moreover, in estimating the probable happiness either of the just (especially taking this word _sensu Platonico_ as equivalent to _the philosophers_) or the unjust, another element must be included: which an illustrious self-thinking reasoner like Plato ought not to have omitted.
Does the internal reason and sentiment of the agent coincide with that of his countrymen, as to what is just and unjust?
Is he essentially homogeneous with his countrymen (to use the language of Plato in the Gorgias[57]), a chip of the same block?
Or has he the earnest conviction that the commandments and prohibitions which they enforce upon him, on the plea of preventing injustice, are themselves unjust?
Is he (like the philosopher described by Plato among societies actually constituted, or like Sokrates at Athens[58]) a conscientious dissenter from the orthodox creed--political, ethical, or æsthetical--received among his fellow-citizens generally?
Does he (like Sokrates) believe himself to be inculcating useful and excellent lessons, while his countrymen blame and silence him as a corruptor of youth, and as a libeller of the elders?
[59] Does he, in those actions which he performs either under legal restraint or under peremptory unofficial custom, submit merely to what he regards as _civium ardor prava jubentium_, or as _vultus instantis tyranni_?
[Footnote 57: Plato, Gorgias, p. 513 B.
[Greek: au)tophuô=s o(/moios tê=| politei/a|], &c.] [Footnote 58: Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
496-497.
Plato, Gorgias, p. 521 D.] [Footnote 59: Plato, Gorgias, p. 522 B.
[Greek: e)a/n te/ ti/s me ê)\ neôte/rous phê=| diaphthei/rein a)porei=n poiou=nta, ê)\ tou\s presbute/rous kakêgorei=n le/gonta pikrou\s lo/gous ê)\ i)di/a| ê)\ dêmosi/a|, ou)/te to\ a)lêthe\s e(/xô ei)pei=n, o(/ti Dikai/ôs pa/nta tau=ta e)gô\ le/gô kai\ pra/ttô to\ u(me/teron dê\ tou=to, ô)= a)/ndres dikastai/, ou)/te a)/llo ou)de/n; ô(/ste i)/sôs, o(/, ti a)\n tu/chô, tou=to pei/somai.]]
[Side-note: Comparison of the position of Sokrates at Athens, with that of his accusers.]
This is a question essentially necessary to be answered, when we are called upon to affirm the general principle--"That the just man is happy, and that the unjust man is unhappy".
Antipathy and ill-treatment will be the lot of any citizen who challenges opinions which his society cherish as consecrated, or professes such as they dislike.
Such was the fate of Sokrates himself at Athens.
He was indicted as unjust and criminal ([Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês]), while his accusers, Anytus and Melêtus, carried away the esteem and sympathy of their fellow-citizens generally, as not simply just men, but zealous champions of justice--as resisting the assailants of morality and religion, of the political constitution, and of parental authority.
How vehement was the odium and reprobation which Sokrates incurred from the majority of his fellow-citizens, we are assured by his own Apology[60] before the Dikasts.
Now it is to every one a serious and powerful cause of unhappiness, to feel himself the object of such a sentiment.
Most men dread it so much, like the Platonic Euthyphron, that they refrain from uttering, or at least are most reserved in communicating, opinions which are accounted heretical among their countrymen or companions.
[61] The resolute and free-spoken Sokrates braved that odium; which, aggravated by particular circumstances, as well as by the character of his own defence, attained at last such a height as to bring about his condemnation to death.
That he was sustained in this unthankful task by native force of character, conscientious persuasion, and belief in the approbation of the Gods--is a fact which we should believe, even if he himself had not expressly told us so.
But to call him _happy_, would be a misapplication of the term, which no one would agree with Plato in making--least of all the friends of Sokrates in the last months of his life.
Besides, if we are to call Sokrates happy on these grounds, his accusers would be still happier: for they had the same conscientious conviction, and the same belief in the approbation of the Gods: while they enjoyed besides the sympathy of their country men as champions of religion and morality.
[Footnote 60: Plato, Apolog.
Sokr.
pp.
28 A.
37 D. [Greek: pollê/ moi a)pechthei/a ge/gone kai\ pro\s pollou/s], &c.] [Footnote 61: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 3 C-D. [Greek: A)thênai/ois ga/r toi ou) spho/dra me/lei, a)/n tina deino\n oi)/ôntai ei)=nai, mê\ me/ntoi didaskaliko\n tê=s au(tou= sophi/as; o(\n d' a)\n kai\ a)/llous oi)/ôntai poiei=n toiou/tous, thumou=ntai, ei)/t' ou)=n phtho/nô|, ei)/te di' a)/llo ti.]
_Euthyphr._ [Greek: Tou/tou me\n pe/ri o(/pôs pote\ pro\s e)me\ e)/chousin, ou) pa/nu e)pithumô= peirathê=nai.]
_Sokrat._ [Greek: I)/sôs ga\r su\ me\n dokei=s spa/nion seauto\n pare/chein, kai\ dida/skein ou)k e)the/lein tê\n seautou= sophi/an], &c.] [Side-note: Imperfect ethical basis on which Plato has conducted the discussion in the Republic.]
In spite of all the charm and eloquence, therefore, which abounds in the Republic, we are compelled to declare that the Platonic Sokrates has not furnished the solution required from him by Glaukon and Adeimantus: and that neither the first point (ix.
p. 580 D) nor the second point of his conclusion (x. p. 613) is adequately made out.
The very grave ethical problem, respecting the connexion between individual just behaviour and individual happiness, is discussed in a manner too exclusively self-regarding, and inconsistent with that reciprocity which Plato himself sets forth as the fundamental, generating, sustaining, principle of human society.
If that principle of reciprocity is to be taken as the starting-point, you cannot discuss the behaviour of any individual towards society, considered in reference to his own happiness, without at the same time including the behaviour of society towards him.
Now Plato, in the conditions that he expressly prescribes for the discussion,[62] insists on keeping the two apart; and on establishing a positive conclusion about the first, without at all including the second.
He rejects peremptorily the doctrine--"That just behaviour is performed for the good of others, apart from the agent".
Yet if society be, in the last analysis (as Plato says that it is), an exchange of services, rendered indispensable by the need which every one has of others--the services which each man renders are rendered _for the good of others_, as the services which they render to him are rendered _for his good_.
The just dealing of each man is, in the first instance, beneficial to others: in its secondary results, it is for the most part beneficial to himself.
[63] His unjust dealing, in like manner, is, in the first instance, injurious to others: in its secondary results, it is for the most part injurious to himself.
Particular acts of injustice may, under certain circumstances, be not injurious, nay even beneficial, to the unjust agent: but they are certain to be hurtful to others: were it not so, they would not deserve to be branded as injustice.
I am required to pay a debt, for the benefit of my creditor, and for the maintenance of a feeling of security among other creditors though the payment may impose upon myself severe privation: indirectly, indeed, I am benefited, because the same law which compels me, compels others also to perform their contracts towards me.
The law (to use a phrase of Aristotle) guarantees just dealing by and towards each.
[64] The Platonic Thrasymachus, therefore, is right in so far as he affirms--That injustice is _Malum Alienum_, and justice _Bonum Alienum_,[65] meaning that such is the direct and primary characteristic of each.
The unjust man is one who does wrong to others, or omits to render to others a service which they have a right to exact, with a view to some undue profit or escape of inconvenience for himself: the just man is one who abstains from wrong to others, and renders to others the full service which they have a right to require, whatever hardship it may impose upon himself.
A man is called just or unjust, according to his conduct towards others.
[Footnote 62: Plato, Republic, ii.
p.
367.]
[Footnote 63: See the instructive chapter on the Moral Sense, in Mr. James Mill's Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind, ch.
xxiii.
vol.
ii.
p. 280.
"The actions from which men derive advantage have all been classed under four titles--Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Beneficence.
.
.
When those names are applied to our own acts, the first two, Prudent and Brave, express acts which are useful _to ourselves_, in the first instance: the latter two, Just and Beneficent, express acts which are useful _to others_, in the first instance.
.
.
It is further to be remarked, that those acts of ours which are primarily useful to ourselves, are secondarily useful to others; and those which are primarily useful to others, are secondarily useful to ourselves.
Thus, it is by our own prudence and fortitude that we are best enabled to do acts of justice and beneficence to others.
And it is by acts of justice and beneficence to others, that we best dispose them to do similar acts to us."]
[Footnote 64: Aristot.
Polit.
iii.
9, 1280, b.
10, [Greek: o( no/mos sunthê/kê, kai\ katha/per e)/phê Luko/phrôn o( sophistê/s, e)gguêtê\s a)llê/lois tô=n dikai/ôn.]
Chrysippus also, writing against Plato, maintained that [Greek: a)diki/a] was essentially [Greek: pro\s e(/teron, ou) pro\s e(auto/n] (Plutarch, Stoic.
Repugnant.
c. 16, p. 1041 D).]
[Footnote 65: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 367 C. [Greek: kai\ o(mologei=n Thrasuma/chô| o(/ti to\ me\n di/kaion, a)llo/trion a)gatho/n, xumphe/ron tou= krei/ttonos; to\ de\ a)/dikon, au)tô=| me\n xumphe/ron kai\ lusitelou=n, tô=| de\ ê(/ttoni, a)xu/mphoron.]]
[Side-note: Plato in Republic is preacher, inculcating useful beliefs--not philosopher, establishing scientific theory.
State of Just and Unjust Man in the Platonic Commonwealth.]
In considering the main thesis of the Republic, we must look upon Plato as preacher--inculcating a belief which he thinks useful to be diffused; rather than as philosopher, announcing general truths of human nature, and laying down a consistent, scientific, theory of Ethics.
There are occasions on which even he himself seems to accept this character.
"If the fable of Kadmus and the dragon's teeth" (he maintains) "with a great many other stories equally improbable, can be made matters of established faith, surely a doctrine so plausible as mine, about justice and injustice, can be easily taught and accredited.
"[66] To ensure unanimous acquiescence, Plato would constrain all poets to proclaim and illustrate his thesis--and would prohibit them from uttering anything inconsistent with it.
[67] But these or similar official prohibitions may be employed for the upholding of any creed, whatever it be: and have been always employed, more or less, in every society, for the upholding of the prevalent creed.
Even in the best society conceivable under the conditions of human life, assuming an ideal commonwealth in which the sentiments of _just_ and _unjust_ have received the most systematic, beneficent, and rational embodiments, and have become engraven on all the leading minds--even then Plato's first assertion--That the just man is happy _quand même_--could not be admitted without numerous reserves and qualifications.
Justice must still be done by each agent, not as a self-inviting process, but as an obligation entailing more or less of sacrifice made by him to the security and comfort of others.
Plato's second assertion--That the unjust man is miserable--would be more near the truth; because the ideal commonwealth is assumed to be one in which the governing body has both the disposition and the power to punish injustice--and the discriminating equanimity, or absence of antipathies, which secures them against punishing anything else.
The power of society to inflict misery is far more extensive than its power of imparting happiness.
But even thus, we have to recollect that the misery of the unjust person arises not from his in justice _per se_, but from consequent treatment at the hands of others.
[Footnote 66: See Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
663-664.
Good and simple people, in the earlier times (says Plato) believed every thing that was told them.
They were more virtuous and just then than they are now (Legg.
iii.
p. 679 C-E).]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
661-662.
Illustrated in the rigid and detailed censorship which he imposes on the poets in the Republic, in the second and third books.
In the Legg., however, Plato puts his thesis in a manner less untenable than in the Republic:--"Neither to do wrong to others, nor to suffer wrong from others; this is the happiest condition" (Legg.
ii.
p. 663 A).
This is a very different proposition from that which is defended in the Republic; where we are called upon to believe, that the man who acts justly will be happy, whatever may be the conduct of others towards him.
Epikurus laid down, as one of the doctrines in his [Greek: Ku/riai Do/xai] (see Diog.
Laert.
x.
150): [Greek: To\ tê=s phu/seôs di/kaion e)sti\ su/mbolon tou= sumphe/rontos, ei)s to\ mê\ bla/ptein a)llê/lous mêde\ bla/ptesthai.
O(/sa tô=n zô/|ôn mê\ ê)du/nato sunthê/kas poiei=sthai ta\s u(pe\r tou= mê\ bla/ptein a)/llêla mêde\ bla/ptesthai, pro\s tau=ta ou)the/n e)stin ou)de\ di/kaion ou)/de\ a)/dikon.
Ô(sau/tôs de\ kai\ tô=n e)thnô=n o(/sa mê\ ê)du/nato, ê)\ mê\ e)bou/leto, ta\s sunthê/kas poiei=sthai ta\s u(pe\r tou= mê\ bla/ptein a)llê/lous mêde\ bla/ptesthai], &c. Lucretius expresses the same--v. 1020:-"Tunc et amicitiam coeperunt jungere aventes "Finitimi inter se nec _lædere nec violari_," &c.] [Side-note: Comparative happiness of the two in actual communities.
Plato is dissatisfied with it--This is his motive for recasting society on his own principles.]
Thus much for the Platonic or ideal commonwealth.
But when we pass from that hypothesis into the actual world, the case becomes far stronger against the truth of both Plato's assertions.
Of actual societies, even the best have many imperfections--the less good, many attributes worse than imperfections:--"_ob virtutes certissimum exitium_".
The dissenter for the better, is liable to be crucified alongside of the dissenter for the worse: King Nomos will tolerate neither.
[Side-note: Confusion between the preacher and the philosopher in the Platonic Republic.]
Plato as a preacher holds one language: as a philosopher and analyst, another.
When he is exhorting youth to justice, or dissuading them from injustice, he thinks himself entitled to depict the lot of the just man in the most fascinating colours, that of the unjust man as the darkest contrast against it,--without any careful observance of the line between truth and fiction: the fiction, if such there be, becomes in his eyes a _pia fraus_, excused or even ennobled by its salutary tendency.
But when he drops this practical purpose, and comes to philosophise on the principles of society, he then proclaims explicitly how great is the difference between society as it now stands, and society as it ought to be: how much worse is the condition of the just, how much less bad that of the unjust (in every sense of the words, but especially in the Platonic sense) than a perfect commonwealth would provide.
Between the exhortations of Plato the preacher, and the social analysis of Plato the philosopher, there is a practical contradiction, which is all the more inconvenient because he passes backwards and forwards almost unconsciously, from one character to the other.
The splendid treatise called the Republic is composed of both, in portions not easy to separate.
[Side-note: Remarks on the contrast between ethical theory and ethical precepts.]
The difference between the two functions just mentioned--the preceptor, and the theorizing philosopher--deserves careful attention, especially in regard to Ethics.
If I lay down a theory of social philosophy, I am bound to take in all the conditions and circumstances of the problem: to consider the whole position of each individual in society, as an agent affecting the security and comfort of others, and also as a person acted on by others, and having his security and comfort affected by their behaviour: as subject to obligations or duties, in the first of the two characters--and as enjoying rights (_i.e._, having others under obligation to him) in the second.
This reciprocity of service and need--of obligation and right--is the basis of social theory: its two parts are in indivisible correlation: alike integrant and co-essential.
But when a preceptor delivers exhortations on conduct, it is not necessary that he should insist equally on each of the two parts.
As a general fact of human nature, it is known that men are disposed _proprio motu_ to claim their rights, but not so constantly or equally disposed to perform their obligations: accordingly, the preceptor insists upon this second part of the case, which requires extraneous support and enforcement--leaving untouched the first part, which requires none.
But the very reason why the second part needs such support, is, because the performance of the obligation is seldom self-inviting, and often the very reverse: that is, because the Platonic doctrine misrepresents the reality.
The preceptor ought not to indulge in such misrepresentation: he may lay stress especially upon one part of the entire social theory, but he ought not to employ fictions which deny the necessary correlation of the other omitted part.
Many preceptors have insisted on the performance of obligation, in language which seemed to imply that they considered a man to exist only for the performance of obligation, and to have no rights at all.
Plato in another way undermines equally the integrity of the social theory, when he contends, that the performance of obligations alone, without any rights, is delightful _per se_, and suffices to ensure happiness to the performer.
Herein we can recognise only a well-intentioned preceptor, narrowing and perverting the social theory for the purpose of edification to his hearers.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
REPUBLIC--REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH.
[Side-note: Double purpose of the Platonic Republic--ethical and political.]
In my last Chapter, I discussed the manner in which Plato had endeavoured to solve the ethical problem urged upon him by Glaukon and Adeimantus.
But this is not the entire purpose of the Republic.
Plato, drawing the closest parallel between the Commonwealth and the individual, seeks solution of the problem first in the former; because it is there (he says) written in larger and clearer letters.
He sketches the picture of a perfect Commonwealth--shows wherein its justice consists--and proves, to his own satisfaction, that it will be happy in and through its justice--_per se_.
This picture of a Commonwealth is unquestionably _one_ of the main purposes of the dialogue; serving as commencement--or more properly as intermediate stage--to the Timæus and Kritias.
Most critics have treated it as if it were the dominant and almost exclusive purpose.
Aristotle, the earliest of all critics, adverts to it in this spirit; numbering Plato or the Platonic Sokrates among those who, not being practical politicians, framed schemes for ideal commonwealths, like Phaleas or Hippodamus.
I shall now make some remarks on the political provisions of the Platonic Commonwealth: but first I shall notice the very peculiar manner in which Plato discovers therein the notions of Justice and Injustice.
[Side-note: Plato recognises the generating principle of human society--reciprocity of need and service.
Particular direction which he gives to this principle.]
The Platonic Sokrates (as I remarked above) lays down as the fundamental, generating, principle of human society, the reciprocity of need and service, essentially belonging to human beings: exchange of services is indispensable, because each man has many wants more than he can himself supply, and thus needs the services of others: while each also can contribute something to supply the wants of others.
To this general principle Plato gives a peculiar direction.
He apportions the services among the various citizens; and he provides that each man shall be specialised for the service to which he is peculiarly adapted, and confined to that alone.
No double man[1] is tolerated.
How such specialisation is to be applied in detail among the multitude of cultivators and other producers, Plato does not tell us.
Each is to have his own employment: we know no more.
But in regard to the two highest functions, he gives more information: first, the small cabinet of philosophical Elders,[2] Chiefs, or Rulers--artists in the craft of governing, who supply professionally that necessity of the Commonwealth, and from whom all orders emanate: next, the body of Guardians, Soldiers, Policemen, who execute the orders of this cabinet, and defend the territory against all enemies.
Respecting both of these, Plato carefully prescribes both the education which they are to receive, and the circumstances under which they are to live.
They are to be of both sexes intermingled, but to know neither family nor property: they live together in barrack, and with common mess, receiving subsistence and the means of decent comfort, but no more, from the producers: respecting sexual relations and births, I shall say more presently.
[Footnote 1: Plato, Rep. iii.
p. 397 E.] [Footnote 2: The principle laid down in the Protagoras will be remembered--[Greek: ei(=s e)/chôn te/chnên polloi=s i(kano\s i)diô/tais] (Protag.
p. 322 D).]
[Side-note: The four cardinal virtues are assumed as constituting the whole of Good or Virtue, where each of these virtues resides.]
When Plato has provided thus much, he treats his city as already planted and brought to consummation.
He thinks himself farther entitled to proclaim it as perfectly good, and therefore as including the four constituent elements of Good: that is, as being wise, brave, temperate, just.
[3] He then looks to find wherein each of these four elements resides: wisdom resides specially in the cabinet of Rulers--courage specially in the Guardians--temperance and justice, in these two, but in the producing multitude also.
The two last virtues are universal in the Commonwealth.
Temperance consists in the harmony of opinion between the multitude and the two higher classes as to obedience: the Guardians are as ready to obey as the Chiefs to command: the multitude are also for the most part ready to obey--but should they ever fail in obedience, the Guardians are prepared to lend their constraining force to the authority of the Chiefs.
Having thus settled three out of the four elements of Good, which enumeration he assumes to be exhaustive--Plato assumes that what remains must be Justice.
This remainder he declares to be--That each of the three portions of the Commonwealth performs its own work and nothing else: and this is Justice.
Justice and Temperance are thus common to all the three portions of the Commonwealth: while Wisdom and Prudence belong entirely to the Chiefs, and Courage entirely to the Guardians.
[Footnote 3: Plato, Repub.
iv.
pp.
427 D-428 A.
[Greek: ô|kisme/nê me\n toi/nun, ê)=n d' e)gô/, ê/dê a)/n soi ei)/ê, ô)= pai= A)ri/stônos, ê( po/lis .
.
.
Oi)=mai ê(mi=n tê\n po/lin, ei)/per o)rthô=s ge ô/|kistai, _te/leôs a)gathê\n ei)=nai_.
A)na/gkê, e)/phê.
Dê=lon dê/, o(/ti sophê/ t' e)sti\ kai\ a)ndrei/a kai\ sô/phrôn kai\ dikai/a.
Dê=lon.
Ou)kou=n, o(/, ti a)\n au)tô=n eu(/rômen e)n au)tê=|, to\ u(po/loipon e)/stai to\ ou)ch eu(rême/non?]
&c.] [Side-note: First mention of these, as an exhaustive classification, in ethical theory.
Plato effaces the distinction between Temperance and Justice.]
Here, for the first time in Ethical Theory, Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, are assumed as an exhaustive enumeration of virtues: each distinct from the other three, but all together including the whole of Virtue.
[4] Through Cicero and others, these four have come down as the cardinal virtues.
From whom Plato derived it, I do not know: not certainly from the historical Sokrates, who resolved the last three into the first.
[5] Nor is it indeed in harmony with Plato's own view: for temperance and justice are substantially coincident, in his explanation of them (since he does not recognise the characteristic feature of Justice, as directly tending to the good of a person other than the agent): and the line, by which he endeavours to part them, is obscure as well as unimportant.
Schleiermacher--who admits that the distinction drawn here between Temperance and Justice is altogether forced--supposes that Plato took up this quadruple classification, because he found it already established in the common, non-theorising, consciousness.
[6] If this be true, the real distinction between Justice (as directly bearing on the rights of another person) and Temperance (as directly concerning only the future happiness of the agent himself), which is one of the most important distinctions in Ethics--must have been already felt, without being formulated, in the common mind: and Plato, by retaining the two words, but effacing the distinction between the two, and giving a new meaning to Justice--took a step in the wrong direction.
He himself however tells us, that the definition, here given of Justice, is not his own; but that he had heard it enunciated by many others before him.
[7] What makes this more remarkable is, That the same definition (to do your own business and not to meddle with other people's business) is what we read in the Charmidês as delivered respecting Temperance, by Charmides and Kritias:[8] delivered by them, and afterwards pulled to pieces in cross-examination by Sokrates.
Herein we see farther proof how little distinction Plato drew between Justice and Temperance.
[Footnote 4: Plat.
Rep. iv.
p. 432 B.
[Greek: to\ _de\ dê\ loipo\n ei)=dos_, di' o(\ a)\n e)/ti a)retê=s mete/choi po/lis, ti/ pot' a)\n ei)/ê?
dê=lon ga\r o(/ti _tou=to/_ e)stin ê( _dikaiosu/nê_.]
Compare p. 444 D, where he defines [Greek: A)retê/--A)retê\ me\n a)/ra, ô(s e)/oiken, u(gi/eia te/ tis a)\n ei)/ê kai\ ka/llos kai\ eu)exi/a psuchê=s; kaki/a de\, no/sos te kai\ ai)=schos kai\ a)sthe/neia.]]
[Footnote 5: Xenoph.
Mem.
iii.
9, 4-5.
[Greek: sophi/an de\ kai\ sôphrosu/nên ou) diô/rizen], &c. Compare the discussion of [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], iv.
5, 9-11, where Sokrates enforces the practice of it on the ground that it ensured to a man both more pleasures and greater pleasures, of which he would deprive himself if he were foolish enough to be intemperate.]
[Footnote 6: Schleiermacher, Einl.
zum Staat, pp.
25-26.
"Dieser Tadel trifft höchstens die Aufstellung jener vier zusammengehörigen Tugenden; welche Platon offenbar genug nur mit richtigem praktischen Sinne aus Ehrfurcht für das Bestehende aufgenommen hat: wie sie denn schon auf dieselbe Weise aus dem gemeinen Gebrauch in die Lehrweise des Sokrates übergegangen sind."]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Repub.
iv.
p. 433 A.
[Greek: kai\ mê\n o(/ti ge to\ ta\ au(tou= pra/ttein kai\ mê\ polupragmonei=n dikaiosu/nê e)sti/, kai\ tou=to _a)/llôn te pollô=n a)kêko/amen_, kai\ au)toi\ polla/kis ei)rê/kamen.]
Compare iii.
p. 406 E.] [Footnote 8: See Charmidês, pp.
161-162.
Heindorf observes in his note on this passage:--"A _sophistis_ ergo vulgata hæc [Greek: sôphrosu/nês] definitio: ad _justitiam_ quoque ab iisdem ut videtur, translata.
Republ.
iv.
p. 433 (the passage cited in note preceding).
Quo pertinent illa Ciceronis, De Officiis, i.
9, 2.
Item ad _prudentiam_, Aristot.
Eth.
Nicom.
vi.
8, Philosopho vero hoc tribuit Sokrates, Gorgias, p.
526)."
The definition given in the Charmidês appears plainly ascribed to Kritias as its author (p. 162 D).
The affirmation that it was "a sophistis vulgata," and afterwards transferred by these same to Justice, is made without any authority produced; and is expressed in the language usual with the Platonic commentators, who treat the Sophists as a philosophical sect or school.]
From whomsoever Plato may have derived this ethical classification--Virtue as a whole, distributed into four varieties--1.
Prudence or Knowledge--2.
Courage or Energy--3.
Temperance--4.
Justice--we find it here placed in the foreground of his doctrine, respecting both the collective Commonwealth and the individual man.
[9] He professes to understand and explain what they are--to reason upon them all with confidence--and to apply them to very important conclusions.
[Footnote 9: In some of the Platonic Dialogues these four varieties are not understood as exhausting the sum total of Virtue: [Greek: ê( o(sio/tês] is included also; see Lachês, p. 199 D, Protagoras, p. 329 D, Euthyphron, pp.
5-6.
Plato does not advert to [Greek: to\ o(/sion] in the Republic as a separate constituent, seemingly because on matters of piety he enjoins direct reference to Apollo and the Delphian oracle (Rep. iv.
p. 427 B).]
[Side-note: All the four are here assumed as certain and determinate, though in former dialogues they appear indeterminate and full of unsolved difficulties.]
But let us pause for a moment to ask, how these professions harmonise with the dialogues reviewed in my preceding volumes.
No reader will have forgotten the doubts and difficulties, exposed by the Sokratic Elenchus throughout the Dialogues of Search: the confessed inability of Sokrates himself to elucidate them, while at the same time his contempt for the false persuasion of knowledge--for those who talk confidently about matters which they can neither explain nor defend--is expressed without reserve.
Now, when we turn to the Hippias Major, we find Sokrates declaring, that no man can affirm, and that a man ought to be ashamed to pretend to affirm, what particular matters are beautiful (fine, honourable) or ugly (mean, base), unless he knows and can explain what Beauty is.
[10] A similar declaration appears in the Menon, where Sokrates treats it as absurd to affirm or deny any predicate respecting a Subject, until you have satisfied yourself that you know what the Subject itself is: and where he farther proclaims, that as to Virtue, he does not know what it is, and that he has never yet found any one who _did_ know.
[11] Such ignorance is stated at the end of the dialogue not less emphatically than at the beginning.
Again, respecting the four varieties or parts of Virtue.
The first of the four, Prudence--(Wisdom--Knowledge)--has been investigated in the Theætêtus--one of the most elaborate of all the Platonic dialogues: several different explanations of it are proposed by Theætêtus, and each is shown by Sokrates to be untenable; the problem remains unsolved at last.
As to Courage and Temperance, we have not been more fortunate.
The Lachês and Charmidês exhibit nothing but a fruitless search both for one and for the other.
And here the case is more remarkable; because in the Lachês, one of the several definitions of Courage, tendered to Sokrates and refuted by him, is, the very definition of Courage delivered by him in the Republic as complete and satisfactory: while in the Charmidês, one of the definitions of Temperance, refuted, and even treated as scarcely intelligible, by Sokrates ([Greek: to\ pra/ttein ta\ e(autou=]) is the same as that which Sokrates in the Republic relies on as a valid definition of Justice.
[12] Lastly, every one who has read the Parmenidês, will remember the acute objections there urged against the Platonic hypothesis of substantive Ideas, participated in by particulars: of which objections no notice is taken in the Republic, though so much is said therein about these Ideas, in regard to the training of the philosophical Chiefs.
[Footnote 10: Plat.
Hipp.
Maj. pp.
286 D, 304 C.] [Footnote 11: Plato, Menon, pp.
71 B-C, 86 B, 100 B.]
[Footnote 12: See Lachês p. 195 A.
[Greek: tê\n tô=n deinô=n kai\ thar)r(ale/ôn e)pistê/mên], pp.
196 C-199 A-E--in the cross-examination of Nikias by Sokrates: and the question in the cross-examination of Lachês (who has defined Courage to be [Greek: ê( phro/nimos karteri/a]) put by Sokrates--[Greek: ê( _ei)s ti/_ phro/nimos?]
compared with Republic, iv.
pp.
429 C, 430 B, 433 C. See also Charmidês, pp.
161 B, 162 B-C, compared with Republic, iv.
p. 433 B-D.] [Side-note: Difficulties left unsolved, but overleaped by Plato.]
If we revert to these passages (and many others which might be produced) of past dialogues, we shall find no means provided of harmonising them with the Republic.
The logical and ethical difficulties still exist: they have never been elucidated: the Republic does not pretend to elucidate them, but overlooks or overleaps them.
In composing it, Plato has his mind full of a different point of view, to which he seeks to give full effect.
While his spokesman Sokrates was leader of opposition, Plato delighted to arm him with the maximum of negative cross-examining acuteness: but here Sokrates has passed over to the ministerial benches, and has undertaken the difficult task of making out a case in reply to the challenge of Glaukon and Adeimantus.
No new leader of opposition is allowed to replace him.
The splendid constructive effort of the Republic would have been spoiled, if exposed to such an analytical cross-examination as that which we read in Menon, Lachês, or Charmidês.
[Side-note: Ethical and political theory combined by Plato, treated apart by Aristotle.]
In remarking upon the Platonic Republic as a political scheme only, we pass from the Platonic point of view to the Aristotelian: that is, to the discussion of Ethics and Politics as separate subjects, though adjoining and partially overlapping each other.
Plato conceives the two in intimate union, and even employs violent metaphors to exaggerate the intimacy.
Xenophon also conceives them in close conjunction.
Aristotle goes farther in separating the two: a great improvement in regard to the speculative dealing with both of them.
[13] [Footnote 13: The concluding chapter of the Nikomachean Ethics contains some striking remarks upon this separation.]
[Side-note: Platonic Commonwealth--only an outline--partially filled up.]
If, following the example of Aristotle, we criticise the Platonic Republic as a scheme of political constitution, we find that on most points which other theorists handle at considerable length, Plato is intentionally silent.
His project is an outline and nothing more.
He delineates fully the brain and heart of the great Leviathan, but leaves the rest in very faint outline.
He announces explicitly the purpose of all his arrangements, to obtain happiness for the whole city: by which he means, not happiness for the greatest number of individuals, but for the abstract unity called the City, supposed to be capable of happiness or misery, apart from any individuals, many or few, composing it.
[14] Each individual is to do the work for which he is best fitted, contributory to the happiness of the whole--and to do nothing else.
Each must be content with such happiness as consists with his own exclusive employment.
[15] [Footnote 14: Plato, Republic, iv.
pp.
420-421.
The objection that the Guardians will have no happiness, is put by Plato into the mouth of Adeimantus, but is denied by Sokrates; who, however, says that even if it were true he could not admit it as applicable, since what he wishes is that the entire commonwealth shall be happy.
Aristotle (Politic.
ii.
5, 1264, 6-15) repeats the objection of Adeimantus, and declares that collective happiness (not enjoyed by some individuals) is impossible.
See the valuable chapter on Ideal Models in Politics (vol.
ii.
ch.
xxii.
p. 236 seq.)
in Sir George Cornewall Lewis's Treatise on the methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics.
The different ideal models framed by theorists ancient and modern, Plato among the number, are there collected, with judicious remarks in comparing and appreciating them.]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Republic, iv.
p. 421 C. He lays down this minute sub-division and speciality of aptitude in individuals as a fundamental property of human nature.
Repub.
iii.
p. 395 B, [Greek: kai\ e)/ti ge tou/tôn phai/netai/ moi ei)s smikro/tera katakekermati/sthai ê( tou= a)nthrô/pou phu/sis], &c. Compare Xenophon, Cyropæd.
ii.
1, 21, where the same principle is laid down.
Another passage in the same treatise (Cyropæd.
viii.
2, 5) is also interesting.
Xenophon there contrasts the smaller towns, where many trades were combined in the same hand and none of the works well performed, with the larger towns, where there was a minuter subdivision of labour, each man doing one work only, and doing it well.]
[Side-note: Absolute rule of a few philosophers--Careful and peculiar training of the Guardians.]
The Chiefs or Rulers are assumed to be both specially qualified and specially trained for the business of governing.
Their authority is unlimited: they represent that One Infallible Wise Man, whom Plato frequently appeals to (in the Politikus, Kriton, Gorgias, and other dialogues), but never names.
They are a very small number, perhaps only one: the persons naturally qualified being very few, and even they requiring the severest preparatory training.
The Guardians, all of them educated up to a considerable point, both obey themselves the orders of these few Chiefs, and enforce obedience upon the productive multitude.
Of this last-mentioned multitude, constituting numerically almost the whole city, we hear little or nothing: except that the division of labour is strictly kept up among them, and that neither wealth nor poverty is allowed to grow up.
[16] How this is to be accomplished, Plato does not point out: nor does he indicate how the mischievous working (_i.e._, mischievous, in his point of view, and as he declares it) of the proprietary and the family relations is to be obviated.
His scheme tacitly assumes that separate property and family are to subsist among the great mass of the community, but not among the Guardians: he proclaims explicitly, that if the proprietary relations or the family relations were permitted among the Guardians, entire corruption of their character would ensue.
[17] Among the Demos or multitude, he postulates nothing except unlimited submission to the orders of the Rulers enforced through the Guardians.
The regulative powers of the Rulers are assumed to be of omnipotent efficacy against every cause of mischief, subject only to one condition--That the purity of the golden breed, together with the Platonic training and discipline, are to be maintained among them unimpaired.
[Footnote 16: Plato, Republic, iv.
p.
421.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Republic, iii.
p.
417.]
Everything in the Platonic Republic turns upon this elaborate training of the superior class: most of all, the Chiefs or Rulers--next, the Soldiers or Guardians.
Besides this training, they are required to be placed in circumstances which will prevent them from feeling any private or separate interest of their own, apart from or adverse to that of the multitude.
"Every man" (says Plato) "will best love those whose advantage he believes to coincide with his own, and when he is most convinced that **if they do well, he himself will do well also: if not, not.
"[18] "The Rulers must be wise, powerful, and affectionately solicitous for the city."
[Footnote 18: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 412 D. [Greek: Kai\ me\n tou=to/ g' a)\n ma/lista philoi=, ô(=| xumphe/rein ê(goi=to ta\ au)ta\ kai\ e(autô=|, kai\ o(/tan ma/lista e)kei/nou me\n eu)= pra/ttontos oi)/êtai xumbai/nein kai\ e(autô=| eu)= pra/ttein, mê\ de/, tou)nanti/on.]
Compare v. pp.
463-464.]
These then are the two circumstances which Plato works out: The Education of the Rulers and Guardians: Their position and circumstances in regard to each other and to the remaining multitude.
He does not himself prescribe, or at least he prescribes but rarely, what is to be enacted or ordered.
He creates the generals and the soldiers; he relies upon the former for ordering, upon the latter for enforcing, aright.
[Side-note: Comparison of Plato with Xenophon--Cyropædia--OEconomicus.]
On this point we may usefully compare him with his contemporary Xenophon.
He, like Plato, presents himself to mankind as a preceptor or schoolmaster, rather than as a lawgiver.
Most Grecian cities (he remarks) left the education of youth in the hands of parents, and permitted adults to choose their own mode of life, subject only to the necessity of obeying the laws: that is, of abstaining from certain defined offences, and of performing certain defined obligations--under penalties if such obedience were not rendered.
From this mode of proceeding Xenophon dissents, and commends the Spartan Lawgiver Lykurgus for departing from it.
[19] To regulate public matters, without regulating the private life of the citizens, appeared to him impossible.
[20] At Sparta, the citizen was subject to authoritative regulation, from childhood to old age.
In the public education, or in the public drill, he was constantly under supervision, going through prescribed exercises.
This produced, according to Xenophon, "a city of pre-eminent happiness".
He proclaims and follows out the same peculiar principle, in his ideal scheme of society called the Persian laws.
He embodies in the Cyropædia the biography of a model chief, trained up from his youth in (what Xenophon calls) the Persian system, and applying the virtues acquired therein to military exploits and to the government of mankind.
The Persian polity, in which the hero Cyrus receives his training, is described.
Instead of leaving individuals to their own free will, except as to certain acts or abstinences specifically enjoined, this polity placed every one under a regimental training: which both shaped his character beforehand, so as to make sure that he should have no disposition to commit offences[21]--and subjected him to perpetual supervision afterwards, commencing with boyhood and continued to old age, through the four successive stages of boys, youths, mature men, and elders.
[Footnote 19: Xenophon, Rep. Lacedæm.
i.
2.
[Greek: Lukou=rgos, ou) mimêsa/menos ta\s a)/llas po/leis, a)lla\ kai\ e)nanti/a gnou\s tai=s plei/stais, proe/chousan eu)daimoni/a| tê\n patri/da a)pe/deixen.]]
[Footnote 20: Compare Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 780 A.]
[Footnote 21: Xenophon, Cyrop.
i.
2, 2-6.
[Greek: Ou(=toi de\ dokou=sin oi( no/moi a)/rchesthai tou= koinou= a)gathou= e)pimelou/menoi ou)k e)/nthen o(/thenper e)n tai=s plei/stais po/lesin a)/rchontai.
Ai( me\n ga\r plei=stai po/leis, a)phei=sai paideu/ein o(/pôs tis e)the/lei tou\s e(autou= pai=das kai\ au)tou\s tou\s presbute/rous o(/pôs e)the/lousi dia/gein, e)/peita prosta/ttousin au)tou\s mê\ kle/ptein.
.
.
.
Oi( de\ Persikoi\ no/moi prolabo/ntes e)pime/lontai o(/pôs tê\n a)rchê\n mê\ toiou=toi e)/sontai oi( poli=tai, oi(=oi ponêrou= tinos ê)\ ai)schrou= e)/rgou e)phi/esthai.
E)pime/lontai de\ dê\ ô(=de.]]
[Side-note: Both of them combine polity with education--temporal with spiritual.]
This general principle of combining polity with education, is fundamental both with Plato and Xenophon: to a great degree, it is retained also by Aristotle.
The lawgiver exercises a spiritual as well as a temporal function.
He does not content himself with prohibitions and punishments, but provides for fashioning every man's character to a predetermined model, through systematic discipline begun in childhood and never discontinued.
This was the general scheme, realised at Sparta in a certain manner and degree, and idealised both by Plato and Xenophon.
The full application of the scheme, however, is restricted, in all the three, to a select body of qualified citizens; who are assumed to exercise dominion or headship over the remaining community.
[22] [Footnote 22: In Xenophon all Persians are supposed to be legally admissible to the public training; but in practice, none can frequent it constantly except those whose families can maintain them without labour; nor can any be received into the advanced stages, except those who have passed through the lower.
Hence none go really through the training except the Homotimoi.]
[Side-note: Differences between them--Character of Cyrus.]
Thus far the general conception of Xenophon and Plato is similar: yet there are material differences between them.
In Xenophon, the ultimate purpose is, to set forth the personal qualities of Cyrus: to which purpose the description of the general training of the citizens is preparatory, occupying only a small portion of the Cyropædia, and serving to explain the system out of which Cyrus sprang.
And the character of Cyrus is looked at in reference to the government of mankind.
Xenophon had seen governments, of all sorts, resisted and overthrown--despotisms, oligarchies, democracies.
His first inference from these facts is, that man is a very difficult animal to govern:--much more difficult than sheep or oxen.
But on farther reflection he recognises that the problem is noway insoluble: that a ruler may make sure of ruling mankind with their own consent, and of obtaining hearty obedience--provided that he goes to work in an intelligent manner.
[23] Such a ruler is described in Cyrus; who both conquered many distant and unconnected nations,--and governed them, when conquered, skilfully, so as to ensure complete obedience without any active discontent.
The abilities and exploits of Cyrus thus step far beyond the range of the systematic Persian discipline, though that discipline is represented as having first formed both his character and that of his immediate companions.
He is a despot responsible to no one, but acting with so much sagacity, justice, and benevolence, that his subjects obey him willingly.
His military orders are arranged with the utmost prudence and calculation of consequences.
He promotes the friends who have gone through the same discipline with himself, to be satraps of the conquered provinces, exacting from them submission, and tribute-collection for himself, together with just dealing towards the subjects.
Each satrap is required to maintain his ministers, officers, and soldiers around him under constant personal inspection, with habits of temperance and constant exercise in hunting.
[24] These men and the Persians generally, constitute the privileged class and the military force of the empire:[25] the other mass of subjects are not only kept disarmed, but governed as "_gens tailleables et corvéables_".
Moreover, besides combining justice and personal activity with generosity and winning manners, Cyrus does not neglect such ceremonial artifices and pomp as may impose on the imagination of spectators.
[26] He keeps up designedly not merely competition but mutual jealousy and ill-will among those around him.
And he is careful that the most faithful among them shall be placed on his left hand at the banquet, because that side is the most exposed to treachery.
[27] [Footnote 23: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
i.
1,** 3.
[Greek: ê)/n tis e)pistame/nôs tou=to pra/ttê|.]
Compare Xenoph.
Economic.
c. xxi.
where [Greek: to\ e)thelo/ntôn a)/rchein] is declared to be a superhuman good, while [Greek: to\ a)ko/ntôn turannei=n] is reckoned as a curse equivalent to that of Tantalus.]
[Footnote 24: Xenophon, Cyropæd.
viii.
6, 1-10.]
[Footnote 25: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
viii.
1, 43-45, viii.
6, 13, vii.
5, 79. viii.
5, 24: [Greek: ei) de\ su/, ô)= Ku=re, e)parthei\s tai=s parou/sais tu/chais, e)picheirê/seis kai\ Persô=n _a)/rchein e)pi\ pleonexi/a|, ô(/sper tô=n a)/llôn_], &c.] [Footnote 26: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
viii.
1, 40.
[Greek: a)lla\ kai\ katagoêteu/ein ô)/|eto chrê=nai au)tou/s.]
Also viii.
3, 1.]
[Footnote 27: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
viii.
2, viii.
4, 3.]
[Side-note: Xenophontic genius for command--Practical training--Sokratic principles applied in Persian training.]
What is chiefly present to the mind of Xenophon is, a select fraction of citizens passing their whole lives in a regimental training like that of Lacedæmon: uniformity of habits, exact obedience, the strongest bodily exercise combined with the simplest nutritive diet, perfect command of the physical appetites and necessities, so that no such thing as spitting or blowing the nose is seen.
[28] The grand purpose of the system, as at Sparta,[29] is warlike efficiency: war being regarded as the natural state of man.
The younger citizens learn the use of the bow and javelin, the older that of the sword and shield.
As war requires not merely perfectly trained soldiers, but also the initiative of a superior individual chief, so Xenophon assumes in the chief of these men (like Agesilaus at Sparta) an unrivalled genius for command.
The Xenophontic Cyrus is altogether a practical man.
We are not told that he learnt anything except in common with the rest.
Neither he nor they receive any musical or literary training.
The course which they go through is altogether ethical, gymnastical, and military.
Their boyhood is passed in learning justice and temperance,[30] which are made express subjects of teaching by Xenophon and under express masters: Xenophon thus supplies the deficiency so often lamented by the Platonic Sokrates, who remarks that neither at Athens nor elsewhere can he find either teaching or teacher of justice.
Cyrus learns justice and temperance along with the rest,[31] but he does not learn more than the rest: nor does Xenophon perform his promise of explaining by what education such extraordinary genius for command is brought about.
[32] The superior character of Cyrus is assumed and described, but noway accounted for: indeed his rank and position at the court of Astyages (in which he stands distinguished from the other Persians) present nothing but temptations to indulgence, partially countervailed by wise counsel from his father Kambyses.
We must therefore consider Cyrus to be a king by nature, like the chief bee in each hive[33]--an untaught or self-taught genius, in his excellence as general and emperor.
He obtains only one adventitious aid peculiar to himself.
Being of divine progeny, he receives the special favour and revelations of the Gods, who, in doubtful emergencies, communicate to him by signs, omens, dreams, and sacrifices, what he ought to do and what he ought to leave undone.
[34] Such privileged communications are represented as indispensable to the success of a leader: for though it was his duty to learn all that could be learnt, yet even after he had done this, so much uncertainty remained behind, that his decisions were little better than a lottery.
[35] The Gods arranged the sequences of events partly in a regular and decypherable manner, so that a man by diligent study might come to understand them: but they reserved many important events for their own free-will, so as not to be intelligible by any amount of human study.
Here the wisest man was at fault no less than the most ignorant: nor could he obtain the knowledge of them except by special revelation solicited or obtained.
The Gods communicated such peculiar knowledge to their favourites, but not to every one indiscriminately: for they were under no necessity to take care of men towards whom they felt no inclination.
[36] Cyrus was one of the men thus specially privileged: but he was diligent in cultivating the favour of the Gods by constant worship, not merely at times when he stood in need of their revelations, but at other times also: just as in regard to human friends or patrons, assiduous attentions were requisite to keep up their goodwill.
[37] [Footnote 28: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
i.
2, 16, viii.
1, 42, viii.
8, 8.
He insists repeatedly upon this point.
Compare a curious passage in the Meditations of Marcus Antoninus, vi.
30.]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 626.
Plutarch, Lykurg.
25.
Compare Lykurg.
and Num.
c.
4.]
[Footnote 30: Xenophon, Cyrop.
i.
2, 6-8.
The boys are appointed to adjudicate, under the supervision of the teacher, in disputes which occur among their fellows.
As an instance of this practice, we find the well-known adjudication by young Cyrus, between the great boy and the little boy, in regard to the two coats; and a very instructive illustration it is, of the principle of property (Cyrop.
i.
3, 17).]
[Footnote 31: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
i.
3, 16, iii.
3, 35.
Cyrus is indeed represented as having taken lessons from a paid teacher in the art [Greek: tou= stratêgei=n]: but these lessons were meagre, comprising nothing beyond [Greek: ta\ taktika/], i.
6, 12-15.]
[Footnote 32: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
i.
1, 6.
[Greek: poi/a| tini\ paidei/a| paideuthei\s tosou=ton diê/negken ei)s to\ a)/rchein a)nthrô/pôn.]]
[Footnote 33: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
v. 1, 24.
The queen-bee is masculine in Xenophon's conception.]
[Footnote 34: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
viii.
7, 3, iv.
2, 15, iv.
1, 24.
Compare Xenoph.
Economic.
v.
19-20.]
[Footnote 35: Xenophon, Cyrop.
i.
6, 46.
[Greek: Ou(/tôs ê(/ ge a)nthrôpi/nê sophi/a ou)de\n ma=llon oi)=de to\ a)/riston ai)rei=sthai, ê)\ ei) klêrou/menos o(/, ti la/choi tou=to/ tis pra/ttoi.
Theoi\ de\ a)ei\ o)/ntes pa/nta i)/sasi ta/ te gegenême/na kai\ ta\ o)/nta, kai\ o(/, ti e)x e(ka/stou au)tô=n a)pobê/setai; kai\ _tô=n sumbouleuome/nôn_ a)nthrô/pôn _oi(=s a)\n i)le/ô| ô)=si_, prosêmai/nousin a(/ te chrê\ poiei=n kai\ a(/ ou) chrê/.
Ei) de\ mê\ pa=sin e)the/lousi sumbouleu/ein, ou)de\n thaumasto/n; ou) ga\r a)na/gkê au)toi=s e)stin, ô(=n a)\n mê\ the/lôsin, e)pimelei=sthai.]
Compare i.
6, 6-23, also the Memorab.
i.
1, 8, where the same doctrine is ascribed to Sokrates.]
[Footnote 36: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
i.
6, 46 ad fin.]
[Footnote 37: Xenoph.
Cyrop.
i.
6, 3-5.]
When it is desired to realise an ideal improvement of society (says Plato),[38] the easiest postulate is to assume a despot, young, clever, brave, thoughtful, temperate, and aspiring, belonging to that superhuman breed which reigned under the presidency of Kronus.
Such a postulate is assumed by Xenophon in his hero Cyrus.
The Xenophontic scheme, though presupposing a collective training, resolves itself ultimately into the will of an individual, enforcing good regulations, and full of tact in dealing with subordinates.
What Cyrus is in campaign and empire, Ischomachus (see the Economica of Xenophon) is in the household: but everything depends on the life of this distinguished individual.
Xenophon leads us at once into practice, laying only a scanty basis of theory.
[Footnote 38: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
709 E, 710-713.]
[Side-note: Plato does not build upon an individual hero.
Platonic training compared with Xenophontic.]
In Plato's Republic, on the contrary, the theory predominates.
He does not build upon any individual hero: he constructs a social and educational system, capable of self-perpetuation at least for a considerable time.
[39] He describes the generating and sustaining principles of his system, but he does not exhibit it in action, by any pseudo-historical narrative: we learn indeed, that he had intended to subjoin such a narrative, in the dialogue called Kritias, of which only the commencement was ever written.
[40] He aims at forming a certain type of character, common to all the Guardians: superadding new features so as to form a still more exalted type, peculiar to those few Elders selected from among them to exercise the directorial function.
He not only lays down the process of training in greater detail than Xenophon, but he also gives explanatory reasons for most of his recommendations.
[Footnote 39: Plato pronounces Cyrus to have been a good general and a patriot, but not to have received any right education, and especially to have provided no good education for his children, who in consequence became corrupt and degenerate (Legg.
iii.
694).
Upon this remark some commentators of antiquity founded the supposition of grudge or quarrel between Plato and Xenophon.
We have no evidence to prove such a state of unfriendly feeling between the two, yet it is no way unlikely: and I think it highly probable that the remark just cited from Plato may have had direct reference to the Xenophontic Cyropædia.
When we read the elaborate intellectual training which Plato prescribes for the rulers in his Republic, we may easily understand that, in his view, the Xenophontic Cyrus had received no right education at all.
His remark moreover brings to view the defect of all schemes built upon a perfect despot--that they depend upon an individual life.]
[Footnote 40: Plato, Timæus, pp.
20-26.
Plato, Kritias, p.
108.]
One prominent difference between the two deserves to be noticed.
In the Xenophontic training, the ethical, gymnastic, and military, exigencies are carefully provided for: but the musical and intellectual exigencies are left out.
The Xenophontic Persians are not affirmed either to learn letters, or to hear and repeat poetry, or to acquire the knowledge of any musical instrument.
Nor does it appear, even in the case of the historical Spartans, that letters made any part of their public training.
But the Platonic training includes music and gymnastics as co-ordinate and equally indispensable.
Words or intellectual exercises, come in under the head of music.
[41] Indeed, in Plato's view, even gymnastics, though bearing immediately on the health and force of the body, have for their ultimate purpose a certain action upon the mind; being essential to the due development of courage, energy, endurance, and self-assertion.
[42] Gymnastics without music produce a hard and savage character, insensible to persuasive agencies, hating discourse or discussion,[43] ungraceful as well as stupid.
Music without gymnastics generates a susceptible temperament, soft, tender, and yielding to difficulties, with quick but transient impulses.
Each of the two, music and gymnastic, is indispensable as a supplement and corrective to the other.
[Footnote 41: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 376 E.] [Footnote 42: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 410 B.
[Greek: pro\s to\ thumoeide\s tê=s phu/seôs ble/pôn ka)kei=no e)gei/rôn ponê/sei ma=llon ê)\ pro\s i)schu/n, ou)ch ô(/sper oi( a)/lloi a)thlêtai\ r(ô/mês e(/neka.]]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Republ.
iii.
pp.
410-411.
411 D-E: [Greek: Miso/logos dê/, oi)=mai, o( toiou=tos gi/gnetai kai\ a)/mousos, kai\ peithoi= me\n dia\ lo/gôn ou)de\n e)/ti chrê=tai, bi/a| de\ kai\ a)grio/têti ô(/sper thêri/on pro\s pa/nta diapra/ttetai, kai\ e)n a)mathi/a| kai\ skaio/têti meta\ a)r)r(uthmi/as te kai\ a)charisti/as zê=|.]]
[Side-note: Platonic type of character compared with Xenophontic, is like the Athenian compared with the Spartan.]
The type of character here contemplated by Plato deserves particular notice, as contrasted with that of Xenophon.
It is the Athenian type against the Spartan.
Periklês in his funeral oration, delivered at Athens in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, boasts that the Athenians had already reached a type similar to this--and that too, without any special individual discipline, legally enforced: that they combined courage, ready energy, and combined action--with developed intelligence, the love of discourse, accessibility to persuasion, and taste for the Beautiful.
That which Plato aims at accomplishing in his Guardians, by means of a state-education at once musical and gymnastical--Periklês declares to have been already realised at Athens without any state-education, through the spontaneous tendencies of individuals called forth and seconded by the general working of the political system.
[44] He compliments his countrymen as having accomplished this object without the unnecessary rigour of a positive state-discipline, and without any other restraints than the special injunctions and prohibitions of a known law.
It is this absence of state-discipline to which both Xenophon and Plato are opposed.
Both of them follow Lykurgus in proclaiming the insufficiency of mere prohibitions; and in demanding a positive routine of duty to be prescribed by authority, and enforced upon individuals through life.
In regard to end, Plato is more in harmony with Periklês: in regard to means, with Xenophon.
[Footnote 44: Thucyd.
ii.
38-39-40.
The comparison between this speech and the third book of Plato's Republic (pp.
401-402-410-411), is very interesting.
The words of Perikles, [Greek: philokalou=men ga\r met' eu)telei/as kai\ philosophou=men a)/neu malaki/as], taken along with the chapter preceding, mark that concurrent development of [Greek: to\ philo/sophon] and [Greek: to\ thumoeide\s] which Plato provides, and the avoidance of those defects which spring from the separate and exclusive cultivation of either.]
Plato's views respecting special laws and criminal procedure generally are remarkable.
He not only manifests that repugnance towards the Dikastery--which is common to Sokrates, Xenophon, Isokrates, and Aristophanes--but he excludes it almost entirely from his system, as being superseded by the constant public discipline of the Guardians.
[Side-note: Professional soldiers are the proper modern standard of comparison with the regulations of Plato and Xenophon.]
It is to be remembered that these propositions of Plato have reference, not to an entire and miscellaneous community, but to a select body called the Guardians, required to possess the bodily and mental attributes of soldiers, policemen, and superintendents.
The standard of comparison in modern times, for the Lykurgean, Xenophontic or Platonic, training, is to be sought in the stringent discipline of professional soldiers; not in the general liberty, subject only to definite restrictions, enjoyed by non-military persons.
In regard to soldiers, the Platonic principle is now usually admitted--that it is not sufficient to enact articles of war, defining what a soldier ought to do, and threatening him with punishment in case of infraction--but that, besides this, it is indispensable to exact from him a continued routine of positive performances, under constant professional supervision.
Without this preparation, few now expect that soldiers should behave effectively when the moment of action arrives.
This is the doctrine applied by Plato and Xenophon to the whole life of the citizen.
[Side-note: Music and Gymnastic--multifarious and varied effects of music.]
Music and Gymnastic are regarded by Plato mainly as they bear upon and influence the emotional character of his citizens.
Each of them is the antithesis, and at the same time the supplement, to the other.
Gymnastic tends to develop exclusively the courageous and energetic emotions:--anger and the feeling of power--but no others.
Whereas music (understood in the Platonic sense) has a far more multifarious and varied agency: it may develop either those, or the gentle and tender emotions, according to circumstances.
[45] In the hands of Tyrtæus and Æschylus, it generates vehement and fearless combatants: in the hands of Euripides and other pathetic poets, it produces tender, amatory, effeminate natures, ingenious in talk but impotent for action.
[46] [Footnote 45: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 376 B-C.
If we examine Plato's tripartite classification of the varieties of soul or mind, as it is given both in the Republic and in the Timæus (1.
Reason, in the cranium.
2.
Energy, [Greek: thumo/s], in the thoracic region.
3.
Appetite, in the abdominal region)--we shall see that it assigns no place to the gentle, the tender, or the æsthetical emotions.
These cannot be properly ranked either with energy ([Greek: thumo\s]) or with appetite ([Greek: e)pithumi/a]).
Plato can find no root for them except in reason or knowledge, from which he presents them as being collateral derivatives--a singular origin.
He illustrates his opinion by the equally singular analogy of the dog, who is gentle towards persons whom he _knows_, fierce towards those whom he does not _know_; so that _gentleness_ is the product of _knowledge_.]
[Footnote 46: See the argument between Æschylus and Euripides in the Ranæ of Aristophanes, 1043-1061-1068.]
[Side-note: Great influence of the poets and their works on education.]
In the age of Plato, Homer and other poets were extolled as the teachers of mankind, and as themselves possessing universal knowledge.
They enjoyed a religious respect, being supposed to speak under divine inspiration, and to be the privileged reporters or diviners of a forgotten past.
[47] They furnished the most interesting portion of that floating mass of traditional narrative respecting Gods, Heroes, and ancestors, which found easy credence both as matter of religion and as matter of history: being in full harmony with the emotional preconceptions, and uncritical curiosity, of the hearers.
They furnished likewise exhortation and reproof, rules and maxims, so expressed as to live in the memory--impressive utterance for all the strong feelings of the human bosom.
Poetry was for a long time the only form of literature.
It was not until the fifth century B.C.
that prose compositions either began to be multiplied, or were carried to such perfection as to possess a charm of their own calculated to rival the poets, who had long enjoyed a monopoly as purveyors for æsthetical sentiment and fancy.
Rhetors, Sophists, Philosophers, then became their competitors; opening new veins of intellectual activity,[48] and sharing, to a certain extent, the pædagogic influence of the poets--yet never displacing them from their traditional function of teachers, narrators, and guides to the intelligence, as well as improving ministers to the sentiments, emotions, and imagination, of youth.
Indeed, many Sophists and Rhetors presented themselves not as superseding,[49] but as expounding and illustrating, the poets.
Sokrates also did this occasionally, though not upon system.
[50] [Footnote 47: Aristoph.
Ranæ, 1053.
Æschylus is made to say:-[Greek: A)ll' a)pokru/ptein chrê\ to\ ponêro\n to/n ge poiêtê/n, kai\ mê\ para/gein mêde\ dida/skein; toi=s me\n ga\r paidari/oisin e)sti\ dida/skalos o(/stis phra/zei, toi=sin d' ê(bô=si poiêtai/.
pa/nu dê\ dei= chrêsta\ le/gein ê(ma=s.]
Compare the words of Pluto which conclude the Ranæ, 1497.
Plato, Repub.
x. p. 598 D-E. [Greek: e)peidê/ tinôn a)kou/omen o(/ti ou(=toi] (Homer and the poets) [Greek: pa/sas me\n te/chnas e)pi/santai, pa/nta de\ ta)nthrô/peia ta\ pro\s a)retê\n kai\ kaki/an, kai\ ta/ ge thei=a], &c. Also Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
810-811; Ion, pp.
536 A, 541 B: Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
2, 10; and Sympos.
iii.
6, where we learn that Nikeratus could repeat by heart the whole Iliad and Odyssey.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 810.
[Greek: o(/lous poiêta\s e)kmantha/nontas], &c.] [Footnote 49: It was to gain this facility that Kritias and Alkibiades, as Xenophon tells us, frequented the society of Sokrates, who (as Xenophon also tells us) "handled persons conversing with him just as he pleased" (Memor.
i.
2, 14-18.)
A speaker in one of the Orations of Lysias (Orat.
viii.
[Greek: Kakologiô=n], s. 12) considers this power of arguing a disputed case as one of the manifestations [Greek: tou= philosophei=n--Kai\ e)gô\ me\n ô)/|mên _philosophou=ntas_ au)tou\s peri\ tou= pra/gmatos _a)ntile/gein to\n e)nanti/on lo/gon_; oi( d' a)/ra ou)k a)nte/legon a)ll' a)nte/pratton.]
Compare the curious oration of Demosthenes against Lakritus, where the speaker imputes to Lakritus this abuse of argumentative power, as having been purchased by him at a large price from the teaching of Isokrates the Sophist, pp.
928-937-938.]
[Footnote 50: Xenoph.
Memorab.
i.
2, 57-60.]
[Side-note: Plato's idea of the purpose which poetry and music _ought_ to serve in education.]
It is this educational practice--common to a certain extent among Greeks, but more developed at Athens than elsewhere[51]--which Plato has in his mind, when he draws up the outline of a musical education for his youthful Guardians.
He does not intend it as a scheme for fostering the highest intellectual powers, or for exalting men into philosophers--which he reserves as an ulterior improvement, to be communicated at a later period of life, and only to a chosen few--the large majority being supposed incapable of appropriating it.
His musical training (co-operating with the gymnastical) is intended to form the character of the general body of Guardians: to implant in them from early childhood a peculiar vein of sentiments, habits, emotions and emotional beliefs, ethical esteem and disesteem, love and hatred, &c., to inspire them (in his own phrase) with love of the beautiful or honourable.
[Footnote 51: The language of Plato is remarkable on this point.
Republic, ii.
p. 376 E. [Greek: Ti/s ou)=n ê( paidei/a?
_ê(\ chalepo\n eu(rei=n belti/ô tê=s u(po\ tou= pollou= chro/nou eu(rême/nês_?
e)sti\ de/ pou ê( me\n e)pi\ sô/masi gumnastikê/, ê( d' e)pi\ psuchê=| mousikê/]--and a striking passage in the Kriton (p. 50 D), where education in [Greek: mousikê\] and [Greek: gumnastikê\] is represented as a positive duty on the part of fathers towards their sons.
About the multifarious and indefinite province of the Muses, comprehending all [Greek: paidei/a] and [Greek: lo/gos], see Plutarch, Sympos.
Problem.
ix.
14, 2-3, p. 908-909.
Also Plutarch, De Audiendis Poetis, p. 31 F, about the many diverse interpretations of Homer; especially those by Chrysippus and Kleanthes.
The last half of the eighth Book of Aristotle's Politica contains remarkable reflections on the educational effects of music, showing the refined distinctions which philosophical men of that day drew respecting the varieties of melody and rhythm.
Aristotle adverts to music as an agency not merely for [Greek: paidei/a] but also for [Greek: ka/tharsis] (viii.
7, 1341, b.
38); to which last Plato does not advert.
Aristotle also notices various animadversions by musical critics upon some of the dicta on musical subjects in the Platonic Republic ([Greek: kalô=s e)pitimô=si kai\ tou=to Sôkra/tei tô=n peri\ tê\n mousikê/n tines], 1342, b.
23)--perhaps Aristoxenus: also 1342, a.
32.
That the established character and habits of music could not be changed without leading to a revolution, ethical and political, in the minds of the citizens--is a principle affirmed by Plato, not as his own, but as having been laid down previously by Damon the celebrated musical instructor (Repub.
iii.
p. 424 C).
The following passage about Luther is remarkable:-"Après avoir essayé de la théologie, Luther fut décidé par les conseils de ses amis, à embrasser l'étude du droit; qui conduisait alors aux postes les plus lucratifs de l'État et de l'Église.
Mais il ne semble pas s'y être jamais livré avec goût.
** Il aimait bien mieux la belle littérature, et surtout la musique.
C'était son art de prédilection.
Il la cultiva toute sa vie et l'enseigna à ses enfans.
Il n'hésite pas à déclarer que la musique lui semble le premier des arts, après la théologie.
La musique (dit il) est l'art des prophètes: c'est le seul qui, comme la théologie, puisse calmer les troubles de l'âme et mettre le diable en fuite.
Il touchait du luth, jouait de la flûte."
(_Michelet_, Mémoires de Luther, écrits par lui-même, pp.
4-5, Paris, 1835.)]
[Side-note: He declares war against most of the traditional and consecrated poetry, as mischievous.]
It is in this spirit that he deals with the traditional, popular, almost consecrated, poetical literature which prevailed around him.
He undertakes to revise and recast the whole of it.
Repudiating avowedly the purpose of the authors, he sets up a different point of view by which they are to be judged.
The contest of principle, into which he now enters, subsisted (he tells us) long before his time: a standing discord between the philosophers and the poets.
[52] The poet is an artist[53] whose aim is to give immediate pleasure and satisfaction: appealing to æsthetical sentiment, feeding imagination and belief, and finding embodiment for emotions, religious or patriotic, which he shares with his hearers: the philosopher is a critic, who lays down authoritatively deeper and more distant ends which he considers that poetry _ought to_ serve, judging the poets according as they promote, neglect, or frustrate those ends.
Plato declares the end which he requires poetry to serve in the training of his Guardians.
It must contribute to form the ethical character which he approves: in so far as it thus contributes, he will tolerate it, but no farther.
The charm and interest especially, belonging to beautiful poems, is not only no reason for admitting them, but is rather a reason (in his view) for excluding them.
[54] The more beautiful a poem is, the more effectively does it awaken, stimulate, and amplify, the emotional forces of the mind: the stronger is its efficacy in giving empire to pleasure and pain, and in resisting or overpowering the rightful authority of Reason.
It thus directly contravenes the purpose of the Platonic education--the formation of characters wherein Reason shall effectively controul all the emotions and desires.
[55] Hence he excludes all the varieties of imitative poetry:--that is, narrative, descriptive, or dramatic poetry.
He admits only hymns to the Gods and panegyrics upon good citizens:--probably also didactic, gnomic, or hortative, poetry of approved tone.
Imitative poetry is declared objectionable farther, not only as it exaggerates the emotions, but on another ground--that it fills the mind with false and unreal representations; being composed by men who have no real knowledge of their subject, though they pretend to a sort of fallacious omniscience, and talk boldly about every thing.
[56] [Footnote 52: Plato, Republ.
x. p. 607 B.
[Greek: palaia\ me/n tis diaphora\ philosophi/a| te kai\ poiêtikê=|], &c.] [Footnote 53: Plato, Republ.
x. p. 607 A-C. [Greek: tê\n ê(dusme/nên Mou=san .
.
.
ê( pro\s ê(donê\n poiêtikê\ kai\ ê( mi/mêsis], &c. Compare also Leges ii.
p. 655 D seq., about the [Greek: mousikê=s o)rtho/tês].]
[Footnote 54: It is interesting to read in the first book of Strabo (pp.
15-19-25-27, &c.) the controversy which he carries on with Eratosthenes, as to the function of poets generally, and as to the purpose of Homer in particular.
Eratosthenes considered Homer, and the other poets also, as having composed verses to please and interest, not to teach--[Greek: psuchagôgi/as cha/rin, ou) didaskali/as].
Strabo (following the astronomer Hipparchus) controverts this opinion; affirming that poets had been the earliest philosophers and teachers of mankind, and that they must always continue to be the teachers of the multitude, who were unable to profit by history and philosophy.
Strabo has the strongest admiration for Homer, not merely as a poet but as a moralising teacher.
While Plato banishes Homer from his commonwealth, on the ground of pernicious ethical influence, Strabo claims for Homer the very opposite merit, and extols him as the best of all popular teachers--[Greek: ê( de\ poiêtikê\ dêmôpheleste/ra kai\ the/atra plêrou=n duname/nê; ê( de\ dê\ tou= O(mêrou= u(perballo/ntôs .
.
.
A)/te dê\ pro\s to\ paideutiko\n ei)=dos tou\s mu/thous a)naphe/rôn o( poiêtê\s e)phro/ntise polu\ me/ros ta)lêthou=s] (Strabo, i. p. 20).
The contradiction between Plato and Strabo is remarkable.
Compare the beginning of Horace's Epistle, i.
2.
In the time of Strabo (more than three centuries after Plato's death) there existed an abundant prose literature on matters of erudition, history, science, philosophy.
The work of instruction was thus taken out of the poet's hands; yet Strabo cannot bear to admit this.
In the age of Plato the prose literature was comparatively small.
Alexandria and its school did not exist: the poets covered a far larger portion of the entire ground of instruction.
As a striking illustration of the continued and unquestioning faith in the ancient legends, we may cite Galen: who, in a medical argument against Erasistratus, cites the cure of the daughters of Proetus by Melampus as an incontestable authentic fact in medical evidence; putting to shame Erasistratus, who had not attended to it in his reasoning (Galen, De Atrâ Bile, T. v. p. 132, Kühn).]
[Footnote 55: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
606-607, iii.
p. 387 B.]
[Footnote 56: Plato, Republic, x. pp.
598-599.
When Plato attacks the poets so severely on the ground of their departure from truth and reality, and their false representations of human life--the poets might have retorted, that Plato departed no less from truth and reality in many parts of his Republic, and especially in his panegyric upon Justice; not to mention the various mythes which we read in Republic, Phædon, Phædrus, Politikus, &c. Plato's fictions are indeed ethical, intended to serve a pedagogic purpose; Homer's fictions are æsthetical, addressed to the fancy and emotions.
But it is not fair in Plato, the avowed champion of useful fiction, to censure the poets on the ground of their departing from truth.]
[Side-note: Strict limits imposed by Plato on poets.]
Even hymns to the Gods, however, may be composed in many different strains, according to the conception which the poet entertains of their character and attributes.
The Homeric Hymns which we now possess could not be acceptable to Plato.
While denouncing much of the current theological poetry, he assumes a censorial authority, in his joint character of Lykurgus and Sokrates,[57] to dictate what sort of poetical compositions shall be tolerated among his Guardians.
He pronounces many of the tales in Homer and Hesiod to be not merely fictions, but mischievous fictions: not fit to be circulated, even if they had been true.
[Footnote 57: Plutarch, Sympos.
Quæst.
viii.
2, 2, p. 719.
[Greek: O( Pla/tôn, a(/te dê\ tô=| Sôkra/tei to\n Lukou=rgon a)namignu/s], &c.] [Side-note: His view of the purposes of fiction--little distinction between fiction and truth.
His censures upon Homer and the tragedians.]
Plato admits fiction, indeed, along with truth as an instrument for forming the character.
Nay, he draws little distinction between the two, as regards particular narratives.
But the point upon which he specially insists, is, that all the narratives in circulation, true or false, respecting Gods and Heroes, shall ascribe to them none but qualities ethically estimable and venerable.
He condemns Homer and Hesiod as having misrepresented the Gods and Heroes, and as having attributed to them acts inconsistent with their true character, like a painter painting a portrait unlike to the original.
[58] He rejects in this manner various tales told in these poems respecting Zeus, Hêrê, Hephæstus--the fraudulent rupture of the treaty between the Greeks and Trojans by Pandarus, at the instigation of Zeus and Athênê--the final battle of the Gods, in the Iliad[59]--the transformations of Proteus and Thetis, and the general declaration in the Odyssey that the Gods under the likeness of various strangers visit human cities as inspectors of good and bad behaviour[60]--the dream sent by Zeus to deceive Agamemnon (in the second book of the Iliad), and the charge made by Thetis in Æschylus against Apollo, of having deceived her and killed her son Achilles[61]--the violent amorous impulse of Zeus, in the fourteenth book of the Iliad--the immoderate laughter among the Gods, when they saw the lame Hephæstus busying himself in the service of the banquet.
Plato will not permit the realm of Hades to be described as odious and full of terrors, because the Guardians will thereby learn to fear death.
[62] Nor will he tolerate the Homeric pictures of heroes or semi-divine persons, like Priam or Achilles, plunged in violent sorrow for the death of friends and relatives:--since a thoroughly right-minded man, while he regards death as no serious evil to the deceased, is at the same time most self-sufficing in character, and least in need of extraneous sympathy.
[63] [Footnote 58: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 377 E.] [Footnote 59: Plato, Repub.
ii.
pp.
378-379.
Plutarch observes about Chrysippus--[Greek: o(/ti tô=| theô=| kala\s me\n e)piklê/seis kai\ philanthrô/pous a)ei/, a)/gria d' e)/rga kai\ ba/rbara kai\ Galaktika\ prosti/thêsin] (De Stoic.
Repugnant.
c. 32, p. 1049 B).]
[Footnote 60: Plato, Republ.
ii.
p. 380 B. Plato in the beginning of his Sophistês treats this doctrine of the appearances of the Gods with greater respect.
Lucretius argues that the Gods, being in a state of perfect happiness and exempt from all want, cannot change; Lucret.
v. 170, compared with Plato, Rep. ii.
p. 381 B.]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Republ.
ii.
pp.
380-381-383.]
[Footnote 62: Plato, Republ.
iii.
p. 386 C. Maximus Tyrius (Diss.
xxiv.
c. 5) remarks, that upon the principles here laid down by Plato, much of what occurs in the Platonic dialogues respecting the erotic vehemence and enthusiasm of Sokrates ought to be excluded from education.]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 387 D-E. [Greek: o( e)pieikê\s a)nê\r tô=| e)pieikei=, ou(=per kai\ e(tai=ro/s e)sti, to\ tethna/nai ou) deino\n ê(gê/setai .
.
.
Ou)k a)/ra u(pe/r ge e)kei/nou ô(s deino/n ti pepontho/tos o)du/roit' a)/n .
.
.
A)lla\ mê\n .
.
.
o( toiou=tos ma/lista au)to\s au(tô=| au)ta/rchês pro\s to\ eu)= zê=|n kai\ diaphero/ntôs tô=n a)/llôn ê(/kista e(te/rou prosdei=tai .
.
.
Ê(/kist' a)/ra au)tô=| deino\n sterêthê=nai ui(e/os, ê)\ a)de/lphou, ê)\ chrêma/tôn, ê)\ a)/llou tou tô=n toiou/tôn] &c. The doctrine of Epikurus, as laid down by Lucretius (iii.
844-920), coincides here with that of Plato:-Tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris ævi Quod superest, cunctis privatu' doloribus ægris; At nos horrifico cinefactum te propé busto Insatiabiliter deflebimus, æternumque Nulla dies nobis moerorem e pectore demet.
Illud ab hoc igitur quærendum est, quid sit amari Tantopere, ad somnum si res redit atque quietem Cur quisquam æterno possit tabescere luctu?
Plato insists, not less strenuously than Lucretius, upon preserving the minds of his Guardians from the frightful pictures of Hades, which terrify all hearers--[Greek: phri/ttein dê\ poiei= ô(s oi(=o/n te pa/ntas tou\s a)kou/ontas] (Repub.
iii.
p. 387 C).
Lucret.
iii.
37: "metus ille foras præceps Acheruntis agendus Funditus, humanam qui vitam turbat ab imo".]
[Side-note: Type of character prescribed by Plato, to which all poets must conform, in tales about Gods and Heroes.]
These and other condemnations are passed by Plato upon the current histories respecting Gods, and respecting heroes the sons or immediate descendants of Gods.
He entirely forbids such histories, as suggesting bad examples to his Guardians.
He prohibits all poetical composition, except under his own censorial supervision.
He lays down, as a general doctrine, that the Gods are good; and he will tolerate no narrative which is not in full harmony with this predetermined type.
Without giving any specimens of approved narratives--which he declares to be the business not of the lawgiver, but of the poet--he insists only that all poets shall conform in their compositions to his general standard of orthodoxy.
[64] [Footnote 64: Compare also Plato de Legg.
x. p. 886 C, xii.
p. 941 B.]
Applying such a principle of criticism, Plato had little difficulty in finding portions of the current mythology offensive to his ideal type of goodness.
Indeed he might have found many others, yet more offensive to it than some of those which he has selected.
[65] But the extent of his variance with the current views reveals itself still more emphatically, when he says that the Gods are not to be represented as the cause of evil things to us, but only of good things.
Most persons (he says) consider the Gods as causes of all things, evil as well as good: but this is untrue:[66] the Gods dispense only the good things, not the evil; and the good things are few in number compared with the evil.
Plato therefore requires the poet to ascribe all good things to the Gods and to no one else; but to find other causes, apart from the Gods, for sufferings and evils.
But if the poet chooses to describe sufferings as inflicted by the Gods, he must at the same time represent these sufferings as a healing penalty or real benefit to the sufferers.
[67] [Footnote 65: As one example, Plato cites the story in the Iliad, that Achilles cut off his hair as an offering to the deceased Patroklus, after his hair had been consecrated by vow to the river Spercheius (Rep. iii.
p. 391).
If we look at the Iliad (xxiii.
150), we find that the vow to the Spercheius had been originally made by Peleus, conditionally upon the return of Achilles to his native land.
Now Achilles had been already forewarned that he would never return thither, consequently the vow to Spercheius was void, and the execution of it impracticable.
Plato does not disbelieve the legend of Hippolytus; the cruel death of an innocent youth, brought on by the Gods in consequence of the curse of his father Theseus (Legg.
xi.
p. 931 B).]
[Footnote 66: Plato, Republ.
ii.
p. 379 C. [Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra o( theo/s, e)peidê\ a)gatho/s, pa/ntôn a)\n ei)/ê ai)/tios, ô(s oi( polloi\ le/gousin, a)ll' o)li/gôn me\n toi=s a)nthrô/pois ai)/tios, pollô=n de\ a)nai/tios; _polu\ ga\r e)la/ttô ta)gatha\ tô=n kakô=n ê(mi=n_.
Kai\ tô=n me\n a)gathô=n ou)de/na a)/llon ai)tiate/on, tô=n de\ kakô=n a)/ll' a)/tta dei= zêtei=n ta\ ai)/tia, a)ll' ou) to\n theo/n.]]
[Footnote 67: Plato, Rep, ii.
p. 380 B. Plutarch, Consolat.
ad Apollonium (107 C, 115 E), citation from Pindar--[Greek: e(\n par' e)sthlo\n pê/mata su/nduo dai/ontai brotoi=s A)tha/natoi--pollô=| ga\r plei/ona ta\ kaka/; kai\ ta\ me\n] (sc.
[Greek: a)gatha\]) [Greek: mo/gis kai\ dia\ pollô=n phronti/dôn ktô/metha, ta\ de\ kaka/, pa/nu r(a|di/ôs.]
In the Sept. cont.
Thebas of Æschylus, Eteokles complains of this doctrine as a hardship and unfairness to the chief.
If (says he) we defend the city successfully, our success will be ascribed to the Gods; if, on the contrary, we fail, Eteokles alone will be the person blamed for it by all the citizens:-[Greek: Ei) me\n ga\r eu)= pra/xaimen, ai)ti/a theou=; Ei) d' au)=th', o(\ mê\ ge/noito, sumphora\ tu/choi, E)teokle/ês a)\n ei(=s polu\s kata\ pto/lin U(mnoi=th' u(p' a)stô=n phroimi/ois polur)r(o/thois Oi)mô/gmasin th']--(v.
4).]
The principle involved in these criticisms of Plato deserves notice, in more than one point of view.
[Side-note: Position of Plato as an innovator on the received faith and traditions.
Fictions indispensable to the Platonic Commonwealth.]
That which he proposes for his commonwealth is hardly less than a new religious creed, retaining merely old names of the Gods and old ceremonies.
He intends it to consist of a body of premeditated fictitious stories, prepared by poets under his inspection and controul.
He does not set up any pretence of historical truth for these stories, when first promulgated: he claims no traditionary evidence, no divine inspiration, such as were associated more or less with the received legends, in the minds both of those who recited and of those who heard them.
He rejects these legends, because they are inconsistent with his belief and sentiment as to the character of the Gods.
Such rejection we can understand:--but he goes a step farther, and directs the coinage of a new body of legends, which have no other title to credence, except that they are to be in harmony with his belief about the general character of the Gods, and that they will produce a salutary ethical effect upon the minds of his Guardians.
They are deliberate fictions, the difference between fact and fiction being altogether neglected: they are pious frauds, constructed upon an authoritative type, and intended for an orthodox purpose.
The exclusive monopoly of coining and circulating fictions is a privilege which Plato exacts for himself as founder, and for the Rulers, after his commonwealth is founded.
[68] All the narrative matter circulating in his community is to be prepared with reference to his views, and stamped at his mint.
He considers it not merely a privilege, but a duty of the Rulers, to provide and circulate fictions for the benefit of the community, like physicians administering wholesome medicines.
[69] This is a part of the machinery essential to his purpose.
He remarks that it had already been often worked successfully by others, for the establishment of cities present or past.
There had been no recent example of it, indeed, nor will he guarantee the practicability of it among his own contemporaries.
Yet, unless certain fundamental fictions can be accredited among his citizens, the scheme of his commonwealth must fail.
They must be made to believe that they are all earthborn and all brethren; that the earth which they inhabit is also their mother: but that there is this difference among them--the Rulers have gold mingled with their constitution, the other Guardians have silver, the remaining citizens have brass or iron.
This bold fiction must be planted as a fundamental dogma, as an article of unquestioned faith, in the minds of all the citizens, in order that they may be animated with the proper sentiments of reverence towards the local soil as their common mother--of universal mutual affection among themselves as brothers--and of deference, on the part of the iron and brazen variety, towards the gold and silver.
At least such must be the established creed of all the other citizens except the few Rulers.
It ought also to be imparted, if possible, to the Rulers themselves; but _they_ might be more difficult to persuade.
[70] [Footnote 68: Plato, Republ.
iii.
p. 389 B; compare ii.
p. 382 C. Dähne (Darstellung der Jüdisch-Alexandrin.
Religions-Philosophie, i. pp.
48-56) sets forth the motives which determined the new interpretations of the Pentateuch by the Alexandrine Jews, from the translators of the Septuagint down to Philo.
In the view of Philo there was a double meaning: the literal meaning, for the vulgar: but also besides this, there was an allegorical, the real and true meaning, discoverable only by sagacious judges.
Moses (he said) gave the literal meaning, though not true, [Greek: pro\s tê\n tô=n pollô=n didaskali/an.
Manthane/tôsan ou)=n pa/ntes oi( toiou=toi ta= pseudê=, di' ô(=n ô)phelêthê/sontai, ei) mê\ du/nantai di' a)lêthei/as sôphroni/zesthai] (Philo, Quæst.
in Genesin, ap.
Dähne, p. 50).
Compare also Philo, on the [Greek: kano/nes kai\ no/moi tê=s a)llêgori/as], Dähne, pp.
60-68.
Herakleitus (Allegoriæ Homericæ ed.
Mehler, 1851) defends Homer warmly against the censorial condemnation of Plato.
Herakleitus contends for an allegorical interpretation, and admits that it is necessary to find one.
He inveighs against Plato in violent terms.
[Greek: E)r)r(i/phthô de\ kai\ Pla/tôn o( ko/lax], &c. Isokrates (Orat.
Panathen.
s. 22-28) complains much of the obloquy which he incurred, because some opponents alleged that he depreciated the poets, especially Homer and Hesiod.]
[Footnote 69: Plato, Repub.
iii.
pp.
389 B, 414 C.] [Footnote 70: Plato, Repub.
iii.
p. 414 B-C. [Greek: Ti/s a)\n ou)=n ê(mi=n mêchanê\ ge/noito tô=n pseudô=n tô=n e)n de/onti gignome/nôn, ô(=n nu=n dê\ e)le/gomen, gennai=o/n ti e(\n pseudome/nous pei=sai, ma/lista me\n kai\ au)tou\s tou\s a)/rchontas, ei) de\ mê/, tê\n a)/llên po/lin?
Poi=on ti?
Mêde\n kaino/n, a)lla\ Phoinikiko/n ti, _pro/teron me\n ê)/dê pollachou= gegono/s_, ô(s phasin oi( poiêtai\ kai\ pepei/kasin, e)ph' ê(mô=n de\ ou) gegono\s ou)d' oi)=da ei) geno/menon a)/n, pei=sai de\ suchnê=s peithou=s.]
Compare De Legg.
pp.
663-664.]
[Side-note: Difficulty of procuring first admission for fictions.
Ease with which they perpetuate themselves after having been once admitted.]
Plato fully admits the extreme difficulty of procuring a first introduction and establishment for this new article of faith, which nevertheless is indispensable to set his commonwealth afloat.
But if it can be once established, there will be no difficulty at all in continuing and perpetuating it.
[71] Even as to the first commencement, difficulty is not to be confounded with impossibility: for the attempt has already been made with success in many different places, though there happens to be no recent instance.
[Footnote 71: Plato, Repub.
iii.
p. 415 C-D. [Greek: Tou=ton ou)=n to\n mu=thon o(/pôs a)\n peisthei=en, e)/cheis tina\ mêchanê/n?
Ou)damô=s, o(/pôs g' a)\n _au)toi\ ou(=toi_; o(/pôs me/nt' a)\n oi( tou/tôn ui(ei=s kai\ oi( e)/peita oi(/ t' a)/lloi a)/nthrôpoi oi( u(/steron.]]
We learn hence to appreciate the estimate which Plato formed of the ethical and religious faith, prevalent in the various societies around him.
He regards as fictions the accredited stories respecting Gods and Heroes, which constituted the matter of religious belief among his contemporaries; being familiarised to all through the works of poets, painters, and sculptors, as well as through votive offerings, such as the robe annually worked by the women of Athens for the Goddess Athênê.
These fictions he supposes to have originally obtained credence either through the charm of poets and narrators, or through the deliberate coinage of an authoritative lawgiver; presupposing in the community a vague emotional belief in the Gods--invisible, quasi-human agents, of whom they knew nothing distinct--and an entire ignorance of recorded history, past as well as present.
Once received into the general belief, which is much more an act of emotion than of reason, such narratives retain their hold both by positive teaching and by the self-operating transmission of this emotional faith to each new member of the community, as well as by the almost entire absence of criticism: especially in earlier days, when men were less intelligent but more virtuous than they are now (in Plato's time)--when among their other virtues, that of unsuspecting faith stood conspicuous, no one having yet become clever enough to suspect falsehood.
[72] This is what Plato assumes as the natural mental condition of society, to which he adapts his improvements.
He disapproves of the received fictions, not because they are fictions, but because they tend to produce a mischievous ethical effect, from the acts which they ascribe to the Gods and Heroes.
These acts were such, that many of them (he says), even if they had been true, ought never to be promulgated.
Plato does not pretend to substitute truth in place of fiction; but to furnish a better class of fictions in place of a worse.
[73] The religion of the Commonwealth, in his view, is to furnish fictions and sanctions to assist the moral and political views of the lawgiver, whose duty it is to employ religion for this purpose.
[74] [Footnote 72: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 679 C-E. [Greek: a)gathoi\ me\n dê\ dia\ tau=ta/ te ê)=san kai\ dia\ tê\n legome/nên eu)ê/theian; a(\ ga\r ê)/kouon kala\ kai\ ai)schra/, eu)ê/theis o)/ntes ê(gou=nto a)lêthe/stata le/gesthai kai\ e)pei/thonto; pseu=dos ga\r u(ponoei=n ou)dei\s ê)pi/stato dia\ sophi/an, _ô(/sper ta\ nu=n_, a)lla\ peri\ theô=n te kai\ a)nthrô/pôn ta\ lego/mena a)lêthê= nomi/zontes e)/zôn kata\ tau=ta .
.
.
tô=n nu=n a)techno/teroi me\n kai\ a)mathe/steroi .
.
.
eu)êthe/steroi de\ kai\ a)ndreio/teroi kai\ a(/ma sôphrone/steroi kai\ xu/mpanta dikaio/teroi.]]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 E. This carelessness about historical matter of fact, as such--is not uncommon with ancient moralists and rhetoricians.
Both of them were apt to treat history not as a series of true matters of fact, exemplifying the laws of human nature and society, and enlarging our knowledge of them for future inference--but as if it were a branch of fiction, to be handled so as to please our taste or improve our morality.
Dionysius of Halikarnassus, blaming Thucydides for the choice of his subject, goes so far as to say "that the Peloponnesian war, a period of ruinous discord in Greece, ought to have been left in oblivion, and never to have passed into history" (Dion.
Hal.
ad Cn.
Pomp.
de Præc.
Histor.
Judic.
p. 768 Reiske).
See a note at the beginning of chap.
38 of my "History of Greece".]
[Footnote 74: Sext.
Empiric.
adv.
Mathematicos, ix.
54, p. 562.
Compare Polybius, vi.
56; Dion.
Hal.
ii.
13; Strabo, i. p. 19.
These three, like Plato, consider the matters of religious belief to be fictions prescribed by the lawgiver for the purpose of governing those minds which are of too low a character to listen to truth and reason.
Strabo states, more clearly than the other two, the employment of [Greek: mu=thoi] by the lawgiver for purposes of education and government; he extends this doctrine to [Greek: pa=sa theologi/a a)rchai+kê\ .
.
.
pro\s tou\s nêpio/phronas] (p.
19).]
[Side-note: Views entertained by Kritias and others, that the religious doctrines generally believed had originated with law-givers, for useful purposes.]
We read in a poetical fragment of Kritias (the contemporary of Plato, though somewhat older) an opinion advanced--that even the belief in the existence of the Gods sprang originally from the deliberate promulgation of lawgivers, for useful purposes.
The opinion of Plato is not exactly the same, but it is very analogous: for he holds that all which the community believe, respecting the attributes and acts of the Gods, must consist of fictions, and that accordingly it is essential for the lawgiver to determine what the accredited fictions in his own community shall be: he must therefore cause to be invented and circulated such as conduce to the ethical and political results which he himself approves.
Private citizens are forbidden to tell falsehood; but the lawgiver is to administer falsehood, on suitable occasions, as a wholesome medicine.
[75] [Footnote 75: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 389 B.
[Greek: e)n pharma/kou ei)/dei].
Compare De Legg.
ii.
p. 663 D. Eusebius enumerates this as one of the points of conformity between Plato and the Hebrew records: in which, Eusebius says, you may find numberless similar fictions ([Greek: muri/a toiau=ta]), such as the statements of God being jealous or angry or affected by other human passions, which are fictions recounted for the benefit of those who require such treatment (Euseb.
Præpar.
Evan.
xii.
31).]
Plato lays down his own individual preconception respecting the characters of the Gods, as orthodoxy for his Republic: directing that the poets shall provide new narratives conformable to that type.
What is more, he establishes a peremptory censorship to prevent the circulation of any narratives dissenting from it.
As to truth or falsehood, all that he himself claims is that his general preconception of the character of the Gods is true, and worthy of their dignity; while those entertained by his contemporaries are false; the particular narratives are alike fictitious in both cases.
Fictitious as they are, however, Plato has fair reason for his confident assertion, that if they could once be imprinted on the minds of his citizens, as portions of an established creed, they would maintain themselves for a long time in unimpaired force and credit.
He guards them by the artificial protection of a censorship, stricter than any real Grecian city exhibited: over and above the self-supporting efficacy, usually sufficient without farther aid, which inheres in every established religious creed.
[Side-note: Main points of dissent between Plato and his countrymen, in respect to religious doctrine.]
The points upon which Plato here chiefly takes issue with his countrymen, are--the general character of the Gods--and the extent to which the Gods determine the lot of human beings.
He distinctly repudiates as untrue, that which he declares to be the generally received faith: though in other parts of his writings, we find him eulogising the merit of uninquiring faith--of that age of honest simplicity when every one believed what was told him from his childhood, and when no man was yet clever enough to suspect falsehood.
[76] [Footnote 76: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 679; compare x. p. 887 C, xi.
p. 913 C. So again in the Timæus (p. 40 E), he accepts the received genealogy of the Gods, upon the authority of the sons and early descendants of the Gods.
These sons must have known their own fathers; we ought therefore "to follow the law and believe them" ([Greek: e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on]) though they spoke without either probable or demonstrative proof ([Greek: a)du/naton ou)=n theô=n paisi\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn kai\ a)nagkai/ôn a)podei/xeôn le/gousin]).
That which Plato here enjoins to be believed is the genealogy of Hesiod and other poets, though he does not expressly name the poets.
Julian in his remark on the passage (Orat.
vii.
p. 237) understands the poets to be meant, and their credibility to be upheld, by Plato--[Greek: kai\ toiau=ta e(/tera e)n Timai/ô|; pisteu/ein ga\r a(plô=s a)xioi= kai\ chôri\s a)podei/xeôs legome/nois, o(/sa u(pe\r tô=n theô=n phasi\n oi( poiêtai/.]
See Lindau's note on this passage in his edition of the Timæus, p.
62.]
[Side-note: Theology of Plato compared with that of Epikurus--Neither of them satisfied the exigencies of a believing religious mind of that day.]
The discord on this important point between Plato and the religious faith of his countrymen, deserves notice the rather, because the doctrines in the Republic are all put into the mouth of Sokrates, and are even criticised by Aristotle under the name of Sokrates.
[77] Most people, and among them the historical Sokrates, believed in the universal agency of the Gods.
[78] No--(affirms Plato) the Gods are good beings, whose nature is inconsistent with the production of evil: we must therefore divide the course of events into two portions, referring the good only to the Gods and the evil to other causes.
Moreover--since the evil in the world is not merely considerable, but so considerable as greatly to preponderate over good, we must pronounce that most things are produced by these other causes (not farther particularised by Plato) and comparatively few things by the Gods.
Now Epikurus (and some contemporaries[79] of Plato even before Epikurus) adopted these same premisses as to the preponderance of evil--but drew a different inference.
They inferred that the Gods did not interfere at all in the management of the universe.
Epikurus conceived the Gods as immortal beings living in eternal tranquillity and happiness; he thought it repugnant to their nature to exchange this state for any other--above all, to exchange it for the task of administering the universe, which would impose upon them endless vexation without any assignable benefit.
Lastly, the preponderant evil, visibly manifested in the universe, afforded to his mind a positive proof that it was not administered by them.
[80] [Footnote 77: Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
1, &c. Compare the second of the Platonic Epistles, p.
314.]
[Footnote 78: [Greek: Zeu\s panai/tios, panerge/tas], &c. Æschyl.
Agamem.
1453.
Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
1, 8-9.]
[Footnote 79: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
899 D, 888 C. He intimates that there were no inconsiderable number of persons who then held the doctrine, compare p. 891 B.]
[Footnote 80: Lucretius, ii.
180: Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse creatam Naturam mundi, quæ tantâ 'st prædita culpâ-ii.
1093:-Nam--pro** sancta Deûm tranquillâ pectora pace, Quæ placidum degunt ævum, vitamque serenam-Quis regere immensi summam, quis habere profundi Indu manu validas potis est moderanter habenas?
Compare v. 167-196, vi.
68.]
Comparing the two doctrines, we see that Plato, though he did not reject altogether, as Epikurus did, the agency of the Gods in the universe,--restricted it here nevertheless so as to suit the ethical exigencies of his own mind.
He thus discarded so large a portion of it, as to place himself, or rather his spokesman Sokrates, in marked hostility with the received religious faith.
If Melêtus and Anytus lived to read the Platonic Republic (we may add, also the dialogue called Euthyphron), they would probably have felt increased persuasion that their indictment against Sokrates was well-grounded:[81] since he stood proclaimed by the most eminent of his companions as an innovator in matters of religion, and as disbelieving a very large portion of what was commonly received by pious Athenians.
With many persons, it was considered a species of sacrilege to disbelieve any narrative which had once been impressed upon them respecting the Gods or the divine agency: the later Pythagoreans laid it down as a canon, that this was never to be done.
[82] [Footnote 81: Xenoph.
Memorab.
i.
1.
[Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou\s ou) nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn; a)dikei= de\ kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn.]
This was the form of the indictment against Sokrates.
The Republic of Plato certainly shows ground for the first part of it.
Sokrates did not introduce new names and persons of Gods, but he preached new views about their characters and agency, and (what probably would cause the greatest offence) he emphatically blames the received views.
The Republic of Plato here embodies what we read in the Platonist Maximus Tyrius (ix.
8) as the counter-indictment of Sokrates against the Athenian people--[Greek: ê( de\ Sôkra/tous kata\ A)thênai/ôn graphê/; A)dikei= o( A)thênai/ôn dê=mos, ou(\s me\n Sôkra/tês nomi/zei theou\s ou) nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia e)peisphe/rôn .
.
.
A)dikei= de\ o( dê=mos kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn.]]
[Footnote 82: Jamblichus, Vit.
Pythag.
c. 138-148.
Adhortatio ad Philosophiam, p. 324, ed.
Kiessling.
See chap.
xxxvii.
of my "History of Greece," p. 345, last edit.]
[Side-note: Plato conceives the Gods according to the exigencies of his own mind--complete discord with those of the popular mind.]
Now the Gods, as here conceived by Plato conformably to his own ethical exigencies, are representatives of abstract goodness, or of what he considers as such[83]--but they are nothing else.
They have no other human emotions: they are invoked for the purposes of the schoolmaster and the lawgiver, to distribute prizes, and inflict chastisements, on occasions which Plato thinks suitable.
But Gods with these restricted functions were hardly less at variance with the current religious belief than the contemplative, theorising, Gods of Aristotle--or the perfectly tranquil and happy Gods of Epikurus.
The Gods of the popular faith were not thus specialised types, embodiments of one abstract, ethical, idea.
They were concrete personalities, many-sided and many-coloured, endowed with great variety of dispositions and emotions: having sympathies and antipathies, preferences and dislikes, to persons, places, and objects: sensitive on the score of attention paid to themselves, and of offerings tendered by men, jealous of any person who appeared to make light of them, or to put himself upon a footing of independence or rivalry: connected with particular men and cities by ties of family and residence.
[84] They corresponded with all the feelings of the believer; with his hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, his pride or his shame, his love or preference towards some persons or institutions, his hatred and contempt for others.
They were sometimes benevolent, sometimes displeased and unpropitious, according to circumstances.
They were indeed believed to interfere for the protection of what the believer accounted innocence or merit, and for the avenging of what he called wrong.
But this was only one of many occasions on which they interfered.
They dispensed alternately evil and good, out of the two casks mentioned in that Homeric verse[85] which Plato so emphatically censures.
Nay, it was as much a necessity of the believer's imagination to impute marked and serious suffering to the envy or jealousy of the Gods, as good fortune and prosperity to their kindness.
Such a turn of thought is not less visible in Herodotus, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, &c., than in Homer and the other poets whom Plato rebukes.
Moreover it is frequently expressed or implied in the answers or admonitions delivered from oracles.
[86] [Footnote 83: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 379.
In the sixteenth chapter of my "History of Greece" (see p. 504 seq.)
I have given many remarks on the ancient Grecian legends, and on the varying views entertained in ancient times respecting them, considered chiefly in reference to the standard of historical belief.
I here regard them more as matters of religious belief and emotion.]
[Footnote 84: Nowhere is the relation between men and the Gods, and the all-covering variety of divine agency, in ancient Grecian belief, more instructively illustrated than in the Hippolytus of Euripides.
Hippolytus, a youth priding himself on piety and still more upon inexorable continence (1140-1365), is not merely the constant worshipper of the goddess Artemis, but also her companion; she sits with him, hunts with him; he hears her voice and converses with her; he knows her presence by the divine odour, though he does not see her ([Greek: su/nthake, sugku/nage], 1093-1391-87).
But he disdains to address a respectful word to Aphrodité, or to yield in any way to her influence, though he continually passes by her statue which stands at his gates; he even speaks of her in disparaging terms (13-101).
Aphrodité becomes deeply indignant with him, not because he is devoted to Artemis, but because he neglects and despises herself (20): for the Gods take offence when they are treated with disrespect, just as men do (6-94).
His faithful attendant laments this misguided self-sufficiency, and endeavours in vain to reason his master out of it (see the curious dialogue 87-120, also 445).
Aphrodité accordingly resolves to punish Hippolytus for this neglect by inspiring Phædra, his step-mother, with an irresistible passion for him: she foresees that this will prove the destruction of Phædra as well as of Hippolytus, but no such consideration can be allowed to countervail the necessity of punishing her enemies.
She accordingly smites Phædra with love-sickness, which, since Phædra will not reveal the cause, the chorus ascribes to the displeasure and visitation of some unknown divinity, Pan, Hekatê, Kybelê, &c. (142-238).
The course of this beautiful drama is well known: Aphrodité proves herself a goddess and something more (359): Phædra and Hippolytus both perish; Theseus is struck down with grief and remorse (1402); while Artemis, who appears at the end to console the dying Hippolytus and reprove Theseus, laments that it was not in her power, according to the established etiquette among the Gods, to interpose for the protection of Hippolytus against the anger of Aphrodité, but promises to avenge him by killing with her unerring arrows some marked favourite of Aphrodité (1327-1421).
"Non esse curæ Diis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem."--Tacitus.]
[Footnote 85: Homer, Iliad xxiv.
527.]
[Footnote 86: The opinion is memorable, which Herodotus puts into the mouth of the wisest and best man of his age--Solon.
[Greek: Ô)= Kroi=se, e)pista/meno/n me to\ thei=on pa=n e)o\n phthonero/n te kai\ tarachô=des, e)peirôta=s a)nthrôpêi+/ôn pragma/tôn peri/?]
(Herod.
i.
32).
Kroesus was overtaken by a terrible divine judgment because he thought himself the happiest of men (i.
34).
The Gods strike at persons of high rank and position: they do not suffer any one except themselves to indulge in self-exaltation (vii.
10).
Herodotus ascribes the like sentiment to another man distinguished for prudence--Amasis king of Egypt (iii.
40-44-125).
Compare Pausanias, ii.
33, and Æschyl.
Pers.
93, Supplices, 388, Hermann.
Herodotus and Pausanias proclaim the envy and jealousy of the Gods more explicitly than other writers.
About the usual disposition to regard the jealousy of the Gods as causing misfortunes and suffering, see Thucyd.
ii.
54, vii.
77; especially when a man by rash speech or act brings grave misfortune on himself, he is supposed to be under a misguiding influence by the Gods, expressed by Herodotus in the remarkable word [Greek: theoblabê/s] (Herodot.
i.
127, viii.
137; Xenoph.
Hellen.
vi.
4, 3; Soph.
Oed.
Kol.
371).
The poverty in which Xenophon found himself when he quitted the Cyreian army, is ascribed by himself, at the suggestion of the prophet Eukleides, to his having omitted to sacrifice to Zeus Meilichius during the whole course of the expedition and retreat.
The next day Xenophon offered an ample sacrifice to this God, and good fortune came upon him immediately afterwards; he captured Asidates the Persian, receiving a large ransom, with an ample booty, and thus enriched himself (Xenoph.
Anab.
vii.
8, 4-23).
Compare about [Greek: theô=n phtho/nos], Pindar, Pyth.
x.
20-44; Demosthenes cont.
Timokratem, p. 738; Nägelsbach, Die Nach-Homerische Theologie der Griechen, pp.
330-355.]
[Side-note: Repugnance of ordinary Athenians in regard to the criticism of Sokrates on the religious legends.]
When therefore the Platonic Sokrates in this treatise affirms authoritatively,--and affirms without any proof--his restricted version of the agency of the Gods, calling upon his countrymen to reject all that large portion of their religious belief, which rested upon the assumption of a wider agency, as being unworthy of the real attributes of the Gods,--he would confirm, in the minds of ordinary Athenians, the charge of culpable innovation in religion, preferred against him by his accusers.
To set up _à priori_ a certain type (either Platonic or Epikurean) of what the Gods _must_ be, different from what they were commonly believed to be,--and then to disallow, as unworthy and incredible, all that was inconsistent with this type, including a full half of the narratives consecrated in the emotional belief of the public--all this could not but appear as "impious rationalism," on the part of "the Sophist Sokrates".
[87] It would be not less repugnant to the feelings of ordinary Greeks, and would appear not more conclusive to their reason, than the arguments of rationalising critics upon many narratives of the Old Testament appear to orthodox readers of modern times--when these critics disallow as untrue many acts therein ascribed to God, on the ground that such acts are unworthy of a just and good being.
[Footnote 87: Æschines cont.
Timarch.
[Greek: Sôkra/tê to\n sophistê/n].
Lucretius, i.
80.
Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearis Impia te rationis inire elementa, viamque Indugredi sceleris-Plato, in Leges, v. 738 B, recognises the danger of disturbing the established and accredited religious [Greek: phê=mai], as well as the rites and ceremonies.]
[Side-note: Aristophanes connects the idea of immorality with the freethinkers and their wicked misinterpretations.]
Though the Platonic Sokrates, repudiating most of the narratives believed respecting Gods and Heroes, as being immoral and suggesting bad examples to the hearers, proposes to construct a body of new fictions in place of them--yet, if we turn to the Clouds of Aristophanes, we shall find that the old-fashioned and unphilosophical Athenian took quite the opposite view.
He connected immoral conduct with the new teaching, not with the old: he regarded the narratives respecting the Gods as realities of an unrecorded past, not as fictions for the purposes of the training-school: he did not imagine that the conduct of Zeus, in chaining up his father Kronus, was a proper model to be copied by himself or any other man: nay, he denounced all such disposition to copy, and to seek excuse for human misconduct in the example of the Gods, as abuse and profanation introduced by the sophistry of the freethinkers.
[88] In his eyes, the religious traditions were part and parcel of the established faith, customs and laws of the state; and Sokrates, in discrediting the traditions, set himself up as a thinker above the laws.
As to this feature, the Aristophanic Sokrates in the Clouds, and the Platonic Sokrates in the Republic, perfectly agree--however much they differ in other respects.
[Footnote 88: Aristophan.
Nubes, 358: [Greek: leptota/tôn lê/rôn i(ereu=].
885: [Greek: gnô/mas kaina\s e)xeuri/skôn].
1381.-[Greek: ô(s ê(du\ kainoi=s pra/gmasin kai\ dexioi=s o(milei=n, kai\ tô=n kathestô/tôn no/môn u(perphronei=n du/nasthai.]
894.-[Greek: (A)/dikos Lo/gos.)
-Pô=s dê=ta di/kês ou)/sês, o( Zeu\s ou)k a)po/lôlen, to\n pate/r' au(tou= dê/sas?
(Di/k.
Lo/gos) ai)boi=, touti\ kai\ dê\ chôrei= to\ kako/n; do/te moi leka/nên.]
1061.-[Greek: moicho\s ga\r ê)\n tu/chê|s a(lou/s, ta/d' a)nterei=s pro\s au)to/n, ô(s ou)de\n ê)di/kêkas; ei)=t' e)s to\n Di/' e)panenegkei=n; ka)kei=nos ô(s ê(/ttôn e)/rôto/s e)sti kai\ gunaikô=n.]
While Aristophanes introduces the freethinker as justifying unlawful acts by the example of Zeus, Plato (in the dialogue called Euthyphron) represents Euthyphron as indicting his father for murder, and justifying himself by the analogy of Zeus; Euthyphron being a very religious man, who believed all the divine matters commonly received and more besides (p. 6).
This exhibits the opposition between the Platonic and the Aristophanic point of view.
In the Eumenides of Æschylus (632), these Goddesses reproach Zeus with inconsistency, after chaining up his old father Kronus, in estimating so highly the necessity of avenging Agamemnon's death, as to authorise Orestes to kill Klytæmnestra.
An extract from Butler's Analogy, in reply to the objections offered by Deists against the Old Testament, will serve to illustrate the view which pious Athenians took of those ancient narratives which Plato censures.
Butler says: "It is the province of Reason to judge of the morality of the Scripture; _i.e._ not whether it contains things different from what we should have expected from a wise, just, and good Being, .
.
.
but whether it contains things plainly contradictory to Wisdom, Justice, or Goodness; to what the light of Nature teaches us of God.
And I know nothing of this sort objected against Scripture, excepting such objections as are formed upon suppositions which would equally conclude that the constitution of Nature is contradictory to wisdom, justice, or goodness; which most certainly it is not.
Indeed, there are some particular precepts in Scripture, given to particular persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and vicious, were it not for such precepts.
But it is easy to see that all these are of such a kind, as that the precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the action, and both constitutes and shows that not to be unjust or immoral which, prior to the precept, must have appeared and really been so; which may well be, since none of these precepts are contrary to immutable morality.
If it were commanded to cultivate the principles, and act from the spirit, of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty; the command would not alter the nature of the case or of the action, in any of these instances.
But it is quite otherwise in precepts which require only the doing an external action; for instance, taking away the property or life of any.
For men have no right to either life or property, but what arises solely from the grant of God; when this grant is revoked, they cease to have any right at all in either; and when this revocation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either.
And though a course of external acts which, without command, would be immoral, must make an immoral habit; yet a few detached commands have no such natural tendency.
"I thought proper to say thus much of the few Scripture precepts which require, not vicious actions, but actions which would have been vicious had it not been for such precepts; because they are sometimes weakly urged as immoral, and great weight is laid upon objections drawn from them.
But to me there seems no difficulty at all in these precepts, but what arises from their being offences--_i.e._ from their being liable to be perverted, as indeed they are, by wicked designing men, to serve the most horrid purposes, and perhaps to mislead the weak and enthusiastic.
And objections from this head are not objections against Revelation, but against the whole notion of Religion as a trial, and against the whole constitution of Nature."
(Butler's Analogy, Part.
ii.
ch.
3.)
I do not here propose to examine the soundness of this argument (which has been acutely discussed in a good pamphlet by Miss Hennell--'Essay on the Sceptical Tendency of Butler's Analogy,' p. 15, John Chapman, 1859).
It appeared satisfactory to an able reasoner like Butler: and believers at Athens would have found satisfaction in similar arguments, when the narratives in which they believed were pronounced by Sokrates mischievous and incredible, as imputing to the Gods unworthy acts.
For example--Zeus and Athêne instigate Pandarus to break the sworn truce between the Greeks and Trojans: Zeus sends Oneirus, or the Dream-God, to deceive Agamemnon (Plat.
Rep. ii.
pp.
379-383).
Here are acts (the orthodox reasoner would say) which would be immoral if it were not for the special command: but Agamemnon and the Greeks had no right to life or property, much less to any other comforts or advantages, except what arose from the gift of the Gods.
Now the Gods, on this particular occasion, thought fit to revoke the right which they had granted, making known such revocation to Pandarus; who, accordingly, in that particular case, committed no injustice in trying to kill Menelaus, and in actually wounding him.
The Gods did not give any general command "to cultivate the spirit and act upon the principles" of perjury and faithlessness: they merely licensed the special act of Pandarus--_hic et nunc_--by making known to him that they had revoked the right of the Greeks to have faith observed with them, at that particular moment.
When any man argues--"Pandarus was instigated by Zeus to break faith: therefore faithlessness is innocent and authorised: therefore _I_ may break faith"--this is "a perversion by wicked and designing men for a horrid purpose, and can mislead only the weak and enthusiastic".
Farther, If the Gods may by special mandates cause the murder or impoverishment of particular men by other men to be innocent acts, without sanctioning any inference by analogy--much more may the same be said respecting the acts of the Gods among themselves, which Sokrates censures, _viz._ their quarrels, violent manifestations by word and deed, amorous gusts, hearty laughter, &c. These too are particular acts, not intended to lead to consequences in the way of example.
The Gods have not issued any general command.
"Be quarrelsome, be violent," &c. If they are quarrelsome themselves on particular occasions, they have a right to be so; just as they have a right to take away any man's life or property whenever they choose: but _you_ are not to follow their example, and none but wicked men will advise you to do so.
To those believers who denounced Sokrates as a freethinker (Plat.
Euthyp.
p. 6 A) such arguments would probably appear satisfactory.
"_Sunt Superis sua jura_" is a general principle, flexible and wide in its application.
Of arguments analogous to those of Butler, really used in ancient times by advocates who defended the poets against censures like those of Plato, we find an illustrative specimen in the Scholia on Sophokles.
At the beginning of the Elektra (35-50), Orestes comes back with his old attendant or tutor to Argos, bent on avenging the death of his father.
He has been stimulated to that enterprise by the Gods (70), having consulted Apollo at Delphi, and having been directed by him to accomplish it not by armed force but by deceits ([Greek: do/loisi kle/psai], 36).
Keeping himself concealed, he sends the old attendant into the house of Ægisthus, with orders to communicate a false narrative that he (Orestes) is dead, having perished by an accident in the Pythian chariot-race: and he directs the attendant to certify this falsehood by oath ([Greek: a)/ggelle d' o)/rkô| prostithei/s], 47).
Upon which last words the Scholiast observes as follows:--"We must not take captious exception to the poet, as if he were here exhorting men to perjure themselves.
For Orestes is bound to obey the God, who commands him to accomplish the whole by deceit; so that while he appears to be impious by swearing a false oath, he by that very act shows his piety, since he does it in obedience to the God"--[Greek: mê\ smikrolo/gôs tis e)pila/bêtai, ô(s keleu/ontos e)piorkei=n tou= poiêtou=; dei= ga\r au)to\n pei/thesthai tô=| theô=|, to\ pa=n do/lô| pra/ssein parakeleuome/nô|; ô(/ste e)n oi(=s dokei= e)piorkô=n dussebei=n, dia\ tou/tôn eu)sebei=, peitho/menos tô=| theô=|.]]
[Side-note: Heresies ascribed to Sokrates by his own friends--Unpopularity of his name from this circumstance.]
In reviewing the Platonic Republic, I have thought it necessary to appreciate the theological and pædagogic doctrines, not merely with reference to mankind in the abstract, but also as they appeared to the contemporaries among whom they were promulgated.
[Side-note: Restrictions imposed by Plato upon musical modes and reciters.]
To all the above mentioned restrictions imposed by Plato upon the manifestation of the poet, both as to thoughts, words, and manner of recital--we must add those which he provides for music in its limited sense: the musical modes and instruments, the varieties of rhythm.
He allows only the lyre and the harp, with the panspipe for shepherds tending their flocks.
He forbids both the flute and all complicated stringed instruments.
Interdicting the lugubrious, passionate, soft, and convivial, modes of music, he tolerates none but the Dorian and Phrygian, suitable to a sober, resolute, courageous, frame of mind: to which also all the rhythm and movement of the body is to be adapted.
[89] Each particular manifestation of speech, music, poetry, and painting, having a natural affinity with some particular emotional and volitional state--emanating from it in the mind of the author and suggesting it in other minds--nothing is to be tolerated except what exhibits goodness and temperance of disposition,--grace, proportion, and decency of external form.
[90] Artisans are to observe the like rules in their constructions: presenting to the eye nothing but what is symmetrical.
The youthful Guardians, brought up among such representations, will have their minds imbued with correct æsthetical sentiment; they will learn even in their youngest years, before they are competent to give reasons, to love what is beautiful and honourable to hate what is ugly and mean.
[91] [Footnote 89: Plato, Repub.
iii.
pp.
399-400.]
[Footnote 90: Plato, Repub.
iii.
pp.
400 D-401 B.
[Greek: o( tro/pos tê=s le/xeôs--tô=| tê=s psuchê=s ê)/thei e(/petai--prosanagkaste/on tê\n tou= a)gathou= ei)ko/na ê)/thous e)mpoiei=n.]]
[Footnote 91: Plato, Repub.
iii.
pp.
401-402 A.]
[Side-note: All these restrictions intended for the emotional training of the Guardians.]
All these enactments and prohibitions have for their purpose the ethical and æsthetical training of the Guardians: to establish and keep up in each individual Guardian, a good state of the emotions, and a proper internal government--that is, a due subordination of energy and appetite to Reason.
[92] Their bodies will also be trained by a good and healthy scheme of gymnastics, which will at the same time not only impart to them strength but inspire them with courage.
The body is here considered, not (like what we read in Phædon and Philêbus) as an inconvenient and depraving companion to the mind: but as an indispensable co-operator, only requiring to be duly reined.
[Footnote 92: Plato, Repub.
x. p. 608 B.
[Greek: peri\ tê=s e)n au(tô=| politei/as dedio/ti--me/gas o( a)gô/n, me/gas, ou)ch o(/sos dokei=, to\ chrêsto\n ê)\ kako\n gene/sthai.]]
[Side-note: Regulations for the life of the Guardians, especially the prohibition of separate property and family.]
The Guardians, of both sexes, thus educated and disciplined, are intended to pass their whole lives in the discharge of their duties as Guardians; implicitly obeying the orders of the Few Philosophical chiefs, and quartered in barracks under strict regulations.
Among these regulations, there are two in particular which have always provoked more surprise and comment than any other features in the commonwealth; first, the prohibition of separate property--next, the prohibition of separate family--including the respective position of the two sexes.
[Side-note: Purpose of Plato in these regulations.]
The directions of Plato on these two points not only hang together, but are founded on the same reason and considerations.
He is resolved to prevent the growth of any separate interest, affections, or aspirations, in the mind of any individual Guardian.
Each Guardian is to perform his military and civil duties to the Commonwealth, and to do nothing else.
He must find his happiness in the performance of his duty: no double functions or occupations are tolerated.
This principle, important in Plato's view as regards every one, is of supreme importance as applying to the Guardians,[93] in whom resides the whole armed force of the Commonwealth and by whom the orders of the Chiefs or Elders are enforced.
If the Guardians aspire to private ends of their own, and employ their force for the attainment of such ends, nothing but oppression and ruin of the remaining community can ensue.
A man having land of his own to cultivate, or a wife and family of his own to provide with comforts, may be a good economist, but he will never be a tolerable Guardian.
[94] To be competent for this latter function, he must neither covet wealth nor be exposed to the fear of poverty: he must desire neither enjoyments nor power, except what are common to his entire regiment.
He must indulge neither private sympathies nor private antipathies: he must be inaccessible to all motives which could lead him to despoil or hurt his fellow-citizens the producers.
Accordingly the hopes and fears involved in self-maintenance--the feelings of buyer, seller, donor, or receiver--the ideas of separate property, house, wife, or family--must never be allowed to enter into his mind.
The Guardians will receive from the productive part of the community a constant provision, sufficient, but not more than sufficient, for their reasonable maintenance.
Their residence will be in public barracks and their meals at a common mess: they must be taught to regard it as a disgrace to meddle in any way with gold and silver.
[95] Men and women will live all together, or distributed in a few fractional companies, but always in companionship, and under perpetual drill; beginning from the earliest years with both sexes.
Boys and girls will be placed from the beginning under the same superintendence; and will receive the same training, as well in gymnastic as in music.
The characters of both will be exposed to the same influences and formed in the same mould.
Upon the maintenance of such early, equal, and collective training, especially in music, under the orders of the Elders,--Plato declares the stability of the Commonwealth to depend.
[96] [Footnote 93: Plato, Repub.
iv.
pp.
421-A 423 D.] [Footnote 94: Plato, Repub.
iii.
p. 417 A-B.]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Repub.
iii.
pp.
416-417.]
[Footnote 96: Plato, Repub.
iv.
pp.
423-424 D-425 A-C.] [Side-note: Common life, education, drill, collective life, and duties, for Guardians of both sexes.
Views of Plato respecting the female character and aptitudes.]
The purpose being, to form good and competent Guardians the same training which will be best for the boys will also be best for the girls.
But is it true that women are competent to the function of Guardians?
Is the female nature endued with the same aptitudes for such duties as the male?
Men will ridicule the suggestion (says Plato) and will maintain the negative.
They will say that there are some functions for which men are more competent, others for which women are more competent than men: and that women are unfit for any such duty as that of Guardians.
Plato dissents from this opinion altogether.
There is no point on which he speaks in terms of more decided conviction.
Men and women (he says) can perform this duty conjointly, just as dogs of both sexes take part in guarding the flock.
It is not true that the female, by reason of the characteristic properties of sex--parturition and suckling--is disqualified for out-door occupations and restricted to the interior of the house.
[97] As in the remaining animals generally, so also in the human race.
There is no fundamental difference between the two sexes, other than that of the sexual attributes themselves.
From that difference no consequences flow, in respect to aptitude for some occupations, inaptitude for others.
There are great individual differences between one woman and another, as there are between one man and another: this woman is peculiarly fit for one task, that woman for something else.
But speaking of women generally and collectively, there is not a single profession for which they are peculiarly fit, or more fit than men.
Men are superior to women in every thing; in one occupation as well as in another.
Yet among both sexes, there are serious individual differences, so that many women, individually estimated, will be superior to many men; no women will equal the best men, but the best women will equal the second-best men, and will be superior to the men below them.
[98] Accordingly, in order to obtain the best Guardians, selection must be made from both sexes indiscriminately.
For ordinary duties, both will be found equally fit: but the heaviest and most difficult duties, those which require the maximum of competence to perform, will usually devolve upon men.
[99] [Footnote 97: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 451 D.] [Footnote 98: See this remarkable argument--Republic, v. pp.
453-456--[Greek: gunai=kes me/ntoi pollai\ pollô=n a)ndrô=n belti/ous ei)s polla/; to\ de\ o(/lon e)/chei ô(s su\ le/geis.
Ou)de\n a)/ra e)sti\n e)pitê/deuma tô=n po/lin dioikou/ntôn gunaiko\s dio/ti gunê/, ou)/d' a)ndro\s dio/ti a)nê/r, a)ll' o(moi/ôs diesparme/nai ai( phu/seis e)n a)mphoi=n toi=n zô/oin, kai\ pa/ntôn me\n mete/chei gunê\ e)pitêdeuma/tôn kata\ phu/sin, pa/ntôn de\ a)nê/r; e)pi\ pa=si de\ a)sthene/steron gunê\ a)ndro/s] (p. 455 D).
It would appear (from p. 455 C) that those who maintained the special fitness of women for certain occupations and their special unfitness for others, cited, as examples of occupations in which women surpassed men, weaving and cookery.
But Plato denies this emphatically as a matter of fact; pronouncing that women were inferior to men (_i.e._ the best women to the best men) in weaving and cookery no less than in other things.
We should have been glad to know what facts were present to his mind as bearing out such an assertion, and what observations were open to him of weaving as performed by males.
In Greece, weaving was the occupation of women very generally, whether exclusively or not we can hardly say; in Phoenicia, during the Homeric times, the finest robes are woven by Sidonian women (Iliad vi.
289): in Egypt, on the contrary, it was habitually performed by men, and Herodotus enumerates this as one of the points in which the Egyptians differed from other countries (Herodot.
ii.
35; Soph.
Oed.
Kol.
340, with the Scholia, and the curious citation contained therein from the [Greek: Barbarika\] of Nymphodorus).
The process of weaving was also conducted in a different manner by the Egyptians.
Whether Plato had seen finer webs in Egypt than in Greece we cannot say.]
[Footnote 99: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 457 A.]
[Side-note: His arguments against the ordinary doctrine.]
Those who maintain (continues Plato) that because women are different from men, therefore the occupations of the two ought to be different--argue like vexatious disputants who mistake verbal distinctions for real: who do not enquire what is the formal or specific distinction indicated by a name, or whether it has any essential bearing on the matter under discussion.
[100] Long-haired men are different from bald-heads: but shall we conclude, that if the former are fit to make shoes, the latter are unfit?
Certainly not: for when we inquire into the formal distinction connoted by these words, we find that it has no bearing upon such handicraft processes.
So again the formal distinction implied by the terms _male_, _female_, in the human race as in other animals, lies altogether in the functions of sex and procreation.
[101] Now this has no essential bearing on the occupations of the adult; nor does it confer on the male fitness for one set of occupations--on the female, fitness for another.
Each sex is fit for all, but the male is most fit for all: in each sex there are individuals better and worse, and differing one from another in special aptitudes.
Men are competent for the duties of Guardians, only on condition of having gone through a complete musical and gymnastical education.
Women are competent also, under the like condition; and are equally capable of profiting by the complete education.
Moreover, the chiefs must select for those duties the best natural subjects.
The total number of such is very limited: and they must select the best that both sexes afford.
[102] [Footnote 100: Plato, Republic, v. p. 454 A.
[Greek: dia\ to\ mê\ du/nastai kat' ei)/dê diairou/menoi to\ lego/meon e)piskopei=n, a)lla\ kat' au)to\ to\ o)/noma diô/kein tou= lechthe/ntos tê\n e)nanti/ôsin, e)/ridi, ou) diale/ktô|, pro\s a)llê/lous chrô/menoi.]
454 B: [Greek: e)peskepsa/metha de\ ou)d' o(pê|ou=n, ti/ ei)=dos to\ tê=s e(te/ras te kai\ tê=s au)tê=s phu/seôs, kai\ pro\s ti/ tei=non ô(rizo/metha to/te, o(/te ta\ e)pitêdeu/mata a)/llê| phu/sei a)/lla, tê=| de\ au)tê=| ta\ au)ta/, a)pedi/domen.]
Xenophon is entirely opposed to Plato on this point.
He maintains emphatically the distinct special aptitudes of man and woman.
Oeconom.
vii.
20-38; compare Euripid.
Electra, 74.]
[Footnote 101: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 455 C-D.] [Footnote 102: Plato, Repub.
v. p.
456.]
[Side-note: Opponents appealed to nature as an authority against Plato.
He invokes Nature on his own side against them.]
The strong objections, generally entertained against thus assigning to women equal participation in the education and functions of the Guardians, were enforced by saying--That it was a proceeding contrary to Nature.
But Plato not only denies the validity of this argument: he even retorts it upon the objectors, and affirms that the existing separation of functions between the two sexes is contrary to Nature, and that his proposition alone is conformable thereunto.
[103] He has shown that the specific or formal distinction of the two has no essential bearing on the question, and therefore that no argument can be founded upon it.
The specific or formal characteristic, in the case of males, is doubtless superior, taken abstractedly: yet in particular men it is embodied or manifested with various degrees of perfection, from very good to very bad.
In the case of females, though inferior abstractedly, it is in its best particular embodiments equal to all except the best males, and superior to all such as are inferior to the best.
Accordingly, the true dictate of Nature is, not merely that females _may be_ taken, but that they _ought to be_ taken, conjointly with males, under the selection of the Rulers, to fulfil the most important duties in the Commonwealth.
The select females must go through the same musical and gymnastic training as the males.
He who ridicules them for such bodily exercises, prosecuted with a view to the best objects, does not know what he is laughing at.
"For this is the most valuable maxim which is now, or ever has been, proclaimed--What is useful, is honourable.
What is hurtful, is base.
"[104] [Footnote 103: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 456 C. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra a)du/nata/ ge, ou)de\ eu)chai=s o(/moia, e)nomothetou=men, e)pei/per kata\ phu/sin e)ti/themen to\n no/mon; a)lla\ ta\ nu=n para\ tau=ta gigno/mena para\ phu/sin ma=llon, ô(s e)/oike, gi/gnetai.]]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 457 B.
[Greek: O( de\ gelô=n a)nê\r e)pi\ gumnai=s gunaixi/, tou= belti/stou e(/neka gumnazome/nais, a)telê= tou= geloi/ou sophi/as dre/pôn karpo/n, ou)de\n oi)=den, ô(s e)/oiken, e)ph' ô(=| gela=| ou)d' o(/, ti pra/ttei; ka/llista ga\r dê\ tou=to kai\ le/getai kai\ lele/xetai, o(/ti to\ me\n ô)phe/limon, kalo/n--to\ de\ blabero/n, ai)schro/n.]]
[Side-note: Collective family relations and denominations among the Guardians.]
Plato now proceeds to unfold the relations of the sexes as intended to prevail among the mature Guardians, after all have undergone the public and common training from their earliest infancy.
He conceives them as one thousand in total number, composed of both sexes in nearly equal proportion: since they are to be the best individuals of both sexes, the male sex, superior in formal characteristic, will probably furnish rather a greater number than the female.
It has already been stated that they are all required to live together in barracks, dining at a common mess-table, with clothing and furniture alike for all.
There is no individual property or separate house among them: the collective expense, in a comfortable but moderate way, is defrayed by contributions from the producing class.
Separate families are unknown: all the Guardians, male and female, form one family, and one only: the older are fathers and mothers of all the younger, the younger are sons and daughters of all the older: those of the same age are all alike brothers and sisters of each other: those who, besides being of the same age, are within the limits of the nuptial age and of different sexes, are all alike husbands and wives of each other.
[105] It is the principle of the Platonic Commonwealth that the affections implied in these family-words, instead of being confined to one or a few exclusively, shall be expanded so as to embrace all of appropriate age.
[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, v. p. 457 C-D. [Greek: ta\s gunai=kas tau/tas tô=n a)ndrô=n tou/tôn pa/ntôn pa/sas ei)=nai koina/s, i)di/a| de\ mêdeni\ mêdemi/an sunoikei=n; kai\ tou\s pai=das au)= koinou/s, kai\ mê/te gone/a e)/kgonon ei)de/nai to\n au)tou= mê/te pai=da gone/a.]]
[Side-note: Restrictions upon sexual intercourse--Purposes of such restrictions.]
But Plato does not at all intend that sexual intercourse shall take place between these men and women promiscuously, or at the pleasure of individuals.
On the contrary, he expressly denounces and interdicts it.
[106] A philosopher who has so much general disdain for individual impulse or choice, was not likely to sanction it in this particular case.
Indeed it is the special purpose of his polity to bring impulse absolutely under the controul of reason, or of that which he assumes as such.
This purpose is followed out in a remarkable manner as to procreation.
What he seeks as lawgiver is, to keep the numbers of the Guardians nearly stationary, with no diminution and scarcely any increase:[107] and to maintain the breed pure, so that the children born shall be as highly endowed by nature as possible.
To these two objects the liberty of sexual intercourse is made subservient.
The breeding is regulated like that of noble horses or dogs by an intelligent proprietor: the best animals of both sexes being brought together, and the limits of age fixed beforehand.
[108] Plato prescribes, as the limits of age, from twenty to forty for females--from thirty to fifty-five for males--when the powers of body and mind are at the maximum in both.
All who are younger as well as all who are older, are expressly forbidden to meddle in the procreation _for the city_: this being a public function.
[109] Between the ages above named, couples will be invited to marry in such numbers as the Rulers may consider expedient for ensuring a supply of offspring sufficient and not more than sufficient--having regard to wars, distempers, or any other recent causes of mortality.
[110] [Footnote 106: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 458 E. [Greek: a)ta/ktôs me\n mi/gnusthai a)llê/lois ê)\ a)/llo o(tiou=n poiei=n ou)/te o(/sion e)n eu)daimo/nôn po/lei ou)/t' e)a/sousin oi( a)/rchontes.]]
[Footnote 107: Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 A.
[Greek: to\ de\ plê=thos tô=n ga/môn e)pi\ toi=s a)/rchousi poiê/somen, i(/n' ô(s ma/lista diasô/zôsi to\n au)to\n a)rithmo\n tô=n a)ndrô=n, pro\s pole/mous te kai\ no/sous kai\ pa/nta ta\ toiau=ta a)poskopou=ntes, kai\ mê/te mega/lê ê(mi=n ê( po/lis kata\ to\ dunato\n mê/te smikra\ gi/gnêtai.]]
[Footnote 108: Plato, Repub.
v. p.
459.]
[Footnote 109: This is his phrase, repeated more than once--[Greek: ti/ktein tê=| po/lei, genna=|n tê=| po/lei--tô=n ei)s to\ koino\n gennê/seôn] (pp.
460-461).
What Lucan (ii.
387) observes about Cato of Utica, is applicable to the Guardians of the Platonic Republic:-"Venerisque huic maximus usus Progenies.
Urbi pater est, Urbique maritus."]
[Footnote 110: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 460 A.]
[Side-note: Regulations about marriages and family.]
There is no part of the Platonic system in which individual choice is more decidedly eliminated, and the intervention of the Rulers made more constantly paramount, than this respecting the marriages: and Plato declares it to be among the greatest difficulties which they will have to surmount.
They will establish festivals, in which they bring together the brides and bridegrooms, with hymns, prayer, and sacrifices, to the Gods: they will determine by lot what couples shall be joined, so as to make up the number settled as appropriate: but they will arrange the sortition themselves so cleverly, that what appears chance to others will be a result to them predetermined.
The best men will thus always be assorted with the best women, the inferior with the inferior: but this will appear to every one, except themselves, the result of chance.
[111] Any young man (of thirty and upwards) distinguished for bravery or excellence will be allowed to have more than one wife; since it is good not merely to recompense his merit, but also to multiply his breed.
[112] [Footnote 111: Plato, Repub.
v. p.
460.]
[Footnote 112: Plato, Repub.
v. pp.
460 B, 468 C. In the latter passage it even appears that he is allowed to make a choice.]
In the seventh month, or in the tenth month, after the ceremonial day, offspring will be born, from these unions.
But the children, immediately on being born, will be taken away from their mothers, and confided to nurses in an appropriate lodgment.
The mothers will be admitted to suckle them, and wet-nurses will also be provided, as far as necessary: but the period for the mother to suckle will be abridged as much as possible, and all other trouble required for the care of infancy will be undertaken, not by her, but by the nurses.
Moreover the greatest precautions will be taken that no mother shall know her own child: which is considered to be practicable, since many children will be born at nearly the same time.
[113] The children in infancy will be examined by the Rulers and other good judges, who will determine how many of them are sufficiently well constituted to promise fitness for the duties of Guardians.
The children of the good and vigorous couples, except in any case of bodily deformity, will be brought up and placed under the public training for Guardians: the unpromising children, and those of the inferior couples, being regarded as not fit subjects for the public training, will be secretly got rid of, or placed among the producing class of the Commonwealth.
[114] [Footnote 113: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
460 D, 461 D.] [Footnote 114: Compare Republic, v. pp.
459 D, 460 C, 461 C, with Timæus, p. 19 A.
In Timæus, where the leading doctrines of the Republic are briefly recapitulated, Plato directs that the children considered as unworthy shall be secretly distributed among the remaining community, _i.e._ not among the Guardians: in the Republic itself, his language, though not clear, seems to imply that they shall be exposed and got rid of.]
[Side-note: Procreative powers of individual Guardians required to be held at the disposal of the rulers, for purity of breed.]
What Plato here understands by marriage, is a special, solemn, consecrated, coupling for the occasion, with a view to breed for the public.
It constitutes no permanent bond between the two persons coupled: who are brought together by the authorities under a delusive sortition, but who may perhaps never be brought together at any future sortition, unless it shall please the same authorities.
The case resembles that of a breeding stud of horses and mares, to which Plato compares it: nothing else is wanted but the finest progeny attainable.
But this, in Plato's judgment, is the most important of all purposes: his commonwealth cannot maintain itself except under a superior breed of Guardians.
Accordingly, he invests his marriages with the greatest possible sanctity.
The religious solemnities accompanying them are essential to furnish security for the goodness of the offspring.
Any proceeding, either of man or woman, which contravenes the provisions of the rulers on this point, is peremptorily forbidden: and any child, born from unauthorised intercourse without the requisite prayers and sacrifices, is considered as an outcast.
Within the limits of the connubial age, all persons of both sexes hold their procreative powers exclusively at the disposition of the lawgiver.
But after that age is past, both men and women may indulge in intercourse with whomsoever they please, since they are no longer in condition to procreate for the public.
They are subject only to this one condition: not to produce any children, or, if perchance they do, not to bring them up.
[115] There is moreover one restriction upon the personal liberty of intercourse, after the connubial limits of age.
No intercourse is permitted between father and daughter, or between mother and son.
But how can such restriction be enforced, since no individual paternity or maternity is recognised in the Commonwealth?
Plato answers by admitting a collective paternity and maternity.
Every child born in the seventh month or in the tenth month after a couple have been solemnly wedded will be considered by them as their son or daughter, and will consider himself as such.
[116] [Footnote 115: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 461 C.] [Footnote 116: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 461 D.] Besides all these direct provisions for the purity of the breed of Guardians, which will succeed (so Plato anticipates) in a large majority of cases--the Rulers will keep up an effective supervision of detail, so as to exclude any unworthy exception, and even to admit into the Guardians any youth of very rare and exceptional promise who may be born among the remaining community.
For Plato admits that there may be accidental births both ways: brass and iron may by occasional accident give birth to gold or silver--and _vice versâ_.
[Side-note: Purpose to create an intimate and equal sympathy among all the Guardians, but to prevent exclusive sympathy of particular members.]
It is in this manner that Plato constitutes his body of Guardians; one thousand adult persons of both sexes,[117] in nearly equal numbers, together with a small proportion of children--the proportion of these latter must be very small since the total number is not allowed to increase.
His end here is to create an intimate and equal sympathy among them all, like that between all the members of the same bodily organism: to abolish all independent and exclusive sympathies of particular parts: to make the city One and Indivisible--a single organism, instead of many distinct conterminous organisms: to provide that the causes of pleasure and pain shall be the same to all, so that a man shall have no feeling of mine or thine, except in reference to his own body and that of another, which Plato notes as the greatest good--instead of each individual struggling apart for his own objects and rejoicing on occasions when his neighbour sorrows, which Plato regards as the greatest evil.
[118] All standing causes of disagreement or antipathy among the Guardians are assumed to be thus removed.
But if any two hot-headed youths get into a quarrel, they must fight it out on the spot.
This will serve as a lesson in gymnastics:--subject however to the interference of any old man as by-stander, whom they as well as all other young men are bound implicitly to obey.
[119] Moreover all the miseries, privations, anxiety, and dependence, inseparable from the life of a poor man under the system of private property, will disappear entirely.
[120] [Footnote 117: This number of 1000 appears stated by Aristotle (Politic.
ii.
6, p. 1265, a.
9), and is probably derived from Republic, iv.
p. 423 A; though that passage appears scarcely sufficient to prove that Plato meant to declare the number 1000 as peremptory.
However the understanding of Aristotle himself on the point is one material evidence to make us believe that this is the real construction intended by Plato.]
[Footnote 118: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
462-463-464 D. [Greek: dia\ to\ mêde/na i)/dion e)ktê=sthai plê\n to\ sô=ma, ta\ de\ a)/lla koina/.]
Compare Plato, Legg.
v. p. 739 C.] [Footnote 119: Plato, Republic, v. pp.
464-465.]
[Footnote 120: Plato, Republic, v. p. 465 C.] Such are the main features of Plato's Republic, in reference to his Guardians.
They afford a memorable example of that philosophical analysis, applied to the circumstances of man and society, which the Greek mind was the first to conceive and follow out.
Plato lays down his ends with great distinctness, as well as the means whereby he proposes to attain them.
Granting his ends, the means proposed are almost always suitable and appropriate, whether practicable or otherwise.
[Side-note: Platonic scheme--partial communism.]
The Platonic scheme is communism, so far as concerns the Guardians: but not communism in reference to the entire Commonwealth.
In this it falls short of his own ideal, and is only a second best: the best of all would be, in his view, a communion that should pervade all persons and all acts and sentiments, effacing altogether the separate self.
[121] Not venturing to soar so high, he confined his perfect communion to the Guardians.
Moreover his communism differs from modern theories in this.
They contemplate individual producers and labourers, handing over the produce to be distributed among themselves by official authority; they contemplate also a regulation not merely of distribution, but of reserved capital and productive agency, under the same authority.
But the Platonic Guardians are not producers at all.
Everything which they consume is found for them.
They are in the nature of paid functionaries, exempted from all cares and anxiety of self-maintenance, either present or future.
They are all comfortably provided, without hopes of wealth or fear of poverty: moreover they are all equally comfortable, so that no sentiment can grow up among them, arising from comparison of each other's possessions or enjoyments.
Among such men and women, brought up from infancy as Plato directs, the sentiment of property, with all the multifarious associations derived from it, would be unknown.
No man's self-esteem, no man's esteem of others, would turn upon it.
[Footnote 121: See Plato, De Legibus, v. p. 739 D. The Republic is _second best_; that which appears sketched in the treatise De Legibus is _third best_.]
In this respect, the remaining members of the city, apart from the Guardians, and furnishing all the subsistence of the Guardians, are differently circumstanced.
They are engaged in different modes of production, each exclusively in one mode.
They exchange, buy, and sell, with each other: there exist therefore among them gradations of strength, skill, perseverance, frugality, and good luck--together with the consequent gradations of wealth and poverty.
The substance or capital of the Commonwealth is maintained altogether by the portion of it which is extraneous to the Guardians; and among that portion there is no communism.
The maintenance of the Guardians is a tax which these men have to pay: but after paying it, they apply or enjoy the rest of their produce as they please, subject to the requirements of the Rulers for public service.
[122] [Footnote 122: Aristotle, in his comments upon the Platonic Republic (Politic.
ii.
5. p. 1262, b.
42 seq.
), advances arguments just in themselves, in favour of individual property, and against community of property.
But these arguments have little application to the Republic.]
Nevertheless we are obliged to divine what Plato means about the condition of the producing classes in his Commonwealth.
He himself tells us little or nothing about them; though they must constitute the large numerical majority.
And this defect is in him the less excusable, since he reckons them as component members of his Commonwealth; while Aristotle, in his ideal Commonwealth, does not reckon them as component members or citizens, but merely as indispensable adjuncts, in the same manner as slaves.
All that we know about the producers in the Platonic Commonwealth is, that each man is to have only one business--that for which he is most fit:--and that all are to be under the administration of the Rulers through the Guardians.
[Side-note: Soldiership as a separate profession has acquired greater development in modern times.]
The enlistment of soldiers, apart from civilians, and the holding of them under distinct laws and stricter discipline, is a practice familiar to modern ideas, though it had little place among the Greeks of Plato's day.
There prevailed also in Egypt[123] and in parts of Eastern Asia, from time immemorial, a distinction of castes: one caste being soldiers, invested with the defence of the country, and enjoying certain lands by the tenure of such military service: but in other respects, private proprietors like the rest--and receiving no special discipline, training, or education.
In Grecian Ideas, military duties were a part, but only a part, of the duties of a citizen.
This was the case even at Sparta.
Though in practice, the discipline of that city tended in a preponderant degree towards military aptitude, yet the Spartan was still a citizen, not exclusively a soldier.
[Footnote 123: Aristot.
Politic.
vii.
10.
Herodot.
ii.
164.
Plato alludes (Timæ.
24 A) to the analogy of Egyptian castes.]
[Side-note: Spartan institutions--great impression which they produced upon speculative Greek minds.]
It was from the Spartan institutions (and the Kretan, in many respects analogous) that the speculative political philosophers in Greece usually took the point of departure for their theories.
Not only Plato did so, but Xenophon and Aristotle likewise.
The most material fact which they saw before them at Sparta was, a public discipline both strict and continued, which directed the movements of the citizens, and guided their thoughts and feelings, from infancy to old age.
To this supreme controul the private feelings, both of family and property, though not wholly suppressed, were made to bend: and occasionally in a way quite as remarkable as any restrictions proposed by either Plato or Xenophon.
[124] Moreover, the Spartan institutions were of immemorial antiquity; believed to have been suggested or sanctioned originally by Apollo and the Delphian oracle, as the Kretan institutions were by Zeus.
[125] They had lasted longer than other Hellenic institutions without forcible subversion: they obtained universal notice, admiration, and deference, throughout Greece.
It was this conspicuous fact which emboldened the Grecian theorists to postulate for the lawgiver that unbounded controul, over the life and habits of citizens, which we read not merely in the Republic of Plato but in the Cyropædia of Xenophon, and to a great degree even in the Politica of Aristotle.
To an objector, who asked them how they could possibly expect that individuals would submit to such unlimited interference, they would have replied--"Look at Sparta.
You see there interference, as constant and rigorous as that which I propose, endured by the citizens not only without resistance, but with a tenacity and long continuance such as is not found among other communities with more lax regulations.
The habits and sentiments of the Spartan citizen are fashioned to these institutions.
Far from being anxious to shake them off, he accounts them a necessity as well as an honour."
This reply would have appeared valid and reasonable, in the fourth century before the Christian era.
And it explains--what, after all, is the most surprising circumstance to a modern reader--the extreme boldness of speculation, the ideal omnipotence, assumed by the leading Grecian political theorists: much even by Aristotle, though his aspirations were more limited and practical--far more by Xenophon--most of all by Plato.
Any theorist, proceeding avowedly [Greek: kat' eu)chê\n], considered himself within bounds when he assumed to himself no greater influence than had actually been exercised by Lykurgus.
[Footnote 124: See Xenophon, Hellenic.
vi.
4, 16, the account of what passed at Sparta after the battle of Leuktra, related also in my "History of Greece," chap.
78, vol.
x. p.
253.]
[Footnote 125: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
632 D, 634 A.]
[Side-note: Plans of these speculative minds compared with Spartan--Different types of character contemplated.]
Assuming such influence, however, he intended to employ it for ends approved by himself: agreeing with Lykurgus in the general principle of forming the citizen's character by public and compulsory discipline, but not agreeing with him in the type of character proper to be aimed at.
Xenophon departs least from the Spartan type: Aristotle and Plato greatly more, though in different directions.
Each of them applies to a certain extent the process of abstraction and analysis both to the individual and to the community: considering both of them as made up of component elements working simultaneously either in co-operation or conflict.
But in Plato the abstraction is carried farthest: the wholeness of the individual Guardian is completely effaced, so that each constitutes a small fraction or wheel of the real Platonic whole--the commonwealth.
The fundamental Platonic principle is, that each man shall have one function, and one only: an extreme application of that which political economists call the division of labour.
Among these many different functions, one, and doubtless the most difficult as well as important, is that of directing, administering, and defending the community: which is done by the Guardians and Rulers.
It is to this one function that all Plato's treatise is devoted: he tells us how such persons are to be trained and circumstanced.
What he describes, therefore, is not properly citizens administering their own affairs, but commanders and officers watching over the interests of others: a sort of military _bureaucracy_, with chiefs at its head, directing as well as guarding a multitude beneath them.
And what mainly distinguishes the Platonic system, is the extreme abstraction with which this public and official character is conceived: the degree to which the whole man is merged in the performance of his official duties: the entire extinction within him of the old individual Adam--of all private feelings and interests.
[Side-note: Plato carries abstraction farther than Xenophon or Aristotle.]
Both in Xenophon and in Aristotle, as well as at Sparta, the citizen is subjected to a public compulsory training, severe as well as continuous: but he is still a citizen as well as a functionary.
He has private interests as well as public duties:--a separate home, property, wife, and family.
Plato, on the contrary, contends that the two are absolutely irreconcileable: that if the Guardian has private anxieties for his own maintenance, private house and lands to manage, private sympathies and antipathies to gratify--he will become unfaithful to his duties as Guardian, and will oppress instead of protecting the people.
[126] You must choose between the two (he says): you cannot have the self-caring citizen and the public-minded Guardian in one.
[127] [Footnote 126: Plato, Republic, iii.
pp.
416-417.]
[Footnote 127: See the contrary opinion asserted by Nikias in his speech at Athens, Thucyd.
vi.
9.]
[Side-note: Anxiety shown by Plato for the good treatment of the Demos, greater than that shown by Xenophon and Aristotle.]
Looking to ideal perfection, I think Plato is right.
If the Rulers and Guardians have private interests of their own, those interests will corrupt more or less the discharge of their public duties.
The evil may be mitigated, by forms of government (representative and other arrangements), which make the continuance of power dependent upon popular estimation of the functionaries: but it cannot be abolished.
Neither Xenophon, nor Aristotle, nor the Spartan system, provided any remedy for this difficulty.
They scarcely even recognise the difficulty as real.
In all the three, the proportion of trained citizens to the rest of the people, would be about the same (so far as we can judge) as the proportion of the Platonic Guardians to the Demos or rest of the people.
But when we look to see what security either of the three systems provide for good behaviour on the part of citizens towards non-citizens, we find no satisfaction; nor do they make it, as Plato does, one prominent object of their public training.
Plato shows extreme anxiety for the object: as is proved by his sacrificing, in order to ensure it, all the private sources of pleasure to his Guardians.
Aristotle reproaches him with doing this, so as to reduce the happiness of his Guardians to nothing: but Plato, from his own point of view, would not admit the justice of such reproach, since he considers happiness to be derived from, and proportional to, the performance of duty.
[Side-note: In Aristotle's theory, the Demos are not considered as members of the Commonwealth, but as adjuncts.]
This last point must be perpetually kept in mind, in following Plato's reasoning.
But though he does not consider himself as sacrificing the happiness of his Guardians to their duty, we must give him credit for anxiety, greater than either Aristotle or Xenophon has shown, to ensure a faithful discharge of duty on the part of the Guardians towards the rest of the people.
In Aristotle's theory,[128] the rest of the people are set aside as not members of the Commonwealth, thus counting as a secondary and inferior object in his estimation; while the citizens, who alone are members, are trained to practise virtue for its own sake and for their own happiness.
In Plato's theory, the rest of the people are not only proclaimed as members of the Commonwealth,[129] but are the ultimate and capital objects of all his solicitude.
It is in protecting, governing, and administering them, that the lives of the Rulers and Guardians are passed.
Though they (the remaining people) receive no public training, yet Plato intends them to reap all the benefit of the laborious training bestowed on the Guardians.
This is a larger and more generous conception of the purpose of political institutions, than we find either in Aristotle or in Xenophon.
[Footnote 128: Aristotle, Politic.
vii.
9, p. 1328, b.
40, p. 1329, a.
25.]
[Footnote 129: Aristot.
Politic.
ii.
5, p. 1264, a.
12-26, respecting the Platonic Commonwealth, [Greek: kai/toi schedo\n to/ge plê=thos tê=s po/leôs to\ tô=n a)/llôn politô=n gi/netai plê=thos], &c. .
.
.
[Greek: Poiei= ga\r] (Plato) [Greek: tou\s me\n phu/lakas oi(=on phrourou/s, tou\s de\ geôrgou\s kai\ tou\s techni/tas kai\ tou\s a)/llous, poli/tas.]]
[Side-note: Objection urged by Aristotle against the Platonic Republic, that it will be two cities.
Spiritual pride of the Guardians, contempt for the Demos.]
There is however another objection, which seems grave and well founded, advanced by Aristotle against the Platonic Republic.
He remarks that it will be not one city, but two cities, with tendencies more or less adverse to each other:[130] that the Guardians, educated under the very peculiar training and placed under the peculiar relations prescribed to them, will form one city--while the remaining people, who have no part either in the one or the other, but are private proprietors with separate families--will form another city.
I do not see what reply the Platonic Republic furnishes to this objection.
Granting full success to Plato in his endeavours to make the Guardians One among themselves, we find nothing to make them One with the remaining people, nor to make the remaining people One with them.
[131] On the contrary, we observe such an extreme divergence of sentiment, character, pursuit, and education, as to render mutual sympathy very difficult, and to open fatal probabilities of mutual alienation: probabilities hardly less, than if separate proprietary interests had been left to subsist among the Guardians.
This is a source of mischief which Plato has not taken into his account.
The entire body of Guardians cannot fail to carry in their bosoms a sense of extreme pride in their own training, and a proportionally mean estimate of the untrained multitude alongside of them.
The sentiment of the gold and silver men, towards the brass and iron men, will have in it too much of contempt to be consistent with civic fraternity: like the pride of the Twice-Born Hindoo Brahmin, when comparing himself with the lower Hindoo castes: or like that of the Pythagorean brotherhood, who "regarded the brethren as equal to the blessed Gods, but held all the rest to be unworthy of any account".
[132] The Spartan training appears to have produced a similar effect upon the minds of the citizens who went through it.
And indeed such an effect appears scarcely avoidable, under the circumstances assumed by Plato.
He himself is proud of his own ideal training, so as to ascribe to those who receive it a sentiment akin to that of the Olympic victors: while he employs degrading analogies to signify the pursuits and enjoyments of the untrained multitude, who are assimilated to the appetite or lower element in the organism, existing only as a mutinous crew necessary to be kept down.
[133] That spiritual pride, coupled with spiritual contempt, should be felt by the Guardians, is the natural result; as it is indeed the essential reimbursement to their feelings, for the life of drill and self-denial which Plato imposes upon them.
And how, under such a sentiment, the two constituent elements in his system are to be competent to work out his promised result of mutual happiness, he has not shown.
[134] [Footnote 130: Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
5, p. 1264, a.
24.
[Greek: e)n mia=| ga\r po/lei du/o po/leis, a)nagkai=on ei)=nai, kai\ tau/tas u(penanti/as a)llê/lais.]
The most forcible of the objections urged by Aristotle against the Platonic Republic, are those contained in this chapter respecting the relations between the Guardians and the rest of the community.]
[Footnote 131: The oneness, which Plato proclaims as belonging to his whole city, belongs in reality only to the body of Guardians; of whom he sometimes speaks as if they were the whole city, which however is not his real intention; see Republic, v. p. 462-463 A.]
[Footnote 132: [Greek: Tou\s me\n e(tai/rous ê)=gen i)/sous maka/ressi theoi=sin, Tou\s d' a)/llous ê(gei=t' ou)/t' e)n lo/gô| ou)/t' e)n a)rithmô=|.]]
[Footnote 133: Plato, Republ.
v. 465 D. Aristotle says (in the Nikom.
Ethics, i.
5) when discussing the various ideas entertained about happiness--[Greek: Oi( me\n ou)=n polloi\ pantelô=s a)ndrapodô/deis phai/nontai boskêma/tôn bi/on proairou/menoi.]
This is much the estimation which the Platonic Guardians would be apt to form respecting the Demos.]
[Footnote 134: The foregoing remarks are an expansion, and a sequel, of Aristotle's objection against the Platonic Republic--That it is not One City, but two discordant cities in that which is nominally One.
I must however add that the same objection may be urged against the Xenophontic constitution of a city; and also, in substance, even against the proposition of Aristotle himself for the same purpose.
Xenophon, in his Cyropædia, proposes a severe, life-long drill and discipline, like that of the Spartans: from which indeed he does not formally exclude any citizens, but which he announces to be actually attended only by the wealthy, since they alone can afford to attend continuously and habitually, the poorer men being engaged in the cares of maintenance.
All the functions of the state, civil and military, are performed exclusively by those who go through the public discipline.
We have here the two cities in One, which Aristotle objects to in Plato; with the consequent loss of civic fraternity between them.
And when we look to that which Aristotle himself suggests, we find him evading the objection by a formal sanction of the very mischief upon which the objection is founded.
He puts the husbandmen and artisans altogether out of the pale of his city, which is made to include the disciplined citizens or Guardians alone.
His city may thus be called One, inasmuch as it admits only homogeneous elements, and throws out all such as are heterogeneous; but he thus avowedly renounces as insoluble the problem which Plato and Xenophon try, though unsuccessfully, to solve.
If there be discord and alienation among the constituent members of the Platonic and Xenophontic city--there will subsist the like feelings, in Aristotle's proposition, between the members of the city and the outlying, though indispensable, adjuncts.
There will be the same mischief in kind, and probably exaggerated in amount: since the abolition of the very name and idea of fellow-citizen tends to suppress altogether an influence of tutelary character, however insufficient as to its force.]
[Side-note: Plato's scheme fails, mainly because he provides no training for the Demos.]
In explanation of the foregoing remarks, I will add that Plato fails in his purpose not from the goodness of the training which he provides for his select Few, but from leaving the rest of his people without any training--without even so much as would enable them properly to appreciate superior training in the few who obtain it--without any powers of self-defence or self-helpfulness.
His fundamental postulate--That every man shall do only one thing--when applied to the Guardians, realises itself in something great and considerable: but when applied to the ordinary pursuits of life, reduces every man to a special machine, unfit for any other purpose than its own.
Though it is reasonable that a man should get his living by one trade, and should therefore qualify himself peculiarly and effectively for that trade--it is not reasonable that he should be altogether impotent as to every thing else: nor that his happiness should consist, as Plato declares that it ought, exclusively in the performance of this one service to the commonwealth.
In the Platonic Republic, the body of the people are represented not only as without training, but as machines rather than individual men.
They exist partly as producers to maintain, partly as governable matter to obey, the Guardians; and to be cared for by them.
[Side-note: Principle of Aristotle--That every citizen belongs to the city, not to himself--applied by Plato to women.]
Aristotle, when speaking about the citizens of his own ideal commonwealth (his citizens form nearly the same numerical proportion of the whole population, as the Platonic Guardians), tells us--"Since the End for which the entire City exists is One, it is obviously necessary that the education of all the citizens should be one and the same, and that the care of such education should be a public duty--not left in private hands as it is now, for a man to teach his children what he thinks fit.
Public exigencies must be provided for by public training.
Moreover, we ought not to regard any of the citizens as belonging to himself, but all of them as belonging to the city: for each is a part of the city: and nature prescribes that the care of each part shall be regulated with a view to the care of the whole.
"[135] [Footnote 135: Aristotel.
Politic.
viii.
1, p. 1337, [Greek: E)pei\ d' e(\n to\ te/los tê=| po/lei pa/sê|, phanero\n o(/ti kai\ tê\n paidei/an mi/an kai\ tê\n au)tê\n a)nagkai=on ei)=nai pa/ntôn, kai\ tau/tês tê\n e)pime/leian ei)=nai koinê\n kai\ mê\ kat' i)di/an; o(\n tro/pon nu=n e(/kastos e)pimelei=tai tô=n au)tou= te/knôn i)di/a te kai\ ma/thêsin i)di/an, ê(\n a)\n do/xê|, dida/skôn .
.
.
A(/ma de\ ou)de\ chrê\ nomi/zein au)to\n au(tou= tina\ ei)=nai tô=n politô=n, a)lla\ pa/ntas tê=s po/leôs .
.
.
ê( d' e)pime/leias pe/phuken e(ka/stou mori/ou ble/pein pro\s tê\n tou= o(/lou e)pime/leian.]]
The broad principle thus laid down by Aristotle is common to him with Plato, and lies at the bottom of the schemes of polity imagined by both.
Each has his own way of applying it.
Plato clearly perceives that it cannot be applied with consistency and effect, unless women are brought under its application as well as men.
And to a great extent, Aristotle holds the same opinion too.
While commending the Spartan principle, that the character of the citizen must be formed and upheld by continued public training and discipline--Aristotle blames Lykurgus for leaving the women (that is, a numerical half of the city) without training or discipline; which omission produced (he says) very mischievous effects, especially in corrupting the character of the men.
He pronounces this to be a serious fault, making the constitution inconsistent and self-contradictory, and indeed contrary to the intentions of Lykurgus himself; who had tried to bring the women under public discipline as well as the men, but was forced to desist by their strenuous opposition.
[136] Such remarks from Aristotle are the more remarkable, since it appears as matter of history, that the maidens at Sparta (though not the married women) did to a great extent go through gymnastic exercises along with the young men.
[137] These exercises, though almost a singular exception in Greece, must have appeared to Aristotle very insufficient.
What amount or kind of regulation he himself would propose for women, he has not defined.
In his own ideal commonwealth, he lays it down as alike essential for men and women to have their bodies trained and exercised so as to be adequate to the active duties of free persons (as contrasted with the harder preparation requisite for the athletic contests, which he disapproves), but he does not go into farther particulars.
[138] The regulations which he proposes, too, with reference to marriage generally and to the maintenance of a vigorous breed of citizens, show, that he considered it an important part of the lawgiver's duty to keep up by positive interference the physical condition both of males and females.
[139] [Footnote 136: Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
9, p. 1269, b.
12.
[Greek: E)/ti d' ê( peri\ ta\s gunai=kas a)/nesis kai\ pro\s tê\n proai/resin tê=s politei/as blabera\ kai\ pro\s eu)daimoni/an po/leôs .
.
.
Ô(st' e)n o(/sais politei/ais phau/lôs e)/chei to\ peri\ ta\s gunai=kas, to\ ê(/misu tê=s po/leôs ei)=nai dei= nomi/zein a)nomothe/têton.
O(/per e)kei=] (at Sparta) [Greek: sumbe/bêken; o(/lên ga\r tê\n po/lin o( nomothe/tês** ei)=nai boulo/menos karterikê/n, kata\ me\n tou\s a)/ndras phanero/s e)sti toiou=tos ô)/n, e)pi\ de\ tô=n gunaikô=n e)xême/lêken], &c. .
.
.
[Greek: Ta\ de\ peri\ ta\s gunai=kas e)/chonta mê\ kalô=s e)/oiken ou) mo/non a)pre/peia/n tina poiei=n tê=s po/leôs au)tê=s kath' au(tê/n, a)lla\ sumba/llesthai/ ti pro\s tê\n philochrêmati/an.]
Plato has a similar remark, Legg.
vi.
pp.
780-781.]
[Footnote 137: Stallbaum (in his note on Plato, Legg.
i. p. 637 C, [Greek: tê\n tô=n gunaikô=n par' u(mi=n a)/nesin]) observes--"Lacænarum licentiam, quum ex aliis institutis patriis, tum ex gymnicarum exercitationum usu repetendam, Plato carpit etiam infrà," &c. This is a mistake.
Plato does not blame the gymnastic exercises of the Spartan maidens: the four passages to which Stallbaum refers do not prove his assertion.
They even countenance the reverse of that assertion.
Plato approves of gymnastic and military exercises for maidens in the Laws, and for all the female Guardians in the Republic.
Stallbaum also refers to Aristotle as disapproving the gymnastic exercises of the Spartan maidens.
I cannot think that this is correct.
Aristotle does indeed blame the arrangements for women at Sparta, but not, as I understand him, because the women were subjected to gymnastic exercise; his blame is founded on the circumstance that the women were not regulated, but left to do as they pleased, while the men were under the strictest drill.
This I conceive to be the meaning of [Greek: gunaikô=n a)/nesis].
Euripides indeed has a very bitter passage condemning the exercises of the Spartan maidens; but neither Plato nor Aristotle shared this view.
Respecting the Spartan maidens and their exercises, see Xenophon, Republ.
Laced.
i.
4; Plutarch, Lykurg.
c.
14.]
[Footnote 138: Aristotel.
Politic.
vii.
16, p. 1335, b.
8.
[Greek: Peponême/nên me\n ou)=n e)/chein dei= tê\n e(/xin, peponême/nên de\ po/nois mê\ biai/ois, mêde\ pro\s e(/na mo/non, ô(/sper ê( tô=n a)thlêtô=n e(/xis, a)lla\ pro\s ta\s tô=n e)leutheri/ôn pra/xeis.
O(moi/ôs de\ dei= tau=ta u(pa/rchein a)ndra/si kai\ gunaixi/.]
Compare also i.
8, near the end of the first book.]
[Footnote 139: Aristotel.
Politic.
vii.
16, p. 1335, a.
20, b.
15.]
In principle, therefore, Aristotle agrees with Plato,[140] as to the propriety of comprehending women as well as men under public training and discipline: but he does not follow out the principle with the same consistency.
He maintains the Platonic Commonwealth to be impossible.
[141] [Footnote 140: If we take the sentence from Aristotle's Politics, cited in a note immediately preceding, to the effect that all the citizens belonged to the city, and that each was a part of the city (viii.
1, p. 1337, a.
28) in conjunction with another passage in the Politics (i.
3, p. 1254, a.
10)--[Greek: To/ te ga\r mo/rion, ou) mo/non a)/llou e)sti\ mo/rion, a)lla\ kai\ _o(/lôs a)/llou_]--it is difficult to see how he can, consistently with these principles, assign to his citizens any individual self-regarding agency.
Plato denies all such to his Guardians, and in so doing he makes deductions consistent with the principles of Aristotle, who lays down his principles too absolutely for the use which he afterwards makes of them.]
[Footnote 141: Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
5, p. 1263, b.
29.
[Greek: phai/netai d' ei)=nai pa/mpan a)du/natos o( bi/os.]]
[Side-note: Aristotle declares the Platonic Commonwealth impossible--In what sense this is true.]
If we go through the separate objections which Aristotle advances as justifying his verdict, we shall find them altogether inadequate for the purpose.
He shows certain inconveniences and difficulties as belonging to it,--which are by no means all real, but which, even conceding them in full force, would have to be set against the objections admitted by himself to bear against other actual societies before we can determine whether they are sufficiently weighty to render the scheme to which they belong impossible.
The Platonic commonwealth, and the Aristotelian commonwealth, are both of them impossible, in my judgment, for the same reason: that all the various communities of mankind exist under established customs, beliefs, and sentiments, in complete discordance with them: and that we cannot understand from whence the force is to come, tending and competent to generate either of these two new systematic projects.
Both of them require a simultaneous production of many reciprocally adapted elements: both therefore require an express initiative force, exceptional and belonging to some peculiar crisis--something analogous to Zeus in Krete, and to Apollo at Sparta.
This is alike true of both: though the Platonic Republic, departing more widely from received principles and sentiments than the Aristotelian, would of course require a more potent initiative.
[142] In the treatises of the two philosophers, each explains and vindicates the principles of his system, without including in the hypothesis any specification of a probable source from whence it was to acquire its first start.
Where is the motive, operative, demiurgic force, ready to translate such an idea into reality?
[143] But if we assume that either of them had once begun, there is no reason why it might not have continued.
The causes which first brought about the Spartan constitution and discipline must have been very peculiar, though we have no historical account what they were.
At any rate they never occurred a second time; for no second Sparta was ever formed, in spite of the admiration inspired by the first.
If Sparta had never been actually established, and if Aristotle had read a description of it as a mere project, he would probably have pronounced it impracticable:[144] though when once brought into reality, it proved eminently durable.
In like manner, the laws, customs, beliefs, and feelings, prevalent in Egypt,--which astonished so vehemently Herodotus and other observing Greeks--would have been declared to be impossible, if described simply in project: yet, when once established, they were found to last longer without change than those of other nations.
[Footnote 142: Plato indeed in one place tells us that a single despot, becoming by inspiration or accident a philosopher, and having an obedient city, would accomplish the primary construction of his commonwealth (Republic, vi.
p. 502 B).
That despot (Plato supposes) will send away all the population of his city above ten years old, and will train up the children in the Platonic principles (vii.
pp.
540-541).
This is little better than an [Greek: eu)chê/], whatever Plato may say to deprecate the charge of uttering [Greek: eu)cha/s], p. 540 D.] [Footnote 143: Aristotel.
Metaphys.
A. p. 991, a.
22.
[Greek: Ti/ ga/r e)sti to\ e)rgazo/menon, pro\s ta\s i)de/as a)poble/pon?]
We find Aristotle arguing, in the course of his remarks on the Platonic Republic, that it is useless now to promulgate any such novelties; a long time has elapsed, and such things would already have been found established if they had been good (Politic.
ii.
5, p. 1264, a.
2).
This would have applied (somewhat less in degree, yet with quite sufficient force) to the ideal commonwealth of Aristotle himself, as well as to that of Plato.
Because such institutions have never yet been established anywhere as those proposed by Plato or Aristotle, you cannot fairly argue that they would not be good, or that they would not stand if established.
What you may fairly argue is, that they are not at all likely to be established; no originating force will be forthcoming adequate to the first creation of them.
Existing societies have fixed modes of thinking and feeling on social and political matters; each moves in its own groove, and the direction in which it will henceforward move will be a consequence and continuance of the direction in which it is already moving, by virtue of powerful causes now in operation.
New originating force is a very rare phenomenon.
Overwhelming enemies or physical calamities may destroy what exists, but they will not produce any such innovations as those under discussion.]
[Footnote 144: Plato himself makes this very remark in the Treatise De Legibus (viii.
p. 839 D) in defending the practicability of some of the ordinances therein recommended.]
[Side-note: The real impossibility of the Platonic Commonwealth, arises from the fact that discordant sentiments are already established.]
The Platonic project is submitted, however, not to impartial judges comparing different views on matters yet undetermined, but to hearers with a canon of criticism already fixed and anti-Platonic "_animis consuetudine imbutis_".
It appears impossible, because it contradicts sentiments conceived as fundamental and consecrated, respecting the sexual and family relations.
The supposed impossibility is the mode of expressing strong disapprobation and repugnance: like that which Herodotus describes as manifested by the Greeks on one side and by the Indians on the other--when Darius, having asked each of them at what price they would consent to adopt the practice of the other respecting the mode of treating the bodies of deceased parents, was answered by a loud cry of horror at the mere proposition.
[145] The reasons offered to prove the Platonic project impossible, are principally founded upon the very sentiment above adverted to, and derive all their force from being associated with it.
Such is the character of many among the Aristotelian objections.
[146] The real, and the truly forcible, objection consists in the sentiment itself.
If that be deeply rooted in the mind, it is decisive.
To those who feel thus, the Platonic project would be both intolerable and impossible.
[Footnote 145: Herodot.
iii.
38.
[Greek: oi( de/, a)mbô/santes me/ga, eu)phême/ein min e)ke/leuon.]
Plato in a remarkable passage of the Leges (i.
638 B), deprecates and complains of this instantaneous condemnation without impartial hearing of argument on both sides.]
[Footnote 146: See the arguments urged by Aristotle, Politic.
ii.
4, p. 1262, a.
25 et seq.
His remarks upon the fictions which Plato requires to be impressed on the belief of his Guardians are extremely just.
There are, however, several objections urged by him which turn more upon the Platonic language than upon the Platonic vein of thought, and which, if judged by Plato from his own point of view, would have appeared admissions in his favour rather than objections.
In reply to Plato, whose aim it is that all or many of the Guardians shall say _mine_ in reference to the same persons or the same things, and not in reference to different persons and different things, Aristotle contends that the word _mine_ will not then designate any such strong affection as it does now, when it is special, exclusive, and concentrated on a few persons or things; that each Guardian, having many persons whom he called _brother_ and many persons whom he called _father_, would not feel towards them as persons now feel towards brothers and fathers; that the affection by being disseminated would be weakened, and would become nothing more than a "_diluted friendship_"--[Greek: phili/a u(darê/s].
See Aristot.
Politic.
ii.
3, p. 1261, b.
22; ii.
4, p. 1262, b.
15.
Plato, if called upon for an answer to this reasoning, would probably have allowed it to be just; but would have said that the "diluted friendship" pervading all the Guardians was apt and sufficient for his purpose, as bringing the whole number most nearly into the condition of one organism.
Strong exclusive affections, upon whatever founded, between individuals, he wishes to discourage: the hateful or unfriendly sentiments he is bent on rooting out.
What he desires to see preponderant, in each Guardian, is a sense of duty to the public: subordinate to that, he approves moderate and kindly affections, embracing all the Guardians; towards the elders as fathers, towards those of the same age as brothers.
Aristotle's expression--[Greek: phili/a u(darê/s]--describes such a sentiment fairly enough.
See Republic, v. pp.
462-463.
It must be conceded, however, that Plato's _language_ is open to Aristotle's objection.]
[Side-note: Plato has strong feelings of right and wrong about sexual intercourse, but referring to different objects.]
But we must recollect that it is these very sentiments which Plato impugns and declares to be inapplicable to his Guardians: so that an opponent who, not breaking off at once with the cry of horror uttered by the Indians to Darius, begins to discuss the question with him, is bound to forego objections and repugnances springing as corollaries from a basis avowedly denied.
Plato has earnest feelings of right and wrong, in regard both to the functions of women and to the sexual intercourse: but his feelings dissent entirely from those of readers generally.
That is right, in his opinion, which tends to keep up the excellence of the breed and the proper number of Guardians, as well as to ensure the exact and constant fulfilment of their mission: that is wrong, which tends to defeat or abridge such fulfilment, or to impair the breed, or to multiply the number beyond its proper limit.
Of these ends the Rulers are the proper judges, not the individual person.
All the Guardians are enjoined to leave the sexual power absolutely unexercised until the age of thirty for men, of twenty for women--and then only to exercise it under express sanction and authorisation, according as the Rulers may consider that children are needed to keep up the legitimate number.
Marriage is regarded as holy, and celebrated under solemn rites--all the more because both the ceremony is originated, and the couples selected, by the magistrates, for the most important public purpose: which being fulfilled, the marriage ceases and determines.
It is not celebrated with a view to the couple themselves, still less with a view to establish any permanent exclusive attachment between them: which object Plato not only does not contemplate, but positively discountenances: on the same general principle as the Catholic Church forbids marriage to priests: because he believes that it will create within them motives and sentiments inconsistent with the due discharge of their public mission.
[Side-note: Different sentiment which would grow up in the Platonic Commonwealth respecting the sexual relations.]
It is clear that among such a regiment as that which Plato describes in his Guardians, a sentiment would grow up, respecting the intercourse of the sexes, totally different from that which prevailed elsewhere around him.
The Platonic restriction upon that intercourse up in the (until the ulterior limits of age) would be far more severe: but it would be applied with reference to different objects.
Instead of being applied to enforce the exclusive consecration of one woman to one man, choosing each other or chosen by fathers, without any limit on the multiplication of children,--and without any attention to the maintenance or deterioration of the breed--it would be directed to the obtaining of the most perfect breed and of the appropriate number, leaving the Guardians, female as well as male, free from all permanent distracting influences to interfere with the discharge of their public duties.
In appreciating the details of the Platonic community, we must look at it with reference to this form of sexual morality; which would generate in the Guardians an appreciation of details consistent with itself both as to the women and as to the children.
The sentiment of obligation, of right and wrong, respecting the relations of the sexes, is everywhere very strong; but it does not everywhere attach to the same acts or objects.
The important obligation for a woman never to show her face in public, which is held sacred through so large a portion of the Oriental world, is noway recognised in the Occidental: and in Plato's time, when mankind were more disseminated among small independent communities, the divergence was yet greater than it is now.
The Spartans were not induced, by the censures or mockery of persons in other Grecian cities,[147] to suppress the gymnastic exercises practised by their maidens in conjunction with the young men: nor is Plato deterred by the ridicule or blame which others may express, from proclaiming his conviction, that the virtue of his female Guardians is the same as that of the male--consisting in the faithful performance of their duty as Guardians, after going through all the requisite training, gymnastic and musical.
And he follows this up by the general declaration, one of the most emphatic in all his writings, "The best thing which is now said or ever has been said, is, that what is profitable is honourable--and what is hurtful, is base".
[148] [Footnote 147: Eurip.
Androm.
598.
The criticisms of Xenophon in the first chapter of his treatise, De Laced.
Republ., exhibit a point of view on many points analogous to that of Plato respecting the female sex, and differing from that which he puts into the mouth of Ischomachus in his Oekonomicus.
See above, p. 172, note 3.
Among the lost treatises of Kleanthes, successor of Zeno as Scholarch of the Stoic School, one was composed expressly to show [Greek: O(/ti ê( au)tê\ a)retê\ kai\ a)ndro\s kai\ gunaiko/s].
(Diog.
Laert.
vii.
175.)]
[Footnote 148: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 457 A-B.
[Greek: A)podute/on dê\ tai=s tô=n phula/kôn gunaixi/n, e)pei/per a)retê\n a)nti\ i(mati/ôn a)mphie/sontai, kai\ koinônête/on pole/mou te kai\ tê=s a)/llês phulakê=s tê=s peri\ tê\n po/lin, kai\ ou)k a)/lla prakte/on; tou/tôn d' au)tô=n ta\ e)laphro/tera tai=s gunaixi\n ê)\ toi=s a)ndra/si dote/on, dia\ tê\n tou= ge/nous a)sthe/neian.
O( de\ gelô=n a)nê\r e)pi\ gumnai=s gunaixi/, tou= belti/stou e(/neka gumnazome/nais, a)telê= tou= geloi/ou sophi/as dre/pôn karpo/n, ou)de\n oi)=den, ô(s e)/oiken, e)ph' ô(=| gela=| ou)d' o(/, ti pra/ttei.
_Ka/llista ga\r dê\ tou=to kai\ le/getai kai\ lele/xetai, o(/ti to\ me\n ô)phe/limon, kalo/n--to\ de\ blabero/n, ai)schro/n_.]]
[Side-note: What Nature prescribes in regard to the relations of the two sexes--Direct contradiction between Plato and Aristotle.]
Plato in truth reduces the distinction between the two sexes to its lowest terms: to the physical difference in regard to procreation--and to the general fact, that the female is every way weaker and inferior to the male; while yet, individually taken, many women are superior to many men, and both sexes are alike improvable by training.
He maintains that this similarity of training and function is the real order of Nature, and that the opposite practice, which insists on a separation of life and functions between the sexes, is unnatural:[149] which doctrine he partly enforces by the analogy of the two sexes in other animals.
[150] Aristotle disputes this reasoning altogether: declaring that Nature prescribes a separation of life and functions between the two sexes--that the relation of man to woman is that of superiority and command on one side, inferiority and obedience on the other, like the relation between father and child, master and slave, though with a difference less in degree--that virtue in a man, and virtue in a woman, are quite different, imposing diverse obligations.
[151] It shows how little stress can be laid on arguments based on the word _Nature_, when we see two such distinguished thinkers completely at issue as to the question, what Nature indicates, in this important case.
Each of them decorates by that name the rule which he himself approves; whether actually realised anywhere, or merely recommended as a reform of something really existing.
In this controversy, Aristotle had in his favour the actualities around him, against Plato: but Aristotle himself is far from always recognising experience and practice as authoritative interpreters of the dictates of Nature, as we may see by his own ideal commonwealth.
[Footnote 149: Plato, Republic, v. p. 456 C. [Greek: ta\ nu=n para\ tau=ta gigno/mena para\ phu/sin ma=llon], &c. Also p. 466 D.] [Footnote 150: Compare a similar appeal to the analogy of animals, as proving the [Greek: e)/rôtas a)r)r(e/nôn] to be unnatural, Plato, Legg.
viii.
p. 836 C.] [Footnote 151: Aristotel.
Politic.
i.
13, p. 1260 a.
20-30.]
[Side-note: Opinion of Plato respecting the capacities of women, and the training proper for women, are maintained in the Leges, as well as in the Republic.
Ancient legends harmonising with this opinion.]
How strongly Plato was attached to his doctrines about the capacity of women--how unchanged his opinion continued about the mischief of separating the training and functions of the two sexes, and of confining women to indoor occupations, or to what he calls "a life of darkness and fear"[152]--may be seen farther by his Treatise De Legibus.
Although in that treatise he recedes (perforce and without retracting) from the principles of his Republic, so far as to admit separate properties and families for all his citizens--yet he still continues to enjoin public gymnastic and military training, for women and men alike: and he still opens, to both sexes alike, superintending social functions to a great extent, as well as the privilege of being honoured by public hymns after death, in case of distinguished merit.
[153] Respecting military matters, he speaks with peculiar earnestness.
That women are perfectly capable of efficient military service, if properly trained, he proves not only by the ancient legends, but also by facts actual and contemporary, the known valour of the Scythian and Sarmatian women.
Whatever doubts persons may have hitherto cherished (says Plato), this is now established matter of fact:[154] the cowardice and impotence of women is not less disgraceful in itself than detrimental to the city, as robbing it of one-half of its possible force.
[155] He complains bitterly of the repugnance felt even to the discussion of this proposition.
[156] Most undoubtedly, there were ancient legends which tended much to countenance his opinion.
The warlike Amazons, daughters of Arês, were among the most formidable forces that had ever appeared on earth; they had shown their power once by invading Attica and bringing such peril on Athens, that it required all the energy of the great Athenian hero Theseus to repel them.
We must remember that these stories were not only familiarised to the public eye in conspicuous painting and sculpture, but were also fully believed as matters of past history.
[157] Moreover the Goddess Athênê, patroness of Athens, was the very impersonation of intelligent terror-striking might--constraining and subduing Arês[158] himself: the Goddess Enyo presided over war, no less than the God Arês:[159] lastly Artemis, though making war only on wild beasts, was hardly less formidable in her way--indefatigable as well as rapid in her movements and unerring with her bow, as Athênê was irresistible with her spear.
Here were abundant examples in Grecian legend, to embolden Plato in his affirmations respecting the capacity of the female sex for warlike enterprise and laborious endurance.
[Footnote 152: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 781 C. [Greek: ei)thisme/non ga\r dedoiko\s kai\ skoteino\n zê=n], &c.] [Footnote 153: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
795 C, 796 C, 802 A.]
[Footnote 154: Plat.
Legg.
vii.
pp.
804-805-806.
804 E: [Greek: a)kou/ôn me\n ga\r dê\ mu/thous palaiou=s pe/peismai, ta\ de\ nu=n, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n, oi)=da o(/ti muria/des a)nari/thmêtoi gunaikô=n ei)si\ tô=n peri\ to\n Po/nton, a(\s Sauromati/das kalou=sin, ai(=s ou)ch i(/ppôn mo/non a)lla\ kai\ to/xôn kai\ tô=n a)/llôn o(/plôn koinôni/a kai\ toi=s a)ndra/sin i)/sê prostetagme/nê i)/sôs a)skei=tai.]
We may doubt whether Plato knew anything of the brave and skilful Artemisia, queen of Halikarnassus, who so greatly distinguished herself in the expedition of Xerxes against Greece (Herod.
vii.
99, viii.
87), and, indeed, whether he had ever read the history of Herodotus.
His argument might have been strengthened by another equally pertinent example, if he could have quoted the original letter addressed by the Emperor Aurelian to the Roman Senate, attesting the courage, vigour, and prudence, of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra.
Trebellius Pollio, Vitæ Triginta Tyrannorum in Histor.
August.
p. 198 (De Zenobia, xxix.
: cap.
xxx.
): "Audio, Patres Conscripti, mihi objici, quod non virile munus impleverim, Zenobiam triumphando.
Næ, illi qui me reprehendunt, satis laudarent, si scirent qualis illa est mulier, quam prudens in consiliis, quam constans in dispositionibus, quam erga milites gravis, quam larga cum necessitas postulet, quam tristis cum severitas poscat.
Possum dicere illius esse quod Odenatus Persas vicit, ac fugato Sapore Ctesiphontem usque pervenit.
Possum asserere, tanto apud Orientales et Ægyptiorum populos timori mulierem fuisse, ut se non Arabes, non Saraceni, non Armenii, commoverent.
Nec ego illi vitam conservassem, nisi eam scissem multum Romanæ Reipublicæ profuisse, cum sibi vel liberis suis Orientis servaret imperium.]
[Footnote 155: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
813-814.]
[Footnote 156: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 781 D.] [Footnote 157: Plutarch, Theseus, c. 27; Æschylus, Eumenid.
682; Isokrates, Panegyr.
ss.
76-78.
How popular a subject the Amazons were for sculptors, we learn from the statement of Pliny (**xxxiv.
8, 19) that all the most distinguished sculptors executed Amazons; and that this subject was the only one upon which a direct comparison could be made between them.]
[Footnote 158: Homer, Iliad, xv.
123.]
[Footnote 159: Homer, Iliad, v.
333-592.]
[Side-note: In a Commonwealth like the Platonic, the influence of Aphroditê would probably have been reduced to a minimum.]
The two Goddesses, Athênê and Artemis, were among the few altogether insensible to amorous influences and to the inspirations of Aphroditê: who is the object of contemptuous sarcasm on the part of Athênê, and of repulsive antipathy on the part of Artemis.
[160] This may supply an illustration for the Republic of Plato.
As far as one can guess what the effect of his institutions would have been, it is probable that the influence of Aphroditê would have been at its minimum among his Guardians of both sexes: as it was presented in the warlike dramas of Æschylus.
[161] There would have been everything to deaden it, with an entire absence of all provocatives.
The muscular development, but rough and unadorned bodies, of females-Sabina qualis, aut perusta solibus Pernicis uxor Apuli--(Hor.
_Epod._ ii.
41-42).
the indiscriminate companionship, with perfect identity of treatment and manners, between the two sexes from the earliest infancy--the training of both together for the same public duties, the constant occupation of both throughout life in the performance of those duties, under unceasing official supervision--the strict regulation of exercise and diet, together with the monastic censorship on all poetry and literature--the self-restraint, equal and universal, enforced as the characteristic feature and pride of the regiment, and seconded by the jealous espionage of all over all, the more potent because privacy was unknown--such an assemblage of circumstances would do as much as circumstances could do to starve the sexual appetite, to prevent it from becoming the root of emotional or imaginative associations, and to place it under the full controul of the lawgiver for purposes altogether public.
Such was probably Plato's intention: since he more generally regards the appetites as enemies to be combated and extirpated so far as practicable--rather than as sources of pleasure, yet liable to accompaniments of pain, requiring to be regulated so as to exclude the latter and retain the former.
[Footnote 160: Homer, Hymn.
ad Venerem, 10; Iliad, v. 425; Euripid.
Hippolyt.
1400-1420.
Athênê combined the attributes of [Greek: philopo/lemos] and [Greek: philo/sophos].
Plato, Timæus, p. 24 D; compare Kritias, p. 109 D.] [Footnote 161: See Aristophan.
Ranæ, 1042.
_Eurip._ [Greek: Ma\ Di/' ou)de\ ga\r ê)=n tê=s A)phrodi/tês ou)de/n soi.]
_Æschyl._ [Greek: Mêde/ g' e)pei/ê.
A)ll' e)pi/ soi/ toi kai\ toi=s soi=sin pollê\ pollou= 'pikathê=to.]]
[Side-note: Other purposes of Plato--limitation of number of Guardians--common to Aristotle also.]
The public purposes, with a view to which Plato sought to controul the sexual appetite in his Guardians, were three, as I have already stated.
1.
To obtain from each of them individually, faithful performance of the public duties, and observance of the limits, prescribed by his system.
2.
To ensure the best and purest breed.
3.
To maintain unaltered the same total number, without excess or deficiency.
[Side-note: Law of population expounded by Malthus--Three distinct checks to population--alternative open between preventive and positive.]
The first of these three purposes is peculiar to the Platonic system.
The two last are not peculiar to it.
Aristotle recognises them[162] as ends, no less than Plato, though he does not approve Plato's means for attaining them.
In reference to the limitation of number, Aristotle is even more pronounced than Plato.
The great evil of over-population forced itself upon these philosophers; living as both of them did among small communities, each with its narrow area hedged in by others--each liable to intestine dispute, sometimes caused, always aggravated, by the presence of large families and numerous poor freemen--and each importing bought slaves as labourers.
To obtain for their community the quickest possible increase in aggregate wealth and population, was an end which they did not account either desirable or commendable.
The stationary state, far from appearing repulsive or discouraging, was what they looked upon as the best arrangement[163] of things.
A mixed number of lots of land, indivisible and inalienable, is the first principle of the Platonic community in the treatise De Legibus.
Not to encourage wealth, but to avert, as far as possible, the evils of poverty and dependence, and to restrain within narrow limits the proportion of the population which suffered those evils--was considered by Plato and Aristotle to be among the gravest problems for the solution of the statesman.
[164] Consistent with these conditions, essential to security and tranquillity, whatever the form of government might be, there was only room for the free population then existing: not always for that (seeing that the proportion of poor citizens was often uncomfortably great), and never for any sensible increase above that.
If all the children were born and brought up, that it was possible for adult couples to produce, a fearful aggravation of poverty, with all its accompanying public troubles and sufferings, would have been inevitable.
[165] Accordingly both Plato (for the Guardians in the Republic) and Aristotle agree in opinion that a limit must be fixed upon the number of children which each couple is permitted to introduce.
If any objector had argued that each couple, by going through the solemnity of marriage, acquired a natural right to produce as many children as they could, and that others were under a natural obligation to support those children--both philosophers would have denied the plea altogether.
But they went even further.
They considered procreation as a duty which each citizen owed to the public, in order that the total of citizens might not fall below the proper minimum--yet as a duty which required controul, in order that the total might not rise above the proper maximum.
[166] Hence they did not even admit the right of each couple to produce as many children as their private means could support.
They thought it necessary to impose a limit on the number of children in every family, binding equally on rich and poor: the number prescribed might be varied from time to time, as circumstances indicated.
As the community could not safely admit more than a certain aggregate of births, these philosophers commanded all couples indiscriminately, the rich not excepted, to shape their conduct with a view to that imperative necessity.
[Footnote 162: Aristotel.
Politic.
vii.
16.]
[Footnote 163: Compare the view (not unlike though founded on different reasons) of the stationary state taken by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in a valuable chapter of his Principles of Political Economy, Book iv.
chap.
6.
He says (s. 2):--"The best state for human nature is that in which, while no one is poor, no one desires to be richer, nor has any reason to fear being thrust back by the efforts of others to push themselves forward".
This would come near to the views of Plato and Aristotle.]
[Footnote 164: See a striking passage in Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
742-743.
He speaks of rich men as they are spoken of in some verses of the Gospels--a very rich man can hardly be a good man.
Wealth and poverty are both of them evils, p. 744 D. Repub.
iv.
p. 421.
Pheidon the Corinthian, an ancient lawgiver (we do not know when or where), prescribed an unchangeable number both of lots (of land) and of citizens, but the lots were not to be all equal.
Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
6, p. 1265, b.
14.]
[Footnote 165: Aristot.
Politic.
ii.
6, p. 1265, b.
10.
[Greek: To\ d' a)phei=sthai (tê\n teknopoii+/an a)o/riston**), katha/per e)n tai=s plei/stais po/lesin, peni/as a)nagkai=on ai)/tion gi/nesthai toi=s poli/tais; ê( de\ peni/a sta/sin e)mpoiei= kai\ kakourgi/an.]
Compare ibid.
ii.
7, p. 1266, b.
8.]
[Footnote 166: Aristotel.
Politic.
vii.
16, p. 1335, b.
28-38.
[Greek: leitourgei=n pro\s teknopoii+/an .
.
.
a)phei=sthai dei= tê=s ei)s to\ phanero\n gennê/seôs.]
Plato, Republic, v. pp.
460-461.
[Greek: ti/ktein tê=| po/lei--genna=|n tê=| po/lei--tô=n ei)s to\ koino\n gennê/seôn].]
Plato in his Republic (as I have already mentioned) assumes for his Archons the privilege of selecting (by a pretended sortition) the couples through whom the legitimate amount of breeding shall be accomplished: in the semi-Platonic commonwealth (De Legibus), he leaves the choice free, but prescribes the limits of age, rendering marriage a peremptory duty between twenty and thirty-five years of age, and adding some emphatic exhortations, though not peremptory enactments, respecting the principles which ought to guide individual choice.
[167] In the same manner too he deals with procreation: recognising the necessity of imposing a limit on individual discretion, yet not naming that limit by law, but leaving it to be enforced according to circumstances by the magistrates: who (he says), by advice, praise, and censure, can apply either effective restraints on procreation, or encouragements if the case requires.
[168] Aristotle blames this guarantee as insufficient: he feels so strongly the necessity of limiting procreation, that he is not satisfied unless a proper limit be imposed by positive law.
Unless such a result be made thoroughly sure (he says), all other measures of lawgivers for equalising properties, or averting poverty and the discontents growing out of it--must fail in effect.
[169] Aristotle also lays it down as a part of the duty of the lawgiver to take care that the bodies of the children brought up shall be as good as possible: hence he prescribes the ages proper for marriage, and the age after which no parents are to produce any more children.
[170] [Footnote 167: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
772-773-774.
The wording is characteristic of the view taken by these philosophers, and of the extent to which they subordinated individual sentiment to public considerations.
[Greek: kata\ panto\s ei(=s e)/stô mu=thos ga/mou; to\n ga\r tê=| po/lei dei= xumphe/ronta mnêsteu/ein ga/mon e(/kaston, a)ll' ou) to\n ê(/diston au(tô=|.
phe/retai de/ pôs pa=s a)ei\ kata\ phu/sin pro\s to\n o(moio/taton au(tô=|], &c. (p. 773 B).
In marriage (he says) the natural tendency is that like seeks like; but it is good for the city that like should be coupled to unlike, rich to poor, hasty tempers with sober tempers, &c., in order that the specialties may be blended together and mitigated.
He does not pretend to embody this in a written law, but directs the authorities to obtain it as far as they can by exhortation.
P. 733 E. Compare the Politikus, p.
311.]
[Footnote 168: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 740 D. [Greek: porize/tô mêchanê\n o(/ti ma/lista, o(/pôs ai( pentakischi/liai kai\ tettara/konta oi)kê/seis _a)ei\ mo/non_ e)/sontai; kai\ ga\r _e)pische/seis gene/seôs_, oi(=s a)\n eu)/rous ei)/ê ge/nesis, kai\ tou)nanti/on e)pime/leiai kai\ spoudai\ plê/thous gennêma/tôn ei)si\n], &c.] [Footnote 169: Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
6, p. 1264, a.
38; ii.
7, p. 1266, b.
10; vii.
16.
Aristotle has not fully considered all that Plato says, when he blames him for inconsistency in proposing to keep properties equal, without taking pains to impose and maintain a constant limit on offspring in families.
[Greek: A)/topon de\ kai\ to\ ta\s ktê/seis i)sa/zonta] (Plato) [Greek: to\ peri\ to\ plê=thos tô=n politô=n mê\ kataskeua/zein, a)ll' a)phei=nai tê\n teknopoii+/an a)o/riston], &c. (Aristot.
Polit.
ii.
6, p. 1265, a.
fin.)
What Plato really directs is stated in my text and in my note immediately preceding.]
[Footnote 170: Aristotel.
Politic.
vii.
16, p. 1334, b.
39.
[Greek: ei)/per ou)=n a)p' a)rchê=s to\n nomothe/tên o(ra=|n dei=, o(/pôs be/ltista ta\ sô/mata ge/nêtai tô=n trephome/nôn, prô=ton me\n e)pimelête/on peri\ tê\n su/zeuxin, po/te kai\ poi/ous tina\s o)/ntas chrê\ poiei=sthoi pro\s a)llê/lous tê\n gamikê\n o(mili/an], &c. He names thirty-seven as the age proper for a man, eighteen for a woman, to marry.
At the age of fifty-five a man becomes unfit to procreate for the public, and none of his children are to appear ([Greek: a)phei=sthai tê=s ei)s to\ phanero\n gennê/seôs], vii.
16, p. 1335, b.
36).]
The paramount necessity of limiting the number of children born in each family, here enforced by Plato and Aristotle, rests upon that great social fact which Malthus so instructively expounded at the close of the last century.
Malthus, enquiring specially into the law of population, showed upon what conditions the increase of population depends, and what were the causes constantly at work to hold it back--checks to population.
He ranged these causes under three different heads, though the two last are multiform in detail.
1.
Moral or prudential restraint--the preventive check.
2.
Vice, and 3.
Misery--the two positive checks.
He farther showed that though the aggregate repressive effect of these three causes is infallible and inevitable, determined by the circumstances of each given society--yet that mankind might exercise an option through which of the three the check should be applied: that the effect of the two last causes was in inverse proportion to that of the first--in other words, that the less there was of prudential restraint limiting the number of births, the more there must be of vice or misery, under some of their thousand forms, to shorten the lives of many of the children born--and _é converso_, the more there was of prudential restraint, the less would be the operation of the other checks tending to shorten life.
[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle saw the same law as Malthus, but arranged the facts under a different point of view.]
Three distinct facts--preventive restraint, vice, and misery--having nothing else in common, are arranged under one general head by Malthus, in consequence of the one single common property which they possess--that of operating as checks to population.
To him, that one common property was the most important of all, and the most fit to be singled out as the groundwork of classification, having reference to the subject of his enquiry.
But Plato and Aristotle looked at the subject in a different point of view.
They had present to their minds the same three facts, and the tendency of the first to avert or abate the second and third: but as they were not investigating the law of population, they had nothing to call their attention to the one common property of the three.
They did not regard vice and misery as causes tending to keep down population, but as being in themselves evils; enemies among the worst which the lawgiver had to encounter, in his efforts to establish a good political and social condition--and enemies which he could never successfully encounter, without regulating the number of births.
Such regulation they considered as an essential tutelary measure to keep out disastrous poverty.
The inverse proportion, between regulated or unregulated number of births on the one hand, and diminution or increase of poverty on the other, was seen as clearly by Aristotle and Plato as by Malthus.
[Side-note: Regulations of Plato and Aristotle as to number of births and newborn children.]
But these two Greek philosophers ordain something yet more remarkable.
Having prescribed both the age of marriage and the number of permitted births, so as to ensure both vigorous citizens and a total compatible with the absence of corrupting poverty--they direct what shall be done if the result does not correspond to their orders.
Plato in his Republic (as I have already stated) commands that all the children born to his wedded couples shall be immediately consigned to the care of public nurses--that the offspring of the well-constituted parents shall be brought up, that of the ill-constituted parents not brought up--and that no children born of parents after the legitimate age shall be brought up.
[171] Aristotle forbids the exposure of children, wherever the habits of the community are adverse to it: but if after any married couple have had the number of children allowed by law, the wife should again become pregnant, he directs that abortion shall be procured before the commencement of life or sense in the foetus: after such commencement, he pronounces abortion to be wrong.
[172] On another point Plato and Aristotle agree: both of them command that no child born crippled or deformed shall be brought up:[173] a practice actually adopted at Sparta under the Lykurgean institutions, and even carried farther, since no child was allowed to be brought up until it had been inspected and approved by the public nurses.
[174] [Footnote 171: Plato, Republ.
v. pp.
459 D, 460 C, 461 C.] [Footnote 172: Aristotel.
Politic.
vii.
16, 10, p. 1335, b.
20.
[Greek: Peri\ de\ a)pothe/seôs kai\ trophê=s tô=n gignome/nôn, e)/stô no/mos, mêde\n pepêrôme/non tre/phein; dia\ de\ plê=thos te/knôn, e)a\n ê( ta/xis tô=n e)thô=n kôlu/ê|, mêde\n a)poti/thesthai tô=n gignome/nôn; ô(/ristai ga\r dê\ tê=s teknopoii+/as to\ plê=thos.
e)a\n de/ tisi gi/gnêtai para\ tau=ta sunduasthe/ntôn, pri\n ai)/sthêsin e)ggene/sthai kai\ zôê/n, e)mpoiei=sthai dei= tê\n a)/mblôsin; to\ ga\r o(/sion kai\ to\ mê\ diôrisme/non tê=| ai)sthê/sei kai\ tô=| zê=|n e)/stai.]
For the text of this passage I have followed Bekker and the Berlin edition.
As to the first half of the passage there are some material differences in the text and in the MSS.
; some give [Greek: e)thnô=n] instead of [Greek: e)thôn], and [Greek: ô(ri/sthai ga\r dei=] instead of [Greek: ô(/ristai ga\r dê\].
Compare Plato, Theætêt.
149 C.] [Footnote 173: Plato, Republic, v. p. 460 C. [Greek: ta\ de\ tô=n cheiro/nôn (te/kna), kai\ e)a/n ti tô=n e(te/rôn a)na/pêron gi/gnêtai, e)n a)por)r(ê/tô| te kai\ a)dê/lô| katakru/psousin ô(s pre/pei.]
Aristot.
_ut suprâ_, [Greek: e)/stô no/mos, mêde\n pepêrôme/non tre/phein], &c.] [Footnote 174: Plutarch, Lykurgus, c.
16.]
[Side-note: Such regulations disapproved and forbidden by modern sentiment--Variability of ethical sentiment as to objects approved or disapproved.]
We here find both these philosophers not merely permitting, but enjoining--and the Spartan legislation, more admired than any in Greece, systematically realising--practices which modern sentiment repudiates and punishes.
Nothing can more strikingly illustrate--what Plato and Aristotle have themselves repeatedly observed[175]--how variable and indeterminate is the _matter_ of ethical sentiment, in different ages and communities, while the _form_ of ethical sentiment is the same universally: how all men agree subjectively, in that which they feel--disapprobation and hatred of wrong and vice, approbation and esteem of right and virtue--yet how much they differ objectively, as to the acts or persons which they designate by these names and towards which their feelings are directed.
It is with these emotions as with the other emotions of human nature: all men are moved in the same manner, though in different degree, by love and hatred--hope and fear--desire and aversion--sympathy and antipathy--the emotions of the beautiful, the sublime, the ludicrous: but when we compare the objects, acts, or persons, which so move them, we find only a very partial agreement, amidst wide discrepancy and occasionally strong opposition.
[176] The present case is one of the strongest opposition.
Practices now abhorred as wrong, are here directly commanded by Plato and Aristotle, the two greatest authorities of the Hellenic world: men differing on many points from each other, but agreeing in this: men not only of lofty personal character, but also of first-rate intellectual force, in whom the ideas of virtue and vice had been as much developed by reflection as they ever have been in any mind: lastly, men who are extolled by the commentators as the champions of religion and sound morality, against what are styled the unprincipled cavils of the Sophists.
[Footnote 175: Aristotel.
Politic.
viii.
2, p. 1337, b.
2.
[Greek: Peri/ te tô=n pro\s a)retê/n, ou)the/n e)stin o(mologou/menon; kai\ ga\r tê\n a)retê\n ou) tê\n au)tê\n eu)thu\s pa/ntes timô=sin; ô(/st' eu)lo/gôs diaphe/rontai kai\ pro\s tê\n a)/skêsin au)tê=s.]
Ethica Nikomach.
i.
3, p. 1094, b.
15.
[Greek: Ta\ de\ kala\ kai\ ta\ di/kaia, peri\ ô(=n ê( politikê\ skopei=tai, tosau/tên e)/chei diaphora\n kai\ pla/nên, ô(/ste dokei=n no/mô| mo/non ei)=nai, phu/sei de\ mê/.]]
[Footnote 176: The extraordinary variety and discrepancy of approved and consecrated customs prevalent in different portions of the ancient world, is instructively set forth in the treatise of the Syrian Christian Bardisanes, in the time of the Antonines.
A long extract from this treatise is given in Eusebius, Præparat.
Evang., vi.
10; it has been also published by Orelli, annexed to his edition (Zurich, 1824) of the argument of Alexander of Aphrodisias, De Fato, p. 202.
Compare Euseb.
Hist.
Eccles.
iv.
30.
Bardisanes is replying to the arguments of astrologers and calculators of nativities, who asserted the uniform and uncontrollable influence of the heavenly bodies, in given positions, over human conduct.
As a proof that mankind are not subject to any such necessity, but have a large sphere of freewill ([Greek: au)texou/sion]), he cites these numerous instances of diverse and contradictory institutions among different societies.
Several of the most conspicuous among these differences relate to the institutions concerning sex and family, the conduct and occupations held obligatory in men and women, &c. Compare Sextus Empiric., Pyrrhon.
Hypotyp.
iii.
s. 198 seqq.]
[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle required subordination of impulse to reason and duty--they applied this to the procreative impulse, as to others.]
It is, in my judgment, both curious and interesting to study the manner in which these two illustrious men--Plato and Aristotle--dealt with the problem of population.
Grave as that problem is in all times, it was peculiarly grave among the small republics of antiquity.
Neither of them were disposed to ignore or overlook it: nor to impute to other causes the consequences which it produces: nor to treat as indifferent the question, whether poor couples had a greater or less family, to share subsistence already scanty for themselves.
Still less were these philosophers disposed to sanction the short-sighted policy of some Hellenic statesmen, who under a mistaken view of increasing the power of the state, proclaimed encouragement and premium simply to the multiplication of male births, without any regard to the comfort and means of families.
Both Plato and Aristotle saw plainly, that a married couple, by multiplying their offspring, produced serious effects not merely upon their own happiness but upon that of others besides: up to a certain limit, for good--beyond that limit, for evil.
Hence they laid it down, that procreation ought to be a rational and advised act, governed by a forecast of those consequences--not a casual and unforeseen result of present impulse.
The same preponderance of reason over impulse as they prescribed in other cases, they endeavoured to enforce in this.
They regarded it too, not simply as a branch of prudence, but as a branch of duty; a debt due by each citizen to others and to the commonwealth.
It was the main purpose of their elaborate political schemes, to produce a steady habit and course of virtue in all the citizens: and they considered every one as greatly deficient in virtue, who refused to look forward to the consequences of his own procreative acts--thereby contributing to bring upon the state an aggravated measure of poverty, which was the sure parent of discord, sedition, and crime.
That the rate of total increase should not be so great as to produce these last-mentioned effects--and that the limit of virtue and prudence should be made operative on all the separate families--was in their judgment one of the most important cares of the lawgiver.
We ought to disengage this general drift and purpose, common both to Plato and Aristotle, on the subject of population, from the various means--partly objectionable, partly impossible to be enforced--whereby they intended to carry the purpose into effect.
[Side-note: Training of the few select philosophers to act as chiefs.]
I pass from Plato's picture of the entire regiment of Guardians, under the regulations above described--to his description of the special training whereby the few most distinguished persons in the regiment (male or female, as the case may be) are to be improved, tested, and exalted to the capacity of philosophers: qualified to act as Rulers or Chiefs.
[177] These are the two marked peculiarities of Plato's Republic.
The Guardians are admirable as instruments, but have no initiative of their own: we have now to find the chiefs from whom they will receive it.
How are philosophers to be formed?
None but a chosen Few have the precious gold born with them, empowering them to attain this elevation.
To those Few, if properly trained, the privilege and right to exercise command belongs, by Nature.
For the rest, obedience is the duty prescribed by Nature.
[178] [Footnote 177: Plato, Republic, v. p. 473, vi.
p. 503 B.
[Greek: tou\s a)kribesta/tous phu/lakas philoso/phous dei= kathista/nai.]]
[Footnote 178: Plato, Repub.
v. p. 474 B.
[Greek: toi=s me\n prosê/kei phu/ei, a(/ptesthai/ te philosophi/as, ê(gemoneu/ein t' e)n po/lei; toi=s d' a)/llois mê/te a(/ptesthai, a)kolouthei=n te tô=| ê(goume/nô|.]
476 B: [Greek: spa/nioi a)\n ei)=en].
Also vi.
503, vii.
535.
They are to be [Greek: e)k tô=n prokri/tôn pro/kritoi], vii.
537 D.] [Side-note: Comprehensive curriculum for aspirants to philosophy--consummation by means of Dialectic.]
I have already given, in Chap.
XXXV., a short summary of the peculiar scientific training which Sokrates prescribes for ripening these heroic aspirants into complete philosophers.
They pass years of intellectual labour, all by their own spontaneous impulse, over and above the full training of Guardians.
They study Arithmetic, Geometry, Stereometry, Astronomy, Acoustics, &c., until the age of thirty: they then continue in the exercise of Dialectic, with all the test of question and answer, for five years longer: after which they enter upon the duties of practice and administration, succeeding ultimately to the position of chiefs if found competent.
It is assumed that this long course of study, consummated by Dialectic, has operated within them that great mental revolution which Plato calls, turning the eye from the shadows in the cave to the realities of clear daylight: that they will no longer be absorbed in the sensible world or in passing phenomena, but will become familiar with the unchangeable Ideas or Forms of the Intelligible world, knowable only by intellectual intuition.
Reason has with them been exalted to its highest power: not only strengthening them to surmount all intellectual difficulties and to deal with the most complicated conjectures of practice--but also ennobling their dispositions, so as to overcome all the disturbing temptations and narrow misguiding prejudices inherent in the unregenerate man.
Upon the perfection of character, emotional and intellectual, imparted to these few philosophers, depends the Platonic Commonwealth.
[Side-note: Valuable remarks on the effects of these preparatory studies.]
The remarks made by Plato on the effect of this preparatory curriculum, and on the various studies composing it, are highly interesting and instructive--even when they cannot be defended as exact.
Much of what he so eloquently enunciates respecting philosophy and the philosophical character, is in fact just and profound, whatever view we may take as to Universals: whether we regard them (like Plato) as the only Real Entia, cognizable by the mental eye, and radically disparate from particulars--or whether we hold them to be only general Concepts, abstracted and generalised more or less exactly from particulars.
The remarks made by Plato on the educational effect produced by Arithmetic and the other studies, are valuable and suggestive.
Even the discredit which he throws on observations of fact, in Astronomy and Acoustics--the great antithesis between him and modern times--is useful as enabling us to enter into his point of view.
[179] [Footnote 179: Plato, Repub.
vii.
p. 529 C-D.
The manner in which Plato here depreciates astronomical observation is not easily reconcileable with his doctrine in the Timæus.
He there tells us that the rotations of the Nous (intellective soul) in the interior of the human cranium, are cognate or analogous to those of the cosmical spheres, but more confused and less perfect: our eyesight being expressly intended for the purpose, that we might contemplate the perfect and unerring rotations of the cosmical spheres, so as to correct thereby the disturbed rotations in our own brain (Timæus, pp.
46-47).
Malebranche shares the feeling of Plato on the subject of astronomical observation.
Recherche de la Vérité, liv.
iv.
ch.
vii.
vol.
ii.
p. 219, ed.
1772 (p. 278, ed.
1721).
"Car enfin qu'y a-t-il de grand dans la connoissance des mouvemens des planètes?
et n'en sçavons nous pas assez présentement pour régler nos mois et nos années?
Qu'avons nous tant à faire de sçavoir, si Saturne est environné d'un anneau ou d'un grand nombre de petites lunes, et pourquoi prendre parti là-dessus?
Pourquoi se glorifier d'avoir prédit la grandeur d'une éclipse, où l'on a peut-être mieux rencontré qu'un autre, parcequ'on a été plus heureux?
Il y a des personnes destinées, par l'ordre du Prince, à observer les astres; contentons nous de leurs observations.
.
.
Nous devons être pleinement satisfaits sur une matière qui nous touche si peu, lorsqu'ils nous font partie de leurs découvertes."]
[Side-note: Differences between the Republic and other dialogues--no mention of reminiscence nor of the Elenchus.]
But his point of view in the Republic differs materially from that which we read in other dialogues: especially in two ways.
First, The scientific and long-continued Quadrivium, through which Plato here conducts the student to philosophy, is very different from the road to philosophy as indicated elsewhere.
Nothing is here said about reminiscence--which in the Menon, Phædon, Phædrus, and elsewhere, stands in the foreground of his theory, as the engine for reviving in the mind Forms or Ideas.
With these Forms it had been familiar during a prior state of existence, but they had become buried under the sensible impressions arising from its conjunction with the body.
Nor do we find in the Republic any mention of that electric shock of the negative Elenchus, which (in the Theætêtus, Sophistês, and several other dialogues) is declared indispensable for stirring up the natural mind not merely from ignorance and torpor, but even from a state positively distempered--the false persuasion of knowledge.
[Side-note: Different view taken by Plato in the Republic about Dialectic--and different place assigned to it.]
Secondly, following out this last observation, we perceive another discrepancy yet more striking, in the directions given by Plato respecting the study of Dialectic.
He prescribes that it shall upon no account be taught to young men: and that it shall come last of all in teaching, only after the full preceding Quadrivium.
He censures severely the prevalent practice of applying it to young men, as pregnant with mischief.
Young men (he says) brought up in certain opinions inculcated by the lawgiver, as to what is just and honourable, are interrogated on these subjects, and have questions put to them.
When asked What is the just and the honourable, they reply in the manner which they have learnt from authority: but this reply, being exposed to farther interrogatories, is shown to be untenable and inconsistent, such as they cannot defend to their own satisfaction.
Hence they lose all respect for the established ethical creed, which however stands opposed in their minds to the seductions of immediate enjoyment: yet they acquire no new or better conviction in its place.
Instead of following an established law, they thus come to live without any law.
[180] Besides, young men when initiated in dialectic debate, take great delight in the process, as a means of exposing and puzzling the respondent.
Copying the skilful interrogators whom they have found themselves unable to answer, they interrogate others in their turn, dispute everything, and pride themselves on exhibiting all the negative force of the Elenchus.
Instead of employing dialectic debate for the discovery of truth, they use it merely as a disputatious pastime, and thus bring themselves as well as philosophy into discredit.
[181] [Footnote 180: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
538 D-539.
[Greek: o(/tan to\n ou(/tôs e)/chonta e)ltho\n e)rô/têma e)/rêtai, ti/ e)sti to\ kalo/n, kai\ a)pokrina/menon o(\ tou= nomothetou= ê)/kouen e)xelegchê=| o( lo/gos, kai\ polla/kis kai\ pollachê= e)le/gchôn ei)s do/xan katabalê=| ô(s tou=to ou)de\n ma/llon kalo\n ê)\ ai)schro\n, kai\ peri\ dikai/ou ô(sau/tôs kai\ a)di/kou, kai\ a(\ ma/lista ê)=gen e)n timê=|], &c.] [Footnote 181: Plato, Repub.
vii.
p. 539 B.]
Accordingly, we must not admit (says Plato) either young men, or men of ordinary untrained minds, to dialectic debate.
We must admit none but mature persons, of sedate disposition, properly prepared: who will employ it not for mere disputation, but for the investigation of truth.
[182] [Footnote 182: Plato, Repub.
vii.
p. 539 D.] [Side-note: Contradiction with the spirit of other dialogues--Parmenidês, &c.] Now the doctrine thus proclaimed, with the grounds upon which it rests--That dialectic debate is unsuitable and prejudicial to young men--distinctly contradict both the principles laid down by himself elsewhere, and the frequent indications of his own dialogues: not to mention the practice of Sokrates as described by Xenophon.
In the Platonic Parmenidês, and Theætêtus, the season of youth is expressly pronounced to be that in which dialectic exercise is not merely appropriate, but indispensable to the subsequent attainment of truth.
[183] Moreover, Plato puts into the mouth of Parmenides a specimen intentionally given to represent that dialectic exercise which will be profitable to youth.
The specimen is one full of perplexing, though ingenious, subtleties: ending in establishing, by different trains of reasoning, the affirmative, as well as the negative, of several distinct conclusions.
Not only it supplies no new positive certainty, but it appears to render any such consummation more distant and less attainable than ever.
[184] It is therefore eminently open to the censure which Plato pronounces, in the passage just cited from his Republic, against dialectic as addressed to young men.
The like remark may be made upon the numerous other dialogues (though less extreme in negative subtlety than the Parmenidês), wherein the Platonic Sokrates interrogates youths (or interrogates others, in the presence of youths) without any positive result: as in the Theætêtus, Charmidês, Lysis, Alkibiadês, Hippias, &c., to which we may add the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates with Euthydemus and others.
[185] [Footnote 183: Plato, Parmenidês, pp.
135 D, 137 B. Theætêt.
146 A. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenidês (p. 778, Stallbaum), adverts to the passage of the Republic here discussed, and endeavours to show that it is not inconsistent with the Parmenidês.
He states that the exhortation to practise dialectic debate in youth, as the appropriate season, must be understood as specially and exclusively addressed to a youth of the extraordinary mental qualities of Sokrates; while the passage in the Republic applies the prohibition only to the general regiment of Guardians.
But this justification is noway satisfactory; for Plato in the Republic makes no exception in favour of the most promising Guardians.
He lays down the position generally.
Again, in the Parmenidês, we find the encouragement to dialectic debate addressed not merely to the youthful Sokrates, but to the youthful Aristoteles (p. 137 B).
Moreover, we are not to imagine that all the youths who are introduced as respondents in the Platonic dialogues are implied as equal to Sokrates himself, though they are naturally represented as superior and promising subjects.
Compare Plato, Sophistês, p. 217 E; Politikus, p. 257 E.] [Footnote 184: Plato, Parmenid.
p. 166 ad fin.
[Greek: ei)rê/sthô toi/nun tou=to/ te kai\ o(/ti, ô(s e)/oiken, e(\n ei)/t' e)/stin, ei)te mê\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\ ta)/lla kai\ pro\s au)ta\ kai\ pro\s a)/llêla pa/nta pa/ntôs e)/sti te kai\ ou)k e)/sti, kai\ phai/netai te kai\ ou) phai/netai.
A)lêthe/stata.]]
[Footnote 185: Xenophon, Memorab.
iv.
2.]
[Side-note: Contradiction with the character and declarations of Sokrates.]
In fact, the Platonic Sokrates expressly proclaims himself (in the Apology as well as in the other dialogues just named) to be ignorant and incapable of teaching anything.
His mission was to expose the ignorance of those, who fancy that they know without really knowing: he taught no one anything, but he cross-examined every one who would submit to it, before all the world, and in a manner especially interesting to young men.
Sokrates mentions that these young men not only listened with delight, but tried to imitate him as well as they could, by cross-examining others in the same manner:[186] and in mentioning the fact, he expresses neither censure nor regret, but satisfaction in the thought that the chance would be thereby increased, of exposing that false persuasion of knowledge which prevailed so widely everywhere.
Now Plato, in the passage just cited from the Republic, blames this contagious spirit of cross-examination on the part of young men, as a vice which proved the mischief of dialectic debate addressed to them at that age.
He farther deprecates the disturbance of "those opinions which they have heard from the lawgiver respecting what is just and honourable".
But it is precisely these opinions which, in the Alkibiadês, Menon, Protagoras, and other dialogues, the Platonic Sokrates treats as untaught, if not unteachable:--as having been acquired, no man knew how, without the lessons of any assignable master and without any known period of study:--lastly, as constituting that very illusion of false knowledge without real knowledge, of which Sokrates undertakes to purge the youthful mind, and which must be dispelled before any improvement can be effected in it.
[187] [Footnote 186: Plato, Apolog.
Sokrat c. 10, p. 23 D, c. 22, p. 33 C, c. 27, p. 37 E, c. 30, p. 39 C.] [Footnote 187: Plato, Sophist.
p.
230.]
[Side-note: The remarks here made upon the effect of Dialectic upon youth coincide with the accusation of Melêtus against Sokrates.]
We thus see, that the dictum forbidding dialectic debate with youth--cited from the seventh book of the Republic, which Plato there puts into the mouth of Sokrates--is decidedly anti-Sokratic; and anti-Platonic, in so far as Plato represents Sokrates.
It belongs indeed to the case of Melêtus and Anytus, in their indictment against Sokrates before the Athenian dikastery.
It is identical with their charge against him, of corrupting youth, and inducing them to fancy themselves superior to the authority of established customs and opinions heard from their elders.
[188] Now the Platonic Sokrates is here made to declare explicitly, that dialectic debate addressed to youth does really tend to produce this effect:--to render them lawless, immoral, disputatious.
And when we find him forbidding all such discourse at an earlier age than thirty years--we remark as a singular coincidence, that this is the exact prohibition which Kritias and Charikles actually imposed upon Sokrates himself, during the shortlived dominion of the Thirty Oligarchs at Athens.
[189] [Footnote 188: Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
2, 19-49.
Compare Aristophanes, Nubes, 1042-1382.]
[Footnote 189: Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
2, 33-38.
Isokrates complains that youthful students took more delight in disputation than he thought suitable; nevertheless he declares that youth, and not mature age, is the proper season for such exercises, as well as for Geometry and Astronomy (Orat.
xii.
Panathen.
s. 29-31, p.
239).]
[Side-note: Contrast between the real Sokrates, as a dissenter at Athens, and the Platonic Sokrates, framer and dictator of the Platonic Republic.]
The matter to which I here advert, illustrates a material distinction between some writings of Plato as compared with others, and between different points of view which his mind took on at different times.
In the Platonic Apology, we find Sokrates confessing his own ignorance, and proclaiming himself to be isolated among an uncongenial public falsely persuaded of their own knowledge.
In several other dialogues, he is the same: he cannot teach anything, but can only cross-examine, test, and apply the spur to respondents.
But the Republic presents him in a new character.
He is no longer a dissenter amidst a community of fixed, inherited, convictions.
[190] He is himself on the throne of King Nomos: the infallible authority, temporal as well as spiritual, from whom all public sentiment emanates, and by whom orthodoxy is determined.
Hence we now find him passing to the opposite pole; taking up the orthodox, conservative, point of view, the same as Melêtus and Anytus maintained in their accusation against Sokrates at Athens.
He now expects every individual to fall into the place, and contract the opinions, prescribed by authority: including among those opinions deliberate ethical and political fictions, such as that about the gold and silver earthborn men.
Free-thinking minds, who take views of their own, and enquire into the evidence of these beliefs, become inconvenient and dangerous.
Neither the Sokrates of the Platonic Apology, nor his negative Dialectic, could be allowed to exist in the Platonic Republic.
[Footnote 190: Plato, Repub.
vii.
p.
541.]
[Side-note: Idea of Good--The Chiefs alone know what it is--If they did not they would be unfit for their functions.]
One word more must be said respecting a subject which figures conspicuously in the Republic--the Idea or Form of Good.
The chiefs alone (we read) at the end of their long term of study, having ascended gradually from the phenomena of sense to intellectual contemplation and familiarity with the unchangeable Ideas--will come to discern and embrace the highest of all Ideas--the Form of Good:[191] by the help of which alone, Justice, Temperance, and the other virtues, become useful and profitable.
[192] If the Archons do not know how and why just and honourable things are good, they will not be fit for their duty.
[193] In regard to Good (Plato tells us) no man is satisfied with mere appearance.
Here every man desires and postulates that which is really good: while as to the just and the honourable, many are satisfied with the appearance, without caring for the reality.
[194] [Footnote 191: Plato, Republic, vii.
pp.
533-534.]
[Footnote 192: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 A.]
[Footnote 193: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 506 A.]
[Footnote 194: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 D.] [Side-note: What is the Good?
Plato does not know; but he requires the Chiefs to know it.
Without this the Republic would be a failure.]
Plato proclaims this Real Good, as distinguished from Apparent Good, to be the paramount and indispensable object of knowledge, without which all other knowledge is useless.
It is that which every man divines to exist, yearns for, and does everything with a view to obtain: but which he misses, from not knowing where to seek; missing also along with it that which gives value to other acquisitions.
[195] What then is this Real Good--the Noumenon, Idea, or form of Good?
[Footnote 195: Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 505 A-E. [Greek: O(\ dê\ diô/kei me\n a(/pasa psuchê\ kai\ tou/tou e(/neka pa/nta pra/ttei, a)pomanteuome/nê ti\ ei)=nai, a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot' e)sti\n ou)de\ pi/stei chrê/sasthai moni/mô|, oi(/a| kai\ peri\ ta)/lla, dia\ tou=to de\ a)potugcha/nei kai\ tô=n a)/llôn ei)/ ti o)/phelos ê)=n], &c.] This question is put by Glaukon to Sokrates, with much earnestness, in the dialogue of the Republic.
But unfortunately it remains unanswered.
Plato declines all categorical reply; though the question is one, as he himself emphatically announces, upon which all the positive consequences of his philosophy turn.
[196] He conducts us to the chamber wherein this precious and indispensable secret is locked up, but he has no key to open the door.
In describing the condition of other men's minds--that they divine a Real Good--[Greek: Au)to\-a)gatho\n] or Bonum _per se_--do everything in order to obtain it, but puzzle themselves in vain to grasp and determine what it is[197]--he has unconsciously described the condition of his own.
[Footnote 196: Certainly when we see the way in which Plato deals with the [Greek: i)de/a a)gathou=], we cannot exempt him from the criticism which he addresses to others, vi.
p. 493 E. [Greek: ô(s de\ kai\ a)gatha\ kai\ kala\ tau=ta tê=| a)lêthei/a|, ê)/dê pôpote/ tou= ê)/kousas au)tô=n lo/gon dido/ntos ou) katage/laston?]
We may illustrate this procedure of Plato by an Oriental fable, cited in an instructive Dissertation of M. Ernest Renan.
"Aristoteles primum sub Almamuno (813-833, A.D.) arabicè factus est.
Somniumque effictum à credulis hominibus: vidisse Almamunum in somno virum aspectu venerabili, solio insidentem: mirantem Almamunum quæsivisse, quisnam ille esset?
responsum, Aristotelem esse.
Quo audito, Chalifam ab eo quæsivisse, Quidnam Bonum esset?
respondisse Aristotelem: Quod sapientiores probarent.
Quærenti Chalifæ quid hoc esset?
Quod lex divina probat--dixisse.
Interroganti porro illi, Quid hoc?
Quod omnes probarent--respondisse: _neque alii ultra quæstioni respondere voluisse_.
Quo somnio permotum Almamunum à Græcorum imperatore veniam petiisse, ut libri philosophici in ipsius regno quærerentur: hujusque rei gratiâ viros doctos misisse."
Ernest Renan, De Philosophiâ Peripateticâ apud Syros, commentatio Historica, p. 57; Paris, 1852.
Among the various remarks which might be made upon this curious dream, one is, that Bonum is always determined as having relation to the appreciative apprehension of some mind--the Wise Men, the Divine Mind, the Mind of the general public.
_Bonum_ is that which some mind or minds conceive and appreciate as such.
The word has no meaning except in relation to some apprehending Subject.]
[Footnote 197: Plato, Republ.
vi.
p. 505 E. [Greek: a)pomanteuome/nê ti ei)=nai, a)porou=sa de\ kai\ ou)k e)/chousa labei=n i(kanô=s ti/ pot' e)sti/n], &c. The remarks of Aristotle in impugning the Platonic [Greek: i)de/an a)gathou=] are very instructive, Ethic.
Nikom.
i. p. 1096-1097; Ethic.
Eudem.
i. p. 1217-1218.
He maintains that there exists nothing corresponding to the word; and that even if it did exist, it would neither be [Greek: prakto\n] nor [Greek: ktêto\n a)nthrô/pô|].
Aristotle here looks upon Good as being essentially relative or phenomenal: he understands [Greek: to\ a(plô=s a)gatho\n] to mean [Greek: to\ a)gatho\n to\ phaino/menon tô=| spoudai/ô|] (Eth.
Nik.
iii.
p. 1113, b.
16-32).
But he does not uniformly adhere to this meaning.]
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
TIMÆUS AND KRITIAS.
[Side-note: Persons and scheme of the Timæus and Kritias.]
Though the Republic of Plato appears as a substantive composition, not including in itself any promise of an intended sequel--yet the Timæus and Kritias are introduced by Plato as constituting a sequel to the Republic.
Timæus the Pythagorean philosopher of Lokri, the Athenian Kritias, and Hermokrates, are now introduced, as having been the listeners while Sokrates was recounting his long conversation of ten Books, first with Thrasymachus, next with Glaukon and Adeimantus.
The portion of that conversation, which described the theory of a model commonwealth, is recapitulated in its main characteristics: and Sokrates now claims from the two listeners some requital for the treat which he has afforded to them.
He desires to see the citizens, whose training he has described at length, and whom he has brought up to the stage of mature capacity--exhibited by some one else as living, acting, and affording some brilliant evidence of courage and military discipline.
[1] Kritias undertakes to satisfy his demand, by recounting a glorious achievement of the ancient citizens of Attica, who had once rescued Europe from an inroad of countless and almost irresistible invaders, pouring in from the vast island of Atlantis in the Western Ocean.
This exploit is supposed to have been performed nearly 10,000 years before; and though lost out of the memory of the Athenians themselves, to have been commemorated and still preserved in the more ancient records of Sais in Egypt, and handed down through Solon by a family tradition to Kritias.
But it is agreed between Kritias and Timæus,[2] that before the former enters upon his quasi-historical or mythical recital about the invasion from Atlantis, the latter shall deliver an expository discourse, upon a subject very different and of far greater magnitude.
Unfortunately the narrative promised by Kritias stands before us only as a fragment.
There is reason to believe that Plato never completed it.
[3] But the discourse assigned to Timæus was finished, and still remains, as a valuable record of ancient philosophy.
[Footnote 1: Plato, Timæus, p. 20 B.]
[Footnote 2: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 A.]
[Footnote 3: Plutarch, Solon, c. 33.
Another discourse appears to have been contemplated by Plato, to be delivered by Hermokrates after Kritias had concluded (Plato, Timæus, p. 20 A; Kritias, p. 108).
But nothing of this was probably ever composed.]
[Side-note: The Timæus is the earliest ancient physical theory, which we possess in the words of its author.]
For us, modern readers, the Timæus of Plato possesses a species of interest which it did not possess either for the contemporaries of its author, or for the ancient world generally.
We read in it a system--at least the sketch of a system--of universal philosophy, the earliest that has come to us in the words of the author himself.
Among the many other systems, anterior or simultaneous--those of Thales and the other Ionic philosophers, of Herakleitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, Demokritus--not one remains to us as it was promulgated by its original author or supporters.
We know all of them only in fragments and through the criticisms of others: fragments always scanty--criticisms generally dissentient, often harsh, sometimes unfair, introduced by the critic to illustrate opposing doctrines of his own.
Here, however, the Platonic system is made known to us, not in this fragmentary and half-attested form, but in the full exposition which Plato himself deemed sufficient for it.
This is a remarkable peculiarity.
[Side-note: Position** and character of the Pythagorean Timæus.]
Timæus is extolled by Sokrates as combining the character of a statesman with that of a philosopher: as being of distinguished wealth and family in his native city (the Epizephyrian Lokri), where he had exercised the leading political functions:--and as having attained besides, the highest excellence in science, astronomical as well as physical.
[4] We know from other sources (though Plato omits to tell us so, according to his usual undefined manner of designating contemporaries) that he was of the Pythagorean school.
Much of the exposition assigned to him is founded on Pythagorean principles, though blended by Plato with other doctrines, either his own or borrowed elsewhere.
Timæus undertakes to requite Sokrates by giving a discourse respecting "The Nature of the Universe"; beginning at the genesis of the Kosmos, and ending with the constitution of man.
[5] This is to serve as an historical or mythical introduction to the Platonic Republic recently described; wherein Sokrates had set forth the education and discipline proper for man when located as an inhabitant of the earth.
Neither during the exposition of Timæus, nor after it, does Sokrates make any remark.
But the commencement of the Kritias (which is evidently intended as a second part or continuation of the Timæus) contains, first, a prayer from Timæus that the Gods will pardon the defects of his preceding discourse and help him to amend them--next an emphatic commendation bestowed by Sokrates upon the discourse: thus supplying that recognition which is not found in the first part.
[6] [Footnote 4: Plato, Timæus, pp.
20 A, 27 A.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 A.
[Greek: e)/doxe ga\r ê(mi=n Ti/maion me/n, a(/te a)stronomikô/taton ê(mô=n, kai\ _peri\ phu/seôs tou= panto\s_ ei)de/nai ma/lista e)/rgon pepoiême/non, prô=ton le/gein a)rcho/menon a)po\ tê=s tou= ko/smou gene/seôs, teleuta=|n de\ ei)s a)nthrô/pôn phu/sin.]]
[Footnote 6: Plato, Kritias, p. 108 B.]
[Side-note: Poetical imagination displayed by Plato.
He pretends to nothing more than probability.
Contrast with Sokrates, Isokrates, Xenophon.]
In this Hymn of the Universe (to use a phrase of the rhetor Menander[7] respecting the Platonic Timæus) the prose of Plato is quite as much the vehicle of poetical imagination as the hexameters of Hesiod, Empedokles, or Parmenides.
The Gods and Goddesses, whom Timæus invokes at the commencement,[8] supply him with superhuman revelations, like the Muses to Hesiod, or the Goddess of Wisdom to Parmenides.
Plato expressly recognises the multiplicity of different statements current, respecting the Gods and the generation of the Universe.
He claims no superior credibility for his own.
He professes to give us a new doctrine, not less probable than the numerous dissentient opinions already advanced by others, and more acceptable to his own mind.
He bids us be content with such a measure of probability, because the limits of our human nature preclude any fuller approach to certainty.
[9] It is important to note the modest pretensions here unreservedly announced by Plato as to the conviction and assent of hearers:--so different from the confidence manifested in the Republic, where he hires a herald to proclaim his conclusion--and from the overbearing dogmatism which we read in his Treatise De Legibus, where he is providing a catechism for the schooling of citizens, rather than proofs to be sifted by opponents.
He delivers, respecting matters which he admits to be unfathomable, the theory most in harmony with his own religious and poetical predispositions, which he declares to be as probable as any other yet proclaimed.
The Xenophontic Sokrates, who disapproved all speculation respecting the origin and structure of the Kosmos, would probably have granted this equal probability, and equal absence of any satisfactory grounds of preferential belief--both to Plato on one side and to the opposing theorists on the other.
And another intelligent contemporary, Isokrates, would probably have considered the Platonic Timæus as one among the same class of unprofitable extravagancies, to which he assigns the theories of Herakleitus, Empedokles, Alkmæon, Parmenides, and others.
[10] Plato himself (in the Sophistês)[11] characterises the theories of these philosophers as fables recited to an audience of children, without any care to ensure a rational comprehension and assent.
_They_ would probably have made the like criticism upon his Timæus.
While he treats it as fable to apply to the Gods the human analogy of generation and parentage--they would have considered it only another variety of fable, to apply to them the equally human analogy of constructive fabrication or mixture of ingredients.
The language of Xenophon shows that he agreed with his master Sokrates in considering such speculations as not merely unprofitable, but impious.
[12] And if the mission from the Gods--constituting Sokrates Cross-Examiner General against the prevailing fancy of knowledge without the reality of knowledge--drove him to court perpetual controversy with the statesmen, poets, and Sophists of Athens; the same mission would have compelled him, on hearing the sweeping affirmations of Timæus, to apply the test of his Elenchus, and to appear in his well-known character of confessed[13] but inquisitive ignorance.
The Platonic Timæus is positively anti-Sokratic.
It places us at the opposite or dogmatic pole of Plato's character.
[14] [Footnote 7: Menander, De Encomiis, i.
5, p. 39.
Compare Karsten, De Empedoclis Vitâ, p. 72; De Parmenidis Vitâ, p.
21.]
[Footnote 8: Plato, Timæus, p. 27 D; Hesiod, Theogon, 22-35-105.]
[Footnote 9: Plato, Timæus, pp.
29 D, 28 D, 59 C-D, 68 C, 72 D. [Greek: kat' e)mê\n do/xan--para\ tê=s e)mê=s psê/phou] (p. 52 D).
In many parts of the dialogue he repeats that he is delivering his _own opinion_--that he is affirming what is probable.
In the Phædon, however, we find that [Greek: ei)ko/tes lo/goi] are set aside as deceptive and dangerous, Phædon, p. 92 D. In the remarkable passage of the Timæus, p. 48 C-D, Plato intimates that he will not in the present discourse attempt to go to the bottom of the subject--[Greek: tê\n me\n peri\ a(pa/ntôn ei)/te a)rchê\n ei)/te a)rcha\s ei)/te o(/pê| dokei= tou/tôn pe/ri, to\ nu=n ou) r(ête/on]--but that he will confine himself to [Greek: ei)ko/tes lo/goi--to\ de\ kat' a)rcha\s r(êthe\n diaphula/ttôn, tê\n _tô=n ei)ko/tôn lo/gôn du/namin, peira/somai mêdeno\s ê(=tton ei)ko/ta_, ma=llon de\ kai\ e)/mprosthen a)p' a)rchê=s peri\ e(ka/stôn kai\ xumpa/ntôn le/gein.]
What these _principia_ are, which Plato here keeps in the background, I do not clearly understand.
Susemihl (Entwickelung der Plat.
Phil.
ii.
p. 405) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii.
p. 173, note 56) have both given elucidations of this passage, but neither of them appear to me satisfactory.
Simplikius says:--[Greek: O( Pla/tôn tê\n phusiologi/an ei)kotologi/an e)/legen ei)=nai, ô(=| kai\ A)ristote/lês summarturei=], Schol.
Aristot.
Phys.
325, a.
25 Brandis.]
[Footnote 10: Isokrates, De Permutatione, Or.
xv.
s. 287-288-304.
[Greek: ê(gou=mai ga\r ta\s me\n toiau/tas _perittologi/as_ o(moi/as ei)=nai tai=s thaumatopoii/ais tai=s ou)de\n me\n ô)phelou/sais, u(po\ de\ tô=n a)noê/tôn perista/tois gignome/nais] (s. 288).
.
.
.
[Greek: tou\s de\ tô=n me\n a)nagkai/ôn a)melou=ntas, ta\s de\ tô=n palaiô=n sophistô=n _teratologi/as_ a)gapô=ntas, philosophei=n phasi/n] (s. 304).
Compare another passage of Isokrates, the opening of Orat.
x. Encomium Helenæ; in which latter passage he seems plainly to notice one of the main ethical doctrines advanced by Plato, though he does not mention Plato's name, nor indeed the name of any living person.]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Sophist.
pp.
242-243.
[Greek: Mu=tho/n tina e(/kastos phai/netai/ moi diêgei=sthai paisi\n ô(s ou)=sin ê(mi=n; o( me\n ô(s tri/a ta\ o)/nta, polemei= de\ a)llê/lois e)ni/ote au)tô=n a)/tta pê|, to/te de\ kai\ phi/la gigno/mena ga/mous te kai\ to/kous kai\ tropha\s tô=n e)kgo/nôn pare/chetai] (p. 242 C-D).]
[Footnote 12: Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
1, 11-14.
[Greek: Ou)dei\s de\ pô/pote Sôkra/tous ou)de\n a)sebe\s ou)de\ a)no/sion ou)/te pra/ttontos ei)=den ou)/te le/gontos ê)/kousen; _ou)de\ ga\r_ peri\ tê=s tô=n pa/ntôn phu/seôs ê(=per tô=n a)/llôn oi(/ plei=stoi, diele/geto, skopô=n _o(/pôs o( kalou/menos u(po\ tô=n sophistô=n ko/smos_ e)/chei, kai\ ti/sin a)na/gkais e(/kasta gi/gnetai tô=n ou)rani/ôn; a)lla\ kai\ tou\s phronti/zontas ta\ toiau=ta môrai/nontas a)pedei/knue.]
Lucretius, i.
80:-Illud in his rebus vereor, ne forté rearis Impia te rationis inire elementa, viamque Indugredi sceleris, &c. The above cited passage of Xenophon shows that the term [Greek: Ko/smos] was in his time a technical word among philosophers, not yet accepted in that meaning by the general public.
The aversion to investigation of the Kosmos, on the ground of impiety, entertained by Sokrates and Xenophon, is expressed by Plato in the Leges (vii.
821 A) in the following words of the principal speaker,--[Greek: To\n me/giston theo\n kai\ o(/lon to\n ko/smon phame\n ou)/te zêtei=n dei=n ou)/te polupragmonei=n ta\s ai)ti/as e)reunô=ntas; ou) ga\r ou)d' o(/sion ei)=nai; to\ de\ e)/oike pa=n tou/tou tou)nanti/on gigno/menon o)rthô=s a)\n gi/gnesthai.]
This last passage is sometimes cited as if the word [Greek: phame\n] expressed the opinion of the principal speaker, or of Plato himself--which is a mistake: [Greek: phame\n] here expresses the opinion which the principal speaker is about to controvert.]
[Footnote 13: See above, vol.
i. ch.
ix.
of the present work, where the Platonic Apology is reviewed.]
[Footnote 14: "Quocirca Timæus non dialecticé disserens inducitur, sed loquitur ut hierophanta, qui mundi arcana aliunde accepta grandi ac magnificâ oratione pronunciat; quin etiam quæ experientiæ suspicionem superant, mythorum ac symbolorum involucris obtegit, eoque modo quam ea certa sint, legentibus non obscuré significat."
--Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Platon.
Timæum, c. iv.
p.
37.]
[Side-note: Fundamental distinction between Ens and Fientia.]
Timæus begins by laying down the capital distinction between--1.
Ens or the Existent, the eternal and unchangeable, the world of Ideas or Forms, apprehended only by mental conception or Reason, but the object of infallible cognition.
2.
The Generated and Perishable--the sensible, phenomenal, material world--which never really exists, but is always appearing and disappearing; apprehended by sense, yet not capable of becoming the object of cognition, nor of anything better than opinion or conjecture.
The Kosmos, being a visible and tangible body, belongs to this last category.
Accordingly, it can never be really known: no true or incontestable propositions can be affirmed respecting it: you can arrive at nothing higher than opinion and probability.
Plato seems to have had this conviction, respecting the uncertainty of all affirmations about the sensible world or any portions of it, forcibly present to his mind.
[Side-note: Postulates of Plato.
The Demiurgus--The Eternal Ideas--Chaotic Materia or Fundamentum.
The Kosmos is a living being and a God.]
He next proceeds to assume or imply, as postulates, his eternal Ideas or Forms--a coeternal chaotic matter or indeterminate Something--and a Demiurgus or Architect to construct, out of this chaos, after contemplation of the Forms, copies of them as good as were practicable in the world of sense.
The exposition begins with these postulates.
The Demiurgus found all visible matter, not in a state of rest, but in discordant and irregular motion.
He brought it out of disorder into order.
Being himself good (says Plato), and desiring to make everything else as good as possible, he transformed this chaos into an orderly Kosmos.
[15] He planted in its centre a soul spreading round, so as to pervade all its body--and reason in the soul: so that the Kosmos became animated, rational--a God.
[Footnote 15: Plato, Timæus, pp.
29-30.]
[Side-note: The Demiurgus not a Creator--The Kosmos arises from his operating upon the random movements of Necessity.
He cannot controul necessity--he only persuades.]
The Demiurgus of Plato is not conceived as a Creator,[16] but as a Constructor or Artist.
He is the God Promêtheus, conceived as pre-kosmical, and elevated to the primacy of the Gods: instead of being subordinate to Zeus, as depicted by Æschylus and others.
He represents provident intelligence or art, and beneficent purpose, contending with a force superior and irresistible, so as to improve it as far as it will allow itself to be improved.
[17] This pre-existing superior force Plato denominates Necessity--"the erratic, irregular, random causality," subsisting prior to the intervention of the Demiurgus; who can only work upon it by persuasion, but cannot coerce or subdue it.
[18] The genesis of the Kosmos thus results from a combination of intelligent force with the original, primordial Necessity; which was persuaded, and consented, to have its irregular agency regularised up to a certain point, but no farther.
Beyond this limit the systematising arrangements of the Demiurgus could not be carried; but all that is good or beautiful in the Kosmos was owing to them.
[19] [Footnote 16: "The notion of absolute Creation is unknown to Plato, as it is to all Grecian and Roman antiquity" (Brandis, Gesch.
der Griech.
Röm.
Philos.
vol.
ii.
part 2, p.
306).]
[Footnote 17: The verbs used by Plato to describe the proceedings of the Demiurgus are [Greek: xunetektai/neto, xune/stêse, xunekera/sato, e)mêchanê/sato], and such like.]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Timæus, pp.
47 E-48 A.
[Greek: e)pide/deiktai ta\ dia\ nou= dedêmiourgême/na; dei= de\ kai\ ta\ di' a)na/gkês gigno/mena tô=| lo/gô| parathe/sthai.
Memigme/nê ga\r ou)=n ê( tou=de tou= ko/smou ge/nesis e)x a)na/gkês te kai\ nou= xusta/seôs e)gennê/thê; nou= de\ a)na/gkês a)/rchontos _tô=| pei/thein au)tê\n_ tô=n gignome/nôn ta\ plei=sta e)pi\ to\ be/ltiston a)/gein, tau/tê| kata\ tau=ta/ te di' a)na/gkês ê(ttôme/nês u(po\ _pei/thous_ e)/mphronos, ou(/tô kat' a)rcha\s xuni/stato to/de to\ pa=n.
Ei)/ tis ou)=n ê(= ge/gone, kata\ tau=ta o)/ntôs e)rei=, mikte/on kai\ _to\ tê=s planôme/nês ei)=dos ai)ti/as_, ê(= phe/rein pe/phuken.]
Compare p. 56 C: [Greek: o(/pê|per ê( tê=s a)na/gkês _e(kou=sa peisthei=sa/_ te phu/sis u(pei=ke.]
Also pp.
68 E, 75 B, 30 A.
[Greek: Te/chnê d' a)na/gkês a)stheneste/ra makrô=|] says Prometheus in Æschylus (P. V. 514).
He identifies [Greek: A)na/gkê] with the [Greek: Moi=rai]: and we read in Herodotus (i.
91) of Apollo as trying to persuade the Fates to spare Kroesus, but obtaining for him only a respite of three years--[Greek: ou)k oi(=o/n te e)ge/neto paragagei=n moi/ras, _o(/son de\ e)ne/dôkan au(=tai_, ê)nu/sato kai\ e)chari/sato/ oi(.]
This is the language used by Plato about [Greek: A)na/gkê] and the Demiurgus.
A valuable exposition of the relations believed to subsist between the Gods and [Greek: Moi=ra] is to be found in Naegelsbach, Homerische Theologie (chap.
iii.
pp.
113-131).]
[Footnote 19: Plutarch reproduces this theory (Phokion, c. 2, ad fin.)
of God governing the Kosmos, not by superior force, but by reason and persuasion--[Greek: ê(=| kai\ to\n ko/smon o( theo\s le/getai dioikei=n, ou) biazo/menos, a)lla\ peithoi= kai\ lo/gô| para/gôn tê\n a)na/gkên.]]
[Side-note: Meaning of Necessity in Plato.]
We ought here to note the sense in which Plato uses the word Necessity.
This word is now usually understood as denoting what is fixed, permanent, unalterable, knowable beforehand.
In the Platonic Timæus it means the very reverse:--the indeterminate, the inconstant, the anomalous, that which can neither be understood nor predicted.
It is Force, Movement, or Change, with the negative attribute of not being regular, or intelligible, or determined by any knowable antecedent or condition--_Vis consili expers_.
It coincides, in fact, with that which is meant by _Freewill_, in the modern metaphysical argument between Freewill and Necessity: it is the undetermined or self-determining, as contrasted with that which depends upon some given determining conditions, known or knowable.
The Platonic Necessity[20] is identical with the primeval Chaos, recognised in the Theogony or Kosmogony of Hesiod.
That poet tells us that Chaos was the primordial Something: and that afterwards came Gæa, Eros, Uranus, Nyx, Erebus, &c., who intermarried, males with females, and thus gave birth to numerous divine persons or kosmical agents--each with more or less of definite character and attributes.
By these supervening agencies, the primeval Chaos was modified and regulated, to a greater or less extent.
The Platonic Timæus starts in the same manner as Hesiod, from an original Chaos.
But then he assumes also, as coæval with it, but apart from it, his eternal Forms or Ideas: while, in order to obtain his kosmical agents, he does not have recourse, like Hesiod, to the analogy of intermarriages and births, but employs another analogy equally human and equally borrowed from experience--that of a Demiurgus or constructive professional artist, architect, or carpenter; who works upon the model of these Forms, and introduces regular constructions into the Chaos.
The antithesis present to the mind of Plato is that between disorder or absence of order, announced as Necessity,--and order or regularity, represented by the Ideas.
[21] As the mediator between these two primeval opposites, Plato assumes Nous, or Reason, or artistic skill personified in his Demiurgus: whom he calls essentially good--meaning thereby that he is the regularising agent by whom order, method, and symmetry, are copied from the Ideas and partially realised among the intractable data of Necessity.
Good is something which Plato in other works often talks about, but never determines: his language implies sometimes that he knows what it is, sometimes that he does not know.
But so far as we can understand him, it means order, regularity, symmetry, proportion--by consequence, what is ascertainable and predictable.
[22] I will not say that Plato means this always and exclusively, by Good: but he seems to mean so in the Timæus.
Evil is the reverse.
Good or regularity is associated in his mind exclusively with rational agency.
It can be produced, he assumes, only by a reason, or by some personal agent analogous to a reasonable and intelligent man.
Whatever is not so produced, must be irregular or bad.
[Footnote 20: In the Symposion (pp.
195 D, 197 B) we find Eros panegyrised as having amended and mollified the primeval empire of [Greek: A)na/gkê].
The Scholiast on Hesiod, Theogon.
119, gives a curious metaphysical explanation of [Greek: E)/ros], mentioned in the Hesiodic text--[Greek: tê\n e)gkatesparme/nên phusikô=s kinêtikê\n ai)ti/an e(ka/stô| tô=n o)ntôn, kath' ê(\n e)phi/etai e(/kastos tou= ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 21: In the Philêbus, p. 23 C-D, these three are recognised under the terms:--1.
[Greek: Pe/ras].
2.
[Greek: A)/peiron].
3.
[Greek: Ai)ti/a--tê=s xummi/xeôs tou/tôn pro\s a)/llêla tê\n ai)ti/an].
Compare a curious passage of Plutarch, Symposiacon, viii.
2, p. 719 E, illustrating the Platonic phrase--[Greek: to\n theo\n a)ei\ geômetrei=n].]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Timæus, p. 30 A.
Compare the Republic, vi.
p. 506, Philêbus, pp.
65-66, and the investigation in the Euthydêmus, pp.
279-293, which ends in no result.]
[Side-note: Process of demiurgic construction--The total Kosmos comes logically first, constructed on the model of the [Greek: Au)tozô=on].]
These are the fundamental ideas which Plato expands into a detailed Kosmology.
The first application which he makes of them is, to construct the total Kosmos.
The total is here the logical Prius, or anterior to the parts in his order of conception.
The Kosmos is one vast and comprehensive animal: just as in physiological description, the leading or central idea is, that of the animal organism as a whole, to which each and all the parts are referred.
The Kosmos is constructed by the Demiurgus according to the model of the [Greek: Au)tozô=on],[23]--(the Form or Idea of Animal--the eternal Generic or Self-Animal,)--which comprehends in itself the subordinate specific Ideas of different sorts of animals.
This Generic Idea of Animal comprehended four of such specific Ideas: 1.
The celestial race of animals, or Gods, who occupied the heavens.
2.
Men.
3.
Animals living in air--Birds.
4.
Animals living on land or in water.
[24] In order that the Kosmos might approach near to its model the Self-animal, it was required to contain all these four species.
As there was but one Self-Animal, so there could only be one Kosmos.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Timæus, p. 30 D.] [Footnote 24: Plat.
Timæus, pp.
39 E-40 A.
[Greek: ê(=per ou)=n nou=s e)nou/sas i)de/as tô=| o(\ e)/sti zô=on, oi(=ai/ te e)/neisi kai\ o(/sai, kathora=|, toiau/tas kai\ tosau/tas dienoê/thê dei=n kai\ to/de schei=n.
Ei)si\ de\ te/ttares, mi/a me\n ou)ra/nion theô=n ge/nos, a)/llê de\ ptêno\n kai\ a)eropo/ron, tri/tê de\ e)/nudron ei)=dos, pezo\n de\ kai\ chersai=on te/tarton.]]
We see thus, that the primary and dominant idea, in Plato's mind, is, not that of inorganic matter, but that of organised and animated matter--life or soul embodied.
With him, biology comes before physics.
The body of the Kosmos was required to be both visible and tangible: it could not be visible without fire: it could not be tangible without something solid, nor solid without earth.
But two things cannot be well put together by themselves, without a third to serve as a bond of connection: and that is the best bond which makes them One as much as possible.
Geometrical proportion best accomplishes this object.
But as both Fire and Earth were solids and not planes, no one mean proportional could be found between them.
Two mean proportionals were necessary.
Hence the Demiurgus interposed air and water, in such manner, that as fire is to air, so is air to water: and as air is to water, so is water to earth.
[25] Thus the four elements, composing the body of the Kosmos, were bound together in unity and friendship.
Of each of the four, the entire total was used up in the construction: so that there remained nothing of them apart, to hurt the Kosmos from without, nor anything as raw material for a second Kosmos.
[26] [Footnote 25: Plato, Tim.
pp.
31-32.
The comment of Macrobius on this passage (Somn.
Scip.
i.
6, p. 30) is interesting, if not conclusive.
But the language in which Plato lays down this doctrine about mean proportionals is not precise, and has occasioned much difference of opinion among commentators.
Between two solids (he says), that is, solid numbers, or numbers generated out of the product of three factors, no one mean proportional can be found.
This is not universally true.
The different suggestions of critics to clear up this difficulty will be found set forth in the elaborate note of M. Martin (Études sur le Timée, vol.
1, note xx.
pp.
337-345), who has given what seems a probable explanation.
Plato (he supposes) is speaking only of prime numbers and their products.
In the language of ancient arithmeticians _linear numbers_, _par excellence_ or properly so-called, were the prime numbers, measurable by unity only; _plane numbers_ were the products of two such linear numbers or prime numbers; _solid numbers_ were the products of three such.
Understanding solid numbers in this restricted sense, it will be perfectly true that between any two of them you can never find _any one_ solid number or any whole number which shall be a mean proportional, but you can always find _two_ solid numbers which shall be mean proportionals.
One mean proportional will never be sufficient.
On the contrary, one mean proportional will be sufficient between two plane numbers (in the restricted sense) when these numbers are squares, though not if they are not squares.
It is therefore true, that in the case of two _solid_ numbers** (so understood) one such mean proportional will never be sufficient, while two can always be found; and that between two _plane_ numbers** (so understood) one such mean proportional will in certain cases be sufficient and may be found.
This is what is present to Plato's mind, though in enunciating it he does not declare the restriction under which alone it is true.
M. Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, p. 17) approves of Martin's explanation.
At the same time M. Martin has given no proof that Plato had in his mind the distinction between prime numbers and other numbers, for his references in p. 338 do not prove this point; moreover, the explanation assumes such very loose expression, that the phrase of M. Cousin in his note (p. 334) is, after all, perfectly just: "Platon n'a pas songé à donner à sa phrase une rigueur mathématique": and the more simple explanation of M. Cousin (though Martin rejects it as unworthy) may perhaps include all that is really intended.
"Si deux surfaces peuvent être unies par un seul terme intermédiaire, il faudra deux termes intermédiaires pour unir deux solides: et l'union sera encore plus parfaite si la raison des deux proportions est la même."]
[Footnote 26: Plat.
Timæus, p. 32 E.] [Side-note: Body of the Kosmos, perfectly spherical--its rotations.]
The Kosmos was constructed as a perfect sphere, rounded, because that figure both comprehends all other figures, and is, at the same time, the most perfect, and most like to itself.
[27] The Demiurgus made it perfectly smooth on the outside, for various reasons.
[28] First, it stood in no need of either eyes or ears, because there was nothing outside to be seen or heard.
Next, it did not want organs of respiration, inasmuch as there was no outside air to be breathed:--nor nutritive and excrementary organs, because its own decay supplied it with nourishment, so that it was self-sufficing, being constructed as its own agent and its own patient.
[29] Moreover the Demiurgus did not furnish it with hands, because there was nothing for it either to grasp or repel--nor with legs, feet, or means of standing, because he assigned to it only one of the seven possible varieties of movement.
[30] He gave to it no other movement except that of rotation in a circle, in one and the same place: which is the sort of movement that belongs most to reason and intelligence, while it is impracticable to all other figures except the spherical.
[31] [Footnote 27: Plato, Timæus, p. 33 B.
[Greek: kuklotere\s au)to\ e)torneu/sato], &c.] [Footnote 28: Plato, Timæus, p. 33 C. [Greek: lei=on de\ dê\ ku/klô| pa=n e)/xôthen au)to\ a)pêkribou=to, pollô=n cha/rin], &c. Aristotle also maintains that the sphericity of the Kosmos is so exact that no piece of workmanship can make approach to it.
(De Coelo, ii.
p. 287, b.
15.)]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Timæus, p. 33 E. On this point the Platonic Timæus is not Pythagorean, but the reverse.
The Pythagoreans recognised extraneous to the Kosmos, [Greek: to\ a)/peiron pneu=ma] or [Greek: to\ keno/n].
The Kosmos was supposed to inhale this vacuum, which penetrating into the interior, formed the separating interstices between its constituent parts (Aristot.
Physic.
iv.
p. 213, b.
22).]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Timæus, p. 34 A.
[Greek: e)pi\ de\ tê\n peri/odon tau/tên, a(/t' ou)de\n podô=n de/on, a)skele\s kai\ a)/poun au)to\ e)ge/nnêsen.]
Plato reckons six varieties of rectilinear motion, neither of which was assigned to the Kosmos--forward, backward, upward, downward, to the right, to the left.]
[Footnote 31: Plat.
Tim.
p. 34 A.
[Greek: ki/nêsin ga\r a)pe/neimen au)tô=| tê\n tou= sô/matos oi)kei/an, tô=n e(/pta tê\n peri\ nou=n kai\ phro/nêsin ma/lista ou)/san.]
This predicate respecting circular motion belongs to Plato and not to Aristotle; but Aristotle makes out, in his own way, a strong case to show that circular motion _must belong_ to the [Greek: Prô=ton sô=ma], as being the first among all varieties of motion, the most dignified and privileged, the only one which can be for ever uniform and continuous.
Aristot.
Physic.
ix.
p. 265, a.
15; De Coelo, i. pp.
269-270, ii.
p. 284, a.
10.]
[Side-note: Soul of the Kosmos--its component ingredients--stretched from centre to circumference.]
The Kosmos, one and only-begotten, was thus perfect as to its body, including all existent bodily material,--smooth, even, round, and equidistant from its centre to all points of the circumference.
[32] The Demiurgus put together at the same time its soul or mind; which he planted in the centre and stretched throughout its body in every direction,--so as not only to reach the circumference, but also to enclose and wrap it round externally.
The soul, being intended to guide and govern the body, was formed of appropriate ingredients, three distinct ingredients mixed together: 1.
The Same--The Identical--The indivisible, and unchangeable essence of Ideas.
2.
The Different--The Plural--The divisible essence of bodies or of the elements.
3.
A third compound, formed of both these ingredients melted into one.--These three ingredients--Same, Different, Same and Different in one,--were blended together in one compound, to form the soul of the Kosmos: though the Different was found intractable and hard to conciliate.
[33] The mixture was divided, and the portions blended together, according to a scale of harmonic numerical proportion complicated and difficult to follow.
[34] The soul of the Kosmos was thus harmonically constituted.
Among its constituent elements, the Same, or Identity, is placed in an even and undivided rotation of the outer or sidereal sphere of the Kosmos,--while the Different, or Diversity, is distributed among the rotations, all oblique, of the seven interior or planetary spheres--that is, the five planets, Sun, and Moon.
The outer sphere revolved towards the right: the interior spheres in an opposite direction towards the left.
The rotatory force of the Same (of the outer Sphere) being not only one and undivided, but connected with and dependent upon the solid revolving axis which traverses the diameter of the Kosmos--is far greater than that of the divided spheres of the Different; which, while striving to revolve in an opposite direction, each by a movement of its own--are overpowered and carried along with the outer sphere, though the time of revolution, in the case of each, is more or less modified by its own inherent counter-moving force.
[35] [Footnote 32: Plat.
Tim.
p. 31 B.
[Greek: ei(=s o(/de monogenê\s ou)rano/s], &c.] [Footnote 33: Plat.
Tim.
p. 35 A.
[Greek: Tau)to\n--to\ a)me/riston--tha/teron--to\ meristo\n--tri/ton e)x a)mphoi=n ou)si/as ei)=dos.]]
[Footnote 34: Plato, Timæus, pp.
35-36.
The pains which were taken by commentators in antiquity to expound and interpret this numerical scale may be seen especially illustrated in Plutarch's Treatise, De Animæ Procreatione in Timæo, pp.
1012-1030, and the Epitome which follows it.
There were two fundamental [Greek: tetraktu/es] or quaternions, one on a binary, the other on a ternary scale of progression, which were arranged by Krantor (Plutarch, p. 1027 E) in the form of the letter [Greek: L], as given in Macrobius (Somn.
Scip.
i.
6, p. 35).
The intervals between these figures, are described by Plato as filled up by intervening harmonic fractions, so as to constitute an harmonic or musical diagram or scale of four octaves and a major sixth.
(Boeckh's Untersuch.
p.
19.)
M. Boeckh has expounded this at length in his Dissertation, Ueber die Bildung der Welt-Seele im Timäos.
Other expositors after him.
1 /\ / \ 2_/_ _\_3 / \ 4 _/_ _\_9 / \ ----------8 27 ] [Footnote 35: Plato, Timæus, p. 36 C. [Greek: tê\n me\n ou)=n e)/xô phora\n e)pephê/misen ei)=nai tê=s tau)tou= phu/seôs, tê\n d' e)nto/s, tê=s tha)te/rou.
tê\n me\n dê\ tau)tou= kata\ pleura\n e)pi\ dexia\ periê/gage, tê\n de\ thate/rou kata\ dia/metron e)p' a)ristera/.]
For the meaning of [Greek: kata\ pleura\n] and [Greek: kata\ dia/metron], referring to the equator and the ecliptic, see the explanation and diagram in Boeckh, Untersuchungen, p. 25, also in the note of Stallbaum.
The allusion in Plato to the letter [Greek: chi=] is hardly intelligible without both a commentary and a diagram.]
In regard to the constitution of the kosmical soul, we must note, that as it is intended to know Same, Different, and Same and Different in one--so it must embody these three ingredients in its own nature: according to the received axiom.
Like knows like--Like is known by like.
[36] Thus began, never to end, the rotatory movements of the living Kosmos or great Kosmical God.
The invisible soul of the Kosmos, rooted at its centre and stretching from thence so as to pervade and enclose its visible body, circulates and communicates, though without voice or sound, throughout its own entire range, every impression of identity and of difference which it encounters either from essence ideal and indivisible, or from that which is sensible and divisible.
Information is thus circulated, about the existing relations between all the separate parts and specialties.
[37] Reason and Science are propagated by the Circle of the Same: Sense and Opinion, by those of the Different.
When these last-mentioned Circles are in right movement, the opinions circulated are true and trustworthy.
[Footnote 36: Aristotel.
De Animâ, i.
2, 7, i.
3, 11 (pp.
404, b.
16--406 b.
26), with Trendelenburg's note, pp.
227-253; Stallbaum, not.
ad Timæum, pp.
136-157.
See also the interpretation of Plato's opinion by Krantor, as given in Plutarch, De Animæ Procreatione in Timæo, p. 1012 E. We learn from Plutarch, however, that the passage gave much trouble to commentators.]
[Footnote 37: Plato, Timæus, pp.
36-37.
37 A: [Greek: le/gei kinoume/nê dia\ pa/sês e(autê=s, o(/tô| t' a)/n ti tau)to\n ê(=|, kai\ o(/tou a)\n e(/teron, pro\s o(/, ti te ma/lista kai\ o(/pê| kai\ o(/pôs kai\ o(po/te xumbai/nei kata\ ta\ gigno/mena/ te pro\s e(/kaston e(/kasta ei)=nai kai\ pa/schein, kai\ pro\s ta\ kata\ tau)ta\ e)/chonta a)ei/.]]
[Side-note: Regular or measured Time--began with the Kosmos.]
With the rotations of the Kosmos, began the course of Time--years, months, days, &c. Anterior to the Kosmos, there was no time: no past, present, and future: no numerable or mensurable motion or change.
The Ideas are eternal essences, without fluctuation or change: existing _sub specie æternitatis_, and having only a perpetual present, but no past or future.
[38] Along with them subsisted only the disorderly, immeasurable, movements of Chaos.
The nearest approach which the Demiurgus could make in copying these Ideas, was, by assigning to the Kosmos an eternal and unchanging motion, marked and measured by the varying position of the heavenly bodies.
For this purpose, the sun, moon, and planets, were distributed among the various portions of the circle of Different: while the fixed stars were placed in the Circle of the Same, or the outer Circle, revolving in one uniform rotation and in unaltered position in regard to each other.
The interval of one day was marked by one revolution of this outer or most rational Circle:[39] that of one month, by a revolution of the moon: that of one year, by a revolution of the sun.
Among all these sidereal and planetary Gods the Earth was the first and oldest.
It was packed close round the great axis which traversed the centre of the Kosmos, by the turning of which axis the outer circle of the Kosmos was made to revolve, generating night and day.
The Earth regulated the movement of this great kosmical axis, and thus become the determining agent and guarantee of night and day.
[40] [Footnote 38: Plato, Timæus, pp.
37-38.
Lassalle, in his copious and elaborate explanation of the doctrine of Herakleitus (Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunkeln, Berlin, 1858, vol.
ii.
p. 210, s. 26), represents this doctrine of Plato respecting Time as "durch und durch heraklitisch".
To me it seems quite distinct from, or rather the inversion of, that which Lassalle himself sets down as the doctrine of Herakleitus.
Plato begins with [Greek: to\ a)i+/dion] or [Greek: ai)ô/nion], an eternal sameness or duration, without succession, change, generation or destruction,--this passes into perpetual succession or change, with frequent generation and destruction.
Herakleitus, on the other hand, recognises for his primary or general law perpetual succession, interchange of contraries, generation and destruction; this passes into a secondary state, in which there is temporary duration and sameness of particulars--the flux being interrupted.
The ideal [Greek: lo/gos] or law of Herakleitus is that of unremitting process, flux, revolution, implication of Ens with Non-Ens: the real world is an imperfect manifestation of this law, because each particular clings to existence, and thereby causes temporary halts in the process.
Now Plato's starting point is [Greek: to\ ai)ô/nion to\ a)ei\ ô(sau/tôs e)/chon to\ o)/ntôs o)/n]: the perishable world of sense and particulars is the world of process, and is so far degenerate from the eternal uniformity of primordial Ens.
See Lassalle, pp.
39-292-319.]
[Footnote 39: Plato, Timæus, p. 39 C. [Greek: ê( tê=s mia=s kai\ phronimôta/tês kuklê/seôs peri/odos].
Plato remarks that there was a particular interval of time measured off and designated by the revolution of each of the other planets, but that these intervals were unnoticed and unknown by the greater part of mankind.]
[Footnote 40: My explanation of this much controverted sentence differs from that of previous commentators.
I have given reasons for adopting it in a separate Dissertation ('Plato and the Rotation of the Earth,' Murray), to which I here refer.
In that Dissertation I endeavoured to show cause for dissenting from the inference of M. Boeckh: who contends that Plato cannot have believed in the diurnal rotation of the Earth, because he (Plato) explicitly affirms the diurnal rotation of the outer celestial sphere, or Aplanes.
These two facts nullify each other, so that the effect would be the same as if there were no rotation of either.
My reply to this argument was, in substance, that though the two facts really are inconsistent--the one excluding the other--yet we cannot safely conclude that Plato must have perceived the inconsistency; the more so as Aristotle certainly did not perceive it.
To hold incompatible doctrines without being aware of the incompatibility, is a state of mind sufficiently common even in the present advanced condition of science, which I could illustrate by many curious examples if my space allowed.
It must have been much more common in the age of Plato than** it is now.
Batteux observes (Traduction et Remarques sur Ocellus Lucanus, ch.
iv.
p. 116):--"Il y a un maxime qu'on ne doit jamais perdre de vue en discutant les opinions des Anciens: c'est de ne point leur prêter les conséquences de leurs principes, ni les principes de leurs conséquences".
As a general rule, I subscribe to the soundness of this admonition.]
[Side-note: Divine tenants of the Kosmos.
Primary and Visible Gods--Stars and Heavenly Bodies.]
It remained for the Demiurgus,--in order that the Kosmos might become a full copy of its model the Generic Animal or Idea of Animal,--to introduce into it those various species of animals which that Idea contained.
He first peopled it with Gods: the eldest and earliest of whom was the Earth, planted in the centre as sentinel over night and day: next the fixed stars, formed for the most part of fire, and annexed to the circle of the Same or the exterior circle, so as to impart to it light and brilliancy.
Each star was of spherical figure and had two motions,--one, of uniform rotation peculiar to itself,--the other, an uniform forward movement of translation, being carried along with the great outer circle in its general rotation round the axis of the Kosmos.
[41] It is thus that the sidereal orbs, animated beings eternal and divine, remained constantly turning round in the same relative position: while the sun, moon, and planets, belonging to the inner circles of the Different, and trying to revolve by their own effort in the opposite direction to the outer sphere, became irregular in their own velocities and variable in their relative positions.
[42] The complicated movements of these planetary bodies, alternately approaching and receding--together with their occultations and reappearances, full of alarming prognostic as to consequences--cannot be described without having at hand some diagrams or mechanical illustrations to refer to.
[43] [Footnote 41: Plato, Timæus, p.
40.]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Timæus, p. 40 B.
[Greek: o(/s' a)planê= tô=n a)/strôn zô=a thei=a o)/nta kai\ a)i+/dia], &c.] [Footnote 43: Plato, Timæus, p. 40 D. [Greek: to\ le/gein a)/neu dio/pseôs tou/tôn au)= tô=n mimêma/tôn ma/taios a)\n ei)/ê po/nos.]
Plato himself here acknowledges the necessity of diagrams: the necessity was hardly less in the preceding part of his exposition.]
[Side-note: Secondary and generated Gods--Plato's dictum respecting them.
His acquiescence in tradition.]
Such were all the primitive Gods visible and generated[44] by the Demiurgus, to preside over and regulate the Kosmos.
By them are generated, and from them are descended, the remaining Gods.
[Footnote 44: Plato, Timæ.
p. 40 D. [Greek: theô=n o(ratô=n kai\ gennêtô=n].]
Respecting these remaining Gods, however, the Platonic Timæus holds a different language.
Instead of speaking in his own name and delivering his own convictions, as he had done about the Demiurgus and the cosmical Gods--with the simple reservation, that such convictions could be proclaimed only as probable and not as demonstratively certain--he now descends to the Sokratic platform of confessed ignorance and incapacity.
"The generation of these remaining Gods (he says) is a matter too great for me to understand and declare.
I must trust to those who have spoken upon the subject before me--who were, as they themselves said, offspring of the Gods, and must therefore have well known their own fathers.
It is impossible to mistrust the sons of the Gods.
Their statements indeed are unsupported either by probabilities or by necessary demonstration; but since they here profess to be declaring family traditions, we must obey the law and believe.
[45] Thus then let it stand and be proclaimed, upon their authority, respecting the generation of the remaining Gods.
The offspring of Uranus and Gæa were, Okeanus and Tethys: from whom sprang Phorkys, Kronus, Rhea, and those along with them.
Kronus and Rhea had for offspring Zeus, Hêrê, and all these who are termed their brethren: from whom too, besides, we hear of other offspring.
Thus were generated all the Gods, both those who always conspicuously revolve, and those who show themselves only when they please.
"[46] [Footnote 45: Plato, Timæus, pp.
40 D-E. [Greek: Peri\ de\ tô=n a)/llôn daimo/nôn ei)pei=n kai\ gnô=nai tê\n ge/nesin mei=zon ê)\ kath' ê(ma=s, peiste/on de\ toi=s ei)rêko/sin e)/mprosthen, e)kgo/nois me\n theô=n ou)=sin, saphô=s de/ pou tou/s ge au)tôn progo/nous ei)do/sin; _a)du/naton ou)=n theô=n paisi\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te ei)ko/tôn kai\ a)nagkai/ôn_ a)podei/xeôn le/gousin, a)ll' _ô(s oi)kei=a pha/skousin a)pagge/llein, e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on_.
Ou(/tôs ou)=n _kat' e)kei/nous_ ê(mi=n ê( ge/nesis peri\ tou/tôn tô=n theô=n e)che/tô kai\ lege/sthô.]
So, too, in the Platonic Epinomis, attached as an appendix to the Treatise De Legibus, we find (p. 984) Plato--after arranging his quintuple scale of elemental animals (fire, æther, air, water, earth), the highest and most divine being the stars or visible Gods, the lowest being man, and the three others intermediate between the two; after having thus laid out the scale, he leaves to others to determine, [Greek: o(pê=| tis e)the/lei], in which place Zeus, Hêrê, and the other Gods, are to be considered as lodged.
He will not contradict any one's feeling on that point; he strongly protests (p. 985 D) against all attempts on the part of the lawgiver to innovate ([Greek: kainotomei=n]) in contravention of ancient religious tradition--this is what Aristophanes in the Nubes, and Melêtus before the Dikasts, accuse Sokrates of doing--but he denounces harshly all who will not acknowledge with worship and sacrifice the sublime divinity of the Sun, Moon, Stars, and Planets.
The Platonic declaration given here--[Greek: e)pome/nous tô=| no/mô| pisteute/on]--is illustrated in the lines of Euripides, Bacchæ, 202-[Greek: ou)de\n sophizo/mestha toi=si dai/mosin; patri/ous paradocha/s, a(/s th' o(mê/likas chro/nô| kektê/meth', ou)dei\s au)ta\ katabalei= lo/gos, ou)d' ê)\n di' a)krô=n to\ sopho\n eu(/rêtai phrenô=n.]]
[Footnote 46: Plato, Timæ.
p. 41 A.
[Greek: e)pei\ d' ou)=n pa/ntes o(/soi te peripolou=si phanerô=s, kai\ o(/soi phai/nontai kath' o(/son a)\n e)the/lôsi, theoi\ ge/nesin e)/schon.]]
[Side-note: Remarks on Plato's Canon of Belief.]
The passage above cited serves to illustrate both Plato's own canon of belief, and his position in regard to his countrymen.
The question here is, about the Gods of tradition and of the popular faith: with the paternity and filiation ascribed to them, by Hesiod and the other poets, from whom Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.
learnt their Theogony.
[47] Plato was a man both competent and willing to strike out a physical theology of his own, but not to follow passively in the track of orthodox tradition.
I have stated briefly what he has affirmed about the cosmical Gods (Earth, Stars, Sun, Planets) generated or constructed by the Demiurgus as portions or members of the Kosmos: their bodies, out of fire and other elements,--their souls out of the Forms or abstractions called Identity and Diversity; while the entire Kosmos is put together after the model of the Generic Idea or Form of Animal.
All this, combined with supposed purposes, and fancies of arithmetical proportion dictating the proceedings of the Demiurgus, Plato does not hesitate to proclaim on his own authority and as his own belief--though he does not carry it farther than probability.
[Footnote 47: Herodot.
ii.
53.]
But while the feeling of spontaneous belief thus readily arises in Plato's mind, following in the wake of his own constructive imagination and ethical or æsthetical sentiment (_fingunt simul creduntque_)--it does not so readily cleave to the theological dogmas in actual circulation around him.
In the generation of Gods from Uranus and Gæa--which he as well as other Athenian youths must have learnt when they recited Hesiod with their schoolmasters--he can see neither proof nor probability: he can find no internal ground for belief.
[48] He declares himself incompetent: he will not undertake to affirm any thing upon his own judgment: the mystery is too dark for him to penetrate.
Yet on the other hand, though it would be rash to affirm, it would be equally rash to deny.
Nearly all around him are believers, at least as well satisfied with their creed as he was with the uncertified affirmations of his own Timæus.
He cannot prove them to be wrong, except by appealing to an ethical or æsthetical sentiment which they do not share.
Among the Gods said to be descended from Uranus and Gæa, were all those to whom public worship was paid in Greece,--to whom the genealogies of the heroic and sacred families were traced,--and by whom cities as well as individuals believed themselves to be protected in dangers, healed in epidemics, and enlightened on critical emergencies through seasonable revelations and prophecies.
Against an established creed thus avouched, it was dangerous to raise any doubts.
Moreover Plato could not have forgotten the fate of his master Sokrates;[49] who was indicted both for not acknowledging the Gods whom the city acknowledged, and for introducing other new divine matters and persons.
There could be no doubt that Plato was guilty on this latter count: prudence therefore rendered it the more incumbent on him to guard against being implicated in the former count also.
Here then Plato formally abnegates his own self-judging power, and submits himself to orthodox authority.
"It is impossible to doubt what we have learnt from witnesses, who declared themselves to be the offspring of the Gods, and who must of course have known their own family affairs.
We must obey the law and believe."
In what proportion such submission, of reason to authority, embodied the sincere feeling of Pascal and Malebranche, or the irony of Bayle and Voltaire, we are unable to determine.
[50] [Footnote 48: The remark made by Condorcet upon Buffon is strikingly applicable to Plato:--"On n'a reproché à M. de Buffon que ses hypothèses.
Ce sont aussi des espèces de fables--mais des fables produites par une imagination active qui a besoin de créer, et non par une imagination passive qui cède à des impressions étrangères" (Condorcet, Éloge de Buffon, ad fin.).
[Greek: Au)todi/daktos d' ei)mi/, theo\s de/ moi e)n phresi\n oi)/mas Pantoi/as e)ne/phusen]--(Homer, Odyss.
xxii.
347)--the declaration of the bard Phemius.]
[Footnote 49: Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1.
[Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou/s, ou) nomi/zôn, e(/tera de\ kaina\ daimo/nia ei)sphe/rôn.]
The word [Greek: daimo/nia] may mean matters, or persons, or both together.]
[Footnote 50: M. Martin supposes Plato to speak ironically, or with a prudent reserve, Études sur le Timée, ii.
p. 146.
What Plato says here about the Gods who bore personal names, and were believed in by the contemporary public--is substantially equivalent to the well-known profession of ignorance enunciated by the Sophist Protagoras, introduced by him at the beginning of one of his treatises.
[Greek: Peri\ de\ theô=n ou)/te ei) ei)si/n, ou)/th' o(poi=oi/ tine/s ei)si, du/namai le/gein; polla\ ga/r e)sti ta\ kôlu/onta/ me] (Sextus Emp.
adv.
Mathem.
ix.
56); a declaration which, circumspect as it was (see the remark of the sillographer Timon in Sextus), drew upon him the displeasure of the Athenians, so that his books were burnt, and himself forced to leave the city.]
[Side-note: Address and order of the Demiurgus to the generated Gods.]
Having thus, during one short paragraph, proclaimed his deference, if not his adhesion, to inspired traditions, Plato again resumes the declaration of his own beliefs and his own book of Genesis, without any farther appeal to authority, and without any intimation that he is touching on mysteries too great for his reason.
When these Gods, the visible as well as the invisible,[51] had all been constructed or generated, he (or Timæus) tells us that the Demiurgus addressed them and informed them that they would be of immortal duration--not indeed in their own nature, but through his determination: that to complete the perfection of the newly-begotten Kosmos, there were three other distinct races of animals, all mortal, to be added: that he could not himself undertake the construction of these three, because they would thereby be rendered immortal, but that he confided such construction to them (the Gods): that he would himself supply, for the best of these three new races, an immortal element as guide and superintendent, and that they were to join along with it mortal and bodily accompaniments, to constitute men and animals; thus imitating the power which he had displayed in the generation of themselves.
[52] [Footnote 51: Plato, Timæus, p. 41 A.]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Timæus, p. 41 C. [Greek: tre/pesthe kata\ phu/sin u(mei=s e)pi\ tê\n tô=n zô/ôn dêmiourgi/an, mimou/menoi tê\n e)mê\n du/namin peri\ tê\n u(mete/ran ge/nesin.]]
[Side-note: Preparations for the construction of man.
Conjunction of three souls and one body.]
After this address (which Plato puts into the first person, in Homeric manner), the Demiurgus compounded together, again and in the same bowl, the remnant of the same elements out of which he had formed the kosmical soul, but in perfection and purity greatly inferior.
The total mass thus formed was distributed into souls equal in number to the stars.
The Demiurgus placed each soul in a star of its own, carried it round thus in the kosmical rotation, and explained to it the destiny intended for all.
For each alike there was to be an appointed hour of birth, and of conjunction with a body, as well as with two inferior sorts or varieties of soul or mind.
From such conjunction would follow, as a necessary consequence, implanted sensibility and motive power, with all its accompaniments of pleasure, pain, desire, fear, anger, and such like.
These were the irrational enemies, which the rational and immortal soul would have to controul and subdue, as a condition of just life.
If it succeeded in the combat so as to live a good life, it would return after death to the abode of its own peculiar star.
But if it failed, it would have a second birth into the inferior nature and body of a female: if, here also, it continued to be evil, it would be transferred after death to the body of some inferior animal.
Such transmigration would be farther continued from animal to animal, until the rational soul should acquire thorough controul over the irrational and turbulent.
When this was attained, the rational soul would be allowed to return to its original privilege and happiness, residing in its own peculiar star.
[53] [Footnote 53: Plato, Timæus, p. 42 B-D.] It was thus that the Demiurgus confided to the recently-generated Gods the task of fabricating both mortal bodies, and mortal souls, to be joined with these immortal souls in their new stage of existence--and of guiding and governing the new mortal animal in the best manner, unless in so far as the latter should be the cause of mischief to himself.
The Demiurgus decreed and proclaimed this beforehand, in order (says Plato) that he might not himself be the cause of any of the evil which might ensue[54] to individual men.
[Footnote 54: Plato, Timæus, p. 42 D-E. [Greek: Diathesmothetê/sas de\ pa/nta au)toi=s tau=ta, i(/na tê=s e)/peita ei)/ê kaki/as e(ka/stôn a)nai/tios .
.
.
pare/dôke theoi=s sô/mata pla/ttein thnêta/, to/ te e)pi/loipon o(/son e)/t' ê)=n psuchê=s a)nthrôpi/nês de/on prosgene/sthai, tou=to kai\ pa/nth' o(/sa a)ko/loutha e)kei/nois a)pergasame/nous a)/rchein, kai\ kata\ du/namin o(/, ti ka/llista kai\ a)/rista to\ thnêto\n diakuberna=|n zô=on, o(/, ti mê\ kakô=n au)to\ e(autô=| gi/gnoito ai)/tion.]
We have here the theory, intimated but not expanded by Plato, that man is, by misconduct or folly, the cause of all the evil suffered on earth.
That the Gods are not the cause of any evil, he tells us in Republ.
ii.
p. 379.
It seems, however, that he did not remain satisfied with the theory of the Timæus, because we find a different theory in the treatise De Legibus (x. p. 896 E)--two kosmical souls, one good, the other evil.
Moreover, the recital of the Timæus itself (besides another express passage in it, pp.
86 D-87 A) plainly contradicts the theory, that man is the cause of his own sufferings and evil.
The Demiurgus himself is described as the cause, by directing immortal souls to be joined with mortal bodies.
The Demiurgus had constructed a beautiful Kosmos, with perfect and regular rotations--with the Gods, sidereal, planetary, and invisible--and with immortal souls distributed throughout the stars and earth, understanding and appreciating the cosmical rotations.
So far all is admirable and faultless.
But he is not satisfied with this.
He determines to join each of these immortal souls with two mortal souls and with a mortal body.
According to Plato's own showing, the immortal soul incurs nothing but corruption, disturbance, and stupidity, by such junction: as Empedokles and Herakleitus had said before (Plut.
Solert.
Animal.
7, p. 964 E).
It is at first deprived of all intelligence ([Greek: a)/nous]); from this stupefaction it gradually but partially recovers; yet nothing short of the best possible education and discipline will enable it to contend, and even then imperfectly, against the corruption and incumbrance arising out of its companion the body; lastly, if it should contend with every success, the only recompense which awaits it is to be re-transferred to the star from whence it came down.
What reason was there for removing the immortal soul from its happy and privileged position, to be degraded by forced companionship with an unworthy body and two inferior souls?
The reason assigned is, that the Demiurgus required the Kosmos to be enlarged into a full and exact copy of the [Greek: Au)to/zôon] or Generic Animal, which comprehended four subordinate varieties of animals; one of them good (the Gods)--the other three inferior and corrupt, Men, Birds, Fishes.
But here, according to Plato's own exposition, it was the Demiurgus himself and his plan that was at fault.
What necessity was there to copy the worst parts of the Generic Animal as well as the best?
The Kosmos would have been decidedly better, though it might have been less complete, without such unenviable accompaniments.
When Plato constructs his own community (Republic and Legg.)
he does not knowingly train up defective persons, or prepare the foundation for such, in order that every variety of character may be included.
We may add here, according to Plato himself, [Greek: Nou=s] (intelligence or reason) belongs not to all human beings, but only to a small fraction of them (Timæus, p. 51 E).
Except in these few, the immortal soul is therefore irrecoverably debased by its union with the body.]
[Side-note: Proceedings of the generated Gods--they fabricate the cranium, as miniature of the Kosmos, with the rational soul rotating within it.]
Accordingly the Gods, sons of the Demiurgus, entered upon the task, trying to imitate their father.
Borrowing from the Kosmos portions of the four elements, with engagement that what was borrowed should one day be paid back, they glued them together, and fastened them by numerous minute invisible pegs into one body.
Into this body, always decaying and requiring renovation, they introduced the immortal soul, with its double circular rotations--the Circles of the Same and of the Diverse: embodying it in the cranium, which was made spherical in exterior form like the Kosmos, and admitting within it no other motion but the rotatory.
The head, the most divine portion of the human system, was made master; while the body was admitted only as subject and ministerial.
The body was endowed with all the six varieties of motive power, forward, backwards--upward, downward--to the right, to the left.
[55] The phenomena of nutrition and sensation began.
But all these irregular movements, and violent multifarious agitations, checked or disturbed the regular rotations of the immortal soul in the cranium, perverting the arithmetical proportion, and harmony belonging to them.
The rotations of the Circles of Same and Diverse were made to convey false and foolish affirmation.
The soul became utterly destitute of intelligence, on being first joined to the body, and for some time afterwards.
[56] But in the course of time the violence of these disturbing currents abates, so that the rotations of the Circles in the head can take place with more quiet and regularity.
The man then becomes more and more intelligent.
If subjected to good education and discipline, he will be made gradually sound and whole, free from corruption: but if he neglect this precaution, his life remains a lame one, and he returns back to Hades incomplete and unprofitable.
[57] [Footnote 55: Plato, Timæus, pp.
43 B, 44 D. Plato supposes an etymological connection between [Greek: ai)sthê/seis] and [Greek: a)i+/ssô], p. 43 C.] [Footnote 56: Plato, Timæus, p. 44 B.
[Greek: kai\ dia\ dê\ pa/nta tau=ta ta\ pathê/mata nu=n kat' a)rcha/s te a)/nous psuchê\ gi/gnetai to\ prô=ton, o(/tan ei)s sô=ma e)ndethê=| thnêto/n.]]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Timæus, p. 44 C.] [Side-note: The cranium is mounted on a tall body--six varieties of motion--organs of sense.
Vision--Light.]
The Gods, when they undertook the fabrication of the body, foresaw the inconvenience of allowing the head--with its intelligent rotations, and with the immortal soul enclosed in it--to roll along the ground, unable to get over a height, or out of a hollow.
[58] Accordingly they mounted it upon a tall body; with arms and legs as instruments of movement, support, and defence.
They caused the movements to be generally directed forward and not backward; since front is more honourable and more commanding than rear.
For the same reason, they placed the face, with the organs of sense, in the fore part of the head.
Within the eyes, they planted that variety of fire which does not burn, but is called light, homogeneous with the light without.
We are enabled to see in the daytime, because the light within our eyes pours out through the centre of them, and commingles with the light without.
The two, being thus confounded together, transmit movements from every object which they touch, through the eye inward to the soul; and thus bring about the sensation of sight.
At night no vision takes place: because the light from the interior of our eyes, even when it still comes out, finds no cognate light in the air without, and thus becomes extinguished in the darkness.
All the light within the eye would thus have been lost, if the Gods had not provided a protection: they contrived the eyelids which drop and shut up the interior light within.
This light, being prevented from egress, diffuses itself throughout the interior system, and tranquillises the movements within so as to bring on sleep: without dreams, if all the movements are quenched--with dreams, corresponding to the movements which remain if there are any such.
[59] [Footnote 58: Plato, Timæus, p. 44 D-E. [Greek: i(/n' ou)=n mê\ kulindou/menon e)pi\ gê=s, u(/lê te kai\ ba/thê pantodapa\ e)chou/sês, a)poroi= ta\ me\n u(perbai/nein, e)/nthen de\ e)kbai/nein, o)/chêm' au)tô=| tou=to kai\ eu)pori/an e)/dosan.]]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Timæus, p. 45.
The theory of vision here given by Plato is interesting.
A theory, similar in the main, had been propounded by Empedoklês before him.
Aristotel.
De Sensu, p. 437 b.; Theophrast.
De Sensu, cap.
5-9, p. 88 of Philipson's [Greek: U(/lê A)nthrôpi/nê].
Aristotle himself impugns the theory.
It is reported and discussed in Galen, De Hippocratis et Platonis Dogmat.
vii.
5, 6, p. 619 seqq.
ed.
Kühn.
The different theories of vision among the ancient philosophers anterior to Aristotle are thus enumerated by E. H. von Baumhauer (De Sententiis Veterum Philosophorum Græcorum de Visu, Lumine, et Coloribus, Utrecht, 1843, p. 137):--"De videndi modo tres apud antiquos primarias theorias invenimus: et primam quidem, emanatione lucis ex oculis ad corpora externa, ejusque reflexu ad oculos (Pythagorei, Alcmæon): alteram emanationibus e corporibus, quæ per oculos veluti per canales ad animum penetrent (Eleatici, Heraclitus, Gorgias): quam sententiam Anaxagoras et Diogenes Apolloniates eatenus mutarunt, quod dicerent pupillam quasi speculum esse quod imagines acceptas ad animum rejiciat.
Tertia theoria, orta è conjunctione duarum priorum, statuebat tam ex oculis quam corporibus emanationes fieri, et ambarum illarum concursu visum effici, quum conformata imago per meatus ad animum perveniat (Empedocles, Protagoras, Plato).
Huic sententiæ etiam Democritus annumerari potest; qui eam planè secundum materiam, ut dicunt, exposuit."
The theory of Plato is described in the same treatise, pp.
106-112.]
[Side-note: Principal advantages of sight and hearing.
Observations of the rotation of the Kosmos.]
Such are the auxiliary causes (continues Plato), often mistaken by others for principal causes, which the Gods employed to bring about sight.
In themselves, they have no regularity of action: for nothing can be regular in action without mind and intelligence.
[60] But the most important among all the advantages of sight is, that it enables us to observe and study the rotations of the Kosmos and of the sidereal and planetary bodies.
It is the observed rotations of days, months, and years, which impart to us the ideas of time and number, and enable us to investigate the universe.
Hence we derive philosophy, the greatest of all blessings.
Hence too we learn to apply the celestial rotations as a rule and model to amend the rotations of intelligence in our own cranium--since the first are regular and unerring, while the second are disorderly and changeful.
[61] It was for the like purpose, in view to the promotion of philosophy, that the Gods gave us voice and hearing.
Both discourse and musical harmony are essential for this purpose.
Harmony and rhythm are presents to us, from the Muses, not, as men now employ them, for unreflecting pleasure and recreation--but for the same purpose of regulating and attuning the disorderly rotations of the soul, and of correcting the ungraceful and unmeasured movements natural to the body.
[62] [Footnote 60: Plato, Timæus, p. 46 D-E.] [Footnote 61: Plato, Timæus, pp.
47 B-C, 90 C.] [Footnote 62: Plato, Timæus, p. 47 D-E. [Greek: ê( de\ a(rmoni/a .
.
.
xu/mmachos u(po\ Mousô=n de/dotai; kai\ r(uthmo\s au)= .
.
.
u(po\ tô=n au)tô=n e)do/thê.]
Here we see Plato, in the usual Hellenic vein, particularising the functions and attributes of the different Gods and Goddesses.]
[Side-note: The Kosmos is product of joint action of Reason and Necessity.
The four visible and tangible elements are not primitive.]
At this point of the exposition, the Platonic Timæus breaks off the thread, and takes up a new commencement.
Thus far (he says) we have proceeded in explaining the part of Reason or Intelligence in the fabrication of the Kosmos.
We must now explain the part of Necessity: for the genesis of the Kosmos results from co-operation of the two.
By necessity (as has been said before) Plato means random, indeterminate, chaotic, pre-existent, spontaneity of movement or force: spontaneity ([Greek: ê( planôme/nê ai)ti/a]) upon which Reason works by persuasion up to a certain point, prevailing upon it to submit to some degree of fixity and regularity.
[63] Timæus had described the body of the Kosmos as being constructed by the Demiurgus out of the four elements; thus assuming fire, air, earth, water, as pre-existent.
But he now corrects himself, and tells us that such assumption is unwarranted.
We must (he remarks) give a better and fuller explanation of the Kosmos.
No one of these four elements is either primordial, or permanently distinct and definite in itself.
[Footnote 63: Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A.]
The only primordial reality is, an indeterminate, all-recipient _fundamentum_: having no form or determination of its own, but capable of receiving any form or determination from without.
[Side-note: Forms or Ideas and Materia Prima--Forms of the Elements--Place, or Receptivity.]
In the second explanation now given by Plato of the Kosmos and its genesis, he assumes this invisible _fundamentum_ (which he had not assumed before) as "the mother or nurse of all generation".
He assumes, besides, the eternal Forms or Ideas, to act upon it and to bestow determination or quality.
These forms fulfil the office of father: the offspring of the two is--the generated, concrete, visible, objects,[64] imitations of the Forms or Ideas, begotten out of this mother.
How the Ideas act upon the Materia Prima, Plato cannot well explain: but each Form stamps an imitation or copy of itself upon portions of the common _Fundamentum_.
[65] [Footnote 64: Plato, Timæus, p. 51 A.
[Greek: tê\n tou= gegono/tos o(ratou= kai\ pa/ntôs ai)sthêtou= mête/ra kai\ u(podochê/n.]]
[Footnote 65: Plato, Timæus, pp.
50-51.
50 C: [Greek: tupôthe/nta a)p' au)tô=n tro/pon tina\ du/sphraston kai\ thaumasto/n.]
51 A: [Greek: a)no/raton ei)=do/s ti, kai\ a)/morphon, pandeche/s, _metalamba/non de\ a)porô/tata/ pê| tou= noêtou=_ kai\ dusalôto/taton.]]
But do there really exist any such Forms or Ideas--as Fire _per se_, the Generic Fire--Water _per se_, the Generic Water, invisible and intangible?
[66] Or is this mere unfounded speech?
Does there exist nothing really anywhere, beyond the visible objects which we see and touch?
[67] [Footnote 66: Plato, Timæus, p. 51 C.] [Footnote 67: Ueberweg, in a learned Dissertation, Ueber die Platonische Weltseele (pp.
52-53), seeks to establish a greater distinction between the Phædrus, Phædon, and Timæus, in respect to the way in which Plato affirms the separate substantiality of Ideas, than the language of the dialogues warrants.
He contends that the separate substantiality of the Platonic Ideas is more peremptorily affirmed in the Timæus than in the Phædrus.
But this will not be found borne out if we look at Phædrus, p. 247, where the affirmation is quite as peremptory as that in the Timæus; correlating too, as it does in the Timæus, with [Greek: Nou=s] as the contemplating subject.
Indeed the point may be said to be affirmed more positively in the Phædrus, because the [Greek: u(peroura/nios to/pos] is assigned to the Ideas, while in the Timæus all [Greek: to/pos] or local existence is denied to them (p. 52 B-C).
Sensible objects are presented in the Phædrus as faint resemblances of the archetypal Ideas (p. 250 C), just as they are in the Timæus: on the other hand, [Greek: to\ metalamba/nein tou= noêtou=] occurs in the Timæus (p. 51 A), equivalent to [Greek: to\ mete/chein], which Ueberweg states to be discontinued.]
We must assume (says Plato, after a certain brief argument which he himself does not regard as quite complete) the Forms or Ideas of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, as distinct and self-existent, eternal, indestructible, unchangeable--neither visible nor tangible, but apprehended by Reason or Intellect alone--neither receiving anything else from without, nor themselves moving to anything else.
Distinct from these--images of these, and bearing the same name--are the sensible objects called Fire, Water, &c.--objects of sense and opinion--always in a state of transition--generated and destroyed, but always generated in some place and destroyed out of some place.
There is to be assumed, besides, distinct from the two preceding--as a third _fundamentum_--the place or receptacle in which these images are localised, generated, and nursed up.
This place, or formless primitive receptivity, is indestructible, but out of all reach of sense, and difficult to believe in, inasmuch as it is only accessible by a spurious sort of ratiocination.
[68] [Footnote 68: Plato, Timæus, p. 52 B.
[Greek: au)to\ de\ met' a)naisthêsi/as a(pto\n logismô=| tini\ no/thô|, mo/gis pisto/n.]]
[Side-note: Primordial Chaos--Effect of intervention by the Demiurgus.]
Anterior to the construction of the Kosmos, the Forms or Ideas of the four elements had already begun to act upon this primitive recipient or receptacle, but in a confused and irregular way.
Neither of the four could impress itself in a special and definite manner: there were some vestiges of each, but each was incomplete: all were in stir and agitation, yet without any measure or fixed rule.
Thick and heavy, however, were tending to separate from thin and light, and each particle thus tending to occupy a place of its own.
[69] In this condition (the primordial moving chaos of the poets and earlier philosophers), things were found by the Demiurgus, when he undertook to construct the Kosmos.
There was no ready made Fire, Water, &c. (as Plato had assumed at the opening of the Timæus), but an agitated _imbroglio_ of all, with the portions tending to separate from each other, and to agglomerate each in a place of its own.
The Demiurgus brought these four elements out of confusion into definite bodies and regular movements.
He gave to each a body, constructed upon the most beautiful proportions of arithmetic and geometry, as far as this was possible.
[70] [Footnote 69: Plato, Timæus, pp.
52-53.
53 A: [Greek: ta\ te/ttara ge/nê seio/mena u(po\ tê=s dexame/nês, kinoume/nês au)tê=s oi(=on o)rga/nou seismo\n pare/chontos, ta\ me\n a)nomoio/tata plei=ston au)ta\ a)ph' au(tô=n o(ri/zein, ta\ d' o(moio/tata ma/lista ei)s tau)to\n xunôthei=n; dio\ dê\ kai\ chô/ran tau=ta a)/lla a)/llên i)/schein, pri\n kai\ to\ pa=n e)x au)tô=n diakosmêthe\n gene/sthai.]
57 C: [Greek: die/stêke me\n ga\r tou= ge/nous e(ka/stou ta\ plê/thê kata\ to/pon i)/dion dia\ tê\n tê=s dechome/nês ki/nêsin.]
58 C.] [Footnote 70: Plato, Timæus, p. 53 B.
[Greek: to\ de\ ê(=| dunato\n ô(s ka/llista a)/rista/ te e)x ou)ch ou(/tôs e)cho/ntôn to\n theo\n au)ta\ xunista/nai, para\ pa/nta ê(mi=n, ô(s a)ei/, tou=to lego/menon u(parche/tô.]
This is the hypothesis pervading all the Timæus--construction the best and finest which the case admitted.
The limitations accompany the assumed purpose throughout.]
[Side-note: Geometrical theory of the elements--fundamental triangles--regular solids.]
Respecting such proportions, the theory which Plato here lays out is admitted by himself to be a novel one; but it is doubtless borrowed, with more or less modification, from the Pythagoreans.
Every solid body is circumscribed by plane surfaces: every plane surface is composed of triangles: all triangles are generated out of two--the right-angled isoskeles triangle--and the right-angled scalene or oblong triangle.
Of this oblong there are infinite varieties: but the most beautiful is a right-angled triangle, having the hypotenuse twice as long as the lesser of the two other sides.
[71] From this sort of oblong triangle are generated the tetrahedron or pyramid--the octahedron--and the eikosihedron: from the equilateral triangle is generated the cube.
The cube, as the most stable and solid, was assigned by the Demiurgus for the fundamental structure of earth: the pyramid for that of fire: the octahedron for that of air: the eikosihedron for that of water.
The purpose was that the four should be in continuous geometrical proportion: as Fire to Air, so Air to Water: as Air to Water, so Water to Earth.
Lastly, the Dodekahedron was assigned as the basis of structure for the spherical Kosmos itself or universe.
[72] Upon this arrangement each of the three elements--fire, water, air--passes into the other; being generated from the same radical triangle.
But earth does not pass into either of the three (nor either of these into earth), being generated from a different radical triangle.
The pyramid, as thin, sharp, and cutting, was assigned to fire as the quickest and most piercing of the four elements: the cube as most solid and difficult to move, was allotted to earth, the stationary element.
Fire was composed of pyramids of different size, yet each too small to be visible by itself, and becoming visible only when grouped together in masses: the earth was composed of cubes of different size, each invisible from smallness: the other elements in like manner, each from its respective solid,[73] in exact proportion and harmony, as far as Necessity could be persuaded to tolerate.
All the five regular solids were thus employed in the configuration and structure of the Kosmos.
[74] [Footnote 71: Plato, Timæus, pp.
53-54.
53 C: [Greek: a)êthei= lo/gô| dêlou=n].]
[Footnote 72: That Plato intended, by this elaborate geometrical construction, to arrive at a continuous geometrical proportion between the four elements, he tells us (p. 32 A-B), adding the qualifying words [Greek: kath' o(/son ê)=n dunato/n].
M. Boeckh, however (De Platonicâ Corporis Mundani Fabricâ, pp.
viii.-xxvi.
), has shown that the geometrical proportion cannot be properly concluded from the premisses assumed by Plato:--"Platonis elementorum doctrinam et parum sibi constare, neque omnibus numeris absolutam esse, immo multis incommodis laborare, et divini ingenii lusui magis quam disciplinæ severitati originem debere fatebimur; nec profundiorem et abstrusiorem naturæ cognitionem in eâ sitam esse suspicabimur--in quem errorem etiam Joh.
Keplerus, summi ingenii homo, incidit".
Respecting the Dodekahedron, see Zeller, Gesch.
der Philos.
ii.
p. 513, ed.
2nd.
There is some obscurity about it.
In the Epinomis (p. 981 C) Plato gives the Æther as a fifth element, besides the four commonly known and recited in the Timæus.
It appears that Philolaus, as well as Xenokrates, conceived the Dodekahedron as the structural form of Æther (Schol.
ad Aristot.
Physic.
p. 427, a.
16, Brandis): and Xenokrates expressly says, that Plato himself recognised it as such.
Zeller dissents from this view, and thinks that nothing more is meant than the implication, that the Dodekahedron can have a sphere described round it more readily than any of the other figures named.
Opponents of Plato remarked that he [Greek: katemathêmatikeu/sato tê\n phu/sin], Schol.
ad Aristot.
Metaph.
A.
985, b.
23, p. 539, Brandis.
Aristotle devotes himself in many places to the refutation of the Platonic doctrine on this point; see De Coelo, iii.
8, 306-307, and elsewhere.]
[Footnote 73: Plato, Timæus, p. 56 C. [Greek: o(/pêper ê( tê=s A)na/gkês e(kou=sa peisthei=sa te phu/sis u(pei=ke.]]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Timæus, pp.
55-56.]
Such was the mode of formation of the four so-called elemental bodies.
[75] Of each of the four, there are diverse species or varieties: and that which distinguishes one variety of the same element from another variety is, that the constituent triangles, though all similar, are of different magnitudes.
The diversity of these combinations, though the primary triangles are similar, is infinite: the student of Nature must follow it out, to obtain any probable result.
[76] [Footnote 75: Plato, Timæus, p. 57 C. [Greek: o(/sa a)/krata kai\ prô=ta sô/mata.]
The Platonist Attikus (ap.
Eusebium, Præp.
Ev.
xv.
7) blames Aristotle for dissenting from Plato on this point, and for recognising the celestial matter as a fifth essence distinct from the four elements.
Plato (he says) followed both anterior traditions and self-evident sense ([Greek: tê=| peri\ au)ta\ e)nargei/a|]) in admitting only the four elements, and in regarding all things as either compounds or varieties of these.
But Aristotle, thinking to make parade of superior philosophical sagacity, [Greek: proskatêri/thmêse toi=s phainome/nois te/ttarsi sô/masi tê\n pe/mptên ou)si/an, pa/nu me\n lamprô=s kai\ philodô/rôs tê=| phu/sei chrêsa/menos, mê\ sunidô\n de\ _o(/ti ou) nomothetei=n dei= phusiologou=nta, ta\ de\ tê=s phu/seôs au)tê=s e)xistorei=n_.]
This last precept is what we are surprised to read in a Platonist of the third century B.C.
"When you are philosophising upon Nature, do not lay down the law, but search out the real facts of Nature."
It is truly Baconian: it is justly applicable as a caution to Aristotle, against whom Attikus directs it; but it is still more eminently applicable to Plato, against whom he does not direct it.]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Timæus, p. 57 D.] [Side-note: Varieties of each element.]
Plato next enumerates the several varieties of each element--fire, water, earth.
[77] He then proceeds to mention the attributes, properties, affections, &c., of each: which he characterises as essentially relative to a sentient Subject: nothing being absolute except the constituent geometrical figures.
You cannot describe these attributes (he says) without assuming (what has not yet been described) the sensitive or mortal soul, to which they are relative.
[78] Assuming this provisionally, Plato gives account of Hot and Cold, Hard and Soft, Heavy and Light, Rough and Smooth, &c.[79] Then he describes, first, the sensations of pleasure and pain, common to the whole body--next those of the special senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch.
[80] These descriptions are very curious and interesting.
I am compelled to pass them over by want of space, and shall proceed to the statements respecting the two mortal souls and the containing organism--which belong to a vein more analogous to that of the other Platonic dialogues.
[Footnote 77: Plato, Timæus, pp.
58-61 C.] [Footnote 78: Plato, Timæus, p. 61 C-D. [Greek: Prô=ton me\n ou)=n u(pa/rchein ai)/sthêsin dei= toi=s legome/nois (ge/nesin) a)ei/; sarko\s de\ kai\ tô=n peri\ sa/rka ge/nesin, psuchê=s te o(/son thnêto/n, ou(/pô dielêlu/thamen.
Tugcha/nei de\ ou)/te tau=ta chôri\s tô=n peri\ ta\ pathê/mata o(/sa ai)sthêtika/, ou)/t' e)kei=na a)/neu tou/tôn dunata\ i(kanô=s lechthê=nai; to\ de\ a(/ma schedo\n ou) dunato/n.
U(pothete/on dê\ pro/teron tha/tera, ta\ d' u(/stera u(potethe/nta e)pa/nimen au)=this.
I(/na ou)=n e(xê=s ta\ pathê/mata le/gêtai toi=s ge/nesin, e)/stô pro/tera ê(mi=n ta\ peri\ sô=ma kai\ psuchê\n o)/nta.]]
[Footnote 79: Plato, Tim.
pp.
62-64 B. Demokritus appears to have held on this point an opinion approaching to that of Plato.
See Democr.
Frag.
ed.
Mullach, pp.
204-215: Aristot.
Metaph.
A. p. 985, b.
15; De Sensu, s. 62-65; Sextus Empiric.
adv.
Math.
vii.
135.
[Greek: Peri\ me\n ou)=n bare/os kai\ kou/phou kai\ sklêrou= kai\ malakou=, e)n tou/tois a)phori/zei--tô=n d' a)/llôn ai)sthêtô=n ou)deno\s ei)=nai phu/sin, a)lla\ pa/nta pa/thê tê=s ai)sthê/seôs a)lloioume/nês.]
We may remark that Plato includes hardness and softness, the different varieties of resistance, among the secondary or relative qualities of matter; all that he seems to conceive as absolute are extension and figure, the geometrical conception of matter.
In the view of most modern philosophers, resistance is considered as the most obviously and undeniably _absolute_ of all the attributes of matter, as that which serves to prove that matter itself is absolute.
Dr. Johnson refuted the doctrine of Berkeley by knocking a stick against the ground; and a similar refutation is adopted in words by Reid and Stewart (see Mill's System of Logic, Book vi.
ad finem, also Book i. ch.
3, s. 7-8).
To me the fact appealed to by Johnson appears an evidence in favour of Berkeley's theory rather than against it.
The Resistant ([Greek: o(\ pare/chei prosbolê\n kai\ e)paphê/n tina], Plato, Sophist.
p. 246 A) can be understood only as a correlate of something which is resisted: the fact of sense called Resistance is an indivisible fact, involving the implication of the two.
In the first instance it is the resistance experienced to our own motions (A. Bain, The Senses and the Intellect, p. 91, 3rd ed.
), and thus involves the feeling of our own spontaneous muscular energy.
The Timæus of Plato is not noticed by Sir W. Hamilton in his very learned and instructive Dissertation on the Primary and Secondary Qualities of Body (notes to his edition of Reid's Works, p. 826), though it bears upon his point more than the Theætêtus, which he mentions.]
[Footnote 80: Plato, Timæus, pp.
65-69 E.] [Side-note: Construction of man imposed by the Demiurgus upon the secondary Gods.
Triple Soul.
Distribution thereof in the body.]
The Demiurgus, after having constructed the entire Kosmos, together with the generated Gods, as well as Necessity would permit--imposed upon these Gods the task of constructing Man: the second best of the four varieties of animals whom he considered it necessary to include in the Kosmos.
He furnished to them as a basis an immortal rational soul (diluted remnant from the soul of the Kosmos); with which they were directed to combine two mortal souls and a body.
[81] They executed their task as well as the conditions of the problem admitted.
They were obliged to include in the mortal souls pleasure and pain, audacity and fear, anger, hope, appetite, sensation, &c., with all the concomitant mischiefs.
By such uncongenial adjuncts the immortal rational soul was unavoidably defiled.
The constructing Gods however took care to defile it as little as possible.
[82] They reserved the head as a separate abode for the immortal soul: planting the mortal soul apart from it in the trunk, and establishing the neck as an isthmus of separation between the two.
Again the mortal soul was itself not single but double: including two divisions, a better and a worse.
The Gods kept the two parts separate; placing the better portion in the thoracic cavity nearer to the head, and the worse portion lower down, in the abdominal cavity: the two being divided from each other by the diaphragm, built across the body as a wall of partition: just as in a dwelling-house, the apartments of the women are separated from those of the men.
Above the diaphragm and near to the neck, was planted the energetic, courageous, contentious, soul; so placed as to receive orders easily from the head, and to aid the rational soul in keeping under constraint the mutinous soul of appetite, which was planted below the diaphragm.
[83] The immortal soul[84] was fastened or anchored in the brain, the two mortal souls in the line of the spinal marrow continuous with the brain: which line thus formed the thread of connection between the three.
The heart was established as an outer fortress for the exercise of influence by the immortal soul over the other two.
It was at the same time made the initial point of the veins, the fountain from whence the current of blood proceeded to pass forcibly through the veins round to all parts of the body.
The purpose of this arrangement is, that when the rational soul denounces some proceeding as wrong (either on the part of others without, or in the appetitive soul within), it may stimulate an ebullition of anger in the heart, and may transmit from thence its exhortations and threats through the many small blood channels to all the sensitive parts of the body: which may thus be rendered obedient everywhere to the orders of our better nature.
[85] [Footnote 81: Plato, Timæus, p. 69 C.] [Footnote 82: Plato, Tim.
p. 69 D. [Greek: xugkerasa/menoi/ t' au)ta\ a)nagkai/ôs to\ thnêto\n ge/nos xune/thesan.
kai\ dia\ tau=ta dê\ sebo/menoi miai/nein to\ thei=on, o(/ ti mê\ pa=sa ê)=n a)na/gkê], &c.] [Footnote 83: Plato, Timæus, pp.
69-70.]
[Footnote 84: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 B-D.] [Footnote 85: Plato, Timæus, p. 70 B-C.] [Side-note: Functions of the heart and lungs.
Thoracic soul.]
In such ebullitions of anger, as well as in moments of imminent danger, the heart leaps violently, becoming overheated and distended by excess of fire.
The Gods foresaw this, and provided a safeguard against it by placing the lungs close at hand with the wind-pipe and trachea.
The lungs were constructed soft and full of internal pores and cavities like a sponge; without any blood,[86]--but receiving, instead of blood, both the air inspired through the trachea, and the water swallowed to quench thirst.
Being thus always cool, and soft like a cushion, the lungs received and deadened the violent beating and leaping of the heart; at the same time that they cooled down its excessive heat, and rendered it a more equable minister for the orders of reason.
[87] [Footnote 86: Plato, Timæus, p. 70 C. [Greek: tê\n tou= pleu/monos i)de/an e)nephu/teusan, prô=ton me\n malakê\n kai\ a)/naimon, ei)=ta sê/raggas e)nto\s e)/chousan oi(=on spo/ggou katatetrême/nas.]
Aristotle notices this opinion as held by some persons (not naming Plato), but impugns it as erroneous.
He affirms that the lungs have more blood in them than any of the other viscera (Histor.
Animal.
i.
17, p. 496, b.
1-8; De Respirat.
c. 15, p. 478, a.
13).]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Timæus, p.
70.]
[Side-note: Abdominal Soul--difficulty of controuling it--functions of the liver.]
The third or lowest soul, of appetite and nutrition, was placed between the diaphragm and the navel.
This region of the body was set apart like a manger for containing necessary food: and the appetitive soul was tied up to it like a wild beast; indispensable indeed for the continuance of the race, yet a troublesome adjunct, and therefore placed afar off, in order that its bellowings might disturb as little as possible the deliberations of the rational soul in the cranium, for the good of the whole.
The Gods knew that this appetitive soul would never listen to reason, and that it must be kept under subjection altogether by the influence of phantoms and imagery.
They provided an agency for this purpose in the liver, which they placed close upon the abode of the appetitive soul.
[88] They made the liver compact, smooth, and brilliant, like a mirror reflecting images:--moreover, both sweet and bitter on occasions.
The thoughts of the rational soul were thus brought within view of the appetitive soul, in the form of phantoms or images exhibited on the mirror of the liver.
When the rational soul is displeased, not only images corresponding to this feeling are impressed, but the bitter properties of the liver are all called forth.
It becomes crumpled, discoloured, dark and rough; the gall bladder is compressed; the veins carrying the blood are blocked up, and pain as well as sickness arise.
On the contrary, when the rational soul is satisfied, so as to send forth mild and complacent inspirations,--all this bitterness of the liver is tranquillised, and all its native sweetness called forth.
The whole structure becomes straight and smooth; and the images impressed upon it are rendered propitious.
It is thus through the liver, and by means of these images, that the rational soul maintains its ascendancy over the appetitive soul; either to terrify and subdue, or to comfort and encourage it.
[89] [Footnote 88: Plato, Timæus, p. 71 A.
[Greek: ei)do/tes de\ au)to\ ô(s lo/gou me\n ou)/te xunê/sein e)/mellen, ei)/te pê| kai\ metala/mbanoi tino\s au)= tô=n ai)sthê/seôn, ou)k e)/mphuton au)tô=| to\ me/lein tinô=n e)/soito lo/gôn, u(po\ de\ ei)dô/lôn kai\ phantasma/tôn nukto/s te kai\ meth' ê(me/ran ma/lista psuchagôgê/soito, tou/tô| dê\ theo\s e)pibouleu/sas au)tô=| tê\n tou= ê(/patos i)de/an xune/stêsen.]]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Timæus, p. 71 C-D.] [Side-note: The liver is made the seat of the prophetic agency.
Function of the spleen.]
Moreover, the liver was made to serve another purpose.
It was selected as the seat of the prophetic agency; which the Gods considered to be indispensable, as a refuge and aid for the irrational department of man.
Though this portion of the soul had no concern with sense or reason, they would not shut it out altogether from some glimpse of truth.
The revelations of prophecy were accordingly signified on the liver, for the instruction and within the easy view of the appetitive soul: and chiefly at periods when the functions of the rational soul are suspended--either during sleep, or disease, or fits of temporary ecstasy.
For no man in his perfect senses comes under the influence of a genuine prophetic inspiration.
Sense and intelligence are often required to interpret prophecies, and to determine what is meant by dreams or signs or prognostics of other kinds: but such revelations are received by men destitute of sense.
To receive them, is the business of one class of men: to interpret them, that of another.
It is a grave mistake, though often committed, to confound the two.
It was in order to furnish prophecy to man, therefore, that the Gods devised both the structure and the place of the liver.
During life, the prophetic indications are clearly marked upon it: but after death they become obscure and hard to decipher.
[90] [Footnote 90: Plato, Timæus, pp.
71-72.
71 E: [Greek: i(kano\n de\ sêmei=on, ô(s mantikê\n a)phrosu/nê| theo\s a)nthrôpi/nê| de/dôken; ou)dei\s ga\r e)/nnous e)pha/ptetai mantikê=s e)nthe/ou kai\ a)lêthou=s.]]
The spleen was placed near the liver, corresponding to it on the left side, in order to take off from it any impure or excessive accretions or accumulations, and thus to preserve it clean and pure.
[91] [Footnote 91: Plato, Timæus, p. 72 D.] Such was the distribution of the one immortal and the two mortal souls, and such the purposes by which it was dictated.
We cannot indeed (says Plato) proclaim this with full assurance as truth, unless the Gods would confirm our declarations.
We must take the risk of affirming what appears to us probable--and we shall proceed with this risk yet further.
[92] The following is the plan and calculation according to which it was becoming that our remaining bodily frame should be put together.
[Footnote 92: Plato, Timæus, p. 72 D-E. [Greek: to\ me\n a)lêthe/s, ô(s ei)/rêtai, theou= xumphê/santos to/t' a)\n ou(/tô mo/nôs dii+schurizoi/metha; to/ ge mê\n ei)ko\s ê(mi=n ei)rêsthai kai\ nu=n kai\ e)/ti ma=llon a)naskopou=si diakinduneute/on to\ pha/nai, kai\ pepha/sthô .
.
.
e)k dê\ logismou= toiou=de xuni/stasthai ma/list' a)\n au)to\ pa/ntôn pre/poi.]]
[Side-note: Length of the intestinal canal, in order that food might not be frequently needed.]
The Gods foresaw that we should be intemperate in our appetite for food and drink, and that we should thus bring upon ourselves many diseases injurious to life.
To mitigate this mischief, they provided us with a great length of intestinal canal, but twisted it round so as to occupy but a small space, in the belly.
All the food which we introduce remains thus a long time within us, before it passes away.
A greater interval elapses before we need fresh supplies of food.
If the food passed away speedily, so that we were constantly obliged to renew it, and were therefore always eating--the human race would be utterly destitute of intelligence and philosophy.
They would be beyond the controul of the rational soul.
[93] [Footnote 93: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 A.]
[Side-note: Bone--Flesh--Marrow.]
Bone and flesh come next to be explained.
Both of them derive their origin from the spinal marrow: in which the bonds of life are fastened, and soul is linked with body--the root of the human race.
The origin of the spinal marrow itself is special and exceptional.
Among the triangles employed in the construction of all the four elements, the Gods singled out the very best of each sort.
Those selected were combined harmoniously with each other, and employed in the formation of the spinal marrow, as the universal seed ground ([Greek: panspermi/an]) for all the human race.
In this marrow the Gods planted the different sorts of souls; distributing and accommodating the figure of each portion of marrow to the requirements of each different soul.
For that portion (called the encephalon, as being contained in the head) which was destined to receive the immortal soul, they employed the spherical figure and none other: for the remaining portion, wherein the mortal soul was to be received, they employed a mixture of the spherical and the oblong.
All of it together was called by the same name _marrow_, covered and protected by one continuous bony case, and established as the holding ground to fasten the whole extent of soul with the whole extent of body.
[94] [Footnote 94: Plato, Timæus, p. 73 C-D.] [Side-note: Nails--Mouth--Teeth.
Plants produced for nutrition of man.]
Plato next explains the construction of ligaments and flesh--of the mouth, tongue, teeth, and lips: of hair and nails.
[95] These last were produced with a long-sighted providence: for the Gods foresaw that the lower animals would be produced from the degeneration of man, and that to them nails and claws would be absolutely indispensable: accordingly, a sketch or rudiment of nails was introduced into the earliest organisation of man.
[96] Nutrition being indispensable to man, the Gods produced for this purpose plants (trees, shrubs, herbs, &c.)--with a nature cognate to that of man, but having only the lowest of the three human souls.
[97] They then cut ducts and veins throughout the human body, in directions appropriate for distributing the nutriment everywhere.
They provided proper structures (here curiously described) for digestion, inspiration, and expiration.
[98] The constituent triangles within the body, when young and fresh, overpower the triangles, older and weaker, contained in the nutritive matters swallowed, and then appropriate part of them to the support and growth of the body: in old age, the triangles within are themselves overpowered, and the body decays.
When the fastenings, whereby the triangles in the spinal marrow have been fitted together, are worn out and give way, they let go the fastenings of the soul also.
The soul, when thus released in a natural way, flies away with delight.
Death in this manner is pleasurable: though it is distressing, when brought on violently, by disease or wounds.
[99] [Footnote 95: Plato, Tim.
pp.
75-76.]
[Footnote 96: Plat.
Tim.
p. 76 E. [Greek: o(/then e)n a)nthrô/pois eu)thu\s gignome/nois _u(petupô/santo_ tê\n tô=n o)nu/chôn ge/nesin.]]
[Footnote 97: Plat.
Tim.
p. 77 B-C.] [Footnote 98: Plat.
Tim.
pp.
78-79.]
[Footnote 99: Plat.
Tim.
p.
81.]
[Side-note: General view of Diseases and their Causes.]
Here Plato passes into a general survey of diseases and the proper treatment of them.
"As to the source from whence diseases arise (he says) this is a matter evident to every one.
They arise from unnatural excess, deficiency, or displacement, of some one or more of the four elements (fire, air, water, earth) which go to compose the body.
"[100] If the element in excess be fire, heat and continuous fever are produced: if air, the fever comes on alternate days: if water (a duller element), it is a tertian fever: if earth, it is a quartan--since earth is the dullest and most sluggish of the four.
[101] [Footnote 100: Plat.
Tim.
p. 81 E. [Greek: to\ de\ tô=n no/sôn o(/then xuni/statai, dê=lo/n pou kai\ panti/.]]
[Footnote 101: Plat.
Tim.
p. 86 A.
[Greek: to\ de\ gê=s, teta/rtôs o)\n nôthe/staton tou/tôn.]]
[Side-note: Diseases of mind--wickedness is a disease--no man is voluntarily wicked.]
Having dwelt at considerable length on the distempers of the body, the Platonic Timæus next examines those of the soul, which proceed from the condition of the body.
[102] The generic expression for all distemper of the soul is, irrationality--unreason--absence of reason or intelligence.
Of this there are two sorts--madness and ignorance.
Intense pleasures and pains are the gravest cause of madness.
[103] A man under either of these two influences--either grasping at the former, or running away from the latter, out of season--can neither see nor hear any thing rightly.
He is at that moment mad and incapable of using his reason.
When the flow of sperm round his marrow is overcharged and violent, so as to produce desires with intense throes of uneasiness beforehand and intense pleasure when satisfaction arrives,--his soul is really distempered and irrational, through the ascendancy of his body.
Yet such a man is erroneously looked upon in general not as distempered, but as wicked voluntarily, of his own accord.
The truth is, that sexual intemperance is a disorder of the soul arising from an abundant flow of one kind of liquid in the body, combined with thin bones or deficiency in the solids.
And nearly all those intemperate habits which are urged as matters of reproach against a man--as if he were bad willingly,--are urged only from the assumption of an erroneous hypothesis.
No man is bad willingly, but only from some evil habit of body and from wrong or perverting treatment in youth; which is hostile to his nature, and comes upon him against his own will.
[104] [Footnote 102: Plato, Timæus, p. 86 B.
[Greek: Kai\ ta\ me\n peri\ to\ sô=ma nosê/mata tau/tê| xumbai/nei gigno/mena, ta\ de\ peri\ psuchê\n dia\ sô/matos e(/xin tê=|de.]]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Timæus, p. 86 B.
[Greek: no/son me\n dê\ psuchê=s a)/noian xugchôrête/on.
Du/o d' a)noi/as ge/nê, to\ me\n mani/an, to\ de\ a)mathi/an.]]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Timæus, p. 86 C-D.] [Side-note: Badness of mind arises from body.]
Again, not merely by way of pleasures, but by way of pains also, the body operates to entail evil or wickedness on the soul.
When acid or salt phlegm--when bitter and bilious humours--come to spread through the body, remaining pent up therein, without being able to escape by exhalation,--the effluvia which ought to have been exhaled from them become confounded with the rotation of the soul, producing in it all manner of distempers.
These effluvia attack all the three different seats of the soul, occasioning great diversity of mischiefs according to the part attacked--irascibility, despondency, rashness, cowardice, forgetfulness, stupidity.
Such bad constitution of the body serves as the foundation of ulterior mischief.
And when there supervene, in addition, bad systems of government and bad social maxims, without any means of correction furnished to youth through good social instruction--it is from these two combined causes, both of them against our own will, that all of us who are wicked become wicked.
Parents and teachers are more in fault than children and pupils.
We must do our best to arrange the bringing up, the habits, and the instruction, so as to eschew evil and attain good.
[105] [Footnote 105: Plato, Timæus, p. 87 A-C.] [Side-note: Preservative and healing agencies against disease--well-regulated exercise, of mind and body proportionally.]
After thus describing the causes of corruption, both in body and mind, Plato adverts to the preservative and corrective agencies applicable to them.
Between the one and the other, constant proportion and symmetry must be imperatively maintained.
When the one is strong, and the other weak, nothing but mischief can ensue.
[106] Mind must not be exercised alone, to the exclusion of body; nor body alone, without mind.
Each must be exercised, so as to maintain adequate reaction and equilibrium against the other.
[107] We ought never to let the body be at rest: we must keep up within it a perpetual succession of moderate shocks, so that it may make suitable resistance against foreign causes of movement, internal and external.
[108] The best of all movements is, that which is both in itself and made by itself: analogous to the self-continuing rotation both of the Kosmos and of the rational soul in our cranium.
[109] Movement in itself, but by an external agent, is less good.
The worst of all is, movement neither in itself nor by itself.
Among these three sorts of movement, the first is, Gymnastic: the second, propulsion backwards and forwards in a swing, gestation in a carriage: the third is, purgation or medicinal disturbance.
[110] This last is never to be employed, except in extreme emergencies.
[Footnote 106: Plat.
Tim.
pp.
87-88 A.]
[Footnote 107: Plat.
Tim.
p. 88 C.] [Footnote 108: Plat.
Tim.
p. 88 D-E.] [Footnote 109: Plat.
Tim.
p. 89 A.
[Greek: tô=n d' au)= kinê/seôn ê( e)n e(autô=| u(ph' e(autou= a)ri/stê ki/nêsis; ma/lista ga\r tê=| dianoêtikê=| kai\ tê=| tou= panto\s kinê/sei xuggenê/s; ê( d' u(p' a)/llou chei/rôn.]]
[Footnote 110: Plat.
Tim.
p. 89 A.
[Greek: deute/ra de\ ê( dia\ tô=n ai)ôrê/seôn].
Foes, in the Oeconomia Hippocratica v. [Greek: Ai)ô/ra], gives information about these _pensiles gestationes_, upon which the ancient physicians bestowed much attention.]
[Side-note: Treatment proper for mind alone, apart from body--supremacy of the rational soul must be cultivated.]
We must now indicate the treatment necessary for mind alone, apart from body.
It has been already stated, that there are in each of us three souls, or three distinct varieties of soul; each having its own separate place and special movements.
Of these three, that which is most exercised must necessarily become the strongest: that which is left unexercised, unmoved, at rest or in indolence,--will become the weakest.
The object to be aimed at is, that all three shall be exercised in harmony or proportion with each other.
Respecting the soul in our head, the grandest and most commanding of the three, we must bear in mind that it is this which the Gods have assigned to each man as his own special Dæmon or presiding Genius.
Dwelling as it does in the highest region of the body, it marks us and links us as akin with heaven--as a celestial and not a terrestrial plant, having root in heaven and not in earth.
It is this encephalic or head-soul, which, connected with and suspended from the divine soul of the Kosmos, keeps our whole body in its erect attitude.
Now if a man neglects this soul, directing all his favour and development towards the two others (the energetic or the appetitive),--all his judgments will infallibly become mortal and transient, and he himself will be degraded into a mortal being, as far as it is possible for man to become so.
But if he devotes himself to study and meditation on truth, exercising the encephalic soul more than the other two--he will assuredly, if he seizes truth,[111] have his mind filled with immortal and divine judgments, and will become himself immortal, as far as human nature admits of it.
Cultivating as he does systematically the divine element within him, and having his in-dwelling Genius decorated as perfectly as possible, he will be eminently well-inspired or happy.
[112] [Footnote 111: Plato, Timæus, p. 90 C. [Greek: a)/n per a)lêthei/as e)pha/ptêtai.]]
[Footnote 112: Plato, Timæus, p. 90 B-D. [Greek: e)/chonta/ te au)to\n eu)= ma/la kekosmême/non to\n dai/mona xu/noikon e)n au(tô=|, diaphero/ntôs eu)dai/mona ei)=nai.]
It is hardly possible to translate this play upon the word [Greek: eu)dai/môn].]
[Side-note: We must study and understand the rotations of the Kosmos--this is the way to amend the rotations of the rational soul.]
The mode of cultivating or developing each soul is the same--to assign to each the nourishment and the movement which is suitable to it.
Now the movements which are kindred and congenial to our divine encephalic soul, are--the rotations of the Kosmos and the intellections traversing the Kosmical soul.
It is these that we ought to follow and study.
By learning and embracing in our minds the rotations and proportions of the Kosmos, we shall assimilate the comprehending subject to the comprehended object, and shall rectify that derangement of our own intra-cranial rotations, which was entailed upon us by our birth into a body.
By such assimilation, we shall attain the perfection of the life allotted to us, both at present and for the future.
[113] [Footnote 113: Plato, Timæus, pp.
90 D, 91 C-D.
The phrase of Plato in describing the newly introduced mode of procreation--[Greek: ô(s ei)s a)/rouran tê\n mê/tran a)o/rata u(po\ smikro/têtos kai\ a)dia/plasta zô=a kataspei/rantes]--is remarkable, as it might be applied to the spermatozoa, which nevertheless he cannot have known.]
[Side-note: Construction of women, birds, quadrupeds, fishes, &c., all from the degradation of primitive man.]
We have thus--says the Platonic Timæus in approaching his conclusion--gone through all those matters which we promised at the beginning, from the first construction of the Kosmos to the genesis of man.
We must now devote a few words to the other animals.
All of these derive their origin from man, by successive degradations.
The first transition is from man into woman.
Men whose lives had been characterised by cowardice or injustice, were after death and in their second birth born again as women.
It was then that the Gods planted in us the sexual impulse, reconstructing the bodily organism with suitable adjustment, on the double pattern, male and female.
[114] [Footnote 114: Plat.
Tim.
p. 91 D. Whoever compares the step of marked degeneration here indicated--in passing from men to women--with that which is affirmed by Plato in the fifth book of the Republic about the character, attributes, and capacities of women, will recognise a material difference between the two.]
Such was the genesis of women, by a partial transformation and diversification of the male structure.
We next come to birds; who are likewise a degraded birth or formation, derived from one peculiar mode of degeneracy in man: hair being transmuted into feathers and wings.
Birds were formed from the harmless, but light, airy, and superficial men; who, though carrying their minds aloft to the study of kosmical phenomena, studied them by visual observation and not by reason, foolishly imagining that they had discovered the way of reaching truth.
[115] [Footnote 115: Plato, Timæus, p. 91 E.] The more brutal land animals proceeded from men totally destitute of philosophy, who neither looked up to the heavens nor cared for celestial objects: from men making no use whatever of the rotations of their encephalic soul, but following exclusively the guidance of the lower soul in the trunk.
Through such tastes and occupations, both their heads and their anterior limbs became dragged down to the earth by the force of affinity.
Moreover, when the rotations of the encephalic soul, from want of exercise, became slackened and fell into desuetude, the round form of the cranium was lost, and converted into an oblong or some other form.
These men thus degenerated into quadrupeds and multipeds: the Gods furnishing a greater number of feet in proportion to the stupidity of each, in order that its approximations to earth might be multiplied.
To some of the more stupid, however, the Gods gave no feet nor limbs at all; constraining them to drag the whole length of their bodies along the ground, and to become Reptiles.
[116] [Footnote 116: Plato, Timæus, pp.
91-92.]
Out of the most stupid and senseless of mankind, by still greater degeneracy, the Gods formed Fishes or Aquatic Animals:--the fourth and lowest genus, after Men, Birds, Land-Animals.
This race of beings, from their extreme want of mind, were not considered worthy to live on earth, or to respire thin and pure air.
They were condemned to respire nothing but deep and turbid water, many of them, as oysters, and other descriptions of shellfish, being fixed down at the lowest depth or bottom.
[117] [Footnote 117: Plato, Timæus, p. 92 B.]
It is by such transitions (concludes the Platonic Timæus) that the different races of animals passed originally, and still continue to pass, into each other.
The interchange is determined by the acquisition or loss of reason or irrationality.
[118] [Footnote 118: Plato, Timæus, p. 92 B.
[Greek: kai\ kata\ tau=ta dê\ pa/nta _to/te kai\ nu=n diamei/betai ta\ zô=a ei)s a)/llêla_, nou= kai\ a)noi/as a)pobolê=| kai\ ktê/sei metaballo/mena.]]
* * * * * [Side-note: Large range of topics introduced in the Timæus.]
The vast range of topics, included in this curious exposition, is truly remarkable: Kosmogony or Theogony, First Philosophy, Physics (resting upon Geometry and Arithmetic), Zoology, Physiology, Anatomy, Pathology, Therapeutics, mental as well as physical.
Of all these, I have not been able to furnish more than scanty illustrations; but the whole are well worthy of study, as the conjectures of a great and ingenious mind in the existing state of knowledge and belief among the Greeks: and all the more worthy, because they form in many respects a striking contrast with the points of view prevalent in more recent times.
[Side-note: The Demiurgus of the Platonic Timæus--how conceived by other philosophers of the same century.]
The position and functions of the Demiurgus, in the Timæus, form a peculiar phase in Grecian Philosophy, and even in the doctrine of Plato himself: for the theology and kosmology of the Timæus differ considerably from what we read in the Phædrus, Politikus, Republic, Leges, &c. The Demiurgus is presented in Timæus as a personal agent, pre-kosmical and extra-kosmical: but he appears only as initiating; he begets or fabricates, once for all, a most beautiful Kosmos (employing all the available material, so that nothing more could afterwards be added).
The Kosmos having body and soul, is itself a God, but with many separate Gods resident within it, or attached to it.
The Demiurgus then retires, leaving it to be peopled and administered by the Gods thus generated, or by its own soul.
His acting and speaking is recounted in the manner of the ancient mythes: and many critics, ancient as well as modern, have supposed that he is intended by Plato only as a mythical personification of the Idea Boni: the construction described being only an ideal process, like the generation of a geometrical figure.
[119] Whatever may have been Plato's own intention, in this last sense his hypothesis was interpreted by his immediate successors, Speusippus and Xenokrates, as well as by Eudêmus.
[120] Aristotle in his comments upon Plato takes little notice of the Demiurgus: the hypothesis (of a distinct personal constructive agent) did not fit into his _principia_ of the Kosmos, and he probably ranked it among those mythical modes of philosophising which he expressly pronounces to be unworthy of serious criticism.
[121] Various succeeding philosophers also, especially the Stoics, while they insisted much upon Providence, conceived this as residing in the Kosmos itself, and in the divine intra-kosmical agencies.
[Footnote 119: Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Timæum, p. 47.
Zeller, Platonische Studien, pp.
207-215; also his Gesch.
d. Phil.
d. Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 508 seq.
ed.
2nd; and Susemihl, Genetische Entwicklung der Platon.
Philosophie, vol.
ii.
pp.
322-340.
Ueberweg, Ueber die Platon.
Welt-seele, p. 69; Brandis, Gesch.
der Griech.
Philos.
ii.
cx.
pp.
357-365.
A good note of Ast (Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 363 seq.)
illustrates the analogy between the Platonic Timæus and the old Greek cosmogonic poems.]
[Footnote 120: Respecting Speusippus and Xenokrates, see Aristotel.
De Coelo, i.
10, pp.
279-280, with Scholia, 487, b.
37, 488, b.
15, 489, a.
10, Brandis.
Respecting Eudemus, Krantor, Eudorus, and the majority of the Platonic followers, see Plutarch, De Animæ Procreatione in Timæo, 1012 D, 1013 A, 1015 D, 1017 B, 1028 B. Plutarch reasons against them; but he recognises their interpretation as the predominant one.
See also the view ascribed to Speusippus and the Pythagoreans by Aristotle (Metaphys.
A.
1072, a.
1, b.
30).]
[Footnote 121: Proklus ad Platon.
Tim.
ii.
pp.
138 E, 328, ed.
Schn.
: [Greek: ê)\ ga\r mo/nos ê)\ ma/lista, Pla/tôn tê=| a)po\ tou= pronoou=ntos ai)ti/a| katechrê/sato, phêsi\n o( Theo/phrastos, tou=to/ ge kalô=s au)tô=| marturô=n.]
And another reference to Theophrastus, in Proklus, pp.
117, 417 Schn.
Also pp.
118 E-F, 279 Schn.
: [Greek: A)ristote/lês me\n ou)=n tê\n e)n tô=| dêmiourgô=| ta/xin ou)k oi)=den .
.
.
o( de\ Pla/tôn O)rphei= sunepo/menos e)n tô=| dêmiourgô=| prô=ton ei)=nai phêsi tê\n ta/xin, kai\ to\ pro\ tô=n merô=n o(/lon.]
For further coincidences between the Platonic Timæus and Orpheus ([Greek: o( theolo/gos]) see Proklus ad Timæ.
pp.
233-235, Schn.
The passage of Aristotle respecting those who blended mythe and philosophy is remarkable, Metaphys.
B.
1000, a.
9-20.
[Greek: Oi( me\n ou)=n peri\ Ê(si/odon, kai\ pa/ntes o(/soi theolo/goi, mo/non e)phro/ntisan tou= pithanou= tou= pro\s au)tou/s, ê(mô=n d' ô)ligô/rêsan .
.
.
A)lla\ peri\ me\n tô=n muthikô=s sophizome/nôn ou)k a)/xion meta\ spoudê=s skopei=n; para\ de\ tô=n di' a)podei/xeôs lego/ntôn dei= puntha/nesthai dierôtô=ntas], &c. About those whom Aristotle calls [Greek: oi( memigme/noi] (partly mythe, partly philosophy), see Metaphys.
N. 1091, b.
8.
Compare, on Aristotle's non-recognition of the Platonic Demiurgus, a remarkable note of Prantl, ad Aristot.
Physica, viii.
p. 524, also p. 478, in his edition of that treatise, Leipsic, 1854.
Weisse speaks to the same effect in his translation of the Physica of Aristotle, pp.
350-356, Leips.
1829.
Lichtenstädt, in his ingenious work, (Ueber Platon's Lehren auf dem Gebiete der Natur-Forschung und der Heilkunde, Leipsic, 1826), ranks several of the characteristic tenets of the Timæus as only mythical: the pre-existent Chaos, the divinity of the entire Kosmos, even the metempsychosis, though it is affirmed most directly,--see pp.
24, 46, 48, 86, &c. How much of all this Plato intended as purely mythical, appears to me impossible to determine.
I agree with the opinion of Ueberweg, that Plato did not draw any clear line in his own mind between the mythical and the real (Ueber die Platon.
Weltseele, pp.
70-71).]
[Side-note: Adopted and welcomed by the Alexandrine Jews, as a parallel to the Mosaic Genesis.]
But though the idea of a pre-kosmic Demiurgus found little favour among the Grecian schools of philosophy, before the Christian era--it was greatly welcomed among the Hellenising Jews at Alexandria, from Aristobulus (about B. C. 150) down to Philo.
It formed the suitable point of conjunction, between Hellenic and Judaic speculation.
The marked distinction drawn by Plato between the Demiurgus, and the constructed or generated Kosmos, with its in-dwelling Gods--provided a suitable place for the Supreme God of the Jews, degrading the Pagan Gods in comparison.
The Timæus was compared with the book of Genesis, from which it was even affirmed that Plato had copied.
He received the denomination of the atticising Moses: Moses writing in Attic Greek.
[122] It was thus that the Platonic Timæus became the medium of transition, from the Polytheistic theology which served as philosophy among the early ages of Greece, to the omnipotent Monotheism to which philosophy became subordinated after the Christian era.]
[Footnote 122: The learned work of Gfrörer--Philo und die Jüdisch-Alexandrin.
Theosophie--illustrates well this coalescence of Platonism with the Pentateuch in the minds of the Hellenising Jews at Alexandria.
"Aristobulus maintained, 150 years earlier than Philo, that not only the oldest Grecian poets, Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, &c., but also the most celebrated thinkers, especially Plato, had acquired all their wisdom from a very old translation of the Pentateuch" (Gfrörer, i. p. 308, also ii.
111-118).
The first form of Grecian philosophy which found favour among the Alexandrine Jews was the Platonic:--"since a Jew could not fail to be pleased--besides the magnificent style and high moral tone--with a certain likeness between the Oriental Kosmogonies and the Timæus, the favourite treatise of all Theosophists," see p. 72.
Compare the same work, pp.
78-80-167-184-314.
Philo calls Sokrates [Greek: a)nê\r para\ Môu+sei= ta\ prote/leia tê=s sophi/as a)nadidachthei/s]: he refers to the terminology of the Platonic Timæus (Gfrörer, 308-327-328).
Eusebius (Præp.
Ev.
ix.
6, xi.
10), citing Aristobulus and Numenius, says [Greek: Ti/ ga\r e)/sti Pla/tôn, ê)\ Môu+sê\s a)ttiki/zôn?]
Compare also the same work, xi.
16-25-29, and xiii.
18, where the harmony between Plato and Moses, and the preference of the author for Plato over other Greek philosophers, are earnestly declared.
See also Vacherot, Histoire Critique de l'École d'Alexandrie, vol.
i. pp.
110-163-319-335.]
[Side-note: Physiology of the Platonic Timæus--subordinate to Plato's views of ethical teleology.
Triple soul--each soul at once material and mental.]
Of the vast outline sketched in the Timæus, no part illustrates better the point of view of the author, than what is said about human anatomy and physiology.
The human body is conceived altogether as subservient to an ethical and æsthetical teleology: it is (like the Praxitelean statue of Eros[123]) a work adapted to an archetypal model in Plato's own heart--his emotions, preferences, antipathies.
[124] The leading idea in his mind is, What purposes would be most suitable to the presumed character of the Demiurgus, and to those generated Gods who are assumed to act as his ministers?
The purposes which Plato ascribes, both to the one and to the others, emanate from his own feelings: they are such as he would himself have aimed at accomplishing, if he had possessed demiurgic power: just as the Republic describes the principles on which he would have constituted a Commonwealth, had he been lawgiver or Oekist.
His inventive fancy depicts the interior structure, both of the great Kosmos and of its little human miniature, in a way corresponding to these sublime purposes.
The three souls, each with its appropriate place and functions, form the cardinal principle of the organism:[125] the unity of which is maintained by the spinal marrow in continuity with, the brain; all the three souls having their roots in different parts of this continuous line.
Neither of these three souls is immaterial, in the sense which that word now bears: even the encephalic rational soul--the most exalted in function, and commander of the other two--has its own extension and rotatory motion: as the kosmical soul has also, though yet more exalted in its endowments.
All these souls have material properties, and are implicated essentially with other material agents:[126] all are at once material and mental.
The encephalic or rational soul has its share in material properties, while the abdominal or appetitive soul also has its share in mental properties: even the liver has for its function to exhibit images impressed by the rational soul, and to serve as the theatre of prophetic representations.
[127] [Footnote 123: [Greek: Praxite/lês o(\n e)/pasche diêkri/bôsen E)/rôta e)x i)di/ês e(/lkôn a)rche/tupon kradi/ês]--(Anthologia).]
[Footnote 124: Plato says (Tim.
p. 53 E) that in investigating the fundamental configuration of the elements you must search for the most beautiful: these will of course be the true ones.
Again, p. 72 E, [Greek: e)k dê\ logismou= toi/oude xuni/stasthai ma/list' a)\n au(tô=| pa/ntôn pre/poi.]
Galen applies an analogous principle of reasoning to explain the structure of apes, whom he pronounces to be a caricature of man.
Man having a rational and intelligent soul, Nature has properly attached to it an admirable bodily organism: with equal propriety she has assigned to the ape a ridiculous bodily organism, because he has a ridiculous soul--[Greek: le/xeien a)\n ê( phu/sis, geloi/ô| tê\n psuchê\n zô/ô| geloi/an e)chrê=n dothê=nai sô/matos kataskeuê/n] (De Usu Partium, i. c. 13, pp.
80-81, iii.
16, p. 284, xiii.
2, p. 126, xv.
8, p. 252, Kühn).]
[Footnote 125: Respecting a view analogous to that of Plato, M. Littré observes, in his Proleg.
to the Hippokratic treatise [Greek: Peri\ Kardi/ês] (OEuvres d'Hippocrate T. ix.
p. 77):--"Deux fois l'auteur s'occupe des fins de la structure (du coeur) et admire avec quelle habileté elles sont atteintes.
La première, c'est à propos des valvules sigmöides: il est instruit de leur usage, qui est de fermer le coeur du côté de l'artère; et dès-lors, son admiration ne se méprend pas, quand il fait remarquer avec quelle exactitude ils accomplissent leur office.
Mais elle se méprend quand, se tournant vers les oreillettes, elle loue la main de l'artiste habile qui les a si bien arrangées pour souffler l'air dans le coeur.
Ces déceptions de la téléologie sont perpétuelles dans l'histoire de la science; à chaque instant, on s'est extasié devant des structures que l'imagination seule appropriait à certaines fonctions.
'Cet optimisme' (dit Condorcet dans son Fragment sur l'Atlantide) 'qui consiste à trouver tout à merveille dans la nature telle qu'on l'invente, à condition d'admirer également sa sagesse, si par malheur on avait découvert qu'elle a suivi d'autres combinaisons; cet optimisme de détail doit être banni de la philosophie, dont le but n'est pas d'admirer, mais de connaître; qui, dans l'étude, cherche la vérité, et non des motifs de reconnaissance.'"]
[Footnote 126: Proklus could hardly make out that Plato recognised any [Greek: psuchê\n a)me/thekton], ad Tim.
ii.
pp.
220, 94 A.]
[Footnote 127: Plat.
Tim.
p. 71 B-C.
The criticism of Aristotle (De Partibus Animal.
iv.
2, 676, b.
21) is directed against this doctrine, but without naming Plato.
But when Aristotle says [Greek: Oi( le/gontes tê\n phu/sin tê=s cholê=s ai)sthê/seôs tino\s ei)=nai sêmei=on, ou) kalô=s le/gousin], he substitutes the _bile_ in place of the liver.
In Aristotle's mind the two are intimately associated.]
[Side-note: Triplicity of the soul--espoused afterwards by Galen.]
The Platonic doctrine, of three souls in one organism, derives a peculiar interest from the earnest way in which it is espoused afterwards by Galen.
This last author represents Plato as agreeing in main doctrines with Hippokrates.
He has composed nine distinct Dissertations or Books, for the purpose of upholding their joint doctrines.
But the agreement which he shows between Hippokrates and Plato is very vague, and his own agreement with Plato is rather ethical than physiological.
What is the essence of the three souls, and whether they are immortal or not, Galen leaves undecided:[128] but that there must be three distinct souls in each human body, and that the supposition of one soul only is an absurdity--he considers Plato to have positively demonstrated.
He rejects the doctrine of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Poseidonius, and others, who acknowledged only one soul, lodged in the heart, but with distinct co-existent powers.
[129] [Footnote 128: Galen, De Foetuum Formatione, p. 701, Kühn.
[Greek: Peri\ Ou)si/as tô=n phusikô=n duna/meôn], p. 763.
[Greek: Peri\ tô=n tê=s psuchê=s Ê)thô=n], p.
773.]
[Footnote 129: Galen, De Hipp.
et Plat.
Dogm.
iii.
pp.
337-347, Kühn, vi.
pp.
515-516, i. p. 200, iv.
p. 363, ix.
p.
727.]
[Side-note: Admiration of Galen for Plato--his agreement with Plato, and his dissension from Plato--his improved physiology.]
So far Galen concurs with Plato.
But he connects this triplicity of soul with a physiological theory of his own, which he professes to derive from, or at least to hold in common with, Hippokrates and Plato.
Galen recognises three [Greek: a)rcha\s]--_principia_, beginnings, originating and governing organs--in the body: the brain, which is the origin of all the nerves, both of sensation and motion: the heart, the origin of the arteries: the liver, the sanguifacient organ, and the origin of the veins which distribute nourishment to all parts of the body.
These three are respectively the organs of the rational, the energetic, and the appetitive soul.
[130] [Footnote 130: Galen, Hipp.
et Plat.
Dogm.
viii.
pp.
656-657, Kühn.
[Greek: e)x ô(=n e)perai/neto ê( tô=n phlebô=n a)rchê\ to\ ê(=par u(pa/rchein; ô(=| pa/lin ei(/peto, kai\ tê=s koinê=s pro\s ta\ phuta\ duna/meôs a)rchê\n ei)=nai tou=to to\ spla/gchnon, ê(/ntina du/namin o( Pla/tôn e)pithumêtikê\n o)noma/zei.]
Compare vi.
519-572, vii.
600-601.
The same triplicity of [Greek: a)rchai\] in the organism had been recognised by Erasistratus, later than Aristotle, though long before Galen.
[Greek: Kai\ E)rasi/stratos de\ ô(s a)rcha\s kai\ stoichei=a o(/lou sô/matos u(potithe/menos tê\n triploki/an tô=n a)ggei/ôn, neu=ra, kai\ phle/bas, kai\ a)rtêri/as] (Galen, T. iv.
p. 375, ed.
Basil).
See Littré, Introduction aux Oeuvres d'Hippocrate, T. i. p. 203.
Plato does not say, as Galen declares him to say, that the appetitive soul has its primary seat or [Greek: a)rchê\] in the liver.
It has its seat between the diaphragm and the navel; the liver is placed in this region as an outlying fort, occupied by the rational soul, and used for the purpose of controuling the rebellious tendencies of the appetitive soul.
Chrysippus (ap.
Galen, Hipp.
et Plat.
Dogm.
iii.
p. 288, Kühn) stated Plato's doctrine about the [Greek: trimerê\s psuchê\] more simply and faithfully than Galen himself.
Compare his words ib.
viii.
p. 651, vi.
p. 519.
Galen represents Plato as saying that nourishment is furnished by the stomach first to the liver, to be there made into blood and sent round the body through the veins (pp.
576-578).
This is Galen's own theory (De Usu Partium, iv.
p. 268, Kühn), but it is not to be found in Plato.
Whoever reads the Timæus, pp.
77-78, will see that Plato's theory of the conversion of food into blood, and its transmission as blood through the veins, is altogether different.
It is here that he propounds his singular hypothesis--the interior network of air and fire, and the oscillating ebb and flow of these intense agencies in the cavity of the abdomen.
The liver has nothing to do with the process.
So again Galen (p. 573) puts upon the words of Plato about the heart--[Greek: pêgê\n tou= peripherome/nou sphodrô=s ai(/matos]--an interpretation conformable to the Galenian theory, but noway consistent with the statements of the Timæus itself.
And he treats the comparison of the cranium and the rotations of the brain within, to the rotations of the spherical Kosmos--which comparison weighed greatly in Plato's mind--as an illustrative simile without any philosophical value (Galen, H. et P. D. ii.
4, p. 230, Kühn; Plato, Tim.
pp.
41 B, 90 A).]
The Galenian theory here propounded (which held its place in physiology until Harvey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood in the seventeenth century), though proved by fuller investigation to be altogether erroneous as to the liver--and partially erroneous as to the heart--is nevertheless made by its author to rest upon plausible reasons, as well as upon many anatomical facts, and results of experiments on the animal body, by tying or cutting nerves and arteries.
[131] Its resemblance with the Platonic theory is altogether superficial: while the Galenian reasoning, so far from resembling the Platonic, stands in striking contrast with it.
Anxious as Galen is to extol Plato, his manner of expounding and defending the Platonic thesis is such as to mark the scientific progress realised during the five centuries intervening between the two.
Plato himself, in the Timæus, displays little interest or curiosity about the facts of physiology: the connecting principles, whereby he explains to himself the mechanism of the organs as known by ordinary experience, are altogether psychological, ethical, teleological.
In the praise which Galen, with his very superior knowledge of the human organism, bestows upon the Timæus, he unconsciously substitutes a new doctrine of his own, differing materially from that of Plato.
[Footnote 131: Galen (Hipp.
et Plat.
Dogm.
ii.
p. 233, Kühn).
[Greek: kai/toi ge ê(mei=s, a(/per e)paggello/metha lo/gô|, tau=ta e)pi\ tai=s tô=n zô=ôn a)natomai=s e)pidei/knumen], &c. P. 220: [Greek: Po/then ou)=n tou=to deichthê/setai?
po/then a)/llothen ê)\ e)k tô=n a)natomô=n?]]
[Side-note: Physiology and pathology of Plato--compared with that of Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises.]
I have no space here to touch on the interesting comparisons which might be made between the physiology and pathology of the Timæus--and that which we read in other authors of the same century--Aristotle and the Hippokratic treatises.
More than one allusion is made in the Timæus to physicians: and Plato cites Hippokrates in other dialogues with respect.
[132] The study and practice of medicine was at that time greatly affected by the current speculations respecting Nature as a whole: accomplished physicians combined both lines of study, implicating kosmical and biological theories:[133] and in the Platonic Timæus, the former might properly be comprised in the latter, since the entire Kosmos is regarded as one animated and rational being.
Among the sixty treatises in the Hippokratic collection, composed by different authors, there are material differences--sometimes even positive opposition--both of doctrine and spirit.
Some of them are the work of practitioners, familiar with the details of sickness and bodily injuries, as well as with the various modes of treatment: others again proceed from pure theorists, following out some speculative dogmas more or less plausible, but usually vague and indeterminate.
It is to one of this last class of treatises that Galen chiefly refers, when he dwells upon the agreement between Plato and Hippokrates.
[134] This is the point which the Platonic Timæus has in common with both Hippokrates and Aristotle.
But on the other hand, Timæus appears entirely wanting in that element of observation, and special care about matters of fact, which these two last-mentioned authors very frequently display, even while confusing themselves by much vagueness of dogmatising theory.
The Timæus evinces no special study of matters of fact: it contains ingenious and fanciful combinations, dictated chiefly from the ethical and theological point of view, but brought to bear upon such limited amount of knowledge as an accomplished man of Plato's day could hardly fail to acquire without special study.
In the extreme importance which it assigns to diet, regimen, and bodily discipline, it agrees generally with Hippokrates: but for the most part, the points of contrast are more notable than those of agreement.
[Footnote 132: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270; Protagoras, p.
311.]
[Footnote 133: See a remarkable passage, Aristotel.
De Sensu, 436, a.
21, [Greek: tô=n i)atrô=n oi( philosophôte/rôs tê\n te/chnên metio/ntes], &c.: also De Respiratione, ad finem, 480, b.
21, and [Greek: Peri\ tê=s kath' u(/pnon mantikê=s], i. p. 463, a.
5.
[Greek: tô=n i)atrô=n oi( charie/ntes].
Compare Hippokrat.
De Aere, Locis, &c., c. 2.
M. Littré observes:-"La science antique, et par conséquent la médecine qui en formait une branche, était essentiellement synthétique.
Platon, dans le Charmide, dit qu'on ne peut guérir la partie sans le tout.
Le philosophe avait pris cette idée à l'enseignement médical qui se donnait de son temps: cet enseignement partait donc du tout, de l'ensemble; nous en avons la preuve dans le livre même du Pronostic, qui nous montre d'une manière frappante comment la composition des écrits particuliers se subordonne à la conception générale de la science; ce livre, tel qu'Hippocrate l'a composé, ne pouvait se faire qu'à une époque où la médecine conservait encore l'empreinte des doctrines encyclopédiques qui avaient constitué le fond de tout l'enseignement oriental."
(Littré, OEuvres D'Hippocrate, T. ii.
p. 96.
Argument prefixed to the Prognostikon.)]
[Footnote 134: He alludes especially to the Hippokratic treatise [Greek: Peri\ Phu/sios a)nthrô/pou], see De Hipp.
et Plat.
Dogm.
viii.
pp.
674-710, ed.
Kühn.
In the valuable Hippokratic composition--[Greek: Peri\ A)rchai/ês I)êtrikê=s]--(vol.
i. pp.
570-636, ed.
Littré) the author distinguished [Greek: i)êtroi/], properly so-called, from [Greek: sophistai/], who merely laid down general principles about medicine.
He enters a protest against the employment, in reference to medicine, of those large and indefinite assumptions which characterised the works of Sophists or physical philosophers such as Empedokles (pp.
570-620, Littré).
"Such compositions," he says, "belong less to the medical art than to the art of literary composition"--[Greek: e)gô\ de\ toute/ôn me\n o(/sa tini\ ei)/rêtai sophistê=| ê)\ i)êtrô=|, ê)\ ge/graptai peri\ phu/sios, ê(=sson nomi/zô tê=| i)êtrikê=| te/chnê| prosê/kein ê)\ tê=| graphikê=|] (p. 620).
Such men cannot (he says) deal with a case of actual sickness: they ought to speak intelligible language--[Greek: gnôsta\ le/gein toi=si dêmo/tê|si] (p. 572).
Again, in the Treatise De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, Hippokrates defends himself against the charge of entering upon topics which are [Greek: meteôrolo/ga] (vol.
ii.
p. 14, Littré).
The Platonic Timæus would have been considered by Hippokrates as the work of a [Greek: sophistê/s].
It was composed not for professional readers alone, but for the public--[Greek: e)pi/stasthai e)s o(/son ei)ko\s i)diô/tên]--(Hippokrat.
[Greek: Peri\ Pathô=n], vol.
vi.
p. 208, Littré).
The Hippokratic treatises afford evidence of an established art, with traditions of tolerably long standing, a considerable medical literature, and even much oral debate on medical subjects--[Greek: e)nanti/on a)kroate/ôn] (Hipp.
[Greek: Peri\ Nou/sôn], vol.
vi.
pp 140-142-150, Littré).
[Greek: O(\s a)\n peri\ i)ê/sios e)the/lê| e)rôta=|n te o)rthô=s, kai\ e)rôtô=nti a)pokri/nesthai, kai\ a)ntile/gein o)rthô=s, e)nthume/esthai chrê\ ta/de] (p. 140) .
.
.
[Greek: Tau=ta e)nthumêthe/nta diaphula/ssein dei= e)n toi=si lo/goisin; o(/, ti a)\n de/ tis tou/tôn a(marta/nê|, ê)\ le/gôn ê)\ e)rôtô=n ê)\ a)pokrino/menos, .
.
.
tau/tê| phula/ssonta chrê\ e)piti/thesthai e)n tê=| a)ntilogi/ê|] (p. 142).
The method, which Sokrates and Plato applied to ethical topics was thus applied by others to medicine and medical dogmas.
How the dogmas of the Platonic Timæus would have fared, if scrutinised with oral interrogations in this spirit, by men even far inferior to Sokrates himself in acuteness--I will not say.]
[Side-note: Contrast between the admiration of Plato for the constructors of the Kosmos, and the defective results which he describes.]
From the glowing terms in which Plato describes the architectonic skill and foresight of those Gods who put together the three souls and the body of man, we should anticipate that the fabric would be perfect, and efficacious for all intended purposes, in spite of interruptions or accidents.
But Plato, when he passes from purposes to results, is constrained to draw a far darker picture.
He tells us that the mechanism of the human body will work well, only so long as the juncture of the constituent triangles is fresh and tight: after that period of freshness has passed, it begins to fail.
[135] But besides this, there exist a formidable catalogue of diseases, attacking both body and mind: the cause of which (Plato says) "is plain to every one": they proceed from excess, or deficiency, or displacement, of some one among the four constituent elements of the human body.
[136] If we enquire why the wise Constructors put together their materials in so faulty a manner, the only reply to be made is, that the counteracting hand of Necessity was too strong for them.
In the Hesiodic and other legends respecting anthropogony we find at least a happy commencement, and the deterioration gradually supervening after it.
But Plato opens the scene at once with all the suffering reality of the iron age-[Greek: Plei/ê me\n ga\r gai=a kakô=n, plei/ê de\ tha/lassa; Nou=soi d' a)nthrô/poisin e)ph' ê(me/rê| ê)\d' e)pi\ nukti\ Au)to/matoi phoitô=si]--[137] [Footnote 135: Plat.
Tim.
pp.
81-89 B.]
[Footnote 136: Plat.
Tim.
p. 82.
[Greek: dê=lo/n pou kai\ panti/].]
[Footnote 137: Compare what Plato says in Republic, ii.
p. 379 C, about the prodigious preponderance of [Greek: kaka\] over [Greek: a)gatha\] in the life of man.]
[Side-note: Degeneration of the real tenants of Earth from their primitive type.]
When Plato tells us that most part of the tenants of earth, air, and water--all women, birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, and fishes--are the deteriorated representatives of primitive men, constructed at the beginning with the most provident skill, but debased by degeneracy in various directions--this doctrine (something analogous to the theory of Darwin with its steps inverted) indicates that the original scheme of the Demiurgus, though magnificent in its _ensemble_ with reference to the entire Kosmos, was certain from the beginning to fail in its details.
For we are told that the introduction of birds, quadrupeds, &c., as among the constituents of the Auto-zôon, was an essential part of the original scheme.
[138] The constructing Gods, while forming men upon a pure non-sexual type (such as that invoked by the austere Hippolytus) exempt from the temptations of the most violent appetite,[139] foresaw that such an angelic type could not maintain itself:--that they would be obliged to reconstruct the whole human organism upon the bi-sexual principle, introducing the comparatively lower type of woman:--and that they must make preparation for the still more degenerate varieties of birds and quadrupeds, into which the corrupt and stupid portion of mankind would sink.
[140] Plato does indeed tell us, that the primitive non-sexual type had the option of maintaining itself; and that it perished by its own fault alone.
[141] But since we find that not one representative of it has been able to hold his ground:--and since we also read in Plato, that no man is willingly corrupt, but that corruption and stupidity of mind are like fevers and other diseases, under which a man suffers against his own consent[142]:--we see that the option was surrounded with insurmountable difficulties: and that the steady and continued degradation, under which the human race has sunk from its original perfection into the lower endowments of the animal world, can be ascribed only to the impracticability of the original scheme: that is, in other words, to the obstacles interposed by implacable Necessity, frustrating the benevolent purposes of the Constructors.
[Footnote 138: Plat.
Tim.
p. 41 B-C.] [Footnote 139: Eurip.
Hippol.
615; Medea, 573; Milton, Paradise Lost, x.
888.
[Greek: chrê\n a)/r' a)/llothe/n pothen brotou\s pai=das teknou=sthai, thê=lu d' ou)k ei)=nai ge/nos; chou(/tôs a)\n ou)k ê)=n ou)de\n a)nthrô/pois kako/n.]]
[Footnote 140: Plat.
Tim.
p. 76 D. [Greek: ô(s ga/r pote e)x a)ndrô=n gunai=kes kai\ ta)/lla thêri/a genê/sointo, ê)pi/stanto oi( xunista/ntes ê(ma=s], &c. Compare pp.
90 E, 91.]
[Footnote 141: Plat.
Tim.
p.
42.]
[Footnote 142: Plat.
Tim.
pp.
86-87.]
[Side-note: Close of the Timæus.
Plato turns away from the shameful results, and reverts to the glorification of the primitive types.]
However, all these details, attesting the low and poor actual condition of the tenants of earth, water, and air--and forming so marked a contrast to the magnificent description of the Kosmos as a whole, with the splendid type of men who were established at first alone in its central region--all these are hurried over by Plato, as unwelcome accompaniments which he cannot put out of sight.
They have their analogies even in the kosmical agencies: there are destructive kosmical forces, earthquakes, deluges, conflagrations, &c., noticed as occurring periodically, and as causing the almost total extinction of different communities.
[143] Though they must not be altogether omitted, he will nevertheless touch them as briefly as possible.
[144] He turns aside from this, the shameful side of the Kosmos, to the sublime conception of it with which he had begun, and which he now builds up again in the following poetical doxology the concluding words of the Timæus:-"Let us now declare that the discourse respecting the Universe is brought to its close.
This Kosmos, having received its complement of animals, mortal and immortal, has become greatest, best, most beautiful and most perfect: a visible animal comprehending all things visible--a perceivable God the image of the cogitable God: this Uranus, one and only begotten.
"[145] [Footnote 143: Plato, Timæus, pp.
22, 23.
Legg.
iii.
677.
Politikus, pp.
272, 273.]
[Footnote 144: Plat.
Tim.
p. 90 E. [Greek: ta\ ga\r a)/lla zô=a ê(=| ge/gonen au)=, dia\ brache/ôn e)pimnêste/on, o(/, ti mê/ tis a)na/gkê mêku/nein; ou(/tô ga\r e)mmetro/tero/s tis a)\n au)tô=| do/xeie peri\ tou\s tou/tôn lo/gous ei)=nai.]]
[Footnote 145: Plat.
Tim.
p. 92 C. [Greek: Kai\ dê\ kai\ te/los peri\ tou= panto\s nu=n ê)/dê to\n lo/gon ê(mi=n phô=men e)/chein; thnêta\ ga\r kai\ a)tha/nata zô=a labô\n kai\ xumplêrôthei\s o(/de o( ko/smos, ou(/tô zô=on o(rato\n ta\ o(rata\ perie/chon, ei)kô\n tou= noêtou= theo\s ai)sthêto/s, me/gistos kai\ a)/ristos ka/llisto/s te kai\ teleô/tatos ge/gonen,--ei(=s ou)rano\s o(/de, monogenê\s ô)/n.]
Weh!
Weh!
Du hast sie zerstört, Die schöne Welt, Mit mächtiger Faust; Sie stürzt, sie zerfällt!
Ein Halb-Gott hat sie zerschlagen!
Wir tragen Die Trümmern ins Nichts hinüber, Und klagen Ueber die verlorne Schöne!
Mächtiger Der Erdensöhne, Prächtiger Baue sie wieder, In deinem Busen baue sie auf!
(The response of the Geister-Chor, in Goethe's Faust, after the accumulated imprecations uttered by Faust in his despair.)]
KRITIAS.
[Side-note: Kritias: a fragment.]
The dialogue Kritias exists only as a fragment, breaking off abruptly in the middle of a sentence.
The ancient Platonists found it in the same condition, and it probably was never finished.
We know, however, the general scheme and purpose for which it was destined.
[Side-note: Prooemium to Timæus.
Intended Tetralogy for the Republic.
The Kritias was third piece in that Tetralogy.]
The prooemium to the Timæus introduces us to three persons[146]: Kritias and Hermokrates, along with Sokrates.
It is to them (as we now learn) that Sokrates had on the preceding day recited the Republic: a fourth hearer having been present besides, whom Sokrates expects to see now, but does not see--and who is said to be absent from illness.
In requital for the intellectual treat received from Sokrates, Timæus delivers the discourse which we have just passed in review: Kritias next enters upon his narrative or exposition, now lying before us as a fragment: and Hermokrates was intended to follow it up with a fourth discourse, upon some other topic not specified.
It appears as if Plato, after having finished the Republic as a distinct dialogue, conceived subsequently the idea of making it the basis of a Tetralogy, to be composed as follows: 1.
_Timæus_: describing the construction of the divine Kosmos, soul and body--with its tenants divine and human; "the diapason ending full in man"--but having its harmony spoiled by the degeneration of man, and the partial substitution of inferior animals.
2.
_Republic_: Man in a constituted society, administered by a few skilful professional Rulers, subject to perfect ethical training, and fortified by the most tutelary habits.
3.
_Kritias_: this perfect society, exhibited in energetic action, and under pressure of terrible enemies.
4.
_Hermokrates_--subject unknown: perhaps the same society, exhibited under circumstances calculated to try their justice and temperance, rather than their courage.
Of this intended tetralogy the first two members alone exist: the third was left unfinished: and the fourth was never commenced.
But the Republic appears to me to have been originally a distinct composition.
An afterthought of Plato induced him to rank it as second piece in a projected tetralogy.
[147] [Footnote 146: Plato, Tim.
p. 17 A.
[Greek: ei(=s, du/o, trei=s; o( de\ dê\ te/tartos ê(mi=n, ô)= phi/le Ti/maie, pou=, tô=n chthe\s me\n daitumo/nôn, ta\ nu=n d' e(stiato/rôn?]
These are the words with which the Platonic Sokrates opens this dialogue.
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (i. pp.
5-10-14, ed.
Schneider), notices a multiplicity of insignificant questions raised by the ancient Platonic critics upon this exordium.
The earliest whom he notices is Praxiphanes, the friend of Theophrastus, who blamed Plato for the absurdity of making Sokrates count aloud one, two, three, &c. Porphyry replied to him at length.
We see here that the habit of commenting on the Platonic dialogues began in the generation immediately after Plato's death, that is, the generation of Demetrius Phalereus.
Whom does Plato intend for the fourth person, unnamed and absent?
Upon this point the Platonic critics indulged in a variety of conjectures, suggesting several different persons as intended.
Proklus (p. 14, Schn.)
remarks upon these critics justly--[Greek: ô(s ou)/te a)/xia zêtê/seôs zêtou=ntas, ou)/t' a)sphale/s ti le/gontas.]
But the comments which he proceeds to cite from his master Syrianus are not at all more instructive (pp.
15-16, Schn.).]
[Footnote 147: Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp.
370-371) declares the fragment of the Kritias now existing to be spurious and altogether unworthy of Plato.
His opinion appears to me unfounded, and has not obtained assent; but his arguments are as good as those upon which other critics reject so many other dialogues.
He thinks the Kritias an inferior production: therefore it cannot have been composed by Plato.
Socher also thinks that the whole allusion, made by Plato in this dialogue to Solon, is a fiction by Plato himself.
That the intended epic about Atlantis would have been Plato's own fiction, I do not doubt, but it appears to me that Solon's poems (as they then existed, though fragmentary) must have contained allusions to Egyptian priests with whom he had conversed in Egypt, and to their abundance of historical anecdote (Plutarch, Solon, c. 26-31).
It is not improbable that Solon did leave an unfinished Egyptian poem.]
[Side-note: Subject of the Kritias.
Solon and the Egyptian priests.
Citizens of Platonic Republic are identified with ancient Athenians.]
The subject embraced by the Kritias is traced back to an unfinished epic poem of Solon, intended by that poet and lawgiver to celebrate a memorable exploit of Athenian antiquity, which he had heard from the Priests of the Goddess Neith or Athênê at Sais in Egypt.
These priests (Plato tells us) treated the Greeks as children, compared with the venerable antiquity of their own ancestors; they despised the short backward reckoning of the heroic genealogies at Athens or Argos.
There were in the temple of Athênê at Sais records of past time for 9000 years back: and among these records was one, of that date, commemorating a glorious exploit, of the Athenians as they then had been, unknown to Solon or any of his countrymen.
[148] The Athens, of 9000 years anterior to Solon, had been great, powerful, courageous, admirably governed, and distinguished for every kind of virtue.
[149] Athênê, the presiding Goddess both of Athens and of Sais, had bestowed upon the Athenians a salubrious climate, fertile soil, a healthy breed of citizens, and highly endowed intelligence.
Under her auspices, they were excellent alike in war and in philosophy.
[150] The separation of professions was fully realised among them, according to the principle laid down in the Republic as the only foundation for a good commonwealth.
The military class, composed of both sexes, was quartered in barrack on the akropolis; which was at that time more spacious than it had since become--and which possessed then, in common with the whole surface of Attica, a rich soil covering that rocky bottom to which it had been reduced in the Platonic age, through successive deluges.
[151] These soldiers, male and female, were maintained by contributions from the remaining community: they lived in perpetual drill, having neither separate property, nor separate families, nor gold nor silver: lastly, their procreation was strictly regulated, and their numbers kept from either increase or diminution.
[152] The husbandmen and the artizans were alike excellent in their respective professions, to which they were exclusively confined:[153] Hephæstus being the partner of Athênê in joint tutelary presidency, and joint occupation of the central temple on the akropolis.
Thus admirably administered, the Athenians were not only powerful at home, but also chiefs or leaders of all the cities comprised under the Hellenic name: chiefs by the voluntary choice and consent of the subordinates.
But the old Attic race by whom these achievements had been performed, belonged to a former geological period: they had perished, nearly all, by violent catastrophe--leaving the actual Athenians as imperfect representatives.
[Footnote 148: Plato, Timæus, pp.
22-23.
The great knowledge of past history (real or supposed) possessed by the Egyptian priests, and the length of their back chronology, alleged by themselves to depend upon records preserved from a period of 17,000 years, are well known from the interesting narrative of Herodotus (ii.
37-43-77-145)--[Greek: mnê/mên a)nthrô/pôn pa/ntôn e)paske/ontes] (the priests of Egypt) [Greek: ma/lista, logiô/tatoi/ ei)si makrô=| tô=n e)gô\ e)s dia/peiran a)phiko/mên] (ii.
77) .
.
.
[Greek: kai\ tau=ta a)treke/ôs phasi\n e)pi/stasthai, ai)ei/ te logizo/menoi, kai\ ai)ei\ a)pographo/menoi ta\ e)/tea] (ii.
145).
Herodotus (ii.
143) tells us that the Egyptian priests at Thebes held the same language to the historian Hekatæus, as Plato here says that they held to Solon, when he talked about Grecian antiquity in the persons of Phorôneus and Niobê.
Hekatæus laid before them his own genealogy--a dignified list of sixteen ancestors, beginning from a God--upon which they out-bid him with a counter-genealogy ([Greek: a)ntegenealo/gêsan]) of 345 chief priests, who had succeeded each other from father to son.
Plato appears to have contracted great reverence for this long duration of unchanged regulations in Egypt, and for the fixed, consecrated, customs, with minute subdivision of professional castes and employments: the hymns, psalmody, and music, having continued without alteration for 10,000 years (_literally_ 10,000--[Greek: ou)ch ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n muriosto/n, a)ll' o)/ntôs], Plat.
Legg.
ii.
p. 656 E).]
[Footnote 149: Plato, Timæus, p. 23 C-D.] [Footnote 150: Plato, Tim.
p. 24 D. [Greek: a(/te ou)=n philopo/lemo/s te kai\ philo/sophos ê( theo\s ou)=sa], &c. Also p. 23 C.] [Footnote 151: Plato, Krit.
pp.
110 C, 112 B-D.] [Footnote 152: Plato, Krit.
p. 112 D. [Greek: plê=thos de\ diaphula/ttontes o(/, ti ma/lista tau)to\n e(autô=n ei)=nai pro\s to\n a)ei\ chro/non a)ndrô=n kai\ gunaikô=n], &c.] [Footnote 153: Plato, Krit.
p. 111 E. [Greek: u(po\ geôrgô=n me\n a)lêthinô=n kai\ pratto/ntôn au)to\ tou=to, gê=n de\ a)ri/stên kai\ u(/dôr a)phthonô/taton e)cho/ntôn], &c. Also p. 110 C.] [Side-note: Plato professes that what he is about to recount is matter of history, recorded by Egyptian priests.]
Such was the enviable condition of Athens and Attica, at a period 9400 years before the Christian era.
The Platonic Kritias takes pains to assure us that the statement was true, both as to facts and as to dates: that he had heard it himself when a boy of ten years old, from his grandfather Kritias, then ninety years old, whose father Dropides had been the intimate friend of Solon: and that Solon had heard it from the priests at Sais, who offered to show him the contemporary record of all its details in their temple archives.
[154] Kritias now proposes to repeat this narrative to Sokrates, as a fulfilment of the wish expressed by the latter to see the citizens of the Platonic Republic exhibited in full action and movement.
For the Athenians of 9000 years before, having been organised on the principles of that Republic, may fairly be taken as representing its citizens.
And it will be more satisfactory to Sokrates to hear a recital of real history than a series of imagined exploits.
[155] [Footnote 154: Plat.
Tim.
pp.
23 E, 24 A-D. [Greek: to\ d' a)kribe\s peri\ pa/ntôn e)phexê=s ei)sau=this kata\ scholê/n, au)ta\ ta\ gra/mmata labo/ntes die/ximen] (24 A).]
[Footnote 155: Plat.
Tim.
p. 26 D-E.] [Side-note: Description of the vast island of Atlantis and its powerful kings.]
Accordingly, Kritias proceeds to describe, in some detail, the formidable invaders against whom these old Athenians had successfully contended: the inhabitants of the vast island Atlantis (larger than Libya and Asia united), which once occupied most of the space now filled by the great ocean westward of Gades and the pillars of Heraklês.
This prodigious island was governed by ten kings of a common ancestry: descending respectively from ten sons (among whom Atlas was first-born and chief) of the God Poseidon by the indigenous Nymph Kleito.
[156] We read an imposing description of its large population and abundant produce of every kind: grain for man, pasture for animals, elephants being abundant among them:[157] timber and metals of all varieties: besides which the central city, with its works for defence, and its artificial canals, bridges, and harbour, is depicted as a wonder to behold.
[158] The temple of Poseidon was magnificent and of vast dimensions, though in barbaric style.
[159] The harbour, surrounded by a dense and industrious population, was full of trading vessels arriving with merchandise from all quarters.
[160] [Footnote 156: Plat.
Krit.
pp.
113-114.]
[Footnote 157: Plat.
Krit.
p. 114 E.] [Footnote 158: Plat.
Krit.
p. 115 D. [Greek: ei)s e)/kplêxin mege/thesi ka/llesi/ te e)/rgôn i)dei=n], &c.] [Footnote 159: Plat.
Krit.
p. 116 D-E.] [Footnote 160: Plat.
Krit.
p. 117 E.] [Side-note: Corruption and wickedness of the Atlantid people.]
The Atlantid kings, besides this great power and prosperity at home, exercised dominion over all Libya as far as Egypt, and over all Europe as far as Tyrrhenia.
The corrupting influence of such vast power was at first counteracted by their divine descent and the attributes attached to it: but the divine attributes became more and more adulterated at each successive generation, so that the breed was no longer qualified to contend against corruption.
The kings came to be intoxicated with wealth, full of exorbitant ambition and rapacity, reckless of temperance or justice.
The measure of their iniquity at length became full; and Zeus was constrained to take notice of it, for the purpose of inflicting the chastisement which the case required.
[161] He summoned a meeting of the Gods, at his own Panoptikon in the centre of the Kosmos and there addressed them.
[Footnote 161: Plat.
Krit.
p.
121.]
[Side-note: Conjectures as to what the Platonic Kritias would have been--an ethical epic in prose.]
At this critical moment the fragment called Kritias breaks off.
We do not know what was the plan which Plato (in the true spirit of the ancient epic) was about to put into the mouth of Zeus, for the information of the divine agora.
We learn only that Plato intended to recount an invasion of Attica, by an army of Atlantids almost irresistible: and the glorious repulse thereof by Athens and her allies, with very inferior forces.
The tale would have borne much resemblance to the Persian invasion of Greece, as recounted by Herodotus: but Plato, while employing the same religious agencies which that historian puts in the foreground, would probably have invested them with a more ethical character, and would have arranged the narrative so as to illustrate the triumph of philosophical Reason and disciplined Energy, over gigantic, impetuous, and reckless Strength.
He would have described in detail the heroic valour and endurance of the trained Athenian Soldiers, women as well as men: and he would have embodied the superior Reason of the philosophical Chiefs not merely in prudent orders given to subordinates, but also in wise discourses[162] and deliberations such as we read in the Cyropædia of Xenophon.
We should have had an edifying epic in prose, if Plato had completed his project.
Unfortunately we know only two small fractions of it: first the introductory prologue (which I have already noticed)--lastly, the concluding catastrophe.
The conclusion was, that both the victors and the vanquished disappeared altogether, and became extinct.
Terrific earthquakes, and not less terrific deluges, shook and overspread the earth.
The whole military caste of Attica were, in one day and night, swallowed up into the bowels of the earth (the same release as Zeus granted to the just Amphiaraus)[163] and no more heard of: while not only the population of Atlantis, but that entire island itself, was submerged beneath the ocean.
The subsidence of this vast island has rendered navigation impossible; there is nothing in the Atlantic Ocean but shallow water and mud.
[164] [Footnote 162: Plat.
Tim.
p. 19 C-E. [Greek: kata/ te ta\s e)n toi=s e)/rgois pra/xeis kai\ kata\ ta\s e)n toi=s lo/gois diermêneu/seis] (19 C).]
[Footnote 163: Apollodorus, iii.
6, 6; Pausanias, ix.
8, 2.]
[Footnote 164: Plat.
Tim.
p. 25 C-D. [Greek: seismô=n e)xaisi/ôn kai\ kataklusmô=n genome/nôn, mia=s ê(me/ras kai\ nukto\s chalepê=s e)pelthou/sês .
.
.
a)/poron kai\ a)diereu/nêton ge/gone to\ e)kei= pe/lagos], &c. Respecting the shallow and muddy water of the Atlantic and its unnavigable character, as believed in the age of Plato, see a long note in my 'History of Greece' (ch.
xviii.
vol.
iii.
p.
381).]
[Side-note: Plato represents the epic Kritias as matter of recorded history.]
The epic of Plato would thus have concluded with an appalling catastrophe of physical agencies or divine prodigies (such as that which we read at the close of the Æschylean Prometheus[165]), under which both the contending parties perished.
These gigantic outbursts of kosmical forces, along with the other facts, Plato affirms to have been recorded in the archives of the Egyptian priests.
He wishes us to believe that the whole transaction is historical.
As to particular narratives, the line between truth and fiction was obscurely drawn in his mind.
[Footnote 165: Æschyl.
Prom.
1086.]
Another remark here deserving of notice is, That in this epic of the Kritias, Plato introduces the violent and destructive kosmical agencies (earthquakes, deluges, and the like) as frequently occurring, and as one cause of the periodical destruction of many races or communities.
It is in this way that the Egyptian priest is made to explain to Solon the reason why no long-continued past records were preserved in Attica, or anywhere else, except in Egypt.
[166] This last-mentioned country was exempt from such calamities: but in other countries, the thread of tradition was frequently broken, because the whole race (except a few) were periodically destroyed by deluges or conflagrations, leaving only a few survivors miserably poor, without arts or letters.
The affirmation of these frequent destructions stands in marked contradiction with the chief thesis announced at the beginning of the Timæus--_viz._, the beauty and perfection of the Kosmos.
[Footnote 166: Plato, Tim.
pp.
22 C-D, 23 B-C.] CHAPTER XXXIX.
LEGES AND EPINOMIS.
[Side-note: Leges, the longest of Plato's works--Persons of the dialogue.]
The Dialogue, entitled Leges--De Legibus--The Laws--distributed into twelve books, besides its Appendix the Epinomis, and longer than any other of the Platonic compositions--is presented to us as held in Krete during a walk from the town of Knossus to the temple of Zeus under Mount Ida--between three elderly persons: Megillus, a Spartan--Kleinias, a Kretan of Knossus--and an Athenian who bears no name, but serves as the principal expositor and conductor.
That this dialogue was composed by Plato after the Republic, we know from the express deposition of Aristotle: that it was the work of Plato's old age--probably the last which he ever composed, and perhaps not completely finished at his death--is what we learn from the scanty amount of external evidence accessible to us.
The internal evidence, as far as it goes, tends to bear out the same conclusion, and to show that it was written during the last seven years of his life, when he was more than seventy years of age.
[1] [Footnote 1: The allusions of Aristotle to Plato as the author of the Laws, after the Republic, occur in Politica, ii.
b.
1264, b.
26, 1267, b.
5, 1271, b.
1, 1274, b.
9.
According to Diogenes Laertius (v. 22) Aristotle had composed separate works [Greek: Ta\ e)k No/môn Pla/tônos g--Ta\ e)k tê=s Politei/as b].
Plutarch (De Isid.
et Osir.
p. 370 E) ascribes the composition of the Laws to Plato's old age.
In the [Greek: Prolego/mena ei)s tê\n Pla/tônos philosophi/an], it is said that the treatise was left unfinished at his death, and completed afterwards by his disciple the Opuntian Philippus (Hermann's Edition of Plato's Works, vol.
vi.
p.
218).--Diog.
Laert.
iii.
37.
See the learned Prolegomena of Stallbaum, who collects all the information on this subject, and who gives his own judgment (p.
lxxxi.)
respecting the tone of senility pervading the Leges, in terms which deserve the more attention as coming from so unqualified an admirer of Plato: "Totum Legum opus nescio quid senile refert, ut profecto etiam hanc ob caussam a sene scriptum esse longé verisimillimum videatur."
The allusion in the Laws (i. p. 638 B) to the conquest of the Epizephyrian Lokrians by the Syracusans, which occurred in 356 B.C., is pointed out by Boeckh as showing that the composition was posterior to that date (Boeckh, ad Platon.
Minoem, pp.
72-73).
It is remarkable that Aristotle, in canvassing the opinions delivered by the [Greek: A)thênai=os xe/nos] in the Laws, cites them as the opinions of Sokrates (Politic.
ii.
1265, b.
11), who, however, does not appear at all in the dialogue.
Either this is a lapse of memory on the part of Aristotle; or else (which I think very possible) the Laws were originally composed with Sokrates as the expositor introduced, the change of name being subsequently made from a feeling of impropriety in transporting Sokrates to Krete, and from the dogmatising anti-dialectic tone which pervades the lectures ascribed to him.
Some Platonic expositors regarded the Athenian Stranger in Leges as Plato himself (Diog.
Laert.
iii.
52; Schol.
ad Legg.
1).
Diogenes himself calls him a [Greek: pla/sma a)nô/numon].]
[Side-note: Abandonment of Plato's philosophical projects prior to the Leges.]
All critics have remarked the many and important differences between the Republic and the Laws.
And it seems certain, that during the interval which separates the two, Plato's point of view must have undergone a considerable change.
We know from himself that he intended the Kritias as a sequel to the Timæus and Republic: a portion of the Kritias still exists--as we have just seen--but it breaks off abruptly, and there is no ground for believing that it was ever completed.
We know farther from himself that he projected an ulterior dialogue or exposition, assigned to Hermokrates, as sequel to the Kritias: both being destined to exhibit in actual working and manifestation, the political scheme, of which the Republic had described the constituent elements.
[2] While the Kritias was prematurely arrested in its progress towards maturity, the Hermokrates probably was never born.
Yet we know certainly that both the one and the other were conceived by Plato, as parts of one comprehensive project, afterwards abandoned.
Nay, the Kritias was so abruptly abandoned, that it terminates with an unfinished sentence: as I have stated in the last chapter.
[Footnote 2: Plato, Timæus, pp.
20-27.
Plato, Kritias, p.
108.]
[Side-note: Untoward circumstances of Plato's later life--His altered tone in regard to philosophy.]
To what extent such change of project was brought about by external circumstances in Plato's life, we cannot with certainty determine.
But we know that there really occurred circumstances, well calculated to produce a material change in his intellectual character and point of view.
His personal adventures and experience, after his sixty-first year, and after the death of the elder Dionysius (B.C.
367), were of an eventful and melancholy character.
Among them were included his two visits to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse; together with the earnest sympathy and counsel which he bestowed on his friend Dion; whose chequered career terminated, after an interval of brilliant promise, in disappointment, disgrace, and violent death.
Plato not only suffered much distress, but incurred more or less of censure, from the share which he had taken, or was at least supposed to have taken, in the tragedy.
His own letters remain to attest the fact.
[3] Considering the numerous enemies which philosophy has had at all times, we may be sure that such enemies would be furnished with abundant materials for invidious remark--by the entire failure of Plato himself at Syracuse as well as by the disgraceful proceedings first of Dion, next, of his assassin Kallippus: both of them pupils, and the former a favourite pupil, of Plato in the Academy.
The prospect, which accident had opened, of exalting philosophy into active influence over mankind, had been closed in a way no less mournful than dishonourable.
Plato must have felt this keenly enough, even apart from the taunts of opponents.
We might naturally expect that his latest written compositions would be coloured by such a temper of mind: that he would contract, if not an alienation from philosophy, at least a comparative mistrust of any practical good to come from it: and that if his senile fancy still continued to throw out any schemes of social construction, they would be made to rest upon other foundations, eliminating or reducing to a minimum that ascendancy of the philosophical mind, which he had once held to be omnipotent and indispensable.
[Footnote 3: See especially the interesting and valuable Epistola vii.
of Plato; also the life of Dion by Plutarch.
The reader will find a full account of Plato's proceedings in Sicily, and of the adventures of Dion, in chap.
84 of my 'History of Greece'.
The passage of Plato in Legg.
iv.
709-710 (alluding to the concurrence and co-operation of a youthful despot, sober-minded and moderate, but not exalted up to the level of philosophy, with a competent lawgiver for the purpose of constructing a civic community, furnished with the best laws) is supposed by K. F. Hermann (System der Platon.
Philos.
p. 69) and by Zeller (Phil.
d. Griech.
vol.
ii.
p. 310, ed.
2nd.)
to allude to the hopes which Plato cherished when he undertook his first visit to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse.
See Epistol.
vii.
pp.
327 C, 330 A-B, 334 C; Epistol.
ii.
311 B.
Such allusion is sufficiently probable.
Yet we must remember that the Magnetic community, described by Plato in the Treatise De Legibus, does not derive its origin from any established despot or prince, but from a general resolution supposed to have been taken by the Kretan cities, and from a Decemviral executive Board of Knossian citizens nominated by them.
Kleinias, as a chief member of this Board, solicits the suggestion of laws from the Athenian elder (Legg.
iii.
p. 702 C).
This is more analogous to Plato's subsequent counsel, _after_ his attempt to guide the younger Dionysius had failed.
See Epistol.
vii.
p. 337 C-E.] [Side-note: General comparison of Leges with Plato's earlier works.]
Comparing the Laws with the earlier compositions of Plato, the difference between them will be found to correspond pretty nearly with the change thus indicated in his point of view.
If we turn to the Republic, we find Plato dividing the intelligible world ([Greek: to\ noêto\n]) into two sections: the higher, that of pure and absolute Ideas, with which philosophy and dialectics deal--the lower, that of Ideas not quite pure, but implicated more or less with sensible illustration, to which the mathematician applies himself: the chief use of the lower section is said to consist in its serving as preparation for a comprehension of the higher.
[4] But in the Laws, this higher or dialectical section--the last finish or crowning result of the teaching process, is left out; while even the lower or mathematical section is wrapped up with theology.
Moreover, the teaching provided in the Laws, for the ruling Elders, is presented as something new, which Plato has much difficulty both in devising and in explaining: we must therefore understand him to distinguish it pointedly from the teaching which he had before provided for the Elders in the Republic.
[5] Again, literary occupation is now kept down rather than encouraged: Plato is more afraid lest his citizens should have too much of it than too little.
[6] As for the Sokratic Elenchus, it is not merely not commended, but it is even proscribed and denounced by implication, since free speech and criticism generally is barred out by the rigorous Platonic censorship.
On the other hand, the ethical sentiment in the Leges, with its terms designating the varieties of virtue, is much the same as in other Platonic compositions: the political and social doctrine also, though different in some material points, is yet very analogous on several others.
But these ethical and political doctrines appear in the Laws much more merged in dogmatic theology than in other dialogues.
This theology is of Pythagorean character--implicated directly and intimately with astronomy--and indirectly with arithmetic and geometry also.
We have here an astronomical religion, or a religious astronomy, by whichever of the two names it may be called.
Right belief on astronomy is orthodoxy and virtue: erroneous belief on astronomy is heretical and criminal.
[Footnote 4: See the passages, Plat.
Legg.
vii.
pp.
811 B-819 A. Plato, Republic, vi.
pp.
510-511.
[Greek: ta\ du/o tmê/mata] or [Greek: ei)/dê tou= noêtou=].
vii.
p. 534 E: [Greek: ô(/sper thrigko\s toi=s mathê/masin ê( dialektikê\ ê(mi=n e)pa/nô kei=sthai.]]
[Footnote 5: Plat.
Legg.
p. 966 D, xii.
pp.
968 C-E, 969 A.
Compare vii.
p. 818 E. In p. 966 D, the study of astronomy is enforced on the ground that it is one of the strongest evidence of natural theology: in p. 818 C, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy are advocated as studies, because, without having gone through them, a man cannot become a God, a Dæmon, or a Hero, competent to exercise effective care over mankind.
This is altogether different from the Republic.]
[Footnote 6: Plat.
Legg.
vii.
pp.
811 B, 819 A.]
In the Timæus, Plato recommended the study of astronomy, in order that the rotations of man's soul in his cranium, which were from the beginning disturbed and irregular, might become regularised, and assimilated by continued contemplation to the perfect uniformity of the celestial and cosmical movements.
[7] In the Leges, he recommends astronomy to be studied, because without it we fall into blasphemous errors respecting the cosmical movements, and because such cosmical errors are among the three varieties of heresy, to one or other of which the commission of all crimes against society may be traced.
[8] Hence we find Plato, in the city here described, consecrating his astronomical views as a part of the state-religion, and prohibiting dissent from them under the most stringent penalties.
In the general spirit of the Treatise de Legibus, Plato approximates to Xenophon and the Spartan model.
He keeps his eye fixed on the perpetual coercive discipline of the average citizen.
This discipline, prescribed in all its details by the lawgiver, includes a modicum of literary teaching equal to all; small in quantity, and rigorously sifted as to quality, through the censorial sieve.
The intellectual and speculative genius of the community, which other Platonic dialogues bring into the foreground, has disappeared from the Treatise de Legibus.
We find here no youths pregnant with undisclosed original thought, which Sokrates assists them in bringing forth: such as Theætêtus, Charmidês, Kleinias, and others--pictures among the most interesting which the ancient world presents, and lending peculiar charm to the earlier dialogues.
Not only no provision is made for them, but severe precautions are taken against them.
Even in the Republic, Plato had banished poets, or had at least forbidden them to follow the free inspirations of the Muse, and had subjected them to censorial controul.
But such controul was presumed to be exercised by highly trained speculative and philosophical minds, for the perpetual succession of whom express provision was made.
In the Treatise De Legibus, such speculative minds are no longer admitted.
Philosophy is interdicted or put in chains as well as poetry.
An orthodox religious creed is exalted into exclusive ascendancy.
All crime or immorality is ascribed to a departure from this creed.
[9] The early communities (Plato tells us[10]), who were simple and ignorant, destitute of arts and letters, but who at the same time believed implicitly all that they heard from their seniors respecting Gods and men, and adopted the dicta of their seniors respecting good and evil, without enquiry or suspicion--were decidedly superior to his contemporaries in all the departments of virtue--justice, temperance, and courage.
This antithesis, between virtue and religious faith on the one side, and arts and letters with an inquisitive spirit on the other, presenting the latter as a depraving influence, antagonistic to the former--is analogous to the Bacchæ of Euripides--the work of that poet's old age[11]--and analogous also to the Nubes of Aristophanes, wherein the literary and philosophical teaching of Sokrates is represented as withdrawing youth from the received religious creed, and as leading them by consequence to the commission of fraud and crime.
[12] [Footnote 7: Plato, Timæus, p. 47 B-C.] [Footnote 8: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
821 D, 822 C; x. pp.
885 B, 886 E.] [Footnote 9: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 885 B.]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 679.
Compare p. 689 D.] [Footnote 11: Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 623.
"Superest fabula (Euripidis), Bacchæ, dithyrambi quam tragoediæ similior, totaque ita comparata, ut contra illius temporis Rationalistas scripta videatur; qua et Bacchicarum religionum sanctimonia commendatur .
.
.
et rerum divinarum disceptatio ab eruditorum judiciis ad populi transfertur suffragia:-[Greek: sopha\n d' a)/peche prapi/da phre/na te perissô=n para\ phôtô=n; to\ plê=thos o(/, ti to\ phaulo/teron e)no/mise chrê=tai/ te, to/de toi legoi/man.
[le/goim' a)/n], Matthiæ] (427).
Compare vv.
200-203 of the same drama.]
[Footnote 12: Aristophan.
Nubes, 116-875, &c.] [Side-note: Scene of the Leges, not in Athens, but in Krete.
Persons Kretan and Spartan, comparatively illiterate.]
The submergence and discredit of letters and philosophy, which pervades the Dialogue De Legibus, is farther indicated by the personages introduced as conversing.
In all the other Platonic dialogues, the scene is laid at Athens, and the speakers are educated citizens of Athens; sometimes visitors, equally or better educated, from other Grecian cities.
Generally, they are either adults who have already acquired some intellectual eminence, or youths anxious to acquire it.
Nikias and Laches, Melesias and Lysimachus (in the Lachês), are among the leaders (past or present) of the Athenian public assembly.
Anytus (in the Menon) is a man not so much ignorant of letters as despising letters.
[13] Moreover Sokrates himself formally disclaims positive knowledge, professing to be only a searcher for truth along with the rest.
[14] But the scene of the Laws is laid in Krete, not at Athens: the three speakers are not merely all old men, but frequently allude to their old age.
One of them only is an Athenian, to whom the positive and expository duty is assigned: the other two are Megillus, a Spartan, and Kleinias, a Kretan of Knossus.
Now both Sparta, and the communities of Krete, were among the most unlettered portions of the Hellenic name.
They were not only strangers to that impulse of rhetoric, dialectic, and philosophical speculation which, having its chief domicile at Athens, had become diffused more or less over a large portion of Greece since the Persian war--but they were sparingly conversant even with that old poetical culture, epic and lyric, which belonged to the age of Solon and the Seven Wise Men.
The public training of youth at Sparta, equal for all the citizens, included nothing of letters and music, which in other cities were considered to be the characteristics of an educated Greek:[15] though probably individual Spartans, more or fewer, acquired these accomplishments for themselves.
Gymnastics, with a slight admixture of simple chronic music and a still slighter admixture of poetry and letters, formed the characteristic culture of Sparta and Krete.
[16] In the Leges, Plato not only notes the fact, but treats it as indicating a better social condition, compared with Athens and other Greeks--that both Spartans and Kretans were alike unacquainted with the old epic or theological poems (Hesiod, Orpheus, &c.), and with the modern philosophical speculations.
[17] [Footnote 13: Tacitus, Dialog.
de Orator.
c. 2.
"Aper, communi eruditione imbutus, contemnebat potius literas quam nesciebat."
Nikias is said to have made his son Nikêratus learn by heart the entire Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; at least this is the statement of Nikêratus himself in the Symposion of Xenophon (iii.
5).]
[Footnote 14: This profession appears even in the Gorgias (p. 506 A) and in the Republic (v. p. 450 D).]
[Footnote 15: See Xenophon, Republ.
Laced.
c. 2.
Compare the description given by Xenophon in the Cyropædia (i.
2, 6), of the public training of Persian youth, which passage bears striking analogy to his description of the Spartan training.
The public [Greek: dida/skaloi] are not mentioned as teaching [Greek: gra/mmata], which belong to Athens and other cities, but as teaching justice, temperance, self-command, obedience, bodily endurance, the use of the bow and the javelin, &c.] [Footnote 16: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 673 B.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 886 B-C. [Greek: ei)si\n ê(mi=n e)n gra/mmasi lo/goi kei/menoi, _oi(/ par' u(mi=n ou)k ei)si\ di' a)retê\n politei/as_, ô(s e)gô\ mantha/nô, oi( me\n e)/n tisi me/trois, oi( de\ kai\ a)/neu me/trôn le/gontes peri\ theô=n, oi( me\n palaio/tataoi, ô(s ge/gonen ê( prô/tê phu/sis ou)ra/nou tô=n te a)/llôn, proi+o/ntes de\ tê=s a)rchê=s ou) polu\ theogoni/an diexe/rchontai, geno/menoi/ te ô(s pro\s a)llê/lous ô(mi/lêsan.
A(\ toi=s a)kou/ousin ei) me\n ei)s a)/llo ti kalô=s ê)\ mê\ kalô=s e)/chei, ou) r(a/|dion e)pitima=|n palaioi=s ou)=si], &c.] [Side-note: Gymnastic training, military drill, and public mess, in Krete and Sparta.]
Not simply on this negative ground, but on another positive ground also, Sparta and Krête were well suited to furnish listeners for the Laws.
[18] Their gymnastic discipline and military drill, especially the Spartan, were stricter and more continuous than anywhere else in Greece: including toilsome fatigue, endurance of pain, heat, and cold, and frequent conflicts with and without arms between different factions of citizens.
The individual and the family were more thoroughly merged in the community: the citizens were trained for war, interdicted from industry, and forbidden to go abroad without permission: attendance on the public mess-table was compulsory on all citizens: the training of youth was uniform, under official authority: the two systems were instituted, both of them, by divine authority--the Spartan by Apollo, the Kretan by Zeus--Lykurgus and Minos, semi-divine persons, being the respective instruments and mediators.
In neither of them was any public criticism tolerated upon the laws and institutions (this is a point capital in Plato's view[19]).
No voice was allowed among the young men except that of constant eulogy, extolling the system as not merely excellent but of divine origin, and resenting all contradiction: none but an old man was permitted to suggest doubts, and he only in private whisper to the Archon, when no young man was near.
Both in Sparta and Krete the public authorities stood forward as the conspicuous, positive, constant, agents; enforcing upon each individual a known type of character and habits.
There was thus an intelligible purpose, political and social, as contrasted with other neighbouring societies, in which no special purpose revealed itself.
[20] Both Sparta and Krete, moreover, had continued in the main unchanged from a time immemorial.
In this, as in numerous other points, the two systems were cognate and similar.
[21] [Footnote 18: Ephorus, ap.
Strabo, x.
480; Xenophon, Repub.
Lac.
c. 4-6; Isokrates, Busiris, Orat.
xi.
s. 19; Aristot.
Politic.
ii.
capp.
9 and 10, pp.
1270-1271, and viii.
9, p. 1338, b.
15; also chap.
vi.
of the second part of my 'History of Greece,' with the references there given.]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 634 D-E. [Greek: u(mi=n me\n ga/r, ei)/per kai\ metri/ôs kateskeu/astai ta\ tô=n no/môn, ei(=s tô=n kalli/stôn a)\n ei)/ê no/môn mê\ zêtei=n tô=n ne/ôn mêde/na e)a=|n poi=a kalô=s au)tô=n ê)\ mê\ kalô=s e)/chei, mia=| de\ phônê=| kai\ e)x e(no\s sto/matos pa/ntas sumphônei=n ô(s pa/nta kalô=s kei/tai the/ntôn theô=n, kai\ e)a/n a)/llôs le/gê|, mê\ a)ne/chesthai to\ para/pan a)kou/ontas], &c. Compare Demosthen.
adv.
Leptin.
p. 489, where a similar affirmation is made respecting Sparta.]
[Footnote 20: These other cities are what Plato calls [Greek: ai( tô=n ei)kê=| politeuome/nôn politei=ai] (Legg.
i. p. 635 E), and what Aristotle calls [Greek: no/mima chu/dên kei/mena], Polit.
vii.
1324, b.
5.]
[Footnote 21: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 624, iii.
pp.
691 E, 696 A, iii.
p. 683.
Krete and Sparta, [Greek: a)delphoi\ no/moi].
K. F. Hermann (in his instructive Dissertation, De Vestigiis Institutorum veterum imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis de Legibus libros indagandis) represents Sparta and Krete as types of customs and institutions which had once been general in Greece, but had been discontinued in the other Grecian cities.
"Hoc imprimis in Lacedæmoniorum et Cretensium res publicas cadit, quæ quum et antiquissimam Græciæ indolem fidelissimé servasse viderentur, et moribus ac disciplinâ publicâ optimé fundatæ essent, non mirum est eas Græco philosopho adeò placuisse ut earum formam et libris de Civitate et Legibus quasi pro fundamento subjiceret" (p. 19, compare pp.
13-15-23) .
.
.
"unde (sc.
a legitimis Græcarum civitatum principiis) licet plurimi temporum decursu descivissent atque in aliâ omnia abiissent, nihil tamen Plato proposuit, nisi quod optimus quisque in Græciâ semper expetierat ac persecutus erat" (p. 15).
I think this view is not correct, though it is adopted more or less by various critics.
Sparta and Krete are not specimens (in my judgment) of what all or most Grecian cities once had been--nor of pure Dorism, as K. O. Müller affirms.
On the contrary I believe them to have been very peculiar, Sparta especially.
So far they resembled all early Greeks, that neither literature nor luxury had grown up among them.
But neither the Syssitia nor the _disciplina publica_ had ever subsisted among other Greeks: and these were the two characteristic features of Krete and Sparta, more especially of the latter.
They were the two features which arrested Plato's attention, and upon which he brought his constructive imagination to bear; constructing upon one principle in his Republic, and upon a different principle in his Dialogue de Legibus.
While he copies these two main features from Sparta, he borrows many or most of his special laws from Athens; but the ends, with reference to which he puts these elements together, are his own.
K. F. Hermann, in his anxiety to rescue Plato from the charge of rashness ("temerario ingenii lusu," p. 18), understates Plato's originality.]
[Side-note: Difference between Leges and Republic, illustrated by reference to the Politikus.]
Comparing the Platonic Leges with the Platonic Republic the difference between them will be illustrated by the theory laid down in the Politikus.
We read therein,[22] that the process of governing mankind well is an art, depending upon scientific principles; like the art of the physician, the general, the steersman: that it aims at the attainment of a given End, the well-being of the governed--and that none except the scientific or artistic Ruler know either the end or the means of attaining it: that such rulers are the rarest of all artists, never more than one or a very few, combining philosophical aptitude with philosophical training: but that when they are found, society ought to trust and obey their directions without any fixed law: that no peremptory law can be made to fit all contingencies, and that their art is the only law which they ought to follow in each particular conjuncture.
If no such persons can be found, good government is an impossibility: but the next best thing to be done is, to establish fixed laws, as good as you can, and to ensure that they shall be obeyed by every one.
Now the Platonic Republic aims at realising the first of these two ideal projects: everything in it turns upon the discretionary orders of the philosophical King or Oligarchy, and even the elaborate training of the Guardians serves only to make them perfect instruments for the execution of those orders.
But the Platonic Leges or Treatise on Laws corresponds only to the second or less ambitious project--a tolerable imitation of the first and best.
[23] Instead of philosophical rulers, one or a few invested with discretionary power, we have a scheme of political constitution--an alternation of powers temporary and responsible, an apportionment of functions and duties--a variety of laws enacted, with magistrates and dikasteries provided to apply them.
Plato, or his Athenian spokesman, appears as adviser and as persuader; but the laws must be such as the body of citizens can be persuaded to adopt.
There is moreover a scheme of education embodied in the laws: the individual citizen is placed under dominion at once spiritual and temporal: but the infallibility resides in the laws, and authority is exercised over him only by periodical magistrates who enforce them and determine in their name.
It is the Laws which govern--not philosophical Artists of King-Craft.
[Footnote 22: See above, vol.
iii.
ch.
xxx.
p. 273, seq.]
[Footnote 23: Plato, Politikus, pp.
293 C-297 C.] [Side-note: Large proportion of preliminary discussions and didactic exhortation in the Leges.]
The three first books of the Leges are occupied with general preliminary discussions on the ends at which laws and political institutions ought to aim--on the means which they ought to employ--and on the ethical effects of various institutions in moulding the character of the citizens.
"For private citizens" (the Athenian says), "it is enough to say, in reply to the criticism of strangers, This is the law or custom with us.
But what I propose to examine is, the wisdom of the lawgiver from whom the law proceeds.
"[24] At the end of book three, Kleinias announces that the Kretans are about to found a new colony on a deserted site at one end of the island, and that they have confided to a committee of ten Knossians (himself among the number), the task of establishing a constitution and laws for the colony.
He invites the Athenian to advise and co-operate with this committee.
In the fourth book, we enter upon the special conditions of this colonial project, to which the constitution and laws must conform.
It is not until the fifth book that the Athenian speaker begins to declare what constitutional provisions, and what legal enactments, he recommends.
His recommendations are continued throughout all the remaining Treatise--from the fifth book, to the twelfth or last.
They are however largely interspersed with persuasive addresses, expositions, homilies, and comminations, sometimes of extreme prolixity and vehemence,[25] on various topics of ethics and religion: which indeed occupy a much larger space than the laws themselves.
[Footnote 24: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 637 C-D. [Greek: pa=s ga\r a)pokrino/menos e)rei= thauma/zonti xe/nô|, tê\n par' au)toi=s a)ê/theian o(rô=nti, Mê\ thau/maze, ô)= xe/ne; no/mos e)/sth' ê(mi=n ou(=tos, i)/sôs d' u(mi=n peri\ au)tô=n tou/tôn e(/teros; ê(mi=n d' e)sti\ nu=n ou) peri\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn tô=n a)/llôn o( lo/gos, a)lla\ peri\ tô=n nomothetô=n au)tô=n kaki/as te kai\ a)retê=s.]]
[Footnote 25: This is what Plato alludes to in the Politikus (p. 304 A) as "rhetoric enlisted in the service of the Ruler,"--[Greek: o(/sê basilikê=| koinônou=sa r(êtorei/a xugdiakuberna=| ta\s e)n tai=s po/lesi pra/xeis.]]
[Side-note: Scope of the discussion laid down by the Athenian speaker--The Spartan institutions are framed only for war--This is narrow and erroneous.]
The Athenian speaker avails himself of the privilege of old age to criticise the Spartan and Kretan institutions more freely than is approved by his two companions; who feel bound to uphold against all dissentients the divine origin of their respective polities.
[26] On enquiring from them what is the purpose of their peculiar institutions--the Syssitia or public mess-table--the gymnastic discipline--the military drill--he is informed by both, that the purpose is to ensure habits of courage, strength, and skill, with a view to superiority in war over foreign enemies: war being, in their judgment, the usual and natural condition of the different communities into which mankind are distributed.
[27] Such is the test according to which they determine the good constitution of a city.
But the Athenian--proclaiming as the scope of his enquiry,[28] What is it which is _right or wrong by nature, in laws_?--will not admit the test as thus laid down.
War against foreign enemies (_i.e._ enemies foreign to the city-community) is only one among many varieties of war.
There exist other varieties besides:--war among the citizens of the same town--among the constituent villages of the same city-community--among the brethren of the same family--among the constituent elements of the same individual man.
[29] Though these varieties of war or discord are of frequent occurrence, they are not the less evils, inconsistent with that _idéal_ of the Best which a wise lawgiver will seek to approach.
[30] Whenever any of them occur, he ought to ensure to the good and wise elements victory over the evil and stupid.
But his _idéal_ should be, to obviate the occurrence of war altogether--to adjust harmoniously the relation between the better and worse elements, disposing the latter towards a willing subordination and co-operation with the former.
[31] Though courage in war is one indispensable virtue, it stands only fourth on the list--wisdom, justice, and temperance, being before it.
_Your_ aim is to inculcate not virtue, but only one part of virtue.
[32] Many mercenary soldiers, possessing courage in perfection, are unjust, foolish, and worthless in all other respects.
[33] [Footnote 26: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 630 D, ii.
p. 667 A.]
[Footnote 27: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
625-626.
[Greek: o(/ron tê=s eu)= politeuome/nês po/leôs], &c. (p. 626 B).]
[Footnote 28: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 627 C. [Greek: o)rtho/têto/s te kai\ a(marti/as pe/ri no/môn, ê(/tis pot' e)sti\ phu/sei.]
Also 630 E. Compare the inquiry in the Kratylus respecting naming, wherein consists the [Greek: o)rtho/tês phu/sei tô=n o)noma/tôn].
See above, vol.
iii.
ch.
xxxi.
p. 285, seq.]
[Footnote 29: Plato, Legg.
i. p.
626.]
[Footnote 30: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 628 D.] [Footnote 31: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 627 E. [Greek: o(\s a)\n tou\s me\n chrêstou\s a)/rchein, tou\s chei/rous d' e)a/sas zê=|n a)/rchesthai e(/kontas poiê/seie.]
The _idéal_ which Plato here sets forth coincides mainly with that which Xenophon adopts as his theme both in the Cyropædia and in the Oeconomicus (see the beginning of the former and the close of the latter) [Greek: to\ e)thelo/ntôn a)/rchein].]
[Footnote 32: Aristotle cites and approves this criticism of Plato, [Greek: e)n toi=s No/mois], Politic.
ii.
9, p. 1271, b.
1.
Compare vii.
14, 1333, b.
15.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 630 A.
The doctrine--that courage is possessed by many persons who have no other virtue--which is here assigned by Plato to his leading speaker the Athenian, appears in the Protagoras as advocated by Protagoras and impugned by Sokrates (p. 349 D-E).
But the arguments whereby Sokrates impugns it are (according to Stallbaum) known by Plato himself to be mere captious tricks (laquei dialetici--captiosé et arguté conclusa, ad sophistam ludendum et perturbandum comparata) employed only for the purpose of puzzling and turning into ridicule an eminent Sophist.
(See Stallbaum, not.
ad Protag.
p. 349 E. and Præf.
ad Protag.
p.
28.)
I have already remarked elsewhere, that I think this supposition alike gratuitous and improbable.]
[Side-note: Principles on which the institutions of a state ought to be defended--You must show that its ethical purpose and working is good.]
If you wish (says the Athenian to Kleinias) to make out a plenary defence and advocacy of the Kretan system, you ought to do it in the following way: Our laws deserve the celebrity which they have acquired in Greece, because they make us happy, and provide us with all kinds of good things: both with such as are divine and with such as are human.
The divine are, Wisdom or Prudence, Justice, Temperance, Courage: the human are, Health, Beauty, Strength, Activity, Wealth.
The human depend upon the divine, are certain to follow them, and are not to be obtained without them.
All the regulations and precepts of the lawgiver are directed to the attainment and protection of these ends--to establish among the citizens a moral tone of praise and blame favourable to that purpose.
He seeks to inculcate on the citizens a body of sentiment, as to what is honourable and not honourable--such as may guide their pleasures and pains, their desires and aversions--and such as may keep their minds right amidst all the disaster (disease, war, poverty, &c.) as well as the prosperity of life.
He next regulates the properties, the acquisitions, and the expenditure of the citizens, together with their relations to each other on these heads, upon principles of justice enforced by suitable penalties.
Lastly, he appoints magistrates of approved wisdom and right judgment to enforce the regulations.
The cementing authority is thus wisdom, following out purposes of temperance and justice, not of ambition or love of money.
Such is the course of exposition (says the Athenian) which ought to be adopted.
Now tell me--In what manner are the objects here defined ensured by the institutions of Apollo and Zeus at Sparta and Krete?
You two ought to show me: for I myself cannot discern it.
[34] [Footnote 34: Plato, Legg.
i. p.
632.]
[Side-note: Religious and ethical character postulated by Plato for a community.]
This passage is of some value, because it gives us, thus early in the Treatise, a brief summary of that which Plato desiderates in the two systems here noted--and of that which he intends to supply in his own.
We see that he looks upon a political constitution and laws as merely secondary and instrumental: that he postulates as the primary and fundamental fabric, a given religious and ethical character implanted in the citizens: that the lawgiver, in his view, combines the spiritual and temporal authority, making the latter subordinate to the former, and determining not merely what laws the citizens shall obey, but how they shall distribute their approval and aversion--religious, ethical, and æsthetical.
It is the lawgiver alone who is responsible and who is open to praise or censure: for to the people, of each different community and different system, established custom is always a valid authority.
[35] [Footnote 35: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 637 D.] [Side-note: Endurance of pain enforced as a part of the public discipline at Sparta.]
We Spartans (says Megillus) implant courage in our citizens not merely by our public mess-table and gymnastic, but also by inuring them to support pain and hardship.
We cause them to suffer severe pain in the gymnopædia, in pugilistic contests, and other ways: we put them to hardships and privations in the Kryptia and in hunting.
We thus accustom them to endurance.
Moreover, we strictly forbid all indulgences such as drunkenness.
Nothing of the kind is seen at Sparta, not even at the festival of Dionysus; nothing like the drinking which I have seen at Athens, and still more at Tarentum.
[36] [Footnote 36: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
633-B 637 A. Plato puts into the mouth of the Athenian a remark that in some other cities (not Sparta or Kretan) these [Greek: sussi/tia] or public mess-tables had been found to lead to intestine sedition and disturbance (p. 636 B).
He instances the cases of the Boeotians, the Milesians, and the Thurians.
It is much to be lamented that we cannot assign the particular events and conjunctures here adverted to.
The Spartan and Kretan Syssitia were daily, compulsory, and universal among the citizens, besides the strictness of the regulations: under such conditions they were peculiar to these two places, as far as our knowledge goes: the Syssitia in Southern Italy (noticed by Aristotle, Polit.
vii.
10, p. 1329 b.)
are not known and seemingly unimportant.
The Syssitia in Boeotia, &c., may probably have been occasional or periodical banquets among members of the same tribe, deme, club, or [Greek: thi/asos]--and voluntary besides, neither prescribed nor regulated by law.
Such meetings might very probably give occasion to disturbances under particular circumstances.]
[Side-note: Why are not the citizens tested in like manner, in regard to resistance against the seductions of pleasure?]
How is it (says the Athenian) that you deal so differently with pains and pleasures?
To make your citizens firm against pain, you expose them designedly to severe pains: if they were kept free from pains, you would have no confidence in their firmness against painful actualities, when any such shall occur.
But in regard to pleasures, you are content with simple prohibition.
You provide no means for strengthening your citizens against the temptations of pleasure.
Are you satisfied that their courage (or self-command) shall be lame or one-sided--good against pains, but not good against pleasures?
[37] In determining about laws, the whole enquiry turns upon pleasures and pains, both in the city and in individual dispositions.
These are the two natural fountains, from which he who draws such draughts as is proper, obtains happiness: while every one who draws unwisely and out of season, will fail of obtaining happiness.
[38] [Footnote 37: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
633-634 A.
[Greek: chôlê\n tê\n a)ndrei/an].]
[Footnote 38: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 636 D-E.] [Side-note: Drunkenness forbidden at Sparta, and blamed by the Spartan converser.
The Athenian proceeds to inquire how far such unqualified prohibition is justifiable.]
Besides, as to drunkenness, we must not be too hasty in condemnation of it.
We must not pronounce generally respecting any institution without examining the circumstances, persons, regulations, &c., attending it.
Such hasty praise and censure is very misleading.
Many other nations act upon the opposite practice.
But I (says Plato) shall not pretend to decide the point by witnesses and authority.
I shall adopt another course of investigation, and shall show you, in this particular case, a specimen of the way in which all such institutions ought to be criticised and appreciated.
[39] [Footnote 39: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 638 D-E. [Greek: Tro/pon de\ a)/llon, o(\n e)moi\ phai/netai dei=n, e)the/lô le/gein peri\ au)tou= tou/tou, tê=s me/thês, _peirô/menos a)\n a)/ra du/nômai tê\n peri\ a(pa/ntôn tou/tôn o)rthê\n me/thodon u(mi=n dêlou=n_, e)peidê\ kai\ muri/a e)pi\ muri/ois e)/thnê peri\ au)tô=n a)mphisbêtou=nta u(mi=n po/lesi duei=n tô=| lo/gô| diama/choit' a)/n.]
Here Plato (as in the Sophistês, Politikus, and elsewhere) announces that the special inquiry is intended to illustrate a general method.]
Plato here digresses[40] from his main purpose to examine the question of drunkenness.
He will not allow it to be set aside absolutely and offhand, by a self-justifying ethical sentiment, without reason assigned, defence tendered, accompanying precautions discussed.
Upon this, as upon the social functions proper for the female sex, he is a dissenter from the common view.
He selects the subject as a case for exhibiting the proper method of criticism respecting social institutions; not without some consciousness that the discussion, if looked at in itself (like the examples of scientific classification or diæresis in the Sophistês and Politikus), would appear unduly prolonged.
[41] [Footnote 40: He himself notes it as a digression, iii.
p. 682 E.] [Footnote 41: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
642 A, 645 D. Compare the Politikus, pp.
264 A-286 C-E.] [Side-note: Description of Sokrates in the Symposion--his self-command under abundant potations.]
To illustrate his peculiar views[42] on the subject of drunkenness, we may refer to the picture of Sokrates which he presents in the Symposion, more especially in the latter half of that dialogue, after the appearance of Alkibiades.
In this dialogue the occasion is supposed to be festive and joyous.
Eros is in the ascendant, and is made the subject of a panegyric by each of the guests in succession.
Sokrates partakes in the temper of the society, proclaiming himself to be ignorant of all other matters except those relating to Love.
[43] In all the Platonic writings there is hardly anything more striking than the panegyric upon Eros there pronounced by Sokrates, blending the idea of love with that of philosophical dialectics, and refining the erotic impulse into an enthusiastic aspiration for that generation of new contemplative power, by the colloquial intercourse of two minds reciprocally stimulating each other, which brings them at last into a clear view of the objects of the ideal or intelligible world.
Until the appearance of Alkibiades, little wine is swallowed, and the guests are perfectly sober.
But Alkibiades, being intoxicated when he first comes in, becomes at once the prominent character of the piece.
He is represented as directing the large wine-cooler to be filled with wine (about four pints), first swallowing the whole himself then ordering it to be filled again for Sokrates, who does the like: Alkibiades observing, "Whatever quantity of wine you prescribe to Sokrates, he will drink it without becoming drunk".
[44] Alkibiades then, instead of panegyrising Eros, undertakes to pronounce a panegyric on Sokrates: proclaiming that nothing shall be said but what is true, and being relieved from all reserve by his drunken condition.
[45] In this panegyric he describes emphatically the playful irony of Sokrates, and the magical influence exercised by his conversation over young men.
But though Sokrates thus acquired irresistible ascendancy over others, himself (Alkibiades) included, no one else acquired the least hold over Sokrates.
His will and character, under a playful exterior, were self-sufficing and self-determining; independent of influences from without, to such a degree as was almost insulting to any one who sought either to captivate or oblige him.
[46] The self-command of Sokrates was unshaken either by seduction on one side, or by pain and hardship on the other.
He faced danger with a courage never surpassed; he endured hunger, fatigue, the extremities of heat and cold, in a manner such as none of his comrades in the army could parallel.
[47] He was indifferent to the gratifications of love, even when they were presented to him in a manner the most irresistible to Grecian imagination; while at festive banquets, though he did not drink of his own accord, yet if the society imposed obligation to do so, he outdid all in respect to quantity of wine.
No one ever saw Sokrates intoxicated.
[48] Such is the tenor of the panegyric pronounced by Alkibiades upon Sokrates.
A general drinking-bout closes the Symposion, in which Sokrates swallows large draughts of wine along with the rest, but persists all the while in his dialectic cross-examination, with unabated clearness of head.
One by one the guests drop asleep, and at daybreak Sokrates alone is left awake.
He rises and departs, goes forthwith to the Lykeum, and there passes the whole day in his usual colloquial occupation, without being at all affected by the potations of the preceding night.
[49] [Footnote 42: Aristotle especially notes this as one among the peculiarities of Plato (Politic.
ii.
9, 20).
[Footnote 43: Plato, Symp.
p. 177 D. [Greek: e)gô\ o(\s ou)de/n phêmi a)/llo e)pi/stasthai ê)\ ta\ e)rôtika/], &c. 198 D: [Greek: e)/phên ei)=nai deino\s ta\ e)rôtika/.]]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Symp.
pp.
213-214.]
[Footnote 45: Plato, Symp.
pp.
214-215-217 E.] [Footnote 46: Plato, Symp.
pp.
219 C. [Greek: tê=s Sôkra/tous u(perêphani/as].
Compare 222 A.]
[Footnote 47: Plato, Symp.
p.
220.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Symp.
p. 220 A.
What has been here briefly recapitulated will be found in my twenty-sixth chapter, vol.
iii.
pp.
20-21, seq.]
[Footnote 49: Plato, Sympos.
p. 223.
Compare what Plato puts into the mouth of Sokrates in the Protagoras (p. 347 D): well educated men will carry on a dialectic debate with intelligence and propriety, "_though they may drink ever so much wine_,"--[Greek: ka)\n pa/nu polu\n oi)=non pi/ôsin].]
[Side-note: Sokrates--an ideal of self-command, both as to pain and as to pleasure.]
I have thus cited the Symposion to illustrate Plato's view of the ideal of character.
The self-command of Sokrates is tested both by pain and by pleasure.
He resists both of them alike and equally: under the one as well as under the other, his reason works with unimpaired efficacy, and his deliberate purposes are pursued with unclouded serenity.
This is not because he keeps out of the way of temptation and seduction: on the contrary, he is frequently exposed to situations of a tempting character, and is always found superior to them.
[Side-note: Trials for testing the self-controul of the citizen, under the influence of wine.
Dionysiac banquets, under a sober president.]
Now Plato's purpose is, to impart to his citizens the character which he here ascribes to Sokrates, and to make them capable of maintaining unimpaired the controul of reason against the disturbances both of pain and pleasure.
He remarks that the Spartan training kept in check the first of these two enemies, but not the second.
He thinks that the citizen ought to be put through a regulated system of trials for measuring and testing his competence to contend with pleasure, as the Spartans provided in regard to pain.
The Dionysiac festivals[50] afforded occasions of applying these trials of pleasure, just as the Gymnopædia at Sparta were made to furnish deliberate inflictions of pain.
But the Dionysiac banquets ought to be conducted under the superintendence of a discreet president, himself perfectly sober throughout the whole ceremony.
All the guests would drink largely of wine, and each would show how far and how long he could resist its disturbing tendencies.
As there was competition among the youths at the Gymnopædia, to show how much pain each could endure without flinching--honour being shown to those who endured most, and most successfully--so there would be competition at the Dionysia to prove how much wine each could bear without having his reason and modesty overset.
The sober president would decide as judge.
Each man's self-command, as against seductive influences, would be strengthened by a repetition of such trials, while proof would be afforded how far each man could be counted on.
[51] [Footnote 50: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
650 A, 637 A.
633 D.] [Footnote 51: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
647 D-E-649 D. Compare the Republic, iii.
pp.
412-413, where the same general doctrine is enforced.]
[Side-note: The gifts of Dionysus may, by precautions, be rendered useful--Desultory manner of Plato.]
This is one mode in which the unmeasured potations (common throughout the Grecian cities, with the exception of Sparta and Krete) might under proper regulation be rendered useful for civic training.
But there is another mode also, connected with the general musical and gymnastical training of the city.
Plato will not allow Dionysus--and wine, the special gift of that God to mankind--to be censured as absolutely mischievous.
[52] [Footnote 52: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 672 A.]
In developing this second topic, he is led into a general theory of ethical and æsthetical education for his city.
This happens frequently enough in the desultory manner of the Platonic dialogues.
We are sometimes conducted from an incidental and outlying corollary, without warning and through a side door, into the central theory from which it ramifies.
The practice is noway favourable to facility of comprehension, but it flows naturally from the unsystematic and spontaneous sequence of the dialogue.
[Side-note: Theory of ethical and æsthetical education--Training of the emotions of youth through the influence of the Muses, Apollo, and Dionysus.
Choric practice and ceremonies.]
Education of youth consists mainly in giving proper direction to their pleasures and pains--their love and their hatred.
Young persons are capable only of emotions, well or ill directed: in this consists their virtue or vice.
At that age they cannot bear serious teaching: they are incapable of acquiring reason, or true, firm opinions, which constitute the perfection of the mature man; indeed, if a man acquires these even when old, he may be looked on as fortunate.
[53] The young can only have their emotions cultivated so as to conform to reason: they may thus be made to love what reason, personified in and enforced by the lawgiver, enjoins--and to hate what reason forbids--but without knowing wherefore.
Unfortunately the hard realities of life are perpetually giving a wrong turn to the emotions.
To counteract and correct this, the influence of the Muses, of Apollo, and of Dionysus, are indispensable: together with the periodical festivals of which these Deities are respectively presidents and auxiliaries.
Their influence is exercised through the choric ceremony--music, singing, dancing, blended together.
Every young man is spontaneously disposed to constant indeterminate movement and exercise of various kinds--running, jumping, speaking, &c. This belongs to man in common with the young of other animals: but what is peculiar to man exclusively is, the sense of rhythm and harmony, as well as of the contrary, in these movements and sounds.
Such rhythm and harmony, in song and dance united, is expressed by the chorus at the festivals, in which the Muses and Apollo take part along with the assembled youth.
Here we find the only way of properly schooling the emotions.
[54] The unschooled man is he who has not gone through a good choric practice; which will require that the matter which he sings shall be good and honourable, while the movements of his frame and the tones of his voice must be rhythmical and graceful.
Such choric practice must be universal among the citizens, distributed into three classes: youths, mature men, elders.
[55] [Footnote 53: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
653-659 D-E. [Greek: paidei/a me/n e)sth' ê( paidô=n o(lkê/ te kai\ a)gôgê\ pro\s to\n u(po\ tou= no/mou lo/gon o)rtho\n ei)rême/non kai\ toi=s e)pieikesta/tois kai\ presbuta/tois di' e)mpeiri/an xundidogme/non, ô(s o)/ntôs o)rtho/s e)stin; i(/n' ou)=n ê( psuchê\ tou= paido\s mê\ e)nanti/a chai/rein kai\ lupei=sthai e)thi/zêtai tô=| no/mô| kai\ toi=s u(po\ tou= no/mou pepeisme/nois, a)lla\ xune/pêtai chai/rousa/ te kai\ lupoume/nê toi=s au)tois tou/tois oi(=sper o( ge/rôn, tou/tôn e(/neka, a(\s ô)|da\s kalou=men, o)/ntôs me\n e)pô|dai\ tai\s psuchai=s au(=tai nu=n gegone/nai, pro\s tê\n toiau/tên ê\n le/gomen xumphôni/an e)spoudasme/nai, dia\ de\ to\ spoudê\n mê\ du/nasthai phe/rein ta\s tô=n ne/ôn psucha\s paidiai/ te kai\ ô)|dai\ kalei=sthai kai\ pra/ttesthai], &c.] [Footnote 54: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
654-660 A.]
[Footnote 55: This triple distribution of classes for choric instruction and practice is borrowed from Spartan customs, Plutarch, Lykurgus, 21; Schol.
ad Legg.
p. 633 A.]
[Side-note: Music and dancing--imitation of the voice and movements of brave and virtuous men.
Youth must be taught to take delight in this.]
But what _is_ the good and honourable--or the bad and dishonourable?
We must be able to settle this point:--otherwise we cannot know how far the chorus complies with the conditions above-named.
Suppose a brave man and a coward in the face of danger: the gestures and speech of the former will be strikingly different from those of the latter.
So with other virtues and vices.
Now the manifestations, bodily and mental, of the virtuous man, are beautiful and honourable: those of the vicious man, are ugly and base.
These are the _really beautiful_,--the same universally, or what ought to be beautiful to all: this is the standard of rectitude in music.
But they do not always _appear_ beautiful to all.
There is great diversity in the tastes and sentiments of different persons: what appears to one man agreeable and pleasurable, appears to another disgusting or indifferent.
[56] Such diversity is either in the natural disposition, or in the habits acquired.
A man's pleasure depends upon the former, his judgment of approbation on the latter.
If both his nature and his acquired habits coincide with the standard of rectitude, he will both delight in what is really beautiful, and will approve it as beautiful.
But if his nature be in discordance with the standard, while his habits coincide with that standard he will approve of what is honourable, but he will take no delight in it: he will delight in what is base, but will at the same time disapprove it as base.
He will however be ashamed to proclaim his delight before persons whom he respects, and will never indulge himself in the delightful music except when he is alone.
[57] [Footnote 56: Plato, Legg.
p. 655 B.]
[Footnote 57: Plato, Legg.
pp.
655-656.]
[Side-note: Bad musical exhibitions and poetry forbidden by the lawgiver.
Songs and dances must be consecrated by public authority.
Prizes at the musical festivals to be awarded by select judges.]
To take delight in gestures or songs which are manifestations of bad qualities, produces the same kind of mischievous effect upon the spectator as association with bad men in real life.
His character becomes assimilated to the qualities in the manifestations of which he delights, although he may be ashamed to commend them.
This is a grievous corruption, arising from bad musical and choric exhibitions, which the lawgiver must take care to prevent.
He must not allow poets to exhibit what they may prefer or may think to be beautiful.
He must follow the practice of Egypt, where both the music and the pictorial type has been determined by the Gods or by divine lawgivers from immemorial antiquity, according to the standard of natural rectitude and where the government allows neither poet nor painter to innovate or depart from this consecrated type.
[58] Accordingly, Egyptian compositions of the present day are exactly like what they were ten thousand years ago: neither more nor less beautiful.
The lawgiver must follow this example, and fix the type of his musical and choric exhibitions; forbidding all innovation introduced on the plea of greater satisfaction either to the poet or to the audience.
In the festivals where there is competition among poets, the prize must not be awarded by the pleasure of the auditors, whose acclamations tend only to corrupt and pervert the poets.
The auditors ought to hear nothing but what is better than their own characters, in order that their tastes may thus be exalted.
The prize must be awarded according to the preference of a few elders--or better still, of one single elder--eminent for excellent training and virtue.
This judge ought not to follow the taste of the auditors, but to consider himself as their teacher and improver.
[59] [Footnote 58: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
656-657.]
[Footnote 59: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
659 A, 668 A.]
[Side-note: The Spartan and Kretan agree with the Athenian, that poets must be kept under a strict censorship.
But they do not agree as to what the poets are required to conform to.]
Such is the exposition given by the Athenian speaker, respecting the characteristic function, and proper regulating principles, of choric training (poems learnt, music and dancing) for the youth.
The Spartan and Kretan cordially concur with him: especially with that provision which fixes and consecrates the old established type, forbidding all novelties and spontaneous inspiration of the poets.
They claim this compulsory orthodoxy, tolerating no dissent from the ancient and consecrated canon of music and orchestic, as the special feature of their two states; as distinguishing Sparta and Krete from other Hellenic cities, which were invaded with impunity by novel compositions of every variety.
[60] [Footnote 60: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 660 C-D.] The Athenian is thus in full agreement with his two companions, on the general principle of subjecting the poets to an inflexible censorship.
But the agreement disappears, when he comes to specify the dogmas which the poets are required to inculcate in their hymns.
While complimenting his two friends upon their enforcement of an exclusive canon, he proceeds to assume that of course there can be but ONE canon;--that there is no doubt what the dogmas contained in it are to be.
He then unfolds briefly the Platonic ethical creed.
"You Spartans and Kretans (he says)[61] of course constrain your poets to proclaim that the just and temperate man is happy, whether he be tall, strong, and rich--or short, feeble, and poor: and that the bad man is wretched and lives in suffering, though he be richer than Midas, and possessor besides of every other advantage in life.
Most men appreciate falsely good and evil things.
They esteem as good things, health, beauty, strength, perfect sight and hearing, power, long life, immortality: they account the contrary to be bad things.
But you and I take a different view.
[62] We agree in proclaiming, that all these so-called good things are good only to the just man.
To the unjust man, we affirm that health, strength, perfection of senses, power, long life, &c., are not good, but exceedingly bad.
This, I presume, is the doctrine which you compel your poets to proclaim, and no other--in suitable rhythm and harmony.
[63] You agree with me in this, do you not?"
[Footnote 61: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 660 E.] [Footnote 62: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 661 B.
[Greek: u(mei=s de\ kai\ e)gô/ pou ta/de le/gomen, ô(s tau=ta/ e)sti xu/mpanta dikai/ois me\n kai\ o(si/ois a)ndra/sin a)/rista ktê/mata, a)di/kois de\ ka/kista xu/mpanta, a)rxa/mena a)po\ tê=s u(giei/as.]]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 661 C. [Greek: Tau=ta dê\ le/gein oi)=mai tou\s par' u(mi=n poiêta\s pei/sete kai\ a)nagka/sete], &c.] "We agree with you (replies Kleinias) on some of your affirmations, but we disagree with you wholly on others."
"What?
(says the Athenian.)
Do you disagree with me when I affirm, that a man healthy, rich, strong, powerful, fearless, long-lived, exempt from all the things commonly reputed to be evils, but at the same time unjust and exorbitant--when I say that such a man is not happy, but miserable?"
"We _do_ disagree with you when you affirm this," answers the Kretan.
"But will you not admit that such a man lives basely or dishonourably?"
"Basely or dishonourably.--Yes, we grant it."
"What then--do you not grant farther, that he lives badly, disagreeably, disadvantageously, to himself?"
"No.
We cannot possibly grant you that,"--replies Kleinias.
[Side-note: Ethical creed laid down by the Athenian--Poets required to conform to it.]
"Then (says the Athenian) you and I are in marked opposition.
[64] For to me what I have affirmed appears as necessary as the existence of Krete is indisputable.
If I were lawgiver, I should force the poets and all the citizens to proclaim it with one voice: and I should punish most severely every one[65] who affirmed that there could be any wicked men who lived agreeably--or that there could be any course advantageous or profitable, which was not at the same time the most just.
These and other matters equally at variance with the opinions received among Kretans, Spartans, and mankind generally--should persuade my citizens to declare unanimously.--For let us assume for a moment your opinion, and let us ask any lawgiver or any father advising his son.--You say that the just course of life is one thing, and that the agreeable course is another: I ask you which of the two is the happiest?
If you say that the agreeable course is the happiest, what do you mean by always exhorting me to be just?
Do you wish me not to be happy?
[66] If on the contrary you tell me that the just course of life is happier than the agreeable, I put another question--What is this Good and Beautiful which the lawgiver extols as superior to pleasure, and in which the just man's happiness consists?
What good _can_ he possess, apart from pleasure?
[67] He obtains praise and honour:--Is _that_ good, but disagreeable--and would the contrary, infamy, be agreeable?
A life in which a man neither does wrong to others nor receives wrong from others,--is _that_ disagreeable, though good and honourable--and would the contrary life be agreeable, but dishonourable?
You will not affirm that it is.
[68] [Footnote 64: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 A-B.
[Greek: ê)\ tou=to me/n i)/sôs a)\n xugchôrê/saite, to/ ge ai)schrô=s (zê=n)?
_Kleini/as_.
Pa/nu me\n ou)=n.
_A)thênai=os_.
Ti/ de/?
to\ kai\ kakô=s?
_Klein_.
Ou)k a)\n e)/ti tou=th' o(moi/ôs.
_A)thên_.
Ti/ de/?
to\ kai\ a)êdô/s kai\ mê\ xumphero/ntôs au)tô=|?
_Klein_.
Kai\ pô/s a)\n tau=ta/ g' e)/ti xugchôroi=men?
_A)thên_.
O(/pôs?
ei) theo\s ê(mi=n ô(s e)/oiken, ô)= phi/loi, doi/ê tis sumphôni/an, ô(s nu=n ge schedo\n a)pa/|domen a)p' a)llê/lôn.
E)moi\ ga\r dê\ phai/netai tau=ta ou(/tôs a)nagkai=a, ô(s ou)de\ Krê/tê nê=sos saphô=s.]]
[Footnote 65: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 B-C. [Greek: zêmi/an te o)li/gou megi/stên e)pitithei/ên a)\n, ei) tis e)n tê=| chô/ra| phthe/gxaito ô(s ei)si/ tines a)/nthrôpoi/ pote ponêroi\ me/n, ê(de/ôs de\ zô=ntes], &c.] [Footnote 66: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 D-E.] [Footnote 67: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 E. [Greek: ei) d' au)= to\n dikaio/taton eu)daimone/staton a)pophai/noito bi/on ei)=nai, zêtoi= pou pa=s a)\n o( a)kou/ôn, oi)=mai, ti/ pot' e)n au)tô=| to\ tê=s ê(donê=s krei=tton a)gatho/n te kai\ kalo\n o( no/mos e)no\n e)painei=?
ti/ ga\r dê\ dikai/ô| chôrizo/menon ê(donê=s a)gatho\n a)\n gi/gnoito?]]
[Footnote 68: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 A.]
"Surely then, my doctrine--which regards the pleasurable, the just, the good, and the honourable, as indissolubly connected,--has at least a certain force of persuasion, if it has nothing more, towards inducing men to live a just and holy life: so that the lawgiver would be both base and wanting to his own purposes, if he did not proclaim it as a truth.
For no one will be willingly persuaded to do anything which does not carry with it in its consequences more pleasure than pain.
[69] There is indeed confusion in every man's vision, when he looks at these consequences in distant outline: but it is the duty of the lawgiver to clear up such confusion, and to teach his citizens in the best way he can, by habits, encouraging praises, discourses, &c., how they ought to judge amidst these deceptive outlines.
Injustice, when looked at thus in prospect, seems to the unjust man pleasurable, while justice seems to him thoroughly disagreeable.
On the contrary, to the just man, the appearance is exactly contrary: to him justice seems pleasurable, injustice repulsive.
Now which of these two judgments shall we pronounce to be the truth?
That of the just man.
The verdict of the better soul is unquestionably more trustworthy than that of the worse.
We must therefore admit it to be a truth, that the unjust life is not merely viler and more dishonourable, but also in truth more disagreeable, than the just life.
"[70] [Footnote 69: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 B.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n o( me\n mê\ chôri/zôn lo/gos ê(du/ te kai\ di/kaion kai\ a)gatho/n te kai\ kalo/n, pithano\s g', ei) mêde\n e(/teron, pro\s to/ tina e)the/lein zê=n to\n o(/sion kai\ di/kaion bi/on; ô(/ste nomothe/tê| ge ai)/schistos lo/gôn kai\ e)nantiô/tatos, o(\s a)\n mê\ phê=| tau=ta ou(/tôs e)/chein; ou)dei\s ga\r a)\n e(kô\n e)/theloi pei/thesthai pra/ttein tou=to, o(/tô| mê\ to\ chai/rein tou= lupei=sthai ple/on e(/petai.]]
[Footnote 70: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 C-D.] [Side-note: The Spartan and Kretan do not agree with him.]
Such is the course of proof which Plato's Athenian speaker considers sufficient to establish this ethical doctrine.
But he proceeds to carry the reasoning a step farther, as follows:-"Nay, even if this were not a true position--as I have just shown it to be--any lawgiver even of moderate worth, if ever he ventured to tell a falsehood to youth for useful purposes, could proclaim no falsehood more useful than this, nor more efficacious towards making them disposed to practise justice willingly, without compulsory force.
"[71] [Footnote 71: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 D-E. [Greek: Nomothe/tês de/, ou(= ti kai\ smikro\n o)/phelos, ei) kai\ mê\ tou=to ê)=n ou(/tôs e)/chon, ô(s kai\ nu=n au)to\ ê(/|rêch' o( lo/gos e)/chein, ei)/per ti kai\ a)/llo e)to/lmêsen a)\n e)p' a)gathô=| pseu/desthai pro\s tou\s ne/ous, e)/stin o(/, ti tou/ton pseu=dos lusitele/steron a)\n e)pseu/sato/ pote, kai\ duna/menon ma=llon poiei=n mê\ bi/a| a)ll' e(ko/ntas pa/nta ta\ di/kaia?]]
"Truth is honourable (observes the Kretan) and durable.
You will not find it easy to make them believe what you propose."
"Why, it was found easy (replies the Athenian) to make men believe the mythe respecting Kadmus and the armed men who sprang out of the earth after the sowing of the dragon's teeth--and many other mythes equally incredible.
Such examples show conclusively that the lawgiver can implant in youthful minds any beliefs which he tries to implant.
He need therefore look to nothing, except to determine what are those beliefs which, if implanted, would be most beneficial to the city.
Having determined this, he will employ all his machinery to make all his citizens proclaim these beliefs constantly, with one voice, and without contradiction, in all hymns, stories, and discourses.
"[72] [Footnote 72: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 664 A.]
"This brings me to my own proposition.
My three Choruses (youthful, mature, elderly) will be required to sing perpetually to the tender minds of children all the honourable and good doctrines which I shall prescribe in detail.
But the sum and substance of them will be--The best life has been declared by the Gods to be also the most pleasurable, and it _is_ the most pleasurable.
[73] The whole city--man, boy, freeman, slave, male, female--will be always singing this doctrine to itself in choric songs, diversified by the poets in such manner as to keep up the interest and satisfaction of the singers.
"[74] [Footnote 73: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 664 B.]
[Footnote 74: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 665 C. It will be understood that here, as elsewhere, I give the substance of Plato's reasoning without binding myself to the translation of the particular words.]
[Side-note: Chorus of Elders are required to set an example in keeping up the purity of the music prescribed.]
Here, then, we have the general doctrine, ethical and social, which is to be maintained in exclusive possession of the voice, ear, and mind, of the Platonic citizens.
The imitative movements of the tripartite Chorus must be kept in perfect accordance with it:[75] for all music is imitative, and care must be taken to imitate the right things in a right manner.
To ensure such accordance, magistrates must be specially chosen as censors over both poets and singers.
But this, in Plato's view, is not enough.
He requires, besides, that the choristers should themselves understand both what they ought to imitate, and how it should be imitated.
Such understanding cannot be expected from the Chorus of youths nor even from that of mature men.
But it may be expected, and it must be required, in the chorus of Elders: which will thus set an example to the other two, of strict adherence to the rectitude of the musical standard.
[76] The purity of the Platonic musical training depends mainly upon the constant and efficacious choric activity of the old citizens.
[Footnote 75: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 668 A.
[Greek: Ou)kou=n mousikê/n ge pa=sa/n phamen ei)kastikê/n te ei)=nai kai\ mimêtikê/n?]]
[Footnote 76: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 670 B-D; vi.
p. 764 C; vii.
p. 812 B. Aristotle directs that the elders shall be relieved from active participation in choric duties, and confined to the function of judging or criticising (Politic.
viii.
6, 1340, b.
38).]
But how is such activity to be obtained?
Old men will not only find it repugnant to their natural dispositions, but will even be ashamed to exhibit themselves in choric music and dance before the younger citizens.
[Side-note: The Elders require the stimulus of wine, in order to go through the choric duties with spirit.]
It is here that Plato invokes the aid of wine-drinking and intoxication.
The stimulus of wine, drunk by the old men at the Dionysiac banquets, will revive in them a temporary fit of something like juvenile activity, and will supply an antidote to inconvenient diffidence.
[77] Under such partial excitement, they will stand forward freely to discharge their parts in the choric exhibitions; which, as performed by them, will be always in full conformity with the canon of musical rectitude, and will prevent it from becoming corrupted or relaxed by the younger choristers.
To ensure however that the excitement shall not overpass due limits, Plato prescribes that the president of the banquet shall be a grave person drinking no wine at all.
The commendation or reproof of such a president will sustain the reason and self-command of the guests, at the pitch compatible with full execution of their choric duty.
[78] Plato interdicts wine altogether to youths, until 18 years of age--allows it only in small quantities until the age of 40--but permits and even encourages elders above 40 to partake of the full inspiration of the Dionysiac banquets.
[79] [Footnote 77: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 666 B-C. [Greek: e)pi/kouron tê=s tou= gê/rôs au)stêro/têtos e)dôrê/sato (Dio/nusos) to\n oi)=non, pha/rmakon, ô(/ste a)nêba=|n ê(ma=s .
.
.
prô=ton me\n dê\ diatethei\s ou(/tôs e(/kastos a)=r' ou)k a)\n e)/theloi prothumo/tero/n ge, ê(=tton ai)schuno/menos .
.
.
a)/|dein.]]
[Footnote 78: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p.
671.]
[Footnote 79: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 666 A.]
[Side-note: Peculiar views of Plato about intoxication.]
This manner of regarding intoxication must probably have occurred to Plato at a time later than the composition of the Republic, wherein we find it differently handled.
[80] It deserves attention as an illustration, both of his boldness in following out his own ethical views, in spite of the consciousness[81] that they would appear strange to others--and of the prominent function which he assigns to old men in this dialogue De Legibus.
He condemns intoxication decidedly, when considered simply as a mode of enjoyment, and left to the taste of the company without any president or regulation.
But with most moralists such condemnation is an unreflecting and undistinguishing sentiment.
Against this Plato enters his protest.
He considers that intoxication, if properly regulated, may be made conducive to valuable ends, ethical and social.
Without it the old men cannot be wound up to the pitch of choric activity; without such activity, constant and unfaltering, the rectitude of the choric system has no adequate security against corruption: without such security, the emotional training of the citizens generally will degenerate.
Farthermore, Plato takes occasion from drunkenness to lay down a general doctrine respecting pleasures.
Men must be trained to self-command against pleasures, as they are against pains, not by keeping out of the way of temptation, but by regulated exposure to temptations, with motives at hand to help them in the task of resistance.
Both these views are original and suggestive, like so many others in the Platonic writings: tending to rescue Ethics from that tissue of rhetorical and emotional commonplace in which it so frequently appears;--and to keep present before those who handle it, those ideas of an end to be attained, and of discrimination as to means--which are essential to its pretensions as a science.
[Footnote 80: In the Republic (iii.
p. 398 E) Plato pronounced intoxication ([Greek: me/thê]) to be most unbecoming for his Guardians.
He places it in the same class of defects as indolence and effeminacy.
He also repudiates those varieties of musical harmony called _Ionic_ and _Lydian_, because they were languid, effeminate, symposiac, or suitable for a drinking society ([Greek: malakai/ te kai\ sumpotikai/, chalarai/]).
Various musical critics of the day ([Greek: tô=n peri\ tê\n mousikê/n tines]--we learn this curious fact from Aristotle, Polit.
viii.
7, near the end) impugned this opinion of Plato.
They affirmed that drunkenness was exciting and stimulating,--not relaxing nor favourable to languor and heaviness: that the effeminate musical modes were not congenial to drunkenness.
When we read the Treatise De Legibus, we observe that Plato altered his opinion respecting [Greek: me/thê], and had come round to agree with these musical critics.
He treats [Greek: me/thê] as exciting and stimulating, not relaxing and indolent; he even applies it as a positive stimulus to wind up the Elders.
Moreover, instead of repudiating it absolutely, he defends its usefulness under proper regulations.
Perhaps the change of his opinion may have been partly owing to these very criticisms.]
[Footnote 81: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 665 B.
Old Philokleon, in the Vespæ of Aristophanes (1320 seq.
), under the influence of wine and jovial excitement, is a pregnant subject for comic humour.]
[Side-note: General ethical doctrine held by Plato in Leges.]
But the general ethical discussion--which Plato tells us[82] that he introduces to establish premisses for his enactment respecting drunkenness--is of greater importance than the enactment itself.
He prescribes imperatively the doctrine and matter which alone is to be tolerated in his choric hymns or heard in his city.
I have given an abstract (p. 292-297) of the doctrine here laid down and the reasonings connected therewith, because they admit of being placed in instructive comparison with his manner of treating the same subject in other dialogues.
[Footnote 82: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 664 D.] [Side-note: Pleasure--Good--Happiness--What is the relation between them?]
What is the relation between Pleasure, Good, and Happiness?
Pain, Evil, Unhappiness?
Do the names in the first triplet mean substantially the same thing, only looked at in different aspects and under different conditions?
Or do they mean three distinct things, separable and occurring the one without the other?
This important question was much debated, and answered in many different ways, by Grecian philosophers from the time of Sokrates downward--and by Roman philosophers after them.
Plato handles it not merely in the dialogue now before us, but in several others--differently too in each: in Protagoras, Gorgias, Republic, Philêbus, &c.[83] [Footnote 83: See above, vol.
ii.
ch.
xxiv.
pp.
353.]
[Side-note: Comparison of the doctrine laid down in Leges.]
Here, in the Dialogue De Legibus (by incidental allusion, too, in some of the Epistles), we have the latest form in which these doctrines about Pleasure, Happiness, Good--and their respective contraries--found expression in Plato's compositions.
Much of the doctrines is the same--yet with some material variation.
It is here reasserted, by the Athenian, that the just and temperate man is happy, and that the unjust man is miserable, whatever may befall him: moreover that good things (such as health, strength, sight, hearing, &c.) are good only to the just man, evil to the unjust--while the contrary (such as sickness, weakness, blindness) are good things to the unjust, evil only to the just.
To this position both the Spartan and the Kretan distinctly refuse their assent: and Plato himself admits that mankind in general would agree with them in such refusal.
[84] He vindicates his own opinion by a new argument which had not before appeared.
"The just man himself" (he urges), "one who has been fully trained in just dispositions, will feel it to be as I say: the unjust man will feel the contrary.
But the just man is much more trustworthy than the unjust: therefore we must believe what he says to be the truth.
"[85] Appeal is here made, not to the Wise Man or Artist, but to the just man: whose sentence is invested with a self-justifying authority, wherein Plato looks for his _aliquid inconcussum_.
Now it is for philosophy, or for the true Artist, that this pre-eminence is claimed in the Republic,[86] where Sokrates declares, that each of the three souls combined in the individual man (the rational or philosophical, in the head--the passionate or ambitious, between the neck and the diaphragm--and the appetitive, below the diaphragm) has its special pleasures; that each prefers its own; but that the judgment of the philosophical man must be regarded as paramount over the other two.
[87] Comparing this demonstration in the Republic with the unsupported inference here noted in the Leges--we perceive the contrast of the oracular and ethical character of the latter, with the intellectual and dialectic character of the former.
[Footnote 84: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 C.] [Footnote 85: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 C.] [Footnote 86: Plato, Repub.
ix.
pp.
580 E-583 A.]
[Footnote 87: Plato, Repub.
ix.
p. 583 A.
[Greek: A)na/gkê a(\ o( philo/sopho/s te kai\ o( philolo/gos e)painei=, a)lêthe/stata ei)=nai .
.
.
ku/rios gou=n e)paine/tês ô)\n e)painei= to\n e(autou= bi/on o( phro/nimos.]]
Again, here in the Leges, the Athenian puts it to his two companions, Whether the unjust man, assuming him to possess every imaginable endowment and advantage in life, will not live, nevertheless, both dishonourably and miserably?
They admit that he will live dishonourably: they deny that he will live miserably.
[88] The Athenian replies by reasserting emphatically his own opinion, without any attempt to prove it.
Now in the Gorgias, the same issue is raised between Sokrates and Polus: Sokrates refutes his opponent by a dialectic argument, showing that if the first of the two doctrines (the living dishonourably--[Greek: ai)schrô=s]) be granted, the second (the living miserably--[Greek: kakô=s]) cannot be consistently denied.
[89] The dialectic of Sokrates is indeed more ingenious than conclusive: but still it _is_ dialectic--and thus stands contrasted with the oracular emphasis which is substituted for it in Leges.
[Footnote 88: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 A.]
[Footnote 89: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
474 C, 478 E.] [Side-note: Doctrine in Leges about Pleasure and Good--approximates more nearly to the Protagoras than to Gorgias and Philêbus.]
Farthermore, the distinction between Pleasure and Good, in the language of the Athenian speaker in the Leges, approximates more nearly to the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras, than to his doctrine in the Gorgias, Philêbus, and Republic.
The Athenian proclaims that he is dealing with men, and not with Gods, and that he must therefore recognise the nature of man, with its fundamental characteristics: that no man will willingly do anything from which he does not anticipate more pleasure than pain: that every man desires the maximum of pleasure and the minimum of pain, and desires nothing else: that there neither is nor can be any Good, apart from Pleasure or superior to Pleasure: that to insist upon a man being just, if you believe that he will obtain more pleasure or less pain from an unjust mode of life, is absurd and inconsistent: that the doctrine which declares the life of pleasure and the life of justice to lead in two distinct paths, is a heresy deserving not only censure but punishment.
[90] Plato here enunciates, as distinctly as Epikurus did after him, that Pleasures and Pains must be regulated (here regulated by the lawgiver), so that each man may attain the maximum of the former with the minimum of the latter: and that Good, apart from maximum of pleasure or minimum of pain accruing to the agent himself,[91] cannot be made consistent with the nature or aspirations of man.
[Footnote 90: Plato, Legg.
ii.
pp.
662 C-D-E, 663 B.
In v. pp.
732 E to 734, the Athenian speaker delivers [Greek: ta\ a)nthrô/pina] of the general preface or proëm to his Laws, after having previously delivered [Greek: ta\ thei=a] (v. pp.
727-732).
[Greek: Ta\ thei=a].
These are precepts respecting piety to the Gods, and behaviour to parents, strangers, suppliants; and respecting the duty of rendering due honour, first to the mind, next to the body--of maintaining both the one and the other in a sound and honourable condition.
Repeated exhortation is given to obey the enactments whereby the lawgiver regulates pleasures and pains: the precepts are also enforced by insisting on the suffering which will accrue to the agent if they be neglected.
We also read (what is said also in Gorgias) that the [Greek: di/kê kakourgi/as megi/stê] is [Greek: to\ o(moiou=sthai kakoi=s a)ndra/sin] (p. 728 B).
[Greek: Ta\ a)nthrô/pina], which follow [Greek: ta\ thei=a], indicate the essential conditions of human character which limit and determine the application of such precepts to man.
To love pleasure--to hate pain--are the paramount and indefeasible attributes of man; but they admit of being regulated, and they ought to be regulated by wisdom--the [Greek: metrêtikê\ te/chnê]--insisted on by Sokrates in the Protagoras (p. 356 E).
Compare Legg.
i. p. 636 E, ii.
p. 653 A.]
[Footnote 91: It is among the tests of a well-disciplined army (according to Xenophon, Cyropæd.
i.
6, 26) [Greek: o(po/te to\ pei/thesthai au)toi=s ê(/dion ei)/ê tou= a)peithei=n.]]
[Side-note: Comparison of Leges with Republic and Gorgias.]
There is another point too in which the Athenian speaker here recedes from the lofty pretensions of Sokrates in the Republic and the Gorgias.
In the second Book of the Republic, we saw Glaukon and Adeimantus challenge Sokrates to prove that justice, apart from all its natural consequences, will suffice _per se_ to make the just man happy;[92] _per se_, that is, even though all the society misconceive his character, and render no justice to him, but heap upon him nothing except obloquy and persecution.
If (Glaukon urges) you can only recommend justice when taken in conjunction with the requiting esteem and reciprocating justice from others towards the just agent, this is no recommendation of justice at all.
Your argument implies a tacit admission, that it will be better still if he can pass himself off as just in the opinion of others, without really being just himself: and you must be understood as recommending to him this latter course--if he can do it successfully.
Sokrates accepts the challenge, and professes to demonstrate the thesis tendered to him: which is in substance the cardinal dogma afterwards espoused by the Stoics.
I have endeavoured to show (in a former chapter[93]), that his demonstration is altogether unsuccessful: and when we turn to the Treatise De Legibus, we shall see that the Athenian speaker recedes from the doctrine altogether: confining himself to the defence of justice _with_ its requiting and reciprocating consequences, not _without_ them.
The just man, as the Athenian speaker conceives him, is one who performs his obligations towards others, and towards whom others perform their obligations also: he is one who obtains from others that just dealing and that esteem which is his due: and when so conceived, his existence is one of pleasure and happiness.
[94] This is, in substance, the Epikurean doctrine substituted for the Stoic.
It is that which Glaukon and Adeimantus in the Republic deprecate as unworthy disparagement of justice; and which they adjure Sokrates, by his attachment to justice, to stand up and repel.
[95] Now even this, the Epikurean doctrine, is true only with certain qualifications: since there are various other conditions essential to happiness, over and above the ethical conditions.
Still it is not so utterly at variance with the truth as the doctrine which Sokrates undertakes to prove, but never does prove, in the Republic.
[Footnote 92: Plato, Republic, ii.
pp.
359-367.]
[Footnote 93: See above, chap.
xxviii.
p. 150,** seq.]
[Footnote 94: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 A.]
[Footnote 95: Plato, Republ.
ii.
p. 368 B.
[Greek: de/doika ga\r mê\ ou)d' o(/sion ê)=| parageno/menon dikaiosu/nê| kakêgoroume/nê| mê\ boêthei=n.]]
[Side-note: Plato here mistrusts the goodness of his own proof.
He falls back upon useful fiction.]
The last point which I shall here remark in this portion of the Treatise De Legibus is, the sort of mistrust manifested by Plato of the completeness of his own proof.
Notwithstanding the vehement phrases in which the Athenian speaker proclaims his internal persuasion of the truth of his doctrine,** while acknowledging at the same time that not only his two companions, but most other persons also, took the opposite view[96]--he finds it convenient to reinforce the demonstration of the expositor by the omnipotent infallibility of the lawgiver.
He descends from the region of established truth to that of useful fiction.
"Even if the doctrine (that the pleasurable, the just, the good, and the honourable, are indissoluble) were not true, the lawgiver ought to adopt it as an useful fiction for youth, effective towards inducing them to behave justly without compulsion.
The law giver can obtain belief for any fiction which he pleases to circulate, as may be seen by the implicit belief obtained for the Theban mythe about the dragon's teeth, and a thousand other mythes equally difficult of credence.
He must proclaim the doctrine as an imperative article of faith; carefully providing that it shall be perpetually recited, by one and all his citizens, in the public hymns, narratives, and discourses, without any voice being heard to call it in question.
"[97] [Footnote 96: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 662 B.]
[Footnote 97: Plato, Legg.
ii.
p. 663 D. [Greek: e)p' a)gathô=| pseu/desthai pro\s tou\s ne/ous], &c. Also 664 A.
So, in the Bacchæ of Euripides (332), the two old men, Kadmus and Teiresias, after vainly attempting to inculcate upon Pentheus the belief in and the worship of Dionysus, at last appeal to his prudence, and admonish him of the danger of unbelief:-[Greek: kei\ mê\ ga/r e)stin o( theo\s ou(=tos, ô(s su\ phê/s, para\ soi\ lege/sthô, kai\ katapseu/dou kalô=s ô(s e)/sti, Seme/lê th' i(/na dokê=| theo\n tekei=n, ê(mi=n te timê\ A)ktai/ônos a)/thlion mo/ron?
.
.
.
o(\ mê\ pathê=|s su/.]]
[Side-note: Deliberate ethical fiction employed as means of governing.]
Here is a second attempt on the part of Plato, in addition to that which we have seen in the Republic,[98] to employ deliberate ethical fiction as a means of governing his citizens: first to implant and accredit it--next to prescribe its incessant iteration by all the citizens in the choric ceremonies--lastly to consecrate it, and to forbid all questioners or opponents: all application of the Sokratic Elenchus to test it.
In this treatise he speaks of the task as easier to the lawgiver than he had described it to be in his Republic: in which latter we found him regarding a new article of faith as difficult to implant, but as easy to uphold if once it be implanted; while in the Treatise De Legibus both processes are treated as alike achievable and certain.
The conception of dogmatic omnipotence had become stronger in Plato's mind during the interval between the two treatises.
Intending to postulate for himself the complete regulation not merely of the actions, but also of the thoughts and feelings of his citizens--intending moreover to exclude free or insubordinate intellects--he naturally looks upon all as docile recipients of any faith which he thinks it right to preach.
When he appeals, however, as proofs of the facility of his plan, to the analogy of the numerous mythes received with implicit faith throughout the world around him--we see how low an estimate he formed of the process whereby beliefs are generated in the human mind, and of their evidentiary value as certifying the truth of what is believed.
People believed what was told them at first by some imposing authority, and transmitted the belief to their successors, even without the extraneous support of inquisitorial restrictions such as the Platonic lawgiver throws round the Magnêtic community in the Leges.
It is in reference to such self-supporting beliefs that Sokrates stands forth, in the earlier Platonic compositions, as an enquirer into the reasons on which they rested--a task useful as well as unpleasant to those whom he questioned--attracting unpopularity as well as reputation to himself.
Plato had then keenly felt the inestimable value of this Elenchus or examining function personified in his master; but in the Treatise De Legibus the master has no place, and the function is severely proscribed.
Plato has come round to the dogmatic pole, extolling the virtue of passive recipient minds who have no other sentiment than that which the lawgiver issues to them.
Yet while he postulates in his own city the infallible authority of the lawgiver, and enforces it by penalties, as final and all-sufficient to determine the ethical beliefs of all the Platonic citizens--we shall find in a subsequent book of this Treatise that he denounces and punishes those who generalise this very postulate; and who declare the various ethical beliefs, actually existing in communities of men, to have been planted each by some human authority--not to have sprung from any unseen oracle called Nature.
[99] [Footnote 98: Plato, Republic, iii.
p. 414; v. p. 459 D.] [Footnote 99: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
889-890.]
[Side-note: Importance of music and chorus as an engine of teaching for Plato.
Views of Xenophon and Aristotle compared.]
Such is the ethical doctrine which Plato proclaims in the Leges, and which he directs to be sung by each Chorus among the three (boys, men, elders), with appropriate music and dancing.
It is on the constancy, strictness, and sameness of these choric and musical influences, that he relies for the emotional training of youth.
If the musical training be either intermitted or allowed to vary from the orthodox canon--if the theatrical exhibitions be regulated by the taste of the general audience, and not by the judgment of a few discerning censors--the worst consequences will arise: the character of the citizens will degenerate, and the institutions of his city will have no foundation to rest upon.
[100] The important effects of music, as an instrument in the hands of the lawgiver for regulating the emotions of the citizens, and especially for inspiring a given emotional character to youth--are among the characteristic features of Plato's point of view, common to both the Republic and the Laws.
There is little trace of this point of view either in Xenophon or in Isokrates; but Aristotle embraces it to a considerable extent.
It grew out of the practice and tradition of the Grecian cities, in most of which the literary teaching of youth was imparted by making them read, learn, recite, or chaunt the works of various poets; while the use of the lyre was also taught, together with regulated movements in the dance.
The powerful ethical effect of musical teaching (even when confined to the simplest choric psalmody and dance), enforced by perpetual drill both of boys and men, upon the unlettered Arcadians--may be seen recognised even by a practical politician like Polybius,[101] who considers it indispensable for the softening of violent and sanguinary tempers: the diversity of the effect, according to the different modes of music employed, is noted by Aristotle,[102] and was indeed matter of common repute.
Plato, as lawgiver, postulates poetry and music of his own dictation.
He relies upon constant supplies of this wholesome nutriment, for generating in the youth such emotional dispositions and habits as will be in harmony, both with the doctrines which he preaches, and with the laws which he intends to impose upon them as adults.
Here (as in Republic and Timæus) he proclaims that the perfection of character consists in willing obedience or harmonious adjustment of the pleasures and pains, the desires and aversions, to the paramount authority of reason or wisdom--or to the rational conviction of each individual as to what is good and honourable.
If, instead of obedience and harmony, there be discord--if the individual, though rationally convinced that a proceeding is just and honourable, nevertheless hates it--or if, while convinced that a proceeding is unjust and dishonourable, he nevertheless loves it--such discord is the worst state of stupidity or mental incompetence.
[103] We must recollect that (according to the postulate of Treatise De Legibus) the rational convictions of each individual, respecting what is just and honourable, are assumed to be accepted implicitly from the lawgiver, and never called in question by any one.
There exists therefore only one individual reason in the community--that of the lawgiver, or Plato himself.
[Footnote 100: Plato, Republ.
iv.
p. 424 C-D; Legg.
iii.
pp.
700-701.]
[Footnote 101: Polybius, iv.
pp.
20-21, about the rude Arcadians of Kynætha.
He ascribes to this simple choric practice the same effect which Ovid ascribes to "ingenuæ artes," or elegant literature generally:-Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.
See the remarkable contention between Æschylus and Euripides in Aristophan.
Ran.
876 seq., about the function and comparative excellence of poets (also Nubes, 955).
Aristophanes, comparing Æschylus with Euripides, denounces music as having degenerated, and poetry as having been corrupted, at Athens.
So far he agrees with Plato; but he ascribes this corruption in a great degree to the conversation of Euripides with Sokrates (Ranæ, 1487); and here Plato would not have gone along with him--at least not when Plato composed his earlier dialogues--though the [Greek: ê)=thos] of the Treatise De Legibus is in harmony with this sentiment.
Polybius cites, with some displeasure, the remark of the historian Ephorus, who asserted that musical teaching was introduced among men for purposes of cheating and mystification--[Greek: e)p' a)pa/tê| kai\ goêtei/a| pareiskê=chthai toi=s a)nthrô/pois, ou)damô=s a(rmo/zonta lo/gon au)tô=| r(i/psas] (iv.
20).
Polybius considers this an unbecoming criticism.]
[Footnote 102: Aristotle, Polit.
viii.
c. 4-5-7, p. 1340, a.
10, 1341, a.
15, 1342, a.
30.
We see by these chapters how much the subject was discussed in his day.
The ethical and emotional effects conveyed by the sense of hearing, and distinguishing it from the other senses, are noticed in the Problemata of Aristotle, xix.
27-29, pp.
919-920.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 689 A.
[Greek: ê( megi/stê a)mathi/a .
.
.
o(/tan tô=| ti do/xê| kalo\n ê)\ a)gatho\n ei)=nai, mê\ philê=| tou=to a)lla\ misê=|, to\ de\ ponêro\n kai\ a)/dikon dokou=n ei)=nai philê=| te kai\ a)spa/zêtai; tau/tên tê\n diaphôni/an lu/pês te kai\ ê(donê=s pro\s tê\n kata\ lo/gon do/xan, a(mathi/an phêmi\ ei)=nai tê\n e)scha/tên.]
Compare p. 688 A.]
[Side-note: Historical retrospect as to the growth of cities--Frequent destruction of established communities, with only a small remnant left.]
Besides all the ethical prefatory matter, above noticed, Plato gives us also some historical and social prefatory matter, not essential to his constructive scheme (which after all takes its start partly from theoretical principles laid down by himself, partly from a supposed opportunity of applying those principles in the foundation of a new colony), but tending to illustrate the growth of political society, and the abuses into which it naturally tends to lapse.
There existed in his time a great variety of distinct communities: some in the simplest, most patriarchal, Cyclopian condition, nothing more than families--some highly advanced in civilization, with its accompanying good and evil--some in each intermediate stage between these two extremes.--The human race (Plato supposes) has perhaps had no beginning, and will have no end.
At any rate it has existed from an indefinite antiquity, subject to periodical crises, destructive kosmical outbursts, deluges, epidemic distempers, &c.[104] A deluge, when it occurs, sweeps away all the existing communities with their property, arts, instruments, &c., leaving only a small remnant, who, finding shelter on the top of some high mountain not covered with water, preserve only their lives.
Society, he thinks, has gone through a countless number of these cycles.
[105] At the end of each, when the deluge recedes, each associated remnant has to begin its development anew, from the rudest and poorest condition.
Each little family or sept exists at first separately, with a patriarch whom all implicitly obey, and peculiar customs of its own.
Several of these septs gradually coalesce together into one community, choosing one or a few lawgivers to adjust and modify their respective customs into harmonious order, and submitting implicitly to the authority of such chosen few.
[106] By successive coalitions of this kind, operated in a vast length of time,[107] large cities are gradually formed on the plain and on the seaboard.
Property and public force is again accumulated; together with letters, arts, and all the muniments of life.
[Footnote 104: Plato, Legg.
iii.
pp.
677-678, vi.
p. 782 A.]
[Footnote 105: Plato, Legg.
p. 680 A.
[Greek: toi=s e)n tou/tô| _tô=| me/rei tê=s perio/dou_ gegono/sin], &c.] [Footnote 106: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 681 C-D.] [Footnote 107: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 683 A.
[Greek: e)n chro/nou tino\s mê/kesin a)ple/tois.]]
[Side-note: Historical or legendary retrospect--The Trojan war--The return of the Herakleids.]
Such is the idea which Plato here puts forth of the natural genesis and development of human society.
Having thus arrived at the formation of considerable cities with powerful military armaments, he carries us into the midst of Hellenic legend--the Trojan War, the hostile reception which the victorious heroes found on their return to Greece after the siege, the Return of the Herakleids to Peloponnesus, and the establishment of the three Herakleid brethren, Têmenus, Kresphontês, Aristodêmus, as kings of Argos, Messênê, and Sparta.
The triple Herakleid kingdom was originally founded (he affirms) as a mode of uniting and consolidating the force of Hellas against the Asiatics, who were eager to avenge the capture of Troy.
It received strong promises of permanence, both from prophets and from the Delphian oracle.
[108] But these hopes were frustrated by misconduct on the part of the kings of Argos and Messênê: who, being youths destitute of presiding reason, and without external checks, obeyed the impulse of unmeasured ambition, oppressed their subjects, and broke down their own power.
[Footnote 108: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p.
685-686.]
[Side-note: Difficulties of government--Conflicts about command--Seven distinct titles to command exist among mankind, all equally natural, and liable to conflict.]
To conduct a political community well is difficult; for there are inherent causes of discord and sedition which can only be neutralised in their effects, but can never be eradicated.
Among the foremost of these inherent causes, Plato numbers the many distinct and conflicting titles to obedience which are found among mankind, all co-existent and co-ordinate.
There are seven such titles, all founded in the nature of man and the essential conditions of society:[109]--1.
Parents over children.
2.
Men of high birth and breed (such as the Herakleids at Sparta) over men of low birth.
3.
Old over young.
4.
Masters over slaves.
5.
The stronger man over the weaker.
6.
The wiser man over the man destitute of wisdom.
7.
The fortunate man, who enjoys the favour of the Gods (one case of this is indicated by drawing of the best lot), over the less fortunate man (who draws an inferior lot).
[Footnote 109: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 690 A-D. [Greek: _a)xiô/mata_ tou= te a)/rchein kai\ a)/rchesthai], &c. .
.
.
[Greek: O(/sa e)sti\ pro\s a)/rchontas a)xiô/mata kai\ o(/ti pephuko/ta pro\s a)llêla e)nanti/ôs.]]
Of these seven titles to command, coexisting, distinct, and conflicting with each other, Plato pronounces the sixth--that of superior reason and wisdom--to be the greatest, preferable to all the rest, in his judgment: though he admits the fifth--that of superior force to be the most extensively prevalent in the actual world.
[110] [Footnote 110: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 690 C. This enumeration by Plato of seven distinct and conflicting [Greek: a)xiô/mata tou= a)/rchein kai\ a)/rchesthai], deserves notice in many ways.
All the seven are _natural_: nature is considered as including multifarious and conflicting titles (compare Xenophon, Memorab.
ii.
6, 21), and therefore as not furnishing in itself any justification or ground of preference for one above the rest.
The [Greek: a)xi/ôma] of superior force is just as _natural_ as the [Greek: a)xi/ôma] of superior wisdom, though Plato himself pronounces the latter to be the greatest; that is--greatest, not [Greek: phu/sei] but [Greek: no/mô|] or [Greek: te/chnê|], according to his own rational and deliberate estimation.
Plato is not uniform in this view, for he uses elsewhere the phrases [Greek: phu/sei] and [Greek: kata\ phu/sin] as if they specially and exclusively belonged to that which he approves, and furnished a justification for it (see Legg.
x. pp.
889-890, besides the Republic and the Gorgias).
Again the lot, or the process of sortition, is here described as carrying with it both the preference of the Gods and the principles of justice ([Greek: to\ dikaio/taton ei)=nai/ phamen]).
The Gods determine upon whom the lot should fall--compare Homer, Iliad, vii.
179.
This is a remarkable view of the lot, and represents a feeling much diffused among the ancient democracies.
The relation of master and slave counts, in Plato's view, among the natural relations, with its consequent rights and obligations.
The force of [Greek: eu)tuchi/a], as a title to command, is illustrated in the speech addressed by Alkibiades to the Athenian assembly.
Thucyd.
vi.
16-17: he allows it even in his competitor Nikias--[Greek: a)ll' e(/ôs te e)/ti a)kma/zô met' au)tê=s kai\ o( Niki/as eu)tuchê\s dokei= ei)=nai, a)pochrê/sasthe tê=| e(kate/rou ê(mô=n ô)pheli/a.]
Compare also the language of Nikias himself in his own last speech under the extreme distress of the Athenian army in Sicily, Thucyd.
vii.
77.
In the Politikus (p. 293 and elsewhere) Plato admits no [Greek: a)xi/ôma tou= a)/rchein] as genuine or justifiable, except Science, Art, superior wisdom, in one or a few Artists of governing; the same in Republic, v. p. 474 C, respecting what he there calls [Greek: philosophi/a].]
[Side-note: Imprudence of founding government upon any one of these titles separately--Governments of Argos and Messênê ruined by the single principle--Sparta avoided it.]
Plato thinks it imprudent to found the government of society upon any one of these seven titles singly and separately.
He requires that each one of them shall be checked and modified by the conjoint operation of others.
Messênê and Argos were depraved and ruined by the single principle: while Sparta was preserved and exalted by a mixture of different elements.
The kings of Argos and Messênê, irrational youths with nothing to restrain them (except oaths, which they despised), employed their power to abuse and mischief.
Such was the consequence of trusting to the exclusive title of high breed, embodied in one individual person.
But Apollo and Lykurgus provided better for Sparta.
They softened regal insolence by establishing the double line of co-ordinate kings: they introduced the title of old age, along with that of high breed, by founding the Senate of twenty-eight elders: they farther introduced the title of sortition, or something near it, by nominating the annual Ephors.
The mixed government of Sparta was thus made to work for good, while the unmixed systems of Argos and Messênê both went wrong.
[111] Both the two latter states were in perpetual war with Sparta, so as to frustrate that purpose--union against Asiatics--with a view to which the triple Herakleid kingdom was originally erected in Peloponnesus.
Had each of these three kingdoms been temperately and moderately governed, like Sparta, so as to maintain unimpaired the projected triple union--the Persian invasions of Greece by Darius and Xerxes would never have taken place.
[112] [Footnote 111: Plato, Legg.
iii.
pp.
691-692.]
[Footnote 112: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 692 C-D.] [Side-note: Plato casts Hellenic legend into accordance with his own political theories.]
Such is the way in which Plato casts the legendary event, called the Return of the Herakleids, into accordance with a political theory of his own.
That event, in his view, afforded the means of uniting Hellas internally, and of presenting such a defensive combination as would have deterred all invasions from Asia, if only the proper principles of legislation and government had been understood and applied.
The lesson to be derived from this failure is, that we ought not to concentrate great authority in one hand; and that we ought to blend together several principles of authority, instead of resorting to the exclusive action of one alone.
[113] This lesson deserves attention, as a portion of political theory; but I feel convinced that neither Herodotus nor Thucydides would have concurred in Plato's historical views.
Neither of them would have admitted the disunion between Sparta, Argos, and Messênê as a main cause of the Persian invasion of Greece.
[Footnote 113: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 693 A.
[Greek: ô(s a)/ra ou) dei= mega/las a)rcha\s ou)d' au)= a)mi/ktous nomothetei=n].
Compare pp.
685-686.
Plato here affirms not only that Messênê and Argos were and had been constantly at war with Sparta, but that they were so at the time of the Persian invasion of Greece--and that Messênê thus hindered the Spartans from assisting the Athenians at Marathon, pp.
692 E, 698 E. His statement that Argos was at least neutral, if not treacherous and philo-Persian, during the invasion of Xerxes, is coincident with Herodotus; but not so his statement that the Lacedæmonians were kept back by the war against Messênê.
Indeed at that time the Messenians had no separate domicile or independent station in Peloponnesus.
They had been conquered by Sparta long before, and their descendants in the same territory were Helots (Thucyd.
i.
101).
It is true that there always existed struggling remnants of expatriated Messenians, who maintained the name, and whom Athens protected and favoured during the Peloponnesian war; but there was no independent Messenian government in Peloponnesus until the foundation of the city of Messênê by Epaminondas in 369 B.C., two years after the battle of Leuktra: there had never been any _city_ of that name in the Peloponnesus before.
Now Plato wrote his Treatise De Legibus _after_ the foundation of this city of Messênê and the re-establishment of an independent Messenian community in Peloponnesus.
The new city was peopled partly by returning Messenian exiles, partly by enfranchised Helots.
It is probable enough that both these classes might be disposed to disguise (as far as they could) the past period of servitude--and to represent the Messenian name and community as never having been wholly effaced in the neighbourhood of Ithômê, though always struggling against an oppressive neighbour.
Traditions of this tenor would become current, and Plato has adopted one of them in his historical sketch.
If we look back to what Plato says about the Kretan prophet Epimenides, we shall see that here too he must have followed erroneous traditions.
He makes Epimenides contemporary with the invasion of Greece by Darius, instead of contemporary with the Kylonian sacrilege (B.C.
612).
When a prophet had got reputation, a great many new prophecies were fathered upon him (as upon Bakis and Musæus) with very little care about chronological consistency.
Plato may well have been misled by one of these fictions (Legg.
i. p. 642, iii.
p.
677).]
[Side-note: Persia and Athens compared--Excess of despotism.
Excess of liberty.]
A lesson--analogous, though not exactly the same--is derived by Plato from the comparison of the Persian with the Athenian government.
Persia presents an excess of despotism: Athens an excess of liberty.
There are two distinct primordial forms of government--_mother-polities_, Plato calls them--out of which all existing governments may be said to have been generated or diversified.
One of these is monarchy, of which the Persians manifest the extreme: the other is democracy, of which Athens manifests the extreme.
Both extremes are mischievous.
The wise law-giver must blend and combine the two together in proper proportion.
Without such combination, he cannot attain good government, with its three indispensable constituents--freedom, intelligence or temperance, and mutual attachment among the citizens.
[114] [Footnote 114: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 693 B-C. Aristotle (Politic.
ii.
6, pp.
1265-1266) alludes to this portion of Plato's doctrine, and approves what is said about the combination of diverse political elements; but he does not approve the doctrine which declares the two "mother-forms" of government to be extreme despotism or extreme democracy.
He says that these two are either no governments at all, or the very worst of governments.
Plato gives the same opinion about them, yet he thinks it convenient to make them the starting-points of his theory.
The objection made by Aristotle appears to be dictated by a sentiment which often influences his theories--[Greek: To\ te/leion pro/tero/n e)sti tê=| phu/sei tou= a)telou=s].
The perfect is prior in order of nature to the imperfect.
He does not choose to take his theoretical point of departure from the worst or most imperfect.]
[Side-note: Cyrus and Darius--Bad training of sons of kings.]
The Persians, according to Plato, at the time when they made their conquests under Cyrus, were not despotically governed, but enjoyed a fair measure of freedom under a brave and patriotic military chief, who kept the people together in mutual attachment.
But Cyrus, though a great military chief, had neither received a good training himself, nor knew how to secure it for his own sons.
[115] He left them to be educated by the women in the harem, where they were brought up with unmeasured indulgence, acquiring nothing but habits of insolence and caprice.
Kambyses became a despot; and after committing great enormities, was ultimately deprived of empire by Smerdis and the Medians.
Darius, not a born prince, but an usurper, renovated the Persian empire, and ruled it with as much ability and moderation as Cyrus.
But he made the same mistake as Cyrus, in educating his sons in the harem.
His son Xerxes became thoroughly corrupted, and ruled despotically.
The same has been the case with all the successive kings, all brought up as destined for the sceptre, and morally ruined by a wretched education.
The Persian government has been nothing but a despotism ever since Darius.
[116] All freedom of action or speech has been extinguished, and the mutual attachment among the subjects exists no more.
[117] [Footnote 115: Plato, Legg.
p. 694 C. [Greek: Manteu/omai peri/ ge Ku/rou ta\ me\n a)/ll' au)to\n stratêgo/n te a)gatho\n ei)=nai kai\ philo/polin, paidei/as de\ o)rthê=s ou)ch ê(=phthai to\ para/pan.]
I think it very probable that these words are intended to record Plato's dissent from the [Greek: Ku/rou Paidei/a] of Xenophon.
Aulus Gellius (xiv.
3) had read that Xenophon composed the Cyropædia in opposition to the two first books of the Platonic Republic, and that between Xenophon and Plato there existed a grudge (_simultas_) or rivalry; so also Athenæus, xi.
p. 504.
It is possible that this may have been the case but no evidence is produced to prove it.
Both of them selected Sokrates as the subject of their descriptions; in so far there may have been a literary competition between them: and various critics seem to have presumed that there could not be _æmulatio_ without _simultas_.
Each of them composed a Symposion for the purpose of exhibiting Sokrates in his joyous moments.
The differences between the two handlings are interesting to notice; but the evidences which some authors produce, to show that Xenophon in his Symposion alluded to the Symposion of Plato, are altogether uncertain.
See the Preface of Schneider to his edition of the Xenophontic Symposion, and his extract from Cornarius.]
[Footnote 116: Plato, Legg.
iii.
pp.
694-695.]
[Footnote 117: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 697 D.] [Side-note: Changes for the worse in government of Athens, after the Persian invasion of Greece.]
While the Persian government thus exhibits despotism in excess, that of Athens exhibits the contrary mischief--liberty in excess.
This has been the growth of the time subsequent to the Persian invasion.
At the time when that invasion occurred, the government of Athens was an ancient constitution with a quadruple scale of property, according to which scale political privilege and title to office were graduated: while the citizens generally were then far more reverential to authority, and obedient to the laws, than they are now.
Moreover, the invasion itself, being dangerous and terrific in the extreme, was enough to make them obedient and united among themselves, for their own personal safety.
[118] But after the invasion had been repelled, the government became altered.
The people acquired a great increase of political power, assumed habits of independence and self-judgment, and became less reverential both to the magistrates and to the laws.
[Footnote 118: Plato, Legg.
iii.
pp.
698-699.]
[Side-note: This change began in music, and the poets introduced new modes of composition--they appealed to the sentiment of the people, and corrupted them.]
The first department in which this change was wrought at Athens was the department of music: from whence it gradually extended itself to the general habits of the people.
Before the invasion, Music had been distributed, according to ancient practice and under the sanction of ancient authority, under four fixed categories--Hymns, Dirges, Pæans, Dithyrambs.
[119] The ancient canons in regard to each were strictly enforced: the musical exhibitions were superintended, and the prizes adjudged by a few highly-trained elders: while the general body of citizens listened in respectful silence, without uttering a word of acclamation, or even conceiving themselves competent to judge what they heard.
Any manifestations on their part were punished by blows from the sticks of the attendants.
[120] But this docile submission of the Athenians to authority became gradually overthrown, after the repulse of the Persians, first in the theatre, next throughout all social and political life.
The originators of this corruption were the poets: men indeed of poetical genius, but ignorant of the ethical purpose which their compositions ought to aim at, as well as of the rightful canons by which they ought to be guided and limited.
These poets, looking to the pleasure of the audience as their true and only standard, exhibited pieces in which all the old musical distinctions were confounded together--hymns with dirges, the pæan with the dithyramb, and the flute with the harp.
To such irregular rhythm and melody, words equally irregular were adapted.
The poet submitted his compositions to the assembled audience, appealing to them as competent judges, and practically declaring them to be such.
The audience responded to the appeal.
Acclamation in the theatre was substituted for silence; and the judgment of the people became paramount instead of that pronounced by the enlightened few according to antecedent custom.
Hence the people--having once shaken off the reverence for authority, and learnt to exercise their own judgment, in the theatre[121]--began speedily to do the same on other matters also.
They fancied themselves wise enough to decide everything for themselves, and contracted a shameless disregard for the opinion of better and wiser men.
An excessive measure of freedom was established, tending in its ultimate consequences to an anarchical or Titanic nature: indifferent to magistrates, laws, parents, elders, covenants, oaths, and the Gods themselves.
[122] [Footnote 119: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 700 B.
[Greek: u(/mnoi--thrê=noi--paia=nes--dithu/rambos].]
[Footnote 120: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 700 C. [Greek: to\ de\ ku=ros tou/tôn gnô=nai/ te kai\ a(/ma gno/nta dika/sai, zêmiou=n te au)= to\n mê\ peitho/menon, ou) su/rigx ê)=n ou)de/ tines a)/mousoi boai\ plê/thous, _katha/per ta\ nu=n_, ou)d' au)= kro/toi e)pai/nous a)podido/ntes, a)lla\ toi=s me\n gegono/si peri\ pai/deusin dedogme/non a)kou/ein ê)=n au)toi=s meta\ sigê=s dia\ te/lous, paisi\ de\ kai\ paidagôgoi=s kai\ tô=| plei/stô| o)/chlô| r(a/bdou kosmou/sês ê( nouthe/têsis e)gi/gneto.]
The testimony here given by Plato respecting the practice of his own time is curious and deserves notice: respecting the practice of the times anterior to the Persian invasion he could have had no means of accurate knowledge.]
[Footnote 121: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 701 A.
[Greek: nu=n de\ ê)=rxe me\n ê(mi=n e)k mousikê=s ê( pa/ntôn ei)s pa/nta sophi/as do/xa kai\ paranomi/a, xunephe/speto de\ e)leutheri/a.]]
[Footnote 122: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 701 B.
[Greek: _E)phexê=s dê\ tau/tê|_ tê=| e)leutheri/a| ê( tou= mê\ e)the/lein toi=s a)/rchousi douleu/ein _gi/gnoit' a)/n_.]
The phrase here employed by Plato affirms inferential tendencies--not facts realised.
How much of the tendencies had passed into reality at Athens, he leaves to the imagination of his readers to supply.
It is curious to contrast the faithless and lawless character of Athens, here insinuated by Plato--with the oration of Demosthenes adv.
Leptinem (delivered B.C.
355, near upon the time when the Platonic Leges were composed), where the main argument which the orator brings to bear upon the Dikasts, emphatically and repeatedly, to induce them to reject the proposition of Leptines, is--[Greek: to\ tê=s po/leôs ê)=thos a)pseude\s kai\ chrêsto/n, ou) to\ lusitele/staton pro\s a)rgu/rion skopou=n, a)lla/ ti kai\ kalo\n pra=xai] (p. 461) .
.
.
[Greek: ou)d' o( plei=stos lo/gos e)/moige peri\ tê=s a)telei/as e)/stin, a)ll' u(pe\r tou= ponêro\n e)/thos ei)sa/gein to\n no/mon, kai\ toiou=ton di' ou)= pant' a)/pist' o(/sa o( dê=mos di/dôsin e)/stai], also pp.
500-507, and indeed throughout nearly the whole oration.
So also in the other discourses, not only of Demosthenes but of the other orators also--good faith, public and private, and respectful obedience to the laws, are constantly invoked as primary and imperative necessities.
Indeed, in order to find a contradiction to the picture here presented by Plato, of Athenian tendencies since the Persian war, we need not go farther than Plato himself.
We have only to read the Menexenus, wherein he professes to describe and panegyrise the achievements of Athens during that very period which he paints in such gloomy colours in the Leges--the period succeeding the Persian invasion.
Who is to believe that the people, upon whose virtue he pronounces these encomiums, had thrown off all reverence for good faith, obligation, and social authority?
As for the [Greek: Titanikê\ phu/sis], to which Plato represents the Athenians as approximating, the analogy is principally to be found in the person of the Titan Promêtheus, with his philanthropic disposition (see Plato, Menexenus, pp.
243 E, 244 E), and the beneficent suggestions which he imparted to mankind in the way of science and art (Æschyl.
Prom.
440-507--[Greek: Pa=sai te/chnai brotoi=sin e)k Promêthe/ôs]).]
[Side-note: Danger of changes in the national music--declared by Damon, the musical teacher.]
The opinion here expressed by Plato--that the political constitution of Athens was too democratical, and that the changes (effected by Perikles and others during the half century succeeding the Persian invasion) whereby it had been rendered more democratical, were mischievous--was held by him in common with a respectable and intelligent minority at Athens.
That minority had full opportunity of expressing their disapprobation--as we may see by the language of Plato himself; though he commends the Spartans for not allowing any such opportunity to dissenters at Sparta, and expressly prohibits any open expression of dissent in his own community.
But his assertion, that the deterioration at Athens was introduced and originated by an innovation in the established canon of music and poetry--is more peculiarly his own.
The general doctrine of the powerful revolutionising effect wrought by changes in the national music, towards subverting the political constitution, was adopted by him from the distinguished musical teacher Damon,[123] the contemporary and companion of Perikles.
The fear of such danger to the national institutions is said to have operated on the authorities at Sparta, when they forbade the musical innovations of the poet Timotheus, and destroyed the four new strings which he had just added to the established seven strings of his lyre.
[124] [Footnote 123: Plato, Republ.
iv.
p. 424 D.] [Footnote 124: Cicero, De Legib.
ii.
15; Pausanias, iii.
12.
Cicero agrees with Plato as to the mischievous tendency of changes in the national music.]
[Side-note: Plato's aversion to the tragic and comic poetry at Athens.]
Of this general doctrine, however, Plato makes a particular application in the passage now before us, which he would have found few Athenians, either oligarchical or democratical, to ratify.
What he really condemns is, the tragic and comic poetical representations at Athens, which began to acquire importance only after the Persian war, and continued to increase in importance for the next half century.
The greatest revolution which Grecian music and poetry ever underwent was that whereby Attic tragedy and comedy were first constituted:--built up by distinguished poets from combination and enlargement of the simpler pre-existent forms--out of the dithyrambic and phallic choruses.
[125] The first who imparted to tragedy its grand development and its special novelty of character was Æschylus--a combatant at Marathon as well as one of the greatest among ancient poets: after him, Sophokles carried improvement still further.
It is them that Plato probably means, when he speaks of the authors of this revolution as men of true poetical genius, but ignorant of the lawful purpose of the Muse--as authors who did not recognise any rightful canon of music, nor any end to be aimed at beyond the emotional satisfaction of a miscellaneous audience.
The abundance of dramatic poetry existing in Plato's time must have been prodigious (a few choice specimens only have descended to us):--while its variety of ingredients and its popularity outshone those four ancient and simple manifestations, which alone he will tolerate as legitimate.
He censures the innovations of Æschylus and Sophokles as a deplorable triumph of popular preference over rectitude of standard and purpose.
He tacitly assumes--what Aristotle certainly does not believe, and what, so far as I can see, there is no ground for believing--that the earlier audience were passive, showing no marks of favour or disfavour: and that the earlier poets had higher aims, adapting their compositions to the judgment of a wise few, and careless about giving satisfaction to the general audience.
This would be the practice in the Platonic city, but it never was the practice at Athens.
We may surely presume that Æschylus stood distinguished from his predecessors not by desiring popularity more, but by greater success in attaining it: and that he attained it partly from his superior genius, partly from increasing splendour in the means of exhibition at Athens.
The simpler early compositions had been adapted to the taste of the audience who heard them, and gave satisfaction for the time; until the loftier genius of Æschylus and the other great constructive dramatists was manifested.
[Footnote 125: Aristotle, Poetic.
c. 4. p. 1449 a.
The ethical repugnance expressed by Plato against the many-sided and deceptive spirit of tragic and comic compositions, is also expressed in the censure said to have been pronounced by Solon against Thespis, when the latter first produced his dramas (Plutarch, Solon, 29; Diog.
Laert.
i.
59).]
[Side-note: This aversion peculiar to himself, not shared either by oligarchical politicians, or by other philosophers.]
However Plato--while he tolerates no poetry except in so far as it produces ethical correction or regulation of the emotions, and blames as hurtful the poet who simply touches or kindles emotion--is in a peculiar manner averse to dramatic poetry, with its diversity of assumed characters and its obligation of giving speech to different points of view.
His aversion had been exhibited before, both in the Republic and in the Gorgias:[126] but it reappears here in the Treatise De Legibus, with this aggravating feature--that the revolution in music and poetry is represented as generating cause of a deteriorated character and an ultra-democratical polity of Athens.
This (as I have before remarked) is a sentiment peculiar to Plato.
For undoubtedly, oligarchical politicians (such as Thucydides, Nikias, Kritias), who agreed with him in disliking the democracy, would never have thought of ascribing what they disliked to such a cause as alteration in the Athenian music and poetry.
They would much more have agreed with Aristotle,[127] when he attributes the important change both in the character and polity of the Athenian people after the Persian invasion, to the events of that invasion itself--to the heroic and universal efforts made by the citizens, on shipboard as well as on land, against the invading host--and to the necessity for continuing those efforts by organising the confederacy of Delos.
Hence arose a new spirit of self-reliance and enterprise--or rather an intensification of what had already begun after the expulsion of Hippias and the reform by Kleisthenes--which rendered the previous constitutional forms too narrow to give satisfaction.
[128] The creation of new and grander forms of poetry may fairly be looked upon as one symptom of this energetic general outburst: but it is in no way a primary or causal fact, as Plato wishes us to believe.
Nor can Plato himself have supposed it to be so, at the time when he composed his Menexenus: wherein the events of the post-Xerxeian period are presented in a light very different from that in which he viewed them when he wrote his Leges--presented with glowing commendations on his countrymen.
[Footnote 126: Plato, Republ.
iii.
pp.
395-396, x. p. 605 B; Gorgias, p. 502 B; Legg.
iv.
p. 719 B. Aristotle takes a view of tragedy quite opposed to that of Plato: he considers it as calculated to purge or purify the emotions of fear, compassion, &c. (Aristot.
Poet.
c. 13.
Compare Politic.
viii.
7, 9).
Unfortunately the Poetica exist only as a fragment, so that his doctrine about [Greek: ka/tharsis] is only declared and not fully developed.
Rousseau (in his Lettre à d'Alembert Sur les Spectacles, p. 33 seq.)
impugns this doctrine of Aristotle, and condemns theatrical representations, partly with arguments similar to those of Plato, partly with others of his own.]
[Footnote 127: Aristotel.
Politic.
v. 4, p. 1304, a.
20; ii.
12, p. 1274, a.
12; viii.
6, 1340, a.
30.]
[Footnote 128: Herodot.
v.
78.]
[Side-note: Doctrines of Plato in this prefatory matter.]
The long ethical prefatory matter[129] which we have gone through, includes these among other doctrines--1.
That the life of justice, and the life of pleasure, are essentially coincident.
2.
That Reason, as declared by the lawgiver, ought to controul all our passions and emotions.
3.
That intoxication, under certain conditions, is an useful stimulus to elderly men.
4.
That the political constitution of society ought not to be founded upon one single principle of authority, but upon a combination of several.
5.
That the extreme of liberty, and the extreme of despotism, are both bad.
[130] [Footnote 129: What Aristotle calls [Greek: toi=s e)/xôthen lo/gois], in reference to the Republic of Plato (Aristotel.
Politic.
ii.
36, p. 1264, b.
39).]
[Footnote 130: Compare on this point Plato's Epistol.
viii.
pp.
354-355, where this same view is enforced.]
[Side-note: Compared with those of the Republic and of the Xenophontic Cyropædia.]
Of these five positions, the two first are coincident with the doctrines of the Republic: the third is not coincident compared with them, but indirectly in opposition to them: the fourth and fifth put Plato on a standing point quite different from that of the Republic, and different also from that of the Xenophontic Cyropædia.
In the Cyropædia, all government is strictly personal: the subjects both obey willingly, and are rendered comfortable because of the supreme and manifold excellence of one person--their chief, Cyrus--in every department of practical administration, civil as well as military.
In the Platonic Republic, the government is also personal: to this extent--that Plato provides neither political checks, nor magistrates, nor laws, nor judicature: but aims only at the perfect training of the Guardians, and the still more elaborate and philosophical training of those few chief or elder Guardians, who are to direct the rest.
He demands only a succession of these philosophers, corresponding to the regal Artist sketched in the Politikus: and he leaves all ulterior directions to them.
Upon their perfect dispositions and competence, all the weal or woe of the community depends.
All is personal government; but it is lodged in the hands of a few philosophers, assumed to be super-excellent, like the one chief in the Xenophontic Cyropædia.
When however we come to the Leges, we find that Plato ceases to presume upon such supreme personal excellence.
He drops it as something beyond the limit of human attainment, and as fit only for the golden or Saturnian age.
[131] He declares that power, without adequate restraints, is a privilege with which no man can be trusted.
[132] Nevertheless the magistrates must be vested with sufficient power: since excess of liberty is equally dangerous.
To steer between these two rocks,[133] you want not only a good despot but a sagacious lawgiver.
It is he who must construct a constitutional system, having regard to the various natural foundations of authority in the minds of the citizens.
He must provide fixed laws, magistrates, and a competent judicature: moreover, both the magistrates and the judicature must be servants of the law, and nothing beyond.
[134] The lawgiver must frame his laws with single-minded view, not to the happiness of any separate section of the city, but to that of the whole.
He must look to the virtue of the whole, in its most comprehensive sense, and to all good things, ranked in their triple subordination and their comparative value--that is, First, the good things belonging to the mind--Secondly, Those belonging to the body--Thirdly, Wealth and External acquisitions.
[135] [Footnote 131: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
713-714.]
[Footnote 132: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 687 E--iv.
p. 713 B, ix.
p. 875 C.]] [Footnote 133: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
710-711.]
[Footnote 134: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p. 715 C-D. [Greek: tou\s d' a)/rchontas legome/nous nu=n u(pêre/tas toi=s no/mois e)ka/lesa, ou)= ti kainotomi/as o)noma/tôn e(/neka, a)ll'], &c. It appears as if this phrase, calling "magistrates the servants or ministers of the law," was likely to be regarded as a harsh and novel metaphor.]
[Footnote 135: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
707 B, 714 B; iii.
p. 697 A.]
[Side-note: Constructive scheme--Plato's new point of view.]
We now enter upon this constructive effort of Plato's old age.
That a political constitution with fixed laws (he makes the Athenian say) and with magistrates acting merely as servants of the laws, is the only salvation for a city and its people--this is a truth which every man sees most distinctly in his old age, though when younger he was very dull in discerning it.
[136] Probably enough what we here read represents the change in Plato's own mind: the acquisition of a new point of view, which was not present to him when he composed his Republic and his Politikus.
[Footnote 136: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p. 715 E. [Greek: Ne/os me\n ga\r ô)\n pa=s a)/nthrôpos ta\ toiau=ta a)mblu/tata au)to\s o(ra=|, ge/rôn de\ o)xu/tata.]
Compare vii.
pp.
819 D-821 D, for marks of Plato's old age and newly acquired opinions.]
[Side-note: New Colony to be founded in Krete--its general conditions.]
Here the exposition assumes a definite shape.
The Kretan Kleinias apprises his Athenian companion, that the Knossians with other Kretans are about to establish a new colony on an unsettled point in Krete; and that himself with nine others are named commissioners for framing and applying the necessary regulations.
He invites the co-operation of the Athenian:[137] who accordingly sets himself to the task of suggesting such laws and measures as are best calculated to secure the march of the new Magnetic settlement towards the great objects defined in the preceding programme.
[Footnote 137: Plato, Legg.
iii.
p. 702 C.] The new city is to be about nine English miles from the sea.
The land round it is rough, poor, and without any timber for shipbuilding; but it is capable of producing all supplies absolutely indispensable, so that little need will be felt of importation from abroad.
The Athenian wishes that the site were farther from the sea.
Yet he considers the general conditions to be tolerably good; inasmuch as the city need not become commercial and maritime, and cannot have the means of acquiring much gold and silver--which is among the greatest evils that can befall a city, since it corrupts justice and goodness in the citizens.
[138] The settlers are all Greeks, from various towns of Krete and Peloponnesus.
This (remarks the Athenian) is on the whole better than if they came from one single city.
Though it may introduce some additional chance of discord, it will nevertheless render them more open-minded and persuadable for the reception of new institutions.
[139] [Footnote 138: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p.
705.]
[Footnote 139: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p.
708.]
[Side-note: The Athenian declares that he will not merely promulgate peremptory laws, but will recommend them to the citizens by prologues or hortatory discourses.]
The colonists being supposed to be assembled in their new domicile and ready for settlement, Plato, or his Athenian spokesman, addresses to them a solemn exhortation, inculcating piety towards the Gods, celestial and subterranean, as well as to the Dæmons and Heroes--and also reverence to parents.
[140] He then intimates that, though he does not intend to consult the settlers on the acceptance or rejection of laws, but assumes to himself the power of prescribing such laws as he thinks best for them--he nevertheless will not content himself with promulgating his mandates in a naked and peremptory way.
He will preface each law with a proëm or prologue (_i.e._ a string of preliminary recommendations): in order to predispose their minds favourably, and to obtain from them a willing obedience.
[141] He will employ not command only, but persuasion along with or antecedent to command: as the physician treats his patients when they are freemen, not as he sends his slaves to treat slave-patients, with a simple compulsory order.
[142] To begin with an introductory proëm or prelude, prior to the announcement of the positive law, is (he says) the natural course of proceeding.
It is essential to all artistic vocal performances: it is carefully studied and practised both by the rhetor and the musician.
[143] Yet in spite of this analogy, no lawgiver has ever yet been found to prefix proëms to his laws: every one has contented himself with issuing peremptory commands.
[144] Here then Plato undertakes to set the example of prefixing such prefatory introductions.
The nature of the case would prescribe that every law, every speech, every song, should have its suitable proëm: but such prolixity would be impolitic.
A discretion must be entrusted to the lawgiver, as it is to the orator and the musician.
Proëms or prologues must be confined to the great and important laws.
[145] [Footnote 140: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
716-718.]
[Footnote 141: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
718-719-723.]
[Footnote 142: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p. 720.
This is a curious indication respecting the medical profession and practice at Athens.]
[Footnote 143: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
722 D-723 D. [Greek: tô=| te r(ê/tori kai\ tô=| melô|dô=| kai\ tô=| nomothe/tê| to\ toiou=ton e(ka/stote e)pitrepte/on.]]
[Footnote 144: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p. 722 B-E.
The [Greek: prooi/mia dêmêgorika/] of Demosthenes are well known.]
[Footnote 145: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p. 723 C-D. About [Greek: ta\ tô=n no/môn prooi/mia], compare what Plato says about his communications with the younger Dionysius, shortly after his (Plato's) second arrival at Syracuse, Plato, Epistol.
iii.
p. 316 A.]
[Side-note: General character of these prologues--didactic or rhetorical homilies.]
Accordingly, from hence to the end of the Treatise De Legg., Plato proceeds upon the principle here laid down.
He either prefixes a prologue to each of his laws--or blends the law with its proëm--or gives what may be called a proëm without a law, that is a string of hortatory or comminatory precepts.
There are various points (he says) on which the lawgiver cannot propose any distinct and peremptory enactment, but must confine himself to emphatic censure[146] and declaration of opinion, with threats of displeasure on the part of the Gods: the rather as he cannot hope to accomplish his public objects, without the largest interference with private habits--nor without bringing his regulations to bear upon individual life, where positive law can hardly reach.
[147] The Platonic prologues are sometimes expositions of the reasons of the law--_i.
e._ of the dangers which it is intended to ward off, or the advantages to be secured by it.
But far more frequently, they are morsels of rhetoric--lectures, discourses, or homilies--addressed to the emotions and not to the reason, insisting on the ethical and religious point of view, and destined to operate with persuasive or intimidating effect upon an uninstructed multitude.
[148] [Footnote 146: Cicero (De Legg.
ii.
6) professes to follow Plato in this practice of prefixing proëms to his Laws.
He calls the proëm an encomium upon the law, which in most cases it is--"ut priusquam ipsam legem recitem, de ejus legis laude dicam".]
[Footnote 147: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 780 A.]
[Footnote 148: Plato, Legg.
iv.
p. 722 B.
[Greek: pro\s tou/tô| de\ ou)dei\s e)/oike dianoêthê=nai pô/pote tô=n nomothetô=n, ô(s e)xo\n duoi=n chrê=sthai pro\s ta\s nomothesi/as, peithoi= kai\ bi/a|, kath' o(/son oi(=o/n te e)pi\ to\n a)/peiron paidei/as o)/chlon tô=| e(te/rô| chrô=ntai mo/non.]]
[Side-note: Great value set by Plato himself upon these prologues.
They are to serve as type for all poets.
No one is allowed to contradict them.]
It seems that Plato took credit to himself for what he thought a beneficial innovation, in thus blending persuasive exhortation with compulsory command.
His assurance, that no Grecian lawgiver had ever done so before, is doubtless trustworthy:[149] though we may remark that the confusion of the two has been the general rule with Oriental lawgivers--the Hindoos, the Jews, the Mahommedan Arabs, &c. But with him the innovation serves a farther purpose.
He makes it the means of turning rhetoric to account; and of enlisting in his service, as lawgiver, not only all the rhetoric but all the poetry, in his community.
His Athenian speaker is so well satisfied with these prologues, that he considers them to possess the charm of a poetical work, and suspects them to have been dictated by inspiration from the Gods.
[150] He pronounces them the best and most suitable compositions for the teaching of youth, and therefore prescribes that teachers shall cause the youth to recite and learn them, instead of the poetical and rhetorical works usually employed.
He farther enjoins that his prologues shall serve as type and canon whereby all other poetical and rhetorical compositions shall be tried.
If there be any compositions in full harmony and analogy with this type, the teachers shall be compelled to learn them by heart, and teach them to pupils.
Any teacher refusing to do so shall be dismissed.
[151] Nor shall any poet be allowed to compose and publish works containing sentiments contradictory to the declaration of the lawgiver.
[152] [Footnote 149: The testimony of Plato shows that the [Greek: prooi/mia tê=s nomothesi/as] ascribed to Zaleukus and Charondas (Diodor.
xii.
12-20) are composed by authors later than his time, and probably in imitation of his [Greek: prooi/mia]: which indeed is probable enough on other grounds.
See Heyne, Opuscula, vol.
ii., Prolus i.
vi., De Zaleuci et Charondæ Legibus.
Cicero read the proëms ascribed to Zaleukus and Charondas as genuine (Legg.
ii.
6); so did Diodôrus, xii.
17-20; Stobæus, Serm.
xlii.]
[Footnote 150: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 811 C. [Greek: ou)k a)/neu tino\s e)pipnoi/as theô=n, e)/doxan d' ou)=n moi panta/pasi poiê/sei tini\ prosomoi/ôs ei)rê=sthai.]]
[Footnote 151: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 811 D-E.] [Footnote 152: Plato, Legg.
p. 811 E.] [Side-note: Contrast of Leges with Gorgias and Phædrus.]
As a contrast to this view of Plato in his later years, it is interesting to turn to that which he entertained in an earlier part of his life, in the Gorgias and the Phædrus, respecting rhetoric.
In the former dialogue, Gorgias is recognised as a master of the art of persuasion, especially as addressed to a numerous audience, and respecting ethical questions, What is just, and what is unjust?
Sokrates, on the contrary, pointedly distinguishes persuasion from teaching--discredits simple persuasion, without teaching, as merely deceptive--and contends that rhetorical discourse addressed to a multitude, upon such topics, can never convey any teaching.
[153] But in the Leges we find that the art of persuasion has risen greatly in Plato's estimation.
Whether it be a true art, or a mere unartistic knack, he now recognises its efficacy in modifying the dispositions of the uninstructed multitude, and announces himself to be the first lawgiver who will employ it systematically for that purpose.
He combines the seductions of the rhetor with the unpalatable severities of the lawgiver: the two distinct functions of Gorgias and his brother the physician Herodikus, when Gorgias accompanied his brother to visit suffering patients, and succeeded by force of rhetoric in overcoming their repugnance to the cutting and burning indispensable for cure.
[154] Again, in the Phædrus, Plato treats the art of persuasion, when applied at once to a mixed assemblage of persons, either by writing or discourse, as worthless and unavailing.
[155] He affirms that it makes no durable impression on the internal mind of the individuals: the same discourse will never suit all.
Individuals differ materially in their cast of mind; moreover, they differ in opinion upon ethical topics (just and unjust) more than upon any other.
Some men are open to persuasion by topics which will have no effect on others.
Accordingly, you must go through a laborious discrimination: first, you must discriminate generally the various classes of minds and the various classes of discourse--next, you must know to which classes of minds the individuals of the multitude before you belong.
You must then address to each mind the mode of persuasion specially adapted to it.
The dialectic philosopher is the only one who possesses the true art of persuasion.
Such was Plato's point of view in the Phædrus.
I need hardly point out how completely it is dropped in his Leges: wherein he pours persuasion into the ears of an indiscriminate multitude, through the common channel of a rhetorical lecture, considering it of such impressive efficacy as to justify the supposition of inspiration from the Gods.
[156] [Footnote 153: Plato, Gorgias, pp.
454-456.]
[Footnote 154: Plato, Gorgias, p. 456 B.]
[Footnote 155: Plato, Phædrus, pp.
263 A, 271-272-273 E--275 E--276 A--277 C.] [Footnote 156: Zeller, in his 'Platonische Studien' (pp.
66-72-88, &c.), insists much on the rhetorical declamatory prolixity visible throughout the Treatise De Legibus, as quite at variance with the manner of Plato in his earlier and better dialogues, and even as specimens of what Plato there notes as the rhetorical or sophistical manner.
He expresses his surprise that the Athenian should be made to ascribe such discourses to the inspiration of the Gods (p. 107).
Zeller enumerates these and many other dissimilarities in the Treatise De Legibus, as compared with other Platonic dialogues, as premisses to sustain his conclusion that the treatise is not by Plato.
In my judgment they do not bear out that conclusion (which indeed Zeller has since renounced in his subsequent work); but they are not the less real and notable, marking the change in Plato's own mind.
How poor an opinion had Plato of the efficacy of the [Greek: nouthetêtiko\n ei)=dos lo/gôn] at the time when he composed the Sophistês (p. 230 A)!
What a superabundance of such discourse does he deliver in the Treatise De Legibus, taking especial pride in the peculiarity!]
[Side-note: Regulations for the new colony--About religious worship, the oracles of Delphi and Dodona are to be consulted.]
After this unusual length of preliminaries, Plato enters on the positive regulation of his colony.
As to the worship of the Gods, he directs little or nothing of his own authority.
The colony must follow the advice of the oracles of Delphi, Dodona, and Ammon--together with any consecrated traditions, epiphanies, or inspirations from the Gods belonging to the spot--as to the Gods who shall be publicly worshipped, and the suitable temples and rites.
Only he directs that to each portion of the territory set apart for civil purposes, some God, Dæmon, or Hero, shall be specially assigned as Patron,[157] with a chapel and precinct wherein all meetings of the citizens of the district shall be held, whether for religious ceremonies, or for recreation, or for political duties.
[Footnote 157: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 738 C-D. [Greek: o(/pôs a)\n xu/llogoi e(ka/stôn tô=n merô=n kata\ chro/nous gigno/menoi tou\s prostachthe/ntas .
.
.
meta\ thusiô=n.]
That such "ordained seasons" for meetings and sacrifices should be punctually attended to--was a matter of great moment, on religious no less than on civil grounds.
It was with a view to that object principally that each Grecian city arranged its calendar and its system of intercalation.
Plato himself states this (vii.
p. 809 D).
Sir George Lewis, in his Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, adverts to the passage of Plato here cited, and gives a very instructive picture of the state of the Hellenic world as to Calendar and computation of time (see p. 19; also the greater part of chapter i. of his valuable work).
The object of all the cities was to adjust lunar time with solar time by convenient intercalations, but hardly any two cities agreed in the method of doing so.
Different schemes of intercalation and periods (trietêric, octaetêric, enneadekaetêric) were either adopted by civic authority or suggested by private astronomers, such as Kleostratus and Meton.
The practical dissonance and confusion was great, and the theoretical dissatisfaction also.
Now in this dialogue De Legibus, Plato recognises both the importance of the object and the problem to be solved, yet he suggests no means of his own for solving it.
He makes no arrangement for the calendar of his new Magnêtic city.
I confess that this is to me a matter of some surprise.
To combine an exertion of authority with an effort of arithmetical calculation, is in his vein; and the exactness of observances as respects the Gods, in harmony with the religious tone of the treatise, depended on some tolerable solution of the problem.
We may perhaps presume that Plato refused to deal with the problem because he considered it as mathematically insoluble.
Days, months, and years are not exactly commensurable with each other.
In the Timæus (p. 36 C) Plato declares that the rotation of the Circle of the Same, or the outermost sidereal sphere, upon which the succession of day and night depends, is according to the side of a parallelogram ([Greek: kata\ pleura/n])--while the rotations of the Moon and Sun (two of the seven branches composing the Circle of the Different) are according to the diagonal thereof ([Greek: kata\ dia/metron]): now the side and the diagonal represented the type of incommensurable magnitudes among the ancient reasoners.
It would appear also that he considers the rotations of the Moon and Sun to be incommensurable with each other, both of them being members included in the Circle of the Different.
Since an exact mathematical solution was thus unattainable, Plato may probably have despised a merely approximative solution, sufficient for practical convenience--to which last object he generally pays little attention.
He might also fancy that even the attempt to meddle with the problem betokened that confusion of the incommensurable with the commensurable, which he denounces in this very treatise (vii.
pp.
819-820).]
[Side-note: Perpetuity of number of citizens, and of lots of land, one to each, inalienable and indivisible.]
Plato requires for his community a fixed and peremptory total of 5040 citizens, never to be increased, and never to be diminished: a total sufficient, in his judgment, to defend the territory against invaders, and to lend aid on occasion to an oppressed neighbour.
He distributes the whole territory into 5040 lots of land, each of equal value, assigning one lot to each citizen.
Each lot is assumed to be sufficient for the maintenance of a family of sober habits, and no more.
The total number (5040) is selected because of the great variety of divisors by which it may be divided without remainder.
[158] [Footnote 158: Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
737-738, vi.
p. 771 C. Aristotle declares this total of 5040 to be extravagantly great, inasmuch as it would require an amount of territory beyond the scale which can be reckoned upon for a Grecian city, to maintain so many unproductive persons, including not merely the 5040 adult citizens, but also their wives, children, and personal attendants, none of whom would take part in any productive industry (Politic.
ii.
6, p. 1265, b.
16).
The remark here cited indicates the small numerical scale upon which the calculations of a Greek politician were framed.
But we can hardly be surprised at it, seeing that the new city is intended for the Island of Krete, where none even of the existing cities were considerable.
Moreover Aristotle had probably present to his mind the analogy of Sparta.
The Spartan citizens were in a situation more analogous to the 5040 than any other Grecian residents.
But the Spartan citizens could not have been near so numerous as 5040 at that time; not even one-fifth of it--Aristotle tells us, Politic.
ii.
9, 1270, a.
31.
Aristotle goes on to remark on the definition given by Plato of the size and value of each lot of land sufficient for the citizen and his family to live [Greek: sôphro/nôs]: it ought to be (says Aristotle) [Greek: sôphro/nôs kai\ e)leutheri/ôs].
These are the two modes of excellence, and the only two, which a man can display in the use of his property (1265, a.
35).
But this change would only aggravate the difficulty as to the total area of land required for the 5040.
Compare the remark of Aristotle on the scheme of Hippodamus, Politic.
ii.
8, 1268, a.
42.]
[Side-note: Plato reasserts his adherence to the principle of the Republic, though the repugnance of others hinders him from realising it.]
We thus see that Plato, in laying down his fundamental principle ([Greek: u(po/thesin]), recognises separate individual property and separate family among his citizens: both of which had been strenuously condemned and strictly excluded, in respect to the Guardians of his Republic.
But he admits the principle only with the proviso that there shall be a peremptory limit to number of citizens, to individual wealth, and to individual poverty: moreover, even with this proviso, he admits it only as a second-best, because mankind will not accept, and are not sufficiently exalted to work out, what is in itself the best.
He reasserts the principle of the Republic, that separate property and separate family are both essentially mischievous: that all individuality, either of interest or sympathy or sentiment, ought to be extinguished as far as possible.
[159] Though constrained against his will to renounce this object, he will still approximate to it as near as he can in his second-best.
Moreover, he may possibly, at some future time (D.V.
), propose a third-best.
When once departure from the genuine standard is allowed, the departure may be made in many different ways.
[Footnote 159: Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
739-740; vii.
p. 807 B.]
This declaration deserves notice as attesting the undiminished adhesion of Plato to the main doctrines of his Republic.
The point here noted is one main difference of principle between the Treatise De Legibus and the Republic: the enactment of written fundamental laws with prologues serving as homilies to be preached to the citizens, is another.
Both of them are differences of principle: each gives rise to many subordinate differences or corollaries.
[160] [Footnote 160: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 739 E. [Greek: ê(\n de\ nu=n ê(mei=s e)pikecheirê/kamen, ei)/ê te a)\n genome/nê pôs a)thanasi/as e)ggu/tata kai\ ê( mi/a deute/rôs; tri/tên de\ meta\ tau=ta, e)a\n theo\s e)the/lê|, diaperanou/metha.]
Upon this passage K. F. Hermann observes: "Hæc enim est quam ordine tertiam appellat Plato, quæ Aristoteli [Politic.
iv.
1, 2] [Greek: e)x u(pothe/seôs politei/a] dicitur: quod tamen nolim ita accipi, ut à nonnullis factum est, ut hanc quoque olim singulari scripto persecuturum fuisse philosophum credamus, quasi tribus exemplis absolvi rerum publicarum formas censuisset; innumeræ enim pro singularum nationum et urbium fortuna esse possunt," &c. (De Vestigiis Instit.
Vet.
imprimis Attic.
per Plat.
de Legg.
libros indag., p. 16).
That Plato _did_ intend to compose a _third_ work upon an analogous subject appears to me clear from the words,--but it does not at all follow that he thought that three varieties would exhaust all possibility.
Upon this point I dissent from Hermann, and also upon his interpretation of Aristotle's phrase [Greek: ê( e)x u(pothe/seôs politei/a].
Aristotle distinguishes three distinct varieties of end which the political constructor may propose to himself:--1.
[Greek: tê\n politei/an tê\n a(plô=s a)ri/stên, tê\n ma/lista kat' eu)chê/n].
2.
[Greek: Tê\n e)k tô=n u(pokeime/nôn a)ri/stên].
3.
[Greek: Tê\n e)x u(pothe/seôs a)ri/stên].
Now K. F. Hermann here maintains, and Boeckh had already maintained before him (ad Platonis Minoem et de Legibus, pp.
66-67), that the city sketched in Plato's treatise De Legibus coincides with No.
2 in Aristotle's enumeration, and that the projected [Greek: tri/tê] in Plato coincides with No.
3--[Greek: tê\n e)x u(pothe/seôs].
I differ from them here.
There is no ground for presuming that what Plato puts _third_ must also be put by Aristotle _third_.
I think that the Platonic city De Legibus corresponds to No.
3 in Aristotle and not to No.
2.
It is a city [Greek: e)x u(pothe/seôs], not [Greek: e)k tô=n u(pokeime/nôn a)ri/stên].
Plato borrows little or nothing from [Greek: ta\ u(pokei/mena], and almost everything from his own [Greek: u(po/thesis] or assumed principle, which in this case is the fixed number of the citizens as well as of the lots of land, the imposition of a limit on each man's proprietary acquisitions, and the recognition of separate family establishments subject to these limits.
This is the [Greek: u(po/thesis] of Plato's second city, to which all his regulations of detail are accommodated: it is substituted by him (unwillingly, because of the repugnance of others) in place of the [Greek: u(po/thesis] of his first city or the Republic, which [Greek: u(po/thesis] is perfect communism among the [Greek: phu/lakes], without either separate property or separate family.
This last is Plato's [Greek: a(plôs a)ri/stê].]
[Side-note: Regulations about land, successions, marriages, &c. The number of citizens must not be allowed to increase.]
Each citizen proprietor shall hold his lot of land, not as his own, but as part and parcel of the entire territory, which, taken as a whole, is Goddess and Mistress--conjointly with all the local Gods and Heroes--of the body of citizens generally.
No citizen shall either sell or otherwise alienate his lot, nor divide it, nor trench upon its integrity.
The total number of lots, the integrity of each lot, and the total number of citizens, shall all remain consecrated in perpetuity, without increase or diminution.
Each citizen in dying shall leave one son as successor to his lot: if he has more than one, he may choose which of them he will prefer.
The successor so chosen shall maintain the perpetuity of worship of the Gods, reverential rites to the family and deceased ancestors, and obligations towards the city.
[161] If the citizen has other sons, they will be adopted into the families of other citizens who happen to be childless: if he has daughters, he will give them out in marriage, but without any dowry.
Such family relations will be watched over by a special board of magistrates: with this peremptory condition, that they shall on no account permit either the number of citizen proprietors, or the number of separate lots, to depart from the consecrated 5040.
[162] Each citizen's name, and each lot of land, will be registered on tablets of cypress wood.
These registers will be preserved in the temples, in order that the magistrates may be able to prevent fraud.
[163] [Footnote 161: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 740 A-B.]
[Footnote 162: Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
740 D-742 C. Aristotle remarks that in order to attain the object which Plato here proclaims, restriction ought to be imposed on [Greek: teknopoii+/a].
No citizen ought to be allowed to beget more than a certain number of children.
He observes that this last-mentioned restriction, if imposed alone and without any others, would do more than all the rest to maintain the permanent 5040 lots, and that without this no other restrictions could be efficacious (Politic.
ii.
6, 1265, a.
37, 1266, b.
9).
Plato concurs in this opinion, though he trusts to prudence and the admonition of elders for bringing about this indispensable limitation of births in a family, without legal prohibition.
I have already touched upon this matter in my review of Plato's Republic.
See above--chap.
xxxvii.
p. 198 seq.
The [Greek: no/moi thetikoi\] of Philolaus at Thebes, regulating [Greek: tê\n paidopoii+/an] with a view to keep the lots of land unchanged, are only known by the brief allusion of Aristotle, Polit.
ii.
12, 1274, b.
4.]
[Footnote 163: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 741 C. [Greek: kuparitti/nas mnê/mas], &c.] [Side-note: Position of the city and akropolis--Distribution of the territory and citizens into twelve equal sections or tribes.]
The city, with its appropriate accessories, shall be placed as nearly as possible in the middle of the territory.
The akropolis, sacred to Hestia and Athênê, will be taken as a centre from whence twelve radiating lines will be drawn to the extremity of the territory, so as to distribute the whole area into twelve sections, not all equal in magnitude, but equalised in value by diminishing the area in proportion to superior goodness of land.
The total number of citizens will be distributed also in twelve sections, of 420 each (5040/12), among whom the lots of land contained in each twelfth will be apportioned.
This duodecimal division, the fundamental canon of Plato's municipal arrangements, is a sanctified present from the Gods, in harmony with the months and with the kosmical revolutions.
[164] Each twelfth, land and citizens together, will be constituted a Tribe, and will be consecrated to some God (determined by lot) whose name it will bear, and at whose altar two monthly festivals will be celebrated: one for the tribe, the other for the entire city.
The tribes are peremptorily equal in respect to number of citizens; but care shall also be taken to make them as nearly equal as possible in respect to registered property: that is, in respect to property other than land, which each citizen brings with him to the settlement, and which will all be recorded (as well as the land) in the public registers.
[165] The lot of land assigned to each citizen will include a portion near the centre, and a portion near the circumference: the most central portion being coupled with the most outlying, and so on in order.
Each citizen will thus have two separate residences:[166] one nearer to the city, the other more distant from it.
[Footnote 164: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 771 B. Plato here reckons the different numerical divisions adopted in different cities as being all both natural and consecrated, but he considers his own as the most fortunate and right.
He insists much upon the importance of symmetrical distribution, with definite numerical ratio, in all the departments of life: in the various civil subdivisions of the Tribe, such as Phratries, Dêmes, Villages--in the arrangements of the citizens for military service, [Greek: ta/xeis kai\ a)gôga/s]--in the coins, weights and measures--in the modulations of the voice, and in the direction of movements either rectilinear or rotatory.
(Whoever looks at Aristophanes, Aves, 1010 seq., will see all such regularity and symmetry derided in the person of Meton.)
Nay, he enjoins that all the vessels made for common use shall be exact fractions or exact multiples of each other.
This will make it necessary for all the citizens to learn elementary arithmetic, which Plato considers to be of essential value, not only for practical use but as a stimulus to the dormant intelligence.
On this point he notes the Egyptians and Phenicians as standing higher than the Greeks (vii.
p. 818), but as applying their superior arithmetical knowledge only to a mean and disgraceful thirst for wealth.
Against this last defect Plato reckons upon guarding his citizens by other precautions, while he encourages in them the learning of arithmetic (Legg.
v. p. 747).
Plato here speaks of the Egyptians and Phenicians, much as the Jews have been spoken of in later times.
And it is curious that he seems to consider their peculiarities of character as referable to their local domicile.
He maintains that one place is intrinsically different from another in respect to producing good and bad characters; some places are even privileged by [Greek: thei/a e)pi/pnoia kai\ daimo/nôn lê/xeis] &c.] [Footnote 165: Plato, Legg.
v. p.
745.]
[Footnote 166: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 745, vi.
p. 771 D.] [Side-note: Movable property--Inequality therein reluctantly allowed, as far as four to one, but no farther.]
Plato would be glad if he were able to establish among all the citizens, equality not merely of landed property, but property of all other property besides.
This, however, he recognises his inability to exact.
The colonists will bring with them movable property--some more, some less: and inequality must be tolerated up to a certain limit.
Each citizen is allowed to possess movable property as far as four times the value of his lot of land, but no more.
The maximum of wealth possessed by any citizen will thus be equal to five times the value of his lot of land: the minimum of the poorest citizen will be the lot of land itself, which cannot, under the worst circumstances, be alienated or diminished.
If any citizen shall in any way acquire property above the maximum here named, he is directed to make it over to the city and to the Gods.
In case of disobedience, he may be indicted before the Nomophylakes; and if found guilty, shall be disgraced, excluded from his share of public distributions, and condemned to pay twice as much--half being assigned as recompense to the prosecutor.
[167] The public register kept by the magistrates, in which is enrolled all the property of every kind belonging to each citizen, will enable them to enforce this regulation, and will be farther useful in all individual suits respecting money.
[Footnote 167: Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
744-745, vi.
p. 754 E.] [Side-note: Census of the citizens--four classes, with graduated scale of property.
No citizen to possess gold or silver.
No loans or interest.
No debts enforced by law.]
In the public census of the city, the citizens will be distributed into four classes, according to their different scales of property.
The richest will be four minæ: the other three minæ, two, and one mina, respectively.
Direct taxation will be assessed upon them according to the difference of wealth: to which also a certain reference will be had in the apportionment of magistracies, and in the regulation of the voting privilege.
[168] [Footnote 168: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 744 B, vi.
p. 754 E.] By this determination of a maximum and minimum, coupled with a certain admitted preference to wealth in the assignment of political power, Plato considers that he has guarded against the intestine dissensions and other evils likely to arise from inequality of property.
He accounts great poverty to be a serious cause of evil; yet he is very far from looking upon wealth as a cause of good.
On the contrary, he proclaims that great wealth is absolutely incompatible either with great virtue or great happiness.
[169] Accordingly, while he aims at preserving every individual citizen from poverty, he at the same time disclaims all purpose of making his community either richer or more powerful.
[170] He forbids every private citizen to possess gold and silver.
The magistrates must hold a certain stock of it in reserve, in case of public dealing with foreign cities: but they will provide for the daily wants of the community by a special cheap currency, having no value beyond the limits of the territory.
[171] Moreover, Plato prohibits all loans on interest.
He refuses to enforce by law the restoration even of a deposit.
He interdicts all dowry or marriage portion with daughters.
[172] [Footnote 169: Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
742 E, 743 A, 744 E.] [Footnote 170: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 742 D.] [Footnote 171: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 742 A.]
[Footnote 172: Plato, Legg.
v. p. 742 C.] [Side-note: Board of thirty-seven Nomophylakes--general supervisors of the laws and their execution--how elected.]
How is the Platonic colony to be first set on its march, and by whom are its first magistrates to be named?
By the inhabitants of Knôssus, its mother city--replies Plato.
The Knossians will appoint a provisional Board of two hundred: half from their own citizens, half from the elders and most respected men among the colonists themselves.
[173] This Board will choose the first Nomophylakes, consisting of thirty-seven persons, half Knossians, half colonists.
These Nomophylakes are intended as a Council of State, and will be elected by the citizens in the following way, when the colony is once in full march:--All the citizens who perform or have performed military service, either as hoplites or cavalry, will be electors.
They will vote by tablets laid upon the altar, and inscribed with the name both of the voter himself and of the person whom he prefers.
First, three hundred persons will be chosen by the majority of votes according to this process.
Next, out of these three hundred, one hundred will be chosen by a second process of the same kind.
Lastly, out of these one hundred, thirty-seven will be chosen by a third similar process, but with increased solemnity: these thirty-seven will constitute the Board of Nomophylakes, or Guardians of the Laws.
[174] No person shall be eligible for Guardian until he has attained the age of fifty.
When elected, he shall continue to serve until he is seventy, and no longer: so that if elected at sixty, he will have ten years of service.
[175] The duties of this Board will be to see that all the laws are faithfully executed: in which function they will have superintendence over all special magistrates and officers.
[Footnote 173: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
752 D, 754 C.] [Footnote 174: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 753 C-D.] [Footnote 175: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 755 A.]
[Side-note: Military commanders--General council of 360--complicated mode of election.]
For the office of General and Minister of War, three persons shall be chosen by show of hands of the military citizens.
It shall be the duty of the Nomophylakes to propose three names for this office: but other citizens may also propose different names, and the show of hands will decide.
The three Generals, when chosen, shall propose twelve names as Taxiarchs, one for each tribe: other names may also be proposed, and the show of hands of each tribe will determine.
[176] [Footnote 176: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 755 E.] A Council shall be annually chosen, consisting of 360 members, ninety from each of the four proprietary scales in the Census.
The mode of electing this Council is highly complicated.
First, Plato provides that 360 Councillors shall be chosen out of the first (or richest) class, and as many out of the second class, by universal suffrage, every citizen being compelled to give his vote: then that 360 Councillors shall be chosen out of the third class, by universal suffrage, but under this condition, that the three richest classes are compelled to vote, while the fourth class may abstain from voting, if they please: next, that 360 Councillors shall be chosen out of the fourth class, still by universal suffrage, but with liberty to the third and fourth classes to abstain from voting, while the first and second classes are compelled to vote.
Out of the four batches, of 360 names from each class, 180 names from each class are to be chosen by universal suffrage compulsory on all.
This last list of 180 names is to be reduced, by drawing lots, to 90 from each class, or 360 in all: who constitute the Council for the year.
[177] [Footnote 177: Plato, Legg vi.
p. 756.
Compare Aristot.
Politic.
ii.
6, p. 1266, a.
14.
The passage of Plato is not perspicuous.
It appears to me to have been misunderstood by some commentators, who suppose that only 90 [Greek: bouleutai\] are to be chosen out of each census in the original voting (see Schneider's Comment.
on the passage of Aristotle above alluded to, p. 99).
The number originally chosen from each class must be 360, because it is directed, in the final process, to be reduced first (by election) to 180 from each class, and next (by sortition) to 90 from each class.]
[Side-note: Character of the electoral scheme--Plato's views about wealth--he caters partly for the oligarchical sentiment, partly for the democratical.]
Here the evident purpose of Plato is to obtain in the last result a greater number of votes from the rich than from the poor, without absolutely disfranchising the poor.
Where the persons to be voted for are all of the richer classes, there the poor are compelled to come and vote as well as the rich: where the persons to be voted for are all of the poorer class, there the rich are compelled to vote, while the poor are allowed to stay away.
He seems to look on the vote, not as a privilege which citizens will wish to exercise, but as a duty which they must be compelled by fine to discharge.
This is (as Aristotle calls it) an oligarchical provision.
It exhibits Plato's mode of attaining the end stated by Livy as proposed in the Servian constitution at Rome, and the end contemplated (without being announced) by the framers of most other political constitutions recorded in history--"_Gradus facti, ut neque exclusus quisquam suffragio videretur, et vis omnis penes primores civitatis esset_".
[178] Plato defends it by distinguishing two sorts of equality: one complete and undistinguishing, in which all the citizens are put upon a level: the other in which the good and able citizen is distinguished from the bad and incapable citizen, so that he acquires power and honour in proportion to his superior merit.
[179] This second sort of equality Plato approves, pronouncing it to be political justice.
But such defence tacitly assumes that superiority in wealth, as between the four classes of his census, is to count as evidence of, or as an equivalent for, superior merit: an assumption doubtless received by many Grecian politicians, and admitted in the general opinion of Greece--but altogether at variance with the declared judgment of Plato himself as to the effect of wealth upon the character of the wealthy man.
The poorest citizen in the Platonic community must have his lot of land, which Plato considers sufficient for a sober-minded family: the richest citizen can possess** only five times as much: and all receive the same public instruction.
Here, therefore, there can be no presumption of superior merit in the richer citizen as compared with the poorer, whatever might be said about the case as it stood in actual Grecian communities.
We see that Plato in this case forgets his own peculiar mode of thought, and accommodates himself to received distinctions, without reflecting that the principles of _his_ own political system rendered such distinctions inapplicable.
He bows to the oligarchical sentiment of his contemporaries, by his preferential encouragement to the votes of the rich: he bows to the democratical sentiment, when he consents to employ to a small extent the principle of the lot.
[180] [Footnote 178: Livy i.
43.
Aristotle characterises these regulations of the Platonic community as oligarchical, and remarks that this is in contradiction to the principle with which Plato set out--that it ought to be a compound of monarchy and democracy.
Aristotle understands this last principle somewhat differently from what Plato seems to have intended (Politic.
ii.
6, 1266, a.
10).]
[Footnote 179: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 757 A-B.
Compare a like distinction drawn between two sorts of [Greek: i)so/tês] in Isokrates, Areiopagitic.
Orat.
vii.
s. 23-24; also Aristotel.
Politic.]
[Footnote 180: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 757 E. [Greek: dio\ tô=| tou= klê/rou i)/sô| a)na/gkê proschrê/sasthai, duskoli/as tô=n pollô=n e(/neka], &c.] [Side-note: Meetings of council--other magistrates--Agoranomi--Astynomi, &c.] Of the annually-chosen Council, one twelfth part only (or thirty Councillors) will be in constant session in the city: each of their sessions lasting for one month, and the total thus covering the year.
The remaining eleven twelfths will be attending to their private affairs, except when special necessities arise.
The Council will have the general superintendence of the city, and controul over all meetings of the citizens.
[181] Provision is made for three magistrates called Astynomi, to regulate the streets, roads, public buildings, water-courses, &c.: and for five Agoranomi, to watch over the public market with its appertaining temples and fountains, and to take cognisance of disputes or offences occurring therein.
None but citizens of the two richest classes of the census are eligible as Astynomi or Agoranomi: first, twice the number required are chosen by public show of hands--next, half of the number so chosen are drawn off by lot.
In regard to the show of hands, Plato again decrees, that all citizens of the two richer classes shall be compelled to take part in it, under fine: all citizens of the two poorer classes may take part if they choose, but are not compelled.
[182] By this provision, as before, Plato baits for the oligarchical sentiment: by the partial use of the lot, for the democratical.
[Footnote 181: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 758 C-D.] [Footnote 182: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
763-764.]
[Side-note: Defence of the territory--rural police--Agronomi, &c.] The defence of the territory is entrusted to the Agronomi, five persons selected from each of the twelve tribes, making sixty in all; and assisted by sixty other junior subordinates, selected by the five Agronomi (those of each tribe choosing twelve) from their respective tribes.
Each of these companies of seventeen will be charged with the care of one of the twelve territorial districts, as may be determined by lot.
Each will then pass by monthly change from one district to another, so as to make the entire circuit of the twelve districts in one year, going round in an easterly direction or to the right: each will then make the same circuit backward, during a second year, in a westerly direction or to the left.
[183] Their term of service will be two years in all, during which all of them will have become familiarly acquainted with every portion of the territory.
A public mess will be provided for these companies, and each man among them will be held to strict continuity of service.
Their duties will be, not merely to keep each district in a condition of defence against a foreign enemy, but also to improve its internal condition: to facilitate the outflow of water where there is too much, and to retard it where there is too little: to maintain, in the precincts sacred to the Gods, reservoirs of spring-water, partly as ornament, partly also as warm baths (for the heating of which large stocks of dry wood must be collected)--to benefit the old, the sick, and the overworked husbandman.
[184] Farthermore, these Agronomi will adjudicate upon disputes and offences among the rural population, both slave and free.
If they abuse their trust, they will be accountable, first to the assembled citizens of the district, next to the public tribunals in the city.
[Footnote 183: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 760 D. [Greek: tou\s tê=s chô/ras to/pous metalla/ttontas a)ei\ tô=n e(xê=s to/pôn e(ka/stou mêno\s ê(gei=sthai tou\s phroura/rchous e)pi\ dexia\ ku/klô|; to\ d' e)pide/xia gigne/sthô to\ pro\s e(/ô.]
In reference to omens and auguries the Greek spectator looked towards the north, so that he had the east on his right hand.]
[Footnote 184: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 761 A-D.
Agreeable and refreshing combinations of springs with shady trees near the precincts of the Gods were frequent.
See Xenophon, Hellen.
v. 3, 19.
The thermal waters were also generally connected with some precinct of Hêraklês or Asklêpius.
In some temples it was forbidden to use this adjoining water except for sacred rites, Thucyd.
iv.
97.]
[Side-note: Comparison with the Lacedæmonian Kryptia.]
Plato considers that these Agronomi will go through hard work during their two years of service, inasmuch as they will have no slaves, and will have to do everything for themselves: though in the performance of any public work they are empowered to put in requisition both men and cattle from the neighbourhood.
[185] He pronounces it to be a salutary discipline for the young men, whom he admonishes that an apprenticeship in obedience is indispensable to qualify them for command, and that exact obedience to the laws and magistrates will be their best title to posts of authority when older.
[186] Moreover, he insists on the necessity that all citizens should become minutely acquainted with the whole territory: towards which purpose he encourages young men in the exercise of hunting.
He compares (indirectly) his movable guard of Agronomi to the Lacedæmonian Krypti, who maintained the police of Laconia, and kept watch over the Helots:[187] though they are also the parallel of the youthful Peripoli at Athens, who were employed as Guards for two years round various parts of Attica.
[Footnote 185: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
760 E-763 A.]
[Footnote 186: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 762 E.] [Footnote 187: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 763 A-B.
[Greek: ei)/te tis kruptou\s ei)/te a)grono/mous ei)/th' o(/, ti kalô=n chai/rei], &c. He notes the hardships endured by these [Greek: Kruptoi\] in their [Greek: Kruptei/a], i. p. 633 C. The phrase seems however to indicate that Plato did not much like to call his Agronomi by the name of [Greek: Kruptoi/].
The duties performed by the Lacedæmonian [Greek: Kruptoi\] against the Helots were of the harshest character.
See chap.
vi.
p. 509 of my 'History of Greece'.
Schömann, Antiq.
Juris Publ.
Græc.
iv.
1-4, p. 111, v. 1, 21, p.
199.]
[Side-note: Priests--Exêgêtæ--Property belonging to temples.]
Besides Astynomi and Agoranomi, Plato provides priests for the care of the sacred buildings in the city, and for the service of the Gods.
In choosing these priests, as in choosing the other magistrates, election and sortition are to be combined: to satisfy at once the oligarchical and the democratical sentiment.
The lot will be peculiarly suitable in a case where priests are to be chosen--because the God may be expected to guide it in a manner agreeable to himself.
[188] Plato himself however is not confident on this point, for he enjoins additional precautions: the person chosen must be sixty years old at least, free from all bodily defect, of legitimate birth, and of a family untainted by previous crime.
Plato prescribes farther, that laws or canons respecting matters of divine concern shall be obtained from the Delphian oracle: and that certain Exêgêtæ shall be named as authorised interpreters of these canons, as long as they live.
[189] Treasurers or stewards shall also be chosen, out of the two richer classes of the census, to administer the landed property and produce belonging to the various temples.
[190] [Footnote 188: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 749 D.] [Footnote 189: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 759 E.] [Footnote 190: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 760 A.]
In the execution of the duties imposed upon them, the Agoranomi and Astynomi are empowered to fine an offender to the extent of one mina (one hundred drachmæ), each of them separately--and when both sit together, to the extent of two minæ.
[191] [Footnote 191: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 764 B.
Here, as in other provisions, Plato copies the practice at Athens, where each individual magistrate was empowered to impose a fine of definite amount ([Greek: e)pibolê\n e)piba/llein]), though we do not know what that amount was.
The Proedri could impose a fine as high as one mina, the Senate as high as five minæ (Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, p.
34).]
[Side-note: Superintendence of Music and Gymnastic.
Educational function.]
_Music and Gymnastic._--For each of these, two magisterial functions must be constituted: one to superintend the teaching and training--the other, to preside over the matches and distribution of prizes.
In regard to the musical matches, one President must be appointed for the monôdic single-headed exhibitions, another for the choric exhibitions.
The President of the former must be not less than thirty years of age.
The President of the latter must be not less than forty years of age.
In order to appoint a fit person, the Nomophylakes shall constrain all the citizens whom they believe to be conversant with monôdic or choric matters, to assemble and agree on a preliminary list of ten candidates, who shall undergo a Dokimasy or examination, upon the single point of skill and competency, and no other.
If they all pass, recourse shall be had to lot, and the one who draws the first lot shall be President for the year.
In regard to the gymnastic matches, of men as well as of horses, the citizens of the three richest classes shall be constrained to come together (those of the fourth class may come, or stay away, as they please), and to fix upon twenty suitable persons; who shall undergo the Dokimasy, and out of whom three shall be selected by lot as Presidents of gymnastic contests for the year.
[192] [Footnote 192: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
764-765.]
[Side-note: Grave duties of the Minister of Education--precautions in electing him.]
We observe that in the nomination of Presidents for the musical and gymnastic contests, Plato adopts the same double-faced machinery as before--To please the oligarchical sentiment by treating the votes of the rich as indispensable, the votes of the poor as indifferent--To please the democratical sentiment by a partial application of the lot.
But in regard to the President of musical and gymnastic education or training, he prescribes a very different manner of choice.
He declares this to be the most important function in the city.
Upon the way in which the Minister of Education discharges his functions, the ultimate character of the citizens will mainly turn.
Accordingly, this magistrate must be a man of fifty years of age, father of legitimate children--and, if possible, of daughters as well as sons.
He must also be one of the thirty-seven Nomophylakes.
He will be selected, not by the votes of the citizens generally, but by the votes of all the magistrates (except the annual Councillors and the Prytanes): such votes being deposited secretly in the temple of Apollo.
The person who obtains the most of these secret votes will be submitted to a farther Dokimasy by all the voting magistrates (except the Nomophylakes themselves), and will, if approved, be constituted President of musical and gymnastic education for five years.
[193] [Footnote 193: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
765-766.]
[Side-note: Judicial duties.]
From the magisterial authority in his city, Plato now passes to the judicial or dikastic.
He remarks that no peremptory line of separation can be drawn between the two.
Every magistrate exercises judicial functions on some matters: every dikast, on the days when he sits, decides magisterially.
[194] He then proceeds to distinguish (as the Attic forum did) between two sorts of causes:--Private, disputes between man and man, where the persons complaining of being wronged are one or a few individuals--Public, where the party wronged or alleged to be wronged is the state.
[195] [Footnote 194: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 767 A.]
[Footnote 195: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 767 B.
This was the main distinction adopted in the Attic law.
1.
Complaint, founded upon injury alleged to be done to the interest of some individual--[Greek: a)gô\n i)/dios, di/kê i)di/a, di/kê] in the narrow sense.
2.
Complaint, founded upon injury alleged to be done towards some interest not strictly individual--[Greek: a)gô\n dêmo/sios, di/kê dêmosi/a, graphê/] (Meier und Schömann, der Attische Prozess, p.
162).]
[Side-note: Private Causes--how tried.]
In regard to the private causes, he institutes Tribe-Dikasteries, taken by lot out of the citizens of each tribe, and applied without notice to each particular cause as it comes on, so that no one can know beforehand in what cause he is to adjudicate, nor can any one be solicited or bribed.
[196] He institutes farthermore a superior court of appeal, formed every year by the various Boards of Magistrates, each choosing out of its own body the most esteemed member, subject to approval by an ensuing Dokimasy.
[197] When one citizen believes himself to be wronged by another, he must first submit the complaint to arbitration by neighbours and common friends.
If this arbitration fails to prove satisfactory, he must next bring the complaint before the Tribe-Dikastery.
Should their decision prove unsatisfactory, the case may be brought (seemingly by either of the parties) before the superior court of appeal, whose decision will be final.
Plato directs that this superior Court shall hold its sittings publicly, in presence of all the Magistrates and all the Councillors, as well as of any other citizen who may choose to attend.
The members of the Court are to give their votes openly.
[198] Should they be suspected of injustice or corruption, they may be impeached before the Nomophylakes; who, if convinced of their guilt, shall compel them to make good the wrong done, and shall impose penalties besides, if the case requires.
[199] [Footnote 196: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 768 B.]
[Footnote 197: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 767-C-D. [Greek: gigne/sthô koino\n a(/pasi toi=s to\ tri/ton a)mphisbêtou=sin i)diô/tais pro\s a)llê/lous.]]
[Footnote 198: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
767 A-D, 768 B.
Compare xii.
p.
956.]
[Footnote 199: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 767 E.] [Side-note: Public Causes must be tried directly by the citizens--strong feeling among Greeks about this.]
In regard to Public Causes, Plato makes unusual concession to a feeling much prevalent in Greece, and especially potent at Athens.
Where the wrong done is to the public, he recognises that the citizens generally will not submit to be excluded from the personal cognizance of it: the citizen excluded from that privilege feels as if he had no share in the city.
[200] If one citizen accuses another of treason, or peculation, or other wrong towards the public, the accusation shall be originated at first, and decided at last, before the general body of citizens.
But after having been originated before this general assembly, the charge must be submitted to an intermediate stage of examination, before three of the principal Boards of Magistrates; who shall sift the allegations of the accuser, as well as the defence of the accused.
These commissioners (we must presume) will make a report on the case, which report will be brought before the general assembly; who will then adjudicate upon it finally, and condemn or acquit as they think right.
[201] [Footnote 200: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 768 B.
[Greek: o( ga\r a)koinô/nêtos ô)\n e)xousi/as tou= sundika/zein, ê(gei=tai to\ para/pan tê=s po/leôs ou) me/tochos ei)=nai.]
This is a remarkable indication about the tone of Grecian feeling from a very adverse witness.]
[Footnote 201: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 768 A.
[Greek: tê\n de\ ba/sanon e)n tai=s megi/stais a)rchai=s trisi/n], &c. Here the word [Greek: ba/sanos] is used in a much more extended sense than usual, so as to include the whole process of judicial enquiry.]
[Side-note: Plato's way of meeting this feeling--intermediate inquiry and report by a special Commissioner.]
This proposition deserves notice.
Plato proclaims his disapprobation of the numerous Dikasteries in Athens, wherein the Dikasts sat, heard, and voted--perhaps with applause or murmurs, but with no searching questions of their own--leaving the whole speech to the parties and their witnesses.
To decide justly (he says), the judicial authority must not remain silent, but must speak more than the parties, and must undertake the substantial conduct of the inquiry.
No numerous assembly--nor even any few, unless they be intelligent--are competent to such a duty: nor even an intelligent few, without much time and patience.
[202] To secure such an inquiry on these public causes--as far as is possible consistent with the necessity of leaving the final decision to the general assembly--is the object of Plato's last-mentioned proposition.
It is one of the most judicious propositions in his whole scheme.
[Footnote 202: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 766 E.] * * * * * [Side-note: What laws the magistrates are to enforce--Many details must be left to the Nomophylakes.]
Plato has now constituted the magistrates and the judicial machinery.
It is time to specify the laws which they are to obey and to enforce.
[203] [Footnote 203: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 768 E.] Plato considers the Nomophylakes (together with another board called the Nocturnal Council, to be hereafter described) as the permanent representatives of himself: destined to ensure that the grand ethical purpose of the lawgiver shall be constantly kept in view, and to supply what may have been left wanting in the original programme.
[204] Especially at the first beginning, provision will be found wanting in many details, which the Nomophylakes will take care to supply.
In respect to the choric festivals, which are of so much importance for the training and intercourse of young men and maidens, the lawgiver must trust to the Choric Superintendents and the Nomophylakes for regulating, by their experience, much which he cannot foresee.
But an experience of ten years will enable them to make all the modifications and additions required; and after that period they shall fix and consecrate in perpetuity the ceremonies as they then stand, forbidding all farther change.
Neither in that nor in any other arrangement shall any subsequent change be allowed, except on the unanimous requisition of all the magistrates, all the people, and all the oracles of the Gods.
[205] [Footnote 204: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 770 C-E.] [Footnote 205: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 772 C-D.] [Side-note: Marriage-Laws--Rich husbands to choose poor wives--No dowries--costly marriage festivals are forbidden.]
The choric festivals, in which the youths and maidens will take part, both of them naked as far as a sober modesty will allow, present occasions for mutual acquaintance between them, which serves as foundation for marriage.
[206] At the age of twenty-five a young man is permitted to marry; and before the age of thirty-five he is required to marry, under penalty of fine and disgrace, if he does not.
[207] Plato introduces here a discourse, in the form of a prologue to his marriage law, wherein he impresses on young men the general principles according to which they ought to choose their wives.
The received sentiment, which disposes a rich youth to choose his wife from a rich family, is (in Plato's view) altogether wrong.
Rich husbands ought to assort themselves with poor wives; and in general the characters of husband and wife ought to be opposite rather than similar, in order that the offspring may not inherit the defects of either.
[208] The religious ceremonies antecedent to marriage are to be regulated by the Exêgêtæ.
A costly marriage feast--and, above all, drunkenness at that feast--are emphatically forbidden.
Any offspring begotten when the parent is in this disorderly and insane condition,[209] will probably be vitiated from the beginning.
Out of the two residences which every citizen's lot will comprise, one must be allotted to the son when the son marries.
[210] [Footnote 206: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 772 A.
[Greek: gumnou\s kai\ gumna\s me/chri per ai)dou=s sô/phronos e(ka/stôn], &c.] [Footnote 207: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
772 E, 774 A.]
[Footnote 208: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 773 C-D.
Compare the Politikus, pp.
310-311, where the necessity is insisted on of coupling in marriage two persons of opposite dispositions--[Greek: to\ a)ndrei=on ê)=thos] with [Greek: to\ ko/smion ê)=thos].
There is a natural inclination (Plato says) for the [Greek: a)ndrei=oi] to intermarry with each other, and for the [Greek: ko/smioi] to do the like: but the lawgiver must contend against this.
If this be permitted, each of the breeds will degenerate through excess of its own peculiarity.]
[Footnote 209: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p.
775.]
[Footnote 210: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 776 A.]
[Side-note: Laws about slavery.
Slaves to be well fed, and never treated with cruelty or insolence.
The master must not converse with them.]
Plato now enters upon his laws respecting property; and first of all upon the most critical variety of property; that in human beings, or slavery.
This he declares to be a subject full of difficulty.
There is much difference of opinion on the subject.
Some speak of slaves as deserving trust and good treatment, in proof of which various anecdotes of exemplary fidelity on their part are cited: others again regard them as incorrigibly debased, fit for nothing better than the whip and spur, like cattle.
Then moreover the modified form of slavery, such as that of the Helots in Laconia, and the Penestæ in Thessaly, has been found full of danger and embarrassment, though the Spartans themselves are well satisfied with it.
[211] (It will be recollected that the Helots and Penestæ were not slaves bought and imported from abroad, as the slaves in Attica were, but conquered Hellenic communities who had been degraded from freedom into slavery, and from the condition of independent proprietorship into that of tributary tenants or serfs; but with the right to remain permanently on their lands, without ever being sold for exportation.)
This form of slavery (where the slaves are of the same race and language, with reciprocal bonds of sympathy towards each other) Plato denounces as especially dangerous.
Care must be taken that there shall be among the slaves as little fellowship of language and feelings as possible; but they must be well fed: moreover everything like cruelty and insolence in dealing with them must be avoided, even more carefully than in dealing with freemen.
This he prescribes partly for the protection of the slave himself, but still more for the interest of the master: whose intrinsic virtue, or want of virtue, will be best tested by his behaviour as a master.
The slaves must be punished judicially, when they deserve it.
But the master must never exhort or admonish them, as he would address himself to a freeman: he must never say a word to them, except to give an order: above all, he must abstain from all banter and joking, either with male or female slaves.
[212] Many foolish masters indulge in such behaviour, which emboldens the slaves to give themselves airs, and renders the task of governing them almost impracticable.
[213] [Footnote 211: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 777.
He alludes also to the enslavement of the indigenous population called the Mariandyni, by the Grecian colonists of Herakleia on the southern coast of the Euxine; and to the disturbances and disorders which had occurred through movements of the slaves in Southern Italy.
Probably this last may be connected with that revolt whereby the Bruttians became enfranchised; but we can make out nothing definite from Plato's language.]
[Footnote 212: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 777 D-E. [Greek: kola/zein ge mê\n e)n di/kê dou/lous a)ei\, kai\ mê\ nouthetou=ntas ô(s e)leuthe/rous thru/ptesthai poiei=n.
Tê\n de\ oi)ketou= pro/srêsin chrê\ schedo\n e)pi/taxin pa=san gi/gnesthai, mê\ prospai/zontas mêdamê=| mêdamô=s oi)ketai=s, mê/t' ou)=n thêlei/ais mê/t' a)/r)r(esin.]]
[Footnote 213: Aristotle (Polit.
vii.
p. 1330, a.
27; Oeconom.
i. p. 1344, b.
18) agrees with Plato as to the danger of having slaves who speak the same language and are of the same tribes, with common lineage and sympathies.
He disapproves of anything which tends to impart spirit and independence to the slave's character; and he takes occasion from hence to deduce some objections against various arrangements of the Platonic Republic (Politic.
ii.
p. 1264, a.
35).
These are precautions--[Greek: pro\s to\ mêde\n neôteri/zein].
But Aristotle dissents from Plato on another point--where Plato enjoins that the master shall not exhort or admonish his slave, but shall address to him no word except the word of command (Aristot.
Politic.
i. p. 1260, b.
5).
Aristotle says that there is a certain special and inferior kind of [Greek: a)retê\] which the slave can possess and ought to possess; that this ought to be communicated to him by the admonition and exhortation of the master; and that the master ought to admonish his slaves even more than he admonishes his children.
The slave requires a certain [Greek: ê)thikê\n a)retê/n], so that he may not be hindered from his duty by [Greek: a)kolasi/a] or [Greek: deili/a]: but it is an [Greek: a)retê\ mikra/]: the courage required for the slave is [Greek: u(pêretikê/], that for the master [Greek: a)rchikê/] (ib.
p. 1260, a.
22-35).
This measure of virtue the master must impart to the slave by exhortation, over and above the orders which he gives as to the performance of work.
It would appear, however, that in Aristotle's time there were various persons who denied that there was any [Greek: a)retê\] belonging to a slave--[Greek: para\ ta\s o)rganika\s kai\ diakonika/s] (p. 1259, b.
23).
Upon this last theory is founded the injunction of Plato which Aristotle here controverts.
What Aristotle says about slaves in the fifth chapter of the first book of his Oeconomica, is superior to what he says in the Politica, and superior to anything which we read in the Platonic Treatise De Legibus.]
[Side-note: Circular form for the city--Temples in the centre--No walls round it.]
As to the construction of the city, Plato prescribes that its external contour shall be of circular form, encircling the summit of an eminence, with the agora near the centre.
The temples of the Gods shall be planted around the agora, and the buildings for gymnasia and schooling, for theatrical representation, for magistrative, administrative, and judicial business, near at hand.
Plato follows the example of Sparta in prohibiting any special outer wall for the fortification of the city, which he treats as an indication of weakness and timidity: nevertheless he suggests that the houses constituting the city may be erected on such a plan, and in such connection, as to be equivalent to a fortification.
[214] When once the city is erected, the Astynomi or Ædiles are to be charged with the duty of maintaining its integrity and cleanliness.
[Footnote 214: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
778-779.]
[Side-note: Mode of life prescribed to new-married couples They are to take the best care about good procreation for the city.]
Plato next proceeds to regulate the mode of life proper for all his new-married couples.
He proclaims broadly that large interference with private and individual life is unavoidable; and that no great public reform can be accomplished without it.
[215] He points out that this principle was nowhere sufficiently admitted: not even at Sparta, where it was carried farther than anywhere else.
Even the Spartans and Kretans adopted the public mess-table only for males, and not for females.
[216] In Plato's view, it is essential for both.
He would greatly prefer (as announced already in his Republic) that it should be one and the same for both--males and females taking their meals together.
[Footnote 215: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 780 A, vii.
p. 790 A.]
[Footnote 216: Plato.
Legg.
vi.
p. 781 A.]
[Side-note: Board of superintending matrons.]
The newly-married couples are enjoined to bestow their best attention upon the production of handsome and well-constituted children: this being their primary duty to the city for ten years after their marriage.
Their conduct will be watched by a Board of Matrons, chosen for the purpose by the Nomophylakes, and assembling every day in the temple of Eileithuia.
In case of any dispute, or unfaithful or unseemly conduct, these Matrons will visit them to admonish or threaten, if they see reason.
Should such interference fail of effect, the Matrons will apprise the Nomophylakes, who will on their parts admonish and censure, and will at last denounce the delinquents, if still refractory, to the public authority.
The delinquents will then be disgraced, and debarred from the public ceremonies, unless they can clear themselves by indicting and convicting their accusers before the public tribunal.
[217] [Footnote 217: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p.
784.]
[Side-note: Age fixed for marriage.
During the first ten years the couple are under obligation to procreate for the city--Restrictions during these ten years.]
The age of marriage is fixed at from thirty to thirty-five for males, from sixteen to twenty for females.
The first ten years after marriage are considered as appropriated to the production of children _for the city_, and are subject to the strict supervision above mentioned.
If any couple have no offspring for ten years, the marriage shall be dissolved by authority.
After ten years the supervision is suspended, and the couple are left to themselves.
If either of them shall commit an infidelity with another person still under the decennial restriction, the party so offending is liable to the same penalty as if he were still himself also under it.
[218] But if the person with whom infidelity is committed be not under that restriction, no penalty will be incurred beyond a certain general discredit, as compared with others whose conduct is blameless, and who will receive greater honour.
However, Plato advises that nothing shall be said in the law respecting the conduct of married couples after the period of decennial restriction has elapsed, unless there be some grave scandal to call attention to the subject.
[219] [Footnote 218: Plato, Legg.
vi.
pp.
784-785.]
[Footnote 219: Plato, Legg.
vi.
p. 785 A.
[Greek: kai\ metriazo/ntôn me\n peri\ ta\ toiau=ta tô=n pleio/nôn a)nomothe/têta sigê=| kei/sthô, a)kosmou/ntôn de\ nomothetêthe/nta tau/tê| pratte/sthô], &c.] [Side-note: How infants are to be brought up--Nurses--Perpetual regulated movements--useful for toning down violent emotions.]
Plato now proceeds to treat about the children just born.
The principle of separate family being admitted in the Treatise De Legibus, he refrains from promulgating any peremptory laws on this subject, because it is impossible for the lawgiver or the magistrate to enter into each private house, and to enforce obedience on such minute and numerous details: while it would be discreditable for him to command what he could not enforce, and it would moreover accustom citizens to disobey the law with impunity.
Still, however, Plato[220] thinks it useful to deliver some general advice, which he hopes that fathers and mothers will spontaneously follow.
He begins with the infant as soon as born, and even before birth.
The mother during pregnancy is admonished to take regular exercise; the infant when born must be carried about constantly in the nurse's arms.
The invigorating effects of such gestation are illustrated by the practice of Athenian cock-fighters, who cause the cocks while under training to be carried about under the arms of attendants in long walks.
[221] Besides that the nurses (slaves) must be strong women, there must also be more than one to each infant, in order that he may be sufficiently carried about.
He must be kept in swaddling-clothes for the first two years, and must not be allowed to walk until he is three years of age.
[222] The perpetual movement and dandling, in the arms of the nurse, produces a good effect not only on the health and bodily force of the infant, but also upon his emotions.
[223] The infant ought to be kept (if it were possible) in movement as constant and unceasing as if he were on shipboard.
Nurses know this by experience, when they lull to sleep an insomnious child, not by holding him still, but by swinging him about in their arms, and by singing a ditty.
So likewise the insane and furious emotions inspired by Dionysus (also by Zeus, by the mother of the Gods, &c.) are appeased by the regulated movement, dance and music, solemnly performed at the ceremonial worship of the God who excited the emotions.
These are different varieties of fear and perturbation: they are morbid internal movements, which we overpower and heal by muscular and rhythmical movements impressed from without, with appropriate music and religious solemnities.
[224] [Footnote 220: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
788-790 A.]
[Footnote 221: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p.
789.]
[Footnote 222: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
789 E, 790 A.]
[Footnote 223: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 790 C-D. [Greek: la/bômen toi/nun tou=to oi(=on stoichei=on e)p' a)mpho/tera sô/mato/s te kai\ psuchê=s tô=n pa/nu ne/ôn, tê\n tithê/nêsin kai\ ki/nêsin, gignome/nên o(/ti ma/lista dia\ pa/sês nukto/s te kai\ ê(me/ras, ô(s e)/sti xu/mphoros a(/pasi me/n, ou)ch ê(/kista de\ toi=s o(/, ti neôta/toisi, kai\ oi)kei=n, ei) dunato\n ê)=n, oi(=on a)ei\ ple/ontas; nu=n d' ô(s e)ggu/tata tou/tou poiei=n dei= peri\ ta\ neogenê= pai/dôn thre/mmata.]]
[Footnote 224: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
790 E-791 A.
[Greek: deimai/nein e)sti/ pou tau=t' a)mpho/tera ta\ pa/thê, kai\ e)/sti dei/mata di' e(/xin phau/lên tê=s psuchê=s tina/.
o(/tan ou)=n e)/xôthe/n tis prosphe/rê toi=s toiou/tois pa/thesi seismo/n, ê( tô=n e)/xôthen kratei= ki/nêsis prospherome/nê tê\n e)nto\s phobera\n ou)=san kai\ manikê\n ki/nêsin, kratê/sasa de\ galê/nên ê(suchi/an tê=s peri\ ta\ tê=s kardi/as chalepê=s genome/nês e(ka/stôn pêdê/seôs.]
About the effect of the movement, bustle, noise, and solemn exhibitions, &c., of a Grecian festival, in appeasing the over-wrought internal excitement of those who took part in it, see Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 689.
Compare Euripid.
Hippolyt.
141, where the Chorus addresses the love-sick Phædra:-[Greek: su\ ta)/r' e)/ntheos, ô)= kou/ra, ei)/t' e)k Pano\s ei)/th' E(ka/tas, ê)\ semnô=n Koruba/ntôn, ê)\ matro\s o)rei/as phoita=|s.]
Also Eurip.
Medea, 1172 about [Greek: Pano\s o)rga/s].]
To guard the child, during the first three years of his life, against disturbing fears, or at least to teach him to conquer them when they may spring up, is to lay the best foundation of a fearless character for the future.
[225] By extreme indulgence he would be rendered wayward: by extreme harshness his spirit would be broken.
[226] A middle course ought to be pursued, guarding him against pains as far as may be, yet at the same time keeping pleasures out of his reach, especially the stronger pleasures: thus shall we form in him a gentle and propitious disposition, such as that which we ascribe to the Gods.
[227] [Footnote 225: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 791 C.] [Footnote 226: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 791 D.] [Footnote 227: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 792 C-D.] [Side-note: Choric and orchestic movements, their effect in discharging strong emotions.]
The comparison made here by Plato between the effect produced by these various religious ceremonies upon the mind of the votary, and that produced by the dandling of the nurse upon the perturbed child in her arms, is remarkable.
In both, the evil is the same--unfounded and irrational fear--an emotional disturbance within: in both, the remedy is the same--regulated muscular movement and excitement from without: more gentle in the case of the infant, more violent in the case of the adult.
Emotion is a complex fact, physical as well as mental; and the physical aspect and basis of it (known to Aristotle[228] as well as to Plato) is here brought to view.
To speak the language of modern science (with which their views here harmonise, in spite of their imperfect acquaintance with human anatomy), if the energies of the nervous system are overwrought within, they may be diverted into a new channel by bodily movements at once strenuous and measured, and may thus be discharged in a way tranquillising to the emotions.
This is Plato's theory about the healing effects of the choric and orchestic religious ceremonies of his day.
The God was believed first to produce the distressing excitement within--then to suggest and enjoin (even to share in) the ceremonial movements for the purpose of relieving it.
The votary is brought back from the condition of comparative madness to that of sober reason.
[229] Strong emotion of any kind is, in Plato's view, a state of distemper.
The observances here prescribed respecting wise regulation of the emotions, especially in young children, are considered by Plato as not being laws in the proper and positive sense, but as the unwritten customs, habits, rules, discipline, &c., upon which all positive laws repose and depend.
Though they appear to go into excessive and petty details, yet unless they be well understood and efficaciously realised, the laws enacted will fail to attain their purpose.
[230] [Footnote 228: Aristot.
De Animâ, i.
1.]
[Footnote 229: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 791 B.
[Greek: kateirga/sato a)nti\ manikô=n ê(mi=n diathe/seôn e(/xeis e)/mphronas e)/chein.]
Servius observes (Not.
ad Virgil.
Bucol.
v. 73):--"Sane, ut in religionibus saltaretur, hæc ratio est, quod nullam majores nostri partem corporis esse voluerunt, quæ non sentiret religionem.
Nam cantus ad animam, saltatio ad mobilitatem pertinet corporis."]
[Footnote 230: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 793 C-D.] [Side-note: Training of boys and girls.]
Pursuant to this view of the essential dependence of _leges_ upon _mores_, Plato continues his directions about the training of children.
From the age of three to six, the child must be supplied with amusements, under a gentle but sufficient controul.
The children of both sexes will meet daily at the various temples near at hand, with discreet matrons to preside over them, and will find amusement for each other.
At six years of age the boys and girls will be separated, and will be consigned to different male and female tutors.
The boys shall learn riding, military exercise, and the use of the various weapons of war.
The girls shall learn these very same things also, if it be possible.
Plato is most anxious that they should learn, but he fears that the feelings of the community will not tolerate the practice.
[231] All the teaching will be conducted under the superintendence of teachers, female as well as male: competent individuals, of both sexes, being appointed to the functions of command without distinction.
[232] The children will be taught to use their left hands as effectively as their right.
[233] Wrestling shall be taught up to a certain point, to improve the strength and flexibility of the limbs; but elaborate wrestling and pugilism is disapproved.
Imitative dancing, choric movements, and procession, shall also be taught, but always in arms, to familiarise the youth with military details.
[234] [Footnote 231: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 794 B-D.] [Footnote 232: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 795 D. [Greek: a)rchou/sais te kai\ a)/rchousi].
Also p. 806 E.] [Footnote 233: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
794-795, 804 D.] [Footnote 234: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 796 C-D.] [Side-note: Musical and literary teaching for youth--Poetry, songs, music, dances, must all be fixed by authority, and never changed--Mischief done by poets aiming to please.]
Plato now enters upon the musical and literary teaching proper for the youthful portion of his community.
Poetry, music, and dancing, as connected with the service and propitiation of the Gods, are in the first instance recreative and amusing; but they also involve serious consequences.
[235] It is most important to the community that these exercises should not only be well arranged, but that when arranged they should be fixed by authority, so as to prevent all innovations or deviations by individual taste.
Plato here repeats, with emphasis, his commendation of the Egyptian practice to consecrate all the songs, dances, and festive ceremonies, and to tolerate no others whatever.
[236] Change is in itself a most serious evil, and change in one department provokes an appetite for change in all.
Plato forbids all innovation, even in matters of detail, such as the shape of vessels or articles of furniture.
[237] He allows no poet to circulate any ode except such as is in full harmony with the declaration of the lawgiver respecting good and evil.
All the old poems must be sifted and weeded.
All new hymns and prayers to the Gods, even before they are shown to a single individual, must be examined by Censors above fifty years of age, in order that it may be seen whether the poet knows what he ought to praise or blame, and what he ought to pray for.
In general, the poets do not know what is good and what is evil.
By mistaken prayers--especially for wealth, which the lawgiver discountenances as prejudicial--they may bring down great mischief upon the city.
[238] Different songs must be composed for the two sexes: songs of a bold and martial character for males--of a sober and quiet character for females.
[239] But the poet must on no account cultivate "the sweet Muse," or make it his direct aim to produce emotions delightful to the audience.
The sound and useful music will always in the end become agreeable, provided the pupils hear it from their earliest childhood, and hear nothing else.
[240] Plato censures the tragic representations exhibited in the Grecian cities (at Athens, more than anywhere else) as being unseemly, and even impious, because, close to the altar where sacrifice was offered to the Gods, choric and dramatic performances of the most touching and pathetic character were exhibited.
The poet who gained the prize was he who touched most deeply the tender emotions of the audience, and caused the greatest flow of tears among them.
Now, in the opinion of Plato, the exhibition of so much human misery, and the communication of so much sorrowful sympathy, was most unsuitable to the festival day, and offensive to the Gods.
It was tolerable only on the inauspicious days of the year, and when exhibited by hired Karian mourners, such as those who wailed loudly at funerals.
The music at the festivals ought to have no emotional character, except that of gentle, kindly, auspicious cheerfulness.
[241] [Footnote 235: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 803 C-E.] [Footnote 236: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p.
799.]
[Footnote 237: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p.
797.]
[Footnote 238: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
800 A, 801 B, 802 B.]
[Footnote 239: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 802 D-E.] [Footnote 240: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 802 C. [Greek: kai\ mê\ paratitheme/nês tê=s glukei/as Mou/sês.]]
[Footnote 241: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 800 B-E. 801 A: [Greek: eu)phêmi/a, kai\ dê\ kai\ to\ tê=s ô)|dê=s ge/nos eu)/phêmon ê(mi=n pa/ntê| pa/ntôs u(parche/tô.]
This is a remarkable declaration of Plato, condemning the tragic representations at Athens.
Compare Gorgias, p. 501; Republic, x. p. 605; also about the effect on the spectators, Ion, p. 535 E. The idea of [Greek: eu)phêmi/a] is more negative than positive; it is often shown by silence.
The [Greek: dusphê/miai] (Soph.
Phil.
10), or [Greek: blasphêmi/a], as Plato calls it, are the positive act or ill-omened manifestation.
Plato, Phædon, p. 117: [Greek: e)n eu)phêmi/a| chrê\ teleuta=|n.]]
[Side-note: Boys and girls to learn letters and the lyre, from ten to thirteen years of age.
Masters will teach the laws and homilies of the lawgiver, and licensed extracts from the poets.]
At ten years old, the boys and girls (who have hitherto been exercised in recitation, singing, dancing, &c.) are to learn their letters, or reading and writing.
They will continue this process until thirteen years old.
They will learn the use of the lyre, for three years.
The same period and duration is fixed for all of them, not depending at all upon the judgment or preference of the parents.
[242] It is sufficient if they learn to read and and write tolerably, without aiming to do it either quickly or very well.
The boys will be marched to school at daybreak every morning, under the care of a tutor, who is chosen by the magistrate for the purpose of keeping them under constant supervision and discipline.
[243] The masters for teaching will be special persons paid for the duty, usually foreigners.
[244] They will be allowed to teach nothing except the laws and homilies of the lawgiver, together with any selections from existing poets which may be in full harmony with these.
[245] Plato here proclaims how highly he is himself delighted with his own string of homilies: which are not merely exhortations useful to be heard, but also have the charm of poetry, and have been aided by inspirations from the Gods.
[246] As for the poets themselves, whether serious or comic, whose works were commonly employed in teaching, being committed wholly or partially to memory--Plato repudiates them as embodying a large proportion of mischievous doctrine which his pupils ought never to hear.
Much reading, or much learning, he discountenances as dangerous to youths.
[247] [Footnote 242: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 810 A.]
[Footnote 243: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
808 C, 809 B.]
[Footnote 244: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
804 D, 813 E.] [Footnote 245: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 811 E. Any new poet who wishes to exhibit must submit his compositions to the Censors.
P. 817 C-D.] [Footnote 246: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 811 C-D. [Greek: ou)k a)/neu tino\s e)pipnoi/as theô=n .
.
.
ma/la ê(sthê=nai.]
Stallbaum in his note (p. 337) treats this as said in jest (_faceté_ dicit).
To me it seems sober earnest, and quite in character with the didactic solemnity of the whole treatise.
Plato himself would have been astonished (I think) at the note of his commentator.]
[Footnote 247: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
810-811.
[Greek: ki/nduno/n phêmi ei)=nai phe/rousan toi=s paisi\ tê\n polumathi/an] (811 B).
Compare p. 819 A.]
[Side-note: The teaching is to be simple, and common to both sexes.]
The teaching of the harp and of music (occupying the three years from thirteen to sixteen, after the three preceding years of teaching letters) will not be suffered to extend to any elaborate or complicated combinations.
The melody will be simple: the measure grave and dignified.
The imitative movement or dancing will exhibit only the gestures and demeanour suitable to the virtuous man in the various situations of life, whether warlike or pacific:[248] the subject-matter of the songs or hymns will be regulated (as above described) by censorial authority.
The practice will be consecrated and unchangeable, under the supervision of a magistrate for education.
[249] [Footnote 248: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 812 C-D.
Still Plato allows the exhibition, under certain conditions, of low, comic, ludicrous dances; yet not by any freemen or citizens, but by slaves and hired persons of mean character.
He even considers it necessary that the citizens should see such low exhibitions occasionally, in order to appreciate by contrast the excellence of their own dignified exhibitions.
Of two opposites you cannot know the one unless you also learn to know the other--[Greek: a)/neu ga\r geloi/ôn ta\ spoudai=a kai\ pa/ntôn tô=n e)nanti/ôn ta\ e)nanti/a mathei=n me\n ou) dunato/n, ei) me/llei tis phro/nimos e)/sesthai, poiei=n de\ ou)k a)\n dunato\n a)mpho/tera], &c. (p. 816 E).]
[Footnote 249: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 813 A.]
All this teaching is imparted to the youth of both sexes: to boys, by male teachers--to girls, by female teachers, both of them paid.
The training in gymnastic and military exercises and in arms, is also common to girls and boys.
[250] Plato deems it disgraceful that the females shall be brought up timorous and helpless--unable to aid in defending the city when it is menaced, and even unmanning the male citizens by demonstrations of terror.
[251] [Footnote 250: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
813 C-E, 814-815.
[Greek: polemikê\ o)/rchêsis--ei)rênikê/] or [Greek: a)po/lemos o)/rchêsis.]]
[Footnote 251: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 814 B.
See Æschylus, Sept. adv.
Thebas, 172-220.]
[Side-note: Rudiments of arithmetic and geometry to be taught.]
We next come to arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy.
Plato directs that all his citizens shall learn the rudiments of these sciences--not for the reason urged by most persons, because of the necessities of practical life (which reason he discards as extravagantly silly, though his master Sokrates was among those who urged it)--but because these are endowments belonging to the divine nature, and because without them no man can become a God, Dæmon, or Hero, capable of watching over mankind.
[252] In Egypt elementary arithmetic and geometry were extensively taught to boys--but very little in Greece:[253] though he intimates that both in Egypt, and in the Phenician towns, they were turned only to purposes of traffic, and were joined with sordid dispositions which a good lawgiver ought to correct by other provisions.
In the Platonic city, both arithmetic and geometry will be taught, so far as to guard the youth against absurd blunders about measurement, and against confusion of incommensurable lines and spaces with commensurable.
Such blunders are now often made by Greeks.
[254] By a good method, the teaching of these sciences may be made attractive and interesting; so that no force will be required to compel youth to learn.
[255] [Footnote 252: Plato.
Legg.
vii.
p. 812 B-C. [Greek: ou(=tos pa/ntôs tô=n lo/gôn eu)êthe/stato/s e)sti makrô=|.]
In interpreting this curious passage we must remember that regularity, symmetry, exact numerical proportion, &c., are the primary characteristics of the divine agents in Plato's view: of Uranus and the Stars, as the first of them, compare Æschyl.
Prometh.
460.]
[Footnote 253: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
818 E, 819 B-D. [Greek: ê)|schu/nthên .
.
.
u(pe\r a(pa/ntôn tô=n E(llê/nôn.]
Compare Legg.
v. p. 747 C, and Republic, iv.
p. 436 A. Respecting the distinction between [Greek: theoi/, dai/mones, ê(/rôes], see Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, pp.
104-115.]
[Footnote 254: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
819 E, 820 A-C.] [Footnote 255: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 820 D. [Greek: meta\ paidia=s a(/ma manthano/mena ô)phelê/sei.]
I transcribe here the curious passage which we read a little before.
Plat.
Legg.
vii.
p. 819 A-C. [Greek: Tosa/de toi/nun e(/kasta chrê\ pha/nai mantha/nein dei=n tou\s e)leuthe/rous, _o(/sa kai\ pa/mpolus_ e)n Ai)gu/ptô| _pai/dôn o)/chlos a(/ma gra/mmasi mantha/nei_.
Prô=ton me\n ga\r peri\ logismou\s a)technô=s paisi\n e)xeurême/na mathê/mata, meta\ paidia=s te kai\ ê(donê=s mantha/nein; _ mê/lôn te/ tinô=n dianomai\ kai\ stepha/nôn_ plei/osin a(/ma kai\ e)la/ttosin, a(rmotto/ntôn a)rithmô=n tô=n au)tô=n .
.
.
kai\ dê\ kai\ pai/zontes, phia/las a(/ma chrusou= kai\ chalkou= kai\ a)rgu/rou kai\ toiou/tôn tinô=n a)/llôn kerannu/ntes, oi( de\ kai\ o(/las pôs diadido/ntes, o(/per ei)=pon, ei)s _paidia\n e)narmo/ttontes ta\s tô=n a)nagkai/ôn a)rithmô=n chrê/seis, ô)phelou=si tou\s mantha/nontas ei)s_ te ta\s tô=n stratope/dôn ta/xeis kai\ a)gôga\s kai\ stratei/as kai\ ei)s oi)konomi/as au)=; kai\ pa/ntôs _chrêsimôte/rous au)tou\s au)toi=s kai\ e)grêgoro/tas ma=llon tou\s a)nthrô/pous_ a)perga/zontai.]
The information here given is valuable respecting the extensive teaching of elementary arithmetic as well as of letters among Egyptian boys, far more extensive than among Hellenic boys.
The priests especially, in Egypt a numerous order, taught these matters to their own sons (Diodor.
i.
81), probably to other boys also.
The information is valuable too in another point of view, as respects the _method_ of teaching arithmetic to boys; not by abstract numbers, nor by simple effort of memory in the repetition of a multiplication-table, but by concrete examples and illustrations exhibited to sense in familiar objects.
The importance of this concrete method, both in facilitating comprehension and in interesting the youthful learner, are strongly insisted on by Plato, as they have been also by some of the ablest modern teachers of elementary arithmetic: see Professor Leslie's Philosophy of Arithmetic, and Mr. Horace Grant's Arithmetic for Young Children and Second Stage of Arithmetic.
The following passage from a work of Sir John Herschel (Review of Whewell's History of Inductive Sciences, in the Quarterly Review, June, 1841) bears a striking and curious analogy to the sentences above transcribed from Plato:--"_Number_ we cannot help regarding as an abstraction, and consequently its general properties or its axioms to be of necessity inductively concluded from the consideration of particular cases.
And surely this is the way in which children do acquire their knowledge of number, and in which they learn its axioms.
The apples and the marbles are put in requisition ([Greek: mê/lôn dianomai\ kai\ stepha/nôn], _Plato_), and through the multitude of gingerbread nuts their ideas acquire clearness, precision, and generality."
I borrow the above references from Mr. John Stuart Mill, System of Logic, Book ii.
ch.
vi.
p. 335, ed.
1.
They are annexed as a note to the valuable chapters of his work on Demonstration and Necessary Truths, in which he shows that the truth so-called, both in Geometry and Arithmetic, rest upon inductive evidence.
"The fundamental truths of the Science of Number all rest upon the evidence of sense: they are proved by showing to our eyes and to our fingers that any given number of objects, ten balls for example, may by separation and re-arrangement exhibit to our senses all the different sets of numbers, the sum of which is equal to ten.
All the improved methods of teaching arithmetic to children proceed upon a knowledge of this fact.
All who wish to carry the child's _mind_ along with them in learning arithmetic--all who (as Dr. Biber in his remarkable Letters on Education expresses it) wish to teach numbers and not mere ciphers--now teach it through the evidence of the senses, in the manner we have described" (p.
335).]
[Side-note: Astronomy must be taught, in order that the citizens may not assert libellous falsehoods respecting the heavenly bodies.]
Astronomy must also be taught up to a certain point, in order that the youth may imbibe correct belief respecting those great Divinities--Hêlios, Selênê, and the Planets--or may at any rate be protected from the danger of unconsciously advancing false affirmations about them, discreditable to their dignity.
The general public consider it impious to study the Kosmos and the celestial bodies, with a view to detect the causes of what occurs:[256] while at the same time they assert that the movements of Hêlios and Selênê are irregular, and they call the planets Wanderers.
Regular action is (in Plato's view) the characteristic mark of what is good and perfect: irregularity is the foremost of all defects, and cannot without blasphemy be imputed to any of the celestial bodies.
Moreover, many persons also assert untruly, that among the celestial bodies the one which is really the slowest mover, moves the fastest--and that the one which is really the fastest mover, moves the slowest.
How foolish would it appear (continues Plato) if they made the like mistake about the Olympic runners, and if they selected the defeated competitor, instead of the victor, to be crowned and celebrated in panegyrical odes!
How offensive is such falsehood, when applied to the great Gods in the heavens!
Each of them has in reality one uniform circular movement, though they appear to have many and variable movements.
Our youth must be taught enough of astronomy to guard against such heresies.
The study of astronomy up to this point, far from being impious, is indispensable as a safeguard against impiety.
[257] Plato intimates that these astronomical truths were of recent acquisition, even to himself.
[258] [Footnote 256: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 821 A.
We must observe that the Athenian (who here represents Plato himself) does not give this repugnance to astronomical study as his own feeling, but, on the contrary, as a prejudice from which he dissents.
There is no ground, therefore, so far as this passage is concerned, for the charge of contradiction advanced by Velleius against Plato in Cicero De Nat.
Deor.
i.
12, 30.]
[Footnote 257: Plat.
Legg.
vii.
pp.
821 B-822 C. [Greek: katapseudo/metha nu=n, ô(s e)/pos ei)pei=n, E(/llênes pa/ntes mega/lôn theô=n, Ê(li/ou te a(/ma kai\ Selê/nês] (821 B) .
.
.
[Greek: peri\ theô=n tô=n kat' ou)/ranon tou/s ge ê(mete/rous poli/tas te kai\ tou\s ne/ous to\ me/chri tosou/tou mathei=n peri\ a(pa/ntôn tou/tôn, me/chri tou= mê\ blasphêmei=n peri\ au)ta/, eu)phêmei=n de\ a)ei\ thu/ontas te kai\ e)n eu)chai=s eu)chome/nous eu)sebôs] (821C-D).
The five Planets were distinguished and named, and their periods to a certain extent understood, by Plato; but by many persons in his day the word Planet was understood more generally as comprehending all the celestial bodies, sun and moon among them--(except fixed stars) therefore comets also--[Greek: ta\ mê\ e)n tê=| au)tê=| periphora=| o)/nta], Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
7, 5, where an opinion is ascribed to Sokrates quite opposed to that which Plato here expresses.
See Schaubach, Geschichte der Astronomie, pp.
212-477.]
[Footnote 258: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
819 D, 821 E. This portion of the Leges is obscure, and would be hardly intelligible if it were not illustrated by a passage in the Timæus (p. 38).
Even with such help it is difficult, and has been understood differently by different interpreters.
Proklus (in Timæum, pp.
262-263) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii.
note 36, p. 84) interpret it as alluding to the spiral line ([Greek: e(/lika]) described by each planet (Sun and Moon are each counted as planets) round the Earth, arising from the combination of the force of the revolving sidereal sphere or Aplanês, carrying all the planets round along with it from East to West, with the counter-movement (contrary, but obliquely contrary) inherent in each planet.
The spiral movement of each planet, resulting from combination of these two distinct forces, is a regular movement governed by law; though to an observer who does not understand the law, the movements appear irregular.
Compare Derkyllides ap.
Theon Smyrn.
c. 41, f. 27, p. 330, ed.
Martin.
The point here discussed forms one of the items of controversy between Gruppe and Boeckh, in the recent discussion about Plato's astronomical views.
_Gruppe_, Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, pp.
157-168: _Boeckh_, Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, pp.
45-57.
Gruppe has an ingenious argument to show that the novelty ([Greek: para/doxon]) which Plato had in his mind, but was afraid to declare openly because of existing prejudices, was the heliocentric or Copernican system, which he believes to have been Plato's discovery.
Boeckh refutes Gruppe's reasoning; and refutes it, in my judgment, completely.
He sustains the interpretation given by Proklus and Martin.
Boeckh also illustrates (pp.
35-38-49-54), in a manner more satisfactory than Gruppe, the dicta of Plato about the comparative velocity of the Planets (Sun and Moon counted among them).
Plato declares the Moon to be the quickest mover among the planets, and Saturn to be the slowest.
On the contrary Demokritus pronounced the Moon to be the slowest mover of all; slower than the Sun, because the Sun was farther from the Earth and nearer to the outermost or sidereal sphere.
It was the rotation of this last-mentioned sphere (according to Demokritus) which carried round along with it the Sun, the Moon, and all the planets: the bodies near to it were more forcibly acted upon by its rotation, and carried round more rapidly, than the bodies distant from it--hence the Moon was the least rapid mover of all (Lucretius, v. 615-635.
See Sir George Lewis's Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, ch.
ii.
pp.
139-140).
It appears to me probable that Plato, in the severe remarks which he makes on persons who falsely affirmed the quickest mover in the heavens to be the slowest, had in view these doctrines of Demokritus.
Plato never once mentions Demokritus by name (see Mullach, Fragment.
Demokrit.
p. 25); but he is very sparing in mentioning by name _any_ contemporaries.
It illustrates the difference between the manner of Aristotle and Plato, that Aristotle frequently names Demokritus--seventy-eight times according to Mullach (p. 107)--even in the works which we possess.]
[Side-note: Hunting--how far permitted or advised.]
In regard to hunting, Plato thinks that it is a subject on which positive laws are unsuitable or insufficient, and he therefore gives certain general directions which partake of the nature both of advice and of law.
The good citizen (he says) is one who not only obeys the positive laws prescribed by the lawgiver, but who also conforms his conduct to the general cast of the lawgiver's opinions: practising what is commended therein, abstaining from what is blamed.
[259] Plato commends one mode of hunting--the chase after quadrupeds: yet only with horses, dogs, javelins, &c., wherein both courage and bodily strength are improved--but not with nets or snares, where no such result is produced.
He blames other modes--such as fishing and bird-snaring (especially by night).
He blames still more emphatically theft and piracy, which he regards also as various modes of hunting.
[260] [Footnote 259: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 822 E.] [Footnote 260: Plato, Legg.
vii.
pp.
823-824.]
[Side-note: Large general sense which Plato gives to the word hunting.]
What principally deserves notice here is, the large general idea which Plato conceives to himself under the term Hunting, and the number of diverse particulars comprehended therein.
1.
Hunting of quadrupeds; either with dogs and javelins openly, or with snares, by stratagem.
2.
Hunting of birds, in the air.
3.
Hunting of fishes, in the water.
4.
Hunting after the property of other men, in the city or country.
5.
Hunting after men as slaves, or after other valuables, by means of piratical vessels.
6.
Hunting of public enemies, by one army against an opposite one.
7.
Hunting of men to conciliate their friendship or affection, sometimes by fair means, sometimes by foul.
[261] [Footnote 261: Plato, Legg.
vii.
p. 823.
[Greek: thê/ra ga\r pampolu/ ti pra=gma/ e)sti, perieilêmme/non o)no/mati schedo\n e(ni\ .
.
.
pollê\ de\ ê( kata\ phili/an thêreu/ousa] (823 B) .
.
.
[Greek: a)/gras a)nthrô/pôn kata\ tha/lattan .
.
.
klôpei/as e)n chô/ra| kai\ po/lei] (823 E).
Compare the Epinomis, p. 975 C. So also in the Sophistês (pp.
221-222) Plato analyses and distributes the general idea of [Greek: thêreutikê/]: including under it, as one variety, the hunting after men by violent means ([Greek: tê\n bi/aion thê/ran, tê\n lê|stikê/n, a)ndrapodistikê\n, turannikê/n, kai\ xu/mpasan tê\n polemikê/n])--and as another variety, the hunting after men by persuasive or seductive means ([Greek: tê\n pithanourgikê/n, e)rôtikê/n, kolakikê/n]).
In the Memorabilia of Xenophon also (ii.
6, 29-33), Sokrates expands this same idea--[Greek: tê\n thê/ran a)nthrô/pôn--ta\ tô=n phi/lôn thêratika/], &c. Compare also the conversation between Sokrates and Theodotê (iii.
11, 8-15)--[Greek: thêrô/menos], ib.
i.
2, 24--and Plato Protag.
init.]
That all these processes--which Plato here includes as so many varieties of hunting--present to the mind, when they are compared, a common point of analogy, is not to be denied.
The number of different comparisons which the mind can make between phenomena, is almost unlimited.
Analogies may be followed from one to another, until at last, after successive steps, the analogy between the first and the last becomes faint or imperceptible.
Yet the same word, transferred successively from the first to the last, conceals this faintness of analogy and keeps them all before the mind as one.
To us, this extension of the word _hunting_ to particular cases dissimilar in so many respects, appears more as poetical metaphor: to intelligent Greeks of the Sokratic school, it seemed a serious comparison: and to Plato, with his theory of Ideas, it ought to have presented a Real Idea or permanent One, which alone remained constant amidst an indefinite multitude of fugitive, shadowy, and deceptive, particulars.
But though this is the consistent corollary, from Plato's theory of Ideas, he does not so state it in the Treatise De Legibus, and probably he did not so conceive it.
Critics have already observed that in this Treatise scarce any mention is made of the theory of Ideas.
Plato had passed into other points of view: yet he neither formally renounces the points of view which we find in anterior dialogues, nor takes the trouble of reconciling them with the thoughts of the later dialogues.
Whether there exists any Real, Abstract, Idea of Hunting, apart from the particular acts and varieties of hunting--is a question which he does not touch upon.
Yet this is the main feature of the Platonic philosophy, and the main doctrine most frequently impugned by Aristotle as Platonic.
[Side-note: Number of religious sacrifices to be determined by lawgiver.]
Although, in regard to the religious worship of his community, the oracle of Delphi is asked to prescribe what sacrifices are to be offered, and to what Gods--yet the religious lawgiver will determine the number of such sacrifices and festivals, as well as the times and seasons.
[262] Each day in the year, sacrifice will be offered by one of the magistrates to some God or Dæmon.
Once in every month, there will be a solemn sacrifice and festival, with matches of music and gymnastics, offered by each tribe to its eponymous God.
The offerings to the celestial Gods will be kept distinct from the offerings to the subterranean Gods.
Among these last, Pluto will be especially worshipped during the twelfth month of the year.
The festivals will be adjusted to the seasons, and there will on proper occasions be festivals for women separately and exclusively.
[263] [Footnote 262: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p.
828.]
[Footnote 263: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p.
828.]
[Side-note: Military muster of the whole citizen population once in each month--men, women, and children.]
Once a month certainly--and more than once, if the magistrates command--on occasion of one of these festivals, all the citizen population are ordered to attend in military muster--men, women and children.
They will be brought together in such divisions and detachments as the magistrate shall direct.
They will here go through gymnastic and military exercises.
They will also have fights, with warlike weapons not likely to inflict mortal wounds, yet involving sufficient danger to test their bravery and endurance: one against one, two against two, ten against ten.
[264] The victors will receive honorary wreaths, and public encomium in appropriate songs.
Both men and women will take part alike in these exercises and contests, and in the composition of the odes to celebrate the victors.
[265] [Footnote 264: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 833 E.] [Footnote 265: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 829 B-E. [Greek: Ta\ au)ta\ de\ le/gô stratei/as te peri\ kai\ tê=s e)n poiê/sesi par)r(êsi/as gunaixi/ te kai\ a)ndra/sin o(moi/ôs gi/gnesthai dei=n.]
830 E: [Greek: chrôme/nous u(pokindu/nois be/lesin.]]
Such monthly musters, over and above the constant daily gymnastics of the youthful population, are indispensable as preliminary training; without which the citizens cannot fight with efficiency and success, in the event of a real foreign enemy invading the territory.
[266] No athlete ever feels himself qualified to contend at the public games without the most laborious special training beforehand.
Yet Plato expresses apprehension that his proposal of regular musters for warlike exercises with sham-battles, will appear ridiculous.
He states that nothing of the kind existed in any Grecian city, by reason of two great corruptions:--First, the general love of riches and money-getting: Secondly, the bad governments everywhere existing, whether democracy, oligarchy, or despotism--each of which was in reality a faction or party-government, _i.e._, government by one part over another unwilling part.
[267] [Footnote 266: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p.
830.]
[Footnote 267: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
pp.
831-832.
I read with surprise the declaration of Plato, that no such military training exercises existed _anywhere_ in Greece.
How is this to be reconciled with the statements of Xenophon in his Treatise on the Republic of the Lacedæmonians, wherein he expressly calls the Spartans [Greek: techni/tas tô=n polemikô=n]--or even with statement of Plato himself about Sparta in the first book of this Treatise De Legibus?
Compare Thucyd.
v.
69.]
[Side-note: Gymnastic training must have reference to war, not to athletic prizes.]
Plato prescribes that the gymnastic training in his community shall be such as to have a constant reference to war; and that elaborate bodily excellence, for the purpose simply of obtaining prizes at the public games, shall be discouraged.
There will be foot-races, for men, for boys, and for young women up to twenty years of age--the men always running in full panoply.
[268] Horse-racing is permitted, but chariot-racing is discountenanced.
[269] There will also be practice with the bow and with other weapons of light warfare, in which the young women are encouraged to take part--yet not constrained, in deference to prevalent sentiment.
[270] [Footnote 268: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 833 B-C.] [Footnote 269: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 834 B.]
[Footnote 270: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 834 C-D.] [Side-note: Regulation of sexual intercourse.
Syssitia or public mess.]
In regard to sexual intercourse, Plato recognises that the difficulty of regulating it according to the wisdom of the lawgiver is greater in his city than** in any actual city, because of the more free and public life of the women.
Neither Krete nor Sparta furnish a good example to follow on this point.
[271] He thinks however that by causing one doctrine on the subject to be continually preached, and by preventing any other from being even mentioned, the lawgiver may be able so to consecrate this doctrine as to procure for it pretty universal obedience.
The lawgiver may thus be able to suppress pæderasty altogether, and to restrict generally the sexual intercourse to that of persons legally married--or to enforce at least the restriction, that the exceptional cases of sexual intercourse departing from these conditions shall be covered with the veil of secrecy.
[272] The constant bodily exercises prescribed in the Platonic community will tend to diminish the influence of such appetites in the citizens: while the example of the distinguished prize combatants at the Olympic games, in whose long-continued training strict continence was practised, shows that even more than what Plato anticipates can be obtained, under the stimulus of sufficient motive.
[273] [Footnote 271: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 836 B.]
[Footnote 272: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p.
841.]
[Footnote 273: Plato, Legg.
viii.
pp.
840 A, 841 A.
Compare the remarks which I have made above in this volume (p. 197) respecting the small probable influence of Aphroditê in the Platonic Republic.
A like remark may be made, though not so emphatically, respecting the Platonic community in the Leges.]
What is here proposed respecting the sexual appetite finds no approbation from Kleinias, since the customs in Krete were altogether different.
But the Syssitia, or public mess-table for the citizens, are welcomed readily both by the Kretan and the Spartan.
The Syssitia existed both in Krete and at Sparta; but were regulated on very different principles in one and in the other.
Plato declines to discuss this difference, pronouncing it to be unimportant.
But Aristotle informs us what it was; and shows that material consequences turned upon it, in reference to the citizenship at Sparta.
[274] [Footnote 274: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p. 842 B; Aristot.
Politic.
ii.
9-10, p. 1271, a.
26, 1272, a.
12.
The statement of Aristotle, about the manner in which the cost of the Kretan Syssitia was provided, while substantially agreeing with Ephorus (ap.
Strabo.
x. p. 480), does not exactly coincide with the account given by Dosiadas of the Kretans in Lyktus (ap.
Athenæum, iv.
p. 143).
Compare Hoeckh, Kreta, vol.
iii.
pp.
134-138.]
[Side-note: Regulations about landed property--Boundaries--Limited power of fining by magistrates.]
Plato enters now upon the economical and proprietary rules proper for his community.
As there will be neither gold and silver nor foreign commerce, he is dispensed from the necessity of making laws about shipments, retailing, interest, mine-digging, collectors of taxes, &c. The persons under his charge will be husbandmen, shepherds, bee-keepers, &c., with those who work under them, and with the artisans who supply implements to them.
[275] The first and most important of all regulations is, the law of Zeus Horius or Terminalis--Not to disturb or transgress the boundary marks between different properties.
Upon this depends the maintenance of those unalterable _fundi_ or lots, which is the cardinal principle of the Platonic community.
Severe penalties, religious as well as civil, are prescribed for offenders against this rule.
[276] Each proprietor is directed to have proper regard to the convenience of neighbours, and above all to abstain from annoying or damaging them, especially in regard to the transit, or retention, or distribution, of water.
To intercept the supply, or corrupt the quality of water, is a high crime.
[277] Regulations are made about the carrying of the harvest, both of grain and fruit.
Disputes arising upon these points are to be decided by the magistrates, up to the sum of three minæ: above that sum, by the public Dikasteries.
Many rules of detail will require to be made by the magistrates themselves with a view to fulfil the purposes of the lawgiver.
So soon as the magistrates think that enough of these regulations have been introduced, they will consecrate the system as it stands, rendering it perpetual and unalterable.
[278] [Footnote 275: Plato, Legg.
viii.
pp.
842 D, 846 D.] [Footnote 276: Plato, Legg.
viii.
pp.
842-843.]
[Footnote 277: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
pp.
844 A, 845 E.] [Footnote 278: Plat.
Legg.
viii.
p. 846 A-D.] [Side-note: Regulations about artisans--Distribution of the annual landed produce.]
Next, Plato passes to the Demiurgi or Artisans.
These are all non-citizens or metics: for it is a peremptory law, that no citizen shall be an artisan in any branch.
Nor is any artisan permitted to carry on two crafts trades at once.
[279] If any article be imperatively required from abroad, either for implements of war or for religious purposes, the magistrates shall cause it to be imported.
But there shall be no retailing, nor reselling with profit, of any article.
[280] [Footnote 279: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p. 846 D-E.] [Footnote 280: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p.
847.]
The distribution of the produce of land shall be made on a principle approaching to that which prevails in Krete.
[281] The total produce raised will be distributed into twelve portions, each equivalent to one month's consumption.
Each twelfth portion will then be divided into equal thirds.
Two of these thirds will be consumed by the citizens, their families, their slaves, and their agricultural animals: the other third will be sold in the market for the consumption of artisans and strangers, who alone are permitted to buy it, all citizens being forbidden to do so.
Each citizen will make the apportionment of his own two-thirds among freemen and slaves: a measured quantity shall then be given to each of the working animals.
[282] On the first of each month, the sale of barley and wheat will be made in the market-place, and every artisan or stranger will then purchase enough for his monthly consumption: the like on the twelfth of each month, for wine and other liquids--and on the twentieth of each month, for animals and animal products, such as wool and hides.
Firewood may be purchased daily by any stranger or artisan, from the proprietors on whose lands the trees grow, and may be resold by him to other artisans: other articles can only be sold at the monthly market-days.
The Agoranomi, or regulators of the market, will preside on those days, and will fix the spots on which the different goods shall be exposed for sale.
They will also take account of the quantity which each man has for sale, fixing a certain price for each article.
They will then adjust the entries of each man's property in the public registers according to these new transactions.
But if the actual purchases and sales be made at any rate different from what is thus fixed, the Agoranomi will modify their entries in the register according to the actual rate, either in plus or in minus.
These entries of individual property in the public register will be made both for citizens and resident strangers alike.
[283] [Footnote 281: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p. 847 E. [Greek: e)ggu\s tê= tou= Krêtikou= no/mou.]]
[Footnote 282: Plato, Legg.
viii.
pp.
847-848.]
[Footnote 283: Plato, Legg.
viii.
pp.
849-850.
These regulations are given both briefly and obscurely.]
[Side-note: Admission of resident Metics--conditions attached.]
It shall be open to any one who chooses, to come and reside in the city as a stranger or artisan to exercise his craft, without payment of any fee, simply on condition of good conduct; and of being enrolled with his property in the register.
But he shall not acquire any fixed settlement.
After twenty years, he must depart and take away his property.
When he departs, the entries belonging to his name, in the proprietary register, shall be cancelled.
If he has a son, the son may also exercise the same art and reside as a metic in the city for twenty years, but no longer; beginning from the age of fifteen.
Any metic who may render special service to the city, may have his term prolonged, the magistrates and the citizens consenting.
[284] [Footnote 284: Plato, Legg.
viii.
p.
850.]
[Side-note: Offences and penal judicature--Procedure of the Dikasts.]
Plato now passes to the criminal code of his community: the determination of offences, penalties, and penal judicature.
Serious and capital offences will be judged by the thirty-seven Nomophylakes, in conjunction with a Board of Select Dikasts, composed of the best among the magistrates of the preceding year.
[285] They will hear first the pleading of the accuser, next that of the accused: they will then proceed, in the order of seniority, to put questions to both these persons, sifting the matter of charge.
Plato requires them to be active in this examination, and to get at the facts by mental effort of their own.
They will take notes of the examination, then seal up the tablet, and deposit it upon the altar of Hestia.
On the morrow they will reassemble and repeat their examination, hearing witnesses and calling for information respecting the affair.
On the third day, again the like: after which they will deliver their verdict on the altar of Hestia.
Upon this altar two urns will be placed, for condemnation and acquittal: each Dikast will deposit his pebble in one or other of these, openly before the accuser and accused, and before the assembled citizens.
[286] [Footnote 285: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
855-856.
This judicial Board is mentioned also in xi.
pp.
926 D, 928 B, 938 B, under the title of [Greek: to\ tô=n e)kkri/tôn dikastê/rion--to\ tô=n e)klektô=n dikastê/rion].
It forms the parallel to the Areiopagus at Athens.
See K. F. Hermann, De Vestigiis Institut.
Attic., &c., pp.
45-46, &c.] [Footnote 286: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
855-856.
Compare the procedure before the Areiopagus at Athens, as described by Schömann, Antiq.
Juris Publ.
Græc.
Part v. s. 63, p. 292.
It does not appear that the Areiopagites at Athens were in the practice of exercising any such [Greek: a)na/krisis] of the parties before them, as Plato enjoins upon his [Greek: e)klektoi\ dikastai/]: though it was competent to the Dikasts at Athens to put questions if they chose.
Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, p.
718.]
Conformably to the general sentiment announced still more distinctly in the Republic, Plato speaks here also of penal legislation as if it were hardly required.
He regards it as almost an insult to assume that any of his citizens can grow up capable of committing grave crimes, when they have been subjected to such a training, discipline, and government as he institutes.
Still human nature is perverse: we must provide for the occurrence of some exceptional criminals among our citizens, even after all our precautionary supervision: besides, over and above the citizens, we have metics and slaves to watch over.
[287] [Footnote 287: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 853 C-D-E.] [Side-note: Sacrilege, the gravest of all crimes.
High Treason.]
The first and gravest of all crimes is Sacrilege: pillage or destruction of places or objects consecrated to the Gods.
Next comes high treason: either betrayal of the city to foreign enemies, or overthrow of the established laws and government.
Persons charged with these crimes shall be tried before the Select Dikasts, or High Court above constituted.
If found guilty, they shall be punished either capitally or by such other sentence as the court may award.
But no sentence either of complete disfranchisement or of perpetual banishment can be passed against any citizen, because every one of the 5040 lots of land must always remain occupied.
[288] Nor can any citizen be fined to any greater extent than what he possesses over and above his lot of land.
He may be imprisoned, or flogged, or exposed in the pillory, or put to do penance in some sacred precinct.
But his punishment shall noway extend to his children, unless persons of the same family shall be condemned to death for three successive generations.
Should this occur, the family shall be held as tainted.
Their lot of land shall be considered vacant, and assigned to some deserving young man of another citizen family.
[289] [Footnote 288: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 855 C. Compare the penalties inflicted by Plato with those which were inflicted in Attic procedure.
Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp.
739-740 seq.
There is considerable difference between the two, arising to a great degree out of Plato's peculiar institution about the unalterable number of lots of land (5040) and of citizen families--as well as out of his fixation of maximum and minimum of property.
Flogging or beating is prescribed by Plato, but had no place at Athens: [Greek: a)timi/a] was a frequent punishment at Athens: Plato's substitute for it seems to be the pillory--[Greek: tina\s a)mo/rphous e(/dras].
Fine was frequent at Athens as a punishment: Plato is obliged to employ it sparingly.]
[Footnote 289: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 856 D.] [Side-note: Theft punished by _poena dupli_.
General exhortation founded by Plato upon this enactment.]
_Theft._--Plato next adverts to theft, and prescribes that the punishment for a convicted thief shall be one and the same in all cases--to compensate the party robbed to the extent of double the value of the property, or to be imprisoned until he does so.
[290] But upon a question upon this being raised, how far one and the same _poena dupli_, neither more nor less, can be properly applied to all cases of theft, we are carried (according to the usual unsystematic manner of the Platonic dialogue) into a general discussion on the principles of penal legislation.
We are reminded that the Platonic lawgiver looks beyond the narrow and defective objects to which all other lawgivers have hitherto unwisely confined themselves.
[291] He is under no pressing necessity to legislate at once: he can afford time for preliminary discussion and exposition: he desires to instruct his citizens respecting right and wrong, as well as to constrain their acts by penalty.
[292] As he is better qualified than the poets to enlighten them about the just and honourable, so the principles which he lays down ought to have more weight than the verses of Homer or Tyrtæus.
[293] In regard to Justice and Injustice generally, there are points on which Plato differs from the public, and also points on which the public are at variance with themselves.
For example, every one is unanimous in affirming that whatever is just is also beautiful or honourable.
But if this be true, then not only what is justly done, but also what is justly suffered, is beautiful or honourable.
Now the penalty of death, inflicted on the sacrilegious person, is justly inflicted.
It must therefore be beautiful or honourable: yet every one agrees in declaring it to be shocking and infamous.
Here there is an inconsistency or contradiction in the opinions of the public themselves.
[294] [Footnote 290: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 857 A, xii.
p. 941.
The Solonian Law at Athens provided, that if a man was sued for theft under the [Greek: i)di/a di/kê klopê=s], he should be condemned to the _poena dupli_ and to a certain [Greek: prosti/mêma] besides (Demosthen.
cont.
Timokrat.
733-736).
But it seems that the thief might be indicted by a [Greek: graphê/], and then the punishment might be heavier.
See Aulus Gellius, xi.
18, and chap.
xi.
of my 'History of Greece,' p.
189.]
[Footnote 291: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 857 C. [Greek: ta\ peri\ tê\n tô=n no/môn the/sin ou)deni\ tro/pô| pô/pote ge/gonen o)rthô=s diapeponême/na], &c.] [Footnote 292: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
857 E, 858 A.]
[Footnote 293: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
858-859.]
[Footnote 294: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
859-860.
The same argument is employed by Sokrates in the Gorgias, p. 476 E.] [Side-note: All unjust men are unjust involuntarily.--No such thing as voluntary injustice.
Injustice depends upon the temper of the agent--Distinction between damage and injury.]
But Plato differs from the public on another point also.
He affirms all wicked or unjust men to be unwillingly wicked or unjust: he affirms that no man does injustice willingly.
[295] How is he to carry out this maxim in his laws?
He cannot make any distinction (as all existing cities make it) in the penalties prescribed for voluntary injustice, and for involuntary injustice; for he does not recognise the former as real.
[296] He must explain upon what foundation his dissent from the public rests.
He discriminates between _Damnum_ and _Injuria_--between Damage or Hurt, and Injustice.
When damage is done, it is sometimes done voluntarily--sometimes, and quite as often, involuntarily.
The public call this latter by the name of involuntary injustice; but in Plato's view it is no injustice at all.
Injustice is essentially distinct from damage: it depends on the temper, purpose, or disposition of the agent, not on the result as affecting the patient.
A man may be unjust when he is conferring benefit upon another, as well as when he is doing hurt to another.
Whether the result be beneficial or hurtful, the action will be right or wrong, and the agent just or unjust, according to the condition of his own mind in doing it.
[297] [Footnote 295: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 860 D-E.] [Footnote 296: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 861 B.
[Greek: a(\ dê\ kata\ pa/sas ta\s po/leis u(po\ nomothetô=n pa/ntôn tô=n pô/pote genome/nôn ô(s du/o ei)/dê tô=n a)dikêma/tôn o)/nta, ta\ me\n e(kou/sia, ta\ de\ a)kou/sia, tau/tê| kai\ nomothetei=tai.]
The eighth chapter, fifth Book, of Aristotle's Nikomachean Ethics, discusses this question more instructively than Plato.]
[Footnote 297: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
861-862.]
[Side-note: Damage may be voluntary or involuntary--Injustice is shown often by conferring corrupt profit upon another--Purpose of punishment, to heal the distemper of the criminal.]
The real distinction therefore (according to Plato) is not between voluntary and involuntary injustice, but between voluntary and involuntary damage.
Voluntary damage is injustice, but it is not voluntary injustice.
The unjust agent, so far forth as unjust, acts involuntarily: he is under the perverting influence of mental distemper.
He must be compelled to make good the damage which he has done, or to offer such requital as may satisfy the feelings of the person damaged: and he must besides be subjected to such treatment as will heal the distemper of his mind, so that he will not be disposed to do farther voluntary damage in future.
And he ought to be subjected to this treatment equally, whether his mental distemper (injustice) has shown itself in doing wilful damage to another, or in conferring corrupt profit on another--in taking away another man's property, or in giving away his own property wrongfully.
[298] The healing treatment may be different in different cases: discourses addressed, or works imposed--pleasures or pains, honour or disgrace, fine or otherwise.
But in all cases the purpose is one and the same--to heal the distemper of his mind, and to make him hate injustice.
If he be found incurable, he must be put to death.
It is a gain for himself to die, and a still greater gain for society that he should die, since his execution will serve as a warning to others.
[299] [Footnote 298: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 862 B.
[Greek: ou)/t' ei)/ ti/s tô| di/dôsi/ ti tô=n o)/ntôn ou)/t' ei) tou)nanti/on a)phairei=tai, di/kaion a(plô=s ê)\ a)/dikon chrê\ to\ toiou=ton ou(/tô le/gein, a)ll' e)a\n ê)/thei kai\ dikai/ô| tro/pô| chrô/meno/s tis ô)phelê=| tina/ ti kai\ bla/ptê|, tou=to/ e)sti tô=| nomothe/tê| theate/on, kai\ pro\s du/o tau=ta dê\ blepte/on, pro/s te a)diki/an kai\ blabê/n.]]
[Footnote 299: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 862 C-E.] [Side-note: Three distinct causes of misguided proceedings.
1.
Painful stimulus.
2.
Pleasurable stimulus.
3.
Ignorance.]
Of misguided or erroneous proceeding there are in the human mind three producing causes, acting separately or conjointly:--1.
The painful stimulus--Anger, Envy, Hatred, or Fear.
2.
The seductive stimulus, of Pleasure or Desire.
3.
Ignorance.
Ignorance is twofold:--1.
Ignorance pure and simple.
2.
Ignorance combined with the false persuasion of knowledge.
This last again is exhibited under two distinguishable cases:--1.
When combined with power; and in this case it produces grave and enormous crimes.
2.
When found in weak persons, children or old men, in which case it produces, nothing worse than slight and venial offences, giving little trouble to the lawgiver.
[300] [Footnote 300: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 863 C. [Greek: Tri/ton mê\n a)/gnoian le/gôn a)/n tis tô=n a(martêma/tôn ai)ti/an ou)k a)\n pseu/doito.]]
[Side-note: The unjust man is under the influence either of the first or second of these causes, without controul of Reason.
If he acts under controul of Reason, though the Reason be bad, he is not unjust.]
Now the unjust man (Plato tells us) is he in whose mind either one or other of the two first causes are paramount, and not controuled by Reason: either Hatred, Anger, Fear--or else Appetite and the Desire of Pleasure.
What he does under either of these two stimuli is unjust, whether he damages any one else or not.
But if neither of these two stimuli be prevalent in his mind--if, on the contrary, both of them are subordinated to the opinion which he entertains about what is good and right--then everything which he does is just, even though he falls into error.
If in this state of mind he hurts any one else, it will be simply _hurt_, not injustice.
Those persons are incorrect who speak of it as injustice, but as involuntary injustice.
The proceedings of such a man may be misguided or erroneous, but they will never be unjust.
[301] [Footnote 301: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 864 A.
[Greek: tê\n de\ tou= a)ri/stou do/xan, o(/pê| per a)\n e)/sesthai tou=to ê(gê/sôntai po/lis ei)/te i)diô=tai/ tines, e)a\n au)/tê kratou=sa e)n psuchê=| diakosmê=| pa/nta a)/ndra, ka)\n spha/llêtai/ ti, di/kaion me\n pa=n ei)=nai to\ tau/tê| prachthe\n kai\ to\ tê=s toiau/tês a)rchê=s gigno/menon u(pê/koon e(ka/stôn, kai\ e)pi\ to\n a(/panta a)/nthrô/pôn bi/on a)/riston.]]
All these three causes may realise themselves in act under three varieties of circumstances: 1.
By open and violent deeds.
2.
By secret, deceitful, premeditated contrivance.
3.
By a combination of both the two.
Our laws must make provision for all the three.
[302] [Footnote 302: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 864 C.] [Side-note: Reasoning of Plato to save his doctrine--That no man commits injustice voluntarily.]
Such is the theory here advanced by Plato to reconcile his views and recommendations in the Leges with a doctrine which he had propounded and insisted upon elsewhere:--That no man commits injustice voluntarily--That all injustice is involuntary, arising from ignorance--That every one would be just, if he only knew wherein justice consists--That knowledge, when it exists in the mind, will exercise controul and preponderance over the passions and appetites.
[303] [Footnote 303: Compare Legg.
v. p. 731 C; Timæus, p. 86 D; Republic, ix.
p. 589 C; Protagoras, pp.
345 D--352 D.] The distinction whereby Plato here proposes to save all inconsistency, is a distinction between misconduct or misguided actions ([Greek: a(martê/mata], or [Greek: a(martano/mena]), and unjust actions ([Greek: a)dikê/mata]).
The last of these categories is comprised by him in the first, as one species or variety thereof.
That is, all [Greek: a)dikê/mata] are [Greek: a(martê/mata]: but all [Greek: a(martê/mata] are not [Greek: a)dikê/mata].
He reckons three distinct causes of [Greek: a(martê/mata]: two belonging to the emotional department of mind; one to the intellectual.
Those [Greek: a(martê/mata] which arise from either of the two first causes are also [Greek: a)dikê/mata]: those which arise from the third are not [Greek: a)dikê/mata].
This is the distinction which Plato here draws, with a view to save consistency in his own doctrine--at least as far as I can understand it, for the reasoning is not clear.
It proceeds upon a restricted definition, peculiar to himself, of the word _injustice_--a restriction, however, which coincides in part with that which he gives of Justice in the Republic,[304] where he treats Justice as consisting in the controul exercised over Passion and Appetite (the emotional department) by Reason (the intellectual): each of the three departments of the soul or each of the three separate souls, keeping in its own place, and discharging its own appropriate functions.
Every act which a man does under the influence of persuasion or opinion of the best, is held by Plato to be _just_--whatever his persuasion may be--whether it be true or false[305] If he be sincerely persuaded that he is acting for the best, he cannot commit injustice.
[Footnote 304: Plato, Republ.
iv.
pp.
443-444.]
[Footnote 305: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
863 C, 864 A.]
[Side-note: Peculiar definition of Injustice.
A man may do great voluntary hurt to others, and yet not be unjust, provided he does it under the influence of Reason, and not of Appetite.]
Injustice being thus restricted to mean the separate and unregulated action of emotional impulse--and such unregulated action being, as a general fact, a cause of misery to the agent--Plato's view is, that no man is voluntarily unjust: for no man wishes to be miserable.
Every man wishes to be happy: therefore every man wishes to be just: because some controul of impulse by reason is absolutely essential to happiness.
When once such controul is established, a man becomes just: he no longer commits injustice.
But he may still commit misconduct, and very gross misconduct: moreover, this misconduct will be, or may be, voluntary.
For though the rational soul be now preponderant and controuling over the emotional (which controul constitutes _justice_), yet the rational soul itself may be imperfectly informed (ignorance simple); or may not only be ignorant, but preoccupied besides with false persuasions and prejudices.
Under such circumstances the just man may commit misconduct, and do serious hurt to others.
What he does may be done voluntarily, in full coincidence with his own will: for the will postulates only the controul of reason over emotion, and here that condition is fulfilled, the fault lying with the controuling reason itself.
[Side-note: Plato's purpose in the Laws is to prevent or remedy not only injustice but misconduct.]
Plato's reasoning here (obscure and difficult to follow) is intended to show that there can be no voluntary _injustice_, but that there is much both of voluntary _misconduct_, and voluntary _mischief_.
His purpose as lawgiver is to prevent or remedy not only (what he calls) _injustice_, but also misconduct and mischief.
As a remedy for mischief done, he prescribes that the agent thereof shall make full compensation to the sufferer.
As an antidote to injustice, he applies his educational discipline as well as his penal and remuneratory treatment, to the emotions, with a view to subdue some and develop others.
[306] As a corrective to misconduct in all its branches, he assumes to himself as lawgiver a spiritual power, applied to the improvement of the rational or intellectual man: prescribing what doctrines and beliefs shall be accredited in his city, tolerating no others, and forbidding all contradiction, or dissentient individuality of judgment.
[307] He thus ensures that every man s individual reason shall be in harmony with the infallible reason.
[Footnote 306: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 862 C-D.] [Footnote 307: K. F. Hermann, in his valuable Dissertation, De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis de Legibus libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836, p. 55, says:--"Philosophi [Platonis] manum novatricem in iis tantum agnosco, quæ de exsilii tempore pro diversis criminum fontibus diverso argutatur; qui quum omnino omnium, nisi fallor, primus in hoc ipso Legum Opere veterem usuque receptam criminum divisionem in voluntaria et invita reprehenderit, eaque secundum tres animi partes trifariam distribuerit, ita hic quoque mediam inter imprudentiam et dolum malum iracundiam inseruit, quâ quis motus cædem vel extemplo committeret vel etiam posterius animum suum sanguine explêret."
I do not conceive Plato's reasoning exactly in the same way as Hermann.
Plato denies only the reality of [Greek: e(kou/sia a)dikê/mata]: he considers all [Greek: a)dikê/mata] as essentially [Greek: a)kou/sia].
But he does not deny [Greek: e(kou/sia a)dikê/mata] (which is the large genus comprehending [Greek: a)dikê/mata] as one species): he recognises both [Greek: a(martê/mata e(kou/sia] and [Greek: a(martê/mata a)kou/sia].
And he considers the [Greek: a(martê/mata] arising from [Greek: thumo\s] to be midway between the two.
But he also recognises [Greek: a(martê/mata] as springing from the three different sources in the human mind.
The two positions are not incompatible; though the whole discussion is obscured by the perplexing distinction between [Greek: a(martê/mata] and [Greek: a)dikê/mata].]
The peculiar sense in which Plato uses the words justice and injustice is perplexing throughout this discussion.
The words, as he uses them, coincide only in part with the ordinary meaning.
They comprehend more in one direction, and less in another.
Plato now proceeds to promulgate laws in respect to homicide, wounds, beating, &c. [Side-note: Varieties of homicide--modes of dealing with them penally.]
Homicide, however involuntary and unintentional, taints the person by whose hands it is committed.
He must undergo purification, partly by such expiatory ceremonies as the Exêgêtæ may appoint, partly by a temporary exile from the places habitually frequented by the person slain: who even after death (according to the doctrine of an ancient fable, which Plato here ratifies[308]), if he saw the homicidal agent among his prior haunts, while the occurrence was yet recent, would be himself disturbed, and would communicate tormenting disturbance to the agent.
This latter accordingly is commanded to leave the territory for a year, and to refrain from visiting any of the sacred precincts until he has been purified.
If he obeys, the relatives of the person slain shall forgive him; and he shall, after his year's exile, return to his ordinary abode and citizenship.
But if he evades obedience, these relatives shall indict him for the act, and he shall incur double penalties.
Should the nearest relative, under these circumstances, neglect to indict, he may himself be indicted by any one who chooses, and shall be condemned to an exile of five years.
[309] [Footnote 308: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
865 A-D--866 B.
Compare Antiphon.
Accus.
Cæd.
p. 116, and Lobeck, Aglaophamus, p. 301.
The old law of Drako is given in substance in Demosthen.
adv.
Leptin.
p. 505.
[Greek: A)peniautismo/s], compulsory year of exile.
K. F. Hermann, Griechische Privat-Alterthümer, s. 61, not.
23.]
[Footnote 309: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
866.]
[Side-note: Homicide involuntary--Homicide under provocation.]
Plato provides distinct modes of proceeding for this same act of involuntary homicide, under varieties of persons and circumstances--citizens, metics, strangers, slaves, &c. He especially lays it down that physicians, if a patient dies under their hands, they being unwilling--shall be held innocent, and shall not need purification.
[310] [Footnote 310: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 865 B.]
After involuntary homicide, Plato passes to the case of homicide committed under violent passion or provocation; which he ranks as intermediate between the involuntary and the voluntary--approaching the one or the other, according to circumstances:[311] according as it is done instantaneously, or with more or less of interval and premeditation.
If the act be committed instantaneously, the homicide shall undergo two years' exile: if after time for deliberation, the time of exile must be extended to three years.
[312] But if the slain person before his death shall have expressed forgiveness, the case shall be dealt with as one of involuntary homicide.
[313] Special enactments are made for the case of a slave killed by a citizen, a citizen killed by a slave, a son killed by his father, a wife by her husband, &c., under the influence of passion or strong provocation.
Homicide in self-defence against a previous aggressor is allowed universally.
[314] [Footnote 311: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 866 E. [Greek: thumô=| kai\ o(/soi propêlakisthe/ntes lo/gois ê)\ kai\ a)ti/mois e)/rgois .
.
.
metaxu/ pou tou= te e(kousi/ou kai\ a)kousi/ou.]]
[Footnote 312: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 867 D.] [Footnote 313: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 869 D.] [Footnote 314: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
868-869 C.] [Side-note: Homicide voluntary.]
Thirdly, Plato passes to the case of homicide voluntary, the extreme of injustice, committed under the influence of pleasure, appetite, envy, jealousy, ambition, fear of voluntary divulgation of dangerous secrets, &c.--homicide premeditated and unjust.
Among all these causes, the chief and most frequent is love of wealth; which gets possession of most men, in consequence of the untrue and preposterous admiration of wealth** imbibed in their youth from the current talk and literature.
The next in frequency is the competition of ambitious men for power or rank.
[315] Whoever has committed homicide upon a fellow-citizen, under these circumstances, shall be interdicted from all the temples and other public places, and shall be indicted by the nearest relatives of the deceased.
If found guilty, he shall be put to death: if he leave the country to evade trial, he must be banished in perpetuity.
The nearest relative is bound to indict, otherwise he draws down upon himself the taint, and may himself be indicted.
Certain sacrifices and religious ceremonies will be required in such cases, to accompany the legal procedure.
These, together with the names of the Gods proper to invoke, will be prescribed by the Nomophylakes, in conjunction with the prophets and the Exêgêtæ, or religious interpreters.
[316] The Dikasts before whom such trials will take place are the Nomophylakes, together with some select persons from the magistrates of the past year: the same as in the case of sacrilege and treason.
[317] The like procedure and penalty will be employed against any one who has contrived the death of another, not with his own hands, but by suborning some third person: except that this contriver may be buried within the limits of the territory, while the man whose hands are stained with blood cannot be buried therein.
[318] [Footnote 315: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
870.]
[Footnote 316: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
871.]
[Footnote 317: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 871 D.] [Footnote 318: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 872 A.]
[Side-note: Homicide between kinsmen.]
For the cases of homicide between kinsmen or relatives, Plato provides a form of procedure still more solemn, and a still graver measure of punishment.
He also declares suicide to leave a taint upon the country, which requires to be purified as the Exêgêtæ may prescribe: unless the act has been committed under extreme pain or extreme disgrace.
The person who has killed himself must be buried apart without honour, not in the regular family burying places.
[319] The most cruel mode of death is directed to be inflicted upon a slave who has voluntarily slain, or procured to be slain, a freeman.
If a slave be put to death without any fault of his own, but only from apprehension of secrets which he may divulge, the person who kills him shall be subjected to the same trial and sentence as if he had killed a citizen.
[320] If any animal, or even any lifeless object, has caused the death of a man, the surviving relatives must prosecute, and the animal or the object must be taken away from the country.
[321] [Footnote 319: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
873.]
[Footnote 320: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 872 D.] [Footnote 321: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 873 E. He makes exception of the cases in which death of a man is caused by thunder or some such other missile from the Gods--[Greek: plê\n o(/sa kerauno\s ê)\ ti para\ theou= toiou=ton be/los i)o/n.]]
[Side-note: Homicide justifiable--in what cases.]
_Justifiable Homicide._--Some special cases are named in which he who voluntarily kills another, is nevertheless perfectly untainted.
A housebreaker caught in act may thus be rightfully slain: so also a clothes-stealer, a ravisher, a person who attacks the life of any man's father, mother, or children.
[322] [Footnote 322: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 874 C.] [Side-note: Infliction of wounds.]
_Wounds._--Next to homicide, Plato deals with wounds inflicted: introducing his enactments by a preface on the general necessity of obedience to law.
[323] Whosoever, having intended to kill another (except in the special cases wherein homicide is justifiable), inflicts a wound which proves not mortal, is as criminal as if he had killed him.
Nevertheless he is not required to suffer so severe a punishment, inasmuch as an auspicious Dæmon and Fortune have interposed to ward off the worst results of his criminal purpose.
He must make full compensation to the sufferer, and then be exiled in perpetuity.
[324] The Dikastery will decide how much compensation he shall furnish.
In general, Plato trusts much to the discretion of the Dikastery, under the great diversity of the cases of wounds inflicted.
He would not have allowed so much discretion to the numerous and turbulent Dikasteries of Athens: but he regards his select Dikastery as perfectly trustworthy.
[325] Peculiar provision is made for cases in which the person inflicting the wound is kinsman or relative of the sufferer--also for homicide under the same circumstances.
Plato also directs how to supply the vacancy which perpetual banishment will occasion in the occupation of one among the 5040 citizen-lots.
[326] If one man wounds another in a fit of passion, he must pay simple, double, or triple, compensation according as the Dikasts may award: he must farther do all the military duty which would have been incumbent on the wounded man, should the latter be disabled.
[327] But if the person inflicting the wound be a slave and the wounded man a freeman, the slave shall be handed over to the wounded freeman to deal with as he pleases.
If the master of the slave will not give him up, he must himself make compensation for the wound, unless he can prove before the Dikastery that the case is one of collusion between the wounded freeman and the slave; in which case the wounded freeman will become liable to the charge of unlawfully suborning away the slave from his master.
[328] [Footnote 323: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
875.]
[Footnote 324: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 877 A.]
[Footnote 325: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 876 A.]
[Footnote 326: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
877.]
[Footnote 327: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 878 C.] [Footnote 328: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 879 A.]
[Side-note: Infliction of blows.]
_Beating._--The laws of Plato on the subject of beating are more peculiar.
They are mainly founded in reverence for age.
One who strikes a person twenty years older than himself, is severely punished: but if he strikes a person of the same age with himself, that person must defend himself as he can with his own hands--no punishment being provided.
[329] For him who strikes his father or mother, the heaviest penalty, excommunication and perpetual banishment, is provided.
[330] If a slave strike a freeman, he shall be punished with as many blows as the person stricken directs, nevertheless in such manner as not to diminish his value to his master.
[331] [Footnote 329: Plato, Legg.
ix.
pp.
879-880.
The person who struck first blow was guilty of [Greek: ai)ki/a], Demosth.
adv.
Euerg.
and Mnesibul.
pp.
1141-1151.]
[Footnote 330: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p.
881.]
[Footnote 331: Plato, Legg.
p. 882 A.]
[Side-note: Plato has borrowed much from Attic procedure, especially in regard to Homicide--Peculiar view of Homicide at Athens, as to procedure.]
Throughout all this Treatise De Legibus, in regard both to civil and criminal enactments, Plato has borrowed largely from Attic laws and procedure.
But in regard to homicide and wounds, he has borrowed more largely than in any other department.
Both the general character, and the particular details, of his provisions respecting homicide, are in close harmony with ancient Athenian sentiment, and with the embodiments of that sentiment by the lawgivers Drako and Solon.
At Athens, though the judicial procedure generally, as well as the political constitution, underwent great modification between the time of Solon and that of Demosthenes, yet the procedure in the case of homicide remained without any material change.
It was of a sanctified character, depending mainly upon ancient religious tradition.
The person charged with homicide was not tried before the general body of Dikasts, drawn by lot, but before special ancient tribunals and in certain consecrated places, according to the circumstances under which the act of homicide was charged.
The principal object contemplated, was to protect the city and its public buildings against the injurious consequences arising from the presence of a tainted man--and to mollify the posthumous wrath of the person slain.
This view of the Attic procedure[332] against homicide is copied by the Platonic.
Plato keeps prominently in view the religious bearing and consequences of such an act; he touches comparatively little upon its consequences in causing distress and diminishing the security of life.
He copies the Attic law both in the justifications which he admits for homicide, and in the sentence of banishment which he passes against both animals and inanimate objects to whom any man owes his death.
He goes beyond the Attic law in the solemnity and emphasis of his details about homicide among members of the same family and relatives: as well as in the severe punishment which he imposes upon the surviving relatives of the person slain, if they should neglect their obligation of indicting.
[333] Throughout all this chapter, Plato not only follows the Attic law, but overpasses it, in dealing with homicide as a portion of the Jus Sacrum rather than of the Jus Civile.
[Footnote 332: The oration of Demosthenes against Aristokrates treats copiously of this subject, pp.
627-646.
[Greek: ei)/rgein tê=s tou= patho/ntos patri/dos, di/kaion ei)=nai--o(/sôn tô=| patho/nti zô=nti metê=n, tou/tôn ei)/rgei to\n dedrako/ta, prô=ton me\n tê=s patri/dos] (632-633).
The first of Matthiæ's Dissertations, De Judiciis Atheniensium (Miscellanea Philologica, vol.
i. pp.
145-176), collects the information on these matters: and K. F. Hermann (De Vestigiis Institutorum Veterum, imprimis Atticorum, per Platonis De Legibus Libros indagandis, Marburg, 1836) gives a detailed comparison of Plato's directions with what we know about the Attic Law:--"Ipsas homicidiorum religiones (Plato) ex antiquissimo jure patrio in suum ita transtulit, ut nihil opportunius ad illustranda illius vestigia inveniri posse videatur" (p. 49).
.
.
.
"quæ omnia Solonis Draconisve in legibus ferè ad verbum eadem inveniuntur" (p. 50).
The same about [Greek: trau/mata e)k pronoi/as], pp.
58-59.]
[Footnote 333: K. F. Hermann, De Vestigiis, ut suprà, p. 54.
Compare Demosthenes adv.
Theokrin.
p.
1331.]
In respect to the offence of beating, he does not follow the Attic law, when he permits it between citizens of the same age, and throws the beaten person upon his powers of self-defence.
This is Spartan, not Athenian.
It is also Spartan when he makes the criminality, in giving blows, to turn upon the want of reverence for age: upon the circumstance, that the person beaten is twenty years older than the beater.
[334] [Footnote 334: Plato, Legg.
ix.
p. 879 C. He admits the same provision as to blows between [Greek: ê(/likes] into his Republic (v. p. 464 E).
Compare, about Sparta, Xenophon, Rep.
Laced.
iv.
5; Cicero, Tusc.
Disp.
v. 27; Pausanias, iii.
14: Dionys.
Halikarnass.
Arch.
Rom.
xx.
2.
[Greek: Lakedaimo/nioi o(/ti toi=s presbute/rois e)pe/trepon tou\s a)kosmou=ntas tô=n politô=n e)n o(/tô| dê/ tini tô=n dêmosi/ôn to/pôn tai=s baktêri/ais pai/ein.]]
[Side-note: Impiety or outrage offered to divine things or places.]
From these various crimes--sacrilege or plunder of holy places, theft, homicide, wounding, beating--Plato passes in the tenth book to insult or outrage ([Greek: u(/bris]).
These outrages (he considers) are essentially the acts of wild young men.
Outrage may be offered towards five different subjects.
1.
Public temples.
2.
Private chapels and sepulchres.
3.
Parents.
4.
The magistrates, in their dignity or their possessions.
5.
Private citizens, in respect of their civic rights and dignity.
[335] The tenth book is devoted entirely to the two first-mentioned heads, or to impiety and its alleged sources: the others come elsewhere, not in any definite order.
[336] [Footnote 335: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
884-885.]
[Footnote 336: Treatment of parents comes xi.
pp.
930-931.]
[Side-note: All impiety arises from one or other of three heresies.
1.
No belief in the Gods.
2.
Belief that the Gods interfere very little.
3.
Belief that they may be appeased by prayer and sacrifice.]
Plato declares that all impiety, either in word or deed, springs from one of three heretical doctrines.
1.
The heretic does not believe in the Gods at all.
2.
He believes the Gods to exist, but believes also that they do not interest themselves about human affairs; or at least that they interfere only to a small extent.
3.
He believes that they exist, and that they direct every thing; but that it is perfectly practicable to appease their displeasure, and to conciliate their favour, by means of prayer and sacrifice.
[337] [Footnote 337: Plato, Legg.
x. p.
885.]
[Side-note: Punishment for these three heretical beliefs, with or without overt act.]
If a person displays impiety, either by word or deed, in either of these three ways, he shall be denounced to the archons by any citizen who becomes acquainted with the fact.
The archons, on pain of taking the impiety on themselves, shall assemble the dikastery, and put the person accused on trial.
If found guilty, he shall be put in chains and confined in one or other of the public prisons.
These public prisons are three in number: one in the market-place, for ordinary offenders: a second, called the House of Correction ([Greek: sôphronistê/rion]), attached to the building in which the Supreme Board of Magistrates hold their nocturnal sittings: a third, known by some designation of solemn penalty, in the centre of the territory, but in some savage and desolate spot.
[338] [Footnote 338: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 908.
[Greek: desmo\s me\n ou)=n u(parche/tô pa=si; desmôtêri/ôn de\ o)/ntôn e)n tê=| po/lei triô=n], &c. Imprisonment included chains round the prisoner's legs.
Sokrates was put in chains during his thirty days' confinement, arising from the voyage of the Theôric ship to Delos (Plat.
Phædon, p. 60 B).]
[Side-note: Heretic, whose conduct has been virtuous and faultless, to be imprisoned for five years, perhaps more.]
Suppose the heretic, under either one of the three heads, to be found guilty of heresy pure and simple--but that his conduct has been just, temperate, unexceptionable, and his social dispositions steadily manifested, esteeming the society of just men, and shunning that of the unjust.
[339] There is still danger that by open speech or scoffing he should shake the orthodox belief of others: he must therefore be chained in the house of Correction for a term not less than five years.
During this term no citizen whatever shall be admitted to see him, except the members of the Nocturnal Council of Magistrates.
These men will constantly commune with him, administering exhortations for the safety of his soul and for his improvement.
If at the expiration of the five years, he appears to be cured of his heresy and restored to a proper state of mind, he shall be set at liberty, and allowed to live with other proper-minded persons.
But if no such cure be operated, and if he shall be found guilty a second time of the same offence, he shall suffer the penalty of death.
[340] [Footnote 339: Plato, Legg.
p. 908 B-E. [Greek: ô(=| ga\r a)/n, mê\ nomi/zonti theou\s ei)=nai to\ para/pan, ê)=thos phu/sei prosge/nêtai di/kaion, misou=nte/s te gi/gnontai tou\s kakou/s, kai\ tô=| duscherai/nein tê\n a)diki/an ou)/te ta\s toiau/tas pra/xeis prosi/entai pra/ttein, tou/s te mê\ dikai/ous tô=n a)nthrô/pôn pheu/gousi, kai\ tou\s dikai/ous ste/rgousi], &c.] [Footnote 340: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 909 A.
[Greek: e)n tou/tô| de\ tô=| chro/nô| mêdei\s tô=n politô=n au)toi=s a)/llos xuggigne/sthô, plê\n oi( tou= nukterinou= xullo/gou koinônou=ntes, e)pi\ nouthetê/sei te kai\ tê=| tê=s psuchê=s sôtêri/a| o(milou=ntes.]]
[Side-note: Heretic with bad conduct--punishment to be inflicted.]
Again--the heretic may be found guilty, not of heresy pure and simple in one of its three varieties, but of heresy manifesting itself in bad conduct and with aggravating circumstances.
He may conceal his real opinion, and acquire the reputation of the best dispositions, employing that reputation to overreach others, and combining dissolute purposes with superior acuteness and intelligence: he may practise stratagems to succeed as a despot, a public orator, a general, or a sophist: he may take up, and will more frequently take up, the profession of a prophet or religious ritualist or sorcerer, professing to invoke the dead or to command the aid of the Gods by prayer and sacrifice.
He may thus try to bring ruin upon citizens, families, and cities.
[341] A heretic of this description (says Plato) deserves death not once or twice only, but several times over, if it were possible.
[342] If found guilty he must be kept in chains for life in the central penal prison--not allowed to see any freemen--not visited by any one, except the slave who brings to him his daily rations.
When he dies, his body must be cast out of the territory without burial: and any freeman who may assist in burying it, shall himself incur the penalty of impiety.
From the day that the heretic is imprisoned, he shall be considered as civilly dead; his children being placed under wardship as orphans.
[343] [Footnote 341: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
908-909.]
[Footnote 342: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 908 E. [Greek: ô(=n to\ me\n ei)rôniko\n ou)ch e(no\s ou)de\ duoi=n a)/xia thana/toin a(marta/non], &c.] [Footnote 343: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 909 C.] [Side-note: No private worship or religious rites allowed.
Every citizen must worship at the public temples.]
As a still farther assurance for reaching and punishing these dangerous heretics, Plato enacts--No one shall erect any temple or altar, no one shall establish any separate worship or sacrifice, in his own private precincts.
No one shall propitiate the Gods by secret prayer and sacrifice of his own.
When a man thinks fit to offer prayer and sacrifice, he must do it at the public temples, through and along with recognised priests and priestesses.
If a man keep in his house any sacred object to which he offers sacrifice, the archons shall require him to bring it into the public temples, and shall punish him until he does so.
But if he be found guilty of sacrificing either at home or in the public temples, after the commission of any act which the Dikastery may consider grave impiety--he shall be condemned to death.
[344] [Footnote 344: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
909-910.]
[Side-note: Uncertain and mischievous action of the religious sentiment upon individuals, if not controuled by public authority.]
In justifying this stringent enactment, Plato not only proclaims that the proper establishment of temples and worship can only be dictated by a man of the highest intelligence, but he also complains of the violent and irregular working of the religious feeling in the minds of individuals.
Many men (he says) when sick, or in danger and troubles of what kind soever, or when alarmed by dreams or by spectres seen in their waking hours, or when calling to mind and recounting similar narratives respecting the past, or when again experiencing unexpected good fortune--many men under such circumstances, and all women, are accustomed to give a religious colour to the situation, and to seek relief by vows, sacrifices, and altars to the Gods.
Hence the private houses and villages become full of such foundations and proceedings.
[345] Such religious sentiments and fears, springing up spontaneously in the minds of individuals, are considered by Plato to require strict repression.
He will allow no religious worship or manifestation, except that which is public and officially authorised.
[Footnote 345: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 909 E-910 A.
[Greek: e)/thos te gunaixi/ te dê\ diaphero/ntôs pa/sais kai\ toi=s a)sthenou=si pa/ntê| kai\ kinduneu/ousi kai\ a)porou=sin, o(/pê| tis a)\n a)porê=|, .
.
.
kathierou=n te to\ paro\n a)ei/, kai\ thusi/as eu)/chesthai kai\ i(dru/seis u(pischnei=sthai theoi=s], &c. If, however, we turn back to v. p.738 C, we shall see that Plato ratifies these [Greek: kathierô/seis], when they have once got footing, and rejects only the new ones.
The rites, worship, and sacrifices, in his city, are assumed to have been determined by local or oracular inspiration (v. p. 738 B): the orthodox creed is set out by himself.]
[Side-note: Intolerant spirit of Plato's legislation respecting uniformity of belief.]
Such is the Act of Uniformity promulgated by Plato for his new community of the Magnêtes, and such the terrible sanctions by which it is enforced.
The lawgiver is the supreme and exclusive authority, spiritual as well as temporal, on matters religious as well as on matters secular.
No dissenters from the orthodoxy prescribed by him are admitted.
Those who believe more than he does, and those who believe less, however blameless their conduct, are condemned alike to pass through a long solitary imprisonment to execution.
Not only the speculations of enquiring individual reason, but also the spontaneous inspirations of religious disquietude or terror, are suppressed and punished.
[346] [Footnote 346: Plato himself is here the [Greek: No/mos Po/leôs], which the Delphian oracle, in its responses, sanctioned as the proper rule for individual citizens, Xenophon, Memor.
iv.
3, 16.
Compare iv.
6.
2, and i.
3, 1; Lysias, Or.
xxx.
21-26.
[Greek: thu/ein ta\ pa/tria--thu/ein ta\ e)k tô=n ku/rbeôn], is [Greek: eu)sebei/a].
See K. F. Hermann, Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, sect.
10: Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, pp.
201-204.
Cicero also enacts, in his Treatise De Legibus (ii.
8-10):--"Separatim nemo habessit Deos: neve novos, sed ne advenas, nisi publicé adscitos, privatim colunto."
Compare Livy, xxxix.
16, about the Roman prohibitions of _sacra externa_.
But Cicero does not propose to inflict such severe penalties as Plato.]
We seem to be under a legislation imbued with the persecuting spirit and self-satisfied infallibility of mediaeval Catholicism and the Inquisition.
The dissenter is a criminal, and among the worst of criminals, even if he do nothing more than proclaim his opinions.
[347] How striking is the contradiction between this spirit and that in which Plato depicts the Sokrates of the Phædon, the Apology, and the Gorgias!
How fully does Sokrates in the Phædon[348] recognise and respect the individual reason of his two friends, though dissenting from his own!
How emphatically does he proclaim, in the Apology and Gorgias, not merely his own individual dissent from his fellow-citizens, but also his resolution to avow and maintain it against one and all, until he should hear such reasons as convinced him that it was untrue!
How earnestly does he declare (in the Apology) that he has received from the Delphian God a mission to cross-examine the people of Athens, and that he will obey the God in preference to them:[349] thus claiming to himself that special religious privilege which his accuser Melêtus imputes to him as a crime, and which Plato, in his Magnêtic colony, also treats as a crime, interdicting it under the severest penalties!
During the interval of forty-five years (probably) between the trial of Sokrates and the composition of the Leges, Plato had passed from sympathy with the free-spoken dissenter to an opposite feeling--hatred of all dissent, and an unsparing employment of penalties for upholding orthodoxy.
I have already remarked on the Republic, and I here remark it again--if Melêtus lived long enough to read the Leges, he would have found his own accusation of Sokrates amply warranted by the enactments and doctrines of the most distinguished Sokratic Companion.
[350] [Footnote 347: Milton, in his Areopagitica, or Argument for Unlicensed Printing (vol.
i. p. 149, Birch's edition of Milton's Prose Works), has some strenuous protestations against the rigour of the Platonic censorship in this tenth Book.
In the year 1480 Hermolaus Barbarus wrote to George Merula as follows:--"Plato, in Institutione De Legibus, inter prima commemorat, in omni republicâ præscribi caverique oportere, ne cui liceat, quæ composuerit, aut privatim ostendere, aut in usum publicum edere, antequam ea constitute super id judices viderint, nec damnarint.
Utinam hodieque haberetur hæc lex: neque enim tam multi scriberent, neque tam pauci bonas litteras discerent.
Nunc et copiâ malorum librorum offundimur, et omissis eminentissimis autoribus, plebeios et minutulos consectamur.
Et, quod calamitosissimum est, periti juxta imperitique de studiis impuné ac promiscué judicant" (Politiani Opera, 1553, p. 197).
I transcribe the above passage from an interesting article upon Book-Censors, in Beckmann's History of Inventions (Ed.
1817, vol.
iii.
p. 93 seq.
), where numerous examples are cited of the prohibition, combustion, or licensing of books by authority, from the burning of the work of Protagoras by decree of the Athenian assembly, down to modern times; illustrating the tendency of different sects and creeds, in proportion as they acquired power, to silence all open contradiction.
The Christian Arnobius, at a time when his creed was under disfavour by the Emperors, protests against this practice, in a liberal and comprehensive phrase which would have much offended Plato (at the time when he wrote the Leges) and Hermolaus:--"Alios audio mussitare indignanter et dicere:--Oportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta quibus Christiana religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas.
.
.
.
Nam intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deos defendere, sed veritatis testificationem timere" (Arnob.
adv.
Gentes, iii.
p. 104.
Also iv.
p. 152).
"We are told by Eusebius (Beckmann, ed.
1817, vol.
iii.
p. 96; Bohn's ed., vol.
ii.
p. 514) that Diocletian caused the sacred Scriptures to be burnt.
After the spreading of the Christian religion, the clergy exercised against books that were either unfavourable or disagreeable to them, the same severity which they had censured in the heathens as foolish and prejudicial to their own cause.
Thus were the writings of Arius condemned to the flames at the Council of Nice; and Constantine threatened with the punishment of death those who should conceal them.
The clergy assembled at the Council of Ephesus requested the Emperor Theodosius II.
to cause the works of Nestorius to be burnt; and this desire was complied with.
The writings of Eutyches shared the like fate at the Council of Chalcedon: and it would not be difficult to collect examples of the same kind from each of the following centuries."
Dr. Vaughan observes, in criticising the virtuous character and sincere persecuting spirit of Sir Thomas More:--"If there be any _opinion_ which it would be just to punish as a _crime_, it is the opinion which makes it to be _a virtue not to tolerate opinion_."
(Revolutions in English History, vol.
ii.
p.
178.)
I find the following striking anecdote in the transactions of the Académie Royale de Belgique, 1862; Bulletins, 2me Sér., tom.
xiii.
p. 567 seq.
; Vie et Travaux de _Nicolas Cleynaerts_ par M. Thonissen.
Cleynaerts (or Clenardus) was a learned Belgian (born 1495--died 1543), professor both at Louvain and at Salamanca, and author of _Grammaticæ Institutiones_, both of the Greek and the Hebrew languages.
He acquired, under prodigious difficulties and disadvantages, a knowledge of the Arabic language; and he employed great efforts to organise a course of regular instruction in that language at Louvain, with a view to the formation of missionaries who would combat the doctrines of Islam.
At Grenada, in Spain (1538), "Clenardus ne réussit pas mieux à arracher aux bûchers de l'inquisition les manuscrits et les livres" (Moorish and Arabic books which had been seized after the conquest of Grenada by the Spaniards) "qu'elle avait entassés dans sa succursale de Grenade.
Ce fut en vain que Cleynaerts, faisant valoir le but éminemment chrétien qu'il voulait atteindre, prodigua les démarches et les prières, pour se faire remettre 'ces papiers plus nécessaires à lui qu'à Vulcain'.
.
.
.
L'inexorable inquisition refusa de lâcher sa proie.
Un savant théologien, Jean-Martin Silicæus, précepteur de Philippe II., fit cependant entendre à notre compatriote, que ses voeux pourraient être exaucés, s'il consentait à fonder son école, non à Louvain, mais à Grenade, où une multitude de néophytes faisaient semblant de professer le Christianisme, tout en conservant les préceptes de Mahomet au fond du coeur.
Mais le linguiste Belge lui fit cette réponse, doublement remarquable à cause du pays et de l'époque où elle fut émise: 'C'est en Brabant, et nullement en Espagne, que je poserai les fondements de mon oeuvre.
Je cherche des _compagnons d'armes pour lutter là où la lutte peut être loyale et franche_.
Les habitants du royaume de Grenade n'oseraient pas me répondre, puisque la terreur de l'inquisition les force à se dire chrétiens.
Le combat est impossible, là où personne n'ose assumer le rôle de l'ennemi'--."
Galen calls for a strict censorship, even over medical books--ad Julianum--Vol.
xviii.
p. 247 Kühn.]
[Footnote 348: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 29.
Gorgias, p. 472 A-B: [Greek: kai\ nu=n peri\ ô(=n su\ le/geis o)li/gou soi pa/ntes sumphê/sousi tau)ta\ A)thênai=oi kai\ xe/noi .
.
.
_A)ll' e)gô/ soi ei(=s ô)\n ou)ch o(mologô=_.]
Compare also p. 482 B of the same dialogue, where Sokrates declares his anxiety to maintain consistency with himself, and his indifference to other authority.]
[Footnote 349: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 29 D. [Greek: pei/somai de\ ma=llon tô=| theô=| ê)\ u(mi=n].
Comp.
pp.
30 A, 31 D, 33 C.] [Footnote 350: The indictment of Melêtus against Sokrates ran thus--[Greek: A)dikei= Sôkra/tês, ou(\s me\n ê( po/lis nomi/zei theou/s, ou) nomi/zôn, _e(/tera_ de\ _kaina\ daimo/nia_ ei)sêgou/menos; a)dikei= de\ kai\ tou\s ne/ous diaphthei/rôn; ti/mêma, tha/natos] (Diog.
Laert.
ii.
40; Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
1).
The charge as to introduction of [Greek: kaina\ daimo/nia] was certainly well founded against Sokrates (compare Plato, Republic, vi.
p. 496 C).
Whoever was guilty of promulgating [Greek: kaina\ daimo/nia] in the Platonic city De Legibus, would have perished miserably long before he reached the age of 70; which Sokrates attained at Athens.
Compare my 'History of Greece,' ch.
xxviii.
I have in one passage greatly understated the amount of severity which Plato employs against heretics.
I there affirm that he banishes them: whereas the truth is, that he imprisons them, and ultimately, unless they recant, puts them to death.]
[Side-note: The persons denounced by Plato as heretics, and punished as such, would have included a majority of the Grecian world.]
It is true that the orthodoxy which Plato promulgates, and forbids to be impugned, in the Magnêtic community, is an orthodoxy of his own, different from that which was recognised at Athens; but this only makes the case more remarkable, and shows the deep root of intolerance in the human bosom--esteemed as it frequently is, by a sincere man, among the foremost of his own virtues.
Plato marks out three varieties of heresy, punishable by long imprisonment, and subsequent death in case of obstinate persistence.
Now under one or other of the three varieties, a large majority of actual Greeks would have been included.
The first variety--those who did not believe the Gods to exist--was doubtless confined to a small minority of reflecting men; though this minority (according to Plato[351]), not contemptible even in number, was distinguished in respect to intellectual accomplishments.
The second variety--that of those who believed the Gods to exist, but believed them to produce some results only, not all--was more numerous.
And the third variety--that of those who believed them to be capable of being appeased or won over by prayer and sacrifice--was the most numerous of all.
Plato himself informs us[352] that this last doctrine was proclaimed by the most eminent poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests, as well as by thousands and tens of thousands besides.
That prayer and sacrifice were means of appeasing the displeasure or unfavourable dispositions of the Gods--was the general belief of the Grecian world, from the Homeric times downwards.
The oracles or individual prophets were constantly entreated to inform petitioners, what was the nature or amount of expiatory ceremony which would prove sufficient for any specific case; but that there was _some_ sort of expiatory ceremony which would avail, was questioned by few sincere believers.
[353] All these would have been ranked as heretics by Plato.
If the Magnêtic community had become a reality, the solitary cells of the Platonic Inquisition might have been found to include Anaxagoras, and most of the Ionic philosophers, under the first head of heresy; Aristotle and Epikurus under the second; Herodotus and Nikias under the third.
Indeed most of the 5040 Magnêtic colonists must have adjusted anew their canon of orthodoxy in order to satisfy the exigence of the Platonic Censors.
[Footnote 351: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 886 E. [Greek: pa/mpolloi].
Also pp.
888 E, 891 B. Fabricius tells us that Plato himself has been considered and designated as an atheist, by various critics:--"Alii Platonem atheis, alii Spinozæ præcursoribus, adnumerarunt.
Utriusque criminis reum eum fecit Nic.
Henr.
Gundling.
.
.
At alii bené defenderunt philosophum ab illo crimine."
(Bibliothec.
Græc.
tom.
iii.
pp.
69, not.
_hh_, ed.
Harles.)
This illustrates the loose manner in which the epithet [Greek: a)/theos] has been applied in philosophical and theological controversies: a practice forcibly exposed in the following acute note of Wyttenbach.
Wyttenbach, Præf.
ad Plutarch.
De Superstit.
vol.
vi.
pars ii.
p. 995.
"Nam quæ est superstitio?
quæ [Greek: a)theo/tês]?
quæ harum species?
qui gradus?
His demum explicitis et inter se comparatis intelligi poterit, quæ [Greek: a)theo/têtos] species cui superstitionis speciei, qui gradus hujus cui gradui illius, anteferri aut postponi debeat.
Ac primum in ipsis illis de quibus agitur rebus definiendis magna est difficultas.
Quamquam _atheum_ quidem definire non difficile videtur; quippe quo ipso nomine significetur is _qui nullum esse deum putet_.
Atqui hæc etiam definitio non intelligatur, nisi antea declaretur quid sit id quod _Dei_ vocabulo significemus--omnino quæ sit definitio _Dei_.
Jam nemo ignorat quantopere in notione ac definitione Dei dissentiant non modo universi populi, sed et singuli homines: nec solum vulgus, sed et sapientes: ita quidem, ut quo plures partes sint, ex quibus hæc notio constituatur, eo minus in ea consentiant.
Sed fac esse qui eam paucissimis complectatur proprietatibus, ut dicat _Deum esse mentem æternam, omnium rerum creatricem et gubernatricem_.
Erunt qui eum parum, erunt qui nimium, dixisse putent: neutri se atheos volent, utrique et hunc et se invicem atheos dicent.
.
.
Ita se res habet.
Quotidié jactatur tralatitium illud, _verus Deus_: quo suam quisque de Deo notionem significat, sæpe illam ineptam et summi numinis majestate indignam.
Et bene nobiscum ageretur, si non nisi ab indocto vulgo jactaretur.
Nunc philosophi, certe qui se philosophos haberi volunt, item crepant.
Disputant de _vero Deo_, nec ab ejus definitione proficiscuntur, quasi vero hæc nemini ignota sit.
.
.
.
Pervulgata illa _veri Dei_ appellatio nobis venit a consuetudine Ecclesiæ, cujus diversæ quondam sectæ notionem Dei diverso modo informantes, ejus ignorationem et [Greek: a)theo/têta] non modo profanis, sed invicem aliæ aliis sectis exprobrare solebant.
Hæc de notione _athei_: quæ profecto, nisi constitutâ notione Dei, constitui ipsa nequit."]
[Footnote 352: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 885 D. [Greek: nu=n me\n ga\r tau=ta a)kou/onte/s te kai\ toiau=th' e(/tera tô=n legome/nôn a)ri/stôn ei)=nai poiêtô=n te kai\ r(êto/rôn kai\ ma/nteôn kai\ i(ere/ôn kai\ a)/llôn muria/kis muri/ôn], &c.] [Footnote 353: See the sections 23 and 24 of the Lehrbuch of K. F. Hermann, Über die Gottesdienstlichen Alterthümer der Griechen: Herodot.
vi.
91; Thucydid.
i.
134.--Respecting Plato's aversion for Anaxagoras--and the physical philosophers--see Legg.
x.
888 E. xii.
967 A., with Stallbaum's notes.]
[Side-note: Proëm or prefatory discourse of Plato, for these severe laws against heretics.]
To these severe laws and penalties against heretics, Plato prefixes a Proëm or Prologue of considerable length, commenting upon and refuting their doctrines.
In the earlier part of this dialogue he had taken credit to himself for having been the first to introduce his legal mandates by a prefatory harangue, intended to persuade and conciliate the persons upon whom the mandate was imposed, and to procure cheerful obedience.
[354] For such a purpose the Proëm in the tenth Book would be badly calculated.
But Plato here introduces it with a different view:[355] partly to demonstrate a kosmical and theological theory, partly to excite alarm and repugnance in the heretics whom he marks out and condemns.
How many among them might be convinced by Plato's reasonings, I do not know; but the large majority of them could not fail to be offended and exasperated by the tone of his Proëm or prefatory discourse.
Confessing his inability to maintain completely the calmness and dignity of philosophical discussion, he addresses them partly with passionate asperity, partly with the arrogant condescension of a schoolmaster lecturing indocile pupils.
He describes them now as hateful and unprincipled men--now as presumptuous youths daring to form opinions before they are competent, and labouring under a distemper of reason;[356] and this too, although he intimates that the first-named variety of heresy was adopted by most of the physical philosophers; and the third variety by many of the best poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests.
[357] Such unusual vehemence is justified by Plato on the ground of a virtuous indignation against the impugners of orthodox belief.
We learn from the Platonic and Xenophontic Apologies, that Melêtus and Anytus, when they accused Sokrates of impiety before the Dikastery, indulged in the same invective, announced the same justification, and felt the same confidence that they were righteous champions of the national faith, against an impious and guilty assailant.
[Footnote 354: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
722-723.
723 A: [Greek: i(/na ga\r eu)menô=s kai\ dia\ tê\n eu)me/neian eu)mathe/steron tê\n e)pi/taxin, o(\ dê/ e)stin o( no/mos, de/xêtai ô(=| to\n no/mon o( nomothe/tês le/gei], &c.] [Footnote 355: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 887 A.]
[Footnote 356: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
887 B-E, 888 B, 891 B, 900 B, 907 A-C. [Greek: kai\ mê\n ei)/rêntai/ ge/ pôs _sphodro/teron_ (oi( lo/goi) dia\ philoneiki/an tô=n kakô=n a)nthrô/pôn--prothumi/a me\n dê\ dia\ tau=ta _neôte/rôs_ ei)pei=n ê(mi=n ge/gonen.]]
[Footnote 357: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
891 D, 885 D.] [Side-note: The third variety of heresy is declared to be the worst--the belief in Gods persuadable by prayer and sacrifice.]
Among the three varieties of heresy, Plato considers the third to be the worst.
He accounts it a greater crime to believe in indulgent and persuadeable Gods, than not to believe in any Gods at all.
[358] Respecting the entire unbelievers, he acknowledges that a certain proportion are so from intellectual, not from moral, default: and that there are, among them, persons of blameless life and disposition.
[359] It must be remembered that the foremost of these unbelievers, and the most obnoxious to Plato, were the physical astronomers: those who did not agree with him in recognising the Sun, Moon, and Stars as animated and divine Beings--those who studied their movements as if they were mechanical agents.
Plato gives a brief summary of various cosmogonic doctrines professed by these heretics, who did not recognise (he says) either God, or reason, or art, in the cosmogonic process; but ascribed to nature, chance, and necessity, the genesis of celestial and terrestrial substances, which were afterwards modified by human art and reason.
Among these matters regulated by human art and reason, were included (these men said) the beliefs of each society respecting the Gods and religion, respecting political and social arrangements, respecting the just and the beautiful: though there were (they admitted) certain things beautiful by nature, yet not those which the lawgiver declared to be such.
Lastly, these persons affirmed (Plato tells us) that the course of life naturally right was, for each man to seize all the wealth, and all the power over others, which his strength enabled him to secure, without any regard to the requirements of the law.
And by such teaching they corrupted the minds of youth.
[360] [Footnote 358: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
907 A, 906 B.]
[Footnote 359: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
886 A, 908 B.]
[Footnote 360: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
889-890.]
[Side-note: Heretics censured by Plato--Sokrates censured before the Athenian Dikasts.]
Who these teachers were, whom Plato groups together as if they taught the same doctrine, we do not know.
Having no memorials from themselves, we cannot fully trust the description of their teaching given by an opponent: especially when we reflect, that it coincides substantially with the accusation which Melêtus and Anytus urged against Sokrates before the Athenian Dikastery--_viz._: that he was irreligious, and that he corrupted youth by teaching them to despise both the laws and their senior relatives--of which corruption Kritias and Alkibiades were cited as examples.
Such allegations, when advanced against Sokrates, are noted both by Plato and Xenophon as the stock-topics, always ready at hand for those who wished to depreciate philosophers.
[361] [Footnote 361: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 23.
[Greek: ta\ kata\ pa/ntôn tô=n philosophou/ntôn pro/cheira tau=ta le/gousin, o(/ti ta\ mete/ôra kai\ ta\ u(po\ gê=s kai\ theou\s mê\ nomi/zein kai\ to\n ê(/ttô lo/gon krei/ttô poiei=n.]
Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 31.
See generally the first two chapters of the Memorabilia, where Xenophon intimates that Sokrates was accused of training youth to a life of lawless and unprincipled ambition and selfishness, and especially of having trained Kritias and Alkibiades.]
In so far as these heretics affirmed that right as opposed to wrong, just as opposed to unjust, true belief as opposed to false respecting the Gods, were determined by the lawgiver and not by any other authority--Plato has little pretence for blaming them: because he himself claims such authority explicitly in his Magnêtic community, and punishes severely not merely those who disobey his laws in act, but those who contradict his dogmas in speech or argument.
Before he proclaims his intended punishments in a penal law, he addresses the heretics in a proëm or prefatory discourse intended to persuade or win them over: a discourse which was the more indispensable, since their doctrines (he tells us) were disseminated everywhere.
[362] If he seriously intended to persuade real dissentients, his attempt is certainly a failure: for the premisses on which he reasons are such as would not have been granted by them--nor indeed by many who agreed in the conclusion which he was himself trying to prove.
[Footnote 362: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
890 D, 891 A.]
[Side-note: Kosmological and Kosmogonical theory announced in Leges.]
The theory here given by Plato, represents the state of his own convictions at the time when the Leges were composed.
It is a theory of kosmology of universal genesis: different in many respects from what he propounds in the Timæus, since it comprises no mention of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus--nor of the eternal Ideas--nor of the primordial chaotic movements called Necessity--while it contains (what we do not find in the Timæus) the allegation of a twofold or multiple soul pervading the universe--the good soul (one or more), being co-existent and co-eternal with others (one or more), that are bad.
[363] [Footnote 363: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 896 E.] [Side-note: Soul--older, more powerful in the universe than Body.
Different souls are at work in the universe--the good soul and the bad soul.]
The fundamental principle which he lays down (in this tenth Book De Legibus) is--That soul or mind is older, prior, and more powerful, than body.
Soul is the principle of self-movement, activity, spontaneous change.
Body cannot originate any movement or change by itself.
It is simply passive, receiving movement from soul, and transmitting movement onward.
The movement or change which we witness in the universe could never have begun at first, except through the originating spontaneity of soul.
None of the four elements--earth, water, air, or fire--is endowed with any self-moving power.
[364] As soul is older and more powerful than body, so the attributes of soul are older and more powerful than those of body: that is, pleasure, pain, desire, fear, love, hatred, volition, deliberation, reason, reflection, judgment true or false--are older and more powerful than heat, cold, heaviness, lightness, hardness, softness, whiteness, sweetness, &c.[365] The attributes and changes of body are all secondary effects, brought about, determined, modified, or suspended, by the prior and primitive attributes and changes of soul.
In all things that are moved there dwells a determining soul: which is thus the cause of all effects however contrary--good and bad, just and unjust, honourable and base.
But it is one variety of soul which works to good, another variety which works to evil.
[366] The good variety of soul works under the guidance of [Greek: Nou=s] or Reason--the bad variety works irrationally.
[367] Now which of the two (asks Plato) directs the movements of the celestial sphere, the Sun, Moon, and Stars?
Certainly, the good soul, and not the bad.
This is proved by the nature and character of their movements: which movements are rotatory in a circle, and exactly uniform and equable.
Now among all the ten different sorts of motion or change, rotatory motion in a circle is the one which is most akin or congenial to Reason.
[368] The motion of Reason, and the motion of the stars, is alike rotatory, and the same, and unchangeable--in the same place, round the same centre, and returning into itself.
The bad soul, acting without reason, produces only irregular movements, intermittent, and accompanied by constant change of place.
[369] Though it is the good variety of soul which produces the celestial rotation, yet there are many distinct and separate souls, all of this same variety, which concur to the production of the result.
The Sun, the Moon, and each of the Stars, has a distinct soul inherent in itself or peculiar to its own body.
[370] Each of these souls, invested in the celestial substance and in each of the visible celestial bodies, is a God: and thus all things are full of Gods.
[371] [Footnote 364: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
894 D, 895 B.]
[Footnote 365: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
896 A, 897 A.
The [Greek: kinê/seis] of soul are [Greek: prôtourgoi/]--those of body are [Greek: deuterourgoi/].]
[Footnote 366: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 896 E. [Greek: psuchê\n dê\ dioikou=san kai\ e)noikou=san e)n a(/pasi toi=s pa/ntê| kinoume/nois.]
As an illustration or comment on this portion of Plato De Legibus, Lord Monboddo's _Ancient Metaphysics_ are instructive.
See vol.
i. pp.
2-7-9-25.
He adopts the distinction between Mind and Body made both in the tenth Book De Legg., and in the Epinomis.
He considers that Body and Mind are mixed together in each part of nature; and in the material world never separated: that motion is perpetual; and "Where there is _motion_, there must be there something that _moves_.
What is _moved_, I call _body_; what _moves_, I call _mind_.
"Under _mind_, in this definition, I include:--1.
The rational and intellectual; 2.
The animal life; 3.
That principle in the vegetable, by which it is nourished, grows, and produces its like, and which therefore is commonly called the _vegetable life_; and 4.
That _motive principle_ which I understand to be in all bodies, even such as are thought to be inanimate.
This is the distinction between _body_ and _mind_ made by Plato in his tenth Book of Laws" (pp.
8-9).
"The Greek word [Greek: psuchê/] denotes the three first kinds I have mentioned, which are not expressed by any one word that I know in English; for the word _mind_, that I have used to express them, denotes in common use only the _rational mind_ or _soul_, as it is otherwise called.
The fourth kind that I have mentioned, _viz._, the _motive principle_ in all bodies, is not commonly in Greek called [Greek: psuchê/].
But Aristotle, in a passage which I shall afterwards quote, says that it is [Greek: ô(/sper psuchê/] (p. 8, note).
"As to the _principle of motion_ or _moving principle_, which Aristotle supposes to be in all bodies, it is what he calls _nature_ (p. 9).
.
.
.
He makes Nature also to be the principle of _rest_ in bodies; by which I suppose he means, that those bodies which he calls _heavy_, that is, which move towards the centre of the earth, would _rest_ if they were there" (p. 9, note).
"From the account here given of motion, it is evident that by it the whole business of nature, above, below, and round about us, is carried on.
.
.
.
To those who hold that _mind_ is the first of things, and principal in the universe, it will not appear surprising that I have made _moving_, or _producing motion_, an essential attribute of _mind_" (p. 25).
In the same Treatise--which exhibits very careful study both of Plato and of Aristotle--Lord Monboddo analyses the ten varieties of motion here recognised by Plato, and shows that Plato's account is confused and unsatisfactory.
Ancient Metaphysics, vol.
i. pp.
23-230-252.]
[Footnote 367: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 897 B.]
[Footnote 368: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
897 E-898 A.
[Greek: ê(=| prose/oike kinê/sei nou=s tô=n de/ka e)kei/nôn kinê/seôn tê\n ei)ko/na la/bômen .
.
.
tou/toin dê\ toi=n kinê/seoin tê\n e)n e(ni\ pherome/nên a)ei\ peri/ ge/ ti me/son a)na/gkê kinei=sthai, tô=n e)nto/rnôn ou)sô=n] [al.
[Greek: ou)=san]] [Greek: mi/mêma/ ti ku/klôn, ei)=nai/ te au)tê\n tê=| tou= nou= perio/dô| pa/ntôs ô(s dunato\n oi)keiota/tên te kai\ o(moi/an.]]
[Footnote 369: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 898 B-C.] [Footnote 370: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 898 D.] [Footnote 371: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 899 B.
[Greek: ei)/th' o(/stis o(mologei= tau=ta, u(pome/nei mê\ theô=n ei)=nai plê/rê pa/nta?]]
[Side-note: Plato's argument is unsatisfactory and inconsistent.]
In this argument--which Plato tells us that no man will be insane enough to dispute,[372] and which he proclaims to be a triumphant refutation of the unbelievers--we find, instead of the extra-kosmical Demiurgus and pre-kosmical Chaos or necessity (the doctrine of the Platonic Timæus[373]), two opposing primordial forces both intra-kosmical: the good soul and the bad soul, there being a multiplicity of each.
Though Plato here proclaims his conclusion with an unqualified confidence which contrasts greatly with the modest reserve often expressed in his Timæus--yet the conclusion is rather disproved than proved by his own premisses.
It cannot be true that all things are full of Gods, since there are two varieties of soul existing and acting, the bad as well as the good: and Plato calls the celestial bodies Gods, as endowed with and moved by good and rational souls.
Aristotle in his theory draws a marked distinction between the regularity and perfection of the celestial region, and the irregularity and imperfection of the terrestrial and sublunary: Plato's premisses as here laid out would have called upon him to do the same, and to designate the Kosmos as the theatre of counteracting agencies, partly divine, partly not divine.
So he terms it indeed in the Timæus.
[374] [Footnote 372: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 899 C. [Greek: ou)k e)/stin ou(/tôs paraphronô=n ou)dei/s.]]
[Footnote 373: Plato, Timæus, pp.
48 A, 69 A-B.]
[Footnote 374: Plato, Timæus, p. 48 A.
The remarks of Zeller, in the second edition of his work, Die Philosophie der Griechen (vol.
ii.
p. 634 seq.
), upon this portion of the Treatise De Legibus, are very acute and instructive.
He exposes the fallacy of the attempt made by various critics to explain away the Manichæan doctrine declared in this treatise, and to reconcile the Leges with the Timæus.
The subject is handled in a manner superior to the Platonische Studien of the same author (wherein the Leges are pronounced to be spurious, while in the History of Philosophy Zeller retracts this opinion), though in that work also there is much instruction.--Stallbaum's copious notes on these passages (pp.
188-189-195-207-213 of his edition of Leges), while admitting the discrepancy between Leges and Timæus, furnish what he thinks a satisfactory explanation.
One portion of his explanation is, that Plato here accommodates himself "ad captum hominum vulgarem (p. 189) .
.
.
ad captum civium communem accommodaté et populari ratione explicari" (p. 207).
I dissent from this as a matter of fact.
I think that the heretics of the second and third class coincide rather with the "captus vulgaris".
So Plato himself intimates.]
[Side-note: Reverence of Plato for uniform circular rotation.]
There is another feature, common both to the Timæus and the Leges, which deserves attention as illustrating Plato's point of view.
It is the reverential sentiment with which he regards uniform rotatory movement in the same place.
This he pronounces to be the perfect, regular, movement appertaining and congenial to Reason and the good variety of soul.
Because the celestial bodies move thus and only thus, he declares them to be Gods.
It is this circular rotation which continues with perfect and unchangeable regularity in the celestial sphere of the Kosmos, and also, though imperfect and perturbed, in the spherical cranium of man.
[375] Aristotle in his theory maintains unabated the reverence for this mode of motion, as the perfection of reason and regularity.
The feeling here noted exercised a powerful and long-continued influence over the course of astronomical speculations.
[Footnote 375: Plato, Timæus, pp.
44 B, 47 C.] [Side-note: Argument of Plato to confute the second class of heretics.]
Having demonstrated to his own full satisfaction, from the regularity of the celestial rotations, that the heavenly bodies are wise and good Gods, and that all things are full of Gods--Plato applies this conclusion to refute the second class of heretics--those who did not believe that the Gods directed all human affairs, the small things as well as the great;[376] that is, the lot of each individual person as well as that of the species or of its component aggregates.
He himself affirms that they direct all things.
It is inconsistent with their attributes of perfect intelligence, power, and goodness (he maintains) that they should leave anything, either small or great, without regulation.
All good human administrators, generals, physicians, pilots, &c., regulate all things, small and great, in their respective provinces: the Gods cannot be inferior to them, and must be held to do the same.
They regulate every thing with a view to the happiness of the whole, in which each man has his share and interest; and each man has his special controuling Deity watching over his minutest proceedings, whether the individual sees it or not.
[377] Soul, both in its good variety and its bad variety, is essentially in change from one state to another, and passes from time to time out of one body into another.
In the perpetual conflict between the good and the bad variety of soul, according as each man's soul inclines to the better or to the worse, the Gods or Fate exalt it to a higher region or degrade it to a lower.
By this means the Gods do the best they can to ensure triumph to virtue, and defeat to vice, in the entire Kosmos.
This reference to the entire Kosmos is overlooked by the heretics who deny the all-pervading management of the Gods.
[378] [Footnote 376: The language of Plato sometimes implies, that the opponents whom he is controverting disbelieve altogether the intervention of the Gods in human affairs, pp.
899 E, 900 A, 885 B.
But the main stress of his argument is directed against those who, admitting the intervention of the Gods in great things, deny it in small, pp.
900 D, 901 A-B-C-D, 902 A-B.]
[Footnote 377: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
902-903 B-C.] [Footnote 378: This argument is set forth from p. 903 B to 905 B.
It is obscure and difficult to follow.]
[Side-note: Contrary doctrine of Plato in Republic.]
Plato gives here an outburst of religious eloquence which might prove impressive when addressed to fellow-believers--but which, if employed for the avowed purpose of convincing dissentients, would fail of its purpose, as involving assumptions to which they would not subscribe.
As to the actual realities of human life, past as well as present, Plato himself always gives a very melancholy picture of them.
"The heaven is full of good things, and also full of things opposite to good: but mostly of things not good.
"[379] Moreover, when we turn back to the Republic, we find Plato therein expressly blaming a doctrine very similar to what he declares true here in the Leges--as a dangerous heresy, although extensively believed, from the time of Homer downward.
"Since God is good" (Plato had there affirmed[380]) "he cannot be the cause of all things, as most men pronounce him to be.
He is the cause of a few things, but of most things he is not the cause: for the good things in our lot are much fewer than the evil.
We must ascribe all the good things to him, but for the evil things we must seek some other cause, and not God."
The confessed imperfection of the actual result[381] was one of the main circumstances urged by those heretics, who denied that all-pervading administration of the Gods which Plato in the Leges affirms.
[382] If he undertook to convince them at all, he would have done well to state and answer more fully their arguments, and to clear up the apparent inconsistencies in his own creed.
[Footnote 379: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 906 A.
[Greek: e)peidê\ ga\r sugkechôrê/kamen ê(mi=n au)toi=s ei)=nai me\n to\n ou)rano\n pollô=n mesto\n a)gathô=n, ei)=nai de\ kai\ tô=n e)nanti/ôn, pleio/nôn de\ tô=n mê/, ma/chê dê/, phame/n, a)tha/nato/s e)stin ê( toiau/tê kai\ phulakê=s thaumastê=s deome/nê.]
Ast in his note affirms that after [Greek: mê\] is understood [Greek: a)gathô=n].
Stallbaum thinks, though with some hesitation, that [Greek: e)nanti/ôn] is understood after [Greek: mê/].
I agree with Ast.
Compare iii.
pp.
676-677, where Plato states that in the earlier history of the human race, a countless number of different societies ([Greek: muri/ai e)pi\ muri/ais]) have all successively grown up and successively perished, with extinction of all their comforts and civilization.]
[Footnote 380: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 379 C. [Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra o( theo\s, e)peidê\ a)gatho\s, pa/ntôn a)\n ei)/ê ai)/tios, ô(s oi( polloi\ le/gousin; a)ll' o)li/gôn me\n toi=s a)nthrô/pois ai)/tios, pollô=n de\ a)nai/tios; polu\ ga\r e)la/ttô ta)gatha\ tô=n kakô=n ê(mi=n; kai\ tô=n me\n a)gathô=n ou)de/na a)/llon ai)tiate/on, tô=n de\ kakô=n a)/ll' a(/tta zêtei=n dei= ta\ ai)/tia, a)ll' ou) to\n theo/n.]
See a striking passage in Arnobius, adv.
Gentes, ii.
46.]
[Footnote 381: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 903 A-B.
[Greek: Pei/thômen to\n neani/an toi=s lo/gois .
.
.
ô(=n e(\n kai\ to\ so/n, ô)= sche/tlie, mo/rion ei)s to\ pa=n xuntei/nei ble/pon a)ei/.]]
[Footnote 382: Lucretius, v. 197:-Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam Naturam mundi: tantâ stat prædita culpâ.]
[Side-note: Argument of Plato to refute the third class of heretics.]
A similar criticism may be made still more forcibly, upon the demonstration whereby he professes to refute the third and most culpable class of heretics--"Those who believe that the Gods exercise an universal agency, but that they can be persuaded by prayer and conciliated by sacrifice".
Here he was treading on dangerous ground: for he was himself a heretic, by his own confession, if compared with Grecian belief generally.
Not merely the ordinary public, but the most esteemed and religious persons among the public[383]--poets, rhetors, prophets, and priests--believed the doctrine which he here so vehemently condemns.
Moreover it was the received doctrine of the city[384]--that is, it was assumed as the basis of the official and authorised religious manifestations: and the law of the city was recognised by the Delphian oracle[385] as the proper standard of reference for individual enquirers who came there to ask for information on matters of doubtful religious propriety.
In the received Grecian conception of religious worship, prayer and sacrifice were correlative and inseparable: sacrifice was the gift of man to the Gods, accompanying the prayer for gifts from the Gods to man, and accounted necessary to render the prayer efficacious.
[386] The priest was the professional person competent and necessary to give advice as to the details: but as a general principle, it was considered disrespectful to ask favours from the Gods without tendering to them some present, suitable to the means of the petitioner.
[Footnote 383: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 885 D; Republic, ii.
pp.
364-365-366.]
[Footnote 384: Plato, Republic, ii.
p. 366 A-B.
[Greek: a)ll' ô)phelê/sousin a(gnizome/nous ai( teletai\ kai\ oi( lu/sioi theoi/, ô(s ai( me/gistai po/leis le/gousi kai\ oi( theô=n pai=des, poiêtai\ kai\ prophê=tai tô=n theô=n geno/menoi, oi(\ tau=ta ou(/tôs e)/chein mênu/ousin.]]
[Footnote 385: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
3, 1, iv.
3, 16; Cicero, Legg.
ii.
16.]
[Footnote 386: See Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, Part 5, 1, p. 194 seq., where this doctrine is set forth and largely illustrated.
In approaching a king a satrap or any other person of exalted position above the level of ordinary men, it was the custom to come with a present.
Thucyd.
ii.
97; Xenoph.
Anab.
vii.
3, 26; Xenoph.
Hellen.
iii.
1, 10-12.
The great person, to whom the presents were made, usually requited them magnificently.]
[Side-note: General belief in Greece about the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice to appease the Gods.]
Plato himself states this view explicitly in his Politikus.
[387] Moreover, when a man desired information from the Gods on any contemplated project or on any grave matter of doubt, he sought it by means of sacrifice.
[388] Such sacrifice was a debt to the God: and if it remained unpaid, his displeasure was incurred.
[389] The motive for sacrificing to the Gods was thus, not simply to ensure the granting of prayers, but to pay a debt: and thus either to prevent or to appease the wrath of the Gods.
The religious practice of Greece rested upon the received belief that the Gods were not merely pleased with presents, but exacted them as a mark of respect, and were angry if they were not offered: yet that being angry, their wrath might be appeased by acceptable presents and supplications.
[390] To learn what proceedings of this kind _were_ suitable, a man went to consult the oracle, the priests, or the Exêgêtæ: in cases wherein he believed that he had incurred the displeasure of the Gods by any wrong or omission.
[391] [Footnote 387: Plato, Politikus, p. 290 D. [Greek: kai\ mê\n kai\ to\ tô=n i(ere/ôn au)= ge/nos, ô(s to\ no/mimo/n phêsi, para\ me\n ê(mô=n dôrea\s theoi=s dia\ thusiô=n e)pistê=mo/n e)sti kata\ nou=n e)kei/nois dôrei=sthai, para\ de\ e)kei/nôn ê(mi=n eu)chai=s ktê=sin a)gathô=n ai)tê/sasthai.]
Compare Euthyphron, p.
14.]
[Footnote 388: Xenophon, Anab.
vii.
6, 44; Euripid.
Ion.
234.]
[Footnote 389: Plato, Republic, i. p. 331 B.
Compare also Phædon, p. 118, the last words spoken by Sokrates before his decease--[Greek: o)phei/lomen A)sklêpiô=| a)lektru/ona; a)ll' a)po/dote kai\ mê\ a)melê/sête.]]
[Footnote 390: See Nägelsbach, Nach-Homerische Theologie, pp.
211-213.]
[Footnote 391: See, as one example among a thousand, the proceeding of the Spartan government, Thucyd.
i.
134; also ii.
48-54.]
[Side-note: Incongruities of Plato's own doctrine.]
Now it is against this latter sentiment--that which recognised the Gods as placable or forgiving[392]--that Plato declares war as the worst of all heresies.
He admits indeed, implicitly, that the Gods are influenced by prayer and sacrifice; since he directs both the one and the other to be constantly offered up, by the citizens of his Magnêtic city, in this very Treatise.
He even implies that the Gods are too facile and compliant: for in his second Alkibiadês, Sokrates is made to remark that it was dangerous for an ignorant man to pray for specific advantages, because he might very probably bring ruin upon himself by having his prayers granted-"Evertêre domos totas, optantibus ipsis, Di faciles."
Farthermore Plato does not scruple to notice[393] it as a real proceeding of the Gods, that they executed the prayer or curse of Theseus, by bringing a cruel death upon the blameless youth Hippolytus; which Theseus himself is the first to deplore when he becomes acquainted with the true facts.
That the Gods should inflict punishment on a person who did not deserve it, Plato accounts not unworthy of their dignity: but that they should remit punishment in any case where he conceives it to have been deserved, he repudiates with indignation.
Though accessible and easily influenced by prayer and sacrifice from other persons, they are deaf and inexorable to those who have incurred their displeasure by wrong-doing.
[394] The prayer so offered is called by Plato a treacherous cajolery, the sacrifice a guilty bribe, to purchase their indulgence.
[395] Since, in human affairs, no good magistrate, general, physician, pilot, &c., will allow himself to be persuaded by prayers or presents to betray his trust: much less can we suppose (he argues) the Gods to be capable of such betrayal.
[396] [Footnote 392: The common sentiment is expressed in a verse of Euripides--[Greek: Ti/na dei= maka/rôn e)kthusame/nous Eu(rei=n mo/chthôn a)na/paulan]--(Fragm.
Ino 155); compare Eurip.
Hippol.
1323.]
[Footnote 393: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 931 C. [Greek: a)rai=os ga\r goneu\s e)kgo/nois ô(s ou)dei\s e(/teros a)/llois, _dikaio/tata_.]
Also iii.
p. 687 D.] [Footnote 394: Plato, Legg.
iv.
pp.
716-717.]
[Footnote 395: Plato, Legg.
x. p. 906 B.
[Greek: thôpei/ais lo/gôn].]
[Footnote 396: Plato, Legg.
x. pp.
906-907.]
[Side-note: Both Herodotus and Sokrates dissented from Plato's doctrine.]
The general doctrine, upon which Plato here lays so much stress, and the dissent from which he pronounces to be a capital offence--that the Gods, though persuadeable by every one else, were thoroughly unforgiving, deaf to any prayer or sacrifice from one who had done wrong--is a doctrine from which Sokrates[397] himself dissented; and to which few of Plato's contemporaries, perhaps hardly even himself, consistently adhered.
The argument, upon which Plato rests for convincing all these numerous dissentients, is derived from his conception of the character and functions of the Gods.
But this, though satisfactory to himself, would not have been granted by his opponents.
The Gods were conceived by Herodotus as jealous, meddlesome, intolerant of human happiness beyond a narrow limit, and keeping all human calculations in a state of uncertainty:[398] in this latter attribute Sokrates also agreed.
He affirmed that the Gods kept all the important results essentially unpredictable by human study, reserving them for special revelations by way of prophecy to those whom they preferred.
These were privileged and exclusive communications to favoured individuals, among whom Sokrates was one:[399] and Plato, though not made a recipient of the same favour as Sokrates, declares his own full belief in the reality of such special revelations from the Gods, to particular persons and at particular places.
[400] Aristotle, on the other hand, pronounces action and construction, especially action in details, to be petty and unworthy of the Gods; whom he regards as employed in perpetual contemplation and theorising, as the only occupation worthy to characterise their blessed immortality.
[401] Epikurus and his numerous followers, though not agreeing with Aristotle in regarding the Gods as occupied in intellectual contemplation, agreed with him fully in considering the existence of the Gods as too dignified and enviable to be disturbed by the vexation of meddling with human affairs, or to take on the anxieties of regard for one man, displeasure towards another.
[Footnote 397: Xenophon, Memorab.
ii.
2, 14.
[Greek: Su\ ou)=n, ô)= pai=, a)\n sôphronê=|s, tou\s me\n theou\s paraitê/sê| suggnô/mona/s soi ei)=nai, ei)/ ti parême/lêkas tê=s mêtro/s, mê/ se kai\ ou(=toi nomi/santes a)cha/riston ei)=nai ou)k e)the/lôsin eu)= poiei=n.]
At the same time, Sokrates maintains that the Gods accepted sacrifices from good men with greater favour than sacrifices from bad men.
Xenoph.
Mem.
i.
3, 3.]
[Footnote 398: Herodotus, i.
32, iii.
40.]
[Footnote 399: Xenoph.
Mem.
i.
1, 8-9.
[Greek: tou\s theou\s ga/r, oi(=s a)\n ô)=sin i(/leô|, sêmai/nein.]
Also i.
3, 4, iv.
3, 12; Cyropæd.
i.
6, 5-23-46.
[Greek: theoi\ a)ei\ o)/ntes pa/nta i)/sasi .
.
.
kai\ tô=n sumbouleuome/nôn a)nthrô/pôn oi(=s a)\n i(/leô| ô)=si, prosêmai/nousin a(/ te chrê\ poiei=n kai\ a(\ ou) chrê/.
Ei) de\ mê\ pa=sin e)the/lousi sumbouleu/ein, ou)de\n thaumasto/n; ou) ga\r a)na/gkê au)toi=s e)stin, ô(=n a)\n mê\ the/lôsin, e)pimelei=sthai] (Cyrop.
i.
6, 46).
Solon.
Frag.
v. 53, ed.
Gaisf.
:-[Greek: A)/llon ma/nten e)/thêkin a)/nax e(ka/ergos A)po/llôn; E)/gnô d' a)ndri\ kako\n tê/lothen e)rcho/menon.]
See the curious narrative in Herodotus ix.
94 seq.
about the prophetic gifts bestowed on Euenius.
The same narrative attests the full belief prevalent respecting both the displeasure of the Gods and their placability on the proper expiation being made.
It conflicts signally in every respect with the canon of orthodoxy set up by Plato.]
[Footnote 400: Plato, Legg.
v. pp.
738 C, 747 E, vii.
p. 811 D; Republic, vi.
pp.
496 C, 499 C.] [Footnote 401: Aristotle, Ethic.
Nikom.
x.
8, p. 1178 b.
21.
[Greek: ô(/ste ê( tou= theou= e)ne/rgeia, makario/têti diaphe/rousa, theôrêtikê\ a)\n ei)/ê.]]
[Side-note: Great opposition which Plato's doctrine would have encountered in Greece.]
The orthodox religious belief, which Plato imposes upon his 5040 Magnêtic citizens under the severest penalties, would thus be found inconsistent with the general belief, not merely of ordinary Greeks, but also of the various lettered and philosophical individuals who thought for themselves.
Most of these latter would have passed, under one of the three heads of Platonic heresy, into the Platonic prison for five years, and from thence either to recantation or death.
The arguments which Plato considered so irresistible, that none but silly youths could be deaf to them--did not appear conclusive to Aristotle and other intelligent contemporaries.
Plato makes up his own mind, what proceedings he thinks worthy and unworthy of the Gods, and then proclaims with confidence as a matter of indisputable fact, that they act conformably.
But neither Herodotus, nor Aristotle, would have granted his premisses: they conceived the attributes and character of the Gods differently from him, and differently from each other.
And if we turn to the Kratylus of Plato, we find Sokrates there declaring, that men knew nothing about the Gods: that speculations about the Gods were in reality speculations about the opinions of men respecting the Gods.
[402] [Footnote 402: Plato, Kratylus, pp.
400-401.
[Greek: Peri\ theô=n ou)de\n i)/smen, ou)/te peri\ au)tô=n, ou)/te peri\ tô=n o)noma/tôn, a(/tta pote\ au)toi\ e(autou\s kalou=si] (400 D) .
.
.
[Greek: skopô=men ô(/sper proeipo/ntes toi=s theoi=s o(/ti peri\ au)tô=n ou)de\n ê(mei=s skepso/metha, ou) ga\r a)xiou=men oi(=oi/ t' a)\n ei)=nai skopei=n, a)lla\ peri\ tô=n a)nthrô/pôn, ê(/ntina/ pote do/xan e)/chontes e)ti/thento au)toi=s ta\ o)no/mata; tou=to ga\r a)neme/sêton] (401 A).
Compare also Kratyl.
p. 425 B.]
[Side-note: Local infallibility was claimed as a rule in each community, though rarely enforced with severity: Plato both claims it more emphatically, and enforces it more rigorously.]
Such opinions were local, traditional, and dissentient, among the numerous distinct cities and tribes which divided the inhabited earth between them in Plato's time.
[403] Each of these claimed a local infallibility, principally as to religious rites and customs, indirectly also as to dogmas and creed: and Plato's Magnêtic community, if it had come into existence, would have added one to the number of distinct varieties.
To this general sentiment, deeply rooted in the emotions and unused to the scrutiny of reason, the philosophers were always more or less odious, as dissenters, enquirers, and critics, each on his own ground.
[404] At Athens the sentiment manifested itself occasionally in severe decrees and judicial sentences against obnoxious freethinkers, especially in the case of Sokrates.
If the Athenians had carried out consistently and systematically the principle involved in their sentence against Sokrates, philosophy must have been banished from Athens.
[405] The school of Plato could never have been maintained.
But the principle of intolerance was usually left dormant at Athens: philosophical debate continued active and unshackled, so that the school of Plato subsisted in the city without interruption for nearly forty years until his death.
We might have expected that the philosophers, to whose security toleration of free dissent and debate was essential, would have upheld it as a general principle against the public.
But here we find the most eminent among them, at the close of a long life, not only disallowing all liberty of philosophising to others, and assuming to himself the exclusive right of dictating the belief, as well as the conduct, of his imaginary citizens--but also enforcing this exclusive principle with an amount of systematic rigour, which I do not believe to have been equalled in any actual Grecian city.
This is a memorable fact in the history of Grecian philosophy.
The Stoic Kleanthes, in the century after Plato's death, declared that the Samian astronomer Aristarchus ought to be indicted for impiety, because he had publicly advocated the doctrine of the Earth's rotation round the Sun.
Kleanthês and Plato thus stand out as known examples, among Grecian philosophers before the Christian era, of that intolerance which would apply legal penalties against individual dissenters and competitors.
[406] [Footnote 403: Plato, Politikus, p. 262 D. [Greek: ge/nesin a)pei/rois ou)=si kai\ a)mi/ktois kai\ a)sumphô/nois pro\s a)/llêla.]
Herodot.
iii.
39.]
[Footnote 404: Plato, Euthyphron, p.
3.]
[Footnote 405: See the Apologies both of Plato and Xenophon.
In one of the rhetorical discourses cited by Aristotle, on the subject of the trial of Sokrates (seemingly that by the Rhetor Theodektês), the point is put thus:--[Greek: Me/llete de\ kri/nein, ou) peri\ Sôkra/tous, a)lla\ peri\ e)pitêdeu/matos, ei) chrê\ philosophei=n] (Aristot.
Rhetor.
ii.
1399, a.
8, b.
10).]
[Footnote 406: The Platonist and astronomer Derkyllides afterwards (about 100-120 A.D.) declares those who affirm the doctrine, that the earth moves and that the stars are stationary, to be accursed and impious--[Greek: tou\s de\ ta\ kinêta\ stê/santas, ta\ de\ a)ki/nêta phu/sei kai\ e(/dra| kinê/santas, ô(s para\ ta\s tê=s mantikê=s u(pothe/seis, a)podiopompei=tai.]
(Theon Smyrnæus, De Astronomiâ, ch.
41, p. 328, fol.
26, ed.
Martin.)]
[Side-note: Farther civil and political regulations for the Magnêtic community.
No evidence that Plato had studied the working of different institutions in practice.]
The eleventh Book of the Treatise De Legibus, and the larger portion of the twelfth, are devoted to a string of civil and political regulations for the Magnêtic community.
Each regulation is ushered in with an expository prologue, often with severe reproof towards persons committing the various forbidden acts.
There is little of systematic order in the enumeration of subjects.
In general we may remark that neither here nor elsewhere in the Treatise is there any proof, that Plato--though doubtless he had visited Italy, Sicily, and Egypt, perhaps other countries--had taken much pains to acquaint himself with the practice of human life, or that he had studied and compared the working of different institutions in different communities.
His experience seems all derived from Athenian law and practice: the criticisms and modifications which he applies to it flow from his own sentiment and theory: from his religious or ethical likings or dislikings.
He sets up a type of character which he desires to enforce among his citizens, and which he guards against adulteration by very stringent interference.
The displeasure of the Gods is constantly appealed to, as a justification for the penalties which he proposed: sometimes even the current mythes are invoked as authority, though in other places Plato so greatly disparages them.
[407] [Footnote 407: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 913 D.] [Side-note: Modes of acquiring property--legitimate and illegitimate.]
Various modes of acquiring property are first forbidden as illegitimate.
The maxim[408]--"That which you have not put down, do not take up"--is rigorously enforced: any man who finds a buried treasure is prohibited from touching it, though he find it by accident and though the person who buried it be unknown.
If a man violates this law, every one, freeman or slave, is invited and commanded to inform against him.
Should he be found guilty, a special message must be sent to the Delphian oracle, to ask what is to be done both with the treasure and with the offender.
So again, an article of property left on the highway is declared to be under protection of the Goddess or Dæmon of the Highway: whoever finds and takes it, if he be a slave, shall be severely flogged by any freeman above thirty years of age who meets him: if he be a freeman, he shall be disgraced and shall pay, besides, ten times its value to the person who left it.
[409] These are average specimens of Plato's point of view and manner of handling offences respecting property.
[Footnote 408: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 913 C. [Greek: A(\ mê\ kate/thou, mê\ a)nelê=|.]
This does not include, however, what has been deposited by a man's father or grandfather.]
[Footnote 409: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 914.
Seemingly, if any man found a treasure buried in the ground, or a purse lying on the road without an owner, he was not considered by most persons dishonest if he appropriated it; to do so was looked upon as an admissible piece of good luck.
See Theophrastus, [Greek: peri\ Mempsimoiri/as].
From Plato's language we gather that the finder sometimes went to consult the prophets what he should do, p. 913 B--[Greek: mê/te toi=s legome/nois ma/ntesin a)nakoinô/saimi]: his phrase is not very respectful towards the prophets.]
[Side-note: Plato's general regulations leave little room for disputes about ownership.]
The general constitution of Plato's community restricts within comparatively narrow limits the occasions of proprietary dispute.
His 5040 lots of land are all marked out, unchangeable, and indivisible, each possessed by one citizen.
No man is allowed to acquire or possess movable property to a greater value than four times the lot of land: every article of property possessed by every man is registered by the magistrates.
Disputes as to ownership, if they arise, are settled by reference to this register.
[410] If the disputed article be not registered, the possessor is bound to produce the seller or donor from whom he received it.
All purchases and sales are required to take place in the public market before the Agoranomi: and all for ready-money, or by immediate interchange and delivery.
If a man chooses to deliver his property, without receiving the consideration, or in any private place, he does so at his own risk: he has no legal claim against the receiver.
[411] So likewise respecting the Eranoi or Associations for mutual Succour and Benefit.
Plato gives no legal remedy to a contributor or complainant respecting any matter arising out of these associations.
He requires that every man shall contribute at his own risk: and trust for requital to the honesty or equity of his fellow-contributors.
[412] [Footnote 410: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 914 D.] [Footnote 411: The same principle is laid down by Plato, Republic, viii.
p. 556 A, and was also laid down by Charondas (Theophrast.
ap.
Stobæum Serm.
xliv.
21, p. 204).
Aristotle alludes to some Grecian cities in which it was the established law.
K. F. Hermann, Privat-Alterthümer der Griechen, s. 71, n.
10.]
[Footnote 412: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 915 D-E.] [Side-note: Plato's principles of legislation, not consistent--comparison of them with the Attic law about Eranoi.]
A remark must here be made upon Plato's refusal to allow any legal redress in such matters as sale on credit, or payments for the purpose of mutual succour and relief.
Such refusal appears to contradict his general manner of proceeding: for his usual practice is, to estimate offences not according to the mischief which they inflict, but according to the degree of wickedness or impiety which he supposes them to imply in the doer.
Now the contributor to an association for mutual succour, who, after paying his contributions for the aid of his associates, finds that they refuse to contribute to his aid when the hour of his necessity arrives--suffers not only heavy calamity but grievous disappointment: which implies very bad dispositions on the part of those who, not being themselves distressed, nevertheless refuse.
Of such dispositions Plato takes no notice in the present case.
He does not expatiate (as he does in many other cases far more trifling and disputable) upon the displeasure of the Gods when they see a man who has been benefited in distress by his neighbour's contributions, refusing all requital at the time of that neighbour's need.
Plato indeed treats it as a private affair between friends.
You do a service to your friend, and you must take your chance whether he will do you a service in return: you must not ask for legal redress, if he refuses: what you have contributed was a present voluntarily given, not a loan lent to be repaid.
This is an intelligible point of view, but it excludes those ethical and sentimental considerations which Plato usually delights in enforcing.
[413] His ethics here show themselves by leading him to turn aside from that which takes the form of a pecuniary contract.
It was in this form that the Eranoi or Mutual Assurance Associations were regarded by Attic judicature: that is, they seem to have been considered as a sort of imperfect obligation, which the Dikastery would enforce against any citizen whose circumstances were tolerably prosperous, but not against one in bad circumstances.
Such Eranic actions before the Attic Dikastery were among those that enjoyed the privilege of speedy adjudication ([Greek: e)/mmênoi di/kai]).
[414] [Footnote 413: In Xenophon's ideal legislation, or rather education of the Persian youth, in the Cyropædia, he introduces legal trial and punishment for ingratitude generally (Cyropæd.
i.
2, 7).
The Attic judicature took cognizance of neglect or bad conduct towards parents, which Xenophon ranks as a sort of ingratitude--but not of ingratitude towards any one else (Xenoph.
Memor.
ii.
2, 13).
There is an interesting discussion in Seneca (De Beneficiis, iii.
6-18) about the propriety of treating ingratitude as a legal offence.]
[Footnote 414: Respecting the [Greek: e)ranikai\ di/kai] at Athens, see Heraldus, Animadversiones in Salmasium, vi.
1, p. 407 seq.
; Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, p. 540 seq.
; K. F. Hermann, Staats Alterth.
s. 146, not.
9.
The word [Greek: e)/ranos] meant very different things--a pic-nic banquet, a club for festive meetings kept up by subscription with a common purse, a contribution made to relieve a friend in distress, carrying obligation on the receiver to requite it if the donor fell into equal distress.
This last sense is the prevalent one in the Attic orators, and is brought out well in the passage of Theophrastus--[Greek: Peri\ Mempsimoiri/as].
Probably the Attic [Greek: e)ranikai\ di/kai] took cognizance of complaints arising out of [Greek: e)/ranos] in all its senses.]
[Side-note: Regulations about slaves, and about freedmen.]
As to property in slaves, Plato allows any owner to lay hold of a fugitive slave belonging either to himself or to any friend.
If a third party reclaims the slave as being not rightfully in servitude, he must provide three competent sureties, and the slave will then be set free until legal trial can be had.
Moreover, Plato enacts, respecting one who has been a slave, but has been manumitted, that such freedman ([Greek: a)peleu/thros]), if he omits to pay "proper attention" to his manumitter, may be laid hold of by the latter and re-enslaved.
Proper attention consists in: 1.
Going three times per month to the house of his former master, to tender service in all lawful ways.
2.
Not contracting marriage without consulting his former master.
3.
Not acquiring so much wealth as to become richer than his former master: if he should do so the latter may appropriate all that is above the limit.
The freed man, when liberated, does not become a citizen, but is only a non-citizen or metic.
He is therefore subject to the same necessity as all other metics--of departing from the territory after a residence of twenty years,[415] and of never acquiring more wealth than is possessed by the second class of citizens enrolled in the Schedule.
[Footnote 415: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 915 A-B.]
The duties imposed by Plato on the freedman towards his former master--involving a formal recognition at least of the prior dependence, and some positive duties besides--are deserving of remark, as we know so little of the condition or treatment of this class of persons in antiquity.
[Side-note: Provisions in case a slave is sold, having a distemper upon him.]
Regulations are made to provide for the case where a slave, sold by his master, is found to be distempered or mad, or to have committed a murder.
If the sale has been made to a physician or a gymnast, Plato holds that these persons ought to judge for themselves about the bodily condition of the slave bought: he therefore grants them no redress.
But if the buyer be a non-professional man, he may within one month restore the distempered slave (or within one year, if the distemper be the Morbus Sacer), and may cause a jury of physicians to examine the case.
Should they decide the distemper of the slave to be undoubted, the seller must take him back: repaying the full price, if he be a private man--double the price, if he be a professional man, who ought to have known, and perhaps did know, the real condition of the slave sold.
[416] [Footnote 416: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 916 B-C.] [Side-note: Retailers.
Strict regulations about them.
No citizen can be a retailer.]
In regard to Retail Selling, and to frauds committed either in sale or in barter, Plato provides or enjoins strict regulations.
The profession of the retailer, and the function of money as auxiliary to it, he pronounces to be useful and almost indispensable to society, for the purpose of rendering different articles of value commensurable with each other, and of ensuring a distribution suitable to the requirements of individuals.
This could not be done without retailers, merchants, hired agents, &c.[417] But though retailing is thus useful, if properly conducted, it slides easily and almost naturally into cheating, lying, extortion, &c., from the love of money inherent in most men.
Such abuses must be restrained: at any rate they must not be allowed to corrupt the best part of the community.
Accordingly, none of the 5040 citizens will be allowed either to practise retailing, or to exercise any hired function, except under his own senior relatives, and of a dignified character.
The discrimination of what is dignified and not dignified must be made according to the liking or antipathy of a court of honour, composed of such citizens as have obtained prizes for virtue.
[418] None must be permitted to sell by retail except metics or non-citizens: and these must be kept under strict watch by the Nomophylakes, who, after enquiring into the details of each article, will fix its price at such sum as will afford to the dealer a moderate profit.
[419] [Footnote 417: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 918 B.
The like view of retail trade is given in the Republic, ii.
p. 371.
It indicates just and penetrating social observation, taken in reference to Plato's age.]
[Footnote 418: Plato, Legg.
xi.
pp.
918-919.
919 E: [Greek: to\ d' e)leutheriko\n kai\ a)neleu/theron a)kribô=s me\n ou) r(a/|dion nomothetei=n, krine/sthô ge mê\n u(po\ tô=n ta\ a)ristei=a ei)lêpho/tôn tô=| e)kei/nôn _mi/sei te kai\ a)spasmô=|_.]]
[Footnote 419: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 920 B-C.] [Side-note: Frauds committed by sellers--severe punishments on them.]
If there be any fraud committed by the seller (which is nearly akin to retailing),[420] Plato prescribes severe penalty.
The seller must never name two prices for his article during the same day.
He must declare his price: and if no one will give it, he must withdraw the article for the day.
[421] He is not allowed to praise his own articles, or to take any oath respecting them.
If he shall take any oath, any citizen above thirty years of age shall be held bound to thrash him, and may do so with impunity: such citizen, if he neglect to thrash the swearer, will himself be amenable to censure for betraying the laws.
If the seller shall sell a spurious or fraudulent article, the magistrates must be informed of it by any one cognizant.
The informer, if a slave or a metic, shall be rewarded by having the article made over to him.
If he be a citizen, he will receive the article, but is bound to consecrate it to the Gods who preside over the market: if being cognizant he omits to inform, he shall be proclaimed a wicked man, for defrauding the Gods of that to which they are entitled.
The magistrates, on receiving information, will not only deprive the seller of the spurious article, but will cause him to be flogged by the herald in the market-place--one stripe for every drachma contained in the price demanded.
The herald will publicly proclaim the reason why the flogging is given.
Besides this, the magistrates will collect and write up in the market-place both regulations of detail for the sellers, and information to put buyers on their guard.
[422] [Footnote 420: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 920 C. [Greek: tê=s kibdêlei/as pe/ri, xuggenou=s tou/tô| (kapêlei/a|) pra/gmatos], &c. Plato is more rigorous on these matters than the Attic law.
See K. F. Hermann, Griech.
Privat-Alterthümer, s.
62.]
[Footnote 421: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 917 B-C.
I do not quite see how this is to be reconciled with Plato's direction that the prices of articles sold shall be fixed by the magistrates; but both of the two are here found.]
[Footnote 422: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 917 B-D.] [Side-note: Comparison with the lighter punishment inflicted by Attic law.]
Compare this enactment in Plato with the manner in which the Attic law would have dealt with the like offence.
The defrauded buyer would have brought his action before the Dikastery against the fraudulent seller, who, if found guilty, would have been condemned in damages to make good the wrong: perhaps fined besides.
The penalties inflicted by the usual course of law at Athens were fine, disfranchisement, civil disability of one kind or other, banishment, confiscation of property: occasionally imprisonment--sometimes, though rarely, death by the cup of hemlock in prison.
[423] Except in very rare cases, an accused person might retire into banishment if he chose, and might thus escape any penalty worse than banishment and confiscation of property.
But corporal punishment was never inflicted by the law at Athens.
The people, especially the poorer citizens, were very sensitive on this point,[424] regarding it as one great line of distinction between the freeman and the slave.
At Sparta, on the contrary, corporal chastisement was largely employed as a penalty: moreover the use of the fist in private contentions, by the younger citizens, was encouraged rather than forbidden.
[425] [Footnote 423: See Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, B. iv.
Chap.
13, 740.]
[Footnote 424: See Xenophon, Memorab.
i.
2, 58.]
[Footnote 425: Xenophon, Hellen.
iii.
3, 11: De Republ.
Laced.
ii.
8, iv.
6, ix.
5; Aristophanes, Aves, 1013.]
Plato follows the analogy of Sparta in preference to that of Athens.
Here, as elsewhere, he employs corporal punishment abundantly as a penalty.
Here, as elsewhere, he not only prescribes that it shall be inflicted by a public agent under the supervision of magistrates, but also directs it to be administered, against certain offenders, by private unofficial citizens.
I believe that this feature of his system would have been more repugnant than any other, to the feelings of all classes of Athenian citizens--to all the different types of character represented by Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Isokrates, Demosthenes, and Sokrates.
Abstinence from manual violence was characteristic of Athenian manners.
Whatever licence might be allowed to the tongue, it was at least a substitute for the aggressive employment of the arm and hand.
Athens exhibited marked respect for the sanctity of the person against blows--much equality of dealing between man and man--much tolerance, public as well as private, of individual diversity in taste and character--much keenness of intellectual and oral competition, liable to degenerate into unfair stratagem in political, forensic, professional, and commercial life, as well as in rhetorical, dialectical, and philosophical exercises.
All these elements, not excepting even the first, were distasteful to Plato.
But those who copy the disparaging judgment which he pronounces against Athenian manners, ought in fairness to take account of the point of view from which that judgment is delivered.
To a philosopher whose ideal is depicted in the two treatises De Republicâ and De Legibus, Athenian society would appear repulsive enough.
We learn from these two treatises what it was that a great speculative politician of the day desired to establish as a substitute.
[Side-note: Regulations about Orphans and Guardians: also about Testamentary powers.]
Plato next goes on to make regulations about orphans and guardians, and in general for cases arising out of the death of a citizen.
The first question presenting itself naturally is, How far is the citizen to be allowed to direct by testament the disposition of his family and property?
What restriction is to be placed upon his power of making a valid will?
Many persons (Plato says) affirmed that it was unjust to impose any restriction: that the dying man had a right to make such dispositions as he chose, for his property and family after his death.
Against this view Plato enters his decided protest.
Each man--and still more each man's property--belongs not to himself, but to his family and to the city: besides which, an old man's judgment is constantly liable to be perverted by decline of faculties, disease, or the cajoleries of those around him.
[426] Accordingly Plato grants only a limited liberty of testation.
Here, as elsewhere, he adopts the main provisions of the Attic law, with such modifications as were required by the fundamental principles of his Magnêtic city: especially by the fixed total of 5040 lots or _fundi_, each untransferable and indivisible.
The lot, together with the plant or stock for cultivating it,[427] must descend entire to one son: but the father, if he has more than one son, may determine by will to which of them it shall descend.
If there be any one among the sons whom another citizen (being childless) is disposed to adopt, such adoption can only take place with the father's consent.
But if the father gives his consent, he cannot bequeath his own lot to the son so adopted, because two lots cannot be united in the same possessor.
Whatever property the father possesses over and above his lot and its appurtenances, he may distribute by will among his other sons, in any proportion he pleases.
If he dies, leaving no sons, but only daughters, he may select which of them he pleases; and may appoint by will some suitable husband, of a citizen family, to marry her and inherit his lot.
If a citizen (being childless) has adopted a son out of any other family, he must bequeath to that son the whole of his property, except one-tenth part of what he possesses over and above his lot and its appurtenances: this tenth he may bequeath to any one whom he chooses.
[428] [Footnote 426: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 923 B.
It is to be observed that Plato does not make any allusion to these misguiding influences operating upon an aged man, when he talks about the curse of a father against his son being constantly executed by the Gods: xi.
p. 931 B.]
[Footnote 427: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 923 D. [Greek: plê\n tou= patrô/|ou klê/rou kai\ tê=s peri\ to\n klê=ron kataskeu/ês pa/sês.]]
[Footnote 428: Plato, Legg.
xi.
pp.
923-924.
The language of Plato seems to imply that this childless citizen would not be likely to make any will, but that having adopted a son, the son so adopted would hardly be satisfied unless he inherited the whole.]
If the father dies intestate, leaving only daughters, the nearest relative who has no lot of his own shall marry one of the daughters, and succeed to the lot.
The nearest is the brother of the deceased; next, the brother of the deceased's wife (paternal and maternal uncles of the maiden); next, their sons; next, the parental and maternal uncle of the deceased father, and their sons.
If all these relatives be wanting, the magistrates will provide a suitable husband, in order that the lot of land may not remain unoccupied.
[429] If a citizen die both intestate and childless, two of his nearest unmarried relatives, male and female, shall intermarry and succeed to his property: reckoning in the order of kinship above mentioned.
[430] In thus imposing marriage as a legal obligation upon persons in a certain degree of kinship, Plato is aware that there will be individual cases of great hardship and of repugnance almost insurmountable.
He treats this as unavoidable: providing however that there shall be a select judicial Board of Appeal, before which persons who feel aggrieved by the law may bring their complaints, and submit their grounds for dispensation.
[431] [Footnote 429: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p.
924-925.]
[Footnote 430: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 925 C-D.
These provisions appear to me not very clear.]
[Footnote 431: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 926 B-D.
He directs also (p. 925 A) that the Dikasts shall determine the fit season when these young persons become marriageable by examining their naked bodies: that is, the males quite naked, the females half naked.
A direction seemingly copied from Athenian practice, and illustrating curiously the language of Philokleon in Aristophanes, Vesp.
598.
See K. F. Hermann, Vestig.
Juris Domestici ap.
Platonem cum Græciæ Institutis Comparata, p.
27.]
[Side-note: Plato's general coincidence with Attic law and its sentiment.]
These provisions deserve notice as showing how largely Plato coincides with the prevalent Attic sentiment respecting family and relationship.
He does not award the slightest preference to primogeniture, among brothers: he grants to agnates a preference over cognates: he regards it as a public misfortune that any house shall be left empty, so as to cause interruption of the sacred rites of the family: lastly, he ensures that the family, in default of lineal male heirs, shall be continued by inter-marriage with the nearest relatives--and he especially approves the marriage of an heiress with her paternal or maternal uncle.
On these points Plato is in full harmony with his countrymen, though he dissents widely from modern sentiment.
[Side-note: Tutelage of Orphans--Disagreement of Married Couples--Divorce.]
Respecting tutelage of orphans, he makes careful provision against abuse, as the Attic law also did: he tries also to meet the cases of family discord, where father and son are in bitter wrath against each other.
A father may formally renounce his son, but not without previously obtaining the concurrence of a _conseil de famille_: if the father has become imbecile with age, and wastes his substance, the son may institute a suit as for lunacy, but not without the permission of the Nomophylakes.
[432] Respecting disagreement between married couples, ten of the Nomophylakes, together with ten women chosen as supervisors of marriages, are constituted a Board of reference,[433] to obtain a reconciliation, if it be possible: but if this be impossible, then to divorce the couple, and unite each with some more suitable partner.
The lawgiver must keep in view, as far as he can, to obtain from each married couple a sufficiency of children--that is, one male and one female child from each, whereby the total of 5040 lots may be kept up.
[434] If a husband loses his wife before he has these two children, the law requires him to marry another wife: but if he becomes a widower, having already the sufficiency of children, he is advised not to marry a second wife (who will become stepmother), though not prohibited from doing so, if he chooses.
So also, if a woman becomes a widow, not having the sufficient number of children, she must be compelled to marry again: if she already has the sufficient number, she is directed to remain in the house, and to bring them up.
In case she is still young, and her health requires a husband, her relatives will apply to the Female Supervisors of Marriage, and will make such arrangements as may seem advisable.
[435] [Footnote 432: Plato, Legg.
xi.
pp.
928-929.]
[Footnote 433: Plato, Legg.
xi.
pp.
929-930.]
[Footnote 434: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 930 D. [Greek: pai/dôn de\ i(kano/tês a)kribê\s a)/r)r(ên kai\ thê/leia e)/stô tô=| no/mô|.]]
[Footnote 435: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 930 C.] [Side-note: Neglect of Parents.]
Against neglect of aged parents by their children, Plato both denounces the most stringent legal penalties, and delivers the most emphatic reproofs: commending with full faith the ancient traditional narratives, that the curse of an offended parent against his sons was always executed by the Gods, as in the cases of Oedipus, Theseus, Amyntor, &c.[436] In the event of lunacy, he directs that the lunatic shall be kept in private custody by his relatives, who will be fined if they neglect the duty.
[437] [Footnote 436: Plato, Legg, xi.
p.
931-932.]
[Footnote 437: Plato, Legg, xi.
p. 934 D.] _Hurt or damage_, not deadly, done by one man to another.--Plato enumerates two different modes of inflicting damage:--1.
By drugs (applied externally or internally), magic, or sorcery.
2.
By theft or force.
[438] [Footnote 438: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 932 E-933 E. Both these come under the general head [Greek: o(/sa tis a)/llos a)/llon _pêmai/nei_.]]
[Side-note: Poison--Magic--Incantations--Severe punishment.]
As to the first mode, if the drug be administered by a physician, he must be put to death: if by one not a physician, the Dikasts will determine the nature of his punishment.
And in the case of magical arts, or incantations, if the person who resorts to them be a prophet, or an inspector of prodigies, he must be put to death: another person doing the same will be punished at the discretion of the Dikasts.
Here we see that the prophet is ranked as a professional person (the like appears in Homer) along with the physician,[439]--who must know what he is about, while another person perhaps may not know.
But Plato's own opinion respecting magical incantations is delivered with singular reserve.
He will neither avouch them nor reject them.
He intimates that a man can hardly find out what is true on the subject; and even if he could, it would be harder still to convince others.
Most men are in serious alarm when they see waxen statuettes hung at their doors or at their family tombs; and it is useless to attempt to tranquillise them by reminding them that they have no certain evidence on the subject.
[440] Here we see how Plato discourages the received legends and the current faith, when he believes them to be hurtful--as contrasted with his vehemence in upholding them when he thinks them useful: as in the case of the paternal curse, and the judgments of the Gods.
The question of their truth is made to depend on their usefulness.
[441] The Gods are made to act exactly as he thinks they ought to act.
They are not merely invoked, but positively counted on, as executioners of Plato's ethical sentences.
[Footnote 439: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 933 C. [Greek: ô(s prô=ton me\n to\n e)picheirou=nta pharma/ttein ou)k ei)do/ta ti/ dra=|, ta/ te kata\ sô/mata, e)a\n mê\ tugcha/nê| e)pistê/môn ô)\n i)atrikê=s, ta/ te au)= peri\ ta\ magganeu/mata, e)a\n mê\ ma/ntis ê)\ teratosko/pos ô)\n tugcha/nê|.]
Homer, Odys.
Xvii.
383:-.
.
.
[Greek: tô=n oi(\ dêmioergoi\ e)/asi, ma/ntin, ê)\ i)ê/têra kakô=n, ê)\ te/ktona dou/rôn, ê)\ kai\ the/spin a)oido/n], &c.] [Footnote 440: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 933 B.
[Greek: a)/n pote i)/dôsi/ pou kê/rina mimê/mata peplasme/na.]
Compare Theokritus, Idyll, ii.
28-59.
See the remarkable narrative of the death of Germanicus in Syria, supposed to have been brought about by the magical artifices wrought under the auspices of Piso (Tacitus, Ann.
ii.
69).]
[Footnote 441: Cicero, Legg, ii.
7, 16.
"Utiles autem esse has opiniones, quis neget, cum intelligat, quam multa firmentur jurejurando," &c.] [Side-note: Punishment is inflicted with a view to future prevention or amendment.]
Respecting the second mode of damage--by theft or violence--Plato's law forms a striking contrast to that which has been just set forth.
The person who inflicts damage must repay it, or make full compensation for it, to the sufferer: small, if the damage be small--great, if it be great.
Besides this, the guilty person must undergo some farther punishment with a view to correction or reformation.
This will be smaller, if he be young and seduced by the persuasion of others; but it must be graver, if he be self-impelled by his own desires, fears, wrath, jealousy, &c. Understand, however (adds Plato), that such ulterior punishment is not imposed on account of the past misdeed--for the past cannot be recalled or undone--but on account of the future: to ensure that he shall afterwards hate wrong-doing, and that those who see him punished shall hate it also.
The Dikasts must follow out in detail the general principle here laid down.
[442] [Footnote 442: Plato, Legg.
xi.
pp.
933-934.
Compare Plato, Protagor.
p. 324 B.]
This passage proclaims distinctly an important principle in regard to the infliction of legal penalties: which principle, if kept in mind, might have lead Plato to alter or omit a large portion of the Leges.
[Side-note: Penalty for abusive words--for libellous comedy.
Mendicity forbidden.]
Respecting _words of abuse, or revilement_, or insulting derision.--These are altogether forbidden.
If used in any temple, market, or public and frequented place, the magistrate presiding must punish the offender forthwith, as he thinks fit: if elsewhere, any citizen by-stander, being older than the offender, is authorised thrash him.
[443] No writer of comedy is allowed to ridicule or libel any citizen.
[Footnote 443: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 935 C-D.
The Attic law expressly forbade the utterance of abusive words against any individual _in an office or public place_ upon any pretence (Lysias, Or.
ix.
Pro Milite, s. 6-9).
Demosthenes (contra Konon.
p. 1263) speaks of [Greek: kakêgori/a] or [Greek: loidori/a] as in itself trifling, but as forbidden by the law, lest it should lead to violence and blows.]
Mendicity is strictly prohibited.
Every mendicant must be sent away at once, in order that the territory may be rid of such a creature.
[444] Every man, who has passed an honest life, will be sure to have made friends who will protect him against the extremity of want.
[Footnote 444: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 936 C. [Greek: o(/pôs ê( chô/ra tou= toiou/tou zô/ou kathara\ gi/gnêtai to\ para/pan.]]
[Side-note: Regulations about witnesses on judicial trials.]
The rules provided by Plato about witnesses in judicial trials and indictments for perjury, are pretty much the same as those prevalent at Athens: with some peculiarities.
Thus he permits a free woman to bear witness, and to address the court in support of a party interested, provided she be above forty years of age.
Moreover, she may institute a suit, if she have no husband: but not if she be married.
[445] A slave or a child may bear witness at a trial for murder; provided security be given that they will remain in the city to await an indictment for perjury, if presented against them.
[Footnote 445: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 937 A-B.
It appears that women were not admitted as witnesses before the Athenian Dikasteries.
Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess, pp.
667-668.
The testimony of slaves was received after they had been tortured; which was considered as a guarantee for truth, required in regard to them, but not required in regard to a free-man.
The torture is not mentioned in this Platonic treatise.
Plato treats a male as _young_ up to the age of thirty (compare Xenoph.
Memor.
i.
2, 35), a female as _young_ up to the age of forty (pp.
932 B-C, 961 B).]
[Side-note: Censure of forensic eloquence, and the teachers of it.
Penalties against contentious litigation.]
Among Plato's prohibitions, we are not surprised to find one directed emphatically against forensic eloquence, and against those who professed to teach it.
Every thing beneficial to man (says he) has its accompanying poison and corruption.
Justice is a noble thing, the great civilising agent in human affairs: to aid any one in obtaining justice, is of course a noble thing also.
But these benefits are grossly abused by men, who pretend to possess an art, whereby every one may be sure of judicial victory, either as principal or as auxiliary, whether his cause be just or unjust:--and who offer to teach this art to all who pay a stipulated price.
Whether this be (as they pretend) a real art, or a mere inartificial knack--it would be a disgrace to our city, and must be severely punished.
Whoever gives show of trying to pervert the force of justice in the minds of the Dikasts, or indulges in unseasonable and frequent litigation, or even lends his aid to other litigants--may be indicted by any citizen as guilty of abuse of justice, either as principal or auxiliary.
He shall be tried before the Court of Select Judges: who, if they find him guilty, will decide whether he has committed the offence from love of money, or from love of contention and ambitious objects.
If from love of contention, he shall be interdicted, for such time as the Court may determine, from instituting any suit at law on his own account as well as from aiding in any suit instituted by others.
[446] If from love of money, the citizen found guilty shall be capitally punished, the non-citizen shall be banished in perpetuity.
Moreover the citizen convicted of committing this offence even from love of contention, if it be a second conviction for the offence, shall be put to death also.
[447] [Footnote 446: Plato, Legg.
xi.
p. 938 B.
[Greek: tima=|n au)tô=| to\ dikastê/riou o(/sou chrê\ chro/nou to\n toiou=ton mêdeni\ lachei=n di/kên mêde\ xundikê=sai.]
I cannot understand why Stallbaum, in his very useful notes on the Leges, observes upon this passage (p. 330):--"[Greek: lagcha/nein di/kên] de caussidicis accipiendum, qui caussam aliquam pro aliis in foro agendam ac defendendam suscipiunt".
This is the explanation belonging to [Greek: xundikê=sai]: [Greek: lachei=n di/kên] is the well known phrase for a plaintiff or a prosecutor as principal.]
[Footnote 447: Plato, Legg.
xi.
pp.
937 E, 938 C.] [Side-note: Many of Plato's laws are discharges of ethical antipathy.
The antipathy of Melêtus against Sokrates was of the same character.]
The vague and undefined character of this offence, for which Plato denounces capital punishment, shows how much his penal laws are discharges of ethical antipathy and hostility against types of character conceived by himself--rather than measures intended for application, in which he had weighed beforehand the practical difficulties of singling out and striking the right individual.
On this matter the Athenian public had the same ethical antipathy as himself; and Melêtus took full advantage of it, when he brought his accusation against Sokrates.
We know both from the Apologies of Plato and Xenophon, and from the Nubes of Aristophanes--that Sokrates was rendered odious to the Athenian people and Dikasts, partly as heterodox and irreligious, but partly also as one who taught the art of using speech so as to make the worse appear the better reason.
Both Aristophanes and Melêtus would have sympathised warmly with the Platonic law.
If there had been any Solonian law to the same effect, which Melêtus could have quoted in his accusatory speech, his case against Sokrates would have been materially strengthened.
Especially, he would have had the express sanction of law for his proposition of death as the penalty: a proposition to which the Athenian Dikasts would not have consented, had they not been affronted and driven to it by the singular demeanour of Sokrates himself when before them.
It would be irrelevant here to say that Sokrates was not guilty of what was imputed to him: that he never came before the Dikastery until the time of his trial--and that he did not teach "the art of words".
If he did not teach it, he was at least believed to teach it, not merely by Aristophanes and by the Athenian Dikasts, but also by intelligent men like Kritias and Charikles,[448] who knew him perfectly well: while the example of Antiphon shows that a man might be most acute and efficacious as a forensic adviser, without coming in person before the Dikastery.
[449] What the defence really makes us feel is, the indefinite nature of the charge: which is neither provable nor disprovable, and which is characterised, both by Xenophon and in the Platonic Apology, as one of the standing calumnies against all philosophising men.
[450] Here, in the Platonic Leges, this same unprovable offence is adopted and made capital: the Select Platonic Dikasts being directed to ascertain, not only whether a man has really committed it, but whether he has been impelled to commit it by love of money, or by love of victory and personal consequence.
[Footnote 448: Xenophon, Memor.
i.
2, 31 seq.]
[Footnote 449: Thucydid.
viii.
68.]
[Footnote 450: Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 23.
Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn by Xenophon (Mem.
i.
2, 14), "that he handled all who conversed with him just as he pleased--[Greek: toi=s de\ dialegome/nois au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs bou/loito.]
Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as political men, and of becoming [Greek: krei/ttone tô=n suggignome/nôn] (i.
2, 16).
Looked at from the point of view of opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who himself both could pervert justice--and who taught others to pervert it also.
This was the picture of Sokrates which the accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic Apology.]
[Side-note: Penalty for abuse of public trust--wrongful appropriation of public money--evasion of military service.]
The twelfth and last Book of the Treatise De Legibus deals with various cases of obligation, not towards individuals, but towards the public or the city.
Abuse of trust in the character of a public envoy is declared punishable.
This offence (familiar to us at Athens through the two harangues of Demosthenes and Æschines) is invested by Plato with a religious colouring, as desecrating the missions and commands of Hermês and Zeus.
[451] Wrongful appropriation of the public money by a citizen is also made capital.
The penalty is to be inflicted equally whether the sum appropriated be large or small: in either case the guilt is equal, and the evidence of wicked disposition the same, for one who has gone through the public education and training.
[452] This is quite different from Plato's principle of dealing with theft or wrongful abstraction of property from private persons: in which case, the sentence of Plato was, that the amount of damage done, small or great, should be made good by the offender, and that a certain ulterior penalty should be inflicted sufficient to deter him as well as others from a repetition.
[Footnote 451: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 941 A.]
[Footnote 452: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 941: compare xi.
p. 934 A.]
Provision is farther made for punishing any omission of military service either by males or females, or any discreditable abandonment of arms.
[453] The orders of the military commander must be implicitly and exactly obeyed.
The actions of all must be orderly, uniform, and simultaneous.
Nothing can be more mischievous than that each should act for himself, separately and apart from others.
This is confessedly true as to war; but it is no less essential as to the proceedings in peace.
[454] Suppression of individuality, and conversion of life into a perpetual, all-pervading, drill and discipline--is a favourite aspiration always present to Plato.
[Footnote 453: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 944.
It is curious to compare this passage of Plato with the two orations of Lysias [Greek: kata\ Theomnê/stou] A and B (Oratt.
x.-xi.).
Plato enjoins upon all accusers the greatest caution and precision in the terms used to indicate what they intended to charge upon the accused.
To call a man [Greek: r(i/psaspis] is a more aggravated offensive designation than to call him [Greek: a)poboleu\s o(/plôn], which latter term is more general, and may possibly be applied to those who have lost their arms under the pressure of irresistible necessity, without any disgrace.
On the other hand, we read in Lysias, that the offence which was punishable under the Attic law was [Greek: o(/plôn a)pobolê/], and that to assert falsely respecting any citizen, [Greek: ta\ o(/pla a)pobe/blêke], was an [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton] or forbidden phrase, which exposed the speaker to a fine of 500 drachmæ (sect.
1-12).
But to assert respecting any man that he was [Greek: r(i/psaspis] was not expressly [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton] (compare Lysias cont.
Agorat., Or.
xiii.
ss.
87-89), and the speaker might argue (successfully or not) that he had said nothing [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton], and was not guilty of legal [Greek: kakêgori/a].--There is another phrase in this section of Plato to which I would call attention.
He enumerates the excusable cases of losing arms as follows--[Greek: o(po/soi kata\ krêmnô=n r(iphe/ntes a)pô/lesan o(/pla ê)\ kata\ tha/lattan] (p. 944 A).
Now the cases of soldiers being thrown down cliffs are, I believe, unknown until the Phokian prisoners were so dealt with in the Sacred War, as sacrilegious offenders against Apollo and the Delphian temple.
Hence we may probably infer that this was composed after the Sacred War began, B.C.
356.
See Diodorus and my 'Hist.
of Greece,' chap.
87, p. 350 seq.]
[Footnote 454: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
942 B-945.
[Greek: e(ni/ te lo/gô| to\ chôri/s ti tô=n a)/llôn pra/ttein dida/xai tê\n psuchê\n e)/thesi mê/te gignô/skein mê/t' e)pi/stasthai to\ para/pan, a)ll' a)thro/on a)ei\ kai\ a(/ma kai\ koino\n to\n bi/on o(/, ti ma/lista pa=si pa/ntôn gi/gnesthai.]]
A Board of Elders is constituted by Plato, as auditors of the proceedings of all Magistrates after their term of office.
[455] The mode of choosing these Elders, as well as their duties, liabilities, privileges, and honours, both during life and after death, are prescribed with the utmost solemnity.
[Footnote 455: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
946-948.]
[Side-note: Oaths.
Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be sworn.]
Plato forbids the parties in any judicial suit from swearing: they will present their case to the court, but not upon oath.
No judicial oath is allowed to be taken by any one who has a pecuniary interest in the matter on hand.
The Dikasts--the judges in all public competitions--the Electors before they elect to a public trust--are all to be sworn: but neither the parties to any cause, nor (seemingly) the witnesses.
If oaths were taken on both sides, one or other of the parties must be perjured: and Plato considers it dreadful, that they should go on living with each other afterwards in the same city.
In aforetime Rhadamanthus (he tells us) used to settle all disputes simply, by administering an oath to the parties: for in his time no one would take a false oath: men were then not only pious, but even sons or descendants of the Gods.
But now (in the Platonic days) impiety has gained ground, and men's oaths are no longer to be trusted, where anything is to be gained by perjury.
[456] [Footnote 456: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
948-949.]
[Side-note: Regulations about admission of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens.]
Strict regulations are provided, as to exit from the Platonic city, and ingress into it.
Plato fears contamination to his citizens from converse with the outer world.
He would introduce the peremptory Spartan Xenelasy, if he were not afraid of the obloquy attending it.
He strictly defines the conditions on which the foreigner will be allowed to come in, or the citizen to go out.
No citizen is allowed to go out before he is forty years of age.
[457] Envoys must be sent on public missions; and sacred legations (theôries) must be despatched to the four great Hellenic festivals--Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian.
But private citizens are not permitted to visit even these great festivals at their own pleasure.
The envoys sent must be chosen and trustworthy men: moreover, on returning, they will assure their youthful fellow-citizens, that the home institutions are better than anything that can be seen abroad.
[458] [Footnote 457: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p.
950.]
[Footnote 458: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p.
951.]
Special travellers, between the ages of fifty and sixty, will also be permitted to go abroad, and will bring back reports to the Magistrates of what they have observed.
Strangers are admitted into the city or its neighbourhood, under strict supervision; partly as observers, partly as traders, for the limited amount of traffic which the lawgiver tolerates.
[459] Thus scanty is the worship which Plato will allow his Magnêtes to pay to Zeus Xenius.
[460] He seems however to take credit for it as liberal dealing.
[Footnote 459: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
952-953.]
[Footnote 460: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 953 D-E. [Greek: Tou/tois dê\ toi=s no/mois u(pode/chesthai/ te chrê\ pa/ntas xe/nous te kai\ xe/nas kai\ tou\s au(tô=n e)kpe/mpein, timô=ntas xe/nion Di/a, mê\ brô/masi kai\ thu/masi ta\s xenêlasi/as poioume/nous, katha/per poiou=si nu=n thre/mmata Nei/lou, mêde\ kêru/gmasin a)gri/ois.]
Stallbaum says in his note (p. 384):--"[Greek: mê\ brô/masi kai\ thu/masi]--peregrinos non expellentes coenis et sacrificiis, h. e. eorum usu iis interdicentes".
This surely is not the right explanation.
Plato means to say that the Egyptian habits as to eating and sacrifice were intolerably repulsive to a foreigner.
We may see this from [Greek: kêru/gmasi], which follows.
The peculiarities of Egypt, which Herodotus merely remarks upon with astonishment, may well have given offence to the fastidious and dictatorial spirit of Plato.]
[Side-note: Suretyship--Length of prescription for ownership, &c.] Plato proceeds with various enactments respecting suretyship--time of prescription for ownership--keeping men away by force either from giving testimony in court or from contending at the public matches--receiving of stolen goods--private war or alliance on the part of any individual citizen, without the consent of the city--receipt of bribes by functionaries--return and registration of each citizen's property--dedications and offerings to the Gods.
[461] No systematic order or classification can be traced in the successive subjects.
[Footnote 461: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
954-956.]
[Side-note: Judicial trial--three stages.
1.
Arbitrators.
2.
Tribe-Dikasteries.
3.
Select Dikastery.]
In respect to judiciary matters, he repeats (what had before been directed) his constitution of three stages of tribunals.
First, Arbitrators, chosen by both parties in the dispute.
From their decision, either party may appeal to the Tribe-Dikasteries, composed of all the citizens of the Tribe or Dême: or at least, composed of a jury taken from these.
After this, there is a final appeal to the Select Dikastery, chosen among all the Magistrates for the time being.
[462] Plato leaves to his successors the regulations of details, respecting the mode of impannelling and the procedure of these Juries.
[Footnote 462: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p.
956.]
[Side-note: Funerals--proceedings prescribed--expense limited.]
Lastly come the regulations respecting funerals--the cost, ceremonies, religious proceedings, mode of showing sorrow and reverence, &c.[463] These are given in considerable detail, and with much solemnity of religious exhortation.
[Footnote 463: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
957-958.]
[Side-note: Conservative organ to keep up the original scheme of the lawgiver.
Nocturnal Council for this purpose--how constituted.]
We have now reached the close.
The city has received its full political and civil outfit: as much legal regulation as it is competent for the lawgiver to provide at the beginning.
One guarantee alone is wanting.
Some security must be provided for the continuance and durability of the enactments.
[464] We must have a special conservative organ, watching over and keeping up the scheme of the original lawgiver.
For this function, Plato constitutes a Board, which, from its rule of always beginning its sittings before daybreak, he calls the Nocturnal council.
It will comprise ten of the oldest Nomophylakes: all those who have obtained prizes for good conduct or orderly discipline: all those who have been authorised to go abroad, and have been approved on their return.
Each of these members will introduce into the Synod one young man of thirty years of age, chosen by himself, but approved by the others.
[465] The members will thus be partly old, partly young.
[Footnote 464: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 960 C-D.
Compare Plato, Republ.
vi.
p. 497 D: [Greek: o(/ti de/êsoi/ ti a)ei\ e)nei=nai e)n tê=| po/lei, lo/gon e)/chon tê=s politei/as to\n au)to\n o(/nper kai\ su\ o( nomothe/tês e)/chôn tou\s no/mous e)ti/thês.]]
[Footnote 465: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 961 A-B.]
This Nocturnal council is intended as the conservative organ of the Platonic city.
It is, in the city, what the soul and head are in an animal.
The soul includes Reason: the head includes the two most perfect senses--Sight and Hearing.
The fusion, in one, of Reason with these two senses ensures the preservation of the animal.
[466] In the Nocturnal council, the old members represent Reason, the young members represent the two superior senses, serving as instruments and means of communication between Reason and the outer world.
The Nocturnal council, embracing the agency of both, maintains thereby the life and continuity of the city.
[467] [Footnote 466: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 961 D.] [Footnote 467: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
964 D-965 A.]
It is the special duty of this council, to serve as a perpetual embodiment of the original lawgiver, and to comprehend as well as to realise the main purpose for which the city was put together.
The councillors must keep constantly in view this grand political end, as the pilot keeps in view safe termination of the voyage--as the military commander keeps in view victory, and the physician, recovery of health.
Should the physician or the pilot either not know his end, or not know the conditions under which it may be attained--his labour will be in vain.
So, if there does not exist in the city an authority understanding the great political end and the means (either by laws or human agents) of accomplishing it, the city will be a failure.
Hence the indispensable necessity of the Nocturnal council, with members properly taught and organised.
[468] [Footnote 468: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 962 B.
[Greek: dei= .
.
.
ei)=nai/ ti to\ gignô=skon e)n au)tô=|] (the city) [Greek: prô=ton me\n tou=to o(\ le/gomen, to\n skopo/n, o(/stis pote\ o( politiko\s ô)\n ê(mi=n tugcha/nei, e)/peita o(/ntina tro/pon dei= metaschei=n tou/tou kai\ ti/s au)tô=| kalô=s ê)\ mê\ sumbouleu/ei tô=n no/môn au)tô=n prô=ton, e)/peita a)nthrô/pôn.]
[Side-note: This Council must keep steadily in view the one great end of the city--Mistakes made by existing cities about the right end.]
The great political end must be one, and not many.
All the arrows aimed by the central Conservative organ must be aimed at one and the same point.
[469] This is the chief excellence of a well-constituted conservative authority.
Existing cities err all of them in one of two ways.
Either they aim at one single End, but that End bad or wrong: or they aim at a variety of Ends without giving exclusive attention to any one.
Survey existing cities: you will find that in one, the great purpose, and the main feature of what passes for justice, is, that some party or faction shall obtain or keep political power, whether its members be better or worse than their fellow-citizens: in a second city, it is wealth--in a third freedom of individuals--in a fourth, freedom combined with power over foreigners.
Some cities, again, considering themselves wiser than the rest, strive for all these objects at once or for a variety of others, without exclusive attention to any one.
[470] Amidst such divergence and error in regard to the main end, we cannot wonder that all cities fail in attaining it.
[Footnote 469: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 962 D. [Greek: dei= dê\ tou=ton] (the nocturnal synod) .
.
.
[Greek: pa=san a)retê\n e)/chein, ê(=s a)/rchei to\ mê\ plana=sthai pro\s polla\ stochazo/menon, a)ll' ei)s e(\n ble/ponta pro\s tou=to a)ei\ ta\ pa/nta oi(=on be/lê a)phie/nai.]]
[Footnote 470: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 962 D-E.
Compare Aristot.
Eth.
Nikom.
x.
1180, a.
26.]
[Side-note: The one end of the city is the virtue of its citizens--that property which is common to the four varieties of Virtue--Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice.]
The One End proposed by _our_ city is, the virtue of its citizens.
But virtue is fourfold, or includes four varieties--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice.
Our End is and must be One.
The medical Reason has its One End, Good Health:[471] the stratêgic Reason has its One End--Victory: What is that One End (analogous to these) which the political Reason aims at?
It must be that in which the four cardinal virtues--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--are One, or coincide: that common property, possessed by all and by each, which makes them to be virtue, and constitutes the essential meaning of the name, Virtue.
We must know the four as four, that is, the points of difference between them: but it is yet more important to know them as One--to discern the point of essential coincidence and union between them.
[472] [Footnote 471: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 963 A-B.
[Greek: nou=n ga\r dê\ kubernêtiko\n me\n kai\ i)atriko\n kai\ stratêgiko\n ei)/pomen ei)s to\ e(\n e)kei=no oi(= dei= ble/pein, to\n de\ politiko\n e)le/gchontes e)ntau=th' e)sme\n nu=n .
.
.
Ô)= thauma/sie, su\ de\ dê\ poi= skopei=s?
Ti/ pot' e)kei=no/ e)sti to\ e(\n, o(\ dê\ saphô=s o( me\n i)atriko\s nou=s e)/chei phra/zein, su\ d' ô)\n dê\ diaphe/rôn, ô(s phai/ês a)/n, pa/ntôn tô=n e)mphro/nôn, ou)ch e(/xeis ei)pei=n?]]
[Footnote 472: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
963 E-964 A.]
[Side-note: The Nocturnal Council must comprehend this unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be carried out in detail.]
To understand thoroughly this unity of virtue, so as to act upon it themselves, to explain it to others and to embody it in all their orders--is the grand requisite for the supreme Guardians of our city--the Nocturnal council.
We cannot trust such a function in the hands of poets, or of visiting discoursers who announce themselves as competent to instruct youth.
It cannot be confided to any less authority than the chosen men--the head and senses--of our city, properly and specially trained to exercise it.
[473] Upon this depends the entire success or failure of our results.
Our guardians must be taught to see that one Idea which pervades the Multiple and the Diverse:[474] to keep it steadily before their own eyes, and to explain and illustrate it in discourse to others.
They must contemplate the point of coincidence and unity between Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice: as well as between the many different things called Beautiful, and the many different things called Good.
[475] They must declare whether the name Virtue, common to all the four, means something One--or a Whole or Aggregate--or both together.
[476] If they cannot explain to us whether Virtue is Manifold or Fourfold, or in what manner it is One--they are unfit for their task, and our city will prove a failure.
To know the truth about these important matters--to be competent to explain and defend it to others--to follow it out in practice, and to apply it in discriminating what is well done and what is ill done--these are the imperative and indispensable duties of our Guardians.
[477] [Footnote 473: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 964 D.] [Footnote 474: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 965 C. [Greek: to\ pro\s mi/an i)de/an e)k tô=n pollô=n kai\ a)nomoi/ôn dunato\n ei)=nai ble/pein.]]
[Footnote 475: Plato, Legg.
xii.
pp.
965 D, 966 A-B.]
[Footnote 476: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 965 D. [Greek: pri\n a)\n i(kanô=s ei)/pômen ti/ pote/ e)stin, ei)s o(\ blepte/on, _ei)/te ô(s e(\n, ei)/te ô(s o(/lon_, ei)/te _a)mpho/tera_, ei)/te o(/pôs pote\ pe/phuken; ê)\ tou/tou diaphugo/ntos ê(ma=s oi)o/metha/ pote ê(mi=n i(kanô=s e(/xein ta\ pro\s a)retê/n, peri\ ê(=s ou)/t' ei) polla/ e)st', ou)/t' ei) te/ttara, ou)/th' ô(s e(/n, dunatoi\ phra/zein e)so/metha?]]
[Footnote 477: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 966 B.]
[Side-note: They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon the citizens, an orthodox religious creed.
Fundamental dogmas of such creed.]
Farthermore it is also essential that they should adopt an orthodox religious creed, and should be competent to explain and defend it.
The citizens generally must believe without scrutiny such dogmas as the lawgiver enjoins; but the Guardians must master the proofs of them.
[478] The proofs upon which, in Plato's view, all true piety rests, are two[479] (he here repeats them):--1.
Mind or soul is older than Body--anterior to Body as a moving power--and invested with power to impel, direct, and controul Body.
2.
When we contemplate the celestial rotation, we perceive such extreme exactness and regularity in the movement of the stars (each one of the vast multitude maintaining its relative position in the midst of prodigious velocity of movement) that we cannot explain it except by supposing a Reason or Intelligence pervading and guiding them all.
Many astronomers have ascribed this regular movement to an inherent Necessity, and have hereby drawn upon science reproaches from poets and others, as if it were irreligious.
But these astronomers (Plato affirms) were quite mistaken in excluding Mind and Reason from the celestial bodies, and in pronouncing the stars to be bodies without mind, like earth or stones.
Necessity cannot account for their exact and regular movements: no other supposition is admissible except the constant volition of mind in-dwelling in each, impelling and guiding them towards exact goodness of result.
Astronomy well understood is, in Plato's view, the foundation of true piety.
It is only the erroneous astronomical doctrines which are open to the current imputations of irreligion.
[480] [Footnote 478: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 966 D.] [Footnote 479: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 967 E.] [Footnote 480: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 967 A-D. [Greek: dianoi/ais boulê/seôs a)gathô=n peri\ teloume/nôn .
.
.
mê/pot' a)\n a)/psucha o)/nta ou(/tôs ei)s a)kri/beian thaumastoi=s logismoi=s a)\n e)chrê=to, nou=n mê\ kektême/na .
.
.
to/n te ei)rême/non e)n toi=s a)/strois nou=n tô=n o)/ntôn.]]
These are the capital religious or kosmical dogmas which the members of the Nocturnal Council must embrace and expound to others, together with the mathematical and musical teaching suitable to illustrate them.
Application must be made of these dogmas to improve the laws and customs of the city, and the dispositions of the citizens.
[481] [Footnote 481: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 967 E.] When this Nocturnal Council, with its members properly trained and qualified, shall be established in the akropolis--symbolising the conjunction of Reason with the head or with the two knowledge-giving senses--the Magnêtic City may securely be entrusted to it, with certainty of an admirable result.
[482] [Footnote 482: Plato, Legg.
xii.
p. 969 B.]
* * * * * EPINOMIS.
[Side-note: Leges close, without describing the education proper for the Nocturnal Counsellors.
_Epinomis_--supplying this defect.]
Here closes the dialogue called Leges: somewhat prematurely, since the peculiar training indispensable for these Nocturnal Counsellors has not yet been declared.
The short dialogue called Epinomis supplies this defect.
It purports to be a second day's conversation between the same trio.
[Side-note: The Athenian declares his plan of education--Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy.]
The Athenian--adverting to the circumstances of human life generally, as full of toil and suffering, with few and transient moments of happiness--remarks that none except the wise have any chance of happiness; and that few can understand what real wisdom is, though every one presumes that there must be something of the kind discoverable.
[483] He first enumerates what _it is not_.
It is not any of the useful arts--husbandry, house-building, metallurgy, weaving, pottery, hunting, &c.: nor is it prophecy, or the understanding of omens: nor any of the elegant arts--music, poetry, painting: nor the art of war, or navigation, or medicine, or forensic eloquence: nor does it consist in the natural endowments of quick wit and good memory.
[484] True wisdom is something different from all these.
It consists in arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, leading to a full comprehension of the regular movements of the Kosmos--combined with a correct religious creed as to the divine attributes of the Kosmos and its planetary bodies which are all pervaded and kept in harmonious rotation by divine, in-dwelling, soul or mind.
[485] It is the God Uranus (or Olympus, or Kosmos), with the visible Gods included therein, who furnishes to us not only the gifts of the seasons and the growth of food, but also varied intelligence, especially the knowledge of number, without which no other knowledge would be attainable.
[486] Number and proportion are essential conditions of every variety of art.
The regular succession of night and day, and the regularly changing phases of the moon--the comparison of months with the year--first taught us to count, and to observe the proportions of numbers to each other.
[487] [Footnote 483: Plato, Epinom.
pp.
973-974.]
[Footnote 484: Plato, Epinom.
pp.
975-976.]
[Footnote 485: Plato, Epinom.
pp.
976-977.]
[Footnote 486: Plato, Epinom.
pp.
977-978.]
[Footnote 487: Plato, Epinom.
pp.
978-979.]
[Side-note: Theological view of Astronomy--Divine Kosmos--Soul more ancient and more sovereign than Body.]
The Athenian now enters upon the directly theological point of view, and re-asserts the three articles of orthodoxy which he had laid down in the tenth book of Leges: together with the other point of faith also--That Soul or Mind is older than body: soul is active and ruling--body, passive and subject.
An animal is a compound of both.
There are five elementary bodies--fire, air, æther, water, earth[488]--which the kosmical soul moulded, in varying proportions, so as to form different animals and plants.
Man, animals, and plants were moulded chiefly of earth, yet with some intermixture of the other elements: the stars were moulded chiefly from fire, having the most beautiful bodies, endowed with divine and happy souls, and immortal, or very long-lived.
[489] Next to the stars were moulded the Dæmons, out of æther, and inhabitants of that element: after them, the animals inhabiting air, and Nymphs inhabiting water.
These three occupy intermediate place between the stars above and man below.
[490] They serve as media of communication between man and the Gods: and also for the diffusion of thought and intelligence among all parts of the Kosmos.
[491] The Gods of the ordinary faith--Zeus, Hêrê, and others--must be left to each person's disposition, if he be inclined to worship them: but the great visible Kosmos, and the sidereal Gods, must be solemnly exalted and sanctified, with prayer and the holiest rites.
[492] Those astronomers who ignore this divine nature, and profess to explain their movements by physical or mechanical forces, are guilty of grave impiety.
The regularity of their movements is a proof of their divine nature, not a proof of the contrary, as some misguided persons affirm.
[493] [Footnote 488: Plato, Epinom.
pp.
980-981.
We know, from a curious statement of Xenokrates (see Fragm.
of his work [Greek: Peri\ tou= Pla/tônos bi/ou], cited by Simplikius, ad Aristot.
Physic.
p. 427, a.
17, Schol.
Brandis), that this quintuple elementary scale was a doctrine of Plato.
But it is not the doctrine of the Timæus.
The assertion of Xenokrates (good evidence) warrants us in believing that Plato altered his views after the composition of Timæus, and that his latest opinions are represented in the Epinomis.
Zeller indeed thinks that the dodekahedron in the Timæus might be construed as a fifth element, but this is scarcely tenable.
Zeller, Philos.
der Griechen, vol.
ii.
p. 513, ed.
2nd.]
[Footnote 489: Plat.
Epinom.
pp.
981-982.]
[Footnote 490: Plat.
Epinom.
pp.
983-984.]
[Footnote 491: Plat.
Epinom.
p.
984.]
[Footnote 492: Plat.
Epinom.
pp.
984 D-985 D.] [Footnote 493: Plat.
Epinom.
pp.
982 D, 983 C.] [Side-note: Improving effects of the study of Astronomy in this spirit.]
Next, the Athenian intimates that the Greeks have obtained their astronomical knowledge, in the first instance, from Egypt and Assyria, but have much improved upon what they learnt (p. 987): that the Greeks at first were acquainted only with the three [Greek: phorai\]--the outer or sidereal sphere ([Greek: A)planê\s]), the Sun, and the Moon--but unacquainted with the other five or planetary [Greek: phorai\], which they first learned from these foreigners, though not the names of the planets (p. 986): that all these eight were alike divine, fraternal agents, partakers in the same rational nature, and making up altogether the divine [Greek: Ko/smos]: that those who did not recognise all the eight as divine, consummately rational, and revolving with perfectly uniform movement, were guilty of impiety (p. 985 E): that these kosmical, divine, rational agents taught to mankind arithmetic and the art of numeration (p. 988 B): that soul, or plastic, demiurgic, cognitive force (p. 981 C), was an older and more powerful agent in the universe than body--but that there were two varieties of soul, a good and bad, of which the good variety was the stronger: the good variety of soul produced all the good movements, the bad variety produced all the bad movements (p. 988 D, E): that in studying astronomy, a man submitted himself to the teaching of this good soul and these divine agents, from whom alone he could learn true wisdom and piety (pp.
989 B-990 A): that this study, however, must be conducted not with a view to know the times of rising and setting of different stars (like Hesiod) but to be able to understand and follow the eight [Greek: periphora/s] (p. 990 B).
[Side-note: Study of arithmetic and geometry: varieties of proportion.]
To understand these--especially the five planetary and difficult [Greek: periphora\s]--arithmetic must also be taught, not in the concrete, but in the abstract (p. 990 C, D), to understand how much the real nature of things is determined by the generative powers and combination of Odd and Even Number.
Next, geometry also must be studied, so as to compare numbers with plane and solid figures, and thus to determine proportions between two numbers which are not directly commensurable.
The varieties of proportion, which are marvellously combined, must be understood--first arithmetical and geometrical proportions, the arithmetical proportion increasing by equal addition (1 + 1 = 2), or the point into a line--then the geometrical proportion by way of multiplication (2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8), or the line raised into a surface, and the surface raised into a cube.
Moreover there are two other varieties of proportion ([Greek: to\ ê(mio/lion] or sesquialterum, and [Greek: to\ e)pi/triton] or sesquitertium) both of which occur in the numbers between the ratio of 6 to 12 (_i.e._ 9 is [Greek: to\ ê(mio/lion] of 6, or 9 = 6 + 6/2; again 8 is, [Greek: to\ e)pi/triton] of 6, or 8 = 6 + 6/3).
This last is _harmonic proportion_, when there are three terms, of which the third is as much greater than the middle, as the middle is greater than the first (3 : 4 : 6)--six is greater than four by one-third of six, while four is greater than three by one-third of three (p. 991 A).
[Side-note: When the general forms of things have thus been learnt, particular individuals in nature must be brought under them.]
Lastly, having thus come to comprehend the general forms of things, we must bring under them properly the visible individuals in nature; and in this process interrogation and cross-examination must be applied (p. 991 C).
We must learn to note the accurate regularity with which time brings all things to maturity, and we shall find reason to believe that all things are full of Gods (p. 991 D).
We shall come to perceive that there is one law of proportion pervading every geometrical figure, every numerical series, every harmonic combination, and all the celestial rotations: one and the same bond of union among all (p. 991 E).
These sciences, whether difficult or easy, must be learnt: for without them no happy nature will be ever planted in our cities (p. 992 A).
The man who learns all this will be the truly wise and happy man, both in this life and after it; only a few men can possibly arrive at such happiness (p. 992 C).
But it is these chosen few who, when they become Elders, will compose our Nocturnal Council, and maintain unimpaired the perpetual purity of the Platonic City.
[Side-note: Question as to education of the Nocturnal Council is answered in the Epinomis.]
Such then is the answer given by the Epinomis, to the question left unanswered in the Leges.
However unsatisfactory it may appear, to those who look for nothing but what is admirable in Plato--I believe it to represent the latest views of his old age, when dialectic had given place in his mind to the joint ascendancy of theological sentiment and Pythagorean arithmetic.
[494] [Footnote 494: In connection with the treatise called Epinomis, the question arises, What were the modifications which Plato's astronomical doctrines underwent during the latter years of his life?
In what respect did they come to differ from what we read in the Platonic Timæus, where a geocentric system is proclaimed: whether we suppose (as Boeckh and others do) that the Earth is represented as stationary at the centre--or (as I suppose) that the Earth is represented as fastened to the centre of the kosmical axis, and revolving with it.
The Epinomis delivers a geocentric system also.
Now it is upon this very point that Plato's opinions are said to have changed towards the close of his life.
He came to repent that he had assigned to the Earth the central place in the system; and to conceive that place as belonging properly to something else, some other better (or more powerful) body.
This is a curious statement, made in two separate passages by Plutarch, and in one of the two passages with reference to Theophrastus as his witness (Plutarch, Vit.
Numæ, c. 11; Platonic.
Quæst.
8, p. 1006 C).
Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, pp.
144-149) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii.
91) discredit the statement ascribed by Plutarch to Theophrastus.
But I see no sufficient ground for such discredit.
Sir George Lewis remarks very truly (Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 143):--"The testimony of Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle, and nearly his contemporary, has great weight on this point.
The ground of the opinion alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine mentioned by Aristotle, that the centre is the most dignified place, and that the earth is not the first in dignity among the heavenly bodies.
It has no reference to observed phenomena, and is not founded on inductive scientific arguments.
.
.
.
The doctrine as to the superior dignity of the central place, and of the impropriety of assigning the most dignified station to the earth, was of Pythagorean origin and was probably combined with the Philolaic cosmology."
This remark of Sir George Lewis deserves attention, not merely from the proper value which he assigns to the testimony of Theophrastus, but because he confines himself to the exact matter which Theophrastus affirmed; _viz._, that Plato in his old age came to repent of his own cosmical views on one particular point and on one special ground.
Theophrastus does not tell us what it was that Plato supposed to be in the centre, after he had become convinced that it was too dignified a place for the earth.
Plato _may_ have come to adopt the positive opinion of Philolaus (that of a central fire) as well as the negative opinion (that the Earth was not the central body).
But we cannot affirm that he _did_ adopt either this positive opinion or any other positive opinion upon that point.
I take Theophrastus to have affirmed exactly what Plutarch makes him affirm, and no more: that Plato came to repent of having assigned to the earth the central place which did not befit it, and to account the centre the fit place "for some other body better than the Earth," yet without defining what that other body was.
If Theophrastus had named what the other body was, surely Plutarch would never have suppressed the specific designation to make room for the vague [Greek: e(te/rô| tini\ krei/ttoni].
There is thus, in my judgment, ground for believing that Plato in his old age (after the publication of the Treatise De Legibus) came to distrust the geocentric dogma which he had previously supported; but we do not know whether he adopted any other dogma in place of it.
The geocentric doctrine passed to the Epinomis as a continuation of the Treatise De Legibus.
The phrase which Plutarch cites from Theophrastus deserves notice--[Greek: Theo/phrastos de\ kai\ prosistorei= tô=| Pla/tôni presbute/rô| genome/nô| _metamelei=n_, ô(s ou) prosê/kousan a)podo/nti tê=| gê=| tê\n me/sên chô/ran tou= panto/s.]
Plato _repented_.
Whoever reads the Treatise De Legibus (especially Books vii.
and x.)
will see that Plato at that period of his life considered astronomical errors as not merely errors, but heresies offensive to the Gods; and that he denounced those who supported such errors as impious.
If Plato came afterwards to alter his astronomical views, he would _repent_ of his own previous views as of a heresy.
He came to believe that he had rated the dignity of the Earth too high; and we can see how this change of view may have been occasioned.
Earth was looked upon by him, as well as by many others, in two distinct points of view.
1.
As a cosmical body, divine, and including [Greek: tou\s chthoni/ous theou/s].
2.
As one of the four elements, along with water, air, and fire; in which sense it was strung together with [Greek: li/thoi], and had degrading ideas associated with it (Plato, Apol.
Sokr.
p. 26 D).
These two meanings, not merely distinct but even opposed to each other, occur in the very same sentence of De Legibus, x. p. 886 D. The elemental sense of Earth was brought prominently forward by those reasoners whom Plato refutes in Book x.: and the effect of such reasonings upon him was, that though he still regarded Earth as a Deity, he no longer continued to regard Earth as worthy of the cosmical post of honour.
At that age, however, he might well consider himself excused from broaching any new positive theory.]
[Side-note: Problem which the Nocturnal Council are required to solve, What is the common property of Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice, by reason of which each is called Virtue?]
Assuming that the magistrates of the Nocturnal Council have gone through the course of education prescribed in the Epinomis, and have proved themselves unimpeachable on the score of orthodoxy--will they be able to solve the main problem which he has imposed upon them at the close of the Leges?
There, as elsewhere, he proclaims a problem as indispensable to be solved, but does not himself furnish any solution.
What is the common property, or point of similarity between Prudence, Courage, Temperance, Justice--by reason of which each is termed Virtue?
What are the characteristic points of difference, by reason of which Virtue sometimes receives one of these names, sometimes another?
[Side-note: The only common property is that all of them are essential to the maintenance of society, and tend to promote human security and happiness.]
The proper way of answering this question has been much debated, from Plato's day down to the present.
It is one of the fundamental problems of Ethical Philosophy.
The subjective matter of fact, implied by every one who designates an act or a person as virtuous, is an approving or admiring sentiment which each man knows in his own bosom.
But Plato assumes that there is, besides this, an objective connotation: a common object or property to which such sentiment refers.
What is that common object?
I see no other except that which is indicated by the principle of Utility: I mean that principle which points out Happiness and Unhappiness, not merely of the agent himself, but also of others affected or liable to be affected by his behaviour, as the standard to which these denominations refer.
Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, all tend to prevention and mitigation of unhappiness, and to increase of happiness, as well for the agent himself as for the society surrounding him.
The opposite qualities--Timidity, Imprudence, Intemperance, Injustice--tend with equal certainty either to increase positively the unhappiness of the agent and of society, or to remove the means for warding it off or abating it.
Indeed there is a certain minimum of all the four--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--without which or below which neither society could hold together, nor the life of the individual agent himself could be continued.
[Side-note: Tendency of the four opposite qualities to lessen human happiness.]
Here then is one answer at least to the question of Plato.
Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--all of them mental attributes of rational voluntary agents--have also the common property of being, in a certain minimum degree, absolutely essential to the life of the agent and the maintenance of society--and of being, above that degree, tutelary against the suffering, and beneficial to the happiness, of both.
This tutelary or beneficent tendency is the common objective property signified by the general term Virtue; and is implicated with the subjective property before mentioned--the sentiment of approbation.
The four opposite qualities are designated by the general term Vice or Defect, connoting both maleficent tendency and the sentiment of disapprobation.
[Side-note: A certain measure of all the four virtues is required.
In judging of particular acts instigated by each, there is always a tacit reference to the hurt or benefit in the special case.]
This proposition will be farther confirmed, if we look at all the four qualities--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--in another point of view.
Taking them in their reference to Virtue, each of them belongs to Virtue as a part to the whole,[495] not as one species contradistinguished from and excluding other species.
The same person may have, and ought to have, a certain measure of all: he will not be called virtuous unless he has a measure of all.
Excellence in any one will not compensate for the entire absence of the others.
[Footnote 495: Compare Plato, Legg.
i. p. 629 B, where he describes [Greek: tê\n xu/mpasan a)retê\n--dikaiosu/nê kai\ sôphrosu/nê kai\ phro/nêsis ei)s tau)to\n e)lthou=sa met' a)ndrei/as]: also pp.
630 C-E, 631 A, where he considers all these as [Greek: mo/ria a)retê=s], but [Greek: phro/nêsis] as the first of the four and [Greek: a)ndrei/a] as the last.
See also iii.
pp.
688 B, 696 C-D, iv.
p. 705 D.] A just and temperate man will not be accounted virtuous, if (to use an Aristotelian simile) he be so extravagantly timid as to fear every insect that flits by, or the noise of a mouse.
[496] All probability of beneficent results from his agency is effaced by this capital defect: and it is the probability of such results which constitute his title to be called virtuous.
[Footnote 496: Aristot.
Ethic.
Nikomach.
vii.
6, p. 1148, a.
8; Politic.
vii.
1, p. 1323, a.
29.
[Greek: ka)\n psophê/sê| mu=s .
.
.
dediô\s ta\s parapetome/nas mui/as.]]
When we speak of the four as qualities or attributes of men (as Plato does in this treatise, while considering the proper type of character which the lawgiver should aim at forming) we speak of them in the abstract--that is, making abstraction of particular circumstances, and regarding only what is common to most men in most situations.
But in the realities of life these particulars are always present: there is a series of individual agents and patients, acts and sufferings, each surrounded by its own distinct circumstances and situation.
Now in each of these situations an agent is held responsible for the consequences of his acts, when they are such as he knows and foresees, or might by reasonable care know and foresee.
An officer who (like Charles XII.
at Bender) marches up without necessity at the head of a corporal's guard to attack a powerful hostile army of good soldiers, exhibits the maximum of courage: but his act, far from being commended as virtue, must be blamed as rashness, or pitied as folly.
If a friend has deposited in my care a sword or other deadly weapon (to repeat the very case put by Sokrates[497]), justice requires me to give it back to him when he asks for it.
Yet if, at the time when he asks, he be insane, and exhibits plain indications of being about to employ it for murderous purposes, my just restoration of it will not be commended as an act of virtue.
When we look at these four qualities--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--not in the abstract, but in reference to particular acts, agents, and situations--we find that before a just or courageous act can be considered to deserve the name of Virtue, there is always a tacit supposition, that no considerable hurt to innocent persons is likely or predictable from it in the particular case.
The sentiment of approbation, implied in the name Virtue, will not go along with the act, if in the particular case it produce a certain amount of predictable mischief.
This is another property common to all the four attributes of mind--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice:--and forming one of the conditions under which they become entitled to the denomination of Virtue.
[Footnote 497: Plato, Republic, i. p. 331 C; Xenoph.
Memor.
iv.
2, 17; Cicero, De Officiis, iii.
25.]
[Side-note: Plato places these four virtues in the highest scale of Expetenda or Bona, on the ground that all the other Bona are sure to flow from them.]
In the first books of the Leges, Plato[498] puts forward Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, as the parts or sorts of Virtue: telling us that the natural rectitude of laws consists in promoting, not any one of the four separately, but all the four together in their due subordination.
He classifies good things (Bona or Expetenda) in a triple scale of value.
[499] First, and best of all, come the mental attributes--which he calls divine--Prudence or Intelligence, Temperance, Justice, and Courage: Second, or second best, come the attributes of body--health, strength, beauty, activity, manual dexterity: Third, or last, come the extraneous advantages, Wealth, Power, Family-Position, &c. It is the duty of the lawgiver to employ his utmost care to ensure to his citizens the first description of Bona (the mental attributes)--upon which (Plato says) the second and third description depend, so that if the first are ensured, the second and third will be certain to follow: while if the lawgiver, neglecting the first, aims at the second and third exclusively or principally, he will miss all three.
[500] Here we see, that while Plato assigns the highest scale of value to the mental attributes, he justifies such preference by assuring us that they are the essential producing causes of the other sorts of Bona.
His assurance is even given in terms more unqualified than the realities of life will bear out.
[Footnote 498: Plato, Legg.
i. pp.
627 D, 631 A-C.] [Footnote 499: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 631 B-D, iii.
p. 697 B.
This tripartite classification of Bona differs altogether from the tripartite classification of Bona given at the commencement of the second book of the Republic.
But it agrees with that, the "tria genera Bonorum," distinguished by Aristotle in the first Book of the Nikomachean Ethics (p. 1098, b.
12), among which [Greek: ta\ peri\ psuchê/n] were [Greek: kuriô/tata kai\ ma/lista a)gatha/].
This recognition of "tria genera Bonorum" is sometimes quoted as an opinion characteristic of the Peripatetics; but Aristotle himself declares it to be ancient and acknowledged, and we certainly have it here in Plato.]
[Footnote 500: Plato, Legg.
i. p. 631 C. [Greek: ê)/rtêtai d' e)k tô=n thei/ôn tha/tera, kai\ e)a\n me\n de/chêtai/ tis ta\ mei/zona po/lis, kta=tai kai\ ta\ e)la/ttona; ei) de\ mê/, ste/retai a)mphoi=n.]
The same doctrine is declared by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, pp.
29-30.
[Greek: le/gôn, o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata kai\ ta)/lla a)gatha\ toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|] (30 B).]
[Side-note: In thus directing the attention of the Council to the common property of the four virtues, Plato enforces upon them the necessity of looking to the security and happiness of their community as the paramount end.]
When Plato therefore proclaims it as the great desideratum for his Supreme Council, that they shall understand the common relation of the four great mental attributes (Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice) to each other as well as to the comprehensive whole, Virtue--he fastens their attention on the only common property which the four can be found to possess: _i.e._ that they are mental attributes required in every one for the security and comfort of himself and of society.
To ward off or mitigate the suffering, and to improve the comfort of society, is thus inculcated as the main and constant end for them to keep in view.
It is their prescribed task, to preserve and carry forward that which he as lawgiver had announced as his purpose in the beginning of the Leges.
[Side-note: But he enjoins also other objectionable ends.]
In thus taking leave of Plato, at the close of his longest, latest, and most affirmative composition, it is satisfactory to be able to express unqualified sympathy with this main purpose which, as departing lawgiver, he directs his successors to promote.
But to these salutary directions, unfortunately, he has attached others noway connected with them except by common feelings of reverence in his own mind and far less deserving of sympathy.
He requires that his own religious belief shall be erected into a peremptory orthodoxy, and that heretics shall be put down by the severest penalties.
Now a citizen might be perfectly just, temperate, brave, and prudent--and yet dissent altogether from the Platonic creed.
For such a citizen--the counterpart of Sokrates at Athens--no existence would be possible in the Platonic community.
[Side-note: Intolerance of Plato--Comparison of the Platonic community with Athens.]
We must farther remark that, even when Plato's ends are unexceptionable, the amount of interference which he employs to accomplish them is often extravagant.
As a Constructor, he carries the sentiment of his own infallibility--which in a certain measure every lawgiver must assume--to an extreme worthy only of the kings of the Saturnian age:[501] manifesting the very minimum of tolerance for that enquiring individual reason of which his own negative dialogues remain as immortal masterpieces.
We trace this intolerance through all the dialogue Leges.
Even when he condescends to advise and persuade, he speaks rather in the tone of an encyclical censor, than of one who has before him a reasonable opponent to be convinced.
The separate laws proposed by Plato are interesting to read, as illustrating antiquity: but most of them are founded on existing Athenian law.
Where they depart from it, they depart as often for the worse as for the better--so far as I can pretend to judge.
And in spite of all the indisputable defects, political and judicial, of that glorious city, where Plato was born and passed most of his days--it was, in my judgment, preferable to his Magnêtic city, as to all the great objects of security, comfort, recreation, and enjoyment.
Athens was preferable, even for the ordinary citizen: but for the men of free, inquisitive, self-thinking, minds--the dissentient minority, who lived upon that open speech of which Athenian orators and poets boasted--it was a condition of existence: since the Platonic censorship would have tolerated neither their doctrines nor their persons.
[Footnote 501: Plato, Politikus, pp.
271 E, 275 A-C.] APPENDIX.
Since the commencement of the present century, with its increased critical study of Plato, different and opposite opinions have been maintained by various authors respecting the genuineness or spuriousness of the Treatise De Legibus.
Schleiermacher (Platons Werke, I. i. p. 51) admitted it as a genuine work of Plato, but ranked it among the Nebenwerke, or outlying dialogues: _i.e._, as a work that did not form an item or stepping-stone in the main Platonic philosophical series (which Schleiermacher attempts to lay out according to a system of internal sequence and gradual development), but was composed separately, in general analogy with the later or more constructive portion of that series.
On the other hand, Ast (Platons Leben und Schriften, pp.
376-392) distinctly maintains that the Treatise De Legibus is not the composition of Plato, but of one of his scholars and contemporaries, perhaps Xenokrates or the Opuntian Philippus.
Ast supports this opinion by many internal grounds, derived from a comparison of the treatise with other Platonic dialogues.
Zeller (in his Platonische Studien, Tübingen, 1839, pp.
1-144) discussed the same question in a more copious and elaborate manner, and declared himself decidedly in favour of Ast's opinion--that the Treatise De Legibus was not the work of Plato, but of one among his immediate scholars.
But in his History of Grecian Philosophy (vol.
ii.
pp.
348-615-641, second edition), Zeller departs from this judgment, and pronounces the Treatise to be a genuine work of Plato--the last form of his philosophy, modified in various ways.
Again Suckow (in his work, Die wissenschaftliche und künstlerische Form der Platonischen Schriften, Berlin, 1855, I. pp.
111-118 seq.)
advocates Zeller's first opinion--that the Treatise De Legibus is not the work of Plato.
Lastly Stallbaum, in the Prolegomena prefixed to his edition of the Treatise, strenuously vindicates its Platonic authorship.
This is also the opinion of Boeckh and K. F. Hermann; and was, moreover, the opinion of all critics (I believe) anterior to Ast.
To me, I confess, it appears that the Treatise De Legibus is among the best authenticated works of the Platonic collection.
I do not know what better positive proof can be tendered than the affirmation of Aristotle in his Politics--distinct and unqualified, mentioning both the name of the author and the title of the work, noting also the relation in which it stood to the Republic, both as a later composition of the same author, and as discrepant on some points of doctrine, analogous on others.
This in itself is the strongest _primâ facie_ evidence, not to be rebutted, except by some counter-testimony, or by some internal mark of chronological impossibility: moreover, it coincides with the consentient belief of all the known ancient authors later than Aristotle--such as Zeno the Stoic, who composed a treatise in seven books--[Greek: Pro\s tou\s Pla/tônos No/mous] (Diog.
Laert.
vii.
36), Persæus, the Alexandrine critics, Cicero, Plutarch, &c. (Stallbaum, Prolegg.
p.
xliv.)
Aristophanes Grammaticus classified both Leges and Epinomis as Plato's works.
The arguments produced in Zeller's Platonische Studien, to show that Aristotle may have been mistaken in his assertion, are of little or no force.
Nor will it be material to the present question, even if we concede to Zeller and Suckow another point which they contend for--that the remarks of Aristotle upon Plato's opinions are often inaccurate at least, if not unfair.
For here Aristotle is produced in court only as a witness to authenticity.
Among the points raised by Suckow, there is indeed one, which if it were made out, would greatly invalidate, if not counterbalance, the testimony of Aristotle.
Suckow construes the passage in the Oration of Isokrates ad Philippum (p. 84, § 14)--[Greek: o(moi/ôs oi( toiou=toi tô=n lo/gôn a)/kuroi tugcha/nousin o)/ntes toi=s no/mois kai\ tai=s politei/ais tai=s u(po\ tô=n sophistô=n gegramme/nais]--as if it alluded to the Platonic Republic, and to the Treatise De Legibus; but as if it implied, at the same time, that the two treatises were not composed by the same author, but by different authors, indicated by the plural [Greek: sophistô=n].
If this were the true meaning of Isokrates, we should then have Aristotle distinctly contradicted by another respectable contemporary witness, which would of course much impair the value of his testimony.
But Stallbaum (p.
lii.)
disputes altogether the meaning ascribed by Suckow to the words of Isokrates, and contends that the plural [Greek: sophistô=n] noway justifies the hypothesis of a double authorship.
So far, I think, he is decidedly right: and this clears away the only one item of counter-testimony which has yet been alleged against Aristotle as a witness.
Stallbaum, indeed, goes a step farther.
He contends that the passage above cited from Isokrates is an evidence on his side, and against Suckow: that Isokrates alludes to Plato as author of both Republic and Leges, and thus becomes available as a second contemporary witness, confirming the testimony of Aristotle.
This is less certain; yet perhaps supposable.
We may imagine that Isokrates, when he composed the passage, had in his mind Plato pre-eminently--then recently dead at a great age, and the most illustrious of all the Sophists who had written upon political theory.
The vague and undefined language in which Isokrates speaks, however, sets forth, by contrast, the great evidentiary value of Aristotle's affirmation, which is distinct and specific in the highest degree, declaring Plato to be the author of Leges.
To contradict this affirmation--an external guarantee of unusual force--Zeller produces a case of internal incredibility.
The Legg.
cannot be the work of Plato (he argues) because of the numerous disparities and marked inferiority of style, handling, and doctrine, which are very frequently un-Platonic, and not seldom anti-Platonic.
Whoever will read the Platonische Studien, will see that Zeller has made out a strong case of this sort, set forth with remarkable ability and ingenuity.
Indeed, the strength of the case, as to internal discrepancy, is fully admitted by his opponent Stallbaum, who says in general terms (Prolegg.
vol.
ii.
p. v.)--"Argumentatio quidem ac disserendi ratio, quæ in Legibus regnat, ubi considerata fuerit paullo accuratius, dubitare nemo sanè poterit, quin multa propria ac peculiaria habere judicanda sit, quæ ab aliorum librorum Platonicorum usu et consuetudine longissimé recedant".
He then proceeds to enumerate in detail many serious points of discrepancy.
See the second part (ch.
xv.)
of his Prolegomena, prefixed to Book v.
Legg., and in Prolegg.
to his edition of 1859, pp.
lv.-lix.
But in spite of such undeniable force of internal improbability, Stallbaum still maintains that the Treatise is really the work of Plato.
Of course, he does not admit that the whole of the internal evidence is nothing but discrepancy.
He points out also much that is homogeneous and Platonic.
I agree with his conclusion (which is also the subsequent conclusion of Zeller) respecting the authorship of Legg.
To me the testimony of Aristotle appears conclusive.
But when I perceive how strong are the grounds for doubt, so long as we discuss the question on grounds of internal evidence simply (that is, by comparison with other Platonic dialogues) while yet such doubts are over-ruled, by our fortunately possessing incontestable authenticating evidence _ab extra_--an inference suggests itself to me, of which Platonic critics seem for the most part unconscious.
I mean the great fallibility of reasonings founded simply on internal evidence, for the purpose of disproving authenticity, where we have no external evidence, contemporary or nearly contemporary, to controul them.
In this condition are the large majority of the dialogues.
I do not affirm that such reasonings are never to be trusted; but I consider them eminently fallible.
To compare together the various dialogues, indeed, and to number as well as to weigh the various instances of analogy and discrepancy between them, is a process always instructive.
It is among the direct tasks and obligations of the critic.
But when, after detecting discrepancies, more or less grave and numerous, he proceeds to conclude, that the dialogue in which they occur cannot have been composed by Plato, he steps upon ground full of hypothesis and uncertainty.
Who is to fix the limit of admissible divergence between the various compositions of a man like Plato?
Who can determine what changes may have taken place in Plato's opinions, or point of view, or intellectual powers--during a long literary life of more than fifty years, which we know only in mere outline?
Considering that Plato systematically lays aside his own personal identity, and speaks only under the assumed names of different expositors, opponents, and respondents--which of us can claim to possess a full and exhaustive catalogue of all the diverse phases of Platonism, so as to make sure that some unexpected variety has no legitimate title to be ranked among them?
For my part, I confess that these questions appear to me full of doubt and difficulty.
I am often surprised at the confidence with which critics, upon the faith of internal evidence purely and simply, pronounce various dialogues of the Platonic collection to be spurious.
A lesson of diffidence may be learnt from the Leges: which, if internal evidence alone were accessible, would stand among the questionable items of the Platonic catalogue--while it now takes rank among the most unquestionable, from the complete external certificate which has been fortunately preserved to us.
Stallbaum, who maintains the authenticity of the Platonic Leges, disallows altogether that of the Epinomis.
In his long and learned Prolegg.
(vol.
iii.
p. 441-470), he has gone over the whole case, and stated at length his reasons for this opinion.
I confess that his reasons do not satisfy me.
If, on the faith of those reasons, I rejected the Epinomis, I should also on the grounds stated by Ast and Zeller reject the Leges.
The reasons against the Leges are of the same character and tenor as those against the Epinomis, and scarce at all less weighty.
Respecting both of them, it may be shown that they are greatly inferior in excellence to the Republic and the other masterpieces of the Platonic genius, and that they contain points of doctrine and reasoning different from what we read in other Platonic works.
But when, from these premisses, I am called upon to admit that they are not the works of Plato, I cannot assent either about the one or the other.
I have already observed that I expect to find among his genuine compositions, some inferior in merit, others dissentient in doctrine--especially in compositions admitted to belong to his oldest age.
All critics from Aristophanes down to Tennemann, have admitted the Epinomis as genuine: and when Stallbaum contends that Diogenes mentions doubts on the point entertained even in antiquity--I think he is not warranted by the words of that author, iii.
37: [Greek: e)/nioi/ te phasi\n o(/ti Phi/lippos o( O)pou/ntios tou\s No/mous au)tou= (Pla/tônos) mete/grapsen o)/ntas e)n kêrô=|; tou/tou de\ kai\ tê\n E)pinomi/da phasi\n ei)=nai.]
I do not think we can infer from these words anything more than this--that "Philippus transcribed the Epinomis also out of the waxen tablet as he had transcribed the Leges".
The persons (whosoever they were--[Greek: e)/nioi]) to whom Diogenes refers, considered Philippus as in part the author of the [Greek: No/moi]; because he had first transcribed them in a legible form from the rough original, and might possibly have introduced changes of his own in the transcription.
If they had meant to distinguish what he did in respect to the Leges, from what he did in respect to the Epinomis: if they had meant to assert that he transcribed the Leges, but that he composed the Epinomis as an original addition of his own; I think they would have employed, not the conjunction [Greek: kai\], but some word indicating contrast and antithesis.
But even if we concede that the persons here alluded to by Diogenes did really believe, that the Epinomis was the original composition of Philippus and not of Plato--we must remember that all the critics of antiquity known to us believed the contrary--that it was the genuine work of Plato.
In particular, Aristophanes Grammaticus acknowledges it as such; enrolling it in one trilogy with the Minos and the Leges.
The testimony of Aristophanes, and the records of the Alexandrine Library in his time, greatly outweigh the suspicions of the unknown critics alluded to by Diogenes; even if we admit that those critics did really conceive the Epinomis as an actual composition of Philippus.
THE END.
GENERAL INDEX.
A.
Absolute and relative, radically distinct points of view, i.
23 _n._; of Xenophanes, 18; of Parmenides, 20-24, 66; agrees with Kant's, 21; of Herakleitus, 29; and Parmenides opposed, 37; of Anaxagoras, homoeomeries, 59 _n._; of Demokritus, 71, 80; of Zeno, 93, 101; Gorgias the Leontine reasoned against, as ens or entia, 103; and relative, antithetised by Plato in regard to the beautiful, ii.
54; Plato's argument against, iii.
204, 227; to Plato the only real, 385; an objective, impossible, 294 _n._, 298 _n._; see _Relative_.
Abstract, dialectic deals with, rhetoric with concrete, ii.
52, 53; and concrete aggregates, _ib._; terms, debates about meaning, iii.
76-78; different views of Aristotle and Plato, 76; and concrete, difference not conspicuous in Plato's time, 229.
Academy, the, i.
254; decorations, 269 _n._; Platonic school removed, 87 B.C., 265 _n._; library founded for use of inmates and special visitors, 278 _n._; Cicero on negative vein of, 131 _n._ Achilleus, and the tortoise, i.
97; preferred by Hippias to Odysseus, ii.
56.
Acoustics, to be studied by applying arithmetical relations and theories, iv.
74.
Actual and potential, Aristotle's distinction, iii.
135 _n._, i.
** 139.
[Greek: A)dikê/mata], iv.
367, 368.
Ælian, ii.
85 _n._ Æschines, Sokraticus, dialogues of, i.
112, 114 _n._, 115, 211 _n._; Lysias' oration against, 112.
Æsculapius, belief in, ii.
418 _n._ Æthiops, i.
195.
Affirmative, see _Negative_.
Aggregate, see _Whole_.
[Greek: Ai)dô/s], meaning, ii.
269 _n._ [Greek: Ai)/sthêsis], relation to [Greek: e)pistê/mê], iii.
164 _n._; conceptions of Aristotle and Plato compared, _ib._; connected by Plato with [Greek: a)i+/ssô], iv.
235 _n._; see _Sense_.
[Greek: A)kolasi/a], derivation, iii.
302 _n._ [Greek: A)lê/theia], derivation, iii.
302 _n._ Alexander of Aphrodisias, on Chance, i.
143 _n._ Alexandrian Museum founded as a copy of the Platonic and Aristotelic [Greek: mousei=a] at Athens, i.
277; date of foundation, 280; Demetrius Phalereus chief agent in its establishment, _ib._; its contents, 275; rapid accumulation of books, _ib._; under charge of Aristophanes, 273; contained Plato's works before time of Aristophanes, 274; editions of Plato issued, 295; its authority followed by ancient critics, 297, 299.
Alexis, iii.
387 _n._ Alkibiadês, when young, frequented Sokrates' society, ii.
21; attachment of Sokrates to, iii.
8; fitness as ideal in _Alkibiadês I._ and _II._, ii.
22; see _Alkibiadês I._ and _II._ and _Symposion._ _Alkibiadês_ I. and II., different critical opinions, ii.
17; date, i.
306, 308-11, ii.
22; authenticity, i.
306-7, 309-10, ii.
2 _n._, 17; prolixity, 26; circumstances and interlocutors, 1; fitness of historical Alkibiadês for ideal, 22; no bearing on the historical Alkibiadês, 20 _n._; the Platonic picture an ideal, 22; illustrates Sokratico-Platonic method in negative and positive aspect, 7; actual and anticipated effects of dialectic, 11; analogy with Xenophontic dialogues, 21, 29; Alkibiadês as Athenian adviser, 2; advises on war and peace, his standard the just and unjust, 3; whence knowledge of it, 4; from the multitude, their judgment worthless, 5; the expedient and inexpedient substituted, 6; the just identified with the good, honourable, expedient, 7; ignorance of Athenian statesmen, eulogy of Spartan and Persian kings, 8; Alkibiadês must become good--for what end and how, 8-10; confesses his ignorance, 10; will never leave Sokrates, 12; Delphian maxim--the mind the self, 11; self-knowledge, from looking into other minds is temperance, 11; situation in _Second_, 12; danger of prayer for mischievous gifts--most men unwise, _ib._; instances of injurious gifts--mischiefs of ignorance, 14; depend on the subject-matter, _ib._; few wise public counsellors, why called wise, 15; special accomplishments often hurtful, if no knowledge of the good, 16; Sokrates on prayer and sacrifice, _ib._; Sokrates' purpose, to humble presumptuous youths, 21; his mission against false persuasion of knowledge, 24; his positive solutions illusory, 26-7; opinion embraces all varieties of knowledge save of the good, 30; the good, how known--unsolved, 31.
Allegorical interpretation of poets, ii.
285; see _Mythe_.
[Greek: A)lupi/a], the Good, iii.
338 _n._; not identical with pleasure, 353, 377; and pleasure included in Hedonists' end, _ib._; is a negative condition intermediate between pleasure and pain, iv.
86.
Amabile primum, ii.
181, 191; approximates to Idea of Good, 192; the Good, 194; compared with Aristotle's _prima amicitia_, _ib._ [Greek: A(martê/mata], iv.
367, 368.
Amazons, iv.
196.
Ana of philosophers, i.
153 _n._ Analogical and generic wholes, ii.
47, 193 _n._, iii.
365.
Analogy, Aristotle first distinguished [Greek: o(mô/numa], [Greek: sunô/numa], and [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an]**, iii.
94 _n._; see _Metaphor_.
[Greek: A)na/mnêsis] different from [Greek: mnê/mê], iii.
350 _n._; see _Reminiscence_.
[Greek: A)nathumi/asis], i.
35 _n._ Anaxagoras, chiefly physical, i.
48; physics, 49; homoeomeries, 48, 52 _n._, 53, 55-6, 58 _n._; essential intermixture of Demokritean atoms analogous, 79 _n._; denied generation and destruction, 48; and simple bodies, 52 _n._; chaos, 50, 50 _n._, 54; Nous, relation to the homoeomeries, 54-57; originates rotatory movement in chaotic mass, 50; exercised only a catalytic agency, 55; alone pure and unmixed, 50; immaterial and impersonal, 56 _n._; its two attributes, to _move_ and to _know_, _ib._; compared with Herakleitus' [Greek: perie/chon], _ib._; Plato's Idea of Good, ii.
412; represented later as a god, i.
54; his own view of it.
_ib._; theory as understood by Sokrates, ii.
393, 400, 402 _n._; Hegel on, 403 _n._; erroneously charged with inconsistency, i.
56, ii.
394, 407; animal bodies purer than air or earth, i.
51; suggested partly by the phenomenon of animal nutrition, 53; air and fire, 52, 56 _n._; astronomy, 57; his geology, meteorology, and physiology, 58; his heresy, Sokrates on, 413; threatened prosecution for impiety, 59; accused of substituting physical for mental causes, ii.
401; opposed Empedokles' theory of sensation, i.
58; theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._; illusions of sense, i.
59 _n._; compared with Empedokles, 52; relation to Anaximander, 54; agreement with Diogenes of Apollonia, 64; influence on Aristotle, 89.
Anaximander, philosophy, i.
5; Infinite reproduced in chaos of Anaxagoras, 54; relation to Empedokles, _ib._ Anaximenes, i.
7.
Angler, definition of, iii.
189.
Animal bodies purer than air or earth, i.
51; generation, Empedokles on, 42; Demokritus' researches in, 75; kosmos the copy of the [Greek: Au)to/zôon]**, iv.
223, 235 _n._, 263; genesis of inferior from degenerate man, 252; genesis of, 421.
Annikeris, i.
202.
[Greek: A)no/êta], meaning, iii.
65 _n._ Antalkidas, peace of, iii.
404.
_Anterastæ_, see _Erastæ_.
[Greek: A)nthrô/pina, ta/], iv.
302 _n._ Antipater, i.
195.
Antisthenes, works, i.
111, 115, 163 _n._; constant friend of Sokrates, 152; copied manner of Sokrates in plainness and rigour, 150, 158 _n._; ethical, not transcendental, 122, 149; and ascetic, 151, 160; did not borrow from the Veda, 159 _n._; only identical predication possible, iii.
221, 223, 232 _n._, 252, i.
165; coincidence with Plato, ii.
47 _n._; refutation of, in _Sophistês_, iii.
223, 390 _n._, i.
163, 165; misconceived the function of the copula, iii.
221; errors due to the then imperfect logic, 241; fallacies of, ii.
215; not caricatured in _Kratylus_, iii.
304 _n._, 322 _n._; on pleasure, 389 _n._; compared with Aristippus, i.
190; antipathy to Plato, 151, 152 _n._, 165; opposed Platonic ideas, 164; the first protest of Nominalism against Realism, _ib._; qualities non-existent without the mind, iii.
74 _n._; distinction of simple and complex objects, i.
171; simple undefinable, _ib._; Aristotle on, 172; Plato, _ib._; Mill, _ib._ _n._; Aristotle on school of, 115; doctrines developed by Stoics, 198.
Antoninus, Marcus, view of death, i.
422 _n._; etymologies, iii.
308 _n._; _Pius_, compared to Sokrates, ii.
382 _n._, iii.
21 _n._ Anytus, hostility to Sophists, ii.
240; and philosophy generally, 255.
[Greek: A)/peiron], see _Infinite_.
Aphorisms of Herakleitus and the Pythagoreans, i.
106.
Aphroditê, influence very small in Platonic state, iv.
197, 359 _n._ [Greek: A)phrosu/nê], equivoque, ii.
279.
Apollo, to be consulted for religious legislation, iv.
34, 137 _n._, 325, 337; Xenophon on, i.
237; consulted by Xenophon under Sokrates' advice, 208.
Apology, naturally the first dialogue for review, i.
411; authenticity, 304, 306, 410, 422 _n._, ii.
421 _n._; date, i.
306-8, 311, 313, 330; Zeno, the Stoic, attracted to Athens by perusal of, 418; its general character, 412; is Sokrates' real defence not intentionally altered 410; testimony to truth of general features of Sokrates' character in, 419 _n._; differently set forth in _Kriton_, 428; Sokrates' mission, to combat false persuasion of knowledge, 374, ii.
24; influence of public beliefs, generated without any ostensible author, i.
424; Sokrates' judgment on poets, expanded, ii.
129; compared with _Gorgias_, 362 _n._, 368; _Phædon_, 419; _Kleitophon_, iii.
421; _Antigone_ of Sophokles, i.
429, _n._ Appetite subordinated by Plato and Aristotle to reason and duty, iv.
204; soul, 245; analogous to craftsmen in state, 39.
À priori, Plato's dogmas are, i.
399; reasonings, Plato differs from moderns, ii.
251; element of cognition, iii.
118.
Archelaus of Macedonia, ii.
325, 333 _n._, 334, 336.
Archilochus, censured by Herakleitus, i.
26.
[Greek: A)retê/], derivation, iii.
301 _n._ Arêtê, i.
195.
Argos, bad basis of government, iv.
310.
Argumenta ad Hominem, i.
98.
Aristeides, pupil of Sokrates, ii.
102; reply to _Gorgias_, 371 _n._, i.
243 _n._; belief in dreams, iii.
146 _n._ Aristippus, works, i.
111, 116; ethical, not transcendental, 122; discourse of Sokrates with, 175; the choice of Herakles, 177; Sokrates on the Good and Beautiful, 184; good is relative to human beings and wants, 185; relativity of knowledge, iii.
126 _n._, i.
198, 204; the just and honourable, by law, not nature, 197; prudence, a good from its consequent pleasures, _ib._; acted on Sokrates' advice, 187, 199, 201; aspiration for self-mastery, 188; ethical theory, 195, 200 _n._; compared with Diogenes and Antisthenes, 190; developed by Epikurus, 198; scheme of life, 181, 188; Horace's analogous, 192 _n._; pleasure a generation, iii.
378 _n._; communism of wives, i.
189 _n._; contempt for geometry and physics, 186, 192; taught as a Sophist, 193; intercourse with Dionysius, _ib._; antipathy to Xenophon, 182 _n._ Aristogeiton, iii.
4 _n._ Aristophanes, the _Euthyphron_ a retort against, i.
442; connects idea of immorality with free thought, iv.
166; Sokrates in the _Nubes_, 230 _n._; function of poet, 306 _n._; _Nubes_ analogous to Plato's _Leges_, 277; _Vespæ_, 298 _n._; _Aves_, 329 _n._ Aristophanes [Greek: grammatiko/s], librarian at Alexandria, i.
273; labours, _ib._ _n._; first to arrange Platonic canon, 286; catalogue of Plato trustworthy, 285; division of Plato into trilogies, 273; principle followed by Thrasyllus, 295, 299.
Aristotle and Plato represent pure Hellenic philosophy, i.
_xiv_; St. Jerome on, _xv_; MSS., 270, 283; Arabic translation, iv.
213 _n._; zoological works, iii.
62 _n._; lost Dialogues, i.
262 _n._; different in form from Plato's, 356 _n._; style, 405; no uniform consistency, 340 _n._; relation to predecessors, 85, 91; importance of his information about early Greek philosophy, 85; as historian, misled by his own conceptions, 24 _n._; contrasts "human wisdom" with primitive theology, 3 _n._; treatment of his predecessors compared by Bacon to conduct of a Sultan, 85 _n._; blames Ionic philosophy for attending to _material_ cause alone, 87; abstractions of, compared with Ionians, _ib._; erroneously identified heat with Parmenides' ens, 24 _n._; on Zeno's arguments, 93; on Anaxagorean homoeomeries, 52 _n._; charges Anaxagoras with inconsistency, 56; relation to Empedokles and Anaxagoras, 89; approves of fundamental tenet of Diogenes of Apollonia, 61 _n._; Demokritus often mentioned in, iv.
355 _n._; blames Demokritus for omitting final causes, i.
73 _n._; on flux of Herakleitus, iii.
154 _n._; accused of substituting physical for mental causes, ii.
401 _n._; _cause_, difference from Plato, 407; controversy with Megarics about Power, i.
135; depends on question of universal regularity of sequence, 141; Megarics defended by Hobbes, 143; Aristotle's arguments not valid, 136-9; himself concedes the doctrine, 139 _n._; distinction of actual and potential, iii.
135 _n._, i.
139; graduation of causes, 142; motion, coincides nearly with Diodôrus Kronus, 146; and Hobbes, _ib._; chance, 142; physics retrograded with, 89 _n._; sphericity of kosmos, 25 _n._, iv.
225 _n._; _Demiurgus_ little noticed in, 255; Plato's geometrical theory of the elements, 241 _n._; espoused and enlarged astronomical theory of Eudoxus, i.
257 _n._; reason of the kosmos, different from Sokrates' conception, ii.
402 _n._; on Eudoxus, iii.
375 _n._, 379 _n._; time, 103; friend of Ptolemy Soter, i.
279; pupil of Plato, 260; opposition during Plato's lifetime, 360 _n._; mode of alluding to Plato, iii.
186 _n._; on Plato's lectures, i.
347; on poetical vein in Plato, 343, iv.
255 _n._; Plato's tendency to found arguments on metaphor, ii.
337 _n._; ontology substratum for phenomenology, i.
24 _n._; _philosophia prima_, 358 _n._, iii.
230 _n._, 382; _materia prima_, i.
72; view of logic of a science, different from Plato's, 358 _n._; on Plato's ideas, 348, 360 _n._, ii.
192, 194 _n._, 410 _n._, iii.
64 _n._, 65 _n._, 66 _n._, 67 _n._, 77 _n._, 78, 245, 367 _n._, iv.
214 _n._, i.
120 _n._; generic and analogical aggregates, ii.
193, iii.
365 _n._; _Sophistês_ an approximation to Aristotle's view, 247; definition of _ens_, 230 _n._, 242 _n._; on _the different_, 238 _n._; partly successful in fitting on the ideas to facts of sense, 78; percept prior to the percipient, 76 _n._; conception of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], 165 _n._; Plato's theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._; Plato's doctrine of naming, iii.
286 _n._, 294 _n._, 325 _n._; etymologies, 301 _n._, 307 _n._, 308 _n._; no analysis or classification of propositions before, 222; propositions, some true, others false, assumed, 249; definition of simple objects, i.
172; on only identical predication possible, 166, 171; more careful than Plato in distinguishing equivoques, ii.
170, 279 _n._; equivocal meaning of _know_, 213 _n._; indeterminate predicates Ens, Unum, Idem, &c., iii.
94; first to attempt classification of fallacies, ii.
212; De Sophisticis Elenchis, 222; first distinguished [Greek: o(mô/numa], [Greek: sunô/numa], and [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an], iii.
94 _n._; two methods, coincide with Thrasyllus' classification, i.
303; basis of dialectic, 133 _n._; negative method, its necessity as a condition of reasoned truth, 372 _n._; distinct aptitudes required for dialectic, ii.
54; on dissecting function of dialectic, 70 _n._; distinction of dialectic and eristic, 221 _n._; precepts for debate, iii.
91 _n._; Rhetoric, 43; on _Menexenus_, 409 _n._, 412 _n._; distinction of ends, 374 _n._; good the object of universal desire, 372 _n._; threefold division of good, iv.
428 _n._; no common end among established [Greek: no/mima], iii.
282 _n._; combats Sokrates' thesis in _Memorabilia_ and _Hippias Minor_, ii.
67; lying not justifiable, iii.
386 _n._; meanings of justice, iv.
102; meaning of [Greek: phu/sei], iii.
294 _n._; on opposition of natural and legal justice, ii.
340 _n._; nature, iv.
387 _n._; on Law, ii.
92 _n._; theory of politics to resist King Nomos, i.
392; on virtue is knowledge, ii.
67 _n._, 290 _n._; divine inspiration, 131 _n._; [Greek: sophi/a] and [Greek: phro/nêsis], 120 _n._; on [Greek: to\ a)dikei=n be/ltion tou= a)dikei=sthai], 333 _n._; treatment of courage and temperance, compared with Plato's, 170; derivation of [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], iii.
301 _n._; on pleasure, 383 _n._, 386 _n._; pleasure not a generation, 378 _n._; painless pleasures of geometry, 357, 388 _n._; on intense pleasures, 376 _n._; on Antisthenes, 253 _n._; school of Antisthenes, i.
115; on friendship, ii.
186; _prima amicitia_, compared with Sokrates' _amabile primum_, 194; on Plato's reminiscence, 250 _n._; immortality of soul, 420 _n._; relation of body to soul, iii.
389 _n._; on function of lungs, iv.
245 _n._; liver, 258 _n._; Plato's physiology and pathology compared with, 260; definition of _sophist_, ii.
210; equally with Sophists, laid claim to universal knowledge, iii.
219; on _Homo mensura_, 120 _n._, 128 _n._, 131 _n._, 132 _n._, 149 _n._, 152; cites from the _Protagoras_, ii.
290 _n._; category of relation, iii.
128 _n._; the Axioms of Mathematics, i.
358 _n._; ethics and politics treated apart, iv.
138; three ends of political constructor, 328 _n._; education combined with polity, 142, 184; on principle that every citizen belongs to the city, 187, 189 _n._; training of Spartan women, 188; views on teaching, iii.
53 _n._; chorus of elders only criticise, iv.
297 _n._; importance of music in education, 151 _n._, 305; ethical and emotional effects conveyed by sense of hearing, 307 _n._; implication of intelligence and emotion, iii.
374 _n._; view of tragic poetry, iv.
317 _n._; Plato's ideal state, 139 _n._; it is two states, 185; objection valid against his own ideal, 186 _n._; the Demos adjuncts, not members of state, 184; Plato's state impossible, in what sense true, 189; democracy and monarchy _not_ mother-polities, 312 _n._; oligarchical character of Plato's second _idéal_, 334 _n._; _idéal_ of character, different from Spartan, 182; differs from Plato on slavery, 344 _n._; land of citizens, 327 _n._; number of citizens limited, 198-201, 326 _n._; communism, 180** _n._; Plato's family restrictions, 329 _n._; on marriage, 189, 198-202; on infanticide, 202; recognised Malthus' law of population, _ib._; allusions to _Leges_, 272 _n._, 432; prayer and sacrifice, 394.
Arithmetic, Pythagorean, i.
15; modern application of their principle, 10 _n._; subject of Plato's lectures, 349 _n._; twofold, iii.
359, 394; to be studied, iv.
423; awakening power of, 71, 72; value of, 329 _n._, 352; acoustics to be studied by relations and theories of, 74; proportionals, 224 _n._, 423; its axioms from induction, 353 _n._; Mill on assumption in axioms of, iii.
396 _n._ Art, the supreme, is philosophy, ii.
119, 120; disparaged by Plato, 355; relation to science, iii.
43 _n._, 45, 155, 263; relation to morality, see _Education_, _Poets_**.
Ascetic life of philosopher, ii.
386; Pythagoreans, iii.
390 _n._; Orphics, _ib._; Cynics, i.
151, 157; Diogenes compared with Indian Gymnosophists and Selli, 157, 159 _n._, 163 _n._; Indian Gynmosophists, antiquity of, 159 _n._; Selli, 163 _n._ Aspasia, iii.
402, i.
112, 211 _n._ Association of Ideas, i.
423 _n._; Plato's statement of general law of, ii.
191; Aristotle, _ib._ _n._; Straton on, iii.
166 _n._ Ast, theory of Platonic canon, i.
304; admits only fourteen, 305; on _Apology_, 422 _n._; _Lachês_, ii.
151; _Hippias Major_, 33 _n._; _Kratylus_, iii.
310 _n._; _Menexenus_, 412 _n._; _Timæus_, iv.
255 _n._; _Leges_, 431, 434.
Astronomy, ancient, i.
3; of Anaxagoras, 57; modern, doctrine of aerolithes anticipated by Diogenes of Apollonia, 64 _n._; first systematic Greek hypothesis propounded by Eudoxus, 255; Planets, meaning in Plato's age, iv.
354 _n._, 422; Demokritus' idea of motions of, 355 _n._; Plato's idea of motions of, _ib._; Sokrates avoided, i.
376; Plato's relation to theory of Eudoxus, 257 _n._; theological view of, iv.
421; advantages of this view, 422; object of instruction in, 354; must be studied by ideal figures, not observation, 73.
Atheist, loose use of term, iv.
382 _n._ Athenians, proceedings of Sokrates repugnant to, i.
387; statesmen, ignorance of, ii.
8, 360; characteristics of, 118; customs of, iii.
24 _n._; intellect predominant in, iv.
38; Plato's _idéal_ of character, 147, 151; ancient, citizens of Plato's state identified with, 266; general coincidence of Platonic and Attic law, 364, 374 _n._, 403, 406, 430; taxes of, i.
242 _n._ Athens, less intolerance at, than elsewhere, iii.
277, iv.
396; lauded, iii.
405, 409 _n._; by Xenophon, i.
238; funeral harangues at, iii.
401-5; hatred to [Greek: ba/rbaroi], 406 _n._; and Persia compared, iv.
312; excess of liberty at, _ib._; change for worse at, after Persian invasion, 313; contrast in Demosthenes and _Menexenus_, 315 _n._, 318; Plato's aversion to dramatic poetry at, 316; peculiar to himself, 317; Aristotle differs, _ib._ _n._; Plato's ideal compared with, 430; secession of philosophers from, i.
111 _n._ Atlantic, unnavigable, the belief in Plato's age, iv.
270.
Atlantis, iv.
215; description of, 268; corruption and wickedness of people, 269; address of Zeus, _ib._; submergence, 270.
Atoms, atomic theory, i.
65; relation to Eleatics, 66; of Demokritus, differ, only in magnitude, figure, position, and arrangement, 69; generate qualities by movements and combinations, _ib._, 70; possess inherent force, 73; not really objects of sense, 72 _n._; essentially separate from each other, 71; yet analogous to the homoeomeries of Anaxagoras, 79 _n._; different from Platonic _Idea_ and Aristotle's _materia prima_, 72; mental, 75; thought produced by influx of, 79.
Attikus, iv.
242 _n._ Augustine, St., iii.
303 _n._ Austin, meaning of law, ii.
92 _n._ Authority, early appearance in Greece of a few freethinkers, i.
384; multiplicity of individual authorities characteristic of Greek philosophy, 84; distinguished them from contemporary nations, 90; advantages, _ib._; influence of, on most men, 378-82, 392, 424, ii.
333, iv.
351; Aristophanes connects idea of immorality with free thought, 166; freedom of thought essential to philosophy, i.
383, 394 _n._, ii.
368, iii.
151 _n._; the basis of dialectic, 147, 297, 337 _n._; all exposition an assemblage of individual judgments, 139; belief on, relation to _Homo mensura_, 142, 143, 293; Sokrates asserts right of satisfaction for his own individual reason, i.
386, 423, 436, ii.
233; individual reason authoritative to each, i.
432; Plato on difficulty of resisting, 392 _n._; combated by Plato, 398 _n._; Plato's dissent from established religious doctrine, iv.
161, 163; danger of one who dissents from the public, ii.
359, 364, 366; dignity and independence of philosophic dissenter, upheld, 375; individual reason worthless, Herakleitus, i.
34; of public judgment, nothing, of expert, everything, 426, 435; different view, 446 _n._; Sokrates does not name, but himself acts as, expert, 435; appeal to, suppressed in Academic sect, 368 _n._; Epiktetus on, 388 _n._; Cicero, 369, 384 _n._; Bishop Huet, _ib._; Council of Trent, 390 _n._; Dr. Vaughan, iv.
380 _n._; see _Orthodoxy_.
Averroism, iii.
68 _n._ Axiomata media, iii.
52, 369.
Axioms of Mathematics, Aristotle's view, i.
358 _n._; of Arithmetic and Geometry, from induction, iii.
396 _n._, iv.
353 _n._ B. Bacon, importance of negative method, i.
373 _n._, 386; on doubt, 394 _n._; misrepresents Aristotle's treatment of his predecessors, 85 _n._; contrasts Plato and Aristotle with Pre-Sokratic philosophy, 88 _n._; _Idola_, ii.
218; anticipation of nature, 219 _n._; relativity of mental and sensational processes, iii.
122 _n._; axiomata media, 52, 369.
Badham, Dr., on _Philêbus_, iii.
365 _n._, 381 _n._, 389 _n._, 392 _n._, 396 _n._ Bain, Prof., on the Beautiful, ii.
50 _n._; the Tender Emotion, 188 _n._; law of mental association, 192 _n._; analysis of Belief, 218; reciprocity of regard indispensable to society, 312 _n._; relativity of knowledge, iii.
123 _n._; on pleasures, 383 _n._ Batteux, iv.
229 _n._ Bayle, iv.
233.
Beautiful, the, as translation of [Greek: to\ kalo/n], ii.
49 _n._; Hippias' lectures at Sparta on, 39; what is, _ib._; instances given, 40; gold makes all things beautiful, 41; not the becoming or the profitable, 43, 50 _n._; a variety of the pleasurable, 45; inadmissible, _ib._; Dugald Stewart, Mill, and Bain on, 50 _n._; Plato's antithesis of relative and absolute, 54; difference of Sokrates and Plato, 55; as object of attachment, 194; aspect of physical, awakens reminiscence of Ideas, 422, iii.
4, 14; Greek sentiment towards youths, 1; stimulus to mental procreation, 4, 6, 18; different view, _Phædon_, _Theætêtus_, _Sophistês_, _Republic_, _ib._; exaltation of Eros in a few, love of beauty _in genere_, 7, 16; love of, excited by musical training, iv.
27; and the good, iii.
5 _n._; Idea of, exclusively presented in _Symposion_, 18; discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus, i.
184.
Beckmann, book-censors, iv.
379 _n._ Belief, Prof. Bain's analysis, ii.
218; causes of, variable, iii.
150; always relative to the believer's mind, 292, 297; sentiments of disbelief and, common, but grounds different with different men and ages, 296; and conjecture, two grades of opinion, iv.
67; Plato's canon of, 231.
Bentham, meaning of Law, ii.
92 _n._ Berkeley, theory of, iv.
243 _n._; implication of subject and object, iii.
123 _n._; his use of _sensation_, 165 _n._ Bion, on Plato's doctrine of reminiscence, ii.
249 _n._ Body, animal bodies purer than air or earth, Anaxagoras doctrine, i.
51; Plato's antithesis of soul to, ii.
384; soul prior to and more powerful than, iv.
386, 419, 421; relation of mind to organs of, iii.
159; Aristotle, 389 _n._; Monboddo, iv.
387 _n._; discredit of, in _Phædon_, ii.
422; life a struggle between soul and, 386, 388, iv.
233, 235 _n._; derivation of [Greek: sô=ma], iii.
301 _n._; alone reflects beauty of ideal world, ii.
422, iii.
4, 14; Ideas gained through bodily senses, ii.
422; of kosmos, iv.
225; genesis of, 421; Demiurgus prepares for man's construction, places a soul in each star, 235; Demiurgus conjoins three souls and one body, 233; generated gods fabricate cranium as miniature of kosmos with rational soul rotating within, 235; generated gods mount cranium on a tall body, 236; genesis of women and inferior animals from degenerate man, 252; this degeneracy originally intended, 263; organs of sense, 236; vision, sleep, dreams, _ib._; sleep, doctrine of Herakleitus, i.
34; principal advantages of sight and hearing, iv.
237; each part of the soul is at once material and mental, 257; thoracic soul, function of heart and lungs, 245; Empedokles' belief as to the movement of the blood, i.
43; Empedokles illustrated respiration by _klepsydra_, 44 _n._; abdominal soul, function of liver, iv.
245, 258; seat of prophetic agency, 246; function of spleen, _ib._; object of length of intestinal canal, 247; bone, flesh, marrow, nails, mouth, teeth, _ib._; general survey of diseases, 249; diseases of mind from, _ib._; intense pleasures belong to distempered, iii.
355, 391; preservative and healing agencies, iv.
250; training should be simple, 28.
Boeckh, on _Minos_ and _Hipparchus_, i.
337 _n._, ii.
93; _Kleitophon_, iii.
419 _n._; _Timæus_, iv.
224 _n._, 226 _n._, 227 _n._, 241 _n._; _Leges_, 273 _n._, 355 _n._; _Epinomis_, 424 _n._; Xenophon's financial schemes, i.
242 _n._ Boethius, on Plato's reminiscence, ii.
250 _n._ Böhme, lingua Adamica, iii.
322 _n._ Boissier, Gaston, on Varro's etymologies, iii.
311 _n._; influence of belief on practice, i.
157 _n._ Bonitz, on _Theætêtus_, iii.
184 _n._ Books, writing as an art, iii.
27; is it teachable by system?
28; worthless for teaching, ii.
136, 233 _n._, iii.
33-35, 49, 52, 54, 337 _n._; may _remind_, 50, 53; censorship, iv.
379 _n._; ancient bookselling, i.
278 _n._, 281 _n._; ancient libraries, official MSS., 284 _n._; making copies, _ib._ _n._; forgeries of books, 287 _n._ Brandis, on _Parmenidês_, iii.
88 _n._ Brown, on power, i.
138 _n._ Bryson, dialogues, i.
112 _n._ Buddhism, i.
378 _n._ Buffon, iv.
232 _n._ Butler, Bp., iv.
166 _n._ C. Cabanis, i.
168 _n._ Calendar, ancients', iv.
325 _n._ Campbell, Dr. George, iii.
391 _n._ Campbell, Prof. Lewis, on _Theætêtus_, iii.
111 _n._, 112 _n._, 146 _n._, 158 _n._; advance of modern experimental science, 155 _n._ Canon of Plato, ancient discussions, i.
264; works in Alexandrine library at the time of Kallimachus, 276; probability of being in Alexandrine library at formation, 283; editions from Alexandrine library, 295; spurious works possibly in other libraries, 286; Aristophanes, the grammarian, first arranged Platonic canon, _ib._; in trilogies, 273; indicated by Plato himself, 325; catalogue by Aristophanes trustworthy, 285; ten dialogues rejected by all ancient critics, following Alexandrine authorities, 297; Thrasyllus follows Aristophanes' classification, 295, 299; Tetralogies, 273 _n._; not the order established by Plato, 335 _n._; his classification, 289; its principle, 295 _n._; division into _dramatic_ and _diegematic_, 288; incongruity of divisions, 294; classification, defective but useful--dialogues of Search, of Exposition, 361; erroneously applied, 364; the scheme, when its principles correctly applied, 365; sub-classes recognised, 366; coincides with Aristotle's two methods, Dialectic, Demonstrative, 363; Thrasyllus did not doubt _Hipparchus_, 297 _n._; authority acknowledged till 16th century, 301; more trustworthy than modern critics, 299 _n._, 335; Diogenes Laertius, 291 _n._, 294; Serranus, 302; _Phædrus_ considered by Tennemann keynote of series, 303; Schleiermacher, _ib._; proofs slender, 317, 324; includes a preconceived scheme and an order of interdependence, 318; assumptions as to _Phædrus_ inadmissible, 319; his reasons internal, _ib._, 337, iv.
431; _Phædon_, the first dialogue disallowed upon internal grounds, i.
288; considered spurious by Panætius the Stoic, _ib._; no internal theory yet established, 319; Ast, 304; admits only fourteen, 305; Socher, 306; Stallbaum, 307; K. F. Hermann, _ib._; coincides with Susemihl, 310; principle reasonable, 322; more tenable than Schleiermacher's, 324; Ueberweg attempts reconcilement of Schleiermacher and Hermann, 313; Steinhart rejects several, 309; Munk, 311; next to Schleiermacher's in ambition, 320; Trendelenburg, 345 _n._; other critics, 316; the problem incapable of solution, 317; few certainties or reasonable presumptions for fixing date or order of dialogues, 324; positive date of any dialogue unknown, 326; age of Sokrates in a dialogue, of no moment, 320; no sequence or interdependence of the dialogues provable, 322, 407; circumstances of Plato's intellectual and philosophical development little known, 323 _n._; Plato did not write till after death of Sokrates, 326, 334, 443 _n._; proofs, 327-334; unsafe ground of modern theories, 336; shown by Schleiermacher, 337; a true theory must recognise Plato's varieties and be based on all the works in the canon, 339; dialogues may be grouped, 361; inconsistency no proof of spuriousness, _xiii._, 344, 375, 400 _n._, ii.
299, iii.
71, 85, 93, 176, 179, 182 _n._, 284, 332, 400, 420, iv.
138; see _Dialogues_, _Epistles_.
Category of relation, iii.
128 _n._ Cause, Aristotle blames Demokritus for omitting _final_, i.
73 _n._; only the _material_ attended to by Ionic philosophy, 88; designing cause, 74 _n._; Sokrates' intellectual development turned on different views as to a true, ii.
398; first doctrine, rejected, 391, 399; second principle, optimistic, renounced, 395, 403; efficient and co-efficient, 394, 400; third doctrine, assumption of ideas as separate entia, 396, 403; ideas the only true, 396; substitution of physical for mental, Anaxagoras, Sokrates, Aristotle, Descartes, Newton, 401; tendency to embrace logical phantoms as real, 404 _n._; no common idea of, 405, 407, 410 _n._; but common search for, 406; Aristotle and Plato differ, 407; Plato's _formal_ and _final_, 408 _n._; principal and auxiliary, iii.
266; controversy of Megarics and Aristotle, i.
135-141; depends on question of universal regularity of sequence, 141; potential as distinguished from actual, 139; meaning of, Hobbes, _ib._ _n._, 144; regular and irregular, ii.
408; no regular sequence of antecedent on consequent, doctrine of Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, i.
142; Aristotle's graduation of, _ib._; Aristotle's notion of _Chance_, _ib._; Stoics, 143 _n._; Aristotle's four, in middle ages, ii.
409 _n._; More's Emanative, 403 _n._; modern inductive theory, 408; chief point of divergence of modern schools, 409 _n._ Cave, simile of, iv.
67-70.
Cavendish, discovery of composition of water, ii.
163 _n._ Chance, of Demokritus and the Epikureans, i.
73 _n._; Aristotle's notion of, 142; Theophrastus, 143 _n._; Stoics, _ib._ Chaos, Hesiod, i.
4 _n._; Empedokles, 39, 54; Anaxagoras, 50, _ib._ _n._; postulated in _Timæus_, iv.
220, 240.
_Charmidês_, authenticity, i.
306-7, ii.
171; date, i.
308-10, 312, 315, 328, 331; excellent specimen of dialogues of search, ii.
163; scene and interlocutors, 153; temperance, a kind of sedateness, objections, 154; a variety of feeling of shame, refuted, _ib._; doing one's own business, refuted, 155, iv.
136, 137; distinction of _making_ and _doing_, ii.
155; self-knowledge, _ib._; is impossible, 167; no object of knowledge distinct from the knowledge itself, 156; knowledge of knowledge impossible, analogies, _ib._; all properties relative, 157; all knowledge relative to some object, _ib._; if cognition of cognition possible, yet cognition of non-cognition impossible, 158; temperance as cognition of cognition and of non-cognition, of no avail for happiness, 159, 161; knowledge of good and evil contributes most to happiness, 160; different from other sciences, 168; temperance not the science of good and evil, 161; temperance undiscovered, but a good, 162; compared with _Lachês_, 168; _Lysis_, 172, 184 _n._; _Politikus_, iii.
282; _Republic_, iv.
137, 138.
Charondas, iv.
323 _n._, 398 _n._ Chinese compared with Pythagorean philosophers, i.
159 _n._ Chrysippus, sophisms, i.
128 _n._, 141; communism of wives, 189 _n._ Cicero, on freedom of thought, i.
384 _n._; state religion alone allowed, iv.
379 _n._; _De Amicitia_ compared with _Lysis_, ii.
189 _n._; Plato's reminiscence, 250 _n._; immortality of the soul, 423 _n._; pleasure, iii.
389 _n._; _Menexenus_, 407 _n._; Sokrates, _concitatio_, 423 _n._; proëms to laws, iv.
322 _n._; Stoics, i.
130 _n._, 157 _n._; Academics, 131 _n._; Megarics, 135 _n._ Classes, fiction as to origin of, iv.
30; see _Demos_, _State_.
Classification, emotional and scientific contrasted, iii.
61, 195, 196 _n._; conscious and unconscious, 345; the feeling of Plato's age respecting, 192 _n._, 344; dialogues of search a lesson in, 177, 188; novelty and value of this, 190; all particulars of equal value, 195; tendency to omit sub-classes, 255, 342; well illustrated in _Philêbus_, 254, 344; but feebly applied, 369; importance of founding it on sensible resemblances, 255; Plato's doctrine not necessarily connected with that of Ideas, 345; Plato enlarges Pythagorean doctrine, 368; same principle of, applied to cognitions and pleasures in _Philêbus_, 382, 394; its valuable principles, 395; of sciences as more or less true, dialectic the standard, 382; of Megarics, over-refined, 196 _n._ Cleynaerts, iv.
380 _n._ Climate, influence of, iv.
330 _n._ Colenso, Bp., iii.
303 _n._ Collard, Royer, iii.
165 _n._ Colour, Demokritean theory, i.
77; defined, ii.
235; pleasures of, true, iii.
356.
Comedy, mixed pleasure and pain excited, iii.
355 _n._; Plato's aversion to Athenian, iv.
316; peculiar to himself, 317; Aristotle differs, _ib._ _n._ Commerce, each artisan only one trade, iv.
361; importation, by magistrates, of what is imperatively necessary only, _ib._; Benefit Societies,g 399; retailers, 21, 361, 401; punishment for fraud, 492; Attic law compared, 403; Xenophon inexperienced in, i.
236; admired by Xenophon, _ib._; Metics, iv.
362; Xenophon on encouragement of, i.
238.
Communism of guardians, iv.
140, 169, 198; necessary to maintenance of state, 170, 178; peculiarity of Plato's, 179; Aristotle on, 189 _n._; acknowledged impracticable, 327; of wives, opinions of Aristippus, Diogenes, Zeno, and Chrysippus, i.
189, _ib._ _n._ Comte, three stages of progress, ii.
407.
Concrete, its Greek equivalent, ii.
52 _n._; see _Abstract_.
Condorcet, iv.
232 _n._, 258 _n._ Connotation, or essence, to be known before accidents and antecedents, ii.
242.
Consciousness, judgment implied in every act of, iii.
165 _n._; the facts of, not explicable by independent Subject and Object, 131.
Contradiction, principle of, in Plato, iii.
99 _n._; logical maxim of, 239; necessity of setting forth counter-propositions, 149 _n._, 150; contradictory propositions not possible, i.
166 _n._ Contraries, ten pairs of opposing, Pythagorean, i.
15; the Pythagorean "principia of existing things," _ib._ _n._; Herakleitus, 29, 31; excluded in nothing save the self-existent Idea, ii.
7 _n._ Copula, logical function of, i.
169; misconceived by Antisthenes, iii.
221, 232 _n._, 251 _n._, ii.
47 _n._ Cornutus, i.
128, 133.
Council, Nocturnal, to conserve the original scheme of State, iv.
416, 418; to comprehend and carry out the end of the State, _ib._, 425, 429; training in _Epinomis_, 420, 424.
Courage, what is, ii.
143; not endurance, 144; is knowledge, 288; a right estimate of terrible things, 144, 296, 307, iv.
138; such intelligence not possessed by professional artists, ii.
148; the intelligence of good and evil generally, too wide, 146; relation to rest of virtue, 288, 304 _n._, iv.
426, 283 _n._; of philosopher and ordinary citizen, different principles, ii.
308 _n._; in state, iv.
34-5; imparted by gymnastic, 29; _Lachês_ difficulties ignored in _Politikus_, iii.
282; Plato and Aristotle compared, ii.
170.
Cousin, the absolute, iii.
298 _n._; on _Sophistês_, 244; _Timæus_, iv.
224 _n._ Creation out of nothing denied by all ancient physical philosophers, i.
52; see _Body_, _Kosmos_.
Crime, distinction of damage and injury, iv.
365, 367-9; three causes of misguided proceedings, 366; purpose of punishment, to heal criminals' distemper or deter, _ib._, 408; sacrilege and high treason the gravest, 363; see _Law-administration_.
Criticism, value of, ii.
118.
Cudworth, entities, iii.
74 _n._ Cynics, origin of name, i.
150 _n._; a [Greek: ai(/resis], 160 _n._; asceticism, 157; Sokrates' precepts fullest carried out by, 160; suicide, 161 _n._; coincidence of Hegesias with, 203; an order of mendicant friars, 163; connection with Christian monks, _ib._ _n._; the decorous and the indecorous, iii.
390 _n._ Cyrus, iv.
312,** i.
223.
D. Dæmon, of Sokrates, i.
437, ii.
104, i.
115; his experience of, ii.
102; explains his eccentricity, 104; variously alluded to in Plato--its character and working impenetrable, 107, 108; in _Theagês_ and _Theætêtus_, 107; a special revelation, 108, 131 _n._; privileged communications common, 130, 131 _n._; see _Inspiration_; belief of Empedokles, i.
47; etymology, iii.
301 _n._; Eros, intermediate between gods and men, 9; subordinate to divine steersman of kosmos, 265 _n._; intermediate, iv.
421.
Dähne, on _Philo-Judæus_, iii.
308 _n._, iv.
157 _n._ Damon, a teacher of [Greek: mousikê/], ii.
139 _n._; dangers of change in national music, iv.
315.
Dancing to be regulated by authority, iv.
292; laws, 291; three choruses, youths, mature men, elders, 296, 305; and music, effect on emotions, 347; comic, by slaves or mean persons only, 352 _n._ Darius, iv.
312.
Death, doctrine of Parmenides, i.
26 _n._; Herakleitus, 34; Sokrates, 422, 430 _n._; emancipates soul from struggle with body, ii.
386, 388, iv.
234, 235** _n._; guardians must not fear, 25; see _Immortality_.
Debate of secondary questions before settling fundamental notions, mischief of, ii.
242; see _Dialectic_.
Definition gives classes, Type, natural groups, ii.
47, 193 _n._; Sokrates introduced search for, 47; frequent mistake of giving a particular example, i.
444, ii.
143; dialogues of search illustrate process of, iii.
29, 176, 188; novelty and value of this, 190; importance in Plato's time of bringing forward logical subordinations and distinctions, ii.
235; tested by clothing it in particulars, iv.
3 _n._; of common and vague terms, hopelessness of, ii.
186 _n._; Aristotle on, 234 _n._; none of a general word, Sextus Empiricus, i.
168, _n._; none of simple objects, Antisthenes, 171; Plato on, 172; Aristotle, _ib._; Mill, _ib._ _n._; and division, the two processes of dialectic, iii.
29, 39; necessity for, 29; conditions of a good, ii.
318.
Degérando, M., iii.
140 _n._, 152 _n._ [Greek: Deino/s], meaning, ii.
145 _n._ Dekad, the Pythagorean perfect number, i.
11.
[Greek: Dektiko/n, to/], see _Matter_.
Delphian oracle, reply to Sokrates, i.
413; maxim, _Know thyself_, ii.
11, 25; to be consulted for religious legislation, iv.
34, 137 _n._, 325.
Demetrius Phalereus, Alexandrine librarian, i.
274 _n._; chief agent in establishment of Alexandrine library, 280; history and character, 279; _Apology_, 111 _n._ Demiurgus, opposed to [Greek: i)diô/tês], ii.
272 _n._; of kosmos, iii.
265 _n._; postulated, iv.
220; is not a creator, _ib._; produces kosmos, by persuading Necessity, _ib._, 222; on pattern of ideas, 227; evolved the four elements from primordial chaos, 240; addresses generated gods, 233; prepares for man's construction, places a soul in each star, _ib._; conjoins three souls and one body, 234; how conceived by other philosophers of same century, 254; little noticed in Aristotle, 255; degeneracy of man originally intended by, 263.
Demochares, law against philosophers, i.
111 _n._ Democracy, least bad of unscientific governments, iii.
270, 278; origin, iv.
80; monarchy and, the _mother-polities_, 312; dissent of Aristotle, _ib._ _n._; Plato's second ideal state a compromise of oligarchy and, 333, 337.
Demokritus, life and travels, i.
65; Plato's antipathy to, 66 _n._, 82 _n._, ii.
118, iv.
355 _n._; often mentioned in Aristotle, _ib._; opinions of ancients on, i.
82 _n._; his universality, 82; relation to Parmenidean theory, 66; plena and vacua, ens and non-ens, 67, iii.
243 _n._; his absolute and relative, i.
71, 80; atoms differ only in magnitude, figure, position, and arrangement, 69; different from Plato's Idea, and Aristotle's _materia prima_, 72; not really objects of sense, _ib._ _n._; inherent force, 73; his ultimatum, the course of nature, _ib._; primary and secondary qualities, iv.
243 _n._; air, i.
76, 78; theory of colour, 77; theory of vision, combated by Theophrastus, 78 _n._; hearing and taste, 78; motions of planets, iv.
355 _n._; blamed by Aristotle for omitting final causes, i.
73 _n._; chance, _ib._; [Greek: phu/sis], 70 _n._; mind is heat throughout nature, 75; parts of the soul, 76; on its immortality, ii.
425 _n._; truth obtainable by reason only, i.
72; thought produced by influx of atoms, 79; on _Homo mensura_, 82, iii.
152; knowledge is _obscure_, or sensation, and _genuine_, or thought, i.
80; the gods, 81; ethical views, 82; treatise on Pythagoras, _ib._ _n._; researches in zoology and animal generation, 75; influence on growth of dialectic, 82; works of, 65; in Alexandrine library, 276; divided into Tetralogies by Thrasyllus, 273 _n._, 295 _n._ Dêmos, in state, analogous to appetite in individual mind, iv.
39; Plato more anxious for good treatment of, than Xenophon and Aristotle, 183; in Aristotle adjuncts, not members, of state, 184; Plato's scheme fails from no training for, 186; see _State_.
Demosthenes, pupil of Plato, i.
261 _n._; rhetorical powers, iii.
408 _n._; teaching of Isokrates, iv.
150 _n._; _adv.
Leptinem_ contrasted with _Leges_, 315 _n._ Descartes, advantages of protracted study, i.
404 _n._; accused of substituting physical for mental causes, ii.
401 _n._; argument for being of God, a "fallacy of confusion," iii.
297 _n._; on criticism by report, i.
118 _n._ Desire for what is akin to us or our own, cause of friendship, ii.
182; good, object of universal, 243, iii.
335, 371, 392 _n._; largest measure and all varieties of, are good, ii.
344; belongs to the mind, presupposes a bodily want and memory of previous satisfaction, iii.
350; exception, 351 _n._, 387 _n._ Despot, has no real power, ii.
324; worst of unscientific governments, iii.
270, 278; origin, iv.
81; excess of despotism in Persia, 312; Solon on, i.
219 _n._; Xenophon on interior life of, 218, 220; Xenophon's scheme of government, a wisely arranged Oriental despotism, 234.
Determining, Pythagorean doctrine of the, i.
11; the, iii.
346; it is intelligence, 348.
Deuschle, on Kratylus, iii.
325 _n._ Deycks, on Megarics, i.
127 _n._, 136 _n._ Dialectic, little or none in earliest theorists, i.
93; Demokritus' influence on its growth, 82; of Zeno the Eleate, 93; iii.
107; its purpose and result, i.
98; compared with _Parmenidês_, 100; early physics discredited by growth of, 91; its introduction changes the character of philosophy, 105, 107; repugnant to Herakleiteans, 106 _n._; influence of Drama and Dikastery, 385; debate common in Sokratic age, 370, ii.
284; died out in later philosophy, i.
394 _n._; disputations in the Middle Ages, 397 _n._; modern search for truth goes on silently, 369; process _per se_ interesting to Plato, 403, 406; has done more than any one else to interest others in it, 405; its importance, 91, 354, 372, ii.
167, 221; debate a generating cause of friendship, 188 _n._; and Eristic, 210, 221 _n._; of Sokrates, _x_; contrasted with Sophists', 197, i.
124; Sokrates first applied negative analysis to the common consciousness, 385, 389 _n._; to social, political, ethical, topics, 385; necessity of negative vein, 91, 371, 373, 386, 394 _n._, 421, 444, 130; a value by itself, iii.
51, 70, 85, 149-50, 176, 184 _n._, 284, 422; see _Negative Method_; procedure of Sokrates repugnant to Athenian public, i.
387, ii.
305; colloquial companion necessary to Sokrates, 287; Sokrates asserts right of satisfaction for his own individual reason, i.
386; Sokrates' reason for attachment to, iii.
258 _n._; Sokrates to the last insists on freedom of, ii.
379; stimulates, i.
420, 449, iv.
52 _n._; as stimulating, not noticed in _Republic_ training, 208; its negative and positive aspect, illustrated in _Alkibiadês I._ and _II._, ii.
7; indiscriminate, not insisted on in _Gorgias_, 367; protest against, iii.
335; _Euthydemus_ popular among enemies of, ii.
222; common want of scrutiny, i.
398 _n._; value of formal debate, as corrective of fallacies, ii.
221; its actual and anticipated effects, 11; Sokrates' positive solutions illusory, 26; its ethical basis, iii.
113; autonomy of the individual mind, 147, 297, 298; contrast with the _Leges_, 148; Aristotle on, i.
133 _n._; obstetric method, lead of the respondent followed, 368; the respondent makes the discoveries for himself, 367; assumptions necessary in, iii.
251; precepts for, 91 _n._; long answers inadmissible, ii.
281; brought to bear on Sokrates himself, iii.
57, 89; the sovereign purifier, 197; its result, _Knowledge_, i.
396; contrasted with lectures, ii.
277, iii.
337 _n._; alone useful for teaching, 34, 49, 53; a test of the expository process, i.
358, 396; attainment of dialectical aptitude, purpose of _Sophistês_ and _Politikus_, iii.
261; antithesis of rhetoric and, i.
433, ii.
52-3, 70, 277, 278 _n._, 282, 303; difference of method, illustrated in _Protagoras_, 300; superiority over rhetoric, claimed, 282; issue unsatisfactorily put, 369; rhetoric, as a real art, is comprised in, iii.
30, 34; rhetoric superior in usefulness and celebrity, 360, 380; Plato's desire for celebrity in rhetoric and, 408; its object, definition, i.
452, ii.
318; its two processes, definition and division, iii.
29, 39; testing of definitions by clothing them in particulars, iv.
7 _n._; Inductive and Syllogistic, ii.
27; and Demonstrative, Aristotle's two intellectual methods, 363; the purest of all cognitions, iii.
360; and geometry, two modes of mind's procedure applicable to ideal world, iv.
65; requires no diagrams, deals with forms only, descending from highest, 66; is the consummation of all the sciences, gives the contemplation of the ideas, 75; one of the manifestations [Greek: tou= philosophei=n], 150 _n._; standard for classifying sciences, iii.
382-3, 394; valuable principle, 395; exercises in, iv.
76; _Republic_ contradicts other dialogues, 207-212; difference of Aristotle's and Plato's view, i.
363; mixture in Plato of poetical fancy and religious mysticism with dialectic theory, iii.
16; distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for, ii.
54; Aristotle on its dissecting function, 70 _n._; Stoic View, i.
371 _n._; Theopompus, 450.
Dialogues, the Sokratic, i.
_x_, _xi_; the lost, of Aristotle, 262 _n._, 356 _n._; of _Sokratici viri_, 111, 114; of Plato, give little information about him personally, 262; different in form from Aristotle's, 356 _n._; vary in value, ii.
19; variety of Plato, i.
344; dramatic pictures, not historical, 419 _n._, ii.
33 _n._, 150, 155 _n._, 163, 172, 195, 199, 203, 265 _n._, iii.
9 _n._, 19, 25; of common form--Plato never speaks in his own name, i.
344; reluctant to publish doctrines on his own responsibility, 350, 352, 355, 361 _n._; may have published under the name of others, 360; his lectures differ from, in being given in his own name, 402; Plato assumed impossibility of teaching by written exposition, 350, 355, ii.
56 _n._, 64; assumption intelligible in his day, i.
357; Sokratic elenchus, a test of the expository process, 358; of _Search_ predominate, 366; a necessary preliminary to those of _Exposition_, ii.
201; their basis, Sokratic doctrine that false persuasion of knowledge is universal, i.
367, 393; illustrated by _Hippias_ and _Charmidês_, ii.
64, 163; appeal to authority, suppressed in Academics, i.
368; debate common in the Sokratic age, 370; process _per se_ interesting to Plato, 403; the obstetric method--lead of the respondent followed, 368; modern search for truth goes on silently, 369; purpose to stimulate intellect, and form verifying power, iii.
177, 188, 284; novelty and value of this, 190; process of generalisation always kept in view in, i.
406; affirmative and negative veins distinct, 399, 402, 420; often no ulterior affirmative end, 375; but Plato presumes the search will be renewed, 395; value as suggestive, and reviewing under different aspects, ii.
69; untenable hypothesis that Plato communicated solutions to a few, i.
_xii_, 360, 401; no assignable interdependence, 407; each has its end in itself, _xii_, 344, 375, 400 _n._, ii.
300 _n._, iii.
71, 85, 93, 176, 179, 184 _n._, 284, 332, 400, 420, iv.
138; of _Exposition_, pedagogic tone, iii.
368 _n._; Plato's change in old age, iv.
273, 320, 380, 424, i.
244; Xenophon compared, _ib._; order for review, i.
408; see _Canon_.
Dianoia, Nous and, two grades of intelligence, iv.
66.
Dikæarchus, ii.
425 _n._ Dikasts, opposition of feeling between Sokrates and, i.
375; influence of dikastery on growth of Dialectic, 385.
Diodorus Kronus, doctrine of Power, i.
140; defended by Hobbes, 143; hypothetical propositions, 145; time, difficulties of _Now_, _ib._; motion, 146; Aristotle nearly coincides with, _ib._; and Hobbes, _ib._; his death, 147.
Diogenes of Apollonia, life and doctrines, i.
60; air his primordial element, 61; many properties of, _ib._; physiology, 60 _n._, 62; cosmology and meteorology, 64; often followed Herakleitus, _ib._ _n._; anticipated modern doctrine of aerolithes, _ib._; Agreement with Anaxagoras, 65; fundamental tenet, agreement with Aristotle and Demokritus, 69 _n._; theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._ Diogenes of Sinôpê, i.
152; works, 155; doctrines, 154; Sokrates' precepts fullest carried out by, 160; asceticism, 157; compared with Indian Gymnosophists and Selli, _ib._, 160 _n._, 163 _n._; with Aristippus, 190; Communism of wives, 189 _n._; opposed Platonic ideas, 163; the first protest of Nominalism against Realism, 164.
Diogenes Laertius, i.
291 _n._, 294.
Dion Chrysostom, i.
112 _n._ Dionysius, the elder, Aristippus' intercourse with, i.
193; visited by Plato, 351; the younger, visited by Plato, 258, 355; expedition of Dion against, 259.
Dionysius Hal., on _Apology_, i.
411 _n._; rhetorical powers of Plato and Demosthenes, iii.
407 _n._; rivalry of Plato and Lysias, 411 _n._; contrasts Plato's with [Greek: Sôkratikoi\ dia/logoi], i.
110 _n._; Plato's jealousy and love of supremacy, 117 _n._ Diotima, iii.
8 _n._, 9.
Disease, general survey of, iv.
249; preservative and healing agencies, 250.
Dittrich on _Kratylus_, iii.
303 _n._ Diversum, iv.
226; form of, pervades all others, iii.
209, 232; Aristotle on, 238 _n._ Division, logical, ii.
27; and definition, the two processes of dialectic, iii.
29, 39; dialogues of search illustrate process, 29, 177, 188; novelty and value of this, ii.
235, iii.
190; by dichotomy, 254; importance of founding on sensible resemblances, 255; sub-classes often overlooked, 341; well illustrated in _Philêbus_, 344; but feebly applied, 369; Plato enlarges Pythagorean doctrine, 368.
Divorce, iv.
406.
Dodona, oracle to be consulted, iv.
325; Xenophon, i.
237.
Doing and _making_, ii.
155; use of [Greek: eu)= zê=n] and [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein] in _Charmidês_, 216 _n._ Drama, influence on growth of Dialectic, i.
385; mixed pleasure and pain excited by, iii.
355 _n._; Plato's aversion to Athenian, iv.
316, 350; peculiar to himself, 317; Aristotle differs, _ib._ _n._; see _Poetry_.
Dreams, doctrine of Demokritus, caused by images from objects, i.
81; Plato's theory of, iv.
237; as affecting doctrine _Homo mensura_, iii.
130; belief of rhetor Aristeides in, 146 _n._ Drunkenness, Sokrates proof against, iii.
21, 23, iv.
287; is test of self-control, iii.
21 _n._, iv.
289, 298; forbidden at Sparta, how far justifiable, 286; chorus of elders require, 297; unbecoming the guardians, 298 _n._ E. Eberhard, ii.
300 _n._ Eclipse, foretold by Thales, i.
4 _n._; Anaximander's doctrine, 6 _n._; Pythagoras', 14 _n._; Herakleitus', 32.
Education, who is to judge what constitutes, ii.
142; combined with polity by Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, iv.
142, 185, 337; on principle that every citizen belongs to the city, 186; precautions in electing Minister of, 338; of men compared by Sokrates with training of inferior animals, iii.
62 _n._; bad, of kings' sons, iv.
312; training of boys and girls, 348; by music and gymnastic, 23; musical training excites love of the beautiful, 27; importance of music, 305; views of Xenophon, Polybius, Aristotle, _ib._; _music_, Platonic sense, 149; by fictions as well as by truth, 24; actual place of poetry in Greek, compared with Plato's ideal, 149-153; type for narratives about men, 26; songs, music, and dancing to be regulated, 25, 289, 291, 349; to keep emotions in a proper state, 169; prizes at festivals, 292, 337; but object of training, war, not prizes, 358; only grave music allowed, 26, 168; music and gymnastic necessary to correct each other, 29; gymnastic imparts courage, _ib._; training to ascend to the idea of good, 61; purpose, 69; studies introductory to philosophy, 70-74, 206; difference in _Leges_, 275 _n._; arithmetic, 423; awakening power, 70; stimulus from contradiction of one and many, 72; geometry, 423; conducts mind towards universal ens, 72; value of arithmetic and geometry, 352; by concrete method, 353 _n._; particulars to be brought under the general forms, 423; astronomy, 422; object of teaching, 354; by ideal figures, not observation, 72; acoustics, by applying arithmetical relations and theories, 74; of Nocturnal Counsellors, 420, 424; exercises in dialectic, 76; Plato's remarks on effect of, 207; age for studies, 76, 350; philosophy should not be taught at a very early age, 60, 76; _Republic_ contradicts other dialogues, 207-211; same training for men and women, 77; maintained in _Leges_, and harmonises with ancient legends, 195; contrast with Aristotle, 194; public training at Sparta and Krete, 279; Plato's scheme fails from no training for Demos, 186; Xenophon's scheme, i.
226-31; geometry and physics, Aristippus' contempt for, 186, 192.
Egger, i.
376 _n._ Ego, and Mecum or non-ego, antithesis of, iii.
132 _n._, 144 _n._ Egyptians, iv.
330 _n._, 352, 353 _n._, 415 _n._; priests, historical knowledge of, 266, 268; causes, 271; Plato's reverence for regulations of, 267 _n._ [Greek: Ei)rônei/a], characteristic of Sokrates and Sophists, iii.
217 _n._ Eleatic philosophy, i.
16-26, 93-103; Leukippus, 65; relation to atomic theory, _ib._; theory of vision, iv.
237** _n._; compared with Hindoo philosophers, i.
160 _n._ Eleians, iii.
24 _n._ Elements, the four, not primitive, iv.
238; varieties of each, 242; forms of the, 238; geometrical theory of, 240; Aristotle on, 241 _n._; a fifth added, _ib._ _n._, 421.
Emotions, appealed to in the _Kriton_, i.
433; Bain on the Tender, ii.
188 _n._; a degenerate appendage of human nature, 126, iii.
389; implication of intelligence and, 374; antithesis of science and, 61, 195, 196 _n._; the tender and aesthetic, no place for, in tripartite division of soul, iv.
149 _n._; poet's appeal to, disturbs the rational government of the mind, 92, 152, 349; restrictions on music and poetry, to keep emotions in a proper state, 169, 347; similitude of, in all, but dissimilarity of objects, i.
452 _n._ Empedokles, of universal pretensions, i.
47; doctrines, 38; four principles, _ib._; dissents from Ionic School and Herakleitus, _ib._, 48; denies [Greek: phu/sis] (in sense of [Greek: ge/nesis]), 38 _n._; compared with Anaxagoras, 52; Anaximander, 54; the moving forces, Love and Enmity, 39; modern _attraction_ and _repulsion_, 40 _n._; physics, 38; predestined cycle, 39; Chaos, _ib._, 54; was aware of effect of pressure of air, 44 _n._; movements of the blood, 43; illustrated respiration by Klepsydra, 44 _n._; perception, 44, iv.
235 _n._; contrary to Anaxagoras, i.
58; knowledge of like by like, 44; God, 40 _n._, 42; dæmons, 47; religious mysticism in, 47 _n._; claims magical powers, 47; sacredness of life, metempsychosis, 46; friendship, ii.
179; deplores impossibility of finding out truth from shortness of life, i.
47; influence on Aristotle, 91; doctrines identified by Plato with _Homo Mensura_, iii.
114, 115.
Ends, science of, postulated, ii.
32, 169; dimly indicated by Plato, 148; correlation with the unknown Wise Man, 149; distinction of, iii.
374 _n._; no common, among established [Greek: no/mima], 282 _n._ Energy, analogous to guardians in state, iv.
39; Aristotle's [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], ii.
355.
Ens, of Xenophanes, i.
17; of Parmenides, 66, iii.
58; combines extension and duration, i.
19; and Non-Ens, an inherent contradiction in human mind, 20; alone contains truth--phenomena, probability, 24; erroneously identified by Aristotle with Heat, _ib._ _n._; Zeno, 93; Gorgias the Leontine, 103-4; Demokritus, 67; contraries the Pythagorean principles of, 15 _n._; an intermediate predicate, iii.
94; theories of philosophers about, 200, 231; materialists and idealists, 202; of Plato, comprehends objects of perception and of conception, 229, 231; is _ens_ one or many, 201; difficulties about _non-ens_ and _ens_ equally great, _ib._, 206; is equivalent to potentiality, 204; includes both the unchangeable and the changeable, 205; a _tertium quid_, distinct from motion and rest, 206; philosopher lives in region of _ens_,--Sophist, of _non-ens_, 208; _non-ens_, 331; different views about, 243 _n._; its different meanings in Plato, 181 _n._; _non-ens_ inconceivable, 200; five forms examined, 208, 231-5; a real form, not contrary to, but different from, ens, 211, 233; inter-communion of forms of _non-ens_ and of proposition, opinion, judgment, 213, 214, 235; non-ens in _Sophistês_ different from other dialogues, 242; Plato's view of non-ens, _ib._ _n._, 249 _n._; unsatisfactory, _ib._ _n._; alone knowable, non-ens unknowable, iv.
49; what is between ens and non-ens, the object of opinion, _ib._; fundamental distinction of _ens_ from _fientia_, 219; see _Relativity_, _Ontology_.
Entities, quadruple distribution of, iii.
346; Cudworth's immutable, 74 _n._ Epicharmus, i.
9.
Epiktêtus, on authority, i.
388 _n._; objective and subjective, 451 _n._; [Greek: philo/sophos] and [Greek: i)diô/tês], iv.
104 _n._; scheme conformable to nature, i.
162 _n._ Epikurus, garden, i.
255 _n._; school and library, 269 _n._; _Symposion_ of, iii.
22 _n._; developed Aristippus' doctrines, i.
198; identity of good and pleasure, ii.
315 _n._, 355 _n._, iii.
374, 377 _n._, 387 _n._, iv.
301; scheme conformable to nature, i.
163 _n._; on justice, iv.
130 _n._; antithesis of speculative and political life, ii.
368 _n._; immortality of the soul, 425 _n._; against repulsive pictures of Hades, iv.
155 _n._; prayer and sacrifice, 395; agreement with Demokritean doctrine of chance, i.
73 _n._; Plato's theology compared with, iv.
161.
Epimenidês, date, iv.
311 _n._ Epimêtheus, ii.
268.
_Epinomis_, its authorship, i.
299 _n._, 306, 307, 309; represents Plato's latest opinions, iv.
421 _n._, 424 _n._; gives education of Nocturnal Counsellors, 420, 424; soul prior to and more powerful than body, 421; genesis of kosmos, _ib._; _five_ elements, 240 _n._, 421; wisdom, _ib._; theological view of astronomy, _ib._; arithmetic and geometry, proportionals, 423; particulars to be brought under the general forms, 423.
[Greek: E)pistê/mê], relation to [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], iii.
164 _n._; see _Science_.
Epistles, Plato's, i.
333 _n._; genuineness, 306-7, 309, 349 _n._; written when old, 262; valuable illustrations of his character, 339 _n._; intentional obscurity as to philosophical doctrine, 350, 353 _n._ [Greek: E)pithumi/a], derivation, iii.
302 _n._ Equivoques, ii.
8 _n._, 214, iii.
29; Sokrates does not distinguish, ii.
279; Aristotle more careful than Plato, 170, 279 _n._; fallacies of equivocation, 212, 352 _n._; _gain_, 82; _know_, 213 _n._; [Greek: eu)= zê=n] and [Greek: eu)= pra/ttein], 216 _n._, 352 _n._; _Nature_, 341 _n._, iv.
194; _Cause_, ii.
404, 409, 410 _n._; _Good_, 406, iii.
370; _Ens_, 231; _Unum_, _Ens_, _Idem_, _Diversum_, &c., 94; _Pleasure_, 379 _n._; _Justice_, iv.
102, 120, 123, 125.
Eranos, meaning, iv.
400 _n._; Plato inconsistent, 399.
Erasistratus, iv.
259 _n._ _Erastæ_, authenticity, i.
306-7, 309, 315, ii.
121; subject and interlocutors, 111; vivacity, 116; philosophy the perpetual accumulation of knowledge, 112; how to fix the quantity, 113; philosophy not multiplication of learned acquirements, 114; special art for discriminating bad and good, 115, 119; supreme, 120; the philosopher its regular practitioner, 115; the philosopher, second best in several arts, 114; Aristotle's [Greek: sophi/a] and [Greek: phro/nêsis], 120 _n._; relation of second-best man to regular practitioner, 113, 115, 118; supposed to point at Demokritus, _ib._; humiliation of literary _erastes_, 116.
Eretrian school, transcendental, not ethical, i.
121; qualities non-existent without the mind, iii.
74 _n._; Phædon, i.
148; Menedêmus, _ib._, 149.
Eristic and dialectic, ii.
221 _n._; Aristotle's definition, 210.
Eros, differently understood, necessity for definition, iii.
29; derivation, 308 _n._; contrast of Hellenic and modern sentiment, 1; erotic dialogues, _Phædrus_ and _Symposion_, _ib._; as conceived by Plato, _ib._, 4, 11; inconsistent with expulsion of poets, 3 _n._; purpose of _Symposion_, to contrast Plato's with other views, 8; views of interlocutors in _Symposion_, 9; a Dæmon intermediate between gods and men, 9; but in _Phædrus_ a powerful god, _ib._ _n._, 11 _n._; the stimulus to improving philosophical communion, 4, 6, 18; _Phædon_, _Theætêtus_, _Sophistês_, _Republic_, _ib._; exaltation of, in a few, love of Beauty _in genere_, 7, 15; analogy to philosophy, 10, 11, 14; disparaged, then panegyrised, by Sokrates in _Phædrus_, 11; a variety of madness, _ib._; Sokrates as representative of _Eros Philosophus_, 15, 25; Xenophon's view, _ib._ Ethics, diversity of beliefs, noticed by the ancients, i.
378, iii.
282 _n._; hostility to novel attempts at analysis, i.
387 _n._; Sokrates distinguished objective and subjective views, 451; subjective unanimity coincident with objective dissent, _ib._; Aristophanes connects idea of immorality with free thought, iv.
166; the _matter_ of ethical sentiment variable, the _form_ permanent, 203; Pascal on, i.
231 _n._; with political and social life, topic of Sokrates, 376, ii.
362, iii.
113; self-regarding doctrine of Sokrates, ii.
349, 354 _n._; order of problems as conceived by Sokrates, 299; to do, worse than to suffer, evil, 326, 332, 338, 359; no man voluntarily does, iv.
249, 365-7; [Greek: a(martê/mata] and [Greek: a)dikê/mata] distinguished, 365, 367; and politics treated together by Plato, 133; apart by Aristotle, 138; Sokrates and Plato dwell too exclusively on intellectual conditions, ii.
67, 83; rely too much on analogy of arts, and do not note what underlies epithets, 68; Plato blends ontology with, iii.
365; forced conjunction of kosmology and, 391; physiology of _Timæus_ subordinated to ethical teleology, iv.
257; different points of view in Plato, ii.
167; modern theories, intuition, 348; moral sense, not recognised in _Gorgias_ and _Protagoras_, _ib._; permanent and transient elements of human agency, 353-5; [Greek: ta\ anthrô/pina],** iv.
302 _n._; the permanent, and not immediate satisfaction, the end, ii.
360; [Greek: to\ e(/neka/ tou] confused with [Greek: to\ dia/ ti], 182 _n._; basis in _Republic_ imperfect, iv.
127-32; Plato more a preacher than philosopher in the _Republic_, 131, 132; purpose in _Leges_, to remedy all misconduct, 369; of Demokritus, i.
82; see _Cynics_, _Kyrenaics_, _Epikurus_, &c. Etymology, see _Name_.
Eubulides, sophisms of, i.
128, 133.
Eudemus, iv.
255; Proklus borrowed from, i.
85 _n._ Eudoxus, i.
255; identity of good and pleasure, ii.
315 _n._, iii.
375 _n._, 379 _n._ Eukleides, i.
116; enlarged summum genus of Parmenides, iii.
196 _n._; blended Parmenides with Sokrates, i.
118; Good, iii.
365, i.
119, 127 _n._; nearly Plato's last view, 120.
[Greek: Eu)pragi/a], equivoque, ii.
8 _n._, 352 _n._ Euripides, _Bacchæ_ analogous to _Leges_, iv.
277, 304 _n._; _Hippolytus_ illustrates popular Greek religious belief, 163 _n._ Eusebius, i.
384 _n._, iv.
160 _n._, 256 _n._ _Euthydêmus_, authenticity, i.
306, ii.
195; date, i.
308-11, 312, 315, 320, 325 _n._, ii.
227 _n._, iii.
36 _n._; scenery and personages, ii.
195; dramatic and comic exuberance, _ib._; purpose, i.
309 _n._, ii.
198, 204 _n._, 211, i.
128; Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus do not represent Protagoras and Gorgias, ii.
202; ironical admiration of Sophists, 208; earliest known attempt to expose fallacies, 216; the result of habits of formal debate, 221; character drawn of Sokrates suitable to its purpose, 203; possession of good things, without intelligence, useless, 204; intelligence must include making and use, 205; fallacies of equivocation, 212, iii.
238 _n._; _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_, ii.
213, 214; _extra dictionem_, 215; involving deeper logical principles, _ib._; its popularity among enemies of dialectic, 222; the epilogue to obviate this inference, 223; Euthydêmus the representative of dialectic and philosophy, 226; disparagement of half-philosophers, half-politicians, 224; Plato's view untenable, 229; is Isokrates meant?
227, iii.
38 _n._; no teacher can be indicated, ii.
225; compared with _Parmenidês_, 200; _Republic_, _Philêbus_, _Protagoras_, 208, iii.
373 _n._ _Euthyphron_, date of, i.
457 _n._; its Sokratic spirit, 449; gives Platonic Sokrates' reply to Melêtus, Xenophontic compared, 441, 455; a retort against Aristophanes, 442; interlocutors, 437; Euthyphron indicts his father for homicide, 438, ii.
329 _n._; as warranted by piety, i.
439; acts on Sokratic principle of making oneself like the gods, 440; Holiness, 439; answer by a particular example, 444; not what pleases the gods, 445, 448, 454; Sokrates disbelieves discord among gods, 440; why gods love the Holy, 446; not a branch of justice, 447; for gods gain nothing, 448; holiness not a right traffic between men and gods, _ib._; dialogue useful as showing the subordination of logical terms, 455.
Evil, to do, worse than to suffer, ii.
326, 332, 338, 359; contrast of usual with Platonic meaning, 331; the greatest, ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, iii.
197; great preponderance of, iv.
25, 262 _n._, 390; gods not the cause of, 24; the good and the bad souls at work in the universe, 386; man the cause of, 234; inconsistency, _ib._, _n._; diseases of mind arise from body, 250; no man voluntarily wicked, ii.
292, iv.
249, 365-7; done by the good man wilfully, by the bad unwillingly, ii.
61; three causes of misguided proceedings, iv.
366; see _Good_, _Virtue_, _Body_.
[Greek: E(/xis], Aristotelic, ii.
355.
Existence, notion of, iii.
135 _n._, 205, 226, 229, 231.
Experience, Zeno's arguments not contradictions of data generalized from, i.
100; Plato's theory of pre-natal, ii.
252; operation of pre-natal on man's intellectual faculties, iii.
13; reminiscence of pre-natal knowledge gained by, 17; post-natal not ascertained and measured by him, ii.
252; no appeal to observation or, in studying astronomy and acoustics, iv.
73, 74; see _Sense_.
Expert, authority of public judgment, nothing, of Expert, everything, i.
426, 435; opposition to _Homo mensura_, iii.
135, 143; different view, i.
446 _n._; correlation with undiscovered science of ends, ii.
149; is never seen or identified, 117, 142; how known, 141; Sokrates himself acts as, i.
436; the pentathlos of _Erastæ_, ii.
119 _n._; finds out and certifies truth and reality, 87, 88; badness of all reality, iii.
330; required to discriminate pleasures, ii.
345; as dialectician and rhetorician, iii.
39; impracticable, 42; true government by, 268; postulated for _names_ in _Kratylus_, 329.
F. Fabricius, iv.
382 _n._ Faith and Conjecture, two grades of opinion, iv.
67.
Fallacies, Sophists abused, ii.
199; did not invent, 217, i.
133 _n._; inherent liabilities to error in ordinary process of thinking, ii.
217, i.
129; corrected by formal debate, ii.
217, 220 _n._, 221; exposure of, by multiplication of particular examples, 211; by conclusion shown _aliunde_ to be false, 216; Plato enumerates, Aristotle tries to classify, 212; _Euthydêmus_, earliest known attempt to expose, 216; Bacon's _Idola_, 218; Mill's complete enumeration of heads of, 218; of sufficient Reason, i.
6 _n._; of equivocation, ii.
212, 352 _n._; _extra dictionem_, 214; _à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_, 213, 214; Plato and Aristotle fall into, iii.
138, 158; of confusion, 297 _n._; arguing in a circle, ii.
428 _n._; of Ratiocination, 213, 219; of Megarics and Antisthenes, 215; see _Sophisms_, _Equivoques_.
Family, Greek views of, iii.
1 _n._; restrictions at Thebes, iv.
329 _n._; no separate families for guardians, 41, 174, 178; ties mischievous, but can not practically be got rid of, 327; to be watched over by magistrates, 328; treatment of infants, 346; see _Education_, _Communism_, _Woman_, _Infanticide_.
Farrar, F. W., iii.
326 _n._ Fate, relation to gods, iv.
221 _n._, i.
142; see _Chance_.
Ferrier, on scope and purpose of philosophy, i.
_viii_, _n._; relativity of knowledge, iii.
123 _n._; antithesis of Ego and Mecum, 132 _n._; necessity of setting forth counter-propositions, 148.
Ficinus, interpretation of Plato, i.
_xi_; followed Thrasyllean classification, 301; on Good and Beauty, iii.
5 _n._; on _Parmenidês_, 84 _n._; mystic sanctity of names, 323 _n._ Figure, defined, ii.
235; pleasures of, true, iii.
356.
Finance, see _Xenophon_.
Finite, Zeno's reductiones ad Absurdum, i.
93; natural coalescence of infinite and, iii.
340; illustration from speech and music, 342; insufficient, 343.
Fire, doctrine of Anaximander, i.
5; Anaximenes, 7; Pythagoras, 13; Herakleitus, 27, 30 _n._, 32; soul compared to, 34; Empedokles, 38; Anaxagoras, 50, 52, 56 _n._; identified with mind by Demokritus, 75.
Fischer, Kuno, iii.
84 _n._ Foes, iv.
251 _n._ Freewill, the Necessity of Plato, iv.
221.
Friendship, a moving force, in Empedokles, i.
38; problem in _Lysis_ too general, ii.
186; causes of enmity and, exist _by nature_, 341 _n._; colloquial debate as a generating cause, 188 _n._; desire for what is akin to us or our own, 182; not likeness and unlikeness, 179, 180, 359; physical analogy 188 _n._; the Indifferent friend to Good, 180, 189; illustrated by philosopher, 181; the _primum amabile_, _ib._, 192; _prima amicitia_ of Aristotle, compared, 194; Xenophontic Sokrates and Aristotle, 186.
G. Gain, double meaning of, ii.
82; no tenable definition found, _ib._, 83; see _Hipparchus_.
Galen, relation to Plato, iv.
258; soul threefold, _ib._; a [Greek: kra=sis] of bodily elements, ii.
391 _n._; immortal, 423 _n._, 427; on _Philêbus_, iii.
365 _n._; belief in legends, iv.
153 _n._; Plato's theory of vision, 237 _n._; structure of apes, 257 _n._ Galuppi, Pascal, iii.
118.
General maxims readily laid down by pre-Sokratic philosophers, i.
69 _n._; terms vaguely understood, 398 _n._, 452 _n._, ii.
49 _n._, 166, 242, 279 _n._, 279, 341 _n._; Mill on, 48 _n._; hopelessness of defining, 186 _n._ Generals, Greek, no professional experience, ii.
134.
Generic and specific terms, distinction unfamiliar in Plato's time, ii.
13; and analogical wholes, 48, 193 _n._, iii.
365; unity, how distributed among species and individuals, 339, 346.
Genius, why not hereditary, ii.
271, 272, 274.
Geometry, Pythagorean, i.
12; modern application, 10 _n._; subject of Plato's lectures, 349 _n._; value of, iv.
352, 423; Lucian against, i.
385 _n._; successive stages of its teaching illustrate Platonic doctrine, 353; twofold, iii.
359, 395; pure and applied mathematics, 396 _n._; Aristotle's view of axioms of, i.
358 _n._; from induction, iv.
353 _n._; painless pleasures of, iii.
356, 388 _n._; and dialectic, two modes of mind's procedure applicable to ideal world, iv.
65; geometry, assumes diagrams, _ib._; conducts mind towards universal ens, 72; uselessness of written treatises, ii.
136; proportionals, iv.
224 _n._, 241 _n._, 423; geometrical theory of the elements, i.
349 _n._, iv.
240; Aristotle on, 241 _n._; Kyrenaic and Cynic contempt for, i.
155, 186, 192.
Gfrörer, iv.
256 _n._ Gods, derivation of [Greek: theoi/], iii.
300 _n._; Xenophanes, i.
16, 119 _n._; Parmenides, 19, 24; Empedokles, 40 _n._, 42, 47; Anaxagorean Nous represented later as a god, 54; Diogenes of Apollonia, 64 _n._; Demokritus, 81; Sokrates, 414, 440, ii.
28; Plato's proofs of existence of, iv.
385, 389, 419; locality assigned to, 230 _n._; fabricated men and animals, ii.
268; possess the Idea of cognition, iii.
66, 67 _n._; free from pleasure and pain, 389; do not assume man's form, iv.
25, 154 _n._; Lucretius on, _ib._; cause good only, 24; no repulsive fictions to be tolerated about, 25, 154; Dodona and Delphi to be consulted for religious legislation, 34, 137 _n._, 325, 337; [Greek: ta\ thei=a], 302 _n._; primary and visible gods, 229; secondary and generated gods, 230; Plato's dissent from established religious doctrine, 161, 163; Plato compared with Epikurus, 161, 395; Plato's view of popular theology, 238 _n._, 328, 337; popular Greek belief, well illustrated in Euripides' _Hippolytus_, 163 _n._; God's [Greek: phtho/nos], 164 _n._; Aristotle, 395; see _Demiurgus_, _Religion_, _Inspiration_.
Gold, makes all things beautiful, ii.
41.
Good, Demokritus' theory, i.
82; the Pythagorean [Greek: kairo/s], first cause of, iii.
397 _n._; an equivoque, 370; and pleasurable, as conceived by the Athenians, ii.
371; contrast of usual with Platonic meaning, 331, 335; universal desire of, 243, 324, iii.
5, 335, 371, 392 _n._; akin, evil alien, to every one, ii.
183; alone caused by gods, iv.
24; its three varieties, ii.
306 _n._, 350 _n._, iv.
12, 116, 428; Eros one, iii.
5; as object of attachment, ii.
194; the four virtues the highest, and source of all other goods, iv.
428; is the just, honourable, expedient, ii.
7; not knowledge, 29; is gain, 72-6; True and Real coalesce in Plato's mind, 88; Campbell on erroneous identification of truth and, iii.
391 _n._; the _primum amabile_, ii.
181, 191; approximation to Idea, 192; Indifferent friend to, 180, 189; pleasure is, 289, 306 _n._, 347 _n._; agreement with Aristippus, i.
199-202; meaning of pleasure as the _summum bonum_, iii.
338; the permanent, and not immediate satisfaction, the end, ii.
360; Sokrates' reasoning, 307; too narrow and exclusively prudential, 309; not Utilitarianism, 310 _n._; not ironical, 314; compared with _Republic_, 310; _Protagoras_, 345; coincidence of _Republic_ and _Protagoras_, 350 _n._; inconsistent with _Gorgias_, 306, 345; argument in _Gorgias_ untenable, 351; Platonic _idéal_, view of Order, undefined results, 374; Plato's view of rhetoric dependent on his _idéal_ of, 374; is [Greek: a)lupi/a], iii.
338 _n._; is maximum of pleasure and minimum of pain, iv.
293-97, 299-303; at least an useful fiction, 303; not intelligence nor pleasure, 62; and happiness, correlative terms in _Philêbus_, iii.
335; is it intense pleasure without any intelligence, 338; or intelligence without pleasure or pain, _ib._; intelligence more cognate than pleasure to, 347, 361; pleasure a generation, therefore not an end, nor the good, 357; a _tertium quid_, 339, 361; intelligence the determining, pleasure the indeterminate, 348; a mixture, 361; five constituents, 362; the answer as to, does not satisfy the tests Plato lays down, 371; has not the unity of an idea, 365; Plato's in part an eclectic doctrine, 366; special accomplishments oftener hurtful, if no knowledge of the good, ii.
16; man who has knowledge of, can alone do evil wilfully, 61; knowledge of, identified with [Greek: nou=s], 30; postulated under different titles, 31; special art for discriminating, 115; how known, undetermined, 31, 206; only distinct answer in _Protagoras_, 208, 308, 347; the profitable, general but not constant explanation of Plato, 38; is essentially relative, iv.
213 _n._, i.
185; Idea of, rules the world of Ideas, as sun the visible, iv.
63, 64; Aristotle on, 214 _n._; Anaxagoras' nous, ii.
412; training to ascend to Idea, iv.
62; dialectic gives the contemplation of, 75; rulers alone know, 212; Idea of, left unknown, 213; changes in Plato's views, i.
119; Eukleides, iii.
365, i.
119, 127 _n._; nearly same as Plato's last doctrine, 120; discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus, 184, 185; Xenophontic Sokrates, iii.
366.
Gorgias the Leontine, reasoned against the Absolute as either Ens or Entia, i.
103; Ens incogitable and unknowable, 104; contrasted with earlier philosophers, 105; not represented by Dionysodorus in Euthydemus, ii.
202; celebrity, 317; theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._ _Gorgias_, the date, i.
305-7, 308-10, 312, 315, ii.
228 _n._, 318 _n._, 367; its general character, discrediting the actualities of life, 355; reply to, by Aristeides, 371 _n._; upholds independence and dignity of philosophic dissenter, 375; scenery and person ages, 317; rhetoric the artisan of persuasion, 319; a branch of flattery, 321, 370; citation of four statesmen, 358, 362; true and counterfeit arts, 322; multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure, 357; despots and rhetors have no _real_ power, 324; description of rhetors, untrue, 369; rhetoric is of little use, 329, iii.
410; Sokrates' view different in Xenophon, ii.
371 _n._; issue unsatisfactorily put by Plato, 369; view stands or falls with _idéal_ of Good, 374; all men wish for Good, 324; illustration from Archelaus, 325, 333 _n._, 334, 336, i.
179; Plato's peculiar view of Good, ii.
331, 335; contrasted with usual meaning, 331; [Greek: kalo\n] and [Greek: ai)schro\n] defined, 327, 334; definition untenable, 334; to do, a greater evil than to suffer, wrong, 326, 359; inconsistent with description of Archelaus, 333; reciprocity of regard indispensable, _ib._; opposition of Law and Nature, _ib._, 338; no allusion to Sophists, 339; uncertainty of referring to nature, 340; punishment a relief to the wrong-doer, 327, 328, 335; the only cure for criminals' mental distemper, 328; consequences of theory, 336; analogy of mental and bodily distemper pushed too far, 337; its incompleteness, 363; are largest measure, and all varieties, of desire, good, 344; good and pleasurable as conceived by the Athenians, 371; good and pleasurable not identical, 345, iii.
380 _n._; argument untenable, ii.
351; expert required to discriminate pleasures, 345, 347; _idéal_ of measure, view of order, undefined results, 374; permanent and transient elements of human agency 353-5; psychology defective, 354; temperance the condition of virtue and happiness, 358; Sokrates resolves on scheme of life, 360; agreement of Sokrates with Aristippus, i.
200 _n._; Sokrates alone follows the true political art, ii.
361-2; condition of success in life, 359; danger of dissenter, _ib._; Sokrates as a dissenter, 364; claim of _locus standi_ for philosophy, 367; but indiscriminate cross-examination given up, 368; mythe respecting Hades, 361; compared with _Protagoras_, 270 _n._, 306 _n._, 345-8, 349-55, iii.
379; _Philêbus_, _ib._, 380; _Apology_, _Kriton_, _Republic_, ii.
362; _Leges_, _ib._, iv.
301, 302, 324; _Menexenus_, 409; Xenophontic Sokrates, i.
178, 221.
Government, natural rectitude of, ii.
89; Plato does not admit the received classification, iii.
267; true classification, scientific or unscientific, 268; monarchy and democracy the _mother-polities_, iv.
312; dissent of Aristotle, _ib._ _n._; seven distinct natural titles to, 309; illustrated by Argos, Messênê, Sparta, 310; imprudent to found on any one title only, _ib._; five types of, 78-84; three constituents of good, 312; Plato's _idéal_, ii.
363; unscientific, or by many, counterfeit, iii.
268; genuine, by the one scientific man, _ib._, 273, iv.
280; counter-theory in _Protagoras_, ii.
268, iii.
275; distinguished from general, &c., 271; no laws, 269; practicable only in golden age, iv.
319; by fixed laws the second best, iii.
270; excess of energetic virtues entails death or banishment, of gentle, slavery, 273; true ruler aims at forming virtuous citizens, 272; standard of ethical orthodoxy to be maintained, 273; of unscientific forms despotism worst, democracy least bad, 270, 278; a bad government no government, 281 _n._; timocracy, iv.
79; oligarchy, _ib._; democracy, 80; despot, 81; education combined with, by Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, 142; Sokratic ideal differently worked out by Plato and Xenophon, iii.
273; Xenophon's _idéal_, citizen willing to be ruled, i.
215, 218, 219; and scientific ruler, 224; Xenophon's scheme of, a wisely arranged Oriental despotism, 234; see _State_.
Gräfenhahn, iii.
312 _n._ Grammar, no formal, existed in Plato's time, ii.
34 _n._, iii.
222.
Greece, political changes in, during Plato's life, i.
1; Greeks all by nature kinsmen, iv.
47.
Grimm, iii.
314 _n._, 329 _n._ Gruppe, on _Leges_, iv.
355 _n._ Guardians, characteristics, iv.
23, 25; drunkenness unbecoming, 298 _n._; consist of men and women, 41, 46; syssitia, 359; communism of, _ib._, 44, 140, 169; maintenance of city dependent on their habits, character, education, 32, 34, 139, 170, 178; no family ties, 41, 174-8; temporary marriages, 44, 175; object, 198; number limited, Plato and Aristotle, 178, 198-200; age for studies, 76; studies introductory to philosophy, 70-4; courage seated in, 35; analogous to reason and energy in individuals, 39; divided into rulers and auxiliaries, 29; compared with modern soldiers, 148, 180.
Gymnastic, art reducible to rule, ii.
372 _n._; measured quantity alone good, 112; education in, necessary for guardians, iv.
23; should be simple, 28; imparts courage, 29; prizes at festivals, 338; but object of training, war, not prizes, 358; music necessary to correct, 29.
H. Hades, no repulsive fictions tolerated of, iv.
25, 154; mythe of, in _Republic_, 94; in _Gorgias_, ii.
361.
Hamilton, Sir Wm., doctrines inconsistent, i.
_xiii_.
_n._; Plato's reasonings on the soul, ii.
250 _n._, 428 _n._; Reid and Berkeley, iii.
165 _n._; Judgment implied in every act of Consciousness, 166 _n._; relativity of knowledge, 133 _n._; primary and secondary qualities, iv.
243 _n._ Happiness, relation to knowledge, ii.
159, 160; Plato's peculiar view of, 335; contrasted with usual meaning, 331; its elements depreciated, 353; temperance the condition of, 358; all men love Good as means to, iii.
5; and good, correlative terms in _Philêbus_, 335; Sydenham on seat of, 372 _n._; the end of the state and individual, iv.
98; flowing from justice, 20, 84, 90; see _Good_, _Pleasure_.
Harmodius, iii.
4 _n._ Harris, James, on _Homo Mensura_, iii.
139 _n._; Plato's etymologies, 302 _n._; on Stoical doctrine of virtue, iv.
106 _n._; on sophism [Greek: Kurieu/ôn], i.
141 _n._; time, 146 _n._ Harvey, Dr.
Wm., iv.
259.
Hebrew studies, their effect on classical scholarship, i.
_xv_.
_n._; uniformity of tradition contrasted with diversity of Greek philosophy, 384 _n._; allegorical interpretation of prophets, ii.
286 _n._; writers, Plato's resemblance to, iv.
160 _n._, 256.
Hedonists, doctrine, iii.
374; included [Greek: a)lupi/a] in end, 377; did not set aside all idea of limit, 392 _n._; basis adopted in Plato's argument, 375, 387 _n._; enforced same view as Plato on intense pleasures, 378; see _Pleasure_.
Hegel, origin of philosophy, i.
382 _n._; ideal expert, _ib._; Plato's view of the soul, ii.
414 _n._; Anaxagoras' nous, 403 _n._ Hegesias, the "death-persuader," i.
202; coincidence with Cynics, 203; doctrine of relativity, 204.
Heindorf, on _Kratylus_, iii.
310 _n._; _Charmidês_, iv.
136 _n._; _Republic_, _ib._ Hekatæus, censured by Herakleitus, i.
26.
Herakleitus, works and obscure style, i.
26; dogmatism and censure of his predecessors, _ib._; metaphysical, 27; physics, _ib._, 32; did not rest proof of a principle on induction of particulars, iii.
309 _n._; _Fieri_ his principle, i.
28; Parmenides' opposed, 37; the law of _Fieri_ alone permanent, 29; no substratum, 30; identified with _Homo Mensura_, iii.
114, 115, 126, 128; rejected by Aristotle, but approved by modern science, i.
37 _n._, iii.
126 _n._, 154 _n._; exposition by metaphors, i.
28, 30; fire and air, 27, 31; fire a symbol for the universal force or law, 30 _n._; distinction of _ideal_ and _elementary_ fire, 32 _n._; doctrine of contraries, 30, 31, iii.
101 _n._; the soul an effluence of the Universal, i.
34; individual reason worthless, _ib._; Universal Reason, the reason of most men as it ought to be, 35; [Greek: perie/chon] compared with Anaxagorean Nous, 56 _n._; sleep, 34; theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._; time, 228 _n._; paradoxes, i.
37 _n._; [Greek: Polumathi/ê no/on ou) dida/skei], 26; reappears in Plato, ii.
30; enigmatical doctrine of his followers, iii.
_ 159 _n._; their repugnance to dialectic, i.
106 _n._; names first imposed in accordance with his theory, iii.
301 _n._, 314-7; names the essence of things, 324 _n._, 325; theory admitted, 316; some names not consistent with it, 318; the theory uncertain, 321; flux, true of particulars, not of Ideas, 320; antipathy to Pythagoras, 316 _n._; influence on the development of logic, i.
37; on Diogenes of Apollonia, 64 _n._; Protagoras, iii.
159 _n._; Plato, i.
27; Stoics, 27, 34 _n._ Herakleitus the Allegorist, iii.
3 _n._, iv.
157 _n._ Hêraklês, the choice of, ii.
267 _n._, i.
177.
Heresy, see _Orthodoxy_.
Hermann, Godfrey, natural rectitude of names, iii.
300 _n._ Hermann, K. F., theory of Platonic canon, i.
307; Susemihl coincides, 310; principle of arrangement reasonable, 322; more tenable than Schleiermacher's, 324; Ueberweg attempts to reconcile Schleiermacher with, 313; on _Hippias Major_, ii.
34 _n._; _Kratylus_, iii.
309 _n._; _Republic_, 244 _n._; _Leges_, iv.
274 _n._, 328 _n._, 369 _n._, 374 _n._ Hermokrates, intended as last in _Republic_ tetralogy, i.
325, iv.
266, 273.
Herodotus, infers original aqueous state of earth from prints of shells and fishes, i.
19 _n._; Psammetichus' experiment, iii.
289 _n._; the gods' jealousy, iv.
164 _n._; sacrifice and prayer, 394, _ib._ _n._ Herschel, Sir John, axioms of arithmetic from induction, iv.
353 _n._ Hesiod, cosmology, i.
2-3, 4 _n._; censured by Xenophanes, 16; by Herakleitus, 26.
Hetæræ, iv.
359, i.
188-90.
Hindoos, Sleeman on grounds of belief among, iii.
150 _n._; philosophers compared with Eleatics, i.
159 _n._ Hipparchia, wife of Krates, i.
173.
_Hipparchus_, authenticity, i.
297 _n._, 307, 309, 337 _n._, ii.
82, 93; and _Minos_ analogous and inferior to other works, 82; purpose, 84; subject--definition of lover of gain, 71; double meaning of _gain_, 82; first definition, rejected, 71; character and precept of Hipparchus the Peisistratid, eulogy of Sokrates, 73; Gain is good--apparent contradiction, _ib._; gain the valuable, the profitable, and therefore the good, 75; some gain is good, some evil, 74; objections, _ib._; no tenable definition of gain found, 82, 83.
_Hippias Major_, authenticity, i.
306, 315, ii.
33 _n._; date, i.
307, 308-10, 313; situation and interlocutors, ii.
33; Hippias lectured at Sparta on the beautiful, the fine, the honourable, 35, 39; no success at Sparta--law forbids, 35; the lawful is the profitable, 36; comparison with Xenophon, 34, 37; the beautiful?
39; instances, 40; Gold makes all things beautiful, 41; complaint of vulgar analogies, 42; answer fails of universal application, _ib._; the becoming, and the useful--objections, 43-4; a variety of the pleasurable, 45; inadmissible, _ib._; Sokrates attempts to assign some general concept, 47, 193 _n._, iii.
365; analogy of Sokrates' explanations in _Memorabilia_, ii.
49; and _Minor_ illustrate general theory of the dialogues of Search, 63; antithetise rhetoric and dialectic, 70.
_Hippias Minor_, authenticity, i.
306, ii.
55 _n._, 57 _n._; date, i.
306, 308-10, 310, 315; and _Major_ illustrate general theory of dialogues of Search, ii.
63; antithetise rhetoric and dialectic, 70; polemical and philosophical purpose, 63; its thesis maintained by Sokrates in _Memorabilia_, 66; combated by Aristotle, 67; characters and situation, 55; Achilleus preferred by Hippias to Odysseus, veracity to mendacity, 56, 58; contested by Sokrates veracious and mendacious man the same, 57; to hurt _wilfully_ better than to do so unwillingly, 58; Hippias dissents, 60; good man alone does evil wilfully, Sokrates' perplexity, 61; critics on the sophistry of Sokrates, 62.
Hippokrates, iv.
260.
Hobbes on similitude of passions in all, but dissimilarity of objects, i.
452 _n._; exercises for students, iii.
80 _n._, 90 _n._; subject and object, 117 _n._; analogy of state to individual, iv.
96; cause, i.
139 _n._, 144; Diodorus' doctrine defended, 143; coincides with Aristotle on motion, 146.
Holiness, what is?
i.
439; not what gods love, 445, 448, 454; why the gods love it, 446; how far like justice, ii.
278; not a branch of justice, i.
447; not a right traffic between men and gods, 448; is it holy?
ii.
278; the holy, one type in Platonic, various in Xenophontic, Sokrates, i.
454.
Homer, cosmology, i.
2; censured by Xenophanes, 16; Herakleitus, 26; considered more as an instructor than as a poet, ii.
126; and poets, the great teachers, 135; picture in _Republic_, as really knowing nothing _ib._, iv.
92; Strabo on, 152 _n._; Herakleitus the allegorist, iii.
3 _n._, iv.
157 _n._; Plato's fictions contrasted with, 153 _n._; diversity of subjects, ii.
132; inspired by gods, 128; analogy of _Magnet_, _ib._; on friendship, 179; identified by Plato with _Homo Mensura_, iii.
114.
Homo Mensura, see _Relativity_.
Homoeomeries, see _Anaxagoras_.
Homicide, varieties of, iv.
370-4; penalties, 370; Plato follows peculiar Attic view, 374.
Honourable, the, Hippias' lectures at Sparta on, ii.
39; identified with the just, good, expedient, 7; actions conducive to pleasure are, 295; by law, not nature, Aristippus' doctrine, i.
197.
Horace, scheme of life, i.
191 _n._, 192 _n._ Huet, Bp., i.
384 _n._ Humboldt, Wm.
von, origin of language, iii.
326 _n._ Hume, Athenian taxation, i.
242 _n._ Hunting, meaning of, iv.
356; how far permitted, 355.
Hutcheson, Francis, iv.
105 _n._ Hypothesis, discussion of, distinct from discussion of its consequences, ii.
397, 411; ultimate appeal to extremely general hypothesis, _ib._; in _Republic_, only a stepping-stone to the first principle, 412; provisional assumption of, and consequences traced, exercise for students, iii.
79; illustration, 81.
I.
Ideas, Plato's, differ from Pythagorean Number, i.
10; identified by Plato with the Pythagorean symbols, 348, iii.
71 _n._, 368; differ from Demokritean atoms, i.
72; the definitions Sokrates sought for, 453; Plato assumed the common characteristic, by objectivising the word itself, _ib._; doctrine derived its plausibility from metaphors, 343; soul's immortality rests on assumption of, ii.
412; reminiscence of the, iii.
13; as Forms, ii.
412; the only causes, 396; formal, 408 _n._; logical phantoms as real causes, 404 _n._; truth resides in, 411; alone exclude contrary, 7 _n._; unchangeable, iii.
246 _n._, iv.
50; Herakleitean flux not true of, iii.
320; partly changeable and partly unchangeable, 228; disguised in particulars, iv.
3 _n._; fundamental distinction of particulars, and, 219; alone knowable, 49; _opinion_, of what is between ens and non-ens, _ib._; assumption of, as separate entia, ii.
396, 403; great multitude of, 410; characteristics of world of, iii.
63; Ideas separate from, but participable by, sensible objects, 59; objections, 60-7; the genuine Platonic theory attacked, 68; none of some objects, 60; how participable by objects, 63, 65, 72, iv.
138; not fitted on to the facts of sense, iii.
78; Aristotle partly successful in attempt, 76.; analogous difficulty of predication, i.
169; "the third man," iii.
64 _n._; not merely conceptions, 64, 73; not mere types, 65; not cognizable, since not relative to ourselves, _ib._, 72; gods have Idea of cognition, 67, 68 _n._; dilemma, ideas exist or philosophy impossible, 68; intercommunion of some forms, 207, 250 _n._; analogy of letters and syllables, 208; what forms, determined by philosopher, _ib._; of _non-ens_, and _proposition_, _opinion_, _judgment_, 213, 214; of _Diversum_ pervades all others, 209; [Greek: tô=n a)popha/seôn], 238 _n._; of Animal, iv.
223, 235 _n._, 263; kosmos on pattern of, 223; action on Materia Prima, 238; of the elements, 239; of insects, &c., iii.
195 _n._; of names and things nameable, 286 _n._, 289, 326 _n._; names fabricated by lawgiver on type of, 287, 290, 325; names the essence of things, 324 _n._; doctrine about classification not necessarily connected with, 345; of Beauty exclusively presented in _Symposion_, 18; of Good, approximation of _primum amabile_, ii.
192; training to ascend to the idea of good, iv.
61, 66; comparison of idea of good to sun, 63, 64; of Good, in _Phædon_, Anaxagoras' nous, ii.
412; known to the rulers alone, iv.
212; left unsolved, 213; the contemplation of, by dialectic, 75; reluctance to undertake active duties, of those who have contemplated, 70; philosopher lives in region of, sophist in region of non-ens, iii.
208, iv.
48; little said of, in _Menon_, ii.
253, 254 _n._; postulated in _Timæus_, iv.
220; discrepancy of _Sophistês_ and other dialogues, iii.
244; the idealists' doctrine the same as Plato's in _Phædon_, &c., _ib._, 246; _Phædrus_, _Phædon_, and _Timæus_ compared, iv.
239 _n._; Plato's various views, ii.
404, i.
119; the last, 120; Aristotle on, 360 _n._, ii.
192, 193 _n._, 410 _n._, iii.
76, 245, 365 _n._, 367, iv.
214 _n._, i.
120 _n._; _Sophistês_ approximates to Aristotle's view, iii.
247; generic and analogical aggregates, ii.
48, 193 _n._, iii.
365; Antisthenes and Diogenes on, i.
163; the first protest of Nominalism against Realism, 164; see _Particulars_, _Phenomena_, _Universal_.
Ideal, to Plato the only real, ii.
89.
Idealists, iii.
201; meaning of _ens_, 231; argument against, 204, 225, 244; doctrine of, the same as Plato's in _Phædon_, &c., _ib._, 246.
Identity, personal, ii.
11, 25, iii.
6; and contradiction, principle of, 101.
[Greek: I)diô/tês] distinguished from [Greek: philo/sophos], iv.
104 _n._; [Greek: techni/tês], ii.
272 _n._ Ignorance, mischiefs of, ii.
12; depend on the subject-matter, 14; to hurt _knowingly_, better than _ignorantly_, 58, 59; evil done by bad man unwillingly, by good wilfully, 61; not pleasure, the cause of wrongdoing, 294; mistaking itself for knowledge, the worst evil, iii.
197; see _Knowledge_.
Imitator, logical classification of, iii.
215; of the wise man, sophist is, 216; poets' mischievous _imitation of imitation_, iv.
91.
Immortality, beliefs as to partial, ii.
385 _n._; popular Greek belief, 427; metempsychosis a general element in all old doctrines, 425 _n._; of rational soul only, iv.
243; of all three parts of soul?
ii.
385; Plato's demonstration rests on assumption of ideas, 412; includes pre-existence of all animals, and metempsychosis, 414; fails, 423, 428, iii.
15; leaves undetermined mode of pre-existence and post-existence, ii.
424; was not generally accepted, 426; Xenophon's doctrine, 420 _n._; Aristotle's, _ib._; common desire for, iii.
6; attained through mental procreation, beauty the stimulus, _ib._; only metaphorical in _Symposion_, 17.
Indeterminate, Pythagorean doctrine of the, i.
11; pleasure the, iii.
348; see _Infinite_.
Indian philosophy, compared with Greek, i.
107, 378 _n._, 160 _n._, 162; analogy of Plato's doctrine of the soul, ii.
389 _n._, 426 _n._; Gymnosophists, compared with Diogenes, i.
157, 160 _n._; antiquity of, 159 _n._; suicide, 162 _n._; Antisthenes did not borrow from, 159 _n._; antithesis of law and nature, 162.
Indifferent, the, ii.
180, 189.
Individual, analogy to kosmical process, i.
36 _n._; tripartite division of mind, iv.
37; analogous to three classes in state, 39; analogy to state, 11, 20, 37, 79-84, 96; Hobbes on, _ib._; parallelism exaggerated, 114, 121, 124; dependent on society, 21, 121, 123; four stages of degeneracy, 79-84; proportions of happiness and misery in them, 83; happiness of, through justice, 20, 84, 90; one man can do only one thing well, 23, 33, 97, 98, 183; Xenophon on, 139 _n._ Individualism, see _Authority_.
Inductive and syllogistic dialectic, ii.
27; process of, always kept in view in dialogues of search, i.
406; illustrated in history of science, ii.
163; trial and error the natural process of the human mind, 165; length of Plato's process, 100 _n._; usefulness of negative result, 186; the mind rises from sensation to opinion, then cognition, iii.
164; verification from experience, not recognised as necessary or possible, 168.
Infanticide, iv.
43, 44, 177; Aristotle on, 202; contrast of modern sentiment, 203.
Infinite, of Anaximander, i.
5; reproduced in chaos of Anaxagoras, 54; Zeno's reductiones ad Absurdum, 93; natural coalescence of finite and, iii.
340, 346, 348 _n._; illustration from speech and music, 341; explanation insufficient, 343; see _Indeterminate_.
Ingratitude, iv.
399.
Inspiration, special, a familiar fact in Greek life, ii.
130, iii.
352, iv.
15; in rhapsode and poet, ii.
127; of rhapsode through medium of poets, 128, 129, 134; of philosopher, 383; see _Dæmon_; Plato's view, 131; the reason temporarily withdrawn, 132, iii.
11, 309 _n._; opposed to knowledge, ii.
136; right opinion of good statesmen from, 241; all existing virtue is from, 242.
Instantaneous, Plato's imagination of the, iii.
100; found no favour, 102.
Interest, forbidden, iv.
331.
_Ion_, authenticity, i.
306, ii.
124; date, i.
307, 308-9, 311, 312, 315; interlocutors, ii.
124; Ion as a rhapsode, 126; devoted himself to Homer, 127; the poetic art is one, _ib._; inspiration of rhapsodes and poets, _ib._; inspiration of Ion through Homer, 128; analogy of magnet, _ib._, 129; Plato's contrast of systematic with unsystematic procedure, _ib._; Ion does not admit his own inspiration, 132; province of rhapsode, _ib._; the rhapsode the best general, 133; exposition through divine inspiration, 134.
Ionic philosophy compared with the abstractions of Plato and Aristotle, i.
87; defect of, 88; attended to material cause only, _ib._; see _Philosophy--Pre-Sokratic_.
Islands of the Blest, ii.
416.
Isokrates, probably the half-philosopher, half-politician of _Euthydêmus_, ii.
227, iii.
35; variable feeling between, and Plato, ii.
228, 331 _n._, iii.
36; praised in _Phædrus_, 35; compared with Lysias, _ib._ 38; his school at Athens, 36; teaching of, iv.
150 _n._; as Sophist, i.
212 _n._; teachableness of virtue, ii.
240 _n._; age for dialectic exercises, iv.
211 _n._; criticism on other philosophers, iii.
38 _n._; on aspersions of rivals, 408 _n._; on the poets, iv.
157 _n._; contrasted with Plato in _Timæus_, 217; on _Leges_, 432; oratio panegyrica, iii.
406 _n._; great age of, i.
245.
Italy, slaves in, iv.
343 _n._ J. Jamblichus on metempsychosis, ii.
426 _n._ Jason, of Pheræ, iii.
388 _n._ Jerome, St., on Plato and Aristotle, i.
_xv_.
Johnson, Dr., on Berkeley, iv.
243 _n._ Jouffroy, à priori element of cognition, iii.
119 _n._ Judgment, akin to proposition, and may be false, by partnership with form _non-ens_, iii.
213-4; implied in every act of consciousness, 165 _n._ Just, the holy a branch of the, i.
447; and unjust, standard of the better, ii.
3; whence knowledge of it, 4; identified with the good, honourable, expedient, 7; or Good is the profitable--general, but not constant, explanation of Plato, 38; the just, by law, not nature, Aristippus' doctrine, i.
197.
Justice, is it just, ii.
278; varieties of meaning, i.
452 _n._, iv.
102, 120, 123, 125; derivation of [Greek: dikaiosu/nê], iii.
301 _n._; of [Greek: di/kaion], 308 _n._; with temperance, the condition of happiness and freedom, ii.
12; and sense of shame possessed and taught by all citizens, 269; how far like holiness, i.
447, ii.
278; opposition of natural and legal, 338, i.
197; what is, iii.
416; unsatisfactory answers of Sokrates and his friends, _ib._; is rendering what is owing, iv.
2; rejected, 6; is what is advantageous to the most powerful, 8; modified, 9; is the good of another, 10; necessary to society and individual, injustice a source of weakness, 11; is a source of happiness, 12, 14, 18; is a compromise, 13; good only from consequences, 15, 16, 99; Xenophon on, 114 _n._; the received view anterior to Plato, 100; a good _per se_, 20, 40, 84, 90, 116; and from its consequences, 94, 121, 123, 294; proved also by superiority of pleasures of intelligence, 84; proof fails, 116, 118-21; all-sufficient for happiness, germ of Stoical doctrine, 102; inconsistent with actual facts, 106; incorrect, for individual dependent on society, _ib._, 123; Plato's affirmation true in a qualified sense, 125; orthodoxy or dissent of just man must be taken into account, 126, 131; in state, 34; is in all classes, 36; is performing one's own function, _ib._, 37, 39; analogy to bodily health, 40; what constitutes injustice, 367-9; no man voluntarily wicked, 249, 365-7; distinction of damage and injury, 366; relation to rest of virtue, 428; distinction effaced between temperance and, 135; ethical basis imperfect, 127; view peculiar to Plato, 99; Platonic conception is self-regarding, 104; motives to it arise from internal happiness of the just, 105; view substantially maintained since, _ib._; essential reciprocity in society, ii.
312, 333, iv.
100, 133; the basis of Plato's own theory of city's genesis, 111; incompletely stated, 112 _n._; any theory of society must present antithesis and correlation of obligation and right, 112; Xenophon's definition unsatisfactory, i.
231; Karneades, iv.
118 _n._; Epikurus, 130 _n._; Lucretius, _ib._; Pascal, i.
231 _n._ K. [Greek: Kaki/a], derivation, iii.
301 _n._ Kallikles, rhetor and politician, ii.
340.
Kallimachus, Plato's works known to, i.
276, 296 _n._; issued catalogue of Alexandrine library, 275.
[Greek: Kalo/n, to/], translated by beautiful, ii.
49 _n._; defined, 327, 334; rejected, _ib._; see _Beautiful_, _Honourable_.
Kant, his Noumenon agrees with Ens of Parmenides, i.
21.
Kapila, i.
378 _n._; analogy to Plato, ii.
389 _n._ Karneades, on justice, iv.
118 _n._ Kepler, applied Pythagorean conception, i.
14 _n._; devotion to mathematics, iii.
388 _n._ King, see _Monarch_.
_Kleitophon_, fragmentary, i.
268, iii.
419, 424; authenticity, i.
305-7, 309, 315, iii.
419 _n._, 420, 426 _n._; posthumous, 420; in _Republic_ tetralogy, i.
406 _n._, iii.
419, 425; represents the point of view of many objectors, 424; scenery and persons, 413; Sokrates has power in awakening ardour for virtue, 415; but does not explain what virtue is, _ib._, 421-24; what is justice or virtue, 416; unsatisfactory replies of Sokrates' friends, _ib._; Kleitophon believes Sokrates knows but will not tell, 418; compared with _Republic_, 425; _Apology_, 421.
Know, Aristotle on equivocal meaning of, ii.
213 _n._; to know and be known is action and passion, iii.
287 _n._ Knowledge, claim to universal, common to ancient philosophers, iii.
219; kinds of, i.
_xii_.
_n._; of like by like, 44, iv.
227; Demokritus' theory, i.
72, 76, 80; Zeno, 98; Gorgias the Leontine, 104; Kyrenaics, 199, 204; false persuasion of, the natural state of human mind, Sokrates' theory, 374, 414, ii.
166 _n._, 218, 243, 263; regarded as an ethical defect, iii.
177; Sokrates' mission, i.
374, 376, ii.
24, 146, 419, iii.
422, iv.
219; search after, the business of life to Sokrates and Plato, i.
396; _per se_ interesting, 403; necessity of scrutiny, 398 _n._; Mill on vagueness of common words, ii.
48 _n._; omnipotence of King Nomos, i.
378-84**; different views of Plato, iii.
163, 164 _n._; evolution of indwelling conceptions, i.
359 _n._, ii.
249, iii.
17; Sokrates' mental obstetric, 112; attained only by dialectic, i.
396; its test, power of going through a Sokratic cross-examination, _ib._, ii.
64; genesis of, 391; _reminiscence_ of the ideas, 237, iii.
13, 17; gods possess the Idea of, 67, 68 _n._; philosophy the perpetual accumulation of, ii.
112; of good and evil, distinct from other sciences, 168; necessary to use of good things, 205; must include both making and right use 205; no action contrary to, 291; virtue is, 239, 321, 67 _n._, 149; of _what_ unsolved, 244; to hurt knowingly or wilfully better than unwillingly, 58; analogies from the arts, 59; evil done by good man with, by bad without, 61; as condition of human conduct, Sokrates and Plato dwell too exclusively on, 67, 83; rely too much on analogy of arts, and do not note what underlies epithets, 68; and moderation identical, having same contrary, 280; of self, Delphian maxim, 11, 25; from looking into other minds, is temperance, 12; opposed to divine inspiration, 136; no object of, distinct from knowledge itself, 156; of _ens_ alone, iv.
49; all, relative to some object, ii.
157, 169; is sensible perception, iii.
111, 113, 154, 172 _n._; erroneously identified with _Homo Mensura_, 113, 118, 120 _n._, 125, 162 _n._; objections, sensible facts, different to different percipients, 153; sensible perception does not include memory, 157; argument from analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same time, _ib._; lies in the mind's comparisons respecting sensible perceptions, 161; difference from modern views, 162; the mind rises from sensation to opinion, then cognition, 164; verification from experience, not recognised as necessary or possible, 168; of good, identified with [Greek: nou=s], of other things with [Greek: do/xa], ii.
30; relation to opinion, iii.
167 _n._, 172, 184 _n._; are false opinions possible, 169; waxen memorial tablet in the mind, _ib._; distinction of possessing and having actually in hand, 170; simile of pigeon-cage, 171; false opinion is the confusion of cognitions and non-cognitions, refuted, _ib._; distinguished from right opinion, ii.
253, 255 _n._, iii.
168; rhetor communicates true opinion, not knowledge, 172; Plato's compared with modern views, ii.
254; is true opinion _plus_ rational explanation, iii.
173; analogy of elements and compounds, _ib._; three meanings of _rational explanation_, 174; definition rejected, 175; antithesis of opinion and, not so marked in _Politikus_ as _Theætêtus_, 256; opposite cognitions unlike each other, 336, 396; pleasures of, true, 356, 387 _n._; good a mixture of pleasure and, 361; same principle of classification applied to pleasure as to, 382; classification of true and false, how applied to cognitions, 394; its valuable principles, 395; see _Relativity_, _Science_, _Self-knowledge_.
Kosmos, the first topic of Greek speculation, i.
_ix_.
; primitive belief, 2; early explanation by Polytheism, _ib._; Homer and Hesiod, _ib._; Thales, 4; water once covered the earth, notices of the argument from prints of shells and fishes, 18; Anaximander, 5-7; Anaximenes, 7-8; Pythagoras, 12; Pythagorean music of the spheres, 14; Xenophanes, 18, 119 _n._; Parmenides, 24, 90 _n._; Herakleitus, 32; Empedokles, 39, 41; Diogenes of Apollonia, 64; its Reason, different conceptions of Sokrates and Aristotle, ii.
402 _n._; soul prior to and more powerful than body, iv.
386, 419, 421; the good and the bad souls at work in the universe, 386; all things full of gods, 388; soul of, iii.
265 _n._, iv.
421; its position and elements, 225; affinity of soul of, and human, iii.
366 _n._; mythe in _Politikus_, 265 _n._; divine steersman and dæmons, _ib._; analogy of individual mind and cosmical process, i.
36 _n._; comparison of man to kosmos unnecessary and confusing, iii.
367; free from pleasure and pain, 389; forced conjunction of kosmology and ethics, 391; idea of good rules the ideal, as sun the visible, iv.
64; simile of, absolute height and depth, 87; unchangeable essences of, rarely studied, iii.
361; aversion to studying, on ground of impiety, iv.
219 _n._; no _knowledge_ of, obtainable, 220; theory in _Timæus_ acknowledged to be merely an [Greek: ei)kô\s lo/gos], 217; Demiurgus, ideas, chaos postulated, 220; Time began with the, 227; is a living being and a god, 220, 223; Demiurgus produces, by persuading Necessity, 220; process of demiurgic construction, 223; the copy of the [Greek: Au)to/zôon], _ib._, 227, 235 _n._, 264; product of joint action of reason and necessity, 238; body, spherical form, and rotations, i.
25 _n._, iv.
225, 229, 237, 252, 325 _n._, 388-9; to be studied for mental hygienic, 252; primary and visible gods, 229; secondary and generated gods, 230; construction of man, 243; generated gods fabricate cranium as miniature of kosmos, with rational soul rotating within, 235; four elements not primitive, 238; action of Ideas on prime matter, 238; Forms of the elements, _ib._; primordial chaos, 240; geometrical theory of the elements, _ib._; borrowed from Pythagoreans, i.
349 _n._; Aristotle on, iv.
241 _n._; varieties of each element, 242; contrast of Plato's admiration, with degenerate realities, 262, 264; degeneracy originally intended, 263; recurrence of destructive agencies, 270, 307; change of view in _Epinomis_, 421, 424 _n._ Krates, the "door-opener," i.
173; Sokrates' precepts fully carried out by Diogenes and, 160, 174.
Kratippus, the Peripatetic, i.
258 _n._ _Kratylus_, purpose, iii.
302-8, 309 _n._, 321, 323, 325 _n._; authenticity, i.
316; date, 306, 309, 310, 312; subject and personages, iii.
285; speaking and naming conducted according to fixed laws, 286; names distinguished by Plato as true or false, _ib._ _n._; connected with doctrine of Ideas, 326 _n._; the thing spoken of _suffers_, 287 _n._; name, a didactic instrument, made by lawgiver on type of name-form, 287, 312, 329; Plato's _idéal_, 325, 328 _n._, 329; compared with his views on social institutions, 327; natural rectitude of names, 289, 300 _n._, 305 _n._; names vary in degree of aptitude, 319; aptitude consists in resemblance, 313; difficult to harmonise with facts, 323; forms of names and of things nameable, 289; lawgiver alone discerns essences of names, and assigns them correctly, 290; proofs cited from etymology, 299, 300 _n._, 307 _n._; not caricatures of sophists, 302, 304, 310 _n._, 314 _n._, 321, 323; the etymologies serious, 306-12, 317 _n._; counter-theory, _Homo Mensura_, 291, 326 _n._; objection, it levels all animals, 292; analogy of physical processes, unsuitable, 294; belief not dependent on will, 297; first imposer of names a Herakleitean, 301 _n._, 314-5, 320 _n._; how names have become disguised, 312; changes hard to follow, 315; onomastic art, letters as well as things must be distinguished with their essential properties, 313; Herakleitean theory admitted, 317; some names not consistent with it, 319; things known only through names, not true, 320; Herakleitean flux, true of particulars, not of Ideas, _ib._; the theory uncertain, implicit trust not to be put in names, 321, 324; compared with _Politikus_, 281, 329; _Sophistês_.
331; _Timæus_, _ib._; various reading in, p. 429C, 317 _n._ Krete, unlettered community, iv.
277; public training and mess, 279; its customs peculiar to itself and Sparta, 280 _n._ _Kritias_, a fragment, i.
268, iv.
265; probably would have been an ethical epic in prose, 269; in _Republic_ tetralogy, 215, 265; date, i.
309, 311-3, 315, 325; authenticity, 307, iv.
266 _n._; subject, 266; citizens of Plato's state identified with ancient Athenians, _ib._; Solon and Egyptian priests, _ib._, 268; explanation of their learning, 271; island Atlantis and its kings, 268; address of Zeus, 269; corruption and wickedness of people, _ib._; submergence, 270; mythe incomplete, iii.
409 _n._; presented as matter of history, iv.
270; recurrence of destructive kosmical agencies, _ib._ _Kriton_, rhetorical, not dialectical, i.
433; compared with _Gorgias_, ii.
362; general purpose, subject, and interlocutors, i.
425, 428; authority of public judgment, nothing, of Expert, everything, 420, 435; Sokrates does not name, but himself acts as, expert, 436; Sokrates' answer to Kriton's appeal to flee, 426; Sokrates' principle, Never act unjustly, 427; this a cardinal point, though most men differ from him, _ib._; character and disposition of Sokrates, differently set forth, 428; imaginary pleading of the Laws of Athens, _ib._; agreement with Athenian democratic sentiment, 430, 432; Plato's purpose in this, 428; attempts reconciliation of constitutional allegiance with Sokrates' individuality, 432; Sokrates characteristics overlooked in the harangue, 431; maintained by his obedience from conviction, _ib._ Kyrenaics, scheme of life, i.
188; ethical theory, 195; logical theory, 197; doctrine of relativity, _ib._, 204; Æthiops, Antipater, and Arêtê, 195; Theodorus on the gods, 202; see _Aristippus_, _Hegesias_.
L. Labour, division of, iv.
138.
_Lachês_, authenticity, i.
305, ii.
151; date, i.
304, 306, 308-10, 312, 315, 328, 331 _n._; subject and interlocutors, ii.
138; dramatic contrast of Lachês and Sokrates, 150; should lessons be received from a master of arms, 138; Sokrates refers to a professional judge, 139; the judge must prove his competence, Sokrates confesses incompetence, 140; marks of the Expert, 141; education--virtue must first be known, 142; courage, 143; example instead of definition, _ib._; not endurance, 144; intelligence of things terrible and not terrible, 145, iv.
138; such intelligence not possessed by professional artists, ii.
148; but is an inseparable part of knowledge of good and evil generally, 149; intelligence of good and evil generally--too wide, 146; apparent tendency of Plato's mind in looking for a solution, 147; compared with _Theagês_, 104; _Charmidês_, 168; _Politikus_, iii.
282-4; _Republic_, iv.
138.
Lactantius, the soul, ii.
425 _n._ Land, division of, twelve tribes, iv.
329; perpetuity of lots of, 326, 360; Aristotle on, 326 _n._; succession, 328, 404; distribution of annual produce, 361.
Language, _natural_ rectitude of, ii.
89; origin of, iii.
326 _n._, 328 _n._, 329 _n._; Leibnitz on a philosophical, 322 _n._; see _Names_.
Lassalle, on Herakleitus, iii.
101 _n._, 159 _n._, 309 _n._, 324 _n._; _Homo Mensura_, 297 _n._; _Kratylus_, 306 _n._, 307 _n._; _Timæus_, iv.
228 _n._ Lavoisier, discovery of composition of water, ii.
164 _n._ Law, its various meanings, ii.
91, 92 _n._; our idea of, less extensive than _Nomos_ (q. v.), i.
380 _n._, 382 _n._, ii.
92 _n._; and Nature, antithesis of, 333, 338, i.
197; also in Indian philosophy, 162; Sokrates' disobedience of, 434 _n._; the lawful is the profitable, ii.
36; the consecrated and binding customs, the decree of the city, social or civic opinion, 76; objection, discordance of, 78; is _good_ opinion of the city, true opinion, or finding out of reality, 77; real things are always accounted real, analogies, 79; of Cretan Minos divine and excellent, extant, 80, 90; to Plato only what _ought to be_ law, _is_, 88-90, iii.
317 _n._; reality found out by the Expert, ii.
87-88; fixed, recognised by Demokritus, i.
73; all proceedings of nature conducted according to fixed, iii.
286; of nature, Mill on number of ultimate, 132 _n._; no laws to limit scientific governor, 269; different view, iv.
319; government by fixed, the second-best, iii.
270; test of, goodness of ethical purpose and working, iv.
384; proëm to every important, 321; Cicero coincides, 322 _n._; the proëms, didactic or rhetorical homilies, 322; to serve as type for poets, 323; proëm to laws against heresy, 383; of Zaleukus and Charondas, 323 _n._ Law-administration, objects of punishment, to deter or reform, ii.
270, iv.
408; general coincidence of Platonic and Attic, 363 _n._, 374, 374 _n._, 403, 406, 430; many of Plato's laws are discharges of ethical antipathy, 411; penalties against contentious litigation, 410; oaths for dikasts, judges, and electors only, 413; thirty-seven nomophylakes, 332; many details left to nomophylakes, 341; assisted by select Dikasts, 362; limited power of fining, 360; necessity of precision in terms of accusation, 413 _n._; public and private causes, 339; public, three stages, 340, 415; criminal procedure, 362; distinction of damage and injury, 365; witnesses, 409; abuse of public trust, 412; evasion of military service, _ib._; varieties of homicide, 370-2; penalties, 370; wounds and beating, 372, 374, 408; heresy, and [Greek: u(/bris] to divine things or places, 375-386; neglect of parents, 399 _n._, 407; testaments, 404; divorce, 408; lunacy, 407; poison and sorcery, 407; libels, 409; fugitive slaves, 400; theft, 364, 409; property found, 398; fraudulent traders, 402; mendicants, 409; Benefit societies, 399; suretyship, 415; funerals, _ib._ Laws, the, see _Leges_.
Lectures, Plato's revealed solution of difficulties, an untenable hypothesis, i.
401; differ from dialogues in being given in his own name, 402; of Protagoras, ii.
301; contrasted with cross-examination, 277, 303; dialectic a test of the efficacy of the expository process, i.
358; worthless for instruction, ii.
136, 233 _n._, iii.
33-5, 49, 52, 54, 337 _n._; difference in _Timæus_ and _Kritias_, 53.
_Leges_, authenticity, i.
304, 306, 338, iv.
325 _n._, 389 _n._, 429; date, i.
313, 315, 324, iv.
272, 413 _n._; scene and persons, 272, 277; change in Plato's circumstances and feelings, 273, 320; analogous to Euripides' _Bacchæ_ and Aristophanes' _Nubes_, 277; Xenophon compared, i.
244; Plato's purpose, to remedy all misconduct, iv.
369; no evidence of Plato's study of practical working of different institutions, 397; large proportion of preliminary discussions and didactic exhortation, 281; soul prior to and more powerful than body, 386, 419; the good and the bad souls at work in universe, 386; all things full of gods, 388; Manichæanism in, 389 _n._; good identical with maximum of pleasure and minimum of pain, 292-297, 299-303; at least an useful fiction, 333; justice a good _per se_ and from its _consequences_, 294; what constitutes injustice, 367-9; no man voluntarily wicked, 365, 367; three causes of misguided proceedings, 366; punishment, to deter or reform, _ib._, 408; threefold division of good, 428; virtue fourfold, 417; the four virtues the highest, and source of all other, goods, 428; unity of state's end to be kept in view, 417; the end is the virtue of the citizens, _ib._; Nocturnal Council to comprehend and carry out this end, 416, 418, 425, 429; and enforce orthodox creed, 419; training of counsellors in _Epinomis_, 420, 424; basis of Spartan institutions too narrow, 282; Plato's state, a compromise of oligarchical and democratical sentiment, 333, 337; historical retrospect of society, 307-315; frequent destruction of communities, 307; difficulties of government, seven distinct natural titles to, 309; view of _the lot_, 310; imprudent to found government on any one title only, _ib._; illustrated by Argos, Messênê, Sparta, _ib._; Persia and Athens compared, 312; monarchy and democracy the _mother-polities_, _ib._; bad training of king's sons, _ib._; the Magnetic community, origin of, 274 _n._; its [Greek: u(po/thesis], 328 _n._; site and settlers, 320, 329, 336; circular form, unwalled, 344; defence of territory, rural police, 335; Spartan _Kryptia_ compared, 336; test of laws, goodness of ethical purpose and working, 284; general coincidence of Platonic and Attic law, 363 _n._, 374, 374 _n._, 403, 406, 430; many of Plato's laws are discharges of ethical antipathy, 411; state's laws, with their proëms, 321; the proëms, didactic or rhetorical homilies, 322; Cicero on, _ib._ _n._; to serve as type for poets, 323; training of the emotions through influence of the Muses, Apollo and Dionysus, 290, 347; endurance of pain in Spartan discipline, 285; drunkenness forbidden at Sparta, how far justifiable, 286; citizens tested against pleasure, 285; Dionysiac banquets, under a sober president, 289; elders require stimulus of wine, 297; precautions in electing minister of education, 338; age, and matter of teaching, 348, 350; the teaching simple and common to both sexes, 351; music and dancing, 291; three choruses, youths, mature men, and elders, 296, 305; elders, by example, to keep up purity of music, 297; prizes at musical and gymnastic festivals, 292, 337; but object of training, war, not prizes, 358; importance of music in education, 305; musical and literary education, fixed type, 292, 338, 349; poets to conform to ethical creed, 292-7; change for worse at Athens after Persian invasion, 313; this change began in music, 314; contrast in Demosthenes and _Menexenus_, 315 _n._, 318; dangers of change in national music, doctrine also of Damon, 315; Plato's aversion to dramatic poetry of Athens, 316, 350; peculiar to himself, 317; value of arithmetic, 330 _n._; purpose of teaching astronomy, 354; planets, Plato's idea of motions of, _ib._; circular motion best, 388, 389; hunting, meaning of, 356; hunting, how far permitted, 355; for religion, oracles of Dodona and Delphi to be consulted, 325, 337; temples and priests, 337; number of sacrifices determined by lawgiver, 357; only state worship allowed, 378; contrast with Sokratic teaching, iii.
148; Milton on, iv.
379 _n._; necessity of enforcing state religion, 378; [Greek: u(/bris] to divine things or places, 375; proëm to laws against, 383; impiety, from one of three heresies, 376; punishment, 376-9; majority of Greek world would have been included in one of the three varieties, 381; first heresy confuted, 386; argument inconsistent and unsatisfactory, 388; second confuted, 389; the third the worst, 384; confuted, 391; incongruity of Plato's doctrine, 393; dissent of Herodotus and Sokrates, 394; opposition to Plato's doctrine in Greece, 395; general Greek belief, 392, 394; division of citizens and land, twelve tribes, 329; four classes, property qualification for magistracies and voters, 331; perpetuity of lots of land, 326, 360; Aristotle on, 326 _n._; succession, 328; number of citizens, 326, 328; Aristotle on, 326 _n._; syssitia, 344, 359; same duties and training for women as men, 195; family ties mischievous, but cannot practically be got rid of, 327; to be watched over by magistrates, 328; marriage, _ib._, 332, 342, 344, 359, 405, 406; board of Matrons, 345; divorce, 406; treatment of infants, 346; orphans, guardians, 404, 406; limited inequality tolerated as to movable property, 330; modes of acquiring property, 397; length of prescription for ownership, 415; no private possession of gold or silver, no loans or interest, 331; slavery, 342, 400; Aristotle differs, 343 _n._; distribution of annual produce, 361; each artisan only one trade, _ib._; retailers, regulations about, _ib._, 401; punishment for fraud, 402; Benefit Societies, 399; Metics, 362; strangers and foreign travel of citizens, 414; electoral scheme, 333; thirty-seven nomophylakes, 332; assisted by select Dikasts, 362; many details left to, 341; the council, and other magistrates, 335; limited power of fining, 360; military commanders and council, 332; monthly military muster of whole population, 358; oaths for dikasts, judges, and electors only, 413; penal ties against contentious litigation, 410; judicial duties, public and private causes, 339; public, three stages, 340, 415; witnesses, 409; distinction of damage and injury, 365; sacrilege and high treason the gravest crimes, 363; abuse of public trust, 412; evasion of military service, 412; homicide, penalties, 370; varieties of, 370-2; wounds and beating, 372, 373, 408; poison and sorcery, 407; neglect of parents, _ib._; lunacy, _ib._; libels, 409; theft, 364, 409; suretyship, 415; mendicants, 409; funerals, 415; compared with earlier works, 275, 280; _Cyropædia_, 319; _Protagoras_, 301; _Gorgias_, ii.
362, iv.
301-2, 324; _Phædrus_, _ib._; _Philêbus_, 301; _Republic_, 298 _n._, 302, 319, 327, 390, 429; _Timæus_, 389 _n._ Lehrsch, iii.
308 _n._, 309 _n._ Leibnitz, interdependence of nature, ii.
248 _n._; agreement with Plato's metaphysics, _ib._; pre-existence of soul, _ib._; natural significant aptitude of letters, iii.
313 _n._; on a philosophical language, 322 _n._ Lenormant, iii.
306 _n._ Leukippus, i.
65, 66, iii.
243 _n._ Lewis, Sir G. C., ancient astronomy, iv.
355 _n._, 424 _n._ Liberty, excess of, at Athens, iv.
312.
Libraries, ancient, i.
270, 278 _n._, 280, 286; copying by _librarii_ and private friends, 281 _n._, 284 _n._; official MSS., _ib._; see _Alexandrine_, _Lykeum_, _Academy_.
Lichtenstädt, iv.
256 _n._ Light, Plato's theory, iv.
236.
Like known by like, i.
354 _n._, ii.
359 _n._; friend to like, 359.
Littré, the soul, iv.
257 _n._; synthetic character of ancient medicine, 260 _n._ Loans, disallowed, iii.
331.
Lobeck, iii.
304 _n._, 311 _n._, 312 _n._ Locke, atomic doctrine of primary and secondary qualities, i.
70; good identical with pleasure, ii.
306 _n._ Logic, influence of Herakleitus on development of, i.
37; of a science, Plato's different from Aristotelic and modern view, 358 _n._; objects of perception and of conception, comprised in Plato's _ens_, iii.
229, 231; concepts and percepts, relative, 75; in Sokrates, the subordination of terms, i.
455; position of Megarics in history of, 131 _n._; negative, of Antisthenes' school, 149; Kyrenaic theory, 197; elementary distinctions unfamiliar in Plato's time, ii.
13, 34 _n._, 235, 319, iii.
190, 222, 229, 241; the dialogues of search are lessons in method, 177, 188; collection of sophisms necessary for a theory of, i.
131; Aristotle first distinguished [Greek: o(mô/numa], [Greek: sunô/numa], and [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an], iii.
94 _n._; generalisation and division, ii.
27; process of classification not much attended to, iii.
344; definition and division illustrated in _Phædrus_ and _Philêbus_, 29, 344; names relative and non-relative, 232; connotation of a word, to be known before its accidents and antecedents, ii.
242; logical subject has no real essence apart from predicates, i.
168 _n._; logical and concrete aggregates, ii.
52, 53; _concrete_, its Greek equivalent, 52 _n._; opposites, only one to each thing, 13 _n._; contraries, the Pythagorean "principia of existing things," i.
15 _n._; Herakleitus' theory, 30, 31; are excluded in nothing save the self-existent Idea, ii.
7 _n._; judgment, akin to proposition, and may be false by partnership with form _non-ens_, iii.
213-4; implied in every act of consciousness, 165 _n._; Plato's canon of belief, iv.
231; contradictory propositions not possible, i.
166 _n._; principle of contradiction, not laid down in Plato's time, iii.
99; logical maxim of, 239; function of copula, i.
170 _n._; misconceived by Antisthenes, iii.
221, 232 _n._, 251 _n._; Plato's view of causal reasoning, ii.
253; modern views on _à priori_ reasonings, difference of Plato's, 251; see _Fallacies_, _Predication_, _Proposition_.
Logographers, iii.
27 _n._, 36 _n._ Lot, principle of the, iv.
309, 310 _n._ Love, a moving force in Empedokles, i.
38; cause of, desire for what is akin to us or our own, ii.
182; see _Eros_.
Lucian, worthlessness of geometry, i.
384 _n._; on time wasted in philosophic training, 404 _n._ Lucretius, on Anaxagorean homoeomeries, i.
52 _n._; origin of language, iii.
329 _n._; on pleasure, 379 _n._, 387 _n._, i.
163 _n._; on justice, iv.
130 _n._; appearances of gods to men, 155 _n._; theology of, 162 _n._ [Greek: Lusite/loun], derivation, iii.
301 _n._ Luther, on music, iv.
151 _n._ Lykeum, Peripatetic school, i.
269; the library, founded for use of inmates and special visitors, 279 _n._; loss of library, 270.
Lykurgus, relation to Plato, i.
344 _n._ Lysias, rhetorical powers, iii.
48 _n._; Isokrates compared, 35, 37; unfairly treated in _Phædrus_, 47-8; rivalry with Plato, 408, 410 _n._, 411 _n._; oration against Æschines, i.
112.
_Lysis_, authenticity, i.
306, ii.
184 _n._; date, i.
308-10, 313, 326, ii.
184 _n._; subject suited for dialogue of search, 185; problem of _friendship_ too general, 186; debate partly real, partly verbal, 188; scenery and personages, 172; mode of talking with youth, 173; servitude of the ignorant, 176; lesson of humility, 177; illustrates Sokratic manner, _ib._; what is a friend, 178; appeal to maxims of poets, 179; likeness and unlikeness, _ib._, 188 _n._; the Indifferent, friend to Good, 180, 189; anxious to escape from felt evil, 180; illustrated by philosopher's condition, 181, 190; the _primum amabile_, _ib._, 191; cause of friendship, desire for what is akin to us or our own, 182; good akin, evil alien, to every one, 183; the Good and Beautiful as objects of attachment, 194; failure of enquiry, 184; compared with Cicero _De Amicitia_, 189 _n._; _Charmidês_, 172, 184 _n._ M. Macaulay, Lord, Theology not a progressive science, ii.
428.
Mackintosh, Sir J., iv.
105 _n._ Madness, Plato's view, ii.
129; of philosophers, 383; varieties of, Eros one, iii.
11; see _Inspiration_.
Magic, Empedokles claims powers of, i.
47; Plato's laws against, iv.
407.
Magnet, analogy to poetic inspiration, ii.
128, 129.
Magnetic colony, see _Leges_.
Maine, meaning of natural justice, ii.
342 _n._; influence of Law in early societies, i.
382 _n._ Making and _doing_, ii.
155.
Malebranche, ii.
404 _n._, iv.
233.
Mallet, on _Sophistês_, iii.
245 _n._ Malthus, law of population, iv.
201; recognised by Plato and Aristotle, 202.
Man, Plato on antiquity of, iv.
307; construction of, 243; the cause of evil, 234; inconsistency _ib._ _n._; see _Body_, _Soul_, _Immortality_.
Manichæanism of _Leges_, iv.
389 _n._ Mansel, Dr., iii.
124 _n._ Mantineia, i.
211.
Marathon, iii.
406.
Marbach, i.
132 _n._ Mariandyni, iv.
343 _n._ Marriage, temporary for guardians, iv.
43, 175-8; object, 198; Plato's and modern sentiments, 192; Aristotle, 188, 198-201; laws in second _idéal_, 328, 332, 341, 344, 359, 405, 406; board of Matrons, 345; Malthus' law recognised by Plato and Aristotle, 202; divorce, 406.
Martin on _Timæus_, iv.
** 218 _n._, 224 _n._, 233 _n._, 424 _n._; _Leges_, 355 _n._ Materialists, iii.
203, 223; meaning of _ens_, 231; argument against, 203, 224, 226, 228; reply open to, 224, 229.
Matter, Aristotle's _materia prima_, i.
72, iii.
397 _n._; [Greek: to\ dektiko\n] of _Timæus_, _ib._; four elements not primitive, iv.
238; prime, action of Ideas on, _ib._; Voltaire on, i.
168 _n._ Maximus Tyrius, on Plato's reminiscence, ii.
250 _n._; variety, iii.
400 _n._ Measure, Plato's conception, ii.
112, 117, iii.
260; [Greek: to\ me/trion] of Plato, 397 _n._; Platonic _idéal_, undefined results, ii.
374; Pythagorean [Greek: kairo/s], iii.
397 _n._; necessary, to choose pleasures rightly, ii.
293, 357 _n._, iii.
391; virtue a right estimate of pleasure and pain, ii.
293, 305; courage a just estimate of things terrible, 307; false estimates of pleasures habitual, iii.
353; true pleasures admit of, 357; directive sovereignty of, 391; how applied in _Protagoras_, _ib._; how explained in _Philêbus_, 393.
Medical Art, analogy of rhetoric to, iii.
31; reducible to rule, ii.
372 _n._; physician not bound by peremptory rules, iii.
269; no refined, allowed, iv.
28; Plato's view of, 250; synthetic character of ancient, 260 _n._ Megarics, transcendental, not ethical, i.
122; shared with Plato the eristic of Sokrates, 124, 126; logical position misrepresented by historians, 131; negative dialectic attributed by historians to, 371; not peculiar to, 387; the charge brought by contemporaries against Sokrates, 388; fallacies of, ii.
215, iii.
92; sophisms of Eubulides, i.
133; real character of, 135; alleged over-refinement in classification of, iii.
196 _n._; not the idealists of _Sophistês_, 244; controversy with Aristotle about Power, i.
135; Aristotle's arguments not valid, 136-8; Aristotle himself concedes the doctrine, 139 _n._; doctrine of Diodôrus Kronus, 140, 143; defended by Hobbes, _ib._; depends on question of universal regularity of sequence, 141; sophism of Diodôrus Kronus, _ib._, 143; Stilpon, 147; Cicero on, 135 _n._; Ritter, 129 _n._; Prantl, _ib._, 132 _n._; Zeller, 131 _n._; Winckelmann, 132 _n._; Marbach, _ib._; Tiedemann, _ib._; Stallbaum, _ib._; Deycks, 136 _n._; see _Eukleides_.
Melêtus, reply of Sokrates to, Plato and Xenophon compared, i.
456; Plato's views coincide with, iv.
211, 230 _n._, 381, 385, 411, i.
113.
Melissus of Samos, i.
93.
Memory, difference of [Greek: mnê/mê] and [Greek: a)na/mnêsis], iii.
350 _n._; see _Association_.
Ménage, on etymology, iii.
303 _n._ Menedêmus the Eretrian, i.
148; disallowed negative predications, 170.
_Menexenus_, its authenticity, i.
316, 338, iii.
412 _n._; date, i.
307, 309, 313, 324; anachronism, iii.
411; scenery and persons, 401; funeral harangues at Athens, _ib._, 404; Sokrates recites harangue learnt from Aspasia, 402; framed on the established type, 405; excited much admiration, 407; probable motives of Plato, _ib._, 410; contrast with _Leges_, iv.
315 _n._, 318; _Gorgias_, ii.
374, iii.
409.
_Menon_, date, i.
306-7, 308-10, 313, 315, 325 _n._, ii.
228 _n._, 246 _n._; purpose, 235; gives points in common between Sokrates and Sophists, 257; scenery and persons, 232; is virtue teachable, _ib._, 239, iii.
330 _n._; plurality of virtues, ii.
233; search for common property, 234; how is process of search useful, 237; Sokrates' cross-examination like effect of torpedo, _ib._; analogies, definitions of figure and colour, 235; Menon's definition, refuted, 236; theory of reminiscence, 237; illustrated by questioning Menon's slave, 238, 249 _n._, 251; metempsychosis, 249; little said of the _Ideas_, 253, 255 _n._; virtue is knowledge, 239; and so teachable, 240; relation of opinion to knowledge, 241, 255 _n._, 392 _n._, iii.
172 _n._; right opinion of good statesmen, from inspiration, ii.
242; highest virtue teachable, but all existing virtue is from inspiration, _ib._; virtue itself remains unknown, _ib._, 245; Sokrates' doctrine, universal desire of good, 243; compared with _Phædrus_ and _Phædon_, 249; _Protagoras_, 244; _Politikus_, iii.
283; _Timæus_, _Gorgias_, _Republic_, ii.
254 _n._ Mentiens, sophism, i.
128, 133.
Messênê, bad basis of government, iv.
310.
Metaphor, Herakleitus' exposition by, i.
28, 30, 37 _n._; Plato's tendency to found arguments on, 343, 353, _n._, ii.
337 _n._, iii.
65 _n._, 173, 207, 351, 364; doctrine of Ideas derived its plausibility from, i.
343; waxen memorial tablet in the mind, iii.
169; pigeon-cage, 171; souls' [Greek: knê=sis] compared to children's teething, 399 _n._; the steersman, iv.
53; Idea of Good in intellectual, as sun in visible, 63; the cave, iii.
257 _n._, iv.
67-70; analogy of state and individual, 11, 20, 39, 79-84, 96; exaggerated, 115, 121, 124; kosmos, absolute height and depth, 87.
Metaphysics, see _Ontology_.
Meteorology, of Anaxagoras, i.
58; Diogenes of Apollonia, 64; Sokrates avoided, 376.
Metempsychosis, included in all ancient speculations, ii.
390, 425 _n._; belief of Empedokles, i.
46; included in Plato's proof of soul's immortality, ii.
414; theory of, 237, 247, iv.
234; of ordinary men only, ii.
390, 416, 425; mythe, iii.
12, 14 _n._; general doctrine in Virgil, ii.
425 _n._ Method, revolutionised by Sokrates, i.
_x_; obstetric, 367, ii.
251, iii.
112, 176; Aristotle's Dialectic and Demonstrative, i.
363; see _Dialectic_, _Negative_, _Inductive_.
Metics, admission of, iv.
362; Xenophon on, i.
238.
[Greek: Me/trion, to/], of Plato, iii.
397 _n._ Michelet, iv.
151 _n._ Middle ages, disputations in the, i.
397 _n._; views on causation, ii.
409 _n._ [Greek: Mi/gma], see _Chaos_.
Mill, Jas., on law of mental association, ii.
192 _n._; transmission of established morality of a society, 275 _n._; on the moral sense, iv.
128 _n._; ethical end, 105 _n._ Mill, J. S., on vague connotation of general terms, ii.
48 _n._; evils of informal debate, 220 _n._, 222 _n._; definition of fallacy, i.
129; heads of fallacies, ii.
218; fallacies of confusion, Descartes' argument, iii.
297 _n._; of Sufficient Reason, earliest example of, i.
6 _n._; relativity of knowledge, iii.
128 _n._; abstract names, 78 _n._; simple objects undefinable, i.
172 _n._; comparison of Form with particular phenomena, iii.
64 _n._; necessity of Verification, 168 _n._; _antecedent_, _consequent_, _simultaneous_, 165 _n._; assumption in axioms of arithmetic, 396 _n._; axioms of arithmetic and geometry, from induction, iv.
353 _n._; ultimate laws of nature, iii.
132 _n._; relation of art to science, 43 _n._; the beautiful, ii.
50 _n._; hostility to novel attempts at analysis of ethics, i.
387 _n._; _Liberty_, 395 _n._, ii.
367 _n._; Sokrates' Utilitarianism, 310 _n._; theory of syllogism, 255 _n._; approximation to Plato and Aristotle as to ideal state of society, iv.
199 _n._ Milton, on Plato's intolerance, iv.
379 _n._ Mind, doctrine of Parmenides, i.
26; identified with heat by Demokritus, 75; its seat in various parts of the body, Demokritus, 76; Sokrates' theory of natural state of human, 373; elenchus the sovereign purifier of, iii.
197; Sokrates' obstetric, 112; the self, ii.
11, 25; state of agent's, as to knowledge, frequent enquiry in Plato, 83; Plato's view, an assemblage of latent capacities, 164; knowledge is dominant agency in, 290; usefulness of negative result for training, 186; operation of pre-natal experience on, iii.
13; rhetoric should include a classification of minds and discourses, 32; _idéal_ unattainable, 42, 45; compared to paper, 169, 351; of each individual, tripartite, iv.
37; analogous to rulers, guardians, craftsmen, 39; high development of body and, equally necessary, ii.
422 _n._; relation to bodily organs, iii.
159, iv.
387 _n._; diseases of, from body, 250; no man voluntarily wicked, 249, 365-8; preservative and healing agencies, 250; treatment of, by itself, 251; rotations of kosmos to be studied, 252; see _Reason_, _Soul_.
_Minos_, authenticity, i.
306-7, 309, 336, 337 _n._, ii.
82, 93; in _Leges_ trilogy, 91; and _Hipparchus_ analogous and inferior to other works, 82; subject the characteristic property connoted by _law_, 76, 86; discussed by historical Sokrates, _ib._; its meanings, 91; three parts, objections, 76; is _good_ opinion of the city, true opinion, or finding out of reality, 77; real things always accounted real, analogies, 79; only what _ought to be_ law, _is_, 80, 88-9, iii.
281 _n._, 317 _n._; Expert finds out and certifies truth, ii.
87-9; laws of Cretan Minos divine and excellent, extant, 80, 90; Minos' character variously represented, 81; what does the lawgiver prescribe for health of mind--unanswered, _ib._; bad definitions of law, 86; Sokrates' reasoning unsound but Platonic, 88.
[Greek: Mnê/mê], derivation, iii.
302 _n._; difference of [Greek: a)na/mnêsis], 350 _n._ Mohl, Prof., on Hafiz, iii.
16 _n._ [Greek: Moi=rai], relation to Gods, iv.
221 _n._ Monad, the Pythagorean, i.
11-12; Platonic form of Pythagorean doctrine, 15 _n._; see _Number_.
Monarchy, and democracy the _mother-polities_, iv.
312; dissent of Aristotle, _ib._ _n._; monarch a Principal Cause, iii.
266; true government by the one scientific man, 268, 273; no laws to limit scientific governor, 269; _idéal_ attainable only in Saturnian period, 264, iv.
319; distinguished from general, rhetor, &c., iii.
271; aims at forming virtuous citizens, 272; Sokratic ideal differently worked out by Plato and Xenophon, 273; of Atlantis, iv.
268; bad education of kings' son, 312.
Monboddo, on Cartesian and Newtonian theories, ii.
402 _n._; on Ideas, 408 _n._; mind and body, iv.
387 _n._ Monkeys, Galen on structure of, iv.
257 _n._ Morality of a society, how transmitted, ii.
274; relation of art to, see _Education_, _Poetry_; _Ethics_.
More, Dr. Henry, emanative cause, ii.
403 _n._; metempsychosis, 427 _n._; relativity of knowledge, iii.
124 _n._ Moses, Plato compared to, iv.
256.
Motion, of atoms, the capital fact of Demokritean kosmos, i.
72; Zeno's arguments, 97; not denied as a phenomenal and relative fact, 102; form of, iii.
209-10, 232, 245 _n._; varieties of rectilinear, iv.
225 _n._; circular, the best, 225, 388-9; Diodôrus Kronus, i.
145; Aristotle nearly coincides with, 146; and Hobbes, _ib._; Monboddo on Aristotle and Plato, iv.
386 _n._ Motives, distinction of, ii.
357 _n._ Müller, Prof. Max, origin of language, iii.
326 _n._; vague use of words, i.
398 _n._ Munk, Dr. Edward, i.
311, 320, 401 _n._ Music, Pythagorean, of the spheres, i.
14; and speech illustrate coalescence of finite and infinite, iii.
340; Cynics' contempt for, i.
151, 155; Platonic sense, iv.
149; disparaged, ii.
355; education in, necessary for guardians, iv.
23; and dancing, effect on emotions, 347; excites love of the beautiful, 27; importance of, in education, 305; Aristotle on, 151 _n._, 306; Xenophon, _ib._, i.
228; Luther, iv.
151 _n._; gymnastic necessary to correct, 29; prizes at festivals, 292, 337, 358; three choruses, youths, mature men, elders, 296, 305; only grave allowed, 32, 168, 298 _n._; regulated by authority, 292-4, 349; to keep emotions in a proper state, 169; elders, by example, to keep up purity of music, 297; change for worse at Athens began in, 313, 314 _n._, 318; dangers of change in national, doctrine also of Damon, 315.
Mysticism, religious, in Empedokles, i.
47 _n._; mixture in Plato of poetical fancy and religious, with dialectic theory, iii.
16.
Mythe, general character of Plato's, ii.
415, iii.
310, iv.
255 _n._; disparaged, in _Sophistês_, iii.
265 _n._; Plato's resemblance to Hebrew writers, iv.
160 _n._; Aristotle on blending philosophy with, 255 _n._; probably often used by Sophists, ii.
267 _n._; of Prometheus and Epimetheus, 267; value of, 276; of Hades in _Gorgias_, 361; of soul in _Phædon_, 415; of pre-existent soul, iii.
12, 14 _n._; of the kosmos in _Politikus_, 265 _n._; _Timæus_, 409 _n._; _Kritias_, _ib._, iv.
268; of departed souls in _Republic_, 94; the choice of Herakles, i.
177; training by fictions, iv.
24, 154; Plato's view of the purpose of, _ib._, 303-5; Plato's and Homer's fictions contrasted, 153 _n._; retort open to poets, _ib._, 154 _n._; no repulsive fictions to be tolerated about gods or Hades, 25, 154; a better class to be substituted from religion for the existing fictions, 160; poet must avoid variety of imitation, 26, 155; type for narratives about men, 26; fiction as to origin of classes, 30; difficulty of procuring first admission for fiction, 158.
Mythology, prolonged belief in, iv.
152 _n._; Xenophanes' censure of, i.
16; Herakleitus', 26; Plato and the popular, 441 _n._, ii.
415, iii.
265 _n._, iv.
24, 155 _n._, 196, 238 _n._, 325, 328, 337, 398.
N. Names, _relative_ and _non-relative_, iii.
232 _n._; Pythagorean theory, 304 _n._, 316 _n._; mystic sanctity of, 323 _n._; distinction of divine and human, 300 _n._; natural rectitude of, ii.
89, iii.
286 _n._, 300 _n._, 306 _n._; connected with doctrine of _Ideas_, 286 _n._, 327 _n._; difficult to harmonise with facts, 323; the essence of things, 305 _n._; things known only through names, not true, 320; the thing spoken of _suffers_, 287 _n._; forms of names and of things nameable, 289; didactic instruments made by law-giver on type of name-forms, 287, 290, 313; onomastic art, _ib._; proofs cited from etymology, 299, 300 _n._, 307 _n._; specimens of ancient etymologies, 307 _n._, 308 _n._, 309 _n._, 310 _n._, 311 _n._; not caricatures of sophists, 302, 304, 306-12, 314 _n._, 317 _n._, 321, 324; Plato's _idéal_, 325, 328 _n._, 330; compared with his views on social institutions, 327; _Homo Mensura_ the counter theory of language, 326 _n._; intrinsic aptitude of, for particular things, 289; consists in resemblance, 313; vary in degree of aptitude, 318; first imposer of, a Herakleitean, 302 _n._, 314-7, 319 _n._; how they have become disguised, 312; changes hard to follow, 315; Herakleitean theory admitted, 310; some names not consistent with it, 319; the theory uncertain, implicit trust not to be put in names, 321, 325; see _Language_.
Nature, course of, the ultimatum of Demokritus and moderns, i.
73, _ib._ _n._; all proceedings of, conducted according to fixed laws, iii.
286; Greek view of, hostile to philosophical speculation, i.
86; interdependence of, ii.
247; antithesis of law and, 333, 338, i.
197; also in Indian philosophy, 162; [Greek: phu/sei] and [Greek: kata\ phu/sin], iii.
294 _n._, iv.
309 _n._; Aristotle, 387 _n._; uncertainty of referring to, ii.
340, iv.
194, i.
162; meaning of law of, ii.
341 _n._; Mill on number of ultimate Laws of, iii.
132; no object in, mean to the philosopher, 61.
Necessary truth, iii.
253 _n._ Necessity, means _Freewill_ in Plato, iv.
221; kosmos produced by joint action of reason and, 238.
Negative, Plato's view of the, erroneous, iii.
236.
239; predications disallowed by Menedêmus, i.
170.
Negative Method, harshly censured by historians of philosophy, i.
123; preponderated in Plato's age, _ib._; erroneously attributed to Sophists and Megarics, 371, 387; the charge brought by contemporary Athenians against Sokrates, 388; Sokrates and Plato its champions, _vii_, _x_, 372; Sokrates the greatest Eristic of his age, 124; first applied negative analysis to the common consciousness, 385, 389 _n._; to social, political, ethical topics, 385; the Megarics shared with Plato the negative impulse of Sokrates, 126; Academics, 131 _n._; negative and affirmative veins in Plato distinct, 399, 403, 420; the negative extreme in _Parmenidês_, iii.
71, i.
125; overlooked in _Kriton_, 433; well illustrated in _Lysis_, ii.
177; the affirmative prominent in his old age, i.
408; its necessity as a condition of reasoned truth, 91, 371, 373, 387, 395 _n._, 421, ii.
186, i.
130; a value by itself, iii.
51, 70, 85, 149-50, 176, 184 _n._, 284, 422; a necessary preliminary to the affirmative, ii.
186, 201; essential to control of the affirmative, iii.
92 _n._, i.
123; its difficulties never solved, iii.
51; see _Dialectic_.
Nemesius, relativity of mental and sensational processes, iii.
122 _n._ Newton, accused of substituting physical for mental causes, ii.
402 _n._ Nile, inundation of, explanation of Anaxagoras, i.
58 _n._ [Greek: No/mimon], equivocal use, ii.
38.
Nominalism, first protest against Realism, Antisthenes, i.
164; of Stilpon, 167.
Nomos, idea of law less extensive than, i.
380 _n._, 382 _n._, ii.
92 _n._; omnipotence of King, i.
378, 380, 392 _n._, 424, ii.
333; Sokrates an exception, _ib._; Plato's and Aristotle's theory of politics to resist King, i.
393 _n._; Plato appeals to, iv.
24 _n._; Epiktêtus, i.
388 _n._; common sense of a community, its propagation, ii.
274; no common End among established [Greek: no/mima], iii.
282 _n._, iv.
204 _n._; see _Authority_, _Orthodoxy_.
Non-ens, see _Ens_.
Noumenon of Kant agrees with Parmenidês' ens, i.
21.
Nous, see _Reason_.
Number, the _principle_ of Pythagoreans, i.
9-12, 14; differs from Plato's Idea, 10; its modern application, _ib._ _n._, 14 _n._; limited to ten, according to Plato and Pythagoreans, 11 _n._; the Greek geometrical conception of, iii.
112 _n._; mean proportionals, iv.
224 _n._; see _Arithmetic_.
O. Oaths, iv.
413.
Objective, and subjective views of ethics, Sokrates distinguished, i.
451; dissent coincident with subjective unanimity, _ib._; see _Relativity_.
Observation, astronomy must not be studied by, iv.
73; nor acoustics, 74.
Obstetric, of Sokrates, i.
367, ii.
251, iii.
112, 176.
Odysseus, ii.
56.
Oken, Pythagoreanism, i.
10 _n._ Old Age, iv.
2.
Oligarchy, iv.
79; Plato's second state a compromise of democracy and, 333, 337.
[Greek: O(mô/numa], first distinguished from [Greek: sunô/numa] by Aristotle, iii.
94 _n._ [Greek: O(mônu/môs], ii.
193.
One, in the Many, and Many in the One, aim of philosophy, i.
407; difficulties about many and, iii.
339; see _Idea_.
Ontology and physics, radically distinct points of view, i.
23 _n._; the science of Ens, first appears in the Eleates, 22; reconciliation of physics with, attempted unsuccessfully after Parmenides, 23 _n._; Plato blends ethics with, iii.
306; Aristotle's substratum for phenomenology, i.
24 _n._; tendency to embrace logical phantoms as real causes, ii.
404 _n._; see _Ens_, _Philosophy_.
Opinion, public, see _Authority_.
Opinion, Xenophanes' doctrine, i.
18; Parmenides', 20; Demokritus', 72; embraces all varieties of knowledge save of the Good, ii.
30; right, of good statesmen, derived from inspiration, 242; compared with knowledge, 241, 253, 255 _n._, iii.
167 _n._, 181 _n._; antithesis less marked in _Theætêtus_ than _Politikus_, 257; Plato's compared with modern views, ii.
254; the mind rises from sensation to opinion, then cognition, iii.
164; distinct from sensation, 166; true, knowledge is, 168; verification from experience, not recognised as necessary or possible, _ib._; if false, possible, 169, 181 _n._, 351; waxen memorial tablet in the mind, 169; false, is the confusion of cognitions and non-cognitions, refuted, 171; wherein different from knowledge, 172; true, not knowledge, communicated by rhetor, _ib._; true, _plus_ rational explanation, is knowledge, 173; analogy of elements and compounds, _ib._; rejected, 174; intercommunion of forms of _non-ens_ and of proposition, opinion, judgment, 213, 214; akin to proposition, and may be false, by partnership with form _non-ens_, 214; relation to kosmical soul, iv.
227; its matter, what is between ens and non-ens, 49; two grades of, Faith or Belief, and Conjecture, 67; true pleasure attached to true, iii.
351.
Opposites, only one to each thing, ii.
13 _n._ Optimism, ii.
393-6.
Orphans, iv.
406-7.
Orphic canon of life, iii.
390 _n._, iv.
15; coincidence of _Timæus_ with, 255 _n._ Orthodoxy, local infallibility claimed, but rarely severely enforced in Greece, iv.
396; less intolerance at Athens than elsewhere, iii.
277, iv.
126; Sophists conform to prevalent, 56; irresistible effect of public opinion in producing, i.
392, iv.
55; common sense of a community, its propagation, ii.
274; Plato on, i.
_xi_, 342, 392 _n._, 424, iv.
69 _n._, 165; probable feelings of Plato, ii.
367; Sokrates in _Phædon_ contrasted with _Apology_, 421; inconsistently exacted in Plato's state, iii.
277-8, iv.
24, 156, 160, 327, 379, 430; three varieties of heresy, 376; proëm to laws against, 383; first confuted, 386; argument inconsistent and unsatisfactory, 388; second confuted, 389; contradicts _Republic_, 390; the third the worst, 384; confuted, 391; general Greek belief, 381, 391, 394; incongruity of Plato's doctrine, 393; opposition to Plato's doctrine in Greece, 395; Cicero, 379 _n._; Milton, _ib._; Bp.
Butler, 166 _n._; book-burning, 379 _n._; see _Authority_.
[Greek: Ou)si/a], must be known before [Greek: pa/thê], ii.
243 _n._ P. [Greek: Paiderasti/a], iii.
20 _n._, iv.
359.
Pain, see [Greek: a)lupi/a], _Pleasure_.
Paley, remarks illustrative of Sokratic dialectic, i.
377 _n._ Panætius, style, i.
406 _n._; on _Phædon_, 288, 334 _n._; Plato's immortality of the soul, ii.
423 _n._; dialogues of _Sokratici viri_, i.
112 _n._ Parmenidês, metaphysical and geometrical rather than physical, i.
23 _n._, 89; the absolute, 19-24, iii.
104; Herakleitus opposed to, i.
37; ens and non-ens, an inherent contradiction in human mind, 19; ens alone contains truth, phenomena probability, 24; ens erroneously identified by Aristotle with heat, _ib._ _n._; non-ens, iii.
243 _n._; opposition to _Homo Mensura_, 113; phenomena of, the object of modern physics, i.
23 _n._; mind, 26; theology, 19, 25; physics, 7 _n._, 90 _n._; two physical principles, 24; doctrine defended by Zeno, 93, 99, iii.
58; relation of Demokritus to, i.
66; with Pythagoras supplied basis of Platonic philosophy, 89; refutation of, in _Sophistês_, iii.
211, 223; summum genus enlarged by Eukleides, 196 _n._; and Sokrates blended by Eukleides, i.
118.
_Parmenidês_, the, date, i.
309, 315, 316 _n._, 338 _n._, iii.
71 _n._, 244 _n._; authenticity, i.
307-11, 320, 327, 338 _n._, 401 _n._, iii.
68 _n._, 69, 88 _n._, 185 _n._; criticism of dialogue generally, 82; its character, 56; purpose negative, 71, 85 _n._, 85, 93, 97, 108, i.
125; the genuine Platonic theory attacked, iii.
68; attack not unnatural, 71; its dialectic, compared with Zeno's, i.
100; scenery and personages, iii.
58; Sokrates impugns Zeno's doctrine, 59; and affirms Ideas separate from, but participable by, sensible objects, _ib._; objections, 60-7; no object in nature mean to the philosopher, 61, 195 _n._; ideas, how participable by objects, 63, 72, iv.
138; analogous difficulty of predication, i.
169; not merely conceptions, iii.
64, 74; "the third man," 64 _n._; not mere types, 65; not cognizable, since not relative to ourselves, _ib._, 72; cognizable only through unattained Idea of cognition, 66; which gods have, 67, 68 _n._; dilemma, ideas exist or philosophy impossible, 68; exercises required from students, 79; provisional assumption of hypotheses, and their consequences traced, _ib._; nine demonstrations from _unum est_ and _unum non est_, 81, 340; criticism of antinomies, 82, 85 _n._, 88 _n._, 99 _n._; exercises only specimens of method applicable to other antinomies, 91; more formidable than problems of Megarics, 92; these assumptions convey the minimum of determinate meaning, 94; different meanings of the same proposition in words, 95, 97 _n._; first demonstration a Reductio ad absurdum of _Unum non multa_, 96, 101; second, demonstrates _Both_ of what the first demonstrated _Neither_, 98, 101; third mediates, 100, 101; but unsatisfactory, 102; Plato's imagination of the _Instantaneous_, 100; found no favour, 102; the fourth and fifth, 101, 102; the sixth and seventh, 103; unwarranted steps in the reasoning, 105; seventh is founded on genuine doctrine of Parmenidês, 104; eighth and ninth, 106; conclusion compared to enigma in _Republic_, 108; compared with _Sophistês_ and _Politikus_, 187 _n._, 259; _Philêbus_, 97 _n._, 340 _n._, 343; _Republic_, iv.
138; _Euthydêmus_, ii.
200.
Particulars, doctrine of Herakleitus, i.
29; the one in the many, and many in one, aim of philosophy, 407; Herakleitean flux true of, but not of Ideas, iii.
320; universals amidst, 257; and universals, different dialogues compared, _ib._; difficulties about one and many, 339; natural coalescence of finite and infinite, 340; illustration from speech and music, 342; explanation insufficient, 343; no constant truth in, iv.
3 _n._; fluctuate, 50; ordinary men discern only, 49, 51; see _Phenomena_.
Pascal, on King _Nomos_, i.
381 _n._; Cartesian theory, ii.
401 _n._; justice, i.
231 _n._; authority, iv.
232.
[Greek: Pa/thê], must be known after [Greek: ou)si/a], ii.
243 _n._ Pathology of Plato, compared with Aristotle and Hippokrates, iv.
260.
Pausanias, the gods jealousy, iv.
164 _n._ Peloponnesian war, iii.
406.
Pentateuch, allegorical interpretation of, iv.
157 _n._; relation to Greek schemes, 256.
Pentathlos, the, ii.
114; expert of Plato and Aristotle, 119 _n._ Percept and concept, relative, iii.
75; prior to the percipient, 76 _n._ Perception, doctrine of Parmenides, i.
26; Empedokles, 44; Theophrastus, 46 _n._; Anaxagoras, opposed to Empedokles, 58; Diogenes of Apollonia, 62; Demokritus, 77; Plato, iii.
159; different views of Plato, 163; sensible, province wider in _Politikus_ than _Theætêtus_, 256; knowledge is sensible, 111, 113, 154, 173 _n._; identified with _Homo Mensura_, 123, 162 _n._; sensible perception does not include memory, 157; argument from analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same time, _ib._; knowledge lies in the mind's comparisons respecting sensible perceptions, 161; difference from modern views, 162; objects of conception and of, comprised in Plato's _ens_, 229, 231.
Pergamus, library of, i.
270 _n._, 280 _n._ Periander, iv.
7.
[Greek: Perie/chon] of Herakleitus, i.
35 _n._; compared with Nous of Anaxagoras, 56 _n._ Perikles, upheld the claims of intellect, ii.
373; rhetorical power, 370, 371.
Peripatetic school at the Lykeum, i.
269; change after death of Theophrastus, 272; loss of library, 270; see _Lykeum_.
Persian and Spartan kings eulogised, ii.
8; and Athens compared, iv.
312; invasion, 311, 313; customs blended with Spartan in _Cyropædia_, i.
222; government, 235.
Phædon the Eretrian, i.
148.
_Phædon_, the, authenticity, i.
334 _n._; first dialogue disallowed upon internal grounds, 288; date, 309-313, 315, ii.
377 _n._; affirmative and expository, 377; much transcendental assertion, iii.
56; purpose, ii.
382 _n._; antithesis and complement of _Symposion_, iii.
22; scenery and interlocutors, ii.
377; Sokrates to the last insists on freedom of debate, 379; value of exposition, 398; no tripartite soul, antithesis of soul and body, 384; life a struggle between soul and body, 386, 388, 422; emotions, a degenerate appendage of human nature, iii.
389; death emancipates, ii.
386, 388; yet soul may suffer punishment, inconsistency, 415; philosophy gives partial emancipation, 387; purification of soul, 388, i.
159; inseparable conjunction of pleasure with pain, iii.
38-9 71.; pleasures to be estimated by intelligence, 375; pleasures of intelligence more valuable than of sense, _ib._; courage of philosopher and ordinary citizens, different principles, ii.
308 _n._; the soul a mixture, refuted, 390; soul's pre-existence admitted, _ib._, iii.
122; soul is _essentially_ living and therefore immortal, ii.
413; proof of immortality includes pre-existence of all animals, and metempsychosis, 414; depends on assumption of Ideas, 412; metempsychosis of ordinary men only, 387, 415, 425; Plato's demonstration fails, iii.
16; not generally accepted, ii.
426; Sokrates' intellectual development, 391; turned on different views as to a true cause, 398; illustration of Comte's three stages of progress, 407; Sokrates' early study, 391; genesis of knowledge, _ib._; first doctrine of Cause, rejected, _ib._, 399; second doctrine, from Anaxagoras, 393, 401, 403; doctrine laid down in _Philêbus_, 407 _n._; Anaxagoras did not carry out his principle, 394, 407; Anaxagoras' _nous_, as understood by Sokrates, 402 _n._; causes efficient and co-efficient, 394, 400; third principle, assumption of Ideas as separate entia, 396, 403, 407, iv.
239 _n._; multitude of ideas, ii.
410; the only causes, 396; truth resides in ideas, 411; discussion of hypothesis, and of its consequences, distinct, 397, 411; ultimate appeal to extremely general hypothesis, _ib._; Sokrates' equanimity before death, 416, 417; Sokrates' soul--islands of the blest, 416; Sokrates' last words and death, 417; burial, 416; compared with _Apology_, i.
422 _n._, ii.
419-21; _Symposion_, 382, iii.
16-19; _Menon_, ii.
249; _Phædrus_, _ib._, iii.
16-19; _Politikus_, 262, 265 _n._; _Republic_, ii.
383, 412, 414 _n._; _Timæus_, 383, 407 _n._, 411-12.
_Phædrus_, its date, i.
263, 304-10, 313-4, 315, 319, _ib._ _n._, 323, 326 _n._, 327, 330, ii.
227, 228 _n._, iii.
36 _n._, 38; ancient criticism on, i.
319 _n._; considered by Tennemann as keynote of series, 302; assumptions of Schleiermacher inadmissible, 319, 329 _n._; much transcendental assertion, iii.
56; Eros differently understood, necessity for definition, 29; derivation of [Greek: e)/rôs], 308 _n._; of [Greek: mantikê\] and [Greek: oi)ônistikê/], 310 _n._; Eros, a variety of madness, 11; Eros disparaged, then panegyrised, by Sokrates, _ib._; mythe of pre-existent soul, 12, 14 _n._; soul's [Greek: knê=sis] compared to children's teething, 399 _n._; reminiscence of the Ideas, 13, 17, iv.
239 _n._; operation of pre-natal experience on man's intellectual faculties, iii.
13; reminiscence kindled by aspect of physical beauty, ii.
422, iii.
4, 14; debate on Rhetoric, 26; Sokrates' theory, all persuasion founded on a knowledge of the truth, 28; writing and speaking, as art, 27; is it teachable by system, 28; Sokrates compares himself with Lysias, 29; Lysias unfairly treated in, 47-8, 408, 410 _n._, 411 _n._; Sokrates' reason for attachment to dialectic, 258 _n._; the two processes of dialectic, 29, 39; exemplified in Sokrates' discourses, 29; essential to genuine rhetoric, 30, 34; rhetoric as a real art, is comprised in dialectic, 30, 34; analogy to medical art, 31; includes a classification of minds and discourses, and their mutual application, 32, 41, 45; books and lectures useless, 33, 34, 49, 51, 53-5; may _remind_, 33, 50; rhetorician must acquire real truth, 33, 34; theory more Platonic than Sokratic, 38; rhetorician insufficiently rewarded, 33; dialectician alone can teach, 37; _idéal_, cannot be realised, 51; except under hypothesis of pre-existence and reminiscence, 52; dialectic teaches minds unoccupied, rhetoric minds pre-occupied, 40; Plato's _idéal_ a philosophy, not an art, of rhetoric, 45; unattainable, 42, 46; comparison with the rhetorical teachers, 44; charge against rhetorical teachers not established, 47; compared with _Republic_, _Gorgias_, _Euthydêmus_, ii.
229; _Menon_, 249; _Phædon_, _ib._, 423, iii.
17-8, iv.
239 _n._; _Symposion_, iii.
1, 11, 15, 17-19; _Sophistês_, 257; _Politikus_, _ib._, 265 _n._; _Philêbus_, 398; _Timæus_ and _Kritias_, 53; _Leges_, iv.
324.
Phenicians, iv.
330 _n._, 352; appetite predominant in, 38.
Phenomena, early Greek explanation of, by polytheism, i.
2; doctrine of Xenophanes, 18; Parmenides, 20, 24, 66; of Parmenides, the object of modern physics, 23 _n._; of Parmenides contain only probability, not truth, 24; doctrine of Zeno, 93; Leontine Gorgias, 104 _n._; Herakleitus, 29; Anaxagoras, 59 _n._; Demokritus, 68; Kyrenaics, 197; the Ideas not fitted on to, iii.
78; Aristotle, i.
24 _n._; see _Particulars_.
_Philêbus_, authenticity, iii.
369 _n._; date, i.
307-9, 311-3, 315, iii.
369 _n._; peculiarity, 382; illustrates logical partition, 254, 344; merit as a didactic composition, 365, 368 _n._; method contrasted with _Theætêtus_, 335 _n._; recent editions, 365 _n._; reading in p. 17A, 341 _n._; subject and persons, 334; protest against Sokratic elenchus, 335; happiness and good used as correlative terms, _ib._; good, object of universal desire, _ib._, 371, 392 _n._; what mental condition will ensure happiness, 335; is it pleasure or wisdom, _ib._, 337; pleasures, and opposite cognitions, unlike each other, 336, 396; is good intense pleasure without any intelligence, 338; or intelligence without pleasure or pain, 339; such a life conceivable, at least second-best, 349; Plato inconsistent in putting the alternative, 372; emotions, a degenerate appendage of human nature, 389; contrast with other dialogues, 398; good a _tertium quid_, 339, 361; pleasure, of the infinite, intelligence a combining cause, 347; intelligence the determining, pleasure the indeterminate, 348, iv.
221; intelligence postulated by the Hedonists, iii.
374; analogy of intelligence and pleasure, 360; intelligence more cognate to good than pleasure is, 348, 361; pain, disturbance of system's fundamental harmony, pleasure the restoration, 348; pleasure pre-supposes pain, 349; except in the derivative pleasures of memory and expectation, _ib._; desire presupposes a bodily want and memory of previous satisfaction, 350; true pleasures attached to true opinions, 351; can pleasure be true or false, 286 _n._, 351, 352, 356, 380, _ib._ _n._, 382; false pleasures are pleasures falsely estimated, 353, 369 _n._; to Plato the absolute the only real, 385; true pleasures of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, acquisition of knowledge, &c., 356; pure pleasures admit of measure, 357; directive sovereignty of measure, 391, 393; pleasure not identical with [Greek: a)lupi/a], 353, 377; theory of pleasure-haters, partly true, 354; allusion in [Greek: oi( duscherei=s], 389 _n._; intense pleasures connected with bodily or mental distemper, 355, 391; but more pleasure in health, 356; intense pleasures not compatible with cognition, 362; same view enforced by Hedonists, 378, 387 _n._; Aristotle on, 376 _n._; drama, feelings excited by--[Greek: phtho/nos], 355 _n._; pleasure is generation, therefore not an End, nor the Good, 357; Aristippus and Aristotle on, 378 _n._; pleasure is an end, and cannot be compared with intelligence, a means.
373, 377 _n._; Plato's doctrine not defensible against pleasure-haters, 387, 390 _n._; Sokrates differs little from pleasure-haters, 389; gods and kosmos free from pleasure and pain, _ib._; comparison of man to kosmos unnecessary and confusing, 367; forced conjunction of kosmology and ethics, 391; difficulties about one and many, 339; natural coalescence of finite and infinite, 340; illustration from speech and music, 342; explanation insufficient, 343; classes between one and infinite many often overlooked, 341; Plato enlarges Pythagorean doctrine, 368; but feebly applies, 369; quadruple distribution of existences, 346; varieties of intelligence, classified, 358; dialectic the purest, 360; classification of true and false, how applied to cognitions, 394; difference from other dialogues, 395; rhetoric superior in usefulness and celebrity, 360, 380; arithmetic and geometry are two-fold, 359, 394; unchangeable essences of the kosmos rarely studied, 361; good a mixture, _ib._; this good has not the unity of an idea, ii.
407 _n._, iii.
365; all cognitions included, 362; but only true, pure, and necessary pleasures, _ib._; five graduated constituents of good, 364, 397; Plato's in part an eclectic doctrine, 366; blends ontology with ethics, _ib._; does not satisfy the tests himself lays down, 371; compared with _Euthydêmus_, 374 _n._; _Protagoras_, 379, 391; _Gorgias_, 379-81; _Phædrus_, 398; _Symposion_, 370 _n._, 398; _Parmenidês_, 97 _n._, 340 _n._, 343; _Sophistês_, 369 _n._; _Politikus_, 263, 369 _n._; _Republic_, 370, 373 _n._, 395; _Timæus_, 397 _n._; _Leges_, iv.
301.
Philo, etymologies, iii.
308 _n._; hypothetical propositions, i.
145 _n._; allegorical interpretation, iv.
157 _n._ Philolaus, i.
9.
[Greek: Phi/lon, prô/ton], see _Amabile primum_.
Philosophers, ancient, common claim to universal knowledge, iii.
219; charged with pride, i.
153 _n._; secession from Athens, 111 _n._; contrast of philosopher with practical men, ii.
52, 145 _n._, iii.
183, 274, iv.
51-4; uselessness in practical life due to not being called in by citizens, 54; disparagement of half-philosophers, half-politicians, ii.
224; forced seclusion of, iv.
59; require a community suitable, _ib._; philosophical aptitude perverted under misguiding public opinion, 54; model city practicable if philosophy and political power united, 47; divine men, iii.
187; the fully qualified practitioner, ii.
114, 116, 119; not wise, yet painfully feeling ignorance, 181; value set by Sokrates and Plato on this attribute, 190; dissenters, upheld, 375; life, a struggle between soul and body, 386; ascetic life, 388, i.
158; exempted from metempsychosis, ii.
387, 416, 425; rewarded in Hades--mythe in _Gorgias_, 361; stages of intellectual development, 391; value of exposition, 398; Eros the stimulus to improving philosophical communion, iii.
4, 6; Sokrates as representative of _Eros Philosophus_, 15, 25; distinguished from [Greek: i)diô/tês], iv.
104 _n._; not distinguishable from sophists, ii.
210, 211 _n._; alone can teach, iii.
37, 40; as expositors, teach minds unoccupied, as rhetoricians, minds pre-occupied, 39; realisable only under hypothesis of pre-existence and reminiscence, 52; alone grasp Ideas in reasoning, 290 _n._; test of, the synoptic view, iv.
76; compared with rhetors, iii.
178; masters of debates, 179; determine what forms admit of intercommunion, 208; live in region of _ens_, _ib._; contemplate unchangeable forms, iv.
48; distinction of ordinary men and, illustrated by simile of Cave, 67-70; distinctive marks of, 51; no object in nature mean to, iii.
61.
Philosophia prima of Aristotle, i.
358 _n._, iii.
230 _n._, 382.
Philosophy, is reasoned truth, i.
_vii-x_; Ferrier on scope and purpose of, _viii_ _n._; necessarily polemical, _viii_; modern idea of, includes authoritative teaching, positive results, direct proofs, 366; usually positive systems advocated, iii.
70; difference of ancient and modern problems, 52; chief point of divergence of modern schools, ii.
409 _n._; its beginning, i.
375 _n._, 382, ii.
404, 407 _n._; free judgment the first condition for, i.
382, 395 _n._, ii.
368, iii.
152 _n._; negative vein as necessary as affirmative for, i.
130; preponderated in Plato's age, 123; early appearance of a few free thinkers in Greece, 384; brought down from heaven by Sokrates, _x_; Greek, in its purity, _xiv_; Greek, characterised by multiplicity of individual authorities, 84, 90, 340 _n._; advantages, 90; contrasted with uniform tradition of Jews and Christians, 384 _n._; early Christian view of, affected by Hebrew studies, _xv_ _n._; polytheism the first form of, 2; Aristotle contrasts "human wisdom" with primitive theology, 3 _n._; Indian, 378 _n._; compared with Pre-Sokratic, 107; analogy of Greek with Indian, 160 _n._, 162; difficulties of early, iii.
184 _n._; opposition from prevalent views of Nature, &c., i.
86; common repugnance to its rationalistic element, 3, 59-60, 261 _n._, 279 _n._, 387 _n._, 388, 437, 441, iv.
57; encyclopædic character of Greek, iii.
219; new epoch, by Plato's establishment of a school, i.
266; its march up to or down from _principia_, 403; the protracted study necessary, an advantage, _ib._; definition first sought for in _Erastæ_, ii.
117; the perpetual accumulation of knowledge, 112; a province by itself, 119; the supreme art, 120; to be studied by itself exclusively, 229; claim of _locus standi_ for, 367; relation to politics, 224, 227, 229, 230 _n._; comparative value of, and of _practical_ (q.v.)
life, 365 _n._, 368 _n._, _ib._, iii.
182, i.
204; antithesis of rhetoric and, ii.
365; issue unsatisfactorily put by Plato, 369; ancient quarrel between poetry and, iv.
93, 152, 309; Aristotle on blending mythe with, 255 _n._; gives a partial emancipation of soul, ii.
386; analogy of Eros to, iii.
10, 11, 14; Eros the stimulus to, 18; different view, _Phædon_, _Theætêtus_, _Sophistês_, _Republic_, _ib._; antithesis of emotion and science, 61; ideas exist or philosophy impossible, 68; should be confined to discussion among select minds, i.
351; should not be taught at a very early age, iv.
60, 76; studies introductory to, 70-75; difference in _Leges_, 275 _n._; Plato's remarks on effect of, 207; _Republic_ contradicts other dialogues, 207-11; Plato more a preacher than philosopher in _Republic_, 129, 131; difference between theorist and preceptor, _ib._; Plato's altered tone in regard to, in later life, 273.
Philosophy, Pre-Sokratic, i.
1-83; value, _xiv_; form compared with the Indian, 107; studied in the third and second centuries B. C., 92; importance of Aristotle's information about, 85; Plato's criticism on, 87 _n._; relation of early schemes, 86; Aristotle's relation to, 85; abstractions of Plato and Aristotle compared with Ionians, 87; _Timæus_ resembled Ionic philosophy, 88 _n._; theories in circulation in Platonic period, 91; Ionians attended to material cause only, 88; defect of Ionic _principles_, 89; little or no dialectic in earliest theorists, 93; physics discredited by growth of dialectic, 91; new characteristic with Zeno and Gorgias, 105.
Phlogiston theory, ii.
164 _n._ [Greek: Phro/nêsis], ii.
120 _n._, iii.
301 _n._, 370 _n._ [Greek: Phtho/nos], meaning, iii.
356 _n._ [Greek: Phu/sis], of Demokritus, i.
70 _n._; in sense of [Greek: ge/nesis], denied by Empedokles, 38 _n._; [Greek: phu/sei] and [Greek: kata\ phu/sin], iii.
294 _n._, iv.
310 _n._; see _Nature_.
Physics, transcendentalism in modern, i.
400 _n._; creation out of nothing, denied by all ancient physical philosophers, 52; aversion to studying, on ground of impiety, iv.
219 _n._, 397** _n._; Thales, i.
4; Anaximander, 4-7; Anaximenes, 7; Pythagorean, 12; Xenophanes, 18; Parmenides, 24, 90** _n._; his phenomena the object of modern, 23 _n._; and ontology, radically distinct points of view, _ib._; reconciliation of ontology with, attempted unsuccessfully after Parmenides, _ib._; Herakleitus, 27, 32; Empedokles, 38; _attraction_ and _repulsion_ illustrate his _love_ and _enmity_, 40 _n._; Anaxagoras, 49, 57; denied simple bodies, 52 _n._; atomic doctrine, 65, 67; early, discredited by growth of dialectic, 91; retrograded in Plato and Aristotle, 88 _n._; theories in circulation in Platonic period, 91; Eudoxus, 255 _n._; early study of Sokrates, ii.
391; Sokrates avoided, i.
376; Cynics' contempt for, 151; and Aristippus', 192; see _Kosmos_.
Physiology, of Empedokles, i.
43; Theophrastus, 46 _n._; Anaxagoras, 58; Diogenes of Apollonia, 60 _n._, 62; Demokritus, 76; of _Timæus_ subordinated to ethical teleology, iv.
256; of Plato, see _Body_; compared with Aristotle and Hippokrates, 260.
Plants for man's nutrition, iv.
248; soul of, _ib._ Platæa, iii.
406.
Plato, life, little known, i.
246; birth, parentage, and education, 247, 306 _n._; early relations with Sokrates, 248; service as a citizen and soldier, 249; political life, 251; political changes in Greece during life, 1; travels alter death of Sokrates, 253; permanently established at Athens, 254; teaches at the Academy, _ib._; received presents, not fees, iii.
218 _n._; his pupils, numerous, wealthy, and from different cities, i.
255; many subsequently politicians, 261 _n._; Eudoxus, 255; Aristotle, 260; Demosthenes, 261 _n._; visits the younger Dionysius, 258, 351, 194 _n._; relations with Dionysius, 255; disappointments, 280; varying relations with Isokrates, ii.
331 _n._, iii.
35; his jealousy and love of supremacy, i.
117 _n._, 153 _n._; alleged ill-nature, 117 _n._; antipathy to Antisthenes, 151, 152 _n._, 165; alleged enmity between Xenophon and, iii.
22 _n._, iv.
146 _n._, 312 _n._; rivalry with Lysias, iii.
408, 410 _n._, 411 _n._; death, i.
200; Plato and Aristotle represent pure Hellenic philosophy, _xiv_; St. Jerome on, _xv_; criticism on early Greek philosophy, 87 _n._; relation to predecessors, 91; theories in circulation in his time, _ib._; Parmenidês and Pythagoras supplied basis for, 89; relation to Sokrates, 344 _n._, ii.
303; Pythagoreanism, i.
10 _n._, 15 _n._, 87, 344 _n._, 346 _n._, 347, 349 _n._, ii.
426 _n._, iii.
368, iv.
424 _n._; Herakleitus, i.
27, ii.
30; Demokritus, i.
66 _n._, 82 _n._, iv.
355 _n._; abstractions of Plato and Aristotle compared with Ionic philosophy, i.
87; physics retrograded with, 88 _n._; analogy to Indian philosophy, ii.
389 _n._; resemblance to Hebrew writers, iv.
157 _n._, 256; little known of him from his Dialogues, i.
260, 339; personality only in his Epistles, 349; valuable illustrations of his character from Epistles, 339 _n._; his school fixed at Athens and transmitted to successors, 265; scarcely known to us in his function of a lecturer and president of a school, 346; lectures at the Academy, never published, 360; miscellaneous character of audience, effect, 348; lectures, 347; De Bono, _ib._, 349; on principles of geometry, 349 _n._; circumstances of his intellectual and philosophical development little known, 323 _n._; did not write till after death of Sokrates, 326, 334, 443 _n._; proofs, 327-334; variety, 339, 342, 344, ii.
155 _n._, iii.
26 _n._, 54, 179 _n._, 259, 265 _n._, 400, 420; style, i.
405; prolixity, ii.
100 _n._, 276, iii.
259, 369 _n._, iv.
325 _n._; poetical vein predominant in some works, i.
343, iv.
153 _n._; mixture of poetical fancy and religious mysticism with dialectic theory, iii.
16; comic vein, 410 _n._; builds on metaphor, i.
353 _n._, iii.
65 _n._, 351, 364; rhetorical powers, 178** _n._, 392 _n._, 408, 409, 410; irony, ii.
208; tendency to embrace logical phantoms as real causes, 404 _n._; both sceptical and dogmatical, i.
342; his affirmative and negative veins distinct, 399, 400 _n._, 403, 420; in old age the affirmative vein, 408; altered tone in regard to philosophy in later life, iv.
273, 320, 379, 424, i.
244; intolerance, 423, iii.
277, iv.
157, 159, 379, 430; inconsistencies, i.
_xiii_, ii.
29, 303, 345, 416 _n._, iii.
17, 172 _n._, 273, 277, 332, 372, iv.
24, 219, 379-86, 396; absence of system, i.
_xiii_, 340 _n._, 344, 375; untenable hypothesis that he communicated solutions to a few, _xi_, 360, 401; assumed impossibility of teaching by written exposition, 349, 357, ii.
56 _n._; this assumption intelligible in his day, i.
357; a champion of the negative dialectic, 372; devoted to philosophy, 333; his aim, 406; is a searcher, 375, iii.
158 _n._; search after knowledge the business of his life, i.
396; has done more than any one else to interest others in it, 405; anxiety to keep up research, ii.
246; combated commonplace, i.
398 _n._; equally with Sophists, laid claim to universal knowledge, iii.
219; anachronisms, i.
335, ii.
20 _n._, iii.
411; colours facts to serve his arguments, ii.
356 _n._, 369, iii.
46, iv.
311; probably never read Thucydides, iii.
410 _n._; acquiescence in tradition, iv.
230-3, 242 _n._; relation to popular mythology, i.
441 _n._, ii.
416, iii.
265 _n._, iv.
24, 155 _n._, 196, 238 _n._, 325, 328, 337, 398; theory of politics to resist King Nomos, i.
393; reverence for Egyptian regulations, iv.
266 _n._; latest opinion in Epinomis, 421 _n._, 424 _n._; agreement of Leibnitz with, ii.
248 _n._; see _Canon_, _Dialogue_, _Epistles_, &c. Platonists, influenced by Pythagoreans, iii.
390 _n._; pleasure a form of evil, _ib._; erroneous identification of truth and good, 391 _n._ Pleasurable, Beautiful a variety of, ii.
45; inadmissible, 45-7; and Good, as conceived by the Athenians, 371; is it identical with good, 289.
Pleasure, an equivoque, iii.
377 _n._; meaning as the _summum bonum_, 338; Plato's various doctrines compared, 385 _n._; is the good, ii.
292, 305, 347 _n._; agreement with Aristippus, i.
199-201; right comparison of pains and, necessary, ii.
293; virtue a right comparison of pain and, _ib._, 305; ignorance, not pleasure, the cause of wrongdoing, 294; actions conducive to, are honourable, 295; Sokrates' reasoning, 307; not ironical, 314; not Utilitarianism, 310 _n._; theory more distinct than any in other dialogues, 308, 347; but too narrow and exclusively prudential, 309; compared with _Gorgias_, 306 _n._, 345-6; _Republic_, 210, 350 _n._; not identical with Good, 345, iii.
380 _n._, iv.
62; Sokrates' argument untenable, ii.
351; its elements depreciated, 355; arts of flattery aiming at immediate, 357; Expert required to discriminate, 345, 347; science of measure necessary to estimate pleasures, 357 _n._, iii.
357, 369 _n._, 376** _n._, 391, iv.
301; is it good, iii.
335, 337; pleasures unlike each other, 336, 396; is good intense pleasure without any intelligence, 338; life without pain or pleasure conceivable, at least second-best, 349, 372; less cognate than intelligence to good, 339, 347, 361; not identical with [Greek: a)lupi/a], 338 _n._, 353, 377; is of the infinite, 347; is the indeterminate, 348; pre-supposes pain, 349, 389 _n._; except in the derivative pleasures of memory and expectation, 349; is the restoration of the system's harmony, 348; antithesis of body and mind in desire, no true pleasure, 350; true, attached to true opinion, 351; same principle of classification applied to cognitions as to, 382; can they be true or false, 351, 352, 385, 380 _n._, 382; false, are pleasures falsely estimated, 352, 384; theory of pleasure-haters, partly true, 354; intense, not compatible with cognition, 363; Aristotle on, 376 _n._; same view enforced by Hedonists, 378, 387 _n._; intense, connected with bodily or mental distemper, 356, 391; but more pleasure in health, 356; feelings excited by drama, [Greek: phtho/nos], 355 _n._; true, of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, acquisition of knowledge, 356; of geometry, painless, _ib._, 387 _n._; of intelligence more valuable than of sense, 375 _n._, 386 _n._, iv.
85, 89, 118; analogy of cognition and, iii.
360; true, admit of measure, 357, 369 _n._; is generation, therefore, not an end, nor the good, 357; Aristippus and Aristotle on, 378 _n._; is an end, and cannot be compared with intelligence, a means, 373, 377 _n._; good a mixture of pleasure and cognition, 361; only true, pure, and necessary pleasures included in good, 362; gods and kosmos free from pleasure and pain, 389; intelligence postulated by the Hedonists, 374; Plato argues on Hedonistic basis by comparing, 375; both [Greek: a)lupi/a] and pleasure included in Hedonists' end, 377; Sokrates differs little from pleasure-haters, 389; doctrine not defensible against pleasure-haters, 387, 390 _n._; of intelligence, the best, and alone pure, iv.
85, 89; of [Greek: philoma/theia] superior to [Greek: philoke/rdeia] and [Greek: philotimi/a], 85, 89, 118; neutral condition of mind intermediate between pain and pleasure, 86; pure pleasure, unknown to most men, 87; more from replenishment of mind than of body, 88; citizens should be tested against, 285; Sokrates the ideal of self-command as to, 288; good identical with maximum of, and minimum of pain, 292-7, 299, 303; at least an useful fiction, _ib._; a form of evil, Platonists' doctrine, iii.
390 _n._; Speusippus on, 386 _n._, 390 _n._; Kyrenaic theory, i.
196; Antisthenes, iii.
390 _n._; Cynics' contempt for, i.
154; Aristotle, iii.
386 _n._; Epikurus, ii.
355 _n._, iii.
387 _n._; Lucretius, 387 _n._; Cicero, 389 _n._; Prof. Bain, 383 _n._ Plotinus, i.
376 _n._, iii.
84 _n._ Poets, censured by Herakleitus, i.
26; Xenophanes, 16; the art is _one_, ii.
127; arbitrary exposition by the rhapsodes, 125; and rhapsodes work by divine inspiration, 127, 129; deliver wisdom without knowing it, 285; the great teachers, 135; really know nothing, _ib._; Strabo against, iv.
152 _n._; appeal to maxims of, ii.
178; importance of knowledge of, 283; Plato's forced interpretations of, 286, _ib._ _n._; relation of sophists, rhetors, philosophers to, iv.
149; ancient quarrel between philosophy and, 93, 151; Plato's feelings enlisted for, 93; Plato's aversion to Athenian dramatic, 316, 350; peculiar to himself, 317; Aristotle differs, _ib._ _n._; change for worse at Athens began in, 313; censured, ii.
355, iv.
91, 130 _n._; their mischievous _imitation of imitation_, 91; retort open to, 153 _n._, 154 _n._; mischievous appeal to emotions, ii.
126, iv.
92, 152, 349; only deceive their hearers, 91; credibility upheld by Plato, 161; must avoid variety of imitation, 26; orthodox type imposed on, 24, 153, 155, 292-6, 323, 349; to keep emotions in a proper state, 169; Plato's expulsion of, censured, iii.
3; actual place of, in Greek education, compared with Plato's _idéal_, iv.
149-53; mixture in Plato of poetry with religious mysticism and dialectic theory, iii.
16; poetic vein of Sokrates in _Phædon_ contrasted with _Apology_, ii.
421; Aristophanes on function of, iv.
306 _n._ Political art, its use, ii.
206, iii.
415; Sokrates declares he alone follows the true, ii.
361; society and ethics, topic of Sokrates, i.
376; ethics merged by Sokrates in, ii.
362; treated together by Plato, iv.
133; apart by Aristotle, 138; Plato's and Aristotle's new theory of, to resist King _Nomos_, i.
393; relation to philosophy, ii.
224, 227, 229, 230 _n._, 365 _n._, 368 _n._, _ib._, iii.
179, 183, iv.
51-4, i.
181 _n._, 182; to be studied by itself exclusively, ii.
229; Lewis on ideals, iv.
139 _n._; see _Government_, _Monarchy_, _Ruler_.
_Politikus_, authenticity, i.
307, 316 _n._, iii.
185 _n._, 265 _n._; date, i.
309, 410, 313, 315, 325; purpose, iii.
188, 253, 257 _n._, 261; value, 190; relation to _Theætêtus_, 187; scenery and personages, 185; in a logical classification all particulars of equal value, 195; province of sensible perception narrower in _Theætêtus_, 256; importance of founding logical partition on sensible resemblances, 255; the attainment of the standard the purpose of each art, 260; necessity of declaring standard, 262; Plato's views on mensuration, 260; Plato's defence against critics, 262; the mythe of the kosmos, 265 _n._; causes principal and auxiliary, 266; the king the principal cause, _ib._; Plato does not admit received classification of governments, 267; three kinds of polity, 278; true classification of governments, scientific or unscientific, 268; unscientific government, or by many, counterfeit, _ib._; of unscientific governments, despot worst, democracy least bad, 270, 278; true government, by the one scientific** man, i.
273, iv.
280, 310 _n._; counter-theory in _Protagoras_, iii.
275; government by fixed laws the second-best, 269; scientific governor, unlimited by laws, 269; distinguished from general, &c., 271; aims at forming virtuous citizens, 272; maintains ethical standard, 273; natural dissidence of gentle and energetic virtues, _ib._; excess of the energetic entails death or banishment, of the gentle, slavery, _ib._; courage and temperance assumed, 282; compared with _Lachês_, 282-4; _Charmidês_, _ib._; _Menon_, 283; _Protagoras_, 262, 275; _Phædon_, 262, 265 _n._; _Phædrus_, 257, 265 _n._; _Parmenidês_, 259; _Theætêtus_, 184 _n._, 187, 256; _Kratylus_, 281, 329; _Philêbus_, 262, 369 _n._; _Republic_, 257 _n._, 279.
[Greek: Polupra/gmôn], ii.
362 _n._ Polybius, on music, iv.
306.
Polytheism, early Greek explanation of phenomena by, i.
2; believed in after genesis of philosophy, 3; hostile to philosophy, 86; substitution of physical forces for, ii.
402; Euripides' _Hippolytus_ illustrates popular Greek religious belief, iv.
163 _n._ Population, Malthus' law of, iv.
201; recognised by Plato and Aristotle, 202.
Porphyry, on Metempsychosis, ii.
426 _n._ Poste, Mr., on _Philêbus_, iii.
365 _n._, 369 _n._, 381 _n._, 384 _n._, 390 _n._, 396 _n._, 397 _n._; abstract theories of Plato and Aristotle compared, _ib._ Potential and actual, Aristotle's distinction, iii.
134; _ens_ equivalent to, 204.
Power, controversy of Aristotle with Megarics, i.
135; Aristotle's arguments not valid, 136-8; Aristotle himself concedes the doctrine, 139 _n._; doctrine of Diodôrus Kronus, 140, 143; defended by Hobbes, 143; Brown on, 138 _n._ Practical life disparaged, ii.
355, iii.
329; and philosophy, ii.
365 _n._, 368 _n._, _ib._, iii.
179, 183, iv.
51-4, i.
181 _n._, 182; uselessness of philosopher in, due to his not being called in by citizens, iv.
54; condition of success in, ii.
359; influence of belief on, i.
180 _n._; Boissier on, 157 _n._ Prantl, objection to _Homo Mensura_, iii.
151 _n._; _Timæus_, iv.
255 _n._; Megarics, i.
129 _n._, 132 _n._ Praxiphanes, on _Kritias_, iv.
265** _n._ Prayer, danger of, for mischievous gifts, ii.
12; Sokrates on, and sacrifice, 17, 417, 419; Sokrates prays for undefined favours--premonitions, 28; Sokrates' belief, iv.
394; heresy that gods appeased by, 376, 384; general Greek belief, 392, 394; Herodotus, _ib._; Epikurus, 395; Aristotle, _ib._ Predicables, iii.
77 _n._ Predication, predicate not recognised in Plato's analysis, iii.
235; only identical, legitimate, 223, 232 _n._, 251; coincidence in Plato, ii.
46 _n._; analogous difficulty in _Parmenidês_, i.
169; error due to the then imperfect logic, iii.
241; misconception of function of copula, 221, i.
170 _n._; arguments against, iii.
206, 212, 221; Aristotle on, i.
166, 170; after Aristotle, asserted by Stilpon, 166, 169; Stilpon against accidental, 167; logical subject has no real essence apart from predicates, 168 _n._; Menedêmus disallowed negative, 170; see _Proposition_.
Pre-existence of all animals, included in Plato's proof of soul's immortality, ii.
414.
Pre-Sokratic, see _Philosophy_.
Priestley, Dr., character of, i.
403 _n._ Principle, march of philosophy up to or down from, i.
403; of Thales, 4; Anaximander, 5; Anaximenes, 7; Pythagoreans, 9-12, 14; Parmenides, 24; Herakleitos, 27; Empedokles, 38; Diogenes of Apollonia, 60; defect of the Ionic philosophers, 38.
Prinsterer, G. van, iii.
412 _n._ Prodikus, as a writer and critic, iii.
304, 308 _n._; less a sophist than Sokrates, 219; the choice of Herakles, ii.
267 _n._ Proëms, of Zaleukus and Charondas, iv.
323 _n._; didactic or rhetorical homilies, 322; to every important law, 321, 383; as type for poets, 323.
Proklus, borrowed from Rhodian Eudemus, i.
85 _n._; interpretation of Plato, _xi_; on _Leges_, iv.
355 _n._; _Kritias_, 265 _n._; _Parmenidês_, iii.
64 _n._, 80 _n._, 80, 90 _n._; _Kratylus_, 294 _n._, 310 _n._, 323 _n._; distinction of divine and human names, 300 _n._; analysis of propositions, 237 _n._ Prometheus, mythe, ii.
267.
Property, private, an evil, iv.
327, 333; perpetuity of lots of land, 326; succession, 405; modes of acquiring, 397; length of prescription, 415; direct taxation according to, 331; qualification for magistracies and votes, _ib._, 333; limited inequality tolerated as to movable, 330; no private possession of gold or silver, no loans or interest, 331; see _Communism_.
Prophesy, Plato's theory of liver's function, iv.
246; see _Inspiration_.
Proposition, analysis of, iii.
213; imperfect, 230, 235; intercommunion of forms of _non-ens_ and of proposition, opinion, judgment, 213-4; no analysis or classification of, before Aristotle, 222; quality of, 235, 248; Plato's view of the negative erroneous, 236, 239; Ideas [Greek: tô=n a)popha/seôn], 238 _n._; are false possible, 232; Plato undertakes impossible task, 249; some true, others false, assumed by Aristotle, _ib._; hypothetical, Diodôrus Kronus on, i.
145; Philo, _ib._ _n._; contradictory, impossible, 166; the subject, no real essence apart from predicates, 168 _n._; see _Copula_, _Predication_.
Protagoras, character of, ii.
265 _n._; not represented in _Euthydêmus_, 202; less a sophist than Sokrates, iii.
219; not disparagingly viewed by Plato, ii.
288 _n._, 290 _n._, 296 _n._, 303, 314; relation to Herakleitus, iii.
159 _n._; _Homo Mensura_, 113; see _Relativity_; combated by Demokritus, i.
82; taught by lectures, ii.
203, 301; [Greek: Peri\ tou= o)/ntos], iii.
153 _n._; as a writer and critic, 304, 308 _n._; treatise on eristic, i.
125 _n._; theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._; on the gods, 233 _n._ _Protagoras_, the, date, i.
304-7, 308, 77, 312, 315, 321, 327, 328, 331 _n._, ii.
228 _n._, 298 _n._; purpose, 277, 278 _n._; two distinct aspects of ethics and politics, 299; difference of rhetorical and dialectical method, 300; introduction illustrates Sokrates' mission, 263; question unsolved, 297, 316; scenery and personages, 259; Hippokrates eager for acquaintance with Protagoras, 260, iii.
217 _n._; not noticed at the close, ii.
298; Sophists as teachers, 261; danger of going to sophist, without knowing what he is about to teach, 262; visit to Kallias, respect for Protagoras, 264; Protagoras questioned, _ib._; is virtue, teachable, 266; intends to train youths as virtuous citizens, _ib._; Protagoras' mythe, first fabrication of animals by gods, 267; its value, 276; social art conferred by Zeus, 268, iii.
275; Protagoras' discourse, ii.
269; its purpose, 274; prolix, 275; parodied by Sokrates, 283; mythe and discourse explain propagation of established sentiment of a community, 274, iii.
274; justice and sense of shame possessed and taught by all citizens, ii.
269; virtue taught by parents, &c., 272; quantity acquired depends on individual aptitude, _ib._; analogy of learning the vernacular, 273; theory of punishment, 270; combines the two modern theories, 270 _n._; why genius not hereditary, 271, 272, 274; Sokrates analyses, 276; how far is justice like holiness, 278; intelligence and moderation identical, having same contrary, 279; Sokrates' reasons insufficient, _ib._; Protagoras' prolix reply, 280, 281, 284; Alkibiades claims superiority for Sokrates, 282, 287; dialectic superior to rhetoric, 282; Sokrates inferior in continuous debate, 284; Sokrates on song, and concealed Sophists at Krete and Sparta, 283; Protagoras on importance of knowledge of poets, _ib._; interpretation of a song of Simonides, _ib._; forced interpretation of poets, 285; poets deliver wisdom without knowing it, 285; Sokrates depreciates value of debates on poets, _ib._; colloquial companion necessary to Sokrates, 287; courage differs materially from rest of virtue, 285, 304 _n._, iv.
283 _n._; Sokrates argues that courage is knowledge, ii.
288; Aristotle on, 170 _n._; courage a right estimate of terrible things, 296, 307; the reasoning unsatisfactory, 313; knowledge is dominant agency in mind, 290; no man does evil voluntarily, 292; ignorance, not pleasure, the cause of wrongdoing, 294; pleasure the good, 289, 292, 305, 344-50; agreement with Aristippus, i.
199-201; right comparison of pleasures and pains necessary, ii.
293, iii.
391; virtue a right comparison of pleasures and pains, ii.
293, 305; actions conducive to pleasure are honourable, 295; reasoning of Sokrates, 307; not ironical, 314; not Utilitarianism, 310 _n._; theory more distinct than any in other dialogues, 308; but too narrow and exclusively prudential, 309-11, 313, 350 _n._; reciprocity of regard indispensable, 311; ethical end involves regard for pleasures and pains of others, 312; permanent and transient elements of human agency, 353-5; compared with _Menon_, 245; _Gorgias_, 306 _n._, 345-8, 349-57, iii.
379; _Politikus_, 262, 275, 276; _Philêbus_, 380, 391; _Republic_, ii.
310, 350 _n._; _Timæus_, 268 _n._; _Leges_, iv.
301.
Prudence, relation to rest of virtue, iv.
426; a good from its consequent pleasures, Aristippus' doctrine, i.
197.
Psammetichus, iii.
289 _n._ [Greek: Pseu=dos], derivation, iii.
301 _n._ [Greek: Psuchê/], meaning, iv.
387 _n._; see _Mind_, _Soul_, _Reason_.
Psychology, defective in _Gorgias_, ii.
354; great advance by Plato in analytical, iii.
164; classification of minds and aptitudes required in true rhetoric, 32, 43.
Ptolemies, i.
279, 284 _n._, 285.
Punishment, theory of, ii.
270; combines the two modern theories, _ib._ _n._; a relief to the wrongdoer, 326, 328, 335, iv.
366; consequences of theory, ii.
336; its incompleteness, 363; analogy of mental and bodily distemper pushed too far, 337; objects to deter or reform, iv.
408; corporal, 403.
Pyrrho the Sceptic, i.
154 _n._ Pythagoras, life and doctrines, i.
8; metaphysical and geometrical rather than physical, 89; censured by Herakleitus, 26; Demokritus on, 82 _n._; antipathy of Herakleitus, iii.
316 _n._; see _Pythagoreans_.
Pythagoreans, the brotherhood, i.
8, ii.
374; absence of individuality, i.
8; divergences of doctrine, 9 _n._, 14 _n._; canon of life, iii.
390 _n._; compared with Chinese philosophers, i.
159 _n._; Number, differs from Plato's Idea, 10, 348; modern application of the principle, 10 _n._; fundamental conception applied by Kepler, 14 _n._; Platonic form of doctrine of Monas and Duas, 15 _n._; number limited to ten, 11 _n._; [Greek: kairo/s], the first cause of good, iii.
397 _n._; music of the spheres, i.
14; harmonies, 16; geometrical construction of kosmos, re-appears in _Timæus_, 349 _n._; vacuum extraneous to the kosmos, iv.
225 _n._; doctrine of one cosmical soul, ii.
248 _n._; metempsychosis, 426 _n._; Contraries, the principles of [Greek: o)/nta], i.
15 _n._; theory of vision, iv.
237 _n._; not the idealists of _Sophistês_, iii.
245 _n._; doctrine of classification, enlarged by Plato, 368; on etymology, 304 _n._, 316 _n._, 323 _n._; doctrines in Plato, i.
11 _n._, 16 _n._, 88, 344 _n._, 346 _n._, 347, 349 _n._, ii.
426 _n._, iii.
368, iv.
424 _n._; Platonists, iii.
390 _n._ Q.
Qualities, primary and secondary, i.
70, iv.
243 _n._; all are relative, ii.
157; no existence without the mind, iii.
73 _n._; [Greek: a)lloi/ôsis], 103 _n._ Quality of propositions, iii.
235 _n._, 248.
Quintilian, iii.
311 _n._ R. Ravaisson, M., iii.
242 _n._ Realism, first protest against, Antisthenes, i.
164.
Reason, the universal, of Herakleitus, i.
34; is the reason of most men as it ought to be, 35; the individual, worthless, 34; of Anaxagoras, identical with the vital principle, 54; alone pure and unmixed, 51; immaterial and impersonal, 56 _n._; two attributive to _move_ and to _know_, _ib._; relation to the homoeomeries, 55-7; originates rotatory movement in chaotic mass, 50; exercised only a catalytic agency, 89; compared with Herakleitus' [Greek: perie/chon], 56 _n._; not used as a cause, ii.
394; of Demokritus, produced by influx of atoms, i.
79; relation to sense, 68 _n._; alone gives true knowledge, 72; worlds of sense and, distinct, 403; varieties of, classified, iii.
358; dialectic the purest, 360; two grades of, Nous and Dianoia, iv.
66; relation to [Greek: noêto/n], i.
354 _n._; the Universal, assigned as measure of truth, iii.
151 _n._; relation to kosmical soul, iv.
226; kosmos produced by joint action of necessity and, 237; in individual, analogous to ruler in state, 39; temporarily withdrawn under inspiration, ii.
131, iii.
11; belongs only to gods and a few men, 121 _n._, iv.
234, 235 _n._; is the determining, iii.
348; a combining cause, 347; postulated by the Hedonists, 374; analogy of pleasure and, 360; more cognate than pleasure with good, 339, 347, 361; is it happiness, 335, 337; is good a life of, without pleasure or pain, 338, 349, 372; pleasure an end, and cannot be compared with intelligence, a means, 373, 377 _n._; all cognitions included in good, 362; good is not, iv.
62; implication of emotion and, iii.
374; knowledge of good identical with, of other things with [Greek: do/xa], ii.
30; perfect state of, the one sufficient condition of virtue, 149; earliest example of fallacy of Sufficient, i.
6 _n._ Reid, on Berkeley, iv.
243** _n._; atomic doctrine of primary and secondary qualities, i.
70.
Relation, category of, iii.
128 _n._ Relative and non-relative names, iii.
232 _n._; and absolute, radically distinct points of view, i.
23 _n._; antithetised by Plato in regard to the beautiful, ii.
54; the, of Xenophanes, i.
18; doctrine of Parmenides, 20-24, 66; alone knowable, Zeno, 98, 101; incommunicable, Gorgias the Leontine, 104 _n._; doctrine of Anaxagoras, 59 _n._; Demokritus, 71, 80; alone knowable, iii.
63, 73; Idea of Good is essentially, iv.
214 _n._, i.
185; see _Absolute_, _Relativity_.
Relativity, perpetual implication of subject and object, iii.
118, 123 _n._, 122 seq., 128-9, 287 _n._, i.
204 _n._; true both in regard to ratiocinative combinations and percipient faculties of each individual, iii.
118; the doctrine of Sokrates, i.
432, iii.
140 _n._, 147, 162 _n._; in regard to intelligible world, proved from Plato, 121, 125, 227, 322 _n._, 337 _n._; shown more easily than in reference to sense, 122; of some sensible facts, 126, 298, iv.
242; two-fold, to comparing subject, and to another object, besides the one directly described, iii.
127; relations are nothing in the object without a comparing subject, _ib._; the facts of consciousness not explicable by independent subject and object, 131; _Homo Mensura_, formula unpopular, 150; objected to as "Subjectivism," 151; true meaning, ii.
341 _n._, iii.
116, 137, 143, 292, 297; its counter-proposition, 148; its value, 131, 164 _n._; relation to belief on authority, 142, 143, 146, 293; counter-theory of naming, 291, 326 _n._; all exposition an assemblage of individual judgments, 139; sentiments of belief and disbelief common, but grounds different with different men and ages, 296; belief not dependent on will but relative to circumstances of individual mind, 297; _Homo Mensura_, an objection to cognisability of Ideas, 72; identified with Herakleiteanism, 128; Demokritus on, i.
82, iii.
152; Plato's arguments against, 135; identified erroneously by Plato with knowledge is sensible perception, 114 _n._, 118, 120 _n._, 125, 162 _n._; Plato ignores the proper qualification, 137; the doctrine equalises all animals, 135, 292; analogy of physical processes, 294; not true in the sense meant, 141, 296; it annuls dialectic--not true, 146; the wise man alone a measure, 145; divergences of men, from mental and associative differences, 155; Aristotle on, 128 _n._, 131 _n._, 132 _n._, 149 _n._, 152; Kyrenaics, i.
197.
204; Hamilton, iii.
133 _n._; Dugald Stewart, 156 _n._; see _Relative_.
Religion, Greek, hostile to philosophy, i.
86; mysticism in Empedokles, 47 _n._; Xenophanes, 16-18; loose meaning of [Greek: a)/theos], iv.
382 _n._; Manichæanism of _Leges_, 389 _n._; Plato's relation to popular mythology, i.
441 _n._, ii.
416, iii.
265 _n._, iv.
24, 155 _n._, 195, 238 _n._, 325, 328, 337, 398; dissent from his country's, 161, 163; fundamental dogmas, 419; doctrines had emanated from lawgivers, 160; temples and priests, regulations, 337; number of sacrifices determined by lawgiver, 357; sacrilege, gravest of all crimes, 363; heresy, and [Greek: u(/bris] to divine things, or places, 375-86; [Greek: eu)phêmi/a] and [Greek: blasphêmi/a], 350 _n._; only state worship allowed, 24, 159, 337, 419, 430; Cicero, 379 _n._; Delphi and Dodona to be consulted, 34, 137 _n._, 325, 337; Xenophon, i.
237; communications common in Plato's age, ii.
130, 131 _n._, i.
225 _n._; see _Orthodoxy_, _Prayer_, _Polytheism_, _Sacrifice_, _Theology_.
Reminiscence, theory of, ii.
237, 249, 252, iii.
13, 17; kindled by aspect of physical beauty, 14; not accepted, ii.
247; Bion and Straton on, 249 _n._; purification of soul for, 389; necessary hypothesis for didactic _idéal_, iii.
52; not recognised in _Symposion_, 17; nor in _Republic_ training, iv.
207.
Renan, on absence of system in ancient philosophy, i.
340 _n._; influence of professorial lectures, 346 _n._; Averroism, iii.
68 _n._; _Kratylus_, 290 _n._; origin of language, 326 _n._, 328 _n._, 329 _n._; _Almamuns' dream_, iv.
213 _n._ _Republic_, date, i.
307, 309, 311-3, 315, 324, ii.
318 _n._; title only partially applicable, iv.
96; _Kleitophon_ intended as first book, i.
406 _n._, iii.
419, 425; _Hermokrates_ projected as last in tetralogy, i.
325, iv.
266, 273; _Timæus_ and _Kritias_, sequel to, 215, 265; overleaps difficulties of other dialogues, 138; summarised, 1, 95; double purpose, ethical and political, 133, 138; polity and education combined, 185; Plato more a preacher than philosopher in, 129-31; scenery and persons, 2; Kephalus' views about old age, _ib._; preponderance of evil, 262 _n._; tripartite division of goods, 12, 116; Good, not intelligence nor pleasure, 62; the four cardinal virtues assumed as an exhaustive classification, 135; as constituting all Virtue where each resides, 134; difference in other dialogues, 137; justice an equivocal word, 120, 123-6; Simonides' definition of justice, rendering what is owing, 2; objections, 3; defective explanations, 4; definition rejected, 6; Thrasymachus' definition, justice what is advantageous to the most powerful, 8; modified, 9; ruler _qua_ ruler infallible, _ib._; justice the good of another, 10; a good to society and individual, injustice a source of weakness, 11; justice a source of happiness, 12; a compromise, 13; recommended by fathers from its consequences, 15, 16, 99; the received view anterior to Plato, 100; Xenophon on, 114 _n._; arguments compared, and question stated, 18; the real issue, 117; justice a good _per se_, 20, 40, 84, 90; not demonstrated, 116; is performing one's own function, 36, 37; in individual, when each mental part performs its own function, 40; analogy to bodily health, _ib._; distinction between temperance and justice effaced, 135; view peculiar to Plato, 99; happiness of just and unjust compared, 14; neutral condition of mind intermediate between pain and pleasure, 86; pure pleasure unknown to most men, iii.
387 _n._, iv.
87; simile of kosmos, absolute height and depth, 87; more pleasure from replenishment of mind than of body, 88; proved also by superiority of pleasures of intelligence, iii.
375 _n._, iv.
85, 89; the arguments do not establish the point aimed at, 118-20; a good _per se_, and from its consequences, 94, 121-3; all-sufficient for happiness, germ of Stoical doctrine, 102; inconsistent with actual facts, 103, 123; individual dependent on society, _ib._; essential reciprocity in society, 109; the basis of Plato's own theory of city's genesis, 111; but incompletely stated, 112 _n._; any theory of society must present antithesis and correlation of obligation and right, 112; Plato's affirmation true in a qualified sense, 125; orthodoxy or dissent of just man must be taken into account, 126, 131; Plato's ethical basis imperfect, 127; his conception is self-regarding, 3 _n._, 104; motives to it arise from internal happiness of the just, 105; view substantially maintained since, _ib._; each individual mind tripartite, ii.
384, iv.
37; the gentle, tender, and æsthetical emotions omitted, 149 _n._; reason, energy, appetite, analogous to rulers, guardians, craftsmen, 39; analogy of city and individual, 20, 37, 79-84, 96; parallelism exaggerated, 114, 121, 124; unity of the city, every man does one thing well, 23, 33, 183; Xenophon on, 139 _n._; perfection of state and individual, each part performing its own function, 97; happiness of entire state the end, 98, 139 _n._; origin of society, common want, ii.
343, iii.
327 _n._, iv.
21, 111, 112 _n._, 133; ideal state--only an outline, 139; a military _bureaucracy_, 183; type of character is Athenian, Xenophontic is Spartan, 147, 151; Plato more anxious for good treatment of Demos, 183; Plato carries abstraction farther than Xenophon or Aristotle, _ib._; Aristotle objects, it is two states, 185, 189; healthy city has few wants, enlargement of city's wants, 22; war, from multiplied wants, _ib._; good state possesses wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, 34, 35; fiction as to origin of classes, 30; difficulty of procuring first admission for fiction, 158; this the introduction of a new religious creed, 156; class of soldiers or guardians, characteristics, 23, 25, 298 _n._; division of guardians into rulers and auxiliaries, 29; maintenance of city dependent on guardians' habits, character, education, 32, 34, 140, 170, 178; musical and gymnastical education necessary, 23; compared with that of modern soldiers, 148, 180; Xenophon compared, 141-8; musical training excites love of the beautiful, 27; music, Platonic sense, 149; by fictions as well as by truth, 24, 154; ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry, 93, 151; Plato fights for philosophy, but his feelings enlisted for poetry, 93; poets censured, 91, 130 _n._; Homer not educator of Greek world, 92; Herakleitus the Allegorist on, iii.
3 _n._; actual place of poetry in Greek education compared with Plato's _idéal_, iv.
150-2; poets' mischievous appeal to emotions, 92, 152; their mischievous _imitation of imitation_, 91; retort open to poets, 153 _n._, 154 _n._; censorship of mythology, 24; religion in connection with state, _ib._, 159; Delphian Apollo to be consulted for religious legislation, 34, 137 _n._; Sokrates of _Republic_ compared with the real, 211; Plato compared with Epikurus, 161; poets must conform to orthodox standard, 24, 153, 155; must avoid variety of imitation, 20; gods cause good only, do not assume man's form, 24; no repulsive fictions tolerated about gods or Hades, 25, 154; a better class to be substituted from religion for the existing fictions, 159; type for narratives about men, 26; only grave music allowed, 26, 168; restrictions on music and poetry to keep emotions in a proper state, 169; gymnastic and music necessary to correct each other, 29; gymnastic imparts courage, _ib._; bodily training simple, 28; no refined medical art allowed, _ib._; [Greek: sussi/tia] of guardians, 32; their communism, _ib._, 44, 140, 169; its peculiarity, 179; Plato's view of wealth, 199 _n._; the guardians consist of men and women, 41, 46; both sexes to go together to battle, 46; best women equal by nature to second best men, 42, 171-4; same duties and training for women as men, 41, 77; on principle that every citizen belongs to the city, 187; maintained in _Leges_, and harmonises with ancient legends, 195; contrast with Aristotle, _ib._; no family ties, 32, 174; temporary marriages, 43, 175-8, 194 _n._; Plato's and modern sentiments, 192; in Platonic state, influence of Aphrodité very small, 197, 359 _n._; infanticide, 43, 44, 177, 203; contrast of modern sentiment, _ib._; number of guardians, 178; checks on population, 198-202; Malthus' law recognised, 202; approximation in Mill, 199 _n._; scheme practicable if philosophy and political power united, 47; how to be realised, 78, 190 _n._; of state and individual, four stages of degeneracy, 78-84; timocracy, 79; oligarchy, _ib._; democracy, 80; despotism, 81; proportions of happiness and misery in them, 83; Plato's state impossible, in what sense true, 189; its real impossibility, adverse established sentiments, 191; fails from no training for Demos, 186; perpetual succession maintained of philosopher-rulers, 60; philosophers true rulers, 310 _n._; hated by the people, 57; whence pretenders, and forced seclusion of philosophers, 58, 90; distinctive marks of philosopher, 51; the philosopher contemplates unchangeable forms, 48; ens alone knowable, 49; _opinion_, of what is between ens and non-ens, iii.
184 _n._, iv.
49; two grades of opinion, Faith or Belief, and Conjecture, 67; and of intelligence, Nous and Dianoia, 66; ordinary men discern only particulars, 49, 51; particulars fluctuate, 50; simile of Cave, iii.
257 _n._, iv.
67-70; those who have contemplated forms reluctant to undertake active duties, 70; relation of philosopher to practical life, 51-4; simile of the steersman, 53; philosopher requires a community suitable to himself, 59; uselessness of philosopher in practical life, due to his not being called in by citizens, 54; philosophical aptitude perverted under misguiding public opinion, _ib._; irresistible effect of public opinion in producing orthodoxy, 55; perversion not due to Sophists, _ib._; the Sophists conform to prevalent orthodoxy, 56; studies introductory to philosophy, 61, 70-5, 206; object, 69; no mention of Reminiscence, or of negative Elenchus, 207; age for studies, 76; dialectic and geometry, two modes of mind's procedure applicable to ideal world, 65; geometry assumes diagrams, _ib._; dialectic requires no diagrams, deals with forms only, descending from highest, 66; awakening power of arithmetic, 71; stimulus from contradiction of one and many, 72; astronomy must be studied by ideal figures, not observation, 73; geometry conducts mind towards universal ens, 72; acoustics, by applying arithmetical relations and theories, 74; exercises in dialectic, 76; effect of, 207; philosophy should not be taught to youths, 60, 76; opposition to other dialogues and Sokrates' character, 208-12; dialectic the consummation of all the sciences, 75; the standard for classifying sciences as more or less true, iii.
383 _n._; the synoptic view the test of the dialectician, 290 _n._, iv.
76; Idea of Good compared to sun, 63, 64; known to the rulers alone, 212; what Good is, is unsolved, 213; mythe of Hades, 94; compared with _Lachês_, 138; _Charmidês_, 136, 138; _Protagoras_, ii.
310, 350 _n._; _Gorgias_, 353, iii.
380 _n._; _Phædon_, ii.
412, 414 _n._; _Phædrus_, iii.
18; _Parmenidês_, 108, iv.
138; _Sophistês_, iii.
18, 242, 257; _Politikus_, 257, 279; _Philêbus_, 273, 277 _n._, 395; _Kleitophon_, 425; _Timæus_, iv.
38 _n._, 234 _n._, 252; _Leges_, 195, 275, 280, 298 _n._, 302, 318, 319, 327, 390, 428 _n._ Rest, form of, iii.
206, 209-10, 231, 245 _n._ Rhapsodes, as a class, ii.
124; functions, 125, 132, 320; popularity, 126; and poet work by divine inspiration, 127; inspired through medium of poets, 128, 129, 134.
Rhetor, has no real power, ii.
324; aims at flattering the public, 357; practical value of instruction of, iii.
44; the genuine, must acquire real truth, 33, 34; is insufficiently rewarded, 33; guides methodically from error to truth, 40; compared with philosopher, ii.
52, iii.
178; auxiliary of true governor, 271; relation to poets, iv.
150; Plato's desire for celebrity as dialectician, and, iii.
408; see _Rhetoric_.
Rhetoric, popularly preferred to dialectic, i.
451; how employed at Athens, ii.
373; [Greek: a)kriboli/a] distasteful to rhetors, 278 _n._; antithesis of dialectic and, i.
433, ii.
70, 275, 365; deals with the concrete, dialectic with the abstract, 52, 53; difference of method illustrated in _Protagoras_, 300; superior to dialectic in usefulness and celebrity, iii.
360, 380; superiority of dialectic over, claimed, ii.
282, 285, iii.
337 _n._; communicates true opinion, not knowledge, 172; the artisan of persuasion, ii.
319; a branch of flattery, 321, 370; is of little use, 329, iii.
411; and dialectic, issue unsatisfactorily put, ii.
369; view stands or falls with _idéal_ of good, 374; Sokrates' view different in Xenophon, 371 _n._; compared with _Menexenus_, iii.
409; and _Leges_, iv.
322, 324; Aristotle on, i.
133 _n._; Aristeides, 243 _n._; Sokrates' theory, all persuasion founded on a knowledge of the truth, iii.
28; as art, 27; is comprised in dialectic, 30, 34; analogy to medical art, 31; theory more Platonic than Sokratic, 39; is it teachable by system, 28; definition and division essential to genuine, 30, 35; should include a classification of minds and discourses, and their mutual application, 32, 41, 45; Plato's _idéal_ a philosophy, not an art, 46; involves impracticable conditions, 41-3, 46; comparison with the rhetorical teachers, 44; charge against its teachers not established, 47; censure of forensic eloquence, iv.
410; rhetorical powers of Plato, i.
433, ii.
356 _n._, iii.
392 _n._, 408, 409, 411; see _Rhetor_.
Ritter, on _Sophistês_, iii.
244 _n._, 247 _n._; Eukleides, i.
127 _n._; Megarics, 129 _n._ Rivales, see _Erastæ_.
Rose, Valentine, on the dates of Plato's compositions, i.
326 _n._, 329 _n._ Royer-Collard, iii.
165 _n._ Ruler, of a superior breed in the Saturnian period, iii.
264, 266 _n._; a principle cause, 266; scientific alone good, iv.
280; _qua_ ruler infallible, 9; division of guardians into, and auxiliaries, 29; wisdom is seated in, 34; analogous to reason in individual, 39; perpetual succession maintained of philosopher-rulers, 60; alone know the Idea of Good, 212; see _Government_, _Political Art_.
Rutherford, iv.
105 _n._ S. Sacrifice, Sokrates on, ii.
17, 417-9, iv.
394; heresy that gods appeased by, 376, 384; general Greek belief, 392, 394; Herodotus, _ib._; Aristotle, 395; Epikurus, _ib._; number determined by lawgiver, 357.
Sacrilege, gravest of all crimes, iv.
363.
St.-Hilaire, Barthélemy, on _Sankhya_ and Buddhism, i.
378 _n._; metempsychosis, ii.
426 _n._; fallacies, i.
133 _n._ Salamis, iii.
406.
Same, form of, iii.
209, 231, iv.
226.
Sankhya, i.
378 _n._, ii.
389 _n._, 426 _n._ Salvador, Jacob, iii.
300 _n._ Scepticism, of Xenophanes, i.
18; Plato, 342; Greek sceptics, iii.
293 _n._ Schleiermacher, on Plato's view of knowledge and opinion, iii.
167 _n._; theory of Platonic canon, i.
303; includes a preconceived scheme, and an order of interdependence, 318; proofs slender, 317, 325 _n._; assumptions as to _Phædrus_ inadmissible, 319, 329 _n._; reasons internal, 319, 337, iv.
431; himself shows the unsafe grounds of modern critics, i.
336; Ueberweg attempts to reconcile Hermann with, 313; theory adopted by Trendelenburg, 345 _n._; on relation of _Euthyphron_ to _Protagoras_ and _Parmenidês_, 443 _n._; _Menon_, ii.
247 _n._; _Parmenidês_, iii.
85 _n._; _Sophistês_, 244 _n._, i.
127; _Kratylus_, iii.
303 _n._, 304 _n._; 307 _n._, 310 _n._, 321, 321 _n._; _Philêbus_, 334 _n._, 365 _n._, 369 _n._, 398 _n._; _Euthydêmus_, i.
127; _Menexenus_, iii.
408; _Kleitophon_, 426 _n._; _Republic_, iv.
38 _n._; _Leges_, 430.
Schneider, on Xenophon's _Symposion_, iv.
313 _n._ School, [Greek: scholê/], i.
121 _n._, 127 _n._; Plato's establishment of, a new epoch in philosophy, 266; of Plato fixed at Athens, 254; and transmitted to successors, 265; its importance for his manuscripts, 266, 267; decorations of the Academy and Lykeum, 209; Peripatetic at Lykeum, _ib._; of Isokrates, iii.
35; Eretrian, i.
121, 148; Megaric, 121.
Schöne, on the dates of Plato's compositions, i.
326 _n._ Schwegler, on _Parmenidês_, iii.
86 _n._; _Homo Mensura_, 151 _n._ Science, derivation of [Greek: e)pistê/mê], iii.
301 _n._; _scientia_, 302 _n._; logic of a, Plato's different from Aristotelic and modern view, i.
358 _n._; science of good and evil distinct from others, ii.
161, 168; relation to art, iii.
43 _n._, 46, 263; antithesis of emotion and, 61, 195, 197 _n._; dialectic the standard for classifying, as more or less true, 382; dialectic the consummation of, iv.
75; relation to kosmical soul, 227; see _Knowledge_.
Self-knowledge, temperance is, ii.
155; what is the object known in, 156; in _Charmidês_ declared impossible, elsewhere essential and inestimable, 167.
Selli, asceticism of, i.
163 _n._ Seneca, on the Good, iii.
372 _n._; filial ingratitude, iv.
400 _n._; Diogenes of Sinôpê, i.
156 _n._ Sensation, Empedokles' theory, i.
44; Theophrastus, 46 _n._; theory of Anaxagoras, opposed to Empedokles', 58; Diogenes of Apollonia, 62; Demokritus, 71, 76, 77, 80; the mind rises from sensation to opinion, then cognition, iii.
164; distinct from opinion, 167; verification from experience, not recognised as necessary or possible, 168.
Sense, derivation of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], iii.
308 _n._; doctrine of Empedokles, i.
44; illusions of, belief of Anaxagoras, 59 _n._; defects of, belief of Demokritus, 68 _n._, 71; Zeno's arguments, 93; Plato's conception of, iii.
164 _n._; worlds of intellect and, distinct, i.
403; organs of, iv.
236; principal advantages of sight and hearing, 238; hearing, i.
46, 62, 78; ethical and emotional effects conveyed by, iv.
307 _n._; smell, i.
46; pleasures of, true, iii.
356; _Homo Mensura_, 122; relativity of sensible facts, 126, 154, 298; its verifications recognised by Plato as the main guarantee for accuracy, 155 _n._, 240; fundamental distinction of _ens_ and _fientia_, iv.
219; relation to kosmical soul, 227; see _Particulars_, _Phenomena_, _Sensation_.
Serranus, on Platonic canon, i.
302.
Sextus Empiricus, doctrine, iii.
292 _n._; no definition of a general word, i.
168 _n._; on poets, iv.
24 _n._ Shaftesbury, Lord, iv.
105 _n._ Simonides, interpretation of a song of, ii.
283; definition of justice, iv.
2, 7.
Slavery, iv.
309, 342, 400; Aristotle differs, 344 _n._; evidence of slaves.
410 _n._ Sleeman, Sir Wm., grounds of belief among Hindoos, iii.
150 _n._ Sleep, doctrine of Herakleitus, i.
34; Plato, iv.
237.
Smith, Adam, _Moral Sentiments_, iii.
333.
Socher, theory of Platonic canon, i.
306; _Parmenidês_, 338 _n._, iii.
88 _n._, 185 _n._; _Politikus_, _ib._, 196 _n._, 265 _n._; _Sophistês_, 185 _n._, 196 _n._, 243 _n._, 244; _Philêbus_, 369 _n._; _Kritias_, iv.
266 _n._ Societies, Benefit, iv.
399.
Society, ethics and politics, topic of Sokrates, i.
376; genesis of, common want, ii.
343, iii.
327, iv.
21, 111, 112 _n._, 133; social art conferred by Zeus, ii.
268; dissent a necessary condition of its progressiveness, 367 _n._; frequent destruction of communities, iv.
307; historical retrospect of, 307-314; see _State_.
Sokrates, life, character, and surroundings, i.
410 _n._; character unparalleled in history, _vi_; personal appearance and peculiar character, iii.
19; patience, 24 _n._; courage and equanimity, 21 _n._; compared to Antoninus Pius, ii.
382 _n._; proof against temptation, iii.
20, 22, 23, iv.
287, 288; sensibility to youthful beauty, ii.
22 _n._; as representative of _Eros Philosophus_, iii.
15, 25; income, i.
192 _n._; procedure of, repugnant to Athenian public, 387, 412, 441, iv.
127; aggravated by his extreme publicity of speech, i.
393; feels his own isolation as a dissenter, ii.
365; accused of corrupting the youths, i.
391 _n._, 183 _n._; Plato's reply, magical influence ascribed to his conversation, ii.
23, iii.
19, 21 _n._, 24 _n._, 113 _n._, 388 _n._, iv.
412 _n._, i.
110; influence he claims, enlarged by Plato and Xenophon, 418; disobedience of the laws, 434 _n._; imprisonment, 425; indictment, against, 412, 418 _n._, 437, iv.
230, i.
113; grounds for his indictment, iv.
162 _n._, 211, 381, 385; reply to Melêtus, Plato and Xenophon compared, i.
456, ii.
421 _n._; opposition of feeling between, and the Dikasts, i.
375; trial and death might have been avoided without dishonour, 426 _n._; equanimity before death, ii.
417, 418; answer to Kriton's appeal to fly, i.
426; last words and death, ii.
377, 418; general features of character in _Apology_ confirmed, i.
419 _n._; character and disposition, differently set forth in _Kriton_, 428, 431-2; of _Apology_ and _Phædon_ contrasted, ii.
421; the real compared with character in _Republic_, iv.
211; Plato's early relations with, i.
248; of Xenophon and Plato compared, ii.
37, i.
178, 199; Xenophon's relations with, 206-10; uniform description of, in dialogues of _viri Sokratici_, 115; brought down philosophy from heaven, _x_; revolutionised method, _ib._; progenitor of philosophy of 4th century B.C., 111 _n._; theory of natural state of human mind, 373, 414; false persuasion of knowledge, an ethical defect, iii.
177; omnipotence of King Nomos, i.
378-84; differs from others by consciousness of ignorance, 413, 416; Delphian oracle, on his wisdom, 413; combated _commonplace_, 398 _n._; in reference to social, political, ethical, topics, 376; mission, _x_, 374, 395, ii.
146, 419, iii.
219, 422, iv.
219, 381; declared in _Alkibiadês I._ and _Apology_, ii.
24; imposed on him by the gods, i.
415; his _dæmon_, 437, ii.
104, i.
115; his experience of it, ii.
102; explains his eccentricity, 105; a special revelation, 110, 130-1; variously alluded to, 106-11; determined to persevere in mission, i.
416; not a teacher, 417, ii.
140, 146, 162, 165, 184, 232, 237, 242; only stimulates, i.
449, iii.
415, 421-24, iv.
52 _n._; his excuse, ii.
106; knows of no teacher, i.
417, ii.
225; a positive teacher, employing indirect methods, modern assumption, i.
419; incorrect, for his Elenchus does not furnish a solution, 420; his positive solutions illusory, ii.
26; _obstetric_, i.
367, ii.
251, iii.
112, 176; the Sokratic dialogue, i.
_x_, _xi_; usefulness of, ii.
186, 207; effect like shock of torpedo, 237; diversified conversations, i.
182; humbles presumptuous youths, ii.
21; manner well illustrated in _Lysis_, 177; asserts right of satisfaction for his own individual reason, i.
386, 423, 436, ii.
379; on _Homo Mensura_, i.
432, iii.
162 _n._; his Eristic character, ii.
203; the greatest Eristic of his age, i.
124; followed by Plato and Megarics, _ib._, 126; resemblance to Sophists, ii.
280, iii.
198 _n._, 216, iv.
165, 412 _n._; _Menon_ gives points in common between Sophists and, ii.
257; the "sophistic art" peculiar to him, iii.
218; negative vein, i.
_viii_, _x_, 370, 372, 373 _n._, 375, 387; affirmative and negative veins distinct, 420; charge against him of negative method, by his contemporaries, 371, 388; first applied negative analysis to the common consciousness, 389 _n._; to social, political, ethical topics, 376, 385; value and importance of Elenchus, 421; see _Negative_; introduced search for definitions, ii.
48; authority of public judgment nothing--of Expert, everything, i.
426, 435; does not name, but himself acts as, Expert, _ib._; early study, ii.
391; stages of intellectual development, _ib._; turned on different views as to a true cause, 398; accused of substituting physical for mental causes, 401; does not distinguish different meanings of same term, 279; not always consistent, 29, 303; sophistry in _Hippias Minor_, 62; avoided physics, i.
376; the Reason of the kosmos, ii.
402 _n._; distinguished objective and subjective views of Ethics, i.
451; proper study of mankind, 122; order of ethical problems as conceived by, ii.
299; not observed by Xenophon, i.
230; and Plato dwell too exclusively on intellectual conditions of human conduct, ii.
67; fruits of virtue, i.
415; Utilitarianism, ii.
310 _n._, i.
185 _n._; belief in the deity, 413, 414; disbelieves discord among gods, 440; principle of making oneself like the gods, _ib._; on the holy, difference in Plato and Xenophon, 454; on prayer and sacrifice, ii.
17, 418-9, iv.
394; much influenced by prophecies, dreams, &c., ii.
418 _n._, 420, iii.
351, iv.
395, i.
225 _n._; on death, 422, 429 _n._; and Plato, difference on subject of beauty, ii.
54; companions of, i.
111; their proceedings after his death, 116; no Sokratic school, 117; Antisthenes constant friend of, 152; manner copied by Antisthenes, 150, 159 _n._; precepts fullest carried out by Diogenes and Krates, 160, 174; and Parmenides, blended by Eukleides, 118; discourse with Aristippus, 175; the choice of Heraklês, 177; the Good and Beautiful, 184.
Soldiers, class of, characteristics, iv.
23; division of guardians into rulers and, 29; Plato's training compared with modern, 148; modern development of military profession, 180.
Solon, on despotism, i.
219 _n._; unfinished poem of, subject of _Kritias_, iv.
266.
[Greek: Sophi/a] and [Greek: phro/nêsis] of Aristotle, ii.
120 _n._; identical with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], ii.
280.
Sophisms, a collection of, necessary for a logical theory, i.
131; discussion of popular at philosophers' banquets, 134 _n._; of Eubulides, 128, 133; Theophrastus on, 134 _n._; Diodôrus Kronus, 141, 143; real character of, 135; of Stoics, 128 _n._, 138; see _Fallacy_.
Sophist, meaning of [Greek: sophistê/s], i.
256 _n._, 391 _n._, ii.
261, iii.
27 _n._; compared to an angler, 191; Plato's definition, 191-4, 196 _n._; a juggler, 198; imitator of the wise man, 216; Plato's ironical admiration, ii.
208, 283; no real class, 210, 341 _n._, iii.
249 _n._, iv.
136 _n._, i.
178; Theopompus on profession of, 212 _n._; usually depicted from opponents' misrepresentations, 308 _n._, ii.
210; accused of generating scepticism and uncertainty, 64 _n._; negative dialectic attributed by historians to, i.
371; did not first apply negative analysis to the common consciousness, 389 _n._; negative dialectic not peculiar to, 387; the charge brought by contemporaries against Sokrates, 388; dialectic contrasted with Sokrates', ii.
197; Sokrates the greatest Eristic of his age, i.
124; Sokrates a, ii.
183 _n._, 185 _n._, 188, 199, iv.
165, 412 _n._; _Menon_ gives point in common between Sokrates and, ii.
257; in _Euthydêmus_, 196; not represented by Kallikles, 339; lives in region of _non-ens_, iii.
208; devoted to the production of falsehood, 215; is [Greek: e)nantiopoiologiko\s] and [Greek: ei)/rôn], 216; those the characteristics of Sokrates, _ib._; the "sophistic art" peculiar to Sokrates, 218; their alleged claim to universal knowledge--common to all philosophers then, 219; etymologies in _Kratylus_ not caricatures of, 302, 310 _n._, 314 _n._, 317 _n._, 321, 323; no proof of their etymologising, 304; as teachers, ii.
261; motives of pupils, _ib._ _n._, 264 _n._; as corruptors of public mind, 288 _n._; jealousy of parents towards influential teachers, 265 _n._; probably often used illustrative mythes, 267 _n._; money-making, 210, _ib._ _n._, iii.
27 _n._, i.
212 _n._; not distinguishable from dialectician, ii.
210, 211 _n._; raised question of criterion of truth, 246; logical distinctions, 236 _n._; did not invent fallacies, 217, i.
133 _n._; abuse of fallacies, biddings for popularity, ii.
199; did not deny natural justice, 341 _n._; not the perverters of philosophy, iv.
55; conform to prevalent orthodoxy, 56; relation to poets, 150; Demochares' law against, i.
111 _n._; Aristippus taught as a, 193.
_Sophistês_, date, i.
305-11, 313, 315, 324-5, iii.
369 _n._; authenticity, i.
307, 316 _n._, iii.
185 _n._, 243 _n._; purpose, 188, 190, 223, 253, 261, 267; relation to _Theætêtus_, 187; scenery and personages, 185; in a logical classification all particulars of equal value, 195; definition of angler, 189; sophist compared to an angler, 192; defined, 191-5, 196 _n._; a juggler, 198, 200; imitator of the wise man, 216; classification of imitators, 215; philosopher lives in region of _ens_, sophist, of _non-ens_, 208; bodily and mental evil, 197; the worst, ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge, _ib._; Elenchus the sovereign purifier, _ib._; is false thought or speech possible, 172 _n._, 199, 249; falsehood possible, and object of sophists' profession, 181 _n._, 214; imperfect analysis of propositions, 235, 238; view of the negative erroneous, 237, 239; theories of philosophers about _ens_, 201; _non-ens_ inconceivable, 200; is _ens_ one or many, 201; difficulties about _ens_ and _non-ens_ equally great, _ib._, 206; the materialists and the idealists, 203; argument against materialists, _ib._, 223, 226, 228; reply open to materialists, 224, 230; argument against idealists, 204, 225; their doctrine the same as Plato's in _Phædon_, &c., 244, 246; no allusion intended to Megarics or Pythagoreans, 244, 390 _n._; communion implies relativity, 125, 205; to know and to be known is action and passion, 205, 226, 287 _n._; motion and rest both agree in _ens_, which is therefore a _tertium quid_, 206; argument against "only identical predication legitimate," _ib._, 212, 221, 251; Antisthenes meant, i.
163, 165; intercommunion of _some_ Forms, iii.
207, 228, 246 _n._, 251 _n._; analogy of letters and syllables, 207; what forms admit of it, determined by philosopher, 208; of _non-ens_ and of proposition, opinion, judgment, 213, 214, 235; [Greek: to\ mê\ o)/n], meaning, 181 _n._; five forms examined, 208, 231, 233; Plato's view of _non-ens_ unsatisfactory, 236, 239, 242 _n._, 248 _n._; an approximation to Aristotle's view, 247; different from other dialogues, 242; compared with _Phædon_, 244, 246; _Phædrus_, 18, 257; _Symposion_, 19; _Theætêtus_, 182 _n._, 187, 242, 256, 332; _Kratylus_, _ib._; _Philêbus_, 369 _n._; _Republic_, 242, 257.
Sophokles, Antigone, compared with _Apology_, i.
429 _n._; its popularity, ii.
135 _n._; as a general, 135.
[Greek: Sôphrosu/nê], ii.
153 _n._; see _Temperance_; derivation, iii.
301 _n._; identical with [Greek: sophi/a], ii.
279; and [Greek: ai)dô/s], 269 _n._ Sorites, i.
128, 133, 135 _n._ Soul, derivation of [Greek: psuchê/], iii.
301 _n._; meaning, iv.
387 _n._; prior to and more powerful than body, 386, 419-20; the good and the bad souls at work in the universe, 386; one continuous cosmical, ii.
248 _n._; of the kosmos, iii.
** 265 _n._, iv.
220, 421; affinity to human, iii.
366 _n._; of kosmos, position and elements of, iv.
225; of plants, 248; doctrine of Herakleitus, i.
34; Empedokles, 44; Anaxagoras, 54; Demokritus, 75; Plato's conception of existence, iii.
205, 226, 229, 231; not tripartite, antithesis to body, ii.
384; Hegel on Plato's view, 414 _n._; a mixture, refuted, 390; life a struggle between body and, 386, 388, iv.
234, 235 _n._; partial emancipation of, by philosophy, ii.
386; purification of, 388; [Greek: knê=sis] compared to children's teething, iii.
399 _n._; pre-existence admitted, ii.
390; mythe, iii.
12, 15 _n._; Leibnitz on, ii.
248 _n._; pre-existence of, necessary hypothesis for didactic _idéal_, iii.
52; metempsychosis of ordinary men only, ii.
387, iv.
234; mythe of departed, in _Republic_, 94; state after emancipation from body, ii.
416; yet may suffer punishment, inconsistency, _ib._; three constituent elements of, iii.
232 _n._; Galen, iv.
258; are the three parts immortal, ii.
385, iv.
243; no place for tender and æsthetic emotions in tripartite division of, 149 _n._; each part at once material and mental, 257; supremacy of rational, to be cultivated, 251; Demiurgus conjoins three souls and one body, 233, 243; Demiurgus prepares for man's construction, places a soul in each star, 233; generated gods fabricate cranium as miniature of kosmos with rational soul rotating within, _ib._; mount cranium on a tall body, 236; seat of, 235-7, 243-7, 259 _n._; Littré, 257 _n._; abdominal, function of liver, 245, 259; seat of prophetic agency, 246; thoracic, function of heart and lungs, 245, 259 _n._; of spleen, 246; vision, sleep, dreams, 236; Aristotle on relation of body to, iii.
389 _n._; Monboddo, iv.
387 _n._; see _Body_, _Immortality_, _Mind_, _Reason_.
Sound, Zeno's arguments, i.
96; pleasures of, true, iii.
356.
Space, and time comprised in Parmenides' ens, i.
19; Zeno's reductiones ad absurdum, 94; contents of the idea of, 20 _n._ Sparta, unlettered community, iv.
278; law forbids introduction of foreign instruction, ii.
35; Hippias lectures at, 39; mixed government, iv.
310; kings eulogised, ii.
8; customs of, iii.
24 _n._; peculiar to itself and Krete, iv.
280 _n._; blended with Persian in _Cyropædia_, i.
222; influence on philosopher's theories, iv.
181; Xenophon's _idéal_ of character, 147, 148, 182; Plato's in _Leges_, 276, 280 _n._, 403; basis of institutions too narrow, 282; endurance of pain in discipline of, 285; public training and mess, 279, 280 _n._, 285 _n._; no training for women, censured, 188; infanticide, 203; number of citizens, 327 _n._; drunkenness forbidden at, 286; _kryptia_, Plato's agronomi compared, 336.
Specific and generic terms, distinction unfamiliar in Plato's time, ii.
13.
Speech, conducted according to fixed laws, iii.
286; the thing spoken of _suffers_, 287 _n._; Psammetichus' experiment, 289 _n._; and music illustrate coalescence of finite and infinite, 340-3.
Spencer, Herbert, abstract names, iii.
78 _n._ Spengel, on Thrasymachus, iv.
7 _n._; _Kratylus_, iii.
309 _n._ Speusippus, borrowed from Pythagoreans, iii.
390 _n._; on pleasure, 386 _n._, 389 _n._; on the Demiurgus, iv.
255.
Sphere, the earth a, early views, i.
25 _n._; Pythagorean music of the spheres, 14; _Sphærus_ of Empedokles, 39.
Stallbaum, on Platonic canon, i.
307, 443 _n._; _Erastæ_, ii.
121; _Theagês_, 100 _n._; _Euthydêmus_, 202; _Protagoras_, 314, iv.
284 _n._; _Theætêtus_, iii.
158 _n._; _Sophistês_ and _Politikus_, 196 _n._, 257 _n._; _Kratylus_, 303 _n._, 305 _n._, 310 _n._, 321, 323 _n._; _Philêbus_, 342 _n._, 343 _n._, 347 _n._, 356 _n._, 389 _n._, 398 _n._; _Menexenus_, 408, 409; _Republic_ iv.
106 _n._; _Timæus_, 219 _n._; _Leges_, 188 _n._, 272 _n._, 410 _n._, 431; theory of Ideas, iii.
69 _n._; Sophists, ii.
209 _n._; Megarics, i.
132 _n._ Stars, iv.
229.
State, Lewis on _idéals_, iv.
139 _n._; realisation of _idéals_, 190 _n._; three ends of political constructor, 328 _n._; influence of Spartan institutions, on theories, 181; no evidence of Plato's study of practical working of different institutions, 397; Aristeides on, i.
243 _n._; citizens willing to be ruled, _idéal_ of Plato and Xenophon, iv.
283 _n._; Platonic type of character is Athenian, Xenophontic is Spartan, 147, 148, 182; its religious and ethical character primary, constitution and laws secondary, 284; religion in connection with, 24, 160; and education combined, 185; Plato's ideal, compared with Athens, 430; the Spartan adopted in _Leges_, 276, 280 _n._, 403; Plato carries abstraction farther than Xenophon or Aristotle, 183; more anxious for good treatment of Demos, _ib._; in Aristotle the Demos adjuncts, not members, of state, 184; model city practicable if philosophy and political power united, 47; perpetual succession maintained of philosopher-rulers, 60; those who have contemplated Ideas are reluctant to undertake active duties.
70; as at present constituted, the just man stands aloof from, 90; ideal, how to be realised, 78, 190 _n._; admitted only partially realisable, 327; only an outline, 139; a military _bureaucracy_, 183; second, a compromise of oligarchical and democratical sentiment, 333, 337; Aristotle objects to Plato's ideal, it is two states, 185; objection valid against his own ideal, 186 _n._; Plato fails from no training for Demos, 186; Plato's state impossible, in what sense true, 189; from adverse established sentiments, 191; genesis, common want, ii.
343, iii.
327, iv.
20, 111, 112 _n._, 133; historical retrospect of society, 307-314; analogy of individual and, 11, 21, 37, 79-84, 96; Hobbes on, _ib._; parallelism exaggerated, 114, 121, 123; its [Greek: u(po/thesis], 328 _n._; basis of Spartan institutions too narrow, 282; site, 320, 329, 336; circular form, unwalled, 344; influence of climate, 330 _n._; wisdom and courage in the guardians, 34; justice and temperance in all classes, 35; class of guardians, characteristics, 23; divided into rulers and soldiers, 29; same duties and training for women as men, 41, 46, 77, 171-4; on principle that every citizen belongs to the city, 187; maintained in _Leges_, and harmonises with ancient legends, 195; contrast with Aristotle, 194; [Greek: sussi/tia], 32, 345, 359; communism of guardians, _ib._, 140, 169; necessary to city's safety, 32, 34, 44, 140, 170-179; peculiarity of Plato's communism, 179; Plato's view of wealth, 199 _n._; no family ties, 41, 174, 178; temporary marriages for guardians, 175-8; Plato's and modern sentiments, 192, 194; influence of Aphroditê very small in Platonic, 197, 359; citizens should be tested against pleasure, 285; self-control tested by wine, 289; healthy, has few wants, enlargement of city's wants, 22; from multiplied wants, war, _ib._; perfection of, each part performing its own function, 97; one man can do only one thing well, 23, 33, 183, 361; unity of end to be kept in view, 417; end, happiness of entire state, 98, 139 _n._; and virtue of the citizens, 417; three classes in, analogous to reason, energy, appetite, in individual, 39; fiction as to origin of classes, 30; four stages of degeneracy, 79-84; proportions of happiness and misery in them, 83; in healthy condition, possesses wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, 34; laws about marriage, 328, 331, 341, 344; Aristotle, 198-201; Malthus' law recognised by Plato and Aristotle, 202; number of citizens, 178, 326, 328; limited, Plato and Aristotle, 198-201; Aristotle, 326 _n._; approximation in Mill, 199 _n._; rearing of children, 43, 44; infanticide, _ib._, 177; Aristotle, 202; contrast of modern sentiment, 203; citizens of Plato's ideal, identified with ancient Athenians, 266; division of citizens and land, twelve tribes, 329; perpetuity of lots of land, 320, 360; Aristotle, 326 _n._; succession, 328; orphans, guardians, 404, 406; limited inequality tolerated as to movable property, 330; no private possession of gold or silver, no loans or interest, 331; distribution of annual produce, 361; state importation of necessary articles, _ib._; regulations for retailers, 21, 361, 401; admission of Metics, 362, i.
238; of strangers, and foreign travel of citizens, iv.
** 414; slavery, 342; Aristotle differs, 344 _n._; direct taxation, according to wealth, 331; four classes, property classification for magistracies and votes, _ib._; thirty-seven nomophylakes, 332; military commanders and council, _ib._; monthly military muster of whole population, 358; electoral scheme, 333; the council, and other magistrates, 335; Nocturnal Council to comprehend and carry out the end, 418, 425, 429; and enforce orthodox creed, 419; most important magistrate, minister of education, 338; defence of territory, rural police, 335; Spartan _kryptia_ compared, 336; _Xenophon's_ ideal of an active citizen, i.
214; he admires active commerce and variety of pursuits, 236; encouragement of metics, 238; training of citizens, 226; formation of treasury funds, 238; distribution among citizens, three oboli each, daily, 239; its purpose and principle, 240, 241 _n._; see _Government_, _Political Art_, &c. Statesmen, ignorant of the true, the ideal, ii.
89; incompetent to teach.
100, 357, 360, 369; the philosopher the fully qualified practitioner, 114, 116, 118; disparagement of half-philosophers, half-politicians, 224; dislike of Sokrates and Sophists, 256; their right opinion, from inspiration, 242; defects of best Athenian, 360; considered by Sokrates as spiritual teachers and trainers, 362; Plato's _idéal_, 363; relation of philosopher to practical, iii.
179, 183, 273; definition of, 263.
Steersman, simile of, iv.
53.
Steinhart, on Platonic canon, rejects several, i.
309; [Greek: to\ e)xai/phnês], iii.
103 _n._; _Parmenidês_, 109 _n._, 245 _n._; _Theætêtus_, 167 _n._; _Sophistês_, 245 _n._; _Kratylus_, 307 _n._; _Menexenus_, 412 _n._ Steinthal, no objective absolute, iii.
296 _n._ Stewart, Dugald, on the beautiful, ii.
50 _n._; relativity of knowledge, iii.
156 _n._; Berkeley, iv.
243 _n._ Stilpon, nominalism of, i.
167; only identical predication possible, 166, 168; _of Megara_, 148.
Stoics, influenced by Herakleitus, i.
27, 34 _n._; developed Antisthenes' doctrines, 198; practical life preferable, 181 _n._; [Greek: pa/nta au(tou= e(/neka pra/ttein], iv.
106 _n._; all-sufficiency of virtue, germ of doctrine in _Republic_, 102; fate, i.
143 _n._; view of Dialectic, 371 _n._; style of their works, 406; doctrine of one cosmical soul, ii.
248 _n._; notion of time, iii.
101 _n._; natural rectitude of signification of names, 286 _n._; etymologies, 308 _n._; sophisms of, i.
128 _n._, 138; minute reasons of, 130 _n._; Cicero on, 157.
Strabo, value of poets, iv.
152 _n._ Straton, theory of sensation, i.
63 _n._, iii.
166 _n._; Plato's doctrine of reminiscence, ii.
250 _n._ Strümpell, on _Parmenidês_, iii.
71 _n._, 75 _n._ Subject, independent object and, do not explain facts of consciousness, iii.
131; perpetually implicated with object, 118, 122 _n._, 123, 128; in regard to intelligible world, proved from Plato, 121, 125; shown more easily than in reference to sense, 122; Hobbes on, 117 _n._; relations are nothing in the object without a comparing subject, 127; see _Relativity_.
Subjective, of Xenophanes, i.
18; and objective views of ethics, Sokrates distinguished, 451; unanimity coincident with objective dissent, _ib._; Plato's reference to objective and, iii.
134.
Subjectivism, an objection to _Homo Mensura_, iii.
151.
Suckow, on _Menexenus_, iii.
412 _n._; _Sophistês_ and _Politikus_, 185 _n._; _Leges_, iv.
431, 432.
Suicide, Hegesias, the death-persuader, i.
202; Cynics, and Indian Gymnosophists, 161 _n._ [Greek: Sumphe/ron], derivation, iii.
301 _n._ [Greek: Sunô/numa] and [Greek: o(mô/numa] first distinguished by Aristotle, iii.
94 _n._; [Greek: sunônu/môs], ii.
194.
Susemihl, on Platonic canon, coincides with Hermann, i.
310; _Timæus_, iv.
218 _n._ Sydenham, on Aristippus and Eudoxus, i.
202 _n._; seat of happiness, iii.
372 _n._; _Philêbus_, 376 _n._ Syllogistic and Inductive Dialectic, ii.
27.
Symposion, of Xenophon, i.
152; date, iii.
26 _n._; compared with Plato's, 22; of Epikurus, _ib._ _n._ _Symposion_, the, date, i.
307, 309, 311, 312, 324, iii.
26 _n._; purpose, ii.
382 _n._, iii.
8; antithesis and complement of _Phædon_, 22; contains much transcendental assertion, 56; censured for erotic character, 3 _n._; Idea of Beauty exclusively presented in, 18; Eros, views of interlocutors, 9; a Dæmon intermediate between gods and men, _ib._; but in _Phædrus_ a powerful god, _ib._ _n._, 11 _n._; amends empire of Necessity, iv.
222 _n._; discourse of Sokrates, iii.
11; analogy of Eros to philosophy, 10, 11; the stimulus to mental procreation, 4, 6; knowledge, by evolution of indwelling conceptions, 17; exaltation of Eros in a few, love of beauty _in genere_, 7; common desire for immortality, 6; attained through mental procreation, beauty the stimulus, _ib._; only metaphorical immortality recognised in, 17; Sokrates' personal appearance and peculiar character, 19; proof against temptation, 20, iv.
287; concluding scene, iii.
19; compared with Xenophon, 22; _Phædon_, ii.
382, iii.
17-8, 22; _Phædrus_, 11 _n._, 11, 15, 16-8; _Philêbus_, 370 _n._, 399; reading in p. 201D, [Greek: mantikê=s], 8 _n._ Syracuse, the Athenian expedition against, iii.
406.
Syssitia, iv.
280 _n._, 285 _n._, 335, 345.
T. Tacitus, iv.
408 _n._, i.
245 _n._ Taste, Empedokles, i.
46; Demokritus, 78.
Taxation, direct, according to wealth, iv.
331.
Teaching, denied in Menon, ii.
254 _n._; [Greek: didachê\] and [Greek: peithô/], distinct, _ib._, iii.
172 _n._; knowledge to be elicited out of untutored mind, how far correct, ii.
249; dialectician alone can teach, iii.
37; _idéal_ unrealisable, 51; books (q. v.) and lectures of little use, 34; proper use of dialectic and rhetoric, 40; of rhetoricians, practical value of, 45; Sokrates' and Aristotle's views, 53 _n._; exercises for students, 79, 80 _n._, 90 _n._; parents' jealousy towards influential teachers, ii.
265 _n._ [Greek: Techni/tês], ii.
272 _n._ Teleology, physiology of _Timæus_ subordinated to ethical, iv.
257; see _Ends_.
Temperance, [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], ii.
153 _n._; as treated by Plato and Aristotle, 170; is self-knowledge, 155; and with justice the condition of happiness and freedom, 12; the condition of virtue and happiness, 358; and intelligence identical, having same contrary, 279; a kind of sedateness, objections, 154; a variety of feeling of shame, refuted, _ib._; doing one's own business, refuted, 155; as cognition of cognition and of non-cognition, of no avail for our end, happiness, 159, 160; not the science of good and evil, and of little service, 161; undiscovered, but a good, 162; _Charmidês_, difficulties unnoticed in _Politikus_, iii.
282; in state, iv.
34-5; distinction effaced between justice and, 135; relation to rest of virtue, 425.
Tennemann, i.
302.
Thales, philosophy, i.
4; doctrine of eclipses, 6 _n._; foretold eclipse, 4 _n._; misrepresented by Cicero, _ib._ [Greek: Tharra/leos], ii.
145 _n._ _Theætêtus_, date, i.
307-10, 313, 315, 324, 325 _n._, ii.
228 _n._, iii.
111 _n._; purpose, 167 _n._, 176; value, 177; great advance in analytical psychology, 164; negative result, 176; difficulties not solved in any other dialogue, 180; sophisms in, 158 _n._; like Megarics, i.
134 _n._; method contrasted with _Philêbus_, iii.
335 _n._; scenery and personages, 110; Sokrates' mental obstetric, 112; what is knowledge, 111; sensible perception, _ib._, 113, 154, 256; doctrine erroneously identified with _Homo Mensura_, 113, 118, 120 _n._, 122, 162 _n._; Herakleitean flux, 114, 115, 126, 128; Empedokles' doctrine, 114, 115; Plato's exposition confused, 114; relativity of sensible facts, 126, 154; divergences of men, from mental and associative difference, 155; statesman and philosopher contrasted, 183; the genuine ruler a shepherd, iv.
10; relativity twofold, to comparing subject, and to another object, besides the one directly described, iii.
127; relations are nothing in the object without a comparing subject, _ib._; no absolute ens, 129; arguments from dreams, &c., answered, 130; Plato's reference to subjective and objective, 134; _Homo Mensura_, true meaning, 137, 164 _n._; its counter-proposition, 148; Plato's arguments against _Homo Mensura_, 135; he ignores the proper qualification, 137; the doctrine equalises all animals, 135, 292; not true in the sense meant, 141; the wise man alone a measure, 136; reply, 143; special knowledge required, where future consequences involved, 136; but Relativity does not imply that every man believes himself to be infallible, 145; it annuls dialectic--not true, 146; sensible perception does not include memory, 157; argument from analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same time, _ib._; the mind sees not _with_ but _through_ the eyes, 159; the mind makes several judgments by itself, 160; knowledge lies in the mind's comparisons respecting sensible perceptions, 161; difference from modern views, 162; cognition is true opinion--objections, 168, 184 _n._; are false opinions possible, 169, 181 _n._; waxen memorial tablet in the mind, 169; distinction of possessing, and having actually in hand, knowledge, 170; simile of pigeon-cage, 171; false opinion impossible or a man may know what he does not know, 170; the confusions of cognitions and non-cognitions, refuted, 171; for rhetors communicate true opinion, not knowledge, 172; knowledge is true opinion _plus_ rational explanation, 173; analogy of elements and compounds, _ib._; rejected, 175; compared with _Phædrus_, 18; _Symposion_, _ib._; _Sophistês_, 181 _n._, 187, 227, 242, 258, 332; _Politikus_, 185 _n._, 187, 256; _Kratylus_, 332; _Philêbus_, 335 _n._ _Theagês_, authenticity, i.
306, 309, 319, ii.
98, 100 _n._, 107; prolixity, 100 _n._; analogy with _Lachês_, 104; its peculiarity, the _dæmon_, _ib._; explains eccentricity of Sokrates, 105; Theagês desires a teacher of wisdom, 99; incompetence of best statesmen for teaching, 100; Sokrates asked to teach--declares inability, 101; excuse, 105; sometimes useful--his experience of his _dæmon_, 102; Theagês anxious to be Sokrates' companion, 103.
Thebans, iii.
24 _n._ Themistius, i.
388 _n._ Theodorus, i.
202.
Theology, not a progressive science, ii.
428; primitive, contrasted by Aristotle with "human wisdom," i.
3 _n._; see _God_, _Religion_.
Theophrastus, friend of Ptolemy Soter, i.
279; banished from Athens, _ib._ _n._; change in Peripatetic school after death of, 272; physiology, 46 _n._; combated Demokritus' theory of vision_, 78 _n._; criticises Demokritean division of qualities, 80 _n._; astronomy, 257 _n._; Plato's doctrine of earth's position, iv.
424 _n._; sophism, _Mentiens_, i.
134 _n._; fate, 143 _n._ Theopompus, view of dialectic, i.
450; qualities non-existent without the mind, iii.
74 _n._; on profession of Sophist, i.
212 _n._; authorship of Plato's dialogues, 112 _n._, 115.
Theory, difference between precepts and, iv.
131.
Thomson, on _Parmenidês_, iii.
84 _n._ Thonissen, iv.
380 _n._ Thracians, iv.
38.
Thrasyllus, on Platonic canon, i.
265; follows Aristophanes' classification, 295, 299; not an internal sentiment, 298; trustworthiness, 299; acknowledged till 16th century, 301; more trustworthy than moderns, 335; classifies in Tetralogies works of Plato and Demokritus, 273 _n._; not the order established by Plato, 335 _n._; classification of Demokritus, 295 _n._; Plato's works--dramatic, philosophical, 289; his principle, 294 _n._; incongruity, 294; of Search, of Exposition defective but useful, 361; erroneously applied, 364; coincides with Aristotle's two methods, Dialectic, Demonstrative, 362; sub-classes recognised, 366; the scheme, when principles correctly applied, 365; did not doubt _Hipparchus_, 297 _n._; nor _Erastæ_, ii.
121; _Kleitophon_ in _Republic_ tetralogy, iii.
419.
Thrasymachus, iii.
419, iv.
7.
Thucydides, pupil of Sokrates, ii.
102; probably never read by Plato, iii.
411 _n._; the gods' jealousy, iv.
165 _n._; speeches of Perikles, ii.
373 _n._, 373, iv.
148 _n._; Melian dialogue, ii.
341 _n._, i.
180 _n._ [Greek: Thumo/s], derivation, iii.
301 _n._ Thurot, on Sophists, i.
389 _n._ Tiedemann, i.
132 _n._ _Timæus_, date, i.
307, 309, 311-3, 315, 325, iii.
368 _n._; sequel to _Republic_, iv.
215; is earliest physical theory extant in its author's words, 216; how much mythical, 255 _n._; relation to old Greek cosmogonies, i.
87, iv.
255 _n._; coincidence with Orpheus, _ib._; adopted by Alexandrine Jews as a parallel to Mosaic Genesis, 256; physiology subordinated to ethical teleology, 257; Plato's theory, acknowledged to be merely an [Greek: ei)kô\s lo/gos], 217; contrast with Sokrates, Isokrates, Xenophon, _ib._; subject and persons, 215; position and character of Pythagorean Timæus, 216; fundamental distinction of _ens_ and _fientia_, 219; no knowledge of kosmos obtainable, 220; Demiurgus, Ideas, and Chaos postulated, _ib._, iii.
121; Demiurgus, how conceived by other philosophers of same century, iv.
254; kosmos a living being and a god, 220, 223; Time began with, 227; Demiurgus produces kosmos by persuading Necessity, 220, 238; process of demiurgic construction, iii.
409 _n._, iv.
223; copy of the [Greek: Au)to/zôon], 223, 227, 235 _n._, 263; body, form, and rotation of kosmos, 225, 229, 237, 252; change of view in _Epinomis_, 424 _n._; position and elements of soul of kosmos, 225; affinity to human, iii.
366 _n._; four elements not primitive, iv.
238; varieties of each element, 242; forms of the elements, 239; Ideas and Materia Prima, iii.
397 _n._, iv.
239; primordial chaos, 240; geometrical theory of the elements, _ib._; borrowed from Pythagoreans, i.
349 _n._; Aristotle on, iv.
241 _n._; primary and visible gods, 229; secondary and generated gods, 230; Plato's acquiescence in tradition, 230-3, 241 _n._; address of Demiurgus to generated gods, 233; preparations for man's construction, a soul placed in each star, 235; construction of man, 243; Demiurgus conjoins three souls and one body, 233; generated gods fabricate cranium as miniature of kosmos, with rational soul rotating within, 235; mount cranium on a tall body, 236; man the cause of evil, 234; inconsistency, _ib._ _n._; organs of sense, 236; soul tripartite, compared with _Phædon_, ii.
384; the gentle, tender, and æsthetical emotions omitted, iv.
149 _n._; each part at once material and mental, 257; seat of, 259 _n._; thoracic, function of heart and lungs, 245, 259 _n._; abdominal, function of liver, 245, 259; seat of prophetic agency, 246; function of spleen, _ib._; object of length of intestinal canal, 247; bone, flesh, marrow, nails, mouth, teeth, 247; vision, sleep, dreams, 237; advantages of sight and hearing, _ib._; mortal soul of plants, 248; plants for man's nutrition, _ib._; general survey of diseases, 249; Plato compared with Aristotle and Hippokrates, 260; mental diseases arise from body, 250; no man voluntarily wicked, 249; preservative and healing agencies, 260; treatment of mind by itself, 251; rotations of kosmos to be studied, 252; contrast of Plato's admiration, with degenerate realities, 262, 264; genesis of women and inferior animals from degenerate man, 252; degeneracy originally intended, 263; poetical close, 264; compared with _Protagoras_, ii.
268 _n._; _Phædon_, 383, 407 _n._, 411, 412, 422, iv.
239 _n._; _Phædrus_, _ib._; _Theætêtus_, iii.
163; _Philêbus_, 397 _n._; _Republic_, iv.
38 _n._, 253 _n._; _Leges_, 276, 389 _n._; _Epinomis_, 424 _n._ Time, contents of the idea of, i.
20 _n._; and space comprised in Parmenides' ens, 19; Herakleitus' doctrine, iv.
228 _n._; Plato's imagination of momentary stoppages in, iii.
100, 102; Aristotle, 103; began with the kosmos, iv.
227; difficulties of Diodôrus Kronus, i.
145; Stoical belief, iii.
101 _n._; Harris, i.
146 _n._; calendar of ancients, iv.
325 _n._ Timocracy, iv.
79.
Tracy, Destutt, _Homo Mensura_, iii.
292 _n._; individualism, 139 _n._; origin of language, 328 _n._ Trade, see _Commerce_.
Tragedy, mixed pleasure and pain excited by, iii.
355 _n._; Plato's aversion to Athenian, iv.
316, 350; peculiar to himself, 317; Aristotle differs, _ib._ _n._ Trendelenburg, on Platonic canon, i.
345 _n._; _Philêbus_, iii.
398 _n._; relativity of knowledge, 124 _n._ Trent, Council of, i.
390 _n._ Truth, and Good and Real, coalesce in Plato's mind, ii.
88, iii.
391; obtainable by reason only, Demokritus' doctrine, i.
72; the search after, the business of life to Sokrates and Plato, 396; _per se_ interesting, 403; modern search goes on silently, 369; philosophy is reasoned, _vii-ix_; its criterion, ii.
247; resides in universals, 411, 412, iv.
3 _n._; necessary, iii.
253 _n._; all persuasion founded on a knowledge of, 28; generating cause of error, 33; dialectic the standard for classifying sciences as more or less true, 383; classification of true and false, how applied to cognitions, 394; its valuable principles, 395; is falsehood possible?
199; is theoretically possible, and its production may be object of such a profession as Sophists, 214; lie for useful end, justifiable, ii.
347 _n._, iv.
3 _n._; Aristotle on, iii.
386 _n._; see _Mythe_.
Turgot, on etymology, iii.
303 _n._; _Existence_, 135 _n._; hopelessness of defining common and vague terms, ii.
186 _n._ Tyndall, Prof., i.
373 _n._ Type gives natural groups, definition classes, ii.
48, 193 _n._ U. Ueberweg, on Platonic canon, attempts reconcilement of Schleiermacher and Hermann, i.
313; the Dialogues, 401 _n._; _Theætêtus_, iii.
167 _n._; _Sophistês_, 186 _n._, 253, 369 _n._; _Politikus_, 186 _n._; _Philêbus_, 368 _n._; _Timæus_, _ib._, iv.
255 _n._; _Menexenus_, iii.
412 _n._; Ideas, iv.
239 _n._ Universals, debates about meaning, iii.
76-7; different views of Aristotle and Plato, 76; definition of, the object of the Sokratic dialectic, i.
452; Sokrates sought the common characteristic, Plato found it in his Idea, 454; process of forming, ii.
27; truth resides in, 411-2, iv.
3 _n._; amidst particulars, iii.
257; different dialogues compared, _ib._; how is generic unity distributed among species and individuals, 339; natural coalescence of finite and infinite, 340; illustration from speech and music, 342; explanation insufficient, 343; see _Ideas_, _One_.
Upton, sophism [Greek: Kurieu/ôn], i.
141 _n._ Useful, the Good, ii.
30; the Just or Good--general but not constant explanation in Plato, 38; the lawful is the, 36; not identical with the beautiful, 44, 50 _n._ Utilitarianism, its standard, ii.
310 _n._; doctrine of Sokrates, 349, 354 _n._; theory in _Protagoras_, 308; _Republic_, iv.
3 _n._, 12, 14, 104.
V. Vacherot, i.
376 _n._ Vacuum, theory of Demokritus, i.
67; Pythagorean different from Plato's doctrine, iv.
225 _n._ Varro, etymologies, iii.
311 _n._ Vaughan, Dr., iv.
380 _n._ Veron, M., Relativity, iii.
144 _n._ Virgil, general doctrine of metempsychosis in, ii.
425 _n._ Virtue, identified with knowledge by Sokrates, ii.
67 _n._, 239, 240, 321; of what, unsolved, 244; Sokrates and Plato dwell too exclusively on intellectual conditions, 67-8, 83; its one sufficient condition, perfect state of the intelligence, 149; is it teachable, 232, 239, 240, 266, 275, iii.
330 _n._; Xenophon on, i.
230; plurality of virtues, ii.
233; the highest, teachable, but all existing virtue is from inspiration, 242; problem unsolved, _ib._; taught by citizens, 269, 272; quantity acquired depends on individual aptitude, _ib._; analogy of learning the vernacular, 273; is it in divisible, or of parts, homogeneous or heterogeneous, 277; no man does evil voluntarily, 292, iv.
249, 365-7; a right comparison of pleasure and pain, ii.
293, 305; temperance the condition of, 358; natural dissidence of the gentle and the energetic, iii.
272; excess of the energetic entail death or banishment, of the gentle, slavery, 273; Sokrates' power in awakening ardour for, 415; but he does not explain what it is, _ib._; unsatisfactory answers of Sokrates and his friends, 416; quadruple distribution in city, iv.
34; Platonic conception is self-regarding, 104; motives to it arise from internal happiness of the just, 105; view substantially maintained since, _ib._; four cardinal virtues assumed as constituting all virtue where each resides, 134; as an exhaustive classification, 135, 417; difference in other dialogues, 137; the four, source of all other goods, 428; the only common property of, 425; and of vice, 426; of the citizens, the end of the state, 417; Xenophon on motive to practice of, 101 _n._, 135 _n._; Sokrates on its fruits, i.
415; all-sufficiency of, germ in _Republic_ of Stoical doctrine, iv.
102; see _Courage_, _Holiness_, _Justice_, _Temperance_, _Wisdom_.
Vision, doctrine of Empedokles, i.
45; caused by images from objects, Demokritus, 78; Plato's conception of the act of, iii.
129 _n._, 159; Plato's theory, iv.
236; Aristotle on, 237 _n._; ancient theories of, _ib._; principal advantages of, 237.
Voltaire, iv.
233, i.
168 _n._ W. War, from city's increased wants, iv.
22; class of soldiers, characteristics, 23; both sexes to go together to battle, 46; against Greek enemies to be carried on mildly, 47; Spartan institutions adapted to, 282; military commanders and council, 332; military training of youths, 349; Sokrates on qualities for, i.
133 _n._ Water, the Chaos of Hesiod, i.
4 _n._; principle of Thales, 4; originally covered the earth, according to Xenophanes, &c., 18; Empedokles, 38; discovery of the composition of, ii.
163 _n._ Watt, discovery of composition of water, ii.
163 _n._ Wealth, Plato's view of, iv.
199 _n._ Wedgwood, H., iii.
326 _n._ Weisse, on _Timæus_, iv.
256 _n._ Westermann, on _Menexenus_, iii.
408 _n._ Whately, Abp., on Fallacies, ii.
217.
Whewell, Dr., ii.
48, 193 _n._ Wholes, abstract and concrete, ii.
52, 53; generic and analogical, 48, 193 _n._, iii.
365.
Wilson, Dr.
Geo., ii.
163 _n._ Winckelmann, i.
132 _n._ Wisdom, no positive knowledge of, i.
414, 416; in state, iv.
34-5; what it is, 421, 423; see _Knowledge_.
Wise, term applied when men know when and how far to use their accomplishments, ii.
15.
Wise man, the Ideal, see _Expert_.
Women, position of Greek, iii.
1; genesis from degenerate man, iv.
252; inferiority to men, 234, 252; best, equal by nature to second-best men, 42, 171-4; not superior in weaving and cookery, 172 _n._; temporary marriages, 43, 175-8; object, 198; Plato's and modern sentiments, 192, 194 _n._; influence of Aphroditê very small in Platonic state, 197; both sexes to go together to battle, 46; same duties and training for women as men, 41, 46; same duties and training as men, 77; on principle that every citizen belongs to the city, 187; maintained in _Leges_, and harmonises with ancient legends, 196; contrast with Aristotle, 195.
Wordsworth, ii.
250 _n._ Writing, see _Books_.
Wyttenbach, on meaning of _Atheist_, iv.
382 _n._; Plato's immortality of the soul, ii.
423 _n._ X. Xanthippê, iii.
23 _n._ Xanthus, i.
19 _n._ Xenokrates, iv.
255.
Xenophanes, life, i.
16; doctrines, _ib._; unsatisfactory, 18; held Non-Ens inadmissible, _ib._; the relative and absolute, 19; infers original aqueous state of earth from prints of shells and fishes, _ib._; censured by Herakleitus, 26; scepticism, 18; popular mythology censured, 16; religious element in, _ib._, 18; the Universe God, 119 _n._ Xenophon, date of, i.
207; Sokratic element an accessory in, 206; essentially a man of action, _ib._; personal history, 207-12, 215, 220; alleged enmity between Plato and, iii.
22 _n._, iv.
146 _n._, 312 _n._; antipathy to Aristippus, i.
182 _n._; enlarges the influence claimed by Sokrates, 418; Sokrates of Plato and, 178, 199; Sokrates on the Holy, different from Platonic Sokrates, 454; and Plato compared, on Sokrates' reply to Melêtus, 456, ii.
420 _n._; Sokrates' character one-sided, iii.
423; discussion of _law_, ii.
86; the ideal the only real, 88 _n._; Sokrates on friendship, 186; _natural_ causes of friendship, 341 _n._; view of Eros, iii.
25; [Greek: paiderasti/a], 20 _n._; Sokrates' identification of Good with pleasure, ii.
305; Sokrates' doctrine of good, iii.
365; motive to practice of virtue, iv.
99, 101 _n._, 135 _n._; immortality of soul, ii.
420 _n._; on filial ingratitude, iv.
399 _n._; Sokrates on qualities for war, i.
133 _n._; Sokrates' view of rhetoric, ii.
371 _n._; relation of mind to kosmos, iii.
368; the gods' jealousy, iv.
165 _n._; change in old age, Plato compared, i.
244; contrasted with Plato in _Timæus_, iv.
219; works, i.
213; analogy with _Alkibiadês I._ and _II._, ii.
21; Sokrates' order of problems not observed, i.
230; _Symposion_ of, 152; date, iii.
26 _n._; compared with Plato's, 22; _Memorabilia_ compared with _Alkibiadês II._, ii.
29; debate of Sokrates and Hippias, 34, 37, 49, 66; _OEkonomikus_, ideal of an active citizen, i.
214; _Hieron_, contents, 216-20; Sokrates not introduced in _Hieron_ and _Cyropædia_, 216; _Hieron_ compared with _Gorgias_, 221; why Syracusan despot taken for subject, 220-2; interior life of despot, 218, 220; Sokratic ideal of government differently worked out by Plato, and, iii.
273; _idéal_, citizens willing to be ruled, iv.
283 _n._, i.
215, 218, 225; love of subjects obtainable by good government, 220; _Cyropædia_, a romance, blending Persian and Spartan customs, 222; compared with _Leges_, iv.
319; contents, i.
223-35; his experience of younger Cyrus, 222; education of Cyrus the Great, 223; scientific ruler best, 224; _Cyropædia_ does not solve the problem, 225; Cyrus, of heroic genius, _ib._; biography, 232; generous and amiable qualities, 234; scheme of government, a wisely arranged Oriental despotism, _ib._; position of the Demos, iv.
183; ideal state wants unity, 186 _n._; training of citizens, i.
226; Plato's training of guardians compared, iv.
141-7; _idéal_ of character is Spartan, Plato's is Athenian, 147, 151, 182, 276, 280 _n._, 403; Persian training, 278 _n._; details of education, i.
227; its good effects, 228; tuition in justice, 229; definition of justice unsatisfactory, 231; Sokrates on justice, iv.
3 _n._; music omitted in education, 305, i.
229; theoretical and practical geometry, iii.
395; relation of sexes, iv.
194 _n._; division of labour, 139 _n._; inexperienced in finance and commerce, i.
236; admires active commerce and variety of pursuits, _ib._; formation of treasury funds, 238; encouragement of Metics, _ib._; distribution among citizens, three oboli each, daily, 239; its purpose and principle, 240, 241 _n._; visionary anticipations, 241; financial scheme, Boeckh on, 242 _n._; exhortation to peace, 243.
Xerxes, iv.
7.
Y. Yxem, on _Kleitophon_, iii.
419 _n._; _Hipparchus_, ii.
97; _Erastæ_, 121.
Z. Zaleukus, laws of, iv.
323 _n._ Zeller, on Plato, iii.
245 _n._; _Parmenidês_, 84 _n._; _Leges_, i.
338 _n._, iv.
274 _n._, 325 _n._, 389 _n._, 431-3; Ideas, i.
120 _n._; Eukleides, 127 _n._; Megarics, 131 _n._; Sophists, 389 _n._ Zeno of Elea, i.
93; contrasted with earlier philosophers, 105; modern critics on, 101; defended Parmenidean doctrine, 93, 98, iii.
8; the relative alone knowable, i.
98; two worlds, impugned by Sokrates, iii.
59; arguments in regard to space, i.
95; motion, 97; not denied as a phenomenal and relative fact, 102; Sorites, 135 _n._; reductiones ad absurdum, 94, 121 _n._; not contradictions of data generalised from experience, 100; no systematic theory of scepticism, iii.
93; dialectic, 107; purpose and result, i.
98; carried out by Sokrates, 371; compared with Platonic _Parmenidês_, 100.
Zeno the Stoic, i.
160; attracted to Athens by perusal of _Apology_, 418; eclectic, 174; communism of wives, 189 _n._ Zenodotus, Alexandrine librarian, i.
274 _n._ Zeus conferred social art on men, ii.
268.
* * * * * ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.
************************************* Transcriber's Note The text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.
For the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used: ) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute accent; \ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.
ch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta; ê for eta and ô for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.
Corrections to the text, indicated in text with **: Location Text of scan of 3rd edition Correction ToC p. 272 The heading -CHAPTER XXXIX.
LEGES AND EPINOMIS -is missing ToC p. 418 Noctural Nocturnal Ch.
35 before extreme extremes fn.
304 Ch.
37 before fn.
18 convinced that "if they convinced that if they Ch.
37 fn.
26 Cyrop.
viii.
i.
40 Cyrop.
viii.
1, 40 Ch.
37 fn.
51 gout goût Ch.
37 fn.
80 proh sancta pro sancta Ch.
37 fn.
136 nsmothe/tês nomothe/tês Ch.
37 fn.
157 )xxxiv.
8, 19) (xxxiv.
8, 19) Ch.
37 fn.
165 a)o/ri ston a)o/riston Ch.
38 3rd sn and character of the Position and character of the Ch.
38 fn.
25 members numbers Ch.
38 fn.
40 that than Ch.
39 p. 299 The one footnote on this page is numbered 3 at the foot, 1 in the text Ch.
39 fn.
93 xxviii.
p. 150, seq.
xxxvi.
p. 100, seq.
Ch.
39 p. 303 docrine doctrine Ch.
39 p. 334 possses possess Ch.
39 p. 359 that than Ch.
39 p. 371 weath wealth Index, s.v.
Actual iv.
i.
Index, s.v.
Analogy a)nalogi/am a)nalogi/an Index, s.v.
Animal A)utozo/zôon Au)to/zôon Index, s.v.
Apology i.
429, n. i.
429 n. Index, s.v.
Aristotle 189 180 Index, s.v.
Art see Poetry see Poets Index, s.v.
Cyrus iv.
312; iv.
312, Index, s.v.
Death 235, n. 235 n. Index, s.v.
Eleatic 234, n. 237 n. Index, s.v.
Ethics a)thrô/pina a)nthrô/pina Index, s.v.
Knowledge i.
37, 8-84; i.
378-84; Index, s.v.
Martin on Timæus, iii.
on Timæus, iv.
Index, s.v.
Physics 241 n. 397 n. Index, s.v.
Physics 89 n. 90 n. Index, s.v.
Plato 369 n. 178 n. Index, s.v.
Pleasure 374 n. 376 n. Index, s.v.
Politikus scienific man scientific man Index, s.v.
Praxiphanes 268 n. 265 n. Index, s.v.
Reid 241 n. 243 n. Index, s.v.
Soul kosmos, 265 kosmos, iii.
265 Index, s.v.
State 414 iv.
414 Index, s.v.
Virtue 330, n. 330 n.